Resurrection (Apocalypse Chronicles Part II) (6 page)

“You have a better idea?” Beverly asked snidely.

“It just seems… I just want to know where we’re going, what we’re doing…”

Harrison and I looked at each other, seeking a consensus. I nodded, knowing it was a fair question and the answer was something that we should have brought up long before this point. Harrison agreed and launched into an explanation, relaying the warning that Ms. Kremil had made in the last few minutes of her life and the plea that took the last of her breath. As he spoke, they listened, their faces altering from hesitant and curious to openly unnerved. When he was finished, they allowed the news to soak in before releasing their pent up dread.

“So you’re saying that not even the military can help us?” Mei asked. “The National Guard? The CDC? No one?”

Harrison clearly didn’t want to break the news, but it was better now than never. “We’re on our own, Mei.”

“But she said if we find a scientist…” Doc implored, grasping for any sign of hope.

“Assuming we can find one,” Beverly remarked.

“And if we can manufacture a cure…”

“Assuming one can be manufactured,” Beverly said.

“We can cure…everyone?”

“Assuming-”

“Shut up, Beverly!” Doc blurted, putting an end to her pessimism.

She frowned but didn’t respond.

“Yes,” Harrison nodded, “that’s what we were told.”

“Then that’s what we need to do,” Mei surmised, as if it were easier said than done. Her eagerness seemed to be in part so she would have some kind of direction, and apparently she’d found one. “So how do we find this person?”

This solitary question launched a brainstorming session that lasted well into the night. While I contributed, I also noticed that we determined nothing pragmatic other than to stick to the cities where we would most likely find someone with the skills to do what we needed. Chicago was contested after the rest of us agreed it was a “dead” city, which meant we would continue on eastward, to Detroit.

As the debate wound down, I caught Harrison staring at me, from the corner of my eye, where he sat to my right. I drew my head up but he didn’t respond, at least not in the way I’d expected. He turned to the group and I knew without a shred of doubt that he was up to something. I just didn’t know what it was.

“I’ll do everything I can to get you through the cities.”

He sounded sincere, and he was, but there was another intention behind it. Beverly took the bait immediately, mindlessly latching onto it like a dog to a bone.

She cleared her throat and asked with a barbed tone, “Isn’t there something you’re forgetting here…”

When no one responded, she sighed impatiently. “I think you’ve all forgotten that Harrison
is
the cure.”

Doc’s eyes lit up like he’d just heard it for the first time. “Yeah…”

“Well, we can’t very well risk the cure, allowing him to throw himself at the Infected, if we want to save the world.” She rolled her eyes.

“Right, tonight won’t be the last time we run into danger,” Mei pointed out.

“And it’s probably not the last time he’ll be bit,” Doc said.

Beverly snickered to herself and muttered, “Not if he plans on throwing himself into another group of Infected…”

As the realization took hold, Mei actually gasped.

“
We
should be the ones protecting
him
,” she alleged.

Doc nodded vehemently. “Yeah,” he added, blinked, and again looked like he was just now being enlightened. “Yeah…”

Beverly’s eyebrows furrowed. “Uh, wait a second. That’s not exactly what I meant…”

She had brought up the point to make the rest of us feel like idiots for overlooking our top priority. She hadn’t considered that self-sacrifice would be the logical conclusion.

Detecting this too, Mei smirked and said, “Hadn’t thought that one through, did you?” She received a scowl from Beverly, but it didn’t deter her. She fell serious again and said, “Here’s the problem… We need to protect you, but I for one have no idea how to do it.”

Doc didn’t concede to that statement, but his head snapping from Harrison to me and back again made me think he was waiting for guidance too.

Harrison, who had been sitting back listening complacently to the evolution of their conversation, gave me one final look, a steady one which made me think he was apologizing to me for what he was about to say.

“I’ll train you,” he said.

I couldn’t understand why he was so reticent. I mean, it was a reasonable plan with a logical outcome. They would need to train to survive, not just to defend him but themselves too. He couldn’t expect to be able to form a barrier between us and the Infected every time we met up with one. In fact, it seemed irresponsible not to have decided on this earlier. There simply was no better conclusion to come to, and I was going to show my support.

“Okay,” I declared. “We train then head through the cities in search of someone with a scientific background.”

Harrison’s head swung in my direction and I got the sense he was staring at me again.

“Right,” Mei agreed adamantly before her confidence waned. “Now what?”

Harrison hesitated just long enough for me to know he still questioned whether training them was a good idea, but then he stood and strode to the emptied metal shelf. He stopped with his back to us, spun around with a troubled expression, and wiped his hand down his mouth. It was a gesture that seemed to show he didn’t entirely approve of the plan but he was committed.

“Leave the training to me. We start tomorrow morning.” He scanned us before adding, “Get some rest. You’re going to need it.”

“Okay…,” Doc said uncertainly, but couldn’t let his curiosity rest. “What do you have planned for us?”

Harrison tipped his head toward the door. “Think about what’s outside. Tomorrow you’re going up against it.”

Doc’s eyes widened briefly. “Tomorrow…outside. Okay…”

I watched him flex his muscles before leaning back against the wall. Mei curled up alongside him. Beverly attempted to find a soft spot on the concrete floor. Harrison remained awake, as usual, our ever-steady sentry, staring into the fire.

I stood and went to him. My need to reassure him that we’d come to the best decision possible fell flat when I couldn’t find the words. Instead, I took his hand and a moment later he squeezed me gently in response.

We stood there as the others dozed, feeling the beat of each other’s heart through our hands. It was calm, paced, patient as if we knew that so long as we were together all would be fine. The width of his palm and the thickness of his fingers reminded me that something solid and strong was close by, but it was the way he stood that captivated me…alert and defiant, his head up, robust jaw firmly set in place. He was definitely committed, I just wasn’t sure to what.

What I did know was what he was doing as his gaze drifted from Doc to Mei to Beverly and around again. He was assessing each of them for their strengths, weaknesses, flaws and assets. Not bothering to do this with me confirmed that he’d already made those judgments a while ago. This led me to a natural question, which I posed to him.

“And what about your own abilities?”

His lips tilted into a smile as he fought it back.

“You knew what I was doing,” he stated, and we laughed quietly together.

“You should get some sleep, Kennedy.”

“I know.”

I didn’t want to leave him, even if it would only put a few feet between us. Not out of fear but because of the craving I felt for him that never seemed to disappear.

Tenderly, he tightened his grip, telling me that he was reluctant too. His fingers hesitated in releasing me, and when they did, I knew that his reasoning had won out. “You need sleep.”

He seemed to be convincing himself more than me and I smiled.

“I do,” I conceded with a sigh, which ended as a yawn.

He drew in a breath making me think he needed to regain his discipline, and with a light groan he released my hand.

I moved to the wall and laid my back against it, appreciating how warm the fire had made it. A smile crept up and faded away before I shifted into a more comfortable position and closed my eyes. A second passed before I sensed Harrison watching me. I puckered my lips and released a kiss to him.

When I didn’t hear anything in reaction I thought I’d been mistaken on where his attention was focused, and then he groaned, shifted his stance, and exhaled. And I fell asleep holding back another smile.

Without the ability to sleep, Harrison remained awake. I didn’t hear him, so I’m not sure when or if he ever sat down. All I know is that the next sound I heard was Doc’s voice muttering, “He’s been at it all morning.”

“At what? What’s he doing?” Beverly demanded in irritation.

“How should I know?” Doc shot back. “Go ask him.”

I opened my eyes to hazy daylight coming through the building’s only window and to Beverly leaving the doorway where Doc and Mei stood.

As I slid up the wall and headed in their direction, the sound of squishy footsteps across a moist woodland floor went on for several seconds and came to a stop.

“What are you doing, Harrison?”

As I reached the door, I saw Beverly standing over him, her fists planted in her hips. He was crouched with his back to us and lined out before him were three metal rods, taped at the ends to form a handle and a grip. I recognized them as having come from the metal bookcase inside that was now suspiciously missing.

“Well,” he said casually as he rose, “we need to find your strengths against my weaknesses. Since the virus is built on my traits, they share similarities to me.”

“Like what?” Mei asked, stepping from the door. Doc and I trailed her.

Reflecting on the answer, he replied, “We don’t feel pain. We are stronger than human…others, stronger than most others.” To cover the fact that he separated himself from us as inhuman, he added, “It’s why they don’t stop when they’re incapacitated. We have interminable strength that keeps us going. And our senses are heightened.”

“Which ones?” Mei inquired.

We were standing in a circle now, me directly to his left.

“All of them,” he replied. “Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell.”

“And what is the distance you can smell them coming?” I asked.

“And how do you know it’s them?” Mei added.

“Unobstructed and downwind, I can smell them up to a mile away. Other factors…doors, windows, walls, buildings…obstacles in general narrow my field of awareness. But once I do sense them, it’s obvious.”

“Because?”

“They have a distinct odor.”

“Rotten?”

“No, it’s more like blood, tangy-”

I ended the sentence with him, knowing exactly what he meant.

“Metallic.”

I knew that, having faced them at arm’s length.

“Similar to how I smell, I’m guessing,” he remarked.

Doc and Mei’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as Beverly leaned into Harrison for a sniff.

“You don’t smell,” Mei informed him with Doc nodding agreement.

“At all,” Beverly mentioned, perplexed.

They gawked for a second until Beverly began to say, “Must have been the bath-”

“I’ve smelled you,” I said, causing him to jolt.

Cautiously, he looked my way, and I knew he was expecting me to confirm that his natural odor resembled them, but that wouldn’t have been the truth.

“You smell like the earth to me.”

He pondered this as a smile lit up his face and I was happy to have been the one to put it there.

“What do I smell like?” I asked without thinking. “You know what, forget it. I-I don’t want to know.”

Who would? From someone with olfactory senses that could smell someone a mile away?

I looked off into the woods, hoping the conversation would move onward.

“You remind me of springtime.”

Unable to stop myself, I said, “You mentioned that once, but you were referring to me as I was before the outbreak.”

“You still smell that way. It’s inherently in you.”

Wow
, the relief that washed over me was unparalleled.

Harrison continued, moving around the circle. “You have a cinnamon aroma,” he said to Mei, which seemed to please her.”You smell like day old clothes,” he said to Doc. “Sorry.” But Doc shrugged, unable to care less. “And you,” he said, ending with Beverly. “You’re a mixture of chemicals.”

Her lip curled up as she glared in response.

“But each of you also smells like…” Harrison added before thinking better of it.

“Like what?” Mei asked, unyielding.

“Well…like…like blood.”

“Mmmm,” Beverly remarked, “tangy, metallic, and a mixture of chemicals… Fantastic.”

Moving on from the conversation of odor seemed like a good idea then, so I asked, “And what about your hearing?”