The Worlds We Make (8 page)

I practiced, pointing the pistol at the garage, trying to copy the wide stance I’d seen Tobias take. Leo stepped closer, looking over my shoulder. He nudged my hands up slightly. “Be careful, okay?” he said by my ear, his voice low. “I don’t want anyone shooting at
you
.”

His breath warmed the side of my face, and for an instant my body snapped into vivid awareness of how little space there was between us, how his arms had almost encircled me to adjust mine. An unexpected heat tingled over my skin, and the gun dipped in my grasp, bringing my mind back to the task at hand. I moved to the side, stuffing the pistol into my pocket where it would hopefully stay.

“I know,” I said without looking up. We needed to find gas—that was what I had to be thinking about. “We will. Thanks. We won’t take long.”

Justin shifted restlessly at the edge of the driveway. “Okay, let’s go,” I said, and he raised his head. We headed out across the field.

The snow that dusted the grass had dissolved into little more than slush, which hissed against the soles of our boots. One of the dogs barked again. It sounded far away, though the trees must have muffled some of the sound. The breeze was pushing against our faces, cool and cedary, so our scent wouldn’t be carrying to them. That would let us get closer.

“Can we talk?” Justin murmured.

“For now,” I said quietly. “What is it?”

“I’ve just been thinking, since we heard from the doctor at the CDC. You don’t think they had anything to do with the virus, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said, “like, in the movies, when there’s some killer flu on the loose, it’s usually because government scientists were experimenting and accidentally let it out or something.”

“Oh,” I said. “I don’t think the CDC does that kind of work. Biological weapons would be more a military-lab thing.” I paused, considering the early response on the island. “The Public Health and WHO people that helped my dad, they didn’t know anything about the virus beforehand—it was a big deal when they isolated it. If someone had made it, they would already have had samples, records. And in my dad’s notes he talks about the friendly flu being a natural mutation of the virus I caught before, the one that gave me partial immunity.” It was by using part of that earlier version in combination with bits of the new one that he’d finally been able to create an effective vaccine.

“It just seems strange,” Justin said, “the way it came out of nowhere.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “No one knows where Ebola came from. And it took a long time for doctors to figure out AIDS. Viruses just appear—they can be lurking somewhere isolated until people stumble along, or a sudden mutation makes them more deadly or lets them leap from some other animal to us. We’re probably lucky that nothing this bad ever hit us before.”

Justin nodded, but his face had fallen. It would have been easier to blame an actual person for the virus than having to think nature was just screwing with us the way nature tended to do.

I glanced back toward the house when we reached the edge of the forest. Leo held up his hand. I waved in return, and stepped between the trees.

The cedars were interspersed with elders and maples, and to my relief the leaves they’d dropped during the autumn had turned into a wet mush that dampened our footsteps. Still, I walked cautiously, easing around bushes and low branches. A few paces in, I stopped, and Justin stepped beside me. A faint canine whine reached my ears. Not close yet. We walked on.

We’d been sneaking along for maybe five minutes longer when the daylight ahead of us started to brighten. The trees were thinning. I crept from trunk to trunk, peering between them. After several steps, I made out a clearing maybe ten feet ahead. Within it, a boxy-looking metallic structure that glinted in the morning sun stood behind a tall chain-link fence.

Justin raised his eyebrows at me. I tapped a finger to my lips and eased forward. A couple steps from the clearing, I came to a halt.

The fence appeared to stretch around the entire clearing, surrounding a whole row of the boxy metal structures. A grid of bars and railings, like some futuristic jungle gym, loomed over them, and farther in I could see a squat concrete building with a high voltage warning sign mounted on the door. No wires crossed over the fence, but the place reminded me of the electrical substation on the island. Wires could run underground.

And it
was
running. A faint hum of electricity hung in the air. The substation was connected to a plant somewhere—a plant that was still operating.

A movement caught my eye. As I turned my head, a girl who looked no more than ten years old ran into view on the other side of the fence. A golden retriever panted as it raced after her. She waggled a rawhide bone. Behind her, beyond the substation’s buildings, I spotted a cluster of dark green tents set up along the fence. Two shacks that looked as if they’d been constructed out of crates and broken furniture stood nearby. A woman slipped between the tents, moving toward a spot beyond my view. The breeze carried a wisp of smoke to my nose, the tang of burning wood.

It was a smart place to set up camp. They had the fence for protection, and access to electricity as long as the plant was in operation. Maybe they were the families of the plant workers who were keeping it that way. But the substation made a smaller, less obvious target. I couldn’t imagine Michael’s group would fail to go after a functioning power plant if they realized one existed.

Of course, maybe they already had. Maybe these people were indebted to the Wardens. It seemed like half the survivors we’d run into since leaving the island were.

I gestured for Justin to follow me, and stalked along the border of the clearing, away from the tents. Around the curve of the fence, the camp had an odd kitchen setup: three fridges, a basin with a tap, but no oven. I guessed they were cooking over the fire. Farther on, a rectangle of soil had been broken up and tilled in rows, as if they were hoping to start a garden when the weather got a little warmer. Then I caught sight of a small delivery truck and a gray sedan, parked on the grass between the concrete building and the fence.

If they had vehicles, they’d have gas.

A few steps more, and I made out a line of huge plastic drums on the other side of the truck. Several smaller gas cans were stacked on the grass around them.

Justin pointed, and I nodded. “Think they’d be up for a little trading?” he asked under his breath.

I made a gesture of uncertainty. What did we have that they didn’t? Other than the vaccine samples, which I couldn’t offer. From the number of tents, it looked as if there were several more of them than there were of us. Had they survived this long through kindness and generosity? For all we knew, the second we presented ourselves, they’d attack us and grab everything we had.

“I don’t trust anyone anymore,” I said.

Justin shrugged. “Then we take it.”

As he said it, I realized I’d already made the same decision, somewhere in the back of my mind. We’d cleaned out that one hunting shed—stealing a little from people who had so much was no worse. I saw our options with a cold certainty that brought back the ache in my chest. It was either them, or us. There was no middle ground left anymore.

The only question was how we were going to get what we needed.

I studied the clearing. The fence stood seven or eight feet beyond the last of the trees. The gas cans lay only a few steps farther on the other side. But the fence itself was at least twice my height, topped with loops of barbed wire.

“Hey!” Justin whispered. “The wire cutters. They’re back at the SUV. We can hack right through.”

Perfect. “Go get them, quickly,” I said. “We don’t have a lot of time.” Any minute the breeze could shift and the dogs catch our scent. And they might not react kindly to strangers.

Justin slunk away through the trees. I crouched down behind the trunk of a maple, listening, watching. Smelling. A salty greasy scent that made me think of frying bacon was drifting through the compound. Maybe it
was
bacon. My mouth started to
water.

Footsteps brushed across the damp grass somewhere to the left. A fridge door sighed open. Glass clinked, and the door closed with a thud. I tipped my head against the bark. If we could have trusted these people, we could have asked them to hold on to the vaccine samples for us, where they’d stay cold. We wouldn’t have had to worry about losing the snow.

A second later the thought seemed so absurd I grimaced. Who wouldn’t turn on us while we were carrying something that valuable?

Beyond my view, childish laughter rose, and the dogs barked again. If breakfast time for people meant breakfast for the animals too, that would help distract them.

At home on the island, my ferrets, Fossey and Mowat, were probably wondering where everyone had gone. I hoped when they finished the bags of food Leo had opened for them, they’d find their way out of the house to forage.

A new sound carried through the fence. I stiffened. On the other side of the compound, someone had broken into a coughing fit. The coughs sputtered out and started again, and hinges creaked.

“Why does Corrie get to play with Rufus all the time?” a thin voice called. “I want to see him too! There’s nothing to do in here.”

There was a murmur of conversation I couldn’t make out, and then a man’s voice said, “Here, Devon, you can have a turn now.” He whistled and, I guessed, ushered the dogs into whatever building the boy was quarantined in. A wooden door thumped shut.

The cool wind cut through my scarf. So the virus was here too. How careful were they being? How many of them were infected? One more in the long list of reasons to avoid talking to them face-to-face.

Another set of footsteps approached, this time from behind me. Justin was walking over, the wire cutters he’d taken from the hunting shed clutched in his gloved hand. They looked tough enough to handle the chain link.

“Leo didn’t seem really happy about the idea when I told him,” he murmured as he reached me.

Because he was worried we’d get caught? Or…Or he didn’t totally approve of us stealing from strangers in the first place. An uncomfortable twinge ran through me, and I closed my eyes. He wouldn’t really think less of me for doing everything I could to keep us on the road and alive, would he? He knew what it took to survive, in this new world. I couldn’t think of a single alternative I could call “good.”

My previous certainty settled back over me. “This is our best chance,” I said. And I was going to make the most of it. I held out my hand for the clippers.

Justin shook his head. “I’m doing it.”

“I’m smaller than you,” I said. “I won’t need as large a hole.” He was only a couple inches taller than me, his body still gangly with adolescence, but his shoulders were broader, his coat bulkier.

“No way,” he said quietly. “You’re our leader. The general doesn’t take the dangerous solo missions. What’ll we do if something happens to you? I’m going. Throw something at me if you see someone coming.”

I didn’t have a good enough argument in the moment, and time was slipping away. So I watched him go. Smoothing my hand over the ground, I found a small rock to pelt him with if I needed to alert him.

Justin hunched down and stalked across the clearing as if imitating a military commando in a video game. Maybe he’d picked up a few useful skills from all that goofing off with his friends after all. When he reached the fence, he tested the metal links with his fingers. Then he raised the clippers.

The blades made only a faint clicking sound as he cut through the wires. He moved from one to the next, carving an oval in the fence. Nothing was moving in the compound within my line of sight. I kept my ears perked as Justin clipped the last few segments and gave his makeshift door a nudge. The wires squeaked faintly as they bent, and a pot clanged in the distance. He flinched, but no one came.

I held my breath as he pushed through the gap, the metal edges snapping threads on his coat. And then he was inside. My fingers squeezed around my rock. Justin glanced both ways, and then hurried to the gas cans.

He was just bending down to grab a couple when a low baying broke the quiet. With a thunder of heavy paws, a Great Dane charged around the concrete building.

I jerked to my feet. Justin snatched up the nearest can, spun, and scrambled toward the fence. “Hey!” someone yelled. Pounding footsteps raced after the dog, and a woman burst into view, carrying a rifle. “Stop!”

I ran across the clearing, grasping the flap in the fence and yanking it up. Justin stumbled over a dip in the dirt, and the can’s handle jolted out of his fingers. The can thumped to the ground. The Great Dane snarled, scattering slush as it crossed the short distance between them.

“Leave the can!” I said. With a grimace, Justin lunged forward. In the space of a heartbeat, he ducked through the flap and we shoved it back down.

The dog skidded to a halt, teeth snapping at the spot where Justin’s arm had been an instant before.

“I said stop!” the woman hollered, lifting the gun. I grabbed Justin’s elbow and we dashed for the trees. The pistol in my pocket bumped against my ribs, but I didn’t trust my aim to save us. In a minute we’d be outnumbered anyway.

We’d just reached the forest when the shot crackled through the air. A yelp broke from Justin’s mouth. We threw ourselves forward into the shelter of the trees. My ears rang with the echo of the gunshot and the dog’s frantic barking.

For a second, I thought we’d made it, that we’d both dodged out of range in time. Then Justin sagged against a trunk. Blood bloomed around a tear in his jeans, just below his knee.

The woman with the rifle was striding closer, and the Great Dane was biting at the flap in the fence. I hauled Justin’s arm over my shoulder and tugged him deeper into the forest.

He limped alongside me, his breath turning into a gasp every time he moved his injured leg. “’M okay,” he said, with a pained grunt that told me exactly the opposite. I swallowed hard.

“You’re not,” I said. “But we’re going to get out of here, and then we’ll make sure you
are
okay.”

My pulse pounded at the base of my throat. We had no time at all now. That gunshot would have been audible for miles around. If the Wardens were anywhere nearby, they’d be heading straight here.

As we staggered out on the other side of the forest, Anika was waiting halfway across the field. She rushed over to us. Leo watched, gun at the ready, from beside the SUV.

“What happened?” Anika asked, reaching for Justin’s other arm.

“Stupid dogs,” Justin muttered. “I almost had it—I should have at least gotten one can.”

“They caught him inside the fence,” I said. “He’s been shot in the leg.”

Anika winced in sympathy. Justin pushed her hand away, but he didn’t say anything else. A sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead despite the chilly air.

“Start the car,” I told Anika. “We need to get out of here fast.”

She nodded and ran ahead to the house, her highlight-streaked hair streaming behind her as her hood slipped from her head. When she spoke to Leo, he handed her the keys. He edged over to the passenger door without shifting his gaze from the forest behind us. The unhappy curve of his mouth made my stomach clench.

I was the one who’d agreed to Justin’s suggestion of breaking into the compound. I’d let him go in. I knew how sensitive dogs could be to one unusual sound or scent—maybe I should have realized the risk was too high. If that woman had aimed differently, he could have been dead now. For a couple cans of gas.

Justin gave a little sigh of relief when we reached the house. I helped him into the back of the SUV and jumped in beside him. Leo hopped in the front, jerking his door closed, and Anika jammed her foot on the gas. I glanced up and down the road as she roared toward it, but there was no sign of pursuit. Yet.

“Backtrack,” I said quickly. “The people from the substation might come down to the road over there to ambush us. You have the atlas, Leo?”

“Right here,” he said.

As we veered onto the road, he started giving Anika directions. I leaned over the back of the seat to grab the first-aid kit from the trunk.

“Let me see your leg,” I said to Justin.

He leaned back against the door and lifted his injured leg onto the middle seat between us, inhaling sharply at a lurch of the tires. “I guess we have to get the bullet out?” he said, his voice strained.

“No way,” Leo said before I could answer. “It’s better to leave it in. My dad went over what to do in an accident every time he dragged me out on a hunting trip. You start digging in there, you’ll just get bacteria inside. The most important thing is to stop the bleeding.”

I pawed through the kit for the scissors, and then cut open the fabric of Justin’s pants so it sagged away from the wound. Blood seeped down Justin’s pale, hair-speckled skin. But the wound was a gash, not a hole—a thick ragged line slicing along his calf. And while it looked painful, it didn’t appear to be very deep.

“I don’t think the bullet’s in there,” I said, my voice shaky. “It looks like it just caught the side of your leg.”

“Well, I guess that’s good news,” Justin said, and sucked air through his teeth as I dabbed at the wound with an antiseptic wipe. Our last one, since I’d used the others when Meredith had cut her hand.

“Sorry,” I said. He grimaced in answer, his lips pressed tight. Holding the wipe against the gash, I fumbled with the roll of gauze, almost losing it as the car swayed around a turn. There was only enough left to wrap it around his leg four times.

“Pass the scissors,” Justin said. When I handed them over, he cut a swath of fabric from the other leg of his jeans and tied that around his calf over the bandage. “You figure that’ll do it?”

“It’ll have to,” I said. Sifting through the contents of the kit, I found another roll of gauze, but I thought we’d better save that so we could clean the wound and rebandage it later on. If we
could
clean it properly, without an antiseptic. I didn’t think the bullet had done any permanent damage to his leg, but even a shallow cut could get infected. We had a couple bars of soap. That was better than nothing.

And we only had to look after it until we got to the CDC. The doctors there would know what to do for a bullet wound. They’d have antibiotics.

If we could actually make it there.

A sudden longing swelled inside me, so intense my eyes went watery. I didn’t know what Gav would have thought of my plan, or its outcome, but I didn’t care. I just knew that if he’d been here right now, he would have pulled me close and told me I was amazing to have gotten us even this far, and maybe I’d have believed him.

Then my mind flickered back to those last few days, to his complaints about how far I’d dragged him and the way he’d begged to go home. My throat closed up. Some part of
him
hadn’t believed this journey was worth it.

But I had to anyway, if I was going to get through this.

“Have you seen anyone else on the road?” I asked as Anika took another turn.

“So far, all clear!” she replied.

Justin shifted back in his seat. “Take it easy, okay?” I told him.

He rolled his eyes. “I should have been faster.”

“I shouldn’t have let you take the chance with the dogs there,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He made a face and turned toward the window. Fields, forests, houses, and barns whipped by. Leo directed Anika along a winding route that avoided all but the smallest towns. While I’d been bandaging Justin’s leg, we’d managed to swing around to head south again. The roads were clear, the night’s ice melting into puddles on the asphalt. Without snow slowing us down, we might be able to make it all the way to Atlanta by tonight.

But not without fuel. As we crested a small hill, about an hour after we’d raced away from the substation, the engine sputtered. My hopes plummeted.

“Shit,” Anika said faintly. The engine’s noise stilled to a purr, sputtered again, and then choked off completely.

Using the momentum of the slope, we managed to steer the SUV down a lane behind a rusty silo. I climbed out into mid-morning air that felt faintly warm against my skin. We were stranded, exposed, in the midst of a tract of farmland that sprawled out beyond the foot of the shadowy mountains. Only thin rows of trees divided the open fields. The nearest house, a broad brick structure on the other side of the road, looked to be at least a fifteen-minute walk away. And just a few small splotches of snowy white glinted amid the fallow soil. In an hour or two, I suspected they’d have melted away completely.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Anika said, pacing beside the SUV.

Justin leaned out past the open door. “We can’t just sit here.”

“No,” I said. We had to keep moving—that I knew for sure. “We’ll have to leave the SUV. Obviously. Either we find another car that works and we go on in that, or we find gas and we come back here.”