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 s
he 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.”
“If we might not come back, let’s see how much we can carry,” Leo said.
He popped the hatch, and we stared at the heap of supplies inside in silence. We’d brought a few of the sleds we’d used on the road before, but they’d just slow us down without snow to coast on. Tobias had contributed a couple army packs along with his other equipment. I pulled the one that held the tent and the camping stove over my shoulders, trying not to think about where Tobias might be now, how far we’d left him behind.
Leo stuffed the other pack with bottles of water and cans of food, what remained from our scavenging in Toronto. We each shoved a flashlight into a coat pocket. Anika gathered up the bags holding our blankets. Justin had brought the first-aid kit out from the backseat, and squeezed it into the rolled sleeping bag he swung onto his back. I hefted the cold box and two of the jugs we used to siphon gas, and Leo picked up the radio transceiver in its plastic case. It sat awkwardly in his arms. But we needed it if we were going to contact the CDC for further instructions.
Justin slid out the hunting rifle we’d lifted from the first Wardens we’d confronted, gripping the muzzle and bracing the butt against the ground like a walking stick. The flaps of his cut-up jeans wavered around his calves. We had extra sweaters and hats, even two extra coats, but no good pants to give him.
“We’ll check the houses for something better for you to wear,” I said, and he looked down at his legs as if he hadn’t even thought about it.
“It’s not too cold,” he said. But as we set off across the field, he walked with a noticeable limp, his hand tight on the rifle. After several hurried steps, his forehead was gleaming with perspiration.
“Hey,” I said, grasping his shoulder. “We can go a little slower. If you push yourself too hard, we’ll end up having to carry you.”
“I can take the sleeping bag,” Leo offered.
Justin shook his head vehemently, but he eased up his pace, hobbling as the rest of us ambled along the road toward the nearest house. I kept my ears perked for the faintest hint of an approaching vehicle. We were like wounded ducks fluttering around in a pond here, hoping the hound would miss our scent. And it didn’t usually turn out well for the ducks.
I stopped once, while the others continued ahead, to scoop what remained of a mound of snow into the cold box. This might be the last time I filled it, I realized as I snapped the lid shut. We were so close, just a couple states from Georgia, half a day’s drive now that the snow was gone. And it could all be ruined without gas.
As we came up on the house, I saw a tree from the yard had collapsed against the back, presumably during a winter storm. Its branches had shattered the second-floor windows and caved in the roof.
The garage held only a workbench and the smell of mildew. I assumed from the state of the house that no
one could possibly be living there, but as we approached the door, a weak sneeze carried through it. All of us froze. Then we hustled on without a backward glance.
My back began to throb under the weight of the pack. Leo shifted the radio in his arms, tucking it under one for a short while, and then the other. Anika rolled her shoulders, her face looking pinched. And Justin limped on, his jaw set and his gaze determined.
The breeze carried a slightly rancid scent to us as we skirted a field of crumpled cornstalks. My nose wrinkled reflexively. Maybe something—or someone—had died in the midst of the crop. I focused on the hemlock trees that lined the border of the next field over, where hopefully we would leave the smell behind.
We were only a few steps away, catching a glimpse of another house just a short distance beyond them, when an oddly familiar whirring sound split the air.
Leo spun around. “Helicopter,” he said, at the same moment I recognized it. A dark speck hung in the sky to the north. In the second I stood staring at the shape, it doubled in size. It was heading our way.
Michael’s looking into the choppers, the voice had said on the radio.
“The Wardens,” I said, turning back toward the trees. “Come on! We have to get out of sight.”
We ran for the hemlocks. Leo held out his hand to Justin, and this time Justin didn’t refuse help. The trees offered only a couple feet of open space beneath their lowest branches. I crouched down and crawled under, pulling the cold box and the backpack after me. Anika scrambled in beside me. Beyond her, the guys were clambering under the neighboring tree.
I squirmed around on the damp soil and elbowed my way back toward the open ground. Peering through the branches, I made out the glint of the sun on the helicopter’s windows and a sheen of blue and white on its body. It looked as though it might pass us by to the west rather than go directly over us, but it was hard to tell. And I had no idea how far they might be able to see from that high up.
I tracked the shape of it growing in the sky. “Are they coming after us?” Anika asked. She was hunched by the trunk of the tree, untangling a strand of her hair from a clump of needles.