Contain (20 page)

I also don't want to keep putting more
miles between us and Mom and Leah and Harper.

We weren't like typical identical
twins. I mean, aside from the physical differences, we didn't cling
to each other like you'd expect twins to do.

I envied him, wanted to be like him.
Everyone who knew my brother did. But I never resented him, and I
doubt anyone else did, either. The resentment would only come much
later, after I presumed he was long dead. I hated that he'd left
me.

Everyone liked Harper, and he liked
everyone. He even liked me. He was the only person, either in my
family or out, who treated me no differently than he treated
anybody else. Harper didn't see differences in people, not the same
way other people did. He noticed them, of course, noticed how those
differences made each of us unique. He had a way of pointing them
out, as if my uniqueness was my strength. In that way, he made
others feel whole and better. That's what made him so
beautiful.

How could anyone resent a person like
that? It was impossible.

But though I wanted to be like him, I
knew I could never be. I was weak. My brain didn't seem to work
right. I certainly didn't perform well under pressure like he did.
If Harper saw my unique traits as strengths, I knew them only as
limitations. If he defined me by metrics inherent to me, I defined
me in terms of how I externalized myself to the world. After all,
it was on those terms that the world imposed its judgment on me and
forced me to function within.

So it is in that moment, inside that
bus on some unfamiliar mountain pass going somewhere I've never
been to and have no idea where it is and what to expect, that I
physically feel the connection between us grow thin. I feel the
distance expanding, and it's like my heart is being torn into
two.

“
We should have waited,” I
whisper.

All around us in the packed bus, heads
bob on exhausted necks. Someone near the front snores, and every
time we go over a bump, it's punctuated by a loud snort and a
squeaky fart.

At first, everyone ignored it. We were
all tired and scared, and nobody wanted to be seen as petty or
demanding. But after a little while, as we began to relax, the
noises elicited a few chuckles. Now, after we've all come to take
the full measure of our future together, we're all back to being
silent.

Dad sighs, and I note a hitch in his
breath when he does. “We did wait, Finn. We waited as long as we
could.”

I stare out the window, and the
darkness seems to sweep toward us in ever deepening waves. What's
in those woods, in those trees? Are there more of the things the
people around us have started to call ghosts and specters? I frown
at my reflection in the glass. They're not ghosts. Ghosts don't eat
you.

“
I'm sure they're fine,” he
goes on. “We had a backup plan, someplace where we would go, if we
ever got separated.”

“
Where?”

“
A place up in the woods,
up in the mountains. Someplace remote, hidden.”

“
Here?” I ask,
optimistically.

He shakes his head. “No, not anywhere
near here.”

“
And where is
here?”

He shrugs and looks out. “I honestly
don't know, Finn.”

After that, I drift off. I sleep in my
dream, and yet I'm not sleeping. It's more like I'm hovering over
my slumbering body, keeping watch. Despite the gnawing hunger in my
gut and the discomfort of the ride, and the ache in my arm,
exhaustion overtakes me. And the future me keeps watch.

Later, when I open my eyes, the sun is
up and the bus is somehow still on the road, still rolling along.
Except now we've left the mountains and are on flat, open highway,
and the tires buzz along on the scorching cement and a hot, dry
wind buffets us. I groan at the terrible crick in my
neck.

Seeing me awake, Dad hands me a bottle
of water, which I gladly accept. But my throat is parched and feels
glued shut, so that the first swallow is painful and goes down the
wrong hole. I start to cough, and immediately begin to panic. My
hands fly to my jeans for my inhaler. Dad bends me forward to bang
on my back. I push him away. I need my medicine.

But already the tightness in my chest
is loosening. The release surprises me.

When I'm able to speak again, I tell
him that it must be the dry desert air. He nods, but he has that
doubtful look in his eyes. Not for the first time, I wonder if he
regrets that it's me beside him instead of Harper. With Harper, he
wouldn't need to worry about my frailties.

“
Ready for something to
eat?” He hands me a protein bar and a stale bit of bread. I eagerly
gulp them both down, then empty the bottle. Dad carefully stuffs
the plastic inside the pack tucked between his feet.

The people at the evac center gave us
all coveralls and new shoes, plus first aid kits and a travel pack.
There were also some containers loaded into the cargo hold beneath
us. I have no idea what might be in them. I guess food, but I'm
probably wrong.

With my hunger slaked, I'm finally in
a state of mind to consider the other passengers on the bus. I
count a total of thirty-six heads, maybe a third of them kids my
age or younger. I stare at one, a boy who seems close to my age,
and almost as if he senses it, he turns around in his seat, and our
eyes connect. He looks as uncertain about our situation as I feel.
He nods once, and I nod back, and he smiles before his mother leans
over and says something into his ear.

His father, in the seat across the
aisle, notices, and he, too, turns and looks back at me. He's a
stern-looking man, and his stare makes me uncomfortable. He says
something to the boy, and they all turn around and face the front
once more.

The oldest-looking person is a woman
dressed in khaki. Her skin is tanned and leathery, mottled with
liver spots, and her face is wrinkled. But there's a youthfulness
in her light blue eyes. She smiles over at me and says not to
worry.

Later, I hear her tell my
dad her name is Kari Mueller, and that she is —
was
 — a
photojournalist for
National
Geographic
. He asks if she's related to the
young woman seated behind us, possibly her mother, but Kari shakes
her head.

It turns out that the other woman's
name is Miller, not Mueller. Susan Miller. She had been a petroleum
scientist developing a new extraction technique when the shit hit
the fan. She looks ashamed to admit the job, but she doesn't
apologize for her language.

Other people have started to talk to
those seated around them, but the air is hot and heavy with dust
from the road, coating our throats and tongues. The sun is
stifling. Few conversations last very long.

By midmorning, we're back in the
trees. Then, soon after, the driver announces that we're almost
there. Up until then, we hadn't seen any of the afflicted since
shortly after leaving the evac center, but as we pass a roadside
scenic overlook high atop a gorge, the pullout populated by several
cars haphazardly parked, a woman stumbles out from behind one and
reaches for us. The emptiness in her eyes sends a chill up my
spine.

She starts to walk after us, but we
careen around a bend and she's gone, and for the first time it
really does seem like the entire world has died and that we're the
only ones left still alive and uninfected.

That's when I first begin to believe
that Mom and Leah and Harper didn't make it. They missed the meet
up at the airport, so they were probably already gone by then. And
even if circumstances didn’t prevent them from getting there, it
just doesn't seem possible they could have made it up to the woods
unharmed.

Dad seems fully confident that they
did, but I'm left wondering whether those things that suck out
people's souls would have been there to greet them.

Which forces me to consider what might
be waiting for us at the end of this road.

The bus goes around another bend and
we're suddenly thrown forward in our seats as the brakes squeal.
Several people cry out in surprise. I stand up and strain to look
out the windshield. Dad tries to pull me back down, but I manage to
catch a glimpse of a bright green and purple van ahead blocking our
path before my view is obscured by the other passengers.

“
Push it out of the way,”
someone shouts.

Someone else gasps and cries, “There
are people out there! I think— I think he's okay.”

“
Don't stop!”

I'm pushing my way up the aisle when I
feel a hand on my arm, pulling me back. I look down and see the man
who had scowled at me earlier. He tells me to go back to my seat.
His son stands up and pushes me forward and follows me, ignoring
his parents' protests. I find an empty seat where I can see and
slide over to the window.

“
It's a man!” I shout,
before seeing the boy he's with, and somewhere in my head I'm
startled to realize that it's not my brother and sister, as always
happens in my dreams, but Bix and his dad. This time, I'm reliving
what actually happened, not what my guilt has been tormenting me
with.

The driver stands up and urges us to
be quiet. There's enough fear in the tone of his voice and the look
in his eyes that we all obey. Soon we all see what he has seen: the
infected things beginning to come out of the woods. They start
ambling up the road, clearly in no hurry to reach us just
yet.

Bix and his father haven't noticed
them. Mister Blakeley is gesturing at us, then at his burning van.
A pile of bags and other objects has been pulled out, including a
brown guitar case. Then Bix grabs his father's arm and
points.

Run!
I want to shout at them.
Quick! To
us!

But my throat squeezes shut. I don't
dare make a sound.

As if sensing my fear, Jonah slips his
hand onto my shoulder and whispers, “Don't look.”

Dad's quiet when he rises the next morning, anxious, clearly not in
the mood for talking. Well, that's fine, because neither am I. But
it doesn't stop me from having my say.

“
I think it's a mistake
giving Jack what he wants.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “You may
be right,” he finally answers. But it's no consolation. My opinion
doesn't matter. It never has.

When Jack's knock comes, he stands up
and steps over to the door. But before he opens it, he turns. I
almost believe he'll tell me he's changed his mind about
everything. “Finn,” he says, quietly murmuring over his shoulder,
“don't do anything rash while I'm gone.”

I try not to take it personally. I
know he's got a lot on his mind and is stressed about the stranger.
He's probably picking up on my over-developed sense of
self-preservation. But it makes me feel like a child when he says
things like that to me. I just wish he'd cut me some
slack.

He takes a deep breath and backtracks,
perhaps finally recognizing the effect his words have on me.
“Just . . . keep an eye on things, okay? I'll be
back soon. We'll talk then, I promise.”

He turns now so that I can see his
face, can see how the muscles in his jaw throb. I see regret. Or
maybe that's just what I want to see. I don't know. I've never been
sure what he's really thinking.

He pulls the door open without another
word, and there stands Jack in silhouette, and for just the
briefest of moments, the way the shadows fall on the man's face, he
looks like he could be infected.

“
I catch you sleeping?” he
asks. But he doesn't wait for Dad to answer. “I just checked the
front door cam. Our friend hasn't returned from wherever he spent
the night. But I'm sure he will.”

If he didn't run
away
, I think.
Or
get infected. Or eaten
.

Mister Resnick throws a warning glance
at me past my father's shoulder, startling me. It's as if he'd
heard my thoughts.

“
Is there a problem?” I
say, glaring back.

He tenses, but doesn't reply, and I
know he's weighing how much it's worth it to further antagonize me.
He really wants those codes, and he believes that if he pushes too
hard, Dad will go back on his word.