Cured (9 page)

My stomach dropped and I gasped. I knew people who decided to try to relocate to Wyoming. We never heard from any of them again—always assumed they'd made it. Now I knew the truth
.

Dad cleared his throat and wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. He put his mask back on and tapped the pick on the raider's chin. The man opened his mouth again
.

“What's your name?”
Dad asked.

“Don't you recognize me?” The raider's words were slurred from the pick and the gas
.

The pick froze, and Dad's hand started to tremble. I thought he'd looked
upset about the Wyoming news. I was wrong
. Now
he looked upset. “Recognize you?” Dad asked slowly
.

“Yeah, Mr. Bloom. I'm Elijah Ashton. I went to school with your son, Dean. We were both on the football team. I was a linebacker.”

Elijah Ashton. I remembered him. When I was eleven and Elijah was sixteen, he'd come over to the house almost every day. He'd stare at me and tease me and try to get me alone. He finally did get me alone once by following me into my bedroom, then said something about liking younger, bigger girls like me. When he tried to kiss me, I ran out of the room. Dad found out and banned Elijah from the house. Dad had to beg Dean not to beat up Elijah
.

I stared down at the blindfolded guy restrained in the chair and took a step back. If he recognized me
. . .

“Where is Dean anyway?” Elijah asked. “He was the toughest guy on the football team. Never afraid to take a hit. He'd make a good raider.”

Dean
despised
the raiders
.

“And what happened to your daughter? Is she all grown up and living inside the wall? Probably about to get married? I always thought she was a cute girl. And since when have you had a son named . . .” Elijah's blindfolded head slowly turned in my direction and his nostrils flared. “Wait a sec. Is that you, Jacqui? Jack?” He yanked on the restraints, making the dental chair lurch and the muscles in his neck bulge. Thrashing his head back and forth, the bandana slipped up onto his forehead and he stared right into my eyes. His breathing quickened and a leer tugged at the side of his mouth, exposing his cracked front teeth. “Jacqui Bloom.” He growled deep in his throat, the wrist restraints snapped taut, and he started trembling with effort. Sweat popped out on his forehead and the restraints groaned
.

“Nitrous now!” Dad shouted. “Full strength!”

I stepped up to Elijah and tried to put the mask on his face, but he struggled against it, eyes devouring me
.

“Get your rifle,” Dad ordered. I threw down the mask and grabbed my gun. I didn't need the scope to hit a target point-blank, but I pressed my eye to it anyway. Because if I was about to shoot a man, I didn't want to actually see it
.

The door to the office flew open and I nearly dropped my weapon. Dean strode in, handguns in each of his hands. “Out, Jack,” Dean demanded. My brain heard the order, but my legs wouldn't move. “Out!” Dean roared. I forced my legs to budge and ran out without looking back
.

Elijah Ashton left later that night. He was in a body bag.

And we knew the truth about Wyoming
.

Bowen curses and Fo gasps. “Do you realize what this means?” she says.

“Maybe Jack's wrong.” Bowen says that, but I can hear the defeat in his voice. He sighs. “So, where do you think we should go, Jack? Where do you think Dean would have taken Fo's mom?”

I glance west at the black mass of the Rocky Mountains. “There,” I say, pointing. When they don't respond, I realize they can't see where I am pointing in the dark. “We need to go west.”

“West? Where the wolves are?” Bowen asks.

“Yes.”

“Why do you think he'd go west?” Bowen leans forward and the bench seat creaks beneath his weight. “Do you have some inside information you'd like to share with us regarding the mountains?”

“No. We've never gotten any news from the mountains, which
is why we need to go there. Because if there is a colony located in the mountains, no one in their right mind would leave it to come to Denver, and the raiders wouldn't try to keep people away. Just think of it. That's the only place they discourage people from going.”

Bowen hangs his head and mutters, “Why is nothing in my life ever easy?”

Fo wraps her arms around his shoulders. “Let's talk about this in the morning, after we've all had time to sleep on it,” she says, voice soothing.

“Jack, do you mind taking first watch?” Bowen asks.

“No problem.” I start gnawing on the side of my cheek, then practically hear my dad's voice—
Don't chew your cheek! You're going to wear down your teeth!
—and stop.

Bowen untangles himself from Fo's arms just enough to look at me. His face is nothing but dark shadows. “Do you know how to keep watch?”

“Yeah. Watch for raiders, beasts, wolves, Sirens, looters, or anything else that moves, and shoot it if it gets too close.” I peer at the dark windows again. “Do you think it'd be all right if I sat on top of the van? I'll have a better view.”

Bowen grunts. “You
do
know how to keep watch. Top of the van is where I'd go too. Wake us up if you see or hear anything.” He lies down on the van's gritty floor, right in a patch of purple starlight. Without bothering to take off her fanny pack, Fo lays beside him, her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, and sighs when his arms wrap around her. I try not to stare at them, but my eyes refuse to look away. I want that—to be held like that.

“Jonah, why don't you rest,” Fo says.

“No, I'm coming out too,” Jonah says. The sound of his voice makes me jump. I'd almost forgotten he was sitting right in front of me.

Fo lifts her hand up and Jonah clasps it. “Be safe,” she whispers. He doesn't answer.

I climb onto the driver's seat and shimmy out the broken window, onto the top of the van. Jonah, still burdened with his backpack, follows. “Why don't you lose the backpack and grab a gun. You can help me stay awake,” I say. Jonah looks at me for a long moment and then leaps off the van. He lands with a loud thud and a swish and strides away into the darkness. Slowly, the clomp of his footfalls fades to nothing and I am alone. “Or just go off by yourself,” I whisper to the darkness.

As I turn in a slow circle, surveying the perimeter of the van, I hear Fo humming a quiet, sleepy tune that fills a small space of darkness with music. The empty world is hidden by the shroud of night. I look up at the starry sky and can almost imagine nothing has changed at all. I pretend I am the old me, soft and plump, with thick, dark hair, living for 4-H baking competitions, experimenting with bread and doughnut recipes, daydreaming about where I will go on my first date, what my prom dress is going to look like. . . .

Fo's voice grows drowsy and then fades to nothing, and I am left in a silent world with my silent thoughts banging around in my head.

Cookies, Jell-O, cinnamon rolls, Doritos … I am in a world filled with food, and it is heaven. It
should
be, at least. But it is not. I stare at the tables covered with every edible luxury imaginable and take a step back. Eating will make my body change, make it turn soft and voluptuous. Voluptuousness is a death sentence. I have to hide behind my thin, childlike frame, like a child vampire, never changing, never maturing, never progressing.

“Hey, Jacqui.” A hand shakes my foot and I blink sleep away. “Time to go,” Fo says. I nod and tuck my gun, clutched in my hand, into my belt. “What were you dreaming about?”

I sigh. “Food. Do you remember when my mom taught us how to make cinnamon rolls? Do you know what I would
give
for a single cinnamon roll, fresh out of the oven, dripping with cream cheese frosting?” She nods. Of course she knows. I open
my backpack and take out a bottle of tablets. One tablet has twenty calories and all the vitamins I need. Fo sees me put it into my mouth and her lips pucker. I shrug. “I didn't know what else to pack that I could carry over a long distance, so I get to eat these for now.”

Bowen opens the van's sliding door and morning sunlight shines in. He reaches for his backpack, unzips it, and takes out a water bottle and the atlas with the marked Wyoming trail. He plops the atlas onto the peeling vinyl bench seat and opens it to the page with the map of the entire United States. I peer over his shoulder, at the red ballpoint pen showing a path from where we are, all the way to northern Wyoming. He turns the pages until he gets to our state and I snort.

“You've got to be kidding me. No one would be stupid enough to fall for that,” I say, leaning in for a closer look. “All the cowboy did is highlight the main highway all the way to the edge of the state! That seems like the most dangerous route possible!”

“Look here.” Fo touches the side of the map with her right hand. I stare at her tattoo and shudder with revulsion. My gaze moves from her hand to where she's pointing. Tiny words have been written in pencil.

Beware the Sirens. This is where they typically make a first attempt at contact. Stay wide of highway
.

There is a line drawn from the writing to a point on the map. “I think this is just a couple of miles north of where we are,” says Fo.

I look a little closer. The place with the Siren warning
is
a couple of miles north of us.

“Well, we won't be seeing the Sirens since we're not going north.” Bowen takes the atlas and tries to tear it in two, but it is too thick. “I can't believe I paid four ounces for this piece of crap.”

“I've been thinking.” Fo looks between Bowen and me.

“What have you been thinking?” I ask, prepared for anything but hoping she suggests we turn back. I am beginning to doubt whether or not I should have left home.

Her eyes lock on mine. “If Wyoming is a trap,” she whispers, “who do you suppose is trying to lure people
away
from the path to Wyoming?”

“Probably more murderers and thieves,” Bowen snaps, chucking the atlas out of a broken window.

The atlas flutters in the morning air and falls to the ground like a bird with broken wings. I glance out the window, remembering the sound wings made, and frown. I lean my whole head out of the van's window and squint at the wide blue sky stretching overhead. Straight up it is as blue as a robin's egg. But west, a brownish haze frames the mountains.

“Bowen, Fo, come here.” They come to the broken window and follow my gaze west. “Am I imagining things or does the sky look …
wrong
?”

“It looks weird,” Fo agrees. She puts her fingers on her thighs and starts pressing, as if playing the piano. In time with the movements of her fingers, she hums a gloomy tune under her breath, and suddenly I feel doomed. More doomed than I've felt on this whole journey.

“It's just smoke,” Bowen says, shrugging.

“Just smoke? But smoke means people! What if I'm wrong
about going west? What if we are being lured into the hands of more raiders?” I hug my arms over my chest. “We should turn back. This was a stupid idea. I don't think I can do this.”

Bowen and Fo share a look. She rests her hands on the fanny pack that she wears over her stomach, like a woman resting her hands on her pregnant belly—as if there's something precious inside the pack. “You can go back if you want to, Jack,” Fo says. “But I'm not.”

“I go where she goes.” Bowen nods at Fo. As if I didn't know that. “And not all fires are manmade. Everything is dead. Maybe lightning struck somewhere and there's a forest fire burning.”

I bite the inside of my cheek once, hard. “Sorry. I'm just having a moment of weakness.” Someone screams outside the van, a man-scream—deep and rough, like a growl mixed with a yell. “Please say that's your brother, Fo.”

“Jonah!” she cries, and darts out the open door. Bowen follows, and I follow him.

Fifty yards away on the sidewalk in front of an elementary school, a man in a hooded sweatshirt is rolling on the ground with another person. Limbs are flailing. Dust is flying. I sprint past Fo and Bowen and reach Jonah first, staring in amazement as he grapples with a short, bone-thin, totally naked boy.

“Stay back, Jacqui,” Jonah growls. The boy lunges away from Jonah, at me, and I leap out of his reach just before his small outstretched hand can grab me. A hand marked with the sign of the beast. He has nine marks. A Level Nine. Level Nines are lethal. I slowly back away. And then I step off the curb and fall flat on my back, the air whooshing out of me in one painful burst.

The beast jumps on me, his gap-toothed, olive-skinned face inches from mine. Glossy black hair hangs in his eyes. He whips the hair out of his face like a normal, rational boy, and then he opens his mouth for a bite—of me—and is pulled off by a pair of scarred hands. Jonah wrenches the boy's arms behind his back.

“Fiona,” Jonah pants, slamming the beast onto the ground and resting one of his knees between the kid's sharp shoulder blades.

Fiona calmly walks up to her brother and the beast. “Hold him still,” she says. The beast squirms beneath Jonah but can't get away. She unzips her fanny pack and removes a long, thin glass tube. I watch in silent fascination as she uncaps a syringe and jams it into the beast's bare butt cheek, injecting a clear liquid into him.

I scramble up onto my feet. “What are you doing?”

Jonah looks at me with pained eyes, but it is Fo who answers, “Injecting him with the cure.”

The cure?
The
cure?

I take a closer look at her fanny pack and a lightbulb goes on inside my head. She's carrying beast cure. And then another lightbulb goes on, nearly blinding my inner eye. Sure, she wants to find her mom and help me find my brother. But she also wants to spread the cure. Her eyes meet mine, and I'm awed at the silent determination I see there.