H.A.L.F.: The Makers (35 page)

She was dizzy from the conflicting information and emotions. If they were at her school, maybe these people weren’t really CDC. But it was her town, which meant she was close to home. That meant she might be able to see her mom and familiar faces soon.

She followed along behind Ian and had to practically jog to keep up. She passed by strangers dressed in the otherworldly hazmat garb. They averted their eyes. It was the same thing people had done when her dad died. They felt sorry for her and guilty at the same time.

They wheeled Ian down a concrete sidewalk and through double doors. The gurney moved quickly on the scuffed, dirty powder-blue floor of the hall lined with glass cases filled with trophies of sports glories past. Erika had walked this hall countless times. It looked the same except it wasn’t filled with kids hanging out in small groups, gossiping and laughing. Mr. Parathi wasn’t standing in the center with his arms crossed across his chest, standing only five feet six but trying to look tall and daring someone to do something to earn a detention.

But it wasn’t the same school. It smelled like hospital, not like school lunch and dirty feet and cheap cologne.

They turned the corner and pushed through another set of double doors into the gymnasium. The championship banners still hung from the rafters and the bleachers were there, rolled up and pressed against the wall like they usually were during the school day.

But the wood floor was covered by rows of cots. And the cots were filled with people.

Men and women. Teens and little kids. Young and old and even some babies too. As she got closer, the mass of bodies became faces, and the faces became people she knew.

A cheerleader named Heather. She rolled over and vomited into a metal school wastebasket. On the cot beside Heather was Jamie, Heather’s best friend. On the other side was Carlos and his brother. And Mr. Keys, her ninth grade math teacher. Rocket and Ms. Fletcher.

Their faces were like a collage of a life she once knew. They were familiar, but it was more like a movie she’d seen than a memory of her own life.

Men and women in hazmat suits walked up and down the aisles. They changed IV bags, cleaned vomit off the floor and put cool washcloths on foreheads.

Erika walked slowly, taking it all in. Ian’s gurney was ahead of her now, but she’d catch up. Her head turned from side to side, looking at as many of the faces as she could. Her town was here. All of them.

And it dawned on her. The Conexus had been here. Before she, Ian, Dr. Randall and Tex came back, the Conexus had come here. To her town. To her people. And infected them.

Her heart leapt to her throat.
Mom? Jack?

Her eyes roved frantically from face to face as she ran to keep up with Ian. She recognized nearly everyone there. Ajo was a very small town.

But her question remained unanswered. She didn’t see either Jack or her mom. It was too soon to know if that was a good or bad sign.

The doors on the other end of the gym opened, letting in bright, midday sun. They pushed Ian out and Erika followed. They wheeled down another concrete path to a pod of classrooms that had once held the English department, her favorite part of the school.

Desks had been tossed onto the grassy courtyard in a tangled jumble. No rows or order, as though it had been done quickly and without a thought that they’d ever need them again.

The medics opened the door to a room that had once been the home of Erika’s AP English class. The chalkboard was still filled with Ms. Baumgarten’s slanted, left-handed writing. Two tall bookcases against the back wall still held the teacher’s well-used collection of suggested reading. Erika had read nearly all of the books in that case.

In place of the usual desks for students were four empty hospital beds. The four medics grabbed Ian’s sheet on either side at the corners and heaved him onto one of the empty beds.

The paramedics, apparently done with their job, began to walk away. Erika grabbed one of them by the arm.

“Wait – my family. I need to know if they’re here.”

The man looked down at her hand on him as if it he’d just been touched by the plague. Erika removed her hand.

“Please,” she pleaded. Tears had welled in her eyes.

His eyes softened. “I’m sorry, miss. I don’t know. I’m just transport. But these folks here may be able to help you. I’m sorry.”

He eased by her and disappeared into the courtyard outside the pod with the other paramedic.

A man stepped toward Ian and pinched Ian’s eye open with a gloved hand. He flashed a penlight across Ian’s eye and back. “Reactive.” The man searched Ian’s wrist for a pulse. “Pulse fifty. BP one hundred five over forty. Get me an EKG and keep the saline going. I want a full CBC, liver panel, CMP, AST and a PT. And as soon as he’s awake, find me.” The man, presumably a doctor, rushed from the room without so much as a glance in Erika’s direction.

Erika called after him, “Wait! I need to ask you something.”

But the man continued walking away as though he hadn’t heard her.

That left one nurse and a lab tech, who was already draining blood from Ian.

The nurse hung a clear IV bag on a pole beside Ian. “You okay?” she asked Erika.

Of course she wasn’t okay. She’d been living in hell and recently watched a friend get blown to pieces. She got back from hell only to find herself in a surreal apocalyptic dream. But she lied because she didn’t figure the nurse had time or inclination for the truth. “Yeah. I will be, anyway.”

The nurse smiled. “You need anything?”

She needed lots of things. A shower. A cheese pizza and a cola. But more than anything, she needed to know. “Do you have – does anyone here have a list? Of all the – infected people?”

The nurse nodded. “But I can’t give it to you. You know, HIPPA and all that.”

All things considered, Erika thought she’d held it together pretty well. But someone using a pre-the-world-has-gone-completely-to-shit rule to keep her from knowing if her loved ones were dead or alive made her come unglued. She got so close to the nurse that their face shields nearly touched. “Look around you. To hell with HIPPA.”

“You okay over there, Elise?” the blood drainer asked.

Elise looked Erika in the eye and showed no fear. If anything, she looked sympathetic. “We’re okay.”

Erika pulled herself back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be an ass. It’s just – I’ve been gone for so long. I have to know if they’re safe. My mom. And my boyfriend. They were here. In Ajo. I need to know.” She touched Elise’s arm. “Please.” She hadn’t meant to tear up, but the mere thought of her mom and Jack made her eyes mist again.

Elise said, “Tell me their names. I’ll do what I can.”

Erika forced a smile to her face. “Tina Martinez Holt and Jack Wilson. Oh, and Jack’s mom, Kathleen Wilson.”

“You mean Vice Principal Wilson?”

“Yes, that’s her. Is she here?” Erika had met Jack’s mom last summer, before she knew that Kathleen would be her new vice principal. Kathleen was smart and together, and she cooked dinner and talked to Jack. She was, in short, everything to Jack that Tina had never been to Erika.

Elise looked away. When she met Erika’s eyes again, Erika knew. “I’m sorry. She was one of the first to get the virus. We didn’t know what we were dealing with. Still don’t, if you want to know the truth. I’m – I’m sorry. I really am. Look, I’ve got to get back to work on your friend. You sure you’re okay?”

Tears rolled down her sunken cheeks.
Jack.
She didn’t know where he was. He could be dead too. But if he was alive, he had to be hurting beyond what anyone should have to feel. He was close to his mom in a way that Erika would never know with her mom. Jack’s mom was more than a mom to him. She was his friend. The thought that he was feeling this loss – that he was going through it alone … Erika sucked the snot back up her nose and took a deep breath to keep herself from completely losing it in front of Elise. “I think I just need some rest. I’ll be okay. Eventually.”

Elise nodded, squeezing her hand gently. “You can rest on an empty bed over there, beside your friend. And we’ll need to take some blood and test you.”

Erika knew what the test would show, but she chose not to have another conversation about it. She’d let Elise take her blood. She was tired of fighting things. “Sure. Whatever you need to do.”

The blood taker left with several vials of Ian’s blood. It seemed to Erika that he likely wasn’t in good enough condition to spare so much blood, but what did she know.

There was an oxygen mask over his face and an IV dripping clear liquid into his vein. They’d covered him with three layers of warm blankets. It was probably in the low eighties outside, but Ian had been so cold.

Erika swept a piece of stringy, greasy hair away from his face. He was resting peacefully. Breathing steadily.

“I’m going to lie down here,” Erika said. “Can you wake me when you know anything from the lab tests?”

Elise nodded and went back to making notes on an electronic tablet.

Erika practically fell into one of the empty beds. It was lumpy and hard but a veritable feather mattress after sleeping on a hard floor as she had while at A.H.D.N.A. future. Erika fell asleep almost immediately. She roused only briefly when someone covered her with a warm blanket. She muttered thanks and sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Jack tapped his earpiece and blew on his microphone. “Ed?”

The earpiece crackled and there was the sound of rustling on the other end. “I’m here. Just had a visit from the woman in charge.”

Woman in charge?
Lizzy.
That couldn’t be good. “Yeah? What’d she want?”

“Just checking up on my progress.” Thomas’ voice became a barely audible whisper. “She seemed suspicious. I think she may have recognized me. We’ve got to move fast.”

Jack’s stomach had been twitchy before. Now his bowels were turning to water. Jack didn’t know how to respond in a coded way to what Thomas had said. He stood with the wire puller in his hand.

“Um, I’m ready for you to cut power to this circuit, Ed.”

“Forget it. I’ve already got the video feed spliced. Went more quickly than I expected. Mask up and pull the pin on a canister and toss it toward them like we planned.”

“Copy.” Jack’s hand was shaking. He hoped the guards didn’t notice it.

Jack bent down to his toolbox with his back to the guards. They were talking about sports and largely ignoring him. He pretended to search for the right tool. In truth he unhinged the bottom flap so he could get at the gun and masks.

As soon as Jack’s fingers touched the mask, he pulled it out and over his head as quickly as he could. With his back still to the guards, he dug a canister out of the box, pulled the top open and quickly flung it toward the guards as he turned.

Price said, “Hey – what the – ?”

The crystals inside the canister quickly reacted with the air and filled the room with a thin smoky fog.

Price coughed and wheezed as he fell to the floor. Davis’ eyes bulged as he tried to unsnap his gun from his holster. His fingers shook as he too fell to the ground. Davis’ legs twitched like a dying rabbit. His eyes rolled back in his head, his face was red and his tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth. Price’s mouth had pink foam billowing out of it.

Jack approached them cautiously. They made no move to pull a gun on him. Price’s eyes were glassy as they stared up at the ceiling. Davis’ legs had stopped twitching. Jack knelt and gingerly touched Price’s neck. There was no pulse. Both men had died in less than two minutes.

Thomas had lied about the Zissnine.
Did he think I’d chicken out if I knew it was poison instead of sleeping gas?
The truth was, Jack was unsure what he would have done had he known.

But it was too late to take it back. No reset button in real life. The men were dead. It had taken less than two minutes for Jack’s hands to become stained with blood. He stared in horror at their faces. In that moment he hated Thomas. He’d known he was asking Jack to kill yet had lied about it. He’d been on the fence about whether Thomas was a psychopath or not.
Question answered.

The eyepiece of his gas mask fogged up from the heat building up inside. He breathed so quickly he was afraid he’d hyperventilate. He wanted to take the gas mask off and wipe the tears from his face and get some deep breaths of air, but he didn’t dare. Thomas told him the gas would dissipate to an ‘ineffectual’ level in five minutes. Apparently the gas was an unstable compound when exposed to oxygen and quickly broke down. Thomas had used the word ‘ineffectual,’ not nonlethal.

“Are you sure about the timing?” Jack had asked.

“Quite sure,” Thomas had said. But he’d added, “But you might want to give it six minutes just to be on the safe side. And keep your mask on the whole time.”

Jack planned on it.

He hadn’t glanced at his watch before he threw the canister of deadly gas. He looked at it now and decided he’d wait the full five minutes before he opened the door to Alecto’s room to be on the safe side. If she got accidentally gassed, their whole plan was screwed.

Jack put the comm up to his face mask. “Ed,” he whispered. There was no response. Jack tried again two more times, but Thomas didn’t respond. Jack wanted to rant at Thomas and let him know what an asshat he was for lying. Jack decided maybe it was best that Thomas didn’t answer him. Taking out these two guards had been the easy part of the plan. For better or worse, Jack was stuck in it with Thomas if he wanted to survive and get Anna out too.

The seconds ticked slowly by in what was the longest five minutes of his life. He was stuck in the room with two dead men. He tried not to look at them.

Jack pulled the neatly folded camping blanket from his box. It was made from an extremely lightweight wicking material on one side and silvery Mylar on the other. Both layers together were barely thicker than a few sheets of good quality paper but promised to keep a camper warm and dry. Jack hoped it delivered as promised.

Two minutes left in the countdown. The smoky gas had dissipated. He decided to wait the full time anyway.