Mass Extinction Event (Book 2): Days 9-16 (29 page)

Elizabeth

Pennsylvania

When I wake up, I realize I'm being dragged across the yard. It takes me a couple of seconds to work out exactly what's happening, but finally I twist around and see that Patricia has tied a rope around my arms. Before I can work out what to do next, I feel heat on my back, and I look over my shoulder to see that we're getting closer to the fire.

"No!" I shout, trying to struggle free. "You can't -"

Before I can finish, she drops me onto the ground, before unscrewing the lid of the gasoline canister and dousing me. With my arms tied to my sides, I try to scramble away, but there's gasoline all over my body now, running down my face and stinging my eyes so badly, I can barely even manage to keep them open.

"You're a fucking idiot," she says after a moment. "You know that? Things could have been okay here. You could have helped me, and we might have got some answers about that creature. Instead, you just showed me that I can't trust you, and if I can't trust you, then I can't keep you around."

"Stop!" I shout, getting to my feet. There's still gasoline in my eyes, and although I'm blinking furiously, I can't get it out. The result is that all I can really see is a faint blurry image of Patricia standing nearby, while the bonfire still burns behind her. If even the slightest spark or flame reaches me, I'll go up in flames.

"If you're worried about the baby," she continues, "then don't be. I'll do my best. It's ironic, in a way. I never wanted a kid, and now, through some torturous set of circumstances, I've been lumbered with one. Still, it'll probably be a good thing for me to have someone else around. If I was all alone, I might start to go a little crazy."

"Please don't do this," I say, as tears pour down my cheeks, mingling with the gasoline in my eyes. "Please. I'll do anything, but please, don't hurt me!"

"It's too late for that," she replies. "I'm sorry, but I can't let emotion enter it my decision. You've shown your hand, Elizabeth, and once you've lost my trust, it's gone forever. It's a shame, but there's no way back." Seconds later, I hear a match being struck.

"No!" I shout, trying to turn and run before something slams into my feet and I drop to the ground.

Before I can even try to get up, there's a loud bang, echoing around the yard, and I hear the sound of something landing next to me. I scramble to get away, terrified that at any moment Patricia's going to drop the match onto me and I'll burn, but as I get back to my feet, it's almost as if she's enjoying watching me struggle. I blink a few times, trying to clear the gasoline from my eyes, but my vision is still way too blurry. Spinning around, I try to work out where she is, but all I can see is the nearby bonfire. Turning, I stumble toward the farmhouse, before suddenly realizing that there's a figure coming toward me.

"No!" I shout. "Someone help me!"

"It's me!" a familiar voice shouts back, hurrying over and putting his hands on my arms for a moment. Realizing that it's Toad, I stand still as he unties the rope. "It's me," he says again, "don't worry. It's okay, she's not going to hurt you. Follow me."

Still not able to see properly, I let him take me by the hand and lead me across the yard, until suddenly he forces me to stop. My heart is racing and I can't see properly, so I don't even know what's happening, but I guess all I can do is trust Toad.

"Take your clothes off," he says, as I hear him moving what sounds like some kind of barrel.

"What?" I ask breathlessly.

"You're covered in gasoline," he replies. "Take your clothes off so I can wash it off."

Figuring that I need to just do what he says, I pull my clothes off as fast as possible, until finally I'm standing naked in the yard, covering myself with my hands as much as possible. Reaching up to my face, I try to rub the gasoline from my eyes.

"Not like that," Toad says, taking my hand and leading me over to the barrel. "This is rain water. Dip your face in here and open your eyes."

"It hurts," I say, feeling the stinging sensation in my eyes getting worse and worse. "It -" Before I can finish, Toad grabs my head and dunks me face into the barrel. I struggle for a moment, before finally opening my eyes. The pain is still there, but I finally realize that he's only doing this to help me. When he lets go of my head, I keep it underwater for a moment longer before finally coming up for air.

"You're lucky you're not permanently blinded," he says, placing his hands on my face and pulling my eyelids wide open. "Can you see properly?"

I nod. Although my eyes still hurt, I can see much better now.

"I thought you were dying," I say, looking at his bare chest and seeing the bandages on his shoulder.

"I'll be okay," he replies, still examining my eyes carefully. "The worst of the fever has passed. Now crouch down so I can pour the water over you."

Shivering and cold, I nevertheless do exactly what he says, and moments later he pours a deluge of cold water over my naked body. I let out a gasp, but finally he wraps a towel over my shoulders.

"What did you do to her?" I ask, looking over at the bonfire and seeing Patricia's prone form on the ground. Turning back to Toad, I realize that there's a rifle slung over his shoulders.

"The same thing she did to the others," he replies. "She was right about one thing. There's no law anymore, not really. We get what we can take, and she was going to take everything eventually. She couldn't trust you, and I couldn't trust her." He pauses. "But I trust you, and I hope the feeling's mutual."

I nod.

"You need to go inside and get warm," he continues. "I'll fix up the fireplace in the front room for you. Go and find some blankets and wrap yourself up. I'll take care of everything out here."

Half an hour later, I'm sitting by a roaring fire in the farmhouse, with blankets covering my body. Toad made me wash several more times, to make sure that the last of the gasoline was off my skin, and my eyes are still stinging a little, but for the most part I feel as if I'm okay. The baby is sleeping on the floor nearby, but although I know I should be holding her, I feel somehow frozen in place. I can't help replaying the past few hours over and over in my mind, first the way Patricia killed the others so casually, then the way Bridger called for help from the bonfire, and finally the moment when she poured gasoline on my body and lit the match; these three memories are just spinning through my mind, and I can't think about anything else.

"How are you doing in here?" Toad asks suddenly.

Turning, I realize that I hadn't heard him entering the room. He walks over to the baby and crouches down to take a look at her.

"Did you choose a name for her yet?" he asks, turning to me.

I pause for a moment. "Rachel," I say eventually.

"Nice name." Reaching down, he runs a finger across Rachel's chin. "Hello Rachel," he says after a moment. "I'm sorry things have been a little crazy. I can't promise there'll be much of an improvement in the immediate future, but I'll do my best to keep you safe."

"It was..." I pause again, wondering whether I should open up to him. "It was my mother's name," I explain, feeling a rush of relief. I don't know why, but it feels good to have someone named Rachel around again, even if she's just a baby. I guess I'm still in mourning for my parents. "She... She was Rachel. I guess maybe it's stupid. If you want to change it -"

"Rachel's fine," he replies with a faint smile. "I have no idea what kind of world she's going to grow up into, but at least she's got a good name."

"Patricia's dead, isn't she?" I ask after a moment. "You killed her."

"I had to," he replies. "She was going to kill you, so..." He pauses. "I put her on the bonfire with the others. I suppose that's poetic justice in a way. She was always so sure of herself. She kept talking about how important it was to make rational decisions, but at the end of the day, she was just out for herself, like everyone else."

"I thought I was going to die," I tell him. "I mean, I
really
thought..." I take a deep breath. "That's twice in, like, two weeks that I've almost died. Is it always going to be like this?"

"I have no idea," he replies, coming over and sitting next to me. "I guess the world is a pretty strange place right now, and no-one knows what's coming."

"What are we... I mean, what are
you
going to do next?"

He stares at the fire for a moment. "
We
have to decide whether we're going to stick it out here or head off somewhere else. I'm starting to think it might be smart to load the van up and get the hell away." He pauses. "Right now, however, I've got three things I want to do. First, I want to put some more logs on the fire, to keep us warm. Second, I want to change the bandage on my shoulder to make sure it doesn't get infected again. And third, I want to kiss you."

As I turn to look at him, I feel a strange tightening sensation in my chest, almost as if someone just reached in, grabbed my heart and twisted it around several times.

Without saying anything more, Toad gets to his feet and grabs some logs to toss onto the fire. It takes a couple of minutes for him to get the flames really roaring, and then he walks out of the room. I sit in silence, listening as he goes upstairs. For almost ten minutes, I just stare at the flames, feeling their warmth on my body and hearing the occasional creak of the floorboards as Toad moves around up there. He's sure taking his time, but I guess he needs to make sure his wound is clean. Finally, I hear him coming back downstairs and entering the room. He kneels next to me, with a new bandage on his shoulder, and after a moment he puts a hand on the side of my neck, gently pulls me closer, and kisses me tenderly.

Epilogue

Five years ago

"Do you know what else he's gonna do?" I ask, as I roll onto my side and grab a cigarette from the bedside table. "He's gonna grow his own food. Like, from seeds. I mean, seriously. That's fine if all you wanna eat is tomatoes and potatoes, but it's like he wants to take the simplest things and make them difficult and complicated."

"At least he's trying something new," Shauna says, reaching over me and grabbing a cigarette for herself. In the process, she lets her bare breasts dangle against my shoulder. "Light it for me."

I light her cigarette, then my own, and turn back to face her. "So you'd be happy if I did the same, would you? You'd be totally fine with me buying a fucking farm and moving out to the middle of fucking nowhere?"

"I'd be happy if you had the
money
to buy a farm," she replies.

"Bitch," I say with a smile.

"Dick," she replies, before leaning over and kissing me. "Seriously," she continues after a moment, "don't you think maybe guys like Toad have got the right idea? There's so much crap in the city. Pollution and all that shit. It's not healthy to be, like, breathing it in all day every day, is it?"

"Says the woman smoking a cigarette after sex," I point out.

"You know what I mean," she mutters.

"He'll regret it," I continue. "He might be too stubborn to admit it, but I fucking guarantee that eventually he'll be sat out there in his run-down fucking farmhouse, with the wind blowing in through holds in the wall, and with anemic fucking vegetables growing in the mud outside, and he'll realize he's fucking wasted his money and his life. There's nothing out there but fucking trees and shit."

"Maybe he likes trees and shit," he suggests.

"He's a loner," I reply. "Always has been, always will be. He's fucking weird, too. I know you haven't met him a lot, but trust me, there's always been something fucked up about him. Back when we were all at school, he carried this toad around in his pocket, like an actual toad. It'd got its legs squashed or something and he found it, and he was trying to nurse it back to health. It was all he did, all day, just trying to make sure his fucking toad was gonna be okay."

"That's cute," she says with a smile. "Did it work?"

"Of course it fucking didn't," I reply. "After about three weeks, the fucking thing died. Still, by that point, the nickname Toad had kinda stuck." I take a drag on my cigarette. "The point is, he had a grand idea that he was gonna be all natural and stuff and save this little toad, and it all went fucking wrong. And that's exactly what's gonna happen with this farm. He's got good intentions, sure, but he doesn't know how to run a fucking farm. He'll screw it up, just like he couldn't save that toad, and then he'll either have to rot out there, or abandon the whole place and admit he wasted his time and money."

"Or he might actually make a go of it," Shauna replies.

"No fucking chance," I tell her. "He's just read a load of books and websites. He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, not really. He thinks he can sprinkle a packet of seeds on the ground, and a bunch of fucking tomatoes'll come up. I hope he gets pigs. That'd be fucking hilarious. I'd pay money to go and watch that asshole try to herd a bunch of pigs."

"I don't think that's what you do with pigs," she replies.

"You're an expert now, are you?" I ask. "Maybe you should move out there with him and suck his cock while he's fucking his farm up."

"You think you're smarter than everyone else, don't you?" she says after a moment. "You pick holes in everything that everyone else does, but you never actually get off your ass, do you? It's so easy for you to lay into Toad for making a go of something, but God forbid you'd ever try something yourself. You'd never try to do something daring. You'd rather snipe from the comfort of someone else's bed, smoking someone else's cigarettes, after using someone else's condoms to fuck someone else's girlfriend."

"Speaking of which," I reply, reaching under the sheets and grabbing her waist, "when are you gonna dump that Toby asshole and let me be the only man in your life?"

"When you're
capable
of being a man," she says with a faint smile. "You might think Toad's an idiot, but at least he's trying to do something, Carl. He's got a goal and he's working toward it, whereas you..." She pauses, with a look of disappointment on her face. "Isn't there something you want to do with your life? Don't you have a goal or some kind of aim?"

"Maybe," I say, grinning as I squeeze her breasts.

"Something more than this," she replies, pushing my hands away.

"You want me to be like Toad, do you?" I ask. "It's not gonna happen, Shauna, and do you know why?" I pause. "The guy's insane. He's out of his mind, and he's gonna crash and burn out there at that fucking farm. Maybe I haven't worked out exactly what I want to do with myself yet, but I'm not gonna rush off and live out in the sticks in some kind of pathetic, paranoid attempt to prove a point." Leaning closer, I kiss her shoulder. "I'm not gonna be a damn fucking squib like him. I'm gonna be a meteor. I'm gonna burn, baby, and dazzle everyone. Trust me."