Mass Extinction Event: The Complete Third Series (Days 46 to 53) (20 page)

Elizabeth

"Okay," Toad says as he reaches under me, "just try to hold on and make sure you don't shift your weight suddenly. This is going to be a little tricky."

Reluctantly, I put my arms around his neck and wait as he lifts me up. It's hard to believe that he's going to carry me, Rachel and the two rucksacks, but I guess he's been working the land for years and he's probably strong enough. I can tell that he's struggling, and as I arrange Rachel against my chest, I can't help worrying that at any moment we might end up tumbling down to the ground. This whole plan is completely ludicrous, but I'm not exactly in a position to refuse.

"You okay?" Toad asks, sounding as if he's really finding this hard.

"I'm fine," I mutter, not really wanting to talk to him too much. "Are you?"

"Don't worry about me," he says, turning and making his way slowly across the clearing, with heavy, lumbering steps. "I've carried heavier things."

“
Thanks.”

“
You know what I mean.”

"I guess I'm lighter than I used to be," I say darkly, staring at my bandaged stump. "How much does a human leg weigh, anyway? It's gotta be a few pounds. I'm not a cripple, though. You know that, right?"

"As soon as we get to the next farm, I'm going to make a set of crutches for you." He takes a couple more heavy steps forward. "You'll have to be careful for a few weeks in case you open the wound up, but you'll be up and about in no time. The only problem might be your upper arm strength, which -"

"I'll manage," I reply, hoping to shut him up.

"You're angry at me, aren't you?"

"Of course not," I mutter bitterly. “What makes you think that?”

"I had no choice, Elizabeth," he continues. "Would you really rather be dead?"

"I'd rather not be in pain," I tell him, "and I'd rather not have a huge chunk of my body missing. What the hell am I supposed to do now, anyway? It's not like I can be useful. You've just turned me into this
thing
that's gonna need to be helped all the time." I wait for him to reply, but as he carries me between the trees, I realize that I'm probably being ungrateful. Still, I can't deny what I'm feeling. "I thought you'd left me to die," I continue. "I was okay with that. I'd come to terms with it."

"I wouldn't leave you," he grunts, obviously struggling with all the weight he's carrying. "The only thing that would have kept me from coming back would have been if I'd died."

Pressed against me, Rachel lets out a brief cry.

"Maybe you should just leave me when we get to this other farmhouse," I continue. "I don't want to be a burden for you two."

"That's not going to happen. I've already got a plan -"

"You've always got a plan," I point out. “You've had a plan since the start, and now look at us.”

"We're going to stay put for a while -"

"But you said that was a bad idea before,” I continue, trying not to let my frustration show. “You're just changing your opinion to support whatever course of action means that we stay together.”

"That was when you were able to walk properly. This time, we're going to have to wait while you learn to get about properly on crutches, and then we're going to have to alter our plans. I need to study the land and work out if there's any way we can survive out here. I don't know what was going wrong with the soil back at my farm, but hopefully it's not the same everywhere. I still believe we can live off the land."

"We'll all die," I tell him. "You'll sit around trying to help me until I die, and then you'll die, and then Rachel will die too. Three lives will be lost instead of one."

"Not necessarily."

"You know it's true," I continue. "I don't know why you're trying to be all noble and strong about this, but things are getting worse day by day, and sooner or later you won't be able to fix anything. Right now, you can patch everything together and find a way to make it work, but that's not always going to be the case. Anyway, I used to be able to help, but now I'm just going to be holding you back."

"The other way to look at it," he replies, "is to say that you're going to be less mobile, while means you'll be more likely to stay put when I tell you not to get into trouble."

"Is that supposed to be a joke?" I ask.

"Let's just focus on getting to the Hodge place," he continues. "Once we're there, we can look into our other options, but at least we'll be able to rest. The Hodges ran a good farm, and hopefully there'll be something there we can use. Either way, it'll be better than being out here, and it'll be an improvement on the situation back at my place. We can adapt to whatever we find. I used to think we needed to plan everything out, but now I realize that adaptation is the most important thing. We'll see what we have, and we'll make it work.”

I want to argue with him, but I figure there's no point. I don't understand why he's so keen to save me, but apparently he's decided that he's willing to risk his life, and Rachel's, in order to keep me alive. I'm too weak to keep debating the point with him endlessly, so instead I decide to focus on keeping Rachel entertained. Reaching down to her, I let her wrap her tiny fingers around my hand, and for a moment she stares at me with an expression of wonder. As a faint smile crosses her lips, I find myself feeling more and more certain that my earlier fears about her health were unfounded. There's no way she's been infected by whatever created those creatures last month. She's just a normal little girl who happens to have been put through a lot of trauma.

"It's going to be okay," I whisper to her, even though I'm not certain I believe it anymore. "Whatever happens to me, you're going to be fine."

Thomas

"I gutted a fish today," Kaylee says as she hurries to catch up to me. "Look," she adds, holding up her bloodied hands and grinning from ear to ear, "see? That's salmon blood. It was kinda gross, but I did it!"

"Cool," I reply, although I'm more impressed by the change in her attitude. Somehow, she seems to have come alive since we arrived here, and it's good to see her getting to work. "You know I helped catch those salmon, right? I was out on the water with Mark as soon as the sun came up. It only took us about half an hour. Mark landed the first one, but the second was all me. That was the biggest one, too."

"It was so interesting," she continues. "It was hard at first, but this woman showed me how to do it properly. In a few minutes, she's gonna show me how to prepare them for the fire, and I'm gonna spend all day learning about the stuff they cook here. There's a guy who's gonna show me a load of other things too. Apparently it's really important to make sure we follow hygiene rules, 'cause otherwise everyone could get sick and we don't really have any way to treat them."

"Sounds like you're really settling in."

“
It's amazing how much has changed since a couple of days ago,” she points out. “I never would have believed... I mean, look at us!”

I can't help but smile. She's right: suddenly things are looking up.

"It's good to be busy," she continues, keeping pace with me as we make our way toward the forest. "When you're busy, you have less time to think about the past. What about you?"

"I'm off to cut down some trees," I tell her. "Mark's showing me how everything works. I'm gonna try every job that's going and wait to see what I'm good at. So far, I seem to have a hang on fishing, but that might not be where I'm needed the most. I told Mark to think of me as a tool that he needs to apply however he sees fit."

"Huh," she replies with a smile, nudging my arm. "So you're a tool, are you?"

"We're all tools. That's what Mark says, anyway. He says we're all created equal, but that some of us have got a natural affinity for a certain type of work. Like, the way men are often better at physical labor. It doesn't mean that's
always
true, but most of the time women can't go and cut down trees so easily. Mark says that even though women aren't inherently better at things like cooking, that's often the kind of job that's left for them after the men have taken all the physical stuff."

"He seems like he's got lots of ideas about how the world should work," Kaylee replies, not sounding too impressed.

"It's just logic. Men and women are built differently."

"So if I wanted to come and cut down trees -"

"You'd slow us down," I reply. "No doubt about it. I mean, look at your arms. You're not strong enough."

"Your arms aren't exactly covered in muscles."

"They're better than yours," I point out, keen to make sure she understands.

"So I can't come and help with the trees?" she asks. “Come on, please? I'm a good worker.”

"It'd be a waste of your time," I explain. "You can be better utilized somewhere else. You'll probably find something you're really good at. It doesn't have to be cooking. You should try a bit of everything."

We walk on for a moment, and it seems as if she's not entirely happy with what I just said. Still, I figure she can't really argue with me, since - as Mark pointed out - the whole thing is based on science. Men and women are different, and that's something that should be embraced, not ignored. Maybe in the old world we were able to smooth over those differences, but now none of us can afford that luxury.

"So have you seen Quinn?" Kaylee asks eventually.

"Earlier. She was pissing me off."

"I saw her just now," she continues. "She looked really sad, like she didn't have anything to do. She was holding her laptop, but she didn't have it on, and she was just staring at it, like she hoped it'd still give her an answer. I offered to let her join me at the cooking site, but she said she didn't have time. It's almost like she doesn't want to join in and help. I kinda feel sorry for her."

"All she cares about is that stupid signal."

"Do you really think it's stupid?"

"I think it's a waste of time," I reply sharply. "So what if someone's sending out a beacon from somewhere? Beacons and signals don't put food on the table or water in people's cups. If there's anything to find, someone'll stumble onto it eventually. It doesn't have to be us."

"She wants me to go with her to keep looking for it," she continues. "She keeps complaining that her laptop doesn't have much more battery power left and that we have to get moving before it runs down completely. She's got it turned off right now, and I think that's eating away at her. You know what she's like, right? She has all these crazy ideas, and she can't put them all in order so she tries to just go for everything at once. I think she's convinced that she's got the location narrowed down, and that all we need to do now is walk about five miles to the east and then we'll find it. I mean... That's what she says, anyway."

"Sure we'll find it," I mutter, "and it'll be something that saves the day and makes us all seem like heroes. She doesn't know what she's on about. I admit, it's good that we ended up coming out here, but it's just a coincidence that we found these survivors. Quinn doesn't want us to join a large group, because she wants to be the center of attention. In her head, she deserves to be regarded by everyone as some kind of leader, but that's not the kind of person she is at all. She's not a natural leader like Mark, she's just someone who wants to be..."

I pause for a moment, feeling as if maybe I shouldn't be too mean. Since I found out about Quinn's son, I've felt that maybe she's a lot more damaged than I'd realized, but I still feel as if she's a disruptive presence.

"So are you gonna go with her?" I ask eventually.

"I was thinking about it," Kaylee replies, "but no. I mean, I'd like to, but I don't think I have time. There's already so much to do here, and -"

"That's good," I say, interrupting her. "All that crap with Quinn is in the past now. If she can't get over it, that's her problem, but we need to focus on what we're doing here. There's no time for running off on a bunch of dumb chases. We can't spare the energy." As we reach the edge of the forest, I turn to her, and I can see that something's on her mind. "Don't you have something you need to be doing?" I ask after a moment. "You said you're going to be shown how to cook the fish."

"Yeah," she replies, but she doesn't turn to walk away. "I was just thinking, though... Do you want to go exploring later? When we're both finished, I mean. We could take a look along the shore, maybe just check out the area. Just the two of us, without Quinn or anyone else."

"Check it out?"

"Well..." She pauses, as if she's a little tongue-tied. "Yeah, I mean, I don't know what's out there. Do you? There might be... something... It's just..."

I wait for her to finish.

"I thought we could go for a walk, that's all. There are so many people here, and sometimes I feel like I'm not very good in crowds. I mean, uh, it'd be good to know the surrounding area a little better, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know," I reply, surprised by the idea. "Maybe. I don't think I'll have time, though. Mark says it's going to take until sundown to get the trees cleared, and then we have to start up again at first light."

"Okay," she says quickly, looking embarrassed as she takes a step back. "It was just an idea, that's all. Don't worry about it." With that, she turns and hurries away, breaking into a run as she heads back toward the main part of the camp.

Watching her for a moment, I try to work out what just happened. It's almost as if she wanted to spend time alone with me, but I guess she's just trying to get a friend. She picked a bad time for it, though; there's so much work to get done, I don't think I'll have a spare moment for the next few weeks. It feels good to have a job, and as much as I like Kaylee, it's time now to focus on the tasks at hand. Mark's right when he says that we need to see ourselves as tools, to be applied to whatever job needs doing. He's also right when he says that egos need to be set aside so we can be more useful to the group. Hell, Mark's right about a lot of things.

Figuring that Kaylee will be fine, I turn and head through the forest. I can already hear men working up ahead, and I'm keen to join them. This is where I belong now.