Shadows Have Gone (34 page)

“Okay, so they’re evacuating in a big damn hurry, then, and that makes me even more nervous.”

Carly looked around at the gas tanks. “I agree. I don’t see Justin. Or Lewis.”

“Maybe that’s why they’re running.”

“Look! There’s Craig. He’d going around to the back.” Carly rose to follow. “Come on. The back gate is unlocked. We can go in through there.”

They hurried through the tree line in a crouch, but it seemed no one was paying attention anyway. They were too busy loading the trucks.

Carly unwound the chain from the gate, and they slipped through, dodging from building to building for cover. Craig emerged from one of the buildings carrying an armful of photograph albums.

Carly waited until he was close and then pounced, knocking him to the ground, scattering the books from his arms. Sam growled and lowered his head, his bared teeth an inch from Craig’s face.

Craig gulped. “C-Carly. Fancy meeting you here.”

“If you yell, I’ll cut your throat.” Carly pushed the blade of the scissors to his throat. It wasn’t sharp enough for that, but he didn’t know it.

“I’m not going to yell.” His eyes flicked over to Pearl and recognition dawned.

“Hiya,” Pearl said. “What are you folks up to?”

“Getting the hell out of Dodge. Can I sit up, please?”

Carly considered and then nodded. Sam backed up, but only marginally. He stared with hate-filled eyes at Craig, and Craig’s gaze kept drifting over to him. He remained very still, barely daring to breathe.

“Why are you leaving?”

“Carly, I don’t know how to tell you this. I’m so sorry . . .”

“What?” Was this a trick? Was it—

“They’re Infected.”

She gave a tiny shake of her head.

“Both of them. I saw it myself. They’ve got it. I remember what it looked like. The fever. The sweating. The—”

“Stop.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

“Where is he?”

Craig told her.

Justin was alerted to her approach by the shouts of alarm as she made her way across the compound. No explosions, no gunshots. Justin smiled even as he heaved himself to his feet with a groan of pain. His head swam, and he had to hold on to the wall for fear he’d pass out, but he would make it over to that window by the door if it killed him.

He saw her coming, at the head of a pack of concerned people trailing her and begging her to stop. She wore dark-blue jeans and a matching jacket, and a cream-colored scarf looped around her neck. Her hair spilled out from below a knit cap, and a rifle barrel poked up from behind her ear. She marched forward with that stubborn set to her jaw, and it made his heart ache even as it made him smile. He was glad he’d gotten to see it one more time.

She saw him behind the window and unslung her rifle, raising it to smash the glass with the butt.

“No, Carly,
don’t
!” Justin shouted, and the panic in his voice halted her in mid swing.
 

She stopped, and her gaze flicked over his face, resting on the swollen lumps beneath his jaw, the ravaged red of his skin, the streaming sweat that poured from it.

They’d told her. She’d thought they were lying. Hoped they were lying. The pain in her eyes at her of the realization of the truth was like a knife wound. Her eyes drifted down to the grenade in his hand, and she gave a tiny shake of her head.

“It mutated again,” Justin said, “overcame our immunity. We always knew it could happen, Carly. Remember Tigger?”

Carly closed her eyes. He could see what she was thinking as clearly as though he had a window into her thoughts. She wanted to deny it again. It couldn’t be. Not after everything they’d gone through. They couldn’t lose this way. Fate would not have brought them so far just to allow them all to die when it started up again. This could not be the end of all things. It was supposed to be a beginning.

But she could not deny the brilliant red flush of Justin’s skin, the sweat that sheened his face.

“Why did you come back, Carly?”

“I came to rescue you,” she said. Her voice was softened and muffled by the glass, but his heart ached at hearing it again.

“Oh, honey,” he said. “You rescued me a long time ago.”

Her fingers scrabbled ineffectively at the glass between them. “I want to come in. I want to be with you. Whatever happens.”

“You know you can’t do that.”

A sob ripped through her. Yes, she knew it. He could see the acceptance in the slump of her shoulders, even as she shook her head to try to deny it.

“It’s just Lewis and I,” Justin said. We’re the only ones . . . and I’m going to try to keep it that way. Self-imposed quarantine. Lewis gave orders to evacuate. You need to get out of here, too.”

“No.” The word was a moan and she brought the side of her fist against the glass.

“Carly, you have to. This place is going to blow, and from the amount of propane in those tanks, it’s going to be a hell of an explosion, so you need to get as far away as you can. Go home. Go home to Colby.”

“I can’t. I can’t leave you to—”

“You have to. For Dagny. For our baby. Carly, you have a town to run. You wanted a future for our daughter. Well, I’m trying to ensure that. The mutated virus will die with us. It will stop here. We can stop it this time.” He gave her a crooked smile. “You and me, always saving the world.”

She pressed her hand to the glass. “This can’t be the end.”

“It isn’t. Not for you. Not for Colby. Not for Dagny. The story goes on.” He dashed away the tears blurring his vision with the side of his hand. “Ah, Carly, I can see it. I can see what you’re gonna build. I can see our daughter. She’s a leader, the best of both of us. And she’ll be so beautiful, Carly. Just don’t let her date any guys like me, okay?”

“Justin, you have to be here. I can’t do this without you.”

“You’ve been doing this on your own all along. I’ve just been along for the ride.” Justin smiled, even as the tears fell to his sweaty cheeks. “All that fate stuff you believe . . . maybe I was just here to show you that. It was you all along, Carly. It was you who had the fated path. Please go. You once made me promise to go on. Do you remember?”

“Yes.” Carly sobbed and dropped her forehead against the glass. Justin leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the spot where it rested. Was it just his imagination, or did he feel the heat of her skin against his lips?

“I’m asking you to make the same promises. You have to go on for our daughter, for what we’re building. For your vision. For your fate. I love you. Go.” He touched the window once more. And then he turned and walked away to meet his fate.

“Justin!” When he didn’t reappear, Carly screamed it. “Justin!”

Craig put his hands on her shoulders and drew her away. Carly whirled and punched him. He yelped and staggered back, clutching his stomach. “Ow! How come every time I see you, you hit me?”

Carly didn’t answer. She leaned her forehead against the window sill and sobbed.

Craig’s voice was soft from behind her. “I’m sorry.”

She took a step away, and then another, but looked over her shoulder, hoping against hope she would see Justin at that window. It was a blank, staring eye. Fresh tears streamed down her face. Carly stood there because, at the moment, she couldn’t bring herself to move.

“Carly . . . we really need to go.” Carly glanced over at Pearl. She was standing close, her arms clenched tightly around her waist. She was shaking, shaking hard, and tears glistened in her eyes. But her voice was firm and steady.

Craig reached out a hand as though he were going to clasp Pearl’s shoulder, but it fell away before he touched her. He spoke to Carly, and his voice was full of compassion but firm. “We need to get as far away from this base as we can. When that grenade blows the propane . . .”

She stared desperately at the building, trying to figure out any way she could change this situation. Anything to make the outcome different.

“You know he’s doing the right thing,” Craig said. “He’s trying to save us. All of us. All of humankind that’s left. That’s . . . that’s something pretty heroic.”

“Craig, no offense, but that doesn’t really fucking help right now,” Carly said.

“I know, but maybe it will . . . someday.”

Someday, when she was facing her long widow’s nights. Trying to give herself the cold comfort that her husband had died for something noble. But he would still be dead.

She closed her eyes. If he had the Infection, he was dead anyway. That’s what he had said. She tried to tell herself that maybe he was wrong, but they had seen it too many times. They knew the signs. And he didn’t have much time left.

As much as she wanted to walk into that building with him and be with him for every moment they could have left, she knew she couldn’t. Justin was right. They had a daughter, and Dagny had to come first. Dagny and the town, the little sliver of normalcy they had wanted to create for her.

She looked beyond Craig and saw Lewis’s troops behind him busily filling their trucks with their supplies, their gear—a long idling line of transport to nowhere. Twenty men and women.

“Get the rest of your shit,” Carly said, “and we’ll go home.”

“Home?” Craig asked.

“Colby.”

Justin was dreaming of Carly and the first time they’d made love. Frankly, it was the first time Justin had ever made love. He’d satisfied his physical urges before, but he had never had an emotional connection to his partners. It was almost a sacred experience as he removed Carly’s clothing, exposing her soft, creamy flesh to his hungry gaze.

She was so beautiful. Not because of some ephemeral fashion for feminine perfection. Justin had traveled the world and seen beautiful women of many races and cultures, but Carly was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Her body was small and thinner than it should have been, from being half-starved before he found her, but it was still the most beautiful body he had ever seen. Because it belonged to Carly, the woman who aroused emotions he never knew he had.

The only light was from their campfire outside, turned a soft red by the fabric of the tent. Carly lay back against their sleeping bags, her hair a caramel spill over the dark cloth. In their old life, he knew, she never would have looked twice at him, a scarred, broken-down ex-soldier, and he never would have guessed at the steel and fire beneath her soft, gentle exterior.