Shadows Have Gone (35 page)

Touching her was a gift, and as he looked at her, his heart swelled with a fierce joy unlike any he had ever known. He wanted to hug her tight but touch her everywhere at the same time, explore this beautiful gift while weeping at the sheer wonder of it all. He didn’t even know where to begin.

And then she touched him. Another gift, to feel her smooth, warm hand against his flesh. She didn’t seem to mind the scars or the ink. She touched him like she thought he was beautiful, too.

His heart pounded and his hands trembled because he wanted to ravage her and savor her at the same time. He was a little worried he might scare her with the intensity of his passion, but she was warm and inviting, her eyes filled with trust and slightly dazed with the intensity of her own emotions.

Her body fit his like it was made for him alone. She whispered his name, and he was lost. There was nothing like this. Nothing he had ever experienced.

He flipped over to position her body above his so he could still look at her while they were joined. He helped guide her into the rhythm, but it wasn’t just flesh that was joined. It seemed their entire beings were one at that moment, sharing a symbiotic rush of pleasure, working to heighten it for one another.

They climbed toward the peak together, and she was —

“Justin.”

He jerked awake and glared at Lewis. “You just ruined what was going to be a very good dream, so it better be worth it.”

Lewis struggled to sit up. “It’s time. I’m slipping. I can’t—I’m—”

“What time?” Justin mumbled. He pillowed his head with the arm that held the grenade.

“Time to go.” He reached into his boot and pulled out a small .32. He checked the load. “You never had a father, Justin. Someone to tell you bedtime stories. I’m going to tell you one now. One last story before the final sleep. Did you ever read the Bible, Justin?”

Justin blinked his bleary eyes. “Can’t say that I have, but I know the general plot.”

“There’s a story from the Bible I’d like to tell you. Once upon a time, there was a man named Noah.” He paused for a moment. “More than one man, actually, because one man alone could not build that giant ship.”

“Held two of every animal,” Justin murmured. He remembered that much at least from the Sunday school lessons a few foster mothers had taken him to. He laid the back of his arm over his eyes.

“Seven, actually. Seven of each clean animal and two of every unclean animal, but that’s beside the point.”

“Never figured you for a Bible reader.”

Lewis gave a small, rattling cough that sounded somewhat like a chuckle. “Nice to know I can still surprise you.

“Noah knew a flood was coming and it would wipe out all of humanity, anyone he couldn’t get on board his ship in time. Noah knew that no amount of pleading, no amount of human effort would stop the entity from releasing the flood. And so he used the time that was left to build his ship.

“Noah was a wise man. He did the math. He tried to figure out how many humans it would take to keep the species going. Some could build their own rafts, but it wouldn’t be enough without Noah’s intervention.” Lewis gave him a slight smile. “Noah was a fellow who tried to account for variables. The number who wouldn’t be able to handle the breakdown of human society after the flood. The number that would turn to predatory tactics and not focus on rebuilding. There would have to be enough to overcome those variables. There wasn’t much time. There was a race to see which side could get their . . . plans in order first. But Noah spent every waking moment in the interim trying to get as many human beings as he could onto that ship.

“He tried to get good people, the best people, the people the world would need, and after that, it was just numbers. Sending out the invitations as far and wide as possible, just to get as many as we could . . .”

He was drifting, Justin realized. Lewis didn’t realize he’d drifted into first person, and Justin wasn’t going to interrupt the flow.

“First it was the flu vaccine, and then I tried to get it added into any vaccine I could, but that was difficult. There are controls on that sort of thing for public protection, and you can’t penetrate those layers of protection without raising red flags, alerting people to what’s going on. Even the high brass has limitations. It had to be fast, and it had to be silent. I could do it through Baker-Lewis vaccinations, but—” Vomit spilled out of Lewis like he hadn’t had any warning it was coming up, and he bent over as he coughed and gagged in its wake.

Justin dragged himself over to the pallet of water and rolled a bottle over to him. In a few minutes, Lewis’s weak and shaky hand slapped around on the concrete floor until his fingers brushed it. He pawed at the lid until it more or less fell off, then guzzled the contents like a man who had crawled through the Sahara. They both knew it would come back up almost immediately, but the thirst was maddening.

When he began to speak again, it seemed Lewis’s mind had cleared, and he went back to his fictionalized story. “But in the end, it wasn’t enough. Noah’s ship, it seems, has leaks, and the flood has returned. I’m sorry about that, Justin. We considered the possibility the virus would mutate, but there was nothing we could do to prepare for it. I’m sorry. We tried. I want you to know that, here at the end of everything. I want you to know we tried.”

Lewis picked up the gun again. “I know you’ll never believe me, but I did everything I could.”

It wasn’t enough
, Justin thought, but he didn’t say it. “See you on the other side.”

Lewis looked like he was going to say something for a moment. His lips parted and he took a short breath, but then he shook his head. He put the muzzle of the .32 under his chin, and Justin looked away.

“They used to say that a king ‘turned his face to the wall’ before he died,” Kaden said.

They were pulling weeds in the garden. “Why’s that?” Justin asked as he broke up a clod of earth that had stuck to a root.

“Because they thought you should have privacy at that moment, I guess,” Kaden said. “Like how Caesar covered his face with his toga before he died. Well, he probably didn’t, you know. Being stabbed a couple of dozen times is kind of distracting. But that was their way of giving him dignity. Saying that his face was hidden at the moment of death.”

“Death doesn’t usually come with a lot of dignity.” Justin gave a soft snort and went back to pulling weeds.

No, it didn’t. But he would let Lewis turn his face to the wall.

The echo of the shot in the cinderblock and metal room hurt Justin’s ears. The smell of gunpowder and blood, a scent he knew all too well, singed his nose. One good thing about dying—he’d never have to smell that again.

The gun clattered to the floor next to Lewis’s body. Justin considered it for a moment but turned away. It would be over soon, anyway, and he’d prefer to go out dozing and dreaming of his Carly.

She was here, her golden caramel hair tumbling over her shoulders, framing her face and those warm brown eyes. She smiled at him, and it made all the aches and pains of his body vanish. Her cool hand stroked his forehead, and he sighed in bliss.

If there was an afterlife, he hoped to be able to watch over them. To protect Carly and see Dagny grow up. Oh, he hoped she took after her mother. The courage of a warrior, but a heart filled with compassion and a strong will to do what was right.

“I remember when you were too scared to come out of your apartment,” he said to Carly. “But I could tell you were a survivor.”

Carly laughed, and he closed his eyes, savoring the music of it. “No, you couldn’t. You were lonely, Justin. That’s why you lingered around Juneau, hoping to find someone.”

She was right. He had left his cell phone on the hood of a car, hoping someone would see it, and scanned the streets daily with his binoculars.

“I found you,” he said. “So maybe that fate stuff you’re always talking about is real, because I was destined to fall in love with you.”

“Yes, you were,” she said. He felt her soft lips brush his forehead. He inhaled her scent. Soft and warm, like amber vanilla. He hoped his last breath would carry that scent.

“I’d hoped we’d be old and sitting on the porch, bickering like Tom and Cynthia.”

“We will be.”

“No . . . grenade,” he reminded her.
 

“Our story doesn’t end here.”

“I’d like that.” He was so tired. She laid his head in her lap and ran her fingers through his hair. Those cool fingers, like a spring breeze, pulling away some of the fever that felt like it was frying his brain.

“Do you remember when you sang to me?” she asked.

“Every 80s love song I could remember.” He had bellowed them at the top of his lungs to make her laugh, despite the risk they’d be heard. He thought it was worth it.

“I’ll sing to you now,” she said, and he drifted off on the sound of her voice. Lulling him, soothing him. His angel. His love.

Carly.

Carly.

He felt himself fall limp, and the grenade rolled from his hand.

Carly.

Carly lugged two water buckets into the makeshift hospital. She was so exhausted she felt numb. Beyond numb. But the numbness protected her. She was a walking husk of herself. Empty of all but action.

Coughing was almost too much of an effort for her now, and the sounds just escaped in soft grunts. She blew her nose again so she could breathe. All the tissues were gone. They had to use cloth now, and she had a wad of bedsheet scraps in her apron pocket. She decided she was going to rescind the “wash and reuse” command she had decreed to Justin when she made him—

Justin.

The grief punched through her again. But she couldn’t let it slow her down. Maybe after this was over she would have time to break down as she needed to. If she survived. And sadly, survival was a terrifying prospect at this point. Surely fate would not be so cruel and leave her the last one standing, living on after seeing everything she cared about in the world die. Again.

She poured the water into the tub and picked up her baby daughter from the cot. She lowered Dagny into the cool water, though Dagny moaned and began to shiver. Her skin was burning hot. Carly balled up a towel behind her to hold up her head because Dagny was too weak to do it herself. Carly was getting to that point, too.

She used a plastic cup to pour water over Dagny while she crooned to her in an attempt to soothe her. Laura had dosed her with some herbs—the only medicines they had left—to try to reduce her fever, but it was useless. Carly knew from experience it was all useless. Still, she had to try.

She knew that soon she wouldn’t be able to help them at all. She was going downhill fast. She had to do as much as she could while she was still on her feet. Her eyes were bleary, and her arms trembled as she lifted Dagny from the tub and toweled her off to lay her in her cot. The baby was asleep. It might be Carly’s hopeful imagination, but she seemed a bit cooler.

She wished with all her heart Stacy hadn’t mislaid the thermometer. But maybe she didn’t want to know how high her daughter’s fever had gotten. Once the numbers passed a certain point, brain damage was inevitable, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know whether that line had been crossed.

If Dagny dies
 . . . Carly couldn’t even think of it. But it would be even worse if she lived and Carly did not. Carly had seen the hideous ways the Infected were exploited.

Carly kissed her and went to help Stacy, who was struggling to get Grady into bed. In the cot beside him, Pearl tossed and mumbled. The cool cloths they had laid on her had fallen off. Carly went to rinse them and laid them back over her.

It was all horribly familiar. Once before, she had watched a whole town die. This time, she was sick with them, dying with them. Maybe it was a mercy.

It’s really over
. That was what kept slamming into her in the few moments she could catch a thought. It was really over. The Infection had won, and soon humanity would be extinct. All of this—all the rebuilding—all of it for nothing. If she had time, she would scream and cry and curse the fate she had believed in. The Reverend, who had encouraged Carly in believing her fate nonsense, was himself lying fevered and retching.