Famine: The Quiet Apocalypse Read online

  “What does God have to do with it? Dalen did this, not God.”

  As we pushed the cart toward the next room, I shook my head. “Not an actual god, I just meant someone who tries to gain a lot more power than any one person can have. Someone who thinks they have the right to control the lives of others.”

  “Oh.” She was silent for a moment. As we pulled the cart to a stop in front of the next room and I put my hand out to open the door, she fixed me with a sad gaze. “I’m glad you and Sam don’t play God. I don’t think we’d survive another person like Dalen.”

  “Yeah, but we weren’t trying to be in power either. It just kind of ended up that way, because we can go outside the bunker and we’re old enough everyone doesn’t think of us as children.”

  Zena hmphed and crossed her arms. “That’s for sure.”

  I managed a small smile. “Hey, don’t feel too bad. It’s not exactly fun having two hundred people wanting everything from you all the time.” I pushed the door open and stepped into the room, which was thankfully empty. “Score.”

  Zena poked her head in through the door, the beam of her flashlight half-blinding me. I held up the small suitcase for her to see. “Somebody was naughty.”

  “They were...having sex?”

  I laughed. “No, they snuck a bunch of stuff in.” I limped over to the bed and plunked the suitcase down. It was filled with snacks, from chips to jello cups. Someone had even wrapped up a bottle of liquor and buried it in the bottom of the case beneath a toiletry bag. I zipped it back up and let it down onto the floor, then hung my cane over my arm and grabbed the blanket before hobbling back out into the hallway with both hands full.

  7: Dave

  A few hours later, we were tired but triumphant as we returned to the bunker with a liberal gathering of medical supplies. Dr. Haroun was anxious, but either she was more like us than she thought, or her weird charcoal mask worked.

  We expected to return to a quiet, somnolent bunker where we’d have to rouse people out of bed to help us.

  Instead, when I left the rest of the group outside to find assistance and rest my leg, I walked into a dim common area filled with people, the crowd buzzing with tension bordering on panic and faint, flickering light casting huge shadows on the ceiling.

  For a moment I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Alan spotted me, and as he walked up to me, I raised my eyebrows in confusion. “What in the world is going on?”

  The tall, bearded man took my elbow in a firm, but gentle hand. “You have to see for yourself.” He guided me toward the tables in the center of the space as quickly as my uneven gait would allow. The crowd parted in front of us as we approached, until I could see what--or rather, who-- they were all gathered around.

  A candle in a hurricane glass threw dancing light on the rough, scraggly face of a man I didn’t recognize, sitting at the end of the table. When he turned to look up at me, my heart clenched in sympathy at the abject exhaustion and hopelessness in his eyes. He looked--and smelled--as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks. An empty bowl sat between his hands, and remnants of the stew inside it spotted his tangled beard.

  I didn’t take my eyes off of his face as I slid into the chair next to him. “Hello.”

  He nodded jerkily. “I...I’m sorry to bother ye, ma’am. I know resources is scarce and all. But the broadcast…” He trailed off and looked down at the empty bowl as if expecting more food to materialize.

  “Is that still going?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. I haven’t heard it for...gosh, maybe a month now. But I wrote down the address and the directions, and I knew if I just kept walkin’, I’d run out of road eventually. Now, I hear ye’s short on necessities, and I’m happy to help however I can. It’s just…” he trailed off and ran a hand over his beard. “Even with the country bein’ the way it is, I heard rumors, ya know? Even before the broadcast. Stories about a big black egg spewing out some godforsaken substance that got into everybody’s heads and made them go crazy.”

  I nodded. “It’s all true.”

  His features twist in an expression I can’t quite identify. “But, y’see, back when I was further up north, people, they used to laugh at the broadcast. Not because they didn’t believe about the egg, mind you, but because they knew the radio and the TV was wrong.”

  Something about the way he said this made a tiny cold trickle of apprehension trace its way down my spine. “They weren’t wrong. There is an egg here. I helped deactivate it. I’ve seen it.”

  The man looked down at the bowl between his hands. “That’s as may be, but rumor up north was the egg was actually in North Dakota, up near the Canada border. Town named Minot, if I remember correctly.”

  Behind me, the sound of boots on concrete approached, and I could hear Sam murmuring. Seconds later he emerged from the crowd and pulled out the chair next to me and sat down. “What’s going on?”

  By now I was having to fight for my speech capabilities. He must be mistaken. It was just a rumor. We know the egg was here, and Dalen made it. Unless… I swallowed back the rising panic. “He found us from the broadcast. He thinks…” I gaze at Sam, unable to suppress the pleading in my eyes. “He thinks there might be another egg.”

  ***

  I watched Alan carry the last tote full of supplies into the bunker, and turned to look at Sam and Dr. Haroun. For her to still be this calm, she must have been a little more resistant to the spores than she let on. She’d been out for hours, and still looked as calm as ever. She either really was that unflappable...or she was used to masking her feelings just like Sam, Zena, and I were.

  “What do we do now? If there’s another egg, if that’s what’s causing the spores to stay in the air, we have to shut it off.”

  Sam ran a weary hand over his face. “It’s worse than that.”

  “How? How can it be worse than that? How can it be worse than there being another killer device out there, like the one that destroyed most of the US?”

  “Because.” He sighed. “If there’s two…” he trailed off, and shook his head. “Well, that doesn’t matter now. If there’s another egg, we have to get to it and shut it off.”

  “I will do my best to keep everyone alive until then.” Dr. Haroun’s voice was quiet, and its slight tremble belied her calm exterior. “But you have to remember...it’s getting into winter now. That area of the country is going to be the kind of cold neither of you are used to. Which is more dangerous? Staying here, and only having the two of you to do most of our supply runs, or running off into the wilderness looking for something that may not exist?”

  “It’s not just us though.” I could almost see the wheels turning in Sam’s head as he spoke. “There are other people out there. What did that man say...he’s heard rumors. That means he’s spoken to others. It’s not just us who will suffer if the spores are still being released.”

  “Why?” I jumped a little when Zena’s voice drifted over my shoulder. “Why are the spores affecting us here, if the egg is east of us?”

  I furrowed my eyebrows at her. “What do you mean?”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “I mean, weather generally moves west to east. If the spores from that egg are reaching us here…” when she realized we were all looking at her, she stopped talking and shrugged.

  “No, keep going.” Sam urged.

  The teen’s eyes met Sam’s and she took a breath.

  “It means either there’s more than one, or the spores have spread all over the world.”

  My stomach twisted. The whole world… I’d never stopped to think about that. “Do you really think the whole world is dead?”

  Sam looked at me like he couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. “Considering nobody has shown up to help us, I’d say it’s highly likely.”

  Well, pardon me for being too caught up in surviving to wonder about other countries. Irritated, I crossed my arms and stared off into the darkness. I wiggled my toes to get Honey Badger, who was sitting on my
foot, to move. She didn’t budge. Figures. Even the damn dog doesn’t want to listen to me right now.

  Dr. Haroun sighed. “Look, it’s nearly three in the morning. Why don’t you both get some rest, and you can make plans when the sun comes up. There’s nothing to be gained by running off into the night.”

  As much as I wanted to solve the issue right then, she was correct. Zena was half asleep on her feet, and my head was muddy with fatigue. Sam nodded, and I gave the dog a bigger shove to make her get off my foot. Zena walked next to me as I limped across the concrete and toward the door. She opened the door and waited until the rest of us walked through. Then she trotted past us down the ramp, and stopped to wait. When I walked past her, she grabbed my arm.

  “What about me?”

  I blinked at her in exhaustion. “What about you what?”

  “I have to come with you.”

  “Zena...we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “Deidre, you can’t leave me here alone.”

  I put my hand over hers where it lay on my arm. “You aren’t alone. There’s lots of other people here.”

  Tears shone in her dark eyes as she gazed at me. I might be the only one who knew how much effort it cost her to look me in the eye, and what it meant for her state of mind. “Please. The rest of them just tolerate me. You’re the only one who’s nice to me. You’re the only one who makes me feel like I’m any good at anything beside scrubbing the tanks.”

  The weight of her despair came crashing down on me, and tears burned behind my own eyes. I thought of all the times I’d rolled my eyes at her childish antics, the moments when I’d snapped at her for asking questions I didn’t have time for. If she saw me as the one who treated her the best, what did that say about what she endured around others?

  “I know, hun. We’ll talk about it in the morning, okay? I promise.”

  Though reluctantly, she nodded, and I stood still for a moment as she walked away. Sam caught my eye from where he was standing in the doorway. As I walked up to him, he murmured in my ear: “You know she can’t come, right?”

  Anger flared in me, and I glared up at him. “Why not?”

  “She’s just a child, Deidre. She still has family here. Do you want to be responsible for what happens to her? What if she dies? Do you want that on your head?”

  “She could die here, too, you know.” I set out toward my tent, the tip of my cane clicking on the floor as counterpoint to my steps.

  When I ducked into the tent and lowered my aching body onto the cot, Sam sat down beside me. Honey Badger slunk in behind us and crept beneath the cot. “Where we’re going, Deidre...Dr. Haroun was wrong about one thing. I’ve been up north. I know exactly how cold it gets. We’ll be lucky to make it back alive without a teenager slowing us down.”

  I laughed bitterly and straightened my injured leg. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be slowing you down more than she would.”

  “This isn’t about physical capability, it’s about common sense. We can’t afford mistakes. You may move slow, but you won’t end up getting us killed because you trip over your own feet and spill all our water, or scream and make one of us crash the car or something.”

  “You know as well as I do that Zena’s no more a liability than I am.” I glared at him, daring him to say it. “This isn’t about capability, it’s about who you like more.”

  “So what if it is?” His normally gentle eyes darkened. “Being able to get along is important too, Deidre, especially when it’s someone you’re stuck with, alone, for weeks on end.”

  “So basically you just don’t like her as much as me.”

  He let out a disbelieving laugh. “I mean, I’d be a pretty big pervert if I did.”

  The thought startled me out of my mounting anger, and I groaned. “You know what I meant.”

  “Look. Regardless of my feelings, or lack of, toward each of you, you can’t deny you’re going to be more help finding the egg and disabling it than Zena is.”

  I was too tired to keep fighting with him, so I admitted defeat by letting my head fall on his shoulder. “I don’t want to leave her behind. They aren’t kind to her, Sam. I know what it feels like to be all alone while surrounded by people. I wouldn’t wish that feeling on my worst enemy, let alone a girl who just wants to be accepted for who she is.”

  “Then let’s go out and get this thing done as quick as we can, so we can come back and she never has to be alone again.”

  Despite myself, my eyes were starting to drift closed. “But what if that man was wrong? Or what if there’s other eggs?”

  “We can only disable one at a time. Let’s focus on the one. Then if there’s another, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Okay.”

  Sam turned so his back was against the wall and I scooted up until he could put his arm around me and cradle me against his side. He pulled the tie from the end of my braid and ran his fingers through the mass of red curls, stopping to gently work through any tangles.

  That was the last thing I remembered before I woke to pale early sunlight and somebody--or several somebodies--screaming about a rabid animal.

  8: To Go or Not to Go

  When I emerged from the tent and blinked in the light, I sighed. I turned to Sam, who ducked through the opening behind me. “She’s your dog.”

  “Since when?”

  I lifted an eyebrow at him before returning my gaze to Honey Badger, who had a slice of pilfered toast in her mouth and was running around the bunker’s common area at top speed trying to evade her pursuers. “Since you walked off into a dark corner and gave it food and it followed you home.”

  Sam grumbled, but headed off in the direction of the tables. I patted his shoulder as he passed, unable to summon the slightest bit of sympathy for him. This is what you get for bringing strays home. He could deal with the ire of the bunker’s inhabitants. After all, soon we’d be leaving on a trip we might very well not come back from. Might as well take the damn dog. It’s not like they’d take care of her or feed her. I knew their tolerance of her would soon come to an end even if we didn’t go.

  I ducked back inside the tent to get my cane, then headed for the bathroom. If we had to go, it only made sense to grab the last shower I was likely to have for the next few weeks.

  As I limped across the concrete and dodged the crowd, I glanced at the people around me and wondered why I wasn’t a sobbing mess. I should be. I was the one who used to dread leaving the house to get groceries, the one whose anxiety kept me from making friends. Here I was now, hardly able to summon any feelings at all.

  It’s like the bigger the danger gets, the less I can feel it. I stepped into the bathroom and took the shower stall on the far end so I wouldn’t have to deal with anybody walking past me. Once I’d set my cane to lean against the corner of the wall, I stepped into the cubicle, fished my tokens out of my pocket, and stripped out of my clothes.

  Remember your first time here? Remember that feeling of being clean after weeks of dirt? Kiera braided your hair and you got to see yourself after losing weight. Remember how a little bit of hot water and soap so completely changed your worldview? As I stood beneath the spray of water that was more lukewarm than actually hot, I tried to recapture that feeling. I tried to remember what it felt like to have my world rocked by something so simple.

  But the harder I tried, the more it slipped away from me. Oh, I could remember the events. I could visualize the whole sequence as if it happened yesterday. But no matter how hard I grasped at those images and tried to squeeze some feeling out of them, the terrible sense of heavy, muffling numbness refused to budge.

  What am I becoming? Am I turning into a psychopath like Dalen? Am I going to wake up one day and decide I’d rather have control over these people than help them? Is this really all it takes to turn someone bad?

  No, it couldn’t be. I still knew my duty to the community. I knew I had to help Sam search for the other egg. The rational part of my mind railed at me fo
r accepting the word of a stranger so easily, but I think we all knew an an instinctive level that he was right. We believed his words because they confirmed our fears and suspicions. They were the last piece to a puzzle we’d spent weeks trying to solve.

  We’ll never find it. North Dakota is a huge place, heck, even knowing what city the egg might be close to still gives us a huge search area.. That is, if we even have any way to tell where the city is. For all we know, we could keep wandering off into the wilds of Canada forever. There’s no GPS to tell us we’ve gone too far or what exit to take.