“Let’s hope,” Mark repeated. He tightened the cloth mask around his face.
Alec gave him a stiff nod—professional again—and started up the hill. Mark pulled himself together, swearing to put emotions aside for now, and followed.
They’d just crested the hill when the source of the horrific smell came clearly into view.
So many bodies.
On the very outskirts of the village, there was a large, simple wooden structure originally meant to provide cover in a rainstorm, then, when more solid buildings were built, to store things temporarily. It had three walls and an open front. A thatched roof had been layered with mud to keep the inside as dry as possible. Everyone called it the Leaner because, despite being pretty sturdy, it looked like it was tilting down the slope of the mountain.
Someone had made the decision to put the dead in the Leaner.
Mark was horrified. He shouldn’t have been—he’d seen more dead people in the last year than a hundred morticians of the past would have seen in a lifetime. But it was shocking all the same.
There were at least twenty bodies, laid out side by side, filling the entire floor. Most of them had blood covering their faces—around the nose, mouth, eyes and ears. And judging from the color of their skin and the smell, all of them had been dead for a day or two. A quick scan revealed that Darnell wasn’t in the group. But Mark didn’t dare allow himself to hope. He pressed the cloth tighter to his nose and mouth and forced himself to look away from the carnage. There’d be no way he could eat anytime in the near future.
It didn’t seem to faze Alec quite as much. He was still staring at the bodies with a look more of frustration than disgust. Maybe he wanted to get in there, examine the bodies and try to figure out what was going on, but knew how foolish it would be.
“Let’s get into town,” Mark said. “Find our friends.”
“Okay” was Alec’s response.
The place was a ghost town. All dust and dry wood and hot air.
Not one person could be seen on the paths or in the alleys, but Mark kept catching glimpses of eyes peering out through windows and slats and cracks in the haphazard structures. He didn’t know everyone in their camp—not by a long shot—but he was sure someone had to have recognized him by now.
“Hey!” Alec shouted, startling him. “It’s Alec. Somebody come out here and tell us what’s happened since we left!”
A voice responded, slightly muffled, coming from somewhere up ahead. “Everyone’s been inside since the morning after that Berg came. The ones who helped the people who got shot … most of them got sick and died, too. Just took a little longer.”
“It was the darts,” Alec yelled in reply, making sure everyone within earshot could hear him. “It might be a virus. We got up in that Berg—crashed it about two days from here. We found a box of the darts they shot at us. They could very well have infected the people who got hit with … something.”
There were people murmuring now and whispers coming from inside the shelters, but no one answered Alec.
He turned to Mark. “Let’s be glad they were smart enough to hole up in their homes. If there is some kind of virus, maybe that kept the thing from spreading like wildfire. Who knows? If everyone’s been inside and no one else is sick, it could’ve died out with those poor saps in the Leaner.”
Mark gave him a doubtful look. “I sure hope you’re right.”
Footsteps cut Alec off before he could respond. They both turned to face the center of the village just in time to see Trina run around a corner, toward them. She was dirty and sweaty, her expression frantic. But her eyes lit up at the sight of Mark, and he knew that his did, too. She looked healthy, which filled him with relief. She was sprinting toward him and showing no intention of slowing down until Alec stopped her.
He stepped between her and Mark, holding both hands out. Trina skidded to a stop.
“Okay, kids,” Alec said. “Let’s be careful before we go around hugging each other. Can’t be too cautious.”
Mark expected Trina to argue a little, but she nodded, sucking in deep breaths. “Okay. I was just … I’m just so glad to see you guys here. But hurry, I need to show you something. Come on!” She waved her arms at them, then turned and ran back the way she’d come.
Mark and Alec followed without hesitation, sprinting through the main alley of the town. Mark heard gasps and whispers and saw fingers pointing out of the closed quarters they passed. After several minutes, Trina finally stopped in front of a small shack that had been boarded up with three wooden slats nailed across the door.
From the outside.
Someone had been imprisoned.
And that someone was screaming.
CHAPTER 11
The screams barely sounded human.
Trina jumped back a couple of steps when she reached the boarded-up shack, then turned to face Mark and Alec. Tears were leaking from her eyes, and as she stood there taking deep breaths, Mark thought he’d never seen someone look so incredibly sad. Even after all the end-of-the-world crap they’d been through.
“I know it’s terrible,” she said over the screams of the prisoner. Mark could tell it was a man or boy but had no idea whether it was someone he knew. The sounds were terrifying. “But he made us do it. Said he’d slit his wrists if we didn’t. And it’s just gotten worse and worse since. We don’t know why he didn’t just die like the others. But Lana made sure from the get-go that we were careful. She was worried that there was a chance something contagious was loose. As soon as more people started getting sick, she quarantined him. It happened fast.”
Mark was stunned. He opened his mouth to ask a question but shut it. He thought he knew the answer.
Alec said it for him. “It’s Darnell in there, isn’t it.”
Trina nodded, and a fresh wave of tears poured down her face. Mark wanted nothing else but to hug her, hold her for the rest of the day and night. But all he had were his words now.
“It’s okay, Trina. It’s okay. You both did the right thing. Like Lana said, Darnell knew they might’ve infected him with something. We all need to be careful until we know whatever this thing is has stopped spreading.”
Fresh screams erupted from the hut, seeping through the cracks. It sounded like Darnell was tearing his throat apart and Mark wanted nothing more than to cover his ears.
“My head!”
Mark turned sharply, eyeing the hut. It was the first time Darnell had used actual words. Mark couldn’t help himself; he hurried over to a boarded-up window with a gap about two inches wide running across the middle.
“Mark!” Alec yelled. “Get back here!”“It’s fine!” Mark replied. “I’m not gonna touch anything.”
“I won’t be a bit happy if you catch some nasty disease. Not a bit.”
Mark tried to give him a reassuring look. “I just want to see my friend.” He pressed the cloth tightly against his nose and raised his eyebrows dramatically at Alec.
The man grunted and looked away. But Trina was staring him down, obviously torn between stopping Mark and joining him.
“Just stay there,” he called to her before she could make a move. His voice was muffled through the mask, but she heard him clearly enough. She gave a slight nod; then her gaze fell to the ground.
Mark faced the gap between the two boards of the window. The screaming had stopped inside, but he could hear Darnell whimpering softly now, moaning those same two words every few seconds.
“My head, my head, my head.”
Mark took another step forward, then another. The slit was just a few inches from his face now. He cinched the strip of cloth behind his neck, making sure his mouth and nose were entirely covered. Then he leaned forward and peeked in.
Broken beams of the fading sunlight arrowed across the dirt floor, but it was mostly dark. He saw Darnell’s feet and legs in one spot of light, tucked up tightly to his body, but his face was hidden. He had his head buried in his arms, by the looks of it.
Still the whimpering and the muttering. And he was shivering from top to bottom, as if he were caught outside in a blizzard.
“Darnell?” Mark asked. “Hey … it’s Mark. I know you’ve been put through the wringer, man. I’m … I’m really sorry.… Hey, we got the suckers who did this to you. Crashed their Berg and everything.”
His friend didn’t respond, just lay there, half in shadow, shaking and moaning. Muttering those two words.
“My head, my head, my head.”
Mark’s insides plummeted to some dark place and he felt hollow inside. He’d seen so much of terror and death, but looking at his friend, suffering alone … it killed Mark. Especially because it was so pointless. Needless. Why would someone do this to others after all the hell that happened to the world? Weren’t things bad enough?
A sudden rage came over him. Mark punched the rough wood of the shack, bloodying his knuckles. He hoped somebody paid for all this one day.
“Darnell?” Mark called again. He had to say something, make it better. “Maybe … maybe you’re stronger than the others—that’s why you haven’t died. Just hang tough, man. Wait it out. You’ll …” Empty words. That was what it felt like. As if he were lying to his friend.
“Anyway, the sergeant and I, Trina, Lana, whoever—we’re gonna make it right, somehow. You just—”
Darnell’s body suddenly stiffened, his legs shooting straight out and his arms going rigid at his sides. Another scream, worse than before, erupted from his ravaged throat—it came out sounding like the roar of an enraged animal. Mark jumped back in surprise but quickly leaned in again, his eye as close as possible to the opening without touching it. Darnell had rolled out into the middle of the floor, his face now in full view under a shaft of sunlight as he shook and shook.
Blood covered his forehead, his cheeks, his chin, his neck. Matted his hair. It was seeping from his eyes and ears, dripping off his lips. The boy finally got control of his arms and pressed them against the sides of his head, twisting this way and that as if he were trying to screw the thing right off his neck. And the screams kept coming, broken up by the only two words he seemed to know.
“My head! My head! My head!”
“Darnell,” Mark whispered, knowing there was no way he could talk to his friend now. And despite how guilty and sick it made him feel, Mark also knew he couldn’t possibly go in there to try and help. It would be beyond stupid.
“My heeeeeeaaaaaad!” Darnell shouted in one long, drawn-out wail of such ferocity that Mark stepped back again. He didn’t know if he could bear to look anymore.
There was the sound of movement inside, the shuffling of feet. Then a loud thunk against the door. Then another. And another.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Mark closed his eyes. He knew what that horrible sound was. Trina was suddenly there, pulling him into her arms, squeezing him tightly as she shook with sobs. Alec protested but only halfheartedly. It was too late now.
There were a few more thunks, and then a last, long, piercing scream that ended in a wet, gurgly burst. After that, Mark heard Darnell slump to the floor with an exhale of breath.
He was ashamed of himself, but all Mark felt in that quiet moment was relief that the ordeal had finally ended. And that it hadn’t been Trina.
CHAPTER 12
Mark had never thought of Alec as a gentle man. Not even remotely. But when the soldier walked over and separated Mark from Trina, he did it with a warm look on his face. Then he spoke.
“I know we’ve been through a lot together.” Alec flicked his eyes over at the shack where Darnell was. “But that might’ve been the worst yet, hearing what we just heard.” The man paused for a moment before he continued. “We can’t give up now, though. From day one we’ve been about living.”
Mark nodded and looked at Trina.
She wiped a tear away, giving Alec a cold look. “I’m kinda sick of surviving. At least Darnell is done with this world.”
In all the years Mark had known her, she had never sounded so angry.
“Don’t talk like that,” he said. “I know for a fact you don’t mean that.”
Her gaze swept to him and softened. “When will it end? We survive months of the sun beating the tar out of the planet, find a place where we can build shelter, find food. A few days ago we were laughing! And then guys come in a Berg and shoot us with darts and people die? What is this, some kind of joke? Is someone up there laughing at us, playing us like some kind of virtgame?”
Her voice cracked and she started crying again, covering her face with her hands as she sat down on the hard-packed earth, her legs crossed under her. Her shoulders shook with her silent sobs.
Mark looked at Alec, whose eyes narrowed back at him as if to say, She’s your friend—say something.
“Trina?” Mark said quietly. He walked over and knelt behind her, then reached out and squeezed her shoulders. “I know—just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse. I’m sorry.” He knew better than to make things seem less terrible than they actually were. That was a pointless trick they’d all promised to stop a long time ago.
“But I promise we’ll stay together on all this,” he continued. “And we’ll do everything we can not to catch whatever it was that killed Darnell and the others. But if we’re going to do that …” He rubbed her back and looked up at Alec for help.
“Then we need to be vigilant,” the man said. “We need to be cautious and smart and ruthless if it comes to that.”
Mark knew it might be foolish to be touching Trina. But he didn’t care. If Trina died, he seriously didn’t know if he could keep going.