Between Life and Death Read online

Oh, we’ve gotten to the “whatever” stage already, have we? I think and suppress a grin.

  I check the wrist restraints once more and then pat the in-betweener on his dirty arm. “There you go, Mr. Stinky.”

  Gregory snorts and shakes his head at me and my familiarity with the in-betweeners. Not just with Tiny here, but with all of them. I don’t like these guys and I know that they’re dangerous, but they really are like confused infants in their own way. Only bloodthirsty infants with teeth. So, there’s that.

  “Quit screwing around,” Gregory warns me, pulling my hand away from the in-betweener. “What next?”

  I look over our two test subject selections. I’ve chosen the little guy, the one who came out when we set our trap on campus, because it sometimes seems like the wheels behind his eyes are turning just a little faster than the others. I’ve got nothing concrete like vocalizations or anything to base my judgement on. It’s just a hunch.

  And, as Gregory so bluntly pointed out while we were making our selections for the first two subjects, he’s also the only one whose digestive system isn’t working. Whatever makes that happen—or not happen, as the case may be—is a mystery, but one that must influence what will become of any in-betweener after a cure is found. It’s something none of us can live without working, so my bet is that they die, no matter how high-functioning they may be.

  The other subject is the best preserved of the group. He got a crossbow bolt to the heart and his color and energy level are most like Emily’s. His time dead must have been very brief and he’s been very well fed to maintain that vigor. He’s not verbal, but he’s incredibly vocal, and has an impressive keening roar. I’d like to punch him because he’s irritating me so bad with his noise.

  With both of our subjects relatively cleaned up, so that we can see their skin beneath the filmy crust of dirt and grease, and strapped to desktops more neatly, we can proceed.

  “You ready?” he asks, nodding toward the tray on which our newly mixed nanites rest in their gleaming vials. The charging medium is already inside the vials of machines and though it looks like nothing more than clear, clean water to me, it should be teeming with tiny machines, each one ready to do their work.

  I take a syringe and one of the vials, puff out a breath to calm my suddenly jittery nerves, and then fill the syringe. Gregory takes it from me with care and injects the bigger in-betweener, the one I call Alpha, in the big vein at the crook of his elbow. It’s the only really clean spot on him. We can’t afford to miss. He needs a perfect view of the spot he’s aiming for.

  When the plunger stops and all the fluid is inside Alpha, Gregory puts a gloved finger against the injection site, as if to keep any nanites from escaping their distasteful duty. Both of us stare at Alpha, not really knowing what to expect.

  Of course, nothing happens except more of his incredibly loud keening. The dude has a set of pipes on him, that’s for sure.

  “I know the report said that it would take a while, but this is weird, isn’t it? It feels weird,” I say, or rather, I babble. The truth is that I can’t take my eyes off of Alpha, even to fill the second syringe. I have this feeling something profound will happen the moment I look away. Gregory is looking at him the same way, so at least it’s not just me who’s transfixed.

  Finally, Gregory tears his gaze away and moves from Alpha to Tiny. “Let’s get the next one. We need to do them at the same time,” he says. Tiny is still making his drone-gnash-breathe noises, his eyes focusing on each of us in turn, the predatory look hard and tense.

  The noise increases when I turn to fill the second syringe, the pace of his cycle picking up. Instead of looking at Gregory, who is very close to him, he’s focused on me. His eyes are darting from me to my hands and his arms are jerking in his restraints. It sends a chill through me, because those actions convey a very clear message. He knows we’re doing something outside the norm and that we’re doing it to him.

  I think he might be afraid.

  I shake my head, trying to clear the conflicting feelings that come at these odd times. My hands jitter just enough to make the needle rattle against the edge of the vial. There’s no question that this was a bad man who did bad things. There’s also no question that he’s now a dangerous in-betweener that should be put down if not for our testing needs.

  But those are the only two things I know about him with any certainty. What situation made him join those other bad men? Was he bad or did he simply find himself in a situation in which he felt he couldn’t survive without the others and therefore, let himself be led into such bad acts? Who was he before the world died and became a blood-drenched hell?

  I jab the needle through the soft rubber center, shaking my head one more time to clear all those thoughts away. The hard truth I need to remember is that it doesn’t matter what he was before all this. He chose to throw in his lot with those others. For all I know, he could have been their leader, regardless of his size. These fine sensibilities—as Gregory and Matt call them—that constantly bring these twinges of conscience have no place here.

  Gregory injects Tiny just as carefully as he did the first one, but unlike Alpha, Tiny watches him as he does it. The droning and gnashing doesn’t stop, but it does slow as Tiny’s eyes follow the movement of the syringe.

  “Well, that was even weirder,” Gregory says as he steps back and hands me the empty syringe. “It sort of felt like he knew what was going on for a second.”

  I nod, watching Tiny. Whatever he may have noticed or understood doesn’t linger long in his thoughts. That glimmer of understanding fades and the predatory focus returns. He can’t move his head at all, given how tightly we’ve strapped him down, but that doesn’t stop his mouth or his eyes from moving. A gleaming strand of drool leaks out of his mouth and trails down the side of his face.

  The other three in-betweeners have pieces of fabric draped over their faces, the morning feeding already long over. They’re still noisy, but without something to focus on visually, it’s a vague and dissatisfied sort of hunger they have. Gregory shoots a look of distaste in their direction, grabs the tray, and walks out of the cage to stand by the door.

  He’s not leaving until I come out, and I know it. I’ve got the first watch on the subjects, but I have to do it from outside the cage. Over the clank of the chains I use to close and lock the door, I hear Emily stirring behind the partition.

  I settle down onto my chair, our carefully drawn charts ready for my pen to make marks that will signal the difference between life and death. Gregory will take the tray and its contents for boiling and disposal. There’s no way we’ll take any chances with contamination at this point. That leaves me to my book, my bottle of water, and a long watchful day that I hope will end the way I want it to.

  Gregory’s hand rests heavily on my shoulder for a moment, the little squeeze before he takes his hand away a supportive one. He doesn’t need to say anything more. I know.

  Twelve Weeks Ago - Small Stranger

  When I walk into the warehouse all I hear is the sound of someone having a serious puke. It echoes around the space so it’s almost like surround sound puking. Lovely.

  Savannah comes rushing in from the open bay door on the other side of the warehouse, a basin of water sloshing in her hands. She freezes for a tick when she sees me, her eyes darting toward the shadowed interior. There’s a look on her face like she’s just been caught doing something wrong.

  My first thought is for the kids, that one of them is sick, and I feel that same sense of panicky dread I feel when either of them gets any sort of illness. Will this be it? It’s the refrain in my head each time one of them so much as sneezes. I don’t want to think like that, but when there’s no doctor and what little medicine exists is scarce and very old, there’s no stopping those thoughts.

  But then I hear the weak sound of a woman groaning right after the puking sounds end. Then, “Ugh.” It’s Gloria’s voice. There’s some garbled noises I think might be words right after that, but
I don’t understand them.

  I’m not sure if it’s the guilty, but utterly unsurprised look on Savannah’s face, the casual misery Gloria’s grunts hold, or if the timing of things has finally settled into my brain, but whatever it is, it makes me understand what I’ve been left out of all these weeks.

  I blurt out, “She’s pregnant?”

  Savannah’s lips purse and her eyes narrow for a fleeting moment, then another small groan reaches us from the interior, quickly followed by the sounds of more vigorous puking.

  “Stay here,” she hisses and takes her sloshing bowl of water toward the sounds of sickness.

  I do, but mostly because I’m dumbstruck. Pregnant? It has to be that. Her wan look, her voracious—but very picky—appetite once the afternoon rolls around, the naps. Even the secrecy makes sense. How does one tell their compatriots that there’s a small stranger on the way and, oh, by the way, it’s the product of a horrible gang rape.

  “Crap on a stick,” I whisper, but no one could have heard me over the sounds of puking. Of that I’m sure.

  *****

  When Savannah comes back out, I’ve had plenty of time to absorb the shock, or at least absorb the initial jolt of it. It’s given me time enough to think of questions other than the obvious ones. Like asking how, which is really stupid because the answer to that question is pretty clear.

  The smell of sick wafts up from the bucket in her hands. She stalks past me to leave it by the open door when I wrinkle my nose at it. When she comes back, I can see that she’s tired, with dark bruised-looking circles under her eyes. Her hairline is edged in sweat and the short broken hairs everyone has near the forehead have wound themselves into tight curls from the humidity. Her dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail, but I can tell that it needs a wash badly.

  Suddenly, I feel rather selfish and small. I’ve spent much of the last few weeks pouting off and on, doing my duty, but not going out of my way to pick up the inevitable extras in the workload as I normally would. She’s been doing her own work and—if I’m honest with myself—probably some work that I would have otherwise done.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Savannah opens her mouth to defend against whatever diatribe she’s prepared herself to hear, her eyes already heavenward as if to ask for help from on high against teenagers and their angst. Then it clicks what I actually said and her mouth closes again.

  “Beg your pardon?” she asks.

  “I said, I’m sorry. I’m a total dick and I freely confess it and ask for your forgiveness,” I say in a hurry, because I’m pretty sure that the words will stick in my throat if I don’t, true or not.

  “Wow,” she says, considering me, her arms crossing over her chest and her body leaning on one hip. “A total dick, huh?”

  I did say that, yes, I did. I have to own it now.

  “It works. Saying I’m a total vagina doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

  She bursts out laughing at that, an honest laugh that’s full and unforced. It makes me feel good, even if it was witty only by accident. I laugh with her and the laugh passes back and forth between us for a few minutes, some look or thought sending her back into full-on laughter again.

  A couple of times, she splutter-laughs the words, “Veronica the vagina,” and leans over with tears in her eyes because she’s laughing so hard. I’m not at all interested in having that nickname, but it is pretty funny.

  When she finishes laughing, she wipes her eyes and says, “Oh, man, now I’ve got to pee.”

  “I’ll take the bucket and meet you at the cleaning station. Okay?” I ask, not at all deterred from our previous topic.

  That sobers her up and the smile drops from her face, though not completely. Still, the worry comes flooding back and I almost feel bad again for breaking her moment of peace. She nods and sighs.

  “Sure, kiddo. It’s probably time we talked,” she says, and then walks away without another word.

  I take the bucket and empty it into a trench we’ve dug on the far side of this cluster of buildings. The smell is horrendous now that summer is in full swing and I think it’s probably time for us to fill this one up a bit or dig a fresh one further down. At least the smell dies away as I leave the area and go back toward the warehouses. Luckily, we dug it downwind. That’s one mercy at least.

  After washing out the bucket with the gray water left over from laundry, I wait by the laundry hung across the area like lines of sun-faded banners. The air is cooled by the wet laundry and the smell of soap that lingers there is one of my favorite things. I like to stand between the lines and let the breeze blow the laundry back and forth while I stay still. If I close my eyes, I can dream of being near the ocean or the lake. It’s the closest I can get to that feeling. For one brief second, I hear the sounds of people laughing, smell the sunscreen, and feel the crash of the surf against the sand.

  Savannah’s voice saying my name breaks my daydream apart. I open my eyes to see her standing not more than four feet in front of me with a quizzical look. A towel hanging next to her snaps as the breeze picks up and it brushes across her. She looks at it, then at me and says, “So this is why you like it in here. What were you thinking of just now?”

  I’m a little embarrassed for some reason. It’s not like they don’t know I have these imaginings, but I don’t exactly advertise the specifics. I cough and answer, “The beach, or maybe the lake.”

  She tilts her head at that and closes her eyes. The shushing sound of the breeze through the sheets and towels, and the distant sound of one of the in-betweeners having a meltdown, is all there is for a moment. I even try to breathe quietly.

  When she opens her eyes, she smiles and says, “Yeah. I can see that. It’s nice.”

  I feel unaccountably good that she doesn’t think I’m a goober for my little dream and I smile back, relieved.

  Savannah looks around at the laundry, then says, “Let’s just sit here. At least the wet laundry makes it a bit cooler.”

  I agree and we do just that, sitting cross-legged in front of each other and surrounded by sheets grown thin and translucent from being washed too often, dismally stained smocks that we struggle to get onto Emily, and the endless towels that will never be rid of the reddish-brown stains of blood.

  After a moment of silence, during which I’m desperately trying to remember the smart questions I had lined up before, Savannah says, “Yes, she’s pregnant.” Her voice is weary and sad.

  “What is she going to do?” I ask.

  Savannah’s sharp glance up at me tells me she understands exactly what I’m asking, the warning in that glance clear. I’m not entirely sure what I’m being warned off of though. It’s a legitimate question.

  “What?” I prompt.

  A sigh escapes her, deep and tired. “I don’t know. I’m Catholic and so is Gloria, but I don’t think any pope thought about this situation when he made the rules.” She sounds bitter at that last bit, maybe even a little angry.

  I hate to be blunt, but my understanding of these things is limited to what I could get from the internet before there was no internet. And even then, I only searched for things after something made me have a question I wanted answers to, like a TV show or a rumor at school. That means my understanding of abortion is pretty much non-existent. Despite that, even I know that you need a doctor, maybe special equipment or a hospital or something.

  “Can you do that?” I ask her.

  Her brows draw together at my totally unclear question, but then her face clears and a grim expression replaces the confusion. “Uh, no. And I wouldn’t even try. Doing that is a good way to wind up bleeding to death. Besides, I think it’s way too late for that.”

  “Too late? How pregnant is she?”

  “You’re funny. She is entirely pregnant, that much I know,” Savannah says.

  “Ha ha, you know what I mean.”

  Another sigh. She says, “We don’t know. Not really. Probably between two and three months. There’s no way to tel
l, not given the conditions and situation. Either way, this winter there will be a baby if all goes well.”

  Goes well? That sounds like they’re anticipating a happy event, which I can’t imagine being true. A baby in this world? I was lucky with Jon and his natural silence, his inborn ability to respond to the tension around him with quiet instead of hysteria. How many babies will be that way?

  I suppose we’re lucky there are so few in-betweeners left and that the deaders are finally falling apart. Maybe there won’t be any flesh and blood seeking monsters to hear a baby. But then again, another monster always seems to show up just when I begin to think I’ve seen the last. It will be years until our world is clear, if it ever truly is.

  Savannah reaches out and taps me on the knee to get my attention, which has wandered as it so often does when I start thinking my gloomy thoughts.

  “Sorry,” I say. I hope my smile doesn’t look as fake as it is. “So, does this mean she’s happy?”

  Cringing a little at the word happy, Savannah looks up at the flapping cloth before answering, as if she’s trying to think of the right words. Finally, she says, “I wouldn’t say happy, no. But she’s accepting it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” I ask. I’m genuinely curious as to why something like this, which will become obvious in due course, was worth all the secrecy that so disturbed our little society.

  “I’m sorry about that, but the truth is that we weren’t at all sure it would take. The pregnancy, I mean. She went through a lot and her body was more than just a little run down. You saw how skinny she was when she got back, and that’s not even accounting for the infections, the trauma, or anything else. Women miscarry from a lot less than that.”

  “Oh,” I say. I pluck at a loose thread at the hem of my jeans, not sure what more I should say.

  Savannah pats my knee again and when I look up, she gives me an understanding sort of smile, like she knows that I’m clueless. “We’ll deal with things as they come, Veronica.”

  “Yeah, we always do,” I say. It’s true and it’s all we can do.