Authors: Better Hero Army
Two
Penelope turned
the volume up again in an effort to break the silence. A still image of the Senator being helped out of the helicopter after the crash filled the screen as the woman’s voice continued describing the events.
“
—losing the signal shortly after the fire, which appears to have consumed the camera. Several of the survivors had cell phones, but Midamerica is too far from the nearest working tower to be of any use.”
“Yup,” Tom said to the television. “And that’s just great, Dad. You left your goddamned pack in the chopper,” he added, stabbing the television screen with his finger, pointing at a black sack hanging above the crooked seats behind where the two men
had helped the Senator up.
Tom looked at Penelope and held up his phone. “Dad’s satellite phone was in the pack,” Tom explained irritably. “Probably his inhibitors, too.”
Penelope knew the word. Inhibitors were the pills or injections that kept people from becoming a zombie after being bitten. The pills didn’t always work. She had seen a woman turn even though they gave her inhibitors. Penelope didn’t need inhibitors, though, because she was immune, or more precisely, she was already one of them.
It was
after the helicopters left her for the last time that she learned what she had become. After running from the chopper, she felt so tired. It was easy to fall asleep, and when she woke, it was to the sudden pain of a zombie’s mouth clamping down on her forearm. She fought it off, beating it with a bone she found while rolling over the mangy thing as it tried to suck the life out of her, drinking her blood like some vampire. It gurgled its pleasure even as she hacked at its skull, pounding it fiercely until its soft brains oozed from the fissure she crushed into it. Her wound took months to heal, but she didn’t turn. She couldn’t be turned twice.
T
he others saved her, cared for her, taught her. Half-breeds like herself, left to die by the helicopters that sometimes came in the early hours just after the sun rose. Men—
real
men—came and hunted whole zombies to take away. From time to time, they left the ones that had been changed into half-breeds.
Penelope hated helicopters.
The television still droned in the background.
“
—guards who were with the Senator are believed to be what’s known as ‘
handlers
’. Their job is to manage hyper-max subjects as part of the routine operations on the EPS, so they’re experts in survival inside the Quarantine Zone.”
Hyper-max. Penelope knew that word too. It meant zombies. Tom
explained maxillofacial pathology to her once, and how it became the buzz word when the Consumption Pathogen first reared its ugly head ten years ago. Back then, the spread of the disease was linked to plaque on the teeth. It took nearly a year for scientists to realize the plaque absorbed the pathogen, which was why it was found there in such abundance. In the meantime, hyper-max came to mean anyone infected with the Consumption Pathogen, and more recently, it meant zombies that still had salivary glands. As it turned out, salivary glands were what produced the disease. Catching zombies to remove their glands had become a lucrative business.
“—
and gives the Senator and the others an excellent chance of finding safety to wait out the storm. Normally, rescue crews would be dispatched by air, but visibility in the area, as well as high winds, are preventing an aerial search. Making matters worse, quarantine laws forbid ground crews from entering the region, but even if they were permitted, being as close to such high-concentrations of hyper-max colonies as they are, ground crews wouldn’t be very effective, either. To help explain all this, we’ve invited retired hunter Marcus Holden to join us, whose book, ‘
I Sold Your Son
’, is a New York Times Bestseller. Mr. Holden is most well-known for his appearance in the Academy Award Nominated documentary
Bitten Twice: Hyper-Max in Everyday America
. Mr. Holden, welcome.”
“Thank you for having—”
“Can you turn that shit down?” Tom asked, waving his hand toward the television.
Penelope pressed the remote control button and the voices went away.
Tom fell into the chair beside her, letting his breath out slowly. He dropped the phone into his lap and closed his eyes, letting his whole body go limp. He looked exhausted.
Penelope touched his arm with her hand. He flinched, his eyes widened, and his head snapped in her direction.
She had seen his unguarded side before, the softness with which his eyes treated her when they were alone, or his touch when he held her after one of her nightmares. The fierceness, however, only started to manifest when his father came to the EPS two days ago. For a second, she didn’t recognize him.
“Why?” she huffed, clenching her fist and making a circle around her chin.
Why are you so angry
, she asked with her rudimentary sign language?
“I don’t know,”
Tom said with a resigned sigh, closing his eyes while leaning his head back. “He’s my father.” He let the silence hang in the air a moment, then placed his other hand over hers.
The phone in his lap chirped loudly, then rang a pulsing, irritating noise. Tom and Penelope both leapt in their seats.
Tom swore as he fished for the phone from between his legs. He held it to look at the indicator as it annoyingly sang its pulsing chime. His brow furrowed as he pressed the answer button, silencing the alarming tone. “Hello?” he answered. “Gary? Why isn’t your number listed?”
Penelope remembered Gary, Tom’s
older brother. He had been there on the day they were rescued. Of the two brothers, Gary looked most like the Senator. Penelope hardly noticed a resemblance between Tom and his father.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Tom said into the phone. “I already tried to get through to him. No. Gary, hang on. Gary, would you listen to me? His phone was in the chopper.”
Tom shook his head as his brother’s muffled voice came through the receiver.
“He doesn’t have it on him,” Tom explained tiredly. “No, there
are no choppers here. I can’t get anything. I can’t even get the ferry to come over until tomorrow. I’m stuck here. No! They don’t know who the hell I am. My ID is under Mom’s last name, remember? Look, I can’t do shit. I tried that. I tried that, too. Gary, I tried everything. No one here’s qualified to—”
Tom turned to Penelope, a
queer look on his face, a half-smile rising.
“
Wait,” Tom said. “Gary, would you shut up and listen? I think I’m getting an idea. I’ll call you back.”
Tom pressed a button on the phone and smiled.
“Penny, how do you feel about going for a little ride?”
Three
Tom ushered Penelope from the
ir apartment so quickly that neither of them brought shoes or a jacket, or even a gun. Penelope followed Tom as he hurried down the hall. He knocked softly on the door to another apartment. There was no answer at first. Tom knocked again.
“Who is it?”
Penelope recognized Hank’s voice through the door.
“Are you watching any of this?” Tom asked.
The deadbolt clacked and Hank pulled the door open. At first, only his thick eyebrows, short hair, and gray and brown beard appeared, his eyes looking past Tom and Penelope up the hall. Penelope was relieved to see a friendly face, someone besides Tom, who she knew and trusted. Unfortunately, Hank wasn’t in a position to be supportive. He was too nervous himself. Right now, no one on the EPS besides Tom and Penelope knew he was here, and for his own safety, it was better that it stayed that way.
“Come on
in,” Hank said, pulling the door open all the way and nodding over his shoulder. Tom and Penelope stepped past Hank quickly. Hank looked up and down the hallway suspiciously, then closed the door and bolted it again.
Hank’s apartment was much smaller than their own because it was
an interior room meant for short stays on the EPS. Two small beds took up most of the floor in the same room as a dresser, kitchenette, table and chairs. The bathroom was beyond everything in the back, with closets against the wall. Hank didn’t live here by himself—he didn’t live here at all, really. Tom put him up in the room a few days ago when Hank arrived, with a soldier and a doctor. All three were survivors of the Rock Island destruction the previous week, and all three were wanted in connection with the incident, but Tom owed Hank his life and didn’t believe for a second Hank had anything to do with it.
The soldier
, a sturdy looking man named Mason Jones, sat at the edge of one of the beds. He casually slid a pistol into its holster and put it down beside him. The red-headed woman, Doctor Wendy O’Farrell, stood up from behind the same bed and sat down with her back against the headboard. Both paid more attention to the television than they did Tom or Penelope.
The few times Penelope saw them,
O’Farrell and Jones acted like siblings, or lovers. Here they were again, sitting together on the bed, sharing their space so comfortably. It confused Penelope given what she knew of their story. The two met only six days ago when Jones had been brought into the research laboratory under Biter’s Island’s prison after being bitten. O’Farrell helped to cure him. Then things went horribly wrong when two half-breeds managed to escape, which set off a chain reaction of events ultimately resulting in the destruction of Biter’s Island.
The incident was entirely too similar to what happened at Biter’s Hill the previous month, when Tom c
ame to look for his sister. That’s where Penelope met Tom. He didn’t seem like anyone special when he first stopped in front of her cage to stare in at her like everyone else did. She paid him hardly any attention at all until he flashed his sister’s picture. It was a face she knew intimately. She cared for the girl in the picture for years before Peske came along and took Penelope from Midamerica.
It was only dumb luck that put Tom in
Peske’s duck after the Hill was destroyed, but Tom made the best of his opportunity. He managed to get them to drive to Midamerica on their way toward Biter’s Island so he could look for his sister. He managed to buy Penelope from Peske. And he managed to save them all by calling in rescue helicopters.
It’s also where Tom met Hank, and where Hank saved his life.
Hank settled onto the other bed and stared at the television, witnessing the same footage Penelope and Tom were watching in their apartment.
“What the hell is going on, kid?”
“He left a few hours ago,” Tom said, guiding Penelope past the television. He leaned against the wall next to the bathroom door, letting Penelope’s hand go. She sank into a chair under a floor lamp, trying to hide from everyone.
“What the hell for?” Hank asked.
Tom pinched between his closed eyes. “You were gone the night I made the deal with Peske,” Tom replied. “You took some of the other survivors for fuel, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember everything about that trip, kid. What deal?”
“The reason I wanted to go to Midamerica in the first place was to find my sister. She was turned when she was eight, and Penelope knew where she was.”
“Penelope?”
Hank asked with surprise.
She dropped her head to avoid his eyes, lifting her knees to her chest, looking at her bare feet. She hadn’t even put on
socks when Tom dragged her from the apartment to come here. The cuffs of her pants rose above her ankles, exposing the bluish-black marks, the tattoos of her numbers. She put her hands over the numbers to hide them.
“She didn’t know
,” Tom said. “She recognized my sister from a picture I carried, so I thought—”
“You thought you’d use us to get your sister back,” Hank growled. He turned off the television as he stood. “And now your father’s gone off trying to find her himself, is that it?”
“Pretty much,” Tom admitted.
“What made him think he’d find her?”
“Wait,” Doctor O’Farrell interrupted. “Your father’s the Senator?”
Tom nodded.
“So why did he go?” Hank demanded.
“Because we found her the last time,” Tom said with a heavy sigh.
“I don’t get it,” Hank replied, the gruff tone of his voice replaced with curiosity. “I was there with you. You came home with
her
,” he said, pointing at Penelope.
“I left my sister to save Penelope,” Tom replied sharply. “To save myself. I couldn’t…I wasn’t
able…I wasn’t strong enough to carry them both. There were too many half-breeds.”
“Half-breeds?” O’Farrell asked. Even the soldier stared expectantly at Tom, waiting for an explanation.
Penelope’s heart throbbed. Now that she seemed human, she didn’t want people knowing what she really was anymore. The pills she took every day helped hide the fog in her eyes and cleared up a lot of her complexion—even her creamy skin had a glimmer of tan. She looked up at Tom, imploring him with her eyes to stop. She took one of Tom’s hands to gain his attention. He looked down at her with the assurance and strength she needed to see.
“There are a lot of half-breeds at
Midamerica,” Tom said.
“I know,” O’Farrell replied.
This surprised everyone. Tom looked suspiciously at the doctor. Penelope leaned forward to look past Tom at the red-headed woman. She stood up from the bed behind the soldier. “I’ve been working at Rock Island for over a year. For Eloran. You hear things,” she said defensively. “They used to just throw the old ones back instead of rehabilitate them, before they perfected the cure.”
“Jesus,
” Hank put in, lowering his gaze from Tom to look at Penelope with a little more scrutiny, and a hint of pity. He knew about her. He’d known her at Biter’s Hill.
“T
here’s quite a few half-breeds up there,” Tom went on. “Penelope and I found my sister and we were carrying her out when one of them attacked us. Penelope got hit on the head pretty hard. Knocked her out. I managed to fight it off, but there were others, so I took Penelope and ran. I left my sister to them.”
Tom wasn’t looking at anyone as he retold the events. Penelope knew there was more to it than that. She didn’t remember their struggle, but she knew half-breeds well enough to know Tom didn’t just manage to fight one off and run. He killed it somehow,
in a way that scared the others enough to leave him alone. He’d done something that he never talked about, but she knew by the look in his eyes some mornings that it still haunted him. It followed him into his waking thoughts like her own demons.
“How many others?” the doctor asked.
“A lot,” Tom replied.
“This is amazing,”
O’Farrell said excitedly. “Do you have any idea of the significance of it? I mean, excluding the very nature of their manifestation, the socio-cultural implications are astounding—”
“Calm down
, Wendy,” the soldier said. She glowered at him.
“Look, kid,” Hank
interrupted. “I don’t mean to belittle your concerns about your father or anything, but now that he’s gone, do you mind lifting my house arrest so I can go get us some fake IDs and get the hell off this station?”
“I want the duck,” Tom replied.
The mere mention of it struck Penelope as though he slapped her face.
Two days ago, Tom
drove Penelope out through the front gate of the EPS and into the old, abandoned town a mile down the road. Rusted out and abandoned cars lined the edges of the boulevard. The buildings were typical of any small town, with some two stories, but mostly one-story store fronts, all with broken out front glass, some partially boarded up, a number of open shattered glass doors, twisted iron, and dark shadows within. It was known as the crab corridor because of its proximity to the EPS. Hunters could walk out in the evening, set traps, sleep safely in the EPS overnight, and check them in the morning, like crab fishermen on a pier. It meant there were hardly any biters within five miles of the EPS, so driving through town never concerned Tom, although Penelope wasn’t as confident. Even a whiff of zombie in the air could lead to the worst of outcomes.
“The gas station,” Tom said, pointing with his chin. He let the Subaru creep forward, toward the familiar sight of the duck.
Penelope gasped. She thought she would never see it again. Peske’s amphibious vehicle had been her home for years when they lived on Biter’s Hill. They slept on the duck every night, even in the safety of the Hill, her in her cage, him in a hammock. When he went on hunting expeditions, he took her too. Peske always said the duck was his second most valuable possession, just behind her.
The duck was
parked alongside the gas station pumps. Her old cage stood tall atop the deck, acting as center post for a torn canopy between the driver’s seat and the middle of the vehicle. The duck was outfitted for hunting with other cages that took up the remaining space on the back half of the deck.
Penelope’s heart beat hard and fast.
Leaning over the edge of the deck was the large, old slaver she recognized to be Hank. Hank watched them with a pair of binoculars. Tom waved through the windshield and Hank waved back, ushering them to come closer.
“It’s OK,” Tom said reassuringly. “You’re not going back.”
Tom parked the Subaru next to the duck and looked up at it through the windshield. The duck’s own windshield was shattered. Black charring scarred the outside of the big truck. A long, gaping hole tore down its entire left side. The right front tire leaned at an angle. And there were several small bullet holes dotting the bow.
“What the hell happened?” Tom wondered
aloud. He looked in every direction before turning off the car. Penelope looked too, out of habit, expecting zombies to be pouring out of the buildings.
It might have been better if that had happened. Instead, they met
Jones and O’Farrell, and learned what really happened at Biter’s Island. And now that they all sat together, safely inside the EPS, Penelope wished they had burned the duck to the ground instead of hiding it in the woods.
“The duck?
” Hank demanded, standing up from the bed. “What the hell for?”
“I’m going after my Dad,” Tom replied.
Penelope’s eyes bulged. She clenched Tom’s hand, but he didn’t respond to her. He stared at Hank.
“Kid,” Hank said plaintively.
“It’s a twenty-hour drive on a full tank,” Tom said to stave off any argument.
“The duck won’t get you there.”
“I’ve got to try something,” Tom snapped.
“Try sitting here and waiting for the storm to let up so they can send out some choppers.
You’ll never get there if you take the duck. That storm is too heavy. You’ll bog down on the roads. Hunters don’t go out in this weather, and the ones already out there dig in because they can’t get out.”
Penelope stood. She stepped in front of Tom to force him to look at her. Her eyes narrowed and she stomped one foot as she shook her head emphatically.
“Yeah, listen to Kitty,” Hank added. “She knows what she’s talking about.”
“
Penny,” Tom said to try to calm her, but she shook a finger in his face. “Penny, it’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
“No,” she managed to wheeze. “Bad.”
“I know it’s bad,” Tom replied. “You don’t have to come.”
She groaned in frustration and struck his chest with her fist. She thumped her own chest, then pointed back and forth between them
before locking her hooked fingers to say
together
. She had to go with him. She had no one else.
“Kid,” Hank said. “I’m not saying this is a good idea, or anything
, and there’s no way you’re getting to Midamerica on any road, but I know a guy who doesn’t need roads.”
“Planes and choppe
rs won’t be able to fly in the storm up there.”