Unfed (23 page)

Mum spots me as I come in; something makes me think she already knew I was on my way.

“Bobby,” she calls. “Are you feeling better?” She strides up to me and squeezes my arm. “Come and sit down. We can begin; we’re all here now.”

Oh, heck
. It’s like she’s going to announce which one of us is the murderer. I slip into a spot by Smitty on a mustard-colored couch.

“Thanks for your patience, everyone.” She stands in the middle of the lounge, like Scout Leader at the Friendship Circle. “This won’t take too long, and then we’ll feed you, I promise. All that running away must have made everyone very hungry.”

The joke falls flat. I die of embarrassment. Alice groans, and Smitty gives me a sympathetic smirk.

My mother continues, oblivious. “Please know you are safe here, and we are not at home to visitors.” She smiles. “Whether private or governmental. You may all stay here until such a time as we decide the safest course of action. Scotland is still cut off, but the rest of the UK remains unaffected. Parts of Northumbria have been deemed no-man’s-land, but England is ostensibly protected from the outbreak.” She pauses. “Your families are all safe. We took the liberty of checking on them as soon as we had your full identities.”

Alice starts to cry. Pete is laughing. I look at Smitty. He’s staring at the floor, nodding silently. I never stopped to think of their families before now, I was so caught up in my own familial drama.

“You will be able to contact them yourselves shortly.” My mother is pleased at how well that news has gone down. “We would hope that this situation would end soon, and we’ll expedite your return home safely as a priority, on confirmation of your long-term health.”

Smitty looks up. “Meaning you get to say when we go home, not us?”

My mother blinks. “Exactly. But that is as much for your own safety as anything.” She strides to the door leading down belowdecks. “Anyway, not to dwell on that — I think it’s time I introduced you, or rather
re
introduced you, to someone who can tell you a lot more than I.”

With that, she gives a short rap on the wooden door.

It opens, and Martha glides into the room.

I spring to my feet, not knowing whether to fight or fly. Martha seems to have that effect on me every time she enters a room.

Pete is jumping up and down beside me.

“What is going on?” he splutters. “At the hospital … we saw your ring in the blood on the floor.”

Martha sighs and smiles benevolently upon him. “I’m sorry if I gave you all a shock.”

How many more so-called dead people are going to turn up? At this rate my mother is going pull back a curtain and reveal my father, jammin’ with Elvis and Michael Jackson.

“Smitty,” my mother says, “this is Dr. Martha Wagner. No doubt the others told you that she was looking after them at the hospital?”

Smitty nods. “They did mention her, yeah.”

My mother gives him her warmest smile. “This is her facility. She is kindly hosting us here for … the duration.”

It’s Martha’s turn to beam at us. “I’m glad to have you all. Anna was my student back in her Cambridge days, and we have worked together for many years at Xanthro. She’s probably wished a few times since that
I hadn’t recruited her.” They both have a titter at this, like we’re at a jolly cocktail party.

“Wait … wait …” I’m still standing, and the words come out like a yelp. “You were at the hospital. You work for Xanthro. You told me my mother was dead. You abandoned us when the zoms got out, and let us nearly get eaten, shot, drowned, pecked to death by an Undead bird, and run into the ground by a Xanthro helicopter.” I look around me at all the others. “Am I the crazy one here?” I look at Martha again. “Doesn’t that make you the enemy?”

She holds her delicate hands up. “I owe you all a hundred apologies.” She turns to my mother. “And you, too, Anna.” She walks toward me with that hypnotic glide and holds out her hands to take mine. When I don’t respond, she sighs. “I told you your mother was dead to minimize the risk of them realizing you were her daughter. And I promise I didn’t abandon you. Initially I thought the situation was salvageable. When it became clear it wasn’t, I knew you’d all be safe in your rooms for a time. I worked on quickly destroying my links to your mother and securing the things I knew we needed to take with us to establish a fully workable division of Xanthro on this boat. Then I came to get you all, but by that time the corridors were awash with the infected, and soldiers, and you were nowhere to be seen —”

“Back up.” Smitty gets to his feet. “This boat is Xanthro? Did I just hear you right?”

“Of course.” She looks surprised. “This is one of our main facilities now. This ship houses the majority of our research on Osiris. Everything that was salvaged from the castle and from the hospital.”

“Are you serious?”

“This is utter bullshit!”

“I want to get off!”

We’re all on our feet now, each working our own little version of meltdown.

My mother steps up. “
Good
Xanthro, Bobby, the real Xanthro. The company that Martha and I both signed up to work for, not the people who launched the virus into the general population and traded lives for profit.” She takes me by the shoulders. “We work toward
the cure
. We don’t want anyone using what we created to do harm. We have to right the damage and make sure this never happens again.”

“Er, excuse me.” Pete raises a hand. “You are doing research on this boat, yes?”

Martha and my mother nod.

“Uh-huh,” Pete says. “This would involve live experiments?” He gives a wry smile. “Or should I say, Undead ones?”

“What?” I feel the panic rise again. “You have zoms on the boat?”

“A small group,” Martha says. “Around thirty individuals. Securely and humanely kept. They pose no danger whatsoever …”

“Right!” Alice walks to the glass door. “I want to get off this boat, and now, please.”

“There is absolutely no need for concern,” Martha says.

“That’s what you said last time!” Alice screams at her. One of the bodyguards walks up to her. “Don’t even think about laying a hand on me, you big bully!” she squeals.

“You all owe your lives to Martha,” my mother says quietly. “She coordinated the rescue from the bus, concealed Bobby’s true identity, and ensured as many of you weren’t infected as possible. After lines of communication went down completely, the knowledge that she was with you
was the biggest reassurance to me that you were all right.” She looks at me. “I knew she’d protect you while we were setting things up and facilitate your escape when the time was right.”

I stare at her. “But why bother with the coded messages? Why didn’t she just bust us out of there?”

My mother shakes her head. “It was safer for all of us if you left separately. Safer if no suspicion fell on Martha, and safer that she didn’t know where Smitty was.”

I sit, thoroughly shaken.

“Wow,” I say. “So, Martha. Out of that whole busload, you only managed to save four. Oh, pardon me — six including Mum and Smitty. You must be so proud.”

“Bobby!” my mum snaps at me.

“I wish I could have done more,” Martha says. “Saving five was not a good outcome.”

“Five?” Pete says.

“No.” I count round the room. “I’m including Mum and Smitty. She originally told us four survivors, but actually there were six.”

Russ shakes his head. “I was never on the bus.”

“What?” I say.

“Of course you were,” Alice says. “You’re just having a memory fart.”

I look at Mum. “What’s going on?”

Russ wrings his hands. “Can I tell them, Anna?”

Anna?!
Suddenly I feel even seasicker.

She smiles wryly at him. “I think you just have, Russ.”

“Oh, this is
good
,” Smitty drawls.

Russ looks sheepish. “I am, essentially, a plant.”

“Eh?” Alice says. “Like a tree?”

“I asked him to go in after you all, to aid Martha. He was your safe passage out of there,” Mum says. “He’s army trained, part of a small team that has been working with me sporadically since everything started to go wrong with Xanthro. Remember how I contacted you in the castle? That was through this team; they have been my backup.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa — rewind,” I say, turning to my mum. “You sent Russ in to protect us?”

She nods. “To help you escape. I managed to contact him after the crash, and within a few hours he was at the crash site, wandering about like he was one of the kids they missed the first time round. Martha made sure he was picked up.”

“How old are you?” Alice sounds appalled.

“Twenty-one.” Russ grins. “But my friends say I’ve got a baby face.”

“Oh. My. God.” Alice practically spits out her front teeth. I don’t know if she’s disgusted or thrilled.

“Bobby, I had taken your phone from you at the crash site, and had a few hours to get the coordinates and enter them on the phone’s memory,” Mum continues. “Russ managed to pass the phone to Martha, and she secreted it into your personal belongings at the hospital.”

I look at Russ. “You knew about the messages all along? What they meant?”

He makes a face. “No. Anna didn’t tell me that. Obviously I knew the phone was important, but I assumed she wanted you to have it so she could call you on it when we were clear.”

“And you knew Martha?” Pete says. “And that we were underground?” He shakes his head. “What a performance.”

“I knew a little,” says Russ. “But less than you might think. My role was to protect Bobby at all costs, and help her get out of there without
breaking my cover. But I had no contact with Anna. Once I was in place, I had no way of knowing what was going on outside.”

“And when did Grace come into all of this?” I can’t imagine the answer.

“She … was a risk.” Mum rubs her hands on her legs. “After the team helped me with transport for Smitty, I went to the castle. Grace was there, she was a mess. She’d hidden from Xanthro, and she had nowhere to go. I lost contact with Martha. I offered Grace an option: to go to the hospital and help you all get out. She still had security access codes from when we worked there. It was a huge risk for her, but I told her if she was successful in your safe return I’d shelter her from the bad factions within Xanthro. She knew they would have hunted her down and killed her otherwise.”

“Turns out they didn’t have to hunt far,” Pete says.

“Michael killed her,” Smitty tells my mother. “Bet you didn’t plan on him turning up.”

It’s Martha who answers him. “They picked him up at the castle. He was in intensive care for weeks. When he was able to speak, it became apparent he would be a threat to us.”

At that moment, an intercom on the far wall buzzes. One of the bodyguards picks up a receiver, listens for a moment, and then puts it down.

“Dr. Wagner,” he says, “there’s a minor disturbance belowdecks. A very small fire, apparently. Nothing to be alarmed about, but we should assist them.”

“Great!” Pete says. “Somebody breaking out of their cage, perhaps?”

“Impossible.” Martha shakes her head. She turns to the bodyguards. “Go ahead. We can manage here.”

“So.” I have to get to the crux of the matter, and soon. “Why was Michael following us in the helicopter? Just to get to you, Mother?” I look
at the others. “Xanthro didn’t know Smitty was carrying the virus and the cure in his body, nobody told them.” I turn back to Mum. “They were coming after me, weren’t they? I read my notes at the hospital, they said the Osiris tests could not be completed because of ‘other factors present.’ I’m like Dad, aren’t I? I’m a carrier, but I’m immune?”

That makes them all sit up.

Russ looks sharply at me. “You’ve got the virus?”

“Bobby —” My mother stands up.

“Oh my god, you’re infected?” Alice screams at me.

“Maybe I am.” I look from face to face. “Remember little Cam in the castle, turning into a zombie? Ever stop to wonder how he got infected back at the Cheery Chomper? We all assumed he’d been bitten. But I had a nosebleed. I bled on his face, it went in his mouth, a day later he turned. I have the virus in my system, but I have a natural defense against it. I can be bitten, and I’ll never turn.”

“That’s not —” Mum begins.

“No, Mum, it’s all right,” I say. “God knows, it’s all out in the open now.”

“Incredible.” Russ stands, clenches his fists, and paces up and down in front of the fire. “Xanthro knew this for certain?”

I shrug. “I think they knew something was up with me, and they thought I’d be valuable to them.”

Russ nods, and then does a kind of weird little laugh, and shakes his head. “And I didn’t have a clue.”

Mum raises a hand. “Let me put a stop to this right now.” She walks over to me, places her hands on my shoulders. “Bobby, you are wrong. You are not a carrier.”

I stare at her. “But those tests! I read that —”

“You have mononucleosis.”

“Oh my god, what’s that?” Alice says, shifting away from me in her seat.

“Glandular fever,” Mum says. “A relatively harmless virus. Very common among teens; in fact, they sometimes call it ‘the kissing disease’ because of how it’s often spread.”

I flush red and make a point of not looking at Smitty. Beside me, I can sense him doing the same.

Mum continues. “It makes you feel tired and run-down for a while, sometimes extremely tired, but the symptoms go away after a few weeks. It is no Osiris, believe me.”

“So why were they chasing us?” I mumble.

“Well” — she looks around the room — “yes, they did want to capture you in order to lure me out of hiding. But there was another reason. I was going to do this slightly differently, but …”

“What?” I snap at her.

“You’re not the carrier,” she says, walking across the room to Alice and Russ. “Alice is.”

Knock me down with a feather and call me Mavis
.

“Whaat?” I say.

Smitty swears, and Pete tops it.

“Me? What?” Alice looks up at Mum like she hasn’t been following this at all.

“It’s OK. In fact, it’s great news.” Mum smiles at her. “You’re the carrier. We have the facilities here to ensure you don’t get sick, and to harvest your natural antibodies. You’re the key to the cure, Alice. Between you and Smitty, we’ll nail this yet.”

Alice stands up and backs away. “I’m a zom? You’re going to
harvest
me? You want to make me
do stuff
with Smitty?” She starts to cry. “No! I want to go home! All I’ve ever wanted to do is go home.”

Mum takes a step toward her, and she starts to scream.

“Stay away from me!”

“It’s all right, Alice,” Mum tries to soothe her. “You’re not one of them. You won’t turn. And you’re safe in my hands.”

“But, but …” Alice sobs. “Bobby’s dad … he was a carrier, and he died. Am I going to die?”

Mum shakes her head. “We’ve learned so much, even in the last few days, you have nothing to worry about.”

Russ pulls Alice toward him. “Come out with me, get some fresh air and clear your head.”

“What?” Alice looks at him as if he’s crazy, and I’m kinda wondering myself — it’s blowing a gale out there. “No, I don’t want to —”

He marches her to the door anyway. “Come on, Alice, it’s for the best.”

“What are you doing?” Alice says to him.

“This way.” He slides the glass door open.