Arcadium (15 page)

The car heats
up quickly and we wind the windows down just a crack each, even
though it must be like forty degrees in here no one is crazy enough
to wind them all the way down because at this speed an infected
person could easily surprise us.

Sunlight
glistens off glossy-leaved trees in the front yards of houses as we
pass, and it washes out the scene like an over exposed photo. The
concrete seems whiter, the houses seem drearier, and the cars seem
as though they’re fading away into history.

I remember this
road as one of the busiest, and now it’s nothing more than a dried
up vein.

Our lane clears
and we pick up speed as we head uphill. “We’re close,” I say.

No one replies
and my eyes start searching the landscape for signs of the
facility. I’m staring out to my right when it happens, so I’m
caught completely off guard.

I hear a huge
bang followed by a shattering explosion. Suddenly pieces of
windscreen are in my lap and in my hair. A shadow flicks up and
over, rolling across the roof. There’s a wild screeching filling
the car and the stench of hot rubber stings my nostrils. There’s a
brief moment of pause, where time seems to move so slowly, and
finally I understand what’s going on. We’re careening off to the
left, jarring up the curb and onto the nature strip.

There’s another
bang, loud and final, and I hear metal twist and groan. My head
slams forward because I’m stupidly not wearing my seatbelt, and my
own forehead crushes against my hands on the dashboard. The airbag
explodes into Troubles face, but I don’t have one. The world seems
to stop but everything in the car wants to keep going.

Henry’s arms
flail forward through the gap in the seats but he never comes
through; he must be wearing his seatbelt.

We lurch back a
bit and everything goes quiet. All I can hear is my own breath,
over and over again. There’s blood on my hands, not much though,
and I wonder if it’s from my head. My fingers are already starting
to swell up just seconds after impact and there’s steam hissing out
from the crumpled engine bay.

Next to me
Trouble starts moving, pushing the bag from his face. He looks over
at me, a trickle of blood coming from his nose, and something
passes between us, it’s not words or communication. It’s like a
basic human instinct we share and we both react the same way.

We get out of
the car. My ears are ringing and my hands feel numb; I hold them
out in front like they’re not mine anymore. For a moment I forget
about the world we live in, about all the infected. I stand on the
grass and stare at the car. The front is wrapped around a lamppost,
the metal is rippled like water, the back doors are still closed
and thirty metres back an infected person lies bleeding in the
middle of the road. Bleeding but moving, jerking around weakly on
it’s side.

Suddenly it all
comes rushing back like a waterfall: sound and thoughts and
reality.

Liss is
screaming. I pull open the door and my hand sears with pain. Liss
tumbles out, pale and shaking, she grips onto my t-shirt and
doesn’t let go. From the other side of the car there are shouts and
movement. The boot pops open and Trouble pulls out the
wheelchair.

I spin and
search for the building. It’s huge, I can’t miss it, but from this
distance it seems abandoned: cold grey concrete blocks, blank
windows, an empty car park, yellow tufts of grass growing beyond
the chain link fence. I have no idea how to get in or if anything
is even in there.

“They’re
coming!” It’s Kean’s voice.

I look in
either direction and freeze. The infected bodies are shifting
through cars and debris, flowing toward us like a torrent of dirty
water.

Everything’s
happening so quickly. I claw Liss off my shirt and I only know
she’s holding my hand because I see her do it, I can’t feel a
thing.

Warm blood
trickles down the side of my face and I glance over my shoulder.
The others are coming, running towards me because they think I know
where I’m going. That means I’m the best chance they’ve got. Oh,
hell.

I take off,
dragging Liss across the footpath and we run parallel to the fence.
It’s too high to climb and my hands are too numb and I don’t know
how to get Henry over.

The sick
gurgling sounds of the infected come from everywhere. I’m running
but it feels like the concrete beneath my feet has turned into a
treadmill. All this effort and I’m hardly getting anywhere.

Suddenly
there’s an infected woman in front of us. I yank Liss sideways,
back onto the road and we skirt around a car. I hear the infected
woman’s skull crack as Trouble dispatches her with the baseball
bat. The others are right behind now.

“Where? Where?”
Kean shouts.

“I don’t know!”
My voice comes out high and curdles on the top note. It doesn’t
even sound like me.

The fence
crosses the car park and stretches toward the building so I follow
it. There’s no sign of life, no sign of safety. I just keep
thinking this can’t be how it ends. We’ve been through so much and
this is how we die. A car accident and nowhere left to go.

“Over there!”
Kean yells. He’s pushing Henry’s wheelchair and running in small
zigzags. Trouble’s bat is covered in blood. Behind us the infected
people pour into the car park.

Suddenly I see
what he sees. A gap in the side of the building: a huge elevator
with its doors wide open. I know it won’t work because the power is
out but maybe we can get through the roof into the elevator shaft
and climb to safety. It’s the only choice because the fences funnel
us this way, just as they funnel the stampede of infected
people.

Henry’s
wheelchair clunks over the metal doorway into the elevator and we
spill in. I point frantically to the roof, to the small manhole.
Trouble stands on the arms of Henry’s wheelchair to reach the roof
but he can’t budge the manhole.

I turn and face
the door, turn to face the wall of infected as they close in on us.
I can’t feel my sister’s hand but she’s there, right by my side.
Trouble is screaming in Chinese. Henry is yelling too.

They’re only
twenty metres away.

Ten metres.

I look across
at Kean and our eyes connect. Everything that could have been,
that’s what I think.

Five metres
away. Death is here.

And then the
elevator doors start moving, as if they’re racing the infected.
They amble across with a casual hiss and suddenly we’re sealed
in.

“We made it!”
Kean says. “Look.”

I follow his
pointing finger to a sign on the wall.

“Welcome to
Arcadium,” he reads. “To enter the facility press the red
button.”

The elevator
jolts and we begin to rise.

“There’s more…”
Kean says. But something else distracts me. A hissing sound.

“Can you smell
that?” I say, sniffing the air.

Henry is
looking around at the floor; Trouble is kneeling next to him,
wiping the blood from his own nose.

“It also says…”
Kean’s words echo around the steel elevator. “Please note you will
be subject to decontamination.”

“Decontamination?” Henry says. “What does that mean? How are they
going to…” his words cut short and suddenly his eyes go wide and he
slumps in his seat. One by one we go down. Trouble next, falling
back against the floor. Liss collapses, dragging me down to my
knees. The last thing I see is Kean clutching his chest, sliding
down the cold steel wall.

My head feels
like it’s drunk, and then like it wants to go to sleep. My lungs
get tired, like they’re filled with water. I cough. Just once. The
edges of my vision blur and the colour starts to disappear until
everything goes black.

And I’m out
too.

Chapter
14

Heaven is
white. That’s what they teach you, even if you’re not religious.
The general idea is white and bright and calm and quiet.

I’m conscious
now but remain dormant behind the darkness of my eyelids. I don’t
want to open them. What if it’s not like we think it is? What if
it’s just nothing?

My ears are
ringing but I feel the sound fading into a soft silence. When I
finally open my eyes a jolt of pain enters my brain. It’s so
bright. I squint and try again, letting my eyes adjust slowly. I’m
staring up at something: a shiny roof, like glass, and beyond
everything is white.

I blink and
draw in a fresh breath. There’s so much to take in so suddenly: I’m
on a flat bed in a strange white hospital gown, completely encased
in a room of glass. I sit up slowly and slide my feet to the floor.
That’s glass too, a layer on top of grey concrete.

The lights are
coming from above, piercing white. It’s cool and scentless in this
small space.

My eyes focus
and I see Liss, lying on a bed in a glass cube next to mine. I run
the few steps to the wall and slam up against the glass, screaming
to her, banging my fists against the thick barrier. She lies so
still in her white gown; she looks dead.

“Liss!”

But she won’t
wake up.

Something
crackles above. “Please calm down.” A disembodied female voice
filters through the tinny speaker.

“What’s going
on?” I call out. “Let me see Liss!”

“Please, relax.
You’re inside Arcadium. You’re safe now.”

I see movement
outside my room and wander to the front. A woman stands there,
looking straight at me. She’s thin, dressed in a tight white suit
with a high collar, and has a pale clipboard in her hand. Every
inch of her skin is covered: blue surgical gloves for her hands, a
white mask for her mouth and nose, a cap for her hair. But I can
see her dark eyes through the clear goggles.

“What did you
do?” I say.

She glances at
her watch and jots down a note on her clipboard papers. “You’re in
decontamination. How do you feel? Any fever?”

I shake my
head.

“Nausea?
Light-headedness?”

“No.” I look
back at Liss.

“Well, it looks
good for you. As soon as everyone wakes up we can begin full
orientation.”

“When will that
be?” I look down the line. Kean is in the next compartment. And
Henry in the next one over.

“Doctor,” a
male voice comes from somewhere. The woman looks away.

“Patient five
is waking.”

The woman nods
and walks back to a desk full of papers and computers with flashing
blips on the screen.

Down the far
end I see movement. I run up to the other glass wall and press my
hands against it. For the first time I notice my hands are wrapped
in white bandages. I look back up. “Trouble!” I scream.

He looks
disorientated but the blood is gone from his face. His eyes move
slow and careful over his surroundings. Finally Trouble sees me and
puts a hand to the glass. I smile to let him know it’s ok, even
though I don’t really know it. He stares for a moment and then
nods. I nod too. I watch the woman doctor trying to ask him the
same questions she asked me. Trouble stares at her blankly.

“He doesn’t
speak English,” I say.

The woman looks
back at me, jots something on her clipboard and returns to the
desk.

After a few
minutes I sit on the floor dividing my attention between Liss and
the strange woman outside. At some point I must zone out because
suddenly Kean is standing against our dividing wall staring at me.
I jump up and put my bandaged hands against the glass. He glances
at them and looks back at me. He places his fingertips against mine
and looks around. And then he smiles. “We made it,” he says. I
barely hear the words through the glass but the speakers carry just
enough of the sound into my room.

“You certainly
did. Kean Kinley?” The woman looks into his glass room.

“How…”

“We found the
license in your pocket. How are you feeling? Any fever?”

Kean looks back
at me, studying my eyes. “No,” he says.

“Any nausea,
light-headedness, anything like that?”

“No,” he says
again, still staring at me. Suddenly he points behind me. I glance
over my shoulder. Liss is sitting up on her bed. I rush over and
she sees me. “It’s ok, Liss. We’re here. We’re safe.”

The woman asks
Liss the same series of questions. Liss stares at the woman for a
long time before answering.

Finally the
woman says, “Unlock the decontamination units.”

There’s a hiss
and from the plane of glass a door appears. It’s barely there, just
a plastic seal, and the woman waits as someone similarly dressed
walks the line of compartments, pushing each door in. We emerge
from the glass boxes and meet in the middle. Liss clings to my
waist. Henry sits in his wheelchair between Kean and Trouble.
There’s a kind of stunned and cautious silence between us. Surely
everyone else is thinking the same as me; is this real?

The woman pulls
down her mask and smiles, but it’s cold and emotionless. “Welcome.
I’m glad to report you’re all infection free.”

“What is this
place?” Kean says.

“We are the
last line of defence in this war.”

“How do you
mean?”

“This right
here is a medical laboratory, one of many within the Arcadium
facility. We house forty-seven research staff and three hundred and
eighty four civilians. Walk with me.” The woman presses a button on
the white concrete wall and the door hisses aside. She strides out
into the corridor and we all follow.

“Arcadium has
one purpose, and one purpose only.” She glances over her shoulder.
“To find the cure.”

“A cure. Is
that even possible?” Kean says.

The woman looks
back and takes off her goggles and cap. Her hair is dark and rolled
into a bun. “We hope so.”

We pause as she
punches a code into a keypad and then follow her through another
set of glass doors. “Of course, housing civilians is a by product
of what we do. Once we have a cure, we’re going to need a
population to rebuild from.” She stops suddenly and we all copy.
“Forgive me.” She puts her hand to her chest. “I haven’t met anyone
new for quite some time. I’m Doctor Sandra Hope, head of the
biological research wing and patient admittance.” Doctor Hope
continues walking and leads us down a narrow concrete hallway with
fluorescent lights and rows of doors spaced just a few metres
apart.