The Fall of Crazy House, page 8
I turned and looked back at the woods. Boats in trees. The woods were growing up around the boats, through them, eating them. Why would someone put boats in a forest? How long had they been here?
“Maybe this used to be a lake or something?” Bunny suggested, her dark face lit by morning’s first sun.
“In the middle of dry land?” Mills scoffed.
“You got a better idea?” she challenged him.
“Basically, we have no freaking clue,” I said, settling it. “Let’s just file it under Crazy Shit We Saw, along with everything else.”
Before us was a high, sloping plain of tall grass, but different, more like grain. It reminded me of wheat or oats but I didn’t recognize it.
“Let’s cross this slowly, guys,” I directed. “Watch out for trip wires and snakes.”
“I’ll take point,” Nate said, moving into the grass slowly, tapping a long, thin branch ahead of him.
Mills followed him, then Levi and Bunny. Jolie went next, and I took up the rear, scanning the grass with my binoculars. Nothing.
“Ulp!”
“What?” I demanded, snapping back to look at the team.
“Nate’s gone,” Mills said, sounding freaked.
43
“WHAT THE HELL?” BUNNY SAID, then she, too, disappeared.
I dropped to my knees and clicked off my rifle’s safety. Then I tapped my comm and hissed, “Nate! Report!”
Nate’s voice came back, angry and embarrassed. “I tripped on a rock.” The grass ahead rustled and he stood up.
“It was a big rock,” Bunny said, standing up, brushing dried grass off herself.
“A rock?” I said, standing up and clicking my safety back on. My heart pounded and my brain swirled with now-unneeded rescue plans.
“They’re everywhere,” Mills said, pushing his boot through the grass and almost immediately hitting a tall stone.
It turned out that the field was littered with hundreds and hundreds of these big weird stones. Some were maybe knee-high, some almost to the top of the grass. They were rounded, and weathered. We threaded our way through agonizingly slowly—sometimes there was barely room enough to walk between them.
Ahead of me, Jolie followed Bunny but she paused and pulled some grass away from a stone. Her quick blue eyes met mine as her sensitive fingers rubbed the stone, left and right. She held up a hand.
“Wait,” I said, and the team stopped and turned.
Jolie rubbed the rock harder and once the lichen was mostly gone she pointed to words cut deeply into the worn stone.
I leaned closer to look. It said ANNA-LEIGH WESTON, BORN JANUARY 26, 2025, DIED MARCH 7, 2037.
“These are all tombstones!” I said, staring at the huge field.
Now everyone pushed grass aside and rubbed lichen and dirt off the weathered stones. They weren’t like cell gravestones—those were flat slabs. These stood upright and went on as far as we could see—waves of golden grass with thousands of stones barely peeking through like mountains through clouds.
I looked up to see Nate watching me.
“This was from some catastrophe,” he said. “Every person died the same year—2037. And there are thousands of stones.”
“What the hell happened?” I exclaimed. “I mean, the skeletons, the tree-boats, and now this. It’s like one huge mystery—are they connected? None of it makes sense!”
44
CASSIE
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, PLAGUE?” Tim demanded.
I drew in a deep breath. “Okay—so the other paper said that the New World party had released organophosphates into everything, right? It’s some kind of poison. Almost a year later, this paper says that the organophosphates killed about sixty million people, right off the bat.”
“Sixty mill—that can’t be true,” he said.
“But I guess sixty million wasn’t enough,” I said, feeling my hands tremble. “This paper says that there’s also some kind of plague infecting people.” Again I looked around at the stacks of papers, food wrappers, and magazines lining the walls of the attic.
A sharp rapping on the trapdoor made us both jump.
“Open this door!” Ms. Strepp said.
Slowly I got up and walked over to it, then knelt so I could speak through its cracks. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said.
There was a pause and I could imagine exactly what her face looked like—outraged.
“Open. This. Door.”
“Well—we might… be… sick.”
Silence. Then, “What? Why would you think that?”
I explained what I’d read in the newspapers. “After the first wave, the New World party wanted… survival of the fittest for the future. So they infected everything, everything with an… aerosolized virus. At least, that’s what this paper says. So everything in here after 2037 could have come in contact with the virus.”
My chest felt tight and I hoped that she would tell me to quit being stupid, open the door, of course there was no plague.
She didn’t. Instead there was an even longer pause, then: “What kind of plague? From where?”
Her words turned my heart to ice. They showed that she accepted this insane premise as a real possibility.
My soldier’s brain went on autopilot and I turned the page of the crumbling newspaper. “A virus,” I reported, running my finger down the page. “They spliced a virus with… like, yeast?” I read quickly, aware that Tim was taut with tension next to me. “The yeast allowed the virus to be dormant for a long time and then reactivate again in the right conditions.”
I thought of her, holding on to the rope ladder below the trapdoor, in the dark, thinking hard.
“What kind of conditions?” she asked.
“Like… in people,” I said shakily. “In other mammals. If that’s true and the virus came into contact with newspapers and clothes and stuff—then maybe Tim and I have breathed it in. Touched it. It could be reactivating. Inside us.”
She was silent for once.
I tried not to panic. “So, Tim and I should probably be quarantined in sick bay,” I said. “Just in case. And you might want to, you know, keep back a good distance.”
“No,” she said. “No, don’t come down.”
Tim and I looked at each other.
“We feel fine,” I clarified. “This paper is from a long, long time ago. I’m probably worried for nothing.” I clenched my fists, mentally begging her to tell me I was worried for nothing.
“You two will stay there,” she said. “I’ll have supplies brought to you. You are to stay up there until we know for sure it’s safe for you to come down.” Her voice already sounded farther away, as if she was climbing down the ladder.
“What?” Tim said loudly, pounding the trapdoor. “I’m not staying here! I can’t even stand up straight!”
“You’ll stay there!” she shouted from down below. “I’ll post guards, so don’t try anything. We can’t risk you infecting the entire camp.”
This plague was so dangerous, Ms. Strepp was willing to reveal the secret room? My mouth dropped open as I pictured Tim and me dying in this filthy attic, surrounded by junk.
“The things you’re discovering are hugely important, Cassie and Tim,” she called up, sounding just a touch softer. “You’re providing crucial pieces of the puzzle. It’s exactly what I need you to do.”
I looked at Tim: We were thinking the same thing. She meant, even if we died doing it.
45
BECCA
AFTER THE FIELD OF GRAVES, we started climbing some rocky hills, still headed east. Mills, scouting ahead, found a cave barely big enough to hold all of us. After some tense discussion, Nate and I agreed that we could light a fire near the mouth of the cave.
“Use only the driest wood you can find,” I instructed my squad. “The drier it is, the less smoke it puts off.”
We sat around the small fire, our hands and feet stretched out to it as we ate our dried rations.
“What could have killed so many people all at once?” Bunny asked. “A bomb? A disease?”
“War?” Nate suggested, moodily poking at the fire.
“The skeletons don’t make sense if a bomb wiped everything out,” Levi said, his small face thoughtful. “No one would have time to string them up. But if they were a warning about a war…”
Jolie spelled into Bunny’s hand and Bunny translated.
“Jolie says they might have been a warning about a disease—like, don’t come any closer because people die here.”
“That’s true,” I said tiredly. “That would explain why they didn’t burn the bodies, like normal people.” All I wanted was to check in with Cassie and Tim back at camp, but all I had left of the cell phone Strepp gave me was the SIM card. Stupid plastic piece of crap.
“The map at the underground stop showed we should keep going in this direction,” Nate said.
His words were interrupted by a low growl coming from overhead.
I gave Levi and Mills narrow-eyed looks. “Cut that out—it’s creepy.”
“That wasn’t me,” Mills protested, and Levi echoed him.
Nate moved around the fire to the cave entrance and looked around. Our night vision was shot because of the fire. Before he could say anything, another growl made my blood run cold. I jumped up as a huge animal leaped onto Nate, knocking him down.
“Wolf!” Bunny screamed, scrambling to her feet. I heard a thunk as her head hit the cave roof and she gasped.
“Cassie!” Nate screamed in a voice I’d never heard before. I grabbed my pistol and ran out to see a tsunami of wolves jumping down from the outcropping above the cave entrance, one after the other. Everywhere were lunging, snapping jaws, deep-throated snarls, and panicked screams of terror.
I threw myself on top of the wolf pinning Nate, stuck my gun in its side, and pulled the trigger. It howled and drew back. I had a second of seeing blood-red rage in its eyes before it fell sideways. A glance at Nate showed him lying still, his eyes open, looking upward.
46
“HELP!” BUNNY SHOUTED. ARMS BLOODY, she was straining against an enormous black-pelted wolf, trying to keep its sharp teeth from her throat. Crouching by Nate’s side, I aimed and shot the animal in its head. It dropped like a sack of wheat, and Bunny staggered back.
Jolie had taken a burning branch from our fire and was swiping it at three animals circling her. They backed away from the flame when it was close and lunged for her when they could.
“Shoot them!” Mills screamed, unholstering his own pistol and firing at a hulking black wolf. I took a split second to gauge angles. I shot five times and dropped three wolves. Instantly another animal lunged. Jolie swung her burning branch like a baseball bat, and the wolf yelped and ran off, its fur lit with fire.
Still they kept coming, more than I could count. I’d been chased by a mean dog once, and had been terrified as I hopped a fence, its yellowish teeth snagging the hem of my jeans. This was infinitely worse.
“I’m out of bullets!” I shouted, reaching for the hunting knife in my shin sheath. It would have to do until I could grab my rifle; there was no time to reload. An enormous silver-streaked beast leaped at me, its paws as big as my hands. Its weight knocked my breath away and I made no noise as I hit the ground. I felt its sharp fangs pierce my jacket, then my skin and muscle, time spinning out as I lay there in shock. Somehow I still held my knife and sank it into the wolf’s side as hard as I could. The blade scraped a rib; I pulled it out and angled it upward, pushing to the hilt. The wolf yelped and jerked but came down on me again, its hot breath in my face. Again I pulled the knife out and stabbed, over and over until the heavy weight sank on me, smelling of heat and fur and blood. I heard gunshots and shouting. They sounded very far away.
With a hard shove, I pushed most of the heavy animal off me, its sticky blood running onto my jeans. “Team! Report!” I gasped. I looked around but didn’t see any more wolves.
Mills said, “I’m okay,” in a strained voice.
Shakily I got to my feet and staggered over to Nate. He lay on his back beneath the wolf, his open eyes still staring skyward. His throat was a mess and his limp hands were covered in blood.
“I’m okay!” Bunny called. “So is Jolie.”
“Levi?” I said, still kneeling by Nate.
There was no answer.
“Oh, God,” Bunny said, sinking down next to a small form on the ground.
“I’m okay.” Nate’s voice was a hoarse whisper. I was shocked that he was alive, and could speak. In fact, I was shaking all over, my shoulder was killing me, and I was covered in blood. It had happened so damn fast.
“Becca!” Bunny said. Quickly I knelt by Levi and searched for a nonexistent pulse.
“Oh, Levi,” I breathed, looking at him, little fourteen-year-old Levi who never should have been a soldier in the first place. His sweet face was untouched, but his torso was a raggedy mess of horrific gore. I put my hand over my mouth, wanting to scream or cry or fall to pieces.
Every one of us bore the effects of the wolf attack. Nate might be dying. Levi was dead. Some leader I was, huh?
47
THE WHOLE THING HAD TAKEN maybe three minutes. Three minutes, and Levi was gone. Nate was trying to sit up, one hand pressed to his neck. I felt sick at how much dark blood ran through his fingers. But if the wolf had hit his carotid artery or jugular, he’d already be dead.
I gathered whatever inner strength I had. “Okay, let me see,” I said, prying his fingers away. I angled him to see better and tried to keep an “Oh, shit!” expression off my face. “It’s deep, but not torn, and he didn’t hit an artery. A couple staples and you’ll be all set.”
Nate’s bloodless face turned even paler but I pretended not to notice. Jolie, on the alert as always, dropped the med kit next to me and I grimaced my thanks. I took out what I needed, but first things first.
Standing up, I went to the rest of the squad. “Guys, take everything of Levi’s that we can use, as long as it won’t slow you down. Then we need to hide his body—we should burn it, but that would take too long, make too much smoke. This ground is probably too hard to dig into, so maybe put him at the back of the cave and cover him with rocks.”
Everyone looked at me, horrified. The thought horrified me, too, but it was necessary. “Do you want to leave his body here for the wolves?” I asked acidly. “Or for trackers to find?”
Mills swallowed and shook his head no.
“Right. Do it as fast as you can and scatter any blood into the dirt and leaves. I’m going to patch Nate up and then we need to hit it.”
Working quickly, I swabbed Nate’s gory neck with antiseptic wipes, which was like putting a Band-Aid on an arm that had been caught in a combine.
“Levi’s dead?” Nate asked quietly, and I nodded.
“Yeah. Be still. When you talk I can see your muscles move, and it’s gross.”
I’d helped Pa patch up our horses when we had them, and Ed and Ned, our gentle oxen. Sometimes they’d wander into a barbed-wire fence or something. After a fast, completely inadequate local anesthetic, I put my fingers in Nate’s neck, squeezed the muscle together but not too tightly, and shot a staple into it. He yelped and reared back.
“Come back here,” I said.
Nate’s face was green with pain, but he crawled closer and tilted his head. I sprayed some more anesthetic on his skin and repeated the process, shooting in two staples and making tears come to his eyes. We’d all had the bejesus kicked out of us at the Crazy House, and this wasn’t too much worse. But I was glad it wasn’t me.
It took half an hour to gather enough rocks to cover Levi’s small, thin body. My throat ached and Jolie was crying, making odd snuffling noises that she herself couldn’t hear. I forced Nate to lie down quietly while we worked and also made him drink a bunch of water. He’d lost a lot of blood.
Finally we were ready to go. The night felt like it had lasted a week. Bunny took point, followed by Jolie, then Mills, then Nate, then me. The adrenaline from the attack had drained out of me, leaving a cold, hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I was glad that Nate wasn’t dead—Cassie would have killed me—but he wasn’t out of danger yet. His wounds could get infected, either killing him or making him so sick that I’d be forced to leave him somewhere. And there was a chance that the wolves had been rabid. So for the next week I had to keep an eagle eye on all of us—anyone who had gotten scratched, bitten, or drooled on. Because if any of us had rabies, I’d have to kill them myself. No exceptions.
48
CASSIE
AT LEAST HE DOESN’T SNORE, I thought, looking at Tim’s sleeping form in the dim light. There was so little floor space up here that our sleeping mats were only a few feet apart. We were used to sharing rooms and dorms with others, but this was the first time I’d ever slept in the same room with just one guy. Too bad it was Tim. If it were Nate… this could almost be romantic.
Oh, my God. Romantic? I must be going cow-brained. I was in a filthy, dark, yucky attic with my sister’s boyfriend and the plague! Could you set the romance bar any lower, Cassie?
I rolled onto my back and pulled my sleeping bag up higher. Speaking of plague, I did a swift self-check, as I’d done every five minutes I was awake. With nothing else to do last night, I’d read all the newspaper reports out loud to Tim. They’d listed the warning signs: sore throat, fever, swollen glands, bruises. These would rapidly devolve into bleeding from… everywhere. Then high fever, blackened pustules, bloody stool… awesome. Gosh, Cassie, that would be even more romantic!
Come to think of it, I was glad Nate wasn’t here. Groaning, I wiggled out of my sleeping bag and rolled it and the mat up, stowing them out of the way. High fever? Nope. Bloody stool? Not yet! Excellent.
I opened the trapdoor and felt for the new rope we’d tied to a hook. It was heavy and I pulled it up, wondering what Strepp had sent us for food today. I pawed through the contents, looked at sleeping Tim again, and decided not to let him eat anything he couldn’t spell.
