Generation M (18 page)

As much as her stomach hurt, it seemed risky to fly to Atlanta at any time, but with only one hour of daylight left, it seemed suicidal.

The plane’s pilot was Maggie, a fourteen-year-old girl with blonde pigtails. William had introduced her as his best pilot.

“How far have you flown before?” Mark asked the pilot.

“I’ve gone to Providence,” Maggie replied.

Providence was north. The round trip there and back was around a hundred miles. Atlanta was a thousand miles south.

Maggie flipped through the pages of a road atlas. “We’ll fly low and follow the major highways. We’ll need to land once to refuel.”

“At night?” Toby asked in a tone of concern.

“The moon’s out,” Maggie replied.

“What if it gets cloudy?” Mark asked.

Maggie shrugged. “We turn around and land where we can.”

Her tone of confidence put Abby a little more at ease.

“The plane cruises at a hundred and thirty miles per hour and has a range of seven hundred miles,” Mark said, reading from a manual he had found in the cockpit. “We could land at Ronald Reagan airport in Washington DC. After refueling, we can fly all the way to Atlanta.”

“No problem,” Maggie said with a gleam in her eye.

“It says you need fifty meters of runway to take off,” Mark went on. “We’re carrying a lot of extra weight. How long is this runway?”

Abby looked down the straight stretch of Route 1 that had been cleared of trucks and cars. There was an overpass at the end. Imagining the plane slamming into the bridge, the shred of calmness she had evaporated.

“Sixty meters,” William chimed.

The color drained from Maggie’s cheeks. “We’re not going to let a little bridge stop us, are we?” After a long beat of silence, she added, “Good. Let’s hit the sky.”

“Help me get in, please,” Abby said to Toby, feeling her legs were about to give out.

He furrowed his brow. “Abby, I think we should wait until morning.”

She didn’t have the energy to argue. “Fine, I’ll get in myself.”

Scrunching his brow at her stubbornness, he hooked his arm around her waist, and just in time, because Abby felt her knees buckle. Soon, she was sitting in the back, fastening her seatbelt.

Mark, Maggie, and Toby loaded the supplies into the plane’s cargo bay. William had provided them with thirty gallons of aviation gasoline in five separate cans, as well as drinking water, a few potatoes, a fully charged car battery, flashlights, and a tool kit. If they made it to Atlanta, they could use any leftover aviation gas in an automobile.

Abby saw William give a handgun to Mark. Toby saw the gun, too. Without saying a word, Mark slipped it into his pack and climbed into the co-pilot’s seat.

“Who says you’re sitting up front?” Toby said.

“Do you know how to fly?” Mark asked.

“No, do you?” Toby challenged.

Mark shook his head.

“Toby, sit next to me,” Abby said. Every second they argued delayed them.

Keeping his eye on Mark, Toby said, “Just so you know, I’m letting you sit up front.”

He buckled in next to Abby and held her hand.

“Look after Sarah, please,” Mark said to William. “I think she’ll start to improve soon. Make sure she drinks plenty of water. Bettina should stay with Sarah. As soon as we start manufacturing pills, I’ll come back to get her.”

“Bring lots of pills with you,” William said.

After the fuel king had moved back from the plane, Maggie pushed a silver button on the console in front of her and the engine coughed to life. Through the spinning propeller, Abby saw the overpass ahead of them.

Maggie coaxed a knob forward, revving the engine. The whole plane vibrated and then started to roll. Maggie eased the knob back. The plane turned, and she taxied to the end of the runway. She was going to need every available inch of runway to clear the bridge.

Toby squeezed Abby’s hand so hard it hurt, and Mark stared straight ahead with a clenched jaw.

“I have a confession,” Maggie said. “William has better pilots, but none of them would take you. I volunteered because I believe in what you are doing.”

She pushed the knob all the way forward. Shuddering and shaking, aching to fly, the plane didn’t budge. When Maggie released the brakes, they lurched forward.

Wishing to keep her eyes open, but not wanting to look at the approaching bridge, Abby focused on what had once been a Jiffy Lube shop. When it passed by, she knew the bridge was getting close. The wheels were still rumbling along the ground.

Abby’s heart hammered in her chest as the milliseconds ticked by. They were going fast, and she figured they were now past the point of no return, and it was too late to brake.

The wheels lifted off the ground, and the nose of the plane reared back, pushing Abby against her seat. All she saw was sky straight ahead. Looking out the side window, she realized they were climbing almost vertically. The bridge passed beneath her, then a horn started blaring, sounding like an alarm clock.

“We’re going to stall,” Mark shouted.

The nose dropped, and Abby felt weightless. The horn silenced and the plane leveled off. They started climbing gradually.

“I’ve known a lot of aircraft carrier jet pilots, and very few of them could have flown like that,” Mark said.

“You are the best pilot and the bravest,” Abby added.

The coastline came into view, and she settled back in her seat as they sped toward Atlanta at a hundred and thirty miles per hour. All that separated her from Touk was a brave pilot flying them a thousand miles through the night.

In The Port’s parking lot, Jordan pumped up the tires of DJ Silver’s bike.

The story Jonzy Billings had told him had stirred up every emotion imaginable, but rage and hope seemed to float to the top.

Finished pumping the tires, Jordan took a spin around the parking lot and pulled up to Jonzy.

“After I get help for my friend, Eddie, want to come to Atlanta with me and Spike?” Jordan asked.

The way Spike felt about Toucan, Jordan was sure he would join him.

Jonzy grinned. “You bet. We can start up radio stations along the way.”

The boys agreed to meet at Wenlan’s later on.

Jordan pedaled away, still in shock that he had come so close to seeing Abby.

Gravity was his friend on the first leg of the ride to the clinic. Praying the tires held up, he cruised down the hill fast enough to feel the tug on his scalp as the wind blew his hair back.

Gravity exacted its toll as he struggled to climb up a steep incline. With the hill amplifying his fatigue, he hopped off the bike and pushed it, slowly trudging up the hill. When he reached the crest, he pedaled his brains out, all the way to Wenlan’s.

A crowd had formed two blocks from the clinic. Kids, sick with the Pig, filled the street and formed a bottleneck at the clinic’s front door.

Jordan ditched the bike and went to the back door. It was locked. Eddie’s life was more important than the glass in the door, but just as Jordan was about to smash it with a rock, he saw a window on the first floor slightly ajar.

He piled cinder blocks on the ground beneath the window, stood on them, opened the window wider, and launched himself inside. Halfway in, with the sill digging into his stomach, he saw two beds with patients in them. It took him a moment to recognize the girl with dark hair: Cee Cee, Wenlan’s twelve-year-old sister. The other girl was a toddler.

Jordan wormed his way into the room and tiptoed over to Cee Cee. Not wanting to frighten her, he whispered, “Cee Cee, it’s me, Jordan.”

Cee Cee’s lids barely lifted, revealing watery, bloodshot eyes. His stomach dropped when he rested his hand on hers. Cee Cee was burning up with fever. She looked as bad as Kenny had.

Cee Cee closed her eyes. If she had recognized him, she hadn’t shown it in any way.

Jordan rested his hand on the toddler’s forehead. She, too, was suffering from a high fever.

His heart pounded as he stepped into the hallway, figuring he‘d find Wenlan taking care of patients and passing out the pills that Abby, Toby, Jonzy, and the adult had given her.

He opened the door to the examination room, and his knees buckled. Wenlan had her back to him. She was using her fingertips to probe the neck of a boy who had his shirt off, revealing a lattice of bony ribs.

Jordan cleared his throat.

Wenlan turned, and her jaw dropped in shock. They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Jordan’s mind was as frozen as his limbs.

They met halfway and embraced. As he held her trembling body, he closed his eyes to block out all other distractions. When he opened them again, the boy on the examination table stared back listlessly.

He could have held Wenlan for hours, but an image of Eddie flashed across his mind, and he pushed back, still keeping his hands on Wenlan’s upper arms. He drew in a sharp breath, horrified at how exhausted she looked. He must have looked equally as tired, as well as dirty and weather-beaten. What mattered most was that Wenlan’s skin felt cool to the touch. Thank God she didn’t have the Pig.

“My friend is sick. I need to get a pill for him,” Jordan babbled. “Can William get me a car? We need to go to Atlanta. I don’t mean by car. We need motorcycles. I met Jonzy at The Port. I know where Abby went.”

Words tumbled from Wenlan too. “Cee Cee has the Pig, but she will get better soon. William will get you a car. Abby was very sick, but she took two pills. She’ll get better. You should take a pill. We’re passing out pills, but the number of sick kids showing up keeps increasing. Everyone wants food. Fights keep breaking out. And Jordan? I love you.”

He embraced her, pulling her closer and closer. The beating of Wenlan’s heart anchored him in the turbulence that surrounded them. “I love you, too.”

Abby was grateful for the steady, loud noise of the propeller and engine because it allowed her to grunt freely as endless waves of cramps steamrolled her midsection. She wanted Mark and Toby to concentrate on navigating, not on her condition.

Delirious with fever, Abby rested her head against Toby’s shoulder, slipping back and forth between the blur of dreams and an awareness of the moment. One minute, she’d know it was the moon out the window; the next minute, she’d ask herself why someone was shining a light in her face.

Maggie flew low, just above the treetops. The moonlight painted the highway pavement a lighter shade of gray, and the shadowy hulks of eighteen-wheelers were like buoys marking a channel.

Earlier, Abby had tried to help navigate, but her mind turned the highway into a twisting river and the sporadic fires burning below into stars in a black sky.

They were on the second leg of the journey to Atlanta. After flying over the White House, they had landed at an airport in Washington DC where Mark had hopped out, removed the gas cans from the storage area, and poured gas into the wing tanks. After taking off, they had flown for about two hours.

“Route 385 should be coming up soon,” Mark said. “Follow it to the right. It goes southeast.”

By knowing their air speed and the time aloft, he could plot their course on a road atlas.

“Shield your eyes,” he said before turning on the flashlight to read the atlas.

Bright light damaged night vision. Heeding Mark’s instruction, Maggie held up her right hand as a shade, and Toby dropped his chin to his chest and covered his eyes with his hand. Cupping the flashlight, Mark turned it on and consulted the map. Abby fixed her eyes on the lines between his fingers glowing bright red. When he flicked off the light, she saw a haze of gold and green.

“I’m giving Abby another pill,” Toby said.

She felt his fingers walk across her face, pry apart her lips, and push an antibiotic pill into her mouth. It was her third one. It crumbled and sat under her tongue like a pinch of chalk. She didn’t have enough saliva for it to dissolve.

Bomb blasts of cramps exploding in her stomach got her attention, and she forgot about the pill.

Toby cried out excitedly that he spotted Atlanta ahead, but Mark said the tall buildings were in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. The wings suddenly dipped hard left, then right. Each change of direction coincided with a force that pushed Abby into her seat and made her head spin.

“That was close,” Mark said. “Good job, Maggie.”

Abby’s fingers hurt from how hard Toby had squeezed them. He, too, must have feared they would crash into a building.

Sometime later, she became aware of the plane tilting one way, then the other. They were making long sweeping turns, maybe even flying in a circle. She listened to the chatter of voices and learned they were low on fuel, and the moon had gone behind the clouds.

“Let’s look for a place to land,” Mark said.

“How far are we from Atlanta?” Maggie asked.

Mark warned them he was going to turn on the flashlight. “Maybe twenty miles,” he said while looking at the map.

“I can climb above the clouds,” Maggie said. “There might be a break ahead. We’ll keep heading southeast.”

Maggie, Toby, and Mark engaged in a debate. Should they look for a place to land or forge ahead? In the feverish landscape of her mind, it was hard for Abby to make sense of what they were saying. She understood it was risky to land in the pitch dark and just as it was risky to fly above the clouds. Descending through the clouds, they would be blind to trees, buildings, and the contours of the land. Mark wanted to land sooner rather than later. Maggie wanted to climb higher and hunt for a break in the clouds closer to Atlanta. Toby kept changing his mind.

“We should land now,” Mark interjected.

“Abby, what do you want to do?” Toby asked.

Mark shook his head. “She’s still recovering from the Pig. She doesn’t even know where we are.”

Abby lifted her head. “Go to Atlanta.”

Toucan was in Atlanta, and Abby wanted to get as close to her as possible.

“If that’s what she wants,” Toby said, “then so do I. Let’s do it!”

Mark remained silent, the engine roar grew louder, and Abby felt herself pushed deeper into the seat. Soon, her ears were popping.