Lives We Lost,The (9 page)

We probably could have overpowered him—six of us against one, the odds were in our favor despite the gun—but the stranger’s next words were, “Come on, let’s get out of this crap,” and the idea that he might have somewhere for us to go
to
overrode every other impulse. Without him, we were still lost in the blizzard.

It only took a few steps before he was opening a door ahead of us. Light streamed through the falling snow.
“In you go,” he said, motioning with the hand that held the gun. “Leave your sleds outside, there’s no room. We’re not the kind of people who’ll take what’s yours.”
I turned and gripped the handle of the cold box before I followed the others through the doorway. I wasn’t letting that out of my sight.
We shuffled out of the blizzard and into a narrow wood-paneled room, hardly big enough for the seven of us to stand comfortably. A platform on one side held a bare double mattress, and a plastic crate stood in one corner. Otherwise, the room was empty. A light fixture shone dimly overhead. Whoever these people were, they had electricity.
The stranger shut the door with a bang. “Sit down,” he said. “It looks like we’ll be here a while.”
Melted snow was already puddling under my boots, the frost on my eyelashes dripping away like tears. The room was heated too.
Meredith plopped down on the edge of the mattress, so I joined her, tucking the cold box between my feet. Tessa sank down beside me. The guys stayed standing, Gav crossing his arms in front of him. To my relief, he was keeping a healthy distance between himself and the revolver.
“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded. “Who are you?”
“I’m supposed to be asking you that,” the stranger said. “You’re the ones that came barging into our turf.”
He hunkered down on the crate and pulled back his hood. I registered his face, and looked again in surprise.
He was just a kid. At least a couple years younger than me, I guessed, his face soft and boyish and his forehead dotted with zits. Beneath his orange hat, which was stitched with a hockey team logo, his dark hair was pulled back in a limp ponytail that curled at the base of his neck. When we all stayed silent, he tapped the gun against his leg and narrowed his eyes.
“I saw you coming as soon as you were out of the woods, you know,” he said. “I could have shot you.”
“You even know how to fire that thing?” Tobias asked.
“I’m a good shot,” the boy said. “You better believe it. Practiced on the firing range with my dad every month after I turned thirteen. You’d have been dead if you’d looked like some of those asshole raiders. Good for you that you didn’t. So, where are you coming from?”
“South of Halifax,” I said. His eyebrows rose.
“You walked all the way from the coast?”
“We had a truck,” Gav said. “It broke. We’ve been walking the last few days.”
“Where do you think you’re going with all that stuff?” the boy asked, motioning to the door.
“Why do you need to know?” Leo said quietly. “Are you planning on letting us leave when the storm’s over?”
“We only came this way to find shelter,” Tessa said. “We didn’t mean to disturb anyone.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” the boy said. “I don’t get to decide that on my own. I was just keeping watch.”
“So who does decide?” I said. “You’re saying ‘we’ and ‘our’— where is everybody?”
He looked at me as if I’d asked the most stupid question he could imagine. “In the other cabins,” he said. “You won’t see most of ’em for a while even if you stick around. This is the quarantine cabin. New people don’t go any farther until we know they’re not sick. We all had to do it.” He stopped, some of the color washing from his face. “Oh shit, I forgot.” He fumbled with his coat with his free hand, digging out a crumpled face mask and jerking it over his head.
“You don’t have to worry,” I said. “None of us are sick.”
“I’d rather not take the chance,” he replied. His gaze dropped to the cold box at my feet. “How come you didn’t leave that with the rest of your stuff? What’ve you got in there?”
I slid my legs in front of it instinctively. “You don’t need to worry about that, either,” Gav said, a threat plain in his voice.
The boy stood up. “Look,” he said. “I told you we don’t steal here. But I’ve got to check. You could have guns in there or something.”
While it was hardly normal room temperature in the cabin, it felt well above freezing. I didn’t want him poking around in the box, letting the cool air out. Who knew when I’d be able to repack it with ice? But as he stepped forward, Gav moved in front of him, and I could see neither of them intended to back down. So I did the only thing I could think of that might stop the situation from getting worse, if the boy was being honest about the people we were dealing with.
“It’s vaccine samples,” I said quickly. “But they’ve got to stay cold—every time I open the box there’s a chance they’ll start spoiling.”
The boy cocked his head, but he didn’t come any closer. “I heard the vaccine was a dud.”
“This is a new one,” I said. “We’re trying to find someone who can replicate it to make enough for everyone. That’s why we were walking by here—that’s why we’ll leave as soon as the storm’s over. If you’ll let us.” I paused. “Unless you’ve got doctors here who might be able to do it.” From what I’d seen of the area, it hadn’t looked developed, but I hadn’t expected electricity or heating, either.
The boy didn’t give an indication one way or the other. “You could be lying,” he said.
“So could you,” Leo answered.
“We’ve have to be some special kind of idiots to keep our guns sealed away in a box instead of on us where we can actually reach them, don’t you think?” Tobias said.
The boy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “All right, calm down. But don’t think you’re going anywhere soon. Like I said, that’s not my decision.” He sank back down onto his crate. “You should probably get comfortable. From the looks of outside, I think you’re here until morning.”

The sunlight beaming through the cabin’s open door woke me. My neck pinched when I raised my head. Sometime during the night, four of us had slumped across the mattress at odd angles: Meredith huddled in a ball against my shoulder, Gav at my other side with his arm bent around his head, Tessa squished into the corner. Leo had come over beside her, dozing against the bed’s platform. Even in sleep, his face looked tense. Tobias still sat by the wall, his skinny legs drawn up in front of him, his eyes alert and wary as he watched the woman in the doorway.

She stepped inside, studying us through dark-framed glasses that rested over the top of her face mask. Her hair, chestnut brown laced with gray, brushed the tops of her broad shoulders. The boy with the revolver hovered behind her.

They looked alike, I realized. The hair, the shoulders, the way they stood. Mother and son, if I was going to guess.
I pushed myself upright, my feet bumping the cold box at the edge of the bed. The woman’s gaze fell to it, then lifted to meet my eyes. Gav stirred, yawning.
“Justin told me you have a vaccine,” the woman said briskly, and Gav flinched upward at the unfamiliar voice.
“That’s right,” I said.
“A working vaccine?”
“It hasn’t been thoroughly tested,” I said. “But my dad was confident enough that he tried the vaccine on himself. He never got sick.”
The woman scrutinized us. “May I see it?” she asked.
I didn’t like it, but we couldn’t expect them to take everything at our word. At least this woman seemed like someone who could make decisions. “Quickly,” I said. “We have to keep the samples cold.”
She nodded, crossing the room. Meredith shifted beside me, blinking awake. I popped open the lid and tugged up the top of the plastic container that held the vials.
“All right,” the woman said after only a second, and I closed the box. “I suppose, if that really is a vaccine, you know enough about it to tell me what it does?”
It was a test, I suspected, but one I could easily pass. I’d read more about vaccines in the last couple weeks than I’d ever wanted to know.
“The vaccine contains an inactivated form of the virus,” I said. “One that can’t make you sick, but still provokes the immune system to produce antibodies to fight it. Which means if you’re exposed to the actual virus later on, your body can recognize it right away and make the antibodies fight it off fast enough to kill it before it gets a real hold.”
“What if we have someone here who’s infected,” she asked, “and we’d offer you supplies for one of those samples? Presumably you don’t need all three.”
I thought of our dwindling stash of food, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to lie.
“It wouldn’t do them any good,” I said. “Like I said, the vaccine prepares the immune system in case you get infected later. If a person’s already infected, it’s too late—it can’t help. I’m sorry.”
Her mask crinkled with an unseen smile before I’d even finished speaking, and I realized that had been part of the test too. If we’d been lying in the first place, we wouldn’t have hesitated to trade some of our fake vaccine for whatever else we needed to survive. There probably wasn’t anyone sick here.
“Wonderful,” the woman said. “I thought by now—” She shook her head, as if recalling herself. “I wish I could offer you more while you’re here, but most of our facilities—the dining area, the showers—are shared, and I’m afraid it’s our policy that any newcomers have to stay in the quarantine cabin for two weeks before joining the rest of us. We can bring you a hot breakfast to eat here, though. I take it you don’t intend to stay long?”
“No,” I said. At the mention of showers, I could suddenly feel every inch of oil and dried sweat that must be clinging to my skin and hair. And to be able to wash Meredith’s hand properly . . . “We’re safe,” I continued, getting up. I gestured to Leo and Tessa. “About as safe as anyone can get. Tessa and Leo have taken the vaccine, and Meredith and I are immune. We both had the virus weeks ago, and recovered.”
At the mention of their names, Tessa sat up, wincing, and Leo opened his eyes.
“Both of you?” the woman said, her eyebrows arching.
“Kaelyn was lucky,” Meredith said. “And the doctors used her blood to help me.”
“We’d be so grateful if you’d let us just get cleaned up before we go,” I said. “My cousin cut her hand—I haven’t been able to really take care of it.”
Her eyes softened. “And you two?” she asked, glancing at Gav and then Tobias.
“No vaccine, haven’t been sick,” Gav answered for both of them. “But we’re fine. You see us coughing or sneezing?”
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t justify bending the rules that far,” the woman said. “We can bring a few buckets of warm water and some soap out here, if that would help, as well as the food. For the other four of you, though, I think we can rescind the quarantine, as a special case.”
“What if they wear masks?” I said. “We can’t just go off and leave them stuck in here.”
The woman’s jaw tightened, but before she could speak, Gav nudged my arm. “It’s okay, Kaelyn,” he said evenly. “I get it. It’s not like we’ll be sticking around.” Then, to the woman, “We’ll be happy just to get some food and water. Thank you.”
In his corner, Tobias shrugged.
Meredith had already sprung to her feet. “We can take a
real
shower?” she said. “Where?”
“I’ll show you,” the woman replied, her voice amused, and stepped back to the door.
Gav shooed me away. “Just come back quick,” he said, and tapped the cold box with his heel. “I’ll keep watch over these for you.”
Meredith was already scampering out the door. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll be right back.”
“Step carefully,” the woman said as we came out of the cabin. “It’s all ice. We spray down the yard regularly to keep it that way —no footprints. It’s one of our precautionary measures. We’ve only had a few unfriendly intruders wander out this way, but we can’t be too careful.”
I found my balance on the slick ground. We were standing in a clearing surrounded by forest on three sides. A semicircle of cabins like the one we’d just left arced around a larger wooden building. The tall greenhouse Tessa had spotted yesterday stood behind it, glinting in the early morning sun.
The woman motioned to the forest at our left. “We moved your sleds into the trees where the spraying wouldn’t reach them. But you should find they’re as you left them.”
“No offense,” Leo said, shading his eyes against the glare off the ice, “but who
are
you, and where are we?”
“Oh!” she said, sounding honestly surprised. “My apologies. My name’s Hilary Cloutier. And you’ve met Justin.” She patted her son’s shoulder, and he scowled.
“This was once an artist colony,” Hilary explained as we started toward the larger building. “A place off the grid for painters and writers and composers to spend a month or two focusing on their craft. There’s quite a large generator under the gathering house. For the most part we rely on natural light, but we have heat and enough power to run the stove.”
“That’s convenient,” I said.
“We didn’t end up here by chance,” Hilary said. “I’m a sculptor—I worked here for a month every year. When services started failing and people were panicking in our town, this was the first place I thought of, somewhere we might be safe. Everyone here came for the same reason.”
A sculptor? “So how do you know I wasn’t just making things up about the vaccine?” I asked.
She laughed. “Oh, my sister was a nurse. I’m naturally curious. I badgered her with so many questions when we first heard about this mysterious virus. Before, well . . .”
Her laugh had been a little stiff, and the “was” didn’t escape me. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“Have you gotten any crops growing in the greenhouse?” Tessa asked.
Hilary nodded. “Oh yes. We have precautions there too, of course. In case someone comes through who’d try to run us out and take over if they knew the colony was functioning. We keep the vegetable plants spread out, and let the weeds grow around them so it looks as if it was abandoned. But we’ve produced some carrots and beans and peas and tomatoes, and the pear tree is just starting to bear fruit.”
“Where are you planning on taking the vaccine?” she said as we reached a door in the side of the gathering house.
I hesitated automatically, but Meredith had obviously decided these people were trustworthy.
“Ottawa!” she announced. “We’re going to find scientists and doctors so they can make more vaccine for everyone.”
“Ottawa.” Hilary’s eyes went distant. “We have a couple from Ottawa with us. Maybe you should talk with them.” She opened the door. “Well, this is our bathing area. The water won’t get too hot—we have all our heat settings turned down so as not to strain the generator—but there’s plenty of it. There should be soap inside, and extra towels on the shelf. Come around to the front when you’re finished. Everyone’s having breakfast.”
On the other side of the door we found a rack with towels that were drying, and a shelf holding folded towels and bottles of liquid soap. Two hallways branched off from that small room, marked with signs for men and women.
“Pretty amazing what they’ve got set up here,” I said.
“They could probably be totally self-sufficient with just the greenhouse,” Tessa said. “Grow fruits and vegetables and grains for bread . . . though the space restrictions would be a problem, depending on the number of people. With lentils for protein and spinach for iron, they wouldn’t even need meat. I’d like to take a look at what they’ve got.”
“I bet she’ll give you a tour if you ask,” I said as we parted ways with Leo.
At the other end of the hall, we stepped into a change room lined with open shower stalls. I might have felt awkward showering with company, but seeing Tessa strip off her clothes like it was nothing, I figured if it didn’t matter to her, it wouldn’t matter to me.
The first blast of lukewarm water from the showerhead jolted a breathless giggle out of me. Grinning, I scrubbed the grapefruitscented soap over my body from head to toe. I hadn’t showered in weeks, not since the water filtration broke down on the island. I’d forgotten what a glorious feeling it was: the drumming of the spray on my skin, the slippery froth of soap under my fingers, the lightness of hair that’s squeaky clean.
When I’d worked myself thoroughly, I joined Meredith and helped her rinse the lather out of her thicker hair. Then I examined her injured palm. The cut had scabbed over, the edges already starting to flake away over healed skin. No infection redness.
“You took good care of it,” I told her. She tipped her face into the spray, smiling.
“Do we really have to go right away?” she asked as we were toweling off. “Maybe Tobias can call someone on his radio from here, and they’ll come get the vaccine from us.”
Something in my chest twisted. I could hardly blame her for hoping. “I wish he could, Mere, believe me,” I said. “But I don’t know if anyone’s still trying to reach out on the radios. Our best bet is to keep going.” My nose wrinkled involuntarily as I pulled on my travel worn clothes. At Tobias’s advice, we’d been using a little melted snow to wipe ourselves down and rinse our underthings each night on the road, so they weren’t gross, but they weren’t exactly clean either.
“Okay,” Meredith said, but she shot one last longing look at the showers before we headed out.
She
didn’t have to go, I realized abruptly. If we asked Hilary to take her in . . .
And left her with strangers? Hilary might seem nice, but I’d hardly known her half an hour.
Leo was waiting for us in the towel room. “Ready to go?” he asked, his shoulders hunched inside his coat. I wondered whether he thought we could completely trust the people here.
“We should take our breakfast over to the quarantine cabin and eat with Gav and Tobias,” I said as we stepped outside, “so they know we haven’t forgotten them.”
We half walked, half skated along the icy ground to the other side of the building, and almost slid into Justin as we came around the corner. I caught my balance on the wall.
“Hey,” Justin said, his voice low. “Are you really going to take off again today, to keep looking for someone to clone that vaccine of yours?”
“That’s the idea,” I said.
He opened his mouth as if he was going to continue, but then Hilary leaned out of the doorway behind him. “There you are,” she said. “Come in. You must be starving. Justin brought a tray to your friends.”
“I was just talking to them,” Justin said.
“You can talk inside where it’s warm, can’t you?”
He sighed, but he followed us in without comment.
We stepped into a huge room with wood-paneled walls that matched those in the quarantine cabin. Several rough picnic tables stood in rows across the tiled floor. Two older couples were gathered around one of the tables, murmuring to each other. The clatter of dish-washing echoed from a doorway at the other side of the room, which I guessed led to the kitchen. A rich doughy smell filled the air. My mouth started to water.
Leo had gone still beside me. I followed his gaze to a small black shape sitting on a ledge near the kitchen door. A speaker, I recognized, as a faint melody reached my ears beneath the voices and the clinking of dishes. It had a small MP3 player mounted in it. The song was one I vaguely remembered as being on the radio a lot a few years ago, a dance-pop one-hit wonder.
“One of our younger members brought the player,” Hilary said. “The speaker was already here. I can’t say the music is to my tastes, but it’s all we have. We decided it was enough of a morale boost to outweigh the electricity usage. Would you like to sit near it?”
“No,” Leo said, shaking himself as if coming out of a daze. “That—that’s okay.” But as we walked across the room, I caught him swaying slightly with the beat.
He used to live on music. It must have been weeks, maybe months, since he’d heard any. I had the urge to grab his hand and squeeze it.
Then Tessa did exactly that. My throat tightened and I looked away.
Hilary stopped at a table where a woman who looked to be in her thirties was sitting. “I thought you would like to speak with Lauren,” she said, nodding to me and then to the woman. “She and her husband, Kenneth, are the couple from Ottawa I told you about. Justin and I will get your oatmeal while you talk. You were there until December, isn’t that right, Lauren?”
The woman nodded, pushing her hair back behind her ears. Her face was drawn, her eyes deep-set, giving her an almost skeletal appearance. “Much good as it did us,” she said.
Excitement sparked inside me, overriding my discomfort. If we got the details from someone who’d actually been living there, maybe we could make up for some of the time we’d lost. “I guess Hilary told you we’re heading that way,” I said as we sat down. “Where was the government operating from when you left? Should we just go to the parliament buildings to find someone in charge?”
Lauren laughed. “Government? Operating?”
“Well, it’s the capital,” I said. “There’s
someone
still there, isn’t there?”
“There were riots at Parliament Hill a couple of weeks before Ken and I left, when the epidemic was getting severe,” she said. “Violent riots. People were being turned away from the hospitals, you know—having to camp out in tents in the parking lots and on the sidewalks—people were dying on the street. . . .” She cringed. “The rioters, they broke right in. MPs and senators were shot. The buildings were damaged. After that, all the government officials still left cleared out. I don’t know where they went. Maybe Toronto? Maybe they all had their own little hideaways like we do. Even the soldiers who’d been protecting the place vanished.”