Contaminated 2: Mercy Mode (12 page)

“Mom?” She doesn’t move. “Mama?”

Her bed, the one she shared with my dad, takes up a lot more room in my bedroom, but she keeps everything a lot neater than I ever did, so there’s no trouble reaching her. I sit on the edge of the bed and wait for her to wake, but all I get is the soft in-out of her breathing.

“Mom?”

I touch her forehead, checking for fever. It’s cool. She murmurs at my touch and shifts a little. Her fingers twitch. The soft word slipping from her lips sounds a lot like my dad’s name.

If she’s dreaming of him, should I wake her?

Instead, I sit and watch her face move through a range
of emotions she rarely shows when she’s awake. She’s come a long, long way from the blankness she showed the first few weeks she was home, but there’s always something a little … slower … with her. A little off. Once, Mrs. Holly had said, “It’s like watching a television set warm up.” I wasn’t sure what she’d meant until she explained that TVs used to not turn on and off as automatically as they do now, that it used to take a minute or so for the picture to show up on the screen, and that it would sometimes be faint at first. Like a ghost image, before becoming clear. That’s exactly how it was.

Watching my mom now is like scanning through a recorded show to skip the commercials. Sorrow, confusion, glee, anger all flicker across her face. The expressions make her a stranger, and I don’t want to watch anymore.

“She’s getting worse, not better, Velvet.” Mrs. Holly catches me outside of my room.

She wears her white hair long enough to pull into a small, wispy ponytail on top of her head, because she used to get it permed in tight curls close to her head and now there’s no way to keep doing that. She showed me pictures in the album she brought with her from her house, one of the few things she took. She used to have pretty, dark hair. She used to look like a movie star. Now she’s tiny, her shoulders hunched, her face wrinkled. But her eyes sparkle.

“She’s fine.” I want it to be true.

Mrs. Holly looks past me for a moment. “She’s spending
too much time inside her head, honey. She’s like a boy I knew in elementary school … he … Well. Never mind.”

“He what?”

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter, dolly. What matters is that we take good care of her, right?”

“Are you scared of her, Mrs. Holly?” We both keep our voices down, though my mom shows no sign of waking up. I realize I spend way too much time talking in whispers to keep other people from overhearing.

Mrs. Holly hesitates. “No. Your mother, she’s not like that.”

“Because you know she had the collar on,” I say in a low voice. “They did stuff to her before they released her to the kennel. But before that, we don’t know if she ever … made trouble.”

“I’m not afraid of her. I’m afraid for her.” Mrs. Holly looks sad. “She’s failing, Velvet. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

I lean against the wall. I don’t want to hear this. Mrs. Holly touches my arm gently.

“The boy I went to school with lived on a farm. And one day, he got kicked in the head by a horse. Laid him out cold, and his parents didn’t find him for a few hours. He was unconscious when they took him to the hospital, but eventually, he woke up. But he wasn’t ever quite right after that. He forgot things, for one. And sometimes, he would get angry. Violent.” Mrs. Holly pats my arm as though that
will make this story easier to hear. “Not so much different from these poor people who got Contaminated. Something wrong in their brains, yes?”

“Holes. The Contaminated protein water had twisted prions in it, and it made holes in their brains. It’s irreversible.” That’s what they tell us, anyway.

“Yes. Well, this poor boy had something damaged in his brain. Later on, he couldn’t go to school any longer. He couldn’t keep up. And though he looked fine on the outside, he wasn’t the same as he’d been before. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“I already know she’s not the same. She’ll never be the same. But she’s not like they say they are. Or like she’s supposed to be. My mom’s different,” I whisper fiercely.

Mrs. Holly nods, but looks again over my shoulder to where my mom still lies sleeping. “The boy started to get smaller. That’s the only way to describe it, dolly. He stopped laughing or joking. And he stopped the rages, too. He spent a lot more time inside his own head. Sleeping. Or sitting, staring. And finally, after a while, he simply stopped doing anything.”

We both look at my mom then.

“You think that’s what’s happening to her?” I ask.

Mrs. Holly hesitates. Then nods. “I think so, Velvet. I hope I’m wrong. But we need to be ready, you know. In case she’s getting ready to leave us.”

It would be better for my mom to fade away the way
Mrs. Holly says than for her to become dangerous and violent. Better for her. Better for us.

“How was your shopping expedition?” Mrs. Holly asks with a smile.

She’s trying to change the subject, and I know it but let her. “Good. We got a car, too.”

“A car?” Her eyebrows fly up. “What on earth?”

“Makes better sense than riding our bikes back and forth. I bet we’re going to find a lot of things we weren’t thinking about before. We need to get as much as we can before winter.” I shrug.

“Yes. That makes sense. Although it won’t matter,” Mrs. Holly says darkly, “if they come to take us all away.”

FOR A WHILE, THERE’S QUIET. SPRING BECOMES
summer, which drags on, hot and hotter. Dillon goes to work every day on the garbage truck, and he brings home fewer cool items. People have stopped throwing useful things away. Mrs. Holly and my mom work in the garden, using the raised beds I put together after seeing them in the backyard of Sandra’s house. Opal and I scavenge the neighborhood, going house by house, finding a routine. Honestly, I love it. The more stuff we find, the less anxious I feel about the coming winter. About everything. It’s like every time I add a row of cans or cartons to our supplies, I’m a little less worried about the future.

The regular radio plays only old songs with occasional government updates reminding us about curfews and rationing, how the soldiers are here to protect us … though there’s not supposed to be anything to protect us from. So every night, we listen to the Voice broadcasting from a new
location, telling us more and more about the most current wave of Contamination and what we’re not supposed to know. That’s mostly everything.

Opal tries to train Dexter to sit and fetch and roll over, but all he learns is how to beg. It’s funny to watch him protect the chicken, though. The one we now call Lucky. Dillon and I built her a pen out of an old rabbit hutch and a dog kennel to keep her safe, and she gives us an egg every day. Sometimes we save them for a few days so we can have them together, or bake a cake or brownies from the mixes I took from Sandra’s basement. Hers was the first house we cleaned out, taking all the food, supplies, and tools. All the useful things … but not all the books. So every few days, when I need to get away from the house and the never-ending chores that were bad enough when we had electricity to run the washer and dryer and vacuum, I ride my bike to Sandra’s house and fill my backpack with books. Sometimes I run, just for the sake of it, to work my muscles in a different way, and because it gives me an excuse to be gone longer.

Sometimes, I sit in the room with all the books and read for an hour in the quiet, and pretend life is the way it used to be.

Dillon and I took care of Kevin and burned the chair he was in. I took another from the living room to use as I sit by the window and lose myself in fiction. I selfishly like having the time all to myself, in a place where I don’t have
to worry about cooking or cleaning or making sure Opal brushes her teeth. Where I’m simply Velvet, who doesn’t have to take care of anyone but herself.

Today, I run. Empty backpack over my shoulders, bouncing with every step. The sun’s hot overhead, but I stick to the shade of the trees, crisscrossing the street as necessary to keep out of the overgrown weeds. I don’t give the car wreck a second glance anymore. By the time I get to the house, I’m sweating and thirsty, but I don’t go inside yet.

I drink from the water bottle I brought along, and go around the back to the ponds. The smaller one has dried up a lot from the heat and lack of rain, but the bigger one is still deep and dark green. Fish swim up to nibble at my shadow. I don’t want to imagine being hungry enough to eat goldfish or frogs, even if they are a delicacy in France or wherever.

Still, I like to watch the fish. Slipping off my sneakers and socks, I sit on the edge of the small bridge and let my feet dangle in the water. I listen to the sounds of the birds and trickle of water from the overflow pipe underneath the bridge. Behind me, the stream moves too slow and shallow to make any noise.

I sit with my eyes closed. Relaxing. The sun filters through the trees, keeping away most of the heat so what does hit my face feels good. I lie back on the bridge’s warm wood and listen to the trickle of water beneath it. I could stay here forever.

I doze and dream about the Fourth of July. Hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled chicken … I fill my plate and eat and eat, but I’m still hungry. I’m with Dillon, his arm around me. We sit next to my parents on a plaid blanket on the edge of Mt. Gretna Lake and watch the fireworks.

Bam, pop, bang!

I startle awake, feeling sticky and hot and sort of achy from the sun. The fireworks sound is not from the dream. That’s real. I hear it again, the rat-a-tat of firecrackers.

No. Gunfire. Someone’s shooting.

Even before the Contamination, we were used to occasional gunfire. This neighborhood backs up on Pennsylvania State Game Lands, and in hunting season we often heard the bang and crack of shotguns. Since then, there’s been some shooting closer than the game lands, because while most of the neighborhood is empty, there are a few other people and some of them apparently are hungry enough to risk eating venison.

This is different, though. No single, echoing bang. I sit up, cocking my head. This is a string of shooting.

Turning, I try to figure out where it’s coming from. The opposite direction from my house, which is good. I drink the rest of my water, gone warm from the sun, and put my socks and shoes back on. I set my backpack against the side of the bridge as I leap to the other side, toward the back of the yard, where it meets the trees.

This house is at the very back edge of the neighborhood,
pressing against the game lands and, beyond that, connecting with the highway heading toward Ephrata. That’s the road I cross when I head into town, because it helps me avoid the checkpoints, but I’m a few miles away from my normal path. I push through the tangle of raspberry bushes and weeds, and into the thicket of forest beyond the yard.

It’s cooler in here, which feels good. I pick my way over fallen trees and around big boulders. I keep my eyes open for random Connies or worse, non-Contaminated people without good manners or morals. I’m wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and my worn sneakers slip on dead leaves and gravel. I keep listening, hard as I can, and have now picked up the faint sound of shouts. The rev of engines. I smell the stink of exhaust and something else, sharp and stinging.

But when I look around the forest, I see nothing. I’m not close enough to the highway, and now I’m far enough away from the neighborhood roads that even if there are soldiers patrolling them again, I shouldn’t be able to hear or smell them. Again, the rat-a-tat comes, and the noise of it twists something inside me, tight like a fist.

I run.

I shouldn’t be able to go this fast, not with so many obstacles, but something pushes me. I jump a giant boulder and come down on the other side, off balance enough to stumble, but I catch myself. I push off again, bounding. Branches break beneath my shoes. Leaves crunch. I run fast, ducking around trees and rocks and, once, a startled pair
of does that turn to stare after me without even running themselves.

The road’s ahead, a clearing in the trees, and I slow down. I should be breathing harder. I should be sweating more. Instead, my eyes are wide, mouth dry. My muscles burn and tingle, but not too badly. I crouch and duck to keep myself hidden as I scoot closer to the edge of the hill overlooking the highway.

But now, instead of a two-lane highway stretching scenically through a long sweep of forest, all I see is concrete barriers with army trucks behind them. And soldiers with guns. I see a bunch of cars, one tipped on its side, the others on the edge of the road with their doors hanging open.

And I see people.

Some are in a sprawling pile surrounded by a spreading puddle of red, and I clap a hand over my mouth to hold back a cry. There are others standing in front of the soldiers with their hands on their heads. A man. A woman. Two small children, younger than Opal, stand beside them, but their hands hang at their sides. I can see their collars from here.

As I watch, a soldier tugs the kids away from the mother, who erupts at once, going after him with flailing fists and feet and screams. Another soldier doesn’t hesitate; he hits her on the head with the butt of his gun. She goes down. The man goes after the soldier taking the kids, and he’s down in another minute.

The soldier puts the silent, unprotesting kids in a truck with a canvas cover on the back. There’s shouting. There’s that smell, that terrible, awful smell. But there’s no more shooting, and I’m so glad for that.

This isn’t a normal checkpoint. They’re not telling people to turn around. They’re shooting them or putting them in trucks.

From below, I hear the rev and roar of a motor. When I peek through my fingers, I see a tractor-trailer bearing down on the concrete barriers and army trucks. The road’s so flat here, the truck’s in full view, even if it’s at least a mile away; and it’s going so fast, it will be here in half a minute.

The soldiers shout and scramble. Some to the sides of the concrete barriers. Some to the trucks, which they pull out of the way as much as they can. I’ve lost track of which one the kids were put into, but I’m hoping it’s the one backing into the small park-and-ride lot, far off the road. That tractor trailer is coming fast, no signs of slowing. It’s going to hit those barriers and anything behind them at top speed.