Outcome (11 page)

He didn't get far. In the middle compartment of the third car, Dee lay on a blanket on the floor, unmoving, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Chip reached for the window. His heart felt squeezed, weak, as if sight of Dee's body had aged him eighty years. His thighs shook. He moaned, hand sliding down the glass.

Dee blinked, turned her head toward the movement and noise. Her mouth fell open. She thrashed to her feet.

"Dad!" she shouted through the plexiglass.

Ellie tapped on the window, put a finger to her lips. Chip mimicked her. Ellie knelt on the platform and set down her bag. She handed the pistol to Chip.

"Should I cover you?" he said.

She squinted at him. "Something like that."

She dug out her tools and got to work on the lock. Blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Dee tottered to the door and thrust her hand through the empty pane above the padlock chain. Chip grabbed her hand in his and leaned over Ellie.

"I'm here," he said. "I'm here, Dee."

"Dad," Dee choked.

"How do you feel? Do you feel okay?"

"I'm hungry. I've been in here so long."

"Do you have a cough?"

Dee shook her head, eyes dark-rimmed and burning. "What's happening? Who's she?"

"That's Ellie." Chip ducked his face to his shoulder and wiped away the tears. "It's going to be okay, Dee. We're gonna get you out. We're gonna get you safe."

Ellie's picks clinked. The lock fell open.

Feet pounded on stairs. "Hands up! Away from the doors!"

Chip craned around. At the far end of the platform, a soldier in white and black camo pounded down the stairs, rifle raised. The padlock clunked to the concrete. A gunshot clapped down the tunnel. Ellie grunted and thumped against the train.

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Ellie banged against the door and rebounded, falling to the platform. Her gut throbbed and hollered. The soldier shouted, advancing down the stairs to the platform. Chip raised the pistol and pulled the trigger. Chips of tile burst behind the soldier. He swung the gun on Chip, who fired again, staggering the man; blood sprayed the concrete. The man yelled and fired, shredding the subway car. Dee screamed. Chip strode forward, gun extended, pulling the trigger as fast as he could. The soldier fell flat, jolting with each bullet.

She'd been hit in the gut. Somewhere around her belly button. The pain peaked into a blinding whiteness. She lost track of her senses, swept under by the burning foam of hurt.

The wave broke and receded. The soldier lay dead on the platform. Chip ran toward her, stepping past to the subway door.

"Dee!" he called. "Dee?"

Ellie crawled toward the dead man. The pain was incredible. Otherworldly. Comically strong—why did her body need her to feel this much? Already it was shutting down her receptors, dampening the fire of her wound with a cocktail of brain-dousing chemicals. She yanked the rifle away from the dead man and braced it against her shoulder.

A woman in camo raced down the steps. Ellie shot her in the chest; the soldier bounced down the staircase and hit bottom, arms slapping against the platform.

Chip appeared beside her, kit in hand. Dee stood behind him, mouth hanging slackly.

"Get her out of here," Ellie said. "I've got your back."

"What are you talking about?" Chip said.

"In a few minutes, I'm going to die of blood loss."

"Ellie! I'm a fucking medic!"

"Are you a surgeon?" She waved at the tunnel. "Go!"

He didn't say a word, just grabbed her under the arm and hauled her to her feet. The motion tore at the hole in her gut. She screamed. Dee flinched. Another soldier leapt down the stairs. Ellie pushed away from Chip and aimed. Her first shot flew past the man's chest. He cried out, fired a wild round over her head. Her next shot took him down.

A young girl crawled from the train car. Ellie swung the gun at her. The girl froze, blinking. Ellie staggered, grasping Chip's shoulder. He hauled her to the platform.

"Dee," he said. "I'm gonna jump down to the tracks. You help Ellie down, then you jump in my arms, okay?"

"Where are we going?" Dee said.

Ellie laughed. "Chip. We're three, four miles from where we came in. I won't even make it to 34th."

"Shut up." He passed her to Dee, sat on the edge of the platform, and dropped out of sight. He raised his hands above the platform. "Come on. Just a little further."

With a bemused detachment that was probably shock, Ellie lowered herself to the ground, aided by Dee, and passed Chip the rifle. She half-climbed, half-fell into his arms. He grunted, stepped back, nearly tripped on the rail. He lowered her to the ground. Dee swore and jumped into Chip's upraised arms.

Chip shouldered his kit. She took up the rifle. He held her up on one side and started down the dark tunnel. Dee clung close to his other side, glancing over her shoulder every few steps.

"I'm bleeding," Ellie said. "A lot of bleeding."

"I know," Chip said.

"My feet are having a hard time finding the ground."

"I know." Panting, he coughed and cleared his throat. "Don't talk. I'm gonna get you to the next platform and patch you up. You'll be fine."

"Well," she said. "We found her. And all we had to do was search every hospital in the city, outlast a plague, and march through miles of corpse-choked tunnels."

"Ellie."

She stumbled over a tie, knees banging the ground. "Most likely she's immune. Not much chance she made it all this time breathing the same air as the sick."

"You got to be quiet. Save your strength."

"Even so—you have to get her out of the city. She might not have immunity. There are always exceptions. Outliers. Maybe she just got lucky." Ellie felt drunk. Holy cow, the tunnel was long. At least when she dropped, Chip could just pitch her with the others lumped atop the tracks. She laughed. "I mean, we found her, didn't we? How much luckier can you get?"

"Wasn't luck," Chip said. "Not as hard as we worked. Now you need to be quiet."

Ellie was going to protest, but she forgot what she was going to say. Her stomach hurt very badly, but her head grew warmer and warmer. She wasn't seeing too well. Chip said something she didn't catch. Her feet stuck in the sludge and tripped over ties. She could barely smell the stink of the dead. After a while, she could no longer feel her feet.

She didn't want to die. She tried to call out, but it was as if her voice belonged to someone else. She regretted—not one thing, but all of it, a universal yearning to have done different and done more—and then she stopped.

* * *

Light shimmered, little blades that cut between her eyelids and nicked her corneas. A cool hand touched her forehead. A man murmured. 

Dark pressed down on her. A silver window. The hoot of a hunting owl. Her stomach hurt. She wanted to hide, to pull herself beneath the blankets and wait for the owl to pass her by, but she had no strength.

Light again, in flickers and bright bursts. Light on the waves of a deep blue lake. The window was open and a mountain breeze chilled her face. She pulled up the covers. Her stomach tugged, but the pain was blunt. Breathing felt too good. She was on painkillers. Something strong. Carefully, she pulled away her blankets. Stitches ticked her stomach, the flesh around them swollen and pink.

"We did surgery," Dee said. "You're really gross inside."

Ellie tugged the blankets back, wincing. It took three tries to find her voice. "Where's your dad?"

The girl looked at her hands. "Sleeping."

"We're in the mountains, aren't we? How did he get me out?"

"He carried you."

Ellie closed her eyes. He'd carried her for miles through the tunnels, past the piles of bodies, skirting along the narrow platforms, step by step. Then, in some order, he'd given her emergency treatment, driven six-odd hours to a cabin he'd never visited, and performed surgery to remove the bullet. No wonder he was tired.

"Take this." Dee passed her a knuckle-sized pill. "Dad's afraid you'll get septic."

She swallowed the pill. Without meaning to, she fell asleep again, waking in the afternoon. She wasn't sure it was the same day. Chip had rigged her with an IV. She detached it, then sat down to fight off a wave of nausea. She staggered to the bathroom, where she remained seated several minutes after she was done.

She wandered room to room, then went to the window. Dee sat on the dock, hugging herself, a brisk wind rippling the lake. Ellie went to the closet for a coat and made her way down the grassy slope to the shore. Her feet clumped over the dock.

"Where's your dad?"

Dee didn't turn. "Sleeping."

"He's been asleep a while, hasn't he?"

The girl shrugged her narrow shoulders. "Maybe he's awake now. He's in the other cabin. The door's locked."

Ellie gazed over at the guest cabin, a three-room thing she hadn't cleaned in years. Drapes concealed the windows. She went inside for the key, made sure Dee was still on the dock, then circled around to the back door and went inside.

The room was dark, but she could smell it. She clicked on the light to be sure. Chip lay in bed, his face as pale as the bodies stacked in the tunnels. She closed the door and locked it. She didn't have the strength to do more just yet.

Dee sat on the dock, legs dangling, watching the sun on the water. Ellie wasn't the girl's mother. She doubted she ever would be—an aunt, perhaps, or an older sister of sorts, or simply someone there to care for a person who wasn't yet ready to care for herself.

A gust shook the pines. Or she could just leave. There were dozens more cabins as isolated as this one. Thousands, if she wanted to risk living on one of the larger lakes. She didn't owe the girl a thing. If not for the girl, Chip wouldn't have stayed long enough to get the disease.

But that had been his choice, not Dee's.

She hobbled down to the dock and lowered herself next to the girl. Weeds swayed in the water. A part of her wondered whether they were edible.

"Things have changed," Ellie said. "We'll be living out here for a while. There won't be any school. We won't have any neighbors, and if anything bad happens, or anyone bad comes for us, we'll have to protect ourselves. I've got plenty of food, and we've got the lake for water, but I don't think the electricity will last much longer. We're going to have to work very hard."

Dee gave her a look. "You talk like the whole world blew up."

"Nope," she said. "It just fell down."

"But we're okay?"

"I think so. Who knows how things might change tomorrow." She watched the sunlight on the water. It was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen. If she'd let herself, she could have gotten lost in it. "But one thing will never change. Your dad always loved you, and he always will."

Dee looked up, brow furrowed in confusion. Then her eyes went bright. Tears spilled over and fell off the dock, disappearing in the wind-blown waves. She leaned over and hugged Ellie as hard as she could.

After a moment, Ellie hugged her back.

OUTCOME
is a story from the beginning of the
BREAKERS
series. If you liked it, please check out
Breakers
and
Melt Down
. (If those links aren't clicky, just visit smarturl.it/breakers and smarturl.it/meltdown-az)

FROM THE AUTHOR

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Breakers
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