The Girl at the End of the World (23 page)

He fired his gun three times just as Dr. Sharma reached the edge of the cell. The first bullet caught the old man in the neck, jerking his head back and spraying blood across the window as the bullet passed clean through him. The second bullet missed, hitting the glass and sending a hundred cracks out in every direction. The third bullet hit the glass as well, just as the old man fell to the ground, shattering the window into thousands of little pieces. And it kept going, heading straight for the window of my cell, straight for me where I stood in the line of fire.

The bullet hit the window with another boom, and I just stood there watching as it struck the thick glass, peppering my shirt with a fine spray of glass dust. I looked down to see the light from the corridor reflecting off the miniscule shards, expecting blood to start darkening the fabric.

But I wasn’t hurt. The bullet didn’t pass through, but was right there in front of me, lodged in the glass, a smashed little cylinder at the center of a spider web of cracks that spread out to the window’s metal frame.

In the hallway, my view of her distorted by all the cracks in the glass, Dr. Sharma had turned from the wreckage of the old man’s cell to look at me inside mine. She looked panicked, and held her ground for only a second before turning away to start running from the chaos around her.

If I hadn’t just been watching the old man, it might have taken me a few seconds to think of what to do, but as it was, I acted immediately, grabbing the chair where I’d sat with the doctor and swinging it at the glass with all my strength. The window exploded outward with a crash and a thunderous pop and a rush of air. Instantly, I could hear alarms sounding; they’d probably been triggered with the first broken window across the hall, but I hadn’t been able to hear them with my glass intact.

I raked the chair along the lower window frame, brushing the last bits of glass aside. Then I set the chair on the floor, stepped onto it, and hopped into the hallway. For the first time now, I saw double doors at the end of the hallway, and Dr. Sharma desperately punching her code into the keypad. She glanced over her shoulder toward me as I ran in her direction, paying no attention to the glass on the tile floor even though I almost slipped on it twice. I ignored Chad, ignored Dolores, ignored the blaring alarm, ignored the soldier still in the old man’s cell; nothing mattered any more, nothing but getting to the double doors before they closed after the fleeing doctor.

At the last second, I leapt at the doorway, my arms wrapping around Sharma’s ankles as she cleared the threshold. She went down in front of me, and I struggled to hold onto her as I hit the ground hard. The doctor turned under me and struggled to kick free, but I wasn’t about to let go. All the anger I’d felt in the weeks since the world had ended—anger at the people I’d lost, anger at Chad and anger at Donovan, anger at Dr. Sharma and Private Muñoz and everyone else in this compound who had conspired to hold me here against my will—all of it came out now in a rage directed at the doctor, the full extent of which she did not deserve.

But it served me well. In seconds, I was straddling her chest and hitting her in the face. Her glasses flew off, cutting the bridge of her nose.

“What did you do? What did you do?!” I shouted. “What did you give us?”

She didn’t answer, just struggled to fend off my blows. Finally, she shouted, “Just let me go!”

“Why the hell should I let you go? Why?” I yelled, holding her down by the shoulders.

A look of absolute defeat came over her then. “Because I’m already dead,” she said, her voice just louder than a whisper. “I’m already dead.”

I couldn’t hurt her any more than I already had. From the moment the old man’s window had shattered with Dr. Sharma right there, her life had been over. Running away from me had just been automatic, if entirely futile.

“What did you give us?” I said, more calmly.

“Different solutions. We developed several possibilities. You didn’t all get the same ones.”

“And one of them made him sick? You gave him the disease?” I shook my head in disbelief. “How could you?”

“We didn’t intend it to go that way.”

“But you knew it might.”

She didn’t respond, just shifted her eyes away.

I was filled with disgust.

But I couldn’t do anything about it.

A door opened to my right, and the soldier who’d shot the old man stepped into the corridor. He still wore his hazard suit and still held his gun. Now he pointed it at me.

“Let her go,” came the muffled command.

I hesitated for a second and then lifted myself off of Dr. Sharma. Maybe it was just training from my past life, but I immediately felt sorry for having attacked her, felt like I was in trouble now and had to atone. Even though she didn’t deserve an apology, I wanted to give one.

But the “Sorry I hit you” that was rising to my lips never got there. The second I was off the doctor, she was scrambling to her feet, groping for her glasses, and then running as fast as she could. She never looked back. I was death to her, I realized. I was pestilence and plague and every horrible thing from every nightmare she’d ever had. And she wanted away from me. A few seconds later, she rounded a corner, dashing away like a scared rabbit, and was gone.

I turned to the soldier. He looked unsure of himself, but also agitated and maybe even angry.

He waved his gun toward the double doors, which had closed after the doctor and I had tumbled through them. “Back in there,” he said.

“It won’t do any good,” I began. “The whole area’s contaminated now.”

It was true. The white zone had become the gray zone, and his expression told me he knew it as well as I did. His frustration and fear rose to the surface now, and he shoved me against the door, slamming my shoulder and elbow into it. I think I cried out in shock and fear more than pain.

“Get back in there!” he shouted now. Looking into his face, seeing the fear and anger barely controlled, I felt lucky he hadn’t already opted for his weapon. That would be next.

“You have to open it,” I said meekly, hoping to calm him. I stepped away and watched him punch the code. 53137. The door clicked open.

“In,” he said.

I stepped through and half turned, expecting him to follow, expecting him to do something to subdue or punish me, to lock me up or restrain me—to contain me and the threat I represented outside my cell. But he didn’t do anything. He just stood there for a second; fear and anger and frustration had overridden his training, and he looked at me in complete disbelief, like he’d just watched the world end all over again. Then he let the door shut between us, content, I suppose, to have the little barrier between us before he ran to find the doctor, maybe hoping to save her or at least to save himself.

Chapter Thirteen

Back in the corridor between the glassed-in cells, the alarm still sounded, a short, sharp tone that grated with each repetition. I tried to ignore it, tried to think about what was next, but the alarm wasn’t any help in getting my racing, colliding thoughts to line up. It also didn’t help that my most persistent thought was of the injections we’d received and the possibility that Chad and Dolores and I were about to go as crazy as the old man had.

So as the door clicked shut and I stood in the bright white corridor with the litter of broken glass upon the floor, I didn’t really stop to think—just ran to Chad’s window and his intercom button.

He was right there, his hands pressed against the glass as though he were trying to part it like water and reach me on the other side. I didn’t bother putting my hands on the glass opposite his. There wasn’t time for little gestures like that. Instead, I hit the intercom button on the panel beside the window.

“Are you okay?” I asked, trying not to sound scared.

“Yeah,” he said. He sounded surprised that I had asked, confused. “What’s happening?”

I shook my head. “The shots they gave us…they might have taken away our immunity.”

“What?” he shouted.

I repeated what Dr. Sharma had told me about the experiment they’d been running on us, and ended by saying, “You’re not feeling any symptoms?”

He hesitated a second. His silence made me nervous. “No,” he said. “Nothing. What happened in the other cell?”

“The old man went nuts. They shot him.”

“He’s dead?”

I nodded. “The bullet cracked my window. That’s how I got out.”

“I thought you just used your chair. Thought you got super strength or something.”

I smiled briefly.

“What now?” Chad asked.

“I get you out. And Dolores. Then we find Kayla and get out of here.”

His face fell.

“What’s wrong?”

“You can’t get me out of here.”

“I can,” I said. “I saw the guard put the code in. I can go through the old man’s cell and open your door from the back corridor. We’ll—”

“No!”

I raised an eyebrow.

“You can’t,” he said. “I might be sick. You said it yourself.”

“Well I might be sick, too!” I countered. “But at least we’ll be out of here.”

“Scarlett, listen! If I’m sick and you’re not…who knows what this new strain is? Sharma said they gave us different formulas?”

I nodded.

“Scarlett, I could get you sick. If they gave you something that had no effect and me something…that did. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you.” He looked down at the floor; it seemed like he couldn’t face me as he said it.

It was almost the exact same argument I’d used on my mom the night of the Dodger game when I’d insisted she and Anna leave before I made them sick. Coming out of Chad’s mouth, now that everything had changed so much, it sounded absurd, and yet I understood exactly how he felt and why he was saying it. My mom had resisted the argument, but eventually I’d gotten her to see the wisdom of it. That wasn’t going to happen now, though. Chad wasn’t going to talk me into leaving.

“I’m not leaving without you,” I said, trying to sound as adult and determined as I possibly could.

He looked up then, his eyes taking me in. He smiled for a second and then looked past me. His face changed, the smile fading into a dead stare.

“You get out,” he said. “Get out while you can.”

I turned to look over my shoulder. In her cell, Dolores stood before the glass, her hands in the air and her eyes aimed at the ceiling. I could see her mouth moving. She looked like she was praying. But that wasn’t what I focused on, wasn’t what had brought the change in Chad’s expression. No, it was the blood streaming from her nose and running down the front of her khaki t-shirt.

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Get out of here, Scarlett.” He said it calmly, but I knew he was scared, as scared as me.

I didn’t want to go; I didn’t think he was right. He wasn’t having any symptoms, and neither was I.

Standing there, looking from Chad to Dolores and back again, I hadn’t really been paying attention to the airflow in the corridor. But that was before it stopped. There were vents high in the ceiling, one just behind me, and cool air had been blowing down on me. Then the whole place seemed to shudder for a second and I heard a distant popping sound.

My first thought was that we were having an earthquake, just a little one. But I also felt the airflow cease, the cool air no longer hitting the backs of my arms.

I must have looked alarmed, as Chad said, “What happened?”

“They shut off the air conditioning.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

I looked up at the vent. Being a few floors underground like this, in a building designed for the study and control of disease, air conditioning might very well be a problem, perhaps not right away and with only a small group of people breathing the limited air supply. Still, it was another reason to think about getting out of here as quickly as possible.

But then there was another shudder, and the airflow started again, this time in the wrong direction. I could hear the ventilation system working now, and if I stood still and concentrated, I definitely felt air passing by me, but flowing upward now toward the vent.

“They’re sucking the air out,” I said at the moment of understanding. “They’re trying to control the contamination.”

“What contamination?” Chad asked.

“When the windows broke. The gray zone crossed into the white zone. They’re trying to keep it from spreading to the rest of the base.”

Chad looked up and put a hand in the air. There would have been a vent in his ceiling, too. “Nothing’s happening in here. Still cool air coming out.”

“Then it’s just the white zone.”

I couldn’t feel any difference in the air yet, had no difficulty breathing. But I guessed that wouldn’t be the case for long.

“I
gotta go,” I said. This time I did put my hand on the glass, and he put his up to match it. “I’ll come back for you.”

“Don’t.”

He meant it, but so did I.

Then I was gone. Taking only a moment to glance at Dolores and wish I could do something for her suffering, I ran to the broken window of the old man’s cell, hoping the soldier had left the door open after he’d shot the old man and seen what was happening in the corridor. Shards of glass stuck up from the window frame, so I darted across the corridor, reached into my cell, and pulled my chair into the white zone. Placing it on the floor next to the old man’s cell, I stepped up and then found a spot on the window frame where I could put my foot without getting cut. Then I was up and in.

The old man lay dead at my feet, a hole in his throat and blood everywhere. There was no avoiding it. If I tried hopping over the pool of blood, I might slip when I landed, and I didn’t want to fall in it. So I stepped gingerly in the puddle, my military-issued socks soaking it up right away, and got past the old man’s body as quickly as I could. I couldn’t stand the feeling of his blood on my feet, so I peeled off the socks as soon as I had crossed the cell and went barefoot to the door at the back.

It was still open. That was one lucky thing. Our captors had installed keypads only on the outside of the cell doors, so knowing the code wouldn’t have done me any good on the inside, which was why I hadn’t opted to get back into the gray zone through my own cell.

Now I was in the gray zone again, in the same spot where we’d first met Dr. Sharma. To my right was the long corridor she’d escorted us along before depositing us in our cells. The door into Chad’s cell was maybe thirty feet away. I hesitated a second, thinking of how vehement he’d been about my staying away from him, and then I ran to his door anyway. I punched the code, and the door clicked open.

“Chad?”

“I told you to stay away!” He sounded scared, as scared as I had the night of my birthday.

“I’m not coming in. I just wanted to unlock your door.” I paused, swallowing back a little sob. “In case I can’t come back. I don’t want you…trapped in there. The code for the doors is 53137. In case,” I repeated.

He didn’t reply. I waited a second, and then turned to run back the way I’d just come.

Past the door into the old man’s cell, I saw the doors that would lead to the elevator the soldiers had brought us down on our first night at the base, and one more door that I hadn’t noticed at the time. It was to the left of the elevator, and I’d had my back to it that night. It had a keypad mounted beside it and a sign prominently displayed in its center that read “Entering Sterile Zone.”

Not so sterile anymore,
I thought.

For a moment or two, I considered hitting the elevator’s call button and getting away on my own. Dolores was as good as dead. I probably wouldn’t be able to keep Kayla alive even if I could cross the desert with her and get her back to the city. And Chad…he didn’t want me rescuing him, didn’t want me risking my life in case he was the next to fall ill with a new strain that might infect me, too. I imagined crossing the desert on my own, making my way back to the observatory…alone. And I left the elevator for later.

53137 worked on the door into the sterile zone. The door was extremely heavy, and when it closed with a click and a hiss, I found myself in a small room, maybe six feet square. On one wall hung four hazard suits, looking almost like limp bodies hanging from their hooks. Along the opposite wall was a black metal box about two feet high and five feet long; mounted to the wall above that was a blank screen that looked like a computer monitor or a small television. Directly across from me was another door with the same sign about the sterile zone and another keypad like the ones I was used to seeing.

I tried the same code on the second door, but it didn’t open. I tried it again with the same results.

“It’s like Donovan’s airlock,” I said aloud, reasoning that if the base’s personnel could just pass from the gray zone to the white zone, it wouldn’t be very sterile. Looking up, I saw that the ceiling was almost completely made of metal vents.

“Okay, then,” I said and turned to the control panel above the metal box. For the first time since I’d been at the base, I had real appreciation for military efficiency. It wasn’t enough to assume that all the personnel had been trained on using the airlock. No, the administration had seen it necessary to put redundant precautions in place to protect its people—and its investment as well.

Seeing no controls, I touched the screen. It blinked to life with the words “Prepare to Enter Sterile Zone” printed in bright red across its center and two squares at the bottom marked “Cancel” and “Continue.” I continued, and the computer walked me through the whole process, directing me to the oxygen tanks stored in the metal box at me feet. These were precautions only in case of emergency or malfunction, the screen assured me, but I was strongly advised to utilize the equipment before proceeding.

Knowing that the air on the other side of the door might be as compromised as it had been in the hallway with Chad, I opened the lid and saw four tanks in black harnesses with breathing masks attached. I pulled a tank out and closed the lid. The computer screen showed me how to check for airflow and supply, which I did, and then I slipped my arms into the harness, wearing the tank like a backpack.

The program walked me through a few more screens, and then it was time to hit the “Initiate Sterilization” button. Immediately, machinery whirred in the ceiling, and the whole room seemed to vibrate. I felt the air rush upward as though a wind were blowing from below my feet. Then it stopped. All was still for a second. This was the point where a staff member who’d opted to ignore the warnings about oxygen may have second-guessed that decision. A loud click followed and then a hum; at the same time, I felt the air pressure in the room change. My ears began to hurt the same way they always had at the bottom of the deep end in Jen’s pool. I tried to get my ears to pop, but it was no good, and I began to feel panic rising up inside me.

And then it was over. I felt air whoosh back into the chamber, and the air pressure returned to normal. I swallowed and felt my ears pop. A second or two later, I felt normal again. The computer screen now read “Sterilization Complete.” And it directed me back to the keypad I’d tried using before.

Now the code worked, and with another loud click the door popped open. I was in the white zone, still wearing the oxygen mask. I took it off just to see if anything was different on this side of the chamber and then put it right back on. The air was so thin here I felt like I was drowning as I tried to breathe. Panic rose in me before I got the mask back on.

After that, I just stood still for a few seconds, taking in big gulps of air and looking around to get my bearings. I was in a long white hallway. Like the space between the cells we’d been in, the walls and floor and ceiling were white and almost blindingly bright.
Sterile
, I thought. I could see several doors in either direction and prepared myself to start opening them one at a time.

But not everything was white. The door I’d just come out of, for one thing. It was gray and had a big sign on it that read “Entering Contaminant Zone.” And it didn’t just have a keypad mounted next to its metal handle. There was also a card reader, a little machine with a slot running down the side.
Extra security
, I thought. Dr. Sharma and her team didn’t want just anyone entering the gray zone; you had to have clearance, probably a special card with a coded strip that needed to be run through the reader before the entry code would work.