Toxic (63 page)

T
he speedboat drew a shining line on the calm sea. Elaine let herself be taken away by the moment, soothed by the heat of the sun on her skin like a reminder of the past and of the softness and nonchalance which was gone. She closed her eyes, savoring the pressure of the wind. When she reopened them, a metallic dot on the horizon brought her back to reality. She took the throttle down several notches and turned the helm to port side. The arrow above the halo of the alien apparatus wasn’t pointing to that structure, therefore, that wasn’t what she was looking for. She went up to it nonetheless.

In bad shape, the rusted steel structure on stilts supporting several floors of rooms and a helicopter pad didn’t give her any confidence. The structure was at risk of collapsing for lack of maintenance. The nurse did a full circle at a distance. The gaping holes and twisted support beams confirmed her impression. It was impossible for this to be a refuge, she concluded. Who would take such a risk?

She accelerated once again and the cigar-shaped boat leaned back, the stern lined up with the shining needle.

“In times of war,” her dad had said one day, “you find allies where you can, and sometimes that means making pacts with an enemy.”

She was following in his footsteps, she realized, following a similar plan. Jave was the enemy, that of the human race. She wasn’t planning to reconsider this dogma after her strange encounter, but she could take advantage of the situation. For the moment, she didn’t know how or even if it was in the realm of the possible. She thought about the antidote once again, and then about Dewei and about how they had almost taken him for infected at Key West. What would have happened if Masters had killed him? Would the group have followed a different path? Today, the Asian incarnated hope. Alison and Alva, her junkie-turned-friend, Bruce the biologist, Hector the trafficker... they were quite the group, brought together by chance and circumstance. She gripped the helm, worried about their fate, her brothers in arms, their bonds forged through trials.

She better understood her father’s love for his crew. It had taken another war for that.

According to the directions provided by the creature, she was crossing the edge of the Pony field. The Gulf of Mexico had been divided into holdings which had themselves been divided into blocks destined for oil prospection or extraction. After half an hour of navigation in the area, one and then several shapes appeared in the distance, straight in front of her. Reflections betrayed their positions. Elaine hesitated. The experience of the past days showed her that you couldn’t trust groups of survivors, as they revealed to be as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than zombies and aliens. Jave’s high-tech compass was pointing in that direction. Did they come from the place that she was trying to find?

She slowed down and prepared for inspection. Where to hide the communication device? With a caressing gesture, it changed into a motionless child’s marble. She hid it where a man would be hesitant to search.

The three silhouettes became clear wakes and then the profiles of hulls similar to that of her boat, but with differences. They were armed and had three colors of gray camouflage in broken lines. A uniformed individual pointed to her with a mounted machine gun. Elaine put her arms in the air.

“I’m unarmed,” she yelled at them, without having an effect on the man threatening her.

One of the speedboats, with four occupants, moved to the side of hers.

“Who are you?” one of them questioned, his face familiar.

His dark t-shirt covered a body which she could see was robust and chiseled.

“I’m Elaine Jones. I’m a nurse.”

“What are you doing here?”

She hid the truth.

“I’m fleeing. There was an attack in the camp where I was living last night,” she explained. “The aliens surprised us and captured everyone.”

The man raised an eyebrow and exchanged glances with his companions.

“Except you?”

“No, the others were killed by the L-Ds.”

“Do you know the Reverend?”

Elaine nodded. The nose, the contour of his eyes... The face of this individual possessed features that she had already seen.

“You’re going to come with us. No tricks or we’ll shoot you.”

“What’s... your name?”

“Jon Heiss.”

The sheik’s ass offered a panoramic view of three hundred sixty degrees, an unobstructed view towards the ocean. The Reverend swept his binoculars over the surroundings of the cubic villa which was separated from other areas. He scanned the fencing and impossible to cross moat. With a slow movement, he moved back towards the building, which was a mini-fortress. From one of the poorly sealed windows came a light indicating activity. He had also spotted the pickup,
their
pickup, parked in front of the patio. The man responsible for the death of their men was therefore hiding here, with two brats, a junkie and a scientist, which according to Dan, were easy prey.

The area revealed to be calm, with no alien drones flying overhead and no zombies, which ultimately seemed like a handicap to him. His gaze stayed on the bridge. The strategic point. Attacking head-on would be a delicate affair. They had to force their way in, cross, possibly under enemy fire and afterwards take their places, without the help of a zombie diversion. The Reverend didn’t like it.

“I didn’t see any infected.”

“We’ll find them somewhere else. It’s no problem; we have enough in stock. The plan is to distract them with the infected, terrorize them and then catch them.”

At his side, Dan lit up a cigar, a pleasure that had become rare, even for an American of Cuban origin. His loyal lieutenant was planning to have fun with his new enemies by drawing from his personal stocks and therefore counterbalancing his troops’ low numbers. The two loyal soldiers, who had remained behind during their leaders’ deliberations, were going back and forth to and from the region’s stockyards.

“The hard part, and it’s going to be a real challenge, is how do we get them to the other side of the enclosure? We can’t cross the pit and there’s also the fence.”

Dan let out a puff in the nighttime air. “I have a little idea that I think you will like, Reverend.”

The ceremony, the very antithesis of the splendor long-planned by the deceased, was summed up by the fall of a body wrapped in white sheets. Bruce, aided by Masters and Alva, had watched his dad disappear, swallowed by the earth, without finding the right words. What to say?

The group then took refuge inside. Bottles of preserves simmered on a gas stove whose gauge was approaching the red zone. Masters sat down on one of the armchairs with Alva, who, in the nurse’s absence, was taking care of his arm. She wrapped a clean bandage around the blue flesh. According to her, nothing was broken. Alison and Dewei were relaxing with a card game which was left behind in a kitchen drawer.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” the soldier declared.

“It’s not as if me and him were the closest friends. I don’t really feel anything. I don’t know what I should think.”

The singer interrupted her movement.

“At one time, I hated my mom, and even then, I’d love to see her again and tell her... that I miss her.”

“Yeah.”

Bruce got up to check the food and dipped the wooden spoon into a molasses of beans, tomato sauce and chunks of meat. A royal feast for the times. The smell made him drool.

“I’m super hungry,” Alison declared.

“It won’t be much longer. Could you set the table?”

The girl smiled. “That was my job at home. I hated it.”

He watched her open the cupboards and drawers and take out the utensils, plates and glasses.

“Now, I wish it would always be like this.”

The artist had finished attending to Masters and crossed the room with the plate, which she emptied into the garbage.

“He needs antibiotics,” she explained to him, “because of the risk of infection.”

The words came out automatically.

“OK. Follow me.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“The pharmacy is on the other side, at the end of the hallway.”

This face-to-face moment, he had dreamed about it often. Him, her, and a tiny, barely lit place. Except that she had a flashlight and he was digging through a temperature-controlled cabinet. It was quite a bit less romantic. He turned around, the precious bottle in his hands, and found himself so close to his object of desire that he leaned in to kiss her. Alva pushed him back unceremoniously.

“Fuck! Who do you think you are? I understand that your dad just died and that it’s bugging you, but I’m not your shoulder to cry on.”

She grabbed the pills from him, annoyed.

“And I already told you no. In this world, just like in the past, no means no.”

His dad would have never had this type of problem. He would have simply taken what he wanted. He always did. Money was just one means among others. He watched her leave the room, hypnotized by her feline walk and her exquisite curves. You couldn’t learn to be graceful; it was an innate talent, for better or for worse. Bruce hurried. He saw Masters at the end of the hallway, cutting him short in his desire.

“I heard you fighting. Is everything OK with you two?”

“Yeah,” Alva muttered. “We’re all tired, I think.”

Jon Heiss.

He hadn’t tied her up, just put her under a tight guard, flanked by two men with the beginning of beards and with arms as thick as trunks. Their AKs looked like kids’ toys in their hands. She thought once again about the ball hidden in her blouse. The search had been quick and the man assigned to the task had carefully avoided feeling her chest. An encouraging sign, though strange, and almost abnormal.

The fleet of speedboats headed to the west. During the trip, nobody spoke to her or even looked at her. They were watching the horizon. Except for Jon. He was staring at her furtively. She saw his reflection in the glass of the cockpit.

Annie’s brother.

His sister had betrayed her by delivering her to the Reverend. The question in her mind was how to present the truth, as there was no doubt that the subject would come up. He was ogling her for a reason she understood perfectly: after having announced that the camp had been attacked, he was worried about what had happened to Annie. Family bonds resisted everything, even the worst. When a patient was an inch away from death and their family members rushed to see them, differences and antagonisms of sometimes several decades were put aside. Elaine called that the leveling power of Death, the only thing capable of making a blank slate of the past.

They arrived at their destination an hour later.

Pony Field didn’t contain one but rather three platforms linked to each other by bridges. The structures, in a much better state than the one she had seen earlier, rose several dozen meters above the waves. The first question that came to her mind put wrinkles on her forehead. Jon noticed her perplexity.

“Don’t worry about it. There are stairs.”

They turned towards the most imposing of the three structures. One of the pillars had a sort of wire mesh platform at its base. The boats approached it one by one to tie up. The operation required experience and a sense for the waves, which could crush them against the metal column. Elaine chased away the tension by closing her eyes, twice.

Once she was reassured and their skiff was securely attached, Jon helped her get off. She noticed the men exchanging glances without being able to interpret them. All that she was hoping for was to not fall into the hands of a group of mad men once again. The ascent was a significant physical effort. Half-way up, she paused. Jon volunteered to keep her company.

“I’m tired,” she sighed. “I’ve been running for two days; I’ve barely eaten and my body is giving me warning signs. It’s inevitable after such a marathon.”

“You’ll be able to rest soon. We have complete comfort up there. And believe me, the view of the Gulf alone is worth the final effort.”

“If you say so.”

“You look like you’ve had a hard time.”

Maybe he was digging for information? His method seemed very different from that of his sister. She started to head up once again.

After gathering the last of her strength, Elaine reached the top, exhausted. She saw the welcoming committee when she raised her head, her chest still burning, her muscles on fire. They looked like the descendants of a robust family which had abandoned the tough mountain life for a no less laborious life on the water. None of them looked like a scientist from far away or close up, or a researcher working on the antidote. Before the invasion, oil field workers already had a reputation for being convicts facing an environment filled with danger. It was a job inaccessible to women. Because of that, their disapproving glances were no surprise.

Once of the gorillas moved forward.

“Richardson. I’m responsible for these facilities.”

“Elaine Jones. Nurse.”

Elaine offered him her hand. He didn’t take it.

“We would like to know what you were doing only a few miles from our base.”

Base
, she told herself. Maybe she was in the right place after all.

“I was fleeing. Far from the coast. On the sea, at least, there are no L-Ds. Please, let me rest here for a while. Last night was difficult. A shower too. I smell like death.”

The leader turned towards his henchmen to have a meeting which lasted less than a minute. It was a rapid consensus.

“We’re going to put you in a room. You understand that we can’t let you move around freely among us. A platform is a dangerous place. One of the men will stand guard in front of your room.”

That was funny, she thought. This guy was using the same words as the Reverend during his visit to her cell. Was that another sign?

The rest lasted two hours or a little less, she guessed. She heard the bangs, and put on a robe before opening the door to a familiar face: Jon.

“Now that you’re clean, rested and dolled up, the boss would like to meet with you.”

“I’ll be ready in two minutes,” she promised before closing the door once again.