Justin Cronin - The Twelve

And everybody was freezing. Well, so be it, Peter thought. What was a little cold?

He had formed a close friendship with Eustace. Some of this was their shared bond as officers of the Expeditionary, but not all; they had discovered, as the days passed, that they possessed compatible temperaments. They decided that Peter should lead the advance team that would travel south to prepare Kerrville for the influx of refugees. Initially he’d objected; it didn’t seem right to be among the first to leave. But he was the logical choice, and in the end, Alicia sealed the case. Caleb is waiting for you, she reminded him. Go see to your boy.

The exodus itself would have to wait till spring. Assuming Kerrville could send enough vehicles and personnel, Eustace planned to move five thousand people at a time, the composition of each group determined by a lottery. The trip would be arduous—all but the very old and very young would have to walk—but with luck the Homeland would be empty within two years.

“Not everybody will want to go, you know,” Eustace said.

The two of them were seated in Eustace’s office, in the back room of the apothecary, warming themselves with cups of herbal tea. Most of the buildings in the market had been taken over by the provisional government to serve various functions. The latest project to occupy them was the tallying of a census. With all the redeyes’ records having been destroyed in the Dome, they had no idea who was who, or even how many people there were. Seventy thousand was the generally accepted number, but there was no way to know precisely unless they counted.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

Eustace shrugged. The left side of his head was still bandaged, giving his face a lopsided appearance, though balanced by his clouded eye. Sara had removed the last of Peter’s stitches the prior day; his chest and arms now bore a road map of long, pinkish scars. In private moments, Peter couldn’t stop touching them, amazed not only by the fact that he’d inflicted these wounds upon himself but also that, in the heat of the moment, he’d barely felt a thing.

“This is what they know. They’ve lived their entire lives here. But that’s not the whole reason. It’s good to right a wrong. I don’t know how many will feel that way once we start moving people south, but some will.”

“How will they manage?”

“I suppose how people always manage. Elections, the rough business of building a life.” He sipped his tea. “It’ll be messy. It might not work at all. But at least it will be theirs.”

Nina came in from the cold, stamping waffles of snow from her boots. “Jesus, it’s freezing out there,” she said.

Eustace offered her his cup. “Here, warm yourself up.”

She took it in her hands and sipped, then bent to kiss him quickly on the mouth. “Thank you, husband. You really need to shave.”

Eustace laughed. “With a face like mine? Who cares?”

That the two of them were a couple was, as Peter had learned, the worst-kept secret of the insurgency. One of the first things Eustace had done was issue an executive order permitting flatlanders to marry. In many instances this was a technicality; people had been paired up for years or even decades. But marriage had never possessed official sanction. The list of couples waiting to be married now ran to the hundreds, and Eustace had two justices of the peace operating night and day out of a storefront down the block. He and Nina had been among the first, as had Hollis and Sara.

“Good news,” Nina said. “I just came from the hospital.”

“And?”

“Two more babies were born this morning, both healthy. Mothers doing fine.”

“Well, how about that.” Eustace grinned at Peter. “See what I’m telling you? Even on the darkest night, my friend, life will have its way.”

Peter made his way down the hill, hunched against the wind. As a member of the executive staff he was permitted the use of a vehicle, but he preferred to walk. At the hospital he headed for Michael’s room. Power had been only partially restored, but the hospital had been one of the first buildings relit. He found Michael awake and sitting up. His right leg, encased in plaster from ankle to hip, was suspended from a sling at a forty-five-degree angle above the bed. It had been touch and go for a while, and Sara had thought he might lose the leg; but Michael was a fighter, and now, three weeks later, he was officially on the mend.

Lore was sitting by the bed, manipulating a pair of knitting needles. Eustace had put her to work as a foreman at the biodiesel plant, but any free moment found her back at the hospital, at Michael’s bedside.

“What are you making?” Peter asked her.

“Hell if I can say. It was supposed to be a sweater, but it’s coming out more like socks.”

“You should really stick to what you know,” Michael advised.

“Just you wait till you’re out of that cast, my friend. I’ll show you what I know. It’s nothing you’ll forget.” She looked at Peter, slyly smiling to make sure he got the joke. “Oh, I’m sorry, Peter. Got a little carried away. I guess I forgot you were there.”

He laughed. “It’s okay.”

She gave one of her needles a wave. “I just want to mention, in case our boy here takes a turn for the worse, I’ve always thought you had a very nice look to you. Plus, you’re a war hero. I’d be interested in anything you had to say, Lieutenant.”

“I’ll give it some thought.”

“Of that I have no doubt.” She dropped the yarn to her lap. “As it happens, my shift begins in thirty minutes, so I’ll leave you two to talk about me.” She rose, bagged her knitting, patted Michael on the arm, then thought better of it and kissed him on the top of his head. “Need anything before I go?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, Michael. You’re far from fine. You scared the living hell out of me is what you did.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Keep saying it, bub. One day I’ll believe you.” She kissed him again. “Gentlemen.”

When Lore was gone, Peter took her seat. “Sorry about that,” Michael said.

“I don’t know why you keep apologizing for her, Michael. You’re the luckiest guy on planet Earth, as far as I’m concerned.” He tipped his head toward the bed. “So how’s the leg really?”

“It hurts like hell. Nice of you to finally visit.”

“Sorry about that. Eustace is keeping me busy.”

“So how many have you found?”

Peter understood that Michael was asking about the other First Colonists. “The number we’re hearing is fifty-six. We’re still trying to track everyone down. So far we’ve found Jimmy’s daughters, Alice and Avery. Constance Chou, Russ Curtis, Penny Darrell. The Littles are going to take some time to sort out. Everybody’s spread all over the place.”

“Good news, I guess.” Michael stopped, leaving the rest unstated. So many others, gone.

“Hollis told me what you did,” Peter said.

Michael shrugged. He looked a little embarrassed, but proud, too. “It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

“You ever want a job in the Exped, you let me know. Assuming they’ll have me back. The next time we talk, I might be in the stockade.”

“Peter, be serious. They’ll probably make you a general for this. That or ask you to run for president.”

“Then you don’t know the Army like I do.” And yet, for just a moment, he thought: what if? “We’ll be leaving in a few days, you know.”

“So I figured. Don’t forget to bundle up. Say hello to Kerrville for me.”

“We’ll get you in the next trip, I promise.”

“I don’t know, hombre, the service here is pretty good. The place kind of agrees with me. Who’s going with you?”