Justin Cronin - The Twelve

“Still, we were lucky.”

Sara had never told him about the foil packet; nor would she ever. “I’m not sure if you can even call something like this luck,” she said. “All I know is we’re here.”

It was after midnight by the time she was finishing her rounds. Yawning into her fist, her mind already halfway home, Sara stepped into the last examining room, where a young woman was sitting on the table.

“Jenny?”

“Hi, Dani.”

Sara had to laugh—not only at the name, which seemed like something from a distant dream, but the girl’s presence itself. It wasn’t until she’d seen her that Sara had realized that she’d assumed Jenny was dead.

“What happened to you?”

She shrugged sheepishly. “I’m sorry I left. After what happened in the feedlot, I just panicked. One of the kitchen workers hid me in a flour barrel and got me out on one of the delivery trucks.”

Sara smiled to reassure her. “Well, I’m glad to see you. What seems to be the trouble?”

The girl hesitated. “I think I may be pregnant.”

Sara examined her. If she was, it was too early to tell. But being pregnant got you a spot in the first evacuation. She filled out the form and handed it to her.

“Take this to the census office and tell them I sent you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

The girl stared at the slip of paper in her hand. “Kerrville. I can’t believe it. I barely remember it.”

Sara had been filling out a duplicate evacuation order on her clipboard. Her pen paused in midair. “What did you say?”

“That I can’t believe it?”

“No, the other thing. About remembering.”

The girl shrugged. “I was born there. At least I think I was. I was pretty small when they took me.”

“Jenny, why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I did. I told the census taker.”

Flyers, how had they missed this?

“Well, I’m glad you told me . Somebody may be looking for you. What’s your last name?”

“I’m not really sure,” Jenny said, “but I think that it was Apgar.”

The day of departure arrived with a hard, bright dawn. The advance team gathered at the stadium: thirty men and women, six trucks, and two refuelers. Eustace and Nina had come to see them off, as well as Lore and Greer.

A small crowd had gathered, family and friends of those who would be departing. Sara and the others had already said goodbye to Michael the night before, at the hospital. Go on, he said, his face red, get out of here. How is a guy supposed to get his rest? But the card Kate had made for him proved his undoing. I Love Youe Unkle Michel, Get Whell . Aw, flyers, he said, get over here, and gripped the little girl tightly to his chest, tears rolling from his eyes.

The last supplies were loaded into the trucks; everybody climbed aboard. Peter would ride in the lead pickup, with Hollis; Kate and Sara were riding in one of the large transports at the rear. As Peter fired the ignition, Greer stepped to his window. In Peter’s absence, the major had agreed to serve in his stead as Eustace’s second-in-command and was now in charge of the evacuation.

“I don’t know where she is, Peter. I’m sorry.”

Had he been so obvious? Once again, Lish had left him standing at the altar. “I’m just worried about her. Something’s not right.”

“She went through a lot in that cell. I don’t think she’s told us even half of it. She’ll bounce back—she always does.”

There was nothing more to say on the subject. Nor on the other, which in the days since the uprising had hung over them with its unspoken weight of grief. The logical explanation was that Amy had been killed in the explosion, vaporized with the other virals, and yet part of him could not accept this. She felt like a ghost limb, an invisible part of him.

The two men shook hands. “Be careful okay?” Greer said. “You too, Hollis. It’s a different world out there, but you never know.”

Peter nodded. “All eyes, Major.”

Greer allowed himself a rare smile. “I confess I like the sound of that. Who knows? Maybe they’ll take me back, after all.”

The moment of parting was at hand. Peter ground the truck into gear; with a throb of heavy engines, the line of vehicles drew clear of the gate. In the rearview mirror, Peter watched as the buildings of the Homeland receded from view, fading into the winter whiteness.

“I’m sure she’s somewhere, Peter,” Hollis said.

Peter wondered whom he meant.

From her hiding place in the culvert, Alicia watched the convoy drive away. For many days she had lived this moment in advance, attempting to prepare herself. How would it feel? Even now she couldn’t say. Final, that was all. It felt final. The line of trucks cut a broad arc around the fences of the city and turned south. For a long time Alicia watched it, the image growing smaller, the sound of the engines dimming. She was still watching when it disappeared.

There was one thing left to do.

She’d taken the blood from the hospital, secreting the sloshing plastic pouch beneath her tunic when Sara’s back was turned. It had taken all her resolve not to clamp her jaws into it and bathe her face and mouth and tongue in its earthy richness. But when she’d thought of Peter, and Amy, and Michael, and all the others, she had found the strength to wait.

She had buried the pouch in the snow, marking the spot with a stone. Now she dug it free: a block of red ice, dense in her hand. Soldier was watching her from the edge of the culvert. Alicia would have told him to go, but of course he wouldn’t; they belonged to each other till the end. She built a fire of crackling scrub, melted snow in a pot, waited till the bubbles rose, and dipped the bag into the steaming water—as if, she thought, she were steeping tea. Gradually the contents softened to a slush. When the blood had thawed completely, Alicia removed the bag and lay in the snow, cradling its warmth against her chest. Within its plastic casing lay a destiny deferred. Since the day the viral had bitten her on the mountain, five years ago, the knowledge of her fate had lain inside her; now she would meet it. She would meet it, and die.

The morning sun was climbing into a cloudless winter sky. The sun. Alicia squinted her eyes against its brightness. The sun , she thought. My enemy, my friend, my last deliverance . It would sweep her away. It would scatter her ashes to the wind. Be quick now, Alicia said to the sun, but not too quick. I want to feel it coming out of me.

She raised the bag to her lips, pulled the tab, and drank.

By dusk the convoy had traveled sixty miles. The town was named Grinnell. They took shelter in an abandoned store at the edge of town that apparently had once sold shoes; boxes and boxes of them lined the racks. So, a place worth returning to, someday. They ate their rations, bedded down, and slept.

Or tried to. It wasn’t the cold—Peter was accustomed to that. He was simply too keyed up. The events in the stadium had been too enormous to process all at once; nearly a month later, he still found himself caught up in their emotions, his mind flashing restlessly with the images.

Peter pulled on his parka and boots and stepped outside. They’d posted a single guard, who was sitting in a metal folding chair they’d brought out from the store; Peter accepted the man’s rifle and sent him to bed. The moon was shining, the air like ice in his lungs. He stood in silence, drinking in the night’s stark clarity. For days after the uprising, Peter had tried to will himself into some emotion that would correspond to the magnitude of events—happiness or triumph or even just relief—but all he felt was lonely. He remembered Greer’s parting words: It’s a different world out there . It was, Peter knew that; yet it did not seem so. If anything, the world felt even more like itself. Here were the frozen fields, like a vast, becalmed sea; here was the immeasurable, starlit sky; here was the moon with its jaundiced, heavy-lidded gaze, like the answer to a question nobody had posed. Everything was just as it had been, and would go on being, long after all of them were gone, their names and memories and all they were ground like their bones into the dust of time and blown away.