Partials

“Build a stretcher,” said Jayden. “We have two horses left: Patterson and Yoon will ride ahead and send backup as soon as they can reach the Defense Grid perimeter. The rest of us follow on foot.”

“It’s nearly thirty miles,” said Yoon, “and the horses are already tired. They can’t do it in one shot.”

“They can go for at least another hour,” said Jayden. “You’ll run out of light by then anyway. Go as far as you can, then let the horses rest till first light.”

“We don’t have to go all the way back to East Meadow,” said Gianna. “There’s a farm community west of here, and several more to the east. They’re a whole lot closer than thirty miles, and Lanier can get help sooner.”

“Our map was in the side of the wagon that blew up,” said Jayden. “I’m not in the mood to just wander around the island looking for rednecks.”

“They’re not rednecks,” said Gianna. “Most of them have more education than you do—”

“Their amazing educations aren’t much good to us without a map to find them,” said Kira. Why was Gianna arguing at a time like this? “East Meadow’s our best bet—we can follow major roads the whole way.”

“Lanier’s not going to make it back,” said Gianna, “not with that fracture. The farms have hospitals just like we do.”

“Not ‘just like we do,’” said Kira, “and no, Lanier’s not going to die on the road. Do you have some kind of medical background you forgot to mention?”

“Anyone can see—”

“Anyone can see that he’s bad,” said Marcus, speaking calmly, “but we’ve splinted it, we’ve wrapped it, and I can drug him so hard he’ll think he’s flying home on a magical gumdrop rainbow. You could get high on his farts.”

“Patterson and Yoon, go south to East Meadow,” said Jayden firmly. “The rest of us follow with the same goal, but”—he looked at Gianna—“if we run across a farm or an outpost or anything like that, we can try to commandeer another wagon.”

“You don’t have the authority to commandeer a wagon,” Gianna snapped.

“And you don’t have the authority to disobey my orders,” said Jayden. “This is a military operation, in a state of emergency, and I will take you home the way I think is best if I have to drug you as much as Lanier to do it. Am I clear?”

“Is this what we have to look forward to?” asked Gianna. “Is this our brave new world when you plague babies grow up and start running things?”

Jayden didn’t waver. “I asked you if I was clear.”

“Perfectly,” said Gianna. “Let’s get back to paradise.”

Jayden stood up and the group dispersed, gathering their equipment and preparing for the journey. Kira took Jayden’s arm and pulled him back.

“We can’t just leave them,” she said. “The dead horses, sure, but there’s three dead people in that house. How are we going to get them home?”

“We can come back for them.”

“I counted six feral house cats walking past us just during your little planning meeting, and that clinic you had us in was home to a pretty big pack of dogs. If we leave three bodies here, there won’t be anything left to come back to.”

Jayden’s eyes were cold. “What do you want me to do, Walker? We can’t carry them, and we don’t have time to bury them. We’ll come back in force to investigate the site and recover the generators, but right now ten live people are more important than three dead ones.”

“Ten minutes,” said Kira. “We can spare that.”

“You think you can bury them in ten minutes?”

“They’re half-buried already.”

Kira watched him consider, then shrug and nod. “You’ve got a point. I’ll help.”

In addition to Andrew Turner, the explosion had killed two soldiers, and their bodies were laid out carefully by the house. A man and a woman—a boy and girl, really, probably no more than sixteen years old each. The girl might have been even younger, but Kira couldn’t tell. She stood over them solemnly, wondering who they had been: what they had done for fun, who they had lived with, how they had come to be here. She didn’t even know their names. Jayden took the girl by the arms, Kira grabbed her legs, and they picked their way carefully through the ruins. The deepest hole was the one they’d dug trying to save Turner, and they lowered the girl’s body down into it as gently as they could, pushing her back into the recess behind the chimney stones. By now some of the other soldiers had finished their tasks and came to help, carefully carrying the boy and sliding his body into the hole as well. Kira watched numbly as Jayden and Private Brown destabilized the last remaining wall and knocked it over onto the hole, covering the bodies.

Kira felt her heart break as the wall came down. This wasn’t enough—it was good to bury them, but they deserved more. She tried to speak, but the lazy clouds of dust from the rubble were too much to look at, and she couldn’t speak.

Marcus watched her, his eyes aching and tender. He looked at Jayden. “We should say something.”

Jayden shrugged. “Good-bye?”

“Okay,” said Marcus, stepping forward. “I guess I can do it. Anyone know what god they worshipped?”

“Not a very good one,” muttered Gianna.

“Maija was a Christian,” said Sparks. “I’m not sure what kind. Rob was Buddhist. I have no idea about the civvie.”

Marcus looked around for more clarification, but nobody knew any more. “Not the easiest mix to work with,” said Marcus. “How about this, then. I think I can remember some of the old poetry they taught us in school.” He straightened up, fixing his eyes in the distance, and the soldiers dropped their heads. Kira kept her eyes on the pile of fallen bricks, dust still hovering over it.

“‘Death be not proud,’” said Marcus, “‘though some have called thee mighty and dreadful.’” He paused, thinking. “I’m totally butchering this. ‘Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, but thou canst . . . not kill me. One short sleep and then we wake eternally, and death shall be no more.’”

Jayden glanced at Marcus. “You think they’re going to wake up? Just like that?”

“It’s just an old poem,” said Marcus.

“Wherever they’re waking up,” said Jayden, “it’s getting pretty damn crowded.” He turned and stalked back to the wagon.

Kira held Marcus’s hand and watched as the dust settled slowly on the fallen bricks.

The rain pooled in the mud, filling the fat rubber tire tracks with jumping drops of water. Kira pulled her hood forward, trying again to shield her eyes, but as the storm grew fiercer it almost felt as if the rain was pouring in from all sides, leaping up from the puddles and seeping down through every seam in her clothing.

Jayden stopped again, halting the line with a raised fist. The tire tracks hadn’t come from Asharoken and the rigged bomb, but any presence could be dangerous out here in the wild. This part of the island had been wealthier than most, back in the day, so instead of close-packed houses and overgrown lawns, they walked through dense, dripping forest, dotted here and there with a lonely mansion looming out of the darkness. Kira cocked her head to the side, listening, hoping to catch a trace of whatever tiny noise Jayden kept sensing through the downpour; she could see Marcus doing the same. She heard the rain, the splashes, the squelch of mud as someone shifted their weight in the street. Jayden dropped his fist and pointed forward, and the group started walking again.

“I think he’s just making it up,” whispered Marcus. “He just likes making that little fist signal thingy and watching us all obey him.”

“I’ve never been this wet in my life,” said Kira. “Even immersed in a bathtub I swear I was dryer than I am now.”

“Look on the bright side,” said Marcus.

Kira waited.

“This is the point,” she said, “at which you would traditionally suggest a bright side.”

“I’ve never been a real traditional guy,” said Marcus. “Besides, I’m not saying I know a bright side, I just think this would be a great time to look at one.”

Jayden raised his fist, and the group stopped walking.

“Jayden just heard a bright side,” whispered Marcus. “There’s an uplifting metaphor creeping through those bushes.”

Kira snorted, and Jayden turned to glare at them. He turned back, flicked his fingers toward the side of the road, and walked toward a break in the trees.