through it all in her mind—the helicopter crash; dinner with Teddy and Carl, during which they’d discussed everything from the White Fuzz to religion; that crazed redneck, Earl Harper, who at the end, had seemed to have shared some sinister, inexplicable bond with the worms; the big worm’s attack on the house; her and Kevin’s escape to this place; and then Kevin’s infection. It was all too much.
Both Sarah and Kevin had seen the White Fuzz in action before. Several survivors in Baltimore had contracted it. The fungus spread quickly, covering a human host in a matter of days. They’d never seen what the final result was, but Sarah didn’t imagine it was very pretty. All she knew was that those who were infected with it craved water, and no matter how much they got, it wasn’t enough. They wanted more. Which was ironic, considering the state of the world.
Could Kevin have really beat the infection in time? Had scraping the skin from the effected area really killed the fungus? She thought that Kevin believed that it had.
But Sarah wasn’t so sure.
It occurred to her that she’d run her hand through her hair right before picking Kevin up off the floor. Had she done it since then? She couldn’t remember. Yes, she’d done her best to decontaminate herself, but she hadn’t washed her hair. Sarah knew that she was being paranoid. Fatigue and shock were wearing her down. But paranoid or not, she decided to be safe. She grabbed a pair of scissors from a drawer and snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. Then she leaned over the trashcan and cut her hair, cropping it as short as possible. It saddened her to do so—her previous girlfriends had always said that her hair was one of Sarah’s best features. Shoving the emotion aside, she gritted her teeth and continued, snipping it even shorter. When she was done, Sarah looked down at her locks in stunned silence. Then she dropped the gloves and the scissors into the trash, tied the garbage bag, and sat it out on the steps. She stood in the rain, letting it wash the clippings from her neck and shoulders. Then she came back inside again and dried off.
She didn’t look in the mirror. She was afraid to. Not yet. Maybe later. Right now, seeing the damage she’d just done to herself might be the final straw.
Sarah took a deep breath, and forced herself to focus. There were more important things to worry about right now—like Kevin.
As she crossed the room, the static faded, and then returned, followed by a loud, sharp electronic squeal. When the feedback had dissipated, she heard the familiar Boston accent. Once again, the signal was weak and frequently interrupted with bursts of static.
“… broadcast… distress signal. The Pru… almost eight-hundred feet above Boston, but now… all but the top four floors are submerged beneath the Atlantic. The only other building I… is the John Hancock Tower. Everything else… the Pru’s two-hundred foot radio tower…”
Sarah hovered over the radio, listening intently.
“… six of us. Me, O’Neill, Wilson, Mason, Rebecca, and Herndon… maintenance manag… Wilson is from Charleston… speech… government imposed travel restrictions… Lisa and Alex stayed back in Ohio… might hear this broadcast… journal…”
Sarah tried to concentrate—tried to mine some meaning from the random, disjointed words that cut through the static. She grabbed a pen and tablet from the command desk and jotted down key phrases and things that seemed important.
“…half-man, half-shark… ate Norris… bit… half… plenty of diesel for the generator, so I can broadcast just like a radio station. And with all these radio masts and dishes, anyone with a working radio or telev… should hear it… CB radio… Television signals will only carry in… but the radio signals should hit tower after tower. They could… pretty far, I guess… figure out how to rewire the satellite dishes into the public broadcast system equip… satellites out in space are still operational… transmit even farther…”
Sarah moved to the side, stretching a kink in her neck, and the signal suddenly grew clearer. She remained motionless, hoping the signal would stay.
“I can only transmit, though, so I don’t know if anyone out there can hear this or not. If so, hi! How’s it going? Any chance you could send a helicopter or a boat to haul our asses out of here?”
“Only if they come rescue us first,” Sarah told the man on the radio.
“Anyway,” he said, “I’m pretty tired. Didn’t get much sleep, on account of the itching. Think I’ve got a rash or something. Maybe from all the moisture in the air—like jungle rot or something. Gonna crash for a few hours and then I’ll try this again. If there’s anyone listening, stay safe. Stay dry. This is Mark in Boston, over and out.”
Silence returned, followed by another burst of static. Sarah stood listening to it for a moment. Then she slowly turned off the radio. She thought about going down to tell Kevin about the broadcast, and then remembered that she couldn’t.
She returned to the bookshelves and scanned the spines until she found what she was looking for—several books on first aid and medicine. She pulled them from the shelf, blew the dust off the covers and sat them down on the bunk. She blew out the candles, one by one, until only the lantern and one lone candle were left. Then she returned to her bunk, snuffed out the lantern and read by candlelight.
It was a long time before she could sleep.
CHAPTER 14
Kevin groaned. The painkillers were already beginning to wear off, which surprised him. He’d swallowed more than the recommended dosage—not enough to harm himself, but enough to mute the pain for what should have been several hours. It felt almost as if his body was fighting the drugs’ effects—purging the ibuprofen from his system. His bandaged arm felt like it was on fire. The gauze was soaked with blood. Most of it had dried into a brown, flaky crust, but the pain remained.
Gritting his teeth, he turned on the flashlight and shined it around the interior of the utility shed, partly to take his mind off his wound, but also to alleviate his boredom. There wasn’t much to see—a lawn tractor, two push mowers, a wagon, several cans of gasoline and kerosene, stacks of miscellaneous lumber, rolls of plastic and metal fencing, a bundle of twine, extension cords, a gas-powered weed whacker, a chainsaw, metal posts, and various tools, including several axes, shovels, hoes, and pick-axes. A spider web dangled in one corner. A mouse trap sat vacant and dusty in another corner, its bait long since stolen or rotted away. The concrete floor was relatively clean, if cold. Kevin was grateful that it wasn’t just a gravel floor like so many other utility sheds. The mattress he’d taken from the ranger station was thin and lumpy and not very comfortable. He clicked the flashlight off again and sighed.
“Home sweet home.”
At least it was dry. Maybe too dry, now that he thought about it. Ever since the rain had started, Kevin had gotten used to never being completely dry. There was always moisture in the air. It permeated everything. Dampness and mildew seemed to work their way into every space, no matter how sealed-off or climate-controlled. It had been that way in Baltimore, when he, Sarah and the others had taken refuge on the top floors of the Inner Harbor Marriott, and it had been that way at each of their destinations since then. Getting out of the rain made little difference, since they usually had no dry clothes to put on. Even stripping naked didn’t seem to help. If anything, it made the wetness in the air more pervasive.
Now, for the first time in a long time, he felt dry. The sensation should have been pleasant, but instead, it made him uncomfortable. The air seemed thick and dusty. It irritated his nostrils and throat when he breathed. His skin felt shriveled and leathery, and his mouth was parched.
He’d found a few unopened bottles of water inside the shed when he first entered. Already, two of them sat empty. Kevin turned on the flashlight again and rummaged around, finding a third. He unscrewed the cap and drained the plastic bottle in two big gulps.
“Ahhh. That’s better.”
Smacking his lips, he tossed the empty bottle at the mousetrap, triggering the long-dormant mechanism. The trap snapped, springing into the air and then landing face down on the floor.
