Seeds Read online

  “Very fancy,” Reid commented as she spread a tablecloth and topped it with blue-rimmed plates, cloth napkins, and a full complement of silverware.

  “Just you wait, Lieutenant Landers.” She went inside, then returned with a tray bearing a bowl of peaches, the candlesticks she’d been using in the kitchen, and two goblets. She handed him a glass. “That’s the last of my water. You should have told me you were empty.”

  “Yeah, sorry.” He hadn’t even thought about it. It had been a long time since he’d been away from the Mountain where the underground spring provided an endless supply of fresh water. He’d have to pay more attention.

  “It’s okay,” Kayla said. “We’ll hit a rain barrel on our way out in the morning.”

  He rotated his goblet, watching the facets on the crystal reflect the candlelight like a diamond. “What, not drinking bottled water?” he teased.

  “After the lectures your grandmother subjected us to? Right.”

  Reid grinned at the memory of his grandmother railing about the toxins that leached out of plastic bottles. Like it wasn’t the same stuff lining the cans of food that they and the rats ate.

  Kayla pulled out a chair and sat. He watched her fiddle with her napkin and straighten the silverware. The sunset framed her in an orange glow, and her face was relaxed, peaceful even. But when she looked at him the pain returned.

  “Hey,” she said, frowning. “Is that burning?”

  “Shit.” He hopped up and rescued their dinner from the flames. “It’s not too bad,” he said, placing meat on their plates, then scooping them each some of the vegetable stuff.

  Kayla wrinkled her nose and put her hands in her lap. “I’m not that hungry anyway.”

  “At least eat the thymus. You can have both.” He pointed to the raw organs he’d set aside when cleaning the rats.

  “Ugh, no. I can’t stomach those anymore.”

  “Since when?” Everyone was supposed to have at least one thymus a day, preferably two. “How long has it been? Are your teeth loose?”

  “My teeth are fine. Here, I’ll eat these.” She took the bowl of peaches and slopped half onto her plate. “They have vitamin C, right?”

  “Not much, but some.”

  They were silent while Reid devoured his food and Kayla picked at her peaches. He left the thymus glands in case she changed her mind, but when she put her feet up on the rail, he ate both, ignoring their minerally grittiness. He’d have to find her some mandarin oranges or it wouldn’t be long before she started showing symptoms of scurvy.

  Reid finished off both helpings of meat and then discarded the bones as he had the guts—by dropping them to the rats’ cannibalistic brothers below. He drained his glass and kicked his feet up beside Kayla’s, taking in the ruins of the city. A study in gray.

  By the time Kayla spoke, the fire had died and the stars had come out.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  He waited.

  “Actually,” she said after a moment. “It would be better if I showed you. First thing in the morning, all right?” She gave a sad half-smile and went inside.

  It had only been a day, but she’d always known she could trust him. Tomorrow, he’d finally learn how Brian died. He leaned back and gazed at the stars.

  ❦❦❦

  “This is delicious,” Reid said the next morning over hot oatmeal. “What’s in it?”

  “Honey and nutmeg,” Kayla said, cinching her pack closed. “Don’t worry, I didn’t use bottled water. I went to the rain barrel while you were sleeping.”

  “Mmm,” Reid replied, his mouth full. He felt like he hadn’t slept at all. He’d tossed and turned all night thinking about Brian.

  “Here’s your canteen. I filled it for you.” She tossed it to him.

  “Thanks. You said you have something to show me this morning?”

  “Uh huh.” Kayla hefted her pack and headed for the door. “I’ll wait outside.”

  “Be right there.”

  Reid opened his canteen, thankful Kayla had filled it, and quickly brushed his teeth and ran wet hands through his hair. After a glance around to be sure he had everything, he put on his pack and slung his rifle over his shoulder.

  As he walked down the stairs, an odd mixture of excitement and dread built in his chest. He’d always thought Kayla’s official explanation of Brian’s death was bogus—Brian would never have strayed into the Burn accidentally. Vega hadn’t swallowed that story either, but his father believed it. He said Kayla never backed down under questioning, never varied her account, even when Vega’s questions were not strictly congenial requests for information.

  Still, Reid was sure there was more to it.

  He caught up to Kayla by the side of the road.

  “So, where are we headed?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

  “You’ll see.”

  He followed her to the edge of the neighborhood where it butted up against a highway littered with decaying cars, the dinosaur bones of the last era.

  Kayla climbed over the guardrail onto the asphalt and turned north. They were heading toward the Burn. She was taking him to the place where his brother died.

  Reid avoided looking in the cars as he weaved his way past the heaps of rusting metal and disintegrating rubber. Some people had abandoned their vehicles wherever they’d been when the computers failed, but quite a few others had died in the initial blast of radiation. Normally it didn’t bother Reid to see the dead, but there was something incredibly bleak about the endless, stationary caravan of skeletons.

  Kayla moved at a quick clip, but Reid lagged behind, mentally preparing for a hard uphill hike. At least ten more miles, he figured. But when Kayla looked back at him somber-faced and turned up the next off-ramp, Reid’s heart skipped. He hurried to catch up.

  At the top of the off-ramp was a different world. Hollowed-out shells that used to be cars. Buildings gutted. Everything black.

  Reid had no idea the Burn extended this far south.

  He followed Kayla through the tangle of debris and rubble, knowing each step took him closer to the place where his brother had died.

  Kayla stopped beside what had once been a yellow truck.

  Brian died here?

  Reid didn’t know what he’d expected, but it hadn’t been as mundane as his brother dying beside some rusted-out truck.

  The wind gusted, throwing soot and dirt into the air. They turned away from the blast, pulling the bandanas from their necks to cover their mouths and noses. After a moment, the wind died as quickly as it had started, and the air cleared.

  “I have something in my eye,” Kayla said.

  “Let me look.” He grabbed his canteen and rinsed his hands vigorously, then held her eye open and flushed it with water from the canteen. “I guess that’s why they say to stay out of the Burn,” he joked, knowing it was the least of the dangers.

  “What are you talking about?” Kayla wiped her face with the inside of her sleeve. “We’re not anywhere near the Burn.”

  “Then what is this? Why’d you bring me here?”

  “This is where that lightning fire was two years ago. Don’t you remember how Brian latched on to that theory he read about fires cleansing the earth and allowing plants to grow?”

  “Yeah.” There had been a time when Brian would talk about nothing else whenever he caught Reid alone. Neither one of them bought into the belief that it was a sin to grow things before God sent the second storm, but they knew better than to say it openly.

  “The fire here provided the perfect opportunity to test the theory because it was close enough to visit regularly. So we planted seeds. All kinds. But no matter how much or how little we watered them, no matter what time of year or type of weather, nothing sprouted. That was tough, even for our eternal optimist.” She paused, and Reid had to look away from the pain on her face.

  “Brian started thinking it was useless,” she continued, her voice shaky. “That every seed on the planet had b
een exposed to too much radiation. He was ready to give up when we found a fire-safe full of seed packets. We planted those seeds here. That’s when he gave me this.”

  She pulled a silver chain from her pocket and held it out. It had a small charm attached.

  He lifted it from her hand. The pendant was a clear heart held by a silver bezel. In the center of the heart, suspended in the glass, was a brown dot. “A seed?”

  “A mustard seed. In the Before, it was a symbol of Christian faith. Of course, now it would be viewed by your father and the church as exactly the opposite, so I couldn’t wear it in the Mountain. I kept it at the house. That’s what I stopped to get. Would you put it on me?”

  Kayla turned her back and held up her hair. He draped the chain around and fumbled with the tiny clasp, managing to avoid all but the slightest brush of his hand against her neck. She shivered.

  “Done,” he said, pulling back his hands and shoving them in his pockets to try to erase the feel of her skin on his.

  Kayla pushed at the dry, cracked earth with the toe of her boot. “The seeds we planted here didn’t grow either. But it didn’t matter—the optimist was back. He was sure eventually something would grow. He promised me he’d never stop believing. Never stop trying. That’s what this necklace symbolized. His undying faith that we would have a future.”

  Reid blinked, focusing on a blackened building thirty yards behind Kayla. Had something moved? He didn’t want to overreact again and look like an idiot. It was probably a rat, or more likely, his imagination. Then he saw it again and his heart leapt into his throat. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “Turn around, very slowly.”

  A black shape was moving at the base of the building, barely visible against the charcoal wall. Whatever it was, it was alive, and much bigger than a rat.

  Four

  “What the hell is that?” Kayla whispered.

  “You haven’t seen one before?”

  “Never.” Kayla lifted her rifle to her shoulder. “It’s enough meat for a week.”

  “Wait.” Reid pushed the barrel toward the ground. “Could it have survived out here by itself since the sun flare? What if it’s a descendant, like us—that would mean there’s more of them.”

  “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. Come on, we’ll track it.”

  They inched away from the truck and into the shadow of the nearest building. Using it for cover, they crept forward and looked around the corner. The animal was still moving around at the base of the other building.

  “Do you know what it is?” Kayla asked.

  “A dog, but bigger than I would have guessed from pictures.”

  “I’ve seen a few skeletons that size, but I never knew what they were for sure.”

  The black dog was so well camouflaged amidst the burned buildings, it was luck Reid had spotted it at all. It nosed around the base of a cinderblock wall, then lifted one leg and a stream of liquid washed down the bricks.

  “It’s peeing,” Reid said, laughing under his breath.

  “It is?”

  The dog looked over, and they ducked back behind the building.

  “Did it see us?” Reid whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Kayla took a peek. “It’s on the move.”

  Reid followed Kayla around the corner in time to see the dog disappear around another building. He kept up with Kayla as stealthily as he could, though his footsteps were nowhere near as light as hers. When they reached the end of the building, she held up her hand in a fist, the signal to halt. Reid froze. Kayla peered around the corner, then motioned for him to look.

  The dog was about twenty feet away with its nose in a basin. Reid heard water slopping and figured it was drinking. The dog lifted its head and looked around. Reid held his breath, afraid to move, afraid it would detect them and bolt. After a moment, the dog resumed walking, in no apparent hurry.

  They followed it to a house that had only half burned, protected as it was between two larger structures. The dog jumped over the crumbling foundation wall and disappeared into the shadows. Reid started after it, but was stopped short by a tug on his pack.

  Kayla scowled. “This isn’t the time to break protocol. Who knows what’s inside.”

  “I thought you said there were no Raiders.”

  “A few minutes ago I’d have said there were no dogs either. Let me take point.”

  Reid nodded. He didn’t want to put her in harm’s way, but they were both better off with the more experienced soldier in the lead.

  She slung her rifle over her shoulder and pulled out her pistol as she stepped into the house. Reid followed, stopping when Kayla held up her fist. She pointed with two fingers to her eyes, then toward footprints in the dirt.

  The dog’s prints. And a human’s.

  The prints led down a hallway.

  Reid nudged his pistol’s safety to the off position. His heart thundered as he followed Kayla down the hall, and he wondered if she was nervous too. She seemed so confident, placing each step deliberately. Alert and vigilant. Deadly silent. She was a good Remote.

  At the end of the hall, a door on the right hung partway open. The prints led inside.

  Kayla stayed back from the doorway and pointed to her ear. After a few moments she shook her head. Reid hadn’t heard anything either. She pointed to her eyes and then the door.

  They were going in.

  Reid wiped sweat from his hand and replaced his finger on the trigger, triple-checking that the safety was off. His heart was beating so hard, he hoped he could aim if he had to. But more than that, he hoped he wouldn’t have to. He couldn’t imagine using a gun on a person.

  Kayla turned into the doorway, crouching low, gun pointed. Reid followed immediately, sighting down his barrel. He braced against the doorjamb, scanning the dim room from right to left. Dresser. Mirror. Chair. Curtained window. Bed. Someone under the covers. He scanned past to a closed door, then back to the bed. The dog stood beside it, tail swinging. Kayla approached the bed with her gun pointed at the lump under the bedspread. With her other hand she motioned for Reid to check the closed door.

  Reid crept over and, with his back to the wall, gingerly turned the knob and pushed. The door creaked open. After two beats he rushed in, pointing the gun high then low, willing his eyes to adjust to the darkness, scanning the rows of clothing and the closet’s shadowed recesses.

  “Clear,” he said, just loud enough for Kayla to hear.

  “She’s sleeping,” Kayla whispered.

  “Who is it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Reid approached the bed and looked down at the first stranger he’d ever seen.

  Five

  Reid stared at the stranger. Tangled brown hair partially covered her face. Closed eyes were sunken in dark hollows. Bony fingers with broken nails clutched the blanket. The faint odor of rotting flesh hung in the air. But she was breathing. She was alive.

  The implications of this, of a stranger, crowded Reid’s mind. Was she a Raider? How many more were there? Where had they come from? How were they living—was it better than back in the Mountain?

  Kayla looked over at him, her eyes wide with astonishment, her mouth open like she wanted to say something but didn’t have the words.

  The dog moved and they both jumped.

  “Jesus, did I suddenly forget everything I know?” Kayla pointed her gun at the woman.

  “I don’t think you have to worry.” Reid held the back of his hand to the woman’s cheek and wasn’t surprised to find her feverish. She didn’t react to his touch. “She’s in bad shape.”

  “Still, be on guard while I check the rest of the house.” Kayla left, closing the door behind her.

  Reid holstered his weapon and opened the drapes, flooding the room with light. Then he thought better of making himself an easy target for the stranger’s friends, and closed them again.

  He returned to the woman. “Ma’am, wake up.” He shook the woman’s shoulder. When she didn’t respond, he used
his thumb and index finger to open her eye. The iris was rolled back showing yellowed sclera. There was no resistance against his fingers. He let go and the lids drifted closed.

  “Wake up,” he said firmly, rocking his knuckles against her sternum, but she didn’t stir.

  He was about to try again when he realized he hadn’t checked for weapons. He’d never had to think like a soldier and a medic at the same time before.

  Reid pulled away the bedding, exposing a body that was mere skin over bones. She shivered as he checked around her meager frame for weapons. The odor was worse now, and when he saw her swollen, discolored feet, he knew the source.

  He didn’t find any weapons, but if she’d had one Reid doubted she could lift it.

  There was a click behind him, and he fumbled for his pistol. The door opened before he had his gun fully drawn. Thank God it was Kayla.

  “House is clear,” she said. “I’m pretty sure she’s the only one who’s been here. No other footprints but hers and the dog’s. What’s that smell?”

  “Her feet are infected.”

  “Did you try to wake her?”

  “She’s unconscious.” He squeezed the woman’s fingertips to test capillary refill, then pulled up the skin on the back of her hand to check turgor. He pressed his fingers against the inside of her wrist, confirming an elevated heart rate. All signs of severe dehydration.

  “Weapons?”

  “I didn’t see any.” He kept his fingers on the woman’s wrist, concerned about the fever.

  “That doesn’t make sense—no one goes around alone and unarmed. You checked her stuff?” Kayla gestured to a pack propped against the dresser.

  He shook his head. He hadn’t even noticed it.

  “I’ll do it,” Kayla said.

  Reid took off his own pack and pulled out his med kit.

  Kayla drew in a sharp breath. “I found something.”

  “A gun?”

  “No. Look.” Kayla held out her hand.

  Reid gasped. Kayla was holding a grown apple.

  Six

  Seattle, Washington