She chose to tag along,
Dad’s lifeless hand in one of hers,
his eager pistol in her other.
She never trusted him on his own.
— EPITAPH FOR MOLLY VERNON
(DECEMBER 22, 2019–AUGUST 14, 2067),
BY TAMI AND SARA VERNON, HER DAUGHTERS,
DECEMBER 11, 2068
We got into the back of the pickup, and Gunny covered us with the tarp.
Tia was on my side of the truck bed again, but it was so crowded now, I had an excuse to stay close to her; she had an excuse not to move away.
“Where are we going?” I asked, loud enough for everyone to hear over the squeaking and clattering and engine noise as we moved off.
Dad didn’t answer for a moment. “There’s a place up in the hills, back in the woods, at the end of an abandoned logging road,” he said finally. He hesitated again. “It’s a lab. Foothills, it’s called. Gunny and I both do security work for the people who run it.”
“Security work?” I said. “You’re a fisherman.”
“Mostly.” He was almost yelling above the motor and road racket. “But I need money to work on Mr. Lucky. Gunny’s been working security for the lab for a while, and he told me they were looking for more help. So I joined up. For now, I fish around my work schedule.”
“What kind of security work?” I said, recalling Mom and Aunt Paige’s conversation about Dad’s involvement in that mysterious something.
“Outside. I watch the perimeter of the grounds, patrol the woods and trails, make sure no one comes close who’s not authorized.”
“You carry that rifle?” I said.
“I haven’t had to use it.”
“Does PAC know about the lab?” Tia said.
“I didn’t think so before today,” Dad said. “Now I do. If the Bear’s coming, I think the lab is the reason.”
“What kind of stuff are they doing?” Sunday asked.
“Huge. Covert. Strictly outlawed.” He paused again. “If PAC knows about it, it’s an automatic and immediate target.”
“They’ll kill every male on the peninsula just to shut down a lab?” I said.
“I’m sure they would,” Dad said. “But that’s the ironic part. Several people working on the project are women. So even Elisha might not halt the operation. PAC is going to have to come in with old-fashioned methods — guns and bombs and bulldozers and whatever else they have at their disposal — if they want to stop what’s going on.”
Guns and bombs and bulldozers. To me, a place that might attract that kind of attention didn’t sound like the best choice for refuge-seekers. “So tell us why we’re going there,” I said.
“It’s a lab, but it’s also a well-designed fortress,” Dad said. “And there’s food, water, places to sleep.”
“What is going on there?” I said. Sunday never got a real answer to her question. It was everyone’s question now.
We turned right, almost stopping as we moved from pavement to what must have been shoulder, then rough, rutted surface. Gunny accelerated, and we started uphill. Even with the almost-opaque cloth of the tarp over my head, I could tell that we’d moved from sunlight to shade. Instantly, the temperature dropped.
Finally, Dad answered me. “I guess it’s not a secret now,” he said. “I’ve never been officially told, but Gunny’s done some inside security. He’s seen a few things and snooped for others.”
The truck bounced through a washboard curve, and Dad raised his voice. “He told me the lab is developing a vaccine for Elisha’s Bear. If it works, and Gunny says it’s a whisker’s breadth away from completion, they can vaccinate every male on earth. Women will still have the upper hand, but they won’t be able to stage these accidental outbreaks anymore.”
“A vaccine,” Tia said. “They wouldn’t allow it.”
“They couldn’t use Elisha as a weapon,” Sunday said.
“How did they find women who would do the research?” I asked, wondering how long Dad had known about, or at least suspected, the original conspiracy.
“They had to look for brilliant women who were sympathetic to the idea,” Dad said. “They searched for those few who were qualified to do the work and who didn’t believe in what PAC was doing. Had done. The Fratheists were helpful in singling out scientists who could be approached safely. Gunny says it took a long time to recruit all of them.”
“How did they develop the vaccine?” Tia said.
“I’m not a scientist, Tia,” Dad said. “But I know they got their start by exhuming bones and tissue from some of the mass grave sites.”
“With more help from the Fratheists?” I said. “At Epitaph Road?”
I felt him shrug. “Maybe.”
“Can they immunize you and Kellen?” Tia said. “And Gunny?”
“That’s crossed my mind,” Dad said. “But I don’t know if they’ve reached the point where they can try it on humans.”
The truck continued to bounce along, twisting and turning, mostly uphill.
Finally, it stopped. I heard Gunny’s door open, and an instant later he was dragging the tarp off of us. “I think you’re okay without this now,” he said. “Ride up front, Charlie?”
In answer, Dad jumped over the tailgate and landed softly on the stripe of greenery that marked the center of the road. “I think I’ve bored these guys enough,” he said. “And my bones are ready for a rest.”
Dad and Gunny climbed into the cab and we started off again. It was good to breathe fresh air, but now that there was no excuse for being hip to hip with Tia, staying close felt awkward. She must not have seen it that way, though. She stayed put. Our hips continued to enjoy each other’s company. Mostly.
Just when I thought this road couldn’t get any skinnier, we left it, taking another turn onto what was not much more than a path, an almost-accidental serpentine channel through tree trunks and underbrush. The stubborn growth pressed in, twanging past the mirrors, scraping against the sides of the old pickup. Sunday, Tia, and I stuck to the middle of the bed, where low limbs and whiplike twigs wouldn’t take a toll on our skin.
After another ten minutes of wooded twists and turns and bumps, we moved out into a clearing. The truck stopped, but Gunny and Dad stayed put. So we did, too. Gunny honked his horn three times.
A moment later, from an opening in the face of a giant pumpkin-shaped outcropping fifty yards in front of us, a man emerged. He was dressed in camouflage — browns and greens and tans — head to toe. He carried a rifle, angled across his chest. At least it wasn’t pointed at us. Yet.