the sick was hitting her hard. Casey kept looking at her.
“I’m dying, Casey,” she said.
“I know,”
He looked back to the road. He seemed twitchy, uncomfortable. Every once in a while his nostrils would flare.
“I have some people,” he said after a while. “They can help you, Jen.”
“No one can help me.”
She stared at him. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Jenny’s head was heavy and her eyelids burned. Every bump in the road felt like her bones were jangling together. Her nerves felt raw and gnawed upon. She took a heavy breath that burned like fire.
“No one can help me,” she said again, softer this time. “I want to see Declan.”
“No.” He didn’t look at her.
“Did you just say no?”
“Jenny, you have to trust me. I’ve got people who can help you. Munro will kill you.”
“You know Declan?” she said.
He snorted. “Everyone knows Munro. He’s a killer.”
“Everyone’s a killer.”
“Yeah,” said Casey. “But not everyone’s a big, psycho motherfucker.”
“You don’t know him,” she said.
“You think you know him,” said Casey. “But he will kill you, Jen. He’ll kill you without even having to think about it. You don’t understand what’s happening here. You don’t know what you are.”
“I understand that I got bitten,” she said slowly. “I understand that I am fucking dying. I understand that after I’m gone I’ll turn into one of them. What I don’t understand is how you were stuck in a train car full of rotters for shit knows how long, and you’re still here.”
He swallowed hard. “I told you there are things you don’t understand.”
“Make me understand.”
He looked at her, then back at the road, making a left turn and swerving the car around a fallen rotter.
“They did something to us,” he said. “When we were kids. We’re not like other people.”
“They tortured us,” Jenny said.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think they were trying to help us.”
“I can’t do this, Casey.” She closed her eyes. The inside of her eyelids felt like they were covered in acid and her eyes teared up. Her stomach was starting to tighten and she could taste the bile in the back of her throat. “I can’t talk about them. I don’t have the energy.”
Casey pursed his pale lips. He stopped the car in the middle of the abandoned street. Jenny looked around. She knew where they were. The house where Declan lived was only about two blocks away.
“What are you doing?” she said.
He turned in his seat to look at her. His eyes were bruised hollows, his irises too pale. Jenny blinked. She was hallucinating. It looked like there was film on his eyes. Like he was dead.
“Wake up, Jen,” he said. “You know why the rotters didn’t bother me in that train.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t have any idea.”
“Have you seen me?” he said, his voice rising. He shook his head. “You must be able to tell what’s happened here.”
“You’ve just starved for a while,” she said. She couldn’t comprehend what he was trying to say. Her brain felt like it had been replaced with thick, black sludge. Had Casey gone crazy since she’d seen him last? A lot of people did. Not everyone could adapt to their world.
“I’m fucking dead,” he yelled. “I’m a rotter, a zombie. I’m dead and I’m still me. Because of what they did to us. Mom and all those scientists. They gave us something that made us... I don’t know. Not immune, but, different.”
“That’s insane,” Jenny said. “Casey, just come with me. Maybe Declan can find you someone to help you. You know, after I go.”
“You’re not going to go, Jen,” he said, his voice high and loud. “You’re going to die, but you’ll come back. You’ll be different, but you’ll still be you.”
“You sound like those Thumpers,” Jenny said.
She felt like her heart was breaking. All this time, all these years looking for her little brother and he was batshit insane. It was her fault, of course. But she was dying. She couldn’t help him. If he wouldn’t come with her to Declan, there really wasn’t anything she could do for him. Unless she could force him.
Suddenly he had hold of her left wrist and yanked her sideways, thrusting her fingers to his neck. “Feel!” he said. He was angry. Jenny wondered if he was capable of killing her. She was so weak that it would be easy. She put her right arm on the console in the middle to brace herself, and her hand came down on something cold. She wrapped her fingers around it. Casey was pushing her hand into his neck. Jenny decided she must have been feverish because it felt like he was cold as ice. She tried to pull away, but he was holding her fast. He moved her hand to his chest.
“Do you feel that?” he said. He seemed on the verge of absolute hysteria.
“Feel what?” she said, not sure what he wanted her to say.
“Exactly! There’s nothing there. No pulse. No heartbeat. Do I feel alive to you?”
She pulled her hand back and he let go. Pushing herself to the far side of the seat, Jenny put her back against the door.
“I’m not myself right now,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s not possible. A rotter is a rotter. You can’t be one, Casey. Rotters don’t think. They don’t talk. And they sure as hell don’t drive fucking cars. You can’t be one of them.”
He seemed to compose himself. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and when he opened them his expression was flat. Calm.
“There are more of us,” he said quietly. “There are thirteen of us, but, including you, we’ve only found five.”
“The Thirteen,” Jenny said. “Are you fucking telling me that you are part of the Thirteen?”
“Yeah,” he said, pleased. “I am.”
“This isn’t real,” she said. “I’m hallucinating. You’re probably not even here.”
“It’s real, Jen. I’m going to take you where we can help you.” He shifted into drive and Jenny raised a shaky hand. He looked at her gun as if it were something alien he didn’t recognize.
“I want,” she said, her breath shaky and rasping, “to see Declan Munro. Now.”
“You’re too weak to use that thing,” he said.
“Maybe,” she said. She cocked it. “Maybe not.”
“You’d shoot your own brother?” His face was emotionless. He just looked at her with those dead almost-brown eyes.
“You said it yourself, you’re a rotter.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And you will be too.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll never be a rotter. Declan will take care of me. Take a right up that alley and drive for two blocks.”
“Jenny...”
“Fucking drive!”
He worked his jaw, then eased the car forward.
“I’m going to come back for you,” he said.
“Hallucinations can’t save people.”
“Yeah?” he said. “Can they drive?”
Jenny frowned. She couldn’t hold it together much longer. There was a hollow feeling in her throat like she was going to vomit.
“Stop,” she said, recognizing the tall, rotting fence on the left side of the alley. “This is it.”
It took all her strength, but she kept the gun trained on him. On her own brother. But the brother she had searched for was gone. This brother wasn’t real. He couldn’t be. And Jenny could only think about one thing: she had to be with Declan before she died. To tell him it wasn’t his fault.
She opened her door just as hot, rancid stomach acid started rushing up her esophagus. She wasn’t sure how she got there, but she found herself hunched over and puking in some overgrown bushes on the side of the alley. She heard Casey yell something, but her body had abandoned her. She was on her knees, her only function seeming to be to lose everything in her guts. Casey yelled again and Jenny heard the deep rumble of the engine revving up. She felt the dirt spray up onto her back as he took off.
“No,” she managed, but her body was heaving again, bringing up nothing but air and saliva. And then she felt a gentle hand on her back. Someone had come out of the gate. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she turned to see Lucy, her usual sneer gone from her face, her green eyes gone soft.
“Jenny,” she whispered. Her eyes went to the back of Jenny’s neck.
“I wasn’t fast enough,” Jenny said.
Her knees gave out and she fell, barely catching herself, the cut on her hand opening up as it hit the hard ground.
“I wasn’t fast enough,” she repeated, as Lucy helped her to her feet.
As Lucy half carried Jenny into the house, Jenny thought she heard her say something under her breath. Just before she passed out, she realized what it was.
Lucy was saying I’m sorry.