~Chapter Twenty Six: The Lonely Road~

Lanni searched the MPC for survivors. She was surprised to find two unidentifiable colonists in the final moments of their existence, which were mercifully very brief. Most of the dorms had been cleared of personal belongings. All but the bulkiest supplies and equipment in the pantry had been taken, too. It confirmed that at least some, maybe most, of the colonists left before the blast.

The streets were glazed with nanite and human-flesh gore. The carnage ended at the precise locations where Alex’s barriers had created the original safe zone. Had he erected new barriers to stop the blast? How much of what happened had he known in advance? He spoke of Crane and Xipe like he knew them.

It was unlikely she’d ever know the whole truth. She wanted to cry when she found her spear a few blocks away, but tears wouldn’t come. The remains of her ninja gi, last seen on Lee, was a little further down the street. Maybe they had been torn away in the battle. Maybe he made it back to the prison to protect the fleeing colonists.

She’d only known him for a few minutes. She hadn’t needed longer than that to decide she liked him. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t leave another exterminator fighting in the streets if he could help. He was gone, too, just like everyone else she cared about or remotely liked. The tears still wouldn’t come.

Her days of mourning were over. She might never see another real person again. Accepting the stark reality of her future was the only way to maintain a sense of hope and determination. All that remained now was her desire to uncover the truths that her brother had hidden from her. He said something that gave her a spark of hope. He said he was ready to find out what kind of world he could create on his own. Were the children in the green boxes part of that plan? If she couldn’t remember, she’d try to find out another way.

On her way back to the prison, she saw a black-bladed knife sticking out of a mound of gelatinous offspring remains. Incredibly, she had walked right to the spot and stopped without seeing it. The messy sludge fell away clean as she picked up the knife. It bore the same symbol as the talisman she’d found in the warehouse. Holding both to compare the markings, she felt a tickle of energy between them, pulling her gently to the north like a compass or a divining stick.

#

From the top of the Manhattan Penal Colony she scanned the city with binoculars for the best route. Husks and offspring stirred beyond sector zero, but none crossed into the blasted area.

Days passed, and the mutant hoard crept further into sector zero. They would eventually roam free as they had before the safe zone existed. Lanni stood in the room with the green boxes, feeling the northerly tug of the knife and talisman. She had opened them all. Each box housed a hairless, silver-skinned child, neither alive nor dead.

Another room held more green boxes, each containing another child-like construct. She closed and sealed each box after verifying its contents. They might not be fully alive, but the very air here was caustic to them. Someone, quite possibly herself, had gone to a lot of trouble to protect them.

The mindless chore gave her plenty of time to think and search her memories for clues. The Mitch-host had said something that bothered her. Its words stuck with her like a splinter under her fingernail.

Imagine my surprise when I found you…

The host had recognized her. The new exterminator, Jamie, had, too. He had asked if it was really her. She mistakenly assumed he meant the ghost, but he hadn’t been at the MPC long enough to have known her as the ghost. What other secrets had Alex partitioned off in her mind, and why had he felt the need to keep her in the dark about them?

The more she pieced the clues together, the less she liked the picture they revealed. All of the nonsense about Tina’s baby wasn’t about saving mankind. Alex's real work had been in the room with Leonard and Mitch. The mission she had poured her heart and blood into had been nothing but busy work, something to keep the colonists—and her—occupied. Something to keep up their morale.

No, she wouldn’t accept that. Tina’s baby was important. It had real meaning. People from wildly different worlds had worked together, endured horrors, risked and gave their lives for the mere chance that a human child would be born normal and healthy. Women became pregnant in the full knowledge of the unthinkable fate that awaited them. They did it because giving their lives might have helped the doctors get a little closer to preventing the next tragedy.

If that hadn’t proved humanity’s true value and right to survive, nothing would. If only having value and deserving to live were enough to warrant survival. She allowed herself a moment of pride for her part in the baby’s birth, whether or not it was of any true value to Alex. Her pride floundered as she thought of how he’d played and used her. She still had no idea what he was really after, if he attained it, or if he was still alive in some capacity.

He had probably known what was going to happen, and had devised some ingenious way of surviving. Shoot, he probably turned the whole thing to his advantage. Yes, he was still out there. She allowed herself to believe it. He was no longer her brother, certainly. Was he a friend? Maybe. An enemy? If necessary. If she knew his endgame, what he was trying to do, it would be easier to tell.

What game are you playing, Alex?

She strapped herself into her frame pack, said goodbye to the room she and Alex had shared, and set out across the city to find the answers. The host and the new exterminator who had recognized her were connected to Rikers Island. That’s where she’d begin. To give her new friends and fellow humans a better shot at survival, she would walk the lonely road that lay ahead.

Spear in hand, she strode toward the boundary of the blasted streets, toward the hoard of husks and offspring that outlined the new borders of the shrinking safe zone. There’d be time for deep, philosophical thoughts after she hacked a path to the other side.

The odd-looking offspring that had been shadowing her at a respectful distance for the last hour abandoned it pretenses of stealth. It burst into the open and charged ahead of her, buzzing and humming excitedly as the distance between it and the hoard shrank to nothing.

Maybe the road ahead wouldn’t be as lonely as she thought.

The End

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my wife, Amy for her unflinching love and support, Julia Klipp, the original Lanni, for her general awesomeness, and my dear friends at the WG2E for everything else.

I would also like to thank you for your support in purchasing and reading this book. While the experience is still fresh, why not pop over to the site where you purchased Children of the Plague or Goodreads.com and leave a review? Lanni and Alex will appreciate it.

About the Author

Gregory Carrico is an Amazon.com best-selling science fiction and horror author and HFA 2013 Author of the Year finalist, currently creating new worlds and plotting their destruction in upstate New York.

Do you want to be the first to read Gregory’s next books? Sign up here and you’ll get an automatic email when his next title is released.

Gregory’s other works include:

Apocalypstick

Tales From the Mist (Anthology)

King of Rats

Addictive Paranormal Reads Halloween Box Set (Anthology)

Let's Scare Cancer To Death (Anthology)

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If you want more of this story world, Read the short story Killing Tiffany Hudson, also available right here on Wattpad in it entirety. The prequel series is called Sand, and episode one, The Shadow of the World, is available now, only on Amazon.com, but you can read the 1st chapter here on Wattpad.

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