It leaned against the trunk of a great old oak, with a red bandanna tied around it so it would catch their eye: a stainless steel crutch with a yellow foam armpit pad. No note, no explanation. A white cottage stood behind a picket fence nearby, but the windows were dark. If they were being watched—Harper felt sure they were—she couldn’t tell from where.
Nick undid the bungee cords that held John to the travois and helped him up. Allie supported him while he fitted the crutch under one arm. He was testing it out, hobbling in little circles, when Harper noticed Renée blinking at tears.
“So much kindness,” Renée said. “So many people looking after us. They don’t know a thing about us except we’re in need. I read a Cormac McCarthy novel once, about the end of the world. People hunting dogs and each other and frying up babies, and it was awful. But we need kindness like we need to eat. It satisfies something in us we can’t do without.”
“Or maybe they just want us to hurry up,” Allie said. “The sooner we go on our way, the safer they are.”
“It’s hard to imagine a sinister agenda behind the food they’ve left out for us. The soup, the pitchers of milk. I just can’t imagine a secret wicked purpose behind supplying us with endless goodies.”
“Neither could Hansel and Gretel,” the Fireman said. “Shall we limp on? I think I’ll stretch my one good leg for a while.”
30
He lasted all of five minutes before he sat on the curb, white and sweaty and shaking, and agreed to climb on the stretcher again. All the talk seemed to go out of him and he bore every thump and bump with gritted teeth.
The next day, though, he crutched along with them for half an hour in the morning and another twenty minutes in the afternoon. He was better still the day after that and kept up with them for most of the A.M.
On the fourth day after they found the crutch, he hobbled along on his own power from breakfast until they broke for lunch, only resting when Harper insisted. Lunch was a selection of mushy brown cupcakes and some bologna sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Someone had dropped them in a plastic shopping bag and left them dangling from a mailbox at the end of a gravel driveway. Harper unwrapped one of the sandwiches and took a whiff. It had a faintly corrupt odor, like the inside of a sneaker.
They stuck with the cupcakes—at first. But Harper carried the bag, and at some point, late in the day, found herself tucking into one of the sandwiches in spite of herself.
“I hope that doesn’t make you sick,” Renée said. “You are nine months pregnant.”
“Nine months and a week. And that’s why I’m eating it,” Harper said. “I can’t help myself.”
After the third bite, though, she was finally able to taste it, and knew it was spoiled. At first she had missed the slimy texture of the meat, and a faint but definite sour flavor that brought to mind sepsis. She spat it out and tossed what was left of the sandwich in the grass with a revulsion that approached moral horror.
She was guiltily licking bright yellow mustard off her fingertips when the Fireman said, “Hold up.”
Harper lifted her head to see what had caught his attention and saw a pair of jeeps, parked in such a way as to block both lanes of the highway, nose to nose. Two men stood in yellow rubber overalls and yellow masks with clear faceplates. Yellow booties and yellow gloves. Harper recognized it as the same outfit she had worn during her weeks as a nurse in Portsmouth Hospital. The sentinels carried assault rifles. One of them stepped forward, hand raised, palm outward. Harper wasn’t sure if this gesture meant for them to halt, or if he was simply waving hello.
Allie stopped walking, took Nick’s hand, and squeezed it to indicate he should stop as well. Renée walked past them without missing a step.
“You really think we ought to just hand ourselves over?” Allie asked.
Renée tossed a casual glance back. “Oh, Allie, we’ve been in their hands for days.”
A third man sat in one of the jeeps. He wore yellow, too, although he had his hood off, so Harper could see a full head of white hair and a big, craggy face. He had a knee on the steering wheel and a slender paperback open across his thigh. It looked like he was working a crossword.
“Five on the road, Jim,” said one of the armed men, his voice muffled by his mask.
Jim looked up from his book and gazed mildly around. He had a big, humorous beak of a nose, and pale eyes, and overgrown eyebrows. He dropped his crossword puzzle and hopped out. He squeezed between the gunmen, and as he did, he reached out absentmindedly and put his hand on the barrel of one of the machine guns, nudging it so it pointed down at the blacktop. Harper took this as a promising gesture.
“Welcome to Machias!” called the one named Jim, slowing as he walked toward them. “You’ve had quite a walk. Dorothy didn’t have to go half as far with Toto.”
“Are you going to take us to Oz?” Renée Gilmonton asked.
“It’s not exactly the Emerald City,” Jim said. “But they’ve got hot water and power out on the island.” His gaze drifted to Harper’s stomach, and for a moment his smile faltered, and he looked thoughtful and a little sad. “Doctors, too, although their head researcher, Professor Huston, died in the big fire back in January.”
“Big fire?” Renée asked. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“No cure, I’m afraid,” Jim said. “And more than a few setbacks. Including one mishap that was, well, pretty awful. No way around it. A whole control group of thirty infected had some kind of reaction to a drug they were testing. They all went up within a few hours of each other. The fire slipped out of control and burnt down the central medical facility, although the remaining staff has set up shop in a farmhouse. Now, don’t you worry. We sent word one of you was pregnant and looked to be pretty far along. When are you expecting?”
“I believe I’m a few days overdue, actually,” Harper said.
Jim shook his head. “At least you didn’t have to deliver on the road. The medical folk out on the island are aware of your condition. They’ve got a bed all made up for you.”
Harper was surprised by the intensity of her relief. For a moment her legs felt wobbly beneath her. Something, some muscular ache, a cramped tightness, seemed to let go behind her chest . . . some part of her that had been clenched up, perhaps for months.
“If we move we can have you there by midnight,” Jim said. “It’s a three-hour ride in the boat, and we have to pass you through processing before we can depart. The good news is we knew you were coming. Boat is already loaded, prepped to go.”
“What’s he saying?” Nick asked with his hands.
Harper explained. The man named Jim watched, his bushy eyebrows knitted together, half smile on his face.
“Deaf?” he asked, and when she nodded he shook his head. “Deaf and infected. Some kids get all the luck.” He crouched down, hands on his knees, to look into Nick’s face, and in a very loud voice, moving his lips slowly, he said, “There’s plenty! Of kids! Where you’re going! Lots of little guys! To play with!”
Nick looked at Harper and she explained with her hands, standing to one side. Nick’s reply required no translation at all. He gave a thumbs-up.
Jim nodded, satisfied, and slopped his mask onto his head. “Come on. Jump in the jeep.”
Harper walked beside the Fireman. She held his elbow with one hand and carried the Portable Mother in the other. She raised her voice to be heard over a sudden gusting wind. “I have only two questions: When do we get to meet Martha Quinn, and does she take requests?”
Jim glanced back at them as he got behind the wheel. Through the plastic window in his mask, he smiled. “You’ll be with her before you know it.”
He didn’t answer the second question.
31