After twenty days of walking, Harper found the rush of moving at high speed in a jeep a little alarming. She sat up front, next to Jim. Renée and the Fireman sat in back, Allie squeezed between them and Nick perched on Renée’s lap. One of the gunmen traveled with them, too, although he sat on the very back of the jeep, holding on to the roll bar, his feet dangling over the rear fender and his gun swinging carelessly from a strap around his neck.
It didn’t help Harper’s troubled stomach any when Jim turned the jeep around and drove it up onto a wide gravel path, not a road at all. They jounced over ruts and potholes, the branches of fir trees whipping past above them. Jim said they were on something called the Sunrise Trail.
“This thing was intended for bicycles,” he said, by way of apology. “And hikers. But it’s the best route to the processing center without bringing you through town.”
The Fireman leaned forward. “I’m surprised you’re wearing all that gear. They must thoroughly understand how transmission works by now, after, what, a year of study? If we understand it, they must. Your experts out on the island.”
Jim listened but didn’t reply.
“It’s the ash!” the Fireman yelled to be heard over the roar of the slipstream. “If you don’t come in contact with the ash, there’s nothing to worry about!”
“That’s one theory,” Jim said.
“It’s not one theory. It’s the fact!” the Fireman said.
“You some kind of biologist?”
“I used to teach at UNH.”
“I’m sure they’ll be glad to have your expertise,” Jim called back. “Put you right to work.”
The way he said it, Harper wasn’t sure if he was making fun or being serious.
Back on the highway, it had been a dim, rose-tinted dusk. Beneath the trees it was already full splendid night, the pines whipping by in a warm blast of darkness. Through gaps in the trees, Harper glimpsed an estuary, a broad plate of black glass under a blushing sky. She spotted a scattering of electric lights, the town over there somewhere.
The Fireman leaned forward again. “You still have power. Do you have cell phone coverage as well? I’m curious how folks were able to pass word up the road that we were coming.”
“We’re very grateful to everyone who put food out for us!” Renée called.
Harper was grateful to everyone who had put out food except for whoever decided to get rid of their rancid bologna by dumping it on the pregnant lady. Her stomach was a knot of worms.
“Yeah, power in some places. Though it’s spotty and it goes out quite a bit. No cell phone coverage, but we’ve got a working landline system in Machias—the governor saw to that—and we can communicate with people farther away by CB.” Jim thought for a moment, the steering wheel rocking gently in his hand, then said, “We don’t get too many coming from the south anymore. Not across the wastelands. We don’t get many at all these days, but when we do have new arrivals, they’re usually from the north. Across from Canada.”
“How many have you saved?” Harper yelled. She thought talking might help take her mind off her building nausea.
“Six hundred and ninety-four men, women, and children,” Jim proclaimed. “And with you it’ll be six hundred and ninety-nine. No, make it seven hundred on the dot, counting baby! Can’t forget baby!”
“We need to talk about that,” Harper said. “About who will take him, assuming he’s born without contamination.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s been a while since I’ve read the medical literature, but last I heard, there was a hypothesis that the children of mothers with Dragonscale are unlikely to carry the infection themselves.”
“I’m afraid my medical expertise pretty much ends at putting on Band-Aids when my eight-year-old scrapes her knee.”
“But there must’ve been children born on the island, with almost seven hundred people there. Maybe?”
“Above my pay grade!” he said cheerfully.
The trees began to break up, and to the right of the jeep, Harper saw high grass, a stretch of wet sand, and distant water. Out across a bay stood a lighthouse, sweeping the ocean. It did actually resemble a candle on the water, a thick white one, lit to mark a child’s first birthday, perhaps.
“If the baby is born uncontaminated,” Harper tried again, “I’d like to have some say over the foster family.”
“I don’t know anything about that. I haven’t heard of anyone adopting sick babies.”
“He won’t be sick,” she said, feeling he was missing the crucial point.
Jim’s smile broadened behind his clear plastic faceplate. “It’s a boy? You know that for certain?”
“Yes,” Harper said. It felt certain to her.
She waited for him to comment, but Jim fell quiet again. She decided to leave it, supposed she could coordinate with the medical staff on the island. The trees fell away and they went on and on. To the right was a shabby tilting fence of pickets and wire. Harper saw, in the distance, a striped yellow-and-white tent, brightly aglow, a sight that made her think of small-town fairs. There would be a bucket to bob for apples under there, and a place to buy caramel corn.
As they approached the pavilion, the grass thinned out on their left, and Harper saw a narrow road running parallel to their trail. Up ahead was a parking lot, off to one side of the big striped tent, a few cars parked there. Harper smelled the boat before she saw it, a sickening stench of cheap diesel. Her stomach flopped. As they rolled the last few hundred feet to the processing area, she saw a dock at the end of a spit and a dirty fishing trawler, THE MAGGIE ATWOOD written in cheery cursive across the back. Men in full-body biohazard outfits carried cardboard boxes down the ramp and onto the deck.
Beneath the pavilion were a few long folding tables. Christmas lights had been strung along the steel pipes overhead, creating a weirdly festive air. It was almost crowded, nine or ten people in yellow rubber suits moving around behind the tables. A steel pot steamed on a camp gas burner in one corner.
“They’ve got cocoa,” said Jim. “And gingerbread cookies. And a pretty good turkey stew. Everyone gets fed before they go across the water.”
Harper turned in her seat and moved her hands, passing along the good news to Nick.
He grinned and signed back to her: “Look at all the lights! It’s like where Santa lives! It’s like we walked all the way to Christmasland!”
Harper signed, “I think you mean the North Pole,” but Nick wasn’t paying attention anymore, craning his head to see into the pavilion.
Jim turned the jeep into a place where the grass was flattened down and switched off the engine. They followed him into the tent, under the festive lights.
“Come meet the volunteers,” he said.
The volunteers were all women, most middle-aged or older. They reminded Harper of the sort of cheerful, efficient old dolls who organized baked-bean socials for their church. Jim led the refugees to the folding tables, where the first of the women waited for them with forms on a clipboard. Through the clear window in her rubber mask, she showed an eager grin, and seemed especially delighted to see a little boy with them.
“Hello! And haven’t you come a long way on foot! You must be ex-hausted. My name is Vivian, I’m going to take your information. Then we’ll get a picture of each of you for the Web site and give you your housing assignments and some supplies for your trip.”
“And some of that soup, I hope,” Renée said. “Smells so good it’s making me light-headed.”
Harper could smell it herself, an odor of chicken broth and stewed carrots, mixed with the black stink of the boat. It made her feel very close to retching. It appalled her that she had been stupid enough to have even a single bite of that rotten sandwich. She should’ve had some sense, if not some self-restraint. She had let pregnancy turn her into a foul pig and now she was getting what she deserved. She knew she was going to puke, she just didn’t know when.
“You bet!” Vivian cried. “Soup and fresh milk and coffee for the grown-ups and we’ll get you on your way! We’ll make this as quick and painless as we can. Let’s just begin with the basics—who are you?”
Harper opened her mouth to speak, but Renée got there first. “We’re what’s left of the Camp Wyndham Conspiracy. These are our evil leaders, Mr. Rookwood and Nurse Harper. We come in peace.”