Chong smiled a bitter little smile. “Yeah, I really get that.”
Riot studied his face for several thoughtful seconds. “I don’t know much about medicine,” she admitted, “’cept how to patch a busted leg or stitch a knife cut, take out the occasional arrow. Point is, I know where we might be able to get some help.”
“Help? Come on, Riot, we both know how this ends. I get sicker and sicker and then I die. And then you . . . well, then you take care of me. There’s no variation on that story. Everyone who gets infected dies.”
At that last word, Eve gave a soft whimper of protest and buried her head against his chest. Chong stroked her hair. He wanted to do the same thing she was doing—curl up in a fetal position and hope the world would just go away.
“Chong, listen to me,” insisted Riot. “I think I should take you to Sanctuary.”
“And what exactly is Sanctuary? Is it just a bunch of way-station monks or . . . ?”
Riot looked away for a moment, debating with herself about something. When she turned back, her face was even more tense. “Sanctuary is a lot of different things to different people,” she said. “For some—people like . . . ” Instead of naming Carter, she nodded to Eve, and Chong understood. “For folks runnin’ from the reapers, Sanctuary’s just that. A safe place. It’s squirreled away pretty good, and it’s got some natural defenses. Mountains and suchlike. Hard as all get-out to find.”
“It’s a settlement?”
“To some,” she said. “Mostly it’s a kind of hospital, and I want to take little Evie there. I’m not going to be any good taking care of her, and she’s going to be hurtin’ for a long spell. There’s a bunch of monks who look after people.”
“Way-station monks? I’ve met some. The call themselves the Children of God, and they refer to the gray people as the Children of Lazarus.”
“Right, right. Well, they made Sanctuary their own place, and they take in the sick and injured and tend to them.”
“Are they actual doctors?”
“They’re not,” she said, but Chong caught the slight emphasis on “they’re.”
“Are . . . there other doctors there?”
“Kind of.”
“And you think they could help me?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But if anyone can, they’s the ones.”
“Okay, then let’s go.”
“Well, there’s a bit of a hitch,” she said slowly, looking almost pained.
“What hitch?”
“If they let you into that other place . . . not the part with the monks, but the part where they can maybe help you . . . ”
“Yes?”
“You won’t be allowed to leave.”
“Until—?”
“Ever,” she said. “They don’t like strangers wandering around who know where Sanctuary is. They won’t kill you or nothing, but you won’t ever leave.”
Chong closed his eyes and looked into his own future. All he could see was a blank wall.
“What choice do I have?”
FROM NIX’S JOURNAL
Last night I dreamed that the zombie plague never started. But the dream was weird; there were no details. I suppose it’s because I never knew the world before First Night.
All I know is town and the Ruin.
68
“I . . . I’M SORRY, NIX,” SAID BENNY.
She glared at him through her tears. “Yeah, well, sorry doesn’t do much. I lost my mom. I lost everything, and it’s all that damn town’s fault.”
“What?”
“God, I couldn’t stand to be there another minute. It was like living in a graveyard. No one ever talked about what happened to the world. No one ever talked about the future. You know why? Because no one believed there was a future. Everyone in Mountainside was just sitting around, waiting to die. They act like they’re dead already.”