Cruel World(132)

“No. They folded their cards and left the table before we knew what had happened. I think Holtz must have known what was going on all along, but he kept at it. He was sure there was a cure.”

“He’s still alive. He’s immune to the disease. That has to mean something.”

“I thought that too,” Collincz said, taking a deep breath. “I had hope, right up until my fiancée’s unit was taken out by a herd of those things.” She smiled sadly and cleared her throat before turning away. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

~

They spent the evening playing with a set of dominoes they found in a cabinet. Alice helped Ty set up rows of them, guiding his hands through the motions of how to create corners and curves that would fall when the first was pushed over. Soon Ty was creating long, intricate lines, a look of concentration pinching his face.

“I need more of them,” he said after a time.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Alice said. “There’s only the one box.”

“I could make really good ones with a bunch of boxes.”

“I know you could. You’re doing amazing with them.”

Quinn sat a short distance away, staring at the U shape Ty was building on the table, his eyes glazed. Alice pulled her chair closer to him, swatting him on the knee.

“You look like you’re a thousand miles away,” she said.

“I was.”

“Good place?”

“Not really, no.”

“You’re thinking about your father?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

“You’re right. And I need to find out what it is.”

“Quinn, there could be a million reasons why your dad’s signature was on that paper.”

He turned to her. “Roman was a lab technician from Minnesota. Alice, Minnesota was where the plague originated.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves enough for me to…” He caught himself as Ty tipped over the first domino and watched as they all fell in a liquid motion.

“For you to what?” Alice asked. He hesitated.

“For me to go there.”

“What? No, that’s insane. Why would you leave to go back out there? This is the safest place we’ve found. We have multiple layers of protection, trained soldiers with guns, food, shelter. Where else could be safer?”

The images on the documents swam behind Quinn’s eyes, and he opened his mouth then closed it before sighing.

“You’re right; this is the safest place for you and Ty. But I won’t be able to move on until I know.”

“Sometimes knowing isn’t the answer,” Alice said. Her voice was beginning to sharpen, her eyes taking on the hard glint he’d seen so many times over the past days, the determination he so admired. “Sometimes it’s better to let things be.”

“You’re right. But this isn’t one of those times,” he said, and stood from his chair. Ty had stopped playing and was listening, his mouth downturned at the ends. Denver watched from beneath the table and even Collincz had paused from trying to feed Holtz some broth. He moved out of the back room, pushing through the plastic curtain before crossing the front space and out into the open air.

The rain had tapered off and only the lightest of mists fell giving the world a spectral quality. He walked through it, past the side of the building to where the open mine began in earnest.

It looked like an Aztec pyramid in reverse. The hole’s depths were stepped in wide ledges, each signifying a level that the mine had reached and pushed past. The concrete walls erected around its perimeter were dwarfed by distance, but he could still make out their unbroken edges. As the hole deepened, its middle area lessened, but the very bottom of the pit was still immense. He thought that the entire town of Fort Dodge might fit inside the expanse.

He stood there for a long time. Now there was no sea or rocks below him, only a manmade scar in the earth. He could see across to the other side, something he’d never been able to do with the ocean. Across was another barricade he would have to pass. Beyond that was the open land he would have to traverse. And perhaps past that he would find answers.

He waited until all the light had faded from the day before returning to Holtz’s building. Another storm was approaching on the heels of the last. Its angry face of clouds broadened and spit curses of lightning and thunder as it came.