Jamison

“ON YOUR KNEES!”

My nose whistles with clotted blood, and the handgun shakes in my sweaty hands as my heart races. Niki and I drop slowly, setting our guns down on the ground in front of us. Everyone else does as they say. As some of the Fort Caroliners hold us at gunpoint, a few others run to pick up our weapons.

I glance back at Cal and Denton to see if they have a plan or want to give some kind of signal. But they both have their eyes trained on the people pointing weapons at us.

“Check them,” the first woman who spoke says. She walks around us as someone to her right comes forward and starts patting us down. He moves on to Cal.

“Traveling with any bags?” he asks.

“We checked them with TSA,” Cal says. The guy gives him a shove and a fake “ha-ha.”

Then Denton speaks. “Lacy?”

The woman—a white woman in her forties with her hair tied back into a ponytail—turns to him. “Holy shit, Denton?” She walks over to him and holds out a hand, helping him up. She pulls him into a hug. “We thought Rosewood had you killed. Nadine?”

“She’s alive. She’s with . . .” He turns to everyone else around him, still on their knees. “We’re good; we’re not here to hurt you.”

Lacy nods and motions for us all to stand. “Give them their weapons back.”

Her men do as she says while Denton launches into his explanation—how Nadine got him out when she heard that Rosewood and a few others were planning on framing him. Then he asks what’s going on.

“Things got worse after you left,” she says. “People were starving. Kids dying. We’d finally had enough.”

“Rosewood?” Denton asks.

She shakes her head. “He’s somewhere in there.” She nods toward the line of cars. “We cornered him and his people about a week ago, set up a perimeter and have been waiting them out. We know they’re low on food. It’s just a matter of time now, so we have teams stationed at every intersection.”

“Where is he?” Cal asks.

“We don’t know,” Lacy says. “We could do a house-to-house, but it would take too long, and he and his men might have set their own traps by now. We figure we can wait them out longer than they can wait us out. Eventually they’ll run out of supplies and his little army is going to turn against him.”

“Where are your blockades?” Cal asks.

Lacy goes over to the truck and takes a red marker out of her pocket. I watch as she marks off the roads around us on our map. It’s a rectangle that looks to surround fifteen or sixteen blocks. Smack-dab in the middle is the sheriff’s station. When we first came to Fort Caroline, that’s where we had to register our guns and request ammo.

It was one of the places Denton had mentioned Rosewood might be holing up. And if there was always a plan to protect it, maybe that’s where he’s hiding out right now.

“How much longer do you think they can survive in there?” Denton asks.

“A week?” says Lacy. “Maybe two, but that’s it. Even if they don’t starve, they’ll be out of water soon.”

“How do you even know they’re still in there?” Cal asks.

As if on cue, gunshots pop from the blockade behind us. Someone from Lacy’s group drops, and bullets hit the ground around us.

“Take cover!” Lacy shouts. We run to the other side of the truck and RV, ducking down. Niki is to my right, and I see Denton crouch around the back of the RV and lock eyes with me. Our group returns fire.

But then there are more shots from the overgrown baseball field to our right. Lacy yells to Denton and Cal that we need to seek cover, and four people from her group start shooting in the direction of the baseball field. We grab our packs and weapons, and Denton latches on to my shoulder, pulling me to my feet. I reach for Niki, but she falls behind.

I shrug off Denton’s hand and run back to her. We stay low and he watches us, waiting until we’re next to him before following Lacy and the others.

Once we’re behind another blockade—this one made of concrete barriers and wood—we stay down while Lacy and her team talk to Cal and a few others about how to push back. The shots keep coming. Denton and Niki are listening intently. Lacy talks about retreating to another group for reinforcements, but when she points at the map in front of her, it’s in the opposite direction of the sheriff’s department.

A group of four provide more cover as one of Rosewood’s people leaps over the blockade from the direction we came. When we have to move again, Denton glances back to make sure I’m following. A bullet whizzes past my ear and I duck. Someone to my right falls, hot blood spattering the side of my face.

There’s another blockade ahead to our right.

“Look out!” someone on our side shouts. But it’s too late.

The person in front of me stumbles backward—all their weight drops on me, and I fall to the road. And more people are shooting. Everything is chaos. This isn’t how this was supposed to go; it was supposed to be more gradual, less violent. We didn’t realize Rosewood and whoever sided with him would be so desperate. Because that’s what this is. They’ve been trapped and have only days left before they begin to starve.

The person on top of me is gasping like they can’t breathe. I recognize him. It’s the young guy from the back of the RV. The one who said he wouldn’t mind a little firefighting. But the fear in his eyes as blood spills from his mouth and the holes in his chest says the opposite. His hands grab mine; they’re already cold and clammy.

I remember how the bullet felt in my own side when Fort Caroline shot me, and I squeeze his hand tight. He won’t live, but I don’t want him to be alone when he dies.

“Jamie!” Denton is there, trying to pull me up. But I don’t want to let go of the guy’s hand yet. He’s still alive, but not for long. Denton keeps trying to get me to move as gunshots echo around us. Niki is there now, too, and she helps Denton, pulling the young man’s hand away from mine. Someone else from our side is shooting back the way we came, but bullets tear through the front of their jacket, narrowly missing Niki. She screams as the person drops to the ground, dead. I push Niki ahead, and Denton shoots blindly behind us.

This is just going to continue every day until Rosewood and the other leaders are dead. Which means every day, more people are going to die. But if Rosewood dies tonight, it’s over. And if I’m right about where he is, I can end this; not wait a week or more for them to starve or die of dehydration. Or for them to get even more desperate and kill more of us. Like Niki, who shouldn’t be here but just wants to protect her brother.

Or me. Who shouldn’t be here either. But this is for Andrew, to protect him so he can protect the others. I have no clue how many people have died already for Danny Rosewood, but no one else is dying tonight. Especially not for me.

When we reach another roadblock to our right, neither Niki nor Denton notices as I fall back and let everyone pass me. I stop, waiting for them to look for me; when no one does, I turn away from them and run for the barrier. None of them seem to notice, as there are no shouts after me. I climb up onto the cars that make up the roadblock, black soot coming away from the cracked and burnt paint.

In under a minute, I’m over the blockade and on the other side.

Alone.

The sheriff’s department is only a few blocks away. I can check it out on my own, see how well guarded it is. Maybe Rosewood is there, out in the open. And if he is, maybe his men will let me get close enough to take him out.

I turn down a road, sticking to shadows. I’m moving in the opposite direction from the gunshots, so things are getting quieter.

There’s movement in the street ahead of me, so I duck into an alley and wait. Voices drift through the night, getting closer and closer. I back down the alley, away from the street, hoping the shadows between the building are enough to hide me.

A young man is speaking. “—probably distracted by the assault on Stillton. I say we make a run for it while we can.”

Another voice—younger, more boyish—answers. “What if they just shoot us?”

“They won’t, bud,” answers the first. “We’ll just go out with hands up and—” Their voices get farther and farther away. Still, I don’t risk going out just yet.

Halfway down the alley, there’s a right turn, and I glance down it at the white cinder-block sheriff’s department. Smoke drifts slowly beneath an orange light at the front corner of the building. There’s gotta be a generator. And if they’ve chosen to power a generator using the limited resources they have, it must be because the leaders are there.

That’s where he is, I know it. Like some dictator hiding out in his bunker while the opposing troops close in.

And judging by the two men I just heard, they seem ready to give up. Maybe if they know their leaders are falling, they’ll be more willing to lay down their guns.

I sprint down the alley toward the station. The road is clear, but I look both ways to be sure, then take my chance and cross the street to the empty sheriff’s station parking lot.

I run around the back, into the shadows. There’s the low hum of a generator farther along the building’s back wall. I turn back to see the alleyway is still dark. No one is following. I continue around to the other side and hear voices from the front of the building. Yelling. But I don’t know what they’re saying.

There’s a truck on this side with tarp-covered boxes in the back of the bed.

More gunshots, six or seven overlapping pops. But they’re much closer than any others I’ve heard.

Someone rounds the corner, limping. He’s a short, thin white man with a gray mustache and bald head. Blood drips down his face from a cut across his forehead. There’s more blood on his chest and a thick, dripping trail behind him.

He doesn’t see me in the shadows. Neither does the man with the gun behind him. My heart stops and everything goes silent except for the pounding in my ears.

Danny Rosewood lifts the pistol in his hand and fires one final time into the other man’s back. The bald guy drops to the ground, tries to crawl, then stills.

My fingers tighten around the gun in my own hand.

There he is.

Rosewood limps over to the man. There are red splotches of blood on his white suit. One near his shoulder. And another on the right side of his abdomen. Almost exactly where the scar on my side is.

He throws his own gun—a six-shooter, of course—aside and reaches down for the other guy’s gun. Another six-shooter. Probably standard-issue for the selectmen of Fort Caroline. Something that looks old-school, dignified, and Wild West-y. It makes sense given the wanted posters. Rosewood picks up the gun and goes to open the chamber but stops when he sees me.

I’ve stepped out of the shadows, my legs moving on their own. My arm must, too, because I don’t remember raising my gun, but there it is. Pointed right at his chest.

He seems nervous for a moment and puts up his other hand like he’s about to surrender.

“It’s all right, son,” he says. “No need to go shooting anyone now. I was just defending myself is all.”

That’s like a slap in the face. The casual way he says it. The way he calls me “son,” as though I’m just some random person he’s never seen before. I study his face, and it takes longer than it should for me to realize he doesn’t even fucking recognize me.

“You . . .” I start, but can’t say anything else.

He nods and puts on all the southern charm he can muster with a pained face. “I’m just going to go ahead and get in this truck. Sound okay to you? You can come with if you need. I think we oughta get out of Dodge, like, now. We got a tow truck set up—if you drive that in the opposite direction and pull down the barricade, I can drive right on through. I’ll wait for you to hop in, and we’ll get out before they even realize what happened.”

You liar. You’d tell that to anyone and leave them to die in the tow truck. But that’s not what pisses me off.

“You don’t know who I am?”

He studies my face and nods. “Sure, I do, son. It’s just remembering names has never been my strong suit. Why don’t we talk about it in the truck, and you can refresh my memory.”

“You chased me to Florida,” I say, stepping toward him and keeping my gun trained on him. “You’ve been looking for me for over five months. You sent people down to the Keys for me and destroyed the home we were trying to make.”

Home.

Saying it aloud makes it all sound possible. The Keys would have been a home if Fort Caroline hadn’t been looking for us. If Rosewood had never sent his son after us, and I was never shot. If I never killed Harvey Rosewood to protect Andrew. If I was never terrified that they would show up and kill us, I could have let myself trust the people in the Keys. Andrew and I could have been safe and happy there, even with the storm. We could have helped rebuild, and I would have been able to let the others in—Daphne, Rocky Horror, Liz, Kelly, the kids, all of them. But I couldn’t, because of him. This sad, forgetful old man.

He’s still looking at me as if he has no idea what I’m talking about.

“I shot Harvey,” I say. And saying it aloud feels like the moment I realized what I did all over again. His face, the blood. My stomach turns and threatens to throw up whatever’s in it, just like that day.

And then Danny Rosewood’s face changes. Because now he knows exactly who I am.

“Shit,” he says. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him curse. “It is you.” His face becomes a mask of rage. “You killed my boy!”

“He tried to kill me first.”

“He should have!” Rosewood snarls. “I thought him surviving the flu meant he’d change. Like he was chosen to be a leader finally. To grow a pair and stop fuckin’ around with his life!”

That one sentence changes everything I ever thought about Harvey Rosewood. The way he looked at me and Andrew. How he tried to kill us and the horrible things he said. Now, hearing this anger from his father, Harvey’s voice in my head sounds almost like a parrot. The words are there, but not the understanding.

For the first time, I feel bad for Harvey Rosewood.

Rosewood motions around us. “You’re the reason things around here went all to shit! You weren’t in the Keys, we wasted all this time and supplies going to get you, and now look. You happy with yourself, boy?”

He raises the gun.

But mine is already up.

I pull the trigger.

Nothing happens. The safety is still on. Because the safety is always on. Because I hate guns and I don’t want to hurt people, not even Danny Rosewood, not in this moment or ever. The whole time I was coming here, I was trying to psych myself up to do this, right now.

Shoot him.

Despite everything, I still can’t. But more than that, I don’t want to.

Another gunshot rings out in the quiet night. So close and so loud that it makes my ears ring.

I don’t even feel the bullet hit me, but I flinch anyway and drop my own gun. I close my eyes, waiting for the pain. For the blood and cold that come as the life starts draining from my body.

But there’s no pain.

I open my eyes, and Danny Rosewood drops to his knees, clutching the center of his chest, trying to stop the river of blood spilling between his fingers.

For a moment I feel like I must be imagining this. That I died and this is some last-minute hallucination before I lose consciousness forever. But then I turn and see Grover Denton coming up beside me. Niki follows him, her gun at the ready, her chipped pastel nail polish bright against the black steel.

Denton steps up to Rosewood and kicks the guns away from him. Rosewood looks up and grumbles his name, blood spilling from his lips, before he falls over.

Niki reaches out for me. Asking if I’m okay. I nod, but I don’t know if I am. Physically, I’m fine, but I also feel numb. It’s like I don’t know if I’m scared or happy or frightened. Empty is all I feel. I join Denton at Danny Rosewood’s side. Rosewood looks like, if he could, he’d strangle us both so hard our necks would snap.

“My boy . . . ,” he gurgles, staring up at me, “shoulda killed you when he had the chance.”

“He tried,” I say. “Maybe that will make you proud of him. To know that the last thing he did before he died was try to shoot me.”

“Shoulda been you.”

I nod. “For a while I wished it was. And for an even longer while, I thought he deserved to die, but maybe he didn’t. I’m sorry he’s dead, but I’m not sorry I’m alive.”

Rosewood coughs up another clot of blood. “Well, I am. I hope you never have . . . a moment’s peace. Ever.”

He probably thinks this is supposed to make me feel worse, but it doesn’t. If anything, I feel bad for him. It also makes me feel bad for Harvey Rosewood. This spiteful, angry man was his father, and maybe all that hatred in Harvey Rosewood’s heart came from him. I’d like to think maybe there is another universe—one where the superflu never happened and maybe Danny Rosewood didn’t pass his own hate on to his son. Or if he did, maybe Harvey was able to end the cycle.

I’d like to think in that universe, Andrew and I still found each other.

“I hope . . . ,” Rosewood continues, “you suffer.”

“Okay,” I say. I put my hand on Rosewood’s. It’s sticky with blood, and he’s already getting cold. I remember that feeling, thinking I was going to die. How scared I was. Even through the mask of rage Rosewood wears, I know he must be scared, too. It makes me pity him and every terrible decision he made. All the selfish hate he’s filled with.

I know I don’t want that same hate in me. The hate I had for Danny Rosewood drove a wedge between Andrew and me and ruined everything we built together. It made me someone I didn’t want to be.

And I don’t ever want to be that person again.

“I forgive you anyway,” I say to him.

“He doesn’t deserve forgiveness,” Denton says.

I shake my head. “I’m not forgiving him for everything. Just for me.”

Rosewood coughs again and I see his eyes change. First more anger, then frustration, then sadness maybe, then suddenly fear or a different kind of anger. Finally, he lets out a shuddering breath. And he’s dead.

Danny Rosewood’s blood has soaked through the knees of my jeans, and my hands are sticky with it. I don’t feel the relief I thought I’d feel from his death; more than anything, I just feel sad. Like I wasted so much time worrying for nothing, because he barely remembered me. At the end of the day, yes, I’m sure he was devastated that his son was dead. But it seemed like he would have reacted similarly if his son had died in an accident.

The Danny Rosewoods of the world only care for Danny Rosewood.

Denton fishes in Rosewood’s pockets but comes out with nothing.

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

“The keys.”

“The road is blocked,” Niki reminds him.

He nods. “Then we take the truck Cal drove in here.”

“What about the others?” Niki asks.

He shrugs. “I’m not worried about them. You came for Rosewood, right?”

I don’t know the answer to that anymore. Originally, yes. I did. But now I don’t know.

Denton takes my silence as confirmation and continues, “Whatever happens here will happen whether we’re here or not. Your part is done. As far as I’m concerned, so is mine.”

“So we just go back to Faraway?” Niki asks.

Andrew won’t be there. He and Amy will have moved on to Henri’s.

“You’re all safe now, right?” he asks. It feels like a non sequitur, and I don’t understand what he means. Then it all clicks. We are safe. At least as safe as we can be given the end of the world. Gunshots still ring out in Fort Caroline, and tomorrow morning when the sun rises, someone will be there to pick up the pieces. But they won’t be thinking of me or Andrew or Cara.

“Yeah,” I say. “We’re safe.”

“Then, yes, let’s go back to Faraway. Cal and the others can help clean up here if they want.”

“We came here to stop them,” Niki says. “To stop people like him from growing into power and making this world shitty for everyone who isn’t him.”

“No,” Denton says. “I came to make sure Jamie didn’t get himself killed.” He turns his attention to me. “In Florida, when we found you and Andrew, I tried to tell the others to keep moving, but they wouldn’t. We saw Andrew first, and they went for him, then they went for you. I heard you tell Andrew you loved him, and I knew we’d fucked up. I’m sorry, Jamie, truly. I never meant for either of you to get hurt. I knew we couldn’t take you back with us, so when you ran off into the woods, I started figuring out how to get Rosewood to stop looking for you. I had to appeal to his bullshit whims and tell him he was wasting supplies and that people would turn against him if he kept it up. I wish I could have done more, but I couldn’t. Now I feel like I did. You’re alive, Rosewood is dead. So let me get you to safety again so you can go home to Andrew. Please, just let me do that.”

I stare at him, trying to figure out how much of this is true and how much is just him trying to look like a better person. But I can see in his eyes, the way he’s pleading with me—it’s real.

I wipe my bloody hands on my pants and stand. Niki and I follow Denton over the barricade.

When we reach the truck, Niki looks back in the distance, where the gunshots have stopped. The town is completely silent. It’s only a matter of time before someone finds Rosewood’s body.

“Come on,” I say. “It’s done here.”

“What if it isn’t? What if there are still people here who are that willing to kill others?”

“We aren’t those people.” I reach out and take her hand, the one she doesn’t hold a gun in. The new polish on her nails chipped because she’s been nervously picking at them since we left Faraway. “This isn’t us giving up or running away. We have our own people to worry about. We have to make sure Jamar, the Kid, Taylor . . .” Andrew. “That they don’t become those people.”

We have to make sure they don’t become like us. Seeking revenge through violence. All we can do is protect and love them, and hope we can survive this world with love instead of hate.

“You’re a great sister,” I say, keeping my promise to remind her when we were done in Fort Caroline. “Let’s go home.”

Denton climbs into the driver’s seat of the truck. Niki hugs me tight, sobbing quietly against me, and whispers, “Okay. Let’s go home.”

Before we’re even buckled in, Denton pulls a U-turn, going back the way we entered Fort Caroline.

We drive in silence, the falling settlement fading into the distance.

Denton drives through the night. The truck had a full tank of gas, and he gets us to Faraway a little past one in the morning. He directs us to the showers, where I can wash up. It’s pitch-black and the water is freezing cold, but it seems to wake me from whatever stupor I’ve been in, and I realize it’s really over.

I thought I wanted Danny Rosewood to die, but none of that even mattered. I risked everything because I was angry that people like that still existed and still hurt others even after we’ve already lost so much.

I sob under the freezing-cold water. How could I make a mistake like this?

Denton is waiting for us by the lodge with Nadine, Hannah, and a third person. It’s Kelly. She runs to me, pulling me into a hug. It’s nice to have someone from the Keys on my side again. I never gave her the chance to get close when we were there, but she’s here now, and she’s hugging me, and I cry again.

“Where’s Jamar?” Niki asks.

“So what’s your plan?”

In the sunrise, I look over at Denton and shrug. “Andrew and the others went to Bethesda. Niki and I will follow them and see if we can catch up.”

Denton laughs. “Yeah, Niki seemed pretty pissed.”

I smile. She absolutely was, but it was nice to see. Like the old Niki we met on the road. Not the terrified Niki looking for revenge like I was. She’s worried about Jamar, but she knows Andrew and the others will protect him.

“You can take the truck if you want,” Denton says.

I snort and give him a shrug. “Niki and I don’t know how to drive.” But even if we did, I don’t think I’m ready to catch up to them just yet. Andrew was right, I was on a revenge mission, and if he knew that before I even did, it means he knows how close I came to losing who I was. He might not trust me again, at least not off the bat. Maybe some extra time will make it easier.

But my chest aches at the idea of not seeing him soon.

That afternoon, Niki and I say goodbye to Faraway and head northeast to Bethesda.