Nora takes down a chart from a crate holding a plump seal and reads off the report. “Injured due to a polar bear attack but escaped. There’s a list of medications and a care record. Some of the crates are empty…someone has to be looking after them. Gwen wouldn’t just leave them locked up in their cages like this for a slow death. They’d be better off set loose if she had to leave. At least then they’d have a chance.”
The animals watch them with hopeful eyes. The fox presses its paws to the bars, yipping softly, and the sound cuts her chest open. None of this is how it’s supposed to be, and it’s not like they have any other goal awaiting them. This was it. This place at the top of the earth was their last hope. Now it’s looking more like a tomb.
Theo doesn’t reply, and she knows why. He would only be stating the obvious. Neither of them wants to face that right now. Instead, they wander the rest of the area, locating a generator room and a greenhouse that holds the first bit of good news they’ve found so far, enough produce to sink a ship.
Then she sees it, the piece of paper held to a desk in a bedroom by a small fox statue.
“No…” She breathes, grabbing Theo’s arm with a hard grip.
It’s a long moment before either of them moves forward, as if they can prevent the inevitable by simply ignoring it. Her lungs stall and her eyes prickle hot. There wouldn’t be a note unless something awful happened. All at once, she wants to turn awayand pretend she never saw it. Her heart thunders, begging her to run because denial has always been her oldest friend, but there is nowhere left to run anymore.
“I’ll do it,” he says quietly.
She only nods. Watching him move the fox to the side and carefully pick up the answers to their most burning questions. The paper is folded in half, with the words “For Oliver and Nora” written in large but shaky letters.
As Theo reads, his voice wavers. Gwen’s handwriting looks frantic, ink smeared as though the page had been clutched too tightly and the pen pushed too hard.
* * *
“I didn’t say anything in the previous video about being bitten because I thought I would beat it. The fever didn’t set in as soon as the others. I made it all the way here before I felt anything at all. This virus, or whatever the hell it is, is already mutating. It has to be. Even with such a small sample size, there are variations in behavior. I saw one in Barrow on the way here that only shuffled along, he wasn’t running. All the others I’ve seen so far have been fast. A few have seemed almost aware of their targets, calculating, and others mindless. And then there’s the incubation period, so much longer for me. I feel certain that it’ll only continue to change the further it spreads. It’s almost as if it’s testing out different scenarios and mutating on the fly, which is crazy. It’s crazy. Nothing happens that fast, but it is. I don’t think we’ve seen anything even close to how this thing behaves. I’m not immune, but there will be others who are. There’s a vile of my blood in the freezer with the animal medications on the off chance anyone who knows what to do with it happens to come here. I wish I had more time to makesense of it. Oliver never arrived, and I fear he never got on the plane at all. Nora and his brother aren’t here either.
I can only hope that we’ll all find each other again one day. Oliver, if you see this, I’m so sorry I convinced you to get married in the middle of nowhere. I should have listened when you suggested Costa Rica. I love you. I miss you.
Nora, I never could have asked for a better best friend. The wildlife center is self-sustaining, assuming you can fish to supplement what grows in the greenhouse, and I know you can’t fish for shit, so I left instructions by the poles. I left a hunting knife under the bedroom pillow. Barrow was overrun last I saw, but there could be survivors. Don’t trust anyone. Not anymore. Not unless he’s flying the plane that’s coming soon to take me and the rest of the animals to a reported safe zone. I won’t be making it now.
Truthfully, I don’t think you should go either. If this virus spreads to the greater population, there won’t be anything left to find out there. It could be airborne eventually and there’s no coming back from that.
I’m sorry. I love you. I’ll be waiting out back by the ocean. I won’t become one of them. There are far worse ways to go than seeing the sunrise one last time.”
* * *
The weight of each word presses down like the ceiling is collapsing over them. By the time he reaches “I never could have asked for a better best friend,” Nora feels her chest cave. The sound she makes hovers between a sob and a mournful gasp.
Theo closes the folded paper again, placing it back on the desk after reading the contents. His wet eyes meet hers with the same sorrow she feels, and she looks away, sniffling with a shakeof her head and wiping her tears off with the back of her hand. Instead of crumbling where she stands, rage takes over in a burst of wild energy.
“Stupid. Stupid. Fuck!” She grabs the fox statue and hurls it across the room, where it shatters into a hundred jagged pieces. “Why would she do that? Why the fuck would she do that? She might have beaten it if she lasted that long. Made it all the way here, she could have gotten on the plane and…”
Her voice breaks and dies in her throat.
There’s a small window looking out toward the ocean where the outline of a body lies waiting. She stares at it for longer than she should, transfixed by the sight, anger coursing through her at the fact that her best friend gave up, even when Nora knows damn well that it was the only option.
She isn’t prepared for this outcome. The entire time they’ve struggled through the journey here, she has chosen not to dwell on the worst possible what-ifs. It had been too heavy a thing to consider when everything else was already falling apart around them, but now that the truth is staring back at her at the edge of the ocean, it’s all she can do not to fall to her knees and let out a wail held deep in her throat.
And then she remembers Theo and what he’s lost. She isn’t the only one here who’s grieving. “Your brother. I’m sorry.”
Where she is nothing but wild rage like the storm festering outside, his reaction holds only calm defeat as he reaches out a hand for her. “Come here.”
“I really expected them to be here,” she says quietly, moving between his arms to nestle into his embrace.
“Me too.” The soft pressure of his chin atop her head is gentle, and she shuts her eyes, inhaling deep, listening to how hard his pulse flutters in all the worst ways beneath her ear. “We’re gonna make it. Me and you. We have to…for them as much as for us.”
The main door slamming on its hinges breaks the moment and abruptly splits them apart. He takes a reflexive step in front of her and she grabs onto his arm, both of them staring wide-eyed in the direction of the noise. There is no one else here, and unless the plane arrived while they were crying about their lost friends and family, there is no one else who should be showing up right now.
Her grief is shoved aside by the kind of dread that sharpens the edges of her usual anxiety until it’s overwhelming. They share a pointed glance before reaching for their weapons. They left the damn rifle further out in the main area, but they have their knives. There’s rustling in the halls and glass shattering somewhere in the background, the crunch of heavy boots getting closer and closer until a familiar, unwelcome face appears.
“Nice place you got here.” Dalton whistles. “Thought you said you didn’t have nowhere to stay? Now what kinda person would lie like that when it’s obvious his fellow man is struggling?”
Her pulse stutters. Of all the assholes left alive, it had to be them.
