The Girl Who Punched Back (Death Fields 2)

The pieces of Jane’s plan are slow to appear. So far, nothing seems amiss. We really are helping survivors that are in desperate need of food, shelter, and the vaccine.

Maybe, I consider (not for the first time), that Jane is right. I have trust issues.

We walk a little farther and Jude speaks again. “Back in the day, my mom used to drive me to school and every morning we’d listen to NPR—you know, the news station?”

“Yeah, I know. My mom did the same thing.” I quietly hum the tune to the morning show and he smiles.

“One day, we heard this thing about a storage facility in Norway. It was filled with seeds. Hundreds of thousands of seeds.”

“Seeds?” I ask, trying to listen to him and also keep watch for sounds outside the fence.

“Yeah, all these varieties. Some were no longer in use, others were pretty common. Fruit, vegetables, trees, plants…everything.”

“What were they storing them for?”

“Now. The end of the world. War. Famine. Drought. In reality, I think they expected that it would be for something a little more like climate change, you know, when the common varieties no longer produced because of weather changes or some other extreme events. Something they’d have more notice about.”

“And it’s in Norway?” Norway is a long way from here. I’ve started to understand I’ll probably never even

go back home to North Carolina, much less travel overseas.

“Frozen under the ground. After some failed attempts, they found that environment the safest way to make sure they weren’t contaminated or ruined.”

I slow even more, so we’re walking at the same pace—totally against protocol. “Are you telling me you want to go to Norway, Jude?”

He snorts and covers his laughter with his hand. “God, no. I’m just thinking that whomever had the bright idea to store the seeds in Norway probably never really thought about the world being taken over by rabid monsters, making it totally impossible for anyone to get to or use those seeds ever again.”

“I suspect the guy who had that bright idea is probably now a rabid monster himself.”

“Or he’s living in that underground facility, totally unaware of anything happening on the other side of the world.”

We walk a little further and I spot Parker’s shadow across the small, grassy area. She bends down on her knee. “It does make you wonder how many other people are in underground bunkers or storage facilities or make-shift forts like PharmaCorp.” he says. “My best friend’s dad drove a truck for PharmaCorp.”

I glance over. “Oh yeah?”

“He was on the road when shit hit the fan. Unless PC has another Fort out there…I don’t know if I’ll ever find out what happened to him.” He sighs. “Not that he has anything to come back to.”

“Your friend is--uh, did they make it?”

“Nah. Or his mom.”

“Same happened to my best friend.” I push the memory of Liza out of my head. It hurts too much to think about it; besides, my nightmares like to keep those memories fresh when I’m alone at night.

“So how’d you get so good at this?” he asks, holding his weapon with ease. I’ve noticed this about him. He’s familiar with guns—from hunting—and handling them doesn’t make him nervous, but the Eaters freak him out. They’re unpredictable and certainly not afraid of us the way a deer or other wild animal would be. We’re lower on the food chain now, and it’s definitely unnerving.

“I didn’t have much of a choice. One minute I was a super nerd about to graduate high school, thinking about my roommates and what comforter to buy at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and if I had enough AP credit to skip Intro Biology, and the next my mom and I were alone, setting off on a three-state journey to find my dad and sister. On foot.”

“You made it—which makes you pretty bad-ass.”

“I made it,” I say. “But my mom didn’t.”

“Oh,” he says, and I can nearly sense how bad he feels for not realizing.

“It’s okay—“

I don’t answer fully because I see Parker abruptly stop just ahead of us. Jude and I both watch as she intently stares into space and listens.

“What is it?” I whisper as we get close to her.