The Girl in Red

“Are you going to tell me what that alien thing is all about now that I’ve sliced one of them in half?” Red asked.

“It’s still classified,” Sirois said. “We’ve had reports that there’s another homegrown militia here, one that’s been kidnapping women and children. Do you know anything about that, or where they’re located?”

Red considered. It went against the grain to help the military, but Sirois had ensured that she escaped that besieged town safely. And if Sirois’s group cleared out the Kidnapping Militia, then so much the better. It meant that Red and Sam and Riley could cross through the region without worrying about getting snatched up.

“Deus ex machina again, huh? You’re going to sweep in and save the day?” Red said.

“Just like in a movie,” Sirois said.

“I’ll show you where we think they are if you’ll bring a map,” Red said. “I’d be happy as hell to have you wipe them off the face of the earth.”

Sirois looked from Red to Sam to the corpses and it seemed like he finally jigsawed all the pieces together. He went to the jeep to get the map.

In the meantime, a select group of soldiers had approached the remains of the monster. They all wore gloves and face masks made of thin wire mesh, almost like the kind fencers wore. One of them carried a black box with a hinged top.

Two of the men had their rifles trained on the head. Nobody seemed to care much about the rest of the body.

Sirois returned with the map and handed it to Red. She took it without looking, her eyes fixed on the play before her.

The man with the black box set it carefully on the ground close to the monster’s head. He flipped the hinged lid open and Red heard something sloshing inside the box.

Two other men approached the head. They held long sticks that had metal grippers on the end, almost like the kind of thing used to pick up trash. One of them carefully closed the gripper around the back of the monster’s head.

As soon as the metal touched it the teeth began to whirr again. Red was very glad that her natural sense of caution had kept her from moving the corpse. Apparently these things were dangerous even when you thought they were dead.

The soldier hurriedly dropped the head into the box. Red heard a splash and then the first man snapped the lid into place.

Red gave Sirois some side-eye. “Classified?”

“Definitely classified,” Sirois said firmly.

Red showed him the route she’d plotted on the map based on their observations about the patrols.

“We assume they’re in this area somewhere. Although you may not have to go looking for them,” Red said. “It’s been a while now since I . . . disabled this patrol. I figured that someone would be along any minute now to find them.”

“Probably a safe assumption,” Sirois said, looking at the places she marked on the map.

He went back to the second man in the jeep. They conferred for a few minutes while Red thought about standing up. A little bit of sun was fighting through the cloud cover and she turned her face up toward it.

She thought about all the days that had passed since the Crisis first started—about the girl she had been and the girl she was now. Red had thought she’d known everything at the start. She thought that knowledge, that preparation would keep her and her family safe. It hadn’t. No amount of caution or knowledge or perfectly packed supplies could eliminate danger. That danger had taken her family from her.

Red could never really be at peace with that, but she finally accepted that it wasn’t her fault. There were no plans that could have saved Mama or Dad or Adam.

It was only then that she realized she’d been carrying that around with her—the belief that if only she had done something different, better, smarter they would still be with her.

I couldn’t have saved them.

She didn’t know everything. And she didn’t need to know everything. Maybe it was better if she never knew why the Crisis started, where the Cough came from, why there were weird monsters coming out of people’s bodies.

You’re the one who always said you weren’t the Chosen One. Only Chosen Ones worry about all that shit. The rest of us just want to live.

She wondered if Sirois was going to let her and Sam leave.

Red closed her eyes for a minute, enjoying the sun, and Sam leaned into her shoulder.

Red cracked an eye open when Sirois cleared his throat.

“You still have some walking to do?” he asked.

“Yes, I do,” Red said.

Sirois gave her a lazy, two-fingered salute. “Good luck to you then, Red Riding Hood.”

“You too, Lieutenant,” she said, and smiled, and pulled her red hood over her curls.

CHAPTER 16 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow