The Gone

28. Quarantine

“What do you mean?” I ask.

But Dee ignores me instead she walks away, through the empty food counters and into the back.

“Bring him through,” she calls.

I look at Max. He shrugs and goes over to Colin who is out cold.

“I’ll take his body, if you grab his legs.”

Without waiting for an answer he picks Colin up in a sort of bear hug. I pick up his feet and we slowly move him into the back. I’m full of worries about the door and the thing outside that is pounding on it.

“Do you think it’ll hold?” I ask.

Max looks at the door. “It should.”

We carry on the slow stumble into the back. I can’t see Dee.

“Over here.”

Max steers us toward Dee’s voice. She is standing in front of an open door. The door seems to be the heavy duty kind and I can see that there is a sort of bolt on the outside.

“Is that a freezer?” I ask, stopping. I don’t want to hurt Colin.

“No,” Dee says. Max just stands silently. “It is the cold storage.”

I still don’t move.

Dee sighs. “I switched it off.”

“Bitsy, we have to put him in there,” Max says.

“Why?” I ask.

Max and Dee look at each other and I know that they both know something I don’t.

“He’s going to change,” Dee says.

I just look at her. My arms are starting to shake from the effort of holding Colin off the ground and I have to drop his legs. No sooner have I done it than Max starts to drag him back.

“How do you know he’ll change?”

“They all do,” Dee answers and her voice is so hollow I just stand there and watch Max drag Colin into the room. At one point his shoe falls off and the sock underneath has a hole in the heel. It makes him appear more real and for a moment I consider stopping them, but there in the back ground is the insistent pounding. What if Colin really does change into one of those things? At least if he doesn’t we can let him out later, but if he does then he is contained. But it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Max walks out of the storeroom and Dee closes the door, throwing the bolt. She turns and places her back to it. Crossing her arms she looks from me to Max.

“Okay, so what are you doing here? And how come he knows what’s going on and you don’t?”

I look to Max but he stares at the floor. So I start to explain. I wish we were sitting down, but standing in the back of the kitchens I lay out everything from the blood at the airport to finding out Max is involved. Finally my voice trails off. Dee stands there and nods. She walks back toward the canteen and I notice that the pounding has stopped.

Max is looking at me but his expression is blank. I try a hesitant smile but he has already turned away and is walking after Dee. For a moment I feel guilty as if I have betrayed his trust, except I’m not certain he has earned it. Not yet. There are just too many unanswered questions.