Page 90 of Installment Immortality

I shut the car door, and Phee hit the gas, and we were off.

The next hour was a nightmare in slow motion. Elsie’s wound was well tied but still bleeding sluggishly, and the body only has so much blood it can lose before shock sets in and recovery becomes impossible. I didn’t know how close we were to that line, only that she should have been given medical care hours ago and not spent that time being possessed and bouncing from one layer of reality to another. She didn’t move but continued breathing, and under the circumstances, that would have to be good enough.

Amelia didn’t speak apart from telling Phee when she needed to make a turn, just kept her hands pressed flat against the dashboard and breathed shallowly through her mouth, shoulders getting tighter and tighter as the smell of Elsie’s blood and the combination of her pheromones mingled with Arthur’s filled the car.

Lilu pheromones can become overwhelming in sufficient concentration, causing people to agree to, or do, things they wouldn’t have done under any other circumstances. Phee glanced at her, mouth a thin line.

“It’s okay, Mia,” she said. “We’re almost there.”

“Not almost there enough,” said Amelia. “Left up ahead.”

We roared through the night, moving away from civilization, into the true dark of the space between cities, the ancient trees pressing in around us on all sides. Phee turned off on a narrow logging road, heading into the state park that housed the Hockomock Swamp, presumably avoiding any manmade barriers or ranger stations.

Frogs and insects sang outside the car, occasionally broken by the screech of a distant owl. The car began to bounce as we drove over ruts and rocks and breaks in the road, and I understood why an SUV had been important. Anything smaller would have gotten bogged down, if it didn’t break an axle. Amelia’s barked directions become more common, and we left the main logging road for a series of smaller, narrower paths through the trees.

We hit a particularly large divot and Arthur startled awake, blinking blearily as he turned his head back and forth, trying to figure out where we were. I leaned across the motionless Elsie and set a hand on his arm.

“It’s all right, baby,” I said. “It’s okay. We’re almost there.”

“’Most where?” he mumbled.

“A place where Elsie can get some medical care, and we can get something with a lot of sugar into you.” Sugar helps with shock, in my experience. Maybe that’s not scientific or modern, but sometimes you can’t focus on being as modern as possible. Sometimes you just do what works, and hope it doesn’t kill anyone.

Rather than looking soothed, Arthur looked alarmed. He sat up straighter, blinking faster as he tried to clear his vision. “How?”

“That is a very long story, and trying to explain it all right now isn’t going to do any of us any good, but please, Arthur, it’s me, Mary. Just trust me when I say we wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t going to help your sister, all right?” I tightened my grip on his arm slightly.

The pressure seemed to soothe him. He stopped shifting in his seat and took a deep breath, clearly forcing himself to relax before he said, “Okay, Mary. If you say so.”

“We’re almost there,” said Amelia.

Arthur stiffened again, narrowing his eyes as he focused on the back of her head. “You,” he spat.

“Me,” Amelia agreed. “I’m sorry about what I did before. Those Covenant people made some big threats against my entire species, and I panicked. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I did, and now we’re trying to make it right. Can you please try to trust me long enough for me to make it right?”

“I’m keeping an eye on you,” he said.

Amelia’s laugh was small and bitter. “Don’t worry, kid. I’m keeping an eye on me too. Turn right up ahead, Phee.”

“There isn’t any road there.”

“There’s a road. Just—come on. You know I know these woods. Turn right now.”

Phee turned right, seeming to steer directly into the middle of a patch of old-growth cedar trees. I braced for an impact that never came as we continued smoothly down a better-maintained dirt road. Looking back, I saw that the spacing of the trees formed a perfect optical illusion of impassibility while barely concealing a reasonably clear passage. We rolled deeper and deeper, surrounded by trees, until those same trees began to open up and make room for us, leaving us driving into a meadow of sorts, if it can truly be called a meadow in the middle of a swamp.

It was large, whatever it was, and dominated by a fort that could have been stolen from a period piece about American colonization, even down to the lashed-together log wall surrounding the main structure, cutting it off from easy view. There were a few other vehicles parked outside the wall, and flickering torches set along the top, confirming that people were awake inside.

I would never have known this place existed if it hadn’t been directly in front of me. Even from the final road, there had been no indication we were going to find a walled settlement. Phee pulled onto a flat piece of ground and turned off the engine, handing the keys back to Amelia, who looked at me in the rearview mirror.

“Can you and Phee carry her?” she asked. Her cheeks reddened. “I don’t want to get her blood on me.”

That was less a hygiene concern and more a matter of Lilu blood being an even-more-powerful aphrodisiac than their pheromones. I nodded. The day I couldn’t help carry one of my kids was the day I gave up on my position in the afterlife.

Amelia looked relieved and got out of the car.

Arthur was awake enough to walk on his own, with a little nudging, and working together, Phee and I were able to lever Elsie out of the car and hoist her between us, feet dragging on the ground as we walked her toward the wall. Amelia was already there by the time we arrived, talking fast and urgently with the gate guards in a language I didn’t understand. Then she flashed us a relieved smile, and we were ushered inside.

The gate slammed behind us like a vault door closing, and there was a finality to it that made me flinch. But we’d come this far, and I wasn’t going to give up now. Amelia gestured for us to follow her, and we did exactly that, not looking back.

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