The Redding is a sinister force that captures and controls anyone it knows by name. Meg and her fellow survivors navigate a delicate balance of survival using nicknames and newfound communication methods, until they discover the rain can communicate...
It takes me longer than it should to put the pieces together on that one. A devastated look comes over Calico J's face moments before I remember. It was when the Anport Rescues texted us to say they'd had bad experiences with survivors from Chesnet before, and would therefore need to screen us without telling us what for. Calico J asked if that was the moment one of us revealed they'd been hiding something from the rest of the group. That we'd need to have a word if that was the case.
"I'm sorry," says Calico J now. I can already tell the guilt of this is going to eat him alive. "Patrick, I'm so sorry, I didn't... I didn't mean it that way. I just wanted us to talk to each other when the other survivors wouldn't tell us anything. We were never going to kick anyone out."
"Did you already have the patches then?" I ask.
Patrick nods.
"For how long?"
"Since... since before we met. The first one appeared a few days after Red Thursday. My..." He swallows hard. "My half-brother said it had infected me. That I was going to turn zombie on him and... and my dad."
"Was it your half-brother who—" I catch myself and cut that question short. I don't need to know, and Patrick doesn't need to tell us. Unless, of course, what happened to him on the bridge in Chesnet is relevant to this second tier of Sleeper behavior.
Patrick interprets my half-question before I can find a way to put it more gently. "On the bridge? Yes."
"Did the Redding get him, too? Turn him feral?"
"No."
Me, Ditzy, and Calico J all wince.
"Not then, at least," finishes Patrick. "He was... he was still fully sane."
"Pushing someone off a bridge into a Redding-filled river when they don't know how to swim isn't sane."
Patrick just shrugs. He's trembling, like it takes all his willpower just to carry on this conversation.
I circle back to more important things. "How far have yours spread now? If these patches are what's giving us control over it..."
He reaches wordlessly for the collar of his shirt.
I stop him the moment I realize what he's doing. "You can just tell us. I meant what I said. If you're not comfortable, you don't need to show us anything."
Patrick, though, just shakes his head. When I remove my hand, he pulls off his shirt. He immediately crumples it up and buries his face in it.
He's covered in them.
Ditzy stifles a gasp. The distinctive red of our enemy spreads in bruise-like patches across more than half of Patrick's back. The patches track down past his waistband and wrap around the sides of his ribcage; I know without needing to look that they're probably all over his front, too, and over his shoulders, extending far enough down his arms that I know now why he's never worn less than long sleeves around us. The last time anyone asked, he told us he was still acclimated to the heat after visiting his mom in the Philippines this spring. That might still be true, but this is more Redding than I've seen on any person who isn't dead. It's more Redding than I've seen on anyone since Vix. The guy Oreo killed started snarling with a patch the size of mine, let alone Patrick's. Yet Patrick and I are both fine.
I think I finally know how we've survived so long in Chesnet.
Ditzy is the first to voice it. "Are you two... immune?"
We're not resistant. There's no way we're just resistant if Patrick looks like this and is still lucid and breathing. Maybe I should have guessed this when I started sensing what the Redding was doing around me: where it was, when it moved, and what its intentions were. I've been sensing it since before Ditzy nearly ate the stuff from a can of baked beans. But Patrick and I are not the only ones who've done just fine in Chesnet.
"It's not just us," I say. "It can't be. We should all be dead by now." Ember's words, not mine. "If me and Patrick are immune, so are you two."
None of us are going to die. Not like this, anyway.
Calico J murmurs something to Patrick, who pulls his shirt back on. I think we've proven ourselves. But he's still trembling, and another question later, Calico J just hugs him. Patrick melts into it, breath catching all over again.
He was scared we'd kill him. Push him off a bridge like his sorry excuse for a half-brother, or murder him like the Anport Rescues did to their infected members. Or at very least kick him out. I can't blame anyone for hiding things with that kind of precedent looming over them. Calico J is closer with Patrick than any of us, so I leave him to do the comforting this time and take the moment to check in on Ditzy. She still looks shaken and teary after our Redding encounter, but her arms have loosened from around her knees, and she's looking back towards her abandoned flail.
"I can cover you," I say.
She startles, then gives me a wobbly smile. I crouch, ready to drum on the ground as she sneaks down the hill. No Redding lunges for her. She retrieves her weapon, then takes a moment to stand in place and look all the way around. Already taking risks against an enemy about whom we have more questions than answers. This, then, is how Ditzy builds up the kind of confidence she usually wears. Not with understanding, but with enough familiarity to know at least the face of what we're up against.
Still, her walk back lacks a lot of her signature cockyness. I'm sure that's at least partly the aftershocks of the attack, but she seems more at ease than she did before flinging herself at the Redding. Which is saying something.
"We should get farther up the hill, shouldn't we?" she says when she returns.
Patrick is up for walking, so we trudge up the hill together. The trees clear by the time we reach the top. We're well above the distant bridge now. The river is still red. There are still threads along all roads that I can see, including the one we came in along. I spot the twinkle of our abandoned car. But the flood that attacked us has vanished without a trace, leaving even the ground dry-looking in its wake. The forest below us is silent as a graveyard.
That's a half-decent description for it, actually.
"Is it gone?" says Calico J.
I can't tell from view alone, so I try to use my Redding-detection sense instead. I can detect the river very faintly, but there's enough residual Redding left on the hill that the forest is a mess of white noise. Or maybe that's the Redding keeping an eye on us.
"Looks that way," says Ditzy.
"I wouldn't put money on it," I say. "But it doesn't look like we're about to get attacked again."
Ditzy grins. "We're practically safe!"
Calico J manages the weakest of smiles—more than enough to make up for my simultaneous facepalm. Ditzy struts back to join him and Patrick on the patch of grass they've selected for sitting on. I check for red ants before I join them. Ditzy just plops down with a flounce that makes her skirt billow. She's got spandex underneath. Of course she does.
"So, we've confirmed that we have a secret weapon in our pockets." She sticks both hands in her skirt pockets and flaps the drying fabric demonstratively. "Can we go bash some Sleepers now? I want to bash some Sleepers."
I narrowly refrain from putting another hand to my face. It'll only encourage her. "No. We need a new plan."
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