Chapter 7 #2
Jack gets up slowly and crosses the kitchen.
There’s a drawer at the end that we never use.
It was jammed when we moved into this house, and when Hallie ripped the top of her fingernail off of her pointer finger trying to pry it open, he made us promise to leave it alone.
We did… but now he heads right for it and, after playing with a catch on the underside, it pops open.
My lips part in surprise. I didn’t know it could do that.
He grabs something from inside the drawer before closing it gently and re-engaging the lock. Then, wearing a wistful expression, he places it in front of me before taking his seat again.
It’s a glass vial, about five inches tall and one inch wide, half-filled with a clear liquid.
It’s not water. It’s too thick and gloopy to be, and it reflects the dim kitchen like a piece of glitter.
A single cut of a faded red ribbon is tied in a bow around the lip.
A piece of cork serves as a tight seal at the top.
I don’t have to ask what this is. No wonder Jack kept it hidden. I’ve only seen one of these once before, when the initial delivery was made in the first few days following the Turning, but I’ve never forgotten what they look like.
An antidote.
“Jack, no… I can’t take that.” I shake my head, holding my hands up, warding the bottle away. “No. No. Put that thing back. I won’t take it.”
His jaw firms. “If you don’t take it, I can’t let you go.”
He’s dead serious, too, like he’s going to go up against the whole Grave and tell them their votes meant shit, that I’m being grounded, all because I’m not selfish enough to take that bottle with me.
I have to make him understand.
“But we only have, like, fifteen of those for the whole Grave.”
“Yes,” he counters, “but I only have one daughter left.”
And that’s when I understand there’s no way in fucking hell I can refuse his gift. Because I wouldn’t be bringing it with me for me—I’d do it for Jack.
I reach for the vial. He places it against my palm.
“I’ll bring it back,” I promise. “I won’t have to use it. I’ll bring it back after I’ve killed off that nest, and when I do? I’ll give it back to you.”
A wistful smile tugs at Jack’s lips. He doesn’t say anything else, and neither do I. The silence, heavy yet content at the same time, says it all for both of us.
In a way, the antidotes are the world’s biggest joke.
No one knows where they came from. The days directly following the Turning are a blur to many of us, hours of fright and despair and pure unadulterated fucking horror blending together so that it’s impossible to remember one detail from the rest. To be fair, the survivors saw so many terrible things when the lurkers first appeared that it’s probably a good thing we can’t remember them all.
There are so many things I’d give anything to forget.
The antidotes were dropped from the sky, little wooden boxes filled with cotton, attached to a pristine white parachute that was meant to soften their landing.
It happened one night when the lurkers were feasting outside and those who hadn’t Turned were locked inside of their homes, waiting desperately for some news that this would all be over before long.
News that would never come.
I have no clue how many parachutes were dropped, but most of them were destroyed by the lurkers as they rampaged and fed. By the time we realized just how valuable those boxes were, there were hardly any left—and that was the only delivery.
Me and Jack and Hallie, we were some of the lucky ones.
One box was dropped right in the backyard of our old house.
It got stuck in the branches of a gnarled and twisted oak tree that took up most of the yard.
Jack waited until sun-up one morning when the lurkers had fled from the light to grab the parachute.
He used to be a big believer that the government could fix any mess; he hoped it was some sign from them that help was at hand.
In a way it was. At the very least, it was the only help those fuckers ever gave us.
Nestled beneath the cotton, four narrow glass tubes sat side by side.
A thin strip of red ribbon was tied neatly around the stopper at the top; the end of each ribbon was stamped with a serial number.
A clear liquid, more like syrup than water, filled the vials.
A piece of card stock had one word written in a clear hand: antidote.
In my opinion, it was a little too little too late.
Rory had already Turned. My mom was gone.
I had no intention of letting one of those monsters get near enough to me that an antidote would be necessary.
I remember looking down at the little glass vials and, for the first time since the Turning, I got angry.
Red hot fury like I’ve never known swiped away all the fear and the self-pity I’d been wallowing in for days.
Before anyone could stop me, I grabbed one of those vials and smashed it on our kitchen floor. My twin gasped. Jack snapped the lid closed, moving the box out of my reach. He didn’t say a word, and I didn’t apologize for my reaction.
That was the beginning of the anger for me. It only got worse after that. Just the thought of the antidotes—the idea that we could’ve been saved before the Turning, but were helpless now—always seemed to make me want to do something rash and reckless.
As soon as the survivors discovered that lurkers burned, I channeled my bitterness and rage into fuel for my own personal fire.
When I killed my first lurker, when I delighted in how easy it was to kill again, I decided that this was how I was going to survive—not by relying on a supposed antidote that came too late.
Now I regret smashing that vial. I threw away the one thing that could save a survivor if they ever got bit, so long as they drink the antidote within the first twenty-four hours.
When the Grave banded into a community, the survivors all pooled together any antidotes that were recovered.
Together, we managed to salvage about twenty antidotes.
Jack took half of them and locked them away.
The other half are hidden at St. Matthew’s.
Those are the only antidotes we have, and probably the only ones we’ll ever get.
None of us know where they came from or why they arrived so damn late.
All we do know is that they work—our people haven’t had to use many, but the few ones that we’ve used have kept a survivor from Turning after a lurker attack—and that we should only use them in an emergency.
No matter what, I won’t let myself be that emergency.