Jake Morrison's Arc

Chapter 26 of 54

The skiff bumped the broken dock at dusk. Jake cut the engine and let Marcus help the nine survivors ashore. His arm throbbed under Marcus's bloody shirt. He kept it pressed to his side. The quarantine pen waited on the east dock, wire on three sides, built for exactly this. Jake had made the rule himself: every newcomer stripped and inspected for bites. If he stepped into that pen, he would flag himself. He would have to lock himself in. Marisol ran down the ramp before he could hide the wound. She threw her arms around him. Then she felt his flinch and looked down. The shirt on his forearm was soaked red. Her face broke. "No," she whispered. "No, no." Tears spilled down her cheeks. She had spent weeks building a life with him on this island. Now she gripped his hand like the sea might take him again. Jake swayed. His knees buckled. Marcus caught one arm and Sofia rushed in under the other. Sofia was the supermarket survivor who tracked every supply and rule on the island. She did not hesitate. "Doctor's cabin," she said. "Now. Away from the new people." They half-carried him past the pen he had built and into the doctor's cabin. Sofia barred the door herself, keeping him from the others. The quarantine held, just not the way he planned. By midnight the fever came. Jake shook under the blankets. Sweat ran down his face. The doctor cleaned the bite and watched the two red marks. "No spreading yet," she said. "No black in the veins. We wait." Nobody said what waiting meant. Marcus stood guard at the door with his wrench. Sofia checked on the nine survivors, then came back and checked on Jake. Marisol never left his side. She sat on the edge of the cot and held his hand through the shaking. She talked to keep herself steady. "The doctor tested my blood," she said. "I'm pregnant, Jake." His eyes found hers in the lamplight. "A baby. Ours." She smiled through the tears. "We'll teach him to fish off the dock. Or her. I like Mateo. Or Luna, if it's a girl." She kept talking through the night, naming their child, planning the years they had not lived yet. Somewhere near dawn her voice slowed. She fell asleep with her head against his chest. Morning light came through the cabin window. Jake opened his eyes. The shaking was gone. His skin was cool. He turned his arm over slow and looked. The two red marks had dried into a hard brown scab. No black veins. No fever. He was still himself. Marisol woke to his hand moving in her hair. She sat up and saw his face, clear and calm. She touched the scab and pulled her fingers back like it might burn. "You didn't turn," she breathed. Jake stared at the healed bite. He had built the rule that would have condemned him. Now he had survived the thing it was meant to catch. He was something new, and no one on the island knew what that meant.