The In-Betweener (Between Life and Death) (S) by Ann Christy Read Free Book Online Page A

research money flows to now. And it is flowing hard and fast.
    I call them my magic beans. Soon there will be magic beans for everyone.
     

Today - The Loneliness of Being Alive
    I should be thinking about the danger of a talking in-betweener or the danger of any trip outside my complex. I should be recommitting myself to avoiding any creature that isn’t a deader in need of meeting its maker. Let’s face it, even entertaining such an idea is how people lose their PhDs in Caution. Instead, all I can think of is companionship in the form of these unknown children.
    Survival is a desperately lonely business. Trust is not achievable in any real way once a catastrophe of this magnitude happens. You can only trust those you already know and, even then, maybe not always, maybe not entirely. Unless they’re your mom, that is. The bonds of love—like those between my mother and me—were what I could trust, but not anyone or anything else. It can make a person start talking to themselves in a way that’s not entirely healthy.
    I’m not even really thinking of the kids as people in need of saving in the altruistic way I might have before all this happened. That’s there, of course, but it is threaded through with the wondrous idea of someone to talk to, to interact with, to hear breathing during the long nights so that I know I’m not alone. My heartbeat kicks up a notch as the idea catches hold inside me. I push a breath out through my puffed-up cheeks.
    Keep it together, I think. Excitement can make you lose your focus just as quickly as fear.
    It works. The little thrill in my chest eases back a bit as I run through a mental list of everything that can go wrong. Always have a plan and form that plan based on the best information you can get. That’s my motto and I’m going with it.
    First things, first. There is an in-betweener with a bullet hole in his chest who is speaking to me. And I have no idea where he came from and how long he’ll be able to maintain this level of coherent behavior. Like I said before, they are notoriously unpredictable. Easily distracted, but no less dangerous.
    Peeking back out from around the bumper, I see him still standing at the fence, his fists tight around the rails and his eyes steadily on the truck. The strain on his face is obvious. He’s really trying.
    “Where are they?” I ask, with little hope that he’ll be able to convey anything detailed like that, but asking anyway.
    He jerks, his jaws working in the way I’m more familiar with when it comes to in-betweeners. The concentration of before leaves his face and an eager sort of searching replaces it. My heart sinks at that, but then he surprises me again by banging his head against the fence hard enough to make it clang.
    Fresh, new blood mars his forehead when he pulls back. That’s a good sign in a way. It means his nanites restarted his heart quickly enough that his blood is still flowing well and circulating, becoming oxygenated and then providing that oxygen to his body. Given his actions, I’m thinking he’s more like a brain-damaged human with decent functioning and some obvious measure of control.
    He’s back on task again, the momentary lapse into in-betweener-ness over. His hand is jerky and uncoordinated and he misses the first time he tries to jam it into his pocket, but on the second try he manages to extract a piece of paper. He pushes it through the bars, holds it for a few seconds, and then lets it go. It flutters in the light breeze, the folds coming undone so that it flaps like a bird or a poorly made paper airplane. As it moves along the grass away from me, I see panic in his face.
    The last thing I want is to come out of my hiding place and into plain view of either the in-betweener or the group of deaders. The deaders can’t climb over a fence, but they can get agitated and that draws others. The in-betweener is more than capable of climbing a fence. This whole situation has been one long risk and