Plague Nation

by Dana Fredsti

  They were all fresh—at least as fresh as something can be when its rotting from the inside out. Most of them were probably at the most two days’ dead. One woman looked so normal I almost hesitated before striking the killing blow—it took her hands clawing at my shoulders to snap me out of it.

  “Hollow shells,” I chanted to myself as I cut off her head. “That’s all they are. Hollow, deadly shells. We kill them or we die.”

  Still they kept coming, and I kept moving, slicing and dicing and finding a weird peaceful Zen inside myself, the horror of what I was doing cushioned by the same odd detachment I’d felt when BirkenBeamer had died. I didn’t know if this was a good or a bad thing, but I went with it, immersed in a ballet of death-dealing that developed its own inherent rhythm, and never seemed to end.

  Until finally it did.

  I cut down a little Chinese grandma zombie and spun, katana poised for the next target, only to find the space around me cleared. I suddenly noticed I was short of breath and sweating like I’d been in a sauna. Perspiration dripped off my forehead, stinging my eyes. I dashed it away with the back of one gore-stained hand and looked around me.

  There were prone corpses as far as the eye could see— on the grass, in the flowerbeds, on the stairs, and all over the landing. I turned around in a circle, seeing Tony standing over a pile of corpses, gore dripping from the sledgehammer, his face expressionless. Lil, on the other hand, glowed in righteous fury like the cute, cuddly— and totally deadly—goddess of war that she was.

  The three of us looked at each other. No words were necessary as we shared an unspoken self-righteous satisfaction in the necessary slaughter.

  Hollow, deadly shells.

  I vowed never to forget that fact again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  * * *

  There was an obscenely loud rattling as the metal shutters on the snack bar rolled up. Gentry leaned out over the counter from inside, and grinned at us. There was a door behind him, built into the wall, and it was ajar.

  “Can I take your orders?” he asked.

  Then there was a scraping sound of something heavy being dragged, and the inner door opened to reveal Nathan, who looked as unflappable as ever under an impressive coating of gore.

  “Glad to see you guys. I don’t think this—” he rapped hollowly on the door “—would have held much longer.”

  I slipped inside, squeezing past a medium-sized fridge they’d shoved up against the door.

  Mack smiled wearily up at me from a prone position on the floor, one leg propped up on a small stepladder.

  “Hey, stranger,” he said. He sounded tired.

  Next to him on the floor was a thin Asian man dressed in fatigues and Kevlar, eyes shut, face sickly pale. The injured sniper—it had to be. A heavyset woman with curly Orphan Annie hair and freckles lay a few feet away, chunks of flesh and fabric torn away from her shoulder at the juncture between two pieces of armor. I could smell the necrotizing flesh from where I stood. She didn’t have much time left.

  Standing guard over her with a rifle was a small, stocky woman armored up like the rest of us, with a platinum blonde brush-cut, holding the same type of souped-up firearm as Jones and Davis. Evidently this pair of snipers wasn’t a matched set. Still, there was something about her that reminded me of the Gunsy Twins.

  Lil pushed her way past me and rushed over to Mack’s side, dropping down on her knees next to him.

  “Are you okay?” she said. “Can you walk?”

  Mack patted her hand.

  “I’ll be fine.” The pain in his voice gave lie to his words. She hugged him fiercely.

  “You’d better be,” she said. “I’ll carry you the rest of the way myself, if I have to.”

  Gabriel stepped inside and frowned at her.

  “I told you to stay with Jones and Dr. Albert.” His tone was brusque, but Lil didn’t even look at him.

  “Mack needs me more.”

  Ooh, boy. I didn’t have to look at Gabriel to feel his temperature rising.

  “That’s not your judgment call,” he snapped. “Get back out there and do your job.”

  “Screw you!” Lil hissed, a flash of rage contorting her face. “I’m staying with Mack!” She buried her head on Mack’s chest, arms wrapped around him as if he were the last teddy bear on earth.

  Yikes.

  Mack and Gentry both flinched in surprise, Mack looking up at Gabriel apologetically, while Nathan gave Lil a slow, considering look before shooting an inquiring gaze my way. Gabriel, on the other hand, was the slowly boiling kettle to Lil’s bubbling-over pot. He was holding onto his temper with both hands. I could see the sweat beading up on his forehead, skin yellowish, which meant he needed his vaccine. Stat.

  Time for an intervention.

  I quickly grabbed him by one arm and pulled him toward the door. His muscles, tensed under my fingers, felt like steel cables.

  “Please,” I said quietly. He let me pull him outside as the occasional pop of rifle fire announced that Davis and Jones were taking care of any zombie stragglers headed in our direction. Tony was still at his post over to the right, guarding Davis. Jones had taken up a prominent position at the other corner of the Conservatory. Red, Carl, and Dr. Albert stood in a cluster near him.

  Nathan followed us out, close behind as I led Gabriel over to the entrance of the Conservatory. I was grateful for his presence.

  “What?” Gabriel snapped. I tried not to flinch at his anger, now turned toward me like a heat-seeking missile.

  “Two things,” I said, keeping my voice as calm and level as possible. “One, you need your meds about now.” He opened his mouth to argue, and I held up one hand. “Remember the talk we had? You know this is the virus kicking in. Just like I know when I’ve got PMS, right? Think of it as the mother of all fucked up hormonal surges, and just take your medicine, okay?”

  A muscle at the side of Gabriel’s mouth twitched once, then twice. Then he heaved a huge sigh.

  “Okay, yeah, you’re right.” He nodded toward Dr. Albert, who scurried forward even as he pulled off his knapsack, rummaging in it and extracting a padded pouch. From that he removed a syringe and little glass vial.

  “You said there were two things,” Nathan said as Gabriel silently submitted to the injection. I waited until Dr. Albert had finished, and then motioned them closer to me to make sure Lil couldn’t overhear any of what I had to say next.

  “Lil is on some sort of medication,” I said, my voice low. “Or was. I think she’s out of it. I found the pill bottle in our bathroom and I asked her about it a few nights ago and she... well, she kind of freaked out like she did in there—” I nodded toward the snack bar “—but not nearly as amped up.”

  There. I heaved a huge sigh of relief, grateful to finally get this off my chest.

  Dr. Albert raised an eyebrow.

  “What medication?” he asked. “Do you remember?”

  I frowned, trying to picture the label on the pill bottle I’d seen.

  “Something like Chlorophyll or Compazine or—”

  “Clozapine?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, that sounds right.”

  Dr. Albert frowned. “That’s an antipsychotic, often used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The withdrawal effects can be severe. We’ll have to find some medication for her as soon as possible. This... this is not good.”

  Wow. Understate much?

  “We’re headed for a medical center,” Nathan pointed out. “They’ll have a pharmacy.”

  “Getting to it may be problematic, though,” Gabriel said, rolling his shirt sleeve back down and refastening the Kevlar. It was reassuring to see him get back to business.

  “The trick may be getting her to take it,” Dr. Albert said. “Many people who suffer from bipolar disorder refuse to take the medicine when they’re in this sort of manic stage.”

  “We can always crush it up and put it in her food,” Nathan said.

  I’ll
sit on her chest, hold her nose, and pop it in her mouth if I have to. In the meantime...

  “Gabriel, can you just let her stick with Mack for now?” I asked. “Switch out with Gentry or Nathan, and have one of them watch him instead.” I jerked my chin toward Dr. Albert.

  Gabriel took a deep breath.

  “It sets a bad precedent...” he replied. I just snorted.

  “Since when have Lil and I done anything else?”

  He gave a short laugh.

  “Point taken. Okay, it’ll be easier than fighting her on this.”

  “Do you want me to tell her?”

  “No, I’ll do it,” he said. “Hopefully I can make it clear that I’m making the change for the good of the mission, and not because she threw a temper tantrum. We need her to keep her shit together.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, too,” I promised. “But first—” I nodded towards the restrooms “—nature calls.”

  “Make sure you clear it first,” Gabriel warned. “And have someone stand watch outside.”

  “I’ll ask Davis or Tony to keep an eye on the entrance,” I promised. Last thing I wanted was to have some opportunistic zombie crawling under a bathroom stall door à la Zombieland. What an embarrassing way to die.

  Davis kindly agreed to do guard duty in front of the bathroom so I could do my business in peace. First I checked to see that nothing lurked in any of the stalls. Then I risked a peek in the reflective metal that served as mirrors in most of the park’s restrooms. My hair stuck out in dark sweaty tendrils under my helmet and from the tight braid worn in a coil at the nape of my neck. My eyes looked huge in my pinched, wan face, with its splatters and streaks of blood like tribal war paint. I’d fit right in with the cast of an Alien movie right about now.

  Taking off my helmet, I washed my hands, then splashed water on my face, and used wet paper towels to wipe some of the blood and bits off my skin. I tried daubing at the gunk on my Kevlar and clothing, but quickly gave up. I could only hope for a hot shower and a change of clothing in the near future.

  No hugging anyone but wild cards until then.

  Putting my helmet back on, I stepped outside, nodding at Davis, who was still standing guard.

  “Thanks,” I said with sincere appreciation.

  “Glad to assist, ma’am,” he replied with the slightest lift of the corners of his mouth. Both Gunsy Twins were starting to grow on me, even if they did put me in mind of clones grown in vats somewhere.

  Someone shoot me if I start quoting Episode Two.

  Back inside the confines of the snack bar, Gabriel gave me a slight nod, which I took to mean that he’d had his talk with Lil, and everything was more or less okay. There was still some residual tension in the air, but it no longer crackled like an electrical storm.

  Lil was still curled up next to Mack, who was sitting up now, leaning against the wall, one arm around her. He looked content and it occurred to me that Mack needed Lil as much as she needed him. Looking after her would stop him from thinking about the people he couldn’t save. And helping Mack might be what was needed to keep Lil stable.

  Someone had pulled pre-made sandwiches out of the refrigeration unit and tossed them up on the counter. There were also cookies and brownies under a glass cover; Tony came inside and immediately made a beeline for the sweets. Sandwiches were passed out without any concern for filling, and I got a very passable roast beef and Swiss cheese on ciabatta. It would have been tastier with a few minutes in a Panini press, but I wasn’t about to complain.

  I finished up with a bag of Baked Lays and a chocolate chip cookie, grateful for every last preservative-filled bite. The old adage “hunger makes the best sauce” never seemed truer.

  Davis and Jones ate their sandwiches outside the building, keeping an eye out and taking care of any incoming ghouls. I found out that the injured sniper’s name was Hicks, and the female sniper went by Nicks— “as in Stevie,” she told me.

  Hicks and Nicks. Okay, maybe they do come in matched sets.

  Team B’s mechanic—a young white guy with messy brown hair, a scruffy beard on the end of his chin, and slight stoner drawl—was Brad, although mentally I nicknamed him “Shaggy.” The pilot, now delirious, wound reeking of putrefaction... well, they told me her name and I blocked it out. She was going to die, and knowing who she was would make that knowledge even worse.

  Nicks kept a close watch on her.

  Nathan, Gentry, and Gabriel huddled in a corner, conferring on our next move. If I’d really wanted to, I could have totally eavesdropped, but just then I wanted to shut my eyes and rest. I stretched out on the floor, pulling off my knapsack and using it as a lumpy pillow. Almost immediately I could feel myself falling into an uneasy doze, lulled by the buzzing of voices around me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  * * *

  I was jerked out of sleep by the crack of a bullet echoing in the confined space. My eyes shot open and I sat up to see Nicks standing over the now dead pilot, the muzzle of her rifle still pointing at the woman’s head.

  Damn.

  Shaggy sat next to her, sorrow lining his face.

  “She didn’t sign on for this,” he said angrily. “It should have been a simple drop.”

  Nicks nodded.

  “If I ever find out who fucked with the chopper...” She hefted her rifle in a not too subtle threat.

  I got to my feet, still groggy from my impromptu catnap. Red handed me a bottle of water. I smiled my thanks, splashed some on my face to wake myself up, and drank the rest.

  There was an occasional gunshot outside. Gabriel was nowhere in sight.

  “How long was I out?” I asked Red.

  “Maybe thirty minutes.”

  Outside, the sound of gunfire increased. I stretched, shaking the kinks out of my body, and sidled over to Nathan.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “More zoms are finding their way here,” he said somberly. “We need to leave now, before we have to fight our way out again.”

  “Damn, I was hoping we’d be able to take a break— the nap just didn’t cut it,” I said. “Are we going to try and get into the lab tonight?”

  “Doubtful,” he replied. “Like you said, we need a break—some of us more than others. We’re not all wild cards.”

  “Since dawn is only a couple of hours away, it makes more sense to find a vantage point and assess the situation. We need to make sure there’s a clear path to the back entrance.”

  Red came up to stand next to me.

  “We can’t just go through the front?” he asked.

  Nathan gave a short laugh, but it was totally devoid of humor.

  “This is a hospital,” he said. “It’ll be several circles of hell filled with hysterical civilians, hungry zombies, and sick people who are in the process of turning, all stuffed into a confined space. And this is an urban facility—there will be firearms. No, the risks are too great—we’d never be able to navigate those conditions without losing more people.”

  He took a swig of bottled water.

  “So the plan is to go across the park, get as close to the med center as we can, find a place to hole up, and then move out at first light.”

  “What about the Conservatory?” Carl asked. “Can’t we take a break here?” He had circles of exhaustion under his eyes, and didn’t look excited at the prospect of going anywhere.

  I answered before Nathan had a chance.

  “Look at this place—it’s all wood and glass. No way it’d hold for any length of time.”

  So we prepared to leave, stuffing some extra food in backpacks wherever it would fit. Nathan crammed it into his apparently bottomless duffle bag.

  Mack could walk, but his expression showed that the ankle pained him with every step, no matter how stoically he tried to hide it. Lil slung an arm around his waist so he could lean on her. When he tried to argue that he didn’t need help, she refused to have any of it.

  “You’ll heal up faster if you stop trying
to be all macho, and let me help you.”

  Whatever Gabriel had said to her seemed to have worked. The signs of her manic anger had been replaced by a calm competence as she focused on helping her friend.

  We’d become a group of fourteen, two of them walking wounded. I did a little mental tally—four snipers, one pilot, two mechanics, five wild cards, one mad scientist, and Gabriel. The injured men and Dr. Albert clustered in the middle of our party, Lil helping Mack, then Dr. Albert with Nathan as his shadow, Gentry and Tony immediately behind, supporting the wounded sniper between them.

  Davis and Nicks stuck close to us now, protecting our flanks while Jones took point. They worked with deadly efficiency, limiting their shots to the zombies that came close enough to be a real threat, and letting the rest fall behind.

  It was harder to move quickly and quietly, but we did our best as Gabriel led us south through the park. There were cars abandoned on the streets and in the parking lots, a few scattered groups of people hoofing it to whatever safety they could find. The light of a fire flickered through the trees somewhere in front of us, the smell of smoke drifting in with the fog and mixing with Eau d’Undead.

  I grimaced, flashing back to the fire in the lab.

  The inescapable sounds of a city falling apart were audible in the distance, but the park itself was oddly quiet. We passed a clump of zombies feasting on recently killed corpses, several of the hapless victims wearing the ragtag clothing of the homeless. The sight both sickened and saddened me.

  Golden Gate Park was, under normal circumstances, one of my favorite places to play tourist. Three miles long and half a mile wide, it held a wide variety of gardens, lakes, museums, hiking and biking paths, a polo field, a buffalo paddock, complete with real bison, an antique carousel that delighted me as a child, and a Japanese tea garden where my parents would take me for tea and cookies—the promise of which was the only thing that got me off the carousel without a tantrum. I had loved wandering the numerous little paths that cut through the wooded areas, always expecting to emerge into some magical land.