Bodies rotted in the sun. Their weapons still lay beside them. No one had even bothered to collect the guns, valuable as they and their ammunition were. The entire place looked abandoned but not yet looted.
The front of the house was peppered with hundreds of holes and gouges. How could anyone have survived that hail of bullets? “Stay here,” Rick said at the open front door before disappearing inside with his rifle raised to his cheek. There were dead people all across the grounds. Two by the barn. Three by a hole cut through the cyclone fencing. At least half a dozen more in the woods beyond. They all lay where it appeared they had fallen.
And there were shell casings glinting in the sunlight all about, many of which must have rained down from the tower above the porch. Every square foot of the front wall of the house was pitted and chipped. The storm shutters had been shot straight through. It was impossible to imagine that Noah’s family had prevailed in that all-out war.
Rick reappeared and handed two sheets of paper to Isabel. One was a handwritten note from Noah. “They’re alive!” Isabel blurted out, elated despite the carnage all around. She read the message from her brother aloud. “‘Isabel, we are under constant attack by Infecteds and Uninfecteds both, and have decided that we can’t defend the house any longer. Natalie, Chloe, Jake, Margus (the kid from the Quickie Mart), and I are headed to Texas on foot. I attached a map showing our intended route in case you find this.’” Isabel took a quick glance at the second page. A red line ran down the Appalachians to Knoxville, Tennessee, then cut west to Memphis and on to Hot Springs, Arkansas, then southwest to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. “‘I hope you catch up with us along the way (we’ll check in with authorities or aid services, where possible), or join us in Texas. If not, I love you and wish you the best of luck and a happy, long, and healthy life. With all our love…’” Her relatives had each signed the note. Under the names of Noah, Natalie, and Jake, her niece had added, “‘Chloe (and Margus)’”.
“After all this, they bugged out,” Isabel said in a tone of wonder.
Rick surveyed the compound and its killing fields full of the uncollected dead. “This would’ve been safe before. But it’s not fortified. It could never have been defended militarily. For that you need troops and shovels.”
“At least they’re alive.” Noah had written a postscript, which Isabel read out loud. “‘Emma is organizing her Infected society in town. She seems to be taking over everything.’”
“I wanna go down to town to see my sister,” Isabel said.
Rick sighed. “Of course you do.” He was being surprisingly sarcastic. He looked at the Black Hawk. “If we come flying in, it’ll probably spark trouble. Plus, they’ve only got enough fuel for a direct return to the nearest refueling point.”
“So, we walk down to town.”
Rick conspicuously disapproved of that idea, but he refrained from saying so. He insisted that they carry their enormously heavy and bulky backpacks, which normally remained on the helicopter, perhaps to discourage Isabel, which it didn’t. She sat beside the door gun with her boots dangling in air and the heavy pack resting on the cabin floor. When she dropped to the ground with a grunt as the full weight bore down on her shoulders, her legs almost buckled. Almost. The weight required her to hunch forward at an awkward angle and seemed to prevent her from taking deep enough breaths.
They exited through the open side gate where two more bodies lay. Infected or Uninfected, it didn’t really matter, as they were now both vaccinated and immune. They passed six more bodies on the hike down to the state highway, which they inspected, but none of them were Noah and his family. All of them were riddled with bloody holes, some in their heads. “Kill shots,” Rick called them to Isabel’s horror. “Probably put the wounded out of their misery. And these wounds are all from 5.56 mm,” Rick commented, kneeling beside a corpse. “You can tell ’cause the entry wound is tiny, but the exit wound is huge from the meta-unstable round tumbling, and sometimes like this one it’s deflected at a sharp angle from internal ricochets off bones. Come look.”
“No thank you.”
He stood up with ease despite his pack, the rows of bulbous 40mm grenades that he wore outside his body armor, and their launcher mounted beneath his carbine barrel. He had the unfair advantage of a foot in height and a hundred pounds in body weight. “I also counted three grenade craters between here and the house. Looks like your brother and his family have turned stone cold killer. Good for them; bad for everybody else.”
Isabel couldn’t believe what he said was true, despite the evidence. Noah, maybe. But the kids killing people? Natalie? That seemed unimaginable. Those thoughts, however, were soon crowded out by the pain that began to burn in her legs and lungs. When they dropped their backpacks at the bottom of the hill, her head was swimming and she had to rest for a few minutes, wiping the unbecoming sweat from her face. Rick then tossed their packs onto the other side of the barbed wire fence, and they leapt over the rickety barrier to join them. Isabel had to climb into her pack’s broad straps while still seated. Rick pulled her to her feet. At least walking generally downhill along the smooth highway proved easier.
After passing the gate to the ridge road, which now bore a sign that looked vaguely like Emma’s handwriting—“Road Out. Be Careful”—they passed a couple of abandoned camps and an empty Quickie Mart. The next half dozen encampments were also deserted. When they reached the sign marking the city limits, Rick made them depart the easy pavement and climb half way up a hill before continuing their march across the sloping, uneven terrain. The off-road path proved ten times more difficult for Isabel than the highway, and they had to stop twice more for her to regain her wind.
Rick found a boulder on a wooded hill. They lay behind it to observe the town. He surveyed things first, then handed his binoculars to Isabel and continued his reconnaissance through the sight atop his rifle. Work crews were sweeping up the streets. A wrecker was dragging a burned-out hulk of a truck, tires gone and rims spraying sparks, up onto its bed to be hauled away. Bodies were being piled into a pickup truck. No one wore masks, though most wore gloves.
“They’re all infected?” Isabel said.
“Yep,” came Rick’s reply as he squinted through the sight. “That’s my guess.”
“So how should we do this?”
“I say we sling our weapons over our shoulders and walk down there like we own the place. If we don’t mask up and keep all our reactions in check, they might mistake us for Infecteds. But if things turn bad, Isabel, we gotta be ready to kill every last one of them, your sister included. So, are you absolutely sure you’re up for this?”
“No. But it sounds like the right plan.”
They did just as Rick suggested. The first workers they passed ceased sweeping and stared at them with hollow black eyes, but made no move suggesting alarm. Rick and Isabel both wore camouflage battle dress and carried military-issue weapons and gear, and their eyes had normal color in them. But they acted as if they belonged, and they took no precautions against infection. They didn’t acknowledge anyone, smile, or in any other way act human. It was far more likely that they’d be regarded as soldiers who had turned some weeks ago than Uninfecteds who’d been among the very few to have received the vaccine.
Dwayne, the Marine embassy guard from Isabel’s hospital room, met them carrying an assault rifle. He of course recognized Isabel instantly. They slowed, but made no move to unshoulder their weapons. Dwayne stiffened, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and saluted Rick, who returned the greeting crisply.
“What’s the situation here,” Rick inquired officiously, as if this were a normal encounter with a fellow Marine.
“The fighting has died down, sir. Took a few incoming pot shots last night, but nothing today. The Uninfecteds are mostly staying behind closed doors, and we’re leaving them alone for now. There are some out-of-control Infecteds causing trouble down by the junction w
ith the east-west county road,” he said, turning to point farther down the valley, “so I’d steer clear of there until we’ve put them down.”
“Is my sister here?” Isabel asked.
“Yes, ma’am. She’s in the sheriff’s office. I’ll take you to her.”
They followed the lance corporal. Isabel made a face at Rick at how weird this all was, but he shook his head and she forced her expression back to the bland persona of the new world order. Inside the building, they were led to a crowded office with a plaque that read, “Sheriff Walcott.” She heard Emma issuing orders. “Have that hot tub guy from Hoboken organize showers outside the workers’ barracks. But no one gets food until after they work no matter how hungry they are. Except the young children. Let’s go ahead and keep them alive for now.” Emma sat behind Walcott’s big desk and fell silent as Isabel and Rick entered. All heads turned their way.
Rick nodded at a man in a cowboy hat seated on a sofa and said, “Sheriff.”
The black-eyed man returned his greeting in kind. “Captain.”
“Hi, Emmy.”
“Hello, Isabel. You just missed Noah and his family, and a neighbor boy. They headed south for Texas.”
“I know.”
Emma turned to Rick. “I recognize you. You were on the plane that brought me back from Siberia.” When the conversation stalled, Emma said, “Is there anything more?”
That was it. Emma was busy and wanted to get back to work. A tear sprang loose. Isabel caught it on her cheek, but not before everyone noticed.
“You’re not infected?” Emma asked, tilting her head as she studied her now more interesting sister. “And not afraid of infection.” All around were black-eyed, recently turned Infecteds, who were spewing the highly contagious virus with each and every breath. The office was thick with their pathogenic miasma.
“We’ve been vaccinated. We’re immune now.”
Isabel and Rick waited for a reaction from the gathering of Infecteds. Dorothy hugged a huge bag of baby diapers. Little Samantha huddled with Sheriff Walcott and continued writing a “U,” an “I,” or a “?” on a map of every property in the county based on Walcott’s whispered knowledge of that household’s condition.
“We could use your help,” Isabel said, “in setting up our new community. Being immune would allow you to liaise effectively between Infecteds and Uninfecteds.”
“If you want Uninfecteds, why didn’t you convince Noah and his family to stay?”
“It’s not that we want Uninfecteds. It’s that we have them. But if they keep shooting at us, we’ll have to do something about them. You could convince them to quit fighting, sign onto the contract, and become productive, contributing members of society.”
“So you’re implementing your plan then, Emma?”
“Yes. We’re going to organize, restore order, then expand. We need scale to provide for the basic needs of our community—food, water, clothing, power, self-defense—and territory for what Dwayne calls defense in depth.”
Rick gave his fellow Marine an approving nod.
“So this is your new world based on social contracts? Are you just gonna settle right into the Oval Office now that Washington has fallen and the president has turned?”
Emma shook her head. “Too big of a target. Plus, the White House burned down. So, will you join us and help?”
Isabel took a look around the office. All except Emma and her NIH hospital roommates had black, inhuman eyes. The fists of several were balled tight and straining. Emma seemed to be keeping an eye on them, too, but hadn’t yet needed to intervene.
“No, I think we’ll go…and find our own kind.” Emma accepted her answer, then after a moment seemed to find it curious that Isabel and Rick were still there. “So we may not see each other again,” Isabel said.
“You’re probably right. If you’re heading to Texas like Noah, there’s a pretty high chance none of you will make it.”
“I love you, Emmy.” Isabel’s voice cracked. “Even if you can’t love me back. I guess…this is good-bye.”
“Bye.”
After an awkward hush, Rick led Isabel out by the elbow. It didn’t seem like enough of a farewell. A hug and a kiss, at a minimum, now that Isabel was immune. But what more could she expect of her sister, or any Infected?
In the corridor, a high-pitched voice called out from behind, “Tell Jake I said hi.” They turned to see little Samantha, long blond hair and bangs all perfectly in place, leaning into the hall from the doorway.
“What?” Isabel asked the girl.
“Tell Jake that Samantha said hi.” She disappeared back into Emma’s office.
Isabel looked over at Rick, whose eyebrows were arched. “What the fuck next?” she said. Outside in the sunlight amid the street sweepers, she took a deep breath. The air mainly smelled of smoke, but was joined by the faintly sweet stench of decomposition.
As they retraced their steps back up the highway toward the Old Place, Isabel said, “I was thinking about, maybe, a slight detour?”
“Okay. You’re the boss. I’ve never gotten a direct order from a four-star before, but Gen. Browner was pretty explicit. I’m to provide for your personal security until you’ve come to your senses and decided to resume your work for the government.”
“And that’s exactly what I plan to do.”
Rick caught and held her eye. “In Texas? So, we’re gonna hump it?”
“Pardon me?”
“Walk? To Texas? Across country that’ll almost certainly be turned by the time we pass through? Or turning, so the needle will be pegged to max on the fucked-up meter?”
“Yep. We Miller girls are into our plans, and that’s mine. But you don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I hereby fully release you from your orders and oaths. I think I can handle myself now…and know my way around this rifle. Trigger. Selector switch. Magazine. Sight. Hole where the bullets come out. I don’t really know what’s in this little compartment in the bottom here.” She raised the base of the rifle’s stock.
“That’s called the butt plate. There’s a cleaning kit inside there.”
“Oh. Cute.” The corners of Rick’s mouth turned up, and his eyes confirmed it was a smile. He reached under her helmet and brushed clear of her eye a loose strand of hair. “You seem to be in a better mood,” she said, “than on the drive down to Pearl River. You even shaved.” She ran the backs of two fingers along his sharp jaw line and grinned.
“I spoke to my parents yesterday.” Isabel stopped, hugged him, and told him how happy she was for him. “They’ve moved to my uncle’s farm. He has his own well. There was a rumor that the Infecteds were contaminating the city water supply, although that sounds unlikely.”
“I’ve still got that satellite phone they gave me on the president’s plane. You could call them if you want to.”
Rick shook his head. “No. They were real happy when I told them I had gotten outta D.C. I could only imagine what they’d say if I told them I was walking to Texas.”
“You could lie.”
“To my parents? No.”
“Really? Okay.” Isabel realized how little she knew about who Rick was.
They marched on in awkward silence until Rick said, “Finding your brother, you know, is gonna be like looking for a needle in a haystack. And no matter how bad-ass they are, or we are, Emma was right. It’s still a pretty low probability that everybody makes it.”
“Does that mean you’re coming?”
They stopped. “It would be a good chance for us to get to know each other better,” Rick said. “Favorite color, favorite food, things that annoy us.”
“Oh, I’ve got lots of those. We may not have enough time to cover them all.”
Rick radioed the helicopter and told the pilot he could head back without them. Isabel threw her arms around him as best she could and
kissed him on the lips.
“Come on,” Rick said. “Time’s a wastin’.”
“First tell me something about yourself that I don’t know.”
“Okay. Let’s see. Oh. I majored in English at the Academy.”
“No. Really? English?”
“Somebody had to.”
“Someone. Really? Not engineering or something? I don’t believe you. Prove it. Recite some poem or something…other than The Charge of the Light Brigade.”
“Okay. But I do know that one by heart. Let’s see.” He couldn’t resist looking at the black wristwatch he wore. “Oh. I know. How about, ‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep.’”
Chapter 41
THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY
Infection Date 64, 2130 GMT (5:30 p.m. Local)
Emma climbed up onto the park bench in front of the gathered townsfolk. Some were newcomers; others were long-time residents. All, it seemed to her, were infected.
“The postings on this bulletin board,” she indicated the cork board that Dwayne and Samantha had placed on a stand under the awnings of a barber shop, “are the rules for this community.” At the top was a bold-faced banner that read, “Infection Date 64.”
“If you agree to abide by them,” Emma continued, “you may stay and all your needs will be met. If you don’t, you’ve got one hour to leave. Every time the rules change, you’ll be given another opportunity to quit. But if you remain, you are bound by the rules until your next chance to leave. Failure to follow any of the rules will result in punishment ranging from withholding of food, water, shelter, clothing, and sex, to execution. You’ve got five minutes to study the board.”
Pandora - Contagion Page 33
