by Cross, Amy
Elizabeth
“What do we have here?” Dad yells as I follow him along the corridor. “Is this an attack?”
“It's a survivor from the patrol we thought we lost earlier,” Lando Marcus says breathlessly, joining us as we walk. “Five men went out on what was supposed to be a routine patrol, and only one of them made it back. He was hurt even before his buggy hit the checkpoint, but we've managed to stabilize him for now.”
“I need to talk to him,” Dad says firmly.
“It's too soon to be -”
“Does he still have a mouth and a tongue?”
“Yes, but -”
“And can you bring him around?”
“I could, but the pain -”
“Then bring him around,” Dad barks, stopping and turning to Lando. “We need to know what happened to that man out there. We need to know what attacked our patrol.”
“That man is dying,” Lando continues. “Even with all the facilities in the world, he'd have little chance. Here, with what we've got, I won't be able to hold him together for much longer.”
“I need to know what he knows,” Dad replies, and I can hear the sense of urgency in his voice. “Are you going to help me, or do I have to go in there and wake him up myself?”
***
“They came so fast,” Jackson murmurs, his voice slurred thanks to the pain medication that's being pumped into his body. “Five or six of them, just swarming our group.”
“Zombies?” Dad asks. “Were they zombies?”
“Men and women,” Jackson replies. “Like us.”
“I knew we should have picked them off sooner,” Dad mutters. “We've been too lenient, letting groups exist beyond the perimeter. We should have devoted more resources to setting up an additional layer of security.”
“They killed the others,” Jackson continues. “It was so fast, we couldn't even react. Hollings told me to take the buggy and get out of there, to make sure I got back to report what we'd found. I wanted to stay and fight, Sir, I swear. I wasn't a coward.”
“No-one's calling you a coward,” Dad tells him. “If you hadn't made it back, we wouldn't know what's going on out there.”
“There are soldiers,” Jackson explains. “Lots of them. They're in small groups, but we overheard them talking. There are all these groups and they're planning to link up, and then they're going to come and attack us. They're coming to Boston and they want to take control. They won't let anything stop them.”
“We need to send the helicopters out,” Charles Bloom says. “Blow them all away.”
“That's not an option,” Dad replies.
“Why not? We just -”
“We don't have the ammunition for the guns on the helicopters,” Dad says firmly turning to him. “We're out. We've been sending the helicopters on routine spying missions, and to intimidate the other groups, but the truth is they can't actually do much.”
“But we have guns here, right?” Charles points out. “We have to get ready to fight.”
“We have ammunition for our soldiers here,” Dad replies, but I can tell that he's deeply worried. “Whether it'll be enough is another matter.”
“We have to surrender,” suggests another Council member, Jonathan Day. “Negotiate. This doesn't have to end in war. Instead of succumbing to the baser urges of our species, we should take the higher ground and extend an olive branch.”
Realizing that someone is next to me, I turn and see that Diane Clark has entered the room.
“I'm sorry,” I whisper, turning to leave, “I know I shouldn't be -”
“Stay,” she replies calmly, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You might be able to help, Elizabeth.”
“I can't help with anything,” I tell her.
“Please stay,” she continues, and she sounds genuine. “It never hurts to have another opinion in the room, especially when things look bleak.”
“Why do things look bleak?” I ask.
“We vastly underestimated the numbers that are heading toward us,” she explains, keeping her voice low while Dad and the others continue to talk on the other side of the room. “We're running low on ammunition, and negotiation with the enemy is not an option. Their approach to reconstruction is directly at odds with ours, and we have reason to believe that they're working with a very dangerous woman named Sarah Carter. If Carter's involved with them at all, we have to stand firm and fight them. I personally would rather die than let that woman build the future that she imagines.”
“Who is she?”
“Has your father never mentioned her?”
“I don't think so.”
“She's someone from the past. Someone who before all of this was laughed out of every military group and every scientific community on the planet. But if our intelligence is correct, she's using this disaster to mount something of a comeback. If she's with one of those groups, then the danger they pose is magnified a thousandfold. And at this moment, we might be the only people standing in her way. We can't let her get control of this city.”
“You've met her before?”
“I worked with her for a while, before she was cast out of the scientific community. Your father did, too. That's how I know that she's dangerous. Maybe it's a good thing that she's here, though. We have a chance to stop her before she causes too much damage. How she's managed to link up with an army, I can't imagine, but she can be very manipulative. There's nothing she won't do in order to get her own way. She's the kind of person who believes that the ends justify the means, no matter the cost.”
“But if -”
“Wait,” she adds, looking past me, “I need to hear this.”
“What do you mean, herding?” Dad is asking as he continues to talk to the man in the bed. “How exactly does anyone herd zombies?”
“We were able to watch for a while,” the man gasps. “They had hundreds of them, maybe thousands, and they were blasting them with some kind of high frequency signal. We couldn't hear it ourselves, but we picked it up on a scanner. Every couple of minutes they broadcast this signal for exactly eleven seconds, and it seemed to keep the zombies focused. It made them easier to control.”
“Why were they doing any of this?” Dad asks. “Where were they herding them to?”
“Where do you think?” The man pauses for a moment, with fear in his eyes. “They're coming straight toward Boston.”
Dad turns to Diane, and then to me. I can see the concern in his eyes.
“This sounds highly improbable,” Diane says as she heads over to join them. “I find it very difficult to believe that these people have managed to find and then control hundreds of zombies. And directing them here would be almost impossible.”
“I've seen it,” the man replies. “Send another patrol out there. The zombies are getting closer all the time. Soon they'll be here.”
“Then we'll burn them,” Diane explains. “If we find them, we'll use whatever resources we need and we'll destroy them all, but I still have my doubts.” She turns to Dad. “Send some men out there, but tell them to be careful. And to not go very far. If this zombie train has somehow managed to get close to us without being noticed, we'll deal with it.”
“Our gasoline rations are limited,” Dad points out. “There's no -”
“We'll make it work,” she adds, cutting him off. “For now, I still need to verify all of this new information, so let's just hang tight. In the meantime, I want our gasoline inventory to be rechecked, to make sure we have every drop that's on the lists. We might be facing our biggest test yet and we need to be ready. If these zombies really are heading our way, then I'm sure I'm not the only one who realizes the time for negotiation is over. People are trying to destroy us, using the most underhand methods imaginable. This means war.”
***
“Do you agree?” I ask a short while later, as I stand in the doorway and watch Dad at his desk. “Are we at war?”
He turns to me.
“Why do we have to fight?”
I continue, trying to stay calm. “Shouldn't all the survivors be working together?”
“We should be,” he replies, “but that just isn't how it's working out.”
“But the things he said are impossible, aren't they?” I add, stepping toward him. “You can't control zombies with some kind of blast of sound. That's crazy.”
I wait, but he doesn't say anything. I can see from the look in his eyes, however, that he's worried.
“It doesn't make sense,” I continue. “What kind of eleven-second signal could they be using to keep the zombies under their control?”
“We don't know what's possible and what's not, Elizabeth. A scout part has been sent out to verify the story, and until they return we simply have to take some prudent steps so that we're ready for the worst-case scenario. If you're hoping that I'll tell you not to worry, then I'm afraid I can't do that. Right now, we just have to sit tight and wait to see what happens. And we have to plan, which means I have to figure some stuff out so... I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but I need to focus on these plans right now. Could you shut the door as you leave?”
“Sure,” I reply, surprised by how cold he sounds.
I pause, and then I turn to go out into the corridor.
“Are you okay, by the way?” he calls after me. “You seemed a little spaced-out earlier. How are you doing now?”
“Me?” I turn to him. “I'm fine.”
“No nightmares?”
“I...”
For a moment, I can't quite work out why he asked me that.
“It'd be understandable,” he continues. “I remember you used to get nightmares when you were a kid. Your mother and I would wake up and you'd be next to our bed, crying and asking to climb in.” He smiles. “You always used to deny it at first, but we knew you'd had another bad dream, and you'd end up spending the night with us. Your mother used to worry terribly, but I told her it was just something kids go through. Henry never really had the same problem, but I remember you having nightmares two or three times a week, all the way up until you were in your early teens.”
“I remember,” I reply, shivering slightly at the memory of sneaking into Mom and Dad's room all those times. I turn to leave the room, but then I hesitate for a moment. “I used to have these scary dreams,” I continue, “about monsters or ghosts, and I'd wake up and I'd be home in our apartment and everything would be fine.” I pause again. “Now I have dreams about being home, and about everything being fine. And those are the worst nightmares of all, because eventually I have to wake up back in this world where Mom and Henry are dead, and our old lives are gone.”
“Do you have anyone to talk to about all of this?” he asks.
“I talk to people.”
“But about your mother, and about Henry?” He stares at me for a moment. “Lizzie, if you need someone to talk to about their deaths -”
“I'm fine.”
“You should try to find someone,” he adds.
I swallow hard. I thought he was about to open up, to tell me how he feels about Mom and Henry being gone, but I guess not. I guess this isn't really the right moment.
“Shut the door when you leave,” he says again, as he looks back down at his papers. “I need some time to work on this plan before all hell breaks loose.”
“Sure.”
With that, I step back and shut the door, and then I turn and make my way along the corridor. With each step, I get closer to the exit at the far end, and to the voices that are shouting in the yard. And I swear, I'm starting to feel as if my nightmares are bleeding into every waking second.
The nightmares have won.
7pm
Thomas
What's she doing in here?
Now that the sun is going back down, all the shadows are getting long and it's difficult to see properly. Carter came in here a while ago, and I'm pretty sure she hasn't left yet, which means she's somewhere in one of the rooms. I know she has temporary labs all over the place, in several buildings, and I also get the impression that she likes to keep herself to herself. She's been turning down help whenever it's offered, unless she really needs something. She's been creeping around, and now my suspicions are a little too strong to ignore.
Stopping in the next doorway, in almost complete darkness, I listen to the silence and wait for any hint that Carter's nearby.
All I hear, however, is a few voices yelling in the distance, far beyond the walls of the building.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe Carter isn't here at all. I mean, why would she be working in the dark? She'd at least have some kind of flashlight set up, but the entire place seems to be unlit and I'm starting to think that I'm getting suspicious over nothing. Carter might have a habit of sneaking around and always looking like she's hiding something, but some people are just like that. Maybe I'm getting all suspicious over nothing. Then again, I'm sure I can smell that perfume she always wears.
I hesitate for a moment, in the darkness, and then I turn to leave.
“Don't you want to see?” a voice asks suddenly.
I freeze, and then I look over my shoulder.
A flashlight comes to life, casting a beam across the darkened room, and I see Sarah Carter staring at me. At the same time, I have to hold my hands up to protect my eyes from the intensity of the light, which points directly at my face for a moment before being lowered slightly.
“Sorry,” Carter continues, her voice sounding very calm and certain, “I didn't mean to startle you. I just wondered why you made the effort to come in here, only to turn around.”
“It's not any of my business,” I tell her.
“That's not an answer.”
I pause, before lowering my hands. I can just about see Carter's face now, and I feel a shudder pass through my chest as I realize that she's staring at me.
“Come and look at something,” she says finally, stepping past me and heading over to one of the benches. “Don't be frightened, Thomas. I've made a discovery and, well, I'd like to share it with someone. Especially since you helped bring the discovery about.”
“I didn't do anything,” I tell her.
“Let me prove you wrong. Come.”
She stops and switches on a flashlight that's attached to a wooden post. Light blasts across the bench, and I see that there's various equipment laid out. Carter is adjusting something on what looks like a microscope, and after a moment I walk over to get a closer look.
“Recognize this?” she asks, using a set of tweezers to remove a small item from a dish.
Leaning a little closer, I see that she's showing me a scrap of human flesh.
“It's one of the samples I took from the girl out there,” she says. “Nice work burning her, by the way. How did you know I wouldn't be needing her anymore?”
She smiles, as if she knows that I didn't consider her work at all, and then she slides the piece of flesh under the microscope before taking a look through the viewfinder.
“There are two components to the virus,” she explains. “There's the sickness, which causes death remarkably quickly. Then there's the mechanism by which the dead body is revived, which seems to be caused by a process that begins in what's left of the brain. I haven't figured it all out yet, although I must say I've made remarkable progress despite having such poor equipment.”
She steps back from the microscope and turns to me.
“Take a look,” she continues.
“Why?”
“Why not? Aren't you interested?”
I pause, before walking over and looking down the viewfinder. At first the image is merely blurry, but as I squint slightly I start to see a magnified image of the little chunk of flesh. To my surprise, I see that there appear to be tiny black threads running through the meat.
“The threads are very interesting to me,” Carter explains. “They're something new, and they seem to spread as the virus takes root, then they remain once the subject is dead. And then, once the so-called zombie rises, the threads seem to be instrumental in keep
ing the corpse moving. How that works, I don't know yet, but look at this.”
Suddenly she moves the piece of flesh away, before putting a second piece in its place.
“What do you see?” she asks.
“There are no black threads in this one,” I reply. “So it's normal, right?”
“What would you say if I told you that the second specimen is also from the creature?” she continues. “What would you say if I told you that even though the specimen is dead, I managed to cause the black threads to almost entirely dissipate. They're still slightly there, although I anticipate that with time they'll vanish entirely.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means I might have found a way to reverse the condition.”
I turn to her.
“I might have begun to find a way,” she adds, with a faint smile. “There's much more work to be done, but at least I'm actually getting somewhere. The poor creature was far too far gone, there was no point experimenting on her any further, but I would very much like to get my hands on somebody who's a little more fresh, so that I can determine whether I can truly reverse the condition. It's a little late to save everyone, but hopefully my work means that some people will be able to survive the infection.”
“Have you told anyone else yet?” I ask.
She pauses, before taking the specimen away and putting it back onto its dish.
“No,” she says after a moment. “There's no need, not yet. I only told you because you wandered in here. Frankly, I'm impressed by your sense of curiosity. I value curiosity very highly as a personality trait.”
“Is it true about Martha?” I ask suddenly. I hadn't even meant to give voice to that question, at least not yet, and now I'm scared of the answer.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You told me my sister's alive in California,” I remind her. “Her name's Martha. But then I found out that you told someone else that someone he cares about is alive in Boston and, well, those seem like two really big coincidences. And I was thinking that coincidences like that don't really happen so often.”
