Plague Town

by Dana Fredsti

  “If you want to live with yourself, go after the cat,” Lil said softly. Then she gave another coughing sob, and nodded. “Mack wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he hadn’t gone after Kaitlyn.”

  “Probably not.” Nathan took a bite of burger, chewing and swallowing before adding, “Now eat some food. We’re in for a fight, and I don’t want you fainting on us.”

  To my astonishment, Lil picked up her burger and started eating it without saying another word.

  I looked across at Nathan and mouthed thank you. He gave an imperceptible nod and took another bite of his burger. I almost asked him about Simone then, but thought twice about it.

  It’d wait.

  Simone, Colonel Paxton, Gabriel, and Gentry waited for us in room 217, the four of them sitting at the table in front.

  Gabriel’s expression was grim, but when he glanced up he shot me a smile. It didn’t reach his eyes, however.

  Nathan sauntered down the aisle and plopped down comfortably in the front row. Simone made a point of not looking at him.

  “Just like being back in college,” he said.

  Once we were all seated, Colonel Paxton stood up.

  “Before Dr. Fraser addresses the issue at hand,” he said, “I want to tell you how deeply sorry we are for the loss of your fellow wild cards, and how proud we are of you for your bravery.” He sat back down.

  Short, succinct, and, I thought, sincere. Yet somehow it didn’t do anything to ease the pain.

  Simone took the floor. She took a deep breath, then finally spoke.

  “Early on in this outbreak, we ran across an anomaly, and—”

  Tony raised his hand.

  “What do you mean, an anomaly?”

  “It’s a deviation from a common rule,” Nathan said, leaning back in his chair, an unreadable expression on his face as he stared at Simone. Just then, I would have killed for the wild card power of telepathy.

  “Thank you, Nathan.” Simone said pointedly, as she ran a hand through her perfectly coiffed hair. Several strands pulled free, and I feared for them. “As I was saying, we ran across what we thought was a unique case early on in the outbreak. This person contracted the virus and started exhibiting certain characteristics of the undead, but without actually dying.

  “We tested a vaccine on him... this person. A vaccine we’d hoped might cure the zombie virus itself. It didn’t, but the vaccine did halt the progressive deterioration of his immune system.”

  A picture flashed in my head, of Jake huddled over his wife and child. I knew where this was heading.

  “We thought that incident was unique, some sort of a mutation, not unlike the one responsible for the wild cards.” she said. “Now we know that it wasn’t unique.” Simone looked at us gravely, then continued.

  “As long as these individuals eat human flesh, they retain their personalities, and slow the progress of the disease. If they don’t, however, their bodies will slowly decay, along with memories and cognitive abilities.

  “Eventually they will die, and then resurrect as one of the walking dead.”

  “So it’s Hannibal Lecter time, or else,” Tony said.

  Simone nodded.

  “As I said, we thought this was a unique condition. But there have since been two other persons exhibiting these symptoms. One of them was here in the lab, kept under controlled conditions. She did not respond to the vaccine and became violent. And the other—”

  “Jake,” I said. “It was Jake.”

  I didn’t need Simone’s expression to tell me I was right.

  And then I looked at Gabriel, whose face was as white as it’d been in the Suburban before we’d crashed. He’d known, too.

  I stared at them both in disbelief.

  “Why wouldn’t you tell us something like this? And Gabriel...” I stopped, heartsick. “I thought we could trust you,” I added, looking back and forth between them.

  Her expression stricken, Simone spoke.

  “If we’d had any idea you’d run into this in the field, I assure you, we would have told you, Ashley.”

  “But how could you not tell us?” I demanded. “Kaitlyn might still be alive if we’d known about this.

  “We trusted you. Both of you!” I stood and strode up the aisle. I’d made it halfway to the door when Gabriel’s voice reached me.

  “We didn’t say anything because I was the first person to exhibit the symptoms.”

  I stopped in my tracks, then slowly turned.

  “Until a few days ago, we thought I was the only one,” he continued. “We’ve been wrestling with it ever since. How comfortable would you—all of you—” He gestured around the room. “—have been following me into combat situations, if you’d known the truth?”

  I couldn’t respond. All I could see was Jake’s gore-smeared face. Only this time, the features were Gabriel’s.

  “We’ve been trying to find a cure for a very long time—decades, even more,” Simone said. “And this vaccine—” She held up a vial. “—proves that we can keep the symptoms at bay, at least in some cases.”

  I stared at the vial, then at Gabriel, flashing on the difference in his appearance before and after he’d vanished into Nathan’s bathroom.

  Guess he was carrying.

  “Gabriel felt he’d be a more effective team leader if we kept his condition confidential,” Simone said. “I agreed to honor his request.”

  Nathan raised his hand.

  “May I say something?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Simone, you need to stop trying to justify an honest mistake on your part. And Ashley, you need to sit your ass down and stop acting like a high school kid who didn’t get invited to a party, just because your boyfriend has a few secrets.”

  My face flamed in embarrassment.

  “Fuck you, Nathan!”

  He waved a dismissive hand.

  “Whatever. You’re a civilian combatant in a military unit. Secrets are a part of the game, especially in a black ops unit like this one.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “Get over it and get used to it, or get out. We don’t have time for this juvenile shit.

  “You’re better than this,” he concluded.

  I swallowed a couple of times, and tried to choke out an apology. Then in my mind’s eye, I saw Jake biting his dead wife’s lip off, and imagined Gabriel doing the same to me.

  My stomach lurched and my gorge rose. I gagged and pressed a hand against my mouth, then ran out the door. The last thing I heard before it shut behind me was Gabriel’s voice.

  “Damn it, she has the right—”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  * * *

  I barely made it to the bathroom before losing my dinner in one hot gush, and then another. I hung over the toilet bowl, shaking with reaction.

  Finally, when I was sure nothing else was going to make its return appearance, I moved to the sink, splashing cold water over my face and rinsing my mouth to try and get rid of the nasty-ass aftertaste of vomit.

  I hate throwing up.

  The door opened.

  “Ashley?” I looked in the mirror and saw Gabriel staring at me, as uncertain as I’d ever seen him. “Are you—”

  I held up a hand.

  “Please don’t ask if I’m okay. I am so not okay I can’t even begin to figure out where to begin.” I began to pace back and forth as I continued. “I saw a man, a living, breathing human, eating his wife and son. And now I find out that the man could have been you.

  “And I get why you and Simone didn’t want to tell the team, I really do. But—”

  I stopped pacing, and faced him.

  “Is that the only reason?”

  Gabriel took a deep breath, eyes dark blue with turmoil.

  “I mean, is this why you didn’t, you know, you wouldn’t, with me...” God, could I sound any stupider?

  “Ash, you have to understand,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with this condition.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.�
� I slammed one hand against the sink. “So you have some zombie STD. I’m a wild card, remember?”

  His eyes narrowed and he took a step toward me.

  “That doesn’t guarantee a goddamn thing.”

  “Fine, but I want to know if it’s the reason you wouldn’t go to bed with me or—” I closed the gap between us and glared up at him. “—if it’s just some lame-ass excuse.”

  “Damn it, Ashley, you don’t understand!”

  “Then explain it to me.” We had approximately a half-inch of space between our bodies, every bit filled with heat.

  “It’s worse than being a zombie, because zombies can’t think or feel. But being alive—or half dead—and knowing you’re eating human flesh, that you have to if you want to stay alive...” He shuddered. “It’s disgusting.”

  “So you decided to reject me before I had the chance to reject you,” I countered.

  “Of course not! That’s abs—”

  I stopped him short with just a stare. I could feel the anger welling up in me.

  “As far as you were concerned, it was okay for me to think there was something wrong with me,” I said. “Much better than having me think there might be something wrong with you.”

  “That’s not—” I held up my hand, and he stopped again.

  “Yes it is,” I said. “That’s exactly what it boiled down to. And you know it.”

  “Ashley, damn it—”

  I grabbed a handful of Gabriel’s hair with one hand and locked lips with him. He responded by wrapping an arm around my waist, pressing his other hand against my butt, lifting me up to set me on the edge of one of the sinks. We continued to kiss feverishly, hungrily as if this were our last night on earth. Our hands roamed up and down each other’s bodies, finding curves and muscles, hardness and softness.

  Parting my legs with his knee, he pressed himself against me, the heat and the hardness of his arousal almost enough to make me come on the spot.

  I pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor. My long-sleeve thermal followed. He dipped his head down to my breasts, teasing each peak with teeth and tongue until the sensation was just short of painful, a real ‘it hurts so good’-type of feeling. I gasped as his fingers slid past the waistband of my yoga pants, slipping into my warmth with smoothness and ease, showing us both how ready and eager my body was to get down to business.

  I arched against him, wanting more than his hands and fingers, as talented as they might be.

  “Do you want this?” Gabriel whispered, nipping at my earlobe.

  “Shut up,” I growled.

  He withdrew his hand, hooking those clever fingers in my waistband as he lifted me up with his other hand and pulled my yoga pants and underwear down and off my legs and feet. They joined the growing pile of clothes on the floor.

  I reached down greedily to unbutton his jeans and started to shimmy them off his hips when he pulled away.

  “Wait a second,” he said

  Going to the bathroom door, he flipped the lock and went to the condom machine on the wall, giving it a hard thwack with one fist. The little metal door creaked open and several foil wrapped condoms dropped to the floor. Gabriel scooped one up.

  “We can owe them.”

  He then slid out of his jeans, kicking them to the floor, and came back over to me. I watched as he approached, admiring his physique. He was built like a classical Greek statue, rather than a gym junkie.

  He stared at me just as hungrily.

  We didn’t waste any time. We couldn’t indulge in a long, languorous session of hot-monkey love. We had to get back to the briefing.

  We also knew that we might be dead in the next forty-eight hours.

  But the moment Gabriel slid inside of me and we began rocking our hips together, the world went away for a while. Everything was centered around the heat of our bodies, the sensations building in me as I wrapped my legs around his hips, the sink cold against my butt.

  His mouth trailed from my lips to my ear, where he nibbled on the lobe, moving down to my neck. A brief vision of Jake’s bloody mouth flashed into my head.

  No!

  I forced it away. Instead, I reveled in the feeling of his teeth gently scraping against the skin. My hips began to rock faster of their own accord, the first flickers of an orgasm starting to pulse in all the right places, spreading through my body in waves of liquid heat. My muscles tightened around Gabriel, who groaned with pleasure as the pace of his thrusts increased in speed and power.

  The words ‘harder, faster’ came to mind, followed by ‘pussycat, kill, kill’ and I started laughing even as I came in a great quivering wave of pleasure.

  Gabriel’s orgasm followed almost immediately, the shudders that racked his body sending more ripples through my loins along with another, smaller orgasm.

  Two for the price of one.

  Then his hands cupped my face. For a moment we just looked at each other, each catching our breath as the last aftershocks left our bodies.

  He cocked an eyebrow, still breathing just a little heavily.

  “Why did you laugh?”

  I told him, figuring he might as well know how my brain worked. A bemused smile flickered across.

  “I know I’m weird,” I said, “but—”

  “Yes, you are.” The smile became a grin. “But you’re sure as hell not boring.” He kissed me again, then looked at me.

  “Ashley...” He stared at me so seriously it almost made me laugh again. Luckily I didn’t. “You know what I could become. You’ve seen it. Are you sure about...” He paused.

  “About what? About the fact I want you so badly that I just had sex with you in the women’s bathroom?” I nodded. “Yes. I’m sure. Just promise me you’ll trust me next time.”

  “Next time...?”

  I shrugged.

  “Next time you have some horrible secret that you think you shouldn’t tell me. I mean, I’m a mutant too, y’know?”

  “Fair enough.”

  He kissed me one more time, then reluctantly slid out of me. I let him go just as reluctantly, but we had serious business to attend to, and I’m sure everyone was already wondering why we’d been gone so long.

  Doing a quick clean-up, we both hurriedly dressed. I splashed water on my face again and checked for any obvious signs of our activity.

  “You gave me a hickey,” I said, looking at the bite marks between my neck and shoulder.

  He pulled my thermal up a little higher and hid it.

  “No one will notice.”

  I gave a little laugh.

  “Besides, Nathan already thinks you’re my boyfriend.” I unlocked the bathroom door and reached for the handle, but Gabriel grabbed my wrist and turned me around to face him.

  “So. If we survive, would you like to go out some time?”

  “As long as it’s not for tofu burgers, you got a date.”

  We walked down the hall hand in hand, unclasping our fingers only when we reached room 217. I took a deep breath and went inside, Gabriel close behind.

  Was I embarrassed? Sure. No one likes to lose it in front of friends and colleagues. But as Nathan pointed out, now wasn’t the time for high school shit, so I’d suck it up and act like an adult.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  * * *

  Nathan had joined Simone, Paxton, and Gentry at the table in the front of the room. Taking his place in the pack as one of the alpha dogs.

  Simone looked concerned when we walked in.

  “We have a swarm headed our way,” she said, and my blood ran cold. “With arrival estimated in approximately twelve hours. Nathan—” Her tone became oddly formal. “—if you’d be so kind.”

  Nathan nodded.

  “We have around eighty trained soldiers, fifty non-coms, two hundred civilians, and an additional thirty or so survivors who may or may not be of any use. Doesn’t sound like a lot when you think about what’s going to be coming at us.”

  Sure doesn’t, I thought, sitting
back in the front row next to Lil. She sat stiffly, and didn’t say anything.

  “You ever see a movie called Zulu?” Nathan didn’t wait for a reply, even though Tony’s hand shot up immediately. “Less than a hundred and fifty British soldiers held off between two and three thousand Zulu warriors at a place called Rorke’s Drift by erecting barricades of wagons and sacks of grain, then employing a classic military tactic.

  “Stand fast, fire in ranks. Three lines.” Nathan got to his feet and started pacing. “First rank fires, drops down. Second rank steps up while first rank reloads. Third rank fires while second rank reloads. Oh, yeah, and these Zulus—who happened to be some of the fiercest warriors in the world—were charging the Brits at a dead run, with shields, spears, and even some rifles of their own. But at the end of the day it was the English who walked away from that fight.”

  Wow, I thought. I’d been expecting something along the lines of, They can take our brains, but they’ll never take our freedom!

  He looked at us intently.

  “We’ve got less than a hundred soldiers against a few thousand zombies. But the zombies don’t have weapons and will be coming at us a lot slower than the Zulus, with none of the strategy. Plus we’ll have a few other tricks up our sleeves.”

  “What if it doesn’t come down like that?” Tony said. “You ever see Zulu Dawn? In that one the soldiers are, like, totally obliterated by the Zulus.”

  Nathan just looked at him, then scanned the room.

  “Anyone else got any movie trivia to share?” He came back to Tony, who pushed himself deeper into his seat.

  “No? Good. So let’s discuss the rest of our assets.”

  “Damn, I so want one of those.”

  Tony stared enviously as Gentry walked up, carrying his flamethrower. Gentry grinned and brandished the nozzle, the tanks already strapped to his back.

  “Maybe when you’re a little older, X-Box.”

  “Can I have a flamethrower?” Lil poked her head up from behind a bench where she sat loading ammo into a clip. As usual, it took the promise of mayhem to get her to join the conversation. But given how devastated Mack’s death had left her, I was cautiously relieved.