“Hello,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Got some new arrivals here,” Temple said.
“Oh!” the woman said.
Okay, Annie thought. Enough people lived in Lander that they don’t assume a face they haven’t seen before is from out of town. And new arrivals were not a daily occurrence.
“Well,” the woman said. “I’ll get the duty nurse and we can get started.”
Annie felt a brief hot flash. A little spurt of adrenaline. They did know! Somehow they knew she was immune. She took a deep breath, then another. No one but her companions could possibly know she was immune.
“Get started with what?” Kyle said.
“All new visitors get a physical,” the woman said.
“What for?” Hughes said. Annie detected just a whiff of menace in his voice. She knew Hughes, though. Knew him well. Maybe the strangers wouldn’t notice.
Temple shifted his weight. So did his wingman. They noticed.
“Do you have any idea,” Temple said, “how many infected people have shown up in Lander?”
“None of us are infected,” Hughes said.
“I’m sure you’re not,” Temple said. “But we have to check everybody. This town lost hundreds of people when infected outsiders showed up. Most of them came from Pinedale. Where are you coming from?”
“Seattle,” Hughes said.
“Seattle!” the receptionist said. She glanced at Temple for confirmation. The man shrugged. The receptionist blew out her breath. “Wow. I’m sure you’re all fine if you’ve made it this far.”
She glanced at Parker, casually at first, but then held her eyes on him.
Annie glanced over, too. Parker didn’t look fine. Parker never looked fine anymore. He wiped sweat off his forehead despite the chilly temperature in the waiting area.
“Is he okay?” the receptionist said. She suddenly didn’t seem so sure everybody was fine.
“He’s had a rough time lately,” Hughes said, “but he’s not sick.”
“None of us are sick,” Annie said and gulped.
“Then why is he shaking and sweating,” Temple said, vestiges of friendliness starting to ebb.
“He’s a little bit traumatized,” Annie said. “We all are. And you’re freaking him out. Stick a thermometer in him if you want. None of us have a fever.”
The radio on Temple’s belt squawked. “We’re sticking thermometers in all of you,” he said.
Temple’s companion placed his hand on his holstered service pistol.
“Stick a thermometer in me all you want,” Parker said, “but leave Annie alone.”
Annie felt another squirt of adrenaline, this one bigger than the last. Both security men turned and stared at her.
Why on earth would Parker say something so stupid? Now they were going to give her extra attention.
“And why should we leave Annie alone?” Temple said.
“I’m not sick,” she said. “He’s my bodyguard. He’s being protective. This isn’t exactly the welcoming we expected.”
“What did you expect, girl?” Temple said. “You say you’ve driven here all the way from Seattle. Don’t get me wrong, that’s impressive as hell, but you should know damn well why we need to examine you all. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to keep this place secure?”
“No, it’s fine,” Annie said. “You can take my temperature.”
“We’re definitely going to do that,” Temple said, “as well as strip search you all.”
Annie’s adrenals were no longer squirting. They were erupting. They’d see the bite mark on her back. They’d know she’d been infected.
“Now hang on,” Hughes said.
Temple pulled his weapon and aimed it at Parker. The other man pulled his and aimed it at Hughes.
“Everybody just take it easy,” Temple said. “I’m not going to strip search her myself. She’ll be examined by a female doctor.”
“Nobody’s strip searching anybody,” Parker said.
Annie closed her eyes. Parker had also been infected. The bite wound was on his ankle. It didn’t look like much. She’d seen it. It had no definitive shape. He could make up any old story about it. The scar on her back, though, just an inch below her shoulder, was clearly a bite mark. It wasn’t fresh any longer, but it hadn’t entirely scarred over either. No one would believe her if she said she was bitten when she was a child.
“Just put us in quarantine for a couple of days,” Kyle said.
“We don’t need to stick around here in town,” Hughes said.
“Which one of you has been bit?” Temple said.
Annie’s nervous system was in charge now. She was just along for the ride, the proverbial deer in the headlights waiting helplessly to be smashed by the grill of a truck.
Parker started shaking. He was already sweating profusely, and now he had a serious case of the jitters.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Temple said to Parker.
Nobody said anything.
Annie backed up and nearly fell into one of the chairs in the waiting area. She couldn’t see her own face, but she knew she must look like she’d just seen a ghost. Or one of the walking infected.
Temple looked at her and his face softened with dawning awareness. He scanned her entire body, from the top of her head to her feet. “No,” he said. “It’s you.”
She swallowed, tried to force down the feeling of panic, and failed.
“Everyone against that wall,” Temple said and pointed with his weapon behind the reception desk. “Now.” Then he unclipped his radio from his belt. It squawked. “Swenson,” he said. “It’s Temple. We’ve got a situation down here at the hospital.”
Swenson was on duty inspecting the remote checkpoint at Lower North Fork road when he got the call. More newcomers. More troublesome newcomers.
Temple needed him down at the hospital. Which was fine. No real need to stick around up at North Fork. That was the most hardened checkpoint. Twelve guys. The twelve best guys. If any serious shit were to sweep into Lander, it would almost certainly come from the north. The Indian reservation was up there, and it was still semi-functioning. Semi-functioning, but much less secure. Too spread out and not enough manpower to hold a perimeter. It had no tight urban core. A thin population over a vast area. A potential source of infection.
Swenson and his partner for the day, Dick Hastert, hopped into the Range Rover, waved to the guys manning the road, and headed back into town on the 287.
“More dead visitors walking?” Hastert said.
“Sounds like it,” Swenson said. “They’re resisting the admissions exam.”
Most newcomers didn’t resist the exam. Hell, most newcomers were relieved to find out that everybody arriving in town had to be checked over for bites. Swenson figured they knew better than anybody in Lander how bad things were out in the big beyond.
“So what do we do with them?” Hastert said. “The usual?”
Swenson sighed. “If they’re infected, yeah.”
The usual, Swenson thought. Euphemism of the fucking year. Or the decade.
He called the mayor on the hand-held radio.
“Yeah?” Mayor Joseph Steele said on the other end. The man’s voice came through scratchy as always when Swenson radioed in from outside town.
“Yeah, hey, boss,” Swenson said. “Temple’s got some newbies down at the hospital don’t want to submit to the exam. I’m heading down there now on 287. You want us to handle it or do you want to check ‘em out for yourself? Over.”
“My wife and I were just sitting down for lunch,” Steele said. “Over.”
“Lobster tails in a nice butter sauce, sir?”
“No one ever said you were humorless, Swenson,” Steele said. “Head on over. Check it out. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Roger that,” Swenson said.
Lander had good reasons to welcome newcomers, for sure, but in the early days the town had lost hundreds of people because of it. The tow
n nearly collapsed like everywhere else and surely would have if anybody but Steele had been mayor.
It had started with that van load of tourists gunning it out of Pinedale. They’d checked into the motel on Main, and nobody in Lander had batted an eye until one of them turned. Guy killed one of his companions, then ran through the streets all cannibalistic and crazy. Initially everybody who saw him locked themselves in their car or their house, figuring the cops or the neighborhood watch groups would eventually get him.
One of the neighborhood watch groups did eventually get him, though not until he attacked the playground down at the school, killed three kids and infected two more. He also bit one of the teachers.
That was but Lander’s first contact with the infected.
No one who showed up from outside wanted to admit they’d been bit. They hid their condition, hoping the infection wouldn’t take hold, hoping against all odds that they were immune.
Swenson thought it was understandable, actually. Until now, no virus in the history of the world defeated everybody who caught it. Ebola didn’t kill everybody. The Black Plague didn’t kill everybody. Smallpox didn’t even kill all the Indians when Europeans brought it over from the old world. So yeah, some people hoped they might get lucky, that their immune system would do its job, that they’d beat the illness or not even come down with symptoms. Some of them ran when they got bit and turned in a more distant place, a place that maybe hadn’t been infected yet, a place that they thought might be safer. That’s how it spread.
Others quarantined themselves, committed suicide, or ran off into the wilderness where they’d be harmless after the disease had its way with them.
Mrs. Wallace, for instance, the teacher who got bit on the playground. A real stand-up lady. Taught second grade. Grew up right there in Lander and was only 27 years old. Married old Jack Wallace’s kid, the one who opened that coffeeshop down on Main.
She knew right away the jig was up when she got bit. She’d seen all the television reports from Seattle and Portland and San Francisco before the networks went off the air. And she’d just watched an infected man murder three of her students. Screaming kids everywhere. Blood everywhere. The playground was a goddamn charnel house.
What was she supposed to do? Go home and sink her teeth into her husband and kids? Tough it out at work until she flipped out and attacked a bunch of second graders?
Hell no.
She ran dead west into the Wind River Mountains and vanished.
Swenson wondered how long she’d lasted after she turned. She couldn’t have lasted long. Nights in those mountains were frigid even in summer, and she ran up there in October.
Nobody ever saw her again.
Swenson parked the Range Rover in the hospital’s parking lot. He and Hastert got out.
“Think they’re infected or just pains in the ass?” Hastert said as they approached the front doors.
“We’re about to find out,” Swenson said.
The doors swished open. They entered the lobby.
And saw nobody inside, not even the receptionist.
“Temple!” Swenson shouted.
“Back here!” The man’s voice came from down the hall and around the corner. Away from the front door and easy escape.
He and Hastert hightailed it down the corridor. Temple and Jackson were standing there around the corner, pistols drawn, guarding a closed door.
“Young lady in there’s been bit,” Temple said.
“You examined her already?” Swenson said.
“They were getting all twitchy and agitated,” Temple said. “Something was obviously up with her. Jackson yanked up her shirt and, well, she’s been bit. On her back just below the shoulder.”
“What about the others? There’s three more in there?”
“Yeah, four total, but she’s the only one who’s been bit. Careful, though. One of the men, the older white guy, seems a little unhinged.”
Swenson was a bit out of breath from his short run down the hallway He needed to exercise more. “I radioed the mayor,” he said. “He’ll be here in a few.”
“Here’s the thing, though,” Temple said. “The bite mark isn’t fresh.”
Swenson squinted. “What do you mean, it’s not fresh?”
“Looks like she was bit quite a long time ago.”
“What did she say about it?”
“Didn’t say shit. None of them are saying a word.”
Swenson heard the hospital doors swish open back down the hall and around the corner. The mayor probably.
“Down here, boss!” Swenson shouted.
He heard dress shoes clicking on tile. Definitely the mayor. Nobody else wore dress shoes anymore.
The mayor rounded the corner wearing black slacks, shined shoes, and a gray winter overcoat. He hair was slightly wet, almost black, as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. His blunt facial features looked freshly shaven.
“We’ve got four in there,” Swenson told him. “A young woman’s been bit, but the wound doesn’t look fresh and apparently she’s not saying shit about it. Her three companions are male. All seem healthy, but they aren’t saying shit either.”
“Open the door,” Steele said.
Swenson opened the door.
“Wait out here, Hastert,” Steele said. “Don’t let anyone else come near this door.”
Swenson stepped inside and saw four ragged-looking civilians sitting on the floor of the exam room: A black man who looked like a football player, a punk-ass looking white kid who probably got beat up in high school, an older white man who stared at Swenson like he wanted to rip somebody’s face off, and a young woman sitting with her arms resting on her knees and her face buried in her arms.
Temple stepped into the room, followed by Steele.
Seven people in there total now. Four fresh civilians, plus two armed security men and the mayor. Not a lot of room to move around. Not much chance of pulling the trigger and missing if it came to that.
“Hi folks,” Steele said. “I’m Joseph Steele. Mayor of Lander, Wyoming. I’d say welcome, but it sounds like we’ve gotten off to a bad start here.”
“You could say that,” the black man said. Guy was huge. Not fat. Muscular. The kind who could tear a hubcap in half, the kind you definitely would not want to mess with unarmed. Swenson was armed, though. So was Temple.
“I’m told one of you has been bitten,” Steele said.
None of the civilians said anything.
“It’s the woman,” Temple said. “She’s got an obvious bite mark on her back below her shoulder.”
“I’m sorry,” Steele said.
The woman said nothing. Wouldn’t even look at him. Wouldn’t even show her face.
“Thing is,” Temple said. “The bite mark looks old. Not like an old scar from childhood, but a few weeks old at least and maybe a little bit older.”
“Who bit you, honey?” Steele said.
“My name’s Annie,” she said and looked up. Pretty face. But she looked beat down. Not sick necessarily, but definitely scared and unwell.
If she’d been bit some time ago, why hadn’t she turned yet?
“Can I see it?” Steele said.
Annie bit her lip and turned her face toward the wall.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Steele said.
A necessary lie, Swenson supposed, though an obvious one all the same. They couldn’t let an infected person walk around free in town even if she hadn’t turned yet. Couldn’t turn her loose, either, or she’d come right back and kill somebody. Surely this young woman—this Annie—knew that as well as everyone else. A fucked up situation, but it was what it was.
“Come on,” Steele said. “Just let me see. It’s okay.”
She slowly stood up, faced away from the mayor and lifted her shirt up.
No sense doing it the hard way, Swenson thought.
And there it was. A human bite mark a little smaller than an egg. Clear teeth impressions. No longer a woun
d, not quite a scar. Mostly healed. Mostly.
“Who did this to you?” Steele said.
The woman said nothing. Nobody said anything.
“Was the person infected?” Steele said.
She made a strange sound, somewhere between a sob and a sniffle, like she wanted to cry but was holding back, trying to conceal how she felt and not quite succeeding.
She didn’t say anything.
“So you are infected,” Steele said. He paused a moment. “Or were.”
Nobody said anything, but she made that sound again.
“You’re immune,” Steele said. “Aren’t you?”
6
Joseph Steele, mayor of Lander, Wyoming, couldn’t believe the town’s luck. First and foremost he couldn’t believe his own.
A live immune person, right there in Lander. Right there in the hospital and under armed guard.
She just wandered in from the wasteland.
Pure luck. She could have washed up anywhere. Could have been killed in a thousand different ways before washing up anywhere. But she washed up in Lander. A gift in a box wrapped in a bow in time for Christmas.
Amazing.
She looked weak and afraid. Probably traumatized by what she went through on the way. She was also afraid of him, of the men with guns, of this hospital.
His earlier lie, as it turned out, wasn’t a lie at all. He was not going to hurt her. Having her killed was the last thing he’d do.
“With your permission,” he said, “I’d like to have one of our doctors get a blood sample from you.”
She just looked at him. No change in facial expression.
“We’re not all rednecks here in Wyoming,” he said. “This hospital is state of the art. We might even be able to figure out what’s causing this thing. We won’t keep you here, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Her facial expression still didn’t change. “There’s no wall around this place. You’re free to go back out…there any time if that’s what you want. But I don’t think you’ll find any place better than Lander unless you can catch a flight to Hawaii. Where are you all coming from?”
“Seattle,” the black man said.
“Seattle! Ground zero. How’d you make it this far?”
Resurrection (Book 2): Into the Wasteland Page 5
