He could only guess why the water was more pathogenic than it used to be, but he wasn’t surprised. If it was contaminated by an infected animal population as he suspected, the problem was only bound to get worse as the virus continued to spread in the wild.
Nash did not own a gun. Neither did Juliette. Nash looked, but he knew he wouldn’t find one. His neighbor was the artsy type, not a hunter or a survivalist, and Lander’s crime rate was no higher than Iceland’s. Under normal conditions, women were safer on its sidewalks and streets than almost anywhere else in the world.
He should have bought or borrowed a gun months ago, the minute he learned about the infection on television. Something had stopped him, and he didn’t even know what. Habit? The ick factor? Trust in the local authorities?
All he had was a carving knife from the kitchen.
And Annie was all but defenseless. She barely had enough energy to walk, let alone run and fight. She was still resting and recovering in Juliette’s bed. He went in there to check on her a couple of times. Nash’s insides quivered and he couldn’t even stand still let alone sit still, but Annie’s body was so exhausted from blood loss that she managed to sleep as if Nash had knocked her out on a triple dose of tranquilizers.
He dared to peer out the front window from behind the curtains in Juliette’s living room. His neighbor Robert was more dead than anyone Nash had ever seen, and Nash had seen plenty of dead people at the hospital. Robert looked like his throat and torso had been torn out by a mountain lion, but it was no mountain lion that did that to him.
His neighbors did that to him. His neighbors.
Robert’s rifle lay on the street ten feet from what was left of him.
Nash could go out there and get it. It wouldn’t even take thirty seconds. He could just open the door, bolt across Juliette’s yard, snatch the gun from the kill site and run back into the house.
No problem.
But he didn’t dare let anyone see him, and he wasn’t convinced that whoever he’d seen in his own house through the kitchen window wasn’t still there waiting and watching. Not a single person knew he and Annie were holed up in Juliette’s house. If anybody found out, whatever was left of Steele’s militia would break down Juliette’s door with a sledgehammer.
All of Nash’s neighbors were dangerous now, whether they were infected or not.
Forty people decided they’d rather drink from the tap than wait until morning, and for all Parker knew, 39 of them would get sick.
He was the only one who would not, and he was the only one who knew he would not.
The rest were idiots. Three out of four of the idiots were men, and Charlene, of course, was one of the idiot women. They were risking their lives to avoid another afternoon and night of discomfort when, for all they knew, the guards would come back or the prison doors would open up in five minutes.
Beckett asked everyone who chose to drink now rather than later to group together in one corner of the common area and sit on the floor so they could be watched for symptoms. Even Charlene agreed without any complaints. She and another man filled two empty jugs in one of the cells and poured one of those jugs into plastic cups and passed them around.
The other hundreds of people crammed into the cellblock watched from the floor, from the tables, from the stairs and from the mezzanine as if the brave and the foolish who dared to drink were putting on a performance. The only things missing were stage lights.
Charlene made a theatrical show of going first. A hush fell over the cellblock. She drank without stopping until the cup was empty. Nobody moved or even breathed as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
The crowd stared at her as if she’d just drank a glass of bleach and liked it. “Boo!” she shouted.
Nervous laughs all around.
Beckett watched as the others, including Parker, drank from their cups.
Water had never tasted so good. This was the first time in Parker’s life that he’d ever gone a day and a half without fluids. Sure, he’d spent a number of days on nothing but black coffee and craft beers, and those days had left him with chapped lips and a headache, but his body had retained at least some of the water. Going a day and a half without any liquid at all felt exactly like Terry the Search and Rescue guy had said it would feel. Like epic shit. His skull felt like a grapefruit in a vise and his throat burned when he swallowed. His skin was so dry and tight that he had cracks along the backs of his knuckles.
The cool water felt like life itself. A single cup would hardly make a dent, though. For that he’d need to drink an entire jug.
Everybody drank several cups. Charlene filled another jug from the tap in her cell. Nobody helped her but she didn’t complain.
Parker felt full after his fifth cup. He wondered if he’d have to piss soon or if his body would suck it all up like a sponge.
“So,” Charlene said to Beckett. “How long do we have to sit here?”
“Until I tell you otherwise,” Beckett said.
In Parker’s experience, at least an hour passed from the time a person was bit before they turned. Occasionally the transformation took a couple of hours. Beckett would have to err on the conservative side to be safe. It was going to be a long couple of hours.
“They’re not coming back,” Charlene said. “You’ll all be drinking water tomorrow, probably even before then if your headaches are as bad as mine.”
Beckett said nothing.
Charlene seemed to glow. Parker doubted she felt better already—he certainly didn’t—but they both knew they’d start feeling better in a couple of minutes.
“You going to put this entire cellblock under observation tomorrow?” Charlene said.
Beckett said nothing.
“I am feeling better,” she said and sighed. “Y’all should try it.”
Then her eyes opened wide. “Shit,” she said.
Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.
Those in the front of the crowd took a few steps back from Charlene and the others while Beckett watched stone-faced.
“I am feeling a little bit woozy,” Charlene said.
“You drank too much too fast,” said the man on the floor next to Parker. “I think I did too.”
“No,” Charlene said. “It’s not that.” She wiped her forehead with her hand.
Nervous muttering swept through the cellblock.
A man on the mezzanine chuckled. “God, you people are gullible,” he said.
Charlene laughed.
“That wasn’t funny,” Parker said.
She laughed again. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, it was.”
Then she stood up.
“Ma’am,” Beckett said and stepped toward her.
“I feel great!” she said. “Almost like I’ve just had a meal.”
“Ma’am, please sit down,” Beckett said.
“Sit the hell down, Charlene,” a woman said.
“You all—” Charlene said, then pitched forward and vomited onto the floor.
Dozens of people scrambled to get out of her way.
The vomit on the floor was entirely water. She had nothing else in her stomach.
“I told you,” said the man on the floor next to Parker, “that you drank too much too fast.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlene said. “Do we have any towels?”
“Mop it up with your shirt,” a man said.
A few women gasped, including Betty the therapist. A couple of men with jailhouse tats laughed.
“Oh,” Charlene said and sat back down on the floor in the observation area. “I think I really am sick.”
She wasn’t faking it this time. Her face had gone pale. Sweat beaded up on her forehead. Her eyes closed halfway to slits. “How is everyone else feeling?”
“Fine,” said a man.
“I’m all right,” said another.
Parker felt perfectly fine, of course. He looked around. Everyone else seemed okay too. Only Charlene seemed to be sick. It couldn’t be the virus.
Not this quickly. She probably really did drink too much water.
Charlene vomited again, this time into her lap, and the entire prison block gasped.
“Everybody get back,” Beckett said. “Do not touch her.”
“It can’t be the virus,” Charlene said with a slur. “Too fast.”
“It can’t really be, can it?” one of Beckett’s deputies said. “In five minutes?”
Beckett put his hands on his hips, looked down at Charlene and huffed. “Ma’am, why don’t you sit in the corner back there?”
Everyone in the observation area stood up and cleared a path to the corner. Most of them had real fear on their faces. Their eyes darted from person to person. Was anyone else coming down with it? One of the men sat on one of the steel benches, folded his arms on the table in front of him and lay his head down. He seemed to know what was coming and could not bear to watch.
“I can’t get up,” Charlene said.
“Frist, help her up,” Beckett said to one of his deputies.
“I thought you said not to touch her,” the deputy named Frist said.
Charlene slumped over onto the floor.
“How are the rest of you feeling?” Beckett said.
Everybody else said they were perfectly fine.
Terry the Search and Rescue guy approached. “I’ll help her up,” he said.
“We got this,” Beckett said. “Grab her by the shirt,” he said to his deputy Frist, “and just pull her. Don’t touch her.”
The floor was buffed concrete, almost as smooth as marble, and Charlene was a small woman. She didn’t weigh much. Frist managed to pull her across the floor and into the corner without much trouble.
He breathed heavily from the effort, though, and took a couple of steps back. “Now what?” he said.
“We watch her,” Beckett said.
“And if…” Terry said.
Beckett’s deputies, Frist and the other one, looked at each other and went pale.
“Then we deal with it,” Beckett said.
“I knew this was a shit idea,” Frist said.
Frist had left Charlene propped up in the corner with her head slumped forward. She was clearly out cold.
“She’s going to turn,” a woman said.
“No, she’s not,” a man said.
“Look at her,” the woman said.
Charlene did not move.
“You’re not a doctor,” the man said.
Nobody in the cellblock was a medical doctor. Either Lander’s doctors had stayed out of Steele’s way, or the mayor knew better than to lock up his medical staff.
“Somebody should take care of it,” a man said.
“She’s not an it,” another man said.
“She’s about to be,” the first man said.
“She’s a person with a name,” said the second.
“Bash her head into the wall,” said another man. Several people gasped.
“Nobody’s doing anything,” Beckett said, “until we knew for sure what we’re dealing with here.”
Parker swallowed hard. For several long weeks that felt like years, he’d been drowning in thoughts of violence and murder. This could be his moment. He could slam Charlene’s head into the wall and watch the life blow out of her like a snuffed candle. He could do it right now and no one would stop him. Beckett would be furious, and so would lots of other people, but no one would stop him. He would not be prosecuted for murder. He was already locked up, but even if he weren’t, nothing bad would happen to him.
Somebody had to do it.
Parker could do it.
Just thinking about it made him want to vomit. He’d save lives, for sure, but the very idea filled him with revulsion and horror.
He was not going to do it, not because he wouldn’t get away with it, not because he’d be punished, but because he didn’t want to. This was the power of what Betty the therapist had called free won’t. Ever since he’d “recovered” from the virus on the San Juan Islands, he’d felt like nothing would stop him from attacking anybody and everybody, but now he felt the power of free won’t inside him almost as if it were tangible.
He kicked himself for not trusting himself earlier. Jesus, what was wrong with him? He had fallen into some kind of a black hole, and now that he was climbing out of it, he couldn’t believe he’d ever fallen into it in the first place.
Charlene’s head twitched. She made some kind of a guttural noise.
“Hurry,” a man said.
“Wait,” Beckett said.
His two deputies still stood on either side of him. The one on the left closed his eyes while his hands shook and the one on the right stared wide-eyed at Charlene without blinking. They knew they were going to have to do it. And it was the last thing they wanted to do. If they waited until Charlene came at them baring her teeth, though, they were likely to die. They’d have to kill her with their bare hands, but all she had to do was nick them just once with her teeth.
“Frist,” Beckett said. “Stick a sock in her mouth.”
Frist nodded and took off one of his boots. The smell of ripe feet filled the room, but nobody seemed to care. Frist pulled off his sock and approached Charlene with it in his hand.
She groaned, but did not lift her head up.
“Do it, Frist,” Beckett said. “Do it now.”
Frist grabbed Charlene by the hair and pulled her head back. Her eyes were still closed. He shoved the sock into her mouth and let her head drop again.
“Okay,” Beckett said. “Now get behind her and hold her arms behind her back.”
Frist did what he was told.
Beckett stepped forward.
Frist looked up.
“Don’t worry, son,” Beckett said.
Beckett would take care of it. That was clear. He didn’t want to any more than Frist did. Parker could hear it in his voice. Beckett was the chief, though, and he wasn’t the kind of man to order somebody else to do the unthinkable, not even one of his deputies. Policemen were trained to subdue subjects and even kill them if necessary to protect themselves and the public, but no cop ever expected to bash a sick woman’s brains into a wall.
Parker felt sorry for these people. They were still apocalypse virgins. He and Hughes and Annie and even Kyle had already brained more of those things than this entire town put together.
Charlene’s eyes opened.
A sickening warmth bloomed in Parker’s chest. He wiped his face with his hands.
Charlene didn’t seem to know where she was or what was happening. Her eyes flicked from side to side for a couple of moments, then locked on to something just to Parker’s right.
Charlene was making eye contact with the woman who’d told her to shut up and sit down a few minutes earlier.
Beckett stepped forward. He was at most ten feet away from her now.
Charlene didn’t seem to realize she had a sock in her mouth, nor did she realize that Frist held her arms behind her back, until she tried to get up.
She grimaced the moment she met resistance and screamed into the sock.
Everybody stepped back and away. Several women and even a couple of men screamed.
“Charlene!” Beckett yelled.
Parker stepped forward in case Beckett needed some help.
Charlene locked eyes with Beckett. The muscles between her eyes clenched and she screamed into the sock again.
“She’s turned,” Parker said.
Beckett nodded. Charlene thrashed in Frist’s grip.
Poor Frist. His nostrils flared and the muscles in his neck bulged. He was almost hyperventilating. He was bigger and stronger and knew how to subdue people, and she couldn’t bite him without first getting the sock out of her mouth, but Frist had a look on his face like he was wrestling a crocodile.
“Forgive me,” Beckett said and slammed the side of Charlene’s head into the wall.
She went limp at once. Her head was misshapen now and left a splotch of blood on the wall.
Screams filled the cellblock. Parker could feel his heartbeat as if it were banging away in his ears and felt smothered with a feeling of doom.
Frist got up and scrambled away, shuddering and breathing heavily.
Parker closed his eyes and breathed deeply as Annie had taught him. Breathing as slowly and deeply as possible would slow down his body’s stress response.
“Jesus Christ.” A man’s voice.
“God help us.” A woman’s.
“I’d rather be thirsty.” Another man’s voice, this time from the mezzanine.
A woman screamed. A gut-churning and terrified pain-filled scream.
Parker opened his eyes and turned around. People crowded all sides of him and he couldn’t see much.
The woman kept screaming, and the cellblock filled with the sounds of confusion. Gasps, muttering, feet and arms and hands and bodies jostling. The crowd surged in all directions.
Beckett brushed past Parker and made his way into the melee.
The woman screamed again and Parker heard a growling sound.
“My God,” a man’s voice. “He’s infected.”
Panic filled the cellblock now. A stampede made its way to the stairs up to the mezzanine.
Parker stepped back into the corner next to Charlene’s body and craned his head. He could see what was happening now. A man pinned a woman on top of one of the steel tables and buried his teeth in her neck. At least she was no longer screaming.
A young man kicked the infected man off her. The infected man nearly fell onto the floor, then recovered and crouched into a fighting position.
“Jesus,” somebody said. “It’s Mack.”
Parker didn’t know Mack, but he recognized him. He’d sat on the floor next to Parker and drank from one of the jugs. After Charlene had fallen ill, he had moved to that table and rested his head on his folded arms. Parker had assumed Mack was stressed, but as it turned out, he was sick.
Nobody had noticed because all eyes were on Charlene.
Mack lunged at the young man who’d just kicked him and sank his teeth into the man’s arm.
Resurrection (Book 2): Into the Wasteland Page 32
