Best to wait until dark, he decides. The hour just before dawn.
♦
Ray wakes during the night to the sound of machine gun fire. It stops abruptly, leaving him wondering if he dreamed it. He wipes drool from his mouth and sits up, slapping a mosquito on his cheek. A flare traces a burning arc over the distant fields, washing the ground in a bright, eerie glow. Shadows gradually infect the light, lengthening as the flare continues its long descent. Ray sees figures moving in a mad rush. The machine gun starts up again, sounding tinny and ghostly across the fields, like someone clapping chalkboard erasers together. Tracers burst in the dark. The figures now lie on the ground, melting into the darkness as the flare falls to the earth.
For several minutes, Ray sits in the dark waiting, but nothing happens. It strikes him his plan to wait until the hour before sunrise would work better if he actually knew what time it was. He gazes at the night sky but there is no Moon, no stars. Massive clouds still blanket the atmosphere, the tail end of the storm passing over this part of the world on its way to the Atlantic. The lights of the camp are his only beacon.
Something tramps through the woods behind him. Whatever it is, it’s tall enough to rustle through the branches of the trees, snapping twigs that rain onto the forest floor. Ray hears a deep, nauseating gurgling, like what he would imagine a motorcycle idling underwater to sound like. The gurgling ends in a throaty chuckle. Ray knows the sound; it is one of the tottering monsters that ate the Reverend on the bridge. The rustling becomes violent thrashing. The thing smacks its wet lips. Leaves flutter to the ground around Ray, tickling his face.
Time to move. Now.
Ray lopes from the woods at a brisk pace, trying to stay as low to the ground as he can, grunting under the weight of the backpack. He pauses to shrug it onto the ground behind him and keeps moving, breathing hard.
The machine gun fires again. He throws his body into the mud face first, but the tracers flicker into the woods to his right. He grunts, gets back onto his feet and keeps going, running blindly now, the camp lights swimming in his gaze. He hears feet splashing to his left and hurls himself down again as a flare bursts high overhead, turning night into day. Face pressed into the mud, he hears the crash of rifle fire and bodies falling. A body thrashes nearby in the muddy water. The machine gun joins in, sending bullets plopping into the earth around him.
Hail Mary, full of grace, hail Mary, full of grace, hail Mary, Jesus and God—
The firing stops. The gates are just fifty or so yards ahead.
Screw this.
“Don’t shoot! I ain’t Infected! Don’t shoot me!”
No answer. That’s not good.
On the other hand, nobody’s shooting at me either.
Ray gets onto his feet, shaking violently, and raises his hands. Standing in the flare’s light, he feels like he is on stage, in full view of an audience he cannot see.
“I’m coming in now,” he announces, marching forward. “Open the gates for me.”
“We can’t,” someone shouts from the wall, using a megaphone.
Ray staggers to a halt. “What do you mean?”
“The gates stay closed until sunup. That’s the law. It won’t be long. Just hang tight.”
“Come on! I’m Ray Young! I’m a cop. I almost died to save this goddamn place.” He is babbling like a madman, but cannot help himself. “I blew up that goddam bridge in Steubenville—”
Muzzle flashes pop along the wall like paparazzi. Ray flinches, but realizes they are not shooting at him.
“Hurry up,” the voice shouts through the megaphone. “Come on.”
He turns and sees a small group of Infected racing into the dying light of the flare, their eyes black and their yellow faces twisted in hate. Two of them disintegrate into smoking body parts, flopping to the ground.
Another flare bursts high overhead, revealing a hundred more running behind them.
“What the f—”
His words turn into an incoherent screaming flood of obscenities as he throws his exhausted body into a full sprint toward the wall, reaching it in less than a minute and falling to the ground gasping for air. One of the gates grinds opens inch by inch as gunfire crashes overhead.
The horde pauses twenty yards from him in a wide semicircle, ignoring the guns cutting them down.
“Move it!” a man says, standing next to him.
Ray rolls aside as several fighters rush through the partially opened gate in single file, holding what appear to be fire hoses attached to tanks on their backs.
The Infected reach out to him with an odd pleading gesture as blinding jets of fire pour across their ranks, turning them into a massive bonfire of dancing, shrieking figures. The heat blasts Ray’s face, making him wince.
One of the men kneels next to him and takes his hand.
“It’s a goddamn miracle,” the soldier says. “Are you injured?”
“No,” Ray croaks, unable to look away from the Infected flailing in the wall of fire like a vision of hell. “I don’t think so.”
“Were you bitten?” The man has to shout to compete with the screaming.
“No,” Ray says. “I ain’t bit.”
The man grins and squeezes Ray’s hand. “Welcome home, Ray.”
“Let’s go,” another voice roars.
“I hope he’s worth it,” another voice says. “The Captain is going to have our heads for this.”
“Don’t matter,” the first man answers. “Look, it’s already sunup.”
“He never would have authorized us going out there with that many Infected outside.”
“Thank you,” Ray tells them. “Oh Jesus, thank you.”
“You’re home now, Ray. You’re safe—”
Several men lift him roughly and carry him through the gap and into the safety of Camp Defiance.
♦
They set him down on a plastic tarp as the gate grinds shut. Ray gapes at the bearded faces and thanks them repeatedly, babbling. The men crowd around, pressing in for a look, most of them soldiers, some disposal workers in yellow hazmat suits, some salvage operators from outside the camp. They tell him he’s going to be okay and ask him questions about where he’s been, how he survived. They don’t know whether they are looking at a living legend or a ghost. A plastic bottle is shoved into his hand and he gulps the warm water. Someone yells to break it up, let the guy have some air, and the crowd loosens, giving Ray a view of the sky, already paling with the sunrise and dotted with a flock of birds in flight.
The man who yelled—a stocky, clean-shaven soldier with friendly blue eyes set far apart on his large head—kneels next to him and introduces himself as Sergeant John Riley, U.S. Army. Ray stares at him, finding it hard to understand what is being said to him.
“I’m Ray Young,” he says.
“You’re a lucky bastard, is what you are,” Sergeant Riley grins. “So what do you need, Ray? We don’t have much here in the compound, but we got hot coffee, water, food, a medic—”
“Unit 12 station.”
“Settle down,” the sergeant yells at the crowd, quieting them. “What’s that, Ray?”
“I want to go to Unit 12 station,” Ray repeats. “That’s my police unit.”
The man nods, considering the request. Behind him, the other men frown with disappointment. They obviously hoped they could do more for him.
“And a smoke,” Ray adds.
One of the men leans in to offer a cigarette jutting from an open pack. Ray takes it with two shaking hands and accepts a light.
“I’ll drive you wherever you want to go,” Sergeant Riley tells him.
“He’d better report to Captain Mattis,” another soldier says.
“He can do that later,” Riley growls. “Let Mattis sleep. This man’s just been to hell and back. He wants to be with his people. They’ll take care of him.”
The sergeant extends his gloved hand and pulls Ray onto his feet.
When Sergeant Wilson told him and the
others about the lunatic plan to blow the Veterans Memorial Bridge at Steubenville, he thought they would drive out there and probably die and nobody here would care. Life would go on as if they were just another band of Infected dying outside the wall. Road kill of the apocalypse.
He had never been so wrong. Sergeant Riley and his men had risked everything to save him. If Ray was anyone else, they would have left him out there to die.
His luck is still holding, just as it was the moment the horde was upon him, when they hesitated instead of tearing him to shreds.
Why didn’t they attack? Maybe they were just trying to scare me to death. He snorts. They came damn close to succeeding.
Minutes later, Ray is bouncing along through the camp in Sergeant Riley’s Humvee. Sagging in his seat, he looks out the window at the bustle of the early risers starting their day. They pass what used to be Meade Park, now a dense sprawl of motor homes and campers looking like a traffic jam that went on for so long the drivers decided to live there. A man anchors a tarp into the ground, observed by his young son, while a woman hangs faded laundry from a clothesline strung between two RVs. Another man brews coffee using a contraption consisting of two soup cans, while a woman connects a car battery to a power drill. A pair of tired-looking, scantily clad blondes walk arm in arm—prostitutes going home after a long night’s shift by the porta-johns. A work crew pulls planks of lumber from the back of a pickup truck, laying them in the mud end to end to form pedestrian pathways. The world may be ending, but people still need to brush their teeth and cut their toenails and patch holes in the knees of their jeans. Life abides.
Ray looks at these people living hand to mouth at the edge of survival and thinks, I nearly died for this?
“It’s going to be another beautiful day,” Sergeant Riley says, whistling.
It’s the first time the soldier has spoken to him during the ride. Ray nods and Riley says nothing more. Ray is grateful not to have to talk. He glances at the man’s earnest profile and feels a little ashamed. The soldier just led a squad of flamethrowers outside the wall to torch dozens of Infected bearing down on him, with the fate of the entire camp in his hands, and has survived fights that were most likely far worse in the past few weeks. What Ray went through is probably nothing in comparison. The old Ray would have converted his shame into anger—gotten mouthy and ruined the man’s generosity—but again, it isn’t in him anymore.
He’s one of the centurions, Ray tells himself instead. Our one chance at ending the epidemic. If these guys can’t do it, God help us.
“This is you,” the sergeant tells him, turning the wheel and bringing the Humvee to a halt at the curb.
Ray sees the worn police station building and feels a strange sensation in his stomach. Butterflies. He never thought he’d miss this shithole as much as he had. It’s like a homecoming. He watches two burly cops exit the front doors, grim-faced and toting shotguns, dogs yelping around their legs. People on the sidewalk jump aside to let them pass.
“Thanks for the lift,” he says. “Thanks for, uh, everything.”
“Don’t mention it,” the man says. “Listen, I got a bottle of old scotch under my bunk I’ve been saving. If you ever want to share a drink and some stories, look me up. I’ll bet you’ve got one hell of a story to tell.”
“I’ll do that, Sergeant,” Ray tells him, and steps out of the vehicle.
As the Humvee pulls away honking, Ray stands on the sidewalk. The few people out at this hour stare at him as they pass. He guesses he looks pretty screwed up even by camp standards. A speaker mounted at the top of a telephone pole, surrounded by a dangling spaghetti of wires, whines with feedback just before a tinny voice wishes Camp Defiance a good morning and launches into a public service announcement.
Taking a deep breath, Ray enters the police station, ignoring the confused stares of the cops behind the big desk, and slips into the hallway leading to the holding pens.
Tyler Jones sits behind the desk in the empty Unit 12 barracks, an open space with jail cells once used to hold prisoners but now used as bunks. Just as he remembered him, reading glasses perched at the end of his nose and ridiculous red suspenders and all. Instead of reading a cheap paperback as his usual habit, Tyler is poring over some paperwork on his desk, his lips moving while he reads, cursing someone named Benny under his breath. A large poster mounted on the wall to his left shows a photo of a smiling little girl under the words: WHY WE FIGHT.
Ray grins. “Tyler Jones, you old shit.”
“Get out of my ass, Ray,” Tyler says, then blinks, his mouth hanging open. His eyes flicker and take in Ray leaning against the doorframe. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”
Ray shrugs, enjoying the sight of Tyler staring at him with his paling face. “I’m back.”
“I can’t believe it.”
Tyler half stands, still bug eyed, and Ray waves him back into his chair. “I’ll come to you.”
“Well, sit down then! You want some coffee?”
Ray takes a seat opposite Tyler with a painful grunt. Every muscle in his body aches, the result of burning massive amounts of adrenaline over the past few days. He feels like he could sleep for a year. “And a smoke, if you got one.”
Tyler shuffles to the pot, pours a metal cup full of hot, black coffee, and returns, slamming it on the desk in front of Ray. He snaps his fingers, as if forgetting something, then pulls two cigars from the breast pocket of his gray work shirt.
“Wow, look at you,” Tyler says as he lights Ray’s cigar.
They say together, “You look like shit.”
Tyler laughs. “This is the best day of my life, Ray. I mean it.”
“I can’t believe I’m here.”
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Never mind that right now, Tyler.” He reaches for the coffee and sips it, humming with pleasure. “How long was I gone? I kind of lost track of time out there.”
“You left two weeks and three days ago, champ.”
Ray shakes his head. He was asleep for roughly two weeks. I’m a regular Rip Van Winkle. “What’s been going on around here?”
“Progress, Ray,” the old man tells him, puffing on his cigar. “The government is digging wells and building windmills. We even got a radio station now, telling happy stories about loved ones reunited and teaching everyone how to make a vegetable garden. People here started getting a little more hopeful when the Army invaded Washington, DC. They’ve got a big piece of it cleared out already. A whole company of them showed up here, too.”
Ray thinks of Sergeant Riley, how he was regular Army. “The Army’s here? When did that happen?”
“As a matter of fact, they showed up the day you left.”
Just a couple of hours, and Ray would not have had to go to the bridge. The Army would have taken care of it. The Reverend Paul Melvin would still be alive, and so would Ethan Bell, the teacher, and thirty-three National Guardsmen. And Ray would not have been stung and infected.
He sobs, unable to tough it out. He sniffs and wipes tears from his eyes.
Tyler shakes his head. “Jesus, Ray, look at you. Your nerves are shot. Let me get something stronger.” He holds up a small key and uses it to access a file drawer in his desk, from which he produces a bottle of Wild Turkey and two glasses. “I know it’s a little early, but let’s have a snort.”
“Why not?” Ray forces a smile. “I just can’t believe I’m actually here.”
“Shit, boy, I can’t believe you’re here either!” Tyler laughs. “We had a funeral for you and everything. We even said nice things about you. Anyway, drink up while you still can. The good stuff won’t last forever. We’ll all be swilling dandelion wine and mead pretty soon.”
Ray grins at Tyler and remembers his dream. His friend holding two green monstrosities that strained against their leashes, trying to get near him. Whoa, we got a live one here.
He feels a sudden hot flash followed by the urge to vomit.
The thing shivers, releasing
a cloud of musk. This is how it eats.
Tyler is staring at him with obvious concern. Ray reaches for his glass and slams his drink back, gasping with pleasure.
“So how’s your dumb kid?” he says.
Just before he left for the bridge, Jonesy and Wendy had been attacked by camp riffraff while on patrol.
“Jonesy is great, thanks for asking. He got over that knock on his head in about two days. All the guys should be done with their shift in about a half hour. You can say hello. They’re going to shit themselves when they see you.” Tyler taps the end of his cigar against the edge of the ashtray. “Listen, Ray, they made me sergeant. But you’re still in charge here as far as I’m concerned. I’m happier doing dispatch. You rest up and take command whenever you’re ready.”
Ray frowns. He had not thought about it, but right now does not welcome the idea of being a cop again. Does he have any responsibility to other people anymore? He remembers standing next to Todd Paulsen on the bridge, emptying his pistols into the greasy pale hide of the tentacled giant, screaming his head off as it bore down on them. Last time he stuck his neck out to save the world, he got infected. He beat the bug, but far from feeling invincible, he dreads everything now. Let the Sergeant Rileys fix this mess and leave me out of it, he decides. I deserve a break. I’ve got a second chance, and I have to figure out what to do with it so I don’t waste it. And for that, I need a little time. No worries except breathing in, breathing out.
“Any word from Saslove?” he asks.
Tyler nods. “I heard our dear Wendy’s shacked up with that big Black fella, Toby Wilson, and they’re traveling around with an outfit called the New Liberty Army.”
“Good. Sarge will take good care of that girl.”
“She was the real thing.” Tyler snaps his fingers. “Hey, I almost forgot. Get a load of this.” He goes into one of the holding cells, rummages around in a box, and returns with a mint-condition black STEELERS cap. “Try this on for size.”
The Killing Floor Page 12
