Once the man was stabilized, Bob turned his attention to infection. He knew from front-line experience that infection is the silent partner in most battlefield fatalities—the number one tool of the grim reaper once a soldier is out of immediate danger—so he rifled through the supplies and ransacked the infirmary cupboards looking for antibiotics. He worried that the Governor was a perfect candidate for sepsis—considering all the rusty, filthy, oxidized tools used on him—so Bob used up every last cc of Moxifloxacin in the IV and administered hypodermically the last drops of Netromycin left in Woodbury. By the morning of the third day, the wounds had begun to close over and heal.
“I wouldn’t say he’s out of the woods yet,” Bob now reports, summing up the whole situation as he walks across the infirmary to the trash bin, into which he tosses a wad of used cotton swabs. It’s taken him nearly ten minutes to recap the whole timeline, and now he goes over to the coffee urn and pours himself another few fingers of the muddy stuff. “Put it this way, he’s on the edge of the woods, holding steady.” He turns to Lilly and holds up the coffee cup. “You want a cup o’ joe?”
Lilly shrugs. “Sure … why not?” She turns to Bruce and Gabe, who stand fidgeting by the door. “I’m not telling you guys what to do … but if it were me, I would go check the wall on the north end.”
“What are you, the Queen of Sheba now?” Bruce grumbles.
“With Martinez gone and the Governor out of commission, those guys have been deserting their posts left and right. We can’t afford to be careless right now.”
Bruce and Gabe look at each other, each one gauging the other’s reaction to being bossed around by some chick from the suburbs. “She’s got a point,” Gabe says.
“Jesus Christ … whatever,” Bruce grouses under his breath, then turns and storms out the door.
Gabe follows him out.
Bob comes over to Lilly and hands her a paper cup of coffee. Lilly notices again how Bob’s hands have stopped shaking. She takes a sip. “Holy crap, this is bad,” she says with a slight cringe.
“It’s wet and it’s got caffeine in it,” Bob comments as he turns back to his patient. Pulling the spiral-bound notebook from his back pocket, he nudges a chair next to the gurney, sits down, and makes a few notes. “We’re at a critical stage now,” he murmurs while he writes. “Got to keep track of how much Vicodin I’ve given him—not sure if all the drugs have ganged up on him, maybe induced the coma he’s in.”
Lilly edges her chair closer to the gurney and sits next to the foot of the bed. She can smell the cloying odors of antiseptic and iodine. She stares at the Governor’s untrimmed toenails and pale bare feet—as limp and pallid as dead fish—poking out from under the sheet.
For a moment, Lilly is stricken with a strange mixture of impressions—crucifixion and sacrificial lambs—which jolts through her with the strength of a lightning bolt. The unexpected emotion tightens her gut and makes her turn away. What kind of person could do this to another person? Who is this lady? Where the hell did she come from? And the deeper concerns banging around the back of Lilly’s mind: If this woman is capable of doing this to a man as dangerous as the Governor, then what is her group capable of doing to Woodbury?
“The key now is keeping infection away from the door,” Bob is saying, gently palpating the Governor’s neck with a fingertip, keeping track of the man’s pulse.
“Bob, tell me the truth,” Lilly says, looking into the older man’s eyes. Bob’s face furrows with bemusement as he meets Lilly’s stare. He puts down his notebook. She speaks softly. “Do you think he’s gonna make it?”
Bob takes in a deep, thoughtful breath, and then exhales with a sigh. “He’s a tough cuss, this one.” He looks at the Governor’s shrouded face. “If anybody can pull through something like this, he can.”
Lilly notices Bob’s gnarled left hand is resting gently on the Governor’s shoulder. The unexpected tenderness takes her aback for a moment. She wonders if Bob Stookey has finally found his raison d’être—a channel for all his grief and unrequited love. She wonders if this whole crisis has given Bob a way to stave off the pain of losing Megan. She wonders if this is what Bob always needed—a surrogate son, someone who needed him. The Governor has always been kind to Bob—Lilly noticed that almost from day one—and now she sees the logical extension of that kindness. Bob has never looked more alive, more at peace, more comfortable in his own skin.
“How long, though?” Lilly says at last. “How long do you think he’s gonna be laid up?”
Bob shakes his head with a sigh. “There’s no telling how long. Even if I was some highfalutin’ trauma surgeon, I wouldn’t be able to give you a timetable.”
Lilly sighs. “We’re in some deep shit here, Bob. We need fucking leadership. More than ever. We could be attacked at any minute.” She swallows hard, feeling a twinge of nausea ripple up her gorge. Not now, goddamnit, not now, she thinks. “With the Governor out of action, we are screwed. We need to batten down the fucking hatches.”
Bob shrugs. “All I can do is stay with him, keep watch, and hope for the best.”
Lilly chews her lip. “What do you think went down between the two of them?”
“Who?”
“The Governor and that girl.”
Another shrug from Bob. “I don’t know anything about that.” He thinks about it for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. Whoever did this to him was a nutcase—an animal—and they ought to be put down like a goddamn rabid dog.”
Lilly shakes her head. “I know he had her locked up; he was probably questioning her. Did Bruce or Gabe say anything about it?”
“I didn’t ask, and I don’t want to know.” Bob rubs his eyes. “All I want is to get him out of these weeds, get him back on his feet … no matter how long it takes.”
Lilly lets out another sigh. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do without him, Bob. We need somebody keeping these people on their toes.”
Bob thinks about it some more, and then gives her a wry little smile. “I think you might have already found that person.”
She looks at him.
All at once she realizes what he’s getting at and the pressure lands on her like a giant anvil, nearly taking her breath away.… No fucking way, not in a million fucking years is it going to be me.
* * *
That night, Lilly organizes an emergency meeting in the courthouse, in the community room in the rear, the doors locked down and all the lights off except for a pair of kerosene lanterns flickering on the conference table. She asks each person in attendance to keep the meeting a secret. The five of them arrive after midnight, after the town has quieted down, and they each take a seat at the table, with Lilly sitting at the head, near the broken-down metal stand bearing the faded, threadbare Georgia state flag.
For Lilly, the room teems with ghosts. Phantoms from her past ooze from the crumbling plaster walls, from the litter-strewn floor, from the overturned folding chairs, from the bullet holes in the front wall, and from the high windows, which are all cracked and boarded up now. A framed portrait of Nathan Deal, the long-forgotten eighty-second governor of Georgia, dangles on the lintel, the glass shattered and stained with rusty blood droplets in the dancing firelight—a fitting testament to the apocalypse.
The memories wash over Lilly that night. She remembers meeting Philip Blake in this room over a year and a half ago—when she first arrived in Woodbury with Josh, Megan, Bob, and Scott the stoner—and Lilly will never forget the swagger, the creepy impression the Governor initially gave off. Little did she know he would become her lifeline one day, he would be her anchor in this sea of chaos.
“Christ on a cracker,” Barbara Stern utters after hearing the whole story of the elaborate escape and the condition of the Governor. She sits next to her husband on one side of the table, wringing her slender hands. The gloomy light flickers off her deeply lined face and tendrils of iron-gray hair. “As if we don’t have enough on our plates in this godforsaken place—we have to deal
with this now?”
“I think the first thing we have to do is put out a cover story,” Lilly says. She wears an Atlanta Braves cap with her hair in a ponytail poking through the plastic band in back—all business now. The crisis has driven her morning sickness away.
Bruce, sitting at the opposite end of the table, leaning back skeptically in his chair, his lean, cabled arms crossed against his chest, gives her a frown. “A what?”
She looks at him. “A cover story, some bullshit explanation that won’t get everybody all excited and stressed out.” She looks around the table. “We should keep it simple, make sure all our stories match up.”
“Lilly … um,” Austin speaks up from the chair to her immediate left. He has his hands clasped as if praying, and he holds a pained look on his face. “You do realize, people are gonna find out sooner or later. I mean … this is a really small town.”
Lilly lets out a nervous sigh. “Okay … well … if they find out, let’s make sure it stays a rumor. People have been saying all kinds of crazy shit.”
David Stern pipes in. “Honey, just out of curiosity, what is it you’re worried about happening if we just tell everybody the truth?”
Lilly exhales, pushes herself away from the head of the table, and starts pacing. “Look. We have to keep this town buttoned up tight. We can’t have people panicking right now. We really have no idea who these strangers are, or what they have in mind.” She clenches her fists. “You want to see what they’re capable of, go to the infirmary and take a look at the Governor. These people are nuts, they’re dangerous as hell. We have to up our defenses. If we’re gonna err, we’re gonna err on the side of being too careful.”
Gabe speaks up from over by the windows. “Then I say we go after them.” Leaning against the boarded, arched windowpane, his hands in his pockets, he glowers at Lilly. “Best defense is a strong offense.”
“Fucking-A,” Bruce says with a nod, leaning back against the defunct Coke machine.
“No!” Lilly stands her ground near the flag, her hazel eyes blazing with righteous fervor, her delicate chin jutting defiantly. “Not without the Governor. We don’t make any major moves while he’s out.” Now she looks at every person in the room, one at a time, her voice going low and steady. “We stick to a cover story until he’s on his feet again. Bob thinks it’s possible he could come out of it any day.” She looks at Gabe. “You understand what I’m saying? Until then, we zip this place up as tight as a drum.”
Gabe takes a deep breath and lets out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, missy … we do it your way.”
Lilly looks at Bruce. “You okay with this?”
He shakes his head, rolling his eyes. “Whatever you say, girlfriend. You got the wheel. You’re on a roll.”
“Okay, good.” She looks back at Gabe. “Why don’t we tell a couple of Martinez’s guys to get lost for a few days, and then we’ll tell everybody the Governor’s out on a search party with them. Can you handle that?”
Gabe shrugs. “I guess so … yeah.”
“In the meantime, we keep a guard on the infirmary at all times.” Lilly looks at the others. “So that’s our cover story. We’re gonna need everybody in this room to step up. Bruce, you handle the wall. Keep shifts going all the time, and make sure we got plenty of ammo for the machine guns. Make another run to the Guard station if you have to.” She looks at the Sterns. “David and Barbara, you two spread the word, keep your ears open. That group that has coffee in the square every morning, hang out with them. Keep tabs on what they’re saying. Austin … you and I will take regular walks around the barricade. We’ll make sure everything’s secure. This is critical, people. With the Governor on his back, we are totally vulnerable. We have to remember—”
A noise outside the boarded windows cuts her off. All heads snap toward the sound of yelling, glass breaking, wood splitting apart.
“Oh shit,” Lilly utters, frozen at the front of the room with her fists clenched.
Barbara Stern springs to her feet, her eyes suddenly wide with terror. “Maybe it’s just a fight, somebody drunk or pissed off or something.”
“I don’t think so,” David Stern murmurs, standing up and reaching around for the pistol wedged into the back of his belt. He draws his gun.
Austin jumps out of his chair and darts across the room to where Lilly stands staring. “Let’s let Gabe and Bruce check it out first.”
Across the room, Bruce is already on his feet, pulling the .45 from its holster, snapping off the safety, and shooting a look at Gabe. “You got the other MIG?”
Gabe has already whirled toward the far corner of the room, where two assault rifles are leaning against the wall. He grabs one, and then the other, and then turns to Bruce and tosses one of the rifles as he yells, “C’mon!—Let’s go!—Before all hell breaks loose!”
Bruce catches the weapon, chambers a round, and follows Gabe out the door, down the hall, and toward the exit.
The others stand frozen in the community room, looking at each other and listening to the pandemonium rising out on the street.
FOUR
In the darkness, an empty bottle of Jack rolls across the street half a block north of the courthouse, and Gabe kicks it aside as he barrels toward the southwest corner of town, Bruce right on his heels. In the night winds, Gabe can see the intermittent muzzle flashes behind the grove of trees along the town square, sparks as bright as arc welders bouncing off the sky, the cool night air alive with screams. One of the guards is already down on the ground by the curb, his drinking buddies scattering now, their silhouettes receding into the distance. Three walkers have piled up on the fallen guard, tearing into him, the blood tide spreading in all directions as they feed, burrowing down into flesh, ripping strings of tendons and cartilage in the flickering shadows. Gabe gets to within twenty yards of the feeding orgy and snaps the selector lever on the rifle. His barrel comes up as he charges in and pulls the trigger.
Hellfire blazes out of the MIG, strafing the top halves of the biters, punching holes through cranial bones in fountains of tissue and bursts of blood mist. The walkers fold. Bruce roars past Gabe with his own rifle up and braced on his big shoulder, his booming voice coming out in one spontaneous cry: “GET THAT FUCKING WALL BACK UP NOW!!”
Gabe glances back up and sees what Bruce is shouting about in the darkness twenty-five yards away: A weak spot in the corner of the barricade—a conglomeration of drywall panels, sheet metal, and roofing nails—has collapsed under the weight of a dozen or more walkers pushing in from the adjacent woods. The men must have been shirking their watch, fucking around, not paying attention, drinking or some such shit. Now one of the young guards on a gun turret frantically sweeps his arc lamp down on the scene—the silver beam crisscrossing the fogbound street—painting luminous halos around the silhouettes of twenty-plus biters staggering over fallen timbers.
Bruce unleashes a barrage of armor-piercing rounds at the onslaught.
He gets most of them—the casings flinging, one by one, up into the air—a row of reanimated corpses doing involuntary jigs in the swirling spray of fluids, ragged bodies collapsing in a synchronized line dance of death. But Bruce doesn’t notice Gabe fanning out to the right, going after an errant biter who is dragging toward an alley. If the dead infiltrate the shadowy nooks and crannies of the town before they are all dispatched, there will be hell to pay. In all the commotion—the guards returning with heavy artillery, the shouts, the sweeping beams of arc light, the two machine-gun placements starting to spit fire—Gabe gets separated.
He follows a biter into a dark alley and immediately loses track of the thing.
“FUCK-FUCK! FUCK!—FUCK!!” Gabe hisses loudly, spinning around, scanning the darkness, his rifle raised and ready, the shadows engulfing him. He can hardly see his hand in front of his face. He has two extra magazines in sheaths on his belt, a Glock tucked against his left pant leg, and a Randall knife thrust down the inside of his right boot. He’s loaded for bear, but right now he
can’t see shit. He smells the thing—that rancid meat and toe-cheese odor—infecting the dark. He hears a crunch and jerks the muzzle toward the sound.
Nothing.
He moves deeper into the alley, the sounds of pandemonium out on the street fading in his ringing ears. His heart bangs in his chest. His mouth goes dry. He swings the gun’s barrel to the right, blinks away the sweat dripping in his eyes, and then swings the muzzle to the left. Where the fuck did that shit-bird go? He plunges deeper into the passageway. The darkness thickens.
A sudden noise to his immediate right straightens his spine—the clatter of a tin can rolling across pavement—and he pulls the trigger. Half a dozen high-velocity slugs trace through the dark like Roman candles, ricocheting off the adjacent brick in a necklace of dust puffs.
Gabe stops and listens, the blasts echoing in his ears. Nothing moves. Nothing makes a sound. Maybe he has the wrong alley. He could have sworn the thing lumbered into this one, but the darkness works on Gabe now, steals his confidence, sends tremors of panic down his bones.
What the fuck?
He approaches the end of the alley, a dead end crowded with garbage Dumpsters and strewn with trash. He reaches for his Zippo with his free hand, his other hand propping the rifle on his ample hip. He can hear the low putter of a generator nearby—probably inside the wall—as he pulls the lighter out and thumbs the little flywheel, sparking a minuscule yellow flame.
The flickering cone of light illuminates a huge figure with milk-glass eyes in a tattered burial coat standing three feet away.
Gabe lets out a yelp and drops the lighter, jerking back and fumbling for the trigger as the biter lunges at him, chewing at the air. Gabe loses his balance. He falls on his ass hard, hitting the pavement with a grunt. The biter pounces—this one hungry and twitchy and full of fight—and Gabe flails impotently at the thing with the short barrel of the rifle, unable to get a good shot.
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