by Z. A. Recht
Her mouth felt dry, and she realized she’d been panting again. BL4 worried her. It wasn’t enough that there were millions of corpses topside, was it? No, they had to have the bug in here, with them.
She passed through the security point and stepped into the prep room, pushing the cart ahead of her. Down here, away from the eyes of others, sometimes she liked to just shout and get it out of her system.
Rebecca wasn’t the only occupant of the room, however. Across the small space, resting on a bench, sat Dr. Anna Demilio, tugging off stubborn woolen socks as she prepared to enter BL4. Her figure struck Rebecca as odd for a moment, and then she placed the irregularity—Dr. Demilio was humming to herself, a wisp of a smile on her lips.
“You’ve heard about Stiles?” Rebecca asked.
Anna nodded and smiled.
“He’s been bitten twice and hasn’t turned.”
Anna’s smile widened. “Frank filled me in after we patched up Harris. Do you have any idea how important this is?” Anna’s voice was becoming animated. “It’s a quantum leap forward. I was expecting years of work. With a little luck, I can have it down to months, or even weeks! We can stop this thing!”
Rebecca agreed wholeheartedly. “What do we do?” she asked.
“Well, I’ll need to get a mess of Morningstar samples set up for us to use in the tests, first. Don’t worry about that—I can handle it. You can take care of the other samples I’ll need.”
“Just tell me what you need me to do.”
Anna considered it a moment, then shrugged. “You know how to use a needle, right?”
Rebecca smirked. “You know I do, Doc.”
“Then go get me some blood samples from Stiles. But be careful,” warned Anna. “Even if he’s immune, he could still be contagious.”
“I just ran into him upstairs.”
“Then you should know where to find him,” said Anna. She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on, now. This is important. The faster we get this done, the faster we can move forward.”
“Okay! Okay! I’m doing it! Where do you want the cart?” Rebecca asked, as an afterthought.
“Oh, just leave it here. I’ll bring it into the lab when I’m ready.” Dr. Demilio had slipped into a Chemturion suit and was busily duct-taping the seals around her wrists and ankles.
“If you need me,” said Rebecca, retreating toward the exit, “I’ll be stabbing Stiles.”
“Be gentle.”
Rebecca wheeled a tray into the BL1 laboratory, now home to two patients. Gregory Mason still had his head buried in his paperback, and Commander Harris was sleeping. Mark Stiles was there, looking in on Harris.
The two occupants of the room seemed to pay them little mind. Rebecca Hall was busy focusing on preparing to draw blood from Mark Stiles, and Mark Stiles was busy focusing on Rebecca.
“You know,” said Stiles, leaning against an examination table as Rebecca, dressed in a thin white lab technician’s coat, inspected a hypodermic needle, “after that shambler got me in Hyattsburg I could barely walk—”
“I need some of your blood,” Rebecca said.
“What?”
“I need. Some. Of your. Blood. For the Doc.”
Rolling his eyes, Stiles folded back his sleeve. “The bite. It’s like a burn, you know? A never-ending throbbing? I could barely stay on my feet. And then you showed up with that morphine, and suddenly I could run again.”
“And then you drew off the infected and saved the rest of our lives. I’d say that makes us pretty even,” murmured Rebecca, flicking the needle with her index finger.
“If it wasn’t for you I couldn’t have done any of that.”
Rebecca shook her head. “I’ve done just as much bad as I have good since this whole thing started. Just—please—drop it with the score-keeping. We’re all damned for what we’ve had to do.”
Stiles, preoccupied, didn’t notice the needle descending toward his arm.
“Ow!” he cried, jumping a bit in his seat.
“Oh, don’t be a girl,” drawled Rebecca. “There. Let this pump out, and we’ll be all finished. This blood sample should give Anna something to work on for a while. Who knows? Maybe the secret to the vaccine is right here in this vial.”
“With a little luck,” said Stiles.
He took the hint, sitting quietly while the tube filled.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s enough for now.”
“Beautiful,” Stiles said, unrolling his sleeve. “Do you think we could—”
“I’m going to get this to Anna. Everyone else is either lounging around or out in the courtyard. Maybe you should join them.” Rebecca, sample in hand, made a beeline for the door.
“Wait!” protested Stiles. Rebecca Hall stopped slowly, and cast a glance over her shoulder.
It took a moment for the right words to come to Stiles. “Look, uh, I know you think we’re square, but you gave me a fighting chance. You saved my life, right? If I couldn’t run, I wouldn’t have gotten away with just the one bite. Look—I don’t care if you want to push me away or brush me off or whatever it is you’re trying to do, but I just want you to know one thing—one of these days, I’m going to repay the favor. Really.”
Rebecca seemed to consider this for a long moment. Finally, she gave a curt nod. “Thanks, Mark.”
With that, she disappeared through BL1’s swinging doors.
Stiles sat a moment in the examination room, alone, his face a mask. After a moment, he broke into a wistful smile.
“Hey, she called me Mark.”
Across the room, Agent Gregory Mason dropped the novel he’d been reading to his chest and turned his head to look at the soldier, smirking. “I’d call that a good start.”
Omaha, NE
30 June 2007
1815 hrs_
WELL BEFORE NIGHTFALL, THE various groups had reassembled at the front of the Fac.
Brewster was the first to approach the bulging packs, and leaned heavily on the door.
A long moment of silence passed.
From the couch, Juni’s lilting voice drifted to his ears in a singsong manner. “That wasn’t what you were supposed to bring back.”
Brewster looked up at her, the happy smile still on his face, but now a little tired. “Better than dog food, isn’t it?”
“You got me there, GI.”
Brewster’s eyes adjusted to the low light, and he took in Juni, an impish look on her delicate features.
“You’re such a smart-ass. We’re not GIs anymore. Does stubbornness run in your family, or something?”
“Does it run in yours?”
Brewster looked uneasy for a moment, but quickly scoffed. “No.”
“Bet it does.”
“Doesn’t.”
“Does too.”
“All right, all right, all right. Kids,” muttered Sherman, rubbing at his temples as he walked up. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
The survivors in the Fac were less interested in the freshly foraged supplies the two groups had brought back than they were in the new faces.
While Jack the Welder and Junko Koji sorted canned goods in the makeshift kitchen-slash-break room with Stiles and Juni, Allen found himself peppered with questions about his cross-country trip. He was happy to answer.
Jack the Welder was giving Hal Dorne a tour of the grounds. So far, the retired Army tank mechanic had spotted several projects that needed tending to, from loose gaps in the perimeter to easy ways to bolster their defenses.
“I originally joined the Army to pay the bills,” Hal explained, “but I like building things from scratch for the hell of it. I’d’ve done it for free if it came to that. Now, for example, about a block away, I see a radio tower.” Hal pointed off in the distance, where a solitary metal structure stood. “We could use that. The whole way here, I was broadcasting a signal; who we were, where we were going. Never heard anything back.”
“Well, sure, if you could get it running. We couldn’t. And
we tried. And even if you did get it to work,” Jack asked, “who are you going to talk to?”
Hal shrugged. “You never know. Could be a town in range with a working receiver. Or maybe one of our surviving sailors. Shortwave will go goddamn everywhere with an antenna and radio station power source.”
“Knock yourself out.”
Hal grinned at Jack. “I believe I will.”
The door to the Fac swung open and Francis Sherman scuffed dirt as he made his way across the courtyard to where the two men stood. “I take it Jack’s giving you the grand tour?”
Hal chuckled. “It ain’t the Plaza, Frank, but she’ll do in a pinch. I was just talking about trying to get that radio tower up and running again.”
“It’s shot,” said Sherman with a shake of his head. “We already tried.”
“That’s what Jack told me. Let me try my hand at it. I think I can coax a little power out of her.”
“If anyone can,” said Sherman, “it would be you. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh, right,” said Hal, throwing his arms in the air. “You’re a general. Looking to get in a debriefing, aren’t you?”
Sherman grinned. “You’ve got me.”
“You brass are all predictable. All right, so—got an office to talk in?”
“Actually,” said Sherman, tilting his head back toward the sun, “I figured we’d walk the perimeter and chat. Jack, you’re welcome to join us, if you wish.”
Jack waved them off. “I promised Mitsui I’d help him get dinner ready.”
“Is it your shift?”
“No, but it never hurts to be nice, right?” chuckled Jack, making his way toward the Fac’s back door.
“Hey! Wait a second!” Hal called out.
Jack stopped and turned.
“Never caught your last name, Jack!” said Hal.
Jack turned slowly, and grinned. “I’m just a welder, Hal. Just a welder.”
A moment later, the contractor vanished into the Fac, the heavy door swinging shut behind him. Sherman laughed, and Hal shot him a curious glance.
“What’s so funny?”
“He hasn’t told anyone his last name. There’s an unofficial pool going. Some of us think he’s on the lam—or was, before the law went out the window with everything else—and some others think it must be a terrible name, for him to keep it secret.”
“I guess it’s his business,” shrugged Hal.
“Well,” said Sherman, “shall we walk?”
“Sure,” said Hal, following alongside Frank. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask, you guys got anything for a fellow to drink around here? I’m sure Allen would love a snort, too.”
Sherman made a so-so motion with his hand. “Trevor knows how to rig up a still. He’s got it up on the roof. Can’t say I can stomach the stuff myself, but for a vet like you, it’d probably go down smooth enough.”
“Remind me to badger him for a cup, later.”
“It’s a multipurpose brew,” Sherman said. “You can drink it. You can also use it to strip rust off a bumper.”
Hal laughed. “That’s what I like to hear. Finest kind.”
The pair was walking along the edge of the chain-link fence that kept the Fac’s backyard safe from intruding infected. Sherman stopped at each post to check that the mesh was securely bolted, and hadn’t worked its way loose over the weeks.
“So, tell me about your little cross-country trek,” Sherman said as he gave one of the posts an experimental kick. It held firm. “Somehow you made it from the islands all the way to the mainland. What happened? You get tired of retirement?”
“Don’t get me started on that,” Hal said, scowling. “They kicked me out when I spoke up for the sailors.”
“The sailors from the Ramage?”
“Of course. What, do you think any other ship would just come stumbling into that little atoll in the middle of nowhere? You’d have to get a local topo map to even see it. As far as the world is concerned, my island doesn’t exist. Or, my ex-island, anyway.”
“So they came back. Captain Franklin and his crew, I mean.”
Hal nodded. “They had nowhere else to go. I wanted them to come live on the island, but the LIPs weren’t too hot on the idea.” Hal slipped back into Army lingo for native individuals—Local Indigenous Personnel. “They have their own idea of quarantine, you know. And it’s a pretty good one. Just cut off everything, and hope the plague misses you. It works, too. Never saw a single infected while I was there. My neighbors didn’t want the sailors around. Thought they’d bring Morningstar in with them, even though I told them the ship was clean.”
“And so one thing led to another . . .” began Sherman.
“. . . and suddenly I find myself being driven out of town with pitchforks and torches. Figuratively speaking. It was more like spears and bows.” Hal appeared thoughtful for a moment. “And one 1911. Still not sure where that guy got a hold of a .45.” He shrugged. “C’est la vie. Right?”
“I’m sorry. About your retirement, I mean. I know it meant a lot to you, living out there.”
Hal shrugged. “I got over it. Mostly. What’s that they used to say in the Army, about getting used to new circumstances?”
“‘Adapt and overcome,’” said Sherman, by rote. “Many of us live by it. Ask Thomas, if you’re really curious. He follows doctrine like an evangelist follows the Holy Bible.”
Hal nodded. “That’s it.”
“Then what happened?”
The pair had worked their way halfway across the fenced-in yard and stood under the shadow of a rusting grain lift. The lift was one of Krueger’s favorite places. He would climb the ladder on the side with his rifle over his shoulder and a book taken from one of the many abandoned stores and relax atop the structure, ready to give covering fire in any direction. The sharpshooter would even sleep up there from time to time, weather permitting.
Hal continued his story. “Well, the crew was getting restless. A lot of infighting. They couldn’t last much longer cooped up. Franklin brought us back to the coast and told us all to abandon ship.”
“Franklin didn’t survive the trip here, then?” asked Sherman, a pained expression on his face.
Hal rushed to reassure him. “Oh, no. As far as I know, he’s still sitting comfortably on the Ramage. She’s anchored right off the coast of Washington. There’s still one or two missiles on that destroyer. Maybe he didn’t want to leave them unattended.”
“Or maybe he just wanted to stay with his ship.”
Hal shrugged. “Maybe that. The quintessential captain: staying with his ship until the very end.”
A shrill whistle cut through the air. Sherman and Hal’s heads shot up. Denton, having taken over as roof guard while Mitsui and Jack prepared chow, was leaning over the edge, pointing excitedly into the distance behind the pair of old veterans. His voice rang out over the courtyard, tense and animated.
“Here they come!” Denton warned. “Two of them! Shamblers! Coming up as fast as they can manage! Should I sound the alarm?” Denton was referring to the building’s fire alarms. They’d deactivated the water from the sprinklers, but the sirens and lights worked fine. The little setup let everyone in the building know when trouble was afoot, and would summon every survivor to their battle stations.
“No, hold the alarm,” said Sherman, waving Denton off. “We can handle two shamblers ourselves. Well, Hal,” Sherman muttered, “welcome to your first defensive action at the Fac.”
Hal reached for his sidearm, but felt Sherman’s hand clasp over his before he could pull the weapon free from its holster.
“No,” Sherman said. “We don’t shoot unless we need to. We’ve got a different way to deal with the shamblers. See those tamp bars leaning up against the Fac, there?”
Hal looked. Among the overgrown grass lining the brick building was a pair of tamping bars. Normally, they were simple digging tools, but thanks to a grinder the survivors had found in the abandoned
industrial complex behind the Fac, they’d narrowed down the wedge ends of the tools to sharp points. The bars were heavy and unwieldy, but, then, they weren’t forged for pitched battles. Despite this, the survivors had found a creative use for the six-foot lengths of steel.
“Yeah, I see them,” said Hal.
“Grab one,” Sherman said, striding off in the direction of the tools.
Above, Denton watched their progress and called down from the rooftop: “Need any help?”
“No,” said Sherman, “we’ll take these two. Who’s on shit detail?”
Sherman rarely swore, but he’d adopted the lingo of his men—“shit detail” was what the survivors had taken to calling corpse disposal.
“Uh, Brewster is, I think,” said Denton, after a moment’s thought. He was distracted by the approaching shamblers.
“Who else?”
Denton shrugged. “Just Brewster.”
“Wonder what he did to deserve that?” murmured Sherman, raising his eyebrows. He pushed one of the modified tamp bars in Hal’s direction. He raised his voice to shout up at Denton. “Grab Krueger! Have him give Brewster a hand once we finish these two off. Make sure they burn the bodies down to ash. Tell him to be more thorough this time. Last time he left half a shambler in the trench!”
“Will do, Frank.”
“The spare diesel cans are in the back of the utility truck,” Sherman added. “Tell him to be generous. The last thing we need is for all of us to get sick from one of those bodies lying out in the sun too long.”
The shamblers, meanwhile, had crossed most of the distance to the fence. Spying live prey, they had picked up their pace, managing a quick walk. They were nearly on the perimeter. Hal felt a shudder run down his spine at their moans.
“All right,” said Sherman, grunting slightly as he hefted the tamp bar on his shoulder. “It’s as easy as this. Watch and learn.”
The first shambler, missing a cheek and three of the fingers on its right hand, stumbled up against the fence, pressing its face against the links.
