by A. J. Sikes
“I have more in my pack, Sergeant. All from home. I figured they could be useful with the zombies—”
The sergeant busted out laughing but pulled it back in just as fast. He gave Jed a hard stare and jerked his chin up, motioning for Jed to get moving. “Let’s go, Hardcore Jed Welch. You and your sack full of guns. First Sergeant’s tent is that way.”
Jed turned and walked toward the tent across the ball field. He could feel the NCO behind him, and heard the man’s battle rattle shift as he lifted his weapon up to carry it at the ready.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
If it went the way he knew it would, Jed was about to lose his Glock and all his ammo, plus any chance he had of getting away alive. They’d put him back with some fucking Marine unit and he’d be back in the suck like he’d never left. What the fuck was he gonna do?
The tent flap up ahead flicked aside and a man stepped out wearing a clean ACU. Jed looked at the other soldiers he could see and realized they all had brand new gear on. The more he thought about it, the more Jed knew that none of these dudes had seen combat. None of ‘em, except for maybe the NCO behind him. He had an M4. But all the other guys he’d seen were carrying M16s.
They got up to the First Sergeant and the NCO behind Jed told him to stop. Without thinking, Jed felt his arms moving so his hands snapped up at the small of his back. His legs straightened about shoulder-width apart and he stared straight ahead, holding his chin level.
“First Sergeant Oguein,” the NCO said from behind him. “This man here claims to be a Marine, just home from Iraq. Says he was hit, but I don’t—”
“What’s your name, son?” the First Sergeant asked Jed, looking him right in the eye. The man had black eyes, and a thin mustache. He stood a little shorter than Jed and was heavier around the middle.
“Private Welch, First Sergeant,” Jed said. “I was with—”
“You’re with the 401st Civil Affairs now, Private Welch. Sergeant Boon will take you to the Quartermaster for your ACUs and then to the armory for a weapon. You can keep your sidearm. Sergeant Boon, make sure he gets holster for it. We don’t need any AD injuries.”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
Jed felt a hand on his shoulder, prodding him to move. He relaxed his posture and fell into step beside the NCO as they left the First Sergeant’s presence.
“That was good, man. Real good,” Sergeant Boon said.
Jed didn’t want to say anything, but he knew he should. So he grunted the universal term that every Marine knows and says more than a hundred times a day.
“‘Rah, Sergeant.”
“Yeah,” Sergeant Boon said. “Real good.”
Jed could tell the man didn’t like him and didn’t trust him. But who the fuck cared. He wasn’t going back to the suck. He could probably count on getting through this shit okay.
Sergeant Boon led him to a tent on the other side of the ball fields. Trucks and Humvees kept circling around the track and pulling into a formation like they were getting ready to convoy into the neighborhoods.
Inside the Quartermaster’s tent, Sergeant Boon hung off to the side while Jed got his new uniform. The Quartermaster was a short white dude with red peachfuzz on his top lip and more pimples than Jed had ever seen on anyone’s face before. Guy looked like fucking Freddy Krueger. He passed over a pile of clothing and lifted a pair of boots up from a box. The zit-faced guy looked at Jed like he was just some green recruit off the block.
“You a 10 or 10-wide?” he asked, holding out the uniform.
“Yeah,” Jed said, accepting the camouflage pants and shirt. “10-wide.”
“Yeah?” the dude asked, pushing the boots at Jed. “Your recruiter tell you to say that?”
Jed almost shot back at the dude about how fucked up his face was, but then he noticed the two stripes on the guy’s chest tab.
“Yes, Corporal. I mean, no, Corporal,” he said, moving into parade rest again with one arm behind his back and the other tucked against his side holding the uniform. He stood sharp, but not as sharp as when he was talking to the First Sergeant.
“Get dressed, Hardcore Jed Welch,” Sergeant Boon said. “You got one minute.”
Jed mumbled Rah this time, and nodded without looking at Sergeant Boon or Corporal McZits. He dropped his pack and stripped out of his clothes in a hurry, making sure to keep his left side exposed and lifting his arm so he could show off his battle scar to Sergeant Boon.
If the guy saw it, he either wasn’t impressed or decided Jed was all right after all and just didn’t want to say anything. Jed could almost feel the hatred coming off both of them as carefully lifted his Glock out of his waistband and laid it on top of his backpack on the ground. Then he kicked off his work boots, dropped his pants, and slipped into the ACU like it was a second skin.
Sergeant Boon coughed once, but didn’t say anything while Jed finished putting on his clothes. Corporal McZits dropped a full LBE beside Jed’s backpack and went back to getting uniforms and boots stacked up on a set of shelves at the back of the tent. When Jed finished tying on his boots, he picked up the harness and slid into it, clicking the belt clasps and checking the straps to make sure they fit tight enough. Then he came to attention. Sergeant Boon chuckled but gave him a nod that said he felt better about Jed now.
“Let’s go, Welch. Armory time. Bring your gat and the pack.”
Jed bent down and retrieved his Glock. He slung the pack over one shoulder and carried the pistol at his side with his fingers wrapped around the trigger guard.
At the armory tent, Sergeant Boon had Jed sign for an M16A2 and turn in his pack with the other guns. He got a holster and a box of 9mm ammo for the Glock, plus six more boxes for the M16.
“You can load up on the truck, Welch,” Sergeant Boon said. “We move out in fifteen.”
“Sergeant?” Jed asked, feeling less sure than he did before.
“Truck, Welch. The one outside, behind this tent. We have two platoons of National Guard here. They just got home last month. You can share war stories and compare scars.”
Jed didn’t miss the way Sergeant Boon’s mouth went from a frown to a shit-eating grin as he said the last few words. He nodded at Sergeant Boon and waited for the guy to give him the signal to leave. All he got was a wrinkled up sneer.
Outside the armory tent, Jed followed a line of soldiers marching to a truck that had just begun rumbling as the driver turned over the engine. A gust of diesel exhaust hit Jed’s mouth and he coughed, nearly gagging on the stink. He fucking hated military trucks, and the planes. They had to be designed by some motherfucker who got off making dudes sick before they even got in the damn things.
The line of soldiers in front of Jed came to a stop behind the truck. Jed fell in with them, at ease, looking at the line of uniforms like a bunch of trees all standing ready to get chopped down. Jed looked at his own uniform and remembered the money he had stuffed in his pants pocket.
“Fu—”
“Shut it down, Private,” the man next to him said. He was a black guy, and younger than Jed by maybe a few years. He had corporal stripes on his uniform, though, and he looked hard. Jed knew some rough dudes growing up, but this guy looked like a piece of steel got shoved up his ass and all it did was make him want more.
An NCO came up from around the truck and called them to attention. An LT showed up on the heels of the NCO. The officer gave his name, but Jed wasn’t listening. He couldn’t pay attention to anything the dude said because the shrieks and screams out in the neighborhoods started up right as the LT opened his mouth. Jed caught something about 57th Avenue, and Queens Boulevard.
Then it was everybody jumping through his own asshole, climbing into the truck. Someone yelled about having weapons up and out at the ready. Jed stuck his M16 over the side of the truck and scanned the area around them. All he could see were more trucks and soldiers running all over the fucking place. He heard screams and shouts echoing around the ball fields. Jed could swear he heard a Ma de
uce busting out rounds from the other side of the fields.
The truck moved and lurched, making Jed sway. He’d knelt on the bench with one knee and kept the other foot on the truck bed behind him for support. The corporal was to Jed’s left and gave him a look. Jed ignored it and went back to looking out for the enemy. Whoever or whatever was out there, he had a real weapon now. It was shaking in his hands, and he tried to hide it so the other dudes wouldn’t see. He closed his eyes for a second and thought about Iraq, and the only patrol he’d ever done. His eyes snapped open and he knew he’d make it out of this okay. He held the rifle like it was the only thing keeping him alive, because that’s exactly what it was.
He’d make it out okay. He’d get back, even if some of these other dudes didn’t, and even if he had to take one or two of them out, like Chips’ brothers and their uncle. That’s what Jed would do to save his own skin, and that’s what he would always do.
Jed was gonna make it.
Upper East Side, Manhattan
Meg wrenched the axe out of the monster’s back and turned just in time to swing at another one. She didn’t recognize who it had been before, so it hurt only a little less when the axe head sank into the man’s chest. Meg searched the street for more of the monsters, but she didn’t see any. She heard them, though, and the screams they caused as they tore through storefronts and apartments nearby.
Eric was shouting at her to come back. Meg spared one last look at the dying city around her before she joined the line of survivors going into the house. She wiped at the blood and gore that coated her jacket front and went to brush her face shield when her hand stopped in mid air.
What if I’m infected?
“Eric!” she screamed at him as the last of the survivors, the only man left in the group, made it to the door. But Eric was already back inside somewhere, out of earshot. The male survivor was at the door, holding it open for Meg. The broken window in the door looked like an angry mouth full of jagged teeth ready to rip her skin to shreds.
“Are you coming?” the man asked her. He had dirt on his face, covering one side of his forehead and one cheek.
“Is that—” Meg started to ask, just as the man shook and his hands began to clutch at the air. His mouth opened and he let out a howl of pain as he fell to his knees and spasmed on the pavement. His arms and legs flailed and his screams forced an echo of terror into Meg’s ears. Still she ran toward him.
“Help me! I can’t see them! They’re everywhere! Help!”
Meg sank her axe into his skull, hearing the fatal crack of bone and feeling the blade crush through to the pavement. The man’s body twitched and went still.
Meg pulled her axe free and used the handle to push her face shield up. She spit to the side, over and over again, fearing she’d got even a drop of infected blood into her mouth somehow. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d swallowed some and would become a monster herself at any moment.
“Meg?” Rex said from the doorway. “Are you hurt? Did he bite you?”
Staring at Rex, Meg waited. She breathed deep and listened to her heart beat, the blood rushing in her ears, and the sounds of violence cascading around the city in every direction.
You’re okay. You’re good.
She knew she was okay. It was just her involuntary reflex.
Contaminated bodily fluids. You’re fine. You’re covered up.
“I’m fine, Rex,” she said, dropping her shield into place and stepping forward. Rex left the doorway so she could come into the house.
Rex had gone back to the app floor where Eric was setting up the survivors on the cots.
“Eric,” Meg said. “We need to wash out the chief’s office.”
He nodded and brought the hose over. While Meg held the broken door open, Eric sent a torrent of water into the office space, pushing as much blood and mess as he could out into the street. Papers and pens, the phone, the chief’s mug. All of it went out into the street.
It wasn’t anything close to real decontamination, but it would have to do. As a last step, Meg braced herself in the doorway while Eric sprayed her down, cleaning off the spatters of blood that decorated her jacket, trousers, and boots.
Back inside, Rex and Eric performed a quick triage of the survivors, sending anyone with blood on their clothing anywhere to join Meg.
To the survivors, Meg said, “We need to shower. Get cleaned off. If you were outside, and you’re not hurt, come with me. We need to decontaminate ourselves.”
She shivered when she thought about the stinging sensation that would come from using the disinfecting soaps they had, but it was necessary. Even one droplet of infected blood in the wrong place could mean disaster for everyone.
Nothing’s going to slow you down, Meg. Nothing at all.
Rex finished shoving the dirty lockers in front of the doorway to the chief’s office while a line of five women and four children joined Meg at the stairs. The others, close to a dozen women of all ages and colors, huddled together at the back of the floor. Only one woman wearing a headscarf stayed near the cots, holding her baby close to her body. Meg could tell the woman was uncomfortable about the situation. Eric seemed to sense it, and with the firehose in his hands again, he approached the woman, staying a few steps back.
“Ma’am? Have you or your child come into contact with anybody who was infected? Have you touched—”
“Yes,” the woman almost shouted in reply before she broke into sobs.
“Ma’am, did—Was it someone who was infected? Did you get any blood on you?”
“No. But my husband was dead. I—I touched him,” the woman said, turning tear-stained eyes to Eric, then looking directly at Meg, as if she believed Meg could somehow help her. “I knew I should not, but—There is nowhere I can go to purify my body.”
Meg felt her heart clench inside. Tim had given up most of his traditional beliefs before they met, but he was just as obsessive about keeping clean as Meg was.
And he still performed a ritual bath after—
Thoughts of their life together ruined any chance Meg had of keeping her own calm. She felt the tears flowing down her cheeks as she watched the Muslim woman struggling with her own suffering.
“We have two showers upstairs,” Meg said. Then, to Eric and Rex, she asked, “Have any of the guys used it yet?”
Both men shook their heads, and Meg nodded her thanks before she turned to the Muslim woman again.
“I cleaned the engineer’s bathroom at the end of my last shift, and nobody’s used it since. It’s the best we can do for a woman’s bathroom, and I’m the only woman on the crew.”
The Muslim woman didn’t seem to understand what Meg meant, so she continued.
“You can use it first, and by yourself. The rest of us will take turns in the common shower until you’re done. I know it’s not perfect, but will that work?”
The woman nodded and almost broke a smile across her mouth. She wiped at her tears and held her baby to her. The infant stirred and let out a meek cry.
“She is hungry,” the woman said, and a new look of discomfort fell across her face.
“You can use the engineer’s room for that, too. It has a door that locks.”
Rex had come to stand near Meg. He seemed unhappy they were paying so much attention to the Muslim woman, but he didn’t say anything. The other survivors were all too shocked to do anything but stand there huddled together, so Meg turned to go up the stairs, motioning for them to follow.
“Eric and me will keep an eye out,” Rex said, his voice echoing up behind Meg as she climbed the stairs.
The shower turned out better than Meg thought it would. The soap stung, and the sponge she used to wash herself was about as soft as a handful of dry sand. But it’s what they had available, and at the end of it she was clean and felt safe from any contamination.
She’d broken out a supply of sponges and given one to each of the survivors. Mothers had to share with their children so they’d have enough
, and that mostly went over okay. Only one person grumbled about the Muslim girl getting her own sponge, and one for her baby, and a shower all to herself. Meg wanted to say something, but knew better. Tension was high enough already, and xenophobia would become a problem no matter what Meg had to say. She could either come down hard on these people or let them learn the lesson on their own.
Better that we all learn to swallow our pride in our own way. We’ll survive by sticking together.
With each of them showered, and Meg in her full turnout gear again, they gathered on the app floor to settle in and talk about their plans for the coming night.
Sunnyside, Queens
The corporal next to Jed scanned the rooftops as they moved down Queens Boulevard. They’d just crossed the intersection with Grand Avenue and Broadway when Jed caught movement in an empty lot at the corner. A flash of something small and white near the fence surrounding the lot. Construction cranes sat there, empty and dead, but in weird positions, like they’d been left in a rush. A Bobcat was jammed up next to the fence. Its little loader bucket was raised all the way, like somebody had used it to jump out of the lot.
That’s where Jed thought he’d seen movement, right by the Bobcat. Another flash of white caught his eye. But then they were past the lot and moving deeper into Elmhurst.
Just a cat, or a raccoon or some shit.
The convoy rolled on, but would slow sometimes at intersections, and a metal screeching would echo down the street. The first time it happened, Jed couldn’t figure it out until his truck moved through the intersection. The wrecked cars that had blocked the road sat in heaps, tangled up and smashed together. The lead truck had pushed them out of the way. It wasn’t like that at every corner, but it happened often enough that Jed worried they’d get ambushed by the monsters. But the city was really quiet. Like, he’d never seen New York so quiet, not even on a Sunday morning when everyone was supposed to be in church. Still had the bums and crackheads staggering around the ‘hood at least.
But now, it was like the city was dead already. Nothing but a stray cat darting under a bush to hide, and wrecked cars here and there. He glimpsed another flash of white up high on an apartment and Jed felt his finger curl around the trigger. He lifted his muzzle and scanned the buildings nearby. A boy peeked from behind a curtain in a second story apartment window. The kid waved at Jed.
