by Ben S Reeder
“Next group should be here in half an hour or so,” he said. “I hate to do this, but I need to ask you to disarm.”
“Can I keep my knife at least?” I asked as I handed him the M4 and undid my vest. He shook his head. I unbuckled the tactical holster from my left leg and undid the belt with my knives and holster. Finally, feeling like a testosterone-dripping hero from an 80’s action flick, I unslung the Deuce and handed it over. I felt naked. Lighter, too, but mostly naked. The autumn air was cool against my skin, my t-shirt damp with sweat. Willie handed my gear off to one of his squad before he turned to Amy.
“You, too,” he said. She handed him her Ruger, then repeated the process of pulling off her vest and holster to hand over to him. “Damn you’re as bad as he is,” he laughed as he looked over the two pistols and the knife she carried on her vest.
“What can I say? I know how to accessorize,” Amy said. “I get it from my mom.”
“Go grab a blanket before you end up with hypothermia or something stupid like that,” he laughed before he turned and headed for the building that made up on side of the compound. “Someone will be here all the time, and you’ll get your stuff back whether you stay or not.” The door opened and he disappeared inside. Amy and I headed for the pile of blankets. Most of them were your average department store quilts, and Beth had already sorted through them to grab a very thick looking one.
“Figures she’d grab the best one for herself,” Amy grumbled. I squatted down and started looking through the pile.
“She grabbed the heaviest looking one,” I said while I pulled a pair of wool blankets from the assortment. “She didn’t necessarily grab the best one.” I tossed her the thicker olive drab blanket and held on to the navy blue one. “Wool will keep you warm even when it gets wet.”
“And the lanolin in it helps repel water,” Amy said. “It’s a textile. Mom told me about it when she made those cool hand warmers a couple of years ago.” I nodded to concede the obvious. It only made sense that Maya had taught her about something to do with anything fiber or cloth. We headed for the corner made by the two walls of the half shed. In the daylight, I could see that some of the soft edges of Amy’s features had been chiseled down to leaner lines, leaving a much more mature looking young woman in the place of the girl we’d picked up four days ago. I looked down at myself. The bulge that had started to creep around my middle was mostly gone, and I could see a little more definition in my arms. Minus three days’ worth of sweat, grime, and blood that covered me, I was starting to look a little like I had while I was in Iraq. It was amazing how fit five days of alternately running from and killing zombies had made me. With nothing but hours of waiting ahead of me, I found myself reverting to old habits. I had free time and very little to do, so I laid my blanket down and racked out.
I awoke to raised voices and flickering light. Slowly, I sat up, once again feeling the ache from the mass of bruises across my chest and back. Amy turned to me when I groaned.
“Beth’s at it again,” she said. “Now she’s demanding food, because water just isn’t enough. And she wants to know why there’s a quarantine in the first place, it’s not like we’re from some foreign country, blah, blah, blah.” Her impression of Beth’s voice made me laugh for a moment, but the pain that caused killed the humor. Another groan escaped me as I got to my feet and made my way to the edge of the shelter. Four kerosene lanterns were placed at the corners, giving us enough light to see by, but not making us a beacon for the undead. Beth seemed determined to remedy that all by herself as she stood facing the building on the far side of the enclosure. A couple of figures were barely visible on the roof. As I watched, they moved toward each other, and I headed for Beth.
“You can’t starve us like this!” she was saying. “This is inhumane and cruel. If I get my hands on you, I’m going to rip your throat out for treating me like this.” Ruth was beside her, looking concerned and a little indecisive. As soon as I came close, she left Beth’s side and came to me.
“Mr. Stewart, thank God you’re here. Beth’s getting worse. She tried to hit Corporal Hernandez a few minutes ago, and the lieutenant is having to keep her from doing serious damage to Miss Simmons. I have an idea, but I need your help.” I looked to Beth, who had started pacing and muttering to herself.
“At this point I’m with Hernandez,” I said.
“No, we don’t want her to become any more aggressive. Please, follow my lead in this. More than one life depends on this.” My jaw clenched, but I nodded. I didn’t understand why this was so important, but Ruth knew what she was doing. I just hated coming into things blind.
“Mr….er, Willie,” Ruth called out. One of the figures on the roof approached the edge. “Miss Simmons is hypoglycemic. She needs food, or she’ll slip into a state of shock and could die if her condition is left untreated.” She turned to me, her eyes pleading. Reluctantly, I stepped up beside her.
“She’s right, Willie,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “I’ve seen her get like this before. A little food gets her back on an even keel and calms her down.”
“It doesn’t take much, just a snack and maybe some pop,” Ruth added. “We brought some with us, in the blue plastic case.”
“You should have told us about a medical condition earlier,” he said, his voice reflecting real concern. “We’ll get it for you. Wait by the window.” Moments later, a bag of corn chips and a can of Pepsi were being handed through the open window to Ruth. She handed it to Beth, and she tore the bag open and started shoving the chips into her mouth frantically. She upended the bag to get the last crumbs from it and clawed the can open, then chugged it in seconds. For a few moments, she just stood there, her eyes closed, her breath coming in long, slow inhalations. She looked almost pleasant. Then her eyes opened again, and the hard look from moments before settled onto her features again.
“More,” she panted. “I’m still hungry. Give me more!” Her voice rose to a shout on the last word.
“Oh, no,” Ruth whispered from beside me. “Dear God, what have I done?”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
“I thought the food would calm her down like it did last night. But it’s made her worse.” She turned to me with wide, glistening eyes that were brimming with unshed tears. “I just killed us all.”
“You!” Beth screamed. I turned to see her stalking toward me. “You did this! You’re the one who fucked it all up!” She covered the last few steps at a run and launched herself at me. Things seemed to slow down to stop frames, and I got my hands up to catch her, then pushed her to one side with a twisting motion of my body. The impact still knocked me to the ground, but at least Beth didn’t land on top of me. I came to my feet as she rolled to stop a few feet away. There was nothing graceful or even human about the way she sprang to her feet in an explosion of movement, and her body seemed to jerk wildly as she sprinted at me. This time, I didn’t try to deflect her. I braced my feet and waited for her to come to me, and thrust my hands out at the last second to catch her in the chest with a vicious straight armed blow. The shock felt like I’d run at a brick wall, but it also knocked her back a few steps.
That bought me only a split second’s reprieve before she launched herself at me again. I caught her again, this time having to give her a step as I held her at arm’s length. She reached for me, not even bothering to claw at my arms. Her fingers groped at my face instead, her lips peeled back to reveal teeth. I resisted the urge to bite her hands as one part of my brain processed a hundred different ways to hurt her and another, more civilized part tried to tell me not to do any of them. It took me a split second to realize that the barbaric voice in my head didn’t see her as human any more, and that sent my civilized aspect fleeing in terror at what that meant.
Beth was infected.
Thought became action before I’d even finished telling myself what to do. I grabbed her left wrist with my right hand and twisted outside of her grip, using my forearm against hers
to leverage her away from me so I could grab her with my other hand and continue the movement into a spin. Centrifugal force pushed her even farther away, and all she could do was try to keep her feet. I took her through a complete revolution before I hopped to my left and slammed her against the building at a full run. Flesh hit brick with a meaty smack that rattled the window and door in their frames. She bounced off the wall and staggered for a couple of steps before she fell.
“Run!” I yelled at Ruth as I moved to put myself between Beth and the rest of the group in the enclosure with me. “Willie, give me a knife, anything!”
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked from the roof.
“She’s infected!” I yelled as she got to her feet, this time much slower. When she regained her feet, she raised her head to look at me, and I could see the black veins on the lit side of her neck and face. When her head was up far enough, I could see the black lines creep across the white of one eye. Blood ran in dark streams from her nose and mouth as she tilted her head from side to side and studied me.
When she moved, it was almost too fast for me to register, and I found myself on my back. Hot lines of pain laced down my back as I struggled to keep my hands between us and keep her jagged, broken teeth away from my neck. I had leverage on my side, and I finally got a good grip on her shoulders and pushed up. The move bought me all of a heartbeat worth of respite. The thing that used to be Beth grabbed my shoulders and started to pull herself back toward me. Her hands felt like steel vices on my shoulders, and I felt my arms slowly start to give way. I might have been in a little better shape, but she didn’t seem concerned about whether or not she hurt herself in her attempt to tear my throat out. When she was only a couple of inches away from me, I slammed my forehead into her nose, and she recoiled back. Her grip slipped enough that I could push her to one side and roll to the other. I came to my feet and turned to face her just in time to catch her shoulders as she slammed into me. My back hit the wall, and I ended up with my hands against her chest as she flailed at me. Her hand finally closed on my arm and I cried out as her bruising grip tightened around my biceps.
Her mouth inched closer and closer, and her other hand closed on the other arm. Then, she let out a little gasp and looked up at me. A moment later, she twitched and gasped again, her body jerking spasmodically for a few moments. Frothy blood bubbled from between her lips, then she slowly slid to one side to reveal Amy standing behind her with a bloody ZT Spike in her hand. Her lips were peeled back to reveal her teeth, and her jaw throbbed as she stood over Beth’s twitching body.
“Rule eight,” she growled as she held the blade up. Below us, zombie Beth started to stir. Amy crouched down and reversed her grip on the Spike, then drove into the top of Beth’s skull. The very dead body flopped back to the ground like a puppet with the strings cut, and Amy left the blade sticking out of its cranium.
“I’ve got your back,” Amy said.
“Thanks,” I told her. The door into the building burst open and three men in armor came out. Each was carrying a pump shotgun and held it with the barrel not quite not pointing at anyone.
“Everyone stand back!” the first man said. Hernandez and Kaplan were at the front of the group that had gathered, but everyone else fell back at the command. Amy and I stepped away from zombie Beth’s body as Willie came out the door. He made a beeline to Beth and squatted next to her limp form. After a moment, he pulled the Spike out and turned her over to reveal several stab wounds in her back, most of them so close together I couldn’t tell how many there actually were.
“Looks like you forgot to give us this. Did she get you?” he asked as he wiped the blade off on her skirt. I shook my head. “Did you know she’d been bitten?” I could tell by the flat tone to his voice he was trying to decide if he could still trust us. I couldn’t blame him.
“I’m pretty sure she hasn’t been,” I said. “The Prophet checks his people over pretty thoroughly, and she hadn’t had contact with any infected since we rescued her.”
“There’s only one way to turn,” Willie said as he stood to face me.
“Actually,” Ruth said as she stepped forward with her hands clasped together. “There might be another way.” All eyes turned to her.
“Talk fast,” Willie said.
Chapter 10
Clues
~ Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil ~
Lord Byron
We ended up in the auto body shop next to the fenced in enclosure. Ruth, Amy, and I stood on one side of an eight foot tall plywood barrier, and Willie and seven other people were on the other side, looking down at us. Five of the other people were armored like Willie, but the other two were unarmored.
“Maybe y’all had better explain this again,” the black man in a brown work jacket said slowly. His accent was pure Missouri. His lean face and graying hair and moustache made him look immediately trustworthy to me, but there was no mistaking the strength in the hands he laid on the plywood barrier. He wore a pistol in a Sam Browne belt on his waist and I could see the barrel of an assault rifle poking over the top of the barrier. The triangular front sight and the height of it made me think it was a member of the M16 family.
“And this time, perhaps with less…jargon. In terms the layman might grasp,” the woman beside him said. Her tones were clipped, precise, just like the navy blue jacket she wore zipped up to the neck, though I couldn’t place her accent. I would have said European, but there was another influence I couldn’t place. Her unruly curls were graying in front, but dark in back. A boxy looking little assault rifle was slung across her shoulders, and she moved like she was comfortable wearing it.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Ruth said. “I’ve been working on finding a cure for this for days, and I forget that not everyone has a doctorate in microbiology. In less technical terms, the Asura virus seems to suppress the body’s ability to uptake serotonin and melatonin, among other things. It keeps you from feeling full, content, or drowsy. Someone infected with it will gradually become psychotic and, we believe, cannibalistic in order to fulfill their body’s need for these basic things. A few years ago, my division was tasked with finding more efficient ways for the body to uptake those same hormones. It came down to a few basic things. Corn, rice and other commercially grown cereals provide the bulk of the average person’s melatonin intake. We proposed a series of genetically modified crops that would provide a form of melatonin and serotonin that was…easier for the body to absorb. People would naturally feel more content after eating products made with those strains.”
“How does this explain that woman turning up infected out there without being bitten?” the man asked.
“On its own, it doesn’t. I originally thought that introducing foods with the enhanced hormones would suppress the reaction. See, the Asura virus makes people more and more aggressive until they turn violent. Miss Simmons had been exhibiting increasing aggression over the past couple of days, but it always seemed to abate right after she had eaten.”
“Except for tonight,” I said. Willie nodded in agreement. As skeptical as I sounded, it still explained the vast difference in her behavior last night.
“I can’t explain that, except to say that something must have changed, and that the foods no longer had enough of an impact to stop the virus from going active. That is precisely my point, though. Beth Simmons had to have been infected for days without entering stage one. That alone means that the virus is not contagious solely through contact with one of the infected, though we also know it isn’t airborne, either. It also means that something in her diet was suppressing the virus, and I think it was the enhanced melatonin and serotonin found in her food.” That caused a lot of concerned looks to pass back and forth on the other side of the barrier.
“Are you telling me that anyone who gets too hungry could turn zombie on us?” the man said.
“That would be a rather broad statement. It does mean that many people who turned at first
may have already been exposed to the virus. Beyond that, I don’t know. We may only see isolated incidents like we saw tonight, or we could have a second wave of infection that further decimates the population. All I’m saying is that this means it is possible for someone to turn, as you say, without being bitten. It also means that something has suppressed or delayed it for days after the initial outbreak. With a little time, I might be able to isolate that delaying agent, and maybe even create, if not a cure, then a vaccine against the virus.” The man and woman who had been grilling us looked at each other, and the woman’s head bobbed minutely.
“What’s your name, miss?” the man asked, his voice suddenly warmer.
“Dr. Ruth Hollinger,” she answered.
“And then there is you, Mr. Stewart. In spite of your daughter’s subterfuge in concealing a weapon after being asked to disarm, Jason has vouched for your character, but good intentions only go so far. What else do you bring to the table?” the woman asked.
“Aside from a talent for killing zombies, I’ve also learned the skills necessary for a self-sufficient homestead, and I’m willing to go out to get supplies. And…well, I have this rule. Know how shit works. There’s all kinds of interesting stuff rattling around in my head. Comes from being a part time writer.”
“You also managed to piss off the other major player in the city,” the man said. “You might think that’s pretty damn impressive, but that means taking you in is gonna paint a big damn target on our backs. None of what you offered so far is worth the danger you’re bringing with you.” I shrugged. Getting in to whatever little clubhouse these people had going wasn’t a priority for me, and the man had a point.
“You’re right,” I said. “I am bringing a shitload of peril with me. But I have some place to be, and it’s a long way from here. Willie tells me you do, too. We can help each other out, or you can take us back to where you found us and we’ll find out own way across the river. ” They exchanged glances again, this time including Willie in on the silent confirmation.
