by Joe McKinney
Farther down the hall from where the double doors to the cafeteria hung open was the entrance to the building’s central hub. Nate knew that from there he could look down onto the first floor and the main entrance to the hospital. The walls around the entrance were glass, and Kellogg had said that if the zombies were going to enter the hospital, it would almost certainly be through there. There was no practical way to defend against it. Now, listening to the moaning coming from behind the doors that led to the building’s central hub, Nate figured the big one had already happened. The volume was tremendous. It sounded like a train was going through the downstairs lobby.
He turned toward the cafeteria’s double doors. There was a thick puddle of blood just inside the doorway, and a long blackish smear leading off into the darkness.
“Doc?” he called out.
A groan from the back of the room.
“Doc?”
“Nate. Back here.”
Nate followed the sound through a jumble of overturned tables and chairs. After a few steps, he could smell something bad, like shit and rot mixed together. He gagged on the smell, but didn’t vomit. The black smear on the floor glistened like oil.
He found Kellogg propped up against a collapsed display of hoagie sandwiches. There was blood on the counter above him, and sandwiches were strewn about on the floor. Kellogg was sitting in a puddle of blood, one arm draped over a nasty-looking wound that curved from the left side of his chest down across his stomach. Most of his shirt was gone. What Nate could see of the wound was a crusty yellow rimmed with blackened flesh. Pus oozed up from the deepest part of the wound.
“Doc, holy shit.”
Kellogg managed a faint laugh. “Looks bad, huh?”
“What happened?”
Kellogg held up a pistol that he’d had tucked under his thigh. “One bullet left,” he said.
“You saved it?”
The doctor coughed, spraying black wads of phlegm onto his chest. He looked up at Nate with rheumy, glassy eyes.
“So you’re gonna do it then?” Nate said.
Kellogg nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice was so faint Nate had to lean in to hear the words. “It’s hard to talk.”
Nate knelt down next to Kellogg, cursing his own stupidity. He knew he was supposed to say something. The man was dying, for God’s sake. This really smart man was dying, and here the guy was stuck with an idiot who couldn’t think of anything beyond “Sorry, dude” to say.
“Nate.”
“Yeah, doc?”
“Listen.” Kellogg coughed again. When the coughing stopped, he was winded. It took him a long time to start again. “Listen,” he said. “This is important.” He put the pistol down. There was a lanyard around his neck with a flash drive hanging from it. He took it off and held it out to Nate. “I want you to take this,” he said.
“What is it?”
“It’s all the work we’ve done on you. I think”—he stopped there and caught his breath—”I think we’re done.”
“You mean you found it? A cure? Doc, that’s huge. I mean, right? That’s huge, right? It’s what all this was for.”
Kellogg nodded.
“But what am I supposed to do with it?”
Kellogg closed his eyes. His breathing was ragged, labored. Nate could hear something rattling around inside his chest, like beans in a can.
“Doc?”
Kellogg opened his eyes again. They were bloodshot and starting to turn milky.
He said, “Nate, you need to escape this place.”
“How? Where am I supposed to go?”
Kellogg shifted impatiently. He was breathing hard. “Listen,” he said. “Colonel James Briggs is leaving here tonight with his command staff. There’s a civilian compound not far from here that seems to be doing pretty well. I told Briggs about you and how important it is that you get away from here. He’s going to try to get that civilian compound to take our people in. I want you with him.” Kellogg’s eyes swung heavily toward the flash drive in Nate’s hand. “You need to get that to somebody who can do something with it.”
“Doc,” Nate said. He felt helpless. “I can’t.”
Kellogg shook his head. “No, Nate, listen to me. Remember when I called you a true nihilist?”
“I remember.”
“Nate, we come to nihilism because we feel like the world is empty. The Buddhists call it samsara. It means disgust with the world. It doesn’t matter what we do. We’ll never change the fact that the universe is a sterile landscape without any meaning.”
“But you said we can make our own meaning. Like running into daylight.”
“Yeah, I did. I still believe that, Nate.” Kellogg paused and tried to catch his breath. “Jesus, it hurts to talk. Hold on, give me a second.” He reached for the pistol but couldn’t grip it. “Nate, I don’t have much time. There’s still so much I want to tell you.”
“Just tell me what I’m supposed to do, doc.”
“I can’t, Nate. That’s the point I’m trying to make. There’s only one answer to the absurdity of living in this world, but I can’t tell you what it is. It’s a different answer for everybody. It’s confusing, I know. I can’t simplify it for you. I want to, but I can’t. All I can tell you is that the search for an answer is an answer in itself.”
“Even a world filled with bad answers is still a world you can understand.”
Kellogg nodded weakly. “That’s right. But Nate, I trust you. I think, if you look, you’ll find an answer that makes sense to you. You’ll find a reason to get this cure to where it needs to be.”
“So you really think the world is worth saving?”
“I don’t know, Nate. You’re the one running into daylight. You’re the one who’s gonna fill it with meaning. Or not. It all depends on what you do.”
“But I don’t want that responsibility.”
“It doesn’t matter, Nate. Living creates that responsibility. If you don’t choose to die, you have to choose to live. It’s the only question in philosophy that has a yes-or-no answer.”
Nate lowered his head. Kellogg was shaking badly now, about to turn.
“Help me with this, Nate.”
Kellogg was fumbling for the gun at his side. His fingers couldn’t wrap around the receiver.
Nate sniffled, then helped Kellogg grip the gun. “It’s heavy,” Kellogg said.
“I don’t want to do this, doc.”
“It’s okay, Nate. I can do it. Go on now.”
Nate rose to his feet and backed away.
“Doc, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say to you.”
Kellogg rested the pistol across his chest. His eyes rolled in his head, but he managed to lock his gaze on Nate’s.
“Put that thing around your neck.”
Nate slid it over his head.
“Just tell me yes or no. What’s your answer?”
“Yes. My answer’s yes.”
Kellogg nodded. “That’s courage, Nate.”
“Because there are consequences?”
“That’s right. That’s good, Nate. Now go. This’ll take care of itself.”
Nate watched him for a moment, still feeling stupid and inadequate, then turned and headed out to the hallway.
He stopped there and waited for the shot.
CHAPTER 56
Not everything about life in the Grasslands was bad. There were some bright spots. And, for Ed, one of those bright spots was Sandra Tellez.
They’d met a few days before, while she was helping out in the med clinic. Ed had spent that entire morning on top of the east fence, repairing the damage from the last time the infected had broken through. Overnight, the wind had piled snowdrifts along the base of the fence, and from his perch he could look north and east across a vast, pillowed range of white where the earthmovers pushed the zombies that had been shot that morning into burn piles. But the fires hadn’t started yet and the air still smelled clean. The sky was a huddled gray mass sitting low o
n the plains, like fog, giving the surrounding countryside a sheltering look. It was intensely cold up there on the fence, so cold that not only did his hands refuse to work but so did his mind. He found himself drifting, thinking about people he had known and lost, and before he knew it, his jeans had frozen to the wooden rail on which he was sitting.
Two men had to peel him from the fence. He couldn’t bend his legs, so they had to carry him to the clinic. It was a simple wooden cabin with a portable sink in one corner and a foam-top table they’d salvaged from a real medical clinic over in New Salem. Ed was facedown on the table.
Sandra Tellez had come in like a breath of fresh air. He’d seen her around the compound and thought she was pretty. He’d always had a thing for Latinas. He liked the way they could hold on to their youthful appearance well into their forties and fifties.
“Well, this ought to be interesting,” she said. “How you feeling?”
“You asking me if this hurts?”
“Does it?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“What happened?”
“I froze it to a fence post.”
She blinked. And then she started to laugh.
“It’s not funny,” he said.
“Mr. Moore, you nearly froze your ass off. And I mean that literally. You gotta admit, that’s funny.”
She laughed again, and this time he couldn’t help but smile. “I like what it does to your face when you laugh,” he said.
The smile wavered on her face, but didn’t go away. “Are you hitting on me, Mr. Moore?”
“Just making conversation,” he said. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
Her smile became a smirk. “The way I see it, you got two choices.”
“Oh? What are they?”
“You can either lay there and wait for your pants to unfreeze or you can let me pour some hot water over your butt.”
“How long do you think it’ll take my pants to melt?”
“Don’t know. An hour maybe.”
He shrugged. “Might not be so bad, with a little company.”
“You’re a sly old devil, Mr. Moore. You are hitting on me.”
“Call me Ed,” he said.
Later that afternoon, she joined him for lunch. She told him about living inside the quarantine walls in Houston, and it was the first time he’d heard anybody talk with any authority on the way the infected changed over time.
“They’re excellent scavengers,” she said. “That’s one of the biggest changes. The new ones, the ones they call Stage One zombies, those exist by killing and eating whatever they can catch. That’s why so many of them die off. They either can’t catch enough to live on or they die from eating whatever they catch.”
They were sharing roasted turkey legs and spaghetti squash and mashed potatoes with a weak brown gravy. Ed watched Sandra cut off a pat of butter from the serving dish on the table between them and mix it into her squash.
“What about the other kinds of zombies, the later-stage ones?”
“The Stage Three zombies, they’re scary good at finding food. Whenever we’d see them, we’d tail along, waiting to see what they’d find. More often than not, they’d lead us to something good. The trick was to take them out before they had a chance to taint whatever they found. I remember this one time they led us to somebody’s stockpile of canned goods and fresh water. We ate good for about a week on that.”
“Would they have been able to open the cans?” Ed asked.
“I don’t know, maybe. The Stage Three zombies can do some pretty weird stuff. I’ve heard stories about them answering to their names, stuff like that. They can open doors and climb ladders and even play dead.”
Ed shook his head. “That’s amazing that you survived all that time.”
“Survival was never a question with me. I never once doubted that I was going to live. When I saw my daughter die, I think that was it for me. That was the moment I knew I was going to live. That sounds weird, right? I mean, you always hear people say that if their child died, they wouldn’t be able to live another second. I used to think that, too. But then, when it happened”—she shrugged—”I don’t know. It was strange. I just couldn’t let her memory go. Does that make sense? It’s like I could keep her alive, at least some part of her, by remembering her. I couldn’t give up. Does that make sense?”
“What was her name?”
“Maria. People used to say she looked just like me, but when I looked at her, all I could see were her father’s eyes.”
“I bet she was beautiful.”
“She was.” Sandra smiled at him. “But then, after that, Clint came back into my life, and it became that much more important to live. It was tough going, but we made it, living hand to mouth, until that day we saw Officer Barnes’s helicopter crash.”
“And he brought you guys here.”
“That’s right.”
Ed chewed on his bottom lip, thinking. He said, “I don’t know if I’ve got Michael Barnes figured out yet. He seems, I don’t know, dangerous somehow.”
Her eyes shifted left, then right, like she was checking to see who was within listening range. “Ed,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “He’s more dangerous than you know. He’s not sane.”
“He seems to have Jasper’s ear.”
“I know.” She pushed her plate away and looked at him. “Ed, tell me the truth. Is this a good place? Are we safe here?”
That night they caught a movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, one of Ed’s favorites. Afterward, he walked Sandra back to the cabin she shared with Clint. It was a cold, cloudless night, and most of the village had already turned in, even though curfew was still a good twenty minutes off.
They stopped at the door to her cabin and she turned to face him. “I had fun today,” she said.
“Me, too.” He was about to ask her if she’d like to join him for breakfast in the morning when he heard the sound of a truck shifting gears. Sandra’s cabin faced the compound’s southern fence and Ed turned toward the road in the distance. He saw a pair of trucks moving along the road that led around to the west entrance of the compound. They were struggling with the thick snow on the road, the headlights bobbing in the air like fireflies.
She said, “Ed, what’s that?”
“They’re pulling trailers,” he said.
They watched the trucks swing around to the west entrance, near Jasper’s quarters. Several men ran out from the sheds behind Jasper’s quarters and opened the gates.
“What are they doing?” Sandra asked.
The men who rushed out to open the gates were unloading barrels from the trailers now, stacking them into piles down near the fence. Ed recognized a few faces in the glare of the headlights, most of them members of the security patrols.
“Ed, look there.”
“Where?”
“By the truck. That’s Michael Barnes.”
Ed studied the figures. His eyesight wasn’t what it once was, but it was still good enough to make out Michael Barnes talking with Jasper.
And Jasper looked as pleased as punch.
CHAPTER 57
The military delegation from Minot arrived the next morning. It was late October and intensely cold. The sky was a gray, leaden swirl above Aaron’s head. Snow was heavy in the air and thick on the ground. The wind was a constant roar. Aaron, who was standing on the downhill slope in front of his cottage, didn’t see or even hear the helicopter until it was right over top of him, coming down in the open area west of the cottages.
Michael Barnes and a small group of security personnel were out there with trucks to meet them. From his front porch, Aaron watched the helicopter touch down in a blast of disturbed snow. As it powered down, soldiers in winter gear climbed out and approached Barnes and his group. None of the soldiers looked to be armed from what Aaron could tell. And yet, they were here.
Ever since Jasper had started taking Thomas to his bed, Aaron had been plagued with questions. Over the years, he
’d burglarized the homes of new members, looking for information for Jasper to use during prayer services. He’d helped slander elected officials who were critical of Jasper, and he’d sabotaged their election campaign functions. He’d overseen the beatings of Family members who tried to leave the church. He’d lied to federal prosecutors under oath. He’d even delivered his own son up for a ritualized rape, all because Jasper had asked him to. And over the past few months, during their time at the Grasslands compound, he’d heard Jasper deliver his dire warnings of governmental conspiracy to the people during mealtimes. He’d listened as Jasper told them of the military’s plans to kill their children and rape their women, and he’d shouted and prayed for Jasper to protect them, even though Aaron was one of the few who knew that the military had made no such announcements.
But watching as Thomas sank a little more each day into his own private hell had made him doubt all of that. It was like somebody had suddenly wiped the cobwebs from his face, and he was only now realizing that he was standing in the midst of corruption so vile and complete there was no way to pull himself out. He had come to question everything, to react with nausea and distrust to everything Jasper said.
And then the military arrived.
Their presence here was a powerful confirmation of the things Jasper had been telling them. Aaron shivered, though not entirely from the cold.
Kate brought him a cup of coffee, black with a touch of sugar, just enough to take off the bitterness. “Thank you,” he said, holding it close to his chin to let the radiant heat warm his face.
Together, they watched Barnes and the military delegation trade greetings. Then Barnes led them to the waiting trucks and a moment later the whole procession was headed for the west gate. One of the officers pointed out into the prairie beyond the fences, where the infected had knotted along the fence line and were banging on the wire. Farther out, long dark caravans of the infected were approaching, and Aaron wondered where they had all come from. There had been hundreds before. Now, there were literally a thousand, maybe more.
