by Joe McKinney
“Do it,” Shaw heard one of the soldiers say, and the next instant, the woman’s body was bouncing and jittering as the bullets slammed into her chest.
She landed on her butt, her shoulders sagging, arms limp at her side, her legs out in front of her like a child sitting on the grass. Her face was flecked with blood. Her mouth tried to move, but at that instant, the soldiers fired again and she was laid flat under a hail of automatic weapons fire.
At the same time, the sound of gunfire sent a wave of panic through the assembled refugees. People were screaming, running away from the gate, creating a backwards surge that collided with the others farther back in line, who were pushing forward to see what the commotion was all about.
Shaw watched people trample each other.
A man was thrown off the side of the highway.
Still others, in the drive to escape, were throwing punches at those who blocked them.
The soldiers, too, were on edge, for many of them spun around to face the crowd, their weapons up and ready.
“Cease fire!” Shaw screamed at the soldiers. “Stop it!”
He pulled his badge from his belt and held it up high as he advanced on the chain-link fence.
“Don’t you dare shoot!” he said. “Lower your weapons. Put them down.”
The soldiers didn’t move. They were nervous. Even behind their gas masks, Shaw could tell they were green troops, not veterans. One of the soldiers pointed a trembling M-16 at him. Shaw slapped the chain-link fence and made the man jump.
“Lower your weapon. Now!”
The solder lowered his rifle a little, and looked around for someone to tell him what to do.
“You,” Shaw said to the soldier. “Get your commanding officer up here right now. I need to talk to him. Move!”
The man took a few steps back and yelled, “Colonel Adams!”
A man on the far side of the second fence came forward.
“Sir,” the soldier said, “I need you up here, Colonel.”
Shaw waited as the man approached. Shaw’s presence in front of the soldiers had eased the tension somewhat. No longer were refugees screaming in retreat. Many were keeping their distance, but all were turned his way, watching nervously. A few brave individuals even walked toward the gate, but the sight of the dead woman, her skull ruptured and her brains splattered across the pavement, kept them quiet.
Only the soldiers remained on edge. They kept their weapons trained on Shaw and on the crowd behind him.
The ranking officer stepped forward, suited and gas-masked like the others, and stood on the other side of the fence from Shaw.
“You the man in charge?” Shaw asked.
“That’s right. I’m Dr. Robert Adams, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.”
Shaw thought: Active-duty man. That’s good.
But he also noticed the man referred to himself as doctor, and not colonel. Military doctors were like that. They didn’t think of themselves as soldiers first and foremost, but as doctors who had to wear a uniform every once in a while.
He said, “Dr. Adams, this is not working.”
“Who are you?” Adams said.
“My name is Mark Shaw. I’m the director of the Houston Police Department’s Emergency Operations Command and the overall incident commander for the police department. I brought these refugees here so that—”
“Mr. Shaw, I appreciate—”
“No,” Shaw said. “No, I don’t want to hear your platitudes, Doctor. I’m telling you that we have to find a better way to get these people through. The water’s deep out there right now, but when it gets dark, and the tide ebbs, we’re going to get the infected swarming this area in droves. These people will be sitting ducks up here.”
Adams crossed his arms over his chest, his plastic suit crinkling audibly.
“I have my orders, Mr. Shaw. This is the way my commanders have told me to get this thing done. We cannot allow any infected persons out of the city. The risk is too great.”
“I’m not asking you to let any of the infected through,” Shaw said, forcing himself to remain calm. A vision of Brent getting torn apart by those zombies flared up in his mind, but he forced that away, too. “I know how dangerous the infected are, Dr. Adams. We’ve been fighting them continuously for the last two days. All I’m asking you to do is help me find a way to help these people.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Adams said.
“Have you talked to them? Have you sent your men out of these gates to explain to them what’s going on, what they’ll be expected to do when they get up here?”
Adams hesitated, then said, “No, I haven’t. But I’m not going to send my men out there. I have orders about that, too.”
“Okay,” Shaw said. “I have officers out here. Let them do it.”
“We can do that,” Adams said. “Sure, we can allow that.”
“Good. I’ll bring several of my men up here. Can you get one of your officers to brief them? Once they know what to say, I’ll send them down the line here.”
“Absolutely.”
“And Dr. Adams . . .”
“Yes.”
“It would help these people a lot if you could feed them. Do you have any rations I could pass out?”
“Yes, we’ll do that too. Is there anything else?”
“Yeah. When nightfall comes, things are gonna get ugly back there.” He pointed over his shoulder, to the south. “Most of my men are out of ammunition. We need rifles and bullets.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Adams said. “My orders are—”
“Doctor, please. I’m begging you. At least help me give these people a fighting chance. I need rifles, ammunition, binoculars if you’ve got them, flashlights.”
“I don’t . . . It’ll be just for your men, right? Not regular civilians.”
“That’s right.”
Adams let out a long sigh. “Okay,” he said, with the air of a man who is about to get himself fired. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you,” Shaw said. “At this point, every little bit counts.”
CHAPTER 17
Eleanor and her family didn’t really get to know any of the Red Cross volunteers with whom they were traveling. There were passing comments made back and forth, the usual pleasantries between amicable strangers, and several of the women even complimented Eleanor on having such a beautiful daughter. But there was never more than that. They just never gelled. Eleanor and her family felt tacked on to the group, and not really part of it. She and Jim dealt mainly with Hank. He became the bridge between the two groups, and everybody seemed fine with that arrangement. There was a general understanding, after all, that they were together only until they got out of the city.
Still, Hank’s relationship with the volunteers wasn’t all that perfect either.
One of the volunteers, the ex-marine named Frank Miller who had been so helpful while they were escaping the Meadowlakes Business Park, seemed to rankle at Hank taking the leadership role. There were never any harsh words spoken between them, but Eleanor was a good judge of body language, and she could tell there was tension between the two men.
And judging from the fact that both were professional soldiers, trained to be leaders during combat situations, it wasn’t hard to gauge the weather between them.
After they left the EOC Eleanor became acutely aware of the strained, tightly wound bearing the men had when in close company, the stiff, almost ritualistic civility between them.
Jim picked up on it, too.
Someone on the outside looking in, he said, would probably think them the best of buddies. Hank made it a point to solicit Frank’s opinion on which way to go. Frank carried one of Hank’s pistols, and sometimes, when zombies would emerge from the houses they passed, Hank would give the shot to Frank. They were like a talented first lieutenant and his grizzled, veteran platoon sergeant, trying desperately for the sake of their charges to make it look like eve
rything was fine. Frank Miller, especially, tried to maintain a dignified air, but the resentment was there, the elephant in the room that nobody wanted to acknowledge.
Something had to give, and, around midday, it did.
Hank stopped the group for lunch. Frank approached him, and the two men paddled a short ways off, stopping their canoes under the covered drive-through awning of a Jack in the Box, arguing in hushed tones.
Afterwards, Hank didn’t speak. He seemed to almost shrink up within himself. He spent a good thirty minutes watching the wilderness that the city had become. The vast expanse of the floodwaters seemed to hold him enthralled, and the deeply thoughtful bearing he assumed made him seem, to Eleanor at least, as darkly handsome as any man outside a movie had a right to look.
But by the time they resumed their course after lunch, Frank Miller and a few of the others were gone.
Eleanor thought Hank would lose it. Maybe, in his anger, he would yell at those who remained with him, demand to know if any of the others wanted to strike out on their own too.
But he didn’t.
He remained oddly calm, almost stoic. And when it came time to move out, outwardly at least, he seemed the same old solidly reliable Hank Gleason, SWAT officer extraordinaire.
But when Eleanor tried to find out what happened, all he would say is: “They’ve gone.”
Nothing more.
She never learned exactly what they’d argued about. And she never saw Frank Miller or any of the ones who left with him again.
They just disappeared into the flooded city, and it became one of the many unresolved questions that the Houston disaster created.
It was nearly eight o’clock when they made it to the Beltway. Dusk was settling over the city, throwing whole streets and the spaces between buildings into dangerous shadow. The water was receding, too, leaving behind the stink of chemicals and mud and rotted bodies. It wouldn’t be long, Eleanor figured, before the vast sea that surrounded them would be shallow enough to allow the zombies easy movement. There would be trouble later.
But for now, there was work to do.
From the water, they could see the huge line of refugees waiting to pass through the military checkpoint. They could see boats of every description clustered around the on-ramps to the freeway. And, in the distance, they could see the wall the military was building around the city.
“What do you suppose they’re doing?” Jim asked.
They were coasting up to the on-ramp now, looking for a way up.
“Medical screening, I guess,” Eleanor answered.
“Because of the zombies.”
“Well, yeah,” she said.
“You think they have a cure or something?”
“I don’t think they have a cure,” she said.
She pointed over to the far side of the Beltway. There were several bodies, perhaps six or seven in all, together in a heap. Even from a distance she could tell they’d been shot multiple times.
“Oh,” he said. “Wow.”
“Yeah, I know. I just can’t believe it’s come to this.”
The group slid up to the freeway on-ramp and climbed out of their canoes. Eleanor helped Madison into her backpack and then turned around so Jim could help her with hers. It was the last real intimate family moment they had, for at that moment Hank came up to her and asked her what she wanted to do. She understood right then that he was relinquishing his role as leader. He had got them this far, shepherded them through the war zone, and now it was her turn to lead. She was a police supervisor again.
The group of volunteers gathered around them. Eleanor watched their faces, and she could tell they were waiting for her to tell them what to do.
“Well, this is it,” she said. “Once we get up top we’re going to have to fit in to whatever plan the military has got in place. I don’t know what that’s gonna be, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to need some help on this side of the checkpoint. I can’t make you guys do anything, though. You don’t work for me. If you want to get in line with everyone else, I understand.”
“We came down here to help,” one of the men said.
Several of the others spoke up in agreement. Nobody, as far as Eleanor could tell, was ready to quit.
“If there’s something for us to do up there,” another man said. “We’ll do it. We’re in it for keeps.”
“Excellent,” she said, and sincerely meant it. They were quite a crew, these Red Cross volunteers, and at that moment she regretted not taking the time to get to know them better. These people had backbone. “Okay, then, if you guys are ready.”
They nodded back at her, and she put an arm around Madison’s shoulder and together they walked up the on-ramp.
But when they reached the top of the ramp and saw the line of refugees and the barely restrained bedlam of wailing babies and sick, scared people and the occasional fighting, Eleanor’s confidence wavered.
“Oh my God,” one of the volunteers said.
Eleanor saw an older black officer she recognized from the EOC and asked him to bring her up to speed. He explained that Captain Shaw was up front, where the military was feeding people through the medical checkpoint one at a time. The remaining officers from the EOC—and Eleanor gasped when he told her there were only six of them left—were working up and down the line, trying to keep order, finding lost kids, answering questions.
“They want us looking for people who might be infected, too,” he said, and gestured uneasily toward his rifle.
“Please tell me you’re joking,” she said. “They expect you to . . .”
“It’s already happened a couple of times. Not in my section, but it’s happened. I’ve got my eye on about twenty different folks in my area. Hopefully, they’re okay, but I got my doubts.”
“This is insane,” Eleanor said.
“Yes, ma’am,” the officer agreed. “It is at that.”
“Where’d you say Captain Shaw was again?”
The officer gestured toward the checkpoint.
“Okay,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
“Uh, ma’am . . .”
“Yes?”
He pointed toward Jim and Madison.
“Ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying, you should probably get your family set up somewhere over here in my section. I can get them worked in without creating too much of a hassle.”
Eleanor smiled.
“I appreciate that officer, but I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Ma’am,” he said. “You don’t understand. It’s taking them about twenty minutes per person to get these folks through that checkpoint up there, and as you can see . . .” He gestured toward the back of the line. It stretched at least a mile down the length of the elevated roadway. There were literally thousands of people waiting back there. “With the sun going down and low tide coming, those zombies are gonna be storming our location. And I don’t how long we can hold ’em off. Most of those people back there, they’re probably not gonna live to see the morning.”
Eleanor looked back at Jim and Madison, her gaze lingering on her daughter. The girl was dripping wet. It made her seem too skinny, too small, too fragile.
“Ma’am,” the officer said, “this ain’t no time to be playing fair.”
Eleanor nodded.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m terrible with names.”
“Garrity,” he said. His smile was kind—exhausted, but kind.
“Thank you, Garrity. I mean it, thank you.” Eleanor turned to Jim and Madison. “I want you guys to go with him. He’s gonna set you up with a place here.”
“Mommy, no!”
“Where are you gonna be?” Jim asked her.
“It’s okay,” Eleanor said to Madison. “I’m gonna be right here in this area. I’ll come by as often as I can and check in. You just go with Daddy, okay?”
“But Mommy, I don’t want to get separated.”
“We won’t be,” Eleanor said. “I promise.
I’ll be right here. No matter what happens, I’ll be here with you. I love you, Madison. We will not get separated. Okay?”
She kissed Madison on the forehead and hugged her. Then she kissed Jim and handed him her backpack and watched as Garrity led them over to the line.
Jim turned to wave, then put his arm around Madison and sat her down on top of their backpacks.
Eleanor went up to the front of the line.
Captain Shaw was standing near the gate with a bullhorn in his hand. Eleanor saw armed soldiers in space suits hosing down a naked man inside a chain-link cage while other space-suited soldiers—doctors, she figured—circled around him, discussing him like they would a show pony up for auction.
Suddenly, nothing felt real. It was too weird, too alien, like some kind of science-fiction movie.
“Sergeant Norton,” Shaw said, and gestured her over to him. “I’m glad to see you made it.”
“Thank you, sir. You too.” She hesitated, unsure of exactly how much to say. Finally, she said, “We went by the EOC. I saw Brent, sir. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t even miss a beat. He dismissed her condolences with a casual wave of his hand and said, “We’ve all lost somebody. But right now, we got a job to do.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“There’s an Army doctor over there named Captain Miguel Hernandez. He’s the one supervising the physicals. He’ll give you a briefing about how this is working and what you need to tell these people. Once you get your briefing, get a rifle and a flashlight, and start walking up and down the Beltway here. Just make sure our people are doing okay. If they’ve got any problems, do what you can for them.”
“I talked to Garrity back there. He said that they’re supposed to shoot any of the refugees who might be infected.”
“That’s right. If they see anybody who’s been infected they’re supposed to offer that person a chance to leave, but none of them do. They try to argue. No one wants to be left behind.”
“And so we’re shooting them?”
“If it comes to that.”
“What if we’re wrong? What if they’re not infected?”
