The Governor stares. “They got any of them supplies left up there?”
Christina shakes her head. “Nothing … no food … no power … nothing. When we ran out of food … people started turning on each other.” She closes her eyes and tries to block out the memories that come flooding back like flash frames from a snuff film: the blood-spattered steam tables and all the monitors filled with snow and the severed head in the festering walk-in freezer and the screams at night. “Mike protected me, bless his heart.… He was the traffic pilot … we worked together for years … and finally he and I … we managed to sneak up to the roof and steal away in Mike’s traffic copter. We thought we were home free … but we didn’t realize … there was somebody in our group who was dead set on stopping anybody else from leaving. He sabotaged the helicopter’s engine. We knew it immediately. Barely made it out of the city … got maybe fifty miles or so … before we started hearing … before we saw the…” She shakes her head forlornly, and then looks up. “Anyway … you know the rest.” She tries to hide the fact that she’s trembling. Her voice sharpens, turns rueful. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“You’ve been through a lot.” The Governor pats her bandaged thigh, his demeanor changing suddenly. He gives her a smile, pushes himself away from the bed, and rises to his feet. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. These are tough times … but you’re safe here.”
“Safe?” She can’t turn off her simmering anger. Her eyes water with rage. The hard-bitten side of her comes out now, the veteran segment producer who doesn’t take shit from anybody. “Are you serious?”
“I’m totally serious, sweetheart. We’re building something good here, something solid. And we’re always looking for good people to join us.”
“I don’t think so.” She glowers at him. “I think I’ll take my chances out there with the biters.”
“Now calm down, honey. I know you’ve been through the mill. But that’s no reason to pass up something good. We’re building a community here.”
“Give me a break!” She practically spits the words at him. “I know all about you.”
“All right, that’s enough.” He sounds like a teacher trying to calm an unruly student. “Let’s dial it back a little.”
“Maybe you can fool some of these hayseeds with your little Benevolent Leader routine—”
He lunges at her and slaps her—a backhand across her bruised face—hard enough to whiplash her head against the wall.
She gasps and blinks, and swallows the pain. She rubs her face and finds enough breath to speak very softly and evenly. “I’ve worked with men like you my entire career. You call yourself a governor? Really? You’re just a schoolyard bully who’s found a playground to rule. The doctor told me all about you.”
Standing over her, the Governor nods and smiles coldly. His face hardens. His eyes narrow, the halogen light reflecting in his dark irises like two silver pinpricks. “I tried,” he murmurs, more to himself than to her. “God knows I tried.”
He lunges at her again, this time going for her neck. She stiffens on the bed as he chokes her. She looks into his eyes. She calms down all of a sudden as he strangles her. Her body starts to spasm involuntarily against the gurney, making the casters squeak, but she feels no pain anymore. The blood drains from her face. She wants to die.
The Governor softly whispers, “There we go … there … there … gonna be all right…”
Her eyes roll back, showing the whites, as she turns livid in his grip. Her legs kick and twitch, knocking over the IV stand. The steel apparatus clatters to the floor, spilling glucose.
In the silence that follows the woman grows stone-still, her eyes frozen in an empty pale stare. Another moment passes, and then the Governor lets go.
* * *
Philip Blake steps back from the gurney on which the woman from Atlanta now lies dead, her arms and legs akimbo, dangling over the side of the bed. He catches his breath, inhaling and exhaling deeply, getting himself together.
In some distant compartment of his brain, a faint voice objects and pushes back, but he stuffs it back down into that dark fractured place in his mind. He mutters to himself, his voice barely audible to his own ears, as though an argument is under way, “Had to be done … I had no choice in the matter … no choice.…”
“BOSS?!”
The muffled sound of Gabe’s voice on the other side of the door brings him back. “Just a second,” he calls out, the forceful tone of his voice returning. “Just gimme a second here.”
He swallows hard and goes over to the sink. He runs water, splashes his face, washes his hands, and dries himself on a damp towel. And just as he’s about to turn away, he catches a glimpse of his own reflection in the surface of the stainless steel cabinet over the sink. His face, shimmering back at him in the liquid silver surface of the cabinet, looks almost ghostly, translucent, unborn. He turns away. “C’mon in, Gabe!”
The door clicks, and the stocky, balding man peers inside the room. “Everything okay?”
“Gonna need a hand with something,” the Governor says, indicating the dead woman. “This has to be done just right. Don’t talk, just listen.”
* * *
In a residential building next to the racetrack, on the second floor, in the dusty stillness, Dr. Stevens slouches drowsily with his lab coat unbuttoned, a Bon Appétit magazine tented over his poochy, patrician belly, a half-empty bottle of contraband Pinot Noir on the crate next to him, when a knock at his door makes him jerk in his armchair. He gropes for his eyeglasses.
“Doc!” The muffled voice outside his door gets him up and moving.
Woozy from the wine and lack of sleep, he trundles across the nominal living room of his Spartan apartment. A warren of cardboard boxes and stacks of found reading material, dimly lit by kerosene lanterns, his place is an end-of-the-world refuge for a lifelong intellectual. For a while, Stevens followed sporadic dispatches on the plague coming out of the CDC and Washington—often arriving with survivor groups, published on quickie print-on-demand circulars—but now the data sits collecting dust on his windowsill, all but forgotten in the doctor’s radioactive grief for his lost family.
“Need to have a little chat,” the man in the hallway says when Stevens opens the door.
The Governor stands outside, in the darkness of the corridor, with Gabe and Bruce hovering on his flanks, assault rifles slung over their shoulders. The Governor’s dark, hirsute face is aglow with fake cheer. “Don’t bother with the cookies and milk, we won’t be staying long.”
Stevens shrugs and leads the three men into the living room. Still woozy, the doctor motions at a ratty sofa stacked with newspapers. “If you can find a place to sit in this pigsty, you’re welcome to take a load off.”
“We’ll stand,” the Governor says flatly, looking around the hovel. Gabe and Bruce move around behind Stevens, predators circling for the kill.
“So … to what do I owe this unexpected—?” the doctor starts to say when the barrel of an APC pistol swings up and kisses the back of his skull. He realizes Gabe is pressing the muzzle of the semiautomatic against his neck cords, the mechanism cocked and ready to fire.
“You’re a student of history, Doc.” The Governor circles, jackal-like. “I’m sure you remember, back in the Cold War days, when the Ruskies were still swinging their nuclear dicks at us … they had an expression. Mutually assured destruction … M-A-D, they called it.”
Stevens’s heart races, his mouth drying. “I’m aware of the expression.”
“That’s what we got going on here.” The Governor comes around in front of him. “I go down, and you go down with me. And vice versa. You following me?”
Stevens swallows. “In all honesty, I have no inkling as to what you’re talking about.”
“This gal Christina, she got the impression that I was a bad guy.” The Governor keeps circling. “You don’t have any idea where she would have gotten such an impression, do ya?”
Stevens starts to say, “Look, I don’t—”
“Shut the fuck up!” The Governor draws a black 9 mm pistol, thumbs the hammer, and sticks the muzzle under the doctor’s chin. “You got blood on your hands, Doc. This girl’s demise is on you.”
“Demise?” Stevens’s head is upturned now, from the pressure of the gun’s barrel. “What did you do?”
“I did my duty.”
“What did you do to her?”
The Governor hisses at him through clenched teeth. “I removed her from the equation. She was a security risk. You know why?”
“What does that—?”
“You know why she was a security risk, Doc?” He increases the pressure on his chin. “She was a security risk because of you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a smart man, Doc. I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.” He releases the pressure, pulls the gun back, and continues circling. “Gabe, stand down. Let him be, now.”
Gabe pulls his weapon away, stands back. The doctor lets out a thin breath, his hands shaking. He looks at the Governor. “What do you want, Philip?”
“I WANT YOUR LOYALTY, GODDAMNIT!!”
The sudden roar of the Governor’s booming voice seems to change the air pressure in the room. The other three men stand deathly still. The doctor stares at the floor, fists clenched, heart thumping.
The Governor continues pacing around the doctor. “You know what happens when you damage my image in this town? People get nervous. And when they get nervous, they get careless.”
The doctor keeps gazing at the floor. “Philip, I don’t know what this woman told you—”
“Lives hang in the balance here, Doc, and you’re fucking with that balance.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you to say anything, I want you to listen for once. I want you to shut that smartass trap of yours, and listen and think about something.”
The doctor emits a faint sigh of exasperation, but says nothing.
“I want you to consider what happened to this gal before you poison anyone else against me.” The Governor comes closer to him. “I want you to focus your big brain on that. Can you do that for me?”
“Whatever you want, Philip.”
“And I want you to consider something else. I want you to consider how lucky you are … you got skills that keep you around.”
The doctor looks up at him. “Meaning what?”
The Governor bores his gaze into him. “Lemme put it this way. You better fucking pray we don’t run across another doctor. You follow me?”
The doctor looks down. “I follow you, Philip. You don’t have to threaten me.”
Now the Governor cocks his head at him and smiles. “Doc … c’mon … it’s me.” The old Fuller Brush salesman charm is back. “Why would I threaten my old sawbones?” He pats the doctor on the back. “We’re just a couple of neighbors flapping our jaws around the pickle barrel.” Philip looks at his watch. “In fact, we would love nothing more than to play a game of checkers with you, but we got—”
Out of nowhere, a sound outside cuts off his words and gets everybody’s attention.
Faint at first, carrying on the wind, the unmistakable crackle of .50 caliber gunfire comes from the east. The duration and fury of it—more than one gun placement barks for several moments—speaks to a serious firefight.
“Hold on!” The Governor raises his hand and cocks his head toward the window. It sounds as though it’s coming from the northeast corner of the barricade, but at this distance, it’s hard to tell for sure. “Something major’s going down,” the Governor says to Gabe.
Both Gabe and Bruce swing their Bushmaster machine guns around in front of them, safeties going off.
“C’mon!” The Governor charges out of the room, Gabe and Bruce on his heels.
* * *
They burst out of Stevens’s building with machine guns at the ready, the Governor in the lead, his 9 mm in hand, locked and cocked.
The wind skitters trash around their feet as they head east. The echoes of automatic gunfire have already faded on the breeze, but they can see a pair of tungsten searchlights—about three hundred yards away—the twin beams bouncing up across the silhouettes of rooftops.
“BOB!” The Governor sees the old medic huddled against a storefront half a block away. Shrouded in a ratty blanket, the drunkard crouches, shivering, his eyes popping wide toward the commotion. He looks as though the gunfire awakened him only moments ago, his expression bloodless and agitated, a man awakened from one nightmare by another. The Governor hurries up to him. “You see anything, buddy? We under attack? What’s going on?”
The medic sputters for a moment, hacking and wheezing. “Don’t know for sure … heard a guy … he was coming from the wall just a second ago…” He doubles over then with a coughing attack.
“What did he say, Bob?” The Governor touches the old man’s shoulder, gives him a little shake.
“He said … it’s a new arrival … something like that … new people.”
The Governor lets out a breath of relief. “You’re sure now, Bob?”
The old man nods. “Said something about new folks coming in with a pack of walkers right on their tail. They got ’em all, though—the walkers, that is.”
The Governor pats the old man. “That’s a relief, Bob. You stay put while we check it out.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”
The Governor turns to his men, speaking under his breath now. “Until we get a handle on this situation, you boys keep them guns handy.”
“Will do, boss,” Gabe says, lowering the Bushmaster’s muzzle, but keeping the weapon cradled in his beefy arms. With his gloved hand, he releases the trigger pad, but keeps his index finger against the stock. Bruce does the same, sniffing nervously.
The Governor glances at his reflection in the hardware store window. He smooths his mustache, brushes a lock of raven-black hair from his eyes, and mutters, “C’mon, boys, let’s go roll out the welcome wagon.”
* * *
At first, standing in a halo of magnesium light and cloud of cordite, Martinez doesn’t hear the heavy footsteps coming toward him from a dark stretch of adjacent street. He’s too distracted by the mess that has tumbled into town in the newcomers’ wake.
“I’m taking them to the big man,” Martinez says to Gus, who stands near a gap in the wall, holding an armful of confiscated weapons—a couple of riot batons, an ax, a pair of .45 caliber pistols, and some kind of fancy Japanese sword still in its ornate scabbard. The air smells of flesh-rot and hot steel, and the night sky has clouded over.
Behind Gus, in a haze of gun smoke, ragged bodies are visible on the ground outside the barricade, and scattered across the pavement inside the gap. The freshly vanquished corpses steam in the night chill, their glistening black spoor spattered across the pavers.
“If I hear about a biter getting so much as twenty feet close to the wall,” Martinez barks, making eye contact with every one of the twelve men who stand sheepishly around Gus, “you’re going to hear about it! Clean house!”
Then Martinez turns to the newcomers. “You guys can follow me.”
The three strangers pause for a moment, leery and hesitant against the wall—two men and a woman—squinting in the tungsten radiance, their backs against the barricade like prisoners caught in mid-escape. Disarmed and disoriented, filthy from their hard travels, the men wear riot gear, the woman clad in a hooded garment that at first glance appears almost displaced in time, like a cloak from a monastery or some secret order.
Martinez takes a step closer to the trio and starts to say something else, when the sound of a familiar voice rings out from behind him.
“I can take it from here, Martinez!”
Martinez whirls to see the Governor walking up, with Gabe and Bruce on his heels.
As he approaches, the Governor plays the role of town host to the hilt, looking all
hail-fellow-well-met, except for the clenching and unclenching of his fists. “I’d like to escort our guests myself.”
Martinez gives a nod, steps back, and says nothing. The Governor pauses, gazing out at the gap left by the missing semitrailer.
“I need you at the wall,” the Governor explains under his breath to Martinez, motioning at all the carnage on the ground, “cleaning off all the biters they no doubt drug with them.”
Martinez keeps nodding. “Yes, sir, Governor. I didn’t know you’d be coming out to get them when we gave word of their arrival. They’re all yours.”
The Governor turns to the strangers—a big smile here. “Follow me, folks. I’ll give you the nickel tour.”
EIGHT
Austin gets to the arena early that night—around eight forty-five—and sits alone, down front, behind the rusted cyclone-fence barrier, on the end of the second row, thinking about Lilly. He wonders if he should have pushed harder to get her to come along with him tonight. He thinks about that look she gave him earlier that evening—the softness that crossed her hazel eyes right before she kissed him—and he feels a strange mixture of excitement and panic burning in his gut.
The great xenon arc lamps boom to life around the stadium, illuminating the dirt strip and littered infield, and the stands slowly fill up around Austin with noisy townspeople hungry for blood and catharsis. The air has the snap of a chill in it and reeks of fuel oil and walker rot, and Austin feels weirdly removed from it all.
Clad in a hoodie, jeans, and motorcycle boots, his long hair pulled back in a leather stay, he fidgets on the cold hard seat, his muscles sore from the afternoon’s adventures in the hinterlands. He can’t get comfortable. He gazes out across the infield at the far side of the arena and sees the dark portals filling with clusters of upright corpses, each leashed to a handler by thick chains. The handlers start leading the biters out into the jarring light of the infield, the silver follow-spots making the dead faces look almost Kabuki-like, painted, like morbid clowns.
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