Of course, Hamilton takes that as a prompt to toot his own horn, but I do my best to ignore him—until he tries to recruit Bree. And he goes right for the kill—tells her that whatever she did for me is forgiven, she’s important as a scientist, and all that shit. The thing is, he’s not even lying. I’m sure their secondary objective was to collect the brainiacs, and they have the means to drop her off at the next safe haven with a makeshift lab. I have no fucking clue how big this shit is, but let’s be real: someone will survive, and someone will start working on an antidote or whatnot this very moment. Because of her knowledge and experience, Bree should be right there with them, if not lead that team herself.
What do I have to offer her in return? A gun, a knife, and a crash course in survival. I haven’t forgotten how me trying to hand her the M16 made her recoil. And, if I’m honest, if she comes with us, she will be our biggest liability—except for me, who can’t even run right now. While I think I have her all figured out, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she isn’t a survivor underneath all the fluff, and she will fold on us an hour from now. What right do I have to ask her to take the risk of throwing her lot in with us if she could be whisked away to safety instead?
The answer is easy: none whatsoever, so I don’t tell her to do the smart thing and come with me. But when she catches my gaze, I know I can’t keep that silent plea out of it. I feel stupid, wanting to jump up and down and shout, “Pick me!” but that’s exactly what I do, inside.
Hamilton meanwhile extends his offer of general amnesty to the rest of my people, appealing to their strengths—and strength in numbers. Zilinsky glares at the few who switch sides, but we both know we don’t want anyone along who’s not one hundred percent committed to our cause—which will be survival, plain and simple.
But that’s not enough for Hamilton. Whether he has actual orders to return with Bree, or just wants her because she’s mine, doesn’t matter. He launches one last-ditch effort to recruit her—“No offense, but do you really want to stay with the people who gave you that nice temporary makeup?”—and fails, massively enough that I want to throw my head back and laugh.
There wasn’t much doubt on Bree’s face to begin with, but he quite eloquently kills the remainder, while she glares at Greene across the intersection. “Thanks so much for your concern, but I think I’ll stay with the people who didn’t try to bash my head in,” she quips.
Hamilton and Bree continue to bicker, but I know I’ve won.
And then Smith joins us, which isn’t much of a surprise since Martinez never left our side since patching me up. Their LT also follows along, looking like he just swallowed a toad but trusting what I have to admit is a very good instinct—in a pinch, I’d go with Martinez myself, if I had a choice like this. Burns is a much welcome addition as well, although the look he casts me and Zilinsky tells me that, sooner or later, I’ll have a lot to explain to him, likely starting with why he never received an invitation to our clandestine little club.
And then, we’re done.
“You actually have a plan?” Hamilton asks, his tone spelling out clearly that he has his doubts.
I wonder for a moment how he could have forgotten—but I’m sure he knows what I will do now. That he doesn’t mention the bunker tells me more than anything else he has said or done since our paths crossed once more. Interesting.
“I always have a plan,” I remind him. “And if Plan B goes up in flames, there’s still the entire rest of the alphabet.”
Of course, then Dolores has to turn on me—which hits me harder than I’d have expected. She’s been vital to my plans for years, pretty much all my intel and a huge chunk of the funding for my mission being attributed to her. But I get it—a hacker might not be in her innate element, out in the wild. Unlike Bree, she has no personal incentive to stick with me. My ego bristles when I wonder for a moment—did Bree really join me because I dazzled her with my dick, or because I’m not with the people who almost turned her into a calculating mass murderer? It doesn’t matter.
I do my best to sound genuine as I thank my hacker friend, sure that this is the last I’ll ever see of her. Oh, she’ll make it, I’m sure—but likely in some bunker far away from where any of us will ever get. While the rejection rankles in general, I’m glad. That means Bree is our weakest link, and there are plenty of people around to take care of her… while I can’t. Right now I feel up to the task of staying alive, but I’m afraid that’s the shots talking as well. Except for the persistent pain, I feel okay—and that, I’m not.
Nodding to Zilinsky, I address the entire group still waiting for me. “I think we can agree with that asshole on one thing—let’s get out of here.” As expected, she takes over, organizing our ragtag band in record time. Phone reception is down—not much of a surprise there. We need maps, provisions, and gear—and everyone has a very careful look on their faces, letting me know they have no clue where to get any of that. I’m ready to kick myself for not planning better, but I haven’t spent much time in this part of town, or the sector that will become our exit vector. Thankfully, we have one fountain of wisdom around: Bree.
“There’s a kind of mall by the interstate close to the edge of town. I think they have a sporting goods store there,” she helpfully supplies—and then her face falls in what I belatedly recognize as her brain finally catching up to the circumstances. She turns around and stares toward the city center, her face paling by the second. Zilinsky gives me a vexed “deal with your shit!” look. Bree looks ready to bolt, and I know that if she starts to run, that will be the last I’ll ever see of her. I grab her arms to make sure she doesn’t get a chance to do anything stupid. That’s grief on her face, all right, but nothing I can do about that now.
“Bree, listen to me,” I implore until her eyes finally focus on me once more. It’s obvious that her thoughts are with that bitch of a cheating, lying girlfriend of hers. So far, I haven’t given a rat’s ass about that woman, but now she’s becoming a liability—at the worst possible moment. Maybe reasoning with Bree will work. “When was the last time you saw her?” I have to repeat myself to get her talking, and I’m a moment away from shaking some sense into her when she finally replies.
“Thursday night, just before I went to bed. She fell asleep on the couch, watching TV. I didn’t even kiss her good night because I didn’t want to catch—“
Her eyes go wide when the full impact of the implication hits. She sobs, but only once, stifling the sound with her knuckles. I fucking hate this—and, in a sense, I hate myself for what I need to do now. She hasn’t slept in going on thirty hours, but I need her sharp enough to keep up with us and not become a true liability, because I have the underlying suspicion that she’ll be dead long before either of us will be able to regret a mistake made. I want to tell her that it’s all going to be okay, but I know that’s a lie, and I respect her too much for that.
“You can hate me for saying this now, but we don’t have time to sugarcoat it. There is nothing you can do for her.”
She doesn’t deny it, but still prattles on as if she hasn’t heard me. “She… she was… she came home sick on Wednesday afternoon. She called me to pick up some chicken soup on the way home but I forgot—“
Fuck. This shouldn’t be so hard, but it is. I can’t remember how many parents, spouses, and children I’ve had to write or tell to their faces that their loved one died on my watch, but nothing compares to this—and we are on a countdown that could reach zero any minute now. “You know that you can’t help her. Even if you could make it across town—and I honestly don’t think that we have any time left—trust me, you don’t want to. If she was lucky, she’s dead. And if not, she’d just come after you the second you unlocked the door to your apartment.”
Martinez joins us, without a doubt trying to help, but I think he’s mostly accomplishing the opposite. “From what we know, most infected have died within the first twenty hours. The latest numbers are giving a ten-hour window for incubation, and less than thirt
y, average, until it’s over.” He clears his throat, unable to hold Bree’s gaze. “And about one in ten… well, you know.”
“Comes back as a zombie?” she offers, quite acerbically for someone still close to tears.
“Yup,” is his eloquent response. Asshole. But at least he means well.
I can’t let this go on for much longer. “I know that this is hard for you—“ I implore, but as if I’ve inadvertently used a trigger word, Bree draws up short, looking suddenly much more composed than a moment ago. “I get it. She’s dead. And we need to go. So, let’s go, right?” she offers. Her voice is still slightly unsteady, but the conviction in it is real. I should maybe congratulate her on the first step to survival—learning when you have time to think and grieve, and when it’s time to run.
Now, we run.
Well, first, we scavenge what we can.
Most of my people have weapons and gear that will do for a while, but we still need packs to carry what provisions we can scrounge up. The mall has already been looted, but, as expected, the outdoor gear hasn’t been that popular, compared to the electronics store next door. It’s laughably easy for me to find shit for myself and Bree in there. I have a feeling that, very soon, we will be picking corpses clean, and I’m not looking forward to that. We also pick up three additional civilians. Do I want to take them with us? Fuck, no, but until I have an idea how well Bree will do in the wilderness, I’m happy to take a handful of fall guys along. And, who knows? They might come in handy. I doubt it, but them proving me wrong wouldn’t be the biggest surprise of the day.
I’m already on the way back out to the others when Bree halts for a quick detour—and turns back up with a baseball bat. I can’t help but grin when I tell her to take a second one, just to be sure—maybe not all is lost after all.
Since Burns, Smith, and Martinez are all in full gear with packs, it makes the most sense to send them to fetch some coffee. I approve of Zilinsky pawning Bree off to them while she works on redistributing shit between the new packs, and Romanoff and I are busy plotting a course that will get us out of harm’s way before shit can find us. Martinez has pretty much adopted her as his latest lost cause, and taking care of her might keep Burns busy—and from chewing me out the first chance he gets. And Smith can make fun of the whole bunch of them. Cho—their LT—remains with us, guarding the perimeter but for the most part looking conflicted about his choice to come with us. Burns switching sides seems to have done a number on him. As long as he doesn’t get in my face, I don’t care.
Less than five minutes pass until a high, decidedly female shriek makes all of us whip around, even Cho, who is now holding the coffees Martinez brought out moments ago. Since I’m swaying just standing still, Romanoff pushes the maps at me before he sprints over to the coffee shop to check on what caused Bree to wail like a banshee. I’m ready to dismiss it all for something inane—like her getting scared of a cockroach or something—but then the message reaches us not to drink the coffee, Bates going as far as to slap the tray out of Cho’s hands. When Zilinsky realizes that Innes—close enough to the coffee shop to be able to see inside—makes a frantic grab for his weapon, she calls everybody to attention.
A few moments later, Bree comes out of the shop, a blank look on her face. There’s a bloody streak across her cheek, and more blood on her hands and jacket, not that she is aware of it. She mumbles something about coffee, but my attention snatches to Burns, quick on her heels.
“Smith. He just came after us,” Burns stammers, clearly out of it. I know him well enough to know he’s not easily rattled. “Not sure why—“
“It was the fucking coffee,” Bree utters, coughing when all attention snaps to her. “Or rather the cream. The syrup. It’s in the sugar. I think.”
I look at Zilinsky. I know we’re both thinking about the incident at the vending machines in the atrium, late last night. One instance of one of us instantly converting? Unlikely but possible. Two? That’s no coincidence. A quick debate springs up as everyone voices their opinion, and I hate the picture that is slowly forming in my mind. Bree is not helping with disproving my fledgling theory. “But sugar is in everything,” she protests.
“Exactly,” I point out. “It’s in everything. And people got sick everywhere, all at once, at the same time.”
“That would account for no patient zero if it hits millions—” She cuts off there, her stare becoming vacant for a second, quickly replaced by fear. Let’s put it like this: as a guy very fond of explosives, I’ve always joked that if you see me running, make sure you run faster than me. If a virologist gets pale considering the outbreak and spread of an epidemic? I think we have a shitload of running ahead of us.
Nobody protests when I declare that we’ll steer clear of anything containing added sugar until we know more. One of the college boys from the store is getting whiny about it, making me regret taking them along—and we haven’t even made it out of the parking lot yet.
I almost black out when Romanoff helps me shoulder my pack, and I think I miss a good half of the blocks we trudge along, heading for the interstate. What I do notice is that it gets weirdly quiet, but that might be just me. There are certainly enough people around to make a lot of noise, most of it reduced to a weird whooshing sound in my head. The roads are gridlocked with cars, coming too late to make it out of the city. The roadblock we approach isn’t helping. I can barely concentrate on the nervous guard doing his best to hold his position there, but the boy is barely old enough to shave, and no match for me pretending like I’m in control. He doesn’t even question my claim of rank although I’m standing in front of him, looking like I’m about to take a hike into Yellowstone. I’m not even sure why I bother about the roadblock, except to give maybe a few of the suckers in their cars a chance to die elsewhere. They would make for a good distraction—
The dull whoop-whoop-whoop of helicopters approaching distracts me. When I see that they are followed by an entire swarm of planes—some as small as two-seaters—I know that we’re too late. And since the assholes are flying directly over us, I have a feeling someone will take them for the beacon that they are. Well, some things, really, but I’m not about to split hairs now.
Turning back to the private, I tell him in no uncertain terms to beat it. “Your officer’s not coming back. Get in your Humvees and at least move them out of the way so that the people here have a chance to make it out of the city. And if you’re smart, you’ll drive right on without looking back.”
I barely get the words out before the screaming starts.
I know that we’re losing precious seconds that we cannot afford to lose, but like everyone else, I can’t help but stare at the avalanche pouring over the hill, swarming between and around the cars blocking the road. First hundreds, then thousands of bodies are moving toward us. For every smart one that falls on a human locked inside his tin can with no chance of escape, three more keep running, likely spurred on by the noise of the aircraft above us. I know I’m in no condition to fight, but considering those odds, even in prime condition I wouldn’t stand a chance.
We’re officially out of time.
“Run!” I needlessly scream at my people, and whip around to do just the same.
Zilinsky and our fastest sprinters are already halfway across the bridge by the time the roadblock is opened and cars start screeching by us. Andrej pulls Bree to the side to make sure she won’t become roadkill. All I can concentrate on is to force my body to keep moving forward. I know I should be scared out of my wits, but I’m lacking the mental faculties for that right now. Not a good sign, but I also don’t have the capacity to worry about that now. To get away from the cars now piling on top of each other, we switch lanes. I think I hear screams behind us that are familiar, but I don’t have the energy to focus on that right now, either. I aim for where Zilinsky is sending the vanguard into the woods, right on the other side of the bridge. Normally, it wouldn’t make any sense to leave a road in favor of rough, uphill terrain, but
my guess is she trusts that what is coming after us is too intent on the easy prey to try to come after us. A last burst of speed takes me ahead of Bree and Romanoff. I want to stick with her, but I know I’m of no use, so I follow the next best of our group—Burns. The way he keeps looking back, I have a feeling that Zilinsky tasked him to drag me back to my feet should I fall. Fat chance of that; I know I’m toast if my legs give out now.
I pray that the shots Martinez gave me won’t fail. Considering how fucking much it hurts to keep breathing, I think I deserve to make it at least another day.
Very soon, all I want to do is stop and die, because this is no way to keep existing.
I’m familiar with pain. Since I joined the army, I’ve spent more days hurting than not—and since I quit, things haven’t exactly taken a turn for the better. I’ve been shot, stabbed, received every possible degree of blunt force trauma—but this? This is something else. I know that pain usually has a very important biological function—to make you stop when your body can’t take it anymore. I’m well past that point, and still I’m pushing on. Even the serum can do only so much; those shots must have undone what little limitations are still on what my mind can force my body to endure. I figure it’s a good thing that I’m one tenacious asshole, and giving up is not in the sphere of what I’m capable of.
But, damn, I wish I could just die between one step and the next. That would be such a relief.
Everything starts to become a blur. I know that we’re stopping to catch a quick break over noon, but when I try to concentrate on the map Romanoff shoves at me, I’m suddenly running again, the change in the intensity of the light filtering in through the trees making me guess it’s late afternoon. I must have eaten something because my stomach lurches with half-broken-down food as I sprint up another hill. Another tear in the film, and I’m sitting by a stream, my hair wet with cold water rather than sweat. Cut, and it’s night, Zilinsky just straightening from where she must have checked to see if I’m still breathing. I’m aware that sometime during the day, I must have talked to Bree because there are vague flashes of her frowning at me with high grass in the background. Fuck if I can remember what I said.
Beyond Green Fields | Book 5 | Survive [A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology] Page 7