Fall of Night

by Jonathan Maberry

  His voice trailed off. Both of them wore clothes that were caked with dried blood. A lot of that was black blood. Dez began wiping at her clothes—almost absently at first and then she started slapping at her uniform faster and faster until her hands became a hysterical blur.

  “Stop it!” yelled Trout.

  He had to yell it three times before she froze. For a moment Dez’s eyes were so wild that the whites showed all around. Crazy eyes. Trout had seen her like that before. Once, naked and wild-eyed, she’d chased him with a shotgun. Not one of their better moments as a couple.

  “Dez … we wiped ourselves down with Purell, remember? Remember? You damn near did Jell-O shots of the stuff.”

  The wild look slowly faded, and she gave him a slow nod. She was panting, though. “Right, right … sorry. Jeez … I’m sorry.”

  Trout tried to touch her, to give her arm a reassuring squeeze or maybe coax her into a hug, but Dez walked a few paces away, hands on hips, and stared at the wall as she worked on her breathing.

  Without turning she asked, “Volker gave you all that research stuff on a couple of flash drives, right?”

  “Sure. Goat has them and—”

  She half-turned. “Did you think to keep a copy of it?”

  Trout shook his head. “There wasn’t time for that. Things were already falling apart. I dropped him at the county line and he walked across a field to the Starbucks in Bordentown and I went to my office to get the satellite phone. Things just kept going wrong from then on. Why?”

  Dez chewed her lip for a moment, then tapped the walkie-talkie on her hip. “General Zetter called me on the walkie-talkie. They want the drives.”

  “I bet they do.”

  “He said that they need the science and research on them. Apparently that ass-pirate Volker did something to the Lucifer disease thing. Changed it somehow. They don’t understand what he did and they can’t come up with a way of stopping it without Volker’s notes.”

  Trout slumped. “Ahh … damn it.”

  “Zetter thinks you have them.”

  “How do they even know about them?” mused Trout. “Wait, no, that’s my bad … I may have mentioned something in my last broadcast.”

  “That was stupid.”

  “I was making a point.”

  “About being stupid?”

  “Dez…”

  “They need that stuff. Zetter didn’t go so far as making a direct threat, but with all those guns out there pointed at us, he doesn’t really have to. I told him that if he tried to storm the place and take the drives by force I’d destroy them.”

  “What did you do that for?”

  Her eyes shifted away. “I didn’t know what else to tell him. And I—”

  “You wanted him to think we had something he needed. Okay, I get it. It was—”

  “What? ‘Stupid’? Are you going to throw that back in my face?”

  “No, I’m not,” he said with a smile. “I was going to say that it was an understandable stalling tactic.”

  She grunted. “We need to get in touch with Goat. Maybe he can email stuff to us. There have to be flash drives here. If we can send the stuff we could actually have something to bargain with.”

  Trout held out the satellite phone. “That was the second thing I wanted to tell you,” he said. “I can’t get a call through to Goat.”

  “What?”

  “I know.”

  “Where’d you call from? Maybe there’s no reception down in the—”

  “I’ve called from a dozen different places on the first and second floor. Right by the windows, too. Nothing.”

  “Shit.”

  “What I don’t get,” said Trout, “is why they’re bullying us about this. All they have to do is talk to Volker.”

  “Zetter said they can’t find Volker.”

  “Oh … crap.”

  “So,” Dez asked, “what do we do now?”

  Trout shook his head. “Geez … I really don’t know. Keep trying to get in touch with Goat.”

  “Billy,” said Dez, “we could tell them where to find Goat.”

  “And have them put a bullet in his head?” Trout fired back. “No thanks.”

  “Would you rather they stormed in here? With all these kids?”

  “I’d rather we find a way to get in touch with Goat.”

  They looked at each other for a few moments, and then off into separate quadrants of the middle distance.

  “Can we use the walkie-talkie to call Goat?” asked Trout.

  “I don’t know. If so, I wouldn’t know how,” she admitted. Then she tilted her head to one side as if listening to a thought. “Could they be blocking the sat phone somehow? I mean, could they be jamming it or something?”

  “Goat could tell you that,” said Trout. “He’s the techno geek.”

  “But it’s possible, right?”

  They thought about the situation for a long time, but neither of them had a solution. Dez’s knowledge of electronics didn’t extend much beyond downloading Hank Williams Jr. ringtones and watching YouTube videos. Trout was more savvy, but nowhere close to Goat’s level.

  “I guess so,” Trout said at last. “It’s funny, we had a story scheduled about the twenty-first-century army, but I haven’t started the research yet. Bad timing.”

  “Yeah, it blows that the death of our entire town got in the way of your job.”

  “Bite me, Dez. You know what I mean.”

  “I know. I was making a joke.”

  “Hilarious.”

  She ignored him. “So, where does that leave us other than five miles up shit creek?”

  “Not sure what we can do beyond keep trying,” he said. “I’ll call Goat every minute if I have to.”

  “Why bother?” she said.

  “What?”

  Dez walked over to the door that separated her from whatever remained of JT Hammond. “This is all totally fucked,” she said. “We’re wasting our time. Zetter is going to come in here whether we help him or not. We’re completely screwed.” She leaned her forehead against the cold metal. “Why don’t you go upstairs?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “To do what? Count how many people we’re going to get killed?”

  He walked over and stood a few feet away. “Dez, a few minutes ago you just gave a pretty good speech about searching the building and taking responsibility. That was good. It helped. You got this group of refugees in motion.”

  “They searched the building. It’s clear. Mission accomplished. Now leave me alone.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” said Trout. “I’m trying to say that somebody needs to step up and be in charge of this mess.”

  “Did you hear anything I said? They’re going to fucking kill us.”

  “Maybe they will,” said Trout, “and maybe they won’t. Maybe I’ll get in touch with Goat. Maybe they’ll find Volker. Maybe this whole thing is over. We don’t know what’s happening or going to happen, Dez. All we do know is there are six hundred people upstairs and every single one of them is lost and scared. They need someone to look to so they know how to deal, how to act. They need an anchor. They need you.”

  “The principal can handle all that stuff.”

  “No,” said Trout. “Mrs. Madison doesn’t have the power and she doesn’t have the authority.”

  “She’s the principal.”

  “Of what? An elementary school? C’mon, Dez, are you trying to tell me that she has the goods to bring this whole place under control and keep everybody in line? Some of the people here aren’t even from the school. They aren’t parents or staff. They’re survivors who came here because it’s the town’s emergency shelter. What do they care if a grade school principal gives them an order?”

  Dez barked out a harsh laugh. “And you think they’ll listen to me? Are you high or stupid? I’m only a small-town cop.” Dez looked at him and her eyes were haunted. “And let’s face it, Billy, cops didn’t exactly save the day. There wasn’t a
lot of protecting and serving going on. Or have you forgotten that the entire Stebbins Police Department is dead?”

  Trout slapped his palm flat on the door six inches from her head. It was as loud as a pistol shot and Dez jerked backward.

  “Now you fucking well listen to me, Desdemona Abigail Fox,” Trout growled. “I know you’re hurting because of JT. I know what losing him means to you.”

  “No you don’t—”

  “The hell I don’t. I lost a lot of friends, too. Everyone I work with except Goat. All of my close friends except for you. And as for you, I know you a lot better than you ever gave me credit for. Maybe I know you better than JT did. Go ahead and punch me if that offends you, because—”

  She did punch him.

  It was very fast and very hard and it felt like being shot in the chest. Trout staggered four paces back and then fell hard on his ass. He sat there, legs splayed, gulping for air like a trout on a riverbank.

  “Goddamn it, you crazy bitch,” he wheezed when he could finally speak. It wasn’t the first time she’d ever punched him, but it was harder than he’d ever been hit by anyone in his life.

  Dez loomed over him. “You don’t talk about JT.”

  Trout struggled up off the cold concrete. “I wasn’t talking about JT,” he roared. “I was talking about me and you.”

  “What do you want from me, anyway?” she demanded, getting up in his face.

  He thought, fuck it, and got up in hers.

  “I want you to step up, Dez. I want you—I need you—to stop being Dez Fox the injured crazy person and be Officer Dez Fox the cop. Yeah, okay, the rest of the Stebbins cops are dead, and that sucks. And, yeah, you have no real authority left. Yeah, life sucks, too, and everyone we know is dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah to all of that. But I just came from a roomful of terrified children. Children, Dez. Hundreds of them. Children who are probably going to die unless we put on our big-girl panties and take charge. And by we I pretty much mean you. Hit me again if it’ll make you feel better. Kick my ass and stomp me if that’s what it takes, but then put your big-girl panties on and go do what you know you have to do.”

  For a long handful of silent seconds Trout was absolutely positive that Dez was going to pistol-whip him. He could see the desire to do that in her eyes. Her lips compressed and he heard the creak of her knuckles as her hands balled into fists.

  Then Dez abruptly took a step back. The action looked like it hurt, like it physically tore her away from the moment. She glanced wildly around as if looking for a doorway that would open onto a different world. Maybe the world of two days ago, when everything made some kind of sense; or a world where there was no Stebbins County, no Billy, no JT, no Lucifer 113, and no zombies.

  She exhaled a long, deep, ragged breath.

  “Fuck you, Billy.” She said it in a whisper.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Fuck me.”

  Then Dez nodded. Not to Trout. Maybe to herself. A single, curt bob of her head.

  Without another word Dez turned and climbed the steps as heavily as if mounting the stairs to the guillotine.

  Trout watched her go.

  When he was alone, he leaned against the wall and he, too, exhaled. His chest really hurt. Oddly, his back felt a little better, as if falling had knocked something back into place.

  “Why, thank you, Billy Trout, for that crucial sanity check,” he said aloud in a bad approximation of Dez’s voice, then switched to his own. “Oh, you’re quite welcome, Officer Psychopath. Anything for a friend.”

  Then he pushed off the wall, rubbed his aching chest, and limped up the steps after her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  WHAT THE FINKE THINKS

  WTLK LIVE TALK RADIO

  PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

  “We have Borden on five.”

  “Borden? Is that a first or last name?” asked Gavin.

  The producer spread his hands. “It’s all he gave us. Coming to you now.”

  Gavin took the call. “We have Borden from Bordentown. Thanks for calling in.”

  “Yeah, okay, I listen to this show all the time and you talk about a lot of really weird stuff but I saw something tonight that’s weirder than anything you ever talked about.”

  The man had a thick Kentucky accent and Gavin figured he was right out of one of those deep woods hollers. A good old boy’s good old boy.

  “I’m all ears, Mr. Borden.”

  “It ain’t ‘mister.’ Just Borden.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I’m a trucker—”

  “You shock me.”

  “—and I’m doing a run from Chicago straight through to Baltimore and I pulled off the interstate to get me a cup of coffee. One of them Starbucks places.”

  “I’ve heard of them.”

  “And as I’m walking out I see this car pull up. And who do you reckon I saw getting out of that car just as bold as you please?”

  “I don’t think I’d want to hazard a guess.”

  “It was Mr. Homer Gibbons.”

  “Wait, the serial killer?”

  “The very same.”

  “Excuse me, Borden,” said Gavin, “but it’s my understanding that Homer Gibbons was executed at Rockview Prison two days ago.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. They kilt that boy deader’n dead and there he was getting out of one of those little Nissan thingamabobs. The Cube. Bare-chested, barefooted, bold as you damn please.”

  “Homer Gibbon.”

  “Yessiree bob.”

  “Alive?”

  “Well, sir, to be fair, he didn’t look all that hot. I think they must have messed him up some when they kilt him.”

  Gavin looked at the producer, who was laughing silently on the other side of the glass. Gavin grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Tell me exactly what happened, Borden. This is absolutely fascinating.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  IN STEBBINS COUNTY

  STEBBINS, PENNSYLVANIA

  Lonnie Silk did not understand the hunger.

  He was too hurt, too tired, too sick to even think about food, and yet it was all he could think about. With every staggering step he took, the need for something to eat turned like a knife in his stomach. It was worse than any hunger he’d ever felt. It was so much bigger than the pain of his wounds. So much more important than the disease that he knew was at work in his blood and flesh.

  He was so hungry that he wanted to scream.

  Or maybe he had screamed. Lonnie couldn’t quite remember. If he had, then the storm winds had blown it away.

  He sagged against a wooden post at the corner of a big rail fence that bordered a field of swaying corn.

  Corn.

  He looked at it. He’d eaten raw corn before. Everyone who grew up in farm country had tried it.

  Before he knew he was doing it, Lonnie climbed up onto the rail fence, leaned over, let himself fall into the mud on the other side. He landed hard and pain flared in every damaged inch of him.

  It didn’t matter.

  He was too hungry to let it matter.

  Lonnie tried to get up. Couldn’t.

  So he crawled to the nearest stalk, grabbed it, pulled it down, tore the ear from the stalk, ripped the green leaves away, and bit savagely at the kernels.

  And immediately spit them out.

  He flung the corn away, disgusted by it. This isn’t what his hunger wanted.

  Needed.

  Craved.

  Lonnie cried out in frustration, and this time he heard his voice. It was not an articulate cry. There were no words. Instead it was just an expression of need.

  Of hunger.

  Lonnie looked wildly around as if expecting to see plates of food right there. Needing to see food.

  Drool ran from the corners of his mouth and Lonnie dared not wipe it away; if he did, then he’d see what was in that spittle. What white, wriggling things were there.

  Things that were also hungry.

  So hu
ngry.

  He moaned again, and wept at the sound of his own voice.

  Lonnie grabbed the slats of the fence and slowly, painfully pulled himself up. Then, holding on to the rail, he began walking again. He didn’t know where, he had no specific destination. He wasn’t even sure where home was anymore.

  Down this road?

  Or farther along the road he’d been on?

  He didn’t know, couldn’t tell. Didn’t really care.

  He went the way his weak legs could go, using the fence to stay upright. Following his moans. Following his hunger.

  Looking for something to eat.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  TOWN OF STEBBINS

  ONE MILE INSIDE THE Q-ZONE

  Sam Imura told Boxer to pull onto a side road, and the Boy Scouts climbed out of the vehicle. Moonshiner hefted out a big duffel bag, zipped it open, and began handing out heavy-duty protective garments. These were not the standard white hazmat suits but were instead SARATOGA HAMMER Suits. They were permeable chemical warfare protective overgarments with composite filter fabric based on highly activated and hard carbon spheres fixed onto textile carrier fabrics. Sam had rolled into action on dozens of occasions wearing a HAMMER Suit. They were tough but light enough to permit agile movement during unarmed and armed combat.

  “Hoods?” asked Shortstop.

  “Not unless we know we’re heading into close-combat,” said Sam. “It’s a serum-transfer pathogen. No airborne components.”

  “Shit,” said Boxer.

  “You don’t want these fuckers to French kiss you, brother,” said Moonshiner.

  “Be a lot more action than I’ve been getting lately.”

  They all laughed. Sam turned to them and when they saw the look on his face the laughter faded.

  “What?” asked Moonshiner.

  “Let’s understand something right from the jump,” Sam said. “The infected are designated hostiles and we react and respond the way professional soldiers should while in combat. But … these are people. We don’t disrespect them. If we have to pull a trigger then it’s a mercy kill not a booyah moment, feel me?”

  The others took a moment, then nodded.