Resurrection (Book 2): Into the Wasteland
Page 44
“I’ll go,” Steele said quietly and headed back toward his truck.
He walked slowly at first, as if Hughes might shoot him in the back if he moved too quickly, but Hughes wasn’t going to shoot him in the back after telling him to get lost. That was a mobster move, not a Hughes move. Steele eventually figured it out and walked normally.
“He probably has a gun in his truck,” Parker said.
“Probably,” Hughes said.
“We’d better get out of here then,” Parker said, “before he gets to it.”
“He’s not going to shoot at us,” Hughes said.
“You can’t possibly know that,” Annie said.
“No,” Hughes said, “but he won’t. He wronged us and he knows it, yet we let him off. Besides, he’ll die right here if he tries.”
Annie felt the cold now. She noticed that she was shivering, so she climbed back in the Suburban and turned the heat up to high.
Steele finally reached his SUV and got behind the wheel. Started the engine. Drove toward the Suburban real slow.
Hughes raised the Glock and pointed it in Steele’s direction.
Steele stopped his vehicle.
Hughes waved the gun in a beckoning circle, giving Steele permission to proceed.
Steele drove forward again, slower this time, like he wasn’t entirely sure he had understood Hughes’ gun gesture correctly.
Hughes beckoned him by waving the gun in a circle again, a little more vigorously this time, like he wanted Steele to hurry it up and get off their road.
Steele sped up and, as he approached, raised his left hand and lowered his head a couple of inches toward the steering wheel. Nobody said anything as he passed them, nor did anyone say anything when he accelerated hard, spun his tires in the snow for a moment, then sped off toward his fallen hometown without even knowing what had happened to it.
Parker got back in the Suburban, but Hughes stayed in the road even after Steele was lost to sight, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was covered in snow, not seeming to care that they were about to be pinned down by the weather, that they’d be well advised to get some more distance between themselves and whatever danger still lurked in Lander.
There was nothing dangerous in Belt, Wyoming, however. That was clear.
Hughes finally shook the snow off himself and got back behind the wheel.
“I don’t want to go,” Annie said, “anymore.”
“Don’t want to go where?” Hughes said.
“To Atlanta,” Annie said.
Nobody moved. And, at first, nobody said anything. Hughes just stared straight ahead.
“The fuck are you talking about?” he finally said.
“I can’t,” Annie said. Her ears rang and she felt a pressure headache building between her eyes.
Hughes’ whole body tensed.
“Annie—” Kyle said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. That heavy gray feeling was back now. She felt as if something enormous and terrible had been chasing her for a hundred years.
Nobody else said anything.
“They’ll kill me,” she said.
“Who will?” Kyle said.
“The doctors in Atlanta, if they’re still even alive, which they probably aren’t. But if they are, they’ll kill me like the people in Lander just about killed me.”
“I’m immune because of you,” Parker said.
“You’re immune because we infected you,” Annie said. “You don’t know what happened to me in that town. I’m sorry, I should have told you this earlier but—there was this little boy. The mayor’s son. The doctors made a serum from my blood and tried to cure him. It didn’t work. They still would not let me go.”
“We cured Parker,” Kyle said.
“We didn’t cure him,” she said. “We infected him.”
“We gave him immunity!” Hughes said.
Annie closed her eyes. Her body felt warmer now with the heater blowing in her face, which only made her more tired. She wanted to sleep for a year.
Hughes was right, though. She knew that. She just did not want to go. She wanted to tell Hughes to head into Canada and drive so far north that nobody would ever find them.
“You aren’t this selfish,” Hughes said.
Annie put her left index finger against one closed eye and her left thumb against the other. She never asked for this, never asked to be immune, never said to God or the universe or to anyone who would listen that she wanted to save the world when she grew up. She wasn’t a hero. She was just a person.
“You can save people,” Hughes said.
“Save who?” Annie said. “Look around. Everyone’s dead. Even Lander is dead. The mayor had me in his hospital and couldn’t even save one single person.”
“Annie—” Kyle said gently.
“I’ll go, okay?” she said. “I’ll go. I’m sorry, I just…”
She wasn’t a child anymore. She wasn’t going to cry. Wouldn’t let herself. Not when she was alone, and certainly not in front of the others.
“Goddammit!” she said and punched the dashboard. “Just promise me something.”
“Anything, Annie,” Parker said, and she knew that he meant it.
“Don’t let them treat me like that when we get there.”
“Never,” Parker said.
“Not a chance,” Kyle said.
“Not on my watch,” Hughes said.
Annie loved these people. She trusted them with all her heart. They’d risked their lives for her more than once—especially Hughes—and Parker had sworn an oath. They would not let her down—they’d proven it—but there was only so much they could do.
Hughes gently took the Suburban back onto Broadway. He drove them past empty house after empty house, a few more abandoned businesses, and a restaurant called Charlotte’s with a Closed sign on the door, no cars in the parking lot and no signs of life anywhere.
“The whole world will look like this if we fail,” Hughes finally said.
What Annie said next should have been obvious but apparently wasn’t. “The whole world already does.”
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Also by Michael J. Totten
The Road to Fatima Gate
In the Wake of the Surge
Where the West Ends
Tower of the Sun
Dispatches
Taken: A Novel
Resurrection: A Zombie Novel
About the Author
Michael J. Totten is a novelist and a foreign correspondent who has reported from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the former Soviet Union.
His first book, The Road to Fatima Gate, won the Washington Institute Book Prize in 2011.
He lives with his wife in Oregon and is a former resident of Beirut.
Copyright © 2017 by Michael J. Totten
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in
any form or by any means without the prior written permission of
Michael J. Totten.
First American edition published in 2017 by Belmont Estate Books
Cover design by Kathleen Lynch
Edited by Annie Reed
Manufactured in the United States on acid-free paper
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ELECTRONIC EDITION
Totten, Michael J.
Into the Wasteland: A Zombie Novel