“Yes, that will do.” Her knuckles pinkened as she eased up a bit on the wheel, and the slice of her he could see in the rearview was wide-eyed. “Five hundred milligrams. I should have thought to get some liquid.”
Juju made a short it-don’t-matter sound. “We got what we got. I’ll crush em fo you, Duncan?”
He let his chin tip down in an approximation of a nod again. Oh, God, it was good to hear. Someone was taking care of him, and if there was a whirlybird in sight it meant civilization, the chain of command, and all those things he hated. Authority. Orders. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, and maybe, if he was really lucky, a hospital.
“Yessir,” Juju said, softly. “Just gonna crush these up fo you, my man, and get em washed down.”
Anything you want, my man, Duncan wanted to say. His throat was too swollen, barely a pinhole to force bitter medication through. Anything at all.
Checkpoint Golf
Sour-faced sharp-shaven men in fatigues? Yep. A tangle of barbwire, concrete placers, and guns in towers? Yep. Floodlights that probably lit up this place to Kingdom Come at night? Oh, yeah. It was Checkpoint Golf, the sign said, and hallelujah, it had electricity.
Lee should have felt grateful. He should have felt goddamn relieved. He should have been jumping for shit-bustin’ joy.
But Ginny’s chin set, stubbornly, and she had her arms folded nice and tight, blinking against fine misting rain turning to gold when the sun peeked through. “Then I won’t go in either,” she repeated. “He doesn’t have it. His fever’s steady at 102 and he’s not convulsing.”
“Orders are no infected,” the gate CO repeated, matching her tit for tat. His nametag said Cho; he was ramrod-straight, smooth-cheeked, bristle-haired, and the kind of jackass Lee would have had longing thoughts of dunking in a hot barrel just to teach him a little bend. “Sorry, ma’am.” His expression suggested he wasn’t sorry at all, and the way his gaze kept drifting over Ginny’s head at the road behind them spoke volumes.
Bulldozers were chugging along that strip, working between big concrete placers meant to channel approaching hostiles. Looked like it had been a busy night out here; critter-corpses crunched and stank while the boots on guard duty held their rifles at jumpy-yeah-shoot-it-and-be-sure angles.
“They come out at night, right?” Lee jerked his head at the mess behind them. At least the morning work details had cleared a path to the gate. And at least the assholes weren’t yelling at them to put their hands behind their heads and lie down on the swimming pavement.
It had been a near thing.
“You better believe it.” Cho didn’t like being reminded. “Look, ma’am, if you’re not coming in, you’d better clear the gates. We’ll take the uninfected in and—”
“Fine.” Ginny turned on her heel and set off for Juju’s four-by. I ain’t goin up there, Juju had said. White boys with guns, Loot. Sorry.
He was right. Lee kept his hands visible and his movements slow. Besides, someone had to stay with Duncan. They should have just propped him up and toweled him off to get him through the gate. Steph sat in the truck, huge-eyed, hugging Traveller, and the dog wriggled with glee at the prospect of more humans to sniff.
“Listen.” Lee tried again. “You got yourself a Colonel Grandon there? Or General? He’s a general now.”
“General Grandon?” Cho’s backup, a pimple-faced kid with notches on his rifle butt, swallowed hard when Cho swung around to give him a look. Drops of mist hung in Cho’s short, stiff black ruff, not nearly as gemlike as the ones on Ginny’s braids.
Lee dug for his wallet—nice and slow, his other hand up. Everyone in the damn towers was likely to be twitchy as fuck, too. “Here’s my ID. Go get Grandon on the line. We’ll wait.”
“I can’t call the general just because—” Cho huffed, but Lee fixed him with a stare.
“Son,” he said, quietly, “I have driven up to New York and back, I got me two ladies, two fellow soldiers, and a dog through enemy territory, we lost al’ost everyone else, and I ain’t gonna have no pissant stop me from seein General Grandon like he ordered me to before this bullshit even started. So you get on that phone, and you tell him Lieutenant Lee Quartine’s here with a delivery.”
It wasn’t quite a lie, and Lee didn’t feel a goddamn bit of guilt over it. He was savin’ that guilt for other things, like the look on Ginny’s face as if she expected him to go on through the gates and leave her with a sick man.
Christ. You could lose everythin’ in an instant with a woman, maybe. Big Q had never warned him about that.
He about-faced and walked away, not in double-time but not slowly either, leaving Cho holding his ID. If the motherfucker didn’t call Grandon, well, Lee was gonna hafta get creative.
Fortunately, Cho’s understudy was already humping for a box containing a field phone. Ten minutes later Cho came scurryin out, waving Lee’s ID like it was the holy grail, and finally, the tension in Lee’s shoulders came down a notch.
It was about damn time.
Vitals
Electric lights glowed, and the entire building was wonderfully warm. There were clean blankets, clean floors, doors that didn’t have to be barricaded, hospital beds, and the hum of conversation. And, best of all, the flat smell of boiled coffee added to antiseptic and detergent that, taken together, shouted medical care.
Ginny scrubbed at her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I should have thought strep sooner,” she said, numbly. Her skin crawled, her scalp twitched, and she longed to take the pins out of her hair. Instead, she dropped her hands and smoothed the pea-green wool blanket over Duncan’s broad chest again. “He’s going to be all right?”
He looked smaller, propped up on crisp pillows. An IV drip went about its placid work right next to the bed, and Duncan’s stubble glittered under fluorescent light. His chest rose and fell, deeply, regularly, and the bruises on his hands and forearms glared.
They were all walking collections of hematomas. Escaping the walking dead gave you all sorts of aches and pains, and now each one on Ginny’s own body was waking up and demanding to be heard.
“Yep. Little hydration, little penicillin—you got the right dosage, too—and he’ll be right as rain.” Doctor Nguyen smiled, her broad brown cheeks bunching up with a pair of fetching dimples, and patted at one of her scrubs’ pockets. Her hair was pulled ruthlessly back and a thin chain showed at her throat, holding a gold ring. Which meant she was married and probably surgical, since taking rings off to wash your hands was a good way to lose them. “Now will you let us take a look at you?”
“I’m fine. Just tired.” She didn’t think telling them well, you know, that guy who was hustled off in the helicopter gave me a shot and I got better was a good move.
Not yet. Probably not ever.
And that was food for thought, wasn’t it? The way they had suddenly turned into VIPs once Lee had a chance to talk to the gate-guard alone. After the black-haired guy had come out waving Lee’s ID, they’d been ushered in through the gates, given an escort of green and black Humvees, rushed to an improvised hospital settled in a repurposed office building, and hustled inside posthaste.
Except for Lee and Juju, who were taken to the roof; the same black helicopter she’d seen circling over Charlotte—or its twin—had shown up in a hurry.
Considering what Lee was carrying, no wonder. Ginny should have been furious, Instead, she was simply…drained. They’d made it after all.
Now what?
“You probably want a shower, and some food.” Dr Nguyen was chirpy-cheerful as anyone on a full ration of sleep could be. “Or some coffee, first? It’s horrible because it’s the Army, but at least it’s caffeine.”
Her teabags were in the back of the truck, but trudging into the fitful rain to fetch them was an unappetizing idea at best. The light in here was too bright, her eyes were smarting. “Um. I suppose a shower. Oh, the girl who came in with me—”
“She’s being checked out, too. Let’s get yo
u looked at, all right? Most people coming in are malnourished and in shock, they just don’t know it.”
Which was not precisely news, but hearing other people were coming in was a blessing. “How many have come in? Are they still?”
“There were a lot at first.” Dr Nguyen made little shooing come on motions, and Ginny let herself be herded. “Now it’s a trickle. We had a group of six a couple days ago—a lady named Halloran and another named Frank, a bunch of girls.”
“Frank?” It was a pretty common name, but she could hope. “Kasie Frank? A black lady—African-American? A nurse?”
“She’s a nurse, yeah—sounds like you know her?” Nguyen led her into the hall, sweeping the door mostly closed. ”I don’t know her first name. Halloran had a broken arm and a couple of the girls were pretty beat up, I guess they went through Greensboro. Which was exactly the wrong way to go.”
Does that mean we came in the right way? It didn’t seem possible that there was any right way in this situation. “There weren’t any guys with them?” Mike, or Jorge? Oh, God. Now she was greedy for another set of survivors. Carline and Mandy—were they all right? Chantal? Colleen?
It seemed like a lifetime ago. What were the odds that anyone else had survived? Probably like winning the lottery. They’d all been dumped into one of those wire cages and spun, plucked at random, and deposited here.
“Nope.” The doctor’s ponytail bounced along just as efficiently as she did. “Come on. We’ll just take your vitals, then you can have a shower and a rest. We can use someone with medical training around here. It’s been combat trauma for days now, with the nightly swarm.”
“That sounds…unappetizing.” She peered through the door, one last peek. Duncan’s jaw was slack, he was out hard under the woolen blanket. “I should check on Steph first.”
“Yes, but we’re going to take your vitals.” Polite, firm, and utterly immovable, Doctor Nguyen folded her arms. “You can’t help anyone unless you help yourself, Ms Mills.”
Ginny nodded. “Okay.” It felt both welcome and slightly obscene to have lights glowing overhead, to hear movement in the hallways that wasn’t dangerous. To feel warm air touching her face, and the safety of human numbers again. “I just…it’s been a long trip.”
“I’ll bet. I heard something about New York?” The doctor set off at a brisk pace, her pink, eminently sensible sneakers making faint sounds on freshly mopped linoleum.
They had enough people to mop, here. Her skin began crawling in earnest. “Yeah.” Ginny unzipped her jacket. She was sweating, she realized. It felt too warm in here. “We started out in Cotton Crossing. Small town. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
“You can tell me while we take your stats. This way, honey.” She scooped up Ginny’s elbow; steady hands, which was a good thing, because Ginny wasn’t sure she wouldn’t start reeling. Her head was suspiciously light. “You can relax, you’re all right now.”
God, I hope that’s true. Ginny swallowed, hard, and let herself be pulled along.
Later, under a spray of blessed hot water in a shower that more resembled a high-end gymnasium’s locker room than an Army base, she finished rinsing shampoo and grime out of her hair, stared at the white tiled wall, and Kaddish rose in her throat. She recited it, start to finish, first in Aramaic, then in English.
She could remember every word, now that it was too late to matter.
God was a monster, yes.
But maybe he would understand.
The Whole Point
Rain hit the window of a bare boxlike room, drops coming together and rolling down. The tiny bits of water didn’t really separate after that, they just went on their way as two instead of one. Or three, four, five, making a stream. Her English teacher Miz Uglanov would ask for a list of synonyms.
Coming together. Joining. Balling up? No, that one was wrong. Steph huddled on the bed, hugging her damp, jean-clad knees. There were “barracks” here—people sleeping on rows of cots, breathing each others’ breath and whatever else, and that might have been nice except they were strangers, and she’d spent so long looking at the same faces the new ones made her uneasy.
Besides, the lady doctor Nguyen said there was an adjustment period. She said other things, like shock and trauma, but Steph just watched her mouth move for most of it and nodded every once in a while, when someone seemed to expect it.
That seemed safest.
Lee and Juju went off to do whatever it was got everyone so excited at the gate, Mr Duncan was wheeled away on a gurney, Ginny went with him, and Steph was weighed, blood pressured, and temperature-taken before being left here with the dog and the rain and her own goddamn thoughts. Traveller sprawled across Steph’s feet, snoring mightily. Nobody made any fuss about him strolling along on his leash, thank Jesus, and it wasn’t time for his supper yet.
The clock wired to the wall said so, and it was probably right. All of a sudden the world had started working again.
She supposed she should pray. Take a shower in the funny locker room down the hall. Her suitcase had been placed just inside this room’s door, but if she opened it up for clothes or shampoo she’d think of Mark saying y’all can make anything fit in there, man, and the tears would start on slow leak again.
Not sobbing—she was done cried out, as Mama would say. Just…a trickle from each eye, sliding down chapped cheeks. It was better to just sit, hugging her knees, keep her eyes shut tight, and hold on.
Traveller’s paws twitched. He made funny little woofing noises deep in his throat, his lips twitching too. Was he dreaming about Mark, who would always scratch right above his tail and say there’s a good ol’ hound? Maybe he was dreaming Miz Phyllis, who said she didn’t want hair on her but still bent down to pet his head with careful fingertips whenever he got close?
Or was he dreamin’ about the zombies? Hounds followed their noses, and God knew the zombies were smelly enough.
Rain sounded good on a window when you were warm and safe inside. They had electricity here, a whole National Reserve base up and running. Lights came on when you flipped the switch. There were people talking in the halls, not caring if noise would draw zombie attention. Thick concrete walls topped with razor wire cuddled all the buildings like a nest holding eggs, and people were strolling out in the daylight. Sure, there were a lot of them carrying rifles, but if any of the zombies got past the gate, the rifles were a good thing.
Her breath stank; Steph knew as much because her mouth was rancid even though her nose was full of hot, runny snot. Everything on her stank. It stank like shit. She probably smelled as bad as a zombie now.
She could get out of the building, probably. Go down to the gate. They were supposed to stop people comin’ in, they wouldn’t mind one going out. She could walk until she found one of the zombies. She could even take her baseball bat, right? The pistol Lee gave her was in his truck, left in a lot with an empty guard shack because nobody here would want to steal it when there were so many others around.
Getting out would be easy, compared to everything else. It really would be.
What would be the point? Well, the whole point was…
“It shoulda been me,” she whispered to her dirty jeans, her boots full of dried mud getting on the clean taut blanket, her flannel shirt—Mark’s red flannel shirt, and it was a good thing her nose was full because she couldn’t smell him on it, either.
Steph sniffed, long and deep, packing her nose even harder. Would her head explode from all the snot? Just like a zombie’s when you shot it. Sploosh.
“Steph?” Tentative, her name lifting at the end. “There you are.”
Go away. She hugged her legs harder, pressed her cheek against one knee. There was probably zombie splatter on her jeans too. Maybe she’d even take sick from it, but Miz Ginny said they were immune.
Immune was a big ol’ shithead of a word, Steph thought. Like insurance, which Daddy always complained about, it didn’t cover everything. It covered hardly nothin’ at all.
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Traveller stopped dreaming. He shifted on the bed. Of course, he’d want the woman in the door to come over and pet him. Steph wasn’t in a petting mood.
Soft sound of footsteps, clothing moving. You got used to quiet just like you got used to the noise of traffic, to the motion of a car. To the sound of a boy sleeping next to you, his arm over your waist and his face in your hair. Keeping the sleeping bag between you so you didn’t, well, do anything embarrassing while he was cuddled up. Letting him kiss you, tongue shyly flicking. Making him come back in and yell I’m home because you wanted to see what it was like.
Telling him he’d done wrong and then being bitchy when he tried hard to make it up. That, too.
Now there was nothing, just a pack of fucking zombies swarming over a body that used to be someone important, and there wasn’t any getting used to that. No sir.
Never.
“Steph.” A pressure on the mattress beside her. Someone sitting down.
“Leave me alone,” Steph moaned into her knees.
“No, sweetie. Not right now.” Ginny’s arm came over her shoulders. She was just the same—soft like Mama, hugging awkwardly, caring radiating off her like heat from the funny bolted-on things under the windows. “Not right now,” she repeated, and the pressure on Steph’s shoulders pulled her off-center.
Steph slumped into her softness. It’s not fair. I want him back. The leaking was back, and she wanted to be alone, right?
No. Yes.
She didn’t know what the fuck she wanted, really. But Ginny just sat there, holding her, and Traveller lay back down with a satisfied hrmph from both ends that would have been funny if Mark was still alive.
But he wasn’t. He was gone. Steph was safe and warm, and the leaking turned into hitching, soft sobs while Ginny hugged her and rocked a little, humming quietly.
It was that sound that broke her down, because it was just like Mama when you threw up or got kicked during recess or so mad about something you cried. A soft, female song that said oh honey and let it out and that most important of things, ever.
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