The grey-haired one with the shotgun was round, and her wire-rim glasses glinted. So did the bluing on her shotgun’s barrel. Pale, glinting eyes peered from under a shock of silvery hair, and her chin was too soft to give him any real concern. She looked like his mother, actually—though Sylvia French would never have dreamed of holding a shotgun, especially with unmanicured, nail-bitten hands.
“Shura?” One of the girls—they looked like they were on a private school field trip, every social clique represented from the thick glasses and frizzy hair to two polished mannequins—moved behind the woman, uncertainly. “Is he okay?”
“Don’t know yet.” Grey Hair examined Brandon for a few more moments, then lowered her gun. “Provisionally, I suppose. Harper, Cora, you two find us some rooms, top floor. Juana, Maria, get started on dinner. Minnie, Shanice, you’re weapons detail tonight. Allison, you’ll come with me for reconnaissance.”
She must have been a fellow teacher. Maybe even a gym teacher, though she wasn’t the rangy dyke type. Maybe a fellow humanities educator? The girls scattered, and Grey Hair made a tiny clicking noise with her tongue as Brandon lowered his hands. “You. How long have you been here?”
“A few days.” He decided some groundwork needed to be laid, just in case. “I was traveling with another group, but they were…well, we didn’t get along.”
Instant suspicion. “Why?”
He indicated his face. The bruising was going down, but it was still mottled. Hopefully she could see it in the uncertain light.
The hotel was no longer quiet. Soft, birdlike voices and the sounds of light, stealthy movement echoed. “I don’t like bullies.” His stomach hurt too, that hick fuck had sucker-punched him. It was unlikely he’d ever see them again, but if he did, Brandon French was going to get him back.
He already had a few satisfying ideas.
“Huh.” The shotgun lowered still further. “I’m Miz Halloran. My girls and I are going to Atlanta.”
Miz, she said, not offering a first name. She was a bitch, Brandon decided, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying to be nice enough to tag along. One of the girls was a hot little number with long dark hair and sloe eyes, reminding him of that sophomore before she turned all bitchy on him, too.
The zombie apocalypse had saved him from that, at least.
It was an unpleasant thought, so Brandon pushed it away and kept his hands where Grey Hair could see them. “Yeah? What’s in Atlanta?”
“The Center for Disease Control was telling everyone to go that way, before everything stopped working.” Halloran freed one plump hand long enough to push her glasses up on her nose, a thoughtful, entirely habitual motion. “You didn’t hear?”
“No, I was taking care of my parents. They got sick.” Just the right tone, he hoped—sincere, grieving, reticent to discuss the gory details. “I, uh…is there something I can do to help you? Anything at all? You need something carried, something put together?” Of course they needed some muscle. Girls always did.
The frizz-haired girl with her Coke-bottom glasses peered at him, trying to hide behind the little round woman. Maybe she was subnormal. Maybe both of them were, but he wasn’t about to pass this chance up. Hell, if he cozied up to this Halloran he could be in clover.
“That’s nice of you.” Halloran smiled, but something about those bluish eyes peering through her own metal-rimmed spectacles made him a little uneasy. Kind of like the other English teacher at Lourde Bend High, the bitch the sophomore had gone trotting to. “I think we’ve got it handled. We’ll be out of your way tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Brandon said, easily. He knew the hotel layout better than they did, and a lot could happen between now and morning.
“Come on, Allison.” Halloran edged away, towards the check-in desk. “Let’s look around, huh?”
“Okay.” The frizzed girl, her broad poreless face escaping attractiveness by a mile but still glowing with youth, gave Brandon another long, fearful look, but trotted behind the older woman obediently enough.
Yes, Brandon told himself, a lot could happen in a single night. His big mistake had been not realizing that sooner.
Things were looking up.
“I know him,” Allison said, her dark eyebrows drawing together. Her hair was a halo of tight curls starred with tiny blue barrettes over her temples; she’d stopped trying to straighten it and quit pulling it out. Maybe travel agreed with her. She aimed her flashlight beam at the computer in the manager’s office, glancing at the dead eye of its monitor longingly. Without electricity, it was just a paperweight. “I know I know him.”
Shura Halloran, part-time janitor at Maryhill High School before the world ended, examined the rest of the office. Whoever this fellow had been staying with was smart enough to jimmy a side employee door like Shura and her new brood. That kind of went against the man’s explanations, but there were three rooms trashed which sort of bore out his story of looters and bullies. The front glass door was smashed and the reception desk rifled, but someone had made an attempt to put some order into things.
It was a puzzle, and one Shura didn’t like. “Maybe he’s just got one of those faces,” she said, diplomatically enough.
Each of the girls was handling this better than Shura had ever thought possible. Even Harper, rich little white girl that she was, seemed happier in the ruins of civilization than she ever had in the hallowed hallways of Maryhill. Given that Harper’s parents were dyed in the wool sonofabitches—even her mother, the lacquered Mrs Faye Feuillette, what a name to marry into—it made a certain amount of sense.
A whole lot more was making sense these days. Things had become very…well, basic, ever since she’d come across Allison cornered in the Stockton Bargain Zone’s dairy department by three men, none of them the walking dead.
The zombies were easy to deal with. It was the humans—or, the ones that called themselves humans—she didn’t really like. Except her girls.
“No, I know him.” Allison frowned at the check-in desk, her lazy eye rolling slightly behind her own glasses. “I’ll think of it…” She stopped, her mouth open a little, and stared into space.
Shura waited, patiently. If you let them finish thinking, teenagers came up with the damndest things. Why, just this morning Juana was telling them all about physics during class time, and how space was full of dimples. Shanice hadn’t believed her until Juana pulled out a textbook, and there it was in black and white.
Dimples, in space. It boggled the mind.
“French,” Allison mumbled. “Mr French.”
“Whatnow?” Shura pushed open the office door and played her own flashlight across the front desk, eyeing the damage. Someone had made an attempt to clean up in here, too, which wasn’t like any looters she’d ever heard of. It also wasn’t like a man that looked that way—big, blond, expensive watch, an ingratiating smile—to tidy anything up after his royal self.
“Brandon French, 34, of Currie Lourd Kansas. English teacher, Lourd Bend High School. It was in the free paper with the coupons. Second page.” Allison trailed behind her, eager to help as always. The girl’s memory was a steel trap, once you found the right way to plug it in. “Allegations, it said.”
“Allegations of what?”
“I knew I knew him.” Allison’s pleasure at dredging up helpful information was all but incandescent. “Allegations. Yeah.”
Shura turned, careful not to spook the girl. “Hm. Did it say anything else?” If Allison thought she was being laughed at—or, worse, if she thought she’d displeased someone she was anxious to be nice to—she’d clam up for a long while, with that peculiar dead-eyed stare.
“Allegations,” the girl said, softly. “Sophomore, it said. Name withheld.”
“Interesting.” Well, that answered that. Shura smiled. A few of the girls—certainly Minnie, and maybe Cora—would know that soft, unpleasant expression of hers already, and have a bright-penny grin in return. They were good girls, and each of them knew what Shura knew too,
about men.
Namely, you couldn’t trust a single one of them. Allison hadn’t even covered her eyes when Shura shot the three men who had finally caught her after a chase through Bargain Zone’s aisles.
Here at the end of the world, there were things that needed to be done, and Shura had found out she didn’t mind doing them one bit. Not if it kept her girls safe. “Allison,” she said, softly, “go tell the girls we have some business to handle tonight.”
Allison nodded. Happy to oblige, she loped off, her flashlight bobbing. Shura’s hand dropped, and she rubbed the knifehilt at her right hip with her fingertips, a loving little gesture.
Immunity Factor
Some of the lights were on in Louisville, twinkling as shadows gathered. Whole sections of the city were starred with streetlamps flicking on in the early dusk, and Lee was faced with a choice. On the one hand, it would be mighty nice to have power. On the other, other survivors would be thinking the same thing. Just because they’d struck out twice didn’t mean every other survivor was going to be troublesome, but it wasn’t like playing cards. Each draw from the deck wasn’t going to narrow their chances of coming across an asshole or two.
Or more, and worse.
Still, electricity was attractive, and there was a Hyatt downtown with its lights on and a restaurant attached. That meant a working kitchen, and maybe Steph and Ginny could scare up something good.
Which was how Lee ended up looking into the barrel of a shotgun, his hands spread wide and harmless, and his shoulders tighter than bridge cables. “Friendly,” he said, again. “We’re friendly, ma’am. None of us bitten, none of us wantin any trouble.”
“Well, that’s good news,” the slim, velvet-eyed black woman said, lowering the shotgun a little—but not all the way. Blue cotton peeked out from under her unzipped parka and hand-knitted yellow cardigan. Looked like a scrubs top, and her shoes were comfortable thick-soled cream-colored numbers that all but shouted nurse. The rest of her followed it up with no nonsense, thank you, and the shotgun put a period on the whole damn paragraph. “How many of y’all?”
The Hyatt’s foyer was cavernous despite being brightly lit, a wilderness of pseudo-marble flooring, thin red carpet, and bright brass. Behind Lee, Juju let out a sharp breath. He hadn’t cleared leather, but it was probably close.
“Half a dozen.” Lee didn’t move. He was too busy being relieved Ginny and the kids were safely tucked away, and bracing himself for whatever would happen next. This group must’ve parked in the underground garage, which was what Lee had been aiming to do once he and Juju checked the place. “We can move on, if you’d like.”
“We’re a half-dozen too. There’s plenty of room here, as long as you’re not assholes.” A small gold cross winked at the nurse’s throat.
“Try not to be.” Which was, Lee thought, about all a man could lay claim to. His lower back was unhappy with sitting in the truck all day, and he wanted a bathroom like nobody’s business.
“Maybe.” But her expression eased a little, the line between her eyebrows easing a little. “I’m Frank. Kasie Frank.”
“Lee Quartine, ma’am. This is Mr Thurgood, friend of mine.”
Miz Frank gave Juju a thorough visual going-over, and maybe that decided her. “Y’all got any booze?”
“No ma’am.” Though I wouldn’t say no to some of Horace’s Wild Turkey again.
“Good.” The slim woman had good trigger discipline, and thin golden hoop earrings that reminded him of Ginny’s. Even the way she held her chin reminded him; he was probably about doomed to measure every woman in the world by a librarian now. “Give me ten minutes or so to let the rest know we’ve got company. I’d hate for anyone to get itchy.”
“Likewise,” Juju muttered.
Kasie Frank smiled, a thin, unamused expression, and Lee backed carefully away. It never did to mess with a woman who knew how to handle a shotgun.
Miz Frank was indeed a nurse. Her little group had obviously nominated its leader for capability, and you could tell she measured up handsome by the way they all glanced at her whenever a question came up. Two men and four women; the fellows were Jorge, a cop, and Mike, a weedy-looking dental technician who wore a magenta scrub top under his flannel shirt, too. Besides Miz Frank, there was Holly, another nurse, and Colleen and Chantal, the former a hostess at some place called Bardi’s. Between her, Steph, Mark, and Ginny, the kitchen was humming, and once they’d pushed a few tables together there was plenty of room in the middle of the Hyatt’s attached restaurant—red carpet more plush than in the foyer, reddish drapes, and a snap-freezing night outside the smoked-glass windows—for everyone to take a seat and help themselves.
It wasn’t the kind of place Lee would’ve chosen to eat in, but right now it was welcome.
Chantal, a sleek-haired ebon lady of about forty-five, owned a salon. She picked nervously at hot, crispy French fries produced by the cavernous, eerily clean kitchen. “Had one of them run right through our plate glass window. Bit Leanne. She was one of my best nail girls.” Her fingertips were crimson, the polish a bit ragged and two of her nails ripped down to the quick. “Poor thing.”
“I worked at Evansville General, about a hundred miles north.” Kasie Frank, her smooth brown cheeks blanching a bit, accepted a refill of hot cocoa from Carline, who handled the thermal pitcher like a girl used to pouring sweet tea. “One day we had a lot of flu cases, the next we had people coding and going berserk. It was like hell opened up and tossed out everyone behind on their rent.”
Traveller was having a fine time of it, cleaning up dropped French fries under the table, nosing at knees, sniffing shoes, and generally making a nuisance of himself. Jorge didn’t like dogs, but he put up with it, and each time Traveller passed Miz Frank she put down a hand to scrub at his ears.
That made Lee feel a whole lot better about everything, really.
Juju settled, after loading his plate. His jacket hung on the back of his chair, and though he’d left the rifle in his room, his shoulder holster was full and ready, like Jorge’s. “Lee saw the Army shoot up the street in our town, chasing some of the critters.”
“Zombies,” Mark muttered, but not very loudly, from his seat right next to Steph. The girl didn’t scoot away, and Lee thought it likely Mark was very conscious of the fact, by the way his cheeks kept reddening and paling in quick succession.
Skinny redheaded Mike the dental tech—his last name was Mock, the poor fella—lifted his enamel mug of strong coffee in a salute. “Thank you. I been calling ’em that for ages now, but these guys don’t like it.” His battered Timex, probably handed down from a family member, was turned around on his wrist like Lee’s own watch.
He was betting Mike had some military in his past, too.
“It’s a loaded word.” Colleen the hostess busied herself with handing out napkins, black hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her earrings—much larger gold hoops—glittered as they swung, and of all the women, she was the only one wearing perfume, grimly determined not to let the end of the world interrupt her style. “There’s gotta be a reasonable explanation. Got to be.”
God bless women. When it came time to rebuild, they were gonna make it worthwhile. Not the skyscrapers or the big machines, no sir. Women were the ones with all those little things that made you realize life wasn’t just surviving.
“Ginny was in med school,” Juju said, stabbing at a steak that had been frozen a little while ago but was now mouthwatering, and perfectly seared. It looked damn good. “She’s been trying to figure it out.”
That perked Kasie right up. “Really? Where?” She and Mike both straightened, interest bright in their gazes.
Ginny looked up, dragged out of whatever worry was running around behind her pretty eyes now. “Stanford, but I washed out.” She was pale, and tendrils of her dark hair stuck to her forehead. She all but glowed under the electric lights, a faint dewy sheen on her forehead and cheeks. “I ended up a librarian.”
“Kind of the
same as nursing, only with less bedpans.” Kasie grinned, used to putting people at their ease, and it was nice to see Ginny tentatively smile back. Looked like she was about to make a remark, too, but didn’t get the chance.
“We didn’t have Army shooting up the streets in Columbus,” Jorge cut in, as if about to burst. Looked like the law in his part of the world carried Glocks, and he sat with his knees spread like his balls needed to dry off or somethin’. “But we had a lotta domestics, and those damn checkpoints. Half the force had a bad cold, and then whammo, everyone’s sick and Dispatch overloaded.”
“Everyone at church had a cold the week before,” Steph piped up, handing the fried chicken platter to Holly. Miss Meacham had moved to Jell-O salad already, her sweet tooth probably doing jumping jacks for joy. “They say that’s how it starts.”
“Fever, flu symptoms, then the convulsions.” Ginny shuddered, her shoulder hitting Lee’s. Close quarters were nice as far as he was concerned, it might remind her she didn’t have to worry alone. It probably helped everyone to Monday-morning quarterback the end of the world, but it seemed fair to put her off her feed, by the way she kept pushing her food around her plate. Very little of it made its way down the hatch.
Lee didn’t like that at all.
“Nothin about it on the radio.” Juju laid his fork and knife down, reached for his own coffee mug. The way he and that Mock fella were drinking it, they’d be up all night unless they planned on going round the curve and using it as a soporific. “If I’d’a known—”
“There was no way of knowing.” Ms Frank jumped in before anyone else could. “I had me some damn fine doctors trying to figure it out, but they got bit by patients.” She glanced across the table at Lee. “How about you, Mr Quartine?”
Huh? Lee blinked. “Don’t know many doctors.”
“No, what happened to you and your girlfriend?”
“I’m not his—” Ginny began, at the same time Lee started with, “Well, they shot up a diner…”
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