Troy stopped in front of the gate.
A hollow, echoing voice called out from somewhere inside. “What’s the password?”
Wendy squinted through the holes. There was a series of ticket counters and a gift shop building ahead, but otherwise it was a wide-open area with construction equipment sitting idle off to the side. A backhoe, a mini excavator, a huge cement truck, and a bobcat.
“Oh, come on,” Keith groaned as he blew out a lungful of smoke.
“Password,” the voice called again.
“Seriously?” Troy called out.
“You know the rules.”
Troy sighed. “A hunter saw eighty-six biters in a field, but when he rounded them up he had a hundred.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I thought you said you were funny, T,” the voice called back.
“Jesus,” Keith hissed. “That joke stinks. Hey, Vance, how about this one? So this guy with a premature ejaculation problem comes out of nowhere.”
“Nope,” the voice replied. “Heard that one before.”
“A blind man walks into a bar,” Troy called out. “And a table. And a chair.”
“Would you all shut the fuck up,” Chico snapped. “Get the fuck down here and unlock the gates! I’ve got to take a dump.”
Wendy raised an eyebrow.
Laughter echoed from inside the cement mixer parked twenty feet beyond the fence line. A man climbed out the back of the drum and slid down a steel ladder welded to it. “Now that’s funny right there,” the man named Vance said, hobbling as he came to the fence with a ring of keys, fumbling with them as he approached. “Which one is it?” he asked, eyeing each key.
Chico shook the gate and the limping man began to giggle.
“Let us in,” Troy said irritably.
“Hold your horses, I’m getting it.”
“Seriously, Vance, it ain’t that funny,” Keith put in.
“You got her, didn’t you?” Vance rattled a key into the lock and the gate gave a loud clack. “That’s her, isn’t it?”
“Obviously,” Troy replied.
Chico grabbed the door and pulled it open, dodging past Vance and trotting toward a building with blue toilet symbols on the doors.
As Troy stepped past him, Vance pulled back the hood of his jacket to stare at Larissa. He was a man in his mid-fifties with leathery skin and crow’s feet around the eyes from years of squinting. The gray around his temples thickened on its way down his side burns, giving him a salt and pepper beard. His limp didn’t impair his gait any, but it was prominent enough to show that whatever injury he sustained, he’d missed the luxury of medical attention and modern physical therapy. He might have been a regular guy outside the Quarantine Zone.
“We had another sighting last night,” Vance said while looking around outside, scanning in every direction before he pulled the door shut and locked the gate again. “That’s six nights in a row. In winter. I swear, it’s a new wave.”
“Naw,” Keith argued, sucking on his cigarette and offering it to Vance. Vance nodded and took the cigarette, taking a drag from it himself. “It’s got to be the same group just coming out ‘cause they’re starving.”
“No, it ain’t,” Vance said, giving the cigarette back. He turned the key in the lock with another clack and yanked it out. “Different numbers.”
“That don’t mean shit,” Keith said, but he didn’t sound convinced. Wendy was beginning to think that Keith just liked to argue.
“Can I see her?” Vance asked, turning to Troy.
Troy nodded, leaning to let Vance look at Larissa’s face.
“Oh, she’s like an angel. Look at her!”
“Yeah, a real angel,” Troy said solemnly. “Get back up there and let everyone know we’re back.”
“I already did when I saw you drive in.”
“Does Momma know?”
“She’s waiting. She said you’re late.”
Twenty-Two
Troy carried Larissa along a path beaten into the snow, past the ticket turnstiles and gift shop, past the bathrooms that Chico hurried into, and past the construction equipment. A marker post at the main courtyard pointed out different attractions of the zoo, the original names overwritten with crude painted lettering. What was once the Conservation Center now proudly stated, “Momma’s House.”
Troy went that direction. Wendy had no real choice but to follow, and it was so damned cold she didn’t care where they were going, just so long as it was someplace indoors, and heated.
Snow-packed trees encroached upon the path, all hunched over the wide trail in an effort to shade them and hold in the bone-chilling cold. A light breeze shook powdery ice crystals off the treetops. It shimmered as it drifted to the ground around them.
Wendy crossed her arms over her chest and tucked her chin into her collar. Everything was quiet except for the crunching of their feet. She hated the quiet. It gave her an unsettled, eerie feeling. Too much like Midamerica and the dangers of the rest of the Quarantine Zone.
Wendy asked, “What did he mean by a new wave?”
Troy looked sideways at her. “Huh?”
“The man at the gate. He said a new wave is coming.”
“Oh, Vance, yeah. He likes conspiracies. Puts too much thought into stuff.”
“So, what did he mean?”
“It’s nothing,” Troy replied.
Keith flicked his spent cigarette to the ground. “Like hell. She don’t know.”
“Know what?” Wendy hated the idea of talking to Keith, but he might know something useful about this strange zombie behavior that could be useful.
“They come in waves,” Keith said, eyes wide as he swept a hand to indicate a vast distance. He looked off thoughtfully. “Biters. They migrate. They keep coming south. They hate this shit weather more than we do, and they’re getting the smarts to know its better southward.”
“No, they’re not,” Troy replied. “They’re just hungry.”
“Hungry, my ass,” Keith argued. “They’re mad as fuck. Food’s not the issue. They’ve got plenty of rats and whatnot out there to gnaw on. They want our warmth. They sense it. They keep coming, and once they get too close to the fence, they get the smell of us and won’t go away. I can’t tell you how many we’ve had to put down this year. There was this big wave when the weather first turned bad—”
“That’s enough,” Troy said softly.
“Shit, must’a been thirty or forty of ‘em.”
Troy stopped walking, turning abruptly to face Keith. “I said that’s enough!”
Keith glared at him for a few seconds, then turned his attention on Wendy. He had a sober, cautionary expression. “Don’t matter. You’ll see, soon enough.”
“Are you done?”
Keith’s eyes narrowed. He still looked straight at Wendy. “Yeah, we’re done here.” He turned around and started walking the other direction. “I’m gonna get something to eat.”
He went back the way they came. Wendy stiffened at the sight of nearly a dozen people standing at the bend behind them, transfixed with awe. They hardly moved, and for a second she thought they might be zombies. There had been no one in the courtyard when they came in, but now it seemed a whole village had come out of the woodwork, the same way biters managed to sneak up on someone, just bubbling up from the shadows, grabbing their prey in a flurry of hands and teeth, and dragging their victims back into the darkness.
But Keith didn’t fear them, so they weren’t zombies, or apparitions, or any other monster her tired and muddled mind tried to conjure. They were just people, as ragged-looking a bunch as any zombie pack, but still just people.
“Who are they?” Wendy whispered.
“That’s everyone,” Troy said, turning away from them and continuing along the path.
“What are they doing here?”
“Following us. Come on, it’s just around the bend.”
Twenty-Three
The Conservation Center was a b
road, multi-structural building. The main building appeared to be a huge polygon with at least sixteen or twenty sides. Off from it stood a long, rectangular structure. A steel door with a wedge-like pane of glass split the two buildings, and Troy marched straight for it. The trampled snow around the main door in its center wasn’t a filthy brown from dirt, but instead a mixture of bright colors like greens and reds and blues, making colorful trails in the snow.
Troy held the door open with his foot only long enough for Wendy to grab it and hold it open for him to side-step in with Larissa. She followed him into the hallway and let the door shut behind her, hoping to seal out the chill. She coughed as Troy stomped his feet.
Troy turned his back on a side door to the left and leaned against it to push it open.
“This is the auditorium,” Troy whispered. “Keep quiet.”
“Why? What’s—?”
“Would you just—?” His tone sounded like a slap to the face. He sighed, realizing he had lost his temper. He whispered again. “Keep your mouth shut in here.”
The door hissed all the way open under the strain of a worn piston. She stepped through the door right behind Troy and held it open so it wouldn’t hit Larissa’s head as it closed.
The light from the auditorium revealed that the door itself was painted in a myriad of colors, with various shapes and a hodge-podge of words drawn over everything, the lettering painstakingly painted with inverse colors so they could be read atop the images. Dot art was mixed with a line art, mostly shrouded by a vast shadow of gray paint where crosses rose on what might be a hillside, and names were written on each cross. Tim, Jeff, and Sara. Those were the only names she had a chance to read before her eyes veered from the door to the rest of the room.
It was a large auditorium with a stage consuming most of the far wall. The whole of the interior was a cacophony of chaotic, uninterrupted artwork. Every flat surface, including the floor and windows, had been painted over, which was a considerable feat given the size of the place. A score of tiered steps formed a half circle facing the deep, wide stage, and every inch of it was painted. She slowed as she stepped down one tier after the other, letting Troy get ahead of her while she took in the whole scene.
The door suddenly hissed open behind her, revealing the pack of people who had been following them. She decided keeping up with Troy was a good idea. She didn’t want to be gobbled up by the pack of strangers.
And there were people already inside as well. A boy with a large, framed mirror stood near a window. He leaned against the mirror, angling its reflection of the outside light toward the stage where a slightly hunched woman stood in its spotlight on a steel-framed, plastic chair that was so paint-stained it looked like part of the mosaic.
A burly man in a color-stained gray sweater stood next to the woman on the chair, his hands in his pockets, his feet apart. He stared at Troy and Wendy at the same time, as though his two eyes were split. He wore an empty expression that made Wendy think of the Senator’s bodyguard Carl—the man who killed Mason Jones. They shared the same hard look.
A half dozen people sat on two of the long benches comprising the second row from the stage. They didn’t sit close to one another, which Wendy thought odd. If they all lived here, why wouldn’t they sit by each other? They stared at Troy with grave interest, their eyes fixed on the bundled-up girl in his arms as though she were some mystical prophet.
Wendy shivered, and coughed. She couldn’t help it. Her whole body was beginning to get that bone-chilled feeling before a fever. Her cold was getting worse.
Troy carried Larissa to the foot of the stage where a blanket was laid out on the floor. He knelt down and placed the girl in the center and backed away, taking a seat on the first bench directly in front of her. Wendy knelt down next to Larissa.
“Hey,” Troy hissed softly.
She ignored him, stripping off a glove to feel Larissa’s forehead. Larissa hadn’t done very much complaining since being pulled from the car. It made Wendy a little nervous that she might be too cold.
“Hey,” Troy hissed again, his hand on Wendy’s shoulder, tugging on her. “Sit down.”
Larissa was warm to the touch, a little hotter than normal, but nothing to worry over. She lifted an eyelid—the girl’s eye was rolled back, sound asleep.
Troy tugged her again and this time Wendy slid back onto the bench to shove her chilled fingers back into her glove, staring curiously at the old woman, trying to get a sense of who she was from her broom-thick, shoulder-length salt and pepper hair, her leathery brown, wrinkled skin, and long beak of a nose. She wore a sweater over a skirt, but her legs weren’t bare. She wore pants beneath the skirt. Thick winter ski pants covered in colorful paint as though she rolled in it.
This must be Momma.
More people arrived with the stomping in the outer hall pounding like tribal drums in the distance. An old man. A woman. Two other men. A whole family of five—God, the poor children. More and more, all draped and wrapped in layer upon layer of age-worn clothes, ice-packed boots, and leggings. Hats and scarves and long winter jackets. Gloves clutched tightly, red noses and cheeks, glistening eyes. All the telltale markings of a winter crowd.
Wendy stifled an abrupt cough into the crux of her elbow. She felt like she was in church, ruining a sermon, but thankfully she wasn’t the only person coughing. She shivered and tried to clear her nose by leaning her head back, hugging herself for warmth, and waited like everyone else as quietly as she could. The tickle in her throat caused her to wheeze repeatedly.
Momma finally stepped down from the chair, a hand on the strong man’s arm by her side. The room became still, charged with static excitement. She shuffled toward the boy, a glass jar of paint and a small brush in hand—the kind for painting on canvas, not walls.
She shuffled past the boy, handing him the brush and jar.
“You’re late,” Momma said, her voice gravelly. She didn’t look at anyone, addressing no one, but at the same time everyone. “We were worried.”
“We had trouble with the truck,” Troy said. “Keith repaired it on the road, though.”
Momma reached the stairs at the far end of the stage and began limping down, using a handrail to guide her slow steps. The large man walked closely behind, ready to grab her if she happened to slip or fall. She concentrated on a color-stained rag in her hands, rubbing it over the tips of her fingers a she limped toward the blanket with Larissa.
“Well, it wasn’t ours, and you get what you pay for when you’re dealing with St. Mary-of-the-Woods.”
Wendy’s brow raised slightly. She had heard the name St. Mary-of-the-Woods before. It was the largest unsanctioned slave-trading group in the Quarantine Zone. Every hunter she’d met at Rock Island spoke of them sooner or later. They would talk about the place behind other hunters’ backs, disparaging them by accusing them of buying their catch rather than actually hunting for the zombies themselves.
Momma shoved the rag into her pocket and frowned. “Was hoping she’d be awake for this.” She knelt beside Larissa and put her dirty fingers on the girl’s cheeks, pinching to open her mouth, moving her lips with her thumb. “Cleaned.” She let go and smacked Larissa’s cheek, lightly at first, then harder.
“Stop that,” Wendy protested, lurching to her feet.
Momma glared up at Wendy. Troy stood and put a hand on Wendy’s arm, pulling her back down. Wendy shook herself free of his grip.
“So, this the doctor?” Momma pointed at Wendy, but addressed Troy. She sounded unimpressed.
Troy nodded.
“Wendy. My name’s Wendy O’Farrell.”
“I know who you are,” Momma said evenly. “You’re the one with the cure.”
Wendy had to concentrate to keep her hand from reaching for the lump in her pocket where she kept the vial. How does she know about it? She looked at Troy, but he remained blank-faced.
Momma pointed at Larissa. “You did this?”
“What do you mean?”
&n
bsp; “The cure. You cured her?”
“I….” Wendy stared with her mouth open. “I don’t know. It’s my research, I suppose. I mean, I didn’t administer it in her, if that’s what you mean. Doctor Kennedy…she did it.”
“Huh,” Momma grunted. “Kennedy’s dead. No use to me. You can cure someone or not?”
“Are you asking me to cure someone?”
“You deaf?” She glared at Troy, but pointed at Wendy. “She deaf?”
“No, Momma, she hears fine. She’s a little confused, I think. We didn’t tell her anything.”
“Huh,” Momma grunted again. Now she scratched her chin with her thumb as she appraised Wendy closely, leaning her head back a little to look down her long nose. “You can cure me, if I asked you to?”
“Are you infected?” The idea was ludicrous, of course. If Momma was infected, she would hardly be able to stand. Even with inhibitors, the pathogen caused vomiting and blanching of the skin and white blood cell loss at incredible levels.
“Say I was.”
Wendy thought about it. If the old woman knew Wendy had the vial, answering no might get her killed. On the other hand, answering yes if Momma didn’t know about it might be worse. “Maybe if I had time to formulate a new curative, but I’d need lab equipment and test subjects and a…a new host.” Wendy shook her head. Even if she had all those things, she probably still couldn’t manufacture a working curative. The best she could hope for is to research what was in the vial and duplicate it somehow.
Momma’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. She leaned her head in. “Sure about that answer?”
Wendy licked her lips.
“Here’s the problem, Miss Doctor. I need that cure given this girl. I’m gonna get it from you, or from your boss.”
Wendy shot her a puzzled look. “But Kennedy’s dead.”
“The Senator! Your boss.” Momma shook her head as she stood. She glared at Troy. “I thought you said she was doctor smart.”
“I don’t work for the Senator,” Wendy argued. “I work for Eloran.”
Plagued: The Battle Creek Zombie Rectification Experiment Page 9