by Snell, D. L.
Ken looked at the bullets, hoping no one would ask why he was counting them. “Just to know how many there are” seemed like a pat answer, but he had never really been that skilled at lying. Even little white lies. He really hoped no one would ask The Question.
What about the people who got bit?
“Pack this up. Pick out the three best shots and distribute the nine mil stuff to them. I’m going to check on the radio.”
Kelly started counting the bullets as he headed for the rooftop. Julius had said he’d be up there, where the breeze was nice and the sun was shining with no shade, nothing in the way. Why that was important, Ken didn’t ask. He didn’t care much, but he was curious as hell.
Earlier, Julius had made him and three other guys muscle up an old rear-projection TV they’d found in one of the storerooms, plus a big overhead projector, a folding chair, and a set of shelves. He’d also raided desks for all kinds of stuff, filling the pockets of his overalls with large paperclips and rubber bands. Afterwards, Julius had grabbed the lookout’s binoculars and had herded everyone else away, closing the door.
That was an hour ago.
Ken opened the door to the rooftop and stopped in his tracks. “What the hell is that?”
Julius, an older man with wiry grey hair, looked up and waved. “Check it out! Solar soldering.” He pointed as he spoke. “This big ass lens is out of the projector, the one under it is a desk magnifier, and of course, you recognize the binoculars.”
“What?”
“Well,” Julius said, bending his head down, “you asked if anyone could fix the radio. I took a look, and the only thing wrong with it is the damage to the high-voltage unit. So, I stole the HV card out of the TV and soldered it in.”
Ken, whose only previous experience with soldering involved a pencil-like soldering iron and a 120V outlet, just blinked at the contraption cobbled together from office materials. “How?”
“Thank you. Usually people want me to shut up at this point.” He pointed a grimy finger at the lenses. “Area over focal point gives you the magnification, right? Right. So, big lens takes the sunlight and concentrates it. But the overhead projector wasn’t made to really focus something down. The contrary is true. So, I aimed that at the desk lamp magnifier, which really intensified the beam of light, and then pointed that through the binoculars. Backwards. We easily hit our target five hundred degrees.” He slapped the radio. “And here we are. After I snapped the HV card out of the TV, I scraped the rest of the solder off the other cards and used that to connect it to the radio.”
“You fixed the radio?”
Julius put his hands up. “What did I just say?”
Ken picked up the headset. “We’re good to go, then?”
“Yes, but for how long? Who knows? The high voltage card doesn’t put out exactly what we need, so the radio will work, but sooner or later the card will burn out.”
Nodding, Ken put the headset on and hit the power switch. “As long as it works.” Then, into the microphone, “Come in, Dog Pound. This is North Regional.”
A moment later, the radio crackled. “North Regional? This is Dog Pound. We’d heard you guys were toast.”
“Yes, but not burnt toast. So is that what happened? Is that why the Dogs left without us? They thought we were dead?”
“Ah, yes. No. There were complications. Unforeseen complications. In the plan.”
Through gritted teeth, Ken said, “Well, is there another team on the way? We’ve run into our own complications over here. We’re low on ammo and food. We have wounded.”
“Another rescue attempt has been postponed.”
“Until when? You know what? Never mind. I’d like to speak with Jimmy—”
“We aren’t allowing any personal calls. Not at this time.”
“It’s not a personal call. He’s my, uh, second-in-command. I need to talk to him, see if everybody from North Regional is doing okay.”
“We aren’t allowing any personal calls at this time.”
“It’s not... fine. That guy, Jorge—”
“We aren’t allowing any personal calls, sorry.”
Snapping the radio off, Ken had to restrain himself from launching the damn thing off the rooftop. He handed the headset to Julius. “Thank you for getting this rig working, Julius. For all the good it did us.”
He turned from the older man’s confused look and headed to the ledge. He could hear Julius’s feet moving on the pebbled rooftop as the fix-it man tried to decide what to do next.
“Does that mean—?”
“Not now, Julius. I don’t have any answers for you. If you see anybody else on their way up here, turn them around.”
Ken looked over the large roof, estimating the footprint this building put down. He sighed. The barricades downstairs had lasted for them pretty well, but after this goddamn invasion, nothing had gone back together quite right. If it came down to it, the barricade wouldn’t last through another mass attack. North Regional had been good for them before, when the group was large and better-equipped, but it was too much building for the handful of them, especially now, when they were practically out of ammunition. And he still didn’t know how the zombies had gotten inside in the first place.
So now what?
The empty eyes of the surrounding buildings taunted him. He and his team of scavengers had been in and out of those places, stripping them bare of anything useful. And now? They needed something else, and they couldn’t get it around here. And beyond all that lay the marina, the gateway to the island, where the Dogs had promised refuge.
Before they turned around, that is, leaving everyone high and dry.
Grunting, Ken turned his back on the view and looked around the rooftop. It was hardly any better. Instead of seeing the big, dead city, he saw large brown stains on the pebbled roof. Large spots where the rocks had been disturbed by shuffling feet and falling bodies. He saw the spot where everything had changed again, and his sense of security had been ripped out from under him.
He also saw the spot where he and his small group of able-bodied volunteers had thrown over a dozen corpses into a big pile down below. After the first couple, they had paused to stuff their ears with cotton to block out the sounds the bodies made.
Some of the bodies were from the invading zombies.
Some were not.
With that image firmly in mind, Ken went back inside, passing a fire axe on the way. He paused for a moment, catching the reflection of a tired and frustrated man in the glass. “Shut up,” he said to his reflection.
On the fourth floor, Kelly met him at the stairwell entrance. “You’re back. I was just coming up to see you. Did Julius fix the radio?”
Ken nodded.
“Wow! I didn’t think he’d be able to. What did they say?”
“They’re not coming,” Ken said, slumping down the handrail. “They’re not coming and I can’t talk to anybody.”
Kelly chewed on that. “What the hell happened over there?”
Ken shrugged, staring down at his boots. He liked Kelly, he really did, but right then he wished she would just stop asking questions. Everyone asked him questions.
“What are we going to do, boss?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. Questions like that one. He put his head down and closed his eyes.
“There’s nothing else for it. This place is just too big for us now. It’s not safe. We’re going to have to move to someplace more secure. Someplace that we can hold with just a few of us.”
Kelly twisted her fingers together. “Move. All right. But what about... you know.” She nodded toward the downstairs. “There’s a group of us that won’t make it too far.”
And there it was. The Question.
What about the people who got bit?
“Close the door,” Ken said.
Kelly turned and eased the stairway access door closed, but didn’t turn back around. She knew the question she was asking.
“We’re going to have
to restrain them,” Ken said. “As comfortably as we can, right? I don’t want it to be a thing. We just have to make sure they understand. It’s for the greater good. For everyone.”
Nodding, Kelly dropped her hands from the door.
“And what about—”
“Hey,” Ken said, softening, touching her arm and gently pulling her around. He decided that maybe he felt a little better after talking about it with someone. Maybe he felt less like a monster if someone agreed with him. “We can talk about this. Turn around, all right?”
She did, facing him. Her lips were set tight, her brows furrowed. “I know why you were counting the bullets, Ken. And it wasn’t just to see how many we had.” She took a shuddering breath. “What are we going to do after they... turn?”
Even though he knew it was coming, even though he welcomed it, the question hit him in the gut, knocking the air out of him. He hated the answer, and went back to wishing she hadn’t asked it. He wished he didn’t have to raise his weary arm and point behind him. Up the stairs.
At the fire axe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I DON’T CARE, MR. JADEN,” Donovan said. He slapped down the clipboard that the security chief had handed to him. “I don’t care what Dr. Michaels’ report has to say. I don’t care about the initial screening. And I do not care about anybody’s feelings.” He pointed at the quarantine area. “They are getting checked again, and it is already happening.”
Jaden put his clipboard to the side, the list of survivors and initial examination results ignored. “These people are scared, Doctor, and they’ve already been checked. This is unnecessary, and a waste of my men’s time. We’re stretched tight as it is, and some of the men are pulling triple shifts. You do realize that we have no more overtime to pay these people, right?”
Dr. Donovan reined himself in a little bit, suddenly aware of the audience that had gathered on the other side of the fence. “Mr. Jaden, do what you have to do to make this work. Figure it out. That’s why they made you the chief, isn’t it?” He turned away, clasping his hands behind his back. “Instead of overtime, offer increased alcohol rations. You can reduce your patrols if you have to, or at least cut a man from each patrol unit. And the endless escort details. Remove the guard from the communications shack. We’re on an island, Mr. Jaden. I don’t think we have a lot to worry about.”
He turned to the quarantine area. “And you people. This is just a precaution. There is no need for you to worry. Our safety, all of our safety, is my number-one priority. I am responsible for every man, woman, and child on this island, and that means you now. I will not let anything slip through undetected.
“If it makes you feel any better, the Dogs are also being screened. Just like you.” He turned to face Jaden. “Make it happen. Goodbye.”
Nodding to the security chief, he stalked off to the inspection tent where Ron and his nurses were carrying out the screening. Donovan grimaced when he saw that no one had been assigned into quarantine yet.
“What did I tell you, Michaels?” he said as he stepped inside. On seeing the patient sitting there, he covered his mouth and nose. “What is that?”
Dr. Michaels sat with an older man, who was buttoning a dark-blue work shirt. Michaels looked up at Dr. Donovan, confused. “What is what?”
“That!” Donovan pointed at the red skin on the patient’s neck.
“I have something?” the patient asked, putting his hand to his own chest. The man was in his fifties, and was smaller than he had been, if the tent-like fit of his work shirt was any indication. His querulous voice rose as he asked the question.
Ron Michaels scowled. “Yes, Mr. Greene. You have a chest cold. I have something for you; it’s an expectorant and a cough suppressant. Take two teaspoons every four—”
“No,” Donovan said. “Absolutely not. Put him in quarantine.”
“But I’m already in quarantine,” Greene said.
“You shut up,” Donovan snapped. To Michaels, he said, “Put him in quarantine until he gets over his chest cold. If that’s what it is. Are you sure he hasn’t been bitten?”
“Would you like to see the pictures?” Michaels asked. “We took pictures of everyone the first time through, and we thought, what the hell? Let’s take pictures this time, too.”
“I just want to make sure you’ve been thorough.”
Michaels stood. “This man has been examined thoroughly, Doctor, as has everyone else who’s been through this tent. Unless you intend to relieve me and carry out the examinations yourself, I suggest you stop questioning everything I do.”
Donovan’s nostrils flared. “Quarantine him. And anyone else with an illness, however slight. Or however serious. I don’t care what you think it is.”
Frowning, Dr. Michaels turned and nodded to the security man. To his patient, he said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Greene. You heard the project director.”
“This is a travesty,” Greene called out as the security man led him away.
“That it is,” Michaels said under his breath. “Alison, who’s next?”
The nurse waved the next patient in. A walking skeleton entered the tent, pulling a baseball cap off to reveal a smooth, bald pate, white as a cloud. His red coveralls hung on him as if he were a coat rack instead of a human being.
“Ah, Mr. Evans. I’m so sorry for this inconvenience.”
Donovan made a face. “Jesus, Doctor. Why isn’t this man in isolation?”
Evans turned to Donovan. “Don’t worry about me, brah. What I have isn’t going to spread anywhere.” He shrugged. “Least ways, it won’t be spreading from me.” He laughed, a broken sound that terminated in a coughing jag.
Michaels pushed a clipboard at a pale-faced Donovan, who snatched it away and read the top sheet.
“Oh,” he said, relaxing slightly. “Thank God.”
“Whatever,” Evans said, looking around the tent. “I was in chemo, but then...” he put his hands out in front of him and moaned, crossing his eyes. “I almost let them have me. Walking dead, meet walking dead.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t give up,” Michaels replied.
Evans looked at him. “I’m not. What I really want is a smoke.”
“Quarantine him,” Donovan said, tossing the clipboard away. “I don’t want his bad attitude or his death wish infecting the others.”
The nurses’ jaws dropped.
“Are you serious?” Joshua asked.
Donovan exploded. “Of course I’m serious! Attitudes are infectious. They will leap from person to person like a fire across roads and rooftops.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you. Have you ever heard of morale? This man clearly no longer wishes to live—”
“You got that right,” Evans said.
“—and I don’t want that to get around. Can you imagine, a group of survivors who have given in to despair? And who’s to say it would stop at the fence? No. Quarantine this man.”
The guard returned from taking Greene away, and Evans walked over to him. “Looks like I’m off to quarantine. You better take me away before I break my fist on this asshole’s face.”
Michaels pinched the bridge of his nose as the guard escorted yet another survivor out of the tent. “This day will never end. Who’s next, Alison?”
The nurse stepped outside and waved the next patient forward. Jorge limped into the tent, favoring his leg. “I think my erection has lasted for more than four hours, Doc.”
“What is this, now?” Donovan asked.
“Ah, I’m just giving you a hard time. I was in a car wreck,” Jorge said, smoothing down his bristly mustache. “I told these guys before, I was in this chick’s lovebug and—”
“Quarantine,” Donovan said.
Jorge crossed his arms. “You said what? Quarantine? We’re in quarantine, pendejo.”
“It looks like a bite to me,” Donovan said to Michaels. “What’s your professional diagnosis, Doctor?”
Joshua lifted his face from the laptop. “Acc
ording to the pics we took on the initial screening, the shape and depth of the wound is consistent with the story he told about the car wreck.”
“Nobody asked you, Nurse Joshua,” Donovan said. He raised his eyebrows at Michaels.
“Let’s see it,” the doctor said with a sigh, gesturing for Jorge to drop his jeans.
“Oh, whatever. Cabrones. You just couldn’t wait to see me naked again. This whole screening thing, it seems elaborate for little old me.” He winked at Alison as he fumbled with his belt buckle. “You, blue eyes, it’s okay. Understandable; I’m a sexy beast. But these guys? I know the guy-to-girl ratio is a little skewed, but come on. I don’t want to make any judgments, it being the end of the world and everything—”
Donovan snapped his fingers at the security man, who had just returned.
“Just strip, already,” the guard said. “Zip it.”
“I got nothing to hide,” Jorge said, dropping his pants. “Hey, Doc, while I got these down, you want to help me weigh my junk? I got a bet on the side.”
Ignoring Jorge’s banter, Michaels crouched down to get a better look at his wound. He shined a flashlight at the puckered skin. “It’s not healing up very well. It’s obvious your leg is stiff from your limp. We’ll take your temperature and—”
“Quarantine him. Isolation,” Donovan said.
“Hold up, of course it isn’t healing right.” Jorge took a tottering step forward, hobbled by his jeans. “You got me eating rice cakes and mushrooms, for Christ’s sake. You give me a goddamn steak and a couple of beers, and this will clear right up.”
“Isolation,” Donovan said to the guard, who stepped forward with a hand on his sidearm. While he had been laconic about the old man and the cancer patient, a potential bite was just the thing to wake him up to his full duties.
“All right, all right,” Jorge said, turning and walking out of the tent, taking short steps with his jeans still around his ankles. He glanced back over his shoulder. “You still looking, perverts? I know you are. My ass is getting hot.”