by Dana Fredsti
Simone raised a perfectly arched eyebrow.
“Oh, indeed I am, Mister Smith. Captain Drake’s condition is extremely unstable. Aside from Dr. Albert, I am the one person most familiar with his condition, and with the appropriate treatment.”
“Dr. Albert is with Gabriel,” Nathan pointed out with cold logic. “Seems to me that’s already covered.”
“We have no way of knowing if they’re together, or if whoever took them is allowing Dr. Albert to make any more antiserum,” Simone said firmly. “Dr. Arkin and I have cobbled together an antiserum derivative that may keep him stable until we can get him back to the lab. Since we can’t test it, I have to be there to administer it, and tweak the concentration based on his response.” She gave Nathan a look. “If we are to have any hope of bringing him back while he’s still human, still sane, I need to be there.”
Nathan turned to Colonel Paxton.
“Colonel, I thought the general consensus was that Professor Fraser’s skill set and knowledge base was too valuable to risk her involvement in the field.”
Colonel Paxton laced his fingers together.
“Captain Drake is also invaluable to our mission,” he replied. “From what I’ve been told by Dr. Albert and Professor Fraser, as well as Dr. Arkin—” He gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement. “—Gabriel’s blood likely holds at least part of the answer needed to the cure to this plague. So if that means Professor Fraser goes along… well, it’s worth the risk.”
Simone nodded. “Dr. Arkin has all the information needed to help synthesize the cure, and more practical experience than I. She and Dr. Albert collaborated on the Walker’s vaccine, and thanks to Ashley, we have Dr. Albert’s notes.”
I gave a modest shrug. All I’d done was scoop up his backpack, dropped when he’d been attacked by a zombie on our way to the DZN facility. So when the men in black took Dr. Albert away, his backpack, laptop, notes, and samples of Gabriel’s antiserum stayed behind.
“So if there’s anyone we need to keep alive at this point,” Simone continued, “it’s Dr. Arkin.” I could tell the admission pained her. “Jamie will stay here and assist her.”
Dr. Arkin looked coldly pleased.
“What?” Jamie shot to her feet. “But I have to go with you!”
Simone looked at her apologetically.
“I’m sorry, Jamie, but I need you to stay here. You haven’t had adequate training to go out into the field, especially into the conditions we’re going to face.”
“I can shoot!” Jamie said hotly.
“Not well enough,” Nathan said bluntly.
Jamie glared at him.
“I’m not staying here, not when Professor Fraser needs me.”
“Jamie, trust me when I say that your assistance will be much more important here,” Simone said soothingly. “After all, you know my work nearly as well as I do, and no one else can decipher my handwriting.”
“That’s true,” Dr. Arkin agreed.
Simone didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead she got to her feet and put a hand on Jamie’s shoulder.
“I need to know there’s someone here I can trust to make sure the work we’ve already done is built upon, rather than replaced.”
Ooh, points for a nice subtle parry and riposte. Dr. Arkin’s slight frown showed that the riposte had been on target, too. What I’d give for a time machine, to go back and find out what exactly happened between the two of them.
“Besides, I won’t have to worry about your safety if you’re here,” Simone added. I could see Jamie melt, all arguments borne away on a tide of warm fuzzies. She sat down without another word.
Well played, Simone, I thought, albeit a bit cynically.
Nathan cleared his throat.
“Fine. Now that that’s settled, we’ll be divided into two teams as per usual. Team A will be Ash, Lil, myself, and JT. Team B will be Simone, Tony, Gentry, and Griff.”
Tony raised his hand.
“What is it,” Colonel Paxton said with more than a touch of impatience.
“No offense to JT,” Tony said in a tone that made it clear he didn’t give a shit, “but he’s not exactly a wild card.” He nodded at JT. “I mean, dude, you have some wicked skills—”
JT gave a modest nod of acknowledgment.
“—but if you get gnawed on by a zom, you’re dead.” The way he said it, though, I could tell he wouldn’t necessarily be sorry to see it happen.
If JT noticed, though, he didn’t show it. He just shrugged.
“Maybe I’ll turn out to be a wild card after all, and be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”
Colonel Paxton cleared his throat.
“We’ve lost three wild cards in the last two weeks, along with several other key personnel. This man—” He nodded toward JT. “—has exhibited physical skills that match any of yours, even without the benefit of being a wild card. He’s willing to take the chance, and we cannot afford to turn down his offer to help.”
“How do we know we can trust him?” Griff said unexpectedly.
“You have got to be kidding,” I said without thinking.
Griff shrugged. “From what I understand, he showed up miraculously when you were coming close to this facility.”
“Actually, he showed up leaping across the tops of cars near Golden Gate Bridge,” I corrected.
“And then he followed you all the way across San Francisco,” Griff countered. He shot JT a pointed look. “Seems a bit convenient to me.”
JT folded his arms and shrugged again.
“If you had no place to go,” he said, “wouldn’t you follow the hot chick with a katana, and the rest of the people wearing uniforms, looking like they at least had a clue?”
“Yeah, and he saved our asses by risking his own life,” I said, glaring at Griff. “I’d trust him before I’d trust you, any day of the week.”
Dr. Arkin spoke for the first time since we’d started the briefing.
“I can assure you, Ms. Parker, that Griff is entirely trustworthy.”
“So says the woman who helped create the vaccine that brought the dead back to life,” I snapped. She raised an eyebrow, and sat back in her chair.
“Go, Ash,” Tony drew closer to me in an unaccustomed show of support and I thought I heard…
Did Lil just growl?
I think she did.
“There are very few people on the list who I’d trust with my life,” I continued. “Especially since someone on our side brought down our ’copters and cost us the lives of five people. Five good people. JT actually risked his life to help us.” I shot a scathing look across the table. “The rest of you sat on your asses and watched while our friend Mack died. So please do not tell me who we can or cannot trust.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence that really needed to be filled with a slow clap. None was forthcoming, though, so Colonel Paxton cleared his throat and looked vaguely pissed.
“The decisions have already been made,” he said. “We don’t have time for a debate, and I will not hesitate to pull rank to move this operation forward. Do I make myself clear?”
He did. Everyone drank a big glass of “shut the fuck up.” Paxton looked around the room, and nodded in satisfaction.
“Good. Be ready to leave at dawn.”
CHAPTER NINE
“So…” I shot Nathan and Simone a look. “Any chance I can hit the pharmacy here before we take off?”
We stood on the enclosed catwalk that spanned the distance between the architecturally significant Center for Regenerative Medicine and the building we’d cleared. The huge elevator leading to the DZN facility was positioned smack in the middle of the walkway.
Jones and Davis had done a respectable job of clearing the undead from the loading docks around the elevator. The entrance off of Medical Center Road—the auxiliary road we’d traveled down—was blocked off by a newly erected chain-link fence, with big trucks à la the original Dawn of the Dead butted up agains
t it. It would take a hell of a lot of zombies or a very determined biker gang to get through there.
It would also be a major pain in the ass to get out. Hence my conundrum.
Simone and Nathan didn’t reply, so I pressed on.
“Lil and I made it to Redwood Grove and back when we got her cats. With your help,” I added hastily as Nathan raised an eyebrow. “My point is, there were lots of zombies, and we made it part way on our own. With help, I could—”
Nathan shook his head.
“Redwood Grove is a sparsely populated area, Ash. We’re talking about San Francisco, a major medical center in the middle of a forty-nine square mile city with a minimum of eight hundred thousand full-time residents. The most densely settled large city in the state of California, and the second most densely populated major city in the United States. That means a lot more zombies than you’ve ever seen.”
“So this would only suck more if we were in New York.”
“Basically, yes,” he said. “Getting in and out of that pharmacy, any pharmacy, is a suicide mission. It’s too great of a risk—one we simply can’t afford.”
I slammed my hands against the catwalk railing in frustration.
“What am I supposed to do then?” My voice climbed a few decibels. “Just let Lil wander further into Crazy Town? If we can’t count on her, we’re down another wild card, right?”
Simone and Nathan exchanged a look.
“We have a plan,” he said.
“If it ends up with pints at the Winchester, count me out.”
Nathan grinned. “Hopefully there will be beer at some point, but no, that’s not part of the plan.”
“What is it?” I asked dubiously.
Simone put a hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes.
“Do you trust us, Ashley?”
I didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.” I simply refused to contemplate a world where either Simone or Nathan was in the enemy camp.
Simone smiled. “Good. I promise you, we’ll get Lil’s medicine before we leave San Francisco.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. If Simone said it was so, it would happen. So I decided to switch topics.
“Do you really think we can trust Griff?” I asked.
Both Nathan and Simone snorted in derision.
Synchronized snorting. I wish I’d gotten it on tape.
“Of course not,” Nathan said. “We can’t afford to trust anyone, let alone someone Dr. Arkin vouches for.”
“What about Colonel Paxton?”
“I would trust him with my life,” Simone said. Then she gave an odd little smile and added, “Unless preserving my life meant sacrificing the rest of the world. He will do what he needs to in order to minimize loss of life and stop this plague. And if that means sacrificing anyone or anything in order to complete his mission… he will do it.”
“You know, “I said, “it’s probably better for morale if you just keep that to yourself.”
“You’re probably right,” Simone said. “But I owe it to you to be honest, and I think you can handle the truth.”
I nodded slowly, realizing she was right.
“Yeah. I can.”
And I could. Even if I didn’t like it.
RURAL BOTSWANA
The main things Eric noticed during the five-plus-hour drive from Ghanzi to the Jwana Game Park, aside from just how damned hot it was, were the rocks piled alongside the road.
And the graves. Dozens upon dozens of graves, many of them surrounded by structures made of iron bars with canvas tops, more like mini patios than any sort of burial plot.
He nudged their driver Johan, an amiable Afrikaner in his mid-thirties who handled the old Toyota 4X4 that was ferrying them through the Kalahari Desert with a reassuring competence that almost balanced the breakneck speed at which he drove. It helped that there was very little other traffic other than the occasional cow or donkey.
“What’s with the rocks on the road and the fences around the graves?”
Johan was more than willing to play tour guide.
“Whole villages have been destroyed by AIDS,” Johan told them. “Some villages, they had no adults left in them. The survivors used rocks to cover the dead, in order to keep the animals away.”
“Why the fences though?”
“Some say they are to make certain the dead do not walk,” Johan said with more than a touch of the dramatic.
Eric’s wife Nancy, sprawled in the back seat with their luggage, pushed a wayward hank of damp red hair out of her face and rolled her eyes.
“Do they believe in zombies here?” she asked eagerly.
Eric shook his head. His wife thought horror movies began with Night of the Living Dead and ended with The Walking Dead. Personally he was sick to death—hah—of the current zombie craze. He’d take Sharknado or an invasion of sparkly vampires any day.
“The South Africans have the Tokoloshe,” Johan said. “They are not quite zombies, but something created by shamans to take vengeance on those who might offend them. These creatures supposedly rape women and bite off the toes of sleeping people.”
Nancy laughed. “So wear shoes to bed, right?”
“According to legend,” Johan continued, “the only way to keep the Tokoloshe away at night is to put a brick beneath each leg of one’s bed. Anyone else in the house, however, is shit out of luck.”
They drove a few more minutes in companionable silence, Eric and Nancy drinking liberal amounts of water to combat the heat of more than 30 degrees centigrade. A mile or so down the road, Johan broke the silence.
“So you two are volunteering at the game park?”
Eric nodded. “We’ll be working primarily at the cheetah conservation research center.”
Johan nodded wisely. “Ah, for the Cat Lady.”
“You know her?” Nancy leaned forward between the two front seats.
“Oh, yes,” Johan said. “If you work for her, you will have less trouble with Debswana security. Everyone at the mine knows the Cat Lady.”
“Is the security that strict?”
“Oh, yes,” Johan said again. “Remember that you are dealing with the richest diamond mine in Botswana. There is more than one reason they surround themselves with a game park.”
“Anything else we should know?” Nancy asked.
Johan pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“The phrase ‘just now’ means ‘I will do it later.’ And ‘now now’ means ‘I will get to it right now.’ He fell silent long enough to swerve around a small but fierce dust devil speeding across the road, then continued, “And remember that superstitions are very real to the people here.” He reached out a hand and tapped Eric’s blue-framed sunglasses. “These? They may scare some people. That could be good though. You will keep them off guard.”
Another hour passed in relative silence. Nancy dozed in the back and Eric watched the passing scenery while Johan drove. The landscape was relentlessly flat. Most of the towns they passed seemed to be abandoned.
Nancy woke up long enough to say, “I really need to pee.”
Johan and Eric exchanged looks in a moment of male solidarity.
“Hon, I don’t think we’re gonna find any rest stops along the way.”
Nancy shrugged. “Just find me something I can duck behind so I don’t offend the donkeys.”
“That I can do,” Johan said. “A few more miles and there is another village. It’s one of the dead ones, so no one will bother you.”
One of the dead ones.
There was a phrase made for nightmares.
* * *
True to his word, Johan pulled off the road next to a small village consisting of clay huts topped with cone-shaped thatch roofs. No one stirred as the 4X4 came to a halt next to a cemetery with the same fenced in graves. It stretched back a few hundred feet, the back obscured by a couple of baobab trees.
Nancy hopped out of the back seat, wilting visibly as the full strength of the African sun beat down o
n her head. She reached back inside and grabbed her Aussie hat, then disappeared between two of the huts to do her business.
Eric opened the passenger door and stepped out to stretch his legs. They still had another hour or so on the road before they reached the game park. As hot as the interior of the car had been, it was nothing compared to the oven-like heat outside. It rose from the ground and blazed down from the sky. Sweat instantly appeared on his back and brow, then dried just as quickly. He drank more water, deeply aware that to be out here without it was almost certainly a death sentence.
Johan joined him, lighting up a cigarette as he leaned against the vehicle, seemingly impervious to the heat. Eric’s gaze meandered over the cemetery. He was fascinated by the structures and wondering how far the natives who’d built it had to go to get the iron bars that walled in the individual plots. Certainly far enough to be a hassle, not to mention expensive.
They must really have wanted to protect their dead or—
Eric put a hand above his eyes to cut down the glare from the sun.
“I thought you said this place was dead.” He pointed past the baobab trees into the back end of the graveyard. Unless he was seeing his first mirage, there were at least two people wandering around back there, maybe more.
Johan glanced in that direction. He frowned, and then shrugged.
“Looks like someone has moved back, perhaps.”
“What are they doing?”
“Tending the graves, perhaps.” He took a drag on his cigarette.
At that moment Nancy screamed.
Eric took off running without a second thought. Nancy never screamed. She was the most unflappable woman he’d ever met, dealing with dangerous situations, injury and illness with a calm competence that a battlefield medic would envy.
He reached the first two huts, almost colliding with her as she pelted around the corner, her face chalk-white under its dusting of freckles. Eric grabbed her by the shoulders to steady her.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. We need to go.”
“But—”
“Now, Eric!” Nancy dislodged his hands from her shoulders, and curled her fingers around one of his wrists in a vice-like grip, pulling him along as she headed for the car.