Someone ahead blew their horn, and then a few more added to the din. “Idiots,” Ian said. “The noise might bring more of the zombies.”
“What’s holding us up?” Meg asked, straining to see ahead.
“Maybe the police have blocked the road again.” Ian eased forward, futilely switching on his turn signal to change lanes, but the drivers on either side only glowered at him. There was no room for any of them to move. Although they were on a four-lane road, the mob had taken it upon themselves to head in one direction only—they were all trying to leave the city at once.
They were hemmed in on both sides by retail businesses and guardrails, although a few drivers attempted to cut through parking lots or side streets, only to find themselves heading upstream against the one-way traffic. At least this section of the city, just beyond the state university and capitol districts, was relatively free of the infected.
“Stay here,” Ian said, slamming the car into park. “I’ll go up and see what’s going on.”
Meg tried not to sound snarky. “What about staying together?”
“I’ll only be a second. Lock the doors until I get back.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Dad?” Jacob leaned over the front seat, his serious expression making him look so much like his father.
Ian tousled Jacob’s hair. “No sweat, Champ. If the traffic breaks, Mom can pick me up down the road.”
Before Meg could protest further, Ian was out the door and taking big strides between the cars ahead. He turned and pulled his cell phone from his pocket, making a “Call me” gesture with his pinky and thumb extended, then continued on his way.
She slid behind the wheel and watched him until he disappeared. A few others also exited their vehicles, all heading toward the front of the line. Even if traffic started moving, the number of unoccupied cars would slow progress to a crawl. And the Subaru only had a quarter of a tank of gas left.
“How’s Ramona?” Meg asked Jacob, with the hope of distracting him from his worries.
“She looks like a deader.”
“Jacob. She’s your sister.”
“Yeah, but what if she turns and tries to bite me?”
“That’s not going to happen. We’ll get her to a doctor and she’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”
“What if I caught it, too? What if it’s inside me right now, making my cells get all weird and rewiring my brain?”
“You watch too much television.”
“No, I don’t think I’ve watched enough. I don’t know all the scenarios.”
Despite the stress and anxiety, Meg was pleased he used an advanced word like “scenario.” The kid was smart. He was obviously thinking analytically about their situation and not just surrendering to fear. But who knew what he was feeling on the inside? Maybe he was holding himself together by the thinnest of threads, just as she was.
“Let’s see what the news says.” Meg switched on the radio. She was surprised to find Ian’s default setting was a classic rock station that was actually playing music instead of news. Jim Morrison’s darkly sonorous chorus to The Doors’ “Light My Fire” was accompanied by splashing cymbals and an undulating organ melody that did little to soothe her nerves. She punched up the next preset and a somber female newscaster was in the middle of an update.”
“…the outbreak is now widespread, with cases reported in all fifty states. More reports are coming in from other developed countries, but some are claiming to have successfully stopped the infection at their borders.”
Meg didn’t see how this was possible, except in the case of isolated island territories with little air or shipping traffic. The particularly virulent strain of the disease meant that there was no real defense once it reached a population center.
“Israel, in particular, claims to have no domestic cases, although some tourists were detained after exhibiting symptoms. Israeli Prime Minister Yuval Kadin attributes the remarkable reprieve to, quote, ‘God’s just and benevolent hand.’ Scientists with the Centers for Disease Control express some skepticism with Israel’s claim, saying preliminary findings show the viral strain overwhelms most natural immunities in humans. CDC spokesperson Dr. Jennifer Meeks has more.”
Meg turned up the radio a notch. She’d met Meeks at a conference and was impressed with both the doctor’s intelligence and the no-nonsense way she’d risen to prominence in a field previously dominated by men. The woman’s voice came across with a clear, no-nonsense delivery that tried to couch the science in simple language:
“Early findings suggest the infection is caused by a bacteriophage, which is a virus that acts as a parasite inside bacteria. We’re still not sure of the origins, but it’s possibly a dormant strain that has been reintroduced to a world that’s no longer adapted to develop an immunity to it.”
Meg’s momentary triumph of having pegged the nature of the infection was dampened by the fear that she might’ve had something to do with its release. Still, she couldn’t quite accept that the obscure samples she and Lang had harvested two days before and eight thousand miles away had exploded into a worldwide catastrophe.
“The bacteriophage is still mutating rapidly, which will make it difficult both to develop resistance and pursue any possible vaccines or treatments. As for the symptoms of …cannibalism that seem to arise, we quite simply have no previous research to explain the behavior. Our working theory is that the virus attacks the limbic system and disrupts instincts, emotions, and drives such as hunger. So while the victims display all signs of being dead—no pulse, heartbeat, or reaction to certain outside stimuli—some mutation in the nervous system causes them to operate on a primal, involuntary instinct.”
Dr. Meeks seemed to be winging it a little now. Maybe the administration had tempered her statement, because anyone who saw these things in the street knew they were dead. And not just dead—deader, just like the meme said.
Meg was even more desperate to contact the CDC now. Her information might be useful in homing in on a vaccine. Maybe the CDC could even track down the samples she’d had shipped to BioGenix. If the virus’s spread was partly her fault, then at least she could be part of the cure.
She turned down the radio to a murmur and tried her phone. But again she found the CDC’s line busy. She logged in and checked her email and found no reply to her repeated messages, although she’d received one autoreply from Toolik that read:
We have received your recent message. The Toolik Field Station is temporarily closed due to inclement weather and we will reply when we are again online. Thank you for contacting Toolik Field Station.
That was bullshit. The weather in Alaska this time of year was frigid and moist, but Toolik was designed for subzero survival. She could only imagine the state of siege the research station was under. Hopefully, scientists had made the connection between the sloth carcass and the sudden epidemic. But given the violent deaths that had occurred there, she could easily see the site locked down as a crime scene, with various law-enforcement agencies bickering about investigative turf.
“Dad should be back by now,” Jacob said.
“He can take care of himself.”
“In the real world, yeah. But he hasn’t accepted the one we’re in now.”
Meg called Ian but got no answer. She leaned over the seat and pulled the blanket away from Ramona’s face. Her skin was pallid and moist, the blue vein in her forehead throbbing with pressure. Her temperature was stable, though.
“How are you, sweetie?” she whispered.
Ramona’s eyes opened and blinked, gummy with mucus. She gave a small groan and closed them again, sinking down into the blanket hugging Mister Grizz.
“Mom?” Jacob said, looking out the side window.
“Yeah, honey?” She only half listened, her attention focused on her sick daughter.
“They’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
A nearby scream gave her the answer. She sat up to discover a pack of zombies sp
reading out among the rows of stranded vehicles. It took her a moment to confirm their condition, since they could’ve been impatient drivers. They were all well-dressed and relatively normal-looking, but their unsteady gait and mottled flesh gave them away.
The car in front of her accelerated in panic, smashing into the rear of another car. The collision triggered that car’s alarm and it rose in an ear-piercing whoop. Meg checked the rearview mirror and the two lanes beside her. Still no possible exit.
The driver to her left, a man with a porn-star mustache and a cowboy hat, met her eye and waved at her to stay where she was. As if she had a choice. He opened his door and leaned out on one leg, brandishing a pistol. He held it in a two-handed grip and fired. The rear window of an SUV up ahead shattered, while the nearest zombie turned its attention toward the man.
Another zombie, reacting to the sound of the shattered glass, crawled into the jagged opening. Blood poured from its fingers as it dragged itself inside the SUV. The occupants opened their doors and fled onto the crowded roadway. Someone else opened fire, and more screams filled the air.
“Keep your heads down!” Meg shouted to her children.
The man with the pistol climbed onto the hood of his car. The approaching zombie was oblivious to the chaos all around, intent on its prey. The man waited until it was ten feet away and fired, punching a hole in its chest. The zombie stumbled backwards a few steps, regained its balance, and continued its relentless attack.
“The head, dummy,” Jacob said. “Shoot it in the head.”
“You’re supposed to be hiding,” Meg said, but she wasn’t ducking, either. She was horrified by the zombie, but her analytical mind performed a clinical observation of the thing’s behavior. It appeared to operate on a narrow range of stimuli, attracted by noise and motion, just as the doctor on the radio had said. Once settling on a target, it remained fixated despite the difficulty or danger of reaching its prey. Of course, it displayed no sense of mortality—not a surprise, given it was already dead.
The man fired several more times, the rounds tracking their way up the creature’s torso until one finally pierced the skull. The zombie swayed and then flopped forward, its blood-streaked face bouncing on the hood of the car at the man’s feet. He kicked it away and it slid off, leaving a long red racing stripe in its wake.
But the man didn’t notice the zombie creeping up on his flank, drawn by the gunfire. Meg hammered at her window, shouting at him and pointing. The man turned toward her in confusion, motioning her to roll down her window. She opened her door instead, but before she could warn him, the zombie reached out and grabbed him by the ankle.
In a supernatural burst of strength, the zombie yanked the man off balance. He slammed onto the hood. He wriggled in the dented metal depression, unable to get traction because of the blood slick. The man reached to Meg for help as the zombie pulled him closer. Meg caught his wrist and planted one foot against the car’s fender for leverage.
The man hung in the middle of the tug-of-war for only a moment, and then the zombie sank its teeth into the man’s leg. Meg could hear the cloth and flesh rip, the man’s muffled grunts of pain punctuated with a wet, squelching sound. The zombie worried the bit of meat in its jaws until it worked the morsel free. The man’s eyes were wide with fear and shock and Meg forced herself to look away.
Jacob yelled from the car and she ordered him to stay there. She gave one more titanic effort to free the man, but the zombie renewed its grip and claimed its prey. As the next bite burrowed into the man’s abdomen, the pistol bounced off the hood and onto the pavement. Meg mouthed “Sorry” at the dying man, scooped up the pistol, and retreated to the car.
“You should put him down, Mom,” Jacob said. “A mercy kill.”
“I can’t.”
“Nobody ought to die like that.”
“You’re right. Now stop looking.”
Jacob obeyed for a few seconds until the grunts and muffled screams faded, and then said, “Do you even know how to use that?”
“Sure.”
She didn’t know the make or caliber, but she’d fired a similar weapon. She’d dated a guy in college who insisted on taking her to a firing range. He equated masculinity with caliber size and sought to impress her with his arsenal. That was about all he had going for him. He was lousy in the sack and a little quick on the draw but at least he’d taught her a few basics of marksmanship.
Meg fumbled with the magazine, finding the little slide lever that released it from the base of the grip. Three rounds left. She slapped the magazine back into place and racked a bullet into the chamber.
Another zombie joined the first one feeding on the fresh prey. The two infected people didn’t interact but exhibited a primitive form of awareness with one another. Meg tucked the information into the mental case file she was building. She had a feeling this biological experiment had a long way to run.
“Dad’s out there with those things,” Jacob said.
“We’ll just have to trust him to protect himself. Somebody will let him in their car, or he’ll make it to a building.”
“And we’re supposed to just sit here and wait?”
“It’s too dangerous to look for him. And what if he comes back while we’re gone? Besides, Ramona is in no condition to travel, and we couldn’t carry her far with just the two of us.”
She called him a second time, let the phone ring until it kicked over to voicemail, and asked him to call immediately.
The passengers in the vehicles around her were trapped as well. Meg guiltily averted her eyes from their scared, imploring faces. They might expect her to use the gun to save them.
Her family came first, no matter how bad things got.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rocky swung the bus’s rear emergency door open just before the woman reached it.
Despite their uncoordinated gait, the zombies had gained on her and were less than twenty seconds behind. Rocky grabbed the sleeve of the woman’s blazer and tried to pull her aboard, but his fingers slipped on the knit fabric.
“Hurry the fuck up!” Grabowski yelled.
The driver revved the engine, laying down a trail of black smoke. The bus rolled forward just as Rocky reached for her a second time. He missed, but she caught the rear bumper and dragged herself along, feet flailing wildly as they tried to keep up with the bus. One of her high heels flew off and her stocking shredded against the abrasive pavement.
Rocky repositioned himself on his knees and grabbed both her wrists. She looked up at him and nodded, giving a leap just as he yanked backward. She landed atop him, knocking him prone on the floor of the bus, the door banging and swinging open again.
“Go, go, go!” Grabowski shouted at the driver, who didn’t need any encouragement.
Rocky nudged the woman aside and leaned out to close the door. A zombie sprinted at an angle from the sidewalk, arms stretching for him and slapping against the bus’s chassis. The infected man resembled a former linebacker for the Carolina Panthers, but Rocky rejected any connection to the past. It tried to hang on but Rocky levered the door closed, popping off three of the thing’s fingers.
The severed fingers writhed like inchworms on a griddle. Rocky kicked them under a bench seat and turned to help the woman. Grabowski was in his face, spittle flying in rage.
“Sarge said no civilians, numb nuts. You risked our necks for her.”
“Back off, Grabowski. What did you expect me to do?”
“Follow fucking orders.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t dress parade. This is a war on terror, and terror is kicking our asses.”
“No, this is a war on zombies. The Colonel’s got a plan and we’ll find out as soon as we rejoin the company. Otherwise we’re just swinging our dicks in the wind.”
“So we just let innocent people die in the meantime?”
“You only rescued her because she’s a babe. I didn’t see you sticking your neck out for those fat old ladies in t
he capitol building.”
Rocky glanced at her again. Maybe Grabowski had a point. She had wavy auburn hair, a cute Easter outfit of pink and sky-blue pastels, and an attitude of class. He told himself he would’ve saved her even if she was old and ugly, or a fat man smoking a cigar, but was that the truth? She’d appealed to some sort of protective instinct that might well have been drilled into him by society and the media and not some sense of duty.
She slid onto a seat and gave him a grateful but exhausted smile. “Whatever the reason, thank you.”
Grabowski sneered at her. “Just stay out of the way and keep your head down. There’s liable to be some shooting.”
“Oh, of that, I’m sure.” She didn’t flinch from Grabowski’s withering glare.
They all pitched forward when the driver scraped against another vehicle while rounding a curve. “Crossing Hillsborough Street!” he called out, slowing as metal squealed in protest. The bus slowed to a crawl, easing between the rows of parked cars on both sides.
Grabowski worked his way up front to check on the wounded soldier. Rocky sat beside the woman. “You okay?”
She rubbed her chafed and bleeding foot as she kicked off her remaining high heel. “Just lost a little skin. Nothing serious.”
“What were you doing out today? We’re under curfew.”
“I work for the state. I was ordered to Promiseland this morning.”
“The megachurch?”
“Yes. We’re using it as a base of operations.”
“Doesn’t Promiseland belong to that pastor—what’s his name, the guy with the big hairdo?”
“Cameron Ingram. The president’s appointed him assistant director of Homeland Security. Sort of a zombie czar, if you will?”
“What would a preacher know about zombies?”
“I don’t know. I just follow orders.”
“Well, I’m starting to find out that following orders can get a whole lot of people killed. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
He headed for the front of the bus, saw that the injured soldier was turning gray with shock and blood loss, and leaned over the driver’s shoulder to look out the front windshield. A few cars were moving, all trying to get out of town, but many had been abandoned. The driver picked his way through the maze of steel and glass, bludgeoning aside anything that blocked his path.
Arize (Book 1): Resurrection Page 11