"Come get it, freaks," CiCi challenged them. Happily accepting, they charged at her.
She opened fire. The sound was deafening in such a small space. Ryan felt it in his throat.
The first infected dropped. Then the second halfway across the room. She hit the third but only injured it. It leapt on her and the machine gun fired wildly as she slammed up against the wall.
The rest of the group fell on her. Teeth went to her eyes, her shoulder, her legs. She didn't scream or make a sound, but for a brief moment, she made eye contact with Ryan. A wave of panic overtook him as he thought she might give them away.
More infected rushed into the room, splashed with the blood of CiCi's fallen backup. She was torn apart in seconds. Just before Ryan closed his eyes, he recognized one of the infected shoving through the crowd.
It was the tall guy Max had kicked off the court for fighting.
Marco ran down the brick path that led through the woods. As he got closer to the dock, the sound of the boat's motor could be heard firing up. He came out the mouth of the path to the sight of the boat out on the Potomac, speeding away. His hands on his waist, he caught his breath on the shore as he watched the boat grow smaller and smaller on the water.
"Marco." A weak voice, barely a whisper, came from behind him. He turned to find Maribel lying on the ground next to a tree. He ran to her and dropped to his knees in the dirt next to her.
"Jesus," he gasped, seeing the blood oozing out between the fingers pressed to her stomach.
"I'm...s-sorry," she cried, "I...didn't mean to-" Her voice cut out. She looked up at him with such terror.
"Who did this?"
Her eyes started to lose focus.
"Who did this," he repeated with a shout, but it was too late. Her eyes weren't on him anymore but some far off place. Marco's shoulders sagged as he felt something inside him slip away. Could no hope be left to survive in the world? Even if she'd betrayed him for some reason, couldn't she be allowed to live?
"What did you do?"
It was Maribel's uncle. He had come up the shore on foot, probably out on one of his usual patrols. Marco stood to face him.
"I, I just found her like this."
The man raised his hand, glancing from Marco to Maribel and back. "You stay back, you hear me? You just stay back." The man looked angry, afraid, tears in his eyes. Marco could tell he'd had nothing to do with Maribel's murder- the problem was convincing him Marco hadn't, either.
"This wasn't me. Whoever it was just got away. They stole my boat," he motioned to the dock. "I wouldn't do this, I would never-"
A shout rose up from the direction of the house. Marco and Maribel's uncle exchanged a look. They both knew the truth without saying it.
The camp was under attack.
The two of them left Maribel's body behind as they ran back toward the house. More screams could be heard through the trees. Marco didn't know what they would do once they got there, what they would find, but he knew they had to do something.
A blur in the trees. Someone jumped out in front of them.
Marco fell backward, nearly twisting his ankle. Something wet hit his face as he fell on his back.
He looked up from the ground. Maribel's uncle had an axe blade buried in his face, his expression frozen. He collapsed next to Marco, nothing but dead weight now. The axe handle was still in the hands of the man who'd killed him, a man with black hair who Marco didn't recognize. It wasn't anyone from the group, and it definitely wasn't an infected.
They were looters. Scavengers.
Murderers.
Marco scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as he could before the looter could pull the axe out of Maribel's uncle and use it again. He followed the brick path to where he knew Washington's tomb would be. He was too far from anything else.
He ran past the twin obelisks that guarded the entrance to the tomb and into the brick mausoleum. He closed the black steel gate and locked it with the padlock before hiding out of sight. He pressed himself behind one of the two, white sarcophagi that sat inside it, one holding George, the other Martha.
As he listened to the footsteps closing in on the brick path, the looter laughing hysterically as he went, Marco understood that he should have listened to everything Stanley had said.
Other people- they were what got you killed.
It hadn't taken long for the infected to finish CiCi. When there wasn't much left of her, they started sniffing around. They must have picked up Tanya and Ryan's scent, but they had a difficult time narrowing it down. The ash had worked.
The tall one from Max's group came the closest to finding them, but luckily a sound drew him away and they all scrambled out of the room to find it. It had sounded like a section of the auditorium ceiling collapsing, which was no surprise considering the condition it was in.
On the one hand, Tanya didn't care what the noise was so long as it got those monsters out of there. On the other, she didn't want to be there when the rest of the building came down.
After the infected moved on, Tanya and Ryan waited a long time in the rubble. They sat there, surrounded by the smell of death, and they didn't move until they hadn't heard a sound in a while. Then they pulled themselves out of the destruction, dusted themselves off and got the Hell out of there.
They stayed off the main roads, cutting through neighborhoods and backyards and parking lots. Things crawled on walls. Occasional screams drifted through the buildings. But they continued.
After half an hour of tortuously slow travel, they found a house whose front door was left open. There was a Prius parked out in front, so Tanya decided to look inside for the keys. She'd never moved so fast as she did checking that front hallway. On the wall next to the coat rack she found a key organizer with what she was looking for.
The Prius ran quietly, which was extremely helpful. Another half hour later, they reached the Botanic Garden.
As Tanya looked up at the beautiful glass dome of the Conservatory, she remembered back to their wedding. She had had her heart set on being married at the Botanic Garden since she was a little girl, so it went without saying that she was heartbroken when she learned they didn't allow weddings on the premises.
Will did something unexpected and surprised her with a secret wedding. Her friend Lewis got himself ordained. They visited the garden like usual, with a few friends and family in tow, then they found a quiet corner by the orchids and had a quick ceremony. They were nervous and excited. No one discovered what they were doing until the very end. She and Will kissed, and then they all ran out of there and went to a bar to celebrate.
It was so out of character for Will, who was normally a stickler for every rule and law in every book. His willing to do that for her, to against every arrow-straight bone in his body, meant more to her than any ring in the world.
She wiped the wetness from her eyes. A tiny amount of doubt had formed in the pit of her gut, a cold ball of uncertainty at her center. It nagged at her, whispering whenever it was quiet, telling her it was insane to believe Will was not only alive but going to find them there. But she put a brave face on for Ryan, because sometimes being a mother meant hiding the fear so it wouldn't be passed on, like covering a cough to avoid passing a cold.
They entered the Botanic Garden, ready for whatever they would find inside. They were prepared to hide as long as they needed to.
As long as it took for him to come home.
-23-
May 2nd, 2015
DAY 16
Will and Stanley reached D.C.
What should have been a six or seven hour drive had taken them a week. They'd had more run-ins than they could count. The fire in Moshannon Forest. The ambush outside of Woodland. The van troubles on Laurel Run. Running out of food in Claysburg. Getting lost in St. Clairsville, and again by the factory near Dunning Creek. The argument in Bedford. The fight in Pennknoll. More fires in Breezewood. Blowing a tire between Crystal Spring and Amaranth. Miles and miles of bridges and churc
hes and gas stations, and all the things that had tried to kill them in between.
The van was limping. Their water supply had run out. They were exhausted- but they were home.
The problem now was D.C. looked even worse than they'd expected. The city had been burnt and blasted halfway to hell, every bridge sunk and its streets crawling with infected. As they approached from the north, where there was less action on the roads, they saw military planes flying low over the city. What was more interesting, they seemed to be spraying something, releasing clouds of vapor that didn't look like water for the smoldering fires.
"I wonder what the hell that is," Stan said.
"Hopefully it's not a chemical agent."
"So you admit the government might do that? And on their own soil, no less?"
"Under...extreme circumstances."
Stan scoffed. "I guess that's a start."
Will weaved through the city toward his house. His nerves were on edge, and he did his best to contain his emotions, but as they got within ten blocks of their target, approaching his neighborhood, he couldn't help but curse under his breath.
The entire street was devastated. Fire had ripped through the entire neighborhood, turning houses into black skeletons and cars into ash trays.
Will parked the van at the curb and stared at the black void where he and his wife had once built a life. Their house was gone. A collection of black bones.
"Will, I'm so sorry," Stanley said.
Will leaned forward and put the van into drive. "We're not done yet," he replied.
Ryan and his mom had spent the last week living in the Conservatory, hiding in the indoor jungle of tall trees and exotic plants. They had survived on a combination of edible plants and heavily rationed food. Because of that, they'd both lost so much weight they would sometimes get dizzy when they stood up too fast. Spending most of their time at the center of the Conservatory, out of sight, there wasn't much to do but save their energy. They tried not to exert themselves when they moved, but it didn't take much.
A buzzing sound had been building over the last minute. When it became too much to ignore, Ryan climbed the stairs to the canopy walk to get a better look.
There were planes over the city. They were flying lower than normal, and Ryan didn't like the look of it.
He went back down to the ground level. His mom was sitting on one of the benches. She looked terrible, so much thinner than he'd ever seen her. No doubt he looked the same, but he'd stopped looking at reflections a while ago. "Mom," he said, "there's more planes."
"We'll be safe here," she said weakly.
"You don't know that. How long before the missiles become nuclear bombs?"
"What are you saying?"
He knew what was coming. "I think we need to leave," he said.
"No." She shook her head.
"There's no more food here."
"You're forgetting that out there, we're the food."
"Also..." He trailed off, not wanting to start a fight.
"What is it?"
"I don't think dad's coming. The odds of him being alive, out there..."
Her face grew red. "Do you want to know, Ryan? Do you want to know why the Army didn't want him?"
"Mom-"
"It's because he failed the psych evaluation. They realized he had so much anger locked up inside him, he was too dangerous to be given a weapon." She paused, tears in her eyes. "Did you hear what I just said? The United States Army, who are in the business of war, decided your father was too hostile to be a soldier. Now let me ask you something- has he ever raised a hand to you?"
Ryan shook his head.
"Has he," she blurted.
"No."
"Have you ever seen him lose his temper with me, or raise a hand?"
"Never."
"That's because he loves us. He has control of his anger, something those shrinks failed to realize. So let me tell you- if anyone, human or otherwise, gets in your father's way, then I truly feel sorry for them." She sat down, her legs shaky. "We've lost everything else, we're not losing this. Do you understand me? We're not losing this." Her eyes started to well up. Ryan went to her and put his arms around her. He felt her sink into him.
"Okay, mom," he said. "It's okay."
"God damn it," Will whispered.
Stanley had gone with his brother to a bail bond shop. As usual, Will didn't give him all the details and Stanley had to fill in the blanks. Will being a bounty hunter, he presumably worked for the man they were going to see, who was probably the same man who had sent Will after Stanley.
He planned to thank the guy for that.
They arrived to a wide open glass door that led to an abandoned store. At the back of the store, they stepped over a broken wooden door then walked up the small stairway beyond. At the top they found yet another broken door, and an apartment with windows that had been broken in, cool air filling the place.
In the bedroom they found a body. The dead man was handcuffed to the bed, his brains blown out all over the sheets. Judging by Will's reaction, it was the man they were looking for.
"His name was Donegan," Will said.
Back in the living room they had a look around. There was a pillow on the couch that had been folded in half. It had an imprint of whoever's head had laid in it last. For some reason, when Will saw it he covered his mouth, nearly in tears.
"What is it," Stanley asked.
"They were here." He picked up the pillow. "Ryan was sleeping here."
"Is that his?"
"No, but he used it. I'm sure of it."
Stanley checked the window. The broken glass on the floor was all on the inside, which, if every shitty cop show he'd ever watched could be trusted, meant the apartment had been broken into, not the other way around. Will was at the kitchen counter, facing away, and he was quiet. Then his shoulders started to rise and fall, and Stanley realized he must have been sobbing.
"I'm sure they made it out," Stanley offered. "Tanya's one of the smartest people I've met, and Ryan, he takes after you."
Will turned around. For the first time in days, he had a smile on his face. That's when Stanley realized he wasn't sobbing- he was laughing.
"I know where they are," Will said.
There was a notepad in his hand. He turned it to show Stanley a sketch of a building he recognized instantly.
The United States Botanic Garden.
It took a little while, but Tanya calmed down. She concentrated on her breathing while Ryan ate the last of the aloe plants.
Talking about Will had taken something out of her. She'd promised Will she wouldn't tell Ryan about failing the psych evaluation, not because he wanted to keep secrets from his son, but because it was a topic he wanted to address himself, when the time was right. Mental illness ran in the Sharpe family, and Will wanted Ryan to learn the risks when he was old enough to understand them. There was still so much stigma attached to mental illness, it was important to Will that they separate the facts from the fiction.
But truthfully, that's not what had upset her. It was that Ryan was starting to lose hope. She wanted- no, needed him to believe that things would get better, because if they weren't, what was the point of all this? Why starve and scrape to see another day if no good would come of it?
Will was coming. He was coming because he had to.
As she adjusted on the bench, a shadow crossed her face, disorienting her vision for a moment. She looked up to see what had blocked the sunlight coming through the glass.
An infected.
It was crawling on the dome.
Five blocks from the National Mall, the road was blocked by what had started as a traffic jam and turned into a bloodbath. Rotting bodies mingled with twisted metal. Drivers and passengers had been pulled out of their cars and eaten. Even after all Will and Stan had been through, it was a gruesome sight.
Will tried to drive around the blockage a few different directions, but he found each way blocked by either cars or afterma
th from the bombings. The Botanic Garden was right up the street. Tanya and Ryan were so close. There was no way he was stopping now.
He made sure the Glock was fully loaded and the hunting knife on his belt. "Let's go," he told Stan. Stan grumbled as he got out, but he got out.
The street was empty. A series of dragging noises nearby served as a warning: safety was temporary at best. "I didn't know you were married at the Botanic Garden," Stan said, keeping his voice down.
"You would have known if you'd gone."
"Yes, you've made it very clear that I missed things. I had to sacrifice a lot to do what I needed to do."
"We all have to do that, it's called adulthood. Somehow we manage not to alienate everyone we know."
Stan glared at him. "You know what? I don't need to explain myself to you anymore. In a few minutes, regardless of what we find at this place, we're going our separate ways."
Will stopped and looked at his brother. "Regardless of what we find?"
Stan swallowed, putting on a stern face, but he didn't respond. Will wanted to punch his brother's teeth down his gullet, make him choke on his own cavities.
"You'd better pray we find my wife and son alive," he said. "You don't want to be anywhere near me if we don't."
A shriek. Two infected up on a building had spotted them. As the creatures scurried down the side of the building toward them, Will took the safety off the Glock.
The infected dropped to the street and galloped at them. Will lined up his shot and fired, hitting front one in the cheek. The side of its face tore off, but it regained and kept running. Will fired again, this time hitting it above the eyes. Its body slid to a stop on the street.
The second infected jumped over it without compassion or anger. Will tried to fire off a third round but it was too late.
The second infected leapt and tackled Will to the street. I'm not going down like this, Will thought. Not so close to the end.
Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds): Extinction [Isolation] Page 17