Lilly glances out the back and sees the tall pines outside, passing in a blur. The setting sun behind the treetops causes a strobelike effect that is almost hypnotic. Lilly wonders for a brief moment if everything will indeed be okay. Maybe Woodbury has stabilized now. Maybe the Governor’s Machiavellian methods will actually keep them safe, keep a lid on the place. She wants to believe in Woodbury. Maybe that’s the key … simply believing. Maybe that alone will get them through.…
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe …
* * *
“W-where am I?” The voice is hoarse, choked, unsteady.
Dr. Stevens stands over the bed in his shopworn lab coat and wire-rimmed glasses, gazing down at the woman from the chopper. “Gonna be a little groggy for a while,” he says to her. “We gave you a couple happy pills.”
The woman named Christina lies in a supine position on a makeshift gurney in the cinder block–lined catacombs beneath the racetrack. Clad in a cast-off terrycloth robe, her right arm wrapped in an improvised cast of kindling and medical tape, she turns her pale, ashen face away from the harsh halogen light shining down on her.
“Hold this, Alice, just for a second.” Stevens hands the plastic vial of IV fluids to the young nurse. Also in a tattered lab coat, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, Alice forces a smile as she holds the vial aloft, its line connected to a stick in the injured woman’s arm.
Again Christina manages to croak, “W-where am I?”
Stevens goes to an adjacent sink, washes his hands, and towels off. “I could level with you and say the Ninth Circle of Hell but I’ll refrain from the editorial comments for the moment.” He turns back to her and says with a warm but slightly cynical smile, “You’re in the sprawling metropolis of Woodbury, Georgia … population who-the-hell-knows. My name is Dr. Stevens and this is Alice, and it’s a quarter after seven, and I understand you were fished out of the wreckage of a helicopter this afternoon…?”
She manages a nod, and then flinches at a twinge in her midsection.
“That’s gonna be a little tender for a while,” Stevens says, wiping his hands on the towel. “You had third-degree burns over twenty percent of your body. Good news is, I don’t think you’ll need any skin grafts … just a little edema we’re treating intravenously. Lucky for you, we had three liters of glucose left. Which you’re sucking down like a drunken sailor. You managed to fracture your arm in two places. We’ll watch that as well. They said your name is Christina?”
She nods.
Stevens clicks a penlight, reaches down, and checks her eyes. “How’s your short-term memory, Christina?”
She inhales an excruciating breath, which whistles softly in her throat. “Memory’s fine.… My pilot … Mike is his name … was his name.… Did they—?”
Stevens puts his penlight back into his pocket and gets serious. “I’m sorry to say your friend died in the crash.”
Christina manages a nod. “I’m aware of that … but I just wondered … his body … Did they bring him back?”
“As a matter of fact, they did.”
She swallows thickly, licks her dry lips. “That’s good … because I promised him a Christian burial.”
Stevens looks at the floor. “That’s very admirable … a Christian burial.” Stevens and Alice exchange a glance. Stevens looks back at the patient and smiles. “One step at a time … okay? For now, let’s just concentrate on getting you up and running.”
“What’s the matter? Did I say something wrong?”
Stevens ponders the injured woman. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”
“Is there a problem with me wanting to give my pilot a proper burial?”
Stevens sighs. “Look … I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”
Christina lets out a grunt as she struggles to a sitting position. Alice helps her sit up, gently keeping her arm elevated. Christina looks at Stevens. “What the hell is the problem?”
Stevens looks at Alice, then back at the patient. “The Governor is the problem.”
“Who?”
“Guy who runs this place.” Stevens takes off his glasses, pulls out a handkerchief, and cleans the lenses carefully as she speaks. “Fancies himself a civil servant, I guess. Hence the name.”
Christina furrows her brow, confused. “Is this guy—?” She searches for the words. “Is he—?”
“Is he what?”
She shrugs. “Is he—what would you call it? ‘Elected’? Is he an elected official?”
The doctor shoots another loaded glance at Alice. “Um … wow … that’s an interesting question.”
Alice grumbles, “He’s elected, all right … by a single vote … his own.”
The doctor rubs his eyes. “It’s a little more complicated than that.” He measures his words. “You’re new here. This man … he’s the alpha dog here in our little kennel. He leads by default. Keeps order by doing the dirty work.” A thin smile crosses Stevens’s narrow features. The smile drips with disdain. “Only problem is, the man has developed a taste for it.”
Christina stares at the doctor. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Look.” Stevens puts his glasses back on and wearily runs his fingers through his hair. “Whatever happens to your friend’s remains … take my advice. Grieve on your own, pay tribute silently.”
“I don’t understand.”
Stevens looks at Alice, his smile fading. He looks into Christina’s eyes. “You’re gonna be okay. A week or so … when your arm’s healed up … you might think about leaving this place.”
“But I don’t—”
“And one other thing.” Stevens fixes her with his gaze. His voice drops an octave, gets very serious. “This man. The Governor. He is not to be trusted. You understand? He is capable of anything. So just steer clear of him … and bide your time until you can get out of here. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She doesn’t answer, just stares at him, soaking it in.
* * *
Darkness closes in around the town. Some of the windows begin to glow with lantern light, others already pulsing with the unpredictable current of generators. At night, Woodbury has the surreal, retrofitted feel of the twenty-first century transported to the nineteenth—an atmosphere that has become de rigueur among most post-plague settlements. At one corner, torch flames bathe a boarded, desecrated McDonald’s, the yellow-orange light reflecting off the ruins of its crumbling golden arches.
Martinez’s men, posted on cherry pickers at key junctures of the barricade, now begin to deal with an increasing number of moving shadows on the edges of the adjacent woods. Walker traffic has picked up slightly since of the return of the reconnaissance party, and now .50 caliber placements on the north and west sides crackle with intermittent gunfire. It gives the little town—which now basks in the purple, hazy twilight of dusk—a war-zone feel.
Trundling past a portico of storefronts, carrying a peach crate brimming with provisions, Lilly Caul heads for her building. She hears the spit of automatic weaponry behind her, echoing across the windswept street. She pauses and glances over her shoulder at the sound of a voice rising over the gunfire.
“LILLY, WAIT UP!”
In the strobelike volleys of tracer bullets arcing across the sky, the silhouette of a young man in leather and flowing dark curls lopes toward Lilly. Austin has a duffel bag heavy with supplies over his shoulder. He lives half a block west of Lilly’s place. He comes up with a big, expectant grin on his face. “Let me help you with that.”
“It’s okay, Austin, I got it,” she says as he tries to take the crate from her. For an awkward moment, they play push-pull with the crate. Finally Lilly gives up. “All right, all right … take it.”
Now Austin happily walks alongside her with the crate in his arms. “That was quite an adrenaline rush today, was it not?”
“Easy, Austin … pace yourself.”
They walk toward Lilly’s building. In the distance, an armed ma
n paces along a row of semitrailers at the end of the street. Austin gives Lilly that same provocative little grin he’s been plying her with for weeks. “Guess we tasted the camaraderie of the battlefield together, huh? Kinda bonded out there, didn’t we?”
“Austin, can you please give it a rest.”
“I’m wearing you down, though, aren’t I?”
Lilly shakes her head and lets out a little laugh despite her nerves. “You are relentless, I’ll give you that.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Are you asking me out?”
“There’s a fight in the arena. Why don’t you let me take you to it, I’ll bring those Twizzlers I found today.”
Lilly’s smile fades. “Not a big fan.”
“Of what? Twizzlers?”
“Very funny. Those fights are barbaric. I’d rather eat broken glass.”
Austin shrugs. “If you say so.” His eyes glint with an idea. “How about this: Instead of a date, why don’t you give me some more pointers sometime?”
“Pointers on what?”
“On dealing with the dead.” All at once he gets a solemn expression on his face. “I’ll be honest with ya. Since all this shit started up, I’ve kinda hidden out with big groups … never really had to fend for myself. I’ve got a lot to learn. I’m not like you.”
She gives him a glance as they walk. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’re a badass, Lilly … you got that cold, calculating, Clint Eastwood thing going on.”
They reach the parkway in front of Lilly’s apartment building, now draped in shadow, the dead kudzu vines on the redbrick exterior looking like a cancerous growth in the waning light.
Lilly pauses, turns to Austin, and says, “Thanks for the help, Austin. I’ll take it from here.” She takes the crate and looks at him. “One thing, though.” She licks her lips and feels a twinge of emotion pinching her insides. “I wasn’t always like this. You should have seen me back at the beginning. Scared of my own shadow. But somebody helped me when I needed it. And they didn’t have to. Believe me. But they did, they helped me.”
Austin doesn’t say anything, just nods his head and waits for her to finish her thought, because it looks as though something is eating at her. Something important.
“I’ll show you some things,” she says at last. “And by the way … this is the only way we’re going to survive. By helping each other.”
Austin smiles, and for the first time since Lilly has known him, it’s a warm, sincere, guileless smile. “I appreciate it, Lilly. I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick.”
“You haven’t been a dick,” she says, and then, without warning, she leans over the crate and gives him a platonic little kiss on the cheek. “You’re just young.”
She turns and goes inside, gently shutting the door in his face.
Austin stands there for quite some time, staring at that wide oak entrance door, rubbing his cheek as though it were touched with holy water.
* * *
“Doc?” Three hard, sharp knocks shatter the stillness of the makeshift infirmary … followed by the unmistakable throaty voice, with its faint rural Georgia accent, just outside the door: “The new patient taking any visitors?”
Across the gray, cinder block–lined room, Dr. Stevens and Alice glance at each other. They stand at a stainless steel basin, sterilizing instruments in a pail of scalding water, the steam drifting up across their taut expressions. “Hold on a second!” Stevens calls out, wiping his hands and going over to the door.
Before opening the door, Stevens glances across the infirmary at the patient sitting up on the side of her gurney, her spindly, bandaged legs dangling. Christina, still in her robe, sips filtered water from a plastic cup, a woolen blanket pulled up across her midsection. Her swollen face—still beautiful, even with her matted wheat-straw hair pulled back into a knotted scrunchy—registers the tension.
In that instant before the door opens, something unspoken passes between doctor and patient. Stevens nods, and then opens the door.
“I understand we got a brave little lady in our midst!” the visitor booms as he sweeps into the room like a force of nature. The Governor’s gaunt, coiled body is now clad in weekend warrior garb—a hunting vest, black turtleneck, and camo pants tucked into black combat boots—making him look like a degenerate third-world dictator. His shoulder-length onyx hair shines and bounces as he saunters into the room, his handlebar mustache curled around a smirk. “Came to pay my respects.”
Gabe and Bruce enter on the Governor’s heels, the two men as dour and alert as secret service agents.
“There she is,” Philip Blake says to the girl sitting on the gurney. He walks over to the bed, grabs a nearby metal folding chair, and slams it down backwards next to the bed. “How ya doing, little lady?”
Christina puts her water down, and then chastely pulls the blanket up over the top of her threadbare décolletage. “Doing all right, I guess. Thanks to these folks.”
The Governor plops down on the chair in front of her, resting his wiry arms on the seat back. His stare is the jovial gaze of an overzealous salesman. “Doc Stevens and Alice here are the best … they surely are. Don’t know what we’d do without them.”
Stevens speaks up from across the room. “Christina, say hello to Philip Blake. Also known as the Governor.” The doctor lets out a sigh and looks away, as though disgusted by this whole display of fake conviviality. “Philip, this is Christina.”
“Christina,” the Governor purrs, as though trying the name on for size. “Now isn’t that just the prettiest name ever?”
A sudden and powerful tremor of apprehension trickles down the small of Christina’s back. Something about this man’s eyes—as deep-set and dark as a puma’s—sets her immediately on edge.
The Governor doesn’t take his glittering dark gaze off her as he speaks to the others. “You folks mind if the lady and I speak in private?”
Christina wants to say something, wants to object, but the force of this man’s personality is like a roaring river flowing through the room. Without a word, the others glance at each other, and then, sheepishly, one by one, they file out of the infirmary. The last one out is Gabe, who pauses in doorway. “I’ll be right outside, boss,” he says. And then …
Click.
SEVEN
“So, Christina … welcome to Woodbury.” At first, the Governor keeps his high-voltage smile trained on the injured woman. “Can I ask where you’re from?”
Christina takes a deep breath, looking down at her lap. For some inchoate reason, she feels compelled to keep the TV station she worked at a secret. Instead she simply says, “Suburb of Atlanta, got hit pretty bad.”
“I’m from a little shithole town outside Savannah, name of Waynesboro.” His grin widens. “Nothing fancy like them rich sections of Hot-Lanta.”
She shrugs. “I sure as heck ain’t rich.”
“Them places are all gone to hell now, ain’t they? Biters won that war.” He aims that grin at her. “Unless you know something I don’t.”
She stares at him, says nothing.
The Governor’s smile fades. “Can I ask how you ended up in that chopper?”
For a brief instant she hesitates. “The pilot was … a friend. Name’s Mike.” She swallows back her reticence. “Problem is, I promised him a Christian burial.” She feels the heat of the Governor’s stare like a furnace. “You think I could possibly see to that?”
The thin man scoots his chair closer to the bed. “I think we ought to be able to accommodate you in that department … that is … if you play ball.”
“If I what?”
The Governor shrugs. “Just answer a few questions. That’s all.” He pulls a pack of Juicy Fruit gum from his vest pocket, peels off a piece, and pops it into his mouth. He offers her a piece. She declines. He puts the gum away and scoots the chair closer. “You see, Christina … the thing is … I have a responsibility to my people. There’s a certain … due
diligence I gotta tend to.”
She looks at him. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Were you and the pilot alone? Or were there other people with you before you took off?”
Again she swallows hard, girding herself. “We were holed up with a few people.”
“Where?”
She shrugs. “You know … here and there.”
The Governor smiles and shakes his head. “Now, see, Christina … that just won’t do.” He shoves the seat back against the gurney—close enough now for her to smell his scent: cigarettes and chewing gum and something unidentifiable like spoiled meat—and he speaks softly now. “In a court of law, a good counselor might see his way to making an objection on the grounds that the witness is withholding information.”
He’s about to cross a boundary, a voice drones in Christina’s head, he’s not to be trusted, he’s capable of anything. In barely a whisper, she says, “I wasn’t aware I was on trial here.”
The Governor’s lean, deeply lined face transforms, any trace of mirth going out of it. “You don’t have to be scared of me.”
She looks at him. “I’m not scared of you.”
“The truth of the matter is, I don’t want to force anybody to do anything they don’t want to do … nobody has to get hurt.” With the casual gesture of a man shooting his cuffs, he puts his gnarled hand on the edge of the bed, between her thighs, provocatively—not touching her, just resting it between her bandaged legs. His gaze doesn’t waver. It stays locked on to her. “It’s just that … I will do whatever it takes to make sure this community survives. You understand?”
She looks down at his hand, at the dirt under his nails. “Yes.”
“Why don’t you go ahead and start talking, sweetheart, and I’ll listen.”
Christina lets out an anguished breath, her posture changing. She stares into her lap. “I worked at Channel 9, WROM, the Fox affiliate out of North Atlanta.… I was a segment producer … bake sales and lost pets and such. Worked in that big tower on Peachtree, the one with the helipad on the roof.” Her breathing gets labored, the pain pressing down on her as she talks. “When the Turn happened, about twenty of us got trapped at the station.… We lived off the food in the cafeteria on the fourth floor for a while … then we started taking the traffic copter out on supply runs.” She runs out of breath for a moment.
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