by Z. A. Recht
Mbutu slowly nodded. “I would prefer not to, but what Thomas says is correct. We need supplies. We will die without them. We must try.”
“Then let’s get to it,” Sherman said. He unbuckled his holster and unslung one of the MP-5 submachine guns confiscated upon their appropriation of the Fac, checked the chamber, and flipped the selector to semiautomatic. “All right, let’s do this smooth and by the numbers—we’ll start with the far left storefront. It has a nice open field, and we should be able to see anything coming from a long way off. Thomas, you’re point. I’m your back. Mbutu, stand right here in the doorway and give us a heads-up if we have any company.”
“Sir,” was Thomas’s grumbled reply.
Mbutu nodded silently and unholstered the Beretta at his side, scanning the parking lot for contacts.
Turning from him, Sherman and Thomas pushed open the doors to the first store.
At first, a groan of disappointment nearly passed Sherman’s lips. The nearest displays were of little more than pale mannequins wearing moth-eaten dresses and ratty straw hats. Nothing but a clothing store.
Thomas and Sherman, silent as the grave, flashed hand signals to one another.
Thomas/flank left/advance to cover/hold, came Sherman’s rapid-fire hand signals. Sherman/flank right/advance to cover/hold, came the second set of instructions. Thomas nodded.
The pair split up immediately, making their separate ways slowly down darkened aisles, checking the floors and corners for smears of dried blood or—worse—a still-crawling undead carrier lurking around the metal shelving units.
After several silent minutes, where the loudest noise in the shop was that of the soft click of boot heels on the linoleum, Sherman relaxed.
The store was empty, and had not one single piece of useful gear to show for it.
Defeated, they moved on to the second store.
Mbutu was waiting for them outside.
“No one in sight, Frank,” reported Ngasy.
“No one in the store,” returned Thomas. “Nothing useful, either.”
“Well, let’s not dawdle. Daylight won’t last forever, and we won’t want to be stuck out here when night falls. Let’s try the next one,” Sherman said, gesturing at the nearest door.
The sign above it read “The Dollar Stretcher.” Sherman figured it was a good omen. Most of these kinds of stores had a mishmash of goods—everything from cheap furniture to cleaning supplies to food aisles.
“This one looks more promising,” agreed Thomas. “Same deal, sir?”
Sherman nodded. “Mbutu, watch the road. Don’t let us get trapped inside.”
“I won’t.”
Once more, Thomas and Sherman shouldered their way into the darkened store.
Almost immediately the food aisle stuck out. It looked to Sherman as if most of the end racks had been picked clean by panicked refugees in the early hours of the pandemic. They’d taken whatever was at hand—potato chips, pastries, loaves of bread.
Sherman grinned as he scuffed his way along the food aisle. Most of the canned goods were fine. Some were scattered along the floor, and Sherman slid them aside as he made his way along, scooping the remaining cans from the shelves into his empty knapsack. He could hear Thomas in the next aisle over, stuffing his own bag with essentials.
Then a third sound—a low scraping—drew Sherman’s attention. His head snapped to the right, searching for the source of the noise.
It wasn’t hard to locate. A stocky shambler, pulling himself around the edge of the shelf at Sherman’s feet, appeared. Thick, dark blood crusted its face, cloaking the features it had worn in life. Its plastic name tag, hanging loose from a ripped button-up shirt, was the source of the scraping noise. It dragged along the tiled floor as the shambler crawled forward.
Sherman backpedaled, but the shambler, moving more quickly than Sherman had given it credit for, shot out an arm and grabbed for the General’s ankle. Sherman stumbled, and the shambler brought him crashing to the ground.
“Thomas!” was all Sherman could muster.
The command sergeant major appeared a moment later behind the grounded undead and planted his boot firmly on the ex-man’s neck. A quick stomp and snap later, and the corpse fell still.
Sherman shuddered and shook his boot free from the cold grip of the infected.
“I owe you one,” breathed Sherman.
Thomas shrugged. “I owe you more, sir.”
Mbutu Ngasy had poked his head into the store. “Is everything all right?”
“We’re fine! We’re fine!” barked Sherman. He pointed over Mbutu’s shoulder. “Keep your eyes on the street! Thomas, how’s your bag?”
“Nearly full, sir. Can’t say it’s great eats, but it’ll keep us going.”
“That’s good enough for me, Thomas. Let’s just hope the other foraging parties had similar luck.”
Thomas looked undecided for a moment. “Should we try one or two more of these stores while we’re here?”
Sherman considered the idea a moment, then shook his head. “No, we have enough now to last us the rest of the week, maybe longer. And that was a close call,” Sherman said, eyeing the corpse on the aisle floor. “Let’s not push our luck.”
“Back to the Fac, sir?”
Sherman nodded. “On the double. And take the western route—let’s skirt town as much as possible. We’ll mark this place on the map when we get there.”
The trio set off in the direction of home.
Gravel crunched underfoot as Mbutu Ngasy, Francis Sherman, and Command Sergeant Major Thomas walked apart from one another down the sloping gravel drive that led behind prefabricated steel storage sheds. Thomas glanced about, eyes flitting here and there, never off his guard.
The gravel gave way to packed earth, kicked up in small clouds with each boot step.
They had made it halfway when Thomas froze, staring off into the underbrush that flanked the dirt alleyway.
Sherman knew better than to speak up, and instead slowly flicked the safety on his weapon over from safe to semi, and took careful aim at the disturbance in the bushes.
“Who goes?” Thomas ventured after a long, tense moment.
The reply from the brush was loud and almost disappointed: “Two thousand goddamned miles from anywhere with a titty bar, and the first asshole I run into is you!”
It took the command sergeant major a moment to place the voice.
“You from the Ramage?” was Thomas’s reply.
Allen appeared out of the tree line, a pistol in his hands and a grin on his face. “Still alive and drinking, when I can find something to.”
“How the hell did you get out here?”
“That’s a long, long story. But we don’t have time for it. Harris is hurt.”
“How’s that?”
“Come on out here, Commander,” said Allen. “Doubt our friends will want to shoot you.”
Branches rustled, and out from the undergrowth stepped Harris, clutching his belly.
Sherman’s jaw dropped. Even Thomas seemed stunned.
Mbutu, on the other hand, peeled his lips back into an ivory grin. “It’s you. And you’re alive.”
“Barely. I don’t know where the thing came from, but it got me and it’s all I can do to keep my insides inside.”
Thomas eyed the bloody bandage on Harris’s stomach. “Looks like it. We better get a move on.”
Harris flinched. “Throbs like hell. No painkillers out here. Makes me wish for a morphine shot.” Something flickered in his face. “How is Rebecca? Is she—I mean—she wasn’t one of the ones who didn’t. . .?”
“No, no. Becky’s fine. She’s a little edgy these days. She feels bad, I think,” Sherman explained with a sigh. “Between killing Decker and seeing all this, I don’t blame her.”
Harris nodded. “I understand. We had another man with us, but we lost him along the way. Tall, built just like Thomas here, wearing khaki. He’s scouting. Don’t shoot him, all right?”
/> The Fac
30 June 2007
1534 hrs_
Sherman, Mbutu, Thomas, and the other scavengers arrived at the Fac’s main entrance, packs filled with assorted supplies, only to find that Junko Koji was taking her new duties very seriously.
Thomas was the first to approach, pack bulging, and he knocked heavily on the door.
A long moment of silence passed.
From within, Juni’s lilting voice drifted out in a singsong manner. “That wasn’t the code!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Juni, it’s us. Open the damn door.”
“No.”
“Juni, this is General Sherman,” the de facto leader said from behind Thomas. “It’s me. Open the door.”
Her muffled voice came through again. “Oh, sure, you put me on door detail but then you won’t even give me the password. No, sirs. I’ll just sit here until you give it to me. Serves you right!”
“Juni!” he shouted. “Open the door. Get downstairs and get Anna! Find Rebecca! We’ve got wounded!”
A stunned second passed, and then came the sounds of Juni unlocking and dragging the door wide. “I’m on it,” she said, taking off at a dead sprint down the corridors of the Fac, yelling for the young medic and Army doctor.
“Cheeky,” grumbled Thomas.
“With pink bunny slippers,” Sherman reminded Thomas with a frown. “She wishes you’d take her more seriously. Maybe you’ll find she’d reciprocate.”
Thomas grumbled and headed off deeper into the Fac, a shrug his only response.
“Let’s bring those men in,” said Sherman. “Get Harris to the Doc. Trevor and Brewster should be back soon.”
Sherman and Mbutu gave the heavy doors a shove, and Allen and Stone came into the Fac supporting Commander Harris, whose face had gone white from blood loss. He barely seemed able to support himself. After, Mbutu pushed on the doors and had nearly closed them when a hand shot out, grasping the edge of the door frame.
“Wait!” came Brewster’s voice.
Sherman and Mbutu froze as Brewster’s head poked in the doorway.
He grinned—not one of his impish, happy-go-lucky grins, Sherman noted, but rather an honest-to-goodness smile of joy.
“We found something, General. Something great. Something that—well, you’ll just have to see for yourselves. Mark! Hal! Get in here!”
Sherman’s mind was swimming. Mark? Hal? Those were two names he hadn’t heard in months. But if Harris was there—
—and then there they were.
Private Mark Stiles and Hal Dorne, U.S. Army, retired, appeared in the doorway.
“Good Lord have mercy,” breathed Sherman. “I can’t believe it.”
“I couldn’t either, Frank,” said Trev. “Not after what they told us.”
“But—” Sherman was at a loss for words. “But you were bitten, Stiles! We all saw it! You were infected!”
“Still am,” Stiles said, shrugging.
Sherman recovered from his shock at the sight of the soldier he had given up for dead months before and turned back to the wounded man. The group laid Commander Harris on one of the couches in the reception area, keeping pressure on his stomach wound.
“Don’t worry,” said Stiles. “We’ll see you through this.”
Harris’s only reply was a shuddering groan.
A few moments later, Rebecca Hall burst through the doors into the reception room, bearing a shoulder bag stuffed with medical supplies. She took one look at Harris’s stomach wound and gritted her teeth. “We’ll have to move you down to BL1. All of our best gear is there. Looks clean enough—but you’ve probably got a perforated intestine. If we don’t stitch it up, the wound’ll go septic and you’ll die of infection.”
Harris swallowed and managed to nod.
Sherman stood off to the side, watching the young medic at work. He caught Stiles doing the same. She applied a fresh pressure bandage to Harris’s wound and called out for assistance. Mbutu, Thomas, and Stiles stepped forward, each lifting Harris onto their shoulders. They wound their way through the Fac and down the stairs that led to the laboratories.
The group shoved the door to BL1 open, startling Gregory Mason, who had been lounging in his bed reading a paperback novel.
“What?” he wondered at the sudden commotion. “What’s going on?”
“New roommate for you,” said Rebecca. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Anything I can do to help?”
“No! Just stay right there!” snapped Rebecca. “The last thing we need is for you to open your wounds again.”
Mason held up his hands in mock surrender and leaned back on his pillow. “Whatever you say, Doc.”
“Anna!” called Rebecca. Harris’s wound was beyond her ability to heal. “Anna! Where are you?”
Juni had been busy, pounding on the BL4’s hatch and furiously punching buttons on the keypad, trying to get the attention of the Doctor within. Finally, she appeared, disheveled, and with dark circles under her eyes.
“What is it?” Anna asked. “Are we under attack?”
“No!” said Juni. “We found more survivors! One of them is wounded! I think they took him to BL1.”
“Oh, damn,” muttered Anna, grabbing a white lab coat from a peg on the wall and throwing it around her shoulders. “Grab my tray of surgical gear and prep it.”
Anna sprinted down the hallway, skidding to a stop when she reached the BL1 doorway. Inside, she found a small cluster of people gathered around a man lying half-dead on a gurney. Juni pushed past her to a tray of sterile instruments. Anna took one look at Harris’s pale face and knew immediately what her first course of action had to be.
“Quick!” Anna said, grabbing Harris by the shoulders. “What’s your blood type?”
Harris responded in a weak voice. “A-positive.”
“Who’s A-positive?” Anna asked, casting about the room.
Thomas raised his hand. “I’m A-positive.”
“So am I,” Stone said.
“Grab a seat. We need your blood,” Anna said, not looking twice at the other new arrivals. “Rebecca, start drawing blood. We need to replace what this man has lost, as fast as possible. Then we’ll go in and see if we can patch up the internal damage.”
Harris looked as though he was fading out quickly. He blinked a lot, as if his vision was growing dim.
“Don’t worry, pal. They fixed me up,” Mason said. “They’ll fix you up, too.”
It had taken some doing, but Commander Harris was stable. The blood transfusion and the quick work of Anna Demilio had taken him out of immediate peril. He was still in bad shape, but hopes were high that the man would pull through.
While Jack the Welder and Junko Koji sorted canned goods in the makeshift kitchen and break room, Hal Dorne was being peppered with questions about his cross-country trip. He seemed happy enough to answer, and went on at great length about the trials and tribulations he’d been forced to go through when he would just as soon have spent the rest of his life swilling home-brewed spirits on his private island retreat. Allen sat off to the side, “just glad to be indoors again, with no guns pointed at me.” Stone nodded at this.
Mark Stiles, on the other hand, found his mind wandering, and couldn’t focus on the conversations. Soon he found himself walking through the whitewashed halls of the Fac searching for someone in particular.
He found her grumbling to herself, brushing a lock of dirty-blond hair out of her eyes. Stiles turned the corner and watched Rebecca Hall hunched over a rolling metal tray overflowing with gauze pads and first-aid gear, here and there an orange prescription bottle. Rebecca was trying to sort the mess Trev and Brewster had left in their wake. From the snorts of frustration she uttered, Stiles guessed the job was getting the better of her.
“Anything I can help with?” asked the soldier, approaching the young medic.
For a moment, Rebecca’s unreadable expression broke to one of momentary surprise.
“Sti
les?” she asked. She had thought Stiles had been gone for months, lost in the survivors’ action in Hyattsburg. Preoccupied with Harris, the young woman hadn’t even noticed him as she’d struggled to save the commander’s life. The last time she had seen him she’d given him a shot of morphine to dull the pain from a carrier bite he had suffered. “But you—you’re dead!”
Stiles smiled and waved at her. “I get that a lot. I’m starting to feel like Snake Plissken. It’s good to see you, too, Becky.”
Rebecca pulled herself together, wiping the surprise from her face and replacing it with a neutral expression. “Well, I’m glad you made it. Welcome to the Fac.”
“Thanks,” said Stiles. He repeated his earlier query. “Looks like they’ve been keeping you busy. Anything I can help you out with?”
Rebecca didn’t look up, her tone cold. “No. I don’t need any help.”
“I don’t mind. Besides, I owe you,” said Stiles.
Rebecca didn’t reply.
“You helped me back in Hyattsburg,” Stiles explained. “I couldn’t have made that run if you hadn’t been there to fix me up. I’d like to return the favor, if I can.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” said Rebecca. Her eyes never left the mess of gear on the tray before her. “Look, excuse me. I have to get these down to BL4.”
The young woman pushed the trolley ahead of her, leaving Stiles alone in the hall, a disappointed look on his face.
“Okay,” managed Stiles, as Rebecca disappeared around a corner. He raised his voice. “Hey—this conversation isn’t over!”
Down the hall, Rebecca cast a glance over her shoulder, half-expecting to see Stiles watching her go, but the soldier had already turned around, hands in his pockets, trudging away toward the front of the building.
Rebecca sighed, then shook her head. She had a delivery to make.
The journey down to BL4 wasn’t very long, but it felt that way to her. Her gaze ran over the white walls, as it did every time she made the trip, and she was simultaneously comforted and intimidated by the blank slate the walls represented. The only sounds in the hallway were her muffled footsteps, the squeaking of the cart, and her breathing.