7 Sykos

by Marsheila Rockwell

  Then they ran out of neighborhood. Across some cultivated fields was a huge building, a warehouse or some kind of office complex, Fallon guessed. Dead end. But then she noticed a line of trucks parked outside. “Where there are that many trucks, there have to be keys,” she said. “Come on.”

  She was glad to get away from those haunted streets. Fresh air wafted over the fallow field, and she breathed it in, held it. Just a ­couple of days without vehicles on the roads, without industry, and the air already smelled cleaner than she could remember—­the stench of death notwithstanding. Lilith and Antonetti grumbled about having to walk in the dirt, but when the rest followed without complaint, they joined in, not wanting to be left behind.

  They had almost reached the tall, black steel fence around the building when the first shots came.

  CHAPTER 23

  41 hours

  The first round went wide, way off to the right, kicking up dirt a little ahead of their position. The next was more on target, but high, whizzing over their heads. Fallon threw herself down. Remnants of whatever crop had been tilled here poked at her, but she figured a bullet would hurt more.

  Most of her psychos had done the same, but when she looked back, she saw that Sansome was lowering himself slowly, and Lilith stayed on her feet until Warga shoved her, then flung an arm across her back to keep her down.

  Fallon eased her rifle from her shoulder—­not that easy to do while pressing herself flat against the earth. Antonetti and Light were already returning fire. The first shots had come from a darkened loading dock, but there were several of those, and she hadn’t seen a muzzle flash to tell her which one.

  Then another thought struck her. “Stop shooting!” she shouted. She could barely hear herself over the din. The firing continued. Remembering what she’d heard in a hundred movies and TV shows, she tried it another way. “Cease fire!”

  Antonetti heard her and stopped. “Hank!” Fallon cried, louder than before. “Hold your fire!”

  He looked at her, his meaning clear.

  Why?

  “Have you ever heard of an Infected using a gun? That’s got to be a person.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass,” Light said. “He shot at us.”

  “He probably thinks we’re Infecteds. Just hold off for a minute.”

  Light shrugged but lowered his weapon. Fallon risked rising up on her elbows so she could project better. “You, in the dock! We’re not Infecteds! I’m guessing you’re not, either!”

  Nobody answered for long enough to make her wonder if they’d killed him, then: “How do I know you’re not?” It was a man’s voice. Gruff, but anxiety or adrenaline lent it a slight quaver.

  “Same way I know about you!” Fallon replied. “Infecteds don’t use guns, and they don’t speak!”

  Another pause came. “Let me see you!”

  “Okay!” Fallon called. She started to get her knee under her.

  “Doc, don’t!” Warga said. “It’s a trap!”

  She’d spent her whole life studying other humans, though. “I don’t think so,” she said. She rose to her feet and started toward the fence.

  “What are you doing, Fallon?” Book asked. “Be careful.”

  “Trust me, Book,” she said softly.

  “I do, but . . . watch yourself.”

  “I thought that was your job.”

  Nobody shot her. She kept going, until she was right up against it. She wrapped her fists around two vertical bars—­as much to still their trembling as anything else—­and showed her face between them. “Look,” she said. “No flush. No bloodshot eyes. I’m healthy. We all are.”

  Only silence came from the darkness of the empty dock. A sign told her that the place was a distribution center for QuikTrip convenience stores. Finally, the man spoke again. “You look okay.”

  “I’m telling you, we are. All of us.” She debated how much to tell him, ultimately deciding on not much. “We’re immune. We’re trying to put an end to the virus, but we need to get to Mesa.”

  “Immune? Nobody’s immune.”

  “Look at us,” she said, releasing the bars so she could gesture toward herself and the others. “We’re in uniform. We’re here officially. We just need wheels. You have the keys to those trucks?”

  “You know how to drive an eighteen-­wheeler?”

  “I don’t, no. But someone on my crew probably does.”

  “You don’t have the training, you’re not likely to even make it to the road.”

  How hard could it be? Fallon wondered. Then she looked at the trucks, thought about the way they barreled down the interstates. Probably pretty hard. “I’ll ask if anybody knows how.”

  Turning her back on the unseen gunman was frightening, but she hoped it would demonstrate trust and earn the same in return. “Guys!” she called. “Anybody have experience driving big rigs?”

  Her question was met with a chorus of negatives. She turned back to the dock. “Okay, I guess I was wrong. Can you drive one?”

  “Hell, yeah. Been paid to do it for the last nine years. Almost a million miles under my belt.”

  “Then maybe you could . . . ?”

  Silence stretched out between them, taut as a rubber band. Finally, he said. “I got all kinds of food in here. Water, sodas, medical supplies. Candy. Everything I need.”

  “Are you alone in there?”

  “Last day or so, yeah. Since the last ­couple of guys got ate.”

  “Do you want to stay that way? All by yourself in that huge space, shooting at anyone who comes near? What happens when you run out of ammunition? What happens if there are more Infecteds than you can shoot?”

  “Figured I’d burn that bridge when I come to it.”

  “I think you mean ‘cross,’ ” Fallon corrected. “Just the same, we’re here to try to do something about it. Not just to hole up someplace. To fix it. All we need is a ride.”

  “To Mesa?”

  “That’s right. And maybe back again, with some cargo.”

  Again, the unseen man was quiet. Considering, Fallon hoped.

  After a while, he said, “Yeah, okay, I guess. You really think you have a chance? To fix it?”

  “We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t.”

  “I’ll give you a lift to Mesa, then. Don’t know that I’ll hang around while you do whatever you got to do there. I’m pretty comfortable in here.”

  “For now.”

  “Yeah, for now. But now might be all I got, right? All anybody’s got.”

  “The sooner we get to Mesa . . .””

  “Yeah, I hear you.” Finally, the man stepped out of the shadows and onto the end of the dock. He held his rifle in his left hand, vertically, so it wouldn’t be seen as a threat. “Tell your ­people not to shoot me.”

  “They won’t,” Fallon said, hoping they really wouldn’t.

  The man waved to his right. “I’ll get one of these rigs started,” he said. “Meet me at that gate.”

  He disappeared back into the shadows, presumably to get a key. Fallon returned to her team. They were up from the dirt, now—­Lilith and Sansome standing, the rest sitting down. Pybus was taking a long drink from his canteen. “We have a ride,” Fallon said. “All the way to Mesa. I’ll ride in the cab, to keep an eye on him. The rest of you will have to ride in the truck’s trailer.”

  “Is there water in the truck?” Pybus asked.

  “I don’t know what’s in it. Maybe.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  “We’ll find out when you get in,” Fallon said. She heard the growl of a truck engine turning over, startling in the quiet of the day. “Come on, we’re supposed to meet him at the gate.”

  “Better than sitting out here in the sun,” Antonetti said as he got to his feet. “Gonna be a hot one.”

  “No shit,” Lil
ith said. “It’s Arizona in the summer.”

  “Not summer yet,” Sansome countered. “A few more weeks.”

  “We’ll probably all die of heatstroke,” the girl said.

  “Not if we get in the truck,” Fallon reminded her. “Let’s go.”

  They waited beside a sign that said DRIVER’S PLEASE SIGN IN BEFORE DOCKING. While Fallon shuddered at the grammar, Light and Sansome forced the gate open, so when the truck approached, it could pass right through. The cab was white, the trailer mostly red and white, with a row of soda cans pained on it in alternating colors. The driver looked mixed, too, dark-­complexioned and dark-­haired. White, with maybe some Native American or Hispanic, probably some African-­American, too. The new face of America, Fallon thought. If it lasts out the month.

  He stopped, climbed down, and opened the trailer. Cartons were shrink-­wrapped on wooden pallets, some of the boxes bearing familiar brand names. Nuts, chips, candy, aspirin, motor oil, and more; at least the psychos wouldn’t go hungry back there.

  When they were in, the driver closed the doors. He latched the back but didn’t lock it. He was a little shorter than Fallon, somewhat bowlegged, with a gut that was starting to overlap his belt. His skin was weathered, making him look older than he probably was, and the grey showing in his bushy beard added to that effect. He wore a uniform shirt with a name tag, jeans, work boots. “I’m Fallon,” she said, extending a hand. It was a relief to come across an actual human in the zone even if he had tried to shoot her. This close, she realized that although his warehouse had most of what he needed, it apparently lacked a shower. She wasn’t sure when she’d get her next one, though, so she couldn’t be too judgmental.

  “Everybody calls me Bull,” he said, taking her hand for a quick shake.

  “Bull? Why?”

  “I think because I’m stubborn. I like to get my way.” His face broke into a smile. “Also ’cause I’m so full of bullshit.” He let out a wheezing laugh and climbed back into his cab. “Better get in,” he said. “This load’s got to be on time.”

  Fallon rushed around to the other side, climbed up onto the step, opened the door, and hoisted herself in. She had never thought about how much work it took just to get into one of these. This cab was strictly utilitarian, she saw, made only for driving around the area, not for long hauls. His rifle was leaned up against his door, out of her reach. She did the same with hers.

  Bull eased it into gear, and the truck gave a lurch, then started forward. “Freeway okay?”

  “Whatever’s fastest,” she answered.

  “Where in Mesa?”

  “You just get us there. Take the 60.”

  “You got it,” Bull said. “Hold on tight.”

  He entered the interstate at 83rd Avenue, and the going was relatively clear. Talking over the bellow of the engine was more a matter of shouted phrases than actual conversation, but that was okay with Fallon. Bull didn’t know much about what had happened, just that a lot of ­people had gone nuts, turned on each other. He and a few other employees had taken refuge in the distribution center. During the night, one of them had stepped outside for fresh air and Infecteds—­Bull called them Eaters—­had caught him, then come in through a door he’d left open. They had killed Bull’s other two companions before Bull killed them. He had, he said, dumped all the bodies into an empty trailer parked at one of the docks and locked it up tight.

  “You got lucky!” Fallon shouted over the racket.

  “Luck, hell!” Bull replied. “I’m good with a gun!”

  “You missed us!”

  “I wanted to give you a chance to prove yourselves! Thought you might be alive!”

  Alive? Fallon thought. That word was taking on new meaning, here in the zone. Or else losing its meaning altogether. She wasn’t sure which, or if it mattered.

  Where the freeway was relatively clear, the truck tooled along at a good clip. Fallon almost started to relax for the first time since entering the zone. The city flashing by the windows was so still, she had to fight against complacency. Birds perched on signs mounted above the freeway. Tendrils of smoke spiraled into the sky from various points. A coyote ambled down the center of the road, barely deigning to glance up as the truck rumbled past.

  But every now and then, the highway was clogged, and they had to exit and find open surface streets. On those, she saw things that reminded her of why they had come. The fires throwing up smoke were probably buildings burning out of control because emergency ser­vices were nonexistent within the zone. Occasionally, looking at city streets from her elevated position in the cab, she saw an Infected, or a pair of them, and sometimes more, wandering around.

  Did the fact that they weren’t feasting on brains mean the healthy population had been effectively wiped out? If that was the case, could they just wait until all the Infecteds starved for lack of uninfected brains?

  No, she decided. The likelihood that Infecteds would escape the zone was simply too strong—­proactive steps needed to be taken. Maybe the ­people left here were just hiding out, waiting for the cavalry.

  They might have a long wait because the cavalry were Fallon and six fellow psychos, their trusty mounts were a single QT truck, and their chances of success were about a million to one.

  The closer they got to downtown Phoenix, the more Infecteds she spotted on the streets. And when she saw that they were approaching the Deck Park Tunnel, she tensed up. That was where Briggs and the others had been ambushed.

  That was probably the wrong word for it, though. She doubted that a deliberate trap had been laid. More likely, they had just happened across a large group of Infecteds who reacted to their presence. Still, as the truck slowed down at the tunnel’s entrance, she said, “Bull, keep your eyes open in here. There were reports of a lot of Infecteds in the tunnel.”

  “You watch for them, Fallon,” he replied. “I got my hands full with the obstacle course.” Abandoned vehicles were thick on the ground here, made more so by remnants of the Stryker, and he eased the truck along slowly—­too slowly for her tastes—­threading a narrow path. She hoped they could make it all the way through; getting stuck inside the tunnel could spell the end of their mission. No one would ride to this cavalry’s rescue.

  “You okay, Fallon?” Book’s voice, in her ear. She blinked an affirmative. “Stay sharp in there,” he added. “We haven’t been able to see inside.”

  “I will,” Fallon said softly. Bull shot her a confused look but didn’t pursue it.

  Reminding herself to breathe, Fallon scanned the tunnel as best she could. Soon, the Stryker wreckage came into view. It leaned up against the tunnel wall, wheels out, as Briggs had described. Beyond it, parts of the tunnel’s roof had caved in, making their path through even more difficult.

  She did not, however, see any Infecteds. They had probably vacated when their food supply ran out. At the thought of their food supply literally running out of the tunnel, she allowed herself a brief smile.

  Very brief.

  She grew slightly more comfortable when sunlight from the far end began to filter in. The way forward was clear, and Bull gave the truck a little more gas. In another ­couple of minutes, the truck exited the tunnel, into the clear morning, and she blew out the breath she’d been holding.

  Then she saw the flames.

  After the tunnel there was a slight uphill climb. About halfway up the grade, the road was entirely blocked by cars. Several of them were sideways, perpendicular to the roadway—­not abandoned, but deliberately placed. All of them were ablaze, sending up thick clouds of black smoke. And Infecteds were gathered around them, seemingly waiting for whichever fly happened into their web.

  Maybe I was too quick to dismiss the idea of an ambush, she thought.

  “Bull . . .”

  “I see ’em. Hold on to your britches.”

  Sudden acceleration pushed Fall
on back against her seat. Bull worked through the gears, gaining as much speed as he could in the space available. He was going to ram them, to drive his however-­many-­tons of not-­flaming metal into those other tons of flaming metal. She wished she could have talked to Jason the other night, instead of just Mark, because she was realizing that it might have been her last chance.

  Bull either didn’t think so, or he didn’t care. He started to laugh, his amusement growing as they neared the conflagration. When the truck plowed through several Infecteds, then through the blazing cars, he threw his head back, screaming laughter to the skies. On the other side he hit more Infecteds. She was afraid he would laugh them right off the road in blind hysteria.

  Half a mile later, he was still laughing. With his head back, beard raised off his neck, she saw a long scrape there that she hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t fresh, but it looked like it had been a deep one. “When did you get that, Bull?” she asked. “When you fought the Eaters?”

  Overcome by his paroxysms of laughter, he couldn’t speak, but he managed a nod.

  She was starting to ask for more details when she heard a gunshot from behind them, in the trailer. “Bull! Pull over!” she shouted. She thought they’d put enough distance between themselves and the ambush to risk it.

  He kept laughing, his face turning deeper and deeper red. “Bull!” Did men ever listen to women? She was beginning to have doubts. She punched his thigh, hard. “Stop the truck!”

  The punch got his attention. “Huh?”

  “Stop the truck!” Fallon repeated. “I need to get in the trailer!”

  Bull was slow to respond, but the message sank in. He moved his foot. The air brakes squealed, and the truck ground to a halt.

  Fallon was out the door before it had stopped rolling. She ran around to the back, worked the latch, and threw open the door. “What the hell was that?” she demanded.

  “It’s my fault,” Lilith announced, with what sounded like pride. “They were fighting over me.”

  “Who . . . ?”As Fallon’s eyes adapted to the darkness of the trailer, she knew at least part of the story. Warga sat on the floor, his back against one of the pallets. His injured right hand was pressed against his left collarbone, and blood seeped between his fingers. His skin was pale, his expression pained. Higher up, a hole in the trailer wall let in a narrow beam of light. “Fuck! What is the matter with you ­people? Randy, who shot you?”