“Bree! Shake it off!” I heard Nate shout at me, but his words were only so much noise. His grip tightened, turning painful, and only when I winced and looked up at him did he ease up a little.
“You don’t understand. I need to—“ I started, trying to tear myself free, but immediately his fingers closed again. A strange look passed his face, but the usual intensity remained in his gaze.
“I get it, okay?”
“No, you don’t,” I protested, jerking my left wrist out of his grip, but too late realized that he’d only let go so he could grab my upper arm instead, making me face him from much closer. “I need to get this blood off!” I protested, my voice way too shrill, but cutting off when something else occurred to me. “I’m probably already infected from the hot lab. And I’ve had this on for…” I couldn’t say how much time had passed since the mall. I was drawing a complete blank.
“You’re not infected,” Nate insisted, only giving me a moment to shake my head vehemently before he went on. “You explained it to me, remember? Three layers of gloves so nothing happens even when you tear the outer one. And anyway, if this shit was airborne or that contagious, we’d all be fucked by now.”
It shouldn’t have been that difficult to just process his words, let alone judge how valid his opinion was. “But—“
“No buts,” he cut me off with again.
Hope flickered inside of me, but with that came a different realization. “I killed him. I—“
His jawline became more prominent as he gnashed his teeth, but after exhaling slowly, he replied with his voice soft and even.
“You had to. It was either him or you. Burns was too far away, and he only got to use his rifle once you got him off you.” He paused, and after another sigh added, “I’m sorry that this happened to you, but this will likely not remain the only time when you have to make a decision like that.”
“I didn’t make a decision,” I replied, my voice wavering as I kept staring into his eyes. “I just did it. I didn’t even consider whether I should… if it was right or wrong. Or whether there was an alternative…”
“You would be dead right now if you’d hesitated.”
That didn’t make me feel even a little bit better—and it changed nothing.
“What if this is all one big misunderstanding? What if this was something else and it’s really just a flu outbreak? We can’t behave like this. We can’t just go into stores and loot them. Kill people. Leave them behind. I mean, what if we’re wrong and Sam is really lying in bed right now, delirious with fever, and she needs my help—“
I half-expected him to roll his eyes at my antics, but he remained calm and patient.
“Let’s say you’re right. I don’t think so, but let’s just think this through, okay?” He waited until I nodded. “Let’s say this is just a hell of a flu outbreak, and everything else that’s happened is completely disconnected from it. So basically what we’re doing is that we’ll head into the woods on a one-week, weird-as-shit camping trip. You’ll be scared out of your wits and you’ll likely do a few things that will gross you out, but, you know, it’s like survival camp. If the world around us didn’t go to hell, we’ll sooner or later discover that. Run into a car, see planes fly overhead. Someone will be able to tell us what is happening, and that’s that. We can return home, and forget this ever happened. It’s just going to be a hell of an anecdote. If you want to, we can track down the store and pay them for what we took, and I’ll come with you when you return to your apartment. Not that you’d need me to, because you haven’t needed me for a single day in your life, so hashing things out with Sam is something you can do on your own, too. Let’s face it. You abandoning her will likely pale in the face of you breaking up with her—and we both know that you would, because you’re that kind of straight-laced goody-two-shoes who can deceive someone they care about for only so long. But that’s beside the point. If I’m actually wrong, the biggest and likely only fallout for you will be that you’ll need a new job now, and you can always come with me. But give me that week to alleviate my paranoia about the impending complete collapse of everything we’ve ever been used to, okay?”
I wasn’t sure whether I believed him because I wanted to, or because he simply sounded so sensible that my mind couldn’t come up with a defense. And it was so much easier to just give in rather than to keep protesting.
I nodded, and Nate finally let go of my arms. That still left me staring down at what little remained of the stains, but my frantic wiping had been surprisingly efficient.
“You’re in shock,” Nate supplied when my mind ground to a halt again, leaving me staring back stupidly at him. “But right now I need you to keep it together. There’ll come a place and time when you can fall apart, but until then, just do what I tell you to and you’ll be fine.” He accepted a rag that was reeking of chemicals from Andrej—how long had Andrej been standing there already?—and gently wiped off my arm, leaving not a single trace of blood behind. “Can you do this?”
“Where did you get the bleach?” I asked instead of all the other things I probably should have said, had I been able to.
“From the supermarket at the mall,” Nate replied. “That’s also where the canned food in your backpack came from. Remember, I told you that Pia put provisions for you for a week in there, and two bottles of water?”
His words were tugging on my memory, but after stumbling out of the coffee shop, nothing really made sense. Until I’d noticed the blood…
Giving myself a shake, I did my best to put on my game face and nodded. The corner of his mouth quirked up, but there was too much heaviness in his gaze to call it a smile. Without another word, he turned around and started walking again, making me fall into step behind him. Now I did notice that Skip and his buddies were giving me weird looks, but I doubted that they’d caught more than a word or two. Andrej remained a little to my side and behind me, a silent shadow. I wasn’t sure if I should have been relieved about that, or not.
The closer we got to the river, the less room there was for walking. Soon we were going in single file on what remained of the overcrowded sidewalk, until we reached the road going parallel to the water, climbing toward the bridge. It was blocked with several concrete slabs, but that hadn’t hindered people from cramming their cars all around and between them. Here, they did eye us with suspicion, but when I looked ahead, I could see a much more formidable barricade just before the highway sloped over the river, where armored vehicles and soldiers were holding their ground. As we drew nearer, I saw that they had completely blocked the lanes going into the city, and the clear stretch of road behind the outbound side barricade indicated that they hadn’t let anyone through in quite a while. The people glaring at us—or more specifically, at our weapons—likely saw us as reinforcements, or something.
My fingers started itching to get one of the baseball bats from where they were lashed onto my backpack, but just walking with the heavy weight on my shoulders was tiring enough; I doubted I would be much use with three feet of wood in my hands that any of the others couldn’t do better. Suddenly, having Andrej flanking me felt a lot more reassuring.
How things change.
People weren’t happy to see us cut through their haphazard carpool lanes, but no one held us up, and we reached the checkpoint without any altercations. Seeing all the people sitting in the cars—particularly the children, looking frightened as they clutched their stuffed animals to their chests—put a further dampener on my spirits. More so as it lent even more credibility to Nate’s theory—people wouldn’t pack up their belongings and families if they thought they could just weather out the flu epidemic in their own homes.
Nate and Pia were in deep conversation as they approached the barricade together, and I was surprised when they signaled over three soldiers that were with us. Their debate seemed to heat up for a moment, the one who had been with Martinez protesting, but they were quick to shut up when they got the attention of the soldiers at the bar
ricade. From up close, I saw that none of the five that I could see looked much beyond their early twenties, if even that, and they eyed Nate with a mixture of apprehension and hope as he stepped up to them.
“Captain Nathaniel Miller, United States Army. I need to speak to whoever’s in charge.”
With whatever military background he had, it shouldn’t have surprised me that Nate actually had climbed the ranks—and Martinez had called him “Lieutenant” before—but I hadn’t expected that he’d made it to captain. He’d never mentioned that—but then it was abundantly clear that I barely knew anything about him as it was. None of his people batted an eyelash so I presumed that they knew, and the college guys we’d picked up at the mall looked suitably impressed.
“Private Santos,” the guy closest to Nate offered. “I’m kind of in command. Sir.”
Nate gave him the kind of deadpan stare that would have made me wither, and it had about twice that effect on the soldier. That no one wanted any credentials seemed strange to me, but then with the other soldiers clearly not protesting Nate’s claim to be an officer, Private Santos probably figured it was best to just go with the flow.
“What are your orders, Private?” Nate asked, then pointedly looked out over the rows and rows of cars clogging the streets. “Holding people up during an evacuation of the city means you’re doing it wrong.”
Santos flinched, but then found his backbone after all, straightening as he replied.
“We have express orders to keep this checkpoint closed off for the moment. There are—“ He stopped, licking his lips, and briefly looked over his shoulder toward the forest beyond the river. “There are conflicting reports from Waynesburg and Pittsburgh, Sir. My commanding officer told me to hold the line here and let no one through.”
“And where is he now?”
Santos remained silent for a moment.
“He didn’t return after taking a short break.”
“And when was that?” Nate asked.
“Three hours ago.”
Nate opened his mouth, without a doubt to deliver a scathing reply, but the increasing noise of helicopters above us made me switch my focus to them. Looking up, I saw three dark shapes fly right over the city, coming our way. I wondered if they held Bucky’s soldiers and the remaining scientists. The very idea that Gabriel Greene was right now flying over us and might spit out of a door gave me the creeps.
Yet the helicopters weren’t the only aircrafts launching, I realized, when I saw first a larger plane take off, followed by several small ones, the kind eccentric people used for weekend trips. They all headed due west, angling from the airfield on the other side of town straight over us and the river.
“I don’t like this,” Andrej muttered beside me, readying his rifle. Seeing me look at him, he gave me a brief once-over. “Got double-knots in your boot laces? If not, do so now. You don’t want to trip over them.”
It sounded like really stupid advice out of the blue, but I shrugged it off as I’d already made sure that my laces were secured.
Nate was eyeing the overhead exodus with a stony face before he looked back over the highway, then turned to Private Santos.
“Your officer’s not coming back. Get in your Humvees and at least move them out of the way so that the people here have a chance to make it out of the city. And if you’re smart, you’ll drive right on without looking back.”
Santos and the other soldiers at the barricade looked at him as if Nate had lost his mind, but before he got to offer a reply, screams cut through the air behind us, followed by a haphazard barrage of shots. Whipping around, I looked toward the origin of the sudden chaos—and for several seconds the only thing I could do was stare.
We were standing on the lowest part of this stretch of highway, the road sloping up toward the city and across the river on both sides. That kept the view of the city behind that hill to a minimum, but everything that crested that rise was in plain sight. And right now I saw a mass of people pour down the lanes, packed so thick that they completely obscured the view of the cars between them. From very far away, they reminded me of a group of marathon runners at the start, but they weren’t moving quite that consistently.
They certainly weren’t runners, although in the front ranks I could see a few move fast enough that they had already made it a quarter of the distance to the barricade before any of us unfroze.
Glass splintered and metal groaned as they attacked the cars, pulling people out or jumping them where they were standing already out on the asphalt. More shots were fired, but were quickly drowned out by the screams of the few people who managed to run—all drowned out by the howls and groans of the mob. With the cars packed so tightly, no one wedged in between them stood any chance.
And, very soon, neither would anyone else.
Because he was standing right next to me, it made sense to look at Andrej for guidance first, but he was still staring at the horde rolling toward us, the look on his face grim. I felt muscles all over my body tense up, fright clawing up my spine so strong that I felt like I was only a step away from going insane. Everything inside of me screamed at me to get away, right fucking now.
I wasn’t the only one who got that idea.
“Run!” Nate shouted—a lot less panicked than I felt, but with a clear note of command in his voice.
I didn’t think twice as I whipped around and started through the gap in the barricade, not needing the nudge Andrej gave me.
Within seconds, our entire group was running onto the bridge, followed by more than one of the people who had been standing outside of their cars. The revving of two powerful engines behind us made me figure that Santos and his guys were following Nate’s advice, and the angry honking and screeching of tires made it clear that several of the cars were following.
A strong hand grabbed the left strap of my pack and pulled me toward the rails in the middle of the road—and not a moment too soon, as a car roared past just where I had been running a moment ago. Pia and several of our guys were already halfway across the bridge, hopping over onto the oncoming lanes to keep away from the handful of cars accelerating onto the bridge. For a moment, fear that they’d leave me behind rose inside of me, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that I was still in the front half of our group, with several of the lightly wounded people already starting to lag behind. How Nate managed to keep up with me was beyond me, with his arm now tightly pressed into his wounded side, sweat pouring from his forehead.
A loud bang and the screech of metal made me look ahead, just in time to see a car spin around from where it had hit the middle crash barrier, and was now careening across all lanes into the following cars. One managed to swerve around but the next crashed right into the passenger side, making both cars grind to a halt. Two more followed, skidding almost at full speed into the wreck, quickly blocking the entire road. People were shouting—now also in anger—as some staggered out of the cars, disoriented, while others already took off running, leaving their belongings behind. Another car swerved around the blockage only to barrel right into two of the fleeing people, leaving behind two lumps on the road and bloody skid marks. My eyes were drawn to the gruesome display, but another hard yank on my pack made me look ahead instead.
As half our people were already on the other lanes, it made sense that we skipped over, too, and I was glad not to have to look at the perpetuating accident that kept building on this side.
Then my feet hit the steel demarcation at the end of the bridge, and I allowed myself another look back.
The entire hill was swarming with movement now, the mass covering every inch of street. There was still screaming and the odd gun shots, but I doubted that many were still alive. Already, the front runners of the mob were making it onto the bridge, falling onto the people still wedged in the wrecked cars and what few had made it outside, but also coming straight at us on this side of the road. Halfway across the bridge, one of the last stragglers of Nate’s people went down as his leg gave o
ut, and he started shooting as soon as he had rolled himself over. My throat seized up with the realization that he was trying to buy the rest of us a few seconds now that he couldn’t get away himself anymore. Before I could see what became of him—not that there was any guessing involved—I looked forward again, forcing myself to run faster even though my lungs were already burning and my legs aching.
People were still running in the other lanes, too, a few angling to the side street that branched off from the highway toward a few houses to the right, but most kept on straight ahead, toward the Interstate crossing. I could make out a few stalled cars ahead but the road seemed clear enough. Yet as soon as the hill the road cut through leveled out and dipped away on our left, several of our people vaulted over the rails and disappeared into the undergrowth. By the time I had made it there, one of them had remained behind, signaling us to go that way, too. Everything in me screamed to just keep running straight ahead where nothing could trip me and I would be the fastest, but of course I let myself be herded into the undergrowth. Just as I sent a last, longing look at the road ahead, I saw a—much smaller, but still substantial—swarm of zombies stagger out from the houses to the right, falling onto the people in the outbound lanes who had so far avoided getting mauled by the ones behind, or hit by the cars trying to speed away.
Then I was in the woods, stumbling and staggering after the blue windbreaker-wearing figure in front of me, Andrej still behind me. I could make out Nate’s black jacket and backpack somewhere ahead, but everything else around was either brown or green, the trees so thick here that I had to duck around them every few steps. My harsh panting was loud enough to drown out everything except the loud noises my less than stealthy movements made—but not loud enough to keep me from hearing a few high-pitched, panicked screams on the highway that we had just left behind.
The Green Fields Series Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 31