“Don’t look so down, Father,” Austin said. “God is your strength, remember?”
Mark frowned at the remark. He knew Garbarino was hostile to the idea of God, but had not yet realized Austin was, too. In fact, as he searched the other faces, he saw sympathy in the eyes of only one of them. Liz.
Austin entered the cabin first, weapon at the ready. Garbarino followed. They searched the four room dwelling as a team, covering each other in case something wild lurked inside. They found a sparsely decorated, hastily abandoned home. The kitchen cabinets and wood stove were both missing, but a stack of old, stained mattresses filled the back bedroom. They saw few personal items, but the front bedroom showed evidence of at least one teenage gathering—empty beer cans and cigarette butts.
As Garbarino began dragging the old mattresses out into the empty rooms, Austin stepped outside. “It ain’t pretty, but it’s safe and dry.”
“Everything is dry,” Paul said before entering.
It was true. They hadn’t seen a cloud in the sky since returning and even the woods lacked the earthy smell of decaying vegetation.
Austin remained outside with Mark as the rest of the group entered the house and settled in for the night. He sat on the dilapidated front steps and helped himself to half a protein bar and a sip of water. Mark stood by the driveway, turned toward the woods.
They stayed like that for thirty minutes.
As the sky turned dark purple, Austin said, “Thought you were tired.”
Mark seemed to not hear him, but then bobbed his head and turned around. He walked right up to Austin and sat down. “Dead tired. I was just giving you time.”
Austin looked at him. “Giving me time?” Austin had been giving Mark time. It seemed both of them knew this conversation was going to happen.
“You had to work up the courage,” Mark said.
Austin’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead.
“Questioning a man’s religion isn’t an easy thing to do.”
Austin smiled. Mark was right about that. It wasn’t easy. But it was necessary. “I would appreciate it if you kept that book to yourself. We don’t need them to be any more afraid than they already are.”
“Actually, I think they could use a lot of what’s in the Bible.”
Austin let out a gentle laugh.
“If you’d read the whole book, you would know it’s a message of hope.”
“If delusions give you hope.”
Mark just shook his head. “I’ll keep it to myself until someone asks. That good enough?”
“Works for me,” Austin said.
Mark placed his shotgun across his lap. The hard weapon felt wrong to him, but if wielding it could keep these people alive a little longer, he would use it. “They’re going to, you know? Ask.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“You haven’t really looked around, have you?” Mark said. “Sooner or later, you’ll open your eyes. You’ll see what I see. Then you’ll ask.”
The cryptic reply left Austin feeling frustrated. It struck him as the kind of vague, fear-inducing rhetoric that got people to put on white robes and drink poisoned Kool-Aid. “Just keep the Bible-thumping in your head and don’t scare the kid.”
Mark gave Austin a pat on the shoulder. “In case you haven’t noticed, tough guy, she’s not scared. Not like the rest of you.” He stood and left the porch, taking up his position in the driveway again.
Austin sat in silence, thinking about what Mark said. Other than the nightmare, in which everyone had died, she hadn’t panicked. She cringed at the violence, tensed when things got tense, but in general, she seemed peaceful. At peace.
When he couldn’t figure out why, Austin pushed the train of thought from his mind and focused on listening instead. Inner peace never saved anyone from a post-apocalyptic nightmare, not in the movies, not in real life.
Two hours later, Mia and Garbarino took watch. Not that you could really call what they were doing watching. The darkness was nearly complete. The moon hid below the horizon. The stars, despite there being more than either had ever seen before, did little to light the deep woods. The only sound each could hear was the breathing of the other.
For the first hour, neither spoke. At first out of dislike for each other, and then out of fear that they’d be heard. But as the night wore on and their comfort in the dark grew, Mia found herself reviewing the events of the day. And despite Garbarino’s theatrics, she appreciated that Garbarino had looked out for Liz’s well being.
“Thanks,” she said.
The sudden break in silence made Garbarino jump. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Scared the shit out of me.”
“Weren’t asleep were you?”
“Not a chance. Not out here. What the hell were you thanking me for, anyway?”
“Today, with Liz.”
Garbarino knew what she was talking about because the interaction with Mark had been the only noteworthy event of their day. “Sure thing. Think the boss-man had a talk with him.”
Mia nodded in the dark. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”
“Cause otherwise he would have partnered with you.” Garbarino followed with a Cary Grant-like impression. “I think he’s sweet on you, kid.”
Thankful that the darkness hid her flush cheeks, Mia said, “I’m not his type.”
“C’mon, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about repopulating the planet with the man?”
Mia could feel the heat radiating from her face now because she had, in fact, thought that very thing. But not for the reasons Garbarino suggested. Giving Liz a family to grow old with had nothing to do with passion. Besides, it was too soon.
Too soon for what?she asked herself. She hadn’t seen Matt in nearly half a year, and now he was— Stop trying to rationalize your betrayal! some part of her screamed.
With Mia silent, Garbarino continued. “At first I knew I was stuck with Chang, which could be okay if she lost a few pounds. But with White out of the picture—”
“That’s cold,” Mia said.
“That’s the world. Of course, maybe Austin is thinking the same thing. You’ve got something exotic about you, but Vanderwarf, with those Angelina lips. You might end up with me.”
Mia couldn’t stop herself from laughing. For a moment she wondered if Garbarino might take offense at the blatant insult, but he laughed too.
“Please,” she said. “Collins is my runner up.”
“Then the old man and the priest, right?”
“Nah, if that doesn’t work out, screw repopulating the planet. I’ll take Vanderwarf myself. She’s way better looking than the rest of you.”
Their laughter slowly faded and silence returned. A few minutes later, Garbarino spoke again. “You’re all right, Durante.”
“Thanks Garbarino.” Mia rubbed her sore legs. “So, what’s your story?”
“What?”
“Why did you join the Secret Service?”
“I suppose you could say I was recruited. Good with a gun. Former Marine. Not afraid of taking a bullet. Never questioned orders. Scored high on the IQ tests.”
“Perfect human shield, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“And now?”
“Now? You know the score. Every man for himself. There is no greater cause to live for beyond staying alive now. It’s different for you. You have the girl. Me? I didn’t have many people in my life before. I was dedicated to the good ol’ U. S. of A., but that asshole, Collins, had to go and blow up the world. Didn’t have to end that way.”
“No,” Mia said. “It didn’t.”
“Heard your boyfriend was Matt Brenton.Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Good Marine? Convoy crew right? Driving trucks?”
“Yes to all three. His convoy was attacked in northern Afghanistan. That’s where they took him.”
“Huh,” Garbarino said.
Mia couldn’t see his face, but the sound of Garbarino’s voice im
plied a confused expression. “What?”
“Supplies were airdropped up there. Truck convoys were too dangerous. Hell, they were dangerous in Iraq. They were suicidal in Northern Afghanistan.”
It was Mia’s turn to be confused. “Huh.”
“Looks like you’ve got a mystery to solve, Scooby Doo.”
“Looks like,” Mia said, and then fell silent. She spent the next few hours thinking about what Garbarino said. If he was right, it meant that she’d been lied to. By Matt. By Collins. The new information refocused her thoughts on a question that had been nagging her all day: why did Collins say Matt had been caught?
24
After sleeping for nearly seven hours, Paul felt fairly refreshed despite it still being pitch dark when Mia woke him for his shift with Vanderwarf. He wasn’t sure what to expect. He hadn’t said more than two words to the woman. After what happened to White, he expected she’d been a wreck. He didn’t know how close the two had been, but the connection between the two was impossible to miss. To his surprise, when they sat down on the front porch, she seemed ready for anything.
Except silence.
Only ten minutes passed before she said, “We didn’t sleep together.”
Paul looked over at her. He could see her silhouette against the dark purple, star-filled sky. The sun would be up soon. “I think you have me confused with my brother.”
She offered a light laugh. “Just need a friendly ear, not forgiveness.”
“A friendly ear, I can do,” he said.
“Behind the bar,” she said. “He was crying. Didn’t want you all to see.”
Paul wasn’t sure what to say. There was nothing wrong with a good cry, especially given the circumstances, but he, like everyone else, had been so sure the pair had been having sex. The surprise kept him silent, which suited Vanderwarf fine. She wasn’t finished.
“I wanted to,” she said. “God, I wanted to. He was all I had left in the world, you know? You have your brother. Mia has Liz. I had Dan. But...”
She sniffed back fresh tears.
“He had a wife. Kids. He was going to leave her. Leave them,” she said. “And now that they had been taken from him—”
“He felt guilty,” Paul said.
“Yeah.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah.” She sniffed again. “I spent the night rubbing his back and holding him. Comforting him, you know? I didn’t have kids. Can’t say I’ve ever been in love before. But I knew, that night, when he cried for his kids, for his wife, that I loved him for it. He was a good man.”
“Sounds like it.”
“He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
Paul thought on this for a moment. He’d seen plenty of death in his life; men killed more violently than Daniel White’s fate. “No one does,” Paul said. “Death is the enemy.”
“Why did they kill him?” she asked, barely controlling a sob.
Paul put his hand on her back. “The people we saw. Somehow they lived through what we only saw from orbit. Maybe it drove them mad. Changed their minds somehow. Made them killers.”
“You heard what she said?”
“Yeah,” he said, not wanting to remember the horror in the woman’s voice before she jammed her hand into White’s throat.
“It was like she didn’t want to do it, but couldn’t stop herself.”
“And if that’s true?”
“I can’t hate her for it.”
“Pity, then?”
“Maybe,” Vanderwarf said. “I can’t imagine living that way. It’d be—”
Snap.
The pair held their breath for thirty seconds.
“Could it have been a branch falling from one of the trees?” Vanderwarf asked, her voice a whisper.
“Suppose,” he replied. He looked up at the sky. The deep purple had lightened further. He could see Vanderwarf next to him. Her cheeks were wet with tears, but her sadness had been replaced by a set jaw and a hawk-like gaze locked on the woods. Her finger was on the trigger of her MP5. Safety off. Ready for business.
Snap.
“Or not,” he said.
They stood as a pair, both holding MP5s sporting thirty-round magazines. Both had two spare magazines. Firing eight hundred rounds per minute, the pair could mow down a good sized mob in seconds.
Snap.
But this wasn’t a mob. Whoever was approaching the cabin was alone, and from the sound of it, still at least one hundred yards off. They ducked behind a ruined picnic table and focused on the gnarled trees blocking their view of the approaching target.
“Should I wake the others?” Paul asked.
“I’d prefer not to be out here alone but shouting for them will give away our position. If we hear more than the one, we’ll wake the others and bug out.”
Paul gave a nod. “Good enough.”
Crack.
This one was loud.
Close.
A shadow slid between the trees, emerging into the clearing as a silhouette—dark against a darker background.
“It’s a man,” Paul whispered. The body shape was easy enough to see. But the details were lost. Another few minutes, Paul thought, and there will be enough light to see by.
The man took a step toward them, his movements jerky, uncoordinated.
Paul and Vanderwarf looked at each other.
“You know what he looks like, right?” she whispered.
“Mmm.” Paul wasn’t willing to give the notion any more thought than that. But he did look like a zombie. The classic brain-loving Romero variety.
Then the man moaned and Paul’s heart beat hard.
Vanderwarf’s breathing grew heavy.
Then the man spoke. They were too distant to hear the words, but he had clearly said something.
“Zombies don’t talk,” she whispered.
“Maybe these do?” Paul said and peeked up over the table. He sat back down quickly. The man had cut the distance in half. He held his index finger to his lips, signaling for her to be quiet. He pointed to his eyes with two fingers, then toward the man, saying, “Take a look.”
Vanderwarf slowly raised her head, but before she cleared the top of the table, the man spoke again. “I’m sorry,” he said clearly.
Her eyes went wide and she stood up straight. The man stood with his back to her now, but she recognized his form just as easily as she recognized his voice.
Paul tried pulling her back down, but she yanked away from him. He didn’t know why until she spoke.
“Dan?”
Paul stood just as Daniel White turned around. His throat was coated in dry blood, but there was no wound. Had what they all seen been an illusion? Did the woman really punch him in the throat? The blood could have been hers. She had jumped through a window. The strongest evidence was his presence. He was alive.
White looked Vanderwarf in the eyes, his expression flooding with relief. She lowered her weapon and stepped around the picnic table. “Danny, how?”
He wept. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be sorry,” she said, reaching out for him.
He reached for her. “Erin. Run away.”
Paul felt the words like a battering ram to the head. Run away. But Vanderwarf was too distracted by White’s apparent resurrection to really hear what White was saying. He raised his weapon to fire, but the couple reached each other at the same moment, their outstretched arms wrapping in a tight embrace.
“No!” Paul shouted too late.
The front door of the cabin burst open. Austin and Garbarino stormed out, weapons raised, too late to stop what happened next, but in time to witness it.
“Daniel!” Austin shouted.
Daniel’s eyes glanced at Austin, full of regret. Then he bit down.
Vanderwarf’s scream ripped through the air, a high pitched wail that woke the others and faded with a liquid gurgle. Blood sprayed in pulsing geysers as Daniel pulled away the meat surrounding her jugular. Her body went loose
in his arms. He held her there, weeping as the life left her body.
Screaming erupted from inside the cabin. Chang had looked out the window. Collins’s voice came next, unintelligible shouting.
Then a gunshot.
Just one.
Never one to waste ammunition, Austin had aimed carefully and fired once. The shot punched a neat hole in the side of White’s head and punched out the other with an explosion of brain matter. In the silence that followed, everyone heard the small chunks of White’s brain hit the dead grass and dirt driveway. That detail caused Garbarino to vomit over the side rail of the front porch.
“The fuck,” Garbarino said, catching his breath and wiping his mouth. “What the fuck!”
The three armed men surrounded the dead pair.
“What happened?” Austin asked.
“Came out of the woods,” Paul replied, pointing to the gnarled trees. “Didn’t recognize him until he got close. Tried to stop her.”
“You knew?” Austin asked.
“He was apologizing. Looked torn up about what he was about to do.”
“Just like the lady who got White yesterday?” Garbarino asked.
“But she didn’t get him,” Paul said. “Not really. Cause he was alive a minute ago. Knew her name, too.”
The front door opened and closed. Mia stood on the porch, her hand to her mouth. “What happened?”
“White came back,” Garbarino said. “Got Vanderwarf.”
“They’re dead?”
Austin answered by pointing to an old blue tarp lying next to the porch and speaking to Paul. “Grab that.”
The three men quickly covered the bodies with the tarp. “Pack up our supplies,” Austin said to Mia.
“But they’re dead.”
Before Austin could explain, a distant snap cut through the trees. Then another. And another. Voices followed—a chorus of them.
“Go!” Austin shouted, training his handgun on the woods.
Mia disappeared inside the cabin and reemerged thirty seconds later carrying four backpacks. Chang followed with Liz. Collins and Mark came next. Mia dispensed backpacks and the four men threw them on.
Austin spun around, trying to determine which direction was north, but before he could give the order to move, something burst from the woods. He turned, took aim and held his fire. He recognized the man.
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