I really did need to get him and Samuels together one day.
He glanced toward the tent flap. “How are they?”
“They’re quiet.”
He riffled through some paperwork, eventually coming up with a chart. “You said you need more sedatives. I can get us those, but what about antibiotics?”
Had Lattimore not told him the situation? Or had he simply tuned her out as she spoke to him? Either scenario seemed feasible. “She said sedatives only. I guess we’re saving the antibiotics for…um…”
“For people we can still help?”
I stared at my feet.
He set the chart down. “Of course. She wants to save the antibiotics for the living. That’ll be her reasoning.” He made his way to the other side of the room and pulled open a drawer. He pawed through it, mumbling softly to himself, and eventually came up with several vials. “But the people out there are still alive, aren’t they?”
I thought of Alyssa lying there and nodded. “Yeah.”
He hustled over to me to show off his find. “So we’ll give this a try.”
It didn’t look like other antibiotic I’d pushed. It was a pale shade of blue, almost pretty in the tent’s crappy lighting. Something you’d expect on a gemstone necklace, not being shot into the veins of the dying.
Wait, hadn’t Lattimore made some noise about Renati having some kind of fancy new drug? “Is this the stuff that didn’t get FDA approval?”
“It’s a work in process, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said. “My predecessor did the bulk of the work on it. You realize there is no FDA left to approve it anyway.”
I bit my lip.
“You don’t like it,” he said. “I don’t, either. But what else can we do? Watch them suffer? What if it works?”
What if it worked? What if it didn’t? What did it matter anymore? They were getting worse. Nothing was helping. If Renati thought some experimental drug could help them, well, I was okay with that.
I nodded my assent.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get these poor souls dosed.”
It took two hours to make our way through the Plague Tent, injecting one patient after another. No one suffered any immediate ill effects, though no one started tap dancing in place, either.
When we were done, Renati made some marks on the chart. “Next dosage in four hours,” he said. “I’ll make a note for Lattimore. She won’t ignore it, she’ll just…” he shrugged. “I don’t know what to do with her.”
“She doesn’t seem to know what to do with you, either,” I said. I thought of the sound of Hammond’s voice, the surprise when we told him we needed help. All the stories I’d heard about Hastings and the military in general were fighting for space in my tired brain. Had Keller killed Durkee? Even if he had, what could we do about it? What if he tried to kill the rest of us?
I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired.
Renati gazed out over the tent’s occupants and let out a weary sigh. “We all do what we can, when we can,” he said. “I believe Gandalf the Grey said that. Clever sorcerer.”
“Wizard,” I murmured.
“What?”
“He was a wizard…I think.” Or was I confusing him with Dumbledore?
Shit. My brain was starting to rot. That was the only explanation.
I fought a zillion zombies this morning. Of course I can’t think straight.
Renati’s smile was fleeting, but seemed genuine. “Why don’t you go home? Lionel will be in soon. He can help me re-dose.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You look…tired.” He paused. “We make mistakes when we’re tired.”
I couldn’t tell if it was a slam at me or not, and at that point I no longer cared. I was glad to just step back outside, into the dull gray world we’d inherited, and make my way to my borrowed home and the pillow calling my name.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I slept a long, long time.
It was dark by the time I stumbled down the stairs. Dax was sitting in the kitchen, playing with what remained of his pastrami. He kept tearing off pieces and tossing them down to the dog, who refused to look at them. Man, even Evie didn’t want the stuff and she had no quibbles chewing on zombies. What was the world coming to?
He glanced up when I stopped in the doorway. He had dark circles under his eyes, and seemed to just about disappear into that giant Hastings Monarchs sweatshirt he insisted on wearing every night. I had no doubt I looked as run-down as he did.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “Well. Evening.”
“Thanks for letting me sleep,” I said.
“I napped for a while, too. Tony just went straight up to bed.” He gestured to another package on the table. “Pastrami?”
My stomach gurgled in warning. I reached for the MRE anyway, then felt my insides knot up, clearly planning bloody revolt.
Maybe it was best not to take the risk. I left the pastrami on the table and walked over to the dog, who was pointedly ignoring the pastrami on the floor and chowing down on some kibble instead. I’ll say this for Keller’s government, they had raided the city’s pet stores and made sure all the local critters had plenty to eat.
That meant Evie had no fear of going hungry. Unlike those of us with two legs.
On impulse, I picked up a piece of the kibble from her bowl and sniffed it. “You know, this doesn’t seem all that bad.”
Dax shook his head. “Don’t do it.”
“It’s healthy, right?”
“For a dog.”
Even Evie watched me with trepidation. She placed her paw on my foot, as if to say, No, no, don’t do that.
I put the kibble in my mouth and let it sit on my tongue.
Dax covered his eyes. Evie whined softly.
“It’s not bad,” I said as I chewed. The look on Dax’s face was priceless, but my stomach wasn’t doing calisthenics, which I took to mean my digestive tract definitely found this stuff more palatable.
I found a bottle of water and took a sip. Food was food, right? “Honestly, it’s an improvement over the pastrami.”
Tony chose that exact moment to walk in on us. He took in Dax and the dog staring at me in a mixture of horror and fascination as I chewed on the kibble, and I swear the man grew five gray hairs right then and there.
“Christ on a pogostick,” he said.
I held out my hand. “Want some?”
He swatted the kibble aside. Evie sprang for it, gleefully lipping up everything that hit the ground. “Are you nuts?” Tony asked. “Stealing the dog’s food?”
“I can’t eat any more pastrami!” My voice shot up higher. Too high. Okay, maybe I wasn’t as calm as I thought.
“That shit’s not any better for you!”
My stomach rumbled—not in revolt, but in genuine hunger. Holy fucking shit, the dog’s food was officially better for me than Army grub. “But it tastes better.”
He grabbed my arm and dragged me into the living room, away from kibble, pastrami, and all other edible things. He gave me a shove and I sat down hard on the sofa, my head swimming at the sudden change. Shit. My blood pressure was plummeting. Or I’d been poisoned. Or the all pastrami I’d already eaten had just overwhelmed my system.
He riffled through the DVDs in the small tower next to it, muttering over the selection. “Let’s watch Star Wars.”
“I don’t think Star Wars is going to make me feel better.”
“Star Wars makes everyone feel better.”
I couldn’t eat the Imperial March, but whatever.
He straightened up, looked around the room. “Can you read something?”
I looked at the coffee table. The only book on it was Tony’s dog-eared copy of Dead Mennonite Walking, and I’d had quite enough of both Ezekiel’s supernatural problems and my own.
Oh. Supernatural issues. That reminded me. “Tony,” I said. “Gandalf the Grey was a wizard, right? Not a sorcerer?”
He blinked at me. “What?”
“It’s kind of important.”
His dark eyes regarded me for several seconds. I could see he wanted to say something, but didn’t exactly know what; some distant part of me knew this must have been at least a little bit scary. I was eating dog food and talking about wizards, for fuck’s sake.
But it’s not awful and I don’t want to barf and I’m so hungry…
“Wait here,” he said.
He vanished for a moment. I gripped the tops of my knees. The stillness of the room helped me focus ever so slightly, and a little bit of my brain came back online. Had I really just been eating Evie’s food? What the hell was wrong with me?
You need more sleep, dudette.
Tony reappeared, Dax at his shoulder. A bottle of water was shoved into my hands. “Drink this,” he commanded. “All of it. Then you’re going to have a little bit of canned soup. Shit. We’re all having soup!” He clapped his hands together, as if trying to summon up some enthusiasm. “And I’m going to find you some vitamins.”
“We have soup?” I asked. I could barely keep my hands clenched around the water bottle.
“I have a couple cans of stuff. For emergencies.”
I squinted up at him. “But…but this isn’t—”
“Honey,” Dax said, “you’re stealing food from the dog. I think that qualifies as an emergency.”
Tony darted back to the kitchen. Dax sat down beside me and slung an arm around my shoulder. He felt thinner than I remembered. Thinner, but warm. And alive. And not a total jackass, unlike so many of the people I was encountering here.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“For what?”
For being weak. For fucking up. For getting us caught. For thinking we could do this. For being born.
“Everything.”
He gave me a gentle squeeze.
“Don’t be,” he said. “We had a shitty day. Now drink some water.”
Mom’s doorbell rang rather loudly.
Did you just get that changed? I asked her.
Yeah, makes it easier to tell the living from the dead. She sounded pretty good—and here I’d thought our cell phones would never work again! I have to get going, though. Your father’s gardening and there’s a revenant trying to eat the roses. We miss you, sweetie.
Miss you too, I said. I’ll see if I can find a working car.
The damn chiming continued, and my eyes snapped open, adjusting to the inky darkness of my room in Hastings. The dream faded immediately; I didn’t entirely recall the context, aside from the fact that the apocalypse had been more of an inconvenience than an actual problem.
That, and I missed my mother’s voice.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
Holy shit, someone needed to find their chill.
I rolled out of bed and stumbled across the bedroom, yanking the door open and trying to simultaneously wipe the sleep from my eyes. Tony was already out there, and Dax had just opened his bedroom door. Evie sprinted past him, galloped down the stairs ahead of us, and stood in front of the front door, whining.
The three humans stood there watching.
“She’s wagging her tail,” Dax said. “Probably not a revenant.”
“That’s not always the case,” I said. “They’re rung doorbells before.”
“You keep saying that, and I don’t believe it.”
Tony shrugged into a plaid bathrobe. “Is one of you going to get that?”
“You’re the one dressed for it,” Dax said.
I started walking down the stairs, still trying to clear my head. My stomach growled; the thinned-out soup Tony had made for us had gone down well enough, but now I was hungry again, and my body was letting me know it. Each step made the world spin a little more until I reached the ground floor, where things stabilized a bit.
I nudged Evie aside and looked through the peephole. A bedraggled Logan Andrews stood out there, his fist lifted and primed to slam against the door.
“It’s Logan,” I said.
“I know you’re there, Vibeke! Open the fucking door!”
“What’d you do?” Tony asked, coming down the stairs behind me.
I opened the door. Logan barged inside, followed by two people in pajamas and bathrobes.
Maybe this was some sort of singing telegram gone wrong.
“What the hell?” Tony demanded. “Get out of my house.”
Logan opened his mouth.
“Commander McKnight,” the man in pajamas said, holding up a hand and rather efficiently cutting Logan off, “I must ask you not to have guests over so late! You’re disturbing the entire neighborhood!”
“Who’re you?” I asked.
“Your neighbors,” he spat. “And you cannot have soldiers banging on the door at all hours!”
The woman—his wife?—had flung a silk bathrobe on over her sleep clothes, and shivered even in the comparative warmth of our entryway. “Yes, I really must insist. My children need their rest.”
“For what?” I asked. Hastings was pretty safe, at least for now. It wasn’t like they needed to be on alert for anything.
She turned her sharp gaze on me. “For school, Miss…?”
“Vibeke. Medic Vibeke Orvik.”
My rank didn’t seem to impress her at all. “Well, I don’t know what you medics do during the day, but my children need to sleep so they can pass their tests—”
“Tests?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “You guys realize the world fucking ended, right? The only test they need to pass is whether they can outrun a zombie.”
They stared at me, their faces equally drained of what little color they each had left.
“Why are you here?” Tony asked Logan. “Vibeke can have all the booty calls she wants, but could you schedule them before nine o’clock?”
No trace of a smile lingered on the soldier’s thin face. “Alyssa’s dead.”
For a few seconds the words didn’t compute. Dead? Strange thing to call your sister. She’s not dead, I just saw her…eight hours ago? Ten now?
A lot could happen in ten hours.
Dead.
A giant knot formed in my throat, blocking my air flow.
Joke. It’s a joke, right?
Why the hell would he joke about this?
“I really don’t care who’s dead,” our esteemed said. “But I must request that you keep it down or I’ll have Captain Keller—”
Logan’s rifle jabbed the man’s chest, stopping him in mid-tirade. His wife drew back, her hands pressed to her mouth. Logan used his gun to prod the man backwards until he reached the threshold. “You will get out of this house,” he said. “You will go home, and shut your fucking door, and pray to God that he takes care of you and yours, because He for damn sure isn’t taking care of me and mine!”
The man nearly tripped, then spun around and all but flew out the door. His wife raced after him, tearing her robe loose when it caught on the knob.
Logan slammed the door behind them.
He planted his hands on the doorframe and rested his head against the door itself, his entire body shaking.
Evie sat next to him, gazing up attentively with those liquid brown eyes.
“She died,” he said to the door. “She died. What the hell happened?”
I had to fight to make my voice work. “Logan…”
He straightened up and spun around. Suddenly that big gun was pointed right at my face, and the soldier looked just grief-crazed enough to use it.
I stopped talking.
“Hey,” Tony said.
“Tell me what happened!”
Tony reached for the gun and was rather rudely swatted aside. “Put that thing down!”
“It’s okay,” I said.
What the fuck, me? It’s not okay!
I tried to swallow my building fear.
Logan’s hands quaked harder, making the muzzle of the rifle jump up and down with each breath. “She was fine this morning!”
For all the constant horrors
I had seen since the meteors fell, raw human grief had been something of a rarity. I didn’t deliver bad news to the families and friends of patients who didn’t make it: Samuels had still done that for me. By now, most people seemed to be in a permanent state of shock. If someone died, they died. It sucked, but at least they weren’t a zombie.
Logan’s very real despair shook me.
“She wasn’t fine, Logan,” I said quietly. “You know that. She was very sick, and getting worse. Renati was trying to—”
“Renati, that’s right, it was fucking Renati. Jesus Fucking Christ. Lattimore let Renati—she let him deal with patients…”
“He’s doing his best.”
“Renati is a fucking lab rat. Lattimore only put him on patients because we were out of staff and he knew how to inject people!” His voice shot upward, and the dog cringed away. I didn’t answer him; he wasn’t wrong, after all. “She doesn’t care at all, does she? Fuck the sick. Let the researcher take care of them. And now my sister is gone.”
None of us managed to speak up in the seconds after he said that.
Logan closed his eyes. “She’s gone,” he said. “She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, Logan,” I whispered.
“She’s dead! She’s fucking dead!”
He hurled his rifle across the room. It hit the wall and discharged; the bullet howled across the room, terminating in the kitchen somewhere. Evie yelped and hid behind Dax’s legs.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Tony demanded. He lifted his fist.
Oh, right, hit the crazy man with the gun. That’ll end well for us.
Logan silenced Tony with one single black stare, then stalked over to the wall where his rifle had landed. He swayed over it for a moment, and I thought he might pick it up and mow us all down.
Instead, he slammed his fist straight through the wall. Blood splattered across the cheerful blue paint and landed on the carpet.
“Goddammit.” Tony was a dark blur in a plaid robe, his hands landing on Logan’s shoulders and jerking him away from the wall.
Evie started in their direction. Dax instantly dropped to his knees and grabbed her. “No, girl. Not this time.”
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