Tooth And Nail

by Craig DiLouie

  scared of me, and this makes me pissed off, and then I think

  about it some more, and then I decide—

  Sergeant Ruiz peeks into the classroom through the window set in the door and sees Third Squad sprawled asleep on top of their fartsacks where they’d been billeted, surrounded by leftovers from rapidly devoured MREs. One of them cries out in his sleep, making the others stop snoring long enough to frown and twitch for a few moments.

  Again he thinks about his young wife and infant son in Jacksonville, Florida. Should he try to call her now?

  What if she doesn’t answer the phone?

  Would he go over the hill and try to get home to his family, like Richard Boyd?

  Maybe, but look where that got Boyd. The LT said half his face got bitten off and he’d been transformed into a Mad Dog.

  He hears footsteps, turns and sees 2LT Greg Bishop approaching from the end of the hallway, gesturing angrily at his trailing NCOs. Probably complaining again about Bowman’s order to McGraw to shoot down all those civilians. Said it was inhuman, even with the ROE. Said Bowman doesn’t deserve to take command of what’s left of Charlie Company. Said even some Nazis during WWII refused to follow orders and participate in wholesale slaughter.

  Ruiz shakes his head in disgust and resumes his own walk to the gym, where a thousand people lie moaning and dying on cots arranged in nice, neat rows. Healthy civilians are moving among them changing sheets and bedpans and IV bags, supervised by three hapless, red-faced corpsmen and a handful of nurses from the day shift who made it to work. Others are disposing of corpses and disinfecting the area with mops and rags. The LT told them: We have food, water, blankets. We can protect you, feed you and shelter you. But if you stay, you work. And you work hard.

  It is unpleasant labor, and there is plenty of shirking, but many of the civilians are happy to have something to do to take their minds off their problems. The ones who are working are the toughest, the ones you can count on. The others just can’t take what’s happening to them and their world. They quickly wandered off and nobody has seen them since. Many of these people have lost everything, and it was torn away bloodily in front of their very eyes. They are in shock, and many of them will never snap out of it.

  It was a good idea, in any case, to give the civilians something to do. The LT is smart for an officer, Ruiz thinks. If Bowman commanded the way Bishop says he should, First Platoon would still be trapped in that classroom, under siege and starving by inches, and Second Platoon would have been scattered to the winds on Forty-Second Street.

  Ruiz likes to make things simple. Here is how he sees it:

  Bowman is working hard and doing what it takes to keep his boys alive.

  Bishop is a douche and is complaining instead of working.

  And Knight, well, word is some of his own guys want to frag his ass. Word is that when the Mad Dogs came out of the woodwork and started ripping his boys to shreds, he refused to fire, and instead told them to run for it.

  Ruiz shakes his head. The reality on the ground has changed, and if we do not change with it, we will die. Those who cannot accept reality, as it is, should not command. Bishop, for example, believes Bowman should have called in units equipped with riot control gear and captured the Mad Dogs nonviolently.

  The man is either insane or in denial about their predicament.

  That leaves Bowman as the ideal man for the job as the guy least likely to get them all killed within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

  Ruiz sees a few civilians patrolling the gym, toting M4 carbines. He exchanges a nod with one of them, a middle-aged marine with experience in Panama and the first Gulf War. Another one of Bowman’s innovations—arming those civilian volunteers having prior military experience with Charlie Company’s spare carbines. They are now Bowman’s police force, used to make sure none of the Lyssa patients goes Mad Dog and makes trouble, while giving the rest of the civilians somebody to complain to besides the soldiers.

  Bowman said he is not interested in a humanitarian mission. He is trying to keep Charlie Company combat effective. He is looking at this place as hostile territory and the Mad Dogs as enemy combatants, the way he was told to do by the Brass. The guys in the rear with the gear are not right very often, but on this, they are absolutely goddamn correct.

  Ruiz walks down a row of Lyssa victims lying in their cots, looking into each face. Most are in bad shape, as the Mad Dogs showed a preference for spreading infection to those lying in their beds who were closest to recovery. But a few smile back at him.

  There is hope in this place. It makes him feel good. They are doing some good here. The LT said there’s plenty of supplies, including ammunition, and a lot of sick people to protect and help recover.

  He also said not to get too comfortable.

  If Charlie Company moves, Ruiz wonders, should I try to leave?

  How would I get home?

  Does it matter? If what Bowman said about Boyd is true, then the Mad Dogs are going to try to wipe this planet clean of human life. Maybe one out of twenty is now a Mad Dog, and they are already bringing the country to its knees.

  The rate of infection is unbelievable.

  It is a horrible thought, but our only hope of stalling the Apocalypse, he thinks, is that the Mad Dogs kill a lot more people than they infect, reducing the rate of infection. If the infection rate is arithmetical instead of exponential, they might have a chance at stopping them through brute extermination. The way the Iraqis were doing it just before Charlie was sent home. (It is strange to think that the countries most likely to pull through this are failed states with brutal societies and lots of guns and ammo.)

  In any case, if America is doomed, why should he stay? Why not at least try to get to Janisa and Emmanuel? In a contest between his family and his platoon, there would be no contest. If his love for his wife is passionate, his love for his son is primordial. He would, in fact, saw off his own arm for his kid. He would systematically kill all of his comrades. His true duty in a crisis like this, at the end of the world, lies with his family.

  The only problem is he is here and they are there, and he would die before he could reach them.

  A young woman hurries by, her dark eyes wide with alarm. Doc Waters, exhausted and in a fine rage now, shouts after her to bring back as much amantadine—a generic antiviral drug—as she can carry.

  Even with the mask, Ruiz can tell that the girl is pretty, just like his Janisa. The idea that his wife and son are in danger fills him with grief.

  He will try to call her. But first he has to check on one of his boys.

  Hawkeye has been tied down to his cot with restraining belts, sweating and reeking, the bandage on his cheek stained a rusty brown, his throat beginning to swell into a mass of golf ball-sized buboes. He tries to smile upon seeing Ruiz, but the smile quickly morphs into a grimace, his skin the sickly gray color characteristic of infection.

  “How are you, Hawkeye?”

  “Been better, Sergeant,” he rasps, his voice underscored with a vibration that occasionally culminates in a growl when he exhales. “You come to help me?”

  “I brought an extra pillow for you, like you asked.”

  “I can’t swallow. I’m goddamn thirsty all the time but I can’t stand even looking at water. Just seeing an IV bag pisses me off. I’m pissed off all the time.”

  “It’s unfair, Hawkeye.”

  “No,” Hawkeye hisses. “It’s the germs. They’re making me pissed off. They’re putting thoughts into my head. You see that pretty girl who just walked by? The one with the big black eyes you could fall into?”

  “She just walked by here,” Ruiz says. “Sure, I saw her.”

  “Of course you did—she’s beautiful,” Hawkeye chuckles, then grimaces again. “She’s kind of scared of me. Every time she walks by, she looks at me real scared. And I think, don’t be scared, miss, I’m Cameron Ross, I’m a good guy, I’d never hurt you. And the more I see her, the more I think it’s unfair th
at she’s scared of me, and this makes me pissed off, and then I think about it some more, and then I decide I want to chew up her face so she can’t see me anymore.”

  Ruiz takes a step back without thinking, gazing down in horror at the soldier.

  “Everything makes me so damn pissed off, Sergeant. Every minute that goes by I can feel myself getting more pissed off. I don’t want to die hating everybody and everything.” He glances down at his hand, and Ruiz sees that he is holding a photo of his girlfriend. “I want to die while I still love them. I’m dying either way, Sergeant. That’s a fact. I’m not scared. I just don’t want to die hating my girl, or my own mother. Do you get it now, or do I have to drill it into your fucking skull?”

  Ruiz nods and says softly, “I get it, Hawkeye.”

  Hawkeye growls deep in his throat, then closes his eyes and sighs. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  Ruiz takes the pillow he brought, places it over the boy’s smile, and presses down.

  “Bye, Hawkeye,” he says, tears streaming down his face.

  The boy struggles for about a minute, then lies still.

  When Ruiz is done, he notices the room is strangely silent except for the general moan of the Lyssa victims lying in their beds. He looks up and sees almost everyone staring back at him. Several of the civilians slowly nod in understanding, while others cover their faces to hide their tears.

  He is not the first person to have to do this for a friend.

  Feeling tired in his bones, Ruiz begins walking in the direction of the west wing, where he hopes to find an empty classroom where he can call his wife. Immediately, the people around him resume working as if nothing happened.

  Corporal Alvarez approaches and salutes. He says the Lieutenant wants the entire company to muster. LT has talked to Quarantine, he says.

  Quarantine has new orders for Charlie Company.

  It’s us or them, gentlemen

  Gentlemen, the Lyssa virus is much more of a problem than we have been led to believe. The Pandemic has taken many lives and caused severe shortages and panic. But now the game has changed and our mission has expanded. The Army is no longer simply concerned with protecting infrastructure. We are fighting for the survival of the United States. I know that sounds dramatic, but there’s really no other way to put it.

  Right now, outside these walls, there is no local government. No food distribution. No medicine. There are almost no firefighters putting out fires. Only a handful of police offers are still doing their duty. Many of the hospitals have been abandoned, like this one. It’s fast becoming the law of the jungle out there.

  There is a reason for this.

  Warlord has suffered major losses as well. Captain West and his headquarters staff are MIA and presumed dead. Colonel Armstrong is dead, and so is the Battalion XO, Major Reynolds. Captain Lyons of Alpha is taking over Battalion.

  Gentlemen, be quiet. There’s more.

  As you know, I have been placed in command of Charlie. I have received new orders directly from Brigade. All units in our AO have been ordered to consolidate into the next highest level at an easily defensible location. This means Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta Companies are going to concentrate and reconstitute Warlord. Quarantine wants Battalion squared away until he needs us.

  These orders make sense. They are also simple as far as we’re concerned because our current position is the rendezvous point. Everybody is coming to us. All we have to do is wait. A citywide curfew is going into effect at seventeen hundred hours. By eighteen hundred, the Battalion should be reconstituted under Captain Lyons.

  Now it’s time to tell you the real problem that is behind all this. What I have to say may shock you, but at this point probably will not surprise you.

  At first, we were told that Mad Dog syndrome is common only in the most severe cases of Lyssa, where the virus attacks the brain. Turns out this is wrong. Turns out the Mad Dogs apparently carry an entirely different strain of the virus in their saliva. When they bite people, those people become Mad Dogs.

  In fact, once bitten, they can become a Mad Dog within hours.

  Gentlemen, be quiet.

  Gentlemen—

  Thank you, Sergeant.

  The number of Mad Dogs is increasing at a rate that we cannot understand. We have seen with our own eyes that they are dramatically growing in numbers and that they attack and seek to infect, without fear or mercy, any non-infected person that they see. The level of threat is increasing by the minute and will increase until the Mad Dogs are either all dead or they exhaust the supply of people they can infect.

  Now you know why we have no choice but to concentrate Battalion or cease to be in the game helping America get through this crisis. Gentlemen, I am not kidding when I say that we are fighting for the survival of our country. Possibly the human race.

  The situation is unprecedented.

  All right, listen up.

  Things have changed, and we need to adapt.

  First, there will be no more talk of “baby killers.” If you think the Mad Dogs are still people, your sentimentality is going to get you and the man next to you killed. Mad Dogs are not people anymore. They are puppets controlled by the Mad Dog virus. The virus tells them to attack and infect, and they do it. These people probably have no knowledge of who they are, what they are, or what they’re doing.

  And if they do know, but have no choice, then God help them. Either way, if you kill a Mad Dog, it is a mercy killing. It’s that simple.

  Mad Dogs do not carry weapons and they look like you and me, but do not let appearances fool you. These things are the deadliest foe that America has ever faced and the most dangerous enemy you will ever meet in combat.

  There will be a lot more killing. We are in a hostile country, surrounded by a hostile army, close to being cut off from resupply and medevac, and the enemy is hunting us in a war of extermination, fighting us using tactics against which we never trained.

  This is an enemy that does not take prisoners. That does not negotiate. That requires no supply, knows no fear, and attacks relentlessly. The virus does not fight for land or money or politics or religion. It fights to survive by infecting, or killing, all of us.

  I am telling you this so you can get your head on straight. If you want to stay alive, you’re going to have to get some fight in your gut and see this situation for what it is.

  A war with unlimited spectrum. Total war.

  It’s us or them, gentlemen. These are the facts on the ground.

  Right now, you are probably getting very worried about your loved ones. I have family in Texas, some in Louisiana, who I think about every day. But I can’t get to them. I’d never make it. If I walked out that door, I’d be dead, or a Mad Dog, within twenty-four hours.

  If you want to help your family, then do your job.

  Somebody has to survive this.

  Civilian law enforcement is being wiped out. That leaves us. We’re all that’s left between a rising tide of Mad Dogs and annihilation. So your family’s only hope, our country’s only hope, is that the Army stays together long enough to make a difference. From now on, once a unit is destroyed, it cannot be replaced. It’s gone.

  One of you asked me if this is the end of the world. My answer was not a very good one. I thought of a new answer, and I like it better.

  Whether the world is going to end or not is literally up to us.

  As for me, gentlemen, I say it’s not.

  Chapter 9

  They do not deserve to take it all from us

  The sun is shining and the streets are jammed with people enjoying the end of summer. In Central Park, hundreds lie on blankets in Sheep Meadow, sleeping or reading. Several boys with their shirts off throw an orange Frisbee back and forth, while a dog playfully barks and scampers between them. Christopher sits on a bench bouncing Alexander on his knee. They both smile eagerly as she approaches them barefoot and laughing. Alexander demands ice cream. Valeriya Petrova suggests a ride on the Merry-Go-Round instead
and he shouts for joy before realizing he’s been fooled, suddenly declaring his interest in both ice cream and a ride.

  What flavor, Alex? Christopher asks.

  Alexander looks up at his father and cries exultantly: Vanilla!

  Her eyes flicker to Christopher, deliciously aware that he is unaware of being watched, and knows they are getting older every day and that some day they will die and there will be nothing and they will never be together like this again. Instead of making her sad, the thought fills her with a strange elation that she is alive and not dead, that she still has time, that they all have time, before even just this single perfect day ends. And her son has even longer and all the world lies before him.

  Tonight she will make love to her husband and whisper thank you in his ear as she does at times when she feels like this, when she cannot contain the beauty of her life and the joy her family brings her.

  Harsh white light shatters the darkness.

  The building groans to life as its systems reboot.

  Petrova lies under the desk, shivering with her eyes clenched shut.

  You must get up, she tells herself. You must not give up. You must survive for them.

  No, stay and dream a little while longer. Maybe the dream is true. Maybe, outside, the world has returned to normal. People in the park, laughing and playing. Lying on the warm grass, reading a paperback—

  No—

  Outside, she knows, the world is dying.

  Everybody she has ever known, everybody she has ever loved, everything she cherished as part of life, is being destroyed.

  She knows that she is probably going to die here without ever seeing the sun again. Without ever seeing her son again.

  So far away.

  Mankind will not cross the Atlantic again for perhaps hundreds of years. London may as well be on another planet. Within a generation, even the word “London” may cease to be generally remembered in North America. Knowledge that there are other continents at all may slowly be forgotten as future generations struggle to survive.