Plague Nation (8 page)

Nathan fumbled for his firearm, but before he even managed to unsnap the holster, a gunshot cracked and a messy hole appeared in the thing’s head. It thumped against the wall, its slide down to the ground leaving a trail of stinking black fluid on the stones. It lay unmoving, Nathan’s flesh still clenched between its teeth.

He stared at the corpse, clutching his wounded arm with one hand. It hurt, burned like a motherfucker. His ears rang from the close proximity of the gunshot and if he hadn’t been in shock before, he sure as hell was now. ‘Cause he couldn’t be seeing a freshly killed corpse with flesh rotting off its bones, skin on its face so desiccated that it might as well be a mummy.

“Nathan?”

He turned bleary eyes toward the sound of Simone’s voice, seeing her standing in the entrance to the ruins wearing fatigues and holding a handgun in one hand. Somehow her presence here didn’t surprise him, even though it should have. He watched as she ran across the clearing, concern clearly etched on her features as she dropped to one knee next to him.

“Were you bit?”

“Huh?” Nathan couldn’t quite focus on the question. His arm felt as if there was acid running through it. No, make that acid lit on fire.

Simone’s attention focused on his arm. She gave an indrawn hiss.

“Oh, no.”

“Not. so bad,” Nathan managed.

Cool hands touched his face.

“You’re burning up.”

“You’re pretty hot yourself,” Nathan mumbled, inordinately pleased with his cleverness.

“And you’re delirious.”

“With love for you, ba—” Pain coursed through him, cutting off his words. Something sharp penetrated his arm above the bite. Almost immediately a blessed numbness chased the pain away, Simone’s face vanishing as his consciousness toppled down a very dark rabbit hole.

* * *

“He seems to be fighting off the infection.”

“Will he make it?”

“I... think so. I... I hope so.”

He woke up a few times, but consciousness never lasted more than a few minutes before another shot sent him spiraling back into fever dreams and unimaginable pain. A few times he thought he heard Simone’s voice, but he never stayed awake long enough to verify.

* * *

She was there when he finally did wake up, a few days later. He felt good. Really good. Probably too good to be real, which meant he would probably die in a day or so from some sort of infection. In the meantime, though, the soup and crackers Simone set down in front of him smelled better than any meal he could remember.

She sat quietly at his bedside while he ate. When he finally finished eating, he wiped his mouth with the napkin she provided, set it down on the empty tray, and looked Simone straight in the eye.

“You gonna tell me what happened out there?”

“You tell me,” she countered.

He rolled his eyes, not in the mood for the banter. “Please do not pull this psychoanalysis shit on me, Simone. I know what I saw. I just want to know what the hell it was.”

“Sick people, Nathan.” She looked away, then turned back to him with an almost defiant glare. “Quarantined, rightly or wrongly, like the lepers on Molokai.”

“So you’re saying they had leprosy?”

An almost imperceptible pause.

“Something like that.”

“You’re lying.” Nathan knew from the brief flash of guilt in her eyes that he was right.

Simone gave a shuddering sigh. She got up and looked out into the hallway, then shut the door to Nathan’s room and turned back to him.

“Look. I can’t talk about this. The organization I’m involved with... it’s about as black ops as you can get.”

Nathan stared at her coldly.

“Are the dead coming back to life?” Even as he said it the words sounded absurd. But real.

“What part of ‘black ops’ did you not understand?”

“Are the dead coming back to life?” he repeated.

“I can’t answer that,” she replied. “And even if I could, if something like this got out, do you have any idea what sort of panic it would cause—even
without
the religious implications—if rumors of the dead coming to life were made public knowledge?”

“That would be a ‘yes’ then,” he said.

Simone shook her head and left the room.

* * *

Nathan didn’t try to get any other information out of Simone. He let her take blood samples and monitor his vitals, but refused to say more than the absolute minimum required to facilitate his return to health. Their relationship died a quick death in an atmosphere of mutual distrust.

* * *

“So how did you control the outbreak?” I felt like a kid at story time—in Stephen King’s house.

“A very rare instance of the divergent political and religious factions in the area working together against a common foe,” Simone said. “The most difficult part was convincing the locals not to shut the infected up in the caverns.”

“What about the installation? How did you keep things a secret from all the incoming and outgoing military personal?”

Nathan snorted. He did that a lot.

“They shut it down, of course. Some bullshit story about how the U.S. and Kyrgyzstan governments couldn’t agree on the new rental terms.”

“That, actually,” Simone said, “was true.”

Nathan shot her a look.

“So zombies had nothing to do with it?” he countered.

“I didn’t say that.” Simone glared at him.

“So why didn’t you tell him he was a wild card?” I asked, fascinated by this glimpse into their past. It was better than a soap opera, especially considering how pissy the two behaved when they were in the same room.

Nathan made a sound between a snort and a laugh. For variety, I guess.

“Professor Fraser wasn’t telling me anything she didn’t have to,” he said.

I marveled at how Simone managed to look down her nose at him despite being shorter by a good half foot. He glowered back at her. I wished they’d just sleep together and get it over with.

“Captain Smith was one of the first people to show immunity to the virus.”

“Then why didn’t you tell him the truth about the zombies? It’s not like you kept it a secret from the rest of us after we got chomped.”

Simone hesitated before she responded.

“Back then we only recruited people into the
Dolofónoitou Zontanóús Nekroús
after several years of observation. Paranoia was high—”

“I’ll say,” Nathan muttered. Simone ignored him.

“—and secrecy was paramount. Higher authorities than I judged Captain Smith, and deemed him to be a potential security risk because of certain maverick tendencies displayed in previous missions.” She glanced over at Nathan before continuing.

“Had Captain Smith been less hostile and more cooperative—”

“In other words, a happy little lab rat.”

“—we might have learned more at the time. And perhaps eventually recruited him into the organization.”

“Not likely,” Nathan said.

“As it was,” Simone continued, “the Army retrieved him. Before we could take any steps, his term of service was up, and he vanished from the military’s radar.”

Nathan shrugged.

“No one would tell me the truth. Not much incentive to stick around, and
lots
of reasons to disappear. So I left—actually a little bit before I was supposed to.” Simone looked irritated that that little revelation. “Did my own research, and figured out what was what.”

“Couldn’t you have gone to prison for deserting?” I asked.

“If they’d found me, yeah.” Nathan’s tone implied that it would have been a long shot. From what I’d seen of him, I didn’t think his confidence was misplaced.

“Why aren’t you in prison now?” I asked. “Is there a statute of limitations for desertion?”

“Special dispensation for extraordinary circumstances.” Nathan grinned.

I had enough food for thought to keep me up all night.

“And now, young lady,” Colonel Paxton said, making me wonder if he could read minds, “you need to get some sleep before tomorrow’s work. Bright and early, you know!”

Morning seemed to come extra early the next day. I had to wonder if Colonel Paxton had set the alarms back.

Even after two cups of coffee, liberally laced with cream and honey, I was tired, heavy-lidded, and irritable when we pulled up to one of the last places in Redwood Grove where we had to search for zombies—and possible survivors. Back when the swarm had hit, you couldn’t swing a bat without hitting one of the undead. Now we had to go digging. But letting any of them slip through, well, it simply wasn’t an option.

The Redwood Trailer Heaven trailer park, located past a cul-de-sac at the end of Palm Street, should have been an idyllic location, all nestled in the redwoods. But zombie apocalypse notwithstanding, if there was a contest for the most cliché white trash neighborhood in America, I’d nominate Trailer Heaven in a heartbeat.

Rows of double-wides sagged on concrete block foundations, shabby and derelict. At least twenty or thirty trailers stretched back into the woods, on either side of a roughly paved road running vertically through the middle, and another bisecting it horizontally. Smaller dirt roads ran parallel in between the rows. Cars— mostly older models—hugged the sides of the trailers, a few under canvas lean-tos, some also on concrete blocks. The ground was littered with trash, including a truly frightening number of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans.

There was a stiff breeze, and the sound it made in the trees was loud enough to be annoying. Every now and then it would die down, then pick up again, rattling the empty beer cans.

“Let’s start at the far end,” I said after a moment’s thought. “When Team B shows up, they can start at the entrance, and we’ll meet in the middle. Kai, let ’em know, okay?” He pulled out his radio and proceeded to do so.

It would have been safer to work in teams, one person opening the door and staying safely behind it, while the other stood back dispatched the zombie with a bullet to the head, but we had a lot of ground to cover, and I trusted Tony and Kai’s ability to handle whatever they came across. Unless they ran into some more Silly String.

“Let’s go.” I nodded to Tony. “Kai, we’ll see you back there.”

Kai nodded as Tony and I unslung our M4s and threaded our way between trailers to the far end of the park.

I took the one at the furthest point, nestled against redwoods on two sides. Some care had been taken with landscaping around it, planters with herbs and flowers bordering the edge of the trailer. The plants still thrived, even in the face of forced neglect, the damp weather making it easy to be a lazy gardener in Redwood Grove.

Ascending the steps to the front door, I listened carefully, trying to discern sound above the banshee howl of the wind. It was difficult, even with my enhanced senses, which picked up everything equally. So I cautiously opened the door, the creak of fog-rusted hinges loud enough to wake the dead. I took a step back and waited.

Nothing.

Stepping inside, I took a big old sniff. I smelled rotting food mixed with a musty smell of an enclosed space that hadn’t been aired out in over two weeks. Nothing pleasant, but after the crap I’d smelled around the undead, stenches were relative.

A quick scan of the interior from front to back revealed nothing more than the fact that its inhabitants had enjoyed the fine taste of cheap beer in large quantities, Domino’s pizza, and preferred Big Bob’s banana-flavored condoms as their birth control of choice. The box was sitting out on the bedside table. I hoped they survived to have many more banana splits.

Okay, just grossed myself out.

I used my extra-broad black Sharpie on the door, and moved on.

The next trailer was an eBay seller’s wet dream, with scads of Hummel figurines and Smithsonian collector’s plates displayed on doilies, all against a background of flocked pink wallpaper. It was like being trapped inside a tchotchke-stuffed Pepto-Bismol bottle. But at least there were no signs of body parts.

I made another black check with satisfaction, and started to relax as I moved to trailer number three. Maybe Trailer Heaven’s residents had made it to a safe house, like the church or the fire station. Maybe the person who’d collected all those precious figurines, and the complete
Star Trek: The Next Generation
collector’s plate series, was secure at Big Red with the rest of the survivors. I hoped this was the case, even if I thought Hummel figurines were as tacky as velvet paintings of Elvis.

Smiling at the thought, I opened the door to the third trailer without bothering to listen or knock.

My bad.

Rotting hands seized my arm and the front of my vest, yanking me inside before I could do more than yelp with surprise. My eyes watered as a wave of putrid stench rolled over me, and I found myself up close and personal with two zombies—a tall, skinny male wearing nothing but a pair of BVDs that had probably been gross before their occupant had died, and a female with a bouffant of lacquered red hair, skinny jeans on a frame that couldn’t be called skinny even with chunks of flesh missing, and a shredded skin-tight tank top that exposed a major muffin top stomach and one sagging breast. One arm was gone, leaving a mess of blood, gristle, and chewed flesh in its place. There was a hole where the other breast had been.

Both zombies gripped my arms and torso, pulling me toward them with relentless hunger and threatening to dislocate my shoulders as they played a mindless tug-of-war. The woman’s mouth gaped open, a foul smell wafting out of it as she leaned in toward my neck.

No you don’t, bitch.

Yanking my arm free from her grip, I shoved my forearm under her chin as she tried to take a chunk out of me, in the process losing my grip on the M4, which clattered to the floor. Mr. Underwear hooked his fingers into the front of my vest and yanked me toward him, knocking my arm loose and giving the female zombie ample surface to bite. Luckily its teeth couldn’t penetrate the armored pads on my forearm. Even if I was immune to infection, I didn’t particularly want to have another chunk of my flesh ripped out.