They finished off the last of the zombies and breathed a sigh of relief, knowing their relief was not to last. The huge horde, still not visible, was heading toward them. They didn’t have much time.
The team staggered back and leaned on the hard, cold concrete of the facility’s inner wall. For the longest time none of them spoke, letting their minds process everything they had just seen and done. They kept an eye on the mass grave of zombies around them. Every movement of the eyes gave life to a grasping hand, a nervous foot or unblinking eye from the bloody wall of undead.
Daoud limped. A thick blade of chopper propeller had worked itself deeper into his thigh. His face was pale white, a thick layer of sweat on his brow. Eddie gripped it with a pair of plyers and wrenched it free with a single tug. Then he bound a clean cloth tightly around it.
“How did you end up back here?” John said to Jacob.
“After I left you guys I walked about halfway back to the drop off point when I ran into a patrol,” Jacob said. “The guys had been attacked. I thought it was a trap, just red paint spread about the place, a fake scene. But what did I care? I was out of the game anyway. I approached them, and that was when they started moving, reaching for me like I was a juicy burger. I tried to get them to stop, telling them I was already infected, but they wouldn’t listen. And then I saw their dead white eyes. I had never seen anything like that before. Not on anyone living, anyway. Then I realized those soldiers, somehow, were really infected, and that this wasn’t part of the training. I came back to find you, to warn you, but by then you had already left. I’ve been following your trail ever since.”
“Alfred?” Mark said.
Jacob shook his head.
“I lost him when we ran into the huge horde of those things down the road,” he said. “They got him.”
His eyes were haunted with the memory of it. He shook his head and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Now what do we do?” John said.
“We keep going of course,” Eddie said. “Get out of here, get back to Fort Bragg and report what happened here.”
“They already know,” Mark said. “They sent a chopper here to pick up the men.”
“Must have been pretty important men for them to risk a chopper like that,” Jacob said.
“Unlikely they’d waste it on us grunts, that’s for sure,” John said
Mark’s eyes flickered to the side.
“No…” he said, more of a gasp.
He turned and walked toward the helicopter. He built into a run as the realization formed clearly in his mind. There was only one man at this rendezvous who would be worth taking such a risk for. The helicopter lay on its side, the cockpit still aflame. Mark pulled away the bent panels and sheets of shattered glass.
“Mark?” John said. “Mark, what are you doing?”
Mark kept digging with his hands, tossing the wreckage and the rocks aside. The others bent down to help him. It didn’t take long before they uncovered a leg, snapped and bent at an unnatural angle, dressed in the khaki green of the Special Forces uniform. This only fueled Mark to work harder, pulling back the rocks like he were opening a Christmas present. The chest cavity was smashed into an unnatural shape, his hands bloody stubs. His wedding band hung from a fleshless pink bone.
Finally, the last rock was lifted away. The last piece of a puzzle, revealing the man’s face. The team’s eyes went wide. Mark’s legs felt weak. They shook, and he fell to his knees.
It was Major Edwards.
Z-MINUS: 3 hours 14 minutes
Major Edwards.
The only person in the area worth risking a helicopter to come save. But they had failed, and now here he was, lying with his innards hanging out, his body broken beyond recognition.
Mark wanted to cup his father’s head in his hands, to hold him tight, but he didn’t know how to touch him. His fingers danced an inch from his face. Tears spilled down his cheeks.
The others bowed their heads in silent respect.
The great man, who had led and planned some of the nation’s greatest victories, whose strategies were taught to fledgling officers, whose exploits and pursuits and acts of valor were common legend, lay before them.
And then he gasped.
He rasped a thick wad of blood through his swollen lips. He was staring at something in the sky only he could see. His bloody stub of a hand reached for it. He lay back, relaxing, his eyes opening again, this time finding Mark and the others looking down at him. He focused on Mark.
“Mark?” Major Edwards said.
Mark hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out, unsure whether he was glad his father was still alive or not. He knelt down beside him.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m here.”
“What are you doing here?” Major Edwards said.
“It was our mission,” Mark said. “To come here after getting the virus from the compound.”
“There was no virus,” Major Edwards said, blood dribbling out the corner of his mouth.
“No,” Mark said. “That was sneaky of you.”
He smiled, but the major just stared. Mark reached into a pocket and came out with the paintball of infected blood.
“But we got it anyway,” he said. “Some of the real virus.”
Major Edwards smiled.
“So, you beat me after all,” he said.
“No one ever beat you,” Mark said.
“No,” Major Edwards said. “You did. I’m glad you did. Were you bitten?”
“No,” Mark said.
“Good,” Major Edwards said. “Good. That’s how it spreads. In body fluids. A single drop is enough.”
Mark thought back to the blood rain spilling over the jeep’s front window onto the passengers.
“The people in the city…” Major Edwards said.
He coughed, his breath sputtering blood.
“Don’t speak,” Mark said. “Rest.”
“You need to save them,” Major Edwards said. “They need time to escape. You need to hold them back. Give them time.”
“I will,” Mark said. “I’ll take care of it.”
Major Edwards smiled.
“I wish you could have known what it was like to have had a child as good as you,” he said.
“I do,” Mark said. “Or, I will. Tabitha is pregnant.”
A smile lit Major Edwards’ face. It was full of hope and happiness.
“Hope for the future,” he said.
Then he reached toward the waistband of his pants, but the angle was awkward, and with his damaged arm he couldn’t manage it. Mark reached into his father’s pocket. He came out with a gun that was, miraculously, still intact. Major Edwards jabbed himself in the chest.
“Do it,” he said.
For a moment Mark couldn’t understand what his meaning was. Then, like a flashbulb going off, he realized. Mark shook his head.
“No,” he said. “No.”
“You must,” his father said. “I can’t become one of those things. I
control my destiny. Not… Not…”
The major’s body convulsed. His back arched, and then went slack. His head rolled back, his eyes closed. He was gone.
“Dad?” Mark said. “Dad?”
He gripped his father tight, the muscles in his arms growing taut. He pulled his father to him, as if he could somehow pull his soul into his own body, to keep him alive. Mark screamed, letting out a pain unlike anything he had ever felt before. He held his father close and rocked him back and forth, a weeping wail escaping his throat, desperation and hopelessness all rolled into one.
A hand fell on Mark’s shoulder.
“Mark,” John said. “Step back. Come on.”
Mark didn’t move.
“Mark,” Jacob said. “You have to move away.”
They all knew the horror that would take place before them. Mark knew it too, but he couldn’t move away.
A groan emitted from the major’s throat, rasping and drawn. Eddie and Daoud stepped away. John and Jacob stepped closer.
“Mark…” Jacob said.
Mark wanted more than anything to see his father open his eyes again, to see that familiar look in them, the face he had grown up with, feared, hated, loved. But he knew it wouldn’t be his father, but an empty shell. He needed to put an end to him before he couldn’t pull the trigger.
Perhaps he could be a coward just this once and let one of the others do it for him. No, that wasn’t what his father would have wanted. He would have wanted to go out of the world the way he’d lived in it. Bold. In control. He’d entrusted this task to Mark, and him alone.
Mark stood up and aimed the pistol at his father’s face. Major Edwards’ head lolled side to side. He opened his eyes.
Bang.
Mark lost the feeling in his fingertips and the gun clattered to the ground.
“Do you think he’s going to be all right?” Jacob said to John.
Mark was crouched before his father, not saying a word, not even really looking at him. An empty shell. His soul had left him every bit as much as his father’s had a moment ago.
“I don’t know,” John said. “But we can’t wait around. The explosion earlier will draw them here.”
“Someone sounds scared,” Jacob said.
“Too right I’m scared,” John said, cutting through Jacob’s jibe. “You’d be a fool not to be.”
“One of us had better have a word with him,” Jacob said.
John nodded, but didn’t volunteer.
“I guess it’ll have to be me then,” Jacob said.
He approached Mark and knelt beside him. Mark didn’t even acknowledge him.
“How are you holding up?” Jacob said.
“Fine,” Mark said.
Jacob glanced over his shoulder at John, who nodded toward Mark. Jacob wanted nothing more than to slap John upside the head. Jacob concentrated and began to speak, the words tumbling from him in a flood of emotions he’d been feeling for some time but hadn’t given voice before.
“I know what it’s like,” Jacob said. “To lose someone right before you. My mom has Alzheimer’s. I saw her fade away. I rarely see the real her anymore. It’s hard to let go, but we have to, if we want to continue to live our lives.”
Mark said nothing. Jacob looked back at John, who shrugged. Jacob clapped Mark on the shoulder.
“We’re here if you need us,” he said.
He stood up and stood beside John.
Next, Daoud stepped forward and knelt beside Mark.
“It’s hard to let go of someone,” he said. “I understand that. But we can’t stay around here all day. Those monsters are going to come soon, and we can’t be here when they do.”
Mark sat in silence for a moment, and then said, “Why did you make a cairn earlier?”
Daoud frowned at the question.
“I make them every day,” he said.
“Why?” Mark said.
“To remember,” Daoud said. “McNab will never be gone so long as there’s someone left to remember him. And I always will, so long as I still draw breath.”
Mark considered Daoud’s words. Then, he picked up a rock and placed it over his father’s hand. Daoud picked up another rock and placed it on top of Mark’s. Mark nodded, a weight lifting from his shoulders as he placed more weight on his father. Together they piled rocks on top of Major Edwards until he was no longer visible.
Daoud handed Mark the medal he carried in his pocket. It was nothing special, a standard medal that all soldiers received after completing a tour of duty.
Daoud joined the rest of the team.
“How’s he doing?” John said.
“Healing,” Daoud said.
“Thank you,” John said.
It was the first time he’d said a positive word to Daoud.
“You’re welcome,” Daoud said.
“You’re still an asshole though,” John said.
“So are you,” Daoud said.
Mark placed the medal on top of the cairn. He stood up straight and saluted. The others followed suit.
“Now you’re finished with your little art project, can we get out of here now please?” Eddie said.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mark said.
“But you said-” Eddie said.
“I said
I’m
not going anywhere,” Mark said. “You can all do what you want. I’m staying.”
“Mark,” John said. “You can’t stay here. Those things are going to be here any minute.”
“You heard the major,” Mark said. “Someone needs to hold them off, to give the people in Charlotte time to evacuate.”
John glanced at Jacob, and then back at Mark.
“With all due respect, your father was near catatonic,” he said. “He wasn’t aware of what he was saying.”
“He knew what he was saying,” Mark said. “If I can make a stand and keep the zombies here, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“You’ve had an emotional shock,” John said. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“No,” Jacob said. “He is. You heard the major. A city full of people are being evacuated. Every minute we can hold them here will give those in Charlotte another minute to get away. We have to make a stand. You don’t have to be here. You can go. I’m staying too.”
“Fuck that!” John said. “If you’re staying, I can’t very well leave, can I? I’ll never live it down.”
Mark turned to Daoud.
“How about you?” he said. “We could do with a sharpshooter.”
Daoud turned his head to one side.
“It’s not likely I’d get far on this leg anyway,” he said, tapping the swollen bandage wrapped around his leg. “It’s a good way to die.”
“Woah, woah,” John said. “Nobody said anything about dying.”
“Does it make any difference?” Jacob said. “Did it ever? Every time we went on a mission we always knew there was a chance we wouldn’t survive.”
John pressed his lips together.
“It’s just nice to know where we stand, that’s all,” he said.
His legs wobbled like his knees couldn’t hold his weight. The thought they were going to die wasn’t new. Courage was facing an enemy and accepting your death in your heart and mind, and then choosing to fight anyway.
But now there was another dimension: dying, and then turning into one of those monsters. Knowing you were going to die for a worthy cause was worth the sacrifice, but to continue, to live on in a shell-like form, doing harm to others – others we might love, others we cared about – that was unforgivable. That was true, reckless, courage.
“This is what we’ve been training for,” Mark said.
“This isn’t what
I
was trained for,” Eddie said.
“Stop being such a pussy,” John said. “This is war.”
“We could do with your trigger finger,” Mark said to Eddie. “But it’s your decision.”
Eddie looked from Mark to the others, and then back again.
“You don’t think I’d let you and your gorillas here fuck everything up while I sat on the sidelines, do you?” he said. “I’m on babysitter duty. Just my friggin’ luck.”
Mark appraised the four brave men before him. They were tired, bloody, but they were going to make a stand.
“We’ll make the most of what time we have left,” Mark said. “We’ll fortify the road, form a roadblock, and funnel them toward us. We’ll hit them with everything we’ve got.”
“What, sticks and stones?” Daoud said. “That’ll hold them back for all of ten minutes. We don’t have anything to fight with.”
“The soldiers on the helicopter had weapons,” Mark said. “We’ll take their guns, their ammunition. These zombies aren’t the only ones who can rise again from the dead. We’ll stand with our brothers at our side, unrelenting, unflinching. We will hold them back.”
They shared a look, the camaraderie of a brotherhood passing between them. Brothers in war and death, if it came to that.
“They’ll send reinforcements, won’t they?” Jacob said.
“We can’t know that,” Mark said. “And we can’t risk the assumption they will. This is the only place we can hold them.”
“There’s a whole army of them…” John said.
“Remember Kid?” Mark said. “That’s the price of failure.”
“Kid?” Daoud said. “Who’s that?”
“A lad we met in Liberia,” John said. “A brave lad. He… We weren’t able to save him. We tried, but we couldn’t hold back the Ebola virus. He caught it. Because we failed.”
Mark stared into space and closed his eyes, the memories of the past flooding, unbidden, into his mind. Roach had tried to warn them, but they had believed his caution came from his lifelong pessimism. For once, he’d been the rational one. They should have listened to him.