"The Infection" - читать интересную книгу автора (DiLouie Craig)

THE SURVIVORS

They are refugees forced from everything they consider home, searching for a safe place. They have become nomads, living on whatever they can find. But mostly they are survivors. They are good at surviving because they are on the road and they are still alive. They have done the things one had to do to survive. They have all killed people or they would not be here.

They have not lost anybody since Wednesday, when they lost Philip in Wilkinsburg. There are five of them now sitting ramrod straight in the loud, hot, dim passenger compartment of the armored personnel carrier, passing around a bottle of water, their rifles between their knees. They sit in a tense silence, their mouths slack, sweating in air that is twenty degrees hotter than the unseasonably warm May weather outside, air that stinks of sweat and grime and diesel combustion. Between the engine, the squeal of the treads and a steady drumming sound, they have to shout to make themselves heard, and nobody has the energy to do that. The drumming grows louder, punctuated by sharp metallic taps, until it drowns out the Bradley’s five-hundred-horsepower engine. The survivors are perpetually one second away from screaming.

The tapping sound is from jewelry. Bracelets and watches and wedding rings.

The survivors wonder if they have killed everything for which they want to live. Wonder if it might grow back again, given enough time, if only they can find sanctuary.

The survivors are adaptive. People who will do whatever it takes to survive naturally do not trust other people. But to travel the road one must be with a gang, and to survive the experience day after day, as they have, that gang must function as a single protective organism. Each of them has been tested by violence and if they failed, they all would have died. They know this. At this point, after what they have seen and done, this sense of responsibility to each other is what keeps them from collapsing into hysteria or catatonia. Fear, sorrow, guilt, rage: These and other emotions are just as dangerous as the Infected outside, and must likewise be killed.

They are going to the Children’s Hospital based on a theory. They have the Bradley, weapons, and the illusion of safety as long as the rig’s engine keeps humming and its treads keep moving. They need supplies, though, especially water and diesel. They need to find a place unspoiled by Infection, where they can rest. The simple fact is they cannot keep fighting like this. You can only win so many fights before it starts to feel like you are losing.

They sense a subtle shift in the atmosphere, a sudden drop in temperature. Outside, it begins to rain. The drumming gradually fades as the Infected lose interest in pounding on the vehicle with their fists. They fill the air with their plaintive cries as they melt away into the rain.

Anne alone does not appear to be stripped to a single, bare electric wire. She sits in the back near the exit ramp, across from the cop, a place of respect among the survivors as whoever sits there is the first to leave the vehicle and the last to reenter. The others admire and try to imitate her cool. Sarge may be the commander of the Bradley, but they consider Anne to be their leader because without her example and unfaltering aim with the scoped rifle, they would all be dead.

She has two long scars on her left cheek and a short one on her right, still fresh. The survivors assume that she is ex-military, imagining a romantic and violent past. Anne does not tell them that she has an overwhelming feeling that once they finally stop moving and find a place of rest where they can be truly safe, she is going to burst inside out with one long, deafening scream of guilt, terror and anguish.

Hours earlier, they found Sarge’s infantry squad in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart, mangled like road kill around a large, strange device and surrounded by a carpet of dead Infected tangled up in a line of concertina wire. The dead stared wide-eyed into oblivion. Many of the bodies were badly burned and emitted a sickening sweet barbecue odor. Bits of charred clothing, stuck to the concertina wire, trembled in the light breeze. A few Infected stumbled blindly among the remains, gnawing on human meat from a dismembered arm or leg. Crows shrieked in protest as the Bradley approached at forty miles an hour. At the last moment, an enormous flock of the birds exploded into the air, dribbling morsels of flesh from bloody beaks as they filled the sky.

Sarge cut down the few Infected in the area with several bursts from the Bradley’s coaxial machine gun. Outside, he warned the survivors not to step on any of the bodies.

Of course we won’t, they told him. We will respect your dead.

“It’s not a matter of respect,” he said. “These people are rotting. Gases are building up inside their bodies. See how bloated they are? They can burst and spray fluids. You could get sick.”

Six days ago, the Bradley dropped off the squad of six soldiers—who were supposed to operate on their own in the field for three hours—and then withdrew for badly needed repair of a steering problem. The soldiers were testing a non-lethal weapon against the Infected that used active denial technology. They deployed a line of concertina wire, set up their device and blasted a klaxon to attract the attention of any Infected within hearing range.

The device, shaped like a large hoe attached to the face of a basketball backboard, is a transmitter that beams energy waves which penetrate the skin and produce an intense burning sensation. The idea is whoever is subjected to this reflexively tries to avoid the beam and submits. It did not work on the Infected. The Infected only became enraged and attacked until their flesh began to sizzle and even then they still attacked until they fell down.

Another Bradley was going to pick up the soldiers, but it never came because by the time it left on its mission to recover the squad, the soldiers were already dead and the vehicle became reassigned. Sarge knew this but he had to see for himself that it was true. These dead boys were his people. They had served together in Afghanistan. He placed his hand over his heart, a gesture of respect he picked up from the Afghans, and collected their dog tags.

“The device is supposed to be angled to trigger a burning feeling from the neck down,” he told the others. “See how it’s angled up? That’s not an accident. They were desperate. At the end, they tried to burn out the corneas in the eyes of the Infected. They tried to blind them.”

Is it okay to take these guns? they asked him. Will you teach us how to shoot them?

“I heard about another test of long-range acoustic weapons, over in Philadelphia, that also failed,” Sarge went on. “The device was supposed to cause intense pain in the ear using a certain frequency of sound, but it actually attracted the Infected. They came in hundreds, destroyed the device and killed the unit that deployed it. Pointless.”

A pack of dogs yelped in the distance. Somebody, far away, fired an automatic weapon, setting off a brief, crisp flurry of gunfire that sounded like the crackle of firecrackers.

“None of the non-lethals worked,” Sarge added. “The only thing that can stop these motherfuckers is a rifle and the will to use it.”

The armored personnel carrier smashes into the abandoned traffic jam on squealing treads, its twenty-five tons shouldering aside a minivan and crushing the front of a sports car into metal pancake in seconds. The words boom stick are neatly stenciled in white paint on the side of the turret, near the gun barrel. The rig plows into a pair of Infected and flings them down the street in a fine red mist. The machine emerges from the intersection and grinds to a halt, its engine idling. The Bradley fills the street, flanked by stores topped by low-rise apartments. Using the vehicle’s periscopes, its three-man crew scans the bleak, shattered landscape visible through a smoky haze. The rain has stopped and the sun is shining again.

In the back, the survivors cringe and blink. Stopping is bad. They finger their weapons, paling, as Sarge wedges his way into the back and squats, sweating in his ACUs and helmet. The commander is a large man and makes the cramped passenger compartment appear even smaller. As always, he looks at Anne when he wants the civilians to do something. They appear to have some sort of unspoken agreement about the sharing of authority.

“Drugstore,” he says. “Once you’re out, it’s on the left.”

“Locked up?” says Anne.

“Not that we can see.”

“Any signs of forced entry?”

“The door looks fine and the windows are all intact.”

“No damage, then?”

“I saw no vandalism, no fire or water damage.”

“Cleaned out already?”

“No, that’s the thing. From what I could tell, there’s still some stuff on the shelves.”

Some of the survivors allow themselves to smile. The store has not been looted or damaged. They will be able to get supplies. Not everything they need, but something. Every useful item they can find is a puzzle piece that must be fitted with everything else.

“How many Infected on the street?”

“None living.”

“It’s worth the risk,” Anne says, and Sarge nods.

“Show time,” he says.

Ethan takes a deep breath to steel his nerves, fidgeting with his M4 carbine and trying to remember what Sarge told him to do if the weapon jams: slap the magazine, pull the bolt back, observe the firing chamber, release the bolt, tap it and squeeze off the next round. If a double-feed, detach the mag and drop the rounds. Assuming he has time to do all this while a swarm of Infected are racing hell for leather at him, shrieking their inhuman cries of recognition and rage.

He is certain that he is living on borrowed time and that one day he is going to be killed or Infected. He was a math teacher; he understands probabilities. Every day, just to live, he has to give it everything he has. If just once he is a little slow or takes a wrong turn or is in the wrong place at the wrong time, they will catch him. How many days can a man go on like that? Never be a little slow, never take a wrong turn, never be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

It is true that his body and mind are rising to the challenge. But while his body is dropping fat and becoming more toned, he often feels stabbing pains in his neck and back, especially after sitting in the Bradley for hours. The truth is he is a middle-aged man and not in very good shape. His mind similarly has sharpened, constantly vigilant for threats, completely purged of the pop culture nonsense and old petty worries that plagued the middle class in the Time Before. But the stress is slowly damaging his mind and steadily shaving time off of his lifespan. Ethan is rising to the challenge, but he does not know how long he can keep this up before he will finally break down.

In the end, he knows, the odds are stacked against survival. The Infected spread disease through violence. Possessed by their aggressive virus, they are meat puppets, totally expendable and intent only on finding new hosts. They drink from gutters and toilets. If they get hungry, they eat the dead. They have nothing to lose. They run through fire and bullets to reach their prey. If you are standing, they punch you. If you are down, they stomp you. When you stop fighting back, they bite you and infect you. The virus penetrates the blood through saliva in the bite, enters the central nervous system, and from there is mainlined into the brain, where it proliferates in the limbic system, producing rage. The virus is so strong, so virulent, it paralyzes you in seconds and takes total control in minutes.

And then you become one of them. In the beginning, there were not as many of them. Ethan never imagined how terrifying another human being could be in a world where all people had become predators or prey. Now the predators appear to outnumber the prey, as least in downtown Pittsburgh. Either that or, just as likely, the prey is hiding. The power has been out for days and it is already hard to imagine how people are living behind their locked doors and drawn shades without food or plumbing. In just a few more days, this city will be unlivable.

It is horrible to think that his students are out there, somewhere, hunting him.

“I’ll drop the ramp and then we’re going to move the rig about twenty meters down the street and park it in the first alley on the right,” Sarge tells them. “You’ll have to put your own eyes on the street. There are a lot of buildings, a lot of windows.”

The survivors not only have to watch out for the Infected, but also other survivors living in the neighborhood, who might be willing to fight to protect the store.

The cop, gnawing a wad of gum, says, “Sarge, we didn’t get a chance to tell you. We’re all sorry. You know, about what happened to your guys back there.”

The survivors nod in sympathy, but they are clearly uncomfortable. They are sorry they did not find the soldiers alive, partly because it would have been a relief to turn over responsibility for their safety to somebody more qualified. On the other hand, if they had found the soldiers alive, Sarge would probably have left them stranded, and gone off with his infantry to fight.

Sarge gives the cop a sharp glance. She blushes, stammering a little, and adds quickly, “If you need a friend, you can talk to me. That’s all.”

“I have no friends,” Sarge says. “All of my friends are dead.”

The ramp eases to the ground on whining hydraulics, flooding the compartment with sunshine and the harsh, acrid smell of burning chemicals.

The survivors exit the Bradley and fan out, establishing three hundred sixty-degree security as Sarge taught them to do. Anne says she will clear the store of Infected before the group enters. Wendy, the cop, says she will provide backup. Then the Kid insists on coming, but Anne tells him to stay and watch the street. They disappear into the store guns first.

The Kid grins, dressed up like something out of a reality show about teenage bounty hunters with his black T-shirt tucked into urban BDU pants, bullet-proof vest and SWAT cap. He chews on a toothpick as he peers through the close combat optic of his M4, scanning the street for Infected.

“Is the end of the world not killing you fast enough, Reverend?” he says.

Paul pauses while lighting a cigarette, then finishes and takes a drag. He sighs happily and picks up his shotgun, exhaling a long stream of smoke. “This makes the apocalypse just a little rosier for me,” he explains.

“Isn’t that God’s job?”

A shadow flickers across the Reverend’s face, but he says airily, “God sent us you, my boy.”

The Kid stops grinning. He is not sure, but he believes the old man just zinged him. He is easily zinged. Even the slightest remark makes him anxious, confused and angry. Oblivious, Paul takes another drag, then coughs into his fist. He has already forgotten the exchange. The Kid envies that kind of cool that comes with age. For the Kid, every interaction has enormous stakes.

“I hope it rains again, a really big rain, that washes all this shit into the gutter,” Paul says.

“Me, too, Rev,” the Kid says, admiring the thought.

Wendy appears at the door, giving the all-clear. The survivors enter the store and the Bradley promptly pulls away in a cloud of exhaust, crumpling another car like tin foil before staging an abrupt ninety-degree turn into a nearby alley.

Inside, Paul marches to the nearest secluded corner, drops his pants and craps loudly into a five-gallon bucket covered with a toilet seat, clutching a roll of toilet paper and finishing his cigarette. Next to him sits a bag of lime, which he will dump into the bucket to cover up the smell. The Kid envies the way the others can eliminate their waste so casually. He needs privacy to be able to go, but privacy is currently not a preferred survival trait. Privacy means clearing a room that might be occupied by the Infected, a move the others would consider an unnecessary risk. It means being vulnerable. And it involves the risk of being left behind if the group is forced to bug out.

Anne touches the Kid’s shoulder and tilts her head towards the door. She has chosen him to stand guard and be their lookout. He whines briefly but does what he is told, asking her to find him some batteries and candy. Oh, and a new toothbrush.

The survivors picked up the Kid three days ago. Cut off from the Bradley by a large swarm, they were saved by the sudden ring of an old metal wind-up alarm clock on the next block, which distracted the Infected long enough for them to escape. When they returned to the Bradley, they found the Kid there, grinning like the proverbial cat. He refused to give his real name, Todd Paulsen, because Todd Paulsen was a loser in high school suffering a grinding avalanche of petty humiliations. Todd Paulsen is dead; the Kid killed that loser himself. The apocalypse, for some, is turning out to be filled with second chances. The survivors were grateful and admired his ability to innovate. They invited him along and he accepted. Everybody else that he knew was dead or Infected. He felt safe alone and had done very well for himself but it wasn’t fun if nobody saw him doing it.

Growing up outside cliques, the Kid wondered what it would be like to be one of “us” instead of “them.” Even among this tight-knit tribe of survivors, he was the newcomer, and he thought he would have to endure some type of hazing, particularly since he was the youngest among them. But nobody cared, too occupied by their own survival. Then a magic thing happened. Two days ago, driving in the Bradley, Anne cleaned his glasses for him, a touching maternal gesture that made him feel like a full citizen of this group.

Last year, John Wheeler, a giant senior, picked him up in the cafeteria during study hall and dangled him over a garbage can in front of forty other students who watched with a mixture of tension, schadenfreude and blunt relief that Wheeler was not doing it to them. The trick was always to stay in the middle of the herd. The trick was never to stand out. They were good at that. But with his good grades and clumsy adolescent skinniness, Todd Paulsen stood out. The teachers called him smart and some of the other kids hated him for it. Then other kids hated him, too, without knowing why, just to be safe.

John Wheeler fell down during the Screaming and that means he is one of the Infected. Many of the kids who were in study hall that day, the ones who cheered and the ones who did nothing out of fear, are either dead or controlled by the virus. For all the Kid knows, he is the sole surviving witness of what happened to Todd Paulsen during those terrible five minutes. And yet he cannot stop reliving it just as he cannot stop reliving all of his other minor humiliations. It is easier to shed your name than your baggage.

He wishes they were all alive just so they could see him now: The Kid, driving with a group of adults armed to the teeth, fighting his way through an apocalyptic wasteland. They would absolve him of his humiliations with their admiration and respect. They would know that they would never be able to fuck with him again because this time, he has a gun.

Wendy finds some plastic bags at the cashier and hands them to the others. Panic buying cleared most of the shelves before Infection put an end to consumerism, but there are still useful things here. Wendy discovers a squashed plastic container filled with packages of beef jerky on the floor behind the open register, a great find. Some idiot rifled the register for its cash but left food on the floor. It goes into her bag. She finds a full pack of matches, large bag of salt, children’s vitamins, scotch tape, mosquito repellent, box of condoms and bottle of sunscreen. It all goes into the bag. She finds a bottle opener, which she puts into her pocket. A pack of Bazooka gum, which she immediately tears open with pleasure, spitting out her old wad of gum from her aching jaws and popping in a fresh piece. She finds a box of tampons and displays it like a trophy to Anne, who merely nods and moves on, scooping cans off of the floor.

Ethan pauses in one aisle and picks up a three-subject spiral-bound notebook. He turns the blank pages, leaving dirty fingerprints, as if skimming an old love letter. He brings the book to his face and breathes deep. When he lowers it, Wendy sees tears streaming down his face.

“You okay, Ethan?”

“No,” he says. “I mean yes.”

She reaches out to touch his shoulder, but suddenly cancels the gesture. Leaders in a crisis are not tender. Leaders in a crisis are strong. She has to be strong.

He adds, “Where would you begin to solve for x. I remember now where we left off.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?” she says.

“Yes. Sometimes I forget where I am. I’m fine now.”

“Why don’t you go see if you can find something worth taking in the pharmacy?” she says. “Especially tranquilizers and sleeping pills. Prazosin for the bad dreams. Look for vitamins, gauze, antibiotics, swabs, Benadryl, Ibuprofen—hell, anything that looks useful.”

“All right.”

Wendy still considers herself a cop, which is why she still wears her uniform and in particular her badge. To her, symbols matter, especially in a time of crisis. The other survivors agreed at first, looking to her as an authority figure, but not anymore. To them, she is a valuable member of the team but otherwise just another refugee, no different than them. She cannot understand why they put so much trust in Anne when she fights even harder and takes even bigger risks for the group. Wendy just wants to help. To serve and protect. The fact is a lot of cops died back at the station so that she can go on doing her job. She owes a debt to the dead.

They have witnessed the end of the world one horrible scene at a time, each as potent as the last. Pillars of smoke rising from burning communities. The sprawling wreckage of a crashed 727 scattered for miles along the Parkway among blackened, half-melted cars driven by charred skeletons. The Infected feeding on the dead. Screaming on the radio instead of music and commercials. For Wendy, the most crushing thing she has seen is all of the abandoned police cars once manned by people sworn to protect life and property, but now swept away in the violence. The breaking of the Thin Blue Line signaled the collapse of law and order. It means every man for himself. The Infected took only minutes to virtually wipe out her entire precinct. The other cops saved her life, which now she must earn.

Strangely, the uniform probably extended her lifespan. The survivors all wear dark colors, various shades of black, tan and gray. Paul wears his black clerical suit with its white collar, for example. They are sharp, they are the best of what is left, but they are largely here by accident. In the early days of Infection, they would spill out of the Bradley and the Infected would rush straight at anybody wearing bright colors. Red excites them most. And everybody who wore red died or became Infected. Those wearing orange and yellow and green were next. It was Philip who figured this out, the corporate executive dressed in a grimy black suit and gray tie, that they were all alive because they picked the right clothes the morning the slaughter began.

“There’s something coming,” the Kid cries out from the door.

They hear a low rumble they can feel as a subtle vibration in their feet. The survivors gather around the Kid. Anne increases the magnification on her scope and aims the rifle down the street. The sense of vibration migrates up to their knees.

“It’s a tank,” she says in wonder, lowering the rifle. “A really big tank. Coming fast.”

The tank smashes through an abandoned police barricade, scattering garbage and rats, now close enough for the survivors to take in the scratched and blood-spattered composite armor and massive barrel of the tank gun. They feel the roar of the engine deep in their chests. The treads shriek like a massive bird of prey.

“Um,” says Ethan, frowning.

“That’s an M1 Abrams,” the Kid says, filled with admiration.

“Does that mean the government is still functioning?” Paul asks.

“I think we might be saved, folks,” Wendy says, grinning.

“Get down,” says Ethan.

“Hey,” the cop calls out, waving her warms. “We’re in here!”

Their teeth are vibrating. Bottles of household cleaner topple off of the shelves. The windowpanes rattle in their frames. The dust dances on the asphalt. The tank’s turret swivels, aiming its massive gun directly at the store.

“GET DOWN!”

The tank’s machine gun fires a series of short, staccato bursts. The survivors throw themselves onto the floor as bullets crash through the windows, puncture shelving and products, and clatter against the far walls.

Dot-a-dot dot-a-dot dot-a-dot

“Stop shooting at us!” Ethan screams.

Wendy buries her face in her arms, listening to the bullets rip the air, destroying everything in their path. It sounds like somebody rattling screws and pieces of glass in a metal can next to her ear. Pieces of plastic and cardboard rain on her like confetti. Then the firing stops.

“Is everybody all right?” she calls out.

The tank turns onto their street and roars by the store on its steel-clad treads. The ground shakes. Shards of glass from the broken windows tinkle to the floor. The air is thick with glittering dust and particles.

“Everybody stay down,” she says.

Wendy stands and creeps to the door, where she peers out at the rear of the tank, now already two blocks away, just in time to see small arms fire open up on it from apartment buildings on both sides of the street. A Molotov cocktail streams down from a third floor window, bursting on the rear of the tank and briefly setting it on fire. She flinches, wondering about her safety. Why are those people shooting at the tank?

The Abrams grinds to a halt in a cloud of dust, returning fire with its machine guns while its turret swivels and raises the main gun to aim at one of the apartment windows.

The tip of the 105-mm barrel erupts in a blinding flash. Wendy gasps and jerks her head away as the heat and light strike her with an almost physical force. The apartment building abruptly sneezes its contents onto the street in a massive explosion of wreckage and dust and swirling debris: plastic bags, gum wrappers, bits of foil, flaming clothing. Wendy catches a glimpse of people and furniture flying. The massive cloud of smoke ripples and seethes down the street, obscuring the tank from view and plunging the survivors into virtual darkness.

“What the hell is going on?” the Kid shouts, still on the floor.

“I don’t know,” Wendy answers.

“Change of plans, I think,” says Anne.

“Why is that?”

Anne replies, “That tank is going in the same direction we are.”

The atmosphere is still filled with soot and ash from fires burning in the city, making the sunset spectacular with lurid alien colors. The survivors camp for the night in a service garage at a car dealership. After clearing the building, they black out the windows with paint and make sure all of the doors and windows are locked up good and tight while ensuring proper ventilation for their cook stove. Every nook and cranny of the Bradley’s interior is filled with the tools of survival, which they carefully unload to establish their camp: flashlights and batteries, Coleman stove and propane tanks, waterproof matches, utensils, bedrolls and gallon jugs of water. They set out a chemical fire extinguisher and battery-operated carbon monoxide and fire detectors.

Cockroaches scuttle from the light into dark spaces. Empty cans, wrappers and rotting food litter the floor. Others have used the garage as a refuge before them, fellow nomads who left behind graffiti messages and photos of loved ones covering part of one wall. Paul and the Kid explore the wall with their flashlights. The light beams play across the photos of the dead and missing, smiling in happier times before Infection.

The survivors often have access to information such as the messages that others have scrawled on this wall in fear and boredom and need. As usual, almost none of it is useful.

“Do you think it’s true, Reverend?” the Kid says. “Are the Infected not people anymore?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do they even have souls? Or have they already crossed over?”

“I don’t know that either, Kid.”

“What are they, though? Are they still men? Or animals? Machines?”

This time, Paul does not answer. His flashlight illuminates the faces on the wall, some of whom are dead, others Infected. It is hard to say what they are, he thinks. Whatever they are, they are not human, but they are still our loved ones. We still love them, perhaps even more than before Infection. When somebody is gone, it is easy to remember only the good things about them. No wonder so many people can’t pull the trigger, and accept death or Infection themselves. When Sara came at me, I couldn’t do it either.

“Is killing them murder, Reverend?”

“No,” Paul says.

Ethan takes out his dead cell phone and stares at it intently, wishing it would ring, before returning it to his pocket. He thinks of Philip, sweaty and grimy, sitting in the back of the Bradley with his tie neatly knotted at his throat and his briefcase open on his lap. As the disaster unfolded, the businessman tried for days to call his broker to buy stock in home security and healthcare companies. He drooled over the killing he would make shorting the airlines. He saw home-based power generation as the next big thing. He speculated about pharmaceuticals and trucking and water and agribusiness. The other survivors listened politely, blinking.

Philip’s broker in New York would not answer the phone, making him steadily more anxious. Philip said economics was simply the study of who got the pie. Infection, like the Screaming, was just another economic shock creating new winners and losers, and those who could shift their investments from the losers to the winners quickly would earn the biggest return. But that required a broker who would answer his goddamn phone. It seemed particularly important to him that he convince Anne of his theories, but Anne would listen wearing the expression one usually brings out when rubbernecking a crash, and say nothing.

Philip started shouting into the dial tone, demanding share prices in Remington and Glock and Brinks. Then the grid failed and he lost his signal. He was cut off now and became quiet and morose. In Wilkinsburg, while picking through the ruins of a convenience store, he saw a copy of The Wall Street Journal with the wrong date, sat in the ashes, and let the Infected take him.

They found the dead man in a dark corner, his feet sticking out from under a tarp, which they now pull back to reveal a desiccated corpse sitting with its legs spread and the top half of its head exploded up the walls behind it. The corpse wears a brown uniform. This man was an employee of the Allegheny County sheriff’s office. His gun is missing. Somebody has taken his shoes.

Killed, or killed himself.

Wendy kneels next to the corpse and unpins the man’s star-shaped badge.

“What are you doing?” Sarge asks.

“Collecting dog tags,” she says tersely.

The soldier nods.

Anne approaches, her rifle slung over her shoulder, and tells them dinner will be ready in a few minutes.

“Does this place remind you of anywhere in particular?” Sarge says, watching her closely.

Anne looks around at the garage as if seeing it for the first time.

“I think I was born in a place like this,” she says.

Sarge nods.

She adds, “We need to talk about that tank.”

“We should have followed it,” Wendy says.

“The tank was going to the Children’s Hospital,” Sarge tells them. “Just like us.”

“An isolated unit, then,” Anne says, nodding. “Just trying to stay alive.”

“That tank was the first evidence of a functioning government we’ve seen in days,” Wendy cut in. “It was a patrol. We could try to find the base where it came from.”

“No,” Sarge says. “The tank has no base. It is going to the hospital to shell it. That tank is going to rain fire on it with every bomb and bullet it’s got.”

“That can’t be true.” Anne is at a loss for words, it’s so absurd. “Why?”

“Containment. They were ordered to do it. You have to admire the dedication even while you laugh at the stupidity. The hospital was overrun nine days ago and Infection has already spread far and wide. But just a few days ago the military shifted from containment using non-lethals to use of deadly force, so they ordered the hospitals, the source of Infection, to be attacked. The tank commander is only carrying out his orders, even if they came a week too late. Its infantry escort is gone now, its base has probably moved and every resentful shit-bird in the city is apparently trying to kill it, but that tank is going to complete its mission.”

“How sure are you about this?” asks Anne.

Sarge shrugs. “I know how the military has been responding. It fits.”

“So what do we do?” Wendy says.

“We find another hospital. Preferably one that isn’t being bombed.”

“There’s Holy Cross, across the river,” Anne offers.

“Which river?”

“The Monongahela. In the south.”

They have already previously decided that a hospital is the ideal place to settle for several reasons. First, few people would even think to enter one. They are taboo places. Charnel houses. Unclean. After the Screaming, the Infected were picked up from the ground one by one and brought to hospitals, but there was not enough room, so the government requisitioned schools, hotel ballrooms, indoor arenas and similar spaces to accommodate the millions who had fallen down. The hospitals were filled to overflowing. The screamers were stacked like cordwood in the corridors. So many people required care that medical students were handed licenses and retired healthcare workers were drafted. When the Infected woke up three days later, they slaughtered and infected these people, making the hospitals epicenters for death and disease.

The hospitals are rich in resources, however, and they are defendable. Specifically, they have medical supplies, food and water, lots of space and emergency power. And most of the Infected are long gone, compelled to search for fresh hosts for their virus.

Anne adds, “It’s worth the risk.”

The three nod. The group’s next move has been decided.

Wendy touches Anne’s elbow and motions her aside. The two women walk through the service garage, seeing everywhere the evidence of work abandoned suddenly by the mechanics.

“What branch did you serve in?” Wendy says.

Anne shakes her head almost imperceptibly.

“I appreciate your service,” Wendy continues. “But I am the highest civil authority here. It would help if you acknowledged me as such in front of the others.”

Anne regards the cop in the gloomy half-light from the camp’s LED lanterns.

Wendy clears her throat and adds, “We have to function as a team.”

“You know, I didn’t believe in evolution before,” Anne interrupts, inspecting a car muffler lying on the floor like the bone of a giant animal. “But now I do. We are natural selection in action. So many other people died because they wanted to die. They fought tooth and nail to survive but they didn’t want to live while everybody they knew and loved died or became Infected.”

“You’re talking about survivor’s guilt,” Wendy says, nodding.

“Yes. We all have it. The question is whether you’re going to let it kill you.”

Ethan calls out to them, telling them supper is ready.

Anne turns to go back, pausing to add, “You go on taking crazy risks like you have to prove your leadership, and you will let it kill you.”

Wendy stares at the woman for a moment, unable to speak.

“I’m just doing my job,” she says finally. “I’m responsible for these people.”

“That’s fine with me. I don’t care who’s in charge. I’m just trying to find refuge and help the group find it, too.”

“So you will acknowledge me then,” the cop presses.

“No,” says Anne.

Before the world ended, the cop woke up alone at five each morning in her small apartment in Penn Hills. She showered, ironed her uniform and wolfed down an energy bar. She put on her crisp short-sleeve black shirt over a clean white T-shirt, then stepped into her black pants. She attached her badge and pins before pulling on her bullet-proof vest and Batman belt.

She reported to work at six in the morning carrying a tall cup of coffee. After roll call, she started up her patrol car, told the dispatcher she was in service, and drove to her patrol territory. Most of the time, the dispatcher called her about dogs barking, suspicious characters walking through backyards or hanging around playgrounds, loud music and domestic violence. She pulled over speeders and drunks, wrote up accidents and graffiti, gave people lifts to the nearest service station when their cars broke down. She isolated crime scenes and canvassed homes for witnesses to murders. Every so often she did a “park and walk,” where she left her squad car and patrolled on foot for ninety minutes. Some days, she was so bored she could barely stay awake. Other days, so busy she ate nothing but donuts and Slim Jims. She watched other cops act aggressively to control every encounter, and tried to imitate that impersonal, in-your-face attitude. After several months on the job, she began to view most people as idiots who needed to be saved from themselves. She wrote tickets, threatened wife beaters, ate dinner in her car, waited for the next call on her radio. After a twelve-hour shift, if she did not have to work late, she went home.

Even though a large part of her job involved either cleaning up or eating other people’s shit, she was proud of being a police officer and loved her job. Then the world ended and she never felt so important or needed. A part of her rejoices in being a cop in a lawless world. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

The survivors share corned beef cooked on the Coleman stove with stewed tomatoes and served on paper plates on a hot bed of cooked brown rice, with canned pears for dessert. As much as they are sick of food out of cans and crave fresh fruit and vegetables, they wolf down their meal. The Kid feels a sudden piercing stab of regret as he realizes he will probably never eat Buffalo wings again. It is odd to focus on such a trivial thing when faced with so much loss but he realizes that he is going to have to mourn the lost world one little bit at a time.

After dinner, Paul lights a cigarette and smokes in silence while the others take turns having sponge baths behind a nearby car. Wendy, breathing angrily through her nose and holding back tears, gets the solar/crank radio working.

“—not a test,” a soothing, monotone, mildly British-sounding voice says. “This is the emergency broadcast network. This is not a test. Today’s Homeland Security threat level is red for severe risk. Remain indoors. Obey local authorities. Avoid individuals displaying suspicious or aggressive behavior.”

One by one, the survivors chime in with the announcer, almost chanting, “When encountering military units or law enforcement officials, place your hands on your head and approach them slowly and calmly. Do not take the law into your own hands. Respect life and private property—”

Sarge turns off the radio. “I think we can all agree that today was as bad as yesterday.”

They nod glumly.

“On the other hand, Sergeant,” Paul says, “I think we can also safely say that we’re all still here. I would consider that one for the win column.”

“Amen, Rev,” the Kid says.

Anne returns from her sponge bath and nudges the Kid’s shoulder.

“Here’s that new toothbrush.”

Outside, they hear the howl of the Infected and the tramp of hundreds of feet. Distant gunshots and screams. Then it is so quiet they can hear the blood rushing through their veins. In the dim light of a lantern, Ethan accepts a sleeping pill from Wendy and dry swallows it. He lies on his bedroll in a T-shirt and shorts and relives his last conversation with his wife and child, and then becomes groggy. His last coherent thought before falling into a deep sleep is a vague recollection of a Greek myth in which sleep and death are brothers.

His nightmares are exhausting trials of lurid colors and feelings, extremes of good and evil, and symbols of guilt. He finally dreams of a warm evening at home, his wife pink and happy in a cherry bathrobe, holding their daughter on her lap in a rocking chair next to the toddler bed. The familiar ritual of getting ready for sleep. But the walls turn dark and sooty with ash and cluttered with graffiti tags and photos of missing children. A bullet hole appears in the window behind his wife’s head. She is still smiling as she smells her daughter’s hair, but her face has turned gray, her mouth and chin stained black. His little girl is not moving. He does not know if she is breathing.

His wife licks the back of her head, as if grooming her. As if tasting her.