Wait.
There.
Forty feet ahead, a piece of blackened cinderblock shifted.
Thank you, God.
He sited up the movement, felt his heart starting to beat a little faster now. No headshot this time. Not even center mass. He was going to savor this one. Take it slow, start low, work his way up the legs, do the knees one at a time.
Now several pieces of cinderblock were thrown aside and a creature slowly came to its feet.
Rogers smiled.
Can't believe they pay me to do this shit.
He aimed at one of the feet as the monster started toward him across the rubble, and his finger has just begun to ease back on the trigger when he stopped.
This thing didn't move like those monsters.
It wore blue scrubs, partly singed, but it moved...like a man. An uninfected man.
"Don't shoot!" the man said as he approached, his hands lifted.
"Stop right fucking there!" Rogers screamed.
The man stopped. "I'm not one of them. I swear to--"
"Don't matter."
"I'm one of the few survivors of this massacre, soldier. I would imagine you have some people who need treatment. I am a doctor here." He glanced back at what was left of Blessed Crucifixion. "Or I used to be."
Rogers finger twitched. All he could think about were Halford's orders.
Shoot anything that tries to crawl out, I don't give a good goddamn if it's your mother, mow that bitch down.
He signed up to do some killing, for fucking sure, even killed some civvies in Iraqistan, but those had all been accidents. Dumbasses reaching for a cell phone at the wrong time, buenas noches, muthafucker.
"Come closer," Rogers said.
The doctor stepped into the illumination of the spotlight mounted to the roof beside the 50 cal.
He was scratched up all to hell. Young doctor, too. Thirty-one, thirty-two tops.
"What's your name?" Rogers asked.
"Dr. Cook. Look, it's an infection spread by biting. I'm not bitten anywhere."
Dr. Cook lifted his hands, turning in a slow circle.
I should just fucking put two rounds through his chest right now and call it good. If Halford finds out I let someone through, I'm in for a serious ass-fucking.
Rogers was about to let the gun eat the unlucky doc up, but those damn TV folks from the helicopter, with the damn kids and their damn camera, came running up. Then the damn pilot handed the damn doctor a baby.
Shit. Live on Channel 6, lone soldier massacres seven civvies. After the networks and CNN got tired of it, the clip would be on YouTube forever.
Rogers flicked on the safety.
"Getcher ass behind the perimeter line," Rogers said, "By the trailer in the lot."
"Sure thing, and thank you...what was your name?"
"Doesn't matter. Fact, don't even tell them you talked to me. I'm supposed to kill anything that moves."
"What about serve and protect?"
"That's the police, brother. Marines just break shit."
The doctor smiled. "I won't breathe a word."
Then Dr. Cook led the group through the Humvee's headlights, heading for the perimeter. Rogers climbed off the mount. He had to piss. Another symptom of combat. Some reason, after a firefight, his bladder felt like it was the size of a grape.
He made sure the TV guys weren't taping him, then took three steps away from the hummer and unzipped, getting things going with a grunt, then streaming urine onto the grass.
He heard something behind him.
CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK...
Rogers spun, reaching for his sidearm, pulsing urine all over his boots.
He pointed the .45 toward the hummer but didn't see anything.
"Who's there?"
No answer. Not that the enemy would answer. Could those monsters even talk? Rogers didn't know, and didn't care. It wasn't his job to ask questions.
His piss had dwindled to a trickle. Rogers still had to go, but instead chose to check-in and await orders. He didn't like being out here alone, even armed to the teeth. But keeping a perimeter around five acres of property, coupled with their casualties, had stretched their unit thin. He holstered both of his weapons (this is my rifle, this is my gun, this is for fighting, this is for fun) climbed into his Humvee, and picked up the radio. Just as he pressed the button to talk, he heard the sound again.
CLICK CLICK CLICK...
But it was closer this time.
Closer, and coming from the back seat.
His eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror.
Staring back at him was one of those monsters, its face burned, some parts right down to the white bone beneath. One eye missing, pink goo dripping out. Sitting back there, click click clicking its horrible teeth as a rope of drool slid out of its jaws.
Rogers immediately reached for his .45, but the creature was on him before he cleared his holster, biting into his neck, so deep that Rogers felt its fangs dragging across his vertebrae.
The pain was instant, blinding, and, strangely, infuriating. Even as his blood gushed out and his vision faded to black, Rogers was royally pissed off that one of these things had gotten the drop on him. Two fucking tours in the Middle East, only to die in Colorado.
It was fucking embarrassing.
Rogers reached blindly for his utility belt, freeing an M67 frag grenade. He pulled the pin with a flick of his thumb, and it dropped it onto his lap just as his consciousness slipped away.
Semper fi, muthafucker.
Private Rogers never heard the explosion.
Deleted Joke
Joe says: Jeff deleted this joke that I inserted into one of Paul's scenes, in Dr. Lanz's POV, during the ER massacre in the beginning. He said that Lanz wasn't the type to think up a joke like this. He's right, and I was okay with cutting it. But I did cry for two days straight.
Dr. Lanz
"He bit his arm off, doc!" the bearded one said. "That animal bit his fucking arm off! And he bit me in the ass!"
As the pair struggled past, Lanz saw that the man's ample right buttock was missing a sizable chunk--mostly fat, but a little of the gluteus was exposed.
Talk about a half-assed injury.
Alternate Ending
Joe says: This was as close as we got to any outright disagreements while writing this. And I gotta give big props to FPW, because it was totally unfair to him. We established early on that we'd all have POV characters, and we could end up doing what we wanted with them. I met with Jeff in Florida and we discussed how the Jenny/Randall dynamic would end up--they were star crossed lovers, with Randall's love strong enough for him to fight for Jenny even after he became a dracula. I'd also discussed Adam and Stacie's fates with Blake, and since he grooves on nihilism and tragedy, he decided to go the tragic route.
Paul had free reign to do what he wanted with Shanna and Clay, though we'd all discussed letting Shanna live. Clay's fate, however, changed often during our email discussions. He lived and died and lived and died, back and forth, over and over. The problem was Clay turned out to be one of the most memorable, and likeable, characters in the book.
We all knew going into this that we wanted a Night of the Living Dead type of ending. So Paul did what each of us did--he killed his main character in a spectacular fashion.
But I really didn't want Clay to die. Paul had created such a fun character, and the rest of the climax was such a downer, that I really believed Clay should live.
Happily, Paul was big enough to allow it, even though it was uncool of me to be such a whining little bitch boy. We compromised with the new, happier ending that appears in the manuscript.