“No, said Nix, “that’s not how it is. We saw maybe fifty or sixty people killed in that fight, and at least six or seven of them didn’t reanimate. That’s more like ten percent.”
“Then there must be a higher concentration of the Brucella suis bacteria in certain places. Again, count yourselves lucky. In most places the concentration is very low, and the bacteria won’t even grow in certain climates. Just be happy that your brother caught a break.”
“He still died.”
“Everybody dies,” said the scientist.
“What about someone who’s infected but not dead?” asked Lilah again. “Would Archangel save them or kill them?”
McReady straightened. “Why do you ask?”
The grief and fear in Lilah’s face was almost too much for Benny to look at.
Lilah said, “My… I mean, Chong… the… boy I… love is infected.”
“How did it happen?”
“Kid was shot with an arrow dipped in walker flesh,” said Joe.
“How long ago?”
“Little over a month.”
“But — he should be dead.” Then McReady nodded. “He’s at Sanctuary, isn’t he? Joe, you said they have everything except the D-series?”
“Yes.”
“Then they definitely have the metabolic stabilizer.”
“Yes. They used it on him.”
“On Chong,” said Lilah. “His name is Chong. They gave him injections.”
“Is he conscious?” she asked. “Do you know what his vitals are? What’s his core temperature? Has it gone below ninety-six? Does he have a—?”
“We don’t know,” barked Lilah as tears boiled from the corners of her eyes. “He’s sick. He’s lost and he doesn’t know me. My town boy doesn’t know me.”
Nix hurried over to her and put her arm around the Lost Girl’s shoulder.
“Is there any hope for him?” asked Benny. “Any at all?”
Dr. McReady looked at him for a long time before she answered. The only sounds were Grimm’s panting breaths and Lilah’s sobs.
“Yes,” said McReady, “there’s definitely hope.”
Everyone stiffened; every eye was on her.
Dr. McReady undid the fastenings on the sides of the hazmat suit and let it puddle around her feet. She wore a sweat-stained T-shirt and shorts. Her bare arms and legs were as ashy pale as her face. She turned her leg to show a long, jagged scar. It was curved, top and bottom.
It was the distinctive scar of a bite.
“When the reapers let the infected boars in here,” she said slowly, “I was bitten on the calf. Dick Price got the stabilizer into me, and then I dosed myself with Archangel. First human test subject, didn’t have a choice.”
“God…,” breathed Nix.
“Archangel… worked?” whispered Lilah. “You’re cured.”
Dr. Monica McReady smiled. It was a strange smile, made stranger by her unnaturally pale skin.
“I take two pills twice a day, every day, and I probably will for the rest of my life. But… at least I have a life.” She pointed to the bags. “If you can get me to Sanctuary, I can save Mr. Chong.”
CHAPTER 73
They wasted no time.
Benny, Nix, and Lilah loaded metal carts with boxes of the mutagen and bags of the Archangel capsules. They were all very careful, but they worked extremely fast. While they worked, Joe accompanied McReady to help her pack her latest research notes, a computer laptop, and other crucial supplies.
They rolled the carts through the hole blasted in the wall and formed a three-link chain to pass the boxes and bags into the Black Hawk. They were only half-finished when Joe and McReady came running out.
“That’s enough,” yelled Joe. “Get in. We’ll come back for the rest. Let’s go, go, go.”
They didn’t need any urging. Dr. McReady took the copilot seat, and Joe fired up the Black Hawk’s engines. Moments later Zabriskie Point was dwindling behind them. They turned and shot through the darkening skies toward Sanctuary.
Benny and Nix sat on either side of Lilah, each of them holding one of her hands. Her grip was like iron, her face set into a strange, hard smile that was more death mask than anything. The weeks of impenetrable coldness she’d endured had taken a terrible toll on Lilah. During those weeks she’d hardly spoken, barely communicated. Instead of letting Nix and Benny in so they could help her through her pain and grief, she’d closed everything out. Benny knew that she was a practiced hand at eating her pain and pasting on a face of unflappable stoicism, but now a force had come along that was more powerful and dangerous than any enemy Lilah had ever faced. And it was a force over which she had no power.
Hope.
The possibility that Archangel could bring Chong back to her was almost more than Lilah could handle. Tears flowed steadily down her cheeks. They gleamed like hot mercury on her tanned face. Her breathing was ragged and fast, like a sprinter, or like a cornered feral animal whose only option was to destroy everything — even herself.
Hope, Benny knew, was a terrible double-edged thing.
“Lilah,” he said softly, “it’s going to be—”
“Shut up or I’ll kill you,” she said through gritted teeth.
Benny had no doubt at all that she meant it.
He shut up.
But he never let go of her hand.
The Black Hawk slashed through the last pale streamers of sunlight, heading at full speed to the darkness in the east.
Toward Sanctuary.
Toward Chong.
CHAPTER 74
Joe Ledger’s voice boomed at them through the loudspeakers.
“Get up here right now!”
They tore themselves out of their straps and crowded into the cockpit door.
“What’s wrong?” demanded Lilah.
Joe pointed. Deep lines of tension were cut in his skin, and his eyes were filled with horror. The east was a vast black nothing where the land and the sky were indistinguishable from each other. Except at one spot, miles and miles away.
A red-gold glow was painted onto the horizon.
“What is that?” asked Nix.
Joe’s voice was a tight whisper. “That’s Sanctuary.”
They stared at the light. With every moment, with every mile the light grew brighter and brighter. They knew that they were still far away, which meant that a glow like that could never come from a small fire.
“No…,” said Nix in a small and hollow voice.
A single, wrenching, shattered sob broke in Lilah’s chest.
Benny felt as if he was falling through space, as if a hole had opened in the bottom of the helicopter. His heart tore loose from its moorings and sank into the darkness.
There, far away across the gulf of a nightmare landscape, Sanctuary was burning.
PART THREE
THE TRUTH IN DISTANT PLACES
I dislike death, however, there are some things I dislike more than death.
Therefore, there are times when I will not avoid danger.
CHAPTER 75
The Black Hawk flew into hell itself.
The scene below could have belonged in no other place.
The main gates of Sanctuary hung open, the gate patrol cut to pieces. Most of the hangars were ablaze. Fire and smoke curled hundreds of feet into the air. The bridge was down, and steady streams of zoms poured across.
Not walked, not shambled, but ran.
Tens of thousands of them were already across. Some of the monks ran from them. Some had formed defensive lines between the hordes of the dead and the entrances to the hospice hangars, but they had no weapons. Some held mattresses and metal-framed cots in front of them in the desperate hope of fending off the dead and protecting the helpless; but as Benny and the others watched in abject horror, the R3 zoms tore these things out of the monks’ hands and dragged the screaming Children of God down.