Tommy watched a young blond woman, who might have been attractive once, stagger past. Her skin was blotchy and swollen. Bugs crawled up her neck. A pair of bloody panties was still clinging around one ankle. It didn’t take much imagination to see how Tommy and Grace would be transformed, and how they would become a slave to the virus.
Tommy whispered to Grace, “We’re gonna play a game, okay? We’re gonna be as quiet as we can, okay? Remember that movie where the girl went sneaking around her house, ’cause she didn’t want to get caught? That’s us, baby. We’re gonna be quiet, right?”
Grace nodded.
Tommy held her tight and breathed into her ear, “Good girl.” He eased over the sandbags and moved slowly toward City Hall. As long as they were quiet and kept their distance, it didn’t even appear that the infected even saw them. It didn’t look like they could see much beyond their own agony anyway.
Tommy crouched next to the stage and looked for the square, heavy packets the soldiers had taken earlier. There, up near the podium. Tommy set Grace down and said, “Okay, little girl. You climb under there for just a minute and hide. I’m going up on top of this just for a minute and I can’t crawl and carry you. I just gotta grab these two important things, and I’ll be right back. You stay still. And quiet.”
Grace nodded, putting her finger to her lips. Tommy kissed her forehead and wriggled across the stage. He had one packet and was reaching for the second when he heard Grace scream.
In the street behind him, not ten feet from where Grace hid, one of the soldiers from the subways dropped to his knees and pulled out a knife out of his belt. He must have been freshly infected and the awful itching was upon him. Weeping, he twisted the blade across his skull, sawing it back and forth in a desperate effort to satiate the horrible sensation. His sobbing rose into a moan and he drove the knife blade into his armpit, scraping it back and forth.
She watched this, couldn’t hold back the terror, and screamed.
Before Tommy knew what was even happening, one of the infected was already on his knees, crawling under the stage to reach Grace. She screamed even louder. The infected, a middle-aged man in a suit, stretched out and clawed at the girl. Bugs flitted across his face, wiggling in and out of his ears and collar. They covered his back and spilled out of his shoes.
Tommy scrabbled back across the stage, realizing that he wouldn’t make it in time.
Suddenly, Qween was there, grabbing the man’s ankles and dragging him away. She pulled him across the pavement, dropped his legs, and tried to catch her breath as he howled at her and rolled over. She kicked him in the head, avoiding the bugs that spilled off of him.
But she wasn’t fast enough to avoid the bug that latched onto the back of her hand. And by the time she spotted it in the flickering light from the flames across the plaza, it was too late. The thing had already driven its proboscis into her skin and was drinking her blood when she smashed it with her thumb. She flicked it into the street.
She tucked the thoughts and panic away and let her eyes go soft. She knelt and peered under the stage at Grace. “Now, now, baby girl, don’t fret none. Miss Qween is here, and nothin’s gonna hurt you.”
Tommy rolled off the stage and met Qween’s eyes. “Thank you.”
Qween waved it away. “Hush.”
Ed stepped close, assault rifle tight in his fists. “Didn’t want to use the rifle,” he whispered. “Too many—”
His words were drowned out by the roar of one of the Apaches as it came in low, driving a turbulent wind down Clark. It blasted them with the searchlight, and as Ed spun and looked back across the plaza, he could see every infected’s head swivel and lock onto the light, as if it was a beacon where they could find relief and exorcise the crippling rage that scurried through their minds.
Ed fired up at the light, superior firepower be damned. The rifle spit empty shells across the stage and his crouching companions as he followed the light. “Run,” he yelled, and fired again.
Tommy and Qween scrambled to their feet and ran to City Hall. Tommy had Grace on his hip again and carried the two square packets with his other hand. Ed followed, firing blindly over his shoulder. They pushed through the spinning doors and stumbled up the dark hallway.
Tommy and Qween stopped to rest, but Ed pushed them along. “No, no. Run! Run!”
Behind them, the doors exploded. The moratorium against killing Tommy was over, and the Apaches were itching to unleash a barrage of Hellfire missiles. The building shook as more missiles streaked down and transformed the east side of City Hall into smoking rubble.
Ed, Qween, and Tommy ran until they stood in the nexus of the four hallways, smack in the dead center of the building. Even before the smoke had cleared down the east hallway, they could hear the infected throwing themselves against the wreckage of the door, clawing their way through the chunks of concrete and the mangled remains of the spinning door.
More explosions.
Ed said, “They’re gonna bring this whole building down around us if we don’t figure out something fast.”
Qween said, “Let’s sneak out down there.” She nodded at the south hallway. “Gotta be a truck or something, something that still has the keys inside, like Sam’s bus. Fuck it. Drive that sucker to the lake.”
Ed shook his head. “They’ve got infrared. Doesn’t matter how dark it is out there. We wouldn’t make it five feet.”
“I got an idea. But it won’t work for all of us.” Tommy looked from Ed to Qween. “We go deep, into the tunnels,” he said. “That was my idea from the beginning. That’s why I grabbed these.” He held up one of the packets and opened it. A hazmat suit, complete with a helmet and air filter, had been vacuum sealed inside. “These will keep the bugs out. But I’ve only got two.”
Ed fingered the tears in his own hazmat suit. “Hell, we need four. Them bugs’ll crawl right inside.” He shook his head. “Maybe we can go a short distance. I can try and keep ’em off.”
“That’s how we gonna get out of here,” Qween said. “We’ll go down into the subway and come up on the other side of the street.”
“We don’t have enough suits,” Tommy said.
Qween gave a tired smile. “It’s okay. I ain’t fitting in one a’ them things anyhow.” She held up her hand and the look on her face was enough to tell them that she was already bitten.
“We’ll split up then,” Ed said. “Me and Qween will take the subway and come out across the street. If they don’t see us, then I’ll call Arturo soon as we get a chance. If they spot us, we’ll draw them off you.”
Tommy shook his head. “Won’t matter. I’m going deep. Gonna head down, go under the river, come up into the storm drains on the other side.”
Ed thought a moment and nodded. “Fair enough. But don’t waste time. I got a feeling that sonofabitch ain’t gonna be satisfied by just watching those choppers shoot the shit out of City Hall. I bet he’s got something else up his sleeve.”
Tommy unfurled one of the hazmat suits and climbed inside. Ed and Qween helped Grace climb into hers. It was huge on her; her arms and legs barely reached the elbows and knees of the suit. “Doesn’t matter,” Tommy said. “Seal her in. Got an idea.”
Once his own suit was completely sealed, he leaned over Grace and said, “Okay, little girl. Ready to go for a ride? Pull your arms and legs in and sit Indian style, okay?” Grace did. Tommy took the empty arms of her suit and lifted her onto his back, pulling the left arm over his shoulder and the right arm under his right armpit. Ed saw where he was going and tied the arms together across his chest, then pulled the empty legs around Tommy’s hips and tied them.