The machete had cut deep into the window frame. Demonface had to wrench it free, a tricky thing to do while also controlling his motorcycle. The blade came loose, but the bike skidded across the road, falling back a full car length.
Whitman took the on-ramp at high speed, leaning into the curve as the van reared up on two wheels, then fell back on its suspension with a sickening crunch. Up ahead the road stretched out straight and clear forever, six lanes wide and completely empty. Even the road surface was in better shape, with barely a pothole to be seen.
Behind them the bikes came roaring up the ramp, seven of them riding in formation. Whitman saw their leader riding up front, a guy in a leather jacket with deer antlers sewn up and down the arms. Demonface was right next to him.
Even as he watched, Demonface poured on the speed and surged ahead, clutching his machete across his handlebars. He was coming in for another attack.
In the back, Bob kept screaming. The kid hadn’t said a word all night, literally not one word. Now he wouldn’t shut up.
Demonface came up alongside the van again. Whitman could see him grow huge in his wing mirror. He was grinning, his own white teeth visible inside the demon’s row of fangs.
“Give me —” Whitman started to say, but he didn’t get a chance to finish.
Demonface was riding right next to him, at his window, machete in hand. Then Grace leaned across Whitman’s body, obscuring his view.
She pointed the revolver right at the bastard’s face and pulled the trigger.
The noise and the flash of light rendered Whitman senseless. He tried to hold the wheel straight, but his head was full of smoke. Grace dropped the revolver in his lap, and he felt the hot barrel graze his knee.
He fought to recover, to see again at least — his hearing would be gone for a while, he knew. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes and finally got a bleary view of the road ahead. He straightened out the van before it could plunge into the concrete median strip.
Then he looked back and saw the bikers falling away, slowing down and letting the van rush forward and away from them.
Demonface’s bike was still sliding over the road, its wheels racing as it clattered to a stop. The biker himself lay motionless on the blacktop, one arm twisted over his head.
A month ago — ten years after the Crisis began, shortly after the world ended. Time didn’t mean what it used to.
There was music in the trees. Softly playing, patriotic songs. The trees were fake. The music was there to cut the silence.
A mile underground, seven hundred miles away. States between then and now, trackless lengths of wasteland and wilderness. Distances were so much longer than they had been.
Whitman dozed on a comfortable wooden bench, waiting his turn. Overhead, something that felt like the sun burned down on his face. Except, of course, it wasn’t the sun. It was a bank of floodlights high in the bunker roof.
They had moved Washington underground. The vaults below the capital had been built long before, built to withstand a nuclear apocalypse. More than safe enough for this particular Crisis. They’d brought down everything they needed, food and water and a nuclear generator. Staffers and pages and clerks. The business of government had to continue — somebody had to be in charge.
“They’re ready for you, Mr. Whitman,” a page said, a young woman in a blazer and a modest tweed skirt. She smiled at him when he opened his eyes.
He stood up — a little too fast. He heard movement behind him, rubber-soled boots squeaking on simulated flagstones. The jangling sound of an assault rifle being unlimbered from its strap.
He turned and looked behind him. The soldier there never smiled. He did his best to stay out of Whitman’s line of sight, but he was always there. Everywhere Whitman went in the Washington bunkers — to the bathroom, when he slept — the guard was there, because Whitman had a tattoo of a plus sign on the back of his hand.
There was no test for the prion disease that turned people into zombies. No symptoms to warn you when it was coming. It could incubate in your head for twenty years and then just one day, out of the blue, you would snap. Your eyes would fill with blood. You would forget your name; you would attack any living thing you saw.
Or — you could be perfectly fine. You could be completely clean, live out your whole natural life and never succumb. You just never knew. Once you had the tattoo on your left hand, it didn’t matter.
The guard followed Whitman as he walked down toward the Capitol dome. Not as nice as the old one, the above-ground one, he thought. This dome was made of concrete and wasn’t even painted. It was designed to survive even if the entire bunker came crashing down around it, a million tons of rock.
Inside, it looked much like the old Senate floor. Rows of desks turned inward toward a big podium. The desks were empty today, but five senators sat at the podium. Whitman recognized three of them. The other two were very, very young.
One of them, a man with white hair and gold-rimmed glasses perched on top of his head, had his own honor guard. A soldier stood behind him with an assault rifle, waiting. The senator had a plus sign on his hand just like Whitman’s. Apparently no matter how powerful you might be, the tattoo still made people nervous. A great democratizer, that tattoo.
A table stood in front of the podium, covered in loose papers and manila folders and two microphones on flexible stalks like the eyes of a crab. Two men were already sitting there. One of them — the lawyer assigned to Whitman’s defense — stared at the floor, his mouth a set line. Whitman had seen plenty of people like that. People who survived the Crisis but couldn’t handle what came next. People who couldn’t forget what they’d seen.
The other man turned as Whitman approached. Whitman couldn’t help but be surprised. It was Director Philips, Whitman’s old boss at the CDC. He’d heard the man had killed himself.
Pink scar tissue covered one side of Philips’ head. His ear was missing. Aha, Whitman thought. He had enough medical training to recognize a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So Philips had tried to kill himself — tried and failed.
Whitman could sympathize. He’d tried lots of things in his life, and failed. Now he was going to get to tell a select committee how badly he’d fucked up.
He was ready. He actually wanted this.
It meant closure.
Whitman stood on the gritty shoulder of the road, keeping one eye on the trees twenty yards away. There could be zombies out there. But he had to check the van, make sure it wasn’t going to conk out at the worst possible moment.
The painted government seal on the driver’s side door was scratched to hell, and his window was a complete loss. The tires seemed alright, though, and when he bent low to look at the undercarriage, he found only a few dents and scrapes.
They’d been lucky. As fast as he’d been driving over those rough roads, they could’ve cracked an axle.
When he straightened up, he nearly jumped out of his shoes. A figure with long stringy hair was walking toward him. It was only Grace, though.
“I told you to stay in the car,” he said.
She shrugged, then nodded at Bob sitting in the back seat. The kid was still screaming, though he’d grown hoarse and it wasn’t quite as deafening.
“I’m not like him,” Grace said.