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.