The survivors enter the gift shop guns first, clearing it the way Sarge taught them—fanning out along the walls and circling back to the door.
“Clear,” they sound off, then start looting.
Ethan is again struck by the sensation that the world has become a giant museum dedicated to the day the world ended. The magazines and newspapers sitting in their racks still trumpet dramatic headlines about the Screaming. He runs his fingers over the greeting cards, pauses in front of a selection of stuffed animals and shiny balloons that proclaim it’s a boy! and feel better soon! and happy mother’s day!
Behind him, Wendy opens a dead refrigerator and begins emptying its bottled water and juices into cloth shopping bags packed onto a wheelchair, which they are using as a cart. Paul lights a cigarette with a tired sigh and sits on a stack of magazines. Todd scoops up candy and gum and shoves it into another bag. Anne prowls the other shelves with her flashlight, snatching up aspirin and nail clippers and deodorant.
Todd holds up his bag of candy, shakes it, and says, “Trick or treat.”
Ethan says, “Do you think they remember who they are?”
“You mean the Infected?” Todd says.
“Yes. Do you think their consciousness has been replaced, or that they are still trapped inside their bodies, forced to do things they don’t want to do by the virus?”
“I would hate to think they were still in there watching themselves attack people and being helpless to stop it,” Wendy says. “Either way, killing them is a mercy.”
“Maybe when the Infected dream, they remember who they are,” Todd says. “It would be nice to think that.” He quickly adds, “Or completely horrible.”
Ethan picks up a stuffed animal, squeezes it, and drops it to the floor. “I’m wondering if they still love us. If they recognize us and love us while they attack us even as we recognize them and love them while we kill them.”
Paul’s head jerks up and he stares at Ethan.
Anne says, “Nobody likes these questions.”
Paul says, “They’re the only questions worth asking.”
The door to the mechanical penthouse is locked. Sarge and the crew go out to the Bradley to recover the demolition kit, which contains a few blocks of C4 plastic explosive and detonators. They are going to cut and mold a wad of C4 onto the doorknob, stick a detonator into it, let the wires run out until they get to a safe place, trigger the detonator, and BOOM. The soldiers have a casual but deep appreciation for the stuff. You can throw it and kick it and it will not blow up on you. Light it on fire and it burns nice and slow and you can heat an MRE on it if the area is properly ventilated, as Sarge did many times in Afghanistan. Mold it wherever you want it to go in whatever shape you want it, pop in the detonators, and you can take down buildings.
They move quickly, rifles shouldered and aimed, communicating by hand signals only. Papers and loose trash flutter across the parking lot. The parking garage where they hid the rig under a tarp does not appear to be occupied, but swarms have a way of appearing as suddenly as a flash flood. They are used to playing it safe. Caution is now second nature to them.
Once they are back in the hospital, the soldiers begin to relax a little.
“Are we safe here, Sergeant?” Duck says. “In this building?”
“Safe enough at this moment.” This is Sarge’s stock answer to that question. He credits staying alive and sane this long with taking this hellish journey one day at a time. One moment at a time. Speculating about what you do not know is a waste of time and energy that you need to stay alive.
“I mean, are we going to stay a while?”
They begin climbing the stairs. Sarge shrugs and says, “I think we should. It’s a good place.”
“I thought the idea was we would train a civilian combat team and use them as security until we found some friendlies.”
“That’s still the plan, Ducky.”
“The civs seems to think we’re going to live here.”
“Yes, we are still trying to find the Army,” Sarge says. “No, we do not need to advertise this fact to the civilians. Do you even know where the nearest friendlies are? Because I sure as hell do not. Our battalion technically does not exist anymore. We’ve heard nothing on the net in days.”
The soldiers reach the top floor and pause to catch their breath. The gunner drops to one knee and starts rigging the C4 charge.
“There’s always the camps,” Steve says as he works. “The FEMA camps. The closest one is in Ohio, right?”
“Which we do not even know still exist, Steve. If they ever did. We’ve heard of lots of refugee camps and Army elements that either moved by the time we showed up or were never there in the first place. I am not interested in risking our safety for any rumors, especially if it means driving all over Ohio on a quarter tank of gas.”
“Hey, I’m with you. I’d like to stay. I wouldn’t mind if we bunkered down here until the whole thing blows over. Let the gung ho mo-fo’s take care of it.”
“I don’t want to stay here forever. The Army is out there still fighting somewhere and we’ve got to find them and help. But these people need a rest. We need a rest.”
“Roger that,” Steve says.
“I look at it this way,” Ducky says as they retreat down the stairwell. “Every hour we sit here, more people die that we could be helping. So how long are we staying if we are staying?”
“At least a few days,” Sarge says. “A lot can change in a few days. We are still taking this one day at a time.” He remembers what the Boy Scouts taught him about having the right frame of mind for survivaclass="underline" Stop, think, observe and plan, or STOP.
“What if we decide to move on but the civs want to stay?”
“I do not know, Ducky. I honestly do not. They’re not in the Army.”
“Fire in the hole!” Steve announces. The soldiers crouch and plug their ears.
The C4 explodes with a clap of metallic thunder that rolls down the stairwell, followed by a wave of smoke and dust and a strong chemical smell. The warped metal door hangs on one of its hinges, then snaps off and flops to the side.
The soldiers stand and dust themselves off.
“The truth is we really need them,” Sarge says. “They’ve gotten good.” He smiles grimly. “In fact, I would hate to piss them off.”
God is good, and death is evil, so why does God allow people to die? That was a question Paul had never been able to answer during his ministry. When he was ten years old, a plane crashed, scattering burning metal and body parts across miles of scorched and bruised earth, killing more than two hundred people, including his mother. He experienced the full gamut of grief, from denial to anger to bargaining to guilt. The guilt was the worst. He had been asleep when she left for the trip and it haunted him that she could be taken away so suddenly, without even a final goodbye. By the time he reached the acceptance phase, he had aged beyond his years. He had aged beyond his years because he had become aware of death and the fragility of life.
A minister came to the house frequently in the weeks following the crash, offering consolation to Paul and his father.
“If God loved my mom, why did he let her die?” Paul asked him.
“I don’t know,” the minister said. “What I do know is that it was her time to cross over.”
“To Heaven?”
“To be with God, who made her. Your mother did not die. She underwent a transition. It is painful that you will have to wait to see her again. But you will see her again.”
Paul wrestled with his next question, feeling insecure about asking it.