Guthrie, Yang and Cruz take the hint and file out blinking into the harsh sunlight. They are not curious to see what the others saw. They have already seen their share of bad things.
“My kids,” Noel says. He does not finish the sentence. He sobs once, wipes his eyes roughly, and turns to follow the others.
“There’s nothing we can do here,” Toby says. “Might as well get back on the road.”
“Hey, one’s alive!” Noel says.
Wendy puts her hand against his chest. “None of them are alive, Charlie. They’re all dead.”
“I saw one moving!” He aims his flashlight, but she steps in front of him, blocking his view.
“You saw a trick of the light. That’s it.”
“Just let me check. I need to be sure.”
“No. Go back to the rig. You don’t want to see a dead girl.”
“But you might be wrong,” Noel says, his eyes wild. He turns to Steve, his voice pleading. “I saw her move. I need to make sure she’s not still alive.”
“I’ll check,” Steve says. He turns on his flashlight, and just as quickly turns it off. “Wendy’s right, Charlie. The girl is dead. I’m sorry, man. Come on, I’ll go with you.”
Wendy listens to their footsteps echoing across the empty spaces. She turns to the body of the girl in the pink dress and watches her little face wink and nod in the dark. She knows the face is not moving.
The maggots are. Wendy can hear them rustling.
When she is sure Steve and Noel are gone, she covers her face with her hands and weeps.
♦
Toby wraps his arms around her, but it is not enough this time.
There is nothing here for them except death. They should get back to the Bradley, but Wendy lingers, staring at the blackened bodies of the children and wondering who they were before they were killed and left to rot here in this oversized tomb.
“Are you okay?” Toby whispers, but she does not respond.
Wiping her eyes, she wonders what kind of lives they might have had if they hadn’t died. If the school hadn’t reopened. If they hadn’t come to school that day. If they’d gone to a different school. If Infection had never happened.
So much life needlessly destroyed, like ants crushed by a giant’s foot.
Will I ever have children? she wonders. If I did, would they survive longer than these kids?
Would I one day be forced to tell them to face a wall with a gun in my hand?
“We should go,” Toby says.
I’m done with this fucking war. I mean it this time. I want out.
Shrugging out of his embrace, Wendy points to the corpses.
“Toby, look at this.”
“It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”
“I want you to look at it,” she says. “Really look.”
“Wendy, please.”
“Look.”
“I don’t want to!” he snaps, then sighs. “Come on, Wendy, what’s the point? Do you want me to say the world is shit? Yes, it’s shit. I used to see things like this in Afghanistan even before Infection. It doesn’t matter. This is the world now. It’s filled with fucking dead kids.”
Wendy shakes her head. “I don’t want to live in it anymore.”
His eyes widen. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t you ever talk like that.”
“You’re worried about me killing myself? If we stay in this world, we’ll die soon anyway. It’ll catch up to us. Look at what happened to Camp Defiance. Staying here is suicide.”
“It’s the only world we’ve got.” His tone is pleading now. “I don’t understand. What else is there? We’re alive today. What else could we hope for?”
“If we stay in the NLA, one day the Bradley will break down or we won’t be able to find gas, and we’ll end up in one of those Technicals. Those guys die like flies. Who knows how long we’d last?”
“They aren’t as good as us. We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?”
“Training and skill don’t mean anything on a long enough timeline. Eventually we would get unlucky, and then we would die or become infected. It’s not a forgiving game.”
“All right,” he agrees. “You want to leave the NLA. And go where?”
“The fall of Camp Defiance tells us the refugee camps aren’t safe anymore.”
“Been there, done that in any case,” Toby snorts. “Both of us have. No, thank you.”
“Well, if that’s the world, then we make a new world,” Wendy tells him. “I’ve been thinking about it. We could round up some survivors with skills we need, drive down south where it’s warm all year around, and find a nice island for ourselves.”
Toby sighs as he finally understands what she wants. “You know I’d like nothing more than to do just that, babe,” he says. They are whispering now, as if afraid to wake the sleeping dead. “But the fight is here. We’re taking it back. We’re winning, making real progress. Don’t you feel it? So many towns have been cleared.”
“Come on, Toby. We’re barely scratching the surface. The fight never ends. It will never be over. Look what happened to Paul and Ethan. They died on that bridge to save the camp, and the whole camp fell a few weeks later. None of it means anything. Eventually, the bug is going to win.”
“You’re asking me to abandon my duty to my country. To the children who are still alive.”
“Just as I abandoned my oath to the public,” she tells him. “To protect and to serve. I’m not police anymore. The last real police died in this room. And you’re not in the Army.”
“But I thought we had a responsibility to other people. I thought we believed that together.”
Wendy no longer cares about the survival of the species. How can I explain this to him? It is a hard thing to think, much less say to another human being. All she cares about is seeing Toby and the others in her group survive. That’s all the responsibility she can handle anymore.
“If there was something decisive we could do, I would say let’s do it,” she says. “I would give up my life. But there is nothing like that. There is only death, and more death, until the end. Just like Paul and Ethan. What is the point? The one responsibility we have is to each other and the rest of our group. We have to find happiness while we can. I don’t believe we are dead already, Toby. I am alive and I want to stay alive. And I want to be happy while I can. It’s why I chose you.”
Toby stands in the dark, saying nothing for a while. Finally, he takes a deep breath. “Is your mind made up about this?”
“It is, Toby. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t want it to sound like an ultimatum, but that’s what it is. She hopes he does not call her bluff, because she knows she could never leave him.
But it must happen. We have to go. We’ve gotten away from the NLA, with supplies and a full tank of gas. It’s meant to be.
“As long as we stay together,” he says. “That’s all I want.”
She smiles, her eyes stinging with tears. “Hell, Toby, we’re practically married at this point.”
“All right then,” he says, letting out another long sigh. Wendy can sense something breaking in him, releasing, letting go. “So, have you picked out an island yet?”
“Thank God for you, Toby Wilson.”
“I love you, Wendy.”
She grins, plants her hands on his chest, and kisses him on the mouth.
Ray
Ray creeps out of the farmhouse breathing hard and feeling his heart pound in his chest. Hundreds of Infected mill aimlessly in the morning light, filling the air with their random, anguished cries. They stagger along without purpose, bumping into each other and growling. Some trample the garden while others lie in the tall grass. A few hold their heads with both hands and scream as if suddenly remembering who they are and what happened to them. Each moment brings more tramping out of the cornfield, grunting and wailing.