Rod laughs at the man’s candor. As usual, facts appear to be in short supply. “So we don’t even know if our MOPP suits will offer any real protection.”
“I wouldn’t bank on it.”
“Great,” he says dryly. “What do we know for sure about how he controls the Infected?”
“Again, very little,” Price tells him. “All we know is the human Infected are drawn to him. Thousands are following him. But we don’t know otherwise what level of control he has. With hope, he won’t have any Infected with him.”
“That’s what we’re hoping,” Rod agrees, and then adds, “Do you really think he could end the war?”
“I definitely think it’s very possible.”
Another ironclad, definite, absolute, solid maybe, Rod thinks, and sighs.
And yet the world has gotten so bad even maybe sounds like something worth fighting for. He thinks about Gabriela, and his kids, and wants to believe.
It’s a slippery slope for sure, but Rod cannot help but begin to feel hope.
Anne
Anne whistles, letting Marcus know she is approaching and to stand to arms. The large man stiffens and snatches up his rifle.
She emerges from the woods, sniper rifle slung across her back, the brim of her cap pulled down low, casting her face in shadow.
She is finding it difficult to process what she has just seen; she wonders how she is going to communicate it to the others. Visions of the Infected swarming over each other like termites to build human pyramids continue to haunt her, making her feel nauseous and frazzled.
Evan and Ramona sit cross-legged on the ground, eating cold ravioli from cans with chopsticks. Evan nods to her, stands and throws his can into the woods.
“Thank God,” Jean says, her Chanel suit now wrinkled to the point of looking like a wrung out washcloth. She and Gary sit huddled on the ground, their backs against the side of the bus. She looks furious. “Now we can go to Camp Nightingale, right?”
Anne ignores her, scowling.
“Was he there?” Marcus asks her.
“He was there.”
The Rangers gather around, waiting for her to explain.
“What’s with her now?” Anne says, tilting her heard toward Jean.
“She said you were dead and we should leave,” Ramona tells her with a sigh. “The minute you left, she started in on us.”
“Sorry to disappoint her,” Anne says. “Where’s Todd?”
The others glance at each other.
“He split,” Marcus tells her. “Headed the same way as you, in fact.”
“And you didn’t think to stop him?”
His face reddens. “I’m not the boss of him.”
Anne cannot argue. It is her own logic come back to haunt her. We are here by consent, she always told them. When we are fighting, you will do your job or face judgment from the rest of us. But when the fighting stops, nobody owns you. If you want to leave, then leave.
She herself was willing to abandon them all to pursue Ray Young out of a sense of a higher purpose that trumped her loyalty to the team she created. Todd must feel he has a greater loyalty to obey, and Anne can guess what it is.
The dumb kid is going to get himself killed over an infected girl.
“He said to tell you he’ll catch up with us east,” Ramona says. “And that he’s sorry. He said he had to go see for himself.”
Anne points toward the trees and says, “On the other side of that hill, there are tens of thousands of the Infected. That’s where Todd is going.”
“All right,” Marcus said. “You want us to track him?”
“When are we leaving?” Jean says. “That was the deal, right? We help you kill this guy, and then you’ll take us to Nightingale.”
“I didn’t get him,” Anne says.
“We came all the way out here for nothing?”
Gary shushes Jean, starting them hissing and spitting at each other like cats.
Marcus frowns in puzzlement. “What happened? Didn’t have a clear shot?”
“The Infected were protecting him,” Anne tells him, again struggling to find the words. In her mind, she fires at the human pyramid, which collapses into a massive pile of squirming arms and legs. “He can control them. Once I started shooting, they blocked my shot.”
“Control” hardly covers it. Ray has his own personal army.
His relationship with the Infected appears to be symbiotic, but what are the Infected getting out of it? Maybe nothing. Maybe only Infection itself is. If that’s true, who is controlling whom?
The answer does not matter to her. Either way, Ray must pay for what he did to more than a hundred thousand people at Camp Defiance. Either way, he must be stopped before he reaches Washington.
“I’ll need your help next time,” Anne tells her team.
“Come on,” says Jean. “You need to stop rolling the dice with our lives.”
“What about the risk of exposure?” Evan wonders. “I thought the idea was we would provide security for you, and you would kill him with the sniper rifle.”
“I need you to shoot at any Infected between me and him. Just get close enough for suppressing fire. Then throw everything you’ve got. Think you can do that?”
The others nod. Of course they can. And if that does not work, they can always wear the gas masks they keep stowed in their kit, and pray it is enough to keep from becoming infected.
“Come on,” Anne tells them. “We’ve got to get back on the road.”
“Do you know where he’s going?”
“East,” Anne says. “He took off in a white truck. We’re on the only road through this part of the valley. If he hasn’t passed by here, then he’s still going east.”
“What about Todd?” Ramona says. “You said he was in danger.”
Anne groans. Her shooting stirred up the hornet’s nest, and Todd is walking right into it. The whole thing infuriates her. What does he think he is going to accomplish?
She feels a wave of grief wash over her mind, leaving behind despair so deep it sucks the air from her lungs. She worked hard to master her emotions, rejecting love and attachment and embracing the strength of perpetual hatred.
The truth, however, is she loves Todd as if he were her own son.
“Are you all right?” Ramona asks her.
“I don’t know yet,” she says in a small voice.
“God, she’s falling apart now,” Jean says. She stands near them now, shrugging out of Gary’s grip. “Look at her. This is who you’re taking orders from.”
Marcus turns and glares at her. “Shut the hell up, lady.”
“Or what?” Jean laughs. “What else can you do to me? I’m practically a hostage.”
“Nobody’s holding you here,” he tells her. “You can go anytime you want.”
“I’d be happy to, Marcus, if I had food, weapons, a car and some directions, but I don’t. Anything I had, I left behind in Hopedale. So I guess that makes me your hostage.”
Marcus grunts. He doesn’t care; he’s not listening to her.
“Todd,” Anne whispers.
She has a vision of cracks appearing in a dam.
Beyond, infinite darkness, seeping in.
“Jean, come back to the bus with me,” Gary says.
“You should be supporting me,” Jean hisses at him. “We need to go to Camp Nightingale now. We’re out in the open. We’re all going to die out here if we don’t get somewhere safe.”
“Anne knows what she’s doing,” Evan says. “We’ve survived out here for weeks together.”
“Look at her,” Jean shrieks. “Can’t you see? She’s lost it!”
“Anne?” Marcus says, looking at her worriedly.