Evan shrugs. “Hey, I have no problem going to Nightingale.”
“Maybe she just needs a rest,” Ramona suggests.
“Someone else needs to take charge and make a plan,” Jean says. “I nominate Evan.”
Anne blinks and the vision of the dam fades. “We need to get back on the road.”
“I don’t know, Anne,” Evan says. “Maybe we should talk about it.”
“Just drop us off at the other camp,” Jean pleads. “Then you can go do whatever you want.”
“Anne, do you have a plan?” Marcus says, frowning.
“There is no plan, you fucking moron,” Jean screams, pointing at Anne. “This woman is crazy and she’s going to get all of us killed if you don’t listen to me!”
“That’s enough,” Anne says quietly, her eyes narrowing.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Jean tells her. “You don’t get to look down on me like I haven’t suffered as much as you. I’m sick of your act. You’re not half as badass as you think you are with your guns and scars. You have no idea what we went through in that art gallery. What we had to do to survive. But even then we were better off than we are here. We had everything we needed, and we could make our own decisions without someone telling us what to do.”
“Jean, please,” Gary pleads.
“I’m not finished. We had everything we needed. Then you found us. You told us we would be safe at Defiance. You made a promise to us, and we believed you. Now you’re off chasing some guy on a bizarre hunch and we have to get dragged along, regardless of the fact that every hour we spend out in the open we are in incredible danger. And you refuse to take us to the one place within fifty miles that’s safe. You lied to us! You don’t get to make decisions for us anymore!”
Anne unholsters one of her guns and taps it against her thigh.
It’s time for you to shut up.
“And you don’t fucking scare me either,” Jean tells her. “What are you going to do now? Kill me in front of all these witnesses?”
Anne raises her pistol and fires, the gun discharging with a deafening report, the recoil vibrating down her arm.
The empty shell casing flickers in her peripheral vision. The slug punched a hole through Jean’s throat. The woman stumbles away as if seeking a private place to bleed.
The others watch in horror as she bends over, hands on her knees, struggling to breathe as blood pours from the smoking wound onto the road.
She looks at Anne with wide, disbelieving eyes before falling first to her knees, then onto her side, where she curls into a ball, air bubbles gurgling from her torn throat, her face turning blue. Her body shivers briefly before stiffening.
“Jesus, Anne,” Evan says, backing away.
She shifts her aim to Gary. “This is the new reality,” she tells him. “Do you understand what the new reality is?”
Gary stares at Jean’s body, wearing a pained expression. “Better than anyone,” he says quietly.
“Are you on the bus, or off the bus?”
He takes his time answering. The rest of the team stares at the body in shock.
“I’d like to come with you,” he whispers.
“Let’s go,” Anne tells her team, holstering the gun. “Todd will have to take care of himself, like a man. As for us, we’re leaving right now.”
Todd
Todd kneels in the tall grass on a hill overlooking the farmhouse and the thousands of Infected swarming the fields surrounding it. Hundreds trickle east but most mill around aimlessly, their heads bobbing in search of prey. The humid air fills with their neverending chorus of barks and moans, competing with the loud buzzing of insects and the laughter of birds in the trees.
Todd scans the Infected with the binoculars, feeling queasy. He has never seen so many of them before in one place. Rage and despair is written on their faces. The magnification makes them feel too close for comfort, and he wonders how Anne does it every day, looking at them through her rifle’s telescopic sight. He glances over his shoulder as warning shivers slither down his spine, and it is just as unsettling to see nothing there than something. For months, he has survived because good people watched his back. Only the best can travel alone out here among the Infected. Only the best and the lucky. And sooner or later, everyone’s luck runs out.
The sun beats mercilessly against his head; his old SWAT hat is soaked through with sweat. He can feel the back of his neck slowly frying in the light. Lowering the binoculars, he plunges his arm into his rucksack until his hand grips the familiar shape of his bottle of suntan lotion. He slathers it onto his neck and arms, then takes a sip from his water bottle.
Hours have passed, and still he has not found her. He will search for as long as it takes, one gray snarling face at a time. It does not matter to him that he has no idea what he will do if he does find her. For now, only the search itself matters.
He takes a break to stretch and rub his tired arms, and then returns to his task. Several Infected have broken into the chicken coop and are chasing the chickens, which flee into the swarm to be torn apart and eaten raw.
For the next hour, that is about as exciting as it gets.
His mind wanders while he works. He remembers the fight on the bridge, him and Ray running to one of the buses parked across the road to form barricades, the men inside screaming and shooting and dying, the hordes of Pittsburgh rushing at them in a massive, snarling flood. The bridge exploded in a blinding flash of light, flinging Todd through the air like a doll to land tumbling across the cratered asphalt. The juggernaut galloped straight at him, its rigid tentacles trumpeting its war song. Ray tried to pull him away and, seeing Todd refuse, stood with him, emptying his pistols into the thing before it crashed through the bridge and fell roaring into the torrents below.
I don’t care what he is. I forgive him for what he’s done. I’m not going to help Anne kill him. I have to get away from her. If I don’t I’ll end up just like her, filled with hate.
Todd gazes at the pathetic horde in the valley below and realizes he does not even hate them anymore either. When Anne sees the Infected, she sees only the monster controlling them like meat puppets. When Todd sees them, he sees people enslaved to a monster. It’s hard to hate slaves.
He remembers coming home from the bridge in the dark, his face nuzzled in Anne’s lap. How safe that felt even as the hoofed thing rammed the vehicle. They stepped off the bus, ringed by leering faces and clapping hands. Erin came and cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. She called him an amazing boy. She stuck with him even though he always returned to the road, maybe never to return. She said she loved him.
Remembering these things, Todd’s heart feels like it is sinking. He was stupid to run away and live on the road with the Rangers. Erin offered him everything he wanted. She did love him; now that she is gone, he believes that.
We only realize what we have after it’s gone, he understands now. It is a grownup thought, something Paul might have said.
He should have stayed with Erin and built a life together with her, no matter how brief it might have lasted. Happiness is a rare thing these days, and he’d squandered it.
That is what Paul’s smile was trying to teach me, he realizes. That home, as they say, is where the heart is. He can picture the Reverend saying, I used up all my chances, boy. You got your whole life ahead of you. This, too, is a gift.
Todd lowers the binoculars, aware of a vaguely ominous sound. It is the crisp, aerosol roar of a distant jet, growing in volume until it becomes thunder. When he cannot hear anything else, putting him at risk from Infected coming up behind him, he snatches his rifle and glares at the woods, the blank blue sky. The sound crawls along his nerves until he starts to panic.