“We won’t know what he’s going to do, Doc. Hell, we don’t even know what he is. He may walk like a duck and quack like a duck, but he’s not a duck. For all we know, Wildfire is guiding his every thought and action. He might not even be able to tell the difference.”
“What are we going to do if he does attack us?”
Fielding sneers. “Doc, leave that to me. Just pray real hard he shows up.”
“I’ll bet you wish he doesn’t,” Travis says, sneering back at him. “You’re the kind of guy who’d be perfectly happy to see the world end, as long as you get to shoot me with a big told-you-so smile on your face.”
Fielding laughs. “You know me too well, Doc.”
“Why do you hate me so much?”
The man steps out of the coveralls, stretches and punches him in the solar plexus, knocking the air out of him. Travis doubles over, hugging his ribs and gasping.
“Her name was Sandra Forbes, you piece of shit. The woman you got kicked off the helicopter so you could save the world. She was a travel planner. She worked for the chief of staff.”
Travis comes at him, fueled by sudden rage. He throws an awkward punch that connects with Fielding’s chin. The response is quick, vicious. Travis wakes up on the ground lying on his back.
“Breathe, Doc. Breathe.”
He rolls onto his side, coughing and gasping. “I never would have guessed she was a friend of yours,” he hisses. “I didn’t see you rushing to give up your seat.”
“So it’s my job to rescue everyone?” Fielding says, standing over him, his hands clenched as if itching to hit him again. “And if I don’t, their death is my fault, is that it?”
“What’s wrong with wanting to stay alive?”
“You’re a freak, Doc. You don’t know shit about honor or principle. If it were me, I would give up my life without a second thought if it meant ending the epidemic. You? You want to save the world, but only if others take the risks and do the dying. You’re a coward.”
“Hey!” Sergeant Rodriguez shouts, jogging toward them. “What’s going on here?”
“Just some personal business, Sergeant.”
“Captain, you are fucking up my op. Take a hike.”
“Fine, you can babysit him. He’s all yours.” He leans and whispers to Travis, “I really do hope I get to kill you, Doc. It almost makes me wish your guy never shows.”
Fielding walks away as Rod approaches and kneels next to Travis. “You all right, Dr. Price?”
“Yes, I think so,” Travis says, rolling onto his back and looking up at the blue sky, enjoying the simple act of breathing. “Thanks for that.”
“You mind telling me what that was all about?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Your body is your worst enemy,” the soldier tells him. “Your breathing, your vision.”
“Tell me about it.”
Rodriguez laughs harshly. “You don’t know the half of it. When the Infected come screaming at you, it’s not them you got to worry about the most, it’s your body’s response to stress. That’s their greatest advantage over us; the Infected, well, they don’t know fear. Even now, when I see one of them running at me, I get a jolt to my system, like an electric shock. But then the training takes over and I do what needs doing.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“The point I’m making is a fistfight is not so different. The body reacts the same to fear. Maybe you’ll remember that the next time you decide to take a swing at the Captain. You could never beat him fair and square. The guy has military training from somewhere, and you’d never get past it. He knows how to take punishment, and he knows how to dish it out. He let you off easy with what you got. So don’t antagonize the guy, okay? We happen to need you.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll remember that.”
Travis watches Fielding walk toward the Stryker, and spits into the dust.
You’re making a big mistake underestimating me. When I took that seat on the plane, that wasn’t me being a coward. That was me fighting to survive. You have no idea what I will do.
I just fight differently, that’s all.
Ray
As the sun melts into the horizon, Ray veers off the main road, taking a short detour north to a town called Milford. The idea was to drive into the night to gain more distance from the shooter on his tail, but he is exhausted. And he once had a friend who lived in Milford; he knows the ground, how to get in and out. Lola does not seem to mind.
“Tonight, you’re going to sleep in a real bed, honey.”
She says nothing.
“I know I’ll appreciate it. I’m dog tired.”
After everything he has been through, he feels like he could sleep for a week.
The truck passes an overgrown cemetery on the left, a white delivery van with its back doors wide open, driveways, mailboxes and a sign reading, SCHOOL BUS STOP AHEAD.
“Man, I haven’t been here in years.”
Dozens of corpses lay clumped around a roadblock of two trucks blocking both lanes; traffic cones direct him toward an abandoned checkpoint on the side of the road. Ray drives over the bodies, breathing through his mouth.
It is not hard for him to figure out what happened. The townsfolk set up the roadblock to keep people out. Like many roadblocks set up in the first days of the epidemic, however, it was overrun from within. On the right, a sign is riddled with bullet holes: KOCH FUNERAL HOME.
Moments later, Ray is in downtown Milford, consisting of an IGA, hardware store, tavern he knows well from back in the day, convenience store and post office. He spots a house where an old chemist ran a meth lab; someone spray painted VAYA CON DIOS across the front door. Further on, an American flag hangs limply from the top of a white pole set in front of the town firehouse.
The Infected creep from their hiding places, grimacing and reaching out to him as the truck rolls past. He is too tired to play around with them this time. He is too tired, and they are too goddamn pitiful.
We’ll make this right, he broadcasts.
The Infected wail in response, an eerie cry that sounds like laughter.
♦
Ray makes a right turn at a stop sign and drives ahead to a small, shabby motel where he remembers two prostitutes who worked 2A. The sign out front says NO VACANCY, which makes him chuckle. He stops the truck in front of the manager’s office and kills the engine.
The Unit 12 cops jump down, holding the weapons they were given by the mob back in Sugar Creek.
Clear the motel, he orders. The last thing he needs is another vigilante or some gun toting survivalist taking a shot at him. Then he tells the other Infected in the area to bring food and water. First aid kit. And candles and a razor. Oh, and some booze.
Then arm yourselves. All of you. Guns, knives, whatever you got.
“Come on, honey. Let’s find us a room.”
Ray enters the office and emerges with a handful of keys.
“Second floor has a nice view of the woods out back.”
He finds a blackened corpse in the first room, its leaking, congealed body fluids fusing it to the bed next to the night table, which is covered in empty pill bottles and a jug of wine. He backpedals and slams the door.
After skipping the next two doors, he tries the third.
“Now, this is more like it.”
The air is stale and smells like dust, but it was cleaned before the epidemic, and the bed is made. The bedroom window in the back offers a view of the swimming pool, bone dry and half filled with a tangle of dead bodies.
Beyond the pool, Infected stagger out of the darkening woods, moaning.