Which is good in one way, because it is all Anne has left. Hurting Infection, in fact, is one of the few things that make her feel something besides guilt and loss.
The guilt of allowing her children to be slaughtered, the loss of everything she loved. The guilt of letting Ray Young live, only to see him return and slaughter tens of thousands.
Ray Young has become Infection. All that matters now is catching and killing him before he does even worse because Anne, in a moment of weakness, showed mercy.
Stepping onto the bus, she slaps Marcus’s boot and steps back as the man lunges awake, growling in the dark with a knife in his hand.
“Time to go,” Anne tells him.
“Anne? Christ, it’s still pitch black out there.”
“It’ll be light in less than an hour. We already spent too much time here.”
“Wait a minute.” Marcus sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Listen, Anne. I need to know you’re okay.”
“Since when I have ever been truly okay since you’ve known me?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m upset, Marcus. There’s a guy who can control the Infected, and spreads Infection, as far as I know, just by looking at you, and he’s on his way to Washington, DC, where our military is in a fight to the death to take the city back.”
“Look, you think we don’t get it about what kind of threat Young poses to all of us, but we do. We get it. It’s just hard to put your life on the line for something, you know? And that’s what you’re asking us all to do here. You’re asking us to die for this. Most of us would rather go somewhere safe and let someone else figure it out.”
Anne blinks at him. She forgot most people still place a high value on their lives.
“The stakes,” she says finally, unsure how to finish the statement.
“We’ll get him,” Marcus assures her. “We will, or the Army will.”
They remember the planes roaring overhead, the distant thunder, the rising wall of smoke on the western horizon, veiling the setting sun.
“We both know he got away before they dropped those bombs.”
“Anne, let me get to the point. I’m worried about you.”
“I’m worried about Todd.” For Anne, even this is a big admission.
“He can take care of himself.”
“He ran off to snoop around a horde of a hundred thousand Infected, and then was close to ground zero when the bombs fell. Marcus, I’m worried.”
“Let’s talk about you. Anne, you shot and killed a woman today.”
“So what? I’ve shot lots of people.”
“Jean was a crazy, but she wasn’t Infected. You shot her in cold blood and didn’t even blink. As far as I know, that’s a first even for you.”
“You know what she did in the art gallery.”
“Jean and Gary did what they had to do to survive. You’ve never judged anyone before for what they’ve done to stay alive. Christ, we all have blood on our hands. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here.”
The truth is I lost control.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Anne says.
“All right. Forget why. What I don’t get is what’s going on inside your head. Me, I honestly can’t picture doing what you did. Shit, what do you feel about it? Do you feel anything at all?”
Anne’s mind flashes to pointing her pistol at Jean’s face and squeezing the trigger.
“I don’t feel anything,” she says, a little surprised at the realization.
Marcus nods, taking this in. Another major admission.
“We’re wasting time here,” she says. “Can we go now? Please?”
He says nothing, and they regard each other in the dark, their eyes gleaming.
“I need you, Marcus,” she tells him, her voice strained.
“I’ll come,” he says. “We’ll finish this.”
“Good. Let’s wake up the others.”
“But I want more.”
“More?”
“I want you.”
As much as Anne loves Todd as a son, she has come to love Marcus as a man. The thought of giving herself to him fills her with panic, however. For one thing, it is too soon. Just two months ago, she was mother to three children given to her by a man whom she loved with her whole heart for nearly ten years of her life. She never properly mourned them. She cannot just let go.
On the other hand, no more perfect time exists. She could die within the next five minutes.
“If you want sex, I can give you that.”
“It’s not about that, Anne. I want you.”
He is asking her to feel, but she doubts she has anything to give him. She remembers Sarge in the government shelter, what seems like a lifetime ago, calling the Infected the living dead.
Us? he added. We’re the dead living.
The words shocked her at the time. Now she understands.
How can you ask me to love you, Marcus, when you might die before sunrise?
“I want you,” he repeats. “Don’t we deserve to be happy, even if for a little while?”
“I don’t know what that means anymore. I want to but I don’t know if I can.”
Marcus nods. “All right. Then I’ll settle for that.”
He smiles at her in the dark and Anne smiles back, a rare sight at any time of day.
Ray
While Ray twitches and sweats in a deep snoring sleep with his arms wrapped around Lola, he dreams the Infected are normal again. In the dream they stand outside where he left them, but it is bright and sunny instead of dark, and all of them are well dressed and clean and looking up at the sun, tears flowing down their cheeks as they smile. The men and women look at each other with wide, sparkling eyes. There is no hate here, no rage, just the thrill of freedom.
Lola, accustomed to dreaming of billions of monsters writhing like maggots across the scoured face of a red planet, finds herself at her house in Cashtown, weeding her garden while her children shriek and run barefoot through the sprinkler spray on the lawn. Her husband winks at her as he enters the garage to take out the lawnmower. She vows to hold onto the feeling she has looking at her family—a sense of her soul being filled to the brim with contentment—knowing nothing perfect lasts forever in this world. That night, as they drink wine and barbecue steaks and eat them outside in the cool dusk, she tells herself if she had to pick a day to relive, she would pick this one, this beautiful summer day spent doing almost nothing.
Outside, the other Infected moan in the darkness, free of the dreams of the red planet and the long exodus through space. They dream of the time before, reliving the past. They are free of the bonds of slavery at last, while Infection waits patiently until morning to reclaim its hosts.
Anne
Dawn is coming fast and the bus flies down the road, chasing a paling sky. The V-shaped snowplow retrofitted onto the front, peppered top to bottom with blood, sends the occasional Infected flying into the ditch with a thud. The engine growls as Marcus changes gears with the stick, slowing down and speeding up to navigate occasional wrecks blocking the road. The Rangers peer through the metal firing ports welded over the windows, Anne looking for any sign of Ray Young, the others watching for threats that specialize in the night. The air feels humid but cool against her skin. This has always been her favorite time of the day; it’s a new day, and anything can happen. For as long as she can remember, Anne has been a morning person.