And if they do know, but have no choice, then God help them. Either way, if you kill a Mad Dog, it is a mercy killing. It’s that simple.
Mad Dogs do not carry weapons and they look like you and me, but do not let appearances fool you. These things are the deadliest foe that America has ever faced and the most dangerous enemy you will ever meet in combat.
There will be a lot more killing. We are in a hostile country, surrounded by a hostile army, close to being cut off from resupply and medevac, and the enemy is hunting us in a war of extermination, fighting us using tactics against which we never trained.
This is an enemy that does not take prisoners. That does not negotiate. That requires no supply, knows no fear, and attacks relentlessly. The virus does not fight for land or money or politics or religion. It fights to survive by infecting, or killing, all of us.
I am telling you this so you can get your head on straight. If you want to stay alive, you’re going to have to get some fight in your gut and see this situation for what it is.
A war with unlimited spectrum. Total war.
It’s us or them, gentlemen. These are the facts on the ground.
Right now, you are probably getting very worried about your loved ones. I have family in Texas, some in Louisiana, who I think about every day. But I can’t get to them. I’d never make it. If I walked out that door, I’d be dead, or a Mad Dog, within twenty-four hours.
If you want to help your family, then do your job.
Somebody has to survive this.
Civilian law enforcement is being wiped out. That leaves us. We’re all that’s left between a rising tide of Mad Dogs and annihilation. So your family’s only hope, our country’s only hope, is that the Army stays together long enough to make a difference. From now on, once a unit is destroyed, it cannot be replaced. It’s gone.
One of you asked me if this is the end of the world. My answer was not a very good one. I thought of a new answer, and I like it better.
Whether the world is going to end or not is literally up to us.
As for me, gentlemen, I say it’s not.
Chapter 9
They do not deserve to take it all from us
The sun is shining and the streets are jammed with people enjoying the end of summer. In Central Park, hundreds lie on blankets in Sheep Meadow, sleeping or reading. Several boys with their shirts off throw an orange Frisbee back and forth, while a dog playfully barks and scampers between them. Christopher sits on a bench bouncing Alexander on his knee. They both smile eagerly as she approaches them barefoot and laughing. Alexander demands ice cream. Valeriya Petrova suggests a ride on the Merry-Go-Round instead and he shouts for joy before realizing he’s been fooled, suddenly declaring his interest in both ice cream and a ride.
What flavor, Alex? Christopher asks.
Alexander looks up at his father and cries exultantly: Vanilla!
Her eyes flicker to Christopher, deliciously aware that he is unaware of being watched, and knows they are getting older every day and that some day they will die and there will be nothing and they will never be together like this again. Instead of making her sad, the thought fills her with a strange elation that she is alive and not dead, that she still has time, that they all have time, before even just this single perfect day ends. And her son has even longer and all the world lies before him.
Tonight she will make love to her husband and whisper thank you in his ear as she does at times when she feels like this, when she cannot contain the beauty of her life and the joy her family brings her.
Harsh white light shatters the darkness.
The building groans to life as its systems reboot.
Petrova lies under the desk, shivering with her eyes clenched shut.
You must get up, she tells herself. You must not give up. You must survive for them.
No, stay and dream a little while longer. Maybe the dream is true. Maybe, outside, the world has returned to normal. People in the park, laughing and playing. Lying on the warm grass, reading a paperback—
No—
Outside, she knows, the world is dying.
Everybody she has ever known, everybody she has ever loved, everything she cherished as part of life, is being destroyed.
She knows that she is probably going to die here without ever seeing the sun again. Without ever seeing her son again.
So far away.
Mankind will not cross the Atlantic again for perhaps hundreds of years. London may as well be on another planet. Within a generation, even the word “London” may cease to be generally remembered in North America. Knowledge that there are other continents at all may slowly be forgotten as future generations struggle to survive.
All this because a tiny little biological machine simply wants to live.
If the virus could think and speak, it would say it has a right to try to multiply, to fight for dominance, to survive. Survival, in fact, is the virus’ sole purpose. It is designed to survive. That is what makes it so strong. It was virtually the first form of life on the planet, and it will be the last.
But it is not better than us, she thinks. Stronger, maybe. But not better.
Can a virus make its human puppets paint a sunset, for example, that reflects the soul of the real thing? Possessing mind but not thought, does it understand the concept of science, progress, the betterment of the species? Has it ever looked up with its borrowed eyes at the stars and wonder if there are other planets that can support life, perhaps life it can talk to? Can it understand charity or love or empathy or mercy? Has a Mad Dog, roaming the streets feverishly searching for a new host, ever felt anything in its extremely short life span beyond a toxic level of pain and rage?
They do not deserve to take it all from us. They are just machines. Living software. They will kill everyone and destroy everything, only to die off themselves and disappear as fast as they came, leaving despair and ruin behind. And this security equipment and all the other human machines will simply lie here rotting for years under layers of dust, perhaps to be picked up generations later by uncomprehending descendants.
It is unfair—
A sudden burst of anger gives her just enough strength to move her hand.
With great effort, she reaches across the carpet. Her body follows, as slow as a snail, but as determined. Fear weighs down on her with its own special gravity, and she wonders if she will make it. But soon she is standing, looking into the security screens, where she sees Sandy Cohen lying broken on the floor outside.
Dead.
We are just meat to them, she thinks. They consume us and throw away the wrapper.
Even the air feels heavy in her lungs.
If you do not want to die here, get busy doing something else, she tells herself.
Her eyes flicker to a pack of cigarettes on the desk. Jackson was a smoker. Petrova quit four years ago, before she got pregnant with Alexander. Has not touched one since.
Just one, she decides. To help me think.
Petrova ignites the tip of the cigarette and inhales deeply, feeling guilty about it in part, strangely, because she is doing it in a public place. In more ways than one, ingrained habits die hard. She coughs. She inhales again and does not cough. Like riding a bike. Within moments, the head rush assails her brain.
So much for quitting, she thinks. It was agony to quit, and she is throwing it all away for three quarters of a pack of Marlboro Lights. And not even menthol, which she prefers. On the other hand, between the epidemic and the Mad Dogs, she doubts she is going to see an abundance of cigarettes anywhere anytime soon. Perhaps forever.