More likely they were exhausted.
My stomach rolled with motion sickness, but I didn’t complain. The driver slowed down and looked at me in the rear-view mirror.
“You risked your lives for a couple of cats?” The bandana wafted out as he spoke. His eyes looked black in the almost non-existent light, his brown hair was cropped close to his skull, military style.
“Um... yeah,” I said. “Pretty much.”
“They’re my cats,” Lil explained.
“But it was my idea,” I added, not wanting her to take the heat.
The man nodded slowly. There were a few beats of silence before he spoke again.
“I like cats.” His gaze went back to the road ahead.
Lil glanced at me over the back seat.
“Is he crazy?” she mouthed.
I shrugged, hoping he hadn’t seen her. At least he liked cats.
“I’m Ashley,” I said. “And this is Lil. Thanks for saving our butts.”
“No problem.”
“You gonna tell us your name?”
“Nope.”
I sat back and shut up. We drove along for a few minutes in oddly comfortable silence, reaching the outskirts of town before he spoke again.
“You two with the military, up at the college?”
“Not exactly,” I answered. “I mean, we’re with them, but we’re not military.”
His eyebrows shot up again.
“You want to be more specific?”
I shrugged again.
“We’re both college students who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“We’re wild cards,” Lil chimed in.
“Well, you’re
something
wild if you’re willing to risk your lives for a couple of cats,” he observed dryly. He may or may not have been smiling under the bandana.
“It means we’re immune to the zombie virus,” I explained. “We were bitten and survived.”
“Is that so?” Oddly enough, he didn’t sound particularly surprised, and I had to wonder why. Before I could pursue it, he continued. “How many of you wild cards are there?”
I did a quick mental count.
“Seven that I know of.” Then I remembered Simone. “No, eight.”
“So you’re not military, but you’re
working
with the military.” His tone was neutral, but something told me he wasn’t a big supporter of the armed forces.
“You don’t like them?” I asked.
“Not much of a fan of any branch of the government, military or civilian. Especially when they’ve got me
under quarantine and threaten to ‘terminate with extreme prejudice’ when I go too near the border they’ve set up.”
“Wow.” Not much to say to that.
Lil stared at him, shocked.
“They told us the army had the infected zone quarantined,” she said, “but there’s no way they’d kill someone trying to get out, right? I mean, not if the person were alive.”
He gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Guess you haven’t spent a lot of time around the feds.” He went silent for a moment, then continued. “So tell me why you two are all tricked out like baby mercs in a Syfy original movie.”
Okay, I had to like the guy for that crack.
“Like Lil said, we’re wild cards,” I answered. “That’s the name they give to people who are immune. And not that you could tell from what happened back in town, but they’ve been training us so we can clear the college and then the rest of the quarantine area, because a lot of the soldiers on the
inside
are getting the virus and they’re not sure why.”
“Were you drafted into this?” he asked tersely.
I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “At least I wasn’t. It was my choice.” I didn’t see any point in bringing up General Heald’s attempts to bully me. “Anyway, since we can’t get the virus, we take risks other people can’t.”
“Like rescuing cats in the middle of a dead town.”
“Actually we’ll be in deep shit if they find out we did this,” I confessed.
“So you need to get back into campus quietly.”
“That would be nice,” I said hopefully. “Any ideas?”
He thought about it for a minute.
“Old logging trail on the other side of Big Red,” he said. “Leads up pretty close to the Administration building. Should give you some cover to sneak back in. They put the barrier smack up against either side of
the building, so you could break in through a window or door, although you’ll have to deal with the razor wire.”
“How do you know all this?”
He shrugged.
“I make it my business to find things out.”
“What’s with the bandana?” Lil asked.
“Filters the smell out a little,” he replied. “Not a lot, but enough to stop me from puking up my dinner when I have to deal with the deadheads. You girls might try it next time.”
“We normally use nose plugs,” Lil muttered.
“So why are you still wearing it?” I challenged, staring at him. “I know we’re not exactly fresh out of the shower, but we don’t smell
that
bad.”
He raised one eyebrow this time.
“Either you smell worse than you think, or those cats are farting to beat the band.”
He was right. My nose was still recovering from the zoms, so I hadn’t noticed.
“They do that when they’re stressed.” Lil looked embarrassed.
“Besides that,” he added, “you don’t need to see my face.” With that he shut up.
“Don’t you want to stay at Big Red?” I asked. “It’s safe there. Well, safer than it is out here.”
“I prefer staying where I am,” he said. Then, before I could reply, he added, “I have my reasons.”
“Good reasons?”
“Good enough,” he replied. “As good as yours for sneaking out on your own.”
Can’t argue with that.
He turned onto a narrow road overgrown with hanging branches. Even the truck’s suspension and shocks couldn’t ease the jolting as the wheels hit numerous ruts. We hit a particularly deep pothole, and I winced as I felt the jolt up through my tailbone.
“Jeez Louise,” I said. “Guess our tax dollars haven’t made it this far.”
“This road hasn’t been used since they built the university,” our rescuer said. “No need to keep it up.”
“Glad you knew about it.”
“It pays to know how to get in and out of places.”
“Paranoid much?” Okay, it just slipped out.
Surprisingly he laughed.
“Yeah, you might say that.” He dodged another crater. “Now let’s see if my paranoia can get you back into the college without getting caught.”
Mystery man turned off his headlights, and almost immediately my eyes adjusted to what little light was filtering through the trees. Waiting for him to slam into something, I gripped the door handle until my hand hurt, but we made it without incident.
He stopped the truck at the edge of the tree line, far enough away from the campus for the sound of the engine to be muffled by the forest. Lil and I hauled cats, litter, and food out of the truck. They hadn’t gotten any lighter during the trip, but they had, thankfully, fallen silent—probably shell-shocked from the rough ride up the logging road.
Our savior got out of the truck and stood nearby.
“It’s about a hundred yards to the back of the Admin building,” he said, his voice low. “I’m not seeing any dead heads between here and there, so you should be okay.”
Yeah, if we don’t collapse under the weight of Binkey, Doodle, and all of their shit.
I hefted the bag of litter, wondering why the hell we thought it was a good idea to bring it. Lil lifted the cat carrier, but even in the gloom I could tell she was near her limits.
Mystery dude looked at us for a beat, then reached into the bed of the truck and pulled out a folding dolly, complete with straps.
“This should help.”
“You were a Boy Scout, weren’t you?” I said.
“Close enough.” He pulled the dolly open. “Litter first, carrier next, then the bag of food.” We followed his directions, watching gratefully as he strapped everything securely into place.
“Wait a sec.” He reached into the back of the cab and pulled out a pair of sturdy leather-and-canvas gardening gloves. “Ought to help you hold the razor wire out of the way, at least long enough to get inside the perimeter.”
I took the gloves.
“Thanks.” The word felt inadequate. I stuck out a hand, and he shook it solemnly.
Lil started to put out her hand, then when he reached for it she threw her arms around him. I saw his eyes widen with the same surprise I felt as he stiffened, then softened enough to gave her a quick squeeze. He gently set her away from him, hands on her shoulders.
“You take care of those cats of yours.”
Lil nodded solemnly.
“I will.”
He looked at me.
“And you take care of this one.” He thrust his thumb in Lil’s direction.
I nodded.
“I will,” I replied. “Better than I did tonight. Thanks again.”
“I’ll wait until you’re inside before I leave.”
“Gee, kind of like a date.” So much for solemnity.
He snorted and got back in the truck.
“Who was that masked man?” I said, mostly to myself. “Come on, Lil.” She nodded wearily. I wondered if she had enough juice left to get back to Patterson Hall. “Just a little further and we’ll be in our beds,” I said. “I’ll take the dolly. You just keep an eye out for zombies and soldiers.”
“How about zombie soldiers?” Just a little ghost of a smile with her words.
“Those, too.”
We made it between the trees and the Admin building. I slipped on the gloves, several sizes too big but thick enough to allow me to pull a section of wire up far enough for Lil to crawl under, dragging the dolly on its back behind her.
The cats stayed miraculously quiet.
It was a little trickier to hold the wire up and crawl under without having it snap back down on me, but I managed by going through feet first.
I stood in the narrow space between the wire and the building, and gave a thumbs-up in the direction of the woods. The man had to have better night vision than a wild card, ’cause the lights blinked on and then off again and I heard the engine turn over. The sound of the truck receded back down the old logging road.
“We’ve cleared this building, right?” Lil stood by a closed window.
“I think Team B cleared it,” I answered. “We’re pretty much done with the campus after tomorrow. Only a few buildings left.”
“Then we can start on the town.” She had an anxious edge to her voice. I just nodded.
We pried open a window. Lil boosted me up and I wriggled through, landing with an ungraceful thump. I froze, listening for any sound. When there wasn’t any, I reached out and Lil hoisted the dolly through. Then she crawled in after it.
We shut the window again, locking it for good measure.
The building was quiet and sterile, with an antiseptic smell—bleach and faux citrus—that told us that the clean-up team had taken care of the blood stains, viscera, and body parts.
There were two soldiers on guard duty at the front of Patterson. We quietly pulled the dolly up the handicapped ramp, staying just out of sight, and I tried the most cliché trick in the book. I hefted a medium sized
rock and pitched it into the darkness, as far as possible on the other side of the front doors. It landed in the bushes with a satisfying
crack
.
By golly, it worked.
Both soldiers immediately trained their firearms in that direction, then went over to investigate. Lil and I hurried the rest of the way up the ramp and inside, stifling laughter the whole way. Not that it would have been funny if they’d heard us and opened fire.
The lobby was empty—not too surprising considering it had to be around two in the morning. I hit the “down” button on the elevator, and the doors slid open immediately. Lil pushed the dolly in, and I hit the button for the basement level.
We both leaned against the back of the elevator, quivering from exhaustion and the sudden weakness brought on by the aftermath of what had been basically a three-hour adrenaline rush. We stared at our reflections on the inside of the shiny metal doors.
“You have brains on your face,” Lil observed.
I snorted.
“You’ve got blood on yours,” I replied. “And bits of skin.”
“We both look pretty gross.”
That we did. Our clothes were disgusting, too—covered in tacky blood and that black fluid that ran out of zombie orifices.
Then it hit me.
Infected blood and bodily fluids.
“Shit.” I pushed myself away from the wall.
“What?”
“We need to be decontaminated.”
Lil looked confused.
“We can just put our clothes in the hazmat bags, right?” she suggested. “Take hot showers?”
I shook my head.
“We can’t afford for any infected crap to get into the
common areas—like this elevator. Maybe
we
can’t get sick, but a lot of other people might.”
A pained look swept across Lil’s face.
“Can’t we just use lots of soap?” she pleaded. “I mean, we went through so much to keep anyone from finding out that we’ve been gone.”
“I know,” I replied, shaking my head. “But we can’t risk it. What if someone turned, just because of us?”
I couldn’t read the expression on her face, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t put her need for sleep ahead of human beings.
At least I hoped so.
The doors opened, letting us out right next to our room.
“Let’s put the stuff away, then go get hosed off,” I suggested. “We can say we were out on campus and ran into a couple of stray zombies. We’ll probably still get in some trouble, but not nearly as much as we will if they find out we went into town.
“Then we’ll bring some bleach back and clean off the elevator,” I added.
Lil nodded.
“Just make sure to wipe up any blood you get on anything, okay?”
“Yeah, I will.” Her tone was definitely snappish, like a kid up way past her bedtime. Then she looked sheepish. “I’m sorry. I’m just so tired.”
I patted her arm.
“I know, honey. I am too.”
We put the cat carrier in the bathroom, leaving the cats inside so we wouldn’t get any goo on them.
“We’ll be back in just a little bit, babies,” Lil cooed. “Then you can come out and we’ll feed you.”
I snorted again.
“Yeah, like they really need the food,” I said. She shot me a look.