“I hear people talking. I don’t mean any offense, or anything, but is it true what they say? That you think the infected are demons?” Brewster asked, casting another sidelong glance at Trevor.
“No offense taken. And yes, that’s true. They
are
demons,” Trev said, laughing, “but it’s all semantics, anyway, isn’t it? Call them infected, call them demons, call them little green plastic army men for all I care. They’re out to get us, and we’re out to get them, and that’s what really matters.”
“Okay,” said Brewster. “But don’t you think you’d be better off sticking with a firearm like the rest of us? I mean, if you get any of that blood on you, Rebecca and Anna will have you in a restraining jacket down in BL4 before the night’s out.”
Trev nodded slowly. “That makes sense. I . . . I really can’t explain it properly. All I know is, when I came across my first infected, this baton was, ah, presented to me. It was a gift—like I was supposed to use it. I sort of saw it as a sign. It’s worked out well for me so far. Besides, I carry a backup pistol.” Trev tapped a revolver holstered on his belt.
“So, you see this as a sort of mission from God, to—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Trevor interrupted. “I never said anything about God.”
Brewster raised his eyebrows and reconsidered. “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Trevor sighed and kicked a loose piece of pavement out of his way. Sherman’s Freehold was growing closer. They could see Jack the Welder on the rooftop, waving at them.
“Truth be told, I’m agnostic. I’ve never been sure of God or the Devil or any of that stuff. But this? This pandemic, this
plague
? Demons, man.”
Brewster grinned. “That’s kind of ironic.”
Trevor chuckled. “Tell me about it. But now I have a purpose—I suppose I’m still
technically
the crazy bastard I was last year, but look around. Everything’s dead. Or dying. Almost everybody. Those of us who are left have seen death, seen pain, and seen loss—we’ve seen those bloody-eyed bastards up close. Ask yourself this question, Ewan: Who’s crazy anymore, huh? No one? Or everyone? Me?
You?
”
Brewster was silent as he considered Trevor’s words.
The pair crossed the bullet-pocked street that led to Sherman’s Freehold. Jack the Welder (who, despite having been with the group since the fall of Suez in January, refused to give his last name) unlocked the main gates for them. They entered, shut the swinging doors behind them, and secured them well.
This building had become their home, their fortress, and most important, their last, best hope at defeating the Morningstar strain. Over the past several weeks the survivors had settled in. The main entryway, once open and inviting with wide windows and double doors, had been completely reworked. Two-by-fours had been bolted neatly across the window frames, sealing them completely shut. The doors themselves had been reinforced with chain mesh and a folding steel bar to lock them firmly in place.
The result was a much dimmer but safer entryway. Candles weren’t hard to come by. No one had used them much before the pandemic, and yet almost every house or place of business had a bundle hidden away somewhere. They were now being put to good use. Here and there a pillar of wax sat burning away, giving the entryway a flickering, shadowy ambience.
Originally meant as a reception area, it still bore the marks of its previous incarnation. A few inspirational posters hung on the walls, and a long-dead office plant sat neglected in a corner next to a smaller and green plastic one. Chairs and couches meant for clients had been dragged into a rough circle off to the side, leaving a clear aisle between the exit and the hall that led deeper into the facility.
A stack of old magazines and tabloids was scattered across the only coffee table in the room. Lounging near the unruly pile with her feet propped up on the table was a slight Japanese girl, thumbing her way through a copy of
The Week
. She wore her hair short, and had bright, intelligent eyes. She spared Trev and Brewster a glance. “How’d you make out?” she asked.
“I see you’re making good use of your time, Juni,” said Trev, nodding at the magazines. “As for the run—mostly medicines,” Trevor said, shrugging his pack higher on his shoulders. “I’m not sure about some of them, though.”
“They’re expired,” Brewster added.
“Hmm,” shrugged Juni, flipping a page. “Becky’ll be happy about that.”
“What’s Becky’s personal weather forecast looking like today, Juni?” Brewster asked. “Sunny? Stormy?”
Juni peered at him from behind the pages of her magazine. “Partly cloudy.”
“Great,” said Brewster, sighing. Rebecca, a young woman who was pretty as a picture, but one that had become rather volatile, was something of a mystery to the group. One moment she was enthusiastic and helpful, and the next, taciturn and short-tempered.
“I’d get those supplies to her, though,” Juni said, dropping the magazine on her lap. “She’s probably on her way down to meet the Doc right now.”
“We’re on it,” Trevor said, slapping Brewster on the shoulder. “Let’s go, bud.”
“See you around, beautiful,” said Brewster, grinning at Juni. She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the stack of magazines in front of her. Then, just as quickly, she called out: “When do you think Sherman’ll let me go out with you two? I hate just
sitting
here.”
Trev and Brewster exchanged glances and kept on moving deeper into the facility. Juni was becoming a broken record about going on scavenging runs.
A long hallway ran away from reception and led to a four-way intersection. Three of the halls were flanked by offices, most of which had been taken over as personal living spaces and personalized in one way or another. It would help with the group’s morale, Sherman had said, if they were allowed a little leeway. Brewster had noted that the survivors had taken a kind of pride in adding their own touches to their rooms.
A door with a welded Celtic knot design emblazoned on it marked Jack the Welder’s room. He’d found quite a treasure trove in the industrial park next door. He was forever sculpting this or that out of spare bits of metal, owing to his profession and, he said, his aspirations as an artist.
The next room was Mitsui’s, the Japanese contractor, and the room beyond his was Juni’s. They were both Japanese, but only Juni spoke English these days, and the pair had formed a friendship because of it. It wasn’t anything romantic. Mitsui was far too old for Juni’s interest, and he would have considered it an improper relationship. Still, the pair stuck together, with Juni translating anything Mitsui needed to say. The door to Juni’s room was wide open and the walls were covered in brightly colored murals of trees, flowers, and steep mountainsides, mostly inspired by ads in the magazines she read, the pages carefully unstapled and reassembled for the pictures. Only the far wall remained unfinished, in black-and-white outlines.
General Francis Sherman’s room was at the far end of the hall. The door was shut and locked, and besides the General, only Sergeant Major Thomas had ever been inside. No one knew what Sherman kept in there, but it was a frequent topic of conversation during downtime.
Thomas refused to keep a room of his own. When he needed rest, he often slept on the couch in the facility’s entryway. He said that, should they be attacked in the night, he would hear the commotion first and raise the alarm.
Mbutu Ngasy, the air traffic controller formerly of Mombasa, Kenya, and witness to the first human attacks on record, made himself at home on the building’s roof. He’d constructed a tent out of tarp and stakes, and had found a telescope in one of the nearby abandoned stores. It was a common sight for Brewster to see the tall, wide-shouldered man crouched on the edge of the roof, watching the stars at night and plotting their courses. He said it reminded him of his old job, and made him feel at peace. Of all the survivors, Mbutu was the most mysterious. He said little unless pressed, but what he did say invariably came true. Trevor called him a psychic. Brewster didn’t think so, but he and Trev had to agree that Mbutu was definitely intuitive. He had a sixth sense when it came to danger. The group loved him for it, and when Mbutu spoke, they listened well.
Brewster was proud of his own room, and never hesitated to joke about his digs. He’d found and liberated a number of old posters—mostly of B movies, some of bands now long dead—and plastered them on the walls. Those walls he couldn’t cover were spray-painted in a dizzying array of colors. He called it his art, and jokingly claimed that once the pandemic was over and done with, his room would be a stop on a museum tour.
Whenever he had to poke his head in there, Brewster saw how Rebecca Hall’s room reflected her dual personality. She’d shoved the desk the previous occupant had used against a far wall, and laid out her medical gear on the surface in a neat, orderly fashion. Everything was perfectly arranged. A map of the United States was pinned to the wall, with red thumbtacks stuck through many of the major cities—those infected beyond hope. Yellow tacks pockmarked the map as well, denoting areas where infection was likely. Two lonely green tacks adorned the map: one stuck on the western edge of Omaha, and one over Abraham, Kansas—the two bastions of humanity that Brewster was aware of, places devoid of the virus. The other end of the room reflected her second, unpredictable side. Clothing lay scattered around the floor in heaps, some dirty, some clean, all wrinkled. Her bed—more of a cot than anything else—was up against the far wall, unmade. The covers lay half-on, half-off the mattress, and her pillow had fallen to the floor.
Trevor, like Mbutu, didn’t keep residence in the main complex. He barely slept, for that matter. He’d settled for wandering the halls at night, after most of the group had gone to sleep. He once told Brewster that when he did feel the need to rest, he would pull a chair to a window and doze with one eye open, always on the lookout for a demon to hunt.
Krueger was safe and sound in his watchtower, outside the main complex. Of all the survivors, he had chosen the safest spot—though not for that reason. The forty-foot tower he lived in gave him a 360-degree view of the area, and, combined with his .30-06 rifle, made him the group’s first and finest line of defense. Brewster never felt anxious when Krueger was awake and in his tower—he was confident that any threat that approached would be dealt with before he even knew they were in peril.
Brewster and Trev walked calmly past these rooms. They’d become quite comfortable in their lives here, and usually kept their minds occupied with thoughts of scavenging food and supplies, and the hope of developing a vaccine.
Trev and Brewster came to the four-way intersection and moved straight on through, heading for the wide stairwell that led to the true reason behind the building’s existence: a biosafety level four laboratory.
Only two were officially recognized in the United States. One was at Fort Detrick, in Maryland: the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID for short. The second was in Atlanta, run by the Centers for Disease Control.
This other lab was off the books and privately funded, the survivors camped above humanity’s last, best hope of developing a vaccine.
Before they reached the stairwell, however, they passed a locked office door on their left. From inside, Brewster could hear the sound of rhythmic pounding.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Inside the room were two soldiers, prisoners of Sherman’s survivors. They’d surrendered when Sherman’s group had caught them unaware, and were now relegated to the small, featureless room that was serving as their prison cell. The only entertainment they were allowed was a ragged copy of
National Geographic
and a moldy tennis ball. They almost didn’t even get that much, but Sherman, who had an em-pathetic streak in him, couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the enemy soldiers alone with nothing at all to do. Even convicted felons were allowed some form of entertainment.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Brewster paused, turned to the door, and slammed his palm against it. “Hey! Knock it off! We didn’t give you that damn tennis ball so you could annoy the shit out of us with it!”
A moment passed in silence before a surly voice answered back. “Yeah? Why don’t you come in here and get it?”
“Don’t tempt me,” Brewster said, and turned away, catching up with Trev.
“Why do we even keep those two in there?” Trevor asked.
“Collateral, I guess. Hostages, maybe. What do you want us to do with ’em? It’s not like we have a lot of options.”
“We have plenty of options,” Trev said, pulling open the stairwell door and holding it as Brewster stepped through. “In case you’ve forgotten, those bastards tried to kill us. They had us dead to rights when we first got here. And they killed Matt! They
shot
him right in front of Juni!”
“Hell, we’ve all done our share of killing—”
“In self-defense,” Trev said, voice rising slightly. “They’re murderers. And now they’re costing us food, water, shelter—I say we just take them out back and shoot them.”
Brewster raised his eyebrows. For a “crazy man,” Trev was normally very rational. He’d never heard him advocate execution before. “That’s a little drastic, the whole eye-for-an-eye thing. I’m sure Sherman knows what he’s doing. If he thought they were a threat, or if he thought we couldn’t handle them, we would have gotten rid of them by now. They did dig the slit trench. And they’re still in the process.”
“Maybe,” Trev said, but he didn’t sound convinced. His boots rang out on the stairs as the pair descended. The slit trench was something that none of the survivors wanted to work on . . . while the Fac had light and water they brought in, the restrooms didn’t work so well, so Denton and Thomas had rescued a couple of porta-potties from a construction site and brought them in. The prisoners had dug the trench from the toilets to the runoff behind the Fac and had to work on it from time to time to keep things flowing.
Brewster tapped Trev on the shoulder in a conciliatory gesture. “Look, I see where you’re coming from. But they’ll get what’s coming to them in the end. Hell, maybe Sherman’s keeping them around just to have a couple of guinea pigs for Dr. Demilio to test on.”