The Infection (16 page)

He quickens the pace of his pushups. His heart is racing.

A knock on the door.

The soldiers at the base begin falling down onto the crushed stones.

“Not yet,” he says,
thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine—

The bodies are screaming.

The person knocks again.

He stops, panting. So close. He had come so close to forgetting.

“Come in,” he says.

The door opens and Wendy enters. She watches him wipe the sweat from his body with a towel. She seems particularly interested in the bear paw print tattoo on the left side of his chest. He looks away, suddenly feeling naked.

“Has Anne come back?” he says.

Wendy smiles and nods.

“Good,” he says.

She reaches into her mouth, extracts a chewed ball of Bazooka gum, and sticks it to the doorframe.

“Good,” she says, staring at him.

“So,” he adds, feeling awkward.

“So,” she says.

The cop takes a step towards him, holds his face in her hands, and kisses him gently on the mouth.

He forgets everything.

♦

Ethan sits on his bed in the fluorescent light, watching his phone lying inert on the floor and drinking red wine out of a Dixie cup. The phone is connected to a power outlet. The power from the emergency generator will shut off in fifteen minutes and he wants to make sure he has his phone charged. It is starting to hit him that they are safe and that they will be living here for a while. Ever since he fled his home with nothing but a backpack, his every waking thought focused on staying away from the Infected when he could and killing them when he could not. After that: water, food, shelter. Now that all of his basic needs are being satisfied, his mind is already beginning to wander to other needs. New clothes and toiletries. Some DVDs to kill the time. Exercise equipment. Some art on the walls. And, perhaps most important, a project that will give him a sense of purpose, that will allow him to start living again instead of simply surviving. Rescuing other survivors, maybe. Starting a greenhouse. Anything to keep out the other emotions that continually threaten to invade his mind. For ten days, he has felt little other than fear, anxiety and panic. Now he is beginning to feel guilt, depression and boredom. A crushing sense of isolation and homesickness. He misses his wife. He misses his little girl. He misses his old life.

We were lucky, Carol, he thinks, his brain soggy with alcohol. We were stupid.

He takes another long sip of wine. It is a ridiculously expensive vintage but he has put down so much already that his taste buds right now could not tell the difference between a fine Bordeaux and Mad Dog.

Ethan takes out his backpack and carefully places a series of artifacts on the bed. A hairbrush with his wife’s hair still tangled in it, which no longer smells like her. A yellow rubber airplane, a promotion from an airline during a family vacation to Florida. Plastic piggy: Mary picked it up while playing in a park and would not part with it. Grimy little teddy bear that squeaks when squeezed; Mary used to make it talk back to her in a falsetto voice during pretend conversations. A hairclip. A card his wife gave him to express how glad she was that he had not been taken from her by the Screaming. Ethan knows the words, written in her fine handwriting, by heart. A wood spirit carving, the face of a bearded old man. A little blue Buddha on a keychain: Carol frequently toured spirituality but could not commit to religion. A photo of her from before Mary was born. Another of them smiling at their wedding, hastily ripped out of its frame before he fled the house. Several wallet photos of Mary when she turned one. The edges are worn from constant handling.

He has dozens of other photos but they are all on his computer at his house. He wants to think that he can go back there one day and get them. That someday the Infected are all going to drop dead or some scientist will invent a cure, and he can go home.

♦

Sarge returns to consciousness with an intense sensation of butterflies in his heart. The beautiful cop is pulling away. He gazes after her sadly, wondering if he did something wrong.

But she says, “Will you hold me?”

“Yes,” he says, surprised at how relieved he feels that she is not leaving.

“Just hold me for a minute?”

“I would like that.”

Wendy guides him gently to the bed and pushes him down. She curls up next to him. They lie together on their sides, spooning, his large arm wrapped protectively around her stomach.

“This is nice,” she purrs. “Jesus, I feel really safe right here. Oh, fucking yes.”

Sarge feels the warmth of her body against his. He smells her hair. The sensations are intoxicating; he has not been with a woman since before his deployment to Afghanistan. A long time. He wonders if he can touch her in other places, but does not move. He is afraid of spoiling the moment.

“Do you mind if I sleep here tonight?”

“You can sleep here,” he tells her.

“Sarge?”

He frowns at her tone. The moment was spoiled after all. A part of him expected this all along. She is going to ask him why he prefers Anne as leader. He does not want to have to explain the deal he made.

Instead, she says, “Do you think we have a responsibility to other people anymore?”

He blinks in surprise.”What do you mean?”

“You’re a soldier. I’m a cop. We swore an oath. We have our duty.”

Sarge thinks of Ducky, willing to risk everything to find friendly forces.

“We do,” he agrees.

“What if this is really a safe place? Are we allowed to stay here and be happy? Or are we obligated to find others like us and see what we can do to help?”

“I don’t know, Wendy,” he says. “I honestly do not know.”

He wants to kiss her again, but she has already fallen asleep in his arms. She is a different person in sleep, so beautiful and innocent it makes his heart ache. His arm is already hurting from the weight of her body but he does not care.

She moans briefly in her sleep, wincing. Her cheeks are wet with tears.

“I’ll protect you,” he whispers.

♦

Paul stands in the dark on the roof facing north, gazing into more darkness. The fluorescent lighting had begun to make him feel nervous and exposed. It, or the wine over which he had silently mouthed the Sacrament almost without thinking, was starting to give him a headache. He believes he understands why Anne left. He felt a similar yearning to go out into the night. The dark can be a safe place. In the dark, nobody can see you. Sanctuary is what we all wanted, he tells himself, and now we fear it. We fear its illusion of safety and choice.

He lights another cigarette, careful to conceal the flame of his lighter. He coughs on a cloud of smoke. His throat feels scratchy and raw. He is already planning his next cigarette. He has a fresh pack making a comfortable bulge in the pocket of his jacket. He finds renewing his old habit good for the nerves. A habit is reliable. Right now, lung cancer is the least of his worries.

He thinks about the first man he killed. A woman, actually, in the beverage aisle of Trader Joe’s market. The woman came running and the shotgun, held in his shaking hands, suddenly seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. He barely remembers firing it—by that point, his heart rate was skyrocketing and his vision had shrunk down to the size of a small circle. He couldn’t control his hands. The roar of the gun startled him and he flew back against the empty shelving; then he ran screaming for help. When he returned with the other survivors, he found the woman lying on the ground, her head splashed down the aisle, stone dead. His legs gave out and he cried. Over time, he has gotten better at killing, but he still regrets every one.

The only man he actually wishes he had ever killed was that first Infected who came running at him out of the darkness in the alley behind his house. When he tries to sleep at night, that hateful face lunges out of the dark, flooding his system with adrenaline. He has killed a dozen Infected, wounded perhaps twice that, but that one man still terrifies him. That one man has become more than a memory; he is a symbol of Infection and the hate and fear it has imposed on his life. If Paul could only go back in time, he would fight and kill the man with his bare hands.

He sighs and wonders what Sara would think about the new Paul if she were still alive. He takes comfort in the understanding she loved him and would want him to survive no matter what the cost. She would tell him to kill the thing in the alley. She would say: You are my man and I love you more than myself. She would say: Survive, baby. She would say: Kill them all.

He cannot remember what happened to her. He remembers the grisly slaughter at the church, and the mob, and the battle with the Infected. The next thing he knew, he was huddled in a corner in a temporary shelter set up by the government. He cannot remember anything else but wants to know what happened. Sara is Infected: Knowing will not affect that outcome. But he would like to know. Or rather, he would like to remember.

The sky is covered with flying clouds that hide the moon. For a few minutes, it is so dark that it is easy to imagine he is in a spaceship hurtling lost through the void. Slowly, his vision adjusts to night until he can make out the details of the urban nightscape. He hears muffled gunfire and shouts carried on a fresh breeze. He sees the headlights of a small convoy of vehicles driving far to the west. A bright red line emerges from the darkness in the northeast, like a glowing cut.

He watches the line grow larger, curving, a glowing red scimitar. Fire. A big fire on the south side of the river. He can already smell the smoke. Around the spreading flames, gunshots and screams. People and Infected alike are in flight. Paul shudders. If the fire keeps going, there will be a bloodbath tonight as thousands are flushed out of hiding onto streets filled with Infected. Many of them will come this way. There are few other directions they can go.

Already, down at the edge of the parking lot behind the hospital, he can see gray shapes moving in the dark, writhing and pushing against each other like maggots.

♦

Ethan’s head is reeling from the wine and he cannot think straight. He picks up the cell phone, his heart suddenly pounding loudly in his ears, and turns it on. The image tells him that there is no service available in his calling area, another reminder that the entire power grid is down. Cellular networks use radio base stations and networks enabling voice calls and text and connection to the wider telephone network. All of these systems use power, and there is no power because the people who run the power plants, provide fuel to the power plants, and maintain the power distribution system are all dead or Infected or hiding. He feels a crushing headache coming on.

During his family’s last vacation together, they joined a group helping baby turtles make it to the sea. The female turtles leave the sea to dig a hole, lay up to two hundred eggs in it, and refill it with sand, the same as they have been doing for millions of years. After the turtles hatch, instinct draws them to the sea. As they emerge from the sand, predators, lying in wait, devour them. Most die; few survive. Only one in a thousand survive the journey. It is a heart wrenching thing to watch but there is no morality here, no overarching narrative, not even a guarantee that just one would make it. There is only life and death and survival of the fittest. This is nature. As Paul would say, the earth abides. The earth is blind to suffering and justice and happy endings.

A part of him believes his family is alive. He pictures Mary, hiding alone in a closet, scared and crying for her mommy and daddy; the image almost physically rips the heart out of his chest. If she is alive, she is a needle in a burning stack of needles. He would not know where to look and he knows that he would not survive five minutes on the streets without the protection of the other survivors and their big fighting vehicle. One in a thousand survive: They are innocent but so few make it and the rest are culled and there is no reason for any of it. He cannot believe his family is dead even though the rational part of his mind knows that this must be true. Ethan understands that he will spend the rest of his life being broken, stuck in the past, unable to say goodbye.

The lights cut out; the soldiers have turned off the power for the night. He becomes aware that he is on his feet pacing, drinking straight out of the bottle in long, painful gulps, his vision blurry with tears. His organs feel like they are in free fall. Ethan coughs on a mouthful of wine, vaguely aware that his right hand is bleeding and alarmingly swollen and throbbing with pain.
My family is dead.
It suddenly feels good to scream.
What did my little girl think when the Infected beat her to death?
He becomes aware of other people in the room. An LED lantern being turned on. He throws the bottle.

Did she feel any pain?

Voices cursing.

Did she wonder where her daddy was?

Hands on him, pushing him down.

Was she still alive when they started eating her?

Voices pleading.