After The Virus (24 page)

“There seems to be a war going on out there,” she said to Stupid as he handed her a couple of his extra guns.

“Yup.” He grinned.

Mandy wandered out and started to try to fix a pot of coffee.
 

Snickers eyed Mandy distrustfully and held on to the gun tied around her neck. Rhiannon eyed this gun necklace and glared at Stupid, who just shrugged.

“Street ain’t safe,” he offered instead. “Best keep to the buildings.”

She wasn’t totally sure that was completely logical, but light headed from blood loss, she was more than ready for someone else to steer.

“I know a way,” Mandy murmured, as she oddly and regimentally tamped espresso.
Perhaps she’d been hit a little too hard on the head?

Unfortunately, Stupid looked interested in Mandy’s version of insanity.

“This bitch tried to sell us into slavery,” Rhiannon sneered.

That didn’t seem to dissuade Stupid. He eyed Mandy’s red-painted jacket and then decided. “She’ll know the city then, and its secret passageways.”

Rhiannon wasn’t too sure what novel he got the passageway notion from, and maybe he didn’t even read, but following Mandy was a bad idea.

Though seeing as she didn’t currently have a better idea, she thought she’d tag along until an opportunity arose, because one always did.

∞

Stupid relieved her of her radio and started to try to contact someone on it, but it had a pretty short range. He kept trying anyway. Snickers filled her new backpack with water and stale packaged cookies.

Mandy led them through hallways, alleys, and multiple doorways. Sometimes they seemed to be below ground, and at other times not so much.

Once, they entered a department store via one of those overhead glassed walkways. In the near distance, smoke rose up from the burning city.

Rhiannon took the opportunity as they walked by to grab a t-shirt to replace the remains of the silk dress she’d wrapped around her torso. She also grabbed jeans for Snickers, who pulled them on under her dress as they continued to jog after Mandy. She didn’t see shoes, though.

At all times, Mandy headed south easterly; it felt right, so they let her lead. Unfortunately, that was also closer to the explosions.

Occasional windows revealed that a herd of the Infected, probably from the parking garage, had now joined the war.

They ate anyone they could grab, regardless of political affiliation.

∞

Mandy eventually led them to what might have once been a private gym of sorts. Rhiannon snagged a few sure-to-be-stale power bars for her and Snickers.

As they turned into a connecting hallway, she slowed her pace while Mandy quickened hers to a jog. This hall looked dreadfully familiar.

Mandy darted through a far door.
 

Stupid yelled, ”Hey, wait up!” and started to follow.

Rhiannon grabbed his arm and he stilled at her touch.

“What is it?” Stupid asked, and all the while his eyes darted around in search of immediate danger.

She was very aware of Snickers hanging off her arm.

“This place…” she started to say, but then didn’t know how to articulate the feeling. “I… I think I’ve been here… before… it isn’t good.”

A sharp scream emanated from Mandy’s general direction, and was quickly followed by waves and waves of keening.

The hair stood up on her arms.

“Mandy isn’t leading us out. She’s led us farther in.” Despite her mounting horror, Rhiannon started to step closer and closer to the doors.

Snickers held her back.

“We leave,” Stupid decided. “She’s on her own.”
 

She continued to move almost unwillingly forward, not wanting to, but —
 

Through the doors, she could see into what was once a series of racquetball courts. Except now, now each court was filled with medical stuff — m
onitors, machines, equipment — whatever the hell all that shit was called.

Each hospital bed was occupied by a woman. The woman in the first bed was hooked to a bunch of machines, strapped down, and recently dead. The woman’s — or rather, the
patient’s, or the prisoner’s —
throat had been slit. Even with her head cranked back, her blood had soaked downward across her chest and bed to drip onto the floor.

A whimper broke through Rhiannon’s frozen, terrified stare. She tore her eyes from the dead woman, and despite the protest of her ribs, snatched up Snickers in her arms.

Stupid sprung forward and quickly entered the racquetball court to check on the woman, but it was more than apparent she was beyond rescue. He moaned just once, like he was briefly voicing a heavy wound.

Snickers kept trying to see what was going on, and Rhiannon pleaded with her, “Please close your eyes baby, you don’t need to see this, please. You never need this.”

But Snickers seemed scared to close her eyes.

Stupid turned his head away from the dead woman and sought them out, like he was desperate to lay eyes on something alive.

“You know her, Clarence?” she found herself asking, even though she didn’t want to converse.

“She looks like someone… her sister maybe. Big’s lady. I… I don’t think… we’ll have to leave her.” Stupid’s words tumbled about as he tried to process the scene. She didn’t know how to respond, so he relieved her of that burden as he dashed over to the next racquet court; but the woman in there, who might have actually been pregnant, was also dead.

The keening ahead settled into broken sobs. Mandy had led them to the baby mills, where someone had been recently, methodically sacrificing the breeders.

Rhiannon followed Stupid down the hall as he darted from court to court. She knew looking for survivors was the right thing to do, but was utterly terrified by the thought that she’d almost been trapped here herself.

She had to lower Snickers, as she couldn’t carry her much longer. She grasped both of the child’s hands and kneeled for better eye contact.

 
“You look at me. Don’t look anywhere but me. I’ll keep you safe, always.”

Snickers nodded and raised her hand to suck her thumb. With a heavy heart, she pulled the thumb from the child’s mouth, like Will would have. Then she straightened to help Stupid search.

When they reached Mandy about five courts later, they hadn’t found anyone alive. The body Mandy was keening over didn’t help that total.

Stupid tried to tug Mandy away from the dead woman, who looked enough like Mandy — though younger and without the red paint — to be her sister. Mandy turned on Stupid, screaming over and over and beating his chest. “It was all for nothing, all for nothing, nothing, nothing.”

Rhiannon tugged Snickers away into the hall while Stupid struggled to calm Mandy.

She felt the child stiffen beside her, and followed her gaze up the hallway.

There at the end of the courts stood the Boss, bloody knife and all.

She screamed at him, not knowing why that was her first response.

She raised her gun, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Snickers do the same; that gave her pause and quick doubt that more killing was the best option. The fact that the child held a gun at all made her heart tighten.

Stupid, followed by Mandy, blew by them to give chase.

The Boss, who was probably currently out of bullet range anyway, turned heel and ran.

Snickers moved as if to follow, but Rhiannon held her back.

She had heard something.

She tapped her ear, and the child tilted her head to listen.

There.

A weak cry.

They ran to the court that the Boss had been about to enter, and found a too-young-to-be-so-very pregnant teen trying to get free from the machines in which she was tangled.

She and Snickers dashed in and with some effort, a couple of knives, and grateful sobbing on the teen’s part, managed to get her unstrapped.

She offered the teen, who had managed to sit up, some of the water they’d collected earlier.

The teen gulped it, and then offered her name, “Chéri.”

“I’m Rhiannon and this is Snickers,” she introduced.

“I know who you are,” Chéri said neutrally, and then turned to beam at Snickers. “That’s a great name. I haven’t seen someone your age in a long time. I am glad you are here to rescue me.”

Snickers nodded shyly.

“The others?” Chéri asked quietly as she tried out her legs.

“All gone, I think,” she answered just as quietly, “but we still need to check.”
 

Stupid, wheezing, flung himself through the door.

Chéri stumbled back against the bed, protectively clutching her very engorged belly.

“Didn’t want to leave you long. Mandy kept after him.” He tried to breathe and speak at the same time, all the while eyeing Chéri distrustfully.

“This is Clarence; he’s with us,” Rhiannon explained.

Chéri recovered enough to wrap herself, over the hospital gown, in a sheet, toga-style.

“Clarence, we need to —” Rhiannon started, but Stupid figured what she needed.

“Got it.” He proceeded to check the other courts for survivors.

There weren’t any.

The Boss, perhaps unable to guarantee keeping them to himself, had slaughtered his entire forced harem and their unborn children, save for Chéri.

The loss was devastating, but they didn’t have time to mourn. It was time to get the hell out of here and home to Will.
 

She took the lead.

Stupid reluctantly stayed with Chéri, who seemed ready to give birth any minute. He had wanted point, but Rhiannon couldn’t support Chéri and take care of Snickers.

Combined, Stupid and Chéri moved slowly enough that she and Snickers were first to step out into the war and gunfire and terror of the street.

∞

The city burned — or at least the long blocks running from the ocean to the river seemed to be in the process of destruction.

She didn’t know which way to turn. Smoke billowed and curled from multiple directions; people darted around, but the shooting had stopped.
 

She tugged Snickers' dress up over her mouth again, and the child pressed against her leg and hip as she tried to determine which way to go.

Low rumbling came from the south, or at least what she thought was south. She was all turned about, so she decided to wait for Stupid and Chéri.

Scared to lose Snickers in this false fog, she hitched the child up on her hip. If she leaned against the doorway, she could support her, for a little while at least.

Then she heard the barking.

A drift of wind cleared the smoke momentarily, and Will, armed to the teeth and covered in protective gear, stepped through.

Flanked by B.B. and about a dozen other very armed men, he was yelling something about putting down the Infected and refuge and freedom.

Someone — who was later introduced as Big — rode behind in a Jeep and echoed these orders via bullhorn.

People actually seemed to be listening.

She stumbled a few steps out from the doorway and immediately drew Will’s eye.
 

He smiled.

The source of the rumble, revealing itself as a tank slowly following behind Will, broke through the smoke.

He brought a tank to rescue them.
 

She’d never had someone bring a tank to her rescue before, not even in a movie.

Snickers smoothed her cheeks, and Rhiannon realized she was crying joyful tears, a type she didn’t even know she was capable of.

Now B.B. had seen them, and the dog barked a greeting.

Then Snickers was out of her arms and running for Will. She blew by B.B., who was also running.

Will flipped his gun behind his back and opened his arms to Snickers. The momentum of her run almost unbalanced him; he hugged the child fiercely.

B.B. dashed to Rhiannon’s side, and after getting a head and chest rub, turned to go back to Will. She still hesitated to follow. She didn’t know if Will would welcome her after all this —
 

He looked for her then, over Snickers' shoulder, and was surprised to see her still near the door. His face was streaked with ash and sweat.

Then she too was running, and falling into his arms.

She kissed him like she’d never kissed anyone before, like she couldn’t even remember or care about all the years of perfected technique. She crushed Snickers between them, but the child didn’t complain; she just twisted her hands in the hair at the back of both of their heads.

Will tasted like sweat and a little sweet, maybe like strawberries. He held her hard enough to hurt, but she never wanted him to lessen his grip.

She’d been so lost and floundering, but hadn’t even understood she was surrounded by darkness, didn’t perceive it until she saw Will’s light.
 

All these years she’d worried about losing herself within someone, and now she, surrounded by fire, bullets and death, had found her home.

The tank rumbled by.
 

An armed group had formed around them, protecting them as they stupidly, amazingly, continued to kiss in the street.

She pulled back to say the most truthful words she’d ever uttered. “I love you, Will. You and Snickers. I’ll never leave you again.”

“Rhiannon,” he laughed, and she heard her joy reflected back. “Without you there is no future, no reason to be… with you, I hope… I wish… for all of eternity together.”

So they kissed again, and she would swear that a cheer rose up from the surrounding army.

Then, oddly, something stung Rhiannon’s back, and suddenly Will wasn’t kissing her anymore. Her legs went weak and he lowered her to the ground.

Things got a bit blurry and it was hard to breathe. Will kept pulling Snickers, who seemed frantic, off her while he yelled for a doctor.

Everyone else was shouting, and B.B. growled like she was about to rip a throat out. Then she felt the warmth, maybe blood, flooding her back.

Her left lung burned.

Fog drifted in, and then the Red Jacket Doctor leaned over her. She tried to fight him off, but Will held her hands.

She pieced together the debate that was going on over her head.