Blood Soaked and Contagious (12 page)

“No, but the kids came by, so I know that they’re okay.”

“Yeah. I don’t know how you figured that out, but you all got there in the nick of time. There were two goons in the house, the one you blew up, and a dude in a truck waiting on Route 29. The boys got the ones you didn’t get. No casualties but you on our side.”

“I’m really glad I’m all that got wounded.”

“So are we! You’re too ornery to die.”

“Shawn, you’re not telling me how long I’ve been out of commission. Why aren’t you telling me that?”

“Because, if I tell you that, you’ll probably pop some stitches and we’d really prefer to have you on the mend.” He frowned in his own legendary way, and I knew it was bad.

“I need you to give it to me straight; don’t be a pussy about it.”

He heaved a massive sigh and told me, “You’ve been in and out of consciousness for the past three days. Yes, before you even ask, Baj agreed to go to Hightower and work on the project. Jayashri was allowed to remain here. This was the best we could do in the face of much superior firepower.”

Surprisingly enough, I didn’t explode when I heard all of that. I guess there was still enough morphine in my system to keep me calmer than I usually am when confronted with a situation that makes me want to piss nails. I found myself nodding, as though what Shawn said made sense or I could understand why Baj would do such a thing.

“Why?”

Shawn was doing an excellent job of not meeting my eyes. “It was the kids. No one expected they’d do that. No one but you. Problem is, you didn’t even figure it out until it was almost too late.”

“We were naive. We didn’t want to think Hightower would stoop that low. FUCK! Not even his own spy thought he was watching us that hard!”

“Cool your jets. Nothin’ we can do right now. People made decisions, and Bajali made the best deal he could to keep everybody safe. You know, as well as I do, he won’t burn the midnight oil to get that nano-thing done. Hell, if he finds a way to fuck it up, you know he’ll do it.”

I went off the hook. The frustration, rage, and my own inability to do a damned thing about what happened while I was down climbed up my ass and throttled the Hell out of my brain. I don’t remember what I said, but I got right up in my friend’s face and poured shit out of my mouth…it might have been the drugs, or the stress, but I’ll never know for sure.

The friendly, country boy exterior peeled off him like a snakeskin, and something much angrier was left in that place.

I didn’t see the fist coming. Suddenly my face hurt, and I was on my back across the table. There were angry black spots in front of my eyes, and I was pretty sure I couldn’t get up on my own.

“What the fuck is it with you, anyway? Are you so damned smart you can’t imagine people making decisions without your input?” Even with black spots in front of me, more pain than I can ever remember, and the drug hangover, there was no way I could mistake how angry he was... how angry he had every right in the world to be. “Man, I don’t give a fuckin’ rat’s ass what you think. You are not God. I will tell you, God as my witness, if you ever speak that way about people who saved your ass ever again, you had better leave town before I find you. If all you’ve got is that kind of bullshit: we don’t need you.”

I was wrong. I hated myself for it. Maybe I had over-stayed my welcome and really was better off leaving and finding someplace else to live.

I heard Shawn turn around, breathing like a freight train, and leave the room. I couldn’t move.

The sound of your heart breaking is the voice of someone you care about telling you they don’t want you or need you. Don’t argue with me about that, because I know I’m right. I’ve been through it too many times, have too much data, and more scars than you.

At some point, the world stopped looking like a bad acid experience and I knew I had to get off my back. That was a simple decision, really, because the pain was getting unbearable and sensations like that are enough to motivate even the most despairing of souls.

It did take a little time to roll over onto my right side without using my left arm or many of my other major muscle groups, but I did it. Time didn’t really matter much. I wasn’t sure about anything, other than the pain, and the growling of my stomach.

I guess I hadn’t eaten anything in three days or so. I didn’t really want to eat, but at least it would give me a purpose for a short time, and even a small challenge. Would I be able to get up the stairs to the loft where my food and water stash was?

Would I be able to get back down the stairs? Then again, it might not even matter if I couldn’t get down the stairs again. I could stay up there, piss and shit into a bucket, dump it out the window, and never come down. If the food ran out, well, I could decide what to do then.

No time like the present to find out. Standing up again was a unique experience, and walking was just as interesting. Before long I was standing in front of the stairs to the loft. It used to be the store manager’s office and looked out across the floor of the store. A great view.

I opened the door, once I made my slow and careful way up the stairs, and went inside. My sleeping bag and pillow were in the same place. The desk was still in the corner with the circa 1950s office chair, across from the racks of dry goods and bottled water. All I did was stand there because I didn’t know what to do.

I couldn’t sit in the chair and I couldn’t get down to the sleeping bag and expect to get up again. The best I could do was use the desk for everything. There are worse fates. I gathered up some beef jerky and a bottle of water and lowered myself onto the desk.

At no other time in my life was I so aware of the location of my tailbone.

When I put the bottle and bag down on the top of the desk, I saw an envelope with my name on it. Careful block letters. Whoever wrote it wasn’t rushed while they did it. Sharp corners on the letters. Probably written by a man. Not a love letter from Shawn’s sister.

I’d always imagined that she’d have that rolly handwriting girls did when I was in high school. They’d make circles to dot the “i” and little hearts all over the place.

Love letters in school were the best! If the world hadn’t changed, I bet I could have collected old love letters and turned them into some kind of Internet and coffee-table book phenomenon. Most of my dreams and ideas start out with “If the world hadn’t changed.”

Beef jerky and water aren’t my favorite choices for a meal, but there was just very little likelihood enough energy remained in me to do anything more involved. The world looked very bleak through my eyes, having alienated myself from my people and knowing that a friend was risking mankind’s future in an effort to give us more time to fight back.

Baj was going to get himself killed, infected, undead, or worse. God forbid he might succeed in one way or another.

Depression grabbed me like a piranha on the testicles of an Amazonian warrior. I couldn’t tell where the pain was worse: my arm, my whole back, or my heart. The back, ass, and arm commanded a certain amount of care, whereas my feelings could be swung around without a care for their condition.

So, I danced with the piranha.

At some point the jerky was finished, and so was the water. The companion meat-eating fish in my heart were still gnawing on my gristle when I remembered the letter on the table beside me. I looked down at it and tried to resist the urge to read it. The Piranha Brothers were against me.

“Oyé, gringo. Read the letter, man. No, we mean it. Read the letter. Maaaan, read the goddamned letter!”

Persistent little fuckers, putting the Nom on my bits like that.

Of course, the letter was from Bajali.

My dear friend,

You have always given me the benefit of your friendship and honesty, and in this situation, I can do no less for you.

We were all duped, as you know. They have been watching us for some time, but we were foolish enough to believe the village we have made for ourselves would not be seen as a potential threat. So it goes, freedom and peace spoil the unwary.

As I write this, my wife is pulling shards of metal from your body, hoping you will not lose too much blood.

I think what I would like to say is something less rational than the words I used a moment ago. I hope if you are reading this, you will bear with me.

I am writing this letter to you as you are bleeding out across a table in a makeshift surgery. You may not live to read what I am writing. Jayashri is terribly worried, as are we all.

It is not our friends that concern me in this moment, but the terror that I will lose my friend—you, who had a flash of intuition that saved the children, whom we all hold dear, from capture or worse.

Can I do less than my friend who is bleeding, as likely to die as to live, on that table? You will be furious beyond reason with me, and I dearly hope you will live to tell me so, but I know what I must do.

Jayashri and I cannot flee. She is needed here and knows this better than anyone. Wherever I go, our enemy will follow. Unless I go to him. Then, for the weeks and months it could take for me to complete the work he desires, my dear friends will be safe.

Should I choose to stay, and I think you would agree, Hightower will attack with all he has at his disposal in order to capture me or force my compliance. That is an unconscionable choice for me. I cannot let more of you be injured or killed so that I might be safe for another day.

I will go willingly. I will work and sabotage that work if at all possible. That is my duty to you and to each living soul I have come to love in this lifetime.

Pray, if you will, that we will succeed and meet again in this life. I will pray for that. Jayashri will pray for that. Nothing spoken in this world goes unheard; this, I believe.

Live.

Very sincerely,

Bajali

My chest hurt more than the rest of my body, and I couldn’t help but collapse in on myself. Paralyzed and flooded, I tumbled to the floor. I am not even sure whether I wept or not, or even if I was able to form a coherent thought. The Piranha Brothers abandoned me without a single taunt to mark their exit.

All I had left was my breath, in and out. Everything else was disintegrating, and I was to blame for not thinking fast enough and for not holding my damned tongue. Even my breath, that last thing left in the shell of me, was too heavy to bear.

Before I found this enclave of happiness a little over a year before that day, I’d been doing a lot of wandering. When the first stories about dead people coming back to life hit the news, I was in a pub in Duddingston, Scotland, soaking my tongue with sequential pints of 80 Shilling beer, dark, thick, malty stuff.

Duddingston is “over the hill” from Edinburgh. The hill is Arthur’s Seat, and a decent little hike if you don’t realize that the best way up is to just walk around to the other side and go right up the slope. Bing, you’re at the top. Bong, you’ve just walked back down. It’s a nice view.

Over the few weeks I’d been tramping around that countryside, the morning view across E-burg from the top of Arthur’s Seat was my all-time favorite. I’d stop by Neal’s Yard Cheese, grab a little something different, walk around the mini-mountain, up the slope, and chill out with the nibble. That day, it rained.

I jogged down, nearly killed myself slipping on the wet, mossy steps that lead into that Edinburgh suburb, and threw myself into the Sheep’s Heid pub. I won’t bore you with the history, but Bonnie Prince Charlie was said to have made war plans over a pint at the Heid. It’s been around for quite some time.

Earlier in the week, I’d discovered that the bartender had a sister in Alexandria, Virginia, the city next to Arlington. Having come from that area myself, we had quite a lot to talk about. He was never one for keeping the telly on, except during important footie matches. That afternoon, on a lark, he turned it on.

I had three pints in me when the news came on about the dead rising from the grave in countries around the world. Within moments, everyone in the pub was crowded around the bar, and the volume on the TV was turned up all the way. We were a human chorus of incredulous murmurs.

Some hours later, in the wee half-light of the morning, I decided to head back to the little hotel that I’d been calling home for a few weeks. There was a scream from somewhere ahead of me on the cobbled path back to Edinburgh proper, followed by some thuds and wet noises.

While personal crime is lower in the UK than the US, there is still some to contend with. I figured I was merely going to witness a mugging, or a rape at worst. No such luck for me.

He was eating the girl by the time I made it close enough to see what was going on. I rushed in, and he threw me about 20 feet through the air. The landing made my teeth bounce around in my gums, but I was able to roll with it and come back up on my feet. I was surprised to find him directly in front of me when I completed the roll.