DISEASE: A Zombie Novel (7 page)

Opie rubs his hands together. It’s not cold outside, but that doesn’t matter with a nervous tick. His stomach churns slightly, a delicious dinner of roasted rabbit and potatoes not sitting right. He knew better than to eat, had hardly eaten in fact, but he’s sweet on the head cook, Odette, and she gave him extra at dinnertime.

Odette is a plump lady, not too heavy, not too thin, just the way you would expect a cook to look. She has two children, a little boy and a teenage girl, both of whom adore Opie. Their father is presumed dead, or worse, and Opie can really see a future with them. He’s never played house before, but recently the longing has hit him. It’s time to share his prosperity with an official family, he thinks. Lot’s thirst for power and control has served him well and it’s only a matter of time before there’s more than one community under her thumb. With her influence Opie’s own will grow too and he could give a family the world.

He rubs his hands together again, watching Aaron’s wife and a train of shackled children stumble by. The nurse, Julie, stands next to him, arms crossed, face set in stone. If she has any reservations about what they’re doing, she has never shown it.

She examines each child as they come into her care and vouches for their health as they leave it. They may be filthy and scared, but they are disease free. A few cry quietly, but most stare at the ground and trudge forward, their spirits already broken long before Opie ever laid eyes on them. This test run has been much easier than dealing with ferals, maybe Lot’s right about getting into the middle-man business.

A very short, pudgy man with a well-groomed mustache herds the children into the back of a fortified pick-up truck. There, a machine gun wearing woman locks their manacles to the inside. One of the little boys suddenly summons the courage to speak. “Please,” he cries. “Please help—”

The woman kicks him in the stomach and locks him into place as he blubbers.

Opie looks away, the rabbit stew rolling violently in his gut.

The mustachioed man reaches into the back of the truck and wraps his hands around a crate that he heaves to the ground. It plops at Opie’s feet, followed by a second one. Opie squats next to the first one and pries open the lid with calloused fingers. He peers inside at a swarm of yellow chicks. They peep and cry, piled atop each other in one pulsating mass of feathers. Two hundred total, between the boxes.

Lot went to quite a bit of trouble to secure this deal. Livestock is valuable indeed, and Opie never needs to remind himself why. During their first winter at the hotel they had a small amount of livestock, but bad circumstances and worse weather nearly destroyed everything. There hadn’t been enough food to go around.

When supplies began running out, people got restless. There were whispers of revolt; the situation uncannily reminiscent of the first weeks of The Plague. Opie remembers being nervous that a similar disaster would strike this community, as did the original compound and it wasn’t long before people began disappearing.

Maybe, as was the pervasive theory, those people just set out on their own when their ribs began showing, in search of food, and they never made it back. All Opie knows is that the meager stockpile of supplies in the hotel somehow lasted until the spring, and when the snow thawed, people stopped disappearing. Many felt it was a miracle.

Opie knows better. He knows in his heart what choices Lot made to ensure the survival of the community, and her position of power, but he tries not to think about it. He’s just happy to be the only true person Lot can’t do without.

With the merchandise loaded and payment made the mustachioed man jumps into the cab of the pickup. He leans out the window and smiles with perfectly capped teeth. Opie wonders briefly what this man did in his previous life—lawyer, investment banker, politician?

“Give my regards to Lot,” the man says.

Gunfire sounds from around the corner.

Opie jumps, they all do. Mustachio shoots a suspicious look from the driver’s seat as Opie nervously rubs his hands together. For all the times he’s done this, he’s never heard a peep from the lookouts at the front of the hotel.

The woman leaps from the back of the pick-up weapon, pointed at Opie. Next to him, Julie cries out softly in fear. Opie swallows hard and his stomach seesaws. He waves down the armed woman. “Go, get out of here.”

She looks at mustachio, who nods. Without a word she slams the tailgate closed and then jumps into the truck’s passenger seat, shutting the door. They are driving toward a back road seconds later, raising a cloud of dirt.

Opie coughs and squints his eyes against the dust. The taillights are gone quickly. He turns to face the nurse, a touch of sweat standing out on his brow. It’s always nerve-wracking to stare down the barrel of a gun. More shots are fired and Opie’s heart skips a beat. He grabs a box and with one arm around it, hurries through an emergency exit. Julie runs behind him, carrying the other box.

Opie pushes through the propped open door, back into the hotel, and then drops his box on the floor. His stomach loosens a bit and he breathes relaxing enough to clear his head. He closes the door, and chains it shut. With a wave he beckons the nurse to drop her box on his, and together they shove a few crates back in front of the emergency exit, concealing the fact that it was ever opened. Just as they finish, a shout comes down the hallway. Candlelight bounces off the walls as someone approaches, yelling randomly into the dark. “Julie! We need you! Emergency!” It’s a guard.

Opie waves at Julie. “Go, deal with the situation.”

She’s gone in a blink, jogging down the corridor to meet the candle carrying man. After a brief back and forth they take off toward the lobby, the guard never once questions what she was doing in the hallway alone, in the dark.

Opie feels around and finds the oil lantern he stashed in the corner. It’s turned down low, the glass covered, hiding the flame. He turns a knob and a warm glow leaps to life. He sits back on the crates blocking the door and reaches into a pocket to pull out a battered green and gold package of
Jack Hatter’s
cigarettes—one of the many perks of being Lot’s right-hand man. Every once in a while he shares his stash with his most trusted men, as reward for keeping their traps shut. He fishes a smoke from the pack with his long fingers and lights it off the lantern then sits back with the first inhale. He closes his eyes and enjoys the fuzzy warmth of smoke in his lungs.

With every drag he tries to blot out the memory of whimpering children.

***

Casey and Danny lean against the wire of the foyer cage catching their breath. Lawrence screams deliriously from the floor, writhing in pain and as white as a sheet. Casey’s makeshift tourniquet isn’t doing its job.

A crowd, attracted by the commotion, is gathering around the entrance, but parts as the nurse pushes her way through. Every guard is at full attention, their guns drawn; fingers on triggers. “She’s been bitten!” Lawrence screams, and the people around gasp.

The head guard’s booming voice cuts through the noise. “STRIP!”

Casey grips the cage side. She stares at the overly muscled man with the Marie Corps tattoo. What is he saying? It doesn’t make sense.

“STRIP!”

“You can’t be serious! This man needs medical attention,
right now
!” Casey shouts.

Faces press in, their garbled voices growing louder, more excited.

The guard glances at the nurse. “Julie?”

Julie crosses her arms. “Him too.”

Danny drops to his knees next to Lawrence and starts ripping clothes from the blabbering man’s body.

“She’s bitten! She’s bitten! She’s bitttttsssssttttt—”

Lawrence convulses in Danny’s arms. Foam bubbles from his mouth and his eyes roll back. These people are crazy! This man is dying before their very eyes!

Danny struggles with Lawrence’s clothing, fighting a seizing arm out of its sleeve. Casey can see him grinding his teeth again. He turns to her, his eyes lined with stress. “Help me!”

She has no choice. Lawrence is probably going to die for all their effort, but he has no chance at all if these loons won’t even let him inside.

“Jesus Christ!” Casey kicks the side of the cage then bounces in next to Danny. Lawrence flails against the marble floor and as she reaches for him, Danny leaps away as though hit with an electric shock.

“Get away from him!” he shouts at her.

“What?”

Danny hooks his rifle with one hand, his eyes don’t leave Lawrence. Someone in the crowd screams. The guards look at each other, unsure what to do.

“Get away from him!” he shouts again.

Then Casey sees it. Her eyes zoom in on Lawrence’s waxen skin where deep red teeth marks are gouged into his wrist.

Danny aims his gun at the man’s head.

“Stop!” Casey screams.

“Lower your weapon!” commands a bellowing voice.

BAM!

The blast is deafening. Blood showers Casey and the seizing stops. Lawrence’s limp body hangs in her arms, he is dead.

Someone somewhere demands that Danny drop his weapon and he lowers his gun.

Casey grips Lawrence’s shirt. She tastes blood in her mouth—her own. Her tongue aches and yet it isn’t enough to steady her anger. She springs to her feet, baring her teeth. “What the fuck, Danny!” she screams.

“He was bitten.”

“Maybe he could have been saved!”

Danny opens his mouth but Lot’s calm, smooth voice interjects before he says anything. “I’m sorry, Casey.” Alex stands next to her. The crowd falls eerily quiet and Casey can feel people hanging on the woman’s every word.

“The fungus spores were already in Lawrence’s bloodstream. There’s nothing that could be done to save him.”

Casey clenches and unclenches her hands. After a moment of unsuccessfully trying to calm herself she flips around to face Lot, glaring through the wire mesh of the caged foyer.
Heathens!
They could have given Lawrence a chance. Her body shakes with anger.

“Fungus spores? Are you nuts? You don’t know that! No one knows what causes this. Maybe he could have been saved! We could have tried amputation!”

“No, we couldn’t have. I’m sorry, but there was no other option. Anyone bitten
always
turns.”

“You don’t know that! He could have been the one that was immune!”

Casey feels Danny’s hand on her shoulder. Just knowing it’s there makes her blood boil. “It had to be done,” he says.

Who the hell does this ogre think he is? Judge, jury, and executioner? She spins around and screams in his face. “What’s the matter with you? You can’t just do that to people, you have to give them a chance!”

“I HAD TO!” he screams back.

Casey’s brings her hand quickly through the air, slapping Danny across the face and leaving finger-shaped red marks on his cheek. She glares angrily up at him, shoulders rising and falling with each shallow breath. He reaches up, touches his skin, blue eyes wide with shock and hurt. The lobby is as quiet as death. This must be better than daytime TV to these psychopaths, she thinks.

“Danny,” the head guard’s voice, gentler this time, he doesn’t want to stir the pot. “Your gun.”

Danny looks down at his weapon, dazed, as though just remembering he’s holding it. Without a word he hands it through a slot in the cage and staring into space, begins undressing.

One of the guards points at Casey. “Strip.”

Casey’s rage-filled eyes slide over Danny as he removes his t-shirt. All around them guards point guns. On the floor lies a man with a belt around his leg and a bullet in his head. The gathered crowd in the lobby waits with baited breath to see what will happen next, and at the center of it all is the petite, grey-haired woman who runs the whole show.

Watching everything, held back by Lot’s hand and silently gripping his knapsack, is Alex.

It’s too much to take.

Casey growls at the sum. “No. No! I’m leaving. Fuck you all. Give me Alex. Alex, honey, come here.”

Alex tries to step forward but Lot stays him. He looks from Lot to Casey, unsure. Casey thinks she sees something in Lot’s eyes, an impending threat like a viper about to strike. The woman plays with the necklace around her throat. “Casey,” she says, “I cannot allow you to take custodianship of the boy until it’s known that you haven’t been infected.”

Casey digs skin from the inside of her palms with her fingernails. She wishes she could make this woman’s head explode. She wishes she had never come here, had never met Danny, had never been enticed by food and security. She begins to tear her clothes from her body, her voice vicious and grating “You want to see I’m not infected? Huh? You want to make sure I’m not bitten? Fine!”

It’s more than raw anger coursing through her veins. It’s bitter disappointment and a crushing sadness. The dashed dreams of safety, and a future where she and Alex could live, not just survive. Casey whips her bloodied shirt to the ground, casting it off as though it were her poisoned hope. Immediately a guard, the large woman, points a sausage finger at the torn flesh on Casey’s arm. “What’s that?”

Casey’s angry eyes follow the line of the fat finger. A chill overtakes her body as she looks at her arm. She swallows hard with the realization that these people all have hammers, and that to them, every wound looks like a nail. One by one she feels the hairs over her entire body as they stand on end. “It’s not a bite, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Lawrence said you were bitten,” says another guard. He hasn’t lowered his gun, no one has. A pit of defeat bobs in Casey’s stomach and her knees feel like Jell-O, but she wills them to stand. Her words stick in her throat. “I got it caught on the tree.”

“It’s true.” Danny speaks up at long last. There’s a small movement as a guard moves his finger to the trigger of his gun. “Lower your weapon!” Danny shouts. The guard ignores him and shifts his eyes from Casey to Lot.

“I’m not bitten! This is clearly not a bite!” Casey stares down at her arm, tears of anger blurring her vision.

Danny locks eyes with Lot.

“Lot,” he begs, “Please, don’t.”

Standing behind Alex, Lot nods, and the guard fires his weapon. Casey collapses to the ground.