Plague Town (14 page)

Simone nodded at Gabriel.

“It’s your show now,” With that, she walked to the doors, but turned back to face us.

“I’ll see you all in a few hours for dinner. I’ve no doubt that you’ll have worked up quite an appetite.” Then she left.

Tony spoke up, wearing the same bored expression he’d worn since I’d met him.

“So when do we start training?”

“You’ve already started,” Gabriel said. He stood up and paced as he spoke. “If you’re smart, you’ll remember everything you’ve just heard, what it’s taught you about the zombies and your fellow wild cards. You need to know what to expect from each other when the pressure’s on.”

Tony smirked.

“I don’t see how any of these sob stories could make a difference, one way or the other.”

Gabriel gave him a total hairy eyeball.

“Then let’s hope you’re better at fighting than you are at listening.”

Tony’s smirk deepened.

“Seriously, dude. Tell me what I’m supposed to get from knowing that Redwood Barbie here—” He jerked his head toward me. “—outlived her boyfriend.”

I hooked a foot under one of his chair legs and pulled hard. There was a metallic crash, and Tony was flat on his back. I just stared down at him.

“For starters, jerk,” I said, “You’ve learned that I won’t put up with any shit from you.”

“And she might outlive you, too.” Extending a hand, Gabriel pulled Tony to his feet. “Unless you learn how to pay attention.” He surveyed the rest of the motley crew. “Ready to get started, everyone?”

Tony eyed me with new respect.

“Shit, yeah,” he said. “Can I have her watching
my
back?”

“You call me ‘Barbie’ again and I’ll be kicking your butt,” I growled.

Gabriel slapped Tony on one shoulder.

“We’ll switch round so you all get a chance to work with one another,” he said firmly.

Thank you
, I mouthed at him when Tony wasn’t looking.

One corner of Gabriel’s mouth lifted in reply.

Well, what do you know,
I mused.
There may be hope yet.
“Let’s go then,” he said. “Since it’s going to be your first session, I’ll take it easy on you.”

“Got you, you pus bag.”

Pvt. Cletus Hudson watched in satisfaction from the roof of the Sciences building. The zombie he’d targeted—a skinny gangbanger wearing baggy jeans and a hoodie—went down on the quad, a red hole in its forehead. He waited a minute to see if it needed the old double tap, but the ugly fucker didn’t move.

“Heh, did y’see that, Tucker?”

Tucker didn’t answer. Come to think of it, Hudson hadn’t heard a peep from him in a while, not even a cough. Which was weird, seeing how Tucker’d been hawking up his lungs for the better part of the afternoon.

“Tuck...?”

Still no answer.

Hudson turned to find Tucker slouched on the opposite end of the roof, face planted against the roof edge, his M-4 lying next to him.

A chill went up Hudson’s spine. There was black gunk trickling out of Tucker’s left ear.

“Oh, shit.”

Hudson reached for his walkie-talkie, hands suddenly clumsy as he tried to unhook it from the carbiner on his belt. As he fumbled with it, Tuck’s body suddenly twitched as if it had been hit with a taser.

Once.

Then again.

Hudson froze those crucial few seconds as what used to be Tucker rose unsteadily to its feet, eyeballs filmed over, a milky white bleeding into bloodshot yellow. It looked like he’d vomited up oil, black shit drizzling down his mouth, out of his eyes, nose, and ears.

“Fuck!”

Hudson forgot about the walkie and wrestled with his M-4 as his buddy lurched across the roof toward him, closing the distance between them even as Hudson fired.

He missed.

Simone hadn’t been kidding about the whole “working up an appetite” thing.

We started with basic hand-to-hand, what Gabriel called “methods of disabling without grappling.” In other words, how to not let the ravenous ghouls get a hold on you. And if they did, how to disengage without being bitten or otherwise mauled.

He also stressed the importance of maintaining an awareness of our surroundings, the better to keep any eye out for escape routes, objects that could be used offensively or defensively, and more damned zombies. Sure, wild cards didn’t have to worry about infection, but we could still have our necks ripped out or our limbs torn off.

Our corpses wouldn’t reanimate, but we’d still be dead.

We spent two full hours just learning how to fall, roll, and deflect an opponent’s energy. Lots of blocks, throws, joint locks, and shit like that.

I’d never done anything like it, yet it was weird—the skills came easily. Kind of like being turned into a vampire in the Buffy-verse, where you’re suddenly given martial arts skills even if you were a total nerd before the bite.

Our newfound strength helped us perform the things Gabriel demanded of us, and the enhanced senses were amazing. We all discovered that our coordination and
muscle memory were seriously amped. But it didn’t always jive with what we’d known before. It took a lot of repetition to overcome ingrained fear based on years of physical and emotional limitations. But once we got it?

It was sweet.

“Excuse me,” I said.

I was in the process of jerking on Kai’s arm while knocking his legs out from under him with my foot, sending him to the mat. It was a move I’d latched onto pretty quickly. I still didn’t like being on the receiving end of it, though. I hated falling.

Gabriel paused, one arm wrapped around Mack’s throat, the other pinning an arm behind his back.

“Won’t some of this stuff just, like, rip off a limb or two?” I asked. “I mean, we’re talking rotting corpses.”

Gabriel shrugged.

“It could happen,” he admitted.

“Schweet,” Tony said in a passable Eric Cartman.

“So if we can’t really hurt them or hold them, won’t they just keep trying to snack on us?” I persisted.

“If you rip off an arm,” Gabriel replied, “that’s one less limb your opponent has to grab you with. A leg? It can’t run after you. And where most people would run the risk of infection from the splatter, you don’t have that problem.

“So all of this gives you more time to take the brain out of action. No brain, no zombie.”

I nodded, wondering if I could beat a zombie’s brains out with its own leg.

Probably not
, I decided.
Too squishy.

“Nice take down, by the way.” Gabriel nodded.

“I’ll say,” Kai groaned, lurching slowly to his feet.

“Um...” Mack raised his unpinned hand, neck still gripped in Gabriel’s chokehold. “Is this going somewhere? ’cause this isn’t a comfortable position.”

* * *

When we finally stopped for dinner, I was dripping with sweat, exhausted, and so ravenous I didn’t care that there wasn’t time to shower. We were pretty much all sweaty and smelly.
Really
smelly. I could detect the acrid odor wafting off myself and my fellow wild cards with a clarity that made me regret the enhanced senses.

We ate in a small cafeteria adjacent to the gym, where Simone joined us. I wondered how much of this underground space lay directly beneath Patterson Hall, and if any of it spread out further.

Medical staff, soldiers, and clerical types drifted in. They’d load their trays with food and scarf it down before heading back out. A few nodded at Gabriel, but for the most part our little bunch was treated as if we didn’t exist.

Wow. Zero popularity points for being zombie retardant superheroes.

“Is it just me,” I whispered to Lily, who was sitting to my right, “or are they acting like we just farted on their pillows?”

She giggled, and tucked her hair behind one ear so half of her face was visible.

Progress!

“Don’t worry,” Simone said, overhearing us from the other side of the table. “It’s natural for people to be intimidated by things they don’t understand. They’ll get over it.”

“Since we’ll be putting our asses on the line for them, I sure hope so.” I stabbed a piece of steak with my fork.

“Here, here.” Mack raised his glass of milk. I picked up my water glass and clinked against it. Lily followed suit, along with Kai, Simone, and Gabriel.

“Jeez, that’s gay,” Tony said. But he lifted his soda and waved it in our direction.

Kaitlyn ignored us, huddled in her own little world at the end of the table. She’d done the work during training, but always reluctantly, as though it pained
her to have to touch any of us. And she hardly made a sound. I wanted to feel sorry for her but she pretty much made it impossible.

Bitch with a capital B.

“Hey, everyone.”

Speaking of bitches, Jamie—Miss Hot Topic herself—stepped up to our table dressed in black and fuchsia striped tights, a short black tattered skirt, a sparkly fuchsia T-shirt, and some truly amazing black platform boots that would have been appropriate on a ’70s pimp. She looked like Tinker Bell’s evil twin.

Wonderful.
Another person who didn’t like me.

She set a tray of food on the table and inserted herself between Simone and Mack. She didn’t quite do a hip check on him, but close enough. Mack raised his eyebrows and shrugged, then moved aside with good grace.

“Are you a wild card, too?” Kai asked, looking Jamie up and down. I could have told him he was wasting his time, but he’d figure it out for himself. Or not.

Jamie flicked him a brief glance.

“No, I’m Professor Fraser’s assistant.” Her gaze went back to Simone as if drawn by a gravitational pull. I wondered if Simone had any idea just how gargantuan a crush Jamie had on her, or if it was even a blip on her gaydar.

At least Jamie didn’t have the hots for Gabriel.

“Hello, Jamie,” Simone said, smiling. “You remember Ashley, from Pandemics in History?”

“Yes,” Jamie responded, giving me a laser stare of death.

Oh, well. What’s one more?

After dinner we had a welcome break from kicking each other’s butts, and focused on a more esoteric form of training: watching zombie movies. We’re talking the good, the bad, and the really shitty.

The campus was closed down by the quarantine, so Patterson Hall was empty. We sat in one of the lecture halls—room 217, in fact. Jamie ran the DVD player while Simone and Gabriel did a running commentary, pointing out the facts and fallacies.

“OMG,” I whispered to Lily, “we’re in the film class from hell.”

Lily giggled, then immediately shushed when Jamie shot a dirty look our way. I stuck my tongue out at her and grinned as she turned away.

Childish, I know, but satisfying.

“Killer...”

“Yeah, dude!”

Tony and Kai gave each other a high five as a zombie got its head taken off with a scythe, and special effects blood spurted everywhere. Personally, if I saw one more rotting ghoul doing the taffy pull with someone’s intestines...

“Fast-moving zombies such as the ones portrayed here,” Simone commented as the heroes slammed a mall door in the face of a really creepy one-armed ghoul, “are products of the MTV generation of filmmakers. Short attention span.”

I raised my hand and she nodded.

“So you’re saying there’s no such thing as a zombie who can run?”

Simone opened her mouth to answer, then paused and exchanged an indecipherable look with Gabriel.

“Let’s pause the film here, shall we?” she said, and then she stepped up to the podium. For just a moment, things almost seemed normal. “Some of these movies are fictionalized versions of incidents that couldn’t entirely be suppressed, while others have been planted in order to relegate zombies to popular culture, thus obscuring the existence of the walking dead behind a celluloid smokescreen.

“Based on the records compiled through the centuries,
fast-moving zombies do not exist. They may be ambulatory, but their bodies are rotting. Zombies shamble, stumble, lurch, and crawl. They do not run.”

“Yes!” Tony punched the air in a victory sign. We all looked at him. “I had a bet with Manny. If he wasn’t dead, he’d totally owe me twenty bucks.”

Kai raised his hand.

“What about the smart zombies?”

“We’re looking for a zombie no one’s ever seen before,” Tony explained.

“I think you’ve both already had your brains sucked out,” I growled. “Now would you shut up so Simone can finish?”

Simone smiled and shook her head.

“Actually, it’s a valid question,” she said. “But aside from the rudimentary motor functions, nothing remains from when they were alive. So no, no smart zombies.”

Mack interrupted the proceedings with a huge, jaw-cracking yawn.

“I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly.

“Let’s call it a day, shall we?” Simone gestured to the back of the room. “On the table are a variety of fiction and fictionalized reference books on zombie apocalypses. Some are survival techniques, others—much like these movies—are works of fiction with kernels of useful information tucked into unexpected places. Consider them homework.”

“You mean the shit in all these books is real?” Tony looked skeptical.