San Diego 2014 (11 page)

The others started talking, some of them on top of one another, all trying to put forth the best idea for what came next. Matthew and Stuart were both in favor of staying put, since there was no way they could be locked inside forever, and at least they had a door that shut. Eric and Patty were in favor of getting the hell out. Elle and Marty were doing their best to get everyone to discuss things calmly.

No one was looking at Pris.

She put her tablet down on the nearest desk—realizing only in that moment that they were in a replica of the precinct office from
Space Crime Continuum
—and took a step toward the wall, turning her back to the group. Then she rolled up her sleeves and looked at her arms. There were no bite marks. She relaxed marginally.

“Oh thank God,” she muttered, and turned back to the others.

They were all watching her. “Pris? Was there something you needed to tell us?” Marty’s tone was gentle, almost sad.

She shook her head. “I’m not bit. I blacked out a little bit during the run, but I’m not bit.”

“Thank God,” said Eric.

Pris smiled. “My sentiments exactly.”

“I don’t feel so good,” said Stuart, and sat down on the edge of a nearby desk, bloody hands tightening around his borrowed spear. “And no, I’m not bit, either. I just don’t like blood and dying and running for my life.”

“No one does,” said the little British man—Matthew, that was his name. Matthew. “Can we get back to the business of sorting out what happens next?”

“I think we should stay here,” said Pris. “We have the wireless back on. We can keep transmitting our position to the authorities, and you guys are right; having walls between us and the rest of the hall is a luxury we can’t afford to give up.”

The argument resumed. This time, it was Stuart who didn’t join in. He let his head loll forward, trying to figure out why he felt so dizzy. It had been coming on in waves since they left Kelly alone by the front wall, and the dizziness was just getting worse as time passed.

None of them understood the Kellis-Amberlee virus: Understanding was something for the future, for the survivors of the Rising and the heroes at the CDC who would begin their multi-decade fight against an elegant work of accidental genetic engineering. But they understood zombies, and they knew that a bite, under these circumstances, could very well mean death.

None of them considered that bloody hands carelessly touching the face, brushing against the mucus membranes of the nose and mouth, wiping tears away from vulnerable eyes, could be just as dangerous as a bite, if slightly slower-acting. They were smart people. By the standards of their time, they were well equipped to survive. But none of them had the knowledge they needed to understand what was going on inside Stuart’s body. Kellis-Amberlee was already with them in their little sanctuary; it had entered via the front door, and it was not leaving.

Stuart clutched his spear a little tighter, and waited for the room to stop spinning.

The rum is gone. Lorelei stopped drinking shortly after I did, and now stares into her empty cup like she expects it to start offering answers. I have barely needed to prompt her through the last segment of her story. Now that the floodgates are open, it is all rushing out.

Lorelei looks at me, startled. Her eyes are very wide, and for a moment—only a moment, but it’s real—I can see the teenager she must have been, innocent enough to enjoy a weekend at a comic book convention with her parents, naive enough to think that nothing bad would ever happen to her. My heart breaks a little in that moment. Not for Captain Lorelei J. Tutt, United States Coast Guard, but for the Lorelei who might have been, the girl that was on that hot summer day at the beginning of the Rising. She died there as surely as her parents did, in everything but flesh.

Finally, she speaks.

She rises and leads me back to the living room, where she opens a cabinet beneath the television to reveal a stack of old-style DVD cases. She doesn’t need to look for what she wants: It’s right at the top. Without saying another word, Lorelei opens the case, extracts the disk, and slips it into the DVD player. The press of a single button turns on the television, and the video begins to play.

The tall, bald man with the hammer in his hand and the broad shoulders must be her father, Shawn Tutt. A glance at Lorelei’s face confirms this; there are tears in her eyes, and when he says, “Come on, people. We need to pick up the pace,” her lips move along with the words.

The other people with him both do and do not look like I pictured them. The short brunette woman with the determined eyes must be Lynn Tutt, Lorelei’s mother. I thought she’d be taller; Lorelei must get her height from her father’s side of the family. Leita is younger than I expected, with pale skin and dyed black hair. Her brother is younger still, clearly afraid, just as clearly determined that he will not be the first to break. Only Vanessa herself walks unseen, the woman behind the camera.

I have friends who would have appreciated that role.

“Are we sure this is the right way?” Leita is asking, a ragged edge of exhaustion and fear in her voice. “I don’t want—”

12:15
A.M.

“—to get stranded down a blind alley because nobody had a damn map.”

“We get to the back wall, and then we walk toward the far end of the hall until we come to the food court,” said Shawn grimly. “Once we’re there, we deal with whatever gets in our way.”

“What do you mean ‘deal with’?” asked Robert. He sounded nervous. They were all terrified; he was just the only one who couldn’t seem to stop himself from showing it.

“I mean we deal with it,” said Shawn, hand tightening on the handle of his hammer.

Leita put a hand on her brother’s arm. “Let it go,” she murmured. “This isn’t the time to start questioning the chain of command.”

“I should have stayed home and played video games all weekend,” Robert muttered, and kept walking.

“Vanessa? Are you all right back there?” Lynn twisted around to look at Vanessa, who was bringing up the rear.

“I’m fine,” said Vanessa. “I’m just checking the news sites. I want to see if there’s anyone talking about the bombing. Maybe we can find out how long we have.”

“Just watch your step,” said Shawn, after a very brief pause. He wanted her paying attention. He wanted information even more.

“I’m watching,” said Vanessa, and kept tapping.

Lynn paced alongside her husband, her own makeshift weapon—a length of timber that was intended to be part of the booth’s main structure—clutched tightly in her hands. She didn’t say anything at all. At this point, she didn’t want to tell lies, and she didn’t want to hear them, either. All the pretty reassurances and mealymouthed platitudes in the world wouldn’t change their situation. So they just walked on.

The blockades around the webcomic district stopped them. “Now what?” asked Robert. “Do we go around?”

“Not if we can help it.” Shawn stepped forward, rapping his hammer against the nearest makeshift wall. “Hey. We’re clean. We need to get to the wall. Let us through.”

Silence answered.

Shawn rapped again, a little harder. “Hey! We need to get to the back wall, and we don’t have time to go around you! Let us through!”

This time, there was an answer from the other side: a single soft moan that made the hairs on the back of Lynn’s neck stand on end. She grabbed Shawn’s elbow before he could rap a third time, pulling him backward.

“Shawn,” she hissed. “They’re not going to let us in, and I don’t think we want them coming out.”

Shawn hesitated. Then, slowly, he nodded. “All right,” he said. “We go around.”

The zombies trapped inside the carefully constructed borders of the webcomics district gathered by the barrier and moaned as the Browncoats turned and walked away. But they didn’t break through, and for the moment, it seemed like escape might still be possible.

12:37
A.M.

A consensus had finally been reached, after a great deal of argument and some uncalled for swearing: They would stay put, monitor the social media feeds, and wait for rescue. Looking quietly relieved, Matthew sank down into one of the desk chairs, with Patty standing somewhat sulkily next to him. Elle sat back down on the replica of the precinct captain’s desk, head bowed in a combination of resignation and simple exhaustion. None of them had eaten, visited a bathroom, or really slept for hours. Pris, Eric, and Marty gathered together near one of the other desks, unconsciously illustrating the ongoing divide between the two groups.

Only Stuart didn’t move. Stuart hadn’t moved for a while, sitting on the edge of a desk, resting most of his weight on the spear he’d taken from Kelly.

Stuart didn’t feel good. And by that point, he knew that something was seriously wrong. He made a small sound, somewhere between a grunt and a moan. It had been long enough since he’d made any sounds at all that the others turned toward him, somehow hearing him above the screaming from outside.

“Stuart?” said Eric. “You okay, buddy?”

“You need…to go,” said Stuart. Forcing out the words seemed like more work than it should have been. He raised his head. That was even harder than speaking had been.

Patty’s eyes widened. “Your nose is bleeding.”

“You need…to go,” repeated Stuart. “What Kelly had. Think she gave it…to me. You can’t. Stay.”

“Oh, God,” whimpered Patty, and plastered herself against Matthew.

“Please,” said Stuart.
“Please.”

“But she didn’t bite him!” said Eric. “How the fuck did he get sick, huh?”

“Does it matter?” asked Matthew. He got to his feet, tugging Patty along with him. “Come on, sweetheart. We need to go.”

“There are more out there than there are in here,” said Marty. “I think the odds are still better if we stay put.”

“And get blood everywhere, when we’ve just shown that the damn stuff is indirectly transmissible?” snapped Matthew. “No. If we’re going to be fucked no matter what we do, I’d rather be fucked running than sitting still.”

Stuart moaned, the spear falling from his hands. And then he lunged.

Maybe it was the setting. The precinct was the office of the Time Police, after all; it was the place where Indiction Rivers fought the forces of evil, prevented paradoxes, and always had perfect hair, even in the middle of a firefight. Maybe it was instinct. Or maybe it was simply that Elle had put herself in charge of her little accidental group of refugees, and when they were put in danger, she had to react. Whatever the reason, she flung herself from the desk where she’d been seated and grabbed Stuart by the back of the neck before he could reach the shrilly screaming Patty.

Whirling, Elle slammed Stuart against the nearest wall, using every technique she’d learned in her self-defense courses and in training for her role with the show to keep him pinned. “Go!” she shouted. “Get moving!”

“We’re not leaving you!” said Marty.

“You won’t have to! I’ll let him go when I have a clear shot at the door—but I’m not doing it before! Now move it!”

The others moved.

Stuart squirmed. Elle shoved him harder against the wall. “You seemed like a nice guy,” she said. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

The techniques Elle had learned were designed to restrain people without harming them, and worked partially because most people would not hurt themselves to get loose. They were never intended for use on people who no longer cared about pain. She was still holding Stuart in place when he twisted himself at an angle that dislocated his shoulder with an audible popping sound and sank his teeth into her upper arm.

Elle screamed. Matthew, who had been escorting the others out the door, turned and stared at her in horror.

“Go!” she shouted. “Just
go
!”

Matthew hesitated. Only for a second. Then he nodded, mouthed the words “Thank you,” and stepped out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Elle Riley, who would be remembered by most of history for her portrayal of Indiction Rivers, Time Police, and by a woman named Sigrid Robinson for everything else, closed her eyes. And then she let the zombie go.

If she screamed, no one heard it. Elle Riley died bravely, and when she died, she died alone.

Outside, the others moved into the aisles, heading away from the sound of screaming, heading toward the unknown dangers lurking in the darkness along the back wall.

1:09
A.M.

“We don’t have long,” said Vanessa, scrolling through Twitter as she walked. “People outside are reporting that they’re being moved even farther from the convention center. It looks like there’s a half-mile perimeter being established.”

“If it’s only a half-mile, they’re not using anything radioactive,” said Shawn, walking a little faster. The rest of the group matched his pace. “That’s good. That means we have a much better chance of getting the hell out of here.”

“How much farther?” asked Robert.

“I don’t know,” said Shawn. “Those damn barricades…”

“Just keep moving,” said Lynn. “That’s all we can do. Keep moving.”

They hadn’t been attacked yet, but they all knew that it was coming. So when a single blood-encrusted figure stepped from behind a nearby booth, Shawn nearly bashed his head in with the hammer. Only the figure’s quick backward stumble and cry of, “No, don’t! I’m not gone yet!” held his swing.

“Who are you?” demanded Lynn, raising her board into a defensive position.

“Matthew. Matthew Meigs. Are you clean?”

“For the moment,” said Shawn, lowering his hammer. “You’re covered in blood.”

“None of it’s mine.” Most of it was Patty’s. Dear, sweet Patty, who had only ever wanted to be married, and to go to the San Diego Comic-Con, and to love him… Matthew shook his head, willing the thought away. “The back wall’s no better than the main floor, and in some ways, it’s worse. A lot of people fled there. My group among them.” All those hands, grasping, and all those
teeth
…

“That’s where the exit is, and we have to get out of here,” said Robert. “We don’t have a choice.”

“We’re all infected.” Matthew’s tone was soft, even resigned. “It’s in the blood.”

“You’re the only one with blood on you,” said Leita.

“For now. But if you fight your way back to that wall, even if you make it there, you won’t be clean anymore. You may not be bitten, but you won’t be clean. And then what? If you make it out, then what? You spread this? You take it out into the world?”

“It had to come from somewhere,” said Vanessa.

“That doesn’t mean we have to take it back there.” Matthew shook his head. “You’ll never walk away. You’ll just find yourself on the business end of a sniper rifle instead of dying in here with the rest of us. You’ve no cause to believe me. I know that. But you can save yourselves a great deal of pain by staying away from that wall.” He looked at his bloody fingers. “As for me, I got a drop in my eye when the bastards took my wife, before I turned and ran. I haven’t long. I’m going back to where I left a friend of mine, in a little room with a door that shuts. I think I’ll go inside and shut the door behind me. Elle deserves the company. It was nice to meet you all.”

With that, the blood-covered little British man turned and walked away, vanishing quickly into the maze of aisles.

“What a crock of shit,” said Robert. “Come on. Let’s move.”

None of the others moved at all. Shawn and Lynn were looking at each other.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” asked Lynn.

“It’s possible,” said Shawn. “It seems probable, even, given the reaction we’ve seen so far.”

“So what do we do?”

“Lorelei,” said Shawn quietly. It was all he had to say. They couldn’t take this out of the convention center, not when their daughter was out there, not when she would run to them at the first chance she got. He turned and looked to the others. “I can’t tell you what to do. It’s not my place. But Lynn and I won’t be carrying this infection out into the world. We’re going back to the booth. Seems a fitting place to wait for what comes next.”

Leita reached over and took her brother’s hand. Robert looked down at the floor. “We’ll come with you.”

“Me, too,” said Vanessa. She smiled, just a little. “Never leave a man behind. That’s what it means to be part of a crew, right? Never, ever leave a man behind.”

“It was an honor,” said Shawn.

“Same, Captain,” replied Vanessa.

They turned, five people in a convention center given, now, mostly to the dead, and slowly made their way back to where they’d started.

1:24
A.M.

The dizziness was coming in waves by the time Matthew reached the precinct. He’d passed a few of the fully infected on the way—not many; most were at the back wall, but enough—and none of them had troubled him. They knew their own.

No sounds were coming from inside. Either Stuart had killed her after he turned or they were both in there waiting, silently, for escape. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered at this point.

“Hello, Elle. I came back to keep you company,” said Matthew, and opened the door.