Season of Rot (17 page)

On their way through town, Jeremy had to
floor it twice as the creatures poured out of the ruins of
buildings and shops, attracted by the sound of the passing jeep,
but he and Wade managed to get by without any real close calls.

When they pulled into the large parking lot
of the hardware store, only two creatures were milling about.
Jeremy parked the jeep directly in front of the store’s Plexiglas
entrance and grabbed his Uzi. He started to open fire on the
creatures, but Wade smacked his weapon down.

“Don’t do it. You saw how the ones in town
reacted to the jeep. The noise will just bring more of them.” He
pulled a pistol out of the jury-rigged holster on his tool belt and
screwed a silencer onto its barrel. As the creatures came snarling
towards them, Wade dropped each one with a single shot to the
skull. “Geoff taught me a few things,” he explained, tucking away
the gun.

Together they shoved open the store’s heavy
doors and stepped into the dark interior. “I’ll just be a minute,”
Wade said, reaching for a buggy. “You stay here. Only shoot the
fuckers if they get too close and you have to, okay?” Wade cocked
his head to the right. “And keep the damn jeep running,” he added
as he went inside.

About seven or eight of the creatures now
occupied the lot, but they hung back, almost as if they were
waiting for something. It was really creeping Jeremy out.

Finally Wade returned with a buggy full of
circuit boards he must have ripped out of PCs; Jeremy couldn’t even
begin to guess what the other odds and ends were for.

Wade tossed everything into the back of the
jeep and hopped in. “Let’s get the hell out of here before they
decide they’re hungry.”

“No argument here,” Jeremy said, switching
the jeep into drive. He peeled out and tried to steer clear of the
creatures.

As the jeep neared the exit to the
interstate, a second pack of monsters came bounding out of the
woods and made straight for them. Wade cursed and snatched up
Jeremy’s Uzi. He opened fire out of his window, and several
attackers fell, but now the creatures from the lot were charging at
them too, advancing from the other side as if trying to block them
in.

“Fuck—hold on!” Jeremy thrust the gas pedal
all the way down. The jeep struck the curb and bounced out of the
lot onto the road.

Wade looked back at the shrinking figures
still giving chase. “That was too fucking close,” he muttered. “Way
too fucking close.” Then he clapped Jeremy on the shoulder and
grinned. “Good driving, new kid. Glad I brought you along.”

13

Amy opened her eyes. She didn’t feel
completely rested, but some sleep was better than none. Eighteen
hours had passed since her flight from the docks. She sat up in the
backseat of the Toyota, which she’d finally found after a nasty
encounter with a creature on the interstate. She had used the car
to flee the city proper and had driven for hours, out into what
seemed like the middle of nowhere, nothing around but the road and
the trees, the safest place she could find for a nap. So she had
locked the car doors and had stretched out on her seat, hoping that
if any creatures stumbled across her and tried to get in, the noise
would wake her up in time to deal with them.

It had been worth the risk. She felt much
better physically, but she was still haunted by the horror of her
situation. She was alone. The car was nearly out of fuel and she
was down to only five rounds left in her .45. She missed Katherine.
Hell, she missed the world. But worse, she still had no long-term
plan, no idea how she was going to survive, no clue where she was
headed. She had fled south, but she didn’t know how far. Virginia
maybe? She wasn’t sure. Amy figured it didn’t matter. One state was
just as dead as the next.

She needed to find others like herself who’d
made it through the wave without going crazy, though she wondered
if she were the last sane woman on Earth. The thought terrified
her. And the creatures... If the cops who’d almost killed her were
any indication, some of those things out there were getting smart.
Not normal, but intelligent, and that made them a hundred times
more dangerous. It was one thing to outrun or hide from a pack of
mindless monsters and another thing altogether when they started
shooting back and driving cars. What else were the things capable
of now? Amy shuddered and pushed the thought from her mind.

Tenderly, she reached up to touch the wound
on her forehead. It wasn’t serious, but she was worried about
infection. She had no water or food, much less medical supplies,
and trying to locate some in a city or town was out of the
question. Even if she had been well armed, she wouldn’t have tried
it on her own. So the big question was, what did she do now?

Using the car was dangerous. It attracted the
mindless creatures and made her more noticeable to the intelligent
ones as well. Going at it on foot seemed like an equally bad idea;
she would have no way to outrun the creatures and she certainly
couldn’t stand her ground and fight. What the hell was she going to
do?

Finally she made a decision: Amy unlocked one
of the car doors and got out, leaving the vehicle behind.

Water had been the deciding factor in her
choice. In the car, she would have driven right past the supplies
she required so badly to stay alive, unless she stopped at a gas
station or something of the sort, and then she would have to deal
with the hordes of monsters she attracted. The way she reasoned it,
on foot she might be able to find a stream or some kind of berries
in the woods. So she walked off the road and headed into the trees,
feeling her way carefully through the newly fallen night.

14

Geoff met Jeremy and Wade on the road home
about two miles outside the complex. “You done good, kid,” he told
Jeremy when he saw the parts they had gone after. He ushered them
on towards the base, but stayed behind to take care of any
creatures that might have followed them back. He promised to meet
up with them later in the mess, and then he disappeared into the
trees, becoming a part of the woods themselves.

#

The inhabitants of Def-Con all sat in the
meeting room. Sheena was allowed her rant on the importance of
determining the various trajectories of the wave’s fragments—not
that they could change those trajectories should a piece be aimed
for the sun—and when she finished, Wade stood up and informed
everyone that the base’s air system was fully repaired; he also
updated the group on the life expectancy of the power core before
giving the floor to the communications officer Toni.

Jeremy had not formally met her yet, so he
watched the woman intently. She was tall and thin, in her late
twenties or maybe early thirties. Her eyes were a bright green, and
brown hair touched the tops of her shoulders. She spoke softly in a
controlled, though almost shy, voice. Her efforts to reach anyone
else in the government or military, or anyone on civilian channels
and the small band frequencies, continued to meet with failure.
Toni had no clue whether that meant they were alone in the world,
or if the aftereffects of the wave simply hadn’t cleared enough to
get out a good signal.

Geoff was the last member of the staff to
speak, and despite the bleakness of the other reports, his was the
most unsettling. The number of infected wandering close to the base
was increasing at an alarming rate. Geoff hadn’t realized how much
until today. No one blamed Jeremy’s arrival or Wade’s shopping
trip, yet Geoff clearly thought these factors contributed to the
problem. He wasn’t concerned about running out of ammo in the near
future or worried about the creatures penetrating the complex; he
was afraid the army of infected would grow so large there would be
no way out of Def Con without a bloody fight. Geoff did not suggest
abandoning the complex, as no one knew of somewhere remotely safe
to set out for, yet he made sure everyone understood the threat of
being trapped here for the rest of their lives.

When the meeting was over, people broke up
into their own little clusters to continue private arguments over
what should be done. Geoff and Troy pulled Jeremy out of the room
and led him outside toward the garage. The night sky was clear and
sparkling with stars. Two creatures were straining against the
fence, and when they spotted the trio, they howled and slashed
their flesh on the barbwire in their attempts to get in.

“Didn’t you just tell everyone to limit their
trips up here?” Jeremy whispered.

“Yeah, but there are times and there are
times,” Geoff said, walking to the fence as he drew his pistol.

“Come on.” Troy slid the heavy garage door
open and led Jeremy inside. “Forget about them. They’re not why
we’re up here.”

Jeremy heard two faint popping noises in the
darkness behind him. When Geoff caught up again, Troy closed the
door and hit the interior lights. He waved his arm around like a
game show hostess showing off a prize. “Welcome to paradise.”

“The garage?”

Geoff tried to rub something red and wet off
the front of his uniform. “It’s not the place but what’s in it,
kid.”

Troy returned from the rear of the garage
with a large jug in his hand. “Ta-dah! This here is Wade’s special
home brew.”

“It’ll knock you on your ass,” Geoff said,
“that’s for sure.”

“But you could drink in the complex. Why come
up here?”

“There’s nothing like this down there.” Troy
turned up the jug to his lips and took a long swig, coughing as it
burned down his throat like liquid fire. “And hell, Geoff here
would go crazy if he couldn’t see the stars. Mankind wasn’t made to
live in the earth.”

“What he means is...” Geoff grabbed the jug
from Troy’s hands, “we’d go crazy if we were cooped up with those
suits
much longer. All of them except Wade are educated
people, and me and Troy here are the last of the grunts. None of
them take him seriously at all, and they only listen to me because
I saved their asses when the shit went down and they know I’m the
only one who can do it again.”

Geoff offered Jeremy the jug, but he waved it
aside. “No thanks. Isn’t getting wasted up here dangerous?”

Geoff laughed. “Isn’t breathing dangerous
these days, kid?”

Jeremy didn’t answer.

#

Many, many feet below them, Sheena rolled her
chair closer to Lex’s bed and reached out to take the woman’s wrist
in her hand. Lex’s pulse still felt steady, if somewhat weak. There
had been no change in her condition for days.

Sheena looked Lex over and winced. Once,
she’d been a vibrant thirty-three-year-old woman whose charm and
laughter lit up the dark corridors of Def Con. Now her skin was a
sickly pale color and her long blond hair had lost its luster.
Sometimes Sheena found it hard to believe she was looking at the
same person who’d been her assistant, friend, and lover for the
last five years.

She leaned forward in her wheelchair and
rested her head on Lex’s chest. Tears glistened down her cheeks as
sobs shook her broken body. She lifted her head, and her hand crept
to the main power cord of the life support system. “I’m sorry,”
Sheena said, no louder than a breath; then she pulled the plug.

A sharp, piercing tone filled the room as
Lex’s vital signs flatlined. Sheena silenced the alarm with the
flip of a button and turned out the lights. She wheeled herself out
of the dark room without looking back.

#

“
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
,”
Troy sang as the staff of Def Con gathered before the grave at the
edge of the large gardens. Black-eyed Susans bloomed around the
freshly dug dirt, their yellow petals straining to touch the
sun.

To Jeremy, Troy’s voice sounded like that of
a weeping angel. But as beautiful as the sound was, it stirred the
creatures at the fence into a fury. Jeremy tried hard to block out
the raging and the thrashing.

There were more of them today. They numbered
in the dozens, and Jeremy noticed Geoff’s unease as the ceremony
continued. The guard was armed to the teeth and clutching a fully
loaded AK-47 in his hands. Everyone else seemed focused on saying
goodbye to Lex, even Ian, though the CIA man didn’t look well. A
sheen of sweat covered his snow-white skin, and he fidgeted with
his handkerchief.

When Troy’s song ended, they all stood
together, watching the bloodthirsty horde outside the gates until
finally Geoff barked, “Okay! Everybody back inside—now!”

Jeremy wondered as he went if this would be
one of the last times he would feel the sunshine on his skin.

Sheena kept the nature of Lex’s death to
herself. Some suspected what she’d done, while others didn’t care,
but no one confronted her about it. Lex’s death affected them all,
including Jeremy, though he’d never met the woman.

A somber air fell over the Def Con complex.
On the surface, Geoff, Troy and Wade waged a quiet war against the
growing tide of the infected. Ian kept more to himself than ever,
rarely leaving his makeshift quarters in the armory. Only Nathanial
seemed to actually improve since Sheena suddenly stopped riding him
about collecting more data on the trajectories of the wave in
space.

Jeremy at last found the time to introduce
himself to Toni, and the two spent hours each day trying to enhance
the base’s communications gear to extend its range and the power of
its signal. She was a very kind and warm person, Jeremy discovered,
once you wormed your way around her defensive layer of shyness.

“Pass me the screwdriver,” Toni called from
beneath the control room’s main communications console. Jeremy
selected a Phillips head carefully from the toolbox and passed it
over. He heard Toni work for a moment with the tool before she slid
out and smiled at him.