Slow Burn (Book 2): Infected (15 page)

Mandi ventured her guess, “Things will be just like they were before. Is that what you guys think? I mean they would, wouldn't they?”

I said, “Mandi, unfortunately the cynic in me agrees with you.”

Mandi asked, “Why is that cynical? That seems optimistic to me.”

I said, “It's cynical because I don't think that this will be a spiritually maturative event for humanity. I think that eventually things will go back to being just the way they were. There'll be disgustingly rich people and abjectly poor people. Mankind will still find reasons to go to war. There'll still be starvation. There'll still be distrust between nations and people who are different. If anything, this virus might exacerbate that.

“The idealist in me wants to think that mankind will come out of this with a new perspective on how fragile a species we are, and how fragile an ecosystem we have. The idealist in me wants to think that we'll come out of this feeling like we've been given a second chance at building a civilization that doesn’t have all the evils of the old civilization, but it won't be that. We'll just rebuild the same thing we had before. That's how things have always happened in the past. After the Black Death, people just picked up the pieces and moved on, and things were just like they were before it happened.

“The pessimist in me says that this descent into chaos is forever, or at least for our lifetimes. All we have to hope for is a future where we'll scavenge for our meals and try not to become meals ourselves. Maybe in the long run, things will go back to the way they were, which, one day, will seem better than this. But I wonder how many people now see this as better.”

Mandi exclaimed, “
What?
”

Murphy said, “You are a pessimist, Zed.”

I pressed on. “Before all this, how many people hated the reality of their meaningless, powerless, hopeless lives? That’s how most of us lived before. How many people want to face pointless materialism, debt, and anonymity? None of them. But that’s what we did. The world is a violent, terrible place now. But everything we do, from morning to midnight, is important. It’s all black and white now, live or die. There’s something real about that that our lives didn’t have before.”

“That’s what you want, Zed? Everybody I know is dead!” Mandi’s anger was rising.

I said, “Mandi, I’m so sorry, but that doesn’t make you special. You know that fact will be true for everybody you ever meet from this day forward, right?”

She settled back in her seat and said softly, “Yes, I’m sorry. I know. I just don’t like how it is now. I want to sleep in a bed. I want to close my eyes without shivering in fear. I want to eat in restaurants. I want to go to movies. I hate what the world has become.”

“Mandi,” I said, “that’s where everyone will get eventually. People will hate watching their children starve. They’ll hate being afraid. They’ll romanticize the memory of how things used to be, and they’ll want to rebuild. We’ll stop being survivors and turn into teachers, and accountants, and mechanics. We may live in walled villages. We may never walk alone in the woods again. But things will go back to the way they were, one day.”

Murphy said, “Jeez, Zed, when you get on a roll, you just can't shut up, can you?”

“I’m sorry. I know. Isn’t that the point of this discussion, Murphy, that things will be just as they once were?”

Murphy said, “Yes and no.”

“Why no?” I asked.

“Because it was just one point in my argument. We haven't made it all the way to my conclusion yet.”

Mandi said, “Can you just get to the point, Murphy? I think if I have to listen to another one of Zed's lectures, my head will explode.”

“Whatever.” In the habit of our new social dynamic, that was my line. I smiled anyway.

Murphy said, “Fine, I just wanted to make sure that we were all in agreement on the assumptions before I made my point.”

I said, “And you call me a professor.”

“And your point is?” asked Mandi.

“We can all go and just try and figure out how to stay alive if you want, but
—”

I cut in, “Staying alive is a pretty good option, I think.”

Mandi said, “For once, I agree with Zed.”

“There's more,” said Murphy.

I said, “So far it's a full time job.”

Murphy said, “My point is that things will settle down a bit. We can go live on a farm, grow potatoes, and Zed’s chickens, and wake up one day five or ten years from now, only to find out that the world is right back the way it was. Then we're right back where we were, trying to pay the rent, trying to earn enough to feed the kids, and wishing we had the Mercedes we'll never be able to afford. What I’m saying is that instead of just surviving, we can choose to thrive.”

“Choose to thrive?” I repeated.

“Yes.”

“Because we’re slow burns?” I asked.

“They're saying that the immunity rate on this virus is something like one in a thousand. But slow burns like us are rare, maybe one in ten thousand. Maybe one in a hundred thousand.”

“And where'd you get that information? Somebody who got it off the internet told you, right?”

“That’s immaterial, Zed. You know it’s true. There aren't that many of us.”

I said, “Fine, I'll give you that.”

“My point is that you and I have a special talent. We can move around among the infected with a lot less danger than other people.”

“True,” I allowed.

“We can take advantage of that to position ourselves for the post-virus world.”

“How?”

“It's easy. Instead of becoming farmers or scavengers, we become traders.”

“Traders?”

Mandi asked, “Traitors?”

I said, “No, with a D.”

“Oh.”

Murphy said, “Yes, traders. People are eventually going to group together to survive. They're going to build their walls to keep out the infected. People want safe places to raise their families. You know what will be between all of those little villages that spring up?”

Mandi shook her head.

I said, “If I say no, will you just tell me?”

“Zed, Mandi, between those little villages will be badlands. The badlands will be full of the infected and full of valuable stuff. Zed, you and me, we can collect that stuff and trade it to the villagers for their valuables.”

I said, “Murphy. They hate us. You said that, remember?”

Murphy responded, “But they don’t hate Mandi. She’s one of them.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“We can carry goods from one village to another. We can build a whole trading empire transporting goods, rebuilding the economy, taking our little slice off the top, and getting rich in the process. We'll be like the John D. Rockefellers of tomorrow.”

I said, “To start with, we'd be more like the Cornelius Vanderbilts, since he was a railroad tycoon. He transported goods.”

Mandi said, “I think I just had a tiny explosion in my head.”

Murphy said, “That's irrelevant. My point is that these rich dudes saw an opportunity, and they took advantage of it and got rich. We’re all three in a special position to take advantage of today’s opportunity.”

I said, “I'll give you one thing, Murphy, you are the most optimistic person I’ve ever met. Everybody you ever met is getting eaten by the infected right now, and you see past all that
, and better yet, see a way to get wealthy in the process. What about money? I think it’s pretty worthless right now. Doesn’t trade depend on currency?”

“Details, man. We can get around that,” Murphy argued.

I adjusted my sitting position to get more comfortable and felt the phone in my front pocket push into my thigh, reminding me of its presence.

Mandi asked Murphy some question
, but I only half paid attention. I pulled my phone out, turned it on and waited.

The screen splashed the manufacturer’s logo. It took its time, but finally came to life.

I got three cellular bars.

The data icon lit up.

I waited.

The missed call badge didn’t flash red. The message badge didn’t flash. Those always took a few minutes to catch up after the phone booted.

Murphy and Mandi continued talking. My attention was fixed on the phone.

To hear nothing from Amber was good, based on our last conversation. To hear something from Steph would be a fantastic surprise. I was already taking the emotional steps toward accepting her death.

The phone vibrated and the phone’s missed call badge lit up.

Seven.

Holy crap!

I missed seven calls from Amber!

I checked for voicemail.

Nothing.

I checked for text messages.

Nothing.

I dialed Amber’s number, waited a moment, and listened to the phone ring again and again.

It switched to voicemail. I hung up.

Murphy said, “What’s up?”

I shook my head but didn’t answer.

I dialed again and listened to for the ringing.

Mandi asked, “Is everything okay?”

Voicemail.

Damn!

I dialed again. Murphy and Mandi were talking. I didn’t hear them.

Ring. Ring.

Voicemail.

“Shit!”

The air outside was still warm, but it was a far cry from the heat that would come later in the morning after the sun came up.

I asked Murphy, “Aren’t you going to call me Null Spot?”

Murphy’s face was cast in seriousness. “No, Zed. I don’t think you should go.”

“I have to go, Murphy.”

“You shouldn’t go by yourself,” Murphy told me.

“I have Russell,” I answered.

Murphy said, “You know what I mean, man.”

I did. “Taking Mandi into that is likely to get us all killed. We can hardly leave Mandi here to fend for herself. So…”

Mandi had tears in her eyes, but she remained quiet.

“Look Zed, don’t take this the wrong way, but you barely know this girl. She was with them when they kicked us out.”

“Please stop saying that, Murphy. She didn’t want that. She did what she had to do. It wasn’t any different than when you gave me the knife in the attic. To save ourselves, we would have killed Russell. It would have been wrong. But what choice would we have had? It was the same for Amber. She made a choice to survive.”

Murphy shook his head. “Zed, I’m going to tell you the same thing you told me about my mom and sister before we came up here. Just like I didn’t want to hear it. You’re not going to want to hear it. If she’s not answering, she’s probably dead.”

I felt a lump in my throat. I nodded. I couldn’t chance a verbal answer. I needed a second to get a grip on my emotions.

“You like her, don’t you?” Murphy asked.

I nodded again. Then I shook my head. I managed to say, “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know what I feel. Like you said. I barely know her. It doesn’t make sense to me. I just know I have to do something to help her. She called me seven times, Murphy. She wouldn’t have called if she didn’t need help. She was counting on me.”

Murphy shook his head and softly said, “Zed…”

I said, “Murphy, I have to do this.”

Murphy looked past me into the dark sky and didn’t say anything for a long time. When he did speak, he was as serious as I’d heard him yet. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Zed. I know we just met and all, but I love you like a brother, man.” He wrapped his big arms around me and hugged me tight. “Don’t get killed.”

I was stiff. My arms hung at my sides. I wasn’t emotionally equipped to respond, but through the gravel in my voice, I said, “Thank you, Murphy. I
…I…”

Murphy let go. “Man, you don’t need to say anything. It’s not like you’re trying to get laid, here, but maybe one day when you get that stick out of your ass, you can act like a normal person. Until then.”

Mandi came over and hugged me, too. “Please come back, Zed.” She stepped away and covered her face in her hands.

Murphy said, “You should have enough ammo and water.”

I nodded. “With any luck, we’ll be back by noon.”

“Luck? What the fuck is that?”

The sky was clear, and we had the light of the waxing moon over smokeless desolation. The wind had turned. It came out of the southeast, carrying humidity from the Gulf of Mexico with it.

With water, ammunition, and weapons, I was carrying at least twenty pounds. To balance the load between us, I put the bulk of the water and some food in Russell’s bag.

I cinched Russell’s backpack tight on his shoulders. I checked that his shoes were tied. “Are you ready for this Russell?”

Russell looked at me with his blank face and empty eyes.

“Good, me too.”

I turned and started a jog down the street. I set a slow, sustainable rhythm for my booted feet. As they clomped on the asphalt, I heard Russell’s steps fall in sync with mine. He was right behind me.

As the blocks passed, I spent the sweaty run in meditation. It helped to clear my mind of anger and worries. All that existed in the world was the breath in my lungs, the pounding in my chest, and the asphalt slapping the bottoms of my boots. But I missed the usual pain.

My knees didn’t feel the pounding of jogging with the extra weight. My lungs didn’t burn with exertion. My muscles didn’t complain about the burden.

I put two fingers on my neck to check my pulse. Without the feedback loop of pain to keep me from overexerting myself, even jogging could turn fatal.

Twenty or thirty minutes in to the run, I slowed to a walk to give Russell and myself a chance to drink and rest. Five minutes was all I afforded us before I leaned back into a southwesterly jog.

Above us, enormous black plumes of smoke flowed out of the east. The Houston refinery smoke was back.

Miles passed. Sweat poured. Water bottles were emptied and returned to Russell’s pack.

I’d hoped to have found a car in which to race to the campus by that time. But the fire’s ubiquitous destruction saw to it that no functioning car was anywhere to be had.

When we got to MLK Boulevard, we came across the first of several flocks of westbound infected that we’d encounter on our run down to the campus. There were thousands in that first group, jogging up MLK with their pale sweaty skin glowing in the moonlight. They jogged in three serpentine, intersecting lines with marching band precision. Very creepy.

Russell and I waited on a side street and rested while the group passed. We needed to follow MLK down to campus but I had no desire to disturb the group, though the thought of jumping onto the end of a line did cross my mind. We were all infected. It may have worked.

It wasn’t until we encountered the third such group that I started to wonder if they were fleeing the Houston fires just as the infected in East Austin had fled our fires a few days before.

By six o’clock, the sky was painted a dull gray in the east and we crossed the MLK Bridge over IH-35. We were at the southeast corner of the university campus. Brackenridge Hospital was maybe a quarter mile south along the highway.

My clothes were drenched with sweat. Russell was soaked. I felt fatigue in every ounce of my flesh. I wondered why the virus couldn’t have damaged the part of my brain that made me feel that.

Russell and I downed more water and I pointed down toward the hospital campus. “It’s my favorite used car lot, Russell. I’m thinking I’d look good driving a tan Humvee. What do you think?”

Russell, of course, had nothing to say. He looked across the hospital complex with a pained expression on his face.

When I followed his gaze back, I noticed that there were a lot more infected around the hospital’s main building than there were when Murphy and I had stolen our last Humvee. I also noticed that the hundreds of bodies of the dead infected had been picked clean of flesh.

With the carrion gone, it wouldn’t be long before the infected started to turn on the weak among them, or any infected they came across.

“C’mon, Russell.”

We ran south on the highway’s access road, past the basketball arena.

It wasn’t long before we were among the bones and vehicles where Murphy and I acquired our last Humvee.

The difference on this trip was that I wasn’t picky about which one I got. I wanted the first armored Humvee I could steal. With a vehicle under me, I’d be at the dorm in minutes with a means to get Amber free of that place.

I grew anxious as I thought about what I might find in the dorm but I steeled my heart for whatever I might have to do.

The first Humvee we came to had dry pools of blood on the floors. There were stains on the seats and bloody, shredded clothing scattered inside. It smelled of maggots and rot. It was disgusting, but bearable.

From the passenger side of the vehicle, I held the door open and told Russell to get in and sit down. He complied, but once I shut the door he became very agitated and started to howl as he fumbled with the door to try to get back out again.

I hurried around to the driver’s side of the vehicle. A hundred infected eyes were on me by the time I landed in the driver’s seat.

They came running at us as I closed the door.

“Jeez! Every fucking time! Are you kidding me?”

I started up the engine and sped away before any of the infected got close enough to lay a hand on the vehicle. Nevertheless, they were anxious to pursue.

“Russell, did I mention that things were going to get interesting? Oh, and if there are a bunch of infected by the dorm, things are going to get
really
interesting.”

The infected population appeared to have increased everywhere, as I ran down first one, then another, and another. They flowed into the streets to chase us.

Austin was thick with them. There were six million people in Houston before the virus. How many did the flames drive toward Austin? It seemed like all of them.

I cut hard at the first corner I came to, raced a short city block, and turned again. My goal was not to stay on any street long enough for the infected to see me coming and get out in front of us. Back and forth, right and left, I maneuvered the Humvee circuitously toward our goal.

We crossed MLK through an irrelevant red stop light and sped north on Brazos Street. A quick left onto Jester circle and an almost immediate right put us on Speedway just two blocks from the dorm.

I swerved around cars in the street and made little effort to dodge the infected who got in my way, depending instead on the toughness of the vehicle.

In my excitement, I yelled at Russell, “This isn’t much of a plan, Russell! I hope it works!”

We passed the gym and I bounced the Humvee over the curb without slowing down. Its military grade suspension jostled us but didn’t fail. I took out a hedge as I angled across the grassy quad and headed for the gap between the dorm and the ROTC building.

I straightened the Humvee out as I neared the gap, then dragged the front fender along the limestone wall of the old dorm. I slowed to align the front door of the Humvee with the alcove in which the recessed side door of the dorm waited.

I smashed the brakes and flung the Humvee door open. I wasted no time with subtleties in checking whether the door was locked. I blasted it with my M-4.

The infected were already coming. The gunshots wouldn’t make a lick of difference.

The glass shattered and I raced onto the first floor. Russell climbed over the driver’s seat and followed me through.

I took a quick glance back to gauge my chances of a successful exit and felt okay about it. The Humvee was wedged hard against the exterior wall of the building, completely blocking the entry. The only way for the infected to follow us into the building would be to crawl under. I had no doubt that some would, but relative to the horde that was gathering around the Humvee, the crawlers were a solvable problem.

I wasted no time with the elevator, but went straight for the stairs. I bounded up three and four at a time, with Russell chasing after.

When I flung the door open on the fifth floor, I was fully prepared to deliver some mayhem to Mark and whomever of his ROTC whack jobs were still there to get in my way.

Instead of a man with a gun, what assaulted me upon exiting the stairwell was the smell of death. From Amber’s texts, I knew that most of those we’d left in the dorm were dead or infected. Two of their bodies lay in the hall ahead of me.

I brought by M-4 up to my shoulder and aimed it up the hall. “Hello!” I shouted.

No answer.

“Hello!”

“Amber!”

Nothing.

“Mark!”

Nothing.

“Marcy!”

I turned to check that Russell was with me. He stood a few paces back, breathing heavy, but blank-faced.

I weighed the choice between running straight for Amber’s room or taking the cautious route and clearing the rooms as I went.

The Ogre and the Harpy.

“Fuck it!” I ran up the hall at full speed.

I slid to a stop at Amber’s door and pounded. “Amber, it’s me, Zed!”

Russell pounded on the door.

I looked up and down the hall. No sign of life.

I pounded again. “Amber! It’s me, Zed!”

Russell pounded.

“Damn!”

I stood back to kick the door open then gave it a second thought and checked the doorknob. It turned.

The Ogre and the Harpy.

The door swung open and I rushed inside.

“No!”

Amber lay on the floor, naked except for a torn shirt. I dropped to my knees beside her motionless body. Russell dropped to his knees beside me.

I put hand on Amber’s heavily bruised face. I put two fingers to her neck to check her pulse.

“No! No! No!”

Russell started to sob. Of his own accord, he pulled her torn shirt together to cover her breasts. Then he wailed like a dying beast.

I fell back onto my butt and felt my soul drain out of me.

Amber’s face was swollen and bloody. Her hands were bruised from defending herself.

Her skin was not white.

She’d never been infected. She was immune.

But she was dead.

I was numb. I was lost. I’d failed to save her.

I had failed.

I
—

Breath came into my lungs and left.

Sounds fell on my ears and registered in my brain.

But Amber’s body lying on the floor was the only thing in the universe that mattered at that moment.

Russell’s wails hurt my heart.

Amber had not been killed by the infected. There were no signs of feeding. She’d been murdered.

I cut the deduction short and jumped to the only conclusion that made sense. She’d been beaten, raped, and murdered by Mark.

I barely knew her, but she was a friend.

She could have been more than that.

I cried.

In my head, the Harpy’s bony finger skewered my defenses and her harsh cackle poured in. The Ogre’s heavy fists punished me for my weakness and pushed me to rage.

Rage brought frustrated tears.

Tears brought humiliation.

Humiliation brought more rage.

In the little bits of my gray matter that could form a rational thought, I wondered whether the infection was for the best, whether we humans deserved to continue.

What did people ever do that didn’t end in tears?

What!

Two seemingly normal parents had raised the heartless Harpy, whose only joy in life was in ensuring that there was none in mine. Who knew what turned Dan into an iron-fisted Ogre?

Our culture made the cops that beat me. It trained the doctors that tried to dispose of me like a piece of hazardous waste.

But it made Steph who tried to save me from that fate. It made Amber, a sweet girl who was too afraid of her peers to stand against prejudice when Murphy, Jerome, and I were being cast out.

We humans made Mark, and Mark’s worth could only be measured in the blood and bruises on Amber’s skin.

My mind reeled, trying to find meaning for it all, just when meaning had lost its value.

Only one thing mattered anymore.

I had to find Mark.

Mark had to suffer.

Mark had to die.