The Infection (2 page)

Another Bradley was going to pick up the soldiers, but it never came because by the time it left on its mission to recover the squad, the soldiers were already dead and the vehicle became reassigned. Sarge knew this but he had to see for himself that it was true. These dead boys were his people. They had served together in Afghanistan. He placed his hand over his heart, a gesture of respect he picked up from the Afghans, and collected their dog tags.

“The device is supposed to be angled to trigger a burning feeling from the neck down,” he told the others. “See how it’s angled up? That’s not an accident. They were desperate. At the end, they tried to burn out the corneas in the eyes of the Infected. They tried to blind them.”

Is it okay to take these guns? they asked him. Will you teach us how to shoot them?

“I heard about another test of long-range acoustic weapons, over in Philadelphia, that also failed,” Sarge went on. “The device was supposed to cause intense pain in the ear using a certain frequency of sound, but it actually attracted the Infected. They came in hundreds, destroyed the device and killed the unit that deployed it. Pointless.”

A pack of dogs yelped in the distance. Somebody, far away, fired an automatic weapon, setting off a brief, crisp flurry of gunfire that sounded like the crackle of firecrackers.

“None of the non-lethals worked,” Sarge added. “The only thing that can stop these motherfuckers is a rifle and the will to use it.”

♦

The armored personnel carrier smashes into the abandoned traffic jam on squealing treads, its twenty-five tons shouldering aside a minivan and crushing the front of a sports car into metal pancake in seconds. The words boom stick are neatly stenciled in white paint on the side of the turret, near the gun barrel. The rig plows into a pair of Infected and flings them down the street in a fine red mist. The machine emerges from the intersection and grinds to a halt, its engine idling. The Bradley fills the street, flanked by stores topped by low-rise apartments. Using the vehicle’s periscopes, its three-man crew scans the bleak, shattered landscape visible through a smoky haze. The rain has stopped and the sun is shining again.

In the back, the survivors cringe and blink. Stopping is bad. They finger their weapons, paling, as Sarge wedges his way into the back and squats, sweating in his ACUs and helmet. The commander is a large man and makes the cramped passenger compartment appear even smaller. As always, he looks at Anne when he wants the civilians to do something. They appear to have some sort of unspoken agreement about the sharing of authority.

“Drugstore,” he says. “Once you’re out, it’s on the left.”

“Locked up?” says Anne.

“Not that we can see.”

“Any signs of forced entry?”

“The door looks fine and the windows are all intact.”

“No damage, then?”

“I saw no vandalism, no fire or water damage.”

“Cleaned out already?”

“No, that’s the thing. From what I could tell, there’s still some stuff on the shelves.”

Some of the survivors allow themselves to smile. The store has not been looted or damaged. They will be able to get supplies. Not everything they need, but something. Every useful item they can find is a puzzle piece that must be fitted with everything else.

“How many Infected on the street?”

“None living.”

“It’s worth the risk,” Anne says, and Sarge nods.

“Show time,” he says.

♦

Ethan takes a deep breath to steel his nerves, fidgeting with his M4 carbine and trying to remember what Sarge told him to do if the weapon jams: slap the magazine, pull the bolt back, observe the firing chamber, release the bolt, tap it and squeeze off the next round. If a double-feed, detach the mag and drop the rounds. Assuming he has time to do all this while a swarm of Infected are racing hell for leather at him, shrieking their inhuman cries of recognition and rage.

He is certain that he is living on borrowed time and that one day he is going to be killed or Infected. He was a math teacher; he understands probabilities. Every day, just to live, he has to give it everything he has. If just once he is a little slow or takes a wrong turn or is in the wrong place at the wrong time, they will catch him. How many days can a man go on like that? Never be a little slow, never take a wrong turn, never be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

It is true that his body and mind are rising to the challenge. But while his body is dropping fat and becoming more toned, he often feels stabbing pains in his neck and back, especially after sitting in the Bradley for hours. The truth is he is a middle-aged man and not in very good shape. His mind similarly has sharpened, constantly vigilant for threats, completely purged of the pop culture nonsense and old petty worries that plagued the middle class in the Time Before. But the stress is slowly damaging his mind and steadily shaving time off of his lifespan. Ethan is rising to the challenge, but he does not know how long he can keep this up before he will finally break down.

In the end, he knows, the odds are stacked against survival. The Infected spread disease through violence. Possessed by their aggressive virus, they are meat puppets, totally expendable and intent only on finding new hosts. They drink from gutters and toilets. If they get hungry, they eat the dead. They have nothing to lose. They run through fire and bullets to reach their prey. If you are standing, they punch you. If you are down, they stomp you. When you stop fighting back, they bite you and infect you. The virus penetrates the blood through saliva in the bite, enters the central nervous system, and from there is mainlined into the brain, where it proliferates in the limbic system, producing rage. The virus is so strong, so virulent, it paralyzes you in seconds and takes total control in minutes.

And then you become one of them. In the beginning, there were not as many of them. Ethan never imagined how terrifying another human being could be in a world where all people had become predators or prey. Now the predators appear to outnumber the prey, as least in downtown Pittsburgh. Either that or, just as likely, the prey is hiding. The power has been out for days and it is already hard to imagine how people are living behind their locked doors and drawn shades without food or plumbing. In just a few more days, this city will be unlivable.

It is horrible to think that his students are out there, somewhere, hunting him.

“I’ll drop the ramp and then we’re going to move the rig about twenty meters down the street and park it in the first alley on the right,” Sarge tells them. “You’ll have to put your own eyes on the street. There are a lot of buildings, a lot of windows.”

The survivors not only have to watch out for the Infected, but also other survivors living in the neighborhood, who might be willing to fight to protect the store.

The cop, gnawing a wad of gum, says, “Sarge, we didn’t get a chance to tell you. We’re all sorry. You know, about what happened to your guys back there.”

The survivors nod in sympathy, but they are clearly uncomfortable. They are sorry they did not find the soldiers alive, partly because it would have been a relief to turn over responsibility for their safety to somebody more qualified. On the other hand, if they had found the soldiers alive, Sarge would probably have left them stranded, and gone off with his infantry to fight.

Sarge gives the cop a sharp glance. She blushes, stammering a little, and adds quickly, “If you need a friend, you can talk to me. That’s all.”

“I have no friends,” Sarge says. “All of my friends are dead.”

The ramp eases to the ground on whining hydraulics, flooding the compartment with sunshine and the harsh, acrid smell of burning chemicals.

♦

The survivors exit the Bradley and fan out, establishing three hundred sixty-degree security as Sarge taught them to do. Anne says she will clear the store of Infected before the group enters. Wendy, the cop, says she will provide backup. Then the Kid insists on coming, but Anne tells him to stay and watch the street. They disappear into the store guns first.

The Kid grins, dressed up like something out of a reality show about teenage bounty hunters with his black T-shirt tucked into urban BDU pants, bullet-proof vest and SWAT cap. He chews on a toothpick as he peers through the close combat optic of his M4, scanning the street for Infected.

“Is the end of the world not killing you fast enough, Reverend?” he says.

Paul pauses while lighting a cigarette, then finishes and takes a drag. He sighs happily and picks up his shotgun, exhaling a long stream of smoke. “This makes the apocalypse just a little rosier for me,” he explains.

“Isn’t that God’s job?”

A shadow flickers across the Reverend’s face, but he says airily, “God sent us you, my boy.”

The Kid stops grinning. He is not sure, but he believes the old man just zinged him. He is easily zinged. Even the slightest remark makes him anxious, confused and angry. Oblivious, Paul takes another drag, then coughs into his fist. He has already forgotten the exchange. The Kid envies that kind of cool that comes with age. For the Kid, every interaction has enormous stakes.

“I hope it rains again, a really big rain, that washes all this shit into the gutter,” Paul says.

“Me, too, Rev,” the Kid says, admiring the thought.

Wendy appears at the door, giving the all-clear. The survivors enter the store and the Bradley promptly pulls away in a cloud of exhaust, crumpling another car like tin foil before staging an abrupt ninety-degree turn into a nearby alley.

Inside, Paul marches to the nearest secluded corner, drops his pants and craps loudly into a five-gallon bucket covered with a toilet seat, clutching a roll of toilet paper and finishing his cigarette. Next to him sits a bag of lime, which he will dump into the bucket to cover up the smell. The Kid envies the way the others can eliminate their waste so casually. He needs privacy to be able to go, but privacy is currently not a preferred survival trait. Privacy means clearing a room that might be occupied by the Infected, a move the others would consider an unnecessary risk. It means being vulnerable. And it involves the risk of being left behind if the group is forced to bug out.

Anne touches the Kid’s shoulder and tilts her head towards the door. She has chosen him to stand guard and be their lookout. He whines briefly but does what he is told, asking her to find him some batteries and candy. Oh, and a new toothbrush.

♦

The survivors picked up the Kid three days ago. Cut off from the Bradley by a large swarm, they were saved by the sudden ring of an old metal wind-up alarm clock on the next block, which distracted the Infected long enough for them to escape. When they returned to the Bradley, they found the Kid there, grinning like the proverbial cat. He refused to give his real name, Todd Paulsen, because Todd Paulsen was a loser in high school suffering a grinding avalanche of petty humiliations. Todd Paulsen is dead; the Kid killed that loser himself. The apocalypse, for some, is turning out to be filled with second chances. The survivors were grateful and admired his ability to innovate. They invited him along and he accepted. Everybody else that he knew was dead or Infected. He felt safe alone and had done very well for himself but it wasn’t fun if nobody saw him doing it.

Growing up outside cliques, the Kid wondered what it would be like to be one of “us” instead of “them.” Even among this tight-knit tribe of survivors, he was the newcomer, and he thought he would have to endure some type of hazing, particularly since he was the youngest among them. But nobody cared, too occupied by their own survival. Then a magic thing happened. Two days ago, driving in the Bradley, Anne cleaned his glasses for him, a touching maternal gesture that made him feel like a full citizen of this group.

Last year, John Wheeler, a giant senior, picked him up in the cafeteria during study hall and dangled him over a garbage can in front of forty other students who watched with a mixture of tension,
schadenfreude
and blunt relief that Wheeler was not doing it to them. The trick was always to stay in the middle of the herd. The trick was never to stand out. They were good at that. But with his good grades and clumsy adolescent skinniness, Todd Paulsen stood out. The teachers called him smart and some of the other kids hated him for it. Then other kids hated him, too, without knowing why, just to be safe.

John Wheeler fell down during the Screaming and that means he is one of the Infected. Many of the kids who were in study hall that day, the ones who cheered and the ones who did nothing out of fear, are either dead or controlled by the virus. For all the Kid knows, he is the sole surviving witness of what happened to Todd Paulsen during those terrible five minutes. And yet he cannot stop reliving it just as he cannot stop reliving all of his other minor humiliations. It is easier to shed your name than your baggage.

He wishes they were all alive just so they could see him now: The Kid, driving with a group of adults armed to the teeth, fighting his way through an apocalyptic wasteland. They would absolve him of his humiliations with their admiration and respect. They would know that they would never be able to fuck with him again because this time, he has a gun.