The Infection (36 page)

“Yeah,” he says gloomily, covering the bandage with his hand. “So how about you? What’s your story?”

“I’ve been here almost since the beginning,” she says, then stops.

“What happened?”

“I came to the camp with my dad and I got bored,” she mutters, then suddenly brightens. “Let’s play truth or dare.”

“Okay,” he says.

“I’ll go first. Go ahead, Todd. Ask me.”

“Um, truth or dare?”

“Truth,” she announces, sitting primly.

“All right,” Todd says. He is not sure if he is high or not from the joint but he wants to think that he is. “Okay, what’s the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?”

“Oh my God, I’ve got a
great
answer to that one.” Erin starts laughing and Todd smiles along. “One time, in study hall, me and my friends were updating the status on our Facebook pages, right? I had to run to the ladies’ due to some women’s trouble. That night, my Blackberry started ringing nonstop with these guys wanting to do some really gross things to me. Turns out I’d left myself logged in to Facebook and my jerk friends wrote as my status that I love to give blowjobs, with my phone number.”

She is laughing loudly now while Todd continues to smile along politely, wondering why she finds something so cruel to be so funny.

“Oh, man,” she adds. “That happens to everybody sooner or later, right? Okay, it’s your turn. Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” he says, hoping she will not ask him the same question.

“When was the first time you did it with a girl?”

Todd stammers briefly before inventing an elaborate story about his junior prom and how he scored with his date in the backseat of his friend’s car. His voice trails off. She can tell he is lying.

“It’s okay,” she says.

“Um,” he says.

His mind scrambles in search of something light and witty to say to recover the mood, but none is needed; Erin deftly rescues him.

“Want to see one of my cheers, Todd? A really good one?”

“Okay,” he tells her, feeling overwhelmed.

Erin jumps onto her feet, shakes off a sudden wave of laughter, and then stands erect with her arms stiff and muscles tight.

“Sharp and snappy,” she says. “One, two, three, here it is: Go Cougars!” She claps to the beat, keeping her hands under her chin. “Go Cougars! We are the Cougars, hey, we’re number one; our cougar roar has just begun.” She punches the air. “Roar!” She claps again. “Roar, roar! We are the Cougars, yeah, we’ll say it loud; we’re stepping up because we’re proud. Roar! Roar, roar! We are the best, all right, we’re here to win—”

Erin finishes a kick and flops onto the ground laughing. Todd claps his hands.

“Wow,” he says, his heart pounding with sexual excitement.

Outside the shack, somebody yells at them to keep it down, making her laugh even harder.

“Let’s pretend that was my dare,” she says, panting. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Dare,” he says.

“Kiss me.”

Todd was hoping for this. Truth or dare, after all, is a kissing game. He moves towards her on his hands and knees, feeling lightheaded and breathless, unsure of where to begin. He has never kissed a girl before. She meets him halfway. It is like falling into a warm pool, smooth and jolting. He kisses her for several moments, holding her shoulders. He probes her tongue with his, wondering if he is doing this right. His right knee, pressed against a pebble on the ground, is beginning to hurt, but he ignores it, afraid to move. His erection strains against his jeans, sending waves of pain and pleasure through his body. Finally, she pushes him away.

He falls out of the kiss, amazed.

“And,” she adds, “take off your shirt. I forgot to mention it’s a two-part dare.”

Still dizzy, he obeys automatically, then fidgets as she appraises him.

“No tattoos,” she observes. “Wow. My boyfriend has tats everywhere.”

Todd frowns, alarmed and jealous. He half expects a bunch of jocks to enter the shack pointing at him and laughing and congratulating her on setting him up for a fall.

“You have a boyfriend?” he says, trying to control his tone.

“He’s one of
them
. Outside.”

Well, then he’s not really your boyfriend anymore, he wants to say, but holds his tongue.

She smiles coyly at him and says, “Maybe I need a new boyfriend.”

He smiles back, thawing quickly.

“Dare,” she says.

“You too,” he says bravely.

Erin crosses her arms, hesitating with a teasing glance, then pulls her shirt over her head in one swift motion. Todd expects her to be wearing a bra but there is none. Her pert breasts are shining and perfect. Her smooth body burns in the candlelight. He stares at her in awe.

“Dare,” he whispers.

“Come here,” she says. “Kiss me again.”

♦

As Wendy approaches the latrines, she turns her flashlight on and continues warily. Next to her, Jonesy does the same. She prefers to patrol by moonlight, letting their eyes adjust to the dark and becoming hunters instead of mere night watchmen, but the latrine area is dangerous at night even for cops, and a nearby canal is poorly marked by solar-powered landscape lights. A flare arcs into the sky over the horizon and she hears the snarl of distant small arms fire. The pickets have been busy tonight outside the camp. Then the shooting stops as suddenly as it began. Wendy radios in their position to Tyler, the gray-haired book reader back at the station.

Roger that. You guys be careful, now. Keep a sharp eye.

She smiles at the men’s protectiveness as she keys the walkie-talkie and says, “You, too.”

I most certainly will, young Wendy.

Another flare arcs over the distant shanties.

“Sounds like a real battle out there tonight,” Jonesy says, chewing loudly.

“Give me some of your gum.”

“What do I get?”

“Jonesy, my boyfriend could break you in half. And if he couldn’t,
I
could.”

“Okay, okay,” he laughs. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

She pops the piece into her mouth and begins gnawing on it with a vengeance.

Her third night on foot patrol with Unit 12, and she is already bored.

Last night, a little excitement: An explosion on the far side of camp, a flash in the sky followed by a boom and slight shock that she could feel in her feet. Outside her patrol territory, unfortunately. Turns out it was a homegrown crystal meth lab that blew sky high. She finds herself almost wishing something like that would happen here.

Flares burn as they fall across the distant sky. A machine gun begins rattling.

They walk along the edge of the canal, looking for planks that will allow them to cross. Their flashlight beams flicker along the rough ground. Somebody is playing a harmonica in the nearby shanties. A couple moans loudly, having loud sex in one of the shacks.

Jonesy chuckles.

“Guess you’re not the only ladies’ man around here,” Wendy says.

He laughs.

“Here’s the bridge,” he says. “Watch your step.”

They tramp over the planks and find themselves among the batteries of portable toilets.

“Police,” Wendy says loudly.

“Police coming through,” Jonesy says.

Three days, and still no word from Sarge. Wendy is now worried.

“So Jonesy, how did you end up becoming a cop?” she asks to distract herself.

“Well, Ray started the unit and Tyler and Ray are on the same bowling team and Tyler’s my dad,” Jonesy answers. “When Infection started I was finishing high school. I was going to college, too. I was going to learn how to be a veterinarian.”

Wendy smiles. Tyler was not being protective of her, but of his son.

“Being a vet is a good job,” she says.

“Oh, yeah, it’s a really good—”

A man suddenly appears in their path, shielding his eyes from the glare of their flashlights.

“Can you all get that light out of my eyes, please?”

They lower their flashlights a little. Wendy places her other hand on the handle of her baton.

“Stay where you are, sir,” she says.

“You’re cops, right? I thought I heard you say you were police.”

“Do you need assistance?”

“My wife is missing. She came out here to use the bathroom an hour ago.”

“All right, sir,” she says. “Can you describe—”

Her instincts scream,
Fight
.

She wheels, drawing her side-handled baton as Jonesy falls moaning to the ground, a man standing behind him holding a length of pipe. Another pipe glances off the side of her head with a meaty thud and her eyes go black and flood with stars.

She reels, struggling to stay on her feet as the shapes close in.

The training takes over and she moves.

She flails with the baton, smashing one of the men in the face, then backhands the other man in the ear. The first stumbles backward and she pursues, beating him furiously to the ground while the second thrashes in the nearby canal, coughing and spitting.

Another blow to the head.

She falls into a deep blackness.

Sarge. Sarge, help me

Wendy regains consciousness, first becoming aware of a heavy weight on her body and a stabbing pain in her genitals. She opens her eyes, looking up into the darkness, and sees the Infected leering back down at her, its face gray and wet with blood, its eyes red with virus.

Wendy screams.

She no longer sees an Infected on top of her, just a man telling her to shut up or he will kill her. She smells his rancid breath, hot on her face. He strikes her savagely once, twice.

She blinks and sees an Infected, and screams again.

His hand clamps over her mouth. She works her teeth around it and bites down as hard as she can. He hits her again, but with little force; she clamps down harder, growling like a dog. Within seconds, the man is screaming and begging for mercy. She feels blood spray down the back of her throat and releases the mangled hand, coughing wetly.

She screams again. And again. But the man is gone.

♦

The crowd of thousands pours down the road past the food distribution center, singing hymns and waving poorly made signs announcing god is still with us and luke 21:11. Paul grinds out his cigarette and joins their ranks. His mind flashes to the suburban mob marching down the road back in Pittsburgh, thronged together with their weapons and shouting their slogans to make themselves feel stronger. Air Force jets roared overhead in a sky filled with black smoke, dropping bombs on distant targets. He remembers how he spoke to them: He blessed them just before the Infected attacked. He told them their war was just.

They march by the camp’s feeding center and the pest house and a swing set displaying flags for various government agencies and services housed inside a small red brick building that used to be the town post office. The refugees pause in their daily routines, watching the marchers stream by singing, “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” Some of them excitedly join the march while others laugh or shout at them to go make noise and stir up the dust somewhere else. Soldiers squint at the marchers, fingering their weapons and glancing at their sergeants.

God is not very popular these days, Paul realizes. These people here are the hardcore Christians. The true believers. Their faith astonishes him. It makes him feel a bit ashamed. And yet he cannot help but see them as a woman who defends the alcoholic husband who beats her regularly, making excuses for what is essentially psychotic behavior.

“Did you hear?” a man says behind him. “The Marines are in New Jersey.”

“Who needs ’em?” another man snorts.

“I heard the Feds are going to try to take our guns away from us after the Army shows up,” a woman says. “We’ll be defenseless.”

“That’s just a rumor. Just like the Marines landing anywhere is a rumor.”

“I heard it was Philadelphia, not New Jersey,” somebody cuts in.

“But what if it’s true? Don’t they understand the Second Amendment saved this country? If it weren’t for the Second Amendment, we’d all be Infected by now. God bless the NRA.”

Paul hears babies crying, startled at the sound, flashing back to the giant fanged worm slithering out of the gloom, mewing for food. He marvels that even now, children are being born in the camp. No matter what, it seems, life goes on. Perhaps the human race abides, too.

Near the front of the crowd, a man is shouting into a megaphone. The march is slowing, becoming more congested around several figures standing on the roof of a van in front of the old high school, the nominal seat of government in the camp. Paul continues to push forward, recognizing Pastor Strickland and several other clergy standing behind an overweight man wearing a crew cut, white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up and massive sweat stains at the armpits, and a bright yellow tie. Paul has never seen him before but recognizes his voice. The man is a popular talk show host on the AM dial in the Pittsburgh area. McLean. Thomas McLean.