The Killing Floor (17 page)

She pulls it out and holds it up in the dim light. It’s a Tootsie Pop. Not gum, but it will do.

“Wendy Saslove?” says a man’s voice.

Wendy stands, feeling a little silly and also foolish for having made herself so vulnerable. The last time she dropped her guard, she was on patrol with Jonesy back at Camp Defiance, working as a police officer for Sergeant Ray Young in Unit 12. She was violently attacked by three scumbags, two of whom she beat senseless, the third she fought off after he attempted to rape her. She hadn’t felt safe since that night unless in Toby’s arms or in the gunner’s station of the Bradley.

She faces the large, bearded man, feeling the reassuring weight of her Glock on her hip, her hand near her pepper spray and side-handle police baton. She is a beautiful woman; she has been told this enough times to be sure. Most of the men are afraid of Toby, who is something of a living legend in the outfit, but a few made a move on her anyway when his back was turned. They didn’t know Wendy was a cop before she became a volunteer gunner. Too bad for them: She stomped them so hard, many of the boys grew even more afraid of her than Toby.

“I’m Dennis. Dennis Warren.”

“Nice to meet you, Dennis,” she says.

“I joined the outfit about a week ago.”

“I’ve seen you around,” she says. “How’s everything?”

“I don’t mean to bother you or anything, but I heard you were a cop. Over in Pittsburgh.”

Wendy relaxes a little. “That’s right.”

“I just wanted to say thank you.”

She knows what he wants to do, so she asks the question. “For what?”

He wants to tell her his story. That’s always what they want when they mention they find out she was a police officer.

There were four of them trapped in a supply closet in an office building, two women and two men, one of them a cop suffering a severe concussion, floating in and out of consciousness. Outside, an Infected man scratched at the door like an animal, grunting, while the survivors gaped at the noise, sweating and paralyzed and feeling nauseous. One of the two women worked in Finance; Dennis didn’t know her name, even now, but he had seen her around the building for years and always thought she was pretty. She was trying to help the cop. She said there were dozens of Infected out there, maybe even a hundred. She insisted on this until Dennis believed her. He was out of his mind with fear. The Infected heard their voices and pounded at the door, screaming loud enough to send fresh waves of adrenaline through Dennis’s body. His brain went numb with fear.
One little bite
, he knew,
and I’m as good as dead
. The Infected outside wanted to bite
him
. The door trembled on its hinges. The center splintered. The woman took the cop’s gun from its holster and aimed it at the door, her arm shaking, taking deep breaths.
Leave us alone
, she screamed.
Stop it!
The Infected outside howled in a blind rage and crashed against the door. She said it was no use. She said the Infected would get in and tear them into pieces.
Best to end it now.
Janet, I’m so sorry
. The gunshot blasted in Dennis’s ears, making him flinch. When he opened his eyes, Janet sat on the floor gaping at nothing, her brains splashed up the shelving behind her and coating the neatly stacked Post-Its and legal pads and pencil sharpeners.
I’m sorry
, the woman with the gun said, turning back toward Dennis with eyes glazed with shock.
I never got your name
. Dennis lunged and wrestled her to the floor.
Don’t hurt her
, he told himself. He felt like he knew her after sharing elevators with her for two years. He’d always had something of a crush on her. She fought like an animal, pulling on his tie until pain lanced through his neck, trying to free her wrist so she could shoot him or herself in the head.
Kill me
, she begged.
Quick, before they get in. I don’t want to turn into one of them.
Dennis slapped her hard. He just wanted to make her be quiet, but she kept screaming and clawing at him.
Everyone just settle down now so I can think
, he said, hitting her again. His hoarse whisper sounded like someone else speaking. He wrapped his hand around her throat and squeezed for a while to stop her screaming.
Just be cool for a minute.
He couldn’t think straight. She stopped struggling.
Oh shit. Oh shit, I didn’t want that.
Crying now, he untangled her fingers from the grip of the cop’s gun and pointed it at his own head as the door splintered further and the Infected face appeared snarling in the hole. Dennis blinked in surprise; it was Paul Dorgan, VP of Product Development.
Wait
, a voice said. Dennis turned and saw the cop pushing himself up trembling onto one elbow.
Give the gun to me. I’ll do it.
The cop accepted the Glock, raised it calmly and fired through the hole. The body fell heavily to the floor.

“If the cop hadn’t been there,” Dennis says, “I would have died in that closet. Simple as that. The fear made us crazy. I was out of my mind. I owe that man my life.”

“What happened to him?”

“He didn’t make it. He died that night in his sleep. His name was Matt Prince. He was a Pittsburgh cop. Did you know him?”

“Sorry, no,” Wendy tells him. “I didn’t know any Matt Prince working Northside.”

“Well,” Dennis says. “I was just wondering.”

“What did you do, Dennis? Before?”

“I worked in the IT department.”

Wendy smiles. His appearance fooled her; she thought he was just another lost redneck like many of the others. “You’re a long way from that world.”

“I wish I were,” Dennis says. “That would mean it was still there.”

She hears boots stomping down the aisle behind her, and knows it’s Toby. She turns and sees him approaching.

“God bless you, Wendy,” Dennis adds, and turns away to return to the camp.

Toby folds his arms around her shoulders and chest. It is like being hugged by a bear. The familiar odors of his body push away the irritating smells of wood smoke and dust. Wrapped in his large arms, Wendy feels like she is back in the Bradley, completely safe.

“He heard you’re a cop,” Toby guesses, kissing the back of her head.

“The police did amazing things,” she says, as if she were describing heroes of ancient legend. “The ones who stuck it out and didn’t run. They really helped people.”

He hugs her tighter. “Some of them still do.”

“No. The police are all dead now. There are no police. Not real police, anyway.”

He kisses her again. “You’re a real cop.”

“I’m not police anymore, Toby. I’m an exterminator. A gas chamber operator.”

Toby sighs and releases her. “It’s almost suppertime. You coming?”

“Where else would I go?”

He frowns. “I keep pissing you off. Tell me what’s wrong, Wendy.”

“It’s not you,” she tells him, placing her hand against his muscular chest, over his heart.

“Maybe this will make you feel a little happier.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of moist toilettes in their wrappers. “I got these off one of Ackley’s boys. I know how you like to stay as clean as you can.”

Wendy’s eyes flood with tears. “I don’t want this.”

Toby stands with his hands at his sides. “You don’t?”

His tone of rejection only makes her cry even harder. “This, Toby.
This.
I don’t want
this
.”

“It’s all there is,” Toby says as gently as possible.

He tries to pull her back into his arms, but she shoves him away and dashes into the dark aisles.
That can’t be true. There must be something else. There has to be.

It’s been less than two months since the screamers woke up and the epidemic began.
How can I do this for another two months? A year? A lifetime?

♦

They turn off the music so Tom Ackley can play his violin. Nothing white trash; pure Stravinsky. The stark notes fill the empty spaces and make the fighters feel melancholy. It gets so quiet they can hear a distant radio droning advice to
stay indoors
and
wear dark clothing
and
isolate and abandon loved ones who have been bitten
. The fighters chew slowly; the music makes them remember. A woman pauses while cutting her toenails and trembles, sobbing, as she relives some past event. Tom breaks into the warm rhythm of a waltz, making them glance at each other and smile. Laughing, the boy switches to bluegrass, sawing the strings like a fiddle and tapping his feet. The fighters clap as the music makes them forget.

“Here you go, Wendy,” Will Barnes says, handing her a paper plate loaded with franks and beans, Ramen noodles tossed with grilled vegetables, and canned pears.

“Thanks,” she says, taking a seat far from the others, her eyes on Toby, who sits at another fire with Steve, the driver, telling the story about being attacked by the Demon. The militia never gets tired of hearing that one. The Demon is a legend. They heard one screaming in the hills once and ran across its tracks, but never saw one themselves.

Which is why you’re still alive
, Wendy muses.
If you saw one, it would have eaten you and shit you out already. The one thing that saved me and Toby and Steve was the Bradley’s armor. Even then, it was a close thing.

The men’s eyes gleam in the firelight, hanging on every word. Wendy notices Toby’s hair is going gray. He is going to look like the Reverend Paul Melvin in no time. Thinking this, her heart goes out to him.
He is my man.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

Wendy glances up, her mouth full of beans, and motions for Lieutenant Chase to join her.

“Thanks,” he says, sitting with his own steaming plate of food. He takes a sip at the clear liquid in his mason jar and gasps, then laughs. “Wow, that’s strong stuff. Like drinking a bayonet.”

“Sorry I yelled at you earlier today in the Bradley, Lieutenant.”

“That’s all—”

“But lives were depending on me paying attention to the ISU display. I couldn’t have you yelling in my ear about military strategy.”

The officer nods. “Fair enough.”

Lieutenant Peter Chase showed up several days ago and latched onto Toby as the only non-com in the outfit who is regular Army. What he doesn’t understand is Toby isn’t in his Army anymore. And the New Liberty Army doesn’t have a general. Each of the Technicals has its own commander, and all of them decide as a group where to go next. They all want the same thing, and none of them mind doing their part. Often, they debate little over what to do, and a formal vote is not required. At least, that is, until the young lieutenant—yanked from West Point, put through a special counter-Infection training program, and thrown into the field—showed up.
The Army is invading Washington
, he told them.
We need you in the fight, each man to his duty.

Wendy likes the young officer, who isn’t even old enough to legally drink in most states, and has a penchant for the melodramatic.
Who will follow me to Washington?
he actually said once. Another time, Wendy could have sworn he said,
We will drive east, toward the sound of the guns.

The New Liberty Army is not a field army, however; it is a militia made up of people from the region who see no reason to fight outside of it. Moses Ackley said America is dead and they need to take care of business here. He pointed out that if they go, they may leave the entire region vulnerable to Infection. This ground here is not America; it is their home. They know the area intimately, making them successful in battle, and they are highly motivated to defend it. To men like Moses, America has become an abstraction, without meaning. Without the NLA, the refugee camps like Camp Defiance might be threatened. Most of the commanders are not ready to write off the United States, however. They still believe in America, if only in the ideal.

Lieutenant Chase offered them a deal. He said,
If you follow me to Washington, we will supply you. Fuel, parts, weapons, ammunition, medicine, food and water, and payment in gold.
Moses Ackley called it a trick, and besides, he said, the NLA is not for hire. Other commanders wondered what choice they had. The NLA is mechanized and without resupply, they will end up on foot. They’re always running out of things and what they have is steadily deteriorating.

“I was wondering,” says Chase, “if you would put in a word with Sergeant Wilson for me.”

“He’s right over there,” Wendy tells him. “Go tell him what you want. He’s reasonable.”

“Wendy, the mission is in Washington. We need to be moving at a faster pace.”