This Dark Earth (6 page)

“There’s a first-aid kit in there.” He pointed at the cab’s oversize glove box. She popped the clasp and withdrew a white and blue box with a red cross stenciled on the top. Opening the box, she took some gauze, twisted the top off the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, doused the soft white material, and wiped the side of her head. It streaked with brown.

“What’s going on? There was a pileup back there, a couple of miles back. People stumbling around all bloody. After I passed through, looked like the cops were barricading the interstate.” He shrugged and added, “CB and radio’s out too.”

She pointed to the roof.

“Hear that?”

He looked at her, puzzled. Then his eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Sirens.”

“Something has happened.”

“What?”

“An outbreak. A virus. It does strange stuff. It—” She shook her head. “How fast can this thing go? We’ve got to get out of the area.”

“I guess I can get her up around ninety, maybe. Hundred going downhill. But she eats up too much gas that way.”

“If you don’t step on it, gas will be the last of our worries.”

“Hold on, ma’am. I can’t just start speeding ’cause you say so. I own this truck. She’s all I got. Pay for the gas too. And filling her up is expensive.”

He shook a cigarette out of a pack and lit it with a steel Zippo with a skull and crossbones raised on the side.

“Where are you from?”

“Alabama.”

“You ever heard of CSEPP?”

“Uh, I think so. I’ve seen stuff on TV.”

“It stands for Chemical Stockpile Evacuation Preparedness Program.”

“Hold on. Hold
on
.” He rubbed his nose with the hand holding the cigarette. For a second, Lucy thought he might catch his eyebrows on fire. “You telling me there’s been a chemical spill?”

Lucy shook her head. She felt the ever-present pressure to take charge and answer his question, even though she didn’t
have
an answer. It was part and parcel of being a doctor—you’re trained,
conditioned
to answer questions in med school, specific, detailed questions. In every stage, questions: pre-med, med school, internist, resident, fellowship, and then to practicing physician and beyond up the great chain of medical being. Indeed, medicine was a codified way to answer questions. It was a landscape of queries and unknowns. And sometimes one of the innumerable small questions with their small answers led to bigger and bigger questions that became
harder to answer. Questions that began with
why
instead of
how
and
what
and then the minutiae of medicine unraveled, unspooled, and you’re left with concepts and hard realities better suited to a priest or philosopher than a physician.
Don’t ask me
why
we get sick. Don’t ask me why we have to die or why there is cancer. There is and we do. I focus on the HOW
.

But all she said was, “Maybe. I don’t know, really. It could be some sort of chemical but looks more like a viral outbreak. And that means there’s no telling its origin. It could be from . . .”

“Anywhere?”

She remained silent for a moment, thinking, rubbing her bottom lip and doing her best not to dash down her personal mental rabbit hole.

“Like the flu or something?”

At that Lucy laughed, and even she could hear how it sounded as though she were unraveling, coming unglued.
The questions will keep getting bigger
.

“Or something. But about two million times worse.”

“And this thing got loose.”

She passed her hand over her eyes, suddenly weary.

“Can I have one of those?” she said, nodding at his smoke. He handed her the pack and lighter.

She took a breath. “Look. I’m gonna be totally honest. You’re gonna think I’m . . . Whatever got loose, it makes you go crazy first. Causes all sorts of . . . fucked-up neurological stuff. Like eating parts of yourself, seizures, spasms. Tourette’s.”

“Tourette’s? Like yelling out
fuck
in a theater?”

She nodded. “But worse. Much worse.
Did you hear what I said about eating yourself?
”

He glanced at her, then looked back at the road.

“Then your heart races, tachycardia, until it can’t take any more and practically explodes.” She lit a cigarette, drew in the smoke, and exhaled.

“Then,” she said, slowly, watching the man, “once you’re dead, your body revivifies. It gets back up. Attacks whoever is nearest. Eats them. I witnessed it myself. It’s as if all the weird neurological stuff is boiled down to its essence. Violence and consumption. But the body is dead. Or seemingly dead . . . I never had a chance to test at the cellular level.”

The man’s eyes went wide. “You got it?” He started to slow the truck. “Get out.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Get out. I got a daughter.”

“No. I don’t have it. And I have a family too.”

“How the fuck do you know? Huh? You’re getting out right here.”

“I know because I’m a doctor. All of the original patients lived in White Hall. It must’ve gotten into the water or something in the environment and then infected them. Once infected, it travels through bodily fluids. Bites.” She didn’t add,
I hope, because if it’s airborne . . . say good-bye to the human race
.

She held out her arms. “I haven’t been bitten.”

He leaned back in his seat.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. As I can be.” She laughed. “You’re having a hard
time believing I’m not going to go mad and revivify. But you believe it
can happen
. That’s kind of fucking amazing.”

His blunt face went through a series of expressions—outrage, anger, puzzlement, and then, surprisingly, amusement. He gave a pained smile. “Zombies.”

“What?”

“You’re talking zombies. The government do this?”

She stayed silent for a while, realizing the absurdity of what he’d just said. Zombies. The strangeness of the situation pressed in on her, and she shut her eyes tight to blot out all sensation and live, for the moment, in the weightless existence of pure thought. But she couldn’t seem to regain the calmness needed for problem solving.

She laughed. He was correct. Zombies they were.

“I think so. I’m guessing it’s a biological weapon they developed, realized it was too nasty for the world, and then tried to hide it away. Destroy it, maybe. Could’ve been stored at the stockpile here. Or somewhere else. There’s just no telling without an investigation.” The words were bitter to her. She should be in on that. She should be the one to pursue this rabbit all the way into its hole and beyond, if needed.
If I’m right, no one will ever investigate this mystery, God help us. Not this one or any other. Ever
.

He whistled and then leaned forward.

Lucy went on. “We’ve got to get out of here. Fast. I have a suspicion—”

“What?” He looked scared again.

“Okay. I’m just guessing. There was a leak at the stockpile or somewhere else. The virus got loose and affected people in
the vicinity. But not farther out. A range, you know. Maybe it could only live for a little bit in the water. Or in the air, though I doubt it’s airborne, because if it was, I would have it.” She peered out the window, brow furrowing. “It’s extremely virulent because human agents actively spread the disease through attack, through bites.”

“Yeah. Zombies.”

“If it came from here, we have no idea how far it’s spread already. How many were infected and drove to Baptist Hospital in Little Rock? How many stayed in their homes? It could have made it to Memphis by now. Monroe. Shreveport.”

“I hear you. But what are you saying?”

“They chased us with a gunship. Big helicopter with a machine gun. They killed . . . they shot my friend. A doctor.” She couldn’t believe it, but she was crying. Tears came from the corners of her eyes and a hot, uncontrollable sob burst from her chest.

“They had us trapped under the overpass. Then they just left. Took off, like they needed to get out of the area. I think they realized its potential but misjudged its virulence.”

“What are you saying?”

“When you get a wound, you sterilize it. You . . .” She thought about her words, very carefully. “You cauterize it, maybe.”

“I don’t understand.”

She was quiet for a long while, smoking her cigarette. She looked at the man, then crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray.

“Just drive as fast as you can. We have to put as much space
between us and White Hall as possible. We might only have a few minutes.”

Understanding crossed his face, and he put the semi into a lower gear and hit the accelerator. Soon the truck shuddered with speed.

They passed a pileup in the left lane. Mangled cars. People on the ground, some bleeding. Some contorting. Some spasming. Some were already upright. Revivified and shambling. Zombies.

“Holy fuck,” he said. “Oh my sweet Jesus.”

One of the zombies, missing an arm and part of his rib cage, stepped too close to the semi as they passed. They heard a thump.

The trucker dug under his seat and pulled out a revolver. He tucked it into his belt.

“This is a goddamned nightmare. My girlfriend’s back in Alabama.”

“You tried to call her? Check your phone.”

He dug it out of his pocket and flipped it open and dialed.

After a moment, he said, “‘Network busy. Try back later.’”

“I don’t think that’s an accident. Things could be happening everywhere. People are . . .”

“Desperate. What could be happening . . .?”

“Other than zombies and gunships shooting civilians? No clue, but . . . believe it. Drive.”

“Hey, you don’t have to harsh on me. I picked you up, remember?”

Abrasive
, they called her at Baptist Hospital when they let her go.
Arrogant and possessed of an intolerance unbecoming to
a physician
. That one smarted some. Why the hell did it take zombies to get her to pull her head out of her ass long enough to try to get along with others?

Because social niceties are a survival mechanism, that’s why
.

She nodded. “I’m . . .” She hesitated. “I’m sorry. For everything.” Lucy put her hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for saving me. My name is Lucy Ingersol.”

He grinned, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re just a little intense.” He patted her knee. Normally she would have had something harsher to say about such familiarity, but she knew it was meant in good spirit.

“They call me Knock-Out. Jim Nickerson. But Knock-Out’s what all my friends call me.”

The semi jerked and the lights on the dashboard went dark. The tape deck went out. The truck slowed dramatically, as if the engine had completely malfunctioned.

“Oh no.”

“What do you mean, ‘oh no’?”

“Stop the truck!”

He jammed his foot on the brakes and the semi jumped and rattled. It rolled to rest on the shoulder.

“EMP!” Her voice sounded shrill. “Electromagnetic pulse! Knocks out all electronics. We’ve got to find cover!”

“What? I can’t—”

Throwing open the door, Lucy dropped to the ground and sprinted along the highway. She heard Knock-Out clamber down from the cab and yell, “Wait! Lucy!”

Ahead, she spied a culvert and drainage pipe passing underneath the highway. She ran down the length of the
shoulder and jumped into the concrete culvert. Knock-Out huffed behind her.

She turned back to see his progress and she heard a small boom in the distance, like someone slamming a door in a large house. She stopped. It was such a small sound, she allowed herself to hope. Her perception stilled into a series of snapshots, like a camera shutter sticking. The sky streaked with color, turning brilliantly white, like a new sun coalescing from stardust. Black upon white. Knock-Out’s silhouette in midstride, the hulking shape of the big rig behind him, a wall of fire growing beyond the tree line, rising toward heaven. The once blue sky now striated with wispy thin clouds. Her hair swinging toward the light. Wind at her back.

White light.

She threw herself to the bottom of the culvert and Knock-Out landed next to her. The sound became massive: not a roar, not an explosion, but a sound that went lower than the human ear could perceive and stretched away into infinitely higher pitches. Her stomach and intestines felt liquefied. Only pure desperation and self-preservation kept her moving. She scrambled toward the drainage pipe’s mouth, Knock-Out close behind.

She’d passed over the pipe’s mouth and was pulling at Knock-Out’s shirt when the shock wave ripped past them like the mother of all tornadoes, carrying rocks, trees, debris. It passed over the lip of the concrete gully, tearing away their breath and making their clothes ripple as though they were in free fall.

Lucy screamed, the sound lost in the din, clawing herself
backward, further into the pipe. Knock-Out pulled himself over the mouth and flopped onto his side.

The world became a furnace, and it was Knock-Out’s turn to scream. Again Lucy witnessed him silhouetted by light. Outside, beyond the pipe, air turned to fire.

Their hair, their clothes, ignited.

Knock-Out threw himself on top of her. He gripped her like an overamorous date and rolled up one side of the pipe and then down again, dousing their backs in the half inch of water standing stagnant at the bottom. Lucy’s head bashed into the pipe wall and the world spun.

She felt something akin to relief as the darkness at the edges of her vision crowded in and everything became black.

When she awoke,
Knock-Out sat on the lip of the pipe, looking up at the sky. Half his hair was gone and horrendous blisters covered the back of his neck and ears, the exposed backs of his arms.

He smoked, looking at the ruins of the sky. He smoked, just like everything around them. The whole earth was aflame.

She pushed herself up and out, making him move to the side.

He shook a cigarette out of his pack, lit it with the Zippo, and handed it to her. The bright snick of the lighter came through even above the crackle of fire. The woods beyond the interstate’s shoulder tilted crazily to the left and burned.