Zombies! (Episode 10): State of Emergency (15 page)

Now he reddened. "It was easier to make us a family."

She smiled at him and then turned back to the wheel. Shifting the Hummer into drive, she pulled away from
Arthur Conroy Hospital
never planning to return.

Naughton was right about maneuvering. Driving the Hummer was nothing like the little Civic she'd had before moving to the city. She could feel the weight of it as she turned and even as she hit the gas. As powerful as the engine was, it was a far heavier machine than any other vehicle on the road. Its tires chewed through the snow and ice as if they were nothing. But her confidence turned to cockiness which almost spelled disaster as she took a turn too fast.

In the back, Naughton hung the IV on a storage hook. There was no way to belt Zoe in so he held her gently on the seat. She felt feverish. When he mentioned it, Luco told him that it was because her immune system was still restarting. There were antibiotics in the IV. Still, Naughton was skeptical. He couldn't understand how a little girl who had been dead for so long was suddenly alive?

They did encounter some straggling zombies on the streets of Manhattan. Luco avoided the red areas, even when it took them away from the plow routes. At one point, they had to deal with more than a foot of snow. The Hummer skidded and swerved, but managed to get through it just the same. The stragglers came out of a building on their left, drawn by the noise of the engine. Luco was driving slowly but not slowly enough for the zombies to catch up. Still, Naughton laid a hand on his shotgun just in case.

At last, they reached the West Side Highway and headed north and out of the city. They were stopped once by the police but Naughton's badge and his name were more than enough to get them going again soon. He made up a story about patrolling and getting the little girl home to her family. No one questioned him. They crossed several highways until they finally made it to the New York State Thruway. The road was worse than the plowed areas of the city but still manageable for the Hummer. After a short time, they pulled over and Naughton took over the driving. He was much more confident and capable behind the wheel and the going got easier.

The drove for several hours. Eventually, they passed beyond the boundary of the storm and were able to bring the Hummer up to highway speed. Zoe slept through most of the drive but came awake every so often. Luco talked to her, asked her questions about her memories. She didn't want to push. She couldn't imagine what must be going on in the mind of a girl who was once dead, then undead, then alive again. Did she remember biting Detective Stemmy? Did she still have that hunger for flesh? Luco offered her some crackers, but she didn't take them. She drank a lot of water, though.

"Lance, I think she's sick," Luco said after a while.

He glanced in the rearview mirror. "She's been dead for five months. What do you expect?"

"That's not what I mean." For a minute, he didn't get it. He was concentrating on the road. There was still some snow blowing about but it wasn't nearly as bad as in the city. Then she elaborated. "She has a nosebleed."

Now he understood, but he didn't know what to say. "Is she awake?"

"No. She's shivering."

"What do you want to do?"

Luco shook her head. "I don't know. The antibiotics don't seem to be helping." She reached into the medical bag and rummaged around. She came out with a thermometer. "Slow down for a bit."

Naughton let the pedal raise and watched while Luco put the thermometer to the girl's temple.

"How bad?" he asked.

"A hundred and six."

"Is it possible that her body is just going through some adjustment?"

"I don't know," Luco whined. It was the first time he'd ever heard her whine. Her eyes were shimmering.

With no other options, Naughton just kept driving. He was tired and stiff, but didn't want to risk stopping. He pulled off for gas once, and used the opportunity to stretch his aching body. Luco stayed in the car with Zoe, hovering over her and trying to soothe her. It took a while to fill up the tank and it cost an awful lot of money. He used his credit card because he still could and they would need their cash once they were discovered. It was a traceable transaction but that didn't really matter. Kraemer would eventually find the Hummer. And that was where his trail would end.

When he was done filling the tank, he ran to the bathroom, but Luco refused to go. So they hit the road once again.

A few minutes later, Naughton heard something else he'd never heard before. Luco was singing. She was still surprising him. He was suddenly thinking that she would make a fine mother for his own children. He got a little lost in the thought and was startled when she started shouting for him to pull over. He swerved to the left and then to the right. Finally, he found the shoulder and pulled the Hummer to a stop.

"She's seizing," Luco cried, opening the bag again and throwing the contents all over the place while searching for the right medicine. From the front seat, there was nothing Naughton could do. He watched as she frantically filled a needle with something from a phial. But Zoe's body lurched once and blood spurted out of her nose and onto her lips.

"No," Luco whispered. As helpless as Naughton felt, he knew she felt a thousand times more helpless.

Zoe shuddered once more and then went still.

"
No!
" Luco shouted and began chest compressions. When she moved in for mouth to mouth, Naughton stretched across the seat and grabbed her by the only thing that was in reach, her hair. Crying out in anger and pain, she took a swipe at him, her nails scraping across his face. But he didn't let go.

"You can't," he yelled. "You'll get the infection."

"I don't care," she cried.

"
I
care," he cried back, and shifted so that he could grab her by the shirt.

She swung at him again, but he blocked her with his other hand. "You let me go, Lance!"

Then Zoe moved and they both stopped.

"Zoe?" Luco whispered.

Naughton let go of her shirt and she leaned in. She shifted again but he saw that her chest wasn't moving. She wasn't breathing, at least not in the way that living people breathe.

"Denise, get out of the car."

She moved closer to Zoe. She was so focused on the little girl that she didn't even realize that Naughton had gotten out on his side and was opening the door behind her. When Zoe's eyes snapped open, and her hand caught hold of Luco's wrist, she wasn't even shocked. Just saddened. There was no life in those eyes. And there was no life in Luco's heart. She would have just stayed there, let the little girl bite her if Naughton hadn’t reached inside the car and dragged her out. Zoe tried to pull herself up but the IV tube got caught on the hook and yanked her back before pulling out of her arm. Blood and fluid spurted from her arm and the tube. Naughton slammed the door shut.

They stood there for long moments in the cold, the light snow of an entirely different system blowing around them. Zoe had her face pressed up against the window. Naughton held Luco close to him, both to keep her warm and to prevent her from doing anything rash. He could feel the tension in her muscles.

"Let me go," she said finally. She sounded composed but she wasn't. When he didn't let go, she repeated her request more forcefully.

"What are you going to do?"

"I need to talk to her."

Naughton looked at the face in the window. It wasn't the face of the little girl they had taken from the hospital. It wasn't even the face of the zombie Luco and Yuan had revived. The expression was dead, the eyes vacant. Whatever intelligence there had been in the undead Zoe was gone. Still, he released Luco.

"Don't open the door," he said and pulled out his pistol. "Do you understand?"

"Don't threaten me, Lance."

But he didn't put away the gun. He just stood there with the gun in his hand and his hand at his side.

Luco leaned up against the car and put her face up against the window. "Zoe?" she said through the glass. There was no response, verbally or otherwise. The zombie child didn't even change the direction in which she was looking. She seemed to sniff the air briefly, but that was all.

"We need to get moving, Denise," Naughton said. "We need to get to Canada before Kraemer finds out what happened."

She looked back at him. "What should we do? Should we put handcuffs on her?"

He looked at her in confusion.

"You don't expect me to kill her, do you?"

"We can't bring her with us. Even if I was in favor of it, we'd never get her across the border."

"But she's different from the others, Lance."

"Not anymore."

"How can you say that? After all we've been through. We gave up everything to save her and now you want to throw it away?"

He softened. "Denise, I don't regret what I did and I hope you don't regret what you did. But Zoe's gone. Even if she can be saved, we don't have the means."

"She's just a little girl."

He shook his head. "She's not. Not anymore."

Luco started to cry. She didn't say anything, just started crying. To her Zoe was more than just one person. She had represented hope. In her desperate effort to absolve herself of everything she had done in combating this disease, Luco had tried to save just one person. Just one. And she had failed. And with that failure, hope had disappeared.

Naughton stood and did nothing. He waited until Luco had stopped sobbing and then gently moved her away from the car. Going around to the passenger side, he opened the back door and waited. Like a zombie, Zoe turned herself around and began pulling herself from the car. Naughton put several paces between himself and the door. He kept an eye on Luco in case she decided to do something irrational. But she just stood and watched. When Zoe finally extricated herself from the Hummer, Naughton took aim. All he would need was one shot. He gave her two paces, enough distance so that he wouldn't get any blood on the car. Then he fired. The bullet hit her squarely in the head and she crumpled to the ground.

"We should burn the body," Luco said after a moment, sounding more like herself.

Naughton nodded. He didn't want to take the time, but it was dangerous to leave a zombie, even a dead one, just lying on the side of the road. So they put on some latex gloves, also found in the medical bag, and dragged Zoe into the woods. There, Naughton built a pit of stone and surrounded it with snow. Then he took some wood, as wet as it was, and managed to get a blaze going. Zoe's clothing caught quickly and soon her body was burning. The smoke drifted high into the air and Naughton told Luco that they needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. She didn't argue. Together, they walked quickly back to the Hummer, got into the front seat, and headed off for Canada and their new lives.

***

A police cruiser picked up Shawn Rudd at about seven o'clock. He was just sitting in a chair at the curb, letting the snow fall upon him. Around him the street was littered with bodies. There were no less than twelve. In his left hand, he held a cylindrical piece of wood, broken off at one end. It was pitted and bloody. His clothing was covered in gore and a hazmat team was brought in to strip him and clean him off. After he was taken to the hospital and his parents called, they ran a blood test on him to test for the infection. He was clean. But not undamaged. He wouldn't speak and wouldn't eat. He didn't even acknowledge his mother and father when they arrived at the hospital, soaking and exhausted.

After several hours, he was pronounced physically sound but the doctor on duty called in for a psychiatric consultation. By this time, Shawn’s father was livid. He tried to take Shawn out of the hospital but was restrained by the guards. Shawn himself showed no reaction to any of the excitement until one of the guards came too close to him. At that point, he grabbed the guard around the neck and pulled him off of his feet. As they struggled, Shawn grabbed at the man’s belt and pulled free his nightstick. He raised his arm and brought it down once against the man’s head. The man slumped to the ground and Shawn moved in to finish the job. It was his mother who got in the way. Even in his hysterical state, Shawn couldn’t bring the stick down on his mother.

Other guards stepped in and he was restrained. His father, the wind taken from his sails, stood and watched as his son fought and fought, all the while shouting, “Let me kill him! He’s one of them! Can’t you smell it?”

***

It was a long time before the Benjamins were taken to their apartment and released from custody. By the time they rendezvoused with Olden and his squad, the lieutenant was beside himself. First he shouted at the two plow drivers, dropping more f-bombs than most people had ever heard in a lifetime. When Martin stepped in to take responsibility and explain their actions, Olden ordered him arrested. At that point, Henry got involved in the debate, taking Olden aside and working to calm him down. Henry had a way of talking that was soothing, almost compelling. He was also always very rational.