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wait.

George turned the security cameras on before things got too… before it was too late to worry about that sort of stuff. I watched the Center’s security forces rush around with the senator’s men and some dudes I didn’t recognize. Ryman wasn’t the only candidate working Sacramento. There was no sign of Rick. Either he got dead or he got out of the quarantine zone before things went to hell. And things had gone to hell. I could spot at least three of the infected on every monitor, about half of them being gunned down by frantic guards who’d never dealt with a for-real-and-true zombie before. They were shooting stupid. They would have known they were shooting stupid if they’d paused to think for five seconds. You’re not a sharpshooter, you don’t go for the head, you go for the knees; a zombie that’s been hobbled can’t come at you as fast, and that leaves more time to aim. You’re out of ammo, you leave the field. You don’t reload where you stand unless there isn’t any choice. When you’re fighting a disease, you have to fight smarter than it does, or you may as well put down your weapons and surrender. Sometimes they just bite enough to infect if you don’t put up a fight and if the pack’s too small. You can avoid being eaten if you’re willing to defect to the enemy’s side.

Part of me wanted to get out there and help them, because it was clear they were pretty fucked without some sort of backup. Most of me wanted to stay where I was, watching the blood dry, watching the last signs of George slipping away forever.

My pocket buzzed. I slapped at it like it was a fly, fumbling out my phone and clicking it on. “Shaun.”

“Shaun, it’s Rick. Are you okay?”

It took me a moment to recognize the high, wavering sound in the van as my own distorted laughter. I clamped it down, clearing my throat before I said, “I don’t think that word applies at this point. I’m alive, for now. If you’re asking whether I’m infected, I don’t know. I’m waiting until someone shows up to get me before I run a blood test. Seems a little pointless before that. Did you get out before the quarantine came down?”

“Barely. They were still reacting to the explosions when I got to Georgia’s bike; they hadn’t had time to do anything. I think they closed the gates right behind me. I—”

“Do me a favor. Don’t tell me where you are.” I let my head tilt back to touch the van’s wall and discovered more blood I’d need to keep an eye on. This was on the ceiling. “I have no idea how tapped our phones are or who might be listening. I’m still in the van. Doors are probably locked anyway, since we confirmed an infection in here.” The van’s security system wasn’t going to trust any attempt to open it from the inside, even if I registered uninfected. It would need an outside agent to free me. That or a rocket launcher, and even I don’t pack that heavy for a little political rally.

Rick’s reply was subdued. “I won’t. I… I’m sorry, Shaun.”

“Aren’t we all?” I laughed again. This time the high, strangled sound seemed almost natural. “Tell me her last transmission got out. Tell me it’s circulating now.”

“That’s why I called. Shaun, this is—it’s insane. We’re getting so many hits that it’s swamped two of the servers. Everyone is downloading this; everyone is propagating it. Some folks started the usual ‘it’s a hoax’ rumors, and Shaun, the CDC put out a press statement. The CDC.” He sounded awed. He damn well should. The CDC never puts out a statement with less than a week to prepare it. “They confirmed receipt of her test results with a time stamp and everything. This story doesn’t just have legs—it has wings, and it’s flying around the world.”

“The name on the press release. It wasn’t Wynne, was it?”

“Dr. Joseph Wynne.”

“Guess our trip to Memphis did some good after all.” The blood on the ceiling was more satisfying than the blood on the walls. It was thinner up there. It was drying so much faster.

“She didn’t die for nothing. Her story—our story—it got out.”

Suddenly, I was tired. So goddamn tired. “Sorry, Rick, but no. She died for nothing. No one should have died for this. You get away from here. Far as you can. Dump your phones, dump your transmitters, dump anything that could be used to bounce a signal, stick Georgia’s bike in a garage, and don’t call again until this is over.”

“Shaun…”

“Don’t argue.” A bitter smile touched my lips. “I’m your boss now.”

“Try not to die.”

“I’ll think about it.”

I hung up and chucked my phone across the van, where it shattered against the wall with a satisfying crunch. Rick was out of the quarantine, and he was still running. Good. He was wrong—George damn well died for nothing—but he was also right. She would have thought this justified things. She would have said this was enough to pay for my being forced to put a bullet through her spine. Because she put the truth ahead of absolutely everything we ever had, and this had been the biggest truth of all.

“Happy now, George?” I asked the air.

The silence supplied her answer: Ecstatic.

The sound of beeping intruded on my contemplation of the bloody ceiling some ten minutes later. The fight outside was winding down. Bemused, I looked toward my shattered phone. Still broken. There were countless things in the van that could be beeping like that, about half of them on George’s side. Hoping whatever it was happened to be voice activated, I said, “Answer.”

One of the wall-mounted monitors rolled, the body of a dead security guard and the two infected feasting on his torso being replaced by the worried face of Mahir, my sister’s longtime second and our secret weapon against government shut-down. Guess that cat didn’t need to stay in the bag any longer. His eyes were wide and terrified, the whites showing all the way around, and his hair was disheveled, like he’d just gotten out of bed.

“Huh,” I said, distantly pleased. “Guess it was voice activated after all. Hey, Mahir.”

His focus shifted down, settling on where I sat against the wall. It wasn’t possible for his eyes to get any wider, but they tried when he saw the gun in my hand. Still, his voice struggled to stay level as he said, with great and anxious seriousness, “Tell me this is a joke, Shaun. Please, tell me this is the most tasteless joke in a long history of tasteless jokes, and I will forgive you, happily, for having pulled it on me.”

“Sorry, no can do,” I said, closing my eyes rather than continuing to look at his worry-stricken face. Was this how it felt to be George? To have people looking at you, expecting you to have the answers about things that didn’t involve shooting the thing that was about to chew your face off? Jesus, no wonder she was tired all the time. “The exact time and cause of death for Georgia Carolyn Mason has been registered with the Centers for Disease Control. You can access it in the public database. I understand there’s been a statement confirming it. I’m gonna have to get that framed.”

“Oh, dear God—”

“Pretty sure God’s not here just now. Leave a message. Maybe He’ll get back to you.” It was nice, looking at the inside of my eyelids. Dark. Comfortable. Like all those hotel rooms I fixed up for her, because her eyes got hurt so easy…

“Shaun, where are you?” Horror was overwhelming the anxiety in his tone. He’d seen the van wall. He’d seen the gun. Mahir wasn’t an idiot—he could never have worked for George if he’d been stupid—and he knew what my surroundings meant.

“I’m in the van.” I nodded, still letting myself take comfort in the dark. I couldn’t see his face. I couldn’t see the blood drying on the walls. The dark was my friend. “George is here, too, but you can’t really say hi just now. She’s indisposed. Also, I blew her brains out all over the wall.” The giggle escaped before I could bite it back, high and shrill in the confined air.

“Oh, my God.” Now there was nothing but horror in his tone, wiping everything else away. “Have you activated your emergency beacon? Have you tested yourself? Shaun—”

“Not yet.” I found myself beginning to get interested against my better judgment. “Do you think I should?”

“Don’t you want to live, man?!”

“That’s an interesting question.” I opened my eyes and stood, testing my legs and finding them good. There was a moment of dizziness, but it passed. Mahir was watching me from the screen, his dark complexion gone pale with panic. “Do you think I should? I wasn’t supposed to. George was supposed to. There’s been a clerical error.”