Plague Zone

making himself a target.

“Wait,” Ingrid said, bumping against Cam.

Greg pulled on his other side and they went two more steps before Greg froze, too. “Oh, God,” he said.

David sprawled in the corridor between the greenhouses. Their friend lay on his back, trembling, as if he’d struck a nonexistent wall. But there was nowhere else to go. Behind them, the villagers had walked over Owen’s corpse and the flashlights they’d left nearby, filling the few white beams with legs and feet. At the same time, a larger, different group of silhouettes walked into the flashlights from the north.

Jefferson belonged to the infected.

“Run through the greenhouse,” Cam said, gesturing with his entire body against Ingrid. Greenhouse 2 was upwind of David, if that mattered. Every breath was a gamble. The air must be streaked with nanotech.

“Go!” Greg said. “Ingrid, go. I got him.”

She stepped over the foundation wall, ducking one of the crossbeams that had supported the plastic. Instead of running ahead, though, she turned with her M16. There were more silhouettes to their left, bumbling through the space between Greenhouses 1 and 2. In a moment, they would be cut off.

Cam heaved his legs over the foundation wall as Ingrid took aim. Chik kik. She was empty. “Idiot,” she said, fumbling a new magazine from her jacket as she backpedaled through the low, broad planters, still soft and green with seedlings.

Greg and Cam outpaced her before she opened fire. Muzzle flashes danced over the posts and crossbeams, throwing shadows like crucifixes on the surface of Greenhouse 1. Someone howled. Most of the others tumbled in silence. Then another gun fired from the jeeps, supporting Ingrid. Cam recognized the chatter of an M4. A pistol barked, too, punctuating the lighter, popping noise of the carbine. At least two other villagers had survived, and Cam lunged forward with Greg, buoyed by a new surge of hope.

“This way!” a woman hollered.

They fell out of the back of the greenhouse. Greg staggered to his feet but Cam’s right arm wouldn’t work. He could only push himself onto his hurt side. His thoughts were short and confused.

Get up. Get up.

“Cam!” Ruth yelled. She stood over him with her hand thrust out, squeezing off three rapid shots from her 9mm Beretta. He thought he was dreaming.

Somewhere the M4 blazed again on full auto, running through an entire clip in seconds. Spent cartridges rang against the bumper of a jeep. Cam felt himself dragged against the vehicle’s fender, which was alive in a way that the ground was not. The jeep rocked violently as someone climbed in. The engine was idling, too, a low, bass grumble.

“Help me!” Greg shouted, heaving Cam upright. Ruth lowered her pistol and shoved her free hand against Cam’s stomach. Together they levered him into the back of the jeep, where Bobbi knelt with the M4, reloading.

“You crazy—” Cam said in admiration before he ran out of breath. Crazy goddamn females, he thought. Ruth and Bobbi had disobeyed him, running for the jeeps instead of entering the sealed huts like he’d told them.

It had saved their lives.

“Is there anyone else!?” Ruth yelled.

“No, they’re gone,” Ingrid said.

“But I saw—”

“They’re gone!”

Something was wrong with Bobbi’s carbine. Probably it had jammed. The M4 was prone to seizing on full auto, and Bobbi threw it down and lurched into the driver’s seat as Ingrid heaved herself in beside Cam. They had almost nothing else besides another carbine and a backpack. Cam didn’t see the Harris AN/PRC-117.

“The radio,” he gasped.

Bobbi said, “Susan fought us for it—”

“The AFM!” Ruth shouted, firing twice more into the corridor between the greenhouses. “I have my laptop but I think the AFM is still next to my cabin! If we—”

“Leave it!” Greg yelled. “Get in!” Then he stepped away from the vehicle himself.

“What are you doing!?” Bobbi screamed.

“I’ll burn the town. The fire should keep them back.” His voice was loaded with fear and Cam understood that, more than anything, Greg Estey intended to join his wife and daughter.

“You can‘t!” Ruth shouted. But their friend had run into the darkness. He was headed for the toolshed, Cam realized — where the last of their fuel cans were kept — and Ingrid leaned out of the jeep with her rifle and blasted the truck beside them. Bullets slapped and whined from the side of the truck, shredding the rear fender and gas tank. Gasoline spattered on the earth. Ingrid was starting the job Greg intended to fulfill, but then Bobbi accelerated. She nearly threw Ingrid from the jeep. She must have thought the truck would explode and they roared out of the motor pool, speeding between two huts on the east side of town.

Cam might have caught a glimpse of Greg. Would his friend hesitate at the toolshed? Instead of creating a barricade for the infected people, a fire might kill Tricia and Hope and everyone else in Jefferson, asphyxiating them with smoke. Maybe that was Greg’s intent even if he couldn’t be honest with himself. If he’d been able to get close enough, maybe he would have shot his baby instead of leaving her to suffer in the night and then in the heat of the day, neglected and helpless — or maybe Greg had convinced himself that his love for Hope would survive the mind plague in some form. He might believe he would retain enough of a spark to care for his daughter.

Hurry, Cam thought. He didn’t want to say good-bye, so he tried to imagine Greg’s success instead. It was the only way he could stay with his friend.

The jeep slammed over a bump in the ground. Bobbi braked hard and swerved through the fences, turning on her headlights at last. Something like a hubcap careened up from the front tire. Then a heavier object smashed against the undercarriage.

“People on your left!” Ingrid shouted.

There were more figures approaching Jefferson in their bare feet and pajamas. The cold made their skin like marble: blue lips, white eyes. One woman had cut her face and her chest was slick with blood.

After that, Bobbi seemed to clear the silent migration. She slowed down and leaned over the wheel to stare into her headlights, weaving constantly. The ground was rough and spotted with rocks. Cam buckled his elbow down against his side, trying to staunch the wound. “Help me,” he said to Ingrid, but Ruth turned to him first. “My ribs,” he said.

“Oh no,” Ruth pleaded, touching his shoulder.

Cam grimaced and sat up. He needed to give her room to inspect his wound and, at the very least, pack something against the side of his chest.

He couldn’t let Greg’s suicide go for nothing.

Their losses were unimaginable. Allison, Hope, Tricia, Tony, Owen, and the rest… the hundreds of people from Morristown… How many other survivors must be feeling the same despair? What if the new plague really was everywhere across America? That was how Allison would have looked at things, including herself in the larger whole instead of standing apart, and Cam grasped at the sense of being with her. He nursed the bright embers of his grief, encouraging it. Rage was a defense mechanism he’d learned years ago, burying his pain and taking energy from his hate. At times, it had been the only thing that kept him going.

It gave him direction.

If there was any chance of reversing the mind plague, they had to get Ruth to safety and the equipment in Grand Lake.

11

The soldier at the bunker door stiffened, then relaxed and fell. Beside him, a second Marine began to twitch against the concrete wall. He dropped the medical tape he’d been using to seal the door. Then he collapsed on his