“That’s—”
“Ridiculous, I know,” Jefferson agreed with Murphy’s unspoken statement. “But it’s all we’ve got.” He smiled and rubbed his stomach as he leaned back. “For now, I can have Beth warm up the stew we had for lunch and you guys can tell me the whole story of what’s going on over on the mainland.”
Grady’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food. He hadn’t eaten since they broke camp this morning, before stumbling upon the marketplace. He glanced around the apartment. It was spacious by New York standards, but he was already longing for the wide open expanse of the countryside.
Oh, and there was that whole murderous fucking asshole Taavi issue that he needed to take care of.
16
LIBERAL, KANSAS
MARCH 7TH
Sidney looked through the scope, squinting her other eye as she did so. The movement felt like it split open the nearly-frozen skin on her cheek. The weather was much warmer than it had been over the long winter, but the wind was a killer. She and Mark had been outside for the better part of fifty hours and the cold was taking its toll on her body.
“What do you see?” Mark asked. He was pressed close against her, facing the opposite direction. Sidney moved her rifle slowly, scanning the area in front of them before answering.
“Looks like a small camp. Five or six buildings, plus a few vehicles. They’ve got barbed wire ringing the entire thing and there are dead infected all around it.”
The camp in front of them was small, nothing more than a combat outpost for the Iranian Army. It looked like it was possibly a resupply area for convoys or maybe a secure space for patrols if they got in trouble with the infected and needed a place to run. Given the hordelike nature of the infected, it made sense for them to establish that sort of protection as they pushed farther from the main base of operations at the airfield—or at wherever the bulk of the Iranians were. Her group had been operating on the assumption that they were at the airfield, but in reality, they had no idea. The army could have moved into town for all she knew.
“That place is gonna smell awesome once summer hits,” Mark mumbled.
The infected were vile, disgusting creatures. Their unwashed skin was covered in feces and open sores. Even in the dead of winter, Sidney could smell one of them coming if she was downwind from it. She hadn’t been in Kansas over the summer yet, but the girls talked about the brutal heat without air conditioning. She couldn’t even imagine what the infected would smell like then.
“So, we can either try to go all Rambo and shoot the place up—”
“There’s only two of us,” Mark reminded her.
“Or,” Sidney continued her train of thought before the kid interrupted her. “We can be smart and let the infected do the job for us.”
“Let’s go with option two.”
“Yeah. I only see one guard, but that doesn’t mean much.”
“One guard for a big perimeter doesn’t seem right.”
“You’re correct,” Sidney agreed. “But that’s all I see. He’s up on top of one of the buildings, keeping an eye on the surrounding area. I think—” She adjusted her view once more. “I think that they’re relying on that barbed wire stuff to be their main defense. There are literally dozens of dead infected dangling from it, so they get caught in that and somebody goes out to kill it quietly before it calls in more of them.”
Mark adjusted himself on the ground, temporarily breaking the contact between them and allowing the cold to rush in. “Makes sense, I guess.”
Sidney grimaced. All the two of them were doing was guessing about everything. They weren’t soldiers. The scene before them could have been some sort of elaborate ruse to lure them in. She just didn’t know. The only thing she knew was that she needed to keep the Iranians as far away from her family as possible.
“Okay. I think I’ve got a plan for how we can get the infected inside.”
“You gonna share it with me?”
She turned, lifting herself up on one elbow and breaking contact between them once more. “Yeah. I’m just coming up with this as I go.”
“Sorry,” Mark apologized. “I’m just cold and tired.”
“It’s okay. I get it.” Sidney sighed. The kid should be in his junior year of high school, not out here in the cold hunting down foreigners. She needed to remember that and cut him some slack. “Here, turn around. I want you to see what I’m talking about.”
Sidney watched the guard carefully through the rifle’s scope. During her observation, she’d seen six or seven different men in the camp. It was difficult to tell exactly how many because they moved about in ones and twos, carrying boxes or going from building to building. She hoped it was just that many and not more.
The guard seemed to be committed to stopping the infected from getting into the base, not performing the job of a true lookout. He focused his attention on the ground surrounding the camp’s perimeter, but disregarded adjacent rooftops. Why would he? The infected couldn’t really climb, so most of the time, they weren’t on the second floor of buildings unless they’d been trapped there when they turned. It worked out well for her and Mark, though, as they watched from four rooftops away.
“Alright. Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Sidney asked him. “I can do it instead of you.”
“You’re a better shot than I am. But I’m faster than you.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Sidney countered. “Remember the other day on the
