Outside, three large green vehicles turned into the driveway, their big tires crunching on the gravel.
“Are those Iranian?” Mark asked.
“No!” she replied excitedly. “Those are Strykers—the trucks that Jake and the Army guys used. It’s Jake. He’s back!”
She expected the big guns on the top of the trucks to open up on the mass of infected racing toward them, but they didn’t. Instead, the vehicles turned around and shut off their engines. “What the hell?”
By the time they’d finished their maneuvering, the twenty or so infected had surrounded the trucks. They beat uselessly against the metal sides. A head appeared at the top of the truck, followed quickly by the rest of the man’s body. He stood on the top of the Stryker and stretched his arms skyward leisurely in a stretch. Then the guy did a few exaggerated calisthenics like he was warming up for a game of backyard two-hand touch football.
“Who is that?” she asked. “I can’t tell.”
“It’s that crazy guy. The one who was a spy or whatever.”
“Grady?”
“Yeah. That’s him. What’s…” Mark trailed off as the operator pulled a big knife from his belt and hopped down off the truck into the midst of the infected.
Sidney didn’t understand what happened, but somehow, the man moved the creatures away from himself and he killed them indiscriminately, the knife blade flashing up and down, side to side, in the morning sun.
In a couple of minutes, he’d eliminated the threat using only his knife. He wiped the blade off on the clothes of the dead and walked toward the house.
“Anyone home?” he yelled.
“Yeah! Yeah, we’re here!” Mark shouted.
“Good. ‘Cause I need a drink,” Grady said. He hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “And we got somebody back there who wants to see y’all.”
Sidney’s eyes drifted to the Strykers. The back ramp was coming down on one of them. She watched as it settled into the gravel and a wheelchair emerged, rolling slowly downward.
“Is that?”
“Why’s Jake in a wheelchair?” Mark asked.
“Help me with the dresser,” she said, rushing to the front door.
Sidney didn’t know why Jake was in a wheelchair, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out. Once the dresser was out of the way, she ran across the front yard, stepping over bodies to reach him.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” he said, smiling up at her.
“You too,” she replied. “I can’t believe you came back.”
“I told you I would.” His grin was infectious and her lips parted in a wide smile.
“I’m glad you did,” she said. “I’m really glad.”
EPILOGUE
BIGGS ARMY AIRFIELD, FORT BLISS, EL PASO, TEXAS
APRIL 24TH
Hannah examined her face in the mirror. The stiches were doing good and the brigade surgeon said that she’d be able to take them out in a few days. The unprovoked attack in the showers had left her scarred and emotionally drained. The fact that there was a group of people—soldiers no less—that were anti-immune was insane. People who were immune to the virus should have been celebrated, not attacked.
But, that’s where they were. Division’s intelligence reports said that over the past several months, there’d been a steady increase in the anti-immune graffiti around the refugee camps and that attacks on people accused of being immune to the virus had spiked. There’d been several arrests, but the prevailing thought was all that it did was fan the flames of malcontent amongst the population, especially as rumors of the nuclear attacks spread through the camps. She’d heard reports that the immune were leaving the safety of Fort Bliss in favor of the wilderness outside the walls in an effort to escape the growing persecution. What a crazy world, she thought, disgusted by it all.
Hannah wiped her hands on the small towel she kept inside the wall locker she’d been given for her stuff. She examined what she had. In addition to the pack that she’d carried for a year across two continents, she had her M-4, some new undergarments, and two uniforms that the Army had issued her. That was it. Everything in her life could fit into the tiny space inside the wall locker.
She sighed and closed the door. America hadn’t been nearly what she’d expected during her journey from Brazil. She’d foolishly thought that once she got past the border, things would magically be better. What an idiot, she chided herself.
Nothing was better. It was all the same. The world was shit, but at least she was safe. Outside the base’s walls, there were infected hordes that roamed the countryside, staying alive by eating everything in their path, and foreign troops who’d been let in under the guise of UN help. They were at all-out war with them now. The president’s final act before his death had been to order the bombing of Iran and North Korea. Humanity’s chances of survival became slimmer with each passing day.
“You look like you could use a bite to eat,” a voice from Hannah’s past said from the doorway to her small room.
Her head whipped around. “Grady?”
“In the flesh,” he said, smiling. He’d gotten thinner, and his beard had gone completely rogue on him, but it was him. It was really him.
She rushed across the room and threw her arms around him. He hugged her back. “How?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Give me the Cliff’s Notes version.”
“Um… Let’s see, I got captured in Brazil—”
“I know that part. We went back and raided the facility. I found pictures of you.” She squeezed him hard until her biceps ached. “Oh, Grady. I’m so sorry. I didn’t
