The Killing Floor

“What happened to him?”

“He didn’t make it. He died that night in his sleep. His name was Matt Prince. He was a Pittsburgh cop. Did you know him?”

“Sorry, no,” Wendy tells him. “I didn’t know any Matt Prince working Northside.”

“Well,” Dennis says. “I was just wondering.”

“What did you do, Dennis? Before?”

“I worked in the IT department.”

Wendy smiles. His appearance fooled her; she thought he was just another lost redneck like many of the others. “You’re a long way from that world.”

“I wish I were,” Dennis says. “That would mean it was still there.”

She hears boots stomping down the aisle behind her, and knows it’s Toby. She turns and sees him approaching.

“God bless you, Wendy,” Dennis adds, and turns away to return to the camp.

Toby folds his arms around her shoulders and chest. It is like being hugged by a bear. The familiar odors of his body push away the irritating smells of wood smoke and dust. Wrapped in his large arms, Wendy feels like she is back in the Bradley, completely safe.

“He heard you’re a cop,” Toby guesses, kissing the back of her head.

“The police did amazing things,” she says, as if she were describing heroes of ancient legend. “The ones who stuck it out and didn’t run. They really helped people.”

He hugs her tighter. “Some of them still do.”

“No. The police are all dead now. There are no police. Not real police, anyway.”

He kisses her again. “You’re a real cop.”

“I’m not police anymore, Toby. I’m an exterminator. A gas chamber operator.”

Toby sighs and releases her. “It’s almost suppertime. You coming?”

“Where else would I go?”

He frowns. “I keep pissing you off. Tell me what’s wrong, Wendy.”

“It’s not you,” she tells him, placing her hand against his muscular chest, over his heart.

“Maybe this will make you feel a little happier.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of moist toilettes in their wrappers. “I got these off one of Ackley’s boys. I know how you like to stay as clean as you can.”

Wendy’s eyes flood with tears. “I don’t want this.”

Toby stands with his hands at his sides. “You don’t?”

His tone of rejection only makes her cry even harder. “This, Toby. This. I don’t want this.”

“It’s all there is,” Toby says as gently as possible.

He tries to pull her back into his arms, but she shoves him away and dashes into the dark aisles. That can’t be true. There must be something else. There has to be.

It’s been less than two months since the screamers woke up and the epidemic began. How can I do this for another two months? A year? A lifetime?

¦

They turn off the music so Tom Ackley can play his violin. Nothing white trash; pure Stravinsky. The stark notes fill the empty spaces and make the fighters feel melancholy. It gets so quiet they can hear a distant radio droning advice to stay indoors and wear dark clothing and isolate and abandon loved ones who have been bitten. The fighters chew slowly; the music makes them remember. A woman pauses while cutting her toenails and trembles, sobbing, as she relives some past event. Tom breaks into the warm rhythm of a waltz, making them glance at each other and smile. Laughing, the boy switches to bluegrass, sawing the strings like a fiddle and tapping his feet. The fighters clap as the music makes them forget.

“Here you go, Wendy,” Will Barnes says, handing her a paper plate loaded with franks and beans, Ramen noodles tossed with grilled vegetables, and canned pears.

“Thanks,” she says, taking a seat far from the others, her eyes on Toby, who sits at another fire with Steve, the driver, telling the story about being attacked by the Demon. The militia never gets tired of hearing that one. The Demon is a legend. They heard one screaming in the hills once and ran across its tracks, but never saw one themselves.

Which is why you’re still alive, Wendy muses. If you saw one, it would have eaten you and shit you out already. The one thing that saved me and Toby and Steve was the Bradley’s armor. Even then, it was a close thing.

The men’s eyes gleam in the firelight, hanging on every word. Wendy notices Toby’s hair is going gray. He is going to look like the Reverend Paul Melvin in no time. Thinking this, her heart goes out to him. He is my man.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

Wendy glances up, her mouth full of beans, and motions for Lieutenant Chase to join her.

“Thanks,” he says, sitting with his own steaming plate of food. He takes a sip at the clear liquid in his mason jar and gasps, then laughs. “Wow, that’s strong stuff. Like drinking a bayonet.”

“Sorry I yelled at you earlier today in the Bradley, Lieutenant.”

“That’s all—”

“But lives were depending on me paying attention to the ISU display. I couldn’t have you yelling in my ear about military strategy.”

The officer nods. “Fair enough.”

Lieutenant Peter Chase showed up several days ago and latched onto Toby as the only non-com in the outfit who is regular Army. What he doesn’t understand is Toby isn’t in his Army anymore. And the New Liberty Army doesn’t have a general. Each of the Technicals has its own commander, and all of them decide as a group where to go next. They all want the same thing, and none of them mind doing their part. Often, they debate little over what to do, and a formal vote is not required. At least, that is, until the young lieutenant—yanked from West Point, put through a special counter-Infection training program, and thrown into the field—showed up. The Army is invading Washington, he told them. We need you in the fight, each man to his duty.

Wendy likes the young officer, who isn’t even old enough to legally drink in most states, and has a penchant for the melodramatic. Who will follow me to Washington? he actually said once. Another time, Wendy could have sworn he said, We will drive east, toward the sound of the guns.

The New Liberty Army is not a field army, however; it is a militia made up of people from the region who see no reason to fight outside of it. Moses Ackley said America is dead and they need to take care of business here. He pointed out that if they go, they may leave the entire region vulnerable to Infection. This ground here is not America; it is their home. They know the area intimately, making them successful in battle, and they are highly motivated to defend it. To men like Moses, America has become an abstraction, without meaning. Without the NLA, the refugee camps like Camp Defiance might be threatened. Most of the commanders are not ready to write off the United States, however. They still believe in America, if only in the ideal.

Lieutenant Chase offered them a deal. He said, If you follow me to Washington, we will supply you. Fuel, parts, weapons, ammunition, medicine, food and water, and payment in gold. Moses Ackley called it a trick, and besides, he said, the NLA is not for hire. Other commanders wondered what choice they had. The NLA is mechanized and without resupply, they will end up on foot. They’re always running out of things and what they have is steadily deteriorating.

“I was wondering,” says Chase, “if you would put in a word with Sergeant Wilson for me.”

“He’s right over there,” Wendy tells him. “Go tell him what you want. He’s reasonable.”

“Wendy, the mission is in Washington. We need to be moving at a faster pace.”

“And you think Toby can make that happen?”

Chase blinks, considering how it could be any other way. “Of course.”

She laughs. “Lieutenant, everyone here looks up to Toby. But nobody reports to him. Even I don’t report to