The Killing Floor

“When are we leaving?” Jean says. “That was the deal, right? We help you kill this guy, and then you’ll take us to Nightingale.”

“I didn’t get him,” Anne says.

“We came all the way out here for nothing?”

Gary shushes Jean, starting them hissing and spitting at each other like cats.

Marcus frowns in puzzlement. “What happened? Didn’t have a clear shot?”

“The Infected were protecting him,” Anne tells him, again struggling to find the words. In her mind, she fires at the human pyramid, which collapses into a massive pile of squirming arms and legs. “He can control them. Once I started shooting, they blocked my shot.”

“Control” hardly covers it. Ray has his own personal army.

His relationship with the Infected appears to be symbiotic, but what are the Infected getting out of it? Maybe nothing. Maybe only Infection itself is. If that’s true, who is controlling whom?

The answer does not matter to her. Either way, Ray must pay for what he did to more than a hundred thousand people at Camp Defiance. Either way, he must be stopped before he reaches Washington.

“I’ll need your help next time,” Anne tells her team.

“Come on,” says Jean. “You need to stop rolling the dice with our lives.”

“What about the risk of exposure?” Evan wonders. “I thought the idea was we would provide security for you, and you would kill him with the sniper rifle.”

“I need you to shoot at any Infected between me and him. Just get close enough for suppressing fire. Then throw everything you’ve got. Think you can do that?”

The others nod. Of course they can. And if that does not work, they can always wear the gas masks they keep stowed in their kit, and pray it is enough to keep from becoming infected.

“Come on,” Anne tells them. “We’ve got to get back on the road.”

“Do you know where he’s going?”

“East,” Anne says. “He took off in a white truck. We’re on the only road through this part of the valley. If he hasn’t passed by here, then he’s still going east.”

“What about Todd?” Ramona says. “You said he was in danger.”

Anne groans. Her shooting stirred up the hornet’s nest, and Todd is walking right into it. The whole thing infuriates her. What does he think he is going to accomplish?

She feels a wave of grief wash over her mind, leaving behind despair so deep it sucks the air from her lungs. She worked hard to master her emotions, rejecting love and attachment and embracing the strength of perpetual hatred.

The truth, however, is she loves Todd as if he were her own son.

“Are you all right?” Ramona asks her.

“I don’t know yet,” she says in a small voice.

“God, she’s falling apart now,” Jean says. She stands near them now, shrugging out of Gary’s grip. “Look at her. This is who you’re taking orders from.”

Marcus turns and glares at her. “Shut the hell up, lady.”

“Or what?” Jean laughs. “What else can you do to me? I’m practically a hostage.”

“Nobody’s holding you here,” he tells her. “You can go anytime you want.”

“I’d be happy to, Marcus, if I had food, weapons, a car and some directions, but I don’t. Anything I had, I left behind in Hopedale. So I guess that makes me your hostage.”

Marcus grunts. He doesn’t care; he’s not listening to her.

“Todd,” Anne whispers.

She has a vision of cracks appearing in a dam.

Beyond, infinite darkness, seeping in.

“Jean, come back to the bus with me,” Gary says.

“You should be supporting me,” Jean hisses at him. “We need to go to Camp Nightingale now. We’re out in the open. We’re all going to die out here if we don’t get somewhere safe.”

“Anne knows what she’s doing,” Evan says. “We’ve survived out here for weeks together.”

“Look at her,” Jean shrieks. “Can’t you see? She’s lost it!”

“Anne?” Marcus says, looking at her worriedly.

Evan shrugs. “Hey, I have no problem going to Nightingale.”

“Maybe she just needs a rest,” Ramona suggests.

“Someone else needs to take charge and make a plan,” Jean says. “I nominate Evan.”

Anne blinks and the vision of the dam fades. “We need to get back on the road.”

“I don’t know, Anne,” Evan says. “Maybe we should talk about it.”

“Just drop us off at the other camp,” Jean pleads. “Then you can go do whatever you want.”

“Anne, do you have a plan?” Marcus says, frowning.

“There is no plan, you fucking moron,” Jean screams, pointing at Anne. “This woman is crazy and she’s going to get all of us killed if you don’t listen to me!”

“That’s enough,” Anne says quietly, her eyes narrowing.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jean tells her. “You don’t get to look down on me like I haven’t suffered as much as you. I’m sick of your act. You’re not half as badass as you think you are with your guns and scars. You have no idea what we went through in that art gallery. What we had to do to survive. But even then we were better off than we are here. We had everything we needed, and we could make our own decisions without someone telling us what to do.”

“Jean, please,” Gary pleads.

“I’m not finished. We had everything we needed. Then you found us. You told us we would be safe at Defiance. You made a promise to us, and we believed you. Now you’re off chasing some guy on a bizarre hunch and we have to get dragged along, regardless of the fact that every hour we spend out in the open we are in incredible danger. And you refuse to take us to the one place within fifty miles that’s safe. You lied to us! You don’t get to make decisions for us anymore!”

Anne unholsters one of her guns and taps it against her thigh.

It’s time for you to shut up.

“And you don’t fucking scare me either,” Jean tells her. “What are you going to do now? Kill me in front of all these witnesses?”

Anne raises her pistol and fires, the gun discharging with a deafening report, the recoil vibrating down her arm.

The empty shell casing flickers in her peripheral vision. The slug punched a hole through Jean’s throat. The woman stumbles away as if seeking a private place to bleed.

The others watch in horror as she bends over, hands on her knees, struggling to breathe as blood pours from the smoking wound onto the road.

She looks at Anne with wide, disbelieving eyes before falling first to her knees, then onto her side, where she curls into a ball, air bubbles gurgling from her torn throat, her face turning blue. Her body shivers briefly before stiffening.

“Jesus, Anne,” Evan says, backing away.

She shifts her aim to Gary. “This is the new reality,” she tells him. “Do you understand what the new reality is?”

Gary stares at Jean’s body, wearing a pained expression. “Better than anyone,” he says quietly.

“Are you on the bus, or off the bus?”

He takes his time answering. The rest of the team stares at the body in shock.

“I’d like to come with you,” he whispers.

“Let’s go,” Anne tells her team, holstering the gun. “Todd will have to take care of himself, like a man. As for us, we’re leaving right now.”

Todd