The Zone Read online

  I figure we were averaging about fifteen miles an hour moving carefully, slow for the people we were going to help, but better help arriving slowly than never arriving at all.

  My daughter called six minutes late, which did nothing for my stress level. “Mom’s still asleep.”

  “Good. Wake her in ten minutes and have her call me; we’re getting close.”

  She hung up without comment. Times like this, I don’t feel like such a failure as a father: look what I had to work with.

  “They ready?” That was the first time Miguel spoke directly to me since Home Depot.

  “Much as they can be, I suppose. You find out what you’re made of, times like these.”

  “Yeah.” He kept his eyes moving. “You like being a cop?”

  “Most days, I suppose. I get bored easy. Driving fast and wrestling drunks into a car kept things interesting. What did you do?”

  “Clean windows. Had a company, did all right, office contracts.”

  “You mean hanging off the side of a building on a board on ropes?”

  “More like a little platform, but yeah.”

  I was appalled. “What about when the wind blows?”

  “It moves. Rope’s the same either way. You do it by the numbers.”

  “Better you than me, twice I’ve fallen off ladders working on gutters. What’s the highest you’ve worked?”

  “Twenty stories.”

  I shuddered at the thought.

  My ex called on the dot. “Where are you?”

  “About six blocks away.” I outlined the concept. “Can you see outside?”

  “Not in the right direction, but where we can see there are a few in the shade keeping an eye on things. They look really sick, Martin.”

  She was always a master of the obvious. “There’s a surprise: they are sick.”

  “I mean they look too sick to be moving. Some look more like they’re dead.”

  Typical of her to dwell on unimportant trivia. “When your phone rings move, I won’t be in position to talk. Make sure everyone knows where they are supposed to be, and where they are supposed to go. Nobody stops for anything.”

  “We know. See you in a few.”

  I checked the autodial, then taped the phone to the railing. My radio clicked. “This looks bad, guys,” Charlie’s drawl was calm.

  Miguel pointed: up ahead, a good block from the projects, infected were coming out of the houses, drawn by the sound of the truck engine. I cursed bitterly.

  “Quick vote,” I said into the radio. “Either we back off, or just punch in and do it.” Miguel held up an upward thumb without looking around. “Two for ‘go’ up here, over.”

  “Nobody smarter down here,” Charlie reported.

  “OK, let me drop one of my decoys, and then give it some gas when I slap the cab roof.”

  I wasn’t too confident of my construction’s durability, so I tossed it onto a pile of plump black trash bags on the side of the road. Charlie gave it some gas and we lumbered up to about twenty-five. He had to swerve us around a couple abandoned police cars; shell casings around the open doors and a scattering of dead infected told the story. I dropped another decoy onto the scruffy lawn when Charlie slowed to jump the curb and rumble into the open quad in the center of the projects.

  Infected were coming out of the government apartment complexes, not flooding out in a charge as I expected, but at a businesslike walk; assessing us, I realized. If we had been on foot I bet it would have been a mad rush, devil take the hindmost, but the vehicle gave them pause. I dropped the last decoy for luck and got my bearings. Half a block away; I hit speed dial, then 1, then the green Send.

  “Showtime,” I said over the radio. “I figure that building there to the front left, over.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie agreed laconically.

  Charlie had it lined up right: the driver’s side was next to the building; he pulled it in tight, the rear view mirror shucking chrome on the grimy brick. As we slowed they charged. Silently but with great enthusiasm.

  I opened up while Miguel heaved the ladder up and extended it; I was much better at this than yesterday. Still, there were scores in sight and they continued to pour out of the buildings like a flood tide breaching a levee. Mick was firing from his door, aiming low, looking to cripple the lead rank and slow the pack; I was aware that Miguel had opened up with the Tec-9 as I switched to the other loaded magazine in the double bracket. Someone fired from above me, a handgun, firing down into the crowd, hopefully the last one in the group trying to provide some covering fire and not some idiot slowing down those behind him.

  As before their numbers hindered them: drop one in the front rank and a couple more tripped over the body, and before they could rise the rest were clawing their way over the tangle. If I had a belt-fed weapon or a couple more shooters we might have drastically slowed them down, but I didn’t have either. As it was, there were too few guns and too many bodies.

  Someone dropping onto the roof to my left nearly gave me a heart attack, but Miguel had been paying attention: he ripped open the roof hatch and yelled something to the young woman. I was stuffing the empty mags in their double bracket into my drop pouch and reloading when my daughter slid down the ladder and handed a bundle through the hatch. I hadn’t seen her in months, a quick glance said she was heavier.

  Miguel fired the extinguishers and the front ranks recoiled, staggering drunkenly; I raised my sights and popped skulls in the press further back. It was ridiculously easy shooting, aiming at a range of a dozen feet, the full metal jacketed rounds occasionally drilling through and getting a chest or neck hit on the one behind.

  Maybe it was my wife’s comment, or just the range, but these infected did look sicker. They were an even mix of men and women of all races, but they were a ragged-looking bunch. Quite a few were losing hair, and sores or some sort of skin rash spotted faces and exposed skin; the eyes were milkier, cataract-gray in some cases, and I thought I saw one guy with his ear bitten completely off, I mean down to bone, a wound that was at least a day old, and there was no scabbing or significant blood flow

  One magazine was all I got emptied before the white mist dissipated and the crowd surged forward to crash bodily into the truck, literally rocking it. Miguel was pounding away with his shotgun, covering the rear, then switching to the Tec-9 again as I released the bolt and shot three heads trying to get over the hood.

  Between Miguel and myself there were probably eighty downed infected, but our truck stood in a half-circle of bodies twenty people deep. I was sweeping the laser sight across upturned faces fast-tapping the trigger when Miguel slapped my back and the ladder crashed down onto the truck roof; a second later the roof hatch slammed. We were done, I dropped to my good knee and shot hands and arms pulling on the razor wire as Charlie threw it into gear and we lunged forward, jolting over bodies, some of whom still alive.

  My earplugs dulled everything but the sound of hammering on the truck sides sounded like a hailstorm on a tin roof as we rocked forward, picking up speed. I replaced an empty magazine and then let the hot M-4LE thump onto my chest. Pulling the Glock so I could keep one hand on the roof rail, I carefully checked the sides and rear, shooting three infected who were hanging on.

  Our jolting progress was faster than the infected could run, but just barely, and more were coming from the front; I clung grimly to the rail, putting a hollow point into those infected agile enough to make a leaping grab for the hood’s edge or a mirror bracket. The left mirror, anyway; we had lost the driver side mirror somewhere, along with the radio antenna and the passenger side windshield wiper.

  I noticed a charred circle on the lawn and several badly wounded infected down the street when we dropped off the curb leaving the projects, so apparently my decoy concept was valid, at least in a small way. Given the odds every little bit helped.

  Out of the projects Charlie could get enough speed to discourage the infected from keeping up the pursuit; I slipped a fresh magazine int
o the Glock and holstered it before lowering myself stiffly to a sitting position, first raking away shell casings.

  “Well, that was freakin’ horrible, over,” I radioed Charlie.

  “You got that right. Miguel says we got everybody, no injuries or viral exposure. I just got a call from Mick’s guys, they got the bus fixed up and are loading it with the folks from the Wheel plus some they ran into; they’ll meet us on the frontage road to the Interstate and pick up the evacuees. Its not too far.”

  “Good.” The adrenalin was wearing off, leaving me feeling pretty empty. It had been an eventful several days, with a lot more activity, interaction, and mental effort than I had experienced in a very long time, atop a poor night’s sleep, and I was feeling a lot less than gung-ho.

  The bus, two-thirds full, was waiting as promised; they had shot a couple infected who had been drawn to the engine noise, something we had noticed on the drive. They were getting more aggressive, or something. Maybe they were learning, and if that were true, how much learning were they capable of before the virus finished them off? There were never happy thoughts these days.

  I climbed down the folding ladder as soon as we stopped; the passenger side of the truck looked like it had hit a belt of shoulder-high hail, dents pounded in by bare hands, many of which left smears of blackish blood.

  Mick hopped out and looked at the damage. “Man, they never quit.”

  “Highly motivated,” I nodded. The back door banged open, and a weary black couple scrambled out, their faces lighting up at the sight of the bus twenty feet away. “Thank you!” the woman waved as they made a beeline for the waiting door.

  My daughter climbed out and marched to the truck without a glance or a word, carrying about twenty more slack pounds than when I had seen her last; I watched her go, not feeling a need to try to say anything. Whatever failures I was guilty of in the past would have to stack up against what I had just accomplished.

  My ex was next, looking tired and older than she was, but given the last couple days she had held up rather well. She was still an attractive woman after the years and kids and troubles, still had a quart of sass after waiting all night for the infected to come, but I noticed some gray in the tawny hair, now in an unfamiliar short hair style and a few more lines around her deep brown eyes. It reminded me that I wasn’t the only one still paying for choices that were made too easily.

  She gave me a tired smile as I walked over and gave her a hand down from the bumper. “You are a man of your word, Martin D’Erin.” She jerked her head towards the bus. “Any chance you’ll leave?”

  “Nope.” I shrugged. “You know.”

  “I suppose. Its foolishness, but everyone has to pick their place, don’t they?” She brushed a strand of hair from her face. “It never ends well, Martin.”

  “Would you do it again?”

  She grabbed my arm and squeezed hard. “Good luck, Martin.”

  It was a better ending than we had managed the first time.

  I watched the bus out of sight, then busied myself with pulling the expended extinguishers and replacing them with fresh ones. Charlie came over as I was finishing the last one. “Look, all this heroics stuff makes me hungry. Before we save the rest of the world I could use a beer and a burger.”

  “Sounds good to me. The Wheel?”

  “Yeah, one waitress hung around, hoping her beau shows up. You want anything specific?”

  “You got wings?”

  He grinned. “Best in the city.”

  Riding in the back with Miguel, I reloaded magazines with boxed rounds from my gear bag, tired and not thinking about much. Without background music stuff just doesn’t seem all that dramatic. My family obligations were complete, and I had no burning desire to become a refugee. Lunch and maybe a nap, and I was up for killing infected or busting out other cornered people, whatever was to hand.

  Miguel sat on the bench to my right refilling the Tech 9’s magazines. He didn’t seem so angry now; maybe he was growing on me.

  The wings were great, a big basket of deep-fried perfection backed by a basket of shoestring French fries with a dusting of seasoning salt and a cup of cold ranch dressing to hand. We sat around a big table chowing down while talking heads rattled on the big screen TV nearby. It didn’t take much to see that what they were reporting was pretty carefully sanitized, at least on the domestic front. It was bad, obviously; LA was gone and New Orleans was finished, but so far it was largely a major urban problem, so with CDC regs in place and airlines grounded there was a very good chance that we could keep things contained. Sooner or later the virus would kill off the bulk of the infected and it would end.

  Elsewhere things were pretty poor; Turkey was gone, Japan was going fast, and countries were clamping down on borders with varying degrees of success. Nobody was sure if the virus had hit sub-Sahara Africa yet because the already thin pool of actual on-the-ground journalists had been decimated covering the collapsing hot zones. They said something like fifty journalists and their TV crews were missing or dead. They had plenty of stuffed suits to read teleprompters, but not many people on the ground getting data.

  “So what you have planned for an encore?” Charlie asked.

  “Dunno. I figure the CB or Net would let us find somebody who needs a hand getting out. There’s got to be pockets of healthy people holed up all over town. My schedule’s wide open.”

  The burly musician nodded thoughtfully. “OK.” He looked over at the TV, where footage of infected raging through the night-time streets in some city in India was playing. “How do you see this playing out?”

  “If it can be contained, it’ll run its course like any disease. The infected are getting sicker, we can see that. Sooner or later the virus will kill them, and the problem solves itself.”

  “I think they’re dead,” Miguel observed.

  That startled me; he had said it calmly to the room at large before taking a bite of his second bacon cheeseburger. “You mean like ‘dead man walking’, doomed sort of thing?”

  He swallowed and took a pull off his beer. “No. I think they are dead right now. Like, before we shot them.”

  “How do you figure?” Charlie asked, scratching his cheek.

  “They look dead, like when a body comes out of rigor. Their blood doesn’t look alive, it looks like mud, barely liquid, and you can see patches of rot on their face and hands where the flesh is the thinnest.”

  The table was silent for a bit. “Look, I’ve been up close to them,” I said slowly. “The first one I shot. He was breathing. Real labored, but he was breathing. And they yell, that cry they make when they see you.”

  “They need air. The virus needs air,” Miguel shrugged. “But I think its hard to get in. I think they have to work at it, which is why they don’t move much if they don’t have to, they store air. Oxygen. I think they stay in the shade because the heat makes them rot faster.”

  I ate a French fry, looking for a hole in his theory. “But…no, wait. OK, so you’re saying the virus kills them and what, animates their body?”

  “Creates a favorable environment,” Charlie said. “That’s what a virus does: it invades a host and attempts to alter the host body into an environment suitable for the virus. Quit looking at me like that, I watch the Nat Geo channel.”

  “So you think they’re dead and the virus is, what, driving them like a stolen car?” I was having trouble getting past that point.

  “Human body’s meant to move and stuff,” Mick observed. “You ever shock a dead frog in school? It’ll jump.”

  “I think the virus gets in while you are alive, and it takes over. The environment thing. You go brain dead, and the virus makes you move. A virus, all it wants to do is eat and make more viruses.” Miguel took another bite of his burger.

  “Sounds like most guys I know,” Charlie observed.

  “Like a computer virus? Hack in and take over?” I couldn’t really see it.

  “A computer virus can do a couple things, but not
everything a computer does. But it creates a favorable environment for itself. Its why they used that term when they were inventing computer terminology.” Charlie was warming to the subject.

  “But…wait, I had it and I lost it. OK, the virus gets in, it takes over. Slowly, fever, that sort of thing. You die, your body…wait, the body can’t be dead. I’ve seen blood flow, and for that, you need a working pump.” I tapped the table. “Plus you would need lubricants for joints to work; I know because my knee is why I’m retired.”

  “Brain dead,” Miguel shrugged. “The virus gets in, kicks your immune system’s butt, and your brain shuts down, mostly, anyhow. You’re dead. The virus can affect the motor control parts of the brain.”

  “Brain stem and spine,” Charlie, the Nat Geo expert, weighed in. “That’s where most of the auto systems are.”

  “Brain dead,” I mumbled, turning the fry basket slowly. “The virus has control of, what’s the word, lower order functions? It has a genetic imperative to spread to new hosts.” I was looking for a hole in the theory. “So as a human being, a person, a personality, they are dead, but as a physical body, they’re alive?”

  “Mostly.” Miguel apparently had given this some thought. “I figure it can’t really control the body, not the way its supposed to be run. That’s why you see hair falling out, the eyes drying, skin decay: they’re dying from the outside in. The cells, I mean.”

  “Cut the glandular business a bunch and slow blood flow, say reduce blood pressure, and it explains why they are immune to shock,” I admitted. “Head or spine hits would destroy the virus’ control, which drops a body operating on a marginal level anyway. Man, I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Why? Sounds like a good theory,” Charlie observed.

  “Because I was figuring the infected were just people deranged by disease; with a high fever, they couldn’t last more’n what, a couple days? But if Miguel is right, and what we have is a bunch of brain-dead bodies being hijacked by a virus, then I bet they last a lot longer. The body is mostly water, and with a lot of body functions shut down, lower blood pressure, that sort of thing, life could go a lot further than in a real person.”