Pandemic

TWENTY-TWO.

Wade explored the building. The other rooms, all of them offices adorned with sports paraphernalia, offered views of Boston. In one, three soldiers had opened a window to let in the air. They stood looking out at the skyline of South Boston.

The northeastern horizon was on fire. He felt the waves of heat, the tremors in the air. A distant roar, mingled with screams and laughter, carried on the wind. Twilight would come in an hour, but the sky was already blackening as a massive wall of ash and smoke roiled over the city.

Wade had missed a few things while he was out cold. The situation was deteriorating rapidly.

Helicopters roared out of the ash fall. Searchlights glared. Then they were gone.

A splash of gunfire sounded outside, somewhere close.

One of the soldiers lowered his binoculars and pointed. “I found him. There he is. See?”

The second responded, “I see him. Man, he’s either infected, or he’s lost it.”

The third turned and noticed Wade. “Who are you?”

He introduced himself. The men were Gray, Fisher and Brown. They nodded in greeting. None appeared to be physically wounded, but Wade knew something inside them had broken.

“How’s your face?” Fisher asked him. “You all right?”

Wade touched the wound. He could feel the fever heat through the bandage. His cheek tingled. As if little worms were inside. He felt as if his entire body had been crumpled up like a piece of aluminum foil and stretched out again.

He ignored the question. “What were you guys looking at?”

“Some Rambo type,” Fisher said. “Armed to the teeth. He comes out every day around this time, shoots a few crazies and yells something like, ‘Three o’clock and all’s well.’”

It was well past three o’clock.

Gray looked out the window. “The fire’s much bigger than it was this morning. Charlestown’s going up. Bunker Hill. Spreading west fast. Boston’s toast.”

“It’s on the other side of the river,” Brown said. “We’re good.”

“You think? Well, Hanscom is on the other side of the river too. If the fire spreads through Cambridge, we could get cut off. I wonder how many people it’s pushing out of the area. More crazies. All going west. They got nowhere else to go.”

Fisher nodded. “We might have to think about bugging out soon.”

“We’ll talk to Rawlings about it,” Brown said.

“Is she in charge here?” Wade asked. She wasn’t Tenth Mountain, but she had the highest rank among the survivors here.

“You think these cowboys would take orders from a Nasty Girl?”

Wade turned. The sergeant was leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed.

“I see you met my posse,” she said.

Wade nodded. He wanted to ask her if they were going to bug out. He wanted to get back to his unit. Surely, some of the men in his platoon had survived, since they’d brought him there. He wanted to get back. Those guys were the only family he had left.

But he said nothing. He was still in shock and didn’t have much fight in him. His body was pretty banged up. He needed to stay here and rest for a while longer. He also didn’t want to bring the Bug home with him. He wasn’t showing symptoms, but he’d been exposed, and he still wondered if he was infected.

Besides all that, he wasn’t sure what he still owed the Army. He and his comrades had been betrayed. The rest of Bravo Company hadn’t shown up at the hospital, and Wade’s squad had been thrown alone into shit that was way over their heads. Wade still wanted to chip in and do some good, but he no longer trusted the Army to make decisions for him.

He thought of Sergeant Ramos’s family: Maria and little Thomas in their hot apartment with no electricity or running water and the furniture stacked against the door. Maybe he should go and protect them. Maybe that was the best way to honor the sergeant who’d saved his life more times than he could count. Maybe that was a mission for which he could still fight. Maybe if he saved them he might finally make a real difference in this apocalyptic war.

In any case, Wade wasn’t in any kind of mental condition to make that decision. His body sure wasn’t in physical shape to act on one. No matter. For now, he was stranded here with this broken outfit.

“Something on your mind?” Rawlings asked.

Wade shook his head.

“Not something,” she said softly. “Everything.”

He nodded.

“Take it one day at a time, okay?”

He smiled. A day was a luxury.

“Okay,” she said. “One minute at a time.”

“Hey Sergeant, come take a look at this,” Fisher said.

She accepted the binoculars and looked. She paled.

“Walking around like they own the place,” Gray said. “Goddamn scumbags.”

“It’s Boston in name only now,” Brown said. “They’re everywhere.”

“We should drop a nuke and be done with it.”

Wade couldn’t see past the others. “What’s going on?”

She handed the binoculars to him. “Take a look, Wade. There. See them?”

He did. A vast parade marched through the burned-out wrecks scattered along Western Avenue. Several hundred strong, it was an army of the mad. Some were naked and painted in blood. Others wore scalps and necklaces of ears and masks of human flesh. It was impossible to recognize them as Americans, people who just weeks ago were lawyers, bank tellers, janitors and waitresses. The Klowns looked more like an ancient tribe of cannibals. It was hard to even recognize some of these self-mutilated things as human beings except for the constant laughter. They dragged screaming men and women on leashes. They waved hatchets and torches and chainsaws and human heads.

Wade handed the binoculars to Fisher. He’d seen enough.

The crazies owned the downtown core, and they were migrating outward.

Pretty soon, it was all going to be over.

“All” as in civilization.