Deadline (52 page)

There was a rattling noise, like someone putting a microphone down, and then the sound of footsteps. The
silent footage of the flood, and the infected, continued to play.

“That’s what’s going on,” Alaric said. His voice was toneless, and I remembered with a start that his family lived mostly in Florida. “The second Rising. You drove right through the middle of it, and you didn’t notice.”

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, echoing George’s earlier statement. The picture on the TV jumped, the label at the bottom changing to “Huntsville.” The newscaster didn’t return. “Is this for real?”

“It’s real,” said Maggie.

It’s the end of the world,
said George, and I silently agreed.

Maggie was crying without any sign of shame, tears running down her cheeks. Her nose was chapped; she’d been crying off and on for a while. She reached for my hand, and I didn’t pull away, letting her lace her fingers through mine. Becks moved to stand next to Alaric, and he took her in his arms again, holding her against his chest. All five of us stood transfixed, staring at the television.

Staring at the end of the world.

Y
es, I’ll hold,” snarled Mahir, and continued pacing. I barely noticed. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the television, where CNN conti
nued to faithfully record the worst disaster to strike the human race since the summer of 2014, when the dead first decided to get up and nosh on the living.

Maggie sat next to me on the couch, even more fixated on the news than I was. Her interest in the situation was a little more proprietary than mine; Garcia Pharmaceuticals owned three factories and a research center in the affected area, and with the fatality reports updating every few seconds, a moment’s inattention could mean missing the deaths of people she’d known her entire life.

Alaric and Becks had retired to the kitchen after the first hour. Alaric was trying to get the wireless up and running, while Becks was cleaning her guns and checking the catches on the windows—just in case. It was a sentiment I could appreciate, even if I couldn’t find it in myself to move.

That’s enough,
said George abruptly. The television
was showing a school bus packed refugees being besieged by the living dead. The people inside were screaming; I could see their faces through the windows. As long as they were screaming, they were still essentially human. They were past saving. I hoped that infection took them quickly, or that someone had enough bullets to—

Shaun!
George’s shout was enough to shock me out of my stupor. It’s amazing how loud something like that can seem when it’s coming from inside your head.

I turned to glare at the air to my left. Maggie, sunk deep in her own fugue state, didn’t appear to notice. “What?” I demanded.

George folded her arms and glared back. “You’re not doing anyone any good sitting there like a media consumer, you know. You need to be finding out what the hell is going on.”

“And how do you suggest I do that, huh?” I spread my arms, indicating the television and Mahir—still pacing and snarling into his phone—with the same gesture. “Things are sort of shitty right now, George, in case you failed to notice.”

“Oh, trust me, I noticed, I just don’t see where I need to
care
.” George grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. “Come on. You’ve got work to do.” Giving me a slow look, she added, “And some clothes to put on. God, Shaun, are you really sitting around watching television in your boxers? That’s just sad.”

“If there’s all this work, why don’t you do it?”

“Because I’m dead, remember?” She kept hold of my wrist as she spoke, pulling me toward the kitchen. “You need to ask Alaric whether Maggie moved our van into the garage before things locked down.” Catching my blank expression, she sighed. “Come on, Shaun, try to
keep up for, like, thirty seconds while you’re losing your mind, okay? If we can get to the van without going outside, we can get to our emergency wireless booster.”

My eyes widened. “Crap, you’re right. We still have that thing, don’t we?”

“Unless you threw it away in a moment of unrepeated sanity and then didn’t tell me about it, yeah, we do.”

Being on a news team with Buffy Meissonier meant dealing with a girl who was occasionally twenty pounds of crazy crammed into a ten-pound sack, and who eventually sold us out to the government conspiracy that got George killed. It also meant working with the best espionage technician I’ve ever encountered, either in the private sector or working for the government. She could make computers do things I’m not sure even science fiction considers possible, and she did it all while wearing holo-foil butterflies in her hair and T-shirts claiming that some dude named Joss was her master now. People say Buffy was good. They’re wrong. Buffy was
great
.

Mahir was still shouting at the phone when George pulled me past him. He gave me a harried glance and nodded, eyes skipping straight past George. That made sense, I guess, since it’s not like she was really there.

“I’m pretty sure this represents a whole new level of fucked-up crazy,” I muttered, as George yanked me into the kitchen.

“I’m he cause of your psychotic break; I’m just a symptom,” she replied waspishly, and shoved me toward Becks and Alaric.

Becks, like Mahir, had managed to dress while I was staring at the television and was wearing combat boots,
a black tank top, and camouflage pants—the Irwin equivalent of a uniform. She and Alaric were sitting at the table, him with his laptop pulled as close to his body as it would go, leaving the rest of the space for her. She had what looked like a small armory spread out in front of her, and was in the process of reassembling a semiautomatic handgun that had yet to be legally cleared for private ownership. They looked up when they heard my footsteps.

“What’s the update?” asked Becks. She snapped the magazine into place with a
click
that echoed through the kitchen, eliciting a startled yip from one of the bulldogs sprawled next to the sealed-off door.

“Nothing that’s good,” I replied. George had released my wrist when she got me where she wanted me, and I realized without surprise that she was gone again. That was okay by me. Her appearing and physically hauling me around the house represented a whole new level of crazy, and I wanted to avoid thinking about it for as long as possible. “Forever” seemed like an excellent place to start. “They’ve declared martial law in the areas that haven’t been officially marked as hazard zones, and it’s starting to look like they’re going to mark the entire damn Gulf Coast as a Level 1 hazard.”

Alaric paled. “They can’t do that.”

“Yes, they can.” Becks put down the gun she’d been working on. “In case of an outbreak confirmed to impact more than sixty percent of the population in a given area, USAMRIID and the CDC will both recommend that a Level 1 designation be applied for the protection of the surrounding area. The government reserves the right to take their recommendation.” A smile that looked more like a grimace twisted her lips upward. “Our parents voted that little jewel into law, and we
never repealed it, because why should we? Outbreaks are tiny things. Bad things. It’s better if we can let fifteen people die and save five thousand, right?”

“Only this time, we’re going to let fifteen million die,” I said. “That sounds a little different, don’t you think? Alaric.”

He turned to me and blinked. He was pale and stunned looking, like he still couldn’t believe what was happening. That was understandable. I couldn’t believe it either. “What?”

“Where’s the van?” His expression didn’t change. I took a careful breath, and amended, “Where’s
our
van? Did Maggie have you move it to the garage after we left, or is it still parked out back?”

If the van was parked outside, there was no way I’d be able to get at it. Maybe one of Maggie’s security ninjas—but that would mean trying to talk them through finding the wireless booster, and I wasn’t sure my memory was good enough for that.

“I…” Alaric stopped, frowning. “It’s in the garage. It was out back until you called—Maggie wanted to keep the garage open for her Fictionals when they came through—but she got spooked when you told us to hole up, and she had me move it inside, where it wouldn’t be visible to satellite surveillan”

“God bless justified paranoia,” I said fervently, and started toward the garage door. The bulldogs lifted their heads and whined, watching me.