Green Fields (Book 2): Outbreak (4 page)

While I waited for the coffee to be done, I couldn’t help but be a little weirded out when one of the soldiers—Smith said his name tag—kept guzzling syrup and cream straight from the bottles. “That’s just disgusting.”

He grinned at me after licking foam from his upper lip.

“Nothing wrong with an extra load of calories,” he replied, then offered the can to Martinez. “Something sweet for you, sugar?”

Martinez snorted and ignored both the offer and the innuendo.
 

“Remind me of that when you get the first cavities in like a week or two?”

They continued to joke between them, but considering there was enough coffee in the pot now, I ignored them in favor of grabbing a travel mug and topping it off with liquid ambrosia. I blew on the coffee just long enough to cool it from scalding to unbearably hot, then took a first sip. The burn on the back of my hand gave another twinge, but I ignored that, too.
 

While Martinez grabbed a tray and went outside to bring some to the others, Burns finally gave up poking the stale donuts and grabbed one of the mugs, but stopped with his hand halfway to his lips when Smith’s can clattered loudly to the floor, the noise making me start and almost do a repeat performance with hot liquids.
 

“Man, you’re such a klutz. How they ever thought you fit for active duty is beyond me,” he grumbled and turned away.

I was waiting for a witty comeback, but Smith was just standing there, staring off into space.

I suddenly had a really bad feeling about this.

“Smith? Are you okay?” I asked.

Slowly, his head turned in my direction, his eyes empty. I felt my own fingers tighten around my mug.

Anger sparked in his eyes, and a moment later he launched himself at me, his mouth open in a beginning scream. Panic locked my muscles in place, but some part of my lizard brain was still working, making me hurl the coffee in his face.
 

“What the—“ Burns started, but he was already scrambling to get his rifle up, his coffee dropping untouched onto the counter. Forcing myself into action, I whipped around, starting toward the exit, but in my hurry to get there, I tripped over my own feet. Lurching forward, I was only saved from falling to the floor by Smith grabbing the back of my right sleeve, but that was so not an improvement. His fingers closed around my arm like a vise, making me wince just as I managed to draw enough breath into my lungs to let out a scream.

The butt of Burns’s rifle whipped by my head, close enough that I felt the motion, and smashed into Smith’s face, the impact hard enough to make blood gush from his ruined nose and mouth. Smith howled, but, if anything, his grip tightened, driving tears into my eyes. Blindly kicking out, I tried to hit a kneecap or something that would hurt enough to make him let go, but Smith seemed beyond feeling that. Burns tried smashing in his face again but with the same results; at least the rifle between us kept Smith from managing to drag me closer.

A shout from the door made me look over, finding Martinez standing there, staring at us wide-eyed. He had his gun in his hands but the barrel was pointed toward the floor.

“Shoot him!” I screamed, or tried to, my voice too high with panic to articulate words properly. The pistol came up but Martinez still didn’t pull the trigger, frozen.

So much for waiting out for a hero.

Casting around frantically, my gaze fell on the counter. There were drawers underneath, and I could just reach the handle of the top most if I stretched myself. With a vicious yank, it rolled open, revealing a bunch of useless spoons and tiny forks—and a knife. It was a cake knife, used to slice the baked goods and not exactly a machete, but I figured it would do in a pinch. I just had time to wrap my fingers around the handle before Smith yanked me back when Burns went for rifle-butt smash number three.

Screaming, I slashed it toward Smith’s face. The blade swiped uselessly over his cheek, yet deep enough to grate against bone underneath, but Smith didn’t even seem to feel it. He howled in my face, his teeth bloody from Burns’s assault, and much too close to my body for comfort. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to continue to struggle, but I forced my fingers to switch my grip before I aimed for his neck the second time.

Steel met skin and less resistance than I’d braced for as the knife sliced right through the front of his throat. At first, I thought I hadn’t done anything but superficial damage, but when Smith’s mouth snapped at me again, no sound came out. As soon as the knife slid free, blood gushed from the wound, spilling down his camouflage body armor. Smith halted, which was just enough for Burns to smash the rifle into his temple with a sickening crunch that spoke of heavy damage. For another second, the fingers tightened even more on my arm, making me gasp, but then they dropped away, letting go. I staggered out of reach, my gaze still on the body now sagging to the floor. My panting was the only sound I could hear, until Smith gave a last gurgling grunt that was quickly silenced when Burns fired a burst of bullets into his caved-in head. In close quarters, the shots were deafening, but I had seldom before welcomed pain in my ears that much.

Burns and I looked up at the same time, staring at each other, and I saw his lips move in what I figured was a, “Don’t drink the coffee!” shout. Hearing returned with a whoosh, only a faint tingling sound remaining, but I still more felt than heard the knife clatter to the floor. The shout was propagated outside, followed by a few exclamations. Andrej pushed into the shop past Martinez, who was still frozen. Andrej only spared him a glance before he looked around the counter at the dead body between us, blood pooling around what used to be his head.

“Shit,” Andrej uttered succinctly.

With the immediate danger gone, I felt energy leech from my muscles, but rather than break down, I forced my feet to start working again, and walked out of the store. Everyone outside had their weapons ready—except for Skip and his buddies, who looked appropriately frightened—eyebrows raised at me in question.

“I’m so done with coffee,” I whispered as I staggered over to my pack, ignoring everything else around me.

“He just came after us,” I heard Burns explain behind me where he, Andrej, and Martinez had followed me. “Not sure why—“

“It was the fucking coffee,” I heard myself say, and when all eyes snapped back to me, I cleared my throat, trying to make my saliva glands work again. “Or rather the cream. The syrup. It’s in the sugar. I think.”

Nate and Pia traded glances, an entire conversation going to and fro within seconds.

“But that’s impossible—“ Burns started, yet Martinez interrupted him.

“Rob always had a sweet-tooth. I used to joke that diabetes would kill him.” He still looked shell-shocked, but was already coming out of it. His eyes zoomed to me, and I couldn’t help but feel guilt start to claw at the back of my throat, but there was no damnation in his gaze. “Earlier this week there was a report of some guy losing it in an ice cream parlor. They said he had asked for extra chocolate sauce.”

Nate looked back at me, eyeing me askance—as if I was in any way qualified to weigh in on that.

“What?”

He shrugged.

“First the chocolate bar, now this—sound suspicious to you?”

Looking back at the coffee shop, I couldn’t suppress a shudder.
 

“But sugar is in everything,” I protested. “Besides, it gets super-heated in production, I think.”

“Exactly,” Nate replied. “It’s in everything. And people got sick everywhere, all at once, at the same time.”

“That would account for no patient zero if it hits millions—“ I trailed off there. Billions, really—the entirety of the first world countries easily, and probably the rest, too. The very idea was just too much to comprehend—as was the consequence. If this was true, it wasn’t just a fluke mutation or weird coincidence—but someone had deliberately unleashed the virus on the world.

And as much as I wanted to deny that possibility, I saw the same realization on almost every face. And unlike me, none of Nate’s people seemed to be suffering from an overdose of idealism that still made me cling to the hope that no one could be capable of a feat like that.

“No more sugar for anyone,” Nate declared, looking at everyone around him in turn. “At least until we know more. Preserves are probably fine if they’ve been packaged before a month ago.” A few curses were muttered, and Burns and one of Nate’s people quickly emptied their pockets, spilling sweets and energy bars onto the ground. Only Steve, Skip’s friend, protested.

“Seriously, man? That’s just cruel.”

Nate only had a humorless smile for him. Picking up one of the discarded bars, he held it out to Steve.

“Why, you wanna be our guinea pig?”

Steve licked his lips as the blood left his face. “Nah, I’m good.”

Nate looked around again, then let Andrej help him get his own backpack onto his shoulders.

“Looks like we’re done here. Any objections?”

No one spoke up, so Nate nodded at Andrej, who’d taken possession of the maps again.

“This way,” Andrej signaled, indicating the road that ran perpendicular to the one we’d come here by. And, like that, we left the mall behind.

Chapter 3

I thought we would leave the city soon now, but quickly realized why our route ran north rather than strictly west—we were still east of the Monongahela River, and as far as I remembered, there were only three bridges leading over it. Incidentally, the mall was only about a mile away from the northern-most one, but as soon as we drew closer to Route 19, I realized that we weren’t the only ones who had opted to take that way out.

Even two blocks away from the highway, the entire street—and in parts the sidewalks—were jammed with cars bumper to bumper, some abandoned but most not. People were standing around in clusters, talking, but contrary to what one might have expected, seeing a larger armed group on foot didn’t draw suspicion or ire. Only when we got a little too close—which was unavoidable at the intersections when we had to squeeze through the spaces between the cars—did we get some weird looks, but that was all.

It was between two such intersections when I noticed that there was something sticky on my right arm, smeared from just above my wrist down the sleeve to my elbow. I guessed I must have felt it before, too, but it hadn’t properly registered.

It was blood. From the man I’d killed. Mostly.

Highly contagious blood from a zombie that would likely have torn my arm off if not for the jacket Nate had insisted I wore.

Stopping in mid-step, I stared at the almost black looking, coagulated substance, while panic was closing up my throat. Gasping, I reached out to wipe it away, but remembered just in time that having it on my bare fingers would be a million times worse. The jacket was suddenly stifling hot and the pack weighed a ton—when had I even shouldered that?—and just breathing became hard. Casting around frantically, I saw a discarded newspaper at my feet, and quickly picked it up and started rubbing at the spots. I vaguely heard someone call out as I remained behind, but it was impossible to focus on anything but getting the damn blood off my arm.

Someone called my name—I thought, and it wasn’t important right now—and the next thing I knew, I couldn’t reach the blood splotches anymore because something was keeping my hands apart. Staring down at where strong fingers were holding my wrists like vises, I became aware of my own ragged breath coming in fast pants, but I could still see the smears and—

“Bree! Shake it off!” I heard Nate shout at me, but his words were only so much noise. His grip tightened, turning painful, and only when I winced and looked up at him did he ease up a little.

“You don’t understand. I need to—“ I started, trying to tear myself free, but immediately his fingers closed again. A strange look passed his face, but the usual intensity remained in his gaze.

“I get it, okay?”

“No, you don’t,” I protested, jerking my left wrist out of his grip, but too late realized that he’d only let go so he could grab my upper arm instead, making me face him from much closer. “I need to get this blood off!” I protested, my voice way too shrill, but cutting off when something else occurred to me. “I’m probably already infected from the hot lab. And I’ve had this on for…” I couldn’t say how much time had passed since the mall. I was drawing a complete blank.

“You’re not infected,” Nate insisted, only giving me a moment to shake my head vehemently before he went on. “You explained it to me, remember? Three layers of gloves so nothing happens even when you tear the outer one. And anyway, if this shit was airborne or that contagious, we’d all be fucked by now.”

It shouldn’t have been that difficult to just process his words, let alone judge how valid his opinion was. “But—“

“No buts,” he cut me off with again.

Hope flickered inside of me, but with that came a different realization. “I killed him. I—“

His jawline became more prominent as he gnashed his teeth, but after exhaling slowly, he replied with his voice soft and even.

“You had to. It was either him or you. Burns was too far away, and he only got to use his rifle once you got him off you.” He paused, and after another sigh added, “I’m sorry that this happened to you, but this will likely not remain the only time when you have to make a decision like that.”

“I didn’t make a decision,” I replied, my voice wavering as I kept staring into his eyes. “I just did it. I didn’t even consider whether I should… if it was right or wrong. Or whether there was an alternative…”

“You would be dead right now if you’d hesitated.”

That didn’t make me feel even a little bit better—and it changed nothing.

“What if this is all one big misunderstanding? What if this was something else and it’s really just a flu outbreak? We can’t behave like this. We can’t just go into stores and loot them. Kill people. Leave them behind. I mean, what if we’re wrong and Sam is really lying in bed right now, delirious with fever, and she needs my help—“

I half-expected him to roll his eyes at my antics, but he remained calm and patient.