Green Fields (Book 2): Outbreak (6 page)

Then I was in the woods, stumbling and staggering after the blue windbreaker-wearing figure in front of me, Andrej still behind me. I could make out Nate’s black jacket and backpack somewhere ahead, but everything else around was either brown or green, the trees so thick here that I had to duck around them every few steps. My harsh panting was loud enough to drown out everything except the loud noises my less than stealthy movements made—but not loud enough to keep me from hearing a few high-pitched, panicked screams on the highway that we had just left behind.

And then it was just more running, and staggering, and running again as soon as I found my balance. More than once, I tripped over roots and fell, scrambling to my feet as quickly as possible, often aided by Andrej and the guy running ahead of me. My knees and ankles ached, my lungs burned, and fatigue made every step an ordeal, and still—I didn’t even consider stopping. If I ran until the end of the world, it wouldn’t be far enough.

Chapter 4

With no way of judging time, I had no idea how long it had been since we made it off the highway, but it felt like fucking forever. The canopy of the trees was thick enough not to let much light through, but I thought that the quality of it had changed a little—lightening at first as noon approached, and dimming toward a deeper gloom now.

My heart was still racing in my chest, but for a while now it was more stubbornness and the will not to fall behind that kept me going, rather than the maddening fear of before. I had no idea where we were going, but the fact that we were still going was good enough for me. We’d stopped twice for a few minutes, just long enough to drink something—and the first time long enough to give the last stragglers of the mob that had been after us to catch up. I hadn’t heard or seen them coming, until suddenly Andrej gave me a shove that sent me onto my knees, and he fired a quick burst over where my head had been, dispatching two zombies in quick succession. The noise was immediately answered by a group of angry howls farther down the deer trail we had been following, and nobody needed an order to get back up and keep running.

That had been hours ago—or millennia, for all I could say—but apprehension as much as elation gripped me as I staggered between the two sentries that had taken position around the group of people sitting and lying on the ground, resting, and I quickly joined them. I was thirsty as hell by then and my stomach was growling, but I doubted that I could have kept anything down. Just not running felt so good—but my mind still screamed at me to keep going, or else I could be the next who ended up torn up on the leafy ground.

Someone put a bottle of water in my hand and I drank until I had to catch my breath, then drank some more before handing the bottle off to the reaching hand beside me. Someone asked me something, but I was too tired to respond; just gathering my breath was more than my body felt up to handling right now. The question was repeated, followed by a sharp bark of my name, which finally made me look up. Martinez was crouching next to me, looking just as tired and winded as I felt, but a lot less exhausted.

“You should eat something,” he repeated, holding out half an apple to me, but I just stared back blankly. When I didn’t take the offered food, another of the group was more than happy to accept it. I did take the bottle of water, though, and finished it off in a sequence of smaller sips. Instead of throwing it away, I handed it back to Martinez when he reached for it. Not that littering was of any concern now, I figured, but having something to fill up and carry more liquid in sounded like a damn good idea.

The guards changed, a couple other guys getting up and taking their places as the first round now joined us on the ground. Over at the other end of the hollow we were crouching in, Nate, Pia, and Andrej were looking over the spread maps that Andrej was carrying. Looking around, I did a brief head count. With Skip and his guys, we’d initially bolstered our numbers beyond twenty-five, but there were only eighteen people remaining—and that included Private Santos and one of the other soldiers from the bridge barricade. I vaguely remembered them catching up shortly after we’d dispatched of the zombies coming after us, also drawn into the direction of the shots.
 

I had the sinking feeling that we wouldn’t remain at that number for long. But at least now all my doubts about looting were gone—but not the feeling of guilt whenever I thought of Sam, the crumpled photo of her and me burning a hole into the back pocket of my pants. Again. Oh, did I wish back the time when said guilt was fixated on the fact that I had been cheating on her. It felt like forever ago, not mere hours.

Martinez got up and made the rounds, talking quietly to a few people, patching those up who needed it. I briefly wondered if I should take off my hiking boots and ask him for a Band-Aid for what felt like a million blisters, but the very idea of sliding the shoes back on afterward again kept me from going there. I’d been on just enough hiking and camping trips to know that it was always worse later—and the idea of having to make a run for it on my bare feet wasn’t very pleasant, either. My right upper arm gave an uncomfortable twinge then, but I quickly pushed the impending avalanche of mental pictures away that came with that. Nate had been right—there was a time and place to dwell on what I’d done, but now wasn’t it.

While my legs felt weighed down with tons of lead, I was back on my feet as soon as the Ice Queen gave the—muted—order to break camp. It still came as a relief when we didn’t resume our previous lumbering running speed, but settled on a somewhat more sedate walk. I still jumped at every crackle of leaves around us, but within minutes of the more monotone pace I felt myself fall back into a mindless lull.
 

I was alive. I was walking. As far as I could tell, I wasn’t on the fast-track to joining the shambling undead.

Life should have been good. It just didn’t feel like it right now.

We must have been walking for about twenty minutes or so when Martinez caught up with me. Andrej was still behind me but he’d stopped watching my every move like a hawk, ready to pull me up before I could even fall when I stumbled. My arm was probably more bruised from him than when Smith had come after me.

Martinez kept glancing at me sideways, until he cleared his throat. Turning my head, I looked at him for a moment, then said what I figured was on all our minds.

“So, zombies, huh?”

He shrugged, grimacing in what I belatedly realized was an attempt at a smile.

“Looks like it, yeah.”

Just saying that word pulled up another flash of snapping teeth and reaching fingers, closing around my arm, making me shudder. But with that came a different thought that I’d been trying to ignore the entire time, but that pushed itself to the forefront of my mind. Martinez was avoiding glancing at me, that was obvious, and I had a very good idea why.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, just as he opened his mouth and offered the same. We stared at each other for a moment, and he made a gesture toward me.

“Ladies first.”

“Didn’t chivalry die like a couple hours ago?” Just saying that made me feel a little bad as Andrej was diligently acting the protector and gentleman toward me, but I had a feeling that he wouldn’t have done so in the first place if I’d been just some random woman.

Martinez shrugged, but inclined his head with my silent push.

“I’m sorry that I froze like that. In the coffee shop. I mean—“ he broke off there, but he didn’t really need to finish that sentence for me to get what he meant.

“I’m sorry that I killed your comrade. Friend,” I guessed.

Martinez gave something that was supposed to be a grin, I thought. “Rob was a little more than that,” he admitted, managing to smile sheepishly. “And I can’t be sure, but I think he’d prefer getting his throat slashed and his head caved in rather than eat people.”

I couldn’t suppress another shudder.

“Still—“

“Thank you,” he said, interrupting me. Silence fell, and it wasn’t the comfortable kind. “First time that you—“

“Yes,” I replied, cutting him off now. He nodded, and the sympathetic look he gave me spoke volumes.

“The woman you were talking about,” he started, pausing until I looked at him. “Your sister?”

I couldn’t help but give him the blandest fake smile in my repertoire.

“My girlfriend.” He blinked, and I couldn’t keep an acerbic, “You got a problem with that?” back. Fucking hypocrite.

“Absolutely not,” he assured me, the ghost of a smile appearing for a moment. Considering the topic at hand, I was relieved that he didn’t grin outright, but he did seem like someone used to smiling. Some guys had the weirdest reactions to news like that—and considering that now I had to hope that she was actually dead—and stayed dead—I didn’t really feel like bitching at anyone.

Mostly to distract myself—but also to satisfy my curiosity—I changed the topic.

“So what exactly is going on? I mean, except for the obvious.” Being chased by a mob of cannibalistic madmen was kind of a dead giveaway, pun intended.

Martinez shrugged, looking more nonplussed than anything.

“Virus hit us hard. You’re the scientist. You likely know more about that than any of us do.”

“Why exactly do people keep telling me that? I’m the last person to have heard of this, and I still don’t really know any facts at all,” I protested.

I got a noncommittal grunt in return. “Not sure there are that many facts out there. Last thing I heard it’s spreading like wildfire around the globe. Most of the larger cities shut down yesterday or even Thursday, and accidents and looting probably killed as many as the virus itself.”

“But what is it? How did to start? Where was patient zero?” Two of those questions I likely could answer, but getting confirmation sounded like a good idea.

“No patient zero,” he replied, skipping seamlessly over the first two questions.

“That’s impossible,” I objected feebly, all too conscious of my own suspicions about the tainted food. “There is always a patient zero, even if they misdiagnose everything. Epidemics don’t just start all over at the same time.” Pandemics, I likely should have said, but the very idea of that was too much for me to focus on right now.

“Look, here’s what I know,” Martinez offered. “On Monday, there were a few weird posts online about people suddenly losing it on the streets. Like in line at the fast food joint, running a red light at the intersection, while picking up their kids from school. No one heard about it because besides a few conspiracy nuts, it was just not important for anyone. Tuesday, half the country called in sick and the CDC is posting the first flu epidemic bulletins. There are a lot more cases of people randomly going insane, but with the media gobbling up the Influenza story, no one gives a shit. Wednesday, FEMA and the national guard are on high alert and try to establish crisis centers in the big population centers, but by then everyone and their dog is home sick, and even if they tried to launch anything, they’re massively understaffed. That’s the day when all the news stations in the country get a script delivered by the nice guys with your friendly neighborhood M16 at the ready, and everyone in politics or who knows someone who knows someone is suddenly taking a vacation with friends or family. That’s also the day when I get the call that I should report to base like yesterday, only that we’re about a week late in mobilizing everyone. The internet implodes because unlike mainstream media, it’s impossible to shut down all the blogs and forums, but they try. So unless your neighbor already tried to go for your jugular, you go through Thursday as if it’s a snow day in late May and everything will be better because the weekend’s just round the corner. And Friday, well—“

“That’s when the shit hit the fan,” Burns said, joining our conversation. He eyed me critically for a moment, but if the fact that I was huffing and puffing alongside them annoyed him, he didn’t show it. “Lexington was pretty quiet. I was in D.C. until Thursday evening, and, ma’am, believe me when I tell you that you should be glad you weren’t.”

The idea alone that I had been completely oblivious to all of this going on was almost as bad as the fact that it was happening. Sure, I didn’t really keep up with the news, but even yesterday afternoon all the news channels had been running were low-level flu scare bulletins. That anyone had been able to suppress this level of news—and that they would—made me even more uneasy.

“So whatever this is that has been ravaging the country for five days now, you’re saying that the government has been suppressing the news since the very beginning?”

Burns shrugged while Martinez looked away, intently studying some underbrush we passed. “Your words, not mine,” he replied, pretty much confirming my guess.

“This is so much bullshit,” I muttered. No one felt the need to contradict me.

Even though the circumstances should have kept my entire system on high alert, now that the immediate danger seemed to be gone, I felt exhaustion claim my body. I had been up and moving for more than thirty hours now, and those hadn’t been uneventful, downtime hours, either. I couldn’t remember what I’d eaten since yesterday morning, but it wasn’t much; the damn coffee that had scalded my hand; some energy drinks and a sandwich later, but that was it. I suddenly regretted not taking that apple from Martinez earlier. No wonder that my muscles started to feel jittery with low blood sugar, but the very idea of eating something made me ever so nauseated. Even though the air was clear here, away from the city, I felt like there was that acrid smell lingering—too faint to actually pinpoint, but omnipresent in every breath I took—that made me want to clean my mouth rather than gobble down anything. And I still hadn’t forgotten what had happened to Nate’s guy who’d eaten that chocolate bar… or Smith.

“That we don’t really have a patient zero is one thing, but is there at least a region or city where the infection started?” I asked Martinez when he glanced my way again.

“Nope. And from what little we heard from outside, it’s the same everywhere, too. A lot of people got sick, most of them died, and that’s by far not the end of the story.”