The Killing Floor (22 page)

“You’re asking me to abandon my duty to my country. To the children who are still alive.”

“Just as I abandoned my oath to the public,” she tells him. “To protect and to serve. I’m not police anymore. The last real police died in this room. And you’re not in the Army.”

“But I thought we had a responsibility to other people. I thought we believed that together.”

Wendy no longer cares about the survival of the species.
How can I explain this to him? It is a hard thing to think, much less say to another human being.
All she cares about is seeing Toby and the others in her group survive. That’s all the responsibility she can handle anymore.

“If there was something decisive we could do, I would say let’s do it,” she says. “I would give up my life. But there is nothing like that. There is only death, and more death, until the end. Just like Paul and Ethan. What is the point? The one responsibility we have is to each other and the rest of our group. We have to find happiness while we can. I don’t believe we are dead already, Toby. I am alive and I want to stay alive. And I want to be happy while I can. It’s why I chose you.”

Toby stands in the dark, saying nothing for a while. Finally, he takes a deep breath. “Is your mind made up about this?”

“It is, Toby. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t want it to sound like an ultimatum, but that’s what it is. She hopes he does not call her bluff, because she knows she could never leave him.

But it must happen. We have to go. We’ve gotten away from the NLA, with supplies and a full tank of gas. It’s meant to be.

“As long as we stay together,” he says. “That’s all I want.”

She smiles, her eyes stinging with tears. “Hell, Toby, we’re practically married at this point.”

“All right then,” he says, letting out another long sigh. Wendy can sense something breaking in him, releasing, letting go. “So, have you picked out an island yet?”

“Thank God for you, Toby Wilson.”

“I love you, Wendy.”

She grins, plants her hands on his chest, and kisses him on the mouth.

Ray

Ray creeps out of the farmhouse breathing hard and feeling his heart pound in his chest. Hundreds of Infected mill aimlessly in the morning light, filling the air with their random, anguished cries. They stagger along without purpose, bumping into each other and growling. Some trample the garden while others lie in the tall grass. A few hold their heads with both hands and scream as if suddenly remembering who they are and what happened to them. Each moment brings more tramping out of the cornfield, grunting and wailing.

Last night, they reached out to Ray as if pleading. Their eyes followed him as he retreated into the house, shaking with the disbelieving laughter of a maniac. They moaned softly, a sound like humming, as he entered a coat closet and curled into a fetal ball in the dark and the dust.

The tiny space was hot but at least it was quiet. He started awake repeatedly until exhaustion overcame him. He dreamed of standing with Todd on the bridge, screaming his head off; he woke with a sore jaw from hours of grinding his teeth, and the hopper sting in his side, shrunk to the size of an egg, throbbing gently as if keeping time with a favorite song.

Now Ray inches away from the farmhouse, at the mercy of thousands of Infected. He glances over his shoulder to confirm the open back door is directly behind him, in easy reach, in case he needs to make a run for it. Last night, a miracle: The Infected did not take him. Today, they appear to be ignoring him. But this does not make them predictable. At any moment, they might turn on him, snarling, and decide to have Ray on a stick for breakfast.

He gags, slammed by a solid wall of stink. Oblivious to discomfort, the Infected eliminate their waste in the clothes they were wearing the day they were converted. Their bodies emit a sour stench that makes him think of rotting food and warm, old milk turned into thick cottage cheese chunks by runaway bacteria. One of the Infected passes close by, studying him vaguely before continuing on her way, taking little excited bites at the air.

He can hear them breathe. The wheeze of air entering thousands of lungs. Some of them cry out with the sadness of slaves. Others shriek before lapsing into silence. The spaces in between are eerily quiet. Just the insects and the birds.

Feeling bolder, he walks along the edge of the crowd for over an hour, studying their faces one at a time. The Infected continue to ignore him. Some stare at their feet; others blink at the sun.
They don’t look very scary. They look like sick people. Like very sad, very sick people.
Like him, they came from Camp Defiance; he recognizes a man who sold mead in one of the trading booths. He wonders how they ended up here.

What is so special about this house? And what is so special about me that the Infected don’t want me for one of their own?

♦

Survival trumps any interest Ray has in solving the mystery. He made it this far, and he’s not about to quit as long as his luck is holding up. He retreats back into the house to do some exploring. As soon as it gets dark, he hopes to sneak through the crowd and strike a path toward Mason, where he knows Camp Nightingale was established. He feels an overwhelming urge to be around normal people who will protect him. Before he goes, he needs to gather up supplies.

The house smells dusty and Ray experiences a vague sense of alarm entering the kitchen. It is abandoned, but it is still not his house. He feels like an invader here. A clock ticks on the wall. Through the sheer white curtain covering the kitchen window, he can see the tightly packed Infected roaming about on their mindless errands. The refrigerator is plastered with holiday cards and photos of smiling people he doesn’t know.

First, he needs food and water. He takes a plastic bottle from a cardboard box that had been used as a recycling bin, and puts it under the tap. The faucet spits and shoots enough water to fill most of the bottle before the pipes groan and run dry. He takes a sip and decides to down all of it.

Skipping the refrigerator, he opens one of the cupboards, hoping to find some food.

“Shit!” he screams.

A large, greasy rat tumbles from the cupboard and scurries under the sink.

“Give me a heart attack,” he says, and laughs.

The boxes of food have been torn open, their contents half eaten. The cupboard smells like rat turds. He can hear the little bastards writhing and sneaking inside the other cupboards, and decides not to open them. He’s not hungry enough yet to fight rats for cans.

“No grub for Ray,” he sighs.

He spends the next few hours wandering around the house, picking up items and then putting them back where they belong. Surprisingly little salvage turns up. The only useful item he finds is a replacement for his T-shirt in an upstairs dresser drawer, and a new backpack.

A door bangs open downstairs. He peers over the banister, listening for footsteps. Nothing. He walks down a few steps and listens again, then a few more.

At the bottom, he sees the Infected filling the living room, looking at him.

The moment he appears, they raise their hands in supplication, groaning.

Ray runs through the kitchen door, leaps down the back steps and lands hard on his feet, gasping for air. He does not remember running. He didn’t even think about it. He just moved.

The Infected are not oblivious to him. At least some are interested in him. He wants to know why. Steeling himself, he waves at the nearest Infected tottering past, stumbling over a garden hose.

“Hello?” Ray says.

Several of the Infected stop and stare at him, baring their teeth. He extends his knife with one hand while wrapping the other around his head, covering his eyes. He peers out and realizes they have gone back to ignoring him. For all he knows, snarling is how the crazies express polite interest. He wonders if he should try again.

“I’m Ray Young,” he says. He points to his chest and adds, “My name is Ray.”

Some of the Infected stop and stare at him.

“Ray,” he says. “Young. My name.”

He cringes under their gaze, feeling ridiculous. The Infected study him, their heads bobbing, as if looking for the ideal spot to sink their teeth. Just as quickly, they lose interest and resume their wandering, leaving him feeling even more puzzled. He decides to try an experiment.

He picks the scrawniest man within view and stands in front of him. The man makes a half hearted growl and licks his chops, prompting Ray to take a cautious step backward, his heart skipping a beat. Staring over Ray’s shoulder, the man tries to go around, but Ray holds him in place by his shoulders. The Infected yelps, but does nothing.

“It’s like I ain’t even here,” Ray says, feeling bolder.

The man stares over his shoulder with glazed eyes.

“You’re not so bad now, are you?” Ray says, giving the man a little shove, angry he’d been terrified for nothing. The Infected blinks, disoriented by the sudden attack. Ray laughs harshly and pushes him again. “You’re not scary at all. All bark and no bite!”

The Infected lurches backward, holding its hands up to defend its face.
He’s afraid of me
, Ray realizes. The thought makes him feel stronger.

“You screwed things up, you know that?” He leans in, pushing the man again. “Totally screwed it up!” Again. “Screwed it up real good, you son of a bitch!”

Why? Why did this happen? Why did you do this?

Driven by sudden rage, Ray believes this man made the world end. Every death, every lost friend, every ounce of misery and fear, was all this man’s doing. Blood pounding in his ears, he shoves the Infected to the ground, kicks him once, and spits on him.

He draws the knife from his belt, but the rage fades, leaving him feeling drained.

“I hate you,” he says, his vision blurring with tears.

All around, the Infected howl and rush at him with hands splayed into claws.

Ray is jostled roughly as the hot, sweaty bodies press in all around, eyes gleaming with hate. His arms forced against his sides, he cannot use the knife to defend himself. An elbow slams into his chest. He can hardly breathe. The Infected snarl through their noses like wild animals. Ray pushes back at them, struggling to stay on his feet.

Someone screams shrilly, ending in a choking gurgle. The man he pushed is being stomped to a pulp by a ring of snarling Infected. One of them hunches over the man’s neck, slurping at an arterial fountain of blood. The others stop kicking at his body and reach down to tear off pieces of clothing and flesh and shove them into their mouths.

Roaring a string of obscenities, Ray doubles his efforts to get away from the crowd now swarming toward the fallen body and groaning with pleasure as they tear it to shreds. They chew on pieces of muscle, cartilage, cotton, denim. A woman holds a hairy strip of scalp over her head like a trophy, screaming a long stream of gibberish before consuming it.

Ray lunges from the crowd, falls to his knees and pukes long and hard into the grass.

Oh God, it’s me
, he realizes.
It’s me. It’s my fault. I didn’t want that to happen, but it did.

He remembers the Infected on the bridge, reaching out to him as if pleading. The Infected at the wall, trying to tell him something, oblivious to the arc of the flamethrowers. The Infected slapping their hands against the window of the house where he fought Infection.

He did not beat the bug. The bug won, and has been using him all along.

I infected all of these people
, he understands.

And now they belong to me.

Cool Rod

The Hellraisers sit on the sidewalk with their backs against the wall of a burned-out bookstore, sweating in M50 gas masks with their rifles held on their laps, taking five. Ash flutters to the ground like snow in Hell; their uniforms are grimy with the stuff. Waves of heat radiate down the street, making them feel like they are being cooked in a microwave. A battalion of heavy tanks got lost and tore through Georgetown two nights ago, shooting everything they saw with Biblical flashes of light, and set fire to the entire district. The fires fizzled out, but not before filling the air with a solid, eastward-moving wall of smoke, heat and ash to greet the Dragoons’ advance, hence the M50s. Saving this city, it seems, requires the Army to destroy it one block at a time.

An M88 Hercules recovery vehicle fills the street with its massive bulk, its thousand-horsepower engine growling as its seventy tons maneuver into position to tow a disabled Stryker. His back against a brick wall, Rod studies his squad and realizes they are spent. He can see it in their worried, bloodshot eyes, barely visible through the dirty lenses covering the top half of their black Darth Vader facemasks. They have fought hard and accomplished incredible things.

But you can win only so many times before it feels like you’re losing.

Rod closes his eyes and feels his mind drift in the dark, searching for a happy thought.

The monsters boil up from the shaft, their wings buzzing—

The surge of adrenaline jerks him from his doze. He sits panting, his body electrified, until he notices the skinny soldier standing over him.

“You all right, Sergeant?” the kid drawls.

Rod wags his head, trying to get rid of the overwhelming feeling of dread left behind by the dream. “What do you want, troop?”

“LT says he wants to see you. I’m to show you the way.”

The squad watches him stand, collect his weapon and follow the kid into the maze of giant vehicles idling in the heat, like cattle watching one of their own being led away to the killing floor of the slaughterhouse.

Georgetown still smolders in the northwest. Charred bits of garbage and clothing flutter to the earth, some of it burning as it falls, touching the ground as cinders. Rod walks through air filled with smoke and vehicle exhaust that drifts but never leaves. He feels dried out, tired and grimy to the bone.

A helicopter drifts overhead, its rotors stirring the ash thick as a sandstorm.

Thank God for these masks. Just need the new air filters.

“Over here, Sergeant.”

The kid leads Rod through one of the blasted-out windows of a shattered diner. Rod’s boots crunch on broken plate glass. The restaurant was designed with a retro flavor, with lots of chrome and vinyl. Neon signage sits dark and unused along with a jukebox. It is a disorienting sight; parts of the diner look the same as the day the epidemic started. A chalkboard announces specials and dollar-ninety-nine giant milkshakes. The stools in front of the counter are empty and inviting. On the walls, framed posters of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean have been defaced with obscene graffiti by another unit passing through. Lieutenant Willie Sims sits at one of the red booths with Jared Kelley, the new platoon sergeant, who raises his hand in greeting.

“How are your men doing, Rod?” says Sims, his voice muffled by his mask.

“We’re still here, sir,” Rod answers, taking a seat opposite the officer. In the past, he usually reported his boys were itching for a good fight, in the hopes of getting something solid to do in the field. But not today. Today, he is hoping to avoid asking his squad to do anything even remotely dangerous.

The new platoon leader is a straw-haired, overgrown Iowan the Hellraisers call Techno Viking, a second lieutenant from the Third Armored Cav who recently earned his silver bar. Rod likes the gentle giant who is his new platoon leader. The man listens to the non-commissioned officers, cares about his troops, and has no crazy personal ambitions other than to keep as many of them alive for as long as possible.

Sims’s standing order is to kill anything that moves, and let God sort it out. This is not crazy bloodlust, but simple survival. The fact is they are fighting a war of extermination.

It’s called total war. In military speak, a war with an unlimited spectrum. In civilian terms, it means we fight without pause or quarter until the enemy is all dead or we are.

Rod taps his gas mask and adds, “Any word on the new filters, sir?”

“Negative,” Sims tells him.

“We can’t do our jobs if we can’t breathe.”

“I hear you, Rod. We’ll just have to make do until we get back to base.” Lines form around his eyes and Rod guesses he is smiling. “Not that I could tell the difference. I feel like I can’t breathe in this mask at any time.”

“You get used to it, sir,” Rod tells him.

“That’s what my platoon sergeant keeps saying,” Sims says, glancing at Kelley.

“You should have been around when we were using the M40s,” says Kelley, an old-timer like Rod. “Made you look like a giant insect. You could barely suck enough air to breathe. We had to run five K in one as part of the training. Half the guys puked into theirs.”

Rod laughs, a muffled barking sound coming through the mask. Kelley has tons of stories like this; he’s been in the Army since Jesus was a corporal.

Sims leans forward, planting his elbows on the table. It’s time to get down to business.

“Sergeant,” he says, “I’ve got a job for you and your men.”

Rod closes his eyes for several seconds. “Sir, I am hoping there is another way to do what needs doing. My boys have zero fight left. They need a good rest.”

“I know I’ve been leaning hard on you,” Sims says. “And you’ve done an amazing job getting your squad this far without even a scratch. But you are the best I got and I need your men to give a little more today.”

Orders are orders. Rod is a professional.

“What do you need?” he growls.

♦

It’s a recon mission. The heavy smoke cover is preventing their birds from seeing what’s happening on the ground. Captain Rhodes wants eyes all the way up to the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, the projected edge of the advance by the end of the week.

The engineers cleared the road as far as the first few blocks. Third Squad advances along the empty street in a wedge formation with the flamethrower on point and Rod and the RTO, the radio/telephone operator, not far behind.

Rod watches them with paternal fondness and high expectations that they survive and become everything he thinks they can be. He wants them to kick ass; he wants them to live. He has led a dozen like Specialist Sosa, the overconfident big kid; even more like PFC Arnold and PFC Tanner, naive eager beavers; a few overthinkers like Corporal Lynch, always concerned with
why
certain orders are being issued; and too few like Corporal Davis—quiet, reliable men who know how to get things done under extreme stress. They are just like every other squad of big, dumb kids he has led during his career as a professional soldier. But they are his.

He knows the boys are calling him Cool Rod behind his back. After the fight at the hotel when they lost Pierce and so many others, they eyed him with a level of respect bordering on reverence. It was perhaps the one good thing to come out of that day—conquering the reputation he earned in Germany. Since then, they have fought every day, and between Rod’s leadership and a hell of a lot of plain luck, Third Squad has taken no casualties. Now they think he’s a god.

Rod does not care what they think, as long as they follow his orders and cover their sectors.

Visibility remains poor because of the smoke. On the left, a construction site reveals itself, giant cranes soaring into the murk, scattered orange traffic cones, a sign that says WAYNE CONSTRUCTION. Someone spray painted SCHOOL IS OUT FOREVER on the side of a trailer. Sosa chuckles, shaking his head. Rod remembers they are in Foggy Bottom, somewhere on the George Washington University campus.

As they near the next intersection, a wall of vehicles emerges from the gloom. This is as far as the engineers cleared the road; from here on out they will be in the shit. Cars and vans and trucks sit parked, many of them at angles, some seemingly fused together. Their drivers fought for every inch before abandoning them in this endless apocalyptic parking lot.

Rod splits the squad. Fireteam A advances first and pauses at a defensible location, and then provides overwatch for Fireteam B’s advance. Their gear clatters as they wade into the mass of vehicles.

On the left and right, high-rise apartments flank the street. Rod tilts his head back, but cannot see the tops of the buildings. The sun is just a yellowish splotch smeared on the sky like an infected wound. Frantic pounding draws his attention to one of the windows. A pale young woman stares down at him from a second floor window, slamming her fists against the glass.

Lynch follows his gaze and turns to glance at him.
Refugee, Sergeant?

Rod shakes his head.
Nope, Infected.
He considers calling it in, and decides against it. The woman is no threat. In Kandahar, they reported continual random snatches of gunfire from the areas they patrolled each night. Sometimes a mortar burst or a machine gun. In DC, they call in foghorns, screams, distant roars, stray monsters, roving swarms of maniacs.

Sosa snickers and hisses at Arnold, “I think she likes you.”

Huffing under the weight of his flamethrower, Arnold shakes his head and says nothing, too tired to respond.

Ahead, a car door slams: Tanner, on point, clearing a path for them. The column threads its ragged course between the vehicles. They step over abandoned luggage. Sosa spots a pack of cigarettes on the ground and pockets it. The woman continues to pound on the window over their heads. The sound multiplies.

Rod glances back and sees more people at other windows, banging on the glass with their fists. As they clear the van, he sees even more in the building on his left as well.

Lynch glances at him again and Rod gestures forward.
Keep moving. We’ll be fine as soon as we pass these buildings.

People stand at most of the windows now, fists pounding like war drums. The sound becomes a roar. Over the drumming, Rod hears the tinkle of broken glass on the sidewalk.

“Pick up the pace, Tanner,” he calls out.

Glass shatters overhead.

“Heads up!” Davis shouts.

A dark shape flutters through the smoke and lands heavily on one of the vehicles to their left, which groans and sags under the impact. Arnold cries out in terror, the grimy lens on his facemask dotted with sprayed blood.

Another body flies through the air in a rain of broken glass.

Tanner shoots at it, misses. The rest of the squad opens fire.

“Cease fire!” Rod roars, furious at the lack of fire discipline.

The boys obey the order, panting in their masks.

The gunfire shattered many of the windows. Bodies fall like human missiles, limbs flailing. Glass rattles across the cars. The crash of the impacts multiplies until it is continuous. A car alarm wails its grating alarm. Others join in.

The boys begin firing again, but this is not combat. The onslaught is nothing they can fight.

It’s an avalanche. We can either weather it or get out of the way.

“Off the street,” Rod roars, pushing at Sosa’s shoulder until the man obeys.

He pulls his fireteam to the right side of the street while Davis pulls his to the left. Rod peers through the grimy glass windows into the building’s lobby. No threats there.

“What the fuck is this?” Tanner screams, gaping at the bodies falling onto the cars, shattering windshields and splattering across the crumpled metal. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?”

Sosa grips the back of his neck and forces him to look away while Arnold and Lynch bend close, telling him he’s okay, everything is going to be okay.

“It’s not okay,” Tanner sobs. “Nothing about this is fucking okay.”

“Stay frosty,
vatos
,” Rod tells them. “All that noise is going to attract attention.”

He feels vibrations in the soles of his feet. The sensation migrates up his legs to his knees. Ash dances on the asphalt. He turns and pulls on the building’s front doors. They’re unlocked. He holds one open and waves the fireteam inside.

“Get in there! Move!”

The soldiers enter the lobby, half dragging the dazed Tanner, and deploy into firing positions. Rod turns and sees Davis directing his men into the burned-out building across the street. The downpour of bodies has stopped. An incredible roar reaches his ears, the crash and pop of crumpling metal and shattering glass. The traffic jam trembles, cars shifting by inches.

Inside, his fireteam tenses, ready to open fire at whatever is coming.

“Get down,” he says.

They look at him.

“Eat dirt!” he roars.

The air fills with a long blast of foghorns.

The thunder grows in volume until they are certain the world is ending. The first juggernaut bounds across the roofs of the vehicles, crumpling their frames under the impact of seven tons of flying muscle and bone. The rest of the herd follows, tentacles flailing around their brontosaurus bodies, crashing over the cars and flattening the traffic jam into crushed metal.