Z Children (Book 2): The Surge (16 page)

What
rested neatly around him was hope. Enough to get through.

His
eyes roved across the weapons also neatly arranged on the ground atop a thin
tarp. Virginia’s weapon now boasted a new gas tube and bolt carriage grouping.
Beside that was a semi-auto version for Chris. There was something that didn’t
rest easy with him when he handed the new addition to the group a weapon. But
with what lie ahead, everyone needed to be armed and ready—even the untested.

Two
Glock pistols in good nick looked at him, their triggers, like eyes, reminded
him of the last time he’d used this particular weapon. He’d taken them now, not
for their vaunted reputation, but because they were bone-simple to use. And
that’s what they needed. Aim. Pull. Even Bonnie could handle one if push came
to shove. Besides, he’d trust the little girl over the grown women in a
heartbeat.

His
personal weapon had taken more time, more effort, but when he’d finished, he’d
been pleased. It sported a ten-inch barrel, suppressor, rail, gunfighter-charging
handle, and a new ACOG sight. It was as close to an issue weapon as he could
get. Next to the weapons, were rebuild kits—one for each weapon, including his
trusty .45. Ammo was sorted, but JW wasn’t content with the two hundred and
twenty-seven rounds of 5.56 he’d found throughout the wreckage of the shop. He
hoped Jesse had more stored away.

JW had
just finished putting new springs into the 1911 to occupy more time when Ranger
threaded his way through the slightly ajar door to the safe room, Bonnie in
tow. He couldn’t repress the smile that spread his mouth. Both looked happy and
safe.

“All
good?” JW looked away from girl and dog and back down at the gun. It was easier
to kill the smile if he wasn’t looking at Bonnie’s face and Ranger’s tail
wagging.

“Just
awesome. Jesse is the nicest man. I had cookies. White chocolate chip, which
are my absolute favorite, and they tasted loads better than those ones I found
on the delivery truck. Oh, and Ranger got to chew on a big cow bone the whole
time. I swear, it was giant!” Bonnie waved her hands in front of her body,
bringing them together and apart several times in an attempt to show JW the
size of the bone.

He
almost laughed out loud. He could feel the sensation rumbling inside his
throat, threatening to come out. Chuckling in a zombie-filled hospital was
passable, but he wasn’t comfortable enough to let completely loose in front of
this girl. He needed to be a rock, strong and with little visible emotion.
That’s why he was good at what he did. Why he was who he was.

“I
meant with Jesse’s little girl,” JW clarified, choking back the laughter.

“Well
she’s not that little, first off. She’s over fifteen pounds and really, really
pretty. Bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. I got to hold her for a while.”

“You
held her?” JW’s brows knitted together in concern. “Virginia say that was
okay?”

“Yeah,
she said it was fine. Really, though, Trish was way too cute not to hold.”

“Good,
what was wrong with her? Cold?”

“Naw,
she had an infection from the bites, but she’s not like ‘infected-infected’,
you know?” Bonnie was now throwing up air quotes, like JW was supposed to
understand what the heck she was implying. “Jesse had already cleaned everything
up and bandaged, but with the fever and her not wanting to take a bottle…”

JW
pushed the slide-stop into place and then racked the slide on the 1911.
“Bites.” JW’s eyes stared into Bonnie, through her really, and at the
still-ajar door to the safe room. A cold feeling was waving over him, shimmering
from toes to trigger finger. “Animal bites?”

“No, a
Z kid bit her. Just nicked her really…on the leg when Jesse was trying to
bunker down in the safe room. She’s not infected, though, like I said. Chris
says it’s a miracle. That’s why I left. She was arguing with Jesse over wanting
to bring him and Trish to Atlanta with us.”

“Shit.
You stay here. Ranger, protect her.” JW slapped a fresh magazine into his
pistol and dropped it into his holster as he headed toward the door of the safe
room.

As his
hand lifted to rest on the edge of the door to pull it open wider for his body
to fit through, he could hear the heated discussion. Taking a settling breath,
JW pulled open the door and strode through.

One
hardheaded woman and one young man were nose-to-nose speaking angrily and
quickly. Both were red in the face. Virginia was sitting on an olive-green
collapsible bunk rocking a small bundle of pink looking like she’d rather be anywhere
but where she was.

“We
have
to take her with us. She could be the cure to this whole damn outbreak.”
Chris’s voice was tinged with anger, her words vehement. She clearly thought
she was right, that Jesse had an obligation to the world to come to the CDC and
let his daughter be poked and prodded for an answer.

But JW
knew differently.

No one
has an obligation to anyone. Especially not in the end when everything’s gone
to hell. In the end, all that matters is surviving and keeping those you love
alive. Looking at Jesse’s face, the rawness there and the stubborn set of his
posture, JW knew that Jesse would never go with them, not willingly. JW would
be damned if he’d force someone to do something they didn’t want. That shit was
called military life. You choose it at first, but then you have to keep
choosing it every damn day. And when you’re ready not to choose it, you still
choose it. No. If this father thought he was better off keeping his daughter
here in this safe room, then he’d make sure his wishes were honored.

“You
can forget it, lady. She’s safe here and we have enough supplies to last a
couple years. My pop even stocked formula, diapers, everything I’d need for a
baby. He was good like that—always thinking ahead. I never did that. I never
prepared for something to happen. I’m a father now. My whole damn life is this
baby girl. I’ve lost everything else. What you want and what’s gonna happen are
two entirely different things. So drop it, take whatever the hell you want from
the store, and then leave the shop.”

“This
isn’t about what I want,” Chris fumed. “This is about what the whole fucking
world needs. We need to find out why she’s not infected. How did this baby not
even half a year old get bit and not turn? We have to know…we have to get her
to a lab and run tests.”

“You’re
talking about turning my daughter, the only thing I have left, into a damn lab
rat. Stick her and prod her and keep her hidden in some underground bunker
hoping she’ll cure the world. To hell with you. To hell with the whole damn
world. I don’t give a shit about anyone or anything else. Trish is it, she’s
all I’ve got to live for and we’re staying here.”

“Both
of you shut up!” Virginia’s voice split into the argument. JW could swear he
almost saw her words visibly slice between the two adults and create a barrier
of silence. The authority he heard from her stopped JW in his tracks. “Chris,
you step outside and get some fresh air and—”

“I do
not need fresh air, Vir—”

“
Leave,
Chris
. Now. Or you can find some other squeeze to keep you warm at night.”
Virginia watched as Chris’s face warred between different emotions. “Get the
hell out, Chris. I won’t fucking tell you again.”

JW
continued to stand, watching the scene unfold, his mouth open a fraction—surprised
that Virginia, the language police, had dropped the F-bomb. Chris shuffled a
moment and JW could see moisture building in the doctor’s eyes. The first
proper tear was sliding down her cheek when she turned around and exited the
safe room. He had to move out of the way to allow her passage, and she did
everything in her power to make sure she didn’t make eye contact with him.

When
Virginia spoke next, her voice was soothing, “Jesse, we are not going to take
your little girl anywhere. Chris was just trying to, albeit in a very poor way,
express how important Trish might be to solving what’s going on out in the
world. I do understand where you’re coming from, but we also want to make sure
she’s safe now and that she continues to be safe later. It’s that important.”

“She’s
safe here. And your girlfriend’s a real asshole.”

Virginia
cringed, but she couldn’t disagree. Chris had gone over the top. At one point,
she’d even threatened to just take Trish and leave Jesse behind. You don’t
threaten to separate a loving parent and a child. You just don’t. “She was out
of line and I’m sorry.”

Jesse
just nodded. The baby cooed in Virginia’s arms. When the sound carried
throughout the safe room, Jesse’s eyes moved to the pink blanket. “She’s just
all I have left now.”

This
time, Virginia nodded. The father walked towards her, sat down on the cot beside
her, and reached out to Trish—who was wide awake, staring up at his face. Her
little finger found its way out of the expertly-swaddled blanket and gripped
Jesse’s finger.

“Jesse,”
Virginia began, but paused, choosing her words carefully, “if we send back
help, someone to make sure you and Trish are doing okay, maybe resupply
whatever you’re in need of, would you let them examine her?” 

“No.”

“Jesse—”

“No.”

“She
could save the world, Jesse.”

“And
what happens if they find that she is the answer, that her blood or whatever
can create a cure or something, what happens then?” Jesse took Trish from
Virginia now, cradled her against his body as if he could shield her from
anything bad that could ever happen. “You know and I know that they’ll take
her. They won’t give me a choice.”  

“Can I
take samples now then? Take them with me to Atlanta?”

Jesse
was quiet, rocking his little girl; his face serene yet also empty in a way
that expressed more than the serenity. “You don’t tell them who they came
from…you don’t lead them back to us.”

“I
can’t make that promise. If she can help, if her blood shows us something key
to creating some sort of cure…” Virginia shrugged helplessly. “I can’t promise
that, Jesse. I’d feel like I was betraying the entire world to save two
people.”

“But
that’s what you do, isn’t it?” Jesse looked up, his eyes wild. “When you love
someone, you move heaven and hell to protect them and screw everyone else.”

JW and
Virginia exchanged knowing glasses. She’d, all too recently, risked the neck of
someone she barely knew to save someone that meant the world to her. “You do.”

“Dad
didn’t shove me into the safe room. He didn’t tell me not to come out. I just
went. I took Trish and I locked the door and I listened to them all screaming.
I watched Dad die. Mark was banging on the safe room door, begging me to let
him in, but he was bit. I could see the wound on his neck. I blocked them all
out, to save her.” Jesse was crying now and he didn’t seem twenty. He seemed so
very young, too young to be holding the precious child in his arms. He looked
up after a moment, his eyes found JW’s face. “Am I going to hell for that? For
locking them out?”

“Son,
I’ve done things that even the devil wouldn’t do. I’m not the man to ask about
that.” JW’s voice was stern, which surprised Virginia. Jesse was showing his
broken side, his ruined side, the glass pieces that were slicing up his
insides.

“Am
I?” Jesse asked again, still staring at JW.

“No,
boy. You ain’t going to hell. God may not like what you did, but you did it for
your kid. If God knows anything about anything, he knows what it feels like to
watch his child die.”

“I
trust you,” Jesse said it plainly, supporting Trish with one hand and swiping
away tears with the other. “If you come back, if you bring people to keep me
and Trish safe and test her blood or whatever, I’ll let them. You won’t let
them take her from me. Will you.” Again, Jesse made the last sentence a
statement and not a question.

“Why
trust me?” JW didn’t let his surprise show.

“You
could have gotten into this room anytime you wanted to I bet. That dog of
yours…he’s not just some mutt. He probably could have killed me in a skinny
second…but he didn’t. And you didn’t force your way into here. You’re a man of
your word. If you come back, you’ll make sure those Govi boys don’t take my
daughter. If you’re not there, then they aren’t getting anywhere near Trish.”

JW
nervously scratched his head, a gesture that he didn’t often make—it used to be
a constant habit, but it showed weakness and indecision, so he’d broken the
behavior. Glancing over at Virginia, he saw the look of urging on her face.
With a sigh, JW dropped his hand. His head instantly ached for more scratching.
It was like the habit had never actually died, but just hibernated until he had
a moment of regression. “As long as Ranger can come, I’ll be here.”

“Wouldn’t
take you without the dog.” Jesse turned from JW to Virginia. “Better take care
of that mutt.”

At
that moment, Bonnie stuck her head into the safe room, smiling. “Can I hold
Trish again, Jesse?” Without waiting for Jesse to finish his nod, Bonnie
skipped towards the cot and plunked down on the floor at his feet. JW watched
as she sat something on the concrete floor before reaching up to take the baby.
A stack of small field journals—various shades of green and brown—and three
unsharpened pencils.

***

JW

God,
I don’t feel good
.

That
didn’t cut it actually. I felt like absolute shit. Worse than I had in a long
damn time.

Dehydration.
Exhaustion. Whatever it was, the headaches were becoming worse. My immune
system was strong. I was healthy. I’d suffered a couple scratches from my
daredevil garbage chute Dumpster dive, but I’d suffered worse in the past and
not felt like this. I knew I was going to have to suck it up and ask Virginia
or Chris to check me over soon. Another show of damn weakness. I couldn’t
protect anyone if I got really sick though.