The Infection

Sarge smiles. “You have to get used to the fact that somebody else is driving. While Steve will obey our commands to stop and go and so on, we are a self-contained world up here, just you and me. You help scan and identify targets, and I’ll track and kill them.”

“Yes, sir,” Wendy says.

“I’m not a sir. I work for a living, Ma’am. Now let’s do a rapid scan with overlapped sectors.”

“With who, what?”

“That means I’ll be scanning roughly the same ground ahead as you. First, scan center out, near to far, then left and right to center, near to far. I’ll be scanning far to near.”

Her gum cracking, Wendy scans the highway ahead and identifies two abandoned vehicles in the grassy median. They are passing a billboard on the right that tells her to tune in to Channel Seven News at Eleven with Janet Rodriguez, Janet grinning confidently down at her in a power suit with her arms crossed. Beyond, power lines and trees.

The opposite lanes of the highway are occupied by a long column of Infected that stare grimly at the rig as it rolls by on its grating treads.

“Identified,” she says.

“Confirmed. Range?”

“Fifty meters?”

“I’m asking for the range to the nearest target.”

“I thought that’s what I was giving you.”

“See that billboard up there on the other side of the highway? That’s about a hundred.”

“Oh, then twenty, twenty-five?”

“Bingo,” he grins. “You’re learning fast. You should be proud, babe.”

“That’s Private Babe to you,” she answers, turning and flashing a smile.

“What can I say, girl. You do look good in cammies.”

“Settle down, Sergeant,” she laughs. “This Army uniform is like two sizes too big for me.”

“You wear it like a dress.”

“A tent, maybe.”

Wendy laughs lightly, feeling good for the first time since she kissed him at the hospital. Sarge is a good man. He gives her precious moments in which she can forget about Infection and everything else. She believes she could easily fall in love with him if they live long enough.

The Bradley trembles slightly with the stresses generated by dozens of moving parts. She can feel the beating heart of the engine, turning the force of controlled explosions into the raw horsepower needed to turn the treads and propel the vehicle’s twenty-five tons. The vibrations flow through her body, reminding her that she is riding a metal bull with the strength of five hundred horses and a mind of its own. And yet she feels powerful sitting here in its brain. More in control than she has ever felt, in fact. She is in an armored box with wheels, somebody else is driving, and she’s got the big guns. She laughs again as she considers there are few better places one could be in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

The exhilaration she feels, however, is tempered by a growing weight on her chest. Running the rig is a lot of responsibility. The soldiers, the other survivors, and all the people back at the camp will be counting on her to make good decisions when they hit the bridge in ninety minutes, and she simply does not have enough training or experience to do it right.

She is scared.

“You ready for more?” Sarge says.

I’m ready for a hot bath with real soap, scented candles, some Alanis on the CD player and a tall glass of red wine, she thinks.

“What else you got?” she says.

She is still wondering why she wanted to come on this mission, but another glance at the man beside her in the gunner’s station reminds her. They are a tribe.

♦

Todd smiles at the almost surreal sense of déjà vu he is feeling at being back inside the hot, noisy, dim interior of the Bradley. He has butterflies in his gut, the humid air is dense with the smells of nervous sweat and diesel combustion, and he has to pee. Just like old times. It feels oddly right. The big difference is Anne is gone, Wendy is up in the front with Sarge, and there are two new faces in their unit—Ray Young, the rent-a-cop with the hard eyes and handlebar mustache, and Lieutenant Patterson, the combat engineer with the buzz cut and earnest, clean-shaven face.

“Once more into the breach, huh, Rev?” Todd says with a laugh, hoping to show off his easy familiarity with the group to the newcomers, but the two men either did not hear him over the Bradley’s engine or are simply lost in their own thoughts. As usual, nobody cares.

Paul smiles weakly and nods, but says nothing. Todd looks at him and realizes how grounded he feels being here with the other survivors. The Bradley feels like home. And yet he still does not know these people very well. He suddenly wants to talk to the Reverend about something important, something philosophical, man to man at the edge of the abyss—the nature of faith during war or whatever—but he cannot think of where to start such a conversation. A little more grounded, but he is still floating, away from others as well as himself.

The survivors’ role in the mission is to help clear the bridge and then keep Patterson safe because the Lieutenant is going to blow the bridge using more than two tons of TNT and C4.