The Infection

The place where she was born and the place where she was raised. The house where she smoked weed for the first time and the house where she lost her virginity. The school where they educated her about the basics and the school where they taught her to be a cop. The station house where she worked and all of the neighborhoods she patrolled and the mall where she shopped for clothes and the supermarket where she picked up her groceries and bars where she drank a few beers on the weekends. The theater near her house where she watched dozens of movies with various friends and dates, the hospice where her parents died, the hospital where her niece was born, the restaurant where she fell in love with Dave Carver, the squad car that was like a second home to her.

These places, and all the people who filled them with their lives and played a part in hers both large and small, all burned into ash. All lost in the fire. And all of her past lost with it. It is too much to comprehend, too horrifying to even imagine.

“I can’t believe it’s gone,” she says, swallowing hard.

She turns to see if anybody is listening to her, but nobody is there. Each of the other survivors has wandered alone and dazed across the empty lot and stopped as if straining against an invisible leash tying them to the vehicle. They have gone as far as they can from each other without being completely alone. She wants to go even further.

Patting the Glock on her hip to feel its reassuring weight, Wendy begins marching towards the highway.

♦

Ethan wakes up on warm asphalt with a splitting headache. He feels like a piece of chicken left in the oven too long. He opens one eye blearily and clenches it shut as the glaring silver sky painfully blinds him. Blinking tears, he tries again. Slowly, his eyes adapt to the light and he can make out figures on a wide parking area in front of a simple shoebox-shaped building. Truck stop, he thinks. Woods and hills beyond. They have not only left the hospital, they have abandoned Pittsburgh entirely. Just what the hell happened last night?

The last thing he remembers is the sharp prick of the needle sliding into his arm.

He tries to bring the dark figures into focus. His glasses are missing and he has trouble seeing distances. The blurry figures slowly coalesce into the other survivors, scattered around the asphalt. Anne is at the Bradley, ransacking it. The soldiers are dragging the struggling driver into the shelter of one of the fuel islands. Ethan notices their body language and wonders if they are Infected. His immediate instinct is to play possum. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore his aching bladder.

“Where are we going to go?” somebody asks. “Is anywhere safe?”

Ethan knows the voice; it was Paul speaking. He suffers a sudden sense of déjà vu, a flashback to one of the endless nightmares he dreamed last night. Again, that strange sense of disorientation, of not knowing who he is or why he is here. At least he knows now that the others are not Infected; the Infected do not talk. He opens his eyes and tries to sit up. The air is hot and tinged with smoke, stinging his eyes. His shirt is covered with a dried red crust. Not blood; vomit. The acid smell triggers the dry heaves. He groans on his hands and knees, his vision blurred with tears, spitting repeatedly into the dust. He wipes his eyes and notices the other survivors watching him.

“Water,” he croaks. His voice sounds alien to his ears. His tongue feels like a piece of leather.

Anne comes out of the Bradley and drops a box onto the ground, where it bursts open, spilling cans across the asphalt. She unholsters one of her handguns and begins marching towards him. The other survivors drift closer.

“Can I have some water?” he says.

Anne kicks him in the ribs, pushing him back down onto the warm hard ground.

“Motherfucker,” she says.

The sudden stress makes his stomach lurch again. His body writhes in the soot, struggling to breathe, retching.

Anne kneels next to him, grabs his curly hair in one first, and shoves the barrel of her pistol into the soft flesh under his chin. The sky darkens as the winds shift.

“We were attacked,” she hisses close to his ear. “We were attacked and you weren’t with us. We had to carry you out of there. We had to carry you. You let us down, Ethan.”

“Don’t you do it, Anne,” Paul says, his deep voice angry and commanding.

Ethan regains control of his stomach and breathing and glares up at Anne.

“Yes, do it,” he says.

Anne recoils in surprise.

“Are you trying to die? Is that it?”

“I don’t care anymore.”

“You want me to do it because you can’t do it yourself. You’re a coward. I could do worse. I could leave you here for them.”

He hesitates before answering, struck by the realization that she is right. He has no hope of finding his family and without his family he has no hope at all. But he does not know how to die.