The Infection

The camp easily holds more than a hundred thousand people. At its core is Cashtown with its private houses and stores and public buildings and parks packed with rundown FEMA trailers. Beyond the core, the camp encompasses outlying farms, the fields filled with campers and vehicles, even a giant circus tent. And beyond that, entire forests leveled to make room for this teeming horde and its miles of camping tents and shanties. Massive clouds of dust hang over the land like a brown veil. The camp surges against mountainous walls of heaped sandbags, tractor trailers, vehicles, piled office furniture and box springs, all wrapped in miles of barbed wire and buttressed with wood guard towers. The air is filled with the white noise of thousands of people and vehicles, occasionally startled by the distant popcorn pop of gunfire. In the east, a small band of Infected makes a run at the wall through the haze and is cut down by snipers in the towers.

Just two weeks ago, this camp did not exist.

“There it is,” Wendy says, her chest heaving with emotion. “The FEMA camp.”

“I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or having a nightmare,” Ethan says.

The sight almost defies belief. It is beautiful. Beautiful and horrifying.

“It’s incredible,” Paul says, his voice loaded with awe.

Wendy glances at Sarge. “This is good for us, right?”

“Maybe,” says Sarge, running his hand over his stubble.

“I can smell it from here,” Ethan says.

“We’re Americans,” Todd says. “We’re all on the same side, right?”

“We can’t be sure of anything,” Sarge tells him.

Steve whistles. “I wish Ducky could have seen this.”

To the survivors, the camp represents the Time Before. If they drive into that place, they will rejoin the human race. They will be like astronauts returning home after years in space. But the world will not be the same. The Time Before is gone and anything resembling it is a mirage and possibly a trick. The truth is if they go down into the camp, they will surrender their liberty in return for protection, and they are worried about the cost. Right now they are being chased hard by the devil, but it is the devil they know.

Sarge sighs. “It’s a chance. Anybody got any better ideas where to go?”

Nobody does.

“Anne would know what to do,” Todd says.

“Anne ditched us, Kid,” Sarge says bitterly. “We waited around for two days and she didn’t come back. We barely made it out of there alive. She’s either dead or on the road. Either way, she already made her decision and has no say in ours.”

“Okay,” Todd says.

“So that’s it, then,” Paul says, nodding. “We’re going in.”

Wendy snorts. “We have no choice.”

♦

The Bradley cruises down the road past fields filled with the stumps of cut trees and burning piles of cleared brush. Scores of pale department store mannequins wearing designer fashions strike surreal poses across the smoky wasteland, their torsos tied to stakes and old street signs planted at regular intervals, some lying in the dirt among rags and scattered plastic limbs. A hundred yards from the road, several figures in bright yellow hazmat suits load bodies into the back of a municipal garbage truck, pausing in their work to stare at the armored fighting vehicle as it zooms past.

The camp looms close now, piled across the horizon and emitting waves of white noise and sewage smells and wood smoke. The vehicle roars past a concrete pillbox from which the barrel of a heavy machine gun protrudes, swiveling slowly to follow its progress. A man wearing a T-shirt and camouflage pants steps into the road and waves at them, motioning them to stop, but the rig keeps rolling, sending him sprawling into the ditch. Near the gates, more in hazmat suits are tossing body bags from the back of an olive green flatbed truck into a deep, smoking pit. They pause in their work, staring, as the Bradley comes to a halt in a cloud of dust and sits idling in the sun.

The man in the camo pants jogs up panting for air. He slaps his hand against the Bradley’s armor.

“Open up in there, goddammit,” he shouts.

After several moments, he adds, “If you think we’re going to let you into the camp without you telling us who you are, you’re crazy. So what’s it going to be?”

The single-piece hatch over the driver’s seat flips open and the gunner pops his head up, grinning. Moments later, the hatch on the turret opens and Sarge emerges wearing a scowl.

“We’re looking for Camp Defiance,” he says.

The man laughs. “You came to the right place. And you would be?”

“Sergeant Toby Wilson, Eighth Infantry. I’ve got one crew and four civilians inside. We were told it was safe here.”

“We’re still here, ain’t we?” The man turns his head and roars, “Open the gates! Got a military vehicle coming in!” He winks. “Welcome to FEMAville, Toby.”