Cruel World (33 page)

“Apologies, but I’m going to finish my lunch if you folks don’t mind,” he said, lowering himself into a chair.

Quinn gazed around the mostly barren tent to the raindrops pelting the dry ground outside sending up puffs of dust. He caught Alice’s eye, and she stared at him, holding her hands out, palms up.
What’s going on?
He shrugged and turned to Wexler who was finishing his protein bar.

“Sir, can you tell us what’s happening here?”

Wexler crushed the wrapper and flung it into a plastic bin beside the table. He looked at them all before sighing.

“Not exactly what you expected after traveling all this way, I’m sure.”

“Fucking A,” Alice said, placing her hands on her hips. Wexler appraised her and smiled before rubbing the close-cropped hair on his head.

“When the disease titled A4N9 became labeled as a pandemic, the United States government began setting up quarantine zones as well as safe havens across the country. This one was completed first as a centralized location.” He paused and looked at them all. “It was also the
only
one completed.”

“What?” Quinn said.

“The disease moved too fast for the other havens to be finished. The kill rate was unbelievable. Just when we thought the worst had passed, another wave of sickness would roll over. Millions upon millions of infected dying in their homes, the streets, their cars, everywhere. And then we began to see
them.
” Wexler scratched the stubble on his jaw and gazed down at the floor.

“You mean the stilts,” Quinn said.

“Stilts? Yeah, that’s a good name for them. We never really had an official title to call them, never received any protocol.” He laughed, but it held no humor. “Never received a lot of things.”

“That’s where all the shells came from outside, isn’t it?” Quinn said, ice water pooling in the pit of his stomach. “You were shooting at them, weren’t you?”

Wexler nodded without looking up. “The last strings of refugees were coming in five days ago. The quarantines broke down as soon as they were established. Everyone was sick. Those who weren’t were immune, simple as that. We didn’t realize what was coming, we had zero intel. And then they were just there, all around us.” Wexler fumbled in his pocket and drew out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit the smoke and drew hard on it, expelling a white plume into the air as the rain drummed harder on the tent. “We took hundreds of them down, but they kept coming until dark and then they just vanished, pulled away their dead. I saw a few eating their own, but the worst thing was the people coming in were caught in the crossfire. Some were dragged off, but a lot got blown to pieces during all the fighting.” Wexler coughed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s when I had the most men under my command.”

“Lieutenant, where is everyone? Where’s the refugees and the rest of your troops?” Quinn asked in a low voice as lightning slit the sky’s belly. Wexler took another drag on his cigarette, the smoke turning his eyes a sick, milky green as he stared through it.

“They’re dead. We’re all that’s left.”

Chapter 26

Questions and Answers

“What do you mean you’re all that’s left?” Alice asked, her voice rising in pitch. “You’re all that’s left of your company?”

“We’re all that’s left of the United States Army, ma’am. When this shit went down, they had cases springing up in Russia, England, Germany, Australia, and Canada. Deployments went everywhere, but we were all given comm codes to reach the other havens. That’s how I know they were never finished. There were mass AWOL reports at first and then everyone was sick. The last haven I heard from was in northern Texas, and the Captain in charge there was delirious with fever. He said the things people were becoming were the future and there was no resisting them. Those that were immune were the damned and they’d be the ones to suffer the most.”

Quinn crossed his arms to keep them from shaking.
I wonder if we’re the damned?
“There’s got to be other posts out there. Someone must’ve survived,” he said.

“Listen bud, I manned the comms myself until most lines dropped off the grid. The last contact we had with the outside was three days ago. There’s been nothing but silence ever since.”

“Oh my God,” Alice said, and slowly sat in a chair. She pulled Ty into her lap, and Denver slumped to the ground near her feet.

“We suspected it was bad, but…” Quinn waved his hand at the rain-pelted dirt, his throat closing up.

“It’s global,” Wexler said, finishing his cigarette. He crushed it beneath the sole of his boot and stood. “The scientists had just started to scrape the surface of the virus when it all collapsed.” He surveyed them again. “Did you see anyone else alive out there?”

“Yes. They were mostly hostile,” Alice said, not looking up. “But there were a few.”

“We’ve had two small bands of renegades come through, both repelled easily, but then we had numbers and firepower. We burned through ammo during the fight with the tall bastards because we figured we’d have another transport come in within a day. None ever came.”

“So you three are it?” Alice asked. “You’re all that’s left?”

“We have two more. One is Sergeant Collincz. She’s over attending to Doctor Holtz in the rear of the compound.”

“What about him?” Quinn asked, pulling out the ID card with Harold Roman’s picture on it. “Did you know him?” Wexler took the card from him and glanced up.

“Where did you get this?”

“I found it in the pack I was wearing earlier. Roman was hiding in a distributing warehouse on the east side of Fort Dodge. He’d been injured, looked like a stilt bit him. He died in the middle of the night,” Quinn said.

Wexler grimaced and turned the ID card over and over in his hands.

“He disappeared three nights ago while on watch. He was a lab technician from Minnesota, showed up right when we were first setting camp. We had to recruit him to help watch the walls after everyone died. I was sure he’d been taken.”

“He was also carrying this,” Quinn said, opening the paper with the medical terminology on it. Wexler read through it and after a moment, shook his head, handing it back.

“Doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.”

“I can’t understand it either, but that’s my father’s signature on the very bottom.”

Wexler took out the pack of cigarettes again, pulling one free before rolling it between his fingers. “You could try showing it to Holtz, but don’t get your hopes up.”

“Why’s that?” Quinn asked.

“Because he’s lost touch with reality the last few days. He’s a military doctor and was working in a lab here on base when everyone started developing the fever and dropping dead. He tried everything that they sent him as far as vaccines and even made quite a few of his own, from what I understand, before his wife fell ill.” Wexler tucked the cigarette away for later. “When she died, he became unstable, didn’t sleep for days and started babbling nonsense to anyone that came within earshot. He’s been asleep for over twenty-four hours, and we’ve been taking turns checking on him.”

“I’d like to see him,” Quinn said.

“Me too,” Alice said, coming to her feet.

Wexler gazed at them and then out at the rain before standing to grab several ponchos off the floor.

“You’re going to need these. It’s a bit of a walk.”

~

They trudged through the curtains of rain as the wind tried to tug the plastic ponchos from their bodies. Thomas gave Wexler a short signal from the wall before resuming his vigil of the surrounding land. They made their way down the first row of tents, the openings flapping in the wind like beckoning hands. Denver eyed each one warily as they passed as if he expected something to rise from inside.

Wexler lead at a brisk pace, not looking around, head down, hands gripping his weapon. The land slowly sloped away, gradually at first and then more quickly. An access road, packed solid by dozens of tires, ran parallel to the north wall, disappearing from their view as it made a sharp turn and dropped away. The rain fell harder until they could only see a dozen strides ahead, the water undulating like a living thing. Lightning flashed again, and Quinn made out a low, dark building a hundred yards away, its features hidden by the storm. Beyond that was something he couldn’t quite understand, his mind fumbling with the information relayed in the brief blast of light. They hurried toward the building. It was only when they were close enough to see the plastic windows set in its sides and the light glowing within that he realized what lay beyond the building itself.

The land completely dropped away into nothing fifty paces past the shelter.

He had the impression of an unfathomable hole without a bottom and then the wind shifted, obscuring everything into a rain-washed haze.

“Inside!” Wexler said, holding the door open for them. Ty and Denver went in first, Alice following. Halfway through the entry, she slipped on the slick partition, her arms flying out to steady herself. Quinn stepped forward, knowing he couldn’t catch her, but then Wexler’s arm was there, wrapping around her mid-back and holding her close. She glanced up at him, her eyes wide and he smiled.

“Okay?” he asked. She nodded and regained her footing before going inside. Quinn looked down at the ground as he passed the soldier. Wexler held the door for him saying, “Careful, it’s slippery.”

“I got it,” Quinn said, stepping inside the building.

The structure was steel-framed construction with heavy poles secured in the earth, cement surrounding their bases. The shell was a tough canvas, its sides dotted with plastic widows beaded with rain. Medical equipment was everywhere. There were five cots, all missing their bedding, against one wall while the very front of the building was dedicated to computers and slim machines attached to them with snaking cables. A plastic curtain hung in the center of the space and a light shone behind it. A dark figure, only a smudged outline that moved toward them, drew a break in the curtain aside.

The soldier was a woman, mid-thirties with a round, pretty face framed by blond hair that she wore in a tight ponytail. She was shorter than Alice and heavier with a suggestion of muscularity beneath her uniform. Her eyes widened as she spotted them standing behind Wexler. Her gaze slid to each of their faces, her mouth partially open.

“They came in a little while ago,” Wexler said. “From Maine.”

“You’re kidding,” Collincz said, looking them over. “My God, that’s unbelievable.”

“They’ve come to speak with Holtz.”

“About what?”

Quinn stepped forward, holding out his paper. “Harold Roman had this in his pack when we found him. He’s dead,” Quinn said when Collincz’s eyes snapped up at the man’s name. She gave a quick nod and dropped her gaze to the text on the page. “That’s my father’s signature on the bottom.”

“Doctor Alex Gregory?”

There was something about the name that tolled a bell in his mind again, something about the way Collincz said it.

“No, James Kelly.”

“
The
James Kelly?” Collincz asked.

“If you’re referring to the movie star, then yes.” Both soldiers ran their gazes over his face before passing a look between them.

“I don’t understand any of this, but I’m guessing Holtz will,” Collincz finally said. “Come with me; we’ll see if he’s still awake.”

She led them back through the plastic sheet to the rear of the building, which had so much lab equipment they might as well have walked into a government research facility. There were glass containment vestibules with protective rubber gloves hanging from their sides, vials upon vials stacked in centrifuges, beakers, microscopes, and powerful overhead lights that were all darkened. An electric lantern on a nearby table threw bleached light against everything in the room. In the furthest corner was a simple cot covered with black woolen blankets. A tall man with a shock of white hair and a few days’ growth of matching stubble on his long face lay beneath the covers. His eyes were open, and he stared at the ceiling that the rain continued to hammer against. Beside his bed was a simple steel tray holding a paper, pen, and a worn leather wallet. Collincz brought them to the man’s bedside and leaned into his line of sight.

“Doctor Holtz? There’s some people here to see you.” Holtz’s glazed stare never wavered. “Doctor? Could you maybe talk with them for a bit?” When the man didn’t so much as blink, Collincz held the sheet of paper with the signatures on it before his eyes. “Does any of this make sense to you, sir?” Holtz looked through the paper, a drop of saliva gathering at the corner of his mouth. Collincz held the paper steady for another few seconds and then stood back from the prone man.

“I’m sorry,” she said, handing the sheet back to Quinn. “He was completely comatose for over a day, and when he woke up, he took a few sips of water and chicken broth before becoming catatonic. I have no clue as to whether or not he’ll snap out of it. He could be like this for another hour, or…” She let her sentence trail off as another bolt of lightning ripped through the sky.

“I’m hungry,” Ty said in a low voice.

Collincz smiled. “I bet you are. How would you like a bowl of soup to warm you up and some dry blankets to cuddle into?”

Ty nodded, his face turned toward her voice. “That would be great!”

“Good. And what does your dog like to eat?”

“He’ll have soup too.”

“Ty,” Alice said, frowning. The two soldiers laughed, and Ty grinned slyly.

“How about some lunchmeat?” Wexler said. “We have some that’s going to go bad in a day or two.”

As the soldiers busied themselves preparing a meal and places to sit, Quinn moved to Holtz’s cot and looked down at the old man. His eyes were brown and bloodshot with layers of wrinkles surrounding their edges. His skin was like papyrus: jaundiced and so thin it looked as if it would tear at the slightest touch. Quinn leaned over him, feeling Holtz’s gentle breaths on his face.

The doctor’s eyes met his own for a split second before unfocusing again.

“Quinn?”

Alice’s voice so close made him jerk.

“Yeah.”

“What were you doing?”

“Seeing if there’s anything worthwhile here,” he said, moving past her. “C’mon, let’s eat.”

~

The rain continued through the afternoon, the sky hanging low and heavy, split only by the occasional streak of lightning. They ate cold sandwiches and hot tomato soup followed by a chocolate protein bar identical to the one Wexler had consumed earlier.

“Eat as many as you’d like. And don’t worry,” he told them as he tossed the bars across the small folding table. “We’ve got plenty of them.”

Quinn and Alice took turns relating their journey with the intermittent comment from Ty to fill in the small things they missed. When they were finished, Wexler and Collincz cleared the table and set up three more cots in the center of the rear room.

“You can stay as long as you like,” Wexler said, opening his cigarette pack again. “We’ve got enough rations available for over a year, and as long as it keeps raining like this, we’ll have water too.” He lit the smoke and took a long drag before motioning to Collincz. “Sergeant Collincz has been staying here for the last few days caring for Doctor Holtz. She’ll get you anything you need. The toilet’s in the front corner, shower on the opposite side, though there’s no hot water.”

“Where are you going?” Ty asked.

“I gotta go keep a lookout up front, bud,” Wexler said, patting him gently on the back. He shot a look at Alice and smiled, his handsome features becoming more so. “But I’ll be around.”

Quinn watched Alice return his smile with her own, heat flaring in her alabaster skin. He pretended to see something of interest across the room and moved there, toying with the edge of a rumpled plastic tarp until Wexler said his goodbyes and vanished into the rain-soaked day. He tugged harder on the corner of the tarp, and it dropped to the floor, revealing a decaying stilt’s arm lying on a dissection tray.

Quinn stepped back, covering his nose as the smell wafted from the rotting flesh. The arm was folded at the elbow and wrist, its skin flayed away in precise lines and pinned back by aluminum clamps revealing the musculature and white bone beneath.