H10N1 (7 page)

At least all the zigzagging kept his mind off the Doc. He’d checked his rearview mirror a hundred times to make sure she wasn’t taking a detour into the city, but she was still right behind him.

His attention was drawn to the cars along the highway. In the cities, the cars had mostly been abandoned, but out here on the open road, it looked like a parade of carnage. One car had been rear-ended by another. Both drivers were slumped over their steering wheels, but the passenger door was open on the back car. Half a mile farther, Rick spotted a dead woman, curled up in a fetal position, on the side of the road. She’d survived the crash, but not the flu.

Back in a field, he spotted a small campsite with three bodies decaying in the hot sun. A family? Another car held five passengers. In the middle of the back seat, Rick glimpsed a guy’s head tipped way back onto the headrest, his mouth wide open. The dead woman propping him up had her cheek pressed against her window. The glass was smeared with blobs of crud that she must have coughed out. In this heat, would so much vile pressure build up inside that the windows would eventually blow?

A pickup lay on its side where it had careened off the road and down an embankment. It looked like the driver had tried to push open his door, but it must have fallen back down, crushing his hand. All four fingers were stuck in the door.

How the hell was all this going to get cleaned up? Who was going to draw the short straw on hauling away the disgusting detritus?

Rick sped up. Once he got past Centreville, the barrier along the middle of the interstate gave way to wide medians of grass and trees. He relaxed, rotated his stiff shoulders, and checked his rearview again. The brilliant doctor was still following. He had to ditch her soon.

She almost got him killed back there. Hell, she nearly shot him herself! He couldn’t afford to waste any more time. And he certainly wasn’t going to get out of the van again—for any reason.

Another annoyance niggled at his brain. What was the Doc doing snooping at his supplies? She thought she was real clever, figuring him out. Well, he’d done all the helping he intended. From here on, she was on her own.

He spotted a traffic snag ahead. Slowing down, he aimed for the median and crossed to the other side. The Doc’s SUV bounced across, fish-tailing in the mud he intentionally drove through. Rick chuckled, then zoomed onto the westbound lanes, passing a sign for the Manassas battlefield.

Ahead, he saw the first humps of the Appalachian foothills, and wide-open highway. Thank God. He needed to make up for lost time.

Raising a hand to give Miss Pain-in-the-Ass a wave goodbye, Rick glanced one last time in his rearview. Ho-ho! The Doc was stuck in the mud. He watched her wheels spin, throwing mud and grass high into the air. Perfect. She’d never see him turn off the interstate, never guess where he was headed.

He hoped she’d have to slog through the mud to find something to use for traction under those back tires. Taking his foot off the accelerator, Rick let the van slow as he kept an eye on her. Maybe he’d get to see her slip and fall on that fine ass of hers before he crested a hill.

She stopped spinning her tires, and that’s when he saw a man step out of the thin stand of trees in the median. Rick hit the brakes.

“Shit! Where’d he come from?” Rick rolled down his window to get a better look. The guy was heading straight for the Doc’s car.

He knew Sanchez had the Beretta.

“Shoot,” Rick muttered, waiting to see the quick flash, to hear the pop. If she was smart, she’d hit the guy three times, head, chest, gut.

The guy took two more steps. Rick gritted his teeth. “Shoot now, Sanchez.”

What the hell was she doing? The guy was almost to the car. Rick leaned out of the window and screamed, “Shoot, goddammit!”

His heart was beating so hard it felt like it was in his throat. The guy was standing right outside Sanchez’ window now. Hadn’t she just been through this crap in D.C.? Or did she think she was going to talk her way out of this one?

Well, it was too late to decide the guy was dangerous. No doubt, he was aiming a gun at her head, and ordering her out of the car.

Rick jerked the wheel to the left to zip across the median, but some idiot in the highway department decided this was a good place for a concrete barrier. Rick had been too busy keeping tabs on Sanchez to notice. He threw the van into reverse.

Why didn’t she just plug the guy when she had a chance? What is it with women? Always giving people the benefit of the doubt. Falling for every trick in the book. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised to see her roll down the window to give the guy directions.

Rick glanced out his window. Sanchez was still in the car. Oh, what? Now she finally got it, and was refusing to cooperate? Like the guy wouldn’t just blow a hole in her head, yank her dead body out of the car, and drive off? What was she thinking?

Rick pulled forward in an awkward three-point turn, since the same idiot in the highway department had added a guardrail at the right shoulder.

Shit! He should have cut harder on the reverse. Now the van was sideways on the highway, and he had very little room to maneuver. His sweaty hands slipped on the steering wheel as he wrenched it to the left.

He hadn’t heard a gun fire yet. That was good. He shot another quick glance at the Doc.

Okay, she was out of the car. “Give him the keys and walk away,” Rick yelled.

But the Doc and the man seemed to be standing there talking. What, was she describing all the wonderful bonus items he was getting with his brand new car? Rations, water, jars of marinated mushrooms.

At last, she finally stepped away from the car. Rick threw the van into forward. All he wanted to do now was get down there and ram that car. After all he’d gone through to get that SUV, he’d be damned if he’d let that fat bastard drive away with it.

But Rick’s heart locked up. The guy was escorting Sanchez into the woods.

“No!” Rick yelled at the top of his lungs. How many more of them were there in the trees? Hell, there could be two, three—more? Jesus, were they hoping for a gang-bang before they cut her up into little pieces? Didn’t that asshole see Rick turning around?

He hit the accelerator, clipping the guardrail with his left front fender. The Doc disappeared into the trees as Rick barreled back down the highway.

It all played out in his head. He was heading for a Mexican standoff. Sure, he might get a few rounds off, maybe take out one of them, but if they all had guns, Rick didn’t stand a chance. He’d be gunned down, left to rot out here in the middle of nowhere. Then they’d rape the Doc, leave her battered carcass for the vultures, and take both the car and the van.

“Goddammit!” he screamed.

He scanned the stand of pines as he roared past. Nothing. The trees were too spindly for someone to hide behind. They couldn’t be perched up in the branches. What was going on?

At the end of the trees, Rick dove the van into the median, blasting the horn. Maybe he could scare them into thinking he had reinforcements with him. He caught a glimpse of Sanchez on her knees, with the guy standing right over her. Christ, she was going to take a bullet to the back of the head.

Skidding to a stop, Rick grabbed the M-16 and leaped out of the van. “Hold it right there!” he yelled.

Sanchez jumped up and sprinted toward him, her arms waving. What the hell? She didn’t shoot the guy when she had a chance, but she’d taken the time to put on a stupid surgical mask and gloves? And now she was blocking Rick so he couldn’t get a clean shot at the guy.

“Move!” he yelled at her, then stepped to the side and took aim at the fat—

Woman? Rick’s eyes jerked wide open. Hell, it was more like a girl. And her belly stuck out like she had a watermelon tucked under her jacket. The sweat on Rick’s back turned cold.

Sanchez jammed a gloved hand into his chest and pushed him back. “This is a contamination zone,” she barked. “Where’s your mask?”

His brain just locked up. What? He’d just risked his life for this woman and all she could do was boss him around? His heart was pumping adrenaline so fast he felt woozy.

“This is a danger zone,” he hissed back. “Where’s your goddamn gun?”

The Doc shot him the bug-eye before she whipped her Beretta out of the back of her pants—and pointed it at him again! Then she cocked her head to the side in one of those female tilts like she was just waiting for an answer.

Rick looked past her to the pregnant girl. Her dirty face had streaks from tears that had rolled down her cheeks; long, stringy hair seemed to be weighing down her frail body. And she definitely was scared to death. He caught snatches of a mumbled prayer. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…”

Just beyond her, someone lay in the weeds. Rick made a move in that direction, but Sanchez blocked him. She laid a hand on his chest again, but she didn’t push him this time.

“It’s her husband,” she said softly. “He’s been beaten.”

She inched her palm up until Rick locked eyes with her.

Her soothing, doctor-talk kicked in. “Why don’t you go back to the van and get your mask. And maybe grab a couple MREs?”

He peered over her shoulder again. “Are they sick?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Their lungs are clear. I’m still assessing.”

Rick’s legs wobbled as he shuffled back to the van. The adrenaline stopped rushing, the hackles on the back of his neck flattened. He tried not to think about how close he’d come to blasting that young girl right in the gut.

By the time Rick got back with the rations, the Doc was babbling with the strangers like they were one big, happy family. She introduced the couple as Lily and Bobby Ray. The boy didn’t look much older than the girl, maybe sixteen, seventeen. He wore an orange Allis Chalmers hat, with long sideburns halfway down his cheeks. One eye was swollen shut, and his mouth was caked with dried blood.

The Doc had decided they weren’t contagious, so now she was checking out the boy’s knee. She’d rolled up the pant leg of his overalls, and was poking at skin so swollen you couldn’t even see the kneecap.

“We come acrosst a crippled man, hobblin’ along the highway on crutches,” Bobby Ray was telling Sanchez. “We couldn’t very well pass him by.”

“Is that what he hit you with?” Rick asked. “His crutch?”

Bobby Ray’s eyes darted away. Guess so. Rick fought the urge to call him an idiot.

The Doc poked the kid’s knee again and he sucked in a painful gulp of air. Then he apologized for jerking!

He sounded like some coal miner from the hills. And his wife—probably his sister—nodded in agreement, her limp, brown hair swaying around her pregnant belly.

Lily Belle glossed over their stupidity by telling how they’d come from some podunk town in West Virginia called Gravel Springs. Some infected white trash from a neighboring town had come to Gravel Springs looking for a doctor. There was a Hatfields and McCoys shootout, so Bobby Ray and the missus lit out in his pickup.

The “crippled man” ended up taking all their supplies and the truck. When Bobby Ray pleaded with the man to leave enough food for pregnant Lily, the guy kneecapped the kid for good measure.

Rick thought about the Doc’s rant on barbarians. Why couldn’t the guy just take the truck and go? Why did he have to whip this wimpy kid’s ass?

Rick made a slow turn, scanning the area with his M-16. “When did this happen?”

“Two days ago,” Lily said. “We tried walking, but Bobby Ray was in so much pain.”

“So you just camped out here — until what?”

The Doc glared at him over her shoulder. “How’s the food coming?”

Yeah, yeah. He’d heard enough anyway. Using the hood of her car, Rick spread out the contents of the MREs. After he glugged some bottled water into the heating pouches, he tucked the vacuum packs of meatloaf underneath and let them warm.

Bobby Ray raised up on his elbows, and broke into a mini-sermon about how he and Lily had been praying for an answer to their predicament. “God provides for all his children.”

He stared at Rick with absolute conviction in his eyes.

“I think you need a new handbook,” Rick said. “The Good Samaritan routine didn’t work out too well for you.”

“Even Jesus had his moment of doubt and pain,” Bobby Ray said. Funny, the kid didn’t look like a Rolling Stones fan. “But you cain’t let your faith falter.”

Well, thank God, the Young Christian Coalition was still alive and well.

Sanchez had tortured the poor boy long enough—or she was tired of his bullshit, too—because she got to her feet to check out Miss Lily. She pressed her stethoscope to the girl’s belly. “The baby’s heart sounds strong. Have you felt movement recently?”

“Yes’m,” the girl said. She massaged her belly, like she was trying to wake the baby up. “He was kickin’ away when I woke up this mornin’.”

She told Sanchez her mother died in the “plague”. The local midwife took a bullet to the brain in the Gravel Springs massacre. “We heared they was a hospital in Warshington. Thought maybe I could birth my baby there.”

“Sorry to ruin your plans,” Rick said, “But the D.C. facility shut down a couple days ago.”

That little tidbit took a big bite out of Bobby Ray’s faith. And Lily’s mouth trembled as more tears streamed down her face. Sanchez gripped her stethoscope like she wanted to wrap it around Rick’s neck. Hey, what was the point in giving them false hope?

He turned back to the food, cut open the pouches, and slithered the tasty gray meat into the foil-lined boxes soldiers used for plates. When he handed a plate to Lily, she dropped to her knees to feed Bobby Ray. But before either of them took a bite, they gave thanks to God for the bountiful feast.

Sanchez propped the boy up, then took the rations and fed him, urging Lily to eat her own. After a couple more bites, Bobby Ray took the plate, and blessed the Doc before feeding himself.

When he finished, The Doc eased his head back down, took his empty tray and stood. The kid stared at Rick.

“You know, Mister, God works in mysterious ways,” Bobby Ray said. “After all, He sent the doctor—and you.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Rick snorted. “I wondered what all that whispering in my ear was this morning.”