“I always loved the zoo. It was my favorite place to go when I was a kid. I grew up in Glen Burnie. Every weekend, I used to beg my parents to take me. We went maybe four times a year. When I became an adult, though, I got one of those lifetime memberships and went every chance I got. At least once a month. And when my wife and I first started dating, I used to take her to the zoo, too. She loved it as much as I did. I proposed to her in front of the monkey exhibit. It was our place, you know? Every couple has a place. Ours was the Baltimore Zoo.”
None of us spoke. The only sounds were the constant cries of the seagulls and Tony’s lighter as he lit another cigarette…
“So,” Basil continued, “we’ve got a good life. I’m doing Web stuff for Northrop. My wife, Kelli, is working for Southwest Airlines at BWI. We’ve got a nice house in Glen Burnie, near where we both grew up. Everything’s fine. Then her period is late. She takes one of those home tests where you pee on the stick, and it says she’s pregnant. And then, along comes Hamelin’s fucking Revenge. You guys remember how it was, when it first started. It was happening elsewhere. Localized. New York City is a long drive up Ninety-five, right? It wouldn’t spread to here. But it did. The last time I saw Kelli was when I left for work. She was going to be late coming home that night. She had a doctor’s appointment after work—they were going to tell her if the pregnancy test was correct or not. I got home and made dinner for us. Even stopped off at the store and got a bottle of that sparkling cider, because if she was pregnant, I didn’t want her drinking wine. Lit some candles and then I waited. She called from the car—the cell phone connection was bad. She was on the inner loop of the beltway, stuck in traffic. There was some kind of accident with an ambulance. She wasn’t hurt, wasn’t even involved, but the highway was shut down and she couldn’t go anywhere. That was the last time I talked to her.”
“The inner loop,” Mitch whispered. “Wasn’t that where the—”
Sniffing, Basil nodded. His voice was choked with emotion. “Yeah. There was a zombie in the ambulance. It got free. Killed somebody. More zombies came out of the woods and onto the highway. You all saw the footage on WBAL. My wife was there.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said, and I was. Basil had been kind of a jerk in the short time I’d known him, but still—you don’t wish ill of someone when he’s telling you how his wife died.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “I kept looking for her on television. Kept looking for her car as the news chopper did flybys, but I didn’t know what had happened to her. Her cell phone wasn’t working. Kelli never came home. I waited all night but she never came home. I fell asleep around four in the morning. When I woke up, I thought she’d be there. She wasn’t. I tried calling in sick to work but by then all the phone lines were down. So, I decided to find Kelli myself. Figured I’d check the highway and if I didn’t have any luck there, then I’d check with the hospitals. Hopped in the car and made it to the highway before the National Guard turned me back. I got caught in the detour and ended up downtown. After that, I went to the zoo. You’ve got to understand—I couldn’t find her. Thought that maybe she was looking for me, too. So I went to the zoo and I waited. It was closed, but I hopped the fence and waited for her to show up. She never did. She’s out there somewhere still, along with our baby.”
“Basil,” Tony said. “I’m really sorry that happened to you and your wife, man. Seriously, I am. But that doesn’t explain why you’re afraid to go ashore. You need to pull your weight if you’re gonna be part of this group. I lost my whole fucking family. I had to smash my daughter’s head in with a goddamn shovel…”
His voice cracked. Basil looked at him with red-rimmed eyes.
“At least you know what happened to them. I don’t. I have no idea! Do you understand what that’s like? I hid in a restroom at the zoo. It was too late to leave—the zombies had already broken in. You can’t imagine it. I know, I know. All you guys hid out, too. All of you saw zombies. But you didn’t see anything like what I saw. The animals… the elephants and the zebras and the monkeys. They all turned. The rats got through the bars of their cages and attacked them and then they turned into zombies. They rotted inside their cages. And the lion, when it got loose…”
Runkle frowned. “There was a zombie lion on the loose?”
Basil nodded his head. “Yeah. Some gang members let it loose. I think they were looking for somebody. They had guns, and I didn’t have shit, so I hid from them. I heard one of them say they’d let the lion out of its cage by accident. And then it showed up and it was horrible. The way it smelled… the sounds it made. How it looked. While the lion was killing them, I managed to escape. I ran…”
He paused again, and asked for water. Turn gave him a sip from his bottle.
“Thanks,” Basil said. “As I was escaping the zoo, I saw a woman. She was dressed like a prostitute or something. Very skinny. Track marks on her arms. She was a zombie, but it looked like she’d just turned. You know? She still looked fresh. She had a baby with her. It was dead, too—and it was nursing.”
“That’s impossible,” Runkle said. “Are you saying these things are smarter than we thought?”
“I don’t know,” Basil admitted. “Probably not. But one of her nipples had been bitten or cut off and she held the baby to her breast and it… it nursed. Do you have any idea how bad that fucked with me? My wife and baby were missing, but these… fucking… things…”
He closed his eyes and shuddered.
“After that, I ran. Managed to get a pistol off one of the gang members. I was out of ammo by the time I reached the Inner Harbor. There were zombies all around by then—I guess the fires were flushing them out. But so many of them were children. So many…”
He stared at Tony, unflinching.
“If I go back out there and I see another dead child, I’ll kill myself. It’s that simple. I don’t want to die, but I know my limits. I can’t do it. Does that answer your question, Mr. Giovanni?”
“Yeah,” Tony said, placing an arm on Basil’s shoulder. “Yeah, man. You don’t need to say any more. It’s okay.”
“That’s bizarre,” Mitch said. “All the zombies I saw before boarding this ship, I didn’t see any of them displaying traits like that. Maternal instinct? Does that mean they can learn? Evolve?”
“If it does,” I said, “then we are truly fucked.”
“Like I said,” Basil whispered, “she was fresh. Maybe she still had some rudimentary instincts left in her.”
Chief Maxey cleared his throat. “So who replaces Basil on this mission?”
I raised my hand. “I’ll go.”
“You?” Hooper snorted. “I don’t want you watching my back.”
“That’s a shame,” I snarled. “You’ve got such a nice ass.”
“Motherfucker…”
“Knock it off, Hooper,” the chief warned. “Lamar, are you sure about this?”
I nodded. Mitch slapped me on the back. The others seemed okay with it.
“Okay,” Chief Maxey said. “Then let’s take inventory. Mr. Bollinger, how many weapons did you bring aboard?”
Mitch gave him a rundown of his guns and grenades, and how much ammunition he had left for each. In addition to those, Runkle, Tony, Hooper, and many of the others also had weapons. There was also Basil’s empty pistol, which Mitch said he had ammo for. We divvied up the firearms and agreed that Runkle should act as team leader.
And then we were ready.
“Okay,” Chief Maxey said. “Turn, you prepare the lifeboat. The rest of you arm yourselves. I’ll go relieve Chuck on the bridge and take us in.”