“Good tactic,” said Ledger, nodding approval.
“It worked,” said Barney. “But times got hard, you know? Winter’s a bitch and farming’s not the easiest thing to do when you have to protect a couple thousand acres from wandering eaters. We ran through the supplies the raiders found in houses and stores and the like. Had some damn lean times, but then the first crops came up last spring and we were good to go.”
“But…?” asked Ledger, letting it hang.
“But then people started getting sick,” said Millie, Barney’s wife. “All sorts of stuff. Infections from cuts. Bacteria in the water. And then the flu came around and we lost half the town in four weeks.”
“Jesus,” murmured Tom.
“Got worse,” said Barney. “After the flu we got hit with all sorts of stuff. Tuberculosis, syphilis, mumps, you name it. None of us knew how to manufacture the drugs.”
Millie shook her head slowly. “We survived the end of the world, we survived the eaters, we fought off raiding parties, we got through dust storms, and we survived two awful winters and then diseases that weren’t even much of a thing before the End came back and wiped us out. Barney and me got out with ten others, including little Polly here.” He gave the little girl’s hair a gentle caress. “But now it’s just the three of us. We heard about Dr Pisani and we came out here. You know… hoping.”
It was a sad story but a familiar one, and sadder for all that. Ledger felt old and used up hearing it.
“What exactly have you heard?” asked Tom.
The next few people in line behind the old couple turned and were listening to the conversation.
“Well,” said Barney, “it’s a cure, isn’t it?”
Everyone nodded.
“I heard that it prevents you from turning even if you get bit,” said a Latino man wearing a Phoenix Suns ball cap.
“No,” said Millie, “it’s supposed to cure you even if you already have it.”
As she said this, she pushed the little girl behind her. It was a reflexive action. Protective. Ledger caught Tom’s eye and he saw that the young man understood. There was both understanding and heartbreak in his eyes. Although there was no obvious wound, both men knew that the girl was probably infected. A hidden bite or something else. Eating an animal that had been bitten by a zombie would do it, as would getting infected blood in an open wound or in a mucus membrane like the eyes, nose or mouth. The girl didn’t look sick, but that did not mean much. Some people got ill right away and lingered for weeks; others sickened and died overnight, and a few could go for quite a while before symptoms showed.
“Does that mean they can cure as well as prevent?” asked Tom.
“That’s what I heard,” said Barney, nodding firmly.
The Latino man’s companion, a short Asian woman, nodded, “Dr Pisani is a saint. I heard she was a famous doctor who worked with all kinds of diseases.”
“’She’?” asked Ledger. “I thought it was Al Pisani.”
“Allie,” explained Millie. “Allison. Women can be scientists, too.”
“As I know very well,” agreed Ledger. “I knew a lot of top flight women researchers, clinicians and practitioners.”
The Latino man studied him. “Who’d you lose?” he asked. “On Dia De Muertos.”
The Day of the Dead. It was one of a hundred different nicknames Ledger had heard for the end of the world. Tom’s little colony called it ‘First Night’. It was all the same thing. And though it took longer than a single night or day, it came out to the same thing in the end. The world they had all known had stopped. Just stopped. Those parts of it that had tumbled past the big point of impact were fragments. They were the things people clutched at to keep some sense of order, some aspects of things remembered, a comfortable lie of normalcy.
The truth was that the world continued to dwindle. If it got to the point where they dipped below five thousand people clustered in one area, then the gene pool would start to get pretty shallow and eventually would evaporate.
Ledger looked at the man and said, “I lost everyone.”
They all stood and looked at each other. They all nodded. No one commented.
At the head of the line the guard yelled, “Next!”
And the line moved forward one full step.
—14—
Top and Bunny
The men drove the van back to the compound, approaching from another side of the mountain where a village of red, white, and blue tents had been set up in front of another steel, hydraulic door like the one they’d been observing. The camp was big and contained several large circus-sized tents. The camp bustled with activity, and Bunny noted the red tents seemed much more heavily guarded than the others. The driver stopped and waited for the steel door to open before pulling inside. As the van door opened revealing a cavernous space, Top and Bunny took in their surroundings, seeing several barred holding cells labeled red, white, and blue nearby amidst several troop trucks, vans, and a strong smell of gunpowder and chemicals, like a hospital or lab.
“Red, white, and blue,” Top said, nodding to Bunny, but neither of them had any idea what it meant. Then they were being dragged along a corridor and shoved into a small white-walled room with two chairs facing a table.
“Sit!” someone demanded, then the door slammed behind them, leaving them alone.
“Jesus Christ, what is this place?” Bunny wondered.
“I don’t know, but we’re in it deep now,” Top replied.
“They took our weapons,” Bunny said. “We could have taken them out.”
“They had us dead to rights. One or both of us might be dead.”
Bunny sighed. Top was right but he still wished they’d put up more of a fight. “What do we do now?”
“Wait,” Top said simply as he stumbled over and slid into a chair. After looking around the room — standard interrogation plainness — it smelled clean, almost sterile, and the walls, table, and chairs shined like they’d been scrubbed regularly. Bunny went over and took the chair next to him, facing the table.
They didn’t wait long. Within a couple minutes, the door opened and a man in black entered, his slacks and black button down shirt creased, clean, like a dress uniform. He wore no tie but had on a leather jacket over the shirt and combat boots. He stared across the table at them, with the leader of the men who’d captured them standing at attention beside him as the door shut again.
Leather Coat nodded. “You don’t belong here.” His voice was sharp, baritone, with the firmness of one used to be in command. Was this their leader? The General perhaps?
“Where’s here?” Bunny asked.
“Cowboys out wandering about,” Leather Coat asked. “Not very smart given the state of the world.”
“Just trying to get along,” said Top. “Going day to day, that’s all.”
“Sneaking around and spying is ‘getting along’?”
The older man who’d led their captors stiffened and started forward, but Leather Coat stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Leave it, Diamond.”
The older man, Diamond, sighed, nodded, then stepped back to attention in his previous spot, watching them like a hawk.
“You got pretty much one chance here, fellows,” Leather Coat said. “Tell me who you are, where you got such fine weapons and ammo, and what you’re doing poking around our perimeter, and we might spare your lives.” He turned and winked at Diamond, who grinned as if they were exchanging a secret.