My foot hit a patch of spilled blood and went out from under me, sending me backward. A massive hand closed around my hair and jerked me upright again, sending a bolt of stinging pain through my scalp. The hand let go and I kept running, glancing to the side to see Jody and her human sniper tower pulling up level with me. His was the hand that had stopped me from falling. Eric wasn’t looking at me: His eyes were fixed on the path ahead, presumably so he could aim the massive sawed-off shotgun that he had braced against his chest. Jody had her legs around his neck, her ankles crossed at his sternum; she was twisted to face behind her, and her rifle spoke constantly, spitting bullets like curses into the chilly Southern air.
Someone screamed. Someone else swore. All of us kept running, kept shooting, kept doing whatever it took to get where we needed to be.
I didn’t see the next of us to die. She was at the rear of the pack, a slight little thing with brown hair in tight braids and camo pants that bulged with too many pockets. I’d seen her before, gracing the mastheads of various small feeder sites—the kind of places that followed other reporters to the news, rather than seeking it out for themselves. Buzzards instead of lions. But she had been smart, and she had been kind, and it wasn’t her fault that I didn’t know her name. I had learned it and forgotten it on the same day.
I would never forget the way she screamed. It was high and piercing and pained, and almost drowned out a moment later when the zombies increased the volume of their moans and fell upon her, greedy hands ripping into her body, greedy mouths going for her flesh. I hated that we couldn’t stop and save her that last agony, even as a small, brutal part of me delighted in the time she had just purchased for us. She’ll be a hero, I promised myself. When I tell this story, she’ll be a hero. I could spin her that way, make her a sacrifice rather than a statistic. It was the only thing I had left to offer her.
And it would only happen if I made it as far as the maintenance tunnels. Chase shouted commands from behind me, and I cleared the path ahead while Jody picked off anything that got too close, and the other out-of-town Irwins formed a bubble of moving safe space around him, keeping Chase as safe as we possibly could.
My ear cuff beeped. I ignored it and kept running. This wasn’t a good time for distractions. It beeped again, and again, until I realized that it wasn’t going to stop; it was either take the call or do the rest of this run with that noise in my ear, gradually wearing down my concentration. Neither option was good, but one was slightly less bearable than the other. I ticked my head hard to the side, opening the connection.
“I’m a bit busy at the moment, darlin’,” I said, making my brogue almost as broad as Karl—may he rest in peace, and not merely in pieces—had done earlier.
“You didn’t know that it would be me on the phone,” said Audrey.
“Only three people have this channel, and all of you can be a darlin’ to me under the right circumstances, my love,” I said. Another zombie shambled out of the trees up ahead. How many of the damn things were there? I pulled the trigger and it went down. I was starting to feel like I was in a pre-Rising video game, only there were no extra lives here, no save points or miracle recoveries. There was only the mud under my feet and the taste of cordite in my mouth, the ache in my wrists and the terror in my veins.
I was going to die out here. Somewhere between the shot that killed Karl and the girl whose name I didn’t know ceasing to scream, I’d accepted the fact that I was going to die out here. There wasn’t any other outcome that made sense. It was terrible. It was unforgivable. But it was the way things were going to be.
“I’m glad you called,” I said, trying not to pant, even as twigs crackled underfoot and the muscles in my thighs began to burn. Years of narrating my own flight through the wilderness was seeing me proud. I sounded almost normal. That was good. I didn’t want her to know how scared I was. “Have I told you recently how much I love you? Apart from those two times on the phone before?”
“Ash, don’t be stupid,” said Audrey. “Just… just climb a tree, all right? We’re watching you now. We’re all watching you. Convention-center security is on the way. They just need to clear the fences, and they’ll be able to give you the support you need.”
“Aw, should I wave for my mother, then? She’d be proud to see me like this, her little girl all covered in red Alabama mud. Every slaughter should happen here. No one can tell where the bleeding begins. Keep it nice and pleasant for the kiddies.” Another Irwin screamed, the sound cut off by three gunshots in quick succession. I tried not to grind my teeth. That was a waste of both bullets and mercy; yes, it showed kindness to the person who’d been bitten, but it showed nothing of the sort to the rest of us. We needed every bullet and every second we could buy, no matter how dearly they came.
“Ash, come on. Don’t be a hero. Come back to me.”
“I’m not trying to be a hero, love. I’m running as hard as I can. I just don’t know that it’s to be hard enough. I can’t climb a tree and leave the rest of these fine folk to die. You wouldn’t love me if I did.” My words were getting shaky. Behind me, Chase barked a command to veer left, and so I veered, narrowly avoiding a group of zombies that had shambled out from behind another stand of trees. We’d been running forever. We hadn’t been running nearly as long as we needed to. We still weren’t safe, and we might never be safe again. “I do love you. I’d have married you one day, you can be sure of that. I’m not such a fool as to let a girl like you slip through my fingers. I’d have shown you Ireland. It’s so green there, you’d think the rest of the world was just imitating the color.”
“Ash. Stop. Don’t talk like that.”
“I have to go now, love. Need to focus on the run. You might not want to watch this next bit.”
“Ash—”
“I love you,” I said, and cut the connection, and kept running. I couldn’t stop Audrey from watching the feeds that were coming in from our personal cameras and from the hovering drones. She was a big girl. She could make that choice for herself. But I could keep her from hearing me die. My screams would be picked up by the cameras. It wouldn’t be the same as being on the phone when it happened.
“Left!” shouted Chase. “Left, left!”
We all veered left, and there, ahead of us, was a small shedlike structure built into the side of a hill, surrounded by a tiny courtyard shape of fencing and chicken wire. There was room inside for all of us, if only just barely. Hope flooded through me. We might still be all right. If we could get that far, we might not take any more fatalities than we already had.
There were no zombies between us and the courtyard. We ran. There was a blood test on the door to the tunnels, but none on the courtyard itself, which had a solid fence; no zombies would be able to bleed or spit on us once we were inside, and we could go through the test and entry process at whatever pace we needed. I ran inside.
Chase didn’t.
“Chase?” I stopped and turned, moving far enough to the left to let the others start squeezing past me. Two more people had stopped—a tall, dark-skinned man in a white tank top, and a thick-waisted, golden-haired woman with names tattooed all around her arms, twisting like snakes. I didn’t know either of them by name. I was never going to forget their faces.
“You run like a rabbit, Ash,” said Chase. “You’re going to be amazing. Marry that girl of yours, okay? You deserve a little happiness.” Then he held up his left arm, showing me the long trench that had been gouged out of it. The blood was almost indistinguishable from the mud that covered us all. Only almost. “I’m signing off.”
“Me, too,” said the woman, and pulled the neck of her shirt aside, showing the hole in her shoulder. It looked like a through-and-through, clean and easy. My confusion must have shown on my face, because she grimaced and said, “It went through a dead man before it went through me. I’m already getting fuzzy around the edges.”
The man didn’t say anything. He just pulled up the left leg of his pants, showing me the to
oth marks on his calf.
Three more down. Added to the two we’d lost before we started running, and the two we’d lost during the run, and that was seven out of fourteen who hadn’t even reached the gate. The seven of us who were left weren’t guaranteed to check out clean. Infection was like that. Sometimes it was obvious—teeth against the skin, bullets against the bone—and sometimes it wasn’t.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. Then, because it was necessary, and because the zombies were still far enough back to give me the time to be courteous, I asked, “Do you need bullets?”
“We have them,” said the woman.
“We’ll handle it,” said Chase. “You did good. We got caught flat-footed, and that’s on me, but you did good, and half isn’t such a big loss, not under the circumstances. Now go do better. I know you can.”
“Chase…”
“Shut the gate, Aislinn.” His expression hardened. His pupils were beginning to dilate, but there was still intelligence behind them, and fierce anger. “Shut the gate, get your people the fuck out of here, and find out what happened. I know you can.”
“I will,” I said, and closed the gate on the three of them. Then I turned, and walked back to the others, and joined the line for the blood testing unit. Someone had done this to us.
Someone was going to pay.
Grace was beautiful in the candlelight, a perfect ivory sculpture of a girl, with hair the color of banked embers and skin like cream. She lay unmoving on her bed, hands folded over her breasts, eyes closed. Her red lashes only made the pallor of her cheeks more obvious; her freckles stood out like they had been drawn on by some careless child, bent only on destroying a priceless work of art. For that was what she was, at least to Li Jiang: a work of art, something unique and irreplaceable.
Li Jiang sat beside her lover’s bed, resisting the urge to snatch up Grace’s hand and warm it with her own. Their relationship was not a secret among the underworld where they dwelt, but it could still cause them problems when they moved among more respectable circles, and if there was any man who embodied respectability, it was Dr. Daniel Keene.
“What’s wrong with her?” she asked. “Why won’t she wake up?”
“Your associate has been poisoned,” said Dr. Keene. “The specific toxin is derived from the sap of a rare orchid that grows only in certain climates, and blooms once every twenty years. A single drop is said to be enough to kill the strongest of men. Miss Riley is a stalwart soul, but she is not that strong. I fear it will have already reached her heart, and there is nothing I can do.”
Li Jiang felt as if it were her heart that was in the process of being poisoned, and not her love’s. She forced her voice to remain steady. “For every toxin, there is a counter,” she said. “Nature does nothing without reason. How can I save her?”
Dr. Keene was silent for a moment. “It will be dangerous,” he said finally.
Li Jiang stood. “Danger is my only balm,” she said. “Tell me what to do, and I will do it. Anything. I will do anything, except allow my Grace to die.”
“There is another flower,” he began…
—From Forsake Me, Forgive Me, Don’t Forget Me, originally published in Wen the Hurly Burly’s Done, the blog of Audrey Liqiu Wen, April 15, 2040
Twelve
The convention center’s private security staff reached the maintenance tunnels about fifteen minutes after the seven of us made it inside. We could hear the officers coming from where we stood, just past the door. We had already stripped naked, every one of us, checking each other for bites or scratches before pouring bleach over our heads. There was plenty of bleach, at least: Chase had been right about that. Plenty of bleach, plenty of formalin, plenty of bullets. If we’d set up our party closer to the door, we might not have lost anyone at all.
The sound of gunfire announced the arrival of reinforcements. I closed my eyes, the taste of bleach and ashes lingering on my tongue. If they’d been shooting the whole time, there wouldn’t have been much left for our backup to dispose of. Nothing but the three doomed Irwins we’d left outside to guard our backs. They’d already been dead when I had closed the gate, even if they’d still been up and alert and talking.
I hoped the zombies hadn’t been able to make it this far. I hoped Chase and the others had had a moment—just a moment, because sometimes a moment was everything in the world—to call their loved ones and say they were sorry, that they’d always known it would end like this, but that they’d been hoping it wouldn’t end quite so soon. There were always things left unsaid, undone, and I wanted, desperately, for them to have had the time to say at least a few of them.
But they probably hadn’t. They’d been Irwins, and every Irwin knew the score. More importantly, every Irwin feared letting their loved ones see them turn. It was why so many of us chose to work solo, or for blog teams that didn’t include anyone we really cared about. And then there was me, on a team that included my girlfriend and my husband, both of whom were going to be climbing the walls by now. Sometimes I suspected I wasn’t a very nice person.
The door banged open and four people in full riot gear stepped inside. They were holding assault rifles, and those rifles were aimed at us, switching targets with swift efficiency so that even though we technically outnumbered them, there was no chance we’d be able to rush the door before they got multiple shots off. Four more people followed them through, and then we didn’t outnumber anyone anymore.
Amber and John came in after the second wave, recognizable by the shapes of their helmets, which were standard-issue among the governor’s staff. They were a newer model with a built-in microphone—something Amber promptly put to good use. “If you have been directly exposed, please move to this side of the tunnel,” she said, her voice echoing effortlessly through the open space as she motioned to the right. “If you have not been directly exposed, please move to the opposite side. If you are not sure what I mean by ‘directly exposed,’ please treat that as exposure, as I have seen your credentials, and there’s no way any of you don’t know that.”
Nervous laughter followed from most of the Irwins. Five of us moved to the left. Two of us—Jody and her human sniper tower—moved to the right. I shot them a stricken look. Jody shrugged apologetically, spreading her hands in a “what can you do” gesture.
There were plenty of things she could have done, starting with telling lies. We’d all passed blood tests to get this far, and she wasn’t infected—or she hadn’t been. She clearly knew something I didn’t. She could have touched her clothing since then. She’d definitely touched her face and hair, even if she didn’t realize it. There was no amount of training in the world that could kill that hardwired primate instinct. If there had been any blood splatter on her hands or clothing, anything the bleach had missed, she could have tested clean and doomed herself as soon as we got inside.
“Ash? You in here?”
Amber’s question caught me by surprise. “Here, Amber,” I said, raising a hand and waving it for her attention. “A mite naked at the moment, but it’s naught you haven’t seen before, I’d assume.”
“I worked for my aunt,” she said, a hint of amusement coming through her amplified voice. “The human body holds no mysteries for me, even though I sometimes wish it did. Audrey told me to tell you that if you’re dead, she’s going to murder you.”
“Understood,” I said. One of the officers walked over to me with a blood testing unit. The reason for their number was now clear: There was at least one officer for each remaining Irwin, with a few extra to keep us in their sights. That would allow us all to check out at the same time, and make an exit easier. “Don’t suppose you brought bathrobes or something? My clothes are drenched in mud and bleach, and a bit of vomit, too.”
“Sorry about that,” said the Irwin who’d tossed her cookies—and her share of the barbeque—on the pile of our clothing when the shock hit her.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” I said, and jammed my hand into the blood testing unit.
It was a top-of-the-line piece of equipment, designed to get the most intimate and accurate reading possible. Unlike the standard doorway and elevator tests, which only sampled from the base of the thumb, this machine took rolling samples from across the surface of the entire palm, grabbing them from different depths, in case the infection was present and not yet endemic to the system. It only raised the projected accuracy of the test from 99.2% to 99.9%, but that 0.7% increase was worth hundreds of dollars per unit, and millions of dollars in annual revenue. There would never be a test with 100% accuracy. The human body was too complex of a machine, and its changes happened too quickly for any handheld unit to measure.
The needles bit into my palm. I grimaced. For every prick I felt there were another five I didn’t, hairline samplers slipping between the cracks in my skin and taking what they wanted from my cells. The whole unit could have been painless, and I’d heard rumors that some units for the ultrarich actually were. Supposedly some of them were like acupuncture, making the body feel better, soothing away aches and pains and oh, hey, confirming that the person being tested wasn’t a zombie at the same time.
There were no lights on the testing unit. I blinked at it for a moment, bewildered, before lifting my eyes to the mirror-fronted helmet of the officer in front of me. I couldn’t tell whether they were male or female, and it didn’t matter: They were an impassive representative of the law. If I failed this test, I was never going to take another one.
“Sir, would you like to step outside?” The gender was wrong, but for a single terrible second, I thought the question had come from my guard. It hadn’t: It had come from the guard next to me, who was looking at a sad-eyed Irwin who’d confessed, during the barbeque, that he had traveled all the way from Calgary to be at the convention. He’d seemed so happy then, so vital and alive. Now he just looked tired, like something was sapping his life away one drop at a time, leaving an empty shell behind. That wasn’t far from the truth.