“I can contact you with that?” Trout asked.
“Sure. ” Goat explained how the device worked. “You can reach me on Skype. The sat phone will give you audio but no video, so we can at least talk. Use it to let me know when you’re going to upload a video file. Get one of my small digital cameras. Shoot everything. The zombies, the soldiers. Dead people in the streets, kids hiding in the school. Anything that will make news. Hell … it’s all news. ”
“Good,” said Trout. “That’s exactly what we need. We have to get the news out. ”
Goat looked out the window, nodding toward the rainswept fields. “Bordentown’s about four miles that way. ” He glanced at his heavy satchel with the cameras and laptop. It was going to be a bastard of a slog through the mud, but he merely sighed. Then he turned back to Trout. “Tell me something, Billy. If you were in charge of the military for this shit … what would you do? Would you like, I dunno—nuke the whole place?”
Trout gave him a cynical laugh. “No. But I guess I’d build a big freaking wall around Stebbins. But, no … I wouldn’t nuke the whole frigging place, and I don’t think they will, either. ”
“That’s good—”
“They’ll probably drop a couple fuel-air bombs,” Trout continued. “Incinerate the whole place. Less risk, more efficient. ”
Goat stared at him. “Jesus Christ, Billy … you’re building a case for the military to kill every man, woman, and child in town. In the town you are about to return to. That’s insane. ”
“What Volker did was insane,” said Trout. “What the CIA did in allowing Lucifer 113 into the country was insane. Burning this place down to save the entire country, maybe the whole world? It’s harsh, but it’s practical. No, don’t look at me like that, I’m not saying they should, I think they will. ”
“Oh, man…” Goat held out his hand. “Take care of yourself, Billy. ”
“You, too, kid. See you on the other side. ”
Goat shook his head as he got out. He stood in the wind, rainwater running in lines down his face as the Explorer pulled back onto the road. Then he set his shoulders against the cold and began walking as fast as the storm and mud would permit.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
MAIN STREET
Dez shrieked as the cold hands pulled her backward, then she stepped back harder than the pull, jammed one foot flat on the ground and used the leverage to spin her body as hard as she could. As she turned, she whipped the shotgun stock at head level, smashing the hardwood into the cheekbone of a tall man in mechanic’s coveralls, shattering the bones in his face and sending shock waves up Dez’s arms.
The man staggered back and for a horrible second Dez thought that she had just hit an infected survivor, but then he caught his balance and turned back to face her. One eye was half-closed, the other stared at her from a red pit from which all of the flesh had been torn away. The rest of his face hung in tatters.
A crooked little laugh of relief escaped her throat. It was only one of the dead.
Or a ghoul.
More laughter bubbled out of her throat as she raised the gun and fired. She thought it was loaded with beanbag rounds but a load of double-ought buckshot blew off the top of the creature’s head. It crumpled awkwardly to the wet ground.
“Yeah, fucking A,” she cried aloud. “Booyah! Kill ’em all, motherfucker!”
Dez stood over the fallen ghoul, feet wide and knees braced, chest heaving, the shotgun clutched so hard that her knuckles were white as bones; she could feel the fastenings that held her sanity in place popping one by one. Part of her even wanted to go crazy. Running batshit nuts through the street, shooting everything that moved until she fired all her guns dry, then running straight into a crowd of them. Kicking, punching, biting, going down dirty and mean and in style. A warrior’s death. Like a lion pulled down by jackals. It was every drill instructor’s dream—to die in combat, wading through a sea of your enemies’ bl
ood as they choked on yours.
She recognized the man. Fred Wortz. Corn farmer whose spread ran alongside the trailer park. As she watched, a piece of Fred’s skull fell away with a plop. It was a grotesque sight but Dez suddenly laughed out loud, and the laugh rose and rose until it was a piercing shriek like a gull’s cry and then the laugh disintegrated into a sob that almost brought her to her knees.
Stop it! Screamed her inner voice. Stopstopstopstopstop …
The sobs fractured and fell apart into a choking cough. No more laughter boiled out of her.
“Fuck you!” she yelled at the rain and the storm and all the cold things that moved within it. “Fuck you!”
The words were so loud they burned her throat, but the storm swallowed them whole, eating each echo before it could roll back to her.
It hurt her that this was Fred. She’d had beers with him, sitting in lawn chairs outside of her trailer. Talking football and Monday-morning quarterbacking the war in Afghanistan. It was so wrong that she had simply killed him. Even though she knew that he was already dead. How could that matter on a day like this? What mattered was that this was a guy she knew. A drinking buddy. A friend. And now he was gone. Just as Trooper Saunders was gone. And Chief Goss, and Sheldon Higdon, and Doc Hartnup … and all the others. Everyone she knew was dying. Everyone she knew was leaving her. Everyone.
Her stomach bubbled and Dez turned away and vomited into the mud.
Then she heard something in the storm, behind the waving sheets of rain.