Ground Zero Page 30

  A wave of nausea washed over him as he set Cade down, and he closed his eyes, sucking in a sharp breath and clenching his teeth. No, not now, he thought, shaking his head and bracing his hands against his knees. He bowed his head, breathing through his nose and trying to quell the sick feeling swimming in his gut. He let out a slow breath through his mouth as Gray spoke up quietly.

  “Brandt, you okay, man? You look a little…peaked,” he observed.

  Brandt opened his eyes to look down at him and discovered a deep frown on his face. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Since when have you been British?” he joked, turning to the task at hand as his nausea subsided. “I’m fine. Just tired is all. Get your scrawny ass up here so you can help me with Cade.”

  Gray scrambled onto the dumpster obediently, taking a moment to stand on its edge and study the parking lot around them. Brandt could almost read his mind: the lot was too cluttered; too many cars and boxes and other assorted detritus offered too many places for the infected to hide. Gray grimaced and turned his eyes onto Cade, and the two men lifted her with minimal infliction of pain and slowly lowered her to Remy’s waiting arms. Remy nearly dropped her as she grasped her, and it was only through Brandt’s quick intervention that neither of the women hit the pavement. Once they were all on the same side of the fence and the gate was secured once more, Remy looked to him expectantly.

  “Well, now what?”

  Brandt lifted his head and let his eyes travel up the rusty red metal fire escape staircase winding up the side of the building, all the way to the roof. He nodded to the building and scooped Cade into his arms once more. “Now we go inside.”

  * * *

  The interior of the Tabernacle was dark and, quite frankly, a little scary, but Gray sucked up the uneasy feeling the building gave him and eyed the floor far below them. The fire escape had disgorged them at the highest balcony in the place, and he swallowed hard as he squinted at the floor. He didn’t do well with heights, and he was very dramatically reminded of this as he stood, knees quaking in his jeans, back flat against the wall. Brandt passed Cade over to him before approaching the edge of the balcony and shining his flashlight down below, where folding tables and chairs lined the hardwood, littered with papers and assorted equipment. He seemed completely unperturbed by how high up they were. That made Gray more than a little jealous. He shifted his grip on Cade and swallowed hard, trying to steady his nerves and find his resolve.

  Brandt glanced at him then hurried along the backside of the balcony, ducking through a large, dark doorway. Gray swore softly, hesitating before carrying Cade to the door, Remy following close behind. Cade was becoming a dead weight again, and his arms were tiring after all the stress and strain he’d put them through all day. He wanted desperately to put her down and rest his arms, but it seemed he’d have to descend what looked like two flights of stairs before he could make that happen.

  Brandt was already at the bottom of the stairs when they finally reached the first floor. He shone his flashlight around their immediate vicinity, watching for dangers as he waited for them to join him. He looked up and gave Gray a wry smile as he thumped down the last few steps, hauling Cade along with him. “Sorry. I meant to take her off your hands before we came downstairs.”

  Gray shrugged nonchalantly as Brandt scooped the woman easily out of his arms. “No big deal. I could handle it,” he said, lying through his teeth. He followed the older man into the large, open area that made up most of the first floor, the same area lined with the tables and chairs he’d seen from above. Remy was right on his heels, oddly silent as she breezed into the room. Brandt carried Cade close to the performance stage and settled her into a folding chair, holding her shoulder to make sure she’d stay steady before he climbed onto the stage.

  “What is all this?” Gray asked, following Brandt to the stage. He motioned for Remy to stay with Cade before hoisting himself onto the platform, wincing as the ache in his arms radiated through his shoulders.

  “Radio, mostly,” Brandt said. He started fiddling with cords and cables, shoving his small flashlight between his teeth and following a cord down a set of steps and out the backstage door. Gray wondered at the wisdom of allowing him to go outside alone, but then the overhead lights flickered on, the brightness toned down to a soft yellow glow, and then Brandt was back, prodding at switches again.

  “Found the generator,” he announced as he flipped another switch on the radio. The lights on the device flickered on, and a quiet burst of static emitted from the speaker. Palpable excitement rippled through the group. Even Cade, who was starting to slowly come around now that she was sitting still, looked slightly more alert, though that wasn’t saying much; she sat up straighter for a moment before slumping back over. Gray dropped off the stage and went to her, kneeling beside her and gently pushing her jacket and blood-sodden shirt aside to examine her wound. He didn’t know much about emergency medicine, not like his brother had, but he’d seen Theo treat and talk about wounds enough that he felt confident enough to figure out what needed to be done.

  Brandt sat in the metal folding chair before the table and began twisting knobs, searching for someone who would answer and come to their aid. This was probably the most important moment they’d experienced since the virus made its appearance, and the air was heavy with that knowledge as their eyes followed Brandt’s every move. He twisted a few more dials, and Remy tentatively spoke up.

  “Have you found anything yet?” she asked.

  Brandt waved her off and grabbed a pair of headphones from the crate beside the table, jamming the plug into the appropriate port on the radio and slamming the headphones onto his head. He hunched over the radio, focusing on it and tuning the rest of them out. Gray sighed and shook his head, returning to his examination of Cade’s wound.

  “How does it feel?” he asked Cade. He grabbed the bottle of Gatorade he’d found at the aquarium, checked the seal to make sure it was unopened and still safe to drink, then cracked it open and handed it to her to sip on. He tugged at the medical bag Remy still wore, trying to get her to move closer to him. The tape holding her bandage on had come loose in their desperate dash for the relative safety of the Tabernacle, and the moderate scabbing and clotting that had started since she’d been shot had been repeatedly aggravated so that the wound kept bleeding repeatedly, soaking the bandage and her shirt where it still covered the wound. Everything was going to have to be cleaned, changed, and rebandaged, if only to help staunch the blood that still oozed from the wound even now.

  “It feels very painful,” she replied tiredly, taking a careful, shaky sip of the electrolyte drink he’d given her. He gently pulled the rest of the gauze and tape away from her wound, and Cade gripped the edge of the chair with her free hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “It’ll need stitches,” she added weakly as he wadded the bandages up and tossed them to the floor. “We’ve got to close the wound so nothing gets into it and gets it infected, if it hasn’t already.”

  “I hate that fucking word,” Gray muttered. He dug several large squares of gauze out of the bag and wiped at the blood trailing down her side again.

  “I said a lot of words,” Cade said, breathless with the exertion of talking. She paused to take a sip of her drink again. He took out more fresh gauze squares and pressed them firmly to the wound, prompting a low groan of pain to escape her throat. “Which one are you so full of hate for?”

  “Infected,” he answered. “It’s just so fucking…I don’t know. Ominous or whatever.”

  “Yeah, it’s taken on new meaning in the past year, hasn’t it?” Remy spoke up. She straddled another chair just behind him and watched him work on Cade’s side.

  “You’re telling me,” he muttered as thoughts of his older brother flashed through his mind. “Infected” was the last word he wanted to hear, especially after what Theo had been forced to do. Theo’s choice had been better than living like one of the infected, though, he reminded himself yet again. It
was the only comfort he could offer himself.

  Remy put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. His hands stilled, and he bowed his head, drawing in a shuddering breath as emotions welled up in his throat. Cade rested her hand loosely on top of Remy’s in solidarity, and he lifted his head enough to give both women a grateful look, even as he blinked back the tears threatening to spill out of his eyes. Gray would have to deal with his brother’s death later, maybe after the military had come to get them, as Brandt kept insisting would happen. If it did, then he could mourn.

  There was a thud from the stage. Gray and Remy both startled and whirled in that direction, prepared to face anything coming their way. But it was only Brandt, grabbing for the radio’s microphone and mashing the broadcast button, talking quickly into it.

  “This is Lieutenant Michael Evans with the United States Marines. Who is this?” As he spoke, he hunched over and pressed a hand against his headphones, listening intently. Gray finished wrapping Cade’s wound and stood, moving to the edge of the stage to watch.

  “Let me speak to Major Bradford. I need to speak with him ASAP,” Brandt demanded. His eyes were intense as he clasped the mic tightly. There was a long pause, in which Gray exchanged an uncertain glance with Remy.

  “Major Bradford, this is Lieutenant Michael Evans, formerly stationed at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia,” Brandt said into the mic. Gray raised an eyebrow at his words, turning to Remy and mouthing, CDC? She shrugged, and their attention was brought back to Brandt as he continued. “I’m alive, uninjured, and uninfected. I am accompanied by three survivors, all uninfected, but one is injured and requires prompt medical assistance. I’m requesting an emergency airlift from the city to a safe location as soon as can be managed.”

  “Do you think they’ll send help?” Remy murmured. Gray swallowed hard, watching as Brandt continued his conversation with the presumed Major Bradford on the other end of the radio.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I think Brandt’s hanging a lot of hope on it, so I really do hope they will. He won’t be too happy if they decide not to.”

  Brandt’s tone dropped so neither Gray nor Remy could make out what he was saying as he alternated between speaking and listening. Gray glanced back at Cade worriedly, wanting to get her take on the possibilities, but she’d resumed her slumped posture in her chair, exhausted beyond her physical abilities, her eyes closed and her head bowed, her bottle of Gatorade tilted and threatening to spill onto the hardwood floor. As he took a step toward her, he finally made out four simple words that told him everything he needed to know.

  “Yes, sir, I understand,” Brandt said softly. He let go of the mic and took the headphones off. He stood slowly, staring at the radio, and Gray drew in a nervous breath, waiting for the man to speak.

  Brandt picked up the mic again, but instead of depressing the mic’s button once more, he slammed the device onto the table. Gray jumped at the loud bang and took a step back as Brandt struck the mic against the table and the radio over and over. His face was a snarling grimace of anger, his cheeks flushed red. He didn’t stop until the mic was nothing but a mangled chunk of plastic and metal and wires. Gray took another step back and grabbed Remy’s arm, dragging her with him as Brandt upended the table, sending the radio and everything else on it to the floor with a crash that echoed through the entire building. He grabbed the metal chair he’d been sitting in and flung it across the stage to strike the back wall. Then he stopped, bowing his head, his shoulders shaking as he tried to catch his breath. Remy and Gray watched him, frozen, uncertain what to do.

  Remy moved forward once it was obvious the man’s anger had drained out of him, springing onto the stage and making her way to him. She hesitated then put her hand gently on his back, leaning to look him in the face and speaking to him quietly. It was a conversation Gray couldn’t hear, but whatever she said seemed to work, because Brandt visibly relaxed, the straight, stiff set of his shoulders easing, and he turned toward Gray and Cade, moving slowly toward the injured woman as he spoke.

  “We’re going to have to get the hell out of Atlanta on our own,” Brandt announced, not looking at any of them. “What’s left of the military is fucking useless. We won’t get any help from them.” He paused beside Cade, glancing around the room, taking in the rows of tables and chairs. “We’ll take one of the Hummers parked outside, at least as far as outside the city. The gas mileage is shit, so we’ll find something else once we get to that point. We’ll take any supplies here we can find, food, water, first aid, whatever you think might be useful.” He paused again, kneeling beside Cade and brushing his fingers gently over her cheek. “Let’s hurry, okay? I don’t want to spend too much time here, not with Cade like this. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to get the fuck out of Dodge.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ethan sat hunched in a cushioned wooden chair, staring at the cold, round table in front of him, illuminated by the pale yellow light from a battery-operated camping lantern positioned in the center of it. His legs and arms both throbbed. His head didn’t feel any better; it almost felt like he had a hangover, though he hadn’t had a drink in over a year. The wounds in his right thigh and both calves burned and pulsed with pain. He had no fewer than three bites to his arms, one on the right and two on the left, not to mention the shredded flesh on his forearms and, if he wasn’t mistaken, his back and stomach, too. Judging by the level of pain he felt in two of the bites, he was sure he was missing skin and perhaps even underlying muscle in those places. He imagined he could feel blood leaking from the wounds, though he knew all of them had been painstakingly bandaged while he’d been unconscious. His fresh clothes—the soft, clean khaki pants and white tank—attested to the fact that he’d been well cared for while he’d been out.

  What he had trouble wrapping his mind around was how he was even still alive.

  He vaguely remembered his fight against the infected, how they’d blocked the alley’s exit, how he’d made the others go while he held them off. He remembered the click of his gun as he’d run out of ammunition. He remembered his attempts to reload. He remembered the febrile heat of the stinking bodies that closed in on him. He remembered the hands on his arms and legs and his frantic thrashing as he tried to get away. And he remembered the pain as the teeth sank into his flesh.

  He didn’t remember how he’d gotten to where he sat now, in a cool, dim room presumably somewhere in Atlanta, sore and aching, his head throbbing and his skin hot with fever.

  By all rights, Ethan should have been dead. Even if he’d somehow managed to escape the ravenous horde of infected—which he shouldn’t have been able to do, considering he’d passed out from the pain—he should have succumbed to the virus by now. But he hadn’t. Something was wrong; he was missing some key information. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what it might be.

  As Ethan’s mind tried to dredge up the missing pieces of the puzzle, the single door leading into the room swung open, and a woman stepped inside, carrying a brightly lit camping lantern. She spoke soft words to someone on the other side of the door before she shut it behind her and walked to the edge of the table, setting the lantern down beside the dimmer one already there. She set a thick manila folder onto the table with deliberate care then simply stood there, arms crossed, observing him silently. He managed to lift his head long enough to look at her in return. For several long moments, they watched each other in total silence.

  The woman was tall and very slender, but not unhealthily so. A pair of startlingly green eyes looked out from a pale, heart-shaped face framed by the reddest hair he’d ever seen. Her slim, long legs were wrapped in black jeans, her torso clad in a t-shirt and a black vest that appeared to be Kevlar. A belt with a gun holster strapped to it hung low on her hips. She looked nearly as capable as Cade, like she could handle herself in a fight without breaking a sweat.

  Ethan’s heart tried to jam itself into his throat at
his fleeting thought of his best friend. He wondered if she was safe, if she was even still alive. He shoved that thought aside with difficulty—now wasn’t the time for it, not when he had no idea what was going on—and looked up to meet the woman’s eyes before he finally spoke. He asked the first question that came to mind.

  “Why am I not dead?”

  His question broke the spell hovering between them. The redheaded woman slid into the chair across from him, her eyes flickering to his bared arms and the bandages that adorned them. “Because we rescued you and dragged you out of that mess you got yourself into.”

  “But I should be infected,” he pointed out. He looked down at his own arms, touching the bandage wrapped around his right forearm gently. “I was bitten. A lot. I lost my gun. I couldn’t shoot myself.” He paused and swallowed again. “I should have the virus. I should be dead.”

  “You should be,” the woman agreed solemnly. “But you aren’t.”

  Ethan licked his lips and glanced around the darkened room again. There were large windows on one side of the wall, covered by heavy, thick curtains. Only the single door through which the woman had entered led to the outside. Besides the table and two chairs, there was a bed in the center of the room. A door led to a tiny bathroom. There were no personal effects to be seen. It reminded him of a hotel: Spartan and abnormally clean.

  He cleared his throat and asked, “Where are we?”

  “We’re in the Westin in downtown Atlanta,” she answered. “My name is Alicia Day. I’m in charge here. The hotel is secure, so you don’t have to worry about your safety. We have people on guard day and night. I had you brought here after my colleagues and I dragged you out of that alley.”

  He looked down at the table again. The wound in his thigh let out another spike of pain. He sucked in a breath and waited for it to subside to a dull ache. “How long have I been here?” he asked once it had receded.