“Exactly,” agreed Trout.

“Then why in the wide blue fuck are we even thinking about going in there?”

“We’re reporters—”

“Yeah? Save that shit for the rubes, Billy.”

Trout turned in his seat. “Okay, then all bullshit aside. Everyone knew that this storm was coming, so by now they would have evacuated the middle school and bussed all those kids over to the elementary school. That’s the town shelter point. They’ll probably be bringing in the old folks from Sunrise Home, and anyone who lives in areas likely to flood. That’s—what? Two thousand people? More than half of them kids.”

“Most of the kids’ parents will have picked them up already?”

“Maybe from east and north, but anyone coming from west and south will have been flooded out. Or, maybe stopped by the military. No matter how you spin it, Goat, there are going to be hundreds of kids and maybe as many old folks and townies who have nowhere else to go. They’re going to be inside that shelter.”

“Okay. So?”

“So, if they don’t know what they’re facing, then they’re going to take in anyone who comes to the shelter doors. That includes wounded people. People who might have been bitten. You heard what Volker said, this thing is completely infectious. If even one wounded person shows up and they let him in, then Lucifer 113 is going to sweep like wildfire through the shelter. Everyone is going to get sick and die, Goat. And I have a pretty bad feeling that the military is going to let them.”

Goat turned away. “They can’t just let everyone die.”

“Yes they can,” Trout said. “We can’t let them. We can’t let Stebbins be erased.”

Goat shook his head. “Jeez, what are you? Captain Avenger? You don’t even have family in Stebbins anymore.”

“It’s still my town, Goat. My friends are there.”

“Dez Fox is there, too, right?” When Trout didn’t answer, Goat nodded to himself. “You’re going to get yourself eaten by zombies or gunned down by the National Guard over some chick who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”

Trout said nothing.

“Billy, if you go in there, then whatever happens to everyone else is going to happen to you.”

“Maybe,” Trout snapped. “Or, maybe I get to Dez or JT or someone and they get everyone over to the school and lock it up and we ride this out.”

“What about the infected?”

“We check for anyone with a bite. Anyone who looks sick.”

“And do what? Shoot them?”

“Christ, kid, who do you think I am? No, we lock them up. There’s plenty of rooms in the school.… We take all the infected, anyone who even might be infected, and lock them up until this settles down. Then the feds can figure out a way to help them and rescue us.”

Goat stared at him for a long time. “Damn, I wish I had your optimism. I’d blow my entire paycheck on scratch-off tickets.” He shook his head. “Look, you can play Captain Avenger, but count me out. I—”

“Don’t worry, Goat, I’m not saying you should come with me. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. I want you to get out of here. Hitch a ride to Bordentown or someplace. Get someplace where you’re safe.”

Goat narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“Because you’re going to take this stuff with you.” He fished Volker’s flash drives and his own small recorder out of his pockets. “If things go bad then make sure the truth comes out.”

Goat made no move to get out. “Billy … this is nuts.”

“Yeah, well we left ‘sane and normal’ behind the first time Volker said ‘zombie.’”

“Look,” said Goat, taking the evidence from Trout, “do this for me, okay? Before you do anything else, go to the station and get that little portable satellite uplink we use for field reports. It’s in my office. There’s an old sat phone, too. The army can cut off the phones and the Net, but they’re not going to knock down a satellite.”

“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’ blood 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.

Moans.

Not just one voice.

Many.

So many.

She stared into the rain with mad eyes.

“Come on, you pussies!” Dez jammed the shotgun stock against her shoulder and fired into the wind. Again, and again. She turned and fired, turned and fired. The buckshot was wasted on the storm, but she didn’t care. “Come on you … you…”