Zombie Countdown Surviving Till The Very End EPISODE Episode DramaRush

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Transcript

00:00:00Faye twits violently in Cain's arms. Veins pop out across her skin. Her eyes turn blood red. She's turning.

00:00:06Faye, baby, stop looking at me.

00:00:08Run! Cain, get out of here! I'm turning into one of those zombies! I don't want to tear you apart!

00:00:14Cain, he pulls her into a death grip, gently brushing her hair to calm her down.

00:00:17I'm not going anywhere. You're the love of my life.

00:00:19Then, he yanks open his collar, exposing his neck.

00:00:22Here, Faye, bite me.

00:00:23Let's end this nightmare together. Faye loses the last trace of humanity.

00:00:25She sinks her teeth into his neck.

00:00:27Cain jolts awake in bed, gasping for air.

00:00:29He claws at his neck. No wound. He freezes. Alive.

00:00:33I'm back?

00:00:348 a.m. February from the 18th.

00:00:36Exactly 24 hours before the zombie apocalypse will wipe the slate clean.

00:00:39In 24 hours, the first wave of infected will hit the East District.

00:00:41A few hours after that, the entire city will fall.

00:00:43And in just one month, they'll overrun every single corner of this world.

00:00:47Let's out of bed. He stands barefoot on the cold floor, his fists clenching tight.

00:00:50I swear I won't let that nightmare happen again.

00:00:52Not to my parents, and especially not to my Faye.

00:00:54He walks to the window and throws the curtains open.

00:00:57Outside, the city is buzzing. Traffic, crowds, noise, completely normal.

00:01:00Cain stares down at the street.

00:01:01The fear fades from his eyes, replaced by a cold, sharp focus.

00:01:05His mind is racing.

00:01:06He picks up his phone and starts moving through it, furiously already mapping out his next move.

00:01:1024 hours.

00:01:12That's all I need to turn this place into a mass grave for those monsters, and a paradise for us.

00:01:17Faye, just wait for me.

00:01:19I'm coming to save you.

00:01:22I stared at my screen, pulling up the old college group chat.

00:01:25I remembered these guys perfectly.

00:01:27In my past life, these entitled and selfish crooks are the very first ones to turn in the dorms.

00:01:31They hadn't hesitated to save their own skins back then, so I wasn't gonna waste any pity on them now.

00:01:35Since I cultured all their fates anyway, I was gonna wring every last drop of usefulness out of them before

00:01:40they started rotting.

00:01:40Yo, need a favor. Fast cash, a hundred bucks a head today only.

00:01:44Just need you guys to run courier duty, just text back if you're in.

00:01:47Once the baits were hooked, I typed out the actual order with mechanical precision.

00:01:51Oxygen generators. Tactical mass systems.

00:01:53Survival rations.

00:01:55It was a shopping list for a siege.

00:01:56A nightmare scenario I was praying no one would survive to remember.

00:01:59I wired half the payment up from an account I'd liquidated the night before I died.

00:02:01If that twisted paradox even made sense anymore.

00:02:04I closed the chat and called home.

00:02:06Cain?

00:02:08Honey, it's only 8.30.

00:02:09Mom, put Dad on, please. Right now.

00:02:12What's the fire, kid?

00:02:13I closed my eyes when I heard his voice.

00:02:15That gruff, level tone.

00:02:16The voice of a man who didn't ask questions when his son sounded like the world was ending.

00:02:20Dad, the west side place.

00:02:22The compound, I need three steel fence rings around it by tonight.

00:02:24Sealed by sundown. Every vent. Every drain.

00:02:27Roger did not say anything for a long moment.

00:02:29How much have I got to spend?

00:02:31Whatever it costs. Pay them triple.

00:02:33Alright.

00:02:34But son, are you in trouble?

00:02:36I couldn't.

00:02:37Couldn't tell my father the truth without sounding insane.

00:02:40I'll explain at dinner.

00:02:41I swear.

00:02:42I'll see you tonight.

00:02:4530 minutes gone just like that.

00:02:47Can I really stockpile enough to cheat the apocalypse or am I just spending my final hours building a fortified

00:02:53buffet for the dead?

00:02:55The big box store on Route 12 opened at 9.

00:02:57I was inside at 9.01 with the manager and a stack of $100 bills.

00:03:00The manager wore a name tag that said Todd.

00:03:02Five chest freezers, 200 bags of rice, 100 water jugs, 20 first aid kits, antiotics by the case.

00:03:07Sir, on the medical, store policy cap.

00:03:09I peeled half the cash, thousands in crisp bills and pressed it into Todd's hand.

00:03:12His eyes went wide.

00:03:13He probably made minimum wage.

00:03:14This was more money than he'd ever held at once.

00:03:16Store policy's gonna need to bend today.

00:03:18Todd's smile changed shape.

00:03:19Eight employees in red vestments began moving like a pit crew.

00:03:22I moved through those aisles like I was sleepwalking, reading off the list I'd spent weeks assembling in my head.

00:03:25Salt, coffee, lighter fluid, trash bags, everything I'd need to survive what was coming.

00:03:30The employees couldn't keep up with me.

00:03:31Nobody moved that fast unless something was burning.

00:03:33By 11, the trucks were loading.

00:03:35By 11.30, I was on the phone again.

00:03:37Hugh, grab Derek, compound, now.

00:03:40Fishing trip?

00:03:41Today.

00:03:42Now.

00:03:43I love you, man.

00:03:46You're dying or something.

00:03:48See you at the gate.

00:03:50I hung up before the panic could crack through in my voice.

00:03:54Faye's apartment was on the way to the compound.

00:03:56I called her from my car and waited, my chest tight.

00:03:59She got in with messy hair and a hastily thrown on hoodie.

00:04:02She looked tired.

00:04:04God, she looked alive.

00:04:06You text me at 7, ignore me till noon, and now you're outside my building with a face like somebody

00:04:10died?

00:04:11I looked at her and felt something break inside me.

00:04:14Knowing what was coming for her.

00:04:15I hadn't seen her since the last timeline.

00:04:18Since everything fell apart.

00:04:20I held her tight.

00:04:21I'm sorry.

00:04:22I'm sorry.

00:04:23I missed you.

00:04:25You saw me yesterday.

00:04:28I know.

00:04:30She watched me for a long second.

00:04:33Then she put her hand on mine.

00:04:35Drive, weirdo.

00:04:36Where are we going?

00:04:37Mom and Dad's old property.

00:04:38Fishing trip.

00:04:39Hugh and Derek, too.

00:04:41A vacation?

00:04:44Something like that.

00:04:46Looking down at her lovely face so full of life, so untouched by the horror to come.

00:04:51A single question haunting my mind.

00:04:53This time, can I rewrite her ending?

00:04:55Or am I doomed to watch her soft humanity wither into the dark all over again?

00:05:01The compound emerged from the trees like a fortress, and that's exactly what it was going to need to be.

00:05:05Three stories of brick, solid and unyielding.

00:05:07A basement that could swallow a fleet of cars.

00:05:09My father had built it to last.

00:05:10He just didn't know what it would need to survive.

00:05:12Dad was already there, of course.

00:05:13Always there.

00:05:14Always ready.

00:05:15Twelve workers were already planting steel posts.

00:05:17Heavy ones.

00:05:18Deep ones.

00:05:18The welders were running beads on rails thicker than I'd planned for.

00:05:21My father stood in the center of it all in a care-hurt jacket like he was conducting an orchestra.

00:05:24Catboard in one hand, coffee in the other.

00:05:26He'd known.

00:05:27He'd already known.

00:05:28Honey, your dad's building a prison out here.

00:05:30Roger walked over.

00:05:33I looked my father in the eye for one long second.

00:05:36Bulletproof glass came in at ten this morning.

00:05:37Every window.

00:05:38The drain's got triple mesh treatment.

00:05:39I told him to bring twelve oxygen units, not one.

00:05:42Redundancy.

00:05:43Backup for the backup.

00:05:45Dad called Sam.

00:05:46He's coming tonight with some things you didn't ask for, but you're gonna need them.

00:05:49I...

00:05:49You don't make a list like that unless the end is coming.

00:05:53So you'll tell me at dinner.

00:05:55For now, I'm building the wall.

00:05:58I felt something crack inside me.

00:06:00Watching my father work without explanation.

00:06:02Trusting me enough to build a fortress and ask no questions.

00:06:04Hugh and Derek pulled up with fishing rods in the back of the truck.

00:06:07Our cover story.

00:06:08They got out, saw the welders, the steel posts, the heavy machinery, and their faces went white.

00:06:12They looked at me.

00:06:13Bro, what the hell is this?

00:06:15Help me run wire.

00:06:16By sundown, three consensuous rings of fence ran around the property.

00:06:21By eight, every line was hot.

00:06:23By nine, the basement was a sealed clean room, and the oxygen units were online.

00:06:27I stood at the master panel and put my hand on the breaker for the wire.

00:06:31If it touches the wire, it dies.

00:06:34It?

00:06:35What is it?

00:06:37Faye stood beside me.

00:06:38Her hand was very small in mine.

00:06:41Kane, tell me the truth.

00:06:43What are we up against?

00:06:46I'll tell you at dinner.

00:06:47Just stay with me.

00:06:49I kissed the top of her head.

00:06:51Outside, the new wire hummed.

00:06:54Six hundred volts, holding back nothing yet.

00:06:56My mother had cooked for seven.

00:06:57Ristis did.

00:06:58Bread from a cookbook she'd used when I was a kid.

00:07:00Stewed lamb.

00:07:00Normal things.

00:07:01Mundane things.

00:07:02A mother feeding her families like the world wasn't about to end.

00:07:04I held Faye's hand under the table and tried not to think about how many more meals she had.

00:07:09I drank water instead of wine because I couldn't afford to be slow.

00:07:13Not with what was coming.

00:07:15Everyone felt it.

00:07:16That moment when the normal world tilts.

00:07:18The TV in the next room cut from a sodcom to a field reporter.

00:07:22The reporter's voice was pitched too high.

00:07:24Fear leaking through the professionalists.

00:07:26My mother went absolutely still.

00:07:27She already knew.

00:07:29The mother always knows.

00:07:30That's a hell of a coincidence.

00:07:31I stood up and for a moment the only sound was Faye's quick breath beside me.

00:07:35In ten minutes the news will report a second incident.

00:07:37By midnight every channel will.

00:07:38By dawn the National Guard deploys and it won't be enough.

00:07:40By tomorrow afternoon this city's gone.

00:07:42A toxic purple mist is mutating anyone who breathes it and turning this entire place into a blood-slip meat

00:07:46grinder.

00:07:47Kane!

00:07:47I've been here before.

00:07:49I went to bed in this house with everyone I love already dead and I woke up here this morning.

00:07:53I don't know how.

00:07:54I don't need you to believe me.

00:07:55I just need you to stay in this house.

00:07:57My mother was crying silently, her hand covering her mouth like she could hold back the sobs if she just

00:08:01held tight enough.

00:08:02Faye laced her fingers into mine under the table.

00:08:05I'm with you.

00:08:06Whatever this is, I'm with you.

00:08:12A truck pulled up the gravel road outside.

00:08:14I looked at my father.

00:08:16Roger pushed back from the table.

00:08:18Sam's here.

00:08:19Right on time.

00:08:20Big Sam came in with two men and four crates.

00:08:23The crates went down to the basement.

00:08:24The lids came up.

00:08:25Hugh made a small sound.

00:08:26Inside packed in foam rifles.

00:08:28Submachine guns.

00:08:29Two heavy machine guns with tri-pids.

00:08:31Magazines stacked like books in a library.

00:08:33Whatever you saw out there, brother, I hope to God you're wrong.

00:08:37Faye's hand found mine under the table.

00:08:39By 4 a.m., every weapon was cleaned, loaded, and racked along the basement wall.

00:08:44I lay on a cot in the basement with my eyes open, listening to the house breathe, each creak, each

00:08:49groan like it was dying around us.

00:08:51Faye was asleep against my shoulder.

00:08:54Chloe was asleep across the room with her head on Hugh's chest.

00:08:57My mother was asleep upstairs.

00:09:00My father was on the roof in the dark with a rifle across his lap, watching the road.

00:09:05I closed my eyes and saw her.

00:09:07The other Faye, on that sidewalk, screaming my name as she changed into something else.

00:09:12I asked her to change.

00:09:13I opened my eyes.

00:09:15I didn't, and that was the point sleep.

00:09:16At 6 o'clock, Faye stirred against me without waking.

00:09:19I brushed her hair back and watched the gray light creep through the high basement windows.

00:09:23Six more years, I thought.

00:09:2510.

00:09:2650.

00:09:26I am buying her time with blood.

00:09:29With other people's blood.

00:09:30At 7.30, Roger came down from the watchtower.

00:09:35Breakfast.

00:09:37Eat with us.

00:09:39Already ate.

00:09:43Son.

00:09:44I looked at and felt something break inside me.

00:09:47My father.

00:09:48I love you, son.

00:09:51I love you, dad.

00:09:54Roger went back upstairs.

00:09:57At 7.45, my mother brought scrambled eggs and toast down to the basement.

00:10:01No one was hungry.

00:10:02Everyone ate anyway.

00:10:03Muscle memory, the thing families do.

00:10:05Marlene tried to make a joke about my mother's coffee.

00:10:08Hugh laughed because he had to.

00:10:10Chloe held Hugh's hand like she was drowning.

00:10:12At 7.58, I stood at the master panel watching the camera feeds.

00:10:15Empty road.

00:10:16Still trees.

00:10:17The wire humming with 600 volts waiting for something to burn.

00:10:20I thought, the weight of it crushing me, barely breathing.

00:10:23Hugh, I am going to burn for you.

00:10:24I am going to do terrible things.

00:10:26At 8.03, the air changed.

00:10:28Thickened, like we were all about to drown in it.

00:10:31At 8.04, the first explosion hit.

00:10:33Hell was finally here.

00:10:36It rolled across the property like an earthquake.

00:10:38I was already moving.

00:10:40The world ends, and we begin.

00:10:42The eastern sky was purple.

00:10:43Not the purple of a sunset or a bruise, but the purple of something that doesn't exist.

00:10:46Not the nature of nature.

00:10:47It is crawling across the sky.

00:10:49The flog was already across the river, already rising through the neighborhoods like it owned them.

00:10:52They're saying it's on the east side.

00:10:54They're saying, Cain, they're saying people are biting people.

00:10:58Close every window.

00:10:59Everyone moved at once.

00:11:00No questions, no hesitation.

00:11:02They'd been waiting for this order.

00:11:04Marlon ran upstairs.

00:11:06Derek and Hugh moved to the back of the house.

00:11:08Roger came down from the watchtower with his rifle slung.

00:11:11Chloe started the central air filter on Mac.

00:11:13Faye sealed the front door with the tape I had pre-cut and stacked beside it the night before.

00:11:17In 12 minutes, the compound was sealed.

00:11:18We were inside.

00:11:19The world was outside.

00:11:20There was no going back.

00:11:21In 20, the news anchor was crying on screen.

00:11:23I stood at the master panel and watched the fence cameras.

00:11:25The road outside the property was empty.

00:11:26The trees stood still.

00:11:27Then a figure stepped out of the tree line.

00:11:29A man, middle-aged, white shirt and gray slacks like I had walked out of an office.

00:11:33I was missing a shoe.

00:11:34My head was tilted at the wrong angle.

00:11:35I took two steps towards the gate, stopped, sniffed the air like an animal, and began to walk faster.

00:11:39I watched every second burning itself into my memory and he crossed the 50 yards to the outer fence.

00:11:43The man did not slow down.

00:11:44I hit the wire at a full run.

00:11:45The flash lit up the basement through the screen.

00:11:47The body went sideways and did not move again.

00:11:49From behind me, Hugh's voice was very small.

00:11:52Holy.

00:11:53Faye stepped up to the panel.

00:11:55She looked at the burning shape on the fence.

00:11:57She did not say anything for a long moment.

00:12:00Then she put her hand on my wrist.

00:12:02He didn't even look human anymore.

00:12:04He wasn't, baby.

00:12:06Kane.

00:12:07I know.

00:12:08Roger appeared in the doorway.

00:12:10My rifle was in his hand.

00:12:11My face was old.

00:12:12That's the first one.

00:12:13I reached up and put his hand on the panel.

00:12:16The countdown was over.

00:12:18The siege had begun.

00:12:20The man came out of the trees at three in the afternoon.

00:12:22I saw me on the camera before Hugh did.

00:12:25A figure in cover roads, jogging at first, then running, then sprinting as he cleared the gravel road.

00:12:29I was not infected.

00:12:30I was sweating.

00:12:31I was alive.

00:12:32Hello?

00:12:34Hello in there!

00:12:35It's Brett!

00:12:36Brett Marlowe!

00:12:37I worked your fence yesterday!

00:12:40Please!

00:12:41Please!

00:12:41You've got to let me in!

00:12:44I keyed the loud poster.

00:12:46Faye stood beside me, her hand on his arm.

00:12:48Brett, I'm sorry.

00:12:50We can't open the gate.

00:12:51There's six of those things behind me, man!

00:12:53I lost my partner at the gas station!

00:12:55I lost my truck!

00:12:56I helped this place!

00:12:57I cut the rebar myself!

00:12:59Find a house.

00:13:00Anything brick.

00:13:01Lock the doors.

00:13:01The sirens will draw them away from you.

00:13:03There's nothing out here!

00:13:05Please!

00:13:05I closed my eyes.

00:13:06I had played this scene in my head a thousand times.

00:13:09Every told myself had imagined letting the man in.

00:13:11I had also imagined the next man, and the next, and what they would all bring with them

00:13:15in their lungs.

00:13:16Kane.

00:13:18I can't.

00:13:18I've got a daughter, man!

00:13:20She's seven!

00:13:20She's at her grandma's!

00:13:21I just need to make it to her!

00:13:22I just need to live till tomorrow!

00:13:25Hugh's voice came over the internal radio from the watchtower.

00:13:28Kane, you're not lying.

00:13:29You kid's at his grandma's.

00:13:31I worked with him last summer.

00:13:32For you.

00:13:34I'm sorry.

00:13:35Kane!

00:13:35Please!

00:13:36I have a kid!

00:13:38I have a kid!

00:13:40Brett's voice broke on the word kid.

00:13:42Then it changed.

00:13:44Brett's hand went to his belt.

00:13:46The hatchet came up out of the loop and a clean, fast-off.

00:13:50Then we all die together!

00:13:52I raised the hatchet.

00:13:55Hugh was already on the trigger when the hatchet came up.

00:13:57The shot rolled across the property like a single hard slap.

00:14:00From three stories up through a hunting scope with a rifle Big Sam had laid on the basement

00:14:04floor at midnight, the round took Brett above the collarbow and the hatchet fell out of

00:14:07his hand before his body knew it.

00:14:09Brett dropped onto the wire.

00:14:10The fence was hot.

00:14:12The body smoked.

00:14:14Faye made a sound, small, animal, behind her teeth.

00:14:16I caught her by the shoulders before her knees went.

00:14:18I pulled her into my chest.

00:14:20I felt her hands knot in the back of my shirt.

00:14:22Hugh's voice came over the radio, slow, flat.

00:14:26Confirm hostile down.

00:14:28Confirmed.

00:14:29Hugh.

00:14:29I'm fine.

00:14:30Come down.

00:14:31I'm fine, Kane.

00:14:33Tell Chloe I'm fine.

00:14:35The radio clicked off.

00:14:36I stood in the basement with Faye pressed into me and watched the camera.

00:14:40The body lay across the bottom string of wire.

00:14:42The smoke went up in a thin gray line.

00:14:44And the gray line went into the purple sky.

00:14:47The sky did not seem to care.

00:14:48We had a kid, Kane.

00:14:51I held her until she stopped shaking.

00:14:52Then I held her longer.

00:14:54Diane came down the stairs after a while and sat on the bottom step without saying anything.

00:14:57Marlene followed and put her hand on Diane's shoulder and they sat there together.

00:15:00Chloe came down last.

00:15:02She did not look at the screen.

00:15:03She sat at the table and looked at her hands and breathed through her nose.

00:15:08Roger came in through the side door.

00:15:11Hugh's coming down.

00:15:12Okay.

00:15:14I'll go cut the body off the wire after dark.

00:15:16I'll do it.

00:15:17I'll do it.

00:15:18I didn't.

00:15:19And that was the point, argue.

00:15:22The body smoked on the wire.

00:15:25They buried Brett Marlowe in the backfield after midnight.

00:15:28I and Roger went out in the suits Roger had pre-built that afternoon.

00:15:32Heavy canvas over chicken wire.

00:15:34Oxygen helmets vented through the basement system.

00:15:36Ten-minute tanks.

00:15:37They moved fast.

00:15:38I carried the body.

00:15:39Roger carried the shovels.

00:15:41The wire was off for nine minutes and seventeen seconds.

00:15:44The ground was hard.

00:15:46They dug shallow.

00:15:49We'll do better when we have the time.

00:15:51Yeah.

00:15:53They walked back across the dead grass under a moon the color of an old bruise.

00:15:58Inside, Hugh was sitting on the basement floor with his back against the gun rack.

00:16:02Chloe was asleep against his shoulder.

00:16:04I had not moved in three hours.

00:16:06My eyes were open.

00:16:08I was looking at nothing.

00:16:09I sat down beside him.

00:16:11I did not say anything.

00:16:12I put his hand on Hugh's shoulder and left it there.

00:16:16I keep thinking about the daughter.

00:16:19Yeah.

00:16:20Was she a real daughter, Cain?

00:16:22I don't know.

00:16:24Did you let him die because she wasn't real?

00:16:28Or because it didn't matter if she was?

00:16:31I couldn't.

00:16:32I couldn't tell my father the truth without sounding insane.

00:16:37I don't know which one I wanted to be.

00:16:40Me neither.

00:16:42Me neither.

00:16:42They sat there for a long time, listening to the building.

00:16:45Faye lay down on the cot in the corner, without speaking.

00:16:49Chloe coughed once in her sleep.

00:16:51Small, quick, the kind of cough you get from dust.

00:16:54I glanced at it, glanced at Hugh, and let it go.

00:16:57I didn't.

00:16:58And that was the point.

00:16:59Let it go.

00:16:59I watched the camera feed of the backfield.

00:17:01The dirt of the new grave was still wet.

00:17:04Beyond it, the wire hummed.

00:17:07Beyond the wire, the city was quiet for the first time in his memory.

00:17:10Even the dogs were not barking anywhere.

00:17:13The compound goes silent.

00:17:15The compound stays silent.

00:17:20The compound stays silent for a very long time.

00:17:25The first month of the world ending was, in some ways, the easiest.

00:17:29The compound settled into a rhythm.

00:17:31Diane managed the tents in the first ring.

00:17:33The chickens.

00:17:34The goats.

00:17:35The four pregnant cows.

00:17:36Marlene logged the camera feeds and the lake's water samples by hand.

00:17:39Chloe and Faye sat in the radio room with two old laptops, and the satellite uplink Roger

00:17:44had wired through the watchtower, talking to anyone they could find.

00:17:46There were a lot of people, at first.

00:17:49A woman in Phoenix who had locked herself in a parking garage with a generator.

00:17:53Three brothers in a Wyoming basement.

00:17:54A man and his husband in a converted school bus on a mountain.

00:17:57A teenager whose voice came through clear and small from somewhere they could not place.

00:18:01Faye and Chloe wrote them all down.

00:18:02They told them about masks.

00:18:04About sealed doors.

00:18:06In the second week, the woman in Phoenix stopped responding.

00:18:09In the third week, the brothers in Wyoming sent a final message that just said,

00:18:12times there at the door, and then nothing.

00:18:15In the fourth week, the teenager said times, thank you times, and went silent.

00:18:20By the end of the first month, the chat windows were a graveyard.

00:18:23Chloe stopped logging in.

00:18:25She said it was because her chest was tight.

00:18:27She said the air was making her cough.

00:18:29She said it was not.

00:18:31It was not.

00:18:32It was not.

00:18:33I went down to the basement on the night of the 30th day and ran the inventory.

00:18:37Three years of grain.

00:18:39Two years of meat at current consumption.

00:18:40Eighteen months of medication if no one got sick.

00:18:44A water filter that would last a decade.

00:18:47Eight people.

00:18:48Including Big Sam if he ever came back.

00:18:50I sat in the cold blue light of the storage room and looked at the math and thought about

00:18:54Brett Marlowe's daughter and could not feel my hands.

00:18:58Survivors vanish, one by one.

00:19:02Two years of rations.

00:19:04Maybe.

00:19:06Chloe coughed at the breakfast table on day 32.

00:19:08Once.

00:19:09Twice.

00:19:10Three times.

00:19:11A little longer the third time, with her napkin pressed to her mouth and her shoulders rising.

00:19:14When she lowered the napkin, she gave the smile she always gave and folded the napkin neatly

00:19:18so no one could see the inside.

00:19:20Hugh saw it.

00:19:21Hugh did not look up from his plate.

00:19:22I did not move.

00:19:24I put another forkful of eggs into his mouth and chewed and swallowed and put the fork down.

00:19:28How long have you been coughing?

00:19:31A couple of days.

00:19:33It's nothing.

00:19:33The air's dry down here.

00:19:35How long, Chloe?

00:19:39Since Tuesday.

00:19:41Faye looked at Kane.

00:19:42I looked at Roger.

00:19:43Roger set his coffee down very carefully.

00:19:45Sweetheart, eat.

00:19:46You barely...

00:19:46I'm fine, Mrs. Sutton.

00:19:48Look at me.

00:19:51Chloe looked at me.

00:19:52The whites of her eyes were the color of clean paper.

00:19:55The skin under her jaw was the same skin it had always been.

00:19:57There was a small thing.

00:19:59There was yet that you could tired point smile.

00:20:03Stairs.

00:20:05Hugh.

00:20:07Now, please.

00:20:08She followed me out of the dining room.

00:20:11The door clicked behind them.

00:20:13The room stayed quiet for a long time.

00:20:18It could be anything.

00:20:19Down here, it could be the ducks.

00:20:21It could be...

00:20:22Roger.

00:20:25It could be...

00:20:29I stood up and went to the basement and unfolded the napkin Chloe had left on the table.

00:20:36I flattened it under the desk light.

00:20:39There was a small dark spot in the center of the cloth.

00:20:42The shape of a comma.

00:20:43The color of nothing he wanted to see.

00:20:45I folded the napkin again.

00:20:46I went and put it in the medical waste bin and did not say a word.

00:20:50My stomach drops.

00:20:52By the third day, the lines were under her jaw.

00:20:55Chloe lay in the small back bedroom on the second floor with a thermometer in her mouth

00:20:59and Hugh on the chair beside the bed, his rifle across his knees.

00:21:11The veins ran from her clavicle up the side of her throat and disappeared under her ear.

00:21:18Black, not blue.

00:21:21Black with a faint purple bloom around the deep ones like ink moving through paper.

00:21:25I forced myself to stand in the doorway with a tray.

00:21:30Soup.

00:21:31Try.

00:21:32I'm not really.

00:21:34Try.

00:21:35She drank a spoonful.

00:21:37She kept it down.

00:21:39Her hand did not shake yet.

00:21:41Get out, Kane.

00:21:43Hugh.

00:21:44Get out.

00:21:45I want to talk to her.

00:21:50I stepped back and shut the door.

00:21:53I stood in the hallway with his hand on the wood and he listened.

00:21:56I did not mean to.

00:21:57I did not move.

00:21:58The door heard the voice.

00:22:00Smaller.

00:22:01You want to use the door?

00:22:02I could not make out the words.

00:22:04It did not matter what the words were.

00:22:10After a while, Faye spoke.

00:22:11Almost a whisper.

00:22:13How long, Kane?

00:22:14A week.

00:22:15Maybe less.

00:22:17And then?

00:22:18Then she changes.

00:22:20Then she's not Chloe anymore.

00:22:22Faye nodded against his shoulder.

00:22:24She did not say anything else.

00:22:26Inside the room, Hugh started to cry.

00:22:31Hugh refuses to leave the room.

00:22:35On day 36, Hugh's voice came over the watchtower radio at 6.14 in the morning.

00:22:39Kane, up here.

00:22:40Now.

00:22:40I was in the basement reviewing the water filtration logs.

00:22:42I set the clepboard down and took the doors opened on cold gray dawn light.

00:22:45Hugh was at the east wall of the watchtower with the long telescope braced in the slot,

00:22:48his eye against the cup.

00:22:49Look.

00:22:50I looked.

00:22:50The eastern horizon where the city lay, where the river curved, where the avenues had been,

00:22:54was not gray, not still, moving.

00:22:55A long, dark wave was crawling across the floodwinter.

00:22:57In this distance it had the texture of a swarm of insects on a gin floor of grain pouring through

00:23:01a hand.

00:23:01It moved at a walking pace and it was a half mile wide and where the light cut it, the

00:23:04wave glittered.

00:23:05I lowered the telescope.

00:23:07My mouth had gone dry.

00:23:09How many?

00:23:11I lost count at 5,000.

00:23:13How long till they hit the wire?

00:23:14Two hours.

00:23:16Wake everyone.

00:23:17Hugh keyed the all call.

00:23:18All hands, suit up.

00:23:20Now.

00:23:20This is not a drill.

00:23:21The watchtower radio crackled with Roger's voice from the basement.

00:23:25How bad?

00:23:26Bad.

00:23:27How bad, son?

00:23:29Bring everything we've got.

00:23:30Below them, Faye came out into the front yard with a coffee in her hand and looked up at

00:23:33the watchtower and saw the look on my face.

00:23:35The coffee fell out of her hand.

00:23:37Marlene came up from the stairs into the watchtower behind them.

00:23:39Oh, God.

00:23:40Oh, God.

00:23:41Hugh, what is, what is that?

00:23:42There's no end to it.

00:23:44I see it.

00:23:45I kept his eye to the scope.

00:23:46My hand was steady on the brace.

00:23:48The corner of his mouth lifted in something that was not a smile.

00:23:52Hi, Chloe.

00:23:53You're coming.

00:23:55How many?

00:23:56Too many.

00:23:58The thing in the middle of the swarm did not walk like the others.

00:24:01I found it through the scope 20 minutes later, when the front edge of the horde had closed

00:24:03to within a thousand yards of the outer wire.

00:24:05The infected at the front shumbered.

00:24:07They moved in the broken, twisted gate I remembered from the sidewalk outside Faye's apartment building.

00:24:10Last time, they tilt a thing in the center.

00:24:12Did not tilt.

00:24:13It walked.

00:24:13It walked with its head up.

00:24:15It walked with a deliberate, measured pace, and the swarm around it broke and reformed

00:24:18around it the way a school of fish breaks around a shark.

00:24:20Not it was a head taller than the tallest of them.

00:24:22It was naked, not gray-green.

00:24:23It skinned the green of mold, the green of new leaves, the green of moss in a clean stream.

00:24:27It wore green skin like a coat.

00:24:29I lowered the scope.

00:24:30I could not feel the cold of the morning.

00:24:31I could not feel my hands.

00:24:33What?

00:24:34Look in the middle.

00:24:35Hugh looked.

00:24:36For a long moment, Hugh did not breathe.

00:24:37When he spoke, his voice was something I had never heard from him in 20 years of friendship.

00:24:42What is that, Kane?

00:24:43A queen.

00:24:44A what?

00:24:45A queen.

00:24:45A mother.

00:24:46The thing that runs them.

00:24:47There's one in every city.

00:24:48More in the big ones.

00:24:49I read about them the last time.

00:24:50Never saw one myself.

00:24:52Until now.

00:24:53Until now.

00:24:55Roger's voice came over the radio.

00:24:57What is it, son?

00:24:58Dad, there's a green one in the middle.

00:25:01Tall.

00:25:02It walks like a person.

00:25:03Roger said nothing for five seconds.

00:25:06All right.

00:25:07Tell your mother to load the magazines.

00:25:10She's already loading.

00:25:11Tell her I love her.

00:25:14She knows.

00:25:15Tell her anyway.

00:25:19What the hell is that?

00:25:23The suits hung on hooks in the basement like something out of a museum that had not opened

00:25:26yet.

00:25:26Roger had built them.

00:25:27Silk inner later.

00:25:28Chicken wire over canvas.

00:25:29A steel exo did along the spine and females to take the weight.

00:25:32Helmets of whelps and jigsaw line that ran 10 minutes before refill.

00:25:34Gloves with nail mesh.

00:25:35Boots with steel toes.

00:25:36They were ugly.

00:25:37They were heavy.

00:25:38They worked.

00:25:38Diane handed them out one at a time without speaking, the way she had handed out plates

00:25:42at Sunday dinner for 40 years.

00:25:43Hugh helped Chloe into hers.

00:25:45I did not need to.

00:25:46Her fever had been climbing for six hours.

00:25:48Her hands shook on the buckles.

00:25:49The veins under her nose had branched.

00:25:51She tried to laugh when he tightened the chest strap.

00:25:53Night in shining armor.

00:25:55Damn right.

00:26:00I'm coming up.

00:26:02No!

00:26:03I'm part of this.

00:26:04I'm coming up.

00:26:06Hugh did not argue.

00:26:08Faye loaded magazines on the dining room table.

00:26:10The motion of her hands was small and exact and would not stop.

00:26:13Press.

00:26:14Press.

00:26:15Click.

00:26:15Press.

00:26:16Faye.

00:26:16Don't.

00:26:17I stood beside her and watched her do it and did not interrupt.

00:26:19I love you.

00:26:20I said don't.

00:26:21I have to say it, Faye.

00:26:22Let me say it.

00:26:24Faye stopped loading.

00:26:25She looked up at me.

00:26:26Her face was pale.

00:26:27Her hair was tied back.

00:26:28She was beautiful in a way that hurt his chest.

00:26:31Then say it after.

00:26:32I kissed her on the forehead.

00:26:33Stay inside.

00:26:34I won't.

00:26:35Then stay close.

00:26:36I will.

00:26:39Roger came in with his suit half on and a rifle in his hand.

00:26:42They're at 600 yards.

00:26:44I fastened his helmet.

00:26:45The clock over the basement door read 842.

00:26:49Then it's time.

00:26:52I picked up my rifle and walked toward the stairs.

00:27:00The first wave hit the outer wire at 851.

00:27:02Roger and Diane were on the watchtower with the heavy gun and the rocket tubes.

00:27:04Hugh and Derek were on the second floor windows with rifles.

00:27:06I was at the inner gate of the third round, with Big Sam's submachine gun across my chest

00:27:09and his back against the steel.

00:27:11Faye was on the master plane on the basement, both hands on the high-voltage breakers, watching

00:27:14nine camera feeds at once.

00:27:15Roger's voice came over the helmet radio.

00:27:17Front edge 30 yards from the outer wire.

00:27:19Permission to fire.

00:27:20I keyed the mic.

00:27:22Wait.

00:27:23Kane.

00:27:2420.

00:27:2520.

00:27:26Now!

00:27:27The rocket left the watchtower and crossed the field in a short white line.

00:27:30The first impact opened a hole in the swarm the size of a small pond.

00:27:3360 bodies came apart.

00:27:35The earth lifted and dropped.

00:27:36The infected at the edges of the crater kept walking, on fire, into the wire.

00:27:40The wire took them.

00:27:41A blue arc whipped along the outer fence with a sound I felt in my teeth.

00:27:44The first rank.

00:27:45140 bodies flew backward into the second rank in a single rolling spasm.

00:27:49The fence held.

00:27:50Reload!

00:27:51Reloading!

00:27:51Hugh's rifle started slow, calm rhythm from the second floor.

00:27:54One shot.

00:27:55Pause.

00:27:55One shot.

00:27:56Pause.

00:27:57I was hitting hedge at 300 yards.

00:27:58The hordid did not slow.

00:28:00A second rocket.

00:28:01Then a third.

00:28:01Two more craters in the field.

00:28:03A second flash on the wire.

00:28:04The wire held.

00:28:05I stood in the gate with the submachine gun and watched the tide come on.

00:28:08And in the middle of it, walking, the green thing tilted its head.

00:28:11It did not look at the bodies of its children.

00:28:13It did not flinch at the explosions.

00:28:15It looked at the watchtower.

00:28:17It looked at Cain.

00:28:19Through 900 yards of smoke and screaming meat.

00:28:22With eyes I could not see, it looked at me.

00:28:25It opened its mouth.

00:28:26The wire flared blue.

00:28:29The horde did not stop.

00:28:32The mother walked through the wires.

00:28:34As if it were not there.

00:28:35The blue arc hit her shoulders, ran down her green skin, and went out.

00:28:38She did not flinch.

00:28:39She did not speed up.

00:28:40She did not slow.

00:28:40Her stride did not change.

00:28:41She walked through 6,000 volts of fence the way a woman walks through tall grass.

00:28:45Behind her, the swarm came on as if a door had been opened.

00:28:50She's through!

00:28:50I see her.

00:28:52Falling back to the second ring!

00:28:54Faye, kill the outer wire.

00:28:55We're gonna lose it.

00:28:56The basement intercom crackled.

00:28:58Faye's voice was tight.

00:29:00Outer wire down.

00:29:00The hum of the outer fence dropped out of the air.

00:29:03Half a second later, it stopped mattering.

00:29:04Because the second wave had piled into the cratered grass and the bodies were 30 deep against

00:29:07the steel posts and the steel posts were starting to lean.

00:29:09Mother's 200 yards out!

00:29:11Tracker, don't engage.

00:29:12Why?

00:29:12Because if you tag her with a round and she doesn't die, every infected on this planet's

00:29:16gonna know where we live.

00:29:17Copy.

00:29:18Roger sent the second rocket from the watchtower.

00:29:20The crater opened where the mother was and where the mother was she also was not.

00:29:23She had stepped around it, three feet sideways before the missile arrived.

00:29:26The blast caught a hundred of her children and emptied them onto the dirt.

00:29:30She walked on through the smoke without breaking pace.

00:29:32The mother walked.

00:29:34Roger's voice came through the radio, almost calm.

00:29:37Fall back.

00:29:39The yard between the second and third rings filled with the dead.

00:29:42Bodies climbed the fence on bodies.

00:29:43The wire took them in arcing, shivering pulses.

00:29:45The bodies kept coming.

00:29:46I stood at the third ring gate with my back to the inner wall and emptied a magazine and

00:29:49an emptied another.

00:29:50My ears had stopped registering individual shots.

00:29:52My shoulder was numb.

00:29:53I was sweating into his oxygen helmet.

00:29:54The yard between the second and third rings filled with the dead.

00:29:57Copy.

00:29:5881.

00:29:59Watch it, Faye!

00:30:01Bring the launchers down!

00:30:02They're inside the rocket arc!

00:30:04On it!

00:30:04Hugh came down off the second floor at a run with two propane tanks under his arms and

00:30:08a roll of decod around his neck.

00:30:10I had been a high school gym teacher before I had been anyone's best friend.

00:30:14I had no business knowing what to do with this.

00:30:16I moved like I had been born to do it.

00:30:20Kane, open the gate.

00:30:21I'm going through.

00:30:22No.

00:30:23I'm going to set him in the second ring and crack him when she's on top.

00:30:27No!

00:30:29Kane, I'm not asking.

00:30:31I keyed the gate.

00:30:32Hugh slipped through into the kill zone with two improvised mosques.

00:30:36I was back inside in 40 seconds.

00:30:38I locked the gate behind me with shaking hands.

00:30:41Mother at 60 yards!

00:30:44Detonate!

00:30:45Hugh hit the trigger.

00:30:47The yard between the rings erupted in two white-hot blooms.

00:30:51Bodies came apart in pieces.

00:30:53Her left arm was missing from the elbow.

00:30:57It was already growing back.

00:30:58I felt, deep in my bones, his stomach try to climb out of his throat.

00:31:04Did you see that?

00:31:06I saw it.

00:31:07Tell me you saw it, Kane!

00:31:10I saw it, Hugh.

00:31:11Hugh laughed.

00:31:12It was not a laugh.

00:31:14It was the sound a laugh made.

00:31:16The yard fills with bodies.

00:31:21Faye, how's the wire holding?

00:31:2367% in dropping.

00:31:24We've got two big arcs left.

00:31:26Save them.

00:31:27I want them when she's on the third wire.

00:31:29Copy.

00:31:30The second ring's posts began to lean.

00:31:32It happened slowly at first.

00:31:33A tilt at the south corner.

00:31:35The steel bowing under the weight of so many bodies pressing into it.

00:31:38Then a snap.

00:31:39Then the south span went down in a long, slow ripple.

00:31:41And the dead came over the top of it like water over a dam.

00:31:44Second ring is breached!

00:31:45South span!

00:31:46South span is down!

00:31:47Mother's still tracking the watchtower.

00:31:49She's not tracking the watchtower, Dad.

00:31:51What?

00:31:52Look up.

00:31:54I looked up.

00:31:56Hugh was on the roof.

00:31:57He had gone up the watchtower stairs while no one was watching.

00:32:00He stood at the parapet with the long rifle on its bipod and his elbow on the wall.

00:32:03And he had taken his oxygen helmet off.

00:32:05And his cheek was on the stock.

00:32:06And his eye was at the scope.

00:32:08And he was not aiming at the swarm.

00:32:09He was aiming at the bedroom window.

00:32:11He keyed the radio.

00:32:12Hugh!

00:32:13Hugh's!

00:32:14Stay off the channel, Kane.

00:32:16Hugh!

00:32:17Look at me!

00:32:17Hugh, get back inside!

00:32:19She woke up.

00:32:20About a minute ago.

00:32:22She said my name.

00:32:24And she said it again.

00:32:26Different.

00:32:27Hugh.

00:32:29She's looking for me, Kane.

00:32:31I started for the watchtower stairs.

00:32:33Don't you dare come up here, Kane Sutton!

00:32:35You stay down there!

00:32:37You do your job!

00:32:38I stopped on the third step.

00:32:41My hand stayed on the rail.

00:32:43I did not climb.

00:32:45I hear Chloe screaming downstairs.

00:32:48I reached the second floor hallway with my rifle still slanged and the smell of gunpowder

00:32:52in his hair.

00:32:52The bedroom door was open.

00:32:53Chloe was on the bed.

00:32:54Her hair was down.

00:32:55Shoulders were against the headboard.

00:32:56Her jaw was open at an angle a jaw is not supposed to open.

00:32:58The veins under her skin were no longer black.

00:32:59They were the color of an old battery.

00:33:01Her eyes were full white.

00:33:02Her hands had crossed in her lap and were still.

00:33:04The thing on the bed was not Chloe.

00:33:06She turned her head.

00:33:07The neck did not move the way a neck moves.

00:33:10She saw me.

00:33:11She smiled.

00:33:12I raised the rifle.

00:33:14I had told myself for four days that when this moment came, I would do it.

00:33:16I had practiced.

00:33:17I had walked through it in my head.

00:33:18I had told myself that what was on the bed would not be Chloe.

00:33:20That it would just be the body.

00:33:21The part that was Chloe was already gone.

00:33:23The thing on the bed smiled with Chloe's mouth.

00:33:24The rifle did not stay me.

00:33:26Hugh's voice came from the doorway behind me.

00:33:28Kane, out.

00:33:30Hugh.

00:33:30I said out.

00:33:32Hugh was eye the doorway in his armor with his helmet off and a half-sip tactical vest over

00:33:36his suit.

00:33:36The vest had ten clips on it.

00:33:38The clips were not magazines.

00:33:40Hugh.

00:33:40No.

00:33:41I'll walk her out.

00:33:43Hughie.

00:33:44She's right there, Kane.

00:33:45Look at her.

00:33:45She's right there.

00:33:46I looked.

00:33:48The thing on the bed was looking past me.

00:33:50At the doorway.

00:33:51At Hugh.

00:33:52Her smile changed.

00:33:53Hugh stepped past me into the room.

00:33:54He held out his hand.

00:33:56The thing on the bed put her hand in his without standing.

00:33:59Come on, baby.

00:34:00Hugh smiled at her.

00:34:01The same smile.

00:34:02The real one.

00:34:02The same smile he had smiled at her every day for six years.

00:34:05I raised the gun.

00:34:06I can't.

00:34:06I'll walk her out.

00:34:09Hugh walked Chloe down the stairs.

00:34:11I went with them as far as the basement door.

00:34:13Roger met them there with my rifle sung and his face old.

00:34:16Diane was behind me with both hands pressed over her mouth.

00:34:19Facey was at the master panel.

00:34:20Marlene and Derek were not in the room.

00:34:23Hugh.

00:34:24Don't, Roger.

00:34:25There has to be another way.

00:34:28There isn't.

00:34:32Hugh stopped at the door.

00:34:33I turned to Kane.

00:34:35Open the gate when she gets on the wire.

00:34:37Cut the power.

00:34:38I want her to have a clear line.

00:34:40Hugh.

00:34:40One more thing.

00:34:43Yeah.

00:34:44When the mother comes in close.

00:34:46When she leans down to look.

00:34:47You put a rocket through her chest, Kane Sutton.

00:34:50You put it right through her green ribs and you do not miss.

00:34:53I won't miss.

00:34:55Promise me.

00:34:57I promise you.

00:34:59Hugh nodded.

00:35:00I looked at Faye.

00:35:01I looked at Roger.

00:35:02I looked at Diane.

00:35:03I looked, last, on the woman beside me with the white eyes and the wrong jaw.

00:35:07Hey baby.

00:35:08The thing in Chloe's body tilted her head against his shoulder.

00:35:11Let's go for a walk, sweetheart.

00:35:13I opened the door.

00:35:15I stepped out into the air talk.

00:35:17The thing in Chloe's body followed me without resistance.

00:35:20Her hand in his.

00:35:21The outer door cycled.

00:35:22Cold morning came in.

00:35:23Full of smoke and the smell of meat.

00:35:25Roger turned to Kane.

00:35:27I could not speak.

00:35:29Faye.

00:35:30Cut the inner wire.

00:35:32Kane.

00:35:33Cut it.

00:35:34Now.

00:35:36The inner wire died.

00:35:37Hugh walked Chloe through the gate and out into the yard between the rings and the swarm

00:35:42parted around the green woman in the middle and the green woman stopped walking and turned

00:35:47and looked at Hugh and Chloe and her green head tilted with curiosity.

00:35:52Hugh kept walking.

00:35:54I squeezed Chloe's hand once at 30 yards.

00:35:58I pulled the first pin at 20.

00:36:02Ten pins.

00:36:03Ten chances.

00:36:05I was on the watchtower with the rocket on my shoulder when Hugh pulled the second pin.

00:36:09The mother was leaning down.

00:36:11She was reaching out a long green hand, almost gentle, toward the man and the woman walking

00:36:14up to her in the wreckage of the yard.

00:36:16Her face had no expression.

00:36:17It was watching Hugh's eyes.

00:36:19Hi.

00:36:20The third pin.

00:36:21Look at me.

00:36:21The fourth pin.

00:36:23Right here.

00:36:24The mother looked.

00:36:25The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth pins.

00:36:28Hugh let go of Chloe's hand.

00:36:31I winked at her.

00:36:33The tenth pin.

00:36:34The world went white.

00:36:35The blast picked up the yard and put it down somewhere else.

00:36:38It picked up the second ring posts and folded them.

00:36:40It picked up 200 infected at the front of the swarm and turned them into a cloud of blood vapor

00:36:43that hung in the air and did not fall.

00:36:44It picked up the green woman and lifted her off her feet for the first time in any record I

00:36:47had ever heard of.

00:36:48She was already healing.

00:36:50She was already healing.

00:36:50I fired.

00:36:51The last rocket left his shoulder with a single hard cough and crossed the yard in a flat line and

00:36:56went into the green woman where her sternum had been before Hugh's grenades had taken it apart and it did

00:37:00not come out the other side.

00:37:01It detonated inside her.

00:37:03The green skin came apart in petals.

00:37:06She made a sound I would hear for the rest of my life.

00:37:09Then she did not make any sound.

00:37:13Then there was no green where she had been.

00:37:15Then the swarm, every infected within a half mile, stopped all at once as if a wire had been cut.

00:37:22They turned, slowly, in unison, away from the compound and began to walk back toward the city.

00:37:29I fell to his knees on the watchtower.

00:37:32I couldn't...

00:37:33God, I couldn't breathe.

00:37:35A purple rain began to fall, fine, wet, and acid cold.

00:37:39In the wet ash where Hugh had been standing, there was nothing left.

00:37:45I came up from the dark a week later.

00:37:47The light hurt.

00:37:48The ceiling was the ceiling of his old bedroom.

00:37:50There was a bag of saline on a hook.

00:37:51There was a small plastic clip on his finger.

00:37:53My chest hurt with a hurt that was new.

00:37:55The deep, splintered hurt of ribs that had been broken and were trying to remember how to be ribs.

00:37:58I could not raise my arms.

00:38:00Diane was beside the bed.

00:38:02Her hair was uncombed.

00:38:04He's awake.

00:38:05Her hands held his hand.

00:38:07Faye was in the doorway in two seconds.

00:38:09She was crying before she got to the bed.

00:38:12You stupid, stupid, stupid!

00:38:14I'm sorry.

00:38:17You stupid, stupid!

00:38:18She climbed up beside me and pressed her face into his shoulder and stopped trying to talk.

00:38:24I lay there a long time before he asked.

00:38:27You.

00:38:29Diane could not speak.

00:38:32He didn't come back.

00:38:34I closed my eyes.

00:38:36The tears went into his hair.

00:38:40How long have I been out?

00:38:42Eight days.

00:38:44Where is everyone?

00:38:45Your mom's downstairs.

00:38:47Marlene and Derek are in his room.

00:38:48Your dad's on the watchtower.

00:38:51Faye.

00:38:51They're all alive, Kane.

00:38:53We're all still here.

00:38:55I held that for a long minute.

00:38:58I didn't, and that was the point.

00:39:00Deserve it.

00:39:02I took it anyway.

00:39:04Roger appeared in the doorway.

00:39:06I looked at Kane.

00:39:07My jaw worked once.

00:39:10Welcome back, son.

00:39:12Dad.

00:39:15Hugh saved us.

00:39:18I know.

00:39:19We had a service.

00:39:20Faye said the words.

00:39:25When you can stand,

00:39:27I want to walk the perimeter with you.

00:39:30Yeah.

00:39:31Take a day.

00:39:33Hell, take two.

00:39:36I left.

00:39:38Diane kissed my forehead and followed me.

00:39:40Faye stayed against his shoulder until she fell asleep.

00:39:43I lay awake in the dim room and listened to the wire hum

00:39:46and to the breathing of the woman beside me

00:39:48and to the silence where, a week ago,

00:39:51Hugh Sterling had still been breathing, too.

00:39:53I didn't come back.

00:39:56Marlene coughed at breakfast on my third day up.

00:39:59Once.

00:39:59Twice.

00:40:00Three times.

00:40:01The third with a napkin pressed to her mouth

00:40:03and her shoulders rising.

00:40:04When she lowered the napkin,

00:40:05she gave the smile she always gave

00:40:07and folded the napkin neatly so no one could see the inside.

00:40:10Marlene.

00:40:11It's the air down here.

00:40:13It's so dry.

00:40:13Marlene.

00:40:14Don't.

00:40:14Derek's hand tightened on his fork.

00:40:16I did not look at anyone.

00:40:18Diane stood up to get more bread

00:40:20that no one was eating.

00:40:21I looked at the napkin Marlene had folded.

00:40:23I could see the dark spot on the cloth from across the table.

00:40:26I had seen this exact spot before.

00:40:28On a different cloth,

00:40:29in a different mouth,

00:40:30on a morning that had ended a friend.

00:40:31I stood up and for a moment,

00:40:33the only sound was Faye's quick breath beside me.

00:40:35Marlene.

00:40:35I'm gonna take that.

00:40:37Please.

00:40:38Kane.

00:40:39She handed me the napkin without unfolding it.

00:40:41Her hand was warm.

00:40:43Too warm.

00:40:43I took it down to the basement

00:40:45and put it in the medical waste bin without opening it.

00:40:48When I came back upstairs,

00:40:50Derek was already kneeling beside her chair,

00:40:53his hands on her hands.

00:40:54We don't know yet.

00:40:55I know, baby.

00:40:57We don't.

00:40:59Hold my hand.

00:41:01Derek held her hand.

00:41:03Faye came up behind I in the kitchen doorway

00:41:05and slipped her arms around his waist.

00:41:07How long?

00:41:08A week.

00:41:09Maybe.

00:41:10How do you know?

00:41:11I've been through this.

00:41:12With someone.

00:41:14Faye understood without asking who.

00:41:17Roger came in from the garden

00:41:18with the dirt of the morning still on his hands.

00:41:20He stopped in the doorway.

00:41:21He looked at Derek and Marlene at the table.

00:41:24He looked at me.

00:41:24I'll take the watchtower tonight, Dad.

00:41:27I'll take it tonight.

00:41:30I went outside and shut the door behind me.

00:41:34My stomach drops.

00:41:36Again.

00:41:38Marlene turned on the fourth night.

00:41:41Derek sat with her every hour.

00:41:43Diane brought broth he did not eat.

00:41:46Faye changed the wet cloth on Marlene's forehead.

00:41:49I stood in the hallway with his hand on the doorframe

00:41:51and listened to Derek talk to her

00:41:52about the camping trip they had gone on

00:41:54the year they got married

00:41:55and the dog they had buried in the backyard

00:41:57the year my mother had died

00:41:58and the kid they had been thinking about having for two years

00:42:01and could no longer have.

00:42:03I would have wanted a girl.

00:42:05I would have wanted a girl too.

00:42:09I love you.

00:42:12I love you, baby.

00:42:14Marlene fell asleep around midnight.

00:42:16She woke up at 1.42.

00:42:18The thing in Marlene's body sat up against the headboard

00:42:20with the sheets bunched in its fists

00:42:22and turned its head slowly

00:42:23and looked at the man kneeling beside the bed

00:42:25and opened its mouth.

00:42:27Marlene!

00:42:28It was not Marlene anymore.

00:42:29It came off the bed.

00:42:30Roger had been waiting in the doorway.

00:42:32The shot was cleaned.

00:42:33The thing went sideways across the headboard

00:42:35and did not move again.

00:42:37Derek did not move either.

00:42:39Dad.

00:42:41I know, son.

00:42:43She was right there.

00:42:46I know.

00:42:48Derek did not stand for a long time.

00:42:50When he finally did,

00:42:51I walked past his father in the doorway without looking at me.

00:42:54I went down to the basement.

00:42:56I sat on the basement floor with my back against the gun rack

00:42:58where Hugh had sat eight nights ago

00:43:00and he stayed there until morning.

00:43:02Roger came out of the bedroom with Marlene in a sheet.

00:43:04I went with me through the airlock and out into the night.

00:43:07They buried her beside Brett and Hugh.

00:43:10The ground was soft from rain.

00:43:13Roger did not speak the whole walk back.

00:43:15In the basement,

00:43:16Faye sat down beside Derek on the floor

00:43:19and took his hand and did not say a word.

00:43:22She was right there.

00:43:24Derek began coughing 11 days after Marlene.

00:43:27I did not tell anyone for two days.

00:43:29Faye found out because she walked into the laundry room

00:43:31at the wrong moment

00:43:32and saw me bent over the basin with a towel against his mouth.

00:43:34Derek.

00:43:36Don't.

00:43:36Derek.

00:43:37Derek!

00:43:37I said don't!

00:43:38I went up to the room I had shared with Marlene

00:43:40and shut the door.

00:43:41Roger came in an hour later

00:43:43and did not come out for the rest of the day.

00:43:46I forced myself to stand in the hall outside.

00:43:49He's asking for the gun.

00:43:51Dad.

00:43:52He's asking me.

00:43:54Don't.

00:43:56He doesn't want it the way she had it.

00:43:59Dad.

00:44:00Please.

00:44:01Roger came out of the room.

00:44:03My face was the face I had seen at his grandfather's funeral.

00:44:07I brushed past him and went down to the basement.

00:44:09I came back up with a pistol I recognized as Big Sam's.

00:44:12The one Roger had taught Derek to shoot with the summer Derek turned 12.

00:44:17Don't come in.

00:44:18Dad.

00:44:19I'm asking you, son.

00:44:20Don't come in.

00:44:24I went into the room.

00:44:27I stood in the hallway with my back against the wall and slid down to the floor.

00:44:31Faye sat down beside me.

00:44:32She did not take his hand.

00:44:34She put her arm across his shoulders and held me against her.

00:44:37The shot was very quiet through the door.

00:44:41Roger came out a long time later.

00:44:43I did not look at Kane.

00:44:45I went to the basement and got the second sheet they were not going to need again.

00:44:48And he and I walked Derek through the airlock and out to the backfield.

00:44:53The ground was harder this time.

00:44:55They buried Derek beside Marianne.

00:44:58Inside, Diane was sitting at the dining room table with her hands flat on the wood, breathing through her mouth.

00:45:05D.

00:45:09I felt it last night.

00:45:11Eyes asking me.

00:45:14Diane lasted four days.

00:45:16Roger sat with her through every hour of it.

00:45:17I fed her broth she could no longer keep down.

00:45:20I brushed her hair.

00:45:21I read her the book she had been halfway through on her nightstay the morning the world ended, picking up

00:45:24exactly where her book card sat.

00:45:26When the fever turned and she could no longer answer me, he kept reading.

00:45:29I forced myself to stand outside the door.

00:45:31I would not come in.

00:45:32I could not come in.

00:45:33On the fourth night, Roger came out.

00:45:36My eyes were dry.

00:45:38My hands were not.

00:45:47Roger took Diane out through the airlock at 3.14 in the morning.

00:45:50I did not let anyone go with me.

00:45:52I came back inside an hour later and sat down at the dining room table and put my head down

00:45:56on his folded arms and did not move for a long time.

00:45:59Faye and I sat with me without speaking.

00:46:01The outer wire fell on the next afternoon.

00:46:03Not from infected pressure, but from a dead branch that finally rotted through and dropped onto the south span.

00:46:07The wire came down and a long, slow pangle left to put back into it.

00:46:10The hydro generator was running the basement air and the basement lights and nothing else.

00:46:13The second ring had been brooched since the day of the battle.

00:46:16The third ring was the only line that mattered.

00:46:18The third ring still hummed.

00:46:20I and Faye and Roger lived inside the third ring like three people on a small rooms of the compound

00:46:24and did not speak much in a dead sea.

00:46:26They ate from cans.

00:46:27They did not turn on the radio.

00:46:28On the morning of the second month, Faye went up to the watchtower with Cain.

00:46:33She had not been up there since the day of the battle.

00:46:35She put her hands on the parabate.

00:46:37And looked out at the world.

00:46:39The river to the east had gone dry.

00:46:40The tree line to the west was black.

00:46:43The sky overhead was the color of an old wound.

00:46:46I can't see hope anymore, Cain.

00:46:49I had no answer.

00:46:50A small island in a dead sea.

00:46:54I didn't.

00:46:54And that was the point.

00:46:55See the figure first.

00:46:56Faye saw it.

00:46:57She had been standing at the paramed for a long time.

00:46:59Her hand on his back.

00:47:00Her cheek against his shoulder.

00:47:01I had been counting how long it had been since either of them had said anything.

00:47:03The number kept getting bigger.

00:47:04I kept losing it.

00:47:05She did not move her hand.

00:47:06She did not change her tone.

00:47:07She just said his name.

00:47:08Look.

00:47:09I looked.

00:47:09Out past the second ring wreckage.

00:47:11Out past the burned edge of the field.

00:47:12Out on the gravel road that led back to what was left of the city.

00:47:14A figure was walking.

00:47:15Wah person.

00:47:16Upright.

00:47:17Two-legged.

00:47:17Walking.

00:47:18Not strumbling.

00:47:19Not tilting.

00:47:19A jacket.

00:47:20A hand raised.

00:47:21Palm out in the air.

00:47:22I raised the rifle through reflex.

00:47:24My hands were steady before my brain had caught up.

00:47:27Kane.

00:47:27He's waving.

00:47:30I see him.

00:47:32Kane.

00:47:33I see him, Faye.

00:47:35The figure stopped at the edge of the dead field.

00:47:37I did not come closer.

00:47:38I cupped his hand around his mouth.

00:47:40My voice came up to them on the watchtower thin and clear.

00:47:42Faye made a sound I had not heard her make in months.

00:47:44I laughed.

00:47:45It was high and shocked and cracked across the middle and immediately turned into something else,

00:47:48but it was a laugh.

00:47:48She gripped his arm.

00:47:49Kane.

00:47:49There's somebody out there.

00:47:51I lifted the binoculars.

00:47:52The man was tin.

00:47:53I was middle-aged.

00:47:54I had a salt-pepper beard.

00:47:56I wore no helmet.

00:47:57I wore no oxygen tank.

00:47:58My face was bare in the purple air.

00:48:00I was waving.

00:48:01I was alive.

00:48:01I keyed the radio with his free hand.

00:48:03Dad.

00:48:04Watchtower.

00:48:05Now.

00:48:05I lowered the binoculars.

00:48:07I looked at Faye.

00:48:09The wind moved her hair.

00:48:11A figure on the horizon.

00:48:13Walking.

00:48:14Alive.

00:48:15A figure on the horizon.

00:48:19The stranger held both hands up at the third ring and waited for permission.

00:48:24I and Roger came down to the gate in their suits.

00:48:27Faye watched from the watchtower with the rifle.

00:48:30Roger stayed five steps back.

00:48:32I stopped at the wire.

00:48:33The man on the other side was older than I had looked from up high.

00:48:36Sixty.

00:48:37Lean.

00:48:37A mark like a black star out of his neck.

00:48:39I had a soldier's stillness.

00:48:41Name's Mac Harper.

00:48:42World Rescue Corps.

00:48:43I'm not infected.

00:48:45I've got a vaccine.

00:48:46Don't shoot.

00:48:48How are you breathing the air?

00:48:50The mark on my neck.

00:48:51It's a marker the swarm can't see.

00:48:54Paired with an antiviral.

00:48:56Ten of us got dropped into this city six weeks back.

00:48:59I'm what's left.

00:49:00Why are you here?

00:49:01Because somebody on this property fired a wire-guided munition into a mother three weeks ago.

00:49:07And we tracked the heat pump from orbit.

00:49:09We thought it was an artillery error.

00:49:11Then we got ground readings.

00:49:12Then we got a satellite image of three central fences and a working oxygen rig in a watchtower.

00:49:18And command sent me to find out who the hell was still alive.

00:49:23Step back ten spas.

00:49:25Mac, step back.

00:49:27Lift your shirt.

00:49:29Mac lifted his shirt.

00:49:31There were no bites.

00:49:32There were three old scars and a fresh field dressing across his ribs.

00:49:36Empty the pack on the ground.

00:49:38Mac emptied the pack.

00:49:40Two protein bags.

00:49:41A pistol.

00:49:42A satellite radio.

00:49:44Three small unmarked vials.

00:49:45A fold of papers.

00:49:47A handheld device the size of a phone.

00:49:49And a thin strip of metal that looked, in the cold light, like nothing I had ever seen.

00:49:53The strip's a nano suit.

00:49:55Skin bonded.

00:49:56Combat radio.

00:49:57Single charge.

00:49:58It'll get you through about 200 of them, then it dies.

00:50:01One charge.

00:50:02One shot.

00:50:03I keyed the gate.

00:50:05Get inside before the rain hits again.

00:50:07Mac picked up the pack.

00:50:09I stepped through the wire.

00:50:10The gate closed behind me with a soft, heavy click.

00:50:14I stood inside the perimeter for the first time and let out a breath like I had been holding

00:50:19it for six weeks.

00:50:20Brother.

00:50:22We've been tracking the mother.

00:50:24We've been tracking the mother.

00:50:27They sat around the dining room table for the first time in two months.

00:50:31Mac laid out the map between the salt and pepper.

00:50:33It was a city map.

00:50:34A real one.

00:50:35Paper.

00:50:35Not satellite.

00:50:36With red ink in the center and a black star drawn over the largest metro station downtown.

00:50:40This is our girl.

00:50:42Downtown.

00:50:43Right under the central terminal.

00:50:45She doesn't move more than 100 yards in any direction.

00:50:48The whole hive feeds her.

00:50:50She doesn't have to walk.

00:50:52Her hive walks for her.

00:50:55Then how do we get to her?

00:50:57Through the tunnels.

00:50:58I tapped the lines that marked the metro.

00:51:00Trains aren't running.

00:51:01The hive cleared the platforms in the first week.

00:51:03After that, the tunnels went quiet.

00:51:05They don't bother with anything they can't smell.

00:51:07We slip in at the west side station.

00:51:09Walk the line east surface at the H tower across from the central terminal.

00:51:12Three hours on foot.

00:51:14Why a tower?

00:51:15Because she has to see you.

00:51:17Wait.

00:51:17She has to see you.

00:51:19The vaccine works close range only.

00:51:21And only if she's looking.

00:51:23We need her to break cover.

00:51:24We need her to climb.

00:51:25So we have to be high enough that she sees us.

00:51:27Far enough she has to come for us.

00:51:28And inside enough cover that the rest of the hive can't drown us before she gets there.

00:51:32That's a lot of ifs.

00:51:34It is.

00:51:35I looked at the red ink.

00:51:37I looked at the black star.

00:51:38At the dotted line between the west side station and the H tower across the page.

00:51:42I had walked that line last time.

00:51:43With Faye.

00:51:44On her last day.

00:51:45They had been trying to find a checkpoint that did not exist.

00:51:48I knew exactly how many infected were waiting.

00:51:51We go tomorrow.

00:51:54Tomorrow.

00:51:55Faye took his hand under the table.

00:51:58There's more than one?

00:52:01Mac laid the nano suit strip on the table.

00:52:04It looked in the lamplight like a band-aid made of mercury.

00:52:08Six inches long.

00:52:09Half an inch wide.

00:52:10It moved when you weren't looking.

00:52:12When you looked at it, it stopped.

00:52:14Press it to the back of the neck.

00:52:16Skin contact.

00:52:17It bonds in two seconds.

00:52:19After that, it lives where you live.

00:52:22Activate by intention.

00:52:24Think the word suit.

00:52:25The plates flow.

00:52:26You'll have a full kit in 90 frames.

00:52:29Charge.

00:52:30100% at start.

00:52:31A heavy weapon.

00:52:32Energy blade.

00:52:33Beam.

00:52:33Burns it down fast.

00:52:34Conservative.

00:52:35You've got a half hour fight in you.

00:52:36Aggressive.

00:52:3710 minutes.

00:52:38How many of these you got?

00:52:39Four.

00:52:40One for each of us.

00:52:41They were calibrated to my unit's biosignatures, but the bond protocol accepts new hosts.

00:52:46You'll be the first non-corpse personnel to ever wear one.

00:52:49Faye picked one up.

00:52:50It clung to her finger, then her palm, then settled.

00:52:54It feels warm.

00:52:55It's already reading you.

00:52:57Faye looked at Cain.

00:52:59One charge.

00:53:00One shot.

00:53:02One shot.

00:53:03I pressed his strip to the back of my neck.

00:53:06The cold lasted half a second.

00:53:08Then a warmth ran down his spine.

00:53:10Clean.

00:53:11Sharp.

00:53:11Almost pleasant.

00:53:12It stopped at his hands.

00:53:14My fingers tingled.

00:53:15Something behind his eyes opened.

00:53:17I thought the weight of it crushing me.

00:53:20Suit.

00:53:20A hundred small plates flowed out from his collarbone, his shoulder blades, his hips, and

00:53:24a featherweight skin of liquid metal closed over me in less than two seconds.

00:53:28My vision sharpened.

00:53:29The aches in his ribs went quiet.

00:53:31A small status panel ghosted into the corner of his eye.

00:53:33Battery 100%.

00:53:36God.

00:53:38Roger and Mac and Faye stood up around the table in their own gleaming armor.

00:53:42Roger laughed once, a stunned laugh, and looked down at his hands.

00:53:47I'm 61 years old.

00:53:50Tonight, you're not.

00:53:51The last night.

00:53:54Faye won't sleep.

00:53:56Faye climbed into the bed in the dark.

00:53:58She had not done that in a month.

00:54:00Since Hugh had walked Chloe into the yard since the burial, since the third ring had started

00:54:04humming alone.

00:54:05They had slept in the same room, but she had stayed on the cot under the window, and I had

00:54:09stayed in the bed by the door, each of them grieving in a different language.

00:54:13Tonight, she came to me.

00:54:14She put her arms around me, under the covers.

00:54:17She put her forehead against his collarbone.

00:54:21I could feel her eyelashes against his skin.

00:54:24Cain.

00:54:25Yeah?

00:54:27Are we gonna make it back?

00:54:29I held her.

00:54:30I didn't, and that was the point answer for a long time.

00:54:33I had thought about this question for a long time.

00:54:36I had practiced answers in my head a hundred times.

00:54:39I had believed, in the worst weeks, that if he ever got the chance to answer it again,

00:54:43I would lie.

00:54:44I was going to lie.

00:54:47I don't know, Faye.

00:54:49Faye nodded against his colistain.

00:54:51Okay.

00:54:53I want to.

00:54:53I want to so badly.

00:54:55Okay.

00:54:56But I don't know.

00:54:58Okay.

00:54:59She did not cry.

00:55:01She did not move.

00:55:03She held me, and she breathed against my neck, and she listened to me breathe.

00:55:08The room kept breathing around them.

00:55:12I love you, Cain Sutton.

00:55:14I love you, Faye Mitchell.

00:55:17I have loved you since the second week of senior year.

00:55:21I know.

00:55:23I want you to know that no matter what happens tomorrow, I have already had a whole life with you.

00:55:28I had it.

00:55:30It was mine.

00:55:31Even if it ends.

00:55:33Good God, I couldn't speak.

00:55:35Okay?

00:55:37Okay.

00:55:39Good.

00:55:39Now sleep.

00:55:41She fell asleep against me in 20 minutes.

00:55:44I did not sleep.

00:55:46I lay awake and listened to her breathe, and he memorized it.

00:55:51The way a person memorizes something they intend to carry for a very long time.

00:55:55I lies.

00:55:57She knows.

00:55:59They left the compound at 6 in the morning.

00:56:01Roger walked once around the basement before he locked it.

00:56:03I touched the workbench.

00:56:04I touched the master burker.

00:56:06I touched the door frame of the room where Diane had lived for the last week of her life.

00:56:09I stood there for a moment with his hand on the wood.

00:56:11Then I came out and shut the door.

00:56:13And did not lock it.

00:56:14In case anyone needs it.

00:56:45Yeah.

00:56:45My Mac drove, Roger Shotgun.

00:56:45None of them were alive.

00:56:48No.

00:57:02Faye looked at the little girl as they drove past.

00:57:04A granite arch over a stairway down, surrounded by abandoned newspaper boxes.

00:57:07Lights on.

00:57:08Move.

00:57:08They climbed out.

00:57:09Mac threw a pebble at a steel grit 20 feet down the avenue.

00:57:11And a half dozen drowsy infected at the station's mouth turned and shompered toward this noise.

00:57:15Roger took Faye's elbow.

00:57:16And they slipped past the entrance.

00:57:18I and Mac threw a second pebble in the opposite direction.

00:57:21The remaining infected at the entrance turned and drifted away.

00:57:27Lights on.

00:57:28Move.

00:57:32The tunnel was very dark and very wet.

00:57:35The air was cold.

00:57:36The air was full of a smell I had no name for.

00:57:38Something like old meat.

00:57:39Something like a swimming pool that had not been cleaned.

00:57:40Something like the inside of a refrigerator that had lost power for a month.

00:57:43The nanosuit filtered most of it out.

00:57:45Most was not all.

00:57:46The four of them moved in a tight diamond.

00:57:48Mark took point.

00:57:49Roger held the back.

00:57:50I took the right.

00:57:51Faye took the left with my hand on her elbow whenever the floor was uneven.

00:57:54Which was always.

00:57:55The suit lit the tunnel for them.

00:57:56A soft cone of cold light from each shoulder.

00:57:59There were things in the dark.

00:58:00Some of them were animals.

00:58:01A rat scurrying along the rail.

00:58:03A bird that had gotten in somehow, dead on a beam.

00:58:05Some of them were not animals.

00:58:06Once, Mac stopped and actioned and they all stood very still while something on the far side of the tracks

00:58:11dragged itself a hundred feet through the gravel.

00:58:12And then, finding no sound to follow, lay back down.

00:58:16I felt deep in my bones.

00:58:19Faye's pulse through her elbow.

00:58:22It was very fast.

00:58:24Mac.

00:58:25How far?

00:58:26Two and a quarter miles to the central platform.

00:58:28We'll scurp it.

00:58:29H tower entrance is half a mile past.

00:58:30How long?

00:58:31Forty minutes if we keep this pace.

00:58:34Then we keep this pace.

00:58:37They walked.

00:58:39They walked.

00:58:41They walked.

00:58:42A subway car came out of the dark.

00:58:44It was tilted.

00:58:45It had jumped the track at some point in the chaos and it lay across the rails on its side.

00:58:49Its lights long dead.

00:58:50Its windows broken in long jagged shapes.

00:58:53Black red blood streaked the inside.

00:59:21The smell here was different.

00:59:24It was dark with a piece of its own arm in its other hand.

00:59:26And Roger stepped past I and put a knuckle plate through its forehead.

00:59:29And then the subway car came open in three places at once.

00:59:32Five.

00:59:32Then ten.

00:59:33Then twenty.

00:59:35They poured.

00:59:37There had been a packed train at the moment everything had ended.

00:59:40Commuters.

00:59:40Students.

00:59:41A stroller.

00:59:41A man with a guitar.

00:59:43And they had all been turned into a sealed steel box for two months.

00:59:46And now the box had cracked.

00:59:52To be at the end.

00:59:53Roger reception.

00:59:54I took Faye by the wrist and ran.

00:59:56The nano-suits gave them speed they had not earned.

00:59:58A feather glide along the rails with small wheels at the heel skating them forward at thirty

01:00:02miles an hour.

01:00:03I heard the swarm behind them as a single unbroken sound.

01:00:06A roar that did not breathe in.

01:00:07How far!

01:00:08Quarter mile to the H tower stance!

01:00:12Kane!

01:00:13Yeah!

01:00:15I've got an idea.

01:00:18Mac! The tower stairs!

01:00:23I see them!

01:00:24Get to them.

01:00:25Listen to me. I built this city, son.

01:00:28I built three of these damn stations.

01:00:29The roof of this tunnel is held up by a load-bearing beam every 200 feet.

01:00:33If we drop the next one behind us, the swarm can't follow.

01:00:36Dad! No! Dad, please!

01:00:39We can take her down together!

01:00:41I can't do this without you!

01:00:46You can.

01:00:49You will.

01:00:50I didn't, and that was the point. Slow down.

01:00:56Get to the tower.

01:01:01I felt my father's hand on the back of his neck.

01:01:03It was a brief, hard squeeze.

01:01:06I'll be right behind you, son.

01:01:09Then I was not.

01:01:11I saw, out of the corner of his eye, my father break stride and pivot.

01:01:14The way Roger had pivoted sonored on a job site 50,000 times, and raised the rocket to aim at

01:01:19Balong to the tunnel ceiling at a point I could not see.

01:01:22The rocket left.

01:01:23The blast was a long, rolling, geological sound.

01:01:26I did not look back.

01:01:27Faye did not look back.

01:01:29Mac did not look back.

01:01:30They ran.

01:01:31They reached the H-Tower stairwell door.

01:01:33Mac threw the door open.

01:01:34They went up.

01:01:35They went up.

01:01:37I waited at the next landing.

01:01:38I did not speak.

01:01:39After a long moment, Mac spoke.

01:01:41I must have whispered.

01:01:43I was a good man.

01:01:44He was the best man I ever heard.

01:01:46I'm sorry, brother.

01:01:48They climbed.

01:01:4983 stories.

01:01:50Take us ups did most of it.

01:01:51By the 40th, my grief had narrowed to a single hot point behind his ribs, and I was using it

01:01:55the way a runner uses a stitch.

01:01:56By the 70th, his face was dry.

01:01:58By the rooftop access door, his counter-stick.

01:02:12The H-Tower was actually two towers.

01:02:14Twin glass slabs joined at the base by a parking deck and a lobby.

01:02:17From the rooftop of the South Tower, I could see straight across the gap to the North Tower's rooftop.

01:02:22And below the gap, I could see down into the canyon between them, where the wind moved trash and slow

01:02:26circle.

01:02:27I taught you the suit 10 hours ago.

01:02:29I learned fast.

01:02:32Faye went to the other tower with the long rifle of the suit gate.

01:02:35A gauss needle, slim, almost beautiful, that printed itself into existence in her hands when she thought it.

01:02:41I kissed her at the elevator.

01:02:42When I opened my chest piece, the second you see green, you fire.

01:02:44I won't lose.

01:02:46No, you won't, baby.

01:02:47She crossed the parking deck and entered the North Tower and went up.

01:02:51I stood beside him.

01:02:54Mac flicked the cigarette over the edge.

01:02:57Mech mode, Kane.

01:02:58They both said it at once.

01:03:00Mech mode.

01:03:01The nano suits expanded.

01:03:03The plates thickened.

01:03:04The shoulders broad.

01:03:05Servos that had not existed five minutes ago hummed in the metal.

01:03:08Cold weapons folded out of forearms.

01:03:10Battery readouts from 95% to 40% in a long unbroken slide and stopped.

01:03:16In the canyon between the towers, something began to climb.

01:03:21Some things, somebody has to do.

01:03:27The mother climbed straight up the glass.

01:03:29She did not need a foothold.

01:03:30Her hands moved up the smooth face of the building like a spider's hands.

01:03:33Behind her on the plaza, her swarm was funneling into the H Tower lobby in a single black red column.

01:03:37Above her, in the gap, only I and Mac stood on the parody.

01:03:41She looked up.

01:03:42She looked at Kane.

01:03:43She remembered me.

01:03:44I saw it in her face.

01:03:45The same look the green woman had given me from across the field last time.

01:03:48The same look from the moment Hugh had pulled the seventh pin.

01:03:51She remembered.

01:03:51She knew exactly which one of them had killed her sister six weeks ago on the west side.

01:03:55She had been waiting for me to come down.

01:03:56I waited until she was three floors below the Paramount.

01:03:58Then I opened his chest plate.

01:04:00The compartment in the nanosuit's chest was an emergency power well.

01:04:02A core, a tiny nuclear ember meant only for catastrophic last resort use.

01:04:06The interior glowed a sickly clean green.

01:04:09Now!

01:04:10Faye fired.

01:04:11The round left the North Tower like a star.

01:04:13It crossed the gap at hypersonic speed.

01:04:15It went into the mother's open mouth and through the back of her head

01:04:18and continued for another 200 feet before it lost altitude.

01:04:22The mother fell.

01:04:23Not far.

01:04:23She caught the paralle of the floor below with one hand.

01:04:26She hung there.

01:04:27Her eyes, her one remaining eye did not stop looking at Kane.

01:04:31She began to climb again.

01:04:33She isn't dying.

01:04:35She will.

01:04:36I stepped up onto the Paramount.

01:04:38Mac caught his arm.

01:04:39Mac caught his arm!

01:04:44Kane!

01:04:45I have to be close to her.

01:04:48Heroes pay a price, kid.

01:04:51I smiled.

01:04:52Tell my kid I tried.

01:04:54I fell.

01:04:55I fell with my chest open and the green ember loose and burning in his hands.

01:04:58Tell my kid I tried.

01:05:05The flash threw I off the rooftop.

01:05:07The mother caught the explosion at point-blank range on the side of the building,

01:05:10with Mac's body wrapped around her.

01:05:11The white-green light filled the gap between the towers.

01:05:14The glass on 20 floors went.

01:05:15I fell 10 feet, and the nano-suit spent the last of its battery to keep me alive.

01:05:19I hit the parasit of the floor below.

01:05:21The suit cushioned the impact with a sound like a balloon popping.

01:05:23The chest plate sealed.

01:05:24The HUD went red.

01:05:25This emergency reserve reserve, 4%.

01:05:2720 feet below me, bent across the side of the building like a thing flung by a child,

01:05:30beaming.

01:05:31The green woman was not green anymore.

01:05:32She was not moving.

01:05:33She was not healing.

01:05:34I put both hands flat against the side of the building, and he breathed.

01:05:37Across the gap, on the north tower roof,

01:05:40Faye stood up.

01:05:41Even at this distance, I could see her hand in her mouth.

01:05:45I was alive.

01:05:46I was warm in the lobby, the plaza, on the avenues for miles around,

01:05:49every infected with a half-mile slowed.

01:05:51Then stopped.

01:05:52Then sat down.

01:05:52All of them.

01:05:53All at once in the streets, in the lobbies, in the stairwells.

01:05:55They put their hands in their laps like children at the end of a long game.

01:05:57And the wind moved.

01:05:58The wind that had been thick and purple and acid for two months moved.

01:06:02I lifted my head into it.

01:06:05I didn't, and that was the point.

01:06:07Deserve it.

01:06:08I was going to take it anyway.

01:06:11The sound came from very far away.

01:06:13I did not know what it was at first.

01:06:14A thrum, low, growing.

01:06:15Copters.

01:06:16Three, then ten.

01:06:17Coming up the avenue, gunship low.

01:06:19Faye on the radio crying.

01:06:21Cain.

01:06:25I'm here.

01:06:27You're here.

01:06:29I'm here.

01:06:30I put my face up to the warm, clean light.

01:06:33I thought the weight of it crushing me, about Hugh.

01:06:36I thought the weight of it crushing me, about Roger.

01:06:40The light warmed his face.

01:06:46Six weeks later, I sat and stood on the back porch of a small white house in a small white

01:06:50town 300 miles west of the city.

01:06:52The town had been a rescue crew's location-cation site since the third week of the recovery.

01:06:55A prefag cluster of housing for Beniton in a way that felt like a cage.

01:06:58There were children on the lawns.

01:06:59There was a coffee shop with a hand-painted sign on the corner.

01:07:02The trees still had leaves.

01:07:03Faye came out onto the porch with two mugs.

01:07:06She handed me one.

01:07:07How's the shoulder?

01:07:09Stiff.

01:07:10How's the rest?

01:07:12Also stiff.

01:07:13She sat down on the porch swing, pulled me down beside her.

01:07:16The morning was cold.

01:07:17The sun was real.

01:07:18The helicopter went over very high.

01:07:20They flew me over the city last week, while you were still in the hospital, did I tell you?

01:07:24No.

01:07:24They're rebuilding the central terminal.

01:07:26That's good.

01:07:27They haven't found anyone else from our block.

01:07:29I know.

01:07:30She was quiet for a while.

01:07:33I want to go back.

01:07:33Eventually.

01:07:34Yeah.

01:07:35I want to bury Hugh next to your dad, and Marlene, and Derek.

01:07:38I want to put markers down.

01:07:40I want them to be in the same row.

01:07:41Yeah.

01:07:41We can bring his kids.

01:07:42They found her?

01:07:42She'd been in a rescue camp in Denver the whole time.

01:07:44They told her last week.

01:07:45I closed my eyes.

01:07:46A bus pulled up to the curb across the street.

01:07:49A woman climbed off with a small girl in her arms.

01:07:52The girl had Max's eyes.

01:07:53I gotta go say something.

01:07:55I reach for Faye's hand.

01:07:56I'll come with you.

01:07:57Stay.

01:07:57I won't be long.

01:07:58I'm coming with you, Kate, son.

01:08:00I looked at and felt something break inside me, her in the morning sun.

01:08:03I had her.

01:08:04I had this.

01:08:05I had everything Hugh and Roger and Mac had bought me with the rest of their lives.

01:08:08They went down my cell porch steps together.

01:08:11She stood.

01:08:12The light warmed his face.

01:08:13The world was waiting.

01:08:14The end.

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