Zombie Countdown Surviving Till The Very End

ReelForge

Transcript

00:00:02Fae twits violently in Cain's arms. Veins pop out across her skin. Her eyes turn blood red.

00:00:07She's turning.

00:00:08Fae, baby, stop looking at me.

00:00:10Run! Cain, get out of here! I'm turning into one of those zombies! I don't want to tear you apart!

00:00:16Cain, he pulls her into a death grip, gently brushing her hair to calm her down.

00:00:19I'm not going anywhere. You're the love of my life.

00:00:21Then, he yanks open his collar, exposing his neck.

00:00:24Here, Fae, bite me.

00:00:25Let's end this nightmare together. Fae loses the last trace of humanity.

00:00:27She sinks her teeth into his neck.

00:00:29Cain jolts awake in bed, gasping for air. He claws at his neck. No wound. He freezes. Alive.

00:00:35I'm back?

00:00:368 a.m. February from the 18th. Exactly 24 hours before the zombie apocalypse will wipe the slate clean.

00:00:41In 24 hours, the first wave of infected will hit the East District.

00:00:43A few hours after that, the entire city will fall. And in just one month, they'll overrun every single corner

00:00:48of this world.

00:00:48He's out of bed. He stands barefoot on the cold floor, his fists clenching tight.

00:00:52I swear I won't let that nightmare happen again. Not to my parents, and especially not to my Fae.

00:00:56He walks to the window and throws the curtains open.

00:00:59Outside, the city is buzzing. Traffic crowds, noise completely normal.

00:01:02Cain stares down at the street. The fear fades from his eyes, replaced by a cold, sharp focus.

00:01:07His mind is racing.

00:01:08He picks up his phone and starts moving through it, furiously already mapping out his next move.

00:01:17I'm coming to save you.

00:01:23I stared at my screen, pulling up the old college group chat.

00:01:27I remembered these guys perfectly. In my past life, these entitled and selfish proofs are the very first ones to

00:01:32turn in the dorms.

00:01:33They hadn't hesitated to save their own skins back then, so I wasn't gonna waste any pity on them now.

00:01:37Since I cultured all their fates anyway, I was gonna wring every last drop of usefulness out of them before

00:01:41they started rotting.

00:01:42Yo, need a favor. Fast cash, 100 bucks a head today only.

00:01:46Just need you guys to run courier duty. Just text back if you're in.

00:01:49Once the baits were hooked, I typed out the actual order with mechanical precision.

00:01:53Oxygen generators. Tactical mass systems.

00:01:55Survival rations.

00:01:56It was a shopping list for a siege.

00:01:58A nightmare scenario I was praying no one would survive to remember.

00:02:00I wired half the payment up from an account I'd liquidated the night before I died, if that twisted paradox

00:02:04even made sense anymore.

00:02:06I closed the chat and called home.

00:02:08Kane?

00:02:10Honey, it's only 8.30.

00:02:12Mom, put Dad on, please. Right now.

00:02:14What's the fire, kid?

00:02:15I closed my eyes when I heard his voice.

00:02:17That gruff, level tone.

00:02:18The voice of a man who didn't ask questions when his son sounded like the world was ending.

00:02:22Dad, the west side place.

00:02:24The compound. I need three steel fence rings around it by tonight.

00:02:26Sealed by sundown. Every vent. Every drain.

00:02:29Roger did not say anything for a long moment.

00:02:31How much have I got to spend?

00:02:33Whatever it costs, pay them triple.

00:02:35Alright. But son, are you in trouble?

00:02:38I couldn't. I couldn't tell my father the truth without sounding insane.

00:02:42I'll explain at dinner. I swear.

00:02:44I'll see you tonight.

00:02:4730 minutes gone just like that.

00:02:49Can I really stockpile enough to cheat the apocalypse, or am I just spending my final hours building a fortified

00:02:55buffet for the dead?

00:02:57The big box store on Route 12 opened at 9.

00:02:59I was inside at 9.01 with the manager and a stack of $100 bills.

00:03:02The manager wore a name tag that said Todd.

00:03:04Five chest freezers, 200 bags of rice, 100 water jugs, 20 first aid kits, anti-autics by the case.

00:03:09Sir, on the medical, store policy cap.

00:03:11I peeled half the cash, thousands in crisp bills, and pressed it into Todd's hand.

00:03:14His eyes went wide. He probably made minimum wage.

00:03:16This was more money than he'd ever held at once.

00:03:18Store policy's gonna need to bend today.

00:03:20Todd's smile changed shape.

00:03:21Eight employees in red vestments began moving like a pit crew.

00:03:23I moved through those aisles like I was sleepwalking, reading off the list I'd spent weeks assembling in my head.

00:03:27Salt, coffee, lighter fluid, trash bags, everything I'd need to survive what was coming.

00:03:32The employees couldn't keep up with me.

00:03:33Nobody moved that fast unless something was burning.

00:03:35By 11, the trucks were loading.

00:03:37By 11.30, I was on the phone again.

00:03:39Hugh, grab Derek, compound, now.

00:03:42Fishing trip?

00:03:43Today.

00:03:44Now.

00:03:45I love you, man.

00:03:48You're dying or something.

00:03:50See you at the gate.

00:03:52I hung up before the panic could crack through in my voice.

00:03:56Faye's apartment was on the way to the compound.

00:03:58I called her from my car and waited, my chest tight.

00:04:01She got in with messy hair and a hastily thrown on hoodie.

00:04:04She looked tired.

00:04:06God, she looked alive.

00:04:08You text me at 7, ignore me till noon, and now you're outside my building with a face like somebody

00:04:11died?

00:04:12I looked at her and felt something break inside me, knowing what was coming for her.

00:04:18I hadn't seen her since the last timeline.

00:04:20Since everything fell apart, I held her tight.

00:04:23I'm sorry.

00:04:24I'm sorry.

00:04:25I missed you.

00:04:27You saw me yesterday.

00:04:30I know.

00:04:32She watched me for a long second.

00:04:35Then she put her hand on mine.

00:04:37Drive, weirdo.

00:04:38Where are we going?

00:04:39Mom and Dad's old property.

00:04:40Fishing trip.

00:04:41Hugh and Derek, too.

00:04:43A vacation?

00:04:45Something like that.

00:04:48Looking down at her lovely face so full of life, so untouched by the horror to come.

00:04:53A single question haunting my mind.

00:04:55This time, can I rewrite her ending?

00:04:57Or am I doomed to watch her soft humanity wither into the dark all over again?

00:05:03The compound emerged from the trees like a fortress, and that's exactly what it was going to need to be.

00:05:07Three stories of brick, solid and unyielding.

00:05:09A basement that could swallow a fleet of cars.

00:05:11My father had built it to last.

00:05:12He just didn't know what it would need to survive.

00:05:14Dad was already there, of course.

00:05:15Always there.

00:05:16Always ready.

00:05:17Twelve workers were already planting steel posts.

00:05:19Heavy ones.

00:05:20Deep ones.

00:05:20The welders were running beads on rails thicker than I'd planned for.

00:05:23My father stood in the center of it all in a care-hurt jacket like he was conducting an orchestra.

00:05:26Cadboard in one hand, coffee in the other.

00:05:28He'd known.

00:05:29He'd already known.

00:05:30Honey, your dad's building a prison out here.

00:05:32Roger walked over.

00:05:35I looked my father in the eye for one long second.

00:05:38Bulletproof glass came in at ten this morning.

00:05:39Every window.

00:05:40The drain's got triple mesh treatment.

00:05:42I told him to bring twelve oxygen units, not one.

00:05:44Redundancy.

00:05:45Back up for the backup.

00:05:47Dad.

00:05:47I called Sam.

00:05:48He's coming tonight with some things you didn't ask for, but you're gonna need them.

00:05:51I...

00:05:51You don't make a list like that unless the end is coming.

00:05:55So you'll tell me at dinner.

00:05:57For now, I'm building the wall.

00:06:00I felt something crack inside me, watching my father work without explanation, trusting

00:06:04me enough to build a fortress and ask no questions.

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

00:06:09Our cover story.

00:06:10They got out, saw the welders, the steel posts, the heavy machinery, and their faces went white.

00:06:14They looked at me.

00:06:15Bro, what the hell is this?

00:06:17Help me run wire.

00:06:18By sundown, three consensuous rings of fence ran around the property.

00:06:22By eight, every line was hot.

00:06:24By nine, the basement was a sealed clean room, and the oxygen units were online.

00:06:29I stood at the master panel and put my hand on the breaker for the wire.

00:06:33If it touches the wire, it dies.

00:06:36It?

00:06:37What is it?

00:06:38Faye stood beside me.

00:06:40Her hand was very small in mine.

00:06:43Cain, tell me the truth.

00:06:45What are we up against?

00:06:48I'll tell you at dinner.

00:06:49Just stay with me.

00:06:51I kissed the top of her head.

00:06:54Outside, the new wire hummed.

00:06:56Six hundred volts, holding back nothing yet.

00:06:58My mother had cooked for seven.

00:06:59Ristis did it.

00:07:00Bread from a cookbook she'd used when I was a kid.

00:07:02Stewed lamb.

00:07:02Normal things.

00:07:03Mondane things.

00:07:04A mother feeding her families like the world wasn't about to end.

00:07:06I held Faye's hand under the table and tried not to think about how many more meals she had.

00:07:11I drank water instead of wine because I couldn't afford to be slow.

00:07:15Not with what was coming.

00:07:17Everyone felt it.

00:07:18That moment when the normal world tilts.

00:07:20The TV in the next room cut from a sodcom to a field reporter.

00:07:24The reporter's voice was pitched too high.

00:07:26Fear leaking through the professionalists.

00:07:28My mother went absolutely still.

00:07:29She already knew.

00:07:31The mother always knows.

00:07:32That's a hell of a coincidence.

00:07:34I stood up.

00:07:34And for a moment the only sound was Faye's quick breath beside me.

00:07:37In ten minutes the news will report a second incident.

00:07:39By midnight every channel will.

00:07:40By dawn the National Guard deploys and it won't be enough.

00:07:42By tomorrow afternoon this city's gone.

00:07:44A toxic purple mist is mutating anyone who breathes it.

00:07:46And turning this entire place into a blood-slip meat grinder.

00:07:49Cain!

00:07:50I've been here before.

00:07:51I went to bed in this house with everyone I love already dead.

00:07:54And I woke up here this morning.

00:07:55I don't know how.

00:07:56I don't need you to believe me.

00:07:57I just need you to stay in this house.

00:07:59My mother was crying silencely.

00:08:00Her hand covering her mouth.

00:08:02Like she could hold back the sobs if she just held tight enough.

00:08:04Faye laced her fingers into mine under the table.

00:08:06I'm with you.

00:08:08Whatever this is.

00:08:08I'm with you.

00:08:14A truck pulled up the gravel road outside.

00:08:16I looked at my father.

00:08:18Roger pushed back from the table.

00:08:20Sam's here.

00:08:21Right on time.

00:08:22Big Sam came in with two men and four crates.

00:08:25The crates went down to the basement.

00:08:26The lids came up.

00:08:27Hugh made a small sound.

00:08:28Inside packed in foam rifles.

00:08:30Submachine guns.

00:08:31Two heavy machine guns with tripids.

00:08:33Magazines stacked like books in a library.

00:08:34Whatever you saw out there, brother.

00:08:36I hope to God you're wrong.

00:08:39Faye's hand found mine under the table.

00:08:41By 4 a.m.

00:08:42Every weapon was cleaned, loaded, and racked along the basement wall.

00:08:46I lay on a cot in the basement with my eyes open.

00:08:48Listening to the house breathe.

00:08:50Each creak.

00:08:51Each groan like it was dying around us.

00:08:53Faye was asleep against my shoulder.

00:08:56Chloe was asleep across the room with her head on Hugh's chest.

00:08:59My mother was asleep upstairs.

00:09:02My father was on the roof in the dark with a rifle across his lap, watching the road.

00:09:07I closed my eyes and saw her.

00:09:10The other Faye, on that sidewalk, screaming my name as she changed into something else.

00:09:14I asked her to change.

00:09:15I opened my eyes.

00:09:17I didn't, and that was the point sleep.

00:09:18At 6 o'clock, Faye stirred against me without waking.

00:09:21I brushed her hair back and watched the gray light creep through the high basement windows.

00:09:25Six more years, I thought.

00:09:27Ten.

00:09:28Fifty.

00:09:29I am buying her time with blood.

00:09:31With other people's blood.

00:09:33At 7.30, Roger came down from the watchtower.

00:09:37Breakfast.

00:09:39Eat with us.

00:09:42Already ate.

00:09:45Son.

00:09:46I looked at and felt something break inside me.

00:09:49My father.

00:09:50I love you, son.

00:09:53I love you, dad.

00:09:56Roger went back upstairs.

00:09:59At 7.45, my mother brought scrambled eggs and toast down to the basement.

00:10:03No one was hungry.

00:10:04Everyone ate anyway.

00:10:05Muscle memory, the thing families do.

00:10:07Marlene tried to make a joke about my mother's coffee.

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

00:10:12Chloe held Hugh's hand like she was drowning.

00:10:14At 7.58, I stood at the master panel watching the camera feeds.

00:10:17Empty road.

00:10:18Still trees.

00:10:19The wire humming with 600 volts waiting for something to burn.

00:10:22I thought, the weight of it crushing me, barely breathing.

00:10:25Hugh, I am going to burn for you.

00:10:26I am going to do terrible things.

00:10:28At 8.03, the air changed.

00:10:30Thickened.

00:10:31Like we were all about to drown in it.

00:10:33At 8.04, the first explosion hit.

00:10:35Hell was finally here.

00:10:38It rolled across the property like an earthquake.

00:10:40I was already moving.

00:10:42The world ends, and we begin.

00:10:44The eastern sky was purple.

00:10:45Not the purple of a sunset or a bruise, but the purple of something that's in exist.

00:10:48Not the nature of nature.

00:10:49It's crawling across the sky.

00:10:51The flog was already across the river.

00:10:52Already rising through the neighborhoods like it owned them.

00:10:54They're saying it's on the east side.

00:10:56They're saying, Cain, they're saying people are biting people.

00:11:00Close every window.

00:11:01Everyone moved at once.

00:11:03No questions, no hesitation.

00:11:04They'd been waiting for this order.

00:11:06Marlon ran upstairs.

00:11:08Derek and Hugh moved to the back of the house.

00:11:10Roger came down from the watchtower with his rifle slung.

00:11:13Chloe started the central air filter on Mac.

00:11:15Faye sealed the front door with the tape I had pre-cut and stacked beside it the night before.

00:11:19In 12 minutes, the compound was sealed.

00:11:20We were inside.

00:11:21The world was outside.

00:11:22There was no going back.

00:11:23In 20, the news anchor was crying on screen.

00:11:25I stood at the master panel and watched the fence cameras.

00:11:27The road outside the property was empty.

00:11:28The trees stood still.

00:11:29Then a figure stepped out of the tree line.

00:11:31A man, middle-aged, white shirt and gray slacks like I had walked out of an office.

00:11:35I was missing a shoe.

00:11:36My head was tilted at the wrong angle.

00:11:37I took two steps towards the gate, stopped, sniffed the air like an animal, and began to walk faster.

00:11:41I watched every second burning itself into my memory and me cross the 50 yards to the outer fence.

00:11:45The man did not slow down.

00:11:46I hit the wire at a full run.

00:11:47The flash lit up the basement through the screen.

00:11:49The body went sideways and did not move again.

00:11:51From behind me, Hugh's voice was very small.

00:11:54Holy.

00:11:55Faye stepped up to the panel.

00:11:56She looked at the burning shape on the fence.

00:11:59She did not say anything for a long moment.

00:12:02Then she put her hand on my wrist.

00:12:04He didn't even look human anymore.

00:12:06He wasn't, baby.

00:12:08Kane.

00:12:09I know.

00:12:10Roger appeared in the doorway.

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

00:12:13My face was old.

00:12:14That's the first one.

00:12:15I reached up and put his hand on the panel.

00:12:18The countdown was over.

00:12:20The siege had begun.

00:12:22The man came out of the trees at three in the afternoon.

00:12:24I saw me on the camera before Hugh did.

00:12:27A figure in cover roads, jogging at first, then running, then sprinting as he cleared the gravel road.

00:12:31I was not infected.

00:12:32I was sweating.

00:12:33I was alive.

00:12:34Hello?

00:12:36Hello in there?

00:12:37It's Brett.

00:12:38Brett Marlowe.

00:12:39I worked your fence yesterday.

00:12:42Please.

00:12:43Please.

00:12:43You've got to let me in.

00:12:46I keyed the loud poster.

00:12:48Faye stood beside me, her hand on his arm.

00:12:50Brett.

00:12:51I'm sorry.

00:12:52We can't open the gate.

00:12:53There's six of those things behind me, man.

00:12:55I lost my partner at the gas station.

00:12:57I lost my truck.

00:12:58I helped this place.

00:12:59I cut the rebar myself.

00:13:01Find a house.

00:13:02Anything brick.

00:13:03Lock the doors.

00:13:03The sirens will draw them away from you.

00:13:05There's nothing out here.

00:13:07Please.

00:13:08I closed my eyes.

00:13:09I had played this scene in my head a thousand times.

00:13:11Every told myself had imagined letting the man in.

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

00:13:17lungs.

00:13:18Kane.

00:13:20I can't.

00:13:20I've got a daughter, man.

00:13:22She's seven.

00:13:22She's at her grandma's.

00:13:23I just need to make it to her.

00:13:24I just need to live till tomorrow.

00:13:27Hugh's voice came over the internal radio from the watchtower.

00:13:30Kane.

00:13:30He's not lying.

00:13:31You kids at his grandma's.

00:13:33I worked with him last summer.

00:13:34I'm sorry.

00:13:37Kane.

00:13:37Please.

00:13:38I have a kid.

00:13:40I have a kid.

00:13:42Brett's voice broke on the word kid.

00:13:44Then it changed.

00:13:46Brett's hand went to his belt.

00:13:47The hatchet came up out of the loop in a clean, fast arm.

00:13:52Then we all die together.

00:13:54I raised the hatchet.

00:13:57Hugh was already on the trigger when the hatchet came up.

00:13:59The shot rolled across the property like a single hard slap.

00:14:02From three stories up through a hunting scope with a rifle Big Sam had laid on the basement floor at

00:14:06midnight,

00:14:06the round took Brett above the collar bow and the hatchet fell out of his hand before his body knew

00:14:10it.

00:14:10Brett dropped onto the wire.

00:14:13The fence was hot.

00:14:14The body smoked.

00:14:16Faye made a sound, small, animal, behind her teeth.

00:14:18I caught her by the shoulders before her knees went.

00:14:21I pulled her into my chest.

00:14:22I felt her hands knot in the back of my shirt.

00:14:24Hugh's voice came over the radio.

00:14:26Slow.

00:14:27Flat.

00:14:28Confirm hostile down.

00:14:30Confirmed.

00:14:31Hugh.

00:14:31I'm fine.

00:14:32Come down.

00:14:33I'm fine, Kane.

00:14:35Tell Chloe I'm fine.

00:14:37The radio clicked off.

00:14:38I stood in the basement with Faye pressed into me and watched the camera.

00:14:42The body lay across the bottom string of wire.

00:14:44The smoke went up in a thin gray line.

00:14:46And the gray line went into the purple sky.

00:14:48The sky did not seem to care.

00:14:50We had a kid, Kane.

00:14:53I held her until she stopped shaking.

00:14:55Then I held her longer.

00:14:56Diane came down the stairs after a while and sat on the bottom step without saying anything.

00:14:59Marlene followed and put her hand on Diane's shoulder and they sat there together.

00:15:03Chloe came down last.

00:15:04She did not look at the screen.

00:15:05She sat at the table and looked at her hands and breathed through her nose.

00:15:10Roger came in through the side door.

00:15:13Hugh's coming down.

00:15:14Okay.

00:15:16I'll go cut the body off the wire after dark.

00:15:18I'll do it.

00:15:19I'll do it.

00:15:20I didn't.

00:15:21And that was the point, argue.

00:15:24The body smoked on the wire.

00:15:28They buried Brett Marlowe in the backfield after midnight.

00:15:31I and Roger went out in the suits Roger had pre-built that afternoon.

00:15:34Heavy canvas over chicken wire.

00:15:36Oxygen helmets vented through the basement system.

00:15:38Ten minute tanks.

00:15:39They moved fast.

00:15:40I carried the body.

00:15:41Roger carried the shovels.

00:15:43The wire was off for nine minutes and seventeen seconds.

00:15:46The ground was hard.

00:15:48They dug shallow.

00:15:51We'll do better when we have the time.

00:15:53Yeah.

00:15:55They walked back across the dead grass under a moon the color of an old bruise.

00:16:00Inside, Hugh was sitting on the basement floor with his back against the gun rack.

00:16:04Chloe was asleep against his shoulder.

00:16:06I had not moved in three hours.

00:16:08My eyes were open.

00:16:10I was looking at nothing.

00:16:11I sat down beside him.

00:16:13I did not say anything.

00:16:15I put his hand on Hugh's shoulder and left it there.

00:16:18I keep thinking about the daughter.

00:16:21Yeah.

00:16:22Was she a real daughter, Kane?

00:16:25I don't know.

00:16:26Did you let him die because she wasn't real?

00:16:30Or because it didn't matter if she was?

00:16:33I couldn't.

00:16:35I couldn't tell my father the truth without sounding insane.

00:16:39I don't know which one I wanted to be.

00:16:43Me neither.

00:16:44They sat there for a long time, listening to the building.

00:16:47Faye lay down on the cot in the corner, without speaking.

00:16:51Chloe coughed once in her sleep.

00:16:53Small, quick, the kind of cough you get from dust.

00:16:56I glanced at it, glanced at Hugh, and let it go.

00:16:59I didn't.

00:17:00And that was the point, let it go.

00:17:01I watched the camera feed of the backfield.

00:17:03The dirt of the new grave was still wet.

00:17:06Beyond it, the wire hummed.

00:17:09Beyond the wire, the city was quiet for the first time in his memory.

00:17:12Even the dogs were not barking anywhere.

00:17:15The compound goes silent.

00:17:17The compound stays silent.

00:17:22The compound stays silent for a very long time.

00:17:27The first month of the world ending was, in some ways, the easiest.

00:17:31The compound settled into a rhythm.

00:17:33Diane managed the tents in the first ring.

00:17:35The chickens.

00:17:36The goats.

00:17:37The four pregnant cows.

00:17:38Marlene logged the camera feeds and the lake's water samples by hand.

00:17:42Chloe and Faye sat in the radio room with two old laptops,

00:17:44and the satellite uplink Roger had wired through the watchtower,

00:17:47talking to anyone they could find.

00:17:49There were a lot of people, at first.

00:17:51A woman in Phoenix who had locked herself in a parking garage with a generator.

00:17:55Three brothers in a Wyoming basement.

00:17:56A man and his husband in a converted school bus on a mountain.

00:17:59A teenager whose voice came through clear and small from somewhere they could not place.

00:18:03Faye and Chloe wrote them all down.

00:18:05They told them about masks.

00:18:06About sealed doors.

00:18:07In the second week, the woman in Phoenix stopped responding.

00:18:11In the third week, the brothers in Wyoming sent a final message that just said,

00:18:15Times they're at the door, and then nothing.

00:18:17In the fourth week, the teenager said times thank you times, and went silent.

00:18:22By the end of the first month, the chat windows were a graveyard.

00:18:25Chloe stopped logging in.

00:18:27She said it was because her chest was tight.

00:18:29She said the air was making her cough.

00:18:32She said it was not.

00:18:33It was not.

00:18:34It was not.

00:18:35I went down to the basement on the night of the 30th day and ran the inventory.

00:18:39Three years of grain.

00:18:41Two years of meat at current consumption.

00:18:43Eighteen months of medication if no one got sick.

00:18:46A water filter that would last a decade.

00:18:49Eight people.

00:18:50Including Big Sam if he ever came back.

00:18:52I sat in the cold blue light of the storage room and looked at the math and thought about

00:18:56Brett Marlowe's daughter and could not feel my hands.

00:19:00Survivors vanish, one by one.

00:19:04Two years of rations.

00:19:06Maybe.

00:19:08Chloe coughed at the breakfast table on day 32.

00:19:11Once.

00:19:12Twice.

00:19:12Three times.

00:19:13A little longer the third time, with her napkin pressed to her mouth and her shoulders rising.

00:19:16When she lowered the napkin, she gave the smile she always gave and folded the napkin neatly

00:19:20so no one could see the inside.

00:19:22Hugh saw it.

00:19:23Hugh did not look up from his plate.

00:19:25I did not move.

00:19:26I put another fork full of eggs into his mouth and chewed and swallowed and put the fork down.

00:19:31How long have you been coughing?

00:19:33A couple of days.

00:19:35It's nothing.

00:19:36The air's dry down here.

00:19:38How long, Chloe?

00:19:41Since Tuesday.

00:19:43Faye looked at Kane.

00:19:44I looked at Roger.

00:19:45Roger set his coffee down very carefully.

00:19:47Sweetheart, eat.

00:19:48You barely eat.

00:19:48I'm fine, Mrs. Sutton.

00:19:50Look at me.

00:19:53Chloe looked at me.

00:19:54The whites of her eyes were the color of clean paper.

00:19:57The skin under her jaw was the same skin it had always been.

00:20:00There was small thing.

00:20:02There was yet that you could tired point smile.

00:20:06Stairs.

00:20:07Hugh.

00:20:09Now, please.

00:20:10She followed me out of the dining room.

00:20:13The door clicked behind them.

00:20:15The room stayed quiet for a long time.

00:20:20It could be anything.

00:20:22Down here, it could be the docks.

00:20:23It could be...

00:20:24Roger.

00:20:28It could be...

00:20:31I stood up and went to the basement

00:20:33and unfolded the napkin Chloe had left on the table.

00:20:39I flattened it under the desk light.

00:20:41There was a small dark spot in the center of the cloth.

00:20:44The shape of a comma.

00:20:45The color of nothing he wanted to see.

00:20:47I folded the napkin again.

00:20:49I went and put it in the medical waste bin

00:20:50and did not say a word.

00:20:52My stomach drops.

00:20:54By the third day, the lines were under her jaw.

00:20:57Chloe lay in the small back bedroom on the second floor

00:21:00with a thermometer in her mouth

00:21:01and Hugh on the chair beside the bed,

00:21:03his rifle across his knees.

00:21:05I had not slept.

00:21:06I had not eaten since lunch the day before.

00:21:09My eyes had a shine to them I recognized from the last time

00:21:11in the parking lot outside the metro

00:21:13when I had watched his own life walk into Faye's mouth.

00:21:16The veins ran from her clavicle up the side of her throat

00:21:19and disappeared under her ear.

00:21:21Black, not blue.

00:21:23Black with a faint purple bloom around the deep ones

00:21:25like ink moving through paper.

00:21:28I forced myself to stand in the doorway with a tray.

00:21:32Soup.

00:21:33Try.

00:21:34I'm not really.

00:21:36Try.

00:21:37She drank a spoonful.

00:21:39She kept it down.

00:21:41Her hand did not shake yet.

00:21:43Get out, Kane.

00:21:45Hugh.

00:21:46Get out.

00:21:47I want to talk to her.

00:21:52I stepped back and shut the door.

00:21:55I stood in the hallway with his hand on the wood

00:21:57and he listened.

00:21:58I did not mean to.

00:21:59I did not move.

00:22:04I could not make out the words.

00:22:06It did not matter what the words were.

00:22:12After a while, Faye spoke.

00:22:14Almost a whisper.

00:22:15How long, Kane?

00:22:16A week.

00:22:17Maybe less.

00:22:19And then?

00:22:20Then she changes.

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

00:22:24Faye nodded against his shoulder.

00:22:26She did not say anything else.

00:22:28Inside the room,

00:22:29Hugh started to cry.

00:22:34Hugh refuses to leave the room.

00:22:37On day 36,

00:22:38Hugh's voice came over the watchtower radio

00:22:40at 6.14 in the morning.

00:22:41Kane, up here.

00:22:42Now.

00:22:42I was in the basement

00:22:43reviewing the water filtration logs.

00:22:44I set the clepboard down

00:22:45and took the doors opened

00:22:46on cold gray dawn light.

00:22:47Hugh was at the east wall of the watchtower

00:22:49with the long telescope braced in the slot,

00:22:50his eye against the cup.

00:22:51Look.

00:22:52I looked.

00:22:53The eastern horizon where the city lay,

00:22:54where the river curved,

00:22:55where the avenues had been,

00:22:56was not gray, not still.

00:22:57Moving.

00:22:57A long, dark wave was crawling

00:22:59across the flood went toward this distance.

00:23:00It had the texture of a swarm

00:23:01of insects on a gin floor

00:23:02of grain pouring through a hand.

00:23:03It moved at a walking pace

00:23:04and it was a half mile wide

00:23:05and where the light cut at the wave glittered.

00:23:07I lowered the telescope.

00:23:09My mouth had gone dry.

00:23:11How many?

00:23:13I lost count at 5,000.

00:23:15How long till they hit the wire?

00:23:16Two hours.

00:23:18Wake everyone.

00:23:19Hugh keyed the all call.

00:23:21All hands, suit up.

00:23:22Now.

00:23:22This is not a drill.

00:23:23The watchtower radio crackled

00:23:25with Roger's voice from the basement.

00:23:27How bad?

00:23:28Bad.

00:23:29How bad, son?

00:23:31Bring everything we've got.

00:23:32Below them,

00:23:33Faye came out into the front yard

00:23:34with a coffee in her hand

00:23:35and looked up at the watchtower

00:23:36and saw the look on my face.

00:23:38The coffee fell out of her hand.

00:23:39Marlene came up from the stairs

00:23:40into the watchtower behind them.

00:23:42Oh, God.

00:23:43Oh, God.

00:23:43Hugh, what is that?

00:23:45There's no end to it.

00:23:46I see it.

00:23:47I kept his eye to the scope.

00:23:48My hand was steady on the brace.

00:23:51The corner of his mouth lifted

00:23:52in something that was not a smile.

00:23:54Hi, Chloe.

00:23:56You're coming.

00:23:57How many?

00:23:58Too many.

00:24:01The thing in the middle of the swarm

00:24:02did not walk like the others.

00:24:03I found it through the scope

00:24:0420 minutes later

00:24:04when the front edge of the horde

00:24:05had closed to within 1,000 yards

00:24:07of the outer wire.

00:24:07The infected at the front shumbered.

00:24:09They moved in the broken, twisted gate

00:24:10I remembered from the sidewalk

00:24:11outside Faye's apartment building.

00:24:12Last time, they tilt a thing in the center

00:24:14did not tilt.

00:24:15It walked.

00:24:16It walked with its head up.

00:24:17It walked with a deliberate, measured pace.

00:24:19And the swarm around it

00:24:19broke and reformed around it

00:24:21the way a school of fish

00:24:21breaks around a shark.

00:24:22Not it was a head taller

00:24:23than the tallest of them.

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

00:24:25It skinned the green of mold.

00:24:26The green of new leaves.

00:24:28The green of moss in a clean stream.

00:24:29It wore green skin like a coat.

00:24:31I lowered the scope.

00:24:32I could not feel the cold of the morning.

00:24:33I could not feel my hands.

00:24:35What?

00:24:36Look in the middle.

00:24:37Hugh looked.

00:24:38For a long moment,

00:24:39Hugh did not breathe.

00:24:39When he spoke,

00:24:40his voice was something

00:24:41I had never heard from him

00:24:42in 20 years of friendship.

00:24:44What is that, Cain?

00:24:45A queen.

00:24:46A what?

00:24:47A queen.

00:24:48A mother.

00:24:48The thing that runs them.

00:24:49There's one in every city.

00:24:50More in the big ones.

00:24:51I read about them the last time.

00:24:53Never saw one myself.

00:24:55Until now.

00:24:56Until now.

00:24:57Roger's voice came over the radio.

00:24:59What is it, son?

00:25:01Dad, there's a green one

00:25:02in the middle.

00:25:03Tall.

00:25:04It walks like a person.

00:25:06Roger said nothing

00:25:07for five seconds.

00:25:08All right.

00:25:09Tell your mother

00:25:10to load the magazines.

00:25:12She's already loaded.

00:25:14Tell her I love her.

00:25:15She knows.

00:25:17Tell her anyway.

00:25:21What the hell is that?

00:25:25The suits hung on hooks

00:25:26in the basement

00:25:27like something out of a museum

00:25:28that had not opened yet.

00:25:29Roger had built them.

00:25:30Silk inner later.

00:25:30Chicken wire over canvas.

00:25:31A steel exodid along the spine

00:25:33and females to take the weight.

00:25:34Helmets of whelps and jigsaw line

00:25:35that ran 10 minutes before refill.

00:25:36Gloves with nail mesh.

00:25:38Boots with steel toes.

00:25:39They were ugly.

00:25:39They were heavy.

00:25:40They worked.

00:25:40Diane handed them out

00:25:41one at a time without speaking.

00:25:43The way she had handed out plates

00:25:44at Sunday dinner for 40 years.

00:25:46Hugh helped Chloe into hers.

00:25:47I did not need to.

00:25:48Her fever had been climbing

00:25:49for six hours.

00:25:50Her hands shook on the buckles.

00:25:51The veins under her nose

00:25:53had branched.

00:25:53She tried to laugh

00:25:54when he tightened the chest strap.

00:25:56Night in shining armor.

00:25:58Damn right.

00:26:02I'm coming up.

00:26:04No!

00:26:05I'm part of this.

00:26:07I'm coming up.

00:26:09Hugh did not argue.

00:26:11Faye loaded magazines

00:26:11on the dining room table.

00:26:13The motion of her hands

00:26:13was small and exact

00:26:14and would not stop.

00:26:16Press.

00:26:17Click.

00:26:18Press.

00:26:18Faye.

00:26:19Don't.

00:26:19I stood beside her

00:26:20and watched her do it

00:26:20and did not interrupt.

00:26:21I love you.

00:26:22I said don't!

00:26:23I have to say it, Faye.

00:26:25Let me say it.

00:26:26Faye stopped loading.

00:26:27She looked up at me.

00:26:28Her face was pale.

00:26:29Her hair was tied back.

00:26:30She was beautiful

00:26:31in a way that hurt his chest.

00:26:33Then say it after.

00:26:34I kissed her on the forehead.

00:26:36Stay inside.

00:26:37I won't.

00:26:37Then stay close.

00:26:38I will.

00:26:41Roger came in

00:26:42with his suit half on

00:26:43and a rifle in his hand.

00:26:44They're at 600 yards.

00:26:46I fastened his helmet.

00:26:47The clock over the basement door

00:26:49read 842.

00:26:51Then it's time.

00:26:54I picked up my rifle

00:26:55and walked toward the stairs.

00:27:02The first wave

00:27:03hit the outer wire

00:27:03at 851.

00:27:04Roger and Diane

00:27:05were on the watchtower

00:27:05with the heavy gun

00:27:06and the rocket tubes.

00:27:07Hugh and Derek

00:27:07were on the second floor

00:27:08windows with rifles.

00:27:09I was at the inner gate

00:27:09of the third round

00:27:10with Big Sam's submachine gun

00:27:11across my chest

00:27:12and his back against the steel.

00:27:13Faye was on the master plane

00:27:14on the basement,

00:27:14both hands on the high voltage breakers

00:27:16watching nine camera feeds

00:27:17at once.

00:27:17Roger's voice came over

00:27:18the helmet radio.

00:27:19Front edge 30 yards

00:27:21from the outer wire.

00:27:22Permission to fire.

00:27:22I keyed the mic.

00:27:25Wait.

00:27:25Kane?

00:27:2720.

00:27:2820.

00:27:28Now!

00:27:29The rocket left the watchtower

00:27:30and crossed the field

00:27:31in a short white line.

00:27:32The first impact

00:27:33opened a hole in the swarm

00:27:34the size of a small pond.

00:27:3660 bodies came apart.

00:27:37The earth lifted and dropped.

00:27:38The infected at the edges

00:27:40of the crater kept walking,

00:27:41on fire,

00:27:42into the wire.

00:27:42The wire took them.

00:27:43A blue arc whipped

00:27:44along the outer fence

00:27:45with a sound I felt in my teeth.

00:27:46The first rank.

00:27:48140 bodies flew backward

00:27:49into the second rank

00:27:50in a single rolling spasm.

00:27:52The fence held.

00:27:52Freeload!

00:27:53Freeloading!

00:27:54Hugh's rifle started

00:27:55slow, calm rhythm

00:27:55from the second floor.

00:27:56One shot.

00:27:57Pause.

00:27:58One shot.

00:27:58Pause.

00:27:59I was hitting heads

00:28:00at 300 yards.

00:28:01The hordid did not slow.

00:28:02A second rocket,

00:28:03then a third.

00:28:04Two more craters in the field.

00:28:05A second flash on the wire.

00:28:06The wire held.

00:28:07I stood in the gate

00:28:08with the submachine gun

00:28:09and watched the tide come on.

00:28:11And in the middle of it,

00:28:11walking,

00:28:12the green thing tilted its head.

00:28:14It did not look at the bodies

00:28:15of its children.

00:28:16It did not flinch

00:28:16at the explosions.

00:28:18It looked at the watchtower.

00:28:19It looked at Cain.

00:28:21Through 900 yards of smoke

00:28:23and screaming meat,

00:28:24with eyes I could not see,

00:28:26it looked at me.

00:28:27It opened its mouth.

00:28:29The wire flared blue.

00:28:32The horde did not stop.

00:28:35The mother walked through the wire

00:28:36as if it were not there.

00:28:37The blue arc hit her shoulders,

00:28:39ran down her green skin,

00:28:40and went out.

00:28:40She did not flinch.

00:28:41She did not speed up.

00:28:42She did not slow.

00:28:43Her stride did not change.

00:28:44She walked through

00:28:446,000 volts of fence

00:28:45the way a woman walks

00:28:46through tall grass.

00:28:47Behind her,

00:28:48the swarm came on

00:28:49as if a door had been opened.

00:28:52She's through!

00:28:53I see her.

00:28:54Falling back to the second ring!

00:28:56Faye, kill the outer wire.

00:28:57We're gonna lose it.

00:28:58The basement intercom crackled.

00:29:00Faye's voice was tight.

00:29:02Outer wire down.

00:29:03The hum of the outer fence

00:29:04dropped out of the air.

00:29:05Half a second later,

00:29:06it stopped mattering,

00:29:06because the second wave

00:29:07had piled into the cratered grass

00:29:08and the bodies were 30 deep

00:29:09against the steel posts

00:29:10and the steel posts

00:29:11were starting to lean.

00:29:12Mother's 200 yards out!

00:29:13Tracker, don't engage.

00:29:14Why?

00:29:15Because if you tag her

00:29:16with a round and she doesn't die,

00:29:17every infected on this planet

00:29:18is gonna know where we live.

00:29:19Copy.

00:29:20Roger sent the second rocket

00:29:21from the watchtower.

00:29:22The crater opened

00:29:23where the mother was

00:29:24and where the mother was

00:29:25she also was not.

00:29:25She had stepped around it

00:29:26three feet sideways

00:29:27before the missile arrived.

00:29:29The blast caught

00:29:29a hundred of her children

00:29:30and emptied them onto the dirt.

00:29:32She walked on through the smoke

00:29:33without breaking pace.

00:29:35The mother walked.

00:29:36Roger's voice came through

00:29:37the radio,

00:29:38almost calm.

00:29:40Fall back.

00:29:41The yard between the second

00:29:43and third rings

00:29:43filled with the dead.

00:29:44Bodies climbed the fence

00:29:45on bodies.

00:29:46The wire took them

00:29:46in arcing, shivering pulses.

00:29:48The bodies kept coming.

00:29:49I stood at the third ring gate

00:29:50with my back to the inner wall

00:29:51and emptied a magazine

00:29:51and an emptied another.

00:29:52My ears had stopped

00:29:53registering individual shots.

00:29:54My shoulder was numb.

00:29:55I was sweating

00:29:55into his oxygen helmet.

00:29:57The yard between the second

00:29:58and third rings

00:29:58filled with the dead.

00:29:59Copy.

00:30:0081.

00:30:01Watch it, Faye!

00:30:03Bring the launchers down!

00:30:04They're inside the rocket arc!

00:30:06On it!

00:30:07Hugh came down

00:30:08off the second floor

00:30:08at a run

00:30:09with two propane tanks

00:30:10under his arms

00:30:10and a roll of decod

00:30:11around his neck.

00:30:12I had been a high school

00:30:13gym teacher

00:30:14before I had been

00:30:15anyone's best friend.

00:30:16I had no business

00:30:17knowing what to do with this.

00:30:19I moved like

00:30:20I had been born to do it.

00:30:21Kane,

00:30:22open the gate.

00:30:23I'm going through.

00:30:25No.

00:30:25I'm going to set him

00:30:26in the second ring

00:30:27and crack him

00:30:27when she's on top.

00:30:29No!

00:30:30Kane,

00:30:32I'm not asking.

00:30:33I keyed the gate.

00:30:35Hugh slipped through

00:30:36into the kill zone

00:30:37with two improvised mods.

00:30:38I was back inside

00:30:39in 40 seconds.

00:30:41I locked the gate

00:30:41behind me

00:30:42with shaking hands.

00:30:43Mother at 60 yards!

00:30:46Detonate!

00:30:47Hugh hit the trigger.

00:30:49The yard between the rings

00:30:51erupted in two

00:30:52white-hot blooms.

00:30:53Bodies came apart

00:30:54in pieces.

00:30:55Her left arm

00:30:56was missing

00:30:57from the elbow.

00:30:59It was already

00:31:00growing back.

00:31:01I felt

00:31:02deep in my bones

00:31:03his stomach

00:31:04try to climb

00:31:05out of his throat.

00:31:06Did you see that?

00:31:08I saw it.

00:31:10Tell me you saw it, Kane!

00:31:12I saw it, Hugh G.

00:31:13Hugh laughed.

00:31:14It was not a laugh.

00:31:16It was the sound

00:31:17a laugh make.

00:31:18The yard

00:31:19fills with bodies.

00:31:22Faye,

00:31:23how's the wire holding?

00:31:2567% and dropping.

00:31:26We've got two big arcs left.

00:31:28Save them.

00:31:29I want them

00:31:30when she's on the third wire.

00:31:31Copy.

00:31:32The second ring's posts

00:31:33began to lean.

00:31:34It happened slowly at first.

00:31:36A tilt at the south corner.

00:31:37The steel bowing

00:31:38under the weight

00:31:38of so many bodies

00:31:39pressing into it.

00:31:40Then a snap.

00:31:41Then the south span

00:31:42went down in a long,

00:31:43slow ripple.

00:31:43And the dead came

00:31:44over the top of it

00:31:45like water over a dam.

00:31:46Second ring is breached!

00:31:48South span!

00:31:48South span is down!

00:31:49Mother's still tracking

00:31:50the watchtower.

00:31:51She's not tracking

00:31:52the watchtower, Dad.

00:31:53What?

00:31:55Look up.

00:31:57I looked up.

00:31:58Hugh was on the roof.

00:31:59He had gone up

00:32:00the watchtower stairs

00:32:01while no one

00:32:01would watch him.

00:32:02He stood at the parapet

00:32:03with the long rifle

00:32:04on its bipod

00:32:05and his elbow on the wall.

00:32:06And he had taken

00:32:06his oxygen helmet off

00:32:07and his cheek

00:32:08was on the stock

00:32:09and his eye

00:32:09was at the scope

00:32:10and he was not aiming

00:32:11at the swarm.

00:32:11He was aiming

00:32:12at the bedroom window.

00:32:13He keyed the radio.

00:32:14Hugh!

00:32:15Hugh!

00:32:18Look at me!

00:32:20Get back inside!

00:32:21She woke up

00:32:22about a minute ago.

00:32:25She said my name

00:32:26and she said it again

00:32:28different.

00:32:30Hugh!

00:32:31She's looking for me, Kane.

00:32:34I started for the

00:32:35watchtower stair.

00:32:36Don't you dare

00:32:36come up here, Kane Sutton!

00:32:38You stay down there!

00:32:39You do your job!

00:32:41I stopped on the third step.

00:32:43My hand stayed on the rail.

00:32:46I did not climb.

00:32:47I hears Chloe

00:32:48screaming downstairs.

00:32:51I reached the second

00:32:51floor hallway

00:32:52with my rifle still slanged

00:32:53and the smell of gunpowder

00:32:54in his hair.

00:32:55The bedroom door was open.

00:32:56Chloe was on the bed.

00:32:57Her hair was down.

00:32:57Shoulders were against

00:32:58the headboard.

00:32:58Her jaw was open

00:32:59at an angle

00:32:59a jaw is not supposed to open.

00:33:00The veins under her skin

00:33:01were no longer black.

00:33:02They were the color

00:33:02of an old battery.

00:33:03Her eyes were full white.

00:33:04Her hands had crossed

00:33:05in her lap and were still.

00:33:06The thing on the bed

00:33:07was not Chloe.

00:33:08She turned her head.

00:33:10The neck did not move

00:33:10the way a neck moves.

00:33:12She saw me.

00:33:13She smiled.

00:33:14I raised the rifle.

00:33:16I had told myself

00:33:17for four days

00:33:17that when this moment came

00:33:18I would do it.

00:33:19I had practiced.

00:33:20I had walked through it

00:33:20in my head.

00:33:21I had told myself

00:33:21that what was on the bed

00:33:22would not be Chloe.

00:33:23That it would just be the body.

00:33:24The part that was Chloe

00:33:24was already gone.

00:33:25The thing on the bed

00:33:26smiled with Chloe's mouth.

00:33:27The rifle did not stay me.

00:33:28Hugh's voice came

00:33:29from the doorway behind me.

00:33:31Kane, out.

00:33:32Hugh.

00:33:33I said out.

00:33:34Hugh was eyed the doorway

00:33:35in his armor

00:33:36with his helmet off

00:33:36and a half-zipped tactical vest

00:33:38over his suit.

00:33:39The vest had ten clips on it.

00:33:41The clips were not magazines.

00:33:42Hugh.

00:33:43No.

00:33:44I'll walk her out.

00:33:45Hughley.

00:33:46She's right there, Kane.

00:33:47Look at her.

00:33:48She's right there.

00:33:49I looked.

00:33:50The thing on the bed

00:33:51was looking past me

00:33:52at the doorway

00:33:53at Hugh.

00:33:54Her smile changed.

00:33:55Hugh stepped past me

00:33:56into the room.

00:33:57He held out his hand.

00:33:58The thing on the bed

00:33:59put her hand in his

00:34:00without standing.

00:34:01Come on, baby.

00:34:03Hugh smiled at her.

00:34:03The same smile.

00:34:04The real one.

00:34:05The same smile.

00:34:05He had smiled at her

00:34:06every day for six years.

00:34:07I raised the gun.

00:34:08I can't.

00:34:09I'll walk her out.

00:34:12Hugh walked Chloe

00:34:13down the stairs.

00:34:14I went with them

00:34:14as far as the basement door.

00:34:16Roger met them there

00:34:17with my rifle sung

00:34:17and his face old.

00:34:18Diane was behind me

00:34:19with both hands

00:34:20pressed over her mouth.

00:34:21Facey was at the master panel.

00:34:23Marlene and Derek

00:34:23were not in the room.

00:34:25Hugh.

00:34:26Don't, Roger.

00:34:27There has to be

00:34:29another way.

00:34:30There isn't.

00:34:34Hugh stopped at the door.

00:34:35I turned to Kane.

00:34:37Open the gate

00:34:38when she gets on the wire.

00:34:39Cut the power.

00:34:41I want her to have

00:34:41a clear line.

00:34:42Hugh, one more thing.

00:34:45Yeah.

00:34:46When the mother

00:34:47comes in close,

00:34:48when she leans down

00:34:49to look,

00:34:50you put a rocket

00:34:51through her chest,

00:34:51Kane Sutton.

00:34:52You put it right

00:34:53through her green ribs

00:34:54and you do not miss.

00:34:56I won't miss.

00:34:58Promise me.

00:34:59I promise you.

00:35:01Hugh nodded.

00:35:02I looked at Faye.

00:35:03I looked at Roger.

00:35:04I looked at Diane.

00:35:06I looked,

00:35:06last,

00:35:07on the woman beside me

00:35:08with the white eyes

00:35:09and the wrong jaw.

00:35:10Hey, baby.

00:35:11The thing in Chloe's body

00:35:12tilted her head

00:35:13against his shoulder.

00:35:13Let's go for a walk, sweetheart.

00:35:16I opened the door.

00:35:17I stepped out

00:35:18into the air talk.

00:35:19The thing in Chloe's body

00:35:20followed me

00:35:21without resistance,

00:35:22her hand in his.

00:35:23The outer door cycled.

00:35:24Cold morning came in,

00:35:26full of smoke

00:35:26and the smell of meat.

00:35:28Roger turned to Kane.

00:35:29I could not speak.

00:35:31Faye,

00:35:32cut the inner wire.

00:35:34Kane.

00:35:35Cut it.

00:35:36Now.

00:35:38The inner wire died.

00:35:40Hugh walked Chloe

00:35:40through the gate

00:35:41and out into the yard

00:35:42between the rings

00:35:43and the swarm parted

00:35:45around the green woman

00:35:46in the middle

00:35:46and the green woman

00:35:48stopped walking

00:35:48and turned

00:35:49and looked at Hugh

00:35:50and Chloe

00:35:52and her green head

00:35:53tilted with curiosity.

00:35:55Hugh kept walking.

00:35:57I squeezed Chloe's hand

00:35:58once at 30 yards.

00:36:01I pulled the first pin

00:36:02at 20.

00:36:04Ten pins.

00:36:06Ten chances.

00:36:08I was on the watchtower

00:36:09with the rocket

00:36:10on my shoulder

00:36:10when Hugh pulled

00:36:11the second pin.

00:36:12The mother was leaning down.

00:36:13She was reaching out

00:36:14a long green hand

00:36:15almost gentle

00:36:15toward the man and the woman

00:36:16walking up to her

00:36:17in the wreckage of the yard.

00:36:18Her face had no expression.

00:36:20It was watching Hugh's eyes.

00:36:21Hi.

00:36:22The third pin.

00:36:23Look at me.

00:36:24The fourth pin.

00:36:26Right here.

00:36:26The mother looked.

00:36:28The fifth, sixth, seventh,

00:36:29eighth, ninth pins.

00:36:31Hugh let go of Chloe's hand.

00:36:34I winked at her.

00:36:35The tenth pin.

00:36:36The world went white.

00:36:38The blast picked up the yard

00:36:39and put it down somewhere else.

00:36:40It picked up the second ring posts

00:36:41and folded them.

00:36:42It picked up 200 infected

00:36:43at the front of the swarm

00:36:44and turned them into a cloud

00:36:45of blood vapor

00:36:45that hung in the air

00:36:46and did not fall.

00:36:47It picked up the green woman

00:36:47and lifted her off her feet

00:36:48for the first time

00:36:49in any record I had ever heard of.

00:36:50She was already healing.

00:36:52I fired.

00:36:53The last rocket left his shoulder

00:36:55with a single hard cough

00:36:56and crossed the yard

00:36:57in a flat line

00:36:58and went into the green woman

00:36:59where her sternum had been

00:37:00before Hugh's grenades

00:37:01had taken it apart

00:37:02and it did not come out

00:37:03the other side.

00:37:04It detonated inside her.

00:37:05The green skin came apart

00:37:07in petals.

00:37:09She made a sound I would hear

00:37:10for the rest of my life.

00:37:12Then she did not make any sound.

00:37:15Then there was no green

00:37:16where she had been.

00:37:17Then the swarm,

00:37:18every infected within a half mile,

00:37:20stopped all at once

00:37:22as if a wire had been cut.

00:37:25They turned slowly,

00:37:27in unison,

00:37:28away from the compound

00:37:29and began to walk back

00:37:30toward the city.

00:37:31I fell to his knees

00:37:32on the watchtower.

00:37:35I couldn't...

00:37:35God, I couldn't breathe.

00:37:38A purple rain began to fall,

00:37:39fine, wet, and acid cold.

00:37:42In the wet ash

00:37:43where Hugh had been standing,

00:37:44there was nothing left.

00:37:47I came up from the dark

00:37:48a week later.

00:37:49The light hurt.

00:37:50The ceiling was the ceiling

00:37:51of his old bedroom.

00:37:52There was a bag of saline

00:37:53on a hook.

00:37:54There was a small plastic clip

00:37:55on his finger.

00:37:56My chest hurt

00:37:56with a hurt that was new.

00:37:57The deep, splintered hurt

00:37:58of ribs that had been broken

00:37:59and were trying to remember

00:38:00how to be ribs.

00:38:01I could not raise my arms.

00:38:02Diane was beside the bed.

00:38:04Her hair was uncombed.

00:38:07He's awake.

00:38:08Her hands held his hand.

00:38:09Faye was in the doorway

00:38:10in two seconds.

00:38:12She was crying

00:38:13before she got to the bed.

00:38:14You stupid, stupid, stupid!

00:38:16I'm sorry.

00:38:19You stupid, stupid!

00:38:21She climbed up beside me

00:38:23and pressed her face

00:38:24into his shoulder

00:38:24and stopped trying to talk.

00:38:26I lay there a long time

00:38:27before he asked.

00:38:30You.

00:38:32Diane could not speak.

00:38:34He didn't come back, baby.

00:38:37I closed my eyes.

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

00:38:42How long have I been out?

00:38:44Eight days.

00:38:46Where is everyone?

00:38:48Your mom's downstairs.

00:38:49Marley and Derek are next room.

00:38:51Your dad's on the watchtower.

00:38:53Faye.

00:38:54They're all alive, Kane.

00:38:56We're all still here.

00:38:58I held that for a long minute.

00:39:00I didn't,

00:39:01and that was the point.

00:39:02Deserve it.

00:39:04I took it anyway.

00:39:06Roger appeared in the doorway.

00:39:08I looked at Kane.

00:39:10My jaw worked once.

00:39:12Welcome back, son.

00:39:14Dad.

00:39:18Hugh saved us.

00:39:20I know.

00:39:21We had a service.

00:39:23Faye said the words.

00:39:27When you can stand.

00:39:29I want to walk the perimeter with you.

00:39:32Yeah.

00:39:33Take a day.

00:39:35Hell, take two.

00:39:38I left.

00:39:40Diane kissed my forehead and followed me.

00:39:43Faye stayed against his shoulder until she fell asleep.

00:39:45I lay awake in the dim room and listened to the wire hum, and to the breathing of the woman

00:39:50beside me, and to the silence where, a week ago, Hugh Sterling had still been breathing too.

00:39:56I didn't come back.

00:39:59Marlene coughed at breakfast on my third day up.

00:40:01Once.

00:40:02Twice.

00:40:03Three times.

00:40:04The third with a napkin pressed to her mouth and her shoulders rising.

00:40:07When she lowered the napkin, she gave the smile she always gave, and folded the napkin neatly so no one

00:40:11could see the inside.

00:40:12Marlene.

00:40:14It's the air down here.

00:40:15It's so dry.

00:40:16Marlene.

00:40:17Don't.

00:40:17Derek's hand tightened on his fork.

00:40:19I did not look at anyone.

00:40:21Diane stood up to get more bread that no one was eating.

00:40:24I looked at the napkin Marlene had folded.

00:40:26I could see the dark spot on the cloth from across the table.

00:40:28I had seen this exact spot before, on a different cloth, in a different mouth, on a morning that had

00:40:33ended a friend.

00:40:34I stood up, and for a moment, the only sound was Faye's quick breath beside me.

00:40:37Marlene, I'm going to take that, please.

00:40:41Kane.

00:40:41She handed me the napkin without unfolding it.

00:40:44Her hand was warm, too warm.

00:40:46I took it down to the basement and put it in the medical waste bin without opening it.

00:40:51When I came back upstairs, Derek was already kneeling beside her chair, his hands on her hands.

00:40:57We don't know yet.

00:40:58I know, baby.

00:40:59We don't.

00:41:01Hold my hand.

00:41:04Derek held her hand.

00:41:05Faye came up behind I in the kitchen doorway and slipped her arms around his waist.

00:41:09How long?

00:41:10A week.

00:41:11Maybe.

00:41:12How do you know?

00:41:13I've been through this.

00:41:15With someone.

00:41:17Faye understood without asking who.

00:41:19Roger came in from the garden with the dirt of the morning still on his hands.

00:41:23He stopped in the doorway.

00:41:24He looked at Derek and Marlene at the table.

00:41:26He looked at me.

00:41:27I'll take the watchtower tonight, Dad.

00:41:30I'll take it tonight.

00:41:32I went outside and shut the door behind me.

00:42:03My stomach drops.

00:42:16Marlene fell asleep around midnight.

00:42:18She woke up at 1.42.

00:42:20The thing in Marlene's body sat up against the headboard, with the sheets bunched in its fists,

00:42:24and turned its head slowly, and looked at the man kneeling beside the bed, and opened its mouth.

00:42:29Marlene?

00:42:30It was not Marlene anymore.

00:42:31It came off the bed.

00:42:33Roger had been waiting in the doorway.

00:42:34The shot was clean.

00:42:35The thing went sideways across the headboard, and did not move again.

00:42:39Derek did not move either.

00:42:42Dad?

00:42:44I know, son.

00:42:46She was right there.

00:42:49I know.

00:42:51Derek did not stand for a long time.

00:42:53When he finally did, I walked past his father in the doorway without looking at me.

00:42:57I went down to the basement.

00:42:58I sat on the basement floor with my back against the gun rack, where Hugh had sat eight nights ago,

00:43:02and he stayed there until morning.

00:43:04Roger came out of the bedroom with Marlene in a sheet.

00:43:07I went with me through the airlock and out into the night.

00:43:10They buried her beside Brett and Hugh.

00:43:12The ground was soft from rain.

00:43:15Roger did not speak the whole walk back.

00:43:18In the basement, Faye sat down beside Derek on the floor,

00:43:21and took his hand and did not say a word.

00:43:24She was right there.

00:43:26Derek began coughing eleven days after Marlene.

00:43:29I did not tell anyone for two days.

00:43:32Faye found out because she walked into the laundry room at the wrong moment

00:43:34and saw me bent over the basin with a towel against his mouth.

00:43:37Derek.

00:43:38Don't.

00:43:39Derek.

00:43:40I said don't.

00:43:41I went up to the room I had shared with Marlene and shut the door.

00:43:44Roger came in an hour later and did not come out for the rest of the day.

00:43:48I forced myself to stand in the hall outside.

00:43:52He's asking for the gun.

00:43:54Dad.

00:43:55He's asking me.

00:43:57Don't.

00:43:59He doesn't want it the way she had it.

00:44:02Dad, please.

00:44:04Roger came out of the room.

00:44:05My face was the face I had seen at his grandfather's funeral.

00:44:09I brushed past him and went down to the basement.

00:44:11I came back up with a pistol I recognized as Big Sam's,

00:44:14the one Roger had taught Derek to shoot with the summer Derek turned twelve.

00:44:20Don't come in.

00:44:21Don't come in.

00:44:22I'm asking you, son.

00:44:23Don't come in.

00:44:26I went into the room.

00:44:29I stood in the hallway with my back against the wall and slid down to the floor.

00:44:34Faye sat down beside me.

00:44:35She did not take his hand.

00:44:37She put her arm across his shoulders and held me against her.

00:44:40The shot was very quiet through the door.

00:44:43Roger came out a long time later.

00:44:45I did not look at Kane.

00:44:47I went to the basement and got the second sheet they were not going to need again,

00:44:51and he and I walked Derek through the airlock and out to the backfield.

00:44:55The ground was harder this time.

00:44:58They buried Derek beside Marianne.

00:45:00Inside, Diane was sitting at the dining room table with her hands flat on the wood,

00:45:05breathing through her mouth.

00:45:08Dee.

00:45:11I felt it last night.

00:45:14Eyes asking me.

00:45:17Diane lasted four days.

00:45:18Roger sat with her through every hour of it.

00:45:20I fed her broth she could no longer keep down.

00:45:22I brushed her hair.

00:45:23I read her the book she had been halfway through on her night stay the morning the world ended,

00:45:27picking up exactly where her book card sat.

00:45:28When the fever turned and she could no longer answer me, he kept reading.

00:45:31I forced myself to stand outside the door.

00:45:34I would not come in.

00:45:35I could not come in.

00:45:36On the fourth night, Roger came out.

00:45:39My eyes were dry.

00:45:40My hands were not.

00:45:43I'll handle it.

00:45:46Dad.

00:45:47I said I'll handle it!

00:45:50Roger took Diane out through the airlock at 3.14 in the morning.

00:45:53I did not let anyone go with me.

00:45:55I came back inside an hour later and sat down at the dining room table and put my head down

00:45:59on his folded arms and did not move for a long time.

00:46:02Faye and I sat with me without speaking.

00:46:04The outer wire fell on the next afternoon, not from infected pressure, but from a dead

00:46:07branch that finally rotted through and dropped onto the south span.

00:46:10The wire came down and a long, slow pangle left to go back into it.

00:46:12The hydro generator was running the basement air and the basement lights and nothing else.

00:46:16The second ring had been brooched since the day of the battle.

00:46:18The third ring was the only line that mattered.

00:46:20The third ring still hummed.

00:46:22I and Faye and Roger lived inside the third ring like three people on a small rooms of

00:46:26the compound and did not speak much in a dead sea.

00:46:28They ate from cans.

00:46:29They did not turn on the radio.

00:46:31On the morning of the second month, Faye went up to the watchtower with Cain.

00:46:35She had not been up there since the day of the battle.

00:46:37She put her hands on the parabate and looked out at the world.

00:46:41The river to the east had gone dry.

00:46:43The tree line to the west was black.

00:46:45The sky overhead was the color of an old wound.

00:46:48I can't see hope anymore, Cain.

00:46:51I had no answer.

00:46:53A small island in a dead sea.

00:46:56I didn't, and that was the point.

00:46:58See the figure first.

00:46:59Faye saw it.

00:46:59She had been standing at the paramedic for a long time, her hand on his back, her cheek

00:47:02against his shoulder.

00:47:03I had been counting how long it had been since either of them had said anything.

00:47:06The number kept getting bigger.

00:47:07I kept losing it.

00:47:08She did not move her hand.

00:47:09She did not change her tone.

00:47:10She just said his name.

00:47:11Look.

00:47:11I looked.

00:47:12Out past the second ring wreckage.

00:47:13Out past the burnt edge of the field.

00:47:15Out on the gravel road that led back to what was left of the city, a figure was walking.

00:47:18Wah person.

00:47:19Upright.

00:47:19Two-legged.

00:47:20Walking.

00:47:20Not strumbling.

00:47:21Not tilting.

00:47:22A jacket.

00:47:23A hand raised.

00:47:23Palm out in the air.

00:47:24I raised the rifle through reflex.

00:47:26My hands were steady before my brain had caught up.

00:47:29Cain.

00:47:30He's waving.

00:47:33I see him.

00:47:35Cain.

00:47:36I see him, Faye.

00:47:37The figure stopped at the edge of the dead field.

00:47:40I did not come closer.

00:47:41I cupped his hand around his mouth.

00:47:42My voice came up to them on the watchtower, thin and clear.

00:47:45Faye made a sound I had not heard her make in months.

00:47:47A laughed.

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

00:47:50but it was a laugh.

00:47:51She gripped his arm.

00:47:52Cain.

00:47:52There's somebody out there.

00:47:53I lifted the binoculars.

00:47:55The man was tin.

00:47:56I was middle age.

00:47:57I had a salt pepper beard.

00:47:58I wore no helmet.

00:47:59I wore no oxygen tank.

00:48:01My face was bare in the purple air.

00:48:02I was waving.

00:48:03I was alive.

00:48:04I keyed the radio with his free hand.

00:48:06Dad.

00:48:06Watchtower.

00:48:07Now.

00:48:08I lowered the binoculars.

00:48:10I looked at Faye.

00:48:11The wind moved her hair.

00:48:13A figure on the horizon.

00:48:15Walking.

00:48:17Alive.

00:48:17A figure on the horizon.

00:48:22The stranger held both hands up at the third ring and waited for permission.

00:48:26I and Roger came down to the gate in their suits.

00:48:29Faye watched from the watchtower with the rifle.

00:48:32Roger stayed five steps back.

00:48:34I stopped at the wire.

00:48:36The man on the other side was older than I had looked from up high.

00:48:38Sixty.

00:48:39Lean.

00:48:40A mark like a black star out of his neck.

00:48:42I had a soldier's stillness.

00:48:44Name's Mac Harper.

00:48:45World Rescue Corps.

00:48:46I'm not infected.

00:48:47I've got a vaccine.

00:48:49Don't shoot.

00:48:51How are you breathing the air?

00:48:52The mark on my neck.

00:48:54It's a marker the swarm can't see.

00:48:57Paired with an antivirial, ten of us got dropped into this city six weeks back.

00:49:01I'm what's left.

00:49:03Why are you here?

00:49:04Because somebody on this property fired a wire-guided munition into a mother three weeks ago.

00:49:09And we tracked the heat pump from orbit.

00:49:11We thought it was an artillery error.

00:49:13Then we got ground readings.

00:49:15Then we got a satellite image of three central fences and a working oxygen rig in a watchtower.

00:49:21And command sent me to find out who the hell was still alive.

00:49:25Step back ten spas.

00:49:27Mac, step back.

00:49:29Lift your shirt.

00:49:31Mac lifted his shirt.

00:49:33There were no bites.

00:49:34There were three old scars and a fresh field dressing across his ribs.

00:49:38Empty the pack on the ground.

00:49:41Mac emptied the pack.

00:49:42Two protein bags.

00:49:44A pistol.

00:49:45A satellite radio.

00:49:46Three small unmarked vials.

00:49:48A fold of papers.

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

00:49:51And a thin strip of metal that looked, in the cold light, like nothing I had ever seen.

00:49:56The strip's a nano suit.

00:49:58Skin bonded.

00:49:59Combat rated.

00:50:00Single charge.

00:50:01It'll get you through about two hundred of them, then it dies.

00:50:04One charge.

00:50:05One shot.

00:50:06I keyed the gate.

00:50:07Get inside before the rain hits again.

00:50:10Mac picked up the pack.

00:50:11I stepped through the wire.

00:50:13The gate closed behind me with a soft, heavy click.

00:50:16I stood inside the perimeter for the first time and let out a breath like I had been holding it

00:50:21for six weeks.

00:50:23Brother.

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

00:50:26We've been tracking the mother.

00:50:30They sat around the dining room table for the first time in two months.

00:50:33Mac laid out the map between the salt and pepper.

00:50:36It was a city map.

00:50:37A real one.

00:50:37Paper, not satellite.

00:50:38With red ink in the center and a black star drawn over the largest metro station downtown.

00:50:43This is our girl.

00:50:44Downtown.

00:50:45Right under the central terminal.

00:50:47She doesn't move more than a hundred yards in any direction.

00:50:50The whole hive feeds her.

00:50:53She doesn't have to walk.

00:50:55Her hive walks for her.

00:50:57Then how do we get to her?

00:50:59Through the tunnels.

00:51:01I tap the lines that mark the metro.

00:51:03Trains aren't running.

00:51:04The hive cleared the platforms in the first week.

00:51:06After that, the tunnels went quiet.

00:51:08They don't bother with anything they can't smell.

00:51:10We slip in at the west side station, walk the line east surface at the H tower across from the

00:51:14central terminal.

00:51:15Three hours on foot.

00:51:16Why a tower?

00:51:17Because she has to see you.

00:51:19Wait.

00:51:20She has to see you.

00:51:22The vaccine works close range only.

00:51:24And only if she's looking.

00:51:25We need her to break cover.

00:51:26We need her to climb.

00:51:27So we have to be high enough that she sees us.

00:51:29Far enough she has to come for us.

00:51:31And inside enough cover that the rest of the hive can't drown us before she gets there.

00:51:35That's a lot of ifs.

00:51:37It is.

00:51:38I looked at the red ink.

00:51:39I looked at the black star.

00:51:40At the dotted line between the west side station and the H tower across the page.

00:51:44I had walked that line last time.

00:51:46With Faye.

00:51:47On her last day.

00:51:48They had been trying to find a checkpoint that did not exist.

00:51:50I knew exactly how many infected were waiting.

00:51:54We go tomorrow.

00:51:56Tomorrow.

00:51:58Faye took his hand under the table.

00:52:00There's more than one?

00:52:03Mac laid the nano suit strip on the table.

00:52:06It looked in the lamplight like a band-aid made of mercury.

00:52:10Six inches long.

00:52:12Half an inch wide.

00:52:13It moved when you weren't looking.

00:52:15When you looked at it, it stopped.

00:52:16Press it to the back of the neck.

00:52:18Skin contact.

00:52:20It bonds in two seconds.

00:52:22After that, it lives where you live.

00:52:24Activate by intention.

00:52:26Think the word suit.

00:52:28The plates flow.

00:52:29You'll have a full kit in 90 frames.

00:52:32Charge.

00:52:32100% at start.

00:52:34A heavy weapon.

00:52:34Energy blade.

00:52:35Beam.

00:52:36Burns it down fast.

00:52:37Conservative.

00:52:37You've got a half hour fight in you.

00:52:39Aggressive.

00:52:4010 minutes.

00:52:41How many of these you got?

00:52:42Four.

00:52:43One for each of us.

00:52:44They were calibrated to my unit's bio signatures, but the bond protocol accepts new hosts.

00:52:48You'll be the first non-corpse personnel to ever wear one.

00:52:51Faye picked one up.

00:52:53It clung to her finger.

00:52:54Then her palm.

00:52:55Then settled.

00:52:56It feels warm.

00:52:58It's already reading you.

00:53:00Faye looked at Cain.

00:53:01One charge.

00:53:03One shot.

00:53:04One shot.

00:53:06I pressed his strip to the back of my neck.

00:53:08The cold lasted half a second.

00:53:10Then a warmth ran down his spine.

00:53:13Clean.

00:53:13Sharp.

00:53:14Almost pleasant.

00:53:15It stopped at his hands.

00:53:16My fingers tingled.

00:53:18Something behind his eyes opened.

00:53:20I thought the weight of it crushing me.

00:53:22Suit.

00:53:22A hundred small plates flowed out from his collarbone, his shoulder blades, his hips, and

00:53:26a featherweight skin of liquid metal closed over me in less than two seconds.

00:53:30My vision sharpened.

00:53:32The aches in his ribs went quiet.

00:53:33A small status panel ghosted into the corner of his eye.

00:53:36Battery.

00:53:37One hundred percent.

00:53:39God.

00:53:40Roger and Mac and Faye stood up around the table in their own gleaming armor.

00:53:44Roger laughed once, a stunned laugh, and looked down at his hands.

00:53:49I'm sixty-one years old.

00:53:52Tonight, you're not.

00:53:54The last night.

00:53:56Faye won't sleep.

00:53:59Faye climbed into the bed in the dark.

00:54:01She had not done that in a month.

00:54:03Since Hugh had walked Chloe into the yard since the burials, since the third ring had started

00:54:07humming alone.

00:54:08They had slept in the same room, but she had stayed on the cot under the window, and I had

00:54:12stayed in the bed by the door, each of them grieving in a different language.

00:54:15Tonight, she came to me.

00:54:17She put her arms around me, under the covers.

00:54:20She put her forehead against his collarbone.

00:54:23I could feel her eyelashes against his skin.

00:54:26Cain.

00:54:28Yeah?

00:54:30Are we gonna make it back?

00:54:32I held her.

00:54:33I didn't, and that was the point answer for a long time.

00:54:36I had thought about this question for a long time.

00:54:38I had practiced answers in my head a hundred times.

00:54:41I had believed, in the worst weeks, that if he ever got the chance to answer it again,

00:54:46I would lie.

00:54:47I was going to lie.

00:54:50I don't know, Faye.

00:54:52Faye nodded against his colistain.

00:54:54Okay.

00:54:55I want to.

00:54:56I want you so badly.

00:54:57Okay.

00:54:59But I don't know.

00:55:01Okay.

00:55:02She did not cry.

00:55:04She did not move.

00:55:06She held me, and she breathed against my neck, and she listened to me breathe.

00:55:11The room kept breathing around them.

00:55:15I love you, Cain Sutton.

00:55:17I love you, Faye Mitchell.

00:55:20I have loved you since the second week of senior year.

00:55:23I know.

00:55:26I want you to know that no matter what happens tomorrow, I have already had a whole life with you.

00:55:31I had it.

00:55:32It was mine.

00:55:34Even if it ends.

00:55:35Good God, I couldn't speak.

00:55:38Okay?

00:55:39Okay.

00:55:41Good.

00:55:42I have now sleep.

00:55:44She fell asleep against me in 20 minutes.

00:55:47I did not sleep.

00:55:49I lay awake and listened to her breathe, and he memorized it.

00:55:53The way a person memorizes something they intend to carry for a very long time.

00:55:58I lies.

00:55:59She knows.

00:56:02They left the compound at 6 in the morning.

00:56:04Roger walked once around the basement before he locked it.

00:56:06I touched the workbench.

00:56:07I touched the master burker.

00:56:08I touched the doorframe of the room where Diane had lived for the last week of her life.

00:56:12I stood there for a moment with his hand on the wood.

00:56:14Then I came out and shut the door.

00:56:15And did not lock it.

00:56:17In case anyone needs it.

00:56:21Yeah.

00:56:22My Mac drove.

00:56:23Roger shotgun.

00:56:24I and Faye sat in the back.

00:56:25The truck was a black suburban Mac had hidden in a service garage two miles south from the compound.

00:56:29The roads downtown were empty.

00:56:31Empty did not mean clean.

00:56:32A car had crashed into a power pole on 12th.

00:56:35There was a dog asleep in the median.

00:56:37The dog was not asleep.

00:56:38There was a man at a bus shelter on Henderson with his face-sided paper bag.

00:56:41And a little girl on a tricycle outside a hair salon on 4th.

00:56:43And a couple at a sidewalk cafe on 9th holding hands across a stained tablecloth.

00:56:47None of them moved.

00:56:48None of them were alive.

00:56:50Faye looked at the little girl as they drove past.

00:56:52She's never going to grow up?

00:56:55No.

00:56:57I would have wanted one.

00:56:59Eventually.

00:57:01I took her hand.

00:57:03I would have wanted one too.

00:57:05The truck stopped at the west side station entrance.

00:57:07A granite arch over a stairway down.

00:57:08Surrounded by abandoned newspaper boxes.

00:57:10Lights on.

00:57:10Move.

00:57:11They climbed out.

00:57:12Mac threw a pebble at a steel grit 20 feet down the avenue.

00:57:14And a half dozen drowns the infected at the station's mouth turned and chambered toward this noise.

00:57:17Roger took Faye's elbow.

00:57:18And they slipped past the entrance.

00:57:21I and Mac threw a second pebble in the opposite direction.

00:57:24The remaining infected at the entrance turned.

00:57:27Drifted away.

00:57:30Lights on.

00:57:30Move.

00:57:35The tunnel was very dark and very wet.

00:57:37The air was cold.

00:57:38The air was full of a smell I had no name for.

00:57:40Something like old meat.

00:57:41Something like a swimming pool that had not been cleaned.

00:57:43Something like the inside of a refrigerator that had lost power for a month.

00:57:45The nano suit filtered most of it out.

00:57:47Most was not all.

00:57:48The four of them moved in a tight diamond.

00:57:50Mark took point.

00:57:51Roger held the back.

00:57:52I took the right.

00:57:53Faye took the left with my hand on her elbow whenever the floor was uneven.

00:57:56Which was always.

00:57:57The suit lit the tunnel for them.

00:57:59A soft cone of cold light from each shoulder.

00:58:01There were things in the dark.

00:58:03Some of them were animals.

00:58:04A rat scurrying along the rail.

00:58:05A bird that had gotten in somehow, dead on a beam.

00:58:08Some of them were not animals.

00:58:09Once, Mac stopped and actioned and they all stood very still while something on the far

00:58:13side of the tracks dragged itself a hundred feet through the gravel.

00:58:15And then, finding no sound to follow, lay back down.

00:58:19I felt, deep in my bones, Faye's pulse through her elbow.

00:58:24It was very fast.

00:58:27Mac, how far?

00:58:29Two and a quarter miles to the central platform.

00:58:31We'll scurp it.

00:58:31H-Tower entrance is half a mile past.

00:58:33How long?

00:58:34Forty minutes if we keep this pace.

00:58:36Then we keep this pace.

00:58:39They walked.

00:58:41They walked.

00:58:44They walked.

00:58:45A subway car came out of the dark.

00:58:47It was tilted.

00:58:48It had jumped the track at some point in the chaos and it lay across the rails on its side.

00:58:52Its lights long dead.

00:58:53Its windows broken in long, jagged shapes.

00:58:55Black-red blood streaked the inside.

00:58:57The smell here was different.

00:58:59Worse.

00:58:59I stopped six feet from the car.

00:59:01I swung his cone of light along the windows.

00:59:04Something inside moved.

00:59:05A soft, dry sound.

00:59:07Not loud, like fabric being pulled across stone.

00:59:09It came from low, from the floor of the car.

00:59:11Faye's foot was beside the broken out edge of the car door.

00:59:15A hand came out of the dark and closed around her ankle.

00:59:19Scream.

00:59:23I shot the hand off.

00:59:25The infected attached to it dragged itself out of the dark with a piece of its own arm in its

00:59:28other hand.

00:59:28And Roger stepped past I and put a knuckle plate through its forehead.

00:59:32And then the subway car came open in three places at once.

00:59:34Five.

00:59:35Then ten.

00:59:36Then twenty.

00:59:38They poured.

00:59:39There had been a packed train at the moment everything had ended.

00:59:42Commuters, students, a stroller, a man with a guitar.

00:59:45And they had all been turned in a sealed steel box for two months.

00:59:49And now the box had cracked.

00:59:55Sprint.

00:59:56Roger was seconded.

00:59:57I took stay by the wrist and ran.

00:59:58The nano-suits gave them speed they had not earned.

01:00:01A feather glide along the rails.

01:00:02The small wheels at the heels skating them forward at thirty miles an hour.

01:00:05I heard the swarm behind them.

01:00:07As a single unbroken sound.

01:00:09A roar that did not breathe in.

01:00:10How far!

01:00:11Quarter mile to the H-Tower stairs!

01:00:14Kane!

01:00:16Yeah!

01:00:17I've got an idea.

01:00:21Mack!

01:00:22The tower stairs!

01:00:25I see them!

01:00:26Get to them!

01:00:28Listen to me!

01:00:29I built this city, son.

01:00:30I built three of these damn stations.

01:00:32The roof of this tunnel is held up by a load-bearing beam every two hundred feet.

01:00:36If we drop the next one behind us, the swarm can't follow.

01:00:39Dad!

01:00:40No!

01:00:40Dad!

01:00:41Please!

01:00:42We can take her down together!

01:00:43I can't do this without you!

01:00:49You can.

01:00:51You will.

01:00:53I didn't, and that was the point.

01:00:55Slow down.

01:00:58Get to the tower.

01:01:03I felt my father's hand on the back of his neck.

01:01:06It was a brief, hard squeeze.

01:01:08I'll be right behind you, son.

01:01:12Then I was not.

01:01:14I saw, out of the corner of his eye, my father break stride and pivot.

01:01:17The way Roger had pivoted sonored on a job site fifty thousand times.

01:01:21And raised the rocket to aim at Ballong to the tunnel ceiling at a point I could not see him.

01:01:24The rocket left.

01:01:26The blast was a long, rolling, geological sound.

01:01:29I did not look back.

01:01:30Faye did not look back.

01:01:31Mac did not look back.

01:01:32They ran.

01:01:33They reached the H-Tower stairwell door.

01:01:36Mac threw the door open.

01:01:37They went up.

01:01:38They went up.

01:01:39I waited at the next landing.

01:01:41I did not speak.

01:01:42After a long moment, Mac spoke.

01:01:44I must have whispered.

01:01:45I was a good man.

01:01:47He was the best man I ever heard.

01:01:49I'm sorry, brother.

01:01:50They climbed.

01:01:51Eighty-three stories.

01:01:53Take us ups did most of it.

01:01:54By the 40th, my grief had narrowed to a single hot point behind his ribs and I was using it,

01:01:57the way a runner uses a stitch.

01:01:59By the 70th, his face was dry.

01:02:00By the rooftop access door is interested.

01:02:08Some things, somebody has to do.

01:02:15The H-Tower was actually two towers.

01:02:17Twin glass slabs joined at the base by a parking deck and a lobby.

01:02:20From the rooftop of the South Tower, I could see straight across the gap to the North Tower's rooftop.

01:02:24And below the gap, I could see down into the canyon between them, where the wind moved trash and slow

01:02:29circled.

01:02:30I taught you the suit ten hours ago, kid.

01:02:32I taught you the suit ten hours ago, kid.

01:02:33I learned fast.

01:02:35Faye went to the other tower with the long rifle the suit gave.

01:02:38A gauss needle, slim, almost beautiful, that printed itself into existence in her hands when she thought it.

01:02:43I kissed her at the elevator.

01:02:45When I opened my chest piece, the second you see green, you fly it.

01:02:47I won't miss.

01:02:49I know you won't, baby.

01:02:50She crossed the parking deck and entered the North Tower and went up.

01:02:54I stood beside him.

01:02:57Mac flicked the cigarette over the edge.

01:02:59Mech mode, King.

01:03:01They both said it at once.

01:03:03Mech mode.

01:03:04The nano suits expanded.

01:03:05The plates crooked.

01:03:07The shoulders broad.

01:03:08Servos that had not existed five minutes ago hummed in the metal.

01:03:11Cold weapons folded out of forearms.

01:03:13Battery readouts from 95% to 40% in a long, unbroken slide and stopped.

01:03:19In the canyon between the towers, something began to climb.

01:03:24Some things, somebody has to do.

01:03:29The mother climbed straight up the glass.

01:03:31She did not need a foothold.

01:03:33Her hands moved up the smooth face of the building like a spider's hands.

01:03:36Behind her on the plaza, her swarm was funneling into the H Tower lobby in a single black red column.

01:03:40Above her, in the gap, only I and Mac stood on the parody.

01:03:44She looked up.

01:03:45She looked at Cain.

01:03:45She remembered me.

01:03:47I saw it in her face.

01:03:48The same look the green woman had given me from across the field last time.

01:03:51The same look from the moment Hugh had pulled the seventh pin.

01:03:53She remembered.

01:03:54She knew exactly which one of them had killed her sister six weeks ago on the west side.

01:03:57She had been waiting for me to come down.

01:03:59I waited until she was three floors below the Paramount.

01:04:01Then I opened his chest plate.

01:04:02The compartment in the nano suit's chest was an emergency power well.

01:04:05A core.

01:04:06A tiny nuclear ember meant only for catastrophic last resort use.

01:04:09The interior glowed a sickly clean green.

01:04:12Now!

01:04:12Faye fired.

01:04:13The round left the North Tower like a star.

01:04:16It crossed the gap at hypersonic speed.

01:04:18It went into the mother's open mouth and through the back of her head and continued for another 200 feet

01:04:23before it lost altitude.

01:04:24The mother fell.

01:04:26Not far.

01:04:26She caught the paralle of the floor below with one hand.

01:04:29She hung there.

01:04:30Her eyes.

01:04:31Her one remaining eye did not stop looking at Cain.

01:04:34She began to climb again.

01:04:36She isn't dying.

01:04:37She will.

01:04:38I stepped up onto the Paramount.

01:04:40Mac caught his arm.

01:04:41Mac caught his arm!

01:04:47Cain!

01:04:48I have to be close to her.

01:04:50Heroes pay a price, kid.

01:04:54I smiled.

01:04:55Tell my kid I tried.

01:04:57I fell.

01:04:58I fell with my chest open and the green ember loose and burning in his hands.

01:05:01Tell my kid I tried.

01:05:07The flash threw I off the rooftop.

01:05:09The mother caught the explosion at point-blank range on the side of the building, with Mac's body wrapped around

01:05:14her.

01:05:14The white-green light filled the gap between the towers.

01:05:16The glass on 20 floors went.

01:05:18I fell 10 feet, and the nanosuit spent the last of its battery to keep me alive.

01:05:22I hit the paracete of the floor below.

01:05:24The suit cushioned the impact with a sound like a balloon popping.

01:05:26The chest plate sealed.

01:05:27The HUD went red.

01:05:28The disemergency reserve reserved 4%.

01:05:3020 feet below me, bent across the side of the building like a thing flung by a child, beaming.

01:05:33The green woman was not green anymore.

01:05:35She was not moving.

01:05:36She was not healing.

01:05:37I put both hands flat against the side of the building, and he breathed.

01:05:40Across the gap, on the north tower roof, Faye stood up.

01:05:44Even at this distance, I could see her hand at her mouth.

01:05:47I was alive.

01:05:49I was warm in the lobby, the plaza, on the avenues for miles around.

01:05:52Every infected with a half-mile slowed.

01:05:54Then stopped.

01:05:54Then sat down.

01:05:55All of them.

01:05:56All at once in the streets, in the lobbies, in the stairwells.

01:05:58They put their hands in their laps like children at the end of a long game.

01:06:00And the wind moved.

01:06:01The wind that had been thick and purple and acid for two months, moved.

01:06:05I lifted my head into it.

01:06:08I didn't, and that was the point.

01:06:10Deserve it.

01:06:11I was going to take it anyway.

01:06:14The sound came from very far away.

01:06:15I did not know what it was at first.

01:06:17A thrum.

01:06:17Low.

01:06:18Growing.

01:06:18Copters.

01:06:19Three.

01:06:19Then ten.

01:06:20Coming up the avenue.

01:06:21Gunship low.

01:06:22Faye on the radio crying.

01:06:24Cain.

01:06:28I'm here.

01:06:29You're here.

01:06:32I'm here.

01:06:33I put my face up to the warm, clean light.

01:06:36I thought the weight of it crushing me, about Hugh.

01:06:39I thought the weight of it crushing me, about Roger.

01:06:42The light warmed his face.

01:06:49Six weeks later, I sat and stood on the back porch of a small white house in a small white

01:06:53town 300 miles west of the city.

01:06:55The town had been a rescue crew's location-cation site since the third week of the recovery.

01:06:58A prefag cluster of housing for Bennyton in a way that felt like a cage.

01:07:01There were children on the lawns.

01:07:02There was a coffee shop with a hand-painted sign on the corner.

01:07:04The trees still had leaves.

01:07:06Faye came out onto the porch with two mugs.

01:07:09She handed me one.

01:07:10How's the shoulder?

01:07:12Stiff.

01:07:13How's the rest?

01:07:14Also stiff.

01:07:16She sat down on the porch swing, pulled me down beside her.

01:07:18The morning was cold.

01:07:20The sun was real.

01:07:21The helicopter went over very high.

01:07:23They flew me over the city last week, while you were still in the hospital, did I tell you?

01:07:26No.

01:07:27They're rebuilding the central terminal.

01:07:29That's good.

01:07:29They haven't found anyone else from our block.

01:07:31I know.

01:07:33She was quiet for a while.

01:07:35I want to go back.

01:07:36Eventually.

01:07:37Yeah.

01:07:37I want to bury Hugh next to your dad, and Marlene, and Derek.

01:07:41I want to put markers down.

01:07:42I want them to be in the same row.

01:07:44Yeah.

01:07:44They found her?

01:07:45She'd been in a rescue camp in Denver the whole time.

01:07:47They told her last week.

01:07:48I closed my eyes.

01:07:49A bus pulled up to the curb across the street.

01:07:51A woman climbed off with a small girl in her arms.

01:07:54The girl had Mac's eyes.

01:07:56I gotta go say something.

01:07:57I reach for Faye.

01:07:59I'll come with you.

01:08:00Stay.

01:08:00I won't be long.

01:08:01I'm coming with you, Kane, son.

01:08:03I looked at and felt something break inside me, her and the morning sun.

01:08:06I had her.

01:08:07I had this.

01:08:08I had everything Hugh and Roger and Mac had bought me with the rest of their lives.

01:08:11They went down myself porch steps together.

01:08:13She stood.

01:08:14The light warmed his face.

01:08:16The world was waiting.

01:08:17The end.

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