“No. This is not a joint operation. We do not want any bonds formed between our people and the infected. ”
“May I ask why not, sir?” asked the major.
“Because we are to regard anyone inside the Q-zone as potentially and indeed probably infected. ” Dietrich sighed. “I know how you must all feel. I feel the same. These are American citizens and they didn’t ask for this. This is a goddamn tragedy. Our sympathies and the sympathies of the men under our command are going to naturally be with these people. ”
The major shook his head. “We’ve been trained to help the civilian population, not stand aside and watch them die. ”
“This isn’t something anyone’s been trained for, Major,” said Dietrich. “This is a worst-case scenario that should not have happened. But it has happened and it’s up to us to contain this inside the Stebbins County line. We drop the ball and we’re going to need a mass grave the size of the Grand Canyon to bury the dead. ”
The officers glanced at one another in horrified silence.
“What are the safety regs on this?” asked the captain.
Dietrich said, “Containment and sterilization are the only options they gave us to work with. We’re running without safety measures, and they tell me we don’t have a viable treatment. These parasites make ebola look like a weak dose of the clap. We’re talking about something that is one hundred percent infectious and one hundred percent terminal. ” He looked around and watched the truth and its implications bury spikes in each of the officers. “So, the hard news is that everyone who is infected is not only terminal, they are a very real and substantial threat to the rest of the country. ”
The major made a disgusted face. “So—they want us to go in there, lock it all down, and flush it? Seven thousand people?”
Dietrich leaned on the table and stared hard into the major’s eyes. “Yes. No exceptions. You see your own mother in town and she’s infected, you put a bullet in her goddamn brain. ”
“What if she’s not infected, sir?” asked the captain.
Dietrich’s eyes were bleak. “Everyone in Stebbins is infected. ”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
MASON STREET NEAR DOLL FACTORY ROAD
“God,” whispered JT in a sick voice, “they’re coming. ”
Dez crept up beside him and peered around the corner of the mailbox. A hundred and fifty yards up the long slope of Doll Factory Road, emerging like ghosts from the gathering mist, came the creatures. Even from here, even without seeing their dead eyes or the wounds that had killed them, it was clear they were not people. Not anymore. They lumbered like animated scarecrows, their limbs stiff and awkward. It hurt Dez’s heart to accept that these things existed at all. They were nightmare creatures; they didn’t belong in the waking world. It hurt her worse that she knew so many of them, and would have to kill as many as she could.
She sniffed back tears. Beside her, JT banged his head on the cold metal of the mailbox. Once, again, and again. He stopped when a sob hitched in his chest.
Dez wrapped her arm around him and hugged him and for a moment they squatted there, foreheads pressed together, refugees in a world that no longer belonged to them.
“What are they?” he begged. “Are they people?”
She shook her head. “I don’t
know, Hoss. God, I really don’t know. ”
The wind blew down the hill toward them and Dez watched it whip an empty plastic grocery bag past them. She followed it with her eyes and saw the lights of the diner. There were at least a dozen cars in the lot.
“We got a problem,” she murmured and JT followed the line of her gaze.
“What?”
Dez chewed her lip, looking around. The intersection was on the very edge of town. There were a few decaying factories from the town’s more prosperous era, including the crumbling remains of the factory that gave the road its name. There were other stores and businesses beyond the diner. If the creatures went that way it would be a slaughter. The southern end of the cross street, Mason, led only to a corn farm, and the farmhouse was two miles away. Six hundred yards to the north, right at a bend in the road, was Bell’s Tools and Hardware. Even at this distance they could see half a dozen cars and pickup trucks in the lot, too.
“Talk to me, kid,” said JT. The shambling mass of the dead was halfway down the hill.
“We can’t let those things get to the diner,” said Dez. “We have to stop them here until the staties get here. ”
“We can’t,” said JT. “We don’t have the ammunition for that. ”
“Then we have to draw them away. ” She nudged him and nodded toward Bell’s.
“There are people down there, too. ”