Here was another example, one that was biting him in the ass right now. Solving the problem of the Lucifer 113 outbreak would clearly be easier and less of a political nightmare if there were no survivors. Wipe the slate clean, maybe kick out a few bucks for a memorial, and do some spin control to blame it on terrorists, the former administration, the policy makers on the other side of the aisle, or on anyone who was the target du jour. Even if he lived through this, Trout doubted he would ever see the name Volker in the papers, and certainly no mention of Lucifer 113 or the CIA. That would all be erased because the truth would cost too much to tell.
To hell with that, he thought as he bit down on the jolts of pain. But what was the answer? How did he and Dez and Goat fix this? Could it, in fact, be fixed?
As he ran—as he listened to Desdemona Fox, the woman he loved, shoot their neighbors down—he began to get an idea. A really wonderful, ballsy, nasty idea.
Dez fired her last shot and swapped out the magazines.
“How we doing?” she yelled.
Trout looked ahead. “Clear … but only if we haul ass. ”
“Then let’s haul ass,” she barked. She fired two more shots, spun, and sprinted to catch up with him. When she saw that he was limping, she grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him roughly along with her.
With the storm abating slightly the moans of the dead filled the air. It was such a horrible sound that it made Trout’s knees buckle, but then as he thought about what those moans meant—the insatiable hunger of the parasitic zombies—he bared his teeth and willed more power to his legs.
They ran down the far side of the faculty cars. A zombie lunged at them from behind a parked Highlander.
“Dez!”
“Got it!” She pivoted and shot the dead man through the mouth just as the thing spat black goo at them. The bullet snapped its head back, and the black liquid geysered straight up and splashed back on the zombie’s face as it fell. A few drops landed on Dez’s sleeve, but there was still plenty of rain to wash it away. Or so Trout hoped.
At the end of the row they cut toward the school. Most of the infected—frightening but without intelligence or imagination—had followed them on their wide course and only three of the dead were lingering by the open door.
Dez pulled out in front, bringing her gun up in a two-handed grip and changed her pattern of running so that she took smaller steps to steady her body as she aimed.
The zombies heard them coming and turned toward them. Trout saw that one of them was the attorney for his second wife. When Dez shot him, Trout expected to feel a nasty little thrill in his chest. He didn’t. This wasn’t a video game and that man was someone he knew. It didn’t matter that Trout didn’t like him. This wasn’t about who liked who; this was a human being who did not deserve what happened to him. As he fell, Trout made himself say the man’s name, quietly to himself.
“Mark David Singer. ”
All at once that began a ritual that Trout knew would be with him throughout this crisis. No one should have to die without a name, without some recognition of their humanity.
As Dez shot the second zombie—needing two shots to bring her down—Trout fished for her name. She was the music teacher here at the school. He had interviewed her last year about the Christmas pageant. She was sixty, with gray hair and a corpulent figure. A nice lady. She loved the kids she taught.
He watched her fall with the right side of her face blown to red ruin by Dez’s bullets.
“Sophie Vargas,” Trout said as he ran past her falling corpse.
The last of the infected outside the school was a stranger. Dressed like a businessman. Probably the father of one of the kids, Trout guessed. Come here to pick up his child. The businessman grabbed Dez’s left arm and tried to bite her wrist, but Dez used her right to bring the barrel of the Glock to the man’s temple. The blast knocked his head sideways and he crumpled at Trout’s feet.
Dez was at the door now, pointing the gun inside.
But Trout stopped. He looked over his shoulder. The other zombies were closing fast, but Trout was trapped by the needs of his new ritual. He bent down, hissing at the pain, and patted the man’s pockets until he found a wallet. He pulled it out, shoved it in his jacket, spun, and hobbled to the door with two yards grace. He staggered inside, dropped the heavy duffle, twisted around, grabbed the door handle and gave it ferocious pull. It slammed, but not shut, and with horror Trout saw that a hand was caught between the door and jamb. He had to pull on the door to keep it from being whipped out of his hands.
Behind him, Dez was still firing her pistol.
“Dez!”
“Not now, Billy!” she fired back.
So, he took the big risk. He stopped pulling and shoved on the door, slamming it outward into the faces of the crowd of infected. So many faces. Torn and bloody. They spit black blood at him, and Trout cried out as it splattered on his jacket. With a snarl of rage and fear, he raised his leg to kick out at the zombie whose hand was caught in the door. With a jolt he realized that the man fighting to get in was Doc Hartnup.
“Doc?”
Hartnup’s dead eyes looked right through him, but his mouth was a hungry snarl. Hartnup spat black blood at him, which splattered on Trout’s chest.
That sent Trout into a panic. Doc or not, he lashed out with his foot and caught the dead man in the stomach. Again and again before it lost its hold and Trout fell backward, hauling on the crash bar of the door so that the heavy metal panel swung all the way shut with a huge clang.
Closed. Locked.