Patient Zero

Chapter Forty-Four

Claymont, Delaware / Tuesday, June 30; 6:35 P.M.

I CALLED IT in.

There was an overturned table behind me and I leaned against it while I surveyed the room. A pall of acrid gun smoke hung like a blue veil in the humid air, and the kids kept crying. Each of my men looked stricken. Except for Ollie Brown, whose face showed nothing at all. He could give Church a run for his money. Skip looked sick; Bunny’s and Top’s faces were rigid with fury.

I wondered what expression was on my face. Maybe shock, probably fear; but if my features truly reflected what I felt then my expression would be mingled horror at what had been about to happen to these poor kids and a dead sickness for what I had just done. That I’d been forced to do it made no difference to me at all. I felt unclean.

Five minutes ago there had been dozens of people in this room. Now most of them were dead. I’d killed at least a quarter of them myself. I’d killed so many people that I’d lost count. The realization hit my brain like a fist. I’d killed before, but this was worse. Ten times worse than the task force raid. And part of the guilt I felt was a secret shame because deep inside my soul the warrior part of me was beating his chest and yelling in exultant triumph even while the more civilized parts of me cringed.

I took a step toward Top’s group but the children behind him shrieked and pulled back, terrified of me. They’d seen me gun down at least two other children. They were too young to understand about the infection. They couldn’t know I wasn’t a monster, too. Top gathered a few of them in his arms, shushing them, murmuring quiet words as Bunny stood by, awkward and helpless. I stayed where I was.

There was a noise and I looked up to see Alpha Team flooding into the room, weapons up and out. Major Courtland was in front with her pistol in her hands, Gus Dietrich was on her flank. They skidded to a stop and stared at the scene of total carnage.

“Bloody hell ” gasped Courtland, and her words could not have been more aptly chosen.

Dietrich stared openmouthed, and the agents of Alpha Team looked from the heaps of corpses to the crowds of weeping children to the bloodied members of Echo Team.

Courtland recovered first. She keyed her radio. “Alpha One to base. We need full medical teams double-quick. We have multiple civilian victims requiring immediate medical attention and evac.” She paused as she did a quick head count. “Civilians are all children. Repeat, civilians are children times seventeen. Send all available medical units.”

I pushed off from the table and walked over to her, my eyes stinging from the smoke.

She opened her mouth to say something, then caught herself, paused, and finally said, “Are you all right, Captain?”

I very nearly bit her head off. It was such a stupid and clumsy question, but I buried that reaction. What else could she say?

“I’ll live,” I said. “Tell your people there are zero infected among the children. All of the bite victims are ” I couldn’t finish it.

She swallowed and relayed the info, then clicked off her mike. “Your men?”

“No casualties.”

Courtland nodded, and for a moment we shared a look. Soldier to soldier, or warrior to warrior. The ugly truth was that there were going to be casualties among my men. This event would scar every single one of them.

She looked around as the first wave of EMTs spread out through the room. The children shrieked and wept. Some of them ran toward the men and women in uniforms and the EMTs gathered them up in their arms, some of the medics and soldiers weeping as they held the kids. Other children shrank back, all trust in adults having been torn out of them. A few sat in unmoving silence, speaking of damage that went all the way down to the cellar of their souls.

“Was this how it was at St. Michael’s?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. Everyone there died. My team was outside the whole time.”

I nodded. “This morning I was just a cop,” I said.

“I know.”

There was more to say but it didn’t need to be said aloud. We both understood.

“We got a live one!” Dietrich called, and we turned to see a wounded lab tech trying to crawl out from under a dead walker. In his nearly mindless state of pain he reached out to the nearest person in a soundless plea for help. Ollie Brown stood over him, a sneer of contempt on his face. He drew his pistol and racked the slide.

“Stand down!” I bellowed, starting forward, but Brown was already bringing the barrel down toward the tech. Suddenly Gus Dietrich stepped forward, grabbed Ollie’s wrist and swung it violently upward. The pistol blast was shockingly loud, even to my wounded ears, but the bullet just buried itself in the wooden roof timbers thirty feet above.

I got up in Ollie’s face. “Stand down right now, Lieutenant.”

His face was ugly with fury, but after a long moment the tension bled out of his limbs. Top Sims stepped between him and the lab tech, his hand on his holstered pistol.

“Let him go, Sergeant,” I said, and Dietrich carefully released Ollie’s wrist and took a short step to one side, his eyes hard. To Ollie I said, “Secure your weapon.”

Ollie’s eyes bored into mine and then past me to the tech, and for a second I thought he was going to try for the shot, but then he eased the hammer down, flicked on the safety, and holstered his piece. EMTs immediately stepped up to triage the wounded man.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” I snapped. “What part of the mission orders sounded like ‘shoot unarmed prisoners’?”

“He’s a piece of shit.” Ollie sneered.

“He’s the only person we have left to interrogate.”

Ollie said nothing, so I grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him a few yards away. I wasn’t nice about it and when he tried to pull his arm away I dug into a nerve. Even with his stone face the pain showed through. I eased the pressure and he jerked his arm free.

“Okay, Ollie, let’s sort this out right here, right now.”

“There’s nothing to sort out,” he said, then added a sarcastic, “sir.”

“You’re one more smartass remark away from getting bounced off this team.” He blinked at that and snapped his mouth shut on whatever he was about to say next. I leaned close. “You’re a top-notch fighter, Ollie, and I’d rather keep you than lose you, but if you can’t follow orders then you are no good to me or anyone. Now I’m going to ask you only once and that’s it. Are you on my team or not?”

Ollie met my stare for a long ten-count and then he inhaled sharply through his nose and exhaled slowly. “Fuck it,” he said.

I waited.

“I’m in.”

“My rules, my way?”

He nodded and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Yes, sir.” No sarcasm this time.

“Look at me,” I said. He opened his eyes. “Say it again.”

“Yes, sir. Your rules, your way.”

I nodded and stepped back. “Then we won’t discuss this again.” I turned and walked away, passing Dietrich and Courtland without comment, and rejoined Echo Team. After a moment Ollie followed.

To the team I said, “I guess they’ll debrief us once we’re back in Baltimore. They’ll need to know everything.” I paused. “I have a friend, Dr. Rudy Sanchez. He’s a police psychiatrist, and he’s a good man.”

“A shrink?” Skip asked.

“Yeah. He’s at the DMS, and I want each of you-each of us- to take a few minutes and sit down with him.”

“Why?” asked Skip.

Top turned to him. “Tell me something, kid; when you woke up this morning did you think that by suppertime you’d be killing zombies and gunning down little kids?”

Skip dropped his eyes and looked dejectedly down at the floor.

Top laid a big hand on his shoulder, gave it a squeeze. “Believe me, Skip, you don’t want to go to sleep tonight with this in your head and no one to talk to.”

Ollie just stood there with his eyes glistening and his fists balled into knots.

Bunny said, “I ain’t ever gonna sleep again.”