Patient Zero

Chapter Seventy-Four

Crisfield, Maryland / Wednesday, July 1; 11:54 A.M.

I SAT DOWN across a folding table from Ollie Brown and for two whole minutes I looked at him and said nothing. He met my stare the whole time. I was looking for him to sweat, to squirm, to look away. He didn’t.

We were in a small room in the back of a travel trailer belonging to the DMS. His face was gray with exhaustion and there were dark smudges under his eyes.

“You’re giving me the ‘look,’ Captain,” he said at last.

“What look?”

“The one that says that you have a problem with me.”

“Is that what I’m saying?”

“You want me to admit that I screwed up? Okay. I screwed up. There, I said it.”

I waited.

He sighed. “I let myself get blindsided. If you’re expecting me to make excuses or try and worm my way out of it, then forget it. If you want to bounce me off the team then go right ahead.”

“You think that’s what this is all about?”

“Isn’t it? You called me in here, you make me wait here for an hour before you come in, and then you sit there giving me the look. What else could it be about? Or are you going to give me shit about what happened during the firefight?” I said nothing, so he made a face. “Shit. Look sir this zombie stuff may not bother you but it’s scaring the living shit out of me. We were losing in there and I started thinking about what was going to happen. I could see myself being bitten. After seeing those kids yesterday I can’t get it out of my head. So, yeah, I get a case of the shakes. My hands are still shaking. I saw one of those walkers coming up fast and I took the shot. You moved right as I fired and the bullet passed close. Things were getting pretty hairy in there and I was scared out of my fricking mind. There, I admit it. You happy now?”

No, I thought; I wasn’t. This wasn’t where I expected this conversation to go.

“Tell me again how you got taken.”

“I told you twice. I told Dr. Sanchez four times, and I told Sergeant Dietrich five times. The story isn’t going to change because there isn’t enough of the story to change. I felt a burn on the back of my neck and next thing I know I wake up strapped to a chair and some towelhead asshole is smacking the crap out of me. Then you, Top, and Bunny come in and you know the rest.”

I waited for another few seconds, but Ollie didn’t seem like he was about to start sweating anytime soon. If this was all an act then it was a good one.

What I said was, “Room Twelve.”

A bad actor would have jumped to his feet, knocked his chair over, and started shouting bloody murder right about then. Ollie cocked his head to one side of me and gave me a look like I’d asked him to explain his involvement in the sack of Rome.

“Ah,” he said softly, half smiling. “So that’s it.”

“That’s it.”

He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “No,” he said, and he didn’t say another word.