Justin Cronin - The Twelve

Another worry, Kittridge thought. Quickening his stride, he made his way to the shed, past overflowing dumpsters where crows were picking at the garbage. The birds had showed up the prior evening, attracted, no doubt, by the reek of accumulating trash. Now the place seemed full of them, so brazen they would practically snatch food from your hand. Never a good sign, he thought, when the crows showed up.

At the command tent, Kittridge chose the most direct approach, doing nothing to announce his presence before stepping inside. Porcheki was seated at a long table, speaking into a satellite phone. Three noncoms occupied the room, a densely packed jumble of electronic equipment. One of the soldiers yanked off his headset and shot to his feet.

“What are you doing in here? This area is restricted, no civilians.”

But as the soldier stepped toward Kittridge, Porcheki stopped him.

“It’s all right, Corporal.” Her face a mask of weariness, she put down the phone. “Sergeant Kittridge. What can I do for you?”

“You’re pulling out, aren’t you?” The idea had formed in his mind even as he’d spoken the words.

Porcheki weighed him with her eyes. Then, to the soldiers: “Would you excuse us, please?”

“Major—”

“That’s all, Corporal.”

With visible reluctance, the three exited the tent.

“Yes,” Porcheki said. “We’ve been ordered back to the Illinois line. The entire state goes under quarantine at eighteen hundred hours tomorrow.”

“You can’t just leave these people. They’re totally defenseless.”

“I know that, too.” She was looking at him closely. She seemed on the verge of some announcement. Then: “You were at Bagram, weren’t you?”

“Ma’am?”

“I thought I recognized you. I was there, with the Seventy-second Medical Expeditionary Group. You wouldn’t remember me, I don’t think.” Her eyes darted downward. “How’s the leg?”

Kittridge was almost too stunned to reply. “I get around okay.”

A faint nod and, on her troubled face, what might have passed for a smile. “I’m glad to see you made it, Sergeant. I heard about what happened. That was a terrible thing, with the boy.” Her officious manner returned. “As for the other, I’ve got two dozen coaches en route from the arsenal at Rock Island and a pair of refuelers. Plus your bus, that makes twenty-five. Not enough, obviously, but it’s what I could put together. This is not for general consumption, mind you. We don’t want to start a panic. I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say I’m going way off the reservation here. Are we clear?”

Kittridge nodded.

“When those buses pull in, you’ll want to be ready. You know what these things are like. You keep control as long as you can, but sooner or later it gets ragged around the edges. People will do the math, and you can bet nobody’s going to want to be left behind. We should have time to make four trips before the border closes. That should do it, but we’ll have very little margin. You have a driver for your bus?”

Kittridge nodded again. “Danny.”

“The one with the hat? Forgive me, Sergeant, I mean no disrespect to the man. But I need to be sure he can handle this.”

“You won’t do better than him. You have my word.”

A quick hesitation, then she agreed. “Have him report here at oh-three-hundred. The first load departs at oh-four-thirty. Just remember what I said. You want to get your people out of here, get them on those buses.”

The next thing surprised Kittridge most of all. Porcheki leaned down, opened the bottom drawer of her desk, and removed a pair of pistols. Kittridge’s own Glocks, still in their holsters. She handed him a blue windbreaker with FEMA stenciled on the back.

“Just keep them under wraps. Report to Corporal Danes outside and he’ll escort you to the armory. Take all the rounds you need.”

Kittridge slid his arms through the straps and put on the jacket. The woman’s meaning was plain. They were behind the lines; the front had passed them by.

“How close are they?” Kittridge asked.

The major’s expression darkened. “They’re already here.”

Lawrence Grey had never known such hunger.

How long had he been here? Three days? Four? Time had lost all meaning, the passage of hours broken only by the visits of the space-suited men. They came without warning, apparitions emerging from a narcotic haze. The hiss of the air lock and there they were; then the prick of the needle and the slow filling of the plastic bag with its crimson prize. Something was in his blood, something they wanted. Yet they never seemed satisfied; they would drain him like a slaughtered steer. What do you want? he pleaded. Why are you doing this to me? Where’s Lila?

He was famished. He was a being of pure need, a man-sized hole in space needing only to be filled. A person could go mad with it. Assuming he was a person, still, which hardly seemed likely. Zero had changed him, altered the very essence of his existence. He was being brought into the fold. In his mind were voices, murmurings, like the buzz of a distant crowd. Hour by hour the sound grew stronger; the crowd was closing in. Against the straps he wriggled like a fish in a net. With every stolen bag of blood his strength drained away. He felt himself aging from within, a precipitous decline, deep in the cells. The universe had abandoned him to his fate. Soon he would vanish; he would be dispersed into the void.

They were watching him, the one named Guilder and the one named Nelson; Grey sensed their presence lurking behind the lens of the security camera, the probing beams of their eyes. They needed him; they were afraid of him. He was like a present that, when opened, might burst forth as snakes. He had no answers for them; they’d given up asking. Silence was the last power he had.

He thought of Lila. Were the same things happening to her? Was the baby all right? He had wanted only to protect her, to do this one good thing in his wretched little life. It was a kind of love. Like Nora Chung, only a thousand times deeper, an energy that desired nothing, that took nothing; it wanted only to give itself away. It was true: Lila had come into his life for a purpose, to give him one last chance. And yet he had failed her.

He heard the hiss of the air lock; a figure stepped through. One of the suited men, lumbering toward him like a great orange snowman.

“Mr. Grey, I’m Dr. Suresh.”

Grey closed his eyes and waited for the prick of the needle. Go ahead, he thought, take it all. But that didn’t happen. Grey looked up to see the doctor withdrawing a needle from the IV port. With careful movements he capped the needle and deposited it in the waste can with a clang. At once Grey felt the fog lift from his mind.

“Now we can talk. How are you feeling?”

He wanted to say: How do you think I’m feeling? Or maybe just: Fuck you. “Where’s Lila?”

The doctor withdrew a small penlight from a pouch on his biosuit and leaned over Grey’s face. Through the faceplate of his helmet his features swam into view: a heavy brow, skin dark with a yellowish cast, small white teeth. He waved the beam over Grey’s eyes.

“Does it trouble you? The light.”

Grey shook his head. He was becoming aware of a new sound—a rhythmic throbbing. He was hearing the man’s heartbeat, the pulsing swish of blood through his veins. A blast of saliva washed the walls of his mouth.

“You have not had a bowel movement, yes?”

Grey swallowed and shook his head again. The doctor moved to the foot of the bed and withdrew a small silver probe. He scraped it quickly along the soles of Grey’s bare feet.

“Very good.”

The examination continued. Each bit of data was jotted onto a handheld. Suresh pulled Grey’s gown up over his legs and cupped his testicles in his hand.