Jonathan Maberry - Patient Zero

I opened fire and took one of the walkers in the back of the neck. He crashed forward and dragged down two others as he fell.

“Help!” the First Lady screamed. “Oh God, please help us!”

The nearest walkers had turned toward me at the sound of my shot and they rushed me. I shot one but then there was a blast from behind me and the walker to my right pitched back with a gaping hole in his temple.

“On your six!” I heard Top growl and then he and Skip were rushing the group of walkers from either flank. Top used double taps each time, stalling them with a chest shot and then putting one through the brain. Skip’s shots were more random and he hit walkers over and over again in the body, wasting shots.

“Head shots, goddamn it!” Top yelled at him and blew away a walker that was rushing at Skip from his left.

The remaining Secret Service agent fired his last shot, a wild blast that nearly hit Top, and then the last walker tackled him so that they fell into the cubicle, crashing down at the First Lady’s feet. She screamed but then she snatched a laptop off the desk and used it to beat in the back of the walker’s head. None of us could take a shot because she was so close, and she laid into the monster with a will, her fear becoming fury. The walker shivered and collapsed into a terminal stillness. Beneath him the agent groaned and reached out an imploring hand to her.

“Roger!” she said and reached for him.

“No!” I yelled and darted forward to slap her hand away. “Don’t! He’s infected.”

Around us the room became unnaturally still as the gunshot echoes faded. The only sound was a painful wheeze from Roger, the wounded agent.

“I’m… sorry, ma’am,” he said, struggling to get the words out.

The First Lady looked at me. “Help him, for God’s sake!”

I stepped between her and Roger, then squatted down and offered him my left hand. He closed his hand around it with ferocious desperation as if it was a lifeline that could pull him up from hell. “Listen to me,” I said gently. “Your name’s Roger?”

“Agent… Roger Jefferson.”

“I’m Joe Ledger. Listen, Roger… there’s been an outbreak. A plague. You understand? From the Freedom Bell.”

He nodded. His breathing was getting worse.

“That’s what happened to your men. One or more of them must have been exposed. It… changes people.”

He nodded again. “I… saw. Barney… Linus… all of them. God…”

“I’m sorry, man.”

“Is… is she…?” He turned his head, looking for the First Lady, but I don’t think he could see her anymore.

The First Lady put a hand on my shoulder and leaned over. “Roger. I’m right here.”

“Are… are you… all…?”

“I’m fine, Roger. You didn’t let them get me.”

Roger smiled and his eyes drifted shut, but his grip was still strong. He whispered something that I had to bend close to hear.

“Cap’n,” warned Top.

Roger said, “I… saw how it works.” Blood seeped from the corners of his mouth. “You do… what you have to do.”

“I will,” I promised. “Rest easy, Roger. You saved the First Lady.”

With his last strength he gave me a trembling smile. “All… part of the job.” He tried to laugh but there was not enough left of him and he settled back.

“Get her out of here,” I said to Top. “Do it now.”

“What do you mean?” she protested as Top closed in. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“Ma’am,” Top said, “you saw what happens. Let the captain do what he has to do. It’s the best thing… it’s best for Roger.”

“Top… get her out now!”

The First Lady straightened her back and though tears flowed down her face she walked away with great dignity. I hadn’t voted for her husband, but I sure as hell admired her.

When they were out of the room I disengaged my hand from Roger’s slack grip. I reached over and took a cushion off the nearest chair and put it over his face. I was counting seconds. I felt the first twitch in less than forty seconds since his last breath and I put the barrel of my gun against the pad and fired. Maybe it was because the pad would muffle the shot and make it easier for the First Lady, or maybe it was because it would cover his face and grant him a slice of dignity. Or maybe it was that I couldn’t bear to see another good man become one of those things. Probably all three.

I stood up and looked at Skip. The young sailor wouldn’t meet my eyes. He just turned away and I followed him out of the cubicle and into the next room. The First Lady was sitting on a leather office chair and Top had brought her a cup of water from a nearby cooler. She sipped it and when she saw me she just stared at me, her expression un-readable.

The office was big and looked to be the graphic arts department for the center, with worktables, advertising sketches pinned to the walls, and machines for printing posters. Two offices led off from the main room, both with doors that stood ajar. I had just opened my mouth to order Skip to check them out when two figures stepped out of the shadows of the left-hand office. They came in quick and they had guns in their hands.

Ollie Brown and Special Agent Michael O’Brien.

Grace / The Bell Chamber / Saturday, July 4; 12:13 P.M.

“MAJOR… WATCH!” BUNNY yelled, and Grace whirled just as the anchorwoman for Channels 6 News leaped at her from the podium. The anchor’s skin was wax-white and her eyes as round and empty as silver dollars, but she growled with hunger as she lunged for Grace’s throat.

“Bloody hell!” Grace shot the woman twice in the face. Blood splattered the faces of the three snarling figures that were mounting the steps behind her.

“What the hell are you doing ?” screamed Mrs. Collins, and she made a grab for Grace’s gun arm and succeeded in pulling it down so that the next round chopped a divot out of the marble floor and ricocheted up to punch a red hole through the thigh of the Canadian ambassador. The ambassador dropped with a shriek of pain and instantly two of the walkers leaped from the podium and pounced on him. Grace wrestled with the Vice President’s wife, who had a surprising amount of wiry strength and in the end she had to let go with her left hand and chop Mrs. Collins on the side of the neck. It dropped the woman to her knees and Grace tore her gun arm free just as the third walker dove at her. Grace put two rounds in him and the corpse skidded to a stop inches from Mrs. Collins.

IT WAS COMPLETE pandemonium in the Bell Chamber as the infected who had lapsed into comas instantly snapped awake as walkers and attacked the crowd. Even with the warnings Grace, Brierly, and Rudy had given them about the nature of the infection the fifteen remaining Secret Service agents faltered, hesitating, unable to open fire on citizens, congressmen, and dignitaries.

Bunny muscled one dazed agent out of the way just as a journalist from the Daily News was about to grab him. The hulking sergeant snaked out a hand and caught the walker by the throat, buried his borrowed polymer pistol against the creature’s head and fired. He flung the corpse into the path of a second walker and killed that one, but then six of them came at him in a bunch and he fell back, dragging the startled agent with him.

“Fire, goddamn it!” Bunny yelled, and the agent seemed to snap out of his stupor. They found a clear patch of floor and the pair of them made their stand, opening up with both guns. Bunny had four shots left and used them all; the agent wasted an entire clip to bring down just one walker.

That left two from the pack still on their feet. Bunny stepped in and kicked the lead one in the stomach and when it doubled over he arched up and then brought his balled fist down as hard as he could on the back of the exposed skull. The walker immediately went into a boneless sprawl; but his companion just kept coming. He was three steps out when a shot snapped his head back. Bunny turned to see the agent, reloaded now, holding his smoking pistol in a two-hand grip.