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Not in Vain

KACEY EZELL

Once upon a time a very good friend had described a cheerleading competition as the seventh circle of hell. It was probably sacrilege for a cheerleading coach to feel that way, but Mia Swanson had to admit that her her old flying buddy had a point. After eight hours of squealing, chanting, hyper high-schoolers throwing each other up in the air, tumbling down open hallways and quite literally bouncing off the walls…Mia had a headache. And there was still most of an hour left on their seven-hour drive back to Albuquerque from Colorado Springs.

Two hours, Mia promised herself. Two hours and I’ll be home, in a bathtub, waiting for Max and the girls to get home. We’ll have dinner. It will be great.

One of the most irritating things about this particular competition was that it had fallen on a Shooting Weekend. Once every other month or so, Mia and some friends and their families got together and went shooting out on White Mesa, just outside of Albuquerque. It was all BLM land out there, and as long as they took precautions not to hit anyone or any animals, there were no restrictions. It had started before she retired from the Air Force a year ago, and it had rapidly become one of her favorite traditions.

Alas, retirement meant a new career, and a new career meant new commitments. Mia glanced over her shoulder at the teenagers sprawled in various seats in the fifteen-passenger van and smiled. Seventh circle of hell aside, this really was her dream job. These were good kids, and Mia was proud to coach them.

“What’s that?” Jessa asked, sitting up and pulling her iPhone earbuds out of her ears, as if that would help her see better. Mia looked up and cursed lightly under her breath. Blue and red flashing lights stained the sky up over the next slight hill, and she’d been doing closer to eighty than seventy mph. She eased off the gas and began to brake, just as they crested the hill.

“A roadblock?” Mia could hear the incredulity in her own voice as she continued to slow the van. “Jessa, have you got signal? See if you can pull up the news.” The senior immediately set to work as Mia pulled to a stop, rolling down her window as a uniformed officer approached her window.

“Officer. Good evening,” Mia started. “What’s going on? I…” She’d been about to disclose that she was armed, even though she hadn’t exactly told the team that, and she was certain that she’d hear from some irate parents. It might even cost her the job, new as she was, but there had been no way Mia was going to be taking a three-day competition trip, with a fourteen-hour total drive time with twelve teenagers and no weapon. No fucking thank you.

“I-25 is closed,” the officer said, cutting her off abruptly. He appeared to be sweating, and his expression looked agitated.

“Just the road? Is there an accident?” Mia asked. Maybe they could cut over to Bernalillo and take one of the state highways down through Rio Rancho.

“City’s under quarantine. Governor declared a state of emergency—” The officer abruptly stopped talking and started scratching vigorously at his throat, where his collar met his neck.

“Coach?” Jessa called. She and another of the seniors were huddled over her iphone, the glow from the screen throwing a white, eerie light on their faces in the growing dusk.

“Not now, Jessa,” Mia replied, trying to keep the patience in her voice. “Sir? Officer, are you all right?”

“No, what is on me? Oh God, they’re all over me!” the man screamed, and then, to Mia’s complete astonishment, he began to strip off all of his clothing.

“Officer, stop! There are children in this car!” Mia said, aghast. She glanced out the front window of the car, only to see two more half-naked officers coming toward them, shedding clothing and gear as they went. “What the fuck is this?”

“Coach!” Jessa screamed. Mia turned in time to see a fourth naked man reaching in through the half-open window at them. She and two other girls flinched away from the window and his grasping, reaching hand. For no reason whatsoever, Mia noticed that his arm was covered in coarse, dark hair.

In her past life as a combat helicopter pilot, Mia had often faced situations where she had to make a decision quickly, and it had to be right or she and her crew could die. She’d thought that being a high school cheerleading coach would have been different. Apparently she was wrong.

The officer at her window had stopped cursing and began screaming. Keening, more like. When she was a kid, Mia had devoured Anne McCaffrey’s dragonriders series. In that series, when a dragon died, its fellows were said to raise a keen that damn near shattered eardrums with its sound. Mia could only imagine that sound was much like this one. That was the thought that flitted past her consciousness as she made her decision and acted. She thought of dragons crying out in mourning.

In one smooth, mechanical move, Mia removed her Ruger .45 from her concealed carry purse and put the gun against the head of the officer now reaching for her through her open window. The back of his head exploded outward, and Jessa and some of the other girls screamed, Mia supposed. She couldn’t really hear, thanks to the fact that she’d just fired a gun in a mostly enclosed car. Then she turned and shot the man on the passenger side, still reaching for the girls through the window.

Then she turned and gunned the engine. The van leapt forward and slammed into the naked bodies of the two remaining officers. They went down and she felt the sickening crunch as her wheels went over one of them. Then she threw the van in reverse and backed up far enough to shoot the one whose skull she hadn’t crushed.

Sound suddenly came back all in a rush. Behind her, cheerleaders where whimpering in shocked tones, while Jessa continued to call for her. Incongruously, the opening chords of Ellie Goulding’s “Anything Could Happen” came out through the speakers, thanks to her iPhone plugged in to the van’s radio. Mia couldn’t help it. She started laughing.

“Coach?” Jessa asked again, her voice scared.

“It’s all right, Jessa,” Mia said. “Just give me a minute. I won’t let them hurt you guys.”

“N-no, we know that,” Jessa said, though her voice trembled. “But I think you need to see this.” She held out her phone. On it, on one of the mobile news websites, were the words Mia had been refusing to think.

“ZOMBIE OUTBREAK HITS LA, NY! Major cities under quarantine. States of emergency declared all over the nation…”

There was more, but Mia had seen what she needed to see. Anything could happen, indeed, Ellie, she thought as she handed the phone back to Jessa. “All right. Jessa, read the rest of the article and get anything useful out of it and any other news pages. Anything about cures, vaccines, instructions, whatever.”

Mia put the van back into drive and rolled forward until she could pull off next to the roadblock. They’d just passed the exit to NM 550. They’d go back and take that exit, she supposed. “You guys stay here and keep a look out for any other cars. If someone comes over the hill, lay on the horn. I’ve got to get some stuff.”

The team was too shocked to argue as Mia took her gun and hopped out. First up were the downed officers’ weapons: standard issue 9mm pistols. Mia grabbed the officers’ gear belts as well. Might as well have somewhere to holster the 9s, she supposed. One of the officers’ car keys had half spilled out of his pants pocket during his striptease, and Mia took the opportunity to look in the trunk of the APD car.

“Jackpot,” she said lowly. The article had mentioned quarantine, so Mia hadn’t wanted to take the officers’ body armor, in case it had gotten blood on it when she’d killed them. Here, however, were spare tactical vests and two twelve gauge pump shotguns. She quickly took the items and headed back to the van. While her cheerleading team watched with wide, disbelieving eyes, she threw this loot, plus all the ammo she could find in the cars into the empty passenger seat of the van. Then she went back and took the mini-igloo cooler that she’d found on the floorboard of the car. Inside were several bottles of water and glory of glories: a twelve-ounce can of Sugar Free Red Bull. She brought this back and started the van back up.

“Looks like we’re taking a different route,” she said as she wheeled her way back around. Luckily, there was no one else approaching as they took the exit off of I-25 onto NM 550.

* * *

It took a full ten minutes of driving in silence before one of the cheerleaders spoke up. As Mia might have suspected, it was Jessa.

“Coach?” Jessa asked, her tone steadier, but still uncertain. “Um…?”

“What happened?” Mia asked, humor in her tone, despite everything. “Was that what you were trying to ask?”

Jessa tittered nervously, and a few of the others laughed in the growing darkness. The sun was sinking behind the desert mesas directly in front of them, and Mia had dug her dark Oakleys out of her purse.

“Well, yeah. I mean, that was pretty…um…”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, weird.”

“Yeah,” Mia agreed. “It was. I’ll explain it here in a second, okay? I need to do a few things first. Actually, I need you all to do something for me. You all have your phones, right?”

A chorus of yes’s filled the back seat.

“Okay,” Mia said. “Of course you all do. I need you all to text your parents. Tell them that we didn’t make it in to Albuquerque before the quarantine. Tell them that I’m taking you to a safe place to wait out the plague. Tell them that they can meet us at the following coordinates. Are you all ready?”

Another chorus of yes’s.

Mia checked the note on her phone and read off: “North 38 degrees, 18 minutes, 6 seconds. West 111 degrees, 25 minutes, 12 seconds. Sam,” she said, calling out her one senior male cheerleader. Sam, she knew, was an Eagle Scout. “Check everyone’s phone and make sure they got it right before they hit send.”

She heard a few sniffles, some more whimpers, but eventually, everyone did it. “Now, I need to make a phone call. I need you guys to be quiet.”

Normally, Mia wouldn’t dream of driving and talking on the phone in front of her team. It was setting a horrible example. However, she was not about to stop again before she had to in order to get gas. Luckily, they’d filled up in Santa Fe, so her tank was mostly full. She pulled out her phone and dialed her husband.

“Baby?” Max Swanson asked, picking up on the first ring. His voice was filled with anxiety and worry, and it damn near brought tears to Mia’s eyes. She blinked furiously.

“I’m all right,” she said quickly. “We didn’t make it in to Albuquerque before they closed the Interstate.”

“Oh, thank God,” he said. “Neither did we. We just got the news on the radio and got packed up. We’re bugging out to your mom’s. We can wait here for you…wait…Hashim wants to talk to you,” Max said, his voice strained.

Mia blinked. Hashim Noori was a very good friend. She’d met him in Iraq almost seven years ago. He’d been her interpreter then, but he’d since gotten a visa and moved to the U.S. He was a microbiology professor at UNM. Mia couldn’t imagine what on Earth could have made Hashim interrupt her husband on the phone, but then, this morning she couldn’t have imagined that she’d be bugging out in a zombie apocalypse scenario with her cheerleading team, either.

“Hashumi,” Mia said into the phone. “Salaam wa alaykum.”

“Walaykum salaam,” Hashim said, his lightly accented English impatient. “Mia. I must ask you. You were in a city?”

“Yes, we were in Colorado Springs, at a cheerleading competition.”

“There were many people there?”

“Yes, Hashim, why?”

Her former terp was silent for a long moment. “Mia. You have all been exposed. I have been reading messages on the Internet. This virus is unlike anything else. It is airborne like a cold, but it is also passed through the blood, or a bite or cut. Body fluids from an infected person.”

Mia pursed her lips. “Infected person. Hashumi, do they strip down? Go crazy, like?”

“Yes, Mia. You have seen one?”

“Four. The cops at the roadblock. They attacked us.”

“Mia!”

“They are dead,” Mia said, her voice blank. She still wasn’t thinking about the fact that she’d just killed four cops. “No one got bit or scratched.”

“That is good, but Mia, this is very bad news. You must not join up with us.”

“No, I think you’re right. We’ll follow along behind until we know if any of us have got it. How long?”

“The incubation period is approximately a week, but if the police are turning now…we should know in a day or two.”

“Got it. May I speak to my husband again, please?”

“Of course. Fe aman Allah.

“And you, my friend.”

“Baby? How long till you can be here?” Max asked.

“I’ll be there in about thirty minutes, but you have to go on ahead without me.”

“What? No!”

“Baby, listen,” Mia said, blinking quickly to keep the tears at bay and remain focused on the road in front of her. “I have twelve cheerleaders with me. We were just at a fucking cheer competition! You know what those things are like! Hashim said this thing is like a cold. We could all be infected, and I’m not bringing that around you or the girls. You go to Mom’s. Hole up. Stay alive. I’ll join you as soon as I know it’s safe. I love you.”

Max was silent. Mia could hear him breathing deeply, quickly. She heard the distant giggle of her youngest daughter through the phone. Finally, Max sighed.

“All right,” he said, softly. “But you stay alive too, you hear me?”

“I will,” she promised, knowing it wasn’t in her control at all. Knowing it could already be a lie, she promised. “I’ll see you soon.”

* * *

They’d gone on ahead to White Mesa anyway. It was slightly out of the way, but Mia didn’t want to take the chance of catching up to Max’s group. After she’d finished talking to Max, her friend Allison had gotten on the phone and told her that they’d leave a cache of supplies at their normal shooting site. Mia had very nearly cried again, but she’d managed to hold it together. Mostly because the sun was fully down now, and she needed to concentrate in order to see the road and the unmarked turn-off to their shooting spot.

Though the sun had just gone down, the half moon was already riding high. The dust from their slow rumble up the dirt road filled the air, as Mia stepped out of the van. The moon turned the dust a silvery color and she was abruptly reminded of another night, in another desert, under the same moon, but a world away.

“Salaam wa alaykum,” a voice called out of the shadows. Without thinking, Mia had the .45 up, pointing at the voice and the figure that emerged from the shadows. “Qaf!” she shouted.

“Mia, my friend, it is me,” Hashim said, his hands up as he walked closer. Mia lowered her weapon and let out an explosive breath.

“Hashumi!” she said, walking forward to hug the wiry microbiologist. He might have hesitated for just a moment, but he’d been in the U.S. long enough that he hugged her back. “You idiot, I could have shot you!”

“That is why I called out,” he said reasonably. She gave him a Look.

“Hashim, you called out in Arabic. This has been a very weird day. I like Arabic, but it doesn’t exactly calm me down.”

Hashim laughed. Mia shook her head, but eventually she gave up and chuckled with him. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked. “I told you guys to go on ahead.”

Hashim abruptly sobered. “I came to help you. You are one adult with twelve teenagers. It will be hard for you to keep them all safe alone. And if any are infected…well. I may be able to make a vaccine.”

“Vaccine?” she asked, her voice rising, her eyes widening. “You can cure this?”

“Not cure, vaccinate,” Hashim said. “We were working on something at the lab this week, when the first rumors started. UCLA sent us some samples and some protocols…it isn’t hard, and it works. I have been vaccinated. But…this will be hard for you, I am afraid.”

Mia took a long look at her old friend. On the surface, Hashim looked like any other professor of vaguely middle-eastern descent. He wasn’t particularly big, and his wiry frame sometimes looked as if a stiff wind would blow him over. However, Mia knew him, she knew his history. She knew that he’d been hunted by Al Qaida since he was younger than her cheerleaders. She knew that he’d been shot, that his brother had died in his arms. She knew that he’d killed in his own defense before. He’d stood shoulder to shoulder with her brothers in arms, and that had earned him a ticket here, to the so-called promised land.

Hashim was hard. He would do whatever it took. He loved her like a sister, but she had no doubts that he’d shoot her between the eyes if she turned, in order to keep himself and others safe. And that was just what she wanted.

“Tell me,” she said, her eyes going flat as they hadn’t been for years since she got back from Iraq.

“The vaccine must be made from infected spinal tissue,” he said softly.

Mia closed her eyes momentarily while she absorbed this bit of information. Then she nodded, shoved the moral implications away in the back with the picture of the four dead cops and opened her eyes.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s take you to meet my team.”

* * *

“Coyotes,” Mia called in to the van. “Come out here. Time for a team meeting.”

One by one, the cheerleaders filed out of the van. True to New Mexico form, the temperature had dropped rapidly as the sun went down and a few of the freshmen were shivering in their warm-ups. Mia hefted the duffel bag that Hashim had carried and opened it up. Inside were several sweatshirts and jackets. It looked like Allison had raided their camping gear and left it for them.

Mia let a smile cross her lips as she passed out the warmer clothing. Allison and Evan Dwyer were good friends. Evan had been a flight engineer in Mia’s last squadron. The families had bonded over camping and shooting excursions, and Allison was one of the kindest people Mia’d ever met.

She was also a damn good shot with rifle, pistol and compound bow. And Evan had an arsenal that a gun dealer would envy. They were exactly who Mia would have picked for her zombie survival team. If she would have had time to pick a team, that is. She could think of no one better to help Max protect her girls, as well as their own baby girl, Kimber.

“All right, Coyotes,” Mia said, bringing herself forcibly back to the present. The cheerleaders had distributed the warmer clothing and stood in a rough circle in front of her and Hashim.

“I promised I’d tell you what was going on, and I thank you for being patient while I figured it all out. Basically, here’s the deal: the shit has well and truly hit the fan. Jessa, you want to brief us on what you found from the news sites?”

Jessa looked a bit startled, but she stepped right up. There was a reason she was the team captain. “Um, there’s been an outbreak. Most people think it’s a biological terror attack. People get sick, like the flu, and then they go crazy and strip, like those cops back on the highway. And then they act like zombies. They’ll try to bite people…and if they do, then those people turn into zombies, too. That’s about all I’ve got. The news sites are talking about a vaccine and a government response, but everyone’s saying something different.”

Mia nodded. That had been about what she expected. “Thank you, Jessa. I had you all text your parents and give them the coordinates of a town in Utah near a safe place. My family is headed to that place now. We’ve got supplies there. We can wait this out and survive there…but there’s a problem.

“I won’t lie to you guys. There’s a good chance we’ve all been exposed. If we have, then we’ll turn, like those cops.”

The shocked looks travelled around the circle. Elia, a sophomore, stumbled and sat down, hard, on the ground. Tears began to stream down her face, and she wasn’t the only one. Danny, a junior and her only other male cheerleader bent down and put his arms around her, whispering in her ear.

“Listen to me,” Mia said. “Listen!” When she had their attention, she took a deep breath and went on. “I can’t promise you won’t get sick. But I promise you this. If you do get sick, I can promise you that I won’t let you become like those things back at the highway. I won’t let you hurt anyone.”

She looked over at Hashim. He nodded slightly.

“This is Dr. Noori. He is a very good friend of mine. Dr. Noori has been vaccinated. He knows how to make more vaccine. But in order to do that, we have to use spinal tissue from infected people. I know that’s horrible. I know it is, but that’s the reality we have to deal with.” Mia kept going, relentlessly driving the point home. They are adults now, she reminded herself. Their childhood ended two hours ago.

Elia raised her tear-wet eyes. “Coach?” she asked tremulously.

“Yes, Elia?”

“If I…if I get sick, can I…can Dr. Noori use me? Because I don’t want to die for nothing.”

The tears came hard and fast to Mia’s eyes. She swiped savagely at her face and nodded, not trusting herself to speak as each of the cheerleaders, her cheerleaders, murmured their agreement with Elia. Even her two freshmen, Sonia and Dawn. Even at fourteen fucking years old, they were nodding vehemently. Mia waved them all in, and she subsequently found herself mobbed by twelve cheerleaders all trying to hug her and each other, all at once.

“I promise you,” Mia said, her voice ragged and tear-soaked. “No one dies for nothing.”

* * *

They stayed there for another hour or so while Mia handed out weapons and explained the basics of shooting to those who hadn’t done so before. Both of the boys had been hunting, so they got the rifles that Allison had packed. Jessa got a shotgun, as did Cassidy, another senior. Yolanda and Bella, both seniors, got two of the cops’ 9mm pistols, as did Gina and Mackayla, juniors. The younger girls were instructed to partner up with the seniors and stay with them. Mia distributed the body armor as best she could, but she kept most of it for herself and Sam. It was too big for pretty much everyone else.

When she was at least confident that no one would shoot themselves by accident, they piled back in the van and continued on down the road. Mia broke into the cops’ Sugar Free Red Bull and savored the kick of the caffeine.

“Going to need to stop for fuel and supplies before too long,” she said. They were still at over half a tank, but it didn’t hurt to start making plans.

“How do you want to do that?” Hashim asked.

Mia pursed her lips. “I don’t know yet,” she confessed. “I suppose something will come to me. Ideally, we’d just walk in and pay for it as usual, but I don’t know how ideal this situation’s going to be.”

“Coach?” Danny, the junior asked. Mia looked up and looked at him in the rear view mirror. He sat, his face illuminated by a phone, Elia resting on his shoulder, eyes closed.

“What, Danny?”

“I used to work at the Circle K on Alameda. Last summer. I know how to turn the pumps on from behind the counter. If it’s not ideal, I mean.”

Mia exchanged Looks with Hashim in the passenger seat. Taking one of her cheerleaders in to a potential deathtrap like a gas station was pretty high on her list of things she really didn’t want to do…but no other option seemed to present itself.

“Okay,” Mia said as they drove. “Here’s what we’ll do. Hashumi, I’ll give you my card. You hop out and start pumping. If that doesn’t work, Danny and I will go in and authorize the pumps. We’ll need to find a gas station that still has its lights on, though.”

* * *

“Kill the lights!” Allison screamed, pulling the trigger of her 20-gauge and pumping another round into the chamber. “Kill the fucking headlights, Evan! They’re attracted to the lights!”

Evan, on the other side of the camper, would have loved to have killed the headlights. Unfortunately, he was a little busy holding off a naked adolescent girl who was doing her ever-loving best to get her teeth into his neck. He got his feet planted under him and spun, smashing her head into the steel I-beam that flanked the gas pumps at the Circle K in Farmington, NM. The infected girl’s skull caved in, and blood and other fluids leaked out of her ears and eyes. Evan threw her body away from himself as quickly as he could, and then reached for his Kimber 1911 as the sound of Allison’s shotgun came around from the other side.

Suddenly, tires squealed, and a gunmetal gray Nissan plowed through the wall of naked bodies that streamed toward the beleaguered camper. Just as quickly as he’d arrived, Max threw the truck into reverse and backed back the way he’d come, running back over bursting rib cages, tires slipping on the blood and entrails in his wake. Several of the infected turned away from the camper, toward this new source of food and noise, and Allison, at least, was able to get her door open, throw in the bag of groceries she’d gotten, and climb into the passenger seat. Another blast from her 20-gauge rang out as she shot through the open door, severing the arm of the closest infected. She kicked the severed arm out of the car and slammed the door shut. “EVAN!” she screamed as she leaned over and turned the key, starting the camper’s powerful engine.

Evan shot one, then another as they came at him. He fumbled at the door handle, his hand slick with sweat. Eventually, he got it open, but not before one of the infected managed to squeeze between the gas pump and the supporting I-beam and sink his teeth into Evan’s calf. Evan howled and shot the attacker in the head, but the sting in his calf said that he was already too late. He’d broken the skin. He was infected.

“Allison,” he said.

“Evan, no,” Allison said. “Get in. Please.”

“No. I’m hit. Slide over and drive. Stay with Max. Get Kimber to safety. I love you.”

“Evan!”

“I love you, Allison,” he said again, as he reached across the seat for the shiny red plastic two-way radio he’d been using to talk to Max in the gray truck. Allison, sobbing, did as he bid, sliding over the center console into the driver’s seat while he turned and shot at another infected reaching for them. Evan Dwyer kissed his wife, one last hard, long kiss on the mouth, and then slammed the door.

Allison could barely see through her tears, but she slammed the camper into reverse and gunned the engine, her tires squealing on the concrete as she backed out rather than attempt to plow through the crowd that never seemed to end.

“Max, Evan.”

“Evan, buddy, you guys out?”

“Negative. Allison’s out. I’m hit.”

Long pause. “Shit.”

“Yeah. Got an idea,” Evan said as he shot another one off of him. He had three bullets left in this eight-round mag. He’d left his spare mags in the camper. Good thing, too. Allison or Max could use the .45 ammo.

“Go with idea.” Max said. He could see the camper approaching now. He could see Allison’s face. Shit.

Evan lifted the hose of the gas pump and began spraying fuel. He wasn’t sure if this would work as well as it always seemed to do in the movies, but he did know that gasoline atomized fairly well, especially when you held your finger over the hose in order to make it spray into the air. He mentally thanked Allison for jamming the shutoff mechanism when she’d gone inside. That had been a bit of genius.

The infected seemed to be thrown off by the smell of the gasoline filling the air. Evan found that incredibly funny as the first shiver of fever started to race through him.

“Evan?”

“Yeah. So. I’ve soaked this place down well with gas. You still got those .762 tracers that I don’t have and neither of us knows where I got?”

Despite himself, Max smiled. “Yeah.”

“What say I draw a big crowd into my little gasoline shower and you light this fucking place up?”

“You got it, buddy,” Max said as he wheeled the truck around. He had Evan’s AK-47 in his lap.

“Max.”

“Yeah.”

“Take care of my girls.”

“Like they were my own, man. I give you my word.”

“Ha! A gunner’s word,” Evan said, jokingly. Before he’d qualified as a flight engineer, he’d been an aerial gunner once, just like Max. “The fuck’s that worth?”

Max laughed, blinking the tears aside as he pulled up to within the AK’s range. He could see Evan there, on the radio, standing in the midst of a puddle of gas, spraying the shit out of the place.

“Evan,” Max said over the radio, his voice little more than a whisper.

“Yeah.”

“In place.”

“Roger. Here’s to gunpowder and pussy, man.” Evan said, shooting one of the slowly approaching infected. The rest of the infected turned toward him and began to gather faster, lunging at him. He fired another bullet. “Live by one…”

“Die by the other,” Max whispered. He braced the AK on the door frame and took aim at the puddle at Evan’s feet.

“Love the smell of both,” Evan finished with satisfaction. Then he put the 1911 in his mouth and pulled the trigger, just as the horde of infected surged toward him, entering the cloud of atomized gasoline.

Max pulled the trigger, sending a single red tracer winging through the night.

The crowd of infected enveloped Evan’s body as a tiny blue flame flickered on the surface of the gas-soaked concrete. Then the air itself ignited in a blinding flash that had Max diving for the floorboard of his truck and had the truck itself rocking on its shocks, even at this distance. In the back seat, his girls woke up crying, both of them, for their mother. Max could barely hear them through the ringing in his ears. He shook his head and forced himself back up into his seat, where he wheeled the truck around and headed back to the sheltered spot where he’d left Allison and the camper.

* * *

The clock on the dash read 8:23. Not terribly late, but the events of the day were taking their toll. Most of the cheerleaders were sleeping, heads leaning on one another or the windows. Hashim was awake, but he was deeply involved in the message boards he’d pulled up on his tablet. Mia was sick of listening to emergency messages that never changed and was saving the charge on her phone in case Max called. So it was kind of ironically funny that she jumped a mile high in her seat when the phone buzzed against the plastic of the van’s center console.

“Hello?”

“Baby?”

“Max? Yeah, I’m here. You guys okay?”

“Yeah.” Long pause. “We lost Evan.”

“Oh shit.” Hashim looked up at that one, his eyes worried. Mia mouthed “Evan” to him, and the microbiologist closed his eyes briefly.

“Allison okay?” Even as she asked, Mia knew it was a stupid thing to say. Of course Allison wasn’t okay. She’d just lost her husband. Mia knew she’d be pretty fucking far from okay if it had been Max. But she didn’t know how else to ask about her friend.

“No,” Max said. “But she’s holding. For now. She and Kimber weren’t hit. Evan got bit. Listen. We figured out that they’re attracted to light and motion. We got mobbed when we stopped for gas in Farmington. So be careful going through there.”

Mia looked up as they passed a sign. Farmington, 25 miles. “Roger,” she said. “Where’d you stop?”

“At the Circle K we usually use. It’ll probably still be burning when you go past. Evan went out with a bang. Took a lot of those fuckers with him.”

Despite everything, Mia smiled. That was exactly how Evan would have wanted it. “Good for him,” she said. “Right, so we’ll watch out for Farmington.”

Another long pause. “How are the kids?” Max asked. “Anyone sick?”

Mia glanced over her shoulder at the team. “Not yet,” she said. “Hashim says it’s early yet, but I’m hopeful.”

“Me too. I love you, baby. Stay safe.”

“You too. I love you too.”

As she hung up the phone, a soft, almost apologetic cough sounded from the far back seat.

“Coach?” It was Sonia’s voice, one of their tiny freshman “flyers.” She was good, always stuck her stunts at the top of their pyramid.

“What is it, Sonia?”

“I don’t feel so good.”

* * *

Thanks to the van’s auxiliary fuel tank, they were able to avoid stopping for gas in Farmington. As they rolled past the remains of the Circle K (which was, in fact, still burning) Mia could see what Max had been talking about. Not only was there a crater where the parking lot had once been, but the entire front half of the building was gone and the rest was in flames. Still, though, the light and sound of the burning wreckage seemed to draw the infected out. Mia was surprised. She didn’t think that Farmington had had that many people in it, let alone that many who’d been infected already. When she mentioned this to Hashim, though, he just shrugged.

“The bloodborne virus is much faster to spread than the airborne version,” he said. “If you have one infected who attacks a living human, and then that one turns, who turns another…it would not take long, especially not in such a small community.”

Mia felt herself pale, and then shoved that thought away in the back with the thought of vaccine production and four dead cops. She’d deal with all of that later. “I see,” she said.

Hashim nodded. “It is a shame that we cannot harvest some of them for vaccine, but it is not worth the risk at this point.”

“No,” Mia said, “I agree.” Her eyes flicked up to the rear view mirror, where Sonia lay in the back seat, loosely bound by bungee cords so that she could be restrained when the time came. As of right now, she still just had a fever, but from what Hashim was saying, it wouldn’t be long.

“What will you need to produce the vaccine?” Mia asked, determined to think of something else. “Besides infected tissue?”

“It is really very simple,” he said. “A small X-ray machine, some minor lab equipment. That is all.”

Mia frowned. Torrey, UT, the town where her mother lived, wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination. It had fewer people than Farmington and nothing resembling a hospital…except…

“The community clinic!” Mia said, snapping her fingers. “We had to take Micaela there when she was little and broke her arm. They’ve got an X-ray machine, and I’d imagine most of the lab supplies you’ll need.”

“Where is this clinic?” Hashim asked.

“It’s in downtown Torrey, or what passes for a downtown in a town as small as Torrey. It’s right on the main road…oh.” Mia felt her enthusiasm drain away as she thought her plan through. “That’s exactly where they’d go if they were getting sick.”

“Probably,” Hashim agreed. “But, it is small, yes? Perhaps we can fight our way in and barricade ourselves inside?”

Mia snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun,” she said softly, but then sighed. “But, as I don’t have a better idea, I guess your plan is it. But first,” she said, slowing and flipping off her headlights as they started approaching a lit section of the highway. “We need gas, and Shiprock is about our last resort for a long ways.”

Hashim looked up, focusing on the buildings coming in to view. “Big town?”

“Smaller than Farmington, but not by much. They’re almost linked. There’s a place we usually stop near the outskirts, after we make our turn. I think that might be our bet.”

“What is your plan? Do you still intend to act as normal?”

Mia pursed her lips, then shook her head. “I think it’s too dangerous. Max said that the lights attracted a horde of infected. I think we’ll just have to go in and out as fast as we can.”

“I will pump the gas, then,” Hashim said, as though asking for confirmation, “while you take Danny inside?”

“I think so. Do you think you can keep them off the van?”

“Perhaps, if your team can shoot from the windows, that would also be good.”

Mia nodded, then looked up in the rearview mirror to see eleven pairs of eyes open, listening to their conversation. She met Danny’s gaze, and the junior nodded.

“Give Jessa your rifle, and take her shotgun,” Mia said. “When we go in, you follow close behind me. I’ll clear the store itself, you just worry about getting behind the counter and getting the gas turned on, you got it?”

“Yes, coach,” he said. In the seat in front of him, Sam pulled off the body armor he’d been wearing and handed it to Danny. It was too big, but better than nothing, Mia supposed. Especially if they got mobbed. It might keep Danny alive long enough for Hashim to come get them.

“All of you, when we come to a stop, take aim out the windows. Don’t shoot until you have to do so. One, we don’t have ammo to waste and two, we don’t want the noise to draw more of a crowd than we have to.” Mia turned the wheel as she spoke, not stopping for the red light, turning on to U.S. 491, the highway that would take them north into Colorado and then Utah.

A few more blocks, and Mia slowed. The gas station looked good. Parking lot was empty, lights were off. Nothing moving. Yet. She turned in to the driveway and cut the engine, coasting to a stop next to one of the pumps in a move that impressed even herself. She glanced back over her shoulder at Danny, who was poised next to the door. At her nod, he opened it, slowly, trying not to make too much noise. She followed suit and dropped softly out of her seat onto the concrete. She left her door open and began to jog toward the building. Naturally, it was locked, but Mia solved that problem neatly by shoving a sweatshirt up against the glass and having Danny hit it with a rock. Not a perfect solution, she mused, grimacing at the muffled crash and tinkle of glass hitting the ground, but it was what she had on short notice. She reached inside, flipped the deadbolt open and opened the door to the convenience store.

It was dark inside, and Mia blinked quickly, trying to force her eyes to adjust. Not for the first time on this adventure, she wished she had a pair of night vision goggles. She’d probably look pretty damn ridiculous, rolling around in her old flight helmet with a pair of goggles on the front, but it would be super useful to be able to see in the dark.

Goggles or not, she had a job to do here. Danny was already moving for the front counter, doing a passable job of being quiet and careful. He didn’t really know how to professionally clear a room, but neither, for that matter, did she. All either of them had was good sense and self preservation. It would have to be enough.

She moved quietly through the store, methodically checking each of the four small aisles. She quickly looked in the restrooms and the back storeroom. All appeared to be clear. She went back out to the front to see Danny smiling at her, giving her a thumb’s up. Apparently, he’d gotten the pumps turned on. A quick glance outside told her that Hashim was fueling the van, and all looked quiet for the moment. Time to get some supplies.

She motioned Danny over to the snack aisle, and pointed out the things she wanted. Mostly beef jerky and bottles of water, though she did throw in another four pack of Sugar Free Red Bull. It was still five hours from here to Torrey, and with Sonia sick and others to follow, Mia had the feeling it was going to be a long night.

Speaking of which, she thought, turning to the small stash of automotive and hardware supplies the little store carried. She grabbed every roll of duct tape they had, plus some more bungee cords and a couple of multitools.

“Coach!” Danny called out in a harsh whisper. “I think we’d better go!”

Mia looked up right as the first infected came crashing through the hole they’d made in the front door.

“Shit!” she yelled. “Danny, get around the other side, get back to the van!” She drew her .45 and kicked the metal shelf, knocking several items to the floor with a resounding crash. “Hey!” she yelled, using her best “gotta be heard over turning rotors and screaming cheerleaders” voice. “Hey asshole! I’m over here! Come get me!”

Sure enough, the infected turned for her voice, as did the one following him through the door. The third one, however, turned for Danny as he tried to make it back toward the door. With presence of mind she wouldn’t have expected from one so young, Danny cooly pointed the 12-gauge at the infected’s head and pulled the trigger.

Mia’s ears rang from the report, and blood and brain matter sprayed everywhere. Praying that Danny didn’t have a cut on him somewhere, Mia shot the infected closest to her and dodged around the metal shelf as the second one lunged at her.

“Why,” she said out loud, “Why the fuck did we have to get the fast zombies?” She said this last as she grabbed a tire iron off the shelf and swung it, hard, against the head of the second one. The infected’s head deformed, almost as if it were made of putty, and the body slumped to the floor.

“Coach! We’ve got more coming!” Danny called. Mia scrubbed her sleeve across her face and looked up to see that he was right. There were easily twenty infected between them and the van, and the number looked like it was growing.

“C’mon,” she said. “I think I saw a back door.” Her tennis shoes slipped a bit in the zombie’s blood as she took off toward Danny, but she kept her feet, barely. Mia turned down the hallway she’d checked earlier, finding the door marked “Emergency Exit Only” and half blocked by a hand truck. For no good reason at all, Mia grabbed the hand truck. It seemed like a useful thing to have, if nothing else, it could be used to bludgeon attacking infected.

More glass crashed in the store, and so Mia waved Danny through the door, her .45 still in her hand. She followed quickly, pausing just long enough to pull the door closed behind them. Hopefully, the infected in the store would cause enough of a ruckus to draw any others that way and keep them off the van.

They moved quickly, staying low, crouched next to the building in order to try to hide in the shadows as much as possible. When they rounded the corner, they could see the gas pumps, but no van. For one heart-stopping moment, Mia couldn’t decide between being grateful to Hashim for getting her kids out and to safety, or being furious that he’d left her and Danny behind.

Fortunately, she didn’t have long to waffle. Before they could blink, the van came out from the alley that ran along the back of the building and pulled alongside them. The door opened and arms reached out from inside to pull them both in. Mia felt a bit like a kidnap victim as she was tossed to the floorboards, hand truck and all, and the van took off, tearing across the parking lot, lights off, headed back to the highway and freedom.

“Mia?” Hashim asked as Jessa and Yolanda pulled the door closed behind her and Danny. “Mia, were you bit?”

“No,” Mia said, pulling herself up and into the passenger seat. “No, I wasn’t. Danny?”

“Nope!” he said. “Didn’t even get any blood on me!” He sounded so ridiculously pleased by this that Mia laughed, despite herself. After a moment, Jessa giggled too, followed by Elia. Before long, they were all laughing, even poor Sonia, tied in the back, flushed with fever.

“We got some supplies, too,” Mia said, as soon as the laughter died down. “But how’d you know where to find us?”

“We didn’t,” Hashim said. “We just saw the horde at the front door, and knew you would not make it out that way. Jessa suggested the alley around the back.”

“You should have just left,” Mia said, looking down to reload her magazine.

Hashim looked over at her wryly. “Mia. I am only one man. You gave weapons to nine of your twelve cheerleaders. Do you think they would have let me leave you?”

Mia looked up, startled, then back in the back. Jessa met her eyes, a hardness in them that Mia had never seen before.

“We’re a team, coach,” Jessa said.

Mia felt a lump rise in her throat. She nodded. “So we are,” she said. “So we are.”

* * *

By eleven, Sonia had turned. Dawn, Yolanda, and Gina were also showing signs of infection. They’d all been restrained in the back couple of rows, making liberal use of both bungee cords and duct tape.

Mia and Hashim had traded off driving duties. Both of them subtly bearing down on the gas, and the van, surprisingly, would do ninety on a straight stretch with very little issues. Max had called once more, to tell them that he’d stopped for gas in Aneth. Aneth was a tiny little town in the middle of an oil field on the Ute Mountain reservation in southern Utah. Mia knew the gas station Max mentioned. They stopped there sometimes when they travelled during the day. Mia wouldn’t have stopped at night if she could help it. It had always looked sketchy. According to Max, though, the old guy who ran it was uninfected, and he appeared more than happy to help. Mia was keeping it in mind, just in case. Since Hashim had been able to fill up both tanks back at Shiprock, she didn’t think it would be an issue, but it was nice to have a backup plan.

Or any kind of plan, for that matter.

Mia scrubbed her hands over her face and lifted her Red Bull to take the last swallow in the can. She made a face as it went down. Sugar Free Red Bull was meant to be drunk over ice, in her opinion. It was never the same out of the can, and its flavor deteriorated rapidly if it wasn’t icy cold.

She had the sensation of diving through the darkness, as the van carved its way down the apparently deserted highway. While, given the circumstances, Mia was more than happy to be in such a sparsely populated part of the country, it was, to say the least, a little eerie as they drove.

Particularly with more than half of her team dying in the van behind her.

“Hashim,” she said softly, not wanting to wake him if he were asleep. The microbiologist stirred and opened his eyes, looking at her. “If they haven’t turned yet, can you use the vaccine on them?”

He shook his head sadly. “I could try, but Mia, if they are already sick, then the virus has begun to attack their tissues. The vaccine will only be more viruses. It would only make the problem worse.”

Mia nodded. That was about what she’d expected. She drove on, accelerating just a little faster, as Sam and Bella, both seniors, started to join in the coughing behind her.

* * *

The eastern sky was starting to lighten when they had to slow down. They’d made it in to Utah, but the road to Torrey took them through Capitol Reef National Park. The Park, as it was known locally, was a geographic wonder, and one of the best kept secrets of the American southwest. Towering red stone formations thrust up into the sky, creating near-vertical canyons and labyrinthine twists and turns. Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall Gang were known to have had hideouts up in the Park back in their day. Legend had it that there was still stolen railroad gold cached up there somewhere.

Mia slowed the van as they wound down the scenic highway, in part because it was necessary, thanks to the lingering darkness and the windiness of the road. Also, there was also the threat of hitting one of the huge herds of deer that lived in the area. But the real reason she slowed was because she knew that Max was somewhere up here. Somewhere in the Park, there was a cache of weapons and supplies that her mother and stepfather had prepared for an “End of the World” type scenario. She had the coordinates for it on her phone, even. That was where Max would be.

But she couldn’t go there, not yet. Not with Sonia, Dawn and Yolanda already turned, and from the looks of things, Gina, Sam and Bella not far behind. They had to get to the clinic. They had to get Hashim to the vaccine. She had to keep her promise. Her kids would not die in vain.

Torrey was only about six miles past the park, and the gray light of false dawn lined the eastern horizon by the time they came to the town limits. The sign claimed a population of 180 people, which Mia thought was a good sign. Especially since many of those would, theoretically, be living out on their land away from the town center. Torrey was as rural as it got.

“The community clinic is up here on the left,” Mia said as she drove, slowing to turn in to the parking lot of the small, nondescript building with the sign that proclaimed it to be their goal. She pulled up next to the door, killed the engine and set the parking brake. There was no movement in the parking lot.

“Now, how do we get these guys inside?” she asked.

“Let me go in first,” Hashim said, hefting a bag he’d stashed under the passenger seat. “I must find the lab and the X-ray machine, and we may need to clear it out. We can leave the kids here with the weapons.”

Mia looked over her shoulder at Jessa. The team captain nodded and hefted the rifle she hadn’t given back to Danny. He’d taken Sam’s instead. “We’ll be fine,” she said. “We’ll get them ready to take in for you,” she said.

“Don’t take any chances,” Mia said, wishing she had some better advice to give. “Don’t get bit.”

Jessa smiled grimly. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I have a plan.”

Mia raised her eyebrows, “I’m glad someone does,” she said under her breath. When Jessa’s only answer was a widening grin, she shook her head and refused to comment further. Instead, Mia took one of the shotguns and her .45 and slid out of her seat, after tossing the keys to Jessa. Just in case.

“Do you know where the lab is?” Hashim asked her as they approached the front door of the clinic.

“Not a clue,” Mia said.

Hashim laughed. “Fair enough,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He pushed open the door which, surprisingly or not, was not locked. The metal squealed against the linoleum floor, letting out a sound which raised the hackles on the back of Mia’s neck, and made her curse softly in response. So much for stealth.

From somewhere down the darkened hall in front of them, an answering keen rose. Then another. Hashim grabbed her arm and hauled her quickly behind a counter that had once served as the receptionist’s station. He reached in his bag and pulled out a road flare. “Cover your eyes,” he warned, then popped the flare.

Red light hissed to life as Mia belatedly turned her head and covered her eyes. She looked back just in time to see Hashim toss the light into a room opposite, that looked like a bathroom or something of that kind. Sure enough, three infected came running, stumbling down the hallway toward the light and the noise. As they came, Mia stood and began firing the 12-gauge. Three rounds, three dead infected. Five more followed after, drawn by the light and the noise. Mia dropped behind the corner as Hashim took her place, firing his pistol economically, dropping them with the headshots he’d perfected a lifetime ago in another desert a world away.

The 12-gauge could hold six rounds, and Mia took the time to reload three more while she had a moment. As she was doing so, another infected, this one a child of about five came around the corner of the counter from a back room.

“Aw, shit,” Mia said as the little zombie rushed toward her. “You’re gone already,” she told the little boy as she kicked a rolling chair over to intercept his path. He stumbled, which gave her time to get her weapon up and fire into his face that had been framed with soft golden curls. Still cursing, Mia got to her feet and went over to check the room that had produced the infected little boy. The smell about knocked her over. There was another child in there, a girl, about three or so. This one was still clothed, and her middle was one bloody mass where it had been eaten away. From the resemblance, Mia guessed that they’d been brother and sister. She closed her eyes briefly, then turned and emptied the contents of her stomach into a corner.

“Mia,” Hashim called softly. She straightened up, wiped her mouth with her sleeve and went back out to the reception area. An impressive pile of bodies lay in front of the desk, but there was no more movement toward the back. “I think we must move on,” he said, his eyes sympathetic. Mia nodded, and forced one foot in front of the other.

Despite all the odds, the building appeared to be clear. Mia and Hashim checked every closet, every compartment they could see, but there was no one else. Either no one else had made it to the clinic, or all the survivors had already evacuated. They did find the remains of several others that had been partially eaten, and Mia threw up one more time.

In the last room they checked, Hashim found what he was looking for. He immediately went over to the X-ray machine and began pushing buttons and dials. It must have had an integrated generator of some kind, because it fired right up, though the lights in the room stayed off. Mia watched him for a second, feeling lost, before backing up a step. “I’ll, ah, go get the kids,” she said. Hashim was already absorbed in his work and didn’t appear to hear her. So she shrugged and went back the way they’d come.

Outside, seven or eight more headless bodies bore mute testimony of the amount of noise she and Hashim had made, but her kids were all okay. Elia opened the van doors as she approached, and Danny and the two sisters, Mackayla and Mackenzie, started moving their turned teammates out. Mia nearly laughed when she saw them. The kids had emptied their cheer bags out and were using them as hoods to cover the faces of the infected. With the cheer bags duct taped over their heads, and their hands and feet tied, the infected cheerleaders were effectively helpless. All of a sudden, Mia was extremely glad she’d grabbed the hand truck back in Shiprock, as it came in very handy for transporting their lost teammates as gently as possible.

One by one, they transported them inside. Sam, the senior, and Jessa’s cocaptain. Sonia and Dawn, their two freshman flyers who’d been good enough to make the varsity team. Yolanda, another senior, who had earned a cheerleading scholarship to the University of Texas, Gina, a junior who had been earmarked for captain next year, and Bella, another senior, who had had plans to get married next spring. They rolled them in and strapped them down to the rolling gurneys that Hashim had assembled in the lab area.

“I don’t want to hurt them, if you can help it,” Mia said, her voice rough as they finished securing Bella in place.

“They do not feel pain at this stage,” Hashim said, “But I understand. I will give them morphine to kill them, and then we will harvest the spines. We must hurry, though, I can do nothing with the tissue if it’s too long dead.”

“We’ll help,” Mackayla said, and her sister nodded. Elia too. “We’ll all help,” the little sophomore said. “Just tell us what to do.”

Hashim nodded. He walked over to Sonia with a syringe, which he inserted into her arm. The infected girl thrashed against her bonds, letting out that high, keening wail before falling silent. Without a word, Hashim grabbed a very large bone saw from a drawer and began cutting around her neck. While her teammates looked on, Sonia was decapitated and her spine removed and placed into what looked like an emesis basin.

“Can you do this?” Hashim asked. Mia nodded, and though their faces were white as sheets, the surviving cheerleaders followed suit. Hashim handed out the syringes and bone saws, and they went to work.

* * *

It was the buzzing of her phone that woke her. Despite everything, Mia had drifted off to sleep, leaning against the wall of Hashim’s lab beside the sheet-covered gurneys that held the remains of half her team. Her surviving cheerleaders lay curled together on the floor next to her, Danny and Jessa holding Elia between them, Mackayla and Mackenzie holding each other. Mia stretched the crick in her neck and pulled the iPhone from her pocket. It was a text, from Max.

Found cache. All good. You? Max.

Mia looked up at Hashim, only to see the microbiologist standing over her with tired eyes, a triumphant smile on his face, a syringe in his hand. “Mia,” he said. “If I could have your arm, please? Your vaccine is ready.” Mia smiled back at him as tears of relief and reaction filled her eyes.

“Do the kids first,” she said, blinking furiously as she fumbled with her phone.

Vaccine done. Hold tight, baby. See you in a bit.


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