Allegiance (10 page)

Though Brook had planned
to lead up to her bombshell admission with a heart-to-heart talk full of hope
and encouraging verbiage, instead, she kept it simple by sticking only to the
facts. “I lost the baby.”

There was silence,
except for the wind passing through their perch.

“I knew,” Raven replied
softly.

“Oh honey... I’m so sorry,”
Brook said, the tears returning. Only this time around she made no attempt to
stem the flow. “I should have told you. But with all of the bad stuff happening
and your Dad gone again, I kept it from you—”

“I understand Mom... I’m
twelve... not six. I’m not mad at you but I’m still a little sad. I wanted
someone to teach things to. To take care of.”

“Someday,” Brook said.
Though in her heart she had a feeling that in her mid-thirties the window for a
safe pregnancy was on its way down, and if her family’s genetics had any say in
the matter it would probably slam shut sooner, rather than later.

Raven put a finger vertical
to her lips and shushed her mom—usually a cardinal offense in the Grayson
household. But these were different times and called for different rules. Brook
had learned to choose her battles differently—and most of those as of late had
not been with the living—let alone Raven.

“Mom... is that what I
think it is? Do you hear it?”

Brook shushed back, then
turned her head towards the direction the high pitched yapping seemed to be
coming from.

Like a prairie dog,
Raven popped up and scanned the horizon. “It’s a dog!” she squealed.

A medium-sized mutt sat
on its haunches, equidistant from the three unmoving Zs. Its coloring could
easily be described as calico—reddish brown and black spots peppered its
predominantly white coat.

Warily Brook forced
herself to stand, to see what type of canine had gotten her daughter so riled
up. She shouldered the M4 to scrutinize the animal through the scope. “Looks
like some kind of shepherd,” she finally declared. “I’m guessing it’s an
Australian Shepherd.”

A blur descending the
thirteen-foot ladder, hands and feet blazing over two-by-four rungs, Raven was
on the ground in less than three seconds flat. She rushed headlong to the fence
and stood on her tip toes, fingers poking through the openings, head craning.
“Can we keep it?” she called out. Then to further complicate things, she added.
“I think he probably belonged to those three out there. So... it’s sort of our
duty to take him in.
Right
?”

Who am I to say no?
Brook thought. She cleared her throat. Not
because of the dry air but because she needed a minute to think. “What does
duty
mean to you?”

Looking back at her mom,
Raven answered slowly. “It means I’m supposed to help... no matter what. You’re
talking about taking care of
him
... right?”

“Maybe,” Brook replied.

“Duty also means it’s
the right thing to do.” Raven knew the hook was set. Still, she tried to hide
the sly smile.

Sounds like something
Cade would say
, Brook thought to
herself.

“Please Mom. Can we keep
it?”

“If it’s infected,
no
way
. But I’m pretty sure only humans are affected by the Omega virus,”
Brook said, casting a sidelong glance at her daughter. “And come to think of it
I haven’t seen a cat or a dog since before the outbreak.” She turned her gaze
on the dog, and then considered the ramifications of traveling with the animal.
On one hand if it was a yappy thing they could find a muzzle, or heaven forbid
and PETA be damned they could forage around and find one of those shock
collars. The sort that some pasty faced necktie peddled on late night
infomercials. On the other hand, the dog might earn its keep, she reasoned. It
seemed intelligent—most shepherds were. And though she didn’t realize it now, she
was insentiently rationalizing keeping the thing for her own personal reasons.
What if Cade decided to renege on his promise and insisted they stay at
Schriever? She doubted it. Something monumental would have had to have happened
to make Cade Grayson go back on a Scout’s Honor after he had already proclaimed
it. After all, he had been an Eagle Scout
long
before Army Ranger
School, the Special Forces, and Delta.
Besides
, she told herself,
shepherds
have worked and lived alongside humans for tens of thousands of years
,
so
he won’t be any sort of a hassle
. “Yes, you can keep it,” she said,
instantly regretting the five little words.

Clapping her hands
rapidly, Raven did a little
happy
dance, spun a few circles then froze
completely and slowly panned hear head up, taking in the enormity of the twelve-foot
high
double
fence.

“Mom?”

“Yes honey,” she
answered.

“How do we get to him?”

“Don’t look now, but I
think he has it all figured out,” Brook added, a broad smile creasing her face.

A fountain of red soil
spewing between its hind legs, the industrious canine furiously tilled the hard-packed
ground, front paws clawing a mile a minute.

After a quarter of an
hour had passed, the dog had tunneled under both rings of fencing. The dirt-covered
stray sidled up to Raven first and then sniffed at her hands and legs.

At least he’s not a
crotch hound
, Brook thought.
Then with a free and easy gait, the pooch approached her, padded twice around
the pair, and then leaped into the back of the golf cart.

Brook made a face. “I
guess he’s keeping
us
,” she said.
Mission accomplished
, she
thought. The mother-daughter talk she had so dreaded wasn’t as big a mountain
as she had built it up to be. Raven had taken the official news about her not
becoming a big sister better than she could have imagined. The thing that kind
of gnawed at Brook, though, was her daughter’s complete one-eighty—the girl had
tolerated the shooting better than the last time, and for lack of a better word
she had seemed to have
enjoyed
their outing.

Mom and daughter piled
into the Cushman cart.

“What are we going to
name him?” Brook asked as the propane-powered engine chugged to life.

“How can you be sure
it’s a
boy
dog?” Raven fired back.

“So you think I don’t
know my stuff?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what you’re
telling me is that it
is
time for the birds and bees... boys and girls
talk?”

“
Forget
I asked,”
Raven said.

“Check his collar,”
Brook countered.

“It’s OK
boy
. I
just want to see if there is a tag here.” She parted the matted fur and grasped
the steel disc hanging from the worn leather collar. “You were right, Mom. It
says right here... his name is
Max
.”

At the sound of his
name, as if confirming what he already knew, the dog let out a short yelp and
licked Raven’s hand.

Outbreak - Day 15

Schriever AFB

Wilson would never
forget the look that had frozen on his sister’s face when he and Taryn abruptly
left her all alone in the mess hall. Suddenly at a loss for words, the
fourteen-year-old’s jaw hinged open, her freckled nose crinkled up, and her
eyes narrowed under a hard set brow. Framed by her scarlet mane of curls, her
features seemed to be having a meeting in the middle of her face. It was as if
the words Taryn had just hurled at her held some kind of weight—a motherly,
listen to me or else type of weight. It was the look of utter disbelief when
the mind fails to process new information fast enough to come up with an
appropriate response. He had seen that look on her face only one other time
during the last two weeks—the day a disheveled looking CNN news anchor, wearing
a similar expression on his face, finally confirmed that the dead were walking
the streets. Wilson wished
his
words had the same effect on Sasha, but
ever since Z day when their mom had gone missing during a forced stopover in Washington
D.C., things hadn’t been the same between them. Lost was the position of
authority vested in him and fully backed by his mom. Sasha’s respect for him
also seemed to have mostly disappeared somewhere between Denver and Colorado
Springs less than a week ago.

***

After leaving the mess
hall, Taryn and Wilson stayed to the white concrete footpaths which
crisscrossed the base. As they strolled side by side, only a few short inches
separating them, Wilson tried not to obsess over how warm and silky her
suntanned skin had felt pressed firmly against his thigh. That she had
purposely taken the initiative further confused the twenty-year-old, setting
off a chain reaction of feelings and emotions that up until then had been
suppressed and completely numbed by the reality of surviving these last two
horror-filled weeks.

Ignoring the real reason
behind her decision to ask Wilson to go for a walk, Taryn instead brought up
everything
but
her nine days in Hell on Earth. “So, Red... what’s your
favorite sports team?”

Wow
, he thought to himself. This girl is getting
cooler with each passing minute. “
Colorado Rockies,
of course,” he
replied. “
Todd Helton
hasn’t failed me yet. How about you?”

“Don’t like organized
sports. I hated playing them... couldn’t take to being yelled at by someone
else’s failure of a father. And millionaire men fighting and carrying on like
spoiled brats in front of thousands of people. That’s just wrong on so many
levels.”

“Baseball’s
not so bad—”

“Lie to yourself, not to
me, Red. No way... never seen a dugout-clearing brawl...
ever
.”

Touché
, he thought. Then, struggling to find some more
common ground, he tried a different approach. “So what
was
your favorite
television show? Or let me guess... TV too bourgeois for you?”

“Bourg— what?”

“It means conformist.
Look at your piercings... your tattoos. You don’t have a bourgeois bone in your
body.”

“What’s that got to do
with TV?” Taryn asked.

“Just trying to figure
you out... that’s all.”

“OK. I’ll play along.”
She looked over her left shoulder—paused theatrically—then did the same on the
other side. “L.A. Ink,” she whispered.

“
Wow
.” He thrust
his arms skyward like he’d just finished a marathon. He spun a tight circle,
boots scuffing the path. “She likes reality television no less,” he called out
to no one in particular. “What... did you like L.A. Ink cause of Kat Von what’s
her name?”
Come to think of it,
Wilson thought to himself,
Taryn does
share an uncanny resemblance to the show’s brunette star.
But, in his
obviously biased opinion, Taryn was much younger, prettier, and had way better
tats than the dead and gone, long-locked reality star.

Wilson’s hamming it up
elicited a half-smile from Taryn that disappeared quickly.

“OK Mister Judgmental—
your
turn,” she said, flashing him a pouty look.

“Well, I
had
a
red Mustang. She got trashed in Denver. I had a dream of getting it on
Overhaulin’... It’s a show about—”

She cut him off. “I’ve
seen the show once or twice.”

Then Wilson got caught
doing an obvious double take. And though he thought it could go no higher, his
affection for Taryn elevated a notch.

“Girls can be gearheads
too, you know,” she stated emphatically and with a certain sense of pride. Then
after a short pause her tone softened. “You know, before this disease, virus,
whatever the
hell
it is happened, my dad was building a rat rod in his
spare time. He let me and my brother help out a little.” She went quiet then
added in a near whisper, “I couldn’t wait to ride in the thing.” Hands held
horizontally a few inches apart she added, “It had a real short windshield up
front... Brother and me couldn’t wait to get the wind in our hair.”

“And bugs in your
teeth,” Wilson quipped. “I loved those things... just the opposite of a hundred
thousand dollar
Trailer Queen
. All primered out, peeps could actually
drive
one of those to the car show. Door dings and bad weather... no worries.” He
glanced over. Tears had welled in her eyes, threatening to spill over. He had
little experience with girls—except for the teenagers who worked for him at
Fast Burger—and they had a tendency to cry over giving someone the wrong
change. Where Taryn was concerned he didn’t know what to say.

An awkward silence
ensued.

He fumbled through every
pocket in his cargo shorts—eight in all—searching for a tissue... anything.
Nothing,
he thought to himself
. Epic fail
.

Taryn tugged the neck of
her black tank up to dry the tears and in the process revealed more of her
anatomy than she had intended.

Wilson diverted his gaze,
but not before he got an eyeful, including, but not limited to the delicate
details of her bra. It was black, low cut, and like Taryn—the lace was very
complex. He also noticed something fall from her tank. It appeared to be
machined out of brushed aluminum, was about the size of a pack of Wrigley’s
chewing gum, and swung pendulum-like on some kind of clear line. Without
looking up she quickly tucked the pendant in and patted smooth the dampened
fabric.

He
blushed for the umpteenth time since he’d met her. “No Kleenex—”

“That’s OK,” she said,
looking up and meeting his sheepish gaze. “I want to be quiet for a minute. You
know... be still. Just think.”

“OK,” Wilson said. It
was about all he could come up with.

They continued on in
absolute silence. And when they finally reached the parade grounds—an expanse
of brown grass encircled by an oval quarter-mile running track—Wilson steered
them towards a fixed set of aluminum bleachers. Low to the ground and
utilitarian even compared to the ones at his old high school, they seemed the
perfect place to take a break so he could listen
if
Taryn decided she
wanted to talk about her ordeal. Besides, he reasoned. With all of the melanin
her skin possessed, he didn’t think she’d mind sitting in the sun for a while.
Hell, from the looks of her olive skin there was no way she could have been
trapped inside for nine days. He, on the other hand, pink-skinned ginger that
he was—knew from experience that he was going to pay dearly for every
millisecond he stayed out in the sun.

They sat in silence,
staring at the twelve-foot tall fences separating the base from the zombies’
hunting grounds on the opposite side. Out there, a couple of lonely Zs held
vigil, eyeing them hungrily, fingers latched onto the outer ring of fencing.

The wind was calm and
the sun, nearing its apex for the day, seemed certain to drop another hundred
degree day on them. There had already been three consecutive scorchers in a
row, and the thunderstorms that the locals swore occurred like clockwork during
the waning months of summer had yet to spare them one single solitary raindrop.
Wilson decided to quit being Wilson and take charge. “Hottest part of the day
is coming, we should probably head back,” he said. Then he released his red hair
from the confines of his floppy boonie hat and wiped some sweat from his brow.
“Maybe we could go inside... someplace cooler,” he added. Sasha’s voice invaded
his head. ‘
Gosh dang Wilson, take it any faster you might as well just asked
her to sleep with you.’

“That’s a great idea,” Taryn
said, agreeing. “Then I can verbally vomit on you in private. Kinda what I had
in mind in the first place. I went through nine days of hell...
alone
,
and if I don’t talk about it soon I’m liable to go find a gun and quiet this
noise in my head.”

With the memory of Ted’s
unexpected suicide fresh in his mind, Wilson couldn’t contain himself. “You
don’t want to do that,” he blurted.

“I was just being
dramatic, Wilson. I didn’t give up at the airport. I’m sure as
hell
not
taking the easy way out now.”

“Did you make it here by
yourself?”

“Yes... and no. It’s
complicated.” She went quiet. They took a few more steps before she spoke
again. “Wilson...” her voice cracked. She halted in her tracks, feeling the sun
bearing down on her. Heard heavy vehicles going somewhere important, the clunk
and roar of engine and exhaust dissipating. She swallowed hard. “When I tell
you how I got here I don’t expect you to believe me. I still can’t believe I
made it out alive. And if you think I’m just being a whiny girl fishing for
attention and don’t want to hear it... I won’t hold it against you.”

Wilson didn’t
particularly like the sound of her final statement. Every cell in his body
wanted her to hold every bit of her against him. He blushed and pushed aside
the romantic thoughts. “You don’t have to worry about me passing judgment,” he
proffered. “You met my sister. She does all of the judging in our family.”

“You know... I think I
was a little too hard on her considering she’s lost contact with your mom and
everything she’s been through in the last few days. That’s all way too much for
someone her age to process.”

Wilson crushed his hat
over his hair. “She’s coping... in her own way,” he said quietly.

“And
you?
How are
you coping? And how much of Sasha’s retelling of the arm stuck in your hair is
real and how much was due to teenage exaggeration?”

“It all happened the way
she said. I’ve got more to get off my chest. After you, of course. I think I
might benefit from a little... what’d you call it? A verbal vomit session?”

“Agreed,” Taryn said
with a smile. She cast a sidelong glance at the zombies by the fence, and for
the first time since her rescue from Grand Junction Regional the enormity of
the situation and the true nature of the dead struck her. “What is the
government going to do about all of those things?”

“What can they do?”
Wilson said dryly. “Before this thing broke out there were... I don’t know
how
many people in the U.S.”

“I did a report on
immigration last fall.” Trying to coax the obscure number from her memory,
Taryn paused for a beat and looked at the sky. “I think there
were...
I
want to say
three hundred million
. But don’t quote me.”

“Oh no. I’m going to
have to hold you to that number, young lady—” Wilson’s attempt to lighten the
mood failed. He watched Taryn’s face go slack, the color flushing from it
entirely.

“That means there are a
lot more of those things than I ever imagined,” she said in a low voice.

“Let’s get back. We’ve
got a vomit session to attend.” She smiled. “My place or yours?” he asked.

“Mine,” she said at
once. “I’ve got something to show you.”

Wilson smiled. His
imagination was running wild, and for the first time since those initial
awkward moments when they’d met, he found himself speechless.