The Phoenix Trilogy (Book 1): World On Fire (15 page)

    Rico
was shivering much as Natalie had been, albeit not nearly as bad. He had some
glistening substance on his chest and arm that she realized must have come off
of a walker. That it had left residue on him told her that he had nearly been
killed, and Natalie felt a twinge of guilt. She knew that his close call had
likely happened after he pushed her ahead when they first entered the office.
While she recognized that it was his job to protect her, that didn't make her
feel any better.

    
Marco was the only member she hadn't
brought herself to look at, and a great deal of the reason why was because she
didn't think she'd like what she found. She could see him out of the corner of
her eye, but he wasn't moving much. BJ and Rico were both silent but
observant, their attention to the surroundings obvious in spite of
their reserved attitudes.

    
What Natalie saw from Marco was a
different kind of stillness. The others had a flame in their bellies, roaring
louder now that they were once more back on track. Marco's fire was out, choked
down by the injury he had sustained. In the light, Natalie could see it better,
though that didn't offer her much reassurance.

    
Several lines of dark red had been drawn
over the back of his neck, caught perfectly alongside where the strap of his
pack would have rested against his shoulder. It was obviously painful, but
worse, it looked unclean. Her mind racing with possibilities, Natalie did her
best to not jump to conclusions. They would have time to do more than a cursory
checkup of his wounds soon. Natalie continued to tell herself things were going
to be okay, using all of her willpower to ignore the fact that Marco's cuts
looked remarkably like scratch marks.

    Before
long,
Natalie's
heart began to settle.
O
r
rather,
it
stopped feeling like she was about to go into cardiac arrest,
which she suspected might be the best she could expect from the situation
. Granting BJ a weary nod to confirm she
was ready to move, he returned the gesture before turning to continue on.

    
The waning daylight shining between
buildings reminded Natalie of the time. With all of the commotion from the gas
station, and then the pursuit through the office, she had completely lost track
of the hours that had passed. It was hard to believe it had all been the same
day. Was it still the same day? Her nap at the gas station threw her off,
feeling as though she had started a new morning, but...

    
Natalie blinked heavily and tried to
recall everything
that had happened in an effort to piece
together a timeline, but her brain refused to comply. All the shock and trauma
had already started to blur together, her memories growing fuzzy as her mind
tried to shield her from remembering events better left forgotten.

    
In the end, she gave up. Natalie didn't
need to worry about the past when the future was already so precarious. She
wasn't certain how BJ would feel about traveling at night, but she assumed he
would be opposed. Anything that cut down on vision was likely to be considered
a bad thing.

    
True to her expectations, BJ flagged their
attention before pointing out a nearby apartment building. Another knot in her
stomach, and Natalie was already leery of any more indoor exploration. Still,
the others were set on their course, so it appeared she'd just have to make the
best of it.

    
As usual, BJ and Rico scoped out the
entrance while Marco brought up the rear. It wasn't until Natalie bothered to
look back down the road they'd come from that she realized what was wrong.

    
There were people in the street. Zombie or
otherwise, she couldn't tell, but she could see their outlines shifting in the
growing dark. Marco should have warned them, but his attention had wavered in
light of the coming events. If his lax duty hadn't put their lives at risk,
Natalie might have been more understanding.

   “
Guys, there’s bodies. Or people,
something, shit, behind us.” The words were jumpy and unclear, but Natalie
couldn't help herself. This was a little too familiar a feeling, and she didn't
think they'd be able to escape death again so easily. It
was a testament to her unease that she didn't laugh at her own
implication that surviving the horde earlier had been simple.

    
The men wasted no time, first bolting
upright to confirm Natalie's warning before snapping back to the task at hand.
Whether they were satisfied with their safety or not, Natalie wasn't sure, but
they gave a nearly immediate all-clear before heading inside.

    
With purpose that suggested this wasn't
their first time in the building, BJ and Rico moved past a dozen closed
apartment doors on the ground floor before stopping abruptly. There was a
single open door ahead of them, and the look of alarm in BJ's eyes told Natalie
that was a very bad thing.

    
Another step forward brought a squelch
from beneath Natalie's foot, as well as a morbid epiphany: this wasn't old
blood. She had been so accustomed to gore being everywhere underfoot that she
hadn't realized how fresh it really was inside the building. Whatever had happened
that had BJ so on edge, it took place recently. Another bad sign to throw on
the pile.

    
BJ approached the door in a deep crouch
that looked more suitable for lunging than for sneaking. One hand held his axe,
while the other was empty and ready for grabbing. Natalie was reminded that
this was a scary man when he chose to be.

    
No time was spent on hand signals or
formation. BJ poked his head into the room for a second before going inside,
and a surprised Rico had to scramble to follow. Natalie opted to remain
outside, no longer trusting Marco's state of mind. Somebody had to maintain one
eye on their flank, and she didn't guess that it would take more
than two people to clear the apartment.

    
The room behind her was silent, and
Natalie took that for a good thing. They were well away from the entrance to
the building, so unless zombies spontaneously took to pouring out of the rooms
around them, they should be fine. At least, as fine as anybody was during the
end of days.

    
Rico was the first to come back into the
hallway, and he waved Natalie and Marco inside. He had pulled his mouth wrap
down, his face revealing a mix of anger and deep sadness. It was not a look he
seemed accustomed to, and certainly not one Natalie liked seeing. She found herself
uncertain of if she really wanted to know what had gone wrong here, but as she
walked inside, she found many of her questions answered.

    
This had been an apartment once, but it
was hard to see it that way now. To Natalie's eyes, it looked more like an
armory. Rico closed the door behind them, revealing countless braces and
crossbars reinforcing it. It even had a runner along the bottom to dampen noise
made inside.

    The
sole window in the room matched the door, strengthened well beyond what any
sane person would consider rational and completely covering the opening. The
room would have been devoid of light, but BJ had already turned on a heavy-duty
portable lamp. It seemed the runner on the door doubled as a light blocker, as
well.

    Numerous
empty gun racks covered the walls, one section of floor was filled with gory
sleeping bags that screamed military-issue, and there were more empty ammo
boxes than Natalie could count.

    In
the middle of it all stood BJ, his mouth set in a deep line as he studied the
blood spatter that splashed across
everything from floor to ceiling
. He allowed himself a heavy sigh, his eyes closing as he
shook his head. He looked as if he was about to speak when Marco abruptly broke
the quiet.

    “
I think I'm infected.” The words came out
higher than usual, his cracking tone contradicting the bold bluntness of his
statement. Natalie's eyes darted to Rico, unsure of what to expect. Just as he
seemed to comprehend what his young cousin had confessed, Marco continued.

    “
I don't know how or when it happened. I
didn't even realize I was hurt until Nat touched me.” His gaze briefly turned
to Natalie before falling to the ground in front of him. Seemingly at a loss
for words, he turned away from the others before slowly removing his shirt with
shaking hands.

    
Rico let out a short gasp as he saw the
furrows carved in Marco's skin. Natalie couldn't blame him; the wound wasn't
pretty. Even in the short amount of time that had passed since she saw it last,
it seemed to be an angrier shade of red. That didn't bode well for Marco, and
Natalie felt a pang of sadness.  

     
The obvious pain and confusion on Rico's
face only seemed to be growing, his words choking off before they were fully
formed. Marco had turned back to the group, his shirt hanging limply in one
hand as he refused to take his gaze off the floor. Only BJ remained collected,
briskly approaching Marco to examine the
injury
further.

    “
Before you go talking about making a
heroic sacrifice or some other horseshit, let's be clear: we don't know how you
were wounded, so we can't confirm your condition. The new game plan is we're
going to sit tight until morning. If you're infected, you'll be showing signs
by then.” BJ's words were stated like matters of fact, as devoid of emotion as
anything Natalie had heard from him yet.

    
It would have seemed callous if Natalie
didn't know better. BJ had one hand firm on Marco's good shoulder, refusing to
let him drop his gaze from BJ's own fierce eyes. It was a show of support, and
though he had given no sympathy, his gruff approach to the matter had made it
easier to view it from a detached perspective. They all knew what risks were on
the table; worrying themselves into a stupor over it was just a waste of time
and energy.

    “
Think back, cuz. Is there anything you can
give us? Natalie, what about you? Marco was behind me the whole time, I never
had a chance to see what was happening.” Rico had composed himself, opting to
refrain from examining his cousin's wounds with his own eyes. His words were
clear and calm, only showing a note of the worry for his family that must be
overwhelming his heart.

    
Natalie did her best to think back as
Marco told the others how he realized he was hurt. Scouring her brain for
anything that might be worthwhile, she found she had little to work with. Marco
had been behind her for nearly everything, after all. It wasn't until she tuned
back in to the conversation that she felt an idea begin
to form.

     “...
swear they never touched me. Not this bad,
not enough to get in so deep.” Marco was shaking his head in disbelief as he
spoke, trying to come to terms with how any of this could have been possible.
Feeling a glimmer of hope, Natalie held no guilt for silently thinking that
this near-death experience might take the cocky faux action hero down a peg.

    “
I don't think they did, Marco. You had to
have been hurt sometime after we got spotted in the street, but before we made
it into the office, right? During the adrenaline high of escaping an angry
mob?” She had the attention of the room, and though she had no way to confirm
her suspicions, Natalie felt confident that she was on to something.

    “
When we were running, you got ahead of me
for a little while, remember? I saw a deadhead break a door right next to you,
one of those ones with the heavy window panes in it. You were only inches away
when he hit the glass. I mean Christ, the poor bastard wound up looking like he
put his hands through a wood chipper, so it'd make sense if some of the glass
he blew out would have cut you.” Natalie paused for a moment to let her words
sink in, and she could see the men processing what she said.

    
It wasn't a perfect theory, and even if
she were right, Marco still ran the chance of being infected. Either way, it
was better than what they'd had, regardless of its flaws. Natalie noticed BJ's
look of doubt, and realized he was about to point out issues in her logic. She
decided to take it as another opportunity to prove herself, instead.

    “
I know he could be screwed anyway. The
zombie might
have transferred blood to the glass and
then into him,” Natalie felt a brief sting of guilt as she realized she was
talking so casually about Marco's life, as if he weren't in the room with her,
“or maybe the glass was already covered in something gnarly in the first
place.”

    Her
choice of words once again brought a small redness to her cheeks. Rationalizing
her own defense, she had been closer to saying “icky” than “gnarly,” so she was
content with calling it an improvement. The others didn't seem to notice, and
BJ had resumed his thoughtful stance.

    “All
I'm saying is, if he, you-” Natalie bit down a growl at her own fumbling,
trying to be at least a little less dismissive of Marco's presence, “if
Marco
was scratched directly, we wouldn't have any hope here. Infection would be
basically guaranteed. So I mean, if we've got to choose between something with
100% certainty to live with for a little while versus something with 80%
certainty, it's a better deal, isn't it?”