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  "That's not true." Clyde glanced at them quickly before looking back at the road ahead. "Alpha Squad has been with the civilians the whole time. We were in charge of getting them out of the city, for crying out loud. I think you guys must have misunderstood him or something."

  Billy shook his head and remembered his conversation with Reagan. "The Captain said he knew he was infected, and so were the rest of his men."

  "That doesn't make any sense." Clyde spoke in a hushed tone as he tried to comprehend the implications of what Captain Reagan had revealed. "That can't be true."

  "Uh oh," Levon looked over his shoulder at Billy as he comically jerked a thumb in Clyde's direction. "Sounds like our soldier boy is starting to figure it all out. I'm telling you, man, people need to listen to Hero for once." He slapped his hands on his chest. "I know what the fuck I'm talking about."

  "Then why did they give us those shots?" said Clyde in reference to the inoculations his squad received. "Was it bullshit or did they just figure out it didn't work? Why wouldn't they tell us if it didn't work? Why would they send us into the city if it didn't work?" He was growing more concerned with each question as he tried to understand his own death sentence.

  "They don't give a fuck about the grunts on the battlefield," said Levon.

  "It doesn't make any sense. There's no way they would've sent us in if they knew we were going to get infected. For crying out loud, half the people in my squad had parents in the government. We were all the kids of senators and shit. Are you trying to say they sent their own kids out to die? I'm telling you, you're wrong about this."

  Billy looked at the empty vial and read the label: Alpha-77.

  "Did the Bravo Squad get the same stuff?" asked Billy as he came to a disturbing realization.

  Before Clyde could answer, the radar chirped at them in warning. Their attention turned to the circular screen on the dash that revealed a mass of red dots ahead of them.

  Then to the right of them.

  Then to the left.

  "Ah fuck," said Levon with a long emphasis on the curse.

  * * *

  Richard poured a glass of scotch and offered it to Charles. The Captain refused as he stood in the middle of the lavish office. Richard shrugged and said, "Suit yourself," as he brought the ornate, crystal tumbler to his lips to take a long drink.

  Reagan walked along the wall of the room and looked at the pictures that hung there. He found one of Richard and himself standing beside a lake, holding fishing poles and smiling. It was from a vacation they'd taken in the mountains in the late eighties. There was a small resort town there that Richard convinced Reagan to buy a vacation house in. Over the years, they spent many weekends there, isolated from the hustle of their military careers. It was a pleasant, remote place that was as close to paradise as he'd ever found.

  "Is Ann at your cabin?" Reagan asked about Richard's wife.

  "Yes, along with my sister and her kids."

  "Is it safe out there?"

  "One of the six safest places in the country."

  Reagan ran the tip of his finger over the top of the picture to wipe away the dust that had collected. He wondered how long it would take to collect that much dust on a picture frame.

  Richard set his glass on his desk and walked over to stand beside Reagan. He pointed at a frame a few feet away from the one that Reagan was focused on. "Do you know what that is?"

  It was a picture of a stone monument in the middle of a field. Richard stood beside it, and the monument towered over him by at least ten feet. It featured four walls that formed an 'X' with an empty space in the center where a single, rectangular stone pillar stood. There was a slab of stone placed on the top and each corner of it touched the edges of the four walls beneath. There appeared to be writing on each wall of the monument, but it was too small to read.

  Reagan shook his head as he stared at the photograph. "I recognize you, but I don't know what that is. You look pretty young," he looked down at Richard's larger midsection, "and a hell of a lot skinnier."

  "That was taken in 1980, right after they finished building the monument. Jesus, I look like a kid in this picture."

  Richard took the frame off the wall to inspect it and Reagan noticed the discoloration in the paint where the picture had been hanging. He wondered how many years it would take for a picture to cause the paint behind it to be discolored like that.

  "This is the future, Charles." The picture bobbed in his grip as he offered it to Reagan.

  Captain Reagan took it and looked closer, but he couldn't read anything that was written on it. "What is it?"

  "The most important monument on the face of Earth." Richard walked over to his desk and retrieved his drink. "And the reason we're here, together - alive in the middle of the apocalypse; at the beginning of an Age of Reason."

  "Richard, we've been friends for a long time, and I say this with the utmost respect: Get to the fucking point."

  General Covington laughed and then finished his drink. "I always liked that about you, Reagan. You're a man of action." He walked around his desk and started to rifle through the bookshelf behind it. He found what he was looking for and dropped it on the desk as he motioned for Reagan to have a seat across from him.

  Reagan set the photo of the monument back on its nail, covering the discolored section of the wall, and then sat down to look at the thin book that his friend offered him. It was colorful and the cover depicted the same monument that was in Richard's photograph. The title read, "The Georgia Guidestones" with a subheading, "What are they, and who is RC Christian?"

  Richard Covington smiled across the table at his old friend.

  * * *

  The basement door opened and Gwen was startled awake. She hadn't been held captive long, but the sound of that door opening had already earned a spot as her single greatest fear. She stared at the exposed side of the wooden staircase to see who was coming down this time.

  There was a set of black boots, with a little girl's pink shoes beside them, walking down the stairs. Trev held a lantern in one hand and Kim in the other. He pushed the girl forward and she stumbled in Gwen's direction.

  "Kim?" she asked when she recognized the girl. "Are you okay?"

  Kim glanced at Gwen and then at Toby's shivering form in the bottom of the wire dog cage. She nodded and cried as Trev set the lantern down on a wooden crate.

  "It'll be okay, sweetie. Don't worry," said Gwen.

  "I'm scared."

  "I know, baby. I know."

  "Here we go." Trev triumphantly raised another chain and collar identical to the one that Gwen wore. He knelt beside Kim and started to wrap the collar around her neck. She tried to resist, and he warned her to stop.

  "Leave me alone."

  He smacked her across the face and the little girl stumbled to the floor. Gwen cried out in anger and Trev demanded that she quiet down as well or he'd do the same to her.

  "What the fuck is wrong with you? How can you treat a child like that?"

  "You want to see how nasty I can be? You want to see just how bad I can treat a child?" He looked at Toby's cage. "Is that what you want?"

  "You're a monster."

  "Bitch, you have no idea." Trev walked over to the box that the lantern was on. He took the lantern off and set it on the ground before opening the crate. He grunted as he hefted a plastic sack out of the crate that looked like it was filled with dirt or powder of some sort. He carried the bag over to Toby's cage and dropped it down on top. The bars groaned under the weight as Trev stared at Gwen with a devilish grin.

  He took out a pocketknife, opened it, and held the tip in front of his face as he stared at the boy's mother. "You want to see a monster?"

  "Don't do anything to Toby. He's already sick. Please, just leave him alone." She moved forward until her collar choked her and tried to claw at Trev. He stepped back and pointed to the bag on top of Toby's cage.

  "Do you know what that is?"

  She could read the writi
ng on it, but the odd combination of letters and numbers made no sense to her. "No."

  "That's the shit they're putting on the dead bodies." He placed the tip of the knife against the plastic cover. "All I have to do is cut a hole in this and that shit will spill out all over him. You know what'll happen then?"

  "Please just leave him alone."

  "Do you know what'll happen?"

  "Don't hurt my son."

  "He'll burn to death." Trev chuckled as he pushed the knife in. The puncture was small, and when he took the knife out only a dusting of powder came with it. Toby tucked his head under the tarp that he had used to stay warm as the powder sprinkled over him.

  Trev carefully brought the blade up as if it carried a mound of cocaine instead of lye. He put the blade in front of his lips and blew the powder into Gwen's eyes.

  She staggered back and wiped at her face as the powder mixed in her eyes. It didn't hurt at first - and then the pain was relentless. She fell against the cement floor and clawed at her face as she screamed. The powder began to sizzle as it mixed with tears.

  Trev cackled madly as Gwen slowly went blind. Kim stepped forward to help, but Trev quickly put a hand on her chest to hold her back. They stood aside as Gwen's body writhed in agony on the cement floor. She wailed in pain as she rolled back and forth.

  "Don't go near her," said Trev as he looked down at Kim. He set his thumb against her cheek and smiled. "We wouldn't want you getting any of that nasty powder on your pretty little face."

  * * *

  Senator Vargas slammed the phone down and screamed in anger. He picked up the handset and threw it across his office where is smashed against the wall and shattered.

  "Sir," said the soldier at his door. "I'm sure he'll be fine."

  "I specifically told them to keep him in a quarantined zone. He was never supposed to be sent back into the field."

  "They pulled him out after the Becken riot, but he was sent back in at the General's request."

  "Why?" Vargas seethed as he paced the room.

  "He was in the closest unit. Everyone else was moving out across the city and he was left back in a cleared zone."

  "Get me a vehicle," said Vargas as he stopped pacing and became suddenly determined.

  "Sir, we're locked down."

  "You dumb fuck, I'm not locked anywhere. Get me a helicopter and I'll fly myself there if I have to. I need to get to the prison where they're holding this woman. I need to know where my son's heading. I don't give a shit if they're trying to use him to find Courtland or not. I want my son back."

  CHAPTER FOUR - BLINDED

  "What was that?" Courtland was startled by the sudden commotion in the basement.

  Graves was walking into the kitchen and shrugged as he glanced back. The front of the house was past a living room and a short hallway that led to the basement stairs. "Trev just got back. He was headed down to the basement with a little girl he brought."

  Jason and Louis sat at the table with Courtland and they all stopped what they were doing to listen to the shrieks that suddenly erupted from below. They got up and headed for the basement.

  "What the hell is he doing?" asked Courtland as he pulled out a revolver.

  Graves had given his lantern to Trev and grabbed another from the table as everyone headed for the stairs. "I don't know. He said he was just going to chain the kid up."

  "Sounds like he's killing that chick," said Jason as everyone hastened to see what was going on.

  They charged to the stairs and headed down to investigate. When they got there, they found Trev holding a chain that was attached to a collar around a little girl's throat. In front of him, twisting in agony on the cement floor, was the woman they'd kidnapped the day before. She was flailing wildly about as she clawed at her eyes and screamed in pain.

  Trev looked at them and shrugged with a half-hearted smile. "Hey guys."

  "What the fuck's going on?" asked Courtland.

  Trev pointed at the woman with a pocketknife. "She tried to attack me."

  "No she didn't," said the little girl at the end of the chain.

  Trev jerked the chain and knocked the girl down. "Yes she did."

  "What did you do to her?" asked Jason as he stepped forward to see the woman's face. "Did you stab her in the fucking eyes?"

  "No, I put lye in them."

  Courtland's face turned red as he screamed, "You did what?"

  "She tried to attack me."

  "So you put lye in her eyes?"

  "She needed to learn a lesson."

  Courtland pointed his revolver at Trev. The group tensed and stepped back as their leader prepared to murder the hillbilly that no one liked anyway. "You know what's in that shit, right?"

  "Yeah." Trev held his hands up and the chain rattled against his forearm. "Put the gun down, Court. What the fuck? What's the big fucking deal? She was acting up and I made sure she wouldn't do it again."

  "That's not just lye, you dumb fuck."

  "I know." Trev shrugged and looked at the others as if they should be as surprised as he was by Courtland's violent reaction. "What's the big deal? She was probably infected already anyway."

  "Well now she definitely is."

  "So the fuck what? Why should we give a shit?"

  Courtland lowered the gun but still looked angry. "We don't have much Seventy-Seven left, you idiot."

  "Then don't give her any." Trev sounded as if the thought of sharing the drug was preposterous anyhow.

  "She's the fucking entertainment here, asshole." Courtland looked at the woman who was now curled up against the wall in the corner, rubbing her eyes and sobbing. "Now her face is going to be all torn up and if we don't get her a shot, she'll turn into a fucking zombie."

  Trev pointed at the bags in the crate. "You've got her down here with bags full of this shit already. Weren't you worried she'd get infected anyhow? If she's so damn important, just pump her with some Seventy-Seven."

  "I just told you, we're running out."

  "How? We had tons of it before. I thought we just needed one shot a piece."

  "Why the fuck do you think I need the kids? Seventy-Seven works for a while, but it washes out of the system after a few days."

  "Yeah, but after that you're immune." Trev looked at Graves and Jason to back him up. "That's what you told us."

  "No, you fucking idiot. Seventy-Seven is a monoclonal antibody. To become immune it has to teach your own body to target the same proteins." Courtland grumbled as he tried to tell them how the drug worked, but he threw up his arms in frustration. "I'm not going to try and explain this to an idiot redneck."

  "So how many shots do we need?" asked Jason as he stood behind Courtland.

  "It's different for everyone." Courtland took Kim's chain away from Trev and walked toward the wall that Gwen was cowering against. "That's why we need the kids."

  "I don't follow."

  "They can produce the antibodies easier. No one's sure why that is, but some kids seem able to produce the antibodies quickly. If we can find a kid that can make the antibodies then we won't have any problem. But for now, we need as much of the Seventy-Seven as we can get."

  "We brought a few bags," said Jason about the satchels of antibiotics that Louis had stolen from a pharmacy before they came to Hailey's End.

  "It wasn't called Seventy-Seven though," said Louis. "The stuff you told me to get was called Doripenem."

  "Did you check the patent number on the bags?" asked Courtland. Jason and Louis shook their heads. "If the patent number ended in a sixteen, then you grabbed the wrong stuff. If it ended in a seventy-seven then you got the good stuff."

  "What's the difference?" asked Trev.

  "Doripenem is just an antibiotic." Courtland took the chain to the wall where there was a metal latch screwed into the concrete. He attached the chain to it using a padlock and then continued his explanation. "The zombie disease is caused by a virus. They put out a bunch of false rumors about it being a bacteria to confuse pe
ople. It's a virus that has to get into your bloodstream, and once there is corrodes your brain. I'm not going to bother with the specifics because none of you will understand it."

  "Where did the Seventy-Seven come from?" asked Louis.

  "They've had it for a couple decades. Some information about it being able to cure AIDs was leaked not that long ago. It was patent number 5676977, and they eventually just started calling it Seventy-Seven."

  "How do you know all this shit?" asked Louis.

  Jason put his arm around Louis's shoulder and nodded at Courtland. "You were wondering why we all respected the dude so much? It's because he's one of the scientists that started this shit. This is one of the main dudes responsible for bringing the world to its fucking knees."

  Courtland bowed as if he was proud to be recognized for his accomplishment. Louis stared at him in shocked silence.

  * * *

  "Just drive!" Billy screamed at Clyde as the horde surrounded them. Clyde had slowed down when the menace revealed itself and the zombies began to pour out from every side of the street. They were putrid, gelatinous creatures that left trails of white puss behind them as they walked. Their flesh was tortured by the caustic powder that had been dumped on them in the caskets, and now they had been reborn to wander until the flesh melted away and their skeletons collapsed to the pavement. Zombies are bad enough, but these walking disease factories were the foulest things Billy had ever seen.

  "I can't just drive." Clyde pointed out at the horde advancing on the front of their vehicle. "They're everywhere."

  "Time to test this fucking tank out, bro!" Levon slapped the dashboard. "Hit the gas."

  "We're not going to make it." Clyde shook his head as he revved the engine. "This is a bad idea."

  "Dude," said Billy, "I've been living on bad ideas for the past two days. Hit the fucking gas."