“Well it is. And I don’t know what to do. No one else knows either, and I’ve tried everybody.” I realized that he didn’t know Eliza, and therefore couldn’t have possibly understood what I meant when I emphasized “everybody,” but he got the general idea: everybody within reach, regardless of how unlikely or unpleasant.
“What about . . .” I think he was going to suggest Dana, maybe, but since he’d heard the “everybody” part, he restrained himself. “Everybody, huh?”
“Everybody.” The word came out covered with spit.
I was sitting there, with the water on the grass seeping through my jeans and crying like an inconsolable baby, feeling like a complete idiot, and not having any idea of how to fix it. “And now there’s this—there’s all of this,” I waved, sweeping an arm out to catch the waterlogged city and the stadium on the hill like a lighthouse or an island. “And I’m so tired, and I don’t know if I can do this. I only wanted to get some fireworks.”
It trailed off in a mumble. Nick patted me on the back.
“Do you still think that’s a good idea? You said they’re coming up under the city, but I think you believe me now when I say, ‘Not all of them.’ You’ll get some of them, but you won’t stop the rest. And now you’re telling me that you don’t think they can be stopped.”
“I didn’t say that.” I sniffled, then remembered that I had said that. “I didn’t mean it, if I did.”
“So what do we do?”
“We can either (hiccup), we can either sit around and let them all get in, or we can stop some of them. We can (hiccup), we can let the feds and cops handle the topside things, and we can take care of the ones coming up from undersides (hiccup).”
“We could try reporting it first. Down there, at the ball park.”
I tried to snort derisively, but I only succeeded in blowing snot around. “They’ve got their hands full already, don’t you think? And what would we tell them? Zombies coming up from underground? We’ve got zombies running around on the streets where everybody can see them. Let’s deal with those first, that’s probably what they’ll say.”
I wiped my whole face on my sleeve again and then propped myself on my arms. Nick leaned back and did likewise. Under different circumstances, we might have looked like a picnic, there overlooking the city beside the interstate.
“How do you think they’re handling it?” Nick asked. “What are they doing? I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that shambling undead aren’t exactly in the FEMA handbook.”
I turned my head to lay it sideways on my forearm. “Shooting at them, I guess. We’ve heard gunshots a lot lately, here and there. I mean, if I had a gun and I saw one of those things, I’d probably shoot at it. I’d totally aim for the head, too.”
“Do you think it’s working?”
“Probably not. I’m forced to assume it’s not. They’re still out wandering around—but it could be worse. It’s not exactly a horde. And I have a feeling—just a feeling (hiccup) that they’re not going to spread anything. I think there’s a finite number at work. And goddamn I thought I was done with those hiccups.”
“You’re getting done with the crying part, at least.”
“Yeah,” I said, as if I’d noticed before he pointed it out—though I hadn’t. But the faucet was creaking itself shut and the sobbing was subsiding. I was almost intelligible. The stupid feeling wouldn’t go away so quickly.
“So. Finite number. Shambling undead. Working their way up from the water. Coming by land and by under land. If you really want to go down to the stadium and steal some fireworks, I guess you can count me in.”
“Really?”
“Hell yeah. But I don’t think we should break in. I think we should walk up and knock. You’re doing the hysterical female thing really well right now—or you were a minute ago. I think we can use that.”
“You are so mercenary.”
“That’s why you like me so much.”
“What makes you think I like you at all?”
“Reporter’s instinct. It’s like woman’s intuition. Ironclad and perfect, at all times.”
He was trying to make me laugh. I let him have a small cackle, because one of us deserved a small victory right about then and it probably wasn’t going to be me.
“There you go,” he said, nudging me with his shoulder. “But knock that shit off, would you? By the time we get down there, I want you whimpering, cowering, and begging for help. You pull that off, and I’ll get us in just fine.”
He stood then, bracing himself on the wet grass and offering me his hands. I reached up and took them, and let him hoist me to my feet. He slung an arm over my shoulder as if to keep me close or help me up. Under different circumstances I might have considered it too much, but I kicked my intimacy issues aside and let myself be happy that there was someone else warm there beside me.
Half sliding and half stumbling, we made it together down the hill and came splashing toes-first into the water. There wasn’t any way around it.
To our ankles, and to our knees, but not much higher—no swimming—we waded our way past floating trash, swimming rats, dead birds, and shiny slick spots that might have been oil, toxic waste, or anything else.
“Hold it right there,” we were ordered.
We held it, shivering even though it wasn’t that cold, even in the water. I hoped I looked as pathetic as I felt. Nick stood up straighter and moved his arm to my waist.
“Hey.” He waved with the other arm. “I’m Nick Alders—from Channel Three. I let you guys take my SUV yesterday. I was working my way back to the shelter and I found her,” he said, meaning me. “I think she needs medical attention, and this was closer than the Read House. She can hardly walk, and I can barely carry her.”
I slumped against him, as his narrative seemed to require. But I tried not to be too obvious about it.
It worked. At least it worked insomuch as the cop with the very large gun quit aiming it at us and pointed the muzzle down at the water. “Bring her on in. You can’t be walking around out here, though. Jesus, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that the son of a bitch who runs the newsroom reamed me out because I was supposed to get a signature from somebody about that fucking SUV. So when I finished screaming his eardrums out, I was too pissed off to stay put.”
“Where’d you find her?” He was a blond guy—a Bubba, I suspected, one of those younger, corn-fed local boys who gets way too excited about a little authority. It’s a type—thrilled to be in charge, but without enough experience to nail down the proper cop voice for more than a sentence at a time. But he was walking us back through knee-deep sludge to safety, so I couldn’t muster too much ill to say about him.
Half a block back we met more water and more cops, who were canvassing the area like crazy and looking jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. They chattered back and forth through radio receivers strapped onto their chests like bulky black Star Trek communicators.
Hard to blame them. I knew what they were patrolling for.
“Get them inside,” somebody said, but I couldn’t tell who. I was glad for the permission though. Nick was right, it was a whole lot easier than breaking in.
I didn’t say anything, just kept my head down. I let Nick lurch me along without either giving him too much help or causing him undue effort, or so I liked to think. He was grunting and sweating by the time we made it to the edge of the stadium, though.
When I did look up there were more police and a bunch of men in wading boots, plus a scattered woman or two. Everyone had a radio or a cell phone stapled against an ear. Everyone was giving orders, pointing, and arguing or demanding more information.
Nick and I were probably the only people there who could’ve actually told them anything more than they already knew, but nobody asked us and we didn’t offer our expertise. Nothing we knew would have made them hold their guns any steadier.
“Shoot them in the head—what kind of advice is that? That’s video game advice, numbnuts,” one guy was asking, somewhere by the main gate.
“Well it can’t hurt. Slows them down, I think. Haven’t you ever seen a movie? Always start with a head shot, if you can get one.”
“Head shots aren’t bringing them down, sir.”
“Head shots aren’t speeding them up, either.”
Above us all the back wall of the bleachers rose up high and sharp against the sky, against clouds that were still loaded with enough rain to keep us all mighty uncomfortable. I’d never been to a game there. Never cared much about baseball. Never thought we needed another stupid stadium. But it was definitely big and solid looking.
There were worse forts you could pick to hide in.
The ticket offices were lined up and empty, closed up and unattended. Vendors’ carts had been kicked out of the interior, I guess, and were stacked or pushed out of the way into the parking lot, piled up like barricades.
I saw a few other refugees too—other people who were closer to this shelter than to any of the others farther down, away from the water. We were all being herded back to the interior, so we went. Up into the skyboxes they wanted us to go, but my legs weren’t working very well and I had a hard time with the stairs.
“Elevators?” I asked. Someone said they weren’t working, or they weren’t being used except for emergency personnel or disabled people, so I closed my eyes and locked my knees.
I don’t know how many flights I climbed to get up into the skybox, but once I was there it wasn’t too bad. Inside, there was climate control—and there were towels, and fans, and even some hot food and fountain sodas. I dropped myself into one of the plush, oversized chairs in a corner and tried not to fall asleep where I flopped.
Nick brought me a Coke and a hot dog, just like it was an ordinary day at the ball park.
