Chapter 28

BETHESDA, MARYLAND

Infection Date 34, 2300 GMT (7:00 p.m. Local)

Emma and Samantha were on Emma’s bed. Dwayne and Dorothy sat in chairs. All watched the TV news. Their no-name roommate, usually referred to by the pronoun he or him, was in his place in the far corner, avoiding everyone and being avoided.

“Why are those news people shouting?” Sam asked.

Dorothy said, “They’re angry.”

“Why?” Sam asked.

Both looked at Emma, who said, “They’re being lied to by the government.”

Sam asked, “And that makes them angry?” Emma shrugged.

One of the TV panelists said, “It’s not North Korean nukes! It’s . . . all . . . the . . . disease! It’s people with black eyes! Committing unspeakable atrocities! Wake up!”

“Stay tuned,” the host said. “We’ll be right back.”

“Tasty!” a young girl said to a woman who was boiling twenty-five-year shelf-life food. “That’s probably the girl’s mother,” Sam said. “My mother cooks.” A man and a boy at a table grinned as they ate the prepackaged meals. “I don’t know who they are,” Sam said.

“That was good,” Emma noted. “You used my and I.”

Dorothy looked back and forth between them. She mouthed: “I, I, I,” and “my, my, my,” soundlessly, but still she didn’t get it. There was no way she could pass.

The program returned with a traditional newsreader. “Although experts say it will be impossible for the island nation to seal itself off from infection, the Royal Navy has recalled most of its warships for interdiction duty.” The story moved on to Switzerland. Lines of cars and campers in a mountain pass were blocked by steel columns that had risen from smooth pavement. Troops in gas masks manned flimsy wooden barricades supporting loops of barbed wire. People waved passports in the air. “So far,” the newsman said, “only Luxembourg, Monaco, and Andorra have joined Switzerland in closing their borders.”

“In other news, the NFL has announced that next weekend’s games will be played with no spectators in attendance, but will be televised without local blackout. Fans are advised by DHS to limit any viewing parties to no more than six guests.”

Dwayne took a quick look at No-Name. Emma followed his gaze. The silent man sat on the floor hugging his knees to his chest and staring at the wall beside him.

A television commercial advertised remote island real estate in “fabulous English-speaking Belize.” Emma browsed through the channels. Prerecorded sports events. Old movies. TV reruns. And news reporting and discussion. Emma stopped on one of those.

“Well what’s your plan, then?” a woman asked a silver-haired man.

“She sounds mad, too,” Samantha said. Her fists clenched Emma’s bedsheets.

“It’s okay,” Emma said to her. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

But when the silver-haired man answered, Samantha grew even more agitated. “There’s only one solution. We can’t just let them roam the streets or they’ll spread the infection. We have to consider the disease 100 percent fatal and treat the survivors accordingly.”

“Why not just come out and say what you’re proposing?” the newswoman asked.

“That’s for the government to decide,” her guest replied. But the host said no, no, no! Samantha’s body was rigid. Emma could see that her breathing was irregular. “Okay, then. We need to impose martial law when the first outbreak happens here, and we need to give the government the legal authority to take all steps necessary.”

The host said, “You’re proposing that we kill the infected, aren’t you? Admit it!”

A free-for-all ensued. Sam’s sharp jaw was set. The cords in her neck stuck out.

The bolt on the buzzing door into their room clacked. Samantha jumped. Emma gripped the girl’s skinny thigh through her gown. All five infected patients, No-Name included, stared at the entrance as Nurse Hopkins entered in full PPE carrying boxes, which she held out in front of her. “Board games! For Samantha.” A soldier, also in PPE, stood guard behind her, his pistol at the ready. Nurse Beth put the games on the desk. “And here’s the nail polish and hair dryer you asked for.” Beth smiled and patted Samantha’s shoulder. Emma clenched Samantha’s thigh tighter. “Gonna have some girl fun?” the nurse said.

Emma could feel the muscles in Samantha’s legs, tensed, ready to leap at the woman. She squeezed hard until the nurse and soldier departed.

“They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?” Samantha whispered.

“Shhh,” Emma replied.

No-Name loosed either a growl or a groan. Everyone turned. Dwayne put himself between him and the women. No-Name rocked in a seated fetal position on the floor. He couldn’t bear to look at or talk to them, so he stared at the wall. He wouldn’t last long.

Emma went through all of the TV channels twice, stopping for snippets of news. Nothing added to their knowledge of what was happening outside. She rose from the bed.

The others turned to Emma, and she nodded. Samantha got the nail polish. Dorothy plugged the hair dryer into the socket. Dwayne dragged a chair over to the first camera, climbed up and took the nail polish Samantha handed him. A Marine’s voice came over the speakers. “Hey! Hey-hey-hey! What are you doing?”

Dwayne painted nail polish on the first of the tiny camera lenses. “I order you to stop doing that!” He did all six cameras, one after the other, in forty-eight seconds, two faster than planned, Emma confirmed on her phone’s stopwatch. Dorothy turned on the hair dryer.

* * * *

“Dr. Miller!” shouted Beth into the cafeteria, hair dripping. “Come quick!”

Brandon had been sharing a coffee at Isabel’s table. All three raced to the observation room. The only thing they could hear over the speakers was a loud whoosh of the hair dryer. Emma and three roommates huddled in a tight bunch on the floor behind an overturned bed. Their arms were in motion. They were doing something at the center of their clutch. Emma seemed to be leading, with Samantha her most vocal participant.

The six video surveillance views on the laptop screen were streaked and obscured.

Isabel’s iPad rang like a telephone. On it she saw Captain Ramirez and his Marines, on a phone and on a radio, hunched over monitors. “I got nothing!” one said.

Ramirez turned to Isabel. “Do you have eyes on the room?”

Isabel nodded. “Yes, but we can’t tell what they’re doing.”

Ramirez relayed an order via a radio. “Get in there! Safeties off!”

“Don’t hurt them!” Isabel shouted.

“I’ll be right there!” Ramirez replied.

Beth, looking shaken, said, “Your sister asked for nail polish and a hair dryer. She said she was gonna teach Sam how to make herself up. Captain Ramirez said it was okay.”

The observation room door burst open. Ramirez said, “Eyes on!” into his radio.

The tinny reply stated they were in the enrobing room. “Two minutes!”

“What happened?” Isabel asked.

“Your fucking sister’s crew in there painted the lenses of our cameras with nail polish,” Ramirez replied, peering through the window. “What the hell are they doing?”

“You’re not going to hurt them, are you?” Isabel asked.

“We’re goin’ in there one way or the other,” Ramirez said. “Their call.”

Only the Infecteds’ heads and shoulders were visible above the upended bed. Emma spoke to each in turn, calmly, and got nods as their attention periodically returned to whatever was on the floor in their midst. They could hear nothing but the whoosh.

“Ready!” came over Ramirez’s radio.

“Please tell them not to shoot!” Isabel pled.

“Angel,” Beth said, touching Ramirez’s arm, revealing an unexplained intimacy.

Ramirez looked at Beth’s pleading eyes, then reluctantly ordered, over his radio, “Hold your fire unless you have to defend yourselves.”

Emma was doing something vigorously in the center of the now silent group.

The door buzzed and opened. Four Marines in PPE entered, hunched forward behind rifles as if to brace against recoil. “Far wall! Far wall!” Their eyes were lowered to sights. Gloved fingers rested on triggers. One knelt on a kneepad for a steadier aim.

Amid the chaos, Emma rose, holding her hands in air, and then slowly reached to turn off the hair dryer. She repeated to her roommates, “Calm, calm, calm,” as they made their way to the far wall, breathing in through their noses and out through their mouths. “You too, buddy!” shouted a Marine at the silent engineer.

The fifth roommate bolted, screeching, toward the kneeling Marine. “At your three!” Ramirez shouted. Two comrades fired. With the last of Zero Zero Five’s life, the loner fell atop the kneeling Marine, who scampered out from under him and through the door in a reverse bear crawl, readjusting his headgear. Isabel glimpsed exposed skin just below his jaw. His face shield was splattered with blood.

“Quarantine him!” Ramirez ordered over the radio.

They collected the nail polish, hair dryer, Sam’s four mysterious tracings, and the shreds of the fifth. One Marine dragged the dead engineer out, leaving a smear of blood all the way to the door. The two remaining Marines completed the evacuation behind raised rifles, and the door latched.

Emma sat them all in a circle and led breathing exercises. Then Dwayne righted the bed. Samantha straightened the printouts of various maps. Dorothy used paper towels to clean up the blood. Emma retrieved her notebook and pens and headed for her bed.

But Emma stopped and looked through the window straight at Isabel, who stood with both palms pressed flat to the glass. “Is that my blouse?” Emma asked.