Ethan pulled the SUV to a slow stop in front of his mother’s house. The sun had barely begun to tint the sky, and it was difficult to see the house in the dim light. There was no light coming from it or any of the houses nearby, and the street was dark. The lack of light made Cade nervous, and she gritted her teeth as she leaned forward in her seat. She clutched the rifle in her hands for some level of comfort and looked around the interior of the car, checking the console and glove box for a flashlight. “You got a light, Eth?”
Ethan nodded and opened his door. “Yeah, there’s one in my bag in the back,” he said as he slid out. Cade opened her own door and eased slowly out of the Jeep. She lifted her rifle to her shoulder and swept the street as she squinted into the darkness. Her instincts screamed for her to get back inside the Jeep, but she refused to let Ethan go on alone. Nothing about the dark street felt safe to her, and any backup she could offer Ethan would be given without hesitation or request.
“What’s with the gun?” Ethan asked as he offered Cade the flashlight. Cade took it and turned it on. She shone it over the front lawn of Ethan’s mother’s house as far as the beam would reach. She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary—other than the oppressive darkness in the street.
“Rifle,” Cade corrected automatically. “And I’m just taking adequate precautions.” She spoke casually, but her tone didn’t do much to mask the nervous butterflies that kicked up in her stomach. She swallowed hard and curled two fingers around the flashlight to keep the beam ahead of her as she made her way to the front door. “Your mom can yell at me for waving a rifle in her face later. I’m just trying to keep us from getting killed right now.”
“Getting killed?” Ethan repeated. He followed Cade up the concrete walkway. “You think it’s that serious?” Cade looked back at him. Despite his words, she noticed his hand resting on the handgun he kept at his hip.
“That’s what my instincts are telling me,” Cade said as she reached the front porch. “And I learned very quickly to listen to my instincts in the IDF. They never failed me then, and I’m sure they won’t now. Get up here and open the door.”
Ethan followed Cade’s lead and drew his Glock from its holster. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and thumbed through them to find the right one. He only dropped the set of keys once in the attempt, and after he’d scrambled to pick them up, he slid the correct key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open with his foot. It swung open with barely a sound and revealed an interior that was just as dark as the street outside. “Who’s first?” Ethan asked.
“I’ll go,” Cade volunteered. She pulled the keys from the lock and tossed them back to Ethan before she slipped inside. She scanned the dark entryway as she shone her flashlight across it. “Where would your mother most likely be?”
“Probably upstairs in her room,” Ethan guessed. Cade frowned as she moved farther into the foyer to make room for Ethan to enter the house behind her.
“Leave the front door open,” Cade said. She dropped her voice to a hushed murmur, more out of an abundance of caution and instinct than anything else.
“Why?”
“Just in case we need to get out quick,” Cade said. “Because I actually have a sense of self-preservation.” She nodded toward the living room door. “I’ll check out the living room and kitchen. You hit the other rooms on this floor, and then we’ll go upstairs together.” Ethan let out a breath and nodded. Cade caught his forearm as he started to move past her. “Keep your eyes open and stay on guard,” she said. “You never know what we’re going to find here. It’s best to be prepared for the worst.”
Cade closed her eyes for just a moment as Ethan disappeared into the darkness of the house. His footsteps echoed faintly against the walls. Cade suddenly felt horribly alone. In the absence of the one distracting element she’d had since their flight from Memphis, Cade found her mind sliding back to thoughts of Josie and Andrew. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she bit down hard on her lip as she struggled to quell them. She shook her head as she forced her mind to focus on the task at hand. Shouldering her rifle once more, Cade moved on cats’ feet toward the living room, barely making a sound as she slid down the hallway to the door.
Cade had been to Ethan’s mother’s house before, when Ethan had dragged her along to visit his mother after his father’s death. The room looked almost exactly the same as it had the year before, though there were a few new pictures of Ethan and Anna lining the mantelpiece. She swallowed hard as she saw Anna’s smiling face frozen in the frames above the fireplace, and she forced her eyes away. She didn’t need to succumb to emotional impulses when she had work to do. Cade swept her rifle quickly over a room completely devoid of movement before she stepped inside and eased her way along the outer walls to the kitchen door.
Cade stopped short as she took in her initial sweep of the usually immaculate kitchen. What she saw by the beam of her flashlight made her eyes widen in surprise.
The kitchen had been the scene of a tremendous fight. Canisters of flour and sugar had been knocked over and their contents spilled across the counter and onto the floor. A bowl of cereal lay broken and clotted on the breakfast table in the corner of the kitchen. Chairs were overturned. The open back door let in the frigid air from outside. The knife block in the center of the island counter lay on its side. The largest knife in the block was missing from its slot. Cade shone her light around to look for it and spotted a pool of partially congealed blood near the stainless steel refrigerator. It was splashed across the wooden floorboards and spattered on the bottom half of the refrigerator. Cade was unsure if it was enough blood to indicate that someone had died there, but it was enough for her to dart back to the hallway to call for assistance.
“Ethan!” Cade yelled. “Get in the kitchen, quick!”
It took Ethan only moments to meet Cade in the kitchen doorway. Cade shone her flashlight’s beam around the kitchen to show Ethan what had prompted her to call out. Ethan stopped short two steps into the room and sucked in a sharp breath.
“Jesus, what happened?” Ethan asked, horror invading his features.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Cade said. She paced the room and took in the sight of the damage. “It looks like there was a serious fight in here. You find your mom?”
“She isn’t here,” Ethan confirmed. “I finished up downstairs quicker than I thought I would and checked out the second floor. No sign.”
Cade nodded to the open back door and paused in the doorway to look out across the back yard. A cold wind blew through her dark hair and inched up underneath her jacket and flannel shirt. She shivered violently. Her finger hovered over the safety on her rifle, ready to slide it to its off position at a moment’s notice. “Maybe she got out of here,” Cade suggested. “Think she might be at a neighbor’s or somewhere nearby?”
“Maybe,” Ethan said. His voice was heavy with doubt. “We should check it out.”
“Wait,” Cade said. She stepped out onto the back deck, her boots thumping hollowly on the treated wooden planks. She scanned the back yard again and studied the shadows for anything unusual. Her instincts still yammered at the back of her skull, clamoring for attention. Cade drew in a breath and stepped back inside. She shut the door firmly and locked it behind her. “We should wait until the sun comes up. I want to be able to see everything around us.”
“But my mom—”
“If your mom is at a neighbor’s house, then she’ll be fine for another thirty minutes,” Cade insisted. She skirted the pool of blood and went to the front door to close and lock it too. “And if she’s not at the neighbor’s house…” Cade trailed off and let the implication hang in the air.
“Then there’s nothing we can do for her,” Ethan finished.
Cade nodded and retrieved a chair from the kitchen. She set it by the front door and sat in it, studying the street outside in silence. She rested her rifle across her knees and took her hair out of its ponytail so she could put it back up more neatly. “You okay?” Cade asked Ethan after she’d snapped the elastic band back around her hair.
Ethan crouched on the floor beside Cade, resting on the balls of his feet. He dropped his forearms down onto his thighs and let out a slow breath. “I don’t know,” he admitted as he focused on the floor. “I’m still trying to cope with Anna—” He broke off as he said his wife’s name and shook his head. “And now maybe my mom too,” he added.
Cade caught Ethan’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “And Josie,” she said. She turned her head away from him and tried to look at the street outside the window again. The thought of the little girl hurt, so once again, Cade shoved it to the back of her mind where she could deal with it later.
Nearly an hour passed before Cade felt it was light enough outside. She rose to her feet and moved to the front door, unlocking it and opening it cautiously. “I’m going to go check out the neighbor’s house,” Cade told Ethan. He still crouched on the floor, his elbows still resting on his thighs. “If you want, you can stay here in case your mom shows up.”
Ethan hesitated and looked toward the kitchen doorway before he shook his head and stood. He drew his gun from its holster and slid the safety off. “No, I’m going with you,” he said. “Just in case you need some backup, you know? You’re good with a gun, but someone can still get the jump on you if you’re not expecting it.”
Cade smirked and raised an eyebrow. She rested her rifle against her shoulder, barrel pointed toward the ceiling. “You say that like you have no confidence in my abilities,” she said as she stepped out onto the front porch. She could feel her mood lifting as she had something to focus on, a mission to accomplish.
“I just don’t want you to get overconfident,” Ethan said. He followed Cade onto the porch and lowered his voice as they left the safety of the house and moved into the dawn-lit street.
“Eth, I was in the IDF for seven years,” Cade pointed out. “I was a marksman for most of that time. I’m pretty sure I have a lock on not getting overconfident at this point.”
Ethan chuckled, and Cade gave him a slight smile before she descended the front steps. Her brain settled into its old military mindset, and she eased her way to the street with all of her senses on high alert. There was no movement on the street, not a bird or a cat or a dog or a person. Cade knew that that was unusual for a residential neighborhood, and the very lack of movement drew her attention like nothing else. Cade sucked in a slow breath as she glanced back at Ethan. He followed her off the porch and down the sidewalk, his own gun in his hand. Cade nodded in approval and turned in a half-circle to sweep the yards on either side of them with her rifle as she walked toward the street.
“Where would she be most likely to go?” Cade asked Ethan as she paused in her journey to let him catch up with her. She kept her voice low as he stopped beside her. His green eyes squinted in the brightening dawn.
“Probably Miss Jemison’s house,” Ethan said thoughtfully. “They’ve always been pretty close. Mom might have thought to go there for safety in numbers or to see if Miss Jemison needed any help.”
“Where’s that at?” Cade asked. She followed his gaze down the street.
“About three houses down there on the left.” Ethan pointed to the house. It was a stately brick affair, reasonably new, with a neatly landscaped front yard and a short fence surrounding the entire lot. It wasn’t a fence designed for any level of serious protection, more decoration than anything else.
Before Cade and Ethan had passed even one house, Cade saw movement in the corner of her right eye. She froze, and her shoulders tensed in a moment of indecision. Then she turned on her heel and moved to stand between Ethan and the threat that presented itself. It was a man, and he crossed the yard of the house across the street and headed directly toward them.
“Hey!” the man shouted. The man’s eyes flicked to the rifle aimed directly at his head, and he skidded to a halt at the edge of the sidewalk. He lifted a gun of his own and pointed it at Cade. Ethan sidestepped from behind Cade to point his own gun at the unknown man, pulling the slide back to chamber a bullet. The man tensed visibly at the ominous sound, but he continued to aim his weapon at Cade.
“Who are you?” Cade demanded.
“Are you one of them?” the man countered.
“I asked you a question,” Cade snapped.
The man ignored Cade’s reply. He said again, slowly and carefully, “Are you one of them?” His voice was strained.
“Are we one of what?” Cade asked as she glared at him. She never appreciated having a gun in her face. She flipped the safety off on her rifle with a slow, deliberate move of her finger to make sure the man saw the motion and to make sure he knew exactly what it meant.
“Are you infected?” the man asked impatiently.
It was as the man uttered those words that Cade noticed the way he stood. Despite the tenseness underlying his words, the man wasn’t physically tense at all. Indeed, he was nearly relaxed, his stance speaking of professionalism and expertise with the weapon he held. The idea of him being in the military flitted through Cade’s mind, and she stiffened slightly as she narrowed her eyes.
“Infected?” Cade repeated. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Cade didn’t dare look away as the man met her gaze. His eyes were warm and brown, flecked with a hint of gold. They drew Cade in like a moth to flame, and she was forced to break their eye contact. The man hesitated before he removed his hand from his gun and put it up in surrender. He lowered the gun to hang at his side.
“Put it down,” Ethan ordered, speaking for the first time since their encounter with the man. “On the ground. Now.”
The man sighed again, the noise touched with a tinge of exasperation. He leaned to set the weapon on the ground at his feet. Cade made note of the camouflage pants and scraped, dirty black combat boots the man wore, which supported her suspicions. He straightened and held both hands out to his sides, as if to show Ethan and Cade that they were now both empty.
“Who are you?” Cade asked again now that they had the man unarmed. She suspected, though, that despite his weaponless state, he was far from defenseless.
The man made a cautious gesture at their surroundings and said, “It’s not safe out here. We need to get inside.”
“What is going on?” Ethan demanded as Cade lowered her rifle. He did not put his own gun away.
“I’ll explain in a minute,” the man said. He turned and headed back toward the house from which he’d come. “Once we’re inside.”
Cade lifted her rifle again as the man put his back to them. “Not until you tell us who the hell you are,” she said to his back. He stopped and turned slowly to look at her. His dark eyes were curious as they skimmed over her entire body. Cade stiffened self-consciously as he studied her, but she held her ground and kept her rifle steady.
“Interesting accent you have there,” the man observed. “What is it, Middle Eastern? Israeli, perhaps?” He stepped forward and held out a hand to her. “Lieutenant Brandt Evans, United States Marines,” he said.
Cade hesitated before she lowered her rifle and offered Brandt her hand in return. “Samal Rishon Cade Alton, former Israel Defense Forces,” she replied.
“Samal Rishon?” Brandt questioned, raising an eyebrow.
“Your military’s equivalent of Staff Sergeant,” Cade clarified. Ethan let out an impatient growl beside her. She raised an eyebrow at Ethan as she let go of Brandt’s hand. He’d lifted his gun again to point at Brandt. Cade wondered exactly what about Brandt’s presence brought out the irrational anger in Ethan, but she wasn’t sure this was the time to ask.
“Enough with the fucking pleasantries,” Ethan snapped. “Tell us what’s going on.”
“Like I said, we need to get inside first,” Brandt said. He glanced down either direction of the street and then down at the gun at his feet. He didn’t try to pick it up. “Is that your SUV over there?” he asked Cade.
“It’s Ethan’s,” Cade replied. She gestured toward the man beside her.
“Move it over here,” Brandt said. He pointed to the house behind him. “My base is inside. I’m assuming you’ve got supplies in that SUV? At the very least, it’ll make a good escape vehicle in case we need it.”
“Escape from what?” Ethan asked.
“Ethan, put the gun down,” Cade ordered. She waited until Ethan complied before she added, “Go get the Jeep. I’ll deal with him.”
“Cade, you don’t know—”
“If it’s safe?” Cade interrupted. “Ethan, I can take care of myself. Now go.”
Ethan gave Cade one more look that told her just how much he didn’t like leaving her alone with a stranger. Then he nodded and headed to the Jeep. “So, Marines?” Cade questioned.
“Yeah, Marines,” Brandt affirmed. “We’re both military people, huh?” He paused and motioned toward the house again. “Come on. Let’s get inside. Ethan can take care of himself, right?” Cade nodded and followed Brandt up the walkway after he’d retrieved his weapon from the sidewalk. “So where are you two from?”
“Memphis, Tennessee,” Cade said. She raised an eyebrow as Brandt winced.
“Jesus, and you guys made it out of there alive?” Brandt asked. Disturbed by his incredulity, Cade grabbed his shoulder to stop him.
“What do you mean? What the hell are you talking about?”
“The virus,” Brandt said as he gave Cade a strange look. “The one they’re talking about on TV? It’s almost completely wiped out Memphis overnight.”
Cade raised both eyebrows and shook her head. “A virus?” she repeated as Ethan jogged to catch up with them. “So it’s true? A virus is actually causing all this? It’s not just … rioting and shit?”
“The virus that’s been spreading out from Atlanta, yeah,” Brandt explained. He looked at Cade as if she’d lost her mind. “The one that’s causing all these people to go crazy.” He nodded toward the door. “Get inside. I’ll explain.”
“What about my mother?” Ethan asked Cade softly as she started to step into the house.
Cade studied Ethan’s face, trying to get a read on the emotions she could see in his eyes. Before she could speak, Brandt moved back to them and said, “If your mother lived on this street, she isn’t here anymore. I’ve already been through the houses. You’re the first person I’ve seen since yesterday afternoon.”
“So where is everyone?” Cade asked. She finally stepped inside and pulled Ethan after her by his jacket sleeve.
“They were picked up throughout the day yesterday,” Brandt said. “By the military for screening and possible quarantine. They’re trying to contain the virus, but that’ll never happen. It’s totally out of their control. Out of anyone’s control.”
Ethan swore softly under his breath and shut the door behind them. He locked it and turned to face Brandt, crossing his arms over his chest. “And were you the one who spilled blood in my mother’s kitchen?” he asked as he fixed his cold green eyes on Brandt.
Brandt raised an eyebrow in confusion. “What?”
“Ethan, stop it,” Cade snapped. She stepped between the two men. “You’re not helping anything at all.” She turned back to Brandt and resisted the urge to cross her own arms. “Now tell us what’s going on,” she said. “All we know is what we’ve heard on the radio, and that apparently isn’t very much. Just riots and murders.”
“Sit down and relax,” Brandt said. He motioned to the floral-printed couch in the living room. Cade thought it looked hideous, but it appeared comfortable enough to sit on. She sank onto the cushions and set her rifle down on the seat beside her. Ethan took the spot on her left; he sat straight-backed and tense as he watched every move Brandt made. “You two look like hell,” Brandt commented. “I take it you didn’t sleep last night.”
“I take it you didn’t either,” Cade said knowingly. She’d noticed the dark circles under his brown eyes and the tightness of his face as soon as she’d seen him close up. His appearance spoke of at least one sleepless night in his recent history.
“I haven’t slept much in days,” Brandt admitted with a shrug, as if he were used to going without sleep for extended periods. “Not since, well, not since all this shit started.”
“But it only broke out within the last two days,” Cade said as she sat up straighter. She looked at the tall man in growing confusion, wondering just how much Brandt knew.
“It only broke out in Memphis yesterday,” Brandt corrected. “It’s been going on in Atlanta to some degree for about a week.”
A silence fell over the room. Ethan and Cade stared at Brandt as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe. Cade noticed that he positioned himself where he could see both the living room and the front door, as if standing guard. He looked as if he were about to say something, but he didn’t speak. Instead, he stared off into the space in front of him solemnly.
“What’s going on?” Cade asked. She felt like she shouldn’t have broken the silence, but the need to know what was happening was overwhelming.
Brandt rubbed at his face with a hand before he began to speak. “I know some of what’s going on, but I don’t know everything,” he said carefully. “And I don’t know if what I know is very accurate.” His voice was just loud enough to carry over to Cade and Ethan. “This is all being caused by some type of virus.”
Ethan abandoned his quiet contemplation of his hands to look up at Brandt. He looked as if he were trying to gauge whether Brandt was serious or not. Cade swallowed hard as she realized that her suspicions had been right.
“Its official name is RPV, or Regenerative Psychotic Virus,” Brandt continued. “But its trade name, common name, whatever you want to call it, is the Michaluk Virus.”
“Why the Michaluk Virus?” Cade stumbled over the name as she said it slowly.
“Because the first guy we know of who bit it because of the virus was named Kevin Michaluk,” Brandt explained. “It started last week, at least as far as I know. There was some lab tech at the CDC who got infected with a virus, and he passed it to everyone he came into contact with shortly after, and they passed it on to everyone they came in contact with, etcetera, etcetera.”
“So how does that have anything to do with the rioting in Memphis and, apparently, Alabama and Atlanta?” Cade asked.
“Because of what the virus does to your mind,” Brandt said. He turned to face them fully, his expression hard and serious. “I can’t say I completely understand how it works. I’m a military man, not a scientist. It’s like it gets into your mind somehow, and it …” Brandt made a strange gripping gesture at his forehead. “It’s like it mutates whatever is there. It attacks the areas where anger and hatred are kept. The victims of the virus become, well, homicidal. They develop a taste for violence, for blood and … and flesh.”
Ethan and Cade stared at Brandt. “For … flesh,” Cade repeated slowly. She raised both eyebrows. “Like zombies or some shit?”
“They’re not zombies,” Brandt said crossly. His tone suggested that it was a debate in which he’d engaged before. “They’re just incredibly violent people infected with a really nasty virus, and they’ll kill you as soon as they can get their hands on you.”
“Treatment?” Ethan questioned.
“There isn’t one.”
“Well, that’s just fucking great,” Cade muttered. She frowned as she flopped back against the couch. “How does it spread?”
“We’re not one hundred percent sure,” Brandt admitted. “Initially, the virus was airborne, but that variant died out pretty quickly. I haven’t seen an airborne case of Michaluk in a few days. Now it seems like it’s spreading by contact with bodily fluids, sort of like zombies,” he said. He nodded to Cade in acknowledgement of her earlier comment. “Saliva, blood, whatever. If it comes into contact with your own blood and has a way to get into your bloodstream, then you’ve got it.”
“Shit,” Cade breathed. She looked at Ethan; he still stared at Brandt. “Do you think that’s what happened to Lisa?” she asked.
“Lisa?” Brandt repeated before Ethan could answer. “Who is Lisa?”
“She was one of An-… one of Ethan’s wife’s coworkers,” Cade explained. “She was at work in one of the Memphis hospitals. She got attacked by some man after there was a fire in the emergency room. She … she didn’t make it,” Cade finished lamely.
Brandt glanced toward the door before he asked, “Is that where the blood in the back seat came from?” Cade nodded, and Brandt stepped back from them quickly. He pulled his gun back out from the holster on his belt and pointed it at them. “Are either of you injured? Did any of her blood or saliva come into contact with your eyes or mouth or any cuts or scrapes you have?”
Ethan leaped up and pulled his own handgun from its holster. Cade swung her rifle from the couch cushion beside her to point it at Brandt.
“By your own admission, if we were infected, you’d damn well know it by now,” Ethan said in a tight, barely controlled voice that Cade had never heard from him before. She eased her gaze over from Brandt to look at Ethan. He stood by her, his finger curled over the trigger of his gun, his teeth clenched as he glared daggers at the tall man in the doorway.
A wave of frustration and exhaustion washed over Cade as she looked between the two men. “Can we all just calm down already?” she asked, lowering her weapon. “Shit is bad enough without all of us constantly pointing guns at each other.”
“You know, she’s right,” Brandt said to Ethan. Brandt didn’t lower his gun, though. “You really should put your gun down.”
“Put yours down first,” Ethan ordered.
“No thanks, Mr. Policeman,” Brandt said sarcastically. “I think I’m fine like this.”
“How did you know I was a cop?” Ethan demanded.
“Badge on the dashboard.”
Cade groaned in annoyance and waved the barrel of her rifle at Brandt. “Both of you put your damn guns down now before I just shoot you both and get the hell out of here,” she snapped. She resisted the urge to kick the wooden coffee table at her knees.
“The lady’s right,” Brandt said with a smirk. “We really should be focusing on getting out of here.”
Cade made a face as neither man moved to lower his gun. She set her rifle on the couch, stormed over to Brandt, and shoved his arm down to his side. “I said put your damn gun down,” she repeated, just loud enough for him to hear.
“Fine, but only because you asked so nicely,” Brandt replied just as quietly. Cade waited until Brandt flipped the safety on and put the gun away before she stepped back and nodded to Ethan.
Ethan slowly relaxed and lowered his gun. He hesitated before he slid it into his holster. Brandt leaned against the doorframe once more as if nothing untoward had happened. “So what do you propose we do?” Ethan asked.
Brandt pulled a small notebook out of his back pocket and tossed it onto the coffee table. “My observations,” he explained. “We start by getting you two educated. We can’t deal with this shit without knowing what it is we’re dealing with.”