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We’ve been walking for nearly three and a half hours and have nearly reached the place where Reggie says Doctor White got him and Kelly inside the arcade, when I collapse.
“I can’t,” I say.
Reggie tries to give me some water, but even though I’m dehydrated, it’s not thirst that’s keeping me from going any farther. I just don’t have any more strength. I’d been fighting the growing exhaustion and strengthening headache for at least the past hour. I just don’t have any more to give.
“I need to rest.”
“We’re almost there, J,” he says, trying to urge me on. “Just a little more. Come on, you can do it.”
“No, Reggie, I can’t. You go.”
He chuffs. “Fine, we’ll rest here for the night.”
He glances nervously around us. His gaze lingers on the dark clouds gathering overhead, and I can tell he’s alarmed by how quickly they’ve come in. The wind has picked up, too, and the air smells of rain.
“There,” he says, pointing.
I can see several buildings up ahead. He tells me it’s a former cannery. Doctor White had given it wide berth before, although she hadn’t explained why. Either the place was neglected before the outbreak, or it has suffered badly since then. Windows are broken and walls are crumbling. It clearly hasn’t seen a human soul in years, whether living or otherwise. There are no footprints in the dried mud, however, and this close to the wall, the trees have all died and the ground is barren, giving the undead fewer places to hide.
But with the wall no longer pumping out its poisonous EM radiation, there’s nothing to keep them away now.
“So it’s a fixer-upper,” he tries to joke. “It’s better than staying out in the open.”
Of course, that’s assuming we even last the night. The way my head feels, I suspect the countdown has begun. I know he feels it, too.
“I should’ve made you eat something back there.”
“Not hungry,” I whisper. “Just tired. So tired.”
He curses his stupidity for wasting time by stopping off at the White house. “We should’ve just driven straight here to begin with and screw the old woman.”
“Your conscience wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“My conscience can go screw itself. If we die—”
“It won’t matter where we are, Reggie. Inside the wall or outside, the contingency will reach us no matter what. We can’t stop it.”
I’d fallen asleep in the car while he was trying to get it started, and had woken up with the pain exploding inside my head. I was alone, the car pulled over to the curb on an unfamiliar street still idling. Reggie was missing, off to fetch Doctor White and her daughter, which I hadn’t known at the time. Instead of panicking, I’d just lain there, gasping for breath and waiting for the end to come.
Reggie returned a few minutes later and apologized for leaving me. He’d found the house empty, the front door left wide open. “No blood, though. No fresh blood, anyway. No sign that anything had gone wrong.” Doctor White just wasn’t there. It was like she’d decided to go for a walk. “But I knew that wasn’t it. Nobody goes for a walk after resurrecting their daughter. And they don’t leave their door wide open during the apocalypse. I knew she was gone the moment I went inside.”
Gone and presumed dead, I’d thought, desultorily.
A small part of me was disappointed. I’d wanted to see with my own eyes the girl she’d resurrected. But a larger part of me was relieved she was gone, maybe even hoped she’d been taken. After all the crap she’d done to all of us, it was hard for me to find any sympathy for her, or her daughter.
The Audi died less than a mile away. This time, no matter what Reggie tried, it wouldn’t restart. So that’s where we got out and started walking. We didn’t do much talking after that. I was still wracked by grief. Other than to remind me to keep putting one foot in front of the other and to watch for infecteds, he pretty much said nothing. But I wasn’t so out of it that I didn’t notice he was feeling it worse than I was.
“Jess?” he whispers. He gives my shoulder a gentle shake. “Come on, just a little further. We’re almost there.”
Thunder rumbles in the distance. The sky is quickly growing darker and the wind is picking up. He lifts me up and plants me back down on my feet. “We need to keep moving, J. If we can just get off the island...”
I feel bad for him. He so badly doesn’t want to die, especially in here.
The next explosion of pain hits us both at the same time. It’s centered in the back of our heads. I manage to stay on my feet somehow, but he crumbles to the dirt, moaning. I think it’s affecting him more than me because his implant has already been partially activated several times. Or maybe whatever they did to my implant is protecting me more. In the end, however, it won’t be enough. We’ll both die.
A minute passes, and he struggles to his feet, panting. “That was a bad one,” he says. His face is green. He looks like he’s going to be sick. He’s trembling and sweating profusely. He glances over at me, then freezes. “Don’t move,” he warns in a whisper.
So, naturally, I turn to see what he’s looking at.
The dog is the same color as the dirt and barely visible in the gathering gloom. It’s filthy. Thick, sloppy drool dangles from its lip. I can just about make out its teeth. It looks rabid. And it’s right in our path.
“Nice doggie,” Reggie murmurs. “Let us pass, please.”
It lashes its tail back and forth.
“Is that a good wag or a bad wag?” he whispers to me.
He takes a step forward. “Open sesame.”
The dog bares its teeth and growls.
Reggie steps back and it stops.
“Damn it, we don’t have time for this.” He tries again, and once more a low growl rumbles from the dog’s throat. “Just get out of my way!”
The growl stops. Then it barks. Aggressively. We both flinch.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I say to Reggie. “Are you trying to antagonize it?”
“Fuck you!” Reggie shouts at the animal. “What the hell is wrong with you, you dumb mutt?”
The dog steps closer and starts to growl again. The hair on its spine is raised. It turns and snarls.
“Maybe it’s rabid.”
But it’s not looking at us. I follow its gaze, and in the gloom I see the dead emerge from out of the empty buildings, and I realize they’re already here. Just days after the wall has gone silent, they’ve already moved in.
“I think he’s warning us not to go there,” I venture.
Reggie steps back in the direction from which we’d come. The dog turns and watches us. It’s no longer growling. The menace in its eyes is gone.
“Those are the bad people?” Reggie says. “Are those the bad people?”
The dog tilts its head at him.
“So, you’re not going to bite me, are you?”
He takes a step closer, and the dog bares its teeth and starts growling again.
“Fine,” he says. “Back the way we came.”
He reaches over and lifts me up into his arms. I don’t fight him.
“You can tag along with us,” he calls over his shoulder. “You can be our guard dog. And if you don’t bite us, I’ll give you my last can of soup when we get to wherever we’re going.”
The dog barks, as if to seal the deal.
“Just, please,” Reggie says over his shoulder, “keep it down.”
