LovewithaChanceofZombies (5 page)

Chapter Six

Lena tried not to count the days, but there was a calendar
on the wall in the lab and she couldn’t help checking it every time she walked
in. Lucas spent some time working every day, but with none of the focus of
those first few days she’d stayed with him. She would have felt guilty about
distracting him if she’d thought he really had a chance at a last-minute
miracle cure. As it was, when she allowed herself to think about it at all, she
felt honored to be his final distraction.

They had sex everywhere, all the time, like randy teenagers.
Every day she got closer to thinking of it as making love.

No good would have come of saying those words, so they
didn’t. That could only make it worse, the inevitable heartbreak when he died.
It was tough enough as it was.

Once, after they’d exhausted each other and lay in a
contented, jumbled heap on the bed, Lucas whispered, “I wish I’d known you. I
liked you before, you know. We’d met a few times.”

She laughed, charmed at the notion that Lucas would think
she needed reminding of this. “I remember.”

“You seemed like someone… I thought about asking you out.
But I didn’t because you seemed like someone I could really fall for. I didn’t
want that complication, those expectations. It all sounded like such a
responsibility. Now I wish I had asked.”

Lena twined her fingers with his, squeezing gently. “Good
thing you got around to it in the nick of time, at least.” She kept her voice
light and was glad for the darkness that hid her expression. “I liked you
before too.”

Not nearly as much as she liked him now though. That part
was even harder, in a way. The sex was fantastic, heroic indeed. But Lena
already knew the laughs were what she’d really miss, and the talks. And seeing
him. And sleeping next to him. And knowing he liked her back. He was somebody
she could have wanted to spend her life with, but she’d found him too late. She
could still want it, of course, but only with the knowledge that she couldn’t
have it.

Twenty-one to forty-two days—that was the known incubation
period for the virus. Four to five weeks was the most common range. Lena
pictured the calendar in the lab as if she had crossed the days off, and she
saw red X marks mounting. Nine days, ten, eleven, marking off the precious time
they’d spent together. The image stayed in her mind always, haunting her
dreams.

On the twelfth day of Lucas’ confinement, Watson visited
them in the lab.

“There’s been another attack,” the admiral said after the
obligatory greetings. “Out at the big farm. In the northwest corner again.”

“The hemp?” Lucas was intrigued enough to actually leave his
stool. “That’s what, the third time?”

“Fourth,” Watson corrected. “A few strays came at it three
days ago, but they were picked off. They came just after dawn.”

“After? They must have been starving,” Lena said.

“Or just really tempted,” Nye countered. “There’s something
about that location, or about the hemp. Admiral, I’d like to take a look, maybe
collect some samples. Can you get me out there this afternoon?”

An awkward pause followed as everybody recalled that Nye was
in quarantine.

“A disguise, maybe?” suggested Lena. “We can throw some
fatigues, a hat and some sunglasses on him, drive all the way to the corner
where the attack happened, and he can scope it out and take samples before
anybody notices he isn’t just a guard.”

“I’d like to get some fresh air,” Nye added wistfully.

That seemed to be the deciding factor for Watson, who
perhaps recalled that in the regular quarantine, the “patients” got to spend
time outside every day. “We can make it work,” he said with obvious reluctance,
“but you stay in the back of the van until I give you the all-clear, and you’ll
have five minutes out there at the most. If anybody spots you, you’ll have to
go into quarantine like anybody else, and the lab time will be through. I’ll
leave it up to you, whether you want to take the risk.”

* * * * *

They were in the van within half an hour, bumping along the
rough road to the farm. Lena kept checking her weapon, uncomfortable with the
knowledge that she hadn’t fired it in close to two weeks. It felt slightly
unfamiliar in her hands, and that was unsettling.

The ride was uneventful, and the farm was peaceful under the
midday sun. From the rear window Lena spotted a few isolated workers, but the
farthest fields were quiet as the grave. The northwest corner was deserted,
nothing to see but rows of slender plants that formed a wall of green higher
than Watson’s head when he stepped out of the van to scan for prying eyes.

A few seconds went by, Lena and Lucas waiting while the van
ticked and creaked, settling around them. The knock on the back door made them
both jump, and they shared a sheepish grin as Lucas leaned to turn the handle.

The farm was even quieter, in its way, than the lab. Lena
followed Nye, who strode purposefully toward the fence that stood about thirty
feet past the last row of hemp plants. She could see the repair, a tangle of
barbed wire coiled in a lethal spiral between two posts that looked new. The
wood was still bright, unweathered, and the whole section stood out clearly
between the adjacent lines of horizontally strung razor wire.

“They’ll be fortifying the whole thing tomorrow,” Watson
said from behind them. “For now, they’ve just stuck in whatever they could
find.”

“The forest must be a quarter mile from here,” Lucas said,
lifting a hand to his forehead as he gazed toward the distant tree line.
Zombies liked forests, with their indigenous snacks and soft soil for digging
into at night. “They came all this way when the sun was already rising?”

“So the guards said,” Watson confirmed. “Lucky their patrol
took them past here when it did, or things could’ve gone a lot worse. They’ve
increased the frequency of the patrols along here, but that may not cut it.”

Lena had slung her rifle to her back while she walked, but
she gripped it automatically as she looked out at the trees. “This doesn’t make
sense, sir.”

Watson tilted his head, ready to hear. Lena pointed at the
fence line and then off to the woods. “The sun had risen when the stragglers
got this far, and the report said the patrol arrived on the scene and stopped
the zombies when they were already crashing the fence. But look how far it is
to the trees. It must have been nearing dawn when they left the cover and
started this way, and they just won’t do that if they don’t have a reason.
They’re slow and sleepy by that time, and the sunrise would’ve stopped them if
they weren’t highly motivated. There’s food in the woods. Maybe not their
favorite, but they weren’t likely starving. So if the patrol guys weren’t
visible, what was the motivation?”

“Which direction was the wind blowing?” Nye asked. “Is there
a weather recorder here?”

It was an agricultural station. Watson was sure there was a
weather recorder, so he returned to the van to radio while Lucas and Lena
walked back more slowly to the line of hemp stalks. Lucas took out a
pocketknife and started scraping samples from the closest stalk, plucking a
leaf here and there.

“Move over,” Lena said after watching a few seconds of that.
Pulling out her boot knife, she sawed straight through the fibrous stalk about
halfway up then presented the three-foot section to Lucas like a giant green
nightmare of a bouquet.

“Thanks.”

“Do you need any of the roots?”

“Sure.”

He seemed pensive, staring out past the fence for a few
seconds then closing his eyes and turning his face up to the sun. A faint,
bittersweet smile crossed his lips. Lena glanced away, feeling as if she was
intruding on something unbearably private.

She thought Lucas was wrong about himself. He really
was
a hero, a better person than most, inherently admirable. In the face of certain
death, he was giving up a few of his remaining days trying to solve one last
puzzle for the people he would leave behind. He was even trying to do his
part—better late than never—to contribute to the future existence of the human
race.

Lena didn’t know how he found the strength, because it
nearly destroyed her every time she tried to face the inevitable loss. She
didn’t know that she was worthy of him, of the responsibility of carrying his
legacy, but since she’d been the one on hand, she would do her best to live up
to the role. Just as Lucas had spent a lifetime doing.

She was down on the ground, digging in the soft soil and
hacking off a handful of woody root tendrils, when Watson came back down the
row. Lena stood and passed the bunch of roots to Lucas, wiping her hands on her
pants as Watson approached.

“The wind was to the northwest,” he reported. “Toward the
woods from here. You think the scent of the hemp is what’s drawing them, Doc?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Nye said, looking in bemusement at
his two handfuls of plant stuff. “But at least I’ve got plenty of sample
material gathered to take back to the lab.”

* * * * *

As Lucas processed the hemp into its component parts, Lena
watched him and thought too much. After a few hours she recognized the feeling.
She was just plain bored. She hadn’t expected that.

“You want to help?” he asked, when she sighed once a bit too
loudly.

“If you need a hand.” She was mostly just spoiled, she
realized, from the previous lazy, surreal days of fantastic sex. Of being his
primary focus. Now he was intent on the hemp like a hawk on a mouse. Lucas had
slept only five or so hours in the past twenty-four, but seemed brimming with
energy. Lena had to admit that even rumpled and unshaven, with circles under
his eyes, he looked more alive than she had seen him in days.

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

Bait. He wanted her to lie out some hemp as bait for zombies
that night and report on their reaction.

“The wind is in the right direction, if it hasn’t changed
from what Watson said earlier. The woods near the front gate are downwind now,
and sunset is in about an hour. I want you to set these out at least ten yards
from each other, but all the same distance from the tree line.” He handed her
four sealed plastic bags filled with various plant bits. “Seeds, leaves, stalk,
roots. We see which batch the zombies go for. Simple.”

“Simple?” She took the bags but didn’t move, even though
Watson arrived in the lab then, obviously prepared to take over guard duties.
Lucas must have discussed this with him at the farm. “Zombie…bait. Those two
words should never go together. We never want to lure the zombies in, Lucas. We
want to get the zombies the hell away.”

“But they’re already getting lured in, and I have a hunch
about why. It could be something helpful.” He was practically bouncing with
anticipation, and Lena wondered what he wasn’t saying about his hunch. “Just
please do this, Lena. One night, two at the most. If my suspicion is correct—”

“What suspicion?” Watson wanted to know. “I trust your
hunches, Doc, but why the secrecy?”

“It could be big,” Nye admitted. “Not just another piece of
the puzzle…the entire missing half of the puzzle. But I won’t know for sure
until I see which pile of stuff they go after. And I don’t want to accidentally
influence the results by giving you any more information than that.”

In the end, Lena went, setting out the four batches of
vegetation as Lucas had described. The other guards clearly thought she was
crazy, and since she couldn’t tell them why she was doing it other than “secret
mission for Watson”, she couldn’t really disabuse them of the notion.

At least she didn’t have long to wait. Before the sun was
even below the horizon, screeches and moans issued from the woods. Lena gripped
her rifle stock, hefting it for comfort.

“Locked and loaded, boss?” Jonesie materialized at her
shoulder, his own weapon at the ready.

“You know it. Just keep your eyes peeled and don’t shoot
until I say so, got it?”

“Got it. Good to see you back in action.”

“Uh, thanks.”

She felt bad about missing so much
real
work, staying
safely in the lab playing with Nye while Jonesie and the rest of her team still
risked their lives at the fences or in the woods every night. If Nye had come
to life with a new science project to work on, Lena felt herself coming to life
here, in the gathering dark, ravening monsters about to attack.

They attacked right then. Three zombies dashed from the tree
line in the shuffling, hunched-over skitter most of them used. Lena held a fist
up, reminding the guards not to shoot on sight as they typically would. All
three zombies made straight for the pile of seeds, the one almost directly in
front of Lena. She watched, horrified and fascinated, as they scrabbled in the
dirt for the tiny morsels. The smallest of the three, getting the least of the
bounty, turned and loped a few steps toward the pile of leaves, but after a few
seconds he made an agonized, frustrated wail and shambled back to the seeds.

The lure was gone in minutes, and none of the zombies had so
much as spared a glance at the humans standing twenty yards away. After a few
minutes of fruitless rooting in the dust for any missed pods, the zombies
started wandering off, two toward the trees and the little one at last heading
for the humans with nothing like the usual zeal.

Lena dropped her hand sharply, taking out the little guy
herself while Jonesie and another guard picked off the larger two.

The silence that followed as the reverberations from their
shots died was almost reverent. It was finally broken when the second guard
whispered, “Holy shit.”

“Zombie catnip,” Jonesie offered. “They didn’t even give a
shit. We were standing right here, and they didn’t give a rat’s ass about us.
What the hell was that?”

“An experiment,” Lena muttered. “I think it was a successful
one too.”