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“Dez—” he began but she held up a hand.
“No,” she said. Then she began climbing the stairs.
No.
Trout wondered if she thought he was going to say something about JT’s sacrifice. Something encouraging about how the kids inside were safe. Or something more personal. Something about what he felt.
He knew that what he’d planned to say was that he’d do whatever she needed him to do, to help however he could.
But he wondered if those were the words that would have actually come out of his mouth. Dez hadn’t thought so.
Maybe, he thought as he got heavily to his feet, she was right.
“Damn,” he said aloud.
He patted his pockets and realized that the satellite phone Goat had given him was somewhere upstairs. He needed to get it. To tell Goat what just happened. To have Goat tell the world.
This is Billy Trout reporting live from the apocalypse.
There was more truth to tell. More of the story he needed everyone to know.
Maybe it would help.
Trout was past knowing that, or anything, for certain.
Aching in body and heart, Billy Trout lumbered up the stairs after Dez.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TUNNEL HILL ROAD
STEBBINS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Corporal Lonnie Silk was sure he was dying.
He could feel the warmth leave him, running in lines inside his trousers, down his legs, pooling in his shoes.
The bleeding wasn’t as bad now, but he didn’t think that was a good thing. As his
daddy used to say, you can’t pour coffee from an empty cup.
And he felt so empty.
Of blood.
Of breath.
Of everything. Like God was rolling up the whole world to throw it in the crapper.
It was like that.
The rainswept street was all harsh whites and blacks in the stark illumination thrown by the headlights of abandoned cars and businesses with all the lights turned on but nobody there. The glow gave everything a harsh look, like crime scene photos in old newspapers. No soft edges, even with the rain.
Lonnie knew that he was a dead man. Would be a dead man soon. The captain had told everyone in his platoon about the infection. About how it worked. About what it did.
About how there was nothing anyone could do.
Nothing except die.
