Page 69 of Doomsdate

He flushes beneath the smattering of freckles on his cheekbones, then smiles sheepishly. “Maybe.”

Ugh, Maisie, quit being so charmed!

I clear my throat, trying to forcibly flatten the mounting urge to flirt with him right now. “I grabbed one of the other ones, too, as well as Gagarin’s flight suit. Pretty sure they’re bite-proof, so. Good gear to have.” I do not smile back, and it almost kills me.

Everett’s own smile relaxes as he regards me carefully, and I get the distinct impression that I’m being understood right now. “Great point, survival partner.” He starts arranging the dry goods in the crate I found as I pull more from the pantry, until we have everything neatly arranged on the counter.

“Okay. Ready to pack up the rig?” I ask, brushing my hands down my pants.

“I have one little stop I’d like to make before we go.”

And that’s how five minutes later, I’m sitting behind the president’s desk in a room that looks like the inside of a Republican Easter egg, paging through paper files. Everett’s looking for where the government’s gone or something useful about the virus. As for me, I’m more interested in extraterrestrials.

We can blame that on Reddit, too.

Of all the places in the White House we’ve explored, the Oval Office is the only one that’s disordered. Papers strewn everywhere, an armchair turned on its side. It’s so strange. It’s like the staff up and disappeared everywhere else, leaving zero signs of apocalyptic mayhem, but not in here. In here, someone was desperate. In here, something happened.

“They knew.” Everett’s voice cracks like a gavel against the room’s silence. I spring to my feet.

“About aliens?”

“About the virus,” Everett says slowly, though his eyes fly across the briefing he’s reading. He flips the page and frowns harder, adjusting his little glasses farther up his nose. “It says here the virus was created by a government lab overseen by the Department of Defense as part of a larger biowarfare initiative.”

“But that’s so stupid! How on earth is unleashing a zombie virus an effective war tactic?”

“It wasn’t a zombie virus. Not intentionally, anyway.” He flips another page and begins to read. “ ‘With its extreme virulence and quick and debilitating onset, GI-27 was designed to temporarily incapacitate enemy forces with no combat necessary. After three to five days of illness, those exposed to the viral pathogen begin to improve, though residual weakness lingers. While GI-27 may disproportionately impact those with weakened immune systems, the elderly, and the very young, the virus as designed is not fatal.’ ”

My eyebrows scrunch together. “So, they were going to attack enemies with…diarrhea?”

“Apparently, but work on the virus was incomplete, and surprise, surprise, out in the wild, it didn’t behave as they’d planned.” Everett snorts. “It never does. Have they never seen a zombie movie before? Return of the Living Dead? The Killing Strain? Freaking Resident Evil?”

“How’d it get out?”

“A group of lab techs was inadvertently exposed ten days ago. Jesus.” Everett rears back from a series of gruesome pictures within the briefing. “They turned first.”

I chew my lip. “Flip to the end. What was the government going to do about it?”

Everett turns to the last page. “The final recommendation here is to go underground and wait it out.” He looks up. “You know. Just wait out the anticipated death of ninety percent of the country’s population.” He throws the briefing down. “It’s dated five days ago.”

My mouth falls open. The day before the country shut down, our government had already given up? Fled underground to god knows where to let us all die on the surface? “They should’ve closed the beaches,” I say quietly.

Everett’s eyes are hard, even as he smiles ruefully. “They never close the beaches.”

Brrrriiiiiiing. Brrrriiiiiiiiing.

Everett nearly jumps out of his own skin. “What the hell is that?”

Brrrriiiiiiing. Brrrriiiiiiiiing.

I blink. “It sounds like…” I look down and open a drawer. Inside is a small orange telephone. Simple, unlike the fancy gray secured beasts on the desk. We both flinch when it rings again.

“Oh my god,” Everett rasps. “What should we do?”

“Answer it!” I grab the receiver and shove it at him. He nearly drops it, as though I’ve thrown a lit match at him.

“Um, hello?” he says far too loudly. He’s quiet for a beat. “He’s, ah…not here. Can I take a message?”

What is he thinking?! I flail my arms wildly. Ask them for information! I mouth.