San Diego 2014 Part 10

"Oh, G.o.d," whimpered Patty, and plastered herself against Matthew.

"Please," said Stuart. "Please."

"But she didn't bite him!" said Eric. "How the f.u.c.k did he get sick, huh?"

"Does it matter?" asked Matthew. He got to his feet, tugging Patty along with him. "Come on, sweetheart. We need to go."

"There are more out there than there are in here," said Marty. "I think the odds are still better if we stay put."

"And get blood everywhere, when we've just shown that the d.a.m.n stuff is indirectly transmissible?" snapped Matthew. "No. If we're going to be f.u.c.ked no matter what we do, I'd rather be f.u.c.ked running than sitting still."

Stuart moaned, the spear falling from his hands. And then he lunged.

Maybe it was the setting. The precinct was the office of the Time Police, after all; it was the place where Indiction Rivers fought the forces of evil, prevented paradoxes, and always had perfect hair, even in the middle of a firefight. Maybe it was instinct. Or maybe it was simply that Elle had put herself in charge of her little accidental group of refugees, and when they were put in danger, she had to react. Whatever the reason, she flung herself from the desk where she'd been seated and grabbed Stuart by the back of the neck before he could reach the shrilly screaming Patty.

Whirling, Elle slammed Stuart against the nearest wall, using every technique she'd learned in her self-defense courses and in training for her role with the show to keep him pinned. "Go!" she shouted. "Get moving!"

"We're not leaving you!" said Marty.

"You won't have to! I'll let him go when I have a clear shot at the door-but I'm not doing it before! Now move it!"

The others moved.

Stuart squirmed. Elle shoved him harder against the wall. "You seemed like a nice guy," she said. "I'm sorry this happened to you."

The techniques Elle had learned were designed to restrain people without harming them, and worked partially because most people would not hurt themselves to get loose. They were never intended for use on people who no longer cared about pain. She was still holding Stuart in place when he twisted himself at an angle that dislocated his shoulder with an audible popping sound and sank his teeth into her upper arm.

Elle screamed. Matthew, who had been escorting the others out the door, turned and stared at her in horror.

"Go!" she shouted. "Just go!"

Matthew hesitated. Only for a second. Then he nodded, mouthed the words "Thank you," and stepped out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Elle Riley, who would be remembered by most of history for her portrayal of Indiction Rivers, Time Police, and by a woman named Sigrid Robinson for everything else, closed her eyes. And then she let the zombie go.

If she screamed, no one heard it. Elle Riley died bravely, and when she died, she died alone.

Outside, the others moved into the aisles, heading away from the sound of screaming, heading toward the unknown dangers lurking in the darkness along the back wall.

1:09 A.M.

"We don't have long," said Vanessa, scrolling through Twitter as she walked. "People outside are reporting that they're being moved even farther from the convention center. It looks like there's a half-mile perimeter being established."

"If it's only a half-mile, they're not using anything radioactive," said Shawn, walking a little faster. The rest of the group matched his pace. "That's good. That means we have a much better chance of getting the h.e.l.l out of here."

"How much farther?" asked Robert.

"I don't know," said Shawn. "Those d.a.m.n barricades..."

"Just keep moving," said Lynn. "That's all we can do. Keep moving."

They hadn't been attacked yet, but they all knew that it was coming. So when a single blood-encrusted figure stepped from behind a nearby booth, Shawn nearly bashed his head in with the hammer. Only the figure's quick backward stumble and cry of, "No, don't! I'm not gone yet!" held his swing.

"Who are you?" demanded Lynn, raising her board into a defensive position.

"Matthew. Matthew Meigs. Are you clean?"

"For the moment," said Shawn, lowering his hammer. "You're covered in blood."

"None of it's mine." Most of it was Patty's. Dear, sweet Patty, who had only ever wanted to be married, and to go to the San Diego Comic-Con, and to love him... Matthew shook his head, willing the thought away. "The back wall's no better than the main floor, and in some ways, it's worse. A lot of people fled there. My group among them." All those hands, grasping, and all those teeth...

"That's where the exit is, and we have to get out of here," said Robert. "We don't have a choice."

"We're all infected." Matthew's tone was soft, even resigned. "It's in the blood."

"You're the only one with blood on you," said Leita.

"For now. But if you fight your way back to that wall, even if you make it there, you won't be clean anymore. You may not be bitten, but you won't be clean. And then what? If you make it out, then what? You spread this? You take it out into the world?"

"It had to come from somewhere," said Vanessa.

"That doesn't mean we have to take it back there." Matthew shook his head. "You'll never walk away. You'll just find yourself on the business end of a sniper rifle instead of dying in here with the rest of us. You've no cause to believe me. I know that. But you can save yourselves a great deal of pain by staying away from that wall." He looked at his b.l.o.o.d.y fingers. "As for me, I got a drop in my eye when the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds took my wife, before I turned and ran. I haven't long. I'm going back to where I left a friend of mine, in a little room with a door that shuts. I think I'll go inside and shut the door behind me. Elle deserves the company. It was nice to meet you all."

With that, the blood-covered little British man turned and walked away, vanis.h.i.+ng quickly into the maze of aisles.

"What a crock of s.h.i.+t," said Robert. "Come on. Let's move."

None of the others moved at all. Shawn and Lynn were looking at each other.

"Do you think he was telling the truth?" asked Lynn.

"It's possible," said Shawn. "It seems probable, even, given the reaction we've seen so far."

"So what do we do?"

"Lorelei," said Shawn quietly. It was all he had to say. They couldn't take this out of the convention center, not when their daughter was out there, not when she would run to them at the first chance she got. He turned and looked to the others. "I can't tell you what to do. It's not my place. But Lynn and I won't be carrying this infection out into the world. We're going back to the booth. Seems a fitting place to wait for what comes next."

Leita reached over and took her brother's hand. Robert looked down at the floor. "We'll come with you."

"Me, too," said Vanessa. She smiled, just a little. "Never leave a man behind. That's what it means to be part of a crew, right? Never, ever leave a man behind."

"It was an honor," said Shawn.

"Same, Captain," replied Vanessa.

They turned, five people in a convention center given, now, mostly to the dead, and slowly made their way back to where they'd started.

1:24 A.M.

The dizziness was coming in waves by the time Matthew reached the precinct. He'd pa.s.sed a few of the fully infected on the way-not many; most were at the back wall, but enough-and none of them had troubled him. They knew their own.

No sounds were coming from inside. Either Stuart had killed her after he turned or they were both in there waiting, silently, for escape. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered at this point.

"h.e.l.lo, Elle. I came back to keep you company," said Matthew, and opened the door.

LORELEI TUTT'S APARTMENT,

LONDON, ENGLAND, JUNE 1, 2044.

The Browncoats on Lorelei's recording are singing. They began shortly after they reached their booth, and have continued since, a.s.serting over and over that they're still free. Lorelei is singing with them, tears running down her face, and she keeps singing when the white flash of the bombs. .h.i.tting the convention center wipes the image away. She knows the words they never had the chance to say. There's something beautiful in that, a sort of immortality for the people who died that day.

The screen goes from white to black. Lorelei goes silent. I keep watching the screen, giving her a chance to compose herself as we both pretend that I didn't see her cry. Finally, when she's ready, she speaks again.

LORELEI: So that's what happened. That's everything I know about what happened.

MAHIR: I have other pieces of the story. I was able to interview Sigrid Robinson. She knew more about what happened with that poor man who warned your parents off going to the rear.

LORELEI: I've always wondered. If they hadn't met him...would they have made it out? The Rising happened. A few more people wouldn't have changed anything.

I've seen the blueprints of the convention center as it was before it fell. I know the answer. I do not hesitate.

MAHIR: No. They would simply have died in a different place, and without making the right decision.

LORELEI: That's good. That's...good.

She turns to look at the poster behind the television set. It looks almost like a comic book cover, lovingly drawn: a group of people, some of whom I now recognize, standing against a field of stars. Their clothing looks something like the American West, something like what they wore in the video. They are looking off into the distance, staring forever toward a future they died before seeing.

Beneath them is written a simple epigram: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, 2014.

KEEP FLYING.

MAHIR: Thank you for speaking with me today.

LORELEI: I miss them.

For once in my life, I have nothing to say, and so I don't say anything at all.

Remember, when you talk about the Rising: The story you know is not the only one that contains the truth. We may never find all the pieces, and some of them may be broken beyond understanding. But we must all, in the words of a doomed man to his child, keep flying.

It is the only way left for us to honor the dead.

-Mahir Gowda

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