CHAPTER 33

Nate Royal lay on his bed in his cell and thought about running into daylight. The air conditioner churned noisily behind the walls, and a vent above his bed kept a steady chill blowing down on him. He shivered, drawing himself up into a ball. He tried to remember what it was like that morning in his sophomore year when he left that senior from Gatlin at the edge of the pinewoods and broke loose into the daylight of the homestretch, running like he’d never run before in his life. He thought about all that soft, gold daylight pouring down over him, filling his senses with the smell of pine.

But try as he might, he couldn’t hold the good thoughts. His body hurt. The wound on his left shoulder was throbbing constantly. The fingers of his left hand had a tendency to fall asleep if he didn’t keep them moving. The insides of his elbows were bruised up from all the injections they’d given him. And they had operated on him, too. That was what was hurting, he decided, not the bite. It was bandaged up now, but he had seen it the night before while one of the nurses was dressing it, and from what he could see, the original bite looked pretty well healed. It was whatever they had done to him that hurt so much.

Nate had lost track of time. The pain was part of it. So, too, was this cell they’d put him. There were no windows, no pictures on the wall. There was nothing but a sink near the foot of his bed and a small bathroom off to his right that didn’t have a door. They were careful not to talk around him. They didn’t leave magazines for him to look at, no TV, not even a radio to listen to. But the pain and the cell were only part of his hell. The main part was being stuck in his own head.

He forced himself to turn back to the plane ride that had brought him here. It hadn’t been a long one. Maybe longer than a movie, but not too much longer than that. They’d landed God knows where, though. It felt colder than in Pennsylvania; he’d been sure of that. The few people he saw had light Windbreakers on. Most were soldiers, though. They hadn’t allowed him a chance to look around. He’d been hustled inside a building, stripped, bathed, inspected, injected, interrogated.

“How were you injured?”

“I was bit.”

“By an infected individual?”

“A zombie, yeah.”

“What were you doing when you were attacked?”

“Just walking. Where am I? Who are you people?”

No answers, but lots more questions.

Later—he tried to remember how much later, but it was so hard to cut through the fog that had settled in his mind—they’d tried again.

“Do you have any allergies?”

“I don’t like dickheads in doctor’s outfits.”

“Tell me about your drug use.”

“Tell me if your mother takes it in the ass.”

They became less patient with him. He became more sullen, angrier, less cooperative. And the days began to turn to fog. He closed his eyes and opened them. The cell was the same as it always was. Too small. The bed was uncomfortable. Better than the cots at County, but just as small. He thought about taking a dump, but turned over in bed instead and looked away from the toilet. He couldn’t flush it himself. There was no handle. It just sort of flushed whenever it felt like it, he guessed. Or maybe they had a remote control somewhere. He’d taken a dump in it during his first day and felt bad about leaving his nasty steamer in there. Later, he woke from a nap and saw a guy in one of those white space-suits fishing the thing out of the pot. Somehow, it had made him feel even more deeply violated than any of the other things they’d done to him, all the questions and the injections and even the surgery, knowing that they were even digging into his poop. Jesus, he had thought.

Behind him, he heard the whoosh of the door and knew they were sending in another spacesuit. More injections. Maybe more questions.

He sighed and rolled over.

A white spacesuited figure set out a small metal plate with a syringe and three empty vials on it, each a different color.

“What are those for?”

“Can I have your left arm, please?”

“Sure. Tell me what those are for first.”

Nate was pretty sure he heard the figure inside the spacesuit let out a sigh of his own. But it could have been his imagination.

The spacesuit picked up the syringe and popped in one of the vials, a gray-topped one.

“Your arm, please.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Sir, your arm please. Do it now, or I will have a guard come in here and hold you down.”

It was an old threat, but one they’d made good on several times. And the guards were not good-humored about it, either.

Nate held out his arm.

“Your left arm, please.”

“Sorry,” Nate said.

He put his left arm across his belly, inside of the elbow pointed up. But when the spacesuit leaned in to stick him with the needle, Nate went on the attack. He brought his right hand up and slapped the needle out of the spacesuit’s hands. Then he grabbed the loose knob of fabric at the top of the spacesuit’s head and tried to yank the damn thing off, though it was taped or Velcroed down tight and didn’t budge.

The spacesuit started to shriek like a little girl. He squirmed away from Nate and ran into the wall next to the toilet. He spun around, hands out like he was trying to ward off another blow, and began to back away.

For Nate, it was just like what had happened with Jessica Metcalfe at his van. He felt the same blind snap of rage, followed by the stunned shock as the spacesuit backed away from him. Had he really just done that? Jesus, the guy was really scared.

Nate began to laugh.

But a moment later, two guards came in and the laughter stopped. The spacesuit shrank from the room about as fast as he possibly could. The two guards—even though their faces were obscured behind the gold-tinted lenses of their space-suits—looked like they wanted nothing more than to drive Nate’s head through the wall.

And for a second, he was pretty sure they were about to do it.

Nate rolled out of bed and landed with it between him and the guards. They advanced on him. The little metal plate that spacesuit had brought the syringe and vials in was on the bed, and Nate picked it up and threw it at one of the guards.

It bounced off the guard’s forearm and clanged against the wall near the door.

Nate backed up farther, looking around for something to fight with.

The guards advanced on him again.

“Enough!”

The two guards stopped. Nate stopped. Behind them, a man was walking into the room. He didn’t wear a spacesuit. He was dressed in green hospital scrubs.

He said, “Enough. You guys wait for me outside.”

The guards hesitated.

“It’s okay,” the man said. He stepped aside and let the guards walk out the door. When they were gone, he pushed the door closed but not all the way. There was no handle, and Nate figured the guy didn’t want to be stuck without a way out if he needed one.

“Nate Royal?” the man said.

Nate stiffened, but didn’t answer.

“I’m Dr. Mark Kellogg. I’m in charge of things around here.”

“Uh-huh.”

Nate thought the guy looked a little young to be in charge of things around here. He had a military haircut, military face, all sharp angles and a jaw that looked like somebody had cut it out of rock. But his eyes were kind, and that put Nate off his guard. There was a look there that was definitely not military, and Nate decided that the man probably wasn’t a soldier. Or if he was, he wasn’t all that serious about being one.

The man was still looking at him, smiling now, just waiting for him to come around.

“So what is this place?” Nate asked.

“You’re at Minot Air Force Base. That’s in North Dakota.”

“North…what about my dad? Where is he?”

“I’m sorry, Nate. Your dad and his girlfriend, Mindy Carlson, are not here. We tried to find them right after we learned about you but we haven’t been able to locate them. It’s been rather confusing in that part of the country, as you can probably imagine. There are a lot of people still wandering around looking for help. A lot of people we still haven’t talked to yet.”

Nate nodded. Then he frowned. “Why am I here?” he said.

“You mean you don’t know?”

“How could I know that? You people won’t tell me shit. Every time I ask something, you people stick me with a needle.”

“Yeah. Nate, do you want to sit down so we can talk?”

“No, I don’t want to sit. I want to stand. I want to go outside.”

“I’m sorry,” Kellogg said.

“I can’t go outside?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“That door’s open. How about I make a run for it, see how far I get?”

Kellogg shrugged. “You wouldn’t get far. Even if you got past the guards—which isn’t going to happen, believe me—that knee of yours is going to keep you from running more than twenty or thirty yards.”

“How do you know about my knee?”

“Nate,” Kellogg said. He sounded tired. His shoulders sagged beneath his scrubs. “I have been over every aspect of your medical record. I have been over every record on you we can find. You used to be a runner. Cross-country, right?”

“That’s right.”

“A good one, too. At least from what I can tell.”

“I was okay. I stopped my junior year.”

“Ah,” Kellogg said. He stepped around the bed and sat at the foot of it. “Nate, the reason why you’re here is because you got bit by a zombie.”

“So did lots of other people.”

“Yes, and they all became zombies. You didn’t. That’s why you’re here.”

“So you can figure out why I didn’t change into one of those things?”

Kellogg touched a finger to his nose.

“And what happens when you find that out?”

“Well, hopefully, once I know why you’re so special, I’ll be able to come up with a cure. That’s what this is all about, Nate. A cure. We find that, we could end a world’s worth of suffering.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s possible,” Kellogg said. “Right now, I’m banking on it, in fact. It’s about the only hope we have left.” He said, “Nate, things are bad out there. You have no idea. There isn’t a major population center in this country left untouched by this outbreak. There are millions of the infected now. Millions more are dead. Latin America, South America, all infected. Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, all those regions are reporting massive outbreaks. Nate, this thing is global. But with your help, maybe we can stop it.”

Nate felt sick to his stomach. Kellogg’s words were just a muddle. Jesus, the way some people talk. But he pulled enough sense out of it to know that Kellogg considered him some kind of medical miracle.

“With my help, you said?”

“That’s right.”

“Tell me, doc, how long have I been here?”

“We flew you out of Martindale on the ninth of July. Today is the twenty-ninth.”

Nate tried to do the math in his head and couldn’t. He started to count off the days, but Kellogg interrupted him. “About three weeks,” he said.

“And you say a lot’s happened?”

“A lot of bad stuff, yeah.”

“Can I get a TV in here?”

“There isn’t a lot on TV these days, Nate. I can get you a TV, though. The base has a movie library. Maybe you can at least get some movies to watch.”

“Okay,” Nate said, nodding. “That’d be cool.”

“We don’t have much in the way of reading material. Some paperbacks. I think we’ve got some old copies of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal—if you’re interested?”

“Doc, I…I don’t read so good.”

“Ah.”

Nate looked toward the door. Earlier, he had seen some figures walking by, but there didn’t seem to be anybody there now.

He leaned forward and whispered, “Doc, you know, I ain’t really seen any women in a while. You think maybe the base here has got some pornos in that library of theirs?”

Kellogg smiled, even managed a little laugh. “Nate,” he said. “They got cameras built into the walls around here. You probably should, you know, put the brakes on enjoying yourself for a while.”

Nate stiffened again. He looked around, studying the walls, wondering how many times they’d watched him in here, jacking off in the dark.

His sense of violation returned, and with it, his anger.

“Nate, you all right?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“Is there anything you’d like? Different food, maybe?”

“Can you tell me one thing?”

“Sure.”

“I’m never gonna leave this place, am I?”

“Nate—”

“Tell me the truth, doc. I’m stuck here, right? It doesn’t matter that I’m immune to this zombie virus. It’s like I got it just the same, right? I may not be one of those things, but I’m sure as hell not gonna be me again either.”

“Nate, this may be hard for you to believe, but you’re not the only one who’s a prisoner here. This outbreak has bound each of us to this place in a very real way. You’ve got your reasons why you can’t leave, and me, well, I’ve got mine. We’re both stuck here, Nate.”

Kellogg rose from the bed and chaffed his palms against the thighs of his scrubs.

He laughed. “I’m sweating,” he said. “Stress, I guess. I don’t get to sleep much these days. Nate, I’m going to send in the nurse again. Are you going to let him take your blood?”

“Why do you want it?”

“Would that help, knowing what we’re doing? Would you like us to tell you what it is we’re doing before we do it?”

“What good would that do?”

“Well, it wouldn’t change our tests any. We’ve still got to do them. But it would be more than you’ve got right now. It’d give you some measure of dignity back.”

“Dignity? You’re kidding.”

“It’s a start, Nate.”

Nate nodded. That was true, it was a start.

“All right, Nate. I’ll talk to you soon.”

And with that he was gone, and Nate was left staring at the cell.