Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 100

I slowly slid the knife into her temple, right above her ears. Blood spurted out before she went slack.

Only six years old...shit. 

I could imagine how long she had been here, the horror as the vectors infected her, then turning one herself, able to control them weakly. Yousef once mentioned that if the infected kids were smart enough to strategize and take control, could they retain their past selves' memories? The thought of me killing kids who were still alive inside, albeit just a small part of them, unnerved me.

I looked down at the small frame bundled on the floor. No. I can't think like that. She's too far gone to save. "So, they can starve. Good to hear," I said. Another way to kill a vector was a plus for me. I walked away from her, from the dead bodies, and into the next aisle, hoping to get rid of the stench wafting over my nostrils.

Logan followed after me, crinkled up his nose. "The problem is, none of those countless hordes outside looked like they're starving, do they? Maybe this virus takes them far longer to succumb to it, only this one's worse for wear, so it never bothered to keep her alive. Can viruses even do that?"

No, I wanted to answer, which told me then that we were not dealing with a normal virus (if it was even one), but something else entirely. Viruses love to spread in living hosts, keeping them alive as long as possible to further their means and function, but they are not, by definition, alive. The disease acted with methodical strategy and thinking, allowing mutations to grow at a rapid scale that none had been observed in humans before. The media and the government had been calling this thing a viral pandemic, but perhaps they're hiding their cards a little too close. People were bound to notice. If not a virus...then what? Something that is grown in a lab?

"It doesn't matter. They still wither and die," I said, shaking my theories and musings for another time, thinking that maybe it's a good idea to have a journal and start writing down what I had observed. There should be a notebook here somewhere, maybe a sketchpad, too.

"In that case, people can just go find a place to hole up in and wait for them all to die out. Easy-peasy."

I laughed. "Um...we can't even do a proper lockdown last year from coronavirus, and you want 330 million people to stay inside their homes again for several weeks without even stepping out onto their front porch and without Amazon delivery? They'd be screaming for their rights and patriotic duty!"

"Ah. Yeah. I almost forgot about that."

"Plus, we don't know how long they'll last, probably for several weeks, yet we can barely last less than a week without food or water. Not to sound morbid, but it is an even match." And maybe we'll both wipe out each other.

"And we can't eat rolls of toilet paper," Logan said, grinning.

I shrugged, hid my smile. "I doubt you brought me here to get toilet paper."

"Oh, shit. Yeah. Sorry. Got distracted."

I looked down at my blood-splattered clothes. I am not looking forward to rewashing it after doing the same thing two days ago. I hate doing laundry. I started planning how I'm going to convince Logan to do it for me, probably exchanging it for watch duty. "Maybe we should just go home and get cleaned up, get a nice shower..."

Logan grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the left, going deeper into the store. "Nah, as tempting as that sounds, we took care of the threat, and we're already inside. Consider this as our reward for fighting the bad guys."

"Can't you just tell me what it is?"

"That's cheating. We're almost there, anyway. Close your eyes."