Keep Busy

38.

"Where exactly are we going?" Frank asked Captain Dahmer after he'd finished his conversation on the walkie. A few of the soldiers had stayed inside the building to collect anything they deemed salvageable—weapons, clothing, medicine and food.

"We're headed back to camp," He replied with the slightest grin. He had a strong, smoothly shaved jawline and thin, serious lips. "We have a medical unit to check you guys out. Make sure no one's infected or somehow contracted the variant."

"The variant?"

"B.4"

"Before what?"

"No, the variant is called B point 4. I forget, civilians have no idea what's happening in the world—what with all communications down. B.4 is a strain of the virus. A mutation. It seems the pathogen is getting smarter... or at least adapting." The Captain ushered Frank, Emily and Tristen to a waiting transport truck just down the steps.

Frank scanned the grounds, seeing a couple other trucks scattered across the grass, soldiers purposefully walking around. He squinted at a group of people being loaded into the back of a distant vehicle. Was Jane in there? He couldn't see anyone in a bikini—so that was unfortunate.

Captain Dahmer was still talking. "After all the zombies began to expire, for good, a new strain started rearing its ugly head. Zombies with what appeared to be, a more functional physiology. That is, they weren't rotting as quickly—even healing sometimes—albeit slowly. Extremely aggressive and intelligent. Just more functional on every level."

Frank was thinking about Jane. Maybe she had strain B.4. She was definitely not like all the zombies he'd encountered in Cheney. He'd chalked it up to the fact that she'd been frozen for three months but couldn't deny she seemed to be acting more human as of late. More alive.

"It's a bit of a drive so get comfortable," Captain Dahmer said with a nod.

Frank was the last to be loaded into the transport vehicle. He sat across from Emily. Tristen was laying on the bench, beyond exhausted. Occasionally he shivered but his breathing seemed to be steady and even.

"Can you believe this fucking shit?" Emily asked. "We should all just jump out now."

"What? This seems like a good thing," Frank responded. "These guys just saved us... or at least saved us a lot of hassle."

"Just a bunch of fucking over-confident army assholes trying to compensate for their tiny dicks."

"That seems a bit unfair."

"Yeah. But shit. God! I so wanted to shoot Roy in the face," Emily scowled.

"I get that but let's think about the bigger picture for a second," Frank said, trying to distract himself from worrying about Jane. "Think about it. These guys are actual military—organized and professional. Someone must be giving them orders, right? That means there's still someone out there calling the shots. There's structure. This could mean the end of the end of the world."

"Sounds like you have a stutter," Emily said, taking it all in but still not convinced. She reached over and gently rubbed Tristen's leg.

"But seriously. This could be... our salvation."

Emily recoiled. "Don't use that word... I can't tell you how many times I've had to hear about salvation from my dad and his drunk idiot cronies. I didn't think that word could sound so terrible but now... to me, it's like hearing the word cunt. Makes me cringe every time."

"Okay, fine. But this... this whole situation," Frank said, motioning to the truck and the activity out on the grounds. "This could be the answer. It could mean some semblance of normalcy. Like, maybe the world isn't dead. Maybe it's beginning to start over."

As he said it... he wasn't sure he wanted it. But it was what he should want.

"Jesus, you sound like a new-age guru. Don't get too caught up in this whole thing. We don't know what they have planned. I've learned not to give my trust out for free."

"You trust me, right?"

"Yeah, but you paid for it." She fluttered her eyelashes.

Frank sat back against the cold metal of the transport truck and looked up, running his hands down his face. "Enough!"

"Relax, I'm just fucking with you. I mean seriously, you did earn my trust. You got me away from the clan—my dad, Roy and the rest of those fucks." She reached across and patted his knee. "And the things you can do with your tongue..." she half-whispered.

"God, you are sadistic," Frank said.

"Ya see... that's what I'm saying. You never can know what someone is actually thinking—what they know, what they don't know. Appearances are deceiving. Until I see something that suggests otherwise, I have no reason to trust these monkeys."

"Yeah."

"They could be psychopaths for all we know." Emily sniffed defiantly then looked out at the grounds, tucking her long stringy hair behind her ears. "And besides, what about Jane?"

There it is.

"I... I don't know. I just hope she's alright," Frank said soberly. He reached in his pocket, comforted by finding his pack of cigarettes. He lit one up.

The trucks began to mobilize—engines starting and soldiers shouting. They were on the move. As they pulled away, Frank and Emily stared out the back of the truck at the receding Kinderman Center. Even Tristen managed to sit up on his elbows for a few seconds.

The wonderfully utilitarian building bumped and shook as the truck began to pull forward. Tristen was saying goodbye to his home. This was where he'd lived through all the terror—through the dead rising, the living dying.

Even for Frank it was a somber moment. They'd only been there a short time but what had happened at the Center was profound. It was the first time he'd felt... happy in a long time. Since way before the zombies.

Jane.

Though what he could remember of the previous night was spotty at best, he still felt a tranquilizing warmth just above his gut—that mysterious place in the body where emotion pools—an indistinct, invisible organ in the core of a person where interpersonal connections are forged. It's an emotional umbilical binding one person to another. And at that moment... it felt severed.

He looked back at Emily. She too was staring out the back and looking contemplative as she continued to rub Tristen's leg consolingly. Her face looked hard and sullen. Even at her young age, she was weathered. Apart from the grim reality of living without proper sanitation, there was pain—deep set and aching—clouding her features. She was a beautiful girl—crude, whip-smart and volatile. She scratched at her dirty neck and looked back at Frank.

"What? You want a little bit more of this action?" she said.

He shook his head, grinning and looked at his lap. He still wasn't sure what had happened with her beneath that ominous reception desk, but his mind was making a shift—pulling her far away from the realm of sexual exploit, beginning to regard her as a long-lost little sister. Which, of course, made the prospects of any physical interaction between them all the more repellant. But he couldn't deny, part of the connection he'd made at the Center had been with her. This waifish, foul-mouthed, country bumpkin.

The helicopter roared overhead, fading off into the distance.

"You think he's ever eaten a girl out?" Emily whispered nodding her head at the once again supine Tristen.

"I can hear you," Tristen said.