“This is unacceptable,” Keller snapped. He strode into the Plague Tent with several officers marching behind him, joining me the guards, Lattimore, a number of confused patients, and the befuddled medical personnel who were supposed to be caring for them.
I wasn’t sure whether unacceptable was referring to Logan hesitating on the draw or the fact that we missed a zombie in the tent.
Keller stopped in front of me. I think he was trying to stare down his nose at me, but he wasn’t quite tall enough; I could almost look him in the eye, which kind of wrecked the whole imposing authoritative stance he was clearly trying to cultivate. “You are not authorized to use a firearm.”
Oh. He was getting after me for saving the day.
“What should I have done?” I asked. “Let her chow down on your plague victims? That’d go over well.”
“You are not authorized to use a firearm!”
“Well, the bedpan wasn’t working.”
He raised his right hand. I ducked out of reflex, but he never lifted it any higher than to point a finger at my face. “You are not authorized to use a firearm.”
Broken record, anyone?
I opened my mouth, but the otherwise silent Logan shook his head at me ever so slightly.
Fine. I wouldn’t antagonize wee Doogie Howser. “I am sorry, sir,” I said, in what I hoped was my most sincere voice. “She was a threat to the patients. I reacted…you see a ghoul, you try to shoot it. It’s what I’ve been trained to do.”
It seemed to pacify him for the time being. He turned away from me, moving deeper into the tent and staring down at the sick.
Another soldier joined our group. “We can’t find anyone missing an arm, sir,” he said. “We don’t know where she got it.”
Keller sighed and waved the man away.
We all stood there in silence for a moment.
“Who taught you to shoot?” he finally asked.
I figured bringing Tony into this would only get him into more trouble. “General Hammond.”
Keller’s immediate silence suggested this might have been the wrong thing to say. “He was a lieutenant when I knew him,” he said, pausing next to one of my patients.
“Field promotion,” I said.
He sent me a withering stare, or at least his best effort at one. “Yes, I could deduce that as well, Miss Orvik, thank you.”
Doctor Lattimore cleared her throat. “Shall we deal with the obvious? Why was a patient allowed to turn while Orvik was…what exactly were you doing, Orvik?”
“Dispensing antibiotics, as instructed.” Antibiotics that had about as much effectiveness as a drop of chlorine in the ocean, but even so.
“No, she wasn’t.” The medic who had scolded me when I was talking to Alyssa pushed his way into the crowd. “She was sitting there talking to Andrews. I saw her.”
“I was taking her vitals,” I snapped, leveling a glare at him—a glare he ignored. You dipshit.
“And while you were chit-chatting with Andrews, a woman reanimated,” Lattimore said.
I had to fight to keep my tone level. “Your other medics had checked her. I checked on her an hour before when I first came in. She was fine then.”
“Well, clearly she wasn’t. She must have died quite a while before…perhaps during Cornish’s shift.”
Cornish must have been the medic supervising them before me. “She wasn’t,” I said. “She was alive. I took her vitals. They’re on the chart.”
“You must have been mistaken.”
I’m pretty sure my eyes bugged out of my head. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s an easy enough mistake to make. You’ve got a hundred people in there and you’re moving quickly.”
The grip I had on my temper began to slip and fray away, and the volume of my voice increased with each word. “I wouldn’t mistake a live woman for a dead one!”
Any side chatter immediately stopped. Everyone in the Plague Tent was staring at me, patients and medical staff. I clamped down on my emotions. Goddammit Vibby, stop losing your shit.
Lattimore stared me down. “Then how do you explain her turning?”
Nevermind. Fuck this whole pleasant attitude stuff. I took a step toward her, only to be yanked back by one of the soldiers next to me. “I don’t know how the fucking thing works. Some people turn faster than others.” Why is this familiar? Wasn’t I just talking about this? My brain seized that last bit: “I talked to Renati earlier, and…”
I trailed off when just about every face in the room—soldiers included—turned to look at me. Rule number ten of the zombie apocalypse, if you’re keeping track, is never to let a bunch of military officers carrying guns focus their attention on you.
Too late now.
“Is that so?” Lattimore asked.
I’d already put the noose around my neck, so I decided I’d just keep tightening it. “Renati said—”
“I don’t want to hear anything about Renati,” Keller growled. “Not one fucking word.”
“But the virus—”