The leader finally turned his stare on Logan. “Specialist Andrews. Why didn’t you stop them?”
Logan didn’t miss a beat: “These idiots were already halfway down the street by the time I saw them. I didn’t want to yell too much and draw the dead over.” He shrugged. “So I went after them. Didn’t take that long, and look, the fucking dog survived. No harm, no foul.”
The soldiers glanced at each other. “We should still report it,” one of them said.
“It’s just going to be more paperwork.” Logan paused, and then sniffed the air. “Is that weed?”
“You can smell it?” one of them whispered.
I sniffed at the air. I didn’t smell much, but then again, my olfactory senses hadn’t worked right since decaying flesh became a regular odor.
Logan shook his head, the very picture of a pious authority figure. “Yeah, I fucking smell it. You used that skunk weed again, didn’t you?”
The other soldiers mumbled affirmatives.
“Man, I told you guys not to do that! Get the good stuff.”
“It’s expensive,” a soldier whined.
“So’s getting caught smoking weed on duty,” Logan said matter-of-factly. “Go back to your post and save the joint for when you’re off-duty, and no one needs to get in trouble for this.” He turned to me then, his brows knit tight together and a fierce scowl taking up the bulk of his facial landscape. “Keep the dog on the fucking leash next time, missy. I’m done chasing tail. All kinds of it.”
“Yes, sir,” I squeaked.
Logan saluted the soldiers, glared at us, and then stalked off toward the inhabited part of town, and perhaps his food truck.
That left us to stare at the guards, who, if I had to be blunt, had not done a very good job of preventing us from venturing into the Quarantine Zone in the first place.
“We should take them in,” one of them said.
“No way, man. Logan’s right. Keller’s in a bad mood, anyway. We’ll be fucked.”
I wondered if Keller had ever been in a good mood in his life.
The leader of the group finally pointed in the direction Logan had vanished. “Get out of here,” he said to us. “Don’t let us catch you around here again. And stop letting your damn dog get away from you.”
“Thanks,” Tony said. He grabbed my arm and started dragging me toward the plaza, Dax and his armload of golden retriever railing behind us. “What did I tell you about letting her off the leash? I wish you’d get it through that thick fucking skull of yours…”
He kept berating me until we rounded the corner and escaped earshot of the soldiers, who I’m sure were enjoying the colorful string of insults addressed at my character.
Finally he fell silent.
“I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done,” I said.
“Good thinking,” Dax said quietly, still holding onto the dog. “I don’t think I’ve seen you play the crying female card before.”
“It’s not one of my preferred weapons.” I glanced at the sky, trying to gauge what time it might be. I was fairly sure it wasn’t yet noon, which gave me some time to scrub off the stench of the dead before I had to go to work.
Tony slowed us to a crawl. “Is your little friend going to rat us out, Vibby?”
“My little friend is bigger than you,” I said. “And he’d get busted, too, for helping us.”
“Why was he there at all?”
“He told you.” I quickened my stride, eager to jump into the shower. “Alyssa asked him to.”
“And he came all the way out here to see what we were doing because his sister asked him to.”
I sighed. “We aren’t the only ones who don’t like how Keller’s running things.”
Tony’s eyelid twitched.
“Alyssa saw Vibeke and Keller arguing about shooting that zombie,” Dax said. “And now she knows all the stuff Keller said about fixing the radio was bullshit. Keller doesn’t want to talk to the outside.”
“And this thing with Durkee,” I added.
“Exactly. She knows things must be crazy here. She just never had a way to confirm it.” He might have looked much more convincing if he hadn’t been clutching a squirming pile of golden fluff.
In the apocalypse, a long time can be two weeks or a month, which is about as long as Elderwood and Hastings were out of contact. The big army base, located in Franklin, had gone dark sometime prior to that, which I figured equated to about a thousand years in the post-zombie timeline. Anyone who had lived or worked there was largely relegated to myth by now. At least, that was how I imagined any people who came after us would view pre-apocalyptic life.
Dax set Evie back down and let her trot along beside us. “So what are we going to do?”
“What can we do?” Tony asked. “We work and do our thing. Hammond isn’t going to show up out of nowhere, unless he’s managed to figure out teleportation.”
I almost secretly hoped for that. If the evil stardust could bring back the dead, then certainly it could make Hammond spontaneously appear where we needed him most, right?