Lepers

by Pernshinigami

The world beyond New Orleans burns under the infection, but nobody just lays down and dies, and everyone is a mutation of one. Though the ones bitten by Millhaven are twice shy, the southern sun kisses the refugees of Savannah, bringing new opportunity and life in the Crescent City while the quest to conquer microscropic dragons blesses and blights the survivors.

1. Tanked tested and swung

The boat was small, one room, but it had both a motor and a sail. Inside Rochelle had finally put down the ham radio and gone to bed. Ellis was snoring away on the other bunk. It was Coach's turn to steer but Nick still couldn't sleep. He couldn't pin down the flurry of discontent and frustration. It wasn't just a broken heart and a case of wandelust gnawing at him, for once Nick actually felt guilty about something and he actually felt like he'd lost something. "You mad at me Coach?"

"No... should I be?"

"You three... you had a chance at a life... you could have stayed and gone back to civilization and you let yourselves get exiled for me. Hell you could even have done something noble."

"Not exile man... and not your call all of us are grownups. Besides, the lady in charge... Doc Mercer, she said you could come back in a year or so... said she WANTS you there man. You made friends too, and made bank trading honestly with folks. You got a future there just not for the next year or so. Plus they're gonna call you back there in less than ten months you sly dog."

"Fuck my life." Nick grumbled. "All this because some asshole marine was overprotective of his sister." A slightly smug smirk crossed his face. Well, it wasn't the whole reason. The whole Felon no guns thing had come back to bite him. But god the look on that smug asshole's face when Mari hauled him into a tongue kiss in front of half the fort!

"Yeah daddy-o..." Coach teased, "You gon' be a daddy." He gave Nick a poke and a boyish grin. "Don't be sore you got somethin in all this mess to look forwards too. But besides that, the whole felon weapons dispute thing... Doc Mercer and Seargant Carter won the right to a vote on the matter. There's technically no United states anymore. Just relax and take life easy for once... daddy."

"Stop teasing me jeezus." Nick's face broke out in a sheepish grin. He looked up at the sky thinking about the day one adventure turned into another. With most electric lighting gone the stars were intense, beautiful enough to forget your cares for a bit.

~Two months before~

The door to the cell opened, and a man stepped in, flipping on the light. "You all can go." He told the guards. "GO!" He insisted when they turned reluctant. "right, you four are going with me... why they had to send me out when the doc's doing field work I'll never know." He was wearing a gas mask and heavy armor to resist bites. "Ya know, instead of meeting her outside that little village of hers but noooooo, I have to chase Mercer down while she's trying to bag experiment subjects."

The lights switched on in a simple glass apartment with an airlock at one end and special UV lighting. There was a hallway at the back leading to a bathroom with two toilet stalls a bathtub and a shower. There were four hospital beds, a shelf of books and an old CD player for entertainment. Coach, Ellis, Rochelle and Nick had each found a spot in the secure ward to set their bedrolls, each in a different corner for peace and quiet, and slowly, first Ellis and then the other three, rose. "So why are we being held in..." Rochelle started.

"You're being released. My brother's boss has a job proposal for you. I'm Major Allen Carter. Technically the US government doesn't exist anymore. Confirmed the death of the top ranking military personelle last month." He grumbled. "C'mon... up and at 'em, I don't like the glares I'm getting from my unit and I'm already gonna have to take a blood test for the green flu when I come back."

"Are things that bad?" Ellis blinked in surprise.

"The green flu jumped the missisippi last week, the infected are loose in the great plains and we're losing the support staff needed to run and maintain choppers and bombers. There's no more aircraft fuel being made, diesel has to be made by hand from kitchen waste or scavenged if we wanna run cars and APCs. There's no more mechanic staff to keep planes flying. Those fighter jets you saw in new orleans last week may be the last planes you ever see flying. Just as the bridge went down a hunter and a jockey leapt the gap and disappeared into the streets. We've got other reports of currents washing the infected downstream and across to the other shore with their bodies washing up and the scavengers carrying the virus away by tearing off chunks of the corpses. And multiple reports confirming that boomers can float. So you tell me. Leave the bedrolls, I'll issue new guns when we're out of here the ones you came with were burned."

Ellis bowed his head. "Sorry... I..."

"Don't be. I just need to square some stuff with Doc Mercer and she's in the field. You're gonna need those guns before we get to Fort Colony." Major Carter went from frustrated and dolorous to cold and focused.

"What's that?"

"An attempt to restart civilization. Right now we're going through an extinction level event. The WHO fell trying to trace the origin of the green flu and they failed. Every mammel species that encounters it is being destroyed by it with similar carrier populations to humans. The doc calls it a genetic bottleneck, said it happened to humans once before like thats supposed to make me feel better." The man snorted. "what upsets me the most is that even as those bombers were busting up perfectly good infrastructure we're never going to be able to repair in our lifetimes it was already too late. Dead infected washed down the mississippi and floating up in the great lakes. All those resources, all that effort, and the pilots most of whom died not long after, all for nothing!" the man kicked the ground in irritation.

"Can you actually do that? I mean its a virus isn't it? Wouldn't that be like trying to trace a ghost?" As they walked down the hallways of the military outpost towards the door Nick couldn't and could believe the things he was hearing. "Do you really think you can... I dunno, intercept it? The infected are pretty fast."

"They did it with smallpox in the sixties and seventies, saved a lot of need for vaccine production by zeroing down where the disease was thickest. Now its standard procedure when there's an outbreak, any outbreak, to find patient zero and work your way out from there. Epidemics aren't just medicine, they're detective work and math too. Randy was always better at it than I was. I looked at that equation and asked 'so does that mean we have more, or less zombies to shoot.'" Carter replied as he opened the door. The light was blinding and it took a moment for Nick's eyes to adjust. The major lead them to a pickup truck with a rumble seat in the back and a huge snowplow strapped to the front. "Buckle up, grab a rifle, I need one of you to keep your eyes out for spitters they'll wreck this baby's tires with their acid and then our little joyride is fucked."

Wordlessly Nick picked up a rifle and climbed in. Coach took charge. "Right, everyone cover a side of the truck. You heard the man, not like there are any tire factories still running so we pop one on an acid puddle we're screwed."

Still the wind in their faces after a week locked in a glass quarantine cage with a bathroom being the only private space and soldiers glaring at them 24/7 was exhilarating. Only a couple of spitters tried to jump them, and the plow took care of the normal infected and one unfortunate Jockey that tried to jump Rochelle's face through the windshield. A hunter actually tried to chase the truck but the Major gunned it and Ellis blew a raspberry at him as they pulled away from the snarling hooded zombie. "haha! eat our dust you bastard! wooooooo!"

They pulled into a construction site and Rochelle hopped out, taking in her surroundings a bit more carefully. There were easily a hundred people there, an arms table and a first aid station stocked with ample emergency heal kits and medicines. And in the center was a great big pit. A familiar roar rising from the pit caught Rochelle's attention, the woman jumped when she heard it. How could she not? By now hitting the deck or drawing and firing when a tank's furious bellow echoed off the empty buildings was a reflex. The people surrounding the pit were tense. Most were military personelle but there were some civilians all armed to the teeth. The tank's feet were tangled up in a heavy steel net that it was struggling to escape from. These weren't worn bricks and weak morter holding it and there was no warped wrought iron fire escapes for it to smash through. No the net holding the Tank's feet had been purpose built, probably just for snaring special infected. "BOOOORRAAAAAAAAAR!" An especially loud roar issued forth, and many on guard around the pit flinched.

A woman in a lab coat stood at one of the tables, readying a tranquilizer gun. She had long black hair in a tight braid and flashing dark eyes. "Not going to repeat the same mistake this time." Her lab coat was seriously old and stained, and a sun bleached slightly blood stained CEDA ID badge was pinned to her chest. The woman wore black rim glasses and a grim, tense smile. She touched her ID badge for a moment, a self reassuring gesture, and then squared her shoulders.

"What going ape on the tranks and ODying the tank? Dude its called fear, deal with it." Another man in a set of military body armor with a closely cut shock of light brown hair and a gotee mustache replied. "Especially given that the damn thing flipped a jeep over your head. What are you gonna do stand there and let yourself get hit? Na..." He had a jovial expression, but his face was careworn and sunbaked. As he cracked his neck and knuckles Rochelle could see a strange pattern of scars on his right hand. Some of them looked like teeth marks, but the others were... acid burns? A spitter? The mental image of this jolly soldier punching a spitter in the mouth popped into Rochelle's head, and for just a moment she was reminded of Francis.

"You actually managed to trap one?" Coach looked nervously over at the pit. "The other mutated zombies too?"

"Its not trapped yet. Its trapped when its down, restrained and in a cage. I'm hoping we can hobble it somehow without permanent damage." The woman said briskly.

"Trust me this is not the craziest thing we've done. I'm Seargent Randolph Carter, call me Randy or Carter for short." The soldier offered a hand to shake. "We use our immunity as a weapon Nora and I." The look of pride on his face was plain as he strode over to meet them.

Coach took it. "Call me Coach, thats Rochelle, Nick and Ellis."

"So bro, what I tell you? they came all the way down from georgia. Hell the file says Ro here's from Ohio." Major Carter chuckled. "They survived that long they have to have some chops. Plus you should have seen the shooting they did. Helluva marksman all of 'em and Coach and Rochelle didn't even think about picking up a gun till the shit hit the fan!"

"We'll take care of them. You should get back. If that mask comes off you're stuck out in the cold." Seargent Carter laughed. "Can't have my own brother catching the flu can I? I'd thump your back but I'd get you in trouble for it."

"Yessir. But the sentiment is appreciated. I'm not the one you have to worry about though." the Major grinned at the four of them. "You guys are in good hands here. Doc'll explain everything."

"I'll get the net gun ready Nora." Seargent Carter happily thumped the woman in the lab coat on the back. "Just get these guys squared away and if Shwartzenangry down there breaks free we'll deal with it." He took the trank gun from her and strode confidently away. "After all, its not killing the tank that makes this task hard... its bringing it home alive!"

"Alright." She smiled and motioned for the foursome to follow her to a truck slightly back from the crew guarding the tank. "Since he actually willingly pried a kid and a witch apart I trust him to be able to handle himself. Long story." She added. "Lets just say we get a lot of emotionally scarred people coming in. We have to keep a shrink on staff just for that because of all the emotional damage the apocalypse caused."

"I imagine so..." Rochelle hesitated before climbing up into the truck. When Nora sat down so did she, and the other three followed. "So... what's this about?"

Nora pulled out a small drawstring bag from her purse. "Green flu testing. This one's my creation, faster than the blood tests which take a few days. Then we have a talk." Nora handed each of them a vial. "Just spit into it. Don't worry you're not in trouble. I just need to know where things stand before I explain." She smiled at them, a very tired and sad look shone in her eyes though, contrary to the smile.

Rochelle looked left and right at her team mates. Nick was eyeing the vial like it was going to bite him. Coach was studying Doctor Mercer warily, like he was trying to figure her out and Ellis was looking at Rochelle for direction. She took a deep breath and spat into the test tube. Ellis and Coach followed suit and then glared at Nick. "Eeeh what the hell, I figured we would have been lined up against a wall and shot a week ago." The con man spat into the tube and handed it off like it was going to explode in his fingers.

Doctor Mercer dropped a small white ball into each, stoppered them shut and shook each test tube until the white ball started to dissolve in the saliva. It foamed slightly as it did so, the foam turning an ominous crimson in each vial one by one. Doctor Mercer looked pityingly at them, then noticing their confusion took out one of the tubes, and performed the test on herself. She held it up for them to see. The dissolving ball of white in her tube turned the same deep bloody crimson.

The woman sighed. "We are up the same shit creek you and I. So... I want you guys to think back to any contact you had with other people." Rochelle was too busy staring at the vial in horror, face turning white in shock not really comprehending the doctor's words as she realized what that red fizzing reaction meant. She didn't even register Nick lunging for the entrance, or Coach's sputter of protest. "SIT DOWN DAMNIT you aren't in trouble will you listen a minute?! THINK! Any encounters with people where a survivor suddenly turned? And how long ago if you can remember." She offered them back their test vials but Nick was too out of it to take his. Crap Nick was a neat freak with this news he could lose it. As a reporter Rochelle believed in truthfulness but this was bad. This was very bad. Why the hell couldn't she have lied?

Ellis' jaw hung open, and shut and open again. "The chopper pilot, the one that picked us up in whispering oaks." His voice was hoarse. "He turned into a zombie an Nick shot him." The normally cheery young man was shaking violently, eyes enormous with fear as he stared at the vial in his hand.

"What was that about three weeks after the world went to hell?" Coach was trying to remember.

Rochelle flipped open her old reporter's notebook. "More like a month going on 5. You're saying we've been infected this whole time?" The woman was struggling to regain her composure. Rochelle's heart was hammering in her chest and her hand wouldn't stop shaking as she looked at the vial in her hand. It felt like she'd just gotten a death sentence. "You're saying we were carrying the virus that whole time and didn't feel a thing?"

"Never heard of typhoid mary have you?" asked Doctor Mercer with a ruefull chuckle. "Born Mary Mallon, typhoid bacteria couldn't make her sick, but neither would her body fight them off. Her peach ice cream was to die for, literally. Unlike everything else she served, the ice cream wasn't heated and the typhoid bacteria could survive. But this... this is more tenacious than that, the green flu hangs on worse than even the old anthrax tests on Grunard Island back in the late fourties and fifties. and the damn thing doesn't want to culture in anything but brain tissue. We pinned down some genes from rabies so we know its related to that. My money's on an experimental weapon that escaped but I can't prove it definitively and too many people took their knowledge to the grave with them."

"I knew it! I knew we couldn't trust the military. But nooooooo lets call to be rescued." Nick looked like he was about to bolt, his skin slightly green. "Oh my god its on me, its in me ooooogg I'm gonna be sick." He stumbled to the back door of the truck to throw up.

"WILL YOU COOL IT?" Rochelle snapped. "Nick I'm trying to wrap my head around this a second. This isn't something a little hand sanitizer or some shit like that can fix!"

"YOU THINK I DON'T FUCKING KNOW THAT!?" Nick snarled, he looked like he was gonna pass out.

Mercer was watching them carefully, there was no hint of judgement in her voice or her body language. "Calm down all of you. Everyone in that circle out there is in the same situation as us. They're immune and carrying the virus. We're all each other has. But if we stand together we can weather the infected."

"And nowhere was spared?" Rochelle worried about her parents back in Ohio.

"Fraid not, its moving fast, should have hit the west coast by now. If there's someone you're looking for talk to our radio operator, but if its civilization you're worried about... infection is exponential." Rochelle was about to answer but was interrupted, there was a fresh roar from outside. The tank made one last desperate attempt to get free and then... BOOM! Rochelle ran out of the truck just in time to see the tank fall to the ground, toppeling three people into the pit trap with it, wrapped around and around in steel netting. Without skipping a beat the people who fell in cheerfully attached a rope to the top of the net, secured the corners of the net to a board at the bottom of their trap, and a sullen looking teenager climbed a nearby crane with the end of the rope and fastened it to the lifting mechanism.

"Right!" Seargent Carter bellowed. "Take your positions, I want everyone to take a health kit, your preferred weapon and an adrenaline shot. We aren't activating it until everyone's ready so speak up if you didn't get one!"

A handful of people collected extra first aid equipment and some grenades. "Pipe bombers are you ready?"

Several people on balconies waved their pipe bombs in answer.

"Circle ready?!" A roar of eagerness from the crowd. "Molys are you ready?!" More eager shouts, like a racehorse hellbent on getting onto the track. Ellis scrambled to get some more ammo, carrying the extra first aid pack in his teeth before shoving a molotov into the back of his pants. Coach swapped his shotgun for an AK. Nick grabbed a magnum and a bile jar. Rochelle scrambled to pick out a weapon. "Don't get the axe unless you have the upper arm strength to be quick." One of the soldiers warned her.

"Oh I'm quick." She lifted the axe with just her thumb and forefinger. "What about you jarhead?" She smirked, grabbing an AK 47 for herself.

"Better watch out dude." Ellis smirked. "I've seen Rochelle crack a charger between the eyes with one of those axes."

The man grumbled, taking his post. "Civies..."

"When you're ready raise your gun!" Rochelle ran to a spot next to the truck doctor mercer had pulled them into to test them for the virus and raised her gun up. One by one the others raised theirs. "Alright, start crane in ten seconds..." a burly looking man with no shirt and a really big bruise on his back jumped to the crane's driver's seat. "Ten... nine... eight..." Rochelle hurriedly checked her weapon over, took a grip on her molotov and then... "five... four... three... two... ONE!"

The crane started, the infected hoardes howled in the distance and then... the hoard shrieked and rushed the line while the crane lifted the unconscious tank in the air. Then the humans opened fire. A couple melee fighters including the moody boy with the samurai sword from earlier dove on the hoarde, hurling molotovs to try and cut off their entrance to the site. The boy cut three infected down in a single swipe, yelling in rage and hurtling himself into the fray with the fury of a demon.

The next ten minutes were a whirlwind. But Rochelle could see glimpses of how well practiced the group was. When a charger burst through the line they parted on reflex, left and right and let the charger fall into the pit before chucking bile jars at it. Sharpshooters on the roof picked off any smokers or spitters that came close. A couple of hunters tried to jump them but they covered each other way too well. Rochelle could almost imagine a net of gunfire coverage extending from sniper to sniper to sniper encircling their position. /When we work together, we're unbeatable./ The thought floated into her mind unbid as time seemed to slow in a battle hazed blur.

She caught a flash of Ellis cheering and hollaring in joy as he joined the melee. Coach was wading through the commons with a chainsaw, leaving destruction in his wake. "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" a hunter leapt for the position Nick had taken on the fire escape only for the teenager and twenty something woman with him to slam it with a baseball bat. The unconscious tank was being swung carefully over to an open pickup truck. Just a few feet more and they could lower it down.

The nasal honking bellow of a charger on the attack brought Rochelle's attention back forwards. She dove out of the way of the speeding grey skinned cannon ball bearing down on her, skinning her elbows and stomach and covering her head. The back of her arms collided with Ellis' leg, causing him to stumble. "WOAH Rochelle easy!" The charger hit the pit and collided with the far wall, hitting its head.

"oooow." Rochelle groaned as Ellis pulled her to her feet. She looked over the edge of the pit just in time to see the charger, clawing at the walls, be put down by a pair of trank darts to the back of the neck and a bullet to its foot.

Doctor Mercer smirked, reloading her trank gun. "Bonus." The tank finally rested on the pickup truck. "Remember guys!" She told the crew. "If it wakes up prematurely gun the engine and get the fuck out of there." She clapped some kind of anklet onto its foot. "Radio collar is active. Jeezus these guys are thick." She thumped the bottom of the tank's foot and gestured for the guards to put the captured charger on as well. "Not bad, thirty minutes, four newcomers, two specimens and space for more of Ricky's masterfully made molotovs in our storeroom. I call that a win." She offered the four newcomers a hand up onto a second pickup truck. "C'mon. Lets get those scrapes cleaned up. You'll be sore but I don't think it warrents the use of a heal kit. Just keep it clean."

Nick hobbled up onto the truck, the others helping him on. "God damned smoker got through and wrenched me around. That fucking hurts!"

With everyone settled Seargent Carter started up the truck and pulled in behind the pickup carrying the tank."I'll have Mari give you a massage, and an ice pack. The latter after but I think you kinda need it. Does that hurt?" Doctor Mercer gently pushed on the back of Nick's shoulder.

"OW yes yes... and my right hip is about as bad. Shit..." He sat there sulking. Doctor Mercer opened a first aid box among the supplies in the truck and pulled out a disposible ice pack. Nick cracked the packs inside it with his fist and jammed it up against his hip joint. When his suit was too thick for the cold to be felt he shoved it inside the waistband of his pants to hold it still.

Nick stared down at his hands on the ride over. Rochelle gently put her hand on his shoulder. "Totally freaked?"

"I can't get the thought out of my head. Fuck." Nick growled. "Its in me and on me and jeezus I can't make it fucking stop!" His skin was crawling as thoughts of the dead cows he'd seen with the tops of their heads opened sprung to his mind and in his imagination he could see the virus clawing at his skull. Now that the thought was in his head and adrenaline had worn off Nick couldn't stop the broken record in his mind. /Its in me... its on me... I didn't feel a fucking thing... I'm such an idiot... I thought i could escape but it was in me all along... shit... no stop this Nick you're losing it! STOP./

"Smelling salts." Doctor Mercer handed Nick a worn but clean bandana.

Nick jumped, then he took it and sniffed it. "Lavender?"

"Concentrate on the smell and breathe as deeply as you can manage. Close your eyes... and breathe. Your friends are protecting the truck you can relax." Nick's brain was in a summersault. He shoved his nose in the bandana and started breathing in. That hamster wheel of "oh my god its inside me its on me and I didn't know it was there" kept turning in his mind, he breathed in as deep as he could, fighting the pain from the twisted up shoulder and wrenched leg to get a deeper breath. He'd learned body language control as part of his conman persuits and it was very handy when fighting the panic that was now ripping through his mind. "In for three seconds... hold for three seconds... oouuuuttt for three seconds. Focus on my voice and breathe. You are not sick, you are not being harmed by the virus, its living with you and you will perservere. Be calm... calm like the water... in... hold... ouuuuttt..."

Nick followed her directions, grateful that someone was able to steer him through the anxiety attack. "I haven't had one of those in... fucking months... Every time I get seriously dirty, crawling through sewers, swamps, mud, I'm always comforted by the thought that I can clean myself off, that I won't be IN the muck forever but this..." He was breathing hard, struggling not to hyperventilate.

"How long have you been like this around dirt?" Doctor Mercer asked him, eyeing Nick's body language carefully. She had the advantage of a medical view of human behavior. She could see the conman struggling to control his panic.

"Long fucking time. Years." Nick gasped out, trying not to hyperventilate and keeping his nose and mouth in the bandana. /Focus on the scent... focus on how it makes you feel... you got this Nick... but the... no no no! don't think about the virus... shit... she's trying to help you... FOCUS!/

"Shit... and any medications that could have helped are loooongg gone." Mercer pinched the bridge of her nose. "Nick I can coach you through some of this... it might be better to have a psych eval done and see Mari on a regular basis to keep the stress down. I can see the tension in your shoulders."

"I'm not LOSING it." Nick snapped. "The whole world just got wiped out by a disease I'm not paranoid."

"No, you're having a textbook panic attack." Mercer told him calmly. "Think of being immune as a shield. No... that won't really help the thoughts will it?"

"I can't! And no, it feels like there's a hamster wheel turning in my head. NOTHING stops those thoughts except time."

"Try..."

"I can't! Get this shit out of my system! I don't want it there!" Nick really was losing it. "I'm not crazy! I'm not paranoid!"

Ellis looked at Coach for a lead. Coach just kept his eyes on the area around the truck, keeping a careful eye and gun out for special infected. Ellis looked worriedly at Nick, and then questioningly at Rochelle. Rochelle shook her head at Ellis and then took Nick's hand and squeezed it. There wasn't much they could do but let Nick know his pain was heard. She didn't want Ellis saying something stupid that would set him off.

"You aren't Nick..."

"Then why send me to a fucking shrink?! Why mention medicine?" Nick's hand subconsciously tightened on Rochelle's.

"Nick its a chemical imbalence in your brain, but besides that everyone in the village sees the shrink every so often because your mind is just like all your other bodily systems, it needs medical care. And we have almost none. I'm a geneticist, a researcher, I haven't practiced emergency medicine in years and suddenly I'm faced with battlefield casualties? How do you think THAT weighs on me? But despite having no history of psychiatric illness I still see the shrink because I know doing so will help me be a better leader and a more objective scientist. As far as we know, there's 30 of us to continue the work CEDA did before this with thousands of researchers doctors and technicians, the people alive here need me at my best. Your friends need YOU at your best." Mercer looked Nick in the eyes over her glasses and said with quiet ferver. "If I can do it you can too. Its nothing wrong with your personality. Its just your brain messing with you. And believe me, as a doctor i've heard EVERY ignorant thing a person can say about different illnesses."

"Doc." Carter called from the driver's seat. "How about we start by getting the new folks settled in okay?"

Nick closed his eyes and focused on the lavender smell and his breath, trying to block out everything else. A couple of specials, including a very bouncy jockey with a seriously long scarf around his neck tried to catch the truck, only to be shot down and the Jockey to trip and get roadburn. Once Nick took his frustrations out on a smoker he saw on the rooftops, cracking it with a bile bomb from earlier with a snarl of frustration. Coach put a gentle hand on his good shoulder. "Easy there... you'll be alright." His paternal tone was somewhat comforting.

Then they reached a gate in a large junk wall. The junk wall had spikes sticking outwards, sharpened wood and steel poles bent in an outwards arch to make it hard for incoming infected to scale. The gate leading to it was an extra large chain link affair with outward leaning metal panels in the same shape as the arched fencepoles. The walls were guarded by men and women and even a couple teenagers. Many wore military uniforms, but not all. Most just carried hunting rifles but there were quite a few assault rifles and other military hardware among them.

"I'm going to have a psych eval done. That sounds too much like anxiety disorder to me." Mercer hopped off the truck, offering Nick a hand and using a take charge tone that she hoped he'd have trouble resisting. "But not right now. I'm going to secure the specimens, then we'll get you settled in."

Coach looked around curiously. It looked like they were outside of a fenced off urgent care facility with a couple of smaller apartment buildings and an old gas station and conveinance store. There were a couple of injured horses and other livestock in a paddock. Many bore the scars of starvation and secondary diseases but they didn't look like they were infected. There were a couple of scientists teaching a half circle of children what looked like a lesson on first aid and survival skills. There were gardens, some built straight up on the asphalt and many built from old junk. He caught sight of a target range and a truck of salvaged food and gas cans being unloaded, laundry being hung, hallow trauma worn faces wrought with stresslines. And the soldiers, the shadows he saw in their eyes... Coach knew that look. Everything he'd known had been destroyed, that look might have been his if he hadn't found his teammates.

"here." Carter tossed him a pack of gum. "Sorry I don't have a better welcome gift. Candy and smokes make for good reassurance that you aren't gonna attack a survivor you don't know."

Coach nodded. "These people... they look like they've been through hell."

"Yep... sure have! Better catch up before they leave you behind!" Carter raised his rifle jauntily over his shoulder and strode off to a firepit where a couple of soldiers from different branches of the military were chugging cups of coffee. They waved him over with wane smiles and one of them saluted cheerily.

Coach followed Mercer and his team into the door marked "Morgue." They went through a utility hallway into the drawer storage where bodies were kept, an alcove beyond served as the autopsy theater. An elderly man in a lab coat was bent over a smoker he had cut open on the table. His hair was recently cut and it looked like he'd just showered not long before. He had a bowtie and an oxford shirt on under his labcoat, even wearing nice pants. "you're just in time. I finished some interesting readings on his musculature. Poor fellow was probably not long for this world when he turned, would have been N stage lung cancer I even found his stoma." Then he looked up and saw that Mercer had brought someone new along. "Aaaah you found some more strays, though we've long since passed dunbar's number, the more join us the safer the human race is in the long run." He smiled up at Coach warmly.

"Nice to meet you, call me Coach. These are Ellis, Nick and Rochelle."

"Ethan Woad, corner, CEDA. I'd offer you a handshake but my hands are a bit of a mess." His latex gloves were covered in blood and sickly black tar. "Nora my dear, you should see what I found cutting this fellow apart." Woad moved back to the smoker corpse. "you all can come closer, he can't hurt you anymore and this might actually be interesting." The man's brittish accent and cheery, almost grandfatherly lilt put Coach at ease enough to want to have a look.

Nick shivered as he investigated the dead Smoker's open ribcage. "are its lungs... seething?"

"Fascinating." Mercer pulled on a pair of latex gloves and picked up a pair of foreceps.

The Smoker's lungs were solid black, and appeared to be heaving slightly. Coach made a face, shivering at how creepy they were. "You ain't seen nothing yet." Woad said gravely. He carefully sliced a heaving section off and put it into a surgical tray. It was a tentacle, and it was wriggling. "watch." He carefully waved his scalpel over the tentacle. A section of it shot up and tried to grab the scalpel.

"is that... wait a minute, that thing behaved like an amoeba right there." Mercer looked confused. Nick's green tinge returned to his face as he eyed the thing on the tray.

"I'd have to put it under a microscope, but I'm fairly sure its a lung tumor cell. A giant one. A smoker's tongue may very well be a tentacle of lung tumor cells instead. It may even be an extension of his lungs, able to respirate. Poor fellow. It looks quite painful. My guess is the black tar sputum is to allow the tongue to shoot smoothly without pain. Its misshapen and elegant all at once. There are specialized muscles on one side of his face and neck that probably form a firing mechanism but I'd have to get one alive to tell for sure."

"Huh, have you tried plying it with a chemotherepy drug?"

"Not yet." Woad smiled. "I'll have to wait for the salvage teams to hit a hospital."

Coach stepped back, shaking his head at the disturbing thought of a tumor with a mind of its own, and then noticed the tiny figure kneeling near one of the morgue drawers. A little boy about 5, thin and pale with his face in his hands. "Hey who's that?"

"Mason, he doesn't talk. Mercer I'm sorry to say he's gone into one of his fits again. Thats Sissy's drawer he's sitting next to. He heard the witches singing last night and he's been like this all day I'm afraid." Rochelle and Coach cautiously approached the boy, Mercer behind them.

They knelt down next to the boy, Mason. "Mason?" Mercer asked quietly.

"Sissy... sissy was singing again..." The boy's grey eyes peered blankly up at them through unkempt light brown bangs.

It clicked after a moment. "His sister became a witch?" Coach asked worriedly. Come to think of it, the boys posture was identical to the weeping position the witches typically sat in. The vacant look on his face would have meant he was passive enough the infected might not realize he wasn't one of them. The way he carried himself as he sat up was very witch like, slouched, not making eye contact.

"Yes, but because he was quiet and still she didn't turn violent towards him. Carter, good man that he was, saw a boy near a dangerous zombie and drew the witch away, then killed her. He didn't realize until it was too late who she was to the little boy or how fragile his mental state was. We all take turns watching him now. You know his body language mimickry of the witch is very accurate. It might be the reason why the infected didn't maul him to death. They thought he was one of them. Witches as a rule don't have much in the feminine figure department, and children before puberty are fairly androgenous."

"The problem is if he hears a witch he tries to find her thinking its his sister. The boy is semi catatonic and definately developmentally damaged from psychological trauma." Mercer added.

"boss tank's settled in." One of the soldiers came in the room. He hesitated when he saw Mason and walked over to the boy. Coach stepped back, watching as the soldier left a chocolate bar next to the boy. "Get well soon little guy."

"It takes a village." Coach remarked as the man left.

"Indeed." Woad replied darkly. "Well, I'd better get as many samples from this smoker as I can. Its not all that scientific because it wasn't in the control group for Nora's experiment and so the results could be skewed, but its useful none the less." He nodded to Mercer, who stood and lead them up the hallway futher. Beyond this was a room with two banks of heavily reinforced cages.

Ellis curiously looked in the cages, examining them and their contents. They were made of bullet proof glass and steel bars. Each one had a note taped to the glass indicating what experiment was being done on it. "What was the experiment?"

"I was using a technique that was used during the 1918 flu pandemic, though I couldn't use horses we've only found a few that are immune to the virus so far, couldn't risk it. You take blood from someone who survived the disease, centrifuge it to remove any parts that would have to be matched by blood type, and inject it into someone who's sick, hoping you've caught antibodies for it in your sample. Very primitive vaccine, capable of carrying a lot of diseases with it but if its what you've got you use it. And right now all we've got is our disease."

"NORA NORA!" A teenage boy leapt out of a door nearby and threw his arms around Mercer. "you're back! I saw them put the tank in a cage! you got a charger too? who's gonna get dibs?"

"Not sure yet. Anything interesting happen?"

"oh yeah! Nurse Frond thinks the current tank is gonna drop any time now! The one in the control group! The current betting is three days! And you should see the hunter from the experimental group you need to see!" Coach curiously followed the boy and Mercer towards one bank of cages with a number of commons, six empty cages and one lone hunter.

"This your blood serum test?" Coach asked. Mercer nodded.

"They're so quiet." Rochelle said in a hushed voice. "Suddenly I feel like I'm in a library." The commons were absolutely silent. Not so much as a peep. No restless banging or shifting, no mumbling and high pitched yowling. Just quiet and staring at them like caged animals, unsure whether or not they're there for the slaughter.

"Yes, hmmm it seems to have quieted their insanity somewhat. Wait what?" Mercer hesitated, then grinned giddily. "They're eating! Oh my god they're eating!" She happily jumped up and down. "YAHOO! One step down! oooooh wait till I show the others!"

"Wait why the hell is that a good sign?" Nick demanded. "They look like ordinary infected to me... oh my god that hunter is drinking broth out of a bowl like a cat." he snickered at the sight of a cute behavior coming out of a big nasty zombie. The hunter growled slightly and Coach caught a flash of bloody eye socket and blue irises under the hood. He'd never noticed... were they all blind? Or were his eyes just bleeding?

"I'd think getting beat up by them you'd have noticed by now, the infected don't eat. They pummel people to death but they don't eat, let alone eat them." Mercer explained, pointing to the common infected in the cages and the half empty bowls of what looked like mashed potato. Coach realized just how emaciated they were. He never thought about it. He saw a zombie, but Mercer saw a behavior, a mind."They attack each other, they vomit and although they don't sleep they do rest. But they never eat even when you put food in the cell with them. It just sits there till it spoils."

"But getting them to eat isn't that big of an achievement is it?" asked Ellis curiously.

"If they didn't eventually they'd die." Mercer replied. "Food, water, exposure, lack of sleep. If we first want to cure the infection we have to be able to keep the infected alive so there are ones to cure. This is a start at least. Shame for the specials. We got one of each in each trial group, even a witch and a tank but it looks like the only one that survived in the experimental group was this hunter." The hunter yawned, crawled over to a mat at the back of the cell and fell asleep. "Jeezus I didn't want them to be docile like this... this is strange." The other infected were slowly falling asleep as well.

"its the bone broth doc!" The boy chuckled. "It makes me fall asleep! and they cooked the instant mashed potatoes with some too!"

"its not a bad choice." Coach mused. "really nutrient dense, ma used to make me some when I got sick. Everything your body needs to make more immune cells, right in one steamin bowl of parental love." He licked his lips. "Actually, I'm jealous, I haven't had any in a long loooong time."

"The kitchens serve chicken broth when they can get chickens." The boy licked his lips. "The One 4 All brought us a pig last week, he's gonna be good eating but the grownups are waiting for a female! They got some of our cucumbers and tomatoes for it! The yellow cukes they got came from my garden too!" He beamed in pride through shaggy blonde bangs. "And Virgil came through the other day said he was gonna find us some chickens!"

"oh is this where he stopped after he dropped us off?" Rochelle chuckled. "I was curious where he was off to in such a hurry."

"There are a lot of small vessels plying the waters in the carribean, all of them people who escaped the green flu. The ones that are carriers come in regularly to trade and get any medical care they need." Mercer explained. "There are about 400 of us counting you guys. I want people here who are ballsy enough to try and catch the special infected rather than killing them. I need subjects and we don't have much time. The earliest infected are dying off either by bullets or exposure. The more humans survive this the better our odds are of being able to start over. If we don't have enough people to repopulate after this the genepool will be too squeezed and we won't have healthy generations of humans further down the line. Its not just short term safety its long term viability and genetic health."

"oh i see, so you need us to catch specimens!" Ellis grinned. "i'm totally in, plus I'm a mechanic so I can do that too."

"What's your rate?" Nick of course.

"Barter mostly sorry." Mercer chuckled. "and if you need a sample looked at, we've got a bunch of nurses in training who need the practice." She opened the door to a room with a bunch of microscopes, some computer monitors, a blood centrifuge, something that had a bunch of pietri dishes in it, and a large refrigerator sized machine over on its side.

Inside were three women, one of whom couldn't have been more than 16, and a young man who looked barely 20. A tall black nurse with a number of silvery hairs and her hair pulled back in a bun seemed to be teaching the class. They were looking at something on a computer monitor. "Seriously Martin you discovered this in a boomer's stomach? Braver man than I."

"Yep." The young man beamed. "Doc Mercer says its a brand new strain of ecoli, never seen before. I put carbolic acid on it that thing just shrugged it off like nothing!"

"Which is why I'm doing something rare and giving you a homework assignment Martin." Mercer chuckled. "Kill a spitter and search its stomach for signs of this or a similar strain."

"you think the boomer got it from a spitter?" The youngest of the women asked, tilting her head.

"Perhaps, since Carbolic acid is an archaic disinfectant known to kill plague bacteria. And yet plain old ecoli survived? No thats not an adaptation I'd attribute to a boomer I'd wager that strain came from a spitter and the two were similar enough for it to survive." Mercer motioned the others forward. "Nurse Lilly, we have some new folks that will be procuring samples..."

Coach smiled warmly. "Just call me Coach." he offered his hand to the black woman, Lilly, to shake. She took it, with a firm squeeze and a slow grin. "It would be an honor to help such a stately lady."

"Mmm, flattery smells as sweet as apple pie... I suppose you'll do." Lilly teased.

"And this is Mari, Nick I wanted to introduce you." Mari had dark hair and dark brown eyes. She had a deep southern tan and a hint of muscle underneath. Her body was perfectly proportioned. Neither end too broad or narrow a curve. Nick felt a blush rising in his cheeks. "She's our physical therapist. Keeps our folks on their feet but she was branching out into massage when the infected came."

"A pleasure. I hear you have magic hands." Nick suddenly felt self concscious, rolling his injured shoulder and wincing slightly when it refused to move smoothly without pain.

"Nick got wrenched by a smoker and..." Mercer put her body between the nursing class and the others, moving them to a corner a bit and keeping her voice low. "Another panic attack case." Nick looked at his shoes a moment.

"Thats the third one this month. Alright, we can start after supper tonight. You taught him the breathing exercise?"

"Yep." Mercer smiled. "you're in good hands then I think Nick."

"Hmmm..." Mari eyed his suit. "That needs a wash. I help folks destress and I can tell you clean laundry is one of the simplest."

"There's washing here?" Nick asked eagerly.

"Kinda... we have a bunch of hand crank stuff from a museum. We even made a spinning wheel out of an old penny farthing bike."

"What ones are the penny farthings?" Nick couldn't remember ever hearing that name.

"Those big ones from the early 1900s with the massive wheel in front?" Mari chuckled.

"Oh yeah i never knew what they were called. Those are just ridiculous!" Nick laughed. "So what you all pull out a wash board or something?"

"Better, because its chest height it can hold like four to six outfits depending on how heavy guage a cloth they are." Mari beamed. "We'll get you some sweats so you don't have to sit around in your underwear being gawked at. My experience is folks with anxiety don't really like being stared at. And with a build like that you are definately gonna get some staring."

"pfffft, when the zombies came I was just gunning to get laid. So there I am on a hotel rooftop in savannah with three people I don't know and I've got lipstick on my neck and a hickey." Nick chuckled. No way was he going to admit to being self conscious, not in front of miss dark and beautiful.

"Well you never know." Mari said serenely. "One of the problems with a zombie apocalypse is that you don't know how people are going to deal with it psychologically. You've been traveling with the same three people for weeks now but haven't had to live in a large group of people with the same possible threats. And when something went south for you guys you could just move on. Civilization building, or rebuilding which is what we're here for isn't like that. You can't run from a hoarde if you're a settlement, but if your numbers and interpersonal relationships are healthy you can fight back against it."

Nick spared a glance at his traveling companions, Coach was seriously into Lilly. As much as a fellow educator as an attractive potential love interest. Ellis and Martin were swapping stories about fighting the infected versus studying them and Martin was showing off his mutant boomer bacteria on the digital microscope. Rochelle was asking about the ham radio operator again and the teenage girl was trying to give her directions to the radio tower but wasn't quite getting it right and her companion kept interjecting with every error.

"Huh, I never thought of that." And now that he did, Nick realized just how intimidated he was by the prospect of having to get along with a settlement of some 400 odd fellow carriers, many of whom were CEDA or Military affiliated survivors. "So... what else do you do? I mean just PT or..."

"I'm learning nutrition and nursing related skills. And we do have a museum curator among the survivors living here. Thats how we got so many hand crank devices." She chuckled. "Thats how we got the blood serum technique too. This isn't the first unstoppable plague humanity has fought. As long as there are people who are naturally immune no disease is going to be a hundred percent effective at killing us. If there's one thing we learned from that history being available to us its that the biggest danger to us is the knock on effects of a doomsday plague. Losing electricity, running water, refrigeration, manufacturing, combustion engines, rapid travel, rapid communication, advanced medical devices and all those lovely things that let us specialize in one or two professions for our entire lives all of that is gone. Weakened by hunger and stress our population is at risk of secondary disease taking hold and wiping us out. Hell think about all those people with pacemakers or who needed dialysis or who had HIV. They're all dead. They needed medical technology to keep them alive and now they're gone because that tech is gone."

"Jeez I didn't think of it that way... I was too busy worrying about the zombies to think about the rest of the world. I just assumed everyone was dead, didn't matter how. um..." He looked over at the others. But Coach was too busy making nice to the greying nurse. "How about we go take care of that shoulder huh?"

"Sure thing neighbor." Mari grabbed a backpack from the doorway to the lab, slung it over her shoulder, and lead Nick out to her studio. "Lets start with limbering up that shoulder and getting you some spare clothes. And I want you to keep a notebook of when and what you're doing when your anxiety symptoms hit. Sometimes playing psychological detective with yourself reveals a lot more than you think, even if you don't share those insights with other people."

~present~

Nick smiled at the stars. Also god damn Smoker wounds hurt. Twist you in the breeze like a hangman's noose or swing you around like some demented carnival ride. But Mari was worth it, all of it, he'd get strung up for her any time. "You know Coach, I didn't think it was possible to feel like a horny awkward teenager again." Coach started laughing.

Then he heard it on the radio. "Romero calling Lacewing, Romero calling Lacewing, we're becalmed any vessels in the area that can give us a tow?"

"hmm lemme see..."

"Was that who I think it was?" Nick blinked in surprise.

"It sure sounded like..."

"I'mma go see what we can do." Coach slowed the boat, cut the engine, and went to the radio with a huge grin on his face. "Zoey, remember me its Coach? You got GPS coordinates? Lets see if we're close by."

"Thanks, we've been becalmed for a little over a day, good to see you again by the way. We don't have a motor on our rig. I forgot Fort Colony had this thing installed on the One 4 All when we were in port."

"Yeah looks like Virgil's headed in the opposite direction, headed for Texas." Fort Colony's operator, callsign Lacewing sighed. "Lucky for you those radios have GPS transponders installed. Coach the One 4 all should be over the horizon a ways to the south of you. Zoey you got your flare gun?"

"Yep just like you taught me three of anything right?"

"In this case he knows you're there somewhere so only one is needed but yes." Lacewing replied. "Zoey i need you to set one flare off, count ten seconds. Straight up as little arch as possible. Coach look to the south for the flare."

Nick sat up, and saw the streak of red. "hey they aren't too far."

"Alright guys safe travels. This is Lacewing signing off."

"This is Romero signing off, see you soon!"

Coach started up the engine, Nick pointed to where he'd sighted the flare and Coach turned just a bit in that direction. "When we meet up with them Nick, you make sure to lie down. I know Ellis is probably gonna be real loud but you gotta try and rest."

"Aw shucks dad things were just getting interesting." Nick yawned.

"Dad yourself Daddyo." Coach laughed as he turned the small boat around a bit. "And no, I'm not done teasing you till you look your kid in the face and I watch your cold snarky self melt like the wicked witch of the west!" He held up a hand in a sideways high five.

Nick's laughter echoed on the night as he returned the gesture. "Back at you and Lilly, c'mon you aren't telling me you didn't tap that, not with the looks you gave her!" The two men's hearts were light with hope, something in painfully short supply, as the stars winked above with clarion crystal beauty and the moon seemed enormous on the horizon.