Ch. 3 – Grilled Corn

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Twenty-two sets of eyes fastened on Danny the moment he stepped through the gate. Even the children looked, driven by instinct to take note of anything that caught the attention of the adults around them. There was a moment of collective relief that the wait was over. Then Danny's attire sunk in, his hazmat suit telling the group everything they needed to know about the results of the blood draws. They were infected.

"Everyone ten feet apart right now!" The group was splitting before Eddie finished speaking, spreading themselves across the small clearing near the entrance to the camp. The immediacy of their response, their coordination with only the barest of direction, was a stark reminder of life outside the walls of the camp. These people had done this before, a technique learned through trial-and-error in a world where error meant death. Eddie raised a hand, instructing the group to remain still as he approached Danny. "How bad?"

There was no reason to mince words. It was obvious that Eddie knew what was coming. "Two tests were positive."

Eddie's eyes blinked closed and then opened. "Who?"

Hell. He belonged in hell for what he was about to do. But the truth was dangerous, people's response to their own mortality difficult to predict. It was a lesson that Danny had learned through trial-and-error himself, an error in judgment that cost Jason Smith his life in a situation much like this. One small tear in his hazmat suit was all it took, the Marine felled by a woman old enough to be his grandmother. Her diamond ring catching his suit when she threw herself at Smith, begging him to tell her that it wasn't true, that she wasn't infected, that she wasn't going to die. That was the reason for the thicker suits, for the armed guards, for the open com. Because dying people had nothing to lose. Danny held Eddie's gaze. "I can't tell you who is infected."

"But you know."

Danny opened his mouth to lie but found that he couldn't. "Yes."

A flash of anger, a tightening of his jaw, but Eddie managed to reign in his temper. "Amber and Tyler?"

"I would tell you if it was them, Eddie," Danny replied, his voice softening a fraction. He wondered if it was the truth, or another one of the platitudes that he had learned to offer in order to keep people calm.

Eddie stared at Danny before his eyes flickered to Wolf, standing next to the doorway. Like Danny, he was in hazmat gear. Unlike Danny, he was fully armed and Eddie, as a Marine who served two tours, understood the signal that Wolf's presence sent. Wolf would not hesitate to use force, even lethal force, if necessary to protect those inside the camp. "You didn't come out here to tell us about the test results. You could have done that from inside. Why are you here?"

Danny looked down at the yellow case he held in his left hand. Twenty-one times. Twenty-one times he had given this speech, made this appeal. Each time stealing another piece of his soul.

Not all of them died, of course. At first Doctor Scott thought it was simply luck, the capriciousness of a virus that allowed one person to live while sentencing the person next to him to die. It wasn't until Deer Park that she figured out there was more to survival than pure chance. The news that Christine Slattery and her daughters had been exposed was crushing, the only time Danny saw Captain Slattery cry. But three days later – three never-ending days of watching everyone around them, including their mother, fall sick and die – Whitney and Shaylyn Slattery were still alive. Immunity. Doctor Scott had been euphoric when she delivered the news that the girls, and their father, were immune, certain that this chance discovery was the final piece that she needed to develop a vaccine. And for a moment Danny believed it too, until the next group died the same horrible death as the group before.

But it wasn't just those who possessed immunity who survived anymore. As time passed and the survivors became fewer, they also became smarter. Avoiding populated areas. Avoiding small spaces where bodies might be hiding. Avoiding other people. Sleeping outside rather than in tents. The simple task of picking up a child, as Danny had done with Frankie that morning, a luxury as people kept their distance, even within tight-knit group. Because that distance sometimes made the difference between life and death.

Something that Eddie already knew.

"Our doctors have been working on a vaccine. It's experimental. But it's supposed to prevent infection in those who haven't been exposed yet," Danny offered. Not a lie, not exactly, but not the truth either, not the whole truth. Or maybe Danny had told so many lies that he no longer recognized the difference. There was a long pause as Eddie stared, his eyes burning into Danny as though he could read his soul. As though he knew every lie that Danny had told over the past three-and-a-half years, every omission, every false smile. Danny struggled to hold Eddie's gaze. He couldn't let Eddie know that this was a script. That he no longer believed a word that he was saying. When the silence stretched too long Danny dropped his voice, realizing that every person present was straining to hear him. "Take it, Eddie. It's your best chance."

"Amber!" Eddie's voice crackled in the still autumn air. She approached cautiously, making care to keep her distance, Tyler clutched to her chest in an all too familiar manner. Danny recognized the look on her face, the one of a mother willing to do anything to save her child. That was the reason that Danny's offer always worked. False hope was better than no hope when it came to one's child. "They have a vaccine."

Glancing back at Wolf, Danny nodded. Today, at least, there would be no need beat a hasty retreat or call on backup.

Danny set the case on the ground, loading the first vial into the dispenser. Amber waited, her body trembling. Danny didn't meet her eyes, not wanting to see her fear or the tears that she was fighting back for Tyler's sake. Amber pulled up the sleeve of Tyler's blue and yellow jacket, the boy's stick-thin arm making Frankie look fat by comparison. Her voice was soft, soothing. "Just a little prick, baby. So you won't get sick."

"Actually, I need two. One is the vaccine and the other is another blood sample." Hell. He was definitely going to hell. The child was dying and Danny was poking him. Once for a vaccine that wouldn't work, and once to add to Doctor Scott's collection of pointless research.

As gentle as Danny tried to be, Tyler cried out, burying his head in his mother's neck when the needle slid home, followed quickly by the blood draw. Amber took a moment to comfort her child before holding out her own arm, one equally thin, pale and bruised. She offered Danny a crooked smile. "Sorry about that. He obviously doesn't like shots."

"Frankie is worse," Danny commented thoughtlessly as he pulled out another vial and slid the needle into Amber's arm. "Pouts for hours afterwards. Kara bribes her with lollipops before a checkup."

"Tyler was too young when, when it happened. This is his first shot," Amber explained and Danny could have kicked himself. Food, clothes, medical care. Whatever Frankie or Sam or Shaylyn or any of the children needed always went to the top of the supply list. It was human nature, putting the young first. But all six of the children in this group were too small, too quiet, too subdued. Because when there was nothing to eat, not even the children were spared.

"Next time I'll bring a lollipop." Danny waited for Amber to retreat before glancing at Eddie, who was standing the appropriate distance away, arms folded over his chest, his sharp gaze following every move that Danny made. "Your turn."

Eddie shook his head. "Kids first."

Danny was fourteen doses in when it happened. Eddie waved to a man on the perimeter, holding a rifle. "Rich, you're up."

Danny's hand froze, hovering above the vials. Richard was a common enough name. This wasn't necessarily the man. But it could be. In a group this size, it probably way. Decision made, Danny's hand moved to the last vial, one dotted in blue, slipping it into the dispenser. Forcing himself to smile at the man as though nothing were wrong.

As though he didn't know that the man was already dead.

Four more active doses for seven more people. Three more doses before another name that Danny recognized. Jocelyn. This time Danny's hand moved to the end of the row without hesitation.

Leaving a single active dose.

And the man approaching wasn't Eddie.

Eddie was leaving himself for last. Like a good leader, one who cared about his people. It was something that Captain Chandler would do. Danny found his hand hovering over the vials. He didn't believe anymore, couldn't believe, only to have that belief crushed once again. Yet some spark of hope must have remained because Danny wanted to give that dose to Eddie. He moved to the end of the case, picking up an inactive dose.

"Rob's a good man. That's his wife over there. His girls. He deserves a chance." The words were quiet, meant for Danny's ears only, Eddie moving until he stood only an arm's length away. Danny's eyes flew up, convinced he must have misheard, but Eddie's lips were twisted in a familiar crooked smile. The same one Eddie used to give him back when Danny was captain of the soccer team and Eddie was the player with two left feet who had never made a goal. Eddie used to bench himself so that Danny wouldn't need to, always putting the team first.

But this wasn't a soccer game. And they weren't teenagers.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"I know you better than that," Eddie replied quietly. "You only skipped to the end twice. Two infected people. And the blue dots were kind of a giveaway. You shouldn't have marked them. But I guess you probably did that on purpose. Wouldn't want to accidentally give one to a kid."

Wolf step closer, although he couldn't hear Eddie's words the break in routine enough to cause concern. Danny stayed him with a single motion. "We didn't have enough for everybody."

"Green, what the hell are you doing..." Danny snapped off his com. He would deal with Carlton once he was back inside.

Eddie's expression softened. "Let me make the choice this time, Danny. Give it to Rob. I'll take my chances."

This time. A chill ran through Danny. He had underestimated Eddie, unintentionally revealing too much. A mistake that could have easily proven fatal. For Danny, for Wolf, for Kara and Frankie, for every single person inside those walls. Keeping his eyes on Eddie, Danny slid the last active dose into the dispenser, beckoning for Rob to approach as Eddie stepped back. It was done quickly, before Danny could change his mind, the last active dose disappearing. One more man, unlucky enough to be second-to-last, and then there was only Eddie, standing in front of Danny, rolling up his sleeve.

Another crooked smile. "We have to make it look good. For Amber. She is a red-head, after all. I don't want to spend my last hours being screamed at."

The teasing tone, so familiar and yet so strange, the comment about Amber's hair bringing back memories of another time. Another life. Danny swallowed, hand trembling as he dispensed the useless fluid. "You're a better man than me, Eddie. You always were."

Eddie chuckled. "What I wouldn't give to have Waldron hear you say that." Waldron. Another name from the past. Another friend who was no doubt dead. Eddie rolled his sleeve back down. "You need to go right away?"

Danny knew exactly what Carlton would think about his answer – get in and out, Green – but he said it anyway. "I can stay for a few."

Eddie's eyes strayed to his wife and son, the ones he was dutifully staying ten feet away from. "What's it like in there?"

Like a maximum security prison, like a home for the terminally ill, like a unit preparing for a suicide mission.

"There's a preschool." The words were forced. "Frankie goes there. She paints things that look like blobs of yellow and claims they're pictures of me. Kara hangs them up on the walls."

Eddie chuckled. "School. Amber will like that. She works with Tyler on his letters and numbers, you know. But we haven't seen a working school in years. It sounds so...normal."

Thirteen-year-olds learning to cook with tubs of expired peanut butter and stale MREs, fifteen-year-olds figuring out how many plants could be grown per foot, seventeen-years-olds serving guard duty, already adults in every way that mattered.

"In the summer we grow our own vegetables. Got some pumpkins this year. Lots of tomatoes and cucumbers. Some peas. And sweet corn." For an instant, Danny was back in Connecticut with Eddie and Waldron and Tom, throwing a pile of fresh corn on the grill on a hot summer night, slathering it with butter and salt before devouring piece after piece. "My wife was raised in Kansas. She was horrified to learn that we grilled our corn."

"Amber was pretty skeptical the first time I did that too. But I converted her. No other way to go." Eddie rubbed his arm absently. "You have a generator in there?"

Lights that they used as little as possible, the effort of keeping the camp hidden a never-ending struggle. But all it would take was one Ramsey believer finding them, one piece of infected clothing getting inside, and it was all over. Everything that they had built gone in an instant. Again.

"Limited but enough to run critical equipment and even have the occasional movie night." Not that Danny ever went to the films. Kara did sometimes, usually with Carlton while Danny and Ravit stayed back with Frankie. Carlton was a movie buff, able to quote pretty much every action flick – and a few date movies – by heart. Ravit, on the other hand, preferred a good game of chess. Wolf sometimes joked that if they ever got the internet back and looked up the term 'opposites attract' that there would be a picture of Carlton and Ravit underneath. "The camp has a well, so plenty of water."

Not that it mattered. The septic tank failed for the first time six months after they arrived from lack of maintenance and overuse. That's when Captain Chandler instituted the five-minute, once-a-week shower rule, decontamination being the only exception.

"Your man is signaling you." Eddie gestured behind Danny.

When Danny turned, Wolf was no longer alone. Apparently Carlton was tired of being ignored and had sent Colin out to make his point, the eighteen-year-old no doubt terrified at being this close to the infected even with the protection of a hazmat suit. Danny reached his hand out to Eddie, just as he had the last time. "I'll be back later."

Eddie shook his head, leaving his hands by his side. "Go. Do your job Danny. Take care of your people. And God bless."

Danny forced his lips to curl. "You too."

Too bad he no longer believed in God.