"I'll tell Jacob about Eli," Doc Hanson said.
Besides a formal introduction, it was the only thing he'd said on the way back. Marcus had kept quiet, he could tell how furious Maya was. He imagined that it was her control, perhaps her military training, that had kept her from pulling out a gun and shooting Job in his dick right then and there. Now, they were just pulling into the dirt parking lot of the church.
"Are you sure?" Marcus asked.
"Yes...I've delivered bad news to him before, when his mother died," Hanson replied.
"All right," Marcus murmured.
Maya parked the car and killed the engine. Doc Hanson got out immediately and began walking towards the church's front gate, but Marcus lingered, noticing that Maya wasn't moving. After a long moment, she said, "I shouldn't go back there."
"I'm honestly hoping that none of us will ever have to go back there," Marcus replied.
Maya shook her head. "No, I can just tell. These guys...they had huge stores and stocks of stuff. And his mention of friends. I can already tell, these Wilkersons are like the black market. I'm sure they'll have tons of food, guns, ammo, water, tools, medicine, cars...at some point, I'm worried we'll have to come to them for something."
"All the more reason to do our job of fixing this place up, of raiding the houses, finding survivors. If we do our job well, we won't need to rely on them for anything," Marcus replied.
Maya glanced over at him, and there was something different in her eyes. He honestly couldn't tell what it was. Not anger, not sadness...he couldn't tell. Finally, she just smiled and said, "You're real nice, you know that?"
"Well...I try," he replied awkwardly after a moment.
Maya smiled at him a moment longer, then pulled the keys from the ignition and got out of the car. Marcus followed her. They moved through the gate and lingered in the courtyard for a moment. Alan was standing atop the watchtower, ignoring them.
"Would you do me a favor?" he asked.
"What?" Maya replied.
"Go check on Ed, make sure the doctor sees to him? I...need to go talk to Lily, about her father," Marcus replied hesitantly.
"Oh...yes. Yeah, I'll do that..." she hesitated. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
They split up. Marcus made his way slowly, unhappily, towards the front door. Lily was in there, sitting at her radio, probably calling out to her father right now, hoping, praying, needing to see him again. And he was going to take that hope away. He felt listless and awful. Trudging up the steps, he pushed the front door open. Lily was the only person in the room. As soon as he stepped in, she turned around, her face lit up.
"Marcus-" she began.
"Lily, wait," Marcus said, and something in his voice dimmed her enthusiasm slightly. She slowly stood up.
"What?" she asked, and now a new caution had crept into her voice.
"When Ed and Maya and I were up on Mount Tanner...we ran into your dad and his friends, Wendell and this woman..."
"Shelia Brookstone," Lily murmured.
"Yeah. He was helping people at the ranger station, sent me and Ed to check the cabins. We found Maya, no one else...by the time we got back, zombies had gotten in. Everyone there was dead...including your dad. He came back...I had to shoot him. He's the one that bit Ed," Marcus said, his voice low and miserable.
Lily swallowed, and he could see tears in her eyes, but when she spoke her voice was surprisingly calm. "I...kinda figured that something had happened by now. I've kind of been preparing myself for, you know, this kind of thing. We lost a lot of people, a lot of friends, during the initial outbreak. I just...thank you for telling me. I know that had to be hard."
"I...you're welcome," Marcus mumbled, not really sure what else to say.
Lily sniffed and rubbed at her eyes. "I'll...probably cry myself to sleep tonight, but-but not now. There's too much to do. Something happened while you were gone. The Army showed up. People were talking about hearing helicopters last night over the radio and while you were down getting Doc, a whole bunch of shooting was going on somewhere in the city. Machine gun fire, it sounded like. So they've got to be nearby."
"Holy shit, thank god," Marcus replied. "I'll go get Maya and we'll check it out. Maybe they can airlift us out of here."
"That's what I'm hoping for, god knows I'm ready to get the hell out of here. Good luck."
Marcus nodded, turned and left the main building. He hurried around the side of it, back to the gazebo, where the doctor was checking both Ed and Jacob. He seemed to be just finishing up with Ed. Marcus came to stand next to Maya.
"Well, he's got a bit of a fever again...do you have him on antibiotics?" he asked.
"As many as we can spare," Maya replied.
Hanson nodded. "Good, good. The good news is that the wound hasn't become necrotic. I'm pretty sure he'll be fine by tomorrow, so long as he gets more water and a few more doses. I cleaned the wound out and reapplied his bandage, and-"
"Hey, you guys, you guys...did you ever like, really, notice this ceiling?" Ed asked suddenly. To Marcus, he sounded slightly drunk. Ed giggled. "It's all like...'I'm the ceiling, I keep the rain off of you!' Oh man...good job, ceiling!"
"I also gave him some morphine," Hanson said, smirking a little. "It seems to have taken effect. I'm going to hang around here until the fever breaks, but I do believe he'll be fine."
"Thank you so much," Marcus said, immensely relieved.
Hanson shook his head. "Thank a man for doing his job, it'll just go to his head. Now, Jacob, I heard that you fell off a roof like a damned fool. Let me see that ankle..."
Marcus poked Maya in the shoulder. "Hey, good news," he said.
"Oh yeah? Did you just poke me? What are, grade schoolers?" she asked.
"Ha ha, real funny, come on, we've got a job to do," Marcus said, guiding her away. He didn't want to be there when Hanson broke the unhappy news that Eli was dead. He'd had enough misery for one day. He and Maya walked away from the gazebo.
"So what's the news?" she asked when they were out of earshot.
"The Army's here," Marcus replied. "Lily seems to think they're somewhere nearby, in Spencer's Mill. She wants us to find them and, seeing as you're in the Army..."
"Oh, I knew it! I knew I wasn't dreaming. I kept hearing helicopters last night and I thought I was just having a dream," Maya replied. "This is great, we can finally get a damned evac out of this nightmare situation."
It didn't take them long to find the Army.
Immediately, Marcus spotted a man standing at the edge of the road, outside of one of the homes at the southern edge of the town, only a few streets away from the church. He spied two more men standing in guard poses outside of the front door of the house.
"Okay, park about thirty feet away, keep it nice and slow," Maya said. "I imagine these guys have itchy trigger fingers."
"Yeah," Marcus murmured, suddenly nervous. All three men were carrying machine guns. He eased up on them, hit the brakes and threw it into park. Slowly, he and Maya got out of the car. They kept their hands visible and approached the man standing by the side of the road. He held his rifle, pointed not quite towards them, but in their general direction.
"That's close enough," he said.
"You sound familiar," Maya replied after a second.
"You do, too...Torres?"
"Yeah. Corporal Torres."
"Afghanistan...three years ago?"
"Two."
"Huh. Well, good to see you again Corporal. What the hell are you doing here? Didn't except to see someone like you breaking quarantine," the man said. He was in his early thirties, had a sunburned, unhappy face and sounded almost bored.
"Quarantine?" Maya replied, bewildered. "What the fuck are you talking about? Why haven't you been rounding up civilians for evac? What's going on?"
The man sighed. "Official government position is for civvies to lock their doors and shoot anything paler than your average geek."
"You...you aren't here to rescue us?" Marcus asked.
"Big shocker. No."
"You fucking piece of shit!" Maya snapped. "What the fuck are you doing here?! What kind of fucking man are you?! You sit here with your thumb up your ass while we're fighting and dying, getting eaten alive and-"
"Corporal Torres!" the man snapped suddenly, glancing back over his shoulder. "Look, I've got orders, all right? So I suggest you get the hell out of here before the Captain comes out of that house. Orders are to evict squatters and shoot looters. Keep doing whatever it is you're doing to stay alive and I'll pretend I didn't see you."
"You fucking coward," Maya said, her voice very low. "Come on, Marcus, we're leaving."
Marcus turned and followed Maya back to the car. They got in, Marcus turned on the engine and turned the car around. He drove away. Most of the ride back to the church, Maya didn't say anything. She sat fuming, and Marcus wondered if she was going to pop a vein or something. Today had not been a good day for any of them, but it seemed particularly unpleasant for her.
"I can't believe this shit," she muttered finally as they pulled into the lot. "Come on, we've got to call a meeting, let everyone know."
"All right," Marcus replied.
They went around the church, splitting up. Doc Hanson was still around, and Ed was awake and coherent enough to walk into the main room. They rounded up everyone.
"What's going on?" Ed asked.
"Yeah, what's up?" Sam asked.
"I've got news," Maya replied. "The Army is in Trumbull Valley."
A general cheer went up. "All right!" Jacob cried. "Finally, some good news."
Maya shook her head, raised her hands. "No, it's not good news," she said, speaking over the others. "Official orders are to, and I quote, 'evict squatters and shoot looters'. I think they're here doing research on the zombies. It's the only thing that makes sense. Which means...well, screw them! We don't need them! We've been on our own for this long. There's still so much more we can do. We need to get to work, though. If...if push comes to shove, and the Army or the Wilkersons or whoever shows up at our doorstep to take what we have, we need to be able to kick their ass."
"Maya's right," Marcus said. "We can do this."
"Can we?" Lily asked. She sounded crestfallen, defeated.
"Hey," Jacob said, straightened up. "Come on, sis, don't say that. We can do this. I lost Eli. We lost mom, we lost dad and the others...but we're still here. Still alive. This girl looks smart and that guy had the guts to smack me in the head on your orders, even though he had no idea who I really was. Sam is tough as nails, Alan...has his uses, you're smart as hell, Lily. Pastor Will, I'm sure, will be the one to keep us all sane. We can do this," Jacob said.
"Hey, I can do stuff, too!" Ed said. Then he giggled. "Tons of stuff, I make pizza like you would not believe," he added.
"Morphine," Marcus said.
Almost everyone in the room burst out laughing.
"Okay, okay, fine, you won me over. Sign me up," Lily replied.
"Good...let's get to work," Maya said.