Slow Burn (Book 3): Destroyer by Bobby Adair Page A

thought. Then I recalled that Jerome had said something about it on that first night, but I’d taken to assuming that so much of what he’d said was just bullshit to sell his CDC lie.
    Dalhover said, “Between attacks, I watch them out the windows. I see what they do down there in the grass. The Smart Ones go down there and walk around until they get a bunch of infected following them around. Then they lead them up here to attack us. So we shoot as many as we can, but the Smart Ones are goddamned good at getting away. I keep seeing the same damn Smart Ones down there in the grass, rounding up herds of the dumb ones to do the dirty work.”
    I shook my head. “But why? Why would they do that?”
    Steph answered, “I think that some of them are like the criminally insane. I don’t think there’s any way to explain their actions in a rational way. For some reason, some of the Smart Ones have decided that they need to attack us up here and that’s what they do.”
    Dalhover added, “That’s why hiding and staying quiet won’t work. They’ll come anyway. We have to fight them off.”
    I didn’t want to believe it, because it added a whole new dimension to the problem of dealing with the infected, a much more dangerous dimension. “You guys need to get out of here. We need to get you to a safer place.”
    “Where would we go?” asked Steph.
    Dalhover added, “Where is this safer place?”
    I was at a complete loss on that answer, and my silence let that be known. Finally, I admitted, “I don’t know. But listen, my buddy Murphy, he’s a slow burn, like me. Maybe there’s something we can figure out together to help you guys out a little. Hell, maybe he and I together can get one of those Humvees with a fifty cal on the top and drive by and do strafing runs and kill a bunch of them off for you. Fewer you’ll have to deal with up here, that way.”
    Dalhover’s face grew darker and more disappointed, “Like you said, Zane, every shot draws more of them in. For every one you shoot, the noise will bring two more. Hell, all that noise you made shooting the place up will probably bring in every infected within a mile.”
    Shit. He was right. I’d very likely done more harm than good with my stupid Rambo stunt. My eyes fell to the floor and my heart sank.
    Guilt.

Chapter 11
    The glass-walled stairwell that I’d shot up had refilled with infected from the streets below. So Dalhover and I were in a short stub of a hall, just long enough for the bank of four elevators, with two doors on one wall behind us and two in front. Dalhover said, “This is where I was going to get out after everybody died.”
    “Was?” I asked.
    “They won’t all die. Some of them will be immune like me and the colonel.”
    “So you’ll stay with the group, then?”
    Dalhover nodded and grunted an affirmation.
    I told him, “I’ll try and round up some radios or something and get you one so we can keep in contact.”
    “Yeah.” Dalhover’s listless tone of voice verged on pissing me off, until it occurred to me that his complete lack of non-verbal communication made his words something of a Rorschach test, and I might be reading too many of my own emotions into it.  Which begged the question, why was I pissed off? Steph was alive and probably immune. I knew I was happy about that. The situation in the hospital was deteriorating, but stable enough for the time being. Could it be jealousy over Steph and Jeff? I had to ask myself if I really was that immature.
    I didn’t bother to answer.
    I put a hand on the seam between the sliding elevator doors for no reason other than to turn my attention away from Dalhover.
    He hefted a long crowbar that he’d gotten from who knew where and said, “The last time I had the doors open, the elevators were all down around the first or second floor. So the shafts were clear. There’s a maintenance ladder over here on the right-hand wall of the shaft. You’ll have to hold on to the conduit and