Z Children (Book 2): The Surge by Eli Constant, B.V. Barr

over.”
    “Great,”
Chris rolls her eyes, swamping fear for sarcasm, “my life depends on the army’s
finest thinking. Fucking lovely.”
     “I’ll
have you know, lady,” I force the words through closed teeth, my voice taking
on a dangerous edge, “I’m a Green Beret with two tours in Afghanistan under my
belt and a Master’s in International Relations. You could do a lot worse, and I
would be more than happy to leave you on your own. Be a hell of a lot easier on
me.”
    “I…I’m
sorry.” She was on the verge of tears again. “I’m just so far out of my
element…and I’m scared…I didn’t mean…”
    “Enough.”
I raised a hand to stop her; I didn’t need her to become a blubbering idiot.
Given a choice, I preferred the sarcastic bitch over that. “No need to explain.
Scared is your body telling you to do something. So let’s figure out what to
do. You know anything about this construction area?”
    Chris
picked up the corner of her top and rubbed at her eyes. For a moment, her
stomach was exposed. It was toned, muscled even. If she could get her act
together, she might be an asset eventually. “It’s a complete redo. They only
started a month or so ago. The plan is to decrease the number of beds and make
suites for the kids in their final stages.”
    “To
make them and their families more comfortable?”
    “Exactly.
Even today there are limits to what science can do.”
    “Doesn’t
seem science has any problems screwing things up. Don’t know why healing is
such a hurdle.” I nodded to the doors behind me.”
    “What
are you talking about? The killer kids?” Chris looked out the small window one
more time and shuddered.
    “Yep,
your girlfriend thinks this was caused by vaccines.”
    “Childhood
inoculations? Jesus…” Chris put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath.
“The implications of that are…God, they’re insane. But Virginia would have as
good an idea as anyone. And it would explain the age brackets I’ve seen
infected, that’s for sure. A lot of the children here aren’t on the regular
vaccine tract because of their compromised immune systems. But they have
siblings that visit…” Her voice trailed off and her face lost any color it had
left—it was already so pale, so drained from the horrors she’d witnessed in the
past few hours. “That means some of the patients in isolation might be okay. We
have to help—”
    “We
aren’t helping anyone right now. We can’t even help ourselves.” In my head, I
was thinking another thought—one that made me realize that I might very well be
the most heartless motherfucker left on the planet. Those kids in isolation,
zombie infected or not, they were secluded and unvaccinated for a reason…us
trying to help them when they were already dying didn’t make sense to me.
    My
soul must be black as tar.
    “Please,
we can check on one of them and see—”
    “You
want to try, go right ahead. I’m getting out of here and back to Virginia.”
Using her significant other as bait was a shit thing to do, but I didn’t care.
I needed the doctor on board, not dreaming of playing hero to possibly
uninfected but still sick kids.
    She
shut up, though—coldhearted as my tactic was. “Now, if they’re tearing shit
out, then they probably have trash chutes and scaffolding. I didn’t see any on
my way into the building, but I only saw one side of the hospital.”
    Chris
didn’t say anything as she followed me, but I could feel her thinking at
me—terrible words for the terrible person that I was.
    My
stomach rumbled. Usually I was able to ignore bodily needs during a mission,
but we’d been idle too long outside the dining hall doors, giving my body time
to realize it was hungry, thirsty, and tired. I hadn’t brought any supplies for
overnight. Going a while without food wasn’t a problem, but I didn’t have any
water either. This wasn’t the quick smash-and-grab I was hoping for.
    A
noise in the distance brought Chris