Pathogen: Ch. 13

This was dumb. Probably the dumbest, stupidest, most idiotic thing Marnie had ever done in all her sixteen years. The minute Bianca suggested it, she should've said, "no thank you," and left while the getting was good. Instead, here she was: sneaking back into her own house in broad daylight to raid her mom's closet.

They could have gone to the army surplus store downtown for uniforms, sure. But no: "They have to be *authentic*," Julian said, complete with Jazz hands. In hindsight, Marnie had to agree on some level that he was right. The uniforms for sale at the surplus store were old, like Gulf War era at the latest. Marnie wasn't sure how much they'd changed over the years, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Infiltrating a military base was already enough of a challenge; if they didn't blend in seamlessly with the other soldiers, they would be caught and probably sent to jail faster than Marnie could say "Gitmo." Or the army might just skip the middleman entirely and shoot them on sight.

Had Marnie already mentioned how stupid this was?

She should have had her head examined for even agreeing to this hare-brained plan. No one in their right mind would try to sneak into a United States army base. It was a suicide mission. If they were caught, Marnie, Bianca, and Julian could be branded as terrorists before they were even old enough to vote. And that was if they even managed to get out alive with what they were after. In the highly unlikely scenario that their mission was a success, no one would actually believe the information they risked their lives and futures to get. Well, no one who didn't sit in their mother's basement all day, wearing a tin foil hat and ranting online about the Moon Landing being faked.

Marnie sat on the floor of her mom's closet and put her head in her hands, breathing through a mini panic attack. She had to remember why she was doing this. Why they were all doing it: Trevor. A few days ago, he was a healthy, happy, living teenager, with a bright future ahead of him. Now he was a walking corpse, and the only things preventing him from becoming a homicidal maniac were old Kenny G tracks and a jumbo bag of beef jerky. The worse part was, Trevor wasn't the only zombie walking around Boston. There was the lady in the hospital Marnie and Julian had seen yesterday, plus a handful of other kids at school who were showing the same symptoms Trevor had before he went all Walking Dead.

People were dying. They could be looking at a country-wide if not world-wide epidemic if they didn't figure out how to stop the zombification process. Marnie's mom had been purposefully vague the other night, but she'd let enough slip to make one thing clear: the U.S. Army had something to do with this, whether they meant for it to happen or not. If Marnie and her friends could find out whatever virus or super-secret sci-fi formula zombified Trevor, and share that information with the rest of the world, millions of lives could be saved before it was too late.

"Yo, Pistol! breaker breaker: come in, or whatever."

Marnie jumped three inches off the floor at the crackling disembodied voice she heard, following it to the Spiderman walkie-talkie on her hip. "Jeez, Julian," she hissed into the speaker. "Don't do that! I'm here, okay? What do you want?!"

"Roger dodger, ten-four," Julian responded, "and, uh, sorry. Do you have the package yet? Situation is clear out here, but we might have a bogey incoming soon. Over."

"You are such a dork," Marnie groaned. "Just talk normally. Why do we even have these stupid things anyway when we could just text?!"

"We're running a covert op here," Julian argued. "The Feds could hack our phones and read our texts... besides, you gotta admit these things are super cool. Over."

Marnie rolled her eyes at the obnoxiously shiny red and blue plastic radio in her hand. "Yeah," she muttered, "real cool. Was the toy store out of the Batman ones?"

"Hey," Julian snapped. "Sarcasm is not appreciated! This was the best I could do on such short notice. And for your information, they don't make the Batman version anymore. I asked. We're wasting time, so just get the stuff and..."

Julian trailed off suddenly, shortly before Marnie heard a car door slam outside. Before she could creep out of the closet and army crawl to the window to investigate, Julian's panicked voice crackled through the walkie-talkie again.

"Abort, abort!" he cried. "Bogey incoming! Repeat, bogey on the wire! Get out of there, Pistol, now!!"

Marnie did not have to be told twice. As quick as she could, she finished stuffing her "borrowed" uniforms into the duffel bag at her feet, sprinting out of the closet without taking the time to zip it up. When she got to the top of the stairs, though, she froze solid at the sound of the front door opening and closing. Instinctively, she flattened her back to the wall and hugged the bag to her chest, if only to keep her heart from exploding out of her ribcage. She was still formulating a plan on how to get downstairs without being seen, when her mom's quiet voice echoed up the stairwell.

"I'm telling you, Howard, it's bad," Lt. Nightingale sighed. "Twenty confirmed cases in the city so far, and the numbers are only going up by the hour. If we don't find some way to contain the outbreak soon-"

"Calm down, Phoebe; it'll be alright," a man's voice answered. It took Marnie a minute to recognize it, but the name 'Howard' helped: their next-door neighbor, Captain Howard Grace. Why was her mom talking to him, though? Lt. Nightingale usually never gave him the time of day because he was mega geeky and kind of a prick. The only time they'd ever talked before was when Marnie accidentally flattened his prized begonias with her bike, and that was really his fault for planting them so close to the street. Now, they sounded like good friends.

"Just give the boys in the lab a little more time," Capt. Grace was saying. "They'll have the antidote in the city's water supply before you know it. After that, Special Forces will get to work cleaning up the stragglers; then the higher-ups will issue a press release, probably about a gas leak or a new variety of PCP that's all the rage with the youngsters. The point is, everything will be contained and the public will be none the wiser."

"But what if the antidote doesn't work?" Lt. Nightingale mused. "You said yourself the other day that it hasn't been officially approved for use in humans yet. What if the outbreak can't be contained?"

Capt. Grace was quiet for a few minutes. Marnie heard footsteps moving from one side of the living room to the other, shortly before the couch cushions creaked quietly. "Let's not worry about 'what ifs'," he murmured. "How's Maryanne doing? Have you been able to talk to her yet?"

"No," Lt. Nightingale sighed. To Marnie's surprise, she sounded close to tears. "She keeps blocking my calls, and she's disabled the GPS on her phone. I'm so worried about her, Howard: she's just a little girl... and she has no idea what's going on out there."

"She's a Nightingale," Capt. Grace rumbled. "Nightingale women are strong and resourceful... I know that from experience. I'm sure wherever she is, she's safe. When she's ready to talk, she'll come to you. In the meantime, just try to keep your chin up. Okay?"

For just a second or two, Marnie considered walking downstairs and falling into her mother's arms. She'd never heard her mom sound so scared before, which terrified her. Marnie thought better of it, though, as she didn't want to have to explain why she was there with a bagful of her mom's uniforms. As quickly and quietly as she could, she slipped off her shoes and tiptoed toward the stairs. If she moved with maximum stealth, she could sneak right past those two and slip out the back door without being seen. Marnie was so focused on her sneaking, she didn't realize how quiet her mom and Capt. Grace had gotten until she was halfway down the staircase. That's when she noticed the soft, wet sucking noises filling the air. Marnie followed them to the couch instinctively with her eyes, instantly becoming a living statue when she found the source.

No kid ever wanted to catch their parents making out, but it had to be worse for kids like Marnie who only had one. She appreciated the fact that her mother was single and attractive, and Lt. Nightingale had every right to bring home a date if she wanted... but Capt. Grace? Really? He was so old, like pushing fifty, not to mention a jerk and a total loser. His idea of a good time was going to flower shows and taking his yappy little Miniature Schnauzers to the groomer three times a week. Watching him shove his tongue down her mother's throat almost made Marnie want to barf more than seeing Zombie Trevor rip apart that creepy gas station clerk.

Almost.

Before she lost her lunch on the carpet, Marnie willed her limbs to move again. Her need to be sneaky seemed moot now, considering her mom and Capt. Grace were... occupied. She'd made it into the kitchen, already reveling in success with her hand inches from the doorknob, when the walkie-talkie on her hip chirped loudly without warning.

"Pistol, where are you?!" Julian screamed. "Respond, over!!"

Running footsteps pounded across the floor from the living room, but Marnie didn't wait for them to reach her. She yanked the back door open that same second, cursing Julian's bad timing under her breath as she sprinted across the back yard and around the house. Marnie had never run faster in her life, making it down the street to where Bianca's SUV was parked within forty-five seconds.

"Go!" she yelled, jumping into the back seat immediately. She barely had time to close her door and wrap her fingers around her seatbelt before Julian hit the gas, peeling tires out of there like a NASCAR driver in the Indy 500. As Marnie buckled up, her lungs still burning for oxygen, she glanced out the back window at the house shrinking behind them in the distance. Her mom was on the lawn with Capt. Grace's arm around her shoulders. She didn't shout at the car, or try to chase after it, but the look in her eyes was absolutely heartbreaking.

"I was starting to get worried," Julian muttered, stealing glances at Marnie through the rearview mirror. "Did you get the stuff?"

"Yeah," Marnie mumbled, lowering her eyes to the bag in her lap glumly. "I got it. Well, everything but the shoes. Didn't have the time."

Julian let out a heavy sigh, the vegan leather steering wheel creaking under his tightening grip. "Okay: phase one, complete," he said. "Operation Take Down Uncle Sam is proceeding as planned. What took so long anyway?"

Marnie shook her head, trying to scour away the images burned into her retinas. "You don't wanna know."