Page 110 of Doomsdate

Everett joins me at the window. We watch as medics inspect each returning soldier. While they stand at attention, their shoulders stoop beneath their dirty uniforms, their young faces haunted.

“There must’ve been a skirmish last night.” I press my fingertips against the cold pane of glass. Chicken mews mournfully, and I pick her up.

“I thought West Point had an electrified perimeter.” Everett’s brows knit together. “How could zombies get in? Surely Mom and Dad aren’t waging active campaigns in the area,” he says, not looking sure about that at all.

My pulse quickens as first one medic, then another, spends extra time on a soldier—a young woman, her face surrounded by brown curly wisps that escaped her once-tight braid. She swipes furiously at her eyes, then nods as her hands are zip-tied behind her back.

“She was bitten,” I murmur, the horror of it tightening my throat. The cadet can’t be older than twenty. We were instructed several times yesterday that curfew begins at five p.m. and ends at the all-clear siren, and that we were forbidden from stepping outside at all between those hours, but that seemed like good, prudent sense to me at the time. I hadn’t realized West Point had active mobilization efforts in the area, but that’s clearly what’s going on here. Either that, or maintaining the border is more difficult than Hank and Irene let on. The woman is ushered toward Bartlett Hall, the site of Gemma’s lab, while everyone else heads toward the barracks, and my stomach drops.

“Come on,” I say, then kiss Chicken’s head. “Let’s go find some answers.”

We find Gemma instead.

“Oh, you saw that, huh,” she says absently, never breaking eye contact, literally, with the eyepiece of her microscope. She adjusts the dial a fraction. “Mom and Dad have border patrols that monitor the campus perimeter at night, that’s all.”

Now, I’ve known Gemma only for a day, but her tone has an almost practiced nonchalance to it. Judging by the look Everett’s giving me, he’s picked up on it, too.

“They looked pretty worse for wear when they came in today,” I remark, trying to mirror her casual tone as I idly observe all the ongoing experiments around her lab. It’s straight-up bustling in here. “Was a woman bitten?”

That gets Gemma’s attention. She glances up at me quickly. “Unfortunately, yes. She’s in a holding cell for the recently infected under observation.” Gemma looks down at her hands, regret lining her voice. “Cadet Jenny Watkins, plebe year. She turned half an hour ago.”

“Jesus,” Everett says softly. “A freshman.”

“We have her consent. Her life, what’s left of it, anyway, belongs to science now.” Gemma buries her lips into a tight line. “I will figure this virus out. I will.”

And in this moment, I have zero doubt that Dr. Gemma Greer absolutely will get to the bottom of this apocalypse. Everett places a hand on her shoulder, and she briefly turns in to him, accepting the hug he implicitly understood she needed.

“Gemma,” he says as he pats her back gently. “What’s going on out there? Why was a cadet that young out for duty at all?”

Gemma pulls away abruptly. “I’m sorry, Everett. I’m not authorized to discuss those details with you. You’ll have to talk to Mom and Dad about it.”

“Gemma—” Everett blinks at her, but Gemma’s already turned back to her microscope.

“Got lots to do here, Evvie,” she says, then, more quietly, “for Jenny.” Her breath hitches, a few small sobs shaking her shoulders as she stares resolutely into the eyepiece, and I take Everett’s hand and lead him from the lab.

“They’re hiding something from us,” Everett says. “After everything we’ve been through, and all their promises to me—they’re still hiding something.”

“They just got you back.” I smile weakly at him. “Can you blame them for rolling out the truth in phases? Hey, look at me.” His eyes are worried as they find mine, and I take his other hand as well, pulling him close. “It’s the zombie apocalypse. How bad can it be?”

He huffs and leans his forehead against mine. “Not so bad, as long as I’m with you.”

We spend the day trying and failing to see the Colonels Greer. They’re in briefings, meetings, visiting with Jenny’s company, out in the field on the front lines inspecting border protections. At one point, the cadet tells us they’re taking their afternoon bathroom breaks, as though the Colonels Greer have even that down to a schedule. We hear every excuse imaginable for why we can’t see his parents, until finally we give up and spend the rest of the daylight repacking my newly restored rig, which I hardly recognized when the mechanics team brought it out front.

Someone’s fixed and replaced the drooping solar panel on the roof, and like the army vehicles we saw this morning, it’s inexplicably been outfitted with a snowplow blade. I frown as I examine the lock-tight soldering job done to weld it to my frame. “This extra weight will cut the life of my battery power in half. Does it snow that much here?”

Everett just shrugs helplessly. “Maybe they’re worried about the roads being impassable without living humans to salt and plow them? They know you’re headed toward the mountains in Pennsylvania.”

“I guess,” I say, unable to hide the dismay in my voice. “I wish they’d asked me first.”

Everett winces. “I know the feeling.”

When we get the message that afternoon with apologies from Hank and Irene that we’ll be on our own for dinner owing to some “unexpected developments,” their absence starts to feel downright concerning. Still, I can’t pretend that dinner alone with Everett in our small but cozy barracks is anything but lovely. Chicken holds dominion over the apartment like it’s been ours forever, sleeping by turns on top of the fridge, in the sink, cocooned around my ham radio, purring louder than its low, constant buzz. I feel almost guilty knowing we’re about to take her on the road again, but Everett and I decided we’d leave after the all-clear siren tomorrow to check in on Gramps. What we do after that, I don’t know, but I don’t need to, either. As long as we’re together, we can take it day by day.

Later that evening, I settle in for my nightly radio to Gramps.

“CQ, CQ, CQ, this is Maisie-girl, calling for Gramps,” I say into the microphone, fiddling with the knobs to home in on our preferred frequency. It’s a little more difficult than usual being that I’m sitting at the barracks desk naked, and Everett’s kissing down my neck. I shoo him away, my heart electric with joy.

“Gramps, come in. Come in, Gramps.” Concern begins to prickle at the back of my neck. He’s an old man living alone in a twelve-by-sixteen-foot bunker, and it’s nine o’clock at night. What else does he have to do other than answer the radio?