Quarantine Read Free Page A

around—
    The big guy was standing maybe five paces away. He was in his twenties, massive in every proportion—comic-book big, like that rock guy from Fantastic Four or Hellboy or The Hulk . (I’d read a lot of comics during my short time with Caleb.) He had shaved dark hair and a tattoo that snaked up through his collar, around his neck. Another guy emerged through swinging doors from the kitchen. He was my height and size, but older, mid-thirties maybe, ghostly pale and not much hair up top.
    The three of us got the measure of each other. Both of them saw the pistol and something registered. By that recognition, I knew that they weren’t Chasers.
    â€œHey,” the big guy said, eating a chocolate bar. “Nice piece.”
    I looked down at my pistol but kept it out. I checked behind me, out the frosty windows, and saw the movement of the Chasers nearing.
    â€œI’m being followed,” I said. “We need to hide.”
    â€œHide?” the big guy said, unfazed. “What for?”
    â€œTo avoid being killed,” I said, my voice quiet. “We need to move, and quick.”
    â€œWho is it?” he asked.
    â€œChasers,” I whispered. He looked at me weirdly. I pointed behind me. “The infected—the bad kind, a group of them.”
    The older one, a friendly face behind a neat beard, said, “Quick, follow me.”
    A moment later the three of us stood silent in the kitchen. A tiny round window in one of the double swinging doors provided a view out to the restaurant.
    â€œHow many?” the big guy asked, as if he was considering the odds if it came to a confrontation. I recognized in what he said and how he said it that they were survivors, like me.
    â€œShh!” the older guy said. He was close to the kitchen doors, peering out the little window.
    We heard a chair being bumped in the restaurant.
    There seemed to be no other way out of this kitchen; in any case, I was too tense to move. I swallowed hard, the pistol shaking in my good hand, blood dripping from my wounded one. Could the Chasers smell it, the blood? I put my tight fist into the pocket of my bulky FDNY fireman’s coat.
    The big guy produced what I expected to be a gun but turned out to be a little digital video camera. He started filming. There was something about that act that settled me, as if it took some of the danger out of the situation. “For perpetuity,” he whispered to me. “All this—it’s history in the making. I’m recording as much of it as I can.”
    The guy by the doors stood still and watched the restaurant. I inched towards him as quietly as I could, but my wet shoes made tiny squeegee sounds against the floor. I cringed with each move-induced sound, then took up a position where I could look through the gap between the swinging doors. We stayed hidden to be sure the coast remained clear, none of us daring to make a sound.
    A Chaser stood at the front of the restaurant, half in and half out the front door, his back to us; an ordinary-enough-looking guy, if it weren’t for the dried blood around his mouth. His buddies were outside. I could make out five of them, men, maybe a woman too, all as alert and searching as him, waiting. My hand squeezed the pistol’s grip.
    Just as I thought he was leaving—
    There was a noise, behind me—the big guy had bumped against an oven.
    The Chaser turned, looking around at the empty tables and chairs between us. My gloved hand sweated around the pistol’s grip. The Chaser was still, listening, smelling at the air—or maybe I imagined that. If it came to it, I could do it. I’d done it once. My mouth was dry and I felt like bursting out of the kitchen and taking him by surprise.
    He glanced around, a final accusatory glare—then he bolted, the door slamming closed in his wake, and I could see him and his cohorts running off down the road the way they’d come.
    Â 
    â€œOkay,