DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 12, SECTION 5

We were the only vehicle at the eastern checkpoint. No FEMA transport trucks were coming, and none were going. A garrison of National Guard troops manned the tall Hesco-barrier wall.

As we approached the gate, Chris craned his neck to look out the camper window.

"What the fukkadillo?"

Finally, I realized what he was looking at.

Four guards crouched atop the wall, two on each side of the gate, staring down the barrels of giant automatic rifles. But they weren't aiming their rifles inside the quarantine zone.

They were crouching behind sand bags with their backs to us. Their guns were pointed outside.

What the fukkadillo was right.

Shawn pulled the pickup toward the gate and brought it to a stop at the checkpoint.

Chris and Ian stepped out of the camper trailer, and I followed after.

A single National Guard soldier sat inside a kiosk the size of a phone booth. He was lounging in a lawn chair, casually smoking a cigarette.

"You want to leave?" the guard asked us, surprised. "You know if you do, you can't come back in. Right?"

So much for Chris's scheme to bribe these guys with weed. They were ready to just wave us through. But why would anyone let people out of a quarantine zone? It didn't make sense.

"What's going on out there?" I asked the guard. "We've been a little . . . out of touch, lately."

The guard lowered his glasses and leaned through the window. "Well, it's bad out there," he said with an air of confidentiality. "I wouldn't recommend leaving. I really wouldn't. Just about everyone on the outside is . . . well, if they haven't already expired, they're positive. It's rare to find anyone out there these days who's technically alive. Last I heard more than half the population's been wiped out. Communication services, mass transportation services; forget about it. Even FEMA is packing up. It's rough out there. But your Home Guard, well, whatever they've been doing has worked to keep the disease from spreading within this zone. Turns out the infection rate is much lower inside Muldoon than outside. The military is studying your Home Guard's policies to try to implement them nationally. But, between you and me, it's too late. There's hardly anyone out there who's not infected." The guard glanced up at the machine guns. "In fact, we've got our hands full keeping people out right now."

"You're telling me people are trying to get into Muldoon?"

"By the thousands. There's a rumor going around that someone from Muldoon found a cure. Haven't you heard? 'Course, it's all nonsense. But try and make any of those tools outside listen to reason."

It made me sick to think that someone actually considered the Home Guard's tactics to be a viable way to stop the spread of the plague. But if it was true that most people outside the quarantine zone were infected, using the TGVx treatment on the outside was more important than ever. And if we actually managed to treat positives on a large scale, then we wouldn't have to worry about anyone replicating the Home Guard's methods, or about getting back to Muldoon: if everyone was cured, there'd be no more need for the Home Guard or quarantine barricades at all, whatever directions the guns were facing.

"We're going out," I said. "We're sure. Open the gate."

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