Page 101 of Doomsdate

“I have to admit, I’m surprised you came back here,” Gemma says, taking my arm and ushering me back into the chilly sunshine. Except for the processing stations at the entrance, it’s almost as if the apocalypse hasn’t touched West Point. The campus’s grass is as green as it always is, though trampled and somewhat unkempt, with dozens of crisp-shirted cadets entering and exiting Washington Hall’s imposing stone façade in organized company formations. How are there so many people here, alive and well? “I thought for sure the only way we’d get you to West Point was to kidnap you by helicopter.”

The sigh exits my body to the sky. “Honestly? Me, too.”

“Mom and Dad have changed, Everett. They’ve been absolutely beside themselves ever since you didn’t show at the helipad. We circled the D.C. metro for as long as we could before the extra fuel ran out and we had to head back to West Point.”

I blink, emotionally exhausted already. “I find that hard to believe.”

“You need to hear them out and give them a chance. We’re doing so much good here, and it’s all thanks to them. I have my own lab building now, for Christ’s sake, and a dozen scientists under my leadership. We’re making fantastic progress against the virus, and with a few more weeks, we might be able to isolate the catalyst, too.”

“So you think there’s a catalyst? Corinne with the Queens survivors thinks whatever it is, it’s in the American food supply.”

“I don’t think there’s a catalyst, I know there’s one. We’ve already sequenced the virus’s RNA genome and pinpointed the government lab it originated from, and there’s no way it would be fatal on its own, much less spawn the zombie apocalypse.”

“You already knew it came from a lab?” I frown, brain swirling from all this science. “How?”

“Because its RNA was modified to include a gene that creates bioluminescent protein when the virus replicates, which doesn’t occur in nature.” Gemma points at her eye. “That’s why their eyes glow. As soon as I saw the first zombie with those luminescent eyes, I knew—this virus is man-made. Coding for bioluminescence is a common lab technique to study how a virus spreads through the host.”

I duck my chin. “So…put that in handsome-film-professor terms.”

Gemma stops and faces me with a patient smile. “The virus is just one part, Everett. A normal, albeit highly contagious variant of the norovirus. When this version encounters a catalyst in the host’s blood, it goes nuclear, killing the host and reanimating the body with minimal brain-stem activation. We understand the virus now, but it’s the catalyst that makes it fatal, and trying to isolate and identify it is like guessing the right number of jelly beans in a nearly infinite jar.” Gemma blows out a burst of breath, uncharacteristically stymied by this problem. “It could be anything.”

For as long as I’ve known Gemma, she’s either had all the answers or had the confidence to know she’d find them soon. So it is with no small amount of relish that I pluck the folder of patents from the Oval Office out of my bag and dangle them over her head now.

“About that…what if I told you that we snooped through the Oval Office and found a stack of patents with some classified documents about the zombie outbreak?”

Gemma’s eyes go wide, and she begins to jump and swat at my hand. “Everett! Give those to me right now!”

“Ah, ah, ah!” I coo. “Say please!”

“Fine! Please stop being such a goddamn toenail of a human! Please don’t make me kill you!”

But Maisie comes up behind me, silent as a cat, and runs a finger down my side, tickling me so badly I drop the folder. Gemma scoops it up and runs away, laughing as she thumbs through the papers inside like the little mad scientist that she is.

“Oh, is that how it is? You know Gemma for ten minutes and you’re already on her side?” I wrap an arm around Maisie’s lower back, bringing her in close, and press my forehead down to hers, smiling. I don’t even think about it—the movement, the flirting, the casual touch has become so natural. I like it too much, this blend of my worlds. My beloved sister meeting my love Maisie. Them teaming up to annoy the shit out of me.

Ah, heaven.

Maisie’s pretty cheeks flush apricot. “Uh, um. Everett?”

“Mm?” My eyes have slid closed, the rest of my body tightening, too, in anticipation of hers.

“Son.” The word is a decree. A title and deed. Ownership and entitlement drips from it down the back of my neck. I freeze in place.

My fingers slide off Maisie’s back and fall to my sides. I straighten on instinct, then pivot. Colonels Hank and Irene Greer stand before me in full olive-green uniforms, stiff as trees.

“Mother.” I blink. “Fath—”

They barrel toward me and grab me into a big, squeezing hug.

“You’re alive!”

Maisie

“Come on,” Gemma leans in and whispers to me, pulling me with one hand and Ellie with the other. “They’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Louder, Gemma says, “Mom, Dad, I’m taking Maisie and Ellie up to their barracks so they can rest.”

“We thought you were dead!” Everett’s father says, his rough, stern voice broken into pieces. “You weren’t there where we told you to be! You weren’t—”