Free San Diego 2014 by Mira Grant Page B

amplify. One bite triggers a cataclysmic chain reaction. For them, back then…how quickly they lost control would have been determined by a dozen factors. Prior exposure, general health, height, weight… It’s simpler now.
    LORELEI: Yeah. If you can ever call the zombie apocalypse “simple.” Anyway, our booth was set up toward the back of the hall, and the infection was self-containing at that stage. I think sometimes that it would have been kinder if it had been like the movies, you know? One zombie gets in, everyone’s bitten or dead inside of an hour.
    MAHIR: Life rarely concerns itself with being kind, I’m afraid. If it did, we would all be much more content.
    LORELEI: Ain’t that the truth?
    She appears to notice her tea for the first time in almost an hour. She pushes the cup aside, and stands.
    LORELEI: I’m going to need something stronger for what comes next. You game?
    MAHIR: All things considered, yes. I believe that I am.

10:06 P.M.
    It shouldn’t have taken an hour and a half to reach the back of the hall. Not with the amount of space available and the relatively small number of people who had been able to cram themselves inside for Preview Night before the doors were closed. But that was a reflection of Comic-Con B.E.—Before Emergency—and this was travel through Comic-Con now. Walkways that should have been open were barricaded, some with as little as caution tape and “Keep Out” signs, others with full-on walls that had been constructed from cannibalized booth displays. Of the people Kelly and Stuart encountered outside the barriers, it seemed like everyone knew someone who had been attacked.
    One girl had confessed in a whisper that she and her boyfriend had been right up front when things turned ugly, probably right near where Kelly herself had been attacked. “He got bit by this guy who ran away right after, like it didn’t even matter,” she said. “He seemed fine for like, ages , and then he started getting sort of shaky. And then he flipped out and bit me and ran away. Just like that other guy. Just like the guy by the door.”
    Kelly and Stuart hadn’t said anything as the girl rolled up her sleeve and showed them the bite marks scored deep into her lower arm. Her boyfriend’s teeth had clearly broken the skin.
    The girl had looked calmly between them as she rolled her sleeve back down. “I know what this is,” she’d said. “It’s the zombie apocalypse. We’re all going to die in here, because this is the zombie apocalypse. I’ll die before you do. I’ve already been bitten.” Then she’d turned and wandered away, like they didn’t matter anymore.
    The barriers made a lot more sense as Kelly and Stuart resumed their slow passage toward the back of the hall.
    They were almost through the last of the truly congested areas when three people came around a blind corner and stopped in the middle of the aisle, eyeing Kelly and Stuart warily. Kelly and Stuart stopped in turn, eyeing the trio right back. It was two men—one older, one in his mid-twenties—and a woman, clutching a tablet to her chest like it was the only handle she had left on reality.
    “You don’t want to go that way,” said Kelly, breaking their small bubble of silence. “There’s nothing that way but scared people building cardboard walls and talking about the zombie apocalypse.”
    “Which may be actually happening,” added Stuart.
    “Which may be actually happening,” allowed Kelly, in a resigned tone. “Anyway. It’s not safe that way.”
    “Maybe not, but we think we have a way to get the wireless turned back on,” said the woman.
    Leave it to the geeks of the world to prioritize Internet access over staying alive. “The convention center is full of zombies, victims, and proto-zombies,” said Kelly slowly. “Maybe you should go for option number four, and walk away from the carnage, not toward it.”
    “Or maybe we should make it easier for emergency personnel to coordinate with