Free Slow Burn (Book 3): Destroyer by Bobby Adair

doesn’t change much,” Jeff argued.
    Steph’s face looked almost hopeful. “Jeff, that makes it sound like we have a chance.”
    “And you did all this math in your head while you sat there?” I asked with as much disbelief as I could put into my voice.
    Steph said, “He’s really good with numbers.”
    I shook my head. “I’d need a spreadsheet to figure all that out.”
    “Jeff doesn’t,” Steph reassured me.
    “Wow.” That was impressive. “You know, I saw a news story about the drought and the reduction of the state’s cattle herds, and one of the surprising bits of information I came across was that there were something like five or six million cattle in Texas. What do cattle weigh? Somewhere between five hundred and fifteen hundred pounds? That’s a lot of calories, right?”
    “Enough to seriously change the math,” Jeff agreed.
    “And then there are the other farm animals. Sheep, goats, horses, whatever,” I added.
    “But to get those calories, the infected have to leave the city to find them. They have to figure out how to eat them. Cowhide is tough, probably too tough for our tiny blunt teeth to bite through. But that’s not the most important point.  The infected don’t know that all of those calories are out there for free. They’re not that smart. They only see the calories running around the cities with them. Those are the ones they’ll try to eat.”
    “You may be right,” I agreed, “but it sounds like there are a lot of hopes and guesses built into your calculations.”
    Jeff nodded, “There are lots of factors that can affect the final number, but the only real question about the end result is when we arrive at ten thousand, not if we arrive there. How long do you have to wait until the infected population kills itself off? That might be six months. It might be two years. It might be five years. But however you look at it, there’s a time in the not too distant future when the infected become a manageable problem. All you have to do is stay alive until then.”
    Jeff talked for another five or ten minutes before he got a very glassy look in his eyes and then passed out mid-sentence. Steph had me check his pulse. He wasn’t dead, but he was burning up.
    In the silence left by Jeff’s unconsciousness, I asked, “So you guys are a thing?”
    “We’re engaged,” Steph answered.
    After hearing them talk for the past twenty minutes, I had suspected as much, though I felt a pang of irrational jealousy when she said it.
    What did I have to be jealous about?
    “Zed, I should have told you that I had a fiancé.”
    I shook my head, “No, it’s not… That’s not why I came.”
    “But at least you know now why I needed someone to talk to. There’s barely enough room in Jeff’s conversations for Jeff, let alone me.”
    I smiled. “Yeah.”
    “Thanks for coming. It means a lot to me.”
    I shrugged. “I was worried. I had to know if you’d made it.”
    “Was it worth risking your life to find out?”
    That was a hard question. “I lived through it, so yes, I guess so. Do you think you’ll make it?”
    Steph shrugged and shook her head with minimal effort and less result. “I don’t know. Maybe. None of the others that we infected made it this long.”

Chapter 9
    After talking with Steph for another half hour about the only things on our minds, the virus, the infected, and our experiences, I returned to the nurse’s station. Evans and Dalhover stopped talking and looked at me when I walked up. During my time down the hall, Dr. Evans seemed to have regained something of himself. He stood a little straighter. His face was a little more animated. Dalhover’s face retained its permanent disappointment.
    “First off, thank you for not trying to kill me yet,” I said. It seemed like a good way to start the conversation.
    “There are no evil people here, Mr. Zane,” Dr. Evans told me, instantly back into the harsh, stonewalling man I’d first met upstairs.
    “That