“The safest place in the city there is.”
* * *
HAWK
Perched upon the blind bluff of a sparse hilltop and concealed behind a circle of bushy trees and coiled gates, men armed with automatic rifles manned the front gate and flat rooftops of the mansion house.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Hawk said. “I don’t want to attack the wrong house.”
“It’s the right house. Trust me. Tommy and Guy came here looking for you when you went missing.”
“I wish I was here. It looks a damn sight more comfortable than where I was.”
“Anyone maintaining a house like this during the apocalypse can’t be our friend. It’s the Architect’s men holding the families hostage. They’re the only ones truly loyal to him. If we take them out, we can release the families, and if we release them—”
“The soldiers are free to act with their consciences.” Hawk nodded and ran a hand over the ruddy stitches holding his face together. “Not bad, Sam. Not bad at all.”
“It’s got to be better than murdering your brothers, doesn’t it?”
“Much. The men up there made their choice, just as I made mine when I entered this blasted city. They have to accept their comeuppance eventually, and today is as good a day as any.”
Sam rested a hand on his shoulder. “I know you don’t want to do this either, but it’s for the best. We have to let Tommy know what’s happening here.”
Hawk shut his eyes and focused, and those tiny points of light, like pressure points of pain when he touched them, wrapped his right eyeball in a blanket of agony.
Sam took his hand in hers. “I’m here.”
Hawk pulled his hand free. “I’ll crush every bone in your hand if you do that.”
He gripped a pair of rocks instead, and his hands tightened around them. His knuckles turned white and thick claret oozed down his forearms from the gouges caused by the rock’s rough edges.
“Hawk! Stop! Hawk!”
Her voice floated, distant, and Hawk found himself in a new place, somewhere dark and deep. He could only see Sam through a shrinking square of light, a window in space and time. At first, he thought the window of his vision moved away from him, but he quickly realized it was him moving, descending deeper inside himself than he’d ever achieved with sporadic attempts at meditation in the past.
His feet touched the bottom, and in that space, he was surrounded by an eternity of darkness with nothing but a tiny tile-shaped window peering down at him, his only view of the real world. What was worse, he wasn’t alone. In the darkness behind him, so subtle it barely existed, he felt another presence. A dark and sinister presence, one he had never seen before but recognized instantly.
Hunger.
He looked over his shoulder—at least, that was the sensation he had—as he didn’t have any shoulders in this place. As he turned, the sensation moved with him. Hunger wasn’t there to be seen, only felt. It couldn’t be glimpsed, not by anything as primitive as the human mind.
He focused on that tiny tile window, looking out onto the world. Sam screamed at him, but he heard no sound. He concentrated on the house perched upon the hill, and the guards shouting and raising an alarm, as other men stabbed at the undead crowding the gates. It was no good, as the undead pummeled the gates with bloody fists, and didn’t even stop when the guards opened fire. They only thrashed harder, leaning against the gates, the crowd amassing. The gates creaked beneath their crushing weight. Then—
Snap!
The hinges broke and the undead surged forward, falling upon the men, who fired their weapons indiscriminately at the undead, the sky, the trees, their comrades high on the house’s rooftops.
Fools. They should have known better than to open fire. They’d had it too easy for too long and forgotten what it was to panic. Their pointless gunfire would call the undead upon them. They might as well ring a dinner bell.
Hawk felt the press of the undead on his mind, piling in behind the stabbing sensation in his eye. It felt like it was going to burst. He released the undead and the pain, letting the creatures do what they would, crushing the soldiers beneath them, crunching their bones and licking the spilled blood off their bloody faces.
Hawk floated up, up, up toward that square of light and felt the presence of the Hunger over his shoulder, a monster that would tear him apart the first chance it got. For the moment it was held back by unbreakable bonds of satisfaction, his automatic blood injector pumping another dose into his body, and the Hunger slipped away, into the far distance, barely even a splinter in his mind now, but it was still there, and always would be so long as the virus was upon him. The square slotted into his vision perfectly. What senses were still available to him flashed in a wild torrent all at once.
“. . .awk! Hawk! Wake up! We need to go!”
Sam shook his arm and blinked into being, born again. Hawk fell back, momentarily displaced.
“Hawk, are you all right?” Sam dropped to one knee at his side.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. The zombies. Are they inside? Did they make it?”
Sam helped him onto his feet. He swayed a little, unsteady. “They made it all right. They tore through the gates. More are coming. They’re heading up the hill to the house now.”
That’s not good. “We. . . We have to get inside,” Hawk said. “There are too many for me to control. We’re not going to win any kudos with the other guards if their families die. We have to keep them alive.”
Sam wiped a shred of cloth under his nose. It came away blood red. “How do we do that? There’s an entire horde there now.”
“We don’t do anything. I do it. You’ll never get within a hundred yards of that house. And Tommy will never forgive me if you get hurt.”
“If you think I’m sitting here and doing nothing, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“I didn’t say you would do nothing.”
5.
TOMMY
The elevator clanked into place and the door squealed open. They were once again in the happy confines of the dilapidated hotel. A rat saw them, squeaked, and turned and ran. The Death Squad exited the little box on a rope and scoped out the hotel lobby.
Tommy saw no movement that suggested the place was dangerous. “Do you have any idea where we should head next?”
When he looked back, he saw that Albert hadn’t joined them in the lobby. He remained in the lift, his back pressed against the wall. The elevator doors began to slide shut and Tommy had to hurry to jam his arm in the way and push it back open.
Albert’s eyes crinkled with fear. On a face free of worry lines, he had the appearance of a small child at the dentist’s office.
“It’s all right,” Tommy said. “It’s safe.”
“I. . . I can’t. It’s been so long since I left the base. I don’t know why I thought I could do this. I can’t. Let me go back.”
They had the weapons they needed to defeat the Architect now. What use did they have for Albert? But something stirred in Tommy’s gut, a feeling that sometimes a man needed a little help if he was to achieve his dreams.
“Emin, open the front doors,” Tommy said.
She did. The sunlight spilled across the floor and blinked with yellow warmth. Albert looked down at his hand. It was encased in sunlight, like a glove fashioned by a star, and he turned his palm upwards to feel the full force of the heat on his skin. It seemed to calm him, and he regained his composure and raised his chin. He nodded at Tommy.
Albert shuffled forward to the very edge of the elevator’s floor. Tommy extended a hand for him to take, but Albert gently pushed it away. He took a deep breath, bent his knees, and stepped over the threshold. He absorbed his weight on his worn slippers and a look of intense calm came over him. He smiled and nodded at Tommy before bringing his other foot beside the first.
Tommy removed his hand from the elevator door—it seemed relieved to fulfill its purpose—and brought the grating back across. Then he put
a bracing hand on the old man’s back.
“Thank you,” Albert said.
“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen what’s out there.”
“I can see what’s in here.” Albert gazed at the hotel’s intricate carvings, fountains, and statues. “Is this some kind of temple?”
“A temple to sleep and travel,” Guy said. “This is a hotel.”
A smile curled Albert’s lips. “A hotel.”
“If you like that,” Jimmy said, beaming happily, “you’ll love outside.”
Albert shared the boy’s grin but it melted the moment he set foot outside. Tommy would have given anything to see the world through Albert’s eyes, the eyes of a child, but with the ability to appreciate the world’s wonders for the first time. Then again, hadn’t he experienced that same emotion in the underground base just a few hours ago?
Albert raised a hand to block the worst of the sunlight. This part of Houston was a ghost town. It’d been quiet when they’d entered the elevator but had it been this quiet?
“We’d best get moving,” Tommy said, instinct tingling. “Guy, Emin, take point. Jimmy, come with me.”
The guys descended the steps to the road, shiny new weapons armed (Tommy thought) and loaded (Tommy hoped). Either way, the weapons looked formidable enough that anyone they came across with half a brain cell wouldn’t want to tangle with them. Jimmy scooted ahead, neck swiveling and checking each direction.
“Hello there, little fella.”
The words were spoken in Albert’s soft, sing-song voice. What chilled Tommy to the bone was the idea of who he could be talking to.
Tommy spun around. Albert approached a figure that he recognized immediately. The teenager’s torn features and lumbering gait ought to have been a warning to anyone. Anyone who had been living above the ground the past couple of weeks. The creature extended its arms out to the sides.
“You want a hug?” Albert said. “All right then.”
“No!” Tommy bolted into the undead, smacking it over the head with the butt of his rifle. It fell over and landed on its head. A shard of its skull snapped off and clattered to the tarmac. And it was already getting back up.
“What’s wrong?” Albert said.
“He’s a zombie. Can’t you see that?”
Tommy leveled the new-age weapon at the snarling teen and pulled the trigger. Of course, there was no trigger, but the muscular tension in his arm set it off, and a thick bolt of molten plasma struck the creature and burned a hole in the tarmac two yards deep. Contact with the plasma had disintegrated the undead boy upon contact. One moment he was there, the next, he wasn’t. What remained of his arms and legs burnt with singed smoke. Even the tarmac melted around the edges. Tommy peered at the weapon in his hands with immense awe—and more than a little fear.
Albert started back, eyes wide with shock. “I don’t understand. I thought he was like you.”
“We might be dead, but we’re nothing like them.”
“I. . . I’m sorry.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did he touch you?” Tommy didn’t wait for an answer and checked the man’s exposed skin.
“No. He didn’t get close enough.”
“You need to be more careful. These things will bite you as soon as look at you. Don’t wander off like that again.” Tommy might have been talking to a wayward child.
“I won’t. Thank you.”
Albert turned and approached the others, hands held up in preemptive apology. Tommy frowned at the man, wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
* * *
That night, while Albert lay fast asleep, snoring beside the fire they’d lit in the shell of a disused factory, Tommy turned to the others and lowered his voice.
“I’m not sure Albert is safe to be by himself,” he said. “I want all of you to keep a close eye on him, make sure he doesn’t wander off somewhere and get hurt.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Emin said. “I thought everyone could identify a dangerous zombie when they saw one. Even folks who’ve been under the ground a long time.”
It defied all logic. Surely the lifeless eyes and gnashing teeth were a good sign something was up?
“You guys, I’ve been thinking.” Guy plucked a blade of grass and tore it into tiny pieces. “Earlier, we went into an underground base with UFOs and weapons that look like they came from outer space.”
“Yeah, so?” Emin said.
“And everyone is wearing helmets except this guy.”
“And?”
Guy searched Emin’s eyes. “You really didn’t think of it?”
“Of what?” Emin said, growing frustrated.
“Of him.”
“Forget it. I don’t care anymore.”
Guy grabbed her by the arm. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“What’s obvious is I’m going to belt you if you don’t start making sense.”
Guy leaned in even closer. “He’s not from around here.”
“We know that already. He’s from the base.”
“No, I mean he’s not from this planet.”
That caught Emin off balance. “Huh?”
“He’s an alien!”
Emin was silent for a solid ten seconds—a long time when you’re engaged in whispered conversation.
“I know, it stunned me when I first realized it—”
“He’s not an alien, you dolt! He’s just been living underground for a while.”
“For his entire existence. Doesn’t that strike you as a little fishy?”
“Duh.”
Guy scratched his arms, flustered. “Fine. But when he starts levitating objects without touching them, don’t say you weren’t forewarned.”
“You should be the one locked up in a lab somewhere.”
“With us as Walkers, don’t think the thought hasn’t crossed my mind. At least one of us will be tested on before the end. You mark my words.”
Emin shook her head at the fool man and turned to Tommy. “What you want to do in the morning? Take him back?”
“Even if we did, there’s no telling how those in the base might react. No. He stays with us for now. Tomorrow, we start for Austin and see what these weapons can do.”
Jimmy rolled over in bed, smacking his teeth and dreaming of something tasty.
“Those plasma rifles have a got a real kick in them,” Guy said. “I can’t wait to give mine a test run.”
“I don’t want any of us using them unless we have no other choice,” Tommy said. “They’re too dangerous. We’ll keep them in the trunk until we need them.”
“Aw, man,” Guy moaned.
But they were going to need them eventually. The Architect had plans, and they had to be ready for anything.
“Get some sleep,” Tommy said. “We’re got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
* * *
Albert couldn’t have hoped for a better scenic route. The sun rose like a spotlight as the country opened up and shared its crowning jewels. Music whispered from the radio, and every ten seconds, Albert changed the station, soaking up as many different kinds of music as he could, grunting with pleasure each time he did so. From pop music to rock, from blues to hip hop, from soul to classical, he didn’t stop until he reached one particular genre of music—a genre Tommy was unfamiliar with.
“What is this?” Albert said with the awe of a boy having discovered the female form for the first time.
“This is jazz,” Guy said. “I guess you’ve never heard jazz before, huh?”
“I’ve never heard any kind of music before. Except for when I was very, very young.” He focused his attention on the music blaring from the cheap speakers. “This music seems very different from the others.”
“Technically, all music is different. At least, that’s what record companies want you to think.” Guy leaned forward in his seat, easing the seatbelt so he could get closer to the front passenger seat. “The best jazz is improvised.
The musicians learn the general rules, master them, and then when it comes time to perform, they let the rules go and freewheel.”
This appeared to confuse Albert. “Then why learn the rules?”
“So they know how to break them. They play depending on how they feel. That’s the beauty of jazz and something no other form of music can emulate. No two performances are the same. You can go to a jazz club and it’ll be different tonight than it was last night.”
“That’s not true,” Emin said, leaning forward and joining the conversation. “All live music performances are different. Sometimes they make mistakes or something sounds better than the original.”
“The difference is, those mistakes are a part of jazz. There are no mistakes. Everything sounds exactly how it needs to.”
“I think it sounds horrible,” Jimmy said, face curled up to show his displeasure in case his words weren’t clear enough.
“I agree with Jimmy,” Emin said. “It’s noise. There’s no rhythm.”
“Philistines,” Guy said, shaking his head and turning back to Albert. “Don’t worry about them. They’ve already bought into the music machine, telling them what music is and what it isn’t. They can’t handle anything different.”
“Hey, I used to mosh to heavy metal,” Emin said indignantly.
“Ah, now that is noise,” Guy said.
Emin leaned forward, fiddled with the radio until she came to some metal music. She cranked up the volume. “Feel the music, Albert. Let it stream through you, and then let it go.”
The lead singer screeched into the microphone as the drums thumped harder and faster than Tommy thought possible. Guy screwed up his face and stared out the window. Jimmy clutched his hands over his ears.
“And now,” Emin said, hands rising as if she were conducting a national orchestra, “we come to the chorus.”
“How can you tell?” Guy bellowed over the racket.
“And we do this!” Emin tossed her head back and forth and swayed her head in a circle, her short hair not quite doing the job full-length greasy strands did.
Jimmy leaned away from her, a look of pure terror on his face. He curled up to Guy. “I think she’s turned into a zombie!”
Death Squad (Book 4): Zombie World Page 5
