“Woah. Hold on a minute. We’re taking two full backpacks with us for a twenty-minute journey?”
“And the journey back.”
“You’ve lost me. How are we going to run with these heavy bags on our backs?”
Joel scratched his chin and smiled at her. “We’re not going to be running at all.”
* * *
Joel checked both directions before stepping onto the sidewalk. He moved around the overturned trolleys, the dropped children’s toys, the crushed ice cream cones, as if he were taking a stroll through the countryside. His neck and eyes were very active, checking every idle alleyway and shop entrance they came to, but he never once came to a complete stop.
They might not be running, but the bags were still a weight to bear. Sam was puffing and panting before they reached the end of the block. “Then what do we need the backpacks for?”
“The first time I took a stroll down to the local shop after the virus came, do you know how long it took me to get there, grab a packet of cigarettes, and get back to my home?”
“I don’t know. Ten minutes.”
“Three days. The zombies caught sight of me, chased me, and from that point on, I was running from one hiding place to another—and never in the direction I wanted. I learned three things that day. One, smoking wasn’t worth risking my life for. I spent my whole life trying to give up on those little white sticks. Nothing made me want to quit more than having my life flash in front of my eyes for the tenth time that day. Or nearly starving to death. In the end, I resorted to eating. . . Well, maybe you’d prefer not to hear about that.”
Joel came to a large T-intersection. He edged his nose around the corner and moved back. “There’s one down the road. On my count, we’re going to walk across the road—no running—calmly. Are you ready? One, two, and. . .”
Sam left the blocks slowly. She wanted to suggest they head a different way, back up to another road, or distract the beast with noise first. But Joel stepped out and, in no particular rush, crossed the street. Sam hot stepped after him and hopped over the fallen bodies.
“What did I say about running?” Joel said.
Sam couldn’t breathe, much less express her annoyance until they reached the other side of the road. “There’s an undead! Why would we walk when we can run?”
“Running makes noise.”
“Running is faster.”
“Running tires you out.”
“Running gets the job done.”
“Running gets their job done. Look, I’ve got nothing against running—”
Sam folded her arms. “It sounds like you do.”
“—but our job is to travel as quickly and as safely as possible.”
Sam shook her head. “How do you know the creature didn’t see us?”
Joel nodded at the blind corner. “Take a look.”
Dare Sam take the risk? If she did, the creature might be on her and tear her face off.
“Use this.” Joel handed her a stick with a mirror on the end.
“Why didn’t you use this before?”
Joel shrugged. “I didn’t feel like using it. Sometimes it’s good to use your own eyes, exercise your neck a little.”
Sam raised the stick and peered around the corner with it. It took a moment to get used to, but as she turned the mirror, she saw the creature in the middle of the road, turning in a circle and looking for something to eat. Sam handed the stick back.
Joel smiled. He could have rubbed it in if he wanted to, but he didn’t. He tucked his mirror away and turned around.
“The second thing I learned was to take a backpack full of food and useful items with me at all times. I didn’t want to get trapped again. Or if I did, not without enough sustenance to keep me strong.”
Sam hobbled forward on her sprained ankle after the little man. She felt grateful to have stumbled upon someone who knew the city so well. And with her limping through the streets the way she was, barely even capable of keeping up with little Joel—
Joel held out a hand to stop her from proceeding. Ahead of them, at a crossroad this time, he retrieved his stick and aimed the mirror around the corner. He angled it to check each vantage point before stepping behind a car that had smashed into a telephone box. “Follow me.”
He checked around the car, dead quiet with concentration this time. “With me,” he said.
He nodded his head three times before walking out. He tucked the stick away as he walked.
Sam checked over her shoulder in the direction he’d been looking just a moment ago. Her heart skipped a beat, her eyes boggled, and her breath lodged in her throat. She focused on Joel’s back, following him as he rounded the next corner in no particular hurry at all.
Sam pressed her back to the wall.
“Easy, right?” Joel said.
“Easy?” Sam said. “Easy? You’re insane!”
“It’s nice to hear the old terms of endearment again.”
“It’s not endearment! I’m serious!”
“I can see that.” He folded his arm across his barrel chest. “Tell me, what’s gotten you riled up?”
“The horde of undead on the street would be a start! They could have seen us!”
“But they didn’t see us.”
“They could have!”
“But they didn’t.”
Sam gripped handfuls of her long hair, about ready to tear it out by the root. “I’ve got people relying on me. Friends. They’re relying on me to get to the guards. If I don’t, they’ll die. They’ll all die.”
“I know. And I’m helping you.”
“You’re not helping me if you keep putting our lives on the line.”
Joel waited while Sam calmed herself down. He slid his fingers together and twiddled his thumbs. “When you, or anyone else, see a zombie, what is your response?”
“To run. Scream. Get away from them.”
“That’s the automatic response. It’s not a bad one, as far as it goes. But then what happens? You run and your feet make loud noises—especially on hard roads in the city. You scream—and the creatures hear you and give chase. Both of these things only help to draw the creatures to you. The same creatures, new creatures. All creatures. They’re looking for something to eat, something with energy. So, you run and you scream and you tell the beasts you are a delicious meal worth chasing. By the time they start chasing you, it is already too late. They will not stop.
“But. What if you do not run? What if you do not hide? What if you walk and do not hurry? Their eyes are covered with a yellow or white film. They cannot see well. Even if they see you, their curiosity is not usually aroused. Even if it is, they do not run, do not tell their buddies they’ve found a delicious morsel. They come, alone. By which time, you are already gone, or you prepare a trap to kill them and end their curiosity. Do you understand?”
Sam nodded.
“This is the third thing I learned,” Joel said. “Zombies are predictable beasts. When they are not eating, they’re looking for something to consume. They do this in the same repetitive pattern. Come. Peer around the corner.”
“I’m okay,” Sam said.
“Come. It might save your life one day.”
Sam slowly—very slowly—peered around the corner at the creatures. They turned in her direction and she started back.
“Don’t be afraid,” Joel said. “Look again.”
Shaking, Sam did as he asked and was relieved to find the creatures staring away from her. Then they turned ninety degrees in another direction—directly away from her this time. They didn’t move as one, but slightly unsynchronized. Sam couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
The creatures danced. The same hunched position, the same lackluster movement. Another ninety-degree turn and they faced a new direction. She forced herself to continue watching, not moving a muscle as the monsters turned in her direction. Toward her, but not at her. Then, after another few seconds, they made the same revolution again.
Sam pulled back and looked at Joel with a sense of wonder. “This changes everything. If we’re careful, if we keep an eye out. . . There’s no need to run ever again.”
“Oh, there will be a time to run. There always is. But it will not be because of you that they run, but because someone was afraid. Come. We are almost at the hospital.”
* * *
A new confidence came over Sam after she learned how the zombies looked for their next meal. Zombies had always seemed such violent and chaotic creatures to her. The idea that they might have processes they followed, routines and habits that got them through life seemed an alien concept. And yet, Joel had proven it wasn’t so alien after all.
The hospital suffered badly with the onset of the apocalypse. An ambulance sat buried in the Emergency Room doors, the back was folded open and a pair of bodies hung out of it. Something had gnawed on their decomposing bodies a long time ago. A mustard gas field of flies buzzed about their rotting faces. Sam covered her mouth as they passed.
Joel raised a hand to stop Sam from proceeding. “Undead often hang around automatic doors. They’re constantly stimulated by them. The zombies see something moving and come to investigate. A few zombies will be nearby. We’ll find another entrance.”
He led them further along to another ward. He put his ear to the door and listened before pushing against it. He still didn’t push it completely open, and instead did so inch by inch, with Pointy clutched in hand to swing at any creature’s head that might appear.
Sam kept a close eye on their backs. The car park was large, with a handful of cars having been driven hard into the side panels of other parked vehicles, denting the wings and writing them off. No undead so far as she could see.
“This way,” Joel said, speaking from the other side of the door.
Sam hobbled inside and shut the door behind them.
“Leave it open a crack so we can see it in case we’re running for our lives.”
The man was full of useful tips for surviving the apocalypse. He led her further inside. Once they reached the endless hallways, Sam took over the directions. As a doctor, she knew how a hospital was laid out. Joel covered their rear.
“Here,” Sam said.
Joel read the letters on the door. “Medicine cupboard.”
“If we’re lucky, it’ll already be open.” Sam tried the door handle. “Not lucky. Damn. It’s okay. There will be one on every floor and in every ward. More than enough for what we need.”
“But they might be locked too. If they are, how do we find the key?”
“The head nurse.”
“Then I suggest we do a little zombie hunting.”
13.
HAWK
The hostages sat in a circle, legs folded beneath them, and spoke in hushed whispers. The children sat in their mother’s laps as they ran their fingers through their hair. They rocked gently and would have been humming lullabies if it wasn’t for the undead downstairs. Every few minutes, a loud crash shook them from their sleep. They froze and listened intently. Once things quietened down again, they resumed their calming activities.
Hawk sat in a far corner and leaned over the side, peering down at the zombies. A funny thing about zombies was they rarely looked up. They were busy being concerned with the world at their level to be bothered by what may or may not be happening at other altitudes. They could look up—so long as their bodies weren’t too mutilated—they only refused to do so unless something obvious got their attention.
The hordes merged, forming a super-horde that squeezed through the house’s front gates at the top of the hill.
“I never thanked you for what you did.” Blue Eyes adopted a half-crouch and sat on the wall beside him. “We would still be in the cinema if it wasn’t for you.”
“I’m not sure there’s much to thank me for. All of you would also still be alive if it wasn’t for me.”
“We might have lived a little longer, perhaps. But the guards had already killed three of us. It was only a matter of time before they killed us all.”
That made Hawk feel a little better, at least. “What’s your name?”
“Cheryl. You?”
“Hawk.”
Cheryl extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Hawk.”
“Likewise.”
“What happened to you?” She motioned to his face. “All those scars. Let me guess: You cut yourself shaving?”
Hawk chuckled. “Only if I use a chainsaw to shave.”
She waited for a response but he didn’t give one. He didn’t want to cause a panic amongst the others. For some reason, he suspected she could take the truth and not scream. He decided to be honest. “I was one of the first units to be sent into Austin. There was no one on the streets, no zombies like the satellite images were telling us.”
“And then they fell on you from above.” Cheryl’s voice was haunted.
“Yeah.”
“My brother’s in the military. He didn’t go in with the first wave, luckily. He went in later.”
“They killed my entire unit, and then me too.”
Cheryl looked at him warily. “You’re immune, somehow?”
“Unfortunately not. I have a gene that protects me from some of the virus’s psychological effects. I’m only one step away from being one of them.”
“But you’re not one of them. There’s a lot of people who would kill to get their loved ones back, even if they were infected the way you are.”
Hawk never thought of it that way before. He was still alive, in a way. Not that he had much family to celebrate his existence with. His closest family had died the same day he did.
“I haven’t seen my brother since he entered the city,” Cheryl said. “We don’t know where he is.”
“What’s his name?”
“Torres. Frank Torres.”
The name didn’t ring a bell. “I’m sure he’s okay.”
“Is it bad out there? In the rest of the country?”
“I honestly don’t know. It broke out of Austin and could have taken the entire state of Texas by now. I know as much as you.”
“We still have a lot to be thankful for. I wanted you to know you’ll always be in my prayers.”
Hawk smiled at the revelation and was surprised by the impact it had on him. He used to have a handsome smile, but with his stitched-up face, he doubted he could attract a barfly never mind a lady with it. He was pleased to see Cheryl didn’t flinch at the sight of it. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
Cheryl smiled back. Now that was a pretty smile.
Thud.
The others turned to the rooftop door. Hawk got to his feet and approached the door in a half-crouch.
Thud.
Dust snowed from the top, dusting the top of Hawk’s head. There was more than one creature out there.
The first fingers poked at the door’s edges. The door had a lock but none had the key. The creature could accidentally turn the handle and the door would fly open. Hawk put his back to it and held it shut. It wouldn’t hold forever.
Sam, where are you?
* * *
Hawk couldn’t let these people die. He couldn’t fail them. He felt the anger seep deep into his bones and reform into disgust. Disgust at himself, disgust at failure. And the look on the hostage’s faces made him turn away, unable to look them in the eye. He could see their fear, could practically taste it.
We’re all going to die here.
Of all the things the virus had stripped from him, why did it leave him with his emotions? Why had it stripped him of his senses and left him with the ability to loathe and feel sorry for himself? To taste desperation and know he was going to fail in his mission? Because the virus was a cruel master and knew no mercy.
He had fulfilled his part of the plan. He’d sprung the hostages from the house and brought them to the rendezvous point. Sam should have been here. She should have—
Hawk shook his head. It was no good blaming her. Her part of the mission was mor
e difficult than his in many ways. He was a Walker and could move quite freely amongst the undead crowd. She was still living and now traversed the infested city of Austin on her own. What had they been thinking?
Hawk could see the tragedy that would befall them. The creatures would force the door open, and would come in greater and greater numbers, until they were backed into a corner and made to fight, forced to use hand weapons at close quarters. They could smash the plant pots and use the fragments as daggers. But the hostages were not in any fit state to fight. Trapped as they were, they would be defeated.
Their backup needed to arrive, and it needed to arrive now. They needed fully-armed soldiers to bring the pain and slaughter these undead in their thousands. But even if they did come, they might not have air support, and could well be crushed beneath the undead bootheel too.
What the hostages needed was time. What the soldiers needed—when they arrived—was a distraction.
Could Hawk provide them with both?
He scanned the rooftop, jerking forward with each forceful smack from the undead’s fists. Plant pots were not the only weapon at their disposal. Blankets and sheets fluttered and cracked in the wind.
“Cheryl!” Hawk shouted. “Come here!”
Cheryl turned from the hostages she’d been taking care of. She eyed the door warily and crouched beside Hawk.
“I need you to find someone to hold this door,” Hawk said.
Cheryl glanced at the growing number of arms sprouting from the door’s edges. “If those arms scratch any of us, we’ll turn.”
“Then don’t get scratched.”
Despite herself, Cheryl smiled. She headed into the group and brought back three of the largest men. They looked scared—as well they should—but did their duty and braced the door.
“Do you have it?” Hawk said.
They nodded and Hawk eased away.
“Can you tell me why I might have just sacrificed a bunch of young men?” Cheryl said.
They’re not sacrificed, Hawk wanted to say, but the lie wouldn’t pass his lips. If the undead got through the door, those three brave men would be the first to feel heir wrath.
Death Squad (Book 4): Zombie World Page 12
