“How often do you need to take them?” he said. “Your. . . vitamins.”
“Every four hours. And they’re not vitamins. They’re small capsules of blood.”
“That must get in the way of your beauty sleep.”
“I don’t look very beautiful if I don’t take it.”
Albert nodded. He probably guessed Tommy’s meaning—they turned into marauding undead monsters if they didn’t take the vial.
“I suppose we’ve all got our little vitamins we take now and then, don’t we?” Albert said. “They’re not always medicines. They can be little things we say or do to ourselves that make us feel better.”
“What do you say to yourself?” Tommy wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to that.
“I remind myself of the things I recall from when I was a kid, things that help me remember the kind of person I am, rather than the person I became.”
“You don’t seem such a bad sort. A bit odd, maybe. But still, a good egg.”
Albert grinned. “You think?”
“Sure. If you were my neighbor, I’d have no problem inviting you over for one of my world-famous barbecues.”
“Barbecue. Now that sounds nice.”
Guy bent down to show Fredo something at the base of a tree. Probably filling the poor kid’s head with half-truths and conspiracies.
“If we get through this, if you help us do what we need to do, I’ll make sure to have one in your honor,” Tommy said.
Albert’s smile was sad. “That would be nice.”
Guy led Fredo by the hand.
Tommy pushed off the car. “Everybody’s back. We should get going.”
“Just a little longer. A few minutes ought to do it.”
Albert stood with his arms folded, looking out at the forest. A man brimming with confidence and the kind of self-assurance most people never achieved.
“What do you think will happen to the boy?” Tommy said. “We can’t take care of him. Not forever.”
“Oh, I think he’ll be just fine.”
Guy reached for the door handle to usher Fredo inside. He paused when he heard the sound of snapping undergrowth beyond the car’s dawning headlights.
Tommy snapped to attention and brought his pistol around. “Who goes there?”
“Don’t worry,” Albert said. “It’s nobody dangerous.”
The man who leaned around the tree was shaped like a tree trunk himself—a chunky wombat of a man. In his hand, he carried a scythe, commonly used to cut long grass. Its tip blinked in the twilight haze. The man peered around the tree at them, eyes big and wide. Around his waist hung dead squirrels and a pair of pheasants. “Go now,” he said, his voice dark with husk. “This my territory. Put down what you steal and I not hurt you.”
“We come in peace,” Albert said.
The man spat. “That what all say. But they lie and steal.”
Albert leaned in close to Tommy. “Prepare for something beautiful.”
Tommy had no idea what Albert was talking about. They faced a dangerous man armed with a vicious tool that could hack their heads off faster than they could blink. What was beautiful about that?
“We’re not here to take anything,” Tommy said. “We stopped for a restroom break, nothing more. We’re leaving now.”
“Daddy?”
The tree trunk man melted. He dropped his weapon, dashed forward, and fell to his knees before Tommy realized what was happening. Fredo ran into the man’s arms and gripped his head tight. The man shut his eyes but tears were already running down his cheeks. He looked at Tommy and the others, nodding in thanks. He stood up and wiped the matching tears off his son’s cheeks. Fredo cast a hasty wave before his father picked his scythe up off the floor and led him away.
Not a word passed amongst the Death Squad, still piecing together what had happened. Albert knew Fredo had a father, and that he was living in these woods. He knew he would be here and at this particular time.
What kind of witchcraft was this?
* * *
“Austin dead ahead,” Tommy said.
It felt strange to be back in the neighborhood of his old town, like a university student returning home after spending time away. The town felt small, parochial, his friends small-minded and petty. But there was nothing small-minded about the Architect.
The wall remained in place, like something from a fairytale. Within it, his girlfriend Samantha was trapped, within the dragon’s castle, waiting to be rescued. Tommy smiled and shook his head at the notion. Sam would never be a maiden in distress. She was as likely to rescue him as he was to rescue her.
“That’s Austin?” Albert said. “And that’s the wall around it?”
“That’s the one,” Tommy said.
Tommy wasn’t sure how to proceed. His job, so far as he knew, was to get Albert to Austin and then. . . what? He had no idea. Get him inside the city, he supposed. Easier said than done when you didn’t have access to a helicopter like last time. Presumably, Albert would tell them what he needed. Tommy remained on the same road, bombing toward the city armed with their secret weapon. He felt excited.
They came to a crossroads.
“Which way do you want me to go?” Tommy said.
“Hm? Oh. Right, please.” He seemed distracted, not even paying attention to the city.
“Is something wrong?”
“No. Everything’s fine. Everything’s shaping up very well. I want you to get as close to the city as possible. Then I want you to drive around the walls. Take your time. I need to concentrate.”
Tommy did as the man asked. He was nothing if not clear.
18.
SAM
Don stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together. It wasn’t even a cold day.
“Bad circulation,” Nigel said, nodding to Don’s hands. “That’s what that is.”
“I exercise all the time. How can it be bad circulation?”
“Might have a bad ticker.”
“I don’t have a bad ticker.”
“Nobody else is suffering from the same problem.”
Don raised his chin. “It’s not a problem.”
“It is if you need to grab your firearm quick and you can’t because your hands are too cold.”
“It’s a good job I’m not on watch by myself then, isn’t it?”
“That’s nice, that is. Letting me take all the risk and do all the work because your hands are blue.”
“They’re not blue—”
Nigel tightened the grip on his rifle. “Your eyes don’t have bad circulation, do they?”
“No. Neither do my hands—”
“Good. Because I don’t want to be doing all the work out here.”
Don nodded to something across the road. “We’ve got company.”
“Where?” Nigel snapped to attention.
A figure limped toward them. The woman looked in pretty good shape considering she was undead. Her hair stuck to her face and her clothes were stained with blood. Nothing new there.
“Want me to handle this one?” Don said.
“With your blue hands? Give me a break.”
“I told you, they’re not blue—”
Nigel released a blade and stepped into the road. He raised his hands as she approached. “Come to me, love. I’ll put you out of your misery.”
The woman stopped two yards short. “Boy, am I glad I found you.”
Don looked shocked. Sam wondered what the prevailing reason was. The fact a female undead spoke or that she was the one they’d been tasked to look for.
“I’m Dr. Samantha DeCoveney,” she said. “Would you be so kind as to take me to your captain?”
Nigel glanced over his shoulder at Don. “Uh, sure. I guess.”
He tucked the blade away and waited for her to approach him. As she passed Don, she nodded to his fingers and said. “Got bad circulation? I’d see your doctor about that if I were you. You might have a bad heart.”
Nigel smirked as
he led Sam into the building. Don, dumbfounded, stared at his cold fingers.
* * *
The building the guards commandeered had giant letters spread across the front: THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE. The headquarters of the local newspaper.
Nigel never took his eyes off Sam. That was the first thing she noticed. Even when they walked side by side, his attention remained entirely on her, and his rifle pointing in her direction, within easy reach. So long as he didn’t accidentally tug on the trigger, she didn’t much care.
Ubiquitous blood stains decorated the stairwells and broken windows had been given a plastic and tape makeover. Sam limped up the steps, the medicine already taking care of the worst of the pain.
Nigel motioned to the open doors of the top floor office space. The desks were largely empty. It should have been busy, bustling. Now, it was populated with bored-looking guards. One picked at the dirt under his fingernails with the edge of a blade. Another smoked a cigarette beside an open window.
One man sat at what had been the chief’s secretary’s desk. Scribbled on a piece of paper and placed over the previous plaque were the words CORPORAL FRANK TORRES. He was writing when Nigel and Sam approached.
“I found the doctor,” Nigel said.
“Found her?” Torres got to his feet and rounded the desk to meet them. “You were meant to be manning the front entrance.”
“I was, sir.”
“Then how did you man the front entrance and find her at the same time? Do you have a twin we’re unaware of?”
Nigel swallowed. “No, sir. She came to us.”
“Then she found you?”
“Not in so many words, sir.”
“Then in how many words would you describe it?”
“She. . . I mean, I. . .”
“‘Not so many words’ you said. You’ve already used up four words. That’s the same number of words I used.”
Nigel licked his lips. Lost, confused, embarrassed. “Sir?”
“Don’t try to take responsibility for something you didn’t do. State the facts, nothing more. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Torres eyed Sam’s wounds. “She put up a struggle?”
“These wounds were inflicted by some other incident, sir.”
“Did you ask her if she was hungry? Wanted water or medicine?”
Nigel blinked. “Uh, no, sir.”
“Would you care to do it now?”
Nigel cleared his throat and turned to Sam. “Would you care for—”
“No, thank you.” Sam focused on the man standing before her. “I’m here to see your commanding officer. I have something important to tell him.”
“What is it regarding?”
“I’d rather speak to him about that.”
Torres pursed his lips. “You realize the order is to bring you in dead or alive?”
“I’m aware of that much.”
“And anything you’d care to share might be of great importance to us—to all of us. After all, you and your friend are the only ones to have managed to escape the base. I doubt you’d give yourself up lightly, especially since you know what’ll happen to you if you were to get caught.” He took a step nearer, so close their noses almost touched. Sam didn’t back away. “What could be so important to you that you’d willingly give up your freedom for it?”
Torres wasn’t stupid. Neither were the other guards in the room. They crowded around with interest.
Harsh, strict, and unyielding, Torres reminded her of Tommy. A man who took his responsibilities seriously. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to share—”
The office doors burst open and a short, barrel-chested man stepped out. “What in blazes is all the racket about? Corporal?”
A flicker of disappointment in Torres’s eyes. He turned away from Sam to face his commanding officer. “Sorry, sir. We were discussing whether or not to let this lady in to see you.”
“‘This lady’?” the sergeant said. “What lady?”
“The woman we’ve been tasked to find, sir,” Torres said. “The doctor who escaped.”
The sergeant missed a step. He brushed the second aside to get a better look at Sam. He looked her over with hungry eyes that didn’t make her feel comfortable. “Are we sure it’s her? We can’t afford to make that mistake.”
“I doubt anyone else knows she’s missing, sir. Even if they did, why would they pretend to be her?”
Torres stroked his chin, his piggy eyes deep in thought. “Why indeed. Bring her into my office. I wish to speak with her.”
He turned and marched back into his office. He was overweight and his boots made loud thudding sounds as he crossed the wooden floor.
Torres turned to Sam and scanned her face, looking for something. . . but what? “This way, please.”
His eyes were blue and sharp, not the eyes of a grunt who blindly took orders, but someone who asked questions and took the initiative.
The kind of man who made it difficult to lead.
* * *
Torres shut the door behind himself, leaving Sam alone with the sergeant. Sam wished he would stay with them. He seemed more reasonable than some of the other men. As for the sergeant. . . she wasn’t sure yet if he would listen to her. She had to convince him to send his men into the city to help rescue their loved ones. Would he believe her?
The sergeant sat on the edge of his desk and appraised Sam with roving eyes. “I never expected you to be so. . . young.”
“I’m thirty-two. Hardly young.”
“That depends on the age of the eyes looking at you.”
The sergeant clucked his tongue and turned away to sit in his chair. Sam glanced over her shoulder at the door. A shadow of the man on guard fell on the tinted window, EDITOR written across it in black letters. The sergeant hadn’t offered Sam a seat, but she took one anyway.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Sam said. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“Sergeant Eric Peterson at your service. I must say, I’m surprised you handed yourself over so meekly after all the effort it must have taken to spring yourself free.”
“You make it sound like a prison.”
The chair squealed in pain beneath Peterson. “No, of course not. But you aren’t the first to try to escape.”
“We never agreed to do the research they assigned us. If that’s not a prison, I don’t know what is. Good people were punished when they helped me escape. Believe me, I didn’t come here without careful consideration.”
Peterson fingered a report on his desk. “I’m not supposed to speak with you.”
“Orders from on high?”
“From my superior officer.”
The fact he was still talking to her despite the order was a good sign to Sam’s eyes. “Sergeant, does your superior officer have family held prisoner by the Architect? Do you?”
Peterson blinked. “I can see now why they didn’t want me to speak with you.”
“They didn’t want you speak to me because I know things that might change your allegiance and that of your men. They want me dead or alive. Your men would have shot me on sight if I hadn’t pretended to be undead to get close to them.”
“Congratulations. You made it.” Peterson took a cigar from a box and lit it. He pulled on it, the end glowing bright. “Where’s the other man? The one who you helped escape?”
“His name is Hawk. He’s out there now, rescuing your friends and families.”
Peterson choked on the cigar. “Our friends and families?”
“They’re being held hostage in a house across town. My friend will rescue them. We need to meet them and escort them back here, where they will be safe. Then you and your men will be free to act with your consciences, not under duress.”
Peterson leaned forward across his desk. He tapped the cigar on a dish. “How did you learn where they were being kept?”
They were wasting time. “Does it matter?”
“You expect me to believe
the word of an escaped prisoner?”
“I told you—”
“Even if you’re right and the house you describe is where they’re being held, if we make a move for them, they’ll be shot on sight.”
“Which is why my friend has already rescued them. Don’t worry, they won’t see him coming. No one will.”
Peterson looked at Sam askance. “He a ninja or something?”
Sam wasn’t sure how honest she ought to be with the man, but if she wanted to convince him, she’d best be as open as necessary. “He’s a member of the Death Squad.”
Peterson leaned back on his chair and resumed sucking on his cigar. “The Death Squad isn’t real. Only a myth to give men morale.”
“It’s true all right. My boyfriend is their leader, just as you are here. Hawk’s his number two. He’s infiltrating the house as we speak. If we hurry, we can help them.”
Peterson jabbed his cigar out on a dob of tomato ketchup. “You expect me to believe this?”
“I expect you to do what’s right—for both you, your men, and your families. If you want to see your loved ones again, you’ll do what I say.”
Peterson pursed his lips, appraising Sam. This was it. The moment of truth. Either he was going to believe her, or he was going to have her dragged back to the underground base.
“I believe you,” Peterson said. “I believe every word of your story.”
Sam’s body turned to water with relief. “Thank God.”
Peterson reached for a low drawer and slid it open. “Let me get my things, and we’ll get this whole thing sorted.”
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you believe me. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Sure, I believe you. Why wouldn’t I?”
“The story can sound a little crazy if you’re coming to it cold.”
Peterson smiled. “You’re probably right about that. But of course, I’m not coming to it cold.”
Sam looked up. There was something off with his tone. Her brain overrode her instincts. “Right. Because you’re a guard.”
“No. Because the Architect told me you would say this.” He raised the pistol before Sam could react. “Take it easy. I wouldn’t want to put holes in you, girl.”
Death Squad (Book 4): Zombie World Page 16
