A muscular guard inquired after a friend: “Her name’s Lindsay. Her breath hitches in her chest when she laughs.”
“Paulie. A little guy with dark panda eyes.”
“Jennifer. She keeps her long blonde hair tied back with pink ribbons.”
“Justin. A lad with the cutest button nose you’ve ever seen.”
“Nicole. A general pain in the ass but a truer friend you’ll never find.”
Each of their inquiries was met with a different response, all along the same theme of death. Some guards turned pale white, the blood draining from their faces. Others dropped to their knees and screamed. Others stepped back and refused to believe their ears. They were all heartbroken.
A guard smothered in red pimples nodded at Hawk. “What do we do about him? He’s one of them.”
Torres looked Hawk over. “Better safe than sorry. We’ll put him—”
“Here,” Cheryl said. “You’ll leave him here with us, that’s what you’re going to do.”
“Cheryl, if just one drop of his blood gets in your system, gets in any of us—”
“Then we might become a bit like him and become brave and honorable. Neither you nor your men will touch a single hair on his head. Understood?”
Torres’ expression was slow to melt. “I never did win a fight with you did I, sis?”
God had cut corners and used the same mold to fashion Cheryl’s smile. “Not once, little brother.”
The corporal grinned and embraced his sister. She kissed him on his dimpled cheek, he on her forehead. Sam got the feeling it was a ritual shared since childhood. It made her ache for her sister back in New York. God, I hope she’s okay.
Mostly, Sam thought of Tommy and how happy she’d feel when (if) she saw him again. She had hope, and sometimes that alone was enough. Better to hope he was alive and well than to know he was dead. She kept her emotions in check or else risked bawling like a baby.
Sam and Hawk embraced.
“It’s good to see you again, Hawk.”
“You too, little one.”
“Hey. Less of the little.”
“You’re little compared to me.”
“Everyone’s little compared to you.”
Hawk turned to look at the families and friends hugging and kissing, happy and excited.
“We did a good job,” Sam said.
“Not for everyone,” Hawk said, drawing her attention to the gang of grown men and women, sitting to one side with their heads bowed low. They’d been working, doing things against their code, against everything they believed in because they believed they were doing it to keep their loved ones safe. And on the day they were meant to be reunited, they discovered their loved ones had been taken from them. Life just wasn’t fair.
“We did what we could,” Sam said. “Everyone you managed to rescue is here because of your actions. The Architect was never going to let them go. Never. There was no benefit in it for him. Those people are alive because of you. The others were sad, but necessary, losses. You did well, Hawk.”
“Yeah? It doesn’t feel that way.”
Torres raised the radio to his lips and spoke into it, barely a whisper. “Mother Eagle come in, over.”
Static answered.
“Mother Eagle. Come in, over.”
“This is Mother Eagle, over.”
“This is Team Seven. We’ve made contact with the Moon. I repeat, we have made contact with the Moon, over.”
Static answered, and Torres opened his mouth to repeat the statement when an answer came.
“This is Mother Eagle. Please confirm you have made contact with the Moon, over.”
“That is affirmative. The Moon has been met, over.”
“Please standby, over.”
Torres lowered the radio and smiled at the others.
“What just happened?” Sam said.
“I informed home base about us finding you. We’ve always known we wouldn’t be here forever. We’ve been looking for our loved ones on the surface ever since we were informed they’d been captured and would suffer if we disobeyed our orders.”
“What happens now?”
“Now, our brothers and sisters in the base take the Architect out. Meanwhile, we blow this popsicle stand and get the hell out of here.”
“The elevator.”
“That’s right. Though it will take some time. We’ll have to send a team over the side to patch into the control system.”
Sam checked no one was in earshot before speaking up. “We have a solution to that problem.”
“You have a contact outside the walls?” He looked at her with newfound respect. “You’re better connected than I thought.”
“A contact. . . sort of.”
Torres looked between Sam and Hawk.
“Leave it to us,” Sam said. “We’ll get the job done.”
Still confounded by what they were going to do, Torres raised his hands. “Fair enough. Still, I’ll get the boys to bring the climbing gear as a Plan B.”
* * *
HAWK
“Are you ready for this?” Sam said.
“No,” Hawk grunted. “But since when did what I want matter?”
He turned to the hideous pain behind his right eye and reached out, feeling for undead on the other side of the wall. He was pleased—for once—to find several to choose from. Perhaps they were the same he’d impelled to come to this place before, or perhaps he’d just gotten lucky. He didn’t choose the closest as it had no working limbs, so he moved to the next closest, which had a single working arm and two good feet. He pulled it closer to the wall and waited.
“Well?” Torres said. “Aren’t you going to call your friend?”
“We just did,” Sam said.
Torres dragged his eyes from Sam to Hawk and back again. “Is everything okay? It’s fine if I have to send men over.”
“He’ll be there in about ten minutes.” Hawk turned his hand side to side. “Maybe fifteen if the land is sloped.”
“If you say so.”
He turned to check on his men and their supplies. It wasn’t a long trek to the military camp, but they wanted to be prepared in case they came across hostile forces.
“Okay,” Hawk said. “He made it. But. . . wait. There’s a lot of buttons and levers. What am I supposed to press?”
“Try everything,” Sam said.
Hawk’s expression fell flat. “Thanks for all the help.”
He ordered the creature to press the buttons and pull the levers randomly. The power lit up and the elevator came alive. It groaned and shuddered, one side heading up, the other side remaining in place. Hawk reversed the controls and the cables holding the elevator in place slipping from where they’d grown knotted and began to shift down. It hit the ground and the lights flashed and the doors grunted open.
The hostages and guards peered at the elevator, equal parts concern and excitement.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Torres said.
“We never said anything about it being safe,” Sam said. “Only that it’s the fastest way out of here. So, who wants to go first?”
“What if there’s a horde of undead on the other side waiting for us?” a hostage clutching her son close said. “Waiting to murder us?”
“There isn’t a horde out there, right Hawk?” Sam said.
Hawk nodded. The guards looked at him with doubtful expressions. How could he possibly know that?
“Well, that’s good enough for me,” Cheryl said, stepping forward.
“Woah, sis, wait,” Torres said. “Are you sure you want to be getting on this thing? What if it falls?”
“What if it catches on fire or gets stuck halfway?” Cheryl said. “If we don’t get a move on, those hordes we saw earlier will be on us and there will be no holding them back. I’d rather put my life in the elevator’s hands than theirs.”
“What about the chances of there being a horde on the other side of this wall?”
“Hawk’s already guaranteed there i
sn’t one.”
“And his word is good enough for you?”
Cheryl grinned. “One thousand percent.” She stepped on board the elevator. It groaned beneath her weight. “Hurry up then, you sons’a bitches. Do you want to get out of here or not?”
The hostages rushed forward. Seeing the courage of their non-military family members, the guards had no choice but to join them. The pair of muscular guards dragged a kicking Sergeant Peterson. Sam, Hawk, and Torres were the last to step on. They drew the door shut.
The lights flashed and the elevator jolted. Amongst the screaming voices weren’t only children, but fully-grown men too. The elevator eased upward, the cables groaning and the metal frame shrieking every inch of the way.
“What about the other teams?” Sam said. “Aren’t they getting out?”
“Some are leaving via other elevators,” Torres said, keeping his eyes firmly off the view of the ground as it pulled further and further away. “Others will take this one once we’re done with it. We’ll meet at the military base outside.”
The cables screamed and screeched to a halt. The wind whistled through the cage.
“The cables are a bit knotted,” Hawk said. “I’m going to try to unblock them. Everyone hold on.”
“Hold on to wha—?” Torres managed before the cage dropped a foot.
Only a foot, but it could have been the first foot of sixty. The youngest bawled their eyes out. Their parents hushed them but no one told them to be quiet. More than half the occupants shut their eyes, lips mumbling a silent prayer. The elevator continued to climb.
Hawk’s mouth felt dry. “What about the people in the underground base?”
Torres looked sick. “They’re going to take out the Architect and his men.”
“Will they try to take him alive?”
“Possibly.”
“He’s too dangerous to keep alive. People like him tend to slip through fingers like smoke.” The man was the master of plans and lies. He would have plans to get out of there. That was the only thing he was certain of.
The elevator drew to a stop at the top of the wall and the doors eased open. The occupants hurried out and only breathed a sigh of relief once their feet were on solid ground—even if the ground was a hundred feet up. Hawk expanded his lungs to breathe in the first lungful of true freedom he’d tasted in weeks and immediately hacked a cough. The wind kicked up and filled his mouth with dust. Why are things never perfect? he thought.
The vast open plains stretched out before them, a world in desperate need of saving from itself. Now that Hawk was on the cusp of escaping hell on Earth, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was meant to do with himself. All his efforts had been geared toward escaping that place, to get out and find somewhere safe. And now that he had almost achieved that goal, he was at a loss.
“You’re more than welcome to join us at the base,” Torres said as if reading his mind. “We’ll be operating out of there while our brothers carry out their mission to capture the Architect and leave the city.”
It was as good a plan as any, Hawk supposed. A place for them to do some good while they figured out what their next move would be. Find Tommy and the other members of the Death Squad, he thought. That was going to be his first mission.
“Sounds good,” Sam said. “What do you think, Hawk?”
Hawk’s attention caught on something in the distance—not in the direction of the winding hills and dusty outcrops but inside the wall, just off-center.
“Hawk?” Sam said.
Hawk snapped from his reverie and turned to her. “Something’s happening in the city. Somewhere deep underground. A zombie, unlike anything I’ve felt before. I can feel it. It’s distant and weak but growing stronger.”
“Can you control it?”
Hawk shook his head. “I’m trying, but no. I can’t see what it is.”
Every filament of his being rebelled at whatever that thing was. His skin crawled.
“Everyone onboard the second elevator,” Torres said. “The sooner we get our feet back on free land, the better.”
Sam led Hawk inside the little box on cables.
Hawk had no idea what that undead thing was, but he knew where it was coming from, and that alone was enough to give him the heebie-jeebies.
21.
TOMMY
For an hour and a half, Tommy drove around the wall, cutting as close to it as he could through the windy Austin streets. There were few obstacles in the way, save for the occasional smashed military vehicle or small pack of undead. And through it all, Albert sat facing his window, or more specifically, the wall, gently swaying on his seat.
He might have been admiring it if it wasn’t for the fact his eyes were shut. In the back, no one said a word nor made so much as a peep. Albert made even less noise. Finally, after working around a pretty local park, Albert perked up.
“There,” he said.
The word jolted Tommy from his reverie—he’d been wondering why walnut cake tasted so good—and the car zipped from one lane to another. He fingered the sleep out of the corner of his eyes, yawned and said, “‘There’ what?”
“I can sense him, this Architect you spoke about,” Albert said. “Drive slowly. I’m looking to zero-in on his location.”
As Albert returned to his vigil, Tommy glanced at the others in the backseat. He shook his head and concentrated on his speedometer. Another twenty minutes passed before Albert shook his head.
“Turnaround and head back,” he said. “About two or three minutes ought to do it. That was where the signal was strongest.”
Tommy did as he was asked, feeling like he wasn’t getting paid enough for this shit, and watched Albert’s hand for the signal to stop. Without preamble, Albert threw his door open and moved toward the wall, pressed his hands against the hard concrete, and turned his head to one side. “The signal’s faint,” he said. “Either he’s far away—which I don’t think he is—or something’s happening to him. Something I can’t quite get a handle on.”
Tommy looked from Albert to the wall and back again. “So, what happens now? Can you zap him with some kind of psychic sniper rifle?”
Psychic. It was the first time he’d used the word, and it sounded ridiculous on his lips. And yet, wasn’t that exactly what they were dealing with here? The man had some kind of cognitive abilities no one else possessed.
“Possibly. I’m not entirely sure. The signal is weakening. I’ve never felt anything like it before.” Albert looked at the others. “Does he have some kind of mental ailment? Or a disease?”
Emin shrugged her shoulders. “We don’t know. We don’t know anything about him. Other than the fact he’s a warped genius.”
“I have to get closer,” Albert said. “You have to get me inside the city.”
“That’s easier said than done without a helicopter,” Tommy said. “We might be able to engineer one of the elevators to get inside. But it’ll take time to find one that still works.”
“That sounds good—” Albert’s neck snapped in the opposite direction, further along the wall. An area they hadn’t yet seen.
“What is it?” Tommy said. “Somebody dangerous?”
Albert’s smile was twisted. “Undeniably. But not to us. Only to you.”
Well, that fills me with confidence.
* * *
Tommy drew a big X on the wall where Albert said the signal was strongest. Albert wore a smile, refusing to tell him what they were heading toward.
“Just tell me what we’re dealing with,” Tommy said. “Is it good? Bad?”
“I’m not saying a word,” Albert said, continuing to grin his stupid smile.
Albert pressed his hand to the cheap plastic dashboard. “Stop the car now. You won’t want to drive quickly.”
Tommy did as he said and everybody climbed out of the car. Albert rubbed his hands together. Tommy unclipped his holster, just in case. How could he trust someone who wouldn’t share salient information? It wasn’t rig
ht to head into the darkness without at least knowing—
“Tommy?”
A shiver stole Tommy’s body. At first, he thought he’d imagined the voice as if it was a ghost who’d spoken, but the others turned in the direction of the voice. It wasn’t only him who’d heard it. His emotions vied between two powerful foes: being incredibly grateful, on the verge of genuine happiness, and at the same time, scared and unsure.
He turned slowly, but could already hear the rushing footsteps, and when he saw her bolting toward him, going at full tilt with no attempt to stop, he didn’t care that she might knock him off his feet. He welcomed it. She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him tight. Tommy responded in kind, gripping her under the arms and spinning her around.
She had the wherewithal to not kiss him, as that way could only lead to tragedy, but by God, he wished he could ravage this woman right here and now. They hugged, pressing hard against one another. Although he couldn’t feel her warmth, he thought he could. His memories filled in the gaps of his senses. She felt so good in his arms, like she belonged there.
They were destined to spend the rest of their lives together before this whole fiasco took root. Now that he was with her, beside her, his face full of her, and his gnarled fingers brushing her hair out of her face the way he used to, he felt weak, like he might collapse any moment, and in the same moment, an irrevocable strength in his bones.
He knew that for the rest of his life he would love this woman. He would love her, and she would love him in return. The issues and problems they’d experienced in the past no longer existed. They weren’t problems but minor inconveniences. So long as they were together, could exist in the same space, they would be happy.
“Can we join in?” Emin said.
Tommy extended an arm, and Emin, Guy, and Jimmy folded themselves into it, wrapping their arms around Sam and Tommy. But there was one missing. Tommy extended a hand toward Albert, the man responsible for bringing them together. Albert raised a hand to decline the offer.
“You’re as much a part of the team now as anyone,” Tommy said.
Albert still hesitated, but finally gave in to his desires. He wrapped his arms around the people he barely knew, ensuring to turn his head to one side to avoid infection.
Death Squad (Book 4): Zombie World Page 18
