57
THEY HUDDLED AROUND CHONG FOR a long time. Offering comfort, telling him that the factory making his drug was going to be there, that it would endure. That there was some other reason for the silence from Asheville.
It was a pack of lies. They all knew it. Even Chong knew it. Sometimes lies are the only mercy, the only kindness people have to offer. Benny knew that. When Tom died, the others did as much for him. They told him that it’s all going to be okay. Lies.
Kindly meant. They were shields, they were warm blankets in the cold wind of reality. The speakers of those lies needed to hear themselves say them as much as Chong or Benny or anyone in the stranglehold of pain needed to hear them.
As Benny sat with his arms around Nix and Lilah, who hugged Chong, he realized this with a kind of clarity that would be impossible in the absence of experience.
The night was a big, violent bully that pushed at them, shoved them, gave them no real peace, and only the tight clutch of a half-dozen teenagers kept it from winning. They huddled together for more than warmth.
And so the tears, the terror, and the night passed.
58
THE MORNING WAS COLD AND damp, with a thick mist cover that transformed the forest into a dreamscape painted in shades of green and gray. Insects buzzed but were invisible inside the haze.
Benny had taken a late watch, turning in just before dawn, but sleep had eluded him and he lay with his eyes closed and his curled back pressed against Nix’s. He heard her moan and turned to see her twitch, lost in a dream of something ugly. When he leaned over, he could see that there were deep lines in her face that formed a grimace of fear and pain. He knew she was not in actual physical distress, but remembered pain always feels real in dreams; and Nix had felt so much hurt. Physical, mental, and emotional. He heard her murmur a word. A name.
“Mom . . .”
Benny closed his eyes and felt the old ache tear itself open, because he knew what she was dreaming about. Her mother’s murder. The loss. All of that.
He bent and kissed her head very gently. Her body froze for a moment and then the lines on her face softened, her shudders subsided. Not all the way, but some.
Enough.
She drifted deeper, maybe swimming down below the level of those particular memories. That was something.
Benny glanced over at Morgie, who sat hunched over, whittling a stick as something to do while staying awake to stand his watch. Benny sighed, lay back, closed his eyes, and tried to fall asleep.
His mind wandered instead. Wafting like a ghost but going nowhere. Then he heard Nix moan again. It pulled him wearily back to the surface. And as he rose to wakefulness, his mind replayed that sound. That moan.
A moan.
But not Nix’s.
Benny was instantly awake, scrambling to his feet, snatching up his katana, whipping the blade from the scabbard.
“Zom!” he cried.
Even as he shouted it, there was a din of stones rattling in tin cans. Morgie leaped to his feet, knives in each hand. “Get up,” he bellowed. “Everyone get up. Zoms!”
Everyone was already in motion. Benny’s cry had snapped the spell of sleep, and they grabbed weapons and turned toward the perimeter.
Everything around them was a big white nothing. Even the massive tree trunks were ghosts lost in a sea of fog.
“Where—?” began Nix, but Benny cut her off.
“Quiet,” he snapped, and they all froze. Listening, straining to see. The cans rattled to their left, and they all pivoted in that direction. The mist itself was moving, drifting like ghosts around them. A zom had to be out there, though. Benny had heard it, and something had touched the trip wires. He sensed more than saw one of the living dead, and he pivoted silently on the balls of his feet to track something as yet unseen. Nix turned too.
“Where?” she repeated quietly.
Benny raised his sword, pointing with the silver tip.
The mist swirled and swirled.
Nothing emerged.
The rattling of the cans slowed, slowed . . . and stopped. Silence dropped over everything, and even the buzz of morning insects faded into silence.
“Is it gone?” asked Chong, his voice low and frightened.
“I think so,” said Nix.
Morgie nodded.
Lilah took a few steps forward and stopped next to Benny. They exchanged a look. She shook her head, confirming what he thought. They moved forward together, ten feet apart so as not to interfere with each other’s weapons. Crouched, stalking with maximum care, maximum readiness.
A sound stopped them in their tracks.
It was what had awakened Benny. It was a hoarse, plaintive, hungry sound. Not a moan, though. Not exactly. This was different. It didn’t sound like anything Benny had ever heard before. Almost a grunt, but with the same need to satisfy the undying, unbearable hunger.
“What is that?” asked Morgie.
“Shut up,” said Lilah. “Listen.”
They listened.
Another grunt, and this time there was a crunching sound. A heavy foot on fallen twigs. It sounded somehow sneaky. Careful. Benny felt his blood turn to ice. God, was there an R2 or R3 out there? Smarter than other zoms, stalking them? Being careful? Maybe even stepping over one of the lines of strung cans?
“It’s coming,” he said, and again Lilah nodded. She had her spear in a two-handed grip, ready to fight. A faint creak behind him told Benny that Chong had nocked an arrow and pulled back on the string. A rubbery creak suggested that Riot had pulled tension on her slingshot. Everyone was ready for whatever was out there.
He hoped.
The grunt again.
Deeper this time. Louder.
Closer.
The cans rattled once more, and there was a sharp snap as one of the lines of strung wire snapped. The cans thudded to the ground, coughing out their pebbles. Falling silent.
And then the mist changed. It was as if the droplets of water suspended in the fog abruptly coalesced into a physical shape. But it was the wrong shape. Not slender from emaciation. Not upright and shambling.
Not human.
Instead the thing that came slowly toward them was bizarre, brutish, monstrous. It was hunched forward, walking on all fours like an animal. But even with that there was something wrong. The rear legs were too short and the front legs were much too long. It had a massive, shaggy head and huge shoulders. At first Benny thought it was a zom that had been some kind of body builder, with hugely overdeveloped arms and chest and something wrong with its legs. Walking on its knees and hands; or on the stumps of severed calves.
As horrible as that would have been, it would have been better than the creature that finally emerged from the mist. The arms, shoulders, chest, and body were completely covered with dark brown-gray fur. The fur was torn and some hung in ragged strips, revealing gray skin or pale reddish striated muscle. The head was hideous, with a high crown and sloping brow, eyes that burned with hunger and hate, and deadly fangs. It reeked of rotting meat and a totally unnatural vitality.
It was not a person.
It was not anything Benny had ever seen except in a book. Or a nightmare.
It was a full-grown silverback gorilla.
And it was a zombie.
Interlude Six
KICKAPOO CAVERN STATE PARK
ONE WEEK AGO
They talked all through the afternoon and into the evening.
While they talked, Sam cleaned and sutured Joe’s wounds. They were still talking when the morning painted the sky with the first pink colors of dawn. Sam Imura, former sniper and soldier, former special ops killer and survivor of the apocalypse, was no longer alone. He had his old friend and former boss, Captain Joe Ledger. The only guest who had ever visited Sam’s little camp hidden away in the depths of the forest.
Sam had that, which was more than he’d had since coming this far southwest after the world died.
But he had more than that.
; Sam had a brother.
A half brother. Benny. Sixteen years old. Smart, tough, honest, and brave. An actual hero, who’d helped save the lives of tens of thousands of people in central California. Sam had never met Benny, though he’d seen baby pictures. Sam had always assumed Benny was dead, along with Benny’s mom—Sam’s stepmother—and their dad.
And Tom.
It hurt Sam so much to know that his brothers had survived, but that a killer’s bullet had taken Tom’s life less than a year ago. Tom had died saving children—little ones and teens—from a nightmare called Gameland, where the kids were forced to fight for their lives in zombie pits. Ledger described how Tom had burned down the first Gameland, rescuing many that time; and how he had gone hunting when he learned that two men—Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer—had rebuilt it. There had been a terrible battle. Tom had allies—other tough men and women like him—and they fought alongside Benny and his young friends, whom Tom had trained to be a new breed of samurai. Together they’d destroyed Gameland forever.
At the cost of Tom’s life.
When Ledger told him that story, Sam bowed his head and wept. Ledger wrapped his arm around his friend’s shoulders and he, too, wept.
Later Joe said, “Straighten me out on the age thing. Benny’s sixteen. Tom died when he was thirty-five. And you’re my age . . . how’s that work?”
“First off,” said Sam, “I’m ten years younger than you. My mother had me when she was eighteen. I was supposed to be an only child, but when I was twenty she had Tom. I always felt more like an uncle than an older brother. Guess it was hard to be close to a kid that much younger. Then Mom died and Dad married someone way younger than himself. Guess it was a midlife crisis thing, dating someone so young. Whatever. They seemed to be in love and I was out of the house by then. Barely knew her, to tell the truth. I guess we had a hard time getting along because we were nearly the same age. Anyway, I was running with Echo Team when they met. Missed their wedding. Missed almost every Christmas. And by the time Benny was born, I was running my own crew . . . and that was when the world fell apart.”
“You’d like Benny,” said Ledger. “He’s a little goofy at times, but he has heart and he has nerve. Real good in a fight. He’s more or less the pack leader of a group of young butt-kickers Tom trained. The new samurai. Little corny, but the training was righteous. And I taught Benny and his friends a few of my dirty tricks.”
He told Sam about the Night Church and the reaper army.
“Night Church, huh?” grunted Sam. “Sounds like something we have going on around here. Not a church, though. I do some trading with people in farms and settlements throughout this part of Texas. There are some rumors that the ravagers are getting organized, turning themselves into an actual army. The Night Army, though I don’t know if that’s what they’re calling themselves or something spooky tagged onto them.”
“Night Army?” snorted Ledger. “I think somebody was watching too many episodes of Game of Thrones before the dead rose.”
“You wouldn’t joke if you saw them, Joe. The ravagers are part of that outfit, and they have serious numbers.”
“Any chance they can use something like an RPG?” asked Ledger.
“Probably, if they knew where to find one,” said Sam. “I hope it doesn’t mean they found one of the weapons caches.”
“One of them? How many caches are there?”
“Two that I know of,” said Sam. “A small one that was part of a forward outpost during the last battles, and the big one somewhere near Laredo. I could probably find it if we go look.”
“You never went there?” asked Ledger.
“Why bother? I’ve looted enough dead soldiers, hunters, and cops to have enough rifle and small arms ammunition to last me the rest of my life.” He sucked a tooth for a moment, considering. “If they only found the small one, then it’s bad, but probably not enough for them to take New Alamo.”
Ledger nodded. “How big is the big one?”
“Very.”
“So, maybe we should go take a look,” said Ledger. “If this Night Army—and, by the way, I’m having a hard time taking that name seriously—is really out there, then we need to get some weapons to those people in New Alamo.”
“It’s not as easy as that,” said Sam. “From what I’ve been told, the cache is buried underground in an ultrasecure facility, and the whole area is swarming with—what did you call them? Zoms?”
“Yeah. So what, though? We’ve both been dealing with zoms for a lot of years now.”
“Not like these.”
“Why? What’s different about them?”
“These ‘zoms’ used to be part of a circus,” said Sam.
“So . . . zombie clowns . . . ?”
“No,” said Sam. “Lions, and tigers, and bears.”
“Oh my . . . ,” breathed Ledger.
“And elephants. You haven’t really lived until you’ve been chased by twelve thousand pounds of living-dead elephants.”
Ledger was about to comment when a monstrous howl split the morning. A huge hulking shape filled the open door of Sam’s cabin. Sam lunged for his rifle, but Ledger grabbed his wrist.
“No!”
The creature stalked inside, barely able to fit through the doorway. It was huge and completely covered in bands of metal and chain mail, with razor-sharp spikes sticking out in all directions. The armor was splashed with blood—red and black. A dented helmet was strapped to its head but it was twisted and hung low, blocking one eye. The animal stopped inside, looking from Sam to Joe and back again. It bared its teeth at Sam.
“Oh, stop showing off, you big goof,” growled Ledger.
Grimm, who had been through a hundred battles with his master, bounded like a puppy toward Joe Ledger. Sam found himself laughing—something so rare for him that he’d come to believe himself incapable of it—as Ledger, the most dangerous man he’d ever known, was trampled and licked into submission by a dog.
Sam’s laughter began to crack, though, as he thought of his family. Stepmom and dad, gone. Brother Tom, gone. And Benny . . . ? What was he like? And would he ever see him? Sam didn’t think so. The world was not that kind; the universe was never that generous.
Or was it? He watched Ledger remove the dog’s armor and check the animal over for injuries. It was clear Grimm was family to Ledger. The dog had been thrown out of a crashing helicopter and here he was—alive. Against all hope, despite all probability, alive.
Maybe, thought Sam, the defining characteristic of the universe wasn’t cold cruelty.
Maybe.
And maybe, he knew, was a dangerous word. Maybe was another word for hope.
“Joe,” he said. “Listen . . . we’ll rest for today, and then tomorrow I think we need to go find one of those weapons caches. Maybe both of them. Clean them out before the Night Army finds them. If you need to stay here and rest your leg, I’ll understand. This isn’t your fight, so . . .”
The smile on Ledger’s face made Sam’s words trail off. He knew that smile from long ago. It was not a friendly smile, not a tolerant smile. It was the smile of a killer.
“Sam, old buddy, this has always been my fight.”
Sam Imura smiled too.
PART THIRTEEN
NEW ALAMO, TEXAS
LATE AUGUST
HUNTING THE HUNTERS
There is no hunting like the hunting of man,
and those who have hunted armed
men long enough and liked it,
never care for anything else thereafter.
—ERNEST HEMINGWAY
59
WHEN SHE TURNED AROUND—WHEN she could turn around—the Chess Players were sitting where they’d been. But they looked frozen in place. Shocked. Terrified for her, and maybe of her. Sombra stood between Gutsy and the two men, looking at her; then he turned toward them too.
Gutsy pushed off the windowsill and walked over. The room no longer spun and the floor felt steady beneath her feet.
There was a time for panic and there was a time to get back to work. There was a time to be a scared kid and there was a time to be who she was, undefined by age or gender or race or anything. The icy hatred she’d felt before was still there, just beneath the surface. It was so powerful, and it focused her like sunlight through a magnifying glass. It did not own her, and she hoped and prayed it would never define her.
When she spoke, her voice sounded calm. Way too calm. She thought she probably should have been worried about that. It wasn’t something to be calm about. Inside her head, she felt fractured. Her broken heart was like two pieces of old lava rock. Hard, sharp-edged.
“Where is this lab?” she asked, her voice harsh and cold.
“We don’t know,” said Urrea.
“What about the base?”
“We don’t know,” said Ford. “We’ve looked, we’ve asked questions—”
“That’s not good enough,” roared Gutsy. “You’ve had fifteen years to find it.”
Urrea quickly said, “Gutsy, we think that the lab is somewhere near town, maybe near what’s left of Laredo. But it’s a lot of real estate, and the two of us are not as nimble as we once were at escaping swarms of shamblers or fast-infected. We haven’t really gone out much to poke around.”
“We even had to be careful with asking questions,” said Ford. “Other people asked about the base, and some of them went missing over the years.”
“Or turned up dead,” said Urrea.
Gutsy frowned. “That doesn’t make sense unless someone in town is connected with the Rat Catchers and . . .” Her words trailed off, and both men began nodding. She straightened and said, “The guards. When the Rat Catchers brought Mama back the first time, there was no fuss. No riders in the streets. No one got hurt. That never made sense to me unless someone let them in.”
“You always were a smart girl,” said Ford.
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