Mina-Rose was still laughing.
Traverse didn’t so much as bat an eye.
“At the Packard,” he said to Vega calmly, without looking up from his work. He looked like he was doing nothing more than tenderly petting a dog, only he was breaking the bones of a woman who kept laughing.
Back up. Get the hell out of there.
She had enough of an adrenaline rush from all the day’s action, and now she wanted to live. More than anything, she wanted to run, to get away. No need to give herself to these animals. Get out of there. Run.
There was nowhere to go.
The shape of chaotic limbs and stretching, snapping jaws pushed into the room.
Vega jetted through the dust and smoke, the moaning dead behind her. As she charged past a mold-encrusted window, a foreign object caught the corner of her eye, and she stopped.
“Oh,” was all she could say.
A tank. A beautiful, armored tank. Sitting outside, the cannon slowly rising. Someone was operating it, and they were going to bring some heat.
She felt the first blast rather than heard it; her ears felt like pillows had been stuffed against the side of her head, and all sound was muffled. The ground disappeared beneath her. Hot air rushed into her lungs, and her stomach seemed to jump into her chest.
Vega tumbled into a pile of wooden planks. Horizons of blood were cut across white dust, while soot filled her throat.
Trapped here. Hanging in a tight crevice, suspended between two floors.
Not like this.
It was supposed to be on her terms. Not like this.
She couldn’t turn her head in the confined space. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to do but die.
Their fingers reached for her, nails ripping at the skin on her arm. She was doing everything in her power not to cry out, not to scream, not to become a blubbering mess in the face of mortality. She would not pray.
Vega felt the blood run down her arm. Blood flowed down to her hand and dripped over her fingertips.
“Take my hand,” Traverse said. He was above her, hand stretching out for her.
“If Hell is real, I’m going to get another chance to kick your ass.”
“The Packard Plant. I’ll be there, waiting.”
Breath was knocked from Vega’s lungs as something heavy punched her in the stomach. She felt like she was underwater, all sound muted by a layer of tide, distance, and darkness
Her body didn’t want anything to do with movement. She was fading. Even the pain was distant now. Hands refused to close, eyes refused to open. The ringing in her ears made it impossible to truly hear anything.
If she could think of something, she would. There was an emptiness in her mind, a comforting silence. Rest. Rest now.
When the ground disappeared beneath her and she felt herself falling, she was glad it was finally over.
***
Warmth. Daddy’s arms had been warm. Vega had been snug in his arms once. A long time ago. He smelled like cheap soap and cigars, and his big hands were smooth.
In Heaven, there was a man standing over a fire. The flame edges were bright enough to cast spidery shadows; bright enough to illuminate the tall figure who stood over her. He was talking, and she couldn’t hear him. The room looked like the interior of a broken reception room in an office building. Is this where they were going to judge her, give her a list of sins? Was that Daddy standing over her?
Vega turned her head and saw that a tank was parked outside in the street. If Heaven and Hell were inside of her all along, then of course there would be a tank, some kind of twisted metaphor for her mercenary career.
Daddy’s strong arms. How nice he smelt. Why didn’t he say anything? He didn’t have to. She was in his arms, and it was a sort of forgiveness, an acknowledgement of everything he had done to her by leaving so soon, and everything she had become in the wake of his absence.
Food was pushed into her mouth, and she opened her eyes. There was a big man standing over her, shoving food into her mouth on a plastic spoon. Tasted like creamed corn. Shadows swirled around the room.
Fading out. Fading in.
Flames cracked, whipped around a beat-up reception room. A tank sat in the street outside.
“Wriggle your toes,” a man’s voice said.
She coughed, turned her body away from the flame’s light. Better to rest.
“Wriggle your toes for me.”
“Suck a dick.”
“Come on, dammit, wriggle your toes.”
“Dead girls don’t wriggle their toes.”
“You’re not dead. You’re here with me. It’s Bill.”
Bill?
The football player.
She adjusted her body, turning back around to him, her eyes slightly open against the bright pain of uncomfortable, hot light. A fire was kindled in the middle of the room over broken chunks of wood and cardboard.
“You need to eat something. You need to drink.”
“Tired.”
“Don’t fall asleep. You need to stay awake. You might have a concussion.”
“Story of my life.”
“You can thank me for saving your ass.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
Bill muttered something and walked away. The valiant football player had saved the day. She was still alive, her head buzzing from delirium waves.
Alive. Still alive.
Oh, God. Vincent was dead, wasn’t he? A lot of people were dead. It would never end. Killing Traverse or Mina-Rose changed nothing.
Daddy wasn’t going to protect her. That dream was not real. She was not in his arms. She would never be in his arms again.
The tears were real. Let them come. Firelight blurred by the realization that she had lived. Her hands shook. Her body heaved, expelling the tears and emotion. She cried like a baby. Nothing had ever felt so good. Nothing had ever felt so right.
Curling into the fetal position, she sobbed and sobbed.
***
Exhaustion stopped the tears. Vega gave in and lay there, her mind and body numb.
“You’re one of the toughest people I’ve ever met,” Bill said.
Out of selfishness, she had left him behind.
“There was a lot of bodies,” Bill said. “I was lucky to find you. Actually, I had help.”
Vega craned her neck and found Rook sitting next to Bill. Rook wore a gray Detroit Lions shirt with the blue lettering and logo. The shirt seemed clean.
“God is good,” Rook said.
Vega laughed. “You picked the right hero, I guess.”
“Mean Magda’s gone, isn’t she?”
“She is.”
“How’d it happen?”
“Fighting.”
“That’s pretty cool. She was tough. I’ll miss her. I miss a lot of people.”
Vega thought about Vincent. It was hard to believe anyone had actually died at the Depot; now all the zombies were just going to disappear. Except that it wasn’t true.
“We’re talking loudly right now,” Bill said. “You have trouble hearing. Your left shoulder was busted out of its socket. We tried to wipe you down, clean you up in case any of your scratches got infected. Just a regular infection, you know?”
Vega knew what he meant.
“We have to stitch you up. We were debating about how to do it.”
“You can do a field dressing?”
“I can,” Rook said. “Sutter had someone teach me. Everyone knew how to do it.”
“What was the controversy?” she asked. “You guys had your hands all over me to clean me up.”
“It’s just different,” Bill said. “Besides, we didn’t clean you up that much. Didn’t scrub too hard or anything like that. Just poured water on you, toweled you down.”
“You need to just take care of it next time,” Vega said. “You want to be a good guy, you have to clean up the mess afterward.”
“I thought you would be happy.”
“About what?”
/> “I learned how to drive a tank. I can cross that off the bucket list.”
“You’re a brave man,” she said, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Vega didn’t know she was going to say it, or even felt the sincerity, until she said it.
He seemed to be thinking about her words a long time.
“I don’t know if doing the right thing means I’m brave,” Bill said. “I was there when that doctor talked about everything. I heard what he said. We all have our sins, things we’ve done before. But that shit he was talking about means we have to do good. That’s the way I see it.”
“It’s not over for me.”
“I know.”
“I’m sure Traverse is still alive.”
“He’ll be alive as long as you’re alive.”
“Yeah. That’s true.”
As long as she lived, Traverse would never die. The undead would persist, a sort of disease that awaited the living. Entire cities were leveled, and governments squabbled over the remains.
Bullshit. All of it bullshit.
A nightmare created through Mina’s imagination had become Vega’s nightmare, and the only way out was to claw her way through the miles of corpses to get her fingers around Traverse’s throat or die trying. Even when she took him out, she would still be hunting his memory; the undead were an extension of the very thing that brought her here, and the dead were here to stay.
This was the end of the world.
Bill sat in front of the fire, hunched over, staring at the flames. He tried so hard to make things right. He would do anything to fight for others because he had fucked up so royally when he was younger. He wouldn’t be happy until he got himself killed trying to save the world. Here was the kind of guy who would have been on television advertising all kinds of charities for children; the kind of guy who would have gone over to the Middle East to shake hands with soldiers who were loyal football fans. He would have done anything to make people happy. Atonement was his entire life.
The poor bastard.
Rook cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’m going to check out that gas station we saw on the way over. We kept supplies in a few of the gas stations near the Depot because they were kind of like forts. People always tried to find help in gas stations. And more people heard about it and started coming. But there hasn’t been anyone in a while. Not out this way.”
“Thanks, Rook,” Vega said.
“Yup.”
Vega and Bill stared at the fire together. She dozed off for a few moments, and he was still there when she woke up.
“You’re one in a million,” Vega said.
“I could have killed you with that thing.”
“I’m not talking about the tank.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“You’re going to end up like me. This is what happens to you.”
“You? You’re brave. You’re a fighter. Whatever weight you’re carrying with you doesn’t matter anymore. You’re doing everything you can to fix it.”
In the firelight, she could see that his cheeks were moist.
“Not everyone can fight like you,” Bill said. “We all have our own way of fighting. Some people just try to get by. Keep their kids safe. Go to church. Raise a family. Stay married. None of that stuff is easy. I never made it that far.”
“You wanted kids?”
“Oh yeah. My mom really wanted to be a grandma. Soon as I got drafted, she said that was the next thing I oughta do.”
“A big white boy like you didn’t have a sweetheart?”
He might have blushed in the firelight. A quick smile and an awkward shift of his feet was enough to let her know he was enjoying their talk.
“I was focused. Had good grades. I talked to some ladies, but I never… I guess you know what they say about nice guys finishing last. But I never got frustrated. I was always looking ahead.”
It was her turn to smile. Talking about a life that seemed unreal. A distant dream.
“What about you?” Bill asked.
“What about me?”
“I don’t mean to pry. I don’t know… you and Vincent… I suppose you were probably a loner.”
“A drunk loner. Yeah, that was me. Angry at the world. It was easier that way. Easier than fixing myself.”
“I hear you.”
“No, you don’t. You wanted to get out of here, didn’t you? Get back to your family, make sure they’re okay. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what you’re going to do.”
He stared at the fire for a long time.
“And what’re you going to do?”
“Does it matter? You can spend your whole life bailing me out, or you can try to help the people you love. Maybe help people along the way who want to be good, people who want to do what you’re doing.”
“Preach on, preacher girl.”
“Remember when I told you to suck a dick?”
“You want me to suck yours?”
He wrung his hands together, the fire brightening his face.
“Come here, and hold me,” she said.
Bill didn’t hesitate. He sidled up next to her and wrapped his big arms around her. It was the closest she could get to capturing the feeling she had imagined; Daddy might be dead and gone, but she never forgot how safe it felt to be next to him.
The Champ held her, and together they watched the flames.
BELLA
Desjardins wouldn’t shut his mouth. As he led her to the neighborhood where Brian had supposedly seen the bodies of Desmond and Jerome, he blabbered nonsense about demons and Hell.
Finally, they made it. A row of trucks horizontally blocked a street, a semi-truck included. This was the best they could do for security, and it hadn’t served them well in the end.
“Mina lost control,” Desjardins kept talking. “That’s the only way to explain what happened. I mean, she probably got a grip on the nightmare, you know, because that’s all this is. Her nightmare. Just her bad dream. And we did it. We did this to her, and she did this to us because we wanted it. We wanted to see if Hell was real, but we didn’t know, God, oh God, we didn’t know. It was right here inside of us the entire time.”
More nonsense. Let him keep on going. It didn’t matter anymore.
“That’s why it was quiet for a long time,” he continued, as dawn’s encroachment lightened the night sky. “Mina brought them all back. The rotted, and thousands of others. From all over. She brought them to the Depot, but I can’t figure out the rest of it. I just don’t understand.”
“Is anyone still living here?”
“Hard to say. When I left, a bunch of other people wanted to leave. But Vincent probably left guns here. In his house. He had a house, you see, and I think he had some guns there.”
She nodded. More guns would be useful, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want anything. Bella was numb, and she walked in a daze, hardly conscious of any further suffering she might endure. Brian had said Desmond and Jerome were both dead. What was the point?
Brian had become one of those things. Was that justice?
There was no justice. Karma, then? Had God made the decision? If Hell was real, then Heaven couldn’t be far behind, right? Desjardins kept rambling about Hell being an internal event, a product of the subconscious—she was able to figure out that much from his stream of bullshit.
Guns. So easy to use. With all the firepower in the world, how could this have happened?
Desmond’s voice was in her head, right where it belonged. The last time he talked to her, he was sitting in his Cadillac on the Ambassador Bridge, telling her over a cell phone to stay away from the news. Stay away from the media. Everything was going to be okay.
“There have to be guns here,” Desjardins said.
This neighborhood would have been filled with crack houses; drive-by shootings and gang violence were part of the embedded culture. The apocalypse probably didn’t do much more damage to the boarded-up houses. Brian had said De
smond tried to rescue Jerome, and that made sense. This whole scenario made sense; instead of going over the bridge to Windsor, Desmond retreated, his instincts telling him to rescue his junkie brother.
This was the place.
Quiet. Nothing stirred.
“Over here,” Desjardins pointed to a house. “They used to have meetings here. The salvage teams brought things here to inspect them. Let’s go in here.”
She hesitated, unsure if his logic made sense. Was there logic in anything?
“If there are guns, it will make the rest of our search easier,” Desjardins said.
Bella stood there and looked at the other houses. Brian had mentioned a church.
“Trust me,” Desjardins said. “I don’t know what you’re looking for out here, but I know what we need. If we’re going to get anywhere, we need something to trade.”
Something to trade.
Desjardins didn’t need to trade guns to get what he wanted. The guns were a means to an end. She had only known him for a few hours, and now she could pass judgment upon him.
A survivor, a male survivor. Destined to become a flesh trader.
Would Desmond have stooped to such a level?
Desmond was dead. The only good man she had ever known. It was true. In this desolate place, she could feel it. He was gone, along with his brother, Jerome. This place had taken him. Desmond had fought against the ghetto his entire life.
He had wanted nothing more than to help defend the weak and the helpless. To protect people like his mother, the victim of a drug addiction that was soon inflicted upon Jerome.
Whether he was devoured by zombies or murdered outright, Detroit had claimed him.
“Trust me,” Desjardins said.
Bella guffawed and wiped snot from her nose.
Desjardins extended a hand. She gazed into his dirt-smeared face, looked upon his disheveled hair.
“Come on,” he said. “It will be okay. I promise.”
It will be okay. He promised.
“Okay,” she said.
Desjardins dropped his hand when she didn’t take it. He walked to the salvage team house, and Bella followed. Desjardins didn’t completely turn his back to her, but instead kept looking over his shoulder to keep up whatever rambling confession needed to spill from his lips.
Saint Pain (Zombie Ascension Book 3) Page 44
