by Dana Fredsti
“You sure?” Lil’s face was strained. I could tell the thought of curling up in the back of the cab appealed to her.
“Definitely.” I caught Nathan looking at us with what looked like a small smile of approval.
Gabriel frowned.
“Ashley, you ride in the cab, too.”
“Hell, no,” I said. “I got carsick the last time I rode in that thing. You ride up there.”
“I’m the best shot here,” Gabriel insisted. “So I’m in the truck bed. No arguments.”
“Fine,” I said. “So Tony and Kai can ride in the cab. I’m a better shot than both of them put together.”
“She has a point,” Kai said.
With that, Gabriel gave up. Weapons and first-aid kit stowed, we finally got everyone in the truck. Mack and I hunkered down on either side of Kaitlyn, like two protective bookends. Gentry and Gabriel perched at the foot of the bed, looking like action figures. Our helmets were back on, straps secured.
“You people ready?” Nathan started the engine without waiting for an answer. At the sound of its growl, the moans of the living dead rose in volume. They knew it meant food.
Mack looked out at the zombies and shook his head.
“They’ll just swarm the truck.”
I shared his concern, but hid it.
“This guy is good,” I said. “He has something up his sleeve—I’d bet my life on it.”
“Whatever it is,” Mack answered, “I hope it explodes.”
CHAPTER FORTY
* * *
The monster truck roared out of the carport and around to the far left side of the fence where there was, indeed, another gate—also thick with zombies. Stopping a few feet from it, Nathan leaned out the driver’s side window and shouted.
“Fire in the hole!”
With that he tossed something over the barrier.
We all ducked down, Mack sheltering Kaitlyn with his body as the something exploded, sending dirt, rocks, and zombie debris flying through the air. We stayed down until it stopped raining pieces.
When I stuck my head back up, there were a lot fewer zombies, but the gate was still intact.
He sure knows how to build ’em.
A low hum sounded as it slowly rumbled open on its tracks. Nathan pulled the truck up to block as much of the opening as possible. As soon as enough space had been cleared, he edged the truck through the opening.
Zombies immediately closed in on us. Gabriel began taking out the ones on the left, while I took aim at the ones on the right. For each one I hit, he took out three.
As soon as we were clear, the gate reversed on its tracks. Most of the zombies lurched after the truck, which had yet to pick up speed, but a few headed into the compound. Gabriel took care of those with casual ease while Gentry sent a blast from the flamethrower into the ones right behind us.
The truck headed down an incredibly narrow, bumpy stretch of dirt that didn’t even qualify as a road. Mack did his best to shield Kaitlyn from the worst of the bone-jarring jolts, but every so often she gave out a gasp of pain.
Even over the rumble of the engine we could hear the moans of the living dead. The woods seemed to be full of them, resulting in a foggy Dante-esque landscape.
We hit the bottom of the trail, which thankfully opened up onto a respectable paved one-lane road. As Nathan picked up speed, I glimpsed a couple of scattered houses on either side, barely visible in the mist.
“Anyone know where we are?” Gabriel asked over the increasing roar of the wind.
“I think this hooks up with Redwood Highway,” Mack said. “We should be in the clear once we reach that.”
The zombies thinned out, but their ululations followed us down the road, and more appeared on either side. It was as if they were tracking us via a sort of hive mind or something equally Stephen Kingy.
“How are they all finding us?” I asked Gabriel, who was perched against the truck gate as he reloaded clips for his gun. “It’s like they’re all on the same frequency or something.”
Gabriel slapped a new clip into the M-4.
“Remember what Professor Fraser said about swarms?” he said. I nodded. I hadn’t liked the sound of it then, either.
“Well, this is a classic example. It doesn’t happen very often, but every now and then they’ll fixate on one target—or targets—and the moans act like a series of signal beacons.”
Suddenly I understood.
“That means they’ll follow us to campus, doesn’t it?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Unless Nathan can shake them,” he said.
“And if he can’t?”
“Then we have to make a stand at Big Red,” he said. “And if we can’t hold out...”
He didn’t have to finish his sentence.
Nuke ’em from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
“Here’s Redwood Highway,” Mack said, his voice optimistic.
Gentry turned to look at him.
“This goes right past Redwood Grove, doesn’t it?” Mack nodded.
“Right on the outskirts, yeah. Then it heads straight up to the college.” Gentry frowned at that.
“If the zombies in town hook up with the ones on our tail now, that’s asking for trouble,” he said.
That didn’t make sense. Nathan was smarter than that. Then it hit me.
“I bet he’s going to take the logging trail.” I peered into the woods, trees and dim figures passing by in a blur.
We neared the town and Nathan took a sudden hard left. Trees butted up against the road on one side, and what residents jokingly referred to as the ‘burbs lined the other. Our path was refreshingly clear of the walking dead, but their wails could still be heard behind us. The eerie sound seemed to fill the entire redwood forest.
Nathan slowed the truck down a bit—just enough to take the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride out of the experience, at least for the moment. I can’t say I exactly relaxed, but a little bit of the tension left my body.
Then the road curved around to the right, every bit of tension returned, and it brought some friends along. The route heading east crawled with zombies, the thickest I’d seen them since we’d left Nathan’s compound. They were already turning toward us, their moans joining those of their brethren.
Nathan sped up again, fast enough to plow through those in front and avoid the clutching hands of the ones closing in from the sides. Gabriel, Gentry, and I held on as best we could while trying to keep our weapons at the ready.
I so did not envy Gentry that flamethrower. He looked pretty steady, though, and kept his balance like a sailor dealing with rough seas.
“This is bad,” Gabriel muttered. “I think we’ve got two separate swarms, and now they’re both going to follow us back to the campus. If we can even get through.”
Nathan abruptly hit the brakes, the truck slamming to a stop so suddenly that it nearly dislodged Gabriel and Gentry from the back of the bed. My helmet banged against the window of the cab before I went sprawling forward, almost landing on top of Gabriel. We quickly recovered our positions, and saw why Nathan had stopped.
We’d reached Maple Street, and if we thought it had been occupied by a steady stream of zombies before, the stream had turned into a river, with waves of them rolling toward the little stone church nestled among the trees on the left.
“Shit,” Gentry muttered. “I sure as hell hope he has another grenade.”
Gabriel took careful aim and took out a pajama-clad zombie approaching the truck.
“They might not follow us after all,” he said. “They really want whoever’s in that church.” Even as he said it, though, a current of the undead turned toward the truck.
“Shit,” he said. “I think we’ve got their attention.”
A groan next to my ear caused me to jump. Kaitlyn rolled over and winced.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she whispered. She tried to say something else, but Nathan hollered and drowned her out.
“Fire
in the hole, fore and aft!”
We hit the deck as he lobbed two grenades this time, one into the crowd on Maple Street, the other behind the truck as far as he could pitch it. Luckily the man had an arm worthy of an All-Star pitcher.
I heard Mack cry out as the concussion from both blasts rattled the truck and our brains. Once again it rained zombie bits. I raised my head and some indefinable goo dripped off the front of my helmet. Grimacing, I wiped it off, and then noticed that Kaitlyn was no longer in the truck bed.
Mack lay a couple of feet away, stunned by the blast, his expression dazed.
“Kaitlyn?” I shouted, my ears still ringing.
“Over here!” came the muffled response. I sat up, looking over the edge of the truck toward the sound of her voice.
She was staggering across the road, her way cleared by the grenade. Looking as clumsy as any zombie, she paused at the edge of the tree line. Swaying unsteadily on her feet, she waved both arms above her head.
The wound in her neck started to bleed again.
And then I froze as I realized she hadn’t been talking to me.
“Over here!” she yelled again. “This way!”
“Kaitlyn, what the hell are you doing?” I bellowed.
She flashed me a weak smile and continued yelling.
The engine gunned, and I pounded on the back of the cab.
“Nathan, don’t go yet!”
“Are you bat-shit?” he yelled back. “Why the hell not?”
“It’s Kaitlyn!” I pointed in the direction of the trees where she continued to holler and wave. Zombies started to notice her, turning toward the sound like compass needles discovering true north.
Gabriel scrambled unsteadily to his feet.
“Kaitlyn, get back here!” he shouted.
She just ignored him. Cursing, he shouldered his M-4 and began picking off zombies as they neared her. Some still honed in on the truck, but Gentry switched to his rifle and took care of those.
“Get that woman back in the truck!” Nathan yelled. “We’ve got a very small window to get across the River Styx here before they close the gap.”
“Kaitlyn, get your ass back here!” Gabriel tried again.
She just shook her head.
“I’ll lead them away.” With that, she slowly backed into the trees, waving and yelling, “Come and get me! This way!” More zombies followed, moaning louder as they did.
Gabriel swore again, slamming his hand against the side of the truck.
“I’m going to get her.”
Mack, in the meantime, had struggled to a crouching position.
“Jesus,” he said, “she’ll be torn to pieces.” He watched in horror as she vanished into the trees. “She’ll never be able to outrun them.”
Before any of us could stop him, he grabbed his gun and leapt out of the truck bed. He hit the ground, stumbling forward before recovering his balance, then dashing across the road and disappearing into the trees after Kaitlyn.
“Mack!” I screamed. Lil yelled his name, too, her nose plastered against the side window.
More zoms headed toward the truck even as a steady number continued to trickle into the woods. I could still hear the sound of Kaitlyn’s voice as she taunted them, and Mack’s as he called for her.
God damn this wild card shit. For once, I didn’t want any senses, enhanced or not.
Nathan stuck his head out the window.
“We have to go, people!”
Gabriel hesitated briefly.
“Go.”
His voice was flat.
Nathan gunned the engine and drove quickly across Maple Street. From there he headed out of the town.
Soon enough we turned onto the logging trail. Nathan took the road as fast as possible, but I didn’t even notice the jolts this time. My mind still couldn’t process what had just happened. Why had Kaitlyn suddenly gone all kamikaze on us? And why had Mack...
Well, I knew why Mack had done what he’d done. To do anything else would have killed his soul.
We’d only seen a few zoms since we left Redwood Grove, but those were enough to start the zombie version of telephone. Which meant that eventually the swarm would find their way to Big Red.
Nathan pulled up alongside the razor wire and we quickly and silently unloaded the gear. There was no time to find a security checkpoint. Gabriel and Tony slipped under the wire, then he stood on top of the cab and we did an assembly line, passing stuff up for Nathan to hand it down to them on the other side.
When we’d gotten everything over the fence, Gabriel and Tony held the wire apart for the rest of us to crawl through. We made our way across campus to Patterson Hall.
No need for secrecy this time.
Whenever one of the soldiers appeared, though, Nathan’s expression clearly said that he’d rather be somewhere else.
Colonel Paxton, Simone, and Dr. Albert were waiting for us in the foyer.
“We lost Mack and Kaitlyn,” Gabriel said bluntly. For once the Colonel’s sad clown features suited the occasion.
And then Nathan and Simone saw each other. They stared for a full beat.
“Hello, Nathan,” she said in a voice cool enough to chill wine.
What the hell?
“Oh, Christ on a crutch.” Nathan shut his eyes and rubbed a hand on his forehead, as if trying to massage away reality. “Simone Fraser. I should have known you’d be part of this whole clusterfuck.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
* * *
Exhausted and heartsick, the remaining wild cards gathered in the cafeteria.
Gabriel and Gentry didn’t join us.
We huddled dispiritedly together as we picked at our food. I was certain all of us were thinking the same thing. We weren’t invulnerable, and we lost two people as a result. Until today none of us had really confronted the fact that our lives were still fragile things and could be lost at any second.
Lil was devastated, silent tears slipping down her face as she stared at her hamburger and fries without touching them. Tony’s face was unreadable, but his usual barrage of banter with Kai was totally MIA.
I forced myself to eat, convincing myself that I’d need the fuel for what we’d face when the swarm caught up with us. We might have a few days or we might only have a few hours, so we had to be ready. Yet all I wanted was to forget that the last few hours had ever happened. I wanted Mack to be there with his basset hound eyes and warm smile. I’d have even paid to hear one of Kaitlyn’s bitchy remarks. Anything but face the reality of their loss.
So I forced my mind down another path.
“I should have known you’d be part of this whole clusterfuck.”
I mean, how weird was that? Nathan had somehow vanished almost immediately, and we’d been hustled off for decontamination before I could corner Simone.
Lil gave a small, choked sob, bringing my attention back to the present.
“There were so many zombies out there,” she said. “Why did Kaitlyn do it? If she hadn’t, Mack would still be here. We were almost home.”
The venom in her voice startled me.
Kaitlyn, I thought. She couldn’t have been in her right mind, but she must have thought she was doing the right thing. After what she saw at the rest stop, did she want to die? Or did she just think it was inevitable?
“She was probably delirious,” I said carefully. “And I think... she must have heard Gabriel talking about needing a diversion. She probably thought she was helping us.”
“But they’re still coming,” Lil countered. “So it was pointless!” Her voice rose. “Mack sacrificed himself for nothing!” The angry tears were streaming down her face now.
I tried again.
“We don’t know that he’s dead.”
“He is dead,” she shouted. “He is! I hate her!” With that Lil burst into loud, braying sobs.
“Oh, Lil...” I reached out to hug her, but she shoved me away with enough violence to send me flying out of my chair. I hit the floor wit
h a bone-jarring thud, staring up at Lil in shock.
The room went quiet, the only sound coming from Lil’s frantic sobs.
I got to my feet, took a deep breath and put my arms around her, refusing to let go as she thrashed like a child throwing a tantrum, striking out with fists and feet. I held on tightly until she finally subsided, crying heart-brokenly into my shoulder as I stroked her hair, holding back my own tears.
Tony looked uncomfortable with Lil’s display of emotion, while Kai seemed sympathetic. But it was Tony who got a couple of damp napkins and handed them to me so I could press them on the back of Lil’s neck and forehead as her sobs slowly tapered off.
When she finally had herself under control, he handed her a wad of dry ones so she could blow her nose.
“Thanks.” Her voice was small and shaky, but the edge of hysteria had left it. I pushed a hank of hair away from her face.
“You okay?”
Lil nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“S’okay.” I held her close again.
Someone cleared his throat. We looked up to see Nathan, clean and dressed in fatigues and a black T-shirt, a plate piled high with food in one hand, a glass of milk in the other. We hadn’t even heard him come in.
I righted my chair and sat in it again, then took a much-needed sip of wine.
Nathan sat down across from Lil, Tony and Kai scooting their chairs over to make room.
“You okay, kid?” he asked solemnly.
Lil took a deep, quavering breath and nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Good. ’cause while your teammate did a stupid thing there, it was also a brave thing. She figured she was saving the team.”
“But Mack...”
“Also did a stupid thing, but it took guts.”
Lil looked down at her plate.
“She wasn’t worth his life.”
Nathan shrugged.
“That’s not your call to make. People are who they are, and they’re going to do what they think is right. Like you risking your life—and hers—to save those cats.” He gestured toward me. “You think if you two had died, the rest of your teammates would’ve said, ‘Gee, they died, but at least they tried to save the cats’?”
