From Oblivion's Ashes

by Michael E. A. Nyman

  “Well,” the big man hesitated. “No, I guess not. It’s just… listen, Marshal, are you sure about these guys? Our first fishing trip, and we come back with a trio of potheads. Are these really the kind of people we need? Not that I have a problem with weed. We’ve both sat down with a bag from time to time and played some Call of Duty, right? But those guys fucking live in the clouds. What kind of help are they gonna be?”

  “Actually,” Marshal said, “We really scored with these three.”

  “What? How?”

  “Luca. Over ninety-nine percent of the population is dead. If they were brave, or selfless, or willing to sacrifice themselves for duty, they died in the first ten minutes…”

  He held up a finger to stall Luca’s objection.

  “…unless, like us, a weird sequence of freak circumstances somehow gave them a shot at survival.”

  Luca subsided, switching over to the other side of the frame.

  “My point is,” Marshal said, “we’re lucky if we get anywhere near the cream of the crop. What we found in these three are diamonds in the rough.”

  “Them?” Luca said.

  “You bet,” Marshal said. “First of all, there’s Kumar.”

  “The Indian guy?”

  “Yeah. He’s a top shelf programmer. You have no idea how lucky we are to find him. I have some computer skills, but I’m more of a hardware guy. I’m barely competent enough to write a program that remotely controls the ISU’s, and the one I did write is primitive with zero adaptability.

  “But Kumar? I’ve seen his stuff. He’s a prodigy. You should see what he did to his laptop. Meanwhile, we have a need to link hundreds of cameras and computers to a central program. Finding a talent like Kumar, just when we need him, is almost as good as finding a doctor.”

  Luca grunted, but Marshal wasn’t done.

  “Then, there’s Brian.”

  “The pot grower? We got all the pot we’ll ever need.”

  “He’s a hydroponics specialist! There’s still a lot of food out there to salvage, more than we could ever eat in a lifetime, except that cans eventually rust, perishables go bad, while dried goods get eaten by rats. And even if we make it last, how would it feel to have fresh salad again? Fresh vegetables? Luca. How would you like to cook with fresh tomatoes instead of canned?”

  Luca’s eyes widened. “He could do that?”

  “Hydroponics, Luca. He can grow tomatoes the size of grapefruit. And since we’re not likely to have access to farmland any time soon, the ability to grow things indoors is going to be a major asset, regardless of how much weed he smokes.”

  He hesitated.

  “Which brings me to the girl, Krissy.”

  “What can she do?” Luca asked, fresh tomatoes still dancing in his head.

  “Well… nothing I can put my finger on,” Marshal said. “I asked her if she had any skills, and she told me that she was a spiritual pilgrim, cascading through the tresses of the Mother spirit, and a bunch of other new age gibberish. I’m pretty sure she was bullshitting me, but I can’t be sure. There is something odd about her, like a hidden level, if you know what I mean. Brian and Kumar can’t see it because they’re stoned all the time, but I get the impression that at least a part of her behavior is just an act.”

  “She ain’t acting about getting stoned,” Luca said. “That woman smokes like a chimney.”

  “Well, you know what they say,” Marshal said. “When in Rome. But whatever her real past, she doesn’t want to talk about it, and I’ve chosen to respect her privacy. She’ll let us know eventually, and even if she doesn’t, it hardly matters. Other than Angie, we’re a bunch of guys. Having a healthy woman in our midst gives us more credibility in future recruiting, especially if we encounter other women.”

  He frowned.

  “But I have a feeling that she may prove a lot more valuable for other reasons.”

  “Fucking say that again,” Luca said, raising his drill to the frame again. “She’s fuckin’ gorgeous!”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Marshal said. “She’s smart, smarter than she lets on. That makes her useful, even if she is hiding something.”

  He shook his head.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Luca lined up his drill. “You should have led with the tomatoes. I’m fucking convinced. Three new members in our tribe, and they’re fucking gold.”

  He paused to drill six more holes in the new Crapmobile’s frame.

  “How’s it looking?” Marshal asked, regarding Luca’s work.

  “Not bad. Our frame’s rock solid, and all our accessories look like they’ll work. Only one problem. When it’s done, it’s gonna be too big to fit on the lift.”

  Marshal slapped his forehead. “Shit! Why didn’t we think of that?”

  “I did think of that,” Luca pointed out. “And anyway, the answer is obvious. We’re gonna have to take it down in sections, and weld it together once it’s in the alley. It’s the only way.”

  Marshal blinked. “Shit,” he said, rubbing his temple. “That won’t be fun.”

  Luca clapped him on the shoulder. “Who said any of this was fun?”

  With a sigh, Marshal rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

  Chapter Eleven: Day 25: The Brave Die Only Once

  Crapmobile rumbled eastwards along College Street on its maiden voyage, the return journey to Rothman’s Pharmacy. In his leather seat, Luca sat like a man driving his first ferrari, steering the ‘garbage-mobile’ around obstructions and up over curbs. Equally comfortable beside him, Marshal watched the monitors, checked readings, and tapped the odd key on his keyboard. The electric engine was smooth and almost soundless. When a zombie outside lurched unexpectedly into Crapmobile’s path, the front bumper knocked it over, so that it rolled off and landed on the ground to the side. Unconcerned, it picked itself back up again, as if it had only slipped on a patch of ice, and lurched off in its tireless search for humans.

  “This is so much fucking better that the old model,’ Luca declared. “If I had to push that thing another goddamn inch, I think my feet woulda fallen off. I’m not breaking your balls here, Marshal. It was a good invention. It did the job, and I’m alive today because of it. But now? Now we’re fucking cooking with gas!”

  Marshal nodded, using the on-board computer to cycle through the now ten ISU cameras feeds that encircled the apartment, reveling in the user-friendly program.

  Kumar had looked through Marshal’s earlier work on the computer, tapping at a keyboard with one hand and holding a lit joint with the other, and had immediately recoded half of it. After that, he’d plowed through a self-initiated, nine-hour programming marathon, fueled by coffee, snack food, and weed. When he was finished, the ISU’s were not only more functional and easier to use, they could be accessed as easily as flipping through a stack of playing cards.

  “It’ll get better,” Kumar had added, offering Marshal a hit, which Marshal declined. “When we finish deploying the wireless mesh network, like we were talking about, I should be able to get all the tablets talking to each other.”

  Phwewt.

  “We can overlay it with a map of downtown,” he continued, “hook it up to your network of bluetooth speakers and motion detectors, and voila! We got us a permanent ‘un-life-signs’ detection and manipulation grid.”

  Marshal smiled. That was the dream. Lure the undead one by one out of the downtown area. And when they came wandering back, the grid would detect it and lure them right back out again.

  “It’s happening, Luca,” he said. “All we need is time.”

  “How’s Angie doing?”

  Marshal tapped a button on his keyboard.

  “Angie? Can you hear me?”

  There was a pause. And then, clear as day, he heard the response.

  “Loud and clear, Marshal,” she answered. “No zombies nearby. Don’t have to answer with beeps.”

  “You should do it anyway,” Marshal said, “and leave talking as a last resort. You never kn
ow if a zombie is lurking just around the next corner, or in a doorway, or-”

  A strange, spluttering sound came over the speakers.

  Marshal sighed and covered the microphone.

  “I could be wrong,” he told Luca, “ but that sounded like she just stuck out her tongue and rasp-berried me.”

  “It sure did,” Luca said with a grin. “Love that kid’s spunk.”

  “Yeah. But it’ll get her killed.”

  He removed his hand from the microphone.

  “All right, Angie, listen to me and listen well. You will follow the rules, or Uncle Luca and I will revoke this agreement so fast your head will spin. We’ll lock you up in your bedroom if we have to. Am I being clear?”

  A sullen-sounding beep answered him.

  “All right, then. Call us if you find anything, okay?”

  Beep.

  Marshal turned off the microphone. “I guess that answers how she’s doing,” he said. “Still alive, at any rate.”

  “Relax,” Luca said. “You said it yourself. She’s real good at sneaking around, and that was before she got her insulin topped up, a better camouflage suit, and a hot meal. With that headset you gave her, and her promise not to wander too far from Crapmobile, there’s no shit she can get herself into that we can’t pull her out of. Meanwhile, she’s proven that she can find survivors and maybe even some valuable salvage in the bargain.”

  Marshal didn’t answer, but hoped that Luca was right.

  Rothman’s had been Marshal’s first choice as a destination now that Crapmobile was up and running. Memories of the shelves and fridges consumed him. A mother lode of irreplaceable painkillers, antibiotics, and other medicines were still there, deteriorating under the weight of time and the elements that swept in unimpeded through the smashed-in doors and windows. It was the sort of treasure trove whose value would only be recognized after it was gone.

  But Rothman’s had other virtues worth exploring. A full bank of working solar panels on the roof and a hidden, zombie-fooling trapdoor to the basement, gave the pharmacy real potential as living quarters. The size of their ‘tribe’ had already doubled. The discovery and development of places to live, especially if they were to keep growing, was of vital importance.

  Rothman’s was coming into view up ahead, looking far less impressive in the daytime than it had at night. Thoughts of Duster and Ted came to mind, but he put them aside. Those dead, at least, had finally been put to rest.

  He frowned into the monitor as something caught his attention. Leaning forward, he tapped a couple of buttons in an attempt to zoom in.

  Red flags went up.

  “Look,” he said to Luca. “Do you see that?”

  Luca squinted at the screen. “Jesus,” he said, tensing up. “Looks like at least a dozen of them. Are they in Hunting mode?”

  “Yes they are,” Marshal said, studying the crowd of undead that had gathered out front of Rothman’s. “But what are they hunting?”

  He grabbed the microphone and pushed a button.

  “Angie, did you get up ahead of us?”

  Beep. Beep.

  “Good,” he said. “I want you to stay back. We have some serious undead activity out front of Rothman’s. I want you to give it a wide berth, okay?”

  Beep.

  “Didn’t have to tell her twice,” Luca said.

  “Get us to within a hundred feet,” Marshal said. “I’m going to launch one of the drones so we can get a closer look. Whatever they’re up to, they’re in our way, and we’re going to have to clear them out of there.”

  Luca looked at him with a wide grin. “I love it when you talk about scattering man-eating monsters with super-strength like they were a bunch of pigeons,” he said.

  Marshal ignored him as he reached for a drone.

  The new Crapmobile had several hatches installed, including a cage on the roof. A sliding panel allowed Marshal to place the drone inside, close it up, and then pull a cord to open the lid of the cage. From there, the drone could fly upwards, allowing for a clean, zero-exposure launch. It had been Marshal’s idea and, after some initial resistance, Luca had finally agreed to it.

  Marshal returned to his seat, tapped a few buttons on the keyboard, and watched as one of the screens flickered. Improved receivers and a little work by Kumar linking operations through the keyboard, gave Marshal fingertip control.

  “Launching,” Marshal said. He pushed a button, and the drone’s on-board camera started transmitting to one of the monitors. The drone rose up from its enclosure, and suddenly, they were looking down at Crapmobile from about ten feet in the air. It rose another ten feet, and then was speeding forward, sweeping over the pavement and refuse with effortless grace.

  It took seconds for the drone to close the distance, pull upwards in front of Rothman’s, and take in the scene. The undead were spread out all across the street, but three exceptions were clustered around a spot on the ground that was obscured by the huddle.

  “Jesus Christ,” Marshal breathed, noticing their quick movements. “Those three… they’re in Attack mode!”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means that they’re up to maximum power,” Marshal answered. “They can rip stone apart like paper or warp steel like it was taffy. We have to handle this very carefully. It’s not a Swarm, thank god, but there’s still more than a dozen, so they’re not the complete morons we’re used to. More like… unimaginative three-year-olds. We can’t give them any excuse to become suspicious of Crapmobile.”

  Luca hit the breaks, stopping a hundred feet away from the storefront, and put the vehicle in park.

  “So what?” he asked, studying the screen. “Did they catch somebody?”

  Marshal shook his head. “Can’t tell, but… they don’t go into Attack mode unless they have prey in their sights.”

  He pointed at the screen with one hand while he maintained a hovering position with the other. “There’s a trail of blood, see? It leads right to that spot, but not away. Those three could reduce a full-grown man to nothing in less than twenty seconds. They seem to be trying to sponge up all the blood. By the time they’re done, there won’t even be a stain on the ground.”

  “Fuck,” Luca said, shaking his head with a scowl. “Imagine the poor bastard, surviving this long, only to die now.”

  “It’s going to start happening more and more,” Marshal said. “People who were lucky enough to find a place to hide, someplace with food and water, will start running out. They’ll be forced to leave to find more. Either they strike it real lucky, or… or that.”

  Then, he leaned forward, looking puzzled.

  “Look there,” he said, pointing at the monitor. “What does that look like to you?”

  Luca scowled at the screen.

  “I dunno,” he answered. “Smashed up trash bin? Yeah. Must have been wrecked a long time ago. There’s bits of metal lying all over the place, and that’s just a… you know… bit of dirt and stuff piled up inside that stone planter… or...”

  His eyes widened, and he leaned forward.

  “Holy shit! It’s a guy!”

  Master Corporal Eric Vandermeer lay curled up inside the concrete planter, surrounded by trash, dirt, debris, and the close, sticky aroma of his wounds. He listened as the three ravenous monsters slurped up his blood from ten minutes ago. He didn’t know why he’d bothered to use the last of his strength to hide inside the planter. It didn’t have a chance in hell of working. If he could smell his own wounds even when half-covered in dirt, the creatures would too. But it was the only ploy left for him to try.

  And now it was over.

  It had probably been over before this anyway. He’d lost a lot of blood, his ribs were broken, and the world seemed to weave back and forth between giddy confusion and waves of pain. He could no longer feel his right leg. The splint was still intact, but the leg itself was a tangle of black flesh and blood-soaked, muddy meat . His left leg had been cut up during his recent escape, and
was bleeding badly. He was pretty sure that he’d need an amputation, even if he were to be magically transported into an ICU.

  God. He wished he had a fucking cigarette. Karen had made him quit two years ago, but now that the game was over, now that he had failed, he would have happily traded his last few seconds of life for one last, long drag of smoke.

  Fainting had become a problem. Tears welled up in his eyes at the thought of how hard he’d fought to resist the blackness, only to fail. He’d dragged himself for that final block, only to drop down unconscious right out front his objective. There hadn’t been any undead when he’d arrived, but there sure as hell had been when he’d awoken.

  He tried to tell himself that he’d done his best, and that he’d given it everything he’d had, but words rang hollow. He was a soldier, only twenty-eight years old, with two tours in Afghanistan, a wife, and a newborn baby. Transferring to the Toronto Armory and joining the Queen’s Own Rifles was supposed to have been a chance to step away from combat. He was one of only a few full-time veterans helping to train a regiment of reservists, and mainly, it was his chance to become a husband and a father. Now he’d failed at that too. Failed to keep the Armory from being overrun. Failed to save the civilians in his charge. Failed to reach Rothman’s. Failed at everything.

  Time to die.

  Something buzzed up above his head, and he looked up in a daze. There, floating in the air, was a… he stared at it in amazement… a toy drone?

  He almost laughed, but it didn’t feel like a hallucination. Not that it would change anything, even if it weren’t. Nothing could stop these creatures. He was trapped, and he was a dead man.

  God damn it, what he wouldn’t give for a smoke.

  And then, when the drone started talking. Talking! The surprise was more than his depleted body could handle. His eyes fluttered closed, and he succumbed to the enclosing darkness.

  “…from the east coast,” Captain Davis said at the briefing. “Central command is trying to coordinate a cooperative response with the Americans. For the moment, we’re to hold the Armory and await orders. If that fails, we’re to assist in the evacuation of civilians. If you encounter any of the enemy, you’re to start shooting. No hesitation. You may not get a second chance.”