Dearly, Departed

by Lia Habel

  I pushed myself to my feet and flexed my wrist. “Yeah.”

  Dr. Salvez’s head poked through the curtain. “Wolfe’s already on the horn upstairs. I can tell him that you’re still being tuned up …?”

  Time to face the music. “No. I’m done.” Occasionally, being a surprisingly healthy dead guy can come back to bite you.

  “And so it begins,” Charles said with sympathy as he handed me my shirt.

  I put it back on and stretched my arms. Indeed.

  It took me all of five minutes to walk to my own funeral. The briefing room was on A Level, a bare-bones area with a wall-sized screen on the starboard side. Company Commander James Wolfe’s ruddy, bearded face was currently blown up on it. For the last few days he’d been wearing the sort of expression a martial-arts master does while plowing his fist through a few layers of brick.

  I was the only one in the room. I paused just inside the doorway in salute. “Captain.”

  “Griswold, you will explain to me what just happened,” Wolfe demanded without preamble. His heavy ginger brow and hooked nose appeared more menacing than usual—wherever he was broadcasting from, it was dimly lit. His voice boomed at me from the surrounding speakers, although, to be honest, he produced the same effect in person.

  As he hadn’t told me to be at ease, I lowered my arm and maintained my stiff posture. “Sir, with all due respect, the situation was not as simple as we were led to believe.”

  On the screen, Captain Wolfe pinched the bridge of his nose. “Did I ask for excuses? No, I did not.”

  I made myself meet his eyes and began. “We met up with the municipal vans south of town two days ago, as arranged. No complications there. We arrived in the Elysian Fields around midnight that night, and were smuggled into the second level. Seeing as the living had left the area for the night, I ordered a few men to canvas it and make sure we were secure. And that’s when we found that we weren’t. The enemy was already there. They’d set up shop in one of the prefab mansions. At least a hundred of them. Let me remind you that I had fifty men.”

  Wolfe’s hand clenched. “What did you do?”

  “I ordered the scouts to return. The last thing I wanted was a war down there. We didn’t even know if all the Grays were in that house, and we couldn’t confirm whether or not they had weapons. Raiding or torching the place might have driven their scouts—maybe even another company of them somewhere—into immediate action. They might’ve gone after the girl. Or the living on the first level.”

  “You idiot,” Wolfe growled.

  “Your opinion is respectfully noted.” I continued. “I did send one scout up to the first level to find Miss Dearly’s house and keep an eye on it. He saw no sign that she was there. And so, we waited. The next day the second level flooded … I can’t tell you whether the Grays did it or whether it was just an accident. The living showed up to rescue their machinery, and we retreated as far as possible from the gatehouse. We couldn’t exactly launch an attack with hundreds of city workers down there—it was tough enough staying ahead of them so we weren’t spotted. That night our guards did take out a few Grays in hand-to-hand … and so we learned that they were aware of our presence, too.”

  “Why didn’t you strike back?” Wolfe asked, enunciating each word loudly and slowly, like an obnoxious tourist.

  “Because,” I replied in kind, “the last thing we needed was a zombie battle playing out right where hundreds of living people could watch it. There’re already outbreaks leaking onto the news! Thankfully someone in the military is spinning them as normal Punk attacks.” I looked at the scuffed black flooring. “I went up myself that day to try and intercept her. Snuck out.”

  “And how did that go?” Wolfe asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “She didn’t buy it.”

  “No, I wouldn’t think so.”

  I dug my fingernails into my thigh, slowly, to keep myself from speaking faster than my brain could work. “She spent the next day up top. We planned to go in and get her tonight. We were on our way there when the scout I’d left at her house radioed to tell us that the Grays had decided on the same thing. My team got the girl out of there; the others stayed behind for cleanup. So, in the end, you got your fight, Captain.”

  “Griswold, shut up.”

  I did so, and watched Wolfe sliding his hand up and down his face in an attempt to calm himself. Yeah, I’d screwed up in letting the fight get to the first level of the complex—but I’d been attempting to avoid one completely. Wolfe seemed to think we should have gone in with guns blazing, which would have been a mind-bogglingly stupid thing to do.

  A shaft of light slipped into the room, fading a corner of Wolfe’s image. I glanced behind me. My teammates entered, each making his or her salute before wordlessly falling back. Chas sent me a small, encouraging smile.

  “The girl is on the ship?” Wolfe asked, hand still over his eyes. He didn’t acknowledge the arrival of the others.

  “Of course, sir,” I said. “We’re en route to Z Beta Base. ETA about two hours.”

  Wolfe nodded and let his hand fall. “From now on you will follow my orders exactly. If I do not specifically tell you to do something, it will not occur to your rotting mind to do anything. Any mission I send you on will include detailed instructions. You will follow these, and if there is time left over you will retreat to a nearby wall and do your best broom impression, waiting for further orders from a living person, like the tool you are. Is that clear? This goes for all of you!”

  I didn’t look back at my friends. I was afraid I’d get too angry. “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent. Now, take the girl to Z Beta, and barricade her in her father’s quarters. Only the living are to speak to her, and they are to tell her nothing of importance until I arrive there. Keep her fed, safe, and as ignorant as she is now. Do you understand?”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Good. You can expect me back in thirty-six hours. I’m going to be wasting my time combing the back of beyond, looking for her father. I will be in touch with Dr. Elpinoy, Griswold.”

  I saluted again, and the screen went dark. Lamps automatically lit around the rim of the riveted metal ceiling, filling the room with a gentle glow. I still didn’t turn around, although I let my spine soften. I hated having to submit to Wolfe like that, especially with other people watching.

  “You know he’s full of crap, right?” Chas spoke up.

  “Grade A, gourmet crap,” Coalhouse agreed.

  I shook my head. “I know. But we have to do what he says. At least until we find the doctor.”

  “No.”

  I turned around to look at Chas. She fixed me with her black eyes. Chas—no last name, or so she claims, seeing as “Chastity” is bad enough—is tall for a girl, of Colombian heritage, with shaggy bleached blond hair and skin that was once the color of caramel, but now has a faint cast of blue to it. The front part of her jaw was beat up pretty bad in battle about a year ago, and the techs opted to cut out the damaged teeth and bone and replace them with a metal plate. Since then she’s scratched various designs into it, including a winding, thorny rose. “We can’t do that to his daughter, Bram. This isn’t her fault. She deserves to know what’s happening.”

  “As much as I agree with you, Chas,” I said, “at this point it’d be insubordination.”

  Chas ran a finger teasingly along the neckline of her T-shirt. “Ooh, long word. Say it again. I don’t know what it means, but it sounds so dirty.”

  Tom rolled his neck. Tom’s short—only about five-four—but strong. He carried heavy personal cannon in the Punk army, and still has the arms to prove it. He’s missing his nose, and the area over it’s been grafted with skin from his thigh, so as not to leave a gaping, offensive hole. It makes him look kind of like a shark, especially with his dark eyes and bald head. “Yeah. We gotta tell her. Otherwise, she’s gonna lose her mind, and then we’ll get in trouble for that.”

  “And with Wolfe gone, you’re the
highest ranked on base,” Coalhouse said. He’s of African descent, his thick body giving him a hardy appearance that makes his rotten face all the more disturbing to look at. The right side, the side missing the eye, is bonier than the other, and his curly brown hair is patchy in places. “You’re the boss. I mean, screw what he said about following orders. Situations change. You know that, and you change with ’em. We’ve got your back.”

  “For perhaps the first time in recorded history, Coalhouse and I agree on something,” Tom said. “But if the sky starts crying fire, just for the record? I’m leaving you losers to get wasted.”

  I couldn’t help but smile a little. Tonight their faith meant a lot. “So, what do we do with her?” I asked. “I’m open to ideas. I’m not saying I’m going to use them, but I’m open to them.”

  “Your room,” Tom said, pointing at me.

  On the list of ideas I’d expected to hear, that ranked pretty low. “What? Why mine?”

  “Because of your contingency plan.”

  I immediately understood what Tom was getting at—and really, when I thought about it, it was a far better idea than Wolfe’s. Far safer for the girl. Oh, sweet, sweet justification. “Okay. My room, then. We’ll let her wake up, get her bearings. Let her feel a little bit in control.”

  “Exactly,” Chas said as she reached into the pockets of her cargo pants to come up with a cigarette and a match. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  I gestured to myself. “And, in the meantime, what am I supposed to do—go camping?”

  “You won’t be out on the streets too long,” Tom said with a slow grin. “Man, I just keep seeing her up there, in that fancy dress, shooting at the bloody things. That … was beautiful. Truly, so beautiful that the existence of a loving, awesome God can be its only explanation. I have found religion, my friends.”

  “She’s still a royal,” I pointed out, in a halfhearted attempt to convince myself. “You know how their girls are. No offense, Chas.”

  “Why would I take offense at that? I know I’m not one of them,” she snorted as she struck the match on her chin plate.

  “Mark my words,” Tom said, unswayed. “In an hour she wakes up, slams back a fifth of somethin’, and asks for a uniform.”

  “Huh. Maybe I should date her,” Chas said with mocking thoughtfulness.

  I sighed, and sought solace in my mind. Okay. I’d completely disobey Captain Wolfe and court my own court-martial. Why not? I’d already tasted humiliation and failure. Not like the week could get much worse. Besides, for thirty-five hours and forty-five minutes, he couldn’t touch me.

  That aside, I had two of those hours to myself. Two hours in which I could forget the trouble to come and ignore the uneasy feeling that I was making the wrong decision. Two hours in which I wouldn’t have to touch her, wouldn’t have to look at her.

  Ten minutes later I was at Miss Dearly’s side, staring down at her. They’d cleaned her up, and were keeping her behind a partition in the area where the living doctors and techs were working. Without having to ask, I knew that they had chosen this area for a reason.

  No dead people on assignment.

  Within my body another battle raged. I ignored it—the sharpness of my senses, the prickling in my skin. I kept my hands to myself.

  Silhouettes on the cloth partitions around me told me that I wasn’t as alone with her as I felt. I remained silent by her side, listening to her measured breathing and the sounds of the meds at work within the hull of the ship.

  I could think of a lot of things I’d have liked to say to her, though. I made plenty of dead man’s promises to her in my mind, as the boys shoveled coal beneath us and the boat made like a ghost for friendlier shores.

  I slowly pressed the button on the portable com unit that would terminate the call with Griswold, and did my level best to keep from leaping up, ripping the handlebars off my motorcycle, and using them as a sledgehammer on the nearest crushable object.

  I would derive a deep, personal satisfaction from beheading that boy someday.

  I tucked the com unit away in my coat, shifting slightly in my seat. The bike was a skeletal construction of pipes and exposed gears, designed to be broken down for storage. It wasn’t meant for someone of my size, and I’d be lucky to get back to my men before it collapsed beneath me. The last thing I felt like doing was taking a stroll in the dark with zombies on every side of me. I still had so much to do, and so little time to do it in.

  I continued to sit there, though, surrounded by night-shrouded trees, the buzzing of insects and the distant croaking of frogs keeping me company. Clouds of mosquitoes drifted in and out of the bright yellow light of the electric lantern I’d strapped to the front of the bike back at camp. I could feel them in my beard, at the edges of my uniform—a hundred wriggling, hungry things. They wouldn’t go after the dead. I was the only living human for miles.

  This thought didn’t exactly put me at ease. But for a second I could breathe easily.

  Round one of the game was over.

  A rapid volley of explosions shook me out of my impromptu moment of peace.

  I gunned the engine and took off toward the east.

  After half a mile or so the trees began to thin out. I swerved to a stop. This time our battlefield had been the site of an ancient town, likely abandoned during the Settlement Wars. No buildings remained; only the odd protrusion, here and there, of an old wall from the mossy ground, or the overgrown hump of a fallen house. Vines snaked over everything.

  A few of the bombs that had just gone off sparked small, smoldering fires in the undergrowth. By their light I could vaguely make out a phalanx of my troops, clad in black, red beacons flashing. They were systematically taking out the last of the enemy zombies we’d been sent to dispatch—the crawlers that always seem to spontaneously show up at the scene of a fight, like maggots on meat. Crawlers are the worst. Blind, wormlike zombies, rotten and often limbless creatures that writhe their way impatiently across the ground, waiting to bump into something edible.

  As I swung myself off the motorcycle, I popped open the holster at my waist and drew out my pistol. I put a few of the crawlers out of their misery with head shots as I picked my way across the field toward my men.

  One of the grunts, Private Franco, saw me first. He put his weapon away before approaching me. He was a dead man of unremarkable build, his face hidden by the regulation black mask. “Sir, permission to speak, sir!”

  “Talk.” I shot another crawler, black blood and semiliquefied brain matter spraying the grass. “What’s going on?”

  “I think this is definitely the group of enemy zombies we were sent to get, sir. Some of the healthier ones ’ave taken for the trees, and after we clean up ’ere, we’ll go after ’em.” He ran a hand under his nose. I found myself idly wondering if zombies ever itched. “They’ll do a run with the flamethrowers in a few.”

  “Any idea where this group came from?”

  “Naw, but there’s a big ol’ walker in the clearing over yonder. Betcha five-to-one these’re Punks, these ones. Probably ambushed by a wild pack.”

  Franco flicked open a pocket on his utility vest and drew out a small night vision telescope. I accepted it, removing the lens cap as he told me where to look. When I did, I saw the top of the walking tank he’d mentioned, two of its legs and part of its body rising above the tree line a few yards off. He was right—it was enormous. No wonder the zombies had attacked. That thing would have attracted attention for miles.

  I handed him back the telescope. “In the morning, have some men work on that thing and get it back to base. I’m heading back to camp. Do your job, and make sure I don’t have to shout at you later. My list of people to shout at is long enough as it is.”

  “Sir!”

  I returned to my bike and took off again, this time headed slightly northwest. My men stepped back as I drove past, pointing their weapons at the sky and saluting. I didn’t pay them much attention.

  I did run over
one of the dead zombies on the ground, though, for good measure.

  Our camp wasn’t meant to be anything more than a pit stop. Aside from the three equipment trucks and the communications van, there was my tent and a long, communal tent for the dead. Those zombies not currently assigned to the front lines were feigning sleep, waiting to relieve their fellow soldiers at sunrise. A few were hanging about outside, and stood to salute me as I walked past. If they’d been human soldiers, I might’ve stopped to talk with them, but dead men have no morale to encourage, and dead men can’t be loyal, and therefore there’d be no point to it.

  “You’re out after hours,” I growled, without looking at them. “Get inside.”

  “Sir,” one said as he tapped out his pipe.

  Waste of perfectly good tobacco, that. Waste of time, waste of effort, waste of resources, waste of words. The dead are such a waste.

  I marched over to the communications van, wrenching aside the mosquito netting they’d draped over the opening for me. There were three zombies seated within, monitoring plastic-edged screens full of glowing symbols and words. They stood, and I waved them down before they could salute.

  “Report,” I said, looking at Ben, the zombie I’d left in charge. He was a modestly built man with ashen black skin.

  “Good news, sir,” he said, smiling widely. He was missing his upper lip, the teeth beneath exposed, which only made his smile more Cheshirelike and gruesome. “Dr. Dearly’s plane did crash. We were able to get a hit on his coordinates.”

  I released a short breath. Finally. I pulled my digidiary out of my belt and handed it to him. “Good. Give ’em to me.”

  Ben nodded and grabbed a stylus. “Orders, sir?”

  “What do you think? Let’s pretend you can think for a minute.”

  He shut my diary and returned it. “Well, sir, I assume we’re to continue monitoring the airwaves for more rogue transmissions from the leader of the Grays.”