Dearly, Departed

by Lia Habel

  “By all means.” Bram sized Lopez up. “Did our men get in touch with the army, by chance?”

  “Yes. We know about the situation with Captain Wolfe, and the main army medical facilities are currently downloading information about the potential vaccine from your base.”

  “Thank goodness,” Nora sighed, as she pulled her sleeve out of my grasp. When she ran down the plank, I followed her.

  Bram nodded. “And the order’s still out to kill us, I take it?”

  The colonel didn’t hesitate. “Yes. The violent dead can be targeted at any time, as they are clearly enemy combatants, but your people are in the clear until 0600 hours. Honestly? We’re here to make sure the living soldiers follow that order and don’t try to take you out sooner. Consider us your guards.”

  “I see.” If Bram was disappointed or scared, he didn’t show it. Instead, he pointed to the Christine. I stepped up behind him. “She still a Z ship, then, or did your guys take her back?”

  Lopez looked in the direction he indicated. “She is. She’s been ordered to stay in the port, to be used as a hospital. The Erika is on route for the same purpose.”

  “Fantastic.” Bram gestured to me. “We’ve got a boy who was recently bit. Nonhostile and doing well, but he needs a doctor. This is his sister. Their family is locked up in the basement of a church, and they’d prefer to stay near the city.”

  Lopez crooked a black brow and looked at me. “He’s not a red light?”

  “No. But hopefully he’s going to be.”

  Lopez thought it over before addressing me directly. “The order stands. At 0600, unless the order is rescinded, your brother will be exterminated.” His stern expression cracked, and for a moment his eyes were filled with regret. “I’m sorry to put it so forcefully, miss, but you have to understand that.”

  “It’s not 0600 yet.” Bram looked back at me. “Do you want to risk it, or do you want to stay with us? The only medical attention we’re equipped to give him is a bullet if he doesn’t wake up right.”

  No matter the location, it seemed our only choice was a bullet. But I still had ammunition of my own left. I shrugged my shoulders, causing the bow strapped to my full quiver to knock about. “I’ll risk it, if Issy will.”

  Lopez hit a button on the dashboard of his coach, and a bucket seat flipped open. By the time it was down, he had once more donned a prim, professional demeanor. “I can escort you, then.”

  I heaved a massive sigh. “Let me ask him. It should be his choice.”

  I climbed back onto the ship. Isambard had made his way out of the hold and was watching the scene unfolding across the docks. He turned to face me when he heard me approaching. He looked like he didn’t expect good news.

  “It’s up to you, Issy,” I said. “They can take us out to that ship over there to get you looked at, if you want.”

  “We can stay there?” he asked. He looked like he was going to throw up.

  “Yes.” I decided to be honest with him. “They might try to kill you, at some point, depending on how things go. They’ve not retracted the order to exterminate the zombies, yet. But I figure we have a few hours, and I can still fight. I won’t let them take you without a fight. This is the best chance we have right now. We could run, but then I don’t know what will happen to you.”

  Issy looked away again. “I don’t deserve that much thought, you know,” he said miserably. “After all the things I’ve done to you, after all the times I’ve run my mouth off …”

  “Yes you do,” I told him firmly. “You’re my brother.”

  The one-eyed zombie climbed out of the hold. He shifted the gun on his back and bowed. “Name’s Coalhouse. I’ll go with you, if you want. I can fight, too.”

  For some reason, this offer caused my eyes to start stinging again. “Okay. Thank you. We’d like that.”

  Isambard tugged on his vest, rolling it between his fingers. “If we ran, I don’t think I could get very far.” He bent his head and wiped at his sweaty brow with the hem of his shirt. His movements were palsied, like his muscles wouldn’t completely obey him. “So I guess we get on the boat, then.”

  I reached out and stroked his damp hair before taking his hand and guiding him down the gangplank.

  When we got off the ship, Nora nearly tackled me to the ground, wrapping her arms around me and pressing her face into my neck. “Good luck,” she whispered.

  I hugged her tightly back. “Same to you.”

  Coalhouse shook Bram’s hand. “Mind if I go with ’em, Cap?”

  Bram smiled thinly. “No. Not at all.” He suddenly seemed to remember something and added, “Take the other two living people with you.”

  “No.” Michael appeared at the top of the gangplank. He was holding a woman’s lacy handkerchief over his nose, and Vespertine was helping him stay upright. They walked down the gangplank gingerly. “No, I’ll say goodbye to you here, if you don’t mind. I don’t care to be attacked again.”

  “Oh, shut up, Allister,” Nora said, glaring at him. “You were a danger to yourself and everyone else. Bram did the right thing.”

  “Bram?” Michael paused at the end of the gangplank, shrugging off Vespertine’s arm. He took a few shaky steps toward Nora. “On a first-name basis, are you?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Huh.” Michael looked contemptuously up at Bram, who eyed him right back. “Oh well. I suppose I shan’t have to worry about that for too long.” He returned his eyes to Nora and bowed. “I look forward to seeing you again, dear Miss Dearly. Perhaps we can discuss the lengths I went to to preserve your good name.”

  “What lengths?” Nora demanded. “And what did you call me?”

  Michael didn’t respond. Instead, he found me in the crowd and bowed. “Thank you for the … interesting time, Miss Roe.”

  I watched him with suspicion as I slid my arm across my brother’s shoulders. He’d tried to shoot him. He’d tried to kill him. “Don’t you dare speak to me. You are nothing to me now, do you understand? If I never see you again, I shall die happy.”

  Michael rubbed the hankie at the dried blood crusted on his top lip. His nose was a horrible shade of purple. “Likewise, Miss Roe.” He laughed shortly. “Now I am nothing to you? Don’t tell me that you thought I was ‘something.’ ”

  “Huh?” Nora asked of the crowd at large.

  “I have no idea,” Vespertine replied. “But … ah … not that I’m on your side now or anything, but you haven’t exactly got a lot of time for drama of this quality.”

  I began to realize that something was terribly wrong. “What?” I asked numbly.

  “Surely you must know that I’ve had my sights set on Miss Dearly for years now,” Michael said. “You didn’t honestly think I’d have anything to do with you, did you?”

  Isambard squirmed like a cornered rat. “Pam, you’re hurting me.”

  I gripped him tighter still, anger starting to replace all my fear and stress. The winter air around me started to feel incredibly warm. “But … but you’ve been helping me! My family! You vouched for me to get me out of jail!”

  Michael shrugged. “You’re Miss Dearly’s friend. Of course I would be kind to you, to please her … well, it started out as kindness. Then I was trying to clean up the mess you made to preserve Miss Dearly’s reputation. I always figured that once she was mine, I could convince her to drop her less suitable friends—that would be you, of course. But until then, I didn’t mind slumming.”

  I felt my jaw working but no words came out. My entire body felt hot, flushed with humiliation. I’d seen something that wasn’t there. I’d deluded myself. My family had bought it. My mother had entertained him. She’d made me sick with her predictions and seriousness, when there’d been nothing there to be serious about! I was a moron—a complete moron. A loser of the highest caliber.

  Then I remembered that I’d not slept for twenty-four hours, and spent all that time running and hiding and killing zombies. I stopped being a loser, at least
for a moment. I became Pamela Roe, Disenfranchised and Cheated and Embarrassed Zombie Hunting Queen with a Potentially Undead Brother and Parents Who Thought She Was Insane Who Deserved a Little Happiness for the Love of All That Is Right and Just.

  I stepped free of Isambard and shoved Michael in the chest. I caught him off guard. He tumbled to the dock, and rolled into the water with a splash.

  “I hope there are zombie sharks in there and they bite you and you die!” I screamed.

  “What in blazes?” Lopez said, craning his head back. He lowered his rifle and took his finger off the trigger. The other members of Bram’s zombie crew appeared on the deck of the ship above us, peering overboard at the boy thrashing in the water.

  Nora and Vespertine just stared at me.

  I turned around and pushed Isambard up into the little coach. “Get in and drive!” I bellowed at Lopez as I climbed up beside him. Coalhouse hurried through the crowd and hopped in after me, squeezing me to the side with his bulk.

  The colonel’s eyes widened, and he shared a look of confusion with the two soldiers—but all three got into the coach. We left Michael attempting to pull himself out of the icy water, staining the stone dock gray with it.

  “Pam,” Issy attempted, voice high with fear. “I can tell you, from this side of the fence … you really need to calm down.”

  “I will shoot you in the face if you say one more word to me,” I fumed.

  “So noted.”

  “I am so glad that I am an only child,” Coalhouse remarked quietly.

  I hauled Allister out of the drink and got him and Mink walking toward the living soldiers. After a few uncertain steps both started running.

  Then I got back to business.

  I was scared out of my wits, but I knew I had to keep my cool. Lopez had given me no sign that he’d regret carrying out the extermination order. Then again, he’d been a very proper, crisp sort of New Victorian gentleman. Probably kept his emotions to himself. I found myself glad that Nora wasn’t like that.

  God, Nora.

  I didn’t know where to turn for help, which meant I could only turn inward. Right now I was in charge, and I had to do what was best for everyone involved. We had to get to Dr. Dearly. We had to help get New London under control. We just had to keep going and hope that whoever was in charge up top got his act together or started receiving pro-zombie messages from a higher power—living or divine. It really didn’t matter at this point.

  “What’s our next move?” Nora asked.

  I looked over the sixscore zombies amassed on the other dock and realized there was no way the Black Alice could carry all of them.

  “How many additional men can we get on this thing?” I asked Renfield as he climbed down to join us.

  Ren glanced over the crowd and did some quick calculations involving his fingers. “Forty, perhaps.” He shook his head. “Wait … no. With the governor gone, on that long a trip, I wouldn’t risk more than … thirty. The weight will increase the … oh, cripes, I’m sorry …”

  “Apologize later,” I said. “It’s probably my fault. Apparently I’m destined to never have enough men.”

  Nora looked unsure. “Only thirty?”

  “Let’s go with it. We’re running out of time. Tom, Chas, go talk to the nice red-coated people. Tell them that we need another load of coal. If the Christine’s staying here, we could empty her bunkers. Try not to scare them too badly.” Both saluted and started off. “Renfield, prepare the ship. Nora, stay with him. I’m gonna go ask for recruits.”

  “What about the others?” Ren turned in my direction. “We can’t leave them here to—”

  “Die. I know.” With that, I began to make my way over to the other members of Company Z.

  When they caught sight of me, the men straightened their rows and saluted. I found myself disheartened by this. I didn’t exactly have good news to share.

  “Captain Griswold!” Ben said, lowering his hand. “Sir, word is that an order has gone out to kill us!”

  “You’ve heard right,” I said. I walked between the rows, getting into the midst of my fellow zombies so everyone could hear me. “We’ve got till 0600. I’m stupid enough to hold out hope that perhaps the order will be cancelled, but those of you who are less trusting than I am had better come to your own conclusions.”

  Around me, I heard muffled cursing, threats against anyone who might try it—a few sounds of fear. I let the men have their fear for a moment before continuing. “There’s still work to be done, though. I need thirty men for a mission to Bolivia. Dr. Dearly’s been found, and he needs a ride home.”

  This news got a cheer out of them at least. I had no trouble getting my recruits. Ben was the first one to raise his hand. Along with him, I picked zombies that I knew to be strong and relatively healthy.

  “And what will the rest of us do?” a woman named Hagens asked after I chose my last man. She was tall and angular, her cheekbones poking out through the skin of her face.

  “I would take every last one of you, if I could,” I said. “Unfortunately, that’s just not possible.”

  “So, what—we stay here? We stay here and twiddle our thumbs and wait to get shot?” she countered. “Are you seriously telling us that?”

  “I been watching the red-coats. We could take ’em,” another zombie pointed out.

  “They’re here to protect you, Franco,” I said. “They’re here to protect you from their own.”

  “C’mon, you don’t buy that, Gris—you’re smart.”

  If I was so smart, why didn’t I have the answer? As I looked at my fellow zombies, I understood what Wolfe had meant when he raved about “loyalty to my species.” I felt it. The idea that they would be singled out, hunted down, with no chance to fight back, made what little blood I had left in my body boil.

  “Captain Griswold?”

  I turned around. Lopez was pulling his little carriage to a stop at the edge of the crowd, right next to the men I’d selected to accompany the crew on the ship. This time he was alone. He hopped out and folded his hands behind his back, his posture so perfectly aligned that if someone had told me he’d swallowed his rifle, I might’ve been tempted to believe it. My men, to their credit, did nothing to threaten him.

  “Yes, Colonel?” I asked.

  Lopez stepped forward, his hazel eyes serious. “Captain Griswold, I have been ordered not to let any more of your men get onto the boats. The Erika will be with us shortly.”

  “All right,” I said, for lack of anything better to say.

  Lopez continued to stand there. “I just thought you should know,” he said, speaking slowly. “Seeing as no other restrictions have been placed on your movements, it seemed I had best make things absolutely clear for you.”

  Franco finally growled. “Are you sayin’ our cap is stupid?”

  Confused, I looked into Lopez’s eyes. So?

  It took me a second to realize what he was actually telling me, and why he hadn’t brought anyone with him.

  I approached the colonel swiftly, the men stepping aside to make way for me. “What if my men wanted to go back into the city?” I asked.

  This question elicited a few grumblings from the zombies around me. Lopez ignored them. “Well, seeing as I have been instructed to protect the red lights, but not to unduly hinder their movements—aside from preventing them from boarding the boats—I suppose we’d be going into the city together.”

  The muttering around us died down. Hagens spoke up again. “And why would we want to do that, Captain? Seeing as the living want us put down, like a bunch of rabid dogs?”

  “Because you’ve not been put down yet,” I said, without taking my eyes from Lopez. “Because you still have time. Because you might be dead, but you’re still human.”

  “Because anything has to be better than waiting here, watching the clock tick down,” Lopez said, his deep voice infused with purpose. “Now, let me be abundantly clear—it will be our duty to find you if you try to hide, to stop
you if you try to get away. I stress this because … rumor has it you’re a clever lot.”

  I laughed lightly. Lopez smiled beneath his dark mustache. He then bowed from the waist with a flourish, a movement I’d never seen carried out with such aplomb, even by Renfield. The man had to be from a high-bred background. “Ladies and gentlemen, shall I ready my men?”

  I looked to the crowd. It was up to them.

  “I’ve got family in there,” another woman said. Her speech was slow and slurred from a mouth injury. “I should make sure they’re okay. They ain’t seen me like this, but … I owe it to them.”

  “The whole area’s country ’round the city. We get through the city … take out a few baddies along the way … hunker down,” Franco said, reevaluating the situation.

  “This is our only choice,” Hagens verified with me, her expression cold.

  “Pretty much,” I told her.

  She unslung her rifle. “Then let’s do it.”

  The zombies around her roared in agreement.

  I looked to Lopez. “Thank you,” I said.

  He nodded smoothly. “As far as I understand, you are technically part of the army. Therefore, despite our differences, I have an obligation to treat you and your men with as much dignity and respect as I possibly can. If your men attempt to escape, mine will attempt to stop them.” He looked out across the water. “But at least you will die on your feet.”

  I understood this code perfectly. “I don’t know why you’re helping us, but a chance is all we ask for.” I extended my hand. Lopez hesitated a moment, but shook it. “If we survive all this, I’ll owe you.”

  “Port,” he said, with a nervous laugh. “I can always be paid in port. I’ll need it, after tonight.”

  When the soldiers were packed belowdecks and we’d taken in a new load of coal, brought to us from the Christine by a battered little tugboat, we flew off again.

  My men crowded around me for information. It wasn’t long before we were talking shop, and I’d lost track of Nora. They brought me a bit more intel, but not much. As far as we could figure, we were headed into a shooting gallery situation—lots of Grays, lots of targets. Potentially, not all of them were as well-maintained as the ones that’d been sent after Nora, and that was saying something. None of us wanted to get our hopes up, especially with only a handful of us going into battle, but it was kind of hard not to.