by Joshua Guess
“Shit,” Mason said. “There’s not any chance she is, though?”
Bobby shook his head. “No. My partner and I lost her a year before the plague happened. Cancer. Both of us and our surrogate were there with her. She just looks so much like Claire, I couldn’t...”
Mason nodded. “I’m sorry. Why don’t you get back in the jeep and let me handle this, okay?”
Bobby’s face went pale, but he nodded. “I’d rather not see.”
“You won’t,” Mason promised.
In other circumstances, he’d have put the girl in the back of a vehicle and taken her somewhere far away before letting her go. He could—and had—ended the afterlives of many undead kids. He hated it every single time. He didn’t have the luxury in this place, so he frog-marched her to the back of the building, well out of sight of the jeep and the stunned man behind the wheel.
Though he had long since lost his taste for religion, Mason said a little prayer for the poor thing afterward. And another for Claire, whose death had at least spared her from living in a world like this.
Kell
Putting in his earbud took a solid ten seconds. You don’t think about how hard it is to move slowly until you might die from moving too fast. His hand glided into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the long cord, fingers fumbling for the jack end. The process of creeping the speaker toward his ear was like being tortured. Emily was right to have him on the radio, but long experience taught him that a swarm of zombies waiting to attack could be provoked by the smallest movement.
He clipped the mic to the collar of his shirt. “I’m on,” he said low in his throat.
“I hear you,” Emily replied. “Almost in place. Stand by.”
The seconds crept past slowly, and Kell used them to reassess the situation. Most of his people were hunkered down behind vehicles, a few actually inside them. They had been in the middle of a guard changeover when the dead began to appear. Kell was the only one beside Emily who was exempt from one of the two rotating watches, and it was just rotten luck that he’d come out to take a leak right then.
His place in front of the door was fairly safe. Turning around and ducking inside would be a matter of seconds. Though he was worried for the others, Kell also trusted them to know their jobs and keep themselves safe.
“I’m in place,” Emily said. “I’m over the door, just above you on the roof.”
Kell keyed the mic. “Trying to stay quiet.”
“Roger that,” Emily said, a hint of humor in the words. “I don’t want you drawing any more attention than necessary. I’m seeing lots of zombies, and what looks like some living people behind them in a jeep. Probably best we don’t assume they’re the only ones.”
“No attack?” Kell muttered.
Emily’s response took a few seconds. “I don’t know why they’re holding back, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t see any obvious restraints on the zombies. They’re a mix, though. Old school and New Breed. The New Breed all seem to be in front. I guess they’re keeping the rest from hitting us.”
Static crackled in Kell’s ear, and then a new voice spoke. “That they are. And if we give the signal, every one of them comes at you.”
Kell inhaled sharply, caught utterly off guard. Having someone intrude on the channel felt like sitting in a private booth at a restaurant only to have a stranger interrupt your conversation while popping their head around the corner to look at you.
“Identify yourself,” Emily said in a cool voice.
“My name doesn’t matter,” the voice said again. “You really should concern yourself with our friends there. We’ve got ’em trained. If you so much as twitch, we honk the horn and they come for you.”
Kell became sharply aware that he wasn’t holding a weapon. Despite himself, he also became intensely curious how these people had managed to train zombies to do anything. Had to be connected to the New Breed. They were capable of problem-solving and long-term thinking to some degree.
The voice continued speaking. “We’re gonna drive around and come to you. You’ll drop any gear you have and surrender. If you try anything, we call the swarm and you die.”
“You’ll die, too,” Emily said.
The voice on the radio chuckled. “Not my first rodeo, sweetheart. Our little pets know we’re a reliable meal ticket. They won’t hurt us.”
Frustration rose up in him like a tidal wave. He wanted to talk, or better to fight, but was stuck standing there doing his best impression of a statue. The wave of zombies pushed closer by sheer weight of bodies trying to shuffle in place. They were still distant, but easier to see. Easier to count.
“Give me a minute,” Emily said.
“You have thirty seconds,” the voice replied.
She spoke to him from above, not using the radio. “They’re gonna kill us anyway.”
“Yeah, obviously,” Kell replied, pitching his voice so he could be heard by everyone.
As if she had prepared for this exact situation and wasn’t at all bothered, Emily barked orders. “I’ve got a clear shot at the jeep. I’m going to take it. The rest of you pile into the trucks and move. Get away.”
Kell had to tense every muscle in his neck not to snap his gaze up toward her and give away that something was up to the watching enemy. “Fuck that. We’re not leaving you.”
“When I pull this trigger, you’re not going to have a—get down!”
He reacted on instinct, leaping hard to one side just as thunder echoed across the dusty streets. The bullet tugged at his shoulder, a hot lance of pain that could have been anything from a graze to a shattered bone. He ended the jump in a roll, coming up and breaking into a slightly uneven run that leveled out into a dead sprint.
No part of him thought about it; Kell just ran. He heard the beating of bare feet across cracked asphalt and pushed himself to go faster, hoping his artificial leg could handle the strain. Logical Kell noted that Emily must have seen one of the raiders or whoever they were take aim at him, the one target not crouching behind cover. His internal better half took a second to thank years of living in a hellish wasteland for imbuing him with the reactions necessary to save his own life.
If only he’d jumped in the right direction. Every huge stride carried him in a straight line away from the trucks and deeper into town.
By training, Kell was most knowledgeable about living things. He understood their form and structure from a molecular level on up. But education is never narrowly focused, that perception was something he’d always found confusing. The application of intelligence to one or two fields of specialty was not a hard limit on what a person could know or learn.
Physics was a minor hobby, one which he’d found useful in his years of surviving. For instance, Kell understood that a man topping out past two hundred and forty pounds moving at a running speed of somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve to fourteen miles an hour contained significant kinetic energy. Oh, not anything like a car. Such a man couldn’t break through the wall of a building.
But doors? Doors he could manage with no problem.
Kell lined up the shot from a hundred yards away. The building sat directly in front of him, wide front entrance practically begging to be slammed into. His endurance was fading, and a quick glance showed a moderate swarm strung out behind him. Granted, breaking into a strange building was a potentially catastrophic idea, but Kell’s options were limited. If he didn’t try for some cover, he’d tire and be caught.
“Not today, fuckers,” he gasped.
Five seconds later his shoulder met the broad door of the nondescript metal building and something cracked with horrible finality. Could have been him. The pain of the hit was nothing to sneeze at. But the door frame gave. In less immediate circumstances, he’d have kicked the thing open at the lock, the surest and safest way to do it. Emily would probably give him shit about hitting the thing like a football player, and if he lived to be criticized, Kell would happily take it.
He stumb
led into the room and grabbed the swinging door, slamming it shut. The frame was broken beyond any hope of keeping the thing shut, so all he could do for the moment was hold it in place. Only a few seconds passed before the first of the dead pushed on the other side. Kell wedged the toe of his boot hard against the bottom, which helped tremendously.
Physics for the win, however temporary.
The building wasn’t quite two stories. The boarded-up window next to the door faced a long counter, behind which the floor dropped down. Some kind of heavy equipment could be seen in the dim light filtering through the large garage doors on the back of the building. He could only see down into the space at an angle, so if there were any rooms he could hide in they weren’t obvious.
Directly in front of the door was a narrow set of steps that led to a cramped second floor with a ceiling less than seven feet above the landing. There was an open door just visible from where he stood, though what lay beyond remained a mystery. Kell was keenly aware that there might be zombies in the building already, or that whatever direction he went might lead to a dead end with zero protection.
Scientists faced a huge number of arbitrary choices in the course of their careers, so he was no stranger to them. Kell gave himself a few long seconds to catch his breath, made a choice, and hit the stairs.
The floor shook as he ran, accompanied by the sound of falling bodies. He allowed himself a smile as the mental image of several dead people landing flat on their faces as the resistance suddenly vanished played through his head.
He crossed the upstairs landing in a single huge stride and shut that door, too. Thankfully it wasn’t a flimsy interior one, but a metal-clad exterior model. Not that it would save him for long.
After throwing the locks, he looked around the room, which was some kind of office. Nothing struck him as immediately useful in terms of self-defense, though there were a pair of doors. One of them wouldn’t help, as it was clearly marked as a bathroom.
Well, it wouldn’t help save his life. But he did still have to go...
After the fastest urination in human memory, Kell hightailed it through the other door. The zombies were already beating at the one he’d come through.
The next space was over the garage below. Basic spatial reckoning told him as much, but apparently whoever had owned this place wasn’t the trusting type. Grates in the floor gave him a direct view down into the empty garage. A massive single-pane window faced the small field behind the building.
This was also an office, but clearly belonged to the boss. The brief look he’d managed at the first office showed it to be exactly that. Filing cabinets, a desk strewn with forgotten, dusty paperwork, even a fax machine. This space was the other kind of office. It was sumptuously carpeted, the desk a deeply oiled chunk of wood that was both stylish and intimidating. Art hung on the walls.
And it was not alone.
The Civil War-era cavalry sabers hanging over a wet bar caught his attention. They were incredibly old and looked it, but Kell wasn’t spoiled for choice. He snatched one free and gave it an experimental swing. The thing was surprisingly sturdy. He expected it to rattle or something.
The distant sound of cracking door timbers reverberated through the building. Kell did a circuit of the room in a bid to find anything else that might be helpful. The trip didn’t take long as the space was only fifteen feet on a side, but as he passed the window he got a really bad idea.
Kell might not be using his preferred weapon, but he himself was one. Relatively tight quarters reduced the disadvantage of his limited mobility. He didn’t have to be any kind of legendary fighter to get through this. He just had to be smarter.
So he grabbed a crystal decanter from the wet bar and hurled it through the window with all his might. The shattering glass fell out in shards and plates, tumbling musically down the sloped aluminum roof leading away from it.
Kell put the sword on the desk, and then pushed the huge thing toward the door. He couldn’t risk climbing out the broken window and jumping down. Without two legs, the fall might break something and then he’d be well and truly fucked. His route down was back the way he came.
He pushed the door into place, taking the time to get it exactly right, and then he waited.
Emily
She might have been upset that Kell ran off in the wrong direction, but any irritation Emily felt was more than made up for with relief that he’d gotten away and anger that these dicks had taken the shot in the first place.
So she shot back. A bunch.
As much as she wanted to aim at the jackass hanging out of the sun roof of the vehicle who’d taken the shot at Kell, Emily held back. Not from pity. Fuck that guy. Her goal had to be slowing them down or stopping them before they could act against her people again. To that end, she fired at the windshield. Three quick shots crazed the glass, making it nearly impossible to see through. She very much hoped someone inside had taken a fatal hit, but the driver had enough juice in him to gun the engine and peel away. Emily popped off two more into the retreating tail lights but stopped before habit forced her to flatten a tire.
If they wanted to get away, that could only be good for her.
The zombies surged in chaotic waves. A swarm broke off and ran after Kell, but she suppressed the pang of worry the sight caused. Instead she focused on what she could do right here and now.
“Get in the trucks if you can!” Emily shouted at the top of her lungs.
The wave of zombies surged toward the church, so much more vicious and energetic than usual that she felt a tickle of uncontrollable fear even from the safety of her perch. The dead moved with vigor beyond what the dead were normally capable of, though of course it could vary. She had never seen a herd so uniformly ahead of the curve, though. Probably because those asshole marauders were feeding them regularly.
The sound of gnashing teeth filled the air. Emily crawled forward to look down; wanting to make sure the others were safe in the trucks.
Most of them were—or at least they weren’t standing around with their thumbs up their asses. But three of the guards who had been on duty in full armor remained. Even from above, she could read their body language clearly. Subtle tension in the limbs, which held weapons commonly referred to as Chops. These were essentially overlarge machetes stamped out of plates of steel, thick and heavy enough to cleave right through a skull. Their use was most often paired with a group of people holding zombies off with shields and spears.
The three armored figures didn’t seem to mind going it alone.
“Be careful, you idiots,” Emily said.
She abandoned the rifle, pushing it to the side, and drew her pistol. The zombies crashing against her people just below were too close for a long gun.
Emily waited until the swarm slowed down again; pushing against the truck the three fighters used to cover their right side, and started shooting. She worked the trigger with mechanical efficiency, shoulders and arms hanging over the top of the church as she picked her shots. The apocalypse had few perks, but the vast number of firearms without owners was among them. The pistol was a competition model, which made recoil a lot less of a problem. Every bit helped when you were shooting from a funny angle that constantly strained your muscles and bones.
The trick was not shooting the people you were trying to protect. Walking her shots from the back of the crowd to the front, Emily emptied her magazine in short order. While she did, the fighters down below took an amazing toll on the crowd.
The three of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder between the church and the hood of a truck, bodies filling the space almost perfectly. The man in the middle did the lion’s share of the killing, blade rising and falling in powerful strokes. His partners used their Chops in a variety of ways, sometimes grabbing the spine of the blade to turn the weapons into makeshift shields. Every movement was controlled, thoughtful, and designed to funnel zombies at the relentless killing machine standing between them.
The herd thinned to a point w
here she could no longer safely fire into it. Emily wasted no time, then, leaping to her feet and running for the ladder.
She kicked open the front door thirty seconds later. “Push them back!”
The sound from her pistol came as one continuous note, only wavering slightly in volume between shots. This was more barrage than delicate targeting, a horizontal assault meant to kill and distract in equal measure. It worked on both counts; several zombies dropped and half a dozen others turned toward the open door.
In that moment between the zombies looking at her, in the space between the organism in their brains recognizing a threat/meal and firing the impulses needed to move, time froze.
Just for a fraction of a fraction of a second, but that was all she needed.
Like a body taken to the edge of death and slowly nursed to health once more, the end of the world programmed the remaining human beings in variety of ways to resist the thing that almost killed it. People who had never even considered firing a gun became expert shooters. Those for whom fights were abstract concepts seen in entertainment grew scars on the hard points of their bodies from repeatedly splitting them open.
Learning how to balance a checkbook was replaced with an extensive education in how to kill. In Haven alone, classes in a dozen disciplines were taught. From blade work to shield-and-spear phalanx tactics, the majority rested on a foundation of solid defense and careful consideration. Stupid risks were discouraged.
But not for scouts. And Emily was a scout at heart.
Most scouts were women, because women were lighter. Being lighter meant less fuel consumption, and more options in a fight. Scouts trained to be adaptable. And most importantly—at least for Emily at that moment—they trained to alter tactics on the fly.
She dropped the gun and shrugged the backpack off in one motion. Her body rocketed forward, hand dipping to her belt to grab the coil of metal that was as much a part of her daily wear as her boots or belt. It had a long handle at the end, taken from the garrote she’d used in her days as an active scout, but the thin wire was gone. In its place was a braid of supple cabling half the thickness of a little finger.
