The List (Zombie Ocean Book 5)

by Michael John Grist

  "Lucas," she snarled.

  It sounded feral even to her own ears, the kind of sound a wild animal made just before it leapt, and the semicircle flinched. Jake actually took a step back. Ollie stepped protectively in front of Wanda, and that made her want to laugh. What good would that do against bullets? Against a demon? Against hope, the worst enemy of all? Love, trust, they were all just weaknesses that let the traitorous bastards creep in.

  "Where is he?" she demanded.

  "Gone," said Peters. He alone stood upright and defiant, matching her anger with his own solid calm. "We let him go, Anna, because he did not cause this."

  She stared at him. Proud Peters. Peters her friend, Peters her confidante. Peters who had listened to all her bullshit dreams and tried to counsel her through them, who had betrayed her by letting Lucas go and was betraying her even now. They were all betraying her.

  She looked into his eyes.

  "Fuck you," she said.

  That stung him. Good. She looked round at them all one by one, cutting every last tether with her glare. If she was meant to be alone, then let her be alone. She said each word with slow, crystal clarity.

  "Fuck you all."

  They stood. She stood.

  "Keys," she said, reaching her hand out.

  None of them moved.

  She turned to Jake. Poor, sweet Jake; Jake who would have died a dozen times by now if she hadn't sheltered him, who would have broken apart if she hadn't been there to hold him together, who would have died to spare her this pain if he could, if only he'd known.

  Jake who was weak. She looked into his weepy, blurry eyes.

  "If you ever want to see me again. Talk to me again. Keys."

  He reached into his pocket. Feargal started a motion to interrupt, but let his hand drop when Peters caught him with a glare. Three steps followed, timid, broken, and then there was Jake holding the keys over her open palm.

  "Anna," he said, and the weight of misery in his voice was almost enough to bring her down and start sobbing herself. Probably he felt guilty, as if he was responsible for what happened. She could fall into his embrace and cry with relief at being alive, but what would the point of crying be? What was the use of comfort be if it took away the rage?

  She needed the rage, and there was no coming back now. She would get the job done, just as she'd promised. She snatched the keys and climbed into the Humvee.

  "You don't even know where he is," Peters said. Standing up to her. Always he'd been brave.

  "Yes I do," she said, and revved the engine to violent, barking life. She shifted to first, cranked the handbrake off and raced away into the dark.

  * * *

  Bordeaux. She knew the routes from the city to the bunker well enough, memorized long in advance, and now she raced down them, weaving madly around the sagging hulks of forgotten cars. The Humvee's headlights zigzagged across the road ahead in sharp shades of white or black; marking this dead city like the scar of her passage.

  Temporary, fleeting and gone.

  Intersections flew by, racing between beautiful ancient structures and past expansive, glamorous squares. Finally she was alone again. She'd been her strongest always when she was alone, and it was better this way. There was nobody she cared too much about to lose. That meant there were no regrets, nobody to cry for, and nothing to fear.

  She shot out of Bordeaux on the eastern highway for the Alps and raced along in the dark, playing the last few moments from the pit again, as the demon's face had become Cerulean's, begging her to stay.

  Lucas. He had brought the lies, like his namesake.

  Minutes away from the turn off onto dirt tracks to the vineyards, she realized that some things were worse than insanity. Such grief that you could never open your eyes again. Such guilt that you could never close them, for fear of the horrors waiting in the dark. Such pain that you couldn't even breathe.

  Yes, insanity was better than that, that and revenge. They'd taken both of her fathers now. They'd taken so many of her family. Now they'd almost taken her oldest friend in the world, and had the gall to ask her to join. No more.

  Soon she was amongst the outer fringes of the ocean. Their thin, trudging figures were scattered on the road and throughout the surrounding fields, white and slender like marble columns on a classical building, holding up the sky.

  She was too glad to see them; these were her oldest friends, that was the truth, come in her time of need. They were truthful and honest in ways the living were not. They expected nothing in return. They didn't lie or cheat, they didn't hold you close while reaching round to stab the knife into your back. They walked and they walked and when it came time to die for you, they died without asking why. They were a definite good, definitely better than the people they'd once been, and they would all be better off staying just like this.

  Lucas would be with them. He was out there somewhere, she knew it, sneaking in the dark, hiding in their midst, looking for his cure.

  The ocean thickened ahead and she made the turn into the vineyards, following the beeping GPS on the dashboard and the flow of bodies. The path had been well torn now and the Humvee pushed through with ease. The radio on the dash fritzed, Peters' voice came through asking her to wait, and she switched it off.

  She swerved side to side to avoid the ocean as they grew thicker, channeled by the dense vines into the trough the Humvees had cut. She nudged them gently to the side as they massed and gathered, and when they grew too thick, she stopped the Humvee and got out.

  She wasn't too late. That was good, that was something she needed. She walked amongst them, pushing by, hungry to reach the front. When they hit a certain invisible line in the air and began to run, she was ready, and ran with them.

  Tears sped down her cheeks. This was the same charge they'd made in Maine, for her, for them all. This was the most beautiful thing the T4 had ever done, making it her friend in ways real people never could be, because while it did kill, and it did infect, it allowed for such overwhelming selflessness as this.

  Bodies raced by and she ran shoulder to shoulder with them, a massive hammer blow of flesh pumping and thrusting forward. This was strength, this was defiance, this was how they were going to cleanse the world; just cleanse it all. Somewhere ahead was the demon that had stolen her father's face and soon it would be crushed by their sacrifice. The mountain of their bodies would rise up to rival any other for hundreds of miles.

  The run became a sprint. Her numb left arm throbbed but she ignored it, swinging at her side. Through the dark boughs of tangled vines they hurtled together, a wave front surging, until she broke through on a rise and saw the front tide of the ocean swelling up ahead, and the burning lights of two red demon eyes.

  She didn't feel any cold or fear, thick with her pack. Rather she cried out into the night sky and charged on, back where she belonged, where she'd always belonged, and in their embrace her rage and hurt became greater, became shared, and she understood.

  She was one of them. She'd always been one of them, only she hadn't known it. They were her past and her future and she embraced it.

  The front line hit and the sound of thrashing and roaring amongst the grapes filled the night sky. Anna bared her teeth and sprinted on, feeling the violence swelling out. This was better than anything, to be part of the pack as this justice was done. She reached the front and leapt.

  She hit the heap of churning, grinding bodies and climbed, yanking her way up from arm to leg, scrabbling hungrily for the top alongside hundreds of others either side. Up, up she went into the night, and the others fell away one by one, pressing themselves into the sides of the mound, folding in for the greater good, every one with a role and every one a brick. She alone continued to the top, racing toward the moon and the stars with the stink of rotted grapes and mud and the dry timber-smell of the ocean in her nostrils and wildness in her hair.

  She reached the top and looked out over the stampeding masses following behind her, panting madly, and bellow
ed her furious joy out to the horizon.

  "Lucas!"

  Now his name tasted sweet in her mouth, like blood or wine, swallowing down. She would eat him alive.

  "I'm coming! Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will find you!"

  Beneath her the mound grew; her people spreading and pulsing and breathing, crushing beneath them the demon, swelling so fast and so high she had to climb constantly to stay aloft, the crow in her nest, and they folded under for her again and again.

  Eighty feet high, a hundred, more.

  They were all going to pay. Lucas would pay and all eleven bunkers would pay, and together they would run as a pack in the night.

  "I'm coming!"

  16. BUNKER #1

  The flow of the ocean to the vast pile didn't end until long past dawn. Anna watched them come feeling clear-eyed and lucid, more alert than she'd ever been. The world around her fell into a perfect rhythm, with everything in its correct place.

  Birds tweeting were perfect and correct. The slow trudge of zombies, no longer running, now piling themselves up with a dutiful, tireless intent, was perfect. The sun rising and the clouds drifting in a blue sky; they were all just right, and she oversaw them all.

  When the other Humvee pulled up, it was all part of the pattern. There were six of them squashed inside along with all the gear they'd hidden from her last night, and she'd planned that too. Wasn't it funny, to be squashed in so tightly?

  She didn't laugh. She didn't hate them either. Where those emotions had been there was now a sheer, light-filled diamond. It felt wonderful to be so free. She didn't even hate Lucas, because hate was such a petty thing, and some time in the night she'd transcended it.

  Now she was pure purpose. The ocean had flowed through her and erased the things she didn't need, bringing this singular, perfect intent. She was one of them now. She was ready to lead, as she'd always been fated to since she was a little girl.

  The Humvee pulled up by the pile and the six of them got out. Macy, Feargal, Jake, Wanda, Ollie and Peters. They looked rumpled and disturbed, with eyes that shifted around the glorious scene, scanning the flanks of the mountain. From on high she felt enormous sympathy for them. They were still trapped in a world of uncertainty, trying to weigh and measure every choice put before them and navigate the righteous path forward.

  But a righteous path was impossible. She should have seen it before, but how could you see the forest when all you'd ever seen were the trees? She'd almost grasped it in Mongolia, but having Ravi waiting for her back in New LA had pulled her back in. Her dreams of a sweet future with him had hamstrung her from the truth.

  But now Ravi was nothing to her, and the truth was so clear. The only way forward was to let go of it all. Hopes, dreams, future, children, a family. You couldn't function as a sheriff, as a leader, as a general, with such things in your heart. The ocean had been showing her the way for a decade, and finally she could grasp it.

  Let it all go. Let Ravi and Peters go, let Amo and Cerulean go, let love and hate and past and future go, all replaced by this diamond-hard lightness at her middle. She remembered faintly saying as much to Amo; that the pressure would forge him into a diamond. Ha. She'd beaten him to it.

  She stood up.

  "I think that's her?" one of them down below said. Macy. She was pointing and shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun, as it rose over Anna's throbbing left shoulder.

  "Anna?"

  She stood for a while watching them, feeling an enormous warmth spread through her. So this was what the ocean felt when they were charging up, in the 'hugging time'. Though she didn't feel love or friendship, still she wanted to save these people, purely for the reason that they belonged here. This was their world and the ocean had sacrificed themselves for them. So would she. She had become their protector, and finally she was strong enough to truly offer protection.

  "Anna, is that you?" Feargal shouted, then said to Peters more quietly. "It has to be her."

  "It's her," Peters said, then added something more in a low tone that she couldn't hear, though she knew just what he was saying. 'She's gone mad.'

  Peters was a dear. He'd been in the forge himself and there was a hint of diamond in his eyes too.

  Now there was work to do.

  She descended. It seemed as if the ocean shuffled and moved to form a perfect staircase of bodies for her to walk down. Though every bald skull and curved stretch of back was coated in a sheen of morning dew, she didn't slip once. She couldn't.

  At the bottom she looked at these people, the remains of her squad, and smiled. Cerulean was there too, standing at the edge and smiling. He could see clearly as well, since he'd been gone.

  "I'm sorry for last night," she said.

  This surprised them. "You don't need to apologize," Feargal began uncertainly, but Peters held out a hand again, halting him. Peters believed she did need to. Peters was wise.

  She went on. "I shouldn't have attacked you. I should not have insulted you. I understand why you let Lucas go. I hope you understand now what I have to do."

  Feargal had a hangdog, whipped dog look about him. Of course; the old Anna was always hurting the people she cared about.

  "What do you have to do?" he asked.

  "What we came here to do."

  "That's not what Amo said," Peters said.

  "It's what I say."

  He looked back at her. In this she felt the warmth growing as well. This was Peters, a man of his own making, smart and strong-hearted and she respected him no end. "What about the future? What about having enough people alive to make the next generation?"

  She smiled. It was sweet he thought that still mattered, but she wasn't going to argue. Shooting him would be a beautiful thing too, if he stepped one foot in her path. His blood spilling out would be another wonderful part of this wholesome, perfect dance, and she'd stride over him with a lightness in her breast, knowing that his death was as much a part of the tapestry as Cerulean's or Jake's or her own.

  "Let Amo worry about that. Yesterday was a lesson to us. We will not underestimate the enemy again."

  Macy took a step forward. There was a sickly look on her face. "Your shoulder's dislocated, Anna. Your collarbone's broken."

  Anna looked at her. Of course she knew that. Her left arm had been hanging limply at her side throughout the long, crystal night.

  "I tried to put the ball-joint back it while you were under in Bordeaux, but the swelling was too great. I could do it now. I need to immobilize your whole shoulder in a cast, ideally."

  She took another step forward then stopped, uncertain, perhaps afraid.

  "Are you all right?" Jake asked.

  Anna looked at him. "I'm better than I've ever been. I'm ready to begin."

  "But, the pain."

  "It doesn't bother me," she said, and it was true. The pain was there and it hurt, but she welcomed it. It didn't slow her or confuse her. It made her sharp. "Macy, please. Come on."

  Macy came up in short, bird-hop steps. She guided Anna to sit, and enlisted Feargal, and together they held her torso still and rotated her arm to massage the ball back into the socket.

  Click.

  Next was a kind of harness, with thick shoulder straps like a backpack and no actual pack.

  "For your collarbone," Macy said, as she slipped it into position, feeding Anna's limp arms through the loops and cinching them gently tight, pulling her shoulders gently back. "I don't have a splint, really I need to do surgery to bolt the bone in place, but that can wait."

  Finally she pulled a long stretch of bandage from her pack and fashioned it into a sling, swaddling Anna's left arm close to her chest. "That'll keep it from slipping out, but you need to recover now. No movement or-"

  Anna stood up. The pain was still there but somewhat muted. "There's no time. The other demons are coming and we have to free the army. Jake, can you operate the scanner alone?"

  "Army?" Peters asked but she ignored him. Macy protested but she ignore
d her too. Jake just stared numbly, like none of this was really happening.

  "Jake?" she repeated.

  He blinked. "I, uh. The scanner, yes."

  "Then start. The gun turret is just over there, visible still." She pointed through the mountain. "Feargal, you and I will prepare the bunker bombs, drill and drone. I think we might benefit too if we razed this field. Ollie and Wanda, get the flamethrowers and burn the vineyard down, as much as possible. Macy, get some breakfast going. Peters, you are lookout for Lucas."

  Peters snorted. "You only want this field burned for him. You think he's hiding here somewhere. It's not my job to hunt him down for you."

  "Yes, it is," Anna said. "You're on my team, and I want him. I'm going to kill him, Peters, him and anyone that gets in my way, friend or otherwise. I think that's clear."

  He stared at her, then hawked and spat to the side. She'd never seen him do that before.

  "Just like Salle Coram."

  Perhaps that was a compliment. All stick, no carrot. All result, no concern for the process. At least Salle got things done.

  "Yes," she replied, "like Salle Coram."

  He walked away. He wouldn't do lookout, but that was fine. Lucas would trip up sooner or later, and she'd have him.

  "Jake?"

  He started away.

  "Feargal?"

  "Roger that."

  She looked at Wanda and Ollie. They looked back as if she was some kind of alien.

  "We'll start on this side," Wanda said, breaking the quiet. "While Jake's over there. We'll use the mountain and the Humvee tracks as a fire-break. For safety."

  "Good."

  They started away. Feargal stood by her side. Together they looked up at the mountain of pale, twisted bodies.

  "You were up there all night," he said, and she smiled. She still was.

  * * *

  The vineyard burned beautifully.

  Standing atop the one Humvee they'd left beside the gun turret hole, scattered around with all their equipment and munitions, she watched Wanda and Ollie backing carefully through the tangled field, casting long blazing trails of fire in front of them like magic spells.