Reckoning.2015.010.21

by Michaelbrent Collings

  The cowboy stared at Christopher, and the look was hard. An accusation. You're going to kill us all.

  Christopher's father had looked at him like that, too many times.

  No, not like this.

  His father's look had rested on a lake of cool indifference. A disappointment that was only for himself, only for the inconvenience of an errant son. Aaron's look was that of a man let down by a friend.

  Christopher looked away from the silent censure. Found Amulek staring at him, one hand on the driver's side door. His expression questioned: Where to?

  Christopher spoke words that continued to surprise him even as they emerged.

  "Take us to Boise."

  Amulek cocked an eyebrow. Anyplace in particular?

  Christopher remembered webbing, feeding, a wall of dismembered body parts.

  He shivered, but still spoke the words that had to be said.

  "We're going to the Wells Fargo building."

  141

  Aaron didn't say anything right away, and Christopher was grateful of that fact.

  Small blessings, man. Count them one at a time, because you don't know when another one will come.

  When the truck hove into motion, Christopher watched the zombies behind the truck. They fell away, allowing a small space between them and the vehicle. Then they were running, following the vehicle in that strange silence that had fallen over them. Moving faster than humanly possible – but these weren't humans. Not anymore.

  COME.

  The truck accelerated for a few seconds. Then Amulek leveled off at well below the truck's top speed. Christopher looked around the side of the cab and saw that the zombies ahead of the truck were running as well, but they were so close that the truck verged on nudging them physically forward.

  Corralling us.

  They were keeping the truck from making any kind of escape attempt. Keeping it within running speed.

  And where would we go?

  Christopher looked around again, surprised anew at how many zombies there were. They were at the center of the largest march in history.

  Only it wasn't a march, it was a run. Coordinated, though. Like a parade, or –

  A wedding procession.

  The king was waiting. The queens were flying to his side. And Christopher was the one bringing them.

  Aaron finally spoke. His voice was low, as though he feared being overheard. "What the hell are you doing, son?"

  Christopher had to make an effort not to laugh. "I'm keeping us alive, I hope."

  Aaron's eyes flashed, a look that was almost threatening. Christopher didn't like the look. He wasn't worried that Aaron would hurt him – not exactly – but the stare reminded him how dangerous the cowboy was.

  Aaron's eyes shifted, gratefully, to Hope. She hadn't moved in the miles of walking through the forest, and didn't move now. Both she and Lizzy still wore those awful grins, those too-wide smiles. But their eyes were blank and distant, looking upon something far away and greatly desired.

  Aaron pointed at the knife Christopher had tucked under the little girl's chin. "Thought we agreed killing them would just send them home."

  Christopher shook his head. "We were wrong."

  "How do you know?"

  "Why would they try to kill each other if killing their rival would just mean sending her home?"

  Aaron muttered something under his breath. "How did we not catch that?" he said. "Stupid."

  Christopher nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but the Toyota hit a pothole – or maybe just ran over one of the creatures pressed so tightly around it – and his mouth bounced shut. His arm tightened around Hope as though she might leap away from him, using the bounce as a diversion.

  She just smiled.

  "I don't think it was a mistake," said Christopher. "Thinking that killing them wouldn't matter, I mean."

  "You just said it was," said Theresa.

  "No, I said we were wrong. But it wasn't a mistake; nothing our fault. I think we were…." He paused, searching for the right word. "Nudged. Like what you said," he gestured to Aaron, "about them planting misinformation in our minds."

  "Then shouldn't we just kill them?" whispered Aaron.

  The creatures to the sides of the truck suddenly seemed closer. Christopher wondered if they had heard what Aaron said. Or maybe just picked it up directly from his thoughts.

  "No," said Christopher. "I think the king would just start over. But it would take time. And he wouldn't like that." Again he searched for the right words. "It would be inconvenient for him."

  "So, what, he's letting us live so we can bring his queens?" asked Theresa.

  "Something like that."

  "And we're doing this why?"

  Christopher stared at her. Unsure how to verbalize the half-formed thoughts in his mind.

  Finally: "We have to bring them together."

  Theresa stared at him like he was an alien. Another look that hurt. Another look of disappointment. He almost relented. Almost gave Hope over to the creatures, or to Aaron, or to… just anybody.

  Then he heard it.

  (hope)

  And he knew Theresa heard it, too. Her shoulders, which had been hunched around her neck, relaxed. She lost the look of near-disgust she had aimed at him.

  (hope)

  Christopher still didn't know exactly what he was doing. Only that it must be done.

  COME.

  (yes, come)

  They drove on.

  142

  It was dark by the time they reached Boise, and the sight of the city – dark buildings lit only by scant starlight and the occasional fire that burned somewhere in its center – was a strange one. The skyline – visible as a black shape against the near-black of the sky – was jagged, torn. Some of the buildings canted at strange angles, leaning against their neighbors. Others were ragged shells of what they had been.

  Still others: simply gone.

  Boise had never really been Christopher's home – he'd been away too often and too long for it to resonate as a place the way it might for others who lived and worked and, eventually, died here. But it was the place he had come from. It was the place of his birth, and to see it so devastated, so dark… it shocked him.

  Amulek drove the truck forward. The zombies thinned a bit as the buildings pressed around them, then Christopher caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Not from the side of the truck, where a cohort of zombies kept pace with them, but from above. He turned his face to follow the motion and saw masses of the creatures swarming over the side of the building beside them. The building on the other side of the street was similarly alive with motion, with crawling bodies that should have fallen but somehow did not.

  It all passed in perfect silence. A body did not have to speak to itself to keep itself ordered, synchronized.

  The wedding procession continues.

  Something thudded, and the truck shivered. Christopher jerked his gaze away from the teeming anthills the buildings had become, and came face to face with Ken.

  The once-man's wings were still unfurled, seeming to glow in the night. They reached a good seven or eight feet to either side of him, and Christopher wondered what would happen if the wings clapped shut on one of them.

  Ken's eyes caught the stars above and reflected their light, made it stronger than it been. It was a gaze utterly without love or companionship or even the basic connection of one human to another.

  He wasn't Ken. Hadn't been fully Ken in a long time, and now he was only one more piece of the king.

  The creature looked at them each in turn. His eyes settled on Hope and Lizzy, laying across Christopher's and Theresa's laps. His face grew more rigid. Then the truck lurched again as he pushed off, into the sky. His wings buzzed and he was gone.

  They kept moving toward the center of the city. Whether Amulek knew the way or whether Maggie was directing him, Christopher didn't know. But the truck only slowed when debris made forward motion difficult. At those times
the zombies on either side climbed or just leaped over the obstructions, giving the truck the room it needed to keep moving.

  They came to something too big to pass. A bus lay on its side, half-buried by rubble from the collapsed building on the north side of the road.

  Amulek started to slow.

  And the bus moved.

  Christopher – who was again craning his neck to see around the side of the cab – was startled to see the tumbled vehicle start to slide along, apparently of its own accord. Then he made out the dark shapes along its side, saw things clambering around it. The zombies that ran ahead of the truck had seen the barricade and were pulling it out of the way.

  COME.

  Amulek didn't even have to come to a complete stop. Just slowed for a few feet as the bus and then a few large pieces of rubble were pulled out of the way. Then he was able to accelerate again.

  COME.

  The voice in Christopher's mind was louder now. Not a scream, but the deep rumble of a growling lion. Something that spoke of power and hunger and need.

  They kept picking their way through the city. Twice more the zombies ahead yanked obstacles and obstructions out of the way.

  COME.

  Then they were there. Returned to the place from which they had all begun their mad flight.

  The Wells Fargo building loomed.

  And from somewhere inside it, the king called.

  143

  (Hope.)

  The voice was louder. More insistent. Almost… familiar.

  But it was barely enough to keep Christopher from wetting himself as he got out of the truck. His thoughts kept going to the ninth floor of the building that hulked in front of them. To the corridor with the wall made of the dead – a thing he now suspected was the zombies' version of a refrigerator. Something to store food for the king who would rise.

  And who would be hungry. A king who would not eat of the zombies – that would be eating his own flesh – but would consume all the remaining living, like a chick eating its yolk in the days before fully hatching.

  Sustenance before the final, greatest Change.

  His blood congealed at the thought, the idea of climbing by feel up nine floors of a pitch black stairwell, walking into the waiting arms of the king. And at what would come after.

  One thing at a time. Just get out of the truck.

  Getting out was awkward since he still held Hope tightly in his grasp. He had to scoot across the truck bed on the seat of his pants, then wait there until Aaron reached around the tailgate and pulled the latch. The tailgate fell open with a metallic thud that sounded loud in the night, but was consumed instantly by the silence all around them.

  He probably could have gotten out by standing up and clambering over the side, still holding Hope.

  But what if I dropped her?

  This way was safer.

  Safer. That's a laugh.

  Then they were all standing beside the truck. The little girls' gazes were fixed on the building. Even when Christopher turned to make sure everyone was standing with him, Hope craned her neck around him to see the building.

  Not the building. What's inside.

  The look on Hope's face was a parody of the look a little girl – a real little girl – would lavish upon a Christmas tree as it was decorated. A look of anxious waiting. A look that told of presents that would come soon soon soon and yet never quite fast enough.

  Maggie looked torn. Exhausted. Spent. But under all that, under the grime and fear and exhaustion… she looked a bit like she was looking forward to this. Maybe it was just the knowledge that this was the end. That the running would stop. But Christopher didn't think so. He thought that the feelings she had endured since being bound in her own web were winning.

  She wanted to go to the king, too. To kneel at his feet and die or be Changed at his whim.

  Please, God, help us out here.

  God didn't say anything. Maybe he had already given up on this particular planet. Maybe that's all this was: a second flood, not of water but of corrupted flesh.

  (Hope. I am almost awake.)

  Again, the thought/feeling gave Christopher the strength to move forward. A first step, which he thought would be all he had left. But as he took that first step, he felt Theresa join him. Then Aaron stood on his other side, supporting Maggie. Amulek took an extra step so he walked ahead, a ready protector.

  "Come back, Amulek."

  Amulek looked back at Christopher, a look of surprise on his face. Then he nodded and fell into step on the other side of Theresa.

  They all stood in that line for a moment. Five abreast, with two once-girls held between them.

  Christopher felt –

  (Hope.)

  – sudden strength and knew it came only partly from the voice in his head. The rest of the sensation was born here, in the midst of the survivors. The ones who had lost so much, yet carried on.

  Aaron: he had lost Dorcas. A loss that came only hours after meeting her, yet one that Christopher could tell had wounded him as deeply as if the cowboy had known the tough farm woman for his whole life.

  Theresa: she had lost Elijah, had left her brother behind, never to see him again.

  Amulek: he had lost Mohonri Moriankumr. Lost a grandfather that had clearly given him everything, from worldly sustenance to a fighting spirit and a culture that would have guided him through life.

  Christopher: he had lost his daughter twice – once in the rubble of a destroyed hospital, once more when she was Changed and tried to kill him.

  And Maggie… she had lost more than any of them. Lost her son when he sacrificed himself to save her. Lost her husband to a flurry of bullets and then to a stranger, uglier kind of Change. Lost her daughters to the call of the king.

  And as he looked at her, he saw she was losing herself to that call as well.

  They stepped forward.

  The door of the building opened.

  144

  A slice of brightness caught the gleam of moon and stars and bounced it toward the survivors. It looked strange to Christopher, too thin to be human yet definitely moving.

  Then it stepped the rest of the way out of the door that led to the Wells Fargo building's lobby. Christopher saw what it was.

  The thing was even more frightening in the dark shadow of a dead city than it had been when clambering after them on a crane lit by flame. More than six feet tall, one side of its body had been scorched to a black char at the time, while the other side had remained horribly unmarked – perfection that made the death on its other half stand out and seem all the more evil.

  Now, the monster that had bitten Derek – that had accelerated what happened to the little boy in the webbing – stood before them. The half of its body that had been burnt now had a coat of yellow over it. Something to support it, perhaps heal it, perhaps to aid in the metamorphosis that so many of the creatures had undergone. Christopher had seen so many types of the creatures at this point that he wouldn't be surprised if the one before them was turning slowly into Santa Claus beneath that dull yellow coat.

  The thing walked toward them, and Christopher figured it was going to be their guide, going to lead them to the king. The creatures were all part of the king, but it seemed like there was still some kind of hierarchy. Some, like Ken, seemed to be favored, to have more singular faculties.

  It's going to take us up.

  But he was wrong. The thing didn't gesture for them to follow, didn't turn to lead them to the ninth floor. It kept stepping forward. Kept moving, to allow what was behind it room to exit the building as well.

  Christopher had to stifle a scream when he saw what came next. And after that, and after that.

  Aaron coughed. It sounded like he was trying not to sob. Amulek went so rigid that Christopher could feel the tension rolling off him from four feet away.

  Theresa did scream.

  This is too much. I can't. I can't.

  The first thing that came out was Carina. Christophe
r hadn't really known if he had destroyed her mind when he buried an axe in her head, but apparently he hadn't penetrated bone to the mind beneath, because here was his little baby, crawling on hands and feet in a stride that was half insectile, half lupine. The slow, nearly sideways crawl of a beast approaching wounded prey. Her face was still mostly gone. The beautiful features had been replaced by a pair of slits that crossed her small face in a blood-red "x." Then the slits widened to gashes, and then opened completely to reveal an eight-sided mouth of buzzing teeth, of saws that could shred anything.

  He had wondered, in the back of his mind, if when he split her head with the axe he had sent her into the madness that took the creatures. Now he knew – knew that his cut must not have cut through the skull to the receptor-mind below. And he didn't know if that was a blessing or a curse.

  Christopher looked away from her. He had to. To keep looking would be to fall into madness.

  Behind Carina, another form: Dorcas. The farm woman had lost herself, Changed to a zombie when she lagged behind to protect the group. She walked forward with the same grace that Carina –

  (not Carina, not anymore)

  – had demonstrated. Aaron made that strange, gagging cough again. Muttered something under his breath – a prayer or a curse or a mix of both. Dorcas wore a wide grin, the mirror of the girls'. When Aaron made that strangled sound, the grin grew wider.

  Behind Dorcas walked another creature. This one was bent in strange ways, its body nearly split in half by a gash that went from right hip to the middle of its chest. Yellow wax coated the mortal wound. More on its throat, which looked like it had been torn out. Even the face was a mess. Only one eye stared out from behind chewed flesh and patches of yellow.

  But Christopher could see that it wore body armor with BPD written across it. And knew from Theresa's scream that this was her brother. Left behind, thought dead.

  But they had found him – perhaps only an instant before death. But soon enough for the Change to spare his life and at the same time steal what humanity had remained.