“You’ll feel like Frederico’s sacrifice will be for nothing.”
She nods, resting her chin on her knees. “Yeah.”
He thinks back to the brothers he lost over the years, both in the Sandbox and Somalia. So many. He can still list out names and ranks in his head.
“I still try to find reasons for the deaths of my brothers in the service.” He lets out a long sigh. “I don’t think you ever stop looking, Kate.”
More fresh tears roll down her cheeks. “I just want to know that Carter and the others made it back to Creekside. Whatever else happens, I just want to know they’re safe.”
He has an urge to take her in his arms. Except he’s not sure how that would go over. He’s not exactly the strong cuddly type. Strong, sometimes. But not cuddly. A cactus has him beat on the cuddly scale.
He settles for sitting cross-legged in the moonlight next to her in what he hopes is easy companionship. At least she doesn’t radiate anger anymore. That’s an improvement. Now if only he can keep his mouth from saying something stupid.
She doesn’t pull away, keeping her chin propped on her knees. He likes looking at her. Her profile is lean and strong. Her eyes focus on the small window in the room. A curtain of stars fills the rectangle of glass.
“I didn’t realize you had so many tattoos.” Kate is looking at his bare arms.
Part of the reason he keeps himself religiously encased in his fatigues are the tattoos. He has sleeves on both arms. He doesn’t want to answer questions about the thirty years of art that cover him from wrist to shoulder.
Tonight, he’s been stripped to the waist since Kate sewed up his back. He doesn’t mind her seeing the tattoos. Maybe it’s the darkness. It feels less exposed, less awkward.
“I enlisted when I was eighteen,” he tells her. “I get a tattoo every year on the anniversary of my enlistment.”
“That’s neat.” She squints, studying his arms. “What’s that?” She points to Ben’s right bicep.
Of course she would notice that one. It wouldn’t be so bad if the fucking thing didn’t have purple wings.
There was also the matter of the pink dress.
There’s nothing to do but own it. “It’s a fairy.”
“Like, a tooth fairy? A small person with wings?”
“Yes.”
Kate giggles. It’s a nice sound. “What’s the story behind the fairy?”
He starts talking, encouraged by her expression. “I got roaring drunk the night we graduated from boot camp. One of the guys was an amateur tattoo artist. Four of us got matching fairy tattoos that night in a public bathroom at a club.” He chuckles at the memory. “The other guys all got cover-up art eventually.”
“But not you?”
“Nah. I figure it’s good to remember those times when you’re a complete dumb shit. It helps you remember not to be a dumb shit again. Sometimes.” He meets her eyes, willing for her to see how sorry he is for his earlier blunder. “Anyway, after that it became a tradition.”
Her hand comes up, tracing the flames along his upper deltoid. He sits still, afraid the slightest movement will dislodge her.
“Flames of the oil fields of Iraq,” he says. “From Operation Desert Storm. One flame for each of the friends I lost in battle.”
“Nine,” she says, counting them with her fingertips.
“Nine,” he agrees. Encouraged by the feel of her fingers against his skin, he keeps talking.
He tells her the story of the art on his arms. The words Got Him on his left forearm represent the death of Osama bin Laden. The drone on his right wrist represents his tour in the War on Terror in Pakistan. The sunrise on his inner forearm is the sky the morning after he lost four men in Somalia during the Ethiopian invasion.
As he winds down, once again out of words, Kate lowers her hand and smiles at him. “That’s beautiful, Ben.”
Someday, if he ever finds a tattoo artist, he has another design in mind, this one for his left shoulder. The number sixteen in a puddle of blood. For the College Creek kids. They deserve to be remembered, even if only by him.
He doesn’t say any of this to Kate. The shame is too heavy.
“Your skin is cold.” Kate rises, crossing to the shelf of linens. She unfolds a starched chef’s coat and shakes it out. “Here. You should wear something.”
He takes the blazing white stiff shirt, unable to look away from her. He’s pretty sure he’s never seen a woman look so damn good.
“I meant it as a compliment,” he blurts out. “What I said about G.I. Jane, I mean. I know it didn’t come out like that.”
She raises one eyebrow at him, not bothering to pretend. That’s another thing he admires about her. She’s real.
“And I didn’t mean to say you looked old. Tonight, I mean. I just meant you look like a woman.”
“Ben, do you even know what a compliment is?”
It’s a fair question.
“In theory, yes. I’m just not very good in practice.” He heaves an exasperated sigh. “G.I. Jane was played by Demi Moore, Kate. She’s as hot as they come. How could that not be a compliment?”
Alarm bells go off in his head as the mood in the room shifts. Kate stiffens beside him, turning wide eyes at him. She doesn’t look offended, thank God, but she does look off-balance.
Did he just call her hot? Yes, he did. Like a stupid teenager.
He doesn’t know how to tell her she’s so much more than that. She’s smart. Strong. Decisive. Determined. Caring. Patient. So much more than a stupid actress in a movie he wishes he’d never mentioned.
Mouth dry, he refuses to make eye contact. He busies himself buttoning on the chef’s coat, resolving not to speak until she does. It’s safer that way.
“Thank you for the compliment,” she says at last, a strange hitch in her voice.
Some of the tension leaks out of him.
They sit side by side on the floor, watching the sun come up in easy silence. It’s the best night he’s had in as long as he can remember.
17
Horde
KATE
I don’t know what to make of Ben’s behavior. The only thing I know for sure is that underneath that gruff exterior is a man with substance. The more I talk to him, the more I like him.
Oddly enough, I remind him of Demi Moore. That seems a bit like comparing a three-legged mongrel from Puerto Vallarta to a New York show dog, but the sentiment isn’t lost on me. He meant it as a compliment.
I decide not to overthink it. It makes me feel good inside. These days, there aren’t a lot of things to make me feel good. Seems stupid to downplay the good moments when they come along.
“I never thanked you. I mean, for the coffee you’ve been leaving outside my bedroom.”
“Do you like it?” He looks at her from the corner of his eye.
“Hell yes, I like it. Who doesn’t like coffee for midnight watch?”
“I thought it would keep you warm.”
The act of kindness keeps me warmer than any amount of steaming beverage could. Like the way he pulled me out of the nightmare tonight. I think of all the times Johnny has asked me to tell him the story of my journey to Arcata. Johnny doesn’t understand how raw it all is.
Ben gets it. It feels good to be understood, even if my single loss pales in comparison to all he must have lost through the years. If the tattoos covering his arm are any indication, he’s lost many.
It’s hard to wrap my mind around his life spent in service to the military. Of losing so many friends. Of fighting in every major offensive our government has taken part in over the last thirty years. Including the current shit storm.
The window of the supply room is a pale square of orange. I rise, crossing to it. Ben joins me. Our shoulders almost touch.
“I’ve been thinking about our route home,” I say.
“We need to go through town.”
“My thoughts exactly. It’s safer than trying to get across the freeway.”
W
e watch in silence out the window. Highway 101 is relatively still, at least compared to what we’d seen yesterday. The swarming has died back to the regular milling we’re used to.
I look for the alpha and the zombies who followed us last night from the freeway. They’ve moved down the street. Their heads loll as they stagger in small circles, blind eyes almost seeming to glow in the washed-out light of dawn. They stay in a loose cluster around the alpha as though waiting for a command.
“Do you hear that?” Ben frowns, pursing his lips as he leans closer to the glass.
“Yeah.” It’s a soft buzzing, like a fly, only louder. “What is it?”
Ben shakes his head. He retrieves his binoculars from the other room. He looks through them for several minutes, scanning the area.
“Fucking shit balls.” Ben shoves the binos at me. “Do you see what I see?”
My heart rate spikes at the panic in his voice. I grab the binoculars. “Where do I look?”
“South. Toward Eureka.”
I spin the binos south along 101, eyes flying over the wrecked cars, dead bodies, and zombies. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. Nothing different from what I saw yesterday. If anything, it’s a good deal calmer than yesterday.
I continue to scan in a southward direction.
A dark spec comes into view. Then several more specs join the first. The distant buzzing grows louder.
My heart stops beating.
“Holy fuck.”
“You see it, too, right?” Ben demands.
I can’t peel my eyes away from the binoculars. I want to deny what I’m seeing.
Moving up the freeway is a cluster of people. People on motorcycles and in cars. That’s the buzzing.
But that’s not the worst of it. The people aren’t alone.
Chasing them is a horde of zombies. An enormous, gigantic, big-as-fuck zombie herd. It’s so huge I can’t see where it ends.
There are hundreds of them. And they’re being led by three alphas.
I can’t see the alphas individually, but I do see three distinct whorls near the front of the horde. Each one is like an eye of the storm. The zoms nearest the alphas boil outward, carrying out the orders like worker bees.
Half a dozen questions pepper my mind. How are the alpha’s orders dispersed through the herd? Are the three alphas working together or do they just happen to share a common goal at the moment? Do they share pack members, or is each zombie tied to a specific alpha?
Too many questions. Too much to work out and no time to spare.
The horde’s pursuit of the small party of humans is relentless.
The mess is big enough to swallow a town whole. Or a college.
And it’s coming straight for us.
“Oh, my God,” I whisper.
Ben stomps out of the room. He returns moments later, rifle in hand.
“Open the window,” he orders.
I stare at him stupidly. “What?”
“Open the window.” Eyes hard, he brings the rifle up to his shoulder and racks a bullet into the chamber.
“We have to go,” I argue. “That horde is heading straight toward campus—”
“Just open the damn window!”
I swallow my arguments and tackle the window. This might be my first apocalypse, but it’s not Ben’s.
The latch is stiff and encrusted with grime from months of disuse. The window squeals as I force it open.
The zombies that followed us here spin in our direction. The alpha keens and clicks.
Until I opened the window, their attention had been on the commotion of the road. Now, we’re their focus.
“You’d better have a good plan.” I back away from the window, wrestling with the need to get back to Creekside.
“I’m testing a theory.” Ben slams his mud-covered orange running shoe into the screen, sending it tumbling to the ground below. He pokes the rifle through the open window and fires.
The head of the alpha zom explodes.
The pack moans in confusion. They turn in uneven circles, arms outstretched.
Then they separate from one another, dotting the road in an uneven, unorganized line. Half drift toward the brewery. The rest turn their attention back to the approaching motorcycles.
Ben slings his rifle over his shoulder. “I wanted to see what would happen when you take out the alpha. Looks like the pack reverts to following whatever sound draws it.” His eyes narrow in concentration. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. We have to stay ahead of that horde. We’ll go out the back.”
I don’t have to be told twice. I snag my running pack and charge out of the room, leading the way downstairs.
18
Yellow Light
KATE
My arms pump, my legs churn, and my breath wheezes in and out of my lungs. Sweat flies from my temples like raindrops.
Ben labors beside me. The white chef coat he wears is an odd juxtaposition to his military fatigue pants and orange shoes.
We race through the streets of Arcata. A single word burns in my brain: Creekside.
I have to get back to Creekside. We have to warn Carter and the others. We have to keep them safe.
We have to protect the home we’ve worked so hard to build. No fucking way am I giving any of it up without a fight.
I mentally trace the off-ramps that lead to campus. The high ground location is natural defense, but it won’t be enough to deter the massive horde. The swarm is too big, too wide. Some of them will naturally find their way to the off-ramps, to the roads that lead right to Humboldt University.
Cars. Maybe we can use cars to build a barrier.
I dismiss the idea. Cars won’t be enough. We’re going to have to think of something else. We—
“Kate!” Ben’s frantic whisper claws at me. His hand latches onto my arm, dragging me to a stop.
The force of the stop is so abrupt I wheel backward. I swing my gaze around in a frantic arc, looking for danger.
A chorus of growls sends a chill across my shoulder blades. Coming straight for us is a pack of zombies two-dozen strong. If there’s an alpha there, we’re fucked.
“Which way?” Ben hisses.
“Cut through downtown.”
With our northbound route blocked, I lead us northwest. My chest constricts from the hard running and near-crippling fear.
Keening fills the air. It seems to come from everywhere at once. From the freeway. From the city streets.
From right in front of us.
We skid to a halt as we near the Arcata Plaza. The fire I set six months ago burned half of it to the ground. Milling around in the charred remains is another thick clump of zombies.
They’ve been here ever since the fire. The crackling flames and the noise of the collapsing buildings drew them. With nothing else to occupy them, they’ve remained here.
Now, for the first time in months, they have something to stir them up. Near the center of the plaza is the same alpha we saw yesterday. The faded red baseball cap makes him easy to spot. A mass gathers in a tight knot around the alpha as it growls and clicks.
The calls of the swarm on the freeway shiver through the air, a faint yet distinct buzz. The alpha zom, seeming to hear the call of its brethren, lets up a long keen.
The zombies in the plaza react. En masse, with the alpha zom in their center, they begin a migration toward 101. They reach out with their arms, fumbling their blind way forward. Moaning gathers in a collective sound and grates at my gut.
Gooseflesh prickles down my arms. Everything is changing. Less than a month ago, we didn’t have to worry about alpha zoms. A good pair of running shoes and a decent amount of stealth was enough to get by.
In a flash of clarity, I realize that won’t be enough anymore.
We can’t let the alpha zom leave this plaza. Its presence is too powerful. We don’t need another alpha among the horde on 101. We don’t need this group added to the hundreds already marching on us.
I turn to Ben. “We
have to shoot the alpha. He can’t leave the plaza.”
Under normal circumstances, this comment from me would probably elicit a hearty I told you so, or at the very least, an About fucking time.
There isn’t time for any of that. Ben gives me a single tight-lipped nod, his grip tightening on his rifle.
“Cover me,” he says.
I drop into a crouch, maintaining surveillance of our street corner as Ben climbs onto a burned-out Hummer. The interior is charred black, but the exterior is still strong enough to hold his weight.
“Get ready to haul ass as soon as I fire.” He raises his rifle to his shoulder and sights along the barrel.
My mouth is dry. The gunshot will bring every zombie in the plaza streaming in our direction. My eyes dart along the ruined storefronts and back down the way we came, searching for our safest retreat.
The rifle cracks two times. The red hat disappears. The zombies boil, a chorus of keens ripping through the air. They turn, lurching in our direction.
Ben leaps to the ground, slinging his rifle back over his shoulder. His mouth is set in a grim line as he takes in the pack of zombies closing in on us.
Before the apocalypse, I considered myself a daredevil when I floored it through a yellow light. I’d dart through an intersection and scan my rearview mirror for any sign of a cop car. It drove Kyle, my late husband, crazy, and got me a lecture or an annoyed eye roll every single time.
What I attempt now makes my old-world, yellow-light-running ways look pathetic.
Doubling back will take too much time. Everything is riding on us making it to Creekside ahead of the swarm on 101.
The gap between the pack of zombies on the burned-out storefronts is only twenty feet wide and closing fast as they near us.
I squeeze Ben’s hand in silent signal.
“Motherfucker,” he growls, but he doesn’t back down.
I tear straight down the narrow opening, danger be damned. Beside me, Ben never falters. He puts himself between me and the oncoming horde as we charge forward.
The gap narrows. Our feet are soft against the asphalt, but we are far from silent. Our clothing rustles. Our feet tap. Our running packs whisper against our backs.
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 69
