Green Fields (Book 4): Extinction

by Adrienne Lecter

  Even with that support, the ABVs did most of the work, pretending to be the world’s most macabre snow plows.

  I knew something was wrong when I returned from yet another run to the river bed, the empty tarp flapping behind me, and I found most of our people standing around in a circle. When no one moved to start loading the tarp, I got out and joined them, finding Nate and the Ice Queen crouching over the remains of one of the zombies. It only took me a moment to identify him as one of the super zombies—they just had that slightly more substantial look to them, as if they didn't decay at the same rate as the rest—the head lying a good three feet removed from the body, just to be sure. At first I thought they were continuing the game we’d started in Sioux Falls—what did it take to kill them for good?—but it wasn’t the body itself that they were staring at.

  No, it was the vest strapped to its chest, with several blue-blinking devices affixed to it.

  “What the fuck is that?” I asked, craning my neck to get a better look.

  “No idea,” Nate replied, studying one of the devices that he must have pried from the setup.

  As my eyes kept roaming over the body, my gaze inadvertently fell to its hands, checking for a mark—and finding it at the left hand, just below where the pinkie finger would have been had it still been attached. Looking over to the head, I saw that enough was intact to identify the marks there—three stark, black X-shaped tattoos. Nate followed my gaze, then caught it when I looked back at him.

  “They were new,” he confirmed my guess. “A month old, maybe two. It’s hard to guess with the general decay and all, but that man was alive and kicking in early spring, when he got inked.”

  I looked at the devices again. “Something tells me that this wasn’t part of the gear he was wearing when he died.”

  Pia shook her head, pulling the vest aside to reveal the jacket underneath about as torn and stained as the rest of the clothes. The vest itself was dirty, but not much worse than my own gear. “No. Someone strapped that on recently.”

  Nate handed the device to Campbell, who poked at it with a knife before he dropped it to the ground and smashed it with his boot before he crouched down to study the parts. “Battery powered. It’s only a guess until I have time to study it, but I doubt that battery could have kept that active for more than a week.”

  I really didn’t like where this was going.

  “But what is this thing? Some kind of tracking device?” That seemed ludicrous, particularly as there were at least five of the small, black boxes with the blue lights still on the vest. For tracking, a single one would have been enough. Besides, why track a zombie? If you were close enough to strap on a vest, you killed it instead, particularly one of those special fuckers. But someone had done exactly that.

  A moan rose behind us, making not just me whip around and ready my weapon, but the zombie that tried to come for us was little more than a head, one arm and part of the second shoulder, entrails dragging behind where its torso must have been blown apart by a grenade. My ax was up and ready, but Nate’s shout of “Wait!” made me freeze in mid-motion, then step aside as I eyed him askance. “I have an idea,” he offered, signaling us to step away.

  We all watched as the zombie continued its painfully slow way forward. It should have come for me or Taylor—the living, breathing food that was the closest—but it kept right on, aiming for the corpse of the juiced-up shambler. When Nate kicked at what remained of that second shoulder it barely reacted, not even snapping at him. It stopped once it had managed to drag itself right next to the corpse, its one hand reaching for the vest.

  “It’s a homing device. Or something that draws them closer,” I murmured, my voice so flat that it sounded like someone else’s in my own ears.

  “Looks like it,” Nate confirmed, catching my gaze again. “That’s why it was impossible for us to draw their attention when we started the chase. I bet that’s not the only one wearing this shit. They were all just trying to get closer to them. Only when Bailey shot one and it came after us did they follow.”

  Andrej finished Nate's thought with a succinct, “And because we were good about alerting them, many of them chased after us. All of them are now upriver, eating each other if we’re really lucky.”

  With that revelation hanging in the air between us, I suddenly didn’t feel very lucky anymore.

  “Someone did this. Deliberately,” I pressed out. “Someone built this. I’m sure that just like we do, they know that the juiced ones are smart enough to find the next settlement.”

  And there I’d thought that things were going so well.

  Jason, standing a little to the side, crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze directed at the settlement. “I’ve heard and seen a lot of fucked-up things since this shit started, but this tops it all.”

  “You think I’m wrong?” I asked.

  He hesitated but shook his head. “No. I think you’re exactly right. I’m not saying that someone’s controlling these fuckers and sending them at our towns, but this comes close enough to give me the creeps. If we hadn’t come in time—“

  “But we did come,” Nate replied, his tone wry. “Which, if you think about it, is no coincidence.”

  “How come?” Jason wanted to know.

  “Didn’t you mention you had communication trouble? I remember Tamara telling us that Harristown had gone dark days ago. One of the larger settlements, in a state that still has some military presence left on patrol.” He nodded toward where the ABVs were still driving to and from the building heap of zombie parts by the river. “It’s the ideal testing ground. To test whatever this shit is, and to see how fast we’ll respond. I doubt that whoever did this gave a shit about whether we survive, or if the town goes to hell. But there are a few too many coincidences going on there for me to believe in them anymore.”

  The following silence was deafening.

  Burns was the first to break it, asking, “Do we tell the town people of this?”

  Nate considered for a moment, but shook his head. “I don’t think we should. We don’t know shit, and it’s questionable that they’ll believe us. What we should do is see if we find a few more of those and check if they’re wearing any, too.” Looking at Campbell, he asked, “Can you disable a couple of them and take them with us for further study? But only if you can be absolutely sure that if it includes a tracker, it won’t be active anymore.”

  “I can try,” Campbell offered. “Give me an hour or so.”

  “Do it.” To the rest of us, he went on, “We still have cleanup to finish before night fall, so get going. If you find anything, bag it. There’s still the one zombie wedged under the Rover that we can check, and if anyone’s bored, you can go through the heap over by the river. But let’s not do anything that alerts anyone who doesn’t need to know.” He paused. “And that includes the sappers.”

  A few of Jason’s guys looked at him with surprise, but it was Burns who replied.

  “None of them have the marks. They helped us, but they don’t belong to us. Who knows. Maybe they were sent in as the cavalry to make sure the town makes it.” Which made so much more sense than them miraculously appearing just when we needed them.

  I loved my random bouts of paranoia when they kept me alive, but looking at everyone as if they were hiding a knife behind their back, ready to come for me, was not the sanest thing to do.

  Nate looked around us, letting out a frustrated breath. “Everyone, get back to what you were doing. We have our task to finish. If you find anything else, report in. We’re all tired and hungry, and we need to think this through. For now, let’s finish here. Then we get some chow, clean up, and decide what we do next. Until we know more, this stays between us.”

  The euphoria from before was gone, leaving all of us trudging along, weariness taking over. It seemed to take forever to do the last couple of runs to get all the dead piled up by the river. All that driving had depleted our fuel resources, but there was still enough in a few extra caniste
rs left to douse parts of the heap and light it up; if anything, the stench got worse, the note of roasted meat tickling my brain into thinking there was food around. A growling, upset stomach wasn’t anything I wished on my worst enemy.

  The crews of two of the sapper vehicles remained by the pyre, declaring they were happy to watch it and call for reinforcements should any of the zombies from upriver come south again. The third ABV returned to the settlement with us, giving my poor, broken-down Rover a lift. It was frustrating as hell to sit behind the wheel and be reduced to so much dead weight, not even the steering working. The ABV stopped right next to the gate, and it took four of us to roll the Rover through once the gate was opened. The other cars were already inside, building two long, dirty, disgusting lines along the inner wall of the barricades. As soon as I got out, Burns and Andrej descended on the vehicle, jacking it up so they could start checking out how bad the damage was. It felt as if I’d received a deep wound, gushing blood, as I watched them inspect my car. Maybe it was stupid, but I’d gotten attached to that vehicle, same as my guns. It wasn’t just a tool anymore, but a part of me.

  “Can you get it fixed?” I asked when Andrej emerged from underneath the car.

  His nod made some of the dark clouds that had descended on my mind with the recent revelation about the attack lift a little.

  “Tore right through everything it could reach, but the engine’s unharmed. Just some lines to replace, a few minor things to patch up.” To Nate he added, “We should look into reinforcing them better. There’s also some heavy damage from going over the rocks in the riverbed. If we want to keep doing that, we need to do something to prevent possible damage.”

  Jason, having watched the proceedings, cleared his throat. “They’re having some damn fine mechanics in Dispatch. You guys been there before?” We shook our heads. Jason smiled. “We’ll probably head there next, once we know how Phil and Ahmed are doing. You could join us. I’m not saying it’s the best place on earth right now, but they got gear, weapons, ammo, gimmicks, you name it.”

  “Not to mention the whorehouse,” his second in command supplied, grinning sheepishly.

  Glancing around, I couldn’t help but smirk at how many of my own people were avoiding my gaze right now. Looking at Nate, I got a shrug from him. It was as good an option as any other, and Tamara had invited us over the day we’d joined the trade network.

  “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” I offered. “Might as well get our boys laid. Never mind the mechanics and gear and shit.”

  They didn’t exactly cheer, but I noticed the grins following in my wake. Well, at least someone had something to look forward to.

  Now that the important stuff was taken care of, I allowed myself to relax and take in our surroundings. The gate had been barred again as soon as we were through, leaving the remaining sappers to return to their unit. They’d plain refused to enter the settlement, and I couldn’t fault them for it. We’d seen ourselves what strings came attached to that deal. And right now, dirty, stinking, sweaty as hell, I didn’t mind that I could make someone feed me.

  Between us we were almost thirty people with eleven cars, which took up only a fraction of the open space behind the gate. From what I could see, the settlement was set up similar to Aurora with a central core holding the houses, with fields and open spaces around, all inside the sturdy wooden barricade. They didn’t have the trenches dug that we’d seen in Aurora, but I was sure that it wasn’t all fresh fields and meadows. Harristown was larger than Aurora by easily a factor of three, and I could see a couple of barns, silos, and two garages for cars in the distance. There were also people here, of course, and unlike in Aurora, they didn’t keep their distance. There were a good hundred scattered around us and the road leading to the gate, children and women scarce but present between the men. They eyed us with caution, but not the outright fear and hostility we’d received in New Town.

  They certainly didn’t look at us as the heroes who’d just pulled their bacon out of the fire.

  To the right of the gate, they had assembled what seemed to be a cleaning station. Several of the Chargers were already down to their underwear, washing their gear, and two let themselves be sprayed down by the town people. That there was water pressure to work a hose distracted me long enough that it took me a moment to realize that the mercs were naked. Oh well. At least I got to enjoy the view.

  A small group detached itself from the onlookers and came toward us, all men, I noticed. They must have watched us long enough to have figured out who was in charge because they aimed straight for Jason and Nate, completely ignoring me—as usual. I still wasn’t sure if that should have made me glad or pissed me off. It ultimately didn’t matter. And they’d learn about the error in their ways soon enough, if Nate’s behavior at the last settlement had been any indication.

  One of the guys stepped forward as the others halted, looking like he was going to extend his hand, but he refrained in light of exactly how all our gear looked. And smelled. Fuck, but that smell was driving me insane…

  “I’m Mayor John, mayor of this fine settlement,” he said. “Harristown thanks you. We cannot express how grateful we are to you—“

  Jason took that with a bright smile, while Nate looked a lot less inclined to offer pleasantries. “You can start repaying us by feeding us,” he ground out.

  The mayor looked a little appalled but caught himself quickly enough, offering what he probably thought of as a winning smile. I was sure that with his blond hair, barely starting to gray at the temples, and those baby-blues, he’d had quite the effect on the ladies in his younger years. Not that he was old—late forties, I figured—but I didn’t like the undercurrent of sleaze in his demeanor. But I might have been biased. He was still ignoring me.

  “Of course. If you and your men clean up, we’ll have something for you waiting by the time you’re all finished.” He nodded toward the hose station, and it was only then that I realized that they had several of their guards lined up next to it who put a lot of effort into looking important. Just now the two guys who’d been getting hosed down were done, the guards motioning them on before they signaled the next mercs to proceed. Somehow I got the notion that they wouldn’t have reacted well if anyone had refused. I really didn’t like that.

  Neither did Nate, judging from the brief glance he sent me after watching what was going on over there.

  “How about you get us some tubs of hot water and a little privacy, and we’ll have that covered in no time,” Nate offered.

  Jason, clearly catching on to the rising tension, tried to defuse the situation by offering a loud laugh. “I for one wouldn’t mind getting cleaned up. Didn’t exactly have much chance to do so in the past couple of days.”

  The mayor didn’t blink, his smile didn’t waver, but the warmth completely left his gaze.

  “I’m afraid that we will have to insist that you all go through the cleaning station. That way we can make sure that none of you sustained any injuries that might otherwise go unnoticed.”

  As if we couldn’t do that—and would—much better. Whatever he might say, it was obvious what he meant—and the last bit of goodwill I’d felt for these people went out of the window. Stepping up to him, I glared at him, but wondered how much effect that would have on anyone, seeing as I was still in my full gear, helmet, goggles, and breathing mask included.

  “Come again? You trust us to defend your settlement, but not to make sure that none of us are infected? How do you think we survive out there?”

  The contempt in his gaze remained, and he didn’t budge.

  “Either you get naked and inspected, or you go right out that gate again,” he said, his voice even but holding a certain edge.

  Anger welled up inside of me, hot and familiar, and for a moment it was hard not to straight out punch him in the face. Instead, I reached up and opened the clasp of my helmet so I could wrench it off, followed by the goggles that, thankfully, didn’t get caught in my sweaty hair
. The breathing mask followed, and it felt so good to have the sweat-drenched, disgusting material off my face, air hitting skin for the first time in forever. A few gasps went up from the growing crowd of onlookers when they finally made the connection that I wasn’t just a particularly short guy. Glaring at the mayor, I crossed my arms over my chest—maybe thrusting out my rack somewhat, not that it was noticeable under the jacket—and stepped forward, bringing me close enough that I could properly snarl at him.

  “Why don’t you tell me that to my face again?”

  I had to give him that, he looked taken aback, but caught himself too quickly for me to glean much satisfaction from that. And, of course, he had to look at Nate as he asked, scandalized, “You have a woman out there with you?”

  Nate didn’t bother replying, knowing well enough how the conversation would resume from here.

  “Two, actually,” I offered. “Not that it’s any of your business. And, just so you know, my name is right in front of his on our unit identification form, so you better talk to me directly if you want to address me. I deserve your respect.”

  I could see from the way he looked down at me that he didn’t agree, and it didn’t come as a surprise that his answer remained the same.

  “No one is allowed to enter our town without inspection first. You can either follow through with it willingly, or we will make you.”

  I could practically sense Nate tense behind me, but after continuing the staring match for another second, I forced myself to back down. It so wasn’t worth it. And it wasn’t like I was objecting to the requirements in general—just how they did it. But after me going off in his face like that I couldn’t expect the mayor to make an exception for me. So much for diplomacy.