Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 2 | Books 4-6

by Lecter, Adrienne

  “You’re bluffing,” the guard accused, but already there was doubt in his tone.

  Baring my teeth at him in an approximation of a smile, I shook my head, pressing the knife just a little harder against John’s throat until he let out a pained gasp.

  “Why would I? I have no reason to lie. Do you really think that it tarnishes my reputation? You know who I am? Check that wanted poster. I’m already supposed to have killed a group of traders and the soldiers guarding them. Do you think that a bunker filled with newbie recruits and braindead droolers is a match for me?” Turning my head to the side, I singled out Hamish in the crowd of onlookers. As far as I could tell, the entire village was standing there, pressed against each other at what they wrongfully thought was a safe distance away. “Why exactly do you let these clowns terrorize you? Open the gate, and kick them out along with us. Trust me, either we take care of them, or the undead will. No one will come to punish you. If you get on the radio now and hail Dispatch, they’ll have someone over here within the week to help you rebuild a self-sustaining community that can take care of itself.”

  I got no answer from him or anyone else, but I hadn’t expected that. I waited for another moment, then turned back to the still indecisive guards next to the gate. “I won’t repeat myself. Open the gate.”

  Two of them twitched, but the joker made a quick “down” gesture that got them freezing once more.

  “I’d do what she says,” Nate spoke up.

  “You’d say that,” John ground out. “Pussy-whipped, dickless—“

  That was as far as he got before I tightened my grip on the knife, effectively cutting him off.

  Nate ignored him, speaking to the other guards instead. “Right now there are three RPG launchers trained on your walls. If we don’t make it out there in the next ten minutes, my people will reduce your neat little barricade there to a smoldering heap of ash. See how much your measly guns will help you against the zombies that will come pouring in. Your choice.”

  Another ripple of agitation ran through the guards. “How do we know you’re telling the truth?” one of them called out.

  “Standard operational protocol,” I replied, not hesitating for a moment. I had no idea if they’d really picked up some rocket launchers—Burns had been gushing nonstop about them since borrowing one from the Raiders in the flight from the factory—but far was it from me to call anyone’s bluff, if it was one.

  A few moments of mostly hushed debate followed, until a good eight of the guards put their weapons on the ground at their feet. At a jerk of my head, two of them stepped up to the gate and engaged whatever mechanism made the huge partition swing inward, opening both sides of the box at once.

  I waited for Nate’s nod before I started walking backward through the gate, dragging John along with me. “I’ll let you go as soon as we’re out of range,” I told him. “Please, try something so I have a good excuse to slice you up like a pig. Please.”

  The guys followed me, picking up their weapons as they passed the table. As soon as they found themselves confronted with what were obviously men who meant business and knew how to properly use the rifles in their hands, the remaining guards backed down, joining the entire village in silently watching the proceedings. John kept cursing under his breath but I ignored him. I’d tried not to, but as I passed through the outer gate, I couldn’t help but take a last, good look at the lemmings. Disbelief and horror were painted on their faces, not a single one of them ready to cry for revolution. My deranged brain of course had to find Sam in the crowd where she stood next to Margo, her eyes impossibly wide. It came almost as a relief when my eyes started tearing up anew, washing those last impressions away. My attention snapped back to the guards, but they seemed to have given up the fight for good.

  I could likely have let go of John then, but kept dragging him along until I was standing right beside the Humvee. Burns and Andrej pretty much built a wall of flesh and body armor between me and the settlement, making me feel just a little less exposed. As soon as I lowered the knife, John tensed, but before he could try anything, I kicked the back of his left knee, sending him to the ground so I could step out of range unhindered. He glared up at me but was wise enough to keep his trap shut when Nate joined me, the muzzle of his AR maybe five inches away from John’s face.

  “Make sure that I never see your cowardly ass again,” I told John. “Now run.”

  He was up and scrambling away a moment later, but I didn’t think for a second that it was because of me. The gate had started to close, and apparently he wasn’t sure if they’d let him in if he didn’t make it there in time.

  I stared after him for a moment before I turned to Nate. There was a world of questions in his eyes, which I pointedly ignored as I took the first free, unencumbered breath in… forever.

  “Your gear’s in the car, over there with the others,” he said. It was likely not hard to read my mind right then.

  I nodded and got into the Humvee’s back row. Martinez and Andrej followed while Burns took the wheel, with Nate riding shotgun. No one even looked at the stupid turquoise decoy car.

  “Anyone got a map?” I asked, forestalling any questions. While Andrej got busy pulling one out of his pants, Burns started the vehicle. I’d never ridden in one of these, but I figured they usually didn’t come with dried blood all over the inside, the seats and doors riddled with bullet holes. How it was still moving was beyond me.

  As soon as Andrej handed me the map, I spread it out across my lap, trying to orient myself. “We’re here,” Andrej offered, pointing at a speck on the map in the middle of nowhere. It took me a few moments to find the town I’d jogged through, and the one where I’d stumbled across the stashed zombies. Both were farther away from the mark Andrej had indicated than I’d expected. From there on I could only guess where the underground complex must be, but when he saw my finger hovering over that part of the map, Andrej got out a pencil for me to mark it.

  No one said anything else in the three minutes it took us to drive up the small rise to where the other cars were waiting, the familiar sight of them making my heart constrict painfully. Taylor and Clark were standing watch on either end of the huddle of vehicles while Pia was already waiting for us—a rocket launcher settled firmly on her shoulder.

  I was out of the Humvee as soon as Burns brought it to a halt, marching straight over to the Rover. My pack, weapons, and gear were right where they belonged, and I started tearing off the useless clothes I was wearing as soon as I’d pulled some underwear and a clean bra out of my pack, never minding who saw my naked ass. It was only when I was down to my panties that I realized that, just maybe, it might have been a good idea not to give Nate and Martinez such a good look at the partly faded bruises all over my body, but there was no way to undo the damage now.

  But damn, it felt so good to be back in my usual layers of stifling hot, tear-resistant tactical gear.

  As soon as I straightened from lacing up my boots I came face to face with Nate, and I knew that he wouldn’t move an inch until I answered at least the most basic of his questions. I was in absolutely no mood to play games, so I ran right through the list before he could even pose them.

  “I’m okay. I don’t need any medical attention. I can drive. I can shoot. Running might get a little uncomfortable because the soles of my feet are still damaged from running a fucking marathon cross-country without anything to protect my feet, but I’ll live. And unless we have any pressing places to be, I have a promise to fulfill.”

  I turned away, intent on getting behind the wheel, but Nate’s fingers closing around my upper arm held me back. The contact also make me jump and jerk away, instantly falling into a defensive position, my fingers already wrapped around my Beretta. He let go immediately, the look in his eyes hard, worry etched into the lines of his face.

  “First you tell me what the fuck happened to you.”

  I hadn’t really expected him to let me get away with not answering that, but I sti
ll hated that I had to do so now. “The short version? I was stupid enough to let myself get drugged. I woke up inside a cell in an underground bunker. I got out. I spent a day running through backwater… this is Nebraska, right?” He gave a sharp nod. “Then I ended up in this damn settlement. I couldn’t shake the last of the zombies that I’d had on my tail all night, no food or water, so I couldn’t chance staying on the road. The last four days I spent sitting uselessly around on my ass, twiddling my thumbs. Satisfied?”

  He wasn’t, but I didn’t expect him to be. Nate’s mouth twisted into a hard line, but after a moment he glanced from me to Burns. “Who’s that guy that idiot mentioned—“

  I barely managed to keep myself from tensing up all over, but the look that Burns sent me was so conflicted that I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone. When I didn’t speak up, Burns answered for me.

  “Gordon Taggard. One of Bucky Hamilton’s lieutenants when we started the evacuation in Lexington. I’ve been on two missions with him before that. Can’t say it was a pleasure. He’s an asshole through and through, the kind that finds any excuse to stir up shit. Not sure if it’s the same guy—“

  “Sounds exactly like him,” I cut in. Nate glanced from one of us to the other, his gaze remaining on me. He opened his mouth but I didn’t let him speak—again. “Can we maybe do all the gossiping later? They’ve already had five days head start, and I’d hate to give them a sixth.”

  “They being the people you single-handedly killed?” Nate asked, just a hint of strain in his voice. I didn’t interpret it as doubt but rather apprehension of what I was obviously not telling him.

  Chuffing, I gave him a pointed look. “You know that I’m not good enough to kill thirty armed combatants on my own. Yet. Having three fresh, ultra-strong zombies on the loose helped. I’m not deluding myself into hoping that they’re all dead, but the fact that the guards in there couldn’t make contact with them anymore makes me guess that they ran.” Pausing to catch my breath, I looked away but then made myself catch Nate’s imploring gaze once more. “I’ll fill you in on the details later. For now what you need to know is that there’s an underground bunker out there with some corpses and a handful of zombies chomping down on them. I have absolutely no idea where they might be heading to, so the logical move is to go there, clear it out and take it apart until we find something. Got any better ideas? No? Then what are we waiting for?”

  Nate’s hesitation made my heart sink, but it only lasted for a few moments. “You know the way?”

  “I can backtrack part of it. From there we have to wing it, but it’s a bunker next to a gravel road right in the middle of nowhere. Can’t be that hard to find,” I said, not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

  Nate nodded, not reacting to my barbs. “Then let’s go.”

  I was already in the car with my right foot when I halted, looking around. With the agitation of finally being out of that fucking hellhole of a settlement I’d chalked up the weird feeling of apprehension to that, but now it was even stronger. I remembered feeling it before, as I’d crested that very rise we were parked on now. It had remained a latent, low buzz during my entire stay in the settlement, but here it was different, sharper somehow, more focused. Getting back out of the car, I looked around, then closed my eyes and tried to get a better reading on where exactly it was coming from, that sensation that was just outside of what I could pick out with my senses but couldn’t deny I was feeling. Walking through the tall grass where it had remained undisturbed outside of our perimeter, I paused when my toes hit something metallic. Crouching down, I pulled the grass away, revealing some kind of device next to one of those solar-powered lawn lights—or that was what it resembled. The battery, I bet.

  “Campbell?” I called out. “Can you take a look at this?”

  Our tech wiz—trailed by Nate—joined me, eyeing the box critically. “What’s up?”

  It was just a wild guess, but even crouching here, right next to it, made my skin crawl. “Could this be like the shit we found on that vest on that zombie at Harristown?” I asked him. “Just, I don’t know, in reverse?” He gave me a weird look before he bent over the box again and looked it over more critically.

  “You mean like some kind of zombie repellant?” He asked. I nodded.

  “Take it and look it over on the road,” Nate ordered before he squinted at me. “You feel that, don’t you?”

  I shrugged, not entirely at ease with the underlying concept. “Let’s just say that when I came running this way, something almost made me turn back, and it did a good job stopping the three shamblers that were still after me. And that was the day after I managed to run right into a room crammed with zombies who were all standing around something that I couldn’t get a good look at, none of them wandering off until I gave them something to chase. Call me paranoid, but—“

  “I don't,” Nate replied, keeping me from having to rehash all the details. “Whatever this thing is, we’re going to find out.”

  We waited until Campbell had successfully unhooked the device from the solar charging unit, and then we were back on the road.

  Chapter 34

  Finding the underground complex turned out to be easier than I’d expected, although the hours it took us to get there were hell for me. Nate didn’t pry but his silent presence at my side screamed all the questions he must be having at me. I knew that I should have asked some of my own—like what had happened to them in the meantime—but it was hard enough to keep it together as it was, and not send the Rover into the next ditch.

  I knew we were on the right path when the third gravel road that I veered into snaked its way through a plateau that ended with some trees on its western edge—the very trees I had passed in the first hours of my flight. The sun was already deep in the sky by then, painting everything in warm orange and ochre tones, lending the landscape a tranquility that I didn’t feel.

  As we drew closer to where I guessed I had started from, I noticed the charred earth where someone must have built a pyre. A lone figure stood at the very edge of it, gnawing on a half-burnt arm—Gussy. I brought the car to a halt a good fifty yards away from her before I grabbed my shotgun and reached for the com. “This one’s mine. Stay back.”

  The easy thing would have been to shoot her from a distance, but I couldn’t—not before trying to confirm a suspicion that had taken hold in my mind during my flight. As I walked up to her, I felt the familiar unease crawl up my spine that getting close to any of the undead always came with, but my heart was heavy with a different kind of emotion—regret. Regret that I had to do this. Regret that all I had been able to do was run.

  There was no doubt about her being a zombie, but then I’d seen enough evidence of that when I’d escaped. She still looked fresh but her body was mottled with bruises, none of them having started to heal since she’d sustained them. I couldn’t say why that surprised me; I hadn’t exactly expected anything different. But she didn’t come right at me like most of them did, but remained standing there, watching me, as she continued to chew on the arm she was clutching.

  “Gussy?” I asked, feeling just a little stupid. “Do you understand me?” Then, “Do you recognize me?”

  She kept on chewing, her blank stare trained on me but not turning that viciously hostile yet. A car door slammed behind me, and I could hear the grass rustling as Nate started following me. Immediately the zombie’s focus snapped to him and lips curled away from stained teeth, making me throw up my arm. “Stay back!” Yet the damage was done, and the moment had passed—if there had even been one. She charged me a second later, just in time for me to shoot her head right off her body. She took another step toward me before she crumpled to the floor, a lifeless husk remaining.

  I was still staring down at her as the others joined me, Burns not the only one giving me a weird look for my behavior. I wasn’t sure if any of them had recognized her and didn’t really feel like explaining.

  Then the lower half of her naked torso g
ave a twitch, something beneath the skin moving, making all of us shy back collectively. My heart gave another painful twinge as I raised my shotgun once more and sent a slug into the zombie’s abdomen. At Martinez’s stunned look I offered up a simple, “Her child.” That about shut off any questions anyone might have asked.

  Except for Nate, of course, who took a few moments to look over the body, taking in the state it had been in when Gussy had died, including the bruises and myriads of track marks. When he glanced back to me, I gave a one-shouldered shrug. “She didn’t attack me when I came across her on my escape. That’s why I thought that maybe there was something left in there, some remainder of her brain still working. I was likely just too diminutive a target.”

  “Why would you think she was any different than all the other shamblers we’ve encountered along the way?”

  “Because she’s been infected with a different strain,” I replied, having to force the words to make it over my lips. “They’re tweaking the serum. Reverse-engineering it. She seemed like she was stronger than most normal zombies, but have we ever encountered a really fresh one since last May?” Nate’s answering grunt didn’t sound affirmative.

  Martinez hunkered down next to the body but didn’t quite touch it as he looked her over. “If it was a different strain should we maybe take samples—“

  “Don’t you fucking touch her!” I shouted, way more vehement than I’d intended. Martinez’s eyes snapped up to my face, but rather than get pissed off he looked increasingly alarmed. Exhaling forcefully, I shook my head. “We burn her. That’s the least she deserves.”

  No one corrected me that I was still using female pronouns, or that I kept skipping into referring to her in present tense. While Burns got one of the spare fuel canisters out of the car to douse the body, Nate had the others fan out to secure the perimeter. I lingered at the makeshift pyre—just some dry grass thrown over the body, the entire thing catching on quickly thanks to the fuel—until the skin was charred and her form no longer recognizable. Then I joined Nate at the open trapdoor that led into the complex. It was dark and quiet below, but that didn’t have to mean anything.