I was just about to ask Cole for his opinion when she let out one last gasp before she sagged in on herself, her stare turning vacant.
I didn’t think as much as react, plunking down next to her so I could start CPR. New bubbles appeared at her nose but I knew that was just the air being forced out of her lungs. I should have stopped right there but my brain wasn’t up to rationality right then, the thought stuck that it wasn’t possible for her to just die with no real injuries other than a flesh wound. None of the others stopped me, which was enough for me to continue. My mind was racing too fast for me to count—and I absolutely didn’t remember how many compresses were required—but when I felt too frustrated at her lack of a reaction, I stopped, hesitating only for a second before pinching her nose closed so I could breathe air into her lungs—
And that’s when she lunged at me.
It. I really should have been long enough in this game to stop having issues with the pronouns.
There was no warning. No sound, no tensing, no nothing. A very small part of my brain reminded me that I’d made the very same mistake as Nate when Taggard’s people had blown up our guys and it had been too late to save Campbell. But at the same time, that wasn’t true. We might call it insta-conversion, but even when Bailey had sacrificed himself and had eaten that contaminated chocolate bar, it had taken over a minute for him to turn. Bates, hacked to pieces by the cannibals, had been dead several minutes. I should have had enough time for a TV-drama-worthy performance of cursing and going on until Rodriguez reanimated—which was underlined by the fact that everyone else was as ill-prepared as I was.
Tough luck that I was the closest.
And damn, for someone who weighed maybe ten pounds more than I did, she packed one hell of a punch.
Because she started out prone on her back, her momentum was off, and while her blind flailing hit me hard enough in the side of the head that I saw stars, she didn’t manage to break anything. Pain made me withdraw instantly, which likely saved my life. As she came off the ground, she managed to grab on to my shoulders but not enough to pull my face right into her snapping jaws. Unbalanced, I staggered, slipping on the frozen ground, dragging her right along with me so she ended up sprawled on top of me. A low, rumbling growl left her chest that made every single hair on my body stand on end, and I did the first thing I could think of—using the momentum of my fall, I managed to get my legs properly between us, and before she could go for my face or neck, I kicked her right off in an almost perfect maneuver, sending her body flying. It all happened in the span of seconds but was enough to kick my entire body into overdrive.
I came vaulting to my feet as soon as my body completed the roll, but she was still faster, mad eyes casting around for a victim. Her gaze landed on Gita but Cole was smart enough to step in front of the girl, drawing the former soldier’s attention to him. I had no intention of getting anywhere close to her again so rather than step into her reach, I hurled one of my tomahawks at her, hoping against hope that it would do some damage. In a one-in-a-million moment, the blade of the ax imbedded itself in her chest with a wet “thunk,” but all that did was make those mad eyes snap back to me.
Probably not the best idea I’d had all day.
The grass rustled behind Rodriguez, and for a second, I hoped that it was more shamblers, making a run for the body that was still fresher and warmer than anything else they’d sank their teeth into for ages. Instead, the two figures materializing out of the foggy gloom turned into Carter and Davis. Rodriguez’s head snapped around, focusing on them, and in the blink of an eye she went for Carter. He had just a moment’s warning when Cole shouted, which was likely not enough time to make sense of the blood—and the ax embedded in her upper chest cavity. Carter didn’t even have time to cry out before they went down as she collided with him, once more going for the face.
More shouts, and as if through water I heard Hamilton demand a status report in my ear, but I ignored all that. Focusing on the fresh zombie—that was very successfully tearing Carter’s face off, his high-pitched screams going well with its wet sounds—I drew my Beretta and shot Rodriguez in the back of the head as soon as I was sure the angle was right that I’d miss Carter, whether he’d appreciate that or not. Three successive shots because double-tapping wasn’t cutting it with one of those. The back of her head turned into a spray of gore, the left temple pretty much exploding where the bullets exited the cranium once more. Almost as fast as it had started, it was over, leaving me panting raggedly, my gun wavering not an inch—now pointed at Carter.
“What the—” Davis pressed out, his face frozen with shock. I tried to silently check in with him by holding his gaze but his attention snapped right back to Carter, writhing on the ground, a bloody, torn mess where his face had been. Already, his groans and whimpers ebbed off, and I had a pretty good idea what would happen in, oh, thirty seconds from now—so I shot him, too. I waited for my soul to start wailing with guilt, but all I felt was panic receding as relief flooded through me. No, that one wouldn’t be the end of me, either.
“Status!”
This time, I was more aware of Hamilton’s demand, yet Cole replied, voice cold and calm, before I could.
“Rodriguez turned. Lewis put her down as she went for Carter. Lewis put him out of his misery before he could turn as well.” As he responded, Cole’s gaze found mine, and the way he regarded me was different from before. If my head hadn’t been pounding hard enough from Rodriguez’s blow to still make it hard to focus on anything now that I was calming down, I might have said something.
Burns’s harsh mirth was unmistakable, even over the static-filled line. “Damn, girl, you’re cleaning house.”
Hamilton sounded much less amused. “Confirmed dead?”
Hill kicked both corpses in what remained of their heads—in Rodriguez’s case his boot went right through the remains. “Confirmed,” he called in.
“ETA in less than four minutes. Get your asses over to the shed and secure the boats.”
I was a little disappointed that no barb at me followed, but he couldn’t very well threaten to court-martial me for disobeying orders and then be equally unprofessional himself.
Cole acknowledged for all of us, but I didn’t miss the pause as he waited for me to do it first. So it wasn’t just Munez. Interesting.
I waited for someone to inquire about my health, although of course neither Burns nor Nate could know that I’d gotten a little banged up in the process. I was glad when they both kept their traps shut. When nothing followed, I walked over to the corpses to retrieve my ax, gritting my teeth when it remained stuck even when I put my foot on Rodriguez’s chest—my grip kept slipping even though I should have had enough leverage. Hill nudged me aside and—quite easily—pulled my tomahawk free, switching his grip so he could offer it to me handle first. I snatched it from his hand without comment, hesitating before I bent over and cleaned it on Carter’s left leg. I was sure he wouldn’t mind anymore.
I was surprised when Hill and Cole started to methodically strip both corpses of first their weapons and packs, then everything else that was easy to retrieve. Cole still had that weird stare going on, and when he saw me watching, he frowned for a second. “Anything else you can use of hers?”
“Like what?” It was a valid question, and I couldn’t help but feel like there was an underlying accusation in that gaze, even though he must have known that if I hadn’t killed her, he likely would have had to.
Cole shrugged. “Boots, jacket—you name it. She’s the only one roughly your size.”
I didn’t correct him about the slip in tenses and shook my head. It made sense to take what we could carry considering our very limited resources, but I would have felt weird about rummaging through her pack for her lightly used bras. Besides, that came with us, anyway.
“Nah, I’m good.” While they continued their gruesome duty, I made sure that no more surprises were waiting for us, but then hesitated. “Gimme one of your trash bags,�
�� I told Cole, almost in afterthought. He followed suit but grunted when he realized I was turning it inside out to be able to grab Rodriguez’s blood and gore-drenched scarf, and what bits and pieces were easily removable from Carter’s ruin of a face. “Samples,” I told Cole when I secured it all and handed the knotted-up bag back to him. “Don’t tell me I’m the only one weirded out by this. She shouldn’t have turned, not like that. Whether she got the serum or not—”
“She was one of us,” he affirmed my not-quite guess.
I nodded. “We are a lot harder to kill than this. And we don’t come back like that.” It was only then that I realized exactly how lucky I’d gotten when she’d socked me a good one—or not. “That blow should have shattered my temple. Sure, she was crazy strong, but not insta-converted going on nuclear strong. This doesn’t add up. Even if the samples degrade, I’m sure someone will want to take a look at this.”
Cole gave me a humorless smile but packed the bag away without protest.
“You mean someone like you?”
I shrugged, happy that the approaching rest of our group gave me a very good reason not to respond. I didn’t know how they’d managed to slay all the shamblers, but they’d done a decent enough job, giving us ample time to find the boats and get them into the water before the next enterprising shamblers tried to come after us. By then I was safely huddled at the bow of the boat, using one of the spare blankets that had been stored with them for a cover, right next to Nate. He didn’t say anything, nor did he appear to do anything except check that everyone else in the boat with him was secure before we cast off, but once we’d settled and Ines engaged the engine, his arm reached underneath the blanket and pulled me back against him, anchoring me to his side. At first, I thought it was a quiet show of support—after all, he was aware that, quite often, I wasn’t as stone-cold a killer as I liked to pretend—but it was only after a few minutes of leaning into him that an alternative motive occurred to me: he was likely damn glad that I was still alive after not just one, but almost two of the people who’d been inoculated with the serum died and came back right next to me. Considering my obvious—and decidedly severe—physical limitations, I should have been dead.
But I was still here, alive and kicking, ready to die another day. And considering what lay ahead, that was a damn fine perspective on life.
Chapter 9
The plan with the boats was a good one—ignoring that it had remained the only option that didn’t guarantee our untimely and imminent demise—but it came with some considerable drawbacks, the first among them the attention the boat motors drew. They weren’t just noisy, they were loud, too loud to allow for communication between the boats without our coms. Even in the pre-apocalyptic world they would have been considered that, but now it was even worse. Getting them ready hadn’t really been a problem, but from the moment on when all three had been in the water and Antoine gave the signal to start the engines, it was on.
And “on” meant pretty much every shambler in running distance of the river seemed to congregate at the riverbanks, at some points so many that they were pushing each other into the water—and soon the ice that had formed where the currents weren’t strong enough to sweep it away.
Of course we’d known that would be a problem, but once again, being directly confronted with something made it way more real than concepts had managed to convey. Lack of sleep and still being weirded out about Rodriguez turning didn’t help.
Antoine was steering the lead boat, Raphael the second, and ours—in the very back of the short line—had Noah in control, with Ines standing by for later. Hamilton, Richards, and a few others had donned their night vision goggles while the rest tried to get some sleep, which was impossible between the whine of the motors and the howls floating across the river from all sides. Judging from the terse chatter going on, they were aware of what was going on over there, but not to the full extent.
“Exactly how long do we intend to do this?” I asked a good thirty minutes after we’d left the golf course behind. “Because I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but we are causing a hell of a lot of a racket. If we keep this up, we won’t need ice on the river for them to reach the boats. They’ll simply drop down on us from the bridges that are still intact.” Sadly, no adventuring shambler demonstrated that move, but I’d seen plenty of them reaching for us from perches up high.
I waited for Hamilton to—again—shoot me down cold, but it took him a few moments to respond. “How would you know? It’s pitch black out there and you’re not wearing your night vision gear.”
I did a mental check—no, I’d never had watch the same time as he’d been out, and his men must be less chatty than I’d presumed. I was tempted to point out that with snow covering parts of the landscape it wasn’t actually that dark, but he had a point. Kind of. I couldn’t hold back a smirk as I responded.
“Looks like they didn’t give you all the details about me in what must have been an amazingly titillating briefing.” Maybe I should have kept that to myself but the fact that I could one-up him in this was worth giving him a look into my cards. There was no response, but I was sure that if I just listened hard enough, I’d catch the sound of Bucky gnashing his teeth. “Ever since I got infected, I have stellar low-light vision. It’s not as good as it was when I first woke up from what should have been my deathbed, but it’s still pretty decent. Actually, way more useful now after Raynor fixed my eyes and toned down the bright light sensitivity somehow. I’ll likely be blind as a bat in a dark room underground, but out here in this? I see plenty.”
To me, the pause that followed seemed to be lasting forever, but maybe that was just because I enjoyed my not-so-silent gloating too much for my own good.
“Exactly how good is ‘stellar’?” Richards inquired.
“Cast-over day bright at midnight?” I tried to find a good comparison. “I obviously don’t see colors, but to me it’s rather obvious that we’re the main act for thousands of shamblers right now—and we’re not even close to the city itself.” More to Nate than the others, yet without muting the com, I mused, “Think that would shift my chances further toward survival if Decker ever got his claws into me? I think I’m what you’d call an asset for that quirk alone.” Nate didn’t respond beyond giving me the flat stare I deserved, but Hamilton’s lack of an answer sounded like delicious agreement to me.
“We knew this was going to be a problem,” Red offered. “That’s why we need to go further upriver before we float right back.”
“If we make it that far,” I pointed out, looking back to Noah and Ines. “Have you guys ever done this before? Or do you generally only use the motors from the coast up to where the boats were stashed, and float different ones down through Paris?”
Ines remained quiet while Noah gave me a similarly pinched look as he had as we’d entered the golf course. Perfect. Just perfect.
“It’s a sound plan,” Antoine insisted from one of the other boats, arrogance more than certainty in his voice. “And it’s the only plan.”
“We won’t make it in the dark when they’re active and have full visual advantage on us,” I voiced what I was sure was on everyone’s mind. “It’s the only plan, but not under these conditions. We stand a much better chance if we go by day where half of them will be too cautious to be out in the open, and we can see them up on the bridges.”
Hamilton didn’t even protest, which instantly made me suspicious. “We’ll lose a full day if we stop now and set out in the morning.”
“Still better than losing a third or half of our people. Or what do you think will happen if one of them does manage to drop into a boat? They’ll either smash right through it or cause it to capsize, and that water is ice cold. In full gear, we’ll sink and drown before we can even get paranoid about whether their bites can make us convert or not.”
I hadn’t expected him to, but that got Nate joining the conversation. “She’s not wrong with that assessment. And you just lost two people bec
ause you didn’t listen to her concerns.”
That made me snort. Hamilton sounded a lot less pleased. “Aren’t you obliged to always agree with her? I think there’s a word for this… right—”
“Smart,” I offered before he could rain on my parade. I thought it was Burns who laughed but couldn’t be sure; he was in one of the other boats.
“Do I have to remind all of you that this is not a democracy?” Hamilton ground out—but before I could continue with my wisecracks, he doused my gloating effectively. “If you see that much better, it only makes sense you should be our lookout. Just tell us if things don’t go as planned.”
That wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear, particularly as I was really fond of trying to sleep—but he kind of had a point. My bad, after having to brag how good my vision really was. I didn’t miss Nate’s soft laugh—or misunderstood how it was meant. I glared at him for his trouble and made sure to plant my elbow in something vital as I shifted to grab some binoculars from my pack.
“If you insist—”
“I do,” Hamilton confirmed. “Unless you absolutely need your beauty sleep, princess?”
I didn’t reward that with an answer. The lead boat started falling back behind us, and while I knew it was simple imagination, I felt twice as exposed as before. This was going to be one hell of a long night—and I had a certain feeling that tomorrow would only get worse.
“You good?” Nate’s question—and quite questionable wording—made me snort.
“Do I have a choice?”
Green Fields (Book 9): Exodus Page 13
