by Emma Shortt
“It’s what we all thought.” The second voice came from a lithe Latina woman. She grinned at Sammy then at Jackson, and held out her non-gun-bearing arm. “That one—it couldn’t have been more than one—had snuck into the camp and took her. But we never imagined she’d still be alive. It makes no sense. Nancy, by the way. This is Mack.”
“A zombie snuck into your camp?” Luke asked as Jackson took Nancy’s hand. “An army camp?”
Nancy shook her head. “We’re not army. Not in the conventional sense of the word at least. Though our camp is well as defended as any army base used to be.” She scowled. “A zombie’s never managed to get in till now. Never. Well, they’ve got close but never past the inner perimeter. We’re locked up nice and tight.”
“If you’re not army then,” Jackson said. “Are you the Laredo camp?”
Nancy’s scowl turned into a grin. “Is that what they’re calling us?”
“They?”
“People up north.” She shrugged. “I’m assuming that’s where you’ve come from. You’re not tanned enough to be from these parts.”
“Yeah we’ve come from Chicago,” Luke said. “We’re looking for the camp that’s at the end of the I-35.”
“And where did you hear about this camp?” Nancy asked.
“Another group, in Illinois,” Jackson said.
“Not the university?”
Jackson frowned. “What university?”
Nancy paused for a moment and eyed the rest of her group. “Don’t you people have zombies to kill? Might as well clean house while we’re here.”
They grumbled and muttered but the majority of them went quickly enough, heading for the houses lining the street. Jackson noticed each smaller group that branched off from the main had four people in it. One for each pack member maybe? She was unsurprised to note that Mack did not join the groups. He took his daughter over to one of the trucks she could now see parked up and sat her inside.
“There’s someone there,” Nancy said, dragging Jackson’s attention back from the man and his daughter. “At the university campus in Chicago. Polly her name is. She’s sent a couple of survivors our way, to our camp, and yeah, you can call us Laredo if you like.”
Jackson gasped, her heart thudded wildly, and her legs felt ever so slightly weak. At last. After all the time. Just like Tye had promised.
“There aren’t any survivors around that way,” Luke said, interrupting her frantic thoughts. “I lived by the campus and I never saw anyone.”
“Polly tends to keep to herself,” Nancy replied, gesturing for them to follow her over to their parked trucks. “I’m not surprised you didn’t see her. But the other group, the Illinois crew, they’re a weird bunch. Be glad you didn’t stay there.”
“How do you know all this?” Jackson asked, her head spinning. “Are you in contact?”
“We are.” Those words came from a skinny Asian guy, who was chewing what Jackson assumed was gum, in a maniacal fashion.
Jackson’s heart thumped some more. How she’d hoped…it was unbelievable!
“But we can tell you about all this later,” Nancy said. “First, Sammy. What happened here? Like I said, she’s been missing since they took her night before last.” She lowered her voice. “We never expected to find her alive. Thought this would be a revenge mission rather than a retrieval.”
“Well…” Jackson exchanged a look with Luke and he nodded.
The remaining people—seven in all—clustered around them then, a loose circle of more people than Jackson had seen in many months. She swallowed unsteadily, a little surprised by how disconcerting it was. She’d been so used to it being just her and one other. “She was bait,” Luke said, straight to the point as always, beating Jackson to the punch.
Gasps filled the air, followed by low murmurs.
“What?” The question came from the gum-chewing guy. “What did ya say?”
“What Luke means,” Jackson replied, nudging him. “Is that as far as we could see they left Sammy on the open road as, well, yeah, bait.”
“What do you mean?” Nancy asked.
“We saw her as we were driving past and she was just there,” Jackson replied. “We thought she was a zombie at first, but we realized pretty quickly that she was still alive. We followed her in there.” She hooked a thumb at the garage. “But it’s been no more than a half hour since we found her. We were totally in the shit before you guys arrived. They had us trapped.”
“You think they left her in the road to trap us?” Nancy asked, and the tension in her face was obvious. “That’s impossible.”
Jackson shrugged. “But it’s what happened.”
“Jesus Christ.”
They turned, all of them, to look at Mack and his daughter. He met their eyes—shock stamped across his features—before lowering his gaze back to her. “Where have you been, baby?”
Sammy gasped a sob and clutched her dolly to her. She was sat on the driver’s seat, her little legs not even reaching the floor.
“Baby?” Mack prompted.
“With them.” The girl’s words were just a whisper, and everyone leaned forward a little closer to hear it.
“With the bad guys?” Mack asked.
Sammy nodded. “They made me sit in the road and I was thirsty and then they made me run.”
The crowd exchanged looks and Nancy shifted uneasily, her gaze scanning the street. “Made you how?” she asked.
“They told me.”
“They spoke to you?
Sammy shook her head. “No.”
“Then how?”
“They just did,” she cried and her little lip wobbled. “They were waiting.”
“For who?”
Sammy stroked down her dolly’s dress and looked from one shocked face to another. Her braids bobbed slightly as her little shoulders shook, and tears tracked down her face, creating a path free of mud. “For everyone.”
Chapter Twenty-six
The drive to the survivor’s camp did not take as long as Luke thought it would, just over forty minutes in total. He looked around as he drove and realized pretty quickly why that was the case. The camp was not in Laredo, but rather in a small town called Realitos, a little farther from the border.
“Used to have a population of about two hundred,” Nancy said as they passed the town sign. She’d jumped in their car, that uneasy look still on her face, and had peppered them with questions. Only when she was done did she start answering theirs. “About six months before it all went to shit some big-shot developer bought a lot of the land around it. He started building a gated community. Not sure who the fuck he thought he’d be able to sell the houses to.” She shook her head. “But it worked in our favor. He had some issues with theft, and so the guy walled off the construction area—made it into a fucking fortress. By the time everything started to fall apart most of the houses were built—not finished internally, but built.”
“Then it’s a safe zone?” Jackson asked.
“Sure is,” Nancy agreed. “And most of the original residents of the town came straight here. One of the construction guys had the keys. I knew about it because I lived a couple of towns over and we don’t get much news. This development was a huge deal.”
Jackson nodded slowly. “So the army didn’t set it up in the beginning?”
Nancy snorted. “Like I said there’s no army here. Not anymore.”
“And the zombie population?” Luke asked.
“There’s a fair few,” Nancy said. “Mostly hanging around in Benevides and San Diego. We try and clean them out as often as possible, but they tend to keep coming.”
“Why did the zombies take Sammy so far from the camp?” he asked, the question swirling in his mind. “And more to the point, how?”
Nancy shrugged. “I have no idea. None of this makes sense. They’re getting smarter, we know that, but to set up such a trap? It goes against everything we thought we knew about them.”
“It’d take them hour
s to sprint this distance. Hours.”
“Yeah. Like I said, it doesn’t make sense, just like the fact that one snuck in the camp, and I don’t need to tell you how much it’s worrying me. You’ll see what I mean when we get there,” she added. “We’re like a virgin’s panties—or at least we used to be. I’ll need to get everyone doing a thorough sweep, see if we can find where that fucker got in.”
When Nancy showed him where to turn off the road and onto scrubland, Luke saw immediately what she meant. He whistled a low breath, turned the steering wheel, and cast Jackson a quick look. She nodded, seemingly as impressed as he.
The survivors had inherited a fortress. Literally. The ground all around was cleared bare, leaving not a single place for a waking dead to hide. In the distance, a wall at least eight feet high extended for a good distance before curving in on itself, no doubt completing a circle. The wall boasted sentry towers every couple of hundred yards and they were clearly manned.
“You added the towers?” Jackson asked.
“We had the materials,” Nancy replied. “They were just there and so we got to work. Like I said, the original residents saw what was happening across the rest of the world and knew we had to do something. We were luckier than you guys, though. The heat makes them slow. It has to do with their increased metabolisms and ability to sweat or something. Sebastian understands it better. He’s our resident zombie expert. Basically the same thing that makes them hungry makes them struggle in the higher temperatures.” She shrugged. “Those that turned headed straight for the shade. Bunkered down under houses and stuff, waiting till nighttime when the temperature dropped before attacking. Except we turned the tables and flushed them out.”
“There were so many though,” Jackson said. “So many.”
Luke reached out and took her hand, giving it a squeeze, ignoring the fact that his own was far from steady. He felt oddly shaky. He’d thought the end was nigh, so no fucking wonder. The fact that they were alive was nothing short of a miracle and he had to take a deep breath to get a hold of himself.
“Like fucking rats,” Jackson continued, her voice hardening. “The bastards.”
He gave one last squeeze. No one, least of all Jackson, liked to remember those early days. Thousands of zombies chasing anything still alive. It was the stuff of nightmares and everyone in their convoy had lived those nightmares. Many times over.
“That there were,” Nancy agreed. “Thousands and thousands. They ate plenty, believe me, despite the heat. We were lucky we had this place. Lucky so many thought to come here.”
Luke leaned forward, slowing the car slightly to get a better view of the approaching building. “How many does it hold?”
“A good few hundred, though we’re hitting capacity. We have to save a fair bit of land for growing food and for the chickens.”
“You’re growing food?”
“Yep. We’re doing okay, though rations are tight. We have other farmland but it’s risky going out to cultivate it. The zombies have those places pinged now they’re getting smarter and they wait around hoping to get their hands on us, despite the heat. It’s better to stay inside the walls when possible.”
Luke eased off the gas as the cars in front slowed, waiting for the huge gate to open. It cranked apart bit by bit and as it did Luke saw groups of people milling around in the front courtyard.
“We’re expected,” he said.
Nancy leaned forward and showed them a walkie-talkie. “Mack would have called ahead.”
“Walkies huh? You have other technology working?”
“Yep. We got all sorts. We scavenged a whole load of solar panels a while back, and Miguel, one of the teens, is a whiz at hooking things up to them.”
“Radio?” Luke asked but Nancy shook her head.
“We’ve not been able to find one of those.”
They drove through the gate and Luke noticed Jackson shifting as all eyes hit them.
“This is unbelievable,” she whispered.
Luke almost laughed at the expression on her face, emotions churning inside him—the main one being absolute satisfaction that they’d made it. That they’d done as they planned, and now Jackson at last, was safe. The Madonna moment image of her holding Sammy again came to him and his almost laugh died. How close it had been.
“You thought this would be here,” he said softly. “It’s what you’ve been looking for. Hell, you had me believing it.”
She turned in her seat and their eyes met. The same feeling that had arced between them in the garage erupted again and Luke swallowed drily.
“No, not like this…”
“Well I’m glad you’re impressed,” Nancy said with a laugh, lightening the moment, and Luke turned from Jackson’s muffled words to look back at Nancy.
“Beyond impressed,” he said. “I never expected this. When Jack spoke about finding other survivors down south I thought a ragtag bunch at best. That we’d hook up with you and scratch out a living of some sort. But this? Nah, I never even dared imagine it.”
“We’re doing okay,” she said, the pride in her voice obvious. “The dead aren’t gonna take us down. Not if Sebastian has anything to do with.”
“Who is this Seb…?” Luke trailed off as he braked to a standstill behind the other cars. They were all lining up against the wall, each ready to move at a moment’s notice, and when he could move again he had to squeeze the Batmobile into a small space by the gate. The spot gave them a view of the entire courtyard and camp area.
The others started jumping out of vehicles, grabbing gear and stuff, but Luke simply remained in his seat wide-eyed. He looked from house to house, all laid out like some sort of little village, and then finally to the group of people hanging around the large carport. He couldn’t really believe what he was seeing, and it was only when he looked closely at the group did he realize exactly what he was having trouble trying to process. He felt Jackson give him a nudge and shook his head.
“I don’t believe it.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “What’s up?”
“How many did you say were here?” he asked Nancy, giving Jackson’s arm a rub back.
“A few hundred,” she replied. “Three hundred and seventeen if you want an exact head count. Nineteen now, I guess.”
Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him? Maybe he was imagining things, but he didn’t think so. “And how many came from up north like us?”
“I dunno, fifty maybe? We’ve had some come in bunches, some in pairs like you guys, and the odd lone survivor. Why?”
“That guy there,” Luke pointed to one of the cammoed guys helping to unload one of the cars. “I know him.”
“In a world of millions—now thousands,” Nancy said, “it’s unlikely that you’d know someone.”
“I’m positive.”
“I don’t know…”
“Come on.” He jumped out of their car, ignoring Nancy’s words, waited for Jackson to join him, and strode forward. The floor was packed mud and dry as a bone, the heat here was palpable, and the noise… The noise was what startled Luke the most. So many people laughing and joking. It almost felt normal. Like a bit of the old world was left. Which he guessed it was. Here in the heat of the south, in this conclave, part of humanity remained. Well, normal apart from the gun digging into his back.
“What’s going on?” Jackson asked.
“You remember the Lily zombie?”
She shivered. “That I do.”
“That guy there.” He pointed. “That’s her husband.”
Jackson gaped. “Are you serious?”
“Yep.”
“Oh my God. The odds…”
“Yeah what are the odds, huh?” They rounded one of the cars and when the guy came into view Luke knew he hadn’t been mistaken. “Pete?”
Pete turned and straightened, a wrench in his hand, shock stamped across his features.
“Fucking hell…”
“I knew it!” Satisfaction spread through
Luke and he raced forward, grabbing the other man around the back and hugging him for all he was worth. “I thought it was you. Jesus Christ, man.”
Pete, Luke’s friend from so long ago, the guy that had brought his Mustang in for a service year after year, grinned and clapped him back. “Well, well, well. Never thought I’d see you again.”
Luke shrugged. “Me and you both.”
“I haven’t seen you since that fuckup at the police station,” Pete said, shaking his head and grinning widely. “But you made it here? Fucking hell, buddy. You’re gonna need to tell me how. In detail. I thought that they’d got you. I never imagined you’d survived.”
“No. I made it out okay in the end,” Luke said. “But you? The last I saw of you, well…” Luke shifted uncomfortably; Pete would not want to be reminded of that incident.
“Yeah.” He waved away the words. “Last you saw me was when my wife was trying to eat me. Suffice to say she didn’t succeed.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“No. It’s fine,” Pete said, but Luke could see the pain in his eyes, the difference in the man he’d once known. “We’ve all lost everyone right?” he added. “Lily’s dead now, just like everyone fucking else. But you guys are here, and other survivors, that’s a blessing. A total blessing. We have to be thankful for that.”
Luke turned and met Jackson’s eyes. An unspoken message ran between them and he shook his head ever so slightly. The image of the snarling Lily filled his mind. Her self-satisfied look as she had stood in the only safe place he’d had left in the whole world. Her howl of rage as they’d escaped across the park.
She’d smartened up, would have eaten them both in a heartbeat. There was no doubt about that. But underneath it all, somewhere inside whatever remained of her brain, she was still Pete’s wife. Maybe she’d forgotten it all? The laughter and the teasing, all the times they’d spent together, the three of them. Or maybe she did remember but no longer had the ability to care or even process the information. Whatever. It made no difference in the end. So far as the world stood now she would never be Lily again. She was one of them. The zombies. Their enemies and he fucking hated them all.
