Race the Dead (Book 1): The Last Flag

by Cavanagh, Wren

  …on a mouthful of cold air and pain. Theo came awake with a yelp, stiff and confused his muscles tight from the cold.

  “Ith mah thongue. Owww,” he moaned softly and sat up with the taste of blood in his mouth. The earliest of morning light filtered through the windows as he got his bearings, confused he realized that the chewing noises had followed him from his dream and for one crazy second he happily thought that the large breakfast had too. Still groggy from sleep, he turned toward the noise.

  Alvin. Busy at Eliza’s neck, stared back at him.

  Theo screamed and scuttled away. Minutes passed as they stared and considered each other, eventually, his friend looked away and returned to his repast. Theo looked at Eliza then, she was looking at him. Her head angled back and rested against the wall. For an insane second he wondered if she might be alive. But it was impossible; there was too much blood and just not enough flesh left for that. All the same, her eyes tracked him as he staggered up from his crouch, and slowly, with care, reached down and grabbed Alvin’s backpack

  He backed away, took his belongings, and lastly, grabbed the camera on the way out.

  At a safe distance, he put on shoes and socks, still cold and damp, then turned the camera back on and looked into it, held the flags out. Angry, he whispered to the viewers.

  “I'm going for the next flag—one more to go.” He paused. “And I am winning this thing.” He turned the camera on Eliza and Alvin, focused the shot, zoomed in, and kept it there for a long while for anyone watching. Bread and circuses, he thought. Hope this don’t get censored, because you deserve this. Here is your circus, assholes. Hope it’s nothing but nightmares for you, all the way to your graves.

  He grabbed the other map and key from Alvin’s backpack, picked up the camera again, and left the café. He didn’t hurt them, they had both been good to him — Alvin had both cared for him and had taken care of him, and Eliza had been more than decent to him and had always treated him with good humor and respect. They had both seemed lost in their shared experience, horrific as it was, and neither had tried to hurt him; neither seemed in any pain any longer. So who the hell was he to decide that they should die again?

  Outside, the air felt cold enough to cut your skin, and snow was falling. He briefly wondered if it had ever stopped, then located the next flag on the map, at 1104 Humboldt Street. Not too far away, he thought, and began to run in shin-deep snow through a gelid milk white landscape. As he ran on, the cold bit deeper, and while it drew no blood, it inflicted its own kind of misery.

  ----------

  A rough hand shook him awake.

  “C’mon, we can get you communicating with your teams. You should be sober enough.”

  Bleary-eyed but not feeling as sick or as hangover as would have expected, he got up and saw movement deeper in the tent. He looked more deliberately. Joe, he thought, that's Joe.

  “Can I see them?”

  The Captain Shrugged. “Five minutes.”

  Tom stumbled toward the inner level, accompanied by the officer, the guards let him through.

  “This is close enough.” The officer halted him. “You don’t need to go in there.”

  At the heavy-duty transparent plastic partition, Tom raised his hand to Joe, who after a few seconds returned his salute.

  He looked at the only other occupied stretcher and it took him a minute before he recognized who he was seeing. The wreck staring back at him, angry and resentful, was a kid who’d never get older. Most of Ty’s face was under bandages, the yellow-brown stains from the iodine visible on his flesh at the gauze’s edges. Tyshon stared back like a baleful basilisk. He hates my guts, thought Tom, unable to look away. Ty gave him the finger with his one good hand, a futile and powerless gesture from a powerless boy.

  The Captain leaned in, lowered his voice, and whispered. “Dumbass, he’s mad at you…but nobody made him sign up to go. Did they? That guy’s gonna be dead soon, anyway.” He pushed Tom along. “It’s show time, movie star.”

  Outside he guided Tom through a bustling mini citadel, an integrated mix of the production’s trailers and vans, Army tents, trucks, trailers, and guns—more guns that Tom had ever seen outside of the set of an action movie. The production people were nowhere to be seen, but it was damn early in the day. The officer stopped in front of a 34-foot Farber command trailer. It had a large dish on the roof and another hanging from its side, and it looked like it had possibly stolen NASA’s supplies of antennas.

  “Step inside, please.”

  Tom obeyed. Lim waited for him, standing in front of dry erase board, looking tired but alert. Two lower-ranked soldiers were at their stations, headsets on. Their faces worried and intense. Not listening to music, Tom guessed.

  “Have some coffee, Tom, and then let’s get your people out.” He gestured to a small coffee station on a side table and smiled at him. “Let’s get this done before your production wants in on our action. Who do you want to talk to first?”

  “Eliza — one of her group was hurt and the other looks real young to everybody.”

  Lim nodded, passed him a headset with a mike, and gestured to one of the communications specialists. Tom heard nothing on the line.

  “Eliza? Eliza?” He closed his eyes and focused on listening. Finally, faint noises in the background came through, irregular and elusive. “Eliza? Alvin or Theo? Come on people, please answer me. Alvin?”

  Someone stumbled and fell. Glass broke. It sounded painful and loud but no one shouted or cursed, then the movements faded and he heard no more.

  “Looks like you lost a team,” said Lim, “Who's next?”

  Tom licked his dry lips. He felt nauseous and knew it wasn’t the hangover. “She Devils.”

  Kate and Logan, where is Cho?

  “All right, let’s go.” With a dissatisfied and exhausted sigh, Kate got up from flattened out pile of card board boxes she had used for bedding. Worst. Night of sleep. Ever. The generator had run out of fuel sometime around three o’clock and from then on her night had been fitful, frigid and miserable. She finally fell asleep again, shortly before waking, and her mind took her to an unsettling dream.

  The blond boy from the Fat Cobras had been in it. Hand in hand, they ran in a wide field she knew to be green but was salted with enough white daisies that it was almost impossible to see any grass. Above, a cloudless and intense blue sky rained more daisies and petals on them. She should have been happy but she kept falling to the ground only to get up and start skipping again. Every time she fell, in that manner unique to dreams, she fell farther and farther away, and every time it got a bit harder to get up. Eventually, the boy let go of her hand. He looked sad, disappointed as he reached down to grab…Grab what? She woke up then.

  Disturbed she reached for her socks, at least they were dry, felt almost warm. She sank her feet into them with a shiver of pleasure, put on her boots and got up. The room still held some heat; its small size, their bodies, and the cardboard and stock insulation had helped retain it. Still, she was willing to bet that outside it would be freeze-the-spit-in-your-mouth cold. Logan slept by her side, curled tightly in a fetal ball. From under the Mylar and a makeshift blanket of cardboard he had wrapped himself into; she could see his dark hair poking out in unruly tufts. Kate nudged him and looked for Cho, but she wasn’t in the room. Where the hell had she gone?

  “Get up, lazy man.”

  Logan stretched grandly, gave long deep sigh then casted bleary eyes on the room. “Hiw am peeez.”

  “Sorry?” Kate replied, she noticed that her cameraman didn’t look like he had rested much either.

  “Pee.”

  “Ha, yes — pee. Peeing is always a good way to start off your morning, yes. You can find your way to the restroom, I trust. Where is Cho?”

  “Don’tz knowsh,” Logan yawned, stretched again, and st
aggered his way to the restroom.

  Cho being gone: Kate didn’t like this at all, it had been drama to finally get her back in the room last night. She stepped past him and entered the store’s main area. And, Christ! But it was cold. A gelid bite, it came with a wind that stung her eyes, burned her skin, and animated the white plume of her breath, making it dance in the air like a dervish. In a panic she realized that there was only one way for that wind to have come in, her stomach knotted in fear and her muscles tensed as if a bolt of electricity had hit them. Cho, you idiot! What were you thinking? For the love of God, what were you thinking? Aghast, she saw the fresh white snow that had accumulated at the entrance. The door was open, she looked about wildly, but in the low light everything was a monochromatic study in subtle grays and black hues, and she saw no movement.

  “Breathe.”

  The hand that came down on her shoulder forced a loud shrill scream of fear from her and made her jump almost a foot off the floor.

  “Logan! Jesus...Christ...Logan.” She broke out in hysterical giggles and swearing because it was better than to keep on screaming.

  “Breathe, Kate, I think we're alone,” he said as he surveyed the room for visitors.

  “Breathe, yeah right, breathe,” she mocked him, her voice shrill. Then an unpleasant thought ran through her head and she ran back to the stockroom. “I’ll kill her! If she's taken the flags or the map I’ll kill her, I swear!” In the background she heard Logan run to the exit door and lock it. “Everything’s still here: gun, backpacks. Everything is still here. What the hell?” She wondered to herself. When she turned, Logan was at the door.

  “Looks like she went outside and there was a struggle — lots of footsteps. She wasn’t able to get back in and ran. I didn’t see any blood in the snow, just lots of action.”

  “Okay. We can’t abandon her. I can’t. I need to make an attempt at least.”

  Logan grimaced unhappily, grabbed his camera, set it on his shoulder and turned the power on.

  “Hey! Sweet, WiFi is back.”

  “Quick, your headset!”

  They both heard faint noises from the headset on the table. Logan grabbed it and held it between them so they both could hear.

  “...t there? Hello?”

  “Tom! Hey, yeah! Good to finally hear you — what is going on, man?!?”

  “Where have you people been! I've been trying to call everyone for at least an hour. Our lawyers won. For now. So you’ll be back streaming soon, but listen, this is connection is through Army channels, okay? For now this is private. Kate, are you there?”

  “I’m here, Tom.”

  “Good. Get out. I mean it, the Army won’t come to get you, as long as you keep going. But if it's a rescue mission they’ll help us get you out. How about it? Kate? Cho?”

  “Just Kate,” Logan replied. “Cho went outside while we slept.”

  “Oh…well, shit!”

  “Yeah, shit. I’m not quitting, I want to win this thing. Logan?”

  “No. I like what Tom is saying, I'm ready to get out.”

  “You can’t! Not if I keep playing!”

  “Honey, it’s a job for me, I am not going to die for it.”

  “Tom, can I win without a cameraman!? Because I am not quitting.” There was no reply but a long, silent pause. “Tom?”

  “Kate, I don’t think so. No. The viewers would miss out.” His tone sounded hopeful. “And this is a show. Shows are for viewers. Logan I’ll completely support you if you want out.”

  Kate looked at Logan. “Look,” she cajoled, “let’s just try and find Cho — just a quick look, okay? Then I’ll decide.”

  “You look pretty damned decided to me.”

  “I can change my mind. Tell you what — you stay here. I’ll do a quick search for Cho and come back, okay?”

  “Christ, people!” Tom said over the headset. “Get out!”

  The cameraman looked levelly at Kate. “I’ll go with you for two blocks…only two blocks. Then I am getting out, whether we find her or not.”

  With a sigh of relief, Kate wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you. Thank you, Logan.”

  “Yeah. Tom, get ready to get us out.”

  “On it.”

  Logan shouldered his camera, got ready, and pointed it at Kate. “You're the only one now. Talk to the camera every so often, okay? God...I’d kill for a hot mocha.” He made a pistol with his right hand and pointed it at Kate. “You're on, princess, in...three...two...one.” He pulled the trigger.

  “Don’t call me princess. All right, any of you watching — Xhiu died yesterday, maybe you saw it, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you cared, maybe you didn’t, we got away and took refuge in this store.” She stopped, grabbing and scanning a couple of invoices from the counter. “Romero’s Enterprises, and a lovely old store it is, Mr. Romero. Anyway, we took refuge here. Xhiu came back and found us. Now Cho is missing. It could be she went outside to try and help Xhiu or end her state as…as...a, Turned.” She shrugged, annoyed. “Whatever. I'm going to see if I can quickly find Cho and if she can be rescued, if I can’t find her, I’ll decide then if I’ll go on or quit the race.”

  She opened the door and walked out. A mess of footprints, divots, gashes, and drag marks — signs of a struggle — marred the snow pack outside the store. The edges of the tracks had been softened, erased in places by the falling snow, indicating that whatever happened had happened hours ago. No blood that she could see, but so what? The snowfall, though lighter now, sure as hell hadn’t stopped overnight. It could be covering any blood traces.

  “It looks like she might have tried to come back in but they blocked her. She figured out too late, what a crap idea going out had been.”

  Logan nodded, shuffling in place to keep warm. “We have to hurry. My feet are already freezing.”

  “Let’s go,” Kate replied. “If we find her safe, we have to double back for the outdoor store to get boots.”

  Logan rolled his eyes. “Out,” he mouthed silently.

  Kate chose to ignore that and began to follow the tracks. It might not have been a large group that had gone after Cho, but as it went on it grew in size. More Turned had come to join in the chase, footsteps converged onto the main path from the periphery. She wondered if Cho had screamed for help. She doubted it; Cho had pride and would have been over confident until it was too late, but she also would have wanted to protect them. No, she wouldn’t have screamed.

  Her footsteps went from door to door as she had looked to escape her pursuers and the elements. As Kate followed, she cringed when she saw small traces of blood, colorful and vivid as daylight grew. Ominous small spots of fresh blood that became more copious as the tracks descended into chaos. She kept going, past the two block limit Logan had set, but neither stopped. Three city blocks away and down a side street, it looked like Cho had found the refuge she sought. In front of nondescript exit door in a nondescript building, the mantle of snow was filthy, churned and compacted, and the entrance was kept open by a body whose legs stuck out in the alley and was soaking in the mush.

  “Oh, God,” Kate groaned, ran to the dead body.

  “It’s not her,” she said and looked into the camera. “It’s not her. Cho could still be okay.”