Every Dark Little Thing

by T. S. Ward

  “Ghost.”

  “It’s Keely,” I tell him. “Keely Finch.”

  “Keely,” he murmurs, and if that doesn’t sound like heaven.

  YEAR TWO

  Day One

  Day one hundred and one starts with Ben Daniels. The very first day of the new year starts with Soldier, and I reckon it’s a good enough time to start the count over. A new day one. A new version of life. A new existence outside limbo. So.

  Day one starts with Soldier, and I have no plans to start any other day any differently.

  I wake up relaxed and warm. I wake up perfectly fucking happy for once in my goddamn life, sprawled in the most comfortable bed I’ve ever had the pleasure of sleeping in—which is strange, because I’ve never slept well in any bed.

  The difference, this time, is the hand pressed against my lower back, and the warmth of skin against my skin, and that cool-warm feeling of hotel sheets.

  He shifts, gets closer, and kisses the back of my neck.

  “Don’t make me get out of bed,” I mumble.

  A laugh rumbles lightly inside his chest, and it’s something small, but it’s what I focus on. The way that it feels and sounds. The way his voice sounds almost the same, feels almost the same, warm against my shoulder where he kisses me again.

  “Not just yet,” he tells me, “No.”

  He runs his fingers down my back, not shy about the scar that runs nearly the whole length of my spine. I hum, smiling into the pillow, and turn to face him.

  We leave the hotel later than we really should have, but the reason for it isn’t a bad one—maybe even a better reason than why we went to bed so late. Still, eventually, we get our asses moving.

  The snow never stopped falling, and there are a few dead buggers stuck in my traps, but everything outside is quiet and cold and calm despite the gnashing teeth. Soldier takes them out while I look at the maps that he’s drawn sectors on. He has me going to the suburban side of town, away from the downtown area.

  “You think I can’t handle myself?”

  He shoots me a look. “No, I know you can. But you’re also reckless with the way you handle things. I want you safe.”

  I’m walking backwards to talk to him. “Oh, please. Nothing will stop me from getting back to this. Whole damn world could try to stop me.”

  “I know,” he says.

  He watches me go, waiting for me to disappear into the snow, to turn around and keep going. And then the radio at my hip crackles.

  “Remember to stick to your grid. And if there’s trouble, radio.”

  “You gonna be worried about me the whole time now?” I tease, but keep talking before he can answer. “I know, Benji. Always have been, haven’t you? Radio silence until rendezvous.”

  He doesn’t say anything, so then it’s just me and that silence.

  It’s a strange thing, because when has a city ever been silent? When has a city ever fallen this silent, no debris or sirens or crying or screaming?

  It’s so quiet I can hear my own heart beating, my own breathing, and the snow crushing loud beneath my boots. I don’t remember seeing so much snow in this area.

  The houses I bother checking are the ones that aren’t locked, and even those make me slightly nervous to walk into. I don’t expect an entire city to be completely empty. I expect people like me and Soldier to be hanging around, making do with what’s available. The only way we’re leaving is if we find some kind of vehicle. Snowmobile, or something with a plow on it, or skis or snowshoes. Anything that’ll make it worth our time trekking through snow.

  I only find a few small things. Snacks, mostly. I eat a few. I take out a couple frozen dead without struggle. That’s the way it goes for a couple hours. Nothing unusual. Nothing I can’t handle. And by the time I’m almost about to go meet up with Soldier, I’m nearly wishing something interesting would happen.

  And by interesting, I mean—running into Soldier. Kissing him in the snow. Going back to that room in that hotel.

  A fresh-looking deadly wanders across the street, body swaying on stiff legs. It stops, turns, and looks like it sniffs the air as it starts walking to me.

  I pull my knife, huffing as I hike a little quicker through the snow, and shove a hand into its chest as I bring the knife down on its eye. It gurgles, teeth snapping, and I side-step and push it to the ground. I sink the knife into the soft spot at the back of the skull. I press my boot against its head to tug out my knife.

  There are footprints in the snow. A few pairs.

  I drop to a crouch and look around, searching the street up and down.

  The snow is still falling. These footprints are fresh, going off toward houses in separate directions. I try to peer through windows but I can’t see a damn thing, and I can only hope the snow falling is thick enough that they don’t, either.

  I move away carefully, quickly, stepping where the popsicle stepped to make my way into the backyard of a house as carefully as I can. I get behind a fence and peer through the cracks.

  They’ll see that thing lying there dead and wonder who took it out.

  Soldier. I need to warn him. Get back to him.

  A spot of green makes me pause when I turn around. A greenhouse, all glass, heat lamps glowing orange. A solar panel half covered in snow sits next to it, and more buried on the roof of the house.

  I move up next to the window of the house and peer inside, searching for human shaped shadows or movement. I run to the greenhouse when I see none, staying low along the fence, hopeful that no one can see from the neighbouring houses.

  It’s warm inside. The sudden heat makes my nose run.

  Plants sit healthily inside pots that line the tables and floor, hoses of a drip-irrigation system collecting snow and melting under the heat of the place to water them. I crawl under a table and pull my radio out.

  “Soldier,” I say, quiet.

  There’s no response.

  “Soldier. Ben. Benjamin.”

  Still, no response. I wait a few minutes, try again, and then look at the radio in my hand.

  “Oh, fuck me,” I mutter. The channel dial is on the wrong number, and in my haste to fix it, I push it too far forward. And I freeze.

  “We had an agreement, Benjamin.”

  A woman’s voice. She says his name. She says his goddamn name and then it’s his voice responding and I cannot breathe, hearing this.

  “I didn’t agree to anything.”

  “And you don’t have to.”

  “You’ll have to find someone else, Lana. I won’t allow this.”

  “But why? We already have her. Sitting in this greenhouse.”

  I turn the radio off, breathing hard. Panic builds inside my chest as I sit there and listen, trying to hear them, trying to see them through the glass. Good fucking move, going for the glass house to hide.

  Fuck, Soldier. What the hell are you doing? What the hell is this? This, that fucking smoke from that fucking fire that’s always coming toward me, that wildfire that’s been burning on the fringes of my life waiting for the wind to hit it right.

  I finally let my guard down. Let myself be happy. And now this?

  The next fucking day.

  I have to stop myself. I have to stop my brain from diving into the deep end so quickly. This isn’t his fault. He hasn’t done it on purpose. He’s just—he’s just got them on a different channel. On a different frequency. That’s not on his army radio. The way he’s been listening in on them the entire time. And he’s using this lady’s name. He knows who she is. Maybe she’s the one he mentioned. So what? So what, so what, so what?

  So what the fuck is this, Soldier?

  What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck—

  I’m afraid to move. Afraid to book it for the back door, vault the fence, and run. They know where I am and I’m sure there’s enough of them to have me surrounded. I have no idea what I can do.

  Other than wait.

  Even if I did run, the goddamn snow would give me away. />
  I can pull a gun. I can threaten them until Soldier finds us. Threaten myself, maybe, if they want me alive. But I’m banking on Soldier to do something about this. Maybe he can talk this bitch down.

  I breathe out slowly. Turn the radio channel back to five.

  “Ben,” I whisper.

  “Where are you?”

  “If they get to you, what happens?”

  There’s no answer for a long time, and then, “I’m sure they don’t want me spilling all their secrets.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. My voice is just a breath. “Can’t have that, now, can we?”

  “Ghost,” he warns, and when I don’t respond, “Keely.”

  I pull my bow from its place on my pack, notch an arrow, and take a deep breath. There’s a shadow in the door, falling over the floor. The low sun behind the clouds casts it thin and long over weeded brick paving stones.

  I sure as hell won’t go without a fight.

  A man steps into the greenhouse. He’s holding a rifle, looking around, frowning. I have a clear shot through the hanging leaves covering me, and I take it without hesitation. The arrow makes a short sound, thunks into his head below the visor of his black helmet, and then he drops.

  I try not to think about it. Try to tell myself he was a deadly, just a grunt, and not a living, breathing, pulse-having human being.

  The radio is still on. I forgot to turn it off. It’s stuck to my hip as I crawl out from under the table and search the steamed-up windows of this place.

  “Ghost, where are you? Remember the map. What area?”

  I crawl over to the man lying on the ground and rip the arrow out of his skull, making an involuntary noise of disgust as I do. I struggle to think of the map he drew out while we sat in the hotel lobby, sectors marked out like Battleship, beyond the image of this man in front of me. I hum as I try to figure out my position from memory.

  “D3, maybe, I don’t…”

  Another soldier is coming up on the door, and I knock him before he even sees his friend. A third one gets his gun on me, using the door as cover. He and I both know I won’t waste this arrow without a clear shot, just in case he lives long enough.

  A dying man might not follow his orders to keep me alive.

  I jump back, behind the tables, and pull out a gun instead. Just a small thing Soldier insisted I take. I slip around the table. Stay low. And there’s the shot—glass shatters to the left of me and I drop back, rush to the back door as smoke fills the air.

  I shoot at the first shadow I see moving.

  The door takes some effort to force open against the snow, but I get it, and I push my way through, and I vault the fence. I don’t even make it near the top before someone grabs my pack and pulls me down. I land in the snow. Point the gun straight up. The bullet hits her right in the throat, and then she’s grabbing at the wound with gloved hands, blood spurting onto me and the snow.

  I scramble back as she falls toward me, and catch sight of something in her jacket pockets. Grenades. Real, actual grenades.

  I sit up as I pull one out, point the gun.

  A gunshot makes me jump. The gun flips out of my hand with the force of the impact, landing in the snow a few feet away. They shot the fucking gun right out of—fuck this. That kind of shit could have blown my hand off for all they know.

  But they don’t need my hand for this. Which is terrifying on its own.

  “Easy, Jessup,” the voice of that woman says.

  Standing right here, in the snow. Her white gloved hand held out to the soldier next to her. She’s not army. She’s not navy. She’s not air force. Not anything I can see. Just some woman in a prim white coat lined with fur.

  “Don’t want to shoot the kid, now, do we?”

  “Ghost.”

  I look the woman in her damn pale eyes. “You want me alive?”

  “It’s an honourable thing, really,” she says, “Give yourself up to be the cure.”

  I stand up slowly, grenade gripped in my hand behind my back. “Yeah, not a chance, fucker. Ain’t enough of me for everyone.”

  She looks at me coldly. “Projected death rates cut the population down to just enough. Enough of you to save the last of humanity.”

  My hands and feet are numb from the cold. Sharp, needle-like pain biting at the fingers and toes. It’s a dangerous game to play, but I grip the grenade tight and wiggle the pin out.

  “Don’t listen to her.”

  “Come with us nicely—”

  I hold the thing tighter. “Go with you. You’ll leave Ben out of this?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Lana.”

  The woman narrows her eyes. “You’ll have no say over him.”

  The way she says it sounds… odd. Like the idea bothers her. And I’m nervous as all hell now, holding this thing.

  “Did last night,” I tell her, laughing at the look on her face. Red in the cheeks. “And this morning. And just imagine, Lana, what I’m gonna do—”

  “Shut your damn mouth.” She nudges the black-ops looking soldier beside her. “Jessup. Grab her.”

  I put my hands up, hold them in the air as the man starts forward, and they both freeze, seeing the grenade in my hand. “Oh, yeah, that. Sorry. Back the fuck up, you old bitch. It’ll be far easier for you to find someone else than to convince me to help a corrupt shithole of a government.”

  “Keely, I’m almost there, don’t—” I turn the radio off.

  “You goddamn whore,” she hisses at me.

  I laugh. “What’s the matter, Lana? Is it the grenade that’s making you sweat, or is it Ben? Were you his girlfriend or something?”

  She’s shaking in her damn boots and this whole thing is making me sick and I just want it to end, but it isn’t, and she’s stepping forward. “Fiancée.”

  I back up toward the fence I came through, toward the street. “Yeah, don’t think that’s held up.”

  I hit the fence, start backing through the gate.

  Another black beetle looking dickhead is behind it. One I didn’t see. He hooks an arm around my neck, jams something sharp into my skin as he wrenches my head back.

  Warmth floods my skin, and then the absence of feeling. The grenade falls from my hand. The woman screams. The man throws me down into the snow, dives onto the grenade.

  I can’t move. Can’t feel my limbs to control them. But I think the radio was jostled during that, because I can hear Soldier’s voice. Ghost! Answer me. I’m almost there.

  A hollow thud hits my ears.

  Darkness floods my vision as another beetle kneels next to me, pulling the head of a grunt out of a bag, teeth gnashing. Holds it to my arm.

  No. No, no, no, no no no no—

  —

  There are brief flashes after that.

  Whatever needle they stuck in me wasn’t the last.

  Something sharp at the base of the skull.

  —

  That woman kneels over me, while heat consumes my body.

  “You think he cares about you,” she whispers to me. “He doesn’t. He only kept you still long enough for us to catch up.”

  “No,” I grunt through clenched teeth.

  No, that’s not what he did. He wouldn’t let us stay put. He wouldn’t let us stay anywhere. Always on edge. Always searching. Always listening—expecting, maybe. Maybe she’s right.

  “That’s the trick, Ms. Newell. He says no, we can’t stop, we have to keep moving, so you think it’s your idea when you spend a few days in one spot. You’re familiar with hunting, aren’t you, Ms. Newell? Wound an animal you have to follow it until it’s down, right?”

  —

  The fire fever washes over me. Takes me out. Makes the flashes worse.

  I don’t remember most of it, but what I do remember is gunshots. Yelling. Shadows on metal walls and light shining through in dusty columns. I have no idea where I am.

  Those two kids from the grocery store stand over me.

  And then there’s the sound of an engine, and
that woman, standing in the street, getting smaller and smaller.

  —

  “What the hell did they do to you?” A voice says, too loudly.

  —

  Soldier.

  —

  So, day one begins with him, begins with Ben Daniels, former army, and it’s the last time I see him.

  I lose all my shit—my bow, my gun, my radio, my bag with his goddamn honey and my journal.

  It takes six months to get my gear built back up and to find that town again.

  Six months, and the first few days of that are spent recovering, surrounded by people I don’t know who keep talking about meeting up with the rest of their group. Whispers of this guy, Macon, calling the shots. But as far as I see it, I’ve only got two people I’m trying to get back to and Macon isn’t one of them.

  My sister. And my Soldier.

  I take off the first opening I get. They’re shit about keeping watch during the night, so I grab whatever I can while they sleep and run off into the night.

  Six months alone.

  Six months to figure out where I am and how to get back to that damn city and the rendezvous I was supposed to meet him at. It’s by chance that I find a building riddled with bullet holes that looks somewhat familiar, where I find my bow and a radio lying cold on the ground.

  I warm up the battery before turning it on.

  “Soldier?” I say, double check that I have the right channel. Five. Right?

  There’s no response.

  Day One Hundred and Eighty-Seven

  I’m mumbling the words to some song I can barely remember when I come across the tank and its resident green goblins. I stop dead in the middle of the street.

  A horde stands aimlessly in an intersection. It looks like the entire city congregated together. But that’s how the hordes work—the noise draws others near, and then that noise draws more, until they’re a goddamn tsunami.

  A whirlpool of hungry flesh. A Lovecraftian nightmare.