The Redeemed

by Matthew S. Cox

  Curls of concertina wire surrounded the top of a fourteen-foot wall, run in three bands above the gate. In direct opposition to the foreboding edifice, painted red-and-white letters declared, “Welcome to Amarillo!” next to a yellow smiley face wearing a cowboy hat.

  Distant armored figures stood watch on the rooftops of four and five story pre-war buildings that hadn’t disintegrated. Three or four soldiers paced back and forth on patrol per structure. Most of the buildings had survived only as skeletons of I beams holding up pancakes of concrete floor. A few had patches of original wall left, though a collage of mismatched wood, drywall, metal slabs, and even kitchen countertops filled in the gaps.

  Tris stared at the distant armored figures. They don’t look like they’re in the middle of a war with Infected. Guess they think they’re safe way up there.

  Below the greeting, an enormous double door reminiscent of an old castle keep hung ajar. The gap would let a person in with ease, but not the van. Distant rattles, snaps and twangs like stray threads of razor wire slapping metal in the wind, and a repetitious stone-on-wood clonk filled the air. Of the perhaps thirty figures milling about in the distance, not one reacted to their approach.

  “Gonna park here?” asked Zara.

  Tris grumbled. “I don’t like leaving it out in the open, or at the gate… too far to walk if we find someone alive. I also don’t want to drive in too far in case we get cut off.” She tapped her fingers on the wheel. A twinge of nausea tickled the bottom of her stomach. “Got an idea.”

  “Must not be a good one if you’re making that face.” Zara grinned.

  She chuckled. “There’s a mechanic place a little bit inside the gate. Fat bastard that owns it offered us a free charge if I had sex with him.”

  “Ugh.” Zara rolled her eyes. “Probably the only way he got any.”

  “Well, he didn’t get any.” Tris laughed. “Kevin almost shot him for asking. I think if we were anywhere else but Amarillo, he would have.”

  “Why?”

  Tris rolled up to within a few feet of the gate, stopped, and opened the door. “Spend most of your life idolizing something, then you’re there… he didn’t wanna mess anything up.” She hopped out and hurried toward the city’s entrance.

  Zara jumped down, her boots hitting the road as Tris passed the front bumper. She jogged over to help pull. With both of them hauling on it, the gargantuan slab of corrugated metal, armor plates, and wood moved. Inside, the street lay strewn with bodies, most riddled with bullet wounds, a handful had arrows sticking out of them, and two or three appeared to have been victimized by swords. Somewhere between twenty and thirty men and women in various amounts of armor lay dead on the blacktop and sidewalks. One guy even had a steel colander on his head as an attempt at defense.

  “Whoa.” Zara covered her mouth to suppress a chuckle. “I shouldn’t laugh at this, but what was that idiot thinking?”

  “I don’t like this at all.” Tris squinted. “Someone took all their weapons, even the swords. Infected aren’t that smart.”

  “Survivors?” Zara shrugged. “Look there.” She pointed to a storefront where huge blue spray-painted letters spelled ‘Gunz’ over a blacked out window. “The bodies crumpled over that barricade look like Infected.”

  Three human figures hung tangled in a defensive wall of sawhorses and razor wire set up in front of the store; the corpses had the unmistakable vacant stare of Infected, as well as some early signs of skin degeneration.

  “Come on,” whispered Tris.

  She jogged back to the van, waited for Zara to climb into the seat, and drove in. Eerie silence surrounded them as they passed building after building. Some had been made of house trailers stacked three high, with improvised patio porches at each level. Lines, rope as well as wire, crisscrossed the street, hung with bedsheets and other laundry. She couldn’t help herself and scanned for salvageable underpants, but shied away from the thought before spotting any. Most of the garments looked filthy. If that’s what stuff looks like after washing it… ugh. Still, with her jeans and dust hopper leather shirt, she didn’t have to worry about putting on a show.

  Strangely enough, none of the soldiers on the rooftops yelled down at them.

  About sixty yards from the gate, she pulled left into the lot in front of ‘Otto’s Plug and Play.’ Three garage-style doors occupied three-quarters of a brick-shaped building. The portion to the right of the doors looked more like an old 1950s era diner, complete with chrome walls and yellow and green neon lights. Nude-lady silhouettes decorated the windows in crude hand-painted renderings.

  “It’s genius.” Zara gestured at the windshield. “Get your charge on while you get your fluids drained. Why haven’t I ever seen a place like this before?”

  Tris nosed the van into the only open bay, the one in the middle. Fortunately, no bodies lay in her path. “Because it’s a bad idea. This asshole belongs in Glimmertown with the rest of the sick bastards.”

  The van bounced over a hydraulic lift in the middle of the space before she stopped with maybe four inches between the bumper and a large toolbox on wheels. Tris shut down the drive system and slid out of the driver’s seat to the ground. She pulled her AK-47 out from behind the seat and slung it over her left shoulder on a strap. Her katana followed, going over her right shoulder. She eased the door closed before pushing it to click, taking care to be quiet.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and there’ll be some juice in the batteries still.”

  Zara emerged from the van a moment later, having donned her Enclave armor, sans helmet. When Tris gave her the eyebrow lift, she shook her head. “Power cell ran out. Cloaking won’t work without it, and I was a little paranoid about them tracking the transponder. Haven’t finished putting it back together yet. I wasn’t exactly expecting to need it so fast… helmet’s in pieces back in Ned.” She thudded her fist against her chest. “Still good armor. The Nederland militia sure likes it; we kept all the suits from Nathan’s kill team.”

  “Oh.” Tris squatted in front of the van and pulled out the charging cable.

  Boom. The heavy slam of something smashing into the side of the van echoed over the garage.

  Tris screamed.

  She jumped up in time to catch a glimpse of Zara’s hair trailing after her on the way to the floor. A person-sized crimple on the van’s passenger wall showed where Zara’s impact had crushed the thin metal against the armor plates inside.

  Otto, the bald, pudgy, drooling (and tragically shirtless) piece of human filth who’d leered at her seven months ago wobbled on his left leg in an effort to recover from the force with which he’d punched Zara in the back. The infection made him look blobbier; his jowls draped down on his chest like a melting pizza. His belly overhung his thighs, and his flesh had either pinked or mottled with purple. Stubby sausage fingers opened and clenched. He flailed and threw his weight to the right, avoiding a fall.

  Tris yanked the katana out of its sheath. “Did I mention the guy also grabbed my ass?”

  Two yellow eyes rolled around trying to fixate on her.

  Zara made a wheezy moan-whimper from where she laid on her front near the van. She didn’t move much.

  “Hey asshole,” said Tris. She’d have yelled, but didn’t want to attract a dozen more Infected from across the street.

  Otto whirled on her fast enough for his various folds to clap, and grunted.

  She ran at him, drawing the blade down his chest in a crossing slash that loosed a waterfall of blood over his undulating stomach. He gurgled and grunted, sounding more annoyed than hurt. An arm thicker than her leg swiped out. Tris ducked, barely noticing the loss of a strand of hair. The instant the massive, limb passed overhead, nana-flap wobbling, she lunged to her feet in a spinning slash that took his head off.

  Expecting a symbiote, she let her reflex boosters drag time into slow motion for a few seconds. The huge body collapsed to the ground in an avalanche of flesh. No black serpent launched itself from the stump of a ne
ck. Tris relaxed her ready pose and held the sword out at arm’s length.

  Zara pushed herself up to kneel, still wheezing. Blood decorated her upper lip and chin, though her nose had already mended.

  “You okay?”

  “Ow. Yeah. Just waiting for a rib to stop squealing.” Zara grabbed the side of the van to pull herself upright.

  The woman looked more worried than Tris had ever seen her.

  “Never saw Infected before?”

  Zara shook her head.

  “They’re… strong.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I hadn’t realized.” Zara spat blood.

  Tris wiped the sword on a clean patch of Otto’s pants and re-sheathed it. She plugged in the van before heading to the control panel on the wall next to the door leading to the ‘Play’ part of Otto’s Plug and Play. Zara coughed twice, took a couple deliberate breaths, and strode over. With one hand, Tris flipped the charge switch to the ‘on’ position at the same time her other hand hit the button to activate an overhead motor.

  The garage door rattled and squeaked as it closed, stopping not quite flush with the ground. Tris headed outside, bypassing the strip club portion of Otto’s by way of a person-sized door between the third bay and the wall. Outside, she followed her best memory of the path to the Roadhouse main office. The AK-47 tapped against her butt in time with each stride. She waffled between resting her hand on the Beretta and reaching for the katana; her arm kept going back and forth.

  “I can’t tell if all these bullet holes are new or if they’ve been here.” Tris peered among the mismatched buildings, patches of prewar masonry appeared every so often among metal and wood.

  Zara swiveled to the right, MP5 raised. “I got nothing. This place is just like every other shithole out here. Was it this bad when you came here to buy the panels?”

  “Uhh, I think so.” She squinted at the greying sky. “Was earlier then. Not quite so gloomy. Guess the sunlight made it look nicer… or having living people around.”

  “Please tell me the Infected don’t go crazy at night. That whole dark thing is a story, isn’t it?”

  Tris looked down to navigate a tangle of bodies. Another three infected, though these didn’t have armor. “The Virus renders them photophobic. Victims aren’t harmed by light, or even really hindered by it… but they don’t like it. During the day, they might choose to stay in a dark place rather than come after someone who’s out in the sun.”

  “But they don’t get stronger or go crazy or anything?” Zara swiveled left, aiming at nothing. “Damn; I’m seeing stuff move everywhere.”

  “Not as far as I know.” Tris hopped left onto a patch of sidewalk stained with old blood. “If any of them do that, my ‘resistance training class’ didn’t mention it.”

  Metal clattering, like pipe bouncing on pavement, came from a side street beyond a building labeled ‘Millie’s Hotel.’ Tris looked up along five stories of white masonry, fire escapes covered in torn white cloth and random pieces of spray-painted plyboard in place of some windows.

  “Feels like we’re being watched.”

  Zara looked up. “Yeah. How many did you say were here?”

  “Place looked bigger last time. Kevin thinks there’s thousands. Amarillo’s supposed to have a huge army. Most of the people here are soldiers or their families… the ones who supposedly enforce the Code.”

  “Something’s moving.” Zara dropped to a knee and aimed at the alley.

  The pipe, or whatever it was, skittered out into view as if kicked. A moan followed.

  “Shit. Don’t! They’ll hear the shot.” Tris grabbed Zara’s shoulder, but her hand slipped off the Enclave suit’s inflexible material. A hexagonal pattern in the black armor glimmered with a mesmerizing rainbow hologram.

  Zara took the hint and leapt up, following in a dash to an opposite street. Tris skidded to a halt at the sight of a group of about a dozen Infected midway down the block. A quick search found a fire escape ladder, and she vaulted up to it on her first try.

  Her weight carried it lower; she climbed as it came rolling down, effectively keeping her in place for a few seconds until it reached the ground. Zara rushed after her. Both of them pulled the ladder up faster than the counterweights could move it as the Infected wandered closer, attracted to the metallic scraping.

  Tris held a finger to her lips in a ‘shh’ gesture before tiptoeing around to the steps up. Five switchbacks later, they reached the top of the fire escape. She climbed the brick face to the top and dragged herself over the edge. The roof offered little obstruction beyond four pipe vents with chef-hat vanes spinning in the breeze. Tris fast-walked across the black-coated surface to a wooden defensive fortification at the corner. Zara hurried along after.

  A wooden plank bridge connected from the edge over an alley to the side of another building. Other than a metal folding chair and an empty green ammo can supporting an ashtray, the ‘guard station’ had nothing of use. Across the street, three figures in olive drab armor and green pre-war camouflage pants shifted about. One meandered back and forth as if on patrol, while two appeared to be in deep conversation, though she couldn’t hear anything from where she stood.

  “Hey,” whispered Tris, waving her arms over her head.

  The men ignored her.

  What’s wrong with them? Are they assholes or drunk? Infected?

  She glanced about at other buildings of similar height. As far away as a quarter-mile, every structure at least four stories tall had a roof full of armored figures. Some sat still, some paced, a few peered over the edges at the street. A brief mental count tallied over fifty men all acting as calm as if the streets weren’t packed with Infected.

  “What’s going on? Is everyone high? We’re not gonna be able to fit all these guys in the van.” She hesitated. Cassie said there’s only like twenty survivors… what is going on? Maybe she doesn’t know about the soldiers up here?

  Zara started across the plank bridge, but stopped two feet out. “I see a Roadhouse sign over that way. Couple blocks.”

  Tris reluctantly pulled her gaze off the oblivious army, and trotted after Zara to the next building, where the roof had six canvas lean-tos over fifteen sleeping bags and a couple of footlockers. Not being in any mood to pick among the junk while people might be in their last minutes of survival, she hurried to the far end where an outbuilding offered a door inside. A cramped stairway led only to the topmost floor, ending at door that had already been battered open―from the looks of things, with a sledgehammer.

  The space beyond it had the trappings of an office: a hallway with a toppled water cooler, a room full of cubes, break room, a few conference rooms, storage closet full of old copier paper, and the main stairwell access. They jogged across the room to the stairwell door, and Tris rushed in.

  She’d expected an ordinary stairwell, not a wide-open metal grating stairway descending in the open through four stories of warehouse. Whoa. Good thing I’m not too afraid of heights. She clamped onto the railing. For at least a hundred yards to either side, tall shelves held row after row of solar panels, many still clad in shrink-wrap. Other shelves had spindles of the three-quarter inch thick wire she’d become all-too familiar with on the roof. Boxes upon boxes of new charge-plugs, not yet mounted to wires, took up a whole section.

  “If we were scavving, we’d be set for life.” Zara whistled. “They charged your boy ten grand for like forty of these and there’s gotta be a few hundred here.”

  “We’re not after panels.” Tris eyed a large flatbed truck with a hydraulic arm parked by a garage door in the approximate middle of the building. “That’s the rig they used to deliver our stuff… or at least one exactly like it.”

  Zara spun around in a three-sixty before pointing to Tris’ left. “That way. The Roadhouse office or whatever it is.” She tilted her head. “Wait, do you have any idea at all where these survivors even are?”

  “Uhh… I’m thinking they’re inside that building. Probably the most well-def
ended place in the city.”

  Distant moans echoed in from windows along the second story level.

  Tris decided to stop talking. She walked in the direction Zara indicated, eyeballing some of the panels. According to labels and stamping on the aluminum frames, her earlier theory appeared correct. Amarillo hadn’t been making new panels as Kevin always believed… they had a stockpile from before the war.

  Zara swatted her on the bicep with the back of her hand twice, and pointed up when Tris looked.

  A ‘New Mexico Solar’ company banner hung on string between the rafters forty feet off the ground. Naturally, a cartoon sun took the place of the ‘O’ in solar.

  “What’s New Mexico doing in Texas?” whispered Zara.

  “Ask me if I care.” Tris winked. “I don’t think it matters since the world ended.”

  At the end of the shelves, flimsy beige walls cordoned off a small section of the first floor behind a small army of forklifts. A shelf to the left against the cinder block wall held thirteen three-foot tall canisters. Similar canisters perched on the rear ends of all the forklifts. Tris approached the doorway and peeked in to a break area with five rectangular folding tables and more metal folding chairs.

  Some of the food laying around looked more recent: grilled slabs of dust hopper, gnawed-upon vegetables, and a jar of moonshine.

  “You think we’re too late?” whispered Zara.

  Tris grumbled at the abandoned food before closing her eyes and trying to summon hope. “We still haven’t made it to the head office.”

  Zara gestured at a door about ten yards past the cylinder shelf. “You lead, since you’ve got the quiet weapon.”

  “Right.”

  The red-painted door opened to a tarmac where six pre-war cars lay in various states of decay, parked in a neat line along the outside wall. Some people had a bad last day at work. She sighed. Why did they blow it all up? What could’ve been so bad that billions of people had to die to fix it?