Two more bullets, then a pause to reload. It left time for one of Queen M's men to duck right in and shove something bright and sharp into my chest. But the blade glanced off a rib, tearing through skin and flying away to the left. There was no time for a bullet before the next killing blow. I jammed the handle of the Magnum brutally hard into his nose. A crack and then a fountain of blood. I knew that I'd managed to drive the shards of bone right up into the brain. I grinned, feral like, at those long-ago anatomy lessons paying off.
All I initially saw of the grizzled, grey woman now attacking me was a flash of silver as her knife headed straight for the wide target of my back. But Kelis was there, sliding a blade between the woman's vertebrae as hers had been meant to slide through mine. Kelis took down another one after that as did I. But there were always more, and how could we possibly kill them all?
I looked at Kelis and her brown eyes stared back at me and we both knew that there was no chance.
Except we weren't the only people coming in from the sea. I didn't realise what they were at first, the ragged, blackened figures falling on Queen M's men from their rear flank. For a crazy second I thought it must be some kind of mutiny, an uprising that we'd somehow sparked.
But the newcomers had never served Queen M. They only served one leader and he must have ordered them to come here, to follow us in from the sea. Their skin was red and crazed, untreated third degree burns. It was astonishing they were even standing. They were barely fighting. It didn't matter, though. The presence of the Infected, like an old fashioned zombie horde, routed the others. Half the people who should have been following us turned to face the new threat. The rest kept on, but there was a hesitation to their actions now. They knew what was coming up behind them and inside something was screaming at them to turn and face it.
I only took a second to watch the new reality unfold. Then I kept on running, using the time the Infected had bought us. The others must have had the same idea because suddenly we were at the road and astoundingly it was all five of us. Haru's mouth was a bloody mess, and there were droplets all over Ingo's face that might have been blood or might have been sweat. Nothing in his expression told me which.
We were almost clear but in much more danger now. Up here we were a tight little target and Queen M's people were all behind us. There was nothing to stop them using their guns. Two seconds later and they realised it too. Concrete sprayed out from the sea-wall of the hotel as I dived for shelter behind it but it was only five feet high and there was no way I could stay there. I lifted my head above the wall and emptied my clip at my pursuers. They dived for cover too but for them there was nothing but sand. Soren's semi-automatic blazed beside my Magnum. A few moments of that and the sand was more red than gold.
I knew I had to get up and run. We'd bought ourselves only a tiny window of time. But my back itched with cold at the thought of turning it on all those weapons. Soren got up and turned to go. I don't know how he sensed that I wasn't moving. Maybe all those years away from people had made him hyper-sensitive to them.
He spun round, grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, then flung me in front of him. Kelis was already running, Haru and Ingo trailing her by only a few paces. Ingo was somehow managing to run backwards as fast as the others ran forward. There were two guns in his hands and he wasn't even breathing hard.
I sprinted. I couldn't believe that I still had the energy when my legs felt like they were made of over-cooked pasta. My stomach was churning and loose, wanting to spill out everything inside it. There was a grunt from behind me, hard and bitten off, but I didn't turn round to look. The bullets were streaming all around us. Every millisecond could be my last, and call me selfish, but all I wanted to think about was me.
I almost laughed when we came through the narrow road between the low-rise hotels and into the main road behind. Queen M was smart but boy was she cocky. I guess it never occurred to her that we might break through the line of men she'd left on the beach. Her people had left their rides right where we could get them, with the keys still in the ignition. We took the nearest vehicle, a big red jeep with silver spoilers and paint that hadn't seen water or polish since the Cull. The back was stacked high with barrels of petrol. More guns and more ammo too. There was no food, but that we'd be able to find on the journey.
Kelis took the wheel, I jumped in shotgun while Haru and Ingo piled into the rear, both facing back and firing. She'd turned the key and started the engine before I even realised that Soren hadn't climbed in with us.
The second bullet took him in the shoulder as we watched, but that wasn't the one that was going to kill him. That one had gone in through his stomach, exiting raggedly through his back. There was no return from a wound like that.
"Mierda!" Kelis said. "Soren - get in here!"
He gritted his teeth at her, more a grimace than a smile, but we all knew what he meant. "Go!" he shouted. "I'll hold them off and disable the other vehicles." He'd already dived behind one. Collapsed really, onto his knees. But he didn't let go of his gun and I knew that he wouldn't until we were clear.
"No way," Kelis said. "No fucking way are we leaving you behind!" Her hand released the key and reached for the door.
I grabbed her wrist, hard, wrenching her round to face me. "He's dead already, Kelis," I told her. "His body just doesn't know it yet."
She wanted to argue with me, but knew I was telling the truth. She looked back at Soren, face twisted in grief. Maybe she hadn't felt about him the way he'd wanted but she'd sure as hell felt something. Her eyes locked with his for a moment. His mouth opened but the only thing that came out was a gush of blood. He wasn't even going to get any parting words.
Kelis twisted the key and slammed her foot down hard. A bullet hit the back of the jeep, then another, but they were too far away to get a bead on us. Then we were gone.
None of us got to see Soren die. But we saw the explosion, the bloom of fire that would've taken out at least ten of Queen M's men along with any vehicles that the rest of them could have followed us in. A grenade, I guessed. He must have been holding it back, waiting for just the right moment. I wished I could find a tear for him, but I'd only known him a few weeks and the truth was he wasn't a very likeable guy. I saved my pity for Kelis. The numb expression on her face and the emptiness in her eyes were all I could see as we headed out of Miami and away.
It should have taken us two days to reach Las Vegas, but nothing ever goes according to plan. All those weeks I'd been wondering what the world looked like after the Cull and now I could see it for myself I was suddenly grateful for all those years I'd spent hidden away from it.
Florida was a breeze, a straight drive along land that was nothing more than a reclaimed sand pit. We saw people, ragged bunches of them guarding their orange groves and their fields. They didn't bother us and we saw no reason to bother them. We just held our guns out, high and obvious over the side of the jeep, and kept on driving.
Orlando was dreamlike in its weirdness, the city a ruin but Disneyworld itself entirely untouched. And there were people there, more than you would have thought. The only word I could seem to find for them was 'pilgrims'. Some of them had trekked by foot all the way down the Eastern Seaboard to get there, because vehicles were hard to come by and petrol harder still. There were whole families of them, starvation-thin parents with their skeletal kids, like the ghosts of the bloated coach potatoes who used to visit before the Cull.
I don't know why they came. When we asked they just looked blank, as if they hadn't thought about it themselves. I guess the place was a powerful symbol of something mundane but important. Of normality itself, I suppose. They sat on the silent rides, frozen in place among half-wrecked animatronic pirates, or waiting in vain for 'It's a Small World' to start playing as the little puppet children danced but they didn't go anywhere.
We hadn't wanted to stop there, but we needed electricity, a strong current, and this seemed like the best place to find it. We walked past the shamblin
g tourists and into the workings of the rides, the machinery that made it all run. As I walked past the animatronic cowboys, bears and twirling teapots I felt obscurely guilty, like a kid who'd sneaked downstairs on Christmas Eve to confirm that yeah, Santa was just mum and dad. It all looked so shabby and second-rate.
It took Ingo five hours, before he finally got one of the generators working, jump-starting it with cables running from the car. Kelis didn't even flinch as he put the spitting cable against her leg. The force knocked her into the frayed, fungal wreck of what had once been a Mickey Mouse costume. She sneezed out spores when she finally came round, but didn't let out a murmur of pain or complaint. There'd be no more tracking by Queen M. All we had to worry about was every other damn thing on this continent.
The Gulf coast never had much in the way of a population and it had even less now. We drove past deserted wind-swept beaches and wooden houses half-blown away by hurricanes that no one could any longer predict. There was oil still out there, under the choppy waves, but no one had the means to find it. Queen M maybe, before she'd met me.
Biloxi had a population. We had a real good scrap there. It was entirely one-sided, small side arms against semi-automatics and Kelis' cool, trained aim. It could only have been desperation that sent them out against us but I didn't have time for pity. Kelis' face was blank and cold as she shot them all dead and I wondered if she was thinking about Soren as she did it. Probably not. She'd been a killer long before he died.
Then we drove onwards, and even a road trip through hell can take on a kind of monotony. The lowlands of Mississippi scrolled past us like the scenery for a video game that had run out of budget. We seemed to have talked ourselves out on the boat because we couldn't find anything to say in all those hours. I drove for a while, then Ingo. The rest leaned over the side, guns drawn, trying to stay tense and ready for action when really we were just bored. You can only live in fear of your life for so long before you lose the energy to keep caring.
We'd talked about skirting around New Orleans, avoiding the trouble that was bound to be living there, but we needed fuel and food, and we were reckless with tiredness by then.
The outskirts of the city were like a third-world slum. It was hard to say if that was the work of the Cull or the aftermath of Katrina, still unhealed after all these years. Vacant-eyed people came out of their hovels to stare at us. We ignored them and drove on past.
After a few miles we were into the older parts of town. We saw more people and, floating over them, the harsh scrape of live bluegrass. Then somehow, without even noticing it, we'd driven into the heart of a carnival. I didn't know what date it was, not exactly, but I knew for sure that this wasn't Mardi Gras.
"Join the party!" a tall black man in a bright red bird mask shouted out as we drove past. Others walked along beside the jeep, like they were following some kind of carnival float. A few tried to climb on board, but we pushed them back and they didn't seem to mind. There was a hallucinogenic quality to the whole thing that might have been a product of sleep deprivation, but I didn't think so.
I don't think that the party ever stopped here. I guess if you're a city surrounded by sugar cane fields then rum is pretty easy to distil, and after the Cull they probably couldn't see much reason for doing anything than drinking it. Everyone we saw there was at that stage of drunkenness where you're a heart-beat away from doing something extreme, but you can't be entirely sure what. Would they fuck, fight, vomit, kill? We didn't stick around to find out, just kept on driving. It was frantic but joyless. No one there was having fun, not even close, but they kept on doggedly going, like partying had become some kind of onerous duty.
Finally we found ourselves in the heart of it all, the old French quarter. Everywhere there was cast iron, brick facades and unlit neon signs for clubs and bars that hadn't been open in years. There were food stalls here, people barbecuing meat that was probably rat, but we took it anyway. We gave them bullets in exchange, one for each chunk of meat. It was red raw on the inside but I didn't care as I tore it away from the bone and swallowed without chewing. For the first time I appreciated what Queen M had done, saving her people from this. A man came up and kissed me as I ate, grabbing my cheeks and driving his tongue deep into my mouth. I pulled away as Kelis slapped him savagely back, but when he was gone he'd taken half the meat with him.
"Guess he didn't love you for yourself," Haru said. I realised it was the first joke any of us had made since Soren died and managed a tired smile.
Then we drove on. Ahead of us a pile of naked bodies writhed, fucking openly in the street. The men around them had their cocks in their hands, stroking them in time to the heaving pile of flesh. It looked vicious and unsafe, about something more primal than lust. Further down there was another crude ceremony, but this one had a victim.
The boy could only have been about five. When they slit his throat the blood jetted into the crowd and they lifted their faces, swallowing it down. I looked away as Ingo pressed down on the accelerator, face as impassive as ever. I wondered if he even saw it, or if he'd retreated far into his mind; contemplating numbers, equations and algorithms because they were so much cleaner than people.
Another hour passed before we'd driven our way clear of New Orleans and its human ugliness. After that we cut through a corner of Louisiana and then we were into Texas. Flat, hot and endless. We avoided the big towns by unspoken consent which meant, most of the time, all we had for company were cattle.
We'd taken it in turns trying to sleep but there was no rest in it. We were all white-skinned and dark-eyed. Our fingers tapped restlessly on our guns and I knew that if we didn't get some sleep soon we'd regret it.
After Texas we were into the corn fields of Oklahoma and finally we knew we had to stop. It was absurd really, caring about state boundaries in a world where they'd become meaningless. Except that when we crossed over that border something did seem to change. We drove through small towns and the people in them didn't run away from us. Some of them even stopped and smiled. The fields were tended and the people looked well fed. There was tightness around their eyes that spoke of a fear that never really went away, but that was hardly surprising.
"It's like we've driven into Stepford," Haru said the second time a crowd of children waved and laughed as we drove past.
"We should stop," I said.
"Why?" Haru said. "So they can take us away and replace us with identical robots?"
But Kelis was already slowing the jeep down on the outskirts of a bland, cookie-cutter town. It looked lower middle class. No white picket fences but lots of square, clapboard houses with square grassy yards around them. It wasn't a big place - I doubted the population was a thousand, even before the Cull. Now there was an air of neglect about the whole town. The grass was knee high and choked with weeds. Children's swing sets rusted in the middle of the unkempt lawns and unused cars rusted in the roads.
"We need to get some sleep," I said. "There's bound to be empty houses here and if we post a guard we can see trouble coming long before it reaches us." You could see anything coming here, across the endless expanse of the corn fields. In the distance I could make out the grey twist of a mini tornado, sweeping across the great, empty landscape.
"Yeah, and what if the trouble's already here?" Haru asked. He nodded to the left, where a group of ten or more adults was sauntering towards us. There were no weapons on display, nothing to indicate that they were a threat, but my hand drifted towards my gun all the same. I'd been out in the Culled world long enough now to know that trusting the good will of strangers got you nothing but an early grave.
I saw the same distrust mirrored in their eyes, but there was fear there too and that made me feel a little safer. If they were afraid of us, maybe we didn't need to be afraid of them.
"We tithe already," one of them said as soon as he was within earshot. He was a big, red-faced bear of a man but his shoulders were hunched and his gaze slipped away from mine. He reminded me of the Alsatian ou
r neighbour had kept when I was a child, the one we'd heard yelping in the night when he'd beaten it. He had that same whipped expression. All these people had it.
"We're not after a tithe," I told him. I pointedly moved my hand away from my side, palm out and open, then frowned at Kelis until she did the same. "We just want a bed for the night. And if you've got any food to spare we'll trade you some ammo for it."
"We don't need ammo," a small blonde woman said quickly. "We're not looking to fight."
"Well, that's good then," Haru said, "because neither are we."
There was a small, awkward silence after that.
"So..." I said eventually. "How about that house over there? Anyone object if we camp out in it for the night?"
Finally they seemed to decide that we really meant what we said. The slump left their shoulders and the smile came back to their faces. "How long you looking to stay for?" the bear man asked.
"Just one night," I told him. "And we really would appreciate any food you've got going spare. We'll happily do some work in return." Haru frowned at that but I stamped on his foot and he quickly schooled his expression. We could take whatever we wanted from these people - which was exactly why we weren't going to do it.
"A tithe?" Ingo said later, when they'd left us alone in the big, run-down house with enough bread and cheese to feed a small army, along with a bottle of old, and probably precious, wine. They'd refused payment for it and in the end I'd given up trying to make them take it. Maybe the knowledge that we weren't planning to stay was payment enough.
I swigged back the wine. "Back to feudalism, I guess," I said. "The peasants till the land and the lords take a portion in return for not taking it all." My mind felt scraped raw, tiredness and a delayed reaction to the tension of the last few days. Even speaking was an effort.
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