We tried to push forward at the same speed the following day, but our progress got slowed to a crawl—sometimes literally—as we found more and more convenient routes blocked by the undead. It was obvious that Ines and Raphael knew where we were headed; more than once I saw them check on what I realized were old marks left behind from previous trips, but that didn’t help much when we were trying to go one way only to find every direction except where we had come from swarmed with shamblers. Most of them looked docile and self-occupied enough, but every single time we inadvertently drew their attention, they came after us with the fervor of the horde of starved predators that they were. Most of them were well-fed enough to be a real menace, and once they identified us as food, there was no letting up. Even though we tried to be silent, the fight usually drew even more in, which in turn forced us to eventually retreat, hacking and bashing at anything that came after us. By the end of day two I was tired enough that I fell asleep with my gear only partly cleaned of gore, my senses so accustomed to the stench that it didn’t make a difference anymore.
Day four promised to get worse as we woke to dense fog that cut down visibility to less than a hundred feet at times, making it impossible to see what was lurking out of sight but still remained close enough to hear and smell us. I doubted the stench of our gear would completely masquerade whatever sounded the dinner bell.
“How much longer until we reach the river?” I asked Raphael when we paused mid-afternoon to refuel and get some hot tea into us to try to stave off the cold. While perky at the beginning, the French scouts were as tired and weary as the rest of us now. Compared to this, last week had been a piece of cake.
“Not much longer,” he said, but I didn’t quite buy it. He read that right off my face, giving a small shrug. “Before nightfall. Without the detours, we would have reached the river this morning but you can see for yourself now why we’ve been delayed. It should be smooth sailing once we reach the golf course. The boats are hidden in the shed right where it meets the riverbank.”
I thought about offering a quip about whether he planned to work on his stroke but then paused. “Not many people died on the golf course, I presume?”
Raphael gave me the hint of a smile. “And they had the river access cordoned off,” he said, finishing my train of thought. “Unless there’s an incursion on the grounds itself, we shouldn’t have too much trouble. We’ve used the main house as a refuge a time or two to wait for the undead crowds to thin out or pass.”
That still left a lot of potential for issues but considering the alternatives—like towns—it made sense to stash the boats there. Or so I hoped.
It took us the rest of the day to finally make it to the golf course. By then I was tired enough that even standing still was hard while Ines got busy undoing the cable binders they’d secured the part of the wire-mesh fence with they’d cut out last time they’d come this way. My attention was wavering, making it impossible to concentrate on anything for more than a few moments at a time. I’d given up trying to hide it an hour ago, and the way Nate was watching me rather than our surroundings wasn’t very comforting. I’d tried fueling up on the go, snacking on beef jerky and nuts, but lack of nutrients didn’t seem to be the issue. I was exhausted, plain and simple, and that didn’t bode well for what lay ahead.
And after pretty much crashing the morning after I’d had the bright idea to key myself up with pain, I wasn’t ready to do that again just for fun. I was sure that if push came to shove, I’d find plenty of volunteers to punch me into that enlightened state of consciousness.
“Maybe we should camp on site tonight,” Tanner proposed when Red ambled close. It was only then that I realized that Gita was swaying ever so slightly on her feet.
Richards hesitated, but rather than shake his head he gave a shrug. “Let’s see how overrun the territory is first.”
“Might be our last chance before we head into the city,” Nate offered, his tone saying quite plainly that doing anything else would be foolish.
Either drawn by our conversation, or wanting to check on Ines’s slow progress, Hamilton joined us, barely glancing my way. “She can sleep on the boat. We’ll spend hours going upstream; even if we have to take care of some enterprising undead, I doubt we’ll need everyone available on lookout.”
Nate seemed perfectly annoyed by that rebuke, mirroring my feelings, but kept his tongue. I hated how Hamilton’s remark made me stand up straighter, as he’d no doubt intended. I once again entertained myself with the question of whether I should have tried to castrate him when I’d had the chance, back when we’d been sparring in the makeshift gym at the destroyer. Definitely yes.
“Done,” the French scout whispered as she straightened, pulling a flap barely large enough to let a grown man, without his gear, through. Some shuffling and rearranging ensued as everyone got ready to crawl through. Donning my pack on the other side once more was more than annihilating the brief respite of not having it on my back for a few moments. Damn, but I really missed our cars, and not just for sentimental reasons.
Once everyone was through, Ines used fresh wire to close up the hole in the mesh once more, a quick solution but still taking more time than I was comfortable with. We’d spent a good thirty minutes killing shamblers to clear the vicinity of the fence so we could remain in the open, undisturbed, but while I couldn’t see the corpses we’d left back in the trees anymore, I could hear the unmistakable sounds of something tearing into them.
“Spread out. We advance together,” Red ordered, taking point himself with Russell and Hill. I hung back a little but not far enough to be part of the rear guard. Nate seemed to consider hovering but then trudged forward, leaving Burns to watch my six—just like the good old days. Noah, the guy from the group we’d rescued, ended up to my right, repeatedly looking back over his shoulder. While the other three were more relaxed now that we were inside the fence of the golf club, his anxiety seemed to increase.
“Did you notice anything?” I whispered, making him jump momentarily.
He shook his head, but the frown never left his face. “Too quiet. I don’t like it.”
“But shouldn’t the course be safe?”
He looked out over the rolling, overgrown meadow, the brown grass high enough to make it impossible to tell where the former green had begun. “We always had some trouble. No trouble means more trouble, usually,” he offered in broken English.
“How many times have you been here in the past?” It seemed like a valid question.
He continued scanning our right flank for a good thirty seconds before he replied. “Three times. Always ran into trouble.”
The ground started to slope down toward what I realized was a small pond at the very bottom of the hollow. That’s when it hit me—not exactly a whiff of decay, but something that made the hairs at the nape of my neck stand on end.
“Wait,” I called out, just loud enough that Red and Bucky could hear, maybe thirty yards ahead of me. To my surprise, Red halted, giving the signal for the others to pause as well. I continued to stride forward until I was next to them, inhaling deeply.
“Saw something?” Red asked, momentarily focusing his attention on me rather than our surroundings. Hamilton shot me a look that was shy of condescending, but also held a certain kind of anticipation.
“Not sure what tipped me off, but I have a bad feeling about this.”
Someone to our left—Hill, I thought—chuckled under his breath, but I ignored him. The light current of air—too light to be called wind, really—came from the west, not helping much. The last rays of the setting sun were partly obscured by the fog, casting parts of the landscape into stark relief while others completely disappeared in darkness, the residual light impairing my enhanced low-light vision considerably.
Rustling of gear spoke of the general restlessness spreading through our group, but I continued to scan the lightly moving grass ahead of us. We hadn’t found a single corpse or gnawed remains yet, but I just knew that
the golf course wasn’t as deserted as it seemed…
“We can’t stop every time you get twitchy,” Bucky grated out. “Move—”
I interrupted him yet refused to look at him directly. “We should backtrack and head toward the river outside of the fence. When they come for us, we’ll be penned in like sheep. I know that they are hiding out there somewhere.”
All rustling around us stopped, and I could tell that the group collectively held their breaths. Red cleared his throat, and I didn’t miss the warning glance he cast my way. I ignored that, too.
“What, you the zombie whisperer now?” Bucky joked, offering up a small laugh that made it plain how ridiculous that notion was. In spite of my annoyance with him, that term made me smirk for a second. And that had been way before I’d joined the ranks of the no-longer-quite humans…
I knew it was an exercise in futility but I closed my eyes for a second, attempting to give my senses a boost, as if trying to actually sense them was something I was capable of. Maybe without the visual clues, my nose would pick up something… but to no avail.
“I’m not wrong,” I insisted as I snapped my eyes open once more, finally deigning to give Hamilton my full attention. “They are out there. I’m not saying I have some supernatural zombie sense or something, but we’ve had a few close calls since you didn’t manage to kill me at the factory, and we’ve always avoided them because I was right to trust my gut.” I didn’t mention the weird town I’d stumbled into after escaping Taggard’s white-tiled prison with all the stashed converted shamblers that had almost gotten me. In hindsight, if I hadn’t been starved and half insane with thirst, I would have known not to sneak in there.
As expected, my warning continued to be met with deaf ears. Hamilton’s lips twisted into a sneer, and I so didn’t care for the gleeful glint coming to his eyes, promising violence. “You about done disobeying a direct order? Don’t think that just because we might need you alive until we breach the labs that I won’t lay down the law right fucking now. And trust me, you won’t like that any more than my previous attempt to appeal to your common sense, obviously lacking as it is.”
My teeth clacked together as I forced my jaws to close on the slew of profanities I wanted to hurl at him, but I forced myself to put a lid on the wave of anger that surged up inside of me. The world around me snapped into sharp focus, my body following my mind in gearing up for a fight—and not a verbal one. At the very edge of my conscience, the nasty voice always lurking there reminded me that Hamilton likely believed me and had said that to get me into top fighting form, but that didn’t help me much right now. Not even the lick of fear that followed managed to cool down the heat surging into my cheeks. I continued to stare straight into his eyes, letting my silence be the only affirmation he’d get.
Hamilton’s lingering smirk at getting a rise out of me morphed into a more neutral expression as he nodded once at Red, who followed suit and gave the “move out” signal.
“Just don’t cry later if only half of us make it to the river alive,” I grumbled as the first soldiers stalked past me, Hamilton joining Russell after a few more tense seconds passed.
I’d thought he’d been out of earshot but apparently not so, as Bucky hollered back over his shoulder—low enough that his voice barely carried—“Not your choice. Welcome to the joy of following orders.”
I was sure that it wasn’t a coincidence that Burns bumped into my shoulder, gently pushing me into motion rather than passing by me. I let my body pick up the momentum, trying to focus on the grass around us more than the rage churning in my stomach. “Don’t believe me, either?” I snapped, ignoring the smile I knew was coming.
I was wrong. When I turned to glance at Burns, I found him alert and tense—ready for the attack I’d predicted. “Nah, I know you’re right if you get like that.” He relented, giving me the hint of his usual bright grin. “Zombie girl.” I couldn’t hold back a snort, ruffled feathers or not.
“This is going to bite us in the ass—quite literally,”
Burns continued to grin but made sure to give me enough space that we wouldn’t hinder each other once the shit hit the fan… any second now.
I was almost disappointed when we reached the pond, frozen over as it was, and still no attack. Rodriguez tested the ice first, and when it held her, the others followed. I didn’t care for how dark the scratchy ice looked once we got away from the bumps of frozen reeds at the shoreline, half-expecting one of the undead to float up from underneath. I still couldn’t smell anything, but the sense of unease kept increasing to the point where I was asking myself if this was something akin to an anxiety attack. Could it really just be in my head?
Sadly, no shambler chose that moment to come crashing out of the reeds at the other side of the pond to alleviate my doubts.
Up the slope on the other side of the hollow we went, Red signaling us to spread out further. Burns followed suit but he was still close enough that he could be on anything that might jump me in under five seconds. I itched to switch my tomahawks for the M16 but forced myself to keep it on its sling instead. Yeah, ringing the dinner bell with shots fired, not the brightest idea.
The sun set, and still no attack. Also no foxes eyeing us suspiciously from a distance or mice scurrying away, a dead giveaway if there was one that indiscriminate predators were out and about. What were they waiting for?
We crested the rise, reaching what I figured was the very middle of the golf course. A little under a mile away I could make out the buildings that must have entertained the not-so-sporty clientele in the past and, beyond a small strip of a parking lot, the broad band of the river—our destination. Rather than be relieved, I could practically feel my paranoia run up my spine like a colony of ants. Any moment now…
It was more coincidence than planning that I looked back the way we had come as I caught my foot on a twig hidden in the leaves and grass. The trails we’d left, about fifty yards wide altogether, were easy to follow back to the pond and continued on the other side. I was about to turn back and keep scanning what lay in front of us when I noticed the grass moving a little to the east of where we’d passed. Sure, it could be nothing, but…
“Shit,” I more whispered to myself than anything else, then, louder so the mic would pick it up, “They’re behind us.”
I didn’t stop and neither did any of the others, but I saw several of the soldiers scan as far back as their position would let them. I checked again but the small trails, almost invisible next to ours, were gone, the momentary motion that had created them halted.
“Don’t see anything,” Munez declared, but he sounded far from certain.
I already had my mouth open to insist that I wasn’t seeing ghosts—much more preferable, really, but sadly not the case—when I realized that Nate had started falling back to my position, walking more slowly until I’d caught up to him. His eyes kept skipping over the terrain, letting me know that he hadn’t found anything to latch onto yet, but there wasn’t a hint of doubt in the tense set of his jaw.
“Shouldn’t we stop and maybe come up with a tactic of how not to get swarmed from behind?” I proposed, mostly asking him but not muting the mic. That had been fun when I’d felt good about pissing Bucky off in the past, not when it might mean nobody heard me call for help later.
“Keep going, and keep up the pace,” Bucky ordered, still striding forward with purpose. I must have inhaled loudly enough to voice my protest for him to pick it up because he added, “What do you think will happen to us if we stop now, Lewis? Single us out as prey in the predator’s eyes?”
Grudgingly, I had to concede that point to him—at least until he started calling out names, among them mine and Gita’s, for who was to take the lead. “What, frail womenfolk can’t hold our own in an attack?” I grumbled, again loud enough that the mic caught it. Nate shot me a glare that made me shut up for good, but I didn’t miss Burns still being highly amused, the rising tension notwithstanding.
Hamilton
ignored me as he continued calling names—this time for who’d bring up the rear guard—and I kind of saw his reasoning when I realized that he was holding the heavy hitters back, quite literally, among them Hill and Burns. He still took a moment to gloat back at where I was slowly catching up to his position while he fell back. “If you need to know, it makes the most strategic sense to position our light, fast runners up front and those who can hold back the tide in the back so we force the attack to split, giving us a better chance not to get overwhelmed.” His pause was a pregnant one. “Afraid you can’t run fast enough, Stumpy?”
That fear wasn’t quite unfounded—and I hadn’t really had a chance to test my full-out sprinting capabilities since we’d set foot in Europe—but I did my best to sound cheerful. “I just have to run faster than you, right? And that I can do any day.”
I ignored the mocking expression on his face as I passed by him, instead forcing my senses to better focus on what lay ahead. It wasn’t easy, exactly, as all I wanted to do was glance back and find any possible hints where the attack might be coming from. Gita looked scared as shit so I signaled her to join me, the nasty voice at the back of my mind—sounding awfully like Nate’s—assuring me that I’d probably get a head start if the shamblers ate her first. Realistically, I’d hang back and get mauled instead, or so I told myself. Maybe. Probably. Fuck.
On and on we went, and still no attack. The French scouts ended up between the two groups we split up into, Ines inching toward me while the three men hung back to where Cole and Carter were maybe twenty yards behind me. Rodriguez and Munez were in front of us, both twitchy as hell. I couldn’t help but feel like the shamblers must have been really stupid not to attack yet because according to Hamilton’s claim we were already more like the deer caught in the headlights than the driver.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 83
