He fell far enough to clear the bottom of the safety cage, though it was a close thing. His dastar tugged on his hair as it brushed the cage on the way past.
The rungs of the ladder slammed into his chest, and he groaned as he rebounded and began to fall. With a shout, he grasped for his life — and caught himself. One hand locked onto a rung, which slowed him enough for him to get a foothold. The jerk of his stop loosened his grip, but by then his other hand had found purchase, and he was secure. Vir hung there for a moment and attempted to catch his breath.
Below him, scrabbling.
Vir glanced down. The dead were as implacable as ever, and now seemed to be rocket-propelled. Below, they were once again piling up. Vir began to climb.
He supposed theft might have been a concern, but then he remembered that Donald had said that the warehouse had been open three shifts. He crawled outside, slammed the hatch closed, and collapsed to the roof in exhaustion. He did nothing but breathe and stare at the darkening sky until his heart slowed its frantic pounding.
As his breathing calmed, he became aware of a dull sound in the air around him. No. No, no no . . .
Vir climbed to his feet and staggered to the edge of the warehouse roof.
Below, a mass of dead flesh filled the grounds, moving at a steady shuffle. As Vir watched, he could see streams of them pouring from each of the warehouses in the industrial park. It was almost as if they’d hidden inside of them. Was such a thing even possible?
It was as quiet an undertaking that Vir had ever seen from such a mass of bodies. There was no jostling for space, no pushing to move faster or slower. They moved, tall and short, young and old, all gray with time and decay, and poured out of the buildings. He couldn’t have tallied their numbers, but it had to be an unspeakable amount. If any saw him, he did not know, for they did not react, only continued to move forward. Had the arrival of the salvage team roused them, or some other stimuli? Whatever the case, they moved as one, like army ants. The stream of animated corpses filled the gaps in the terrain as they flowed along the path of least resistance. The road fronting the warehouses snaked along the river, and the marathon mass surged along it. They had packed themselves together in such a tight formation that Vir didn’t know why some of them weren’t trampled. The exact route varied, as needed, but the direction in which they moved was quite clear.
The horde marched north.
Chapter 7
Halfway up the ladder to the Crow’s nest, Alex made the mistake of looking down.
With a gulp, he raised his head and stared at the side of the grain bin. You’re fine, you’re fine. He still had a good grip and both feet planted on a rung.
The little voice in the back of Alex’s head sneered. Chicken! Can’t even climb a ladder!
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to look up. It wasn’t all that far — he could do this. “You can do this,” he repeated to himself. For a long moment, his feet refused to move, but finally, he made the rest of the ascent, hand-over-hand, up the ladder and onto the catwalk. From there it was another climb up to the Crow’s nest itself. This one was a little less nerve-wracking, even though he was much higher. The ladder angled forward, and he felt much less afraid of falling. Finally, he reached the top and stuck his head through the open hatch.
A voice hailed him immediately as he climbed up onto the wooden deck. “Hey, kid, how are you? Pete Matthews.” The Crow stuck out his hand. Alex stared for a moment before he reached out and shook the older man’s hand. Idiot.
“Sir,” he managed, through a tight throat.
“Well, let me give you the dime tour. You know Cara, Vinnie, and Bruce, I assume.”
The older kids gave Alex looks that ranged from curiosity to outright boredom. Sure, all Miss Val’s kids lived together. That didn’t mean they associated with each other. The older ones especially tended to keep to themselves, and he wasn’t a part of that group. Alex was on a kind of threshold; he wasn’t old enough for some, and he was too old for the little kids.
“Workbench, my cot.” He indicated the vista around them, which was impressive enough that Alex forgot his fear over how high they were. “And, the Wild. What do you think?”
He turned a slow circle, taking it all in. He knew the terrain from ground level, but up here he could see all the twists and turns that the creek made, and the low spots that he could never see into. The chorus of green seemed to explode, and he stared for a long moment before he realized the Crow was waiting for a response.
How long did I space out?
One of the older kids snickered.
“Wow,” Alex said. Down there, he could see nothing but fields and forest, but now he could see other farms around them. The survivors had scavenged every usable scrap from the houses he could see, down to the foundations. Further out, past his point of being able to make out any detail, he saw a cluster of buildings.
“There’s nothing like a bird’s eye view,” Pete commented. “You ready to get started?”
Alex tore his eyes away from the surrounding landscape and turned back to the Crow. “Yes,” he said. “Sorry.”
The Crow waved a hand, declining the apology. “Lesson number one. We’re not up here to shoot. That’s our action of last resort. First, we watch.” Pete wheeled his chair around and indicated the county road to the west of the community. “First test — how’s your eyesight, kid?”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t have to squint to see.” It was a good thing, too. The glasses the community had were either recycled or cobbled together. One of his roomies, Casey, had a bulky pair he was blind without. All the Coke bottles Alex had ever seen were soft plastic, so the meaning was still a mystery, but he’d heard one of the adults tell Miss Val that Casey’s glasses had ‘Coke bottle lenses.’
“Just to check — can you read the sign?” Pete indicated the crossroads of the western road and the road that ran through the community.
Alex squinted. He could make out a green blob on top of the sign, but if there were letters there, he couldn’t see them. “No, sir,” he said, then added, “I can see it’s green, and there’s some sort of orange rag tied to the top.”
Pete patted him on the back. “No worries. I can’t read it either. At this distance, just seeing there’s a sign is good enough for me.” He pulled the strap to his binoculars over his head and settled it around Alex’s neck. “Look through there and tell me what you see.”
Alex brought the binoculars up and the world leaped into focus. For a moment, he was so overwhelmed by the absolute coolness of being able to see so far away that he forgot why he was looking. When he remembered, he scanned around for a moment before finding the sign.
Two green plates topped the support pole with a long streamer of orange fabric tied just beneath them. “What’s the orange for?” Alex asked.
“Windsock,” Pete replied. “Depending on how the wind is blowing, it gives us an idea of the direction and strength.”
Alex thought about it. For the most part, he’d figured out shooting on his own after the familiarization and safety sessions his class went through. Most of the shots he’d taken were from a short distance compared to this. “The wind moves the bullet.” He drew the statement out, impressed with the concept.
“More than you’d think,” Pete agreed. “We’ll work on that later. Like I said, first, we watch. The signs?”
He looked again. The signs were perpendicular to one another, in line with the roads themselves. Huh. It was a concept that he imagined the adults took for granted, but Alex couldn’t remember riding in a car, much less navigating a road. There was an efficient logic to it, but what did it mean now?
“The one in line with our road is 300 South,” Alex announced. “The other one is Stone Creek Lane.” He frowned.
Why is that familiar?
“Good,” Pete agreed. “You’ve got sharp eyes. Congratulations, that means you passed the first test.” He turned his wheelchair away
and rolled over to the workbench. After a moment of rifling through drawers, he found a packet of papers.
“Here,” Pete said, and handed the packet to Alex. “Your first assignment.”
Alex flipped through the packet, taking the time to examine each page. It was actually printed, which was something you didn’t see much of anymore. That by itself would have been enough to make him take care, but the pages were also well-thumbed and curling up at the edges. Each page had a grid filled with numbers.
He looked up, baffled. “What is this?”
“It’s called a ballistic table,” Pete explained. “There’s one for each type of bullet we use up here.” He stabbed his finger at the sheet Alex had the packet open to. “This axis is the range, this axis is the drop. Bullets don’t fly in a straight line, kiddo, they curve. Study this. Memorize it. Learn it.”
Alex stared at the chart and grimaced. “So I can come up when I have this memorized?”
Pete grinned. “Miles told you there was a use for math. Welcome to geometry. And no, you don’t need to have it memorized. Get started. Keep working in school, and come up every other day or so.”
“Every other day?” Alex echoed.
“Or so,” Pete agreed. “You need to be out, I don’t know. Playing in the dirt. Be a kid. You’ve got the rest of your life to work, don’t be like these maniacs.” He jerked a thumb over one shoulder. Alex thought he saw a grin flash across the face of the girl, but he could have been wrong.
“Okay,” Alex said, drawing himself up. Even at his tallest he could just look Pete in the eye. “But I don’t play in the dirt, sir, I’m almost thirteen.”
For one heartbreaking moment, Alex thought the Crow was on the verge of tears, but the older man composed his expression and said, “Ah, forgive me. Consider yourself an . . . intern, then. Part time only, until you learn the ropes.”
“What’s an intern?”
“Never mind,” Pete waved a hand. “Now go on, scoot. Study the tables. You can ask the others, I like to give quizzes. Come back Wednesday after school — and no more cutting class!”
Alex gave an enthusiastic nod. “Yes, sir.” He folded up the charts and stepped back down into the hatch. His first visit to the Crow’s nest had been a short one, but it hadn’t been as scary as he’d feared.
And, for the first time in his life, he was looking forward to homework. Crazy.
After depositing his tray on top of the well-used table, Miles sat down in one of the cafeteria’s folding chairs. He glanced at the group of people sitting at the other end and nodded to them in greeting. After returning his greeting, the group returned to their own conversation. In a way, he was grateful for that. The lights were set to dim, to conserve battery power. The entire building had a close, cozy feeling. Any conversation louder than a whisper would have seemed out of place.
There was a sudden boom of noise, and Miles turned and straightened at once. Calvin Anderson, one of the three council members, stood near a table with no occupants. A chipped and faded wooden box with a slotted lid sat on the table next to a stack of papers.
“People, I know some of you think this is funny, but we are not naming this community Disneyland. We’ve gone through the suggestions and narrowed them down to the top five. We have removed the immature names. Pick one and vote. We’ll announce the winner at a later time.”
Calvin turned and stormed off, chased away with a smattering of laughter and light applause. Miles grinned to himself.
Well, so much for the town meeting.
He picked up his spoon and stirred the bowl of beef stew. That, at least, was something they could make well out of their own ingredients. The ersatz dinner rolls were more akin to flatbread, but they weren’t bad. Better than pancakes, to be certain.
Kitchen duty wasn’t glamorous, but they didn’t force anyone into it, either. The folks who gravitated to it usually did so because they enjoyed cooking and couldn’t contribute in other ways. And there was always something better about dining in a group, even if Miles didn’t particularly feel like socializing at the moment.
A familiar touch brushed against his shoulder and the back of his neck. He straightened in his seat. There were exceptions to every rule, of course. “Hey, you,” he said with a smile.
“Hey, yourself,” his wife said as she circled the end of the table and sat down across from him with her own tray. “I hear you caught the Great Cornholio.”
Miles groaned. “Not you, too.”
Tish giggled and began tearing her flatbread into pieces. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
He shook his head and smirked. “I do have to give you points for the most creative name.” He took a bite of stew. “You’d think we were running an apocalypse shelter for wayward comedians. How about you?”
“Took out Todd Jenkins’ appendix this afternoon.”
Miles’ eyebrows went up a notch. “Nice,” he said, drawing out the vowel. “Everything go okay?”
“A little nerve-wracking, but yeah, it came out okay in the end.”
“Humility, Doc?” Miles teased with a wink.
She took a bite of her own stew and paused. “It’s all kind of a blur now,” she said. “It was terrifying at the time.”
Miles nodded. “I know what you mean,” he said, and then grinned. “I’d have never passed sophomore year biology if I hadn’t been able to copy your lab notes.”
“There’s an ever-so-slight difference between a fetal pig and a grown man,” Tish pointed out.
“Well, this is why you’re a doctor and I’m not,” Miles said. “I couldn’t tell an appendix from an eardrum.”
“How about you?”
“It sounds like you already know most of it. We busted Chris Naylor for property damage and theft.” He thought of something and smiled. “He pissed on your dad.”
Tish laughed. “That detail did not make it into the rumor mill. Speaking of, where is Pops?”
“Val needed something done at her place, so he and Trina are eating dinner with her and the rest of the kids.”
His wife chuckled. “Well, I wondered when Dad would decide to move out of Tom’s bachelor pad.” She paused for a moment at Miles’ quizzical expression, and her chuckle turned into a full-throated laugh. The group at the other end of the table looked up, surprised at the sudden burst of sound. Tish waved a hand in apology, and they turned away. “Are you serious?”
Miles raised his hands and shrugged. “I feel like I’m late to this party. No clue what you’re talking about.”
“You do realize Val has had a thing for my dad for years, right?”
“Well, yeah . . . Oh. Wait. Our six-year-old daughter is a wingman?”
“Pretty much,” Tish said.
“Well,” Miles began, and then fell silent. His lips compressed and he frowned as he worked over his words. “And here I missed it. That’s just another example of why—”
“Hey, Marshal,” a silken voice said. “Great work today.”
Miles and Tish turned to the newcomer. Miles, to his credit, managed to keep his features blank, but Tish had a slight smirk on her own. And, he mused, given the quality of my wife’s bedside manner, that expression is purposeful.
Jaid Sims was brunette, curvy in all the right places, and had been chasing after Miles Matthews since she’d been varsity cheer captain and he’d been a starting guard on the basketball team.
In a rare moment of cruel teenage honesty, Miles had once dubbed her a small-town nine and a big city seven. By post Z-Day standards she was a supermodel. Every single guy — and a few of the married ones — in the community would have jumped at a chance with her. Despite that, Miles had never had the same interest in her that she had in him.
Pressed to answer why, Miles would always say that the treatment his best friend had gotten at the hands of Jaid and the rest of her crew was the main reason for his disinterest. The fact that Cole “Sticks” Ferguson had been one of the initial survivors along with Jaid was endu
ring evidence of the fact that high school never ended.
The real truth was more visceral. Jaid had a dazzling smile, and she used it to great effect. Despite that smile, there was something about her eyes that had always unnerved Miles. They didn’t match the expression on the rest of her face. It was as though she was attempting to assess the impact her face was having, rather than sharing in the emotion.
“Hey, Jaid,” Miles replied. “Done for the night?”
“Yes! Aasha traded shifts with me. She said her little ones were having a sleepover and she would be in the apartment alone, anyway.” Jaid leaned forward and whispered. “If you ask me, I think she’s hoping Buck’s crew might radio in.” Jaid paused for a long moment and turned to Tish. “How are you this evening, Doctor?”
“I’m well, Jaid, thanks,” Tish said. “Sit down and join us.”
“Oh, I’d never think of intruding! I’m going to eat dinner and then turn in early. See you tomorrow, Miles.” And with that, she turned away. Was there a bit of a strut there? Miles made a point to look in the opposite direction. A couple of the men in the other group were admiring the view as Jaid walked over to a table on the other side of the room. Yup.
He turned back to his wife. “Can I take you to work with me?”
She favored him with a knowing smile and took a sip of water. “She does like her titles, doesn’t she?”
“She tried laying ‘Deputy’ on your dad, but he stomped that one down, hard. Now it’s ‘Mr. Vance’.” He grimaced. “So, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.”
“Oh, do carry on.” Tish raised an eyebrow. “I’ve always wondered, by the way.”
“Huh?”
She jerked her head sideways, in Jaid’s direction. “Not that I mind, but practically every guy in this room is trying to roll his tongue back up, but you could care less.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You do realize I’ve been pushing that away since high school, right?”
A Place Outside The Wild Page 11
