Rise Again

by Ben Tripp

  Murdo ground a fist into his other hand. “I’ll tell you what happens now. We’re pulling out,” he announced. “Too many zeros. This is no longer a secure location.”

  The sun was setting behind a mass of thick, shapeless cloud low on the horizon. The sky was shot through with faded purple and scratches of bright orange as the light drowned and the world fell into darkness. Supplies had been hurried into the vehicles over the course of the afternoon, with most of the edible stuff going into the ASV and the back of a Humvee controlled by the Hawkstone men; as a concession, some food was left in the RV so the civilians could eat on the road. Toilet paper, batteries, and the first-aid materials—whatever occurred to people—were piled up around Patrick’s bed in the motor home.

  The urgency of the situation wasn’t clear to anybody but Murdo. Amy thought he must be going stir-crazy, and this was his way of dealing with it. There were undead out there in growing numbers, but she thought the living were safer at the airfield, at least until morning; who knew what would happen out there in the dark? But she kept her own counsel and did what she was told to do, like everyone else.

  Once the vehicles were loaded to Murdo’s satisfaction, the survivors were marched double-time to the White Whale. Murdo ordered them to halt at the door. “You and you,” he said, indicating Reese and Estevez, “throw the fag out. Put him over there.”

  Amy surprised herself by shouting, as loudly as she could, “No! He’s not even conscious!”

  Murdo turned to her with his eyes strangely blank. “I don’t give a sideways fuck what he is, I’m not having another wounded on this bus. Jones is all we can handle. Reese, Estevez, do it.”

  “At least,” Amy said, her voice quaking, “bring him inside the building.”

  Reese and Estevez muscled the unconscious body into the terminal. They were going to dump Patrick on the floor a foot inside the front door, but Amy barked, “Upstairs,” and rather than argue, they carried him up the steps and tossed him on a bed in the men’s dormitory. Amy tried to arrange Patrick’s limbs in a restful pose, then threw a blanket over him.

  “Okay,” Reese said, when Amy didn’t move from Patrick’s bedside. “Let’s go.”

  “What the fuck, man,” Estevez said, looking to Reese. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “Let’s go,” Reese repeated, to Amy.

  “Come on, man. We ain’t got a whole shitload of time.” Estevez slapped Reese on the arm.

  Reese turned on Estevez. “She’s the fuckin’ doctor, man. We gotta take the doctor with us. She don’t need to stay here nursing Boy George.”

  Amy had an inspiration, beautiful in its simplicity.

  “I’m not a doctor,” she said. “I’m a veterinarian.”

  That got them.

  “Bullshit,” Estevez said. “You sewed up Jones.”

  “Same as a dog, except taller,” Amy said.

  “Serious?” Reese asked.

  “I’m a horse doctor,” Amy said. The men looked confused. Reese pointed in the direction of the parking lot.

  “Go tell Murdo,” he said to Estevez. “Maybe she ain’t shit.”

  She was an animal doctor, nothing more.

  Murdo was embarrassed, and that made him angry. The refugees in the motor home had gotten a huge laugh out of it. Murdo couldn’t believe they were laughing at him, of all people, who held their lives in his hand. Like that cocksucker who threw the shoes at the president a while back and everybody thought he was a hero. So what if Jones got doctored by an animal expert? It was all meat, right? But Murdo still felt the blush flaring away in his face. Maybe he should shoot the bitch, teach them a lesson. But he had a feeling if there was one more act of violence like that, these people would no longer come along easily.

  “Tell you what,” Murdo said to Estevez. “We’re gonna leave her here like she wants. But on our way out, we’re gonna chain the gates to the ASV, rip ’em off the hinges, and drag ’em a mile down the road. Then let’s see if the lady veterinarian thinks it’s so funny when all the zeros come pouring in looking for chow. What do you say?”

  “I say hells to the yeah,” Estevez replied.

  So the engines were fired up on the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle and the two Humvees. Ace piloted one of the Humvees around in a broad circle until it was up behind the White Whale, which was the only civilian vehicle they were taking. Reese got back in beside Molini in the cab of the motor home. Murdo was in the ASV, because he was the boss. Parker was at the controls. Jones was laid out in the back of the second Humvee. It took Flamingo five minutes to get down the terminal stairs, his testicles were so sore.

  Boudreau shot a couple of nearby zeros, unlocked the big gates, and swung them open. He had thirty feet of chain ready to attach the gates to the ASV, when the time came. The next nearest undead were probably five minutes out in the desert, maybe less. The convoy was ready to go, as soon as Flamingo quit fucking around: He was trying to urinate against the side of Hangar 1.

  “What the fuck, asshole,” Murdo said, climbing down out of the ASV.

  “I can’t piss,” Flamingo said. “It feels like I got to go but I can’t. She busted my dick.”

  “You got ten seconds to stow your junk, Flamingo. Then we roll.”

  The night was swallowing up the world, cold and dark. There was a wind rising. Murdo thought he could hear the moaning of the zeros out there in the dark, barren country. Then he thought he could hear an engine. Murdo turned to face the road, and Boudreau was watching, as well. There were headlights bouncing along out there in the distance. Coming down the road for the airfield. The vehicle couldn’t have been headed anywhere else because there was nowhere else.

  Moments later, they watched a grime-coated Candyapple Red 1968 Mustang roll to a stop a hundred feet from the gates.

  10

  Danny’s ass was sore. So was everything else. But she was relieved to be back on the road to Boscombe Field. The return trip to the Mustang had been problem-free, but she was troubled by the thought of what was happening back in San Francisco. They might not have attacked yet, but those zeros with their canine intelligence and their silent, crouching stealth were going to overrun the defenses. There was no question. The urban core was surrounded by a perimeter of wire and rubble and cars. This barricade was designed to keep out rotting, two-legged things as stupid and single-minded as sharks. These new ones were cunning.

  They could work together in packs. They were exponentially faster and smarter than the ones Danny had encountered in the hotel in Potter, and there were hundreds of thousands of them. She was afraid to speculate on how much further the living dead would evolve before the virus that animated them decided it was finished improving its kill ratio. Would the zeros someday be able to communicate? Use weapons? If that happened, the living would be destroyed.

  To confront an opponent that could think, but felt no pain, no fear, and was incapable of mercy—that meant extinction.

  Danny decided to ditch the Humvee in favor of the Mustang. She had all kinds of reasons for this, but the truth was she couldn’t leave the Mustang behind. It represented everything: the last vestige of Kelley’s trail, the last vestige of Danny’s attempts at a real life. And it was such a sweet ride. Danny didn’t have a lot of pleasures left. The 302 V-8 might be the last of them. That, and the bourbon.

  Danny allowed herself a few pulls on a fresh fifth, but didn’t drink herself stupid the way she had on the road north. She was on her way back to known things, now, and there was refuge in it. She wouldn’t need the bottle for company. Merely the occasional sip, enough to take the edge off the pain that a handful of Vicodin couldn’t get to.

  Danny took a few more chances before she lit out again.

  She was there at the seaside where she’d left the Mustang. It was exactly as she had left it, some days before. The coast was deserted.

  Climbing into her beloved vehicle wearing such stinking, filth-saturated clothing seemed blasphemous. She wondered if zeros could s
wim. The beach was empty, and the nearby marina, and the motel, the boatyard, and all the little houses. She had swept the area for zeros previously, and none seemed to have wandered in since.

  She had never been so alone.

  The water would be cruelly cold. But you only live once, she thought. If you’re lucky, the voice said. Danny stripped off her clothes and raced her battered body into the creaming surf. Despite the frigid water and a persistent worry that the severed head she’d seen at Fisherman’s Wharf would rise up from the bottom and bite her on the ass, she floundered around in the surf for almost half an hour. She scampered back out of the water only once, to retrieve her long-suffering boots and swish them through the water, over and over, scooping up the sea and pouring it out again until the leather lost its slimy feel and they smelled like nothing except ocean. Then she swam, for the sheer joy of swimming.

  When she emerged from the sea, she felt thoroughly alive. Her limbs were numb, so they didn’t ache. The thick mat of scars that covered her back seemed to enjoy salt water, its astringency softening the rawhide until it almost felt like skin again. The air was a lot colder than she remembered it, and she didn’t have a towel—or any clothes at all, unless she wanted to put on the reeking garbage she’d been wearing before.

  She scanned the area around her. It was truly deserted, this little seasonal village tucked between the sea and the headlands. Fuck it. Danny arranged her boots to drain onto the sand, then walked up the beach, stark naked. Between the scars and the bruises she figured anybody who saw her from a distance would think she was wearing a tie-dyed wetsuit. Besides, wasn’t the world getting beyond modesty now? It didn’t matter if you were clothed or naked, only if you were alive or dead. It didn’t matter if your thighs were laced with surgical scars and your back looked like the surface of Neptune. Just so long as you were a human being.

  Still, she hoped nobody would see her.

  Danny walked along the strand until she came to a surf shop. For protection she was carrying the tiller off a derelict sailboat. It would make a handy club. Although there was light overcast, she thought she was getting sunburned, and then she thought, Not on your back, you aren’t, and she laughed to herself. She laughed out loud. It sounded like gunshots. She was quiet again.

  The surf shop was unlocked. She went in, stilling the bell at the top with her fingers so it wouldn’t jingle. She found some cargo shorts and a long-sleeve Tee with a cartoon shark holding a surfboard on it. She scuffed on a pair of flip-flops. They were no good for running, though. She found a sleek pair of surf shoes in her size and tried those on. She’d always thought they looked stupid, like ballet slippers. But now that she had them on, they were quite nice. Snug and light, with a sole as thin as an extra layer of skin on her foot.

  Danny didn’t look much like a cop, now. If, on her journey, she met people, she would prefer to have whatever authority a uniform could convey. It was shorthand for Take me seriously. Then she thought, There might be a police station here. Summer cops for when the crowds showed up to go boating and lie in the sun. Anyway, she didn’t fancy running into any of the agile zombies in her current costume; she hadn’t had to fight in slippers before. Danny made her way down the lone street in town, past the shuttered-up beachwear shops, the art gallery with its driftwood sculptures and whale paintings, never to be admired again; there was a real estate agency with the usual For Sale sign on the door.

  She found what she was looking for without encountering anything that moved, except a seagull that watched her from atop a telephone pole. Her objective was a tiny building of concrete blocks. One door, one window, garage on the side. She said a silent prayer for forgiveness and lobbed a rock through the window of the Madras Bay Police & Beach Safety Department.

  Half an hour later she was gunning the Mustang up the hill out of town, attired in a fresh tan uniform. The arm patches said only Police, it was cut to fit a man, and the pants were three inches too long, but Danny tucked the cuffs into her soggy boots and looked enough like a cop so she could almost imagine she had her dignity back. She buckled on her heavy police belt and pistol. Better yet. All that remained was to tuck Kelley’s letter, secure in a plastic sandwich bag, into her breast pocket. Danny buttoned it up.

  As she drove back to the highway, Danny thought of the scene she’d observed from the overpass outside the city.

  Thousands of zeros, jaws working in concert with each other, like the realization of some shared instinct. Something locked up since before mankind stood on its hind legs, possibly so ancient it came from a time before animals walked at all. Why did the undead chomp the air like that? The sight of so many monsters clacking their sinewy jaws together reminded Danny of armies on a medieval battlefield, beating their shields with their spears as they marched to the slaughter. The zeros might have been anticipating the kill, tearing at warm throats in what was left of their imaginations.

  But those things couldn’t imagine, could they? Danny rejected the idea. They couldn’t create, or build, or grow. They were only capable of destruction, however clever they became. So it must have been those things in their thousands were warming up for the kill. Nothing more. How many of them would taste fresh meat? How many would rot away of hunger because there were no more living things to destroy?

  Danny was driving toward the sunset. She was worried now—she hadn’t been able to contact Boscombe Field by the police radio in her glove box. It didn’t necessarily mean anything; if things were quiet, they might have stopped monitoring the radio. But she would much have preferred to hear from them in advance of her arrival.

  There was a massive bank of clouds on the horizon, stealing the sun away before its time. She turned off onto Ore Creek Highway and her pulse picked up a little. She was avoiding thoughts of Amy and Patrick and the rest. Topper and Ernie. Maria on the radio. Troy Huppert the city fireman. They might all be dead, overrun by the undead while she was gone, but she didn’t think so. Behind that fence with supplies and soft beds, and so far from major human settlements, they should be fine. They’d be pissed off at her, of course, and she would have to act contrite, but they’d get over it. It hadn’t been that long since Danny left. What could possibly have gone wrong?

  A few miles of blacktop, the night coming down like an opera curtain. By the fading light she saw zeros, wandering in the desert. They were going the same way she was. The flat desert floor seemed to have become a kind of caravan route for the things. That couldn’t be good.

  There weren’t as many as up there in San Francisco—there weren’t enough people within two hundred miles of here—but there were a hell of a lot of them. They were the slow kind, she thought. They didn’t have any coordination, and they didn’t crouch-walk or attempt to keep out of sight. But then, she didn’t know if the fast ones reserved their stalking technique for the kill. They might shamble along like all the others, until prey came along.

  Danny had to force her foot up off the gas pedal. She was driving much too fast for such a poorly maintained road.

  Then she saw lights in a hollow of the dark line of hills, and before long she could see the airfield. She slowed down. The yard of the airfield was brilliantly lit by pole-mounted fixtures. Lights meant life. That was good. Then, as she approached, she saw military vehicles in formation, lined up to drive out through the gates—including one of the thick, gun-turreted M1117 Guardian ASVs. Almost immune to attack, those were, except they had a distinct tendency to flip over on their backs because of a high center of gravity. Behind that was a Humvee, then the motor home, then another Humvee.

  Regardless, Danny would have driven right through the open gates to meet them—except she was now close enough to see the camouflage with which the vehicles were painted. Her blood went cold and thin.

  Hawkstone.

  Murdo crammed in next to Estevez in the turret of the ASV, and watched as a cop stepped out of the vintage Mustang. A lady cop. She stood by the car. Left the door open. Cautious type. She must be the one the civ
ilians talked about like she was the Queen of Sheba for getting them to the airfield alive. She was here precisely in time to fuck things up even further. The cop walked toward them, a dozen feet in front of the Mustang, but no closer.

  “Estevez, you be ready to open up that big gun, you hear?” Murdo said, softly. “I don’t need this shit.”

  Murdo clambered back through the hull of the ASV and lowered himself down to the ground from the side hatch. Pulled his uniform straight. Then he walked across toward Boudreau and stood in the middle of the gate, arms folded.

  “You better come in,” he called to the cop. “Shitload of zeros out there.” His voice was pitched loud, to cover the distance between them.

  “I saw them,” the cop replied, in a big voice accustomed to authority. “I’d like to speak to someone there.”

  “I’m the one in charge,” Murdo said.

  What he didn’t know was what to do next. The cop had no authority in this time of privatized martial law. He could kill her on the spot. He probably would. But he wanted to make sure she hadn’t come from headquarters with fresh news. Could be the rest of the world was already on the rebound and they were sitting in the desert kicking each other in the nuts for no good reason.

  “I’m looking for Amy Cutter. She’s a doctor,” Danny said. The short, thick man spat on the ground. The tall man with the prizefighter’s face shook his head. She had definitely stepped in something. Danny was mortally afraid for Amy. She realized she had pinned the hopes she’d lost of ever seeing Kelley again on seeing Amy again, instead. Which was not very smart. Hope didn’t get you through.

  The short man spoke again after thinking awhile: “You mean the veterinarian? She left. She was here, but she left. We’re relocating to command headquarters, so you need to get out of our way.”

  Danny couldn’t see the motor home clearly, shielded as it was by the blaze of the brilliant headlamps of the ASV. But she didn’t recognize whoever was sitting in the driver’s seat. She thought she might be making a very serious mistake, standing out here in the open. There was a man on the 20mm cannon in the turret of the security vehicle, and these others were armed, as well. There was a big fifty on the roof of the foremost Humvee.