by Tara Quan
Hysterical laughter bubbled at the back of Scarlet’s throat. “What should I—what can I do?”
Belle shrugged. “It’s quite simple. Complete the mission as soon as you can. Come back alive. Stay that way until we’re ready to make a move.”
“Is that all?” Scarlet hoped she didn’t sound as defeated as she felt.
“It’s what you owe me. It’s what you owe all of us.” Belle stood. “You got emotional. You screwed up. But we can’t get rid of your grandmother without your help. You need to get back on your feet and in fighting shape. You need to scrounge up more weapons and bring them back. When we’re ready, you need to piss her off enough she’ll summon another Circle. You can’t accomplish any of that if you let this quest turn you into a corpse.”
Their gazes locked. Scarlet didn’t see judgment or pity in Belle’s gray eyes—only understanding and utmost confidence. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to focus on the present. She had tried to save Angie. She had failed. In time, she would have the chance to mourn her sister. But she couldn’t fall to pieces when so many futures rested on her shoulders.
With a trembling hand, she wiped the tear she had only just realized was on her cheek. Her sister might be dead, her mother and grandmother might be insane, but the cause Belle started years ago filled that void. Everyone who was part of this fight possessed the strength to escape. They stayed because this was their home.
The utopia her grandmother had once sought to create was worth fighting for. Without this church, almost everyone Scarlet knew would be dead. Those who remained would have had barren lives fueled only by survival. If she chose to abandon them in life or in death, she would lose the part of her that made her human.
Scarlet lifted the corners of her mouth even though the muscles on her face felt like stone. Smiling had never been this difficult. She was beginning to understand why she hadn’t seen Belle smile in years. Both of them deserved a chance to learn how to be happy.
“I’m still in this fight. I’ll come back to help you win.”
Chapter 2
With great difficulty, Scarlet tamped down on the glimmer of hope blossoming inside her. Getting into the hospital wasn’t the hard part. Countless others had been lured over the years by the promise of medication and supplies. None had lived to tell their tale.
It had taken over ten days of recuperation for her to regain enough mobility to leave the WITCH. Even now, errant movements still triggered twinges of pain. She was weeks away from full strength. But she knew the weather patterns better than most. The temperature had dropped below freezing, and the skies were overcast. It was a matter of time before a blizzard covered the woods in snow. She couldn’t risk being caught in the open on either leg of the journey.
The dark, heavy-duty denim she wore was a rare find that had made more than a few eyes flash with envy. There wasn’t much they could have done. Scarlet was shorter, her hips were narrower, her breasts flatter, and even her feet were smaller than every other member of the church. The clothes that fit her wouldn’t fit anyone else.
She tied the drawstring under the hood of her sweatshirt in a belated attempt to salvage body heat. Her breath came out white. At this temperature, each movement consumed too much energy. Her wool gloves weren’t warm enough to keep her fingers from becoming sluggish. A storm was coming, and it was coming soon.
Someone had cut a panel through the chain-link fence. Judging from the multitude of vines snaking through, the first break-in happened years before now. The foliage’s pattern of disturbance suggested many others had started their journey here.
She pulled the rusted metal back and frowned. After fifty years of dereliction, the area was overgrown with trees, weeds, and vines. But there was a fresh path leading straight to the closest window.
After maneuvering past the fence, she bent down to inspect the damaged plants. They had been hacked clean by a large blade, and there was no sign of regrowth. Whoever had come before her made the trip recently.
A few undead roamed the fenced-in area. Since their movements were random and wouldn’t intersect her path, she left them alone. Most humans made the mistake of either fighting or fleeing from these creatures. Missing limbs and covered in gashes that oozed black, viscous blood, their appearance was the substance of nightmares. Coupled with a light gray pallor, clouded eyes, and worn yellow teeth, these monsters signaled imminent danger.
But in the open they were less dangerous than a wild animal. Blind and slow, they could be heard from a distance and easily avoided. Confrontation risked injury, and blood was a surefire way to draw a swarm. In isolation, they could be disposed of. As a group, they were the predators that had almost wiped out the human race.
She approached the broken window. Dust had settled over the sill. It bore two palm-shaped imprints. She paused and listened. The sounds of tearing flesh and frenzied undead would be hard to miss.
She breathed a sigh of relief after hearing nothing but low growls and steady dragging footsteps. Whoever just came through must have died more than a few hours ago. She hoisted herself inside and immediately fell into a crouch. The undead were everywhere.
No matter how many years passed, these walking corpses neither weakened nor decayed. Preserved in a state of perpetual low-energy motion, they moved forward until an obstacle altered their course. Only when something triggered the urge to feed would their movements become unpredictable.
Blood riled them up even from a distance. Proximity to any human would yield the same response. Nomads covered up as much as possible and masked their scent with a mixture of herbs. Even then, no one could get within a few inches of an undead’s nose without being detected.
Going into a building full of brain-eaters was suicide. Scarlet wasn’t strong or fast enough to fight more than a handful at once. Her scabbed-over wounds might reopen at any moment. A single drop of blood would draw dozens to her location within seconds.
Her only chance at survival lay in patience and a level head. Even though the windows were covered in dust, light filtered in. She could see the monsters, but they couldn’t see her. As long as she stayed close to the ground, they wouldn’t smell her. If she was careful, they wouldn’t hear her. There was a slim possibility she could find what she needed and get out in one piece.
She placed her gloved hands on the floor and crept forward. The cabinets in this room were open. Items were strewn everywhere. Whatever resources were once here were long gone.
With growing trepidation, she roamed the first floor inch by torturous inch. She snaked her body to avoid falling feet and kept a wary distance from the few amputated undead crawling over the floor. It took an eternity to cover a distance she could walk in minutes. And her efforts didn’t yield a single bottle of medicine.
She had almost lost all hope when she reached the far end of the building. The sign next to the doorway read “Free Clinic.” Metal doorframes led to a large room filled with beds. The entryway was covered in shards of glass. She picked her way inside. To the right she found a tall counter. Behind that counter were shelves laden with bottles and small paper boxes.
Though she wanted nothing more than to grab her prize and run, she forced herself to turn and survey the area. She counted over twenty brain-eaters.
After waiting for two of them to clear the way, she scurried behind the counter and stood up. Her heart raced as she reached blindly for a bottle. It rattled.
She froze and whipped her head around in time to see the closest undead turn a full circle. It growled and hobbled in a straight line toward her. Her free hand closed over one of the two knives strapped to her lower back. She held her breath and waited. The creature hit the high counter between them. A drop of sweat slithered down her spine.
With a snarl, it turned and continued in the opposite direction. She breathed. A long moment passed before her hand became steady. Though her heart still raced, she returned her gaze to the bottle clutched against her palm. A layer of dust covered the label. She
used the pad of her thumb to brush it off. After deciphering the directions, tension drained out of her. She had just hit the mother lode.
She shrugged off her backpack and flipped open the top before lowering the bottles inside one by one until the bag was full. After redoing the fastenings, she left it on the ground.
Turning to face the dimly lit room, she set her mind to stalking undead. She crept along the floor until she was within a few inches of a pair of dragging feet. She folded into a crouch before straightening into a standing position. With a single clean stab through the eye, she eliminated the threat. Catching the falling body, she braced its descent so it landed without a sound. After repeating the process two dozen times, her chest heaved and sweat soaked her clothing. Every one of her wounds throbbed. Her chances at escaping detection dwindled with each moment she wasted.
The room cleared, she strode over to her backpack and hefted it over her shoulders. The resulting sound almost made her jump out of her skin. Even when she limited her motions to the greatest extent possible, walking triggered a rattling noise. It wasn’t loud enough to draw any undead into the area, but there was no way she could traverse the hallway in the same manner as before. The creatures might not catch her scent, but they would hear her every movement.
She looked out the nearest window and discarded the notion of going out a different way. The area was overgrown with weeds and vines, and too many undead had escaped the building to roam the grounds. With the load on her back, hacking her way through the foliage would be the equivalent of wading through quicksand. The plant life would hinder her movements, nick her skin, and make her easy prey.
The most logical course of action had a marginally higher likelihood of success. The room containing her exit route was a straight shot from here. If she ran at full speed, it wouldn’t take long to reach the window. The clatter would bring undead rushing from all directions, but they would all have to funnel into the hallway.
She took a deep breath knowing it might be her last. With both knives in hand, she sprinted through the doorframes and continued forward as fast as she could.
The clanging of pills hitting plastic echoed through the building. Sharp pain lanced through her side. She caught the ferrous scent of blood. One of her wounds had reopened.
As if drawn by a beacon, undead streamed out of every room lining her path. Arms arcing in unison, she stabbed her blades into one eye socket after the other. Corpses fell around her. But for each threat she eliminated, three more took its place. No matter how hard she fought, no matter how many she killed, the creatures soon surrounded her. All she could see were gaping mouths and clawing hands.
There were too many. Grasping fingers closed over her legs, arms, and torso. Yellow teeth tore past her clothing and buried into her flesh. Her back hit the floor. She screamed.
Loud cracks of sound filled the hallway. A pungent smell soon followed. It was impossible, but the scent wafting through the air was a more potent lure than the blood seeping from her body. The undead heads filling her vision turned in unison.
As if pulled by a magical tether, all but those closest to her lumbered away. Before she could process what had happened, a dark shadow appeared. The tall, broad-chested man hacked through the creatures like an angel of death. Wielding a modified woodcutter’s ax, he removed heads with the apparent ease of cutting grass. Lethal and silent, her savior made his way through the swarm. He moved so fast her blurring eyes struggled to capture his progress.
She heard sounds of parting flesh and breaking bones—thuds as bodies and heads fell to the ground. The ax’s crescent blade appeared as silver arcs against the black and gray tableau. The only other source of color was the man’s golden hair. For a moment, she was certain he was a delusion spawned from blood loss and terror.
A large hand closed over the scruff of her neck and yanked. Jerked to her feet, she gazed into eyes of brightest blue. Knowing she wasn’t fighting alone gave her failing body a second wind. Turning so their backs met, her knives and his ax slashed out in tandem. Before long, the undead around them became a mound of body parts on the dusty white floor.
* * * *
Marcus Woodsman bolted the door to his bunker. A modified shipping container carved into the side of a small hill, the safe house was an excellent base for his sojourns outside Washington, D.C.
The Undead Reanimation Virus epidemic began in China sixty years ago. Though URV later spread worldwide, geography managed to contain the outbreak to Eurasia and Africa for close to a decade. This delay gave U.S. residents ample time to prepare for an impending apocalypse. The manufacture and sale of self-sustaining hideouts was once a booming industry. They did most people little good once the plague reached American shores.
Marcus stomped through the minute space to turn on LED lanterns by the stove and in the bathroom. Wall to wall, the steel pod was smaller than his apartment’s living room. Once the interior was illuminated, he returned his attention to the petite redhead he had deposited on the polished concrete floor.
She was in worse shape than he’d thought. Her shoulder-length hair was clumped into jagged edges by dried blood. A rust-colored stain marked the bite wound on her pale neck. Light yellow crusts caked over her long russet lashes and covered the inner corners of her eyes. Her forehead and cheeks were coated in sweat.
She clutched her heavy backpack against her chest. Her nail beds were purple. Her hands shook. “What is this place?”
He grabbed the bag, yanked it out of her grasp, and tossed it under the bed. Her feeble resistance made it obvious her brave front was a facade. “You’re awfully curious for someone who just tried to scamper away. How far did you think you could go before you turned undead?”
Why he cared enough about a complete stranger to bring her here, he didn’t know. Protocol dictated he leave her to rot. She had been surrounded by more than two dozen brain-eaters and had already been bitten. Wasting concentrated blood pellets and charging into the fray was one of the dumbest things he had ever done. But it wasn’t a decision he regretted. In his line of work, getting to play white knight was a rarity.
She scooted her butt so her back rested against the metal wall. He took it as evidence she was having trouble remaining upright. “Far enough to make a difference.” Her face was the color of ash. Her teeth clattered. “I’ve walked over this hill at least a dozen times. I never saw the entrance.”
He walked away so he could add wood to the cast-iron stove and kindle a fire. Though he doubted his ability to play nursemaid, staving off hypothermia seemed like a good starting point. “Maybe I’m just more perceptive than you are.”
She snorted. “Or someone told you its exact location.”
He couldn’t help but admire her spunk. She had just narrowly avoided death by zombie and had been on a horse with him for the past hour. Not only was she holding up, she was lucid enough to make some astute observations.
He grabbed a large pot and marched into the bathroom. It was a minuscule area separated from the living space by a white curtain. Using a hand-cranked pump, he filled the clay trough. Once it brimmed with water, he dunked the pot under the liquid’s surface. “Perhaps.”
“You’re from the city, aren’t you?” Disdain saturated her voice.
He returned to deposit the pot on the stovetop. This nomad’s deductive skills were sharper than he expected. Most of the wasteland natives he had encountered were creatures of impulse and survival. Reduced to the most primal incarnation of humanity, they pillaged, warred, and killed. “How do you figure that?”
She cocked her head and hissed out a breath. Darkening blood oozed out of her scabbed neck wound. “No common trader could get their hands on a pistol, let alone those weird-smelling bullets you used to distract the swarm. You might as well give up the pretense.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Your evidence is circumstantial.”
She rolled her eyes. “Look. I don’t care where you’re from. I’m in enough trouble as it is without invi
ting extra. All I wanted from the hospital is the medicine in my backpack. If you give it to me, I’ll be on my way.”
This woman was a puzzle wrapped in a conundrum. She was too articulate and well-groomed to have grown up in the wastelands. He remembered how well she could fight with the knives he had taken from her. From her colorful diatribes during their journey, it was clear she knew the terrain like the back of her hand. Though she must realize an undead bite was a death sentence, she’d tried to run away twice in the past hour—one attempt resulting in them both falling off his horse.
Whoever she was, she was in a great deal of trouble. While he had never considered himself chivalrous, he couldn’t seem to walk away when faced with a real-life damsel in distress. “It’s a good thing you’re right. Otherwise, you’d be a brain-eater within twenty-four hours.”
Her pine-green eyes widened. For once, it seemed as if he managed to say something she didn’t expect. “So the rumors are true. The city had a cure all along.”
He crouched in front of her. “You’re smart enough to know that’s just a conspiracy theory. We didn’t have a way to treat the infection at the time of the outbreak, but there is one now.”
Her expression was skeptical. “This sounds too good to be true.”
“Do you want the cure or not?” She was going to get the immunoglobulin injections in either event, but he thought it polite to coach the statement as a question.
“Do I look stupid to you? What’s the catch?” Her tone was caustic. “Tell me what you want in exchange—the faster the better. I have somewhere I need to be.”
This probably wasn’t the best moment to inform her the treatment, assuming it succeeded, resulted in temporary paralysis. “Does it matter what I want? You’ll turn otherwise.”
“How long have you people had this?” She squinted and wrinkled her nose. Her tone was wary but lost its resistant edge.
