“So you have some sort of plan?” Karsten looked from Misha to Mark, keeping his voice quiet enough to be heard only within the container.
“What do you need the high point for?” Misha asked Mark.
“If I could get high enough to see over the comet horde, I can communicate with the rest of our team,” Mark informed them.
“No, you’ll be spotted,” Karsten immediately negated the plan.
“We’ve done it before,” Tommy was quick to add. “We stay out of sight of the zombies. We keep to a spot where we can see over their heads, but not see them, which means they can’t see us. The others on our team will have followed the comet horde and found a high spot behind them where they’ll be looking out for us.”
“How do you communicate over such a distance?” Danny wondered.
“Mirrors and Morse code,” the girl replied. It was then that Danny realized her hand patting hadn’t been as random as he thought. She had been telling Mark something as they approached. Had Karsten caught it? He would know Morse and would know what she had said.
“What would be the point?” Karsten challenged the outsiders. “What would communicating with your team gain us?”
“If the zombies are facing us, the others can safely observe them. They can find out what’s going on, why they aren’t moving away,” Tommy spoke calmly. “Some information is better than none. It’ll give us something to work with. Depending on what’s going on, the others may even get the zombies to leave using fireworks or something.”
“It’s not hard to get onto the community centre roof,” Misha spoke up. “I believe you can see across the whole yard from up there, except for where the stacks are too tall. The slope of the roof would also provide something to hide behind.”
“Where’s Boyle? Shouldn’t he be involved in this conversation?” Danny asked, not particularly liking that only one of their leaders was present.
“He’s busy investigating potential escape routes,” Karsten told him.
That seemed odd to Danny. Everyone knew the escape routes: the weak would take whatever boats might be at the dock, the rest would cross Bitch Bridge to Animal Island, and if the bridge was out, they would swim. There were no other routes.
“I think we should do it,” Misha spoke again. “Like he said, even a little bit of information is better than none. I want to know why they’re not leaving like they should.”
“I agree,” Danny decided. “I don’t think any of us were at the prison, but remember the stories? Remember what we were told about Roy, and how he figured out a way to breach the walls there?”
“Roy?” both Mark and Tommy said at once, their spines becoming stiff.
Karsten looked at Misha and Danny, clearly deciding whether or not he wanted to say something in front of them.
“Danny probably heard me telling Evans,” Tommy offered as a way of getting him to speak.
“There’s a super smart zombie in the horde outside,” Karsten grudgingly spoke. “Roy kind of smart.”
Danny had heard something along those lines being mentioned, but he hadn’t thought of that level of intelligence. He had only heard stories, but they were enough to chill his blood. Beside him, Misha seemed to have the same reaction.
“So that’s why you guys believed me so quickly,” Mark sighed. “I had a feeling it wasn’t just because I used to know Jon.”
“Tell me about Roy.” The calmness had left Tommy.
“You seem to know already.” Karsten faced the younger man, always willing to stand up to anyone.
“The intelli-zombie was created by Roy,” Mark told them.
“By bite?” Danny couldn’t keep the fear from squeaking his voice somewhat.
“No. No, thank God,” Mark quickly soothed the swiftly agitated container trio. “Your Roy, was he a scientist? Could you tell?”
“He wore a white lab coat with a name tag, which is why he was called Roy,” Karsten told them.
“Sounds like the same Roy then; we never did learn what happened to him,” Mark said, looking at Tommy, who nodded. The girl was staying quiet during this part of the conversation.
“After the evacuation of Leighton, we ended up in the same place as Roy. He and some others were conducting experiments on the zombies, but we never learned the specifics. He ended up turning our friend Dean into an intelligent zombie, or intelli-zombie as we started saying. When the place became overrun, we fled, not following the rest of the evacuees. We know they took Dean with them, but not what happened to him after that. All we know is that he eventually escaped and came across us, and we’ve been keeping an eye on him ever since. We never learned what happened to Roy; I lost track of him during that second evacuation.” Tommy relayed his information in as quick a manner as he could.
“There were rumours he injected himself with something. If he created this intelli-zombie, as you call it, then he could have injected himself with the same thing. Some of us always wondered if there might be another, a first subject, maybe more, but we always hoped that they were destroyed,” Karsten sighed.
“What happened to Roy? Did you manage to kill him?” the girl wondered, finally speaking up. There was a note of hope in her voice.
“From what I’ve heard, people just fled the prison, leaving him behind. I don’t think anyone knows.” Danny looked to Misha and Karsten who nodded their agreement. “Could he also still be wandering around?”
“Maybe.” Tommy shrugged. “He’d likely have the same mega horde gathered around him though, and I feel my team would have noticed another one if they started in roughly the same place. We’ve never come across a comet horde slime trail that wasn’t caused by Dean’s group; we kept track. Either Roy is dead, or he wandered off into the ocean, which is basically the same thing. We were always hoping that one day Dean would walk into the ocean and get sucked down by the undertow. Once he got dragged out to sea, he might not think to come back, or get stuck in a chasm or on a coral reef until the forces of the sea tore him apart. Unfortunately, he’s never stepped foot in a large body of water. It’s as if he knows.”
“Maybe that’s why he stopped outside,” Danny suggested. “Maybe he knows that going sideways will lead him into water, and he can’t turn around because of the body mass.” He really hoped that was all that was happening.
“We can’t know for sure without some eyes on them,” Tommy said, pushing their idea.
“All right. All right, Misha, get one of them up on the community centre. I want you up there with them, as well,” Karsten finally relented.
“Maybe someone who knows Morse should be up there with them, just in case,” Misha suggested slowly, his eyes sliding over to Mark, Tommy, and the girl, knowing his distrust could be taken offensively.
“Right,” Karsten agreed. “While we get set up, Danny, can you find Jans? He was my radio operator and knows Morse better than anyone.”
“I know him, and sure thing.” Danny was grateful to be given a task, something to focus on.
The outsiders had no complaints with the plan and so it was agreed upon. Karsten opened the container and blew out the lantern while everyone began to disperse.
After the dim interior of the container, Danny found himself blinking repeatedly in the bright, outdoor light, and wanting to cover his ears against the sudden increase in sound. As soon as he managed to orient himself, he headed off in the direction of Jans’ container. Whenever Danny wasn’t out scavenging, he helped unload containers beyond the wall, a job that frequently had him working with people like Jans. He had gotten to know most of them fairly well, conversation being the best way to pass the time while hauling.
Reaching the correct container, Danny found it locked and so he knocked. He was careful not to knock too loudly, not wanting to startle anyone inside. A woman opened one of the doors and peered out at him, blinking in the light the same way he had.
Can I help you? she signed, a bit clumsy as those who didn’t use it often usually were. She was probably
on kitchen staff, or some other duty that kept her within the wall.
I’m looking for Jans, Danny signed back, wincing at the pain in his shoulder again.
By the wall, she pointed where she thought he might be.
Danny thanked her and trotted off, not getting far before the jostling of his shoulder and the louder sound of his feet forced him to slow. As he walked as fast as his injured arm could tolerate, he held it with his good arm. At least the pain was keeping him awake and rather alert.
Near the wall’s corner, he spotted Jans. The man had the short and bony stature of a boy who hadn’t yet hit puberty, but with his grey hair, craggy face, and multiple scars from fighting off boarders during the Diana raid, it was impossible to mistake him for a youth.
Getting his attention, Danny rapidly relayed where he was needed, using as few gestures as possible. When Jans started to ask a question, Danny just shook his head and pointed back toward the community centre with his good arm. Karsten could explain everything to him once he was there.
As Jans ran off, Danny found himself wondering what he should do next. He thought about heading back to the community centre, but also wanted to find Boyle and let him know what was going on. Looking down the length of the wall in both directions, Danny could see no one who matched Boyle’s description, so he wasn’t there. Could he be looking into an escape route like Karsten claimed? That just didn’t sit well with Danny.
As he started walking, determined to locate Boyle, he felt a bead of sweat run down his torso beneath his shirt. As he continued to search, looking down rows of containers for anyone that might be him, he felt another bead. This one gave him pause, as it was in the same spot as the first one. In Danny’s experience, he didn’t sweat like that. Looking down, he saw a red stain blooming across his shirt. It wasn’t beads of sweat he was feeling, but blood. He had torn open at least one of his stitches.
Cursing to himself, Danny redirected back toward the centre. After this, there was no way he’d be allowed back out. He was going to be confined in there with the others, only able to wonder what was going on outside.
He got back just in time to see Misha setting up a ladder against a container holding some of Evans people. One of the doors was open, and it looked like Tommy was quietly explaining what was going on so that the noises wouldn’t freak them out. The guard outside the centre glowered at Danny as he approached, his eyes focused on his injury. Danny didn’t give him the satisfaction of an acknowledgement, just squeezed back in, careful of Misha’s dogs who were right there again, since he was outside.
As Danny looked for the person who had patched him up the first time, he continued to wonder where the hell Boyle was.
24
Nessie’s Frustrated
Nessie stood outside the community centre, her hands wrapped firmly around the head of her cane. She had spent too much time in the centre, bunched in with everyone else ever since before that other group came and shot at them. She was only allowed to go to the toilets in a group and accompanied by a guard. She needed some air and so had slipped out the side door. The main door had dogs clustered around it, and there was no way to just simply step out of the roll up at the other end, so she had picked the little side door between the heavy containers filled with supplies. A guard stood right next to her, making sure she didn’t wander off like she wanted to. Nessie wanted to go back to her container and check on Dragon, who was locked in his cage in the dark. It was the only way to make sure he kept quiet, but Nessie worried about the bird. She also worried about that zombie the kids had found before the storm hit. Once it had blown over, Nessie, with the kids in tow, had immediately made their way to where Boyle and Karsten were organizing the cleanup. Pulling them both aside, with the kids huddled together behind her, Nessie explained what had happened. Together, they all went to check it out only to find the zombie was gone. Evidence of it still remained: gross smears on the walls and floor, the U-bolt that had held its chain, but the thing itself had vanished. Whoever had imprisoned it in there must have seen Nessie and the kids discover it and then risked going out in the storm to move the thing.
Nessie shifted her weight back and forth, knowing that Boyle was even now searching for evidence and discreetly asking questions. The moment that other group had been dealt with, he got right back to work. When that mute woman, Freya, had arrived from the Black Box, she was quickly wrangled into service as well. It had been a long time since she had visited from the Box, and therefore she couldn’t have been involved in this, which was why Boyle and Karsten convinced her to help. It didn’t take much convincing. Nessie wanted to help too, but was confined to the centre. She also understood she wasn’t completely off the suspect list. Although the kids had been with her when she first looked at the thing, and had stayed with her until she had reported to Boyle and Karsten, their alibis weren’t completely trusted. They were kids, after all, and she had many things with which to bribe them.
A sound, barely discernible above the moaning beyond the wall, drew her attention. She turned around and looked up at the building, hoping it wasn’t a creaking that indicated a new weakness in the structure.
“It’s all right, ma’am, someone’s just climbing onto the roof. Some sort of plan of Karsten’s,” the guard whispered to her.
“Ma’am?” Nessie turned to the guard, her whispering combined with a scolding tone. “You know my name, Cohen, use it.”
“Sorry, Nessie,” the young man mumbled so quietly it was nearly inaudible.
Nessie let a moment pass before whispering in a much kinder voice, “What sort of plan?”
“I don’t know; they didn’t give me all the details. They just told me someone was going up on the roof and not to worry about it.”
“Well, I’m worried. Want to go find out what’s happening?”
Cohen shook his head. “I’m not leaving my post. And you’re not walking off either.”
Nessie sighed. She was just so bored. There wasn’t much to do in the centre but sit around yakking, and now that the zombies had shown up, people weren’t even doing that. There was only so much she could write in her notebook when nothing was changing. She wondered what Bill was up to over in the Black Box, how his health checkup was going. She wondered if this situation would get bad enough that the people here would need to call the people over there for help.
The roof couldn’t be seen from where Nessie stood, the angle far too sharp and the distance too great. She stared up at it anyway, attempting to divine Karsten’s purpose for sending someone up there. Perhaps she should go back inside and slip out the other door that was closer to where they’d be climbing up. She wouldn’t be able to see the roof from there either, but maybe there’d be someone she could ask questions of.
Cohen was also staring up at the roof and when Nessie turned around to look out into the container yard, she spotted someone moving from one container aisle to the next. This was a common occurrence, not even that unusual during siege times, but it was the way the individual was moving that bothered Nessie. Whoever it was—she was guessing male, based on her brief look, but it could have been female—had been hunched over and scurrying. Like he didn’t want to be seen.
“Did you see that?” Nessie whispered to Cohen, knowing that he hadn’t.
“See what?” he asked, turning to face the same direction.
“Someone just moved over there,” Nessie pointed. “They looked like they were up to something.”
“They looked like they were up to something?” Cohen repeated in a disbelieving voice.
“They were moving like this.” Nessie pulled her shoulders forward and bent at the waist, walking back and forth a short distance. “Only they were moving much faster, almost a jog.”
“So? Someone probably decided to wait this out in a different container and they’re afraid of being out here.”
It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, but Nessie wasn’t so sure. She had information that Cohen didn’t.
“Can I trust you, Cohen?”
“Of course you can,” he replied, confused by the question.
“No, I mean, can I really trust you? Are you a good man?”
Cohen paused a second before answering, his eyebrows becoming conjoined in their confusion. “I’d like to think I am.”
“Okay, I’m going to tell you something that only me, Karsten, Boyle, and a small handful of others know. We’ve been keeping it quiet so as not to alarm anyone. You understand?”
Cohen slowly nodded.
“You know those containers we keep near the short section of the wall? The ones over in the corner that are supposed to be converted into new living spaces eventually? Well, a zombie was discovered chained up in one.”
Cohen visibly flinched and paled at the news.
“The zombie has since disappeared. We think the culprit knew that his secret had been discovered and used the cover of the storm to move it. Boyle’s been investigating and has personally searched the rest of the containers over there, but there’s no sign of where the zombie’s been taken. Hopefully it’s been destroyed.”
“What if it’s not?” Cohen asked the question Nessie had been hoping he would ask.
“Imagine what would happen if that person lost control of the zombie right now? Or worse, deliberately let the thing loose? It would cause chaos, havoc. People would think that the zombies outside had gotten in. They would start screaming and running, which would definitely alert the other corpses, and then they really would start coming over the walls.”
It was almost possible to see the gears turning in Cohen’s mind.
“It’s our duty to go after that person and find out what they were really up to,” Nessie prodded.
Cohen shifted in place, torn between the orders he had been given, and the information Nessie was feeding him.
Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4) Page 33
