The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning

by Jason Kristopher

  David looked over at Kimberly, who was all smile and shining eyes. He grinned and turned back to Gates. “Where do I sign? Or, as my dad used to say, ‘Let’s kick this pig!’”

  Kimberly rolled her eyes. “I hate that expression.”

  Gates laughed. “First things first! I think dinner’s about ready.”

  Headquarters

  First Church of the Divine Judgment

  West Lafayette, Indiana

  The sky was a leaden grey as the tall man approached the compound’s guarded side-gate with his hands out to either side. His hair was blonde, close-cropped, and he was well-muscled but not a weightlifter. He paid no attention to the banners with painted church sayings, or the golden statues that flanked the gate.

  The guards glanced at each other, and both held their rifles a little tighter as the man walked up and clasped his hands in front of his waist. They looked back at him, and for a moment, no one spoke.

  “Maybe you should ask my business here,” the man finally said. One of the guards cleared his throat, and the man interrupted him. “I’ll save you the time. I’m here to see the reverend.”

  The interrupted guard recovered and shook his head. “Penitents can petition for audiences across the street, Brother. This is the private entrance of the reverend.”

  The man smiled, and the guard recoiled as he took a full step back.

  “Thanks for confirming that for me.”

  Before the guard could react, the man had swept his legs from underneath him, then slammed one arm into his chest and put him on the pavement, breathless. The other guard had just started to raise his rifle when the man dodged behind him, put a giant hand on either side of his head, and twisted hard. The first guard heard the second’s neck crack as he lay gasping on the ground.

  “Oh, we can’t have you in so much pain, Brother. Let me help you with that.” The man’s boot sole was the last thing the guard ever saw.

  Reverend’s Office

  Church HQ

  Reverend Sebastian Wright glanced up as his lunch arrived, then went back to studying the report on his desk. “Just put it over there,” he said, waving toward the wall to one side. “And bring me back some iced tea. It’s damned hot in here today.”

  When the butler didn’t respond, Wright looked up again and gasped in shock as the muzzle of a gun pressed into his forehead. Around the metal barrel, he saw a large man standing over him, his finger on the trigger of a pistol with a suppressor attached.

  “I could kill you right now,” the man said as he gazed down at the reverend in his plush leather seat.

  Wright had never felt so violated, as if the stare of this man was somehow able to peer into his soul.

  “I could kill you, and no one would ever know. You would just be dead when they came to find you.”

  The man waited a minute more, then pulled the gun away and returned it to a holster on his side. “I want you to remember that, Your Grace.”

  He stepped around the desk and took one of the seats facing the reverend. Wright followed his progress like a sunflower that had been in the shade too long.

  “How…”

  “How dare I?” the man asked. “Or did you mean, how did I get in here? Or maybe, how long will it be until someone tries this again?”

  Wright sat back in the chair, stunned into silence and unable to formulate a single thought.

  “To answer your questions, I did it because you needed to have it done, to prove that it was possible. I got in here through the laziness and ineptitude of those ‘guards’ you hired, bribed, or threatened. About how long it’ll be until someone tries it again… that’s a question only you can answer.”

  The man threw his feet up on the desk and leaned back in the chair. “You’re going to hire me to keep just this sort of thing from happening again. I’m your new bodyguard, attaché, second-in-command… whatever title you want to give me. My job is to make sure you live.”

  He took a cigar and Zippo lighter from his pocket and lit it with a practiced ease. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Grace. My name is Harper Grey.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Spanaway, Washington

  A light dusting of snow glinted on the ruins in the late-afternoon sun. The crisp late-winter air brought her the sounds of old buildings long past rotting, of the small creatures that hid and burrowed and scavenged for any meal they could find. The same air whipped errant strands of her too-long red hair out of her dark grey hood. The strands disappeared as she tucked them back inside, beneath her facemask. She barely noticed the action she had performed a hundred times. Her focus was another scent she had picked up, the one she’d been waiting for these last few hours.

  It was rare, though not unheard of, for a Hunter to lose their prey. To turn a corner with knife raised in killing position, only to find the walker vanished without a trace. Stories were told of so-called “ghost walkers,” immaterial and impossible to catch. She played these down to rumors, to too much back-room hooch being drunk by men and women who should know better.

  But on this, her final qualifying hunt, she wondered. She’d tracked her prey for almost a full day, waiting for the right moment, the safe moment, to make the kill, only to lose sight of it while crossing what remained of an alley. So she had climbed to the upper story of a decrepit store. The crater next door and the scattered shoes in all directions told her exactly where she was.

  Tom Reynolds had told her the story of his escape from the zealots on Z-Day, but she hadn’t expected to actually see the place. She knew she shouldn’t be this far from the bunker.

  Man, I am so boned…

  She remained still, and her camouflage helped her blend into the shadows of the second story. Hours spent in the same position were taking their toll, though. She ached to move something, anything, just to relieve the tension in her muscles. A shift in the wind brought the overpowering stench of a walker even through the filtered mask. She knew it was close, but where?

  Without realizing it, she’d leaned a little forward looking for her target. That slight change in pressure was enough to set her leg trembling with repressed energy. She bit her lip, trying to massage the thigh cramp she could feel building without moving more than she had to. It wasn’t working. She needed to move, now.

  The growing darkness provided her with some cover. She shifted, easing out of the half-squatting, half-seated position. The movement relieved the pain in her thigh… but it also knocked loose a piece of rubble she hadn’t seen.

  It wasn’t a big piece of crumbling concrete that went scraping and sliding down the tilted slab of the second floor. It was just over an inch long. But in the silent stillness of the early spring evening, the clatter was as loud as the base alarm. She closed her eyes and swore silently, hoping when she opened them that she’d have slipped back in time and not made such a rookie mistake.

  A sibilant hiss from a few feet away told her otherwise. It was closer now.

  But walkers don’t hiss…

  A primal scream split the dusk, a torn throat producing one of the most awful noises she’d ever heard. It spurred her to run before her brain had even informed her it was planning to move. She would have moved with grace and ease as she darted for the next building’s single-story roof if her leg hadn’t betrayed her after all. It cramped just as she put weight on it, and she stumbled and crashed through the rotted flooring into the remains of the store below.

  The second floor collapsed around her as she fell. Desiccated wood and ancient concrete crashed down amongst the display cases and long-shattered glass shards. She hit hard, landing on her left side and rolling to one side as the collapse continued. She avoided a falling beam, only to come face-to-horror with the prey she’d been searching for all day.

  The snapping jaws of the dead thing in front of her just missed her masked nose. Its clawed hand grasped and tore at her cloak as she rolled away again. She sprang to her feet and pounded her thigh with her fist, bending and stretching the l
eg as she kept one eye on the zombie trapped in the collapsed flooring. The blood began to flow back into her leg just as the corpse dragged itself free of the wreckage and stood.

  She raised her knife and fell back into a fighting stance, favoring her injured left side. She watched as the walker took one hesitant step, then another, its gait growing faster as it moved across the room toward her.

  But that wasn’t possible. Walkers walked, they didn’t get faster. That was kind of the whole point of the name. “Oh, shit,” she whispered.

  She turned and ran for the door, ignoring the pain in her leg as she darted down the alleyway.

  “Ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit.”

  She glanced back over her shoulder just once and saw the zombie stop at the door, sniff the air, and turn her way when it caught her scent.

  “That’s… not possible,” she repeated, crying out as she tripped over more rubble, not watching where she was going, and fell to the ground. The snarl from behind her told her everything she needed to know. She rolled as she hit the ground, crying out again as her injured left side took another blow. In shock, she glimpsed what shouldn’t be, what couldn’t be possible: a zombie leaping through the air toward her.

  She rolled yet again and launched the combat knife toward the zombie as it landed not two feet away. Her aim was true, and the six-inch knife sank into the zombie’s skull as it penetrated the mouth. Coughing and gushing black ooze, the zombie landed on all fours, shaking its head as though to dislodge the knife.

  That knife should’ve killed it. Should’ve skewered its brain and left it quiet and still. But it didn’t. She drew her pistol, a weapon of last resort for a Hunter. She nearly dropped the gun when the monster reached up, wrapped a clawed hand around the knife’s hilt, and jerked it free.

  She could swear that it laughed as it turned toward her once more. Its eyes were dark and cold, filled with madness and an impossible intelligence. Even with her training, even with what she’d seen of this monster so far, she still wasn’t expecting it when the zombie threw her own knife back at her. Just what the fuck kind of zombie was this? Walkers didn’t do any of this.

  Though she twisted out of the way, her movement left her out of position and vulnerable. The monster took advantage, rushed forward, and bit down. Its rotted and deadly teeth tore through the sleeve of her armored jumpsuit like tissue paper and sank into her arm.

  Time slowed for Eden, and she could feel the monster’s teeth strike bone, feel the blood rushing out of her torn flesh. Feel the sure and certain knowledge that nothing would ever be the same again. She had the time, the luxury, such as it was, to feel everything. . . and to decide that she’d had enough.

  Even with a suppressor—or silencer, as civilians called it—her firearm was going to make some noise. In this slowed moment, she didn’t care about giving away her position as she shot it again and again. She didn’t care if she drew every regular walker in three states right to her. She didn’t care about anything other than ending this monster’s existence, and now.

  It doesn’t take much skill or finesse to hit a zombie in the head when its teeth are sunk into your arm.

  It was a messy kill, blood and brains everywhere. She scraped what was left of its face off her arm and scrabbled for her medpack, stored in the calf pocket of her pants. She pulled out the QuikClot pack but spilled it as she tore it open.

  She groaned and reached for the foam canister in the pack. It wouldn’t help against the infection, but the spray-on quick-coagulant foam would keep her alive long enough to get back to the base. It wasn’t as effective as the QuikClot, but it usually worked.

  What would happen after that, though, was a much tougher question.

  She stood on shaky legs, leaning against the remaining wall of the store for support. She looked around but couldn’t spot half her equipment, including her bow and pack. She limped and held her arm against her side. As quiet as could be, she searched for her things and found them in the ruins. She stopped by the corpse and made sure to take several pictures with the camera that had somehow survived its one-story drop in her pack. It was getting dark now, so she attached the night-vision device to her mask and began the long trek back to the base.

  Eden Blake sighed as she shrugged the pack onto her shoulders. Her parents were going to be pissed.

  Expeditionary Force Command

  Joint Base Lewis-McChord

  Tacoma, Washington

  Eden broke radio silence as she approached the well-lit gates of ExForce Command. She wasn’t looking forward to the dressing-down she was sure to get from her CO. She got bit. Failed her test, certainly. She was a liability. She could already hear everything Gaines would say to her, already see the disappointment in his face and those of her parents.

  It didn’t help that most of the guards on the gate tonight were her own people, fellow Hunters who hated her for the special treatment they thought she received as daughter of the bunker’s military commander. People who also hated her for being immune when they’d lost so many loved ones over the years.

  Some days, she wished she could just run away and never see any of them again. She groaned as the pain in her arm and side reminded her that she needed to get her ass in gear. She sighed and spoke into her throat mic. “Hunter Alpha Four approaching base. Day Code: Zulu Three Charlie Baker. Over.”

  Her earpiece beeped once, and there was a faint reply as she trudged out of the clearance zone around the base. “Alpha Four, you are cleared for approach.”

  As she got within two hundred yards of the main gate, she came to a red painted line on the pavement and put down her pack and weapons. She pulled off her hood and mask and bent to put them in her pack along with her sidearm. Her bow she let lie on the broken and weathered asphalt. “Halt,” said the amplified voice of one of the guards atop the wall. “Identify and present for inspection.”

  She sighed, annoyed at the protocol that made her repeat herself, and called out through dry lips. “Hunter Alpha Four. Day Code: Zulu Three Charlie Baker.”

  “Present for inspection.” The toneless reply might as well have come from a machine.

  She raised her right arm above her head and raised her left as far as she could, then turned in a full circle. “See anything you like?” she asked, her voice raised. “Now let me the fuck in.” She reached down, picked up her bow and pack with her uninjured arm, and took a step across the line.

  A bullet ricocheted five feet to her left, throwing up sparks and stinging her face with chipped asphalt.

  “You are not cleared for entry. Stand down or die.”

  She threw down her pack and bow, shielding her eyes against the glare from the lights. “Is that you, Foretti? I’m going to kill you, motherfucker! Marquez sends me out there after that. . . that thing, and then you shoot at me when I somehow make it back? You’re dead meat, asshole!”

  A new voice came over the speaker, one she instantly recognized. “You’re injured, Hunter. You know the rules. Were you bitten?”

  “Let me in, Marquez! You know that doesn’t matter for me.” Eden ignored that little voice in the back of her head that questioned this. That was no normal walker out there. What if she was only immune to some of them?

  “Were you bitten?”

  “What the fuck do you think?” she asked as she pulled off the bandage. The spray foam normally worked well, but with the extent of her injury, it had failed to stem the bleeding, and she’d had to put on a tourniquet. She could barely feel her arm now and knew she needed to get it treated or she’d bleed out. She was already weak from blood loss and exertion.

  “Does it look like a fucking splinter to you?”

  She could feel the guns cock all along the wall as they saw the bite mark.

  “This is bullshit, Marquez, and you know it. Did you fucking forget who I am? Did you forget what that means?” Her words were greeted with silence, and she knew they were just fucking with her because they had the opportunity. Not in a friendly sort of way, e
ither, but in the way soldiers get hazed and pranked by those who detest them.

  She’d had enough of that.

  “You know what, I’m done with this,” she said and picked up her pack and bow once more. “I’m coming in, and I’m going to Decon, and if fuckhead Foretti so much as glances at that goddamn gun, I’m going to make him eat it. Or you can explain to my parents why you shot and killed their immune goddamn daughter, asshole.”

  The nurses and doctor she saw while in Decon treated the wound on her arm as best as they could, though there would always be a nasty scar. To round out the day, she came away with one cracked and two bruised ribs, a sprained wrist, and many cuts and abrasions. Throughout the treatment, all the personnel maintained as much distance as they could. She was a pariah, and not just because of her wound.

  Her immunity had been tested in the labs and had proven again and again that she was immune to the zombie prion that had destroyed 99% of the world. But she’d never actually been bitten. After all, that was the only way to know for sure, and who’d willingly subject themselves to that?

  The zombie she’d fought and killed out there in the ruins wasn’t a normal zombie. There was something different, something new roaming the ruins. That was clear, and she worried they’d find out that she wasn’t immune to this different version. Who knew, for certain? Only those tests could tell her. She looked down at her bandaged arm and couldn’t suppress a shiver of fear and loathing for her own flesh.

  Her CO, Dalton Gaines, escorted her parents to the observation room while she underwent another test. To her relief, Gaines just ordered her to report to him once she was released and left. Her mom and dad, however, waved at her through the glass. She’d almost rather not have seen them. Didn’t they understand that every time they did something like this, it only made her more of a “Daddy’s girl” to everyone?