I instantly regretted that decision, and I knew that I would keep regretting it for a long, long time—but honestly? My life was far too valuable to waste it like that. The bomb he’d dropped on us could have caused a lot of damage, but this was the lesson I chose to learn from it. I’d beaten the odds one too many times to throw my life away on a whim now, even if it was for a cause I believed in wholeheartedly. That I physically and mentally felt fucking great at the same time that I was choking on my regret helped just a little—and that was enough. Nothing like slaughtering the undead to get your mind off dreams of sweet, sweet revenge. I certainly didn’t choose to turn the other cheek, no. I chose myself. And that was worth so much more than all the grievances in the world.
The ravine was cast into the shadows of dusk by the time I dragged my sorry ass back to the wall. It had grown substantially since I’d last seen it. I didn’t give a fuck. I could barely hold on to my axes anymore, my fingers alight with agony that surpassed the constant throbbing in my right side by some. A few of the soldiers were still busy hacking away at the remaining zombies, but most of them were dead for good. The few alive were smart enough to play possum, or eat the heaps and heaps of rotting flesh all around them. The stink still made me want to vomit. I’d never get used to that. It was tempting—oh, so very tempting—to just sit down and forget about ever wanting to move again, but I forced myself to get back to the wall. Some of the stagger in my step came from being utterly drained; most from still being high on my own supply. I felt like Hill had worked me over several times with that sledgehammer of his, but I could have run on and on until I reached the very end of the world…
Bucky’s roll call over the com dragged me back to the here and now. Right, the wall. We’d sustained no casualties but some good non-debilitating injuries. My own head hurt like hell from where a few shamblers had broken through my cover and punched—and in one case, kicked—me in the face. My nose had stopped bleeding but I would be surprised if it wasn’t broken. Cole had a twisted ankle that he tried to ignore. Hill pretended like his left arm didn’t hurt like hell. A few more broken fingers, but nothing that wouldn’t heal overnight—weren’t we the lucky ones? Nate and Gita were the only two who weren’t the worse for wear, and decidedly looking it, too. Presumably. Which reminded me…
“Gita? I need you by the wall. Haul your scrawny ass down here,” I told her, trusting that the open chatter on the com would make everyone else ignore us. Looking up at the slope, I saw two lone figures scurrying through the snow between the trees. Ten minutes and they would be here—including my pack that Nate was likely lugging with him. Oh joy.
Climbing over the wall was easier said than done. It definitely lacked some good mortar. Zombie guts didn’t really work for that. I also had to make sure that none of the building blocks were still able to grab my ankle or try to chew through my boots. A few tried. What we’d accomplished was bordering on a miracle, but technically speaking, we’d maybe killed five to six hundred shamblers, not much more. Incapacitating them had been enough. The problem would take care of itself soon enough, but a part of me resented leaving them like this. It was this very sentiment that made me realize that I was—slowly—coming down from my bender. Compassion for zombies, not exactly a healthy survival trait, but lack of empathy had definitely been part of whatever my body had kicked up into. It wasn’t exactly like I felt they didn’t deserve to suffer, but it made sense to put them out of their misery.
When I finally managed to get past the bulk of the permanently dead, I found the survivors of the group all staring at me. Parker was off, taking care of what the lot of us was dragging back to him now, and no one else was in earshot. There were twelve remaining of them, and only one of them wounded. The other two hadn’t made it, judging from the two heaps of churned earth behind them. Part of me wanted to rail that if they’d had energy enough to bury their dead, they could have fought for themselves as well, but I was wise enough to keep silent. They all looked starved and like they’d been on the go for weeks, sleep deprivation making everything so much worse. Most of them were young, maybe in their late teens, early twenties, only two men in their late thirties remaining. It was hard to tell with the gear and clothes, but two of the slighter figures looked like they could be women. They all stared at me, and it took me a moment to realize why. I’d started out in my overwhites; some of that outer layer was still intact, but so badly soaked in gore and torn to pieces that I didn’t think anything was salvageable. My gear underneath wasn’t looking any better, although the integrity of it was still good. Some bleach and water, and lots of elbow grease was all that was needed to make it useable once more. The same couldn’t be said for my wool cap, I realized as I pulled it off and let it drop to the ground. Well, at least my hair wasn’t completely soaked.
“My name is Bree Lewis,” I offered, waiting for a reaction. Not that they’d recognize me, but names sounded like names in all languages. “I don’t presume anyone here is speaking English?” I repeated the last in French, hoping I remembered the syllables Gita had drilled into me whenever we’d had time and brain power left in the evening.
Several seconds passed until one of the older men—the stocky one who’d done a lot of defending—shook his head, making a helpless gesture.
I didn’t buy it, not for a second. I knew that, historically, the French and the English weren’t exactly best friends, but, come on. Most of western Europe had been just as internationally minded as we at home, and unlike us, picking up a second language that was spoken by over a billion people in the world wasn’t that much of a stretch. Gita had explained as much. They probably had a good reason for playing dumb now—likely to check if what we talked among ourselves lined up with the bull we tried to sell them. Oh, well. I didn’t mind. I also had no intentions of trying to deceive them.
“Can you give me a hand?” I heard Gita behind me as she tried to scramble over the wall.
I quickly turned and hopped back up to help her; I might not mind the odd bite too much. She would, a lot. It was obvious how tired I was when it took her a few seconds to make it through the corpses while I’d needed several minutes. She was shaking all over, her teeth clattering. Lying in the snow for hours will do that to you. Couldn’t say I envied her, even if she looked prissy clean while I was… better not looked at too closely.
“Can you translate for me?” I asked quite needlessly. She nodded eagerly. Turning back to the group, I repeated my introduction, only waiting for Gita to offer my name before I went on. “We are from the United States of America. As you can probably see on the neat patches some of us are wearing, and who else would come waltzing through here like Rambo?” I waited for some laughs, but either that didn’t translate well, or I was way off my game. I sighed, doing my best not to get annoyed. “I presume you’re with the resistance at Ajou? We saw your graffiti when we made land in Cabourg, and have followed the automated radio message.” Gita fell silent, and still I didn’t get a reaction out of them. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw Bucky striding toward me, glowering. Oops, must have turned off that radio again after hailing Gita. “We’re here on a secret mission that’s so secret that I don’t know anything about it although I really should. We mean you no harm, even if we might have left a different impression. We would like a chance to talk to whoever is still here, sending that message. Please. We just saved your hides, and likely made getting to whatever hideout you have a lot easier. One talk, that’s all we ask for. Can be on the radio, too, if you don’t trust us with the location of your hideout.”
The man listened dispassionately to Gita’s stuttered translation, then fired a slew of words back at her. She replied, hesitantly at first, then with more confidence at his response. I didn’t bother asking her what he’d said. I knew she would tell me soon enough. It didn’t go by unnoticed that several of the soldiers, foremost Hill and Cole, had inched closer, listening in. I gave them a blank stare and got as much in return. Oh, we were back to eyeing each other war
ily, like wild cats intruding on each other’s territory but not yet ready to fight.
I was so fucking tired of this bullshit.
And it was that very sentiment—and where it came from—that made me realize that something had changed. Burns’s attempt while working out hadn’t done the trick. Nate’s admission of guilt over parting ways with them, either. The more or less awkward talks with Red and Hill might have toned down my paranoia, but, if anything, they’d underlined the us-versus-them mentality going on between us. Bucky’s big reveal? I still had a hard time wrapping my mind around all of that.
But today? Today there had been no difference. Just as I always trusted Burns—or whoever else Nate had set to babysitting me—would have my back, I’d known that Hill would smash his way through any shambler that tried to eat me, and that any of the others, independent of what they personally thought of me, would do the same. As I would have done for them. I doubted that we’d ever become friends—but we didn’t have to. Personal issues only went so far when survival was concerned.
Gita fell silent as she turned to me, getting ready to tell me what they’d discussed, but I forestalled her. “Tell him this. I don’t care if they trust us. I don’t care what they are up to. There’s only one real truth, there are only two real sides in this world left: The dead and the living. We are alive, and so are they, and that’s all that matters. On our own, all of us will die. It’s only when we work together that we survive. And that’s what this is all about, right? Survival.”
I caught one of the smaller figures in the back nodding before she caught herself, quick to give me that same impassive stare as before. Gita prattled on, and after a moment’s hesitation, the man we’d been talking to inclined his head in agreement. He seemed ready to respond, but then Captain Asshole came trundling in, forcing his way through the barricade of corpses.
“Lewis, you fucking cunt, shut your useless pie hole!” he hissed, his voice partly muffled as he pulled off his gore-soaked balaclava. Like with me, that only added bloodstains and grime to his sweat-soaked face.
I gave Bucky the most neutral look I could muster before I bent over, laughing so hard that I started to wheeze. All that good stuff my brain had produced to keep my body going through pain and exhaustion demanded its tribute now, making it impossible for me to get a grip. Bucky continued to swear, which didn’t help, at all. Ah, this was just too precious!
Hamilton finally gave up and turned to Gita. She did her best not to shy away from his scowl, but didn’t quite manage. “So you’re the one who speaks French, not her,” he ground out.
“Never actually said I did,” I interjected, chuckling just a little. “You have to pay better attention to what people actually say, not what you want to hear.”
He sent me a look that should have made me shut up, but the promise of violence it held only made me want to raise both hands and silently tell him to give it his best shot. I knew that my bright grin only annoyed him further. Ah, this was too easy. A glance at the huddled-together group revealed that they were following the spectacle with rapt attention.
“Way to make a first impression,” I jeered at Hamilton, but did my best to do so with a pleasant smile on my face. “All I did was say hello and ask them whether they are part of the resistance at Ajou. You can take it from here.” And because he wasn’t altogether wrong calling me names, I added, “You’re welcome.”
Hamilton looked ready to come after me for real now, but visibly pulled himself together and addressed the French instead. Gita’s translation sounded more clipped than with me, making me guess that she was doing a more verbatim version now while actually chatting before. The leader of the group responded in equally short, semi hostile sounding sentences, but that could have been my impression altogether. Yes, they were part of those hunkered down in Ajou, and while grateful for the rescue, they couldn’t speak for their entire group. They were happy to lead us there and let us talk to whoever was in charge, making me guess that they had a nicely reinforced bunker that was shy of impenetrable. They must have trusted us somewhat not to take them hostage and force our way inside, but then they would all have ended up dead without us, anyway. The woman who I’d seen agree with me earlier did a good job ignoring me as much as Hamilton, but I was certain that they were all watching us.
When it became obvious that Bucky wasn’t going to mess this up, I stepped closer to the wall, making me end up next to Cole with just a heap of the dead between us. He listened to the translated answers while standing at idle attention, his eyes never leaving the corpses around us except for when he caught me looking directly at him. That’s when he smirked at me, and it was easy to guess just how amused by my antics he was. I gave a silent shrug back.
Any conversation we might have started got cut short when Nate and Burns drew closer; the former lugging my pack along, the latter my weapons. With a theatrical sigh, I heaved myself over the gruesome barrier to relieve them of both. Neither said a word, but it was obvious that Burns was grinning because I’d made another friend. Nate didn’t scowl exactly, and with surprise I noted that he and Cole exchanged a small nod before Nate turned to listen in to the three-way conversation as well.
My overwhites were ruined but I was still loath to dump them without trying to salvage at least some parts, so I got a trash bag from my pack and put the torn, soiled clothes in there as I peeled myself out of them. My back was still smeared enough that Burns spent a good minute rubbing me down with snow before I pulled my pack up on my shoulders. It weighed a ton, but just standing there with my empty hands was bad enough—anything would have felt like it was laden down with stones. It was only when we turned to leave, one of our fire teams heading forward where the French guy was pointing, that I realized something: I wasn’t cold anymore. Not warm, either, but that deep-seated sensation of freezing to death that had been with me since the beach was gone. My finger and toe stumps were still more sensitive to the cold than the rest of me, but the ache coming from my overused muscles easily pushed that into the very back of my mind. I actually felt better than I had in a long, long time, way before we’d hit the Silo on our journey north for sure.
I could get used to this—and something deep inside of me told me that I would.
The first step on my road to recovery was done. Next up: make Bucky regret he had ever even heard of me.
Chapter 22
We were drawing close to our destination a little after the last rays of the sun disappeared to the west, moderately unscathed from the dropping temperatures. Maybe five miles into our trek, the French had led us into a network of trenches and tunnels, keeping the bite of the wind mostly at bay. Some of those structures could have been remnants from either of the World Wars—or maybe even older; I was a little rusty where French history was concerned—but a lot must have been dug within the last year, judging from the lack of vegetation in parts.
About an hour in, Cole caught up to where I was trundling alongside Nate and Burns. He ignored me as he handed two packs of nuts to Burns. Burns snickered, chucking one to me when he saw me watching. “As usual, half of the spoils of war are yours.”
Ah, that explained it, or at least gave me an idea. Smirking at Cole, I observed, “So you were actually stupid enough to bet against me? At the very least you should have the common sense of trusting someone’s judgment who’s been out and about with me for a year and a half.”
“In hindsight, maybe,” Cole admitted as he got a third pack out to tear into himself. Some of them seemed to carry an unlimited supply of nuts, probably more than ammo, and we already lugged around enough of that to make random explosions likely.
“Why, what was the bet about?” My question was met with silence, even if it was of the chewing meditatively kind. “Oh, come on! I deserve to know. The least you can do for doing shit like that.” It wasn’t the first—or even tenth—time this had happened, but usually there was only gloating with the utter lack of holding back involved. And judging from the grin on Burns�
�s face, I wanted to hear this.
Cole continued to debate with himself but eventually relented. “After that misguided attempt of you and Hamilton trying to put each other in your respective places at the destroyer gym, I asked Burns here if it was your usual MO to start something you knew you couldn’t finish. He laughed in my face and bet that it would take you less than two weeks to stir up some serious shit.”
I shot Burns an amused sidelong glance. “Yeah, anyone could have told you so. Now spill the rest.”
Burns chortled at me not being that easily thrown off. Cole grunted. “And he claimed it would be something I felt you were right about. Sounded like an easy bet to win because what shit could you possibly stir up in the middle of nowhere, and even less so something I’d agree with you over a direct order? But turns out, he was right.” He paused, markedly to check how far ahead of us Hamilton was. “You know that, usually, in the field, direct insubordination ends with a bullet between the eyes?”
“Like I care,” I chuffed. “If he was allowed to just kill me, Hamilton would have done it a long time ago. Whatever else he ranted about yesterday, he never said he wouldn’t kill me if it suited him, only that my death might inconvenience him because of the fallout it would cause. And me accidentally switching off my radio so I couldn’t hear any order that might have been given is likely the reason why we’ll sleep somewhere warm and cozy tonight, with our bellies full of something other than cardboard.”
Cole still wasn’t impressed. “If that’s how you organized your rebellion, it’s a real wonder you didn’t all end up getting eaten on day one.”
I gave him the most brilliant smile I could manage. “Oh, the others usually do follow orders. Can’t take half a lifetime of serving out of a guy just like that. But I’m special.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” came Nate’s mutter from up ahead, but I could tell that he was smiling, too.
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