by Joshua Guess
Kell nodded. “Esther is worried he'll think we brought the zombies with us.”
With his typical flat expression, Kincaid gave little away. “Unlikely, but even if we did that's the price you pay for commerce. Dead people are everywhere. No much we can do to avoid them.”
“Yeah,” Kell said. “Let's just hope he sees it that way.”
It was nearly an hour before the final cleanup began, though the main sequence of fighting had been over for a while. The lack of a dedicated defense force was painfully obvious, and though Kell's own community didn't have even a single full-time fighter, every adult was trained and battle-tested. Most of Trenton's citizens were farmers and little else, though what they lacked in skill they made up for in brutality.
Kell amended that thought. It wasn't a lack of skill, actually, just a lack of proper equipment and readiness. The average citizen didn't appear to own armor or purely offensive weapons, but they used what they had well enough. The proof was in the death toll, which was decidedly tilted in their favor. None of the bodies being moved below had been a living person an hour previously, and none of the injuries looked serious enough to warrant bed rest.
The rest of Kell's group had migrated to the hilltop where he and Esther watched not long before, and the tension was high as Victor climbed the hill. Of all the citizens who had rallied to defend their home, Victor had been the most efficient. Watching him kill zombies was something akin to observing a machine in motion, carrying out its program with the cold efficiency inherent in its design.
Victor used his pole arm—a naginata of all things—as a walking stick as he approached. It was a decidedly more benign use than what had transpired over the previous hour. Victor had split several zombies nearly in half by crashing the blade of the thing completely through their heads, necks, and a good way into their torsos.
Eschewing a greeting, Victor stopped in front of the group and seemed to weigh them. “Did they follow you?” he asked simply.
“I don't think so,” Kincaid said. “We encountered a large swarm yesterday, but too far away for them to have made it here. We also took measures to avoid that group.”
“Not that this group couldn't have followed us,” Mason said. Everyone in the group stared at him. Kell wondered what the man was thinking, making the opposing argument. Mason wasn't the type to speak up unless he had a good reason.
“Oh?” Victor said. Kell thought there was a lot of meaning layered into that lonely syllable.
“Sure,” Mason said. “They might have caught our scent. Really no way to avoid that. Or they might have just wandered this way and got a good whiff of all the people inside the walls. We did everything we reasonably could to make sure we didn't bring anything bad to your door, but we're only human.”
The casual tone wasn't forced, but it made Kell's skin crawl all the more for how relaxed it was. A sudden, dread certainty came over him.
Mason was ready to kill Victor right here and now if he answered wrong. Few survivors put up with tyrants, even apparently benevolent ones. If Victor threatened the group, Mason would act. It was that simple. Kell understood this because it was something he himself would have considered had he been uninjured. Practical and necessary didn't always overlap.
And, Kell imagined, if Victor did decide to blame them despite the obvious care they had taken to avoid bringing trouble down on Trenton, it would be a sign of just how unreasonably dangerous the man was.
There was a space of a few seconds during which Kell was sure Victor would raise his large pole arm and attempt to strike Mason down, which would have ended badly for everyone. Mostly for Victor, because that thing was heavy and slow while Mason was deadly fast.
“Of course,” Victor finally said. “Emily has been here before. So have your other scouts. Your people have always been good about throwing off followers. I just wanted to make sure.”
Kell thought it was more likely the man recognized the fact that Mason could cut through most of Trenton's population like a wheat thresher, but kept the thought to himself.
“I'd like to go back with them when they leave,” Esther said suddenly.
Victor blinked, his head rocking slightly in surprise. “Leave? I thought they'd be asking for samples, things like that.”
“They did,” Esther said, though the conversation in her home hadn't gotten quite that far. “But if studying me closely over time can help find a cure, how could I not go with them? I'm going to ask the others as well.”
Victor frowned at this, though Kell didn't have enough of a grasp on the situation or the people involved to understand why.
“Well, it's your choice,” Victor said. He seemed frustrated as he abruptly turned and strode off.
“I'm confused,” Kell said as he faced Esther.
Through the run to the fight and the fight itself, the woman hadn't seemed at all rattled. Now she was breathing hard, a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. “I think I just saved your lives. Yours wouldn't be the first group to vanish shortly after leaving here.”
A bleak silence followed that statement.
“I'm sure he told you what he used to do for a living,” Esther said. “Victor uses that as a way to make people understand how dangerous it is to cross him. He gave in too easily here. I don't think you'd have made it a mile from here.”
“And now we will?” Kincaid asked in his flat voice.
“Now you will,” Esther said. “People might look the other way or at least not ask questions if troublemakers disappear, but they wouldn't stay quiet if Victor started having citizens killed.”
“Wow,” Emily said. “You know, I'd have never brought you guys here if I'd have known just how fucking dangerous this guy was.”
Kell shook his head. “You couldn't have kept me away. Trenton could have been filled to the brim with scorpions, but I'd have taken a swim through them to study someone like Esther.”
Esther chuckled. “You say the sweetest things.” Turning serious, she nodded to Kincaid. “You'd better get everything you need to leave. I'll make a quick round to see if anyone else is willing to go, but when I get back to the main entrance we should leave as fast as possible.”
“You don't want to give Victor time to come up with something,” Lee ventured. “Doesn't sound like you coming with us is much of a guarantee.”
Esther smiled sadly. “What is? I used to lead orchestras, you know. Traveled the world. Now I'm half-blind and running from the only real home I've had since this madness started. If I've learned anything, it's to take what chances you can find. No matter how thin.”
That, at least, Kell could agree with.
Fourteen
When Esther returned a shade over an hour later, she carried a faded and overstuffed backpack and led two unfamiliar people. The new arrivals, a man and woman, had haggard faces and worried eyes. The man was pale and gaunt, though not deathly so. He looked like someone on the mend from a bad flu or serious injury. His partner was an Asian woman, fairly tall, and other than looking tired seemed otherwise healthy.
They made no introductions, choosing to follow the group as they moved toward the exit. This time there was no one to lead them through, which made sense. Kell imagined the door would lock behind them when they left, making an escort unnecessary.
In fact, there was no one nearby at all.
“Is there usually someone around the entrances?” Kell asked, suddenly worried.
“Sure,” Emily said. “Probably just helping with the cleanup or patrolling to make sure there aren't any other threats hanging around.”
“Makes sense,” Kell said. He didn't elaborate on the other possibilities, because there honestly wasn't anything the group could do about them. If Victor wanted to make a show of not having anyone around when they left in case he was up to something, they couldn't stop him. The group was savvy when it came to that sort of thing. They would have had the same thoughts.
Mason took point, and was cautious when exiting the building and
hitting the open street. Kell was momentarily overwhelmed by the flood of light, but quickly recovered. Out of habit and what he thought was a healthy paranoia, Kell scanned all quarters. The others were surely doing the same.
Thankfully there were no signs of anything suspicious. No gun barrels glinting in windows, no suspicious debris that could hide a bomb, no sounds of anxious attackers waiting for the perfect moment.
Mason led them through numerous twists and turns. The safe house wasn't a long walk, but they came nowhere close to it in the quarter hour after leaving Trenton.
Instead he broke into an abandoned building and ushered them inside.
“Is this your normal level of caution?” Kincaid asked, deadpan.
“Not really,” Mason replied seriously. “I just have an itch on the back of my neck I don't like. Probably nothing, but I'd rather not take chances. You guys give this place a check while I do some looking around outside. If we're not being followed or watched, we'll head to the safe house.”
If Kincaid had a problem with Mason taking the lead, he didn't show it. “We will,” he said, then gestured for Lee to have a look around. “How long will you be gone? How long should we wait?”
“If I'm not back in half an hour, don't wait. Try to make it to the safe house and get away fast.” Mason didn't seem particularly bothered by this scenario. “Don't worry, I'll catch up. I know where my scouts are camped out, remember? They stayed away just in case we ran into trouble. Worst case scenario means we'll have to double up on one of their bikes.”
Kincaid brought up his watch and fiddled with the buttons. “Okay, half an hour. Get to it.”
Mason moved through the door as silent and smooth as a shadow, leaving them in the dim light filtering through the gaps in the boarded-up windows.
Kell waited in the large room where the entrance led as Lee and Emily did a fast search to make sure there weren't any surprises waiting.
“Looks like the lobby of a doctor's office from 1955,” Kell noted. Kincaid grunted.
Chairs lined the walls, some tipped over while others remained neatly in place. There were small tables between some of them, and magazines scattered about the room. A desk sat tumbled onto its face in one corner.
“Used to be a house,” Kincaid said. “Someone turned it into a clinic or something.”
It seemed likely to Kell. The place had a turn-of-the-century look to it from the outside, and the interior continued the theme. The walls were plaster with ornate moldings and wooden paneling covering the bottom three feet. The floor was old, scarred wood. It had a feeling of age. Age and sturdiness. The apocalypse had done as little to change it as the previous hundred years before.
The regular footfalls, creaking boards, and occasional scrapes from overhead as Lee and Emily took the search upstairs were the only things keeping Kell sane as he waited. The sound of his own breathing and the beat of his heart kept the time too well, and in the absence of distractions they made the passage of each minute seem painfully long.
Kincaid was utterly silent, a state Kell didn't want to change regardless of how unnerving he found sitting and being still to be. The man was doggedly watchful and observant. He would only get annoyed if Kell tried to make small talk. Esther and her companions were so quiet Kell almost forgot they were there. A single look told him everything he needed to know; they were all nerves, and scared. Hard to fault them for that, given how rarely Trenton natives when outside.
A sudden halt to the noise overhead caught Kell's attention. The quick tap-tap-tap of trotting footsteps following the silence sent his heart beating into a whole new rhythm.
Emily's voice came from the stairwell situated behind the desk, soft enough not to travel outside but loud and clear.
“Hey, you guys should come see this.”
It wasn't clear at first what it was Emily and Lee wanted them to see. The room was a tight fit for everyone, so Esther and the others let Kell and Kincaid enter while they stood bunched at the door.
It was part of a two-room setup. Lee and Emily were in the smaller of them, which appeared to be a private office. A narrow door sat open on a wall to the left, showing a slice of an exam table.
“You find medicine or something?” Kincaid asked.
“No,” Lee said. “Even if we had it would probably be worse than useless by now. We found this.” He pointed to a window with a deep sill, almost big enough to sit on. Kell stepped up to look at it, trying to suss out where the sense of wrongness tickling the back of his mind was coming from.
He looked out the window and it snapped together.
“This is a lookout,” he breathed. “It's one of ours?”
Emily shook her head, the reaction Kell expected but had hoped against. “Nope. No idea who was here, but it was recent. You can see where the dust has been cleaned off the center of the window. The view opens up on the street we were on.”
“And there are other tall buildings in my line of sight,” Kell said. “Want to bet whoever has been watching Trenton has a team with them?”
“Seems a bit lucky, don't you think?” Esther asked. “Us finding this place and it just happens to be a post for some boogie man?”
“Nah,” Lee said. “Whoever was here probably uses every building they can get into that has a decent view. Reduces the risk of anyone finding them, gives them a lot of options. Mason stopped here for the same reasons. See how there's no gear, no food containers? My guess is there are a few of them, moving in a pattern from building to building. They don't leave anything behind because they're only here for a little while.”
“But why would they do that?” Kell asked. “If they're watching Trenton, staying in one spot would be easier.”
“That might be true if it were Trenton they cared about,” Emily said.
Kell opened his mouth to ask what she meant, then sagged as he understood. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Lee said. “When Emily was here before, she was careful about what she said. But all it would have taken was one of the people she spoke to running to Victor about a scientist trying to cure the plague. From there...”
“Victor could have told anyone,” Kell finished.
Lee nodded grimly. “We know there are remnants out there still looking for anyone who might be able to cure this thing.”
“That sounds paranoid,” Esther said. Kell looked at her and noted that she stood in front of her nameless followers in a faintly mama-bear sort of way.
“It really isn't,” Kell said. “We know for a fact there have been groups trying to find and capture people like me for years. Some of the better resourced communities pay a lot in goods and services for information. People are desperate for a cure.”
“No,” Esther said carefully. “What I mean is that it's paranoid for you to think these people are here for you specifically. There are any number of reasons for Trenton to be watched. It could be someone planning an attack, for instance.”
Lee frowned, his face thoughtful. “You're not wrong, but we've had reports from our scouts over the last year that people are searching hard for anyone who might be working on a cure.”
“It doesn't matter either way,” Emily said. “Whether they're looking for us or want to burn Trenton to the ground or just decided to bird watch, it doesn't change what we need to do next. We wait for Mason, and when time's up we leave. Getting everyone back home safely is the goal.”
“She's right,” Lee said. “All this means is we're a little more careful.”
Kell couldn't help feeling uneasy, no matter what the others said. The idea that Victor might have warned interested parties that someone like Kell might show up gnawed at him. It wasn't at all new territory, sure, but living the last year at their compound had changed his outlook on a fundamental level. It was a hard thing to be confronted with the truth that people were still looking for scientists, if not him specifically, when he had lived openly as himself in Iowa.
He had known that coming here would be risky, of course. There
wasn't a shortage of dangers in the outside world. He just hadn't thought any of those risks would be a result of who he was.
They made their way back downstairs and waited. Three minutes before Mason's thirty minute limit, the man himself slipped back through the door.
“We may have a problem,” he said.
“People watching us?” Emily asked.
Mason blinked. “Yes. How'd you know?”
She pointed at the ceiling. “Saw signs of someone being here recently upstairs. Were you seen?”
Mason grinned. “Give me some credit. They weren't bad, but I'm better. Besides, they weren't interested in anything going on this far from Trenton.”
“What?” Esther said quietly.
“Whoever they are, they're moving toward the place. Not quite in the open, but keeping themselves to the edges of buildings and moving under the shadows of trees. They don't want to be seen but aren't wasting time, either.”
“What do you think they want?” Kell asked.
Mason shook his head. “No idea, and I don't really care. If they're going toward Trenton, that's good news for us. Means we can hoof it to the safe house and get the hell out of here.”
Kell knew he was right. It was the practical thing to do. Whatever was going on here, it wasn't their fault and definitely wasn't their fight. Not that the idea of leaving while something bad might be happening to a group of mostly decent people didn't grate on his sense of right and wrong.
Kincaid seemed to sense the tension in the room, because he raised a hand to forestall argument. “Normally I'd love to pick a fight if it means helping out, but this isn't a fucking movie. We don't have the numbers or firepower to do a damn bit of good. We have a mission, and we need to stick to it. Hard as it is to hear, finding a cure is more important than having a clean conscience. We're leaving.”
The barest hint of emotion crept into Kincaid's voice, which sent chills down Kell's spine. The thin anger came across as a veiled threat, a warning that he would not take resistance well. A complex surge of emotions flooded through Kell, then. Anger that he was being told he couldn't do what he felt was right. Relief that he wasn't being given a choice. Guilt at the relief for knowing Kincaid giving him an honorable way out was just an excuse to run.
