Love Starts With Z

by Tera Shanley

  “We must be in Albuquerque,” he said, pushing up. “Lauren, Kaegan.”

  Adrianna was already sitting up.

  Three fences and they were enclosed within a colony that rivaled the size of the Denver colony.

  A station worker threw open the sliding car door. “Papers.”

  Adrianna handed him a folded sheet, and he read it under the beam of a flashlight.

  “You’ll want to get out here,” he said.

  “Why? We have leave to go all the way through to Mexico.”

  “Yeah, but trust me when I say, this is the last stop you’ll want to stretch your legs at. From here on, there’s no fences where the train stops to refuel. Just lots and lots of Deads.”

  “How long until we have to be back on board?” Kaegan asked.

  “Uh,” he said, squinting at the moon. “Two hours, give or take.”

  “Soren needs food,” he said with a significant look at Adrianna.

  No crap. She was standing right there in plain sight, and her growling stomach could probably be heard over the train whistle at this point. “I’ll go and be right back. I smell meat in the market. I’ll barter a knife.”

  Colten drummed his fingers on his hips. “Nah. Soren, you look like a Dead and we don’t have time to beg acceptance. Kaegan and I will go. You guys wait for us on the loading platform. Anything else we need?”

  Adrianna’s canteen sailed through the air and landed in Kaegan’s outstretched hand. “Fresh water,” she said.

  Uneasiness spider-webbed from Soren’s stomach outward. “I don’t like this. We should stay together.”

  “If we all go, we’re bound to be noticed,” Adrianna said. “Albuquerque isn’t the place you want to get noticed, Soren. The boys have a better chance of getting in and out without trouble.”

  The next hour and a half was the longest of her life. She paced the loading area, careful to dodge workers unloading supplies. Deny it all she wanted, but even Adrianna was nervous. She couldn’t keep her eyes from the direction of the market. Even Lauren looked spooked from her perch on the ramp.

  “You need to load up,” the man from earlier said. “The Crow’s about to shove off.”

  “But you said two hours,” Adrianna argued.

  Shrugging, he hurried off.

  “I’m not leaving without them,” Soren breathed.

  Adrianna swiveled her head from the train to the market and back again. “The papers are only good for the Gory-Anna. If we don’t leave on this one, we’ll be stranded here.”

  The whistle blew and the train lurched forward.

  Come on, come on, come on!

  “Soren, what’s the call?” Adrianna gritted out. “Stay or go?”

  “I can’t leave him,” she said, shifting her weight.

  Another whistle and the train jerked forward again, this time holding its motion.

  Two figures barreled toward them, down the loading ramp. Even in the dark, she knew it just had to be them. “Let’s go.”

  Running, Lauren jumped the train first, then Adrianna. Soren hung off the side of the open door. “Hurry!”

  Faster, Kaegan and Colten pumped their legs but the train was picking up speed.

  “They aren’t going to make it,” Adrianna said beside her.

  “They’ll make it.”

  She ducked out of the way as Kaegan launched a canvas bag through the opening and then grabbed onto his outstretched arm as he flung himself upward. Grunting, she pulled as hard as she could, and he tripped into the car. Colten had latched onto the holes in the back of the car and was slowly climbing toward the opening.

  “That was too close,” she said when Colten was safe inside. “What the hell took so long?” And that’s when she saw their faces in the scant light.

  Cuts covered them, and Colten’s eye was swollen and red.

  “What the hell, McTavish?” Adrianna yelled, yanking his eye open with none too gentle fingers.

  “Geez, woman,” he said, hissing air through his front teeth.

  “Who did this to you?”

  Jaw clenched, Colten looked at Kaegan, then away.

  “You idiot boys,” Ade growled. “We almost missed the Crow!” Shoving Kaegan in the shoulder, she screeched, “Why?”

  Kaegan’s glare hadn’t left Colten, and he tapped the squawking bag he’d thrown in with the toe of his boot. “All we could find was chicken.” He lifted his shirt in the back and threw her journal at her.

  Shocked, she barely caught it, and burning heat engulfed her cheeks like a wildfire.

  Gruffly, he explained, “Colten stole this from you.”

  Colten collapsed into the pile of blankets and sighed. “Borrowed.”

  She fingered the worn cover and withered under the crack of hostility that filled the space, thickening the air until it was hard to breathe.

  She didn’t know what Colten said to cause Kaegan to go all silverback gorilla on his face, but from the way the two best friends glared each other down, she was sorely convinced she’d never in her life understand men or their relationship management decisions.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  SOREN’S BREATH SHALLOWED as the team crested the hill. A fence had been constructed around makeshift barracks, but that wasn’t what had their eyes wide.

  “They dug a moat,” Adrianna breathed. “It’s genius.”

  Indeed, a deep trench had been dug, and a thin layer of Deads meandered beyond the water, staring at the moving humans on the other side with bottomless eyes.

  “This way,” Kaegan said, edging through the trees.

  Clouds, dark and fat with rain, sat low in the sky, blocking out any chance of sunlight. The smell of sea and brine filled the air, and the trees had morphed into palms and sea grasses typical of the coast, a stark reminder they weren’t in Denver anymore.

  Maybe Empalme had been a bustling city before, but not now. The jungle had ridden the waves of Dead victory and taken it back.

  Ruin lay behind them and death before them.

  Large billows of black smoke filled the sky a mile off, lacing the scent of ocean with the sickly sweet, rotten smell of carnage.

  A small, crude ramp joined the sides of the moat, only large enough to put one foot directly in front of the other. Too thin for a clumsy Dead to cross.

  Kaegan broke out into a run across the clearing, and she followed the others. He slowed only enough to catch his balance on the ramp. It was made of iron and looked like framework she’d seen dangling from a rusted crane on one trip into Denver when she was young. Holding her hands out, she followed the others and was midway over the water before the Deads reached the makeshift bridge. One fell into the moat with a giant, thrashing splash and she wobbled at the distraction. Catching herself, she shuffled the rest of the way until she found the steady ground of the base.

  “You here to enlist?” a guard asked when they reached the gate.

  “Yes, sir,” Kaegan said. “We heard you could use some more bodies.”

  The man looked exhausted, haggard even, and deep lines of fatigue etched deeply into his skin. “That we could. Follow me.”

  Two more guards rolled the gate back, and she followed the team inside.

  “Watch the front for me,” the man told them. “My name is Alexander, and this is where you’ll be staying nights. We only fight during the day. Up every morning before dawn, and we hit it hard from first light until dusk. Fighting’s already started today so you’ll be assigned something else until we can figure out your skill set.” He walked with a confident gate, despite the bruised circles under his eyes, and turned. The smile dripped from his lips when he saw her.

  “Dead in the gates,” he shouted, and in one swift motion, a knife came down at her face.

  Reacting, she grabbed his wrist and twisted, kicked his legs from underneath him and turned as another assailant barreled down upon them. Shoving her hand upward, she cracked his chin with the palm of her hand and elbowed him in the gut. Guards fell upon them
in droves.

  The others fought like wild animals, graceful and lethal, but she could see the fear in Lauren’s gaze as one of them overpowered her and yanked her arm behind her back.

  Furious, she spun, taking the guard in her grip with her and landed straddled on top of him.

  “Soren,” Kaegan clipped out, tossing a pistol through the air.

  Time slowed.

  Other men were running to join in the fight, but they wouldn’t get to her soon enough. Out of the air, she snatched the weapon and cocked it in one motion, rested the barrel against the guard’s temple.

  “Stop,” she called. “I’m not a Dead.”

  The oncoming brawlers skidded to a stop, and the man under her held his hands up in surrender, sweat pouring from his face.

  Kaegan held a man by his shirt front. “She sure looks like a Dead to me,” the pinned guard said around a swelling lip.

  A slow clap echoed across a quiet barracks. The sound became louder as a man stepped forward. He was only a few inches taller than her, honey colored hair cropped short against his scalp, with eyes as dark as tar and a grim set to his mouth. A threadbare cotton shirt clung to the toned musculature of his chest, rippling with the movement of his hands. He was handsome, but didn’t have any smile lines.

  “I think it’s safe to say your skills have been tested. Let them go,” the man ordered.

  She stood, released the man under her, and slipped Kaegan’s borrowed pistol into the palm of his wide hand.

  “I’m General Moore. I’m in charge here, and if you want to stay in this colony, you’ll come with me.”

  Kaegan’s hand fit the small of her back as they stepped over a guard, holding his stomach on the ground. “Whatever happens, we stay together,” he whispered.

  It was impossible to resist him when he talked against her ear like that. Warmth seeped through her shirt, caressing the skin beneath it until she wanted to close her eyes against everything and just enjoy this last touch from him. Her traitorous heart stuttered to life, beating against her chest like it needed an escape from the pain she’d put it through.

  Barracks was a much nicer word than the colony deserved. Camp was more like it with its rows of worn, white canvas tents. Flaps whipped in the wind, and smoke rose from embers of hastily doused fires. Cookware hung from cut poles and clanked in the breeze. It looked like a ghost town.

  “Most of our fighters are down at the beach,” Moore explained. “By nightfall, God willing, we will have enough survivors to fill this place. We have enough coming in daily right now that they replace the soldiers we lose to battle. Your team will stay here.” He pointed to a small tent.

  Soren tugged the tie that bound the opening and pushed inside.

  “One of our squadron leaders lived here with his team.” Moore rubbed his thumbnail absently over his bottom lip. “We lost them two days ago.”

  Two blankets had been folded into a corner. A water bucket sat on top of it, waiting to be filled, and a handheld mirror dangled from a frayed rope. The back wall was filled top to bottom with tally marks.

  “Marking kills?” she asked.

  Moore twitched his head, an invitation to follow. “Some of them do it for motivation. Every kill counts.”

  He led them to a large tent in the center of the camp. The flaps had been tied back, and a sand smattered rug blanketed the floor. A large table with a topographical map decorated a large table, and a ladder backed chair sat in its shadow. A cot filled a corner, a thick blanket folded neatly on top. Two long strides, and he was opposite them at the table. Locking his elbows, his arms flexed as he frowned at the map.

  “We’re losing this war,” he said low. He lifted dark eyes to her. “What are you?”

  “I’m a traitor.”

  His lip twitched, eyes raking over her body. “Good. The rest of you stay here. I need to talk to the Dead alone.”

  “She has a name,” Kaegan growled. “And she doesn’t go anywhere without me.”

  Moore drew his bottom lip between his teeth, calculating. “What is she to you?”

  “He’s my handler,” she said in a rush.

  Kaegan’s gaze stabbed her, striking the air from her lungs.

  “And what do people call you?” Moore asked, intense dark eyes devouring her.

  “Z.”

  His lips curled up, approval pulling a short laugh from him. “Of course they do. Fine, both of you come with me. The rest of you, wait here.”

  A crude building had been constructed in the back of the camp, where no tents were scattered. Supplies peppered the ground. Boxes of ammunition and explosives. Plastic storage containers of dried beans and corn. Blankets, cots, trunks, stacks of canvas, giant jugs of water, bug nets, and wood piles stretched down the fence line.

  “This war is financed by the people who came out on top in this apocalypse,” Moore said. Bitterness tinged his voice. “If we don’t progress in the fight, they pull our supplies. It isn’t for the good of the people they do this. They allow this war for the good of themselves. Some people are very powerful—hold most of the cards. When this is all over, they will rule the world.” He turned and leveled her with a look both serious and sad. “Do you understand, Z?”

  She nodded. “But it will be safer for those of us at the bottom too, General Moore.” Less monsters, less death.

  He cocked his head and rested his hand on the door handle to the building. “I hope so.” He turned and yanked a heavy lock and chain from the door. “I hope so enough that I’m here, still trying.”

  The smell of Deads was overpowering, and she covered her nose with the back of her hand. Stifling a gag, she stepped behind Moore and waited for him to light a torch on the wall.

  The flame ignited, wavering shadows crept across the floorboards and settled on the metal bars of a prison. Two Deads stood behind them, groaning and stretching their hands toward them.

  Both had been stripped bare of clothing. Newly turned, they hadn’t even rotted fully yet. Most of their flesh was intact, and their eyes lacked the milky film that came with decay.

  “What’s this about?” Kaegan demanded, his voice muffled behind a handkerchief he held over his face.

  “Their backs,” Moore said.

  She looked from Moore to Kaegan, and then back again. He had Deads inside the gates. She’d known of entire colonies that fell in situations just like this. Anger boiled inside of her, burned up her arms and neck, and an inhuman snarl ripped from her throat. There better be the best damned reason on the planet for them to be here.

  Fueled by a black fury, she rushed to the bars. The smallest Dead stretched his neck, like she was blocking his view of the real food, and she pushed him back, turned him, and pinned his spine to the bars.

  Small, skinless growths twitched from his shoulder blades, and she gasped and threw him away from her. Face first on the wooden floor boards, the monstrosity stretched the appendages.

  “Oh my God,” Kaegan breathed behind her. “Are those wings?”

  “The virus is mutating,” Moore said. “Some of the new turns are growing them in the first few days of transition.”

  “Do they get bigger?” she asked, unable to take her eyes from the Dead trying to scrabble off the floor.

  “These are the biggest we’ve seen so far. We’re keeping them here to see if they grow over time, or if the mutation is stunted.”

  “If it’s stunted now, it won’t be forever,” she said. “I worked with Dr. Mackey at Dead Run River. We’ve been trying to come up with a cure, but the mutations keep us guessing. So far we’ve been able to adjust the vaccine, but finding a cure has been impossible. This is bad.”

  “This,” Moore said, gesturing to the Dead, “is a game changer. If their wings become viable, they’ll be able to fly over our fences, land in trees, attack from the air. It will make our gates null and void, and no one will be safe. That right there,” he said, jabbing a finger, “that’s why I’m here. Politics don’t matter—not right now. We are the
last line of defense against hell on earth. The big move to save ourselves has to be right now.”

  “The migration,” she breathed, fear seeping into her marrow and making it hard to move, “it’s a trap.”

  From the unsurprised expression on Moore’s face, she was right.

  “Dead’s aren’t driven here by some inane instinct that sets them up to die easily.” Her voice trembled like the torch flames. “The disease is smarter than we gave it credit for being. It’s driving them here so this war can happen. Food is getting scarce for them. It has been for the better part of twenty years, and the disease is adjusting. It’s drawing out humans. Giving the Deads a chance at sustenance. The chance at finding more hosts. This war wasn’t our idea at all. It was the contagion’s.”

  Nervous flutters erupted in her stomach as the old eighteen wheeler roared to life. The rusted clunker was covered with iron bars, caging in the soldiers it transported to the beach. Her team was crammed in there with about thirty other fighters. Faces blurred and blended until only one stood out.

  Kaegan had been watching her somberly all morning. Probably because she was pissed.

  Moore had offered him a sniper position once he’d blown everyone out of the water on his weapons test. He would’ve been out of the battle, out of the fray, picking off Deads from a tower, but here he was, shoved in the cannon fodder cage with the rest of them. He was probably the only one in the entire group who hadn’t been vaccinated. Another vision of Kaegan, turned and winged, assaulted the backs of her eyelids, and she gritted her teeth against the urge to make a scene.

  “I can’t go into this with you mad,” he murmured from right beside her.

  “Then you shouldn’t be here.”

  “No, you shouldn’t be here. You said you wouldn’t fight.”

  “That was when I was yours to protect, Kaegan. You saw those Deads. We can’t just wait for the next migration to end this. The virus will evolve in a year, and it’ll be too late. Picking them off one by one is no longer an option. Our mission is more important than ever now, and I can’t just twiddle my thumbs back at camp while the rest of you charge the battlefield. If you knew me at all, you’d see that.”