Marleen took inspiration from my move and climbed one of the trees with branches hanging low enough so that she could reach one to pull herself up, and Scott disappeared deeper into the park. On another walkway maybe a hundred feet from me I saw his remaining two marines make their way through the maze. Maybe half a minute after them, Sonia came hurtling down the path I had been following, with Burns behind her. The sound of running steps slowly abated and silence settled—all the better to hear the clamoring of thousands of undead coming from virtually all directions around us. The sun was still in the sky but sinking slowly, turning the world into a kaleidoscope of yellows and reds—not that I could appreciate it today.
A few shamblers came roaming into the park, but they seemed to be wandering around aimlessly rather than following a lead. They kept bobbing their heads up and down in what I realized was some kind of sniffing maneuver, but how they could have caught our scent over the abominable stink of the city was beyond me. Life on the road—even if it had only been days since we’d left the camp—didn’t exactly come with perfect hygiene practice. They didn’t halt near Marleen’s tree and also skipped the playground, only pausing when they saw a different group come around a cluster of trees to their left. Some silent snarling later, the two groups turned away from each other, searching elsewhere. Far was it from me to make observations about their hunting patterns, but that looked tantalizingly like small packs of predators to me, like a pride of lions.
Fuck, but I hated being prey.
With us spread out over who knew how many square feet now, I checked that my com was on, but no orders came over the line. From time to time I picked up some static, making me guess that Nate had his on sending, not just on receiving. The first fifteen minutes of waiting were tense but felt good after running as fast as I could. But then my paranoia got the better of me, and the fear of getting caught out in the open for the night got stronger and stronger. The influx of shamblers didn’t stop but it also didn’t get worse, making me guess that we had done a good job throwing them off our trail. Judging from the fact that the park was less heavily defecated on than the highway we’d left behind, the shamblers must usually avoid the somewhat open spaces. And why not? There was the densely packed labyrinth of downtown Dallas mere minutes away, and a lot more hiding spaces in all other directions as well, not to mention the highway tunnel underneath the park. Why risk exposure—to the elements, but also other hunters—when you could lurk in the dark? And from how the late afternoon sun was still beating down on me, I could definitely say that they were much smarter than us in that aspect.
I was just about to consider easing myself down from my perch when more static crackled over the line, followed by Nate’s voice. “We need to move out, unless we want to become zombie chow come sunset. There are four streets leading into downtown across the length of the park. Unless impossible for your position, the fireteams will take them in this order from east to west.” He quickly rattled off the team leaders. My group was called for the east-most, which wasn’t ideal since I could tell I was much further west than that. I considered speaking up but decided that I’d head toward the closest road and backtrack in the direction Nate had just assigned to me. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find Richards hiding somewhere close by so he could materialize out of thin air as soon as I moved out, to go with the theme of sticking with me like a dug-in tick.
Nobody acknowledged—or objected—but I still waited another five minutes before I got back down to the ground. Call me an asshole, but if the shamblers were laying in wait for us, I wanted someone else to traipse into and spring that trap. I felt refreshed enough to easily run a few more miles, which told me I was actually dipping into my reserves and on the far side of exhaustion.
Red didn’t step into my way, but I saw Eden and Amos, and later Blake and Fletcher move just outside of what would have been shouting distance, each group heading in a slightly different direction. Paranoia made my skin itch as if a million eyes were following my every move but I forced myself to ignore it. As long as said eyes weren’t attached to snapping jaws coming right for me, they could watch all they wanted.
It took me a nerve-wracking ten minutes to reach the mouth of the street I had been assigned to, which was, of course, the street I had wanted to turn to before Nate had sent us hiding in the park. Pressed against the side of an overturned car that had ended up blocking the sidewalk, I waited for twenty endless heartbeats before I stepped around the obstacle and started my way down the street, doing my very best to blend in with my surroundings as silently as possible. The street was wide and completely choked-up with vehicles, but that was still better than the sidewalk where debris and dried leaves had gathered, making silent passing virtually impossible.
Something rustled behind me and to my right, making me duck and freeze. The sound didn’t repeat itself—and it could have been leaves or paper rustling in the light evening breeze that still felt like furnace exhaust—but I didn’t dare rely on it. Through the windows of the cars next to me, I couldn’t see anything, so I crouched down to peer underneath the vehicles. Since the shamblers had been hiding there before, it sounded like a good guess. I didn’t see any of them, but just as I was about to come up again, I caught motion ahead and to the right of me—a pair of boots. I waited, and a few seconds later, I saw them again a few feet further south. Bingo.
I didn’t so much try to sneak up on whoever was making their way forward but ended up almost scaring the shit out of Hill when I stepped into his path between two crashed and mangled trucks. He narrowed his eyes at me in silent reproach—and gave me the finger where his hands were firmly wrapped around his sledgehammer—before a jerk of his chin told me to precede him. I couldn’t hold back a smirk as I followed suit, telling myself no harm, no foul. Ahead, beyond the next intersection, lay the fourth block since the park, making me guess that we were half a mile closer to our destination. So far, so good. I didn’t have my hand-sketched map out but I figured we must be getting close to where the southbound highway continued on that we’d left before the park. Everything was slowly sinking into deepening shadows as the sun dipped closer and closer to the horizon, night coming early in the concrete-and-glass ravines of the city.
I got ready to cross the street but hesitated when the hot wind carried a particularly foul note right into my face. At first I thought it was coming from up ahead—closer to the highway. But when I waited and listened, I realized I could hear low, shuffling steps coming from my left—a lot of low, shuffling steps. With dread crawling up my spine, I crouched further down—to keep a low profile—and I peered around the hood of the car closest to the intersection, trying to catch a glimpse of what was lurking to the east.
I stopped counting at thirty and went right on to rough estimates—at least two hundred shamblers were swaying down the street, like molasses oozing between pebbles, slow yet impossible to stop. Pulling back, I deliberated for a moment, then signaled Hill that we needed to get going, and forward was likely not the best option. I hated the idea of turning right and having that at my back until the next intersection, but crossing right in front of them sounded like an even worse idea. Hill took one glance over the car and gave me the go-ahead, looking worried himself.
I forced myself to keep moving slowly and deliberately, even with every single fiber in my body screaming for me to break into a run. That would get me hunted down and killed in no time, I was sure, but that didn’t change anything about my hard-wired instincts. The parallel streets were running in close proximity here so it was not even a long block to the next intersection, but every second that passed felt like an excruciating eternity. I was halfway there when I saw two figures sneak between the cars—Amos and Eden, if I wasn’t mistaken. I wondered if they’d lost the third member of their group since nobody else followed.
Two steps further, and Hill’s hand suddenly clapped down on my right shoulder. I glanced back at him, but before he could signal something, I realized what was going on—
the shambling mass must have caught on to us, as I could see them surge into the intersection where we’d turned off behind us. My pulse kicked into overdrive, and while I tried my very best not to make any noises, I increased my speed to a weird kind of hopping and weaving around cars.
A loud howl behind me told me it was a wasted effort.
Hill sprinted past me, sliding across a car hood to cross half the distance to the other side of the road. Under different circumstances, I would have been annoyed to be passed by and left to the shamblers, but with his larger frame he had a harder time remaining hidden, and any attention he could draw away from me was something that worked in my favor. I sprinted forward, in seconds making it to the intersection—and kept going straight while Hill turned after the scavengers, who still followed their ordered path. The houses on the right were all sky high with glass fronts, but there was a multi-level car park on the other side, so I switched over to run alongside that. Peering into the semi darkness of the ground level, I tried to make out whether it was infested or not, but when the howling reached the intersection behind me—and much quicker than I had hoped—I realized I was out of options. Forcing a burst of speed out of my aching legs, I ran to where the entrance and exit lanes of the car park left a wide hole in the concrete facade of the building, and ducked inside. My mind screamed for me to keep running, but all I did was duck and inch back alongside the first three cars abandoned there, hoping that any shamblers on my trail would surge ahead further into the level. That turned out right, although most kept streaming by outside, from what I could hear where I did my best to hide alongside and behind a pickup truck’s front wheel.
I forced myself to count to a hundred—hoping that would end up being around a minute of too-fast seconds—before I checked on the exit. A few shamblers were still coming inside but most looked confused, more like they were following because the one coming before them had turned, not because they were actively hunting me. Peering further into the building, I saw a good fifty lurking this way and that, none of them coming in my direction. A few snapped at each other, making me guess that the newcomers were mixing with the resident population. I needed to get out of here before they realized they had a common goal.
Returning to the exit was a no go, so I aimed for the ramp up to the next level. I had no intention of taking that but hoped to find a staircase close by. Doors were often problematic for them. Also for us, considering creaky hinges, but I figured I could always slam the door and hide to lay a false lead.
Sadly, the staircase turned out to be not an option, since it was on the other end of the level—where there was a huge chunk of the building missing where a crane had crashed down on it, tearing through the four levels above and leaving the ground level a giant heap of cement rubble and bent rebars. Sunlight was streaming in from the side, turning it all into a devastatingly beautiful landscape of light and shadow.
To say the effect was lost on me was an understatement.
I chanced a glance over the cement balustrade that was between me and the street. I could have crawled over that, but since the street outside was teeming with shamblers, that wasn’t a good idea. Maybe trying the street Hill had turned down would be better? Since it was the only direction that I could head in where I had cover, that sounded like a good idea. But it turned out as much of a bust as the other since a good third of the pursuing zombies had made their way down there as well.
Fuck. Looked like the field of rubble it was after all. With luck, they wouldn’t see me as they were still avoiding the sunlight, and I could make it to the other side and escape that way. The only upside of so many shamblers around was that the sound of a misplaced step or scrape against a car didn’t draw much attention since, en masse, they weren’t exactly silent themselves.
It was due to that very fact that it took me more than a minute to realize that I wasn’t the only one hiding in here. Moving alongside the balustrade at the very outer edge of the car park didn’t help with getting a good overview, but when a few of the zombies startled for the third time, I managed to get a sense of direction. Pausing for a few seconds did the trick, and I caught sight of a head popping up behind a car hood for a second. Extrapolating from there, I caught him again a few cars further down—Cole. And Richards right behind him, if I wasn’t completely mistaken.
I considered trying to signal them but didn’t want to risk it. Now that I was aware of their presence, I managed to track their progress easily enough. They were moving parallel to me yet on the other side of the level, and would arrive at the debris field maybe a minute ahead of me.
Something caught my attention a few cars farther down my track—something glass or metallic reflecting the sunlight at the other end of the level, beyond where the crane had bisected it. Since there were plenty of cars remaining there, that wasn’t out of the ordinary. But then it glinted again, and again, and I realized that someone was signaling with a mirror or some other reflective surface. And when the next instance pretty much blinded me for a second, I got the sense that they’d seen me, too. I could have done without losing my vision for a few priceless seconds, though.
I blinked furiously until I could see clearly again, making sure I remained out of direct line of sight until I caught the signal again. Then I raised my right arm and flipped them off. Two quick flashes made me guess they’d caught that. Awesome.
I scampered forward to the next car and found myself face to face with a shambler that had been waiting there for me. Well, the upper half of a shambler since it ended in shattered hip bones, its entrails dragging on the ground behind it. It had been a while since I’d seen one still around that was this damaged. Judging from the fact that I could see where it had been dragging itself underneath the car, it was probably a recent injury, maybe even from one of the others. Fucking great. At least I could permanently dispatch it easily enough with one well-placed ax swing—but not without alerting half the undead population around me to my presence.
First, one started to growl, then five more picked it up, partly hidden by rows of cars as they were but coming closer. My first instinct was to keep going but another flash of light made me hesitate. I was crouching right next to a flat-bed truck that looked fancy enough that I figured it had been a vehicle of vanity, not necessarily use. With the shamblers preferring to hide on the ground, up was always an option. Casting around, I saw no immediate danger, so I grabbed the side of the truck bed and hauled myself up, immediately flattening myself against the dusty metal. If they’d seen me, I was busted. If not, they might get distracted by the dead shambler on the ground.
Closing my eyes for a few seconds, I forced my breathing to slow down as I did my very best to relax. Listening to the undead draw closer wasn’t very conducive to relaxation. Feeling the adrenaline pumping through my veins, neither. I still managed to even out my breaths, at least until their stink drew closer. Then I switched to shallow breaths through my mouth only, and hoped for the best.
Staring straight up, I caught a glimpse at the very top of the heads of two shamblers to my right—where the dead one was. They paused and keened at each other, close enough that if I’d reared up, I could have sliced at them with my ax. A step closer, and all it took for them to see me would have been a turn of the head. But they didn’t look to the side, instead dropping down, and a moment later the telltale sounds of flesh being ripped from bones made me want to grimace. Good for them—and if it kept them focused on their meal, good for me as well. At least until the sun set completely, and we’d all be caught out in the open with nowhere to hide.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to work so well.
Thankfully, before I could consider whether the shamblers were distracted enough with eating that I could ease off the truck bed on the other side, I heard cement grate on cement, followed by the sound of pebbles rolling away. Red and Cole must have made it to the rubble and were using the momentary commotion at my end to make their way out into the open. The shamblers next to me stopped in their f
eeding frenzy for a moment but almost immediately resumed, a sure meal more important than uncertain anything.
The damn light hit my face again, but this time I didn’t mind so much as I recognized it for what it was: a signal for me to get moving.
In reverse effect to before, I had to will my muscles into action, instinct locking down my body. Yet unlike the damn rope climbing, this was something I knew how to do. Nate and I had spent a lot of time on what had started out as a mix of yoga and stretching to keep all the parts of me limber that weren’t in prime, untarnished condition—and said activities had often evolved into a rather different kind of movements—but had eventually taken on a dynamic of its own, based on the fact that we had no equipment for strength training beyond our own weight. Suffice it to say I’d never expected to master that kind of control over my own body, and it had seemed more like a fun novelty to perform than actually useful, besides keeping my core engaged. Now, I was grateful for every second that I’d spent doing all kinds of plank variations, up to completely balancing my entire body on my arms only. It may have taken me a good five minutes to slowly ease myself off the truck bed and over the side, but it beat dropping down with a thunderous crash that alerted every shambler in the city to my presence. But damn, my nerves were frayed once I felt the soles of my boots touch down onto the ground with the ease of a feather landing.
Retribution: Green Fields #11 Page 20
