by Elisa Hansen
“He’s helping me stay in one piece.” Emily waved after him, but when her eye followed the gesture, her hand fell. Death was heading for the highway’s curve in the direction of the climbing sun at a pace that would make him disappear around the hills in a few minutes.
“Hey,” Emily shouted. “Where are you going?”
Death’s voice floated back to them without a break in stride. “East.”
His voice… Scott wanted to call it awful, terrifying. But the first word that came to his mind was musical. Was it supposed to be alluring or something? That was even worse. Scott shuddered.
Emily met his eyes. “We should follow him.”
“We should?”
She sighed as if she knew exactly how Scott felt but was resigned to it. “We should.”
Turning Carol to face him, Scott gave her unfocused eyes an expression he hoped she would record, access when he switched her mode back, and understand as honestly, deeply apologetic.
She would not like this.
He picked up his gun and turned to Emily, who struggled to right one of the roadcycles. “Those are no good,” he said.
Her dark eyebrows rose, but she did not argue. She dropped the bike and wiped her dusty hands on her black pants. “So…?”
“So…all right. Okay.” If she could do this, then so could he. He slung the gun over his shoulder. “Come on, Carol.”
Waiting only long enough for Carol to grab the fuel can, hose, and bags, the three of them set out to follow Death, Death himself, down the highway.
To hell, Scott thought. He almost repeated the joke aloud, but the reference would probably be lost on Zombie Emily.
Zombiemily… Zombily…
Well, shit.
He made Carol walk in the middle, and they stayed far enough behind Death that the chill of his presence remained only a loose tingle in Scott’s deepest parts. Though the pace Emily set ranked brisker than his cranky legs liked, the sun in his eyes won the obnoxiousness prize. He wanted to ask Carol to dig his shades out of the backpack, but it felt wrong to have her to do something so menial in slave state. A nagging feeling told him he should switch her mode back, but the same nagging feeling also dreaded how pissed she would be the second she returned.
He cleared his throat and talked across her to Zombily. “So, you’re a…whatever you are. You don’t, uh, have the urge to eat me or anything, do you?”
“What? No! No. I mean…” She leaned to see him past Carol. “Honestly? I feel like crap. Sort of shaky sometimes. I haven’t eaten or slept in almost two days, but I’m not tired, and the thought of eating at all makes me feel like puking.”
“I think I know what you mean.” Scott’s empty stomach grumbled in disagreement.
“You seriously are the first human I’ve seen since this happened to me. But it hasn’t been very long.”
“Two days? Sometimes it takes less than an hour after you get bitten to zombify while your body dies.”
“You mean un-dies.”
“And even less for the fast ones.” And she was fast. Maybe not as fast as some of the fast ones, but as fast as any able-bodied human. “Did you let vampires drink on you?”
“What? Vampires?”
“That’s why they’re fast. The fang bites, the tainted blood. You had a hook up with a vampire?”
“No! Never.”
“Even if it happened a long time ago, it doesn’t matter. Once you’re bitten—”
“Seriously, no.” The dark bruises around her eyes cragged into a scowl and a green vein bulged from her forehead. “Jesus fuck, no.”
Scott did nothing to suppress his grimace. “Okay, sorry I asked.”
Did she used to be pretty when she was alive? She looked as fit as a ninja, good chest, and in silhouette, he supposed her face was all right. A nicely small nose, kind of flat. And her eyes had that exotic slant thing going on. Scott wondered if she was part Mexican or something. Or maybe Hawaiian? That would have been sweet. Except Scott couldn’t exactly get past the now-gray chalky cheeks and flaking bits of skin on her lips. Her dirty black clothes didn’t help the aesthetic either.
“I’m completely pure,” she continued. “I mean, I was before this. But still, it’s been like thirty-six hours since the bite? If I was going to get all brainless, I would be already.”
But everything else about her looked zombie. The unevenness to her walk, the jerky way she moved her head when she talked. Except something was off about the image. Something missing.
“What happened to you? Why are you different?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t exactly know how to explain.” As if pulled by a string, her gaze fixed on Death’s back.
“Something to do with him?”
She wasn’t covered in blood. That’s what was missing. Her face was clean. Scott gagged a little.
“I think so. I mean, definitely yes. Something about dying and undying at the same time.”
Scott made himself follow her gaze. Just peeking at Death caused the icy tendrils to swirl the pits of his stomach. He walked a step closer to Carol’s side. “Why is he with you? Is he waiting for you to finish dying?”
“No. I’m not really sure. He’s kind of a vague guy. But look at it this way, wouldn’t you rather he be on your side than the other way around?”
“He’s on my side?”
“He wants to get to Manhattan as much as I do. And if you’re going to help me, then yes. Think about it. He can stop bullets, right? And lasers. If we get into any trouble on the way, he’ll shield us.”
“How do I know he won’t just let me die?”
“Because I need you, and he is going to help me.”
Death did scare off that vampire last night. The one Carol hesitated to shoot for some reason. That’s what Scott had to keep reminding himself.
Emily looked across Carol at him. “And don’t you think the LPI would want to know about him? This is huge.”
“He one hundred percent gives me the willies. So do you.”
“Wouldn’t Nick want to know?”
Death and Emily weren’t robots, but sometimes Nick did, in fact, care about other things. Inexplicable-by-science things especially. “She would flip.”
The nagging feeling tugged Scott again. He glanced sideways at Carol. He sighed and stopped walking. “Just a sec,” he said to Zombily.
Carol stopped as well, and Scott took the dirt-colored backpack from her, hoisting it over his shoulder. He cleared his throat twice, then used his authority voice once more. “Carol: Nick mode.”
Carol whirred. Her eyes brightened, the yellow turning to purple. Then they narrowed into a glare.
Scott could only hold her gaze for a moment before dropping his eyes. He pretended to do it on purpose and rooted through the backpack for his sunglasses. He cleared his throat again. “Did you, uh, process that information?”
“How do you know she speaks the truth?” Carol’s laser popped out of her arm, then retracted.
“Instinct?” He slipped on his shades before daring to look up at her and took a swig from a water bottle. “You’d know it if you had a gut.”
“Your probability of danger is exponentially greater in relation to your proximity to this zombie.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Emily’s fists clench, and he gave her a warning shake of his head. The last thing he needed was to be caught in the middle of some freaky monster bitch fight.
“No, Carol. Come on. Executive decision here. Let’s keep going.”
To his relief, she obeyed. Good. Let her superior logic deduce he would RSM her again if she didn’t. A minute later, though, she snatched the backpack from Scott’s shoulder and put it over her own.
They walked in silence long enough for Scott to notice the sun shift in the sky. It chased a tower of clouds hovering inkblot-style in the center of the blue yonder. Scott watched Carol’s focus tick between Emily and Death like a clock display. Her vigilance did not falter even as she took a ra
tion bar from the backpack and thrust it at Scott. By the time the sun disappeared behind the clouds, his t-shirt felt permanently stuck to the center of his back. He assumed Carol would object to how fast they walked, give him some lecture on dehydration and water rationing, but she did not speak a word until Death turned off the highway to take a dirt road.
Scott glanced to Emily. She shrugged.
“Explain to me,” Carol said to him as they followed Death like sheep, “why are you frightened of that person?”
“He’s not a person.”
Emily spoke up. “He kind of is.”
Carol fixed her focus on Death’s back. “What is he?”
Scott watched her eyelights change from purple to green to red. “He’s Death.”
Carol clicked. Her eyes became that deep-between-blue-and-purple color.
“You know, like the Grim Reaper? Yeah, look that up in your encyclobrain.” Scott strove to remember another name for him but gave up. “It’s an old myth, I guess. That when people die, there’s a thing, a guy, who comes and takes you. I mean, us.”
“He transfers them from life to death,” Emily added.
Scott nodded. “He’s an angel.”
“No, he’s not.”
“He isn’t?”
“I don’t think so.”
Carol shook her head. “I know what angels are.”
“Okay,” Scott said. “Right, so think of him like that. He’s the Angel of Death.”
“But angels are myths.”
“Well, apparently he’s not a myth because he’s right there.” Scott looked to Emily. “Because he’s retired?”
She shrugged. “Someone stole his horse.”
“Huh?”
“Look, he knows where he’s going, okay? He’s got like mental GPS—”
“My satellite maps,” Carol interrupted, “are accurate to a—”
“And,” Zombily interrupted louder, “he has all these shortcuts. And he knows where things are. Trust me, we should just follow him, at least until we find a car. Then you can lead the way.”
“What makes you think we’ll find anything at all?”
“You will.” Death’s voice made all three of them halt in their tracks. He faced them in the middle of the path ahead. Slowly, his arm extended, and one of his freaky fingers unfurled toward the distance. “There is a ranch not far from here. You will find what you seek there.” When he lowered his arm, it was as if his fingertip meant to tear a slit through the air. And then he started walking again.
Scott stood frozen, inside and out. “Is he…” He swallowed. “He’s listening to everything we say?”
Emily shook her head, which Scott took to mean probably. Before he could ask her what Death assumed they sought exactly, she broke into a jog. Scott watched her half-purple braid smack against her shoulders as she caught up to Death. She was much less painful to observe from the back. Those pockety pants didn’t do her butt any favors, but Scott had seen worse. She spoke to Death, but he couldn’t hear any of it. He could ask Carol to tell him what they said. Though if it mattered, she would inform him automatically. He hesitated.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked her instead.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry about the RSM.”
“No, you’re not.”
He sighed and rubbed the back of his sticky neck. “How’s your power level?”
“Low.”
“Don’t use the laser any more. We’ve got the other guns.”
Carol unzipped the duffel bag to withdraw two handguns. She slid them into the silicone holsters on her hips, then she unzipped the backpack. “Your power level’s low, too. Here, eat another bar.”
Scott regretted asking at all. He gnawed on the cardboardy thing and took what felt like hours to choke it down bit by bit. It must have been at least a couple hours because when the sun reemerged from the clouds, it sat at the top of the sky.
He shoved the wrapper into his pocket. The world had ended, but he still couldn’t bring himself to litter. “He said not far from here. It’s been what? Ten miles already?”
“Six point two.”
“Ugh.”
“This is unwise, Scott.”
“Okay, fine. Fine, fine. Fine. If this supposed ranch doesn’t materialize in ten minutes, we can go back to the highway. Okay?”
“Yes.”
Nine minutes later, of course, they crested a shrubby hill and he saw it. A vandalized, haunted-looking place, but there it stood.
Figures.
Bodies littered the grounds, humans and some dogs. Scott tried to ignore how Death drifted down among the corpses, and instead, he focused with Carol and Zombily to find what they sought.
22
The Ranch
“You see,” said Death. “It is as I told you.”
“I didn’t…doubt you.” The truth of the words sank in as Emily spoke them. As much bullshit as she slathered onto Scott to put him at ease, she actually trusted Death implicitly when he said he would lead them to a ranch.
As Scott and his robo-friend caught up, Death drifted away into the compound. He was keeping his distance from Scott. Ideal, as far as Emily was concerned. But was that more for Scott’s benefit now, or Death’s own? Last night, he took off after Scott, the “living human,” like a zombie after flesh.
Death said he only reaped at a person’s time to die. But was that a law of nature or more of a moral code? Maybe it was too agonizing for him to be around something he wanted but couldn’t have?
Emily glanced at Scott. If she were the kind of zombie who ate people, she could possibly see what his appeal might be. He did look…supple. And…hearty. Young, strong. Full of…vitality.
Warm, soft, oozing vitality. Yeah, oozing was definitely the right word. Humans seriously were squishy creatures.
Yeah, she could see it.
Good thing she wasn’t that kind of zombie.
“I’m checking out those trucks.” Scott’s voice snapped Emily back to the moment.
A trio of pickup trucks lounged in front of the long ranch house. She jogged down the hill after him but could tell right away the first two were a bust. They had no tires.
“And this one doesn’t have an engine.” Scott groaned and dropped the hood of the third.
“We could take the engine out of that one and put it in this one?” Emily put in a lot of hours at her father’s lot, but that kind of mechanical skill was beyond her. Just a bit. But maybe between them, they could figure it out?
“No.” Carol lifted a bullet-hole-riddled hood to inspect one of the existing engines. “I will take the tires from that one and put them on this one.”
Right. Or that. Duh.
“How can I help?” Emily asked.
“You can’t.”
“Come on.” Scott gestured to the buildings. “She works better alone.”
“Scott.” Carol’s face snapped up. “You should stay with me.”
“I’ll be fine! Fix the truck.”
Emily hesitated at the driveway’s edge, hoping they didn’t start fighting again. “I’ll stay six feet away from him at all times, I swear.”
“She’s not even a real zombie.”
Carol’s head rotated in Emily’s direction, her uncanny-valley robot eyes narrowing into glowing slits.
“Come on.” Scott waved Emily toward the stables and sheds. “Supplies and fuel.”
“Right.”
Walking backward as she followed him, she watched Carol lean into the driver’s side and pull out the panel below the steering column.
“Is she going to bypass its system?” she asked.
“Unless she miraculously finds the fob just lying there, then probably, yeah.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“Well, she has two chances, and if it’s an engine problem, she can fix it.”
“She knows auto-mechanics?”
Scott snorted. “She knows lots of things. Her memory is huge.”
“Does she know kung fu?”
He gave her a confused look. “Probably? Though she’s not exactly light on her feet.”
Emily shook her head. “Never mind.”
Carol didn’t seem about to shoot her in the back, so Emily allowed herself to relax. Just a bit.
“Okay,” Scott said as they walked around the fence. “First thing we do is scrounge up some fuel for the truck and check the house for food, batteries, bullets, shells, the usuals. Second thing is drive to the nearest place we can find with power so Carol can charge for a few hours. Third—”
“Wait, how many hours is a few?” Emily tried to calculate the time until nightfall. She didn’t like the idea of being anywhere after dark in the company of Scott the Live Bait other than speeding down the road.
He waved an unconcerned hand. “Technically, she only needs to be at twenty-five percent to function at full capacity. If she can get to forty, she’ll be really good for a while as long as she doesn’t use her particle weapon. That drains her like a bitch.”
“How low is she? What if we don’t make it somewhere with power before she runs out?”
“She has enough backup to keep going in low-power state for days. I mean, even if she gets completely drained, obviously I would power her down for a while. But she’s so heavy, I couldn’t get her out of the car on my own. We make sure she always has enough left to walk. She just gets really…”
“Bitchy?”
“No, she’s always like that. I was going to say slow.”
A rust-colored stable filled most of the compound’s center. The wide double doors at the end of the long building creaked back and forth in the wind. A thick, rotting odor made Emily want to pinch her nose as they approached. “Ugh.”
“Worst case scenario,” Scott said, strolling in as if his nose were made of steel, “I’ll have to deal with her in power-save mode for a while.” He pushed his sunglasses into his hair, making the ends of his long bangs stick up like fan palms. “Check those shelves over there. But, yeah, she can jump on emergency juice if she absolutely has to, though full energy only lasts for a few minutes. While she’s in low-power state, she’s little more than big bulky computer.”
