The Company of Death

by Elisa Hansen

  Scott’s eye roved her again. She leaned in to peer at it. The moist red-veined white surrounded a green so deep she could imagine swimming away in it. Curling into it like a liquid blanket, happily hibernating in its cocoon. And then by the time she woke, it would all be over. All this…all over…

  A tug at the back of her shirt snapped Emily’s attention away. She turned and scowled. Death hovered over her, and the window popped shut. For some reason, the sound made her want to cry. She clenched her teeth against the impulse, her eyes narrowing. “What?”

  “You’re drooling.” Death leaned closer, as if he would poke her face.

  “What?” She smacked his hand away. Ah! She’d forgotten about the creepy jolt thing that happened when he touched her skin. She shook the sharp tingles out of her hand.

  The clicking his bones made as he clenched his fist sounded oddly melodic, distracting. What had she just been thinking? Goddammit, he made her lose it. It had been such a peaceful thought, whatever it was. He needed to back off. Drooling? Emily wiped at her mouth.

  Her hand came away perfectly dry.

  Ugh. She covered her eyes. Maybe he would be gone when she opened them. All she could smell now were road dust and truck fumes. She forced a breath out then dropped her hand.

  Not gone. “What?”

  Death remained still for a moment as if waiting for something, but then he shook his head and slid from her.

  “Wait.”

  He turned back to her. What was that look? Hopeful? Expectant? Confused?

  Doesn’t matter.

  Emily’s eyes narrowed, and her jaw clenched. “Are you sure there’s no one at this factory?”

  He sighed without sound. “Yes.” And then with a heavy ruffle of fabric, he rose and leapt from the truck.

  Had they pulled to a stop? When did that happen?

  Chain-link fence loomed over their parking spot, a dingy compound of squat factory buildings filling the lot on the other side. She climbed from the truck and tried to stretch her limbs, crack her back. The effort did absolutely nothing. So zombies couldn’t stretch either? What other good news awaited her?

  Once she stood upright, though, the cramped stiffness she should have felt never manifested. Okay, that was something, at least.

  She jogged around the truck and found Scott outside the driver side. Emily tensed in anticipation, but when he opened the door, the smell of cloth mildew greeted her and nothing more. It was gone. The scent. Whatever it was…just gone.

  Scott pulled one of Carol’s silver arms over his shoulder and hoisted her from the seat.

  “What happened?” Emily asked. Carol’s sluggish movements reminded her of a sleepy drunk.

  “Critical power.” Scott grunted as he eased his robot friend to the ground. “Maneuvering mechanics not so good.”

  “Do you need a hand?”

  “No, I got it.”

  Carol’s eye lights were so dim, Emily could barely make out the violet color. Were they even on at all? As she leaned in to see better, they flashed to brightness and focused on her. Emily jumped back.

  “You are in danger, Scott,” Carol said. “I should activate emergency power.”

  “Nah, I’m fine.” He shot Emily a be cool look as he put an arm around Carol’s waist and nudged the door closed. “Save it. Wait until we’re at least sure you can charge.” Scott heaved her toward the factory, his scuttling footwork cartoonish alongside her slow mechanical steps. She could clearly walk on her own. What was he trying to prove?

  “No.” She started to whir, and her eyes grew brighter.

  “Carol, stop.”

  She paused. “This is dangerous.”

  “Everything is dangerous! You’ll be more useful if you save it.” Scott glanced to Emily as if he needed her agreement. She clasped her hands behind her back and nodded with as much authority as she could muster.

  “Now, shut all the extras off,” he ordered. “If it takes longer than ten minutes to find anything, I’ll hit your alert.”

  Carol studied him for a quiet minute, and then her eyes dimmed. She walked like blind clockwork up the ramped driveway to the factory gate, which stood wide open in welcome, Scott pushing and tugging at her as if that would do any good. Emily waited until they got out of sight into the building, and then she wrenched open the truck door and stuck her head through. She sniffed.

  Nothing.

  What the hell?

  Sucking air in through her mouth only made her cough. The scent was completely gone. Had it even been there at all? She’d smelled nothing on either of them outside of the truck. She wiped her lips and closed the door.

  Whatever. Right? Whatever. She needed to talk to Scott. With Carol powered down and Death out of sight, now would be great.

  Inside the factory, Emily’s gaze swept the murky room of looming machines. Long, barred windows along the top of the high walls admitted a few inches of the sinking sunlight in a way that made everything below appear underwater. Death said there was no one here, but Emily didn’t want to stay any longer than they had to. Where did he go anyway? Forget him. Talk to Scott. A sudden rumble made her tense, and then the dim space came alight with blinking LEDs. Cold cathode ceiling lamps flicked to life one after the next.

  “Found the generators?” she called. Wherever he was, Scott didn’t answer. She surveyed the room again. Nope, definitely didn’t look any less creepy with the lights on. Brown dust layered the machines, every nook and cranny clotted with cobwebs. It looked thirty-years abandoned, not two.

  Emily heard the bang of a door falling shut somewhere off to her left. She followed the sound through the maze of machines until she reached a wall with only one door. The plaque beside it read, “Charging Station.”

  She pressed the handle, stepped inside, and stopped short. She caught a flash of the giant apparatus filled with mechanical forms before the door fell shut behind her. In the dark of the windowless room, a dozen glowing yellow eyes stared from the pinlight-speckled machinery looming to the ceiling. She reached for her gun that wasn’t there.

  She waited a moment for her vision to adjust to the dark, but nothing changed. Blinking, she squinted at the yellow eyes. She lifted a hand and waved. Nothing happened. Her hand swiped across the wall for a light switch, but when she found one, it didn’t work. Stepping back to the door, she nudged it open. When the light fell on the machines this time, she made out the faces holding the eyes and the clunky ochre bodies attached. Six identical strange robots stood in the charging station slots along with Carol. Unlike Carol’s slumped posture, the oval bubbles that made up their bodies and limbs stood at rigid attention in their harnesses. Their needlelike faces pointed at right angles. Three empty charging docks remained between them and Carol at the far end. Her eye lights were off, but the others all had enough charge to be staring at Emily.

  She backed out of the room, letting the door slam again.

  “What are you doing?” Scott’s voice came from much closer than she expected, and Emily spun around to see him in the aisle between machines. He held the blue duffel bag in one hand and a red gas jug in his other. His backpack dangled over the opposite shoulder from his gun.

  “What are those?” She waved a hand at the door.

  “Those,” he said, “are old school.”

  “They look like they’re on.”

  Scott shrugged. “I flipped their stations off, so they’re not drawing power. I didn’t bother shutting them down. Did you try giving them any commands?”

  “What? Why would I?”

  “What are you so nervous about? They aren’t going to hurt you.” He set the jug on the floor and adjusted his grip on the bag. “Did Carol really freak you out that much? They’re just worker bees.”

  Carol didn’t freak Emily out. She was fine. She shook her head. “Of course not. It’s just he said there was no one else here.”

  “Who? Oh. Pfft. Death knows where everyone is at all times? Sees you when you’re sleeping, naughty and nice? E
w.”

  “Actually, it’s that thing of his. His retro tablet thingy? He doesn’t just know. It tells him where people are. And about that…” She hesitated.

  “Hate to break it to you, but as much as my sister will swear Robots Are People Too, I’m pretty sure your buddy would disagree.”

  Of course. Though if Death knew enough to tell them the place had power, he likely knew about the robots. Would have been nice if he had warned them. Asshole. But the machines seemed harmless enough for the moment. Emily needed to get down to business. Death was not her buddy.

  “I’m going to fill this up.” Scott retrieved the gas jug. “After Carol’s charged, we can take whatever’s left from the tanks in the other two cans. You scrounge for tires.”

  “Actually—”

  “What?”

  Actually, she had no idea how to begin. Should she tell him his death was imminent? That might freak him out, and it wouldn’t matter once they got far away from Death.

  Get him away first. Yeah, that was better.

  She shook her head. She needed to strategize before diving in. “Right. Tires. On it.”

  Working her way around the perimeter of the room, she discovered an actual exit. Through the door, she emerged into the rusty twilight of a loading yard. The only vehicle in it was a tipped-over forklift. Directly across the yard from her, a door with a broken handle hung open a few inches. On the wall to her left, behind the forklift, a ladder led to a double-high recessed dock. A closed rolling door at its back end reflected crimson stripes as the sun sank toward the hills at the open end of the yard to her right.

  She wondered what might be behind the rolling door as she approached the ladder. The edge of the platform jutted a few feet above her head, and a red light blinked on a control panel up by the door. She put a hand on a ladder rung, but then paused. She was procrastinating. Strategize.

  Okay. Think. She should tell Scott about the horsepeople first. Let him know how big this all was. And then explain about Manhattan? But that would be a lot to take in. She should buffer it with something positive. Like finding tires. Impress him like she did with the fuel at the ranch.

  The forklift’s tires obviously wouldn’t work, but Emily recalled how the parking lot wrapped the main building. No vehicles stood on the side where they parked, but she would check around the back. There had to be something out there.

  There was something all right.

  One vehicle, and only one. A semi. Its cab pointed directly at Emily as she came around the wall separating the back parking lot from the central factory building. She stopped short, throwing up her arms. After a second, she lowered them, realizing the truck wasn’t running or about to plow straight into her. But as she stared at it, stared at the lumpy stuffed bunny strapped to its grill, all her strength drained from her limbs.

  Emily knew this truck.

  How long had it been? Without sleep, the days and nights blurred into a slippery miasma. Was it seriously only two days since she last saw this cattle truck through her binoculars parked outside an entirely different factory?

  She’d spent hours staring at it and the second one like it, making up stupid names and backstories for the dirty pink bunny while worrying for the people she feared might be inside. Parked under the desert sun while the drivers chilled in the factory. But no commune’s human herd inhabited those trucks. No. What did hairy Snakeman say?

  Two glorious truckloads of motherfuckin’ zombies.

  But how was it here now? Off and quiet and deserted? Emily forced her legs to move until she could put a hand on the grill next to the bunny. However long ago it arrived, it was cool under her touch now. Where did the driver go? Emily’s hand swiped at her empty holster, and she spun around, her eyes scanning the lot.

  “You said there was no one here,” she whispered, even though Death was wherever and wouldn’t hear her.

  Nothing. No other trucks, no sign of the commune. Had they stopped here just like they did at the factory at Suncrest Hill, then left this truck behind when they moved on? They released all their zombies when her team attacked, but wouldn’t they keep the truck? Especially after bringing it this far?

  What did Snakeman say? She scraped her memory. Something about starving the zombies. The commune used them as weapons. Something supposedly no one ever managed to do before. They let them all loose on her team. But if they’d wrangled them once…

  Slowly Emily turned and looked down the length of the truck. Everything was so quiet. They wouldn’t leave the truck here unless something was wrong with it, right? It was empty, broken, useless? It had to be.

  But something…something made her not so sure. Her palms itched. Her nose, her lips were tingling. Something…

  Step by step, she crept to the back of the truck. The windows along its side were too high for her to see into, but as she passed under them, the smell became impossible to deny. A dry, musky smell. A lifeless smell that wasn’t dead.

  Pulling herself up on the lip above the bumper, she gripped the handles of the back doors and stood on her toes, lifting her face to the window. Countless faces stared back up at her.

  Emily bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from screaming. So many of them! They stood packed shoulder to shoulder, slouching against each other, squished to the sides. Frozen, she could not turn away. But after a few moments, they did, their faces drooping noiselessly. Most of them stood still, though some sighed. And were those two nuzzling each other? Most appeared asleep on their feet, their eyes half-lidded. But the eyes Emily could see were contemplative, thoughtful. Intelligent?

  And so, so miserable.

  God, these were just people! Gray, sunken, shriveled, people. Many of them missing obvious pieces, but look at them!

  You said there was no one here!

  So zombies were no one.

  Emily’s hand twisted the door handle before she realized what she was doing, but it clicked against the lock.

  Maybe Death’s screen didn’t tell him zombie locations? They weren’t living; they’d never died. He didn’t have power over the undead, so neither would his screen.

  Or was he just lying? Was this part of his plan to get Scott killed?

  Zombies couldn’t kill Scott. They would do the opposite of what Death wanted. But whoever left this truck here, would they be coming back for it?

  Emily’s gaze shot to the blazing horizon. “Fucker!” How much longer until sunset?

  Soft groans rose from inside the truck. Emily clamped her mouth shut and put her face back to the window. They all stared at her again. Big eyes, small eyes, milky mud-colored eyes—eyes she recognized? Emily gasped. One head rose above the rest, the tallest zombie in the crowd. Its dark skin had turned a deep purple color, but she knew that big stubble-covered head.

  Big Joe! From her LPI team.

  And he was focusing on her. He nudged against the bodies in front of him, worked his hand out of the press. He knew her! She could tell he knew her.

  Lying son of a bitch. Why had she ever trusted Death? No other intelligent zombies like her? Bullshit! Look at how Big Joe studied her. And there, that poofy hair. Carlos! And there, the Flip boy whose name she couldn’t remember. And— “Rosa! Rosa!”

  The creaky groans erupted into guttural screaming, and the truck lurched as they all pressed to the door. Rosa’s short, round frame was swallowed by thrashing limbs that beat the walls below the windows.

  “No!” Emily wrenched at the handle, battled the lock. “Rosy! Get off her! Let her out!” Her ankle twisted, and she fell off the tailgate but clawed her way right back up. Bracing herself against the truck’s corner, she bashed at the handle with her boot.

  She’d seen it! Focus, attention. Rosa had to still be there, behind those clouded eyes. Never as a human had Emily seen a zombie look at her like that. But she couldn’t find Rosa in the crowd, and all signs of intelligence abandoned the faces she could see. They pushed each other to the floor, climbing over themselves. Teeth caked in black blo
od snapped through the window bars.

  But they couldn’t eat Emily. The damage was already done. She had to get her team out of there. She jumped down and scanned the lot for something to use. They could be like her! She could reach them! She’d given the all clear, she sent them to their doom, but this was her chance. She could still save them.

  Grabbing a chunk of concrete from a shattered parking bumper, she climbed back up and smashed at the lock.

  One—two—the handle bent, and the door casing around it cracked. Emily yanked at it, but the lock held. Three—four—

  A shotgun blast exploded beyond the factory wall.

  Emily jerked back, lost her footing, and fell hard on the asphalt. The concrete flew from her fingers.

  Silence.

  Ohgodno.

  Scott!

  27

  Zombies

  Getting around the parking lot wall and back into the loading yard felt like a bad dream, like running through high water. When Emily finally made it, Scott stood next to the door with the broken handle, his gun aimed at the sky.

  “What—” She gaped at him. “What happened?”

  “Oh, there you are.” He made a face like he wasn’t exactly pleased to see her again.

  “What?” He was fine. No one else was there. He was fine. “Why did you shoot?”

  “I was calling. You didn’t answer.” He stepped around his bags, which flopped against the wall, and he pushed open the door. “You have to see this.”

  She shook her head. “I thought—”

  “What?”

  “You were being…attacked or…” Emily felt like she ought to be shaking. But as she stood completely still, her actions at the semi came rushing back to her.

  Holy hell.

  Had she completely lost it? Did she seriously try to open that truck? What the hell was wrong with her? If not for the gunshot…

  She pushed her hands against her face, rubbing hard at her squelchy eyes. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Pfft. Come look at this, then talk to me about scary shit.”