by M. D. Massey
“Holy mother of mercy,” I growled. “That’s a shit-ton of deaders.”
The rabbi, Gabby, and Bobby had awoken and crawled out of the back of the truck to see what was up. Gabby whistled softly. “Híjole, but that’s an understatement. I’ve never seen so many deaders in one place.”
Sledge walked up beside the hood, so I knelt down and handed him the binoculars. He surveyed the huge mass of deaders and shook his head. “Damn, Scratch. Looks like we came all the way out here for nothing.”
The huge ’thrope offered the binoculars to the rabbi, who declined them. “I can’t see what’s out there, but I have ears to hear.” He looked up at me with a resigned expression. “Hunter, unless you want to let the dead ones have your kishkes for breakfast, I’d say we’re through here.”
I took the binocs back from Sledge and scanned the land ahead of us. Deaders milled about in a loose formation over four square miles or more, covering what must have once been the Pantex plant. I had no idea how many deaders it might take to cover that much land, but it had to be in the millions.
Kara hopped out of the truck and sat on the hood next to me. “They’re right, Scratch. This mission is a bust. Let’s head back and find someplace to hide out overnight—someplace far away from the world’s largest mosh pit up ahead.”
I continued to scan the area, doing my best to make out landmarks in the sea of bodies. The intel we’d recovered from Calypso had included aerial photos of the plant, and before we’d left I’d studied them until I had them memorized. Our plan had been to reach the plant and then access two key areas: the disassembly facilities inside the plant, and a temporary underground storage facility where they kept weapons-grade plutonium before converting it to its less dangerous plutonium oxide form.
We were looking for a W-76 nuclear warhead, and enough weapons grade plutonium-239 to get the yield we needed. That was my big plan for taking out the Dallas coven, and now I had umpteen million deaders standing between me and my swan song. I kept sweeping the binoculars left and right, marking entrances and exit points, escape routes, and distances in my head.
“We could draw them off,” Bobby suggested. “Maybe with an explosion or something. Heck, we have all this diesel in the back of the truck. I’m pretty sure we could find some fertilizer to mix with it—we are in the middle of farm country, after all. We’d just need to fix up a bomb, detonate it wherever we wanted the herd to go, and then we could get in while they were out taking a hike.”
“Wouldn’t work,” Gabby replied. “That herd is too damned big. You might pull off a fourth or half of them, but the rest would just get agitated and scatter like a scared flock of birds. No telling where they’d run if that happened. Anyone within a mile of that place would be trampled within minutes.”
I grunted my approval as I lowered the binoculars. “It’s a damned good plan, Bobby, but Gabby’s right. Besides, I have a better idea.”
Kara squeezed her eyes shut and began rubbing her temples. “I knew you were going to suggest this,” she muttered.
“Suggest what?” Sledge asked.
Gabby crossed her arms and scowled at me as she answered Sledge’s question. “You only haven’t figured it out because you haven’t been around this pendejo loco very long. Scratch is planning to head in on foot, because he thinks he’s the zombie whisperer.”
We’d withdrawn to a safer position a few miles south of the plant, hiding out in an abandoned grain and feed store in the tiny town of Washburn. The whole place was deserted—what little of it there was, anyway. I doubted there’d been many people living there before the dead came, but now it truly was a ghost town. I wondered what had happened to these folks, and all those people in Amarillo, just up the road. Perhaps many of them were now camped out at Pantex with the rest of the dead.
Kara had slipped off to a dark, quiet place under the floorboards of the building, leaving the rest of us to argue over the best course of action—which we did for most of the morning. Finally, everyone realized we were getting nowhere, so we each retreated to separate parts of the building to sleep. Now, it was getting close to sundown, and everyone was sulking around inside the feed store and pointedly avoiding talking with me.
All except for the rabbi, of course. He knew what was at stake, because the old man had been around a few times. I had a feeling he’d witnessed more than one holocaust in his day, and he was all for ending this one.
“You think she can do it?” he said in hushed tones.
“Yes, I believe she can. But you don’t have to come along, Rabbi. Kara and I can handle this on our own.”
He shook his head and gave me a stern look. “Bah! What if you can’t get in? She is strong, yes—but not as strong as Josef, ja? And while I could send him along without me, I’m unable to exert control over him at great distances. I can give him simple commands, of course, but without me to guide him he might misinterpret them and smash into the wrong building, or cause some other catastrophe. No, it is settled. I will come with you.”
“Fine, but if something goes wrong, you hop on Josef’s shoulders and get the hell out of there, alright?”
“Ja, ja, I have been hunting much longer than you. I know how to stay alive.”
“So, we’re doing it?” I turned, slightly startled, to see Kara standing next to me. She’d appeared soundlessly and out of nowhere. It was going to take some getting used to, this being in love with a vampire thing.
“It appears we are. Did you rest well?” I asked.
“I did, but I’m going to need to feed soon.”
The rabbi held up his hands in protest. “Don’t look at me! I’m a tolerant individual when it comes to benevolent supernatural creatures, but my magnanimity has its limits.”
Kara chuckled softly. “Don’t worry, Rabbi, I’m not hungry enough to lose control. Yet.”
She said that last part with a glimmer in her eye, and her voice deepened slightly. It was all I could do to keep from drawing down on her. Yeah, this is definitely going to take getting used to.
“Well, we’d better get going then,” I said. “Hopefully we can get in and out before midnight, so Kara can have time to hunt.”
I walked over to the rest of our small party to give them their final instructions. “We’re going to be heading out in a few—me, Kara, the rabbi, and the golem.”
Gabby wouldn’t meet my gaze. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” she mumbled.
Bobby frowned. “I was going to say, ‘Don’t get yourself killed.’ Thanks for stealing my line, Gabby.”
She elbowed him in the shoulder, putting some steam on it, and Bobby tumbled off his chair. “Damn it, perro, this is no time for jokes!” She stood suddenly, fists clenched, eyes narrowed, staring at my shoes.
“Gabby, it’s going to be alright,” I said softly.
She closed the distance in two quick strides and pulled me into a bear hug, her face against my chest. It was a surprising display of affection from the girl, and much like her uncle I wasn’t good at this sort of thing. Still, I reached up and hugged her around the shoulders, patting her back as she sobbed into my chest.
“Ssshh, it’s okay. I’ll be fine—deaders don’t like the taste of me, remember? Besides, Kara and the rabbi will be there watching my back.”
“But what if something happens? What if you don’t come back? We won’t be able to come after you, and…” She broke off mid-sentence, unable to complete that thought.
I gently peeled her off me and took a half-step back, reaching up to lift her chin with one hand. “Listen, kid—I’d never abandon you, alright? You gotta believe me on this. I fully intend to get in, get out, and make it back to you two knuckleheads. Have a little faith, hmm? I’ve made it out of worse than this.”
She smiled sadly and shook her head. “Estás siendo tonto—you’ve never faced down millions of deaders.”
“Yeah, maybe not, but I’ve walked right through herds of them before, and they ignored me. There’s no reason to thi
nk that these deaders will act any different. And Kara’s going to do her vampire mind-control thing to keep them away from us. So, cheer up, alright? I’ll be back before you know it.”
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Okay, but get back fast.”
Bobby sniffled nearby. “Aw, man, what a breakthrough for you two. Wait ’til I tell the Doc about how you bonded over the prospects of Scratch’s imminent death.”
Gabby spun and punched him in the arm. “Not a word of this, to anyone!” She punched him again, harder. “And stop saying stuff like that before you jinx him, payaso.”
He grabbed his shoulder and shied away. “Okay, geez.” The kid turned to me and stuck out his hand. “Good luck, Scratch. Come back safe, alright?”
“I will, kid. I promise.”
“You have a habit of making promises you know you can’t keep,” Kara said as we jogged alongside the huge flesh golem. The rabbi rode on his shoulders, hopefully out of reach of any curious deaders. We’d slathered ourselves in deader guts before heading out, and I hoped between that, the lingering deader venom in my veins, Kara’s vampire mojo, and the undead state of the golem, we’d be able to get in and back out again unmolested.
I tsked as I glanced her way. “I keep my promises, as best I can.”
“Yes, but you’re always promising the impossible. It’s a bad habit, Scratch. You set expectations way too high for your own accomplishments, especially when others are depending on you. It leaves you vulnerable to looking like an ass when you let them down.”
I looked up at the rabbi. “You ever been in love, Borovitz?”
“Oh no, don’t drag me into your mishegoss.”
Kara snorted, her eyes twinkling. “Looks like you’re on your own, Scratch. The rabbi knows better than to stick his nose where it’s not welcomed.”
“Thanks a lot, Rabbi.”
He lifted his hands up as he shrugged. “What do you want me to say? You dig a pit and fall in, it’s up to you to get yourself out.”
We came to a small rise, and Kara slowed her pace as she held a finger to her lips. “Ssshh, I think we’re getting close to the edge of the mob. Stay close and keep quiet until we know it’s working.”
“You set the pace, we’ll follow,” I said.
“Here goes nothing,” she replied, and began walking over the hill.
As we crested the rise, a sea of dead spread out before us. The moaning was fairly loud, but not overwhelming since the dead were fairly sparse in this area. But just a few hundred yards ahead, they stood nearly shoulder to shoulder.
Shit, one wrong move and we’ll be trampled, I thought. I held my breath as Kara strolled forward, waiting to see if the deaders would react to the signal she was trying to send out to them.
We were fifty feet away, then forty, then thirty. Still, nothing happened. Although we were moving silently, a few of the outliers noticed us, and they began to moan louder as they shuffled our direction.
I froze, as did the rabbi and Josef, but Kara continued on. When she got maybe ten feet from the approaching deaders, they stopped in their tracks, looking confused and unsure of what to do. Finally, they backed off and a small bubble of empty space opened around her as she strolled ahead. I looked at the rabbi, and he returned my glance. We gave a collective sigh and hurried after her.
Progress was slow from there on. As the crowd grew denser, it took longer for the dead to shamble away from us. Every so often, one or two would approach us instead of yielding the right of way, and Kara would pause. I assumed she was exerting more pressure, or boosting her signal, or whatever vamps did to keep the dead at bay. In these cases, the dead would lose interest after a few moments, and we’d continue on.
The noise was deafening. Not just the moans, but the clacking of teeth, the skritch-skritch-skritch of bone rubbing on bone, the sounds of millions of feet scraping the ground as the dead shuffled back and forth, back and forth, in a hypnotic and never-ending dance. I cut a few pieces of cloth from my shirttail and shoved them in my ears.
Soon, I was lost in my own thoughts, trying very hard to avoid freaking out due to the sounds, the overpowering reek of rotting flesh, and the ever-present press of the dead around us. My movements became rhythmic after a time, as I did my best to imitate the plodding pace at which I’d seen so many deaders march.
Lost in my head, I nearly bumped into Kara as she came to a halt. She signaled for me to stand next to her, and she leaned in close, placing her lips next to my ears.
“Something isn’t right.”
I leaned back and raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I sense something else is out here with us.”
I didn’t know what else to do, so I motioned for her to keep going. Just as she was taking a step forward, the rabbi tapped me on the shoulder. Kara paused, and we followed the rabbi’s gaze as he slowly lifted his arm and pointed at our one o’clock.
Something was causing a stir in the herd ahead, maybe a hundred yards distant. The dead were parting there as well, and whatever was causing the commotion was headed our way.
I looked at Kara, and she mouthed one word.
Vamps.
OFFICE
We were just steps away from one of the disassembly facilities, so I motioned that we should get moving and avoid an altercation, if possible. We forged ahead and approached a side entrance to one of the many warehouse-like buildings on the site. The place had been locked down tight before the War, that much was clear. While the security fences around the facility had all been torn down, the heavy metal doors preventing access to the building were intact.
We hadn’t expected the power to be on, so we knew we couldn’t just swipe a keycard to get inside. However, we’d also come prepared with lockpicks as well as a fully-charged car battery and a DC to AC inverter to power the electronic locks on the doors. Hopefully, they’d still open after all this time.
We crouched nervously near the entrance, hiding from any passersby among the sea of dead shuffling about. Kara must have eased off her anti-deader signal, because the mass of zombies pressed in against us, ignoring us but shuffling way too close for comfort. At least we’re somewhat hidden, I thought.
It was clear that someone was moving through the throng of shamblers. They had to be vamps, because the dead moved away from them like Moses parting the waters. That much we could see, even from our low vantage point. As they passed, by no one spoke or even twitched a muscle. I was pretty sure the rabbi was holding his breath—I know I was.
It took a minute or so, but soon the disturbance in the crowd of dead passed us by. I took a deep, gasping breath.
“That was close,” I whispered. “Who do you think it was?”
Kara looked worried. “No idea, but from what I could tell they were young vamps. Older vamps use the younger ones for their grunt work, running patrols and security. So, it’s likely there are older vamps around that are just as dangerous as Piotr and Calypso.”
“Shit,” I replied. “Alright, so we’re not alone. That still doesn’t change the plan. Let’s get inside, grab what we need, and get the hell out of here.”
I started messing with the keypad beside the door, intending to expose the wiring beneath, but the rabbi stopped me with a hand on my arm. He grabbed the door handle and depressed the release, and the door cracked open with a squeal of rusted metal.
I looked at the rabbi and Kara. “Looks like the Coven isn’t worried about anyone breaking in.”
Kara frowned. “Not with all these deaders around. Should work in our favor, though, since they obviously aren’t expecting guests.”
The old man dug around in his bag and pulled out a small plastic bottle. “Silicone lubricant,” he replied. “Odorless. Comes in handy when you’re sneaking around after the apocalypse, ja?” He dabbed a bit on each hinge and wiped off the excess. We waited for a few moments, then the rabbi opened the door. “After you,” he said, with a slight bow to Kara.
We ducked inside
, weapons at the ready, but we were alone. According to our intel, this was where nuclear warheads had been disassembled during decommissioning, once the radioactive elements had been removed. I looked around the place; it was like stepping into a time capsule. Except for a few footprints in the dust that were way too far apart, the place had been left untouched. The footprints indicated that vamps had passed through here, but they’d decided that what they needed was elsewhere in the plant.
Lucky for us, this had also been where decommissioned weapons were updated and put back into service. According to the information we’d stolen from Calypso, the plant had gone into high gear reassembling warheads after the first bombs fell. By some miracle, the place hadn’t been hit by a nuclear bomb, probably because the vamps had wanted to keep it intact.
Or, they simply hadn’t known about it. Either way, it was just dumb luck that the place hadn’t been flattened. I was fairly positive that the storage facilities here were designed to survive a direct hit, but the manufacturing and assembly areas probably wouldn’t have made it. Since we needed the tools and equipment in those labs to put together a working nuclear weapon, I counted my blessings that the place hadn’t been breached.
Strange that the dead haven’t gotten in, though, I thought. “Kara, what are the odds that the vamps are using that horde of dead outside for security—you know, to keep humans away from here?”
She tapped a finger on her chin as she considered my question. “Now that you mention it, it does seem a little odd that they’re just standing around. Why would they march all the way across the state, just to get here and stop? None of it makes sense, at least not without vamps being behind it.”
The rabbi tsked. “So, they were herded here for a purpose.”
I thought back to the farmhouse where we’d stayed on the trip north. Based on what I’d seen inside, the dead had been through there fairly recently, maybe in the last few weeks.
I smacked my forehead in frustration. “Damn it! It’s so obvious, I never even considered it. They’ve been here recovering plutonium for weeks. Calypso never needed to get that intel back to Dallas, because she was in contact with them the whole time via her connection to her master. Hell, her mission might have been to distract us and keep us pinned down, just to make sure we didn’t interfere with their recovery operations. Man, but I feel like an idiot!”
