Dead Of Winter (The Beautiful Dead Book 2) (29 page)

But I am in their debt. That much I cannot deny. “I’m sure if there’s food, we’d happily share,” I answer back, though my voice carries no heart in it.

“Try to get on your feet?” the girl suggests.

“Alright.” I take the stick, push it into the rocky earth, and pull myself up. I am literally astonished at Robin’s work on my joints and bones—whatever she managed to do. My neck still has trouble turning from side to side, but my legs feel almost normal and my bones seem right.

“Can you walk?” Robin’s got a hand on my back.

To keep up appearances, I pretend to rely on the stick to hold me up. “I think so. I’m really, really sore, but I think … I think I can manage just fine.”

The boy’s back to business. “Can we follow you?”

It’s so dangerous. How can I express that without seeming ungrateful and awful to these two kids who just helped me immensely? I’m in their debt and they know it, though the boy seems far more keen on cashing in said debt than the girl.

On the other hand, if we were somehow victorious and overcame the spiders
and
the Army Of Fire, then there is, in fact, a wonderful, beautiful place these two kids could stay. Food. Shelter. More than they could ask for out here in the wilderness.

But first … “What happened to
your
camp?”

The twins exchange a look. Then the girl says, “We don’t have a camp.”

“But you two surely came from somewhere?”

“We don’t have a camp … anymore,” she amends.

“Our dad,” the boy begins, swallows, then tries again: “Our dad was all we had left, and he was fighting off a pair of Crypters, and told my sister and I to run.”

“Is he still—Is he still alive?” How else can I ask?

“Yes,” Robin answers proudly, optimistically.

“We don’t know,” the boy answers instead, offering me the more sobering reality. “But we can’t find him. So we’re on our own and we’re … we’re in need of …”

“Of course.” We have to get out of here, and fast. “Yes, then. Come with me. Trenton will welcome you with open arms. We have to hurry, though.” I begin to move as fast as I can manage, keeping up the façade of my Humanness and my so-called injuries. I limp and grunt only subtly, so as not to overdo.

“How far is it?” asks Robin as we make progress across the dusty, cracked terrain.

“Not too much farther.”

In truth, I don’t know. As we steadily walk, I worry whether we’re even headed in the right direction. It’s just another estimate, from the orientation of my body in the pit and the direction in which the Shee-thing was headed. I presume
this way
is where Trenton ought to be.

Let us hope as much.

The twins are silent for a long while, even after we break into the woods. The air feels foul and thick, or perhaps it’s just the panic that’s settling into my chest. I wonder if I’ll ever find John, if I’ll ever see Megan and the others. It’s amazing how so many days had gone by with no incident at all, calm as ever, only for all of our peace to be undone in an instant. One very bug-infested instant.

“The old camp was in a deep basin where a lake used to be,” Robin tells me. “All that was left were ponds and pools. And there were bushes full of berries, and another bigger tree that had nuts. We even had
squirrels
.”

“No, we didn’t. And if we did, it was just
one
,” the brother says, annoyed. “Probably the last in existence.”

“Whatever, Rake. I’d eat about anything right now.”

Conversation’s all we have, so I don’t figure my next question could hurt. “Have either of you heard of a place called Garden?”

“No such thing,” says the brother tiredly.

Robin just shrugs, maybe having been discouraged to answer optimistically because of her brother’s response. I don’t push the subject any further.

Suddenly I find us in a familiar place in the woods. I can’t say it’s anywhere near Trenton, but it certainly feels like somewhere I’ve been before. The sound of snapping twigs and crunching dead terrain echoes around us as we progress. I have no idea how much time we’ve spent traveling, but I realize that no matter how much of this world I see, it all starts to look the same. Dead this. Dying that. Decaying this. Withering that. It’s all the same.

Then we reach a break in the woods where I get a solid view of the horizon, and my heart sinks. There in the distance is a skyline I’ve only seen one other time in my Second Life. The ridges of industrial towers and the pipes of dead factories poking into the silver sky.

“Why’d you stop?” asks Robin.

It’s the Necropolis.

“No reason,” I say, my voice bitter, even the thought of what transpired here tastes like stomach acid in the back of my throat. There is no sense of nostalgia for this wretched place, even considering it’s where I met Megan and Benjamin. And my mother. Before I knew she was my mother. “But I know the way home, now.”

“You do?”

“Yes.” With the Necropolis as a guide, I can send us in the right direction. Marigold, an old Undead man, and a bag full of the old Judge’s body parts accompanied me last time. Twin Humans will have to do this time.

“Robin!”

I spin around—albeit carefully because of my neck—and find a ghoul of a person-thing limping toward us. He has no nose and half his chest is sunken in. A tie hangs loosely around his neck with only a sad strip of a white shirt hanging around his waist. Death’s tech support. I had always wondered what became of the stray Deathless after the Queen’s reign had come to an abrupt end.

Suddenly, I feel quite stupid leaning on this stick. So in an instant, I call off my fake-Human act, brandish my walking stick like a baseball bat and charge forward.

Then the thing grunts a single word at me.

I stop, frozen, ready to unleash a mighty swing, but the word has caught me.

And then it repeats the word: “W-Winter.”

Its voice is garbled, phlegmy, grotesque. It’s stopped advancing, simply standing there, arms limp, gooey eyes staring at me.

“What?” I ask.

The thing grunts a few times, then moans the words: “P-Pleeeease forgiiiive me. W-Wuh … Winter …”

It’s Grim. He’s communicating to me through this half-dead thing, communicating from afar. He must’ve maintained control of the Deathless after the fall of the Deathless Queen; I know no other explanation. This zombie is acting as a remote talking device of sorts.

“I … waaaant to … saaaave you.”

There is something awful about looking into a pair of half-melted eyes, gooey with decay, and somehow seeing the soul of the man you thought you loved, Grimsky, far, far away … so far away.

“P-P-Pleeeease … J-Join meee … R-Ruh-Ruuule the world at my siiiiide. P-Pleeeease un-understaaaaand …”

And then I’m swinging the stick because I can’t hear another word, bashing the tech support over his head. It detaches upon impact with an unnecessarily gross splat. His body drops to the ground, its head landing elsewhere, the rest of Grim’s pleas sealed within them.

Homerun.

“Winter?”

I face the twins. They look as wary of me as they were of the Deathless thing I just slayed. “No more grunty thing,” I mutter. “Trenton is this way.” I begin walking.

“Winter!”

I turn around. To my utter disappointment, I realize the ghoul was not alone. The rest of his friends apparently would like to invite themselves to our reunion party as well, likely carrying a hundred more messages from Grimsky. Across the way, I spot more shapes that stagger, grunt, and limp. I am so, so finished with shapes that stagger, grunt, and limp.

“We have to run,” I tell the twins, “and I know you both are very tired.”

“It’s getting dark,” Robin points out, trembling. “We’ll get lost in the woods. They’ll overrun us.”

“No,” I say. “They won’t.”

Suddenly I have a twin’s coat gripped by either hand and, carrying them with the ease of two light suitcases, I bolt into the forest.

“Put me down!” shouts the boy.

“What are you doing!” cries the girl.

With a roll of my eyes—which is more of a sweet homage to Helena, whom I hope to see again soon—I tell them, “Why, I’m saving your lives, of course.”

I run and I run, praying that my legs don’t suddenly decide to snap in half again. I carry the two of them evenly, careful not to jostle them around. Though I ought to be a professional at carrying Humans by now, these two happen to be my most fragile and, after the girl was so kind as to fix my bones, it’d be an awful way to repay her by breaking all of hers.

Soon, there are no pursuing grunters or growlers or limpers behind us, but I’m still hurrying on. I’m hurrying because the quicker I get to Trenton, the sooner I will know if my friends are alive.

I happen on a dirt path in the woods. I’ve reached it so soon, I almost doubt it is what it is: the path that connects the Whispers to the Trenton north gate. I tell my feet to hurry, faster than Megan’s. I tell my legs to be strong, like Benjamin’s were. I tell my eyes to stay as focused as John’s are when he’s staring deeply into mine, smiling.

Then the gates of Trenton are before me, and they’re open …

Oh. They’re open.

“No,” I whisper, horrified at what this simple scene implies. I absentmindedly set down the twins, then stare at the wide-open gates. Why are they open? This can’t be good news. Not at all.

Something terrible has happened.

Without hearing what the twins are asking me, I press on into the city. The streets are vacant. There’s a pair of large spider legs against the front door of a building. A fly wing. A giant cockroach wing. Smears of bug guts. Many windows are shattered, the glass shards splayed out across the cobblestone street.

I continue on and I don’t see a soul in sight. Not even a corpse. Nothing but stray insect parts and turned-over tables and broken glass and horror. We’re too late.

I arrive at the Square, and that’s when I see their faces. I run at once. They spot me too, both of them looking up. I wrap my arms around little Megan first, elated that she is okay. I’m psychotic with relief. I let her go so as not to break her, then throw my arms around the other person.

John. His clothes in tatters. Dirt and blemishes all over his face. A nasty cut running down his arm. He’s missing a shoe. His eyes are heavy, watery, worn.

What’s happened?

“John.” I’m so overcome I could cry real tears, I’m sure of it. “The gates were wide open. There’s no one … no one at all in the streets. Where’s Gunner? Where’s Helena and Marigold and the others?”

“Chief and Gunner are looking for survivors,” answers John, since little Megan appears unable to speak, having been rendered silent and sullen.

“Survivors?” is all I can say. How many have we lost?

John pulls me into his arms, bringing my face to his chest. “I thought the worst,” he mutters, his deep voice aching. “I thought you were … gone,” he finishes. His heart races, beating against my cheek as he holds me. It’s like I’ve returned home, just being here in his warmth …

The silence of the city disturbs me, the strange and terrible emptiness. “What happened?”

He kisses my forehead, then says: “Grim happened.”

It’s on the steps of the Town Hall that I’m sat down to have everything explained to my throttled mind. Shortly after the bugs were killed or run off, Grim arrived with his Army Of Fire. John tried to take as many of the Humans as possible into hidden underground chambers beneath the Town Hall, ones that Helena was certain even Grim wouldn’t know about. Many of the Humans did not make it or did not care to trust those in charge. Several of them ran off into the wilderness, including Ann and Jim.

It’s the next news that disturbed me the worst. The further Grim pressed into the city, our own Undead began to ignite in flame. One by one, Grim entered their minds and, before long, the entire Undead populace of Trenton was enslaved. He only needed to get close to each person to take them—but once they were his, he could control them from any distance. All of them, turned to puppets.

Including Helena and Marigold. “That Green Psycho has taken everyone,” says John. “We’re the only ones left, apart from six other Living who were willing to hide with us. His Army trampled all our crops. Even the vegetables we’d planted. The greenhouse. Everything.”

Megan is sitting far away on the edge of the stage with the twins, her legs dangling in the most downcast way. The twins’ faces seem so overwhelmed. I hope this scene hasn’t killed their faith in me completely.

Then, I realize … “What about Megan’s—?”

“Her parents were among those who ran away first, though I can’t be sure. Winter, so much was happening all at once. I don’t know whose lives that Green
Thing
claimed.” He slams a fist into the concrete step, shaking with a rage I can even feel through my body just sitting next to him. “It’s just us now, plus the six others who were too afraid to come out from the chambers. We were ordered to stay behind and guard them while Gunner and the Chief are scouting. I doubt anyone’s left. G-G-Grim’s Army went through every house, seems like.” He can’t say the name without grinding his teeth.