Empire's End (17 page)

How much longer would he be a cop? Casey was
being supportive now, but Voorhees suspected the man didn’t have a
strong sense of loyalty. He was part of the problem. No, Voorhees
would be out on the streets soon enough—Meyer’s streets—and what
prospects did he have then? He’d been a cop as long as he could
remember. A damn good cop, even blind, but they wouldn’t see it
that way.

Goddamn you, Killian.

He leaned against the door. “Who is it?”

“Halstead.”

He opened the door, and she took his arm. “I
need you to come see this.”

See.
“What is it?”

“Stir-fry and rice.”

She led him to her place and sat him down at
a table in the front room. The smell was mouth-watering. He heard
her pouring something, and she placed a wine glass in his hand.
“Two thousand California merlot. Just uncorked it a few hours
ago.”

“This is illegal, isn’t it?”

“Hence why it’s in police custody. Try
it.”

She guided his hand to his fork and napkin.
“I figured stir-fry would be easy for you to eat. Might be a little
messy, I guess. Don’t sweat it.”

“I didn’t know you cooked, Halstead.”
Voorhees carefully lifted a mouthful to his lips.

“My dad taught me to cook,” she said. “He
made sure I could take care of myself. That was life in the
badlands.”

“Tucson.”

“Right. I had a big family. My folks and I
lived with two uncles and aunts and three cousins. We actually used
to play outside. Can you believe that? Huge fenced-in yard with a
clear view of all the roads. If any rotters appeared on the
horizon, one of my uncles would be sitting on the roof and blow
their heads clean off. He’d call down to us whenever he spotted
one. ‘Two o’clock!’” She laughed softly. “Those were the best years
of my life.”

“What finally brought you north?”

“Same reason as everybody else,” she said. “I
lost everything.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to say that. I know.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes. He
heard her refilling her glass. “We were attacked one night,” she
said. “From a distance, they looked like badlanders—they even
carried torches. They had a caravan drawn by dead horses. They
surrounded the house, lining the fence. By the time we realized
they were undead they’d already thrown the torches. The house was
on fire.

“They just waited. They could have brought
the fence down and stormed the house, but they smoked us out. Then
they came for us.”

She sighed, long and loud; trying to hold
back tears. “My cousin and I were the only ones who got away. My
cousin Will. We managed to survive for a few weeks in the desert
before the infection took him.”

She drained her glass again. “He was the
first rotter I killed.”

“Sor—” Voorhees stopped himself. Instead he
asked, “It was a caravan. You mean like the old King of the Dead
legend?”

“It’s no legend,” she said quietly.

Another moment of silence. Voorhees scraped
his plate to make sure it was clear. “Well, I can’t eat any
more.”

“Neither can I. But I could use another
drink. You?”

“Sure.”

She topped off his glass. “Here’s to looking
forward instead of back.” And she clinked her glass against
his.

Suddenly he remembered going out the window;
shards of glass tinkling in mid-air, Killian flying away from him.
He remembered thinking
it’s a cop
before he hit the
street.

He remembered he hadn’t thought it was
Killian.

Killian, like Casey, like Blake, like all the
others, believed in the system. No, he had only one sympathetic ear
when he complained about the state of things.

He reached his left hand across the table.
She touched it gently. He seized her fingers, and she gasped in
pain.

“Did I break any of them? When I hit you with
the baton?” he asked.

She rose from her seat and he rose with her,
snatching her other arm and pulling her to him. He wrapped her in a
cruel embrace. “And you must have hurt your back when you fell. Did
you?” He shook her roughly.

She cried out. “Stop!”

“Was it worth it?” he shouted. “Was it worth
killing Blake and framing Killian? Was it worth
blinding me?
Did you get what you wanted? Huh?”

She tried to break free, but he held her like
a vise. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone else!” she said. “I tried not
to hurt any cops—you know that!”

“I know you fucking failed! Miserably!” He
threw her to the floor and swept the dishes from the table. “What’s
it all about? Destabilizing the government? Throwing the people
into a panic? Destroying Gaylen? Is that how you’re going to fix
things? You goddamn fool!”

“You don’t understand!” she cried. “There are
people all over the city preparing for this! People in
every
city! We’re going to bring down the Wall and give America back its
resources—it’s about saving the rest of the country, Voorhees!”

“You’re out of your mind!”

“Undead like the King are going to flourish
out there if we just seal ourselves up in here and pretend the
badlands don’t exist! They’ll come for us! They’ll be the ones to
bring it all down—do you want that?”

“
I WANT MY FUCKING SIGHT BACK!
”

She was backpedaling across the room, toward
the door. He broke into a run. She screamed and swung a fist into
his jaw. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel any of his aches or
bruises. He was on fire. He grabbed her, and she tore at the
bandages on his head. He slammed her against the door like a rag
doll. Finally, they both fell, entangled in one another.

“You don’t understand! I can show you!” she
was wheezing.

“You
will
show me,” he growled.
“You’re under arrest. And you’re taking me to the others.”

He pulled the handcuffs from his belt and
snapped them tight on her wrists. “Do you have a gun?” he
asked.

“W-what?” she stammered.

“Don’t give me any bullshit. Do you own a
gun?”

“Yes.”

“I want it. And I want your radio.”

* * *

Adam pulled the woman in white’s cloak over
his shoulders, the hood over his head. He stood in the shattered
front window of the cottage and stared into the snowy wasteland
that awaited him.

With her cloak and his blackened flesh, he
looked like a negative image of his former self. He felt just as
different. With his growing sense of identity came confidence.

He looked back at the woman’s body, covered
by a blanket, cold and still.
I’ll honor you.

Then he climbed outside.

The British were coming.

They had agreed only to send one plane,
carrying an assessment team, but it was enough. Gillies only hoped
that the weather wouldn’t get any more severe.

The airfield was close enough to completion.
The workers had been sent home, and the plane would be touching
down at dawn. The senator already had his affairs in order, and was
ready to bid farewell to the Great Cities.

He’d always known that collapse was
inevitable, with the military having lost the war in the badlands
and the undead multiplying every day. They had maintained the
cities long enough to get the airfield done and get the British on
their side. And Britain was the Promised Land.

In their radio communications, the Brits
reported that “the others” were all but extinct, and though the
casualties had been steep, they’d won their war. So they would send
their team across the Atlantic to see the so-called Great Cities,
and the senators would return with them to Britain, under the
premise of studying their strategies against the undead.

Then they would seek asylum. Forget about
America. Leave it to the rotters.

He loved his country, he did, and by God he
had tried to save it—but that was just it, wasn’t it? By God, by
His will, a nation of sin and excess had been condemned and there
was nothing any man could do about it. On to greener pastures.

“We’ll be leaving on the plane tomorrow,” he
told Ian Gregory as they rode to the airfield in an armored Humvee.
“I should like you to accompany me. You’ll be the only member of my
detail to do so.”

Gregory stared at him in confusion.
“Leaving... ?”

“It’s over here, Ian. You and I are men of
God. We understand. You do
get it
, don’t you Ian? He’s
already left. Anyone in their right mind would. Our work, yours and
mine, isn’t done.”

“We’re going to England? We’re staying
there?”

“That’s right.”

“What about the cities? The people?”

“A day won’t go by that I don’t mourn them,”
Gillies intoned, hands clasped. “But I’m not going to sacrifice
myself for a failed cause.”

Gregory sat back, a frown creasing his brow.
This didn’t make sense, not at all. To run from the battle... it
went against every instinct in his body. He couldn’t do this. Yet
he felt he had no choice; he was already hurtling down the course,
hurtling towards a dark end.

* * *

Halstead knocked on Tripper’s door. Voorhees
pressed the muzzle of her .45 into her back.

Tripper opened the door. “What are you doing
here?” Then he saw the balled scarf gagging her mouth.

“Inside,” Voorhees said, revealing the gun,
and pushed his way in.

He slammed the door shut, holding onto
Halstead’s arm, then positioned himself behind her and pressed the
barrel of the gun into her throat. “Don’t try anything. Either of
you.” He’d heard a chair scrape when they entered, meaning there
was a second person in the room; and as Tripper said, “Okay, okay.
Stay there Cam,” Voorhees knew his bluff had worked. They didn’t
know he couldn’t see. He’d be goddamned if he couldn’t still do his
job.

“Calm down, man,” Tripper said. “You a
cop?”

“That’s right. And who are you?”

“I’m nobody,” Tripper said.

Voorhees scowled. “Are you the one behind
this? Or are you just another hired killer? Answer me!”

Halstead struggled against him. He pressed
the gun hard into her neck. “TALK!”

“Mister Voorhees?”

The girl. Lily. What... ?

He was distracted for only a second, but it
was all Halstead needed. She slammed her elbow into his ribs and
spun away from him. Grabbing the gun with one hand, she tore the
scarf from her mouth with the other and spat “He’s blind!”

They fought for the gun. She slugged him in
the head. He groaned, crashed against the wall; then the gun
slipped from his grip. He threw his hands out and yelled, “No!”

Halstead clipped his temple with the butt of
the pistol. He slumped to the floor.

“No! Don’t hurt him!” Lily again. It was the
last thing Voorhees heard before fading out.

* * *

The Humvee stopped at the fence surrounding
the airfield. A plainclothes guard nodded to Gillies and waved them
through.

A cadre of vehicles was already gathered at
the edge of the landing strip: the other senators, all having
abandoned their posts to await escape.

As Gillies got out of the Hummer, he saw a
young man and woman walking across the tarmac. He didn’t recognize
either of them. Security? No. Trouble.

“Senator?” The man extended his hand. “Jack
Calvert.”

“How did you get in here?” Gillies
snapped.

“I was part of the construction crew,”
Calvert said. He hugged the woman against him. “This is Molly.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Well Senator, see, the thing is—I know why
you’re here. I know there are planes coming. And we’d like to go
too. We have credits—ninety-five hundred credits. Our savings.”

The Calverts looked hopefully at the Senator;
a young couple trying to make it in a brutal world, willing to
surrender all they had for a second chance.

Gillies laughed.

“You must be joking. Credits don’t mean a
thing where we’re going.”

Jack Calvert’s face went white. “But...”

“Have you told anyone else about the
airfield?” Gillies asked.

“No, no!” Jack insisted. “It’s just me and
Molly.”

Gillies nodded and turned to Gregory. “Kill
them.”

“What?” Gregory held out his hands.
“Senator—”

“Somebody kill these trespassers!” Gillies
shouted. The other senators and their people looked over. Jack and
Molly Calvert began to back away, sputtering. “We’ll go. We’ll just
leave. We won’t tell anybody.” Jack shook his head frantically.
Molly was clinging to him, wide-eyed.

One of Senator Cullen’s bodyguards drew a
gun.

“Run, Molly!” Jack screamed.

They took off across the tarmac, hundreds of
yards from the fence, nowhere to hide, just running and screaming,
still begging for their lives even as the first bullet punched
through Jack’s leg. He kept running, told Molly to keep running,
saw her head jerk forward and blood arc through the air.

He broke down in sobs as he limped past her,
straining every muscle in his body, and still hundreds and hundreds
of yards from the fence.

Jack turned. He started back toward Molly. He
cried her name, though he knew she was dead. He just wanted to pick
her up and take her away from this. He wanted to undo it all. He’d
take poor Lily back, he’d go home. He was willing to take it all
back—couldn’t he take it all back?

The guard shot him in the throat. He slumped
to the ground and crawled toward Molly. He could no longer speak
her name. His strength was leaving him in gouts. If only he could
touch her again, her face, her hair. If only he could tell her he
was sorry.

He almost made it.

It was nightfall and the snow was still
coming down. Dalton was climbing down from his post on the wall,
rifle slung over his shoulder. The dogs had started baying inside
the guard post. They’d been in there for a few hours and were
probably going mad from the confinement. But he didn’t want them
running around in this weather at night. They’d just have to put up
with it; but at least he could give them some chow and calm them
down for a while.