Hunter Of The Dead (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Eden held her new rifle, wishing it was Bernice. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, but it wasn’t familiar and it wasn’t
hers
. Below where she stood on the fence, the infected lurched and beat at the walls, moaning. More must have come in the night, drawn by the screams of the survivors, because they were now packed so tightly that moving was difficult. Which suited her just fine.

“Clean kills. Take your time and make each shot count. We don’t have unlimited bullets here, people,” Jordan roared from farther down the fence.

Next to Eden, Kaede grinned. “You sister is in a bad mood today.”

“Pretty much.” She shifted, trying to get comfortable. They were going in shifts, three people at a time, taking breaks to let the rifles cool down. In a day, maybe two, they’d be out of bullets. It was a sobering thought, one Eden didn’t like to dwell on.

“Fire,” Jordan yelled.

Eden lifted her rifle and sighted, choosing a balding male as her first target. As she exhaled slowly, she squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked in her hands, nearly sending her backwards off the fence.

“Shit.” Eden resisted the urge to rub her sore shoulder and sighted down the barrel again. The bald male was nowhere to be seen.

“Too much power for you, princess?” Kaede laughed.
She
was having no problems shooting her freaking rifle.

“No.” Eden aimed at an infected female and shot the top of its head off.

After that, time seemed to lose meaning. Eden aimed. She shot. She managed the kickback. Then she aimed again. Infected after infected fell before her bullets. The sun rose in the air, making sweat gather along Eden’s spine and across her forehead. She ignored it, concentrating on killing as many of the undead as she could.

When a hand touched her shoulder, she didn’t think. Eden spun around lifting her rifle and shoving it into her assailant’s throat. His beautiful tanned throat.

She blinked, the world sliding into focus. Alejandro stood perfectly still, but his green eyes were laughing. She pulled back and shot him a disgusted look. “What the hell were you thinking? I could have killed you.”

“Not if I didn’t want you to.” He took the rifle out of her hands before she could protest. “Jordan says you need a break.”

“I’m fine. Go steal someone else’s weapon.”

“
Querida
, you are going to rest and eat something if I have to carry you back to the tent myself.”

She tried not to shiver at the image his words provoked. “Bold words.”

“Besides, bathing would not be a bad idea.”

Eden’s attention narrowed on him. “Did you say bathing?”

“I did.” He slung the rifle over his shoulder. “There is a small spring on the north-west end of the valley. They have set up a bathing area with its runoff.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Between the last few days’ sweat, blood and tears, it had been too long since Eden felt clean. She knew she stank—they all did—but the chance to get clean was too much temptation to pass up.

There was a small group of women gathered around the spring, but they scattered when they saw her. Eden ignored them just like she’d been ignoring the survivors since she got here. The only ones she was willing to talk to were the children.

Eden stripped out of her clothes and boots and stepped into the water. The spring was situated on an incline so the water ran down and gathered in a small pool. She ducked under the chilly water and started scrubbing. It was easier not to think about the red stains under her finger nails or how much of the water running off her was the same color. Instead she focused on finding her tanned skin under all the grime. When she was finally satisfied, she grabbed her clothes and washed them, too.

Setting the clothes on a nearby rock to dry in the sun, she lay in the water and stared at the sky. They were halfway through the bullets, and the infected still surged against the gate, nearly as many as ever. There were too many, far more than the population of the village could explain. Eden thought back over the suspicions Jordan voiced last night. There was only two ways to explain the extra infected: either their employer had given them false information or zombies were imported in. Each alternative offered its own problems. If their employer lied, then they couldn’t be trusted for anything. That wasn’t much of stretch, considering Jordan suspected them of murdering to keep people from asking questions. If the zombies were imported in...Eden didn’t know what to do with a scenario like that. Who in their right mind would import zombies anywhere? It was just crazy.

After checking to make sure her clothes were dry, she stepped out of the water and got dressed. The clothes stuck to her wet skin but she didn’t care. She was clean and could handle anything the world threw at her.

“You’re different.”

Eden froze, relaxing when she recognized the little girl she’d seen around camp from time to time, watching her. “How do you mean?”

The little girl approached slowly, as if Eden were wild animal who might run away—or bite. “You look like us, but you’re different.”

Eden sat down and reached for her socks. “I’m not from around here. My home is hot like this, but there aren’t trees. Just a lot of sand and rock.” She suddenly missed Arizona, missed being able to see miles in any direction, missed the dry heat, the constant presence of the merciless sun above her head. Eden glanced up. It was the same sun in the sky now, but it felt so different from the one back home. “I miss it.”

“I miss my home too.” The little girl sat down, barely three feet away. “I don’t like it here. The people outside the fence scare me.”

“We’ll keep you safe.” She hoped to God she wasn’t lying. “You just need to listen to my sister Jordan. She knows everything.”

“I have a sister too. But I don’t know where she is. She was lost when we ran from our village.” She shivered, obviously picturing something frightening. “My mommy and daddy are gone too.”

Eden went still. The girl who had been bitten wasn’t related to this one. She couldn’t be. Even though it was her guilty conscience talking, she couldn’t help searching the girl’s face for similarities to the other little girl.

“Why did this happen to us?”

Crap, she wasn’t good at this stuff. Jordan was better at dealing with survivors, better at answering impossible questions. She could weave lies and the truth until it was exactly what a person needed to hear. Eden just went with the truth. “I don’t know.”

She had her suspicions though, and they were growing with every passing hour. Someone caused this, brought the infection to this sleepy little town and turned these people’s lives into nightmares. If Jordan was right, someone had killed Dad because he asked too many questions about the infected. She fully intended on finding out who was responsible and putting a bullet between their eyes.

“Is God punishing us? I’m sorry I fought with my sister and that I didn’t listen to my mommy.” The little girl’s lip quivered and something snapped inside Eden.

“God didn’t do this.” She paused, searching for the right words. Eden couldn’t remember the last time she went to church. It had been years since Dad gave up trying to feel close to Mom by going to Mass. It was probably a lost cause, but she had to try. “God knows we make mistakes. He wouldn’t do this to punish you—or anyone else.”

“But the priest said—”

“The priest was wrong. Those people weren’t bad and they didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to them. A bad man—” Or woman. “—did this. And I’m going to find him and make sure he pays for what he’s done to you.”

It was probably too much to tell a child, but Eden had never been good with watching her words and this child deserved to know the truth. Damn whoever caused this for making a little girl think it was her fault.

“Do you promise?” Tears leaked from the corners of the kid’s eyes, but her gaze never wavered.

Pinned by those dark eyes, there was only one right answer. “I promise. They will see justice.”

The next thing she knew, she was being tackled by a sobbing bit of girl. Eden rubbed the child’s back, trying to move as little as possible. She was even worse at physical comforting than she was at verbal comforting, but she’d figure it out. When the girl finally calmed, her sobs slowing to hiccups and then fading away completely, Eden carefully sat up. “What’s your name?”

“Ana.”

“Well, Ana, do you have someone who you’re staying with?”

“My aunt.” Ana wiped her eyes and stood up. “I have to go. She’ll be worried.”

“Okay,” Eden said, feeling suddenly awkward. “Take care of yourself.”

Ana gave her a watery smile before she took off, darting around the priest’s tent and out of sight. Eden shook her head and climbed to her feet, feeling a hundred years old.

The promise she’d made to Ana burned in her chest like a live thing, making her restless and edgy. She went to the tent and lay down for a little while, trying to sleep, but the sound of gunfire was a constant reminder of their precarious situation. She’d never been good at waiting and now was no exception.

Finally, tired and irritable, she fell back on her last resort. Closing her eyes, she hummed the lullaby Mom had sung to her as a child. Even thirteen years later, she could still remember the exact cadence of her mother’s voice, the way it felt to be cradled in her lap. Eden was barely into the third verse when she slipped into sleep.

****

“There’s twenty-five or so left, and we have barely half a magazine of bullets. It’s now or never.”

After three days of killing, Jordan called a meeting behind the priest’s tent. This time the survivors were nowhere to be seen. They needed to make a decision quickly, without commentary or arguments from the peanut gallery.

“The Humvee is here.” She pointed to a spot on the map drawn on the dirt. Eden leaned over and double-checked its position against what she knew of the valley. The Humvee was off the road, halfway between the cabin where she’d stayed the night with Alejandro and the village.

“What happened? I thought you guys were sticking to the road.”

“The survivors happened. We saw a group of them and tried to help,” Jordan’s voice was even despite that fact that she looked like she needed to sleep for a straight forty-eight hours. “I need you to get there, get our ammo and the satellite phone, and get back.”

Kaede paused in the middle of cleaning her
nagamaki
. “It will take at least a day and a half to get down there because they’ll have to stop after it gets dark. If you send me and Shintaro, we’ll be back in half the time.”

Meaning Eden and Alejandro would slow Taro down. As much as Eden hated to admit it, Kaede was right. They’d even move faster if just Alejandro and Taro went. She opened her mouth to agree, but Jordan spoke first.

“I need you here with me, Kaede, to keep the survivors in line.” Which wasn’t really an answer. Jordan turned back to them and said, “Get as much food as you can carry. Use the phone to call out when you get a signal.”

“Call who?” Eden asked. Everyone they would have called for help was sitting right here.

Jordan continued, ignoring her, “Go get ready, everybody. I need Kaede on the fence with me to provide cover. Eden, Taro and Alejandro—I need you guys ready with the bare minimum of supplies. Fifteen minutes.”

As everyone stood and broke off in different directions, Jordan grabbed Eden’s arm. “Stay for a minute.”

Eden nodded and they waited until everyone disappeared from sight before she said, “What’s up?”

“Memorize this number.” Jordan rattled off a number with a New York area code. Eden repeated it back to her three times perfectly before she was satisfied. “The phone is in the middle consol of the Humvee. It should still be intact, even with the damage done.”

Eden wasn’t going to ask about whatever damage her sister was talking about. “So why are you sending
me
anyways? And who does this mystery number call?”

Jordan scanned the surrounding area as if she expected someone to pop out of the almost-dawn. It made the back of Eden’s neck itch, and she wondered if she was missing something.

Finally, Jordan said, “I want to keep an eye on Kaede. The way she handled the priest worries me.”

It worried Eden too. Oh, she knew Kaede was a borderline psychopath, but knowing that and seeing it for herself were two radically different things. “Okay, so why send me? Alejandro and Taro can move a lot quicker than I can.”

“Taro can’t talk, and I don’t trust Alejandro enough to leave our fate in his hands.”

Her sister had a point. “Fine. Who does the number call? I assume you aren’t calling our employer.”

Jordan looked away. “I have something to tell you. Something I meant to bring up earlier, but it never seemed like the right time.”

Something cold and ugly slid through Eden. A secret. Jordan was keeping a secret from her. She realized she was holding her breath and exhaled loudly. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been...seeing someone.”

Eden blinked. “Seeing someone? Like
dating
?” Surely she hadn’t heard that right? Jordan didn’t date. Ever.

“His name’s Jeremy. He’s a reporter in New York.” Jordan took a deep breath, still not looking at her. “We’ve been dating a few months now.”

Months. As in multiple months. Months her sister had been lying to her, dating some guy, and Eden never suspected a thing. Something twisted inside her, a sick combination of jealousy, hurt, and betrayal. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you lie?” This was so much more than an omission. They were always together when they weren’t on assignments; Jordan would have had to go out of her way to keep in contact with this guy, to keep it a secret from Eden.

“I wanted to, but it never seemed the right time.” It was a pathetic excuse and they both knew it. Jordan cleared her throat. “It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that he can help us.”

So they were going to brush over her sister’s deception, just like that? Eden clenched her fists and tried to get her urge to scream under control. She turned away, staring blindly at the tent walls, rippling under a soft breeze. Jordan lied to her, yes, but throwing a bitch-fit about it wouldn’t help anyone now. And her sister obviously had a plan, one involving her secret boyfriend. “This is bullshit.”