LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (11 page)

“Whatcha doin’?” she asked warily, rubbing her eyes and checking her watch.

“Just waiting for you guys to wake up,” I said in a quiet voice, grunting as I pushed myself into a standing position. “I’ve been up for a while. Can’t sleep.”

She untangled herself from the pile of bodies and Romeo whimpered once as she pushed his paw off her chest and stood.
 

“He’s getting a little full of himself,” she said, glancing at the dog who had now draped himself over Ky.

“Entitlement complex. We should make him run behind the truck for a few miles,” I joked, giving her a hug and taking in the remarkable smell of her hair. Despite the apocalypse, it was still amazing.

“He’d probably like that,” she whispered.
 

“Sleep okay?” I asked.
 

She shrugged and made a face.
 

“Just a recurring dream. Memories, more like. Of Liz and … of before.” She yawned widely and I nodded. My face must have betrayed my discomfort and she furrowed her brow.
 

“How about you?”

I shrugged and kissed her lightly on the cheek, knowing that my fitful sleep was no match for her memories of her daughter.

“Get something to eat,” I stepped back. “I’ll check the street again before she wakes up. I think we need to get moving. That herd made me nervous for some reason. And I don’t know what to make of that body we found. I would feel better if this whole area were behind us.”

The soft rolling peal of what sounded like thunder—but which we knew was the belching volcano to the south—made a strong point in my favor.

“Agreed. What do you think it is? People moved out early? Headed to the city? Maybe that body was just a fight. Or maybe he killed himself.”

I shook my head, still whispering softly as Ky stirred.

“No, he was holding a .357 and the bullet holes were too small. Someone killed him. Maybe it was just an argument, but until the tidal wave and earthquake, we hadn’t seen many humans or zombies—that means either that we’ve been in the right place at the right time consistently—“

“—Which of course isn’t our style.”

“—Or something else is going on. Either way, I think we should keep moving.”

She nodded again, face serious. Her gaze drifted to the doorway and she rubbed her eyes again, this time not in weariness, but in emotion.

“Mike, is this … Are we wasting our time? Is it possible that she’s alive? With the virus, and now the earthquake and tsunami, and …It seems impossible. I just can’t shake this feeling that …”
 

“We’re alive, aren’t we?” I asked softly, interrupting the stream of consciousness.

“Yes, but that’s different.”
 

I shook my head emphatically.
 

“No. No, it’s no different at all. In the beginning, when we met each other in that hallway, we were facing some tall odds. We had no weapons, no clue, and no destination. We were flailing helplessly, but somehow we made it. A crazy person, a kid,” I paused with a smile, “and me.”
 

The tears escaped her eyes as she shook her head and wiped her cheeks, all while laughing despite herself.

“I know, but she’s just a little girl. She’s …” Her voice caught again in her throat. “She turned eleven today.”
 

I took her in my arms again, wanting to tell her that we’d find her. That she would celebrate another birthday. That she had doubtlessly survived for this one.

But the platitudes echoed of false hope, even in my head.
 

Kate was right. It did seem impossible.

***

“You’re just wrong. Admit it. We’d all be better off.”

The dust swirled in the large room as we hoisted our packs onto the long, filthy bar to do a final check of our pack-outs before leaving.

“You know what? You think you know everything, but you don’t! What you’re saying doesn’t. Make. Sense.”
 

Her voice was high, and shrill, and she was upset.
 

I sighed.
 

“I’m going to explain for your tiny little bird brain one last time, and then we’re done, understand? The suit came from Krypton. It was imbued with the same extraterrestrial power that Superman had. The bullets never made holes in the suit because they couldn’t make holes in Superman.”

Behind me, Kate shook her head and snorted once.

Very ladylike. I looked at her and she put her hands up, as if trying to stay neutral.

Nice try, but your position has been revealed.

“So what you’re saying is that the fabric was alive, just like Superman. That it adapted to the yellow sun of Earth, and that his underwear became super underwear. That the fabric was just like him—some sort of adaptable alien. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying that it was from Krypton and they made their shit for real.”

“Okay, how about this—why doesn’t he have a huge beard and really long nails?”

“What?”
 

“Same inconsistencies,” she said cockily, pulling her pack off the bar and shrugging into the straps.
 

“Why doesn’t he have long hair and nails? If he’s invincible, how does he cut them? Can’t use clippers or scissors or get a haircut, right?”
 

“He’s Superman, he can zap ‘em with his eye lasers.”

“What about Zod?”

I sighed. “You’re rolling too fast—what does Zod have to do with this?”

“He’s the same as Superman, right? Strong, fast, all that?”

“Yes, so …”

“When they fight, Zod can’t damage Superman, can he? I mean they both just pummel each other. It takes Kryptonite to kill one of them. But more importantly, when Zod zaps Superman with his eye lasers, they don’t cut him or his suit or his hair. And Superman can’t damage himself any more than Zod can damage him, right? Same powers, same invincibility.”

“I don’t…” Something told me she was on to something. I hate it when this happens.
 

Just like the squirrel all over again.

“Which means…” she went on, clearly enjoying herself.
 

Kate charged her M-4 discreetly near the door, and I could hear her smile as the kid continued to school me.
 

“…That Superman couldn’t possibly have the ability to cut his own hair or nails. If he is utterly invincible, that includes his normal bodily functions—he is physically incapable of self-grooming.”

“So your take is that he should be naked, hairy and long-nailed?”

She smiled broadly.

“Ideally.”

“Gross.”

“Yes, but consistent.” She raised a single finger and winked at me, cocky and sure of herself. “That’s the key.”

I glanced at Kate as I clipped my rifle to my chest rig and shrugged into my heavy pack. It was a short trip to the truck, but you had to be ready to run.
 

“I don’t like your take on Superman,” I muttered, passing them and moving to the door, past the crude posters and crumbling wall paper advertising half-off drinks on Tuesdays.

“Not my fault. I call ‘em as I see ‘em,” she said.

The street was clear as I peered into the haze; I checked my watch briefly to assess the daylight remaining. Three in the afternoon. Enough time to get across the river in daylight and move past the area before night fell. Once we had the cover of darkness, we could try to press north through several towns, hopefully allowing the darkness to shroud our more obvious movements through areas with the potential for more threats.
 

“Okay, Supergirl. You ready? Get into the back seat with your mutt. Kate, watch to the right, near the intersection. That’s where they were yesterday. All set?”
 

Two heads nodded and Romeo simply stared at me, a thin line of drool making its way to the filthy floor. I took that for a yes.

The door creaked softly as it opened, but I was already into the street, squinting against the light, but feeling no pain on the small pieces of exposed skin, as the sun was filtered through billions of pieces of ash and dirt that had been spewed into the air. I motioned for the rest, and Ky squeezed past and opened the back door of the waiting truck.

In the mist of ash ahead, I thought I caught movement, and as I jogged toward the driver’s side door, I cursed.
 

“Kate, twelve o’clock,” my voice was tight. Where the hell had he come from?
 

A single creature stood swaying at the street corner, its head moving toward us as we made for the truck. Tattered remains of clothing hung from desiccated arms, its face withered and bloody. Eyes, both milky and bloodshot, locked onto my face as I stared.
 

Then, seemingly with purpose, he moaned, his head tilting behind him, as if to direct the sound.

This was not a hungry, vapid sound.

No, this was loud and purposeful. As if intended to carry meaning.
 

And suddenly, there was movement in the ashy mist. Zombies numbering in the hundreds, emerging from the ash of the intersection, wandering out of alleyways and storefronts, and meandering generally through the vacant space under the slowing swaying stoplight.
 

Their bodies were covered in a slush of ash and dirt, the mud mixing with the effluent of their rot and decay. They came from the river, and poured from the surrounding buildings. Surging forward in a slush of disturbed water and mud.
 

They hadn’t been there a moment before. It was as if they had been waiting and inert, and as if he had called them to attack.
 

But that wasn’t possible.

“Ready,” Kate said, closing her door behind her and keeping her eyes moving. Ky was staring out of the back window toward the cloudy ash behind us.

I backed up until I could grab the door handle, noticing again the severe beating that the truck had taken at the hands of the earthquake yesterday. In the light of day—and under the threat of a small herd—it looked like a doomed machine.

The moans were starting to filter through the gray air, and I shook my head again as I sat down heavily. Kate spoke first.

“What the hell? Where did they come from?”

The engine thankfully turned over. They sped up as they heard the noise, moving en masse toward us. I could make out the ruined faces of the leading ranks, and I squirmed uncomfortably despite myself. Experience didn’t make it easier. These were hellish ghouls who had no place on earth.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, looking back over my shoulder as I threw the truck into reverse, tires squealing as I jammed the wheel hard to the left, bringing us around to face away from the herd.
 

“It’s almost like they were waiting for us,” I said, checking the rear view mirror as the leading edge of creatures stumbled forward, twenty meters or so from the bed. “But that can’t be true. They can’t think. They can’t communicate. We know this much, at least.”

Kate spoke softly, her voice barely a whisper.

“Maybe we were wrong. Maybe they’re learning as they hunt together. It’s not too hard to believe that as time goes on, they would learn something as basic as that.”

I caught Ky’s face in the mirror, and her terror reflected my own.

It just couldn’t be true.
 

Elizabeth Katherine Whitmore was a lucky young woman.

As a dual-national, she possessed both an American passport and a Canadian passport, and frequently traveled between the two countries.
 

But that wasn’t why she was lucky.

On the day the crisis first broke, she was allowed to skip school, avoiding being in one of the most densely populated areas of the city during the midst of the carnage and confusion.

But that wasn’t the reason either.

No, Liz was a lucky young woman because on that day, during those fateful hours, when the dead began to rise and consume the flesh of the living, she was at a visa interview with her father, hoping to get lunch at her favorite burger place after the bureaucratic nightmare had concluded.

Her father was a talented computer programmer and he had never sought, nor wanted, American citizenship. But his work took him to interesting places around the world, and after his divorce, the custody agreement that resulted from a quirk in international laws and treaties led to her obligation to follow him to these places for six months out of the year.

And on that very day, he was applying for a work visa for a project in San Francisco.
 

So on that day, Liz found herself reading three-month old magazines in the waiting room of the United States Consulate building in Vancouver, fifteen floors above the chaos of the day.
 

Liz, of course, didn’t know that she was lucky in the moment. That was because she didn’t know that the U.S. Department of State had spent billions of dollars in the last decade to make their overseas posts more secure. This included bomb resistant hard lines, reinforced walls and windows, automatic magnetically sealed doors, advanced security systems, and a swift and effective lock-down system that could seal a vulnerable building against threats in a matter of seconds.
 

She also didn’t know that due to recent regulations, all overseas offices were mandated to be located in buildings that adhered to the strictest seismic construction guidelines—whenever possible, buildings that were rated to withstand earthquakes of at least a magnitude of eight on the Richter scale.
 

She had no idea, of course, that she was inside such a building, even as she flipped through the pages of the previous months’ vanity magazine, idly smelling the perfume samples as she groaned in boredom.
 

She had no clue, in fact, that she was inside the safest room in the safest building in the city. And she remained blissfully unaware of the chaos below for hours into the outbreak.
 

When the first creature entered the lobby, it was able to bite two guards. They reacted more in annoyance than in fear or violence. After all, they were Canadian.