LZR-1143: Redemption (24 page)

He stepped forward.

THIRTY-SIX

“I’m telling you, I barely made it out with my life this time. They are stirred up something awful out there, and they’re all coming south. I don’t know why, but it’s crazy out there. Hell no is my answer, and you can suck on it.”

Eddy was a tall, cadaverous looking man, with sunken cheeks and an even lower demeanor. Gruff and frowning, I found it hard to believe he had ever been a tour guide. Of course, the end of the world has a certain effect on people.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” said the smaller man, Jorge, whose thin black beard framed a young face over a tank top and formerly designer jeans. His voice was rapid, but measured. “They were everywhere. We tried three different streets before we found one with none of those things on it. All coming south, toward us and toward the city.” He tore into a small package of crackers. The kind I used to ignore when they served them with clam chowder or soup. Now, they were served to the conquering heroes like gold and virgins.

“And you? So stupid that you pull ‘em on to you and make us divert from our last run to save your asses?” His voice was annoyed and cantankerous, and Jorge grunted once, whether in agreement or just enjoyment of his food, I couldn’t tell.

“Technically, we weren’t in any danger…” I began, and his eyes narrowed, until Justine intervened.

“Eddy, you do talk, don’t you,” said Justine, slapping his back congenially. “Now Carl here,” she waved at the man who had been the last to join with us, “said he’d go with y’all, and you just gotta make one more run. It’s an easy one. Into the water real quick, drop off, then home. Just gotta get from here into the water and across the pond.”

“You know them bastards swimmin’ now?” asked Eddy, making another play at refusing the powerful woman. She had already nearly told the man what he’d be doing. She just had to convince him to comply.

“Uh, technically they’re not swimming,” said Ky from where she sat on the floor, bouncing a cracked tennis ball to Romeo as Rhodes leaned casually against the railing, staring at the children playing together below.

“What?”

“The zombies. They’re not swimming. They’re… well, they’re walking I guess. Or floating. But they’re not coordinated enough for swimming.”

The ball bounced once before the dog grabbed it from the air, splashing those around him with drool thicker than maple syrup.

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Because we’ve seen it,” said Kate. “We’ve seen everything these things do, and we know them well enough to know we need help across the lake to finish this.” She leaned over, locking big brown eyes with the older man. She had untied her hair from the ponytail behind her head, and her thick hair framed her face as she stared at the man. Her eyes were like agates, hard and sharp.

“We need your help, Eddy. What do you say? Wanna help save humanity?”

He stared at her for a moment, then turned to Justine.

“You are gonna owe me so big.” He stood up, turning and walking away with Justine giving us a quick smile as she took his arm.

“I want your peaches,” I heard him say as they walked away.

“That’s a steep price, Eddy. Those are fresh in the can. I’ll give you half…” Her voice trailed off as she followed the angry man and negotiated the price of his silence.

The large machine was kept in an alley outside the building. They accessed it through a second story fire escape from which they had removed the stairs. Only through the open top of the vehicle could you access the fire escape, and since the creatures rarely followed them back, the exposure wasn’t so serious as to warrant a concern.

Whenever they did get too close, they had devised a system involving a flare gun and a remote controlled, battery operated radio that could lure the creatures away, while the people inside remained silent. They had used a small radio-controlled helicopter for several weeks before the rechargeable battery was lost in a crash.

Much like the drone sound herding theory, in fact.

As we were waiting for Eddy and Jorge—they always worked together, and it had only taken a look from Justine to rouse the latter to action—we sat with Rhodes and watched Ky throw the ball to Romeo.

“You think this is gonna pan out?” said the large man quietly, as he watched the ball soar past an old soda machine, and the dog snatched the ball athletically from the air.

Somewhat stunned by him offering conversation, I sat up straight, taking a moment to formulate an answer.

In truth, I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t truly sure of much right now, other than the desire to have it all be over. To be normal again. To not have to fear the sunlight, or dread the shadow of a human form in the half-light. No more death and no more fear. No stinking corpses and rotting flesh.

What I could offer to Rhodes in response was much less, but still the truth.

“I think it has a chance,” I said softly. Beside me, Kate lifted her head and looked at both of us.

“It doesn’t just have
a
chance,” she said, “It is
the
chance. The only one. Whether it does work, or whether the new government continues to inoculate everyone to keep us from turning into zombies, just so we can all die of coronaries months later, it is
the
chance. Right now. It’s the only one we have.”

Rhodes grunted once, cocking his head and spitting to the side.

“So what you’re saying is that something is better than nothing,” he offered.

“It is,” she replied, conviction strong in her voice.

He looked up, meeting her eyes. They flashed with dedication and fervor. With love and courage.

He nodded once, and pushed away from the wall.

“I’m gonna see if they’ll let me check that fifty cal—those bastards have a way of jamming something fierce if they’re not maintained right, and if they picked it out of a busted up Humvee like they said, it might have some issues.”

His large form ghosted away.

Below us, in the main gallery, children and parents had drifted back to their quarters, trying to steal a few more moments’ sleep. Our arrival had roused the whole community, and only those that were involved in getting us back out the door were up and moving.

“Mike,” said Ky, holding the decrepit ball in one small hand.

“Yeah, kid?” Her voice was smaller, somehow. More vulnerable.

“What do you… Do you really think that someday, it might all be normal?”

Kate’s hand found my own and I sighed.

“I think it can be. It’s going to take some time. And it’s never going to be the same, but I think it can be better. I think we can win.”

She looked up, the sadness of her face contrasting sharply with the rapidly moving tail on the dog behind her with only one focus—the ball in her hand. She wiped her nose suddenly, and turned away, tossing the ball as the dog turned into a red blur.

“You folks ready?” said a voice behind us, and I turned to the man who had been the last to join us. Oscar was a vet of Iraq and Afghanistan. Honorable discharge and working as a farm hand when it all went down. He was in the Space Needle with his family when the attacks started and they made it down in time to get inside with Justine and a few others before it got worse.

He carried a police issue Remington shotgun, enough for stopping power, but he was low on shells. Kate still had her Pathfinder, but her weapon took a different load, so he was also sporting a sidearm. I had lost my shotgun in the city, but had plenty of rounds for the pistol. I had taken the time to affix the laser sight from my bag, so the headshots were a little easier.

“Yeah, thanks Oscar,” we rose quickly, sparing one more glance for the quieting scene of domesticity below as mothers and fathers and children and real people settled down to sleep. We climbed a set of metal stairs onto a walkway that circled the outer wall of the building. The thin metal seemed scant protection from what I knew to be outside, and I renewed my commitment again to seeing this through.

As if reading my mind, Kate glanced at me and smiled, her warmth and love clear in the milliseconds of connection.

That.

That was what made living a life in this world gone to hell worth it.

The external door was marked with bright red paint, a large “X” painted from corner to corner, and even a line of police tape pulled across the walkway. I ducked under the yellow line and Oscar shrugged as if answering an unspoken question.

“Kids, you know? We keep someone on guard up here, but we need to reinforce the message. They’re not supposed to come up here, but…”

“Hey, I hear ya. Kids. Can’t live with ‘em and too stringy to bother eating.”

I saw Ky make a face, and I looked at her. She caught my eye and I slowly extended my tongue and puffed up my cheeks. Startled, she jumped slightly before laughing.

“Okay, your friend is already out there with Eddy and Jorge. Eddy drives, Jorge mans the fifty cal. Your friend Rhodes is going to provide close-in cover fire and we’ll be riders unless they get close. We’re not a silent ride, but we move quickly, and usually lose them at the water’s edge. That’s the trick with this taxi, right?”

“Copy that,” I said, and he nodded and opened the door.

Cool night air slipped into the opening, and I took a deep breath unconsciously. Untainted by any smoke or rot, it was cool and dry and fresh. It carried the hint of a coming morning and a vague smell of pine and evergreen.

The throaty roar of the ancient engine caught me off guard, and I jumped out quickly, scrambling over the ledge of the doorway into the open back of the large machine.

During the second World War, the allies had used vehicles like this one for amphibious assaults in both theaters. Long and thin, almost like a school bus, it sat on large wheels high above the ground. An open top with a canvas cover over a metal frame made it accessible from our perch, and a jerry-rigged fifty cal emplacement welded to the frame close to the front, where the driver sat behind an old plate glass windshield on collapsible frame, was slightly out of place in the bright yellow machine imprinted with cartoonish ducks.

It sat idling in the alleyway like a huge, sleeping beast, waiting to jump into the jungle of concrete and walking dead bodies. Kate and I sat down in two weathered seats, normally reserved for tourists looking for a different view of the city. In the seat pocket in front of mine, a pale, sun and rain-tortured pamphlet wilted sadly down from the small enclosure, the only visible image the glossy depiction of the Space Needle.

Oscar closed the hatch behind him, knocking twice to the woman who waited inside to seal it from within, and the metal bar inside slid into place as he hopped down. Jorge stood near the front of the machine, several feet behind where Eddy was easing the wheel to the side and stepping on the gas, the fifty cal swiveling slowly.

“We don’t use the ammo unless we have to,” said Oscar softly, leaning over my shoulder and nodding toward Jorge. “We don’t have enough, and we don’t need to use it as much as you’d think—the machine itself does most of the work. The beast here,” he thumped the metal side affectionately, “makes so much damn noise, it’s like ringing a dinner bell, but that thing is even louder.”

We pulled out slowly into the road, passing in front of the oddly shaped metal shelter, and veered sharply to the right before turning back to the left again, zigzagging toward the lake. I stood shakily, navigating the awkward floor and walking to the front of the machine for a better view ahead. The large, hilarious nose of the incredibly awkward machine protruded into my field of vision, and I chuckled to myself.

Riding to the end of the world in a giant duck. A giant duck with a fifty cal on the back, and a bunch of assholes inside, hoping that they can find a way to keep their super strength from killing them before herds of the living dead has a chance to floss their teeth with their hides.

What an exotic life.

We passed the first grouping of creatures right outside of the Needle, and Jorge swiveled to track them, but didn’t fire. It was an odd assortment, but they all groups of the dead were mismatched—collections of humanity pressed together by fate and an absent God. There was a kid in a baseball cap, no more than seven years old. One hand was covered in a batting glove, torn slightly and matted with blood. A young woman wearing only a bra straggled behind, her arms limp at her sides as if they wouldn’t move, her hair still managing to come through as blond, despite the grime and dirt matted in.

They turned from where they clustered, huddled around the carcass of a long forgotten body, picking it clean of rotting tendrils of flesh and stringy tendons. Eyes, vacant and lifeless, pivoted in torn and broken heads.

As one, they lifted from the ground, and they followed the noise as we passed.

I stared forward into the darkness, down a street littered with debris. In the far distance, the barest hint of light was struggling to be seen behind the far-off mountain peaks, and I checked my watch.

We only had two hours until daylight.

The vehicle shuddered once as a shambler stumbled in front of the large wheels.

We swerved between a grouping of smashed cars and Eddy muttered something under his breath as we passed a looted Army-Navy surplus store.

“That was his brother’s,” said Jorge as he scanned the horizon for movement. I knew he was looking for large groupings that he would need to thin out. The smaller corpses that were now hitting the sides of the vehicle with some regularity weren’t a concern to him.

“His brother. Did he—”

“Oh yeah. Real bad, too. They got him while he was sleeping. He never had a chance. Eddy found him the next day. Not even enough left of him to put down. Just bones.”

Lovely.

The road dipped down gradually, and more of them were coming from between the buildings and behind the parked and shattered cars. I heard the whisper of Rhodes’ carbine several times, as several creatures made it close enough to warrant dispatch. Ahead, I could make out the calm surface of the lake, and behind it, the hills upon which I knew the university sat.

“Jorge,” said Eddy, a note of warning in his voice.