The Dead Won't Die (20 page)

C
HAPTER
20

As a teenager, Jacob had been picked for the salvage teams. Many his age had applied, though few got in. Those who made it onto the teams were said to be the best, which he'd found funny, because the selection process hadn't been all that hard. The physical fitness tests were supposed to be rigorous, but Jacob could run all day long, and sit-ups and push-ups were a piece of cake. The intelligence tests, which Jacob had gone into thinking there was no way in hell he'd even come close to passing, at least not without Kelly's answer sheet to cheat off of, had been surprisingly easy.

They wanted people who could fix things.

People who could take one thing that was broken, and make something new of it.

He'd breezed right through it.

It was considered quite an honor to be picked for the teams. Nobody else got to go outside the walls. Nobody else learned about the technology of the Old World like those picked for the teams. It had made him a star among his friends.

Not even Nick, Nick the badass who had once whipped his ass in a fight, had made the final list.

And meanwhile, his knowledge of zombie behavior grew by leaps and bounds.

Zombie behavior, his instructors had said, was consistent and predictable. They could be fast or slow, strong or barely able to stay upright, ravenous and relentless or so weak they could only moan from the shadows of some crumbling doorway.

It didn't matter.

Their behavior was always the same, as constant as a running river.

A zombie will attack if prey is present. A zombie will not ever fail to attack. A zombie will attack, regardless of the odds against it, and it will continue to attack until it is physically unable to move.

A zombie will not stop, and it will not show mercy.

A zombie won't recognize you, because the person who used to live in that shell doesn't live there anymore.

They have no strategy, no purpose, no ultimate goal. They exist only to feed. And you are the food. They are a force of nature not made by nature, and that internal conflict is the only thing that drives them. They don't sleep. They don't rest. They don't ever stop. They will explore every nook, every cranny, to feed their need. If you hide, they will eventually find you, because they search all day, every day, without stop.

They don't rely on your stupidity, but on your single careless moment.

The zombie lives its undead life for the moment you get too tired, for the moment you let your guard down, for the moment you need to sleep.

The odds sounded steep indeed, but his instructors had taught him a few things, and as he looked out the window over the streets of El Paso and the wretched, undead things that massed there, he felt like he could do this.

Perhaps there were a hundred million zombies out there, but at this spot, he saw fewer than a hundred, and those groping impotently as they tried to rejoin the main body of the herd.

That was another element of zombie behavior. They sought, constantly sought, the company of other zombies. A zombie by itself usually didn't make it long. Something happened, some accident, some random thing that inevitably caused their second death.

But zombies in a herd, they could stay intact for as long as the CDHLs saturated their cell structure and prevented decay.

Eight to ten years in some cases.

The zombie he'd faced upstairs in the lab, the one he couldn't even decide if it had once been male or female, was a good example. It might have been six to eight years old, maybe even older.

And the zombies in the streets outside were no exception. They looked uniformly gray and desiccated, rotten to the point they could barely stand up, much less give chase. Even at a glance, he could see a course through their numbers. He hadn't thought of Stu and Juliette since they'd left earlier that morning, because, truthfully, he hadn't given them much of a chance, but looking at the street now, he wondered if maybe they could have made it after all.

“Jacob?”

It was Kelly.

And he recognized that worried tone.

Smart as she was, she'd no doubt overthought every possible angle of their escape. That was the difference between them. She reasoned. She considered. She thought of every option, and wondered over each detail like a mother worrying over a child. He, on the other hand, saw only possibilities, and made the decision to take the leap.

He looked at the group staggered behind him. Kelly, right at his shoulder, right where he knew she'd be. Chelsea, her face still stained with emotion, right behind her. Kelly he wasn't worried about, but Chelsea was something else. Since seeing her aunt zombified and then blasted into muck on the wall, she'd retreated inward. Jacob couldn't really blame her, of course. She'd already lost her parents, and her older brother, and her lover, and now her aunt. She'd had so much taken from her, and now she was all alone in a world that wanted her run up on charges while running her father's reputation through the mud. And, on top of that, she was only seventeen. That was a lot of load to carry for such young shoulders.

But it couldn't really be helped, either. They were all up to their chins in troubles. He just hoped that the girl would be able to hold it all together long enough for them to get out of El Paso. From there, well, from there they'd figure it out. Maybe they could bring her back to Arbella. Everybody there was an orphan, of one form or another.

Farther on behind Chelsea, lurking in the shadows, was a wounded and wary Lester Brooks. Why the man had decided to come with them Jacob didn't know, and frankly he didn't care. Few things mattered to Jacob more than personal integrity, and from where he stood, Brooks was utterly lacking on that front.

“Okay,” he said. “There's a building over by the main hangars, due north of here. Can you see it? It's right through there.”

Kelly followed the line of his finger toward a squat cube of a building, five stories high.

“That one there?”

“Yes.”

“That's our target. If we need to, we'll veer off to one of the buildings over in that direction, but that building is where I want us to end up.”

“Why?”

“Look at it. See the fire escape? It's one of the only ones around that still has that. That means it's an older building. It'll have the same defenses as the rest of these buildings, I'm guessing, but that fire escape gives us a way to get in without compromising those ground defenses.”

Kelly nodded, but was clearly out of her element. “Okay, I trust you,” she said.

“Alright.”

Jacob went down the stairs and pushed the door open. He counted sixteen zombies within what he considered the danger zone, close enough that they could attack, if they were strong enough.

None did, though. The few that spotted them twisted their broken bodies toward the group, and a few even raised their hands to clutch at Jacob and the others, but most were so weak they couldn't even utter the feeding moan that attracted the rest of the herd.

As they rounded a corner, a zombie fell out of a doorway and landed with its arms on Chelsea's shoulders. She screamed, twisted away from the thing, and broke into a run.

“Chelsea, no!” Jacob said.

He put the zombie down with a shot to the back of its head and ran the young girl down. When he caught her, he was forced to hold her tightly. She thrashed and whined as she tried to break his grip.

“Don't run,” he whispered. “Not yet. That's the secret. Go too fast and they'll zero in on you. We walk until we have to run.”

“Let go of me. I can't take it anymore. That moaning. Oh God, make them stop.”

She felt like she was about to run again.

“I know it's scary,” he said. “Please. Just don't run. Fight the fear.”

She was tense, her body like a spring under pressure, but at last she nodded.

“You can do this,” he said. “Just don't run. At least not until I say so.”

“Okay.”

“Good girl.”

He looked back at Kelly and Brooks and nodded. Kelly nodded back. Brooks didn't nod. He looked like he was still waiting to figure out another way to handle the situation at hand. Jacob would have to watch him.

Dawn was just beginning to color the eastern sky, and it shed an orange glow over the streets of the city. From the window, Jacob had seen a handful of decrepit zombies slogging their way toward the rest of the herd, but now that dawn had broken, he saw hundreds more in the shadows. He'd seen something like it happen once, years ago, while he and Kelly were sleeping on the banks of the Mississippi. He'd woken just before first light. A short field of grass had separated them from the riverbank. In the gray light that seeped into the world just before dawn, that field of grass had looked completely empty. But as the sun rose, he watched the field fill with light, and he was surprised to see a herd of deer there. They'd been there all along, just unseen. It was scary that the same thing could happen with zombies. And scarier still that he hadn't realized it before now.

Jacob took a look around, wondering which way to lead his little party.

“I want to get out of here right now,” Chelsea said.

“She's right, Jacob,” Kelly said. “I think we're starting to attract some attention.”

“Yeah, I agree.” He pointed to a small two-story office building. “There aren't as many coming around the left side of that building. Let's skirt it on that side.”

He started them forward. A few of the zombies closest to them lumbered their way, and Jacob got ready to fire when they came in range. But just as they were about to reach the building, several of the zombies twisted around at a change in the herd's moaning and moved in a different direction.

“Where are they going?” Kelly said.

“I don't know. Let's just keep going.”

“No, Jacob, wait! Look there!”

Jacob caught movement between the buildings. A figure was crossing their line of travel at a measured trot, gunning down the zombies that got too close to him. Between the low light and his failing eyes, Jacob wasn't sure who it was, but it looked like Jordan Anson.

Anson saw them a moment later. He raised his weapon instinctively, then lowered it, clearly surprised to see other living people out here.

He motioned for them to meet him on the far side of the building.

When they finally caught up with him, Jacob was taken aback. Anson looked like he'd been through hell. His chest and arms were spattered with gore and parts of his armor were torn. Several metal panels hung from frayed Kevlar. His hair was wet with sweat, his face streaked with dirt and more sweat. He'd gotten his lip busted somewhere along the way. But even through the grime, Jacob could still read the mistrust on the man's face. He held his weapon high, if not exactly pointing it at Jacob and the group.

Brooks had been bringing up the rear. He was winded, and the air going through his busted nose made a wheezing noise as he breathed. Jordan immediately pulled him aside, gave him a once-over, and then turned on Jacob.

This time there was no doubt as to where he was pointing his weapon.

“What did you do to him?”

“We had a disagreement over who should hold the ammunition.”

“So you assaulted him?” Jordan said. “This man is a distinguished member of the High Council.”

“Well, I didn't vote for him.”

Anson shook his head in disbelief. When he spoke he was so mad he could barely spit the words out. “You . . . you . . . who the hell do you think you are?”

“Enough,” Brooks said. “There's no time for this. We need to get to shelter.”

“That's a good idea, Junior,” Jacob said. “And while you're at it, you should check your six.”

“What?”

“Behind you.”

Anson twisted around. A zombie was just a few meters behind him, and coming closer, its hands clutching for him. He raised his gun and dropped it with a clean hit right between the eyes. Two more of the desiccated things were working their way into the street, and Anson dropped them both moments later.

Three rounds, three head shots. The man was a squirrely little dickhead, but he was a good shot. Jacob filed that away as something to keep in mind later.

“Jacob,” Chelsea said, “can we please leave here?”

All the talking and running had really drawn a crowd. They had zombies coming out of the woodwork now, and all of them had zeroed in on Jacob and the others. Most were slow moving, but he spotted a few making their way toward them with a little more haste.

“Yep,” he said. “Doing that now. Let's get moving.”

The building with the fire escape was still a good four hundred meters away, and most of that across open ground. They were seeing denser concentrations of zombies, too. To Jacob it looked like the main body of the herd had entered the area, for they were seeing stronger and faster zombies, less decayed. He could tell the men from the women now.

With the faster zombies starting to appear, Jacob had to move around a lot more. He found himself having to sprint from to the head of the group to the rear and back again, over and over, in order to intercept some fast mover that had stepped out of the crowd. He was getting tired fast, and his ribs were starting to burn again.

Brooks and Anson had fallen back a bit. Anson was helping the much older Brooks along, and letting Jacob do most of the running around and shooting.

Jacob couldn't help but wonder if that was deliberate.

He didn't trust Anson any more than he trusted Brooks, Anson maybe even less so, but he was running out of juice and he needed the help.