This Plague of Days, Season Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Serial) (34 page)

Dead weight…dead man walking…blood red dead,
Jaimie thought. Then,
Europe!
The map looked remarkably like Europe if you forgave the lack of a boot on the stain of Italy stretching toward the man’s belt.

A moan and a clunk came from the interior of the trailer. “Help?”

One of the girls cursed and jerked her head toward the trailer. She said something quickly in French. To Jaimie, her words sounded like
rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat!
Several women moved forward to help the girls carry the man away.

Other women and a few men scooped their children up and stepped back from the trailer. Those with shotguns pumped their actions or cocked hammers, ready to blast whoever was in the trailer.

Before Theo could pull him away, Jaimie watched Carron’s aura boil red. The lieutenant shook with impotent fury.

“
Vae soli,
” Jaimie told his father.
Woe to solitary men.

But it wasn’t a mere observation. It was a curse upon Francis Carron.

* * *
 

“Help! Help!
Help!
” Each plea, louder than the last, emanated from the trailer’s dark mouth. There was another clunk and a clatter and this time the trailer lurched left. The suspension complained in a squeak. “Lieutenant!”

Xavier’s bodyguards pushed to the front of the crowd, weapons ready. The crowd parted and Xavier, luminous in his white suit, emerged from the crowd. “Whose trailer is this? Who’s in there?” he demanded.

“It’s mine,” Lieutenant Carron said. As soon as he stepped out of the dark crowd’s anonymity, Dahlia and Larry appeared beside him. Dahlia slipped a long knife under Carron’s throat and Larry did a magic trick with the lieutenant’s rifle, twisting it away smoothly. The rifle disappeared into unseen hands.

Carron’s eyes and mouth became three thin lines as a dozen flashlight beams snapped on him.
 

Xavier stepped closer and looked Carron over. “Is that your man in there?”

When the lieutenant took too long to answer Dahlia brought the blade to his skin, urging him with the cold metal’s edge. “Speak to the man and behave, or I’ll give you a terrifyingly close shave.”

“He was one of my men,” Carron said, “but I didn’t order him to do that.”

“This one has a beef with the family I brought in,” Dahlia said. She was about to say more but Xavier gave the slightest shake of his head and she went quiet.

“Your man killed one of the flock. My flock is with me because I promise them safety. Anyone outside the flock is not safe.”

Xavier was back in showmanship mode now, not just speaking to the lieutenant, but playing for the crowd. “You have brought violence here. We don’t want violence. That’s for the rest of the world. That’s for the old world. It doesn’t belong here.
You
don’t belong here. A sacrifice will have to be made to make this right.”

“Lieutenant! I need you! Where are you?” the man in the trailer called. A sputter and a sob followed.

“The trailer is full of food,” Dahlia said. She paused, seeming unsure what word rhymed best with food.

Xavier’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Interesting. Your wayward sheep is calling you, Lieutenant.” Xavier made a theatrical gesture to the trailer with both hands. He stepped to the side as if he was a magician showing an audience a box in which he would presently make a pretty girl disappear.

Dahlia withdrew the knife and shoved Carron forward. He hesitated a moment and then stepped to the trailer doors.

“Hey! It’s me! I’m going to open up the back!” Carron called. “Don’t shoot!” The lieutenant grabbed the handle and yanked the door open as he sprang back.

He needn’t have worried. A scraggly figure, looking more like a mummy than a live human being, teetered into sight. He was wrapped in filthy bandages at his head and around this torso. Limp, he fell out of the trailer and into the mud.
 

“Bently!” Anna said.

Someone blinded him with a bright, white halogen motorcycle headlight that gave his stained bandages a stark glow. Old blood had seeped through strips of linen and dried black. Fresh blood flowed red down Bently’s head and neck.

“The idiot burst his eardrums firing the shotgun in the trailer,” Larry declared.
 

Bently stared up at the lieutenant with accusing eyes as he tore at the strips of cloth that bound his head. People at the front gasped and others pushed forward to get a better look. Raised welts of deep burns covered the man’s face and body.

Carron stared back at his last fallen soldier dumbly, mouth hanging. The black stink of gangrene wafted off the walking corpse.

“You shoulda left me the handgun!” Bently covered his ears with both hands, felt the fluid run and pulled his hands away. He looked at the blood and tasted it, licking it from his withered fingers. He clutched his head and screamed in anguish. “I can’t hear!” he yelled. “I can barely hear my own screams!” Tears slid down his broken cheeks.

The crowd closed around him like a noose. Bently’s scream grew louder, then choked.

“Poor bastard,” Carron said. “His ears were pretty much all he had left.”

“If all the penitents in hell cried out in one voice, that’s what it would sound like,” Xavier said.

As the choking sound died, so did Bently. The circle opened again. Bently lay on the ground, a limp pile of rags.

“God has delivered us food we can feel good about taking!” Xavier announced. “We remain pure because we have punished evil and shown mercy. That poor soul is better off now.”

Several men and young boys stepped over Bently’s body and scrambled into the trailer. There was a whoop of excitement as they began hurling out foodstuffs. The yammering crowd pressed closer. Bently’s body lay trampled and forgotten under their feet.

“That’s my food.” Carron could only stand aside and watch the looted supplies disappear into the mouths of the hungry.
 

“I’m sorry about your man,” Xavier replied. “God’s justice is swift and terrible. If it weren’t, He wouldn’t be God.”

Carron started to say something but Xavier put a finger to the lieutenant’s lips. “No more blood tonight. That’s enough. We’re going to the Promised Land. We’ve got to stay clean.”

Carron fought the urge to bite off the man’s finger. “You stole from me.”

“It’s not stealing if you come with us. If you come with us, it’s sharing. If you’re with us, you’re safe.”

“You call them a flock. Flocks are for sheeple.”

“I get that you’re a rough, tough gun-totin’ sonofagun, Lieutenant. But not everybody is and not everybody has to be. Ours isn’t that type of journey, even now. Especially now.”

“I am a goddamn wolf.”

“You could choose to be a herding dog, instead. I need guard dogs, too. I can’t save everyone, but let me save you. I worry very much that God
will
damn you if you stay a wolf. It’s a bad world for a lone wolf.”
 

* * *
 

Carron stared at the cult leader as long as he could stand it. He recognized the light in the man’s eyes. All people who were crazy in a particularly dangerous way — who could gather followers with their words and visions — had that same confident look. Carron had that look himself, once. But that was before his men were taken from him.

“Will you join us?” Xavier whispered. “Join us and you’ll be safe.” He glanced down at Bently’s body. “The crowd, well…they can be fickle. I can’t altogether control them. I mean, if one of that man’s girls comes back with a gun, I might be able to stop her from killing an outsider, but your man did kill her daddy. If she was to shoot off just one testicle, say, she might see that as a compromise that pleases everyone.”

“I understand. I guess that makes me a your dog, for now.”

Carron stiffened as Xavier embraced him. He held him tightly for what seemed a long time. “You have lost a soldier tonight,” Xavier whispered in Carron’s ear.

“He’s not the first soldier I’ve lost,” Carron said. “He was my last. After the explosion, I found him. I thought I could save him.” Lieutenant Carron’s voice broke into a choked sob. “I thought I could save him!”

“I grieve with you. But you’ve gained a good cause.”

“I used to be a leader. I
had
a cause.”

“You can really save people now,” Xavier said. “You’ve saved many children from hunger tonight. If you can help me keep these people fed, together we can save them all. God will be so pleased.”

“Well, I’m all for that.” Carron surrendered to the embrace, slowly raised his arms and returned the hug.
 

“Welcome, brother,” Xavier said.

“Thank you,” Carron replied, but his gaze was fixed on his pistol. Dahlia had taken his Parabellum from the police cruiser and tucked it under her belt.
 

Xavier still held Carron, rocking slightly as if soothing a crying child. “Thank you so much for delivering God’s food to my flock. We were one day away from rebellion, I was sure, but I knew we would be rewarded if we kept the faith. An angel told me so.”

Carron’s gritted his teeth when he caught Marjorie Bendham watching him. The old woman was laughing. Carron looked away. His looked to the road. The Spencer’s van disappeared over a rise, headed east.
 

F
ROM
THE
C
ALL
,
THE
C
ULL
AND
UNKIND
CONFINES

A
adi Vermer, friend, father and former security guard, chewed on a bloody hunk of flesh torn from the Royal Marine’s neck. He stared from the pier with cold eyes as he ate.

Aboard the
Amundsen,
the refugees gazed back as the shore receded in their wake. Aastha and Aasa cried. Dayo and Desi wept as they covered Aadi’s daughters’ eyes. The girls did not resist. From the ship, Aadi looked like any other Sutr-Z zombie.

Behind Aadi, storm petrels and great skua descended on the bodies of the dead littering the pier. Soon, more zombies joined the birds to pull and feed on the carrion.

“What was the Royal Marine’s name?” Desi asked.

Sinjin-Smythe shivered as he looked to the body at Aadi’s feet. “Cameron.”

“No, Craig. What was his
first
name?”

“I don’t know. I never thought to ask.”

* * *

Sinjin-Smythe’s cell phone was useless, but the
Amundsen’s
satellite phone worked. He called the number Shiva had given him. He was supposed to call when he reached New York to retrieve his baby, but he had to talk to her now. The phone rang a long time before she answered.

“Ava?”

“Craig, Ava’s dead. But I’ll talk to you.”

“Fine. Shiva, then.”

“Don’t tell me you’re already in New York?”

“No. I’m getting out of Iceland.”

“Poor Craig. Always trailing in the race.”

Sinjin-Smythe looked back to the pier. Aadi was a dot now, just another of the infected. But Aadi had saved his life. Aadi had made him laugh. He was a friend, so he could never be a mere statistic.

“Craig?”

“The virus is evolving. It’s getting smarter. I’ve seen the next progression on video and, just now, Sutr-Z took a friend of mine without a bite. He must have gotten infected blood in his mouth in the fight. It happened in an instant.”

“Ah, so you’re travelling to exotic places and making new friends. Good. You’ll need them.”

Sinjin-Smythe ignored the jab. “My friend couldn’t talk. I’m not sure he recognized us at all. I hope not.”

“Why are you really calling, Craig?”

“Will this thing go airborne next?”

“Sutr has a mind of its own. It was merely an incredibly deadly influenza a short time ago. Lots of surprises.”

“But what’s the plan, Shiva?”

“I don’t divulge plans. I execute them. What do you want to know that I will answer?”

Sinjin-Smythe almost hung up then. Instead, he took a deep breath. “How about this? Why did a genocidal sociopath pick me? Was any of it real? Were the nights we spent in Ireland real? I was in Dungarvan again last week. That time with you…
felt
real.”

“You mean how I told you we were moving in together? It wasn’t all bad. Of course, it was all real. To you, at least.”

“
What?
”

“Craig, you’re one of those sad little men who start worrying too young about dying alone. You want to believe in love and romance everlasting. You don’t have many friends. You’re bright so you think you aren’t vulnerable. You’re perfect for someone like me. You do as you’re told.
That
is the one thing I loved about you.”

His breaths came shallow. He wanted to scream in her ear. He wanted to reach through the phone and choke her long neck until all the smug was wrung from her. “Shiva, I’m coming for the baby. Keep her safe or I swear to God I’ll make you wish you had. Don’t test me.”

Shiva laughed gaily. “A little late in life to discover a spine, isn’t it?”

His voice was low and he stopped shaking. “I’m not coming for you alone. I’ve made good friends now, real friends.”

“Craig, it sounds like you’ve gone through a growth period. That’s good. So have I. And if you ever threaten me again, I assure you, I’ll make you suffer for a long time before I even let you
begin
to beg to die.”

“I just want my baby, Shiva! And it’s not me who’ll kill you. The kid with the mirrors for eyes? He’s on my side, too. He’ll kill you and escort you to the gates of hell.”

He heard a sharp intake of breath. Finally, he’d stunned her.

“Call me when you get to America, Craig. I’ll have you for dinner.”

* * *

Shiva handed the satellite phone back to Lijon. Their new boat, a 40-meter luxury yacht, rocked from side to side in choppy water. Apparently irritated, the baby kicked hard.

“Was it him, Dear Sister?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

She put her hand to her belly. “Same as always. Soothing. He wanted to make sure we were still good friends despite the break up.”