Redemption of the Dead (20 page)

By the time she was by the Tim
Horton’s, she was itching to just be back at the house, locked in
and safe, and ready to catch some shut-eye.

Got a while yet,
she
thought.

A row of
zombies came up from the intersecting street in front of her. She
counted off ten of them. There might have been a couple others she
missed as the group of zombies were all clumped together in a pack
of dead men and women as they shuffled down the road.

All it took was the one on the outside
to see her and the whole pack turned and moved toward her, their
shuffling footsteps picking up speed at the sudden prospect of a
kill.

Tracy raised
the gun, but didn’t fire. She instead quickly sidestepped to the
far left, her eyes always on the target. The zombies moved as one,
tracking her movement. She was nearly past them now and almost in a
position to make a break for it. In between two cars, she aimed the
gun over the roof of one, moving backward, getting distance, when
something hard wrapped around her ankle. She looked down to see an
undead creature sticking out from beneath a car. Tracy immediately
popped a bullet into its head, shook her foot free, then took off
around the front of the vehicle.

The zombie horde she’d been tracking
had changed position and were much closer to her than
expected.

Tracy fired off several rounds,
pegging a couple of the creatures, while taking the time to move
away. They followed after her. Her gunshots had drawn out others as
the street started to fill with the undead. It was like every
street running off Main had their own cache of the walking dead and
suddenly decided to offload right into her path.

Tracy ran up
the end of a Buick and got onto its roof. Taking careful aim, she
sent bullet after bullet into the crowd of oncoming zombies. Each
shot had to hit paydirt. She hoped that by killing some of them,
the others would get the message and move on, but that never
happened. They were single-minded killing machines.

Firing off
round after round, she frowned when the clip was empty. She
reloaded and continued her assault. Many of the undead dropped,
while others stepped around or over their kin to get closer to
her.

A handful of
the creatures were too close for comfort, so she ran down the front
of the vehicle, hit the street and ran about a block before getting
up onto the cab of an old pickup. Employing the same strategy, she
blew the heads off the dead as they got closer. She had to thin
them out before she could attempt to outrun them. All it would take
was for one to get in her path and grab her. The horde would come
in, overpower her in an instant, and take her down.

Loud gunshots came from the direction
of downtown and Tracy watched in amazement as numerous zombies in
the horde fell down.

She kept up
her own efforts, thankful to whoever was helping her. Was it
Joe?

He must’ve found a gun, then, or even found his old
one,
she thought.

The gunshots rang on, zombies hitting
the pavement one after another.

Low
thunks
brought her attention to the front of
the pickup. A couple of creatures were climbing up the hood. She
took aim and took them out.

Finally,
after several minutes of shooting, the undead crowd began to thin
enough she felt it safe to get off the truck, run and get some
distance.

“Thanks!” she called.

“You’re welcome,” said a familiar
voice from behind.

Tracy turned around. She hadn’t heard
him approach against all the gunfire.

It was Felix.

“
Surprised to see you
here,” she said, “but thanks.”

He simply nodded and the two ran down
the street, finally able to get some distance from the undead that
stumbled after them.

* * * *

The gunshots had been far away, but
they were close enough to tell Joe he had to be careful. The real
question was who was firing. Not many people made it a habit to go
out and about and kill zombies.

The pain in
his side still sharp and pronounced, he kept moving. The cut on his
forearm didn’t hurt all that bad.

The smart choice would’ve been to stay at the house,
he thought, but the idea Tracy was
out here alone bugged him and he had to make sure she was
okay.
If you find
her.

The gunshots
had died down about five minutes back. Joe glanced at the
McDonald’s on his left and suddenly got a craving for a burger.
Despite what anyone might say, McDonald’s was still one of his
favorites. No one made a juicy quarter pounder like they
did.

It didn’t
take long to see where the gunshots came from as Tracy appeared a
few sidewalk lengths away, walking with a huge guy he didn’t
recognize.

Is he why she came downtown?
He sighed.

They finally met up.

“It’s about
freakin’ time,” Tracy said.

“For what?” Joe said.

“Didn’
t know where you
were.”

“Had to take care of
something.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

Joe glanced at the big guy, then said,
“I’ll tell you later.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Nice
cuts.”

“Thanks for noticing.”

“From your little
excursion?”

“I said,
I’ll tell you later.” Joe stuck out his hand toward the big guy.
“Name’s Joe, Joe Bailey.”

The man wrapped his enormous paw
around Joe’s hand, swallowing it whole. “Felix.”

Joe waited
to see if the guy would give a last name, but he didn’t. “Okay,
then,” he said and tugged his hand away. To Tracy: “Where were
you?”

“Looking for
you. Didn’t really work out, the way I originally planned. Doesn’t
matter. Here you are.”

“Indeed.”

Tracy shifted awkwardly on her feet.
“How’s the house?”

What?
“Um . . .
fine.”
Is she making chitchat
because Felix is here? Time to take control.
“Listen, what’s the plan? Should we go back to
the house or find somewhere else? The place was empty of supplies
anyway.”

“Felix and I
came from the safe house.”

“The what . . .?”

“Like the Hub, but smaller. They have
food there.”

“What about the Hub?”

“Destroyed.”

“Oh, Tracy, I’m so sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“So this
safe house . . .”

“Only close
place we can go.”

“
Then let’s do
it.”

Tracy headed down the sidewalk, moving
back toward downtown.

Joe jogged up to her. Felix took up
the rear.

“What was the undead situation on your
way over?” Joe asked.

“Ran into a patch of them, but Felix
and I took care of it.”

Joe sighed. “Well, I’m glad you’re
safe.”

“Me, too.”

“Sorry for running out on
you.”

“I’ll bet.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you let your own demons get
the best of you, that’s what it means. I’m not stupid, Joe. You had
some things to work out, fine. Next time . . .”

“What?”

She huffed past him. “Don’t do it
alone.”

Joe stopped walking, Felix nearly
bumping into him from behind. Tracy was right. His days of going it
alone should be over.

* * * *

19

Mirror, Mirror

B
illie was
still
getting used to this
place. When the blue door had opened and revealed an enormous room
supported by several columns, she wasn’t expecting to find an
industrial lab complex complete with its own miniature air hanger.
People in lab coats bustled to and fro, army personnel did
likewise.

The man who
had greeted them once they entered the room was named Tony Moore, a
thin wiry man with a New Zealand accent. He identified himself as
the head of these facilities, but Billie wasn’t sure if that was
true or not.

“What’s that?” had been Sven’s question more than once as
Tony—
Doctor
Moore, as he preferred to be
called—led them on a tour.

It
turned out, Dr. Moore explained, the notion of military personnel
having been completely wiped out when fighting the undead was a
complete fabrication. Whether one constructed by the military
themselves or just misinformed hearsay, he didn’t say. Regardless,
he explained that all over the world secret bunkers were abuzz with
activity, with weapons of old being modified to withstand the
threat of an enemy that could not die unless by specific means. The
difficulty in conquering the undead was in ensuring they could
be
completely
wiped out. All it took was one
straggler that could infect another and the whole event could start
all over again.

Billie
understood, but as admirable and important as the work of these
scientists and military men were—not to mention turning an
underground parkade into a generator-powered near-state-of-the-art
facility—they did not know they were going against a threat which
went beyond the borders of the earthly realm. Heck, even she was
still trying to wrap her head around that. She considered telling
Dr. Moore about the angels and demons, but wasn’t quite sure how to
approach it so decided to wait for the right opening in their
conversation.

“And over
here we have Jetliers,” Moore said, pointing to a row of
motorcycles that had flat bottoms more like snowmobiles instead of
wheels. Alongside each of the Jetliers was a set of doors that
lifted up vertically like a Lamborghini so that once one was
inside, they would be completely protected. “Each is armed with a
Gatling gun, shot-blasters on the sides—think big, powerful buck
shots—as well as heat detectors, cool-body read-outs, and
bulletproof glass.”

“Sounds impressive,” Bastian
said.

“It is.”

Dr. Moore
then led them over past a row of metallic silver weapons, each
appearing to be a suped-up version of familiar military firearms:
long-range rifles, machine guns, handguns, grenades. Even a
bazooka. The handles on each looked to have a slot for one’s hands
to protect them from bites. All also had long-range scopes, even
the handguns.

Billie
considered the crystals embedded in the stone on her bracelet and
expected there to be one here as well. She still couldn’t figure
out what they were for.

Dr. Moore
took them past a set of doors, and like the other strongholds she
and the others had visited, this one extended beyond the regular
borders of the building above. As she, Dr. Moore, Sven and Bastian
moved down the hallway, a strong sense of unease crept up her
spine.

“Where are we going?” Billie
asked.

“To the vault,” Dr. Moore
replied.

“What’s in it?”

“You’ll see.”

She glanced back at Sven and gave him a look she hoped
read:
I don’t like the sound
of that
.

At the end of the hallway was a single
door, which Dr. Moore opened after using a key. The room was dark.
Billie and the others stood outside the doorway.

“There’s no way I’m going in there,”
she said.

“Why not?”

“Turn the lights on and we’ll
talk.”

Dr. Moore
frowned, then reached inside the door and flicked a switch. The
lights flickered on, revealing a plain room with light gray walls,
a large set of gray blinds on each except for the wall with the
door, an eight-foot table in the middle, a chair on each
side.

Dr. Moore gestured to the chairs.
“Come, sit.”

Billie eyed
him quizzically then entered, Sven and Bastian behind her. They
each grabbed a spot at the table; Billie was thankful to sit down
after being on her feet most of the day.

Dr. Moore
stood at the door to the room, looking past the doorframe as if
talking to someone just outside it. Billie didn’t know who could
possibly be there as no one had been there when they first came
down the hallway, and the walls on each side didn’t bear any
doors.

“Something’s not right,” Billie
said.

“What?”
asked Sven.

She got up
from the table and started toward the door. Dr. Moore gave her a
quick glance, smiled, then closed the door. She ran up to it,
turned the knob and pulled. Locked.

“Hey!” she
shouted and smacked the door with an open-palm.

Behind her
the chairs scraped along the floor as the two men got out from
their seats.

“Open up!” she said, hitting the door
again. She pulled and pulled on the door, but to no
avail.