Redemption of the Dead (23 page)

“What’s
‘intel’?”

“Just let me finish.”

Sven closed his mouth.

To
herself: “It can’t be that easy, can it?” To the others: “If
everyone we encountered were actually shape shifters, they are
either brilliant shape-shifting zombies that can create amazing
tech for war,
or
they came here and took the place of
those who had.”

“I don’t understand words,” Bastian
said.

“We didn’t
use the elevators for a reason and clearly this place has power
running via generators so the elevators could have easily worked.
The guy that led us down here said there were zombies in the
elevators. I’m thinking not. I’m thinking the contents of the
elevators were concealed from us because they contain people, real
people.”

“People?”

“Yah,” she said, this time with a
wink. Sven grinned. “Here’s what we do.”

After she gave them the run-down of
what she was thinking, the three headed toward the main room.
Billie eyed the Jetliers as she walked past them and she noticed
Sven do the same.

Concealing
themselves behind desks and worktables so as not to be seen by any
of the dead, she led the other two to the wall of gleaming metal
weapons.

“Take one,” she whispered.

The German
boys grinned. Sven took the rifle, Bastian the machine gun. Billie
grabbed a couple of handguns and a few grenades. She put the guns
behind her back in the waistband and stuffed her pockets with the
grenades while keeping the other gun at the ready.

Joe would have a field day with this,
she thought. She hoped she would see him again
and soon.

Now armed, the three moved through the
room. A few of the undead milled about, a couple of them completely
lost in their own zoned-out world. They were quickly dropped before
a handful of others appeared and headed toward Billie and her
friends.

The two German boys made quick work of
sending the creatures to the ground.

“Stay
ready,” she said, still pinching her nose, making her voice come
out nasally. “Any more out there will come as they would’ve heard
the shots.”

The three moved throughout the rest of
the floor, taking out anything rotten that appeared in their
way.

As they
turned the corner which, according to the sign on the wall would
lead to the elevators, they stopped when a row of feral-looking
undead stood before them. Not wasting any time, Billie raised her
gun and shot two in the head, the tops of their skulls bursting
from the impact. Sven held up the rifle, expertly balanced it, and
fired off a round of his own, dropping another. The creatures came
forward and began crowding in on them. Sven used the butt of the
rifle to smash open the head of one, while Bastian used the machine
gun to cut through at least a half dozen of them on the right.
Heads shot to pieces, the undead fell. Bastian turned his attention
toward Billie and Sven.

“Be
careful!” Billie shouted, referring to him firing that machine gun,
but she wasn’t sure if he understood the intent.

Rapid shots rang out, their thundering
sound echoing inside the small space. Broken bits of floor and
ceiling shot through the air every time a stray bullet hit them.
Two zombies honed in on Billie and were nearly right up against
her, reaching out to take a firm hold. She popped one in the face
and the other in the forehead. The creatures hit the ground and she
did the same thing to the two behind.

Sven fired,
a zombie fell; he took aim, fired again, another one fell; over and
over. The guy was good, precise.

Billie had a
half-second moment of “That’s my man,” before dismissing the notion
and popping another couple of bullets into the face of an old
walking dead guy.

The ring of
fired bullets echoed on the air as the three stood with weapons
poised amongst a pile of rotting dead bodies. The room was
clear.

“Sven,”
Billie said, thumbing toward the elevator door. He came over, tried
the elevator controls and when those didn’t work, he motioned to
Bastian and said something in German. The two got to work trying to
pry the elevator doors open.

Billie
looked around, trying to find something to use as a pry bar. Not
finding one, she told the boys she’d be back in a minute and
returned into the weapons room. She scanned the room, the floor,
the desks. To the right, a zombie shambled toward her. She shot it
in the head then went back to looking. With all the excitement, she
forgot about her nose and hadn’t kept the collar of her shirt in
place. She was relieved the bleeding had stopped though it still
hurt like the dickens when she touched it; she didn’t care about
her shirt being covered in blood.

After
checking a couple more worktables, she found a large heavy pry bar
and quickly brought it to Sven. The big man had got the door open a
few inches, but judging by the deep purple grooves on his palms, it
hadn’t been easy work.

“Here,” she said and handed him the
pry bar.

“Danke.” He
took it and jammed it in between the doors and pried it open, the
metal doors releasing a profound screech on their
tracks.

The elevator
shaft was empty save for the cabling which took the car up and down
the building. Billie peered in and got a clear view to the shaft
beside it; that car wasn’t there either.

“We need to find out what floor
they’re stuck on. You guys don’t have a flashlight, by chance, do
you?”

The boys shook their heads.

“Okay, back
to the other room and let’s get looking. We need to know what’s in
those elevators even if it turns out they’re empty, but if there is
someone in there who can help us, it’s worth risking our lives
for.”

* * * *

22

Rooftop Gathering

J
oe and Tracy
lay together on a cot in one of the
small rooms, his arms wrapped around her, her body snug against
his, her legs around him.

He wasn’t
sure if she was asleep, but kissed the top of her head anyway. He
thought he felt her smile when her cheek shifted against his
chest.

Things
didn’t progress any further than the kitchen and the two lay
clothed on the cot minus their weapons and boots. They just wanted
to lie there together, comforted, safe, a year’s worth of pain
finally melting away.

Joe
remembered that April and him had done the same thing the night she
stayed over at his place. There was something profound about just
sleeping next to someone instead of it always being about sex. To
his surprise, the memory of once doing this with April didn’t
bother him and instead just became a highlight of his past and
nothing more. Was it possible it was finally over? Had he actually
moved on? He hoped he had and gave Tracy another squeeze. She
squeezed him back.

So she is awake.
“How
long do you want to sleep for?” he asked.

She shrugged. “At least four or five
hours for sure. Be amazing if we can get in seven or eight, but I’m
not used to sleeping that long unless I completely
crash.”

“Me neither.”

“What do you want to do when we get
up?”

“Well, how
about have something to eat, get cleaned up a bit, then take it
from there?”

She sighed. “I feel the same way. A
part of me would be fine just staying in now instead of getting out
there hunting.”

“Me, too. It’s like I just simply need to take a break,
a
real
break.”

After a few
seconds, she said, “The thing is we know we can’t. We are still
going to need to do some scavenging, remain on the alert. It’s so
dangerous out there and given what happened at the Hub, I don’t
want the same thing to happen here. Would feel like if I left
them—not saying we need to go somewhere else, just saying in
general—that I’d be betraying them. There’s few of us left and if
we separate, unless we align with a new group of survivors, we
won’t have any hope.”

“
No, you’re right. At one point, sure, maybe we can look at
going somewhere or even
—just
mentioning it—we might be able to actually find someplace for us,
someplace nice, maybe even a place that’s normal. But, yeah, we
need to stay put. In the city, I mean. I know that I have to stay
because of . . . of Billie and August. They’ll come back here
looking for me, which means I have to be here. They have no idea
what this version of Winnipeg is like as they were taken pretty
much when we arrived. Unless they’re already back and trying to
find me, they don’t know what to expect.”

“They’re from your world, I
understand,” she said.

The two
remained quiet for a moment, then Joe said, “Thanks for being here
with me tonight, Tracy. This means everything to me.”

She hugged him tight. “Yeah, me, too.
Feels so good to be in your arms.” She looked up at him, eyes
hopeful.

He brought
his lips to hers and kissed her ever so gently and as
affectionately as he possibly could. Unable to pull away, he leaned
in further, the angle slightly uncomfortable. Tracy must have
sensed it because she adjusted herself and came on top of him,
pressing her lips hard against his, pulling him so close and so
tight he could barely breathe.

He didn’t
care.

Tracy.

He was so
lost in her touch, when Felix shouted into the room, it caused him
to grab her by the shoulders and swiftly role her off him as if
getting caught by a parent.

“What?” Tracy asked, running a hand
through her hair.

Hope this doesn’t turn into anything,
Joe thought. Sure, Felix had been with Tracy when
he met them on the road, but there wasn’t—rather,
hadn’t
—been anything between them so far as he knew.

“Something’s not right outside,” Felix
said.

Joe’s heart sank with
relief.

“What is it?” Tracy said.

“The creatures.
One of
the scouts came in and said the giants are forming rank and the
smaller ones are doing the same.”

“Forming rank?” Joe said.

“Some sort
of aligning of themselves, not in straight lines like soldiers, but
not in a big mob either. They seem to be making a precise formation
but until we can get a look from the air, there’s no way to tell
what it is, if anything at all.”

“Am I supposed to do something?” Tracy
asked.

“You’re being called to the fore. You
know why. Get yourselves together and we’ll go upstairs.” Felix
left.

Tracy sat on the edge of the cot and
rubbed her face.

“Why do they need you up there?” Joe
asked.

“I’m a good
shot, and they value my assessment of the creatures given all my
time out on the field.”

“I’m going with you.”

She smiled and gave him a peck on the
lips. “You better.”

After
getting their gear together and a quick bathroom break, she led him
to the back corner of the safe house. There was a single red
cubicle divider adjacent to another wall with a matching red
door.

“Didn’t see
this earlier,” Joe said, nodding toward the door.

“Usually
it’s covered with this thing.” She gave a quick kick to the cubicle
wall. She pulled out her keys and unlocked the door, which led to a
hallway. Tracy fired up the flashlight; her and Joe entered. “This
is an emergency exit-slash-roof access passageway we created when
this place came down. The building underneath has collapsed, but
those who built this place—so the story goes—adjusted the rubble
above and between layering slabs of concrete on an angle and
building a similarly-angled passageway beneath, it’s given us
access to the roof of the building beside it, which also has a fire
escape.”

“Just in
case the safe house gets infiltrated.”

“Exactly. Despite the fights and
arguments that sometimes broke out at the Hub, one thing everyone
could agree on was safety and contingency plans to ensure
that.”

Joe thought
of the safe house being invaded by the giant undead and wondered if
they’d had a contingency plan for that. He wouldn’t ask Tracy,
though, at least not right now lest he struck a nerve.

At the end
of the hallway there was a left turn that led to a series of
plywood slats that lined another hallway, but this one was clearly
makeshift given how uneven the floor was and how the walls seemed
to angle in or out at times instead of standing straight. The
hallway was short, which made the climb steep. His foot
slipped.

“Watch it,” Tracy said. “It was built
that way on purpose. People can figure out how to climb up
something, takes the undead longer.”

At the top
was a door and again she produced her keys, put the flashlight in
her mouth, and shone it at the knob as she unlocked it.

“Certainly a lot of keys,” Joe
said.