Redemption of the Dead (30 page)

“You can’t leave them,” she
said.

“They’re
bit, all of them. They’ll either turn fast or, if we carry them,
it’ll slow the rest of us down or they could turn.”

“Can’t risk it.”

Joe said, “I’m going to
—” Just as he stepped forward, presumably to see if he
could save the others, more of the dead drew closer. He shot down a
few before quickly being preoccupied with a screaming Jessica on
his shoulder.

Everyone
running, they managed to sidestep a handful of creatures then hit
the nearest alleyway. One of the people jumped into a dumpster,
while the others kept going.

Is he crazy?
Tracy
thought. To Joe: “I’ll get him.”

She ran to
the dumpster and saw Cameron, a middle-aged dude with a gentle
demeanor, huddled up in the corner. She reached out her hand,
glanced up and saw Joe and the others disappear around a corner.
“Cam, give me your hand. You can’t stay here. They’ll climb over
and you’ll be dead or worse.”

“They can’t
smell me in here. It stinks so bad that I’m going to hurl.” He let
rip into the corner he was huddled against.

Perfect,
she thought.
The undead were getting closer. They had about ten seconds to act
or there was going to be a fight. Cam took her hand, coating it in
puke.

“Thanks a lot,” she said, and pulled
him to the edge of the dumpster, tugging on his shirt as he started
to climb over.

Once his
feet hit the ground, the two made a break for it. Tracy fired off a
shot behind her and took out the monster nearest them. Heading the
same way Joe did, she had to stop when a couple of other rotters
came around the same corner. She shot them down, went after Joe,
who was with the others who were already up ahead a solid two
sidewalk lengths.

“Let’s go, Cam,” she said and tugged
on his sleeve.

He stared at her and only when the
blood poured from his mouth did he fall forward, a zombie on his
back biting deep into his neck. Tracy sent a bullet into the
creature’s head, then kept on to avoid the others
nearing.

Sorry I couldn’t stop you from changing, Cam.
If only she had some extra time, but
how much she would’ve needed varied. Some people came back from the
dead right away; others took days, some even longer.

She ran to
catch up, not having to fire a single shot after managing to dodge
around a couple of the creatures that tried to grab her. She ran
past a body and saw it was Gail, another of the group. She, too,
hadn’t turned yet.

Once back together again, they did a
headcount: five. Her, Joe, Dean, Jessica and Rob.

The swarms
were growing thick and time was of the essence. The group continued
as one down the sidewalk, moving quickly, but not at an all-out run
lest somebody tire and fall behind.

“We’ve lost half already,” Joe said
when she caught up to him. “We just left.”

“I know.”

“There might
be too many this time. Far too many. Unless we stay ahead, that’s
it.”

“Don’t think like that.”

“It’s reality, Tracy.”

“Doesn’t
have to be. Remember, I need you to be strong right now. If this
thing between you and me is softening you up—”

“Don’t tell
me that. I’ve heard enough of that before all this. Trust me, I was
fully immersed in nice guys finishing last. I was a master at
it.”

“Okay, sorry.”
Touchy. This isn’t the time to let your relationship screw
up everything. Why did I even bring it up? I’m such an idiot. Can I
have it that bad that I’ve just been fighting what I know to be
true: that I actually have a chance at happiness and I’m trying to
be all tough by shutting it down even though, technically, it’s
already underway? Come on, Tracy, you’re crazy. You’re in a
life-or-death situation, a major one, and you’re thinking about a
boy. This is so not you.
She
basically had the same conversation with herself in her head three
more times before she decided:
Swallow it. Shut up. Just shut up, forget about it and stay
one hundred percent on the present. That stuff doesn’t matter. It
just doesn’t.

Turning at the next corner, options
were slim.

“There,” Joe said, pointing to a set
of cement steps that led to the basement of Johnny G’s.

“How did we end up here? We were
totally going in the opposite direction,” Tracy said.

“Weren’t you
paying attention? We basically more than double backed. Was the
only way to stay ahead of them. They’re going to the inner city, we
start backing out.”

He
was right. Her mind had been elsewhere. Completely.
Stupid!

The five
headed down the steps. The basement door to the place was a faux
door, once used but no longer. Joe kicked against it and beat it
with his fists. It didn’t budge.

Rob squeezed
in between them. “Let me.” He shoved Joe aside and railed into the
door with his shoulder. He did it two more times then took out his
gun and shot the lock off the handle and also the two hinges on the
left side. With a yank on the handle, he ripped the door away, the
door itself remaining intact but the frame of wood around it that
had secured it to the one inside was in splinters.

“How did
you—” Tracy started.

“Strategic shooting,” Rob said as he
waved everyone in. “Kidding. Just weakened the framing enough so we
could get in. Besides, your boyfriend here was hitting against it
instead of pulling.” Rob winked.

Tracy couldn’t help but
laugh.

“Okay,
funny, ha ha,” Joe said. “Besides, so were you.” He went
inside.

Rob rolled
his eyes and waved Tracy in with a “lady’s first”
gesture.

From inside the door, Joe said, “Come
on, Tracy.”

She went in, Rob behind. Once in, Dean
and Rob went to work getting the door up, while Joe went and
started grabbing chairs from the tables in the billiard room they
found themselves in.

Rob and Dean
talked quietly by the door.

“I think we’re okay,” Rob
said.

“We need to hammer this down,” Dean
said.

Joe stacked chairs beside the door but
not in front of it. He gestured to them and said, “For later,”
before going off to get some more.

Using her flashlight to find her away
around in the dark, Tracy followed the side wall of the billiard
room until she found the stairs that led up to the main lounge and
restaurant. There was a door at the top, still closed. She drew her
gun and cautiously approached it. She tested the handle. Locked.
Good. She quietly went down the stairs.

The men were scouring the room, the
bar, beneath stools and tables, presumably looking for something to
secure the door with.

Tracy went over to Jessica. “How are
you holding up?”

The thin girl stood there, hands
wrapped around her elbows. “I feel stupid and terrible. Look what I
did!”

“Shhh, keep
your voice low.”

Jessica
broke down. Tracy put her arm around her and brought her over to
one of the cushioned benches on the side. Jessica wouldn’t stop
crying. All Tracy could do was wait it out. In the meantime, she
hoped Joe and the guys would figure out how to ensure the door was
locked in place.

* * * *

29

The War Begins

Many
hours later . .
.

The loud echoing sound of a plane was
heard even down in the billiard room of Johnny G’s. Joe sat at the
pool table on one of the benches, the table lined with bullets and
guns, everyone having disarmed shortly after they got here, a
chance to take inventory.

“A
plane,” Joe said.
Really?
He got up from
the table and got close to the door, which had since been boarded
over using planks from the handful of cushioned benches down here.
With the cushions removed, they had been able to get at the joints
where the seat met the legs and through prying and patience, were
able to get the planks off while retaining the anchoring nails.
They used the butt of a gun to hammer them in place and all was
well.

Joe put his
ear to the door and listened closely.

Tracy was
suddenly beside him. She had a way to sneak up on someone and
whether she just did it now intentionally or not, it didn’t matter.
She was amazing.

“Shhh,” Joe said. “Listen.”

Tracy leaned her ear closer to the
door. They waited. The sound returned, this time louder than
before. Tracy’s eyes went wide. Joe smiled.

“They’re
probably flying over,” she said.

“I know.
They’re not here for us, but if they’re flying over, they’ll see
the legions of the dead outside. That’s got to count for something,
especially if it’s connected in some way.”

Jessica came
up to the door, too.

“Going to tell Dean and Rob,” Tracy
said.

“Sure,” Joe replied.

Jessica stood with him,
quiet.

Tracy had been able to talk to her, she later said, and was
able to give the young girl some perspective and help alleviate the
guilt. Tracy’s wisdom worked so much
that Jessica had taken Joe privately aside and apologized
for putting him and the others in jeopardy earlier.

The sound
of the plane
returned and this time didn’t fade out. It got louder and louder,
and the idea it was going down and would crash right near them
flashed inside Joe’s mind. He listened some more. It wasn’t going
down, but it
was
close.

Dean and Rob came by to listen,
too.

“What do you think?” Rob asked
Dean.

Dean had to raise his voice to be
heard above the sound of the plane. “That big thing that we figured
was happening?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s happening. That’s not one plane.
That’s three of them, if not four. And big suckers,
too.”

All looked at him with
surprise.

“Trust me. Been a plane fanatic my
whole life.” His face went white. “They better not bomb
us.”

Joe’s heart
skipped a beat at that one. If indeed those were military
planes—and big ones, like Dean said—they could be bombers and there
was no way to know what they were carrying onboard. The zombie
giants couldn’t be taken down by conventional means, at least the
means that most everyone had. They’d have to come down with
missiles, even flat out bombs. So far as Joe knew, Canada didn’t
have any nukes, and if it did, they kept it a well-locked secret.
Even then, the logistics involved in that. He also remembered this
wasn’t his city, even his Earth. Things were different here and
nuclear technology and who had what could be one of
them.

“We stay in for now,” Joe said, “and
lay low. We listen and we wait. We have to.”

* * * *

“Are you
sure you’re ready for this, Billie?” she asked herself as she sat
in the cockpit of DK-14-P2-X Mech. Personnel were few, but she got
a crash course on the twelve-hour flight over.

The aircraft
was going to touch down on the Legislative grounds, the Legislature
Building and surrounding structures destroyed, leaving a nice wide
open space. Her, Sven—who had a Jetlier—and Bastian—who opted for a
M-16 Harness—were to stick together. There were five planes in all,
each loaded with weaponry from the pick up at Wales. From the air,
Billie and the rest of the crew got a good look at what was going
on below. The giants—all ten of them—had gathered in twos
side-by-side, each duo facing the other in a kind of circle, behind
them a vast army of zombies assembled like a pyramid, the combined
effect creating a pentagram. Billie didn’t have to guess the reason
for that specific formation. Most likely it was a calling card,
even an access point. What might come through that access point,
well, she only hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

The whole
plane shook as it hit the ground. These things were designed for
quick touch-and-gos. It didn’t need much to slow down before
stopping. When the plane stopped moving, the giant doors to the
rear of the plane opened, revealing an expanse of chewed-up lawn
covered in brown and yellow dead grass.

Home sweet home,
she
thought.

A
voice came through the comm. inside the mech. “
B-8, this is squad leader, do you read me,
over?
”

“Got you
loud and clear,” she said, then placed her hands inside the control
cylinders beside her. Inside the cylinders were grips and handles
for her fingers, like bicycle handles only smaller, and instead of
one brake on each handle, there were four small ones, each with
their own function. In front of her about flush with her stomach
was a control box with more buttons. She stood in the mech like
wearing an oversized ski suit, her feet and legs stopping around
the knee of the exoskeleton. There was a slight cushioned ridge to
support her backside. The front was covered over in a bulletproof
shield with a small view window so she could see. The mech’s giant
hands and arms were controlled by her hands inside the cylinders.
There was a gas pedal by her right foot, a brake with the other to
make the mech walk or stop. With another switch, she could fold the
legs and use the wheels on their sides like a car. Turning was
operated via a small joystick by each of her thumbs, one for
pivoting side-to-side, the other to go up-and-down.