Cry Zombie Cry (I Zombie Book 5) (4 page)

It has always been rumored that technology would eventually be the ultimate demise of man. The singularity would occur and machines would take over. The tiniest fragment of my intelligence begged me to consider it possible the singularity had finally arrived—in human form. The lowest common denominator had won out and would overtake the planet with predictable stupidity and greed. Ignorance and power were the new currency.

I propped the laptop back on my lap and minimized the Obliterator application. In its place came the tracker. The application ran in the background, collecting tons of data from the network at large. Any time specific suspect words were captured, traveling across the global network of connected computers and communication satellites, a flag would be raised and the data packets logged. Once the tracker had collected enough data, I could sift through the information and begin piecing together the location of the Zero Day Collective and Jacob. It was only a matter of time before they appeared on my radar. The NSA and Sherlock Holmes had nothing on me.

As soon as the tracker window was open, Jamal peered over my shoulder, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. I could feel his warm breath on my neck as my eyes ripped through the information. A pattern started to develop.

Mobile unit.

Biologist.

Zero Day Collective.

Jacob.

40.0176 degrees North.

105.2797 degrees West.

“
Bethany,” Jamal whispered, “that’s Boulder, Colorado. But what does it mean by “Mobile unit”?”

“
Well, Jamal, I would assume it means that whoever is sending out these communications happens to be on some sort of mobile Zero Day Collective biological unit. In other words, it’s moving.”

Jamal sighed. “So getting a fixed location isn’t likely.”

I nodded.

Jamal grinned. “Yes, but…if you get a number of consecutive coordinates, you can at least predict where the unit will be at a given time. Of course, that would require knowing what type of unit and at what speed they were traveling.”

Before Jamal could continue, I silenced him with a palm to the lips.

“
Joshua, how quickly can you get us to Boulder?”

Josh laughed. “At this rate it’ll take, oh, forever!”

Again, Morgan smacked Josh across the back of the head.

“
I’m just fucking with you. We get back up to speed soon, and I can have you there in a day…tops.”

“
B, what do you have in mind?”

Before I could answer Jamal, a soul-destroying roar ripped through the truck. The prehistoric release was followed by the shattering of glass and a pale arm reaching into the truck. Dirty, blood-soaked fingers tangled deep into Echo’s hair and yanked hard. Echo released a cry that was almost too high in pitch to hear as the arm pulled her head toward the shattered glass.

“
What the hell? The Obliterator is running strong.” Josh shouted, as he gave the volume knob for the Obliterator one last turn.

“
Oh my God, look at its ears,” was all Morgan needed to say.

Blood was caked around both ears. A thick, viscous liquid bubbled from the holes on the side of his head.

“
The fucker cracked his skull on the cement until he went deaf,” Joshua added. “Perfect immunity to the power of the Obliterator.”

The beast gave another tug that pulled Echo’s head nearer the shattered window. Echo’s arms flailed outward to thwart the thing’s attempts at commandeering her skull.

“
Josh,” Morgan screamed, “your weapon!”

“
Help me!” Echo cried out, the top of her head now dangerously close to the hole in the window. Glass shards awaited her frail flesh.

Josh had his gun out and was fumbling to free the safety when a shot rang from beyond the truck. Echo’s hair was released and she leaped into my waiting arms. Everyone in the truck exchanged curious glances. Outside, the Obliterator continued its soul-destroying song.

A fresh face appeared in the hole that had tried to swallow Echo. A pair of kohl-rimmed eyes, filled with an electric energy, looked through. Her jet-black hair cut and tousled like she sang for a Joan Jett tribute band.

“
Everyone okay in there?”

“
Holy shit,” Morgan shouted. “Rizzo, is that really you?”

“
In the flesh and boner. How’s my favorite girlfriend?”

Morgan nearly squealed before she spoke. “I’m alive and…still not your girlfriend.”

“
Can ya blame a girl for trying? I come bearing gifts, by the way; if you consider gasoline to be ‘of the Magi.’”

“
From God, a gift from God.” Josh hooted as he opened his door and jumped out. Morgan started to shout after him, but stifled her cry and joined the dangerous liaison. Even from within the thick steel of the Hummer, and over the siren call of the Obliterator, the reunion of Morgan and this Rizzo character could be heard.

I pulled away from Echo’s embrace.

“
You two stay in the truck.”

Without further explanation, I opened the door and hopped to the ground. When I arrived at the other side of the Hummer, Josh was hauling twin jerricans out of an almost identical truck. All around us, Moaners and Screamers were in various stages of opening their own brainpans onto the cement. The sight was beyond comprehension. What should have had us curling into permanent fetal states was little more than background noise at that moment.
This is not good,
I thought. If we continued down this road we’d never survive. Desensitization should never reach this level of “meh.”

“
Bethany, this is Rizzo. She’s been my right-hand girl for the last three years. She heads up the NOCAL Zombie Response Team.”

“
No way,” Rizzo beamed, “you mean this is
the
Bethany, as in Nit-freakin-shimi?”

Before another word could be said, Rizzo pulled me into a powerhouse of a hug. The strength of the girl took me by surprise. She was small, maybe five foot tall, and had the face and body of a pixie. Her misplaced smile—something the Mengele Virus seemed to have virtually eradicated—shamed the sun. Her hair and dress was a comfortable mixture of goth, punk, and scene. I was looking at Echo’s older sister… or future Echo. Either way, the similarity was eerie.

“
I want to have your babies,” Rizzo grinned, as she pulled away.

“
Cool down, Rizzo,” Morgan laughed. “There’ll be plenty of time for flirting once we clear this mess.”

Within a blink, Rizzo was all business. “What’s the plan?”

“
First and foremost, were you followed?”

“
No. And no one else knows about my current whereabouts. When I saw your transponder distress I assumed covert ops were in order.”

As Rizzo spoke, her eyes shifted from Morgan to me. The slightest blush rose on her cheeks. The cutest thing on the planet had officially arrived.

Would that I were gay.

“
Hummer has enough fuel to get us to the next station—hopefully.” Josh interrupted our little threesome.

“
What do you mean,
hopefully
?”

Morgan’s sharp question caught Josh off guard.

“
I mean…well…I have no idea where the next station is. So how can I be one hundred percent sure we have enough—?”

“
There’s a station about five miles north of us.” Rizzo to the rescue.

Morgan turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “Well, Bethany?”

What was the plan? The only idea I had was the endgame—stuffing the Zero Day Collective down the throats of the undead army they’d created, then watching them die and turn to rot. We needed more than that. My brain buzzed through every piece of information we had. The single most relevant bit was the location of the ZDC—somewhere in Boulder, Colorado. To confuse matters, they were most likely on the move. With our current vulnerable state, we’d never stand a chance against the same destructive machine that had dropped mankind to its knees.

We needed to organize. That meant we needed a base of operations.

I turned to Morgan. “Where is the nearest Zombie Response Team unit in relation to Boulder?”

“
Denver was compromised, so that leaves New Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s not our largest cell, but the base is well protected.”

“
That’s our next move. The ZRT in New Salt Lake City.”

Morgan grabbed Rizzo and turned her so they were almost nose-to-nose.

“
You’re coming with us. I’ve spent too much time without you by my side.”

I stepped into the secretive tête-à-tête
to add my own commandment. “And absolute radio silence. No one is to know what we are doing or where we are going. The Zero Day Collective is listening. We cannot give them any information that would tip them off.”

“
Hold that thought.” Rizzo zipped away before I could continue. No sooner had I turned to Morgan to get a bit more information on our newly acquired teammate, Rizzo returned with an army-grade walkie-talkie.

“
If you need me, use this. It runs on an encrypted channel. No civilian unit can pick up on this signal.”

I glared at the proffered walkie.

“
I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The Zero Day Collective are surprisingly brilliant at breaking the rules of nature, technology, and physics. If they can fuck us, they will. No foreplay, no lube. Fortunately, we have me on our side.” I offered my hand out to Rizzo. “Let me see that walkie for a moment.”

As soon as the piece of tech was in my hand, I instructed Rizzo to grab its mate and take it to Jamal. The second she was out of sight, I turned to the Hummer and grabbed Jamal’s attention.

“
Remember that radio mod we created in school?”

Jamal grinned like a boy who’d seen his first naked woman. “I do. It was a thing of beauty.”

“
How long would it take us to reverse engineer this radio and its mate with the same level of encryption?”

Before I could ask another question, he had the radio in his hands. After a single tilt of the head, his big brown eyes looked up at me and he smiled again. “Give me twenty minutes and a kiss.”

The second the word came out of Jamal’s mouth, his cheeks flushed brilliant red.

“
Did I actually voice that? Please tell me you didn’t hear—”

Instead of enjoying Jamal wriggle and writhe his way out of this one, I pressed my lips against his. The moment wasn’t perfect, but it was one filled with certainty and a level of secure familiarity I hadn’t felt in a long time. Even without “perfect,” I wanted to dwell in the moment and forget the shit-storm that drained the planet of the will to live.

“
Okay, you can have them in ten,” Jamal winked, and turned to focus on the task at hand. With his head out of the way, I caught a glimpse of Echo; the look on her face was beyond precious. When she nodded, I knew things were headed down the right path.

For that one second, I felt alive again, like there was something to pull me out of the downward spiral. Yes, my heart was still broken by the loss of baby Jacob. Yes, I knew nearly every ounce of energy I had was focused on his return. But fuck, my heart still needed to beat a steady rhythm before it forgot how. That kiss was the jump-start I needed.

A single, simple kiss and I am once again a woman, a human…alive.

I wanted to cry. My hormones were waging a war I wasn’t sure I could win. I was suffering the first ever case of post-apocalyptic-partum depression. Before I dropped to my knees and let loose a Medea-level wail of sorrow, I rushed away from the Hummer.

“
Morgan,” I called out, the second I spotted her. “I’ve got Jamal modifying the walkies. We’ll be able to safely use them as we travel. Oh, and I don’t think Rizzo should go alone.”

“
Agreed. I’ll send Joshua with her. It’s going to be a long trip. We’ll stop, fuel up, locate some supplies, and make our way to New Salt Lake City. Once we’re there…?” Morgan’s eyebrow shot up.

“
We start planning for world domination.”

Morgan nodded and sped off toward Rizzo and Josh.

*

We finally managed to get on the road. Morgan looked perfectly at home behind the wheel of the Hummer. Out of curiosity, I switched on the radio. The last time I checked, the FM frequencies were a wasteland of static. There were a few pirate radio stations scattered along the AM dial, but most of them filled the airwaves with conspiracy theories born of hatred and ignorance. You never knew what flavor of stupidity you would land on.