Redemption of the Dead (17 page)

Doesn’t matter,
she
thought, and went further in. She checked the various divided
areas, some empty, others with folks chatting, some exercising,
others resting. Toward the end was the aroma of what smelled like
veggie soup.

She followed
her nose to the end then stopped walking when she sensed someone
behind her. Dean Brandt, one of the original planners of the safe
house and on its team of architects. He was also the unofficial
head honcho. He looked much older since she last saw him, the
stress of the recent days having turned most of his hair gray. He
was unshaven, scruffy, and looked like he hadn’t been out of the
safe house for months. His dirty collared shirt and brown slacks
made him look even worse than he probably intended, not that looks
mattered these days.

“About time
you showed up,” he said, his sixty-or-so-year-old voice sounding
uncharacteristically young against his old and haggard
appearance.

“Other things came up
.” She stepped closer to him.

He embraced her and she wasn’t sure if
it was for the right reasons. Either way, she didn’t like being
touched. He let go. “You obviously know what happened.”

“I
saw.”

Dean put his fingers to his lips. “Oh
my. I hope you didn’t get hurt.”

“Wasn’t
there when it happened.”

“Good. Not
many made it, at least from what we can ascertain. I came here
immediately after I escaped. Others followed. So few compared to
what we had.”

“I can see
that,” she said, remembering how many people were actually down
here with them.

“A handful
of other survivors that managed to stay alive elsewhere in the city
and the suburbs followed a couple of Hub survivors in here, which
is fine, just mentioning. One couple had been with us. Saw their
young daughter eaten alive, completely devoured by a whole crowd of
the monsters. They lasted with us for just a few short hours before
completely losing it. They started to yell and thrash and destroy
things around here so we had to throw them out. I don’t think they
made it on the outside, though. Sorry. Don’t know why I’m telling
you all this.”

“It’s okay,”
she said. “Got to tell someone. Hard to keep in.” She coughed. “You
didn’t take in a young man, short, short hair, unshaven, wearing
black, did you?” Joe didn’t know where the safe house was, but she
thought she’d check anyway in case someone of their party brought
him down here from the outside.

“No one that fits that description,
no. Friend of yours?”

“His name is Joe and we’ve been together for the past
bit.”
Wait.
“Not together-together, I mean, on
the run together, watching each other’s backs and
stuff.”

“I see.” He
looked at her as if she was holding something back, which she was,
but it wasn’t his business anyway.

“One of the reasons I came here is for
arms,” she said. “How are we in that department?”

“We have
some old stock and a small new one. We salvaged what we could from
the old site, but didn’t come up with much. Most of it was buried
and it’s too dangerous to go excavate now. What do you
need?”

“Ideally a
.9mm, probably two, enough ammo to last me a couple of days, and
any walkie-talkies, if you have, so I can keep in touch with the
safe house.”

“Got the former, I think, but not the
latter. Communications in general have been shaky, and had even
started to get so prior to the attack on the Hub. Safety first,
networking later, and all that.”

“Take me to the armory,” she
said.

“I’ll take you to my quarters,” he
said.

She looked at him crossly.

“It’s where the guns are.”

“Oh.”

* * * *

16

Two Roads

A
t first it
had been tempting to walk to that
pack of rotters, hold out his hands and let them take him, but Joe
decided not to let his emotions get the best of him and instead
swiftly dealt with the undead threat that had come near
him.

Now, tired of walking in the dusty air
and heading back to the house he shared with Tracy, he tried to
think of excuse after excuse as to his leaving again only to come
up short every time.

There really is just one choice in all this,
he thought.
I got to tell her the truth. She’s got to understand
or it’ll at the very least make sense to her.

The trek
into the city was supposed to have lasted a full day, even two, but
instead the round trip would take him about nine hours.

Joe pulled
the steak knife from his belt and was near the area of their
overturned truck. He wanted to see if he could find the X-09 nearby
as Tracy had lost it during the tumble. Keeping his eyes peeled for
any walking dead, he adjusted his course and it didn’t take long
until he was beside the vehicle and checked it over top to bottom.
He couldn’t see the gun anywhere even after brushing through the
debris surrounding the truck.

Did she have it and accidentally dropped it
elsewhere?
He hoped not
because that meant the gun could be anywhere, with
anyone
. He rounded the vehicle again, scanning back and forth
beside it for the weapon, double checking.

It wasn’t there.

“What, did
the zombies take it?” he said with a smirk. Maybe this was a good
thing? Maybe it was a sign that it was time to move on, and since
the X-09 had been so much a part of himself, it was the first thing
that had to go.

Thinking
about the gun made him think back to Billie and August, even Des,
and how, despite their differences, everything seemed to click with
them and they got along. He was happy that their camaraderie wasn’t
based simply in them all being survivors and having no choice but
to work together. There was a chemistry there, each with a role to
fill: him with the gun and deadly aim, Billie the brains and
attitude, Des comedic relief, and August a father figure and
spiritual guide.

He couldn’t wait to see August and
Billie again. It’d almost be like old times except for Des being
gone.

Feet getting
sore, the injury to his side pulsing and stinging, Joe looked
forward to getting back and putting his feet up—after talking to
Tracy, of course. He hoped she was taking it easy, relaxing on the
couch, keeping an eye out through the window for any undead that
might be going through the neighborhood. Maybe she even searched
out another house or two and found some food. His stomach growled.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had a proper meal and his
half of the can of chickpeas had run its course. He noticed the
lack of food having an effect on his energy, and though he felt
fine from the neck down, he was tired from the neck up, fatigue
hanging over his eyes, his brain given to bouts of
fuzziness.

“Sooo thirsty . . .”
Just go home and relax.
He shook his head. “I mean, just go back to the house and
relax. Get a new game plan going. It’ll work out.” He stopped
walking, turned in a circle, checking for zombies, then, seeing
none, faced the direction he was going. He was at the corner of
Main and the Chief Peguis Trail, the bridge that would take him
over to Henderson and right into the Haven. Standing there
shouldn’t have been as big a deal as it was, but the first thing
that came to mind was the image of a forked road.

“Robert
Frost,” he said. Maybe the old Joseph was closer to the surface
than he thought? But if he went down Chief Peguis Trail, he’d
definitely be back deep in the undead world he spent so much time
fighting.

Him, Billie
and Des had left the Haven because the zombies were coming in from
downtown and infiltrating the area they had pretty much left alone
save for a pocket of them here or there. Joe hadn’t checked out the
Haven in this world so wasn’t sure if it was undergoing the same
transition, though judging by the number of undead downtown, maybe
the switching of locations hadn’t taken place?

“Not going to risk it,” he said, ashamed he wouldn’t start
up the crusade again.
At
least not without a gun.
He
glanced in the direction of the truck and felt the inner nudge to
go back and do one more sweep for the X-09. With his head fuzzy, he
mistrusted his own memory of his previous effort to find
it.

You got to move on,
he
told himself. He thought back to his looking for the weapon.
It’s not there, let it go, and if it
is there, then you’re not meant to find it. Maybe on the way back,
if I come down this way with Tracy. I don’t know, we’ll
see.

Joe looked
down the Trail one last time then headed down Main as planned, body
on edge and ready for any attacker that might come his
way.

* * * *

Over an hour
later, Joe arrived on the street with the house, having taken down
a few gutmunchers along the way. Satisfied none of the creatures
were around as he neared the house, he noticed the SUV was gone.
Either she was too, or, maybe she brought it into the garage for
safety reasons. He jogged to the door and rang the doorbell. He
waited. No answer. He rang the bell again. Same thing. He pounded
on the door with the side of his fist, the pain in his wrist
igniting in the process. The curtains were all drawn so there was
no way to look in.

Maybe she’s asleep,
he
thought, which he didn’t have a problem with.

He rounded
the back and entered the way they had originally through the
kitchen window. The house was quiet.

Joe went to
the sink to turn on the water. “Right, not working.” He noticed his
note on the kitchen table and that the mallet and cleaver were
gone. “Uh oh.” Quickly, he ran from room to room, even the
basement, calling Tracy’s name. He turned up empty. “She better not
have—”

His side
stung and he knew he had to take care of it right away. He attended
to it immediately, using the distraction to let his subconscious
work out where Tracy might have gone. “Maybe for food?” he said as
he looked through the medicine cabinet. He found painkillers and
popped four in his mouth, chewed them quick to get them working
fast, eyes watering from the awful bitter taste. Man, he needed
some water to wash the grit down and his thirst was driving him
mad. He didn’t find any gauze or dressings for wounds, but did find
a bottle of peroxide.

Taking it,
he wandered through the house, looking for a sewing machine. He
didn’t find one and couldn’t think of where the people who lived
here might have kept any darning supplies, if they had
any.

“This is
going to suck,” he said and went down to the workshop in the
basement, found a tube of super glue, then headed to the bathroom
where he took his shirt off and checked out the wound. Edges
ragged, the wound looked like someone had mashed a piece of cherry
pie up against his side then added bits of wet cracker just for
good measure. Hopefully it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

Joe leaned
over the tub, opened up the peroxide, then braced himself for a
buttload of pain. He poured the peroxide on the wound. What felt
like someone taking a whip to his skin stung the area, causing his
insides to lock and quiver. He did it a few more times, each splash
worse than the last. Side numb, he was able to dab away the excess
peroxide with a towel, then got to work pinching the open flaps of
skin together after putting a line of super glue between. He didn’t
know how safe this was, but he had to keep it closed somehow. As
always, the super glue proved strong enough to bind anything
together. He checked the gash on his forearm and, after cleaning
it, glued it shut as well. Holding a towel to his side, Joe left
the bathroom and hit the couch in the front room where he stretched
out as much as his side would let him, letting himself ooze into
the cushions and take a breather.

He still
didn’t know what to do about Tracy, and could only pray she was
okay.

* * * *

The short
nap was needed, and though Joe hadn’t been out for long, it was
enough to take the edge off and give him the boost he required to
get going again. He checked the house once more, thinking maybe
Tracy had returned while he was sleeping and let him rest. She
wasn’t there and the SUV wasn’t in the garage.

“I
have no idea where she is,” he said.
Smart plan would be to stay put, but she took the
SUV
and
the weapons. Is she coming back, even? Should I
wait until tonight to see if she returns?
“This sucks.”

He decided
to wait a short while longer, and if she didn’t return, he aimed to
go to the only place he could think she might have gone.

The Hub.

* * * *

One year ago . .
.

The demons had left Hell’s
great chasm except for those who were commanded to remain with the
damned and oversee their suffering.

Bethrez shut down the
portal and the magnificent vortex of red, orange and yellow light
disappeared, leaving the three in darkness, only the ambient glow
of the Lake of Fire their illumination.