Redemption of the Dead (32 page)

“Good thinking,” Dean said.

“I’m coming with you,” Tracy
said.

Joe shot her a look that said,
No, you stay here. I’ll be back in a
second.

She ignored it and swatted him in the
shoulder to get him moving.

The two climbed out from under the
table and surveyed the damage to the room. A pile of rubble and
debris from the fallen ceiling sat in a heap on the ground, but it
wasn’t high enough for either of them to climb and get up to the
second level.

Joe nudged her forward, gun poised.
“We’ll go up on there, I’ll lift you.”

That was
not
a good idea. She might be
rough-and-tumble around the edges, but a girl’s weight was a girl’s
weight and she did not want Joe hoisting her. “Sorry,” she
said.

“Too bad. I’ve lifted you before.
Doesn’t matter.”

Right. Forgot.
They
got up on the heap. He bent down and grabbed her just above the
knees and hoisted her up. She leaned her backside against his
shoulder for support and was able to see into the upstairs of the
restaurant. There were no rotters from what she could see, but the
place was trashed so she wasn’t certain.

“Hard to tell. Everything’s
everywhere,” she said. “Get closer. I might be able to climb
up.”

“No.”

“Then I can’t tell you if it’s
safe.”

“Fine.” He
took a few steps closer, holstered his weapon, then with both hands
gave her a big boost. Tracy was able to grab onto the broken corner
of the ceiling, careful to take hold of where the flooring met the
joists where possible for extra support. She pulled herself over
the edge, rolled over once for safety, then stood. The noise from
the battle outside was even louder up here, the dust worse as well.
She covered her mouth; her eyes began to water. The entire
restaurant was now a mess of tables and chairs. The bar up here was
covered in broken booze bottles, the pictures from the walls on the
seats beneath them. Even the awesome art piece of John Lennon, Bob
Dylan, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Neil Young on the wall was
splattered with blood. Over her shoulder at the fore of the
restaurant, through the broken wall, one of the giants lay in a
heap on top of the partially-demolished parkade across the street.
Its head was a giant crater of gore and bone; its huge hand was
close to the front of the restaurant, its fingers still
twitching.

A low rasp came from behind
her.

“See anything?” Joe called from
below.

“Hang on a sec.”

She walked a
few steps and saw a rotter behind the bar, a short one. It climbed
over the bar, looking at her the whole time. It was a kid, probably
four years old. Undead children were hard to face.

“Sorry,” she
said, lined up her shot, and took the young zombie down. She
scanned the room again, then yelled down to Joe, “I think that’s
it.”

The whistle
of what had to be a missile sung through the air. The explosion and
enormous crash afterward made Tracy instinctively throw her hands
to her ears. The ground shook and she fell backward over a fallen
chair and smacked her head on the overturned table
beyond.

“Tracy?” Joe said from
below.

“Fine,” she
said, but wasn’t sure if it was loud enough. That bump on the head
stung like the dickens.

“Tracy?”

“Coming,” she said louder.

The ground
shook some more. She went to the edge to climb back down to the
billiard room. Joe was facing away from her, gun aimed. She leaned
over the edge enough to see along his line of sight and saw there
was a big hole along the wall that buckled and cracked when the
ceiling came down.

Joe fired
off a shot the moment a rotter stuck its head through the hole. It
went limp, but already decaying gray hands were clawing past its
fallen comrade and trying to get in. Joe shouted for the others to
get out from under the pool table.

Over his shoulder, he called, “Tracy,
help them up.”

“I’ll try, but you’re going to have to
boost Rob and Dean.”

Joe fired off another shot.

The rest of the group gathered around
him.

“There’s lots,” Joe said.

Tracy looked
up to the broken wall toward the front. Fortunately, the main
restaurant was a good ten feet above street level so at least the
dead didn’t have direct access to it. It wouldn’t be long until
they started climbing, though.

“Hurry it up,” she said.

Rob lifted Jessica and Tracy pulled
her over the edge. Below, Rob told Joe to just keep an eye on the
hole and he’d lift Dean. He did and Tracy had to dig in with her
legs and back up as she held onto Dean’s wrists and pulled him
up.

Rob turned around and Tracy thought he
was going to tell Joe it was time to go, but instead the big man
spun Joe around and started lifting him to the edge.

“What are you doing?” Joe
asked.

“You go first.”

“Stop it.” But it was too late. Joe was already in position
to grab the ceiling.
With a
grunt, he pulled himself over the edge and then got on his haunches
and reached down to Rob. “Grab on!”

“You go,” Rob said.

“What’s the
matter with you?” Tracy said. “This is no time to be a
hero.”

“I’ll run interference. You guys
go.”

Undead faces started popping up near
the open front wall.

Joe said,
“We’re running out of time. Grab on. Don’t be a—”

“Go!” Rob disappeared from
view.

Tracy called down, “We’re going around
the back.”

Rob didn’t reply.

Joe dropped
onto his side and peered down into the hole. “Crap,” he said and
drew his gun and fired off a shot. “Idiot,” he said quietly. He
stood, took Tracy by the arm, and they started toward the
back.

“Is he . . . ?” she asked.

“They grabbed him. I shot one. Was too
late for the other.”

“That’s too
bad. I liked him, from what I knew of him.”

“Sorry, Tracy.”

The back
door was already open, probably having been kicked in at one point
prior when the looters had their heyday. They went through. The
back alley was clear. They headed straight across the alleyway and
into the parking lot beyond. The dust on the air was so thick that
Tracy couldn’t wait to finally find a clearing.

After they traversed the lot, they hit
the street beyond.

“Head down to the river,” Dean said.
“We’ll follow that.”

Tracy agreed. It was a safer route
unless there was something there she wasn’t expecting.

* * * *

31

It
’
s About
Time

T
he DK-14 had
been crowded by a horde of the dead
again, nearly knocking it over. Billie had been able to shake most
of them loose and shoot the others. For a short while there she let
a few hang on and bite at the metallic hull, letting their rotted
teeth crack and break until she was able to smash them against a
wall or parked car.

The comm.
had been quiet for the last ten minutes or so. She tried raising
people on it, but was met with silence, even from the squad leader.
As for Sven, her heart ached to think of what might have become of
him. She was truly looking forward to getting to know him more and,
maybe, dating him. Ignoring the forming tears, she motored on,
shooting down every creature she set her eyes on.

Explosions and the whistles of
missiles went off around her.

An
enormous foot set down in front of her; the entire cockpit shook.
She pressed down on the pedal and used the mech’s momentum to climb
up and over the giant’s foot and land on the other side. She kept
it going full throttle, the giant’s hand just missing her as
she
maneuvered out of the
way.

Another mech stepped in and opened
fire on the giant.

“It’s a waste,” she said into the
comm.

The mech kept shooting. The giant
reached down, picked it up, and threw it like a baseball. It
crashed into the remains of a fallen building.

Billie
checked the ammo read-out. A little under half down. She’d
purposefully stayed to the perimeter of the dead for easier
targeting and her own safety, but it still looked like she hadn’t
made a dent in their numbers.

Loud booms from cannons thundered; her Gatling guns whirred
at high pitch; the steady
rat-a-tat-tat-tat
of
machine guns added to the din. Visibility low due to the enormous
amount of dust on the air, she took the mech further away and hoped
the excessive dust wouldn’t interfere with the DK-14’s performance.
She hit a road gridlocked with abandoned vehicles. With a press of
the pedal, she took the mech up and over the cars, leaping from one
to the other, the mech’s powerful mechanical legs making light work
of the obstacles.

The next thing she knew, she found
herself by what was left of Earl’s Restaurant, and saw
a pack of zombies beneath the neighboring railway bridge. Heading
over there, she fired and killed them. There were more on the left
a further ways down. She went over and did the same.

“This is for all the times you nearly killed me,” she said.
“This is for August and Des. This is for Sven and Bastian.”
Oh Sven, I hope you’re all
right.

The dead
were obliterated by a maelstrom of bullets. Blood and flesh burst
into the air like liquid fireworks. Billie kept on, shooting
anything that moved. Everything. If it had legs—was that . . .
people? Up ahead, coming out of the Exchange and heading toward the
river? Hard to tell. She mashed down on the pedal to head over
there, Gatlings at the ready in case they were a pack of
monsters.

* * * *

The chalky
taste of dust in Joe’s mouth made him yearn for a drink of water.
He knew he wasn’t the only one dying of thirst. They found a bit of
booze at the billiard’s bar, but nothing thirst-quenching. The
little bit of Sailor Jerry rum he had took some of the edge off,
though. Even made him feel pretty good. Too bad the river was
polluted with all that gray rainwater.

Loud thunks
thumped along the pavement, sending vibrations into his feet. Down
the road was what looked like a huge robot barreling toward them.
Was he seeing things? Did his body need water so bad he was
starting to hallucinate?

He tapped
Tracy on the shoulder and pointed toward the robot. “Tell me you
don’t see that.”

“See what?” she said, then turned
around. “Oh. That.”

Joe held his gun aloft. Tracy did the
same along with Dean. Jessica held her sticks out. Joe didn’t have
the heart to tell her they weren’t going to help.

The big
robot ran up to them, arms laden with—Gatling guns?—aimed right at
them.

“Tell me I’m not seeing this,” Dean
said.

“You’re seeing it,” Jessica
said.

The robot’s
arms lowered, followed by a mechanical whirring sound. The—what now
Joe realized was a cockpit hatch—on the front torso of the thing
opened. He squinted against the dust on the air, gun still ready to
blast the head off of any—

“Joe?” came a female voice.

Me?

“Joe!” His
name came out more like a shriek than his actual name. A short girl
climbed out of the cockpit and came through the dust
fog.

“Billie!” Joe said, dropped his gun
and ran toward her. He wrapped his arms around her and picked her
up and spun her around before setting her back down. “Are you
serious? It’s you?”

“I can’t
believe you’re alive. I thought . . . maybe . . .”

“No, I made it.”

“I’m stunned,” she said, “but thank
God.”

“Yeah.” Joe
couldn’t help but just stare at her. She was a different girl now.
Her hair’s natural color was showing at the roots—dark brown, it
seemed—her glasses were gone, her face dirty, and she had a
strength about her that she didn’t have before. “What about
August?”

Her eyes went soft and she pressed her
lips together as she shook her head.

Joe’s spirits sunk and a hollow hurt
filled his heart. “How?”

“Not now,” she said.
“Please?”

He licked his lips, tasting the chalky
dust anew. “Okay, later then. I just . . . I just can’t believe
he’s gone. I held out hope for both of you.”

She hugged him. “Thanks. Just know
that . . . that he didn’t die in vain.”

It made him
feel a little better, filled him with a sense of pride. A guy like
August—wise, gentle, caring, a leader—he deserved a dignified death
and Joe wasn’t surprised in the least that that was how the man
made his last stand.

“Come, meet the others,” he
said.

She sniffled, said okay, and he led
her over to the group.