The List (Zombie Ocean Book 5) (24 page)

She reached the top and looked out over the stampeding masses following behind her, panting madly, and bellowed her furious joy out to the horizon.

"Lucas!"

Now his name tasted sweet in her mouth, like blood or wine, swallowing down. She would eat him alive.

"I'm coming! Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will find you!"

Beneath her the mound grew; her people spreading and pulsing and breathing, crushing beneath them the demon, swelling so fast and so high she had to climb constantly to stay aloft, the crow in her nest, and they folded under for her again and again.

Eighty feet high, a hundred, more.

They were all going to pay. Lucas would pay and all eleven bunkers would pay, and together they would run as a pack in the night.

"I'm coming!"

16. BUNKER #1

The flow of the ocean to the vast pile didn't end until long past dawn. Anna watched them come feeling clear-eyed and lucid, more alert than she'd ever been. The world around her fell into a perfect rhythm, with everything in its correct place.

Birds tweeting were perfect and correct. The slow trudge of zombies, no longer running, now piling themselves up with a dutiful, tireless intent, was perfect. The sun rising and the clouds drifting in a blue sky; they were all just right, and she oversaw them all.

When the other Humvee pulled up, it was all part of the pattern. There were six of them squashed inside along with all the gear they'd hidden from her last night, and she'd planned that too. Wasn't it funny, to be squashed in so tightly?

She didn't laugh. She didn't hate them either. Where those emotions had been there was now a sheer, light-filled diamond. It felt wonderful to be so free. She didn't even hate Lucas, because hate was such a petty thing, and some time in the night she'd transcended it.

Now she was pure purpose. The ocean had flowed through her and erased the things she didn't need, bringing this singular, perfect intent. She was one of them now. She was ready to lead, as she'd always been fated to since she was a little girl.

The Humvee pulled up by the pile and the six of them got out. Macy, Feargal, Jake, Wanda, Ollie and Peters. They looked rumpled and disturbed, with eyes that shifted around the glorious scene, scanning the flanks of the mountain. From on high she felt enormous sympathy for them. They were still trapped in a world of uncertainty, trying to weigh and measure every choice put before them and navigate the righteous path forward.

But a righteous path was impossible. She should have seen it before, but how could you see the forest when all you'd ever seen were the trees? She'd almost grasped it in Mongolia, but having Ravi waiting for her back in New LA had pulled her back in. Her dreams of a sweet future with him had hamstrung her from the truth.

But now Ravi was nothing to her, and the truth was so clear. The only way forward was to let go of it all. Hopes, dreams, future, children, a family. You couldn't function as a sheriff, as a leader, as a general, with such things in your heart. The ocean had been showing her the way for a decade, and finally she could grasp it.

Let it all go. Let Ravi and Peters go, let Amo and Cerulean go, let love and hate and past and future go, all replaced by this diamond-hard lightness at her middle. She remembered faintly saying as much to Amo; that the pressure would forge him into a diamond. Ha. She'd beaten him to it.

She stood up.

"I think that's her?" one of them down below said. Macy. She was pointing and shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun, as it rose over Anna's throbbing left shoulder.

"Anna?"

She stood for a while watching them, feeling an enormous warmth spread through her. So this was what the ocean felt when they were charging up, in the 'hugging time'. Though she didn't feel love or friendship, still she wanted to save these people, purely for the reason that they belonged here. This was their world and the ocean had sacrificed themselves for them. So would she. She had become their protector, and finally she was strong enough to truly offer protection.

"Anna, is that you?" Feargal shouted, then said to Peters more quietly. "It has to be her."

"It's her," Peters said, then added something more in a low tone that she couldn't hear, though she knew just what he was saying. 'She's gone mad.'

Peters was a dear. He'd been in the forge himself and there was a hint of diamond in his eyes too.

Now there was work to do.

She descended. It seemed as if the ocean shuffled and moved to form a perfect staircase of bodies for her to walk down. Though every bald skull and curved stretch of back was coated in a sheen of morning dew, she didn't slip once. She couldn't.

At the bottom she looked at these people, the remains of her squad, and smiled. Cerulean was there too, standing at the edge and smiling. He could see clearly as well, since he'd been gone.

"I'm sorry for last night," she said.

This surprised them. "You don't need to apologize," Feargal began uncertainly, but Peters held out a hand again, halting him. Peters believed she did need to. Peters was wise.

She went on. "I shouldn't have attacked you. I should not have insulted you. I understand why you let Lucas go. I hope you understand now what I have to do."

Feargal had a hangdog, whipped dog look about him. Of course; the old Anna was always hurting the people she cared about.

"What do you have to do?" he asked.

"What we came here to do."

"That's not what Amo said," Peters said.

"It's what I say."

He looked back at her. In this she felt the warmth growing as well. This was Peters, a man of his own making, smart and strong-hearted and she respected him no end. "What about the future? What about having enough people alive to make the next generation?"

She smiled. It was sweet he thought that still mattered, but she wasn't going to argue. Shooting him would be a beautiful thing too, if he stepped one foot in her path. His blood spilling out would be another wonderful part of this wholesome, perfect dance, and she'd stride over him with a lightness in her breast, knowing that his death was as much a part of the tapestry as Cerulean's or Jake's or her own.

"Let Amo worry about that. Yesterday was a lesson to us. We will not underestimate the enemy again."

Macy took a step forward. There was a sickly look on her face. "Your shoulder's dislocated, Anna. Your collarbone's broken."

Anna looked at her. Of course she knew that. Her left arm had been hanging limply at her side throughout the long, crystal night.

"I tried to put the ball-joint back it while you were under in Bordeaux, but the swelling was too great. I could do it now. I need to immobilize your whole shoulder in a cast, ideally."

She took another step forward then stopped, uncertain, perhaps afraid.

"Are you all right?" Jake asked.

Anna looked at him. "I'm better than I've ever been. I'm ready to begin."

"But, the pain."

"It doesn't bother me," she said, and it was true. The pain was there and it hurt, but she welcomed it. It didn't slow her or confuse her. It made her sharp. "Macy, please. Come on."

Macy came up in short, bird-hop steps. She guided Anna to sit, and enlisted Feargal, and together they held her torso still and rotated her arm to massage the ball back into the socket.

Click.

Next was a kind of harness, with thick shoulder straps like a backpack and no actual pack.

"For your collarbone," Macy said, as she slipped it into position, feeding Anna's limp arms through the loops and cinching them gently tight, pulling her shoulders gently back. "I don't have a splint, really I need to do surgery to bolt the bone in place, but that can wait."

Finally she pulled a long stretch of bandage from her pack and fashioned it into a sling, swaddling Anna's left arm close to her chest. "That'll keep it from slipping out, but you need to recover now. No movement or-"

Anna stood up. The pain was still there but somewhat muted. "There's no time. The other demons are coming and we have to free the army. Jake, can you operate the scanner alone?"

"Army?" Peters asked but she ignored him. Macy protested but she ignored her too. Jake just stared numbly, like none of this was really happening.

"Jake?" she repeated.

He blinked. "I, uh. The scanner, yes."

"Then start. The gun turret is just over there, visible still." She pointed through the mountain. "Feargal, you and I will prepare the bunker bombs, drill and drone. I think we might benefit too if we razed this field. Ollie and Wanda, get the flamethrowers and burn the vineyard down, as much as possible. Macy, get some breakfast going. Peters, you are lookout for Lucas."

Peters snorted. "You only want this field burned for him. You think he's hiding here somewhere. It's not my job to hunt him down for you."

"Yes, it is," Anna said. "You're on my team, and I want him. I'm going to kill him, Peters, him and anyone that gets in my way, friend or otherwise. I think that's clear."

He stared at her, then hawked and spat to the side. She'd never seen him do that before.

"Just like Salle Coram."

Perhaps that was a compliment. All stick, no carrot. All result, no concern for the process. At least Salle got things done.

"Yes," she replied, "like Salle Coram."

He walked away. He wouldn't do lookout, but that was fine. Lucas would trip up sooner or later, and she'd have him.

"Jake?"

He started away.

"Feargal?"

"Roger that."

She looked at Wanda and Ollie. They looked back as if she was some kind of alien.

"We'll start on this side," Wanda said, breaking the quiet. "While Jake's over there. We'll use the mountain and the Humvee tracks as a fire-break. For safety."

"Good."

They started away. Feargal stood by her side. Together they looked up at the mountain of pale, twisted bodies.

"You were up there all night," he said, and she smiled. She still was.

* * *

The vineyard burned beautifully.

Standing atop the one Humvee they'd left beside the gun turret hole, scattered around with all their equipment and munitions, she watched Wanda and Ollie backing carefully through the tangled field, casting long blazing trails of fire in front of them like magic spells.

Half the vineyard was on fire, and a dense pall of woody, sappy smoke rose from it like morning dew evaporating. The grapes smelled delicious, like a variety of candy gum drops Ravi had introduced her to, mixed with his homebrew beer. He had always been a maker. Amo would call him a hipster.

On the other side Jake was sweeping through the ashes of the already burnt half with his adapted hydrogen line scanner, nudging stubborn twists of bark aside. It looked a little like a large black lawnmower, leaving neat lines of mown black dust behind him. Macy trailed along beside him, stuck for anything else to do.

Soon.

Down below Feargal was lining up their bombs and earth drills in neat, organized rows. He'd been doing it for twenty minutes, marching up and down their ranks like a sergeant drilling his privates on parade. Already he'd taken the drone out for a test run.

She scanned the horizon, but there was no sign of Lucas. That was smart. He should know she would kill him on sight.

"Don't you think it's strange?"

She looked to the side. Peters was standing down there.

"What?"

"This," he said, and pointed at the mountain. "It shouldn't be here."

"Of course it should."

"No. The ocean was many hours away when we ran from this place," he said. "Wanda agrees. They were far. But the mountain is here. It is strange."

"Why is it strange?"

"Because the demon should have chased us. Bordeaux is miles away, it should have followed us. We stopped after we crossed the ocean's front line, and the demon should have kept chasing until it met them too. This mountain should be twenty miles that way." He pointed to the west. "Not here."

Anna looked west. She looked at the mountain. "Here is a good place for it."

He sighed. "You want to kill them. Good. I too want to kill them, after yesterday. But this is not a thing we should ignore. There is a reason for it."

Anna studied the mountain. It was very large.

"Would you prefer we move it? Should we lift each body and put them twenty miles west, to suit your theory?"

He frowned. "That's not what I mean and you know it. The real Anna knows what I mean, even if this Alice in the looking glass won't see it. Anna. You think I haven't seen this, what you're experiencing now?"

So he wanted to talk. "What am I experiencing, Peters?"

"The far side of grief. You are untouchable now, am I correct?"

"I am untouchable, you're right."

"And if I moved in your way, you'd shoot me."

This was easy. She'd already said as much. "I would shoot you."

Peters nodded.

"This is the easy way. For a time, I know, it is easier this way. But remember what I said, in that pit of Julio's. Remember what I told you, when you think you should stand above me and choose my fate. I lost my world, little girl. So now have you. What kind of man was I? What kind of man am I now? We all see. What you have now is the wrong way to lead. It is a bandage, not a way forward. Black and white, yes and no. Perhaps I can shoot you, if you press too far."

Anna considered. That would be interesting.

"You may be the faster pilot, Peters, but there are no planes here. I've always been the better shot."

He grunted. "Better shot with a broken shoulder? I won't let you kill him. Lucas. This is not his fault, I believe that."

"And the bunker?"

He waved a hand. "Kill the bunker. They made their choice. But Lucas, not him. He is a good man. His cure is real."

He believed that. It was sweet, really, if blind. "I understand your position. Now help Feargal with the bombs."

Peters looked over and pulled a face. "He's been moving them into position for half an hour now. He needs a ruler, not my help."