The Return Man: Civilisation’s Gone. He’s Stayed to Bury the Dead. (34 page)

Driving away, he permitted himself one last peek backwards at the diminishing cemetery. One last goodbye to Hannah.

I love you. I’ll visit again, I promise.

He cringed, guilty, uncertain whether he could keep that promise.

From the cemetery a small black dog with a white chest trotted onto the sidewalk, watching them go. Its muzzle dripped with dark meaty juice–corpse blood.

See ya, pup
, Marco thought.
Sorry the whole ‘man’s best friend’ thing didn’t work out.
He gunned the throttle and sped through the empty blocks.

Next up, Roger Ballard.

Marco’s eyes watered in the wind; his heart shrank. He knew one thing for sure.

He’d better focus on the task ahead, or Sarsgard Prison would eat him alive.

In the mid-afternoon they hit traffic, five miles deep through the San Bernardino Mountains. ‘Shit,’ Marco groaned. ‘
Shit!
’

He released the throttle, and the quad coasted on the mountain highway. A quarter-mile ahead, there it was–a dreaded ghost jam. Big one. Hundreds of mute cars and minivans and eighteen-wheelers and rugged SUVs, now abandoned; the shimmering desert sun seemed to melt them all together into a single massive gleaming chunk, like a metal plug shoved up the highway’s ass. Every lane was blocked solid. Steep rock walls leaned against the road on both sides, towering cliffs that were impossible to traverse. The men were trapped.

Muttering curses, Marco rolled the quad to the bumper of a Mazda convertible with California plates. The car had once been a sharp aquamarine blue, like a sleek shark, but now languished, discoloured and warted with rust. The top was down, the seats fuzzy with black lichen growing into the leather. No driver. One ratty brown loafer lay beside the open door.

Cracked with dry blood.

This is why
, Marco seethed,
you don’t drive highways, asshole.

He’d fucked up, and he knew it.

I-215 had been his own dumb-ass choice. Buzzing out of Hemet, he’d perceived himself in a frantic race against
time–a blood-crazed adrenalin rush from here to Sarsgard, and speed meant everything. The sun had taken too large a lead, dropping minute by minute towards the hazy mountain horizon, and Marco had cringed at the notion of not reaching Sarsgard by dark–spending the night in the desert, exposed and vulnerable.

No damn way
, he’d vowed.
Not gonna let that happen.

And so, an hour ago, he’d turned to Wu. ‘We’ll catch 215, the interstate north. No time to dilly-dally on the back roads–or risk getting lost.’

‘Agreed,’ Wu called from behind. ‘Shortest route.’

The truth was, nightfall was the least of Marco’s fears. He was maddeningly aware that somewhere behind the quad–or ahead?–the Horsemen were running the same race, hunting Roger. They’d be ruthless, vengeful for the death of the bearded soldier.
They’ll force me to find Roger. Then they’ll slit my throat.
He couldn’t shake the image of Big Skull–the muscle-bound leader with the bone-heavy head–peering at him from the shadows of his mind, like a hunter half hidden in jungle growth. The man unnerved him, more than he wanted to admit to Wu.

But Big Skull wasn’t even the worst problem.

Because, Jesus Christ, what if the Horsemen won this deadly contest? Grabbed Roger’s prized blood for themselves–what then?

Wu had given him the answer already. The Horsemen would sell Roger’s DNA to terrorists, Iranians, madmen eager to synthesize a vaccine. And God knows what they’d do with the formula once they had it–sell it on the black market, or demand some unholy ransom from the big nations. Or maybe just save their own asses while everybody else on the planet rotted.

Shit, no pressure there
, he thought.
Don’t fuck up, Henry, or bad guys conquer the world.

He paled. The stakes were so high they dizzied him. His head ached terribly from lack of sleep, lack of food, and, most of all, too much goddamn worrying–like a vice had clamped on his brain, and every new minute felt like another crank on the handle.

Outside Hemet the quad had zipped past a desolate Walgreens. Dead shoppers meandered in and out of the drugstore’s smashed entrance. Marco sighed.

Battling those corpses would
almost
be worth it for a bottle of Advil.

Expired Advil
, he reminded himself.
Wouldn’t even work.

Besides, no way would Wu indulge him again, not with the sun getting lower, turning a bloodier orange in the west.

Just then, approaching on the right, the blue sign for I-215 had beckoned. And, like a gambler rolling dice, he’d steered onto the interstate, hoping to save time.

How depressingly empty it had appeared. Lost, forgotten. Bleached food wrappers and mouldering newspapers heaped against the concrete medians; the once-great road was now reduced to a three-lane repository for litter, with brown weeds sprouting from cracks in the pavement and white-striped orange construction barrels tipped over at haphazard intervals. The highway was a long, silent chute, fairly straight, with a vanishing point miles ahead. He’d scanned the distance, found nothing to alarm him–no quads charging south with their guns blazing. No vultures.

Good thing about highways
, he’d thought.
You can see trouble coming.

Bad thing is, trouble sees you, too.

He shook his head.
Quit scaring yourself. Just hit the gas and get this over with. Get through the mountains, then you can hide again in the back roads.

For forty-five minutes he’d travelled north, his nerves popping hotly like camera bulbs each time he heard another
motor roaring, but it was always his own quad, echoing back from a concrete overpass or the stone acoustics of the mountains. Once he almost braked, terrified, confronted by a roadblock of Horsemen military trucks ahead–and then realized sheepishly that it wasn’t a roadblock
or
even Horsemen, but merely three burned cars crashed on their sides, bellies exploded outwards. They balanced against each other like a bizarre house of cards.

Thank god he hadn’t hit the brakes. Wu would have ridiculed him without mercy.

The highway flowed like a dry river bed through Southern California towns, past glum billboards and cities dead of thirst, nothing moving except for tumbleweeds on streets. And up again into the San Bernardino Forest, the northern end this time–another thrill ride soaring between mineral-coloured cliffs and sugar pines and raw scrub. All the while, seconds ticked in his mind, an excruciating countdown. To what? He wasn’t even certain.

And now this.

A ghost jam, a goddamn predictable
ghost jam
. He chewed his lip. In his Jeep the decision would’ve been a no-brainer–turn around and find another route, no other choice. But… the quad tossed another option on the table. Reluctantly he considered it.

He could fit between the outer cars, riding the shoulder of the breakdown lane.

Perfect
, he thought.
I miss the Jeep.

The Jeep made it easier to chicken out.

‘Go,’ Wu said, impatient. He’d also noted the gap.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Marco said. ‘I’m going.’

Even as he hesitated, he knew the Horsemen were closing ground. How far back? Ten miles? Five? Just around the bend, and any second they’d jump out and say boo?

Sick at the thought, he nudged the throttle. The quad
motored to the right shoulder and slipped into the narrow channel between the outer rail and a scratched-up SUV with flat tyres. A surfboard was strapped to the roof. He chugged forward, slow and careful, passing cars.

Empty metal shells. Except he knew that there were corpses here, somewhere, hiding; there were
always
corpses hiding, waiting to scuttle out of holes like nightmarish crabs for a meal.

The breakdown lane was wide enough but not a friendly ride. Loose dented hubcaps and corroded mufflers and torn-off bumpers scattered the road, as if some angry mechanic had gone on a rampage, spewing car parts everywhere. The quad’s large wheels worked hard, trampling obstacles, jarring Marco’s breath loose. Which was helpful, in a way; his chest had squeezed itself so goddamn tight, he kept forgetting to exhale on his own.

Behind him, Wu grunted in discomfort.

‘Kinda makes you miss the train tracks, huh?’ Marco asked.

‘Are you watching for corpses?’ Wu groused. ‘Or thinking up clever jokes?’

‘Both. I get silly when I’m about to be eaten.’

But the roadside debris was still kinder than the horrors in the abandoned cars. Human bodies, ripped apart. Half-eaten arms dangled out half-opened doors. Skeletonised drivers slumped against steering wheels, their lips torn off, teeth clenched in agony. Marco knew too well that when the dead came swarming through deadlocked traffic, you had two basic options–run like hell, or hide in the car. People who hid learned the hard way that a car was a perfect little coffin. You couldn’t just roll your windows up, keep the corpses out like a summer storm. Smashed windshields were everywhere, the cars like open caskets interring mummified men and women. Between cars the pavement was studded with
broken safety glass and gnawed bones. Torn shirts and pants and dresses lay in ragged mounds by the bumpers.

He froze. Did that body blink?

No. You’re just being jumpy
.

Fidgeting, he tried to keep his ears perked. The quad was too damn loud. No way to detect the click of a car door, the squeak of hinges. Dead feet scraping asphalt.

But so far, so good. He wasn’t hearing those things because they weren’t happening–right?

They’d progressed a mile when, holy shit, he
did
hear a scream.

High and loud, the cry pierced the roar of the motor and pimpled his skin with instant goose bumps. In the back seat, Wu twisted as the wailing died.

‘What the fuck?’ Marco gasped.

There.
Ahead he saw it. A weathered Volvo station wagon, the rear window smeared black. On the bumper was a cracked sticker for the San Diego Zoo, a cute furry koala. The cry sounded again–disgusting, wretched, like somebody was gargling a throat of curdled milk. Awful. Marco drew even with the car and peered into the shattered back seat window.

A dead toddler glared at him. Strapped into a baby seat. Trapped.

Two years old, maybe three, its neck shredded open, its windpipe exposed. It wore stiff denim overalls and a blue-striped shirt doused with old sour blood; baby fat wobbled in white wormy strips under its chin. Its eyes were yellow-pale, like peeled apples.

Marco’s stomach heaved. The toddler strained against the straps, arms outstretched as though it wanted to be picked up.

Jesus Christ
, Marco thought. Numb.

In the front seat two adult skeletons–
Mommy and Daddy
–had been dragged halfway through the smashed windshield. Their legs hung over the dash. Their heads were gone. Eaten.

Jesus.

Christ.

The quad rolled past. Marco’s mind reeled, trying to reset. As if somehow he could hit a button, erase what he’d just seen.

I should go back
, he realised.
Return the kid, save it from that… that nightmare. Stuck forever in a car seat, crying. Except Wu would never let me…

He was so distracted that when two dead hands popped from behind a sky-blue Lincoln and slapped the hood, he didn’t even flinch.

A wrinkled corpse hoisted itself to a standing position and leaned on the car. An elderly male in a stupid fisherman’s hat, a yellow lure hooked to the brim.

Hello, Grandpa
, Marco thought.

His veins thickened, blood rushing. Suddenly, in the next lane, there came more movement–another corpse, female, slithering from beneath a black Nissan.

‘We have corpses,’ he announced to Wu, his voice rising.

‘That’s not all.’ Wu grabbed his shoulder, turned him in his seat. ‘Look.’

Far back where the empty highway hadn’t yet met the ghost jam, familiar shapes fanned out across the barren lanes.

Five military quads, speeding towards them.

The Horsemen had caught up.

Marco was paralysed. The sight of the Horseman motorcade was almost dreamlike, a desert mirage that couldn’t be real and, just as in a dream, his limbs were unable to move, obeying some secret logic beyond his control.

Except, of course, this shit
was
real–and in another minute the Horsemen would be here to stomp his ass dead.
A shock of panic reattached his nerves to his brain, and with a jolt he spun forward on the quad. The old fisherman corpse tottered around the Lincoln towards him. Black flies crawled atop the white scruff on its cheeks, like a second beard.

‘Perfect,’ Marco groused. ‘Exactly what I needed.’

‘Go,’ Wu said, strangely calm. ‘We have a good lead, as long as we hurry—’

He hadn’t finished before Marco punched the throttle and the quad bucked ahead. The old corpse lunged as they went, missed, flopped to the road.

Ouch, Grandpa
, Marco thought.
Broken hip for sure.

The quad scooted up the narrow breakdown lane, clunking through the debris, zooming past cars on the left. Marco’s teeth pressed together, his eyes shooting back and forth between the road and the graveyard of cars. Trouble.
Deep-shit
trouble. All around, corpses were rising, wakened from hibernation in their rusted dens, bleary-eyed, sour stomachs calling for meat. Heads popped from behind cars, from back seats, from truck beds, like kids summoned from hiding spots at the end of hide-and-seek.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Stay focused
, Marco ordered himself.
Do
not
fucking crash.

‘They’ve reached the cars,’ Wu shouted over the engine. ‘The Horsemen.’

‘Thanks for the update–keeps me motivated.’

A burly trucker stepped around the cab of its eighteen-wheeler, and Marco accelerated, afraid the big male would block the lane; the quad beat it through the gap by a bare second, snapping off the corpse’s foot as it stepped into the path of the buzzing wheels. Black blood splashed up and over the quad hood. Spitting, Marco wiped his face with his forearm.