The Unkillables (13 page)

Something crashed into Gash-Eye and threw its arms around her waist. She was about to club it in terror when it screamed, in Quarry’s voice, “Gash-Eye!”

Gash-Eye awoke from her trance. How could she possibly have cared about looking at the chaos and trying to figure out what was going on? Escaping from it was all that mattered. She picked the child up and clutched her to her chest. “People!” she cried. “If you can hear, back to the cave!”

Some had already gone, not needing the invitation. But others were disoriented by the terror, noise, smoke, and flashing lights; nearly blinded by their long days in the dark, and then by these searing red bolts of fire, they had lost their sense of where shelter was. Now, hearing Gash-Eye, they rallied to her.

She backed into the cave. The People came after her. “Follow my voice if you cannot see!” A bit of inspiration struck her, and she added, “I shall be your eyes, as before!”

“Follow Gash-Eye! Follow Gash-Eye!” some of them screamed. And one said, “Follow Petal-Drift!”

She wondered if Spear were still with them. Maybe he and his friends had been taken by those things outside.

She ran deeper back into the cave, careful to keep her balance on the downward incline. The floor shook, Gash-Eye suspected from the impact of another red bolt. There was a rumbling crash and some screams—the ceiling had collapsed behind them.

From behind them came more screams. Something had followed them in. Her first instinct was to keep running, but the unkillable thing, and all its spawn, would be trapped in here with Quarry, as well.

Gash-Eye set Quarry down; “Run,” she hissed, then turned without waiting to see if the child obeyed.

She cast around for two fist-sized stones, then waded against the stream of fleeing People. The only light came from a few burning sticks that had been dropped. An unkillable was beginning to glow as it ate its victim’s brain. By its own glow she could see its eyes fix on her, but it either didn’t consider her a threat or else couldn’t tear itself away from its meal. Gash-Eye clapped the stones together into the creature’s temples, as hard as she could; the thing’s head popped. Never had Gash-Eye heard of such soft-headed beings. Again she sealed her lips, but some of the spraying gunk hit her high on the cheek, almost getting in her eye. With horror she wiped her face with her forearm. Opening her eyes again she saw that two of the People were flopping on the floor, the black veins spreading like webs across their bodies. She clapped the stones together against their temples, too. Their skulls didn’t yet pop open the way the full unkillables’ did, and she had to strike them repeatedly; though she did think she could already detect a bit more give than one would expect.

She ran after Quarry, afraid the girl would need protection if Spear and his friends took their frustrations out on her.

Back in the big chamber the embers of the fire still glowed a faint red—Spear’s men had failed to completely extinguish it. Some of the People screamed as her dark bulk came running in, but someone else cried, “It’s her! It’s Petal-Drift!” People surrounded her, hands clutched her. “Help us!” “Save us!”

“Where’s Quarry?!”

“Here she is!”

“We kept her safe for you!”

“I’m here!” That was Quarry’s voice, weeping. The crowd parted for her. She flew into Gash-Eye’s arms, clutching her.

Gash-Eye rested, holding the child close. For the moment she was almost unconscious of the People surrounding her, the monsters outside.

“What should we do, Petal-Drift?” someone ventured timorously.

Only now did Gash-Eye begin to appreciate the advantages of her predictions having proven true. She almost wondered if she did have some gift of prescience, after all.

If she did, it gave her no more idea than before of what to do about the monsters outside, except continue to cower in the caves. In fact, that seemed like a better idea than ever. But there was one threat she could use her newfound power to do away with.

“Where’s Spear?” she demanded.

“He ran!” That was Tooth. “We tried to hold him and his friends, but they ran!”

So. They were lurking in the dark, lost, as blind as they had threatened to make Gash-Eye. A horrible fate, but she would waste no energy feeling sorry for them. Besides, they weren’t dead yet, not necessarily. “Didn’t I warn you Spear’s way was dangerous?” she said balefully.

“You did, you did.” “You did, Petal-Drift.”

She studied the survivors. Most of the older, braver men were gone—so were all of the children. What was left was mainly women and the weaker hunters. And Tooth, whose spirit she had wounded far worse than she had his body.

“Who was it who fed more of you to the unkillables? Who turned more of you into unkillables, which in turn may claim still more victims? Wasn’t that Spear?”

“Yes, yes.” “Yes, Petal-Drift.” “Yes, you were right, we’re sorry.”

She raised one hand for silence. The other hand remained on Quarry. She said, “Never mind all that. Only say: is not my enemy your enemy?”

“Yes, Petal-Drift,” many voices said.

“I will stand watch against the unkillables,” she said. “I will look where you cannot see. I will hunt on your behalf what little food there is in these caves. We shall go together to the underground lake. The dark shall be dreary and the water stale, but we shall survive. I shall keep one eye in the shadows of this world, watching for enemies, and one eye in the world of shadows, watching for when we may safely leave these caves. But only on one condition. My enemies are your enemies, as your enemies are mine.”

“Our enemies are each other’s!” someone cried, and others took up the cry.

She was the leader of this People now. The world had turned upside-down and they had all become her slaves. But she reflected with bitterness that if ever they escaped back up to the world of the sun, she should expect no gratitude. The People would remember their groveling with humiliation, and take revenge for it.

“Very well,” she said, “let us go to the lake. Some of you take a brand from the fire. Some others take the firewood. Let he who takes the brand lead the way. I’ll walk in the rear, to be sure nothing follows.” She added, “And if any of you comes across Spear, or any of his followers, cut me off their heads.”

Multiple voices swore that they would.

V
eela found Chert and the Jaw two days after the attack of the zombie deer, some hours before the People made their disastrous escape attempt. Who knew how long it would have taken her without the help of Dak and his scanners—the zombie zone they’d walled off was a circle with a diameter of more than twenty miles, and it wasn’t like she could possibly track whatever faint trail those guys might leave. (The zone had to be sufficiently vast to contain the outbreak—it was calculated on the distance that animals and humans could roam after having been bitten by that zombie mouse at the original landing site, taking into account the motor debilitation that accompanied zombification, especially in the blackened hungry state, and that would prevent, say, a zombie bird from being able to fly long distances, or a deer from being able to bound along at its normal speed.) 

Still, Dak griped over having even that much of his resources diverted. He was preparing the mound of animal brains for the trap he was going to spring that night, the one that Gash-Eye and the remnants of the People were going to wander into. He was in a bad mood because he had to use up most of their stock of Rejuvenatrix in soaking the brain-pile, to keep the brains alive enough for the zombies to hear their brainsong.

When she came upon them, Chert and the Jaw were slumped dejectedly in front of the white perimeter wall. When Chert had first seen it, he had run at it to punch it, and had been beyond furious when he’d realized he couldn’t get within arm’s reach without the air itself biting him. All the trees within five man-lengths of the wall were gone, there was only a gray fine ash where they should have been, so they couldn’t climb anything from which to leap to the other side; there were no branches poking over from beyond the barrier, so presumably the trees there had met the same fate. The wall curved around into the distance in both directions. It seemed to enclose them. As soon as they regained enough spirit, they were going to pick a direction and start walking that way, looking for a gap. Chert couldn’t think of what else to do.

“Hey, guys,” called Veela in her own language when she saw them. She waved, having no idea how close Chert was to earnestly trying to kill her. Part of what enraged him was the unnatural white of the hides she wore, white like that damned wall (or whatever it was—Chert and the Jaw didn’t even have a word for “wall”).

The Jaw, though, was glad to see her.

Exhausted from her hike, Veela plopped down to sit with them, all smiles. She’d decided to act like, the last time they’d seen her, they hadn’t run off and left her to die at the snout of that deer. To accent her friendliness, she wasn’t even wearing her visor down, reckless as that might be. She wanted allies who could show her the ropes, could show her how to make a spear and could potentially decide to stay and fight alongside her the
next
time a zombie deer popped up. She wanted it badly enough to gamble that they all knew each other well enough now that Chert wouldn’t hit her in the face with a rock again.

“I’m going to kill her,” snarled Chert.

“Then I’ll try to kill you,” said the Jaw. He hadn’t forgiven his father for abandoning Veela.

Chert backed down. He glowered at Veela, resenting her for creating still more friction between himself and his son.

Veela hadn’t understood the exchange, but she tried not to squirm under that formidable glare. She’d been about to take off her helmet, which she’d kept on ever since the deer had caught her undefended; Chert’s murderous look gave her pause. But it was important to send any signals she could that she was a friend, someone who felt comfortable with them and with whom they should feel comfortable, so she took it off and set it on her lap. Immediately the Jaw took it from her. She thought, with near-panic, that he was confiscating it, but soon saw he only wanted to examine it curiously.

While the Jaw was rapping on the helmet with his knuckles and trying to squeeze his too-big head into it, Chert demanded, “What is this?,” pointing at the wall.

She tried to meet his glare meekly, remembering how he’d hit her in the face with a rock. For the next little while she tried to explain to Chert what the wall was, but of course she couldn’t know the word for “wall” when the language didn’t even have one; she thought “cliff” might have worked, sort of, but she didn’t know that word either; so she tried telling Chert it was a kind of a long hill, which only confused him more and made him even angrier. Finally she opted for defining it according to its function: “Purpose: no-die, can’t move.”

“We can’t move either, damn you! It’s keeping us here with your damn no-dies!”

“Fear, is having no need,” she soothed. “My friend, kill all no-dies, very soon.” She held up the communicator. “My friend. All no-dies, kill soon.”

Chert and the Jaw eyed the strange nut dubiously. They still were not quite willing to believe the little man inside could destroy all the undead, but after the last couple days they were also unwilling to completely discredit anything. The Jaw hoped that the extraordinary little man would one day leave his enclosure, so they could meet him.

Chert said, “I thought you said you needed
our
help, to kill the no-dies?”

Veela paused, trying to think of a diplomatic way to explain that she wanted a backup plan, because she didn’t completely trust Dak—she certainly didn’t trust him to keep their equipment running, since he still wasn’t able to get at the hold with the extra drones, weapons, and power packs, and now he couldn’t even land the ship. That magic technology was the only thing that gave her and Dak an edge, and if it went south they really would need these guys.

But telling them that wouldn’t exactly inspire confidence; and it would be particularly tricky, since even though Dak was silent, the communicator always maintained an open channel.

To change the subject, she pointed at Chert’s spear. “Teach,” she said. “Teach. Teach.”

Chert looked at her blankly.

Veela got up and began looking around on the ground, moving into the trees beyond the zone where everything had been vaporized. The two men watched her. She poked around till she found two stones, a smaller one and one about five pounds, then came back to sit in the ash. “Teach to make,” she insisted, and began banging the rocks together more or less the way Dak had tried to explain.

Both men burst out laughing, even Chert. They rolled around, holding their bellies. Veela grinned. It was worth being laughed at, if it lightened the mood and helped make them all friends. “Teach make,” she repeated, and banged the rocks together again to make them laugh some more.

Once their glee had subsided, the Jaw held up her helmet and said, “Teach
us
to make
this
. Anyone can make a spear.”

Veela hesitated, wondering how much to reveal. She decided to be as honest as possible: “Other ones make. I no make. I, other skills.”

Chert pointed at her communicator. “Did the little man make it?”

“No. Other ones.”

Chert and the Jaw exchanged a look. There were more of these strange new people. Chert had an inkling that the arrival of Veela and her ilk might prove even more dangerous to his way of life than the undead.

“So there are more of you?” said the Jaw. “More than just you and the little man?”

After another silent inner debate, Veela decided to continue being honest. “No,” she said. “Only he. Only I.”

Chert brought his fist wrathfully down into the ash. Veela started with fear. “You just said there were others! Who made the white stone for your head, if it’s only you and the little man?!”

“Only he, only I, now,” said Veela. “For the others—no-dies.”

So her people, too, had been wiped out by the undead. The Jaw’s face softened and grew distant, though his eyes remained on Veela—as if he were simultaneously seeing her, and the destruction of his People, as if he were again hearing the death cry of his mother.