Fire & Ash

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Move,” she said.

  “Lilah,” Benny said, holding his ground, “you don’t understand—”

  But it was Nix who moved. She stepped out from behind Benny, pushing him gently out of the way. She was much shorter than Lilah and more than a year younger. Her weapons were holstered and sheathed, and her hands were empty.

  “What did you hear?” she asked.

  “Everything.” Without the shadows to mask her face, Lilah’s eyes were the color of molten honey. Hot, but without any trace of sweetness. “You wanted to quiet Chong.”

  Nix took a breath. Benny could see that her hands were shaking.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Is that why you went to see him?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because he’s my friend. Because I love him. Because I wanted to see for myself.”

  Lilah drew a slender knife from a thigh sheath. “This is Chong’s knife.”

  “I know.”

  “They won’t let me see him,” said Lilah.

  “I know.”

  “I can see him. I can get in there. You know that?”

  “Yes.”

  Benny and Riot nodded too. None of them doubted that Lilah could find a way into that building. People might die in the process, but she could get in.

  “No one quiets Chong but me.” Lilah’s voice was a deadly whisper. “You understand?”

  “Yes,” said Nix, her voice small.

  Lilah looked at the others. “You all understand? No one but me?”

  Benny nodded. So did Riot.

  Lilah raised the knife so that sunlight glanced from it and painted Nix’s face in bright light.

  “You tell me,” said Lilah, “do I need to use this today? Is Chong lost? Is he gone?”

  Nix slowly shook her head.

  “Say it,” growled Lilah. “Do I need to kill my town boy?”

  “No,” said Nix. “God . . . no.”

  Lilah’s eyes roved over her face for a long time. Then she slipped the knife back into its leather sheath. Then she nodded. A single nod, small and curt.

  “If he has to die . . . you tell me.”

  Nix was unable to speak, so she gave her own single nod.

  Lilah looked at Benny. “You too. Tell me if I have to go in there.”

  “I will,” said Benny. “But . . . maybe we don’t have to.”

  And he told her about his plan.

  She was in too.

  40

  TWO MILES AWAY . . .

  Once upon a time the woman had been a scientist, part of the Relativistic Astrophysics Group at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. Now she spent day after day blowing up balloons.

  This was her ninth straight day of it, and the strain of taking in huge breaths and forcing the air into the balloons was really getting to her. She was light-headed all the time now, and planets and galaxies seemed to swirl around her head.

  She sat in the shadowy mouth of a cave. At least they gave her plenty of water and a stool. And runners came to her three times a day to bring food for her and the two other people working with her, a former Los Angeles Realtor and an actor who had won two Emmys for a show that was on HBO before the dead rose and ate his audience. The Realtor blew up balloons too. His face was red from effort, his eyes dark with disillusionment.

  Like the woman, the other two were useless people. Neither of them could fight. They were lousy hunters. Their survival had been the result of no qualities they possessed. Each of them had been helped through the apocalypse. All three of them were refugees. The scientist even believed—deep down in the secret place in her heart—that none of them knelt to kiss the knife because they believed in anything but a sure way to live through the moment. None of them had ever killed anyone. At least the scientist knew she had not. After testing her in combat training, the reaper-trainer had dismissed her in disgust and assigned her to the “support legion.”

  That was a kind label for the growing mass of reapers who had no useful skills beyond cooking, sanitation, scavenging, and, apparently, blowing up balloons.

  She finished the balloon and handed it off to the actor, who perched on a taller stool beside a rusted metal tank. He took a hose, fitted the mouth of the balloon around it, and squeezed a plastic trigger. There was a tiny burst of sound—the sharp hiss of gas under pressure—and the balloon lifted a bit. There was not enough helium in it to make it float; merely enough to let it bounce as if weightless. He tied it off, half turned on his stool, and gave the balloon a light tap, which sent it bouncing deeper into the cave where it bumped up against the thousands of others.

  When the scientist reached for another balloon, her stubby fingernails scraped the bare bottom of the box that was positioned beside her.

  “I’m out,” she said.

  Another reaper, a child with a burn-withered leg and melted face, stood up from the shadows at the far side of the cave mouth. She pulled a black plastic trash bag with her and held it open for the scientist, who reached in and took a handful of small plastic bags. Fifty colored balloons in each bag. The scientist and the burned girl worked together to tear open the bags and dump the contents into the box. When it was filled, the girl limped back to her spot.

  The scientist took a long drink of water and squinted out at the sun-bleached landscape. Such a terrible place. From where she sat, hidden in the shadows, she could see the tall metal spires of the siren towers of Sanctuary.

  She picked up another balloon, stretched it, took a deep breath, and blew her air into the bright red rubber.

  41

  THE MONK GUARDING THE QUADS saw the four of them coming and immediately began shaking his head as he walked to meet them.

  “Captain Ledger left express orders that no one is to take a quad without his permission.”

  Benny glanced at Nix. “Do you see Captain Ledger anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “You see him, Riot?”

  “I don’t see hide nor hair of that big ol’ boy anywhere.”

  “Lilah?”

  Her answer was a sour grunt.

  “The captain was very specific about it,” insisted the monk. “He mentioned Brother Benjamin in particular. Under no circumstances were you to take a quad.”

  Benny patted the monk on the arm. “I believe you’ll find that was more of a suggestion than a rule.”

  The monk sputtered at them, but there was nothing he could do. Nix gave him a smile as bright as all the flowers in the world. Riot winked at him. They unslung their gear and began looking through the compartments of their quads. They had food, carpet coats, their entire remaining supply of cadaverine, every weapon they possessed, and a first-aid kit. Benny wore his sword slung over his shoulder the same way Tom used to wear it. Nix had Dojigiri, the Monster Cutter—the ancient sword given her by Joe—in her belt, and Tom’s old Smith & Wesson .38 revolver snugged into a shoulder holster. Riot wore her bandoliers of firecrackers, a Raven Arms .25 automatic in a belt holster, various knives, and her favorite weapon—a sturdy pre–First Night slingshot and a full pouch of sharp stones and metal ball bearings. Lilah had weapons everywhere, including a nine-millimeter pistol. They each wore vests with many small pockets crammed with other survival gear.

  The monk gave up trying to physically stand between them and the bikes and began fretting over them. He double-checked their food and water and admonished them about using violence against any of God’s creatures, living or dead.

  Nix slid into the saddle of her quad, a fiery red Kawasaki. “Brother,” she said, “we don’t ever want to hurt anyone. We’re actually trying to save lives.”

  The monk studied her. “Seriously?”

  Riot held up a hand. “Swear to God.”

  That put a puzzled look on the monk’s face, and it was still there when they fired up their quads and drove away.

  They passed through the chain-link gate, and Riot took the lead. Even though Benny, Nix, and Lilah knew
the way, Riot was the expert; she knew every inch of this country. As soon as they cleared the twisted maze that was the hidden path leading from the open desert to Sanctuary, Riot raised her hand over her head and swung it in a circle. They immediately revved their engines, and the four of them burned their way back toward the dying forest.

  They drove fast, and except for the roar of their engines, they traveled in silence. Benny kept reviewing everything that had happened since yesterday morning: Chong, the strange interviews with the scientists, the fight with Nix, the ugly truth about the missing D-series files, the fight with the reaper who used to be a soldier, the discovery of the Teambook, the conversation with Joe, and the realization that he knew where Sergeant Ortega might be. No . . . where Sergeant Ortega was.

  They paused once on a rocky hill overlooking a big swath of the forest. The plateau with the crashed transport plane was off to the east. The densest part of the forest was north and west of them. A thin man-made stream that was part of the golf course’s original landscape design cut through the terrain, and from this distance they could catch glimpses of it as a blue ribbon winding haphazardly through the trees. Farther west was a big field that had once been a fairway. A ruptured irrigation pipe had carved a channel through the field, undercutting the foliage to create a long, crooked ravine that was surprisingly deep. The ravine was in a natural depression in the landscape, so Benny figured that what little rain runoff there was had helped to cut the channel through the loose and sandy soil.

  Benny pointed.

  “There,” he said, though they all knew it. It was the place where Benny and Nix had first met Riot. That first meeting had been strange. Riot had used the sharp bangs from her firecrackers to scare off a pride of hungry lions that had trapped Benny and the others. The rescue hadn’t been a kindness—Riot’s true goal had been to save Eve, who Benny had found in that very ravine. Eve was part of the group of refugees fleeing a reaper massacre; Riot was taking them to Sanctuary when Eve went missing. Oddly, it was an attack by reapers that had allowed Benny and Nix to escape Riot and her companions. That had been another very strange day.

  Nix took her binoculars out of their holder and surveyed the landscape, shook her head, and handed them to Lilah.

  “See anything?” asked Benny.

  “No,” said Lilah.

  Benny wasn’t much relieved. Zoms were surprisingly hard to spot in a landscape like this. Unless they were actively pursuing prey, they tended to stand still. Absolutely still, with none of the small, reflexive, or habitual gestures all humans make after a while.

  Riot took a long pull on her canteen, then cocked an eye at Benny. “Are y’all sure about this?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Riot grinned. “ ‘Pretty much’ ain’t as comforting as y’all might think.”

  “It’s what I have,” confessed Benny.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Stop talking,” said Lilah. She gunned her engine, crested the rise, and went roaring down the slope.

  “Fair enough,” Riot said again. She winked at Benny and plunged after Lilah.

  Benny cast a meaningful look at Nix.

  “He’ll be there,” said Nix, but her words were pitched in exactly the tone people use when they’re trying to help you brace for a disappointment. She aimed her quad toward the ravine.

  The voice inside Benny’s head said, On the plus side, if this works, people might stop thinking you’re a half-wit.

  “Oh . . . shut up.”

  Benny gave the Honda some gas and raced downhill to catch up.

  FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

  If I was in charge, I’d do things differently.

  Ever since I was ten I’ve been collecting every bit of information I could about zombies. How they move, how they attack. I’ve talked to every single member of the fence guards and all of the members of the town watch. I talked to everyone whose job it is to protect the town against the living dead. And the thing is . . . they’re doing it wrong.

  They think that the fence and the watch-towers are the right way to go because we’ve never been hit with a big wave of zoms. Tom said that it’s because zombies won’t go uphill unless they’re actively following prey. Mountainside is way up in the Sierra Nevadas. That’s why there are so many more zoms in the valleys and lowlands. So . . . it’s not that our defenses are all that great, it’s just that we’re lucky because of where we are.

  What if that changes? There are faster zoms now, we’ve seen them. We fought some of them. And since leaving town we’ve seen zoms moving in flocks. The reapers can even make the zoms move in flocks or herds.

  If a big wave of zoms attacked, the chain-link fence wouldn’t stop them.

  I’ve read so many books about fortifications and defenses. From ancient Rome to medieval sieges, to the Napoleonic wars to the tunnel wars in Vietnam. There are a lot of ways to make better defenses. The people in town are too lazy to be smart.

  If I was in charge I’d do things differently.

  I’d do them better.

  42

  THEY PARKED THEIR QUADS AT the far side of the field, turned off the engines, dismounted, and then ran quickly and lightly through the shadows under the trees. They found a good spot several hundred yards away from the edge of the clearing, and there they stopped to observe the place where they’d parked. Lilah touched a finger to her lips, but they were all cautious enough to make no sound. Benny remembered one of Tom’s lessons about stealth and observation. When in doubt, observe, listen, wait, and evaluate.

  The roar of their quads had been an unavoidable noise, which meant that they had announced their arrival to everyone and everything. The spot where they’d parked the quads was in deep shadow, though. It was impossible to tell from any distance where the riders of those vehicles were. If there were predators out here—zoms, reapers, the pride of lions, or anything else—then they would be observing that spot, waiting for movement.

  Riot gestured to the others to indicate that she was going to go deeper into the woods and circle around to check the vicinity. Lilah nodded and took off in yet a different direction, leaving Nix and Benny where they were. With the two best hunters abroad in the woods, they’d be able to establish a very good idea of how safe they were.

  Long minutes passed, and gradually the natural sounds of the forest returned. There were plenty of birds in this part of the forest, and some chattering monkeys. Insects buzzed through the air. A deer stepped tentatively out from under the trees on the far side of the field and began grazing among the juniper bushes. After ten minutes, Lilah walked out of the woods near where the quads were parked. Her pistol was holstered, and she held her spear loosely in her hands. Seconds later, Riot came trotting out from between a rock and a big bristlecone tree. She waved all clear.

  “Let’s go,” said Benny, and he and Nix left the shadows and walked out into the sunlight. The field was covered in tall, dry grass that sighed with every breath of wind.

  They walked through the tall grass and approached the edge of the ravine with caution, testing the ground with their feet in case it was undercut. A month ago Benny had stood on the edge of this ravine and thought he was safe from a group of pursuing zoms, but the edge had collapsed under him, tumbling him down to the bottom along with dozens of the dead.

  They found one very solid spot and stood shoulder to shoulder looking down.

  A sea of white faces looked back up at them.

  Zoms.

  “God,” said Benny, “they’re still here.”

  Riot looked at him. “I thought that’s exactly what you expected.”

  “Sure,” he admitted, “but think about it. These zoms are going to be down there forever. Just standing there. Year after year.”

  “That’s horrible,” said Nix.

  “That’s hell as far as I see it,” said Riot.

  “That’s the Ruin,” said Lilah coldly.

  They all glanced at her, then they looked down again. The faces of the dead wer
e as pale as worms, their skin streaked with dirt, their eyes dusty, their hands reaching upward.

  “How many you reckon are down there?” asked Riot.

  “More than before,” said Nix. “A lot more. After the first bunch fell in while chasing Benny, others must have been drawn to the sounds.”

  Lilah walked along the edge of the trench. Benny marveled that she could walk without a limp. It was only a few weeks after her injury, and every step had to hurt. The fact that she did not limp at all meant that she was eating her pain with each step. That was nearly as impressive as it was creepy.

  We all eat our pain, observed his inner voice. All four of us, and Chong, and Joe and everyone else. Eating our pain gives us the fuel to keep fighting.

  For once Benny could find no fault with what that inner voice said. He nodded to himself.

  “I’ll take the other side,” he said. “Nix, Riot . . . you guys go down to the other end and start up from there.” He gave them as good a description of Ortega as he could remember.

  Riot started to go, but Nix lingered a moment.

  “What?” asked Benny.

  She stepped closer and kept her voice low enough so that only he could hear her.

  “Benny, yesterday was a mess.”

  He shrugged.

  “No,” she insisted, “it was. I freaked out about Chong, and I reacted the wrong way.”

  “It’s—”

  “I know we already talked about it, and I know we’re supposed to be over it,” she said. “But I’m not over it. I don’t know who that was yesterday, but that wasn’t me.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a gentle smile, “I get that.”

  “Do you?”

  “I really do.”

  Nix touched Benny’s cheek, but the action was tentative, almost fearful. “Can—can I ask you one question, Benny?”

  “You can ask me anything.”

  She took a breath and seemed to be steeling herself for what she was about to say. “Do you . . . do you still love me?”

  He almost laughed.

  Luckily, his inner voice and whatever common sense he possessed grappled with his automatic reaction and wrestled it to the floor. So instead of a laugh, he gave her a smile. Even so, Nix’s face instantly clouded.