Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12

by Lecter, Adrienne

  In front of us, the street continued over the highway and into the charred remains of the houses on the other side, but just like Marleen and Burns sprinting ahead of me, I aimed for the ramp leading to the highway instead. Somewhat sheltered from the blast, the cars across the many lanes had been pushed together but no longer to the point of turning them into one giant mass of scrap metal. Maybe three hundred yards farther downtown, I could see the lanes of the branch-off leading to the side, and at least the two innermost lanes leading downtown were somewhat less of a chaos of metal and rust. I saw figures bobbing up and down between the cars there, hoping that it was our vanguard and not more shamblers already jumping up in anticipation of their next meal.

  Fletcher and one other marine sprinted by me, making me guess that Blake’s people were catching up to us. As soon as I managed to squeeze past the cars permanently clogging up the ramp, I did my best to aim for the inner lanes, using every inch of free room to get there faster. The howls cut off but there was still movement aplenty around us, which kept me pushing myself as hard as I could. My lungs were screaming for oxygen, making me slightly woozy, but I knew that if I slowed down, I was toast. The leg the shambler had been clinging to gave a few uncomfortable twinges but soon got drowned out by the other signals my body was sending.

  Whether by accident or because he decided his life was worth more than mine, Fletcher cut me off as I tried to vault over a limousine’s hood, forcing me to bounce off the side of the car to halt my momentum. I cut off the curse that I wanted to scream at him, instead taking a step back to gain enough speed to slide across the car after him. Rather than a normal—or even scrambling—landing, Fletcher disappeared out from sight, giving me a split-second to wonder what was going on. Then I was coming off the hood myself, legs first—and right on top of the two zombies that had grabbed Fletcher and were doing their best to haul him underneath that very same car. I felt a little like a late-comer to a huddle in a football game, and since directly underneath me was only animated dead flesh, I blindly hacked at heads and hands where I could reach them. Too fast to slow down or avoid me, Richards came barreling right into me, incidentally—or maybe not—shoving me off the heap of bodies.

  Staggering to regain my balance, I whirled around and went right for the closest shambler, and within moments, Richards had pulled the other off Fletcher to give him room to breathe—but not before the one I was about to kill reared back and went straight for the marine’s neck. My ax bit into the back of the shambler’s skull a few seconds later, but the damage was done, bright-red blood spurting when I kicked the zombie off Fletcher. His eyes were impossibly wide—likely more from pain than panic, but that would come soon enough—and when I leaned down to offer him my arm, he was quick to grab it so I could pull him to his feet, never mind my gore-covered tomahawk at the end of it.

  Richards pushed me aside—or gave me a shove further down the highway, it was impossible to tell which—and pressed a wad of fabric against the wound on Fletcher’s neck, his scarf as I realized. Fletcher’s whole body shook as he switched his own hand for Red’s, and then both men came bolting after me, Richards quick to deflect another shambler that tried to come for Fletcher. Figuring that I was no use to anyone if I got eaten because I didn’t pay attention, I forced myself to face forward, my pace quickening now that the vehicles were far enough apart that I could swerve around rather than needing to go over them.

  Whether by intent or accident, the marine had likely saved my hide, and now had less than forty-eight hours of his own to enjoy.

  I much preferred running until my lungs felt ready to burst and the muscles in my legs were on fire to contemplating that.

  I fully expected to keep running on the southward-bound branch of the highway—particularly since we’d all gone right past the lanes leading in the other direction—but just where the ramp coming from over there merging onto the highway came up, Hamilton had stopped, signaling us to turn right. Knowing that danger lay behind us, my mind wanted to balk at the idea of partially turning back, but as soon as I whipped around and started toward the ramp, I realized that it was a smart move, whether I wanted to admit it or not, coming from that jackass. For whatever reason, there were far fewer cars broken down there, leaving us enough room to sprint, unhindered, at full speed. My body protested but I forced it into compliance, then pushed myself more until my entire focus narrowed down to the open patches of road and where I could force my body through. I flew past a few of the others, catching up to Marleen and Scott where they were running almost at the top of the now gently curving passover. Below, I could see the last of our people—Hamilton and Blake bringing up the rear. Ahead, I caught my first real look at the skyline of downtown Dallas, but my mind was too preoccupied with keeping me alive to appreciate it. What caught my attention wasn’t that, but instead the tunnel the highway seemed to be leading into. From up here, I couldn’t tell if it was just for a few yards or a longer stretch. The cars were piled up almost on top of each other leading there, so it didn’t look like the best way to go.

  “Where to?” I asked Scott, hoping that he had a better idea. He did, wordlessly pointing to the very right of the highway where another lane, once separated by a low cement boundary from the rest that was mostly gone where several trucks had plowed right into it. Rather than backtrack, I jumped over the blocks, running up the lane toward where the skyscrapers hulked over us.

  Nate caught up with me before I got to the top of the ramp where it merged into a huge intersection right above where the highway disappeared into the tunnel. Rather than turn to the street that led between the skyscrapers into downtown, he pointed at the park-like space above the highway, quickly signaling me to hide there. “Get lost” was more like it, I figured, when I glanced back over my shoulder and saw a good hundred shamblers coming up the upward-turning ramp I had just left, hot on the heels of the last of our people. I didn’t mind Hamilton getting eaten, but it would be a shame about Blake and Fletcher.

  It was a real park, I realized, complete with sculptures and benches along what I figured must have been well-kept grass and trees. There was debris and junk everywhere that the wind must have carried with it that had been caught between the obstacles, turning it into a giant hide-and-seek stage. Scott and Marleen were right beside me as I disappeared into the green-brown maze, doing my very best to stop making so much noise. My strained muscles and lungs might have been happy for me to slow down, but my lizard brain was still in full-on flight mode, my instincts screaming at me to go for the open spaces where I could run faster.

  What must have been a children’s playground appeared ahead and to my right, not much of it left except for the partially broken-down remnants of some kind of monkey bars and attached tower. It wasn’t great cover, but unlike the trees, it was something I could scale unaided, and it was far enough out in the open to see that it wasn’t inhabited. With a running start and some praying, I launched myself at the structure, feeling the hard wood shudder underneath my weight but hold. Crouching down in the corner, I held my breath until I started to see spots, forcing my breathing to slow down. I was still partly exposed, but with luck no shambler would check up here or see me if I didn’t move. The remains of the formerly bright red plastic slide on the ground, now bleached a light pink, were far more distracting than my tan-and-black gear.

  Marleen took inspiration from my move and climbed one of the trees with branches hanging low enough so that she could reach one to pull herself up, and Scott disappeared deeper into the park. On another walkway maybe a hundred feet from me I saw his remaining two marines make their way through the maze. Maybe half a minute after them, Sonia came hurtling down the path I had been following, with Burns behind her. The sound of running steps slowly abated and silence settled—all the better to hear the clamoring of thousands of undead coming from virtually all directions around us. The sun was still in the sky but sinking slowly, turning the world into a kaleidoscope of yellows and reds—not that I could appre
ciate it today.

  A few shamblers came roaming into the park, but they seemed to be wandering around aimlessly rather than following a lead. They kept bobbing their heads up and down in what I realized was some kind of sniffing maneuver, but how they could have caught our scent over the abominable stink of the city was beyond me. Life on the road—even if it had only been days since we’d left the camp—didn’t exactly come with perfect hygiene practice. They didn’t halt near Marleen’s tree and also skipped the playground, only pausing when they saw a different group come around a cluster of trees to their left. Some silent snarling later, the two groups turned away from each other, searching elsewhere. Far was it from me to make observations about their hunting patterns, but that looked tantalizingly like small packs of predators to me, like a pride of lions.

  Fuck, but I hated being prey.

  With us spread out over who knew how many square feet now, I checked that my com was on, but no orders came over the line. From time to time I picked up some static, making me guess that Nate had his on sending, not just on receiving. The first fifteen minutes of waiting were tense but felt good after running as fast as I could. But then my paranoia got the better of me, and the fear of getting caught out in the open for the night got stronger and stronger. The influx of shamblers didn’t stop but it also didn’t get worse, making me guess that we had done a good job throwing them off our trail. Judging from the fact that the park was less heavily defecated on than the highway we’d left behind, the shamblers must usually avoid the somewhat open spaces. And why not? There was the densely packed labyrinth of downtown Dallas mere minutes away, and a lot more hiding spaces in all other directions as well, not to mention the highway tunnel underneath the park. Why risk exposure—to the elements, but also other hunters—when you could lurk in the dark? And from how the late afternoon sun was still beating down on me, I could definitely say that they were much smarter than us in that aspect.

  I was just about to consider easing myself down from my perch when more static crackled over the line, followed by Nate’s voice. “We need to move out, unless we want to become zombie chow come sunset. There are four streets leading into downtown across the length of the park. Unless impossible for your position, the fireteams will take them in this order from east to west.” He quickly rattled off the team leaders. My group was called for the east-most, which wasn’t ideal since I could tell I was much further west than that. I considered speaking up but decided that I’d head toward the closest road and backtrack in the direction Nate had just assigned to me. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find Richards hiding somewhere close by so he could materialize out of thin air as soon as I moved out, to go with the theme of sticking with me like a dug-in tick.

  Nobody acknowledged—or objected—but I still waited another five minutes before I got back down to the ground. Call me an asshole, but if the shamblers were laying in wait for us, I wanted someone else to traipse into and spring that trap. I felt refreshed enough to easily run a few more miles, which told me I was actually dipping into my reserves and on the far side of exhaustion.

  Red didn’t step into my way, but I saw Eden and Amos, and later Blake and Fletcher move just outside of what would have been shouting distance, each group heading in a slightly different direction. Paranoia made my skin itch as if a million eyes were following my every move but I forced myself to ignore it. As long as said eyes weren’t attached to snapping jaws coming right for me, they could watch all they wanted.

  It took me a nerve-wracking ten minutes to reach the mouth of the street I had been assigned to, which was, of course, the street I had wanted to turn to before Nate had sent us hiding in the park. Pressed against the side of an overturned car that had ended up blocking the sidewalk, I waited for twenty endless heartbeats before I stepped around the obstacle and started my way down the street, doing my very best to blend in with my surroundings as silently as possible. The street was wide and completely choked-up with vehicles, but that was still better than the sidewalk where debris and dried leaves had gathered, making silent passing virtually impossible.

  Something rustled behind me and to my right, making me duck and freeze. The sound didn’t repeat itself—and it could have been leaves or paper rustling in the light evening breeze that still felt like furnace exhaust—but I didn’t dare rely on it. Through the windows of the cars next to me, I couldn’t see anything, so I crouched down to peer underneath the vehicles. Since the shamblers had been hiding there before, it sounded like a good guess. I didn’t see any of them, but just as I was about to come up again, I caught motion ahead and to the right of me—a pair of boots. I waited, and a few seconds later, I saw them again a few feet further south. Bingo.

  I didn’t so much try to sneak up on whoever was making their way forward but ended up almost scaring the shit out of Hill when I stepped into his path between two crashed and mangled trucks. He narrowed his eyes at me in silent reproach—and gave me the finger where his hands were firmly wrapped around his sledgehammer—before a jerk of his chin told me to precede him. I couldn’t hold back a smirk as I followed suit, telling myself no harm, no foul. Ahead, beyond the next intersection, lay the fourth block since the park, making me guess that we were half a mile closer to our destination. So far, so good. I didn’t have my hand-sketched map out but I figured we must be getting close to where the southbound highway continued on that we’d left before the park. Everything was slowly sinking into deepening shadows as the sun dipped closer and closer to the horizon, night coming early in the concrete-and-glass ravines of the city.

  I got ready to cross the street but hesitated when the hot wind carried a particularly foul note right into my face. At first I thought it was coming from up ahead—closer to the highway. But when I waited and listened, I realized I could hear low, shuffling steps coming from my left—a lot of low, shuffling steps. With dread crawling up my spine, I crouched further down—to keep a low profile—and I peered around the hood of the car closest to the intersection, trying to catch a glimpse of what was lurking to the east.

  I stopped counting at thirty and went right on to rough estimates—at least two hundred shamblers were swaying down the street, like molasses oozing between pebbles, slow yet impossible to stop. Pulling back, I deliberated for a moment, then signaled Hill that we needed to get going, and forward was likely not the best option. I hated the idea of turning right and having that at my back until the next intersection, but crossing right in front of them sounded like an even worse idea. Hill took one glance over the car and gave me the go-ahead, looking worried himself.

  I forced myself to keep moving slowly and deliberately, even with every single fiber in my body screaming for me to break into a run. That would get me hunted down and killed in no time, I was sure, but that didn’t change anything about my hard-wired instincts. The parallel streets were running in close proximity here so it was not even a long block to the next intersection, but every second that passed felt like an excruciating eternity. I was halfway there when I saw two figures sneak between the cars—Amos and Eden, if I wasn’t mistaken. I wondered if they’d lost the third member of their group since nobody else followed.

  Two steps further, and Hill’s hand suddenly clapped down on my right shoulder. I glanced back at him, but before he could signal something, I realized what was going on—the shambling mass must have caught on to us, as I could see them surge into the intersection where we’d turned off behind us. My pulse kicked into overdrive, and while I tried my very best not to make any noises, I increased my speed to a weird kind of hopping and weaving around cars.

  A loud howl behind me told me it was a wasted effort.

  Hill sprinted past me, sliding across a car hood to cross half the distance to the other side of the road. Under different circumstances, I would have been annoyed to be passed by and left to the shamblers, but with his larger frame he had a harder time remaining hidden, and any attention he could draw away from me was something that worked in my favor. I
sprinted forward, in seconds making it to the intersection—and kept going straight while Hill turned after the scavengers, who still followed their ordered path. The houses on the right were all sky high with glass fronts, but there was a multi-level car park on the other side, so I switched over to run alongside that. Peering into the semi darkness of the ground level, I tried to make out whether it was infested or not, but when the howling reached the intersection behind me—and much quicker than I had hoped—I realized I was out of options. Forcing a burst of speed out of my aching legs, I ran to where the entrance and exit lanes of the car park left a wide hole in the concrete facade of the building, and ducked inside. My mind screamed for me to keep running, but all I did was duck and inch back alongside the first three cars abandoned there, hoping that any shamblers on my trail would surge ahead further into the level. That turned out right, although most kept streaming by outside, from what I could hear where I did my best to hide alongside and behind a pickup truck’s front wheel.

  I forced myself to count to a hundred—hoping that would end up being around a minute of too-fast seconds—before I checked on the exit. A few shamblers were still coming inside but most looked confused, more like they were following because the one coming before them had turned, not because they were actively hunting me. Peering further into the building, I saw a good fifty lurking this way and that, none of them coming in my direction. A few snapped at each other, making me guess that the newcomers were mixing with the resident population. I needed to get out of here before they realized they had a common goal.