There. Cameron. Dying.
A crazy was perched on top of him, straddling the ex-soldier as if his waist were a saddle and he a mechanical bull. Cole didn’t have to wonder if Cameron’s assailant were an infected or not even if he could only see the killer’s back. All he had to do was watch the man plunging—over and over and over—that Allen head screwdriver into Cameron’s face. Normal people didn’t do that.
Cole couldn’t see Cameron from his angle, and he didn’t really want to, anyway. Cameron was dead. There was no doubt about that. The man’s body lay spread-eagle on the ground. The only movements from him were his hands, which twitched involuntarily whenever the crazy slammed the screwdriver into him.
“Well, shit,” the Voice said. “So much for that extra gun you can count on.”
Cole sighed and didn’t wait for the crazy to notice him. He was ten feet away, and it was an easy shot. He put a round through the man’s back, then when the infected started to turn slightly, pausing his onslaught of Cameron’s leftover face, Cole shot him in the right temple.
The man slumped off Cameron’s body and didn’t move, blood flowing freely from not just the two holes that Cole had put into him, but two others in his chest that Cole hadn’t seen earlier. Cameron apparently had gotten his licks in, though not enough of them to save himself.
The very loud and obvious crunching of plastic soles on gravel.
Behind him!
Cole spun just as a man charged across the rooftop toward him.
Tall, rangy, and Hispanic. Some kind of soul patch, partially matted to his pale skin with dry blood, dangled from his elongated chin. He held a bloody hammer in one hand, the wooden handle covered over with flailing duct tape.
“Where the hell did he come from?” the Voice asked.
Good question.
“I know, that’s my job, remember!”
Cole took a quick step forward and squeezed off a shot. The crazy came to a stop but didn’t go down. Before he could resume moving, Cole shot him two more times, walking toward the man as he did so.
The crazy toppled and Cole hurried past him, moving urgently to the edge of the rooftop where the infected had clearly been coming from. He saw more fresh blood on the gravel blinking underneath the fading sunlight.
Cole reached the end of the roof and peered down cautiously.
Sonofabitch.
It was a ladder. A long aluminum extension ladder that could have gone all the way up to the third floor if the warehouse Cole were standing on had one. Whoever had laid it against the wall had kept the very top from poking up and becoming obvious. That was how they’d managed to sneak up on Cameron.
So where the hell had the ladder been earlier, when the woman in joggers snuck up on Bolton? Cole had looked. So had Cameron. And they hadn’t found any way up besides scaling the wall.
Movement, as a body ran down the alleyway in a streak of black pants and shirt. A kid. He couldn’t have been older than ten if those brown eyes, dripping with blood, were any indication as the boy stared up at Cole even as he fled past. He had a knife—some kind of switchblade—in one hand, and blood covered almost the entire part of his arm that jutted out from underneath the short sleeve.
Cole lifted the SIG Sauer to aim, but didn’t pull the trigger. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t. The kid might have smirked at Cole as he reached the alley entrance and disappeared around the corner.
“That was definitely a smirk,” the Voice said.
Maybe.
“You should have shot the little brat.”
And waste a bullet?
“What? You running low or something?”
The Voice had a point, but Cole didn’t let it know that.
It laughed. “Again, chum, I know everything you know!”
Cole ignored it and grabbed the ladder and pulled it up. It wasn’t very easy to do; the ladder was extremely heavy and long, which made it cumbersome to maneuver. Toppling it into the alley floor below would have been easier, but it would have also allowed someone else to reuse it. And Cole was tired of having crazies sneak up on them on the rooftop.
Finally, he was able to get the ladder all the way up. Cole dropped it and went to make sure the three crazies that had made it up were truly dead. You could never truly tell. He remembered one playing possum on him not too long ago…
The one Cameron dropped hadn’t moved, and neither did the two Cole had taken out. He found Cameron’s rifle near the chopper and picked it up, then spent a few seconds thinking about going through the ex-soldier’s pockets.
He decided against it and headed back into the rooftop access hatch instead. The sun was already low, casting an orange field across the city’s skyline. It would be dark soon. He was dreading that in the worst way.
Zoe was waiting for him at the bottom of the rooftop stairs. “What happened?” she asked. Then, looking past him, “Where’s Cameron?”
“He’s dead,” Cole said.
He turned around and locked the door. The latch was strong enough to hold back a grown man, but might not be so effective against a sledgehammer. But he’d deal with that problem when he had to. He considered dragging another shelf up here, or using one of the desks in the offices, but it wouldn’t be worth the hassle. If anyone tried to break their way in, he’d know, and he’d be ready.
“What happened?” Zoe asked again.
“Crazies got onto the rooftop.”
“How?”
“There was a ladder.”
“A ladder?”
“Yeah.”
“You said ‘crazies.’”
He saw the question in her eyes. Cole shook his head. “I don’t think they were working together. More likely, one of them found a ladder and used it, and the others just took the opportunity to follow him up to the rooftop. They got the drop on Cameron. He managed to take one down, but the second one got to him.”
“There were two?”
“Three.’
“So they can’t get up here again.”
“Maybe. We’re only two floors up. They found a way up twice now. They could do it again. Better we all stay down here from now on, until we’re ready to leave.”
Dante rolled over to join them, Mark walking alongside the teen. They both had their guns out and ready. Or as ready as they would ever be. Cole had no plans to put his life in either of the duo’s hands. That was a role he’d been hoping Cameron could fill.
“That’s what you get for hoping,” the Voice said.
Yeah, I know.
“Dang, I was hoping we’d have Cameron on the road,” Dante was saying. He looked genuinely sad. Cole remembered Dante telling him that Cameron had once considered getting rid of him.
“Guess the kid forgave him,” the Voice said.
Or he knows we needed Cameron.
“Or that, too.”
“So what do we do now?” Zoe was asking.
The three of them looked over at him.
“We wait out the night, then travel tomorrow morning back to Anton’s warehouse,” Cole said. “There’s no point in risking traveling in the dark now.” He could tell Zoe had more to say, but Cole walked away before she could. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on the rooftop door throughout the night. Be ready to go in the morning.”
Dante turned around as Cole walked past him. “What if they try to come in?”
“Then we fight them off,” Cole said without stopping. “Worst-case scenario, we use the APC. It’s survived an entire city of crazies; it can brave a warehouse full of them.”
That seemed to placate the others. Or, if it didn’t, Cole didn’t wait around to find out. He kept walking back to the office where he’d spent too many days recovering. And all the while, Emily was out there, somewhere. But to find her, he needed to get back to Anton’s.
“One step at a time, chum,” the Voice said. “Or, should I say, one night at a time. ’Cause I have a feeling the buggers aren’t going to give us a peaceful last night here.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Get in the APC. Get back to Anton’s.”
Not yet.
“Ah, you said ‘not yet.’ You didn’t say ‘no.’”
Same difference.
“Is it?”
Yes.
“I don’t think so. You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?”
You’re wrong.
“Am I?”
Very wrong.
The Voice laughed. “Again, chum, must I remind you that I’m you and vice versa?”
Cole didn’t answer. He didn’t like the idea of the Voice being even remotely attached to who he was.
No, scratch that.
The Voice was who he used to be. The was part of him. The now him was different.
“Keep telling yourself that,” it said.
Shut up.
“I’m just trying to keep you company.”
You’re annoying me.
“You didn’t say that when I was keeping you alive.”
That wasn’t you. That was me.
“Are you sure about that?”
100 percent.
It laughed again. “I think you almost believed yourself that time. Almost.”
Cole grunted, when he heard the sound of a door clicking open behind and slightly below him. He glanced back and watched Dante rolling out of the APC in his chair, then looking around. Cole could just barely make Dante out; truth be told, he might not have been able to distinguish the kid’s black skin against the dark interior of the warehouse, but the slightly squeaking wheels of the chair gave it away and helped Cole to pinpoint the teen’s location.
Should probably oil that, he thought.
“Among other things,” the Voice said. “And by ‘other things,’ I of course mean dump the cripple, the single mom, and the useless teenager.”
No.
“You know it’s the right move.”
I don’t know any such thing.
“You want to find Emily or not?”
I do.
“Then dump the excess baggage. Let’s face it, Bolton and Cameron were the only decent warm bodies on hand. These three are wet sacks of useless.”
Four. You forgot Ashley.
“Yeah, her, too. Dump them all.”
No, Cole thought, before walking closer to the railing. He looked down at Dante from the catwalk. The kid was rolling over to the bottom of the stairs that connected the first and second floor. They had found a slab of metal that worked perfectly as a ramp for Dante to roll up and down the APC. That allowed the teen to move on his own and didn’t require someone to carry him, and his chair, up and down.
“You shouldn’t be outside,” Cole said. There was a slight echo to his voice that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. Maybe it was the night. Or maybe his hearing was just a little bit too hyper, noticing any and all sounds that might be a prelude to an attack.
Dante craned his head to look up at him. “It was getting a little boring in there. The others didn’t bother to bring any entertainment with them.”
“So what’s everyone doing?”
“Sleeping.”
“Which you should be, too.”
“Like I said. It was boring. Plus, Mark snores.”
“So do you.”
“What?”
“You snore.”
Dante shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
“Yeah, you do.”
The kid’s eyes widened slightly. “You sure?”
“No one ever told you?”
“No.”
“They should have. You sound like a runaway train.”
“Dang,” Dante said. “I never knew that.”
Cole was a bit surprised the others had agreed to retreat into the APC as he had instructed them. He’d expected an argument, but they’d obeyed without resistance. Even Zoe had gone into the vehicle with her daughter, followed by Mark and Dante. Mark had become Dante’s de facto pusher-of-the-wheelchair. As expected, the surviving member of Deke’s crew hadn’t given Cole any trouble whatsoever.
“I guess he didn’t like them that much,” the Voice said.
I guess not.
“It’s not safe out here,” Cole said down to Dante.
“And it’s safe in there?” Dante said.
“Safer, yes.”
“Meh.” The kid shrugged.
“What does that mean?”
“It means”—he shrugged again—“meh.”
“Kid’s got a way with words,” the Voice said.
He’s got a way with something, all right.
Cole said out loud, “You should head back,” before turning around and walking back to the wooden rocking chair he’d brought out from one of the offices. It made him feel like an old man, (“You are an old man,” the Voice laughed.) but it was better than standing in the same spot all night long.
From this angle, he had a perfect view of the rooftop access door above the stairs. If the crazies were going to come in, they’d be using that point of entrance. The side door was heavily barricaded. Cole had made sure of that with Mark and Zoe’s help earlier. They’d done the same to the only other door at the front. The only other way in was the hangar door, and it would have taken something like the APC more than one try to break it down, and even then, that wasn’t a guarantee.
Cole placed the AR rifle in his lap and leaned back in the chair. He should have grabbed one of the pillows and put it on the seat before sitting down. His butt was getting numb against the too-hard wooden slab. He could see Dante through the open holes in the catwalk’s floor, just sitting there in the dark.
“I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” the Voice said.
Give him a minute.
“Give him two, but he’s still not going anywhere.”
Cole sighed, and called down, “What’s on your mind, Dante?”
“Are they out there?” Dante asked.
“You already know the answer to that one,” Cole said. “So what’s really on your mind?”
Dante didn’t respond right away.
“That obvious?” he finally said.
“Yes.”
“The others…”
“Which others?”
“Earlier today.”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Cole said, even though he already knew who Dante was referring to. Deke, Annette, and George. Who else? What had happened would have been ingrained into the kid’s mind. Despite everything he’d seen until now, watching Cole shoot three people (“Well, technically just two,” the Voice said.) that had come in peace and offered their friendship was something you didn’t just brush off.
“It’s not like he can do anything about it,” the Voice said.
That was true, but Dante could cause problems in other ways.
“Like what?”
I don’t know. Let me think about it.
“Just dump the kid. I’ve been telling you that since we met him.”
I didn’t then, and I’m not going to now. So you might as well stop saying it.
The Voice snickered. “If I did that, what kind of conscience would I be?”
Is that what you are? My conscience?
“Well, I’m not not your conscience. As to what I am, exactly? That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”
Like you keep saying. I’m you and you’re me. So, theoretically, I should already know the answer.
“Sure about that?”
Yeah.
“Are you sure about that?”
Why wouldn’t I be?
“You haven’t been you a lot these days. These years, if we’re being honest.”
There’s a reason for that.
“Emily. Of course.”
She means everything.
“What if she’s dead?”
She’s not dead.
“You don’t know that. They took her. Whoever ‘they’ are. Left you for dead on top of that roof, too
. Now that’s a hell of a way to treat us. Almost makes a disemboweled voice want to get a little revenge.”
“The others,” Dante was saying from below him. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Cole sighed. He didn’t feel like arguing about this; he hadn’t, with Zoe, and still didn’t, now with Dante. But he didn’t think he was going to be able to escape this conversation forever. At least, not if he planned on keeping the kid around.
The Voice cleared its throat.
Oh, shut up, Cole thought.
“We could have talked to them,” Dante was saying. “Convinced them.”
“I tried, remember?”
“You could have tried again. I could have backed your play. Zoe—”
“I tried,” Cole said, cutting the kid off. “I tried, Dante. What happened…happened. There’s no going back. Just deal with it.”
Dante sighed and looked down at the floor. “We could have still talked to them,” he said, more to himself than Cole.
“Go back inside the APC, Dante. You don’t want to be out here if anything happens.”
“Yeah, I guess not,” Dante said. He turned around and began rolling back toward the parked vehicle.
Cole watched him disappear back into the APC, then heard the door clicking shut. The others hadn’t come out the entire night. Even Zoe had given up talking to him. And Mark, well, he still hadn’t said a word about what’d happened. At least Cole could be thankful for that.
He looked over at the stairs leading up to the rooftop access door. It was as dark and cold and quiet as it’d been since sunlight faded and darkness overwhelmed the city outside the warehouse walls. If there were anyone even still alive out there—someone not crazy—Cole couldn’t hear a peep from them. How was it possible all the crazies could stay so quiet?
“Because they’re hunters,” the Voice said. “The most dangerous of the most dangerous. The weak ones died off already. It’s just the big dogs now. And big dogs didn’t get to be big dogs by being stupid.”
The Voice was right, of course. Cole had come to that same conclusion a while back. So had Emily and the others. They weren’t dealing with packs of unthinking creatures here. The infected retained their intelligence. Cole didn’t know if they’d gotten smarter—he didn’t think so, though—but they certainly hadn’t gotten dumber.
Fall of Man | Book 4 | The Tide Page 16