Broken Lands

by Jonathan Maberry

  Jenny: “He’s a good kid, Chas.”

  Chas: “Maybe he is, but if he looks at me the wrong way, I’ll put him down and won’t cry a tear about it.”

  Before Benny could give Nix a signal, she stood up, opened the door, and walked in.

  “Hey,” gasped Jenny, surprise making her voice jump an octave, “what are you—?”

  There was a metallic sound that was absolutely distinctive. Nix had racked the slide on her Glock. Oh boy, thought Benny, and then he went in after her. Jenny and Chas were standing there, staring at the gun in Nix’s small hand, confused smiles on their faces.

  “Put your hands on your heads,” said Nix in a voice that was as cold as winter ice. “If you try anything, I’ll blow your kneecaps off.”

  Chas bristled and puffed out his chest as he took a threatening step forward. Benny’s sword was out of its scabbard in a tenth of a second, and the tip of it against Chas’s chest stopped him cold.

  “You heard her,” he said.

  “What’s this all about?” gasped Jenny, fear igniting in her eyes.

  “Hands on your heads,” repeated Nix. “Fingers laced. I won’t ask again.”

  They did as she ordered. Jenny was visibly trembling and Chas looked ready to kill. But he was no fool.

  Benny resheathed his sword and removed a ball of strong hairy twine from his pocket, pulled their hands down behind their backs, and very quickly but efficiently tied their wrists, looping the line through their belts. He ordered them to sit down, and bound their ankles. Then he produced rags from another pocket. He balled some of the rag and stuffed it into their mouths, then wound more cloth around their heads to keep it secure. Once he was sure they could breathe, he straightened, then leaned over and scanned the field. It was completely empty. He waved his arm to Lilah and Morgie, who removed the bar from the gates. Lilah pushed the gate open as Riot and Chong came out of hiding, pushing the first two quads. Lilah and Morgie ran to get two more. When all six machines were outside the gate and the trailers hooked up, Morgie signaled Benny. It all took less than four minutes.

  “They’re done,” said Benny quietly. He turned and looked down at Jenny and Chas. “Okay, here’s the deal. We’re leaving, and we don’t want anyone to stop us. The next shift starts in an hour. We’ll bar the gate again from outside, so don’t worry about zoms getting in or anything. Sorry for all this, but you know you’d have tried to stop us.”

  Chas said something very obscene, but the rags muffled most of it.

  Nix smiled at him as she released the magazine from her pistol and showed it to them. It was empty. She dropped it on the floor between the captives, then slapped a fully loaded magazine into the weapon and pulled back the slide to load a live round into the chamber.

  They started to go, but then Benny paused and turned. He bent over Chas and very quietly said, “Chong’s my friend. What happened to him isn’t his fault. He takes his meds and he’s fine. You have no idea what he went through to save this town, including you and your whole family. If I ever see you again, and if you ever say or do anything to him, you and me are going to have a problem. Sure, I’m only sixteen, but do you think that’s going to matter?”

  Chas glared defiantly up at him.

  “Chong’s worth ten of you,” Benny said. He straightened, turned, and followed Nix down the ladder.

  Before joining the others, Benny touched Nix’s arm and bent close to her.

  “We’re in trouble now,” he said. “Solomon and Mayor Kirsch are never going to understand why we did this. Why we had to do this.”

  “It’s done,” said Nix. “Can’t go back now.”

  “I know, but . . . we are doing the right thing,” Benny said. “Right?”

  Nix took two handfuls of his shirt and used the grip to pull him down a bit as she stood on her toes. She kissed Benny very sweetly on the lips. He wrapped one arm around her waist and tangled his fingers in her wild hair, and the kiss deepened.

  Finally they stood for a moment, touching foreheads, leaning into each other’s energy.

  “Last year,” he murmured, “after the fight with Saint John . . . I thought I’d lost you, Nix. I thought I wasn’t ever going to be enough for you.”

  “I guess we kind of lost each other out there,” said Nix. “We got so busy fighting that we stopped paying attention.”

  “To what? To us?”

  “No, to the people we were turning into,” said Nix. “I’m not the little girl from town anymore. You’re not that boy who complained about everything and hated your brother. Let’s face it, Benny, the world hasn’t been very nice to us. We’ve almost died more times than I can count. So . . . falling in love and all that romantic stuff, that ‘being a couple’ stuff almost didn’t survive.” She paused and stepped back, glancing at the night-shrouded town behind them and out through the open gate. “And now we’re leaving again and maybe we’ll get hurt out there. Or die. Or whatever. We’ll change, though, I know that much. We’ll change for sure.”

  Benny licked his lips. “Then we’ll change.”

  She started to go, stopped, turned back. “Benny, I don’t know how to tell the future, so I don’t know what will happen to us. Not just all six of us, but us. You and me. I don’t know. All I do know is that you gave me some time and some distance after we got back last year, and if you had pushed me, you’d have pushed me all the way away.” She smiled, and it was a little sad. “I love you, Benny. Maybe I don’t say it enough, but it’s how I feel. I love you, and one way or another, you’re always going to be in my life. Always.”

  He felt a knife turn slowly in his heart. “I love you, too, Nix. Always will.”

  He was keenly aware that they were not saying exactly the same thing.

  “Hey,” called Morgie in a harsh whisper, “are you two monkey-bangers coming or not?”

  Nix gave Benny another kiss. Quicker, lighter, but still real.

  Benny adjusted the kami katana strap that slanted diagonally across his chest, reached up over his shoulder to touch the handle of the weapon for good luck, then followed Nix.

  There were heavy iron sockets on both sides of the doors. Once they were outside, Morgie helped Benny lift the ten-foot oak beam and slide it into place. It had been put there in case the town became overrun and fleeing survivors needed to trap the zoms inside. The next shift of tower guards would have to exit through a key-locked access door to get out here and remove it. That would take time. For now, it would slow down pursuit. Benny smiled. The exterior bar was one of a hundred new precautions Captain Ledger had recommended. One of a hundred ways the old soldier had made life safer for the people of the Nine Towns. It galled Benny that Ledger had risked his own life, over and over again, for the people behind those gates; and now they were being too slow about doing as much for him.

  Morgie patted the beam, nodded, and then punched Benny on the shoulder. “We’re good,” he said.

  They ran to join the others.

  The six of them pushed their quads all the way to the tree line and then another hundred yards down the main trader’s road. By now the sky was turning a bloody red, and it threw its lurid light across their path. If anyone felt uneasy at the gory hue of the morning, no one dared mention it.

  When they were a mile from the town, they climbed onto the saddles, fired up the engines, and drove away from home.

  Interlude Two

  KICKAPOO CAVERN STATE PARK

  ONE WEEK AGO

  THE HUNTER FOLLOWED THE BLOOD trail for two miles.

  There were blood smears on leaves, on tree trunks, against a big rock. And one big bloody handprint on the fender of an ancient Mustang convertible that had likely been abandoned long before the dead rose.

  The hunter was annoyed by how sloppy his quarry was. Either the man was dazed from whatever catastrophe had befallen him, or he had no idea how to move in the woods. The man moved like he did not care that anyone might follow. That was stupid, because these woods were filled with dangers. So
me that hunted on four legs, others that went on two. Alive and dead.

  The hunter claimed these woods as his own, and predators who came here had to earn their right to share this forest. The hunter allowed the big hunting cats from the zoo to prowl here. They frightened off most of the scavengers and those infected who hadn’t yet lost their minds. Those cats occasionally took down the dead. Not to consume them, but for sport. Leopards were like that. They, like house cats, were among the few animals who hunted for the joy of slaughter. Many humans were like that. Even some of the soldiers the hunter had run with once upon a time had not been drawn to an idealistic sense of honor or even the sense of empowerment that came with bearing arms. Some wanted to spill blood, walk through blood, see blood, and know that it was they who had spilled it.

  The hunter understood that mind-set because it was important to know how minds work. It was not, however, how his mind worked. He had killed so many times that he’d long since lost count. Sane people do not keep that kind of tally. Not unless they want to ruin themselves. As a soldier, as a sniper, as a leader of men and women through the valley of the shadow of death in battlefields around the world, he had spilled blood. And now, here in the wasteland of what had once been America, he killed nearly every day. Animals for food, the dead for protection, and humans for various reasons. He never once enjoyed it.

  He killed to survive, but never for sport. There had been too much senseless death in the world. Everyone he knew was dead. Friends, family, brothers-in-arms. Dead. The world had become a graveyard.

  If the wounded man was benign, then the hunter would offer help. First aid, some food and water, and precise directions for leaving this forest. For going elsewhere. If the man was hostile, then he would die. There wasn’t a lot of give in the hunter. He set strict rules and lived by them. There were a lot of graves hidden among the weeds and wildflowers in these woods.

  The hunter moved on, going faster now because this fool did not merit a more skillful chase. The footprints wandered on, and then he slowed as he saw something odd. The prints suddenly seemed different. Deeper. The hunter paused and knelt by one of them, touching the dirt to see if it was wetter or spongy with moss. It wasn’t.

  Then he saw something else that was wrong. The print was smeared a little. The tread marks looked blurred, doubled, as if the foot had stepped, lifted and stepped down again in the same spot. Almost perfectly, but not. And the weight distribution was wrong. A person walking forward lands heel-heavy. These had that, but he saw that the ball of the foot was equally deep. As if the person had stepped back into his own print and walked backward. Which made no sense unless . . .

  The barrel of a pistol touched the back of his neck.

  “Hold it right there, sparky,” said a cold voice. “You even breathe wrong and I’ll kill you.”

  PART FIVE

  NEW ALAMO, TEXAS

  LATE AUGUST

  THE RAT CATCHERS

  I don’t think of all the misery

  but of the beauty that still remains.

  —ANNE FRANK

  26

  SPIDER DROVE THE WAGON TO hope cemetery, with Alethea seated beside him and Gutsy in the back with her mother. This time the shroud was still, without sound or movement except the rocking of the wagon. Sombra lay with his head on Gutsy’s lap, looking at her with his pale, wise dog eyes.

  It had taken a lot of persuading to get the day guards to let them take the wagon outside that morning. Two of the night guards had been badly beaten by the masked riders, and a half-dozen of the dead had been turned loose in town. Luckily, the response to the whistle calls had been quick and efficient, with scores of people rushing out to do as they had been trained. They circled each of the living dead, using big T-poles to push them back. The T-bar at the end of each pole was a yard wide, and when two or three people worked together, the bars created a barrier. With a couple of strong men holding each pole and other folks using smaller T-poles to shove, a group of five or six could easily maneuver a dead person into one of the many pens positioned around town. Everyone knew how to do this, and everyone had to practice the drills a few times each month.

  Once the dead were confined in the pens, handlers wearing head-to-toe body armor would go in, wrestle each muerto to the ground, bind them securely, and wrap leather muzzles around their mouths. The dead were then put on display to allow people to see if anyone knew them. Families would claim their loved ones and bury them according to preferred customs. The unclaimed would be taken by the guards out of town, spiked, and burned where prevailing winds would blow their smoke and ash away.

  The efficiency of it always pleased Gutsy, who liked a good process. A few times, though, she had made suggestions for doing it better, and was typically ignored. Being fifteen was a pain in the butt sometimes. She also got told off for being “too smart for her own good,” an expression that never made sense to Gutsy.

  As for the riders, the marks on the ground made it clear that they’d ridden away west. The cemetery was in the other direction. Six heavily armed teams of guards went out to patrol the area around New Alamo, and plans were being drawn to beef up town security.

  Gutsy had to explain that the riders had brought her mother back from the cemetery, and that led to a broader explanation that felt to her like a trial. The woman in charge of town security, Karen Peak, hammered her with questions, and rather than being “too smart,” Gutsy played it dumb, pretending not to know much. Spider and Alethea chimed in to say that it was all a mystery—not far from the truth—and to assure the authorities that Mama Luisa Gomez was now fully dead. Father Esteban and Dr. Morton were called in to confirm it.

  It was all unpleasant and it took forever. In the end, though, Karen Peak allowed them to go, but only on the condition that they return before dark. A patrol rode with them about halfway and said they would be working the area, just in case. Gutsy thanked them but was happy to see them ride off.

  When they were alone, Spider said, “This is what I hate about this town. I mean, you told them that the riders dug up your mom, but they didn’t send any trackers out to the cemetery to start a hunt? Is it just me, or are they all a little stupid?”

  “It’s not you, honey,” murmured Alethea. “I think everyone over . . . like . . . twenty-two is weird.”

  “Why twenty-two?” asked Spider.

  “If they’re twenty-two, then they were seven when the End happened. That’s old enough to remember things.”

  “I can remember things from when I was three.”

  “You’re interrupting me, Spider. Shhhh, now,” she said, patting him on the knee. “The older a person was when the End happened, the more they were messed up by the End. Littler kids probably just cried their way through it and got over it.”

  “Does that make sense?” Spider asked, directing the question to Gutsy. She just shook her head.

  Alethea continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “So, people who were teenagers or, worse yet, adults, when the dead rose, are really messed up. They have a condition. I think it’s called postal stress disorder.”

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder,” supplied Gutsy.

  “That’s what I said. So it’s not their fault that they’re all messed up. I mean, how could they not be? Their whole world went poof!”

  “I thought ‘poof’ means it blew up,” said Spider.

  “Okay, then their world got eaten. Thanks, Mr. Literal. You’re missing my point. They are all in the same kind of permanent shock. All you have to do is look around to see it. We have the weirdest set of rules and laws in town. I read about laws in books, and ours are freaky. Some are crazy overprotective, and some—like letting us actually go to the cemetery where these rider guys kept digging up Mama Gomez—well, that only makes sense if you’re, y’know, damaged.”

  Spider came back at her with how it wasn’t right to make fun of people who had mental or emotional problems, and they got into a long discussion that turned into a fight. Gutsy tuned them out and instead
tried to make sense of what little she knew. But it refused to be made sense of.

  The riders. Digging up Mama and bringing her to the house. Why? If they wanted to kill Gutsy, they could have cut her throat while she slept. What was the point of going to all the effort of bringing her mother home to do it? That was sick and it seemed like a lot of effort for no good reason.

  Except that everything had a reason. Gutsy firmly believed that.

  So, if there was a reason and it was completely beyond her, then it meant she didn’t have enough information. Gutsy could accept that as a fact. It gave her a purpose, and purpose helped her shove her emotions to one side. She tried never to let emotions interfere with solving a problem.

  Work the problem and the answers will come. That was something Mr. Urrea told her once. It seemed like an offhand comment, but it was one of the most important things she’d ever learned. It made so much sense to her.

  She chewed on it. After a while she heard her friends laughing. Their fights, no matter how intense they seemed at the time, never drove a wedge between Spider and Alethea. It was like arm wrestling for them. A lot of effort and growling and determination to win, but once it was over—it was over.

  As they approached the cemetery, Spider stood up and said, “What the . . . ?” Then he tugged hard on the reins. The wagon rumbled to a stop. Alethea and Gutsy were standing now too.

  “Oh man,” breathed Alethea.

  Gutsy cried out, leaped down, and broke into a dead run.

  “Wait,” cried Spider, but then he was pelting behind her. Alethea, slower than the others, hurried after. They ran past dozens of graves, then slowed and stopped by the open mouth of Mama’s grave. That one they knew would be empty. There were dozens of shoe prints around it. Horse hoofprints too. Around her empty grave and around dozens of other empty holes.

  Gutsy and her friends turned in a circle, staring slack-jawed and wide-eyed.