The men said nothing.
Even at that distance, Gutsy could see the captain’s face in the glow of the lantern. The woman was pretty, but her expression made her ugly. There was no trace of humanity, no spark of compassion on the woman’s features. That expression was every bit as cold as the deep hatred Gutsy felt in her own heart.
“Get the gear,” said the captain. “We’re done here.”
Mateo and Duke sketched quick salutes and ran to collect their tools. The hulking lieutenant lingered with his commanding officer.
“Bess,” Simon said quietly, “you don’t think Luisa told her daughter about the project? About us?”
The question clearly troubled the captain. “Luisa didn’t know all that much.”
“No, I don’t mean anything Luisa might have suspected before. I mean after. Do you think she told her anything after we dug her up?”
The captain stood for a moment considering the question, head cocked to one side, lips pursed in thought. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “But we can’t take any risks, can we? Come on, let’s get back.”
They climbed into their wagon and it rumbled away.
When Gutsy was absolutely sure she was safe, she stood up. She did it slowly, and the act felt like her body was pushing against a huge, crushing weight. The night had been clear and quiet, and she was sure she’d heard every word without distortion or mistake.
Do you think she told her anything after we dug her up?
“What?” she asked of the night. Sombra came and stood next to her, growling at the figures now being swallowed by the distance.
Tears burned in Gutsy’s eyes, but her fists were hard as hammers. Cold as stones.
“What?” she demanded, needing to understand what she had just heard.
The darkness, that deceitful place of shadows and mysteries, held its secrets and told her absolutely nothing.
39
GUTSY AND SOMBRA WALKED THROUGH miles of shadows, back to the Abrams tank.
So many thoughts crashed and tumbled through her brain.
The Night Army. Who or what were they? The soldiers seemed scared of them. Were they the ones the captain and her lieutenant were talking about? The ones who might overrun their base?
She thought about all the rumors she’d heard around town and from scavengers about a base. There were lots of theories about what it was and where it might be located, but until now Gutsy hadn’t taken any of them seriously. Travelers often told tall tales in the hopes of interested listeners buying them a meal or offering to let them bed down in a spare room. Now, though, Gutsy new that some of them had to have been telling the truth. There was a base. And also something the soldiers called “the lab.” Where were they? What were they?
The information was so big, so confusing, and felt so vastly important that it threatened to kick down the walls of the world as Gutsy knew it. The Rat Catchers were clearly part of something very large, very scary, and completely mystifying.
They had known her mother’s name.
“Mama, please,” she pleaded to the darkness. “What’s going on?”
There was no answer in the endless night. Sombra walked beside her, silent as a ghost. The cool desert wind blew toward them, bringing faint moisture from the distant Rio Grande.
When they were still five hundred feet up the road from the Abrams tank, Gutsy heard the faint but unmistakable sound of a horse nickering and then the sharp “Shhhhhh” as a female voice told him to be quiet. Sombra answered it with a single whuff.
Gutsy had her knife out in a heartbeat, ready to fight. Oh God, she thought wildly, the Rat Catchers followed me here.
Panic flared in her chest, and Gutsy realized how stupid all this was; how insane a risk it was to think that she could outwit trained professionals. She crouched, weapon ready, determined to take at least one or two of them with her. To make them pay for what they did to Mama.
I’m going to die, she thought. I’m stupid and I’m going to—
And then Spider stepped out from behind the tank, his hardwood staff in his hands.
“Oh, hey, Guts,” he said with a bright smile.
She gaped at him. “Spider . . . ? I could have killed you. What on earth are you doing here?”
Even in her shock and surprise, Gutsy pitched her voice to be quiet but not whispering. Whispers, especially the s sounds, carried farther than normal speaking at low tones. That wasn’t part of her own collection of specialized knowledge—it was one of the things people learned quickly after the dead rose.
“Waiting for you,” said Spider. “What’s it look like?” He ground the heel of his staff on the dirt and leaned on it. “Don’t worry . . . we were careful.”
Gutsy saw the faintest glimmer of silver light, revealing the presence of some of her fishing line stretched across open ground a dozen yards from the tank, and she nodded approval. The previous summer, when they had all snuck out at night, Gutsy taught Spider and Alethea to string the line between rocks, cacti, and the wreckage of any old vehicles or debris. Small metal cans filled with pebbles hung at intervals along the fishing line. If those lines were touched, the ensuing rattle would alert her friends to approaching danger. Place them at a sensible distance and the warning allowed enough time to climb out of sleeping bags and grab weapons. Personally, Gutsy would have strung her lines even farther away, but now wasn’t the time to nitpick.
Alethea appeared with Rainbow Smite resting on her shoulder. “Hey, sweetie,” she said as if this was a bright, sunny afternoon in the town square.
“I thought I told you guys to go back home,” snapped Gutsy.
Alethea arched an eyebrow. “You did, but I don’t remember you being appointed Queen of All That Is . . . and you’re definitely not the queen of me.”
“I—”
“We got halfway home then decided to come back and wait here for you.”
“And by talked about it,” amended Spider philosophically, “she means that she told me that was what we were going to do, because she apparently is the Queen of All That Is.”
“Princess,” corrected Alethea. “I’m not that egotistical.”
“You’re going to get in so much trouble,” Gutsy protested. “The Cuddlys will—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Cuddlys,” said Alethea, flapping a hand. “We’ve been in trouble with them before—”
“And will be again,” said Spider quietly.
“And will be again. Who cares?” Alethea stepped closer and glared at Gutsy. “Besides, who do you think we are? Do you think we’d leave you out here all alone? Do you think we’d just stash Mama in the barn like you said and then drift off to have happy dreams of unicorns and puppies? No? No. We either do this together or we don’t do any of it. End of discussion.”
When Gutsy turned to Spider, hoping he’d be the voice of reason, he gave her a bland smile. “Her Majesty has spoken.”
Gutsy knew how to spot a fight she wasn’t likely to win. Trying to convince Alethea to do something she didn’t want to do was a lot scarier than a whole pack of los muertos.
“Okay, okay. Thanks, guys.” She looked around. “Everything been okay here?”
Alethea adjusted her tiara. “Been pretty boring, actually.”
“Which is good,” said Spider.
“Whatever. What about you, girl?” demanded Alethea. “You were gone a long time. I chewed my fingernails all the way to the elbow.”
Gutsy looked around. “Any visitors?”
“Couple lizards,” said Spider. “And about a zillion mosquitoes. No shamblers.”
“Good.”
“Hey, do I have to beat the story out of you?” asked Alethea, waggling Rainbow Smite in her direction.
Gutsy took a drink of water from the bottle Spider handed her, and stared back the way she’d come.
“I think we’re in trouble,” she said. “A whole lot of trouble.”
40
GUTSY TOLD THEM EVERYTHING.
There wa
s enough starlight to read the emotions that came and went on her friends’ faces. Shock, horror, anger, and confusion.
“Whoa, whoa,” said Spider, “they know who you are? They actually said ‘the Gomez girl’?”
“Yeah,” said Gutsy. “They’re the ones who brought Mama home. No doubt about it.”
“That’s . . . that’s . . . that’s . . .”
“Yeah,” agreed Gutsy, “it really is.”
“How do these Rat Catchers even know you?” asked Spider. “How’d they know your mom?”
“Beats me,” Gutsy admitted.
Alethea scratched at the knob of Rainbow Smite with her fingernail, lips pursed in thought. “You said they called Mama a ‘rat’?”
“Yes,” said Gutsy, and the memory of it made her lip curl into a silent snarl.
“Is it wrong that I want to beat on them for, like . . . a year?” Starlight glittered off the metal screwheads jutting out from the business end of Alethea’s baseball bat.
“I’m okay with it,” said Spider. Then he shook his head as if chasing off buzzing flies. “But who are they? No, more than that, why would they want to dig up all the bodies? Why dig up Mama twice and bring her back to your house, Guts?”
“That’s what I have to find out,” said Gutsy.
“That’s what we have to find out,” said Spider and Alethea at the same time.
Despite everything, Gutsy smiled. “We,” she agreed. “Look, from what I can figure, these people belong to some kind of group. They’re really organized. A captain and a lieutenant, and two guys who I guess are soldiers. It’s like how the military used to be, at least from what people say when they talk about before the End.”
“If they belong to some actual organization,” mused Alethea, “then what kind is it? And why don’t people know about them?”
“Yeah,” said Spider, “if that secret base thing is real, why hide it? I mean—why make it secret at all?”
“He’s right,” said Alethea, shaking her head. “What would be the point? And why hide all these years?”
No one had an answer to that.
“And what’s the lab?” asked Spider. “A lab for doing what? And why hide that, too?”
No one had any answers.
After a while, Alethea asked, “What now? You weren’t able to follow them, I guess. Any idea where their base is?”
Gutsy sighed. “I watched for a while, and they headed east.”
“To where? San Antonio?” asked Spider, but then he shook his head. “No. Too far. Too many los muertos there, anyway.”
Alethea nodded. “Are you going to follow the road tomorrow when you can look for tracks?”
“No,” said Gutsy, “I don’t think I need to.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” said Gutsy. She glanced over at the wagon, where her mother’s body lay still and cold, covered by a canvas tarp. “I’m pretty sure they’re going to come to me.”
Alethea gaped at her, and then pointed to the body in the back of the wagon. “Please do not tell me you’re seriously going to use Mama as bait? Don’t tell me you think you’re going to set a trap for these Rat Catchers.”
Gutsy scratched Sombra’s head but remained silent.
“You,” said Spider, pushing her shoulder with a stiff finger, “are out of your mind.”
“Well, say something,” demanded Alethea.
Gutsy climbed into the wagon and lay slowly back with her face pointed to the cold and distant stars. She reached under the tarp and took one of her mother’s hands and closed her fingers around it. The shroud had been removed and filled with rocks, so all that was left was a weather-stained old piece of canvas. Gutsy tried to be practical about it, telling herself that Mama was past caring. Even so, it felt wrong. But then again, nearly everything felt wrong.
Holding Mama’s hand, though, was different. That felt right. It was precious and powerful to feel the reality of her mother. Now that Mama was no longer a monster, she was merely dead. It was as if some measure of dignity had been returned to her. Mama felt real in a way that she hadn’t while she had been one of los muertos. Somehow it made the loss more real, too.
“These Rat Catchers are soldiers of some kind,” Gutsy said quietly. “People become soldiers to go to war, right? Well . . . if it’s a war they want, then that’s what they’re going to get.”
A piece of ancient space junk—a meteorite or a dying satellite—burned across the sky. It looked like someone scratching a kitchen match into flame. Sombra looked up at it and, after a long moment, leaned back and howled at the night.
41
THEY BURIED MAMA GOMEZ IN a small grove of trees south of the Abrams.
The three of them shared the task. No one spoke while they worked. Not a single word. The only sound was the chunk of shovels biting into the earth and the sigh of dirt being tossed onto a growing mound. When the hole was deep enough, they wrapped Mama in the stained canvas and lowered her down. Then they filled in the grave. Gutsy used a rake to break up and distribute the leftover dirt, and when it was all done, the ground was smooth.
Spider collected stones and placed them at the four corners of the plot, and Alethea gathered wildflowers. Sombra sat watching all this and listening to the night, alert to predators of any kind. There were none. Not then, anyway. Gutsy knew that the darkness hid thousands of dangers, and she was glad to have the coydog there to smell and hear what she could not.
When it was all done, they stood together at the foot of the grave. Spider held Gutsy’s hand and Alethea stood behind them, leaning her cheek on Gutsy’s shoulder.
“Dulces sueños, Mama,” said Gutsy.
Sweet dreams.
Her friends said it too.
Those were the only words spoken.
A small wind blew past them, swirling the dirt on the grave, touching their faces and then blowing on toward the south. The breeze smelled of flowers and spices. It smelled like Mama’s kitchen when she was cooking. There was nothing in that lonely place to account for those smells. Nothing. They all smelled them, though, and exchanged looks.
All three of them had tears in their eyes. All three of them were smiling.
The wind took the smells of better times and whirled into the infinite darkness. Going south. Toward town. And past that, toward Mexico. Gutsy did not believe in much, but she knew what that was.
It was Mama, going home.
PART EIGHT
VALLEY STATE PRISON
CHOWCHILLA, CALIFORNIA
ONE WEEK EARLIER . . .
CHOICES
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
—LAO TZU
42
THEY STOOD ON THE ROOF of the prison and looked at the sea of gray faces.
“Well,” said Benny quietly, “that’s not good.”
Morgie snorted. “Rough count, maybe four thousand of them.”
“At least,” said Riot.
The zoms milled around, bumping into one another, walking in wavering lines to and fro. Many stood still, their eyes fixed on nothing, hands slack at their sides. Benny’s quad stood in the middle of an ocean of death. Some of the dead were dressed in ordinary clothes, many in rags that had been military uniforms. Some were children. Many looked like they had been older when they died. And some, Benny saw, were Reapers. Had been Reapers.
“How come we didn’t see them when we drove up?” he asked.
“I’ll show you,” said Chong. He tapped Benny’s shoulder and led him all the way to the far side of the roof, brown gravel crunching under his shoes. Chong stopped and pointed down. Benny knelt on the edge of the roof and leaned out a little to look down. There were hundreds of dead cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and vans scattered around the back of the prison, all of them half-consumed by a hungry sea of weeds.
“Nix thinks that people came here during First Night,” said Chong. “Strong walls, bars, locks, guns
, and guards, you dig?”
Benny nodded.
“Now . . . see that?” Chong pointed, and Benny leaned farther out. A large section of wall had been crushed inward by a massive rusted yellow bulldozer. Chunks of debris half covered the machine, all of it thick with weeds and even a few small saplings. “Way I figure it, someone busted in to try and free the prisoners. Wouldn’t have been people trying to find shelter, because it wouldn’t make sense to ruin the wall. But something stopped whoever drove the dozer from letting the convicts out. Nix, Lilah, and Riot all think that by the time the wall was knocked in, the people who came to hide here had already turned. There’s some places inside here where there was obviously a big fight, and a couple of rooms had been used as infirmaries. Lots of old, bloody bandages.”
“People didn’t understand the rules,” said Benny. “Not during First Night. Maybe they brought people with bites inside and they turned.”
“Yeah, that’s the theory,” said Chong. He pulled Benny back from the edge. “When the bulldozer knocked in the wall, the zoms inside swarmed them. And after that the nukes went off and the EMPs killed all the cars. If there were any survivors, then they either got away on foot, or . . .”
Benny winced. Everyone alive knew what “or” meant in these kinds of stories. “I guess some of them used to be prisoners? Though in old comic books, didn’t they always wear orange jumpsuits? Do you see any of them?” When Chong didn’t answer, Benny glanced at him. “What . . . ?”
43
CHONG SHOWED HIM.
They went back down into the administrative wing of the prison and then through several interconnected offices, down several corridors, and into a bleaker, darker part of the building. Lilah used wooden chair legs, rags, and gasoline to make torches.
“I found the keys to the cellblocks,” said Riot, jangling a thick ring.
“I think everything was supposed to work electronically,” said Morgie. “There are printed instructions on how to open the security doors to each cellblock, but in case the power went out, there were keys. But . . .”
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