by Dana Fredsti
I rarely even thought about the existence of a higher being, but I found myself muttering “please let them be safe” over and over as I watched more and more people streaming past with their belongings, their children, and their pets.
Apparently no one was listening to me.
Shrieks rose in the darkness like a clarion call, from an apartment building across the street—one with an open courtyard. More joined in as several zombies staggered into the grass from the far end, latching onto a family of four—the parents and two kids—each dragging a rolling suitcase behind them.
The little girl had a pink Barbie suitcase, the boy a blue and red Spider-Man one. Both cases were splattered with blood within seconds as the zombies ripped into the kids and their parents before I could react.
I’d missed the disintegration of Redwood Grove. I’d been fighting off the zombie virus and making my transformation into a wild card when the shit really hit the fan, then spent a few days training to hone my combat skills. By that time most of the human population of the town, college, and the surrounding areas were either dead or turned, with a few survivors holed up to wait for rescue.
Suddenly it struck me how lucky I’d been, because I hadn’t had to watch the innocent being torn to pieces in front of me.
We’re wild cards, not super heroes. I couldn’t spin the world backwards on its axis to turn back time. I couldn’t save those children or their parents. I tried to remember what I’d told Lil. We couldn’t save everyone, but every person—or animal—we did save counted for something, and we’d have to let that keep us sane in the face of increasingly insurmountable odds and rising death toll.
At that moment, though, it didn’t help. Tears streamed down my face as I forced myself to move, wading into the torrent of humanity on Fulton Street and shoving my way through to the other side.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
* * *
Gabriel called a brief stop. Dr. Albert was heaving like a set of clogged bellows. We hunkered down in a sheltered grove of pine trees, caught our breath, and shared some bottled water while Gabriel went off a few feet and pulled out the radio.
Lil looked exhausted, her eyes closed, lashes dark against pale skin. Tony, on the other hand, looked like a typical bored, sullen teen, leaning up against a tree and giving the doctor the stink-eye.
Red and Carl seemed to be holding up physically, but their expressions—drawn and stunned—showed that this was their first actual field experience with zombies. No sign of Davis and Jones, but I had no doubt they were within close proximity.
I took a sip of water, passed the bottle to Carl, and then settled on my haunches against a tree trunk. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply as I did my best to wipe my memory clear of the last ten minutes.
Very quickly, however, I started feeling increasingly twitchy. I had the distinct sensation that I was being watched. Not in a good way either, but in that furtive stalker kind of way. I opened my eyes, keeping the lids at half-mast, and scanned the surroundings. There wasn’t anyone obvious, but I was positive someone had his or her eyes on me.
And that was a creepy image all by itself. It reminded me of the quintessential literary grotesquerie, “His eyes slid up her dress.”
I tried to get a sense of where the feeling was coming from, but there was too much ambient noise to get a bead on it. Unfortunately, my enhanced senses didn’t come with psychic radar.
Although.
Peering between the trees, I looked out over Fulton and caught a brief glimpse of someone standing on top of a car, looking in my direction. Before I could focus enough to pick out any details, the person jumped off the car and into the crowd. It may have been a coincidence, but the sense of being watched vanished along with whoever had been perched there.
Whatever. The feeling was gone, and I had more important things to worry about.
Gabriel finished his conversation, shoved the radio back into its holster on his belt, and motioned us over to gather round. By the time we got there, Davis and Jones had materialized out of the trees.
“Change of plans,” Gabriel said. “Kezar is out.”
Uh-oh.
Lil sidled up and leaned against me like a little kid or a puppy. It warmed my heart that she would seek me out for comfort. I put an arm around her, and she rested her head against my shoulder. The manic energy had dissipated.
“Attempts to secure the Bison Paddock were a bust,” he continued. “So they don’t have an evac area.”
I blanched, remembering that I’d told the couple on Marina Boulevard to go there when the sun came up.
“Are they going to keep trying to secure the area?” I asked.
“Doubtful,” he said, and my heart dropped. “The neighborhoods near that end of the park seem to have a disproportionate number of zoms. All it took was one helicopter landing there to draw dozens to the paddock. The bison freaked and stampeded through the chain-link fence, right about the time Team B showed up. Zed Two’s pilot was bitten during the chaos.”
Red and Carl both flinched at that.
“Now Team B is holed up at a snack bar near the Conservatory of Flowers, with three injured people, and a shitload of zombies trying to claw their way inside. There’ll be more coming, so we have to get our asses over there and get them out.”
“The good news,” he said, “is that we’re not even five minutes away. There’s a walkway across the road that’ll take us right to the back of the Conservatory.” He wiped his forehead again. In the diffused light filtering from a nearby streetlamp, I could see that his face was drawn.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Dr. Albert stepped forward, frowning.
“It’s only been four hours since your last shot,” he said, reaching for Gabriel’s wrist. “Let me check your pulse.”
Gabriel shrugged off his concern.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“But—”
“I said I’m fine.” His tone left no room for argument. “You can check me out after we retrieve the other team.” His voice and expression made it clear that there was no room for argument, as he swiveled the M4 out from around his back.
“Lil, Tony, use your hand weapons.”
Tony frowned. Gabriel gave him a half smile.
“Don’t worry—you’ll have plenty of opportunity for the shotgun. We just don’t want to take a chance of anything penetrating the snack bar walls and hitting our people. Same thing goes for you, Ash.”
I nodded. I was so ready to slice and dice some zombies about now. Up close and personal suited me just fine.
“Let’s go,” he said.
We left the grove, stepping back out into the open.
Suddenly a sporty little blue convertible jumped the sidewalk off of Fulton, almost as if it had been lying in wait. It sent pedestrians scattering as it careened into the trees and headed straight towards Gabriel.
He swore and leapt out of the way just in time. The front bumper barely missed him as he hit the ground in a smooth forward roll, coming back to his feet about the same time the car plowed into a sturdy eucalyptus tree.
Branches and leaves fell to the ground and onto the car’s roof. Steam rose from the crumpled front end.
I ran over to Gabriel, but he nonchalantly brushed a few crushed leaves and sticks from his Kevlar vest.
“Let’s move,” he said.
“But aren’t we going to see if they’re okay?” I looked at the wrecked car. It was a BMW, with a license plate that read “SikeOut.”
As if on cue, the driver’s side door opened an inch or so, then was stopped by the crumpled frame. The driver kicked the door from the inside—once, twice, and then a third time, sending it flying open. The door immediately rebounded into the driver, who let loose an impressive string of profanity.
He pushed the door open again with less force, and stepped out of the totaled sports car. He was clad in cargo shorts, a red T-shirt, and yes, those really were Birkenstocks. He was tall and solidly bu
ilt, but as he moved toward us, his knees dipped under the weight of that first step. He stumbled onto one of them, blood dripping down his forehead from under an Aussie-style canvas hat.
Shit. I can’t just leave him there. Throwing a guilty glance back toward Gabriel, I hurried over to the man’s side, putting a supporting arm around his shoulders and helping him to his feet.
“Hey, you okay?” I said.
“Of course I’m not okay, you dumb bitch. Do I look okay? Look at my Beamer. I just had it detailed last week! Now how about doing something useful and dialing 911, while I call a tow truck?” He pulled a cell phone from one of his shorts’ pockets.
Oookay. My dad would call this dude a “Beamer Bastard.” I used to rag on him for the automotive profiling. I’d have to let him know my perspective had evolved.
“Come on, Ash.” Gabriel jerked his head toward our destination.
I withdrew my arm, letting Mr. BirkenBeamer sway on his feet. He clutched his beloved car for support.
“Wait!” he said indignantly. “Aren’t you going to help me?”
“That would be a big no,” I said.
But I’d only taken a couple of steps when the telltale moan of the walking dead sounded in the trees nearby. I could smell them over the odor of burned rubber and assorted car fluids. Well, crap. “But I’ll give you some free advice.” I tossed the words over my shoulder. “If you want to live, leave the Beamer, and get the hell out of here.”
“I’m not gonna leave my car,” he spat. He reached in and pulled a handle release. There was a faint thunk sound and the crumpled hood popped up maybe a quarter of an inch. He went around to the front and tried to pry it the rest of the way open, blood dripping down onto the blue paint.
You have got to be kidding me. Rolling my eyes, I turned and went back.
“Seriously,” I said, “you have to leave now.” I grabbed him by one arm and pulled, trying to get him away from the car just as three zombies with biking gear and major road rash stumbled through the trees, making a beeline straight for us.
The guy yanked his arm away, totally oblivious to the shambling doom heading his way. I tried again, seizing one wrist with both hands and yanking hard. I succeeded in pulling him away from the Beamer, only to have him wallop me across the jaw with his free hand.
“Get off me, you stupid bitch!”
With a single-mindedness of purpose he turned back to his car, just as the zombies reached him. They dragged him to the ground before he even had a chance to scream.
Shit, shit, shit!
I grabbed my katana and took off the head of one of the zombies before it could sink its teeth into him. The man yelled as blood splattered onto his shirt.
One of the two remaining zombies, oblivious to the fate of its former biking partner, fastened onto the man’s face, knocking the canvas hat askew as it ripped a strip of flesh from one cheek. The other grabbed a Birkenstock-clad foot with both hands and took a bite out of the ankle, looking like something out of a really sick KFC ad.
Finger lickin’ good.
I scrambled away, sickened and angry at both myself for failing, and the fates for giving me the time to try and save someone who refused my help, when I’d had no chance to help those kids.
The angry guilt morphed into an odd sense of detachment as his screams finally faded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
* * *
A cement pathway led to the backside of the Conservatory. Gabriel and I took point. Lil clutched her pickaxe and Tony swung Thor’s Wee Hammer from one hand, looking eager to use it. Our two ninja-like snipers stuck with the group this time.
The path was on a downward slope, and while the lights were still on throughout the park, there wasn’t anything in the immediate vicinity. Red and Carl used small Maglites to illuminate the ground in front of them, while Dr. Albert kept a hand on Tony’s back. The wild cards, of course, could see every bump in the asphalt, every raised crack in the pavement, enabling us to move swiftly and assuredly through the darkness.
I could also smell zombies, lots of them. It was no longer an occasional nasty-ass whiff, but rather a constant olfactory pall lingering in the air like the proverbial fart in a phone booth.
Thank you, mutation, for the night vision—but screw you for the stinkathon.
We reached the back of the Conservatory, a wood-frame building covered with thousands of panes of glass. Inside, dim lights only served to accent the darkness, causing the plants to look shadowy and vaguely menacing.
Going around the east side, I found several landscape lights casting a warm golden glow over the grounds. Beds of brightly colored tulips and other flowers bordered a handicapped parking lot, now oddly empty of cars.
We reached the front corner of the building and peered around. Flowerbeds decorated the grounds in front of the Conservatory, and a wide staircase led up from the grounds to a large cement platform that ran the length of the building. Unfortunately, the walking dead had no respect for creative landscaping. Dozens of zombies—at least fifty, probably more—trampled through the carefully maintained gardens, crushing the fragile blooms into the ground. I’m sure there was a poignant metaphor somewhere in that, but I didn’t feel like making the effort. I just wanted to see every one of those walking travesties permanently dead.
The snack bar sat on the platform to the right of the stairs, housed in a small cement-and-wood structure, its back built into the larger Conservatory edifice. It had roll-down metal shutters in the front, reaching down from the roof to about waist height, and a single door visible on the side. It was entirely surrounded by zombies—fresh ones. Hands thumping against wood and metal sounded like a band made up entirely of inept drummers.
One of the park’s many restrooms lay beyond in a small auxiliary building. I made a mental note in case I lived to use it.
We ducked back around the side to avoid being seen by any particularly observant zombies, and gathered around Gabriel. He gave the group a sweeping glance, taking in the varying degrees of “oh shit” panic on our faces—especially Carl and Red.
“I know it looks bad,” he said. “But we faced much worse odds fighting the swarm at Big Red.” I tactfully didn’t mention the fact we’d had a hell of a lot more firepower then, like, to the tune of a hundred or so armed soldiers, a flamethrower, cool remote-controlled dart bombs, a wicked snow plow...
Ah, for the good ol’ days.
I took a deep breath and mentally told my brain to shut up. It didn’t matter what the differences were. Our friends needed our help, and I desperately needed to rescue someone about now.
So I listened closely as Gabriel outlined the plan.
“Jones, Davis, take opposite sides of the building and focus on incoming, clear the grounds if possible.” He turned and continued. “Dr. Albert, stick close to Jones. Red, Carl—you, too. Use your firearms, do not engage up close. Lil, you deal with any biters that make it anywhere close to within arm’s reach.”
“Gotcha,” Lil said eagerly.
“Davis, you take the other side of the building. Tony, you keep the zeds off of him.” He looked at me. “Ash, you and I are going to clear the ones at the front of the snack bar.” He paused and scanned the group. “Everyone clear?”
We all nodded.
Lil turned to Jones.
“Please don’t shoot me by accident, okay?” she said.
He looked at her, somehow managing to convey astonishment at her words without changing expression.
“Ma’am, I never shoot anything or anyone by accident.”
“Guess I won’t piss you off, then,” Lil said tartly.
Davis and Tony split off from the group, looping around the back of the Conservatory to the west side. Jones, looking like a rock star with a small entourage, hunkered down behind some bushes at the east side of the building. Red and Carl flanked him, rifles in hand, and Lil stood poised for action with her pickaxe.
I was surprised to see Dr. Albert pull out a handgun, one of t
hose little Ruger .22s that’d been passed out like party favors. Even more surprising was that he seemed calm and ready to use it. I’d expected him to cower in fear. It didn’t exactly make me admire him, but it lessened my contempt just a little bit.
Jones calmly started taking out targets on the flowerbeds, one shot per zombie head, as Gabriel and I rounded the corner of the Conservatory. Gabriel paused and raised his M4, picking his shots as deliberately as Jones, and delivering them just as accurately. Half a dozen zombies clamoring at the walls of the snack bar dropped to the ground. Others immediately surged forward, ignoring their dead compatriots underfoot, clawing and pounding to get to the fresh meat inside. They were like ants swarming over a scrap of food on the ground, and just as single-minded.
We needed to get some of them away from the snack bar, and spread out enough that I could use my katana without getting dog piled, zombie style.
“Hey!” I shouted, forgoing subtlety by stepping out into the open, waving my arms. Several zoms turned slowly towards the sound of my voice, like sunflowers seeking the sun, as they decided there were easier pickings than the ones inside the snack bar.
More turned to follow.
“That’s right,” I cried. “Fresh meat, already out of the can!”
Gabriel shot me a look.
“One-liners? Really?”
I shrugged unapologetically, and then turned my full attention to the zombies heading my way.
It’s slice and dice time.
I smiled and stepped forward to meet them.
Whack.
There went a little old lady in a flowered shift and pink cardigan, its front smeared with blood and black bile.
Thwack.
I sliced through the skull of a male zombie wearing an “I heart San Francisco” hat, tugging the blade out and decapitating a couple of undead Bears in matching rainbow pride T-shirts. I pulled my tanto free with my left hand, thrusting the tip into the eye socket of a slender female zombie swathed in layers of purple gauze.