But the version of Dahlia who was here now? The part that had chosen to step away from Trash and stand with Mr. Church had a completely different take. It wasn’t any maternal gene kicking in. No, that wasn’t her, and she knew it. Instead, she was feeling an urge that was both older and newer at the same time. It was the core survival instinct of the Pack needing to protect its own, particularly the young, because without babies the Pack died. Any pack, which is why everything from whales to wolves raised and cared for their babies. That was part of it.
The other part was the world was being emptied like a broken hourglass. If all the sands ran out there was nothing left to fill it. Time, at least for humanity, would end. Babies were proof of the potential to rebuild, regrow, reclaim.
And all at once Dahlia understood that this was the core of the lesson. Maybe of all of Old Man Church’s lessons. Protect the Pack but also make sure it grew.
This chain of logic and analysis flashed through her mind in a microsecond.
Then Dahlia was moving, the baby tucked against her side as she angled toward the closest edge of the clearing.
“Neeko,” she roared, and the little scout whirled away from a trap he’d just evaded. He saw her, saw the bundle, and as if a burst of telepathic communication shot like lightning between them, he nodded and ran to help her. Two more of the zombies in boiler suits rushed out of the woods, and as Dahlia turned to avoid them, Neeko—smaller and weaker than her—darted in, using his lack of size to evade grabs, and his thin limbs to whip out with his makeshift weapons. He had never moved this fast before. She had never run as fast. The tricks and traps of the Arena tried to kill them both. More zombies chased them. It seemed as if the whole world wanted to catch them, kill them, kill the child.
Dahlia felt herself shifting, transforming. She wasn’t a kid anymore. She wasn’t who she was before meeting the old man. She was pretty sure she wasn’t who she’d been seconds ago. Somehow, she was becoming who she was going to be. If she lived. If they all lived.
She was fifteen feet outside of the circle, with a panting Neeko crouched beside her, before she even realized was safe. The moment froze.
She looked around and there was Church standing a few feet away. The man almost never smiled. But he was smiling now.
— 18 —
THE WARRIOR WOMAN
When Rachael cut their tour short, saying she needed a drink of water and some food, Heather seemed almost relieved to be done playing native guide. She pointed them toward, unbelievably, a coffee shop. “Just tell them you’re new here and that the mayor will arrange for payment.”
The three watched her walk off and out of sight before turning to look at each other.
“So I’m not the only one totally creeped out by this place, right?” Jason asked.
“Hell, no,” replied Claudia. “There is something seriously fucked up going on here.”
Rachael nodded her agreement. “Okay, this is what we’re gonna do. I want to find out what I can about this place and what’s going on here. I totally understand if you two want to hole back up in the house while I play detective. I don’t want to put you in any situation here where you don’t feel safe or welcome.”
“I’d rather have them have to look at my face.” Claudia’s voice was cold as she watched a Hispanic teenager on his knees weeding while a white couple and their dog walked by as if he didn’t exist. That was strange, because dogs were rare out in the woods. Orcs had eaten most of them and the rest were smart enough to stay away from anything that walked on two legs. This one, though, seemed like an ordinary pet. Strange.
“Okay then. I’m gonna check out the coffee shop. Do you want to split up?” she offered. They nodded, Jason and Claudia continuing up the street while Rachael went in the other direction, heading out of the subdivision toward the wall and the outer perimeter of the community.
The first person she ran into was John. Jackpot, she thought. Greeting him with polite—and fake—enthusiasm, Rachael thanked him for bringing her group to Happy Valley.
“I do want to ask though,” she continued, pretending to be much less intelligent than she actually was. “What’s the story with all the workers? I mean, you told us a little bit about how things work around here yesterday, but I’m still not sure I understand.”
“Why, sure thing.” John gave her a broad smile, seemingly forgetting she’d beaten the shit out of him the day before. “Most of the families living here were part of the original homeowners when Happy Valley was first built. The community wasn’t completely full, but a good portion of the homes had residents. When things in the world fell apart, and it was no longer safe outside, it was decided to bring in as many people as we could support. Thing is, even when resources were stretched thin, we didn’t want to turn people away who needed help. So, we offered to let newcomers work for us for an agreed upon period of time, to earn their place here or supplies, if they want to move on. If that’s the case, we help them find a safe place to go.” He smiled knowingly.
“How long do they have to work?” she asked with faux wide-eyed interest, the words “indentured servitude” running through her mind.
“There’s not really a set time,” John replied, “maybe a few weeks or a month or so. It really depends on the type of work, whether they want to go or stay. And if they want to join us permanently, we want to see how much they’re willing to do to prove they’re dedicated to the community. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m meeting my wife for lunch.” He gave her a wink, and she smiled back.
As soon as he turned his back, her smile instantly faded and she slipped back into one of the subdivisions. She wanted to talk to one of the workers and see what they had to say.
It took a little while for her to find some workers who weren’t under the watchful eyes of residents or the occasional security patrol, but she turned up and down a few streets until she found a small group of three men and two women taking a break from painting the exterior of one of the spacious homes.
“Hi there,” said Rachael in friendly tones. All of them startled and jumped to their feet, talking over one another to apologize for taking a break.
Holding up her hands, she quickly said, “It’s alright, I’m not a resident. I’m new here. I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes, if that’s okay.”
Most of them looked uncomfortable, unwilling to meet her gaze, but one of them finally stepped forward, a young black woman. She had her hair pulled back into a bun, splashes of pale blue house paint across her cheek, a stark contrast against her dark beautiful skin.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” she asked in hushed tones, her nervousness palpable. Her gaze flickered left and right, as if scanning the area for possible observers.
“I just wanted to find out your story, how you got here, if you want to share.” Rachael did her best to sound reassuring. “My friends and I are trying to decide if we’re gonna stay here. I’m Rachael, by the way.” She held out a hand.
After a brief hesitation, the woman took the proffered hand, gave it a quick shake and dropped it. She did not, however, offer her name. The woman shrugged. “I’ve been here since the cars died and everything went to shit.”
“What happened when you got here?”
“They took all my stuff, my supplies, said that it was the price I needed to pay to enter, and that they’d let me live here for a while, stay here, and I would be able to work off the food they gave me and the supplies and clothes and shelter.” The words poured out of the woman in a rush, like a stopper had been pulled out. “That it would probably only take a few months, that everyone who came in did it. And that once I worked it off, they would help me and my family find a safe place to go to where we could set up homes for ourselves, build a community.”
“And that was six months ago?” Rachael asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” She paused, shooting a dark look off into the distance. “They lied, I haven’t seen anyone work off whatever debt these people claim we have. If anythin
g, they keep saying us workers are using more than we’re earning. That we need to earn more. Work harder.”
“That’s happening to all of you?”
The woman nodded.
“Why don’t you just leave?”
“Where would we go?” She gave a harsh laugh. “And even if there was somewhere—”
“Paloma!” One of the other workers, a man who looked like he could be the woman’s brother, shook his head and drew a finger across his neck. She caught herself and turned to go back to her work. Then she stopped and looked at Rachael once more.
“Better just to keep your head down, keep your nose to yourself. For us, and for you and your friends. You don’t want them knowing you’re poking around. You’ll get us in trouble, you’ll get yourself in trouble. And you don’t want that, ma’am.”
Rachael watched the workers all turn away, pretending she didn’t exist, and her heart sank. This wasn’t the world she wanted. Not at all.
— 19 —
THE SOLDIER AND THE DOG
There was movement in the clearing, but there was no threat.
Well, not an immediate one. So much was implied, though. I kept my palm resting on the handle of my sword, but this was less of a combat situation than it was a crime scene. I was a cop before I was a soldier, but really anyone could tell that bad things had been done here.
This wasn’t a slaughter scene of the kind I’d seen a thousand times since the dead rose. It wasn’t zombies versus human survivors. It wasn’t gangs of roaming asshole humans doing harm, either. Seen enough of that, too.
No, this was something else. Something wrong in an entirely different way. Maybe something evil.
With Baskerville beside me I walked into the clearing and stood there, turning in a slow circle, trying not to vomit.
There were bodies there. Maybe forty of them. They were not sprawled on the ground as they might have been after a battle. There was no sign of a fight here at all. And yet there was violence and death everywhere I looked.
The bodies stood around me. They looked at me. They reached for me with withered arms and grasping hands. Their eyes stared with that grotesque blend of vacuity and hunger.
They were all zombies.
They were all tied to trees.
But it was worse than that.
None of them could open their mouths. Not to scream, not to moan, not to bite. You see, someone had made that impossible. There were ropes or belts or strips of leather tied around their heads, the loops under the chins and neat bows or shiny buckles on the crowns of each head.
Ropes lashed them each to a separate tree, with coils of it around waists and chests, leaving the legs free to kicks and stamp, and the arms free to . . .
To do what?
I stopped by one of them—a woman of about thirty, with long black hair and Mexican features. I studied every detail and the more I looked the more bizarre the evidence became, painting a picture that was as strange as it was hideous.
There was blood caked on her hands; dried now but clearly having run red and thick from the smashed fingers and metacarpals. Edges of bone stuck out through the skin and blood had crusted thick around them, dried now to a chocolate brown. There were bloody scrapes all over her face, and more blood on the ropes that held her to the tree and on the heavy leather belt cinched tight to keep her jaw shut. Her dead eyes were filmed over with a blue-white mist, but I swore I could see the last fading echoes of the panic and terror she’d felt as she died.
There was not a single bite on her that I could see. Not one.
The zombie thrashed and flopped and struggled but she was powerless to do anything. Not a goddamn thing. And instead of feeling scared by it, I felt a trapdoor of sadness open up in the bottom of my soul. Her smashed hands reached for me but there was so much damage to nerves and tendons that even if I was closer she couldn’t have grabbed me. She couldn’t do anything.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. There were mad lights in her eyes. Most people say that once a person turns there is nothing at all left of them inside. I don’t believe that. I think it’s far, far worse than merely having died of an infection and then having your body reanimated and hijacked by genetically engineered parasites. That kind of thing should, by any measure of reason, be worst case scenario. It wasn’t, though. Lingering self-awareness was so much worse, and I thought it’s what I saw; but there was no way to test the theory. There was no way to reach from where I was to where she was. No way on earth.
I turned away. Call it grief or cowardice or the impotence of being unable to help. I moved from one to another to another of them and saw the same thing in each case. The hands were mangled. Smashed. Fingers broken and twisted. Wrists cracked. None of them had bites. All of them were injured, though. I could see evidence of broken noses, cracked and broken teeth, bruises that were faded now to black smudges beneath leathery skin, broken bones, facial trauma.
But no bites.
The math was scaring me. It was making me sick, too. I counted them. I was wrong about there being about forty. There were fifty-three of them. They were thin, wasted, but their clothes were the wrong size for people who had been skinny. These people had been starved.
No. That’s imprecise. These people had been starved to death. They had been left to die out here from starvation and exposure.
But it went deeper than that. It was worse than that.
Those broken fingers that reached for me but were unable to grab. Those broken hands. I could feel my mouth go dry. There was no other possible answer than the very bad one that was banging around in my head. Whoever had brought these people out here had crippled their hands and then tied them to these trees. They left their arms free even though there was no way these people could untie themselves or even remove the bindings on their heads to allow them to scream. It wasn’t just murder, it wasn’t just physical torture; these people had been left here to suffer. This was about torment.
All of these people had died in hunger and pain, in terror, surrounded by proof that no one else was coming, that no one else had escaped. The enormity of it was staggering. It was one of the most awful things I had ever seen, and I have seen humanity at its worst.
I wanted to throw up, but I forced it back down.
One of the dead was dressed differently than the others. He wore a heavy leather jacket with silver studs, and had leather pads on his knees and elbows. A biker, I judged. He had an enormous black beard and a crooked nose and looked like someone who, in life, was probably extremely dangerous. Now he was wasted and covered in bites and there was a lingering expression of desperation and fear on his features. I felt bad for him. I felt sick for all of them.
Baskerville must have caught my mood because he stood next to me, growling softly. He wasn’t directing it toward the thrashing corpses. He kept looking into the woods, and I realized that he was studying a narrow path of beaten grass that wandered between trees and vanished into shadow. In the direction of Happy Valley.
“Well, well,” I said, but my voice sounded wrong. A little too calm. A bit too ordinary. That was never a good sign. I took a couple of determined steps in that direction, but then I stopped as something occurred to me. I turned and stood looking at the dead faces.
The unlife that is the effect of Lucifer 113 tends to make the skin pale and leathery, creating a kind of homogenized sameness to skin tone. But it’s not really the same. The gray pallor is more often a product of dying skin cells and accumulated dust. Beneath it are the remnants of actual color. White and yellow, brown and black.
Except when I looked around me, I didn’t see any zombie who looked like they might have been white. I saw two Asian faces and a whole lot of shades of brown. Latino and African American.
None of them were white.
Which meant what?
Could those Nu Klux Klan sons of bitches have a chapter out here? Or was it something else?
One thing I knew for sure was that if Mr. Church was anywhere around her
e, he would not have let something like this stand. No sir. Which meant that either he wasn’t at Happy Valley or he wasn’t able to stop this kind of savagery. Either way, I had to find out.
I clicked my tongue for Baskerville and we faded into the woods. Hunting for more than answers.
— 20 —
DAHLIA AND THE PACK
Days became weeks. And Dahlia became something else.
She knew it. She could feel it happen.
After that one afternoon in the Arena, something inside Dahlia shifted. Maybe inside a lot of the others of the Pack, too. Outwardly she looked the same—big boned, carrying a lot of weight and a lot of curves, lots of black hair. But the eyes that looked back at her from the mirror each morning were different. Older, maybe, though not in years. Or, maybe it was that she looked wiser. If that was something that could show in the eyes. There was less outward fear, fewer flickers of uncertainty, and more visible confidence. All of that.
Some sadness, too. Dahlia missed Trash so much. She missed what he could have become if he’d stayed and learned from Old Man Church. Trash’s own father had been a brute, and that’s the lesson about manhood he’d learned. Church was so different. So much stronger, but he didn’t reek of testosterone and anger. Dahlia liked who she was becoming, but it was hard to go there alone. At night, alone in her bed, she ached for Trash. For the surprising gentleness of which he was capable when no one else was looking. Of his kisses and the way he touched her—with strength but with respect, his big hands gliding over her skin rather than grasping or grabbing.
Where was he? Was he even still alive? There hadn’t been a single sign of him, or of the others who went with him. Serena and Nathan, and a handful of others from the Pack. The rest had stayed, waiting for Dahlia, and then joining Old Man Church’s little army.
Now, the Pack really was an army. Fit and fast, coordinated and efficient. Neeko, freed from his fear of the older and bigger Pack members, had proven himself to be a good fighter and a natural leader. Church taught him a lot of useful skills about tracking, spying, gathering intelligence. Neeko’s group—which now ran under the nickname of Bravo Team—had found more than a dozen groups of survivors. Some of them were part of Church’s army, while most had been sent on—provisioned and with reliable maps—toward Asheville. With every life saved, Neeko seemed to swell, to become physically larger and more self-assured. Dahlia asked Church about that one morning while the two of them were out on a patrol in the deep woods.
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