Before she could speak, Church turned away and said, very loudly and clearly, “Okay, kids, we need to move. Everyone head to the east woods. We don’t want to be here for this and—”
“No!” cried the woman. “No, please, come inside.”
The gates began to swing outward.
Church gave Dahlia a wink, but he sustained his drama for a bit. He stopped, glanced up at her with a troubled, doubtful face; then cut looks at the woods and at the Pack.
“Maybe we’ll do better on our own,” he said slowly.
“Please,” cried the woman, “they’re coming. I can see them.”
Dahlia had to fight to keep a smile off her face. She understood how Church was playing this. Instead of begging, he made her ask. Made her, in fact, beg.
With a show of great reluctance, Church sighed, nodded, and then walked toward the open gates, curtly waving for the Pack to follow. Dahlia hurried to fall into step beside him.
“You played the entitled white asshole card pretty well,” she said quietly.
“I’ve met more than my share of them,” said Church. Then he added, “Stay sharp and play your role, too. I don’t like this set up at all. Keep your eyes open and your emotions in check.”
“Yes, Obi Wan.”
“Hush now.”
The Pack entered the town of Happy Valley. Dahlia turned to see the doors being swung shut and a heavy crossbar being fitted into place. It spoke of security, but it also scared her.
Outside the whistles rose in volume and one of the guards on the wall cried: “They’re coming.”
— 35 —
THE WARRIOR WOMAN
Rachael screamed and backed away, but her back slammed into the crossbar, and before she could twist away Glory clamped one iron hand around her throat. The bloody knife rose and then plunged downward.
Rachael twisted and slammed her leather bracers at the madwoman’s wrist, deflecting the knife and causing the point to drive two inches into the crossbar. Then Rachael kneed the woman in the crotch and tried to head-butt her, but Glory twisted her waist and took the knee against her own thigh, changed angle and slammed her own forehead into Rachael’s face. The savage blow missed her nose and instead mashed an eyebrow, which split and spurted blood.
Then Glory seemed to jerk backward and Rachael saw that Jason had somehow managed to free an arm and caught the killer’s sleeve. Glory staggered and went down to one knee, but was up in an instant, slashing with her weapon. Bright rubies filled the air and Jason screamed and sagged back, his inner arm, shoulder, and throat opening with a terrible wound.
“No!” screamed Rachael and launched herself at the woman. Glory snarled and spun back to Rachael just in time to parry a kick. Her blade whipped out and drew a burning line across Rachael’s abdomen. The T-shirt parted like a gaping mouth and blood welled as Rachael backpedaled, not knowing how seriously she was injured. Jason sagged down against the restraints as Claudia began screaming and thrashing.
Then a hand clamped around Rachael’s ankle and she looked down in horror to see that Kyle—dead Kyle—had grabbed her. The newly awakened creature struggled to rise as he snapped his teeth in her direction. Glory backed up a step, uncertain of her next move, though she was still smiling.
She’s enjoying this, thought Rachael. She’s worse than the orcs.
Rachael kicked at Kyle, but he caught her foot with his other hand and she fell hard on her butt, her head snapping back against the upright post. Claudia kept screaming and everywhere there was blood and death.
Then, like a grenade being tossed into the middle of it all, a voice boomed out with such strident force that everyone—gang members, townies, Claudia and Rachael, and even the undead Kyle—paused in their acts of murder and turned toward a figure standing at the edge of the clearing. He was tall, muscular, heavily armed, and there was some kind of armored creature with him. Maybe a dog. Maybe a warg, for all Rachael knew. The world was crazy enough. The man’s words echoed like thunder.
“What in the wide blue fuck is going on around here?”
Rachael’s heart leapt in her chest. She knew that voice.
She knew the man.
She even knew the monster dog.
“Joe!” she screamed.
— 36 —
HAPPY VALLEY
The woman came down from the wall to meet them. She was tall and as slender as a rake handle and stood in that peculiar attitude Dahlia had seen used by some of the mothers of the richest and prettiest girls in school. A sort of slouch of the shoulders while keeping her head up at a disapproving angle; one hand on her hip and her pelvis cocked forward. It looked uncomfortable and Dahlia had no idea what it was supposed to convey.
“Mr. Deacon,” she said, “it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Margaret Van Sloane of the—”
“Of the Hewlett Bay Van Sloanes,” Church said, cutting in smoothly. “I thought so. A pleasure, Margaret. I knew Bryce Van Sloane quite well.”
“Bryce? Oh, how lovely. He was my uncle. Did you do business with him?”
“Our paths crossed a few times,” said Church smoothly. “He was very sharp. A killer in business.” He offered his hand and took Van Sloane’s birdlike hand in his, giving it a delicate shake.
Dahlia had to resist rolling her eyes. She thought he was laying it on a bit thick. On the other hand, the skinny hag seemed to be eating it up.
The whistles were blowing in odd patterns now, some closer and others farther away. Margert Van Sloane flinched at the sound.
“How many of these . . . Rovers . . . are coming?” she asked.
“A hundred at least,” said Church, “and possibly many more.” Church quickly explained about the Rovers—that they started out as a biker gang and grew into a horde in the months since the dead rose. He laid this part on thick, too, telling Van Sloane about the trophies and the brutality of the gang. Dahlia watched what his words did to the woman. Without being explicit, Church made it clear that they were, to all intents and purposes, the Visigoths and Happy Valley was Rome on its last day.
The Pack clustered together near the gates, and several of the guards seemed to be watching them more closely than what was happening on the other side of the wall.
While Church spoke, Dahlia looked around. Happy Valley looked like something out of a brochure for an upscale real estate brokerage. There were streets lined with lush trees, and houses that, though cookie-cutter, were individually beautiful. Two and three stories, with lots of gables and stained-glass dormers and fancy brickwork.
It was weirdly orderly to her, because everywhere she’d been since the catastrophe had been changed in one way or another. Whole cities, towns, and villages had been the scenes of slaughter and conflict where bullet holes pocked all the walls and doors, where cars stood in awkward positions in the roads or smashed into one another, or were left where they’d died when the EMPs fired. Bloodstains were everywhere, and you could barely walk without stepping in a patch of dried gore or on spent shell casings. Some towns were wholly given over to the living dead, with the gray people randomly wandering the streets or standing like grotesquely vigilant tombstones near the places where they died. Other towns belonged only to ghosts and to the animals that had come searching for food. A few had become armed forts where desperate groups of survivors struggled day-to-day for enough to eat and a safe piece of ground on which to sleep. There was nowhere in the world of living people that remained unchanged because the world itself had irrevocably changed. How could anything not reflect that?
Except here, in Happy Valley, there was no sign of that catastrophe.
The lawns were green and trimmed, the hedges sculpted to geometric perfection, the trees shady and lovely, the streets clean, the pavement swept. None of the houses were burned shells; there was no sign of violence of any kind. The residents were even well-dressed and well-groomed, with clean nails and expensive haircuts and fine jewelry.
That’s what Dahlia saw first. It was so compelling an ima
ge that she felt momentarily displaced, disconnected from her own understanding of reality. How could this be here? Even with the walls and the protective geography, how could the end of the world not have touched Happy Valley?
She heard Church and Van Sloane talking. Heard them discuss the defenses, the threat, the coming fight, and it seemed unreal. Like that belonged in a much different story than this.
And then . . .
As if the universe was tired of its joke and wanted to hurt with a cruel punch line, she looked past the obvious and saw a bit deeper. A young man stood on the lawn of one of the closest houses. Not in the center of the lawn, not like he owned the place, but to one side, standing partly obscured by a hedge. By, in fact, the hedge he had been working on, a pair of clippers in his hands. He was a black man, much thinner than the other residents, dressed in grass-stained jeans and a plain T-shirt.
Why he caught her eye, and what was different about him, was not immediately obvious. Then Dahlia saw two other people, both Latinas, carrying bags of trash out to a wheeled cart. They grunted as they swung the heavy bags up. One paused to drag a forearm across her brow to wipe away sweat. They also wore jeans and plain T-shirts. Their hair was not expensively coifed, and they wore no jewelry of any kind. They wore sandals and gave furtive looks, meeting no one’s eyes.
Then Dahlia saw the guards. A pair of young white men with sunglasses were pacing along the street. At first Dahlia thought they were coming to reinforce the walls, but that wasn’t it at all. Instead they looked left and right as they walked, glancing at the black man trimming the hedges and the brown women hauling trash. And at others. A skinny white kid in ragged jeans with long unkempt hair and lots of tattoos who was pushing a broom along the street. A heavyset black woman with two white children in a stroller. An Arab with a wheelbarrow full of freshly picked vegetables. The guards looked at them and maintained their stares until each worker, in turn, paused and nodded.
The nods were small, but definite, and they troubled Dahlia. They looked like bows. Like statements of obedience. None of the people who bowed were smiling. The Arab man had a bandage across the bridge of his nose. The heavyset black woman had pink scars on her arms. The tattooed white man had the raccoon eyes you get with a broken nose.
And that’s when she understood. That’s when she knew how Happy Valley had survived. That’s when she understood why Old Man Church had adopted the persona he had—white, entitled, condescending. That’s when the whistles that still filled the air seemed less of a comprehensive threat and became instead one half of a pair of jaws.
She looked around, trying not to let anything show on her face, and saw that although the men on the wall were looking out, rifles and other weapons ready, there were plenty of other people—men and women—clustered around Van Sloane, and standing in a large circle around the Pack. All of them were armed, many had handguns, and if their barrels were not directly pointed at Dahlia’s friends, there was more than a suggestion of that.
Which is when Dahlia tuned back into the conversation between Church and Van Sloane.
“ . . . your weapons, of course,” Van Sloane was saying.
Dahlia turned, fighting to recapture all of what the woman said. “Wait,” she said, “you want us to give up our weapons?”
“Fuck that,” said Slow Dog, placing a hand on the hilt of a big machete that hung from his belt.
“No, no, not give up,” assured Van Sloane. “We want to inventory everything and then we can decide who gets what based on our assessment of the real threat.”
“Are you out of your mind?” demanded Dahlia. “The Rovers are coming right now.”
“And we will respond appropriately. See . . . we already have people on the walls.” In the last few minutes the sentries manning the wall had quadrupled. Now they crowded together, all of them heavily armed.
“Why take our weapons, though?” asked Jumper, looking nervously around.
“As I said . . . ”
“No,” insisted Dahlia, “why take them even for two minutes?” She turned to Church. “I guess you were right after all.”
“Right about what?” asked Van Sloane. Dahlia did not answer the question. Instead Mr. Church walked toward the mayor.
“How many fighters do you have?” he asked casually.
“Enough.”
“Really?” interjected Dahlia. “’Cause it looks to me like half of them are standing guard over the people you have working for you.” She painted that word with acid. “Are you going to give the workers weapons, too?”
Van Sloane said nothing.
“What happens to the workers when this shit all goes down? Do you let the Rovers have them or—?”
“Our helpers are very well cared for,” said Van Sloane.
“‘Helpers’? That’s a convenient word. If they’re helping you, why do you have guards watching them? How come all of them look like they’ve had their asses kicked? What the fuck is going on around here?”
Van Sloane bridled. “Watch your language, young lady. This is my town. I’m the mayor here and we have survived very nicely while everything else fell apart. There’s a reason for that. We have a system. Everyone does their part and everyone is taken care of. You are here out of courtesy. While we appreciate you coming to give us a warning, don’t pretend that your actions are anything but self-interest. We are protecting you. Just as we protect our helpers. From the dangers outside and from themselves. We keep them fed and provide shelter and clothing—”
“And brush their coats and give them dog yummies. Yeah, I get it. I’ve actually read history books,” sneered Dahlia. “Anyone with two eyes can see how you’re running Happy Valley, Miss Mayor. I’ll bet you were happy as fuck that the world ended and the government collapsed, taking the Constitution with it. All those pesky amendments. Like the one about slavery.”
“Oh, please,” said Van Sloane with a laugh. “There are no slaves here. Everyone here in Happy Valley wants to be here. Everyone came here willingly. No one was dragged in.”
“Maybe, but how many of them are allowed to just up and leave?”
Van Sloane shook her head. “They stay because it’s safer here. It’s better here. There is food and shelter and walls and—”
“And beatings and what else?”
Mayor Van Sloane exhaled a long, weary breath. “Enough. Mr. Deacon, I can see that you cannot control your niece. It makes me question your motives in coming here. You could have a half dozen of your people in the forest blowing whistles and pretending that there is a threat. So, let’s cut the nonsense and get right to it.” She snapped her fingers and every single one of the armed men and women circling the Pack raised their weapons. “I want your people to drop their weapons. Do it carefully and slowly and be smart about it. Put all of your supplies in a pile. Everything.”
Dahlia sighed. “You were right about everything,” she said to Church.
Again, he spoke to Van Sloane. “The Rovers are coming whether you believe it or not. Given that, it would be encouraging to know if your guards and sentries are any good at their jobs.”
Van Sloane took a step closer to him, smiling like the Florida alligators Dahlia had seen when her family was on vacation. A lot of teeth and no trace of warmth or mercy.
“Oh, my people are good,” she said. “It would have been better for you and your niece if you hadn’t pushed this.”
“Yes,” said Church, “everything could have been easier.”
The whistles blew closer and louder. Church sighed and raised his hand. Van Sloane looked at it. The guards looked at it. He snapped his fingers.
The arrow was a gray blur that struck hard into the dirt in the narrow space between Church and the mayor. It hit so hard that it quivered and thrummed.
Suddenly there were people everywhere, coming out from between houses and rising up from behind hedges. Dahlia grinned as the Pack raised their weapons—guns and crossbows and compound bows and slingshots. For all his size, Slow Dog move
d like greased lighting and tore a rifle out of a guard’s hands, reversed it in his grip and shoved the barrel up under the man’s chin, lifting him to his toes. Jumper took away a handgun and a hatchet with a balletic spin that was so smooth it looked choreographed. He pointed the gun at Van Sloane. Neeko and another scout seemed to come out of nowhere, taking the guns deftly away from the guards who’d been checking on the “helpers.” All at once the people surrounding the Pack were themselves surrounded. The sound of hammers being cocked back and shotguns being racked crackled through the air. Dahlia’s kukri knife flashed silver and the blade came to a sudden stop a millimeter from Margaret Van Sloane’s throat.
Church, who had not made a single move, shook his head. “We could kill you all right now. It would be easy. It shouldn’t be easy, but you’ve made it easy. And you’ve made it tempting.” He pointed to the walls, where more of the Pack now held guns while others took weapons from the sentries. “Those whistles are real, Margaret. So are the Rovers. They’re coming, and there are more of them than there are of us. They are a more professional army. Dahlia and I took your town with a group composed mostly of kids. Imagine what the Rovers will do.”
His smile was somehow much colder and less human than Van Sloane’s alligator leer.
— 37 —
THE SOLDIER AND THE DOG
So, there’s this young woman, Rachael Elle. Smart, feisty, tough as hell, and a little weird. Dresses up like superheroes and calls the walking dead “orcs,” like out of Tolkien.
Now, there is nothing wrong with being crazy. A good argument can be made that going nuts is an entirely appropriate way of dealing with the end of the world and the rise of the living dead. Sanity is certainly no buffer against that.
A similar argument can be made, and successfully litigated, that I, myself, am—in purely clinical psychological terms—as crazy as a bag of hamsters. This is not a news flash to anyone who’s known me since I was a teenager.
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