Dearly, Departed

by Lia Habel

  I almost snarled.

  “What is it?” Nora asked.

  “They’re telling the troops to get suited up and meet in the courtyard. Bet you five gold pieces they’re sending us back to New London after all. If they’d done this to begin with, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  “Wait. You said they keep you around to send you after the evil dead …”

  “And Wolfe didn’t send us to the EF again,” I completed for her, “because he didn’t think he could trust us. He didn’t think he could trust me.”

  “Idiot,” she breathed.

  “Tell me about it.” Time to move. “Go get suited up, Ren.”

  “But I’ve never—”

  “Just do it. If you see the others, tell them to do the same thing. The minute they release us to the vehicles, head for the Black Alice.”

  The siren dogged my every move as I tore through the base in search of my friends. I found Coalhouse in the armory and pulled him bodily away from his big boy toys to a corner, where I told him, “After they dismiss us, don’t enter the usual transport. There’s a real old airship out there. Board it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we have a special secret mission to complete cooked up by yours truly?” I tried. “Because that’ll be five fewer zombies on Wolfe’s side? Anything I can do to nudge his odds in the direction of being taken down I consider to be done in the national interest at this point.”

  He seemed to accept this, and made an index finger salute. “Got it.”

  I helped myself to a rifle on my way out. I couldn’t find Chas, but I did grab Tom when he passed me in the hall. Before I could get a word out, he leaned close and said, “Airship.”

  I nodded smartly and continued to my room. I got suited up, as usual, and pulled my black mask down over my face. Before I joined the others outside, however, I took a side trip to the med bay.

  The sirens had also woken up the living staff, and most of them were gathered there. Some were preparing to accompany the troops. Uniformed and masked, I was paid little mind. It didn’t take me long to find Samedi, who, even at this hour, had a white lab coat thrown on over his blue striped pajamas.

  I crooked my finger, indicating that he should follow me into one of the empty labs. He did so, recognizing who I was after looking into my eyes.

  Sam shut the door. “What’s happening, Bram?”

  “There are hundreds of zombies loose in New London because Wolfe is a tool, that’s what’s happening.”

  Samedi cursed colorfully and sank down onto one of the rotating stools.

  “The crew and I are going to take an … alternative route north. We’ll get there before the others do. We’ve got someone waiting on a ride.”

  Samedi lifted his brows. “And Nora?”

  “She’s coming along.”

  The doctor pushed at the skin on his forehead with two fingers. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a few minutes to listen to me spout off the many, many reasons why taking her is a bad idea.”

  “No, not really. But …” Okay, I couldn’t help but gloat a little. “She likes me.”

  Samedi didn’t even look at me. “Well of course, you’ve had that bloody uniform on all day. I was half ready to tell you how much I liked you.”

  “Never mind,” I sighed. “Anyway, I need you to grab a com unit and stay in touch with us.”

  Samedi glanced up at this, his eyes deep with confusion. “Why?”

  “Because we’re sort of at zero hour here, and we’re taking Ren with us. We might need you for intel.”

  Samedi stood up again and nodded. “All right. Channel 68?”

  “Sounds good.”

  With that done, I headed for the courtyard and fell into one of the lines of black-clad undead already massed there. Wolfe was in his full regalia, barking over our heads. I let the sound roll into the background and cast my eyes about. I saw Tom’s unmistakable shape, and next to him, a very skinny soldier—Ren. I couldn’t see any of the others, and whispered a few choice swear words to myself.

  “Your primary mission is to destroy all undead that you visually identify,” Wolfe said, as I searched. “There’s no time to sort out the good ones from the bad ones. Intelligence reports that most are abandoning the Elysian Fields, so we’re going to land on the eastern side of the city and mow our way west. The port provides a natural firebreak, but be sure to scour the water for any as well. Don’t want ’em washing back up after a few days. Do not enter private buildings; search and rescue will be performed by the living. And remember: I want each of you to function as an individual killing machine. Anyone has trouble, leave him. Now, fall out!”

  The lines turned and began to file out of the gates. I knew the large ground transport units would be waiting for the soldiers at the far end of the vehicle holding area; I’d been through this before. Once my line got outside the gates, I broke away and hotfooted it to the Alice.

  Nora was already there. She was back in her practice gear, and grabbed my hand when she saw it was me. I gripped hers, tightly this time. “Did you find the others?” she asked. “Ren and I found Chas.”

  It made me feel better to hear that. “I got the other two, then, yeah.”

  She let go of my hand and she looked up at me for a second, as if contemplating saying something else, but then dropped her eyes. I wanted, more than anything, to bundle her up against my chest and assure myself that she really meant it, that she didn’t hate me. But I didn’t dare. It was neither the time nor the place.

  The others were with us in a few minutes. Ren pulled off his mask and ruffled up his hair, complaining, “Argh, it itches. How on earth do you people tolerate this thing?”

  “Less complaining, more airborning,” I said as I pulled up the gangplank.

  “That’s not even a word,” he groused. “Come on, everyone belowdeck.”

  Nora looked around. “But don’t you ride on this deck?”

  Ren dug his glasses out of his pocket and put them on. “Not when the airship is outfitted with an engine like the angry fist of Zeus.”

  “Not yet,” Coalhouse said, glancing out across the field. “Wait for their transport to take off. Then we can do it right.”

  We all ducked down to wait. Within ten minutes or so the other soldiers were loaded up and on their way. They’d meet up with the ships and head north again, same as before. The ships were no slouches. With luck, they’d be landing in New London in a little under two hours.

  We’d be there in about an hour, though—if we survived the flight.

  As soon as the transporters were out of sight, Ren hopped to his feet and said, “In, in.” We followed him down into the hold. He hurried over to the engine and started tinkering with it—pressing this in, pulling that out. He danced about it, almost as if he were the male of the species and it the female, and he was attempting to court it.

  “All right,” he said as he flicked a switch. “Tom, you’re shoveling coal. There should be a button to ignite the furnace.”

  Tom looked around and found the boiler, and several open crates of coal waiting to be fed into it. He groaned. “Why do I always have to do this crap?”

  Ren ignored him. “Coalhouse, you go release the balloon. It’s self-filling, you just need to pull a lever. Think you can handle that?”

  Coalhouse pointed to himself and said, “Ah, I am a Punk, remember?”

  “And Bram, you steady the secondary wheel.” He pointed to the front of the hold. There was another steering wheel there, standing beneath a shuttered window.

  “What do I do?” Nora asked.

  “Ditto,” said Chas.

  Ren pointed to another wooden crate. “You two sit there, and try not to touch anything.”

  Chas considered this, and informed him, “You know, when you say that, it just makes me want to touch things more.”

  Nora took her by the arm. “Come on. Normally I’d be with you, but not right now. Let’s just get her up in the air.”

&nb
sp; While I knew that Renfield had a point—the airship wasn’t completely archaic, and wasn’t meant to require a full crew, with a full crew’s worth of jobs—I hated to think that Nora was at the point where she wasn’t going to fight anymore. I beckoned to her. “Come help me hold the wheel. You, Chas, you try not to touch anything. Okay, let’s fly, here!”

  Nora came over and took hold of two of the wheel’s spokes, but asked me, “Do you really need help, or are you just patronizing me?”

  I opened the shutters. “Oh, trust me, Nora … I really need help.”

  She eyed me disdainfully for a moment before smirking.

  It was as close to a smile as I’d had from her in a while, and I was willing to take it.

  The plastic kitten lay curled up in my palm once more. I cradled it as if it were real, for it was now very precious to me.

  The tide of undead hadn’t slowed. I wondered if it was as bad as it looked. It didn’t seem like many of them were making intelligent choices down there—they weren’t trying doors, or even filtering off into the side avenues unless some sound or movement happened to catch their attention. Most were shuffling forward as space was made for them, like liquid following a groove. George Street might simply have become a giant funnel for them.

  To the east, I could hear shouting. I swallowed and tried not to think about the living people still in retreat. The zombies at the head of the column were moving faster than the ones behind, spurred on by the hunt.

  I tried to think instead of Nora—who was alive.

  “Miss Dearly’s all right?” Michael asked me. There was an edge to his voice. “She’s alive?”

  “Yes!”

  “Thank goodness.” He looked as happy to hear it as I was, and the sharpness in his voice vanished. His attention soon returned to the street, though. “What’s happened to them?” he asked, uncomprehending.

  “Didn’t you see the news?”

  “No. I heard the emergency warning on the wireless. It said that the city was under siege. The adults evacuated then—we’ve had a carriage on standby for a few days now, and my father sent servants ahead to the house near Morristown.” He paused, and then asked, “Ah, what’s this about the former Prime Minister?”

  Issy was seated near the roof’s edge, his chin resting on his knees. He gave me a hound dog look, moving nothing but his eyes. I sat down next to him. It took about ten minutes to get Michael up to speed, and I found myself surprised by that—it felt like I had a lot more story to tell. It felt like I was wearing more than ten minutes’ worth of angst.

  Michael remained standing, watching the dead. “So, we’re pretty much all doomed.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said fiercely. “All we have to do is sit here.”

  “Not just us. I mean … everyone. Humanity.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to this—mostly because I didn’t want to acknowledge that it might be true. How many had already died? How many more were going to?

  “Are you sure Miss Dearly will come? You should have let me talk to her, Miss Roe.”

  I reached over and stroked Issy’s hair. Idiot though he was, he was also my little brother. He scooted closer to me while obviously trying to look as if he was just shifting to the side. “Yes. She said she was going to come with people who could help. I—”

  “Wait.”

  I shut up and watched Michael watching. He moved a few feet along the roof, then crouched down low. The electricity was still on, and the rooftop was a garden of shadows brought out by the old-fashioned filament bulbs arranged around the statue.

  “There’s someone in the shop over there,” Michael said.

  I stood up and moved to join him. Isambard rolled onto his hands and knees but remained where he was. Michael pointed. He was looking at the Mink String Emporium, a narrow shop with a fanciful pistachio green façade, a story shorter than the buildings around it. There were several dead people standing by the front door, fiddling with its handle and hinges, as if it was a very large and confounding puzzle box.

  They knew something was inside.

  “Do you have binoculars?” Michael asked.

  “No, just a little food, and a bottle of water, and my bow and arrows. I gave the rest of the things to my father.” I cupped my hands around my eyes to block out some of the light, trying vainly to see farther across the street. It looked like there was possibly some movement behind the windows, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Michael paced behind me, about a foot in each direction. “What do we do?”

  “It could be anything,” I pointed out. “An animal? Maybe there’s nothing in there at all, maybe one just started messing about and the others started copying him. Who knows how they think?”

  Michael unbuttoned his jacket. “But if there’s someone there …”

  “We have to help them, if we can,” I finished.

  Michael ran his hands over his eyes. “If we can.”

  “No, we don’t,” Isambard said, ruining the moment.

  I turned to him. “Issy, nobody invited you along. You don’t get a vote. Mostly because you’re an idiot.”

  “A total idiot,” he said. “Look, right now I am completely in agreement with you. I am an idiot of legendary proportions. But I’m an idiot who wants to live, thank you. Besides, you told Nora we’d wait right here! What if she can’t find us?”

  “The idiot has a point,” Michael allowed.

  I pressed my palm to my forehead. “Issy, you suddenly decided that you wanted to be a hero, and now you are seriously telling me you wouldn’t do everything you could to try and save someone’s life?”

  Isambard climbed to his feet. “That’s before you decided that we had to go rescue some John Doe trapped on the other side of a river of walking dead! Sometimes you are so frustrating!”

  “Calm down,” Michael said. “We don’t know that there’s anyone over there. Hell, there could be people in all of these buildings. We can’t help all of them. We might not be able to help any of them.”

  I bit my bottom lip. Maybe he was right.

  “Help!”

  At the sudden cry, I rushed to the side of the roof again. Michael was at my side in a heartbeat. There was someone on the roof of the Mink Emporium—a girl. She was holding an electric lantern in either hand, waving them up and down. The streetlights were still on, and I squinted. “Wait.” Realization thudded into me. “Is that … Vespertine Mink?”

  Michael leaned far off the roof. “She’s blond … yes, I think it is.”

  “See?” my brother said from the sidelines. “You got all excited and gung-ho, when it’s someone you hate. Now we can settle in and wait for Nora.”

  I counted to ten. “Issy, I don’t hate anyone. Just because I dislike her doesn’t mean we let her die.”

  Michael looked confused. “Wait, why do you dislike her?”

  “Because she’s a pompous priss with a mean streak. She and Nora have always snipped at one another.” I glared at Isambard. “But she’s still a human being.” And with that, I jumped onto the roof’s stone railing.

  Michael reached out and put his hands on my waist. “Careful!”

  I forced myself not to respond to his touch—instead I called out across the street, “Vespertine Mink? Is that you?”

  The girl on the roof opposite lowered her lanterns and called back, “Pamela Roe?”

  “Yeah, let’s both let that sink in for a minute, it’s a doozy!” I yelled in return. “Are they inside?”

  “No!” she said instantly. Apparently, she was on board. But then, she had no choice. “But they’re going to get in! They’re beating at the doors and windows!”

  “Can you get to the roof next to you?”

  “It’s too high!” The buildings were very close together, no more than a few feet apart in places, making a neat little shopping plaza around the church.

  “What about on the street behind you? Are there dead there?”

  “What do you mean, dead?”


  She hadn’t heard. “Ill! Are there ill there? Just look!”

  Vespertine held up a hand and went to look. She came back a few seconds later. “A few, but not as many! But there’s no way I’m leaving on my own!”

  “There’s no one else with you?”

  “No, I’m alone!”

  “Okay,” I said to my posse on the church. I leaned back against Michael’s hands, and he helped me step down. “What are we going to do?”

  “We could tell her to hold on, and when Nora comes, pick her up, too,” Michael offered.

  “She might not have that much time.”

  “We could get her and bring her back here.”

  “Except we’d all have to climb back up some pretty big roof height differences. Going down is no big deal. And we don’t exactly have climbing equipment with us. If we go over there …” I swept my eyes over all the buildings, “… we can’t get back.”

  Isambard pushed his cheeks back toward his jaw joints. “This is such a bad idea, this is such a bad idea …”

  “I would say we can go over there if we need to,” Michael said, ignoring him. “But tell her to sit tight for now.”

  “Guys!” Vespertine shrieked.

  I turned around. The zombie that’d been trying the doorknob was now halfway up one of the metal spouts that ran down the side of the building. Others were trying the same technique, with less success.

  My heart started to race. “My word. They heard she was up there, and up they started.” Okay, it was as bad as it looked.

  “They’re not going to stop,” Michael said, watching the scene. Once more Isambard looked completely terrified. Twice in one night! This was going to be a diary entry for the ages.

  “We’re coming, Miss Mink!” I shouted. “Go back inside!”

  “We’re going?” Michael asked.

  I didn’t respond until I saw Vespertine retreat down through a door set in the rooftop. “Yes. We have to.”

  “Okay.”

  I grabbed my brother’s hand, pulling him with me to the eastern side of the cathedral. “We need to cross the rooftops. Just try to roll when you have to make a big jump down.” Luckily, the building next to us was just a little lower than the church, to start with, and the biggest fall we’d have was the final one that would end with us on the roof of the Mink Emporium. “Just like those old holo games, right? With the little man leaping about all the platforms?”