And I accepted it. I accepted every fucking thing, adapting and moving forward. Because that’s what you do. You move forward, and you adapt and you fucking get on with it, because the alternative is no better than death.
I don’t know how to move on from this. I don’t know how to let go of the only thing that matters.
What is the only thing that matters?
She always gave the answer I demanded, the one that hid the truth. The one that framed it in a way that made her comfortable and able to accept me. I can see her now, the annoyance and the desire she tried to fight, the resignation, the fierce hope.
What is the only thing that matters?
Her.
Chapter 2
No Man’s Land
The river is on the very edge of the west. It’s wider than I remember. I crouch on the bank, and my second steps up next to me. We’re in the stretch of land that is unclaimed—the river stands as the divider, and everything east belongs to the dead. But this close, no one living ventures—only the occasional far scouts with their death wishes.
We might have ceded everything east of the Mississippi, but the truth is, we gave the zombies everything. We hold the Havens, and everything else belongs to them.
“Sir? Rice and Payton cleared the bridge.”
I nod and shift, coming out of my crouch to stand. Fisher looks nervous—they all do. He doesn’t look like a priest, not dressed in the fatigues we commandeered from the Army when we swept through two months ago.
He is, though. Omar would never let me have anything less than a fully loyal Black Priest at my side. His way of controlling me, the situation. Fucking bastard.
I shake my head, shake the anger that wants to rise. I can’t indulge that right now.
Some anger makes you better. Sharper. But this anger is the kind of consuming rage that gets people killed and I can’t afford that right now.
“Move out,” I murmur. Fisher snaps off a salute and jogs away. I stay at the water for a longer minute, watching the steady glide of the river, and then I follow him.
The far scouts did a good job—there are no infects on the bridge to trip us up as we take the river. It’s eerie how clear the bridge is. Not because cars stopped moving on it, but because when we ceded the East, we cleared the bridges and barricaded them. Even from here, I can see the stone wall that spans the six lanes of traffic, bleached white and gleaming in the morning sun.
The infects who had wandered on the bridge hadn’t come from the East.
Fisher is back, his eyes worried as we cross in silent formation.
There are no threats here, not in front of us, and we have enough eyes to keep our rear covered. But all of us move across the arched expanse with tense caution that can’t be taught—it’s ingrained in the children of the change.
You don’t grow up with the dead walking and not figure out how the fuck to stay alive.
“Tuck,” I call, and a wiry solider—one from the Army instead of the Order—breaks ranks, jogging ahead. He hits the wall at a sprint and I hear an appreciative whistle from Payton as he scrambles up it. I admit, privately, that it’s impressive. The man is like a fucking spider, clinging where there is nothing, moving lightning fast and gracefully until he perches on the top of the damn wall like some G.I. Joe Humpty Dumpty.
I snicker, and Fisher’s head snaps around, his eyes wide as he watches me. I whistle, and Tuck nods, swinging his rifle around.
“There aren’t many, boss,” he calls back to me.
“Just clean it up. You know our orders.”
Fisher shifts next to me and Tuck sights down his rifle. There’s a soft puff of air and then a shrill scream.
Killing one is a surefire way to draw the attention of the others. I hear a body scrambling at the wall, broken fingers scratching, and my stomach turns.
I’ve had very little taste for killing since we left the Outpost four months ago. It’s still what I’m best at. But I can no longer lose myself in the fight—not when the screaming infects take me back to my own dead. There are three more shots, quick and silent, and the screams go still. I glance up at Tuck, grinning atop his wall, and nod.
“Bring it down.”
Chapter 3.
Opening Up The East
The trick isn’t blowing the wall. That, in itself, is easy. The trick is making sure we don’t blow the whole fucking bridge.
We did that on the last bridge and it put us back a week.
I lean against one of the support struts as Tuck places the charges and strings them together. He moves with negligent care, as if he weren’t fucking handling c4. The idiot is going to get us killed—but not today. My radio comes to life, a flare of lights, before Holly’s voice is in my ear. “Status update?”
I make a low noise of irritation. “About the same as five fucking minutes ago, Holly. My guy needs time to do this, unless you want a repeat of the last bridge.”
There’s a stretch of silence, and I wonder what she’ll say. Even now, four months after we abandoned the Outpost for the Black Priest’s wild plan to reclaim the East, his people walk carefully around me.
In retrospect, I suppose they would.
“We need to move. The success of the mission—”
“Relies on speed. I know. Believe me; I did get the memo the first two hundred times you shoved it down my throat. Now. I was given this assignment. If you have issues with how I’m executing it, I suggest you leave me the fuck alone and talk to your superior.”
I click the radio off and whistle sharp and shrill. Tuck’s speed increases as around us, the others start to fall back.
I will say this for my unit—they’re damn good at what they do.
Ten minutes later, Tuck jumps from the wall and jogs over to me. Everyone else is on the far side of the bridge, waiting for us. I glance at him as he fiddles with the charge, and finally looks at me. “We’re good, boss.”
I nod and he falls in behind me as we retreat.
From the far side of the bridge, we watch as Tuck triggers the bomb. It blows with a concussive force that shakes the water, and for a moment, the bridge sways, and I curse.
Then Lake pipes up, “Still standing. It’s clear, sir. The wall is down.”
I stare at her for a long moment, and then one of the guys gives a wild war whoop, and all of them are cheering.
Fucking idiots.
We just brought down the wall and the East is open. I lick my lips and thumb on my radio. “Hawk 1 to base. Move out—the way is clear.”
There’s a long moment of static, and then, Holly’s voice, crisp and clear: “We’ll be there in ten. Good work, O’Malley.”
I hand the radio to Fisher before I do something stupid. Calling her a bitch isn’t the way to keep on her good side.
“Ok, we’re moving out. Everyone alert. Guns on silent, and use them only if you need them.”
There’s a low grumble, but the unit moves even before the protest is fully formed, falling into a loose semi-circle that prowls forward.
We’re the vanguard, because if I’m going to be here, I’ll do it on my terms. And because there is no one better.
And because the unit is mine, we’ve managed to get this far east, clearing the way for the main force, and we’ve done it with only three casualties.
It’s not a bad record. It would be better if Holly would back the fuck off and let me work without being so damn controlling.
The Order has a very short leash for their pet killer.
Chapter 4
East of the Mississippi
I am the one off the bridge first. Lake is pissed. None of my people like when I take the lead; I can feel her bristling behind me as I step off it, into the East.
It is, surprisingly, disappointing. No screaming horde to greet us. The few infects we had seen we put down from a distance. But it is largely quiet, and that worries me. I don’t trust it. Tuck shifts next to me, and mutters, “It’s quiet.”
I give him a sidelong g
lance and feel the unit shift, tightening around me. They’re all feeling it.
“Focus, people,” I order, “Be on alert.”
The thing is that when we ceded the East, we didn’t go back. There were a few suicidal enough to do recon. Marines, or what was left of them. But most didn’t come back, and it’s too much—the expanse of land is too vast for a handful of lonely scouts.
We’re walking in blind. It’s what I’ve been worried about since we moved out of the Outpost and started sweeping through the Wide Open, on a path to the East.
We hit the horde four blocks from the bridge. I can smell them before we get there, but for a minute—the stretch of a block—I can convince myself that it’s just decay. Not the dead. Because I can’t hear anything. Just the wind in the broken remains of a deserted city.
Zombies scream. I fucking hear them in my nightmares. They’re the soundtrack we live our life to. But now there is nothing. Just the sound of our footsteps and the wind, and the pounding of my heartbeat, like a drumbeat in my ears.
“Oh, fuck,” Tex hisses, a few yards ahead of us. He ducks back, and I’m at his side in two steps. I peer around the edge, and my stomach drops.
It’s not just a handful of infects. It’s a fucking horde, packed together in still silence.
“What the hell are they doing?” he whispers, and I shake my head. Because I don’t know. I’ve spent years in the East, fighting the war, and years in the Wide Open, moving until I found Haven 8.
I have spent my life watching and killing the infects. I know their speed and rage and hunger. The screams they make and the blessed fucking silence when my sword severs their spinal column and kills the virus that reanimates them.
I watched the world end, had a fucking front row seat to the decision to drop a dirty bomb on Atlanta, the tipping point in the war against the dead.
I know zombies. It’s why Omar wanted me to lead the vanguard.
But I’ve never seen this shit, and I whisper the words through numb lips: “Fall back. We’ve gotta fall back.”
“The army is already moving,” Fisher says. I ignore him, looking at the rest of the unit. They’re my people. Not my second—he’s Omar’s. But the others are mine, and I won’t watch them be slaughtered for the fucking agenda of a madman.
“Fall back and radio this shit in,” I snap. “Now.”
They’re moving before I finish talking, ignoring Fisher as they smoothly retreat. There is a new urgency to the way they move, a tension to their weapons that reassures me.
Fisher holds his ground for a long moment, and then he moves with the others, his face tight and angry. “He’s going to be pissed.”
I ignore him. He’s right. But I’ll be alive, and I can survive a little bit of anger.
“Finn,” he snaps, and I shoot him a quick look.
“Shut the fuck up, Captain, and get your ass across that bridge.” I snap.
We're half way back to the bridge when Lake falls and her gun slams into the broken concrete with a loud clatter. I tense and shoot her a furious look.
The scream is almost faster than her mumbled apology. My gut drops and I swallow hard. “Run,” I order and I'm sprinting, fumbling for the radio banging at my hip as I move. Around me I can feel the unit keeping pace. McFadden outpaces all of us and hits the bridge as I bring the radio up. “There's a fucking horde, Holly. Get the guns up and move two units out.”
There’s no response but that went wide, so I drop the radio and focus on staying on my feet and moving.
Behind us, the screams are getting louder.
Something jerks at me and I hiss, flipping around and slamming my knife into the infect’s eye as I shove it backward. My blade rips free with a wet sucking sound. A crossbow bolt takes the next infect in the eye and I'm clear again, darting away from the pack.
The sound of gunfire and a woman's voice shouting orders fills the air and behind us. I hear them dropping as the snipers do their dirty work.
“Move your ass, O'Malley!”
I grit my teeth and shove my last straggling solider past the line of snipers. There’s a post waiting for me and I slide into it, as natural as breathing, and pull my crossbow around. The infects hit the bridge at the same time I release my first bolt, and I can feel the tension take the units—mine and the one waiting for us. “Thought they had you on the rear guard,” I say, reaching for another bolt.
I’m ignored completely, and for the first time in over a week, I grin. And then the infects are on us and I’m too busy staying alive to think.
It’s moments like this, when the screams are all around me and I can hear the almost silent sound of my unit fighting and the dead falling, I am almost glad I was dragged into this war.
But I know what the cost was. And I can't forgive that.
Chapter 5.
The Cost of the War
We hold the bridge. Barely, and lose a man to the infects. Then the main branch of the army sweeps in, and Holly shifts away from her personal tank to stand beside me. “Falling back wasn’t exactly the plan.”
I shake a spray of blood from my katana and give the priestess a dark look. Even now that she’s abandoned her robes, she is still a priestess. Omar’s trained acolyte. I ignore the comment and whistle sharply. My unit falls around me, all but Fisher. He looks at Holly for a moment, and I make a low, disgusted noise before pushing past him. “Tell the Priest I want to speak to him when his convoy arrives.”
Holly bristles in the corner of my eye, but I ignore her and stride through the tents that are being rapidly assembled around me. We’ll camp here for the night, and now that the infected have been dealt with, the army will waste no time setting up their camp.
“O’Malley,” a lazy voice drawls my name as I stalk out and slow, staring. Kenny Buchman. The once president of the fractured remains of the United States, and my best friend’s brother.
The first man bitten who didn’t change.
I pull my gun and have it pressed against his forehead before I can think about why I shouldn’t, can’t, kill him. A mad hatter smile turns my lips, and for a moment, I see a flicker of fear in Kenny’s eyes. It’s the first time in months I’ve seen anything but devil-may-care disregard for everything.
Then it’s gone, and it’s nothing but fury and fierce madness, burning and hungry.
Almost as if he wants the bullet as much as I want to deliver it.
I shift back and slide my gun away, and give him a dark, wordless smile. Then I push past him, and lead my unit to our camp. Holly’s people are clearing out, and one snaps off a salute.
A perk of being the Order’s pet killer is that they set shit like this up.
Its four tents, three people in each, and a fifth smaller one reserved for me. I rarely spend time there, but the main army carries it to each camp since we abandoned the trains and took to moving on foot and in bus caravans.
That was two weeks ago, and the army is already beginning to flag—and we’ve just now reached the East.
I wonder if any of them realize that the easy part is done. That from here on out, the fight will be every day, losing a step for every two we win, and death.
So much fucking death.
There is a First waiting in my tent, and I go still at the sight of her. A tiny slip of a thing, with dark hair cropped brutally short, perpetually wide, scared eyes, and shit aim.
I’m not sure how Abry managed to survive twenty years of zombies. Except that she was cloistered in a snowbound Haven, far enough north that even before the change, they didn’t have much in the way of population. It meant when the zombies rose, there weren’t many. And even now, that’s true.
Of course, there was the Order, and she hadn’t managed to avoid them.
I stare at her, silent as I strip off my weapons belt. She relaxes a little when it clatters down, and I swallow my laugh. Little idiot thinks I’m unarmed.
I’m in the Wide fucking Open, on the edge of the East. I would sooner join the Order and d
on robes than walk anywhere unarmed.
“She wants you,” she says, her voice shaking a little.
I go still, and level a hard stare at the tiny First. “Tell her I’m busy,” I say, finally. I refuse to snap at a girl who can’t even carry because of the weight of her gun and ammo. I’m a bastard, but I have my limits.
“She’s demanding,” Abry tries again and I let her see me smile, a feral grin. She pales, and I can feel the way she shudders. She wants to run. And I want her to, because I don’t want to deal with this shit.
“She doesn’t get to demand anything,” I snarl. She flinches and dips her head. I stand aside and she scoots past me, her robes flicking around her ankles as she retreats.
I pull my shirt over my head and drop on my field issue cot.
Kelsey would be amused as fuck to see me now. Back when we fought the war in the East, we didn’t have this. We had a pack we carried on our back, and everything that could fit inside. And if it didn’t, we went without and we survived.
Ten years has changed so much, and yet we’re still the same—fucked up and scared.
Tuck ducks into the tent. “The Priest is at HQ, sir.”
I nod and stand. “I need five minutes.” He doesn’t respond, just pulls his head back and leaves me to myself. I rubs some water over my face and into my hair—it’s getting long again, and starting to spike when it gets wet. I need to remember to have that shit trimmed. Pulling on a clean black shirt, I buckle my belt on and sling my bow over one shoulder. Might as well get this shit over with.
Chapter 6.
Our Natural Habitat
I have seen the Black Priest in a million places. I’ve seen him uncomfortable at a state dinner and tense at a ceremony to reward his bravery. I’ve seen him commanding on the field and careful with small children, coaxing on the practice fields and furious at a friend’s funeral.
But he has never been as at home there as he is now, leading an army, every inch of his body commanding and in control.
The World Without End [Box Set] Page 45