by Kim Cleary
He grabbed another gun and cartridges, and turned away from me. He could be as angry with me as he liked. I’d go with them, and I was using my own methods. End of discussion.
I'd seen one jeep and it had gone. I hadn't seen any stables, heard any horses. "How will we get to this building?"
Glynn raked his fingers across his scalp. His cropped hair stuck up in odd spikes. "We'll have to cycle, it's not far. You can ride a bicycle?"
"Since I was four years old." I smirked at him. He’d be disappointed if he thought lack of cycling experience would keep me at Del’s place tied to the bed.
"Lucky you're a short-ass." Del glanced at me. "You can ride Aidan's old bike."
She half-grinned at Glynn.
Kid's bike or not they weren't leaving me behind. I followed them into a neat garage. She pointed to the corner. A black bike leaned against the wall. It was clean, the tires pumped up, and with a working dynamo light attached to the wheel's hub. I perched on the seat, my toes just touched the ground. It was perfect, as if meant for me. Aidan dashed to the tunnels to find his father, now I borrowed his old bicycle to race after him.
I’d rather have Aidan at home, his head in the book. But this black cloud possessed a silver lining. We’d be going to the exact place I wanted to see.
Chapter 9
We left Del's house with the sun's long rays stretching out our shadows. I'd seen a vision of Aidan in the city, now we had to find him. Rolling my shoulders, I stretched my head from side to side.
Glynn wouldn’t approve, but somehow, I needed to get away to explore the tunnels on my own. If a group of dead worked together under the city, I wanted to know about it.
Del led the way, while Glynn and I followed behind her single file. We pedaled past brown and wilting gardens in front of shuttered houses. The pungent odor of road tar competed with intense jasmine perfume. Every hundred yards or so large square streetlights twisted their mirrors to soak up the last of the sunlight. Roads and pavements had been mended repeatedly until they were a lumpy patchwork of different colored bitumen. Large shady trees grew along the curb and in gardens. The people who lived here cared for their homes. Perhaps they were all for soldiers and their families, I hadn't thought to ask Del or Glynn.
After ten minutes or so, Del stood up on the pedals and raced ahead.
"Where are you going?" Glynn called out.
"This is the shortest way," Del shouted over her shoulder.
"Stop." Glynn's brakes squealed to a sudden halt.
I skidded to a stop behind Glynn. Del pedaled like mad, her head down and body taut.
"She won't wait for us."
"She bloody well better," Glynn shouted into the distance, his arms folded tightly across his chest.
She sat up on the seat, turned the handles and cycled back. "We haven't got time to waste traveling the safe path."
"The abandoned suburbs aren't patrolled regularly, you know that."
"My son can't wait."
"Do you think I want him harmed?" Glynn’s jaw could have been set in stone.
They glowered at one another.
I pushed my handlebars between them. "What's in the abandoned suburbs?"
"Possibly nothing. Or something." Glynn took a deep breath. "We rarely patrol them. For all we know, the undead troublemakers are breeding in there. There's little lighting, the roads are a mess—"
Del squeezed her arms across her abdomen. "The regular path takes us around the city, and if we cross a patrol they'll question what we're doing."
"I can deal with any patrol we meet." Glynn lifted his front wheel and thumped it against the ground.
"But how much longer would it take?" I asked.
He shrugged. "If we made it through the abandoned suburbs, I guess we'd hit the outskirts of the city in half an hour or so."
"By the path?" I pushed him for an answer.
Del answered. "At least twice that long just with the riding. Possibly a lot longer if we met a patrol. Especially one that doesn't like our Major Buckley here."
A long history and shared confidences simmered in the air between them.
"Looks like you have the deciding vote, Meagan." Glynn kept his gaze on Del's face.
Great. If I chose the slower option, it would be my fault for taking too long to get to the city. If I chose the faster option, it would be my fault if an undead creature I couldn't deal with stopped us in our tracks. Aidan’s safety won.
"I can deal with anything undead." I pushed confidence into my tone. "That's what I'm here for. If it's anything else, you two have got enough ammunition strapped to your bodies to deal with it."
Del burst out laughing. "I'm starting to like her."
Glynn turned his face to me and shook his head, but with a half-smile.
The route settled, Del took off again. Glynn sped after her. I stood up on the pedals and raced after them.
A steel fence crisscrossed ahead. It stretched as far as I could see to the left, as far as I could see to the right, with no gate or break in sight.
Del squealed to a stop. "There's a tear in the fence somewhere near the old petrol station."
"No-one's reported a tear." Glynn sounded every inch the policeman.
"I only heard about it yesterday." Del winked. "It will be fixed today I'm sure."
A dull ache settled at the center of my forehead. I felt like a cross between a gooseberry on a date, and a civilian caught up in military matters.
My skin tingled despite the heat. A strange state of unrest settled deep inside me. I rode past them to look. Up ahead, the road buckled like a piece of bent licorice. No one patched and repaired here. At a crossroads bounded by abandoned buildings, I cruised to a group of burnt out buildings covered in fading graffiti. At the back of the remains, a tear in the wire stood about three feet high. Del rode past me, leaned her bike against the fence and rummaged in her vest.
She flourished a Swiss Army knife. "I came prepared."
With a tiny tin clipper, she snipped away at the fence. Glynn glanced from left to right as if he expected a patrol to jump out at us. Del kept snipping and bending the wire back until she'd opened a gap big enough for us to fit through. Once we were all through, she pulled short strips of wire from her bag and re-fastened the fence as best she could. She really had come prepared.
She settled herself back on her bike, wiped her brow with the back of her hand. "Whatever is in here, we don't want it where families are living."
On this side of the fence, the setting sun silhouetted abandoned houses against a rich orange sky. No street lights dotted the pavement. A few sturdy trees survived, weeds as tall as me dotted huge cracks in the pavement. Grasses several feet high hid many of the buildings from view. Here the irritating smell of dry dust competed with no other scents. A dirt track wove its way along the edge of the road. Too narrow and rough to be used often, perhaps a trail used by feral dogs. The last thing I wanted to see was innocent dogs shot because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Inside me, the unrest coalesced into something more solid. An unwelcome chill swirled in my abdomen. Perhaps it was us, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Glynn took the lead along the dirt track. "Let's take it slow, no time for broken bones because someone stacks it on a rock or tree root."
The twilight shadows were too long, too deep and dark to see the ground clearly. I thanked my lucky stars the bike was small enough. My feet reached the ground, so I could steady myself. Abandoned offices and factories now lined the streets, taller buildings filled the skyline ahead. I cruised to a stop to gulp a mouthful of water.
Something rustled in the tussock of long grass to my left.
Staring in the direction the sound came from, I tried to focus on what was there. It wasn’t just the wind. It wasn't anything dead, or undead, didn't smell like a dog. But I couldn't tell what it was.
"Meagan," Glynn yelled. "Don't fall back. Shout if you need to stop. We'll wait."
T
he ground was too rough ahead. Instead of remounting, I pushed the bicycle along and walked to where Glynn and Del waited near a derelict shed.
"Which way?" Glynn asked.
"Just follow the path." Del pointed ahead. "It leads to the old underground train loop."
They exchanged glances.
"What?" I stuck my hands on my hips. "What's going on?"
Del rubbed her hands down her thighs, "The office you saw in your vision. It's the other side of town. The old train lines run straight there under the city."
"No." Glynn jammed his fists against his hips. "We're not going under the city. Asher is sending a squad in there, to find undead enemies massing."
"I'm not your sergeant anymore." Del snapped out the words.
"But you know I'm right. We can't help Aidan if we are caught or killed underground."
Del scowled, but nodded. "If we take the long way. You'd both better pedal like demons to keep up."
"Let's keep moving." Glynn pushed his bicycle away from the shed and climbed back onto the seat.
Del followed him. I scrambled to catch up to her. Another rustling sound came from the tussock. This time Del heard it too and turned her bike to face the sound. A breath of breeze pushed the densely-packed stalks around. Something glittered.
A sphere shot out of the grass and carved into Del's arm. With a growl of pain, she clutched at the wound and staggered to the ground.
I leapt away from my bike and darted to her. With my arm wrapped around Del's shoulders, I lifted my head, my eyes straining, ears alert. A strange mix of odors triggered spikes of earth power across my body. The smell of death swirled with the energy of the living in a pulsing eddy of clogging scent. Before, I’d seen nothing but derelict buildings and long grass. Now patches of faded cloth showed in the long yellow weeds, small shapes glinted in the orange light.
A piece of metal, fashioned into a four-spiked star and razor sharp, lay a few feet away from us. Several people stood in a group over my left shoulder, several more to my right, and a large group straight ahead. All alive. I could tell that now. Alive, but something was different about these people.
A man shouted from some distance away. People rushed at us from all sides and separated us. Hands grabbed for my satchel, I scrunched myself around it, prepared to protect my athame and healing wand. The people suddenly lost interest and mobbed around Del. I lost sight of her within the legs and feet surrounding her.
I couldn't see Glynn anywhere.
My heart hammered in my chest as my hands quivered around my satchel. I'd chosen this route, if anything happened to him I'd never forgive myself. The crowd around Del thinned and I crawled toward her. They'd taken her vest. Blood dripped from the deep wound in her arm. I found a handkerchief, moistened it with my drinking water, and dabbed at the gaping slice ripped across Del's arm.
"How many are there?" She snatched the cloth from me and pressed it hard against the wound.
"Too many. Including kids. What are they?"
"Twitchers." She wriggled onto her knees. "If they've got Aidan, I'll kill the lot of them."
The drug addicts I'd read about. The addicts killed by the army. Killed or maybe disappeared.
"They've taken your weapons."
"Lucky you've still got yours, then," Del muttered through clenched teeth.
"Mine aren't much good against the living." I scanned from left to right, eager for a glimpse of Glynn.
"These things are as close to dead as you can get. Besides—"
We both turned as Glynn stumbled into the clearing. Someone shoved him hard, he tripped and fell to his knees next to Del. They'd taken his vest too, and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
The grass to our left parted. A young boy, very much alive and probably nine or ten stepped out.
"You must follow me." The child addressed us, a cocky arrogance in his voice and stance. "You are well outnumbered, and we have many more cutting wheels."
Impossible to tell the size of the group. The strange odors wafting from these people still triggered spikes of earth power across my body. A cloying scent of death, and almost-death brought tears to my eyes.
A gaunt man stepped toward us. His ripped shirt flapped open, his bony ribs poked through skin marked with weeping sores. A woman, equally emaciated, with oozing sores down her face and neck, and long hair that hung like a pack of rat’s tails down her back, slouched next to him. They both twirled metal discs like the one they'd used to cut Del.
Glynn drew a small gun he'd somehow concealed and raised his arm to shoot. Something whizzed past my face and smashed into Glynn's forearm.
Glynn grunted in pain. The skinny man moved fast and grappled the gun away from him. Warm blood rolled down the side of my face. The metal thing had sliced through my forehead.
The man’s female companion grabbed the gun, aimed at the sun and fired a single shot. She pointed toward a narrow track between the weeds. "Through there, make it snappy."
Glynn's face tightened. He pulled Del to her feet and wrapped his arm around her waist. I brushed the blood from my face and stood next to Glynn. The woman again pointed Glynn's gun at us. Glynn settled Del against his hip and stumbled toward the track. I glanced at the bicycles. We'd been racing against time from the start, the longer it took to find Aidan, the greater the risk the squaddies would find him first.
The skinny man sniggered and shoved me hard in my back. "You won't be needing those anymore."
Chapter 10
The track twisted through tall weeds and small sturdy trees. At least a dozen ragged people thronged behind me, grunting to one another like a pack of wolves about to devour its prey. I stumbled forward, regained my balance and paced behind Glynn and Del.
The scent of death, undead, and the almost-dead still eddied in my nose and brain, but it disturbed me less and less. I swirled power in my abdomen, let it climb into my chest like a snake climbing a tree. I wasn't prepared to hurt anyone, not yet. I'd never been a curse first, ask questions later kind of witch. Hair at my nape stiffened as I walked. No matter what, we needed to escape, and quickly.
We staggered into a clearing, a patch of sand leading to an immense dilapidated warehouse. One of our captors strode to a sliding door and shouldered it open. He indicated for us to move through.
Inside, circles of light from too many burning lanterns overlapped one another in a crazy pebbled pattern. These twitchers didn't fear fire. A stink of rotting flesh settled against my skin. Rough hands pushed against my back and I stumbled onto a soiled sofa. A filthy child rummaged in Del's pockets and pulled out the ammunition with a squeal. With a shudder, I turned my gaze away.
On a tattered rug a few feet away, three older kids heated dirty brown colored crystals in a glass pipe. The smoke wafted toward me and an acrid taste coated my tongue. A metallic odor almost drowned out the stink of rotting flesh. Almost, but not quite. People drifted into the warehouse, many ignoring open sores oozing liquid across their skin.
In the corner of the room, someone, male or female I couldn't tell, played a battered guitar, out of tune, and badly. But no one seemed to care. I wriggled the satchel behind me, I would not give it up without a fight.
Del dropped onto the sofa next to me and scanned the room with a slow deliberate stare. I followed her stare with my own. No sign of Aidan.
"How likely is it that he got from the city center to here?" I whispered.
"Unlikely." Del wiped her hand across her lips. "Unless he found something in the tunnels that led him here. Even then, the distance is too great."
"Then let's focus on getting away and continuing our search for him."
She nodded and swung her mouth close to my ear. "If you aren't prepared to use yours, give it to me."
My what?
I recoiled from her. I’d almost forgotten the gun in my bag. Now the shape of it pushed into my back, alien, unwanted. Our captors stashed the vests and the weaponry on a small table by the door, Del’s guns among them, n
ot much use to her now.
Del nudged me. She pretended to cough and covered her mouth with a hand. "Don't feel for them. These people are walking dead, they just don't know it."
Except something felt off. No one appeared dead, and yet the death energy in the warehouse lapped at the edges of my own power, inviting me in.
Glynn stood in front of us, hands on his hips, facing the group who'd brought us here. "Who's in charge?"
A man dressed in nothing but ripped jeans sauntered to Glynn. "We don't do that saluting yes-sir-no-sir shit you cops love so much."
How could he know Glynn was a cop, not just an army officer?
Glynn held his ground. "What do you want?"
The scrawny woman with long hair danced to the man in ripped jeans, circled her arm around his waist and slobbered a wet kiss against his mouth. He pushed her away. "Empty their pockets Sal, and get the bag off the skinny chick."
"Who is supplying your drugs?" Glynn spoke in his cold, harsh policeman's voice.
The man thrust his skinny chest at Glynn, his fists clenched at his sides. "As if you care about the twitch. About our lives. About us."
The woman, Sal, whirled back to him. "As long as you catch us alive—"
"Kill us, more like."
"Then catch us rising again." Sal's words ended in a squeal.
Glynn held his palms at waist height. "I don't know what you're talking about. We need to get into the city."
"Just a harmless ride into the city, officer?" The twitcher mocked Glynn's tone. "Stocked like a platoon?"
"We don't know what we'll find in the tunnels."
"It's your lucky day. You found us."
Sal danced around the bare-chested man. "And we don't like the army or their brats."
"Sal, get the skinny chick’s bag." He poked her in the chest.
Skinny chick with a bag had to be me. No way was she getting her hands on my athame or wand. "I don't have anything of value."