by Ann Christy
“Nothing much for you to worry about. You’re not dead, so just focus on yourself right now,” I say, again patting his arm.
He must believe me, because he relaxes a little. “So they didn’t make it, but I did? Can you get me out of here? What if they get loose?” he asks me, obviously not comfortable at his proximity to in-betweeners. That’s entirely normal. Most people would probably be scared to death, but he’s playing the role of compliant patient well.
Again, I nod and give him a little smile that should encourage him to think he’s right. “Soon,” I say, keeping my answers as vague as I can, because I have no intention of moving him out of this cage.
Charlie, who is still backed away from our desktop and out of Carson’s view, suddenly steps up to the other sleeping in-betweener and peers at his face. I watch out of the corner of my eye because I don’t want Carson to realize what else might be going on.
“Why do you have me tied down?” he asks.
“How do you feel?” I ask again, ignoring his question.
His eyes dart about nervously. He clearly understands that there’s more going on. Given his association with these bad people, he must think it’s related to the many bad acts they must have committed. Maybe he thinks it’s related to Gloria. I’m not saying anything to confirm or deny it.
“My stomach really hurts,” he says finally.
He can’t see it, but his stomach is quite swollen, the lower part very hard. Since he’s one of the in-betweeners that doesn’t have a working digestive system, I’m guessing it’s related to that. “What kind of hurt?”
He looks confused for a moment, then says, “Tight. Full, maybe.”
I nod and pat his arm again, “You haven’t gone to the bathroom for a good while. Not since you were hurt. It’s probably that.”
He actually turns a little pink at that, as if embarrassed. So, he has no problem capturing a woman to rape her and then cut her tongue out, but he’s embarrassed at the mention of his bowel activity? How precious.
“Are you hungry? Feel at all funny or weird? Anything at all that might help me to help you?” I ask, repressing the urge to slap him. This is the stuff I really need to know. How much of the in-betweener behavior or impulses are left, if any?
“No, nothing,” he says, then pauses. His nostrils flare as he sucks in a breath and he confesses, “Well, maybe something.”
“Go ahead. It’s all important.”
“Um, everything smells really strong. Like, overwhelming.”
“Stinks? Or in a good way?”
He thinks about this for a few seconds, then says, “Both, really.” Again the pink flushes his pale cheeks and he adds, “I can smell you. It’s like a warm smell, but also bad. It’s weird. I don’t know how to explain it. I can smell the guy back there too. I can tell he’s young and healthy, but I have no idea how I know it. It just…well…smells young and healthy.”
“That’s interesting,” I say in as calm a tone as I can. “Anything else?”
“Those guys over there,” he says, pointing with his eyes toward the trio of in-betweeners, “smell really bad. It makes me feel like I should run away from them. It’s a panicky smell. And I can smell someone sick, but it’s not anyone I can see. And another girl somewhere, but not like you. She’s different, special. Is there someone else here?”
That’s interesting, very interesting. We know the in-betweeners work on instinct, but this information makes me think that there’s something enhancing the senses that work with their instincts. And that he can tell there’s another person here adds another wrinkle to it. It might be difficult to do things in secret around these in-betweeners as they recover. It’s something we’ll need to talk about.
While I’m thinking, Charlie takes a step back from the desktop of the other in-betweener, drawing my attention. He points to his eyes, closing the lids and moving them underneath the lids. He mouths, “Eyes moving,” at me just to make it perfectly clear when he opens his eyes again. I didn’t see Carson make any movements before he woke, but I wasn’t looking that closely. I didn’t know what to expect, so he might have been doing the same for hours before he woke.
Since I have no idea how long it will be before—or even if—the other treated in-betweener will wake up, I’ve got no more time to mess around and let information come from Carson at his own pace. I don’t want to feed him data, but if the other one wakes up and remembers what happened to him, the cat will be well and truly out of the bag anyway.
“You’re tied down because you’re a raider. You took one of our people—Gloria—and brutalized her. You’re a bad person and we killed you because you deserved it,” I say to Carson.
His mouth drops open after a beat, the realization of what I’m saying finally sinking in. His eyes flick toward those three sets of wiggling feet for a second and his face twists in fear.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” I ask, motioning for Charlie to get out of the cage. He steps out and holds the door open for me. I look at Carson, whose mouth is moving as if he can’t decide what he should ask or say next. I don’t give him the chance. I step out of the cage and slam the door closed with a rattle of chain-link and metal.
As I feed the chain through to secure the door, I lean close to the cage and say, “That’s right. You’re a screamer. You’re dead. Welcome to hell.”
As we walk across the warehouse toward the door, I wait for the reaction. When it comes, I can’t help but smile. The scream that Carson lets out is blood-curdling and full of fear.
Good. He should be afraid.
Eleven Weeks Ago - Mail Call
We make excellent time getting from the bank to downtown proper, even though there are more deaders wandering around than I’ve seen in a long time. They’re slow and just as disgusting as the ones by our warehouse complex, but they seem agitated, more desperate than usual. They’re in a hurry to come after us, falling into ungainly heaps more often than not as they try to move faster than their normal lurching pace.
And they’re all moving in the same direction, toward the center of downtown.
“Anyone else find this odd?” I ask, huffing with the effort to talk in the heat after our long ride.
Gregory answers, but keeps his eyes riveted to the crowded street ahead. “Yeah, I guess we’re not the only ones who’ve noticed there are new people in town.”
Charlie only grunts his agreement, but from the corner of my eye I see him reach for the handle of the machete he has wedged into the front basket of his bike. A little reassurance of the sharp, metallic kind.
I focus forward again, hoping our speed will win out over mass. For the moment, we’re quiet enough that the deaders only notice us when we’re past or close to passing them, meaning they hurry after us only once we’re well out of reach. But the street ahead is dotted with them, and it’s only a matter of time before we find ourselves surrounded unless we find some other way to get where we need to go.
Just as I’m thinking that, a deader on the road ahead swings around toward us. It has no eyes—almost none of them do anymore—but it lifts its head to sniff the air and moves toward us as we bike in its direction. Almost as if there is some silent communication between them, a few others on the road stop and turn as well. Nope, another route is definitely called for.
“Detour,” I call out.
We all reverse direction, our tight turns almost too tight, and head back the way we came. The end of the block is just ahead, but the road beyond must have thirty deaders on it, all of them still trailing along our former path.
“Right,” Gregory calls, his voice deceptively calm.
My heart is kicking like a wild horse in my chest and I can feel my hands heating up on the handles of my bike. The sweat coating me like a film is no longer just from the heat either.
We swerve right, hitting the side street as quickly and sharply as we can. Deaders are not smart and if you can get out of sight, they’ll stop following.
“Left,
” Gregory calls, this time keeping his voice a little lower. There are deaders here too, but not as many and we don’t want to draw the attention of those not facing our direction.
After rounding the corner to the left, I see another scattering of deaders. Once again, they are facing the direction we need to go, which means we’re heading directly for them. I see Gregory looking all around us, clearly searching for something in particular, because he calls out, “Right! Into garage. You open, I’ll watch!”
The parking garage is one we’ve checked before and the entrance is entirely blocked by a grate that slides down. We’ve long since broken any locks on it—I was one of those that helped clear it—but we pulled the gate down anyway to keep new deaders from entering.
Charlie and I squeak to a stop, one at either end of the gate. Both of us lean over on our bikes to grab at the grate and lift. It’s heavy, as in super heavy, and we’re in awkward positions to boot, but the metal gears squeal in protest and the grate starts to inch upward. Gregory stands straddling his bike, his crossbow at the ready and a line of bolts sticking up out of his front basket, ready to pluck and load.
He looses a bolt at the closest deader, a clean hit between the eyes, and it drops, twitching as the nanites inside do their work. He glances over his shoulder at us while he resets the bow, then fits in another bolt and urges, “Better hurry.”
“Pull,” I plead through gritted teeth, not entirely clear if I’m saying it to Charlie or myself. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but I swear I’m about to pull my own shoulders out of socket. And my wrist, which is still not entirely healed, is tugging painfully.
Suddenly, the metal gears give and the gate rolls up to the height of my chin with a loud clatter. “Go,” I shout to Charlie and we both bend over to ride our bikes inside. Gregory looses another bolt, this time right into the center of a deader’s face where its nose should be, then wheels his bike around and scoots in under the gate.
I drop my bike, wincing at the sound of my weapons hitting the concrete, and grab the gate, yanking on it with all I’ve got. My wrist is screaming for me to stop and I can feel the loose way my joint is responding to what I’ve done to it. Gregory and Charlie join me at the gate, and it slides down just as a deader reaches it, neatly knocking off one of its reaching hands.
“Ugh, gross,” Charlie groans, stepping back from the still flexing hand.
“It’ll stop in a minute,” Gregory answers, barely sparing a glance at it. “Let’s get to the other side.”
We scoop up our bikes and pedal up the ramps and across the parking structure to the other entrance. The gate there is down as well, but this entrance is out of view of the other gate and faces a different street. No deader is going to make the connection between that entrance and this one, just like they won’t know to lift the gate. Even now, they’re probably wandering off.
No staying power, those deaders. All of them have ADD, I think. Attention Deficit after Death.
Gregory waves us back and parks his bike out of view of the street. Charlie and I wait while he creeps up to the grate and peers out, craning his neck to see first one way, then the other. When he jogs back to us on silent feet, he shakes his head, so I know there are deaders out on that street as well.
“Same as the other street,” he confirms.
I hear Charlie’s weary sigh and I feel the same. We only have one night, so any option that involves waiting also risks us getting to the post office at all.
“Suggestions?” I ask. The faint reverberation of my voice comes back to me from the big garage, so I lower my voice a little and add, “I want to get to the post office. We need to.”
Charlie pushes his hand through his sweaty hair and shakes his head. “Yeah, fine. But it looks like a deader convention out there.”
Gregory gives a short, sharp laugh. Then his mouth twists into a wry grimace and he says, “It used to mean something very different to say there was a Dead convention. What a freaking life this is.”
I remember Emily saying something like that once. She said that her mom told her about an old band called the Grateful Dead and that the people that followed them were called Deadheads. I can see the irony, because I’m sure that’s what Gregory is referring to, but we don’t have time for it, so I say, “Snap out of it. Thinking caps, people.”
“Well, what do you want to do?” Gregory asks, but he doesn’t say it like it’s a real question. It’s more like a challenge.
“We could ditch the bikes. If we leave them here, we can always come back for them,” I offer, glancing between Gregory and Charlie to see their reactions to my suggestion.
Gregory looks like he’s about to shut down that idea, so I jump in again before he can get going. “The post office is just five blocks from here and it’s almost a straight shot. We can move with a lot less noise and can climb if we need to. We can’t do that with the bikes.”
He nods a little, but it’s a nod without commitment. I don’t want to push them into doing something that will turn out to be the end for us, but we’ve been creeping around on foot for years now and we’re good at it. It’s true that we’ve not seen a concentration of deaders like this for at least two years, but even so, they’re spread out and scattered. It’s not like it was when the deaders first started appearing by any stretch. Back then, they were thick everywhere. We can handle this for the distance of five blocks. I think we can anyway.
I shoot Charlie a pleading look when Gregory turns away. He rolls his eyes, but he still says, “I agree with V. We’ve got a better shot on foot than on the bikes.”
Before Gregory even speaks, I know I’ve won. He says, “Fine. But we load up and we make a break for it back to this garage if it goes south. Got it? Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Charlie and I say in unison.
******
By the time we’re loaded, I look a bit like Emily did on the day she found me. I’ve got my own set of “traveling pants” now, just like hers. A double set of loops sewn around the outside of the pant legs hold two dozen bolts for my crossbow, and there are more tied into a tight bundle at the small of my back, ready for me to refill my loops if necessary. I’ve got a sidearm at my belt and enough spare clips to make my jacket pockets feel heavy. My rifle is slung across my back and my crossbow is rigged to my shoulder so I can swing it up or down as necessary.
And that’s not even counting the knives. I’ve got those everywhere. Strapped to my lower legs, the outside of my arms, and even a machete hanging from my hip.
Quite frankly, I look ridiculous. But if I had more to strap onto me, I’d do it. That’s just how a girl has to accessorize these days.
Gregory turns me by my shoulders, tapping each item firmly with a fingertip to confirm placement and stability. Then he pats my shoulder and says, “You’re good.”
He does the same with Charlie, who rolls his eyes at me as Gregory taps away at his load, which is very similar to mine except that he has even more ammo than I do. Then we do the same for Gregory, and I confess, I tap pretty hard at him. He gives me a look over his shoulder, so I know I’m busted.
“Let’s go,” he says, and we all shoulder up our crossbows and get ready.
There’s a person sized door to the side of the garage, one that leads into a little vestibule where elevators for the office building that once owned this garage are located. We haven’t cleared that building, but the vestibule is empty, so we first head into that, then out of the building and onto the street from the glass door there. It had been locked with a simple twist lock, so we can’t secure it behind us, but the garage door requires the manipulation of the handle to get back into the garage, so we should be fine for our return. Deaders don’t do doorknobs or door-latches.
In the shadowed alcove created by the overhang, we look up and down the street. The deaders are doing the deader shuffle, most of them still making their slow and erratic way down the street toward the other end of downtown, which is the same direction the post office lies. A
few have lost whatever impetus they had to go that direction and have settled around cars, the cast iron benches, or any other attractive metal, and eased back into their long slide toward oblivion.
Gregory opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, Charlie holds up a hand and says, “Can you hear that?”
I listen, but don’t hear anything. Charlie remains stock still, like a statue of himself with moving eyes, then lifts his finger further and whispers, “There!”
I hear it. It’s a thudding noise, faint and very far away, but it’s definitely the sound of something heavy hitting something else. It’s a deep noise, felt more in my feet than heard by my ears.
“What the heck?” Gregory whispers.
Charlie shrugs and says, “That’s got to be what’s drawing them. The vibrations and the noise.”
I’m confused. These deaders must have been moving for a while—given how messed up so many of them are, the going would have been slow—so the noise must have been present for a while too. But I heard nothing. “How long has that been going on? Did you hear it before?” I ask.
“No clue. I thought I heard something once while we were stopped at a corner, but I wasn’t sure. I guess the bikes covered the noise,” Charlie says, peering down the street, as if he might see whatever is creating that noise.
Gregory has that suspicious look on his face he always gets when he’s been thrown for a loop, like the universe is doing it to him out of spite or something. He says, “It’s got to be on purpose. No way the wind could make something that regular sounding. The noise is too even.”
I agree with him. Now that I’ve heard it, I can’t stop hearing it and the beat is as even and regular as a heartbeat.
“So, what do we do?” I ask. It’s going to be hard to get to the post office without winding up in a head-bashing marathon of epic proportions. This is more mobile deaders than I’ve seen in years.