Dalbec knocked on the door. She recognized his quiet knock. It made her feel slightly ill that she knew it so well.
“Yes?” she bellowed impatiently. It hurt her head to talk right now.
He peeked his head in and sputtered about something or other Sara couldn’t understand.
“What are you talking about?” she asked irritably.
“EO-1, ma’am. It’s ready. I’ve written it.”
“Okay?”
“It’s ready for your review.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“I would be more comfortable if you looked it over.”
She tried biting it back, but she couldn’t. He was looking for praise on his work. “Dalbec, it doesn’t really matter what it says. It will hardly make a difference in the scheme of things. We’re kicking these people out of their home. They won’t like it, we’ll kill them.”
“It may not come to that. I’ve worded it in such a way that…”
“Dalbec. No. It doesn’t matter. It will be a fight.”
He fell silent. She rubbed her eyes. She stood up and turned her back to him. She wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn’t find the words. She could hear his nose whistling as he breathed and it made her want to scream.
The pause became uncomfortable. “I’ll send it off then,” Dalbec said. He turned to leave the room.
“Wait,” she said. She held out her hand. He handed her what he’d written and escaped the room.
She took it the paper to her desk and sat down. She didn’t look at it. The deep, sinking feeling continued. She tried to give it a name, to explain its source. The only word that came to mind was aloneness, but she pushed that aside.
“There must be something,” she whispered as she strained her throbbing head to imagine what angle she was missing, what tactic was eluding her. Her enemies in the city were growing stronger, bolder. Sara’s life was increasingly in danger. Her time in Tenochtitlan was running out. It was time to use the city’s disarray to her advantage and take the beach. The power vacuum plus the discord she’d sown would prevent her enemies from pursuing her. By the time they could, she’d be long gone with time to build back up a powerful zombie army.
“Wasn’t the plan to get away from the blasted things?” she asked herself aloud. Now she needed more of them to protect herself. She could bring up their smell in her mind on command. She pounded her fist on the table.
“What am I doing?!” she said through clenched teeth. She was right back where she started – behind, in fact! There was no getting away from it. She’d failed. There was no safety for her. Even if she made the beach, the city was still a threat.
Unless.
Unless there was another way.
It came to her with precise clarity, in a flash of inspiration. A way to solve both problems. She walked to her door and shouted through it for Dalbec to be summoned back. One of the guards hustled off to pass the message.
Yes, yes. Her idea would solve both problems.
A few minutes later Dalbec was back in her office.
“Dalbec. I’ve got an idea.”
Chapter 11
The Brothers spent their time planning new attacks and growing their information networks. The number of people willing to report soldier positions and vulnerabilities grew every day. Pockets of civilians were still submissive, or hoping for the benefits of being loyal to the Queen, but the tide had assuredly turned in the Brothers’ favor. Victory was now a potential reality.
Early one day, the entire Queen’s army rafted out of the city, leaving from the outskirts where there were no Brothers. The reports came in sporadically, and it first it looked like the Queen’s usual trickery. A trip into the city center confirmed her exit, though, and scouts reported she’d landed her men on the beaches of Lake Texcoco and marched on. The Northerners were leaving! The Brothers didn’t pursue, feeling that there’d been enough bloodshed. Let her run. Let peace reign. Let the celebrations begin, like in the days before the Queen.
And celebrate they did. Piñatas, music, shipments of food from the countryside as all rejoiced in the Queen’s ouster. The Queen had even left behind the King’s wine cellar, and it flowed freely among all the Brothers who figured they’d earned it. It was a charmed time, free from any complaints. Only a few sensed problems in the upper ranks of the Brothers as they argued over who should assume the throne, or whether anyone should.
These upper echelons of the Brothers were a few blocks from the church that had housed Sara’s headquarters. They were in the top floor of a colonial building, sitting by open windows and feeling invincible. A week prior it was unthinkable to openly mock the queen. Now it was done at leisure as they sat laughing at the revelry in the church across the square.
There was a popular rumor that Sara’s army had left the Queen alone, cowering in the skyscrapers outside the wall. It seemed a fitting place for her, wretchedly skulking about in the crumbling decay. They laughed harder as they imagined her hunting down cats for a meal. They said she’d probably just let Dalbec do it for her. She had no real tangible skills, just “diplomacy.” This caused a fresh eruption of laughter. The conversation digressed from there into spiteful curses and sarcastic eulogies for “Her Holiness.”
Unheard above their revelry were shouts on the streets below. Shouting was normal. It was encouraged! These were different, though.
At first a few people ran by. The Brothers ignored it.
Then it was a larger stream of people running down the street, shouting, screaming. The neighborhood emergency bells rang in the distance, then closer, one after another. The Brothers sprang from their seats and looked out the glassless windows. Fire? Soldiers?
The first shuffling form appeared in the street underneath their window.
It moved slowly across the dirt street.
It stopped and looked to the left and then the right. Nothing. It faced forward again and began moving, hobbling on a broken ankle. The Brothers stared at it, slightly confused at this odd sight. Was one walker enough to set the entire city into chaos? One of them chuckled and said that city folk get softer and softer.
Two more walkers appeared in the street and the Brothers shut their mouths instantly.
These two were followed by a few more.
These were different. They had helmets and armor on their bodies with large spikes and barbs through their ribcages and hands. Then five more. Then twenty. This was Sara’s walker army, let loose in the city days after her quiet evacuation. She’d left it stored up in the sewers of the city with a handful of caretakers to remove the barriers and release the flood of undead. They poured out an opening where they’d stacked concrete into a makeshift staircase to allow them to surface.
Sara’s exit had been a retreat, of sorts, but more of a parting blow to the city. Sara got her revenge, and didn’t have to live with the undead.
Soon the whole street was filled with undead. The Brothers quickly evacuated the building. They were well aware it had a marble staircase, which had withstood centuries of use. They needed to get to the higher floors of a building with no stairs, no means for walkers to climb up.
All of Tenochtitlan’s citizens scrambled about, trying to find some sort of shelter. None realized all they had to do was cover a single portal to the deadly sewer underworld. The hundreds of Brothers were caught up in the confusion, too, and knew their best hope was reaching their southern safe house in an old financial building. It was solid concrete with an old fire escape climbing up the side of the goliath building. In an emergency, the plan had been to destroy the stairs coming up from the bottom floor and use the ladder. As the Brothers raced up the street toward their building they watched in horror as the ladder, solidly packed with desperate souls all the way up, peeled off the side of their safehouse and plummeted to the ground. The aged infrastructure had failed under the weight of so many people.
“Behind us!” someone shouted. The cry shook the stunned Brothers awake. A mass of un
dead was approaching – thousands of them. All former residents of the city that Sara had turned. Grotesque metal implements stuck out of them at various dangerous angles.
The Brothers rushed to the safe house, regardless. They found what they expected – the staircase dismantled, the upper floors unreachable. Other Brothers were already there and had destroyed the stairs. They were probably on the top floor, looking down on the approaching carnage – lamenting their comrades trapped below.
More zombies filled the streets. Newly bitten people turned, increasing the number of undead. The Brothers holed up in the bottom of the safe house and tried barricading the door with furniture and any other objects they could find. The biters came after them, pushing up against the barricade, clawing at it, their metal parts catching and ripping at it. More piled up against the crude barricade.
Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before they would break through.
Chapter 12
John stared at the walker nearest him as he sat on the ground next to his hut. It was midday, in between the surges of extreme hunger.
“Why let yourself be bit? Why do that to your family?”
No movement or response.
“I’ve seen your past. You chose to be bit. The Red Mouths convinced you.”
Still nothing.
“You wasted your life.”
Not even a grunt.
“Well, I’ll put your lifelessness to use.” John stood, not looking behind him because he knew what was there. He would have to deal with it eventually, though. It was beginning to smell in the warm, humid days. Behind him a body hung from a noose on a tree. The body belonged to Peer.
“Now I have no one to talk to but you all. Peer left. Didn’t even want to be turned. I guess in the end he did resent me. Enough to kill himself.”
Then, as if it were spoken to him, information and sensations came in through the network of zombies across the area. He saw what had been seen, and heard what had been heard.
“Sara is on the move. Good. Thank you. Send thanks.”
John paused. He didn’t really have to thank them, technically. And he didn’t have to speak to them, either; they knew his every thought. He still preferred to actually talk to them, though.
“Yes, revenge is not your preference, yet you still crave it. You want freedom, and we’re moving all the pieces into play. I will help, but you ask the impossible. I cannot control humans. Oh no? You think I can ‘nudge’ them in the right direction with the herd? Interesting. The timing will be difficult. Yes, you pin a lot of hope on the cure in the mountain…”
They did, and John could feel it.
“Where is Sara headed? I need to know her next move, and whether Carlos made it to her. It’s the only way I can do what needs to be done. Too much distraction. Carlos’ task will keep me focused. I’m so hungry. No. I can’t do it. I could never do it. No matter how much you say it helps. I know it doesn’t.” The zombies were showing him pictures of a small village of humans.
John was pacing. The hunger rose again. His red rocks were gone, but that was the plan. He needed to go find them, that was the only relief. Soon he would leave, he just needed more walkers.
“I hear there are a lot of walkers loose in Tenochtitlan. Will they join us? Ask.”
John grew impatient.
“I know you are afraid of the ones with metal sticking out of them, but they are still your kind. They are not ‘lower’ than you.” John shook his head. Some things never changed.
“What are our numbers? How many undead do we reach beyond this area? I must know. We need as many as possible. All, if that is possible. I need them all. Tell me!”
He sat down and thought about Aaron. He could still see the zombie’s vague picture of Aaron in his mind. He looked dirty, frightened, yet fierce. “Good. He’s as he should be.”
He also vaguely pictured Sara’s men. They appeared subdued, not as victorious as they’d once been. “That’s good, too. They need to get used to it.”
John also saw Ellie. He wasn’t sure why the zombies thought she was so important. He knew he was supposed to help her, but it wasn’t clear why. The only response was “Because.”
“AAARRRGHHHH!!!!” John fell to the ground, clenching his stomach, the hunger suddenly unbearable. “Where are they?! Where are the people? Tell me! I’m so hungry! Tell me where that village is! I see it, it’s close, the people are hiding, but I see where.” John saw them through the eyes of a walker who’d passed by the day prior. The humans had climbed trees and were waiting for walkers to leave, but they wouldn’t.
With a mighty effort John reclaimed himself. He punched himself in the stomach, yelling “Stop it!” He wouldn’t be mastered by this urge. He wouldn’t commit horrific acts out of subservience to it.
“Are the rocks there yet? No?! He needs to hurry!”
◆◆◆
It’s not a retreat if you’ve planned it all along. If you haven’t planned it all along, just pretend you did. At least that was how it looked to General Page as approximately 7,000 Academy soldiers continued to march west, away from Tenochtitlan.
Sara chatted, joked, and mingled with the men, Page noted. Maybe she felt like she needed to make up for this strategic “hiccup.” She schmoozed with the soldiers, patted them on the back, daydreamed with them about how wonderful the beach would be, and brimmed with pride.
“It’s an act,” a quiet voice said.
Page looked around to see where this seditious statement came from, ready to string the dog up. He would be stringing up a man who thought the exact thing as himself, though.
“Dalbec, you should be careful,” Page growled quietly.
“I should, and I will. I’m being careful right now. I knew only you could hear me. I also knew you were thinking the same thing. I see you tense up when she talks.”
“Even if that was true, it hardly matters.”
“Doesn’t it?” Dalbec said, sounding so genuine that Page had to study his face to see if it was sarcasm.
“I think it matters, General, because either she is a political genius or she’s a complete imbecile. Either she is five steps ahead of us and playing a top-drawer game of chess with the soldier’s allegiance, or she’s leading us all to our doom.”
“That’s awfully dramatic, even for you.”
“I’m not dramatic, just repressed. My suppressed emotions come up at inconvenient and awkward times.”
“Like now…” Page checked around to make sure no one was listening.
“You aren’t paid to imagine, you’re paid to follow orders. That could change if you wanted.”
“Stop right there, Dalbec. I don’t want any part of it, and I don’t want to even hear you say it – whatever it is.”
“Well, think about it and get back to me.”
Dalbec scampered up ahead to deliver Sara a message.
“You bloody didn’t even say anything!” Page stammered, surprising himself at his own anxiety over the situation. No, Dalbec hadn’t come out and proposed anything, but he had proved that Page wasn’t alone in his thinking. He’d also indicated that Page’s doubts might be apparent to onlookers. That was frightening, indeed.
“Sara, remember the snitch?”
“Dalbec…which one?” Sara mumbled as she walked.
“The one who helped capture the Martyr.”
“Ahh, yes, another fine member of the Academy Cartel.” Sara and Dalbec were stopped for the night and off to the side, away from the troops now, and some of her bitterness shone through.
“Well, he’s back.”
Sara grunted.
“He’s got information about the Martyr, and a ‘gift’”
“Bring him here. The suspense is killing me.”
Two guards brought Carlos to Sara. She wanted to sit down. Her feet ached so badly. Sitting was not a position of authority, though, so she fought the urge.
“Yes?” Sara asked.
“M-m-ma’am… I saw him again…after he
turned,” Carlos said.
“Oh yeah, does he make a nice zombie?”
“H-h-he’s not a zombie. He’s still human.”
“Psshhh…Still human…That’s your information? I saw him bit a dozen times. He’s a zombie. Well, unless someone did him in.”
“I’m not lying…he spoke to me. He told me…he told me his plan,” Carlos was visibly shaking. He was doing this one last act for John, to make up for his treachery. Carlos assumed it would cost him his life. Sara would surely kill him.
“Does he plan to eat me? Or would he be satisfied pulling a cart? Maybe gelding duty?” Sara mocked.
Carlos remembered his mother. She was the piece of leverage the cartel had used to get Carlos to snitch. After thinking about it, though, he’d been a fool. His mother was a world away, how could Sara get to her? When he’d been approached in Tenochtitlan by a man who recognized Carlos, though, fear had overcome him. He’d acted selfishly. Now he would pay with his life.
“No, he plans to kill you.”
Sara looked at Dalbec.
“Sara,” Dalbec cleared his throat. “There is a story going through the region that the Martyr didn’t succumb to the bites, that he now lives with the undead. People say they see him wandering about looking for flesh with them, only he’s human. The walkers follow him, listen to him.”
Sara put a thumb to her nostril and blew hard to clear her nose. Dalbec winced. He hated when she did it. She knew he hated it. He hated anything that made her look unattractive, so strong was his twisted desire to admire her.
“That’s a new one, Dalbec. Points for creativity,” she said, wiping her thumb on her pants.
“I didn’t make it up.”
“I-I-It’s true. I saw it! Zombies stood around him as he spoke, but they didn’t attack me. It was like they were afraid of him. He told me that he would kill you, that he was coming to get you, and he would track you down for decades if he had to.”
“Let him come.” Sara said dismissively. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“I got these, ma’am. Please, please, remember my mother in exchange for this gift! I saw a villager keep the Martyr away with these rocks. I think he’s afraid of them.” Carlos pulled a filthy, crumpled rag from his belt and peeled back the layers. Inside were six small red rocks. He offered them carefully to her. Sara’s lip curled in disgust. She had nothing but contempt for this weak, dirty informer. She drew back turned her head away. “Take them, they’ll protect you! He’s the true King of the Undead!” Carlos urged, pushing them closer. When he saw that Sara wouldn’t take them he dropped them and backed away
100 A.Z. (Book 3): The Mountain Page 9