LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation

by Bryan James

  “I have always hidden it well …” she began, but Starr’s hand tightened slightly now, having made its way up to her inner thigh.

  “Tsk, tsk,” she said softly, still in a whisper. Her hand moved slowly behind Kate’s head, fingers moving into her thick hair like serpents into a dark lair. Eyes searching, she found Kate’s gaze and shook her head slightly, her fingers tightening in the hair as her hand moved up Kate’s thigh slowly, until there were nowhere else to go.

  “Let’s not lie to one another, Kate. For my part, I believe you have certain … qualities. And I believe them to be valuable. You are clearly quite strong and capable, but you also don’t seem to fear infection—it’s like you’re above those things. A god.” Both hands were caressing now, and Kate swallowed once more in disgust at the feeling of the woman’s touch.

  She steeled herself. She had to play the part. For Liz. For Ky.

  “Or an angel,” Kate whispered, taking the initiative and leaning forward, pressing her lips against Starr’s, finally catching the woman off guard. She leaned into the kiss, pushing the woman back onto the bed, making her hands move to cushion her own descent to the dingy sleeping bag behind her. Kate kept on the offensive, using her head to force Starr into a prone position, wincing inside as the woman’s eager hands found the small of her back, and moved down, inside her too-loose borrowed jeans.

  Flashbacks of Trevor Sheets hit her as she closed her eyes and gave in to Starr’s urges. The moving lips and the one-sided urgency. The exploring hands that she gently avoided as they sought more serious purchase, trying to loosen buttons and pull on zippers. She used her body weight to push Starr back to the bed again and pulled away, theatrically taking a deep breath. She needed to keep on the offensive.

  “I’m sorry, I …” she began, knowing how Starr would react.

  “No need,” she said, breath still coming quickly. Her hands reached up for Kate’s head again and she offered a demure smile, deflecting them down as she straightened. One of them sought the soft skin of her belly and chest and she allowed it, giving an inch to prevent a mile.

  “I can’t … not tonight. So much today, and I’m still worried about Ky. Can we … wait … maybe for tomorrow night?” She allowed her tone to drop, almost shy in her presentation. Starr’s hand had found the underside of her left breast and was pulling a finger across the delicate lace, smirking for every inch of her grin like a man who had found the same thing.

  God damn wash-cycle, she cursed again, wishing she had chosen better last night. Of all the times to be stranded with only a lace fucking bra. An underwire, no less. That was no way to live through an apocalypse.

  Kate saw the doubting expression cross Starr’s face and leaned into the hand on her chest, offering one more deep kiss before pulling back.

  “I promise. Tomorrow is your night. All yours.” Despite herself, she reached a hand down and stroked the other woman’s stomach beneath her wrinkled teeshirt.

  Starr exhaled and grimaced, but nodded once with a flat look on her face, as Kate leaned back and slowly got to her feet, trying not to appear overly anxious to leave. Starr ran a hand through her own hair as Kate stood, slowly straightening her clothes and replacing the button on the waistline of her pants that Starr had managed to undo.

  “You are an interesting woman,” Starr said, regarding her as Kate moved to the door. “And I’m intrigued. Just so you know, I don’t invite every new woman in for these kinds of … talks. I see something special in you.”

  Kate smiled, but the smile dimmed when Starr allowed a semi-vicious grin to reach her flushed face.

  “That’s why I’d like you to take point tomorrow. Lead car. First in and last out when we’re clearing. We’ll keep Ky safe with me in the command vehicle. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to her as we head north.”

  Kate allowed herself to look confused and opened her mouth as if to speak.

  “Why north?” Starr interrupted, correctly guessing the question. “Because that’s the direction you were heading. So that’s where we’ll head too. Sooner or later, I reckon you’ll give yourself away. Make a move, try for wherever you were going. Until then, you’ll be our lucky charm. Tip of the spear, if you will.” She paused, reading the myriad of flickering emotions pass Kate’s face.

  “Unless, of course, there’s something you want to tell me tonight.” She smiled and looked Kate up and down slowly. “Or give me.”

  Anger reared its head finally, overtaking Kate’s cold, calculated rationale.

  She could just snap this woman’s neck right now. No one could stop her. She was strong enough to kill her. She could do it. Her hands clenched by her sides involuntarily and her eyes narrowed briefly. Her blood pounded in her veins as she sought to suppress the dangerous impulses.

  No.

  She could play along. The only way to make sure Ky was safe—the only way that they both survived to find Mike and continue on to Liz—was by being smart. She just had to hope she could outmaneuver this lunatic.

  Kate allowed her face to go slack, affecting the confused innocence of someone who had been falsely accused.

  “I’m happy to go north, but … I told you. The behavior and the strength … it was just a passing thing. I swear to you. Before all of this I was just a middle class house-wife who took shooting lessons two days a week because she was screwing a guy at the gun store for meth. I was messed up. This whole apocalypse thing … well it rid me of a husband I had no use for, and set me free from all that. I still use the drugs to get me through some shit. You can peg me for some super bitch all you want, but that’s not me. Me and Ky—we hooked up a while ago and have been through some crap, that’s for sure. But you’re wasting your time stalking me.”

  She crossed her arms tightly across her breasts, as if feeling vulnerable and afraid, keeping the eye contact with Starr that allowed her to notice a momentary cloud of doubt—like a flash rain storm—pass the woman’s countenance before she shook her head and smiled.

  “Okay, we’ll see. Until I say otherwise, I want you on point. And I’ll keep your friend with me. You just keep in mind, my little meth-head—you disappear, or try anything, I’ve got a nine millimeter pistol two feet from her chest. For protection, you understand.” She rose and waved her hand at the door, the flush of arousal finally having left her face.

  “Now go. And remember. You owe me something else tomorrow. I won’t forget.”

  Kate smiled as if remembering something pleasant, trying desperately to keep the charade going, and pivoted on her heel toward the door.

  Her footsteps echoed emptily on the floor as she made her way slowly to the entrance. A single tear fell from her eye as she allowed her anger and frustration to boil over.

  She felt violated and impotent. And worst of all, she felt slow. As if every second she wasted with this parade of idiots was costing her daughter time on this earth. She also knew that the burning hope she kept alive, like the dying embers of a raging flame in a cold hearth, was at risk of fading. Zombies, tsunamis, volcanoes. Millions of people had perished in this infection. It was the height of hubris to believe that her daughter had beaten those odds. That against the laws of probability and nature, she had survived. And that she could be located in the mess that was the world.

  But she had to try. She was a mother. And she had a duty.

  She would see this shit through, and she would end her association with Starr on her own terms.

  Wiping the tear from her face and ignoring the knowing smirk on the face of the single guard, she threw the screen door open and made her way to her tent.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Exit, stage right. No, your other right...

  Pulling Eli and Rosy ahead of me into the darkness, I eased the door shut carefully, making sure to keep it from clanging loudly in the confined space.

  I shouldn’t have worried. Inside the large room, the sound of rushing water echoed from the metal walls. Torrents fell from the ceiling and currents of rapidl
y flowing flood water rushed past the foot of the stairs, pulling debris into eddies of turbulent, dark unknown.

  “Shit,” I muttered, seeing that the water was at least four feet high. There must be automatic drainage or something else at work to keep the water from reaching the ceiling, with the speed of this flow. Otherwise, the entire room would have been flooded to the rafters in an hour’s time.

  I released my rifle, allowing it to sit against my chest in its single point harness, and I pulled my trusty blade from its sheath at my hip. The darkness was not absolute, but it was thick. I could easily make out the details of the room itself, even in the low light that came from glowing signs and the faint intrusion of daylight coming from the edges of the door on the far side of the room.

  But against the narrow metal railing of the small platform we stood upon, I saw Eli and Rosy glancing about, worried and nervous. They clearly couldn’t see a thing.

  The room was nearly a hundred yards across, and was riddled with large metal tubes and pipes, protruding from the floor to the walls to the ceiling. Massive tubes, nearly three feet wide, rose from the ground in regular intervals, while a labyrinth of smaller diameter pipes criss-crossed the ceiling and the walls.

  Dials and gauges were interspersed among the chaos, and platforms of various levels sometimes hovered about the water level, having been designed for maintenance on the mechanisms.

  The pathway to the opposite door appeared clear of creatures, and a mirror image of the entranceway upon which we stood was barely visible in the looming darkness—a raised platform several feet above the water line, leading to a large, thick metal doorway marked as an exit in bright, glowing, red letters.

  Standing still for a moment, I listened carefully. Nothing but the sound of water running and moving hit my ears, and I nodded once to myself. There were hundreds of places the dead could be hiding in this room—massive banks of dead computers and machinery were lined up along the huge space in ranks that went as far as the eye could see in the darkness. Angles and corners covered the space, obstacles for bodies and for clear sight lines.

  Finally, I leaned forward until my mouth was directly next to Eli’s ear and whispered softly.

  “You stay behind me. We’re going to move across the room as quickly as possible. If you see anything or hear anything it’s very important you don’t react, okay? Just pull on my left arm two times. I can see pretty well down here and I’ll take care of it. Got it?”

  I waited for his barely perceptible nod before turning to Rosy.

  If only my superpowers included Spanish.

  In the darkness I couldn’t even mime. So I did the next best thing. I leaned in slowly and spoke haltingly in a whisper.

  “Está bien. Vamos.” Then I placed her hand on Eli’s backpack and firmed my fist over her hand and indicated she should hold tightly to his pack. She nodded once and I grinned at my mad communication skills.

  Until she whispered softly in return.

  “Nada es bueno.”

  Ain’t that the truth, sister.

  The water was ice cold and shocking to the system as I waded in and felt it creep up my thighs to my crotch and nearly to my belt. Holding back the manly shriek I usually reserved for when I put my manhood in a cup of ice water, I waited for Eli and Rosy to follow me into the water and get their limbs acclimated before moving forward.

  I flinched at each ripple ahead as the water churned and eddied, the leak causing the flooding clearly pushing the water quickly through the room as some unknown drainage and overflow system kept the space from filling completely. In the distance, possible twenty feet away, I caught a glimpse of the first creature. It stood silently between a bank of dead computers and a collection of converging pipes, swaying slightly in the water.

  A ball cap obscured part of its face and its hands rose halfway to its belly repeatedly, before falling to its sides. It didn’t turn as we moved slowly past, the noise of the churning water covering our advance.

  I turned slightly, glad to see that Eli and Rosy couldn’t see the threat. My right hand tightened on the machete, the plastic and steel handle a comforting feeling as we moved slowly forward.

  Two more appeared to our right as we moved away from the steps, their forms resolving as the angle that had hidden them before became more obtuse.

  Like their compatriot on the other side, they simply stood, dormant and twitching. As I watched, their details became clearer and I saw that one creature faced a small desk adorned with pictures of small children and a personalized coffee mug, its face appearing to me to be forlorn. Knowing that I was applying my own narrative to the scene—that it was, indeed, impossible for that man standing in that position in this moment to be the man who belonged to that desk in a former life—I still indulged the sad fantasy. That this corpse continued to stand guard, silently and without knowing why, over the vestiges of a life that it had lost months before.

  The second form leaned against a large pipe three feet behind the other creature, dark blue business suit covered in mold and dirt and blood.

  Both creatures simply stared and rocked. Limbs twitching.

  I swallowed heavily as we approached the center of the room and I saw the stationary forms of at least seven or eight more among the pipes and desks of the large space, all staring into the distance, all ignoring our silent passage.

  In the center of the room, the top of a large bank of computers and gauges was a halfway marker, and to the left of this obstruction a large whiteboard was still in place, diagrams for some obscure routing of water flows still visible, written in a hurried scrawl in now-faded ink. Ahead, the barely perceptible red lettering promising exit beckoned invitingly.

  As I took a breath and began the second half of our trek, I felt two quick tugs on my left arm and turned quickly, careful not to disturb too much water or splash as I scanned the room behind us. Eli’s eyes were large and I watched as he simply pointed to his right, behind the large table.

  The top of a single head had emerged from the water, visible from the eyes up. Its hair was matted and thin, as if it had been pulled out in large chunks. The skin, a pasty, cold white, showed the ravages of water damage and cold, with dark blue veins pushing out against the pallid, thin skin. It hovered motionless on the other side of the table, eyes reflecting the barest hint of the light that existed in the room.

  I stared at the creature, wondering whether it sensed us. Wondering why it was so low in the water instead of standing like the others. As much as it unnerved me, I watched the eyes. They stared ahead, flickering slowly from side to side, as if scanning. As if suspicious of something it could not see or hear, but knew to be there.

  And then there was only a ripple of water.

  The head had disappeared.

  Okay, folks. It was time to leave.

  Pulling Eli forward, I scanned the area ahead and our path was still clear to the doorway—no more than a hundred feet.

  Now, more than a dozen more of the creatures were visible among the rows of pipes and computers and gauges, and I gulped air quietly as I pushed my legs through the icy water, trying not to make noise as the water surged around us.

  To my right, less than ten feet away, I thought I saw another abnormal ripple—not the movement of churning water, but the movement of something submerging. Like a turtle disappearing silently under the surface.

  Must move faster.

  Must move faster.

  Behind me, Eli’s hand tugged on my sleeve again as I heard the sharp intake of breath from Rosy. Her eyes were stricken with fear—it was a wonder she was still moving. Tears ran freely down her face and her hands shook as they clutched Eli’s pack for dear life. As I turned to look at Eli’s gesture I froze, unable to move fast enough to prevent what happened next.

  Behind Rosy, a clumsy form slowly emerged from the dark water. Only feet behind her, and obscured in its awkward approach by the same sounds of moving water that were hiding us, its hands—pallid, cold and hungry—found
Rosy’s shoulders faster than I thought possible, pulling the shorter woman back as its head darted forward for her neck, teeth gleaming even in the dim light.

  Her scream was short, but it was loud. And very, very human.

  Her body pinwheeled backward, disappearing in a thrashing of arms and legs beneath the surface of the water. Her head appeared once as I put Eli behind me and sought to at least end her pain. But I wasn’t going to reach into the dark of the water searching for her.

  We were very suddenly on a strict clock.

  Now, the noise of water rushing into the room was matched by the moans of the undead and the sounds of their shuffling feet displacing water as they honed in on the sound of the scream.

  ***

  I had always been afraid of the dark.

  My earliest memories are replete with visceral fears of horned, warty things snaking out from underneath my bed, grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me back into the dark closet, or taking my ankles in a gnarled hand and dragging me into the basement through the slats in the stairs. In fact, one of the most enduring nightmares of my childhood involved a basement much like this room—dark, confusing and full of frightening apparitions.

  As Rosy’s body disappeared underneath the water I realized two things: first, there were very likely many more of these things underneath the surface of the flood water, and second, they could somehow hunt by sound or vibration or some other pain-in-the-ass method of finding humans to chomp on.

  Both of these facts meant that our escape chances had just decreased dramatically.

  We were still only half way to the other side when Eli’s hand found my own, and I tightened my grip on the suddenly insufficient-seeming machete.

  I struggled to keep my movements small and slow, suspecting that it was our disturbance of the water that allowed the creatures to hone in on our location. Rosy’s scream had opened Pandora’s box, however, and that was complicating our erstwhile stealth.