From Oblivion's Ashes

by Nyman, Michael E. A.

  “I’ll take her,” Valerie said, her eyes flickering back and forth between the two of them. “I can see that you two are going to have a lot to talk about. Come along, Beth. Steve? How would either of you feel about some coffee?”

  “Sounds like the answer to all my problems,” Steve said.

  “She’s a cop?” Kumar exclaimed in disbelief from his place by the door as the trio pushed past him. “Oh my fucking god! She’s a… you’re a cop?”

  Krissy looked back at him with pure misery.

  “I didn’t want you to find out this way, Koom,” she said. “Believe me, you and Brian were never my targets, and you should never doubt that we were friends. Really. That part was always real.”

  “How could that be real?” Kumar shouted at her. “You… you lied to us! You said you…”

  He choked on the words, turned and left the room.

  “Private conversation,” Marshal said softly. “I knew you were hiding something, but I never guessed. Detective?”

  Krissy nodded sadly, her gaze still on the doorway where Kumar had departed. “Undercover.”

  “For weed?” Marshal asked. “A simple grow-op? I get that Brian’s strain was unregulated, but with weed being legalized, it seems like a pretty big waste of Police resources putting a UC in there.”

  “It’s… I was trying to get closer to Randy’s boss, Rinaldo Lopez,” Krissy said. “The thinking was that, with pot being legal, Rinaldo would be a little less careful on that end of things. Unregulated weed was just one of his products. He was also a major trafficker of heroin coming in from Afghanistan. I was supposed to become an invisible fly on the wall and get whatever intell I could.”

  “But you were there for how long?”

  “Two months,” Krissy admitted. “Lopez came by three times, and I managed to get him alone twice to talk about ‘making a buy for some of my friends’, so my superiors kept giving me more rope.”

  “And then the outbreak happened,” Marshal said.

  “Yes,” Krissy said. “And then there was nowhere else to go. Seriously, what was I supposed to do? To me it looked like we’d be dead if we even set foot outside the grow-op, so yeah… I spent some time hanging out with my two men.”

  Her eyes were wet.

  “How am I going to tell Brian? Kumar’s mad, and Brian is never going to want to speak to me again.”

  “What I can’t figure out is why you didn’t want to tell us,” Marshal said, knowing the answer as soon as he finished the sentence.

  “Are you kidding?” She rubbed her eyes, then shook her head in disbelief. “Can you imagine my surprise? I think we’re living on borrowed time and that we’re going to die, and then I look up and see Luca Sabbatini standing in my living room offering to rescue us. At what time would it seem like a good idea to tell him that I’m an undercover cop?”

  “I see your point,” Marshal said.

  “He’s going to want to shoot me on principle, isn’t he?” Krissy said.

  “Not going to happen,” Marshal said. “Listen. Krissy. That is your real name, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Detective Kristine Richardson, though I’ve been going by Krissy for so long now…”

  “Fine,” Marshal said. “Let’s fasten onto that. It’ll make things easier. First of all, relax about Luca. I’m not saying that he won’t act a little bit… peculiar when he finds out, at least in the beginning. Undercover cops are like witches and ghosts to mafia guys… spooky monsters that hide out in dark places and come to take bad little gangsters away to jail. He won’t like you to start, and he might even be a little bit hostile to you, but he won’t shoot you either. On the other hand, his respect level for you is likely to go up by several notches, and that is so much more important where Luca’s concerned.”

  “He’s not what I expected at all,” she said, as if offering tribute.

  “Trust me,” Marshal said, “the feeling will be mutual. No, the people I’d be most worried about right now are Kumar and Brian, Brian especially. The two of you… you’re…”

  “We were,” Krissy said. “It happened sometime during the mission. And Kumar’s like the brother I never had. And now, I’ll be lucky if they’ll ever so much as look at me again.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” Marshal said. “It’s going to be hard on both of them, but they’ll get over it. I’m fairly certain that Brian feels the same way about you as you do for him, which makes him the harder case, but also all the more inevitable. Kumar might give you a rough time, but he smokes so much weed he’ll probably forget why he was angry with you in the first place. If not, a little sucking up - maybe a few trays of baked cookies after he’s smoked a big one - and he’ll go back to worshiping the ground you walk on. He just needs for you to know how badly you hurt him, and he’ll be fine.”

  She sighed pensively, looking in the direction of where Kumar fled.

  “Either way,” Marshal said. “Thanks for the help. It’s appreciated.”

  Through her despair, a smile crept out on her face.

  “The woman is an absolute nightmare,” she said. “Still. You had to admire her.”

  Marshal nodded. “Would not back down from a fight.”

  “That’s my Beth,” came a voice, and they both looked up to see Steve.

  “Mr. Stewart,” Marshal said. “We were just-”

  “I know, I know,” the older man said, waving off their embarrassment. “You don’t have to explain. And it’s Steve Wilson, by the way. Beth switched back to her maiden name the minute the divorce was filed.”

  “All right. Mr. Wilson.” Marshal shook hands. “Was there something you wanted to discuss?”

  “A plea for leniency,” Steve said, taking a deep breath and crossing his arms over his chest. “And before I begin, let me start out by saying that you’re right about her. Never in all the world have I ever found a more pig-headed, stubborn, vicious, and vindictive bitch than Elizabeth Stewart. Twenty years I was married to that harpy, and when the divorce finally came along, it was like being released from prison. I could have danced down to the courthouse.”

  “This is you pleading for leniency?” Marshal said.

  “Thing is,” Steve continued, “they say there’s a point where the cowboy just can’t ride anymore, or when the professional hockey player has to hang up his skates. They get too old to endure the daily grind, and they may even be glad when it’s over. But that doesn’t mean they don’t remember every ride, every bright light, every drive for the cup, every broken bone and wish they could do it all again.”

  He sighed. “I’m afraid that’s what it was like for Beth and me. Not physically, of course – we never hit each other - but in every other way that counts. That woman is a fighter. It’s her passion, simultaneously the best and the worst thing about her. I wish I could have found the button that turned it off, because she was the best thing that ever happened to me. The truth is, I still love her. Unfortunately, she’s an unstoppable force chasing down impractical goals, like Don Quixote, only with an incredible temper and a relentless sense of justice. If you’re her enemy, she’s your worst nightmare. But if you need help, if some bully has got you backed into a corner…”

  He smiled, looking back through time.

  “… then my Lizzie will be the best ally you could ever dream of finding. She will draw blood, her own if necessary, in order to see justice done. She will not back down from a fight if she sees that she has principle on her side. She’ll die first. And more times than not, she’d win.”

  He looked sad for a moment. “I know that she wishes she could turn it off, even for a short while. I may be the only one she ever told that to, but nobody knows more than her what it cost her. But then, the next outrage, the next injustice would appear, and she’d whip her horses into a full charge.

  “The thing that ended it,” he went on, “the thing that finally broke us, was the dissolution of her law firm. There was no affair, no lesbian tryst. Take it from me: Beth was one hundred p
ercent heterosexual. But like she always does, Beth rubbed some feathers the wrong way among the partners - the male ones, mostly - and they backstabbed her in the moment of her greatest victory, taking down her mentor, Margaret, in the same sordid affair. She was so hurt by the betrayal, she wanted to run off and hide, but being Elizabeth, she responded with war, rage, and reprisal. Eventually, she became so toxic, that no one was safe.”

  He looked at both of them, and shrugged his shoulders.

  “You do what you have to do,” he said. “She probably deserves every punishment you can throw at her. And if I know my Beth, she already knows it too, but is too proud to admit it. She’s seen how your people defended you, Mr. Einarsson. She knows. It’s been like this, this downward spiral, ever since she got ousted from the firm, and she’s too much of a fighter to get out of her own way. But I’m telling you… cut her some slack, get her to be on your side, and she’ll defend you and your people down to her last breath. It’s who she needs to be.”

  “Very eloquent,” Marshal said, after a few moments.

  “She sounds like a tough lady,” Krissy said.

  Steve laughed. “You have no idea, my dear. I only wish that I had it in me to play hockey again. What a terrible, exciting, and punishing woman she was.”

  He uncrossed his arms. “Well, that’s said. Think I’ll go grab some sleep. Thank you both for listening.”

  He left, and Marshal turned to Krissy.

  “Will you be my Chief of Police?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  He pulled out his gun and handed it to her.

  “Show me you can use this,” he said, “and tell me what you know about it.”

  She blinked, and accepted the gun with a hint of surprise.

  “This,” she said, “is a CZ-75 SP 01 with suppressor, or silencer. It’s considered by many to be the best shooting 9mm in the world, and is known for it’s accuracy, durability, and power. It is the preferred choice for security forces fighting the war on terrorism, but the suppressor is the piece de resistance for assassins and hit men.”

  With dexterous hands, she popped out the magazine, flipped open the chamber and inspected the piece. Snap, click, snap, and it was back together.

  “Top notch condition,” she verified, aiming the barrel at Marshal. “In this instance, it is also a show of trust, for which I am grateful.”

  For a couple of seconds, Marshal was staring down the barrel of his own gun.

  Then, she flipped it around, handing it back to him.

  “So you can shoot it?” he asked.

  “I score well above the bar.”

  “Well, we’re going to get you one of your own,” Marshal said, “with suppressor. That’s the only kind of gun that can be fired safely in this apocalyptic world. I’ll be putting a ban on all other firearms, and giving you the authority to police it.”

  He considered her a moment. “Maybe you should get a Taser also. Guns have a tendency to be a little final. And body armor. Whatever you require. And as we get bigger, you’re welcome to increase your police force, remembering that the more police there are, the more people feel policed, and more resentful they get.”

  “So,” she said. “You’re offering me a job as a police officer?”

  “My police chief. There’s only, like, twenty of us, so it’s not likely to take up much of your time. But as our numbers grow - if they grow - we’ll need someone who can fill that role.”

  “Is this another quota appointment?” she asked, half-smiling. “I heard that’s the reason you put Valerie in as your Vice-Dictator.”

  “Yes,” Marshal answered. “I chose you over the horde of other, male, trained police officer candidates I had to choose from. Unfortunately for them, none of them would look any good in a bikini. So the job’s yours, if you want it. It doesn’t exclude you from any other work, seeing as there really isn’t that much police work to be done at the moment but-”

  “I’ll take it,” Krissy answered, “minus the bikini.”

  “Damn. Well, I’ll take what I can get. Luca can wear the bikini. Meantime, let’s go and have a chat with Elizabeth, shall we?”

  “What? Both of us?”

  “You have somewhere else you have to be?” Marshal asked. “Yes. As my new police chief, it’ll have to be both of us. I’ve decided on exactly the sort of punishment to suit Elizabeth’s crime.”

  “Thought you said Steve’s plea for leniency was eloquent.”

  “It was.” Marshal’s eyes narrowed. “But she pulled a gun on me, in my own home. I was within an eye blink of killing her, did you know that?”

  Krissy nodded. “I know about your special talent. You’re fast, decisive, and unbelievably accurate, from what I’ve heard. I know you could have drawn and killed her before she even knew she was shot. It was part of the reason I jumped her. To save her life, in case you weren’t really backing down.”

  “I decided to, actually,” Marshal said. “I didn’t want to kill her I don’t want to kill anybody. But more to the point, I felt there would be an easier time to disarm her. I felt confident that I had more than a few loyal followers who would have seen to it.”

  “You have me, Marshal,” Krissy said. “I believe in you, and I like what you’ve done. I want you to know that you don’t ever need to question my loyalty.”

  “Thank you, Kris. But if not you, it might have been Luca, or Kumar, or Valerie. Or even Angie. The point was that, at that moment, I had the perfect clarity to realize that Elizabeth didn’t need to die.”

  “I believe you,” Krissy said, “which is the reason that you have my support. But all that being said, what’s the punishment?”

  “Well, first of all,” Marshal said, “I’m going to see if I can make her sweat. I’m going to point out how she nearly lost her life for something as silly as principle. I’m going to expose how she pulled a gun on a ruling tyrant in his own home, a man who only recently killed two people.”

  “Rapists,” Krissy corrected him.

  “Whatever. The point is I’m dangerous, okay? Then, I’m going to remind her how her insane pursuit of justice and fair play could have brought down the whole of the zombie nation on top of us. And finally, when she’s convinced that she’s doomed, I’m going to hit her with the lowest blow of all.”

  “What?” Krissy asked. “What’s the lowest blow?”

  “I’m going to make her my Chief Justice for all of New Toronto.”

  Krissy’s eyes sparkled, and she started to laugh.

  Chapter Seventeen: Day 34: Paul

  The Fosters, David and his wife Nancy, hustled their two children, Malcolm and Sienna, into the bomb shelter.

  “Let’s move, children,” David said, trying to sound calm. Nancy caught his eye, giving him a look. She knew what he was really feeling. She could read him like a book.

  “It’ll be okay,” he whispered to her as she paused. “We have enough food and water to last for two months if we ration. There’s a two-way radio, an independent power source, and even a few board games. There’s hundreds of books on the tablets, TV shows on the main-”

  “David...”

  “We’ll be fine,” he said, rushing his words to cut her off. “When my Dad built this thing, it was in mind for the cold war. I only ever kept it up because that’s what he would have wanted-”

  “DAVID!”

  He paused, waiting.

  “I… I just…” she hesitated, censoring her feelings. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. I just wanted… needed to tell you that I love you.”

  “Me too. Now and forever.”

  They embraced with the body-melting closeness that comes from years of heart-felt practice. Then, with a heightened sense of urgency, they followed the kids inside and closed the door.

  “Daddy?” Seven-year-old Sienna looked up at him, her eyes trembling with fear. “Are we going be okay?”

  His heart thumped in his mouth, and without speaking, he swept her up in his arms and held her tight.

>   After a few seconds, he held her so that he could look into her teary eyes.

  “Relax, pumpkin,” he told her. “I promise, it’s all going to be all right. Mommy and Daddy are right here with you, and we’re not going anywhere.”

  He set her down, looking back and forth between them. Malcolm, Sienna’s older brother by one year, looked just as terrified as his little sister, but was trying with all his might not to show it, like a big brother should. Again, David felt a lump in his throat at how proud he was of both of them.

  “Who wants some ice cream?” Nancy asked, and David was grateful for the rescue. Both children brightened, giving him a moment to pull his thoughts and feelings back together.

  “Then afterwards,” Nancy added, “we might try playing a family game of Risk.”

  “I ALWAYS clobber Daddy when we play,” Malcolm stated proudly.

  “Is that right?” David chuckled. “Well, buddy, we’ll just have to-”

  His next few words were lost forever as the door they had closed suddenly exploded inwards.

  The first zombie, groaning and ravenous with hunger, swooped in with the speed of a striking cobra, seizing Nancy in a flash and taking an enormous bite from one shoulder, even as the children shrieked in terror.

  Without thinking, David tried to grab the thing that was attacking his wife and was knocked away like he was made of paper. It tossed her aside and pounced on him. Pinning him to the floor, it started to eat.

  Less than a minute passed, and the creature was halfway finished eating the now no-longer-struggling David. Blood on the floor seemed to sponge into the creature’s hands and feet where it touched, consuming it along with everything else, leaving the floor near spotless, as the body of Nancy struggled to its feet.

  With a look of delight, the thing that had once been Nancy closed in on the two shrieking children.

  The shelter was empty hours later, looking undisturbed. There weren’t even any bloodstains left behind. The generators hummed and purred.

  “See? I told you,” came a loud whisper from outside the room.

  A round head poked its way inside, looking around with apprehension. It had short brown hair and a cheap haircut, a shrewd-looking gaze, and rubbery complexion. The mouth grinned a crooked tooth smile at finding the shelter empty, and a young man stepped inside.