by Dana Fredsti
JT popped his head down and took a look.
“Nope, Ashley’s got a new boyfriend.”
I would so kick both of their asses later.
I yanked my arm back, fingers still clinging to my wrist as I pulled up the probable owner of the sand spike, who was still clad in yellow waterproof slicker, the hood pulled over its head, thankfully obscuring the features. Using my other hand to hold onto the rocks, I tried to shake off Zombie Fisherman’s grip, but damned if it wasn’t tenacious.
To quote my dad, the smell was enough to drop a buzzard off a shitwagon.
Bracing my feet as best I could, I reached across with my other hand and pried its fingers off my wrist, wincing at the feel of spongy flesh. Its moan was bubbly, almost like a kid making noise under water. Then I took hold of the stake again and yanked as hard as I could without losing my balance and falling backward into the ocean. It came loose with a squelching sound, upping the gross factor even more.
Readjusting my grip for leverage, I drove it down again, this time into the zombie’s head. Stopped by the tough fabric of the slicker’s hood, the point barely penetrated the skull, but it was enough to push the zombie back into the crevice. I leaned my full weight onto the stake, driving it home with a crunching pop.
Ugh. Gross and—
“Ash! Look out!”
I looked out toward the ocean, just in time to see another set of waves roaring in. Except these were piling into one another to form one big, fat, nasty uber wave.
Well, crap.
I heard Nathan yell my name again right before the wave hit. I held onto the sound of his voice along with the sand spike as cold water hit me with the force of Thor’s Not-So-Wee-Hammer, smashing me against the unyielding surface of the rocks before trying to suck me back into the sea in the backwash.
I clung to the spike for all I was worth, hoping against hope it was anchored firmly in its former owner, and that the zombie was wedged securely enough in the crevice to hold my weight. The water receded, and I risked a glance backward only to see another wall of water heading my way.
Oh, joy. An entire set of Ashley-killing waves was out there.
The next wave hit and I gasped, cold water going up my nose and into my mouth. I choked and sputtered for what seemed like an endless amount of time, the ocean sapping my strength and my body heat. I clung to the stake, willing my fingers to keep their grip no matter how numb they got, shutting my eyes against the salt water and trying to hold my breath.
Finally, the water receded again, leaving me soaked and shivering, but still clinging to the rocks like a soggy Kevlar limpet. I stayed where I was for a moment, just breathing and glad to be alive before opening my eyes and peering up at Nathan. He looked relieved and furious in equal parts.
“Get your ass up here now, before another set like that rolls in,” he growled.
I nodded, still spitting salt water out of my mouth and snorting it out my nose like a walrus. My hand still grasped the sand spike, fingers cramping from the force of my grip. Saying a silent thank you to the poor twice-dead fisherman, I used it to hoist myself up, gratefully accepting the hand Nathan held out to me so I could climb up out of reach of the waves.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We reached the end of the rocks, dropping down onto hard-packed sand and what looked like a reassuringly wide expanse of beach. The fog was still pretty thick ahead of us, but what path I could see was clear, and the pack that had been trailing us hadn’t made it past the place where I’d nearly met a watery death.
When I hit the sand, I shook myself like a wet dog, various weapons rattling against one another and my Kevlar. I’d need to do some major cleaning on them as soon as I had a chance. My boots squished with each step. Nothing says fun and chafing like wet socks and underwear.
“How much further?” I asked, hauling myself to my feet.
“Maybe half a mile to the stairs leading up to Fort Funston,” Nathan said.
“What’s at Fort Funston?”
“Nice open space up top for the helicopter to land.”
“You can also hang glide off the cliffs there,” JT added.
“Very helpful,” I said. “Because I’m in such a hurry to throw myself off a cliff.” I turned back to Nathan. “The ’copter should already be waiting, right?”
“Yup. So we’d better hurry before the zombies beat us there.”
* * *
We jogged at a steady pace along the deserted stretch. Fort Funston had been a heavy caliber gun battery, built before WWII so the soldiers housed in the bunkers there could watch the sea and defend against enemy attacks. The remnants of old armaments and gun emplacements littered the beach and the cliffs above, making it look like something out of Planet of the Apes. I expected to see the torso of Lady Liberty sticking up out of the sand at any moment, and was fully prepared to drop to my knees and do my best “God… damn you all to hell” if it happened.
We passed another sewer runoff, this one decorated with paintings and mosaics of dogs, including a doggie Buddha. JT nodded at it as we jogged by.
“Temple of the Dogs. My ex and I used to bring her pooch here. Yappy little shit of a chihuahua. Not missing either of them.”
A little further down the beach, Nathan moved up away from the water to a sandy trail that cut sharply to the left. I looked up at a seemingly endless pathway, rising in a curving trail up the cliff. A rope rail ran between thick cylindrical wooden posts.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, feeling every soggy pound of my waterlogged clothing and gear.
“Stop whining,” Nathan said unsympathetically.
“I’m not whining. I’m bitching.”
“Whatever. Suck it up and get the hell up those stairs. We have work to do.”
Sucking it up, sir. But he was right. My discomfort was nothing compared to what was happening around the world… or what Gabriel might be going through. I was still alive enough to be out of breath and cranky—which was more than a lot of people could say.
I jogged steadily up the stairs from hell—uneven wooden logs half buried in the sand—ignoring the burning in my lungs and the aching in my leg muscles. By the time we reached the plateau, I was ready to collapse. Only the sight of a drinking fountain prevented me from giving in to my burning calf muscles and collapsing face first onto the ground. That, and the nearby porta-johns.
I really had to pee.
The two choppers were there, too. Several of our team and a few people I didn’t recognize were gathered beside them. I didn’t see Lil or Griff, but Simone was there, posture tense as she scanned our little group. Her face lit up with relief when she saw Nathan. Just a flash before she resumed her usual expression of detached interest.
Somehow Simone managed to look elegant in BDUs. I had a feeling she’d look good in just about anything—even prison orange. Not that we’d ever have an occasion to put that theory to the test.
“Why are there two ’copters?” JT asked. He looked as fresh as if we’d been out for a casual stroll. I eyed him resentfully.
“Redundancy,” Nathan replied brusquely. He jogged over toward the aircraft—and Simone—without another word.
JT raised an eyebrow and looked at me.
“And that means…?”
“You’re the walking dictionary,” I said by way of avoiding the question.
He raised his eyebrow even higher and nodded.
“Okay, I can play,” he said. “Same reason we ditched the second ’copter back at UCSF. One’s a decoy, to throw the bad guys off our track, yes?”
Damn, he’s good, I thought, but kept my mouth shut and my expression neutral.
He grinned. “Thought so.” He looked like he had something else to say, and I held up a hand.
“Er… hold that thought. Gotta pee,” I said, and escaped toward the fountain and the porta-johns.
I passed the Gunsy Twins standing in front of the helicopters as they kept a keen watch on the surrounding terrain—trails leading off into t
he hills, and a large parking lot, surprisingly empty of cars. A long driveway led out to the main road. One of the Twins—Davis, I think—gave me a small salute and what passed for a smile on his expressionless face. I wiggled my fingers in return.
“Ash!”
Lil came bounding toward me from the porta-johns. I gave her a tired but sincere smile as she threw her arms around me in a hug before releasing me almost immediately with a nose-wrinkled grimace.
“You’re soaked,” she said. “And you smell gross.”
“Slipped on a rock,” I said evasively. Lil handled danger to herself without fear, but she tended to flip out, even after the fact, if someone she cared about got injured or even came close. Kai’s death hadn’t helped.
I saw motion out of the corner of my eye, and a few scattered figures lurched slowly toward us from the other side of the parking lot. Jones and Davis made quick work of them, but more were headed our way up the long driveway leading from the main road.
Time to do my business, I thought wearily.
I picked up my pace to the fountain, stepping over and around a number of aluminum dog dishes that littered the ground. As I bent over to get a sip of water, I accidentally kicked an empty dish set on the ground under a low faucet. It clattered against the pavement and the resulting clatter brought a moan from somewhere nearby. I whirled around but didn’t see anything. It sounded again—a muffled hollow echo accompanied it, like a kid pretending to be a ghost.
The porta-johns.
Crap.
No pun intended, but I still had to use the bathroom.
Marching over to the cluster of glorified outhouses, I banged on the door to the first one, and something banged back, dead palms slapping against the hard plastic. Damn, what a shitty coffin. The little sign said “OCCUPIED” and I planned on leaving it that way.
The next one showed the green “VACANT.” I raised my hand to knock, but the door swung out before I made contact. I jumped back just in time to avoid getting smacked. My adrenalin spiked, and my hand tightened around the grip of my tanto as I prepared to dispatch—
Griff.
“I’m sorry, was I taking too long?” he inquired.
I caught my breath and growled—an involuntary rumble deep in my throat. I’d come that close to stabbing him. Part of me wished I’d at least grazed him, and given him a good scare. But as much as he deserved it, killing a fellow human being wasn’t on my agenda for the day.
Even so, I didn’t trust him.
“I’ve heard of friendly fire,” Griff continued in that obnoxiously amused tone of his, “but friendly thrusts? Shouldn’t those be—”
“Oh, just shut the fuck up,” I said, pushing past him. I banged on the next door down. Nothing banged back, so I went inside, making sure to lock it behind me. It smelled less offensive on the inside than its neighbor had from the outside, but I still took a quick peek down the hole. As I did so, a truly gross scene from a Norwegian zombie movie played through my mind.
I did my business, and got out of there in record time.
As soon as I emerged, Nathan waved impatiently for me to join them. I quickly rinsed my hands in the faucet by the dog bowls, glancing out over the cliff as glimpses of the sun burned through the fog.
It was eerily beautiful, eucalyptus and cypress trees sharing ground with the crumbling walls of the old battery. Trails wound around the tree-studded hills, and I could see why this would be a paradise for dogs and their owners. I wondered if it ever would be again, or if Dr. Albert’s plague had screwed it up for good.
Nathan called my name as the helicopter rotors started whupwhupwhupping in rotation. One of the helicopters took off, heading toward North Island and following the original plan, but without any of the wild cards on board. Instead it had members of the Zombie Tactical Squad, people Simone trusted beyond a shadow of a doubt, and who could handle themselves if anything went wrong, like another helicopter malfunction.
Nathan climbed aboard the remaining chopper, which I suspected came from a source other than the DZN. I had a feeling Simone or Nathan had called in a last-minute favor to put yet one more layer of smoke and mirrors between us and our unknown enemies. I walked toward it, my limbs suddenly leaden even as the wind from the rotors whipped my still-wet hair about my face. The resulting sting was surprisingly painful.
Our new ride was slightly roomier than the one that we’d started out with that morning. It had two rows of two seats facing front, currently occupied by Simone, Nathan, Carl, and the same female mechanic who’d flown with us to Walgreen’s. Eight more seats ran parallel down the length of the helicopter, four on either side. Lil, Gentry, JT, and Griff were on one side, while the Gunsy twins and Tony occupied the other. I took the remaining seat in the very back and curled up as tightly as I could, trying to ignore how wet and cold I was.
I wondered if anything in my pack had survived without being soaked.
Oh, crap, what if Lil’s meds got wet? Were they in watertight containers? They had to be, right?
My shivering increased, but I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. I started to drop off to sleep, only to have another shiverfest wrack my body, waking me up again, although I didn’t open my eyes.
I felt someone near me, and then something warm and dry was draped over my lap. My hand touched the surface of a blanket. Scratchy, but warm. I smiled drowsily at whoever put it there.
“Thanks,” I said sleepily.
“Any time.”
My smile froze as I recognized Griff’s voice. I deliberately kept my eyes shut until I heard him moving away from me. When I opened them, he was sitting a few seats ahead of me on the other side, an odd little smile on his face. Lil and JT stared in my direction, as vigilant as Foo Dogs standing guard in Imperial China.
I couldn’t imagine what Griff’s motivation had been, and my brain was just too tired to wrap itself around the puzzle. Finally, I gave up trying. The bottom line was that I was finally getting warm again, and needed sleep more than I needed to think.
So I slept.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I sat down in the back of Room 217 in Patterson Hall, hoping against hope that the cute but douchey teaching assistant wouldn’t notice that I’d been late yet again. Last thing I needed was another public humiliation—something else to make me stand out as a twenty-nine-year-old student on campus filled with kids ten years my junior.
Kids who were just waiting to steal my husband.
No wait. He was already gone.
No big loss. I had Matt now, my hunky younger boyfriend.
But Matt’s dead.
I looked down to the front of the hall, admiring the cute TA. His mint gold hair gleamed against the black of his shirt and Kevlar vest. The look suited his features. He seemed like an angel who’d gone a few rounds with Rocky, a once broken nose set slightly crooked, throwing off otherwise regular features.
Gabriel.
Gabriel was the hunky TA, and also my boyfriend. I still had him, even if he was a douche at times.
I smiled down at him, wondering idly why he was wearing his SWAT gear to teach in, instead of his usual jeans and button-down shirt. Very sexy, mind you, with just a hint of “Oh, are you wearing handcuffs, officer?”
I kind of hoped he was.
But should he really be wearing something like that to class?
Appropriate or not, it was going over well with the students.
Not that any of them looked that great—not even the bevy of coach-carrying blondes in the front row, hanging on his every word. Half of them looked sick, snuffling and coughing, and the other half…
Huh.
The other half looked dead.
Yup, zombies.
In class.
Shouldn’t I be doing something about them?
Gabriel looked up and saw me dithering in the back of the room. I braced myself for the inevitable snarky comment, but he smiled up at me, his denim-blue eyes warm and affectionate. He dropped the book he
held on the floor. It landed with a loud, echoing thunk, much louder than seemed possible, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He walked eagerly up the center aisle toward me, the initial warmth in his eyes darkening to something just as welcoming, but more primal.
I waited where I was instead of running toward him, afraid if I moved he’d vanish. He kept smiling as he neared me, but his face didn’t look quite right. His skin seemed unusually sallow, almost green in places. Faint hollows under his eyes grew darker with each step, and the startling blue of his corneas began filming over until they were the bluish white of curdled skim milk. Pieces of skin curled off his cheekbones in strips, and the bright gold of his hair became dull and matted, patches of skull showing through.
I knew I should do something—kill him or run—but I couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. It was still Gabriel. Wasn’t it? So I stayed rooted in place until he stood in front of me, still smiling although now his teeth were coated with blood and black fluid. His hands clutched my shoulders as the rest of the students lurched to their feet, staggering slowly toward us.
“I’ve missed you, Ash,” he said, voice clogged with unspeakable gore. “Have you missed me?”
He lowered his face to kiss me, those gore-stained lips closing over mine before I could scream.
* * *
I jerked awake, a scream choking in my throat to stop it from ripping through the confines of the helicopter. My eyes flew open and I sat up straight, heart pounding.
Jeez Louise. I looked around. No zombies, no Gabriel. No one seemed to have noticed my nightmare, for which I was very grateful.
“You okay?” Griff opened his eyes and looked at me.
Oh, hell.
He wasn’t wearing his usual smirk, but I wasn’t about to give him any more ammunition.
“Yup, just dandy.”
“Looked like one hell of a bad dream.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn he looked concerned.
“Last time I was in one of these things, it crashed,” I said. “Not a fan of flying.”
He nodded and closed his eyes.