Green Fields (Book 9): Exodus

by Lecter, Adrienne

  Antoine did some impressive swerving around dropping shamblers as he cut underneath one side of the bridge, where he executed a tight turn that made water spray up behind the boat, and several of its inhabitants cling on for dear life—making me doubly glad I’d traded places with Ines. Cole and Russell jumped across, making the maneuver look easy, although the wreck gave an impressive metal groan at their landing. They reappeared within moments, tossing several red canisters across before they returned to the boat. Russell landed perfectly, but Cole miscalculated, making the boat almost capsize as he went too far, only Richards quickly grabbing and pulling him, keeping him out of the water. The combined cursing was audible even over the screams of the still-dropping shamblers. As soon as the boat stopped rocking, Antoine gunned the engine, and with an impressive swerve away from the wrecks brought the boat out into the open of the river, plowing right through two zombies that were still splashing in the water, not having gone under yet.

  The second boat set out, Raphael steering it with a lot less aggression and aplomb. He tried a slower approach that got the zombies really agitated, entire clumps of them coming down over the railing of the bridge. They all missed, but while he steadied the boat so Aimes and Wu could get their canisters, several of the shamblers managed to drag themselves over to the boat and wrecks alike, requiring some improvised pest control. I watched with a roiling stomach as Hamilton and Burns stood side by side, throwing shamblers back into the river as soon as their rotting hands could grab the boat. Raphael was much quicker in his retreat, leaving behind some nice waves that rocked our boat as well.

  And then, it was my turn.

  Looking up where the stream of zombies jonesing for a good ice bath still wasn’t ending wasn’t such a bright idea so I concentrated on how I’d have to maneuver to get the boat to where it needed to be. I almost called for Noah to take over for me, but I knew he was needed to catch the canisters, and maybe Ines and Nate as well. Timing the droppers was impossible as well—so I just went for it.

  Speed was of the essence, so I allowed the boat to float back a few yards before I accelerated, making the bow shoot out of the water in a tight turn. Left, right, and then I sent it into a wide, long turn, almost sliding sideways underneath the bridge. Corpses dropped left and right, narrowly missing the boat, yet I ignored them in favor of getting closer to the wrecks, letting the boat drift the last few feet. As soon as the side bumped into the rusty hull, Ines leaped across, Nate following a moment later. He kicked off hard enough to push the boat away, forcing me to micro-steer it back to where it belonged. I felt the currents, irregular and strong where they broke around the wrecks wrestle with my control, making the boat waver and pitch to one side, then the other.

  The first canister came soaring out of the wreck, Munez snatching it up more by chance than plan. I concentrated on keeping the boat level instead, my gaze every so often scanning for swimmers. There was a lot of splashing going on to my right side, making me wonder if they’d manage to build up from the river bottom until they could reach the boat from underneath. The current should have been too strong for that—and the Seine too deep—but in my paranoid mind’s eye, I saw ghostly white, rotten hands reach for the rudder—

  “Keep the boat steady!” I heard Nate’s call, forcing my mind to snap to attention. As soon as I got it back where it should be, Ines hurled herself back across, landing in Noah’s waiting arms. He steadied her, then got ready for Nate. Our eyes met across the short distance, and I didn’t miss the grin flashing across Nate’s features as he pushed off—

  And landed safely on deck, the boat rocking hard.

  I gunned the engine, sending the boat into another turn as it accelerated, heading right for the other two boats—

  Until a dropper managed to clip off the left side of the bow.

  The boat lurched out of control as the impact tore my hands off the controls, if only for a second, acceleration dropping away to zilch. The howling above us increased immediately, and a new slew of shamblers came down all around us. Grasping blindly, I hit the accelerator, making the boat shoot forward, aiming straight for the stern of one of the wrecks. Cursing, I tightened my hands on the wheel, forcing it into a controlled hard turn—and away from both the bridge and the water.

  I may have laughed maniacally—and by the time the boat shot by the others that were idling in the middle of the river, I meant it, adrenaline making me loopy and stupid. Oh, it was a great feeling to be alive!

  “You like cutting it close, no?” Noah remarked as he joined me at the controls, still looking a little harassed—and making no attempt to take over once more. Fine with me—sitting around was just making me stir-crazy, anyway.

  “Sometimes,” I quipped back, grinning at my admission. “Life’s too short to always play it safe.” It was impossible to tone down the exuberance in my voice, and I didn’t really try.

  He kept his opinion to himself, instead conversing with Antoine and Raphael for a bit, then pointed to the left riverbank. “After the next bend, make sure to stay on this side. There are canals, but the next island is several kilometers long, and the lock on this side is easier to traverse. And watch out for the wrecks.”

  “Wrecks?”

  His smile turned forced. “We’re close to the city now. You’ll see.”

  I was still confused as I steered the boat around the long, slow bend, making sure to stay in the middle of the forking waterway that he’d indicated—until the next bridge loomed up ahead. Doing a quick calculation in my head, I figured it was likely the extension of the same road that the previous bridge had served—only this one was no longer intact. And if I wasn’t completely wrong, it hadn’t collapsed on its own.

  “You detonated the bridges?” Nate guessed as he surveyed the wreckage—including what looked like hundreds of cars, busses, bikes, and small river craft—that surrounded what remained of the concrete that had once spanned the Seine.

  “We had to,” Noah declared, his voice somber. “Elle told you that we had weeks of warnings, over a month to prepare to evacuate? Many didn’t listen. Many didn’t believe. And when the sickness swept through the doubters and killed them one by one, we knew we had to try to contain them. It was futile, of course, as Paris spans both sides of the Seine, but evacuation was still going on. The only thing we could do was make sure that the dead couldn’t follow us across the river. The official order was to head north. The Resistance decided to make a stand toward the south. I think you know who had the better idea.”

  Considering they still called themselves the Resistance, I did. Why did the sudden feeling creep up on me that Elle and Alexandre had fed us a rather edited version of the events?

  But then that was one sin I was equally guilty of myself.

  “How deep do the wrecks go?” I asked, forcing myself to concentrate on the immediate danger over the horror of the past.

  “The boats are light enough that they should get over everything you don’t see,” Noah explained. “But it would be wise to stop driving the boat like a racing car.” Also more fuel efficient, I was sure, but I didn’t offer that up, and instead slowed down to a more sedate, cautious pace.

  So we watched in silence as we glided past the burnt-out wrecks that spoke of the dying pains of one of Europe’s largest cities, the layers of fog only adding to the ghostly horrors of it. And we were far from alone. If before we’d drawn the attention of hundreds of shamblers, it was thousands of eyes following our progress now—and that was only those we could see in the less than clear morning air. The sounds of movement, interspersed with harsh shouts and guttural grunts, echoed from all sides, only partly lost in the fog. It seemed like they were one immensely huge pack of hungry, patiently waiting predators. If we hadn’t been so far removed in the middle of the river, we would have long since died. I wondered how many others besides us had ever become witness to this; the scouts, obviously, and by their stoic ignorance I could tell that the knowledge of what had happened—of what they’d had
to do to survive—cut deep.

  Only they’d been smart enough to stay outside the city for the most part, and none of them seemed to have tried to leave the boats. Trust us not to be that intelligent.

  And then, several bridges—and another harrowing climbing and dragging tour across the next lock—later, a few miles farther, at one of the straight passages of the river, Ines pointed at one more partly destroyed bridge looming ahead. “That’s Pont de Neuilly. La Défense is right there on the right riverbank. We’re here.”

  Chapter 11

  Getting to our destination was one thing; getting off the boats, quite another. The only positive thing about our situation was that, even up here, the Seine hadn’t started to freeze over—not really a lot we had going for us.

  I barely caught a glimpse of the skyscrapers where Ines indicated, having to pay more attention to said bridge and another river island splitting the stream in two. As the French had told us, the island had been a place for leisure activities, and unlike most of the previous islands, it was inhabited—not heavily, but I could make out a good fifty shamblers eagerly following the roar of our engines as we sped by, partly hidden between the trees. Trees were good, as was the fact that the island was large enough to completely obscure the other fork of the river—and the center of Paris that loomed behind. Most of the attention we got was from the side where we were going to embark on. “Should we maybe switch to the other side and hope we can better sneak in that way?” I suggested what seemed quite obvious to me.

  As expected, Hamilton shot me down. “If we don’t have to cross the bridge, we won’t. The roads leading up where we need to go start at the quay. So that’s where we start as well.”

  I wondered why I still tried but couldn’t find it in me to shut up. “And the boats we’ll leave at the island so they can pick us up later? Won’t they get eaten in the meantime?”

  Ines seemed to be the only one still amused by my protest. “There are more wrecks in the other fork because a lot of boats were moored there,” she explained. “We can easily go there, wait, and then swoop in and pick you up. Don’t worry about us.”

  The end of the island was up ahead with the piled-up mess that was yet another dysfunctional lock creating a natural barrier. I cut the engine as we reached the massive cement structures that cut the river into several smaller parts, waiting for the other boats to join us. Ropes were cast to tie the boats off so the current wouldn’t drag them downriver too soon—and then we settled in to wait until we became all but invisible.

  “No talking, and no sounds unless you cannot avoid them,” Hamilton reminded us. “You all know your fire teams and the order in which we will disembark. You know your destination, and you know the contingency plans.” I craned my neck to look past the structures of the lock to the road that ran right by the river. It wasn’t exactly packed with shamblers, but there was no way I’d survive up there more than five minutes. Was dying a quick, horrible death really a contingency plan? Whatever else we found in that lab, getting out of the city would be the worst part if anything went wrong. Hell, jumping into the river and hoping not to drown or freeze to death was the best chance we had. I really fucking hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

  Nate nudged my elbow, making me look at him rather than at the resident population. He gave me a pointed stare followed by the hint of a smile. Right. Getting locked inside my head now wouldn’t do me any good, so why bother? It was much better to enjoy the late morning air, full of fog and the stink of millions of decomposing bodies all over. Ah, Paris!

  And so we waited. And waited. And waited some more. I went through a bottle of water—cold enough to hurt my teeth—and a bag of jerky. I knew I’d need the energy, and it gave me something to do. Two hours passed. Then a third. The shamblers were still staring at us and the boats, slowly bobbing up and down in the river. Every few minutes, one of them had the great idea to tumble down the steps that led from the street to the river walkway, and a handful of those down there in turn splashed into the water as they tried to reach us. They were swept beyond the next bridge before they stopped resurfacing, a few hundred feet downstream of our position. To say I was bored right out of my mind was an understatement, but unlike Noah and Munez, I didn’t manage to catch some shut-eye. Knowing that the worst was still before us really didn’t help. But I seemed to be the only one antsy with tension, making me wonder if the others were somehow more used to this. Were military missions usually like this? Brief bouts of terror interspersed with immense stretches of utter boredom? Nothing we had gotten up to had ever went down like this. We’d all been about action, action, and then lots of reaction, including some timely running away or chasing down the stragglers. I couldn’t say that I was very impressed.

  My mind started drifting off but I forced myself to remain focused and instead repeated the version numbers of the serum variants to myself that we were looking for. After that, the room numbers I should be looking for. The highlighted routes on the blueprints that Nate had, late one night, drilled into my brain, visualizing the exit routes from all points of interest with me until I felt like I’d walked them a million times—or got so annoyed with him that I’d claimed I’d gotten it. Now, I wished I’d done the exercise a few more times on the way over.

  It wasn’t so much sound as motion to my left that jerked my attention outward, just in time to see Bucky motion to the French scouts to get ready for cast off. To me, the shamblers at the riverbank still seemed way too interested in us, but I doubted they’d actually quiet down—and I really had to relieve myself. If anything, that would be easier once we had dry, solid land underneath our boots.

  Antoine jerked the rope free first, and as soon as the boat started to get swept away by the current, attention ran like a wave through the zombies—but only a single one of them went into the river; the others just stared. Nate was just as tense as I felt as he watched the boat make it through the first bridge—ours was the next after that—still without causing too much of a fuss. The second boat went next, Raphael looking tense behind the wheel that likely let him do only minimal steering without the engine on. Hungry eyes followed their progress but still no agitation. Hope flared up inside of me, although I tried to quench it immediately. This wasn’t even the real first step; we were still twiddling our thumbs with the prep work.

  Then it was time for us to float down the river. I tensed as first one, then a second shambler tumbled into the water, but they were far enough away not to get anywhere near the boat as they were carried downriver the same as us, eventually disappearing underneath the black waves. There was some grunting and moaning coming from the road by the quay but no sounds of direct pursuit. Maybe this was less of a stupid fucking plan than I was still afraid it was.

  We followed close enough behind the second boat to see when Raphael started inching it toward the riverbank, away from the island. Ahead, the first boat reached the destination, jerking to a halt as grappling hooks on ropes caught and anchored it for now. Hamilton and two more figures climbed onto the quay, still too far away to clearly identify them. The rest remained in the boat, waiting. Boat two joined them, the boats quickly fixed to each other with more rope. We did the same when it was our turn, my fingers itching from being useless as fuck—and ice cold from hours of inactivity. Above us, it was eerily quiet, the sounds of the river muting anything else that was going on.

  It was a good twenty minutes after the first boat had anchored itself when Cole suddenly appeared on the railing above us, giving us a silent go-ahead. There was blood and gore on his gear but none of that seemed to belong to him. I didn’t protest when Nate unceremoniously helped me don my pack, and as the boats got more empty, pulled me along until we were next to climb up the ropes to get up on land. Rather than force me to scramble up, my fingers likely too weak to do a good job pulling my weight and my gear, Nate and Burns boosted me up so all I had to do was grab onto the railing and swing my leg up and over it. Hill was waiting for me, helping along so th
at I dropped to the sidewalk with barely any sound, quickly casting around for danger.

  There were a good thirty heaps of rags on the ground, more leading toward the road branching off perpendicular to the one following the river. Everyone was alert going on twitchy, loud and heavy weapons stowed away in favor of knives and good ol’ hands. Car wrecks had piled up all across the two lanes of the road plus the sidewalks and everywhere else available, giving us plenty of cover. I didn’t need Cole’s signal to duck behind a blue minivan, making sure to move with deliberate motions not to cause any unnecessary noise. With strength in numbers not in our favor, stealth it was instead.

  Nate lightly tapped my shoulder as he crouched down next to me, and we waited until Burns joined us before I slid to the other side of the car and studied the road. A handful of shamblers were already invading the zone that our vanguard had cleared but they took minimal interest in the corpses, instead dragging themselves on almost aimlessly. Almost, as their heads jerked around in unison when a metallic clang sounded from further up the road. I used the opportunity of distraction and eased over into the other lane and onto the sidewalk, behind an overturned truck. Only for a moment, I looked back to see whether Nate was following and got a death glare from him for my effort. I gave him the finger for that but kept my attention forward, picking the best route to keep us as covered as possible, dutifully waiting for his light pat on my shoulder before moving on each and every time. I caught sight of Munez moving ahead of me a few times but except for him, the ramp we went up could have been deserted. Judging from the sign and width, it had been a pedestrian path but three cars were still jammed together at the top, giving me a good place to rest for a second to stare up at the massive skyscraper to my left. It had been the one that Ines had pointed out to me on our trek upriver. It must have been at least fifty stories tall, most of the windows looking marvelously untouched. The ramp led up to roughly the height of the third story, a pathway to the right leading to some kind of park deck—that was crawling with shamblers. They were nesting, as in, had dragged all kinds of debris inside and built huge piles of it that looked like primitive shelters. A few of them stared out into the foggy daylight but none of them made a move to come out. I gave myself a visible shake and moved on.