Love in an Undead Age

by A. M. Geever

  “He has to be stopped!”

  “We are too few, we have no allies,” Finn raged, his words little noticed in the tumult.

  Miranda looked at her friends. Disgust and anger, and not a little fear, filled their faces.

  “You do now.”

  44

  Bethany lay in a pool of blood. Her blue eyes stared at the ceiling. Her body was gnawed and mutilated, but apart from a smear of blood across her neck and jaw, her face remained untouched.

  She’s dead, Mario thought. The noise and chaos of the crowd around him seemed to recede behind a static-filled buzz. A detached part of his brain knew the sensation was shock.

  “He pushed her. He pushed her right into the zombie,” Miranda’s trailing voice whispered.

  It did not make sense. Bethany was a doctor. That made her valuable. She helped keep this place going. Even though she had feared the Prophet, she had also felt a responsibility to the people of New Jerusalem. Mario had seen it firsthand, how she tried to hide her disgust and fear and do what good she could in this awful place. She had even helped him, a stranger, by hiding the antibiotics and serum.

  Oh shit.

  “Look!”

  Miranda grabbed Mario’s arm, jarring him into the present. He followed the line of her pointing finger to where Bethany lay on the ground—twitching.

  “Oh no,” he said. “Oh Jesus.”

  All around them, the screaming and crying grew louder as the fallen from the Faith Walk began to twitch and jerk. Mario had not thought the distress of the people of New Jerusalem could get worse, but as those who had died began to reanimate, he feared there would be a riot. The corpse that had been Bethany lurched into a sitting position, twisting their direction, a redundant pink lung visible behind broken and splintered ribs. Already Bethany’s face was taking on the look of the zombie she had become: sunken eyes and vacant stare, hollowing cheeks and blackening lips. She struggled upright and swayed, turning her head slowly from side to side, as if overwhelmed by her rebirth.

  Bethany—the zombie, Mario corrected himself—began to stagger toward the Prophet and Tamara. The mangled corpse of the zombie that lay next to the Prophet and Tamara, what was left of the disemboweled young woman killed earlier, writhed as if in agony. So close to prey, but repelled at the same time. It reached out and grazed Tamara’s head. Tamara jerked away and screamed. The Prophet raised his head and noticed the zombie, the lust on his face mingled with annoyance. He reached out with his hand and shoved the zombie away.

  The Prophet turned his attention back to Tamara. Mario could tell he was trying to quiet the terrified girl, but it was no use. The light brush of the zombie’s fingers had pushed her over the edge. She would not, could not, stop screaming. The Prophet’s face darkened with anger. He reared back on his knees and backhanded her across the face. When she did not stop screaming, he hit her again. Furious, the Prophet rolled Tamara onto her stomach, shoving her face into the blood-soaked ground as he resumed the pursuit of his rapine prize.

  In the row in front of Mario, Dalton and two of the other archers were physically restraining Finn in what had become an all-out wrestling match. A member of the Prophet’s Guard was pushing through the aisle in their direction when a sudden shriek cut through the noise. A middle-aged woman ran toward one of the newly minted zombies. Her husband? Brother? She must have jumped into the pit because she wasn’t trying to get away. She ran to the zombie as if running to a lover, barely struggling against its death grip as it started to devour her.

  Mario looked around, taking in the rising chaos. He had to get back to the infirmary and see if the vaccine serum was still there. If Bethany had been killed because she had tried to help him, then their situation was more precarious than they had realized. He looked around the balcony. Members of the Prophet’s Guard were stationed at the doors that led to the exit. Other Guardsmen pushed distraught spectators back into their seats.

  They weren’t going to let him go willingly. He’d have to improvise.

  As the Prophet’s Guardsman making his way down the aisle to Finn drew near, Mario stiffened his body and pitched himself into Dalton and Finn. He rolled his eyes back in his head and began to shake. He heard Miranda and Doug both cry out his name.

  Dalton turned back to see who was shoving into him, making his job of holding on to his cousin more difficult. Mario caught a glimpse of Finn’s overwrought face.

  Everyone in his group, Mike and Connor, Miranda, Doug and Seffie, were all shouting at once. Mario felt a strong hand grab and shake him. Prophet’s Guardsman, had to be.

  “Stop it!” the Guardsman roared.

  “He’s having a seizure!” Miranda shouted.

  “We have to get him out of here,” said Dalton, his voice ebbing and flowing as he continued to struggle with his cousin. Mario wasn’t sure if he was talking about him or Finn.

  “The Faith Walk is not over,” the guardsman countered. “None can leave until it is finished.”

  “If you want to distract from the Prophet’s veneration of the maiden, then go ahead and arrest us!” Dalton barked.

  Mario felt other, more gentle hands seize him.

  “It is not—” Uncertainty filled the guardsman’s voice. “Go.”

  Mario was hauled up and thrown over a bony shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

  “I’ve got him,” Doug said as he started away from the others.

  Mario kept shuddering his entire body, which made Doug stumble. He hated doing this to his friends, but there wasn’t time to explain. He caught a glimpse of Dalton and one of the archers dragging Finn along behind them.

  The sounds of Finn’s struggle grew worse as they started up the stairs. Finn did not want to leave, but Mario agreed with Dalton. If Finn stayed any longer, he was liable to get himself killed.

  As Doug and the other archer worked together to get Mario into the harness and pulley system that had lowered him down an hour earlier, he let his body go slack. Only one pulley operator for the two-person crank system was there, a middle-aged man who protested. Dalton was busy shoving his cousin toward the rope ladder.

  “You must come with us,” Dalton commanded.

  “I cannot leave her like this!” Finn protested.

  “And you cannot do anything for her,” Dalton countered, pushing Finn into the ladder. “The Guard is looking for any pretext to punish you or worse. You are no use to Tamara dead. Go!”

  Reluctantly, a clearly torn Finn grasped the ladder.

  “Now!” Dalton shouted, giving him another shove.

  Finn shot his cousin a long, filthy look, then started up the ladder.

  From barely opened eyes, Mario saw Dalton turn to the pulley operator and motion to his companion as he spoke. “Michael will help with the pulley. Get him up to the village.”

  “But the walk is not over,” the man said, disapproval filling his face. “I will not.”

  Dalton grabbed the man by the throat and shoved him against the railing so violently that if he relaxed his stranglehold, the man would topple backward over the rail. The zombies that milled below the widow’s walk groaned even louder.

  “Get him up there now or I will throw you off this roof,” Dalton snarled. He pulled the gasping, choking man off the rail and released him with a shove toward the pulley.

  The frightened pulley operator mumbled something under his breath. The pulley squawked as the men began to turn the crank mechanism. Mario’s feet lifted off, leaving the noise and chaos of the Faith Walk behind.

  45

  Mario was once again slung over Doug’s shoulder. He had quit faking the sporadic shaking fits so that Doug would not stumble as they crossed the covered bridges. He had been tempted to drop the ruse the moment they reached the village but decided against it. None of the village’s children had been at the Faith Walk. They were up here somewhere, presumably being watched by someone. He just couldn’t risk it.

  “I don’t know what we can do for him without Bethany-”

&
nbsp; A guilty stab pierced Mario’s conscience. He saw Finn from the corner of his eye. Finn’s murderous expression sent a genuine tremor through him.

  Finally, they reached the infirmary. Mario heard the door bang open, smelled the familiar scent of mint. Doug leaned down to lay him on the nearest cot, but Mario pushed away from him. They all startled as he raced to the drawer with the hidden compartment, their expressions ranging from confusion to shock.

  “I think the Prophet knows about our stuff, Doug. You better go check.”

  The color drained from Doug’s face. He bolted from the infirmary.

  “What is going on here?” Finn demanded hotly.

  Mario yanked the drawer so hard he expected it to come completely out, but there must have been a stop because the drawer only went so far before refusing to budge. Suddenly Dalton was dragging Mario away.

  “What are you doing?” Dalton demanded.

  Finn stood between Mario and the drawer, his body tensed for a fight, but a flicker of fear flashed in his golden eyes. They know about the hidden compartment, Mario realized.

  It was time to stop pretending.

  “Bethany was keeping something for me in the hidden compartment in the drawer. I need to see if it’s still there.”

  The flash of surprise that filled Finn’s eyes was immediately replaced by wariness. Dalton’s grip grew tighter. The air in the infirmary crackled with hostility. A long moment passed before Finn said, “You got her killed.”

  Mario looked Finn in the eye. Fury radiated off the young man in waves. He had been helpless to protect Tamara and Bethany from his father. All he needed was a target to unleash his anger on, but Mario couldn’t lie. After everything that had happened today, Finn deserved the truth.

  “I think so, yes.”

  The murderous rage that Mario had seen earlier flickered across Finn’s face, but he nodded. Dalton’s grip on Mario relaxed.

  Mario knelt down and reached for the false back, pressing along the edges until he felt a notch. Heart pounding, he dug his finger into it.

  Please let it still be there, please, he prayed, trying to tamp down his rising panic.

  The compartment was empty.

  Mario stifled the impulse to slump, to give in to the failure that felt woven into his bones. He looked up at Finn and Dalton.

  “Are there any more hiding places?”

  Mario rifled through the bandages and tinctures again, even though he knew it was useless. With drawers pulled open and the contents of shelves and cupboards askew, the infirmary looked like it had been burgled.

  “What is in the vials you seek?” Finn asked again.

  Mario didn’t answer because he wasn’t in New Jerusalem anymore. The past five years flashed through his brain. Miranda’s anguish the night he told her he was defecting. How she had begged and pleaded before finally shoving him away, screaming she wished he was dead. Emily’s awkward attempts to understand what he had done. The surprised expression on the face of the first person he killed to protect his secret, his abandoned children, the ease with which he could spot a doser from the defeated scurry of their gait. The nameless people who kept coming to San Jose for the vaccine, like a magical cup that never ran dry, only to find that they could never afford it. How many had turned into zombies? How many of the awful moans that filled his dreams were theirs?

  The sound of the door wrenched him back to the present. Mario saw Doug’s ashen face and knew.

  “It’s gone.”

  Doug nodded, looking too stunned to speak.

  “Even what was sewn into everyone’s clothes?”

  “The others will have to check what they’re wearing.” Doug held out his hand to reveal a carved piece of wood the same size as the missing vials. “That’s what I felt when I checked my vest every day,” he said. Even now, his hand strayed to the side seam of his vest. “I don’t know how he did it, how he even knew.”

  “What was it you had?” Finn asked again, losing patience.

  “The vaccine serum!” Mario spat. “It’s taken years to get into a position to use it and your crazy father outplayed us.”

  For the first time since leaving the Faith Walk, Finn seemed wholly present in the here and now.

  “A vaccine? Like Bethany spoke of?” he said, his brow drawing in and down. “Is it truly a disease?”

  Mario almost snapped that of course it was a disease, but Finn’s guileless face stopped him. Finn had been nine or ten when the ZA happened, then was hauled off and raised in a cult by a lunatic. He probably didn’t even know what a virus was.

  “Yes,” Mario answered, “this whole thing, the zombies, it’s a disease and we can prevent it. We can end it forever, for everyone, but we need to get that serum back.”

  Finn took a step back, stunned. “Bethany said it was not God’s judgment,” he began, “but the things she told me, they sounded like magic.”

  “It’s science, not magic,” said Mario. “Once a person gets the vaccine, they will never turn, even if they are bitten. Infection from the bite might kill them, but they won’t turn. Do you understand? There won’t be more new zombies. We can stop it from spreading and kill off the rest. We can end this.”

  “We could leave this place,” Finn whispered, his voice filling with fragile hope.

  “If what you say is true, how do you explain the Prophet?” Dalton asked. “He never had one of these vaccines and he did not become a Hollow—a zombie.”

  “Because he’s the jackpot,” Mario said, “that one in ten million who can fight off the disease without help. He has natural immunity. That’s how we made the vaccine. We had someone just like him, but we don’t anymore and haven’t found another. That’s why we need that serum, and why we need to get out of here.”

  Dalton’s skepticism seemed to thaw. “If the Prophet has gone to such lengths to deceive you, he may have already destroyed it.”

  “He hasn’t,” Mario said, emphatic. Every fiber of his being told him Dalton was wrong. “He likes to torture and humiliate. Getting rid of it quietly doesn’t let him do that.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might keep it?” Doug asked.

  Dalton and Finn looked at one another uneasily. Finally, Finn said, “His private quarters are where I would start.”

  Outside, people were starting to trickle back through the village. They looked like refugees, dazed and exhausted.

  Doug started for the door. “Let’s go find out.”

  “No,” Finn said. “You cannot just barge in. You would never get past the Prophet’s Guard; you are not even armed. We cannot cast about without a plan, but you are right, we must act. Your vaccine flies in the face of his teachings. He will make an example of you. Let us see what we can discover first. There are those who hate the Prophet as much as we do, but most fear him too much to do anything.”

  “And you don’t?” Doug said. “He scares the shit out of me.”

  “I have feared that man since I was a boy,” Finn said bitterly. “You have seen what he is, how he toys with us to feed his vanity. He perverts any goodness, murders on a whim, abuses women—”

  Finn’s voice became a strangled sob. He looked at Mario and Doug with haunted eyes. “Those of us who want rid of him might be too few, but Miranda said you would help us.” He looked Doug in the eye. “At least I will have tried.”

  Doug studied Finn for a long moment, a flinty expression Mario knew all too well on his face. He was trying to figure out all the angles, analyze the outcomes that might screw things up even more.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” Doug began. “I like you, Finn, and I don’t think you’re like your father. As long as our interests converge, we will help you if we can, but that is not why we’re out here.”

  Finn nodded readily. “Where were you trying to go?”

  “Santa Cruz,” Doug answered.

  “I will get you there.” He motioned for Dalton to follow as he started for the door. “We will see you in an hour.”

>   Finn and Dalton left. Mario watched them thread through the increasing foot traffic outside until they turned a corner and disappeared.

  Doug scrubbed his face with both hands, then looked at the floor for a moment. “Don’t ever tell her I told you this,” he said as he pulled open a cupboard and looked inside. “But Miranda was right. If I hadn’t become a priest, I wouldn’t be in charge of this fucking mission, striking a bargain with a kid to maybe kill his father. And if there was ever a creep that needs killing, Jesus! Priests aren’t supposed to say shit like that, but compared to what that madman is doing…” He turned back to Mario. “Did you see any booze? I need a drink.”

  Mario shook his head and sat down on the closest cot. Doug slammed the cupboard shut. “I can’t believe he’s really immune. I thought he was delusional when he told his story.”

  “There’s no other explanation for surviving an untreated bite,” Mario said.

  “What if we had some of his blood and got it to a lab?” Doug asked. “The serum wouldn’t matter then.”

  Mario shook his head.

  “We can’t store blood properly, and the serum is ready to go. We won’t be able to synthesize more serum quickly if we’re starting from scratch with new antibodies. That could take months.”

  “And we’ve been gone eight days,” Doug added, sounding deflated. “We don’t know what’s going on out there or how things have played out with the City.”

  Mario had not come this far and given up so much to fail now. He could deal with zombies getting the better of them, but this madman? Through the infirmary’s front window, he saw the others hurrying their direction. As Miranda came into view, Mario caught a flash of cornflower blue. He had looked into her fearful eyes not thirty minutes ago, though it felt like a lifetime. The memory made his anger burn brighter.

  I promised her we were getting out of here, he thought, though how they might do so he could not imagine. Not with the Prophet so many steps ahead of them, winning the game before they knew it had begun.