Chapter 29
- Welcome
Welcome
Kahn ended up in the front passenger seat next to Lars again. They escaped the gated neighborhood via the north entrance, and Lars followed Jesse as he weaved between cars and corpses to escape the house on Stone Wedge.
He slept. It was restless and full of nightmares.
He saw Kimble in the back seat, reaching up and grabbing Ice. Biting her as she fought over her shoulder before crashing the car in a screaming explosion of glass and metal.
He saw Jack and Bella hugging Captain Louis. The creature that was their mother came from the shadows and took a chunk out of the little boy, then the captain, as Bella screamed. Jesse was in the periphery screaming my hostages as the children and the captain went down.
He saw his house on fire as Kimble dragged him away. He saw dead things walking in the night, turning to flaming columns and walking toward him. Charred, burned hands reached for him and as he screamed, his wife emerged from the darkness. Her black eyes and melting, dripping flesh filled his vision.
“Kahn, hey man,” Wiggs said, shaking him awake from the backseat. “Let’s go. We’re here.”
“Water,” he said. Wiggs handed him a bottle of water and Kahn drank heavily.
“Who’s Aisha?” Lars asked as he maneuvered the SUV along a curb. Kahn stared at him. “You were talking in your sleep. You kept saying ‘Aisha, no. Aisha, no.’ We tried to let you sleep. Your wife? The one the Neighbors--” He faded away, sympathy and a touch of embarrassment in his voice.
Kahn couldn’t answer, the wound had reopened and was painfully raw. Losing Kimble brought all the old emotions to the surface. He would save Jesse’s wife if he could. He owed him that much. But his mission was revenge. Revenge for Ash, Aisha, and Daniel. But now revenge for Ty and Teddy Jones and Sole Kimble as well. Revenge for his home. Revenge for turning the country into a place of fear and hate and violence.
The doors opened and all four men emerged into the street. Jesse was already standing with Daisy and Deb. The two children hugged at Louis fearfully, rolling white eyes watching the unfamiliar streets.
“Welcome,” Jesse intoned. “This is the southern entrance to our little home. I decided to come here for speed, but I also didn’t see any of the dead around so I think we’re safe. Follow me.”
Kahn watched as Jesse and Deb walked to a damaged box truck. It looked like a delivery vehicle with white, tall sides and metal flashing on the corners. The truck’s tires and axles were gone and the whole assembly sat on the ground. Driving by someone would just think it was damaged. But now, with the added attention, he noticed it was deliberately sunk into the asphalt.
The doors were opened and Kahn saw Wiggs and Ricky jump in to help move the floor of the boxy vehicle. It slid away to reveal a dark hole retreating into the ground. Jesse gestured and stepped around the false cover into the receding darkness. His legs disappeared to the waist as he waved a second time, more impatiently. Captain Louis picked up Jack and encouraged Bella to follow. All three went into the dark underground entryway. Lars went next. Daisy came over and held Kahn’s hand and they followed together.
They were in a narrow, square tunnel. He heard scraping and movement from the truck door and floor above before being joined by Ricky and his brother, Deb, and Jesse. Lights clicked on and the darkness was cut by several flashlight beams. Ricky held his brother’s hand as they moved to the front with one of the lights. The whole group followed slowly and quietly. It was surprisingly dry and the air was cool and fresh. They walked in a tight group for what Kahn guessed was about the length of a football field before Wiggs stopped. He shone the light on a metal ladder just before scrambling up the ten feet or so to the ceiling. He pushed aside a round manhole cover with a grunt of effort and a stream of sunlight swirled in the dust and illuminated the way. Ricky hurried up with encouragement from his brother, followed by Deb.
“Listen,” Jesse said as Kahn’s group prepared to ascend. “People are going to probably be afraid of you. They might be angry at me. Let me do the talking and we’ll explain everything. The only people that matter are Reverend Green and the Burned Woman. I’ll talk to them. Capice?” Everyone, including Kahn, nodded in acceptance to Jesse’s mandate.
He waved them forward. Daisy’s hand gripped Kahn but he couldn’t tell if in fear or excitement. Her face was in shadow. Louis ferried the children up to Deb before climbing. Lars went just before Daisy, leaving Kahn and Jesse in the tunnel.
Jesse grabbed Kahn’s arm, holding him back. “Hey, I didn’t want to say in front of everyone. I mentioned before we left without telling anybody. They are not going to be happy about what we, what I did. I’m going to take the blame but I’m not sure what the reverend will decide to do with me,” he paused and Kahn noticed the desperation in his eyes. “If they lock me up, or worse, you have to find my wife. You have to find Mel. Promise me that, will you?”
“Yes,” Kahn said. He found that he meant it. Starting this odyssey alone was wrong. Now, he had strength in his allies. “I’ll find her.”
Jesse’s chin dropped to his chest, covering his face with stringy hair, and for a moment Kahn thought he would fall over. The man gripped his shoulder tightly and Kahn could just see the ends of Jesse’s hair swaying. After a long moment, Jesse released him and scrambled up the ladder. Kahn, alone, ascended from the darkness.
At the top, Jesse helped him gain his footing before replacing the round cover with an echoing clank. Kahn instinctively jumped at the noise and looked around to see if any nearby corpses heard an easy meal. He was surprised to see that they were enclosed inside what looked like a concrete wall. It was strangely curved, outward at the top and bottom. Kahn relaxed and took a few steps to place his hand on the convex surface. It was smooth and cool and felt solid. The strange curved barrier made a right-angle turn to his left and continued around the one story brick building on the street they entered.
“It’s a sewer pipe,” Jesse said. The crowd gathered around as he explained. “There is a storage yard nearby for when the city does-- when the city used to do maintenance downtown. We got a crane running and took the 4 foot concrete pipes and laid them out on the streets around our block. It’s not impossible to get over if you’re alive, but the dead can’t get in.”
“Smart,” said Lars, touching the wall in admiration.
“Doesn’t it draw attention?” Kahn asked, immediately regretting the answer. Jesse’s face went dark. It drew the Neighbors’ attention enough to snatch his wife. Nobody spoke for a long moment.
“Not a lot of living this close to downtown anymore, honey,” Deb interjected. “Most of the dead have migrated onward, too. It’s so we can sleep safe at night. C’mon, let’s go home.”
Jesse nodded meekly and fell into step behind his friend. Kahn couldn’t imagine leaving his home to find his missing wife and coming back here empty-handed days later. Couldn’t imagine having his wife safe in this compound and then stolen away from him. A cool breeze made Kahn shudder and he fell into step behind the rest.
Deb led the way to a heavy iron door that reminded Kahn of the airlock at LOSTOP. She held her hand out and received a key from Jesse before opening the door and stepping aside for the rest of the party. They walked down an outdoor brick corridor into a courtyard. Several people in the open area stood and openly gawked at the strangers in their midst. Jesse had led them in and he held his hands up against the murmuring crowd.
“Hey everyone, listen. These are allies. They are from a military base nearby,” he said. At this declaration, the murmuring went up several decibels and interrupting his speech.
“We’re saved!” a woman cried. People started coming out the door of the main living quarters and the courtyard was suddenly crowded with bodies. An elderly man with an unkempt gray beard came to Lars and gripped his hand. There were tears and laughter as the residents tried to see the newcomers. Private Lars and Captain Louis were getting a lot of attention in their un
iforms. Kahn less so in plain coveralls. Daisy looked uncomfortable, still wearing the loose sundress and definitely not looking like the warrior she’d proven herself to be. Kahn reached forward and tried to touch her hand, but the crowd was too tight.
“What is this?” a strong voice called out from behind the group. A man dressed in black had come from a glass door leading into the opposite building. Kahn turned and the group quieted. The man stepped forward. The whites of his eyes looked nonexistent behind his mocha-colored skin and black pupils. “Who are these people?” His accent was drawn out. Who ahhhh these peepel…
“Reverend, I can explain--” Jesse started.
“Here, we have rules. Rules to keep us alive! We do not bring people here. We do not introduce saviors here. The woman, the Burned Woman, she chooses who to bring here. She chooses our destiny.” His voice rose and followed the cadence of a preacher addressing his flock.
This must be the Reverend Green, Kahn thought. Friendly welcome.
“Reverend, these people helped us. They’re helping us find Mel. The group, the group who took her, we think we know where they are.”
“I cannot,” Reverend Green shouted. Everyone was silent, waiting for his next words. Instead, he stood silent himself as if to gather his thoughts. He inhaled. “No, I cannot. These people must go. They must go now. It is God’s will, and God is telling me to protect our own.”
“God is undead,” Kahn spat. “He is mindlessly chewing us up and killing us, just like you are now. He created these brainless automatons, always has, always will.”
The murmur of the crowd resumed. Deb and Jesse tried to reason with the reverend but he refused to budge from his stance. Kahn was jostled as more of the bystanders filled the space around him. He pushed forward, reaching, and was able to catch Daisy’s hand. She smiled and pulled him forward, taking a step through a pair of women and finding herself in the small gap between the crowd and Reverend Green. He looked at them holding hands and crossed his arms. Momentarily, they might not be within the safety of the curved sewer walls that protected these people. Kahn came closer and pulled Daisy into his arms. He looked in her eyes before leaning forward and pressing his lips to hers.
A gasp rose through the impossibly large crowd. Kahn closed his eyes and embraced Daisy, ignoring the audience and the noise.
“Missus! You shouldn’t be up,” Reverend Green said in a distressed voice very unlike the business-like cadence from moments before. Kahn and Daisy released each other and looked. There was a figure emerging from the shadow of the adjacent building. The reverend took her arm and led her, admonishing her gently for her fragility. She shook slightly as she stepped from shadow into the waning evening light.
Daisy gasped in shock and turned her head into Kahn’s shoulder. Many of the onlookers in the crowd took a knee as the Burned Woman entered their presence. Many had never seen her up close and none had seen her outside of her dark chamber. The reverend kept it dark and as cool as possible for the sake of her paper-thin skin. Now, she stood straight in clear light for all to see.
Her body was wrapped in a loose, gauze-like cloth that left her limbs in shadow. She was unnaturally thin and would have been gangly had her injuries not been so severe. Her arms and legs had been burned and scarred into knotted pink strips that bowed in odd directions as she moved. The muscles of her arms writhed under paper-thin skin as she moved. The fingers of each hand were fused into a single lump of flesh with sharp, bony protrusions for fingertips. Damaged thumbs protruded unnaturally from the sides of each set of digits. Her shoulders came to a point on either side where her gown sharply fell from her body.
Daisy had turned away because the Burned Woman’s face no longer looked human. Her features were undefined, like she was shapeshifting, and her thin skin beat and pulsed under a pink matte. The lips and nose were gone from her face, and any teeth that remained sat sharp and threatening within. The flat holes that served as nostrils were repeated where eyelids should have opened. Instead, small round slits held loose around barely visible black eyes. She had no hair, only lumpy scars, and her skull seemed fluid as she moved, like the bone was no longer solid under the damaged flesh.
She looked more monstrous than the walking corpses outside.
Most of those who resided with the Burned Woman were saved by her. She seemed to have a preternatural ability to find food, shelter, and people who needed help. She, through the reverend, directed them and helped their survival. However, almost none had seen her in the flesh without the darkness of her chambers and her hanging linen masking the horrific injuries she wore. The entire group was speechless. Most were horrified.
The Burned Woman’s lips parted and she spoke in whispered tones.
“This man. Halwende Kahn. He stays.” There was a brief flash of conversation in the crowd before it silenced and waited for more. “His group. They stay.” Her black eyes seemed to drill into Kahn. Daisy had turned to watch the woman speak, but gripped Kahn’s hand tightly with her own. She watched them until Kahn shifted uncomfortably. How did she know my name?
“Missus,” the reverend said meekly. “You must rest.”
“The map,” she replied curtly. “Show them the map.”
Reverend Green hesitated but the woman turned her chilling gaze to him and he sighed in resignation. He disappeared back into the building that housed the Burned Woman’s chamber and quickly returned with a folded paper. He held it out to Jesse.
“No,” she said. “Him.” She pointed her gnarled hand at Kahn. The reverend stepped and handed the map to the newcomer. There was a hush as he inspected the writing on the folded surface.
“Look,” Kahn beckoned Jesse and the others to look. His group gathered around his shoulders and checked out what he was seeing. “There’s a red circle around this block and a path to this other red circle, here.”
“This is us. This other circle is some commercial area nearby. There are some tire shops along there. I drove past every day to get to work,” Jesse said.
“Oh my God, the Alamodome,” Deb exclaimed. They all looked at the thick box drawn in black permanent marker around the stadium. “They are there.”
“What’s drawn next to the other circle? And this mark,” Captain Louis tapped the paper and they all looked closer.
“It looks like a gift. Like, a wrapped present with a bow on top,” Daisy’s voice cracked. Nobody disagreed with her assessment of the strange drawing. Kahn looked up and saw the Burned Woman staring once again straight at him.
“What do we do with this? What is this?”
Jesse suddenly snatched the map out of Kahn’s hands. He unfolded two of the folds and flipped it around, inspecting it. He asked, “Where did this map come from?”
The reverend’s gaze flickered over to the woman and was returned with an almost imperceptible nod. The old man sighed again. “It was on one of the men who kidnapped Melissa.”
“You kept this from me?” Jesse yelled, taking several aggressive steps toward Reverend Green. He looked to age as the young, long-haired leader bore down on him. He was shaking his head and mouthing in fear.
“No, no. We showed you the flyer. We thought you would stay while we thought of a plan. We didn’t know you would go. We couldn’t have known.”
“That’s my wife!” Jesse yelled in reply, pacing now back and forth between his friends and the reverend. “Of course I would go after the people who took her!”
“I hid this to protect you!”
“Stop!”
The voice of the Burned Woman was suddenly strong and both men stopped moving. She pointed again at Kahn with her damaged hand.
“Go with that man. Find your wife. There is no time to wait,” she took a step backwards and faded back into the growing shadow of the building. The evening was rapidly approaching and she was right, there was no time for argument. The crowd watched as she disappeared back into the building, toward her chamber, and left their view. Once she was gone it was like a spell was broken. T
he larger group of residents resumed the low murmur of conversation and seemed to fade away like their leader had moments before. Jesse looked at Kahn.
“Let’s go. This isn’t far and we should make it on foot. Wiggins brothers, let’s go,” Jesse unslung his carbine and made for the metal gate. The two brothers followed. After a moment, Deb followed them.
“I’m going too,” said Lars, chasing behind. Kahn looked at the rest.
“I’m going to stay with the kids,” Louis declared, white as a sheet. He had been holding little Jack against his chest while the Burned Woman was outside and Bella was gripping his midsection tightly. “They need someone to watch them.” Kahn looked at his boss and nodded. His statement felt sincere without a trace of cowardice.
“I’m going,” Daisy interrupted.
“No, you stay here,” Kahn said. “The captain will need your help and we should probably keep the group small.”
“I can fight.”
“I know, that’s why I want you here,” he reached for her and held her tightly once again. “I couldn’t bear to lose you. Stay here, where it’s safe. I have to help Jesse. I have to.” He saw tears in her eyes as she whispered okay and kissed him. He squeezed her and pushed away, walking quickly toward the exit. A quick glance at the reverend caught the older man with hands folded in prayer. You hid the map from Jesse. You’re as bad as the people who took her. You and your Burned Woman.
Reverend Green opened his eyes and glared back at Kahn. Whatever had just happened, Kahn realized he had made a new enemy.
Kahn recognized the fire in Jesse’s eyes when he reached the group. There was no plan forthcoming. It was just fury and speed to get themselves to the marked spot as quickly as possible. Rush in. Find her.
They all had rifles and the extra ammunition they had redistributed since leaving the Wither house. Deb, Jesse, Ricky, Wiggs, and Private Lars watched as Kahn joined them on the sidewalk. A squad of six, armed and ready to move. Ready to fight. Ready to find Jesse’s wife and free her from the Neighbors. If they were right, the map showed she was being held only a few blocks away.
Nation Undead (Book 2): Collusion Page 21