The Blood Pawn

by Nicole Tillman

  Both teams are awkwardly silent, and I attribute that to the fact that no one has had a good night's sleep in days. That, and they're all trying to recover from jetlag. I, on the other hand, am wide-awake, alert, and mentally preparing myself the worst.

  I hear faint murmurs coming through the driver's headset, but nothing discernible. He hasn't said a word. He keeps his eyes on the road, hands at ten and two. I stare at the back of his head, silently communicating that he needs to give us a heads up, but he doesn't even register my presence when he glances at the rear-view mirror.

  “What are you doing?” Sully whispers next to me. “Trying to burn a hole in the back of his head?”

  “Yes.”

  “Seriously.” He takes my hand and shakes it out, trying to loosen the tension. “It's okay. You're invincible, Winters.”

  I match his smile with one of my own, but I'm just not feeling it. “I somehow doubt that.”

  He looks around the rig before lowering his head close to mine. “Can you at least pretend to be?” he whispers.

  I scoff. “What for?”

  He squeezes my hand and the unexpected gesture startles me. But he doesn't notice because his eyes are roaming over the Beta Team, taking a few extra seconds to watch Brian's sullen expression.

  “For them,” he says softly. “To give them a little extra courage. Whether you realize it or not, they all take their cue from you. When you're brave, they're brave. When you cower, they cower. As long as your head is in this, theirs will be too.”

  Stunned, I sit, staring back at our team. In one way or another, they're all my friends. Some are closer than others, but I care about everyone's well-being regardless of our status.

  I care.

  I don't want them to be hurt, and the idea that I somehow have some influence over how they carry themselves when we're outside the protective walls of our home base somehow turns my stomach.

  I'm not a leader.

  I'm an experiment gone wrong.

  “Why on Earth would you think that?”

  Sully's quick to smile. “Because I'm not blind, Winters. I have eyes and I use them.”

  He taps me on the nose before slouching down in his seat and stealing glances at Brian when he's not looking. Brian's eyes lift, and when that happens, they both grin. I watch Sully convey a silent message to his partner.

  “It'll be okay,” he mouths.

  A sweet smile curves along both their lips and I can't help but adore the two of them. If I've ever seen true love between two people my age, it's in Sully and Brian. Their love for each other dwarfs what Jared and I had, and I can't help but wonder what they would do if put in my position.

  If one of them was turned and posing a threat, would they pull the trigger as I did? Would they even be able to? Maybe my decision to choose self-preservation over affection and loyalty was a character flaw. Maybe I didn't love him enough.

  Was I cold-hearted even before all this happened?

  I don't know, and I don't have time to mull it over any longer because the rig comes to a stop in the middle of the road. Our driver turns back to face us.

  “This is it, kiddos,” he says. “Just right over that ridge.”

  “What are we looking for?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “No clue. I was just given the coordinates and told to drop you off.”

  “Drop us off?” Tara balks. “You mean you're kicking us out and leaving us here?”

  He shrugs, and something in his eyes tells me he's truly apologetic, but also, loyal to a fault.

  “Orders are orders.” He points to the back door. “Out you go.”

  The Alphas keep their eyes trained on the ridge in front of us, while the Betas watch our chaperone disappear down the road. It makes sense now, why we're on separate teams. Some of us are strong enough to keep our eyes on the prize, even when our safety net is pulled out from under us, while the rest of us latch onto that same net, hoping it comes back before we have to step up and face what's coming for us.

  Or I'm digging too much into it.

  “Betas! Keep up!” Celeste barks.

  I shoot Martina an eye-roll and she does the same, but we move forward, weapons raised. It's not a long walk, but half our squad is already breathing heavily with eagerness by the time we reach the hill.

  “Steady, Alphas,” Cain warns, eyeing a member of his team that's preparing to descend into the valley below. “Not yet.”

  “What are we wa–”

  His words cut off to make room for the savage grunt that all of us have come to know and fear.

  We all scramble to assemble in a straight line so we can peer down into the low-lying land. Boots poised on the crumbling ledge, we see them, but it's nothing like I imagined.

  There is no horde, no gaggle of undead waiting to tear our heads off. No town being overrun, in fear of collapse.

  There are two. Two zombies fighting over... something. They pull it back and forth with barbaric force, and when a high-pitched cry travels across the wind to meet us, the scene smacks us in the face with stark, cruel clarity.

  “Help me! Please! Help!”

  The little girl screams as she's pulled back and forth by her hair, her arms, her torn dress. From this far away, I can't see tears but I know she's crying. I can hear it in her voice, in the way she pleads for us to save her.

  When Cain rushes forward, all of our boots come unglued and we follow him down the steep incline. I hear everyone's breath speed up, their hearts begin to pound. Grimaces and scowls replace placid expressions as we near, but my face stays rigid. I keep my eyes on the girl, on her struggle, even as the two zombies try their best to rip her apart.

  “No long range shots, Betas!” I command, hoping they'll listen. “You can't risk hitting the girl. Shoot smart.”

  I'm just about to lower my machete – no use in me charging in when it's sixteen against two – when the ground beneath my feet begins to falter. The rest of my team doesn't notice; they're too engaged with the bloodshed about to take place, but I do. It tremors beneath my boots, getting softer and softer as we advance.

  Too soft.

  Too dangerous.

  Something's wrong.

  “Stop!”

  I pull to a halt, flinging my hands out to stop Martina and Sully at my sides, but it's too late.

  The ground beneath our feet gives way, and I snap my eyes up in time to watch Cain fall over a ledge none of us can see.

  “Maya!” Martina reaches for my arm as the dirt completely gives way, and we begin to fall.

  All around us, debris flies, specks of dirt obscure our eyes, and dust coats the inside of our mouths. But we can't cough, we can't clear our vision, because we're falling. All of us. Alphas and Betas. Boys and Girls. We're falling, sliding, colliding with each other... until we stop.

  With a painful jolt, we all land in one big dog pile at the bottom of a large pit.

  “Everyone okay?” Cain groans from somewhere to my left.

  He's answered with coughs and the wheezing of lungs trying their best to drag in oxygen. My body feels heavy but otherwise unharmed. I look around while everyone else gets their bearings, and what I see sends terror clawing through my gut, through my muscles, through the very marrow of my bones.

  There are walls on all sides of us. Dirt walls too steep to climb. There are no rocks or roots for us to use as footholds, but our inability to escape isn't what has me shaking, what has murky tears gathering behind my eyes.

  It's the floor.

  It's what we landed on. We're not just in an empty pit, not in a discarded pond or a cellar that was dug but never built.

  Beneath our feet are bodies.

  Countless bodies.

  Full corpses. Half-eaten corpses. Random limbs and appendages. They're all caked in dried blood and dirt. Men. Women. Children. Even a horse that's been disemboweled.

  All dead.

  We're standing in a mass grave.

  Horror-stricken screams split the air, c
oming from my teammates, but I don't try to silence them. What's the point? I want to scream as well, and If I didn't have such a tight lid on my emotions, I would. I'd scream until I couldn't scream anymore and they would have to cart me off to an asylum because I know, I KNOW, I will never get these images out of my head. Never. Every day, I'll see them. For as long as I walk the earth, the dead among the living, these faces, these broken and bent bodies, will stay with me.

  Someone claws at my back, desperately seeking solace, and as soon as I turn, Tara launches herself into my arms. Tears streak her dirty face, and she's bleeding above her temple. She's saying something, but I can't understand her. It's all jumbled, garbled. Just nonsense.

  “It's okay,” I whisper.

  It's not okay.

  “Breathe.”

  That won't be enough.

  “Focus.”

  This will ruin you.

  “You're okay. We're okay. Just breathe.”

  This will ruin all of us.

  A hand winds around my arm and I snap up to find Cain. He's panting, he's bleeding, and his eyes look as crazed as Tara sounds, but he's there. Safe. In arms reach.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, his voice pitchy and gruff.

  “I'm fine. You?”

  He nods.

  “I don't know what to do,” he confesses. “I can't get us out of here.”

  Dread shadows his face like a storm cloud. He can't lead us to freedom, to safety, which is the tasks he's taken on. But he can't shoulder this by himself. He's not really a king or a leader, he's just part of this team. The stress of what's happening around us is going to tear him to shreds if he tries to carry it alone.

  I grab his hand.

  “We'll figure it out. We'll-”

  I stop talking.

  The screaming has stopped. Everyone is quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Cain and I whip around to see what has everyone paralyzed with fear, and when we cast our eyes to the sky, we see it.

  All around the edge of the pit, they appear.

  They stand shoulder-to-shoulder, staring down at us. Hunger blazes bright and unquenchable in their eyes. Cracked and blood-caked lips pull back into smiles.

  Smiles...

  The dead are smiling.

  They hiss and groan, turning their heads in different directions, taking us in while still acknowledging their brethren at their sides. Over thirty heads shift at odd angles, and when one smaller creature joins their ranks, they all stop and face her.

  The little girl in her pink frilly dress comes into view right alongside the rest of them.

  When she smiles down at us, her teeth are stained red, her eyes empty. She's half the size of those around her, but ten times scarier.

  “They set this up,” I whisper in awe as I take it all in.

  “That's impossible,” Martina replies, slamming a clip into her gun. “They're brain dead leeches.”

  I'm already shaking my head, wishing that were true. It would make our job so much easier. We're outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and now, outsmarted.

  “I don't care what you think they are. They just set a trap and we sprung it.”

  A deafening metallic-like scream tears through the reanimated corpses, and they crouch. They jump and, one by one, begin sliding down into the pit.

  They're coming for us.

  “Oh God,” Tara cries, still clinging to my side. “What do we do? What do we do?”

  I only have one answer to that question, simply because we're out of options. There's only one thing we CAN do.

  I brush her off before unsheathing my weapons. Beside me, Cain raises his rifle and braces it against his shoulder. All around us, our teammates take the silent hint and do the same, every hand holding a weapon aimed at the advancing bodies.

  In my peripheral vision, I see my friends, my team. My family.

  Even though they can't hear me, I answer Tara's question.

  “We fight.”

  They're run towards us, arms raised, mouths open, eyes taking in the buffet spread out before them. We're not prepared for this. We don't have a single means of escape. The only thing we can do is charge this head on and pray for the best.

  So that's exactly what we do.

  I sprint toward the first set of dead eyes I latch onto. Target in sight, I keep the machete raised in front of me while I swing my ax. When he's close enough, I let the momentum do the work for me and the blunt end of the ax head smashes against his face, shattering his nose and ocular cavities. Murky blood pours out of his face and his arms raise to reach blindly for me, but he's wobbly and off center. When he stumbles and his knees sink into the bodies below us, I swing.

  His head rolls.

  Behind me, a scream pierces the air and I turn to find the source. I know that voice.

  “Tara!”

  A gnarled hand reaches for me, but I'm quick with my blade and it's gone before it can ever take hold.

  A few feet away, a young man holds Tara by the hair as his teeth gnash, trying to get at her throat. Her gun rests at her feet as she struggles against him, pushing at his shoulders.

  One hit of my ax to the back of the head and I wrench him back using the leverage my embedded blade gives me. Once he's on the ground, my machete finishes the job and Tara watches as his head rolls away.

  “Get your gun!” I say, urging her to keep fighting. “Get up! Go!”

  She wipes the slime off on her pants before grabbing it and taking aim. She's back. She's fine.

  I whirl around to find another target, but one finds me first. The woman is on me before I ever have a chance to brace against her assault.

  We both hit the ground from the force of her hit and roll until we reach the dirt wall. She screams in my face, saliva flying, but when she unhinges her jaw and prepares to sink her broken teeth into my neck, she pulls up short.

  We look into each other's eyes, neither of our chests moving with breath, and she curls her lips in disgust. Disappointed, she pushes off and moves to leave, clearly displeased with the realization that I'm like her, but she doesn't get far. Once her back is turned, I push out of the muck and swing.

  My first hit glances off her shoulder, getting her attention, and she's back on me in an instant, fighting me for the weapon.

  Not happening, Lady.

  I struggle to get either of my blades at an angle where I can take her out, but her hands wrap around my arms, pinning me down.

  Jesus, she's strong!

  I kick and slide my boots along the bodies below us, trying to get leverage to push her off, but she's bigger than me, taller too. She's not budging. Her eyes tell me she's not hungry, just pissed.

  Just when I'm about to say screw it and let her take a chunk out of me, her skull explodes, showering me in blood, bone fragments, and brain matter.

  Disgusting...

  I cough and spit, trying to get as much of her out of my mouth as I can. My eyelashes matte together and I rush to wipe an arm across my face. Blinking up through the muck, I find Sully standing at my feet. He offers me a hand and pulls me up, but not before blowing on the barrel of his gun like it's a six shooter and he's in Dodge City.

  “Thanks.”

  He tips an invisible hat before running off and jumping back into the action.

  When no one else comes for me, I begin to walk through the battle taking place. The undead only spare me a glance. They can't smell me, but they know I'm a threat. Lucky for me, their hunger is larger than their ego.

  Sun glints off the sharpened edge of my machete as I raise it above my head. My eyes hone in on every gray, exposed neck I can find.

  Hit.

  Dead.

  Step, swing.

  Dead.

  Swing, whip.

  Dead.

  They don't suspect me, they don't fear me, but they should.

  At the edge of the pit, I press my back against the dirt and try to find a way out as the others continue to fight. There has to be a way out.

&n
bsp; My eyes instinctively find Cain, but he's holding his own, so strong and confident he even hurls insults at the zombies closing in on him. Celeste fights near his side, and even though I don't want to admit it, it's clear they work well together. I'd have to be blind not to see that.

  The ground beneath our feet grows thicker with each body that falls, and I realize that's the only way we're getting out of here.

  Kill 'em.

  Pile 'em up.

  Brian runs to my side after blowing off the entire side of a woman's face. He's limping, but his eyes are filled with concern for me as he grabs my shoulders.

  “Are you okay? You hurt?”

  “What? No!” I pull him until his back hits the dirt and his eyes face out toward the threat. “I'm trying to figure a way out. What happened to your leg?”

  He pulls his pant leg out from his boot. Staining his pale skin is an oval of blood where someone sank their teeth into him.

  “Jesus...”

  “Yeah,” his voice hitches. “Really hope that vaccine is all it's cracked up to be.”

  I pull his pant leg down. The fewer contaminants he's exposed to, the better. “Yeah, me too.”

  Tara slams into the wall at my side, out of breath and red in the face. “We're winning,” she exclaims. Her eyes fill with tears. “We're actually winning.”

  Looking out at the battle, I realize she's right. We're no longer outnumbered. In fact, most of the Alpha Team is falling back against the wall, watching the last of the executions, because that's what they are at this point.

  Searching the pit, I find Cain. He's okay. He's unharmed. There's a smear of blood across his cheek, but I don't think it's his.

  Martina and Sully are out of ammunition but are using their guns to pistol whip the last two zombies.

  No. Pistol whip is too nice a phrase.

  They're literally bashing skulls in, taking strike after strike, splattering themselves with blood until there's nothing left but a bloody stump where a head used to be.

  “She's a savage,” Wes comments from the ground near my feet. He's tending to a deep gash in his forearm but seems far more interested in Martina in all her blood-splattered glory.