Army of the Damned (Sky Ghost #1)

by P. T. Dilloway

“What?” Trip lunges from his bed to try to get his hands around Hunter’s throat. Hunter grabs his wrists to toss him onto the bed. He presses his knees down on Trip’s legs to hold him down. “Get off me, you fucking queer!”

  “Your father had already turned. I shot him to put him out of his misery. I’m sorry. He was a great man.”

  “That’s what everyone says. They all say what a great man he was. I didn’t see much of it. Course he wasn’t around much.”

  Hunter lets Trip go. The younger man sits up, but for the moment the rage seems to have left him. “I guess I ought to thank you,” he finally says. “I mean for putting Pops out of his misery. Wouldn’t want him shambling around like one of them in the pens.”

  “You have any idea who these guys are? What they want?”

  “Nah, man. Like I said, I ain’t been here long. Some of the old-timers have been here since the beginning. That’s like almost two years.”

  “You think we could talk to them?”

  “Not right now. They’re probably busy. If you know what I mean.”

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  Trip smiles tightly. “They got rules about ‘fornicating’ and drugs and shit, but none of us here pay them any mind. Some of the girls in the city ain’t as pure as the head guys would like to think. They got needs too, you know?”

  “Right. I don’t suppose one of those girls is a white girl with black hair, blue eyes, and a scar on her thigh?”

  “Don’t remember seeing one like that. If you want, we can go down to the office. The madam’s got a whole book with pictures of her girls.”

  “Lead on.”

  ***

  The madam is a middle-aged woman with bronzed skin and short black hair. Her breasts are losing the battle against gravity, sagging ponderously inside her leopard print top. She blows a stream of smoke towards Hunter and then holds out a hand. “I’m Alma. You looking for a girl?”

  “Yes, but I’m kind of particular. My friend here says you have a book?”

  “Yeah, I got a book, but it stays with me. I’m not letting you borrow it to get yourself off.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of doing that.”

  “Good. Don’t get no ideas to start.”

  Alma reaches into her leopard print handbag to take out a binder. Inside are plastic sleeves, each with an eight-by-ten photo of a woman. From the glazed looks on their faces, most of them must be doped up pretty good. Hunter flips through from cover-to-cover, but he doesn’t see Casey. He stops though as he recognizes one of the women: Janet Brown, the woman who used to take care of the children on Snowcap Mountain. He taps her picture with one finger. “Is she available?”

  “Jan? She’s in 134 right now, but she’ll probably be done in a few minutes.”

  “I can wait.”

  “If you got a thing for older women—” Alma poses herself suggestively on the manager’s stool.

  “That’s nice of you to offer, but I really want Jan.”

  Alma takes another puff on her cigarette, blowing the smoke out her nose this time. “Go ahead, sweet cheeks. That’ll be ten pieces of silver. Or five gold pieces.”

  “I don’t have any money yet. You work on credit?”

  “No, but I think we can come to an arrangement,” she says with a leer.

  Trip claps Hunter on the shoulder. “Good luck with that, buddy.” He hurries out of the office to leave Hunter alone with the much-older woman. He reminds himself how important this is and then gets to work.

  ***

  Hunter still has the taste of Alma in his mouth when he opens the door to Room 134. It’s hard to recognize Janet Brown wearing only a pink bra and panties and a sparkly red wig. She recognizes him, though, jumping to her feet and then throwing herself against him. “Hunter!”

  He puts a finger to her lips to shush her. He takes a look around to make sure no one is listening in and then shuts the door. “Hi, Jan,” he says.

  “You came to rescue me! I knew you would.”

  He sits her down on the bed. This next part is going to be a little awkward. “I came to rescue everyone. Have you seen the others who were on the seaplane?”

  She nods and then looks down sadly at her feet. “I saw them. They separated us. It was awful, like a horse auction. They were examining us, even…down there,” she says, gesturing to her panties. “The kids they sent away in one group. The rest of us they rated on a scale of one to three. The threes were the ones they found most attractive or whatever. They sent those away with some soldiers. The twos they took for domestic labor. And the ones…they gave us to Alma. That was almost three months ago. I’ve…I’ve done such terrible things since then.”

  She starts to sob against him. He starts to run his hand through her hair, but that only knocks off her wig, setting her to crying harder. “It’s all right. We’re going to get you out of here. We’ll find somewhere safe for you and the others, all right? First, I need to find them. Do you have any idea where they were taken?”

  “No. I’m not part of the church. No one here is. Only people in the church get to live in the city. Us ‘heathens’ have to live out here.”

  “What church? The Mormons?”

  “No. It’s called the Church of the Reclamation or something like that. I’m not in the church but I heard a few things. The head guy showed up here after the outbreak. He had this whole army with him and he ‘purified’ the city. Wiped everything out. All the zeebs. A lot of the survivors too. Those who didn’t convert. At least that’s what I heard.”

  “But you don’t know where they took the other women?”

  “No. You have to ask someone in the church to find that out.”

  Hunter nods and thinks of Major Friese with his golden crosses. That must mark him as a big shot in this Church of the Reclamation. “What about the kids? What did they do with them?”

  Janet sniffles and then wipes at her eyes. “I’m not sure.”

  “Was Polly with them?”

  “Yes. That poor little girl. Her mother made such a scene when they took Polly. She tried to get one of their guns. They knocked her out cold. Then they took her with the twos.”

  “The twos? You mean they put her to work?”

  “Probably. If she’s lucky they just have her scrubbing toilets and changing sheets. Not…this,” Janet says, gesturing to the motel room.

  Hunter squeezes Janet’s hands. “I’m going to get you all out of here. I promise. But it might take a few days. You need to be strong in the meantime, all right?”

  “I understand. I’m so glad you’re here. Thank God for you.”

  “There’s just one more thing. Anyone asks, my name is Mac Malone right now, OK? You can’t tell anyone my real name. It’s our secret.”

  She nods and then reaches for her wig. She settles it back on her head. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

  “If you’re here tomorrow I’ll come see you again, all right? In the meantime, if you can find out anything, it would help.”

  “I’ll try. I’m not in much of a position to find out secrets. You have to be in the city for that.”

  “How does someone join this church?”

  “You can ask to be ‘baptized.’ From what some of the other girls said, it’s not like the old days where they sprinkle some water on you. They bathe you in blood. Not animal blood either. Not even regular human blood. In their blood, you know?”

  “Zeeb blood?”

  “Yeah. If you survive that, then you’re in. That’s why us girls here don’t try it. But you, you could probably do it. I mean, the Sky Ghost wouldn’t have any problem killing one of them, would he?”

  “No, of course not,” Hunter says with far less confidence.

  ***

  He runs the idea past Trip to see what he thinks. The general’s son shrugs. “Sounds like a damned fool idea to me. These church people are really into it. Like one of those cults they used to talk about in the old days. They probably do that brainwashing stuff.”
<
br />   “You know anything about the baptism ritual? Jan said you have to kill a zeeb and bathe in its blood.”

  “I heard that too. No thanks.”

  “You hear anything else about it?”

  “Nah, but again I ain’t been here long. I’ll introduce you to some of the guys tomorrow. They can probably tell you more.”

  “Let’s hope so. The sooner I can find my friends and get out of here, the better.”

  “And just where you gonna go? It’s not like you can head back to Seattle. That place is fucked from what you said.”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  Hunter considers this as he tries to get some sleep. He doesn’t have any firm answers by the time Trip wakes him up. The almost fifty “wranglers” gather in the motel’s breakfast room for stale bread and something that’s supposed to be oatmeal but more closely resembles wallpaper paste. Hunter eats it anyway since he’s not likely to get anything better around here.

  A decrepit school bus pulls up to take them to “the pens” as Trip calls it. Trip takes it upon himself to sit with one of the older guys, someone who has been here longer than the others. This leaves Hunter to sit with a little bald guy who spends the whole ride looking ready to throw up. Not that Hunter can blame him with the exhaust fumes that leak into the bus.

  The bus takes them past the airport, giving him a better look at the Russian planes. He hopes to see the X-29 on one of the runways, but he doesn’t. That in turn makes him think of the Harrier that he left in the parking lot of that place with the onion domes; is it still there or has someone taken it yet? The Harrier probably won’t be of much use if he has to take a hundred people out of here.

  His thoughts turn to Casey and Polly. They probably have Casey servicing the church people while Polly is God only knows where. These fanatics wouldn’t use her for a virgin sacrifice, would they?

  The bus comes to a stop at a high school. “This is it?”

  The bald guy nods slightly and then runs to get some fresh air. Hunter hangs back to wait for Trip. “You find out anything?”

  “Yeah. None of it good. I’ll tell you when we get out there.”

  Hunter and Trip follow the others past the school’s main building, to the football stadium. Hunter starts to shake his head when they get close enough for him to see zeebs penned up on the football field. There are rows of metal cages, bigger versions of the ones the Il-76s had dropped on Snowcap Mountain. Each cage contains a group of zeebs wearing metal collars. They start to throw themselves against the metal bars when the wranglers enter the stadium.

  “It’s like a dog pound,” Hunter says.

  “Yeah. A dog pound full of rabid pit bulls,” Trip says.

  “So what are we supposed to do?”

  “Mostly we keep an eye on them. Make sure they don’t get out. Come on, let’s see which one we draw today.”

  There’s a church officer in a uniform like Major Friese’s standing in one end zone. He motions for a pair of men to come forward. One reaches into a metal box to pull out a sheet of paper. He hands the paper to the officer. Then they walk off. “They draw assignments out of a box?”

  “Yeah. I guess the idea is to make sure we don’t get too cozy with the zeebs. You know, so you don’t get friendly with them like they’re pets or something. I guess that’s actually happened before, if you can believe it.”

  Hunter shakes his head, though he can see himself getting attached to Casey or Misuko or even Val if she turned. He would still see that woman as a woman, not a monster. It’s different for a random stranger, though. But maybe if he did work the same group day after day he would form an attachment, like a farmer with his livestock.

  They approach the officer with the box. The officer glances at Hunter. “Who’s this?”

  “New guy. His name’s Mac.”

  “Major Friese approved me last night,” Hunter says. He holds out a hand, but the officer doesn’t shake it.

  “Very well. Stay close to Mr. George and try not to get yourself bitten. If you do, we will have to…remedy the situation.” The officer nods to the bleachers, where guards with white crosses are standing with machine guns at the ready.

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, sir.”

  Trip reaches into the box for a number: 23. He shows it to Hunter and then hands it to the officer. Cage 23 isn’t very far off, about ten yards down the field. Hunter counts two-dozen zeebs inside. All of them are strapping young men who probably could have played football on this field. Looking around, Hunter sees all the cages are that way. No women, children, or elderly in the bunch.

  He points this out to Trip, who nods. “They don’t want none of those. They just want the top quality, you know?”

  “Did all these come from the city?” He thinks back to Phoenix, where he had seen the guys with the Russian planes before. He tries to remember if he had seen any able-bodied men in the barricades they had constructed. It was hard to tell since they were burnt so badly.

  He’s not surprised when Trip says, “Nah, man, sometimes they go out looking. Seems like a waste to me, but it’s their fuel and shit.”

  “Plus it gives them a chance for a little looting,” Hunter says, thinking of the Sears in Phoenix. Those guys hadn’t seemed especially religious, but that might not be a prerequisite. “So we just stand here and look at them?”

  “Yeah. Watch them until it’s time to give them some exercise. And then there’s the feeding.”

  “What do you feed them?”

  “What do you think?”

  Hunter stares at Trip for a long moment. “People? You give them live people?”

  “That’s why you don’t want to get on the church’s bad side. Then it’s you who ends up going in the cage with them.”

  “Jesus Christ. And you actually do this?”

  “Nah, man. We don’t handle the food itself. We just try to keep them back until they can get the food in there.”

  “But you go along with it.”

  “What else am I supposed to do? I’d like to be up there shooting down pirates too, but I ain’t got a ride.”

  “Not too loud,” Hunter hisses.

  “Relax, man. They don’t pay no attention. Those guys up there just wait until they hear screaming.”

  “That’s good to know. That reminds me: what did you find out on the bus?”

  “Well it’s not exactly like the hooker told you. You do have to kill a zeeb, but first you got to make it turn.”

  “You mean I have to kill a living person and then kill him again when he turns?”

  “Yeah. Pretty fucked up, isn’t it? Sometimes I guess they let the wranglers go watch these things. It’s like gladiator fights or something. They give you a knife and they give the other guy a knife and then you go at each other. One guy ends up bathing in the other’s blood and joining the church.”

  “That’s barbaric.”

  “Lot of things are barbaric these days. These are fucked up times, man.”

  “I’d say so.” Hunter stares at the cages. The zeebs are pressed close to the bars, though not as much as they were. Maybe they’ve figured out they aren’t going to get a meal, at least not yet. Maybe they’re biding their time. “Anything else?”

  “He didn’t know nothing about your people. That’s all higher-level church shit.”

  “Great. So if I decide I want to convert, do I just ask that guy over there?”

  “Probably.”

  “Great.” As much as he wants to run over there to ask to join the church, he can’t do it yet. It would seem odd on his first full day in Utopia to ask to convert. Much as he doesn’t want to, he has to bide his time, like the zeebs in the cage.

  ***

  As Trip indicated, wrangling zeebs is a lot of hurry up and wait. They stand around most of the day, watching the zeebs pace around until even they get bored and stop moving entirely. They don’t liven up until it’s time for the feeding. Hunter and Trip watch the cage while a guard shoves some
poor bastard through the door. The man’s eyes are glassy and the way he shambles around is like one of the zeebs; they must have him drugged.

  Hunter has seen zombies feed before, but it’s never a pretty sight. In his drugged state, the man probably doesn’t feel it as the zeebs tear off his limbs and then finally his head. Like wild animals, the zeebs hiss and claw at each other to get access to the best cuts of meat. Hunter has seen this before and yet his stomach still roils with disgust.

  “It’s nasty, ain’t it,” Trip says.

  “Yeah. It’s nasty.”

  While the zeebs eat, Trip slams the cage door shut and then takes a few steps back. “The smell is the worst of it. Smells like shit.”

  “It does,” Hunter says. It does smell like shit—mixed with rotten eggs and stale sweat. He manages to keep from adding to the stink by throwing up, but just barely.

  He’s glad when the sun starts to go down. That’s when their relief shows up. There are only half as many for the night shift; from what Trip says the zeebs are relatively tame at night. “They don’t sleep, but they’re still used to being asleep at night, you know?”

  “Sounds like it would be an interesting research topic. If we still had any scientific journals.”

  “The church guys have their own scientific shit going on from what I hear. Nazi kind of shit if you know what I mean.”

  “Experimenting on people?”

  “Not people. Zeebs.”

  “They trying to find a cure?”

  “Yeah, right. These look like the sort of people who want to cure it?”

  “You’re right about that.” He thinks back to what happened to Snowcap Mountain and the rest of the NWAC bases. “They’ve learned to control these things, haven’t they? Or at least to keep them docile enough to load them on planes and drop them like living bombs.”

  “Yeah. They have a facility somewhere around here where they take the wild ones to break them. It’s kind of like horses. Being a wrangler there is the real shitty duty, but they give you a bonus—if you live long enough to collect it.”

  “Hazard pay.”

  “Yeah, man. You have to be a real crazy son of a bitch to do that stuff.”

  Hunter nods. It does sound crazy and yet it would be a good chance to gain some valuable information on what the church is up to. “How do I sign up for that?”