The Reburialists

by J. C. Nelson

  And for certain, we faced a “they.” Dad went through theories, that there was only one, or that there were hundreds, but for sure I’d seen one that knew me, and one “spawn” that knew nothing. We’d see what Grace and her lab analyst friends could learn from the captured Re-Animus.

  And what about Grace? I saw her during her interview, thrust into a spotlight that might not ever go away. The BSI would make sure it ran on every news station in America, and would distribute copies to the world, once it was edited. Dubbed. Smoothed.

  Would our public relations portray her as a warrior, like me? Or a strategic genius, a mastermind?

  Whichever was most likely to keep the recruiting classes full.

  “Brynner.” Director Bismuth.

  I’d been hoping for Grace’s voice. I pointed to the spotlights back at the hospital. “You shouldn’t be out here. Stay behind the firing line, and stay in the light.”

  She stood beside me, shivering as she looked out into the darkness “I’m safe with you. That’s what you do, keep people safe.”

  “A couple hundred families would disagree.”

  “There will be casualties in this war. Sacrifices, both horrible and acceptable.”

  The desert had nothing on her tone for cold. This was why she ran the BSI, and I knew it, accepted it. “Aunt Maggie” probably viewed me much like the vehicle fleets. So many years and miles left, and so much damage. “What do you plan to do with Grace? I saw the news crew.”

  She caught her breath, her entire body tensing. “Ms. Roberts will be the new face of BSI Analysis, should she decide to remain with us. In my opinion, she’s earned the full reward for capturing a Re-Animus, and with that sort of money, she might not feel required to work.”

  The reward money didn’t matter to me. I had enough money left over from Dad’s estate. A few million more wouldn’t matter. “So she’d be squarely outside the ‘no work women’ rule, right?”

  “I remember Heinrich before Lara’s accident, Brynner. A jovial man, given to pranks and games of chance. Afterward, he was a paragon of destruction. Nature’s perfect predator for the Re-Animus. But most of all, I remember that he blamed himself for what happened to her.”

  She put a hand on my arm. “Heinrich never forgave himself for putting Lara in harm’s way. How will you feel when— not if—something happens to Grace? Ask yourself: Where would she be safest? In your presence? Or on an island, far, far from you?”

  I jerked my arm away. “Leave. Go back inside, and don’t come out here again. It’s not safe.”

  She left me.

  When I was sure she’d gone, I wandered in the cacti, listening for the sounds of dead feet in the sand. As the moon began to rise, I heard footsteps from the direction of the hospital. Silver moonlight illuminated the face I’d been waiting for. The peace and acceptance with my decision almost dulled the pain. I walked back to meet her so she wouldn’t trip into a cactus. “You should go home and get some sleep.”

  She jumped at the sound of my voice. “I wanted to check on you.”

  “I hear congratulations are in order. Your money problems are over.” I stood near enough to smell her. Close enough to touch.

  Like a desert hare under a hawk, she went rigid. Dear god, had she not found out yet? “You could put your daughter in a better home now. Hell, you could afford a private nurse for her round the clock. Didn’t Director Bismuth talk to you?”

  Her wide eyes brimmed with tears in the moonlight. “She talked to me, all right. I want you to take me back to the motel.”

  One last time, I hooked my arm in hers, savoring her warmth and the way she pressed my arm into the side swell of her breast. Together, we walked to the Black Beast. The explosion had blown out both side windows but left the windshield no more cracked than before.

  Grace didn’t say a word the whole way back, staring out into the night like she expected to see something beyond sand and cactus. It wasn’t until we pulled up at the motel that she looked at me. She’d been crying again.

  “Your daughter’s going to be fine now. No more worrying about money, or eating ramen.” I reached out a hand, and she opened the truck door and sprinted to her room. She didn’t even stop to check inside before she went in.

  It was easier this way, to let her go. It felt like the coward’s decision. Facing a horde of the dead was easy. Tearing myself away from her, on the other hand, nearly killed me.

  I drove out of the parking lot, cursing myself the whole way. Maybe if I imagined her as a nurse, or a waitress, or the woman who came to sell me life insurance that one time and left after a very intimate physical exam, I could work up the courage to talk to her.

  I’d almost made it home when I remembered the salt. I forgot to salt her doorway. And given what had happened, I’d probably need to add olive oil inside the salt ring for extra protection.

  GRACE

  I meant what I told Brynner: Take me back to the motel. I meant what I didn’t tell him: Stay with me. It wasn’t like this was the first time I’d let my heart make bad choices. Ones I knew would lead to pain. Though Director Bismuth had also made a mistake by threatening me—one I’d be sure to impress on her.

  When we got back to BSI Headquarters, he would be Brynner Carson, star monster killer, and I would be Grace Roberts, the woman who ignited a cold war. In Bentonville, he was just Brynner, and I was a woman who liked what I saw, and more important, what I didn’t see.

  Letting him drive away hurt. I told myself it wasn’t as bad as keeping him there would have been.

  I was wrong.

  Then the squeal of worn brakes and the flash of headlights made me catch my breath. The engine died, letting me hear his bootsteps approach. This time, I didn’t wait. I opened the door, catching him pouring out a line of salt.

  He blushed like I’d caught him peeking in my window. “I’m sorry. It just makes me feel better.”

  I reached out a hand, brushing his chest. He held his breath, his muscles tense under my fingertips. I pressed firmly, not pushing him away, but making it clear this wasn’t an accident, and stepped closer, so close I could whisper. “You want to stay?”

  “I can’t.” He tensed like I’d attacked him instead of complimented him.

  I winced at the thought of what the director might have said. “Why?”

  His breath came out in a hiss, his body shuddering as I flexed my fingers lightly on his chest. “I just can’t.”

  I whispered in his ear. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m an adult. You’re an adult.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, nearly crushing me, and I pulled him inside, throwing the door closed. His lips rough and warm, pressed against mine. And broke away, too soon. “I don’t have any condoms. I’ll—”

  I put one finger on his mouth, tracing the lines of his lips. “I went to the gift shop before you came to pick me up.” I kissed away any answer he had.

  He ran fingers through my hair while his tongue probed mine.

  “Here,” I said, pulling his hands onto me to rove.

  And he did, unbuttoning my shirt with ease and letting his thumbs trace my nipples until they stood erect.

  I broke off the kiss to pull my shirt up and his off, finally free to let my hands slide over the road map of scars on his skin. I’d known I wanted this at some level for longer than I cared to admit.

  He fought to keep control, and I to make him lose it. I wrapped my hands around Brynner, grinding my hips against him, then ran my hands down his sides. Each time he bent to kiss me, I pulled him back toward the bed, until we tumbled onto it, a tangle of passion.

  With my fingernails, I pressed deeply into his back as he unzipped my pants. This was going to be better than I’d imagined, and worth any consequences.

  Brynner froze.

  His whole body went as stiff as parts of him had been moments before. I nuzzled his neck, kissing lightly, reaching for his lips.

  And he rolled off me. Then the world turned upside down as he fli
pped the bed, rolling me off and onto the floor.

  I landed on my stomach, the wind knocked out of me. Trapped under the blanket, I fought my way free to find Brynner pinning down something.

  An arm.

  A brown-skinned arm with black hair, covered in tattoos. Brynner knelt on top of it, pinning it with his knee.

  Under the bed, a perfect circle of hieroglyphics lay traced in blood.

  Brynner lifted the arm into the air like a baseball bat. It wiggled and twisted, making a rude gesture. He carried it into the bathroom, then the shower door creaked and slammed. Brynner came back. “It’s trapped. Can you tell me what that says? Is it a spell?”

  The only thing I hated worse than scorpions were reanimated body parts, but I forced myself to concentrate. “It’s something. This section here, it’s a location. A path way. This other one here is a door, and this—” I stopped.

  Brynner’s eyes hadn’t risen above my shoulders during the whole discussion. He was under a spell, all right. One I broke by hooking my bra back together. “You want me to start again?”

  He paused, his eyes still on my breasts.

  Nothing ruins a romantic moment like a severed body part attacking you. “Explaining. You want me to explain?”

  Brynner backed away, sweat on the side of his face. “Yeah.” He stared at the floor. “Explain.”

  “Outer ring is the same as always. Crap about the paths, the way, the usual.” I zipped my pants and snapped the button. “This one is different. ‘Western desert’ we’ve seen before, but s’kr’t’n—that’s ‘city,’ and that’s ‘sunlight.’ The city of midnight sun. New York?”

  “You almost sound like you believe in this stuff.” He wouldn’t look at me now, his gaze fixed to the hieroglyphics.

  “I believe, all right. I believe they mean something, and when we understand what that something is, we’ll know more about how the Re-Animus think. How they plan. The other four are simple. This one’s “Death that follows—”

  “Finds. The Death that finds.” Brynner nodded. “We’ve got lots of pictures of that one.” He looked up, all the way from the tips of my toes to my eyes. “That’s the name they used for Dad.”

  One of these days I was going to have to teach him the limits of his knowledge. “No, that would be the crane followed by the arch and sun. This one says ‘Death that follows. That’s not your dad. It’s their name for you. You have a name among the Re-Animus.”

  Brynner knelt by the edge of the circle. “And? What’s the last one? Beauty? Goodness? Light?”

  I smiled at him. “You’re getting better. Did you stay up late studying?”

  “No.” He picked up his shirt and dabbed blood off where the hand had clawed him. “Call it a lucky guess. If that one’s me, I figured the other ones would mean ‘Grace.’ You have a name, too.”

  Somehow, it didn’t come across as a compliment. The Re- Animus were infinitely patient, cunning beyond measure. It wasn’t a question of if I’d encounter them but when and where.

  I grabbed one edge of the bed and turned it right side up. Brynner caught the far side as it fell, and looked at me across it. It might as well have been six miles wide. I struggled to regain the moment we’d almost had before it slipped out of reach. “So. You, uh, want to . . .”

  Brynner fidgeted, then shook his head. “Maggie was right. Things like this are just going to keep happening.” He picked up his cell phone from the bedcovers and dialed a number. The phone rang for ages before a woman answered. Brynner turned away and spoke. “It’s me. We should move the Re-Animus as soon as possible.”

  Twenty-Three

  BRYNNER

  One hour. Was that too much to ask? That I’d have one hour with Grace? One hour to make a mistake I’d treasure and regret for the rest of my life? I drove back to the hospital, leaving Grace safe with the field team sent to secure the motel.

  Through the night and early morning, vehicles continued to arrive at the hospital. Armored trucks with belt-fed machine guns. Amphibious vehicles and a bridge layer, just in case. By midafternoon, we had the largest secure caravan in history ready to roll out. I walked through ranks of BSI operatives to check again on the tractor-trailer hauling the containment pod. BSI eggheads had come up with a way to encase the whole damned room in quick-set concrete, then load it onto a heavyload trailer with tires as tall as I was. The crane they’d used to remove it didn’t leave much of the hospital standing.

  Aunt Emelia arrived in my uncle’s sedan an hour before dawn, and, as usual, she insisted on checking every scratch, every stitch, and every bruise on me while we sat in a field hospital tent.

  I buttoned up my shirt and slipped a light Kevlar vest on with Aunt Emelia’s help. “You and Uncle Bran need to be extra careful now.”

  “Honey cleaned the shotguns last night, and today he’s going to dust off the flamethrower. We’ll be fine once you’re gone, boy. This plate looks damaged. Are you using borrowed armor?” She didn’t look up from the vest.

  I bent over so I could look her in the eye. “I’m serious. A meat-skin snuck into Grace’s room and was waiting. How did Mom deal with them coming after Dad?”

  Aunt Emelia fussed with my jacket, her eyes unfocused. “Lara was a force to be reckoned with before she met your father. Top of her class in marksmanship, and had certifications in heavy weaponry and demolitions. I think she enjoyed the occasional attack.”

  “Mom? Mom was not a killer.”

  “Brynner.” Aunt Emelia narrowed her eyes at me. “This isn’t about your mother. This is about Grace, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “She’s not like me. I don’t want anything to happen—” My voice broke off.

  “I understand. You’re more like your father than you realize, son. It will be all right. You’ll find a way to make it all right.” She reached up and hugged me.

  From the tent door, Director Bismuth’s voice broke the moment. “Operative Carson, are we on schedule?” She nodded to my aunt in acknowledgement.

  “Got it, Maggie. I’ll ride with the cargo. We have advance teams every fifteen miles ahead and behind, air cover and backup from the armed forces. You have a plan for what happens when we get to Seattle?”

  “Brynner, have faith. We’ve been planning for this day longer than you have been alive. Everything from the capsule we are transporting to the enclosure waiting was built for this moment.” She pointed to the truck. “We roll out now, ahead of schedule, and drive on through. No stopping, sleep in shifts, and no communication outside the convoy.”

  I glanced around. We weren’t supposed to leave for another hour, but if the Re-Animus had spies inside the BSI, they wouldn’t be expecting it, either. I still needed to find Grace. We needed to talk. The heat inside me said we needed to do more than talk, but Grace would never be safe with me around.

  A horn blast jerked me from my reverie. The semi driver blared his horn once more while police cleared the roads. I ran for the cab instead of looking for Grace. She’d be safe in an armored personnel carrier. I’d find her in Seattle, drive to Portland if that’s where she was working, and explain.

  From the semi, I looked back to where Aunt Emelia waved, a smile on her face. She cupped her hands and shouted, “Give ’em hell, boy.”

  The convoy shuddered as hundreds of engines roared to life, and we crept away. The miles rolled away beneath me, taking me away from the place I hadn’t wanted to come back to. Now I could hardly stand to leave.

  After half a mile, the semi finally reached its top speed of fifty miles per hour, which wasn’t bad given the load of concrete and steel strapped to it, but would make our trip that much longer. The field radio crackled constantly as police radioed sections of the highway clear. Eventually I crawled into the sleeper cab. Through the rear window, I could keep an eye on the containment pod strapped to our trailer.

  The gentle rolling motion lulled me into a dreamless sleep.

  A crash jolted me awake. The truck veered from side to side, the trailer
lashing behind us. I slid out of the sleeper, into the cab, to where the driver sat, his knuckles tight on the wheel.

  Across the windshield, a crack like a spiderweb spread, painted red by a smear of blood.

  “What happened?”

  He didn’t dare look away. “Goose. Hit the window, damn near broke it out.”

  A thunk on the roof, followed by a burst of feathers exploding from the radiator told me we had serious trouble. I thumbed the radio. “Carson speaking, all convoy members listen up. We’re getting hit by birds here. I need a shield vehicle to nose up with us.”

  Seconds passed while another bird splattered, and our windshield turned to flecks of gray glass. An army transport truck pulled alongside, then cut over, riding just feet from our bumper. With a snowplow front and a reinforced shield, we could bash enough blackbirds to bake a pie and not even slow down.

  The radio crackled. “We have a problem up front. Advance troops are reporting the road is blocked by cattle. Dead cattle.”

  “Barbecue them,” said Director Bismuth. “Nothing stops this train, nothing slows it down. Let the undead bastards know we have their number.”

  Minutes later, we passed the first field ops. Armed with flamethrowers and snowplows, they’d cleared the road for us to continue. The smell of charred beef made my mouth water.

  “All vehicles except primary, switch to radio channel two. Primary, hold channel one.” Director Bismuth’s voice came in clear.

  Why? Why switch everyone else in the convoy to a separate radio frequency? “This is Carson. You want to fill me in on what is happening?”

  She answered. “Brynner, stay with your cargo. Let the army handle this.”

  I rolled down the window and stood up, poking my head out of the cab. Ahead of us, walking corpses covered the fields. The responsible disposal law hadn’t been in force more than twenty years. Anyone burying the dead earlier than that wouldn’t have taken the proper precautions. Then again, the rotted condition of these bodies left most of them barely mobile.