by Perrin Briar
“Understood,” Miss Jenkins said.
She reached into her pocket.
“Here are the keys to my car,” she said. “Remember, it’s the grey Nissan Figaro.”
“Nothing like traveling in style,” Dana said.
“Wait a second,” Hugo said. “I haven’t agreed to anything. I’ll help you, but I’ve got my own requests.”
“You’re getting information in exchange,” Miss Jenkins said.
“Knowing where Dana’s sister is doesn’t help me,” Hugo said. “I want something else.”
Miss Jenkins pursed her lips.
“What do you want?” she said.
“I want to learn everything you and your guys here know about surviving,” Hugo said.
“Surviving?” Miss Jenkins said. “They’re juvenile delinquents. What do you think they know that you don’t? If anything, it should be you teaching them. How To Live In A Fair And Just Society 101.”
“Sure,” Hugo said, rolling his eyes. “That’s really useful now. Look, they know things. Useful things. How to start fires with only a few items, how to hotwire a car, how to sneak past security systems. Things like that are really valuable now.”
Miss Jenkins smiled, then nodded.
“I see your point,” she said. “You know, the easiest way to learn those things is to join us here. We have more space than we need, and you could be a huge help to us.”
Hugo’s eyes moved from Miss Jenkins to Dana, and then back again.
“No,” he said. “We’re together.”
“Suit yourself,” Miss Jenkins said. “I’ll speak to the others.”
She smiled, happy with herself and the way things had turned out. She’d be getting as many weapons as she needed and all she had to give in return was the name of a location and some free survival information. No risk of life on her part.
“I knew you had purpose,” Miss Jenkins said to Dana. “Didn’t I say you had greatness in you?”
Yeah, and to every other shmo who walked into your office, Dana thought. She was as special as everyone else, which was another way of saying no one was.
Chapter Thirty-Two
DANA AND HUGO stood at the front entrance doors. They had been barricaded shut. There was nothing on the other side trying to get in, but that didn’t mean something wouldn’t try.
“We want assault rifles, grenades, pistols,” Henry said, ticking them off his gloved fingers. “And any spare ammo you come across.”
“How about spud guns?” Hugo said. “I swear I saw a couple of those out there earlier.”
Dana hid her smile behind her hand. Hugo just grinned. Henry didn’t find the funny side. He sneered at Hugo.
“Just try not to turn before you get our weapons,” Henry said.
The insult struck a chord in Dana. Bullies always managed to find the chink in your armor. It was what they were good at. The best form of retaliation was not showing how it hurt you, unsatisfying though it was.
The other juvies removed the barricade and opened the door. None of them could bring themselves to look at Dana and Hugo. Dana got a sinking feeling in her stomach, a sense of foreboding that this wasn’t going to end well. They stepped outside and the doors shut behind them.
The car park was silent, save for the flapping wings of carrion and the slurp of snapping organs and gorging undead. Dana and Hugo strolled amongst them in relative ease. There was little for them to fear when the undead were feeding, though they still kept wary eyes open for anything that approached them.
“Did you catch the way they looked at us?” Hugo said, speaking under his breath.
Impossible not to. Hugo could have been referring to the undead, looking at them like they were Meals On Legs, but Dana instinctively knew he wasn’t referring to them, but the juvies.
“Let’s just get on with the job,” Dana said. “The sooner we finish, the sooner we can leave.”
Dana and Hugo bent down and picked up some of the fallen weapons, tucking them into the large bags they carried over their shoulders. Many were covered in blood and guts, flies and maggots. Let the juvies clean them. It was none of their concern.
They were soon out of sight of the detention center and picking amongst the corpses around an abandoned tank. Blood splatters labelled the green camouflage panels.
They made sure not to overladen themselves, and then headed toward the cars parked at the back of the car park.
“By the way, where did you learn to handle a weapon like that?” Dana said.
“Like what?” Hugo said.
“Before, in the alley,” Dana said. “You’re not a great shot, but I’ve never seen anyone load a weapon as fast as you.”
Hugo shrugged, keeping his eyes on the ground.
“I’m serious,” Dana said. “Where?”
“My father, I suppose,” Hugo said. “He was in the army. He liked to make sure I could carry out drills, reassemble rifles, things like that.”
“Couldn’t have been much fun at the time,” Dana said. “But it’s sure as hell useful now.”
Dana pressed the unlock button on the key Miss Jenkins had given her. A car on the other side of the car park bleeped, lights flashing. Half a dozen infected stood up, heads turning to look over, already approaching the car.
“Oh, great,” Dana said. “Just when I thought it’d been easy.”
Dana and Hugo ran toward the car and threw their bags inside, followed by themselves. They slammed the doors. The undead banged on the windows, pressing and prying.
Dana inserted the key in the ignition and turned it. The car, all 1000ccs of raw power, roared into being. Dana put the car into first gear and hit the gas. The wheels spun.
She drove over the dead bodies, the little car taking them badly, bucking and throwing the undead off. But some were tenacious and would not let go. One slid down over the windshield, blocking Dana’s view.
She took the road off the car park and around the block. Dana didn’t much like the idea of alerting all the undead of their location inside the detention center.
They took a corner, too fast, and the little car began to tilt over. Dana spun the wheel, overcompensating. The car screeched, turning sideways. The Nissan lost its grip on the road and slammed into a building.
Chapter Thirty-Two
DANA AWOKE to the sound of hissing. It might have been an undead in her ear, about to rip her face off. She welcomed it. At that moment she didn’t want to move, never mind fight.
Her head lay on the steering wheel, her seat pushed forward. Drool dribbled over her swollen lips and gathered on her lap. She turned her head to see Hugo’s unmoving form. He was slumped against the dashboard, his head propped against it.
Dana grunted and began to move. She checked her limbs, moving them gently to check for pain. Then she sat up, using her arms to push herself into a sitting position. She shook her head. She had a headache, but no permanent damage.
“Hey,” Dana said to Hugo. “Hey, wake up.”
She poked him. The soft flesh on his shoulder was like marshmallow.
“Ng?” Hugo said.
He began to move, turning to look at her. He looked like he’d just woken up after ten rounds with Tyson.
“What… What happened?” Hugo said.
“We had a car accident,” Dana said. “That much should be obvious.”
She reached for her door handle. The door squealed, but didn’t budge. She smacked her shoulder against it. Once, twice, three times. It budged an inch. Dana slammed her shoulder against it once more and fell out, sprawling, onto the tarmac. She pushed herself up and got to her feet. She staggered to one side, regaining her composure.
There was growling on her right. An undead that had been on the front of the car was now pinned at the waist to the wall, the car holding it in place. It placed its hand on the hood, on the steam emitting from the front gasket, the source of the hissing noise. The creature pulled its hand back, and then immediately replaced its hand, never rememberin
g there was something dangerous there. After all, if you never felt pain, why bother remembering what caused it?
Hugo fell out of the passenger door and crawled around the side. Undead were heading toward them in the fastest lumbering gait they could manage. Most were attracted to the hissing car more than the car’s occupants. They attacked the undead pinned to the wall.
Dana and Hugo swerved, attempting to avoid the undead that swiped at them with clawed hands. They were slow and easy to avoid at first, then they bunched together, until they were a forest of clawing hands.
Dana and Hugo ran backwards, turned, and made their way around the rapidly hoarding undead. Another group was approaching them. The infected were unwittingly cutting off their escape routes.
“This way!” Hugo said. “There’s a gap! Quick!”
He dashed forward—he could move quickly when he needed to—and slipped between the two groups. Dana followed.
She was almost through when a skeletal hand shot out and hooked around the strap of her weapon case.
Dana pulled on the straps. The undead juddered forward, buoyed by the extra energy. Sensing an easy meal, more undead closed in.
“Let the bag go!” Hugo said. “Let go!”
“No!” Dana said. “We need it!”
She pulled harder. The undead stepped forward. Dana stepped back.
It was a mistake.
The undead buried its teeth into Dana’s arm. She screamed. The surrounding undead bayed in response, nostrils full of the scent of her blood. They closed in like sharks.
The undead who’d bitten Dana wrinkled his nose at the taste of Dana’s blood. He opened his mouth and spat her flesh out. Other undead fought over the meaty fragment.
Hugo dragged Dana away. He ripped a strip of his shirt off and wrapped it tight around Dana’s new wound.
“Damn,” Hugo said, “you must taste good. These things might not be able to fully infect us, but they can still tear us to pieces. Take some care, would you?”
The undead turned and faced Dana and Hugo, hot on their heels. This corner of the city was jammed with the undead where it had been empty just a moment before. They were everywhere.
Dana and Hugo turned and ran into a shopping mall. The scent of a dozen expensive perfumes cloyed their senses as they entered a department store. They skidded to a halt. It was crammed with the walking dead.
But the undead didn’t notice them, and continued milling round in a circle.
The undead who’d been chasing them caught up, banging their fists against the glass wall. The undead in the department store turned to look at the disturbance. Many pushed forward to bang back.
Dana and Hugo, exhausted, pressed themselves in close to the milling masses, covering themselves with their scent, their stink.
The undead on the outside stumbled into the doors, pressing them open. A few undead on the inside provided some resistance. A shove, a fall, and the fight kicked off. The two groups of undead fought.
Dana and Hugo slipped away, hid under a table, and watched the fighting take place. The undead ripped each other to pieces, tearing great chunks out of one another and staining the merchandise with their blood.
“I’m going to pee my pants,” Hugo said.
“So much for Miss Jenkins’s plan,” Dana said.
It had been her idea to use her car to bring the weapons back. Now they were stuck, trapped, in this fashion store, muzak playing over the tannoy system. All they could do now was wait.
Chapter Thirty-Three
THE UNDEAD were still fighting an hour later, though many of them were now dead on the floor. They’d long since forgotten why they were fighting, if they ever knew in the first place.
Dana and Hugo remained under the table, sitting back to back. Dana couldn’t sleep, but she had her eyes closed. Hugo played Cat’s Cradle.
“How’s your forearm?” Hugo said.
“It’s fine,” Dana said. “It doesn’t hurt. To be honest, it didn’t even hurt when he bit me.”
“You screamed when he bit you,” Hugo said. “It must have hurt a little.”
“It was more shock than anything else,” Dana said. “It’s never nice when someone’s trying to eat you alive.”
“I can understand that,” Hugo said.
“It’s strange,” Dana said. “I felt the teeth sink into me, felt when his teeth met my bone, felt the tissue tearing, my blood as it seeped from me. But I didn’t feel any pain. Do you think that’s how the undead experience everything?”
Hugo shrugged.
“Maybe,” he said.
“What does that mean?” Dana said. “I’m human, but I’m infected. I’m infected, but I’m human. Maybe we’re looking at all this the wrong way. Maybe we’re infected with humanity.”
“I don’t know about you, but I think we’re closer to being human than those monsters out there,” Hugo said. “No matter how much pain we feel. Or don’t feel.”
“That’s arguable,” Dana said.
“I understand what you’re going through,” Hugo said. “Obviously.”
Dana smiled at that. For all their differences in attitudes and opinions, he was Resistant, just like her. It was hard to remember sometimes she wasn’t alone. Dana had spent so much of her life encased within herself that it was easy to forget there were others like her.
“Where will you go after you get your training?” Dana said.
“I don’t know,” Hugo said with a shrug. “Somewhere safe, I guess. People will be looking to set up communities, places where they can begin again. I’d quite like to live in one of those. I think everyone needs someone. It’s just the way we are.”
Dana couldn’t say she disagreed. She needed to be with Max. She didn’t know where she was, but she would find her. Eventually.
The aggressors had stopped, and what remained of the undead stood in place or fed on the fallen.
Dana and Hugo got to their feet and left the store.
The car’s horn was still blaring, if weakly. The infected were still pummeling it. Dana and Hugo reached into the backseat and picked up their bags of guns and ammunition. None of the undead paid them the least amount of attention.
Chapter Thirty-Four
DANA AND HUGO pulled a cartload of weapons behind them, working their way around the dead bodies and carrion as best they could, running over it when they couldn’t. They were dripping with sweat by the time they got back to the detention center. The doors opened at their approach.
“Thought you’d made a run for it,” Spark said.
Dana was too tired to respond. She pushed past her and ascended the stairs to Miss Jenkins’ office. She comported herself. There was still a part of her that felt like the young offender who needed to respect this official.
Dana raised her hand to knock. She paused. There were voices on the other side. The words were unclear, fuzzy through the wall.
The door abruptly opened. Henry’s eyes widened in surprise before his brow lowered in consternation. He glared at Dana with a hatred she had only seen on undead faces during a frenzy. He stomped past her, fuming. Dana was unsure how to proceed.
Miss Jenkins stood with her back to Dana, a hand to her head. A thick headache was forming behind her eyes. Dana wanted to ask what the argument was about, but the expression on Henry’s face was pretty definitive. It had been about her and Hugo.
“Did you get the guns?” Miss Jenkins said.
Her voice was shaky, wracked with fear or anger. Dana couldn’t tell which.
“Yes,” Dana said. “Where’s the location of this Eden Project you told me about?”
“You’ve got a great gift inside you,” Miss Jenkins said. “I know it doesn’t feel that way sometimes but-”
“Where is it?” Dana said.
“You giving your blood would be saving your sister,” Miss Jenkins said. “As well as the world. They’re one and the same.”
“No, they’re not,” Dana said. “One is my responsibility. The other is
not. Tell me where the facility is.”
Miss Jenkins looked Dana over. She was too much of a good egg not to tell her what she’d promised. That was why Dana had never questioned whether or not the caseworker really knew what she said she did. The world might have changed, and people’s behaviors had surely altered, but there were some things that would remain constant.
“The soldiers I overheard talking, they mentioned a project dedicated to beginning again,” Miss Jenkins said. “They called it the Eden Project. They were going to use the University of Washington as a temporary shell and look for uninfected girls and women to… to…”
She shook her head.
“To what?” Dana said, fearing the worst.
“I can’t say it,” Miss Jenkins said. “It’s too ghastly. I’m sorry, Dana. It would have been better not to tell you.”
“Tell me,” Dana said.
Her voice was forced and strong as steel.
“The women, when they’re of age, will be impregnated and birth soldiers,” Miss Jenkins said. “It’s unlikely Max would be used for such purposes at the beginning. She’s too young, but it would be her purpose later. I’m sorry I’m not the bearer of better news.”
Dana’s expression grew tighter the longer Miss Jenkins spoke. She spun on her heel.
“Before you leave, why don’t you consider staying with us?” Miss Jenkins said. “Just for a while. We know things about survival—things we can teach you. As we’ll teach your friend.”
“He’s not my friend,” Dana said.
“Dana, please listen,” Miss Jenkins said.
“No,” Dana said.
“How long do you think you’re going to protect your sister with those things out there?” Miss Jenkins said. “How long?”
“Long enough,” Dana said.
“You’re being shortsighted,” Miss Jenkins said.
“I’m being realistic,” Dana said.
“The same problem,” Miss Jenkins said, shaking her head. “You have the same problem now as you did before. No purpose. That’s why you’ll fail.”