Crusade (Eden Book 2)

by Tony Monchinski

  “I’m not going to beg you, Eva,” he stammered between his tears, plodding through the snow.

  “Then don’t.”

  “Think of Patty. Think of Max, for God’s sake.”

  “I am. Move.”

  He walked through the snow, his ankles cold and wet because he wore no socks and his pants rode up over his sneakers. Lauren had parked the Jeep such that the headlights illuminated their path through the woods. She walked slightly behind and next to him, loosely gripping that MP-40 of hers. Michael couldn’t see Eva but knew she was behind him.

  “Stop here,” Eva said when they had gone a couple of hundred yards from the road.

  He halted and breathed, the tears streaming down his cheeks. Above him the trunks of the trees reached to the moonlit sky.

  “Eva—” started Lauren but the other woman cut her off with a look.

  “Will you take care of Patty and Max?” He managed to ask as calmly as he could.

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Lauren said.

  “Good.” He nodded and looked out into the dark. He thought about his wife and how they had met in high school. The day Max had been born, all pink and wrinkly and screaming and Michael had cried and—

  Eva raised her M16/M26 to her shoulder and sighted down the barrels.

  —when he had started pre-school when he was three. They had bought him a little lunch box with the Teletubbies on it and he had—

  She fired the assault rifle once and the bullet punched through Michael, knocking him face down to the snowed over earth.

  He made a noise and started praying, Our father who art in heaven—

  “Shit.”

  He was down but not out. As she walked up to him he was crawling forward.

  —hallowed be they name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on—

  She leaned over and fired another 5.56 mm round point blank into the back of his head. She stood up and turned around. There was no remorse in her eyes that Lauren could see, no anything.

  On the ride back to Clavius City, Lauren drove.

  “That’s it, Eva.” She mustered up her courage to confront the other woman. “He was the last one.”

  “He was the last one for now,” Eva said. “There’s always someone else.”

  “No, I mean, that was it. For me. Forever.”

  “Uh-huh.” Eva dismissed her.

  “You’ve heard Singh and Malden. The plague isn’t always contagious. We’re safe. Sonya and the kids—”

  “Sonya and the kids are my concern. And that’s why we do this. What, your conscience is bothering you all of a sudden?”

  “It’s been bothering me for a long time. People like you—”

  “Well, you know what, Lore? Wake up in the morning and go to your little work council or whatever and do your job assignments and people like me will continue to do what has to be done to keep you and everyone else in Clavius safe so they can wake up in the morning and—”

  “You are such a self-righteous, bitch. God.”

  “It works for me,” Eva said, staring out into the night.

  That night, long after most everyone else had gone to sleep, Eva and Tris lay in bed in the house they shared with Sonya and her kids.

  “You’re really thinking of going,” Eva asked, “back down into that city?”

  “I’m not thinking about it, trick. I’m going.”

  “You have a death wish?”

  “Girl, you know I ain’t met no-one tough enough to take me out of this game yet.”

  “Yeah, what about me?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Stay here. With me.”

  “Eva, Eva, Eva.” The moonlight coming in from the window reflected off the scar on Tris’ face. “It’s good, what we got between us. But you know what the difference is between us?”

  “I’m a dyke and you’re a diva?”

  “No.”

  “Remind me then.”

  “Before you, I wasn’t into women. At all. If my man was still in the picture…”

  “Yeah, I know. If your husband was still alive we wouldn’t be here together like this. But here we are, Tris, and what we got, come on—”

  “What we got, it’s good, I know, but…”

  “No, Tris. No buts. You want to know the real difference between us?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ll kill those things. I’ll kill anything that threatens my sister and her kids. But you? You live to kill zombies.”

  Tris was quiet, then she said, “I hate those dead fucks.”

  “I know you do.”

  “And, yeah, if I could I’d kill each and every single one of them. That’s what they’d do to us.”

  “Fuck them,” Eva said. “This right here? This is about you and me. This isn’t about them.”

  “Yes it is. Don’t kid yourself, trick. From the first day this has been all about them, and until they’re all gone, that’s all it’s ever gonna be about.”

  “God, I thought I was a thick-headed bitch.”

  “You are, trick. Let me ask you a question. If it was a choice between me and your sister and her kids, who’d it be?”

  “That’s not a fair—”

  “There’s no fair anything. Just be a woman and answer the question. If it was between your sister and her kids or me?”

  “My sister and her kids,” Eva’s answer was subdued. “That’s what it’s about for me.”

  “And I get that. I’m cool with that. But you have to understand, baby, that for me, it’s all about making Zed dead.”

  A few minutes went by and she thought Tris had fallen asleep until the other woman spoke.

  “Eva.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “You have anything to do with those people disappearing from the hospital?”

  She feigned sleepy annoyance. “You’re keeping me awake to ask me that? No.”

  “Good.” Tris pulled her closer in the crook of her arm. “That’s not what this place is about, you know?”

  “Mmmmm…”

  She lay there until she was sure Tris had fallen asleep, and then she lay there for some time afterwards, thinking about Lauren’s bullshit speech in the Jeep tonight, about Sonya and Victor and Nicole and Nelson with the peach fuzz on his upper lip, and though she tried she was too jacked up to sleep for a long while.

  “We’re very lucky to be here,” Gwen said. “To have found this place.”

  The next evening, following a day taken up with a long council session, a group of men and women sat together in the dorm four of them temporarily shared. They had their friendship and the months they had shared together behind Eden’s walls in common.

  Panas brought over a bottle of Baileys and they all partook in a nightcap with the exception of Julie and Buddy.

  “Buddy knew what he was talking about,” Bear said.

  “He did,” Gwen said. “I’m so glad we’re here. For you, Julie, and the baby, especially.”

  “And I’m happy for you,” Julie said. “That doctor, Singh? He seems like a nice guy.”

  Gwen blushed. “What are you getting at?”

  “Nothing.”

  “The good doctor putting the moves on our Gwen, is he?” Mickey asked. “I think Steve might have something to say about that.”

  “God,” Julie said. “Is that guy Steve as obnoxious as everyone told me or what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Gwen said. “He’s kind of cute.”

  “Gwen!”

  “He’s got a certain kind of charm. But enough about me. What’s going on with Lauren, Mickey?”

  “What’s going on? Nothing. She’s a nice girl.”

  “Nothing? Bull. That girl’s all you.”

  “She does know about Ty Cobb,” Julie said.

  “Tex Cobb,” Mickey corrected, smiling like a cat with the bird.

  The council session began with various people presenting, talking about Eden and New York City and what they knew of
the world that could impact any mission sent there. Biden stood and laid out the location and layout of Eden. He spoke of the refuge known as Jericho and what had transpired there.

  “Awful quiet again tonight, aren’t you Bear?” Gwen said.

  “Bear,” Julie confronted him. “You can’t go.”

  “I have to.”

  “Don’t go.”

  “Yeah, don’t go” Mickey said. “Panas and Biden could go.” He should go. He had the plague. Zombies would avoid him. If he were with whoever went, they stood a better chance. But he was scared. He had no intention of leaving this place. “They could show them…”

  “Those guys came through the sewers with Buddy,” Bear said. “There’s no way they’re getting back in that way.”

  At council, Panas had talked about the sewer and subway systems they’d traversed when he’d left Eden with Buddy and Biden and the others months ago. After brief discussion it was agreed that the sewers would be impassable, and that even if they weren’t, it was better to operate on the assumption that they were.

  “There’s no way you should go,” Julie said.

  “Bear,” Gwen said, “I get it. If I could go,” she shifted her arm in its cast, “I’d go.”

  “You’re crazy.” Mickey looked at her. “You’d give this up? You’d leave here?”

  “Think of the people we left behind. Fred, Keara—”

  “Hey, I’m sorry for them. But this isn’t about them—”

  “Sure it is.”

  “Bear.” Julie reached out and put her hand over one of his. “Please don’t go. The baby.”

  “I’ve got to go. And I will be back.”

  “Yeah, like Arnie in Terminator 2,” Mickey said, “and you know what happened to him at the end of that movie, right?”

  Julie looked into the giant’s one eye. What she saw there convinced her that continuing was futile.

  “I’ll be back before the baby is born,” Bear promised. “Gwen and Mickey and everyone else here will take good care of you.”

  Different people had spoken at the council. One of the technicians Bear and Mickey had met briefly on their first full day down in the lab, Stephanie, described the effects of nuclear weapons detonations. Before worldwide communications media had failed, it had been established that thirty nuclear weapons had been detonated around the world, six of them in the continental United States. Most of the nukes had been deployed by countries against their own domestic targets. It looked like only India and Pakistan had traded missiles. Israel had wiped itself out less its neighbor’s compromised its territorial integrity.

  Manhattan, which many felt would have been a likely target for a nuclear strike, was spared because the United States Government had used nerve agents on the city early on. This had effectively annihilated the civilian population but had done nothing to the undead.

  Stephanie spoke about the short-term and long-term effects of nuclear explosions, about first and second degree burns in people six or seven miles from the blast site, about the travel distances of thermal radiation and the expected future spikes in fatal cancers among human survivors. She explained that fallout in the form of a thin layer of dust was the greatest threat, how electromagnetic waves were caused when nuclear radiation was absorbed in the air or ground, and how these EMPs had effectively killed any vehicles and electronic equipment for miles around each blast.

  “I’m going to miss you,” Gwen said. “You too, Biden, but I mean…”

  “Don’t worry. I understand.”

  Bear looked touched.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m going to miss all of you guys too.”

  “Bear,” Panas said, “keep yourself safe and get your big hairy ass back to us as soon as you can.”

  “That’s the plan,” acknowledged the big man.

  “How you feeling?” Biden looked to Buddy. Buddy’s face was impassive at first but then something like a lopsided smile appeared.

  “Bear,” Julie said, “I gave Mr. Vittles to Fred…”

  “I’ll get the cat,” he reassured.

  “Here, you should have this.” Julie broke the cylinder on the Colt Python, emptied the six shells into the palm of her hand, and passed the .357 over to him butt first.

  “But that’s Harris’. It’s yours—”

  “It’s too big for me.” She smiled. “It fits you better. And Harris would be happy about you having it.” She pressed the bullets into his free hand.

  “A toast?” Biden stood with his glass.

  “Toast!” Mickey and Gwen said in unison.

  Everyone raised a glass in their hand except Buddy. Julie was drinking water.

  “To old friends, reunited,” Biden said.

  “To old friends,” Julie said and everyone sipped.

  Mickey couldn’t hold his liquor like everyone else could and when he stood he was a bit wobbly.

  “Forever and forever farewell, Brutus,” he recited. “If we do meet again, we’ll smile again. If not, it’s true this parting was well made.”

  “Hamlet?” Panas asked.

  “No,” Mickey said. “Hackman doing Hamlet. Uncommon Valor.”

  Gwen and Julie looked at one another and laughed.

  That night when Bear lay down he was plagued by nightmares. The zombies were on him, their teeth were ripping into his arms and shoulders and thighs. He was screaming at them, his voice shrill and terrified, unable to fight. They were pulling on his limbs, which loosened in the sockets and—

  He sat up in his bed panting.

  He hadn’t dreamed in a long time. Correction, he thought. He hadn’t been able to recall a dream in some time.

  He got out of bed and padded across the room in the dormitory he shared with Gwen, Julie and Mickey. There was a faint hum somewhere in the building as something electric did its work.

  In a few hours he’d be waking and embarking for Eden. It felt like they’d just left there…Julie and the baby… He walked down the hall and looked in on the woman. She slept on her side, looking so peaceful. He vowed to himself in her doorway that he’d be back for her and the child.

  The Way of All Flesh

  At almost 23 tons, not counting the seven men and women riding inside and atop her, the AAVP-7A1 armored personnel carrier knocked most of the cars and trucks on the roads it ran across out of its way. It was cold and grey out but most of those aboard had opted to sit atop the amphibious assault vehicle or in one of its hatches.

  Tris sat behind the M2HB .50 caliber heavy machine gun in the gunner’s hatch of the turret, scanning the road on both sides for any signs of survivors. Isaak’s head poked out of the driver’s hatch. Bear sat on the AAVP-7A1 with Chris and Brent. Biden and the seventh member of their party, a woman named Carrie, slept inside the AAV.