Grave New World (Book 3): Dead Men Don't Skip

by S. P. Blackmore

  He must have thrown himself at the man’s back; the soldier hitched forward slightly and crashed into me, letting out an annoyed grunt. Than he straightened up and spun around, and I heard the sound of metal against face.

  I turned. Tony was on the floor, holding his head, and the soldier held a sidearm aloft.

  Durkee and Gloria were on their feet instantly, the former striding toward us. I thought he might clock the soldier, or at least tackle him, make a break for it—

  Instead he reached down and set a firm hand on Tony’s shoulder, possibly preventing him from leaping up and gouging the man’s eyes out.

  “Not yet,” Durkee said. “Not yet, man.”

  The soldier held his gun up. “Want another bash, man? I can crack your head open real easy with this.”

  Tony stared up at him.

  Durkee tightened his grip on his shoulder. “Don’t, McKnight.”

  Tony stared up at him, brilliant coldness nearly radiating from his eyes. “I’m going to fuck you up one day.”

  The soldier brought the pistol down again.

  I latched onto his arm.

  He hadn’t expected that, and it stopped the sudden plunge of gunmetal into my friend’s face. The soldier looked at me for a few seconds. I thought he might let the matter go…

  Then he reached out with his free hand and smacked me.

  I stumbled to the side and fell to the ground, my cheek stinging. I lifted my right hand and felt the redness spreading across my face already. I took a deep breath.

  Goddammit I needed to be less impulsive.

  Shouts rang out. Tony had obviously gotten up again, and a struggle ensued around me. Other men came inside. I tried to jump up, and found myself surrounded by soldiers. Stars spun crazily in front of my eyes, and a dull ringing filled my ears. Fuck, that sack of shit had hit me pretty hard.

  “Feed the dog!” Dax called out.

  The door clanged shut, and the shouts from inside ceased instantly.

  “Jesus,” one of the soldiers said. “That’s Captain Durkee in there!”

  “He came unhinged months ago,” the one who had hit me said. “Remember what he did to Lonnie’s squad?”

  “I thought he was dead,” the first one muttered. “And you shouldn’t hit girls.”

  “Bitch had it coming.”

  Holy shit, this guy was a peach. If he ever turned up in my infirmary maybe I’d inject some air bubbles into his bloodstream.

  The jackass gave my arm another jerk. “Come on, medic,” he said. “Your doctor is waiting for you.”

  I dragged my feet. The last thing I needed right now was Lattimore in my face.

  We marched down a few flights of stairs, and then through a doorway. I tried to mark the way, but my vision was still pretty fuzzy.

  The double doors in front of the building banged open, and suddenly I was out in the chill of the air again.

  “Here she is,” my captor said. “Get her out of my sight before I clock her again.”

  “Jesus,” the not-so-bad one whispered.

  I braced myself for Lattimore’s voice.

  Instead, someone much larger than Lattimore slung an arm about my shoulders in a comradely fashion.

  “What did you do to her?” Renati demanded. “You hit her?”

  “Bitch asked for it,” the soldier said. Death by air bubbles was clearly too good for him. He needed something slower. Something more painful.

  “Now get her out of my sight before I do it again.”

  Renati stared at him for a moment, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head.

  This guy had the shittiest threats, seriously. Briefly I allowed myself to wonder what I would do if I were ever alone with him. Pop his eyeballs out, maybe. Or feed him, bit by bleeding bit, to a ghoul.

  The doctor no doubt saw the homicidal urge written across my strained features. He looped an arm around my waist and pulled me in close to him, also effectively preventing me from flying at the soldier, claws outstretched. “Come on, medic,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  I don’t know what I expected from Renati.

  An explanation, maybe. Some reason for getting me out of what I assumed was the Hastings equivalent of a maximum security prison. Instead, he just started walking, trying to urge me along with him.

  I shrugged off his arm and watched him go, too numb and confused to do anything.

  “Come on,” he said. “There’s things we must do.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  He paused and turned around. He seemed to look beyond me, at the soldiers guarding the doorway. Soldiers who were probably watching us with great interest.

  Oh. He wanted to be discreet.

  “People don’t stop being sick just because you’re incarcerated, Vibeke,” he said.

  I knew that tone. My lead paramedic had adopted it on those days when I hadn’t felt up to the task of carting around the sick, the injured, and the elderly. She had been good at sussing out my true motives: if I were actually ill, for example, as opposed to on the verge of failing a final exam because I’d stayed up all night drinking with the boyfriend du jour.

  Renati clasped my upper arm—gently, not like Tony or Logan—and steered me down the street, away from the soldiers. His stride was quick, and I had to walk swiftly to keep up with him. He remained ever watchful, looking up at the big, silent buildings…searching for eyes on us, maybe.

  “They said the plague was getting worse,” I said.

  “Death is a fearful thing."

  Gee, thanks, Professor.

  He was moving even faster, almost at a brisk jog now. I had done plenty of push-ups and jumping jacks during my first stint in the Big House—hey, now I could say I’d been locked up twice!—but running around hadn’t exactly been on the docket in that dinky little cell. My lungs burned.

  “Doctor, what the hell is going on?”

  He jerked his head around again, searching for eyes. The prison building had faded behind us, and we seemed utterly alone on these streets.

  Finally he turned to me. “I need you to be quiet for a few more minutes,” he said. “I could only get you out. The others—it would never have worked. You were the only feasible option.”

  Oh, this didn’t sound shifty at all.

  “Now come.”

  He trusted me to follow him then, down another street, toward the medical complex. I swallowed my nausea and tried to flatten the goosebumps that broke out on my arms and neck. Death waited there. Death and God knew what else.

  We were able to avoid running into most of the medical staff in the main tent. I was sure one of the orderlies did a double take, but said nothing. Renati took me through the Plague Tent, past rows of quiet, sedated bodies. There were more of them now, true, but they all slept. It didn’t look like things had gotten all that much worse.

  We kept moving, leaving the Plague Tent and emerging in the courtyard. We went past several soldiers and then toward the building that had sufficed as Renati’s lab.

  He glanced at the soldiers we we walked by them. “I’ll show you their latest vitals,” he said, loudly enough for the soldiers to hear. “You can tell me if you see a pattern.”

  They didn’t follow us. Once we were inside, he shut the door behind me and locked it.

  I knew immediately we weren’t alone. I felt someone looking at me as soon as I stepped inside.

  Logan perched on the edge of one of the counters, wedge in between two microscopes. His rifle balanced on his knees.

  “Hi,” he said.

  I looked at Renati. “He tried to kill you yesterday,” I said.

  The doctor shrugged. “It happens.”

  Perhaps soldiers tried to kill him on a regular basis. It would explain a lot. “So…you’re cool with each other?”

  “We’re cool,” Logan said. “I was in a bad place.”

  “As are we all,” the doctor murmured.

  I took a deep breath. “This isn’t about the plague, is it?”
<
br />   The men exchanged glances. “Is that what you told them?” Logan asked. “And they bought it?”

  “It’s not a lie. Not exactly anyway. The men aren’t well-informed, and they can see the beds are filling up again. But no, Vibeke, that’s not why I brought you here.”

  “He was the only one who could get you out,” Logan said. “I’m supposed to be on bedrest for emotional issues…or some shit like that.”

  “I don’t care which of you got me out or what you told them. Why?”

  They exchanged glances, giving me the distinct impression that I wasn’t going to like whatever it was they had to say to me.

  “I made a mistake,” Renati said. “I shouldn’t have given them that drug. I knew Jacoby didn’t intend it for civilian usage…I thought…if they die, at least it would help keep them from coming back. Unfortunately it did not.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Glad you worked that out. Why am I here?”

  “Keller has kept a close eye on those poor souls we reanimated,” Renati net on. “Now that he knows we can do something, he’s going to want to do something about it.” The doctor looked at me. Clearly he was aiming for a meaningful stare, but I for damn sure wasn’t understanding it. “He locked all of you up without any sort of trial. He’s already sent down orders, commanding me to start injecting everyone ill with what remains of Jacoby’s serum. I told him we were running out. He told me to make more.”

  “That should make you happy,” I said.

  “Once and for all, I had no idea the drug would do that to them,” he said. “I did not. I thought it might help. That’s all. We can argue it all day if you like, but right now we have greater matters at hand.”

  “Namely Keller wanting more smart dead people?”

  “He’s going to try to weaponize them,” Renati said. “He will. I guarantee it.”

  “Weaponize the zombies?” I asked. “He already has. Down at the park.”

  “No, not just those poor husks with blades tied to their hands. He wants thinking dead.”

  I tried to imagine Alyssa being turned into some kind of superweapon, and couldn’t see it. She could barely walk in a straight line. How could anyone expect her to be a killer?

  Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

  I looked at the faces of the men in here with me, and knew they were thinking the same thing.

  “We’re putting a stop to it,” Logan said.

  Of course you are.

  “Sure,” I said. “You and what army?” I had always wanted to say that.

  “Us and this army.” Logan gestured to the three of us.

  I turned around to make sure he didn’t have other soldiers tucked into dark corners. When I confirmed that we were indeed the army he referenced, I nodded. “Right, well, you guys have fun with that.” I stretched my hand for the door.

  “Keller sent around a pamphlet this morning,” Renati said. “There’s going to be an event at the park on Saturday. Some sort of festival to honor our survival thus far, and the great new world we’re creating. Featuring fighting, of course.”

  Great new world. “More like grave new world,” I muttered. I stared at the door. He was trying to tell me something, I was sure of it, but I could not for the life of me figure out what.

  Maybe the evil stardust had clogged my brain.

  “Everyone will be there. Everyone important,” Logan emphasized. “Keller. His commanders. The people who are doing all of…all of this.”

  All the people we hate right now, in one wonderful place. “Sounds like a party.”

  “Show her the paper.”

  Renati fumbled with something. Paper crumpled, and then he stepped closer to me, holding out a white piece of card stock. Red splotches dripped across it: fake blood, rendered poorly on what was probably an old inkjet printer. It promised games, gladiators, and a sneak peek at a weapon that would keep Hastings safe against future invaders.

  It was also horribly laid out. Someone had clearly just stretched out text boxes, not particularly caring how the text looked. Bad font choice, too.

  “Fire the art director,” I said. “They did a shitty job.”

  “I don’t think she wants to help,” Logan said.

  “Help you what? Kill Keller? Is that it?” The puzzle they were so clumsily laying out in front of me finally came together, and rather than fire my spirit, it just made me angry. Sure, now they wanted to do something. I turned around and shoved the invitation back at Renati. “Yeah, I heard it. The head honchos are all in one place. Great time for a dirty bomb.” I snapped my fingers in faux dismay. “Oh, shucks, knew I left something at the office.”

  The men regarded me. If they seemed surprised by the venom in my tone, they didn’t let on.

  “Killing,” Renati said, “I didn’t say killing.”

  “Well, what else were you alluding to? Giving him a lapdance? Bit difficult for me to get close to him now, isn’t it?” I turned for the door again. “He’s trying to keep the peace here. I’m sure he—”

  “You’re sure he means well? Yes, of course he does. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and to quote the good bard, we are creeping up on the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out.”

  He didn’t have to say anything more for me to understand what he meant: And you can help stop it. Well, maybe. At least, I hoped that was what he meant. I was fairly well-equipped to deal with zombies, but witches and hell itself coming out of churchyards seemed rather a tall order.

  Still I didn’t answer them. Refused to commit myself to whatever insane cause they thought I ought to champion.

  “He’s going to throw your friends into that arena-thing he’s trying to put together,” Logan said. He started to shift around on the counter, then realized he was about to knock over one of the microscopes. So he slid off it, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and came toward me, hands held out in a vaguely beseeching manner. “He’ll call them traitors from the outside and give them swords or sticks, if they’re lucky, and then the undead will swarm them. People are going to love it.”

  “Where’s he getting all these zombies from?” I asked. “You’re popping the ones that die here. Well…most of them. Is he making more?” Holy shit, what if Keller had started dosing soldiers he didn’t like with that serum?

  “He has his ways,” Renati muttered. “Logan tells me that some of them are captured when the fence lines are breached. Keller has often ordered them stashed away for research—but I never saw any of them. Of course, I don’t make a habit of conversing with…well…anyone, so we didn’t realize the discrepancy up to now.”

  “He’ll make Tony and Dax fight them,” Logan cut in. “Over and over, and they are going to get the shit kicked out of them.”

  “It’s been—it hasn’t even been a year,” I said. “It hasn’t been six months! How’s it coming to this? How the fuck are we playing Russell Crowe with goddamn zombies?”

  “Will you help us?” Renati asked.

  “Help you what? Kill Keller?” There it was again: suggesting killing him. This had all happened too fast; I couldn’t keep up. Maybe the evil stardust really had stopped up my cognitive capacities. That was why I was still here at all, listening to the ramblings of two desperate men. “Aren’t you skipping some steps?” I asked, desperate to right the headlong list this ship of crazy seemed to have adapted. “Don’t you need to—I don’t know—there’s a coup first. Why are we going straight to murder?”

  “Because he is going straight to murder,” Renati said. “He is going to murder your friends. Or rather, he’ll have his undead murder them. He will murder Tony, murder Dax, murder that poor reporter and her cameraman he’s kept locked up for so long. He will murder them all.”

  Murder. Murder. Murder.

  He kept saying it. The word could have slipped off my shoulders, bounced away from me like so many other things. But something inside me stirred. Something…something I couldn’t name.
/>   Tony and Dax had saved me from those men out in the boonies. Gloria and Vijay had saved me once, as well. How could I not try to save them in return?

  Renati grasped my hands and stared into my eyes. “Will you help us?”

  Save my friends, wipe out Keller, liberate the city? It all sounded great.

  And exhausting.

  And very unlike me. I’d been fond of my desk job. It practically guaranteed immunity from bloody coupes.

  But hell, it wasn’t like I had a long life expectancy in this world. Might as well take out some crazed military douchecanoe when I inevitably went down in flames.

  Funny, how easy a decision becomes when you realize you’re probably going to die anyway.

  “Sure,” I said. “But can we plot after I’ve walked the dog?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Evie was waiting for me at the door.

  She must have smelled me coming up the walkway. I heard her jumping up and down, yapping away while I fumbled with my keys, and she darted out the instant I swung the door open. She squeezed herself around my knees, wriggled, and then paused, looking behind me.

  She looked up at me, ears cocked.

  Where are they? her expression asked. Where’s my humans?

  How do you tell the family dog that her dads are still in jail?

  “Tony and Dax are…ah…they’ll be back later,” I said.

  She wagged her tail slowly, then stuck her face into my right hand. I patted her soft fur, a huge lump rising in my throat. I had no idea how smart she was. If she knew I was lying—if she even had any concept of what a lie was. Dogs supposedly picked up on feelings and stuff, right? Maybe she sensed my sadness.

  Or smelled it. Whatever she did with that nose of hers, which seemed to be constantly moving.

  “I’m sorry, girl,” I whispered. “We fucked all this up pretty good.”

  She thumped her tail again, then went past me to the brown front lawn, squatted down, and did her business on the dead earth there.

  “Good girl,” I said.

  Someone cleared his throat. I looked up. The neighbor I had threatened was standing on his front porch, coffee mug in his hand, his glare fastened on the dog. No doubt he found her unseemly or something.