These people had never been on The Outside, as they called it. Had never actually fought amongst the goddamn dead, had never been forced to actually survive. If they had, they’d never have charged so merrily into this battle. It was all a game to them. Some sort of horrifying, post-apocalyptic survival freak show.
Alyssa tottered uneasily. She stopped, gazing around instead of following the rest of them.
What was she doing here? Why send her in?
To throw you off.
Tony and I knew what she was, even if the rest of the audience just saw an unarmed ghoul plodding around. Could we kill her? Would she kill us?
“Alyssa,” I called out, but she could not hear me over the roar of the crowd.
Lara and her cronies were fully engaged with the dead now.
Would they engage Alyssa next?
Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
Would I stop them? Would I fight the living to stop them from harming Alyssa?
Keller, you diabolical shit. What way to better terrify the people of Hastings than to show them how insane the people from the outside were? See? They’ll kill the living!
Anger swelled up in me. I nearly threw the axe, just to give myself some sort of outlet.
A ghoul moaned, dragging me back to reality. I couldn’t throw the axe, because I needed it to take out this ugly undead son of a bitch waving his sword at me.
I don’t know what changed in me. Something had bent, surely, some wall had gone up or fallen, and the fear that had been gnawing at me for weeks and months dripped away like blood on the dirt. There was no sense in anything, not anymore. There was just me, the arena, the axe, and a bunch of zombies who needed to get acquainted with said axe.
The ghoul swung at me. I stepped and felt the displacement of air as the blade cut through it. I swung my axe clumsily against its throat, and a seam opened immediately, spraying blackened blood all over the place. I didn’t quite take its head off, but I had successfully knocked it off-balance. I wrenched the axe free, swung it upward, and then planted the entire axehead into the revenant’s skull.
It split apart. Blood and liquefying brain matter spewed upward as the body dropped to the ground.
Holy shit, this thing is kind of awesome.
I adjusted my grip on the axe and took off toward a second zombie.
“Vibeke! Wait!”
I was beyond waiting. Beyond hoping. Beyond feeling anything save a hot, burning sensation that flooded my veins and my heart.
It could only be rage. It filled me, made my arms strong and my legs swift. I tackled one revenant, then another. I hacked through them, sending parts flying off in all directions. Gore splattered my face. I did not care. I was beyond caring, beyond puking, beyond everything.
Several of them clustered around me. I waved the axe at them invitingly. “Come get it, you undead punks,” I said. “Let’s dance.”
The nearest one stumbled forward and swung his sword with something more than the clumsy brute force I’d been expecting. I parried, catching the blade on the axe handle. I shoved him away and swung the axe back to land another brain-dumping blow. “Ready to meet your maker, asshole?”
Tony caught up with me, grabbed my arm, and turned me around so I was facing another group of ghouls. “Stop monologuing,” he huffed. He pressed his back against mine, and I realized he’d been trying to shove me into something resembling a defensive position. “People die when they monologue!”
I had lost sight of Alyssa, but we had more pressing matters at hand.
“Keep your back against mine,” Tony said. “We’ll cover each other.”
That plan lasted about five seconds. One of them rushed me. I stepped away from Tony and caught the zombie on the chin with the tip of the axehead. I dragged it upward, shattering its face as it went. Emboldened, I thrust my weight against it, knocking it to the ground.
I split its head open for good measure.
I swung at another one and missed. Then dealt a flesh wound to another. I had to get to Alyssa before one of the other living fighters did.
They kept coming, I kept slicing. The axe was heavy, but I barely had to aim. So consumed was I in my task that I ignored everything else. I heard things—the heavy thudding of my heart. The groans of the undead. Tony attempting to issue orders—but they scarcely registered. Nor did the sudden heavy thumps that made the ground rumble, or sudden cracking noises that split the air. Sound effects most likely.
I came upon a ghoul that seemed distracted, its gaze directed somewhere in the stands. I lopped its head off, and then, as the body fell, I finally realized someone was shooting at something.
People screamed. I looked around, but the revenants seemed to have clustered near Tony and Lara. The cheering crowds in the bleachers had degraded into a writhing, terrified mass of humanity, all of them trying to move in different directions.
And there, up in the top, was Keller’s group, cowering beneath a hail of bullets. I counted two men very obviously not moving. Two others were covered in blood.
I saw no sign of Keller himself. Shit, had he run off already?
And there was Renati’s white coat flapping as his arm moved back and forth rapidly. I pictured him driving a scalpel into someone’s gut.
The steady rat-a-tat-tat of rifles quickly drowned out the single shots I assumed Logan was taking. A quick scan of the crowds revealed several soldiers aiming in the direction his shots had come from, but all they ended up doing was firing into civilians.
You’re shooting your own people, you fuckers!
I probably would have stood there gawking if Tony had not seized my arm. “We need to get to cover!”
Ah, yes. Cover. Very important during a firefight.
Lara dashed past us, several undead running after her. I might have tried to help, but forgot all about her when I spotted Alyssa again: she was loitering near the dugout, partially concealed by its overhanging roof. I glanced around, found myself briefly un-assaulted, and dashed toward her. Tony trailed after me, obscenity-laden complaints flying out of his mouth.
It took Alyssa a second to recognize me, but she nodded once in my direction.
“This is bullshit,” she said.
“I dunno.” I waved my axe around the way I imagined a triumphant gladiator might. “It’s kinda fun.”
“You have a strange idea of fun.” Her expression seemed more natural than it had this morning, more fluid. Maybe rigor mortis was wearing off.
There was another exchange of fire in the stands, followed by the ear-splitting shriek that tended to accompany a bite. The zombie who had been so intent on getting at those VIP seats had somehow squirmed his way up into them, and appeared to be munching on someone.
Tony grunted. “I must admit, this went better for us than I expected.”
“Can we get out through the dugout?” I asked Alyssa. “Or are there more revenants in there?”
She had to think about it for a precious few seconds.
“They were in cages,” she said. “Probably still are.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
She turned slowly and began walking into the corridor.
Her head snapped back. I thought for a moment she had seen something shocking, and this was her dead brain’s effort at leaning away from it. But then the rest of her body followed it, tipping over backward and landing at my feet.
“Alyssa?”
She didn’t answer. Of course she didn’t answer; her face was a gaping hole. I could see her tongue, lying there amidst a few teeth.
Tony pulled me back out into the stadium. I barely felt his hand on my arm.
Keller came walking out of the dugout. He had a pistol clenched in his hand.
I stared at the gun, then at him.
Where the hell did he come from?
Had he abandoned his men in the bleachers just to come down here and torment us?
He barely glanced at Alyssa as he stepped over her. “You do like causing chaos, don’t y
ou?”
Chaos was a good word for it. People screamed, trampled one another. Soldiers on one end of the stadium fired into the opposite end, trying to knock down Logan. Judging by the yelps and screams, they still weren’t hitting anything but civilians.
Keller spread his hands. “This is why we don’t let outsiders in.”
The ground rumbled. Strange, I hadn’t felt any aftershocks in a while.
“I should have just shot you all when you got here,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t.”
I held up my axe in as threatening a fashion as I could. Keller gaped at me, then let a cold smile briefly creep across his features. “Really? I have a gun, you idiot.”
“So be a man and shoot me.”
“Goddammit, Vibeke!” Tony exclaimed.
Keller’s expression went flat.
“You’re going to get all these people killed,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe. Maybe not. But that’s not for you to judge.”
He lifted the gun.
The ground rumbled again, and this time it didn’t stop. Maybe it would just open up and swallow me whole. I’d be okay with that.
A howl shook the stands. Keller looked beyond us, his eyes growing wide. I turned around.
The side of the arena bulged inward, shook, then collapsed entirely, an advertisement for some pre-apocalypse dental office landing squarely on the dirt.
A long, slender rod jutted through, followed by the unmistakable bulk of a tank.
A tank?
I glanced back at Keller to gauge his reaction. Maybe this was one of his other special guests.
One look at his face indicated that no, it was not, and no, he did not routinely have tanks come blazing into his Kill-Fests.
The last time I had seen or heard word of a tank, it had been in Elderwood—and it had been turned against us. I didn’t know if this was that same tank, re-taken and put back to work, or if it was some other vehicle they’d gotten their hands on in the meantime.
All fell silent as the tank crunched over the fencing and rolled directly into the stadium. The shooting stopped, as did most of the screams, though the wounded still cried out for help. All eyes were fastened on it.
The hatch on top popped open, and a head poked out. It looked around, taking in the hole it had made in the outfield, then the bleachers, the undead, and the bodies scattered across what had once been the baseball diamond. It shook its head.
The tank commander pulled off his helmet and gawked around the arena, then turned to look at us.
“Good grief,” Hammond called out, “you weren’t kidding about this place being a total shit show.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Holy shit, Hammond had come to save us.
He climbed down from the tank and slowly made his way over to us, looking this way and that at the bodies littering the ground.
All I could think about was flinging my arms around him, and I probably would have embarrassed myself by doing just that, if some enterprising ghoul hadn’t come shambling over to me.
Hammond’s right hand dropped to his sidearm, but I lifted my left hand. “I got this, General,” I called out. I clasped the axe with both hands and swung it at the ghoul.
The head landed on the ground, where it glared up at me. I almost apologized to it on the spot. Sorry for severing you from your body, man. Nothing personal.
Its jaws worked up and down in what appeared to be silent rage.
Hammond studied my grip on the axe, and then nodded. “Not bad,” he said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “New hobby.” I pointed the axe to the figures coming into view behind the tank. They had probably gone chasing after Lara, whom I had lost track of in all the chaos. “And you’ve got friends coming over.”
Hammond turned. A handful of surviving ghouls from one of the earlier rounds or some other spot in the stadium were making their way toward the tank. I hoped the guys inside had stout hearts; watching a bunch of zombies come toward you is pretty harrowing, even if you’re ensconced in a damn tank.
I didn’t need to worry. Additional soldiers began picking their way through the entrance the tank had made, and Hammond pointed at the clump of zombies. “Lieutenant, take care of those, will you?” he asked.
The guns began discharging, and the ghouls swiftly dropped. Oh, what a sweet symphony to my ears.
Hammond closed the gap between himself and us swiftly. He nodded slightly to Tony and myself as he went by, coming to a halt only when he reached Keller. “Captain,” he said, as solicitous and pleasant as I’d ever seen him. “I’m pleased to know you’re alive. I think.”
Keller maintained his composure, but he did glance upward toward the stands. His cabinet members, or whatever they were, had largely scattered or seemed dead, and those who remained in the stands were watching the proceedings.
Hammond glanced at my axe, then at me. “I see you’ve…come up with some novel methods for entertainment.”
For the first time, I realized the axehead and handle were utterly covered in gore. The more I looked at myself, the more I realized the ichor wasn’t limited to my weapon. Every time I’d knocked down a ghoul, something had splattered on me. I must have smelled fabulous.
Hammond shook his head, then gazed over the contents of the arena, his eyes growing more troubled. People were still trying to get out, though the arrival of the tank and an apparent army had stilled some of them into inaction.
“Might want to make a speech,” Tony said. “They’re freaking out.”
“I can see that.” Hammond stepped away from us and trudged into the center of the stadium. “McKnight, you want to hang on to him? I don’t want them getting any ideas.”
Tony slung what appeared to be a companionable arm around Keller. Then he thrust the blade of his sword right beneath the captain’s throat. “He dies, you die,” he said in a conversational tone.
Keller rolled his eyes.
Hammond stood out in the middle for a moment, giving those left in the bleachers time to look at him. “I’m General Hammond of Camp Elderwood,” he called, loudly enough for the people in the bleachers to hear. “I must ask forgiveness for my tardiness. After we stopped hearing from your city, we thought the worst had happened. It took us some time to realize you were here, just…not feeling talkative.” He turned his head to rest his gaze squarely on Keller. “Captain, what the hell kind of ship are you running here?”
I’ll say this for Keller: For a man with a sword at his throat and a tank in front of him, he showed zero fear. He tilted his chin up and away from Tony’s blade. “How many men did you bring with you, General?” he asked. “Couldn’t hold your own city together, so you want to take mine?”
“Rescue it, more like.”
“They don’t need rescuing.”
“I crashed your zombie deathmatch,” Hammond said. “I’d say that indicates a need for rescuing.”
I counted at least two dozen soldiers in the stadium, not counting those in the tank. How many others would he have brought? They must have come on foot; most vehicles simply weren’t reliable anymore. Was this the advance squad? Were they all fanned out around the arena, ready to set things right?
“I’m afraid it’s you who need rescuing,” Keller said. “You, and the idiots you selected as your emissaries.”
Hey. I’m pretty sure that was a jab at us.
Keller raised his voice, addressing someone either in the stands or tucked away elsewhere. “Let them out!”
“Wait!”
Renati! I’d forgotten about him. I scanned the crowds, looking for him. He was waving frantically at me, his coat splattered with blood and—yep, I was pretty sure that was an intestine on his arm.
I didn’t have time to puzzle over it more, because the home team dugout door swung open.
“Were there ghouls in there with you?” I asked Tony.
“I didn’t see any…”
Then the unmistakable stench of the undead wafted ou
t. The general and the rest of his men turned as one toward the dugout.
Out came the running dead, trampling any hope of an easy victory.
Keller’s elbows plowed backwards into Tony’s sides. Tony doubled over, the sword dropping out of his hand, and then the captain was off and running into the opposing team’s dugout and presumably a tunnel of some sort that connected it to the outside.
There was no time to chase after him. I helped Tony get to his feet and then turned back to face the oncoming swarm of the dead, axe at the ready. They were on the soldiers almost immediately. Hammond shouted an order, and I heard the guns firing, but they were swiftly drowned out by the ungodly wail of the undead as they came blazing toward us. I swung the axe around and nailed the one nearest me, slicing his head off and sending it flying across the arena in one vicious, blood-dripping arc.
The body continued wandering around for a few seconds.
The crowds in the bleachers decided they’d had quite enough of Keller, Hammond, and the running dead, and all the violence, and began a wild stampede for the handful of exits. I caught sight of Renati hustling Dax after a large group.
The soldiers swiftly made a dent in the undead assault. Tony pointed at the giant hole the tank had plowed through the infield wall. “Let’s let these guys do their thing,” he said.
We picked our way over shattered signage and pieces of metal, and suddenly we were back outside in the real world.
Now that I had a moment to breathe, I looked over the axe, sort of astonished that I had managed to hang onto it. “You know, this thing isn’t half-bad,” I said. “It’s kind of…fun.”
“Fun,” Tony repeated. “Fun?”
Fun. What the hell was I thinking? Chopping up anyone, even undead cannibals, shouldn’t be fun.
And yet I really liked this axe.
“Sure,” I said. “Fun.”
We tracked down Dax and Renati on the other side of the stadium trying to worm their way out of the seething, squeaking mass of humanity.
I briefly gave up on trying to seem like a hardass and flung my arms around both of them. Dax hugged me back, but Renati made a sniffing sound and tried to disengage. “Vibeke, Vibeke, you’re covered in…oh, I think that’s someone’s ear—”
Grave New World (Book 3): Dead Men Don't Skip Page 26