“I love you guys,” I mumbled.
Tony came up behind us. “Solidarity sandwich, guys,” he said, trying to hug all three of us at once.
“Oh,” the doctor said, his eyes widening. “Oh, this smells.”
That only made Tony squeeze harder.
Renati gagged: “Get off me, I beg you.”
“You guys are the sourdough to my bacon.”
Oh, hell, how many zombies would I kill for some bacon right now? Maybe Hammond has some bacon.
We all released each other. I chanced a look at Dax’s shoulder. Renati had hastily bandaged the wound—probably all he had time for, given the circumstances. I was willing to bet it needed a proper cleaning and stitches.
“So what happened?” I asked.
The doctor sighed, tilting his head to the sound of gunfire coming from the arena. “I don’t know. I…I started hiking up there. Logan did start shooting and then I just jumped in.” He looked at the sleeves of his coat, drenched as they were in bright red blood, and blanched.
Physicians were supposed to do no harm. I wondered if he’d have to reckon with himself over that later.
“So that was Logan who started things off?” Tony asked. “Where is he?”
Renati shook his head. “I haven’t seen him.”
Thousands of people thronged around us. Logan could be anywhere—bleeding out in the stands, blending in with the crowd, running for his life down the street. “That shootout went on for a while,” I said. “They couldn’t have gotten him…could they?”
Renati looked back toward the stadium. “We’ll have to wait until we can get back inside.”
We loitered out in front for a few moments. I did my best to clean up, wiping blood and zombie guts off on a T-shirt I found lying on the ground. I would have scrubbed up even more, but Tony nudged me. “Look alive,” he said.
Hammond himself not emerged from the stadium, looking none the worse for wear.
Again I was struck by the ridiculous urge to hug him.
“Well,” he said, “this has been an interesting day.”
Tony didn’t waste any time with pleasantries. “How many men did you bring? Keller’s still on the loose.”
The general chuckled. “Feeling antsy, are you?”
“We need to let Durkee out like, yesterday.”
His eyebrows shot upward, almost vanishing beneath his cap. “Durkee? Captain Durkee? He’s alive?”
“Mostly,” I said. “Keller left him with Gloria and Vijay…where are they?” I felt a stab of guilt run through me. I hadn’t wondered about the two of them at all—I had been so consumed with the minute-to-minute catastrophe that was our plan that I hadn’t noticed they weren’t present.
“They weren’t brought out with us,” Dax said. “I think he was going to use them for some kind of grand finale, since people at least knew them. Well…they knew her.”
The general considered us, then looked back at the stadium. “So we need to retrieve Durkee and possibly Gloria Fey and…who’s Vijay?”
“Her cameraman. Sometimes we just call him Jay.”
He nodded, his brow furrowing slightly. Hammond hadn’t been all that thrilled with Gloria reporting on our ongoing apocalypse, but as far as I knew he’d never actively tried to track her down. What would happen now? Would he leave her to her fate?
“I’m hungry,” the general said. “What’s there to eat around here?”
We looked at one another. How were we supposed to break the news to him?
“We have plenty of pastrami,” Dax said. “If you’re into that.”
“I hate pastrami.”
Oh, Hammond was probably not going to enjoy his time in Hastings.
I realized the sound of gunfire had eased. Now we just heard clean-up shots, the occasional double-tap to make sure no one got back up.
If I closed off my mind, I could almost believe order had been restored.
Almost.
That’s not how things work in the endtimes, though. There’s always another problem. Another hitch. Another zombie.
The ground shook.
I flung out my arms to keep my balance and nearly took out Renati with the axe. Tony went over immediately, landing on his ass with a shocked look on his face.
“You got another tank?” he asked Hammond.
The general turned away from me, his expression growing alarmed. “That’s…not a tank…”
The sound rocketed over a second later: the crash of something huge giving way and collapsing.
“Something big just blew,” Hammond said.
We all looked in the general direction of the sound, but it was Renati who pointed upward above the bleacher walls at a plume of dark smoke against the gray sky. “I’ll bet you anything it’s coming from the Quarantine Zone,” he said.
“Of course it did.” Hammond pinched the bridge of his nose. “We can’t have a nice day, can we? Is the Quarantine Zone what it sounds like?”
“Yes. We had to section off half the city when it was overrun.”
“What blew up?” Dax asked.
Renati wiped his hands down the front of his coat again. “If I had to venture a guess, Keller probably just took out one of the walls that keep the dead out.”
“Blew a wall?” Hammond’s jaw dropped open. He swiftly composed himself, but I caught a moment of uncertainty sneaking across his face. “Why would he…and how…?”
“Spite?” the doctor suggested. “Maybe it was an accident.”
Sure. And maybe I’d wake up from this really terrible dream and all would be right with the world again.
The general’s hands briefly clenched into fists. “Who would knock down a—never mind. I knew we were coming to Crazy Town. This just proves it.”
People were pausing in clumps to look at the smoke rising from the explosion site. From this distance, none of us could really tell what had come down. A wall? A building?
No one screamed. Maybe they didn’t quite grasp what was going on, or were in shock.
“Should we evacuate?” I asked.
Hammond threw back his head and laughed.
“Evacuate to where?” he asked. “One of the other abandoned towns? Or maybe you want us to fight that herd gathering in Muldoon. There’s nowhere else to go. I have five thousand civilians waiting outside that nice wall you guys built. I brought them here.”
“You brought everyone?” Tony leaned away, aghast.
“Elderwood wasn’t defensible anymore.”
I didn’t ask what that meant.
Hammond swung around, critically studying the arena, the fleeing people, and the surrounding buildings. Then he looked toward the smoke in the distance again. “One breach in an interior fence isn’t so bad. My soldiers can help plug it. But will Keller’s men give us trouble?”
“You want to take over the city,” I said. “Are you serious?”
“I didn’t come all this way in a goddamn tank to pick you up and leave, Orvik.”
And here I’d thought he just wanted to save us.
He does. But he wants to save all of us. Everyone.
Thirty thousand people in Hastings.
“The men might rally to Durkee,” Renati said. “Maybe.”
“General!” I perked up my ears at the sound of the familiar voice floating toward us. “General!”
I swung around. Sergeant Poltava was rushing our way, her rifle banging against her back with every step. Holy shit, I hadn’t seen her in weeks. She was dragging another soldier along behind her, and they skidded to a stop in front of us. She shoved her dazed-looking accomplice forward, right into Hammond’s face. “This is Private Hawkins, part of Keller’s security detail,” she said. “He says Keller blew the Chapman Barrier. It’s somewhere inside the Quarantine Zone, a real wall they threw up when things got bad.”
“Wall,” Hammond repeated. “They have walls inside, too?”
He directed this question to Tony and me, but we just looked back in confusion. I ha
d stayed inside what felt more and more like a bubble during my time in Hastings, the bulk of my time spent at home, at work, and in jail.
“Yes sir,” Poltava said. “There are two barriers within the Quarantine Zone: the chain link fence the civilians see, and then proper walls deeper inside.”
The general blinked in surprise. “One of which has been blown up?”
Poltava jabbed Hawkins in the ribs, and he nodded. “Yes, sir. I think so. The direction and distance of the smoke…that’s all it could be.”
“There weren’t too many hunkered down at the fence when we got here,” Poltava added, “but I sent a scout in this morning and he said there were thousands behind the wall itself.”
I almost dropped the axe. “Thousands?”
The ground rumbled. Hammond’s tank rolled out of the stadium, ready for more action.
Private Hawkins turned around to stare at it. “Where the fuck did that come from?”
“I crashed the party,” Hammond said.
“Soldier,” Tony said, “I’d suggest you reconsider your loyalties to Keller. Because shit’s about to go down in this town.”
“Stop rhyming,” I said.
“Be cool. I’m old school.”
The soldier looked between the two of us. “There’s a wall of zombies coming for the breach,” he said. “Chapman runs straight through the city. They’ll be here within hours…I was about to run for my life. Maybe you should, too.”
“Maybe not,” Hammond said. “You stay right here, Private. I can use you.”
Hawkins looked ready to bolt, but stood his ground for the time being.
“General, this could get very bad very soon,” Poltava said.
“Agreed.” He pivoted and looked at us. “You know where Durkee is?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Well. Sort of.”
“I’ll set up a perimeter. Poltava, you go with them—we need to get a look at this breach and see if we can plug it.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He considered my admittedly old-fashioned weaponry. “And maybe get yourselves some guns. Not that I’m not digging the 300 vibe.”
“I was going more for Gladiator,” I said.
He smiled, but his mind had already moved in. “Hawkins, you’re with me. Come on.”
Thankfully, Hawkins obeyed.
We followed the general deeper into the city as more of the Elderwood contingent poured in. A number of Hammond’s men were carrying heavy equipment: extra weaponry, radio stuff, and more bits and pieces they’d usually tuck away in a truck or other support vehicles that had probably long since stopped functioning. Poltava flagged a couple of them down and filched weapons for us.
We received pistols and—most important of all—a walkie-talkie.
Hammond looked over us and nodded in approval. “Much better. Now get moving.” He pointed in the direction of the smoke plume. “I’m not losing another city.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I kept the axe with me, not out of any lingering fondness for it, but because I only had a pistol to my name right now, and running out of ammunition seemed like a very real possibility.
Also, what can I say? It looked really cool, even if none of the undead actually appreciated or feared it.
Fortunately, Tony remembered the way to our fantastic prison cell, even if I didn’t. We hustled down a street clogged with confused civilians, all of them clearly trying to migrate away from the recent blast. They would probably wind up crashing into Hammond’s group, which I was certain would be one of the more entertaining moments of the apocalypse.
The handful of soldiers amongst them seemed more concerned with calming people down than actually maintaining order, which worked out in our favor. No one paid attention to three random people trying to go toward the explosion.
Find Durkee. Fix the wall.
Small things, really. They only seemed like tall orders.
“Good to see you,” I puffed to Poltava. I was riding high on adrenaline, but I was pretty sure I’d soon be feeling the effects of my zombie killing spree. “So you’ve been here all day?”
“Hammond sent us in to scout this morning,” she said. “We were going to try to take things quietly, but one of my men saw what was going on in the stadium and the general decided to make an entrance.”
Judging by the look on her face, she would have preferred to take things quietly.
We closed in on the eastern side of the city, making our way toward Durkee. We passed more and more citizens, most of whom were not actually fleeing but instead rubbernecked in the street, looking toward the plume of smoke—that kept getting bigger and bigger. To my horror, I realized the makeshift prison had to be located on the east side, and probably right near the wall that had been knocked down. We were headed directly toward it!
“He must have had the wall rigged, right?” Tony puffed, limping along as fast as his leg would allow. “He can’t have set all that up in five minutes.”
“He had it rigged,” Poltava said grimly. “Or someone did. Someone wants this city to burn.”
We reached the would-be prison complex itself in good time. The soldiers had probably run as soon as they realized the fence was down; really, who wouldn’t? Thousands of revenants were lurking in the Quarantine Zone, and all of them would be drawn to the sound of the explosion.
We ran into the main lobby. An awful lot of blood was smeared across the floor. We followed it to the back of the building, toward the actual holding cell.
“Shit,” Tony said. “Give me your axe, Vibby. If there’s more of them—”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
The smear led us straight to a dead man. He pounded ineffectively at the door, then spun around when I whistled at him. He wore a uniform, though its camouflage pattern was utterly wrecked by the blood spilled across it.
Something had ripped his lower jaw off. Poor dude.
I slammed the axe into his head. It dug into his skull, though I hadn’t swung hard enough to actually smash through the bone entirely. I was about to pull the axehead free to try again, but Poltava stepped in front of me and slapped a bullet through his face.
He slumped against the wall, then went over.
I pried the axe out of his head. “You know, I’m starting to like this thing.”
“You do make it look good,” Tony said. He started unlocking the many deadbolts that had been installed on the door, and then hauled the door itself open.
Poltava held up a hand, indicating she should go in first. “Captain Durkee?” she called. “Are you in there?”
Durkee appeared almost immediately, his toes still sticking out of his jovial-looking socks. “I’m Durkee,” he said. “Was that you trying to chew your way through?”
I pointed at the zombie.
“Ah, good. Well, it’s always prudent to ask. What’s going on out there?”
“General Hammond sent us to get you.”
Durkee’s mouth fell open a bit. “Hammond is here?”
I pressed on, not letting him ask any follow-up questions: “There’s been an explosion. One of your soldiers said the Chapman Barrier is down.”
“Chapman? That’s almost…that’s practically down the street…”
Tony peered past the captain into the place we had all so recently occupied. “Hey, where’s Gloria and Vijay?”
“Don’t know. They got pulled out right after you left—I assumed they were fighting, too.”
Tony shook his head. “Didn’t see them.”
“We’ll find them, then.” Durkee crouched down beside the re-deceased revenant and rustled around in its pockets, seemingly unmoved by the blood and the stench. He came up with a set of keys, then barged past us and out into the hallway. He hooked a right, and led us to a locked door. He put the purloined keys to use and flung open a door, revealing a small room chock-full of guns. “You look like you could use some more weapons.”
“Oh, I love this part of video games,” Tony said, ga
zing into the room with something close to outright lust. “What’ve you got for us?”
“AR-15s. Nothing that’ll get you into godmode.” He registered my blank stare and smiled. “Video game term.”
Of course.
He handed us each a rifle—much lighter than my German antique—and a spare magazine, and then outfitted himself similarly. He considered the row of helmets hanging from the wall, then apparently thought better of it and went for the exit. “The Chapman Barrier. Someone wants to destroy the city.”
“The dead are attracted to noise,” Poltava said.
“Yes, they did figure that out before they threw me in here.” Durkee checked his weapons. “Chapman Street is two blocks over. The actual barrier is about a half-mile to the north—we bricked up the road between two buildings as soon as we realized what was happening with the dead. If it’s down, that’s a big street for them to come pouring down.”
Poltava asked the question on everyone’s mind: “Can we stop them?”
Durkee stared at his rifle for a moment. “I need to get a look at the situation. If we can plug the breach, yes. If not, we enact Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?” I asked.
“Run as far away as we can.”
Short and to the point. I liked it.
“One more thing,” Tony said.
“Hmm?”
“We had other guns when we got here. Older ones. Where are they?”
Poltava started to laugh aloud before she caught herself.
“Really?” I asked. “We have big fancy machine guns and you want our old stuff?”
“I like the old stuff.”
Durkee shrugged and led us to another room. He unlocked it and pointed inside. “We put confiscated stuff in here when I was in charge. I don’t know if Keller moved things around.”
I recognized the STG immediately. It stuck out amidst a variety of seemingly random objects, ranging from huge winter coats to suitcases and even a television set.
“This is all confiscated stuff?” I asked.
“Yep.” Durkee seemed fascinated by the TV as well. “I wonder if that thing still works…”
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