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

by S. P. Blackmore

  “Crikey,” I gasped. I shoved my hands at it, trying to twist the rifle enough to bump it aside, but it had me pinned, and it wailed away, calling for its friends.

  Tony’s boot shot over my head and struck the revenant in the face. Bits of skin and ichor rained down on me, but he succeeded in knocking the thing away. He pulled out his pistol and popped it in the head, raining blood down on the dead houseplants on the other side of the porch.

  I scrambled backward.

  More of them came out the ruined front door. I don’t know how many people usually lived in a house in Hastings, but there had been at least a dozen in this one, and at least half of them were tripping all over themselves in Snuggies.

  Well, at least they were warm.

  Tony groaned. “Forget being quiet. Just fuck ’em up.”

  I opted to use the pistol on this bunch, taking careful aim and ripping off as many head shots as I could. Over the sound of bullets discharging, I could hear Tony hassling the remaining citizenry. “See what was living down the street from you?” he yelled over the din. “Thousands more of these things are coming! Now get moving.”

  He helped me finish off the last of the ghouls.

  A handful of people were still loitering when we reached the street again. “We don’t have guns,” a man said.

  “The teenagers in 305 do,” I said. “Although I think they’re hoping to go out in a blaze of glory, so maybe avoid them.”

  “What do we do?”

  What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? How could we make it any more clear to these people?

  “Get out of here before the dead drop in,” Tony said. “Get to the city gates. The Army’s there, they’ll handle things.”

  How often had we said that today?

  “But what if we can’t?”

  Tony sighed.

  “You have knives, don’t you?” I asked. “Kitchen knives, hunting knives, baseball bats. If it’s hard or sharp, you can use it. Just try not to let them get too close. They bite.”

  “What the fuck is going on over here?”

  Oh, thank the Lord. Durkee had gotten sick of us wasting time, and he jogged over to us, his expression growing steadily more enraged. “What are you doing? We don’t have time for a prayer circle!”

  I gestured to him. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Durkee.”

  Rather than make introductions, he pointed at the overpass. “See that? There’s C-4 all over it, which means it is going to blow the hell up very soon. I suggest you get the fuck out unless you’re really into dodging falling blocks of concrete, because that’s going to happen.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” someone asked.

  Durkee looked up at the sky as if to ask some divine being for patience, then stared back at the clustered civilians. “Does it really matter? I’m still blasting this place. Get moving. And you two!” he pointed at Tony and myself. “Get to Chapman. The first of the horde’s almost here and we’re not done yet.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The dead walked.

  They also shambled, staggered, and sort of jogged down Chapman Street, the mass of them moving steadily toward the little clump of the living standing in front of the overpass.

  “This seems ill-advised,” I said. “There’s a lot of them.”

  Durkee stood with us, seemingly unconcerned with the huge group on its way. “You only need to hold them off for a little bit,” he said. “Hammond’s team is wiring up the other side. Keep these undead fucks from getting through, and on my signal, we have to run.”

  Assuming I’d gauged their numbers correctly, the actual bulk of the dead was still some distance off. The group we could see was smaller, faster, and probably even more of a pain in the ass than a regular horde.

  “Ugh,” I said.

  “You only need to hold them off for a couple minutes,” Durkee said. He was probably aiming for a calm, reassuring tone, but he was not entirely pulling it off.

  Just for a couple minutes. Maybe I could make pigs fly while I was at it.

  Tony was silent about the whole thing, which probably meant he thought we were dead meat.

  “Sure,” I said. “No problem.”

  They weren’t in range just yet. But they would be soon.

  Very soon.

  I took a deep breath and tried to sort out my thoughts. Guns first. Then I could switch to the axe. Damn, I needed a holster for that thing. Picking it up and dropping it took up precious time.

  “Vibeke,” Tony said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  Shit. If he declared his undying love for me, I was just going to leave. “What’s that, Tony?” I asked, bracing myself for the worst.

  “I really wish you’d gotten into Game of Thrones.”

  I let out a heavy sigh. “And I wish you had made more coffee at work when you drank the last of it.”

  We regarded each other solemnly.

  “Good times,” he said. He held out a fist.

  I bumped mine against it.

  “Hey! No fist-bumping without me!”

  I hadn’t expected backup, and I didn’t get it. Instead, I got a heavily bandaged Dax, jogging over alongside Gloria, Vijay, and Poltava, along with what I assumed were a handful of her squadron.

  So this was it. Our final stand. We did not make a particularly impressive crew.

  “Glad you could make it,” Tony said to Gloria. He shoved the Carbine at Dax, who already had a weapon but accepted it anyway. “Where the hell were you?”

  “Dax and some nut with crazy hair let us out,” Vijay said. “I guess we were supposed to be the clean-up act. Fed to the victors or something.”

  “Idiot,” Gloria said. Someone had given her a pretty big gun. “Don’t they know how many people claim I’ve given them indigestion?”

  We stood there in a line, staring at the dead.

  Durkee marched back out to us. “A word of advice,” he said. “I realize you all look very heroic standing there, but maybe you can do us a solid and take the fight to them? Looks better on paper, too.”

  Oh. Right. It probably wouldn’t do to sit here waiting for them to come get us.

  Poltava switched off the safety on her rifle and started trudging forward. Her group followed her; mine lingered.

  “This sucks,” Dax said.

  I took a deep breath and put all thoughts of Alyssa, of my friends, and pastrami aside. “By Ezekiel’s Scythe, I’ll see you on the other side.”

  The boys sent me surprised looks. “Quoting Dead Mennonite Walking?” Tony asked. “Really?”

  “There were exactly two books I could read while you two were in jail. Dead Mennonite Walking, and a really boring translation of The Iliad. Guess which one I read?”

  I switched off the STG’s safety.

  Then I ran right into the fray.

  It was stupid. I knew it was stupid. But if I didn’t throw myself directly at the dead, I’d probably change my mind and flee in the other direction. There was no thought to it, no real reasoning. Just a simmering, pent-up pool of rage that abruptly boiled over.

  I skidded to a halt about twenty feet out and dropped my axe next to me. I cradled the STG in my arms like an old friend, took aim, and ripped off a shot.

  The first man toppled. I had already picked out another target, this one hairier, less well preserved. He took two shots to go down. The third, a woman, lifted her hands toward me. She looked almost pleading.

  I waited to see if she was actually alive.

  She made it to about five feet away from me before she flung herself forward.

  I lifted the STG. Her mouth closed around the muzzle, teeth shattering in all directions. I pulled the trigger, and black mist blew out of the back of her head, her skull going to pieces around the shell.

  Her body dropped to the ground.

  I looked down at her, trying to figure out if I felt anything. Remorse. Horror. Astonishment.

  It was all gone, left behin
d me somewhere in the ruins of Hastings.

  “Look out!”

  I don’t know who barked at me, but I looked up, staring straight down Chapman Avenue and the sudden flood of new revenants it contained. They emerged from side streets, taking long, loping strides that were a far cry from the hobbling steps of their less evolved brethren. They came forward, marching, their gazes fixed on me. They were all in uniform, and save the sunken eyes, all looked…nearly alive.

  Their eyes.

  These had to be the men Jacoby experimented on. The ones who had escaped into the city with some ability to think left intact.

  Was this a trap? Had they watched us attack the slow-moving group, waiting for us to spend our bullets before coming after us?

  You assholes, I thought.

  I hefted the STG and looked down the barrel, catching one head in my sights.

  I shot, and shot, and shot. I hit some of them. Missed others. Managed to land non-crucial blasts. My gun got hot, and then hit empty.

  And still they came.

  I switched to the AR. I didn’t shoot as well with this one; you get used to handling a weapon, and using another proves daunting. But bullets were bullets. I kept shooting, kept firing.

  And then I ran out.

  I dropped the AR to the ground. At this point I would have thrown decency to the wind and started clubbing the dead with my gun. But the STG was a decent weapon, and I had something better than a club, anyway.

  I picked up the axe.

  “Come get it, you undead fucks!” I bellowed over their dull roar.

  They swarmed around me.

  I swung the axehead wildly. It buried itself in someone’s neck on the first swing. I yanked it free and jammed it into the nearest body, then nearly lost it when the ghoul yanked himself away from me. I threw an elbow, caught a face, and had the pleasure of undead blood come oozing down my arm. I ripped the axe free and went for another head, heaving all my weight and strength behind each swing.

  The spray of bullets jerked me briefly out of my rage. Someone was trying to fish me out of the horde. Maybe a few someones, by the sound of it.

  We knocked down the foremost runners, and moved further into the fray.

  Someone clumped against my shoulder. Tony shoved another gun at me, along with a new magazine. “Compliments of the general,” he said.

  I shifted the axe to my left hand. This new rifle was insanely light—too light, really. I started shooting it with only my right hand and over-corrected almost immediately.

  But I soon got the hang of it, and mowed through them, ignoring the spray of cold blood on my face and the body parts that went flying when I missed the head.

  I dropped the axe.

  People came and went around me. Tony moved on, sprinting ahead into death or glory or whatever he thought he was going to find in the shambling masses. I caught sight of Dax picking his shots, skipping from one ghoul to another. Behind me, I heard Gloria and Vijay yelling to each other. Aside from Poltava’s handful of real soldiers, we were a sorry offensive force. The world deserved better.

  But hey, you take what you can get.

  I crashed forward, swept up in a group of them. This gun did not get hot in my hands, though I did feel it sputter as it ran through the last of its ammunition. I lifted the magazine Tony had given me, only to realize it wasn’t intended for this new gun at all—he’d shoved something for the STG at me along with the newer, now-empty weapon.

  I twisted my arm behind me and pulled the STG forward, doing my best to eject the old magazine one-handed. The others had the dead occupied, if only for a few seconds. That’s all I needed, a few seconds—

  And then I found myself face to face with a dead man in military fatigues.

  His eyes all but glittered. This was no braindead cannibal: this one was looking at me, searching for weakness.

  “You were one of Jacoby’s tests,” I said.

  His lips curled into a snarl.

  I hurled the empty new gun at him. The son of a bitch caught it, his wizened, rotten hands closing over the stock. I could swear he was searching for the fucking trigger.

  “It’s empty, dude,” I said.

  I swung at him with the STG.

  He lifted the gun up, and my old rifle clattered against it.

  Shit. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have given him something to defend himself with.

  He looked at our crossed guns and looked at me, and the smile grew wider.

  God, his blackened gums stank.

  “You can go,” I said. “If you want. I didn’t see you, you didn’t see me.”

  He stepped back, lifted the gun, and brought it down toward my head.

  I dodged away, the air whistling as the big weapon came down where I had stood. I swung the STG at him once more, and he got the gun in the way again. Either I was getting slower or he was fast and could think on his feet. I couldn’t tell.

  “Retreat!”

  What?

  “I said retreat!”

  Retreat? What’s that?

  Wait. That was Durkee. We were supposed to blow something up.

  I gathered what remained of my energy and flung myself at him, heedless of his stench. He toppled off-balance, and I swung the STG at his head as hard as I could.

  It didn’t have the same effect as the axe. Holy shit, I wanted that axe back.

  I lifted the rifle overhead again. If all else failed, I would just brain him the old-fashioned way.

  Or would have, if a swarm of his buddies hadn’t come right toward me.

  Okay, braining them all was out of the question. I started fumbling with the STG’s magazine again, and finally succeeded in ejecting the old one and letting it fall to the ground.

  The new magazine clicked home, but before I could start unleashing it, someone stepped in front of me.

  He’d obviously taken a beating in between his misadventure at the park and joining me here. Blood streamed from a dozen cuts, and I was fairly certain a huge stain on his side indicated a gunshot wound rather than a bite. But here he was, standing in front of me, his eyes almost as empty as a dead man’s.

  “Go,” Logan said. “Durkee says to go. They’re gonna blast the overpass.”

  “Where have you been?” Stupid question, I know. He was here, and he’d held up his end of the deal. Who cared where he’d been?

  He glanced at the oncoming brigade of the undead, who seemed to swirl around us, avoiding actually laying into us. “Been around,” he said. “Maybe I’ll stay awhile.”

  Dead. He’s dead.

  Or dying.

  Either one.

  His gaze landed on my waist. “Can I have your pistol? In case I run out.”

  I pulled the pistol from my belt and held it out.

  He took it, tucked it into his own.

  “Thanks, Vibeke,” he said.

  “I’m sorry…” I began.

  He held up a hand. “No speeches.”

  Still the dead rampaged around us. I dimly heard Durkee screaming at me to get off my freckle and get moving.

  “…about Alyssa,” I finished.

  I could have said more. Maybe I should have.

  But instead I shot a zombie ambling up behind him.

  Logan turned away from me, flexing his fingers as he faced the oncoming horde. “Move along, civilian,” he said. “Let me do my work.”

  I saluted his back.

  And then I ran.

  I ran until I thought my lungs would burst, until my legs informed me they were going to fall off my body and that was that. I tore beneath the overpass, found myself grabbed by Durkee himself and dragged to the right, behind a house in what I hoped was the safe zone.

  It could not have taken more than twenty seconds to get from Logan to relative safety, despite my brain trying to convince me I had in fact just run a marathon.

  “I said hold them off,” Durkee bellowed at me, “not dive into them!”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  He shoved a p
air of earmuffs onto my head.

  And then the overpass blew up.

  The explosion made the ground rock back and forth, and the tremendous rash of falling cement, glass, and rebar briefly concealed all else. I covered my ears too late; they were already ringing, the high-pitched whine mixing in with what I imagined must be Logan still shooting, still fighting, still screaming at the undead.

  We stayed there for quite some time, waiting for the air to clear, for the shaking to stop. Waiting for someone to tell us it was all right.

  There was no one to do that. We had to decide for ourselves.

  Durkee finally stepped out from behind our shelter, and sucked in some air.

  When he didn’t drop dead, I joined him in studying our handiwork.

  The overpass was gone, and with it most of the houses on either side. Huge chunks of concrete, wood, and pieces of rebar had landed in the street. It didn’t resemble a big, strong wall in any way, shape, or form…but it was just enough of one to make crossing the street a misery for the dead.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Far behind us, some of the Garnet Cloisters inhabitants had clumped together, and were staring at the destruction visited on their old neighborhood. I had seen expressions like theirs before—the wide, teary eyes, the slack jaws, the inability to fully understand what they were looking at. We all went through it at some point. Hastings, which had been so strangely protected and sheltered, just got there a lot later than the rest of us.

  I looked back at the debris field. “Man, you guys really trashed the place,” I said.

  My voice sounded distorted. Oh, shit. Had the blast taken out my eardrums as collateral?

  I tugged on Durkee’s sleeve and pointed at my ears.

  He nodded, and pointed at his, too.

  I figured that meant it would either pass, or we would be deaf forever. Great odds.

  Slowly the others began to emerge from their makeshift shelters. Hammond pulled massive headphones off his ears and gave us a thumbs-up, which I took to mean we’d either successfully stopped up Chapman and saved the city, or he was just happy he’d managed to evade significant hearing damage. Tony and Dax stumbled over behind him, with Poltava and one of her men bringing up the rear. I didn’t ask where the other two had gone.