Gloria popped up. Vijay stumbled along behind her, his hands clutched against a bleeding head wound.
Hammond immediately tried to usher us back toward the city gates. I lingered a few moments, watching the pile. Waiting for Logan.
He never showed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
As it turned out, shooting zombies was the easy part. The real work began once the dust finally settled.
As the day wore on, the gates were flung open and the onetime occupants of Camp Elderwood streamed in past the big walls of Hastings, beneath the watchful gazes of Hammond’s soldiers. By the time they got inside, word had started spreading among Keller’s men that Durkee was in fact alive, and many of them began seeking out their captain for orders.
I had never seen a man so happy to be swamped by soldiers. He accepted apologies and well wishes with grace, and assigned out duties as quickly as he could.
Not all of them came, though. For every man and woman that showed up, there was at least one that did not; eventually we determined that at least a quarter of the forces had fled, either to follow Keller into some part of the Quarantine Zone or flee beyond the city walls.
It made for one hell of a chaotic scene. There seemed no way to keep track of everyone; the city had plenty of empty housing for the refugees, but those who had been displaced by the whole Chapman Street incident had already started migrating in that direction. Some of Hammond’s crew had started setting up tents right outside the city, despite the general’s insistence that everyone get inside the wall.
In short, everyone was wandering around aimlessly, and I did not give two shits about it.
“Vibeke!”
Poltava didn’t exactly hug me, but she did sling a gore-splattered arm around me for a quick squeeze. “Glad you’re alive,” she said. “What’s there to eat around here?”
“Pastrami.”
She wrinkled her nose, then tugged me toward the gates. Hammond and Durkee were standing there over a table, heads bent over what looked like maps of the city. I imagined talk of logistics. Rerouting soldiers. Weak points along the fenceline. Extra stashes of MREs.
Poltava had a new insignia on her uniform, and I pointed at it. “What are you now?
“First Sergeant.”
“Really?”
“Field promotion,” she said. “Struthers got munched.”
That was how Hammond had become general, way back when. I guess that’s war for you: One man’s death is another man’s pay raise.
“They’re putting me in charge of cleaning up the Quarantine Zone,” she said.
“You’re gonna need a lot of bleach,” I said.
By now we had reached our illustrious commanders. They appeared to be arguing over who was really in charge.
“It’s your city,” the general said.
“And I’ve been locked up for months. Half the population still thinks I’m dead. It’s your show, General Hammond. I’ll back you.”
Hammond gazed over us, his dark eyes thoughtful.
“Kids, we’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do,” he said. “I’m hearing of friction between the military and civilians. I know we experienced the same thing in Elderwood, but we can’t have that here. We need each other—need to defend this city and everyone in it.”
Poltava and I nodded. Others were gathering around us: Tony and Dax crowded around, and more soldiers joined what was rapidly becoming a small circle.
Hammond went on: “It’s easy to say yes, isn’t it? To agree with me. We’re all full of great sentiment right now. It might even carry us for a couple days. But don’t get too swept up in this Era of Good Feelings. It’s not going to last and all the same bullshit we dealt with before will rear its ugly head. So here’s how it’s going to work.”
He straightened. “Durkee and his men know the city. They, along with the Elderwood militia, will bring the city’s internal defenses back up to code, so to speak. Mending fences, clearing out alleys, chasing revenants. My men will work on the perimeter. Once this city is safe—and only when it’s safe—will we move forward and reorganize, or…whatever we need to do.
“And we have to get along. I’ve had scouts going out since day one. At this point, Hastings is everyone’s best bet for survival, because believe me, there is nothing else out there. This city falls, we’re one big baggage train. And I’m pretty sure no one wants that. These are good walls. We should take care of them.”
More nodding. This all sounded great.
“On the Elderwood side, not much will change. The militia will report to Poltava, who will work directly with Durkee. If the citizens of Hastings want to join, they are welcome to, and we’ll begin training as soon as we can get something set up.”
Militia. I saw Tony perk up upon hearing mention of it. So the militia was still around. I guess that meant we’d have something to do.
Durkee cleared his throat.
Hammond sighed. “There’s one more thing.”
Uh-oh.
“We can’t find Keller.”
Of course they couldn’t.
“He won’t last long in that Quarantine Zone,” Poltava said. “I had one scout come back from there. He used words like ‘nightmarish.’”
“If that’s where he went,” Hammond said. “It’s likely, but not certain. Regardless, we need to keep an eye out. All of us. My men don’t know what he looks like, though I’ve provided as much of a description as I can.”
After a moment, he gestured. “Go on. Get some rest. The captain and I will work out our immediate plan by then.”
The small crowd began to disperse.
Poltava nudged me. “The militia will need a medic when we go in there to clean up.”
I pictured the militia rolling into the Quarantine Zone with mops and disinfectants clutched in their hands.
“We could use you,” she pressed.
I didn’t think I could bear going back to the medical center, even if Samuels took over. The idea standing over a person, trying to figure out if they would live or die, if something I did wrong or right might define what remained of the rest of their life, made my stomach twist into a familiar knot.
Give me a good clean firefight—and the truly dead, instead of the living and dying—any day.
What’s happening to me?
“Sure,” I said.
If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. She just clapped me on the shoulder and headed for Durkee. I’m sure they had much to discuss.
Tony and Dax saw their opening and made their way over to me. I realized, much to my relief, that Evie was trotting along beside them, her grin stretching from ear to ear. I crouched down and she bounded over, her leash trailing behind her. She extended a paw when she reached me. I shook it, then looked up at Dax. “All this shit going on and you went to get the dog?”
“The city’s safe. I was worried about her.” Dax stooped to pick up her leash. “And our neighbor’s really nice when he isn’t waving a gun around.”
I straightened up and Evie bustled about us, greeting soldiers and citizenry alike and taking in all the exciting new scents.
Dax had put his Hastings Monarchs sweatshirt back on. I pointed at his shoulder. “Has that thing been fixed yet?”
“Oh!” A broad grin split his face. “Yes. Doctor Samuels intercepted me on my way back home. He tended to it.”
Thank God. If anyone could stem the infection from a zombie bite left to linger, it was Samuels.
“He asked for you. Said to come see him. And Tony is to report to him…oh, yesterday to see about that leg.”
“Fuck that,” Tony said. “He’ll have me on bedrest for a month.”
He seemed to have regained some of his usual swagger, but he still wasn’t putting a lot of weight on the injured leg. Samuels would have to tie him down.
“Speaking of Samuels,” I said, “Is it wrong that I can’t wait for him and Renati to chat?”
“They already were. It was…scientific.” Dax shook his
head. “And kind of horrifying.”
I wondered if anyone had told Hammond about Alyssa yet. About the strange medication that had, as far as we could see, stopped the plague as we knew it in its tracks. The information needed to come out eventually—all of it. The strange serum the R&D team had developed, Renati’s continued research…
It all made my head hurt. Maybe that was best left for tomorrow.
Tony was watching me, his usual half-smirk nowhere to be seen. “You all right, girlie?”
I must have had a look on my face. I shrugged. “No worse than usual.”
“You were really something out there. Better not piss you off, huh?”
I choked down a laugh. “Oh, come on.”
“Really.”
“I would’ve been dead, if Logan hadn’t popped in. Has he come out yet?”
Both men looked at me for a long moment.
My stomach twisted uneasily. “What?” I asked.
“Logan?” Tony asked. “You saw Logan?”
“Yeah. He came in with his guns after I went running into the horde. Knocked a bunch of them off me so I could reload.” I reached behind me, felt the comforting presence of the STG still hanging off my back.
Dax crouched down and scratched Evie’s chest, rather pointedly not looking at me.
Tony, though, held my gaze. “I saw you out there wrecking shit. No one’s seen Logan. Renati has been looking for him all over.”
“It was at the end,” I said. “Right before I ran for cover.”
Neither of them said anything. The silence stretched on into something more uncomfortable,
“Things got pretty crazy,” Dax said, talking more to the dog than to me. “I know I didn’t see everything going on.”
Logan had turned up. He had stood guard while I reloaded—had pummeled the dead while I ran! The scene played itself over and over in my head. The cracked asphalt under my hands as I scrabbled for my lost axe. The groans of the dead as they closed in. And Logan, stepping in front of me, driving them back.
He had driven them back.
Hadn’t he?
What was the other option? That I had somehow turned into some sort of rampaging banshee and hallucinated a rescuer?
I couldn’t decide if I liked that or not.
Tony slung an arm around me. “I’m sure he showed up,” he said, lightening his tone. “Probably took a side street down and just got lost in the shuffle.”
Evie, still on her back, wagged her tail while smiling. It’s okay if you’re crazy, she seemed to say. I will love you anyway.
“What’s Hammond going to do with the stadium?” I asked. “With…are we going to bury Alyssa?”
“Got a lot of people to bury,” Tony said. “Burning, more likely. Maybe some kind of mass funeral just to get things cleaned up.”
The thought of Alyssa going up in flames made my stomach turn.
She’s not there anymore, Vibeke. She’s gone. Just a body.
We had to burn them. There was no other option. There wasn’t enough space left on earth to bury all its dead now.
“Guys! Guys!”
Gloria Fey came running up to us, her exhausted cameraman trailing behind her. Someone had patched up Vijay’s head, but he looked like he wanted to take a long nap rather than chase after his errant reporter.
“Gloria,” Tony said. “Nice to see you not incarcerated.”
“All charges dropped,” she said, a note of pride in her voice. “Apparently we’ve got bigger problems to deal with than me leaking classified information from a government that no longer exists.”
Was I supposed to offer congratulations or condolences to that? I couldn’t decide.
Gloria lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I heard someone found a freezer full of MREs that aren’t pastrami. You guys want dinner?
Dinner? I didn’t remember eating breakfast. How were we at dinner already? Mowing through swaths of the undead had made me lose all track of time.
“I am kind of hungry,” Dax said. “I could probably even eat pastrami right now.”
She flashed that famous Gloria Fey 20-Kilowatt Smile for us. “Then c’mon. Let the soldiers figure out their shit. We’ll have a lot of work to do after.”
I glanced toward Hammond, who had been close enough hear at least part of the conversation. He nodded. Durkee paused in his discussion with Poltava and gave me a thumbs up.
“Good work out there,” he said. “All of you. You’re heroes.”
From a desk job zero to endtimes hero in under four months. I’ll say this about the zombie apocalypse: It made the career ladder a lot easier to climb.
People continued to stream in through the gates, looking around in wonder at their new home. Hastings, even in its smoking, dusty state, was a hell of a lot nicer than Camp Elderwood.
Maybe it would last a little longer than Elderwood, too.
I couldn’t see the Chapman Street scenario from here, but I was sure soldiers were coming and going, continuing the arduous task of actually fortifying the rubble we’d dumped in the road. Every now and then I heard gunshots as they picked off stragglers. Odds were it was going to be a long, bloody night.
Logan, where did you go?
Maybe he was still out there, guarding the city, stalking the man who had set all this into motion. Maybe he was a shambling wreck, staggering along with the undead masses.
Or maybe he was dead in the rubble somewhere. Just dead and gone, his soul somewhere far away from all the bullshit the new world had given us.
I didn’t know which fate to hope for.
“Good luck out there, Logan,” I murmured. “Whatever you are.”
There. That covered my bases.
As for now, I had to eat something that wasn’t pastrami.
“Vibeke!” My friends had started walking, then paused when they realized I wasn’t following. “Come on.”
I quickened my pace to catch up with them. “What’s in this secret freezer, anyway?”
“I heard they had some meatloaf,” Gloria said. “But someone else said Salisbury steak.”
“I’d give Dax’s right arm for a steak,” Tony said. “Not my right arm. But Dax’s.”
Dax reached up and reverently touched his injured shoulder. “Dude. Too soon.”
“Do you think there’s cake?” I asked.
Gloria helped Vijay push the bandage on his forehead up slightly so it didn’t droop over his eyes. “Dessert comes after dinner, Vibeke,” she said. “We’re not complete savages yet.”
“Hell with that.” I felt the STG tapping my back with each step I took. “I want a goddamn piece of cake. Funfetti, specifically.”
“Funfetti.” Tony started limping away again, toward mystery MREs and maybe—just maybe—a hot shower. “We help save the city, and Vibby wants funfetti.”
“Life’s short out here, kids,” I said. “Might as well eat dessert first.” I realized what else he had said and hurried to catch up with him. “And don’t call me Vibby!”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First off, I owe a massive thank-you (and maybe an apology…) to my editor. The “longest zombie book ever” just…kept…going. She did a marvelous job of helping me pull this thing together—any mistakes left are wholly my own.
Many thanks to my readers, who have somewhat patiently waited for this installment for quite some time. The original publication date for this was 2013, so…better late than never?
Now, will Vibeke & Co. ride again? Most likely, but I’m taking a bit of time away from the zombie trade. What other supernatural creatures need some love? I hear banshees are cool…
Cheers, everyone—thank you for reading!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S.P. Blackmore lives in Southern California. Check out www.spblackmore.com for news, short stories, and an occasionally entertaining blog.
@spblackmore
www.spblackmore.com
Table of Contents
Copyright
; Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Grave New World (Book 3): Dead Men Don't Skip Page 30