Both Plinkett and Maddy wore the same expression. It was a What are you high? kind of look. Bryce didn’t care. Exhaustion was making him apathetic. “It works the other way,” he told them. “You know when zombies bleed on a person. So why couldn’t it work in reverse?”
This should’ve been a last resort kind of idea but stuck as they were out on a cold street in the middle of the night, Maddy couldn’t think of a better way. “We’ll start like that, though I think he should get a real transfusion as soon as possible, just in case.”
Griff had passed out and lay on the cement shivering from the cold, while at the same time he glistened with sweat from a building fever. “It’s not going to be long,” she said. “Who’s got a knife? Anyone?”
“Knives don’t work against the undead,” one of the guards said. Embarrassed that he had tossed his away earlier that night, he added, “It’s just extra weight.”
Extra weight? Maddy thought. How weak are you? A surge of superiority swept her and was followed immediately by guilt. What did she have to feel superior about? So, she had survived an attempted poisoning? Seeing as she had wept and whined through it all, it wasn’t much of an accomplishment and nothing to brag about. Turning away, she stared around for something sharp, and as she did, she ran a hand though her dark hair. It was thicker now and a foot longer. For a moment she forgot how much she had changed and was puzzled by the length. Then, through the curtain of hair, she saw a crystalline flicker of light. There were shards of glass in the street. She made a little noise of disapproval in her throat as she went to the largest of the pieces.
Probably covered in germs, she thought and then before she could over-think the act of slicing her own flesh open, she dragged the shard across her forearm, and as she did, she drew in a quick, hissing breath. The edge was sharp, the cut was deep and the blood ran quickly. She hurried to Griff. “Umm. In his mouth, you think?”
“Try his wounds first,” Bryce suggested.
This was more palatable to all of them and she rained blood over the FBI agent while Plinkett stood nearby, his lips turned down and his hands held in front of his chest as if he thought Griff would leap up and begin attacking them.
Her self-inflicted wound scabbed over with amazingly swiftness and the blood stopped in seconds. Although she still held the shard of glass, she wasn’t keen to cut herself again. Bryce saw the hesitation and the nerd in him understood completely. He had always been squeamish when it came to needles. In fact, he had never even mastered the art of putting eyedrops in his own eyes. It was just too invasive.
“That should be enough blood,” he told her. “At least enough to start. I mean, he’s pretty well coated. I bet people get infected from a lot less.”
“How soon will we know if it worked?” Plinkett asked, keeping well back. There were a hundred rumors flying around as to how people got infected. Everyone had an opinion on the subject and few needed to be asked before they blurted out their theories. Some people believed it was all about the blood, while others insisted that it had to be saliva that was the problem as bites were the main cause of “turning”. Of course, some people believed it was the fault of 5G towers, and others blamed aliens, so it was hard to be sure.
Bryce sighed, tiredly, his eyes drooping. “A couple of hours. Is anyone else hungry?”
Maddy’s stomach let out a little growl but as Plinkett was looking at Bryce with deep disgust, she didn’t admit it. “I’ll get you something when I go out.” She heard his question in her head before he asked it. “Remember the transfusion? For Griff? Just in case? Man, you are out of it.” And it was no wonder. He’d been fighting for two days straight with his last battle against the foulest of the demons they had come across. It was a miracle that he lived through it.
“Let’s get to the quarantine tents so you can lay down. We,” she gestured to Plinkett, “will move Griffin. You just lead the way, Bryce.” He staggered around the perimeter as Plinkett and Maddy dragged Griff along by strips of rags. The infected agent came in and out of consciousness, moaning even when his eyes were closed. His head lolled like his neck was made of warm taffy; this was unpleasant to say the least.
They found a series of tents on the far side of the building that were guarded by a dozen men in blue plastic suits. They carried rifles openly.
“It’ll be an eight-hour quarantine,” one told them. From ten feet away, he tossed red bandanas in their direction and told them to tie them around their arms. The tent had begun life as an infrequently used wedding pavilion. It was an un-marred white and, from the outside, it retained a festive air as if it needed only a flying bouquet and the first notes of the Chicken Dance to bring it back to life. The inside was another story.
Two candles threw more shadow than light and made the other occupants seem more like cowering trolls in need of a bridge than real people. There were thirteen of them, divided into three uneven groups, each with their own colored armbands. Among them were Victoria Dietch and Nichola Lines. Both women were dead asleep. The others stared with suspicion and fear at Bryce as he limped in. He ignored the looks, caring only for a cot and food. There were neither. People huddled on the scuffed and dirty floor.
“Get away!” hissed a woman when he turned in her direction. “This is for greens only.” She had dark angry eyes. Around her neck were a dozen gold chains while on each finger of her balled fists were large rings. She wore her treasure, but what she cared for more was a raven-haired child she had thrust behind her. “You belong over there.” Her odd, unmatched rings flashed in the dim light as she pointed to an empty corner.
Bryce tried to shrug but found the move too painful, so it came out looking like a twitch, which only made everyone even more nervous. He was too tired to care and without looking around, he went to his corner, slumped down, and fell asleep almost instantly. Maddy received much the same greeting, though to be fair, the people were more worried about the moaning creature she helped drag into the tent than they were about her.
Maddy stared at them and found it strange how inhuman they were in her eyes. While she had grown, they seemed to have shrunk in on themselves, looking as though devolution was occurring in real time. For the most part they were content to stare with unexpected hatred twisting their faces, however two of the larger men whispered to each other in tones so low that they had to lean in close. Maddy heard every detail:
“Look what they brought in.” This from a large-bellied man with short hair that had been slept on a number of times without a comb. He also sported a new beard that was little more than shadow.
His partner sat huddled in a heavy coat and had a hoodie drawn up so that only the beak of his nose poked out. “Is it one of them? Holy crap, it is. Do we tell the guards?”
“It was the guards that let it in here. Maybe it’ll die.”
“I hope it dies. But if not?”
“We kill it.” He said this casually scratching his great spread of a belly, as if killing were an easy thing.
With little in the way of originality, the second man agreed, “Yeah, we kill it.”
Maddy’s eyes narrowed in their direction causing the man with the belly to demand, “What?”
His friend added, “What?”
A surge of anger swept her. Contemptuous anger. Didn’t they realize who she was? Don’t they know that it was I, Maddy Whitmore, who killed the terrible she-demon? she thought. And that I am one of the Chosen? Except she wasn’t. Magnus hadn’t picked her to be one of his archangels. He had given her Serum 21to kill her. This unalterable truth deflated her ego and all thought of superiority fizzled out of her once more.
The truth was that the she-demon had been crippled when they fought and even then, it had been touch-and-go. And why had she thought she was superior to two men? They were both bigger and stronger than she. Sure, she had probably killed more zombies than both men combined, but zombies were slow and stupid. Anyone with a lick of courage could have done the same thing.
“Watch tho
se two with the yellow armbands,” she said to Plinkett. “The fat one and the guy he’s with. They may try something when I’m gone.”
“When you’re gone?” His look suggested she was an idiot. “I’m sure you’re the only thing holding them back. All hundred pounds of you.”
Maddy looked down at herself. “I’m more than a hundred pounds.” She found it impossible to estimate her own weight. For most of her life she had topped two-hundred pounds and had come to equate her short round girth with that weight. Now she was tall, and yes, she was skinnier, but there was no way she could be a hundred pounds. Without noticing, she touched her right bicep beneath her rags. There was muscle there. Muscle, not flab.
“Just keep an eye out for them,” she said. She was about to add more, but her gaze strayed to Bryce. He was battered, pierced and broken, and yet there was still strength in him. At least enough to take care of two locals. It would be okay.
Turning, she marched for the tent flap.
“You can’t just leave,” the dark-haired woman with the green armband declared. “This isn’t your momma’s house where you can just come and go as you please. Every time someone opens the door, germs get in, and we’re not going to let you…”
Maddy left the woman in mid-diatribe. She didn’t care about the quarantine or the tent or any of the little people inside. “Little people?” It was no secret that she had always been pompous because of her high intelligence, but she had never used the term “little people” in her life. The idea that she had even thought the words nagged at her, right up until she heard a scream to the north. It was followed by a hoarse bellowing.
She glanced at the closest of the guards. “Did you hear that?”
He had been trying to sneak a smoke under the plastic hood of his bio-suit. “Yeah I heard. You know you can’t come out. It’s an eight-hour quarantine. That means you stay in there for eight hours straight. This ain’t no Motel 6.”
The bellowing continued, nagging at her. People were in trouble. Was it another demon after them or just run-of-the-mill zombies? The idea of another demon sent a shiver down her spine and made her itch to slip back into the tent. Absently she said, “Right. Not a motel.”
“Yeah, so get back in there.”
His tone cut through and she glared. “Those people need us.”
“Us?” He tossed away the cigarette; it had suddenly lost all flavor. “My job is to watch these tents, not to go running about saving people who don’t have the sense to stay indoors. Now, get in the tent, or else.”
He was tall and lanky with arms that seemed to stretch to his knees. There was no way she could fight him, but for some reason her eyes picked out his left knee as the perfect spot to strike. Almost all his weight was on it and she knew it would take him half a second to shift to another stance and in that time—in her mind’s eye she saw herself launch forward, with her right hand coming up to distract his eyes just as her foot shot forward. In her vision, she saw his kneecap crack squarely in half as his leg bent in a direction it was never meant to. Pain shot through his body as he crumpled, desperate to get weight off the leg—
She blinked away the image. “When it comes to me there’s never an or else. That’s kind of why I’m in this mess.” The specter of regret drifted through her heart. The Daniel Magnus had given her an “or else” and she had told him to fuck off. Now she was out in the dark, in a city filled with undead and maybe nukes were being pointed their way. Maddy wasn’t satisfied on that front. She still had a shaky feeling inside that she couldn’t explain away.
The guard thought about trying to poke her back into the tent with the muzzle of his rifle, but the scream came again. In his ungainly outfit, he turned slowly in the direction of the sound. Satisfied that no zombies were charging, he turned again, just as slowly. As he did, Maddy passed beneath his partially obstructed gaze and seemed to disappear.
He spun around, his plastic suit making a zwwrrp sound. Now he saw her loping away. “I said get back in the tent!”
She reached into her rags and pulled out a silver weapon: her ice axe. “Try to make me. If you shoot you’ll just waste a bullet and have a hundred of them on you in a hurry.” The guard was struck with indecision and she kept going, giving him a wave goodbye. He wouldn’t shoot. She knew it.
Chapter 3
She hurried off into the gloom. Dawn was not far off, a few hours at most and she didn’t want to be caught on the streets when it came. Besides, she wanted to get back to Griff as soon as possible. He had proven himself over and over during the past few days. She owed him her life and she meant to repay him if she could.
But first she had to see if she could help whoever was being attacked. The screams and bellows were too urgent for her to ignore.
The streets were damp and dark. Electricity had failed hours earlier and now the only light had to creep past heavy curtains and blankets nailed over apartment windows. Most of this came from candles, and along with the stench of the living dead, Maddy was constantly discovering scented flows of vanilla, cinnamon and apple pie.
Without power, New York could no longer be called the city that never sleeps. It was strangely quiet and Maddy discovered that screams traveled much further than she would have thought possible. She slunk down block after block, heading north-west. With each step she lost more and more hope that she would find anyone left alive.
Finally, after six blocks and twenty-five minutes, the screaming abruptly ended. These were replaced by animal-like snarls and a soft whimpering. She was too late and should have turned around, only she had arrived at one of the strangest buildings in the city, in that it had walls but no windows, and, even odder, no roof. Intrigued, she moved closer, ducking among the cars that were trapped forever on the street. The building turned out to be the Leonard Street Substation, where electricity was piped in from upstate, down-stepped, and then sent out throughout lower Manhattan. For most of its existence the building had hummed softly throughout the neighborhood.
Now it was just as dark and dead as everything else in the city.
Maddy hesitated at the thrown-open gates. It wasn’t the partially eaten bodies strewn about the odd machinery that stopped her or the moving shadows that suggested dozens of the dead were still inside. It was the black feeling inside her chest. There was danger and death for anyone who passed through those gates. She knew it and yet the whimpering pulled her inside.
For the most part, the inexplicable coils and jutting metal limbs that processed the electricity were housed in great cages. These were usually inaccessible so as to keep people from barbequing themselves; this was not a usual night. The team that had been in charge of cutting the power to preserve the station’s machinery had raced through the narrow, dangerous lanes, opening the hundreds of cages, yanking down the large cutoff switches, and racing away again without bothering even to shut the doors, let alone lock them.
With her ice axe in one hand, Maddy darted through this maze, her senses electric. Her instincts were to move around the perimeter instead of heading straight in. Her instincts were based on fear rather than logic. She was afraid that if she went straight in, she’d be surrounded and trapped by the beasts she could hear lurking in the dark.
There was a three-foot wide gap between the wall and the cages. It was dark even by that night’s standard and the shadows were velvety-thick, yet Maddy’s sharp grey/silver eyes picked out the tools, the metal scraps and the trash carpeting the ground. She was able to place her feet without error. Of course, with her eyes focused squarely on the ground in front of her, she didn’t see the creature slunk down low thirty feet away. It had torn an arm off of one of the unfortunate workers who had plunged the city into darkness.
The creature, what had once been a short pig of a man with hairy arms and hairier knuckles, sat covered in blood; he was so engrossed in sucking the marrow from the bone that he did not see her either. They caught each other’s scent at the same time and both froze; the rotund zombie sniffing, and Mad
die searching until she was able to pick him out of the black background.
Despite his great gut, the zombie was up in a flash, the arm discarded. Without knowing precisely what Maddy was, it charged with a high screech, very much like a siren. She turned and began to run back the way she had come, only the scream had attracted two more of the creatures. They came at her fast—and now she was trapped, just as she feared. She hefted the ice axe, only suddenly it felt small and useless. It didn’t matter that she had already killed a dozen zombies with it—she had never killed three in a cramped space like this, a space that seemed to be squeezing in on her at a rapid rate.
Was there even room to swing the axe? Panic gripped her and the overwhelming need to flee made her earlier feelings of superiority a joke.
There was only one direction to go: up. Like a cat, she sprang onto the cage. The construction of the cage was not like that of a chain-link fence. It was designed to discourage climbing and the gaps in the links were tiny and her feet immediately began to slip. She looked down and saw her feet scraping uselessly and as she did, her panic skyrocketed. With frantic strength, she pulled herself up by the fingers on her left hand and by the ice axe in her right. Her face was twisted in fear until she realized that she was going right up the wall as easily as if she were scampering up a ladder. “Holy crap,” she whispered, incredulously.
Still, the short fat zombie had a clear shot at snagging her ankle, only it didn’t understand the cage at all. As it rushed forward with its hands out, the fingers of its right hand snagged in the links. It didn’t consider slowing and with its momentum carrying it on, its fingers bent back with an ugly snapping sound. It had dislocated three fingers and when it tried to grab her ankle, its grip was weak. Weak or not, the extra two hundred pounds was too much for Maddy. Her left hand slipped from the links while her right slid down the shaft of the ice axe.
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