When they arrived, Katarina scaled the ladder straightaway. It wobbled a little beneath Emma as she climbed up after the other woman since it was rigged to be easily retracted. She was careful to keep her rifle flipped onto her back and out of her way. The last thing she wanted to do was to catch it on one of the rungs and make a damn fool of herself in front of the others.
Reaching the top, she joined the three other people gathered behind the blind along with Katrina. They were a diverse group: a man probably in his late twenties with dark skin and jet black hair; a blonde white woman around Emma’s age with a deep tan and athletic physique; and a scrawny older white man who looked every inch the redneck stereotype.
“Emma, this is Rashmi, Stacey, and Ennis.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet all three of you.”
The three nodded at her in welcome and she returned the gesture.
“What’s going on, Kat?” Rashmi asked.
His accent was British, not Indian, which surprised Emma. Then again, she’d never met anyone who was Indian.
“We’ve got runners wandering around and Nerit is going to lure them into the traps.”
Rashmi frowned. “Shouldn’t someone else do it? She’s still recovering.” “Have you tried to tell Nerit not to do somethin’?” Katarina chuckled. “Like that’s going to work.”
Stacey laughed. “She is stubborn. I wouldn’t dare try to boss her around. Nerit is scary in a lovable way.”
With a scowl, Ennis leaned against the wall at his back. “I ain’t scared of her. I can handle her just fine. But that being said, what does the scary old bitch want us to do?”
Stacey clearly took offense at his comment. “Don’t call her a bitch!”
“I meant it as a compliment!”
Ignoring the squabble, Rashmi focused on Katarina. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Give her cover if anything goes wrong. Otherwise, we hold our fire,” Katarina replied.
Stacey looked mystified by the order. “Hold our fire? Why?”
“We don’t want to drag more zombies our way. Nerit wants the traps to take care of them. It’s quieter.”
“Aw, shit, Kat! We’re going to have zombie bodies piling up and stinkin’ to high heaven. The one we have out there right ain’t cleaned up yet. She’s smelling up the whole area! Makes guard duty miserable out here.”
Katarina didn’t appear impressed by his woes and dismissively shrugged. “Since most of the traps didn’t go off over here and there is only one body, priority clean-up was elsewhere.”
“Which is why she should have gotten picked up first. She’s the only one on this end,” Ennis argued.
Emma raised one finger. “Excuse me, but after the horde came through why is there only one dead zombie in this area? How did that happen?”
“The rest bypassed the town after the main firewall was set off. She’s the only zombie that ventured close enough to this section to set off the razor wire trap,” Rashmi said.
Emma flinched. “Ugh. That sounds messy.”
Rashmi nodded. “She’s in pieces.”
“Well, in pieces or not, she’s giving me the creeps. Got one eye staring right at us.” Ennis shuddered. “I can feel it right now, all-accusing like. I could always feel that hag’s evil eye on me.”
Stacey leaned toward Emma and said, “He’s convinced the zombie is his ex-wife.”
“I know it is.”
Rashmi’s annoyance with Ennis was evident. “How could it be your ex? Be logical, Ennis. You said she was in Beaumont when the z-poc started. How could she possibly be here?”
“You have no idea how damn ornery she could be when she got in a mood. She always threatened to haunt my ass. I’m tellin’ ya, her zombie would hunt me down. I could see her trackin’ me down just to make me miserable.”
“She’s dressed in Chanel. I swear it’s Hilary Clinton,” Stacey insisted.
“That’s even more ludicrous,” Rashmi protested. “How could she possibly travel here all the way from the East Coast?”
Ennis sniffed loudly, glaring at Rashmi. “My ex probably stole a nice outfit. I’m telling you it’s her. With all these damn ghosts running around, I bet she possessed her zombie body so she could track me down! I know what she’s capable of!”
Emma suspected this was a recurring argument. Ennis was definitely the stubborn type.
“We’re off track,” Katarina cut in.
“Sorry,” Rashmi said, obviously annoyed. “Please, continue.”
“As I said, our job is to give Nerit cover if anything goes wrong. We’ll split up along the wall to make sure we cover the whole area. Don’t open fire unless she’s in direct harm. Once the runners are dead, we’ll clear out any of the slow ones that follow with the spears.” Katarina tapped a pile of makeshift spears with her foot. The weapons were made out of long pipes with trowels, knives, and screwdrivers secured to the end. “Firearms are a last resort. We don’t want to attract more zombies after we got rid of the horde.”
Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Ennis rocked on his heels while twisting his mouth into odd shapes. “This plan don’t make sense. How the hell is she going to make it over the wall? We got razor wire traps all along this side.”
“Juan is rigging up the elevator.”
Ennis snorted. “Like that’ll be safe.”
“What’s the elevator?” Emma asked curiously. The Fort was much better equipped to deal with the zombie threat than her home had ever been. The ingenuity of the layout and the defenses impressed her. Despite all that, she couldn’t imagine them building an elevator.
“It’s not an actual elevator,” Stacey explained. “It’s some sort of crane.”
Katarina gestured vaguely at the horizon. “There was a crew doing work on a highway overpass when it all went to shit, so we acquired a crawler crane. Juan rigged it up so we can either lower heavy items over the wall or bring something in,” Katarina answered. “Take a peek out there and you’ll see why she needs it.”
Emma looked through one of the windows cut into the hunting blind at the rest of the street stretching out in front of her. Some areas of the road bore graffiti warnings.
“The spray painted areas are fire traps,” Ennis explained.
“Isn’t setting the zombies on fire dangerous?” Emma asked.
“They’re afraid of fire. They’ll either retreat or evade the flames, hopefully stumbling into the razor wire traps,” Katarina replied.
Ennis pushed his hand past her face to point. It reeked of gun powder and tobacco. “She’ll have to drive between the traps and catch the elevator on that yonder corner.”
Emma was a little skeptical. “Will that work?”
“Don’t know. First time we’re bringing anyone in that way.” Ennis shrugged. “Gonna be interesting.”
“It sounds risky,” Emma said. “But I guess there isn’t an easy way over the wall, huh?”
Tucking her unruly red hair back from her freckled face, Katarina turned toward Emma. “Sometimes we have to get imaginative. They used to bring people over the inner wall in an excavator. It’ll work.”
“We should have sent a kill team out to take out the runners,” Rashmi mumbled.
Stacey shook her head, disagreeing. “There are too many crews out beyond the wall. If the gunshots bring in any stragglers from the horde, we’d be risking everyone. Nerit rounding up the runners near the fort and bringing them here is a solid plan. Especially since we don’t know how many there are.”
“Playing Pied Piper didn’t go so well last time,” Ennis pointed out.
Katarina’s back stiffened, her expression hardening. “Yes, it did! We redirected a good chunk of the horde! Our people gave their lives leading them away and did a damn good job doing it!”
“Just shut up, Ennis,” Stacy whispered. “She’s hurting.”
“I didn’t mean no offense about Bill,” Ennis said, raising his hands defensively.
Blinking away tea
rs, Katarina pointed at the various points along the wall. “Pick a spot and get ready.”
Rashmi lightly touched her arm, clearly meaning to comfort her, but Katarina pulled away.
Understanding that a line had been crossed, the three guards moved away from the two women. Emma remained at Katarina’s side offering silent emotional support, but not making any moves to soothe her. Everyone mourned differently. It was best to respect their boundaries.
A loud beeping noise drew her attention to the north side of the road. Over the tops of the buildings, a crane was visible, moving slowly into position.
Swallowing hard, Katarina composed herself. “The wall stretches down one more block. That’s a new section where we keep all the construction equipment. We built it before the horde arrived.”
“You have a lot of territory to protect,” Emma noted.
“Yeah, but we can abandon some of these sections if we need to retreat to the hotel.”
“It really is a fort.”
“Exactly.” Yanking her walkie-talkie off her belt, Katarina turned it on. “I need to call in to the dispatcher.”
Emma nodded, focusing on the road and its many traps.
“Julie, this is Katarina. We’re in position.”
“How is your situation?”
“There’s no sign of zombies on this side.”
“The runners are hunting on the north side. One of our teams had to get on the roof of that old gas station to avoid them. They reported at least a dozen runners.”
There was a burst of static, then Nerit said, “I’m in the paddock waiting for Juan to report he’s in position.”
“I can see the crane now. It’s almost there,” Katarina said.
“You’ll be happy to know that I’m not alone. Kevin is with me.”
In the background, a man said, “Damn straight I’m with you.”
Though Emma didn’t know the owner of the voice, she was glad someone was accompanying Nerit. Like everyone else, she was uncomfortable with Nerit’s attempt to handle the situation on her own. Apparently, she had been ill for a while. There was a certain aura about Nerit that was intimidating, but also charismatic. It made sense that she wanted to maintain her image as a badass in the eyes of the people who fought alongside her. Maybe like Emma, she wanted to prove herself to the others. Emma understood that sentiment.
“I’m getting in reports of runner activity near one of our teams in the alley near Ash Street, Nerit,” Julie said.
“We’ll handle them.”
Katarina dropped the hand holding the walkie-talkie to her side. The voices of the others on the frequency occasionally updated each other. After an explosive sigh, she said, “I’m so sick of zombies.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t doubt it since according to Rune you killed a whole town of them on your own.”
Emma laughed. “He appears to be spreading my legend far and wide.”
“He knows we all need a good story to lift our spirits.”
Nearby, the crane came to a halt and Juan’s voice over the airwaves saying he was in position.
“I cleared a town, but you defeated an enormous horde of zombies. I would think that would be enough to lift everyone’s spirits.”
Katarina leaned one hip against the wood rail and shrugged. “Well, yeah, but we lost people. So it’s a mixed bag.”
The walkie-talkie sprung to life. It was Nerit.
“We’ve got runners following us. Get ready.”
Katarina swung her rifle off her shoulder. “Did ya hear that?”
“Yup. I’m ready.”
It was time to kill zombies.
4
This Was a Bad Plan
Emma knew things were going to go wrong.
Though safe behind a high wall, hidden from view by the hunter’s blind, and armed with her grandfather’s rifle, her gut told her that shit was about to hit the fan. Without a doubt, Nerit and the others thought they had a good plan. Technically, she could see where it would probably work, but something felt off.
After diverting the massive horde of zombies, the people of the Fort looked exhausted and tensions were high. It was the type of emotional and physical state that resulted in mistakes. It was not an ideal atmosphere in which to make hurried decisions about how to obliterate yet another threat.
Listening to the constant stream of updates over the walkie-talkie, Emma leaned against the rail inside the hunting blind and peered out the open window cut into the fabric. The road ahead appeared clear except for the traps that were covered in cloth painted to look like the road from a distance. The layout was clever, designed to herd the zombies into the razor wire traps by setting off strategically placed fire traps.
Ingenious.
Still...
Over the walkie-talkie, a man’s voice said, “We have around twenty runners in pursuit. There are some slower ones scattered in the streets, but they’re not an issue. We’re about three blocks away from the traps.”
Emma rested her rifle butt on her hip while she listened. That many runners was a concern no matter how calm the man sounded.
“Runners are kinda smart,” she said, working through her concerns aloud.
In her periphery, she saw Katarina glance toward her. “Yeah. Sometimes.”
“In the early days of the z-poc, they were smart enough to open car doors. That’s when I learned to always lock them. They used tools too. One threw a brick through the window of a building I was hiding in. If these runners are new, they might not fall for the traps once the first one goes off.”
Katarina grunted. “Shit. You got a point.”
“I might be wrong.”
“Yeah, but if you’re right this might not be as easy as we thought. Let me call in.” Katarina tugged the walkie-talkie off her belt. “These last few weeks have got us burned out. We don’t need to be making stupid mistakes.”
Emma was uneasy expressing her concerns. Being known as the zombie killer of an entire town was not something she was comfortable with at all. People could get the wrong impression about her and assume that she was some kind of know-it-all. She hoped she wasn’t coming across as arrogant or condescending.
While Katarina urgently spoke with the others with a grim expression stamped on her face, Emma studied the area. Since she wasn’t familiar with the town, she memorized every bit of the road in front of her. Even as the possibility of the plan going awry was discussed beside her, the noise of the Mustang’s approach reverberated through the streets. It was definitely loud enough to keep the runners’ focus and draw out any of the slower zombies lingering in the town.
“If they avoid the traps, open fire. It’s as simple as that,” Nerit said through the crackling of the airwaves. “If we pull more slow zombies to the wall, we’ll deal with them.”
Again, Emma experienced a twinge of unease. Maybe it was because she wasn’t used to working with other people. Being responsible for only her life was vastly more comfortable than worrying about others. At the same time, it would be foolish to dismiss the longevity of the Fort in a dangerous new world. It was formidable, an impressive testament to the tenacity of the inhabitants and the effectiveness of the leadership.
Still...
Emma caught movement down the block near the mouth of an alley. A tree or bush was casting shade against the brick wall, but some of the shadows were too compact to be foliage. Hoisting her rifle into position, she aimed toward the silhouettes that had caught her attention. The rippling shadows constantly changed shape. The longer Emma stared at them, the more certain she was that they were cast by something moving through the alley.
More runners?
Before she could share her concerns with Katarina, the Mustang roared around the corner two blocks away from the wall. It was an older model, a bit battered by time. A few seconds later, the runners appeared. Alarmingly fast, they sprinted after the car, howling. Keeping a tiny lead on the small herd charging after it, the sports car headed toward
the traps.
Flicking her gaze to the alley, Emma regarded the spot where it intersected with the road. The shadows were deepening. Maybe some of the runners were attempting to intercept the car by cutting through the narrow passage between buildings.
The Mustang was nearly to the first trap when a balding white man darted out into the road, waving his arms. Even from where she was perched up on the wall, Emma could see that he was alive and terrified.
Nerit must have realized the man wasn’t a threat for the brakes squealed. The sports car shimmied and left streaks of rubber on the road behind it as it jolted to a stop. Not too far behind, the runners howled as they closed in.
Emma witnessed the moment the man grasped the error of his ways. He must not have realized the purpose of the sports car roaring through the streets of Ashley Oaks and assumed he was about to be rescued. The sight of the runners sent him into a blind panic and he bolted toward the wall. The razor wire trap sprung so fast, Emma didn’t even see it strike the man. The flying pieces of his legs and arms announced his awful end.
“Shit,” she gasped.
A woman’s shrill screams immediately followed. Emma caught sight of several people emerging from the alley. There were at least ten, including a black woman holding a small child wrapped in a blanket with only dark curly hair showing over the fabric.
“We’ve got survivors!” Rashmi shouted.
The scene below devolved within seconds. The runners altered their path and headed straight toward the easy prey on foot. The Mustang roared forward, cutting off the runners, sending a few hurtling through the air. A few struck a nearby store front, shattering the display window. Undeterred, several runners clambered over the hood and dove onto the dismembered man and tore into his torso.
Zombies didn’t eat the dead.
“He was still alive. Oh my god!” Katarina wailed.
Emma fought the sudden need to vomit.
The rest of the runners were closing in on the frightened people on the road at such a fast speed it was hard to track them. Another trap went off, fire pluming into the air. A runner, engulfed in flames, thrashed about wildly. The sight of fire panicked the rest of the zombie pack and they fled toward the Mustang.
As The World Dies | Book 4 | After Siege Page 3