Among the Dead Book 2 (Among the Living)

by Long, Timothy W.

  She moved to the side and shot her arm inside his guard. The jab didn’t have much behind it, but she kept it low and caught him in the side. He grunted and turned, but she was right in his face. Even exhausted as she was, this was a move she had practiced a thousand times.

  Left hand crossed her body to check his position. Hand touched his shoulder as she slid past. He came around, angry, she could see it in his face, in his eyes, which were bloodshot and rimmed in red. Almost like those of the deaders they had faced together before she put down his sister with her own blade. Not that this douche-waffle appreciated all her hard work—or Kate’s, since, technically, she had been the one to do the deed.

  Her right hand came up from the gut punch, crossed her left hand, and slammed into his cheek.

  “Fuck!” Anders yelled and fell away.

  She wavered on her feet and felt like the ground was going to meet her at any moment.

  “You left her there, you son of a bitch,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “What?”

  “You deserted her. Just walked away, man,” she said and came at him. Dead on her feet was a pretty apt description, but she was ten times the fighter he was—at least, that was what she told herself.

  “Who? Who? Fuck you, killer. Fuck you right to hell,” Anders cried.

  “They raped her, did you know that?” she said through a voice she didn’t recognize.

  “You’re crazy.”

  He came at her with a flurry of blows that she simply could not deflect. She tried her best, open hands, then palms down, elbows when she had to. Most met with a strike and were deflected, but she was steadily pushed back until she once again felt her back against the pile of bodies.

  She reached for her sword but took a blow to the side of her head for the effort, then remembered the stupid blade wasn’t even at her back. Just like that, she was on the ground, tucked against a pile of the dead. She was in a pool of blood and fluids, a nightmare of flesh that would haunt her for the next two minutes that were about to make up the rest of her life. Anders got a blow inside with a boot tip to her gut. He struck in anger and didn’t have the foresight to line up and really deliver devastation. She still lost her breath and once again saw stars.

  She got one hand up, hoping it looked like she was begging for mercy. She probably was, or maybe she just wanted to delay the inevitable for a few seconds.

  “I wonder if that’s how my sister felt.” Anders squatted next to her.

  Shame, that was what she felt. How many times had she been the one bringing retribution to the men she lured to hotel rooms? How many deaders had she killed in the streets? Women, as well, all fell to her sword because they needed to be put down. When she killed for pleasure, it was to fill a void. It was to help alleviate the pain and disassociation she felt from the years of abuse at her father’s hands. Killing the deaders was like pulling weeds, and it was okay if she felt a tiny twinge of pleasure as each was put down for good.

  If she just had Anders in a hotel room. While she was wishing for stuff, she may as well have wished for a hot shower, a cup of tea and a massage. Oh, and a good night’s rest. Or three.

  “I wonder if she was scared. Are you scared, Kate?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Bet you’d hate that. Bug said you were a dyke, but I told her I’d still do ya. Maybe bring ya back to the dark side. Not that you’re going anywhere. See, with all these bodies, what’s one more?”

  She thought of herself among the dead, another corpse along with thousands of others. No one would remark on her body. No one would even know her name. Who would say a prayer over her body or see that it was buried? She was likely to just end up in a mass grave with no one to even care that she had been oh so good at her job. The job of taking lives.

  Kate. She would let her sleep. She had been a good companion all these years, a face to turn to the world so she could appear normal. A face that was able to blend into a crowd or hail a taxi. Kate took them both to martial arts classes, got them dressed for Kendo training, wiped their mutual ass.

  Let her rest.

  “Where’s the other one?” she asked, wondering about the woman who had started out with them at the beginning of this horrific day.

  “Bug? Oh, she left after we got back. Said she had to go to the bathroom and never came out. Women are like that. They never come back. My sister came back for me once, though. See, I wasn’t always a soldier. I was kind of a bad guy, but she got me out of jail and into rehab. I hated her at the time. Later, I loved her more than ever. She saved me.” He reached over his shoulder and produced something she thought she would never see again. It was her sword. He held it up to the bare bit of light that streamed in from the tunnel.

  “I saw you come back, saw you fight. I saw them take your blade, so I went back for it.”

  “Just get on with it,” she muttered, wondering how she could even say something like that knowing it might be the last phrase she ever uttered.

  “Yeah. I went back and pulled rank. Said I knew who it belonged to,” he said as he turned the blade over to study both sides.

  “You’re not worthy of that blade,” she said.

  “Yeah? Looks pretty sharp. Worthy or not, I don’t think you deserve a quick death. I should cut off your hands and watch you bleed out.”

  Mike

  Voices around us asked the same questions and made the same demands that were happening in my head. I wanted to eat, and I would have loved to take a leak. The last time I found an empty stall, I was sad to leave it. A few minutes of solitude had been like an hour’s rest. Since the moment I had stepped across the threshold of the football stadium, I had been surrounded by people. Lived only a few feet away from them. Even when I managed to catch a few hours of rest, I had been awakened by snoring or other bodily sounds.

  Now I was about to be herded onto a train with them, and I wondered just how intimate that ride was going to be.

  Still, I couldn’t help but feel like I was finally doing something. I was on my way out of the city, out of this hellhole, and there was a good chance I would make it back to my ex-wife. If I could only get to Rita, save her, I would feel like some good had come of this entire ordeal. If she was even alive. What if, like Erin, she was taken by the deaders? I shuddered at the thought and focused my attention on the door of the train that was sliding open.

  I had taken the Sounder train a few times in the past, mainly for sports events in Seattle. It was an easy way to avoid traffic, not to mention a safe ride home after a few beers at a game. I remembered reading somewhere that the train didn’t make money and was heavily subsidized to be able to run on Burlington Northern tracks. At one time, I had planned to do an investigative report. It sure beat the hell out of doing reports on the best dives in the city, but it never came up in my review queue, even though I bugged my editor about it a few times.

  I shoved my way onto the car with Nelson on my heels. The double doors provided enough room for two streams of traffic to enter the belly of the beast. I was on the right side, facing the direction in which the train would leave, and this put me in front of the stairs. I took them and decided to keep going so I didn’t get in the way of the stampede that was right behind me. Cool air hit me. They had the air conditioning cranked up, and it was the first hint of cold I had felt in some time. I inhaled the air as I walked, and a smile almost touched my lips. In keeping with the Sounder’s catch phrase, which was “Ride the Wave,” the car was white and blue and, indeed, reminded me of an ocean. The passenger area was made up of a narrow walkway and sets of four seats, pairs that faced each other instead of all the seats facing one direction like on a bus.

  This particular line went the forty-plus miles to Tacoma or Everett and then made the trip back. I wasn’t sure which direction we were headed, but that was fine. As long as I was heading in the opposite direction of any deaders, I was going to make the best of it. An image of me, dressed in the rags I was currently wearing, four days witho
ut a shave or shower, standing on the side of the road and waiting for someone to answer my outstretched thumb, made me grin like an idiot.

  “What’s so funny?” Nelson sat opposite me as the train quickly filled. People crowded into seats, some friendly but others desperate to find a corner to hunker down in.

  When a pair tried to take the same corner table, it almost came to blows, but cooler heads prevailed and talked them down.

  I heard people yelling outside as the line disintegrated and the folks continued to pile on. I was anxious to see how they would keep order, but it was already too late. At this rate, they would be unable to stop the flood.

  “Just thinking about how life works out. Never for the better,” I replied.

  A man shoved a woman twice his age out of the way as he made for the train. She hit the ground in a pile of loose clothing. She seemed to be carrying half her life in her arms in the absence of a bag. My blood boiled, but I didn’t do anything. Couldn’t if I tried.

  Seats filled as passengers took up what was available. Then the car was getting full, and we got a pair of strangers across from us. Nelson nodded at the man, then went back to staring at the chaos outside.

  “Staying?” I asked.

  “Guess I am.” But he didn’t elaborate. Didn’t he have to get back to his unit? He didn’t look like he was in a hurry at all. Just sat there as cool as a cucumber and ignored the chaos around him. It hit me that he looked a little bit different. He had taken off his overshirt, the one with his rank and insignia, and had taken pains to cover up anything that didn’t look like it belonged on a civilian. His military jacket lay on the floor and did a decent job of covering his camouflaged boots. Was Nelson deserting? Didn’t they shoot people for that?

  The man next to me smelled worse than I did. Days of sweat and filth made a potent combination. I tried to ignore it, concentrating on the fact that we would soon be pulling out.

  “What’s Lazarus Black?” I leaned forward. “You promised me.”

  “I made no promises.” Nelson put one hand to his face to shield it from the sun that was streaming in. It hit my cheek and neck, but it wasn’t as miserable as it had been outside, thanks to the gusty air conditioning that roared over the sound of a hundred strangers whispering. He was no longer watching the civilians on the sidewalk, but looking into the distance like it held answers. I let my eyes drift around our little slice of heaven. A cool space to sit on our escape pod from the city.

  “You know what I mean. So is it the reason you’re running away?”

  “Am I running away, Mike? What’s everyone on this train doing? We’re all running from something, and you most of all.”

  “I’m running to help someone. My ex, she’s lost out there.”

  “Lotta fucking people lost. How about you, sir, you lost?” He nodded at the man next to me.

  I turned to look and realized it was the man who had kicked the older woman down just to get on the train ahead of her. I wished I had Nelson’s gun so I could force the bastard off the train. Asshole.

  How many people out there were just like him? How many were on this train right this moment?

  “Just want to get home. I miss my family,” the guy said. He leaned forward, put his face in his hands and wept. If I hadn’t seen him push the woman, I might have felt an ounce of pity.

  I stared out at the mass of panic that was developing below. A voice with authority boomed over the loudspeaker, assuring those gathered below that other trains were on the way. But they didn’t seem to care. The men and women scrambled, punched, fought and did their best to reach the train. They crowded into the aisles and then, when those were full, started muscling in between the seats, where we already sat almost knee to knee.

  Someone tried to push between us, but there was no room. He was being pressed by the crowd, and maybe he didn’t have a choice. But he managed to step on my feet and jostle into Nelson. The soldier’s eyes clouded over, and he half-stood to confront the man. He bashed his head into the overhead metal shelf and cursed.

  “Son of a bitch! Move!” The man looked offended, and then mad. I prayed it didn’t come to blows.

  Kate

  Anders stared at the short sword in his hand and touched the tip with his fingers, then brushed his fingers down the blade as if testing its sharpness. He raised his eyes to stare into hers and patted the flat of the blade against his palm as if threatening a puppy with a newspaper.

  She moved her left hand, not her dominant one, but this wouldn’t require a large amount of accuracy. She looped it over his hand in something resembling a reverse handshake. She pushed down on the side of the blade so that the sharp side was against his palm. She held it there as hard as she could. Anders recoiled in horror, but when he pulled back, she held on and was dragged up from her corner of misery. If he tried to jerk his hand away, he was going to have a very deep cut, and he knew it. The blade might even be breaking the skin now.

  “Let go!” he screamed, but she had no intention of any such thing.

  Her other hand flew over and hit the hilt as hard as she could. Pain raced up her arm, but she ignored it and hit the hilt again. Anders tried to pull away, but she held on for all she was worth.

  Anders made the mistake she was hoping for. She had hit the sword hard enough to drive the blade into his palm. When he tried to pull away, she tightened her grip even more and pushed his hand to the ground. It struck hard, and he howled in pain.

  She came up on her knees and grasped the hilt with her other free hand. She barely felt it, because her palm and fingers were numb. But she held it and tugged away from her body, slicing deeper into his hand. He jerked away with a screech that sounded like a small animal trapped in a snare.

  She took the sword from his open hand and didn’t give him a chance to say a word. The blade flashed up and struck his neck along the side, just above the collar of his military shirt. Then she ripped it down in a vicious pull that opened his neck to the cartilage and kept on going.

  He slapped his bloodied hand to his open neck and stared at her in shock.

  She sat back against the pile of bodies and did her best to keep from falling into unconsciousness. Anders leaned to the side as blood gushed out of the wound in a torrent.

  He tried to talk, but blood filled his mouth. When he tried to breathe, he gagged as it filled his throat. His lips moved in something that looked like a plea. Or maybe he was just cursing her.

  His crimson flow joined the other fluids that pooled on the ground.

  She watched him bleed. Watched him clutch at the wound, trying to stanch the flow. At one point, he even reached for the pistol at his side, but it was under him, and he couldn’t even get his blood-slicked fingers to grasp the grip. When he tugged at it a few times, she leaned over and slapped his hand away.

  Moments later, his eyes glazed over as the last bit of life pumped out of his wound. Then it was just a trickle as his eyes dimmed.

  He was right about one thing. No one would even ask about another dead body in this area.

  She pulled herself to her feet and regarded the puddle of red.

  It always ended in blood, didn’t it?

  She found Anders’s pack near the area where he must have hidden himself while she searched for him. Wasn’t he a clever little soldier? There was a shirt, not too fresh, but certainly better than anything she had on. She dumped the rest of his shit on the ground and kicked it aside. Shaving kit, a large pocketknife. On second thought, she tucked that back into the bag. There was some underwear and a white t-shirt. She pushed most of it aside but held the shirt out and away from her bloodstained body.

  She wandered up the entryway and came across a hose. It was gray and had a heavy, industrial feel to it. After some fiddling around with a spout that was missing a knob, she got a stream. She had to take out the knife and worry the screw back and forth until water came out.

  Stripping to her skin, she held the chilly water stream over her head and reveled in it. The w
ater ran clear, and when she felt like most of the gore, dirt and blood had been washed from her face and hair, only then did she allow the water to fill her mouth. She drank deeply and for as long as she could. Then she scrubbed at her body with one of Anders’s torn shirts until she was more or less clean.

  Her pants were a loss, so she left them and put on Anders’s shirt. It wasn’t much in the way of clothing, but it would allow her to appear to be the helpless damsel in distress she most certainly was not. It didn’t hurt that she would leave a lot of leg on display. Crisis or not, men would look, and men would also open doors for her.

  She wrapped the sword in the bag after washing it down. The water wasn’t great for the blade, but it deserved better than to be covered in old blood and viscera.

  The trek back was short and did require vaulting one fence. She did it with as much grace as she could manage and even kept her shirt’s tail demurely down. If anyone noticed her bizarre entrance, they didn’t say a word.

  The line was long and chaotic. She headed straight for a train car and cut to the front to the cries of those who’d patiently waited.

  The doors were open, but they were letting people in at a trickle. She strode up to a Guardsman and put on her most abject face.

  “Back of the line, miss,” the guy said. His eyes traveled down her green shirt, taking in a bit of cleavage and her long legs.

  She put on a small smile and motioned for him to lean close.

  “My boyfriend is one of you guys. He told me to meet him at this car and he’d get me onboard. My mom’s real sick, and I have to get home.”

  The guy looked at her shirt and the nametag that was on prominent display.

  “Anders?”

  “Yes, we’re going to get married as soon as all this craziness is over.”

  “Ah, fuck it. He’s in the Seventh.” The guy looked over at the other guard. “Not one of ours. What do you think?”