by Sarra Cannon
Even if they managed to rescue Zoe and unite with the fifth, there was a battle coming. Something bigger than Manhattan. It would be a battle for the whole world, and possibly for worlds beyond.
Today had been a small taste of it, but mostly the battle here had taught her just how unprepared they were to face the Dark One’s power. Maybe they’d been strong enough to capture her a thousand years ago, but now?
They were weak and vulnerable, and they were running out of time.
We have to get to the island.
Parrish reached up to touch the fatalis.
One step at a time.
Tomorrow, they would head to the coast, and in a few short days, they would be reunited with the fifth and with her sister.
Then they could go to the island.
There was still time to save this world.
She had to believe it was true, and as they walked back to their room and settled down to sleep, she sent up a prayer to whoever might be listening that by this time tomorrow night or the next, her sister would be safely at her side.
Eighteen
Crash
Crash said goodbye to Tank and Kaya just before nine the next morning. The couple had prepared a hot breakfast for them and a large backpack full of food.
Tank had asked him a dozen questions about the magical powers he’d seen them use and the hyped-up rotters with red eyes, but Crash didn’t want to scare the guy too badly.
“It’s a long story, old friend,” he said. “I’ll tell you what, if we survive it, I’ll come back and tell you the whole thing over a game of chess. Deal?”
Tank shook his head.
“Do I have any choice in the matter?”
“Not really,” Crash said.
“I figured as much,” Tank said. “Just be careful out there. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life that scared me, but nothing compares to yesterday.”
“After we’re gone, I hope you’ll never see that kind of thing again,” Crash said. “I’m sorry to think we brought that danger here to your group, but I promise we’ll do everything we can to make sure you all stay safe, okay?”
Tank nodded. “You know, when all this first started, I figured it was just a freak thing. Something like in the movies. Terrible virus causes some kind of mutation and the whole world goes crazy. Seeing what I saw yesterday, though, has me thinking there’s a lot more to this story than any of us ever realized. You and your group. You’re a part of this, aren’t you?”
“We didn’t start it, but I hope we’re going to be the ones to end it,” Crash said. “That’s why we can’t stay here. There’s work to do.”
Tank seemed to take it all in for a moment before finally clapping his hand hard against Crash’s back.
“Before you go, come pick out whatever you want from the armory, too. Whatever you think you can carry,” he said. “It’s all yours.”
That was one offer he simply couldn’t turn down.
Crash was like a kid in a candy shop inside that place.
In the end, he only chose two guns and some extra ammo for himself. He also grabbed a hunting knife for Zoe and the smallest pistol he could find for the fifth. Crash hoped it wouldn’t come down to a couple of kids having to face the kinds of zombies they’d faced so far on their trip, but he wanted to make sure they had at least something to protect themselves if it came down to it.
There were so many other weapons he’d wanted to take, but carrying a bunch of guns while riding on a dirt bike was too impractical. It had truly hurt his heart to leave them all behind.
In a way, it had hurt everyone to leave the compound behind.
He could see it in their expressions as they drove through the gate, leaving safety behind them. It seemed stupid to head straight into the heart of hell like this, but it felt strangely powerful, too.
It felt like destiny.
Crash had been dreaming of this plague and the fallout it would cause for months before it actually began, and no matter how devastating it was, it was all exactly as it was meant to be.
And despite the danger they were speeding toward, there was still hope.
There was still a chance they could end all of this. But the only way to do it was to keep moving toward the danger, not hiding from it.
Crash kept his eyes on the road as things got more and more congested. According to satellite pictures and what Tank had told them, once they got about thirty miles from the city, the roads became parking lot graveyards.
They were going to need alternate means of transportation soon.
Leaving his beloved Humvee behind was definitely going to hurt, but it couldn’t be helped.
He just hoped they could make it to the bike shop before the roads got too bad.
They still hadn’t made contact with the fifth again yet, but as long as they were heading toward the coast, they’d be ready to head into the city as soon as the fifth was ready for them.
Crash kept his eyes on the satellite, and sure enough, about fifteen minutes into their trip, he saw exactly what he'd been looking for. He pulled off the road, waking up a sleeping Karmen in the back of the truck.
“Hey, what the hell,” she said. She sounded pissed, even though he’d told her it would be a short ride.
“Time to say goodbye to the Humvee,” he called back.
The website for this place claimed they sold everything from dirt bikes to golf carts to four wheelers. Crash just hoped there was some good merchandise still available, because from the looks of the outside, this place had been raided pretty hard a long time ago.
“I still don’t understand why we have to ride motorcycles,” Karmen said, yawning.
“We'll never make it to the water in this thing,” Crash said. “Things are already getting congested, and all the roads leading both north and east on my satellite are packed with random pile ups and impassable traffic jams. We need to be more mobile and able to dodge cars and wreckage if we’re going to make it to the waterfront today. If we can find four usable bikes inside, I think I can power all of them even if there’s no fuel.”
“Wait just a minute,” Karmen said, sitting up wide awake. “You expect me to ride on my own? Are you insane? I’ve never done this before.”
“It will be fine,” Noah said, always the patient one. “I’ll help you find a good one, or you can ride with me, if you want.”
“I still don't see why we can't at least try to use this heap of metal we're in right now?” she argued.
Crash guessed she was still pretty upset about the fact that they’d had to leave her Beast behind. They’d managed to lock him up last night so he couldn’t hurt anyone, but by morning, his body had already been massively corroded by whatever acidic power had been running through his veins. The Dark One’s magic was toxic, it seemed, even to the undead.
Besides, there was no way they were getting that thing to the coast and on a boat, although they did try to figure out a safe way to do it. Having a guy like that on their side would have come in handy in the city.
If they’d had more time, maybe they could have built some kind of cage for it that they could have hauled behind the truck, but even then, they would have never gotten the whole thing through traffic.
It didn’t matter, anyway, though. The guy was probably a pile of goo by now. Karmen would have to find a new pet in Manhattan.
Crash was sure she’d have her pick of super zombies once they got there.
“The Hummer’s gotten us through plenty of traffic jams so far,” she said. “Besides, the Z's can't bite through metal. On a motorcycle, we'll just be out in the open. Zombie food. We can just go around anything we find, right? This thing can go off-road.”
“The areas we’re going to are worse than anything we’ve seen so far,” Crash said.
Karmen continued to protest, but Crash wasn't in the mood to spar with her. They had some stressful crap coming up, and his body was still sore from the past two fights.
He didn’t have a speck of e
nergy to spare.
From the look on Parrish's face, she felt the same way. He caught her eye and motioned toward the building. She nodded, opened her door, and stepped outside.
“What kind of bike is best, you think?” she asked. “You guys said to find a dirt bike or something that can do well off-road, but I honestly have no idea what to look for.”
“Let’s get inside and see what they have left,” he said. “Looks like we aren’t the first ones here. Probably people looking for a way out of the city when they either didn’t have access to a car or, like us, couldn't get through the traffic.”
The front door of the large warehouse was already open, and Crash pulled out one of the industrial-sized flashlights Tank had given him. He switched it on and banged it against the door frame a couple times.
“What are you doing?” Parrish asked.
He smiled. “Calling the Z’s out of the darkness,” he said. “If they’re in there, I’d rather fight them out here than get caught off guard by one of them inside.”
Karmen placed a hand on his arm, and he nearly jumped from surprise at her touch. “Why don’t you just turn on the overhead lights, electro-boy?”
She batted her eyelashes at him, and his cheeks flushed from embarrassment.
“I was trying to save my power as much as possible today,” he said. “We don’t know what we’re going to face in the city, but I have a feeling it’s going to be much worse than that hospital. I only have so much juice in me before I pass out, remember? Do you really think we should waste it on this trash heap when we have flashlights?”
She frowned and shrugged. “I guess I didn’t think of it that way.”
He turned and patted her shoulder.
“It’s okay. I know you aren’t used to using your brain.”
He quickly backed out of the way before she hit him, and he ended up stumbling into the warehouse and nearly falling into a rotter who was somehow stuck between the wall and a giant cardboard display of some racecar driver.
He cursed as the zombie’s fingers raked across his neck. Before he had a chance to fully react, the rotter’s head rolled off its shoulders and onto the floor.
Parrish stood there, sword in the air.
“Thanks,” he said.
“That’s what you get for saying ugly things about my brain,” Karmen said, sticking her tongue out at him.
God, that woman drove him crazy in a million different ways he wasn't even sure he had words for yet.
How could he be so turned on and so annoyed by the same person?
Was this what love was all about?
“I promise I'll be nicer to your brain in the future,” he said, throwing a glance back at the dead zombie that had almost meant the last of him in a moment of stupidity.
Flirting could be deadly in this world. He’d do well to remember that and stop being an idiot.
“Okay, on second thought, I’m going to turn these lights on for a few minutes. Grab what you want or need as quickly as possible, and let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.
He focused on the hum of energy always buzzing on the edge of his consciousness, and he easily located the power source in the room and flipped the lights on. The inside of the warehouse erupted in bright white light.
He quickly pointed toward the back, where a row of bikes and four-wheelers were still undisturbed.
“Looks like the front of this place was picked clean, but no one was brave enough to go all the way into the back,” he said. “We got lucky, ladies and gents. Take your pick.”
They raced back toward the bikes, where Parrish and Karmen quickly claimed a couple of smaller dirt bikes. Karmen’s was banded with pink stripes, while Parrish chose a sleek black one with matte paint.
Crash stepped over to a row of larger bikes. “This is more my type,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
“Are you sure you can handle one of these bad boys?” Noah joked, poking him in the ribs.
“Oh I can handle it,” Crash said, straddling the bike. “It's that girl over there I can't handle much more of.”
“Who? Karmen? I thought you guys were getting along pretty well these days.” Noah looked over at the girls and Crash followed his gaze.
“It’s not that we aren’t getting along,” Crash said. Then, under his breath, he added, “It’s that I like her too much for my own good.”
Noah laughed, and Crash shook his head.
“Stupid, I know. There are times when I feel like we have a real connection, but then I look at her. A girl like that could never go for a guy like me.”
Noah shrugged.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Besides, we’re like literally two of the last guys on earth, and I happen to be spoken for.”
Crash laughed. “That's super encouraging, dude. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
The guys tried out a couple of options before they each settled on their ride of choice.
“We should get outside and load up. I know Parrish is anxious to get moving,” he said.
Noah hung back for a second, his expression darkening.
Crash turned back to him, concerned. “Everything okay, man?”
Noah sighed. “What are the chances we're going to be able to survive this trip into New York?” he asked. “I was all for going in, but now that we’re actually on the way, I’m scared man.”
“You got to stop thinking like that,” Crash put his arm around his friend. “Yesterday just has you shook. We're alive right now, against all the odds. Don't you think that means something? We're here for a reason. If anyone can make it through this, it’s us. It’s our destiny. Can’t you feel that?”
As he said it, though, Crash thought of the nightmares he’d been having lately. He still hadn’t told anyone about them, but each day brought them a little closer to hell on earth.
Knowing that wouldn’t help them, though. And no matter what they were facing, they couldn’t give up.
Fate was knocking on their door, now, and there was no turning back.
They made their way out of the warehouse together to meet up with the girls.
Thirty minutes later, the four of them had loaded up all the supplies they could carry and started the next leg of their journey on their new motorcycles.
Nineteen
Noah
The journey toward the waterfront park was not an easy one.
The roads were completely blocked in some places, and they ended up having to maneuver their way around the wreckage in creative ways. They even rode into some wooded areas and down steep hills in some cases.
They came across fires, rotters wandering between cars and others trapped inside, and horrible wrecks that had spread debris and body parts across the entire road. They were only about twenty miles into their journey when Noah was overcome by a sick feeling in his stomach.
At first, he thought maybe it was just a reaction to the stench of rotting flesh on this stretch of road. There was a particularly bad stretch of highway where at least sixty cars had piled up in a horrible accident no highway crew would ever show up to clear away.
They'd had to bike way out into a field to avoid it, but the smell of all the bodies stuck in cars lingered for miles.
Shouldn't his stomach have settled down by now?
They'd passed that wreck a good five miles back, and all he could smell now was the heat coming off the asphalt.
He really hoped it wasn’t some kind of lingering effect of the infection he’d taken on. It seemed to be completely out of his system after he pushed the antibiotics through.
And he was fairly certain it wasn't something he ate. All he'd had that day was an MRE they'd gotten from Tank back in Philly, and he said those things wouldn't go bad for years. He hoped he wasn't coming down with something.
Talk about bad timing for a stomach flu.
On their new bikes, the group was actually making decent time.
Crash had defin
itely been right about the bikes. The stretch of road they were on now was a relatively clear, straight shot, but they’d been through some rough patches the Hummer never could have gotten through.
They would have ended up on foot by now if they didn’t have these bikes.
For the last few miles, they’d been riding in a straight line.
Crash up front, then Karmen, Parrish, and Noah in the back. Every once in a while, they had to swerve around some debris, but overall they’d been flying through.
They pulled around a couple of abandoned cars and hit a clear stretch of road, and all of a sudden, dread and sickness rolled through Noah’s stomach with a vengeance.
He wobbled slightly on his bike and considered telling them he needed to pull over. Parrish wanted to be at the park by four, so he didn't want to slow anyone down and set them all back, but his stomach was not cooperating.
Inside his helmet, he could hardly breathe. It was so hot.
He had the overwhelming urge to pull it off and toss it aside.
He was going to be sick.
Noah slowed his bike to a crawl, set his feet down on the hot pavement, and yanked the helmet off his head.
Everything around him faded to these dull black and grey tones, but when he looked ahead at Parrish, her figure seemed to be outlined in a bluish haze. Noah blinked his eyes several times.
Was he having some kind of heat stroke?
The events of the next few seconds happened for him in slow motion.
Crash and Karmen zipped around a truck and narrowly avoided a box of sports drinks scattered across the road beside it, but Parrish didn't see them fast enough.
Her front wheel struck one of the bottles, and her bike jerked to the side.
Parrish lost control, and Noah reached forward as she skid across the blacktop, strengthening the light of the haze that surrounded her.
The light stretched between them like a rope.
He wasn't sure how he did it. His only thought was of keeping her safe.
When she stopped sliding, though, the blue light he’d stretched toward her snapped back at him, and he cried out in agony.