Reckoning in an Undead Age

by A. M. Geever

  They discovered the gently graded ramp soon after setting up camp. After ten years of forest debris falling on it, it had been easy to miss it. They’d thought it was the ground that sloped, given that the entrance was built into the high side of a bowl-shaped depression, and it was a shallow angle, perhaps five degrees. Rich and Phineas had found what they thought might be remnants of the path leading to it, based on trees that were smaller, with sparser undergrowth. It was all conjecture, of course, but it passed the time.

  They set up around a small campfire, passing the time by playing cards and shooting the shit. Every so often Miranda would walk over to the door and ask if anyone was there, and announce their intention to stay for as long as it took. By early evening, she was so tired that she said she’d take a later watch. She’d barely slept the night before, her dreams full of deformed zombie infants.

  She slept a good few hours into the evening, if the level of grogginess upon waking was any indication. She always felt groggy after a good snooze when she came into it with a sleep deficit. Delilah had wriggled close alongside Miranda’s front, since she slept on her side. The pit bull’s soft breath sighed in and out, and the fire crackled.

  Alec and Rich sat at the fire, their backs to her, speaking softly. It was nice to just lie there, listening to the sound of their voices and the rain and Delilah’s even breathing. The soft lilt of Alec’s Scots accent—still new to her ear—sounded musical.

  “—think we had maybe ten doses at the time,” Rich said. “They used six of them on me. I got the first two within half an hour of being bitten, and the rest soon after. Then I almost died anyway, but the Lord was watching out for me.”

  Miranda listened to Rich telling Alec how he’d become a zombie repeller, shocked that he was giving away the secret, even though Alec had seen their ability with his own eyes. Despite knowing him for only a short time, Miranda believed Alec would keep his mouth shut. He’d told them about his work as a reporter. Assuming he wasn’t blowing smoke up their asses, he’d been part of a team that broke a huge government scandal in Britain that caught the rest of the British press flat-footed. A person couldn’t pull off a story like that without keeping secrets.

  Miranda could hear the astonishment in Alec’s voice. “Your vaccine does that? It works after the fact?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. We don’t know. It worked on me within thirty minutes of being bitten. I’m the only one, so.” Miranda saw Rich’s shoulders rise and fall. “One person is not a representative sample. The only way it can be studied is if it happens again, since control groups with placebos won’t fly. The repelling we do understand. AB negative blood type and a strong—usually life-threatening—reaction to the vaccine seems to do it.”

  “AB negative? That’s one of less common ones.”

  “Less than one percent of the population.”

  “And you’ve two people with it?” Alec said.

  Rich chuckled. “Three, actually, but the third person isn’t at LO anymore.”

  “Wow.”

  Wonder filled Alec’s voice, and Miranda realized how miraculous it must seem to someone looking in from the outside. She was so used to it now she never thought about it.

  After a good ten minutes, Alec said, “You said you were the only one to get the vaccine after being bitten, but Miranda repels them, too. I saw the scar on her hand.”

  Her pulse skyrocketed. She didn’t think Rich would tell Alec what had happened, but if she ‘woke up’ right now, they might realize that she’d been listening. She held her breath, indecision battling with the desire to keep her private life private.

  “That’s not my story to tell,” Rich said. His voice softened. “Miranda’s good people, and she’s been through a lot. If you get to hear her story, it’ll be because she decides to share it with you.”

  If she hadn’t already been lying down, the relief that she felt would have sent her slithering to the floor to collect in a puddle. Miranda felt her heart begin to slow, and the muscles she hadn’t realized had tightened relaxed.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry, Rich. I’m certainly not trying to pry into her private affairs. It’s the reporter in me.”

  She could practically see the shrug of Rich’s shoulders when he said, “I should have taken more care choosing my words when the person I’m talking to is intelligent enough to parse them so well.”

  Alec chuckled. “My granny used to say my curiosity would be the death of me. It’s why I became a reporter. Best job in the world. Getting paid to ask uncomfortable questions to lying prats. There’s nothing like it, especially when you catch them in a lie.”

  Rich laughed softly. His voice still sounded amused, but there was an undertone of warning when he said, “Questions are fine, so long as you know you won’t always get an answer.”

  A rush of affection for her friend hit Miranda all at once. Hearing Rich’s protective tone felt like a salve. Even if he wasn’t talking about her just now, she knew his protectiveness included her. It was the kind of thing Doug might have said, before their argument. Maybe even still—she had no way of knowing. And Mario—

  She squelched the thought, and the irritation that came with it. She didn’t want to deal with the anger that flared when she let herself think about him. She could feel it hot on the irritation’s heels, and she didn’t need that right now. Didn’t need it at all. When he’d left with Doug, Skye, and Tessa, she’d felt nothing. If she hadn’t experienced it herself, she wouldn’t have believed it. But after they left, the anger returned. Whatever had numbed her out in the six weeks leading up to their departure evaporated almost as soon as they left.

  She wondered if the detachment had been fallout from killing Jeremiah that she’d mistaken for emotionally uncoupling from Mario. She’d talked to River about killing Jeremiah a bit, but only because she knew people expected her to. She felt justified, even though killing a person was different from killing a zombie, even a person as depraved as Jeremiah had been. Everything he represented—greed, insanity, depravity, predation—were not subjects she wanted to dwell on. Whatever the cause, it turned out that her anger with Mario hadn’t faded after all. It had only gotten worse.

  She thought again about getting up, but she didn’t have to pee, and Delilah was warm and snuggly. She closed her eyes and let the soft, lazy drawl of the American South and the lilting burr of the Scottish Highlands weave together as the two men talked quietly. Without even meaning to, she drifted off.

  “I think we need to call it.”

  She knew Rich was right. As frustrating as it was to admit defeat, her on-the-fly plan had produced zero results.

  “I know,” she said. “It was stupid to think it would work. There’s probably nobody in there.” She turned around and looked into the camera. She and Phineas had been sitting outside the blast door, as if their presence would suddenly make the door open. “But just in case, just so you know, we’re coming back. If anyone’s in there, we’d really like to talk to you.”

  The camera’s light blinked at her. Oh well, she thought. It had been fun to spend so much time with Phineas. He was funny and irreverent and the running joke that he would one day get a date with her was so ridiculous that it always made her laugh. She’d enjoyed getting to know Alec, too. He was smart and had a sly sense of humor. So sly that sometimes it took her a second or two to catch up. And he didn’t ask stupid questions. She had no evidence to support the feeling, other than these limited interactions, but he seemed like a good guy. Time would tell.

  “It’s about time we get out of here,” Phineas grumbled. “Freaking tigers and God knows what else in these woods…elephants and polar bears. I want to get behind the palisade.”

  “You’re thinking about it all wrong, laddie,” Alec said as Miranda joined him and Rich at the bottom of the ramp. He raised his voice so that Phineas, still by the blast door fifteen feet away, could hear. “If you spin it right, just think of the stories you can tell some pretty lass… How you faced
down the fierce She-Tiger before realizing she was only defending her cubs. That’s danger, bravery, and kindness to baby animals all in one. They’ll be throwing their knickers at you.”

  Miranda snorted, and Rich laughed out loud. Phineas shrugged into his pack and stepped out from under the lintel.

  “I never thought of that,” he said, his face contemplative, then he jutted his chin at Miranda. “But she’ll probably ruin it for me by telling what really happened. I’ll look like an idiot.”

  “Phineas,” Miranda said, amused but dead serious. “If making the story into what Alec just said will get you laid, I promise— Move, Phineas! Now!”

  She had no idea how it was there and none of them had seen it, except that the zombie wasn’t upright. Everything about it was a color found in the litter of twigs, stones, leaves, and branches on the forest floor. The skin was the same grayish-brown as the stones and boulders. The wisps of filthy, matted hair still attached to patches of its scalp the dull yellow of dead leaves. The scraps of drab brown shirt were so ragged and dirty that it was impossible to tell what color it had been before.

  The zombie’s ragged stumps of fingers curled around the lintel’s edge, directly above Phineas. It pulled itself forward, enough to peer down. One more pull and it would topple down on him. Phineas looked at her, puzzled. The zombie moaned. Miranda sprinted to him as he looked up, eyes widening in slow motion. The zombie tugged itself forward and tumbled over the edge. Miranda barreled forward, colliding with Phineas just as the zombie hit him.

  Miranda’s momentum slammed all of them against the blast door. The zombie’s moans mixed with Phineas’ bark of surprise and Delilah’s growls. Miranda found herself in a tangle of arms and legs as Phineas tried to wriggle free. She grabbed the zombie, its cold flesh yielding like putty under her fingertips. She shoved it away, out from under the lintel. It found its footing and lurched toward her, then abruptly pulled back. She took a step forward and it stumbled backward.

  “That’s right, fucker! Run!”

  The zombie staggered away from her. She pulled her knife and followed. It turned back, and lacking the brain power to realize it had just run away from her, lurched forward to make a second pass. It jerked away again. Miranda rammed her knife into the zombie’s eye. It went slack, and she tugged the knife free. Black goo leaked from the gash, dripping from the knife’s point.

  “It’s clear up here,” Rich said, slightly breathless. He stood above the entrance to the blast door, his cheeks flushed from exertion. Alec gave Phineas a hand up. He stepped out from under the lintel and into the brighter light. He shook, teeth chattering. His eyes were so wide and afraid that he looked much younger than his twenty years.

  When Miranda hugged him, he added, “The shit I do to get your attention.”

  “Let’s go, before something else happens,” Rich said. “We’ve had enough misadventures—”

  A squawk of static interrupted him. Miranda looked at Rich, confused.

  “Excuse me,” a tinny voice said.

  She turned to the camera, which was bobbing up and down, as if nodding at them—to get their attention?

  A voice said, “Excuse me. Uh, hello.”

  Miranda looked at Alec. Rich had come down from above the entrance to stand beside them. Both were looking at the camera. So was Phineas, whose mouth had fallen open.

  Slowly, Miranda said, “Hello?”

  “Um… Do you want to come inside?”

  They all looked at one another, uncertain. They’d been out here for two nights with no response, but now they were being invited in?

  “You’ve been watching us the whole time?” Rich said.

  “Yes,” said the voice.

  “Why now?” Miranda asked. The timing made her spidey sense tingle.

  “You want to come in, right?” the voice said.

  “What do you think?” Miranda said to Rich, voice so low only he could hear. Or so she hoped…who knew how good the microphones on the camera were.

  “I think we should check it out,” Rich said, but he sounded uncertain.

  “First tigers, now this,” Phineas muttered.

  Ideally, they should all agree. Alec nudged her with his elbow and whispered, “Where’s your sense of adventure?” He looked up at the camera and said, “Aye, we want to come in.”

  “Okay,” the voice said.

  A deep clunk reverberated under Miranda’s feet, followed by a low pneumatic hiss. And then, slowly—centimeter by centimeter—the door began to swing open.

  6

  The wide, rectangular door swung open. Miranda said to Rich, “Should we all go?”

  “I’m going,” Phineas said. “I’m not staying outside with tigers roaming around.”

  Rich said, “I don’t think splitting up is a good idea.”

  “Nor do I,” Alec said.

  As a group, they stepped over the threshold. Track lighting was built into the gray concrete walls near the ceiling. Ahead, Miranda saw another blast door. The space between the two doors was large enough for the second door to open while a truck was between them.

  “Please move inside so I can shut the outer door,” the voice said.

  They complied. When the door thudded shut behind them, Miranda felt a sharp stab of dread. Whoever that voice belonged to might be a psycho, or a group of psychos.

  “Or they might just be regular people,” she muttered to herself.

  “What’s that?” Alec asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, flashing him a nervous smile. “Just talking myself off the ledge.”

  There was another deep thunk, then a pneumatic hiss from the door in front of them, and it, too, began to swing open. Delilah whimpered. When Miranda looked down, she could see that the pit bull’s hackles were raised, and her tail curled between her legs to her tummy. Miranda dropped down beside her, and petted Delilah from her shoulders to her rump.

  “It’s okay, Liley,” she said, making a mental note to calm down. “I’m here with you. It’s okay.”

  While Delilah would always have her own assessment and reactions to a new environment, she also took cues from Miranda. Right now, Miranda was really anxious. Kind of scared, honestly, but excited, too. After Delilah relaxed some, untucking her tail a bit, Miranda stood up. Alec, Rich, and Phineas were all ahead of her. Once they were over the second threshold, the door swung shut behind them with a smooth, hydraulic hiss. They all glanced at one another, then started down the long corridor.

  Rich said, “Can any of you see the end?” When a chorus of ‘No’ answered him, he added, “How long do you think this is?”

  “Doors ahead,” Miranda said, pointing to two doors set into the walls, across from one another.

  The doors looked like they belonged in a bank vault. One was solid, the word MECHANICAL stenciled on the gray steel. The door across from it was almost identical, but had an inset window. SECURITY was stenciled below the window, but the room was dark. Rows of small lights—red, yellow, green, and white—were lit up along the wall.

  “Do you think security being unattended means there aren’t many people here?” Alec asked softly.

  No one answered, since they didn’t know. One by one, they stepped away from the window and continued down the corridor. From this point on, it began to slope down.

  “What do you think the angle is on this?” Phineas asked. “Ten degrees?”

  “Not even close,” Miranda said. She stopped and looked at the angle of her foot. “It’s hardly anything…two or three degrees, maybe.”

  She looked up when Rich said, “There’s a wall ahead. The ramp must switchback.”

  They continued, the silence thickening until it seemed to have stuffed the wide corridor around them with foam. At the wide landing, the corridor did indeed switchback one hundred eighty degrees. The angle of the slope remained the same. They walked the same distance by Miranda’s step count before rounding a second, and then a third switchback.

  “How deep are we?” Phineas a
sked.

  He sounded anxious. Miranda glanced his way. His eyes were as big as dinner plates, but he looked excited, too.

  “If we assume a three-degree slope over five hundred feet three times,” she said, doing the math. “About forty-five feet. But if it’s two degrees, then it’s around thirty.”

  Rich whistled. “Whoever this is, they are not playing around.”

  Alec said, “There’s a door ahead.”

  Miranda saw that he was right. This door was different. It looked like an airlock from a sci-fi spaceship, with an inset window. The light above it went from red to green. They went through into an airlock, Delilah requiring only a little coaxing. The door on the other side of the airlock also had an inset window. They crowded around it. Miranda stood on tiptoe, craning her neck to see over Phineas’ head. An open hallway was straight across from the door, but the central opening narrowed, offering only a six-foot-wide field of vision. She saw two pieces of furniture—the end of a couch and the corner of an upholstered chair. The floors were wood, and the plants looked real.

  “A living room?” Rich asked.

  “It’s open to another chamber on the far side, but I can’t get a good look,” Miranda said. She tried to see what was on either side of the opening to the left and right. A corridor similar to the ones they had just traveled, but half as wide, curved out of sight.

  “I think it’s round,” Alec said, just as Miranda was about to say the same. “Are there converted missile silos in the area?”

  “Those silos were out in the middle of nowhere,” Rich said softly.

  The voice crackled over the speakers again, making everyone jump. “I don’t suppose you’re willing to leave your guns there?”

  It was an odd choice of words. Miranda traded a glance with Rich. He looked around for the camera and spoke to it.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said.

  His voice oozed a friendliness that he made sound genuine. It just might be, Miranda thought, because Rich was that kind of guy.