by Eric Wood
She looked over at where Abigail fell, and her body froze. It wasn't Abigail that had woken up. It wasn't Abigail looking around with wild eyes and trying drunkenly to stand up straight. It was the Company Reaper.
"Damned Reapers," Roach cursed. She needed to move fast: once that thing recovered his strength, she wouldn't have a chance against it, even if she wasn't already half-crippled. She struggled to her feet, hissing against the fresh wave of pain flowing from her shoulder wound, and looked for something she could use against the cursed creature. A knife, or even a heavy rock. She would settle for a sharp stick at this point.
Her eyes settled on something better. A rifle that one of the man's companions had dropped. She stumbled toward it, at one point losing her footing and falling to one knee.
"Stop moving," a deep, halting voice commanded. "Get down on the ground." So the thing had woken up enough to talk — she was about out of time.
She fell to her knees by the rifle and scooped it up with her good hand. She turned, the wet leaves cool underneath her knee, and swung the weapon toward the Reaper. She pulled the trigger.
It clicked but didn't fire. The Reaper was now on his feet, clutching his chest and lurching toward her. He was maybe ten yards away and closing.
Roach suddenly remembered that the damned rifle was bolt action. With considerable effort, she raised her other hand to the weapon and took hold of the bolt with a numb forefinger and thumb. Her shoulder screamed in protest as she pulled back the action and pushed a fresh round into the chamber. The Reaper had closed to within five yards now. Roach took aim and fired.
The shot took him in the chest, just above the heart and where Abigail had driven her knife in, apparently not killing the monster. He staggered back a step but did not lose his footing.
Roach cursed and reloaded. Her shoulder was now pulsing with incandescent pain. Her vision, likewise, was growing red around its edges with every breath she took. She ignored the pain and discomfort as best she could; she had been a Ravager, and for a Ravager pain was a fact of life. She could handle it now. She fired again.
The shot missed the Reaper entirely. He smiled a half-mad, half-mocking smile as he lurched forward, faster now. She had time for one more shot at most, and that was only if her shoulder kept cooperating.
She worked the bolt, half-expecting to be out of bullets. Luckily, she had at least one more left. From the weapon's weight, she doubted she'd get another shot; this was it. She raised the rifle, aimed for the center of the Reaper's bloody face, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet punched a tiny black hole in the middle of the Company Reaper's forehead before exiting and burying itself high in the trunk of a tree some distance behind him. He took one unsteady step to the side and then collapsed face-first into the dirt.
Roach exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. She worked the rifle's bullet, keeping the weapon trained on the Reaper's unmoving form. She had been right; the weapon was empty.
"It had enough left to put you down, though," she yelled in triumph, before falling into an infernally painful coughing fit. She didn't think her shoulder wound was particularly bad, as far as gunshot wounds went, but it sure as hell hurt.
"Nice shot," a voice croaked from nearby. Roach scrambled to her feet in surprise, losing the rifle in the process. Looking up at her from a short distance down the hill, her face white as a ghost soaked in bleach, was Abigail.
The tiny Reaper was still very much alive. "I don't think he'll get up from a bullet through the brain," Abigail said, working herself slowly up to a seated position, "but then again, I've also never been shot in the head. So you better keep an eye on him."
Roach ran over to Abigail and bent down at her side. "Are you..." she began, trailing off when she realized she was crouched in a literal pool of blood, "...okay?"
Abigail managed a weak laugh. "Okay might be pushing it. But I'm still breathing. Somehow. I can still move my toes, so that's good. I hate to admit it, but I might be feeling a bit weak. I think I lost a lot of blood."
Roach let out a nervous laugh. Reaper or not, she had lost a lot of blood. It was clear Elena's shot had hit one of the main blood vessels in Abigail's neck; what was less clear was how she had any blood left. It shouldn't be possible for anything to lose this amount of blood and still be able to function. And yet, Abigail was talking to her, so Roach supposed she had to redefine what was possible.
"Can you walk?" Roach asked. "We need to get back."
"And I need to have a long talk with Elena," Abigail said, before letting out a weak-sounding cough. "Unfortunately, standing might be a bit too tall of an order at the moment."
Roach wondered if she would be able to carry Abigail the entire way back to the city on her back. Even if her shoulder didn't currently have a bullet hole in it, she wasn't sure she would be up to the task. Her old Ravager strength only returned to her in short bursts, and even then, it seemed to come only in the middle of a fight. She’d have to figure out another way.
She laughed, shaking her head. "What's so funny?" Abigail asked.
"It's just that, even a few days ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about leaving you out here to die. Now, here we are, both shot all to hell, and I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with a way to rescue your grouchy ass."
"Why Roach," Abigail croaked, "I didn't know you cared."
They both laughed, there together in the dirt and blood.
"If you really want to help, I think I've got an idea," Abigail said. "I need three things from you."
"Alright, let's hear them."
"First, I need you to track down that knife I was using. Then, I need you to drag me over to the guy you shot, near his head and neck."
"Okay..." Roach said, unsure. "And what is the third thing?"
"I need you to the leave me alone for a few minutes with the body. I'd really prefer not to have an audience for what I need to do."
43
"I am starting to get real tired of people grabbing me and telling me what to do," Sam said.
Since Ki and her gang liberated them from the trio of Company men, Sam had been trying to figure out if they had really been freed, or whether they had just traded one jailer for another. Ki had never outright betrayed Sam or his friends since their arrival in Cheyenne — at least, not that he knew of — but she hadn't exactly been honest with them either. And now he and Rend found themselves in the middle of a small army of Ki's gangsters, moving through a city that seemed to be in the middle of tearing itself apart.
He could hear screams in the distance to his right, and sporadic bursts of gunfire in the distance to his left. Closer to their group, the streets were quiet, the normal crowds having wisely sought cover from the emerging chaos. He wished Abigail was here with him; he hoped she was safe outside the city walls.
"What the hell happened?" Sam asked Ki. Even ignoring everything else, the mere fact that Ki was out on the streets carrying her own submachine gun told him that things had gotten serious.
"Roosevelt has made his move," Ki said. "We assumed it was coming, but we didn't think it would be this thorough. Or this reckless. Rather than attack me, he has decided to attack the entire city."
A block ahead of them, someone ran across the street, casting a frightened look behind as they passed. A few seconds later, two more figures gave chase. The way these two moved was instantly familiar to Sam, and the sight turned his blood cold.
A pair of weapons beside him barked with fire, and the two Infected were taken off their feet by the resulting bullets. They hissed and writhed on the ground before getting up and running toward Ki's group, utterly unafraid of the weapons pointed their way. Two fresh bursts of gunfire tore through them and put them down for good.
"There are Plague-Heads inside the city?"
Ki nodded, her normally placid expression clearly furious. "A number of small Plague-Head groups, between two and four in each group, were released into my district just over an hour ago. Alr
eady, the infection is spreading. We are attempting to contain the outbreak, but the situation is critical. This was a criminal act without precedence, and one Roosevelt will pay for severely."
Ki didn't have to explain to Sam why a group of Plague-Heads loose in the city was so dangerous. Plague-Heads only had one function, one overwhelming drive, and that was to spread the Horsemen Virus to new Uninfected hosts. Despite the infection robbing the host brain of all higher function, Plague-Heads were very good at accomplishing this task. One Plague-Head could easily become a horde if not dealt with immediately.
"Why would Roosevelt do this?" Rend asked. "Burning down the city with Infected doesn't seem like a smart way to take power."
"It's not," Ki said. "I assume Roosevelt believes I can contain the outbreak, knowing the effort will sap the strength of my forces. Lucky for the city, my militias are up to the task. Still, it is an incredibly reckless strategy on his part, one that seems out of character for him. But, it is a better possibility than the alternative."
"What is the alternative?" Sam asked.
"The alternative is that Roosevelt has gone completely insane," Ki said. "We're here."
They stopped at a seemingly nondescript corner, and Ki's forces took positions all around them.
"And where is here?" Sam asked.
"My center of power has been overrun by Infected, and my surface safehouses may have been compromised," Ki replied. Beside her, Hydra bent and took hold of a gap in the resurfaced brick of the road. "We have but one refuge left to us." Hydra lifted his arm, and a wide section of the road came up with it. The brick was revealed as a facade covering an Old World manhole cover. At their feet, a slimy-looking ladder descended into the dark depths of the sewers. "We are heading to the Shadow Market."
She thought she would hurt more.
Even more than the lack of pain, the fact she was still alive was perhaps the biggest surprise of all. Abigail had been shot before, but never so badly. It was almost funny to think about: she wasn't even twenty years old and not only had she been shot, with a gun, on multiple occasions, but she’d also shrugged off these incidents like a normal person would shrug off a twisted ankle. She wasn't normal people though, was she? Normal people didn't get up after a bullet tears through their neck; they didn’t keep fighting with blood leaking from them like water from a cracked canteen.
She leaned into Roach's shoulder as she took one exhausting step after another. Roach, in truth, was doing most of the walking for both of them, as Abigail had barely regained enough strength to stand under her own power. Roach held her up on her feet with a strong arm wrapped around Abigail's back and under her shoulder. Roach hadn't escaped their run-in with the Company Reaper and the traitorous Elena unscathed herself, but even with a bullet in one shoulder, she was still able to help Abigail out of the literal woods and back toward civilization and Sam.
Abigail was never going to hear the end of this from Roach.
Despite Abigail's pride, or maybe because of it, she was glad Roach had given her privacy with the dead Reaper. It had taken more marrow and blood than she had ever consumed in the past, and she had thrown up more than once in the process, but her Reaper constitution — and her will to live — pressed her forward and brought her back from the brink of death. She wondered if she still had some of the dead Company Reaper's fluids on her face.
"Look at that," Roach said, pointing forward with her free hand. "We can already see the city. Only about...well, we've still got a ways to go. But we're making progress."
"We just have to keep moving forward," Abigail said. She was still having trouble raising her voice much past a whisper. Sloping plains stretched out before them, and past that the towering city walls of Cheyenne. Plumes of black smoke were rising from the city, looking less like the controlled exhaust of the coal plants and more like a fire.
"Keep moving forward," Roach repeated. "That's why I kept you around. You're the brains of this operation."
"Something is happening in the city," Abigail said. "We need to get there."
"Yeah, and something is happening outside the city too. Like us getting jumped by not one, but two groups of assholes. Not to mention that entire asshole army of Ravagers arriving practically any moment now.”
"Of course," Abigail said. “Them.” She’d almost forgotten what Elena had said about her boss — her real boss. The Ravager army had nearly reached Cheyenne, and with it, Solomon.
Of course, Elena had to be working for Solomon. She was undoubtedly his advance agent in the Free City; she’d probably been working for him since before Abigail met her. How Elena fit in with these Company agents, she still didn't know. But if they were working against the city as well, that meant they had to be working for Solomon. She wanted more than ever to turn and run from Solomon's impending path of destruction, but she knew she wasn't going to do that. Cheyenne might be a pit of vipers, and its leaders the worst of the bunch, but she couldn't just leave them to their fate. Without her, against even a normal Reaper, much less someone like Solomon, they didn't stand a chance.
Of course, with her they also didn't stand much of a chance.
"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Roach said, "but I assure you we don’t want to be outside the walls when that army gets here. I have a bit of experience with Ravagers, in case you forgot. I know what they're capable of."
"This will be worse than normal Ravagers," Abigail said. "You don't know what he is capable..."
She trailed off as she saw a small plume of dust in the near distance, coming their way. Roach saw it as well; a moment later Abigail was able to squint her eyes and make out a small vehicle heading towards them. In addition to the driver, the vehicle had three other occupants: each of them carried a black rifle. As it drew closer, it became increasingly clear that not only had it spotted them, but it was heading right for them.
"There's no way we can get back to the woods in time," Roach said. "I hope you're feeling a lot stronger than you look, because it seems we might be heading for another fight."
Abigail laughed weakly. "Yep, I'm ready to take on the world."
The vehicle skidded to a stop a few feet in front of them, and the passengers hopped out. They fanned out around Abigail and Roach, but they didn't raise their weapons. Instead, they did a quick visual sweep of the area. By how they were dressed, Abigail was immediately able to identify them as Ki's people.
"Kowalski," one of them called to another, "get over here, they need help." He stepped closer to the pair and offered them what he probably imagined was a comforting smile. "Abigail and Roach, I can assume," he said. "We need to get you back into the city ASAP. We have an emergency."
Roach looked over at Abigail and shrugged. Normally, Abigail would argue with the man as a matter of course. Beyond that, there were a million reasons why she shouldn't believe him, why she shouldn't even consider going with him and the rest of his motley group of street soldiers. But she’d just had a very long, very tough day, and was too weak to argue. If they were going to kill her, they could do it here as easily as anywhere else, and she wouldn't be able to stop them. At least if they were telling the truth, she could get off of her feet and rest.
"Alright," she said. "Take us back to the blasted city. And try not to make the ride too bumpy."
44
"So, you're telling me Roosevelt controls all of the surface?" Sam asked. "Even if your people were busy dealing with the Plague-Heads, I didn't know he had the manpower to control the whole city."
It had thankfully only been a short walk through the sewers before they reached yet another hidden door and entered the higher portions of the Shadow Market. Their group descended from one ramshackle platform to another as they made their way toward the larger open caverns below. Sam remembered what Jacinta had told him about this place, and even though he was safely in the center of Ki's party of thugs and killers, it seemed a much darker, much less welcoming place than he remembered. He made a note to keep himself in a positi
on where he wasn't at risk of being separated from the group.
"He hasn't taken control of the surface as much as dislodged our control of it," Ki responded. The severity of their current situation had obviously convinced her to take a more relaxed view on her control of information. "In reality, chaos seems to have firmer control of the surface at the moment than either Roosevelt or myself."
"But down here is fine?" Rend said, looking uncertainly over the thin railings toward the orange flickers of gaslights far below. "I was under the impression this is where the Infected normally lurk."
"Yes Rend," Ki said, "but I'm sure you of all people are aware that one Infected is not the same as another. There are some emaciated, half-alive Plague-Heads occupying the abandoned mines, but that area is securely closed off. The Infected in the Shadow Market are a different kind of Infected altogether.
"What kind of Infected?" Sam asked.
Ki smiled. "My Infected."
They were met at ground level — or rather cavern level — by another small group of hard-looking men and women. Two of them at the back, in particular, caught Sam's eye. It was their heavily scarred, granite-like faces (as much as their enormous frames) that stood out. It took him a second to realize what he found so strange about them. They were Ravagers.
Unlike Roach, they still had the heavy-looking, exaggerated bone structure and vaguely ape-like musculature of a typical Ravager. Unlike a typical Ravager, blessedly, the pair seemed more concerned with Madame Ki's next order than destroying and killing everything around them. A domesticated Ravager, Vincente's voice said. Now I've seen everything.