The Company of Death

by Elisa Hansen

  Truthfully, she'd never shot a human before. Shooting someone—something—no longer human was easy. Easy when it wanted to devour your flesh or slurp up your blood. But despite how tainted this hairy snake tattoo guy's blood must be from the bites covering him, he was alive. And Emily hesitated.

  “You’re disgusting,” she sputtered in a pathetic attempt to stall for time. Her neck ached as she resisted the urge to glance in her team’s direction. Soon the explosions would be distraction enough and she could get away.

  “Me?” He snorted. “I’m not bad.” He started for her again.

  This time Emily kept her feet planted, and she aimed at his pincushion chest. He froze. “You let them feed on you.” She swallowed the thickness in her throat. “You’re pathetic.”

  He started to circle her. “Oh yeah. They’ll like you. We haven’t had a chick with us in a while.”

  She kicked a rock at his shins. It missed.

  He laughed then hacked another cough. “Come on, use your head, baby. Why would I shoot unless you make me? And let all your blood go to waste?” He aimed his gun at her crotch. “But you wouldn’t have much fun if I put a bullet in, um, oh, one of your knees?”

  Emily drew a discreet breath between clenched teeth, then took a step toward his gun. “I’d rather die from an infected bullet wound than be their whore like you.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, real nice. They’re just gonna love sucking it out of you.”

  Her mind raced for an idea, any noiseless idea. She took a gamble and lowered her gun to her side. Snakeman’s aim remained very much not on her knees, but she could see at once how his entire stance relaxed. She put her free hand on her hip and tapped the tip of her G18 against her thigh in an attempted cocky manner. Get him to look at the factory. Away from her and at the factory. If he turned his head even for a second, she could knock him out.

  “They won’t get the chance,” she said with a forced smirk. Cheesy enough? “My team is seconds away from torching your camp. Those leeches you sold your soul to are as good as dead.” There. The hand on her hip tiptoed toward the radio in the back of her pants.

  Snakeman fell silent for a moment, but then he grinned. “Newsflash, baby. I saw your cute little team going down the hill, and I called mine.” He lifted a radio of his own and waggled it in the air. “Ready and waiting.”

  Heat exploded in Emily’s face, and a chill shot from her stomach to the back of her throat. Stay cool! She kept her eyes on the gun in his hairy knuckles. Fang holes even covered his hand.

  Keep him talking, her frozen brain snapped. The more he talked, the more his aim slipped.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she stammered. “We outnumber your guards, and six vampires is no—”

  “First of all, babe, it’s seven. But you know what? They won’t even have to do anything. Yeah, they know your little buddies are coming, probably there already by now. But they’re just sitting back and watching the fun. You wanna know why?”

  Emily clenched her teeth, battled the adrenaline making a lava lamp of her insides. Just keep him talking. “Why?”

  “Yeah! Hell yeah, you wanna know why! They don’t even have to lift a finger for your friends. Well, maybe one.” He laughed, long and raspy, his aim finally sinking to the vicinity of her knees. “Yeah, just one of their lily-white-ass fingers. To unlock the trucks. We got a special kind of livestock.”

  “Oh?” Emily prompted. Let his aim slip two inches more, and then she’d chance it.

  “Oh, yeah. Except it’s not livestock.” He laughed, obviously thinking himself hilarious. “Your friends are dinner, baby. You hear that?” He cocked an ear to the wind, then grinned as a chorus of howls rose from far too near. “That’s it. They just let loose our two glorious truckloads of motherfuckin’ zombies.”

  A bone-hard fist crunched Emily’s heart. “No!” Her feet stumbled over nothing, and her hand circled the air for nonexistent support. He was lying. He had to be lying. But the wind swept the moaning up the hill to prove it.

  “Oh yeah.” His laugher pitched up at her flailing. “We’ve been starving those bitches for a night just like this.”

  Emily snatched up her radio, but he lunged at her before she could say a word into it. She twisted from his hands, and both her gun and the radio fell. A leather-clad arm caught her waist. She kneed him, but he jammed her in the ribs with an elbow, dropping her to hands and knees. The radio lay in the dust inches from her fingers, but he kicked it before she could grab it.

  He shoved the fat round muzzle of his gun between her shoulder blades. “Do you hear it?”

  At first, she could hear nothing but his thick breath, clotted with hot moisture against her ear, but then she stiffened. Gunfire in the distance broke through like rainfall. A storm of undead screams rose from the valley.

  He squatted over her and ground his gun into her back. “Nothing you can do now, right? Come on. We want the same things, you and me. Shooting you is way down on the list of what I’d like to do with you. We’ll treat you nice. You should thank me. I saved you before you went down there. We’re always recruiting. Besides, what else can you do?”

  She could hyperventilate. She strained to make it stop. The first rays of moonlight squeaking over the hills caught in the eggplant-dyed ends of hair hanging past her face. Oh god, her priorities had been so fucked up. Emily squeezed her eyes shut.

  The muzzle trailed down her spine and poked her in the butt. Her eyes snapped open. She twisted to sock Snakeman in the beard, but he caught her fist and shoved her down. The back of her head cracked against something sharp, but she barely registered the pain before she gagged against his gun wedged into her throat. His smoke-stale breath assaulted her face with a fruity afterstench. Mango tobacco? It made her want to puke.

  She craned her face away, but then froze at the sound of crunching brush and a whoosh of air as something—someone—rushed past them. Blinking, she made out the flapping of a long dark coat and the flashing of moonlight on polished shoes that ran up the hill too quickly to tell one from the other.

  The scraggly face over hers snapped up, his body stiffening against hers. “Hey!” he yelled.

  Emily twisted to follow his gaze. At the top of the hill, the blurry runner stilled, solidifying as he surveyed the opposite side. His head of pale hair fluffed in the wind like a wispy second moon suspended over the ridge.

  “Hey,” Snakeman yelled again. “Where are you going?”

  Emily opened her mouth, but her call for help skittered right back down her throat when the man on the ridge whipped around to them. Not a man at all. His face, even whiter than his hair, shone like a mask of wax in the moonlight. A vampire’s face. Wide, colorless eyes regarded them for a moment. But, could it be? Even observing half upside-down, Emily could swear she saw fear in his gaze. A second later, the expression melted into a smirk, and one pale eyebrow arched up his forehead.

  Snakeman sat back on his heels, his fingers twisting in Emily’s jacket. “What the fuck, man?”

  The vampire took a step back, cocked his head, sniffed the air. Emily gagged. He took another step, and then he seemed to come to a decision. In a ridiculously exaggerated gesture, he blew them a kiss then disappeared over the ridge.

  “Hey!” Snakeman yelled.

  Emily didn’t waste another instant; she twisted, leaving him holding her empty jacket. She jumped to her feet, but his arms wrapped her knees. She fell hard, but she fought harder. If vampires were running away from the factory with fear in their eyes, then her team must be winning. She had to get down there.

  The gunfire and screaming grew louder, louder as she grunted into each punch, but the distant sounds somehow came from all directions. She lost track of left and right, up and down, as she fought in the dust. The moon above the bluff silhouetted the hilltop in the opposite direction from where it should have been.

  The sight of a person coming over it distracted her, a person walking slowly, weakly, like they’d been through battle. A person
who couldn’t possibly be a vampire. Snakeman managed to free his hand from Emily’s grip, and she stumbled.

  “Hey!” she shouted to the person, but she lost sight of them as Snakeman tackled her.

  Emily twisted, kicking at him. When she managed to get on top, she could see the approaching figure again. A short, ruffled dress clung to its frame, and it dragged one of its stilettoed feet. It had only one arm.

  Emily gasped, froze. “Wait.”

  In reply, she received Snakeman’s fist to her gut. He pinned her with all his weight, breathing heavily in her face. The mango smoke stench made her retch. With her hand trapped against his hairy stomach, his sweat seeped between her fingers around his tiny raw wounds. Her cheek pressed painfully into the radio on the ground while her gun mocked her from under a bush a few feet away. Too heavy. She couldn’t move.

  “Yeah,” he said between panting breaths. “Done fighting yet? Time to come back down with me. Meet the family. They’re really gonna like you. They’re gonna love that I found you. They—”

  He broke into a guttural scream, and his hands shot up.

  Emily scrambled to the bush to grab her gun. When she looked back, he was rolling on the ground with the one-armed zombie, its jaws locked on his throat. He bashed it away, but shiny blood gushed down its chin, black in the moonlight.

  Emily dove for the radio, and then she bolted. Behind her, the fat gun fired once, twice, and then only anguished groaning and the sound of her own pounding feet remained as she ran for the cliffs.

  10

  Suicide

  The burning in Emily’s chest forced her to pause for breath on the road. She could see the factory again, half-covered in flames. One, two, three dark figures shot out of the fire faster than shadows in her direction.

  She fumbled with the radio. “Ramon? Ramon! Where are you?”

  No answer. Three, five, six more shuffling undead appeared over the hill behind her. On the north side of the fence.

  “Ramon, what’s going on down there? Are we winning? You have to hurry, they’re coming over from the town! Where are you?”

  She gulped for breath and ran to the ridge above the cliffs. “Ramon!” she sobbed into the radio.

  At the place where the railing was torn asunder, she fell against it, choking on her own thundering heartbeat. She could see nothing in the abyss, not even the white car. The wind swirled noises from all directions, bombarded her with a hurricane of distant groans and screams and gunfire. Cramp gnawed at her side as all feeling bled from her legs.

  Two cattle trucks full of starving zombies. Her team had no idea. And seven vampires. Seven vampires she could never dream of outrunning. And nowhere to hide. The night had just begun.

  And Ramon and Rosa and everyone else… Oh, god. It was too late.

  Had the guards seen her on the hill today when she dropped the radio? Is that why they posted a lookout there tonight? Was this all her fault? She should have told Ramon. Told everyone not to attack. They should have run in the opposite direction hours ago.

  Emily’s fingers dug into the twisted metal. She peered into the abyss and clenched her teeth.

  All too late.

  But the undead would not get her too. Not tonight, not ever.

  She would do it.

  And this was where she would do it.

  She pushed herself upright and stepped through the mangled railing, lined up her toes with the cliff’s crumbling edge. She took the deepest breath of her life.

  She paused.

  The image of lying broken and starving at the bottom flashed through her mind. They would find her down there, and they would eat her alive just the same. She took another breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and lifted her gun to her temple. Her hand shook.

  No…no, not there.

  She put the barrel in her mouth, where she knew it could not miss.

  Let them try to eat dead meat.

  Her grip tightened until her hand ached. The tension snaked up her arm into her shuddering shoulders, burned up the back of her neck. She forced herself to tune out the groans echoing in the rocks behind her, closer, closer.

  Relax. Relax.

  She forced her grip to soften. Focused on the cold metal on her tongue. So that was what forever tasted like.

  Long, slow breaths through her nose fluttered up sweet forgotten memories.

  The sparkling rainbow lake past the long grass at her grandmother’s Midwestern cottage.

  Summer bushes full of fireflies like fairy lights.

  Her dad stifling laughter while they watched old South African sketch comedy reruns long past her bedtime.

  Emily was ready.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes.

  Death rose from the abyss, arms outstretched to meet her. Swirling out of smoke-like shadows, he looked just like Carlos described—just like she always thought he should look. His skull face was swathed in a deep black hood, his skeleton hand gripped a reaper’s scythe.

  Emily’s smile spread around her gun. Yes, perfect. She would die pure.

  Death drew near, his tattered black sleeves brushing hers as his arms encircled her. The air temperature dropped, but she did not feel cold. Her finger tensed on the trigger. Yes. Everything about this was right.

  Her time had come.

  She began to squeeze, but the trigger remained stiff under her touch. Or was it her finger that turned stiff? As Emily stared into the pale green glow burning deep in the sockets of Death’s skull, she tried to press harder, but her hand felt locked in place, frozen in time. But only for a moment. And then it began to give, and then—

  The radio crackled with static.

  Emily gasped and pulled barrel from her mouth. The vision of Death disappeared, and shivering instantly overtook her in the frigid night air.

  The guardrail clanged as if something knocked into it, but Ramon’s voice through the radio distracted Emily from looking. “Emily!”

  She fumbled the button with cold sweaty fingers, her heart thundering again. “You made it!” She turned from the ledge to stop the wind from blowing her hair all over her face and shoved her gun into its holster. “Oh, god, you don’t even know— I thought—”

  “Emily, where are you?” His voice broke the jagged static.

  “I’m coming!”

  “No! Stay away.”

  “Ray, what happened?”

  “They’re down. Everyone down. Get away. For God’s sake, get away. They know you’re out there, and they’re coming for you.”

  “Who’s with you?”

  “No one. I’m—” Tiny pops of terrible gunfire replaced Ramon’s voice through the radio. “Everyone down. They were ready for us.”

  “Where are you? I’m coming.”

  “No! We never had a chance. I’ve been—” Gunfire again, then a long scream and the static cut off. Out over the valley, the same gunfire echoed a second later as the wind carried it across the distance.

  “Ramon?” One breath. Two. Four. “Ray, answer me!”

  She stopped breathing. She counted to ten. “Ramon!” she screamed. “Anyone!”

  “Hola, hola!” an unfamiliar female voice sang through the radio. “Can’t wait to eat you.”

  Emily recoiled and twisted around to stare at the far-off flashes lighting the underside of the clouds, but she couldn’t hear the gunfire over her heartbeat.

  The voice came again. “Want to see something cool?”

  A second later, something exploded beyond the hill. Undead shrieks replied just beyond the cliff road’s bend. Slow shuffling shadows filled the opposite direction.

  “No!” The radio hit the ground as Emily clawed her gun back out of its holster.

  A sob wracked her body, and she fell against the railing. She wrapped a tight arm around her battered stomach.

  Down—everyone down. Ramon, Rosa, Carlos. The scared new guys from La Jolla. Two cattle trucks full of zombies. She didn’t know. She gave the all clear.

  Emily took a stumbling step bac
kward. Tears burned her lips as she staggered blindly along the cliff’s edge. With a shaking hand, she put the gun back into her mouth.

  A faint zinging sound rose above the groans, like an arrow set free to fly, and then a heavy body pounced upon her. As it slammed her to the ground, she smelled stale mango smoke. A ravenous moan cloyed at her ear, and the gun flew from her hand.

  Struggling with every last shred of energy, Emily pushed to her feet, but the zombie moved too quickly. A fast one? Here? How? Its teeth flashed through the beard on its warped gray face above a throat covered in puncture wounds.

  “No!” A deep, echoing voice cried out somewhere behind her. “She’s mine!”

  The vision of Death reappeared over the path, diving through the air toward her.

  Time stopped.

  The scythe fell from his hand as if through water and skeletal fingertips stretched from shadow sleeves.

  The zombie had her shoulder in its mouth—she saw it the split second before it happened. Fire shot through her skin as its teeth tore her flesh. In the same instant, a sharp cold touch pricked her cheek.

  A scream died in Emily’s throat. Her boots tangled around each other and she fell, too late knocking the zombie backward off the cliff. It tumbled into darkness, snake tattoos and all, while her own twisted limbs caught the guardrail before the ground knocked her vision black.

  It took a minute for the sick realization that she wasn’t unconscious to fully register. A sound like bones cracking pierced her woozy hearing. Then a Doppler of static as her radio whizzed past her head over the cliff.

  Who?

  She forced her eyes open and struggled to lift her face. The night swam, but through the dust clinging to her wet lashes, she could swear a horse’s legs, pale as a ghost, moved past her. Icy breath snuffed into her hair.

  Her heartbeat should have spiked. But it didn’t. It didn’t beat at all.

  No…

  An inhuman groan escaped her throat as Emily fell limp.

  11

  Plan F