100 A.Z. (Book 2): Tenochtitlan

by Nelson, Patrick T.

  The old highway extended out into the distance in front of Sara’s detachment. The asphalt was broken up and dotted with cactus and brush but still provided the clearest route through the desert. The handlers tied the walkers into a single file line to avoid the larger cactus off the road.

  The path wasn’t without danger. At one section, they encountered a number of rattlesnakes, which began striking the legs of the oblivious zombies. The nervous men kept a keen eye out to avoid them, which slowed their progress. The goal was to reach the fort at first light the next morning, so Sara spurred her forces on despite the danger.

  Obevens and Dalbec had been brought along. They rode together in the cart directly behind Sara. Her assistant glared at the Captain. Dalbec spent his energy making sure the Captain knew he was being ignored. Obevens had tried to start a few conversations, but Dalbec made it clear he had no interest. Obevens caught Dalbec staring at Sara for long stretches of time.

  “I think you’ve burned a hole in the back of her head with your eyes,” Obevens joked.

  This snapped Dalbec to attention. “What?” he snarled.

  “You’ve been staring at her.”

  “I’ve just been staring. Not at her. Just staring.”

  “You can do better than her,” Obevens said, trying to help him out.

  “No! You shut it! You don’t know anything. I don’t even know why she brings you along!”

  Sara stiffened just then, as if she’d heard what was being said.

  “I do know you’ll never get her, and if you did you’d be miserable,” Obevens said.

  “What are you insinuating?” Dalbec hissed.

  Obevens realized this might be the first time anyone had pointed out Dalbec’s affections and let the whole thing go. They rode in complete silence for the rest of the trip.

  They marched through the night and reached Fort Huachuca at first light.

  The men were exhausted from the forced march, but Sara ordered them to immediately encircle the installation. Most of the buildings were rubble. Mountains shot up to the southwest of the base. Dust kicked up in the wind.

  A section of the old fort was bordered with a six foot rock wall. It was obviously post-outbreak construction. Sniper teams were placed every few hundred feet with the general soldiers amassed in eight different locations along the wall. Each had a flag signaling team to send and receive information. Obevens studied the meticulous placement of the oddly shaped rocks into a sturdy, cohesive form, and daydreamed about a job where he simply used his hands for building.

  Sara’s men encountered no resistance as they took their positions on the exterior of the wall looking in. In fact, there were no signs of life inside whatsoever. She’d brought a large contingent of snipers in the hopes she could easily pick off a careless enemy from the protection of the wall. Now that she saw the base she realized how much she’d misread the situation. She should have asked Obevens more questions. More of the right questions. He didn’t volunteer much, which irritated her.

  Sun-bleached garbage baked in piles. Rusted out cars rested where’d they’d been left for decades. Not a soul was in sight. She wondered if they’d evacuated and asked Obevens where they would have fled to.

  Obevens was silent.

  “Where, Obevens?” she repeated, more forcefully.

  Obevens thought of Ellie and the threat to her if he didn’t cooperate. “Underground,” he said.

  She repeated incredulously, “Underground?”

  He nodded.

  “That would have been helpful to know ahead of time,” she snapped. “I’ll address that issue later.” He didn’t reply, but Obevens could almost feel Dalbec smirking. Obevens really wanted to get away from this twisted bunch.

  Sara handed Obevens a stick and pointed to the sand at their feet. They were positioned a few hundred yards from the rock wall in a hollowed out building that she’d claimed as her makeshift command post.

  “Draw,” she ordered.

  Obevens held the stick and clenched his teeth. He looked at the ground and considered his options. He could provide a false layout of the underground structure in the hopes of sabotaging her forces enough that he could escape. The risk being that if he were caught in the lie Ellie would suffer the consequences. Another option was to fudge reality enough so that it looked as though he’d remembered some parts incorrectly, which wasn’t too far from the truth, in the hopes of a similar outcome. The last option, which he hardly considered viable, was to draw the underground layout to the best of his ability. He liked the second option, fudging it a little bit, even though he didn’t enjoy the idea of sending her men into a fight with bad information he’d provided. They were just pawns in her grand scheme.

  Sara looked at him and seemed to read his mind. She smiled and called Dalbec to her side. “Dalbec, send a runner back to the main force. Have them send a unit to Los Alamos and…”

  “Stop,” Obevens said. He grudgingly knelt down to the sand and began drawing the layout as best he remembered it.

  “Thank you. Never mind, Dalbec.”

  The underground structure was relatively simple, yet was designed to provide ample protection in the event of intruders. The tunnels connected between all the buildings, but not in straight lines. Instead, they were in a zig-zag shape that would allow the defenders to get off a few shots before retreating behind the next turn. Soldiers with hand weapons also manned hidden rooms with armories and viewports at the blind turns. Obevens had really been there because Sal was considering peace with the Westerners and had sent an envoy. Maps had been a part of his interest but not the focus. The meeting had gone fairly well, he had inferred from Sal’s mood on the trip home. A follow-up envoy that didn’t include Sal had inadvertently offended the Western general, though, and all the members were beheaded. Obevens and his soldiers were spared out of professional courtesy. He doubted he would get the same generosity this time.

  Sara called over some of the team leaders and showed them the underground layout. They looked from the drawing to Sara with dismay. They wisely did not openly question her desire to capture the tunnels, but their dread was obvious to Bowen.

  An hour after arriving, she signaled for her men to climb the wall and attack. They dutifully obeyed and ran toward the tunnels. Gunfire from the fort began immediately.

  Chapter 2

  “Keep moving!” John yelled at Mark over the sound of the wind through the trees. He didn’t know why he kept yelling it; the boy was moving as fast as he could. The dense jungle seemed to block them at every turn, though, and he was frustrated.

  They had been separated from Hog and Carlos three days prior, while trying to cross a river. All were crossing when Mark stumbled and was carried downstream by the current and around a bend in the river. John scrambled after him and helped him across. John and Mark tried to find Hog and Carlos, but the walkers were getting pushed across the river by the power of the herd. The only choice had been to press on with their group split.

  Now, father and son scrambled over hills and through jungles with some two million walkers on their heels. The perpetual roar of the herd behind them drove them on. When the wind blew the right direction, the smell nearly knocked them off their feet. To John’s horror, they constantly encountered oblivious villagers, and he would yell in rough Spanish, “Peligroso! Los muertos!” They would look at him like he was crazy and go about their business. John was exasperated that he couldn’t get them to comprehend what was coming, but he had no choice but to keep moving. They would understand soon enough.

  He wasn’t sure how long they could keep this up. They’d been on the run for almost a week and slept only a few hours every night. Always they would be interrupted by the sound of the undead coming up behind them and would have to move again. They tried to follow dirt paths in the lowlands for speed but often cut up into the mountains to put elevation between them and the herd. It was a constant fight to get ahead of the walkers enough to get a rest until they caught up again. No matter
which direction he went, even uphill, they always seemed to come upon his position. There were just too many, and they had spilled out across the land.

  “We have to try the hills again,” John slurred in exhaustion.

  “It hasn’t worked so far,” the fourteen-year-old replied with the same exhaustion. He was right.

  “We have to keep going higher and higher. Eventually we might be able to get out of their path. They won’t keep going uphill forever, not if they aren’t chasing anything.”

  “Well, we don’t have any better options,” Mark said, still feeling the pain in his legs from the climb the previous day. They’d had to scramble over a rocky section where he’d slipped and almost fallen on sharp rocks. The jungle was making John feel claustrophobic. The dense trees had thick vegetation and rarely allowed a view. At night they struggled to keep track of which way was north with no clear view of the sky.

  Rain fell mercilessly. Instead of finding shelter, they pressed on uphill through mud and slippery roots. It would be difficult for the walkers to follow in these conditions, and John knew this was their chance to get ahead, hopefully for a while.

  They came upon an animal trail and slipped and groped their way along it through the wet brush. Soon they were drenched, and their moccasins were lost in the mud a mile back. Up and up they kept going. John grabbed a hefty-looking branch to use as a walking stick and to help pull Mark up and over rough patches. The wind began to blow fiercely, and the trees and bushes were flayed about as the rain pounded them. With everything whipping in their vision, there was no way John could have seen the movement ahead of them. It wasn’t until they were right on him that he saw the three walkers lunging. He quickly grabbed the first zombie’s decrepit arms and swung it down the hillside into some rocks. The second took a kick to the stomach from Mark that sent it downhill and sliding through some mud, and John struck the third in the temple with the butt of his staff. It plunged through the brittle skull, ending the threat.

  “How’d they get ahead of us?!” Mark yelled over the wind.

  John yelled back, “I don’t know!”

  Shaking from shock and weakness they trudged on, trying to keeping a sharper eye out for more. It was impossible with the vegetation violently tossing about. Maybe they were the only ones. John hoped so. It was hard enough trying to cover ground quickly. He didn’t want to have to fight his way through as well.

  As quickly as the rain and wind started, they began to let up, and soon rays of sunshine began pouring through the clouds. John took a deep breath and looked around him. Despite being a perpetual death trap, his surroundings were beautiful. The leaves were a deep green rather than the often pale green of pine trees he’d seen his whole life. The vines were tangled in everything like the pattern on baskets Martha used to make. The noise was constant. He never knew what any sound was, as they were all foreign to him, but assumed (and hoped) they were mostly birds. Occasionally he’d see a small monkey in the trees, and he’d ready a rock to try and hit it, but the creatures weren’t ignorant of John’s plan and stayed out of range. He daydreamed of elk herds and meat as his stomach continued to shrink.

  They stopped for a moment’s rest near a mud pit, and John looked at Mark’s ankle. He had lightly sprained it on a root after the fighting. It wasn’t bad. John and Mark looked at each other. They were hungry. There were numerous puddles of water to drink from, and they’d taken advantage of those, but their stomachs were empty. They’d had some melon that morning but nothing since.

  Mark suddenly froze as he stared over John’s shoulder. John knew the look. He turned slowly and looked through the jungle and across a clearing to see about thirty walkers stumbling down the ridge a hundred yards ahead. The walkers didn’t see the two, as they were distracted with the terrain and the thick foliage, but their path would put them right on top of John and Mark. John knew they couldn’t go downhill, as that direction would put them in the thick of the herd.

  “Come on,” John whispered as they slowly moved behind a dip in the terrain and down into the mud pit. He scooped up handfuls of the muck and began smearing it over himself. Mark stifled a laugh before quietly kneeling down to do the same. They helped each other cake it on until both were completely covered. Then they sat still and silent. The walkers approached closer and closer. John’s heart was pounding. They passed within ten feet, but were oblivious of John and Mark. After waiting a few minutes, they stood to shake out the cramps and warily continued up the hill.

  “I don’t see how they got ahead of us,” Mark whispered.

  They soon saw how. At the crest of the hill was a large, rusted metal building with a fence all around it. In one section of the fence there were about fifty walkers. An adjacent holding pen was empty. A section of the fence had been knocked down, with footprints heading out of it.

  “That’s where your walkers came from,” John pointed.

  “Why are they my walkers?!” Mark cried.

  At that moment, two women stormed out from the house, one of them holding a rifle. Before John and Mark could take cover the women saw them. The one with the rifle glared at them suspiciously. People covered in mud wasn’t something she saw every day. John tried giving his customary warning in Spanish, and the woman rolled her eyes and railed at him in Spanish for stating the obvious about her lost walkers.

  “I can’t speak this language!” John said to Mark, frustrated.

  The rifle lady stopped. “You speak English?” she asked, with very little accent. She looked to be in her early forties. The other was five or ten years younger. The older one’s face was weathered from the sun, but they looked healthy and strong. John wasn’t used to seeing women surviving on their own without the protection or labor of a man.

  “A herd is coming this way!” John warned.

  “Good, we need to get them back in the gate,” she said back, clearly annoyed at the loss of her stock. She adjusted her hold on her gun.

  “No, I mean thousands and thousands are coming this way! They crossed the canal.”

  The rifle lady’s face turned white. She turned to her companion and rattled something off in Spanish. The woman made no facial expression.

  “We’ll head out, then,” she said, looking about to see what should be done first to leave.

  “You can come with us,” John said.

  She shook her head. “We have horses, you’d slow us down.” The woman’s voice suddenly tensed. “You better get moving. If I see you hanging around, I’ll put a bullet in you. We only have two horses, none to share.”

  John put his hands up and nodded. He and Mark walked past the house, giving them a wide berth. She kept an eye on them.

  “Who were they? What’re they doing out here?” Mark asked once they were out of earshot.

  “Who knows. You meet some strange folks out in the world,” John said.

  “She spoke perfect English,” Mark insisted.

  “None of our business, Mark.”

  Back on the road that night, Mark found some melons to eat, and it boosted their morale. The mud had mostly come off, and that helped, as well. That night they traded off with the night watch. However, the next morning they both woke to the loud chirping of the birds and neither could remember who was supposed to be on watch. Since no ill had come of neglecting their lookout duties, they were thankful for the rest.

  Father and son got moving again. That morning brought cramps and soreness from the miles of the previous day. As they started moving, it would wear off, they told themselves. Around midday, noticing the increasing humidity, they drank some water from puddles. It would rain soon. It was becoming the norm, clear mornings and a couple of hours of rain in the afternoon.

  They were just about to get moving again when shouts erupted from the dense trees ahead of them. They ducked down and crept forward to get a view. Two animated young men were facing off, shouting at each other. Both waved their arms and pointing in different directions, clearly arguing about which path to follow. A young
woman stood by, watching. She had a black eye. Mark glanced at John as if to ask what they should do. John looked at Mark and then back at the scene just as one of the men pulled out a knife and stabbed the other in the neck. The stabbed man fell to the ground and bubbled out some dying words John and Mark couldn’t make out. The woman didn’t make a sound as the man with the knife grabbed her arm and ran in the direction he’d been gesturing. John and Mark waited until they were gone before leaving their hiding spot. Neither knew what to think. Despite the disrespect to the deceased, John dragged the body onto the trail to waylay any walkers on their tail.

  The stayed on a northerly trail along the high grounds. At one point, they came to a lookout that afforded them a view over the valley below. They could see for miles. Smoke rose from some settlements, and the ground looked like it was crawling with ants. They weren’t ants, though. It was the horde. If John and Mark hadn’t made it up into the mountains, they would be down there now. John wondered where Carlos and Hog were but, like the images of Martha and concerns for Aaron, he pushed them down.

  They trudged on. Higher and higher they bushwhacked until they found a well-worn path on a ridge and followed it until reaching a junction. They chose the path that went to the right, as the other one appeared to descend. They weren’t going downhill.

  Another hour of walking put them into an open area. A number of people sat on the path in a circle. There were five geldings tied to trees around them. The humans appeared to be having a serious debate and paid no attention to John and Mark, who kept some distance at first, just in case.

  After assessing whether they were “good” or “bad,” John approached and interrupted with his customary warning about the herd. They looked at John and nodded before turning back to their discussion.

  John and Mark moved on. John saw two sets of hoofprints in the mud, as they left the clearing and wondered if they were from the women they’d seen earlier.