100 A.Z. (Book 2): Tenochtitlan

by Nelson, Patrick T.

  Not long after they’d left the clearing, Mark announced that he needed to stop. They hadn’t eaten much in the last week, and John had been pushing them hard. They stopped at a flat spot and John looked around for some food. As usual, there wasn’t anything.

  After an hour in which Mark dozed a little, John roused Mark and offered to carry him. Mark refused, and they continued on the path through the dense trees and brush they’d continuously seen for days now. They were starting to hate the sight of it.

  After another hour, dusk approached. The silence was interrupted by the sound of horse hooves, moving fast and growing louder. They hid behind some trees as a riderless horse sprinted down the path past them, headed back the way they’d come. It had an arrow sticking out of its haunch.

  There was a gunshot. Two men raced downhill in the direction of the horse. One of them was limping as fast as he could and carried a bow. Another shot rang out, and he tumbled into the brush and didn’t get up. The other continued running. John ran toward the downed man with one thought—the bow. As he did, more shots came, splintering the tree next to him. John hit the ground, unable to tell exactly where the shots were coming from.

  “Don’t shoot!” Mark yelled from the ground behind John. To their surprise, the shooting stopped. John stood up with his arms raised. He could see a woman a hundred yards ahead with a rifle pointed at him. It was the rifle lady.

  “You again?!” she yelled.

  “I’m not after your horse!” John yelled back.

  “Yeah, you’re after my sister!” she bellowed back. She was a strong looking woman, short, built like a barrel and clearly quick with the trigger.

  “We weren’t with those men! We just saw the horse run by, and I was going for the bow,” John called up to her.

  “What do you want with a bow?” she asked.

  John wasn’t sure how to answer the question.

  “Well, I guess you probably want to shoot things. That was a stupid question,” she said, lowering her rifle. “Well, get it and come up here.”

  John had a little difficulty locating the body in the brush. He finally found the blood trail and followed it to the dead man. He was young. Just a little older than Mark. His eyes were open and staring at the sky. She had put a bullet through his chest. He had a design burned into his arm that John had seen before at the canal. Some sort of cult symbol. John found the bow and took the quiver with six arrows. There was also a knife on his belt. He took the shoes off the body and carried them back for Mark to try on. Mark wanted nothing to do with the shoes, but he took the knife. The ground was soft enough, he said.

  They walked up to the ridgeline and found both women standing next to their other horse. Its leg was obviously broken.

  The rifle lady was patting the horse and whispering into its ear. Her cheek pressed against its face, she gave it one last stroke, stepped back and raised her rifle. A shot to the head dropped it like a ton of bricks.

  She looked gloomily at them. “You guys hungry?”

  That night, they all ate their fill of horse meat. The older one who’d shot and butchered part of the horse was named Camila. The other, her younger sister, was Rosa. Rosa never spoke, and avoided all eye contact.

  They sat around the fire, which John normally wouldn’t have risked but for his desire for cooked meat. John and Mark wolfed down the horsemeat until they couldn’t eat any more. Mark curled up on the ground and instantly fell asleep.

  “You two haven’t seen much food,” Camila remarked.

  “No, we’ve been on the run since the herd crossed the canal.”

  “You were there?”

  “We were. Some things fell from the sky and shot out fire when they hit the ground. I’ve never seen anything like it. It caused the breakout.”

  Camila couldn’t picture “things falling from the sky” but didn’t argue. She had known about the Panama Canal herd. The threat of this moment had always been in the back of her mind. People had warned her about it when she decided to move there from the northern Mexican coast. No matter. There was no use in regrets. “So, where you headed?” she asked, scratching her head. Her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail and John noticed a scar on her forehead.

  “North.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she snorted a raspy laugh. She pulled out a pouch and a pipe and loaded some tobacco before lighting it with a small stick from the fire. Rosa stared into the fire with a blank expression. “I mean, where are you gonna go?”

  John looked at Mark sleeping. “Home, to a place called Colorado.”

  “Colorado?” She took a deep draw on the pipe and leaned back against a blanket before exhaling. “Never heard of it.” She took another puff. “Is it nice?”

  “It is.”

  “Well, how do you plan on getting there?”

  “Walk,” he said.

  “Yesterday I would have called that stupid, but today I’m right there with you.” Camila pointed her pipe at John.

  “We don’t have much of a choice,” he said.

  She took another puff and sat forward, absently throwing a twig into the fire. “I know I sent you off a few days ago, but...if your offer to join up is still on the table…” She picked up a pebble to inspect it.

  “Of course,” John replied. “But we don’t have much to offer.”

  “Two more sets of eyes. You saw what those two did, trying to get at my Rosa. She’s pretty. This world likes to hurt pretty things.”

  “Sure.” John was slightly surprised to hear Camila say the men had been after Rosa. He’d assumed it was a grab for the horses.

  “Besides, you aren’t going to make it walking all the way. Eventually this mountain range ends and you’ll be forced onto the flatlands.” She paused again. “My brother has a boat. If we can make it to him, he’ll take us up the coast. Then we can head for Tenochtitlan. That’s the only place where we can be safe.”

  “That’s a generous offer,” John said hesitantly.

  “It is.”

  “I get the feeling I have a lot more to gain from it than you.” He decided to be blunt. Trusting people’s motives had gotten him enslaved thousands of miles from home and nearly cost him his son.

  Camila just smiled and raised an eyebrow. “And you’re complaining?”

  “No, but I think you aren’t telling us everything. That kid you shot back there. He had a mark on his arm I’ve seen before at the canal.”

  “Do you know what that mark means?” she asked. She threw the pebble aside, visibly upset.

  “Not exactly. Some kind of cult.”

  She shook her head angrily. “It means they will keep coming for my Rosa. That’s all that really matters,” she said. She fought back tears.

  John didn’t push any further. Whatever was going on, it meant these two women had a big target on them. He wondered if the fatal disagreement he’d seen in the woods where the black-eyed girl was dragged off by the victor was related. At the canal, he’d witnessed enough strange customs connected to the dead to know this cult was into bad magic.

  Helping them meant he would be a target, too. Whether that was any better or worse than being alone he wasn’t sure. A boat ride up the coast would get them ahead of the herd, and he could hopefully get a cart ride north. He wished Hog and Carlos were with them to get the same ride.

  Practicality won out. “Okay, we’ll do it. What weapons do you have?” John asked.

  “You’ve seen it. I’ve got thirty rounds left.” She lifted an old rifle with iron sights.

  They talked late into the night about the journey ahead of them and how long it would take to get to the coast. Camila thought they could make her brother’s port city in another two weeks. Mark and Rosa slept as John and Camila planned. There were no attacks, but both heard voices around them all through the night. When at last he went to bed, John couldn’t sleep even though Camila said she’d keep watch. He kept imaging eyes all around them, floating in the darkness, staring through him.

  Chapter
3

  “Ellie, Ellie, Ellie…I didn’t realize you were so nosy. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I trained you to spy on people. I just thought you might have an understanding of which side your bread was buttered on.”

  Sal was musing in the dark “interview room.” Two guards were in the cramped room with them. Ellie sat in a chair and was thirsty beyond belief. She still had a piece of cloth lodged up her nose to stop the bleeding from when Sal’s goon had thrown her to the ground. Her head ached, and she could feel a massive welt forming on the left side of her head.

  “I never get b-b-butter on my bread,” she replied.

  He snorted and shook his head. No, she didn’t.

  “I don’t know if you realize how much trouble you’re in. You aren’t supposed to access the computer unless you’ve been given an assignment,” he said. “Now you know too much, little red riding hood. You’ve seen what a wolf you work for. All those Western Government cities are really empty. Dead. It’s “just us girls” now in Los Alamos. That is dangerous information. You should probably be killed for that.” He opened his eyes wide.

  Ellie sensed a “but.”

  “But, I’ve got an assignment for you.” His tone changed immediately. “Really, it’s just your old job, but this time I’ll let you see all the secrets.” Sal nodded emphatically. It was creepy. “Things are changing, Ellie. Heck, they have changed. They are going to change even more. The cat is out of the bag, there’s no hiding it. I’ve made some mistakes. I should have been forthright with you, my support. I didn’t know if I could trust you, that’s the issue. I still don’t know if I can trust you.” He was smiling a lot, and Ellie didn’t like it.

  “W-w-what do you want?” she asked, hoping he’d get to the point.

  “I’ve been planning this awhile. Our little jaunt to Colorado simply pushed me into action sooner. Can I speak open and honestly?”

  Ellie nodded.

  “Good. Can I trust you to keep quiet about what I am about to say? You better hope so, otherwise I leave you and these two guys in the room, and they do terrible things. Terrible things, Ellie.” He paused. “But it won’t come to that.”

  “N-n-no,” Ellie said, the presence of the two guards suddenly feeling oppressive.

  “There is a threat headed for this continent that exceeds anything anyone has ever dreamed of. A herd of some two million undead is heading toward North America. By the time it arrives, it will have increased. The only hope we have to defend ourselves is to reunite all the governments in an organized coalition. This will be no easy task. I am talking about restoring something that has been broken for a century. There is mistrust, history, agenda, all of it working against this goal. But the need is too great and the cost too high if we fail. Do you understand?”

  Ellie nodded.

  “There was a famous quote, ‘Every disaster is an opportunity.’ This walker herd, these two million of the undead coming to destroy us, is a disaster. The opportunity is that this crisis will spur our three governments to reunite again to protect the people. I wish it could have come about under different circumstances, but it is what it is. All I can do is acknowledge the situation I am placed in and do my best,” he finished. Ellie had been focused on his hands the whole speech. He’d been making gestures and motioning about the room as if the things he described were there amongst them.

  Ellie nervously glanced at the guards. They were stone faced. She looked at Sal. What choice did she have?

  “S-s-sure,” she said.

  “Great! Ha! I am so glad to hear it. Let’s get started, my girl!”

  Sal wanted Ellie to help with a written document describing the imagery of the massive herd. He wanted a “Narrative that would send chills down the spines of listeners.” She would work with Sal’s report writer to describe in horrific detail the destructive power of this herd. He wanted numbers of how many people had already been turned by it. Ellie objected there was no way to tell that, but that didn’t bother Sal. This document would be used to inform Sal’s mission when he parleyed with various leaders within the Eastern Tribes and the Western Government to elicit their support. Fun, thought Ellie. She was giving talking points to fuel his hobby project.

  Several hours later, she was dismissed to go to her bunkhouse.

  Los Alamos was generally a quiet place at night.

  Ellie’s detainment had been a matter of only a few hours, but as she pushed through the security doors out into the crisp night air, she entered a different world. An out-of-control security “cleansing” was underway. Anyone suspected of harboring any anti-Sal sentiment was being rounded up, questioned…and shot. It was ludicrous and unnecessary, and all calculated to make sure that everyone was playing to Sal’s tune.

  On some level, Ellie registered the chaos, but the truth was, right now all she really cared about was Obevens. Would she ever see him again?

  She was nearly in tears by the time she got home. “You look like you’ve got the world on your shoulders,” one of her bunkhouse mates said. “Don’t worry. These power shift things are normal. You should have seen what the guy before Sal did.”

  Ellie just nodded and walked to her bunk and crawled in. The bunkhouse mate shook her head. She thought that Ellie needed to strike while the iron was hot and marry Sal. That’s what she would do.

  Commotion swirled around the compound all through the night. Ellie was safe, but her heart felt like it was split in two.

  The next morning, she rose early, as was her custom, and went to the imagery room. Waiting for her were data storage drives, presumably with the imagery she was supposed to look at. She plugged them in and began the laborious file-opening process. The folders had names of countries she knew little about—Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and others. She had to dig through her unorganized map drawer to even find out where these places were. This might take forever. Sal stepped into the room unannounced and asked, “Hey, you wanna get married?”

  Chapter 4

  Staccato popping sounds punctured the warm desert night.

  From unseen locations, rifle shots cut down two hundred men from her first wave with deadly precision. The second wave hesitated at Bowen’s order to attack. Sara screamed at them to get over the wall. They shuddered at her rage and climbed over the wall just to get perforated by the defenders.

  Why do they follow her, Obevens screamed in his head.

  She’d already lost a few hundred men in just minutes. This might be a short day, Obevens thought.

  “We need to get walkers over the wall!” Bowen urged Sara. She nodded sharply.

  Bowen ordered the handlers to untie the harnesses that strung the walkers together in lines and begin carefully picking them up and lowering them over by an arm or a leg to the other side of the wall. The shots continued to ring out as the defenders of the fort expertly delivered headshots to the walkers.

  “Increase the pressure!” Bowen yelled to his handlers. The soldiers stepped in and began helping the effort to try and get more walkers over the wall. They needed to overwhelm the snipers on the other side.

  The number of walkers soon outmatched the gunmen’s ability and willingness to expend ammunition.

  Walkers now milled about the grounds freely while the Western shooters withdrew underground. No one among Sara’s forces had actually seen any of the enemy.

  “Well, that worked, but now the place is crawling,” Obevens mumbled. Dalbec was crouching next to him and grunted disapprovingly.

  “What now?” some of the men asked. It was a good question.

  “Get over the wall with some geldings and harness them back up. We’ll create a walker shield to search for the entrance,” Sara said. She had already probed Obevens for info regarding the entrance. He claimed he’d been blindfolded.

  A number of her men climbed over the wall after lowering over geldings and began the difficult work of tying the undead back into lines. Obevens sat down on the safe side of the wall with his back against it. He heard some of the h
andlers cry out as they were bit.

  “Send them help!” Bowen cried, as he raised a bullet-riddled flag to signal the men out of earshot. More men went into the interior of the wall to help harness the roaming walkers.

  Shots rang out.

  Sara assumed her men were shooting their biters in self-defense. “Don’t shoot our walkers!” Sara screamed, furious with her people.

  “Those aren’t our men shooting,” Bowen said, stealing a glance over the wall. He saw Academy soldiers trying to run for cover, getting picked off by the enemy. The snipers were aiming for legs. Anger filled Bowen, as he saw one of his men trying to drag himself back to safety, only to be overcome and devoured by a zombie.

  Sara stewed over how she hadn’t brought enough men to throw at this problem. Nowhere had she read about how to lay siege on an underground fortress. It took all the humility and self-control she could muster to deliver the order for her men to maintain position on the wall until the main force arrived. She had lost about four hundred men out of the three thousand she came with.

  “Then we’ll starve them out,” Sara said to herself.

  Night fell. It was cold. Sara was surprised. She thought the desert was always hot. This was the coldest night they’d had since leaving the Springs. She went to her cart and got some blankets, and gave extras to her guards. She looked up at the stars. They were beautiful. How could things be so beautiful up there and so ugly down here?

  No matter. Everything would look different when she had possession of whatever these people were fighting to defend.

  Lying on his sleeping mat next to the wall, Obevens wondered at how stupid he’d been. He should have made this place sound undesirable. Why did he suggest it was a supply depot? Was he actually subconsciously trying to impress Sara? The thought sickened him.

  He was by nature a loyal person, which meant sometimes he gave his loyalty to people who didn’t deserve it.

  If he was going to survive this, he would need to take a different strategy. Obevens was a smart guy when it came to getting out of tough situations in the field, but dealing with her was a different game. He would have to think five moves ahead to get out of this alive. He thought of the men holed up inside the underground fortress. Obevens had brought Sara’s army here. If she succeeded in taking it, their blood was on him. In that moment, he hated himself. He shivered and pulled up his blanket and looked at the stars. His thoughts echoed Sara’s as he drifted off into a fitful sleep.