by Oliver Atlas
Before long, we have an entourage of dead-heads in our wake and I’m beginning to wonder if travelers don’t come to Union Powder by some other way—because the road ahead looks less than promising. Something Yarely said about fast horses and armored trucks comes to mind.
Enemy whinnies in nervous agitation. I’m not really fool enough to risk the valley, am I?
No, of course not. Not the whole stretch of the valley, just another step. And one more step after it. We’ll only flirt with disaster, then we’ll turn around. The rotting mouths seem all too close, all too unreal. The eyes as well, some washed out and lifeless, some bloodshot and wickedly blackened. All of them hungry. All of them hunger.
And then we’ve gone too far, flirted one step too many.
Don’t stop. That’s the only strategy that comes to mind then. Get your gun ready and don’t stop. The zombies don’t seem able to anticipate. Instead, they take up pursuit only after we’ve passed. That makes navigating them easy enough, even given their steadily thickening numbers. As long as we don’t have to stop or turn around, we should be okay. Enemy seems to agree, because she has pretty much taken over the driving, speeding up and slowing down, zigging and zagging, picking a line and charging ahead whenever possible. Every inch matters now. And we have twenty miles yet to go.
Baker’s Flat comes and goes. Some of the farmers stop near the tall gate to stare. It almost seems as if they’re in awe. Maybe travelers normally take a rest there before pressing onward. Maybe there is a balloon ferry folks normally hire. It doesn’t matter. I don’t have time to deal with more border laws or risk the fanfare that goes with a Ranger coming to town. I wave. No one waves back. They only stare. One of the children—a little boy—points and yells something to a nearby adult. The adult yells back and the boy quiets down and stares again.
“Mighty friendly ‘round these here parts,” I mutter to Enemy.
After ten miles we stop at a pond so Enemy can drink. I hop down and guard her back, snacking on some salmon while gauging how much time we have before losing our corridors for escape. In order to buy her a mere thirty seconds, I have to blast six dead-heads in the knees—and one of those in the head because he turns out to be a fast crawler. After those thirty seconds we’re on the move again, galloping forward through a crease left in the quickly forming mob.
Too close, I think, feeling a throb where a stiff hand had gotten ahold of my leg for a moment. Too, too close.
I think back to the drunks outside of New Pokey and the way they so expertly coordinated the currents of zombie traffic. Until the Screamers came, nothing even came close to them. They were true masters, and I wouldn’t mind having a few of them along for the ride now—because when you’re riding alone there is no way to coordinate currents. All you can do is read the tides.
And the tides are becoming harder and harder to read. The sheer density of zombies grows as we approach Union Powder. At about four miles away, we come to the Imam Reservoir. A dozen boats are out on the water, each with fishermen. They all see us and stare. We don’t have time to stare back though, or to wonder how the fishermen made it here or how they plan on getting back to town, because the living dead are not only more numerous now, they’re faster, some jogging at us with voracious jaws already snapping. My ridiculously humane kneecapping technique works well enough to slow them down, but I begin to doubt if my idealism can last much longer. At least not if I want to last much longer.
The boaters are still staring.
“What?” I yell, flabbergasted.
Three old men hoot and cheer. Another boatload of young women in bikinis yell their encouragement.
“You’re almost there, baby! You can do it!”
Enemy snorts. I think she must be as annoyed as I am. Is this how people in the Alley cope? They turn everything into a big game? A contest? These boaters don’t really care if I make it to Union Powder, but they’re probably enjoying placing bets on the possibility. I can hear the ladies in the boat now, in the event that I’m mowed down. Oh too bad, he like almost made it. Then again, if I’m annoyed with this impression of Alley culture, I’m probably more annoyed with myself. I’ve always been the guy who tries things, goes places, takes risks without first getting directions. Even when I stop and command myself not to be cocky—to try to abstain from winging things—I always seem to weasel my way out of obeying. Cavalier is my middle name. ‘A challenge?’ my proud little brain always quips. ‘I can meet it without trying. I’m that good.’
Famous last words, cocky Mr. Brain.
We’re almost beyond the reservoir when a man in a canoe yells, “It’s not too late to back out. Do you want to come aboard and wait for the evening convoy? I’ve got room. And an extra pole!”
“You have room for my horse?” I yell back, still feeling a bit irritable.
The man shrugs. I guess that means no.
“Thanks anyway,” I say, reaching out and rubbing Enemy’s neck.
I peer ahead into the sea of torn clothes and dragging limbs. The sight reminds me of elementary school gym class when we’d play the Quick and the Dead. The teachers would pick two people to be zombies and have them stand in the middle of a field. The rest of us would line up behind safe lines, ready to run. When the teachers blew a whistle the safe lines would vanish and we’d have to run across the field to the new safe line. Whoever the zombies touched joined them, and by the end of the game everyone else was a zombie. I was always the last person standing. I remember how my heart pounded as I stared across the line to the intense faces of my friends. They knew no matter how fast I was I’d never make it. I always believed they were right, but the teachers never made me attempt the last run. They simply crowned me the winner—another instance of adults thinking they’re being kind by giving kids an easy Happily Ever After.
“You ready?” I ask Enemy. In answer, her trot becomes a light gallop and we leave the Reservoir behind, nothing but grasslands and putrified flesh left between us and Union Powder.
As though in response to our advance, the unceasing gunfire from the hot air balloons dies. For a second there is only the empty, moaning wind of the dead. Then, oddly, the scratching of an artificially loud voice fills the air. It’s still too far away to make out, but it’s excited. Behind it, in the static, I’m sure I hear cheering too. I raise the spotting scope with my shaky hands and try to hold it steady on Union Powder.
Grandstands?
I must be seeing things wrong. To my eye, it looks as though Union Powder has no walls. Instead, its whole southern side is a giant grandstand overlooking the plain. The seats teem with people. I must be hallucinating, because I’m sure most of them are staring back at me with binoculars and spotting scopes. The loudspeakers blare something new and exciting and the people seem to crane their heads west. The background cheer rises.
West? Why west? Is there another rider coming? I must be going mad.
Nudging Enemy to slow down a little, I retrieve the GPS from the saddlebag. Its screen is a jungle of red dots. On the screen’s edges, though, the dots thin out a little, and that is how I see them. A shotgun spread of rapid red dots, flying east. Screamers. About a dozen of them. Racing into the plains to cut me off.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Too Much Heart
All too calmly, I tuck away the GPS and take a deep breath. We were already on a fool’s quest, trying to make it through this mob of ghouls. Now, with a dozen Screamers on the hunt, we’ve been promoted from fools to unwitting suicides. The dead-heads seem to sense it too, because their moaning takes on a vicious, expectant note. Maybe they can smell fear.
Enemy doesn’t need to smell fear. She can feel it. Near-panic is running through my body, directly into hers. She rears back for a second, gathering all the frantic energy, before lowering her head and pouring on speed. Almost instantly she’s leaping ditches, bowling over isolated zombies—she has become a blur. I try to stop her. She’s running far too fast. A quarter horse is so named because they can
sprint at such a pace for a quarter mile—not for four miles. At this pace, for that distance, Enemy’s heart could burst. I yell for her to slow down but she seems to know as well as I do that unless we beat those Screamers to their intercept point, we’re as good as food.
My mind is racing, maybe faster than Enemy’s churning legs. I could shoot the Screamers. A dozen isn’t that many. And if I could spot them at enough distance, I may be able to pick off half of them with the rifle. But that might be too little too late. Enemy could collapse by then.
Maybe if I could calm myself, contain my fear somehow—Enemy can’t really know what’s out there, she can only feel my terrified body wishing we could fly. If I can let go of my fear, maybe she will slow down. But how? The dead-head tides have quickly stirred into a tsunami. I don’t have time to think, let alone think calmly. Moans are now snarls. Dawdles are now lunges. The zombie net has come to life. I have Clementine out, spitting fire, trying to clear creases in the shifting walls. Enemy lunges and leans and sprints and I’m praying all the while her heart holds up and no gopher hole snares one of her legs.
Retrieving my rifle, I squint northwest, trying to spot a Screamer. Through the sea of slumped heads and crooked shoulders I see nothing. We’re still too far away. After a minute, though, I’m sure I catch a dark flash moving through the mob. But the crowd is too thick. Even from horseback, I can’t get a clear view of anything. A clean shot is too much to ask for. I glance up at the balloons overhead, floating gently in the morning breeze, watching. They see the Screamers.
“Hey!” I yell, waving my rifle. “Hey! Shoot them!”
Nothing. Only the weight of silent eyes.
I don’t usually indulge in vulgarity, but this seems like a fitting occasion. “You frickin’ assholes!”
Enemy snorts weakly, as though annoyed. She’s pouring her life out and I can’t do any better than that?
Crap. Okay. I suppose I can. “Better folks than me have died far worse deaths,” I remind myself. “But this would be a crappy way for the story to end. Milly’s still out there, and Jenny too. And my family. So if I’m going down, it’s going to be for someone I care about, not for the entertainment of these idiots!”
A strange convulsion shoots up through Enemy, and, for a terrible moment, she stumbles. She regains her feet with a groan and runs on, straining. I can feel her heart in my legs now, sputtering, slipping faster and faster. She’s not far from collapse and I don’t think this is quite the gallant surge I was hoping for.
“Slow down, girl,” I plead. “Slow down!”
But she ignores me, stubbornly tucking her ears back and leaning farther into her weakening strides.
I can see them now, the Screamers, with my own eyes at last. Unlike the other zombies, they appear completely human, moving with the strength and speed of creatures still in possession of all their faculties. Yet there is something off as well, something dementedly feral in the crouching way they run, something in the way they raise their heads to check for our scent on the air. They’re still a half mile away. I could probably pick off several of them. That’s our best earthly hope. If I can get their numbers down to eight or so, we’ll have a chance with Clementine at close range.
But even if I manage to make each shot, we’ll still have another mile to go and I’m not sure Enemy will survive much longer.
She’s just a horse. She’s just a horse.
My dad’s voice is suddenly in my head, the voice of common sense. He’s shouting for me to wake up and get to shooting and to quit worrying about the horse. She’s a faithful creature, a useful tool, but she’s just a horse.
No. She’s not just a horse, any more than these ghouls around me are just living dead, or anymore than I’m just another idiot who traveled out to Oregon to get himself eaten. No. I can’t ride her to death. I can’t let her run herself to death for me. There must be another way. Somehow I’ve got to stop her.
Or . . .
Or I’m thinking in the wrong direction. I don’t need to stop her. Enemy has the right idea. What I need to do is help her.
I trade the rifle for the Bowie knife. Jostling as we gallop, ever so careful not to drop anything, I unscrew the knife’s handle and place the blade back in the bag. I slide out the syringe, marveling at how its lightning phosphorescence manages to outshine the morning.
I lean up to Enemy’s ear and warn her, “This might sting,” and, reaching around her neck, I quickly plunge the needle into her chest.
I only barely manage to pull it free before a jolt passes through her and she screams. For a moment I think maybe I’ve killed her, that the chlorotein only benefits humans. She convulses and slows, throwing her head side to side. I’m barely able to stay in the saddle. We reach a trot and now I’m nervous, on the border of terrified. Maybe the chlorotein does work on horses—as a tranquilizer.
“Um, Enemy?” I say, watching the hordes around us begin to assemble into a solid wall.
The sound that comes from her in reply, I think, must be the horse version of a snicker.
Because then we’re off, faster than ever.
I can only toss the empty syringe in my backpack and hold on for dear life as the little black and brown quarter horse picks a closing gap in the wall of zombies and bursts through it. With a suddenly smooth gait, Enemy launches across the plain, choosing her tacks with unwavering confidence. In a minute, we’ve flashed past the Screamer’s intercept point. I catch them all, fanned out, sniffing the air. They take up pursuit again, but now their advantage is lost. As long as we can pass through the walls of Union Powder without much delay, we should escape them.
Oh, right. But Union Powder doesn’t appear to have walls.
Which doesn’t make any sense. Other than Bentlam, it’s the most zombified city in the Territory.
But when we arrive at the outskirts of Union Powder and Enemy rears to a halt before a roaring crowd of thousands, the lack of walls makes sense. They have, instead, a giant moat. Thirty yards across, five times as deep, a Brobdingnagian pit lines the square city. Peering down from the edge, I can’t see much. The sun is still too low in the sky to illuminate its depths. A glimmer of water maybe, dark objects floating.
Brilliant. A moat.
“Where’s the bridge?” I yell across to the crowd, who obviously can’t hear me over their exultant, idiotic cheering. People are going wild. In a flash, I catch money changing hands, high-fives, passionate kisses, fist pumps, and fistfights. Behind us, the mob of zombies is closing. They seem a bit hesitant, somehow knowing better than to get too close to the pit, but our tasty presence seems to be overriding those better senses.
“Okay, Enemy,” I cry above the crowd. “Which way?”
She chooses west.
We soon discover that she chooses correctly. We follow the moat’s edge to the western side of the city where a barrage of gunfire clears a path for us to a cement dock and a telescoping bridge that extends to offer us passage into the infamous town of Union Powder. Enemy steps onto the bridge, the bridge retracts back to town, and the pursuing zombie throngs moan graahgk! in sad farewell.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Outbreak Heroes
I’ve never been a celebrity before, and Union Powder is quite a place to start. Before Enemy and I have even gotten off the bridge, we’re being mauled by an adoring, motley crowd. Young cowboys, men and women both, scream for our autographs. Shop owners shout out, promising free merchandise. Dozens of reporters fight through the crowd, holding up pencils or recording devices, depending on their levels of importance, yelling questions about my name, Enemy’s name, and what we’ll do with our winnings. Old hooligans with windburned faces and squinty eyes keep their distance, leaning against a porch pillar or an outhouse, but it’s clear they’re as interested as anyone. Back on the plains, when I’d mused about how people really make the trek to Union Powder, I was apparently on to something. Apparently, folks don’t normally come alone by horseback. Apparently, surviving the attempt i
s some sort of accomplishment.
Enemy snorts and stamps, demanding some room. The crowd doesn’t seem to notice, pressing closer and closer. I’m too elated at simply being alive to say anything. At least this crowd isn’t going to start eating us. But then someone notices my badge. A second later the crowd quiets and backs off a little and all I can hear is the general murmur of Ranger.
I blanch, remembering how I had intended to disguise myself before arriving. So much for slipping into town unnoticed.
The crowd funnels us forward a few blocks before we find ourselves facing a grand romanesque building, complete with a bestiary of trimmed hedges out front, and a glistening rotunda on top. Two men wait on the building’s marble steps, watching. One wears a badge and a boulder hat. He has beady eyes, a bulbous nose, and a narrow brown mustache. To his left, towering over him by almost a foot, stands a smooth-faced giant with sandy hair and keen, deep-set eyes. His blue pinstripe suit and regal air would have been enough to tip me off that he was a politician, but his height makes it obvious. I remember reading about him in the New Pokian: William Q. Quincy, Union Powder’s Mayor. According to the article I read, he’s richer than he is tall, and shrewder than he is rich.
Quincy and the lawman saunter down the steps to join us in the graveled street. He reaches up and shakes my hand, speaking loudly enough for the whole crowd to hear.
“When I heard last night that Oregon had a new Western Ranger, I figured he would be heading west, not north to attempt one of our oldest, most hallowed Dares.” The crowd laughs and hoots. “But you’ve done it, Ranger Prose. I don’t know how, but you’ve managed the Hero’s Crossing. Therefore, according to the rules of the annual Outbreak Festival, I hereby award you honorary Outbreak Hero, and offer you all the best hospitality of Union Powder.”