Dearly, Beloved (26 page)

I felt the weight of Hagens’s words as we turned onto the bridge.
A living man in a corpse
.

Maybe I should have been out there with them. There was no real difference between a living and a dead human body, and there was no difference between me and the thousands of other functioning zombies out there. We were all survivors, and we all had the right to do as much surviving as we possibly could, as much
living
as we possibly could.

But that didn’t mean we had the right to dismiss or harm those who still drew breath. No one had the right to hurt
anyone
unnecessarily. I hated to think that these masked bastards, whoever they were, were a sign of things to come. We did
not
need this right now.

“Here we go.” Salvez rolled up to an exterior guardhouse and lowered his window. A guard came out to scan his subdermal ID chip, and preliminary information was exchanged. It was all very professional. The guard let us in with little fanfare, and we continued the drive up to the prison itself. After making our way past three more gates in like manner, we parked in a gravel lot enclosed by stone walls and barbed wire, where a final guard came out to speak to us.

“No need to go inside. He’s already halfway to the van,” he said. “You’ll be signing for the prisoner and then accompanying the armored van back to your ship.” He signed off on several digital documents on a flat screen. “Officers will make sure the
prisoner is secure, and then he’s yours. Good luck and good riddance.”

“Very well,” Salvez said as the guard handed him the screen for his own signature. As he signed, the guard sized me up. I eyed him right back. “Has he been violent since he’s been here?”

“No,” the guard said. “But he still creeps me the hell out.”

“How many guards do we have coming with us?”

The guard took the screen back from Salvez. “Ten.”

“Ten? For one nonviolent zombie?”

The guard cut me off with a grunt. “Look, it’s mostly so
the guards
will feel safe. They’re as freaked out as the prisoners. Things still haven’t calmed down in there, even though the dirt-bags are getting what they want. Hell, I think they put Warden Tomas up to it.” He turned his back to us. The conversation was apparently over. “Wait here. When you see the white van accompanied by two carriages, that’s your cue. You can lead them right out.”

“All right, thank you.” Salvez released a breath as the guard stepped away, then rolled up the window. “My God, this is a mess.”

“Ten guards is insane,” Tom pointed out. “I mean, yeah, he’s a threat, but he’s also
one
zombie. And we still have Ye Olde Headshot option. I don’t see why they haven’t just killed him already. He’s no different than the ones we used to gun down.”

“If we went by that logic, Tom, we should have killed you when you showed up at base.” It was all I needed to say; the bald zombie shut his mouth. He’d actually tasted human flesh—relished it, in fact. “There’s more to it than that.”

“Yet, Patient One is both incredibly precious and incredibly dangerous. We have our safety in numbers, they can have theirs.” Salvez laughed nervously and held up his hand. It was trembling.
“Look. Just for being here. I was never a very confident fellow around authority figures.”

“How’d you get into the army, then?” Coalhouse said. “Sounds like the last place you’d want to be.”

“Oh, it was a pathway to education. My family was very poor.”

“Do you know what he looks like?” I asked, trying to get everyone back on track. “There haven’t been any clear pictures of him on the news. Just some grainy riot footage. Why?”

“Yes. I originally came to take tissue samples,” Salvez admitted. “He’s extremely … well, you’ll see. Perhaps the press didn’t want people attacking other zombies who
look
like him? Perhaps they chose the responsible course of action for once?”

“The press doesn’t work that way.” The docks had taught me that. “They can’t have a good picture of him, or they’d show it. And everyone up here has a camera in their mobile phone—you’re telling me no one recorded the riot and put it on the Aethernet? It’s just weird. There’s security, and then there’s
security
.”

“Maybe it’s the army.” Coalhouse’s voice darkened. “Maybe they’re not being as honest as they say they are. Like usual.”

Before we could delve further into any potential conspiracies, an alarm sounded, shrill and haunting. It faded away after a few seconds, and a heavily fortified iron door opened at the far end of the gravel yard. A white police van idled there, its back doors open. Four officers in full riot gear exited the prison, leading a manacled zombie, guns at the ready. Patient One. I leaned forward to get a better look.

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t what I ended up seeing.

Patient One was a zombie of indeterminate age and ethnicity—because he was a bloody ugly mess. He was of average height and slight build, his movements painfully slow. His skin hung in rotten black hunks from his flesh, like old banana peels, and his skull, stained by wear, was already showing through the muddy meat
on his forehead. He was clothed in a pair of drawstring prison trousers and an open shirt with toggle buttons. A clear plastic muzzle was locked over the lower half of his face, designed to let him talk without allowing him to bite. He didn’t look at anyone or struggle, his eyes trained on the ground. For all the horrors he represented, he looked completely helpless. I actually felt bad for him.

“That’s him?” Coalhouse sounded almost disappointed.

“I told you.” Salvez cleared his throat. “Let’s not forget—he could start everything all over again with a bite. He attacked people.”

As he spoke, the guards led Patient One to the van, locked it up, and took their positions on board. A few seconds later the van approached us from behind, two police carriages on its tail, their sides and tops alight with rows of blue LEDs. “I guess that’s it,” I said.

“All right, then.” Salvez took the carriage out of park, turned it around and drove slowly back toward the gate. “This is actually going much more efficiently than I expected.”

The two guards waiting at the gate opened it for us immediately. The van and the police carriages trailed behind us, evidently content to follow our lead. Once we were past the gates and over the bridge, the carriage in back picked up speed, moving in front of us. When we passed the spot where the protestors had been gathered, I noticed they’d dispersed. The constables weren’t there either, and I figured they must have cleared the area in anticipation of Patient One’s approaching escort. Still, something didn’t feel right. I wasn’t quite sure what it was—for once, everything appeared to be going well.

“Would you like to turn on the wireless?” Salvez said. “I don’t have in-cab Aethernet, unfortunately. The news is depressing of late, I’ll own, but there must be some music, perhaps an audio play. Ever listen to
The Shadow
? Great pre-ice stuff.”

As Salvez reached for the wireless controls, I heard shots being fired.

I reached out and stayed his hand. The carriage before us swerved, and Salvez gasped, wrenching his hand back to devote to the steering wheel. Turning in my seat, I saw dark shapes popping up alongside the young trees on either side of us. We were going so fast that their faces seemed to fly by, part of the scenery, but a few interesting colorations and extraneous holes convinced me they were undead.

Cursing, I reached under the seat for my rifle. I should have known. My unconscious internal monster, the part of my being that wanted me to hunt, must’ve picked up on a sign, a scent, something—but I’d been blind.

“Keep pace with the men ahead of us,” I said, cracking my window to better hear. Engines were roaring in the distance, and I figured they didn’t belong to anyone on our side. The zombies in the brush had to be a distraction.

The carriage in front of us sped up, and Salvez followed suit. I lowered my seat back and undid my seat belt, my friends doing the same. The dead men in the tree line continued to shoot, and I heard a few shots connect with the exterior of the carriage. They were shouting something, but I only made out a few words—something about “smoke” and “our brother.” When a pair of old open-topped carriages raced up onto the dirt road behind us, I knew for certain they were referring to Patient One.

“They’re going to try and take the van!” Tom yelled as I joined the others in the back of Salvez’s carriage, sandwich wrappers crinkling below me.

“What!” Salvez yelped.

“Just keep her steady, Salvez!” I shouted. “Lower the back windows!”

He did as I said. Cool air rushed in, causing scraps of wax paper to skitter about the rear of the carriage. The two rusty,
convertible carriages were now flanking the van, matching its speed. Each carriage was filled with zombies, most shooting at the van windows, targeting the driver and the guard riding shotgun. I recognized a few of them from the protest we’d just passed, and felt my neck tightening in anger. They’d been scouts. God knows what had happened to the constables manning the protest line.

Keeping myself low, half hidden by the door, I let off a few rounds. I managed to tag one zombie in the chest, which at least knocked him off-balance and resulted in him losing his own gun. The other shot went nowhere. Coalhouse, meanwhile, downed two zombies in a row, their bodies slumping over the sides of their carriage. He might only have one eye, but that one eye made him an amazing sniper.

As I lined up another shot, the van’s windshield shattered. One of the zombies in the open-topped carriage on the right stood up and leaned into the wind, gripping one of the grated, raised headlamps, and I recognized her as the girl with the half-shaved head I’d seen the night we went to the campsite. Before I could blink, she launched herself at the newly vulnerable van. She managed to snag the exposed windshield mounting, the muscles under her ruined skin bulging as she struggled to pull herself inside. The driver screamed and let go of the wheel, elbowing her in the face. I heard bone crack, and she snarled, snapping at his arm.

With little time to lose, I fired again. I got her right above the ear, and down she dropped, her legs crushed beneath the right front tire as she landed. The van bucked upward, but the driver, to his credit, rapidly recovered.

Just then the rear police escort roared forward and rammed into the carriage on my left. It was enough—both vehicles circled around each other at a nauseating speed, went careening toward the trees, and crashed. Almost immediately two living guards
crawled free of the police carriage, only to be descended upon by escapees from the other. Frantic shots were fired; screams echoed through the trees.

“Godspeed,” I said for the living guards. That side taken care of, I leaned farther out the open window, targeting the remaining convertible. Tom moved to join me. I managed to get in a couple of shoulder shots, but the driver remained untouched. He saw me, though, and his almost lidless eyes narrowed, his expression full of disgust. Maybe he thought I should be right there alongside him.

Luckily, for me this type of situation was extremely cut-and-dried.

Tom capped him right between his eyebrows, finally getting into his own stride. The rusted-out piece of crud the enemy zombie was driving caught a rut in the soft road and very neatly turned sideways, veering toward the trees. It crashed head-on, smoke erupting from its front end. My eyes rocketed back to the van and I was relieved to see that while the guard on the passenger side had taken a bullet in the arm, the driver appeared unharmed. He waved at me and groped around the dashboard. Next thing I knew his voice was booming at me from an exterior speaker.

“Nice work! Keep going, everyone! Floor it!”

Nodding, I withdrew and secured my weapon before crawling back into the front seat, taking a second to calm my rattled mind. Salvez stared at me, his arms locked on the wheel.

“Keep control of the vehicle,” I told him. “We can’t go back. We’ve got to stay with P One.” Especially when the zombies targeting him were organized, and we didn’t know how many of them there were.

That was the scary thing. Those zombies were
organized
.

“Why the hell would a bunch of zombies target the cops?”
Tom demanded, working on his own gun. “Do they have a final death wish?”

“I think those were the protestors,” Coalhouse said. “Maybe they finally decided to take matters into their own hands.”

“I saw them, too,” I said. “And a girl from last night. The one you were talking to.”

“The one with the cigarettes, yeah. I saw her.”

“We … we …” Salvez looked forward and stepped it up, almost edging his bumper against the carriage in front. “We were just …”

“Shot at. Almost hijacked. Again. I’m starting to think it’s me.”

“But … but … we …”

“Have to keep going.” I unbuttoned my waistcoat and fumbled within for my phone. I pushed the button Nora’d programmed to instantly dial hers, before lifting it to my ear.

“Where are you?” she asked upon picking up. “What’s going on?”

“Safe.” I glanced back at the bullet-riddled prison van and informed her, “But we’ve got problems. On top of everything else, someone just tried to
steal
Patient One.”