Plague of the Undead (19 page)

They rode hard across open fields and more slowly through densely wooded countryside until they reached a wide, slow-moving river.

The trip took them most of the day, and for Jacob it had been an exhausting ride. The others had moved out in front to survey the river and started discussing something, but Jacob couldn’t hear them. He felt cold, even though he was wet with sweat. It was hard to focus. His head was a soupy mess. He tried to focus on what the others were doing, but found it hard even to stay upright in the saddle.

The world started to swirl around him and he blacked out.

The next thing he knew Kelly was next to him, her hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” she said. “How you doing?”

“Huh?”

“Jacob, it’s those dog bites on your arms. I don’t think you’re doing so good.”

He looked down and saw the bandages on his arms were red and hanging loose from his wrists. The cuts all over his forearms were red and black and oozing white pus in places. His arms had started to swell. The undergrowth they’d traveled through back in Malden, he thought. It had stripped the bandages from his arms, exposing wounds that smelled like decay. That and all the fighting back at the ranch house.

“You need some real medical attention, Jake,” Nick said.

“What river is this?” he asked.

They said something, but he didn’t catch it. He fought against it, but couldn’t keep his eyes open.

He blacked out again.

When he woke next they were riding under a hot sun across an open field. He looked around and saw green trees crowding the horizon and an enormous flock of what looked like ducks flying off a nearby pond.

In his head, he meant to say:
Where are we?

All that he could manage though was a feeble groan and a hoarse-sounding cough.

Somebody—Nick or Kelly he couldn’t tell—put a hand on his arm and said something he didn’t quite catch.

He looked down, and saw a yellow nylon rope looped around his waist. Tracing it, he saw it came up around his shoulders and back down to the saddle, holding him in place.

They tied me down, he thought, his head lolling on his shoulders. Sweet Christ, they had to tie me to the saddle.

He was in and out for a long time. At least two days, maybe longer. He would wake only long enough to see some strange highway sign or empty field or railroad bridge going by, and then he was out again.

But then at last he opened his eyes and he was staring right into a horse’s ass.

He blinked and looked around. He was at the bottom of a short but steep hill with shaggy thorn bushes and short trees all around him. Kelly was at the top of the hill, framed by a window of vegetation, staring dumbfounded at something beyond Jacob’s view. Nick and Chelsea were halfway up the hill. It was Nick’s horse giving him the view.

“What’s wrong?” Nick asked. “Why’d we stop?”

She was shaking her head. “You guys have got to see this.”

“What is it?”

All she could do was shake her head.

Nick helped Chelsea to the top of the hill and together they stood abreast with Kelly, all of them in awe.

“What is it?” Jacob managed to say.

Kelly glanced back, then turned her horse and came down to meet him.

“Jacob,” she said. “How are you?”

He shook his head. It was hard to focus. Nothing seemed to work quite right. He glanced down at his arms and tried to see what was going on with his wounds, but he couldn’t even make those out.

“Come with me,” she said. “You have to see this.”

He started to protest, but she was already leading him up the hill. Jacob leaned forward to keep his balance in the saddle, and nearly blacked out from the pain.

“Look,” Kelly said. “Look at that.”

Jacob opened his eyes. It took a moment for the blur to recede to the edges of his vision, but once they did he understood the amazement that had come over the others. Even with his brain addled by fever, he understood. Below them, in the midst of a vast plain of what had once been farmland, was the wrecked remains of a gigantic aerofluyt, looking like a skyscraper fallen on its side. A huge gash had been torn in its roof, and there were holes in the sides where birds flew in lazy circles. A debris field a thousand feet in diameter surrounded it, and vines and shrubs had started to grow where the hull met the ground, but even in its wrecked form, Jacob could still see the majesty of it.

At least until he blacked out again.

When he woke next, he was in a bed with sparkling white sheets. He sat up blearily and looked around. Fresh bandages dressed his arms. He touched them. The wounds still hurt, but not as much. His skin was cool, too. The swelling seemed to have gone down quite a bit. And when the sheets fell away from his chest he realized his skin was clean and he was clad in a fresh pair of light blue boxer shorts.

“What the hell?” he said.

His head was clearer now. He could still feel a residual hangover from the fever, but at least he could think straight.

Or at least he thought he could.

He was in a small, but clean room, lined with bookshelves and a dresser and an open closet on the far wall. Next to him on the bedside table was a picture of a man and woman in strange clothes, and in front of them a young boy of perhaps six and a baby girl of perhaps a year.

He studied the picture a second, and then climbed out of bed.

“Hello?” he called.

Nick appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Hey, buddy, how you feeling?”

“Better. A lot better.”

“Thank God. That’s good to hear. Chelsea’s showing Kelly around right now, but when she gets back . . . Man, Jake, we were so worried about you.”

“How long have I been out?”

“About three days. I thought you’d be out a whole lot longer, but Kelly was able to patch you right up with the steroids and antibiotics they found in the sick bay. You look about a million times better than when we brought you inside.”

Jacob nodded. “What is this place?”

“This is the aerofluyt,” Nick answered. “Can you believe it? Four days ago we were still headed south along US 167 and we see this field of wild soybeans growing up around all these junked cars. Chelsea asks us to stop. She says she recognizes the area. We thought she meant from being carried around with the caravans, but it turns out she remembered it from when she and her older brother were wandering around after this thing crashed. It took a little bit, but she was able to lead us pretty much right to this place.”

Jacob managed a nod. “Do they have any water around here?”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “Believe it or not, almost everything still works. The water runs. It tastes great, by the way. The toilets flush.” He waved a hand over a plate of black glass on the wall next to the door and the room filled with a soft white light. “Even the electric lights.”

Jacob looked at the lights in amazement. The last time he’d seen anything like this, a room lit with electricity, he’d been three years old. He barely remembered it.

It was glorious.

“Jake, my man, we have to make contact with Chelsea’s people. They are decades ahead of us technologically. As if, you know, we couldn’t tell that already from seeing one of these things glide through the sky, but . . . you know the electric cars she told us about? She wasn’t kidding. Hell, even the medicines they’ve got onboard justify making contact. You should have heard Kelly talking. She said even if Dr. Williams was treating you himself back at Arbella, you’d probably be dead. But there you are, three days later and you’re up and walking. Jake, you see this, right? I mean, we’ve got to make contact. Think of the good we could do for Arbella.”

Before Jake could answer, Kelly called to them from another room.

“In here,” Nick answered. “He’s awake!”

Kelly and Chelsea came running. They both looked amazing, like completely different people. Chelsea especially. There was actually an attractive young woman under all that accumulated grime and grit.

Only then did he realize he was standing in the middle of the room wearing nothing but his boxer shorts.

“Oh, crap,” he said. He looked around for a blanket or a pair of pants or something, but saw nothing.

“Don’t be such a prude,” Kelly said. “Who do you think took those clothes off you in the first place?”

“Oh,” he said. But it still didn’t do anything for his embarrassment.

“This was my parents’ room,” Chelsea said. “Some of my dad’s clothes are still in that closet over there. I bet they’d fit you.”

“Yes, get dressed,” Kelly said. “Jacob, I can’t wait to show you this place. It’s amazing.”

“That’s what I hear.”

He found a pair of blue pants with an expandable waistband and a gray, V-neck shirt that had WALKER printed on the right breast. For shoes he found a pair of white slippers that looked as flimsy as paper, but offered a surprising amount of cushioning when he walked.

A few minutes later, he stepped into a simple living room dominated by a kitchenette, a small table mounded over with notebooks and science journals and a couch with a black glass mirror mounted into the wall in front of it.

He went over to the mirror, but couldn’t really see a good reflection of himself.

“That’s a video monitor,” Chelsea said. “I checked, though. It doesn’t work.”

“But everything else onboard does,” Kelly said excitedly. “Jacob, I can’t believe it. The technology that these people have at their fingertips. It’s . . . it’s . . .” She broke off there, unable to get the words out.

“I know,” Jacob said. “Nick told me. Thanks for patching me up.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said. “That was close. That alone is reason we have to make contact with these people. Jacob, please, let’s not pass this chance by.”

“Nick said that, too.”

Kelly rushed across the room to the little kitchen table. She picked up one of the books she’d evidently been studying and stuck it in Jacob’s hand. “Here, look at this. There’s another reason. Do you see that?”

Jacob squinted at the page. What he saw written there was like his worst dream, chemistry formulas piled on top of math so strange it made his head spin.

He handed it back to her. “Please. I’ve still got a bit of a headache.”

“Oh, God,” she said, and set the book down. “If you’d actually bothered to stay awake during chemistry you might have the sense to realize you’re standing in the presence of genius.”

“Genius,” he said. “Well, that explains why I have no idea what I’m looking at, doesn’t it?”

She huffed at him, exasperated.

“It’s the basis of morphic field theory,” she said. “This is basically the bible for zombie behavior. It explains so much. I know I scoffed at it before, but the proof is all there. It all makes sense. And there’s so much more, too, it’s . . . it’s genius.”

“My dad wrote that,” Chelsea said.

“Your dad was a genius, Chelsea,” Kelly said. “I wish I could have met him. I’m sorry he’s gone.”

Chelsea smiled wanly. “Thanks.”

Kelly turned to Jacob. “Her parents, and most of the others, died on impact. This part of the ship, the top twenty levels or so, are relatively intact, as is the engine room, but a lot of the lower decks, which is apparently where most of the passenger quarters were, are all gone.”

“Oh,” Jacob said. Nobody spoke for a long moment. Then, finally, Jacob said what was on all their minds. “Chelsea, if you don’t mind me asking. How did you survive, you and your brother both? What happened?”

“I don’t know why we crashed,” she said. “As to how we survived, I guess we were just lucky. We were in scuba diving class at the time.”

“I’m sorry?” Jacob said.

“Scuba diving class,” she repeated. “You know, the tank, the mask, a regulator?”

He shook his head and looked to Kelly for clarification, who only shrugged.

“Scuba diving?” Chelsea said. “Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus? It’s a mechanical system that supplies air to divers underwater. It’s not new. It was an old technology even before the War.”

“I’m sorry,” Kelly said. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Well, you always dive in pairs. Chris and I were sixty feet underwater when the crash happened. We got thrown all the way to the other side of the pool, but nothing much more than that. When we surfaced, we found the ship like this. And everybody dead. After that, we just wandered. Until, you know, the Farris Clan found us in that soybean field.”

“Wow,” Nick said. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t think so. At least not until recently.”

“What about those members of the crew who weren’t down in the passenger area?” Jacob asked. “The ones up here working on the top levels. I mean, if you guys survived, others must have, too.”

“No, I think they all died on impact.”

“Yes, but what happened to them after?”

“They turned,” she said.

“Yes,” Jacob said, “but after . . . what happened?”

“Chris got me to the bridge. He’d been in an engineering class the year before and he kind of knew how to work things up there. He turned on the morphic field generator and that drew all the dead down to the lower levels. Once the sensors said we had them all, he simply closed off the hatches below a certain level and locked them out.”

“Pretty impressive,” Nick said. “Hard to believe he turned out to be such a dick.”

Chelsea nodded.

“What about a rescue party?” Jacob asked. “Why didn’t your people try to look for the downed aerofluyt?”

“Oh, they did,” she said. “We were already outside the ship when that happened though. We saw them flying toward the wreck, but we couldn’t get back to them.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the place was crawling with zombies. We were on the run.”

Nick shook his head. “You really are lucky to be alive. I wonder why they didn’t try to salvage this ship, though. There’s so much here worth saving.”

“I guess they couldn’t risk it.”

“Why not?” Jacob asked.

“Well, because of the zombies.”

“But they would have drifted away after a few days,” Nick said.

“No, no, wait a minute,” Jacob said, holding up a hand to stop Nick. He turned to Chelsea. “Are you telling me there are still zombies onboard this ship?”

“Yes,” Chelsea said. “But they’re trapped.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. There were one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three people onboard this aerofluyt when it crashed, so I guess, if they’re all still viable, about eighteen hundred.”

“Oh, crap,” Jacob said.

“Relax,” Kelly said. “Jacob, I’ve been all over this vessel. I’ve explored nearly every part you can still get to. I haven’t seen a single zombie.”

“Yeah, but they’re still here.”

“Yes, but they’re contained.”

It was his turn to feel exasperated. He turned to Nick. “What about weapons? Did you find any?”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “They’ve got a pretty well-stocked arsenal. I’ve got rifles set aside for each of us.”

“Anything good?”

“Oh, yeah. Ruger 10/22 Tacticals. All of ’em in mint condition.”

“Nice. Ammunition?”

“Sure, that, too. About four hundred rounds each. The good stuff, too. Twenty-two long range, subsonic.”

“What did you do with the horses?”

“They’re in the loading bay.”

“The loading bay?” Jacob asked.

“Yeah,” Kelly said. “That’s how we got in. That part of the hull broke open during the crash. The hydroponics lab was pretty close to that and all the plants from there have grown into the loading bay. We figured that’d be the perfect place to keep the horses. They’re out of sight and they’ve got enough food to get ’em good and fat. You should have seen them go after the strawberries.”

“But the loading bay is open? We can get in and out real quick, if we need to?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“All right. I need to see the bridge.”

“Jacob, chill out. I told you, I’ve been all over this place. There are no zombies above the crash line. Plus, you still need to rest.”

“I believe you,” he said. “And I’ll rest later. But that’s not what’s bothering me. If Chelsea recognized this place, don’t you think her brother will, too? Who knows how much of a lead we have on Casey and the rest of them. But as soon as Walker picks up the trail, they’re going to be headed this way.”

He looked at them each in turn, and he realized that the thought had slipped by them all.

“Jacob,” Nick said, “I don’t think you need to worry. We stayed away from the roads and moved across open country for two days. They’d have no way of knowing where we went to.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” he said. “You heard what they said when they first took us prisoner. They started tracking us even before we entered Sikeston. We can’t afford to think they’ve given up, because I guarantee you they haven’t.”

None of them had a response for that.

“Nick, go and get those weapons. Everybody needs to gear up for the road. I want to be out of here as fast as we can.”

“But, Jacob,” Kelly said. “This place, it’s like a treasure trove. There’s so much here, so much we can learn from.”

“None of which will do us any good if we’re dead,” he said, and realized as soon as the words left his mouth that he’d been too harsh with her. “I’m sorry, Kelly. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I get how important a find like this is. Believe me, I get it. But we can’t stay here. Not right now. When we get back to Arbella, we can organize another expedition to come here and mine whatever we can from this place, but staying alive is priority one right now.”

But something else was bothering her. She looked troubled. “So . . . we’re going back to Arbella?” she asked.

The question surprised him. “Well, yeah.”

“But what about making contact with Chelsea’s people? The Templenauts.”

“Kelly, I really think we need to head back home. We do that, and we can deal with Mother Jane and the Family. Once that’s done, we can organize a proper expedition to go and make contact. It’ll happen, I promise.”

“Well, hold up a second,” Nick said. “Jake, what she’s saying actually makes sense to me. I mean, if Casey’s as good at tracking us as you say, won’t he be waiting for us to double back? You said yourself we’d have a hard time losing him. He’s gonna expect us to try and go home. He’d never expect us to keep running to the coast.”