Redemption of the Dead (19 page)

As
they walked past the work benches and tables, Billie started to
feel a surge of hope finally brewing up within her. She was no
military expert by any means—even with the fighting she’d had to do
since leaving the Haven—but could see by the number of guns and
what appeared to be remote explosive devices that there could be a
chance to ending the undead’s reign forever.
That’s if they don’t get all supernatural on
us.

“We have men
and women ready. All except for four are inexperienced soldiers and
have trained from the ground-up for past five months. We have been
coordinating with other underground defense hubs to ascertain
proper time and place to attack. So far, we face several options of
offense, one being to cover ground piece by piece, territory by
territory.”

“One of the
things I’ve never understood is why the armies and stuff before
didn’t just fly over everything and bomb the heck out of the
dead?”

“Plan
overruled,” Sven said. “There were defectors, but I heard story
that too many bombs would destroy Earth in process. Easy to just
say to wipe them out. Different to do it. People cannot live in sky
after bombs go off. Not everyone can find bunker
either.”

“Believe it or not, there
was
an order during
the original attacks,” Akiyo said, “and for first time in history,
nations aligned with each other to combat common threat. But I also
heard some countries had secret agenda and feigned allegiance with
others. Part way through attacks, as has been going around, people
started fighting amongst themselves and it was essentially World
War Three, the zombies only
part
of threat instead
of whole thing like they were supposed to be.”

Billie crossed her arms, snorted.
“Leave it to people to be petty even in an international
crisis.”

As they
strode past more tables, she couldn’t help but notice some of the
younger Asian women eye Sven up and down.

Whatever.

A large cannon was off to one corner,
partly covered in a tarp. It stood at least fifteen feet tall, the
unit holding it aloft like a telescope some five feet
wide.

“What’s that?” Billie said, pointing
to it.

Akiyo simply smiled. “Secret weapon
number four.”

Next to another table,
Billie asked him, “What are these?”

“An
experimental light cannon. It shoots an extremely bright beam that
casts wide range and, though we have to test it, we thought it
would blind creatures. It’s clear that they see. We just don’t know
if their eyes function same as ours, but since they were once us,
there’s good chance their ocular function the same and, if not,
then at least similar. If things can’t suddenly see, they might
just stop and stand there.”

“Or lash out while freaking
out.”

“That, too.”

She walked with Akiyo a few more paces
when out of the corner of her eye she saw the bracelet light up
again.

“Didn’t know jewellery could glow like
that,” he said.

Billie
glanced over her shoulder to Sven and Bastian and gave them a nod.
Akiyo’s feet left the ground as Sven hoisted him up and walked with
him to the far side of the room.

“Hey, what’s going on? Put me down!”
Akiyo said.

“Mouth closed, okay?” Sven
said.

Bastian hovered over Billie’s
shoulder. “Another one?”

“Looks that way.”

“Why does it do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make those light things come out of
the ground.”

“I wish I knew.” She also hoped that
the energy coming from the ground wasn’t from Hell.

She paced with the bracelet in between
two tables, one covered with scraps of leather, cloth and work
boots. The other bore scraps of metal.

Nearly at the end by the table with
the scraps, the bracelet glowed gold and, like before, began to
vibrate a soothing massage into her wrist. From the ground, royal
blue crackles of energy materialized and floated up into the
bracelet’s stone. Once done, like before the glow ceased and
another portion of it had changed to blue crystal.

“I guess
part of this is to fill this thing up,” Billie said, “whatever this
is.”

Around an hour later and conveying the
information about the upcoming attacks, Billie Sven, and Bastian
bid Akiyo good bye.

A
biplane waited for them just outside the town, a woman with
incredibly pale skin the pilot. Billie did not want to get on that
plane, the woman’s skin being the main problem. She thought back
to
May and Del, who had
kidnapped her and August and ended up being shape-shifting undead
creatures themselves. Perhaps this new woman was part of a revenge
plan? The only reason Billie ended up boarding was because Sven put
his big arm around her, squeezed her close, and vowed to protect
her if anything happened. It didn’t take her trepidation away
completely, but it helped.

Billie eyed
the pale-skinned pilot the whole trip, expecting at any moment for
her to suddenly lash out and try and eat them. Instead, it had been
a smooth ride straight through to yet another village, this one
only about four streets wide, original population probably around
two-hundred-fifty, she guessed.

The woman
landed the plane on a nearby field and led them to a cozy-looking
country home. Like the others, this one had a secret, too. Billie
took Sven’s hand and went on in.

* * * *

The country
home yielded not just more tech, but a crystal for her stone like
the others, this one green. So did the next three locations they
visited. All seemed to have been within a couple hours’ flight from
each other, give or take. Billie had fallen asleep on the flight to
their current drop spot. Took Sven a couple hard nudges to get her
awake, he said later.

This plane
landed on the roof of an enormous skyscraper. Billie guessed it to
be around a hundred stories high.

The two were
led by an African American man down the stairwell from the top
floor all the way to the bottom. The man cited the elevators
contained trapped undead hence the aerobic descent.

“We’ll take them out when we take the
building out,” the man said, “but until then, we have the elevator
master controls, thus in a position to unleash the creatures should
our security be threatened by those we do not wish to enter here,
namely looters and loose cannons.”

Once at the
basement door, the man—who refused to give a name—opened it and
took them into a room with supporting columns
throughout.

Billie couldn’t believe what she
saw.

* * * *

18

Meet Up

J
oe had talked
himself into giving Tracy more time
and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon, evening and
late-night waiting for her. He checked on his wounds, the glue
having dried, enabling him to give them another flush with
peroxide. He’d have to save what was left in the bottle, however,
as it was now almost out.

Starving, he plopped back down on the
couch, the ache of fatigue creeping up along the back of his
head.

“Come on,” he groaned. He closed his
eyes and whispered, “I hope you’re okay.”

Though
tired, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Unless he’d spent a
day exerting himself, usually he’d just lie in bed and, when
finally exhausted, drift off. He wondered if he should wait until
morning and if Tracy didn’t come back by then, to head out to the
Hub to try and find her.

Or maybe you should go now,
he thought.

* * * *

The soup had been filling, the chunks of veggies something
Tracy had missed for the longest time.
Thank goodness for canned goods.

It was the
middle of the night—or thereabouts, she figured—and she grabbed a
few Zs after eating to regain her strength after not much of a diet
the past while. She hoped Joe was faring all right. If his
estimated timeline was to be trusted, he should be back at the
house starting tomorrow, the day after if he got delayed. Tracy
decided the best course of action would be to go with someone back
to the house, then her, Joe and the other person could attempt to
raid some of the neighboring homes for supplies before returning to
the safe house.

The intel at
the safe house wasn’t as sophisticated as she had hoped, unlike the
Hub. She’d never been here before so didn’t know its exact
workings. She hoped for a similar structure of folks reporting in,
giving info on the goings on outside, their ideas, tactical advice,
new finds and all the rest.

Tracy took the time to speak to everyone, give them Joe’s
description, and ask if they’d seen him. None did, though one cited
seeing the body of a man with no hair a couple days back,
but Joe had been with her at that
time so it was someone else.

As if you should have expected this to go smoothly,
she told herself.

Feeling like
she was stuck and not liking the idea of having to stay put, she
resolved to re-arm then head back out onto the streets and make her
way to the house she and Joe “borrowed.”

After
loading up with a couple .9mm pistols and a belt full of clips, she
moved up and down the hallway, considering who she would invite to
come along with her. However, she already knew who she was going to
pick. The man’s name was Felix and he had been one of the people
who she asked about Joe. Felix stood at around six and a half feet
tall and probably weighed some two hundred and fifty pounds, most
of it—judging by the curves in his arms and legs—muscle. When Tracy
found him, he was lying on a cot against the corner of a room,
reading a book.

“Felix?” she said.

He lay the
book down on his chest. His brown hair was thick and layered in
mats. His face was a mix of mottled skin, scars, and a healed-over
broken cheekbone. “How can I help you, Tracy?” he replied with a
sigh.

She put up a hand. “Never mind. Maybe
this was a bad idea.”

Felix simply nodded and set his eyes
back on the book.

“Or,” she said, “maybe you can
actually stop and talk to someone instead of always acting
impatient.”

He didn’t
look up from reading. “Don’t act like you know me. We’ve crossed
paths maybe twice in our entire lifetimes. Take your attitude
somewhere else.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.” Walking
away: “Why do I even bother?”

As she made
her way out of the safe house, she did her best to keep her head
focused on her own safety instead of dwelling on Felix being such
an idiot. To a degree, she couldn’t blame him. Though he never told
her personally, she caught wind he had come from a large family and
one day while they all hid in the basement of the house they
shared, some undead had gotten into the above level and, as one
thing led to another, the zombies had accidentally set the house on
fire. Only Felix escaped, the rest of the family, even some young
children, had perished in the flames.

“We’ve all
lost someone,” Tracy muttered as she emerged back on the street.
One gun at the ready, she moved close to the buildings, eyes always
on the search for anything rotten and moving.

Getting back
onto Main Street, she moved swiftly in between the cars, keeping
out of sight even though right now the streets seemed clear. All
it’d take was one gutmuncher to see her and she’d soon have several
on her tail.

Makes you wonder if it’d be worth finding a
motorcycle,
she
thought.
Could just rev up
and weave in between this mess. Be a heck of a lot faster than
always moving on foot. Of course, you got to find the key for that
motorcycle . . .

The lack of
the undead made the trek easy and she was already at the Redwood
Bridge.

Tracy
rounded a stalled ice cream truck and was greeted by a handful of
undead roaming between the cars in front of her. Trigger finger
ready just in case, she went around the cars on the far right and
kept out of sight. No sense picking them off unless she wanted to
have a whole swarm of them after her.

The zombie
traffic thinned out to next to nothing again and she couldn’t help
but sense something was wrong. Usually, these journeys were more
eventful; not that she wanted to blast zombie heads. The undead
numbers seemed very small even compared to when she and Joe had
been on their way back to the city before the dust storm. She
couldn’t help but be suspicious something else was going
on.

Yeah, what though?
she
thought.
Some of the
creatures showed a few signs of intelligence, but most are as brain
dead as a door knob. You can’t tell me they’re planning
something.
Yet there had been
all those ones going the opposite way when they drove
in.

Tracy passed
a Safeway, all the windows along its front smashed from looters, a
couple creatures wandering the trashed aisles within, shopping
carts strewn around the parking lot. The Extra Foods right next
door looked pretty much the same.