The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning (32 page)

He turned back to the comms tech. “Issue recall to the teams for the search. No sense sending good men after stupid. Order them to prep for the missions. I want them ready to go as soon as they get back.”

“Yes, sir,” the tech said.

Anderson turned to Eden, a critical look in his eye. “Where’s Marquez?”

Eden stood at ease. “On his way, sir.”

A moment later, the tall, swarthy Lieutenant Marquez entered the hangar at a run and approached. “Lt. Marquez, reporting as ordered, sir,” he said.

“You’ve got a shit job, LT. I need you and a select team to find one of your people who’s apparently gone AWOL. Do you know Major Mancuso?”

Marquez glanced his way. “Uh, only by reputation, sir. He’s gone AWOL, sir?”

“Right off the fucking reservation. He passed Perimeter Three not long ago, headed for what looks like a residential district to the east of the airport. Track him, bring him back. We can’t have anyone running around out there half-cocked. And do it on the double, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” Marquez said, and Anderson picked up on the hesitation in the LT’s voice.

“Something wrong, Lieutenant?”

“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Granted.”

“Why bother, sir? He’s gone AWOL, let him go. We don’t need people like that on our team, sir. And frankly, sir, I don’t want to risk my men on a wild goose chase.”

Anderson glanced to the northeast, in the direction Mancuso had gone. “There are… variables that you’re not aware of at play here, Lieutenant. Things that make it vital that we find Mancuso and bring him back.”

He could feel Marquez looking at him, weighing his options and responses, and gave a small, internal sigh when the lieutenant nodded. There was no question that bringing him back was a necessity, given what the council suspected about the major. They didn’t know for sure, but Anderson couldn’t very well let a possible spy for the other side run loose. One of the other sides, at any rate. Of course, he couldn’t very well tell that to Marquez, either.

“Yes, sir. We’ll bring him back, sir.”

“Take Blake here with you.”

Marquez glanced her way, then frowned. “Sir, with respect…”

“That’s an order, Lieutenant.”

Marquez nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Gear up and move out. I want you gone in five. Dismissed.”

“And Blake,” Anderson continued, causing the girl to stop and turn her head over her shoulder. Marquez was already out of earshot.

“Yes, sir?”

“I don’t want to lose any more Hunters.”

“Understood, sir.” She continued out of the tent, and Anderson only just heard her mutter.

“Neither do I.”

“What the fuck was he thinking coming out here?” Marquez asked as the small squad of four Hunters moved off the airport property and into the residential area. “There’s nothing here. Eyes out.”

As they followed the missing major’s presumed path, they spread out and moved through the parking lot at the corner. Houses were up ahead, many burnt-out shells that had copious vegetation taking over the lots. A few still stood, though their roofs were sagging and broken windows glinted on most.

Eden knew that her CO wasn’t expecting an answer, and besides, it didn’t matter why the major had gone off the reservation. Because if they didn’t find him soon, he was shit out of luck regardless. They had a much bigger mission to finish than searching for one lost asshole who’d gone off into the wild. On his own, without even mentioning it to anyone, much less taking any backup.

Marquez motioned for them to hold, and she squatted down and scanned the ground and surrounding area for clues while keeping an eye on her CO. She could smell the long-decayed remnants of the cars, rust and oil mixed with the scent of old leather and rotted cloth. The sun shone bright as it glanced off the still-intact windows of a maroon Chevy Trailblazer. It speared through her sunglasses and made her squint. There was no wind, little noise.

It was then that she realized what had been bothering her: the lack of background noise.

There should have been
some
noise… birds, insects, something. But no, there was nothing. Without Marquez nattering on, it was too quiet. She was just about to signal the lieutenant when he preempted her.

“Something’s not right,” Marquez said. “Giuliani, take point. Blake, you’re with me. Foretti, rear.”

As a unit, they crept through the parking lot and over the ruined back fence of the house next to it.

It hadn’t escaped Eden’s notice that Marquez had chosen members from his own unit for this team, and she was sure Anderson had noticed too. Had she been in charge, she would’ve cherry-picked the best from the units available instead. After all, these were the best units from Hunters of four different bunkers. Why not use the best?

Marquez was just comfortable with his own people, and that was fine. Just because she would’ve done things differently didn’t mean that either way was better. Too bad Fontana was laid up with the flu. That was what she got for missing her regular med check.

“Contact left,” Giuliani whispered over the radio. “Holy—” There was a rattle of gunfire, longer than Eden would’ve expected. The rest of them ran to his position, and Eden saw him struggling with a walker. Thick, dark, red blood dropped in clumps onto Giuliani’s uniform, and he struggled to avoid getting it on his face.

“Pop up!” Marquez shouted.

Giuliani grunted and heaved the walker up, pushing it a few feet above him and twisting beneath it to shield himself. Eden started to take the shot but hesitated, and Marquez took it instead. The walker’s head exploded away from the grappling pair, and blood showered down.

“Secure,” Marquez said as he and Foretti took up guard positions.

Eden moved forward at a crouch and slung her rifle behind her. She grabbed her canteen as she approached the still Giuliani. She then poured the canteen’s water over him, washing away a relatively small amount of blood, none on his face.

Giuliani stood, shucked out of his uniform top, and dropped it on the ground. He checked himself over and then grunted in her direction before carefully extracting what little he’d carried in his top pockets. “Thanks.”

She nodded, not expecting anything more after what had happened between them in Eatonville. The fact that he said that much surprised her. She put away her canteen and slung her rifle back into position, giving the thumbs-up to Marquez.

The lieutenant pointed toward a section of ground ahead to the east. He spoke low and quiet. “Boot track, fresh. Not from the walker, too clean. We’ll head east, then take stock at the next row of houses. Move out.”

They crept forward, careful of running into any other walkers. Eden had noticed some of the slight background noise returning, so she figured there wasn’t another one nearby. Still, it never hurt to be ready. The next house had waist-high weeds that obscured their vision and slowed them even further. Their AWOL comrade was easier to track, though, as the broken and bent stems from the grass marked his direction like a glowing arrow for the seasoned trackers.

They had come to the corner of the house after splitting into pairs, each pair taking a side and covering the path forward and behind. It wasn’t ideal, given the high grass and other terrain features, but it was necessary if they were going to find Mancuso. A calculated risk that Marquez was taking, and one Eden decided she would’ve also made. It was hard to see where her CO was going sometimes with his tactics, but she resolved to pay more attention and find out what she could.

Twenty-five minutes into their search, they had crossed the second set of yards when they heard a crash from a house across the street. It came from a building two to their left and focused their attention. A shout of what could only be rage and anguish pierced the air, and Marquez signaled them to move double-time across the street.

Eden went first, her lithe form skittering across to take cover by another house. The fence had all but collapsed and would only provide minimal cover. With no obvious threats in sight, she swiveled to cover the street and Foretti, who ran across to join her. Soon, the others were across, and they made their way in staggered formation to the home where the yelling had come from.

They’d heard nothing else since.

In a crouching run to keep out of sight of anyone looking out a window, they reached the red brick front of the home on SW 19th Street. The garage was set farther back on the left side of the home, with the door to one side. The fence looked in better shape than most, but there was no gate on the right side to provide entry to the rear of the house.

“Blake, you and I are on the door, Foretti on the left, Giuliani, rear. Move,” Marquez whispered, and they scuttled to their assigned positions without incident.

Eden cocked her head to one side as she knelt next to the outer front door frame, the shattered glass evidence of a break-in. The same one that had also knocked the main door askew. She cupped her ear while looking at Marquez, indicating he should listen, and he nodded.

“Crying?” she subvocalized through her throat mic, puzzled. “Male. I think it’s him.”

Marquez quirked an eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

“Sound is deeper, not feminine. Boot print on the door is standard issue AEGIS, guessing size twelve or thirteen.”

Marquez glanced at the door and noticed the bootprint that was faint enough for him to miss at first. “Well done. Agreed. Move in, but careful. Watch the glass.”

Without bothering to open the door, Eden slid through the broken glass pane and eased to one side of the half-closed door. Giuliani had moved to a cover position under the half-open window facing the driveway. Another, closer to the front of the house, was closed and the curtains drawn tight. From his position under the window, he’d be able to provide cover for those inside and still keep an eye on the perimeter. Foretti took Eden’s place—his back to the brick wall—and covered the end of the driveway, overlapping with Giuliani.

The interior of the home was much darker than Eden had expected, with the windows at the rear of the house overgrown by weeds and ivy. She touched the control on the temple of her sunglasses, setting the shade factor to zero and giving her clear vision. The entryway was open with a hallway continuing straight and an open room to her right as she moved into the house. The smell of dust and decay was heavy in the air. The house had obviously not been open to the elements for long, and the circulation was still poor. Her facemask filtered much of it, but not all, and she struggled not to cough.

The opening to the right led to a living room with minimal furniture and electronics, plus a decrepit, overstuffed chair that might have been comfortable once. The room was empty, with one doorway leading off to the right and the dining room at the other end. She could see a doorway between the dining room and the end of the hall and another across the hall, presumably leading to the kitchen. The back door was wooden with a glass pane at the top too dirty to see through. The wood showed signs of advanced age and was in dire need of replacement. Another door on her left between the front door and the kitchen was most likely a bathroom, if she had to guess.

It was surprising not to find any bodies or walkers, given the smell. The few shafts of light that made it through the grimy and plant-covered windows revealed a neat and tidy home for the most part. Some disarrayed magazines in the living room and a smear of something on the wall near the kitchen were the only indications of foul play. She covered the door off the living room—probably a bedroom—and signaled for Marquez to come up on her left. He wasn’t as quiet as she’d been, but nothing came out of hiding to eat them as a result.

There was a fresh burst of crying from the direction of the presumed bedroom, and Eden subvocalized again. “I’ve got it.”

“Got your back,” Marquez said.

Eden was surprised he didn’t want the “glory” for himself, but given how he felt about her, letting her go first was an easy out for him. Any more mistakes, and she would be court-martialed and out for good. Either she fucked up or she did the right thing. For him, it was a win/win.

She shook her head to clear the negativity and crept forward in a low crouch, careful not to make any noise. She could feel Marquez at her back and knew that whatever he felt about her as a person, he would do his job.

She came to the end of the wall and could now hear the sobbing from the man inside without any distortion. She took her small survival mirror from her pocket and scanned the room from a low angle.

Just as she’d thought. Mancuso was the one making the noise as he wept in a kneeling position at the end of a large bed that dominated the room. His head rested on his folded arms at the bed’s foot. Back to the door, gun out of quick reach on the ground, in a poor position for defense… He was just asking to get eaten. She glanced up onto the bed, where she saw two mummified corpses side-by-side. From this angle, she couldn’t tell anything about them, other than that they were, or at least had been, human.

Eden gestured to Marque and then moved in, still crouched, her weapon covering the kneeling soldier and the bed. She scanned the closet for walkers out of reflex, then moved forward and reached out with a foot to move the rifle away from the soldier. No telling what sort of mental state he was in, but she didn’t feel comfortable leaving the man his main weapon.

A longer examination of the corpses showed a lack of decay and inadvertent mummification, which meant they’d been here for quite some time. They’d suffered close-range gunshots to the temple, leaving a copper-red spray dried and flaked on the bedspread. The snub-nosed .38 that still lay cradled in the hand of the male, pointed at his temple, was another clue. It was a murder-suicide.

When she was sure there was no threat in the room, she gave Marquez a thumbs-up and lowered her weapon to the ready position. She cleared her throat and then whispered. “Brian, it’s Eden. Eden Blake.” When he didn’t respond, she tried again. “Major, it’s Corporal Blake from Bunker One. Can you hear me?”

Mancuso gave no sign that he had heard her, though his sobs had lessened. She stepped closer and tried again, this time laying a hand on his shoulder. “Major, it’s Ed—”