Cry Zombie Cry (I Zombie Book 5) (18 page)

It was hard to argue with Jamal, but there was one bit of flawed logic I couldn’t get beyond—my baby. If this festival happened, there’d be a chance I’d lose my opportunity to reclaim Jacob. I relayed that information to Jamal, which seemed to diffuse his desperate need for justice a bit. Even with Jamal’s anger quelled, I still had a boiling rage churning in my own gut. That emotion wanted to drive me out a window with the hopes that the fall to the concrete would be a few hundred floors…at least. Instead I placed a calming hand on his shoulder and spoke softly.

“
Jamal, no matter what we do, we cannot allow that concert to draw in the beast. You help me do this one thing and I will owe you for life.”

“
I do like the sound of that,” Jamal said softly. “The things I could do to make you pay.”

Jamal let a maniacal chuckle escape from the depths of his throat. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“
Okay, B, I’m on your side, you know that. So what do we do to stop the upcoming metal fest? Oh, and for the record, this really sucks. I’ve always wanted to hear those bands.”

*

Jamal had the solar system up and charging a row of car batteries. It’d be a few hours before the batteries hit full charge—at least we all knew what we were in for. Morgan and Josh had us all prepped and ready with barrel fires to keep us lit and warm. The idea of open flame in a church had my heart and brain at war with one another. Morgan assured me the fires were built in such a way as to be easily controlled. Having two fully charged fire extinguishers at the ready certainly helped her case.

It was time. We grabbed the keys to the Hummer and made our way to the wall.

“
Do you remember that night, back in grad school, when we had the zombie film marathon?” Jamal’s voice had a melancholy undertone. “Just a bunch of nerds, caffeinated beverages, pizza, and Romero.”

“
How could I forget? That was the night we held hands under a blanket. What were we, twelve?”

“
It was the code, Bethany.”

Laughter escaped my lips. The feeling had become so foreign to me.

“
What code?”

Jamal stopped and stared, slack-jawed, at me. “Don’t tell me you knew nothing about the code. You had to. We created the damn thing because of you.”

My curiosity was well beyond piqued. “What do you mean?”

Jamal’s face turned a lovely shade of “busted.”

“
Okay, I must preface this by saying it wasn’t my idea. When we started school you were probably the first hot girl to ever grace the hallowed halls of the Littinger School of Engineering. All of the guys from our class got together and decided that, to avoid a minefield of angsty battle wounds, we agreed that none of us would try to get with you.”

“
Get with me?”

“
You know, hook up…with you.”

It was my turn to pale toward embarrassed.

“
I see now. You held my hand under the blanket so the other guys wouldn’t know you broke the code. Oh my God! All this time I thought you did it because you were embarrassed.”

“
Embarrassed? Are you kidding me? You were like our Mount Everest. Every nerd on campus had it bad for you, but we all assumed you were way out of our league.”

“
Wow…that’s…wow. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Crazy, right? Here in the middle of the end of times and I’m girl-giddy over a moment that happened more than a decade ago.”

We continued on toward the wall…in silence. It was one of those silences that actually meant something; not the uncomfortable moment when two people have no idea what to talk about. We both reveled in what was and rejoiced in what is—at least the immediate isolated-from-the-apocalypse
what is
. Nothing mattered but us. So when Jamal grabbed my hand, even with the post-apocalyptic landscape surrounding us, everything felt exactly as it should.

We reached the wall; our eyes followed skyward.

“
B, how in the hell did we climb that monstrosity so easily?”

“
I think we were chasing our children, Jamal.”

“
Remind me of this moment, should I ever mention wanting children. If I do, slap me hard and say ‘Wall, Jamal. Wall.’”

“
Anything for you, babe.”

Fortunately, the wall had enough pieces of various scrap attached that made it easy to climb. Easy for the living, that is.

By the time we reached the top, my arms were burning so badly I expected them to catch fire. But we made it and allowed ourselves a moment to rest. The barren landscape tried desperately to suck the life from us.

“
On a clear day, you can see forever,” Jamal spoke softly.

“
Larner and Lane,” I replied.

“
Your intelligence knows no bounds, Bethany Nitshimi.”

“
Unless you put a blanket on it.” I gave a knowing grin before continuing. “I’ll never get used to seeing everything in ruins. This wasn’t supposed to happen in our lifetime, Jamal.”

Jamal chuckled as he threw a leg over the wall and began the descent. “I never thought I’d see the day when the great Bethany Nitshimi became a dreamer.”

I had no response. Before I followed suit, I did a quick scan of the area for the various iterations of the undead. Nothing. Small miracles.

“
Wow,” Jamal whispered, “it’s quiet.”

“
Dead quiet, even.”

“
You’re a comedian now, are you, B?”

I hopped into the Hummer. “I’ll be here all night.”

Jamal fired up the truck and we were off to meet one Rip Vanity.

chapter 17 |
the language of the mad

“
Commander Faddig, I have something you need to hear.”

Faddig was seated at his desk, poring over communications and maps. He waved the young man into his office and nodded. The soldier handed the officer a pair of army-issue headphones. The cups surrounded the commander’s ears, canceling out all external sound. When the broadcast recording played back, Commander Faddig allowed a smile to grace his cheeks.

“
This is perfect,” Faddig said, as he removed the headphones and stood. “They think there’s reason to celebrate the spirit of mankind? We’ll show them just how frail and broken that spirit is.”

Faddig grabbed the nearest radio and hit the call button.

“
I need full deployment ready by Friday. I want every flavor of undead trash you have loaded up on three planes and ready for takeoff to New Salt Lake City. We have a party to crash.”

The commander hung up the phone and nodded to the other soldier.

“
You just made my day, young man.”

The soldier saluted. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Faddig nodded his dismissal. The soldier turned on his heels and marched away. Once the soldier was out of sight, the commander picked up another radio and hit the call button.

“
Dr. Otte, I need Subject 002 ready to deploy by Friday.”

Faddig was greeted by silence.

“
Otte, do you hear me?”

Again, the commander was met with silence.

“
Shit,” Faddig hissed, as he left his office and raced toward the medical wing.

When the commander turned the corner that led directly to Subject 002’s room, the sounds of a struggle quickened his step. He raced to the door and when he yanked it open, Dr. Otte fell backward out of the room. Subject 002 stood in the middle of the room, his breath coming in ragged gasps, the muscles of his chest and arms flexing.

“
Secure that…that thing immediately,” Otte shouted.

Faddig raised his hands in a calm gesture of peace.

“
There’s no need for violence here. SITREP.”

Subject 002 sucked in a great breath and released it in a low growl.

“
He’s confused and violent.”

Faddig turned back to Otte. “I can understand why.” The commander turned his attention back to Subject 002 and raised his hands again. “No one is going to hurt you. Everything is going to be okay.”

Subject 002 turned his attention to Commander Faddig.

“
What is my purpose? What am I?”

Faddig glanced back at Otte. “What brought this about?”

Otte finally got back to his feet and stood behind Faddig. His voice was barely audible as he whispered in the commander’s ear. “I was going over the details from Munich and it finally dawned on him that he had no personal memory from that period. It was then that he became violent.”

Commander Faddig quickly weighed his options and decided the truth was the only path to success.

“
Your life only recently began. We created you for a very specific purpose. The woman you’ve read about, Bethany Nitshimi, she is your target. We are going to send you to her and you will then bring her back to us. That is all you need to do. Once your mission is complete, we will release you so you can begin to build a life of your own.”

A subtle peace seemed to wash over Subject 002.

“
That is all I must do? Bring Bethany back here? Once I’ve done that, I am free to do as I wish?”

Faddig nodded. “Yes, you have my word.”

The man in the room glanced downward as his mind struggled to process the information.

“
Why don’t you lay back down and rest? You have to be ready for your deployment.”

Subject 002 slowly made his way back to the bed. As he shuffled, he whispered nonsense to himself. Faddig leaned in as close as he could in an attempt to make out the words. Dr. Otte glanced Faddig’s way.

“
He’s been repeating it for a while now. It’s no language any of us have heard before. We’ve yet to make any sense of it.”

Faddig grabbed the doctor by the shoulder and spun him around so they met eye to eye.

“
What do you mean by that?”

“
I mean exactly what I said, he’s speaking in a language none of us have ever heard before. The first time I heard it I thought it was nothing more than gibberish, but then I started hearing words repeated.”

“
So?” Faddig demanded.

“
So, gibberish doesn’t repeat itself—it can’t because it’s improvised. Unless you had an eidetic memory, there’d be no way to instantly recall what you’d said in context. He is clearly repeating patterns associated with objects, moods, incidents, etcetera. What’s coming out of his mouth is a language and we don’t know it.”

Faddig bristled and grabbed Otte by the lapels. “I don’t give a shit about his made-up language. What I care about is that this thing is ready for transport for the Friday drop. I need it for a very specific purpose and I need to know you can implant that purpose onto its memory before then. If you cannot, I will find someone who can.”

Otte knew full well what that meant. Getting replaced in the Zero Day Collective meant getting decommissioned. At this stage in the game, decommissioning was akin to Soylent Green. Otte was faced with two choices—get Subject 002 ready for action or be processed into a meat pie to feed the underlings.

Or worse.

With the Zero Day Collective, there was always an
or worse
.

Otte nodded; flop sweat dripped from his nose to the floor.

“
He’ll be ready.”

Without another word, Faddig turned and left the medical wing. Dr. Otte slid down the wall and sat on the floor. The sound of the strange language floated in the background.

chapter 18 |
the answer

How quickly we forget. We had spent a few hours within the security of the wall and already I felt like I was visiting a rage-infested, ravaged landscape for the first time. As we drove the Hummer into the nightmare, the sounds of horror surrounded us.

“
The Devil’s Symphony
,” Jamal said softly.

“
What was that?”

Jamal gave me a quick glance and then turned his concentration back to the road.

“
You don’t remember? Seriously? Back in grad school? One night we did a ‘Worst horror films of all time with the best musical score’ marathon. The top of the list was
The Devil’s Symphony
.”