Moriah (4 page)

“Red.”

She barely paused to glance over her shoulder. “What is it, Frankie?”

“I think we’re being followed.” The man with the sniper rifle said it calmly.

“
We’re
being followed?” Rodriguez opened his big mouth. “
We’re
the ones doing the following.”

“Zombies?” Chang asked, worried. Riley had broken his arm. The zombies couldn’t smell that, could they?

“Not zombies.”

“How long now?” Intent on the trail before them, Red had completely ignored the path behind them. Mistakes like that, she knew, could get you killed.

“For at least the last two hours. Far as I can tell.”

“How many?” Red still hadn’t stopped, still hadn’t looked back. They had entered an especially thick copse of evergreens.

“One…” Frankie did not sound certain. “…it wasn’t clear, and whoever it is, he’s some way off.”

“Okay.
Rodriguez
.”

“Yeah, Red?”

“You think you can stop staring at me long enough to follow this trail?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, not caring for what he might say. “In one minute you’re on point. All of you keep moving. Follow Rodriguez, follow the trail.”

“What you gonna do, Red?” Rodriguez asked.

“Keep walking…” Red had stepped against a tree and frozen in place. Rodriguez was smart enough not to halt. He continued to follow the tracks, Frankie at his side with his sniper rifle. One by one, they passed the tree Red stood flush against. Most did not notice her.

“You okay, Red?”

“I’ll catch up soon, Ed.”

“Want company, Red?” She wanted to say yes to Tommy but couldn’t and didn’t. What she might have to do was better done alone. Tommy walked by, never turning. Chang was the last of their group to pass her tree and he whispered out of the side of his mouth—“Keep safe, Red”—as he marched by.

She placed her N4 barrel up against the tree trunk. Red wrapped her palm around the Robbins of Dudley Trench Push dagger, bent her elbow, and raised her hand to the side of her head. The five inch blade pointed straight up.

She waited.

Enough time went by that she started to wonder if maybe Frankie had been wrong. They were all a little on edge maybe, what with that army or whatever it was going off to the east. What with what had happened to Merv. Poor little Merv. And Paulson and Dalton. And the old man, Thomas. Further, Red thought, unlike herself, Frankie didn’t get off the reservation very much. He probably wasn’t very comfortable out here. And he’d taken a few hits from that bitch. So yeah, maybe Frankie had made a mistake.

But Red trusted her instincts. And her instincts told her that when she was ready to dismiss Frankie’s concern, she should wait awhile longer, so wait she did.

A few minutes later she heard movement proceeding up the trail behind her, from the direction they’d come.

Red closed her eyes and listened. Someone or something was jostling through the trees and bushes, apparently not even bothering to suppress the racket they made. She wasn’t sure, but it sounded like there was only one of whatever it was. Whatever it was. Human. Zombie. Mutant. As the noises neared she was pretty sure that,
yeah
, there was only the one.

She opened her eyes and waited. She had the Push dagger in one hand and the Stechkin APS in her other. If she fired the pistol and there were more than one of them out here, they would all know where she was. Also, Red didn’t know where the girl and her ride had disappeared to—how close or how far they might be—and she couldn’t tip her hat to them either. If it was just the one coming up behind her, it’d have to be the Push dagger.

The zombie passed by her tree, unaware of her presence. Its lower body and upper body were not coordinated. As it put one foot in front of the other and walked a crooked path, its arms and shoulders were jerking up and down.

Red peered around her tree, back the way the zombie had come, but did not see another. She detached herself from the trunk and fell in behind the undead thing. It was completely unaware of her presence.

She was able to walk right up to the zombie and plunge the push dagger up under the rear of its skull. The creature shuddered before sliding off her blade. Red prodded it with her boot, but the thing didn’t respond. She used her foot to roll it over and studied the cadaver as she reached down and wiped the blade on its rotten shirt.

This zombie looked familiar to Red. She couldn’t place it. Something…

Red gazed into the trees behind her, feeling somewhat uneasy. It was a feeling she did not like. Was she being watched? By what?
My, how the tables do turn
, Red thought. Nothing stirred back there.

She considered. It was either nothing, and her mind was playing tricks on her, which she thought was possible but unlikely…Or it was a zombie, one of the smarter ones, and it was standing there as she looked for it, but it wasn’t going to make a move until she made a move. If that was the case, she could take it out as soon as it reared its ugly head.

Or it was something else entirely.
That
thought unsettled her.

And then Red realized where she had seen this zombie before and doing so she knew what was behind them. Cosmo’s spawn—the one called Cleetus—had been gripping a zombie by the neck, the way a grown man might grip a puppy by its scruff. That zombie had stood in place docilely enough, its upper body herky jerky. Red remembered seeing that from the bluff, when she and Keith had helped the woman and her friends up, when Cosmo and his boys and girl had demanded they return their prey.

This was
that
zombie, dead at her feet.

Which meant Cosmo was out there somewhere, in these trees with her. So it was something else entirely.

Then, what were they waiting for? Red decided she’d rather not stick around and find out. She had to get back to Tommy and Gammon and the others. Find that damned woman. That woman was the whole reason for this, and Red knew it.

Red wasn’t scared. She’d throw down with Cosmo or any of his mutant fuck kids any day. But she wasn’t stupid either. It would be dark soon enough, and Cosmo and his hideous brood would have an advantage over her then. Plus, Tommy and Gammon were wandering around further ahead, unaware.

Little Red took up her N4, and as she did so, she looked the way she’d come, letting whatever might be lurking back there know
she
knew. She struck off the way the others had gone.

The sound of pouring water roused her. When Riley opened her eyes, she found herself on a cot, a thin blanket covering her from the neck down, a pillow under her head. She was in some kind of capacious, room-like tent. A middle-aged woman she recognized, but whose name she could not recall, had just finished emptying a bucket of steaming water into a large metal tub near the cot.

“There, all done.” The woman looked over and saw that Riley was awake. “Oh, good, you’re up. You’ve been asleep for fifteen hours.”

“I have?” Riley brushed a hand across her forehead.

“Yeah, you were in some rough shape. My name is Carrie, by the way. I didn’t expect you to remember that.” Carrie was kind but hard-looking, a woman who had seen a lot in her lifetime. “Here, I drew you a bath.”

“Oh, thank you, Carrie.” Riley sat up. She felt groggy coming out of a deep sleep, but her body felt rested.

“You’re welcome, Riley. You should take a bath. There’s a change of clothes over there for you. Just leave yours on the floor when you’re done. You’ve really set this camp abuzz, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Bishop? No one’s heard him talk.
Ever
. And now he’s talking. That’s something else.”

It was all coming back to Riley. Dee kneeling next to her. The photograph. The man in the chair, the Bishop. He’d said his name was Fred. He’d said he’d known the man in the picture. Other things came to mind…
Bear
. There was no Bear, not here, not anymore. She had travelled all this way with Anthony to find...Anthony. Anthony was dead.

“What’s with his cat?”

“It’s the Bishop’s.” Carrie was arranging items on the small table next to Riley’s cot, packing things away. Bandages. A stethoscope. What looked like glucose meters with lancets. “That thing was his pet. He brought it with him from Eden.”

“Eden?” Turner—the Bishop—had mentioned it as well.

“I don’t know, twenty years ago,” Carrie spoke as she worked, “a bunch of us—me, Tris, some others—we travelled into New York City to this place, some people were holed up. They’d built walls around them. We found the Bishop there, and the cat. He didn’t want to leave the cat.

“When it died, there were some of us who worried it might be too much for the old guy. Someone took it and stuffed it. I don’t know if he ever even noticed.”

Riley thought it a bizarre tale but said nothing.

“We’re all eager to hear your story. Even Tris.”

“Yeah,
Tris
.” More unpleasant memories filled Riley’s mind. “What’s her problem anyway?”

“Ahhh, she’s just got a death wish, that’s all.”

“The guy who talks funny?”

“Bruce.”

“Why does he talk that way?”

“He got shot in the neck.”

Riley asked her about the things on the table. “What’s all that for?”

“While you were asleep, I tested your blood,” Carrie answered her honestly. “Made sure you’re not infected.”

“Infected?”

“Plague. Or Zed. You’re good by the way. Clean up and come on outside, okay?”

“Okay.”

When Carrie had left, Riley stood and undressed. Her clothes had caked onto her body from dried sweat and dirt. She felt filthy. She stepped into the tub and shuddered. How long had it been since she’d had a bath?

She washed her body and hair and sat for some time in the tub, watching the dirt float around in the water and the soap bubbles around her. She thought back to when this whole crazy thing had begun. These people seemed decent enough. At least she didn’t think they were going to hurt her. Not like Thomas and his people. Thomas. She was glad he was dead. She was glad she had killed him.

It didn’t seem that Thomas’ people had any ties to Bear’s Army. They wouldn’t have wanted to, Riley figured, not from what Thomas had said. Bear’s Army was mobile, but it was also some kind of civilization. Thomas had shunned civilization.

Bear’s Army
. Riley had found it. And there was no Bear. She thought of the irony.

Riley was thinking she might just get to go back home one day soon. And then what? What was she going to tell her dad about Anthony?
Daddy
,
Anthony
…Then what? How could she look at her father and finish that sentence? How was she going to face Evan and Troi’s families? Thomas was dead, but his son…and that little red-haired monster…they were all out there still, all alive. The whole thing sickened her.
Anthony
.

Lest she dwell on it, Riley rinsed her hair once more and toweled off.

* * *

When she stepped outside, all eyes turned to Riley expectantly. She wore the slacks, light sweater and boots that had been provided for her. It was nighttime.

“Riley.” Dee called out to her. “Come here—
please
. You hungry?”

“I’m starving.”

“We have some food for this lady?” Fred Turner asked, petting his cat. Its legs jutted out straight from its body.

“Coming.”

“Please.” Dee indicated a chair. “Sit down.”

Riley did as he asked. Her chair was ringed by many others in which Dee and several more people had settled or were settling. Some of them she recognized, like the Bishop, Fred; like Tris and her two lackeys—Bruce and Kevin—or whatever they were; like Carrie and Victor. Other men and women she had not met before. Lights were hooked up to generators and flooded the area with illumination, banishing the shadows.

“My name is Tim,” said the tall man who brought her a plate of steaming food and a two-liter bottle of water.

Riley wasn’t sure what to say. “Nice to meet you, Tim.”

“Pleasure to meet you too.” Tim beamed.

“Dig in,” invited Dee. “If it’s okay with you, we’ll talk while you eat. When you’re done eating, we have some questions for you, okay?”

Riley nodded. She was already tearing into her meal.

“The first thing I’m going to say is that this whole situation—you showing up when you did, with that picture—it’s got all of us…It’s astounding.”

“To say the least,” Victor agreed.

“We were packing up to leave,” continued Dee. “You saw the troops yesterday.”

“We’re taking this show on the road.” Kevin had an AK-47 slung over his back.

“To Africa.”

“Why Africa?” Riley asked around a mouthful of food.

“From the intelligence we’ve been able to gather,” explained Dee, “Africa was spared any direct nuclear detonations. So, sure, there’s the fallout floating around everywhere, but Africa might be the one relatively safe place left to us.”