Redemption of the Dead (15 page)

“You got to let this go, man,” he said. “It’s going to kill
you in the end.”
You’re
already dead inside so what does it matter?
But he knew that wasn’t true. Not anymore. Someone
else had begun to wake him—the
real
him—and she was
no doubt fuming mad over him leaving. “Don’t turn her into a
substitute for April. You’d be the opposite of what you were
supposed to be if you do that.”

Still
clutching the towel to his forearm and dabbing his cuts whenever
too much blood leaked out, Joe continued down the street, heading
back the way he came. With every step came a fresh curse against
himself on how stupid he was for being so hung up on April, so much
so he was willing to potentially sacrifice others for his own peace
of mind and heart.

You’ve lost so much. April, my family, myself, Des . . .
Billie’s out there somewhere. August, too. Oh man, almost forgot
about them. Hope they’re alive. Now you risk losing Tracy,
too.
Maybe loss was his lot in
life? He was still kicking despite the intense moments of despair
when he wanted to just kill himself and finally be at peace. Now,
he wasn’t so sure peace would even be possible if he
did
kill himself. After meeting the angel and seeing those
demonic creatures, he knew there was a life beyond this one. He
only hoped over there the dead hadn’t taken over.
As if they’re worse than the demons
you saw.

Joe avoided the undead when he saw them, stopping to hide
when needed, getting in behind or under things when required as
well. It was a long walk back to Tracy, however, long enough for
him to think of a good excuse for leaving other than, “Oh, I had to
go look up this girl I knew, the one I told you about. Had to make
sure she was . . . dead . . . before I could try and get on with my
life.”
Pathetic.

Joe got himself onto Main and made his way toward the dust
in the distance. He double checked his knives to make sure they
were still weaved into his belt and were in position for easy
access if he needed them. “Not
if
I need them,
but
when.
”

And he was right, because a whole pack
of zombies emerged from a side street and were headed his
way.

* * * *

Welcome to my pity party,
Tracy thought. All the emotions she’d kept suppressed over
the year since the dead rose started to come out right after she
climbed out of the dumpster. It was like her whole body decided to
release the madness and turmoil within . . . and drag her down in
the process.

The safe
house was beneath the Millennium Library. The enormous building had
gone down when one of the giants fell into it yet the main floor
remained mostly intact. The debris and structure that fell on top
of it ended up covering the main floor in a semi dome, concealing
it from the outside. During some of the scouting missions, members
of the Hub had discovered what happened and suggested it be a
backup location should something happen to the main one. Over the
course of several months, when people could be spared, crews went
over with materials, slowly wedged supports and beams in there
along with other construction supplies and, following a similar
construction of the Hub, eventually created a substructure out of
the library’s first floor beneath the demolished building. Soon
survival supplies were moved in along with defense equipment and
general items for human needs that were rounded up after much
scavenging.

Like the
Hub, there was a special locking system in place to get in. It was
different than the Hub’s and Tracy verified she had her “key.” She
did: a mini screwdriver.

What if Joe returns to the house early and I’m not
there?
She stopped
walking.
Maybe I should go
back? No, I’m furious at him and I’m going to stay furious until he
hears about it.

She didn’t want to give him a second
thought, wanted to focus on the task at hand, but she couldn’t help
but let her mind drift over to being concerned about his
safety.

“Don’t go down that path,” she told
herself slowly, and she dismissed the notion that she already had.
“Enough. Stay focused.”

The city
looked different because of all the damage and chaos, but if she
had her bearings right—and she rarely didn’t—the safe house should
be a couple of streets over. No problem, but only if she could
avoid detection of the zombies milling around not far in front of
her.

* * * *

14

The Cottage

T
he meal had
been amazing. Billie could still
taste it on her lips after the big man—whose name turned out to be
Sven, his brother Bastian—made her a German breakfast of a few
sausage links, bread rolls and artificial egg whites. He had even
made her coffee!

Despite being in a strange place, she
could go for another nap after such a great meal.

The men sat
with her at the table, Sven at the head of it, Bastian across from
her. No one spoke and she was beginning to understand that these
two boys only spoke when they had something to say and didn’t just
talk for the sake of talking to fill the silence like her and most
of her friends used to.

Taking a sip
of coffee, she loved how rich and flavorful it was, unlike back
home where all she knew was instant coffee from a jar.

Sven would
look at her, then look away, wait a few minutes then do it again.
It got to the point where Billie blurted, “What?”

Sven averted
his gaze, clearly embarrassed. She knew he thought she was pretty,
but come on, it was starting to get creepy. Besides, he looked to
be at least ten years older than her. Not that she was paying
attention to that.

“Sorry for
my brother,” Bastian said. “We’ve had a bit of a hard time here,
like you.”

“Oh, I’m not from here,” Billie
said.

“We
know.”

“Huh?”

“You talk funny.”

“I talk funny, right,” she said with a
grin.

“But listen,
yah? We have something for you. You see, we know of why you’re
here.”

Her heart stopped. Did she just hear
him right? “Um, you do?”

A knock came
from behind the door off the kitchen. A second later, a woman
emerged, with black hair sharply cropped at the chin, pale skin,
and very simple features. She seemed Russian or French, but when
she spoke and greeted Sven and Bastian, she had a strictly British
accent. Billie thought the plain gray dress the woman wore and the
white sneakers, though an odd combination, was actually kind of
cool.

The woman
closed the door behind her, but before it shut all the way, Billie
caught a glimpse into the room beyond, which looked way too big for
such a small cottage. The intriguing part was the row of computer
monitors and panels of switches and lights. Had she not known any
better, she’d believe she was in a different room of a spaceship,
one made to look like a cozy home on Earth to help her feel at
ease.

That’s
not
what’s
happening,
is
it?
An
alien
invasion
on
top of a zombie apocalypse?

The woman didn’t sit down
, but instead walked up to her. She held out her hand for a
handshake. “My name is Isabel.”

She took the woman’s hand.
“Billie.”

To Bastian, the woman said, “Is she
ready?”

“No. Not
yet. We haven’t had chance to talk. You were supposed to wait until
we get you.”

Back to
Billie, Isabel said, “Well, doesn’t matter. She’s here
now.”

Billie stood and waved her hands in
front of her. “Wait, wait, wait . . . who are you and what do mean
by ‘expecting me’?”

“This is
Bastian, Isabel and I’m Sven,” the man said.

“I meant who
are you guys specifically and how do you know me?”

“The man in white said you would
come,” Isabel said. “He said you were to show us where to
go.”

Billie
remembered Nathaniel’s new mission for her was one of recruitment
as well as recovery. He had said, “It’s time to rally our forces as
the Earth has almost completely fallen to Evil. Little time is
left. I want you to gather those to join us at the Last Battle as
they have tools that will help us.” She just didn’t know that those
“tools” and people would be somewhere overseas.

“
You must also find the Divine Fragments,” he’d said and
handed her the bracelet. “When the stone is white,
wait.”

When she asked fragments of what, she
had already been dropped off on the hill outside.

“Come,” Isabel said and led Billie to
the room at the back, where Sven opened the door for
them.

Billie had been mistaken about the size of the room.
It
did
fit with the overall size of the cottage as
through the crack in the door what she had seen were actually a
series of large mirrors that sat at an angle, reflecting the goings
on at the level below. It was there at the bottom of a very narrow,
winding staircase the computer monitors and panels were, along with
an expanse of cubicles along the sides of the wall, the area down
the middle loaded with long tables covered in scraps of metal,
rubber tubing, lengths of two-by-fours, tools, welding equipment
and some items she didn’t recognize, but looked to be some sort of
series of vats with a greenish bubbling liquid inside.

“This is
special place,” Sven said, coming up beside her.

“Amazing,” Billie said. She hadn’t
seen this much tech since her last trip to Best Buy over a year
ago. And even then, Best Buy only had modern items, not ones that
looked like a cross of Star Trek meets Steampunk. “What is this
place?”

“Special,” Sven said again.

“Don’t mind
him, okay,” Bastian said, “he just nervous.”

Normally she
would find a guy who was into her getting all goofy around her as
annoying, but Sven was big, handsome, strong and . . . big. She
could get into that.

“All we know
is you were to come here and take us somewhere else,” Isabel said.
“That’s all the old man in the white coat told me when he rescued
me several months back. He mentioned this place, but I didn’t
arrive here until later. At first, I didn’t believe him of course,
just some old coot with a story, but after he dematerialized into
thin air, I thought maybe there was something to his statement,
then when the boys saw you, a girl matching the description he gave
me, we had to get you in here safe before assessing our next
move.”

“And what is your next move?” Billie
said.

Isabel led
her down an aisle between a row of cubicles and the long tables in
the middle with all the gear on it. “Rebellion. All you see here
are preparations for warfare, bits of tech we’ve cobbled together
from the old world while also adding twists of our own, resources
being limited. It might look impressive, but understand dozens of
people lost their lives finding it for us. Many of our people lost
theirs just trying to get to the people that found these old
computers, machines and odds and ends.”

“How are you
powering them?”

“Solar panel
on the roof. You wouldn’t have seen it as it’s on the south side.
We’ve also been able to use a generator in conjunction with it as
the solar radiation filtering through the gray and brown clouds is
minimal. Every bit helps, we figured.”

Billie and Isabel passed
two eight-foot tables completely covered in an array of
pistols, machine guns, rifles, grenades and even what looked like a
small bazooka. Billie looked over her shoulder back at Sven, who
gave her a warm smile.

“Most of our
weaponry until now we’ve kept simple, saving all we can
artillery-wise. Knives, machetes, spears, compound bow and
arrows—saving bullets is one of the rules around here.”

“Well, you did a good job,” Billie
said.

“We work
hard,” Bastian said.

“So I see.”
They came to the end of the room. Given its length, Billie knew
they were far past the cottage above, a good twenty yards away. She
gestured to the area they just passed. “And all this has gone
unnoticed?”

Sven and Bastian cast their eyes to
their feet.

“What?” Billie said.

“Sadly, no. There were problems. All of us working here are
from all over the world, each with their own story on how they got
here, who they lost, why they won’t give up. Others couldn’t accept
times have changed and tried functioning like they had in the old
world, making alliances that were out of sync with our aim to
create a stronghold for the sake of safety. Deals were being made,
people found out and ratted out. Led to a major fight both down
here and up on the hills. There were so many of us when this all
started, over four thousand coming and going, gathering,
helping—now we’re down to just ninety-four.
Ninety-four.
That’s self-inflicted casualties and ones from the
monsters. When we came to our senses and things began to settle, we
swore to work even harder, not just to help ourselves, but to help
others once we felt ready. That was going to be the plan: head out
of here in about six months’ time and work our way through the
cities, checking for survivors, gather more to our ranks. We
figured that if we were organized enough, we could create our own
military and perhaps succeed where that of the old world
failed.”