Redemption of the Dead (27 page)

He closed
his eyes.

When he opened them again, he knew he
had dozed off because he felt the heaviness of sleep inside his
head. He didn’t know what time it was, but the whole place was
darker and quieter. A few snores floated down the
hallway.

One little one rose up beside
him.

Tracy.

He was relieved to see her and
chastised himself for jumping to conclusions over where he stood
with her. He owed her more trust and respect than that. Joe leaned
over and kissed her forehead before rolling onto his side and
falling back asleep.

* * * *

“Forty hours, are you crazy?”
Lieutenant Nole screamed into the radio receiver.

“
I didn’t make the
planes, I fly them,
” came the
voice through the other end. “
They only go so fast.
”

“Look, we
have over a hundred different sites and over a five hundred new
weapons. We need to share the wealth!”

“
Obviously, but I
can’t magically transport the stuff over, I’m sorry. You’re asking
us for the Rendezvous months ahead of schedule, disperse our
assets, then transport said assets back to the individual sites in
less than twenty-four hours. Can’t be done.
”

Nole pinched
the bridge of his nose. “I know, look. Just get it done as soon as
possible. We need to work fast. Intel has already come in. The
creatures are acting strange, even the big ones. It’d be one thing
if it was isolated, but it’s in every location we have eyes and
ears in. Something’s going down.”

“
I’ll be on it,
Lieutenant. I promise.
”

“Good. Thanks. Nole out.” He hung up
the radio receiver.

“That didn’t
sound good,” Billie said from behind him.

“You been standing there the whole
time?”

“Yeah.”

“You should be sleeping with the
others.”

“Couldn’t.”

“Oh yeah? Why not? Don’t got your
teddy bear?”

“Don’t start
with me. Just because you’re a grouch doesn’t mean you have to turn
everyone else into one, too.” She sat down on the chair across from
him, hugged her elbows and crossed her legs. “Did you get an
ETA?”

“Forty hours. They’ll try, anyway.
Forty-eight or forty-nine, even fifty, would be more
accurate.”

“That’s up to two days. That might not
be enough time.”

“We don’t
have a choice. This is crash planning. The gentleman I spoke to is
the lead on a team of organizers whose job it is to coordinate the
drop of our shared tech to each of our predetermined
locations.”

“Which are?”

“There’s over a hundred of
’em.”

“Oh.”

“We got a guy coming to pick up what
we got here and what we got in a warehouse not far from here. Some
stays with us, the rest goes out. We stand our ground once the rest
of the weaponry arrives.”

“What if things start before
then?”

“Then we make our stand. Won’t have a
choice.”

“Hide out here?”

“If possible, but you never know.
Doesn’t hurt to be ready.”

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes a moment
then opened them.

“You okay?”

Was Nole actually being
nice
to her?
Weird.
“Just miss my friends.”

“Where’re you from?”

“Winnipeg.”

“Where?”

She wasn’t
surprised Nole hadn’t heard of it. It wasn’t exactly a popular
city, though it was easily the best place in Canada to live without
going broke. “Central Canada, right above North Dakota.”

“You guys got polar bears there,
right?”

“Yeah, and penguins on every
corner.”

Nole chuckled.

She looked him in the eye. “I need to
get home.”

He sighed. “I don’t know what to tell
ya, B. You’re on the other side of the world. There ain’t exactly
an airport around the corner where you can just hop on a
plane.”

“No, but you guys got
planes.”

“Military planes. Some of them are
jets.”

“But some
have to be carriers if you’re going to transport all that gear
around.”

His
expression straightened. “Not happening, kid.”

“You owe me, John.”

“Oh, so
we’re on a first name basis now?”

She shook her head, disbelief that
this guy was actually military. “You don’t know my first
name.”

“Think so? How’s ‘Billie’ for
ya?”

“What? How?”

“I’m not as stupid as you might think
and I know how to talk to people.”

Sven. Wait, maybe it was Bastian. Either way, those guys
are gonna get it.
“I really
need this,
Lieutenant.
”

He glanced
to the floor, then back up and pointed his finger at her. “No
guarantees, okay?”

She couldn’t help but smile.
“Thanks.”

“Now go to bed.”

“Yes, Dad,” she said and
left.

As Billie returned to the small room
off to the side, her bracelet lit white. She immediately checked
the range and stopped when it cast a rainbow in a halo around her
wrist, each crystal emitting its own light. Like always, the
bracelet vibrated and a few moments later, crackles of
amethyst-colored energy rose from the floor and embedded itself in
the bracelet, filling in the last of the clear stone.

“Am I done?” she said quietly. “At
least this thing looks like it is.” She stared at it, waited for it
to do something, but nothing happened. “In time, always in
time.”

* * * *

When Tracy
woke up, Joe was no longer beside her. Before, she had considered
finding a cozy spot of her own, but thought better of it and
snuggled up beside him instead. It had been the better choice, she
told herself when she sat up and stretched.

The rich scent of freshly-brewed
coffee floated down the hallway to her room. Screw the bathroom.
Coffee came first. Thank God for battery-powered coffeemakers. When
she went into the kitchenette, she smiled when she saw Joe sitting
at the table, cup of coffee in one hand, his new .9mm in the
other.

He looked up at her and gestured to
the gun. “It isn’t the X-09, but it’ll do. Maybe with a few
modifications . . .”

“Leave it,” she said as she poured
herself a cup. She sat down beside him. They both took their coffee
black.

“Sleep okay?” he asked.

“Kind of. The sleep part. The dream
part was messed up, though.”

“Want to share?”

“It’s all a
fog, but I remember clear images of bullfrogs with purple skin, and
something about jack-o’-lanterns being good for you.”

“Maybe as pie.”

“Maybe.” She took a sip of her coffee.
“What time did you get up?”

“You know, I
didn’t even look at the clock. I don’t really care. Ever since this
all started—well, I sort of had a schedule when this all started,
but since things got crazy and I came here—yeah, just whatever.
Sleep when tired. Don’t when not.” He took a sip from his own cup.
“Was up on the roof. Dean was up there. Does that guy ever
sleep?”

“Wouldn’t know.”

“The dead had finished
formation.”

“Already?”

“Yeah. Until
we can get really high up, we don’t know exactly what the formation
is, but there is actual form to it. Looks like a triangle to
me.”

“Really?”

“Not a
perfect one, but yeah. Got the big guys in the front, then all the
other ones gathering behind them, but not in equal rows. Looks like
the rows get shorter and shorter the further back they go. Looks
like a triangle to me.”

“What do you think it
means?”

He
sighed then took another sip. “I think this is going to go beyond
what anyone expects or even what anyone here might even be hoping
for.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, cup
between his hands. “Before I came here, my friends and I took a
helicopter off the roof of the Richardson
Building—
our
Richardson Building—and we were in
that storm I mentioned a while back.”

She
remembered, and she believed him.

“When we came through the other side of the storm, the sun
was shining and the city was intact. People were walking on the
sidewalks, cars were driving down the streets. It was beautiful, so
amazing to see after a whole year under a sky that looks like a
foggy beer bottle. We landed in a bank’s parking lot, of all
places. We went in. The people inside didn’t see us. This was me,
Billie and August, by the way. We lost Des . . . he didn’t make it
to the chopper and was something else when we returned but I’m
getting ahead of myself. At the bank, the people couldn’t see us,
couldn’t hear us. We separated and as I made my way down the stairs
to the basement, I fell through the floor, actually
fell
through it and was engulfed in total darkness. I fell for a
long, long time and at ripping fast speed. To be honest, I don’t
know how long it took, but I landed on stone and it started to get
hot, real hot. In the distance I saw this enormous lake of
flames.”

“I remember
you saying you went to . . . you know.”

“I
was in Hell, Tracy.
The
Hell.”

Her heart pounded and even though Joe
was safe here with her now, she was terrified for him.

He took
another sip. She wanted one of her own, but right now even the heat
off the coffee didn’t sit right.

He said,
“These creatures, these awful creatures attacked me. I tried to
defend myself but it was next to impossible. These things—compared
to them? I’d take fighting the undead all day every day if there
was a choice.” Quietly, he said, “There might not be a choice
soon.”

“What?”

“Down there,
I thought that was it. I had died or something and was in the place
every person dreads to go even if they don’t believe in it, and I
tell you, you better believe in it if you don’t because I was there
and that place is very real. So these creatures attacked me and I
would’ve been doomed had not this angel come down in this crazy
brilliant blaze of white and golden light, sword in hand, and saved
me from those things. He took me back to the surface, back into the
bank, but by then it was too late. The bank’s floor looked smashed
and ripped open and after we came out, all those terrible creatures
came out after us and started attacking my friends and I. The angel
defended us, but also told us to go. We did, made it to the
helicopter despite being attacked again. The storm started up
again, this time at ground level. We wound up back in the storm
then came through and were in the air. We landed back on the same
roof and, well, you know the rest.” He finished his coffee. “This
thing happening outside, those creatures aren’t stupid. You know as
well as I do that, yes, some are as brain dead as this cup, but
others show more cunning. I think those evil spirits inside them
are limited in that they can use the body, but can’t operate it at
its full potential, yet need that body to take over everything
first.”

“Which they’ve pretty much
done.”

“I don’t
know how many of us are out there, but compared to the seven
billion or so people that used to be on this planet? I can’t see
there being more than a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand tops
left. It might sound like a lot, but that’s really next to nothing.
That’s worldwide. I won’t claim to be an expert at this, but I’m
guessing that phase one of their plan is pretty much complete and
the only way to finish us off is to go to phase two.”

“Which is?”

“Who knows,
but that triangle thing they got going outside? That’s got to be
part of it. The undead don’t just all get together and wait around.
They’re always moving, even the ones that can barely
walk.”

She took a
minute to soak it all in and finish her own cup of coffee. If what
Joe was saying was right or even partly accurate, their little band
of people at the safe house wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight.
Though Dean would probably feel otherwise, it seemed the safest
choice was to hightail it out of town and not look back. “What’re
we going to tell Dean?”

“This is his
house, so he’s got to know, but as inspiring as your guys’ speech
had been, it’s not going to do much good out there. You need to
talk to him, warn him.”

“What about the others?”

“I don’t
know. Pros and cons. Do whichever outweighs the other after you
talk to Dean.”

“Okay.” She
took his hand in hers, his warm fingers comforting after what he
just said. She kissed his hand, then got up and left the table.
“Don’t go anywhere.”

“Don’t plan on it,” he said as she
left the room.