Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within (16 page)

“We’ve all lost people,” she said. “I know it’s kind of strange, but I find comfort in that. In knowing that other people feel the same as I do.”

“That’s not strange, Liz. It’s human nature. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”

As if I’m one to talk
.

She turned her eyes up to me and smiled. “Thank you, Gabriel.”

After leaning forward to give me a quick kiss, she began gathering up her papers and stuffing them into her messenger bag. I noticed that the bag was a Louis Vuitton, and felt one side of my face turn up in a wry smile. Even at the end of the world, ladies want nice things. 

“I have to get back to the funeral home,” she said. “Can you come see me at town hall tomorrow after you meet with the General?”

“Can do.”

I stood up and hugged her again, then shut the door behind her after she left. Back in the kitchen, I sat down and pondered pouring another drink, but decided against it. I was already feeling a little buzzed, and considering the day I had ahead of me tomorrow, waking up with a hangover would be an extraordinarily bad idea.

I took off my boots, stripped off my torn and filthy clothes, ate a quick meal of cold bread and dried meat, and climbed in bed. I didn’t quite manage to get all the way under the blanket before I fell asleep.

I was still in bed at noon the next day when a loud knock from the foyer sent peals of agony tearing through my skull. Cursing the offending party, I lurched to my feet and stumbled blearily into the living room to see who it was, praying that it wasn’t Allison. Bright sunlight lanced through my eyes, sending me back a step when I opened the door.

“Jesus, Riordan. What the hell happened to you?”

I was still blind, one hand held over my face to ward off the pain, but I recognized the voice.

“What does it look like? I got drunk.”

Steve stepped inside and shut the door behind him. “All things considered, I’d say you were entitled to it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m regretting it now.”

I walked over to the couch and collapsed onto it face first. A rustling sounded from across the room as Steve sank down into a chair and regarded me in silence. A couple of minutes passed while I breathed in the stale odor of upholstery and listened to the house creak around us.

“Grayson Morrow is quite an interesting young man.”

I shifted enough to peer at him with one eye. “How so?”

“He told us a hell of a story this morning.”

“And?”

Steve smiled. “Maybe you should take a few minutes to get yourself together. You’ll want to have a clear head when you hear all of this.”

I sighed and sat up, wincing at the increased pounding in my head. “All right. Give me ten minutes.”

“Take your time.”

Standing up took far longer than it should have, and on the way outside to the outhouse, I had to pause a few times to allow the dry heaves to run their course.

Thoroughly emptied of everything in my stomach and bowels, and after expelling putrid liquid from every orifice in my body capable of doing so, I stripped down, poured a bucket of cold water over my head, and swallowed a couple of prescription pain killers. After drinking enough water to nearly turn my stomach again, and shamelessly violating the ten-minute restriction I had placed on myself, I reconnoitered back to the living room in marginally better condition than when I had left it.

“Not bad,” Steve said, nodding in approval. “You are now well on your way to merely looking like shit.”

“That’s what I like about you, Steve,” I said as I collapsed back down onto the couch. “Always quick with a kind word and a smile.”

He ignored me. “You up for a little walk this morning?”

“Probably not, but I have a feeling I’m gonna do it anyway.”

“Good.” He stood up and walked to the front door, stopping to look at me. “You coming?”

I groaned, sat up, and got my feet underneath me. The day was going to suck no matter what I did, whether I went with Steve, or stayed home. So I figured I might as well get off my ass and do something useful.

*****

Morrow looked small in the wide confines of his cell.

The bars on the door were haze gray, like the color of a warship, and the surrounding walls were cold and unyielding, made of chipped white cinderblock with all manner of obscenities carved into the paint. It was designed to hold several inmates at once, but rarely saw use other than the occasional drunken brawl or domestic dispute. Today, Morrow had it all to himself.

“Got someone here to see you,” Sheriff Elliott said, unlocking the door.

I passed under the Sheriff’s disapproving glare and sat down on a bench opposite the prisoner.

“I appreciate you meeting us here, Walter,” Steve said. “I know you have a lot to do. If it’s all right with you, we’d like a few minutes alone with Mr. Morrow.”

Elliott shifted his stern gaze from Steve, to me, to Morrow, and then back to Steve. “Suit yourself. Cohen will be here to lock up when you’re done.”

Steve nodded, and the Sheriff turned and left, shutting the door to the cell behind him. I faced Morrow and leaned back against the wall. Steve took a seat on the other side.

“Good to see you still breathing.” I didn’t quite manage to keep the venom out of my voice. Steve glanced in my direction, gave a slight shake of his head, and mouthed, “Not yet.”

Morrow missed the exchange, being too busy staring at the floor and avoiding eye contact.

“I know you’ve been through a lot since yesterday,” Steve said. “But I need you to go over everything again with Mr. Riordan here.” He waved a hand at me.

The boy asked, “What do you want to know?”

“All of it. Everything you’ve told me since last night.”

Morrow sat up and eyed me from across the cell. His eyes were red and sunken, and the bones of his face stood out in gaunt relief, casting shadows on his hollow cheeks.

“It’s a long story.”

I crossed my arms and stretched my feet out in front of me. “I got nothing to do today.”

He sighed, and looked desolately at Steve before launching into it. He spoke slowly at first, then faster and faster until the words tumbled out of him almost too quickly for me to keep up. 

By the time he was done, I didn’t know quite what to think of him. If everything he said was true—and I wasn’t quite ready to bite on that just yet—then this kid was as much a victim of the Legion as he was an accomplice to their crimes. It was enough to make me feel sorry for him.

Finished with his story, and leaking silent tears down onto the floor between his feet, the kid looked imploringly back and forth between us. “What’s gonna happen to me? Whatever it is, just tell me. Anything’s better than sitting here not knowing.”

Steve gave him a flat, reptilian stare, allowing a small smile to creep up the corners of his lips. I had seen that smile set hardened men to shaking in their boots, and the effect was not lost on Morrow.

“That’s entirely up to you, Grayson. The information you have is invaluable, assuming it turns out to be true. If you help us bring down the Legion, I can arrange to have you taken back to Colorado, and you’ll have a chance to start a new life. But if it doesn’t …” He shrugged. “Your fate will be at the discretion of Sheriff Elliott. I think you already know how that will end.”

“Look, whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you,” Morrow said. “There’s nobody in this room that hates those fuckers more than I do. You can burn every goddamn one of them alive for all I care.”

Steve’s smile broadened, but it was devoid of humor. “Get some rest.” He stood up and patted the kid on the shoulder. “I’ll send someone around to bring you some food and some hot water for a bath. The guards should be able to scrounge up some clean clothes for you. Get yourself together, and I’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll talk more then.”

*****

“I don’t feel quite so bad now about not finding their base of operations,” Steve said.

I nodded, staring mutely at my hands. We sat on a bench in front of the Sheriff’s station trying to glean some warmth from the clear, cloudless sunshine. It was the kind of day that was warm on your skin as long as you stayed out of the shade.

“We’re going to have to move up our timeframe for that thing we talked about.” He leaned forward and kicked at a piece of gravel with the toe of his boot.

I turned my head to look at him. “You still expect me to do that? After everything he just told us?”

“You got any better ideas? Morrow only knows about the one tunnel entrance. He can’t tell us how big their network is, or how far it extends. The fastest and best way to find that out is to infiltrate them.”

I thought about it for a moment, and finally shook my head. The only other option was to send Morrow back, and that, quite simply, was not going to happen. Not after everything the Legion had put him through.

“You can do this, Eric. You’re smart enough, you’re tough enough, and no one on their side knows who you are. You can help put an end to this fight.”

I stood up and walked across the parking lot to the street, stopping next to a willow tree. The bark was rough against my hand as I leaned against it and gazed at the houses lining Seminary Road. Just looking at them, quiet and scenic under the late September sky, you would never have known that the Outbreak had ever occurred. That the world had ended, and that none of the houses on this street had electricity. I reached out to a willow branch, broke off a slender twig, and threaded the soft,
vinelike wood between my fingers.

“You know, pharmaceutical companies used to get salicylic acid from this stuff,” I said, half turning to Steve and holding up the twig. “Used it to make acne medicine.”

He continued to stare at me, his yellow eyes waiting for an answer. I dropped the stick and looked back out at the road.

“I have a few conditions.”

Steve left the bench, walked over, and stopped a few feet to my right. “Okay.”

“First, if there really are innocent people involved, we need to do everything we can to save them.”

The Green Beret nodded. “My thinking exactly.”

“And the Legion is fucking done. No taking prisoners, no options for reform, no reparations, and no fucking apologies. We wipe the bastards out. Root and branch.”

Steve frowned and made an impatient gesture with one hand. “When do you get to the part where you tell me something I wasn’t already going to suggest to General Jacobs?”

“If anything happens to me …” I clenched my teeth for the space of a second, then turned to Steve and put a hand on his shoulder, leaning close. “Allison will need someone to look after her. You keep her safe, you hear me?”

His eyes were steady, hiding nothing. “I can do that.”

I watched him for a moment, gauging his sincerity. He didn’t budge. Satisfied, I stepped away.

“And help Gabe get to Colorado, for Christ’s sake. If you can get a Chinook and all those guns and shit all the way out here, then you can get one man to Colorado Springs.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Good.” I walked back to the bench and sat down again. Steve followed and sat next to me.

“So how are we going to do this?”

Steve laid out a plan. It took him the better part of an hour to do it, and I had to stop him about halfway through because I had to take a piss. My watch—a windup piece that had survived the end of the world with me—told me that it was just after two in the afternoon when he finished. My stomach came back to life and told me that I needed to find something to put in it, pronto.

“Do you think you have a handle on all of this?” Steve asked, getting up from the bench.

I nodded. “For the most part, yeah. We’ll have to go over it all again before I leave.”

“You’ll have time.” 

“Okay.”

Steve looked at his watch. “I’m going to go find the general and see what resources we can scrounge up, and get on the radio back to Central Command. We’re going to need their help with this.”

I nodded silently, staring at the space between my knees and trying to stem the growing tsunami of anxiety that threatened to clench my bowels in its grip.

“I’ll come by and see you this afternoon, or maybe tomorrow, depending on how things go. Try to be at home as much as you can, okay?”

I nodded again. Steve watched me wordlessly for another moment, then turned and strode away, leaving me alone on the bench. When he was out of sight, I stood up, shoved my hands in my pockets, and started walking down the road toward home.

General Jacobs was in a grim mood.

He had requisitioned the administrative office in the VFW hall, and sat behind the desk in a comfortable looking leather chair, the kind with little brass studs running along the outer seam. A cup of instant coffee sat on the desk in front of him, half-empty and forgotten. He pressed a button to turn off his hand-held voice recorder, leaned back in his chair, and stared at me.