The Passenger (Surviving the Dead) (14 page)

For a fraction of a second, the person he used to be took over. Just for
a flash of time, he saw her for what she was: a victim. Pity came along for the ride, an emotion so dusty and unfamiliar he couldn't reconcile it with the furious hatred driving him. Then the random firing of long unused synapses ended, and Gideon leaned in once more.

“I'd like to say I w
on’t ask you again,” he said, grinning. “But the truth is, we've got some time before my friends show up, and I'm having fun. So please, feel free to stay quiet.”

“No!” the woman shrieked, her breath fanning out his lank hair. “North. Go north about five miles. You'll come to a little fort off the highway. A town a few miles northeast of here uses it as a trade depot. Watch long enough, you'll be able to follow them back home.”

A tear rolled down her cheek at the admission. Gideon darted in and flicked his tongue across the droplet.

“Thank you,” he said with genuine warmth. “You runners and your little camp sites. All of you share them, keep them in good shape. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Even animals are smart enough to look for prey at the watering hole.”

Gideon put the tip of the knife against her chest at an angle. Slowly, so slowly, he pushed until the blade slid between the ribs, its back scraping against the sternum. The woman screamed, tried to get away, but he had practice at this.

He stopped the blade when he felt resistance.

“The point is sitting against your heart,” he said casually. “An ounce of pressure and you'll be gone in a minute. During that time, you should think about how stupid animals are. Always going back to their safe little places no matter how often the wolves attack them there.”

With her last ounce of strength, the woman followed the example set by the murdered teenagers and spit in Gideon's face.

“They all do that,” he said, and pushed.

*****

Hours after the swarm cleaned the flesh from the bones of his victims, Gideon found himself cleaning the blood from his knife again. The small town was right where it was supposed to be. There was even a group packing up from a trade when he got there. An older man and two young women. Gideon repeated his trick, now getting stale and not as much fun.

The older of the two girls gave him detailed information about the nearby community. More a city, from what she'd told him. Hundreds of people, a huge wall, but no interior defenses. A fortress on the outside but soft in the middle. A perfect target.

“Steel City,” Gideon muttered, pushing greasy locks off his face. His hand came back red. The last few minutes with the girl had gotten ... intense.

He said the name again, rolling it around on his tongue. Only now that his blood began to calm, and what passed for rationality began to reassert itself, did he wonder why the place was called that. He glanced down at the rapidly cooling corpse on the ground and felt a small pang of regret. Not at the murder—that was as close as he came to pleasure nowadays—but that he hadn't asked her to explain.

It nagged at him, but the monster inside took over. That was how he saw it, at least. In a dark corner of his mind rarely exposed to light and certainly never visited, Gideon knew the truth. Whatever destruction had befallen his brain, it had only distorted and magnified what was already there.

The monster was him, a version of him freed from the shackles of his already shaky conscience by severe neurological trauma. Had Gideon the bravery to admit it, he might have managed enough control to end his life without more mayhem.

But a lifetime of being a bully, of lying to himself, of fantasizing about all the ways he could avenge perceived slights, had created conditions perfect for a monster to grow. Gideon could be relied on to protect Gideon, after all.

Even from himself.

SEVENTEEN

At 0700 hours, Cole grabbed Ethan by the toes of his right foot and shook vigorously. Ethan came up swinging, as he always did, but this time he didn’t hit anyone. Cole had already backed off a few steps, remembering very well the last time he’d stood too close to his friend after waking him up. Ethan came back to himself, eyes clearing, and cursed.

“I gotta stop doing
that. I’m gonna hurt somebody one of these days.”

“S’cool, man.” Cole smile
d. “No hard feelings. Happens all the time.”

“Not to you.”

Cole shrugged, his smile fading. “Looks like the survivors came back.”

Ethan climbed out of his bedroll, got to his feet, and looked where Cole was pointing.
Zeb and his men were approaching, followed by a group of armed, hard-faced children and two adults, also armed and grim-looking. Most of the children were tweens and teenagers, but there were a few toddlers as well, the smallest of them being carried by older children.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Hey man, at least they’re still alive.”

“What’s going on?”

Ethan looked over his shoulder and saw Holland struggling out of his tent.

“Zeb’s on his way. The survivors are with him.”

“The kids?”

“Yep.”

Holland groaned and sank back down into his sleeping bag. “Wake me up when it’s time to move out.”

Ethan ran a hand over his face while
Cole chuckled beside him. “Isaac, get these guys up and moving, please. I’m going to go have a word with the good sheriff.”

“Cool.”

After slipping on his boots, Ethan rinsed his mouth out with water from his canteen, spit it over the edge of the roof, and climbed down the ladder. He knew he must look a sight with his red-rimmed eyes and short, scruffy beard. But right then, he just didn’t give a shit.

When he reached the bottom of the ladder,
Zeb spoke up first, waving a hand at the two adults accompanying the children. “Sergeant Thompson, this is Alicia Meyer and Omar Terrell. They were guarding the children last night when the swarm hit.”

Ethan raised a hand in acknowledgment, nodding once
. Now that they were closer, he could see the survivors’ exhaustion as clear as day. They wavered on their feet, unsteady with dehydration and hunger, none of them looking as though they had slept a wink in the last twenty-four hours. The adults had the haunted, gaunt-faced look of having suffered severe mental trauma: the thousand-yard stare. Ethan had seen it many times, both on other people and looking back at him in the mirror, but the sight of it never stopped twisting in his chest.

When he shifted his gaze to the children
, he saw a mixture of anger and fear tightly hidden under an ingrained watchfulness. Their eyes darted left, right, up, down, the same conical pattern used by soldiers to scan large environments for signs of hostiles. Each of them clutched a weapon, ranging from small-caliber firearms to bows-and-arrows, and even a few handmade crossbows. Some of the older children had simple melee weapons such as woodcutting axes, machetes, or crowbars strung across their backs. All in all, they looked like a formidable little fighting force. And again, looking at their dirty, angel faces, Ethan had to try very hard not to cry.

“Do any of you need medical attention?” he asked
, clearing his throat.

The woman, Alicia, glanced at him skeptically. “You a doctor?”

“No. I’m a medic. Used to be an EMT back before the Outbreak.”

Her skepticism faded, and
she went back to just looking tired. “Thanks for the offer, but we’re fine. Nothing a little food, water, and rest won’t fix. I’m more concerned about the immediate future.” She inclined her head slightly toward the children behind her.

It occurred to Ethan that on their walk from the m
ain gate, the children must have undoubtedly seen the carpet of dead bodies littering the streets. Most of the corpses belonged to the horde that destroyed Broken Bridge, but at least a few of them were neighbors or relatives. Parents even. Although it was tragic, he was glad his team had put down most of the reanimated townsfolk outside the gate where the children couldn’t see them.
Small mercies.

“I understand there are emergency supply caches here, correct?” Ethan asked.

“Yes, but that’s not what I’m worried about. This town isn’t safe anymore, not without the gate intact or…”

Or the other two-hundred people who used to live here.
“Is there a fallback point or an emergency shelter you can use for the time being?”

“The roof of the main barracks is the safest spot in town. We could shelter there for a few days, but we won’t be able to stay for long.
As soon as word gets out about what happened here, every raider for miles is going to come running. There’s still a lot of weapons, ammo, and food stashed around here. It’ll be a free-for-all. We don’t want to be here when that happens.”

Ethan nodded. “Maybe I can help with that. Give me a few minutes, I’ll be right back.”

Back on the roof, he powered up his radio and hailed FOB Harkin. The same bored private answered, but didn’t give him any grief this time before fetching Colonel Lanning.

“Sergeant Thompson, what can I do for you?”

“Broken Bridge has been overrun sir.”

There was a long silence. “What happened?”

Ethan related the events of the previous day: finding Alan dying on a rooftop, exploring the ruined town, and the plight of the few survivors. He also explained about the madman leading the horde around, and his theory that Broken Bridge’s fate had been the same to befall the other towns that had gone dark. When he finished, he had to wait a long time for Lanning to respond.

“That’s a hell of a mess you got there, Sergeant,” he said, finally.

“Yes sir, it is. My immediate concern is for the survivors. Most of them are children. I know our resources are stretched thin, but we can’t just leave them here.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. As it happens
, we have some extra air assets on hand, as well as two companies from the 82
nd
Airborne. They’re here en route to Fort Bragg, just got done handling some unpleasant business up in Kentucky. I can have two Chinooks on their way to you within the hour. How many men do you need?”

Ethan thought about it for a moment.
In addition to escorting these people to safety, he wanted to move their supplies and equipment along with them. The two Chinooks could handle that, but it would take a long time and require a lot of hard work. He said as much to Colonel Lanning.

“Is Broken Bridge still viable?” Lanning asked.

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Are the defenses still intact? Can people still live there?”

“For the most part, yes. The problem is the main gate; it’s completely destroyed. That, and all the dead bodies.”

“Not a problem. I can have a Facilitator and a construction crew there within forty-eight hours. Best case, they’ll have that gate good as new in no time, and at worst, they’ll just wall it up until we can send a team of engineers. Central has been
looking for a place to put an FOB out that way for months now. If those folks are agreeable, we might have just found our site.”

Ethan was surprised;
he hadn’t expected to get that much help. But he couldn’t deny it was a good idea. “I’ll ask them, sir. Something tells me they won’t turn you down.”

“I’ll be here.”

After a quick conversation with Alicia, he got the authorization he needed. The relief on Alicia’s face made Ethan’s chest hurt. He relayed the information to Lanning.

“Excellent,” the Colonel said. “I’ll get the Chinooks in the air ASAP with as many men as they can carry. They’ll be under orders to get to work straightaway cleaning out the dead and repairing the main gate. I’ll radio Central and let them know what’s going on. You need me to contact Lieutenant Jonas and fill him in for you, Sergeant?”

“That would be helpful sir. One thing though, I can’t hang around to wait for reinforcements.”

“Why not?”

“The horde that destroyed this place is on the move, sir. The man leading it is still out there, and I have reason to believe he may try to do something like this again.”

Another silence. “That’s a good point. What do you want to do about it?”

Ethan relaxed a little. He’d half expected Lanning to order him to return to his unit, and dispatch an attack helicopter to find the horde and disperse it. Which honestly wasn’t a bad idea, but the more pressing matter was finding the man responsible for destroying Broken Bridge. The twice-dead corpses outside the gate had once been good people, and they deserved justice. Their children deserved justice. Ethan planned to make sure they got it.

“That horde isn’
t getting any closer,” he said. “We need to go after it and find out where it’s headed. If we find the horde, we can find the person responsible for what happened here.”

“You need air support?”

“Not yet. If our man spots a helicopter, he might get spooked and go to ground. If that happens, we’ll never find him. For now, it’s best if he doesn’t know we’re on to him.”

“Makes sense to me.
What about the survivors? Is someone in charge there?”

“Yes sir, a woman. H
er name is Alicia Meyer. Average height, medium build, Caucasian, late thirties to early forties, dark hair. She and one other adult are looking after the children.”

“Very well, I’ll pass along the description. I assume you’ll be moving out after the horde.”

“Yes sir. Just as soon as I’m off the line with you.”

“All right then, Sergeant. Watch your ass out there. Get your men back in one piece.”

“I
’ll do my best, sir. Talk to you soon.”

*****

Alicia waited with Zeb while Ethan and his men removed the corpses from the main barracks, swept aside the severed body parts, and washed Alan’s blood and brains off the roof. They knew the children had probably seen their share of gruesome things, but still, the soldiers wanted to spare them as much horror as they could, even if only to make themselves feel better about leaving them behind.

Once the survivors had settled in on the roof, Ethan gave Alicia a smoke flare. “The helicopters will be coming in from the northeast,” he said. “When they get close, pop this flare and throw it on the rooftop next door. They’ll most likely set down outside the main gate, but you want them to see your location from the s
ky. When they approach, have everyone keep their weapons out of sight. These guys just got back from a combat mission, so they’re probably jumpy. Some of them might react badly if you guys show up armed.”

Alicia nodded and looked down, turning the flare over in her hands. She h
ad black circles under her eyes and congealed blood in her hair. It was all Ethan could do not to wrinkle his nose at the smell, but still he had to fight the urge to put his arms around her.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” she said. “For everything.”

The sunrise cut through her blue eyes as she looked up, translucent irises glittering like flecks of ice. Ethan forced a smile. “It’s the least I could do. Good luck, ma’am.” With that, he turned and climbed down the ladder. His men followed.

Zeb and his men rode a circle around town trying to pick up the horde’s trail. It didn’t take them very long; the swarm had flattened a massive swath of undergrowth along a
n old gravel farm road. Hedges rode back and found Ethan near the main gate.

“Looks like they’re headed north,” he said, swinging down from the saddle.

“Any towns out that way?” Ethan replied.

“There’s a couple of small camps used by runners and a trading post off the highway, but the nearest town is Steel City.”

“How far?”

“About twenty
miles. You think that’s where our man is headed?

Ethan rubbed a hand along the back of his neck and let out a sigh. “Could be. We’ll worry about that later. For now, we need to fol
low this trail and try to get ahead of him.”

Hedges nodded. “All right. I’
ll go round up the others and grab some supplies, then we’ll get going.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They followed the trail for a few miles until they came upon a set of railroad tracks running parallel to the road. Zeb asked everyone to stay put for a few minutes, then rode out to scout the way ahead. When he returned, he was urging his mount at a canter and practically jumping in his saddle.

“I know these tracks,” he said. “Used ‘em last year
to escort a caravan from Broken Bridge to Steel City. Can’t believe I forgot about it. If the horde is headed for Steel City, we can use these tracks to get ahead of it.”

“You sure?” Ethan asked.

“Yep. It’s a straight shot, all the bridges are intact, and it’ll spit us out less than a mile south of town. We can pick up the highway there, and be at the gates before sundown if we hurry.”