Z 2135 (9 page)

Ana woke up so slowly that she thought she might already have turned. Though she had never been a zombie, Ana wouldn’t have been surprised to find that this was what it felt like inside their minds: soupy, no up or down or left or right. Ugly. Inner torment blossoming.

Searing pain reminded Ana of her arm, but she didn’t want to open her eyes because she thought that would make her burning lids hotter, and didn’t want to look at her arm because she could already picture it in her head: black, cracked and blistered, festering as her body readied for its inevitable change.

Ana inhaled, trying to absorb her surroundings. She sensed Liam … and something else. Something below.

The realization shocked Ana fully awake.

She and Liam weren’t alone, nor facing a single interloper. There were many of them, likely members of one of The Bands that swarmed The Barrens, robbing and raping and leaving their every encounter for dead. Bandits were no less lethal than zombies, but were far smarter, organized, and harder to counter. There were at least 12 that Ana could see. Her cold shakes said there were more.

Ana turned to Liam. His jaw was set, eyes were fixed on her. He was already awake, and aware of the danger.

She wanted to ask Liam how long the bandits had been down there, if they had said anything, and what Liam thought they should do. But before she could say a word, the closest bandit—a sunken eyed man with a gleaming skull—took a step toward the tree and crossed his giant arms across his chest, as if to prove he needed no weapon. He licked his lips like the monster she knew him to be and laughed.

“Well, well, looky what we have here.”

Liam looked over at Ana, and he felt helpless
as the bandits circled the tree’s base below.

He could see the surprise dilating her
eyes, waking slowly blinking into the raw shock of an inescapable threat. He
had said nothing, not wanting to startle Ana awake. He knew she would wake on
her own, and he could see she was already calculating, her mind dancing between
the disaster below and the one on her wrist.

At the front of the pack, the leader—a
large man with a monster’s sneer—licked his lips and laughed. “Well, well,
looky what we have here.”

Liam turned from Ana to the bandit,
peering down over his branch and locked eyes with the man as he narrowed his
squint. Liam said, “If you wanted us dead, we’d be dead already. So what do you
want?”

The leader laughed, then turned to his
men and encouraged their chorus. Guffaws and cackles
quickly multiplied, rolling a shaking terror across an otherwise quiet dawn.

“Loaded my gun last night before closing
my eyes,” Liam promised. “That’s 14 shots, and I’m an ace whenever I pull the
trigger.”

The leader spoke, his voice a bag of
rocks, “You’d be lucky to squeeze two before we blast you from the tree.”

“I only need one.” Liam winked at the
leader, his gun drawn and aimed at the killer’s head. The leader smiled,
looking satisfied, as if tearing the meat of fresh challenge from its bone. He
stepped toward the tree, smiling, baiting the skinny man stuck up in a tree
with his shooter.

And now Liam wasn’t sure what to do. He
was only good for whatever he had in his bag: weapons, supplies and nothing
more. The bag held a few of Duncan’s homemade surprises, but the bandits
couldn’t possibly know their value or their threat, or they would have already
shot Liam from the tree. Besides, there was no way to use what was in the
bag—if he so much as inched toward the zipper, one of the barrels aimed at his
head would surely start spitting.

Unlike Liam, Ana was safe … at least
from death, and only for a while. But Liam had heard the stories of what
bandits did to women they captured.

Once down from the tree, she likely would
be forced to travel with the bandits as a sex slave until she was too used up
to drag anymore, at which point they’d leave her for dead. Of course, Ana might
not even have that chance. The moment someone in The Band noticed her
wrist—which they couldn’t see from where they were standing below—they’d likely
shoot her where she stood, not wanting to chance having in their midst
something they couldn’t control.

Liam had feared this exact scenario while
slowly falling asleep the night before, feeling Ana’s fevered heat as she lay
on the branch beside him. He pictured them surrounded, as they were, and had
designed several scenarios for such an attack. In Liam’s prearticulated
sequence, Ana was shielded. Her branch made for flimsy cover, but she sunk
behind it enough to bar any clear shots. Logic said that would buy Liam a few
seconds to clamber up a branch, where a billow of smaller branches and fat
leaves waited to veil him, and lend the advantage of a superior shot. Liam
was
an
ace shot, and just as he’d said, he had 14 bullets in the gun, which was handed
down from his grandfather, and another 14 in the gun in the back holster that
was hidden beneath his black vest—enough to even the odds against any Band.

Any Band but this one.

This Band was the largest Liam had ever
seen or even heard about. They usually traveled in packs of a dozen or so, but
this one had at least twice that number, and that was just the members Liam could
see. Not that it mattered—he hadn’t moved his eyes from the leader long enough
to count. Judging from their grimy clothes, unkempt appearances, ugly looks,
and many weapons, this band was full of broken men looking only to inflict
their pain on the world. He could kill a few of them, but that would only begin
the nightmare for Ana.

There was only one thing left to do …

“She’s hurt bad,” Liam said, nodding
toward Ana. “Real bad. Was bit by a
zombie just yesterday. We were traveling with another group of eight,
but we were exiled after April was bit. We can’t go back. She’s no use to you;
neither am I. Let us be, and we’ll go on our way. No trouble, Sir.”

The closest man, still looking up at Liam
and smirking, said, “No one just ‘goes on their way.’” After a pause, though,
he added, “Where’s she bit?”

“On her wrist, Sir.”

“How bad is it?”

“Like I said, it’s bad. Real bad. I expect she’ll probably turn by afternoon. She’s
my girl’s kid sister, so I’d planned on staying with her until the end, then
use one of my 14 bullets—that’s all the eight of ’em left us with. We lost my
girl, Ashley, during the skirmish, after falling into a horde outside The
Outback. Ashley’s the one who bit April.” Liam nodded toward Ana again. “If we
hadn’t lost Ashley, she would’ve fought for us to stay, I’m sure, and they
probably would’ve listened on account of the group’s leader being Ashley’s
brother, but as soon as she turned—right after she bit April on the wrist—I had
to shoot her in the head, because that’s what I always promised Ashley I would
do.”

“I didn’t ask for your damned life story.
I asked—”

“Sorry, Sir, I just don’t know how to
stop talking once I start, especially when I’m nervous, and you’ve got to
understand, we climbed up here last night to stay safe from the zombies. I sure
didn’t expect to wake up and see folks like you aiming guns! I get it, we all
need to survive out here, and to stick with our own, you don’t know us and
you’ve got no reason …” he paused, then leaned
even further over his branch and lowered his voice. “What I’m trying to say,
Sir, is that if you can see to letting me go, I’ll make sure she doesn’t give
you any trouble.”

The killer grunted, “No deal. You’re as
dead as she is.”

“I’ll give you my gun, my bag—no bullets,
but they left us with plenty of food—and April. All I’m asking is that you take
her instead of me and let me go on my way.”

Ana, eyes wide, whispered, “What the hell
are you doing?”

Liam winked at Ana, then reached over and
grabbed his bag, resisting the urge to tear it open,
shove his hand inside, and throw anything from a sonic nug to a zombie
pineapple down at The Band (he’d been ignoring the nug in his back pocket,
knowing he only had one shot). He slung the pack over his shoulder, made a show
of thrusting the gun into his waistband, then climbed
down the tree with his back to who-knew-how-many-guns before dropping to the
dirt, not too far from the killer’s feet.

 Liam
walked straight up to the leader.

“Please,” Liam said, begging. “Just let
me go. Like I said, I can help. Make sure
she
isn’t a problem.”

“And how are you going to do that?” the
killer asked, interest—or maybe curiosity—creeping onto his face.

“Same way I always do.” Liam smiled, then
turned to the tree and yelled, “April!” Nothing for a painful half minute, then
Ana peered over her branch and stared down, bug-eyed.

“April, sweetie?”

Ana said, “Yes,” but her
yes
sounded
like old syrup, slow from the bottle.

Liam said to the leader, “She’s slow. Makes for dull conversation, but she’s great to have around.
She’ll do
anything
, and never tell no one.
We did stuff all the time and April never said nothing
to Ashley, not once for the two years we were doing it. Sometimes you’ve got to
give her something extra, like some of your rations, but if you can find a
pretty rock—there’s plenty out in these parts—she’ll take that. But it’s not
like you’ll be needing to keep secrets from her
sister, so you should be fine. Your real trouble will come if she gets spooked,
and that happens easy. April’s a party, but not if she’s scared. If she gets
the terrors, well then, she bites and screams and scratches. She’s all animal,
and not in a good way. I’d tell you this anyway because I don’t wanna die, but
that don’t make it not the truth: shoot me and you’ll ruin her for good. But,”
Liam lowered his voice to a conspirator’s volume and leaned toward the killer,
“if I call her down and introduce you, I’m sure April will play nice. I think
that’s a fair trade, and you seem sharp enough to agree.”

The bandit was looking at Liam,
assessing.

 “Gimme
the gun, and the bag,” the bandit leader commanded.

Liam thought about resisting, but didn’t
dare. Not yet. He retrieved the gun from the front of his waistband and handed
it over, grip first, keeping his eyes on the man. He then pulled the bag,
slowly, from his shoulder and dropped it to the dirt.

 The
leader grabbed the bag and handed it, along with Liam’s gun, to one of his
fellow bandits, who took them, but resisted the urge to root through the bag
just yet.

Liam kept talking, “Of course, she does
have that shit on her wrist. I feel terrible telling you this, but just last
night while I was trying to fall asleep I was thinking maybe I’d just cut it
off come morning, seeing as how that would probably keep the infection away longer.
I know it can’t kill it, but I was only looking to buy time, not wanting to be
alone any longer than necessary.”

The killer opened his mouth, but before
he could speak Liam turned to the tree. “April, sweetie.
Get on down here. We have some new friends!”

Ana silently climbed down from the tree,
slow and labored, nursing her wrist. Once her feet hit the grass, she turned
from the tree and hobbled over to Liam. She stood by his side, slouched,
looking up at the killer.

“He’s a friend,” Liam said, pointing to
the killer who most certainly was not. “Good guy.”

The killer looked baffled, as did every
bandit Liam could catch from the corners of his eyes. He’d been surveying the
situation ever since he came down from the tree, stealing glances past the bandits
out to the tree line that he hoped might save his life. He wondered if he would
be fast enough to pull off the impossible. Failure meant death, but there
wasn’t really a choice.

Liam stepped back from the killer as the
disgusting man’s eyes raked Ana’s body, licking his lips, looking her over like
she was meat on the grill. “Ooh, could we have some fun with this one.”

“You a virgin?” he asked, reaching out
and touching Ana’s breasts through her shirt.

She flinched, and the man laughed as he
withdrew his hand.

“Ah, yes, she is,” he turned to his men,
“Oh, yeah, we’re gonna have a good time today!”

Liam wanted to cleave the fucker’s head
from his neck, but knew if he did, they’d both be dead.

The bandits were all staring at Ana and
their leader, some of them rubbing their cocks through their pants. Though Liam
was disgusted, he was also grateful, as none of them were paying particular
attention to him. He slipped his hand to his back, hungry to reach for his
second gun—also with 14 bullets—but passed it in favor of the nug in his back
pocket that
might
keep them living.

Liam drew the sonic nug from his back
pocket, quickly saying a silent “thank you” to Duncan for giving him two before
the bridge mission, and to himself for thinking to keep one of the pair in his
pocket just in case. Even as he did, he flipped the nug’s dial and hurled it
into the sky. Liam had his gun drawn before the nug screamed.

A shrieking whistle split the air. Liam
was expecting the sound—Ana too, once she saw the nug go flying—but neither
were protected, and the scream still hurt like the world had exploded inside of
Liam’s head. At least they had a chance to brace for it. The bandits had no
such warning, and lost weapons as they clapped hands over their ears. The
leader, with ears the size of melons, and probably canals to match, fell to his
knees with a bellow.

Liam dove to the ground, landing on his
back and aiming his gun straight at the killer. He squeezed out three shots,
all to the face.

Duncan’s sonic nugs were perfect for causing
distraction, and even better for holding it by jamming
every energy weapon in range—just one of the reasons Liam preferred his old
lead shooters. The nug’s third and final benefit—and curse, but one he was
counting on right now—was that it brought every zombie in earshot racing toward
the fray.

Liam emptied his remaining 11 bullets
into the closest bandits as the nug spun in the air, shrieking and dousing the
area in multicolored smoke. He shoved the gun back into his waistband, and
looked over at his second gun and bag, both lying by the fallen leader. He
longed for them both, but longed for Ana more. Liam reached out, grabbed her by
the wrist, then ran away from the confusion and toward
the forest.

Zombies spilled from the woods, first
three, then what had to be thirty, all moving fast. Liam ran like an animal
through an open cage door, dragging Ana behind him, sprinting straight for the
zombies as guns unjammed and shots erupted behind them.

Liam couldn’t see, but could picture the
melee—The Band trying to recover from the sudden loss of their leader and too
many men, by a maniac dragging his girlfriend’s slow sister into a wall of
zombies. He didn’t dwell on it too long.

They tore into the forest, past zombies
too busy racing toward the wailing’s source, calling them to it like mother to
child.