Chapter Sixteen
“An interesting development. Though the 15th generation of the HBRS trials have propelled our research into a new frontier, subjects are still incapable of producing ATP, or reconnecting synapses on their own. Perhaps both could be gained from an external source?”
–Dr Ava Sherman. Manchester, New Hampshire, 6 Months Before.
* * *
“It’s good to see you, Nelly.”
“Wish I could say the same,” she said between stuttered frames. “We can’t get video here.”
Liam sighed. “Well, I can see you, so I suppose that’ll have to do for now, yeah? I’ll be sure to let Carlos know later that his feed is trash.”
“How’s Zambia?”
“You’d love it. Lots of history, lots of culture. Our local contact is from the Bemba tribe. He’s been teaching me a lot of material to use for the show. We’ll have to visit here again some time.”
She smiled. “I’d like that. It just feels like th–”
The feed died.
Liam groaned and gave the laptop a smack. “Come on, you bloody wanker. Bring her back!” He whacked it again.
One condition. That’s all I’d asked. Was that so hard? Liam hadn’t agreed to fly internationally until the producers had promised that he’d be able to speak to his family both directly before and after the show was filmed. This was the first real episode of Survive In Wild after the pilot had knocked its ratings expectations out of the park, and they could afford to bring him out here. Leave it to television producers to give him assurances when they lacked the right.
“–ear me?” Nelly suddenly said, and the screen jumped back into focus.
Liam grinned. “Hah! Yes, I’m here, Nelly! Can you hear me?”
“Yes, Liam. I can hear you.”
“I’m sorry, love, but I missed a good chunk of that.”
She sighed. “When are you coming home?”
“Just five days to complete the episode, and then the flight back. Less than a week.”
“I don’t just mean this episode, honey. How many more of these are they going to make you do?”
Liam grimaced. “It’s a bit tough to say.”
Her eyes narrowed on the screen, and for a moment, he swore she had made eye contact, even with her own service down. “You’re lying, Liam. How many episodes are they going to make you do?”
He paused. The truth was going to hurt, and he’d done well to shield her from it until now, but there was no way to keep the charade going anymore.
“Nineteen episodes total,” he said. “Spread over the next eight months. Won’t be home for more than a few days at a time.”
She frowned. “Liam…”
He leaned in. “It’s not all bad news, yeah? If this thing takes off like they’re saying, we’re going to be looking at real money. The kind that’ll let me retire at thirty.”
“Lilith needs you now. She needs to see her father.”
“Well I can’t do anything for her on thirty grand a year, now can I!?”
Nelly opened her mouth to speak, but the words grew jumbled, and the screen locked again.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Liam roared before giving the laptop a shake.
Why couldn’t Nelly just throw him a bone on this one? If anything, he’d be able to see her more often now, what with no longer needing to hitchhike into the middle of nowhere to get that perfect panoramic shot. It wasn’t on him that they were forced into the complexities of civilization. If only Liam had had his way, they’d still be perfectly happy in Alaska!
The worst part was the expression on Nelly’s face, locked on the screen where it had cut out. Her blue eyes were soft and sad, and the light had been extinguished. It wasn’t the sorrow that bothered him half as much as the resignation, as though she didn’t believe a word he said. Liam was only trying his bloody best!
“–to go,” Nelly said, her face still locked in place.
“I’m here, I’m here!” Liam shouted.
She paused. “I can hear you.”
“Look, Nelly. I’m sorry that this is a bit shit. I’m sorry that I can’t be there right now. I’m sorry that this is going to take more time than I thought. I promise to do everything in my power to make it up to you both.”
The video feed snapped back to the present, and Nelly looked more defeated than angry. “Okay. You do you.”
He tapped his hands on the keyboard’s rim, feeling the tension brewing thousands of miles away. “We’re still good, right?”
Again, she looked directly into the screen. “We are if you’ll just be honest. Tell me that you aren’t doing this because you’d rather be out there than here.”
There it was. The truth evoked. Liam paused, with no words to share out loud. I’d rather you be here with me.
He gave the screen a shake. “Gah! You’re cutting out again, Nelly. Bugger this. We’ll try again later.” He disconnected the call.
Liam didn’t want to go back to California. He hated the city. He hated the noise. He hated the smell of asphalt and gasoline and smog. This was where he belonged, out in the wilds surviving against all it had to offer.
But in doing so, he’d sacrificed the only other thing he truly loved. Nelly would never agree to leave with him. Not while Lilith still needed care. Liam loved his daughter, of course he did. But she was tethered to the very place he wanted to leave, and there was no feasible way to bring her with him. And with Nelly trapped behind too, what was a man to do, but try his best to live in both worlds?
He’d find a way to make this work.
* * *
There it was. The sign he’d been looking for. The resolution that Liam craved.
‘Ponderosa’ it read, ‘Pop 64 – Elev 7200.’ The place where his family had fled.
The green paint was faded and the metal rusted where it had collapsed into a nearby tree, but there was no denying the words. He peered down the street and could just make out the shape of buildings through the pines.
“Told you this was the right road,” Liam said. Thank goodness he’d talked them into taking this fork after they’d cleared Bakersfield.
Leah furrowed her brow. “Stay close.” She turned to the others. “Hand signals from here on out. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
The group split off into the forest, using a thicket of pines to mask their approach, their rifles drawn. Liam would never understand how they managed to carry so many. Kurt seemed to have half a dozen in his rucksack at any given time, and that wasn’t counting the gear his allies had for themselves.
Liam wiped the sweat from his brow. Exhaustion had been hitting him harder the past few days. There was only so much to be done about it. He’d gone from a sparse diet of dehydrated fruit and fish to fresh berries and meat in less than a week, and his body hadn’t been above sea level in over a decade. Re-acclimating himself to this environment would always have taken its toll, even without also running for his life from a group of undead killers, or following the pace of his more athletic companions.
But now that Ponderosa sat in sight, his adrenaline pumped anew, extinguishing his fatigue. His family was so close. He could feel it.
They marched into the open. His chest tightened. A single building lay ahead, a mix of redwood log cabin and contiguous shopping plaza. A general store and coffee shop could be seen, but the last sign had collapsed into the building it rested on. The windows were boarded and spikes poked from the walls, but whatever defenses that had been laid were long since neglected.
Leah flashed some signals to Kurt and Mastermind. The two split up and approached the structure from each flank, guns at the ready. A few moments later, they gave the thumbs up.
“We’re clear,” Leah said, lowering her own rifle. “Buttercup, I want eyes on that roof.”
He tapped his fedora. “You got it, boss.”
“Could be they holed up further in town?” Liam suggested.
“Could be,” she said with a tone that suggested anything but that.
They closed into the buildings, with the rezzers leading the charge. The defenses were quick to dismantle, and the floors cleared, and it wasn’t long until Liam was allowed to enter with them.
He coughed back the miasma of rot as he entered the general store. The register was cracked and dusty, the contents of the shelves were buried under a layer of cobwebs, and the redwood floor creaked with each step. A swarm of mosquitoes burst into flight, revealing a dead possum curled in a corner. At least he’d identified the source of the smell.
The rezzers tore through the shelves, throwing old cans about.
Liam kicked one of the cans aside. “Last I checked, I’m the only one that can eat anything here. Well, except for our possum friend over there.”
“Too old,” Kurt said. “It’ll have lost all nutrition by now.”
“What could you possibly be looking for then?”
“The usual,” Buttercup said. “Weapons, ammo, batteries. Not everything is about filling your stomach, Liam. Sometimes, you’ve just gotta shoot some asshole in the face.”
He shrugged. “Fair enough, mate.”
“We’ll go door-to-door,” Leah decided. “From the look of things, these people did better than most. There’s no telling what they left behind.”
Liam grimaced. It was far from a foregone conclusion, but he knew that if he said that out loud, they’d only treat him with that same condescending look.
“Let’s move,” Leah said.
The group marched deeper into the town, though that was a generous term for the place. There wasn’t much in the name of infrastructure, as this community appeared to have been based on its camping economy. Vacation homes pocketed the streets, perverted over time by decay. Their designs blended between the quaint and the luxurious, with some cabins stretching over three stories tall, while others looked little better than Liam’s old hovel in Alaska. Almost all of the windows were boarded and doors reinforced, but no matter how far they went through, there seemed to be no signs of life.
Leah froze and held up her fist. The others quieted. For a moment, all seemed clear, but then groans rolled through the trees, coming their way.
“We’ve got hollows,” she said. “Kurt, you stay near Liam. Don’t let anything get close.”
The dead marched into sight, arms raised and mouths salivating. Their clothes were disintegrated beyond recognition, and their peeled, greyish skin glinted in the sunlight. The eyes were white and empty, and their teeth clattered without thought.
Liam gulped as the monsters lumbered straight for him. This wasn’t the first time they’d come across a group of hollows, but this might have been the largest in such a tight space, with at least fifty in their ranks. How the hell were they going to deal with this?
Quickly and efficiently, as it were. Leah moved straight through the center of the mass, swinging her knife this way and that with practiced elegance. Bodies piled wherever she moved. Buttercup followed in her wake, using a sickle to lop off the heads of those she missed. Even Mastermind had no issues murdering their enemies, in spite of his tiny form. He would strike between the legs of the larger ones to throw them off balance, then drive his Bowie into the back of their skulls as they floundered on the ground. No wonder they call themselves “Hunters”. This was nothing short of a massacre, and within moments of fighting, the hollows had all been killed.
Save for one. Where all of the other buggers had wandered straight into the meat grinder, a lone hollow suddenly turned on its heels and began to shuffle away.
Leah’s eyes narrowed on the deserter. “Buttercup, you’re up!”
“On it!” In a flash, he had his Dragunov drawn and ready to go.
A pair of pings rocked the stillness of the forest, and the hollow collapsed as rounds obliterated the muscles in its knees. Buttercup jogged over and lassoed his belt around its neck. The others closed in.
He grinned. “Think we’ve got a good catch here.”
The hollow thrashed.
“No wonder they were so clustered,” Leah said. “Looks like we found the general to their army.” She leaned in. “You understand me, don’t you?”
The hollow made eye contact and fell silent.
“What’s going on?” Liam asked. He hadn’t seen any of them behave like this before. “I thought you said that hollows weren’t intelligent.”
“This one’s not a hollow. Check the eyes.”
Between the discoloration on its brow and a giant bite mark on the cheek, Liam hadn’t noticed at first, but the eyes had a dull, crimson tint. It was far from the vivid strength of his companions’ pupils, but now that he was close enough, he noticed the distinction compared to the white emptiness of the dead nearby.
“Becoming a rezzer isn’t easy,” Leah explained. “Not everyone builds a strong enough reservoir to use their language skills again, or form complex thoughts. We call the ones in the middle ‘dregs’. Not empty, but not full either. The more clever fuckers get good at rallying herds to stalk prey for them, like this guy here.”
The dreg hissed.
Leah nodded, and Kurt threw a bag over the dreg’s head. It flailed in retaliation, but trapped between the arms of a creature more than twice its size, there was little that could be done. Kurt marched it to the nearest cabin, with Buttercup walking in tow, sickle in hand.
“What are you going to do with him?” Liam dared to ask.
She watched the door. “What was it you said before? ‘What are you zombies without your brains?’”
His eyes widened. “You’re going to eat him?”
“Don’t look so surprised. The Hollowing doesn’t wait around or care about your morals. Our minds are still dying, and our brains can’t produce the grey matter we lose. We have to replace it with another source.” She pushed her scarf up an inch. “If someone who’s already half-hollowed did the work for us, then our day’s been made a hell of a lot easier.”
Liam pointed to the pile of dead hollows. “Couldn’t you at least use one of them? There’s got to be a better way.”
“Hollows haven’t developed the right types of cells. That’s what makes them hollow. Eating them would be like drinking water. No nutrients, no enzymes. Just empty space. Can’t keep a Rez full on that.”
“But this is cannibalism!”
“No, it’s survival. We aren’t in Pandemonium anymore. Out here, food is food. It doesn’t matter where it comes from, only that it works. Don’t like it, and you can wait out here.” She turned to Mastermind. “Keep an eye on him, will you?”
He grinned. “You got it, mum!”
Leah marched into the cabin to commit her monstrous deed, while Liam followed her advice of staying put. The agonizing howl of their captured dreg hit its climax before abruptly ending. Liam stared at the cabin door and felt sick.
Mastermind beamed at his side, his innocent and childlike grin undermined by the gruesome gash that poked out from his neck, and skin that was definitely more wrinkled than when they’d first met. As Liam resisted the urge to vomit, Mastermind gave him a silent thumbs up.
God, this world was a wretched place.
Liam needed a distraction. “So here’s what I don’t understand… If hollows know nothing other than hunger, then why don’t they just eat each other?”
“Tainted flesh isn’t compatible with our digestive system,” Mastermind explained. “While a brimming brain can be consumed to great benefit, the same cannot be said for our corrupted vessels. Hollowed meat tastes like ash and gets absorbed like dirt.”
“I guess that begs another question then. Why do hollows try to eat you if there’s no point?”
“They operate on instinct.” He ran a thumb along his chin. “Think of them as if they were sharks. When a shark sees a pair of feet dangling above, they know not that the swimmer attached will be an ill-suited additive to their culinary pallet. They bite because they mistake the swimmer for their true prey. Hollows are much the same. If we walk, talk, and behave like a living human, they conclude that we must be one, and therefore regard us as such.”
Liam nodded. “And a shark can do a lot of damage before they figure out that you’re not another fish.”
“A perfect deduction. Most of our kind avoid the wilds for this very reason. You’re like to get added to a hollow’s cuisine if you’re not exercising extraordinary caution.” He tapped his skull and winked. “And if a single bite lands here, your time has expired. They will taste the rejuvenated glial cells and enter a frenzy.”
“Must be hard for a child your age,” Liam said.
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I mean, how old are you? Eight?”
“I’ll have you know, you vitalized vagabond, that I am ten and a half years old! That’s like twenty years in human time, and if you factor in my pre-hollow age, that puts me at well over thirty. That used to be old enough to die for one’s nation and father children.” He raised a fist. “And you dare question my expertise? I shall have you flayed!”
Liam couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Here he was, waylaid in an abandoned town in the middle of nowhere while a group of zombies cannibalized one of their own just a stone’s throw away, and his only source of conversation was an undead child who acted like a Victorian-era aristocrat. Would things ever go back to as they were?
It has to. “I’m going to find where Nelly went,” Liam said. “Would you do me a kindness and keep a lookout?”
Mastermind grinned. “Oh, now you wish to enlist my help?”
He sighed. “You got me, mate. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have questioned your capabilities. You are an excellent Hunter. Now do me this solid, yeah?”
“Of course, Liam. I would never dream of leaving you to die unprotected. That would be an obscene dereliction of my duties!”
He’s really loving this one. “Thank you.”
The pair made their way further down the road. No more hollows bothered them, which Liam could be thankful for. It wasn’t long before they found the address, isolated at the end of an alley, and overlooking a nearby lake.
His heart sank at the sight. The walls had been painted red, now maroon after years of decay. A large landing circumscribed the walls, fortified with sharpened pikes like the rest of the town. But the traps had been broken down, and by the level of deterioration, it had happened a long time ago.
Liam took a step forth, but felt a tug on his leg.
“Do not jeopardize your safety unprovoked,” Mastermind said. “I shall scout these quarters for you.” He wandered ahead before any protest could be made.
Hope was still a possibility. Maybe they had built some kind of shelter below, and chose to lay low while the group searched their home above? It wouldn’t be the worst idea. If they could keep out of sight, they would avoid becoming targets, whether by hollows or dregs or rezzers or even other humans. Hiding would be the most intelligent way to protect themselves, and there was no better defense than pretending they weren’t there at all.
Liam buried his face in his hands. Oh, who are you trying to fool? This place was as abandoned as everywhere else. Whomever had been here had left ages ago, and there was nothing more that could be done about. No trail to follow, nor any thread to grasp.
His family was gone.
“Where’s Mastermind?” Leah asked.
Liam wiped the tears away. “Inside. Don’t worry, he’s only been gone a minute.”
She studied the abandoned cabin. “So this is the place, huh?”
“Yes. Guess you were right on this one.”
“Wish I hadn’t been,” she said, almost believably.
“Spare me, Leah. You’ve been chomping at the bit to say this was a waste of time. Might as well do it now, yeah?”
She paused, her lilac eyes focused onto his. Whatever else was going through her mind had been masked behind the scarf she never removed, an indelible wall between her thoughts and the world outside.
“Look,” she started. “I’m s–”
“Oy, Liam!” Mastermind shouted. “I’ve found something!”
He looked up. “Yeah? What is it?”
“You’d best come and see for yourself!”
Liam lurched to his feet and bolted inside, his chest thumping. His mind raced. Was he about to find her body? Had Nelly never come here? Did Mastermind find a shelter below, after all? A thousand questions clambered at once, each trying to find a foothold before being ousted by another.
Liam froze, and his eyes widened. Another note had been nailed onto a post by the stairs.
“Our luck is quite unique,” Mastermind said. “One would assume this would have dissolved by now, given the time. But, fate appears to be on your side yet again. It almost looks as though it was written recently.”
Liam gripped the crinkled paper in his hands, still legible in spite of everything else.
‘Dear, Liam,’ it said. ‘I hope you’re still out there. I’m sorry, but we waited as long as we could. We really did. You won’t find us here when you come, however. Food is running out and this community is falling apart, just like everywhere else. We can’t stay.
‘There’s talk of the government setting up a camp in Aspen. This one’s supposed to be better than the others. I know it’s far and I know it will be dangerous, but I have to do what’s best for Lilith. She’ll die if we stay. Please don’t stop coming for us. We can’t do this without you.
‘I love you.’
Liam crumpled the note in his hand, his eyes blurring. To hear Nelly’s voice again in his head was too much. She was so close, and yet so impossibly far. He couldn’t see straight. His thoughts were jumbling together, and the strength had rushed out of his limbs.
Then Liam fell to the floor and his mind went blank.
