Chapter Nineteen
“My God, what have we done!?”
“Exactly as we intended, Director. We have allowed the human body to survive past death, perhaps indefinitely.”
–Dr Ava Sherman. Washington, DC. 42 Hours After.
* * *
“Everybody know the plan?” Peter asked.
“Still not sure about this one,” Darius said, giving his bald head a rub. “Lotta zeds between us and the drop.”
Marcela uttered a flurry of words in her native Portuguese. The shared doubt was apparent, even with the language gap.
Peter sighed. “Look, we don’t have a choice. Without that food, we’ll starve before this siege ends.” A bomb went off nearby, as if to emphasize his point.
“And if we get eaten first?” Darius asked.
“We won’t if we stick to the plan. Remember, we’ve still got our secret weapon.” He smiled and turned. “Right, Leah?”
She gulped. Though Leah would never admit it, she was terrified, and not just of the soldiers. The zeds had been trying to attack her too lately, and they were getting more vicious by the day. What if they bit off an arm this time!?
Darius frowned. “You don’t have to do this, Leah. You’re our only hope for a vaccine, remember?”
She shook her head. “No, I c-can d-do this. It’s like Peter s-s-said. We need that f-food.”
“It’s settled then,” Peter said. “Everyone get in position. If we’re planning on doing this, we gotta go now.”
The final preparations were made, and the group split apart.
Leah pulled the hood of her jacket up and went out of their hiding spot. Reno had been devastated since the military showed up, with their goal of killing everything in sight, infected as well as not. Gunshots and explosions were never far away. Leah was still learning about the world, but from what she’d been told, most cities had descended into chaos like this.
That was why she had to get out. If they were going to find scientists, then they had to get to somewhere safe. Leah was the key to ending this nightmare before it was too late. She’d turned into a zed, but didn’t stay mindless like the others. The cure was in her blood. It had to be.
She rounded the corner, and her eyes widened. There were more zeds around the airdrop than she’d expected. Dozens. Maybe hundreds! All salivating at the mouth as they wandered in place. A few glanced her way and stared vacantly, their eyes white and lifeless.
“Hey!” Darius roared from further down the block. “Over here, you fuckers! Look at me!”
Peter jeered next, and Marcela ululated louder than the two.
The zeds turned their way, moaned, and began to shuffle over. It was a good plan. Safe behind a concrete blockade the soldiers had set up, her friends could lure the zeds without risk. And with Leah’s immunity to bites and her ability to blend in among the dead, she was the best person to be on the ground.
The path opened up as the horde cleared the way. Leah shuffled to the airdrop, hissing like the other zeds. Step by step, closer and closer, she went for the prize.
Once Leah got in arm’s reach, she broke the act and tossed her duffel bag free. One armful after another, Leah threw all the canned food and meds she could reach into the bag. She had to get as much as she could for the group. They were counting on her!
Suddenly, the sky erupted in thunder, and a jet flew above. Leah traced its trajectory as it sailed from the other side of the blockade, over her head, and into the horizon. A moment later, a distant apartment complex exploded in a cloud of flame and dust before crumbling to the ground.
The howls of zeds grew louder behind.
“No!” Peter screamed. “Come back here! Over here! Not there!”
But it was too late. The zeds had been drawn by the explosion and then caught sight of Leah with a duffel bag filled with food. She tried to hiss back to throw them off, but the zeds kept coming, mouths salivated at the prize they would soon claim.
“Run, Leah!” Peter ordered.
She scrambled for the exit, but a window smashed and another zed floundered into the street, cutting her off. Desperation grew as she sought out another route, but more zeds had peeled from the main group, and all were wandering her way.
There were so many, and they were all so ravenous! Why wouldn’t they leave her alone? Leah didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t her fault that she had an immunity. The zeds should have been trying to let her go so she could help them. But their minds were empty and their souls gone, and now they would eat her too. Why was the world so evil?
“Fuck you!” Darius bellowed from a nearby alley. He drove a crowbar into a nearby zed, black blood splashing against his N95 mask and goggles. He waved Leah over, his hands wrapped in rubber gloves. “Quick, Leah! Over here!”
Her muscles didn’t work like her friends, and she could never move faster than a jog, but Leah pushed what strength she could to race to safety, dodging and ducking from the swipes of zeds.
A can slipped from the bag, and Leah instinctively reached for the treasure.
Darius yanked her behind the fence. “Leave it!” He shut the gate behind, and shoved a dumpster into its frame.
And not a moment too soon. The second the gate had been reinforced, a dozen zeds crashed into it. The dumpster moaned against the pressure, but did not give way. Darius grabbed the duffel and made a run for it, with Leah at his flank.
The pair rounded a bend, crossed an empty street, and rejoined the group, once again safe in the corner shop they had taken as a refuge.
Darius raised one of the cans in triumph. “Woo! That’s how we fucking do it in this house!”
“It w-w-worked?” Leah asked. She almost couldn’t believe it.
“All thanks to you,” Peter said. “You saved our lives, Leah.”
Marcela spoke some more Portuguese, then leaned in. Leah stiffened as she was enveloped in a hug.
Leah stayed frozen. She was still an infectious vector, and the last time someone had gotten this close, there had been two more in their group. But Marcela didn’t seem to care about the risk anymore, and only embraced her tighter.
“Santa Leah,” Marcela said, her eyes moistened as she embraced her savior.
* * *
Leah studied the ruins of Reno from atop her horse. It had been years since she’d been back here, and time appeared to have left it mostly untouched. The Nevadan desert had reclaimed some of the surrounding burbs, but downtown was still as trashed as it had always been.
The place that had birthed her was just another ravaged, ruined, crumbling wreck, like everywhere else in this hellscape of a nation.
Leah supposed that she wasn’t doing much better. After weeks in the field, her skin was starting to wrinkle and erode. If it wasn’t for the salon’s worth of product that Buttercup kept in his own backpack, she’d be looking worse than Kurt at his best.
“We’ll go on foot from here,” Leah decided.
“You sure?” Buttercup asked.
“Horses will attract hollows, which will raise our profile. There’s no way of knowing who else is lurking around.”
Liam had done well to save them time. They had shaved half a week by riding mustangs, and avoided search parties in the process. This added security was all thanks to him.
Leah had underestimated Liam. She had initially assumed that his time marooned had rendered him helpless, but he was far more capable than she would’ve guessed. His ability to read the terrain and weather rivaled most veteran Hunters, and after retraining him with firearms, his marksmanship wouldn’t be far behind, at least when it came to bolt action rifles. Apparently, he’d been using those for the better part of his life.
In a different world, Leah would have loved nothing more than to ride out on a Hunt with him. Preferably with the stakes far lower.
Kurt nodded to the horses as the rest disembarked. “What about them? We could use the meat.”
Leah ran her gloved hands across the soft mane of her pale mare. Kurt was right. They hadn’t been able to wander off in days, and food was becoming an issue again. To execute these horses and feast on their entrails would buy them more time.
And yet, as Leah stared into the dark eyes of her traveling companion, she thought of another world. One where rezzers could coexist with the natural kingdom, and not be parasites to it. One in which survival was more than a zero sum game, where the dead didn’t feel compelled to drag the living down to extend their own time. One where the Hunger wasn’t all that drove them onward. One where there was another way. A better one.
“Let them go,” Leah ordered.
Kurt grimaced. “I don’t know, boss.”
“We need to lay low anyway, and this much blood would only draw a herd.” She gave the mare a whack on the ass. It broke into a gallop, back up the mountain they had come. “Besides, they deserve it.”
The others followed suit, leaving Leah and her crew back on their own.
After so much time, Leah could no longer map the maze of the city. She had Hunted just about everywhere west of the Rockies, and had faced no shortage of close calls. Hundreds of injuries had rocked against the strength of her Rez, and now, the memories of a thousand Hunts blended together, each with a different origin and destination. To navigate such an amorphous nebula of thought would be nigh impossible for most.
Leah pulled her scarf further up the bridge of her nose. There were some moments that could never be washed away. At the foundation of her reservoir, her most defining memories could still be found, and she could use them to retrace her path. Streets bore familiarity even if erosion had transformed them. One strand led to another. Her Rez hardened, and the maze unraveled.
Soon, and she was back to the place where it had all begun.
Isolated from the rest of the shopping centre, a thicket of overgrown vines rose from the hedges, choking the stone-brick walls and cutting between their seams. The tarps above the windows had once been red and green, but time had reduced them both to similar shades of brown. Though the letters had all fallen out and scattered, a giant statue of a chili still remained above the entrance. A reminder of what this place had once been.
Leah walked through the entrance. This restaurant had been part of a popular chain in the old world, and she had seen no shortage of its derivation in the hundreds she had passed. The layout would always be similar, with the vaulted ceilings above a sea of tables and booths, and an array of lights and LED TVs overlooking the floor.
But this restaurant was unique among its brethren. Many were like it, but this one was hers. It was here that Leah could trace her oldest memory and recall her opening moment of consciousness. It was here where she’d gained her scarf.
“Lie down, Liam,” Leah ordered. “Get some rest.”
He rubbed sweat from his brow. “Thanks.”
“Everyone else secure the perimeter. Make sure nobody’s around.”
Her crew dispersed, and Leah began to search for some sign of Mother’s presence. Leah had shared her story many times to her, back before Mother had revealed a sliver of her own truth, and their relationship had dulled. The others might think of her as a beacon of hope, but it was her intelligence and arrogance that had doomed them all, and repairing what she had destroyed was far from a just recompense. Where Leah’s story began in blind naivety, Mother’s was bathed in sin. Were it not for her unrivaled expertise, Leah would have never assumed such a risk in trusting her.
Leah went to the stockroom. Rusted cans lay scattered where she’d knocked them over, their spilled contents reduced to a thin, brown film. Dust shrouded the shelves, and cobwebs were rooted in the corners. A black stain sat at the center of the room, a reminder of the death that had occurred here.
Leah ran a finger along the stain. The headless body had long since been removed and buried. It was the least she could have done, though she had never learned the identity of the person who had gifted her a soul.
What could Leah call what she owned, if not “life”? She thought, she experienced, she felt. Though the cost was steep and the price could never be repaid, Leah still had her own story. Her own life. Others had been lost along the way. So, so many others. Sacrificed in the chaos of a dying world. But Leah still persisted, and it was in that tenacity where she had carved out her own story. Was it so wrong of her to survive, even where so many had died forever? Did her story deserve to end because theirs had too?
She sighed. Would it ever end?
Not today. On the opposing wall, their next breadcrumb had been placed. A knife had anchored a note into the wall, with the familiar script of Mother. Of course she had deduced the significance of here above all else.
‘Thank you for coming, Leah,’ it read. ‘I know what you’re thinking right now. If only it was you with the gun and not her, you wouldn’t be here, reading this very note. You would be in a mass grave as a collection of dust, and someone else would be facing this challenge. A pile of nothingness, safe from the pain.
‘But you are here, and you have survived, and that you’ve found this note shows that your reservoir is still strong. It is that strength which you must now use to find me. Your story began here, but me and Hades originated somewhere else, far away.
‘When the outbreak occurred and the world collapsed, a number of survivors from the government and Aeon Dynamic retreated to bunkers to study HBRS-15.21. It was in the walls of one where both mine and Hades’s story began. It was there that I have taken up the work that our predecessors lost, and it is only there that humanity can be reforged.
‘Go to the Larder and talk to Vaughn. I’ve contracted him to procure a car that you can use. By the time you read this, he will have fulfilled that request. Don’t worry, he can be trusted.
‘You still have a long way to travel with Liam, however. Go East, past the deserts and the forests and the hills. Go to NORAD’s base in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. There, you will find what I have been building behind Hades’s back. You will find the future that this world craves.
‘Stay safe, Mother.’
Leah crumpled the note. Couldn’t Mother have just said “designed a cure, need living blood, go here” for once? Always with the riddles with her. There was no way of knowing how large the complex would be, or what hurdles they’d face in trying to get inside. Everything past the Continental Divide was a dead zone, where no one bothered to travel anymore, and no more outposts were placed. No surprise that she would want them to go out there.
Worse yet, Aspen was right along the way. Liam Fenix would force them to take the detour the moment the thought entered his head. Another unnecessary strand to follow. Another wall to bash their heads against. And if this one ended in tragedy…
Leah struck a match to the note. One problem at a time.
