Bits & Pieces (43 page)

The problem was . . . California was a big darn state, and these towns hadn't existed back when maps were still being made. They were refugee camps that had grown into gated communities. Saint John wanted them destroyed. He wanted to burn them as a statement that no one may defy the will of Lord Thanatos.

All praise to his darkness,
thought Brother Marty sourly.
All praise, yada yada yada.

But as he approached the saint, he composed his face into one of reverence and humility.

He dropped to his knees. “Honored one,” said Marty as he bent and kissed the dirt caked on Saint John's shoes. Then, like an obedient dog, he glanced up at the saint.

Saint John's dark eyes were so deeply set that they made
his pale face appear skeletal. His head was tattooed with a pattern of thorny vines. He wore black trousers and a billowy black shirt, his legs and arms wrapped with bloodred ribbons. On his chest was a beautifully rendered chalk drawing of angel wings. He was Saint John of the Knife, and the reapers were his flock, and he was the single most impressive and charismatic person Brother Marty had ever met. And he'd met everyone in Hollywood.

“Did you find a scout for me?” asked the saint.

Brother Marty hesitated for a moment. “I did . . . and I didn't. It's complicated.”

“Stand up and talk to me,” said Saint John. “Let me see your face.”

Brother Marty got to his feet. He did not tremble, as many of the reapers did in the presence of Saint John. He had that much self-control; he was too practiced a performer, even as a producer, to show weakness during any meeting.

“We found a small gang of crooks. Lowlifes, you know the type,” said Marty. “Their leader was a gun thug named—and I'm not joking—Tony Grapes. Real name. Anyway, I appealed to Tony's better nature, and he very willingly and enthusiastically, I might add, opened red mouths in all four of his own goons fast as you can say summer blockbuster. Wham, bam, and down they go.”

Saint John nodded his approval. There was the slightest trace of a smile on his severe mouth, as there often was when he listened to Brother Marty.

“So, we do the whole conversion process, and our friend Tony here is an instant altar boy. He can't help us enough, he can't be more helpful. He's so helpful I want to tell him to
shut up already, but since I just told him to talk, I can't very well turn that faucet off. Anyway, I ask him if he ever heard of a place called Mountainside, and he has. That's good, that's great, that's peaches and ice cream.”

“But . . . ?” coaxed Saint John.

“But . . . he don't exactly know where it is.”

Saint John said nothing. He was a patient man, and he allowed Brother Marty to get to his point in his own way.

“So, suddenly Brother Tony and I are having a new set of contract negotiations, and you know how that goes. Things get loud, things get wet. Long story short, he knows a guy who knows a guy who does know where Mountainside is.”

“Was our new reaper able to tell us where to find this friend of a friend?”

“Ah, well, that's where it gets complicated,” said Marty with a sad smile. “As it turns out, the guy he knows is a pal, but the guy his guy knows, the one who actually can tell us where Mountainside is—he's not exactly a friend of our Mr. Tony Grapes.”

“Oh?”

“It seems Brother Tony used to run with a crowd who did considerable business with someone this other guy didn't like. There was some kind of wild craziness a while ago, and now this other guy would like to see Tony's head on a pole. Maybe metaphorically, maybe not, Tony wasn't clear on that point. This other guy scares the turkey stuffing out of Mr. Grapes.”

“Who is this other man?” asked Saint John. “Who is this enemy of god and where can we find him?”

“That's what I asked Brother Tony, and he says that he
can take us right to him, but he wants protection because this fellow has made some vague threats about throat-cutting and spinal separation. Credible threats, apparently. The man's a trade guard who works all up and down the California border towns and outposts.”

“His name?”

“Sweeney,” said Brother Marty. “His name is Iron Mike Sweeney.”

Area 51

Benny Imura went as far as he could get from Captain Ledger, his stupid training methods, and everything related to that oversize old creep. He was so mad that he growled at several of the monks, who shied back away from him.

Every time Benny thought about how Ledger tried to lord it over him or prove that he was a better fighter than Tom, or knew more than Tom, or could teach better than Tom, it made Benny even madder. He bent and snatched up a big rock and threw it as hard as he could against the side of the nearest of the big gray airplane hangars. The impact made a loud
karooom
that Benny suddenly realized must have sounded like thunder inside.

He stopped and stared horrified at the spot where the rock had struck.

The hangar was filled with the sick and dying.

“Oh . . . jeez . . .”

The back door opened and a nun stepped out. Sister Hannahlily.

“Sorry!” yelled Benny, edging away.

The nun gave Benny a look that could have quieted a whole pack of zoms. He managed to endure it for two full seconds before he turned and fled. He could feel the heat of her disapproval stabbing him in the back like arrows.

Behind the hangars, foothills of red stone rose in broken walls to which tenacious vines clung. Spiky weeds sprouted up from the clefts. Benny caught movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced up to see a goat picking its way nimbly along a path so narrow that it wasn't even visible from ground level. The goat threaded its way along the face of the cliff, and Benny kept pace with it, trying to let a pointless and temporary fascination divert him from his own glum thoughts.

Benny marveled at the goat, wondering how it had gotten here. Sanctuary was so remote and supposedly impossible to find without a guide. And yet here was a goat that was walking with the kind of confidence that suggested it was familiar with these rocks.

He felt himself frowning and actually had to stop and take mental inventory.

Why was he reacting that way?

Was something wrong about this?

If so . . . what?

Benny looked around, but there was no one to ask. He didn't dare go ask one of the monks or nuns, not after the look Sister Hannahlily had given him. And there was no way in the world he was going to ask Captain Ledger. He'd rather kiss a zom than say another word to that jerk.

No, he decided, he'd find out for himself.

To satisfy his curiosity, he told himself.

To figure out why the presence of that goat bothered him so much.

He adjusted the
katana
that he wore strapped across his back. Tom's sword.

His sword now.

Benny took a breath, reached for the closest lip of rock, and began to climb.

Southern California

The four girls kept shifting their desperate stares from the zombies converging on Tiffany, then to Samantha, and back again. For her part, Samantha was working it all out. Distance, speed, the presence of the two dozen strangers, the terrain, everything. She was the leader of their pack because she knew how to work things out. Ida had called it three-dimensional thinking.

Samantha had to weigh the safety of the remaining girls against the small chance of saving Tiffany, and factor in the personal risk for all six of them. A trap set for one could catch a rescue party as well. All too easily.

She also had to try to assess what total strangers would do if the girls made a rescue attempt. The people in black and red were clearly alive, and somehow—impossibly, or so it seemed—they'd discovered ways to both control the dead
and keep themselves safe from them. Until a few minutes ago Samantha would have thought neither of those things could be done.

However . . . the evidence was clear and irrefutable; therefore it could be done. Her view of the world needed to change to accept that and work with it.

“Okay,” she said quickly, an idea forming in her head. “Heather and Laura, I want you to go two hundred yards north. Stay low and stay hidden. Prep arrows and wait for my signal. Go!”

The two youngest girls, both of whom were superb archers, dropped from the tree, using the trunk to hide them. They melted into the high grass the way they'd been taught. Even Samantha, who was the best hunter in their group, lost sight of them at once.

“Good. Amanda, you and Michelle go south. Fifty yards will do it. Kindle a fire but use the driest brush you can find. No smoke. Wait for my call and then put wet stuff on the blaze. Soon as you do, leave it and go west. Find that old farm road and head for the barn. Wait as long as you can, but if we don't catch up in ten minutes, get out of there.”

“What about you?” asked Michelle.

“I'll be right here. We have to move fast. Tiff is running out of time.”

The girls nodded, dropped from the tree like squirrels, and vanished into the brush.

Tiffany had a lead of maybe thirty yards on the main body of the dead, but she had six hundred yards to go to reach the creek. Two lines of dead were converging, and Samantha judged they'd cut her off sixty or seventy yards shy of safety.

Samantha counted off the seconds she judged were required for the other girls to get into position. It was going to be tight. So tight.

She still had the binoculars and, while she waited, she took a longer look at the people in black and red. The field glasses were very powerful, and now she was able to see the design each of them had on their chests.

Wings.

White angel wings.

So strange a symbol for people who were driving the dead like a pack of dogs to try to murder a teenage girl.

What made it even worse was that the people with the wings and the knives were all smiling as they hunted Tiffany.

Smiling.

God.

Who were these people?

Over the years Samantha's ragtag family had met more than their share of wild loners, badlands human predators, bounty hunters, and worse. The fall of the world had driven so many people mad and corrupted so many others. That's what Ida always said, and she'd prayed for them to find their souls again.

Samantha studied these smiling hunters of innocent girls and wondered how long it had been since they'd lost their connection to either God or humanity. The fact that there were so many of them, and that they were acting in a coordinated way, suggested intelligence and control. And yet what they were doing was mad.

It made no sense to her.

There was a loud birdcall to her right, and she glanced
north. She could not see Heather and Laura, but she knew the call. They were in position. Samantha turned to the south and saw a few thin wisps of smoke. Amanda and Michelle were ready.

Samantha slung the binoculars over her shoulder, took a deep breath to steady her nerves, took her spear in both hands, and dropped out of the tree. She bent nearly in half and moved down to the closest point of concealment near the creek.

Tiffany was running as hard as she could, but by now she had to know that there was no chance she'd slip through the closing jaws of the trap.

Not unless . . .

Samantha set her spear down, cupped her hands around her mouth, and gave a sharp cry. The screech of a hunting hawk.

Instantly two threads of darkness stitched across the sky, and suddenly arrows struck quivering in the throats of the zombies closest to the right-hand part of the trap. One zombie fell at once, the brain stem clearly severed. The other staggered and crashed into another of the dead. They fell heavily, and the zombies behind them tripped and fell over them.

The zombies on that side of the field turned toward movement as first Heather and then Laura rose up, fired, dropped down, and rose up again a few yards away. Arrows flew across the creek, and each one hit a target. The girls were not trying for a kill, not at that distance, but they were good enough to hit heads and necks. Nerve and brain damage, even if not fatal, made the zombies far more erratic and confused. Within seconds that whole side of the trap was a jumble of falling bodies, thrashing limbs, frustrated snarls, and grasping hands.

Tiffany saw this and for an awful moment she slowed almost to a stop, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Then there was another birdcall—an eagle's shriek—and within seconds thick white smoke billowed up from the south. Amanda and Michelle had thrown wet grass on the fire. The smoke was so dense that it did exactly what Samantha wanted it to do: It cast a writhing shadow on the waving marsh weeds. The zombies on that side of the trap staggered to a clumsy stop, and with Tiffany barely moving, their attention was now drawn by the column of smoke and its wavering shadow. The zombies turned and lumbered that way.

The path was now wide open, but Samantha knew it wouldn't be for long. The people in black and red had spotted the smoke and the arrow-struck dead. They began moving toward those points, weapons glinting in the sunlight.

Samantha rose up out of the grass and gave a third birdcall. The wild, mournful call of a marsh bird.

Tiffany jerked erect, looked the wrong way first, and then swung around toward the cottonwood. When she saw Samantha, she didn't waste a single moment gaping or waving. Instead she broke into a run again, pouring on the speed, racing with all her heart and fear and muscle toward the blue ribbon of water.

Samantha ran to meet her and as Tiffany splashed down into the deepest part, Samantha was there to catch her under the armpit and haul her to safety on the opposite bank.

“Who are those people?” demanded Samantha.

Tiffany was too breathless to say much, but she gasped out a single word.

“Reapers.”