Green Fields (Book 3): Escalation (16 page)

He snickered, but didn’t put the scope down. “Suit yourself. But if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“Like that’s ever going to happen,” I snarked back, skipping a block ahead to where the fast ones of that particular mob were moving now. “Can you give me a rough estimate of the distance to that flag over there?”

“What am I, your spotter?” Bates asked. “Point eight-five clicks. You still doing yards?”

Adjusting my rifle, I shrugged. “I’m used to metric from work. Not that much different to switch to distances, too. Unless you mean why Nate has been bitching me out for always asking him for the yards rather than meters?”

I got a chuckle for a reply. “Trust me. Even the most tenacious of us have long given up on trying to make any sense of your ongoing mating habits.” He paused. “Point six-three to that frontrunner there, if you wanna take the shot.” He rattled off wind speed and the other numbers, too.

“Think I should?”

“Why not? Let’s see what they do when something loud hits them from where they can’t directly see it. What could possibly go wrong? It’s not like they can overrun us.”

A few months back I might have rolled my eyes, but now I shared his morbid grin.

The lead zombie crumbled a moment after I pulled the trigger, his head gone on impact. A few of the lead runners surged forward, but the gros of the mob stopped, heads everywhere whipping around, pinpointing the location the shot had come from with uncanny ability. A ripple went through the mass, and those currently standing at the two small intersections the horde spanned started straight for us, maybe a hundred all over. I followed their progress through the scope, but very soon it became apparent that without a clear destination, they weren’t as tenacious as when they knew what they were coming after. Only a handful made it to the blocked-off part in front of the hospital, and after shambling around for a minute or two, they dispersed, aimlessly wandering off. The main part remained on the wider street, and after the downed zombie had been cleaned to the bones, they moved on.

“They’re nothing if not efficient,” I observed, unable to pick out the spot where my kill had been now that the mass of bodies was moving over it. About five minutes later, they’d all passed, and not even rags or bones remained.

“More so than in the migration routes that we’ve crossed.”

“Guess they had much more game to feed on there. And lots who were already freezing to death, or were otherwise incapable of defending themselves,” I proposed.

Bates nodded. “Figures.”

I checked on the mob one last time before I put the rifle down, but not seeing them didn’t really help the underlying anxiety that continued to twist my gut into knots.

“You okay with what they’re doing to do downstairs?”

A look of surprise crossed Bates’s face. He clearly hadn’t expected me to ask his opinion. “You mean because it’s dangerous?”

“Because it’s pretty much torture.”

He shrugged, appearing completely at ease. “You have no qualms killing them. Does it make a difference if you just maim them?”

“It makes a difference for those who do the maiming,” I pointed out.

“And there you still ask yourself why you’re not included in all the decision making,” he murmured, just loud enough that I could have ignored it if I’d wanted to.

“I’m not trying to make some weird-ass liberal stand here,” I pointed out. “I’m just kind of conflicted about this.”

“It’s not really much of a moral dilemma. They’re dead. There’s a good chance they don’t even really feel it, except for the inconvenience of being held down and not being able to move. Or not having hands to grab anything with anymore.” He chuckled, but I didn’t really find the humor in the statement worth acknowledging.

“Would you do the same to an animal?” I asked.

That made him stop, a small mercy at least. “Animals feel. I fucking well put animals above those fuckers in my list of priorities,” he ground out, but as fast as his anger had appeared, it diminished again. “If given the chance, I’d much rather kill them quick than draw it out, but to do so, we need better intel. I’m so not looking forward to rooting the bastards out tomorrow, but fact is, they’re out there, and they will kill us if we let them. So let’s not give them that option, right?”

I was a little surprised that he didn’t call me a bleeding heart. And it wasn’t like I felt actual sympathy with the zombies. Just the entire idea was completely revolting. When I said that, Bates shrugged.

“If you ask me, being sliced up until there’s not enough left of you to keep the blood pumping through your veins is a hell of a way to go. But part of being a leader is doing shit that no one else likes to do. Thought you’d learned that lesson already.”

Sighing, I nodded. “I have.”

“Then why are we debating this?”
 

That made him sound so much like Nate that I couldn’t help but snort. “Maybe I’m just pissed that I’m again the last one who gets told anything.”

“Sounds more like it,” Bates agreed. “Why don’t you take your complaints downstairs to the boss? I’m sure that once he’s done with the first tranche of zombie dissections, he’d love some distraction.” Of course, he had to wink and do that leering thing of his, and I didn’t pull my punch as I sent my fist into his upper arm.

“Asshole.”

“What, the thought of zombie gore all over doesn’t get you all hot and bothered? Could of fooled me.”

Getting up, I gave him one of those looks that was usually reserved for Nate. “Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?” Turning to where Bailey and Santos where sharing their dinner—jerky, if their incessant chewing was a hint—I shouldered my rifle. “What are the watch rotations tonight? No one told me when to be where.”

“Two up here and three downstairs, but you’re not on it,” Santos told me between bites.

“Why not? What did I do this time?” I said, frowning.

Santos shrugged in true “beats me” fashion, while Bailey flashed me a bright grin. “Far as I know, nothing. Boss just said he wants you well rested tomorrow morning. You’re on the first hunting team.”

That was news to me, and not the kind that made me want to break out into cheers. Then again, as much as I hated that very idea, it was better than remaining here at our new base.

“Any of you want to catch some shut-eye right now? I’m taking first shift up here.”

Santos and Bates traded glances, while Bailey shrugged. “Boss said—“

“I don’t give a flying fuck what he said.” I cut him off right there. “I can’t sleep right now, anyway, so might as well get something useful done. I’ve done nothing but sit around uselessly all afternoon. Whichever of the three of you leaves first can have my downtime.”

Uncommon for one of the guys who’d known Nate for a decade or longer, Bailey inclined his head and beat it, leaving the three of us up here alone. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but I was sure that by the time change was up, Nate would know where I’d spent my evening. Why that bit of rebellion gave me a hint of satisfaction I didn’t want to analyze, but it certainly felt good to be doing something—even if it was just watching zombies through a scope that had insufficient optics to be of much actual use. I’d really lucked out on that shot. But nobody had to know that—least of all Nate.

It was closer to midnight than eleven when the Ice Queen came up onto the roof, followed by Burns and Andrej. That two of our big guns were up here tonight made me guess that it was either less of a given that the zombies wouldn’t find us up here than I’d thought, or they were visually mapping the city to mark down possible hiding spaces for us to explore tomorrow. Either way, I beat it without a comment when she jerked her chin at me. Four hours of tense not doing much of anything was enough for me to prove my point. Bates and Santos didn’t join me but instead went to relieve whoever had been standing watch at the lower floors, making me guess that they’d been picked to remain at base in the morning.
 

Alone in the unlit corridor of the sixth floor, I thought about joining them for a moment, but then decided against it. Nate had a point that I should catch some sleep if I was expected to be at my best tomorrow. I just didn’t like how he was going about things.
 

What I liked even less were the sounds filtering through one of the shut doors down the corridor, but I decided that it was in my best interest to just ignore that. There was nothing that I could do—for or against—so I might as well go to sleep, on that mattress that was too fluffy and too huge for me. Damn, but I missed my cozy car seat bunk.

Chapter 11

The morning dawned drab and gray, with sheets of rain coming down on the city. My first thought was that maybe the bad weather would keep more zombies indoors, but so far they hadn’t shown any inclinations to dislike showers. With luck, lack of sun might even draw them out. I figured that was one more thing we were here to investigate.

By the time I stepped out of my chosen quarters for the night, what I assumed was the first team to make a sortie was already assembling in the hallway. No surprise that Nate was there; also Burns, Cho, Taylor, and Campbell. I hadn’t seen either of them on watch last night, but my guess had been that Burns was “helping” Nate with whatever he’d gotten up to. Neither of them looked as tired and drained as I felt, but that wasn’t anything new. What surprised me was that Campbell was on detail, considering that he’d spent the entire evening yesterday tinkering with the electronics that he’d apparently liberated from the ambulances.
 

It was one of his projects that he held out to me now, pretty much just a black box with a battery pack taped to it, and an extension cord that ran up to some kind of ear piece and mic, like a phone’s hands-free system.

“Walkie-talkies don’t cut it if you need both hands on your gun,” he explained after showing me how to turn the thing on and off, and how to separately engage the mic. “Should be quiet enough that the mic of the receiver won’t send every zombie in the entire city after you.”

“Have I ever told you how much I love beta testing new gear?” I replied, shrugging out of my jacket so I could run the cord of the earpiece across my back underneath my outer layer. At least that project seemed to be coming on nicely if he already had the first batch done after just one day.

“About every single time we changed anything on the cars last winter,” he replied, giving me a small smile.

“And still you don’t get the hint.”

“Not the only one there, it seems,” he said, stepping away to let me get everything back into place. I didn’t need to look in Nate’s direction to know that he was smirking at me.

“What’s the plan for today?” I asked rather than succumbing to the temptation to bitch up a storm.
 

“We scour the city for zombie hideouts,” Nate replied.

“Awesome.” Everyone seemed to expect me to say more, but I just stared blankly back at them. “What?”

Taylor glanced at Nate before he focused back on me. “Maybe we were waiting for you to be the voice of reason?”

I barked a sharp laugh in return. “That one was good. Do we have a grid?”

Nate jerked his head at the map that had been taped to a whiteboard next to the elevator doors. “We do, but not sure how much use that will be. We’ll split up in three teams of two and check these areas.” He indicated the blocks that had been circled with yellow text marker. “If we find something, we fall back and report. If not, we continue. Business as usual.”

Not quite, considering what we were looking for—and I for one wasn’t keen on hitting gold—but just nodded when he waited for my acknowledgment. Nate quickly told the others what their sectors were—that I was with him was a given, apparently—and I studied the map some more, trying to memorize the names of the larger streets and other landmarks. The city had clearly grown quickly, forming a real grid that was easy to dissect, at least in theory. But it never hurt to be informed—particularly if the zombies preferred the larger streets.

“Shift change is at two, latest,” Nate said, finishing up his explanation. “With luck, we will be busy already and won’t need to make another run until tomorrow.”

I still wasn’t convinced that we were on the same side as far as finding anything went, but I held my tongue. My protest had gone ignored yesterday, and besides there not being any use to me continuing it, I didn’t plan on becoming the ever-opposing whiner. We were a team—and even if I didn’t like the decisions, it was my job to fall in line once my protest had been heard. It still rankled, but Nate probably had his reasons.

Together, we went down the stairs to the ground level, where we split up. The other four followed us to the main entrance but veered east from there, while we angled south. That Nate had selected the region for us that I’d checked out the night before with the scope didn’t seem like so much of a coincidence. He gave me a brief nod for me to take point, and off we went.

The few shamblers that I’d seen last night that had strayed toward the hospital were gone, but two streets over I realized that they hadn’t just found a hiding spot. Two bodies lay—clearly dragged back from the road—half-hidden between two cars, their skulls caved in. I paused for a moment to glance back to Nate, but he gave me one of his typical, “what did you expect?” looks that let me drop my question unasked. Of course they’d cleared up the perimeter. Keeping the perimeter safe was mission priority number one, always.