Rise Again Below Zero (16 page)

“That’s how I see it.”

“Then I say we go the fuck after them right now,” Topper said, slapping his hands together. “Maybe hold those pricks at the station at gunpoint and get some answers. We could even make ’em stop the train. Then we light out and wreak vengeance on the kidnappers, old-school.”

Danny laughed. “You sound like me, Topper.”

“Your kind of bullshit rubs off on people after a while.”

Danny made a sudden feint and play-punched Topper in his belly—a play-punch that would have knocked him down if she’d connected it. He was so surprised he laughed, too. For a moment, they both felt like normal people. He put his big hand on her shoulder and they both laughed, him like a bullfrog, her like a crow.

Kelley emerged from the interceptor and watched them. The mood drained out of the moment with that hungry presence hovering nearby.

“We do this by the book,” Danny said. “If they’re on a train, they can outrun us but we know where they’re going to, and if they’re on foot, we can catch up to them. So let’s go back and get the Tribe settled somewhere it can stay till we get back: check real good for traps, maybe leave Kelley out on the perimeter to keep the moaners and hunters at bay. Then we book it across that empty zone and get the kids back.”

Topper threw his leg over his bike and fired the engine, then switched it off again. There was more to be said; he was trying to piece it together in his mind.

“There’s something we ain’t thinking about. If this here train goes to the safe place, the whole fuckin’ Tribe is gonna want to get aboard. Probably hand over
all
the kids. That’s gonna be the end of this thing we been doing. This whole kind of journey we been on.”

“Good,” Danny said, with feeling. “I’ve had enough of it.”

“What happens if we get there and they already got our stolen kids?”

“We tell them whose kids they are. Sort that shit right out.”

“I hope it’s that fuckin’ simple,” Topper said, and restarted the bike.

Danny didn’t reply.
Hope won’t do it,
she thought, but it didn’t bear
saying out loud. Her hopes had resulted in the undead thing that stood nearby, snuffling at the air, yearning for fresh meat.

T
he smoke rose lazily from a late-model station wagon that had been hit by what looked very much like a rocket-propelled grenade. It had blown the rear axle off; one of the tires was still burning. It reminded Danny of her beloved vintage Mustang, which had been similarly destroyed, although by a more powerful weapon. There was a fresh corpse on the road surface next to the car, a woman. It was clear that she had suffered before she died; her jeans were wrapped around one ankle and her shirt had been torn open, exposing pale white breasts. Her skull had been split from ear to ear by an axe or a machete. Danny felt the sting of bile in the back of her throat as she made a circuit of the scene, shotgun at the ready. Topper stayed on his bike, rifle across the handlebars. He kept his eyes on the scenery, looking for ambush.

Even before they’d reached the place, Kelley had been inhaling deeply, smelling the fresh blood. That had made Danny queasy enough. Seeing what made her sister’s animated remains hungry was more than she could take. She spat a few times, and put her hands on her knees with her head down, and was able to master the sickness. But she never stopped listening for the sound of engines.

“Looks like we missed the party by ten minutes,” Topper said. “The body is still steaming.”

Danny retched.

“Thanks, Topper,” she managed to say. “Let’s not talk about it.”

Danny wondered what this woman had been doing, traveling alone out here in the heart of nowhere. Nobody went alone, except the Silent Kid. Then she worked her way around to the far side of the station wagon, and the question was answered. There was a zero. A fresh kill, reanimated only a short while. A moaner now, but recently a man about the same age as the dead woman; there was red blood all over his clothes, and black blood flowing
from his jaws. He hissed and snapped at Danny, but didn’t attack. He couldn’t—he had been shot with an arrow, and it had gone through his back and stuck into the car door.

Danny watched as the thing laboriously pulled itself along the length of the exposed arrow shaft, its grief and terror forgotten, only hungry.
This is how Kelley feels, every second of every day,
Danny thought.
But she doesn’t attack.
She’s stronger than me.

If Danny came back, even as a thinker, she knew damn well she’d eat the hell out of the first living person that came along. She didn’t flatter herself. She’d probably rip Amy Cutter’s head off and eat it, marshmallows and all. But Kelley was sitting there in the vehicle right this moment, with a feast of fresh meat in front of her, and hadn’t so much as turned her head when Danny opened the door. Her sister had always been strong-willed, but this was something more than that. If she was like this in death, Danny had sorely misjudged her in life.

“What is it?” Topper called. He couldn’t see the zero.

Danny was about to squeeze the trigger when she recalled that the attackers might not be far away. Just because they hadn’t come running at the sound of a Harley didn’t mean they wouldn’t hear a gunshot. She picked up a broken stave of wood from a knocked-down signpost, jabbed it into the pinned zero’s eye, and then leaned forward until the head thumped against the car door and there was the double
pop
of bone and brain yielding.

Then she went around to the female corpse and dragged it off the road.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said, and didn’t bother to tell Topper about the arrow. They started their engines and hightailed it toward the interstate.

T
he Tribe was waiting on the interstate about halfway to the infested zone. Several zeroes had approached the convoy while it waited; they appeared to be headed for the swarm, driven by whatever inner sense guided them. The smoke of burning corpses drifted around them from the hasty funeral pyre that had been built in a field off the road to destroy the dead of the previous
night. A couple of the undead stopped near the blaze, and seemed to stare at the fire, remembering. It was probably only the bright light that attracted them.

Wulf shot them down from atop the White Whale. The children, who were now kept together inside the RV while the Tribe was stationary, would put their fingers in their ears after each shot, but they didn’t think much about it. Gunfire was customary to them.

When Danny and Topper returned, the rest of the scouts were already there; she whistled up an assembly, and within a couple of minutes the entire Tribe had gathered around, some on the pavement and others standing on top of their vehicles. It was a battered-looking group, Danny observed. A lot of bandages and dirty faces, blood-crusted hair.

Danny wanted to get this over with and start the hunt, so she skipped the preamble.

“Listen up. Two things. First, there is a motorcycle gang operating in the area. They’re not friendlies. So we need to remain on high alert. Second thing: We have an idea of where the kids have been taken. They may be on the way to that safe place on the far side of the swarm. Whether that place is actually safe or not remains to be seen. I think it’s probably bullshit. So myself and the scouts are going to head over that way. If we can catch up, we’ll bring the kids back. If they get there first, we’ll scope out the situation and report what we find.”

“How far is it?” It was Crawford, the voice of doubt.

“I don’t know,” Danny said, trying to keep a lid on her irritation. “We’ll find out.”

“How do we get there?” a scraggly-haired woman said, unconsciously raising her hand. Danny didn’t know her name.

“Don’t know. The kidnappers might have taken a train. That’s what it seems like. We found an operational station about forty minutes northeast of here.”

Even as she spoke, Danny knew she’d made a mistake. There was a sudden alertness to the crowd; the word “train” seemed to have galvanized everyone. She hadn’t anticipated this. A buzz of voices threatened to drown the central discussion.

“A train?” Crawford repeated.

Topper broke in with his bullfrog voice: “They might be on the train or on foot. We don’t know yet.”

The scraggly woman stepped forward, her hand still raised. Now she
was looking at the others around her. “If there’s a train, must be civilization, too. Need all kinds of stuff for a train.”

“You don’t,” Danny said. “This isn’t some magical good news, people. The sooner we can all get set up for a few days’ stay, the sooner me and the scouts can get moving.”

“Hell if you’re going alone this time,” Crawford said. “We’re all coming.”

The man to his right chimed in: “Ever time you leave, we get fucked over anyhows, so we all go.”

“There’s a damn
train,
” the scraggly woman interjected.

“Stand down,” Danny barked. The woman lowered her hands and a lot of the side conversations ceased. “Let us do our jobs. You all get yourselves set up safe, form a perimeter and set watches. We’ll report back in a couple of days.”

“Bullshit!” another man yelled from the back.

“How about I fuck you up, bitch,” Topper suggested.

“I don’t like where this is headed,” Crawford said, all of a sudden the reasonable one. “Isn’t this a democracy? Let’s
choose
who goes.”

Danny felt her face turning red. The situation was out of control. She was furious, but needed to hold it down. They’d use her anger against her.

She raised her voice just below a shout: “Hold on! We don’t know who is running that train, or why they’re running it. We are still alive today because we have an advance team. If everybody goes, we’re as likely to get the kids killed as anything else. Let us do our fucking jobs.” It sounded feeble to her, like whining. Apparently the dissenters thought so, too.

“They’re not your kids, they’re our kids!” a short woman with a bandaged head hollered.

Danny turned to Amy, who stood a little way behind her. Amy looked cornered. She even shrugged. “Thanks a lot,” Danny said.

“Danny, it’s too late,” Amy replied. She was correct: The crowd was breaking up. Already, several drivers had gone back to their vehicles, ready to roll out. More and more chooks were getting the message. They were pulling out, Danny’s orders be damned. The safe place was within reach.

Crawford approached her, stopping slightly beyond arm’s length. “Sheriff, you need to understand,” he said. “We might be at the dawn of a new era here. Don’t make us wait.”

“It’s your funeral,” Danny said, and raised the lone finger of her mutilated hand in what she meant to be an obscene gesture.

“Are we gonna let this chook prick dictate Tribe policy?!” Topper said, and addressing Crawford directly, added, “Shut your fuckin’ trap.” Conn, who had been watching silently, stepped up beside Topper. He wasn’t above beating somebody up if it would improve his mood.

“It’s too late,” Danny said, waving them off. It was always too late.

As she turned on her heels, glaring around in frustration, a grim thought occurred to her. She turned back to Topper. “What did you say just now?”

The biker thought she was looking for a target to vent upon. “I didn’t say shit. Don’t take it out on me.”

“He told that fucker to shut his trap,” Conn interjected. “Good fuckin’ advice.”

“The only trap gonna shut,” Danny said, “is the one these assholes are driving into.”

Half of the convoy was already on the move, the vehicles forming up into their crooked line, heading for the exit off the interstate that led north. The air was pale with exhaust fumes. People were still piling into cars and trucks and herding their children into the White Whale. Danny’s heart was speeding up. That part of her mind that formed theories and plans of action had plenty to work with—she cursed herself for not seeing it sooner.

Most of the scouts had collected around her, looking for orders. This mutiny situation was new.

“Guys,” Danny said. “Guys! Vandal Reapers—they’ve been working this area. Why? Think about it. Chooks come through here looking for the safe place. We’ve seen them all over. Dragging their poor fucking kids along. There’s the train line and everything. It’s the promised land. And these sons of bitches nail them before they get close. Mouse cheese. I think it’s a goddamned
trap
.”