The muscles in her arms and legs had begun to quiver with a mixture of fear and adrenaline; her heart thudded out a cryptic message in Morse code, and her throat felt as if it had somehow expanded to allow more air to flow into her lungs.
You can do this, girl. You wake up Mama and Jeremy and they’ll be dead before they’ve even cleared the cobwebs outta their minds. You have to do this.
Her fingers wrapped around the smooth metal of the tire tool and she lifted it from the floor so slowly that it almost seemed as if she suspected it would disintegrate if hoisted too quickly. Though her palms were warm and slick, the weight of the weapon immediately caused her breathing to even out.
Drop that fucker fast and then get the hell outta here…
Opening her eyes, she saw a dark shadow against the golden glow of sunrise on the wall. The silhouette was human shaped and grew larger with each beat of her heart. She couldn’t lie to herself any longer: they were not alone in this old store and the time had come to walk the tightrope between life and death.
She sprung from the floor with the speed of a striking serpent and vaulted across the counter in a single, fluid move. In her mind, a shrill battle cry trilled through the stillness of the morning and she felt the spirits of a thousand Amazonian warriors raise their spears and shields in solidarity. In reality, however, she was as silent and swift as sudden death; only her eyes reflected the intensity of the rage that boiled within her, the grim determination of a woman who would not go gentle into that good night.
The man across from her scrambled backwards as his hands flew up in an open palmed display of surrender; his eyes grew wide beneath his curly bangs and he continued backpedaling as his hoarse voice stammered words so quickly that the syllables all ran together.
“Wait! No! Alive! I’m alive! I’m living, here!”
For a moment, his pleading didn’t register in her mind. She continued her assault; the tire tool was raised above her head like the sword of a charging samurai and, like those legendary weapons, seemed to demand a taste of blood before allowing itself to be lowered. The man’s hands shot to the rifle slung over his shoulder and snapped it into firing position as his knees braced himself against the force of the attack.
“Damn it, I’m not one of them!”
His sharp tone cut through the haze of battle and she stopped so suddenly that momentum almost caused her to stumble forward. They stood facing each other for what seemed to be an eternity: she with the tire iron poised and ready to strike, he with the bore of his rifle staring at her like a dark, unblinking eye.
“Please, I don’t want to shoot you. But I will. I swear to God, I will.”
“You’re… you’re really alive?”
“No, I’m the smartest damn zombie that ever existed. What the hell do you think? Of course, I’m alive.”
She felt a hand on her shoulder and a familiar voice whispered in her ear.
“It’s okay, sweetie… “
Jeremy. She’d been so focused on her attack that she hadn’t even heard him stir. But it stood to reason that the flurry of activity would’ve awakened him. Mama, too, most likely.
“Look, folks, I’m here to help. I really am.”
Together, the two of them lowered their respective weapons. She was breathing heavily now, her chest heaving with each breath, and for some reason tears had begun to make the world around her swim in and out of focus. She blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the bearded man in the tattered clothes whom she’d been mere seconds away from killing; but he wavered as if she were viewing him from the other side of a waterfall and the first tear had just begun to leave its warm path down her cheek as he unclipped the walkie talkie from his belt.
“Eden Team, this is Serpent Six, over.”
There was a hiss of static and then his voice again.
“Serpent Six to Eden Team. Come in, Eden Team. Over.”
“Serpent Six this is Eden Team. Over.”
The voice was thin and soft, but it was the voice of someone else like them. Someone left alive in a world ruled by the dead.
“Eden Team, I have three survivors. Two female, one male, none apparently infected. Repeat… I have three survivors. Over.”
“Serpent Six, rendezvous at Alpha Base One at oh-nine-hundred hours. Reanimate activity in sector seven high. Advance with extreme caution. We’ll notify The Garden that the mission was successful and we’re coming home. Over.”
“Copy that, Eden Team. Serpent Six, out.”
There hadn’t been much time for conversation, but she’d learned the man’s name was Donnely and he was apparently nothing more than a small cog in a much larger machine. What the man on the other end of the radio had referred to as The Garden.
The Garden, Donnely had explained, was a collective that had established a fortified outpost about half a day’s walk from their current location. Whereas the dregs of humanity seemed content with cowering in the shadows like frightened animals, The Garden had loftier ambitions. They were going to rebuild society, reclaim the coveted position at the top of the food chain, and re-establish mankind’s dominance over the world. The human race, he said, had been decimated and the undead far outnumbered the living. But in the future they envisioned, the tide would be turned. Children would be trained as efficiently as soldiers and once their numbers were great enough they would rise up against the undead in one, final battle. Within fifteen to twenty years, tops, the world would be theirs again and the blight of the living dead would be no more than a chapter in history books yet to be written.
It had sounded so promising: a place where they would be sheltered from the horrors of the outside world, a society that still functioned, that sent out teams to find those still left alive and bring them back… no wonder they referred to themselves with terms like Eden and The Garden. True, their ambitions sounded lofty. But at least they still had goals and plans. At least they could envision a world that consisted of something more than picking at the carcass of civilization like nomadic scavengers. At least they had hope.
So they had followed this man, Donnelly. She and Jeremy and Mama had allowed him to guide them through the maze of mangled cars and toppled buildings. They had slipped through the wreckage of the city like ghosts, skirting around enclaves of rotters so skillfully that the dead never realized they were there. For the most part, they progressed in silence; but every so often, when Donnely decided they were well out of harm’s way, they would stop for a quick rest. During this down time, they would whisper to one another and she slowly began to grasp the full extent of The Garden’s plans.
“To beat your enemy,” Donnely had told them, “you first have to understand him.”
He was part of Eden Team, whose job was to search out those wandering the wastelands who would be able to assist in repopulating the cities of the earth. But there was also a group he referred to as The Tree of Knowledge. Their entire purpose, he said, was to study the undead menace. But not, just the ways in which they could be dispatched. No, The Tree of Knowledge wanted to know everything they could about their adversaries.
“Everyone knows a bite will kill your ass and bring you back. But did you know that any exchange of bodily fluids will do the same damn thing? You kiss someone who’s infected, for example, and get even the smallest amount of spit in your mouth and you’re done for.”
When he spoke about The Garden and its various projects, his voice raised slightly in pitch and the words came more rapidly. Breathlessly, he told them about the actual gardens where they grew crops, the kitten nurseries with their self-replenishing sources of meat, and the various ways they had of collecting and purifying water; and the entire time, his green eyes shone with the light of the true believer.