The two hundred and two mile journey would take them a little under fourteen hours at normal speeds for the horses — about eighteen minutes per mile — and using the older state highways to avoid the cities, where most large colonies of zombies congregated, also saved time. But they still had to be well rested and conserve their strength to remain effective when they arrived so they’d already decided to split the journey into two days.
They’d waste less energy riding early mornings and at night once they left the foothills of the Rockies and hit the desert. Cooler temperatures would be easier on all of them, despite the dangers of the dark. The same EMPs that had destroyed the zombies and automobiles had also eliminated many snakes, scorpions, and other predators. But not all by far. There were always the random zombie pods, but dealing with scattered zombies was much easier than the city hordes, and they were used to that.
As they rode south, the foothills turned to prairies and pine forests. The latter were littered with twigs and pine needles that crunched under the horses’ hooves more softly than dead leaves. Crickets, birds, and other creatures chirped in the branches and overhead in a constant droning symphony of sound. The wind blew strong, bringing the hot desert winds and smells of sand, dust, and dry grass to mix with the sweet scent of pine sap and needles. From time to time, amidst the pines, Bunny even thought he detected a faint scent of butterscotch, but decided his mind must be playing tricks. As the forests gave way to prairies, the prairies eventually gave way to gravel and rock formations. Trees were soon conspicuously absent, and the air became thicker with heat, making their lungs work harder.
The whole time, Bunny thought back on the nineteen years since the world had fallen apart and the DMS had ceased to exist, at least for Echo Team. They had once been like a family, but now they were all scattered to who knew where. They didn’t even know if anyone one else was still alive. Only Top remained in Bunny’s world and Bunny in his. And that was only because they’d been together on a supply run when the EMPs hit and they’d been stranded, forced like so many others to fight to survive. Teaming up had been a natural instinct after so many years of it, and here they were. Somehow they’d survived when so many others hadn’t. Bunny thought of Joe Ledger, Rudy and Circe Sanchez, Leroy Williams, whom they all called ‘Bug’, and Junie Flynn. He thought of the strange and enigmatic Mr Church who was their leader and about whom Bunny knew next to nothing. Last but not least he thought of Lydia Ruiz, Warbride, who’d gone from teammate to friend to lover. God, the memories of all them.
“Farm Boy!” Top shouted, startling Bunny from his reverie.
“What?” He shook it off and looked around as his horse just barely steered clear of a cacti bunch that would have surely torn into his leg through his pants. Fuck, he thought, grabbing the reins and resuming control.
“You’re lucky animals have good instincts,” Top said, shaking his head. “You falling asleep on me?”
Bunny shook his head. “No. Just remembering.”
To Bunny’s relief, Top read the look in his partner’s eyes and no further explanation was needed. He grunted in sympathy and they rode on together, now side by side for a while.
—5—
The Soldier and the Samurai
They did not find horses.
Not live ones, anyway. They found a farmer’s field full of bones and they found a half dozen zoms dressed in field denims standing around looking blank. Tom stopped by the rail and stared at the dead, and the zoms slowly turned toward him and began walking. There was never any hurry in the world of the dead. They were inexorable and indefatigable, but they were never hasty.
Tom reached over his shoulder for the handle of his sword, but Ledger stopped him.
“They’re not going to hurt anyone,” said the soldier. “They’re too clumsy to climb over the fence and who in their right mind would go in there?”
Tom frowned. “Right… but shouldn’t we… what’s the word you like to use? ‘Quiet’ them?”
Ledger shrugged. “Why? They’re not in pain. They’re not going to get lonely or any of that shit. They’re dead but they don’t know it. What good will it do anyone?”
“It would be merciful. They were people once, Joe. They had their lives stolen by the disease and now they’re in this living death hell. Or whatever you want to call it.”
Ledger sighed and walked over to stand beside Tom, watching the zoms shamble their way.
“Here’s how I see it, kid,” said the soldier. “These people are gone. Yes, we can mourn who they used to be, and we can feel compassion for how they died and for what was taken from them. I get that. We both get that. It sucks worse than almost anything. The only thing that would suck worse would be if they knew they were dead.”
“Knew?”
“Sure, if their personalities were somehow trapped in there, aware of what had happened to them. That would be the biggest suck-fest of all time.”
Tom went pale. “Jesus Christ…”
“But you’ve looked into their eyes, Tom,” said Ledger. “Have you ever seen so much as a flicker of personality? Of intelligence? Of awareness?”
“No.” He sighed. “No, I haven’t.”
“Of course not, because whoever lived in those bodies is gone. To heaven, to hell, or to whatever state of existence is waiting on the other side of death’s front door. I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s nothing,” said Tom. “Maybe there’s nothing after this.”
“Maybe,” said Ledger, “but boy would that be a fucking kick in the balls. After all these thousands of years of religion and prayer and everything else, it would be a rotten fucking cosmic joke if this was it, finished, done.”
The zoms were almost up to the fence.
Tom said, “What do you believe?”
Ledger bent and plucked a long stem of wild grass and put it between his teeth. It bobbed up and down as he chewed the end.
“Not sure what I believe in has a name,” said Ledger after a moment. “I was raised Methodist back in Baltimore, but that’s kind of for shit. None of what happened squares with any religion’s apocalyptic prophecies, which tells me two things. Either everyone’s wrong and the universe has bent us all over a barrel, or this isn’t the actual end.”
Tom watched the zombies. “How much closer to the end do we need to get?”
The closest of the dead, a woman in jeans and a man’s flannel work shirt, thrust her arms between the slats of the fence rail, gray and withered fingers clawing at the air inches from where the two men stood. Ledger reached out and offered his fingers to the dead woman, who grabbed them and tried to pull them toward her mouth. Ledger was stronger and he did not give an inch. The zombie kept trying, moaning softly, but Ledger remained unmoved. Only when the other zoms reached for him did he pulled his hand free and wipe it on his jeans.
“Maybe the line in the sand,” he said quietly, “is when there’s no one left like you.”
“Me? I’m more of a skeptic than you are.”
“About religion, sure. Maybe. But you’ve been working your ass off to save your little town. What are you calling it?”
“Mountainside.”
Ledger nodded. “You may not have much optimism about your spiritual future, but you have a lot about the future of the people in Mountainside. About your stepbrother’s future. About the possibility of there even being a future.”