“Till death do us part,” Bunny joked.
“You a couple then?” the third person, a scowling younger man with the .45 aimed at Bunny’s forehead snapped. He looked like he was barely out of his teens, his short blonde hair similar to the girl’s. Could they be related? Either way, he’d spread his legs apart shoulder-width and locked them there, steady, ready for anything. Young or not, he clearly had experience with his weapon and Bunny had no doubt it was a shot he’d probably make.
“Not that kind, no,” Bunny said, shaking his head.
“You’ll have to pardon the farm boy,” Top said, shooting Bunny a warning look. “His sense of humor sometimes comes out at the wrong times.”
“This ain’t no joke!” the woman snapped, glaring at Bunny, then locking her eyes back on Top.
“We know that, ma’am,” Bunny said, swallowing. These people needed to seriously chill. They clearly had no idea that Top and he could have taken them out in seconds if they’d wanted to.
“We’re looking for a camp of survivors from Sun Valley we heard might need help,” Top said quickly. “We were on our way there. Rode in from Colorado.”
“Help? What kind of help?” the leader demanded.
“The undead, some kind of raids, finding shelter and a good hiding place,” Bunny explained.
“And what’s it to you?” the scowling young man said.
“We have experience with such things, come to offer it,” Top said.
“Who was in the van?” Bunny asked.
“None of your business!” the woman said, waving her .45 again.
The leader’s eyes softened as he read the two soldiers. “Caroline, let’s calm down a bit and hear them out, okay?”
“I’m calm,” the woman said. “Calm as I’m gonna be after what just happened.” She relaxed her arms a bit, lowering the .45 slightly.
“What happened?” Top asked softly.
“We were raided,” the leader said, pointing the shotgun at the ground. “Some strangers came and took women and children and a couple old men.”
“Took them where? For what?” Bunny asked. Humans raiding to kidnap other humans had to mean they were sick or going to be. What other explanation could there be in these times?
“The Lab. Experiments. Damn crazy doctor,” Caroline mumbled, shaking her head.
“What lab? You’re raided by other humans?” Bunny asked.
“What’s it to you?” the scowling man said, waving his pistol again. “Why are we telling them anything? We don’t know them! They could be with the Doc!”
“They’re on horses for one, Steven,” Caroline said. “The doctor’s people come in vehicles.”
The leader nodded. “And if they were with the Doc, they would have left together, not hung around.”
“We caught ‘em. Maybe they’re playing dumb, Owen,” Steven said, looking toward the leader.
“We’ll take their word for it for now and watch them closely,” the leader said, nodding in the younger man’s direction. “Lower your weapon, Steven, okay?”
Steven hesitated, his scowl changing to a face twisted with confusion. Owen nodded again, then slowly lowered the .45 a little and relaxed his stance.
“Now, you two slide slowly down off those horses so we can talk, okay?” Owen said.
Top and Bunny exchanged a look of agreement, then nodded and slowly dismounted, making sure to keep their hands well clear of their weapons as they did. Their feet thumped on the stone ground as they landed, sending dust and loose rocks up in clouds around their boots. As Top turned to Owen again and opened his mouth to speak, a whistle sounded from somewhere in the distance.
“They’re gone,” Caroline said, and all three relaxed a bit more, exchanging knowing looks.
“How many did they get?” Steven wondered.
“We’d better go back to camp and take a count,” Owen said.
“What was that about a lab? A doctor taking people?” Bunny asked, exchanging a puzzled look with Top.
“That signal’s from our camp,” Owen explained, ignoring the specific question. “All clear.”
Top and Bunny grunted but held position. That one they understood perfectly.
“What about them?” Steven asked, motioning to the two soldiers.
“They’re coming with us,” Owen said. “But you two stay behind them and be ready.”
“You’d risk letting them know where our camp is?” Caroline asked, looking uncertain.
“We move it a lot,” Owen said. “We’ll keep them under guard. We need time to find out more about them. But first, we need to make sure the perimeter’s secure again. Okay?”
After a moment, Caroline nodded then stepped forward and took away the weapons from the two soldiers — pistols and rifles slung off their shoulders. She didn’t inspect their bags or pat them down, for which Bunny felt grateful. She handed one rifle to each of the men and put the pistols in her belt, then stepped clear.
Steven’s jaw tightened as he grunted in affirmation and motioned sharply for Top and Bunny to follow Owen. Top and Bunny each grabbed their mount’s reins and led the horses after the group’s leader.
—7—
The Soldier and the Samurai
They heard the screams from miles off.
It was not the empty moans of the hungry dead. It was not an animal sound. These were screams from human throats. Male and female. Raised to that terrible pitch where the screams rip themselves out of throats, damaging tissue, violating the air, breaking the world.
Ledger and Tom were at the top of a hill and the road down twisted in and out of a scattered community of RVs and campers. It was like a hundred such camps they had seen, and like the others it looked like a war zone, with zombies everywhere and partially-eaten corpses sprawled and rotting in the weeds. Vultures circled endlessly in the high, dry air.
However those screams were alive. They were immediate.
Neither man said a word. Instead they kicked their bikes into motion and pedaled as hard and fast as they could, accelerating downhill. They could not see any living people, but the screams had to have been coming from outside — they weren’t muffled the way they would be if the victims were inside one of the campers.
It was only when they heard the gunshot that they skidded to a stop.
The dead don’t use firearms.
“Off,” snapped Ledger and they let the bikes fall. Tom, who was used to Ledger’s methods by now, immediately faded left, running low and fast toward the outermost camper, making the maximum of cover. He drew his sword because it was a cloudy day and there was no sunlight to reflect from the blade. Ledger went right, running a zigzag through the dead, twisting to avoid them without having to engage. He did not draw a weapon because the situation hadn’t yet revealed how it needed to be handled. It was a lesson he still needed to teach Tom.
He stopped at the corner of a rusty RV that sat on flat tires. Ledger knelt and did a quick-look around the rear bumper, then retreated to let his mind process what his eyes had seen.
Beyond the RV was kind of a pen made from old shopping carts, heaped junk, and cars that had been pushed together. He could not see much of what was going on inside the pen, but there were at least a dozen zombies pressing close to it. A fresh scream from inside the pen told him this was where things were happening. Ugly things. Up close the screams sounded younger and more thoroughly infused with comprehensive personal outrage as well as physical pain. Two guards stood atop the highest points on the pen wall. Both men; both dressed in travel-worn clothes and makeshift armor. Jeans, hockey pads, football helmets. And guns. The guards ignored the zombies, confident that they were out of reach, and instead cheered on whatever was happening in the pen.