Several times the thought occurred to him that he could feed them all if he just descended on a town somewhere. Even with the security all these places had in mid-country, they wouldn’t be expecting a horde that could coordinate their movements on this scale.
He could save all these zombies easily if he only killed living people. The irony was not lost on him, and he couldn’t bring himself to take that step. Not yet, at least.
Nearly a week after he and Liddie escaped from the CRS, Edward saw the first sign announcing that Winnebago was close. At the start of the journey he thought he would receive this moment with excitement and anticipation, but now there was no real joy at knowing the end was near. He knew that this mysterious old man had all the answers, but Edward didn’t have the slightest clue what he would do with the answers once he found them.
He could smell the group standing in the road at the edge of the town long before he saw them. The other zombies smelled them, too, and Edward had to work to keep them from going into a hungry frenzy. He had to admit that the smell of living meat ahead of them was enticing, then remembered that it wasn’t too long ago that thinking of a human as meat had repulsed him. He snorted at the memory, but without any humor.
Within a couple minutes he could see them. They were all armed, and Edward almost paused to consider what to do next. They hadn’t done anything to him yet that would justify attacking them, but at the same time they stood between him and the last thing in his life that had any meaning. He could send the horde to plow right through them, both taking care of their little roadblock and revitalizing the zombies at the same time. Or the group could be smart and try to run, but Edward didn’t have faith anymore that people could be that intelligent. All those people, the living ones, the humans, they all thought they were so much better. They had never given much thought to what would happen if they pissed off the wrong zombie, because pissing off a zombie had never been possible before. If people didn’t wise up very soon, there was an unfortunate possibility that Edward would have to teach them.
That whole line of thought became moot, however, when he saw one of the people motion for all the others to put their weapons down. Edward continued, hoping this wasn’t some kind of trap, until he got close enough to see the leader. Or, rather, until he was close enough to see her bright pink and silver rifle.
For the first time in almost a thousand miles of travel, Edward smiled.
He didn’t even need to concentrate too hard anymore to manipulate the pheromones into a stop order. The horde instantly ceased moving. He had enough experience now to know they would stand completely still for a couple minutes, and if he did nothing to reinforce the pheromones the zombies would then get fidgety. In about ten minutes they would begin to mill around, in fifteen they would probably try to attack the human in front of them. He had about that long to talk.
Leaving the horde behind at what he hoped was a non-threatening distance, Edward continued on down the road. Rae stepped away from her group but didn’t come the rest of the way to meet him. Edward stopped a couple feet away from her, and she gave him a cautious smile.
“Hey there, stranger,” she said.
“Rae, I never in a million years would have expected to see you here.”
“And I would have never expected to be here. But it’s been a strange couple weeks.”
“Yeah, I know how that one goes,” he said.
“I would say you probably know it a whole hell of a lot better than I do,” she said, pointing first at the horde behind him and then at the large bloodstained hole in the front of his coveralls. Edward had practically forgotten it was there. The wound had healed within a day, although he could still feel the bullet jabbing tender parts inside him if he breathed too hard. “I bet you that’s going to be quite the story.”
“I hope you don’t mind, but it might just be one I keep to myself.”
Rae nodded. “We were told you were coming and you wouldn’t be alone, but I expected at least one more person with a heartbeat. Where’s Claudia Gates?”
Edward sucked in a breath. “How the fuck did you know about her?”
“There’s a certain old man around here. I think you might have talked to him at least once. He claims to have a lot of secret contacts in high up places. Those contacts apparently told him that the CRS was planning on putting you down, and they got him in contact with her. He told me that the younger Gates was with you when he talked to you and that she would be by your side. So where is she?”
Edward said the words slowly. “Wyoming, in a grave a lot shallower than she deserves.”
Rae fidgeted. “Oh.”
“The man who killed her is back there,” Edward said, cocking his thumb back over his shoulder. “Maybe if I ever see Liddie’s mother again I’ll turn him over to her. She can dissect him, if she wants.”
Rae looked less comfortable around him by the second. “You turned him into a zed?”
“He deserved worse.”
He noticed she held Spanky a little tighter in her hands, but he didn’t care if she suddenly got the urge to shoot him. He could understand her discomfort.
“Edward, what happened to you?” she asked. “This isn’t the person I met a couple weeks ago who just wanted to find his daughter.”
He snorted. “I’m sorry. I really am. But most people wouldn’t describe me as a person anymore.”
“Well I still do,” she said.
“Good,” Edward said. “That makes one of us.”
Cory, Luke, and Jojo were so engrossed in the bizarre powwow happening down the road from them that none of them noticed as Larissa backed away from the group and ducked out of sight behind a telephone pole off the highway. It was a terrible hiding place, but it wasn’t like she needed them not to see her. She just needed them to not see the phone she pulled out of her pocket. None of the others in the group had been able to get a signal out here, but Larissa’s phone was different. It ran on the same principles as the one that crazy old man kept, but Larissa’s had been given to her for completely different reasons.
She pushed a button. She didn’t need to do anything else, since the phone could only call one number.
“He’s here,” Larissa whispered into it. “And it’s a situation, uh, crap I can’t remember. Um, C? Yeah, situation C. No, I’m positive. Yes, that one. Okay. Don’t worry, I’ll do exactly like you told me. I’ll see you soon, Dr. Chella.”
Chapter Thirty Eight
Rae nervously fingered Spanky’s trigger. Edward was quite a sight, standing before her in ruined and blood-darkened clothing with his own personal army behind him. Everything she had done over the last several weeks had been due to the idea that an innocent man had been caught in circumstances beyond his control. He had plenty of control now, but he no longer seemed so innocent.
Ghostly memories of her parents screamed in her head, telling her to shoot him. He looked more human now than ever, but on the inside he might have gone in the opposite direction. This was not something her parents would have wanted to live.
In her own mind, however, Edward still was not a something. He was a someone. Whatever he had gone through and seen since he had left Wisconsin, she refused to believe it could possibly be enough to completely get rid of that scared yet determined man she’d first met.
She lowered Spanky, and his muscles visibly relaxed. There had been some sort of unspoken standoff here, but she wasn’t sure which of them had won.
“I suppose we should do this, then” Rae said. “The old man has been waiting for you. From what my lieutenant said, he’s probably even expecting you right now.”