Very soon.
I took a deep breath and tried to sort out my thoughts. Guns first. Then I could switch to the axe. Damn, I needed a holster for that thing. Picking it up and dropping it took up precious time.
“Vibeke,” Tony said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
Shit. If he declared his undying love for me, I was just going to leave. “What’s that, Tony?” I asked, bracing myself for the worst.
“I really wish you’d gotten into Game of Thrones.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “And I wish you had made more coffee at work when you drank the last of it.”
We regarded each other solemnly.
“Good times,” he said. He held out a fist.
I bumped mine against it.
“Hey! No fist-bumping without me!”
I hadn’t expected backup, and I didn’t get it. Instead, I got a heavily bandaged Dax, jogging over alongside Gloria, Vijay, and Poltava, along with what I assumed were a handful of her squadron.
So this was it. Our final stand. We did not make a particularly impressive crew.
“Glad you could make it,” Tony said to Gloria. He shoved the Carbine at Dax, who already had a weapon but accepted it anyway. “Where the hell were you?”
“Dax and some nut with crazy hair let us out,” Vijay said. “I guess we were supposed to be the clean-up act. Fed to the victors or something.”
“Idiot,” Gloria said. Someone had given her a pretty big gun. “Don’t they know how many people claim I’ve given them indigestion?”
We stood there in a line, staring at the dead.
Durkee marched back out to us. “A word of advice,” he said. “I realize you all look very heroic standing there, but maybe you can do us a solid and take the fight to them? Looks better on paper, too.”
Oh. Right. It probably wouldn’t do to sit here waiting for them to come get us.
Poltava switched off the safety on her rifle and started trudging forward. Her group followed her; mine lingered.
“This sucks,” Dax said.
I took a deep breath and put all thoughts of Alyssa, of my friends, and pastrami aside. “By Ezekiel’s Scythe, I’ll see you on the other side.”
The boys sent me surprised looks. “Quoting Dead Mennonite Walking?” Tony asked. “Really?”
“There were exactly two books I could read while you two were in jail. Dead Mennonite Walking, and a really boring translation of The Iliad. Guess which one I read?”
I switched off the STG’s safety.
Then I ran right into the fray.
It was stupid. I knew it was stupid. But if I didn’t throw myself directly at the dead, I’d probably change my mind and flee in the other direction. There was no thought to it, no real reasoning. Just a simmering, pent-up pool of rage that abruptly boiled over.
I skidded to a halt about twenty feet out and dropped my axe next to me. I cradled the STG in my arms like an old friend, took aim, and ripped off a shot.
The first man toppled. I had already picked out another target, this one hairier, less well preserved. He took two shots to go down. The third, a woman, lifted her hands toward me. She looked almost pleading.
I waited to see if she was actually alive.
She made it to about five feet away from me before she flung herself forward.
I lifted the STG. Her mouth closed around the muzzle, teeth shattering in all directions. I pulled the trigger, and black mist blew out of the back of her head, her skull going to pieces around the shell.
Her body dropped to the ground.
I looked down at her, trying to figure out if I felt anything. Remorse. Horror. Astonishment.
It was all gone, left behind me somewhere in the ruins of Hastings.
“Look out!”
I don’t know who barked at me, but I looked up, staring straight down Chapman Avenue and the sudden flood of new revenants it contained. They emerged from side streets, taking long, loping strides that were a far cry from the hobbling steps of their less evolved brethren. They came forward, marching, their gazes fixed on me. They were all in uniform, and save the sunken eyes, all looked…nearly alive.
Their eyes.
These had to be the men Jacoby experimented on. The ones who had escaped into the city with some ability to think left intact.
Was this a trap? Had they watched us attack the slow-moving group, waiting for us to spend our bullets before coming after us?
You assholes, I thought.
I hefted the STG and looked down the barrel, catching one head in my sights.
I shot, and shot, and shot. I hit some of them. Missed others. Managed to land non-crucial blasts. My gun got hot, and then hit empty.
And still they came.
I switched to the AR. I didn’t shoot as well with this one; you get used to handling a weapon, and using another proves daunting. But bullets were bullets. I kept shooting, kept firing.
And then I ran out.
I dropped the AR to the ground. At this point I would have thrown decency to the wind and started clubbing the dead with my gun. But the STG was a decent weapon, and I had something better than a club, anyway.
I picked up the axe.