Fire & Ash bi-4 Read online

  It was too long.

  Inches too long.

  Between the pull of the quad and the drag of the other zoms clinging to him, the bones of the dead man’s neck had separated, and the spinal cord had stretched too far and snapped. Had the strain been a little heavier, or the process of pulling him up taken a few seconds longer, the envelope of skin and muscle that comprised his neck would have torn and all they would have pulled out of the ravine was a head.

  They stood around him, their shadows falling over the zom like a shroud.

  “I’m glad we don’t have to quiet him,” said Nix. The others, even Lilah, nodded.

  Benny knelt down and lifted the satchel strap. He had to raise the total slack weight of the sergeant’s head in order to pull the satchel off. He winced but did it anyway. As soon as he had it off, Nix and Riot knelt down and began going through the sergeant’s pockets and laying the items out on a clear patch of dirt. Lilah sorted the items.

  They found a rusted multipurpose tool, a Las Vegas poker chip that Ortega was probably carrying as a good-luck charm, a plastic pocket comb, a pencil with a tip that looked like it had been sharpened with a knife, and several folded pieces of paper money of a kind none of them had ever seen. Instead of a picture of a president, the central image was a star, and Benny saw a phrase in Latin: POPULUS INVICTUS.

  Nix, reading over his shoulder, translated it. “A Nation Unconquerable.”

  Unlike Benny, she had paid attention in language arts.

  “I think that’s the motto of the American Nation,” suggested Benny.

  Lilah nodded her agreement, but Riot snorted.

  “What?” asked Benny, shooting her a look. “You don’t think so?”

  “Close to three hundred million Americans have died, son, during the Fall and in the years after,” said Riot. “How many have to croak before y’all consider it game over?”

  “All,” said Lilah.

  “Absolutely,” agreed Nix. “We’re still fighting.”

  “Yeah,” said Benny, nodding. “Besides, it wasn’t our generation who was defeated when the dead rose. I still believe there’s a future, and I intend to be there to see it.”

  Riot considered him, and a slow smile spread over her face. “Well look at you, Captain Hero.”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Benny, but he was grinning.

  The last thing they found was a folded slip of paper with a series of numbers written on it:

  +36°30′ 19.64", — 117°4′ 45.81"

  “What are those?” asked Riot.

  “Map coordinates,” said Benny and Nix at the same time. They’d both taken orienteering in the Scouts.

  “Coordinates of what?”

  Benny shrugged. “Probably Hope One, but I’d need a map to figure it out.”

  He crammed the useless stuff back into the dead sergeant’s pocket. Then they turned their attention to the satchel, which was crammed with papers. In another climate, rain and humidity might have turned the papers to mush or made the ink run and fade. But between the good leather of the satchel and the dry desert heat, most of the papers were legible, though they were all dried to a fragile brittleness. Joe said that Sergeant Ortega had been a logistics coordinator, and the papers bore that out. There were copies of loading manifests, supply lists, personnel lists, written orders, and a lot of stuff that was so heavy with military acronyms that it looked like totally random collections of letters and numbers.

  “Well, that’s as helpful as toenails on a snake,” observed Riot.

  “What are we looking for?” asked Nix.

  “A small leather notebook,” said Benny. “Joe said that if McReady wasn’t onboard the plane when it crashed, then the logistics guy would know where she might be, and that the details would be in a leather notebook he usually carried in his shirt pocket.”

  “I checked the pockets,” said Nix. “Nothing.”

  They rifled through the satchel again, digging through every pocket and pouch, and came up empty.

  Lilah became frustrated with it all and stalked off to scout the vicinity. She soon vanished into the woods.

  Depression punched Benny hard in the chest. He sat down heavily and tossed the empty satchel away. Riot and Nix were still huddled together as they went through the crackling papers. They read each page in mounting disappointment and stuffed everything back into the satchel. All that remained were a handful of small scraps of paper, and Nix sat cross-legged going through them.

  “Benny!” Nix suddenly cried aloud, and held up one piece of paper. “Look at this. I think I found something.”

  Benny hurried over, dropping to his knees between the girls. The slip of paper read:

  URGENT: REPT OF R3 ACTIVITY VCNTY OF DVNP — REL. WIT. *** FTF?

  “Don’t make a lick of sense to me,” said Riot.

  But Benny said, “Oh crap…”

  “I know,” agreed Nix, and despite the heat she shivered. “God… R3’s.”

  “What’s an R3?” asked Riot. “Y’all look like you both swallowed bugs.”

  Benny said, “When we first found the plane, we also found one of Dr. McReady’s field reports. She wasn’t just looking for a cure; she was studying several weird new mutations of the zombie plague. She divided the zoms into different groups. R1’s are the normal zoms, the slow shufflers.”

  For most of his life those were the only kinds of zoms Benny had known, and his first encounters with them had been absolutely terrifying. He still dreamed of the erosion artist, Mr. Sacchetto, recently risen from the dead, attacking him in Benny’s own living room. Benny nearly lost that fight. Times had changed, though, and Benny knew that he was becoming a skilled fighter. In a pitched fight, he was sure that he and his sword were a match for any six or even eight of them. Unarmed, he figured he could do pretty well against two or three at a time. They were slow, uncoordinated, stupid, and weak.

  “The R2 zoms,” continued Benny, “are known as ‘fast walkers’ by McReady’s people — quicker and a lot more coordinated. Nix and I ran into some of them near Yosemite Park and again during the battle of Gameland.”

  Benny had fought a couple of the R2’s so far, and it was a whole different matter taking one of them down. He wouldn’t want to try it without a sword.

  “So what are R3’s?” asked Riot.

  “The fast ones,” said Nix. “Like the ones that attacked me and Lilah yesterday. According to Dr. McReady’s report, the R3’s can problem-solve, evade some attacks, use simple weapons, and even set rudimentary traps.”

  “Ah. Like the ones that some genius let out of a crashed airplane.”

  Benny shook his head. “Don’t remind me.”

  In order to create a diversion that would save Nix from a pack of reapers, Benny had climbed aboard the crashed plane and released all the zoms Dr. McReady’s team had collected: R1’s, R2’s, and a few R3’s. The zoms had created the diversion, and that saved Nix’s life; however, it was one of those same R3 zoms who picked up a stick and nearly bashed Benny’s brains out.

  “So, according to this message,” said Benny, “someone spotted R3’s somewhere. I guess ‘activity vcnty of  ’ means ‘activity in the vicinity of,’ right?”

  Nix nodded. “And the ‘Rel. Wit.’? What’s that? ‘Reliable witness’?”

  “Sounds right.”

  “Then what’s DVNP?” asked Riot. “And FTF?”

  “FTF sounds familiar,” said Benny. “I’m pretty sure I saw that in the Teambook I gave to Joe. Wait, it’s right on the tip of my brain….” He snapped his fingers a couple of times, then brightened. “Got it. There was a note. Something about Field Team Five.”

  “Field Team?” murmured Nix. “If they were going to investigate something like R3 activity, then a ‘field team’ would sound about right.”

  “It listed the names, but all I can remember was Dr. McReady. She was at the top of the list.”

  They looked at one another for a long time without saying anything, though their eyes said i
t all.

  “Well, skin me and hang me out to dry,” breathed Riot at last. “Doc McReady was never on that plane. At least not when it crashed. Either of you think any different?”

  Nix shook her head.

  Benny said, “I’ve been thinking that all along. Ever since Joe told me that the D-series notes were missing.”

  “If it was a field investigation,” began Nix, “why would she take her research? Why not just send it on to Sanctuary?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Riot tapped the note that Nix still held. “What’s this part here? ‘DVNP’? Y’all have any clue what that is?”

  “I don’t know,” said Benny. “More military initials, maybe? Department of something-something-something.”

  “Useful,” said Nix. “No, I think it’s a place. R3 reported in the vicinity of…”

  “Vicinity of where?” complained Riot. “They flew from Washington State to Nevada. That’s a lot of gol-durn places to be in the vicinity of.”

  Benny took the note and held it firmly between thumb and forefinger. He wanted to shout at it, to make it speak in a human voice and unlock its mysteries.

  And then it spoke to him.

  Not in words, but in implication.

  His head snapped up and whipped around toward the fallen body of Sergeant Ortega.

  “No,” he said as he leaped to his feet and ran. “No. No freaking way.”

  Nix and Riot stared at each other for a split second, and then they were running after him.

  The loose papers were in the satchel. Benny whipped back the flap and began furiously digging through the pages.

  “No freaking way,” he said again. “No.” Then he snatched up a small, folded piece of paper, opened it, and yelled, “Yes!”

  “What is it?” demanded the girls.

  “Joe said that Sergeant Ortega was a real detail-oriented person,” said Benny. “He kept track of everything. Every detail. Even the minor stuff.”

  “So what?” asked Riot.

  “Well, someone who takes the time to keep track of minor stuff is definitely going to keep track of the important stuff. Like where Dr. McReady and Field Team Five went while investigating mutant zombies. No way that bit of information wasn’t going into his report.”

  “Sure. DVNP,” said Nix. “So what? We don’t know what it is or where it is.”

  “You’re wrong, Nix. We don’t know what it is or where it is right now, but I think we might have our first real clue.”

  He showed them the folded slip of paper.

  +36°30′ 19.64", — 117°4′ 45.81"

  The map coordinates.

  “So what?” asked Riot. “For all y’all know that’s the coordinates for that Hope One place.”

  “Maybe,” said Benny, “but Sergeant Ortega had it in his pocket, right? If this was something that was part of the original mission, wouldn’t the coordinates be printed out like all the other mission stuff? No, he wrote this down and it was on him when he died. That means he probably did it while aboard the plane or shortly before. If Dr. McReady went somewhere else, then I don’t think it’s any kind of stretch that these might tell us where she went. This might be the key to ending the plague.”

  The three of them stared at him for a long moment and finally burst out laughing. They hugged one another and shouted, and they were only interrupted by the sudden roar of quads as a dozen reapers came tearing out of the forest.

  CHAPTER 45

  “Run!” screamed Nix as she scrambled to her feet.

  But the reapers were already between them and three of their own quads. Only Benny’s machine, the one they’d used to haul Sergeant Ortega out of the ravine, was close at hand.

  The reapers closed on them at top speed, dragging behind them tall plumes of tan dust. Sunlight glittered on the sharp steel of their knives and swords.

  “God,” cried Benny. He stuffed the papers into his vest pocket, snatched up the satchel and slung it over his shoulder, then quickly drew his sword. “Nix… take the quad and get out of here.”

  Nix drew her pistol and raised it in a two-handed grip, setting her feet wide, her body angled the way Tom had taught her.

  Riot looked desperately around. “Where’s Lilah? I can’t see her anywhere. Did they get her?”

  “No,” breathed Nix, but it was only a denial of that as a possibility. In truth there was no sign of the Lost Girl. Nix swung the barrel toward the closest of the reapers. The sound of their engines was becoming deafening.

  Benny raised his sword into the high two-handed grip the samurai used when facing a cavalry charge. It was a lesson Tom had taught them once that none of them ever expected to use. He widened his stance and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, knees bent, ready to cut and evade and run and kill. He could feel his pulse racing faster than the quads.

  There was no real chance of escape. They had the zombiefilled ravine behind them and a converging half circle of reapers everywhere else. Even if they managed to cut through the reaper line, those machines could turn and give chase no matter where Benny and the girls ran. And their quad could never get to top speed if all three of them managed to climb aboard. It was a good trap. Smart and well-planned. Benny figured that the reapers had pushed their quads to the edge of the forest, engines off for silence; and then when the trap was set, they fired up the motors and attacked.

  Very smart, and Benny approved of the tactical intelligence it showed.

  It would be no comfort at all, though, to be slaughtered by intelligent killers.

  Dead was dead.

  Nix shifted to stand on Benny’s left flank, and Riot moved to his right, a steel ball bearing socketed into the pouch of her powerful slingshot.

  Twelve to three. Nix had a gun with five bullets in the cylinder. She was a good shot, so Benny figured she’d get at least three. The ball bearings in Riot’s slingshot were slower than bullets but just as deadly, and she could fire and reload with lightning speed. Benny had his sword. Unless the reapers intended to grind them under the wheels, the killers would have to dismount.

  How many could they take?

  Six? Eight?

  Defeating all twelve was a heroic dream, but not a probability.

  If Lilah was here… maybe.

  The quads were not slowing.

  “They’re going to run us down,” Riot yelled, reading the situation the same way he was.

  “Back up,” snapped Benny. “All the way to the edge. They can’t run us down if we’re right on the edge.”

  The edge, though, might not hold their combined weight, and Benny knew it. Pulling Sergeant Ortega out of the ravine had weakened an already fragile structure. But that was a different problem. Or maybe it was another problem that would overlap this one, forcing their odds from weak to impossible.

  Benny scanned the faces of the reapers as they closed in. All but one of them had red hands tattooed on their faces. They looked wild and fierce, like barbarians out of an old storybook.

  As the reapers closed in, they realized that they couldn’t use the machines as weapons. A stern-faced young man — the only reaper not marked with the red hand tattoo — raised his fist, and the reapers revved their engines, the combined drone pulsing like the breath of a gigantic dragon.

  He’s the one, thought Benny. He’s their leader.

  The young man looked like a warrior. Lean and muscular, with big hands and eyes as hard and dead as desert rocks.

  Even through the din, Benny heard Riot say, “Brother Peter… oh my God.”

  It was a name that struck a big bell of terror in Benny’s heart. He hadn’t met this man, but he knew about him. He knew him from a thousand terrifying tales Riot had told them. From firsthand descriptions by survivors of reaper massacres. From accounts by monks who had witnessed acts of savagery so grotesque that their minds were scarred by the memories. From surveillance photos Joe had shown them.

  Brother Peter, the right hand of Saint John.

  Even Joe
said that Peter was one of the most dangerous men alive. Deadly with any kind of weapon, and equally deadly in unarmed combat. A man totally without mercy or remorse.

  Like an echo from out of the shadowed past, Benny thought he heard Tom’s voice. Don’t give in to fear. Be warrior smart and survive.

  Benny nodded as if Tom could see his agreement.

  Hot wind blew dust plumes past them, momentarily obscuring them, turning them to wraiths. Then the dust blew past Benny and his friends and on across the ravine. The waist-high grass swayed drunkenly in the breeze.

  The reapers were in a tight arc around them. They kept revving their engines, and the sound seemed to beat on Benny’s chest.

  “Nix,” he said, speaking just loud enough so she could hear him beneath the pulsing roar of the quads. “If you have to shoot, go for Brother Peter.”

  Nix swung the pistol around toward the man.

  Brother Peter saw this and smiled. Then he slashed down with his clenched fist, and suddenly all the reapers cut their engines at once.

  The silence was crushing. It collapsed the world into a surreal bubble that enclosed the ravine, the killers on the quads, and the three of them.

  Where the hell is Lilah? wondered Benny. Did they already get her? Is she dead somewhere out in the forest?

  Brother Peter sat in silence, studying them. When his gaze drifted over to Riot, his eyes widened for a moment.

  “Sister Margaret,” he said, and the other reapers recoiled at his words. Some of them actually hissed and spat onto the dirt.

  “Don’t call me that,” warned Riot.

  “Why not? You are the daughter of Mother Rose, that traitorous witch.”

  “My mama died a long time ago,” said Riot. “She was just another victim of Saint John and his sickness.”

  At this, three of the reapers suddenly made as if to leap off their quads, but Brother Peter held up a hand. “No,” he said. “Words can’t harm the honored saint, and this child can’t tarnish her soul any more than it already is.”