Still of Night Page 8

  And the knife.

  Dad’s knife.

  Just lying there.

  Almost within reach.

  She looked at it as the door shuddered and shuddered. She thought about what was happening. People acting crazy. People—go on, she told herself, say it—eating people. Marcy had been bitten. Marcy had gone into some kind of shock and seemed to stop breathing. No. She had stopped breathing. Then Marcy had opened her eyes and gone all bitey.

  As much as Dahlia knew this was insane and impossible, she knew there was a name for what was happening. Not a name that belonged to TV and movies and games anymore. A name that was right here. Close enough to bite her.

  She looked down at Marcy as if the corpse could confirm it. And . . . maybe it did. Nothing Dahlia had done to the girl had worked. Not until she made her fall down and smash her skull. Not until Marcy’s brain had been damaged.

  All of those facts tumbled together like puzzle pieces that were trying to force themselves into a picture. A picture that had that name.

  Began with a z.

  “Aim for the head,” whispered Dahlia, and her voice was thick with tears. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  Tammy and Joe kept slamming into the door. The knife was still there. Very good blade. And Dahlia was very strong. She knew how to put her weight into a punch. Or a stab.

  “ . . . God . . . ”

  When she realized that she had to let go of the door to grab the knife, it changed something inside of her. She waited until the next bang on the door, waited for them to pull back to hit it again, then she let go and dove for the knife, scooped it up as the door slammed inward, spun, met their charge.

  Tammy, smaller and faster, came first.

  Dahlia kicked her in the stomach. Not a good kick, but solid. Tammy jerked to a stop and bent forward. Dahlia swung the knife as hard as she could and buried the point in the top of the girl’s skull. In that spot where babies’ skulls are soft. The blade went in with a wet crunch. Tammy dropped as quickly and suddenly as if Dahlia had thrown a switch. One minute zombie, next minute dead.

  That left Joe.

  A freshman boy. Average for his age. As tall as Dahlia.

  Not quite in her weight class.

  She tore the knife free, grabbed him by the shirt with her other hand, swung him around into the sinks, forced him down and . . . stab. She put some real mass into it.

  Joe died.

  Dahlia staggered back and let him slide to the floor.

  Outside she heard Dault screaming as he ran in and out of rooms, through openings in the accordion walls, trying to shake the pack of pursuers.

  Dahlia caught a glimpse of her own face in the row of mirrors. Fat girl with crazy hair and bloodstains on her clothes. Fat girl with wild eyes.

  Fat girl with a knife.

  Despite everything—despite the insanity of it, the horror of it, the knowledge that things were all going to slide down the toilet in her world—Dahlia Allgood smiled at herself.

  Then she lumbered over to the door, tore it open, and yelled to Dault.

  “Over here!”

  He saw her and almost stopped. She was bloody, she had that knife. “W-what—?”

  “Get in here,” said Dahlia raising the blade. “I’ll protect you.”

  Yeah.

  She was smiling as she said that.

  PART THREE

  ORC NIGHT

  RACHAEL LAVIN

  SIX MONTHS AFTER FIRST NIGHT

  — 1 —

  “Left! Right! Strike! Strike! Watch your footing!” A young woman’s voice carried across a grassy field as she paced between the long lines of fighters, dark green eyes watching her students run through training exercises. Dozens of people, from mid-teens to late forties, lined up in front of her in slightly askew rows, wooden training swords or large sticks gripped firmly in their hands, moving in unison through careful forms. “Don’t stop. I don’t care if you’re tired. Remember, the orcs don’t get tired. Ever.”

  Orcs. It was what she’d nicknamed the living dead. It was maybe a silly name, borrowed from The Lord of the Rings. The difference here was that these orcs were real monsters. And they were dead. All of the millions, or perhaps billions, of people who’d died when the plague swept across the world had risen to become monsters. To become orcs.

  She was not exaggerating to the people she trained. The orcs never got tired, they never gave up, they were relentless and insatiably hungry for the flesh of the living. Half measures and half-assed training were not going to help anyone survive. Only real warriors would live long enough to maybe try and build something, to take back some land from the dead and claim it as theirs. And so Rachael Elle worked her people harder and harder every day.

  The late spring day came with an unseasonably warm breeze, the sun rising in a clear sky. In a normal world this would be a beautiful day, the sort where you wanted to be outside, enjoying and relaxing.

  But this was not that world. Rachael knew that better than anyone here. She had led a group of cosplayers and other survivors out of a hotel in New York, fighting floor by floor against thousands of the dead. It had taken weeks, during which Rachael had changed from a fangirl playing at being a super hero to an actual warrior. Maybe not a hero—at least not in her own eyes—but a practiced killer. She got her people—and by then they were her people—out of New York and down into rural Pennsylvania, then to Virginia. Fighting every step of the way. Refining her skills and becoming more of a warrior, and more of a killer, every day.

  And it wasn’t just the orcs she’d killed. While out on a scouting mission to find resources for her people, she’d come upon a bus full of terrified little kids. She’d pieced together that they were waiting for their protector; Dez, a raw and violent cop from Stebbins—the town where the outbreak began. Dez was in a running fight with a group of human monsters—all very much alive, but all the more evil for that. They called themselves the Nu Klux Klan, and they were rounding up women and children for the sickest kind of entertainment. Into this mix came a man, Captain Joe Ledger, who said he’d been a Special Ops soldier before the world fell apart. Ledger and his big combat dog, Baskerville, joined up with Rachael and Dez. There was a terrible battle at a farmhouse, and when the smoke cleared the Nu Klux Klan had been butchered.

  The Rachael who left that carnage was immensely far removed from the naïve and earnest cosplayer who had been at the comic convention in New York. She wondered how she would look to her family, but forced herself to turn away from that thought. That kind of loss was a much more destructive bite than anything the orcs could do.

  Rachael propped the long stick she used for training across her shoulders, hooking her arms over it, standing back to watch. She looked like an average early twenty-something, having exchanged her superhero costume today for a worn geeky T-shirt with a Batgirl logo, loose fitting jeans and heavy-duty, knee-high leather boots. Her long auburn hair was pulled up into a loose bun, wavy tendrils escaping around her face and blowing in the breeze. The only thing that seemed out of place was the sharp elven sword and dagger strapped to her hips.

  “Brian!” she called out. “Foot! Stop crossing over. That’s how you trip yourself.”

  They had only been training for a few weeks, but she was pleased how quickly her team was developing their skills. Brett and Rachael took turns training them, putting their little combat experience from LARPing—live-action role playing—to some use. Their form wasn’t perfect, but it kept them alive, and that was the best they could do.

  It wouldn’t help them against a trained, living opponent.

  But their targets were slightly easier.

  “Again!”

  Listening over the sighing wind for any sounds of the dead, she watched her trainees run through the exercises over and over.

  Practice meant perfect.

  Practice meant fewer people died.

  Over the last few months, their numbers had exponentially increased. What once had been a tiny traveli
ng band of survivors that had barely escaped New York was now a full-fledged group. As their numbers increased, travel grew increasingly difficult, so the old hospital located on an earlier foray had proven useful as a refuge. After clearing it out and repairing the makeshift chain-link fences, they’d expanded the yards and added more outside areas—gardens and open areas for people to escape, even briefly, the confines of concrete walls. They set up traps in the surrounding woods, building fences next to it, upping their levels of security, and they drove the dead away.

  It was almost like having a home.

  But homes needed protecting, and the rumors and tales spread of the woman dressed as a superhero and armed with a sword, cutting through the undead. People traveled to join them, looking for safety, for a place to belong in their new, more dangerous world.

  As their numbers grew, however, so did the threats. They would welcome anyone who wanted security and agreed do their part, but there were always enemies who would try to take their home, and orcs who stalked the landscape. Rachael couldn’t protect them all herself, even with Brett at her side. He was a brute of a man who used to cosplay Thor without having to use padding. Brett was enormously powerful and moderately quick, but he did not share Rachael’s combat intuition. Or her ruthlessness.

  Then Alice, one of the women who had joined around the time of the battle at the farmhouse, expressed interest in learning how to fight so she could help, and that had given Rachael an idea. But she never expected the number of volunteers who stepped forward when she posed the idea to their group.

  Wandering through the lines of training survivors, she tapped her stick lightly against legs and arms, adjusting stances and grips.

  “Andy, foot farther forward,” came a familiar voice. Rachael smiled at the sound. Brett came up to join her on the field. She was glad he hadn’t left with their last patrol. The group was safer for having another competent fighter and . . . well, she was happier when he was around.

  “Take a break,” she called out, handing her stick to one of the fighters as they walked away, “we’ll resume in twenty minutes. Make sure to stretch!”

  She turned, walking with Brett a short distance away.

  “How are they doing?” he asked. He brushed strands of long blond hair that had escaped from his ponytail out of his face and leaned back against a tree, folding muscular arms as he did so.

  “They’re getting better,” she responded. “Some of them seem to be picking it up faster than others, but they all want to learn. They all want to protect the people they care about.”

  “They have a good teacher, a strong leader.” Brett smiled at her, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear before pulling her close and draping an arm around her shoulder. “You’ll get them to where they need to be.”

  Leaning against his side comfortably, she rested her head against his chest. They watched together in silence as Andy and Brian began to spar, the sound of wood hitting wood echoing across the field. It was a lighthearted practice spar, neither of them trying very hard, but Rachael could see how much they’d improved over the last few weeks.

  In the moment of calm, it seemed that everything could be right with the world. No orcs, no bloodthirsty gangs threatening their safety, no loss.

  So when the small pack of orcs emerged from the tree line behind Brian and Andy as they fought, the words of warning stuck in her throat . . . lost on the wind that carried the unsettling death rattle of the undead.

  Andy froze in terror as Brian turned, trying to get his sword up to defend himself. He tripped over his feet, landing hard as one of the orcs grabbed for him. His weapon flew out of his grasp, off to the side and out of reach.

  Swallowing hard, Rachael ducked under Brett’s arm and charged forward, her mouth open to warn the rest of the group. Before she could get the words out, however, another warrior already had her heavy wooden sword out, running full speed to strike quickly—Maria, a shy, quiet teen who’d joined their group recently. Before Rachael could react, the girl slammed her sword into the orc’s head—once, twice, three times in quick succession.

  It dropped to the ground, unmoving. Maria stood over it, making sure it didn’t rise again, before reaching out a hand to help Brian back to his feet. Andy, in the meantime, snapped out of his shock and attacked the other orcs.

  The rest of the group sprang into action without an order. Rachael watched proudly as they moved together as a unit to clear out the last standing dead. Some held back, but as the last of the orcs fell, the chatter and excitement of success filled the air.

  Smiling, Brett joined Rachael, standing at her side. He mussed her hair lightly.

  “Welcome to your army.”

  — 2 —

  The morning sun glowed across the grounds as Rachael helped weed one of their gardens. She smiled, listening to the sound of children playing in the parking lot; drawing on the asphalt with chalk and playing with toys. This was the world she wanted, a taste of normality in the chaos.

  Mark, another recent arrival to their community, jogged in between the beds of plants, stammering out-of-breath apologies for being late to his duties. Cute in a thin, intense way, with a shock of brown hair that hadn’t seen scissors in months. Rachael smiled, handing him a small shovel. “Pull up some dirt,” she said, gesturing to the rows of damp, dark ground.

  The work was hard, but getting lost in thought made the hours pass. Rachael found herself tuning out most of the sounds around her as she dug her fingers through the dirt.

  When the sound of children shrieking broke through her reverie, she thought it was just a playground scuffle. Then the shrieks turned into screams of pure terror, pulling her out of her thoughts, jarring her back to attention. Rachael grabbed her sword instinctively, tossing the scabbard to one side as she bolted toward the commotion. The screams grew louder.

  “The fence!” someone shouted. “There’s a hole! The fence is broken!”

  Dread filled Rachael’s chest as she rounded the corner. Orcs filled half the lot, dozens of them, shambling with rotted hands outstretched and grasping at the panicked children fleeing in every direction.

  No one but Rachael had a weapon. She snapped into action, charging the closest orcs, slicing and kicking and stabbing. She scooped up children on the run, handing them off to anyone she could as she charged toward the horde of walking death.

  There was no way she could take on this many by herself; there were more than she’d ever battled alone. She battled ice-cold fear in the pit of her stomach as more and more orcs grasped at her, broken teeth snapping the air.

  “Focus,” she growled as she stumbled against a broken curb, almost losing her footing. Catching herself, she adjusted her grip on her sword, cutting through the orcs grabbing at her sleeve, knocking them away and moving on to the next without pause. Stopping meant death for her, for the children . . . for their home.

  Charging through a pair of orcs, she swung her sword, dragging it across the backs of their necks as she spun, kicking out to knock them to the ground. There were too many; the orcs came in never-ending masses, and she couldn’t take them on herself. She needed to focus on getting everyone to safety instead of trying to reduce the enemy’s numbers.

  Most of her people were back at the hospital, but Rachael could still hear screaming from across the lot, behind the orcs that changed direction to trail her. Throwing caution to the wind, she took a deep breath and charged, ducking and dodging and weaving, chasing the screams.

  She was vaguely aware of someone yelling her name behind her, but she couldn’t focus on that now. Swinging her sword arcing down into an orc’s skull, she yanked hard, pulling it out of one orc’s head to slice through another’s neck, never stopping long enough to let any of them grab her.

  She spotted a man with a boy and a girl backing away from the orcs. The man—Rachael couldn’t remember his name—stood in front of the kids, doing his best to protect them.

  “This way!” Rachael yelled, waving to them
.

  The boy bolted toward her, and she kicked an orc back with a solid foot to the chest, grabbing the small child and pulling him up onto her back.

  “Hold on tight,” she shouted as he wrapped his arms and legs around her. She gestured to the man to do the same with the little girl, but he was frozen in fear, the child’s terrified screams drowning out Rachael’s yells.

  She made a split-second decision and charged the orc that stood between them, swinging her sword more slowly with the extra weight on her back, but still managing to land a solid blow that knocked the rotted form out of her way.

  The girl ran to her as soon as the orc was down.

  “Run!” Rachael yelled to the man to follow, to run, but it was too late. He screamed as orcs swarmed him, ripping and biting. Rachael grabbed the toddler, hoisting her up on her hip, fighting back the wave of nausea that threatened to overcome her.

  Too weighed down to fight, and barely able to run, Rachael panicked as the orcs turned their attention away from the now dead man to her. Struggling to move with any agility or speed, she tried to dodge around an orc as it grabbed at her shirt, shredding the cloth but missing her skin.

  Suddenly something smashed down on the orc’s head, and Brett was there, spinning his steel hammer like it was a children’s toy.

  “Move, Rachael!” he yelled as the orc crumpled in front of him. He moved on to the next as she struggled to keep pace, her legs screaming from the extra weight, but she gritted her jaw and fought through the burning muscles, focusing on safety.

  They made it to the door of the hospital a few paces ahead of the orcs, and Alice held the door open long enough for them to get in before slamming it shut, barricading it. Letting the crying children climb to the floor and run for their parents, Rachael collapsed against the door as her legs gave out, adrenaline crashing. A hand stretched out in front of her. She looked up at Brett, letting him help her up off the floor and into his strong embrace.