CHAPTER 28 - MAP QUEST

Alfred was the first on the scene, coming around the corner at a run. He’d started moving as soon as he heard the shouts and cries of alarm coming from behind the house Selena’s team was searching. When was she going to get a break? She’d been in the middle of every fight so far, even running into that monstrous bear. Now her team was in trouble—again!—and he was going to get there in time to help, even if it meant leaving his teammates behind.

He rounded the corner, and stopped cold.

There were three dead bodies lying on the ground. The nearest he recognized as Neal, and he wasn’t quite dead anymore. He was clambering back to his feet, in fact, even with his throat gnawed and multiple stab wounds to his belly.

Another body stirred, slowly rising as a new zombie. At first Alfred thought it was Tom, but then he blinked. That wasn’t Tom at all. It was Brad? What was he even doing there? He stepped back, easing his way clear of the zombies. He didn’t know what was going on here, but this wasn’t something he wanted to handle on his own.

The third body still wasn’t moving, but it was also clearly dead, whoever it was. Alfred hoped it wasn’t Selena, but he couldn’t tell without getting danger close to the zombies.

“What’s happening?” Kara called out behind him, huffing for breath. She was one of his team members, finally caught up, and hadn’t seen the zombies before she spoke, so her voice carried well. Both zombies locked their eyes on the pair of them and advanced.

“Shit,” Alfred swore. “Back up. Come on, let’s go.”

“They’re zombies,” Kara said. “We can take ‘em!”

“That’s Neal,” Alfred snapped back. “And Brad! These are our people. I want some backup before we deal with this mess, okay?”

“Oh…” Kara’s face went white at that, and Alfred could understand why. After all, they hadn’t lost anyone yet. They’d fought goblins and bone dogs and giant snakes, but nobody on the home team had died in any of those battles, unless you counted the guy in the business suit. But Alfred didn’t know his name, and he was betting Kara didn’t either.

It was different when you knew the name of the zombie trying to eat you.

His second man, Joe, came jogging up, saw the zombies, and didn’t ask any questions—he just backed up with the rest of them.

Lords brought his group over next. He took in the scene and his face didn’t get white, it went red. He was furious, and it was easy to see. He whirled to Alfred. “Damn it! What the hell happened?”

Alfred shook his head. “I don’t know. I heard shouts and came as quick as I could. Got here and saw—this.”

He gestured toward the oncoming zombies.

“Where are the rest of their teams?” Lords asked. “Selena? Tom? And Brad should have had Samuel and Cecilia with him, right?”

“There’s another body in the grass over there,” Alfred said, pointing. “I couldn’t tell who it was. Maybe the others already turned into zombies and wandered off?”

Lords turned to Henry. “I know it’s a long shot, but is there anything you can do for them?”

“No, no way,” Henry said. “Dude, they’re not infected people. If it was a disease, maybe my heal would help. Maybe. But that’s not what’s happened here. Those people are dead. I can’t heal death.”

“That’s all right. I figured as much. Stay here,” Lords replied. He started forward toward the monsters.

Alfred stepped up to join him. “I can help, if you want backup.”

“I said stay here!” Lords snapped. “Brad was an asshole, but he was a friend, too. And Neal was one of us, too. My people, my command, my responsibility.”

He strode forward, rebar in hand, and made short work of both zombies. As Alfred had already learned, having a tier two Strength crystal gave one a massive boost in combat ability. It only took one swing to drop each zombie. Lords hit them each a second time, to be sure, but they were both dead again. Then Lords went forward to look at the scene.

This time Alfred just went ahead and joined him. Lords glanced over and saw him. “Stay behind me. I don’t want you stepping on any evidence that could tell us what happened here.”

“It feels pretty obvious,” Alfred said. “They ran into zombies and it was too much for them to handle.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Lords replied. He knelt next to a section of grass that was far longer than the rest, then went to the third body. “It’s Tom. Shit, he’s been mangled.”

“Not zombies, then?” Alfred asked, coming close enough to see the body, and instantly regretting it.

“Could be,” Lords replied. “But he’s not rising again. If it were a zombie kill, wouldn’t he rise? And see these bite marks? That’s not human teeth that made those. Those are dog bites.”

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There was no sign of Selena or her critters. Where was she? Alfred looked around and spotted a few lines of trampled grass, heading into the woods. Lords saw the same thing a moment later. Both of them followed the trail a short way, but stopped shy of entering the trees. It was already getting into late afternoon, and the shadows inside the forest were long. Anything could be hiding in there.

“What do you think?” Alfred asked at last. He had a bad feeling he knew what happened here, but he didn’t want to say it aloud.

“It’s pretty obvious,” Lords replied, his voice soft. “Selena killed them. I don’t know why, or what happened. Brad wasn’t supposed to even be here. It looks like Tom got off an Entangle on her before her dog killed him. Her zombies killed Neal and Brad. Maybe she lost control of the monsters and they attacked everyone, and she fled?

“But I think the more likely answer is she ordered them to attack the others. Some sort of confrontation got out of control, and she killed them, then fled to avoid punishment,” Lords finished.

“But why? She’s been helping us. Why kill them like that?” Alfred protested.

Lords turned to him. “I get that she’s your friend. Brad was mine. I’m not going to waste more lives chasing after her in that forest, mind. We know the goblins came from there, and there’s probably a lot more of them. She went in there, she’s on her own. But if she comes back, she’s not going to be welcome to rejoin us. I can’t take the risk. Can you live with that?”

Alfred wasn’t sure how to react to that. Before the Event, he’d thought Selena was a jerk. She was stuck up, too smart for her own good, and a know-it-all. But since the world went insane she’d been a rock, always looking out for him and making sure he made it through. On the other hand, now she was gone. Even if she survived, the odds of him seeing her again were slim.

He figured he had two choices: go off into the dark, goblin-filled forest solo trying to find someone who might already be dead, or stay the course and stick with the people actually building something together in this place. Only one of those two options had a decent life expectancy.

“I’m with you, sir,” Alfred said.

“Good man,” Lords replied, clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s go and bury our dead, then head back to the station. It’ll be nightfall before too long.”

Lords turned and walked away from the woods, already barking orders. Alfred stood there another few moments, staring into the trees and wishing Selena well with all the hope he could muster, and then followed.

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The wall of trees around me ended abruptly when we reached the parking lot at last. Hope kept us moving parallel to the path, which as I expected led us right to the spot. Unfortunately there weren’t too many cars around. Things had blown up in the middle of a work day, so that made sense, I supposed. There were four cars, a minivan, and an SUV scattered across the lot, making the space feel much more huge than it really was. I mean, there were spaces for at least a hundred cars there. With so few, it felt downright empty.

No one was about. I waited, hiding in the trees at the edge of the woods, and watched the space for a long time to be sure. If anyone was out there they had more patience than me, that’s for sure.

That didn’t mean there were no signs of people, though. Here and there I saw splashes of dark red on the pavement, a silent memento of the chaos which must have reigned here right after everything went crazy. There’d clearly been some fighting in this place, but just as obviously whatever happened was long since over, the combatants moved on.

Once I was fairly confident I wasn’t going to get jumped the minute I stepped onto the asphalt, I started toward the nearest car. If there were supplies inside I could use, I had to find them. Being part of a big group had a lot of advantages that I’d need to replicate solo now. Scrounging for supplies was going to have to become a staple part of my day, at least for a while.

The car was locked, but my axe made short work of the driver’s window, which let me unlock the thing. I didn’t find much useful inside, though. The minivan was next. I didn’t have to break into this one; the side door was fully open, and something had torn through the inside, ripping apart seat cushions and shredding a perfectly good basket full of picnic supplies.

There was a baby bascinet and two car seats in the minivan. No sign of the kids that had been in them, or their parents. I tried not to think about that.

It wasn’t until I reached the SUV that I hit pay dirt. It was also locked, but I bashed the window open, same as I had on the first car, then went through the vehicle for supplies. This owner was a good Vermonter and kept their emergency kit in the car, even in summertime. It had a bag of rock salt, a couple of blankets, bottle of water, road flares, and even two bags of beef jerky—someone’s idea of survival food, I supposed. I also found the best possible thing, sitting in the glove box: a map.

I mean, this was the twenty-first century. Nobody had maps anymore. We all had phones, right? Nobody needed paper maps.

Except now the phones didn’t work, and holy shit was it a pain in the ass to not know where things were. The map was for the entire state of Vermont, which meant it didn’t have as much detail as I’d prefer, but it didhave blown-up sections for a couple of major cities, and Burlington was definitely one of those. It still wasn’t perfect, but now I had a much better idea where I was and what was around me.

With the map in hand, I felt a lot more confident. I could plan my next moves, figure out where to go from here, and then act. Ever since things went nuts I’d been running from one thing to the next, trying to just do the next right thing so I could stay alive and in one piece. Survival living was all well and good, because in an emergency it kept you alive. But if I kept acting that way, sooner or later the luck would run out and I’d end up dead.

It was time to make plans, to plot out my next moves with some care and thought. The map was going to be a key in making that happen. In fact, as I scanned the area around me on the mini-map, I spotted something that probably ought to be my next stop. Turned out, there was a cemetery maybe half a mile away. If the cadavers came back as zombies, maybe some of the dead buried there would return, too?

I needed more black crystals if I was going to up my game, and that seemed like it would be the best possible place to find them. But… Not at night. Dusk was already falling. By the time I worked my way through the woods to that cemetery it would be full dark, and that seemed like the worst possible time to go investigate a place full of undead.

“Caution will keep us alive,” I said to Hope. She chuffed softly at me in response.

I bedded us down in the SUV, the zombies just outside to keep watch and Hope inside with me. She sat in the front, alert and watching for danger. As the daylight continued to fade I noticed that her eyes were glowing a faint blue. That glow was the last thing I saw as I closed my eyes and drifted into a troubled sleep full of rough dreams.