21 chapter twenty-one

Jake's Link pings just as we reach the first row of taller buildings. They look like warehouses. We slip around the corner of one and find the street deserted. It's a row of shops. Wouldn't it be ironic if one of them was a bookstore?

We stop to read the message:

<< ON MY WY >>

Jake quickly tries to open a voice line, but Micah doesn't answer.

"Come on, man!" he grunts, pacing anxiously. "Why won't he accept? Damn it!"

He's practically screaming with fright. I try to calm him down. The last thing we want to do is to draw out even more zombies from wherever they might be hiding. "Just leave a message. We need to keep moving."

"Stay there, Micah," he tells the recorder. "We're coming to you."

"Stay there?" I say. "No! He needs to come back. We need to get back to the equipment and leave!"

Jake pockets his Link. "Not with those things just standing there!"

He brushes past me to peek around the corner. "Damn it. They've stopped. Stupid things. They're just shuffling around in random directions now."

I look for myself. From the relative safety of our hiding spot, I can rest a moment and get a better look at them. Their clothes are faded and hang on them in rags. If they have any at all. I notice how weathered they are, dry and dark and timeworn, barely much more than skeletons. The plastination of their flesh from the infection is obvious. The Infected Undead, victims of the outbreak thirteen years ago, the ones the military left behind. Chocolate, sexless, men and women and children. Chocolate monsters.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "Jake—"

"We've got to draw them away from the tunnel," he says, shaking my hand off. Before I realize what he's doing he's back out in the middle of the street, waving his arms and shouting. "Hey, you! Over here! We're over here!"

"Jake!" I whisper, darting out and grabbing his tee shirt. "What the hell are you doing? Stop it!" I check behind us to make sure the street is still empty.

He ignores me and shouts even louder. He jumps and waves and screams. The urban canyon we're in begins to fill with moaning sounds. They echo all around us, amplified by the closeness of the buildings.

Stiff as wooden dolls, the zombies turn and make their way toward us.

From a distance, they all seem agonizingly slow. But now I can see that this is wrong. Not all of them are slow. Some move faster. But that's not the only difference. They have a waxier sheen to their skin and their muscles don't seem as atrophied. They have the same aimless shuffle as the rest, but their steps are longer. Their legs swing just a fraction of a second brisker. Their movements are more precise, more…focused. Fresh zombies? But how?

I don't know, but these are the ones we need to worry about.

"Let's circle around," Jake says. He grabs my arm and turns me. "Maybe we can find a dead-end alley with a fire escape or something."

"You want to use us as bait to draw them into an alley?"

"You'd rather stand and fight?"

I shake my head. "I'd rather just go home."

"Better if we herd them into an alley than leave them scattered about."

"Only one problem," I say. "They're not cows. And they're already too scattered."

"I never said it would be easy." He points to a pair of tall buildings with a narrow space between them. We hurry over, but as soon as we turn the corner we can see that it won't work. The other end is open.

"We're wasting time, Jake," I say. "We need to find the others and get out of here."

We stumble back onto the main street. The first of the zombies are already there, a half dozen lurching toward us, their movements deceptively quick.

"Fuck," Jake pants. "Does it seem like they're getting faster?" He backs away.

"Just run," I say, but he's right. They are fast, and getting faster.

We both turn into the alley and run. When we reach the other end, we turn again, angling perpendicular to the tower and the tunnel as best we can. Our footsteps slap against the road, echoing off the buildings, sounding like clapping.

"This way!" I hiss, reaching out for Jake's arm and turning to the right. His shirt slips from my fingers and he continues straight down the broad road. "Jake!"

He spins around. His eyes are wild, but he follows me. This constant swinging of his between lucidity and panic is driving me crazy.

"We need to get back," I gasp. "We can't worry about Micah. He'll catch up to us."

He looks at the gun still in my hand. "How many bullets do you have left?"

"I don't know." Then I remember the box and pull it from my wetsuit.

"Paperclips?"

"Shit!" I throw the box away. It breaks open and bullets spill out, scattering across the pavement. "Damn."

Jake hurries over and starts to pick them up.

"No time!" I yell. "Leave them. Even if we can just grab the gear and get it into the water, that's better than waiting. It's our only chance!"

New footsteps echo around us, someone running. We both look up in time to see Micah sprinting past us on the street ahead. He doesn't see us.

"Micah!"

But he's already disappeared.

"Shit. Micah!"

Micah's head reappears around the corner. He looks up the road in the direction he just came from and makes a snap decision. He sprints toward us. "Get out of here!" he screams. "Go back!"

The moaning is growing louder. The street behind us suddenly fills with walkers. "Run," Micah shouts.

Jake and I spin around. The zombies crowd into the street, lurching madly at us, moaning and shrieking and clacking their rotting teeth.

"Shit! Aw, shit!"

"Calm down, Jake," I tell him. "You need to calm down."

"We're trapped!"

Yeah, whose fault is that? But I don't say it. I push him toward one of the buildings.

Lifting my arm, I bring the axe down on the display window of a bridal shop. The gowns inside are yellowed and dusty. When the glass shatters and falls on them, they tear easily and flake to the floor.

"What the hell is it with you and breaking glass?" Jake screams.

"Just get inside!"

Micah reaches us. He doesn't hesitate. He vaults over the high brick sill of the display window and into the store. Glass crunches under his feet. He stops, turns, and reaches down to help us in.

Jake hesitates.

"Get your goddamn ass in here," Micah growls at him as he pulls me up.

I don't stop to help. I head for the back of the store, looking for the emergency exit or loading door or whatever the hell they've got. It's our only chance to evade the zombie horde.

I hear footsteps behind me.

"I cut myself on the glass," Jake wails, holding his arm. Blood seeps through his fingers. It looks like a nasty gash, but I can't worry about that right now. "Why'd you pick this shop? The one next door had a bigger window."

I don't have time to explain it to him. I kick down a door marked "Employees Only" and find what I'm looking for. There's an emergency exit across the room, but I see that it's secured with a chain and a padlock.

I swing the axe behind me.

"Give her some room, dummy!" Micah shouts, pulling Jake back. The axe barely misses Jake's head as I bring it forward in a sidearm chop.

The blade pings off the chain. I try again, but the chain still holds.

Micah grabs my arm. "Give it to me. From the front of the store, the sounds of moaning and breaking glass come to us.

Jake goes over and tries to barricade the inner door.

Micah lifts the axe with both hands and brings it down on the latch that holds the chain to the jamb. It bends. He tries again, taking smaller, more precise swings. Finally it shatters and falls away. He hands the axe back, then reaches over and pushes the door open.

The alley is narrow. It's also open on both ends, but it's empty and there aren't any zombies in sight. We edge out of the shop. We could very well be trapped, but at the moment it's our only option.

Micah lifts a board from the ground and wedges it against what's left of the doorknob, locking the zombies inside. Then he pulls out his Link.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jake shrieks. "Calling for a pizza?"

"Just keep an eye out!"

I do a quick scan. There are no windows in this alley, no way to easily break into another building if we find ourselves trapped. And the fire escapes are well out of reach above our heads.

"This way," Micah whispers. He puts his Link in his pocket and leads us toward the street he was running down earlier. "We'll probably have to take a few out," he says. He glances at the gun in my hand. "But there shouldn't be as many as you had chasing you. What the hell did you do? Wake the entire island up?"

I give him a look of such frustration that he quickly turns away and starts running up the road.

He's light on his feet, almost as quiet as a cat. For someone who spends ninety percent of his free time in his basement getting drunk and hacking games, he's surprisingly athletic.

We reach the end of the alley and peek around the corner. A few zombies are milling about. Apparently these are the "slow" ones.

"Felt like a hundred of them before," he says. "Nowhere as near as many as were chasing you." He smiles. "Must be that perfume you're wearing." He pauses, then adds, "Jake."

"I'm not—"

I interrupt his protest. "Where the hell were they? That's what I want to know. And what woke them all up? Was it noise?"

Micah shakes his head. "Couldn't be. I didn't make any. But when I stepped out of the tower I was totally surrounded. Damn things were all over the place, like they knew I was there. Scared me so badly I just ran right through them. That's when you pinged me, Jake."

"Did you get scratched or bitten?"

He shakes his head.

"Shouldn't we be moving," Jake hisses, "instead of just standing here making small talk?"

Micah takes another look around the corner. "Wait another minute and see if the rest of them clear out."

He pulls his Link out again, reminding me that I'm still missing mine. I just hope there's a chance to go back to the fueling station so I can get it.

"The others should be there by now," Jake says. "Did you let them know what's happening? Is that what you're doing?"

Micah shakes his Link and frowns. He taps the screen. The frown turns into a scowl. "Has anyone pinged either of you?"

I shake my head and quickly tell him about losing my Link. Jake checks his, then shakes his head, too. "Nothing."

Micah looks up in the sky, as if the answer to whatever is bothering him is written there. "I can't reach them. I hope they're okay."

I swallow my panic. "The road's almost clear," I tell them. "Wait just a couple more—"

But then a horrible grating noise comes from behind us in the alleyway. The board Micah had wedged into place snaps and flies off, spinning into the air and hitting the opposite wall. The door swings open, vomiting zombies into the road.

"Go!"