Chapter Twenty Seven

"Only the three so far," I told them while we waited for some sign of further movement. "When was the last time we heard from perimeter security?"

"They check in every ten minutes," Grady said with a growl in his voice. "For these guys to get this close, someone must have dropped the ball."

"Get ready to move," White added. "This place isn't secure anymore. Zombies are like ants when they think they've found a possible food source. But first—Grumpy, do something about that damn phone."

I picked the phone up from the ground where I'd dropped it. My dad was relieved when he saw my face again, but he wasn't happy when I told him I had to go. He wanted an explanation, starting with where the hell I'd gotten a gun, what was I shooting at, and—

"Quit asking dumb questions," I interrupted callously. "I'm not at summer camp. This is a mobile military base on the front line of the war against the undead. Of course they gave me a damn gun and there's only one possible thing I'd shoot at. Now, I love you, but I really do have to go. We're moving. Don't ask me where because I can't tell you. I'll try to call again tomorrow night, but it might be longer before I'm free. If we don't get another chance to talk, know that I'm doing okay and worry about yourself. If you get another chance to go to Alaska, take it. You'll be safer up North where it's cold."

I hung up before he could argue. The other members of my squad stared at me like I was an idiot as I tucked my phone in my back pocket.

"Damn," Carver muttered. "I know we call you Grumpy, but that was cold."

"I don't have a choice. My dad is a control freak. If I don't press the advantage while I can, he'll start telling me what he thinks I should do and I'll constantly get shit from him when I make my own decisions. He doesn't see me as an adult. In his head, I'm still fifteen and begging him to teach me to drive. Just watch. The next time he talks to me, he'll have a full plan in mind for what I should do next and I'll have to spend an hour arguing with him over why his ideas suck."

There was no good way for any of them to respond without sounding patronizing, so White redirected everyone's focus to the woods. We joined the search party sweeping the woods for other threats and managed to be part of the team who found the remains of the guys who'd been on patrol. It took me several minutes to realize the guy hadn't been torn in half—the lower part of his optic camouflage was still functioning, hiding his legs from view. The upper portion was working, too, but it was covered in so much blood it was useless.

"How did the zombies find him?" I asked as a soldier from another squad murmured a pray and fed a bullet into the corpse's head.

White's expression was the hardest I'd ever seen. "That's a question for Intelligence. It was believed zombies hunted mostly by sight and sound, but Jinx was one of our most experienced men. There's no way they should have been able to see or hear him and there's no way they caught him with his pants down. Fan out and see if you can find out any clues about what happened."

Grady, being the crazy one of the group, immediately started climbing the nearest tree. White went left, Carver went right, and I walked around the body with no idea of what I should be looking for. I cautiously went straight ahead in the direction I thought the zombie would have come from and saw nothing except more trees, bare dirt, and thinned underbrush.

I got a sudden whiff of death that made me stop in my tracks. It hit me so suddenly, I took two steps back and grew confused when the air smelled clean and clear again. I leaned forward—death. I leaned back—clean air. I walked forward as slowly as I could, growing even more confused when the death smell was limited to a small area only a foot wide. It was like the zombie had left a scent trail.

Following up on the idea, I walked into the worst of the scent and tried to stick with it like a bloodhound tracking a fugitive. It led me straight back to the body. I turned around and slowly tried to follow it in the other direction.

"Did you find something?" White asked when she joined me a few minutes later.

"Maybe," I said, waving her over to join me. "Come here and tell me what you smell?"

She jogged over to me and instantly backed off when she caught the pungent scent of death. "What the hell?" she asked, rubbing her nose. "Why do you smell like that?"

"It's not me," I replied, walking out of the scent trail and joining her in the clean air. She cautiously sniffed as I approached and grew confused when I no longer reeked.

"I think what you said about ants is a better description than any of us realized," I explained. "It's a scent trail the zombie left behind. I think they're wandering around randomly until they hit another zombie's trail, then they start following it. That's why they form up in hordes even though they don't actively communicate. We just haven't noticed before now because we keep meeting them in the city, which is pretty much like their nest—it's covered in trails and the scent is everywhere."

Her eyes widened at my idea and she reached out to grab my sleeve, yanking me behind her as she started running back to camp. "We need to get this information to Intel. This could completely change our tactics in dealing with them."

Grady and Carver joined us as we ran, actively watching our flanks with their hands on their sidearms. Our fast pace must have told them we'd found something, but they didn't bother asking any questions. I assumed they were saving them for when we returned to camp.

The Commander was standing in the middle of camp where everyone could find him and report. White marched up to him and gave him a quick salute that made him straighten up in expectation. I straightened up, too, since it was the first time I'd seen anyone acting in an official, military manner.

"Report," the Commander barked.

"Bryant discovered the zombies leave a scent trail wherever they walk. We believe the hordes are working in the same manner as an ant colony."

The Commander's brows furrowed. "We would have noticed something like that," he argued.

White turned to me in a silent prompt. "No, you wouldn't," I cautiously countered. "The scent trail they leave behind smells like death, which is something we expect to smell anyway when a zombie is around. The only reason I noticed it was because it was stronger than normal and lingering in an isolated line. I also think the scent trails could be why Lich and immunes are invisible to zombies. Our body chemistry must have been changed by the parasite to keep us from disturbing the trails whereas normal humans would disrupt it and leave an invisible sign saying there's something edible moving around in the area. Any zombie who follows a trail and hits an area of disturbance would know to search around for the source. It's only when that happens they begin following other cues."

"How would that work with zombies who've lost their heads?" the Commander asked.

"I'm not a scientist, but the scent is airborne," White replied. "It's possible it has a chemical component that reacts with the parasite itself." Her attention sharpened on me again. "Are you feeling any effects of following the trail?"

I shook my head. "Nothing I noticed, although..." I paused, hesitating to mention it.

"What?" the Commander snapped.

I flinched. "Thinking back, it's weird I chose to follow the trail toward the body first. I mean, I already knew what was in that direction, so it would have made more sense to go the other way. I wonder why I did that. It's not like I was under a compulsion or anything. It was more like I forgot where I was going for a second."

"Get him to medical and stay with him," the Commander told White. He pointed to Grady and Carver next, and included a few others who'd wandered over to hear our report. "You five come with me. I want to inspect this scent trail for myself."

As they marched off into the woods, I sighed in resignation and followed White to the medical trailer. The next two hours were filled with an exam right out of a crime drama. They took samples of my blood, my hair, my urine and they scraped under my fingernails. They took DNA swabs from my mouth and nose, then made me exchange my clothes for someone's cast-off black uniform. I grimaced when they confiscated my phone along with everything else and tucked it into a sealed evidence bag. It appeared I'd need to find out if the Intel trailer could issue me a new cell phone to go with my tablet.