Chapter 11: Rend

 

“Down the hatch,” Tyler says.

Jarod stares down the fire escape, the evening air cooling the sweat on his brow. There’s one of these every few lots, he now realizes. Maybe if they had retreated earlier, if they had marched straight up to the second level and sealed the gate at the stairs, more would have survived. But there’s no point thinking of that now, is there?

And that would have been all well and good, but there’s still the question of making it down the ladder and onto the street without attracting more unwanted attention from the dead still lingering outside the Hive.

How are there so many of them even out there? It feels like the atrium’s clogged with their rotting bodies, with every dead thing that has wandered out of every corner of Pleasance, so much that they’ve worked their way up the staircases at either end of the mall.

Another bang, followed by that horrible, metallic creaking sound. The zombies on the stairs must have reached critical mass, and any moment now they’re going to finally burst through the gate. And when they do, there’s little else to consider but jump straight into the streets.

The little girl, she was only the first to reach the lower levels from the rooftop, probably one of the first to turn. Jarod never thought he’d have to hurt a child to save his life, or that of others, and the only consolation is in knowing that nothing of that girl’s essence was left inside her body.

Or is that just his way of convincing himself that he isn’t a murderer? They all know well enough by now that as much space as Paragon takes in its host’s body and mind, vestiges of the dead’s memories and personality still linger. That’s why Robbie regained his faculties. It took time, but it happened. And if that’s the case, then maybe, given enough time, Britta would have had a chance, too. Britta, and Hortega.

“Samuels,” Tyler says. “Are you going first?”

Jarod shakes his head. “You take the lead, make sure the ground is clear. Then everyone follows. I’ll go last.”

“I’ll go last,” Gabriel says, indignant.

“It doesn’t matter.” Jarod looks from Gabriel, to Esther, then back. “As long as we’re sure we make it out safely. Alive. All of us.”

Magpie nods urgently, the length of her blade gleaming as she sheathes it at her waist. A damn medieval sword, with a scabbard, an ornate hilt, an engraved pommel, the works. Jarod can’t even think to ask. Probably from a hobby store, some expensive replica that’s somehow high quality enough to cut, to fight with. A knapsack is slung over her shoulder, unusually smallish considering how much of a rush she gets out of collecting shiny little knickknacks and odds and ends for her workshop. Just the essentials, none of the “shinies” that everyone knows Magpie loves so much. Just loose piles of junk, all those trinkets, but somehow it still gives Jarod pause knowing she has to leave all that behind.

The bag in Daniel’s hand is much fuller, doubtless stuffed with anything he could salvage from the infirmary. He has a second bag strapped to his back, leaving Tyler free to fight, which may be just as well. Daniel looks almost normal, but Jarod knows him well enough that he’s only holding it together for the sake of survival, just until they succeed at this escape. His eyes are hollow, and Jarod doesn’t blame him. Understanding that they lost the children hit everyone hard, but it hit Danny the hardest.

Gabriel has the same duffle bag he brought the night they tried to escape from Pleasance, packed full of clothes and whatever supplies they could muster from their apartment. The gun, that stays with Jarod, though for what purpose he can’t say. Firing it in the thick of so many zombies is a death sentence. Maybe if one of them gets turned, they’ll find a use for it after all.

They had to move quickly considering how the zombies from the atrium were already pressing on the gate, and with enough speed to avoid more confrontations from anyone turned from the upper levels. There were a few strays they had to deal with en route from their apartment to Esther’s. In the darkness, Jarod couldn’t really tell if they were the older zombies come from outside, or freshly turned survivors. In a way, it’s a mercy that he didn’t find out.

“Finished,” Esther declares. Her bags, both of them, look to be the heaviest.

“Esther,” Tyler says. “We may need to run. Do you need to bring all that with you?”

Her face starts to twist into a frown, but Gabriel pipes in. “I’ll help. It’s okay.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Tyler’s brow is knitted, resistant as he is of Esther’s withering gaze. “You might need to fight.” For once, Jarod agrees.

“I’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.” A huge bang thunders down the hall, followed by a scraping, then a crash. Gabriel’s eyes go wide with urgency. “We need to go. Now.”

As if on autopilot, Daniel shuffles up to the escape, giving just enough room for Tyler to head down first. And head down he does, clambering down the metal frame with characteristic ease, then landing lightly on his feet on the pavement below, under the cover of an alley just off the dried-up river.

The darkening sky over Pleasance is doing them this one favor, at least. Tyler hasn’t been spotted, the zombies in the surrounding blocks stationary, at least for the moment. He looks up, waves hurriedly, then points at the sidewalk, ushering the next person down. Short of a loud noise, or something going horribly wrong, they might just live through this. You might, a voice in Jarod’s head mutters, but where would you go?

“Anywhere but here,” Danny says under his breath, like he’s somehow privy to Jarod’s thoughts. He swings his legs out over the balcony, checks that his bags are secure, then descends. The escape’s frame rattles and creaks as he moves, and when he reaches the ground, he quietly files into place next to Tyler. He doesn’t look up, his gaze focused on the asphalt.

The rest is uneventful. With Magpie’s help, Esther makes it down the escape with little difficulty. Gabriel follows, but not before throwing Jarod a glance thick with meaning. “Don’t die,” it says. “You promised.”

Jarod nods.

As Gabriel drops from the landing and onto the pavement, Jarod takes one last minute to look around Esther’s salon. It looks hardly touched, the contents of her apartment intact and unblemished, and this could almost be any other day at the Hive, just another meeting in the queen’s council chambers, except for the reality that everyone in the colony is now dead.

He glances down at the street, finding the expectant faces of his friends, then vaults onto the balcony as he offers his home for the last six months a final, wordless goodbye. Once, this place was a house, the closest thing to a hearth and a bed. Once they leave, it’ll be nothing but a pile of bones and ashes. Behind him noises crash against the barricade they put up against the salon’s door. His heart skips when the glass of the door breaks and tinkles to the ground. It’s a worthy, distressing sendoff.

Reunited, the group breaks into a silent sprint for the shadows. They’re in the block just by the supermarket, the one that the scavs cleaned out months ago, the same one where a single, elderly female zombie used to stand, day in and day out. Jarod squints when he spots her still there, still clinging to her shopping cart, muttering voicelessly to herself. Grandma, the kids used to call her. They’d spot her from the rooftop, never getting involved in the other zombies’ aggressions, somehow never roused into attacking, even when humans are nearby.

“Marilyn?” Esther says under her breath. “Good god, that’s Marilyn. I used to play bridge with her.”

“Come along now,” Magpie says, exchanging a glance with Jarod. He can guess at what that means, too.

Grandma, Marilyn, whoever she is – how come she hasn’t budged if all the rest of the zombies were so attracted by Robbie’s pain, and before that, the howled calls of their superiors? It’s a reminder of that new possibility he still has to consider: that some of these things hold on to their humanity better than others. Some of them, like Robbie, might even have some chance at redemption.

At least for now the zombies are docile, for whatever reason, and that could almost be enough for them to escape. With the assault on their master over and his attackers dead, all the horde has left to do in the Hive is feed. It raises the question of what even happened to Robbie. Too many dead things swarmed around him when they had to retreat up the stairs. Did his children save him somehow? Did they eat his flesh, the way they ate everything else in the Hive?

Jarod watches Esther as they move through the shadows, then chances a look at Danny. He hasn’t permitted himself to grieve the way these two are trying their hardest not to, and it’s a reminder that he can’t allow that to happen, not now. The sorrow would crush him utterly. What they need to do is run. It’s just fortuitous that they haven’t encountered any of the dead yet, that they haven’t been noticed.

Far down the alleyways, Jarod notices distant shapes that don’t quite move at the frenetic tempo of the undead. Survivors? Did some of them make it out after all? Through the breach, maybe, or by hiding, then escaping when the time was right. Jarod holds his hand out, then stops even as the runners disappear into the dark. He can’t call out to them, especially not now. The zombies will hear.

From far above them, something hisses.

Heart racing, Jarod follows the sound. It’s coming from the mall’s rooftop. Zombies are milling across, some tall and grown, the others small. Too many of them are small. One of the child zombies is pushed up against the low guardrail built along the side of the rooftop, newly dead fingers clutching at the metal, one hand raking at the air, reaching for their group. The rest of the dead on the roof join the call, spitting air, sounding the alarm.

“Move,” Tyler says. “Faster.”

Jarod stumbles back, transfixed. The child on the guardrail, she’s clambered far enough up against the barrier, either so hungry or so driven by Paragon’s hate that she’s finding the closest path between herself and fresh meat. From six stories up, the zombie comes plummeting to the ground.

The sound the girl makes when she smashes against the pavement sets Jarod’s stomach to turning. Her blood creeps across the cement, parts of her broken and scraped off. Horribly, the shattered remains of the girl begin to twitch, then move, then rise. Her head is intact. That’s all Paragon needs to thrive. On one leg bent in three places, with another exploded at the knee, the girl starts to shamble, broken arms outstretched.

Another child clears the railing, falling and smashing against the cement, then another, a growing pile of jerking, shivering bodies and limbs. More bodies fall from out of windows, out of balconies, off the very fire ladder that they used to escape. Paragon sees all, and the horde sees as one, moves as one.

“Fucking move.” Magpie grabs Jarod’s wrist and tugs. They break into a run.

The darkness would be perfect for cover if it didn’t mean that it was also perfect for cloaking the dead in the shadows. It works both ways, and the advantage, of course, goes to the dead, with their heightened senses, the improved sight of their dead eyes. The worst, of course, is how well they can hear, and the tramping of so many human feet running for their lives is enough to attract zombies on the ground level.

They press on through the alleys, but all around, from streets and corners unseen, sounds the same terrible hissing, the scrabbling of ruined, dead feet as the zombies give pursuit. All it’ll take is for them to round the corner into a mob they can’t handle, and it’s curtains for what’s left of the Hive.

“Keep going,” Esther says, ushering the rest forward. She clutches at her breast.

Danny’s pace stutters, then he slows to a stop, taking Esther’s hand in his. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she pants. “Just need to catch my breath. You keep going. Samuels here will stay with me.”

What now? Jarod stops in his tracks.

“We can’t afford to lose you,” Tyler says. “We need to keep going. Just a bit more, until we find cover.”

“I’ll be fine,” Esther snaps. “Just keep going.”

Tyler eyes the two of them warily. Magpie shakes her head. Gabriel is hesitant to continue moving at first, but he eventually catches up with the group.

“We need to keep moving or we’ll lose sight of them.” Jarod scratches at his cheek. He’d be lying if he said that was the only reason he wanted to keep running.

“One minute.” Esther’s posture rights itself, and her hand drops from her chest, like she was only feigning exhaustion. She drops to her knees, all business-like, unzips her bag, and pulls out a gun.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Esther cocks the weapon. “Buying us some time.” The air around her shimmers, the way it does when she uses her power, and a second Esther forms out of nowhere. The first hands the second the gun, pressing it into her fingers.

“As far as you can go, honey,” Esther says. “Then fire it. Doesn’t matter where as long as you attract attention.”

The second Esther nods, grips the gun tightly, then takes off down an alley.

“A decoy?” Jarod stares, mouth agape. “You’re sending her off to die?”

Esther glowers. “I would never. They’re a part of me as much as I’m a part of them. I lose one of me and I stand to lose so much. When her work is done, she’ll just poof. Vanish. Come back to me. Don’t ask me how it works. It just does.”

“What about the gun?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Esther hefts her bag over her shoulder. It clinks with the sound of metal. “Come on.”

It doesn’t take long for them to catch up with the main group. As they sprint through the city, Jarod catches snatches of the dead in the dark, still hissing, still giving chase. In the distance, far behind them, a gun fires into the night.

Tyler’s shoes scrape into the dirt as he skids to a stop, his head perking up in the direction of the sound. “What the hell was that?”

“Survivor?” Magpie asks. “Someone from the Hive?”

“Too dangerous to go back,” Esther says. “Whoever it is, they’re as good as dead.”

As if in confirmation a noise to strip a man’s skin begins to sound throughout the city. A howl rises up around them, emanating from out of the dark, so many dead throats acknowledging and alerting the horde to the presence of something more interesting, something louder, something worth the kill.

“Everyone keep still,” Tyler says softly. They press up against the wall, frozen in the darkness. Gabriel’s hand finds Jarod’s, and it squeezes.

By the light of the moon there’s still enough to see just out of the alley, this blur of dead gray bodies running past, heading directly towards the source of the gunshot. Maybe Jarod knows the truth, that Esther’s clone will be safe, but nobody else knows that.

He looks around, knowing that each of them is silently grateful for this respite, chests heaving as they regain their breaths. He knows that as horrified as they are by the potential death of whoever fired the gun, they’re also glad that it’s someone else, that they have a better chance out of this now that someone else has to die. Jarod knows he would feel the same.

More of the dead run, broken bodies jerking as they move through the city. In the middle distance Jarod thinks he sees a familiar face. This one isn’t rotting, not black at the chin from ichor, not gray in skin like the others. The face smiles, thoroughly ignored by the dead pushing past. Its teeth are sharp. There are too many to possibly fit in the same mouth.

Jarod clenches his fist. Nobody else can see the apparition, he knows that much. Jonathan Hargrove is taunting him as always, watching and waiting. And on cue, the man outside the alley mouths words that Jarod doesn’t even need to hear to understand.

“Only the strongest survive.”

Just as he said before the last attack on the Hive, before Hortega came to claim his son. Jarod grits his teeth. Is that why this is all that’s left of them? How did Hargrove know that it would come down to six in the end, the only survivors of the only surviving colony in the entire city?

“Jarod?” Gabriel tugs on his hand, speaking softly. “Are you okay? Your hand is shaking.”

Jarod glances at him, at the earnestness of his question, then he looks back out into the alley. The face is gone. Jarod swallows, straining not to give away his shock, or his fear.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “Nothing at all.”