Dave shook his head, his free hand going to the back of his neck, as if checking to make sure he hadn’t just been clubbed. “Would you like to?” he asked; then he slammed his mouth shut. He couldn’t seem to believe those words had escaped it.
Behind him his crew agreed. Amazon Grace and Jet exchanged amazed glances. Cam mouthed the words “Is he flirting — with a girl?” to Natch, who replied with a stupefied nod. The rest of the unit seemed equally stunned, except for Adela, who was new enough not to realize how monklike Dave’s existence had been since his loss. She kept her attention on Vayl, and though she made no outward sign I sensed, of everyone in the room, she was the unhappiest with his presence there.
The sound of a distant engine broke the silence.
Dave dropped his hand. The smile he gave Cassandra was the first I’d seen since before Jessie died. “I’m glad Jaz has someone like you on her team.” While I totally agreed, an aggravated Puerto Rican chica stomped to the front of my brain and screeched, “Someone like
who
, you testosterone-crazed hunk of beef? You ain’t known Cassandra more than ten seconds!”
I was just wondering how much more complicated this whole mess could get when Dave turned to his team. “Okay, let’s pack it up,” he said calmly. “Our ride’s nearly here.”
Within two minutes we were all ready to board the truck, which was just now slowing to a stop in front of the farmhouse.
“Stay inside until Mehdi opens the back doors,” Dave had ordered, so we waited and watched while the driver parked his rig, hopped down, and walked around to the back of the truck. He carried a flashlight, which trembled as he trained it first on the road, then on the back of the truck. He never flashed it at the farmhouse. Maybe he’d been told not to. After some fumbling, he threw open the doors.
“All right,” Dave whispered into the small headset he and his team all wore for communications. “Let’s go.”
It wasn’t far from the farmhouse to the road. Maybe thirty yards. Of dirt. Yeah, I know. It sucked. No trees to hide behind. No little outbuildings. No cover whatsoever. But it worked in our favor too: We’d see anyone coming well before the bullets could hit us.
Dave had set Terrence and Ashley at the windows to guard our move. Terrence operated their SAW, a lovely light machine gun currently set on a tripod for maximum stability. Ashley, not willing to entrust this duty to his new Manx, held his M4 ready.
Dave led us out with Cassandra by his side. I hadn’t been sure about mixing my people with his so soon, but I could trust this pairing. So too, the next one.
Natchez, who’d told Bergman his real name was so embarrassing he’d legally changed it to his birthplace, hadn’t stopped asking him questions about his inventions since he’d broken out the guns. They’d discovered a mutual interest in weapons engineering that I figured would at least carry them through Iraq before Bergman said or did something that made Natch want to rip his face off.
Jet came next, followed by Adela. Moments later Ricardo left the farmhouse. Grace hung back, probably to keep an eye on me. Cam lingered as well. I got the feeling he wanted to make sure she behaved. And Boom decided he too could bring up the rear with Vayl, Cole and me.
With the exception of our doubled teams, everybody walked out on his or her own, advanced a few feet, stopped, crouched. Stared into the darkness. Strained to see beyond the blackness and got ready to shoot. The idea was for the guy behind to move forward, tapping the frontrunner on the shoulder as he passed. In this way we meant to leapfrog to the semi.
The first two groups had reached the truck and Mehdi had helped them inside when the reavers attacked.
They were better organized than the last bunch, coming at us almost in formation from the north side of the road. The distant whinny of horses told us how they’d arrived so quick upon the heels of the last group. They were also better armed than their predecessors. When I heard pistol fire followed by an agonized scream my heart stopped for an anguished moment as I tried to place the voice. “Doc!” somebody yelled from midpack, and then all hell broke loose.
Chapter Five
I’m still not sure how we all didn’t kill each other that night; bullets were flying so fast and furious during that battle. The reavers rolled into us, firing seemingly at random. But there was a method to their madness. Reavers operate by strict rules. I didn’t know what the punishments entailed, but they must’ve been extreme, because even the old gnarly ones wouldn’t break them. The main no-no revolved around killing. Reavers were only allowed to eliminate people who’d been Marked for murder. In other words, me. Everybody else had to survive. So while the reavers had to take me out, they only wanted to take everybody else down.
What they didn’t count on was the supreme skill and professionalism of their foes. Though they outnumbered us at least three to one at the start of the attack, within sixty seconds we’d whittled their numbers to fifteen.
Our guys had taken a couple more hits. One second Otto had been crouched near to me, a half grin on his face, saying, “If I had a wheelbarrow full of dynamite I’d blow these fuckers to Mars.” The next second he lay writhing on the ground, trying not to scream, his hip shattered. As I stood over him, nailing reavers when I had a clear shot, pulling up when I realized I’d just aimed at one of my own, I saw Ricardo drop beneath a mass of monsters. Grace had made little progress toward the truck, and was bleeding heavily from a facial wound. Still, I thought we had them.
Then two more groups appeared, coming from both our flanks. These didn’t have firearms, but we already knew the power of their claws, and several swung swords. Terrence and Ashley fired into them, but they didn’t have the right angle to get more than one or two head shots per burst.
“Form on me!” yelled David.
Our guys from the farmhouse joined us and we tried to keep moving, but they swarmed us. Terrence went down under a reaver’s claws. Vayl, seeing him fall, took the reaver’s eye with his sword and pulled the wounded man to his feet. I holstered Grief and grabbed his machine gun. Switching it to three-round burst mode, I fired into the crowd of reavers coming at me, their tongues lolling in anticipation of tasting my soul.
“Jasmine!” called Vayl. “Do not stop!”
Easier said than done. I inched forward, almost tripped over a body, ducked quickly to avoid a neck-ripping swipe, and nearly screamed as the corpse between my legs lurched to its feet. I managed to mute the scream into a squawk as I jumped back, banging into Cole in my rush to avoid the rising reaver.
“Son of a bitch!” he cried. “I missed!”
“Watch out! Watch out!” I yelled. “The dead are rising!”
All around us the reavers we’d defeated the first time around had rediscovered vertical. Multiple thoughts streaked through my mind simultaneously. Not all of them made sense, but a skilled translator might put them in the following light:
Oh Jesus! Oh crap! Zombies! The Wizard’s a necromancer. He could be around here somewhere, pulling their strings. So should I just run off into the night like some rabid raccoon and hope I luck into him? How stupid is that? Plus, it’s not him. It’s probably an apprentice. You know that. It may even be the mole. Is anybody murmuring a spell? How the hell can I tell? We are so outnumbered! Did Ashley just go down? My God, I think the semi is farther away than ever. Is that possible? Oh Jesus, was that Terrence’s leg? Don’t turn your head. I said don’t — never mind. Holy shit, that’s the barrel of a Colt .45 aimed right at my face!
The reaver, a live one, grinned wide enough to show the gap between his front teeth as his finger squeezed the trigger.
“Vayl,” I whispered, my eyes somehow tracking straight to his in my final moment.
“Jasmine!” He lunged toward me, too late. The gun boomed and I went down almost at the same time. Except the horrifying pain I expected never split into my brain. A zombie had tackled me, its puppetlike efforts to take off my head such a welcome relief to point-blank murder I actually giggled. I know. Inappropriate. That’s pretty much how it happens with me.