And now here he was, Lieutenant Philip Hager, first in his graduating class at Artemis University, so dedicated to being a Hunter he had never taken a family, a man who absolutely loathed the living and everything they stood for—here he was now, down on his hands and knees, trying to get a zombie child to say hello.
Conrad tore his gaze away from the dust motes. He looked down at Philip and remembered what Norman had told him, the sole reason he had been ordered to come here. But just how far was too far? And if it came down to it and Conrad stepped in and told Philip to stop, what would happen? With Michael and Kevin on Philip’s side, it was three against one.
“Kent,” Philip said. “Oh, Kent? Please say hello. Please, please, pretty please?” When the zombie still wouldn’t move, Philip looked at Eugene. “What’s wrong with your boy? He doesn’t talk?”
“You want names, addresses, contact information, I’ll give them all to you. Just please, don’t hurt my family.”
“I don’t know.” Phillip said. “I appreciate the offer and everything, but I’m afraid now it’s too little too late. However, if you’re son here says hello to me, I’ll spare his life. How does that sound?”
Eugene looked at his wife. His wife looked at him. She slowly shook her head, mouthed no, but Eugene closed his eyes, bent his head, and seemed to think for a very long time.
Finally he said, “Do I have your word?”
“Of course.”
Eugene raised his head, opened his eyes, stared down at his living son. “May I … may I get down there and talk with him?”
“Certainly.”
Philip stood up and stepped back. Eugene glanced at his wife again, his wife who was still slowly shaking her head, mouthing no, but he ignored her and got to his feet. His legs trembled as he walked across the room, lowered himself to his knees, and placed a dry and decayed hand on his living son’s back.
The zombie child cried out. It jumped, tried to get away, and Michael, still holding the end of the leash, jerked him back down.
“Please,” Eugene said to Michael, holding up a hand.
Michael looked at Philip for permission. Philip nodded. Michael tossed the end of the leash to Eugene, who immediately unhooked it from the collar around his son’s neck, then unbuckled the collar and set both it and the leash aside. He bent his head next to his son’s, whispered to him, said words of encouragement, and after about a minute Eugene leaned back.
“Okay, Kent,” he said, and glanced warily at his family on the couch, “say hello to the man.”
The zombie’s head was bent. Tears still covered its face. It wiped them away, sniffed back more tears, and slowly raised its living eyes to Philip.
“Hell … lo,” the zombie child said weakly.
Philip smiled, nodded, and said, “Hello, Kent. How are you feeling?”
Eugene said, “That wasn’t part of the deal. You said all he had to say was hello, and he said it.”
“That’s right, I did say that. But do you want to know something?” Philip placed his hands behind his back, took a few steps forward, and smiled down at Eugene. “I was crossing my fingers.”
What happened next happened quickly. Before Eugene Moss could say or do anything, Kevin hurried forward. He pulled Eugene to his feet and dragged him back to the couch as Philip stepped forward and grabbed the zombie child by the hair. It cried out in pain as it was yanked up into the air and the mother screamed and children screamed and Philip brandished the carving knife once more, holding it up in front of the zombie child’s face.
“See, Eugene, the problem is you zombie-loving extremists think blowing up a Hunter Headquarters will solve everything. But you know what it does? It just pisses us off. Some might not take it too personally”—here Philip shot a glare at Conrad—“but me? I take it very fucking personally.”
Holding the zombie by the hair, Philip used the carving knife to nick its face. Blood—real actual living blood—began its race with the tears.
Eugene started to stand up again but Kevin stepped forward, grabbed him from behind, and pulled him back toward the recliner. Michael met them there and when Kevin threw Eugene down into the chair they worked it so Michael made sure the man stayed seated, Kevin standing behind the chair and reaching around Eugene’s head, holding him in place.
“You should have let me blinded you, Eugene. You should have let me done you that favor.”
Eugene fought with Michael and Kevin, he shouted. His wife screamed again, and the children echoed her. The zombie child screamed too, it cried out, and the tone of its screams and cries were completely different from its dead family’s.
“Names and addresses,” Philip said. He nicked another part of the zombie’s face.
Eugene continued fighting, his wife and children continued screaming.
“Names and addresses.”
Another nick; more blood.
“Names and addresses.”
Even more blood.
“Fine, Eugene. Then just listen.”
The screams filled the room, those of the living and the dead, and when Eugene Moss finally began giving the names and addresses, Philip did not stop. He continued, and even though Conrad had come along to prevent this sort of thing, he stood where he was and watched those agitated dust motes swirling in the failing shaft of light.
The screams were their music and they danced and danced and danced.
Tracking
The zombie’s name
was James. He was thirty-three years old. He was tall and broad shouldered and his skin was very dark.
Conrad had seen zombie children with dark skin before—more a black than the usual gray—but he had never questioned it, because most times that particular zombie was quickly killed and any thought of it left his mind. But now he was working with these adult zombies—
had
been working with them for four days—and so these questions which usually crept into his dead mind and then quickly fled stayed to burrow their way even further into his brain, and he found himself thinking more and more about them until he finally got up the nerve to ask. Never one of the zombies though—so far he’d done a good job of not talking directly to any of them—but to one of the Trackers, or to one of the scientists at Living Intelligence. He would ask his question—he made sure to space them out appropriately—and then he would listen to an answer which seemed very matter-of-fact but which still confused him.
Like James’s skin color. According to one of the scientists, before the Zombie Wars, before the dead had taken the next step in evolution, the world’s living had been made up of many different races and nationalities and skin colors. Not at all like today, when nobody was separated by their race or nationality or skin color because none of those things existed.
Four nights in a row Conrad had been working as a Tracker, and he had the next day off, where he would finally be able to go home and see his wife and son. He had talked to them every day on the phone—Kyle really wanting to talk to him now since he’d found out the truth—but missed them and wanted to actually see them, touch them, hold them. But right now it was four o’clock in the morning, they had another three hours to go, and then they would head back to Living Intelligence, report in, change and shower, and then he was as good as gone … at least until his one full day was up and he came back to work.
Not that he really minded the work a whole lot. It was definitely more involved than being a Hunter, where you spent most of your time in the Deck or driving around the city in the Humvees, and only really worked when a call came in and you grabbed your sword, your mask, and hurried off to kill the latest monstrosity to walk the earth.
They were in a park down near the southern side of Olympus, the four Trackers and James. The three other Trackers were Garry, Brooks, and Scott. Scott had the highest rank. He called the shots but there were hardly any shots to call. The process of Tracking was very simple: you followed the zombie until it came to a place where a Pandora was buried, you tagged it with an electronic device for the Diggers, and then you went on your way.
Except Conrad’s first night, Scott had asked him if he was curious to see the Diggers and what they did, and so they waited the half hour or so until a van pulled up. Two men got out, one carrying a shovel, the other a black container. They instantly got to work, the man with the shovel digging, the man with the black container recording the date and time and location of the Pandora. Once the man with the shovel had dug down to about three feet (that seemed to be the standard depth for these Pandoras), the shovel clinked against something solid. Then, all at once, the men started to move at a slower and more measured pace, the digger handing over the shovel to the recorder, the recorder taking the shovel and opening the plastic container. The digger worked very carefully, freeing the Pandora from the earth, and then handed the quartz-encrusted cube up to the recorder. The recorder took the Pandora, placed it in the foam padding of the plastic container, closed it, locked it, and then that was that. After filling in the hole, they got back into their van and drove away, waiting for the next location to be called in.
So far tonight they’d found two Pandoras. The average, Conrad was told, was three Pandoras a night. He was beginning to understand a lot more about these pockets of energy. Such as how there was no way to predict how many Pandoras were in any given area. In a mile radius there might be no Pandoras; in another mile radius there might be a dozen. But Garry had confided in Conrad a theory about this. He speculated that while there might be no Pandoras in one area one month, there might be some in the same very area the next.
“It’s like these things are growing,” he said. “Like the energy—the
life
—is coming right out of the ground.”
Before there had been ten teams of Trackers moving about Olympus and the surrounding suburbs—three teams went out to the country on the weekends—but now with the added men the teams had been taken back down to five. This meant instead of working with the same zombie almost nightly, they traded off back and forth.
The other zombie they worked with was Ruth. She was twenty-nine years old and very quiet. She always had her long hair pulled back into a ponytail, though the nights they took her outside to track she was made to hide that hair up into her hat. They all wore hats—no masks—and a form of night-vision glasses. The glasses made the night a somewhat bright and hazy gray. But at least it got them around without the use of flashlights, which would be conspicuous and something they wished to avoid.
It had rained earlier that day and the ground was still damp and muddy in places. The trees were wet and the leaves dripped.
“I think he’s got one.”
This was from Scott, whose voice came through the earpieces they all wore. They were hooked up to microphones too and could communicate with each other and call in to the Diggers or, if need be, Living Intelligence.
The four of them were spread out about fifty yards from James. Scott and Brooks flanked him from the front, Garry and Conrad from the back. It was important—or so Conrad had been told—that the zombies were given enough space.
They had passed through a grove of trees, had passed a pond with a number of sleeping dead ducks nestled by the water, had passed a gazebo, and were now coming out toward the playground section of the park. Up ahead, by the swings and slides, James had stopped completely. He just stood there, his head tilted. Conrad should have known what this meant the first time he’d seen it, but still he had asked, and was told the zombie was listening for “it.” When he had asked what “it” was, Scott gave him a blank look and said, “The beating.”
Now the zombie took a few steps forward, toward the swing set, his head still tilted. Suddenly he turned, started walking toward the slides. He came to the one slide, touched the ladder, and Conrad, thinking of all those children who played there, had to remind himself that everything was okay and that the zombie was not doing anything harmful.
James held onto the ladder for a very long time. He bent down, his head still tilted, and stood back up. He let go of the ladder, started moving again, slowly this time, until he was underneath the slide. He crouched down. He placed his hand on the ground, felt around for a moment, and then patted the damp earth twice.
Scott made the first move. He came in and whispered something to James. James nodded. By then Brooks, Garry and Conrad had also advanced on the playground, until they all stood around the slide. At the bottom of the slide, where the ground was worn down by constant use, was a small puddle. Moonlight reflected off the muddy water.
“You certain?” Brooks asked James.
“I’m always certain.”
Brooks grinned. He patted James on the back and said, “I know, buddy, I’m just fooling with you.”
Conrad stood motionless. He didn’t say a word. He still wasn’t comfortable even talking to these zombies, let alone actually touching one. He had gone to visit Gabriel twice already, not counting the first time with Norman and Albert. Both times Gabriel had offered his hand (just like the first), and both times Conrad had refused.
Garry said, “Let me do the honors.” He took one of the electronic devices from his pocket, flicked it on, and placed it on the spot James had indicated.
“All right,” Scott said, clapping his hands together once. He looked at James. “You ready to keep going or you want to take a break?”
James sat down on the base of the slide, and once again Conrad had to remind himself that it was okay, that there was nothing wrong at all about the living using equipment that dead children used every day.
Left over rain fell from nearby trees. A jetliner flew in the dark sky above their heads. After about a minute of silence James nodded once, took a breath, and stood up.
“Okay,” he said, looking at each of them, settling his gaze last on Conrad, “let’s go.”