Tom knew Sally’s history. She’d been a rough, hard-edged Roller-Derby blocker with one of the Rat City Rollergirl teams out of Seattle when First Night changed the world. Sally had been the mother of two little kids, and she’d fought her way across Seattle to her small apartment where her mother was minding April and Toby. By the time Sally got to the apartment building, the lobby was splashed with blood. It took her a couple of years to tell Tom the whole story. It came out in broken fragments, and none of it was pretty. There were no happy endings, and when she reached her tenth-floor apartment, all she found was heartbreak.
Broken and more than half-crazy from loss, Sally headed south in a Humvee she took out of a used car lot. The salesmen at the dealership were long past caring. Sally made it as far as Portland before the electromagnetic pulses released by the nukes killed her car. She raided a sporting goods store for weapons. Previous looters had already taken the guns, so she loaded up with knives, including the two bowie knives that eventually became her trademark and her name.
It was nearly two years before she made it into Mariposa County, where she met Tom and discovered that there were towns filled with survivors. Tom remembered the Sally he’d first met: filthy, wild-eyed, almost feral, and more than half-dead from a bacterial infection she’d picked up from drinking bad water. He had gotten her first to Brother David’s and then into town.
Tom knew that Sally felt she owed him a debt, but in his view, if she helped someone else, then a different kind of infection would spread. Generosity could be as contagious as the zombie plague as long as enough people were willing to be carriers.
Tom rose from where he’d been crouching as he studied the scene.
The two men had indeed been quieted and left to rot. Tom wasted no sympathy on them. However, something caught his eye, and he parted some weeds and saw Chong’s bokken lying there. He picked it up. It was undamaged. Tom rigged a sling and hung the sword across his chest. As he did so he walked slowly around the clearing, looking at the prints. There were five distinct sets. Chong’s waffle-soled shoes. Sally’s cross-grained hiking boots. Prints that matched the shoes of the two dead men. And a fifth set that entered the camp from upslope. Tom placed his foot into one of the prints, and it dwarfed his. Tom was not a big man, and he wore a size nine-and-a-half shoe. This print had to be at least a fourteen extra wide, and the impression was ground well into the topsoil. A big man. Tall and heavy.
Like Charlie. Charlie Pink-eye had worn size fourteens.
Tom continued to walk the edges of the clearing until he found an even deeper set of footprints leading away. Same shoes, but clearly a heavier footfall. The answer was there to be read. There were no traces of Chong’s waffle soles, which meant that the big man had carried the boy off.
That gave Tom some hope. If Chong was dead, he would have been quieted and left for the crows. If he was alive and being carried, then even a big man could not move at top speed. And it was virtually impossible to cover your tracks while carrying a burden.
Tom was not carrying a burden. He could move very fast, and even a blind man could follow those tracks. He set out, moving quickly. He had the kind of lean and wiry body that was built for running, and he knew how to run. Two hours later he found the remains of a campfire and the clear and distinct marks of Chong’s waffle soles. The campfire was almost cold. Dirt had been kicked over the small blaze, and it had cooled more slowly than if it had been doused with water. Tom judged that he was now no more than four hours behind the big man. He was making up the time he’d lost by tending to Sally last night; and the big man had stopped to rest. When they’d started out again, Chong was walking instead of being carried. Good.
“Hold on, Chong,” he murmured aloud. “I’m coming for you.”
52
CHONG FLUNG HIMSELF TO ONE SIDE AS THE BIG ZOMBIE LUNGED. He hit the ground in a sloppy roll, coming up too fast, slamming into the opposite wall. He’d tried to snatch the pipe as he rolled, but his fingers merely brushed the cold length of it, sending it rolling away from him.
The crowd cheered, though Chong couldn’t tell if they were in favor of his attempt or its failure.
The zom turned, much faster than Chong thought it could, and instead of a dead moan, the creature hissed at him. The sound was full of hatred. Chong’s mind stalled. Hatred was an emotion. Zoms didn’t have any. But he could see the menace and malevolence etched into the snarling face of the living dead thing.
“No…”
The crowd must have heard him. They burst into raucous laughter.
“Surprise, surprise, little man!” taunted the Burned Man. “Bet you never seen a freshie like Big Joe.”
The zom-Big Joe-took a lumbering step toward Chong. However, its foot came down on the pipe and it rolled under the creature’s weight. Chong seized the opportunity and jumped forward, trying to land one of the kicks Tom had taught them. A jumping front thrust, intended to slam the flat of the foot against the opponent’s center of mass and knock him backward.
That was the plan.
Chong’s foot missed the big zom’s stomach and struck him in the left hip. Instead of knocking the zombie backward, it spun his mass, and with his weight already unstable from stepping on the pipe, the creature toppled off balance and fell. The pipe went skipping off the ground and struck the wall with a dull thud. Chong fell hard on his butt, and pain shot from his tailbone all the way up his spine and ignited fireworks in his brain. This new hurt, stacked on top of all his other aches, made Chong feel like he was toppling into a world where nothing but hurt existed.
Even through the pain and disorientation, he knew that if he just sat there, he’d be dead. With sparks still flashing in his eyes, he twisted around onto his hands and knees and fished for the pipe.
The roar of the crowd blocked out the moan of the zombie and the sounds it made getting back to its feet. Just as Chong’s fingers closed around the cold iron, the icy hand of Big Joe closed around the back of Chong’s neck. The zom plucked him off the ground as if he weighed nothing. Cold spittle splattered on his naked shoulders as he was pulled toward that awful mouth.
Chong shrieked in pain and fear and swung the pipe with both hands up and over his head. It struck the big zom’s forehead hard enough to send a jarring vibration down through the metal and into Chong’s hands.
The zom did not let go.
“Uh-oh!” jeered the Burned Man, sparking more laughter.
Chong felt the rough edges of the zom’s teeth begin to close around his shoulder. He screamed and swung the pipe again and again and again. The teeth pinched him, and the pain was unbelievable. But with the next swing of the club the zom lost its grip on him, and Chong dropped to the floor. He landed hard and instantly scuttled away like a spider, craning his neck to look over his shoulder as the zombie staggered backward, its eyes becoming dull with confusion. The front of its skull had a grooved look where the pipe had hammered it.
But there was bright, fresh blood on its lips!
Chong went crazy. He rushed the monster, swinging the pipe with so much force that he could feel his own muscles pulling and tearing. Spit flew from his mouth; the world seemed to vanish behind a red haze as he brought the Motor City Hammer’s black pipe club down over and over again.
The zom fell against the wall and still Chong hammered it. The creature’s feet slipped out from under it, and Chong beat on it as it slid down to the dirt floor. Its hands fell limply to the ground, and Chong never let up. Only when the creature slumped and fell sideways, his head a lumpy mass that no longer resembled a skull, did Chong pause, the gory club held high.
Big Joe was dead. The crowd cheered. Chong dropped the pipe and twisted his head to look at his shoulder. The flesh was raw and puckered and torn. Blood poured down his chest and back.
“Oh God,” Chong whispered.
He had been bitten.
