Chapter Twenty-Three

Cavalry

Calavera caught a walker by the jaw, and with a twitch of his wrist tore the bone loose. Jaw in hand, he laid about him until it snapped and splintered in his grip. He tossed it aside and stooped, snatching up a loose tire. Spinning in a tight circle, he sent the tire hurtling into the packed ranks of the dead. Some fell, but not all.

Smoke stung his eyes and filled the street. Most of the zombies were an indistinct mass, lost in the smoke and the dust of the plane’s landing. But even if he couldn’t make all of them out, he could certainly hear them. The dead sang a song that was recognizable whatever language you spoke: a bone-deep hymn of hunger and longing.

He’d chosen a spot some distance from the plane, where several abandoned cars had converged on a rusted bulwark. The dead had to come around or over it to get to him, and he was making enough noise to attract the bulk of their attentions. But some were still moving towards the plane. He reached over, tore a dangling bumper free of a car and hefted it. It would make a better tool than a jawbone.

“Any luck?” he called out, glancing over his shoulder back towards the plane.

“She’s still out,” Kahwihta replied, from where she crouched beside Ramirez and Ptolemy. Beside her, Attila began to bark at the zombies as they shuffled closer. Sayers, perched on the wing above the others, sent an arrow humming into a walker, knocking it flat. She drew and loosed again, and a second walker joined the first.

“We need more time,” she shouted, as she reached for another arrow.

“Understood.” He rolled his shoulders, preparing his muscles for what was to come, and bounced lightly on his feet. Around him, broken storefronts watched the battle, unimpressed. He swung the bumper against a car, as hard as possible. “Hey,” he bellowed, as loudly as he could manage. “Over here! Come and get me!”

As he’d hoped, more zombies pressed forward over the bodies of their fallen compatriots, heading in his direction. They staggered through the curtain of smoke like drunks on day four of a five-day bender. Between the weather, the birds and the sea, most of them had been reduced to withered caricatures of the people they had been. Gender and age were consumed by entropy, with only the remnants of clothing to identify them. Almost all individuality was lost.

That, most of all, was what saddened him about the dead. It was as if some remorseless force had stamped the humanity out of them. They were nothing more than machines, now. Automatons of meat, driven by hunger.

He saw the members of what must have once been a high school marching band, their towering hats and epaulets no longer a brilliant white but a filthy yellow. A street performer in a speedo and a cowboy hat, broken guitar bumping against gnawed pectorals. Car wash attendants and casino croupiers stumbling alongside beachcombers and tourists.

Perhaps most disturbingly of all was the immense, yellow cartoon chicken – a mascot, maybe part of the marching band or for a restaurant. The costume, padded as it was, had apparently provided little protection for its unfortunate wearer from the teeth and fingernails of the dead. They stumbled along, bumping into other zombies, cars and lampposts.

The dead were converging on the plane from all directions. Too many to count. The smell was unbearable. In the mountains, it was diffused by the raw odors of nature, but here, the seaside air seemed to enhance the stink rather than mute it. Gulls and crows swooped overhead, crying out raucously before descending on a zombie and tearing at it. The zombies ignored these parasites, their attentions fixed on the plane.

So taken was he by this sight that he almost missed the scrape of flesh on a car hood. He spun, dropping his makeshift weapon, and caught a lunging runner by the wrists. The momentum of its charge drove him back against the side of a car, and he grunted in annoyance as it snapped at him. An instant later an arrowhead sprouted between its eyes. It went limp and he slung it aside.

“Watch your back,” Sayers called, from the wing of the plane. She was already readying another arrow as he waved his thanks. A tough woman, Sayers. She was hurt, but still game. Still fighting. The hand of Santa Muerte was on her shoulder, guiding her as she released a second arrow. The saint was with them all, Calavera knew. If she wasn’t, they wouldn’t have survived the plane crash. Their escape was nothing short of miraculous. But even a saint could only do so much.

The air reeked of fuel and, from what little he knew, one errant spark could set it alight. They needed to get away from here and quickly. He stooped to retrieve the bumper as more walkers closed in. As he did so, he felt a faint tremor and, acting on instinct, hurled himself aside even as the brute slammed into the bulwark and flipped one of the cars completely over. The shadow of it passed over Calavera, and then the car came down with a tooth-rattling crunch, crushing several of the slower walkers.

Calavera looked up. The brute was clad in the split remnants of a wetsuit, and a thick mane of blonde hair hid much of its distorted features. The brute gave a wheezing roar and lifted its heavy fists over him. Calavera shot to his feet, the bumper extended before him like a spear. He drove it into the brute’s spongy flesh, but with no apparent effect. The brute slammed a fist down on the bumper, snapping it in two. Calavera staggered back and the brute swept its arms out, as if to embrace him.

He ducked under its groping reach and sprang for the shard of bumper still jutting from its chest. He caught the blood-slick metal and wrenched it free. The brute clawed for him, groaning hungrily. He heard Santa Muerte’s whisper in his ear and laughed. A single, quick thrust was all he needed to drive the shard of metal up through the brute’s chin and into its brain. It gave a gaseous sigh and its weight settled on top of him. He threw it off with a titanic heave, but had no time to celebrate. While he’d been dealing with the brute, much of the rest of the horde had kept moving towards the plane.

He turned to try and head them off, but a snatch of sound – a song, perhaps – caught his attention and he turned back. Santa Muerte stood at the far end of the street, her robes billowing in the sea breeze. In her black gaze was an infinity of peace and calm.

Calavera met her gaze, and felt, as always, a longing to join her in that far realm where the dead knew neither hunger nor pain. He snapped from his reverie and drove an elbow into a walker’s head, slamming it into a car. He caught it by the scalp and the back of its shirt and spun, launching it like a javelin into its nearest fellows.

A kick took another in its exposed pelvis, dropping it writhing to the ground. He stamped on its neck and kicked its head away. There were still too many between him and the plane. He could hear the pop-pop-pop of a handgun, and the hum-crack of Sayers’ bow, but the wind had shifted and the smoke was wrapping everything in an oily shroud.

Head down, he charged. Zombies surrounded him, biting and clawing. Teeth scraped against his wrapped forearms. He caught a zombie by the shoulders and headbutted it. He tore the arm from another and whirled it about him, trying to drive them back. He sought out the saint’s gaze, hoping that she might have some wisdom for him.

She was still where he’d seen her last, still watching. Waiting, but for what? “Is it to be today?” he whispered. A walker came for him, and he dispatched it without thinking, his body reacting on instinct. “Are my labors at an end?”

She shook her head, and he felt a sudden pulse of sadness. One day soon, perhaps, that privilege would be his. But not today, he knew. Today was for the living, and for fighting. She gestured and the smoke around her thinned.

Calavera blinked. It was no longer Santa Muerte he was looking at, but instead a tall, dark-skinned muscular woman, dressed in black, and holding what appeared to be a Thompson submachine gun. She grinned, raised the weapon and fired, gunning down several zombies.

As if this had been a signal, more gunfire erupted from nearby storefronts and windows. Dozens of zombies were scythed apart by the sudden salvo. What followed was a succession of concentrated volleys. The newcomers retreated as the horde turned its attentions to them and away from the plane.

Calavera saw the strategy immediately, for it was one the Saranac Lake survivors had used on several occasions. Each salvo served to break up the horde a little more, to reduce its effectiveness by drawing the zombies in all different directions at once. Hordes were terrifying, in the abstract. Enough zombies could overwhelm even the strongest defenses. But individually, or in small groups, walkers were less trouble.

As the horde unraveled, the woman in black advanced, alongside several others; all of them dressed in dark clothing and wearing knapsacks and bandanas over their mouths and noses. They kept up a steady rate of fire as they advanced, chopping through the middle of the mass of zombies, as if they had ammunition to spare.

The big chicken was the last to fall. A shotgun blast knocked the walker sprawling, and the butt of an assault rifle crumpled the cartoon beak and the rotting face inside. The woman with the Thompson stepped over the twitching mascot, her weapon braced against her hip. The rest of the horde had largely dispersed, drawn down side streets and into storefronts. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. “But they’ll be back. They always come back. We don’t have much time.”

“Thank you for your timely assistance,” he said.

She circled Calavera. “Well, you are a big one, aren’t you?” The slight trace of an accent in her voice marked her as being from somewhere else, but he couldn’t tell where.

“I am–” he began.

“I didn’t ask. Where did you get a plane?” she continued, in a tone of mild curiosity. “I think I would have heard if someone in this city had a plane. That’s the sort of gossip that gets around.” She turned and looked at Sayers, still standing on the wing. The former park ranger had an arrow nocked and ready. “I wouldn’t, if you know what’s good for you.”

Calavera saw that her companions had their weapons aimed at him and Sayers. He felt a chill. Something told him this wasn’t strictly a rescue. “Sayers,” he said, in warning. Unsurprisingly, Sayers ignored him.

“You put your weapons down first,” she said, through gritted teeth.

The woman laughed. “Oh, that’s funny. Best joke I’ve heard in months.” She gestured. “Put the bow down, or my people will put you down.”

“Do as she says,” Calavera said. “If they wanted us dead, they could have simply left us to the zombies.”

“Smart and big,” the woman said, looking at him. “I was mostly curious as to how a plane wound up on my boardwalk.” She glanced at where Kahwihta crouched protectively over Ramirez and Ptolemy. “Looks like you got some hurt people here. Bet you’d like a place to rest up and get your bearings.”

“We would.” Calavera straightened and crossed his arms.

The woman looked up at him. “It’ll cost you. As I said, this is my boardwalk. Everything you see – mine. So, what are you going to give me, in return for my hospitality?”

Calavera glanced at Kahwihta, and then said, “What do you want?”

The woman laughed. “My favorite question. Information will do for now. Later – who knows?” She gestured and her people slung their weapons and moved forward. “The name’s St Cloud, by the way. Ariadne St Cloud.” She smiled and Calavera was reminded, somewhat unsettlingly, of a tiger’s grin.

“But most people just call me Duchess,” she added.