Alliance
The marina was silent save for the creaking of abandoned vessels still moored and waiting for crews that would never come. Gulls circled above, squawking. “So many of them,” Ptolemy murmured, watching the flock twist and undulate like a single, serpentine organism. The birds, to all appearances, were still alive. He sat on a box near the boarding ramp for Ariadne’s yacht, his shotgun across his knees.
“Apparently they come every day,” Kahwihta said as she sat down beside him. Attila, as always, was right beside her. “Instinct, I suppose. I wonder if they miss us.”
“I doubt it,” Ptolemy said, scanning the marina for any sign of movement. He didn’t like being so exposed, but it was necessary. They were waiting for reinforcements, or so Ariadne claimed. Ptolemy didn’t know what to make of her. He didn’t trust her, but that was only common sense. She might have saved them, but she’d done so for her own reasons. Not that they weren’t good ones.
Regardless, she’d spent most of the night and the morning talking to her people via the radio. The yacht’s communications set-up was second-to-none, far better than his hodgepodge array at the Villa, which mostly only got the occasional numbers station.
There was something comforting about a synthesized voice reciting a string of numbers relating to a secret, a government, a plan, whatever – that no longer existed or had any purpose. But it kept going, kept spilling numbers into the air.
Sometimes, Ptolemy wondered if he was doing the same thing. Just an automaton, going through the motions. Following its last set of programming. He knew better, of course. He was no machine. Machines didn’t bang their heads and get a splitting migraine from a plane crash. Machines didn’t get frustrated.
“Seen anything yet?” Kahwihta asked, setting her hunting rifle down by her leg. Ariadne had returned their weapons last night.
“Nothing save birds.”
“Sayers?” she asked.
He indicated the street opposite with his chin. “Securing the perimeter, as she put it.” They’d been anchored at the marina most of the morning, waiting to see if anyone responded to Ariadne’s message.
“Want me to spell you?”
“Thank you, but I am content. I am still not good for much else.” He indicated his head. He’d gotten banged up in the crash and was still seeing double. A concussion, perhaps.
Kahwihta nodded but settled in beside him. “Ariadne seemed pleased when she got back.” She idly stroked Attila’s head as she spoke, her eyes on the water. “And her crew seemed to think the other camps would hear her out.” Ariadne’s people had returned over the course of the night, looking exhausted. “You think this brother of hers will fall for it?”
“I do not know. I hope so. I hope this all goes according to plan.” He paused. “Perhaps I am becoming an optimist in my old age.”
Kahwihta grinned. “Maybe we all are.”
He chuckled softly. “Maybe.” A groan drifted on the breeze and he stiffened. Kahwihta raised her rifle and peered through the scope. She lowered the weapon.
“Walker. Trapped in a car over there.”
“It might draw others,” Ptolemy said, doubtfully.
Kahwihta shook her head and set her rifle aside. “It can’t see us. No eyes. Birds must have gotten to it.” As she spoke, several gulls peeled off from the flock above and drifted down towards the car she’d indicated. Squawks and screeches drowned out the zombie’s groaning. “I’ve been thinking about them – the dead – a lot lately,” she said. “Trying to work out how they know where we are, wherever we try to hide. I finally realized that they know where we are because they’re us.”
Ptolemy looked at her silently.
She went on. “They don’t really think anymore, at least not in any way that we understand, but something is going on in there. Muscle memory, maybe. They go where we go because we can’t leave the old places behind. We entomb ourselves in the past; old ways of living, old ways of doing things. Is it any wonder we have the dead on our doorstep?”
“Or maybe it’s because they go where the food is. Simple as,” Sayers said, as she stepped out into the open, appearing as if from nowhere.
Kahwihta jumped, startled. Even Attila looked surprised. “Jesus Christ, we need to get you a bell,” the young woman said.
Sayers smirked. “You two need to learn the value of quiet. I heard you chatting all the way up the street, even with the birds.” She indicated the birds overhead. “A word of advice: sound carries a lot farther than you might imagine in cities.”
“We will keep that in mind. Did you see anything?”
“Zombies, zombies, and more zombies.” Sayers frowned and looked down at him. “I think we should get out of here while the getting is good.”
“There’s a surprise,” Kahwihta said. “What’s the problem?”
“What isn’t the problem?” Sayers looked at her. “I thought this was a dumb idea when it was just a rescue mission. Now Ramirez wants us to get involved in a war.”
“It is still a rescue mission,” Ptolemy pointed out.
“Problems like this don’t go away,” Kahwihta added. “We can either deal with it now, or later. I’d rather deal with it here and now rather than later on our doorstep.” She looked up at Sayers. “If even half of what Ariadne said about this guy is true, he’s not going to stop with the city. She even knew about the Villa. What if he succeeds here, and turns his eyes on our sanctuary?”
“Listen to yourself,” Sayers said. She gestured towards the nearest building. “This city is full of reanimated corpses. It is zombie-central. I don’t care how rich this guy was, he’s not taking the city back. He’s spitting into the wind. We all are.”
“Then why are you here?” Ptolemy asked, softly.
Sayers didn’t reply. Her eyes were on the street. She drew an arrow, nocked it, and loosed it all in one motion. The arrow hissed up and across the street, embedding itself in a traffic sign. “That’s far enough,” she called out.
Silence. Then a man stepped out from behind a car, hands raised. He wore a filthy raincoat and a pair of Bermuda shorts. He had a gasmask on as well, and a cowboy hat. A semi-automatic rifle hung across his chest from a strap. “We were invited,” he called out.
Ptolemy stood and waved them forward. There were fifteen of them in all. Men and women, young and old. But they all had that certain look, that hard edge and tension twitch that only people who went out into the nightmare on a daily basis had. Cowboy hat was the spokesman but not the leader, Ptolemy thought.
“Not exactly Delta Force, is it?” Sayers murmured, as the group approached.
“We take what we can get,” Ramirez said, as she stepped off the boarding ramp, one hand resting on her sidearm. “Afternoon,” she called out. The group stopped.
“Where’s the Duchess?” a short woman, dressed in a red hoodie and wearing a bandolier holding a truly impressive array of cutlery, replied.
“Right here, Imogene,” Ariadne called down from the deck. She had a satellite phone in her hand. “Fifteen of you? That’s more than I expected.”
“There were twenty of us when we started,” Imogene replied, pointing at Ariadne. “So this better be worth it.”
Ptolemy and the others followed the newcomers up the ramp and onto the yacht. There were no pleasantries, no small talk. Ariadne got right to business. “Playground Pier is gone,” she said, flatly. “Elysium is on the move, and any one of you could be next.”
The survivors looked at one another. Imogene spoke up first. “You wouldn’t have sent your people to convince us to come if you didn’t have a plan. So, let’s hear it.” The others nodded and murmured in agreement. Ptolemy studied them with a survivalist’s eye. They were thin, malnourished, and suffering from vitamin deficiency. The city was killing them by inches. If the zombies didn’t get them first, they’d starve to death. Atlantic City was on its last legs.
“A small group,” Ariadne was saying. She’d unrolled a map on the lounge table. “Ten, maybe a dozen people. No more than that. The entrance is here, at the junction, in the back room of a clothing store.” She tapped a point on the map. Ptolemy wasn’t familiar enough with Atlantic City to say where it was, but it seemed unsettlingly far from the water.
“So how do you know about it?” the survivor in the cowboy hat asked.
“I had access to the casino’s blueprints, prior to – well, all of this. And I kept them in mind, just in case I needed to get in – or out – quickly.”
“Just in case your crazy brother tried to kill you, you mean?” Imogene said. “Why didn’t you warn us about this? You’ve been bringing us food for almost a year, Duchess. Why not drop a warning or two to go with it?”
Ariadne raised her hands, as if in surrender. “I made a mistake. I thought – I hoped – my brother might do some good. I thought he might be the answer to my – to our – prayers. But I was wrong. And if we don’t stop him, I fear none of us will see another year.”
There was a minor outburst at this, but they soon quieted down. Ariadne was good at calming them down, Ptolemy noted. She was authoritative without being domineering. She reminded him of Ramirez in a way. Ramirez leaned over the map, studying it. “If you’re right about the tunnels, then we can access the parking garage as well as the loading docks. That gets us inside without having to deal with the Elysium’s defenses.”
Imogene frowned. “But to get there whoever goes will have to cross through several heavily-infested areas. At night. No easy task.”
“We could use a car,” Calavera said, speaking up for the first time. He traced a street with a blunt finger. “It’s a relatively straight shot from the boardwalk, provided there are no obstacles.”
“Do you see one handy?” another of the survivors countered. “You might be able to get one of the ones cluttering up the boardwalk moving – if the gasoline hasn’t gone bad, if its engine hasn’t dropped out, if the battery isn’t dead. But by the time you find one that works, you’ll have lost most of the night. If, of course, the zombies don’t get you on account of all the noise you’ll be making.”
“I don’t make noise,” Sayers said. The survivors looked at her and then back at the map. Ptolemy felt a peculiar flutter of pride at that. If there was one thing Elizabeth Sayers was good at, it was being the most intimidating person in any room she happened to be in. “And we don’t need a car. We just need to get ashore someplace quiet and clear of corpses, then we head inland. If we keep the noise down, we can probably make it to where we need to go by dusk.” She looked at Calavera. “Between me and him, we can probably take care of whatever gets in our way. I’m more worried about the sewers. No telling what it’s like down there.”
“You won’t have to go far, thankfully,” Ariadne said.
“And once we’re inside?” Imogene asked.
“We lock it down,” Ramirez said. “Ariadne is going to lure her brother out, and hopefully most of his security people with him. If we can get in, we can keep him out. He’ll have to negotiate with us then, whether he likes it or not.”
“So, who are you then, or any of you?” Imogene asked, glancing at Calavera. “New crew members, Duchess?”
Ptolemy decided it was his turn. “We are from outside the city. Upstate. We arrived here last night on a plane.” That got them talking. He cleared his throat. “Regrettably, it crashed. But we know where to get another, and we have a place to go. A place that would welcome all of you, if you were willing to make the trip.”
“You mean if we’re willing to help,” Imogene said.
Ptolemy paused and then shook his head. “No. We will take anyone who wants to go, regardless. We are here to help. But that includes the Playground Pier survivors. So, we are going to go get them, with or without you. If we survive, we will happily fly you out of here.” He paused again. “Granted, the odds of our survival, let alone our success, are greater with your aid than without.”
There was a moment of silence as Imogene and the others digested this. Finally, she said, “We need a minute to discuss this.”
Ariadne gestured to the aft lounge. “Make yourselves at home.”
Ptolemy watched the newcomers huddle and took a deep breath. He hoped he hadn’t come on too strong. The lounge wobbled slightly, though whether due to the sea or his concussion, he couldn’t say. Ptolemy made to sit down but didn’t quite make it and was forced to steady himself on the back of the couch. Ramirez looked at him. “You OK?” she murmured. He nodded.
“Still a bit out of sorts, I fear. You?”
“Hurting, but kicking.” She frowned slightly. “You might want to sit this one out. Stay here, out of the line of fire.”
“Actually, I was thinking I might accompany Ariadne.” Ptolemy looked at their host. “If she will allow me, of course.”
Ariadne frowned, hearing her name. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Because for all that your meeting is a distraction, some good might come of it,” Ptolemy said. The idea of the situation before them devolving into a bloodbath wasn’t a pleasant one. If it was possible to avoid largescale carnage, he intended to do so. “Especially if we can convince your brother that his position is not tenable. That compromise might be the only way we all walk away in one piece.”
Ariadne hesitated, and then nodded. “If you wish. But I warn you, Rupert has never been a big fan of compromise.” Before Ptolemy could answer, the satellite phone made a noise. “Speak of the devil,” Ariadne said, and snatched it up. She looked at them, took a breath, and answered.
“Hello, brother. So glad you called.”