After a long hesitation, he spoke slowly, still staring at his computer screen. “I intend to keep interlopers off my street, since I don’t want anyone snooping in my house. That requires monitoring my neighbors’ homes too.”
She squinted at the monitor. “I don’t see any houses other than ours, so—”
“Is this really the time, human? What happened to determining the cause of the outages so you can warn our neighbors?”
Okay, fair point. “Fine. But we’re discussing this later.”
He grunted and resumed zooming in on various images, then clicking to others.
“They haven’t been able to access my electrical or communications systems,” he said finally. “Whatever’s happening, it isn’t specific to this house.”
If that was true, who the hells had managed to disable the cell tower, internet service,andthe power grid? Had the zombies done it? If so, had someone helped them?
That had been the cause of the First Breach, of course. Back then, the thick stone walls ringing the compound had been considered entirely secure, and they’d remained unguarded and unsurveilled. A small group of militants who’d underestimated the zombies’ menace after several years of safe containment had dynamited holes in Wall One and broken down the access door through Wall Two before being overrun by the very creatures they were attempting to free from captivity.
Those militants had all died horribly, along with virtuallyeveryone living in Zone A, including her parents. Before the human government and the Supernatural and Enhanced Ruling Council had taken joint action and sent sufficient troops to drive the zombies back into their compound, countless homeowners in Zone B had fallen too. Only sheer luck had prevented further catastrophe. If the militants had been able to set the charges for Walls Three and Four prior to meeting their grisly fates, the death toll would have been far worse.
Afterward, to prevent another such incident, the government-SERC alliance had begun conducting background checks on all current and potential Zone residents and limiting non-homeowner visitation inside the walls. The alliance had also installed deep, wide moats outside Wall One and just within Walls Two, Three, and Four. No bridge crossed the moat outside Wall One, since no one but zombies lived inside that stone barrier, and the government had long ago ceased their ill-fated attempts at either in-person surveillance or eradication. The other moats had drawbridges that lowered after the scan of a valid pass and stayed down only until the permitted vehicle had traversed the bridge and exited through the temporarily open door in the wall.
Upon word of another breach, the drawbridges would stay up and the doors would remain shut, pass or no pass, allowing no exit for Containment Zone residents. It was the price they paid for such incredibly cheap housing so close to the nation’s capital, in a formerly wealthy area of Northern Virginia.
The Containment Zone had become an exclusive gated community, albeit a crumbling one where very few people actually lived. Once-thriving neighborhoods in Zones A and B had vanished in the space of three blood-smeared days, and they’d never returned. Zone C rapidly emptied too, despite remaininguntouched. Humans and Supernaturals who could be killed by decapitation—shifters, vampires, trolls, and others—weren’t willing to risk proximity to the creatures after such a calamitous example of how seemingly foolproof defenses could fail. Supernaturals who could survive zombie attacks—including demons, elves, and the fae—avoided the Zone as well, either because the area felt tainted by the massacre or because they wanted to live somewhere with better services and easier access.
Over the last twenty years, a mere handful of newcomers desperate for affordable housing—as well as criminals bearing forged documents, eager to take advantage of abandoned buildings and limited governmental oversight—had been permitted to join the few Zone residents too foolish, too stubborn, too poor, or too sentimental to leave. How many of those descriptors applied to Edie, she couldn’t say. Most of them, probably. Maybe all of them.
Empty houses that had once cost millions began to sag. The roofs of upscale shopping complexes collapsed. Immaculately paved streets pitted and cracked.
And three years ago, Not-Chad had bought the unprepossessing house next to hers, tunneled deep beneath it, built his lair, and installed startlingly sophisticated security systems, apparently unbeknownst to anyone.
Except her now.
He pointed to one specific image on his computer monitor, the rectangle dark purple except for several dozen orangey splotches clustered in a loose grouping.
“My infrared camera.” Side by side, they studied the image, and his frown deepened. “The creatures seem to be down on all fours and moving slowly.”
“They must not have found anyone else yet.” Otherwise, they’d be sprinting toward their victims and rising to their hind legs for the kill.
He nodded, then checked another subset of images. “Here they are on my night vision cameras. They’re still searching for us. If we stay down here, they’ll eventually give up and attempt to find other game.”
The creatures glowed an eerie green, their eyes as bright as spotlights, the details of their gaunt, muscled frames far more visible now. The outdoor views showed them circling the property, sniffing for telltale scents, as the broken remains of his front door swung and creaked in the bitter winter wind. The interior cameras showed other members of the pack exploring the home above, flinging aside a narrow bed and swatting a closet door off its hinges to expose potential hiding places.
There were so damn many of them. Far too many for even Not-Chad to kill—with her assistance, however unwelcome—before both of them would literally lose their heads.
They were going nowhere until the pack moved on. She might be desperate to alert other Zone residents of imminent danger, but her death approximately five feet outside his home would serve no purpose and help no one.
“Otherpeople,” she corrected quietly. “Other people, not other game.”
“Not to the zombies.” He sounded dismissive. “They can’t think in those terms. People are food to them, although they’d gladly slaughter Supernaturals instead of humans if given the opportunity. It’s why they were created, after all.”
Stung by the detached tone of his words, she turned her head to study him.
Nah, he’d said when she’d asked him to call the hotline. As if he couldn’t be bothered. As if the slightest effort to aid others required more energy than he cared to expend.
Why the hells had he saved her, then?
“How about you? Do you think in those terms?” she asked. “Or is everyone else simplyother gameto you?”
He didn’t answer.
