AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pivot quickly to the left, keeping her in my peripheral vision. There’s nobody behind me.
“Look, lady, I’m having a really bad day. Who are you and who was that little guy you just killed and where is Teacup? Where’s Ringer?”
“I told you, Zombie.” With a trilling little laugh. “She’s behind you.”
I raise the gun to the level of her eyes. I’m not scared or confused anymore. I’m just pissed. I don’t know if she’s the Silencer of the caverns and I really don’t care. I’m killing every stranger in my path until I find somebody who isn’t one.
I know what’s what. Jesus Christ, of course I know. I knew it before I left the safe house. It’s all been for nothing, nothing. Dumbo’s going to die for nothing, because Ringer is nothing. She’s lying in that tangle of bodies, a raven-haired, smile-less nothing, along with Teacup, both of them nothing, like the seven billion other nothings busy breaking down into random molecules of nothing. And I’m going to help. I’m going to do my part. I’m going to murder every dumbass stupid bastard who’s unlucky enough to cross my path.
They wanted a mindless, stone-cold killer to let loose on the world. They wanted a zombie. Now they’ve got one.
I take aim at that silly, smiling, busted-up face and squeeze the trigger.
29
RINGER
I’M PROBABLY going to regret this.
Keeping Constance around is like finding a viper in bed with your kids. Going after it risks hurting the kids more than the snake.
So I almost let Zombie do it. It was tempting. But a millisecond before the bullet exits the barrel, I ram my open palm into his elbow, throwing off the shot. His gun is in my hand by the time the report sounds.
He whirls around, his hand balled into a fist, which is aimed at my head. I catch it.
Zombie’s shoulder jerks on impact—as if he’s punched a brick wall—and then his mouth drops open and his eyes grow wide with astonishment and disbelief, a reaction so clichéd and predictable, he almost does it: He almost gets me to smile.
Almost.
“Ringer?” he says.
I nod. “Sergeant.”
His knees wobble. He falls into me and presses his face against my neck, and over his shoulder I can see Constance smiling at us. I’m not sure who’s holding up whom at this point.
Using the 12th System, I pour myself into him. Where there is pain, I give comfort. Where there is fear, hope. Where there is rage, peace.
“It’s all right,” I tell him, looking at Constance. “She’s with me. You’re safe now, Zombie. We’re all perfectly safe.”
My first lie to him. It won’t be the last.
30
HE PULLS OUT of my arms. His eyes wander over the starlit fields, the road beyond, the bare, uplifted arms of the trees. He wants to ask but doesn’t want to, either. I tense, waiting for the question. Is it cruel to make him say it aloud?
“Teacup?”
I shake my head.
He nods. Lets out the deep breath he’s holding. Finding me was a kind of miracle, and when one miracle happens, you expect another.
“The little shit,” he mutters. Looking away. Fields, road, trees. “She snuck off on me, Ringer.” He gives me a hard look. “How?”
I say the first thing that pops into my head. “One of them.” I nod toward the pit. The second lie. “We’ve been dodging them all winter.” The third. It’s like I’ve jumped off a cliff—or pushed Zombie off. With each lie, he recedes from me, accelerating as we fall.
“But not Cup.” He steps over to the pit and stares into the mass of decomposing remains. “Is she in here?”
Constance jumps into the conversation; I’m not sure why. “No. We gave her a proper burial, Ben.”
