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Two of the men glanced at each other and then stepped back. They cut looks at Van Sloane, but she said nothing. The other adults nodded to Church and followed the younger residents out. Church went last and lingered for a moment in the doorway.
“You’re choosing to remain in a cage rather than fight alongside your own children. You’re staying here rather than fight for your own lives.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen a lot of flavors of human cowardice and aggressive stupidity, but quite frankly, you amaze me. And you disappoint me.”
With that he turned and left, and the cage was locked behind him.
***
The battle at the wall was going better than Dahlia thought. The combination of precise archery and then the hurling of stones was creating an actual wall of writhing bodies that, so far, was keeping the main army of the zombies away.
But it was working a little too well.
As she walked along the wall, directing the fight, Dahlia tried to apply all of the lessons Church had given her about tactics and strategy. From a certain distance, the Rovers’ plan was solid: herding the dead onto the field, using the RPGs to weaken the wall, and then creating walls of flame to funnel the dead toward the breaches. All sound.
Except that it wasn’t.
She chewed her lip and peered over the walls at the enemy outside the gates. There were so many of the dead, and there were some wild spots where random walkers burned. Rovers used their poles to keep the burning wanderers from setting the whole mass of the dead alight. The teams with the Molotov cocktails made sure the fires didn’t go out.
So . . . what was wrong?
She stopped and stared.
There had to be at least thirty Rovers on the field, each doing different jobs.
Thirty.
Thirty?
“Oh . . . shit,” she said, and then she turned and leaped down from the wall. Although she hated to run, she ran now as new and sudden terror exploded inside her heart.
They were going to lose this fight, and now she understood why.
— 47 —
THE WARRIOR WOMAN, THE SOLDIER, AND THE DOG
Rachael, Baskerville, and I ran as fast as we could. My arms and the dog’s saddlebags clinked and clanked with bottles and we stank of gasoline.
Better than the stink of the living dead blood on the white hazmat suits Rachael and I wore. And the body odor stench of the guy who’d worn it before me.
Oh, and for the record, I lied. To the two Rovers who I’d interrogated. I promised that they could walk if they told us everything they knew. No. They weren’t walking anywhere, not even as the walking dead.
If I expected Rachael to give me a hard time about it, I underestimated her. Maybe the death of her friend Jason was too fresh in her mind. Or maybe surviving out here in this broken world has changed her. She watched me kill the Rovers and did not so much as blink.
It made me a little sad, actually. For her.
We skirted the edge of the field, catching glimpses of the fight. From what I could see, the Rovers had told us the truth. The massive frontal assault was still under way, but it was obvious the Rovers weren’t really trying to take the town.
Not from the front anyway.
No, the Rovers were being very smart and very devious.
And so we ran, hoping there was still some time left on the clock.
— 48 —
THE SIEGE OF HAPPY VALLEY
The Pack member left in charge of the rear was named Tammy-Ducks. She was nineteen, short and fit and smart. Until two months ago she’d been with a group of college kids who’d had to fend for themselves after the outbreak spilled over into a small sports venue where a gymnastics competition was underway. Tammy-Ducks was a gymnast, specializing in floor routines and the balance beam. She also had a little bit of judo from a two-credit course she took during her freshman year, and a lot of rough-and-tumble fighting tricks from growing up with four older brothers. The last seven members of her team were absorbed into the Pack after Dahlia and Slow Dog saved them from a large swarm of zombies.
