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“They took all my stuff, my supplies, said that it was the price I needed to pay to enter, and that they’d let me live here for a while, stay here, and I would be able to work off the food they gave me and the supplies and clothes and shelter.” The words poured out of the woman in a rush, like a stopper had been pulled out. “That it would probably only take a few months, that everyone who came in did it. And that once I worked it off, they would help me and my family find a safe place to go to where we could set up homes for ourselves, build a community.”
“And that was six months ago?” Rachael asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” She paused, shooting a dark look off into the distance. “They lied, I haven’t seen anyone work off whatever debt these people claim we have. If anythin
g, they keep saying us workers are using more than we’re earning. That we need to earn more. Work harder.”
“That’s happening to all of you?”
The woman nodded.
“Why don’t you just leave?”
“Where would we go?” She gave a harsh laugh. “And even if there was somewhere—”
“Paloma!” One of the other workers, a man who looked like he could be the woman’s brother, shook his head and drew a finger across his neck. She caught herself and turned to go back to her work. Then she stopped and looked at Rachael once more.
“Better just to keep your head down, keep your nose to yourself. For us, and for you and your friends. You don’t want them knowing you’re poking around. You’ll get us in trouble, you’ll get yourself in trouble. And you don’t want that, ma’am.”
Rachael watched the workers all turn away, pretending she didn’t exist, and her heart sank. This wasn’t the world she wanted. Not at all.
— 19 —
THE SOLDIER AND THE DOG
There was movement in the clearing, but there was no threat.
Well, not an immediate one. So much was implied, though. I kept my palm resting on the handle of my sword, but this was less of a combat situation than it was a crime scene. I was a cop before I was a soldier, but really anyone could tell that bad things had been done here.
This wasn’t a slaughter scene of the kind I’d seen a thousand times since the dead rose. It wasn’t zombies versus human survivors. It wasn’t gangs of roaming asshole humans doing harm, either. Seen enough of that, too.
No, this was something else. Something wrong in an entirely different way. Maybe something evil.
With Baskerville beside me I walked into the clearing and stood there, turning in a slow circle, trying not to vomit.
There were bodies there. Maybe forty of them. They were not sprawled on the ground as they might have been after a battle. There was no sign of a fight here at all. And yet there was violence and death everywhere I looked.
The bodies stood around me. They looked at me. They reached for me with withered arms and grasping hands. Their eyes stared with that grotesque blend of vacuity and hunger.
They were all zombies.
They were all tied to trees.
But it was worse than that.
None of them could open their mouths. Not to scream, not to moan, not to bite. You see, someone had made that impossible. There were ropes or belts or strips of leather tied around their heads, the loops under the chins and neat bows or shiny buckles on the crowns of each head.
Ropes lashed them each to a separate tree, with coils of it around waists and chests, leaving the legs free to kicks and stamp, and the arms free to . . .
To do what?
I stopped by one of them—a woman of about thirty, with long black hair and Mexican features. I studied every detail and the more I looked the more bizarre the evidence became, painting a picture that was as strange as it was hideous.
There was blood caked on her hands; dried now but clearly having run red and thick from the smashed fingers and metacarpals. Edges of bone stuck out through the skin and blood had crusted thick around them, dried now to a chocolate brown. There were bloody scrapes all over her face, and more blood on the ropes that held her to the tree and on the heavy leather belt cinched tight to keep her jaw shut. Her dead eyes were filmed over with a blue-white mist, but I swore I could see the last fading echoes of the panic and terror she’d felt as she died.
There was not a single bite on her that I could see. Not one.
The zombie thrashed and flopped and struggled but she was powerless to do anything. Not a goddamn thing. And instead of feeling scared by it, I felt a trapdoor of sadness open up in the bottom of my soul. Her smashed hands reached for me but there was so much damage to nerves and tendons that even if I was closer she couldn’t have grabbed me. She couldn’t do anything.
