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“I’m sorry but . . . ‘Orcs’?”
“Well, dead people. We call them Orcs,” said Rachael. “Do . . . you know about Orcs?”
“I’ve read some Tolkien.”
Rachael sighed. “I remember the movies. The movies were great.”
“I was too young. My parents wouldn’t let me see them. But . . . why Orcs? They weren’t living dead.”
“No, but they were horrible monsters. They ate people. There were a lot of them, and they made war on the world of men. And,” she said, adjusting her tight-fitting dress as she walked, “the world of women, too.”
“Ah,” said Rags. “Orcs.” It wasn’t the strangest label she’d encountered for the zombies. There were monks out west who called them the Children of Lazarus. People called them rotters, stenches, walking dead, walkers, living dead, zombies, critters, ghost-people, harrowed, and a score of other things. Each isolated group came up with their own names, their own beliefs, their own rituals.
They reached the gate, which stood open as it had earlier. Rachael sighed and closed it, dropping the crossbar into place. Then she leaned back against it and blew out her cheeks. Sweat beaded her forehead, and she fished inside her broad leather waistband for a handkerchief.
Rags nodded to Rachael’s costume. “What about this stuff? The superhero stuff? What’s that all about?”
“The world needs heroes,” said Rachael, and then, apparently realizing that more of an explanation was required, explained. “We’re—or we were—cosplayers. Do you know what that is?”
Rags shook her head.
“Before the Fall, back when there was a world, they used to have these big conventions for pop culture stuff. Y’know, for people who were into comics and video games and movies and like that. The events were huge, and some people—like my friends and I—used to go to things like San Diego Comic Con, Dragon Con in Atlanta, Katsucon, Megacon . . . a slew of them. We’d make costumes and wear them. God, there were times I’d bring fourteen or sixteen different costumes. Really good stuff, too. I wanted to get into professional costuming, so I really put my heart into what I wore. I helped some of my friends, too.”
“I’m confused. So . . . this is all fake?”
Rachael shook her head. And it was then that Rags took a closer, harder look at the woman. She had scars on her arms and face. Not bite marks, of course, but the kinds of scars a person gets from a hard life. From surviving, from fighting. Maybe from intense training while preparing for the realities of life out here. Rags had some similar scars. Despite the costume, she knew that this woman was a real fighter.
“No, it’s not fake. Not anymore. It’s how we live.”
“Pretending to be superheroes?”
“Superheroes, video game characters, gods and demigods. Whatever.”
“Why?” asked Rags.
Rachael looked at her. “Why not?”
“No, I—”
“I know what you mean. You think we’re all crazy, right? That we’re playacting while the world eats itself. But . . . we’re not. That’s not what’s going on here. Or at least it’s not what we’re trying to do.” Rachael smiled. “On that first night, when the plague broke out, Brett and I were in New York, at the big comic convention. One of our friends was bitten, and so were some people on the floor of the hotel we were all staying at. It was so wrong, so scary.” She crossed her arms and shivered. “Even now, after all these years, it still gets me every time I think about it.”
“You survived,” said Rags.
“Sure. A bunch of us did,” agreed Rachael, “and I think I know why.”
Rags said nothing.
“We were heroes,” explained Rachael. “That’s what did it. Now . . . I know that sounds nuts.”
Rags raised her hand and waggled it back and forth. “Just a bit. I’ve heard stranger stories.”
Rachael told her what happened. How after the initial shock she and Brett rallied several other cosplayers on their floor of the hotel and they began working together—fighting together—as if that was something they’d always done. As if it was something they were used to doing for real. Together they cleared their floor, and as the night wore on and the outbreak spun out of all control, they invaded the other floors, saving who they could, killing the infected.
“It was like we were really superheroes. We weren’t even all that afraid. Not really,” said Rachael. “Being in costume while everything was falling apart, it kept us all together. And it made us want to stand with each other, you know? Like we were a real team. A few people split off, but a lot of people stayed with us. We blocked off the fire stairs and turned six floors of the hotel into our . . . um . . . headquarters. We even called it Avengers Tower.” She paused, but when Rags made no comment and offered no criticism, the woman continued. “Later, when we realized that no one was going to come to rescue us, and when food started running low, we began taking over the lower floors. Our room was on the thirty-ninth floor. It took us two weeks to fight our way down to the street level.”
“How many got out?”
Rachael looked away for a moment. The last fireflies of the season were drifting through the bushes. “When we left the thirty-third floor, we had forty-eight people. Seventeen cosplayers, and the other thirty-one were civilians.”
