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Sam touched Ledger’s arm and nodded to Howell’s mangled leg. It was covered with bites.
“What happened here?” asked Ledger, and the obvious air of command elicited an immediate response from the lieutenant.
“We were overrun, sir,” the man said, adding the “sir” automatically. As best he could, the injured man explained how ravagers who had once been soldiers at the base led a marauding party in through a back way. The rear door used a high-tech hand-geometry scanner that read palm prints. One of those ravagers had been a security specialist at the site, and his palm print had never been removed from the security database, an oversight that proved fatal. Once the security doors were open, the ravagers led hundreds of shamblers inside. The dead soldier also disabled the alarm systems and other critical systems, including the lights. The dead can hunt by sound and smell, and in the utter blackness, the slaughter was comprehensive. The ravagers took weapons and set off a series of explosive charges that brought the whole structure down.
When Ledger asked him why they did it, Howell seemed confused by the question. “They hate us for what we did to them.” Then he blinked and stopped talking, as if suddenly realizing that he knew neither of these men. He was sweating badly, and when Sam checked his pulse he felt a thin but rapid heartbeat. The infection was already raging through him. His glance to Ledger shared that info.
“Listen to me, Lieutenant,” said Ledger, “you know how this works. You’re bitten. You understand what I’m saying?”
“God . . .”
“Do you understand?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“We’re heading to New Alamo, but I have the feeling that they’re about to be the second course on tonight’s all-you-can-eat menu. We’d like to cancel that party, so we’re out here looking for a weapons cache. What can you do to help us?”
Howell licked his lips and looked at the two old soldiers. “Captain Collins took a squad to town, to the lab. We lost all the research here, but she went after the duplicate records.” He hissed as pain lanced through him; when it passed, he said in a much weaker voice, “You have to believe me . . . we were trying to save the world.”
“I don’t care,” said Ledger. “Help us save the town.”
A hopeless expression filled Howell’s face. “The Raggedy Man is coming for them. He’s going to kill them all.”
“Yeah, about that,” said Ledger. “Who exactly is this Ragg
edy Man?”
“He’s like a . . . like a god to them,” the lieutenant said hoarsely. “He can control them. All of them. The shamblers, the fast-infected, all the mutations. Even the ravagers. I don’t know how. But the Raggedy Man is coming for New Alamo. You have to . . . warn them.”
Ledger had to lean close to hear because the man’s voice had become the faintest of whispers. “Look, man, if you want us to help the town,” said Ledger, “then tell us where the weapons cache is.”
The man tried, but his voice was gone. He lapsed into a silent, twitching coma, then settled back, exhaling a final breath like a sigh of defeat.
Sam straightened, reaching for his gun, but Ledger shook his head.
“Nah,” he said, “save your bullet.” He drew his sword and stabbed downward. The twitching stopped.
The two of them stood for a moment, digesting what they’d learned.
“The Raggedy Man,” mused Ledger. “Bad enough you telling me he’s the local boogeyman. Worse when I hear it from a military officer. What do you think he meant when he said this Raggedy Man is their god? You think he has some way of controlling the zoms?”
Sam shook his head. “Let’s hope not.”
“Yeah,” said Ledger, looking worried, “but it gives me a bad itch in a place I can’t scratch.”
“I know the feeling,” said Sam.
They returned to where they’d left Grimm and the horse. From that vantage point they watched the last of the shamblers and their ravager herdsmen move off into the northeast. “They’re heading straight to the town,” said Sam.
Ledger shook his head. “They really named that place New Alamo?”
“Yeah.”
“Any of them ever read a history book? Everyone at the old Alamo died.”
Sam snorted. “When have people ever learned from their mistakes? I mean, look around, Joe, we’re standing in the middle of the actual apocalypse. What’s it going to take for people to learn?”
“A second chance,” said Ledger.
