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61
THE QUAD STOOD ON A ridge that looked down on a wide plane littered with black smudges of soot where towns used to stand. Many of the roads were choked with cars or thoroughly overgrown with weeds.
A swarm of living dead—all shamblers—was making its way up the slope with the patience of the undying. Lilah checked the magazine in her pistol for the eighth time, and it still held only four rounds. That was all they had between them: four bullets, against a horde of as many as five thousand zoms.
“We have to go,” said Lilah, her voice filled with dread.
“Let me try again,” Nix said as she fiddled with the sat-phone.
“It doesn’t work,” growled Lilah. “You’ve tried it a hundred times. Either it’s broken or those satellites are dea
d. But we need to get moving, or we’ll be dead.”
“Just let me try one more time.”
The relentless dead climbed toward them. Even moving slowly, they seemed to devour the distance.
Nix fiddled with the dials and even jiggled the phone.
“We have to go!” cried Lilah.
Then Nix froze. “Wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“I thought I heard something.” She pressed the speaker to her ear. “I heard something. I swear it.”
“It doesn’t matter what you hear, we need to—”
There was a burst of high-pitched static, and then a voice spoke. “—come in, caller,” it said. “This is a military channel. Please identify yourself…”
The girls stared at the device, almost too startled to speak.
“Repeating, this is a military channel. Please identify yourself.”
Nix clicked the button. “My name is Nix Riley, I’m from Reclamation, California. We’re in trouble and we need help.”
PART SEVENTEEN THE FALL OF NEW ALAMO
I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country—Victory or death
—WILLIAM B. TRAVIS, LAST COMMANDER OF THE ALAMO
62
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT I’M looking at,” said Alethea.
It was just past two in the morning, and the stars shone down on two points of light that bounced along the ground.
“It’s coming really fast,” said Spider. “Could it be one of those quad things? Hey, maybe the girls are back already.”
“Can’t be them,” said Alethea. “It’s way too soon.”
They watched the lights come closer. It was weird for them to see anything move that fast. Way faster and brighter than a lantern on a mule-drawn wagon, or even a solar-powered flashlight carried by a rider on a fast horse.
Other people started gathering around them, watching. The adults, especially those in their middle thirties or older, pointed and yelled in genuine surprise.
“No, it’s a truck, I think,” said one. “It’s an actual darn truck! And it’s driving fit to beat the devil.”
