Hellifax (24 page)

“You came here in that?” Scott asked Amy.

“Yeah. It’s Vick’s baby. We’re loading stuff onboard. There’s a lot of room in the back.”

“Y’know something?” Buckle turned and asked Vick.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t think Tenner came this way.”

“What?”

“I don’t see any new tracks.”

“Too hard to tell. Snow’s packed down,” Shaffer exclaimed. “We’ve been back and forth today and yesterday. He’s probably around here somewhere. Be on guard.”

Buckle rolled his eyes at Vick.

They stopped before the van without incident, and Scott and Amy studied the streets for deadheads. The coast seemed clear.

“Baby looks good,” Vick exclaimed as he opened the door and did a quick take of the inventory. “Everything’s still in the back. Looks fine.”

Buckle and Shaffer stood in front of the van as Vick climbed aboard, tossing his pipe onto the passenger seat. Behind the wheel, Vick frowned. The engine refused to start.

“Nothing.”

Buckle stepped forward and motioned for Vick to pop the hood.

“What are you waiting for, shithead?” Shaffer asked as Buckle struggled with the hood’s latch.

“Suck me.”

“Can’t open a
hood?
Jesus Christ,
move
.” Shaffer pushed Buckle away and reached underneath the hood. “Leave it to you to… ah, there it is. See what a real man can––”

Shaffer lifted the hood and the engine cavity exploded, enveloping him in a sheet of flame and tossing Buckle into the snow. Shaffer did not scream. The front of the van jumped. The hood ripped free of its hinges and smashed into the windshield, crumpling it inward. Shrapnel sliced and sizzled through the air. Vick tumbled out of the driver’s seat as smoke billowed from the vehicle. Amy pulled Scott back and into a crouch beside her. Buckle stood up and inspected the fallen Shaffer.

“How is he?” Vick called out.

Buckle straightened, partially obscured by the smoke billowing from the engine. “Dead,” he muttered.

“What was that?” Amy asked, still partially in shock.

“Booby-trapped,” Vick declared in his deep voice. They gathered around the smoldering wreck of the van. Buckle kicked snow on top of Shaffer’s blackened body. The skin crackled and popped when the ice particles struck it.

“Rigged,” Buckle said in his nasal twang. “Our mister Tenner. He had no intention of coming here. Had this rigged to blow. Smart prick. Knew eventually y’get around to poppin’ the hood.”

“An explosion like that?”

“Seen something like this when I was on the force. Old codger had barricaded himself in his house with a load of shotguns. Had grenades hooked up to his doors so that if you jerked them open, out came the pins.”

“Grenades, huh?” Vick asked, his gaze alternating between Shaffer’s cooked body and the still-smoking engine block.

“Grenades,” Buckle confirmed. “Don’t ask me how the old bastard got them. He put a round into his brain before we got to him.”

“Where the hell did Tenner find grenades?” Vick pondered.

“Tenner could’ve found anything and put it in there,” Amy said. “Remember, we found him here first.”

“Maybe he found some other toys, too,” Buckle added. “Maybe he’s been holding back.”

“And he knew we’d be driving out of here at some point in time,” Vick said. “Course by then, the game would be afoot, I suppose. With or without your appearance,” he directed at Scott.

“What now?” Buckle asked.

“We should get back to the tower,” Amy said. “Gear up right this time. Tenner’s out here somewhere, but we should be able to lose him.”

“The fucker might’ve heard this.” Buckle nodded at the van.

“I have an SUV,” Scott said.

They all turned to him.

“It runs,” Scott explained. “Drove it up here and left it in a garage on School Street. Got gas and food there. We could hike back there if we can’t find anything else.”

For a moment none of them said anything, and all they heard was the occasional snapping of fire.

“Up on School Street,” Amy said. “That’s a long hike. There’s a lot of Moe if we go back the same way you and I came.”

“We could go around,” Scott suggested.

“Take longer. No guarantee it’d be safer, either. Moe’s everywhere.”

“Tenner’s out there, too,” Vick said.

“Well, he might be.”

“What do you think?” Vick asked Amy and Buckle.

“Sure, why not?” Buckle immediately smirked. “Beats the hell outta this.”

“Amy?”

Amy stood there, a little bit shorter than Buckle beside her. She reached up and hooked a strand of hair that had fallen over her face and tucked it behind a very white ear. In that pose, that moment, Scott felt something switch on inside.

“Can’t leave a good vehicle behind. Not in wintertime. We could probably find something somewhere, but there’s always the chance it’d be an older make, or the battery would be dead. Might not start. Or it’s trapped in between a bunch of wrecks. Not to mention the risk if the thing is out in the open. The cars here on the lot, well, we already took the gas from them and put it in the van.”

“Can’t put it back?” Scott asked.

“We punched holes in the tanks.” Amy smiled weakly.

Buckle nodded. “Right. Let’s go with the sure thing.”

“Yeah,” Amy said. “Let’s go back to the tower, though, and suit up right. Get some of the MREs.”

Vick started throwing snow and ice onto the engine block, dousing the fire.

“What about him?” Scott asked, indicating the dead man.

Buckle answered that. He stooped and hooked Shaffer underneath the arms and lifted the corpse. Vick grabbed the legs. They carried him to a nearby car and, after a moment, got him inside and left him bunched up on the back seat. Buckle closed the door and, once done, he and Vick faced the others.

“An above-ground coffin for him,” Buckle said. “Didn’t care for the man, but can’t leave him for Moe. Now what?”

“We head back,” Amy told him.

“He didn’t touch the MREs in the van.” Vick pointed at the marked boxes in the back seat.

“Leave them there. He might have tampered with them.”

That thought quieted them.

“We pick up what we have at the tower and move out. I don’t want to stay there tonight,” Amy said in her raspy tone. “We can always come back later and get the rest. Like,
much
later. He could be hanging around, too. Awright? Then let’s go.”

Without waiting for them, she about-faced and started marching. Buckle rubbed at his beard and shrugged. “She’s your daughter,” he said.

Vick looked at Scott, his craggy face pouting. “She’s not my daughter.”

They started moving.

After a few seconds, Vick added quietly, “Not by blood, anyway.”

The land became whiter as snow flurries struck with greater frequency, and the air grew colder still. Winter was upon them, and Fist wanted to be in Halifax before the storms started kicking in. They made good time along Highway 2 until it became Highway 104. Towns appeared on the edges of the Trans-Canada Highway, and Fist allowed the Norsemen a few days hunting and scavenging in each. They bypassed Moncton entirely, not wanting to get tangled up in the city. Fist’s orders were to strike east to Halifax, scout the surrounding areas, and return to the west with his report. Fist thought it prudent to stay with the smaller towns because the dead weren’t as populous as they were in urban areas. They would not avoid Halifax, however. The nuclear plant there had been mothballed years ago, and the city was regarded as a gem of possibilities.

The sky stayed a morgue grey, and light snow fell. Being on the road for so long was beginning to grate on Fist’s nerves—and his ass. A sign materialized in the distance, drawing his weary attention.

“Sackville.” Fist tasted the word and liked it.
“Litterae, Religio, Scientia,”
he muttered, making Pell glance at him.

“Drive into town,” Fist commanded. “Let’s see what… Sackville has to offer.”

Nodding, Pell did as told, as he’d better. Fist believed the man to be loyal, at least as loyal as any of the dogs at his beck and call, but he kept watch and had no reservations at all about killing him if needed. Behind him, the other warriors rustled and chortled at the thought of getting out of the van. Fresh meat was getting scarce, and they would soon start cutting into their dwindling stores of smoked flesh. They all hoped the hunting would be better in Sackville.

As the snow continued to fall, Pell drove through the inner roads of Sackville, going deeper, passing large red brick buildings that appeared to be dormitories.

“What is this?” the driver hissed, staring out his window.

“University of Mount A,” Fist rumbled. “A for… Allison.”

“A university?”

“Yes.”

Once carefully sculpted grounds were now littered with abandoned cars, fallen trees, and power lines, as well as scattered debris, all coated with a thin sheet of snow. Victorian-styled houses lined the road on the opposite side of the residences, their windows smashed out. Grey figures, almost incorporeal, paused on crests of low hills and watched the vans go by. Fist stared back at them. Zombies. They were truly everywhere.

The road became increasingly rough.

“Stop here,” Fist ordered and opened his door. “Everyone out ’cept Pell. Get hunting.”

Pell braked in the middle of an intersection of what appeared to be a small downtown area. Signs for banks, ATMs, coffee places, and once-quaint shopping stores hung off of storefronts. The van’s side door slid open with a rattle and a half-dozen Norsemen eagerly got out, readying clubs, axes, and bats. Fist went to the back of the van and grabbed his maul. His hockey helmet went on last.

The second van pulled up behind them.

“What’s up?” Murphy asked, leaning back in the passenger seat. He seemed quite relaxed.

“Gonna do some hunting,” Fist answered him.

“Here?”

Fist slowly turned toward Murphy and glared. Murphy did not flinch.

“Only asking,” the man finally grumbled.

“Get your ass out of the fucking van,” Fist growled. “Before I stab it.”

Murphy slowly did as he was told, his expression saying he didn’t like the threat. Fist didn’t give a shit what he liked or didn’t. When one followed, one didn’t ask questions. Not in
his
pack of dogs.

Men leaped from the other transport and geared up for a hunt. Fist walked to the front of the two vans and waved an arm. The two vehicles, encircled by walking Norsemen, crept down the street.

“Anyone here?” Fist called. “Anyone? Hey?”

When he paused, another man called out. Snow continued to fall in lethargic bits of fluff, and the town took on a ghostly hue.

The shouting attracted the dead.

They crept toward the living, dragging their feet, and the living put them down with smiles. A string of dead bodies marked their passage into town, and the snow did its best to cover up the husks.

“We’re looking for gas,” Fist yelled, which was true, although they could have gotten it from any of the derelict vehicles lining the road. “And a place to stay. If anyone can help.”

“We’re hungry, too,” a man with Viking horns shouted, making those around him smile.

The Norsemen came to another intersection, and Fist directed them to veer to the right. A ravaged grocery store appeared out of the curtain of light snow, but they didn’t stop. More dead tried to eat them, but had their existence ended instead.

Two hours into the hunt, they looped back to their starting point and continued doing a slow circuit, until past two in the afternoon.

“This place is dead,” Fist heard Murphy declare behind him, impatience in his voice. The man was beginning to irritate him.

“Hey!” a woman’s voice shouted.

The vans stopped in a squeal of brakes.

Fist watched as four people emerged from the grocery store they had passed and dismissed as being empty. Silhouetted by the snow, she was perhaps in her thirties, plain-looking and hopeful. She carried a scoped rifle, aimed at the ground. Three men followed her, all dressed in heavy winter clothing. Fist noted the hunting shotguns and forced himself to smile.

“We were about to give up,” Fist burst out.

“So we heard,” the woman said, studying the others. A dash of uncertainly marred her features for all of a second, then she pushed on. “You’re a fierce looking bunch.”

“This?” Fist exclaimed good naturedly, looking over his armor. “Keeps us alive. Zombies can’t bite through it. And we try to save our ammo, so…” He hefted the maul.

“So I see,” the woman went on. “I’m Claire.”

“Fist,” Fist introduced himself.

“No first name?”

Another smile. Fist felt his cheek starting to ache. “That is my first name.”

“Strange. Where you guys from?”

“Out west.”

“We heard it was hell out there,” one of the men said, cradling a shotgun in his arms, not as welcoming as Claire.

Fist dropped the smile. “It is. Damn scary. Alberta’s the worst of it. Nuclear plants melted down when the power grid went. It’s a mess. We lost people trying to get out here. The dead aren’t the only worry, I can tell you.”

“How you get here?”

Always with the same questions, Fist thought in annoyance. “Sackville? Just saw the sign and decided to drive through. Looking for supplies, things to eat. This place looked promising, but we went by the shop. Didn’t look the greatest.”

“Nah, the store’s been picked clean almost five months now,” Claire said. “But we’re doing fine. It’s a day to day thing.”

“Tell me about it,” Fist said. The snow wasn’t letting up, but he thought he detected movement on the roof of the store. These were cautious people. “Pays off to be careful,” he said without thinking.

Claire didn’t say anything to that, and for a moment, an awkward silence stretched between them.

“Well,” she said, making the effort. “We don’t really know you, but wanted to take the chance, you know. See if you were all right.”

Fist nodded amicably. “Understandable. Understandable. So what do you want to do?”

“Well, you’re going to want to stay somewhere. There’s plenty of empty houses if you drive straight on and take a left at the intersection. There’s also a Rosie’s Hotel just outside of town, but that one is filled with stinks.”