Gravewalkers: Dying Time (37 page)

After she had changed back
into her regular clothes, Carmen looted up all the transportable
valuables. She found many unspoiled drugs and exotic chemicals that
she stuffed into her backpack. She broke open all the computers she
found around the laboratory to remove their data storage drives
then take those too.

Critias stuffed the severed
head from the toilet man in with the body then carried them
downstairs as Carmen followed. From the front doors, they didn’t
see any particular infected activity. During a clear moment, they
headed outside then locked up the building behind them. They
reached the transformer station without any difficulty and then
climbed back up to the transmission wires. Critias needed a minute
to get his burdens comfortably balanced on his back before they set
off to return home.

Their escape was uneventful
until they were a kilometer from going back to ground again near
the airport. That was where they overtook a great herd of longhorn
cattle that wandered up the firebreak where only the steel towers
stood at regular intervals like Roman mile-castles that stretched
down the wide strip of grassy plain.

A pack of a dozen ghouls
were there too as they stalked the cattle. They remained cautious
about attempting to approach the gigantic bulls because of those
animals’ sweeping horns and merciless temperaments. Just one of the
mighty bulls could accidentally slay a man just by him being too
close when it shook its head to disperse some annoying flies. In
anger, they were mighty opponents worthy of respect.

Critias stopped at the
transmission tower above the conflict of cattle and beefeaters. He
signaled for Carmen to join him when he made a shooting finger
gesture down at the ghouls. It was his stated intention that they
should destroy the infected. The ghoul pack was obviously intent on
a female calf that they thought was small enough to be vulnerable
to them. When Critias saw the ghouls’ intended prey, he changed his
mind about protecting the cattle just on principle because he
wanted to steal the ghouls’ target before they got to it
first.

“
I want that calf they are
gawking at,” Critias told Carmen. “How do we capture it
alive?”

She considered the task
carefully, “I should be able to take it for you.” She removed her
backpack so she could prepare a hypodermic syringe and a vial of
drugs from inside before she shouldered it once more. “This
chemical will tranquilize the calf long enough to get it home, but
obviously, I will have to go down there to get the calf after we
shoot those ghouls. Once I have it, you follow me from above and
provide some covering fire. My hands will be too full to defend
myself. Once you join me on the ground, we can run across the
airport while you use thermal ranging to shoot any of them you see
at a distance. We fly home where you can be the milkman hero and
everyone will love you almost as much as I do.”

He had no doubts, “If
anything on this Earth can grab that calf then get away with it
while a dozen ghouls are scared to try, it’s you,
sweetheart.”

They set their
semi-silenced maschinenpistoles to three round bursts then emptied
a clip apiece down into the ghouls’ heads. The infected couldn’t
comprehend what happened to them as each member of their pack
toppled one by one from headshots. Critias was proud to demonstrate
a shooting accuracy comparable to Carmen’s considerable skill since
she was a technology-driven exhibition sharpshooter.

The cattle heard the
muffled burps of the weapons, but didn’t do more than get restless
over it. The deaths of the ghouls that they had been nervously
aware of eased their tension soon enough. Once the animals were
calm, Carmen climbed down from the tower then casually walked into
the herd of cattle. Her nonthreatening demeanor seemed to assuage
the beasts because they made no response to her benign presence. A
moment later, Carmen dashed out with the calf over her shoulders
amid a surge of the panicked animals.

Critias chased after her
along the wire for a kilometer until he climbed down to join her.
They retraced their path at speed back across the airport in the
dark. With his thermal vision, he could see the ghouls at greater
distances than they could see him back. Any ghoul unlucky enough to
obstruct their path got a bullet in their brain from his MP5. Even
as ghouls died, they continued to run.

As they crossed the tarmac,
Critias saw that the fire he had set still spread with the wind.
There was a chance that in time, he might burn down the whole city.
Critias and Carmen would be long gone in their plane before they
would ever find out what became of it.

Once inside the Greyhound
aircraft, Carmen opened the ramp for long enough to bring in the
unconscious calf then put it on the trunk of their car. Within
minutes, she had the engines powered up then got them into the sky
headed for home.

Critias had a live calf,
the infection prime, and a talking head, so he said, “I call this a
job well done. Radio Kevin and have him tell Jim we will be
knocking on the garage door in a few hours.”

Chapter 13:
Ascension

Jim and Hatchet welcomed
Critias and Carmen home at the garage. In their company was a team
of armed guards and another crew from Decontamination Services.
Carmen backed in the Betty with the calf tied across the trunk lid.
That captive animal had just started to come out of its
tranquilizer sleep.

“
Look what we found,”
Carmen told them with pride as she climbed out of the car. “We also
have his specimen in the trunk.”

Jim was both delighted and
impressed with their return home, “We’ll take care of everything
for you while you two get decontaminated and take your
showers.”

The decontamination crew
took all their possessions to dress them only in shower sandals
while they scrubbed them down on the spot. After that preliminary
cleaning, the guards offered them a pair of clean automatic pistols
to carry with them as they headed off for the showers in the King’s
Tower lobby area.

After their
decontamination, Carmen was about to dress in her usual taste for
utility, but Critias interrupted her, “How about you try something
more elegant. I want everyone else to see you the way I always
do.”

His attempt at being
romantic made Carmen smile and happily agree to participate in his
inspiration. By judging his subtle reactions as he watched her
search through the immense wardrobe, Carmen picked out those
garments that pleased him most. Critias preferred a not-too-daring
short dress that she slipped on around a pair of thigh-high
stockings and panoptic-coverage undergarments whose translucence
and lacework made titillating. Her choices combined into an outfit
similar to what Penny Welder might wear in her more glamorous
leisure moments.

Critias did his best to
dress so as not to appear the rube with her looking so stunning on
his arm. Mindful of his promise to be more attentive to her wants,
he held her hand as they walked to Funland as an attempt to charm
her further.

Carmen gently squeezed his
fingers, “Kevin says he would speak with you in private at your
earliest convenience.”

Critias was barely
interested in Kevin or his wants, “Did he say what
about?”

She shook her head no, “I
didn’t ask. It’s not my way to pry into your private
business.”

“
True enough,” he accepted
that. “Kevin will just have to wait because I see no convenience
forthcoming while I have you on my arm.”

She nearly blushed, “Am I
so fair as to delay your business?”

“
You are more fair than
the evening air,” he replied with a poem he recalled from his
schooldays, “clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.” Seeing her
eager for it, he kissed her softly. “Back in Chicago on the landing
pad, you told me you wanted to be looking up at the sky at night
with all the stars shining down on us. Only now do I understand
what you had meant, in the evening air under a thousand stars, on
your back.”

Carmen nodded feverishly at
a loss for words; that had been her very meaning.

He gave her a wink as they
continued on their way, “You’re that to me wherever we are, but for
you, I’ll have to make it happen just that way.”

Much of the community had
gathered for the morning meal to hear Carmen and Critias detail the
accomplishments of their adventure over porridge at the Captains’
Table.

When the head cook, Nick,
was within earshot, Carmen told him, “Critias caught you a bovine
calf that you can milk when it gets older. I think perhaps Kevin
will have to give it hormone therapy to get it lactating, but
that’s not beyond his capabilities.”

Nick could hardly believe
his ears, “It’s not a goat? And you didn’t shoot it
first?”

“
It’s a real cow, alive
and kicking,” she promised. “Isn’t Critias so exceptionally
clever?”

Nick was impressed with his
accomplishment, “Did you have any trouble capturing it?”

“
Catching a cow was the
easy part of the day,” Critias informed them. “Carmen led me across
twenty kilometers of the thickest suburbia you could imagine, on
foot, surrounded by so many biters we could have walked across
their shoulders.”

Jim arrived with Hatchet to
join them at the table, “Bob has that man you found in that lab. He
also has that head you brought home in a bag. What’s that
for?”

“
Carmen thinks he has a
normal mind,” Critias told Jim. “Once he’s properly hydrated, he
might be as aware as he was in normal life. Turning off the brain
cooking that makes the infected into cannibals appears to be
another of their discoveries. That guy shot all the other
scientists in the head and then turned himself in a special way.
Maybe that secret to immortality is why he shot the
others.”

Hatchet wondered why they
only had the head, “You couldn’t carry the whole body?”

“
He was a murderer and
Carmen can read his lips,” Critias explained. “It didn’t seem safe
to bring back a smart ghoul that was already a treacherous villain.
If he knows anything of value and that’s doubtful, his head can
reveal it well enough without a body.”

Hatchet liked the answer
and agreed with the wisdom even though Critias had actually
decapitated the ghoul preemptively just on general principle. “You
look especially lovely this morning,” he told Carmen as he admired
her new outfit.

Critias wholeheartedly
seconded the compliment, “Breathtaking isn’t she? I need to start
working harder to get her a nicer apartment. She deserves more than
that little room I keep her cooped up in.”

“
I have the construction
crews working on a new apartment already,” Jim told Critias. “It
will be another week, or maybe two for them to get it finished. Fat
Jack will be taking the Foragers out in a couple days, so it could
even be ready not long after you get back from the run, depending
on how it goes. A different operation you could help with may also
keep you busy. That situation is still on the drawing
board.”

“
That’s good news,”
Critias said of his new apartment. “Carmen and I are ready for some
foraging or your other project, whatever you think is best.”
Critias turned to Hatchet, “Would you mind keeping an eye on Carmen
for me while I go see Bob and Kevin? They sent a message that I
need to talk to them.”

“
I would love to,” Hatchet
readily accepted. “Hopefully she will tell us more about Houston
and the things you saw there.”

Critias kissed Carmen’s
cheek after he got up, “I’ll come back soon.”

He walked to King’s Tower
then took the elevator up to Bob’s floor where a new guard, a man
named Blue greeted him in the hall then escorted him to the door to
Bob’s lab. Critias went in to find Bob and Kevin building a
containment fishtank for the body from the sarcophagus.

Kevin paused from his work,
“I regret to inform you that it might be some months before I can
send you home. The present condition of the specimen will not allow
me to duplicate the circumstances in which you are destined to
return. Until we have expanded upon the research you brought back
from Houston, you will simply have to wait. I hope that’s not too
much of a disappointment for you.”

“
That won’t be any
problem,” Critias replied unconcerned. “I have to admit that Carmen
and I are happy here as things are.”

Kevin inquired, “Speaking
of Carmen, are you satisfied with the software upgrades she has
been requesting from me? There’s always a small chance that
expanding her range of behaviors will have unforeseen
consequences.”

Critias told him, “I’m
happy when she’s happy and so far they’ve all worked fantastically.
I would like you to attempt doing more for us. Carmen told me that
the bioengineers didn’t consider it important for her to be able to
enjoy our sexual relationship.”

Kevin cut him off, “Please
don’t be offended when I tell you that I have intimate knowledge on
matters of Carmen’s feelings. Carmen experiences significant
emotional satisfaction during her liaisons with you; nevertheless,
you are correct if your meaning was that she does not experience
orgasm during coitus as humans do.”