XOM-B Page 4

  Not something, I realize, someone.

  In the darkness of the hall, I see movement, but it’s the electromagnetic signatures that tell me the first-floor hallway is packed with more dead.

  Where are they coming from? I think, and then I see it for myself. A door at the end of the hall, leading down to a basement. Underground. And they just keep on coming.

  Instinct once again tells me to run, but I can’t turn around. The horde at my heels is at the top of the steps.

  I dash forward, reaching the interior staircase just as a man staggers around the door and grabs my wrist. I shout in fear more than pain, and react—violently. With little thought put into the act, I swing my arm down, like a hatchet, striking the man’s forearm. I yank back as I swing, and I suddenly spill backward, slamming against the stairwell wall with enough force to leave a dent in the wallpaper-covered plaster.

  A spray of dark liquid strikes the wallpaper next to me and draws my eyes to its source. The man’s arm has been severed where I struck it! Can they really be that frail?

  I flinch away when I find the man’s hand still locked to my wrist, skin peeling back, taut ligaments exposed. I stand and run up the stairs while prying the fingers from my wrist. When I reach the second-floor landing, I toss the hand aside and focus on reaching the roof. The stairs are old and wooden and should have rotted away long ago, but the roof overhead is still intact, sparing the stairwell from direct exposure to the elements. Still, I’m careful to hug the wall on the way up, where the stairs will be less likely to break.

  With each level, I put some more distance between myself and the horde. They seem to have trouble with stairs, but I can hear them rising. I won’t have long when I reach the roof.

  I find the door at the top wide open, and run out into the open night. The stars hold little interest now, but I’m suddenly struck by a surprising amount of sensory information. I’ve left all of my visual upgrades on and I’m bombarded by waves of electromagnetism. I shut the spectrum off and an overwhelming sense of being closed in fades. But I can still hear. And what I hear beckons me to the roof’s edge. After locking the door behind me, I rush across the flexing tar-covered roof and stand at the edge, looking down at the main street.

  The ground is alive, I think, looking at the writhing mass of bodies below. But they’re not alive. None of them are. Not really.

  There has to be a thousand of them beneath me. And likely just as many on every side of this building. But how do they know I’m here? Are they just following the others or can they somehow detect me? They don’t seem very interested in each other, so it’s the living they’re after.

  I jump when the roof door is struck. The old wood flexes, buckles and then shatters. A pair of dead spill out onto the roof. For a moment, I’m stuck in place, but then I remember the HoverCycle. I run to the long slender vehicle, hop in the seat and say, “Cycle one-four-five-seven, start.”

  Nothing happens.

  That’s usually all Heap does and the thing roars to life. But it’s as still and motionless as all these dead people should be.

  I’m missing something. I’m—oh no. The cycle requires a magnetic key. I remember seeing Heap slide the circular magnet across something before speaking the words. It’s right there, next to the handlebars, a circle of white metal that once held text, but is now covered in jagged scoring from Heap’s key.

  A frenzied groan rolls across the roof, but I don’t look.

  I’m too afraid.

  I’m stuck.

  No … its more than that. I’m dead, though not for long. Because when they’re done with me, done eating me, I’ll come back, too.

  5.

  My eyes dart back and forth, wandering over the uneven surface of the roof. I’m looking through the night’s shadows for something, but I don’t know what. A weapon? A key? A nice place to lie down and die?

  My thoughts turn to death and I wonder what it will feel like. I’ve never really thought about it, probably because my education on the subject has been limited to wolves eating rabbits, and in those cases the rabbits just ceased to be. They were transformed from living, animate creatures, to inanimate flesh, and finally to energy. But that won’t happen to me. I’ll come back. I know that’s not what’s supposed to happen. Dead things stay dead. I’m pretty certain about that. But these people … They’re rotting. Decayed. Maybe all dead people come back?

  Can’t be, I decide. The Council would know about it and Heap would never have brought me here.

  “Nuuaaaghh,” says a man. He’s just twenty feet from me, hobbling forward with dreadful assurance. A growing crowd widens behind him, transmitting ravenous hunger.

  My mind suddenly clears. I have just two options. The second, my backup plan, is to climb over the side of the building and scale down the outer wall. I’m strong and agile, so I might be able to manage it if the bricks provide sufficient holds and don’t crumble. If I can reach a lower floor and hide, maybe the horde will lose interest. I think the odds of this succeeding are low, and I really want to leave, so I launch my first plan with gusto.

  The HoverCycle is a menagerie of buttons and indicator lights. I lay into them with my fingers, jamming down buttons and flipping switches with abandon. I have no idea what the majority of them do, and I doubt anything will work without power, but maybe there is a compartment with another weapon that will open if I—

  Something tugs on my thumb as though it’s held in place by some invisible force. I flinch and yank my hand away.

  I see nothing unusual about my digit, or the HoverCycle dash. Where was my thumb? I think, noting the proximity of the nearest dead man. I have just seconds to flee or die.

  I look down at the dash, returning my thumb to its approximate position before I pulled away. The magnetic starter switch. I lower my thumb toward the flat, scratched surface. Why would my—a sudden invisible force yanks my thumb toward the dash and holds it against the starter switch.

  “What the…”

  Is there a magnet in my thumb? Is this another upgrade I’m unaware of?

  A flash of movement draws my eyes up. The man is rounding the cycle, reaching out for me.

  “Cycle one-four-five-seven, start!” I shout and the HoverCycle roars to life, lifting me three feet above the surface of the roof, which now glows neon blue under the luminous flat disks that repulse the cycle from the roof.

  But I’m still not moving, and the dead man is not impressed. His jaws open and his lips pucker, stretching out for my calf.

  I twist the handlebars hard to the left and the vehicle responds quickly, spinning hard and slamming into the man’s side. The power of the blow sends the man flailing through the air, and then he’s gone, falling out of sight over the side of the building.

  A hand clutches my shoulder.

  I shout and spin the cycle the other direction, sending three more of the man-eaters sprawling back into the wall of hungry dead.

  Move, I think. I need to move!

  I lean forward, gripping the handlebars and sliding my feet into place on the sides of the bike. There’s a pedal under each foot. One increases the cycle’s repulsion, and the other works the turbines that propel the bike forward. I’m just not sure which is which, so I tap my left foot down and rise another foot off the roof. Right foot forward, left foot up. Simple, I think, and cram my right foot down.

  I’m transformed into a living missile, surging across the roof. I cringe as the cycle’s blunt nose plows through the crowd of dead. Each impact is jarring, but the vehicle is armored like it’s meant for this kind of treatment and it cuts the bodies down. I squeeze my eyes shut and shout in surprise as much as in fear.

  This must be what astronauts feel like, I think, when they’re catapulted through the atmosphere by the most powerful repulse engines yet built. A moment later, I’m airborne and clear of the roof, dropping toward the ground at a 45-degree angle. I open my eyes to see the ground rushing up at me and a single dead woman, her face torn and melted,
one eye missing, clinging to the front of the cycle.

  I watch the woman slide slowly down the front of the cycle. The front casing is smooth armor, but it’s only three feet across. She could easily wrap her arms around it or cling to the raised headlights. But she doesn’t think to do either. Instead, she reaches for me and allows gravity to pull her down, over the cycle’s hood until her legs dangle beneath the repulse disc, which yanks her down and launches her to the ground.

  My descent continues in near silence except for the rush of wind and the hum of the cycle’s turbines. I’m too afraid to shout. Instead, I squeeze the steering bar, lean back and open my eyes wide. It’s a pretty ridiculous fear response, but when I lean back, I also pull up on the steering column, leveling out the cycle.

  My mind flashes with a memory of Heap expertly performing a drop just like this. It wasn’t scary when Heap was driving. I had absolute faith in his ability to operate this vehicle. It seemed like part of his body. He could drive off a rooftop and land without any perceptible jolt just as easily as he could leap the thing off the ground and up onto a roof. HoverCycles can’t fly very far, but they’re not bound to the Earth, either. Like turkeys, I think and then remember I’m about to achieve the horde’s goal by smearing myself on the ground.

  With the cycle level, I lift my right foot so that I’m no longer propelling the vehicle forward, and push down with my left foot, increasing the range of repulsion. For a moment, I feel no change, but then my descent begins to slow. And then it stops.

  I did it, I think, and I look over the side. While the repulse discs stay level with the ground, the bike adjusts to my weight shift by leaning in the other direction, keeping the vehicle balanced. But I still nearly fall-free when I see the ground. Not only is it still twenty feet below me, but a sea of raised hands awaits my return, writhing like tall grass in the wind—if grass ate men.

  To make matters worse, the cycle can’t maintain a twenty-foot hover indefinitely. The vehicle descends slowly and won’t stop until it’s three feet off the ground. But I have a moment to take in my surroundings. Get my bearings.

  The first thing I see, in every direction, is the dead. The town ruins are at my back with nothing but forest surrounding them. Heap told me to head to the city, but I can’t see it from here. Navigating my way to a location that’s widely known seems like it should be a simple task for someone as smart as me, but I strangely lack the information I need. Like maps, or coordinates, or—

  Stars, I think, looking up. I quickly find the North Star above. Armed with the knowledge of north, south, east and west, I lower my gaze until I see the pink glow of technology. The city. I’m not even sure what they call it or if it has a name at all. But I know its general direction.

  Northwest.

  I push my right foot down gently. The turbines whir to life, moving me forward. As I accelerate, I hear angry groans from beneath me. I glance back and see a line of the dead, flattened to the ground by the repulse engine. I’m just above their heads now, and as I enter the dark forest, the cycle starts striking extended arms, and then heads, before crushing the dead into the earth. But I’m not out of danger. The cycle will soon be low enough that the dead in front of me might come up over the front, and those to the sides could easily tackle me. They’re not coordinated, but I believe in luck, no matter how illogical it might be. If just one of them is lucky, I won’t be.

  The cycle accelerates as I slowly push my right foot down on the pedal. I glance at the speedometer. Twenty mph. Thirty mph.

  The repetitive thunk of heads striking the front of the cycle grows more frequent as my speed increases. That’s when I realize that, fast or not, I’m going to have to plow through all these people. I’m not comfortable with it, but I need to go faster.

  A lot faster.

  I shove my right foot down until the pedal strikes metal. I’m nearly flung backward and off the cycle, but I keep my hold on the handle grips and lean into the cycle. With my body down tight, lower than the curved windshield, the wind fades to nothing. I can barely see over the top of the bike, but in a moment, that won’t matter. I plot a course through the trees and then lose sight of them completely, not from darkness, but from a mass of physical obstructions.

  Bodies fly past on both sides and above as they bounce off the hood and spiral past. The dead no longer reach out. I’m there and gone before they understand what’s happened. I look at the speedometer. Eighty mph. Ninety mph.

  Suddenly, the thumping of bodies on the cycle’s front end disappears. The walls of bodies on either side of me are gone. All that remains are the trees and the night. I lean up a little and nearly miss the shift in the darkness ahead, but the bright moonlight filtering through the pine branches is absent.

  I sit straight up into the wind and see the aberration for what it is.

  A gorge.

  It’s perhaps two hundred feet across and who knows how deep. I might be able to land safely at the bottom, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get out again. If there is no other exit than up, I don’t want to be stuck at the bottom if the mob of dead decide to follow me down.

  So once again, I act without much more than a fraction of a second to think about it. I cram both feet down, pushing the bike faster, and higher. The repulse engines let out a whump and the forest around me glows with a sudden strobe of bright blue light. Then I’m flattened against the bike, rising up into the air and sailing across the open depths of a canyon.

  6.

  Having landed the cycle safely once already, I feel confident I can do it again. What concerns me more is the far wall of the gorge. I’m currently traveling at 120 mph. If I fall short and strike the cliff side head-on, there won’t be much left of the cycle, or me. I try to look over the front end of the cycle, but all I can see is the hood and the night beyond.

  I lean forward a little farther and the vehicle tilts with my weight.

  Too far! The turbines now push the cycle forward and down. The far side of the canyon slides out of the darkness, lit by the moon. It’s a crisp dull blue in comparison to the deep shadow of the gorge below. I try to think of some way I can push the cycle farther or higher, but with both feet crushing down on the two pedals, I’m doing everything I can think to do.

  And it’s not going to be enough.

  The far side isn’t a great distance now, but the nose of the cycle is pointed below the crest. I could jump, I think, but then I remember how fast I’m traveling. An hour ago, death seemed like a stranger, something I’d never have to think about, but I once again find myself contemplating the finality of things. I’ve done so little with my life.

  This can’t be the end.

  Desperation fills my core and I repeat the potentially foolhardy plan that started the cycle in the first place—I push buttons. All of them. And this time, the power is on.

  Compartments open. Lights flash, blue and red. A siren howls. Long tubes extend from the hood and launch metal projectiles toward the cliff, shattering stone. Guns, I realize, like the one Heap carried, but more powerful. Amid the cacophony of firing guns, blaring sirens and other noises I can’t identify, I hear a steady high-pitched hum rising in volume. I have no idea what this sound means, but it makes me tense up. My hands tighten on the handlebars, and not a moment too soon.

  The high-pitched whine becomes a scream and something behind me explodes. I’m pulled backward, but manage to hold on, yanking the steering column up and the nose with it.

  Why hadn’t I thought of that before? For a moment I worry that there is a problem with my memory, but I’m too young for that to be an issue.

  These thoughts come and go swiftly, but their speed is dwarfed by that of the HoverCycle. I purse my lips tightly and pull myself forward, leaning under the wind. My eyes catch sight of the glowing speedometer.

  Three hundred fifteen mph.

  I’m a rocket!

  I turn my head slowly back and see a bright orange glow radiating from the back of the cycle. A jet engin
e! Turbofan, I think, somehow recognizing the hardware, which is the most powerful engine in the world. And I’m sitting on top of it. My eyes widen, and oddly, for reasons beyond my understanding, I smile.

  And laugh.

  And then, the orange disappears.

  The bike lurches and drops, but the descent is controlled, slowed and smoothed by the repulse engines pushing against the ground. But my speed … I’m slowing, but not quickly.

  Brakes. How does Heap slow this thing down?

  Before I can figure it out, I’m beneath the tree line, sliding back into a densely forested area. The possibility of a brutal, but quick death once again takes my full attention. I focus on the land ahead, noting the position of trees, the rise and fall of the ground and the occasional rock or thick bush.

  The bike stops descending three feet from the ground, and for a moment I’m quite pleased with myself. I’ve managed to land the cycle from a great height, at an even greater speed, and without the slightest jostle. My feet work the pedals with little thought.

  It’s instinct, I think. That strange force within that seems to suggest actions before any conscious thought has taken place. I’m not sure how such a thing is possible. Things need to be considered, at least for a moment, but instinct … it’s immediate. I make a mental note to explore the subject in the future, then twist the steering bar to the right, swerving around a thick tree.

  More trees flow past on either side, a horizontal blur. With every second that passes, I find my comfort level grow.

  I swerve farther than I have to.

  My foot remains firmly planted on the accelerator despite the danger of the dead being far behind me.

  The smile creeps back onto my face.

  No wonder Heap never let me drive the cycle, I think, it’s too fun.