Rags could see the heroes, and she saw the exact moment when they realized their own danger, and the fact that they were in the presence of something tougher than them. Something more real and powerful.
“Get behind me!” yelled Rags to the heroes. “Spread out. Form a defensive circle. Everyone facing out. Protect the girl. Do it.”
The heroes stared at her for one moment, not quite grasping what she meant, but then the woman in red nodded. She—the obvious leader of the group—began yelling to the others, pulling them away from the battle, shoving them into position until the bunch of them formed a protective ring around the little girl. Ghoulie ran up and down the lines, throwing his bulk at the dead to drive them staggering toward the heroes.
“Let them come to us,” commanded Rags. “Don’t chase—you’ll just waste energy. They’ll come to us.”
They did.
Wave after wave of them.
“Work in teams,” snapped Rags. “Short ones go for legs, big ones go for heads.”
“Do it,” ordered the woman with the sword. “Work in pairs. Iron Fist and Luke. Wolverine and Hulk. Tabby,” she said to the black-haired fighter dressed as Wonder Woman, “you feed them to me.”
And that was the rhythm. Four pairs, each knocking down, smashing skulls, or chopping necks.
Over and over and over again.
It was clear to Rags that the woman in red was the most effective of the heroes. Even more so than the one she called Iron Fist. Even so, Rags could tell that the woman had no formal training—some of her cuts were too big and required too much muscle rather than letting gravity do more of the work—but she had speed and instinct. And she was aggressive. That was good.
The zombies came at them in a relentless tidal surge of hunger.
Rags, Ghoulie, and the people dressed as heroes stood their ground.
One by one, the dead fell.
It took a long, long time.
Behind the town, beyond the trees, the last of the sun melted down into the west and darkness took possession of the world.
9
Now
Doylestown
They stood for a long time.
Bodies trembling with fatigue. Clothes streaked with black blood. Chests heaving, sweat running in lines down faces and arms and legs. Eyes bright with shock and the fires of destruction.
Around them, spread outward like some mad sculpture created in hell, lay the bodies of fifty-seven zombies. Not whole bodies. Limbs and heads, torsos and pieces were scattered in a pattern of artless slaughter. In the center of the debris field stood the survivors.
Rags and Ghoulie.
The child dressed as Batgirl.
The heroes.
The woman in red.
For a while all they could do was stare at what they had done. And then, slowly, they lowered their weapons and turned to look at one another. To confirm that others had survived, as they each had survived. To look at the living and remember that this was what they had fought for.
Rags watched them. She knew that she was often aloof, that she considered herself a warrior rather than merely a fighter, and with that came some elements of snobbery that she chose not to eliminate from her disposition. She waited to see if these people celebrated their victory, and if so, how they celebrated. If they mocked the dead, then they were of a kind she had seen too many times. People who had come to enjoy killing.
She wanted to see if they were mad. After all, they were dressed as comic-book characters.
She watched to see if they were the kind of people that Rags had spent so many years avoiding. And in that moment she remembered why it was that she’d never settled anywhere. Despite her loneliness, people had disappointed her too many times. So she waited. And watched.
She did not lower her weapons, and Ghoulie—alert to her moods—stood wide-legged and ready to do whatever she asked of him.
The woman in red sheathed her sword, went over to the little girl and checked her for bites, found none, and pulled her into a fierce hug, kissing the girl’s face, her hair, her cheeks. Then Thor came over and snatched the girl up and held her to his chest, burying his nose in her hair.
“Oh my God, Charlotte—why did you do that?” he demanded.
“But—but—you said to!” insisted the girl as she burst into tears.
“No, honey,” said the woman in red gently. She came over and touched the child’s hair. “Sweetie . . . don’t you remember what Mommy told you? We went over and over it. All you were supposed to do was walk to the barrier and back. That was it. We just wanted them to see you so Donnie could let one of them inside. But you went outside, honey. You left the gate open.”
Tears ran down the child’s face. “No, Mommy, Donnie said he’d close the gate. I didn’t go outside. I didn’t leave the gate open. I—I’m sorry. . . .”
Rags cleared her throat. “The gate was open when I came through,” she said. “Your man Donnie must have been sleeping on the job.”
The woman in red studied Rags as she stroked her daughter’s hair. “Brett,” she said to the man dressed as Thor, “take her back. I want her to write out the rules fifty times and then she can have supper.”
“But Mommy, I—”
“Shh, now, baby,” said the woman in red. “It’ll be okay. You do your lessons and we’ll talk before bedtime. Go on now.”
The big man—Brett—carried Charlotte away toward the other end of town.
Rags held her ground, waiting.
The woman in red turned toward her. “You saved my daughter’s life.”
Rags said nothing.
“You probably saved all our lives. Some of those things might have gotten us, or gotten past us.”
“Both,” said Rags bluntly. “You were going to lose this fight.”
The woman studied her face for a long time, and then she nodded. “I guess so. It . . . um, wasn’t what we had planned.”
Rags said nothing.
“We teach the kids to draw them in, one at a time. The kids are fast.”
“You risk your kids?” asked Rags, biting back harsher words.
“No, we train them. Charlotte’s good at this. She’s done it fifty times. Today . . . well, today she did it wrong. She left the gate open, and a whole bunch of them came in.”
“I told you, there was no one at the gate,” said Rags. “I know. I came in that way too.”
“There was supposed to be someone there.”
“There wasn’t.”
They both looked down the street. “Then,” said the woman sadly, “either Donnie’s dead or he ran off.”
“He have a grudge against you? I mean . . . leaving the gate open and all.”
The woman shrugged. “This was a training session. He’s supposed to let one in every few minutes so some of our newbies can practice hunt, control, evasion. Like that. Donnie’s supposed to keep it controlled. Not too many and such. But Donnie’s lazy and he’s not a very good team player. Maybe an even worse lookout.”
She stopped, frowned, and then walked to the far side of the street to where three zombies lay in a heap. She bent, grabbed one of them by the shoulder, and hauled him off to reveal a fat woman and a thin man.
The woman had clearly been dead for years.
The man was different. His skin had gone pale from blood loss, but it wasn’t weathered. Except for the color—and the deep impact crater on the top of his head from one of Rags’s clubs—he could have been sleeping.
He was dressed as Robin from the old Batman comics.
“Ah . . . jeez,” said the woman.
“Donnie?” asked Rags.
“Donnie.”
Rags did not comment. The man had made a mistake—inattention or perhaps falling asleep—and had paid for it. The fact that his error could have resulted in a slaughter—not just of the little girl but of everyone—was obvious, so she left it all unsaid. The truth burned in the air all around them.
The woman straightened and began walking
toward the gate at the far end of town. Rags fell into step beside her and sent Ghoulie ahead to scout for lurking dead.
“Look . . . who are you people?” asked Rags. “And what’s going on here?”
Rachael smiled, and it was a bright and genuine smile, so at odds with the carnage spread around them.
“We’re training.”
“Training?”
“Sure. Teaching the kids, mostly. Helping some of the adults get better at fighting the Orcs.”
“I’m sorry but . . . ‘Orcs’?”
“Well, dead people. We call them Orcs,” said Rachael. “Do . . . you know about Orcs?”
“I’ve read some Tolkien.”
Rachael sighed. “I remember the movies. The movies were great.”
“I was too young. My parents wouldn’t let me see them. But . . . why Orcs? They weren’t living dead.”
“No, but they were horrible monsters. They ate people. There were a lot of them, and they made war on the world of men. And,” she said, adjusting her tight-fitting dress as she walked, “the world of women, too.”
“Ah,” said Rags. “Orcs.” It wasn’t the strangest label she’d encountered for the zombies. There were monks out west who called them the Children of Lazarus. People called them rotters, stenches, walking dead, walkers, living dead, zombies, critters, ghost-people, harrowed, and a score of other things. Each isolated group came up with their own names, their own beliefs, their own rituals.
They reached the gate, which stood open as it had earlier. Rachael sighed and closed it, dropping the crossbar into place. Then she leaned back against it and blew out her cheeks. Sweat beaded her forehead, and she fished inside her broad leather waistband for a handkerchief.
Rags nodded to Rachael’s costume. “What about this stuff? The superhero stuff? What’s that all about?”
“The world needs heroes,” said Rachael, and then, apparently realizing that more of an explanation was required, explained. “We’re—or we were—cosplayers. Do you know what that is?”
Rags shook her head.
“Before the Fall, back when there was a world, they used to have these big conventions for pop culture stuff. Y’know, for people who were into comics and video games and movies and like that. The events were huge, and some people—like my friends and I—used to go to things like San Diego Comic Con, Dragon Con in Atlanta, Katsucon, Megacon . . . a slew of them. We’d make costumes and wear them. God, there were times I’d bring fourteen or sixteen different costumes. Really good stuff, too. I wanted to get into professional costuming, so I really put my heart into what I wore. I helped some of my friends, too.”
“I’m confused. So . . . this is all fake?”
Rachael shook her head. And it was then that Rags took a closer, harder look at the woman. She had scars on her arms and face. Not bite marks, of course, but the kinds of scars a person gets from a hard life. From surviving, from fighting. Maybe from intense training while preparing for the realities of life out here. Rags had some similar scars. Despite the costume, she knew that this woman was a real fighter.
“No, it’s not fake. Not anymore. It’s how we live.”
“Pretending to be superheroes?”
“Superheroes, video game characters, gods and demigods. Whatever.”
“Why?” asked Rags.
Rachael looked at her. “Why not?”
“No, I—”
“I know what you mean. You think we’re all crazy, right? That we’re playacting while the world eats itself. But . . . we’re not. That’s not what’s going on here. Or at least it’s not what we’re trying to do.” Rachael smiled. “On that first night, when the plague broke out, Brett and I were in New York, at the big comic convention. One of our friends was bitten, and so were some people on the floor of the hotel we were all staying at. It was so wrong, so scary.” She crossed her arms and shivered. “Even now, after all these years, it still gets me every time I think about it.”
“You survived,” said Rags.
“Sure. A bunch of us did,” agreed Rachael, “and I think I know why.”
Rags said nothing.
“We were heroes,” explained Rachael. “That’s what did it. Now . . . I know that sounds nuts.”
Rags raised her hand and waggled it back and forth. “Just a bit. I’ve heard stranger stories.”
Rachael told her what happened. How after the initial shock she and Brett rallied several other cosplayers on their floor of the hotel and they began working together—fighting together—as if that was something they’d always done. As if it was something they were used to doing for real. Together they cleared their floor, and as the night wore on and the outbreak spun out of all control, they invaded the other floors, saving who they could, killing the infected.
“It was like we were really superheroes. We weren’t even all that afraid. Not really,” said Rachael. “Being in costume while everything was falling apart, it kept us all together. And it made us want to stand with each other, you know? Like we were a real team. A few people split off, but a lot of people stayed with us. We blocked off the fire stairs and turned six floors of the hotel into our . . . um . . . headquarters. We even called it Avengers Tower.” She paused, but when Rags made no comment and offered no criticism, the woman continued. “Later, when we realized that no one was going to come to rescue us, and when food started running low, we began taking over the lower floors. Our room was on the thirty-ninth floor. It took us two weeks to fight our way down to the street level.”
“How many got out?”
Rachael looked away for a moment. The last fireflies of the season were drifting through the bushes. “When we left the thirty-third floor, we had forty-eight people. Seventeen cosplayers, and the other thirty-one were civilians.”
Rags echoed the word. “Civilians.”
“By the time we reached the street, there were only eight cosplayers left.”
“How many civilians?”
Rachael smiled. “Thirty-one.”
“You didn’t lose any of them?”
She shook her head. “No. Not one. It was horrible—what happened, I mean—but it was also pretty amazing. Some of the cosplayers sacrificed themselves to save the rest. They stood up and fought the monsters so everyone else could run. Even though they knew they were going to die.”
“Like heroes,” said Rags softly.
“Like heroes.”
They watched the fireflies.
“It took us three years to get back to Pennsylvania,” said Rachael. “And when we did . . .”
She shook her head and didn’t explain. It wasn’t necessary. After three years, there would be nothing to come home to. Only heartbreak and horror.
“So it’s just you guys now?” asked Rags. “You’re still playing dress-up and pretending to be superheroes?”
“Pretty much,” said Rachael, but there was an odd quality to her voice. “We recruit some more when we can. And I try to teach them how to fight.”
“Do you have training?”
Rachael shook her head. “No, but I watched a lot of movies. Played a lot of video games.”
“That’s hardly the same thing.”
Rachael shrugged. “I know. But it’s what we have.”
The fireflies danced and danced.
“How many of the civilians are still alive?” asked Rags. “Or . . . are any of them alive?”
Rachael turned to her and took a long time before answering. “We usually don’t let people into town. If Donnie hadn’t been . . . taken . . . he’d have rung the alarm and we’d have swarmed you.”
Ghoulie growled softly. Rags said nothing.
“We’d have tried,” said Rachael, hooking her long hair behind her ears. “We don’t let people see what’s going on here.”
“If you want me to turn around and leave,” said Rags, “just say the word. I’m not here to spy.”
“I know. Or, at least I’m pretty sure you’re not. But you’re an amazing fighter. Bette
r than anyone I’ve ever seen. Better than me, and better than Iron Fist. He knows some kung fu, but it’s more fancy than anything.”
“You’re pretty good with that sword,” said Rags, nodding to the weapon at Rachael’s hip.
“Pretty good is nice. I’d like to be better.”
Rags nodded.
“Do you know how to use a sword?” asked Rachael.
Rags shrugged. Nodded. Shrugged again.
“You can fight. You’ve been trained. Anyone can see that. And the way you stepped in tonight? That was so cool. You’re a real hero.”
“No, I’m not. I had a good teacher, though,” said Rags. “Captain Ledger. He’s an actual hero. He was Special Ops before the Fall. I trained with him for four years.”
“Is he still alive?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Somewhere.”
“Are you . . . looking for him?” asked Rachael.
“No.”
“What are you looking for?”
Rags didn’t answer. She shrugged again.
Rachael chewed her lip for a moment and made a soft, thoughtful noise as she watched the fireflies. Then she abruptly pushed off the fence and walked a few paces.
“Let me show you something, okay?” she asked.
“Show me what?”
“You’ll see. It’s . . . well, it’s what we’ve been doing since we got here.”
She led the way, and after a moment Rags followed. Ghoulie trotted along behind, huffing and clanking.
They passed through another gate—this one properly manned—and then turned and walked nearly half a mile down what had once been a broad street lined with big stores and automobile dealerships. They stopped at the top of a hill and stared at what lay beyond.
Rags gasped.
She took two clumsy steps and then sat down hard on the ground.
“How—how—how many—?”
Rachael knelt beside her, and they looked at the lights. Cooking fires and bonfires.
Hundreds of them, stretching along both sides of the road and then spreading back toward the distant gloom of nightfall. At the fringes of the fires were rows of tents, campers, RVs, trailer homes, and plywood shacks. Beyond those was farmland. Corn and wheat, pumpkins and apple groves. And more that Rags could not identify from that distance.