Deadly Bond

The gate at Checkpoint Four groaned shut behind them, a low sound like a ship turning over in deep water. Adrian had heard it every morning for seven years, and his shoulders still tightened at it. Ahead, the city waited. Two million people had lived here once. Now the streets were a gray silence of collapsed overpasses and rusted buses, with grass pushing up through the asphalt. The infection had emptied the city in eleven months. What remained of humanity lived inside five walled districts, held together by generators, ration cards, and the effort of not thinking too hard. Everything beyond the walls belonged to the infected, and to the hunters who went out to keep it that way. "You're counting windows again," Cruel said. "Someone has to." "Nobody has to." "Third floor, east side," Adrian said. "That pane wasn't broken last week." Cruel studied it, then grunted. "Fine. Keep counting." That was as close to praise as Cruel ever came. He was a broad man with a scar running from ear to collar and a walk that made no sound. Nobody used his real name. Cruel had started as a joke after he cleared a nest alone and came back without a scratch. The joke outlasted the year, and the man grew into it. Adrian had partnered with him for four years and had never once seen him afraid. The orders were the same as always, repeated at every briefing since Adrian was nineteen: Find the infected. Eliminate them. Never hesitate. Adrian believed it the way he believed in gravity, because he had seen what happened without it. Four years ago, in a stairwell in the Meridian district, he had stood over an infected man for half a second too long. The man had been wearing a wedding ring. That was all it took. The man lunged, and Adrian's partner lost an arm pulling him clear. He had not hesitated since. he Halvorsen Shoe Factory sat at the edge of the old industrial quarter, its windows blacked out by grime. A scout drone had flagged movement inside. That alone was strange. The infected didn't gather. They wandered, scattered, and drifted toward noise. They went in at midday, when the light made the infected slow. The smell reached Adrian first, sour and sweet, like meat left in a warm room. He breathed through his mouth and kept his rifle low. Rows of dead machines stood under iron beams, and thin shafts of dusty light fell through the broken roof. Cruel pointed left. Adrian moved along the wall, testing each step. They found them after two minutes. Eight figures stood huddled between two massive presses, heads slightly bowed, motionless. They weren't hunting or wandering. They looked like people waiting for something. That's wrong, Adrian thought. He caught Cruel's eye and lifted a hand: wait. Cruel looked at the huddle, then back at him, and Adrian read the answer in his flat calm. No. We don't wait. Cruel threw his hatchet. It took the nearest infected in the throat, and the body hit the concrete like a bell. The huddle broke apart. Adrian did what seven years had taught him. He stopped thinking and started counting. Eight. One down. Seven. Two came at him from the left, fast even in daylight. He shot the first through the temple, stepped back from the second, and fired again. The noise was enormous, but the noise had already been made. Across the floor, Cruel worked the shotgun with steady, unhurried precision. Five. Four. A body slammed into Adrian's shoulder, and he drove his knife up under its jaw and shoved it off. Three. He looked up, and saw her. She stood on the metal mezzanine above the presses, one hand on the railing. She was the only one who hadn't moved. The others poured across the floor with their mouths open and their hands reaching. She only stood there, head turned toward him. She was young, or had been. Dark hair hung tangled past her shoulders, and faint blue veins traced her cheekbone, as they did on all of them. But the others looked at the world like hungry animals. She looked at him like someone reading a page. Adrian raised the rifle and settled the sight on her forehead. It was the easiest shot of the day. Never hesitate. She blinked. The infected didn't blink. In seven years, he had never seen it. Her eyes were gray, and something in them looked almost like fear. His finger stopped. It was a second, perhaps less. He knew exactly how long, because he had spent four years learning what a second could cost. Shoot her. He did not. Behind him, something scraped against concrete. He had cleared that side of the floor. He had counted. But he had missed the narrow crawlspace under the loading platform, where a thin gray man was already dragging himself out, jaws open, close enough that Adrian could hear his teeth. Something hit him from the side. Hands closed on his jacket and hauled him backward with impossible strength. His boots skidded. He went down on one knee, and the man's jaws snapped shut on empty air exactly where his neck had been. A shot cracked across the room. The thin man collapsed. Adrian stayed down, rifle forgotten, heart slamming. The hands were still gripping his jacket. He looked up. She was crouched in front of him, so close he could see the dust in her hair. She had crossed the entire floor from the mezzanine, and he hadn't heard her move. Her fingers were knotted in his collar, and they were shaking. Her chest didn't rise or fall. But she was watching him, and slowly, as if she had only just realized what she'd done, she let go. She didn't bare her teeth. She didn't reach for him. She simply stayed there, her gray eyes wide and frightened. "Adrian!" Cruel's voice echoed across the factory. "Status!" He couldn't answer. His mouth had gone dry. Seven years. Hundreds of them. Not one had ever done anything but try to kill him. Why would a zombie save me?