Page 31

Just another Tuesday at oh-dark-thirty in the morning.

I leaned back against the seat, my dead arm throbbing in time with my heartbeat.

The scene came into view before we fully stopped.

Flashing lights. Barricades. Half a dozen SED vehicles parked at aggressive angles, their headlights cutting through the predawn gloom like accusatory fingers. Officers in tactical gear stood in loose formation around the mouth of an alley, confused, and unsure.

Victor’s team was there, huddled near the command vehicle. Sergeant Hanna stood apart from them, arms crossed, her expression carved from granite. She spotted our vehicle and strode toward us before the engine even died.

I forced myself out of the car, using the door for balance. My right arm hung useless at my side.

Hanna’s gaze swept over me, but if she noticed anything off, she didn’t comment. I nodded to a few other field leads as I passed them, everyone lingering near the alley, as if uncertain what to do.

“We called for an SV,” Hanna said. “But we need a level five, and that’s going to take time.”

They needed a level five to control zombies.

The alley was narrow, hemmed in by stained brick and overflowing dumpsters. Rain slicked the pavement, reflecting the flashing lights in fractured fragments of red and blue. And in the middle of it all a man was pinned to the ground by a half dozen shapes with gray skin and hollow eyes. Their clothing was stained and torn, bloody, as if they’d been in a battle. They held the man with bony fingers, firm, and unwavering.

A raw, panicked sound wailed from the man’s throat. More animal than man. Like all humanity had fled him. Terror could do that to a man.

“Could Merrill do anything?” I asked Hanna, bringing up our only spook variant.

“He’s already tried. No response.” She waved at the man. “It’s been almost an hour since we got here. They won’t let him go, aren’t hurting him, and don’t respond to anything we say or do.” She sighed. “Meanwhile, the tear is growing, and we’ve got to set up a perimeter to keep anything else from crossing.”

I glanced up to the skyline and caught the purple lightning haze that indicated a growing tear. This was going to be a big one. And zombies on this side, unheard of outside of a major world war. But they didn’t move. Their hollow gazes were fixed on the man with a singular focus. Purpose? Command?

“Where’s the victim?”

“EMTs took her to the hospital. She’s shaken but alive.” Hanna paused. “We asked her to try to command them, but they didn’t respond to her either. They’ll test her at the hospital.”

“Their clothes look modern,” Ezra remarked. “Do zombies from the other side usually wear couture from the last decade?”

I tried to recall the ones I’d seen in the war, but that had been decades ago. Different time. Different dead. These weren’t soldiers or plague victims. These were someone’s neighbors. Someone’s family.

The man’s screaming ripped through the alley—high and hysterical, the kind of noise that drilled straight into your skull and set up camp. He wailed about the cops not doing anything, though what did he want us to do... shoot him? There was no way to take down zombies without a high-level SV or fire. He kept crying out while one of the cops whispered things, trying to calm him down. Nothing worked.

I winced. My temple throbbed. The numbness in my arm was bad enough. The headache was a fresh insult.

Shut up, I thought. Just shut up. I need to think.

Another scream.

My vision pulsed at the edges.

“Can you just give it a rest already?”

My voice echoed through the alley, sharper than I intended.

Everything went silent. The man. The cops’ chatter. Even the rain seemed to pause.

Then the zombies fell, dropping like dominoes. Like puppets with cut strings. They crumpled to the wet pavement, limp and completely lifeless.

The man scrambled backward, chest heaving, eyes wide and ready to run. Hardy, Jude’s friend, put a hand on his shoulder, stopping his escape.

I stared at the bodies, now nothing more than a pile of corpses.

Had I done that?