First Light Read online

  “Yes sir,” the man said.

  The silver-haired official glanced back at the gangly soldier as he scampered off before gesturing Rose along. “My name’s Colonel Mustang, ma’am. Fifth division of the U.S. military’s emergency task force, hand-selected by the President. I gotta tell you—it’s pretty pathetic when a civilian who’s gone through hell and back can hold her own better than some of my most well-trained soldiers.”

  “You have to,” Rose said. “Otherwise you’re dead.”

  “And you’d know that better than anyone.” He turned when they approached the lone straw dummy at the far end of the line and nodded as the soldier returned with the sheathed blade. “Thank you, soldier.”

  “Sir,” the man nodded.

  The colonel offered the machete hilt-first. “Would you do me the honor?”

  Reaching forward, Rose took the hilt, unsnapped the clasp, then drew the machete, testing its weight with a few simple flourishes.

  “Too much for you?” he asked.

  “I used to play baseball,” Rose said.

  “Then this will be nothing.” He stepped back. “Go on. You should know how to kill them by now.”

  Rose centered her attention on the dummy.

  The size of a man, its framework covered in flesh-colored plastic—it mirrored everything about the human body, right down to the way it stood, and the features emblazoned upon its face.

  Even after all this time, it still unnerved her to think how willing she was to kill another human.

  Or what used to be a human, she thought. Before they turned.

  Stepping forward, Rose took only a moment before slinging the blade over her shoulder and embedding it in the dummy’s skull.

  As plastic as it was, the impact felt just as real as bone.

  After freeing the blade, Rose turned to face Colonel Mustang.

  “Now do you think I can’t handle it?” she asked.

  “Oh,” Mustang grinned. “I know you can.”

  Though they offered to board her with other members of the militia, Rose chose to forego such luxuries in favor of remaining indoors.

  The winter air was stark. Frigid in its intensity, even the tents, with their insulated paneling and thick down comforters, would do little to keep the cold away.

  The atmosphere hinted at snow.

  “You coming inside anytime soon?” a voice asked.

  Rose turned. Lyra stood in the threshold of the partially-opened doorway, her hard eyes set on Rose in a way that would’ve made most uncomfortable.

  “Yeah,” Rose whispered. “I’m coming.”

  She pulled the sweater about herself before marching toward the doorway, passing through the gap between Lyra and the opposite door before turning to face her friend.

  “What’s wrong?” Rose asked, though she already knew the answer.

  “I thought you would’ve told me,” Lyra said.

  “I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Worry?” her friend laughed. “Rose—I thought you were dead. After we’d gone through Hell and back together.” She fell back against the wall, her gaze set upon the soldiers carrying crates from armored vehicles. “I just thought you would’ve said something.”

  “You act like this is a bad thing.”

  “What? You going out into the wilderness after all the time we spent getting here?” Lyra snorted. “Sure. It’s a ‘good’ thing, Rose. A fucking good thing indeed.”

  “I can’t stay in here. I’ll go nuts—crazy, delusional, psy—”

  “You don’t need to give me every adjective in the book. I get it.” Lyra stepped toward her. “You ever stopped to consider that you could be dead? That those zombies that we ran from back near Liverpool could’ve eaten us? I clobbered Spencer in the head. I crushed Mary’s skull. And you—fuck, Rose. You were out there all alone, and if something had happened… I couldn’t have done anything to help you.” Lyra pressed two fingers along the bridge of her nose and bowed her head, refusing to meet Rose’s gaze.

  “Lyra,” Rose said.

  “Just… go. Really. Do what you want. I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”

  Rose paused.

  The throbbing ache in her heart kept her from speaking.

  The more she considered it, though, the more it seemed there wasn’t anything to say.

  With that in mind, she turned and started down the hall.

  The hardest part was not looking back.

  There was little she could do to shake the feeling.

  It was utterly horrible.

  From her place atop her bedroll, on which she stewed over the words and feelings that had brought her world to a halt, she attempted to gather the pieces she felt made up her shattered existence.

  I’m sitting, she thought, alone, in a room, all by myself.

  The impending tears were strong—willing, waiting to be set free—yet somehow she’d managed to keep them at bay. Crying had become a weakness she refused to have. It revealed vulnerability, loss, pain—the things all men wished those with weakness to have. Regardless that no one would see her, she still felt an undeniable need to refrain.

  No sooner had she begun to breathe again than was there a knock at the threshold—lone, ominous, and echoing throughout the massive room.

  “Hey,” E.J.’s voice said.

  Rose opened her eyes. “Hey,” she replied.

  Shrugging his hands into his pockets, the man—dressed in a close-fitting white tank and jeans—started into the room, though stopped short. His near-colorless eyes flickered with hesitation. “Can I come in?” he asked.

  “Might as well,” Rose said.

  “I’ll leave, if you want me to.”

  “No, E.J. It’s fine.”

  E.J. stepped forward. He bridged the distance between the long rows of cots and started toward her, waiting for permission before seating himself at the end. “So,” he said. “The girl with the sad eyes tells me something’s wrong.”

  “What makes you think that?” Rose asked.

  “Because you’re sitting here all by yourself. And because sad eyes never lie.”

  Rose sighed. “You listen to too much music.”

  “It never lies,” E.J. said. “Unlike someone I’m sitting right next to.”

  The glare Rose gave him brought a stupid, if somewhat-uneasy smile to E.J.’s face. “So… wanna tell me what’s going on?”

  “Lyra and I had a fight,” she said. “I mean… if you can even call it that.”

  “About?”

  “Me wanting to join the militia.”

  The man frowned, his eyes darkening to a shade near steel. “Ok,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I… wait. Go ahead. Finish what you were going to say.”

  “I take it you’re of the same opinion.”

  “I don’t even know what that opinion is.”

  “She was mad at me,” Rose continued, “because she thought I was being stupid—that because I’d rather go out and try to make a use of myself, I was giving a big ‘ole ‘fuck you’ to everything we’d gone through.”

  “Everyone processes things differently,” E.J. agreed.

  Rose narrowed her eyes at him. “You think I’m crazy.”

  “I never said anything.”

  “Scared eyes never lie.”

  The pronounced tug upon his lips deepened tremendously.

  Standing, Rose took what few steps the space between the cots allowed and looked out at the far end of the ballroom—where fire escapes would’ve allowed quick exit, were they not snarled with chains, and where layers of metal lockers and filing cabinets lay beached like dead whales upon their sides.

  “I just want you to be safe,” E.J. finally said. “So does she.”

  “Are we, even?” Rose asked. “Will we ever really be safe?”

  “Rose—”

  “Look around, E.J.—we live in fucking hell. The dead have come back to life, society has crumbled, we’re living behind ce
ment walls hoping to God nothing bad will happen. Hell—we can’t even go to sleep at night without worrying about the dead breaking in.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “You don’t know. No one knows because no one can know.” Rose paused. “Did you think this was ever going to happen? That we’d end up here in America? That we’d be trapped on a boat? That we’d be drifting for weeks on end eating nothing but seaweed and fish? I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell didn’t.”

  “Shit happens.”

  “Ya think?” Rose laughed.

  Balled into a fist atop one knee, E.J.’s hand uncurled, his knuckles popping in unison as he flexed his fingers. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I mean… in the end… we made it here for a reason. I’m just not sure you’ve thought about that reason yet.”

  Rose pursed her lips.

  “Think about what you’re doing,” he said as he started for the threshold. “About what we all went through to get here. About what you went through.”

  Stars flashed before her eyes.

  The blood, the carnage, the emaciated corpses, the near-mummified remains—the flash of light before a monster’s head exploded.

  The sounds of E.J.’s footsteps echoed through her head.

  Alone, in a room where everything except happiness existed, she tried to find hope in everything that’d been offered, and came to one horrible conclusion.

  She couldn’t.

  The world was a ticking time bomb.

  And the place they were in—it was only a switch.

  Her fitful bouts of sleep resulted in nothing more than exhaustion. Tossing, turning, throwing the covers to the end of the bed, then pulling them back up when she became too cold—she fought back the demons with the mottled yellowed eyes and attempted everything she could to get away. One moment they were gone, then the next they were here: ahead, above, beyond, behind.

  When it came time for the insanity to end—when, after a night’s worth of nightmares, she opened her eyes to the pale blue hours of twilight—Rose succumbed to defeat.

  After pulling on her shoes, she crawled from the bed and made her way toward the cafeteria—which, with its barely-lit interior, spelled only the beginning of preparations.

  She banged the flimsy door aside and sauntered in.

  Once seated, Rose bowed her face into her hands and took a deep breath.

  Maybe Lyra’s right, she thought. Maybe I am going crazy.

  In truth, her friend had never really said that. No concerned eyes, no pale lips—clearly there’d been a lack of discussion. If Lyra had really wanted to imply that she was losing her mind, she would’ve said it plain as day, without so much as a moment of hesitation.

  The venom there was as sweet as it was sour, the fangs like dust as much as they were stone. Yet no matter how much she tried to fight it, Rose couldn’t push it aside.

  The bad dreams, the fitful nights of sleep, the paranoid delusions that the dead would break in—if that wasn’t crazy, then what was?

  Though the shuffle of movement would’ve normally set her off, Rose pushed aside any primal urges and kept her head bowed.

  She closed her eyes, shut her mouth, pursed her lips.

  The sound—it was almost overwhelming.

  It was only when it stopped that Rose lifted her head.

  Standing before her was a short, attractive man of Latino descent, his close-cut hair and military fatigues immediately signifying his position. “Ahem,” he said, clearing his gravelly throat. “Is your name Rose Daniels?”

  “My name’s Rose,” she replied. “Why? Who’s asking?”

  “Colonel Mustang said to come get you. We’re organizing a supply run into the city. He wanted you along.”

  Me? she thought, then asked: “Why?”

  “You’re the last person who was in that part of town. He figured if anything was—or wasn’t—there, you’d be the one to know.”

  Rose blinked.

  Maybe she was going crazy. Surely she wasn’t being asked to go on a field mission, no more than one day after she’d applied.

  “Ma’am?” the soldier asked.

  “Yeah,” Rose said, pressing her palms to the cafeteria table as if it would somehow ground her. “Yeah. Ok. I’m ready.”

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked as she rounded the table, frowning as she came face-to-face with him, but quickly refuting such emotion in the moments thereafter.

  As she followed the soldier through the halls, toward the doorway that separated civilian life from military.

  Finally, she thought.

  They opened the door to the cool morning air.

  The atmosphere assaulted her.

  So loud was the climate that she wondered if they really were safe. Soldiers rushing to and from tents, vans and other armored vehicles being loaded with ammunition and supplies, higher-ranking officials calling out orders to subordinates when they took their time or slacked off in their duty—the hectic state of affairs screamed desperation: as if they were the acolytes and those outside their Gods.

  Having stopped, she’d lost the soldier by at least thirty feet before she jogged to catch up with him. “Sorry,” she managed. “I can’t believe how loud it is out here.”

  “What do you mean?” the man asked.

  “Just… the noise. Everything.”

  The man arched an eyebrow.

  “You don’t hear it?” Rose asked, looking around as they continued forward.

  “Either you’re joking,” the soldier laughed, “or you really are shell-shocked.”

  “Sorry?”

  The man smiled. “You were on a boat for weeks,” he said. “No sound, hardly any people, no nothin’. I don’t blame you, though. I imagine it’s hard to get used to.”

  “I—”

  Rose was cut off when they passed onto the training field—where desks stood in place of dummies, whereupon several lay schematics of stores and layouts of city streets.

  “Lieutenant Ashley,” the soldier who’d been escorting Rose said as they approached. “Rose Daniels, as requested.”

  “Thank you, Private.” A short woman with beautiful caramel skin lifted her head to survey. “Good morning, Rose.”

  “Good morning,” Rose replied, extending her arm when the woman reached forward to shake her hand.

  “I trust you slept well last night?”

  “Better than I used to,” Rose lied.

  The lieutenant smiled and gestured Rose forward. “I got word from one of our runners that you were in the area we’ve been scavenging. Is that true?”

  “I’m not sure which area that is,” she replied.

  The lieutenant pulled a series of glossy Polaroids from a folder and spread them out. As Rose expected, they displayed the very buildings she’d bore witness to upon arriving in the suburbs.

  “This is completely empty,” Rose said, tapping the picture of the convenience store. “The only thing I found in there was a bunch of bugs and a dead body. Oh, and the raccoon.”

  “Huh?” Ashley asked.

  “The raccoon,” Rose said, then stopped when the woman looked at her as if she were crazy. “It was eating the cheesy puffs.”

  “All right,” Ashley said dismissively, then looked back down at the schematics. “The others?”

  Rose scrutinized the buildings. “The nail salon didn’t have anything in it. The cellular store was completely wrecked. I’m guessing someone tried to take shelter in it, given that all the windows were blown out. The only other thing I think might be of use would be the tackle store. That’s where I would’ve headed next if I hadn’t been spotted.”

  “Can you explain the route you took?”

  With a bold red Sharpie offered by her skinny escort, Rose scoured the streets and took note in marking those buildings she could remember and the streets she knew would be impassible due to debris.

  She crossed off all the buildings on the side of the plaza she’d c
ome in from as derelict, marked the bait and tackle store as ‘possibility,’ declared the streets that formed a T up to the road she’d been chased on, which was filled with cars and wreckage. She made a particular point of saying that she’d downed a stoplight, but couldn’t offer anything more.

  “So we were right,” Ashley said.

  “About what?” Rose frowned.

  The lieutenant tapped the far western side of the area. “We’ve been hearing reports of a large flock wandering about—mostly from people over the radio desperate to be saved, others from the squirrels who go out and have to literally zigzag their way back. If you’re saying they were coming from the west—”

  “I saw them,” Rose said.

  “What?”

  “The flock. When I woke up on the beach. I broke into the lighthouse and saw them out the window when I woke up a few days later. They were a chasing a couple. Nothing I could do.”

  “How many?”

  “At least fifty, if not more.”

  “Runners? Walkers?”

  “Walkers,” Rose said, at first frowning at the term, then shaking it off. “A few ran out from the woods. I’m fairly sure they’re the ones who killed the couple.”

  “I don’t have a doubt about it,” Ashley sighed. She lifted her head and narrowed her eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” Rose asked.

  “I’m not going to bullshit you, Rose. This kind of thing is dangerous. You know that better than anyone. With winter coming, we have so much to worry about. Food, water, power, warmth—and that’s not even counting the ability to move if we have to leave beforehand, which is why it scares the hell out of me to think we could be swarmed by a flock in the field. A group that size—we’ll have to use firepower. And if there are any more…” Ashley sighed. “We’re just leading the wolves to the nest.”

  “Won’t they just rot? I mean, after winter?”

  “There’s no reassurance of that.”

  “You haven’t done experiments?”

  Ashley snorted. “If you’re thinking Dr. Frankenstein here, then no—we’ve got no little old man drilling holes into dead-ish things in some room around the back. It’s too dangerous. The virus is so virulent, there’s no telling how it’ll adapt to cold weather, or even prolonged exposure outside a human host.”