Chapter Nine

"They must have set up quarantine on the bridge," Hanson said in thought. "Roadblocks to force people out of their cars and transfer to military transports. Fewer cars on the road means the infection can't spread as fast. When the infection reached here and the quarantine broke, they blew the bridge. The river makes a natural barricade. The other side is where zombie territory really starts. Where are we?"

"Memphis is on the other side," I replied. "This is the Mississippi River."

"That makes sense. The Mississippi River cuts clear across the country. It'd be a good place to make a stand."

"Can you think of somewhere we can get across?"

"No clue. They probably took out all the bridges like this."

"What about a ferry? Or a dam? There has to be something."

"No clue. We can check the computer in the car, but it'll probably be the same everywhere. Dams will have been blown and ferries confiscated. I told you, this was way too organized."

"Then what do we do?" I asked.

"No fucking clue, but whatever we come up with, we'll have to leave the car." We both glanced down the road at our transportation and grimaced. Having it had been nice for so many reasons.

"Don't move." I glanced at Hanson, only to find him glancing at me. We realized in the same moment, neither of us had been the one to talk. The sound had come from the side of the road, but there was nothing there except grass leading up to the treeline.

I moved to stand between Hanson and the direction the voice had come from.

"I said, don't move!" a man shouted, although it didn't come from the distant trees. From the sound of his boots brushing the ground, he was right on top of us, but we couldn't see him.

"Military," Hanson whispered behind me. "They're the only ones with this kind of optic camouflage. Put your hands up. There's no telling how many there are."

I slowly put my hands up. "Look," I said. "We're not here to make trouble for anyone. We're just trying to get across the river."

"You're infected," the man said calmly.

I glanced over my shoulder at Hanson and he gave me a nod like that was supposed to tell me something. "Will you promise not to shoot if I say yes? It happened days ago. I'm not—"

"You're a lich," our invisible assailant added. "What's the deal with the other guy?"

I licked my lips and glanced at Hanson again. "What's a lich?" I asked.

"They're a type of undead in fantasy stories," Hanson answered softly. "They're usually necromancers who give up their humanity for immortality. Basically, a zombie with a brain."

"You actually do like fantasy novels," I said with a huff.

"I never said I didn't." Hanson raised his voice to speak to the other guy and said, "I'm immune. I got bitten and nothing happened. We were both cadets at a military school in Arkansas. We were overrun a few days ago."

"Arkansas was evacuated," he argued.

"Yeah, well, things didn't exactly go as planned. Instead of evacuating us, some guys came in and turned the place into a pitstop for evacuating civilians and we got drafted. We were on perimeter duty, clearing out the dead heads who managed to get that far when the whole camp pulled out and left us behind. We didn't realize what happened until we ran out of ammo and, by then, it was too late. We know we're carriers, which is why we're heading East. We don't want to infect anyone and zombies seem to ignore us now. If there's any way you could let us go—"

I heard the trucks coming at the same time as Hanson. We both knew it was too late to get away. We never got a chance to see the face of the scout who stopped us, but the guys who flooded out of the trucks and took us into custody were straight out of a black ops video game. They had thermal cameras over their eyes, full body black armor, and they were strapped with individual arsenals.

They were surprisingly courteous. None of them put a hand on us, other than to confiscate the pistol in Hanson's belt. They directed us into one of the idling black humvees with a waved hand instead of a waved rifle. Since they weren't aggressive, we went peaceably, climbing in to find two more soldiers already waiting inside.

No one said a word as they carried us off, but I saw they were bringing the cop car with us. They took us to a mobile base downriver. There were no watchtowers or fences around it. Instead, soldiers were set up in cherry-pickers to get a bird's eye view. There were no actual buildings, either. Instead, we were ushered toward a windowless trailer painted the same matte black as everything else.

The interior was stuffed with computers and soldiers manning them. I couldn't have said what everything did, but it was impressive. It was also bewildering. I'd expected us to be locked in cages, yet they escorted us into command central.

The soldier escorting us saluted another soldier, then took off before we could follow him. All the other commandos went with him.

"Boys," the guy in charge greeted. That's when I took a close look at him and realized his eyes were silver like mine. Hanson and I sucked in a sharp breath in unison. It was the last thing we could have expected.

"Do you want to ask questions or would you like me to start answering them?" he asked with a kindly, crooked smile.

"I wouldn't know where to begin," Hanson replied.

"Is everyone here—?" I asked.

"No," the commander said. "It'd be easier if they were, but there are uninfected humans among us. Let me start by saying I'm Commander Trent and this is Blackout Post Zed Nine. We're a frontline black-ops unit comprised of volunteers spanning multiple branches of the USAF. As you can see for yourself, you're not the first lich we've encountered, although you are the first lich and immune combo we've seen try to get across the river together. And, usually, they're heading in the opposite direction."

"I think I need to sit down," Hanson mumbled. I knew exactly how he felt.