Dead Moon by Clines Peter

Author:Clines, Peter [Clines, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Zombies
Publisher: Kavach Press
Published: 2019-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

21

NORTH-SIX RELAY ANTENNA

Isme shifted on the crossbeam and tried to lift her legs a few centimeters higher. The zombies below her drifted to the left, like filings following a magnet. Her fingers flexed on the aluminum strut. No immediate danger of losing her grip, but she couldn’t let her mind wander and have her fingers slide.

Not with all those things waiting to kill her down below.

She’d always been good at compartmentalizing. You had to be, if you were going to be a successful Caretaker. She’d buried her own father three years ago. Took care of every step of it herself while Waghid and the others stood back. Four family friends had passed through Osiris. And children. Thousands of children.

If you couldn’t compartmentalize, you’d go mad.

She reminded herself of all this as she stuffed the sheer terror freezing her heart down into its own compartment. No time for it now. She could deal with it later with her friends. For now, it stayed sealed up and stored away. Calm face. Steel nerves.

She’d have to deal with Waghid later, too. With the absence of him. With the bed that would never be warm again. The trips they’d never take. The rank and responsibility she’d never wanted. That all got stored away, too.

“Isme? Is that you up there?”

She straightened up. The HUD display showed an open channel—a private channel—between her and another suit. “Jake? Did you make it back already?”

“No, it’s me. I didn’t think I was going to find you.”

The inside of her suit got very cold, despite what the display said. “Waghid?”

“Yeah. I’m down here.”

Three sharp taps vibrated up through the antenna tower. Someone banging on one of the leg struts. The strut clamped between her fingers.

The compartment swelled, and she pushed it back down before it could burst. “If this is someone’s idea of a joke, it’s in pretty damned poor taste,” she said. “Not to mention particularly bad timing.”

“Hon, I swear, it’s me. There was a mix-up. Jake and Cali saw one of the workers get attacked in the mortuary and thought it was me. Gordon just got me out twenty minutes ago.”

“Waghid is dead.”

“I’m not.”

“I saw your body,” she snapped, and immediately regretted the phrasing. He was dead. She knew it.

“It was the guy who looked like me. He was so messed up nobody wanted to look too close.”

Such a pleasant thing to believe. Waghid, holding his own for hours in the mortuary until someone realized their mistake. Him running out to save her from the—

Isme leaned forward, tried to aim her helmet’s floodlights down at the base of the tower, but she couldn’t bend far enough. The circles of light hit a few meters away from the antenna and reflected off a dozen frozen eyes staring up at her. “It’s all zombies down there. How are they not attacking you? Whoever you are.”

“They’re so slow they’re harmless. How do you think I survived for most of a day locked up with them?”

“They’re not harmless. They’ve killed almost fifty—”

“Look.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.