LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation by Bryan James Page B

darkness to shroud our more obvious movements through areas with the potential for more threats.  
    “Okay, Supergirl. You ready? Get into the back seat with your mutt. Kate, watch to the right, near the intersection. That’s where they were yesterday. All set?”  
    Two heads nodded and Romeo simply stared at me, a thin line of drool making its way to the filthy floor. I took that for a yes.
    The door creaked softly as it opened, but I was already into the street, squinting against the light, but feeling no pain on the small pieces of exposed skin, as the sun was filtered through billions of pieces of ash and dirt that had been spewed into the air. I motioned for the rest, and Ky squeezed past and opened the back door of the waiting truck.
    In the mist of ash ahead, I thought I caught movement, and as I jogged toward the driver’s side door, I cursed.  
    “Kate, twelve o’clock,” my voice was tight. Where the hell had he come from?  
    A single creature stood swaying at the street corner, its head moving toward us as we made for the truck. Tattered remains of clothing hung from desiccated arms, its face withered and bloody. Eyes, both milky and bloodshot, locked onto my face as I stared.  
    Then, seemingly with purpose, he moaned, his head tilting behind him, as if to direct the sound.
    This was not a hungry, vapid sound.
    No, this was loud and purposeful. As if intended to carry meaning.  
    And suddenly, there was movement in the ashy mist. Zombies numbering in the hundreds, emerging from the ash of the intersection, wandering out of alleyways and storefronts, and meandering generally through the vacant space under the slowing swaying stoplight.  
    Their bodies were covered in a slush of ash and dirt, the mud mixing with the effluent of their rot and decay. They came from the river, and poured from the surrounding buildings. Surging forward in a slush of disturbed water and mud.  
    They hadn’t been there a moment before. It was as if they had been waiting and inert, and as if he had called them to attack.  
    But that wasn’t possible.
    “Ready,” Kate said, closing her door behind her and keeping her eyes moving. Ky was staring out of the back window toward the cloudy ash behind us.
    I backed up until I could grab the door handle, noticing again the severe beating that the truck had taken at the hands of the earthquake yesterday. In the light of day—and under the threat of a small herd—it looked like a doomed machine.
    The moans were starting to filter through the gray air, and I shook my head again as I sat down heavily. Kate spoke first.
    “What the hell? Where did they come from?”
    The engine thankfully turned over. They sped up as they heard the noise, moving en masse toward us. I could make out the ruined faces of the leading ranks, and I squirmed uncomfortably despite myself. Experience didn’t make it easier. These were hellish ghouls who had no place on earth.
    “I don’t know,” I muttered, looking back over my shoulder as I threw the truck into reverse, tires squealing as I jammed the wheel hard to the left, bringing us around to face away from the herd.  
    “It’s almost like they were waiting for us,” I said, checking the rear view mirror as the leading edge of creatures stumbled forward, twenty meters or so from the bed. “But that can’t be true. They can’t think. They can’t communicate. We know this much, at least.”
    Kate spoke softly, her voice barely a whisper.
    “Maybe we were wrong. Maybe they’re learning as they hunt together. It’s not too hard to believe that as time goes on, they would learn something as basic as that.”
    I caught Ky’s face in the mirror, and her terror reflected my own.
    It just couldn’t be true.  

CHAPTER SIX
Oh Canada! With glowing hearts we see thee rise...

    Elizabeth Katherine Whitmore was a lucky young woman.
    As a dual-national, she possessed both an American passport and a Canadian passport, and frequently traveled between