Page 30 of Zomromcom
After the First Breach, the government had built an extra line of defense between the zombies’ underground compound and the settlements in Zone A.
As Edie recalled, patching Wall One had taken the assigned workers only a few days, but digging the new wide, deep moat between the wall and those settlements had required weeks of noisy construction.
Filling the finished barrier with sufficient water had demanded even more effort from the workers.
Numb and cold and lost, she’d walked over to watch them labor every morning.
One particular task hadn’t taken them any time at all, though: building a bridge. Because there wasn’t one. No one and nothing was meant to cross that moat. Not troops or officials, not tourists, and certainly not zombies.
And yet. Here Edie and Max were, staring at the moat. Staring at a makeshift bridge.
The rickety-looking wooden structure stretched from a ragged hole in that first, crucial wall all the way across the water and to the other side. To Zone A. To the place where they lived.
Someone had built that crossing of destruction, and that someone wasn’t a zombie.
Apparently the government did still post a couple of guards to watch for trouble outside the compound, at least occasionally, because she couldn’t stop staring at them either. At least, not until Max stepped between her and their butchered, headless bodies, cupped her face, and turned it his way.
His voice was soft and tender. “Why don’t you stay in the SUV, ma puce?”
Blinking hard, she shook her head.
“I already know you’re brave to the point of foolishness.” His thumbs stroked her cheeks. “You have nothing to prove, my Edie. Nothing to gain by upsetting yourself.”
“I might notice something you don’t.” Suddenly exhausted beyond belief, she waved a hand as Max began to reply.
“Yes, yes, I know all about your inherent superiority to humans and our paltry sensory capabilities, but I’m just as smart as you are, and I’m observant.
I might see a clue you’d overlook on your own or think of a crucial bit of evidence to check. ”
She wasn’t wrong. He knew it. She knew he knew it.
His jaw worked. “Very well.”
Mouth drawn into a grim line, he released her face, stepped aside, and let her study the scene however she wanted.
It wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever witnessed. But it would probably still live in her nightmares for months or years to come.
“I don’t understand.” Before speaking again, she had to swallow down the sour taste rising in the back of her throat.
“I scout this area at least once a week, so I’d know if there were guards stationed at Wall One all the time.
Did they make their rounds here so infrequently that I just didn’t notice them? ”
Sharp eyes still scanning the scene, he lifted one hand and gently rubbed the back of her neck again. “Since I moved to Cloverleaf Drive, I’ve seen no evidence of guards posted at this site. My sources haven’t mentioned any regular presence at Wall One either.”
“Why were they here, then?” Without dislodging his hand, she turned her head to look at him. “Did the government hear rumors of a possible breach attempt and send these people to keep watch?”
“I don’t know.” For a moment, the burden of untold centuries seemed to engrave itself upon his features, and he no longer looked smug or even confident.
Simply…tired. “I also don’t comprehend how a swarm of officials didn’t descend on this spot long before now, immediately after they lost contact with the guards. ”
Reaching up, she caught his hand in hers, tugged it down from her neck, and entwined their fingers. “I’d think their families would have reported them missing too. Or maybe their shifts normally lasted several days, and they weren’t expected home yet?”
Somehow, the thought of the guards’ families going about their daily lives, happily unaware that their loved ones had already died days ago, broke her heart into yet more pieces.
Her next inhalation hitched, and his grip on her fingers tightened. His thumb stroked over the back of her hand slowly. Soothingly.
“I don’t know,” he repeated, the exhaustion in his tone hardening to stony determination. “But I intend to find out.”
She allowed that resolve, that self-assured conviction, to soak into her bones. To draw her shoulders straighter and stiffen her spine. “ We intend to find out.”
His denim-blue eyes, now rimmed with black, met hers. “Study the scene, then. Find out what you can. And if you need to stop, just rest in the SUV until I’m done.”
He squeezed her hand, pressed a hard kiss to her temple, then let her go and headed for the narrow makeshift bridge. She left him to it, because she had no desire to test either her balance or the jerry-rigged structure’s sturdiness.
Swallowing back bile, she slowly walked over to the guards, who’d managed to flee as far as the tree line before succumbing to the onslaught.
Maybe if they’d been younger, they’d have made it, but apparently the government hadn’t felt the need to assign prime agents to a spot that hadn’t seen any disturbance for over two decades.
These men couldn’t have been far from retirement.
Not a single wedding band between them. Statistically, that seemed a little odd. Or were they not allowed to wear rings on duty?
Their heads had been clawed and chewed from their necks, their empty, white-haired skulls cleaved in two. Classic zombie injuries.
Only…what was that mark on the nearest guard’s arm?
“Max,” she called out. “Come look at this.”
After a minute, he reappeared at her side. “Both the hole in the wall and the bridge show distinct tool marks, so the creatures clearly didn’t break out on their own. Which we already knew, but it was worth confirming.”
“Hmmm.” Crouching by the corpse, she pointed a trembling finger at a small blistered spot on the guard’s elbow. “Is that a burn?”
He hunkered down beside her. “Yes.”
Something smelled…odd. The Edie of last week would never, ever have even imagined what she intended to do next, but that didn’t matter. Squeamishness wouldn’t get in the way of her survival, or possibly the survival of all humans on this continent.
Bending lower, she sniffed the charred wound. “Rotten eggs. Sulfur?”
“Brimstone. Still remarkably strong, given how long these guards have been dead.” He exhaled slowly. “I caught whiffs of it by the wall and on the bridge too. It’s the olfactory marker of demonic violence. Under most circumstances, they smell pleasantly smoky, but when they kill…”
She crawled to the other body. “This guard has a burn near his ear. It’s tiny, but it’s there.”
“Demons prefer to kill by turning their victims inside out.” His thumbnail scratched over his chin as he thought.
“It’s their signature move. But whoever murdered these guards didn’t do that, so this scene could easily be mistaken for pure zombie violence, if common human authorities didn’t look closely or recognize the significance of the burn marks.
Even the telltale brimstone smell should’ve dissipated hours before now and become detectable only to the strongest vampires, only for a very brief time longer. ”
Her brows pinched in thought. “You’re certain the guards were killed at the time of the breach?”
“Yes. They’ve been dead two days.” In response to her skeptical glance, he sighed faintly. “I’ve seen enough corpses to know. Do you want me to explain the signs?”
“ No ,” she said quickly. “Okay. So if they died two days ago, why is the sulfur smell still strong enough for a normal human nose to detect?”
She wrinkled hers in emphasis, because the rotten-egg reek wasn’t subtle.
His shoulder lifted in that inimitable Gallic shrug. “The demons were dealing with a horde of ravenous zombies they’d just released from captivity. Perhaps the stress heightened their scent. I’m not certain.”
“So you think the witch was right.” When crouching became uncomfortable, she knelt on the dirt instead. Her coveralls were already stained anyway. “Demons loosed the zombies.”
“Maybe.” He was silent for a moment. “If so, surveillance footage should clearly indicate their involvement, unless they bought and wore glamours. The zombies escaped before the power and internet went out.”
“Or the demons could’ve broken the cameras before the breach—without getting caught—or altered the feed somehow.
” Her poor brain. It was attempting, with limited success, to wrap around all the possible scenarios that could explain everything they’d seen.
“Could they survive entering the compound with the zombies still inside?”
“It would be highly unpleasant for them. Not fatal.”
Something was niggling at the edge of her thoughts, and she couldn’t quite grab hold of whatever it might be…until…yes. That was it.
“If demons did this…” A swing of her arm indicated the death and destruction around them.
“They were careless. Even if they glamoured themselves or tampered with the footage from inside the compound, there are burns on the victims. Common human authorities should be able to detect the abnormally strong smell of sulfur. And if they somehow couldn’t, those authorities would typically cooperate with SERC investigators, who would definitely detect it. ”
She didn’t buy that scenario. It didn’t smell right, brimstone be damned. “Are demons known for being reckless and sloppy?”
“No. Quite the opposite.” Max’s fingertip lightly tapped her forehead. “What are you thinking, my Edie?”
“We’re missing something.” She bent over the bodies again, swallowing against renewed nausea. “Give me a minute. I don’t want to disturb the evidence, but…”