October 18, 6 p.m. Year of the Curtain+5
Unnamed island 200 miles east of the Brazilian coast
Through the sights of his rifle, Peter Layne saw the dead man move. The shuffling thing that used to be a pilot, at least judging by its clothes, was creeping up on a live man. And Peter knew this live man well. To be honest, there were moments in the last two months when Peter would have been sorely tempted to allow the thing to turn Mitchell Boyle into an appetizer, but wiser heads prevailed. Boyle was tough – a slave driver, to be honest, but he’d also been the one who turned Peter from a spoiled, helpless blueblood into someone who might theoretically stand a chance of staying alive when the shit hit the fan.
Peter was 200 yards away from Mitchell. The zombie was about 10 yards away, and Peter had only three rounds in the rifle he was clutching through bony, aching fingers. Mitchell was slumped against a tree, seemingly asleep, and the thing was dragging its food towards him in a torturous, inexorable motion. Just before Peter pulled the trigger, the thing drew up behind a tree, then another one. It was maybe seven yards from Mitchell now, and Peter started to get nervous, and the moment the beast again pulled itself into his sights, he fired. He wasn’t steady, though, and he saw the bark of the tree burst open, spraying splinters into the air. The dead man continued to lumber forward. Peter took a deep breath and steadied himself. The creature kept on sloughing towards Mitchell, a step and a lurch, a step and a lurch, on and on. He placed the thing’s head in his crosshairs and fired again. This time, though, he misjudged the thing’s gait. It lurched at the wrong time and the bullet whizzed behind its back.
“Dammit, dammit,” he hissed at himself. He lowered the gun and took another breath. It was four yards from Mitchell now. Peter had one shot left. If he missed again, the consequences would be nasty. He shouldered the rifle and looked through the sight. The zombie’s arms were raised now, reaching for Mitchell, who still wasn’t budging. Peter aimed. Timed. Estimated the zombie’s gait. And fired one more time.
The zombie’s shoulder popped, black blood staining its blue shirt. It didn’t miss a step.
“God dammit, god dammit, god dammit!” It was over. He’d failed. And the price…
Two hundred yards away, Mitchell opened his eyes, drew a handgun from a holster tucked beneath his armpit, and blew the zombie’s head open with a single shot. Chunks of the beast’s head flew behind it and it staggered, hitting its knees before toppling over. Before the re-killed pilot could hit the ground, Mitchell had his walkie talkie in his hand and was cursing at Peter.
“Son of a bitch, Peter, what the hell was that?”
“I’m sorry, Mitchell, I–”
“I don’t want to hear it! Three shots, Peter. Three shots! My blind grandmother could have taken him out in three shots!”
“I–”
“I said I don’t want to hear it! You screw up and get yourself killed, fine. We’ll throw a party and put your name on a quilt. You screw up and get me killed, I’m haunting your ass! Do you hear me?”
Peter didn’t answer this time. He didn’t need to. Mitchell was right, there was no way around it.
“Now get your ass back on the practice range. Two more sessions before dinner. You don’t get your tuition back if you die, and the Academy doesn’t have failures. Only corpses.”
Peter slung the rifle onto his back and started to run. He was paying the Academy a hell of a lot of money to learn how to stay alive and how to kill the Dark Things. As long as he was failing at either of them, he was going to push himself twice as hard as Mitchell did.
Assuming that was possible, of course.
