MILES AND MILES AWAY . . .
Morgie Mitchell sat on the top porch step of the empty Imura house. He’d already been inside. The floors were swept, fresh curtains were hung on the rods, and the creaking sixth step had been repaired. His sword lay near his left hip, a bottle of pop was slowly going warm next to his right.
Tomorrow was his first full day of training with Solomon Jones and the Freedom Riders. He had no idea what to expect. The people who rode with Jones were all famous; all of them were on the Zombie Cards. Morgie had gone through his stack and pulled the cards of the active Freedom Riders. He went through them over and over again, looking at their faces, trying to imagine what they’d be like in person.
Sally Two-Knives with her wild Mohawk hair and glittering bowie knives.
J-Dog and Dr. Skillz, who spoke in an old surfer slang that no one really understood.
Fluffy McTeague with his lipstick, diamond earrings, and pink carpet coat.
Sam “Basher” Bashman with his baseball bats.
Quick-Draw Carl, who still wore the broad-brimmed brown hat of his legendary dad, Sheriff Rick.
Bobby Tall Horse, an Apache who wore a Roman breastplate and horsehair helmet into battle.
The crazy woman, Dez Fox, who they said traveled with the mummified hand of her dead husband in her backpack.
And so many others.
Each of them was a hero; each of them was surrounded by mystery and tall tales.
He shook his head. Who was he to even think that he was worthy of training with them, let alone riding out with them?
Who did he think he was?
He turned and looked at the house.
Morgie collected all his cards and put them neatly into his pack. Then he picked up his sword and walked out into the yard to practice the drills Tom had taught him.
64
GRIMM RAN AHEAD AS THEY approached the shattered face of the cliff. The air lock was a twisted ruin. Beyond it was a wide chamber with metal walls and concrete floors. Soot streaked those walls now. Shattered light fixtures swung from the ceilings on webs of torn wiring.
They stepped carefully and silently inside. The entrance chamber split into two corridors.
“Should we split up?” asked Lilah. “I can—”
“Not a chance,” said Joe. “This isn’t a bad horror movie. We stay together and we watch each other’s backs. No one goes into the basement in a negligee to investigate a strange noise.”
Lilah looked at him as if he was deranged. “What?”
“Nothing. Old pop-culture reference whose expiration date has apparently passed. Sad.”
Benny thought he heard the Lost Girl mutter the word “idiot.”
They took the left-hand corridor first, for no other reason than because it was closer to where they stood. There were closed doors on one side of the corridor. Joe stopped in front of the first one and gently tried the knob. It turned easily. He glanced at Lilah, who took up a defensive position beside him, then turned the handle the rest of the way and kicked the door open.
It was a closet. Metal shelves filled with boxes of office supplies. No zoms, no people.
They moved to the second door and repeated the process.
And froze.
There was a person in the room.
Seated behind a big desk. A laptop computer was open on the desk. The office was decorated with big framed photographs of running brooks, snowy mountainsides, lush autumn forests. The man in the chair sat with his head—what there was of it—thrown back. A shotgun stood on its stock between his thighs. Even from the doorway Benny could read the scene. A person—either desperate or perhaps infected—sits down, props the shotgun on the edge of the chair, thumb on the trigger, barrel under the chin, and says good-bye to everything in the most final way possible.