A Time to Kill Zombies

by Jill James

  Spring, 1 AZ

  The demolished bridge was the first of three such detonations. The river people have made their point crystal clear—leave us alone. All hopes are pinned on Ryde being more welcoming. We’ve had no news recently from the recon group sent on earlier, but we’ve had neither the time nor the skill to set up the ham radio on the move. The boys of Rogue Vantage have reassured us they’ve learned to use it and can do so when we reach our destination.

  The brakes squealed as Josh stood on them. Paul’s hand shot to the dashboard and pushed. The Humvee jerked to a halt. The road was gone. Just gone. At least twenty feet of levee and asphalt was gone, with the river gushing into the fields on the other side.

  He slapped the dash and slammed back into his seat. “If it isn’t one damned thing, it’s another. Is a little help too much to ask for?”

  Paul turned to Josh. “I’ll tell the others. Once I get them moved back, you follow. I want us at least fifty yards back. Then we’ll see what we’ve got. I want everyone out of the vehicles. A car is replaceable, people aren’t.”

  He opened the door and stepped out. Moving down the line of vehicles he let the others know what was going on and to get out of the Humvee. At the last one he was faced with a million questions from the boys of Rogue Vantage.

  He held up his hand and they fell silent, even Dylan, which was a miracle all on its own. “I don’t know if it was an accident or on purpose. I don’t know if we can get across. I do know you boys are staying back here. If the levee starts to go, fall back. That’s an order.”

  His heart swelled as they all saluted him with precision that would have made a drill sergeant proud. He ruffled Dylan’s hair and strode back to the gap in the road. He and Josh moved forward as Suz pulled their backpacks out of the Humvee.

  One glance painted an impossible picture. The flow had become a small river on its own, they were not crossing here; Humvee or not. A rumble built from the other side of the break. A flash of orange filtered through the trees at the curve of the road until a large tractor turned the corner. A large man drove the machine with a load of boulders in the front bucket. Boulders he poured down into the break with a boom and a crash. As the bucket dropped, the man spotted them and his eyes bulged in his head as if he hadn’t seen live people in a while.

  The man turned the machine off and jumped down to the pavement. He rushed to his side of the gap. The man was enormous. He might even have Teddy Ridgewood beat in the muscle department. A grin broke across his freckled face as he pulled off his hard hat and revealed a head full of bright-red curls.

  “People. You’re alive people. Not the bad ones,” he yelled across the break.

  Paul smiled back. “Yes, people. Not the zombies.”

  He held his hands out as if they were puppies or other small animals learning to sit. “Stay. Don’t leave. I’ll fix this real fast.” His yells carried over the rushing water no problem at all.

  The big man hopped back into the tractor and turned it around and disappeared around the corner. Paul looked at Josh and his husband just shook his head and started laughing. Josh’s smile hadn’t been seen enough lately. He grasped his arm and squeezed.

  “Maybe our luck is changing,” Paul said.

  “Maybe someone is listening after all,” Josh added, placing his hand over Paul’s.

  Paul turned and got back to business. The Humvee were moved back and the group had gathered near the back of them. He spotted Suz’s bright-blonde hair among them. He slapped Josh’s arm. “Let’s get everyone updated.”

  They joined the group. The doctor and the twins stood in front of the rear Humvee, with the boys of Rogue Vantage sitting on the hood out of the way. The rest had formed a semicircle. Paul leaned against the vehicle and picked up one of the girls.

  “There’s a break in the levee road. But a man from the other side is already fixing it. Once he pours enough boulders into the gap, we should be able to cross and help him. We only saw the one man, but we all know to be cautious by now. I’ll talk for the group and get Intel from him before we share any of our own. Hopefully he knows what happened to the recon group as well. They had to go through here and the break looks fresh.”

  * * *

  Suz stretched and moaned as her back cracked in all the right places. What had seemed like a small repair had grown into eighteen hours of watching rocks pour into the water. For the first few hours, people had watched each batch of boulders drop and listened to the clatter of stone on stone. The boys of Rogue Vantage stayed the longest, until even their young boy excitement for heavy machinery was gone.

  By the middle of the night, the rocks were almost even with the road and the last load had been gravel to even out the patch of the levee break. Paul walked toward her from the dark. His gait one she would know anywhere.

  He leaned over and his lips found hers. He tasted of salty sweat and a flavor uniquely his own. The kiss deepened and his tongue slid along hers. A moan broke from her. This man could get her motor running with something as simple as a kiss or a touch.

  “I’m going to go with Fisher to get a final load of tar to seal the road,” he muttered once they broke for air. “Josh will stay here with you. I want to get a lay of the land before we all just drive down the road to God knows what.”

  “Fisher?”

  “Brandon Fisher. That’s what he says his name is.” He smiled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that he says his name repeatedly, like he might forget it if he doesn’t keep saying it. He’s either severely autistic or it’s an act. After all this group’s been through, I can’t risk it if it’s just a con game.”

  She bit her lip. “Can’t you take Josh with you?”

  He gasped her arms, his hands rubbing up and down them. “You and Josh need to protect the others. Especially the kids. I’ll be fine.”

  Her heart pounded. She couldn’t let those be their last words. Where had that rotten idea come from? She mentally pushed it away and locked it in the cellar of her thoughts.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too.”

  With a quick kiss, Paul turned and walked away. Her gaze followed as he strode over the pile of gravel and hopped up on the tractor with Fisher. She wrapped her arms across her chest. His smile seemed so sincere, but hadn’t they all? The cult leaders. The serial killers. The sociopaths and psychopaths. They all had smiles that said ‘trust me,’ didn’t they?

  Trying to bury the thoughts, Suz grabbed her brother and they did rounds of the other vehicles and the groups sleeping in them. Joseph and Doctor Shannon had gathered the young boys and the small girl twins and put them in the middle Humvee. As Suz walked up to the vehicle, Joseph Jones walked around from the rear.

  Suz caught a moment of sadness on the man’s face before he wiped it away with a small smile. The loss of his partner, Robert had torn the man’s heart out. Her breath caught at the thought of losing Paul. She would lose a part of herself if that happened.

  “Repairs done yet?” Joseph asked.

  She brought herself back to the present with a snap. “They went to get a load of tar for the repair. Don’t know how long tar takes to harden, but I would think sometime tomorrow morning. Guess that would be this morning.”

  “They? You mean Paul and the ginger?”

  She laughed. “Seems his name is Brandon Fisher, or so Paul says.”

  “Do we trust him?” Joseph’s smile disappeared and a grim look came into his eyes.

  “Paul’s not sure yet. He seems honest, but we can’t tell anymore, you know.”

  Her thoughts traveled to the devastation of The Streets of Brentwood mall by General Peters and his zombie army, to the deviousness of Reverent Bennett and his twisted flock of followers. She sighed. Couldn’t they just find a safe haven? Couldn’t anyone be good in this apocalyptic world? Evil wasn’t supposed to win, was it?

  As if he read her thoughts, her brother wrapped an arm around her shoulders
and pulled her in tight. “The man seems okay. Paul asked him about the recon group and he said the brown men came through here a while ago.”

  “Brown men?” Suz stared at Josh.

  “Pretty sure he meant Charlie and his sons, Zach and Tyler. Brown hair, brown skin, and mostly brown clothes if I remember.”

  Suz nodded. Paul had said the man might be autistic. Maybe to him they were brown men. Her breath came out in a sigh. Did it mean the man was honest or was he just good enough to give them little tidbits to drag them along?

  Her head came up at the rumble of the return of the tractor. She spotted Paul in the cab as the bucket came down and dumped a load of steaming black tar over the rocks and gravel. Her heartbeat returned to normal and her lungs filled as she took a long, much-needed breath.

  Her hand grasped the strap on her rifle as she realized the dumping of the tar put Paul on one side and the rest of them on the other. She didn’t take a deep breath or let go of the strap until Paul and Fisher placed boards over the hot mess and walked over.

  Her husband could have a poker face when needed, but his smile seemed genuine while he talked to the redheaded man. She put a matching smile on her face and watched as Josh had one to match. She knew the next few minutes were a test of the other man’s intentions.

  Paul came up to her and took her hand to pull her toward Fisher. Josh took a step and moved behind her. She put her hand out as Paul introduced them.

  “This is my wife, Suz.”

  Her smile grew as he swiped off his hard hat and wiped his hand on his dusty jeans. “Ma’am,” he whispered, shaking her hand.

  Paul placed his hand on her brother’s shoulder. “And this is my husband, Josh.”

  The man lost his smile for a moment and a furrow cut across this brow as if he were doing some deep thinking.

  Suz held her breath as the big man looked down at Paul. “Aren’t you supposed to have just one of those? My mama said you get a husband or wife. She didn’t say nothing about having both at the same time.”

  “We have a friend, Emily who says in this new world we get to be anything we want now and I wanted this to be my family,” Paul explained as Suz waited to see what happened next, afraid that even with her, Josh, and Paul they might not be enough to take on this lumberjack of a man if he decided he were angry with their family setup.

  A bigger smile broke out on the man’s face, shoving all his freckles into a solid section of pinkish-red skin. He reached out and took Josh’s hand and shook it. “Well, I’ll be. Maybe that was what Billy and Grace and Tabitha were talking about.”

  “Who are they?” Paul asked.

  “My friends from down river. They come and trade sometimes because I got goats and make cheese and they got chickens and have eggs.”

  Paul squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. Along with her husband’s quick return from a location down the road out of sight, maybe things would be better for their group.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jack and Lila

  Commander’s Log

  Objective Reached

  Apartment complex

  Walnut Creek, California

  Spring, 1 AZ

  The sunlight burst through the thinly-leaved trees and coated the devastation in a bright light. Smoke still wafted to the blue sky in wisps of gray and white. Jack placed a hand above a smoldering pile of embers.

  “A day or two at the most,” he told Lila as they skirted the edge of the apartment complex.

  He shook his head. Why would people choose to stay here? The complex offered no defenses other than the K-rails across the roadway that they’d hopped over once they reached the apartments where Lila was sure Selena was being held.

  No moans filled the morning air, but their passage through the land of the living was clear. The corpses on the ground had chunks of them missing. The single bullet holes in the foreheads implied someone had been alive long enough to make the undead dead.

  The unnatural silence continued as they hugged the building and made their way across the grounds. At one time it had been a beautiful setting, sitting on the edge of a creek. Tall trees shaded the area and cooled the air. A breeze rustling in the higher branches was the only sound other than their boot heels scraping against the pavement.

  Their footsteps echoed across a metal bridge bringing them to the front of the buildings. The area was cleared of any cars, making the wooden stage stand out. The cluster of the dead was heaviest in this area as if an event had been going on when the skinbag horde attacked.

  Bile rose in his throat, and Jack spit to the side to clear it. Naked women and young girls carpeted the stage, along with their blood and guts. He didn’t need the hand-painted banner above to know this had been a slave auction. The bright blue lettering confirmed it.

  The buzz of flies grew as they approached the stage. Lila gripped his hand and squeezed. The tremors in her body filtered through to him. He cataloged the death and destruction in his head and his heart sank. One little girl couldn’t have survived this massacre.

  Lila yanked her hand away and pounded up the stairs to the platform. Her eyes swept the area, her head swiveling back and forth, searching for one blonde-haired child. He watched as she stood up and inhaled deeply.

  “She isn’t here,” she said.

  “We’ll search the whole place,” he told her, taking her hand again after she came down the stairs.

  “If she got bit and turned, we’ll never know.” Her voice shook and he could see the tears coming next. He had to get her to pull herself together.

  “We’ll check every body. If she’s dead, we’ll at least know.”

  She nodded and continued to look as they strode on across the pavement and scanned every overgrown garden. A moan sounded from the edge of the creek embankment.

  Jack pulled his knife and Lila swiftly followed. He smiled at the determined look on her face. She may never be a zombie hunter, but she could protect herself if need be. That’s all he could ask of her.

  “Help me,” a male voice whispered from among the overgrown weeds.

  Jack held a hand up and moved forward. He stopped at a tattooed arm he’d recognize anywhere. They’d found Juan Morales. Or, at least, what was left of him.

  * * *

  She didn’t know what she expected to feel, but this sadness swamping her wasn’t on the list of emotions expected when they finally found the man who’d tried to kill her and stolen her child.

  Lila searched the area around her husband, but no young girl, blonde or otherwise, lay nearby. She squatted by his side. Blood was everywhere. It coated the dirt he sprawled across and covered him from head to toe. Several fingers were missing on his hand and his ribs showed through his torn shirt where sections of flesh were gone.

  For years she’d resented Juan. For taking her away from Jack. For not being Jack. Once she’d finally let Jack go in her heart, she and Juan had at least reached a comfortable understanding in their marriage. She’d hated him over the years, at no time more than the nightmare time at the toxic church with Reverend Bennett. But she’d never wished this torture on her husband. Soon to be her deceased husband. She had no doubts about that. The man had moments to live and if he’d ever felt anything for her, he would clear his conscience and tell her where Selena was.

  “Juan,” she whispered.

  His head turned and he stared blankly at her, the beginning of the film that would cover his eyes starting to form. “You made it.”

  “Yes. I’m here. Where is Selena?”

  He smiled. A cough rattled in his chest and exploded out of him with a gush of blood through his teeth and over his lips. He calmed and smiled at her again.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  Heat filled her face and her chest. She grabbed a hold of his shirt and shook him, yelling into his bloody face. “Damn you, Juan Morales. Tell me where my child is.”

  His back arched, his eyes rolled back in his head and he seized. His body jerked and thumpe
d on the ground.

  Lila grabbed him until it passed. “Don’t you dare die on me yet, Juan. Where is our child?”

  The man stared up at Jack standing behind her. “She isn’t our child, is she, Commander? Now, that little puta is no one’s child. I sold her.”

  Lila fell back on her butt, her bloody hands held out in front of her. “You sold her?” she whispered. “Juan, how could you?”

  “Easily. I got a car and twenty gallons of gas for her. You know what that is worth nowadays?”

  She moved forward and grabbed Juan’s hand where his missing fingers should be. A scream tore from his throat and she ignored it, squeezing harder.

  “Where is my child?”

  He stared at her, tears of pain mixing in watery, bloody tracks down his face. “I’ll never tell you, slut. You’ll never know where she is, whether she is dead or alive. Payback’s a bitch, bitch.”

  His voice trailed off, his eyes filmed over, and a moan built in his throat as the thing that had been Juan tried to sit up and reach for her.

  “I should leave you like this,” she cried as she pushed the knife into the base of his skull and the thing collapsed to the ground.

  She fell back and the tears poured down her face. A moan grew and she stopped when she realized it was coming from her own throat. Strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her up. His voice whispered in her ear. “He sold her. That means she isn’t here, lying dead somewhere.”

  Hope blossomed in her heart at Jack’s words. And died just as quickly. “But we don’t know who he sold her to, or where they went.”

  “Search him. Maybe there is something in his pockets. With the dead on the platform and the crowds here, I’m thinking the auction was going on when the undead hit the place.”

  They dug through his pockets. Jack scooped up car keys and put them in his own pocket. The money was useless and Lila let it fall to the ground and blow away. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a bloody scrap of white paper a few inches from Juan’s hand. It could be garbage, but she snatched it up anyway.