Zombies Don't Ride Motorcycles

by Melissa Leo-Pahl

  So this is what that little girl was up to.

  Byron’s lumbering silhouette was hunched over, pushing a child sized peddle car with Fayte in the front seat. She gave a quick scream of glee, while the big man tried his best to balance his grips. He kept the speed down to avoid toppling the car over. Jace caught up to Charlie and shook his head in disbelief. His disbelief caved in and a suppressed smile peaked out amongst its wreckage.

  “What the hell,” he chuckled.

  They had reached the end of the aisle and Fayte emphatically gestured back to their starting point.

  “Again! Mush! Mush Uncle Bryon.” she commanded.

  Byron sighed and put his back into it once more, and in seconds they were barreling back. He put the brakes on just as they were about to smack into them. In only two passes Fayte had managed to bring them a small modicum of hope and no small measure of joy. She made a mental note of the beaming smiles on each of their faces.

  Mission accomplished.

  Byron at this point was a bit winded. He tossed his torso back and it cracked audibly. Rubbing his lower back, he looked up at the pair and chuckled. “I’m not used to that kind of work,” he said. Byron then produced a puzzled look on his face, wondering just why he said that. Most of his memories involved being someone else’s workhorse.

  Fayte smiled devilishly at Jace. “Your turn.”

  It took only that instant and she had him wrapped around her little finger. How could he deny her? He smiled awkwardly back to Charlie and stepped in to take Byron’s place as head pusher. Fayte got more than she bargained for on this run. Jace was indeed the sleeker, faster model. She could not keep up with the speed of the wheel, so she pulled her feet off of the pedals. She spread her arms wide screaming with excitement as her little feet lost purchase of the pedals as they were lost in the blur of the wheels. It had been too long since she was able to let loose like this. Way too long.

  Charlie studied this Jace with more attention than she cared to admit to herself. She was impressed with how he handled himself with the girl. This act surely proved he had a good heart, even if his act with Ellie’s attacker did throw her for a loop. Still she could hardly blamed him. She was on the verge of doing the same thing, and she was not even Ellie’s sister. Jace returned the racer back to the starting point, where Charlie was obliged to take over. Charlie went for two runs back to back, showing off her stamina. They continued, each in their own way, taking turns. For a very short time, in a long time, Fayte had literally become the happiest child on the planet.

  Jace had barely finished his return run when an unfamiliar voice invaded their ears.

  “Well. What do we have here then?”

  Charlie looked up and completed one double take before snapping her arm behind her back and whipping out her gun. The safety was flipped off the second her fingers gripped the handle. Her aim was steady as she waved it in front of her, lingering on each figure who disrupted her little girls moment.

  “Whoa, whoa whoa!” A young man threw his hands up, although he was clearly armed with a rifle. Three other young men stepped around at the end of the aisle. From a god’s eye view, it looked like a standoff ripped from the history books at the OK Corral.

  The three other young men appeared puzzled, but did nothing. They stood relaxed, their arms holding weapons slung around their necks, but kept them pointed out and away from the group.

  Charlie's instincts took over just like they always had. Protect the innocent. Shield their little girl from the danger that snuck up on them and ruining the first normal moment since society collapsed into chaos and death. Jace and Byron followed her lead and pushed Fayte behind them.

  Protecting her at all costs. Charlie only hoped that the visitors stumbled upon them first and not the traumatized Ellie, whom they all seemed to have left without thinking alone to her thoughts.

  Four boys or teenagers just like her stood in front of them positioned like football players on a field. Readying themselves and waiting for the quarterback to throw the ball so they could rush the line. She just hoped that these guys would be decent and that this particular confrontation with someone that was alive wouldn't end up like the grease monkey bastard they had sent to his death just a few hours before.

  All four of the newcomers sensed the tension radiating off the new family they caught living it up in the toy section of Wal-Mart. Thinking along the same lines, all four boys lifted their hands up and away from their concealed weapons. A gesture Charlie took as they meant no harm since the two menacing looking brutes in front even managed what some might call a panty dropping smile. Too bad the pretty boy look didn’t work on her, she liked them more rugged.

  The tallest of the four took a cautious step forward and said “We were just passing through and saw some poor bastard become a Z’s snack out front. We had hoped to make it to him in time to at least put him out of his misery, but we were too late. I’m Cross by the way. And these are my brothers. Rhyce, Tren and Callen.”

  Charlie refused to speak while she was assess the situation. Only nodded in acceptance. She wondered how much did they see? Did they watch as Jace and Byron flung the man out to the waiting sea of cold dead flesh and sharp teeth? Would they judge them by the justice they felt was deserved for one losing all signs of humanity?

  “I wanna see.” Demanded the resident childhood genius.

  Bryon lost his grip on the smallest one's shoulder as she forced her way through the barricade of legs shielding the innocent little girl from view. Her pig tails bounced lightly with each calculated step she took towards the intruders. Stopping in from of each one she began sizing them up. Cataloging their postures, looking for visible weaknesses, anything she could use to outsmart them. She needed to know their position in the game they were playing. Were they knights here to defend her honor? Or were they just like a Rook, waiting for the order to plow through. Or could they be just like them, simple pawns....completely disposable.

  Fayte's eyes began to shine with a hint of mischief as she took another step forward and then another. Charlie silently flipped the blade she had hidden in her back pocket out and held it with her thumb rubbing into the handle, preparing it to throw it and grab Fayte with her free hand.

  But a giggle escaping from her little girls lips froze her to her spot. With the most angelic voice she had, Fayte dipped her head to the side and looked at the four boys in front of her. Twisting her body side to side, she imitated a ballerina dancer, finishing with an innocent, albeit dramatic curtsey. She posed her question to the one with glasses and the biggest disarming smile.

  “Would you wanna play?"

  “Stay out of my bubble, or else.” she added with a sharp smile.

  Tren smiled from atop his cardboard box perch. He could not help himself in letting his mischievous side shine through. He stared at Charlie from beneath his glasses and let them drop a notch to the tip of his nose, before pushing them back up mockingly.

  “Oh yeah?” he smirked. “Bubbles are meant to be popped, chickie-poo.” With this, all of the Junction City boys exploded into a fit of laughter. What a close-knit bunch these guys were.

  Charlie put her hands on her hips and kept smiling. She kept her eyes on the Tren-boy’s eyes, keeping his attention at face level. Slowly she put her right boot behind her and twisted hard on its heel. With a loud snap, a 5-inch obsidian blade sprang forward and locked into place at the front of her boot. Tren enjoyed a split second more of smiling before Charlie had closed the distance between them. She ran up up and was face to face to him in time to watch his smile shatter into fear. Nose to nose, he winced hard upon hearing the telltale scrape and pop of the boot knife making its deposit into the box, just below his scrotum.

  She stabbed at him again, this time with her eyes. In them, Tren saw the true depths of her fury. Her icy stare left only a tear’s breadth of room between them. “So, Tren” she whispered, her breath hot on his face. “This is what it’s really like in my bubble. You stayin’ in . .
. or gettin’ out?” Tren had not noticed that in closing the distance, Charlie had produced a second blade in her hand. She slipped it up to his neck unnoticed, until he felt her push the flat of it upward into his Adam’s apple.

  He giggled nervously. “I think I’ll just mind my own bubble. Wouldn’t want you to get all pop-happy with my neck.”

  “That is what I thought.” She stepped back and sheathed both weapons, reaching her foot up to her hand with a quick slap and a click.

  Tren rubbed his neck gratefully and smiled. “I like your style Charlie. You don’t put up with much. Kinda fits in with our style.”

  “Your style?” She inquired with one eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah. We could always use another brute in our little group. And besides. You’ve got bigger balls than all of us. Especially Rhyce here.”

  “Hey!”

  “My bad bro.” Tren held his hands up in surrender while a playful smile lingered on his lips.

  “Not cool man.” Rhyce crossed his arms in mock anger. His forearms looked like Lincoln logs, one stacked on top of the other.

  Charlie eyed them down. They seemed to all be pretty down to earth boys. God knows what stories they could tell from running around. They were obviously not in their home town anymore, judging from their accents. She found herself humming Just The Good Ole Boys in her head. It fit them. Just good, salt-of-the-earth, take no shit from anyone kind of people. Yes. They could use some of that.

  Charlie sat back down. “So, tell us a little about yourselves.”

  Tren continued before the boys could each get a chance to introduce themselves.

  “Well, our four man team hails from Junction City. Two of us, the twins are actually brothers, but we all took a blood oath long ago when we were little kids. We’ve been blood brothers ever since.”

  Charlie nodded. She could see what he was saying was truth. There was a bond between these young gentlemen that could never be broken. Real Three Musketeers stuff. Tren was obviously playing the part of Porthos. He was indeed much like that self-same character. Loud, brash and self-important. He even continued his introductions of his comrades-in-arms in a mock English accent that was not very good.

  “Here we have the twin brothers,” he said pointing at himself and pulling his brother in. “I am Tren, and this handsome devil is Callen.”

  Fayte giggled. This guy was pretty funny. She did not think that either one of them were all that cute. If she had to pick, it would have been Callen. He seemed to know when to keep his mouth shut.

  “We, as you may say, are the brains of this outfit.”

  Rhyce couldn’t help himself but chime in. “Yeah. We call them ‘Right brain’ and ‘Left Brain”, He chuckled at his own joke.

  Tren released his brother and pointed at Rhyce, shaking his finger violently.

  “And this knave is Rhyce. Strong as an ox.” Tren paused for Rhyce to savior the compliment for just an instant. “And twice as dumb.”

  Rhyce closed his hands into a fist and raised it up. He looked down in between his knuckles, using them like sights on a handgun.

  Fayte walked up to Rhyce and sized him up once more. She took a moment and walked to each of the boys, staring at them, scanning. She remained quiet after each one, keeping her results to herself. Each of them looked her dead in the eyes, questioning, but unflinching. She smiled and walked into the middle of them all, like a town crier on a soapbox.

  “I like ‘em. Can we keep them?”

  Rhyce smiled. “The kid has got some good instincts.”

  “I am beginning to see that,” replied Charlie.

  Fayte made a face and tried make herself look a bit more digestible by sticking her tongue out at the both of them.

  That night they were all gathered around the Coleman, sitting on coolers and various pop-up chairs they could find. It was all a helter-skelter mix, nothing uniform. Fayte decided that she would not have it any other way. It reminded her of some of the parties her dad used to take her too. Cook outs with all his buddies from work. Everyone pulled up what they could to sit and talk junk around a bonfire, while all of the kids ran around it catching fireflies, playing tag and stealing cans of sodas out of the cooler when the adults were not looking. This felt like home.

  Charlie was taking a sip of her lukewarm soda when she watched Tren pull out his tablet and started tapping on the glass.

  “Nice to no some electric things still work,” she said.

  Tren looked up. “Oh, this? Yeah. We use the charger in the truck when we are driving to keep it powered. If I could have brought our game system with us and found a way to power that I would have done that too,” he smirked. He leaned his head back in close to the pad and starting tapping more vigorously.

  “So. What are you writing?” asked Fayte.

  Rhyce raised his hands. “I got this one,” he grunted. “Whenever we go into a building or area that is infested with those freaks, we use whatever is in the room to take care of ‘em. We try not to use the guns as they attract more of the walkers. Keeps the game a bit more fair you see.”

  “The game?” asked Fayte.

  “Yeah. Our goal is to kill all those Zs in every way we possibly can. Callen scores us on our creativity and use of things that already exist in the environment.”

  Tren looked up. “Environment. That’s a big word for you Rhyce. You sure you wanna be throwing that around like that. You might strain that last brain cell.”

  “Fuck you Tren.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a game I would like to play,” said Fayte.

  “Well, we have gotten very, very good at it,” said Tren, looking up from his entry. “We can go into any room and find some way to use anything in there as a weapon, sometimes even the room itself.”

  “I bet that comes in real handy,” said Charlie.

  “You bet it does,” replied Rhyce. “That is not to say that we haven’t had any close calls. But, we learn from our mistakes.”

  “You guys are pretty much a working like a Black Ops team then, huh,” Jace chimed in.

  Callen chuckled. “Yeah, but we got more panache.”

  “So, how does your point system work?” asked Charlie. She was curious and obviously it was better than trading horror stories of how they each lost everyone they had ever loved.

  Rhyce cocked his head to the side in thought. “You know, I actually don't know. Callen is the one writing all of the journal entries of our little adventures, so after it is all said and done, he assigns the points. Sometimes we argue over it, comparing one method’s point reward over another, but overall it just gives us something to pass the time.”

  “You all look like a bunch a drinkers to me, why not use that to pass the time.”

  Cross and Rhyce exchanged knowing looks, as if telepathically reliving the night they awoke to the nightmare.

  “Yeah. We don’t drink anymore. We would hate to be taken off our guard. Did that once and it wasn’t pretty.”

  Charlie nodding in understanding. She had never partaken in alcohol, not for lack of trying. She was just always too busy with her extracurriculars to get involved in that sort of thing. This was something more she could honestly thank her parents for. Intentionally filling her hours with things that would minimize her chances on becoming a hellion.

  Fayte was beginning to feel left out. “I tried whiskey once.” She offered.

  “Fayte!” Charlie’s mouth dropped in surprise.

  Fayte shrunk back down, feeling ever smaller and claustrophobic in the chair that was almost swallowing her.

  “It was just a little swig. And it made me so sick. I am never touching that stuff ever again.”

  “You had better not little girl,” warned Charlie. She shook her finger at her mockingly and then, instantly turned it into tickles. Fayte exploded into laughter, little arms and leg flailing ineffectively against Charlie’s onslaught. She was thankful to have only received only a minor scolding. She was also glad to get that off of her chest. The l
ittle girl had never told her father what she had done. One more secret.

  “So, Tren writes everything down you say?” Charlie’s curiosity into their methods peaked.

  “Yeah. We figured if anyone was still out there and if there was still internet anywhere, we could upload our little tactics book for every situation we have ever been in, and maybe it might just help somebody survive until we meet up with them.”

  “Any luck with that?”

  The boys faces all went solemn.

  “Well, we find Wi-Fi every once in a while. It seems to be becoming rarer as the weeks pass. But one time we got a message back on a survivalist message board. Tren uploaded everything we had and told them where and what to use as weapons, until we could join up with him.”

  “Him?’

  Callen nodded. “Him and his wife. We were given directions and we took a little side trip to meet up with them.”

  “I take, it didn’t go so well.”

  Callen’s whole demeanor went solemn. “When we got to their home, there wasn’t much left of them. The walkers had literally poured themselves in through every door and window.”

  “Yeah, we had about thirty of them to take out before we worked our way to their bedroom. It was one of the most gruesome sights we have come across.”

  “So, what’s in this little tactics book of yours?” Jace was curious now how these four boys had got along so far.

  “Well, even though we have our own weapons, most of them make a lot of noise. Noise attracts even more walkers and then we have a bigger problem. We try to use whatever is on location to dispatch and clear out whatever building we are in. Similar buildings have similar tactics that we use, although we seem to come up with some pretty original ideas of using the environment.”

  “Original ideas?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean aside from surviving. Killing zombies is all we got. Kinda gets boring putting them down all the same way. Gotta mix it up a little bit.” Tren smiled.

  “Sounds kinda psychotic,” Jace said.