by Gareth Wood
Amanda walked in carrying two bowls, nodding her head to the beat. She smiled and sat down on the end of the bed's bare mattress. Robyn sat up and took one of the offered bowls and a spoon, nearly dropping it when she discovered it was scalding hot.
"Morning," the older woman said to Robyn, putting on a faux Scottish accent. "Eat your oatmeal. It's thick enough to stand on!"
Groaning, Robyn put the bowl aside and got out of bed. First things first, she thought, and went to use the toilet. When she returned, Amanda was sitting on her bed eating. The music was still playing, presumably from the iPod Amanda wore on her belt. It sounded like a cat was being tortured. Robyn picked up the bowl.
"Do I know this… song?" she asked, and took a bite of oatmeal. It was hot still, with a little honey and some dried blueberries.
"Tina Turner," Amanda said, as a guitar solo began. "Song is called 'One of the Living', from the Beyond Thunderdome soundtrack. Well, not this version of it."
Robyn listened to the shrieking, now able to identify the song. It was a lot faster than she remembered.
"Who…?"
"Gemalte Leiche. German black metal."
Having nothing to say to that, Robyn finished her oatmeal and then got dressed. She washed her face and hands with hot water from the stove, cleaned the dishes, and watched Amanda dance around the living room to what sounded like 'Ace of Spades'. Amanda was an unforgivably cheerful morning person, Robyn was coming to realise. It sometimes took Robyn nearly an hour to wake up fully, and until and unless she had some coffee, she could be out of sorts for hours. It was a problem these days, but one she had slowly learned to deal with. She had a very small supply of salvaged instant coffee with her on this trip, and was carefully rationing it.
Robyn waved to get the attention of her head-banging partner.
"What's up?" Amanda asked.
“Thanks for making breakfast. How long have you been up?"
"Long enough to listen to all of Badmotorfinger."
"How in the world do you keep that thing charged?" Robyn indicated the iPod.
Amanda grinned, pulling her facial scars around. "Solar charger, and lots of hope." She touched the device gently. "This is the third one I've had. I salvaged them from electronics stores and keep my computer going as well as I can. One day none of them will work anymore."
After clearing the table, they spread out a map of the region.
"So," Robyn said, peering closely at the route they had marked along the highway, "where do you want to try first?"
"Actually," Amanda said, "let's talk about something else."
"Why does that sound ominous?"
"I'm just thinking about the missing women, wondering if there's anything we can do about it."
Robyn looked incredulous. "You mean us? You and me?"
Amanda nodded. She sat down in one of the kitchen chairs.
"What could we do that professional, trained Sheriff's deputies couldn't do better and more efficiently?"
Robyn watched Amanda twirl a lock of her hair that had fallen over the burned side of her face. "Well, we could poke around in places the deputies can't go."
"Like where?"
Amanda shrugged. "Got no reason to go to the hospital. I'm sure the Sheriff will check out there and Essential Supplies. But I bet he doesn't talk to the salvage companies. We could do that."
Robyn crossed her arms over her chest. "And ask them what, exactly? What do they have to do with this?"
"Maybe nothing at all. I don't know. But maybe everything."
"What do you mean?" Robyn asked.
Amanda got up and walked into the living room of the safe house, and went to the window where she stood staring out. Robyn followed her.
"You gotta think, where do the bodies end up?" She turned to Robyn. "You agree with me that they're probably all dead?"
Robyn nodded, and waited for Amanda to go on.
"Where are the bodies? If they were just murdered we'd have found them by the smell or because they were wandering around hungry. So that means our killer is probably disposing of them outside Mission."
"But how?" As she thought about it, something else occurred to her. "That implies he's someone with the ability and reason to get outside the Wall sometimes."
"Right," agreed Amanda, "and we might not have noticed who that might be, but if we ask around enough we might be able to find someone like that."
"Maybe. But the ability to get outside the gates doesn't make someone a killer. It's just circumstantial."
"That's true, but I bet if we find a couple of people who meet the criteria, one of them is our killer."
Robyn looked closely at Amanda, trying to see into her motivations. She gave it up after a moment, realising she still didn't know this woman very well.
"You really want to do this?" she asked.
Amanda nodded emphatically. "Yup."
"Why?"
Amanda looked back out the window, tapping her fingers on the frame to an unheard beat.
"Probably because I hate being victimised because of my gender," she said tiredly. "This world has a lot wrong with it already. Having some psycho with a bunch of mommy issues killing women because they remind him of her… well, let's just say that's well past the limit of bullshit I'm willing to put up with."
Robyn turned her back on the grey skies and green plants outside, leaning against the wall beside the window.
"You’re taking this personally," she said.
"And so should you," Amanda told her. "As fun as the zombie apocalypse is, it set women back decades socially. The last thing we need is to be seen as weak."
Robyn stared at Amanda for a minute, but the older woman just kept looking outside, presumably waiting for Robyn to make up her mind.
What's it going to be? Do something, or do nothing?
The longer she thought about it, the more she realised it was impossible to do nothing.
To sit back and watch, knowing that I could have done something? Not fucking likely.
"Okay. I'm in," she said. "But where do we find the salvagers? We'd have to go back to Mission and ask where they are."
Amanda reached into her back pocket, then held out a sheet of paper, smiling wickedly. Robyn took it and looked at the list printed on it. It was a copy of the intended salvage plans of every company or small team that had filed in the last three days. Robyn looked at Amanda sharply.
"Where did you get this?"
Amanda wiggled her fingers. "I took it while we were filing. It was just lying there."
"You planned this all along!"
"Guilty as charged," Amanda said. "What can you do about it?"
The locations that salvage teams recovered from were, while not strictly secret, proprietary. Each company had a 'territory' that they salvaged from. Salvaging from another group’s territory was called poaching, and not looked on kindly. One or two person operations fell through the cracks, often able to salvage almost anywhere because they could carry so little. Still, there had been incidents in the past between groups who both claimed an area, only to have violence erupt. Only rarely had the Sheriff been involved, mainly because his office didn't really extend beyond the Wall.
"We're not supposed to have this, you know," Robyn said, waving the page.
"What are they going to do, take my birthday away?"
"They-" She stopped, put her hand up to cover her mouth with her fingertips. Hell with it, she thought. "Okay. Where do we start?"
"Well, I can't help but notice that Marquita's group is only about half an hour away, south of here. I bet we could find them pretty easily."
'Marquita's Marauders' was the name of a small salvage company, eight strong, that claimed an area south of Abbotsford that ran south to several kilometers over the old US-Canada border. They salvaged car parts, fuel, and lots of domestic items. They even hunted a little, sometimes coming back into the Safe Zone with a deer or moose.
"If they're still there. That's a pretty big area to
cover." Unspoken was the risk of running into the undead. They were thinly spread this far from the cities, but still hungry, and if enough of them heard or saw a living person they could be relentless hunters. And they were not to be underestimated. A situation could go from safe to lethal in no time.
"So, what do you think? Do we go find them and have a chat?"
It took only minutes to gather all of their things and prepare to leave. Strapping on all the weapons was the longest part of the operation. Once they were ready they opened the inner door of the safe house to look at the yard. Three of the undead were standing near the gates where the women had entered the night before. When the door opened and the two women stepped outside into the gentle rain they became more active, pushing at the fence to get to the fresh living meat that had appeared in front of them.
Robyn started to draw her handgun, but Amanda stopped her. "I got this," the scarred woman said, pulling an arrow over her shoulder. Robyn watched as she nocked and drew to her cheek, standing still in the yard not ten meters from the three undead. The first arrow flew off the bow shelf with a thwip sound and buried itself in the skull of the zombie on the right, punching out the back of the dead creature’s head with a hollow knocking noise. The dead man fell to the ground while Amanda drew another arrow. She drew to her cheek quickly, loosing the arrow as soon as her gloved fingers touched the corner of her mouth. Her hand moved back from her face even as that arrow struck the second zombie in the forehead, knocking it back off its feet to fall beside its fellow. Amanda's hand drew a third arrow, and she rolled it between her fingers and thumb, pulling it over her shoulder and onto her bow. She loaded and pulled, feeling the string bite into her fingers through the leather glove. Again, as soon as the string was drawn to her face, she loosed, then simply stood frozen to watch the arrow plunge into the right eye socket of the last dead man. All three shots had taken less than ten seconds. The mass of the arrow snapped the thing’s head back but didn't puncture the back of the skull. It landed face down, the end of the arrow hitting the ground with the weight of the zombie behind it. This forced the arrow to bend before the point could punch through the back of the skull, and the wooden shaft snapped into kindling.
"Ah, shit," Amanda said bitterly, "those arrows are expensive."
Nothing else moved within sight, so Robyn judged they were safe to set out. She opened the gate while Amanda loaded gear onto the bikes, including her bow and arrows, covered with an oiled canvas to protect them from the rain. They rode through the gate and Robyn got off again to close the chain link access. Outside were the signs that read 'Safe House Here!', spray-painted in huge black letters onto sheets of plywood painted white. The women set off to the south in the cool and wet morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Mission Safe Zone, September 10, 2013
Shakey walked to the Sheriff's office early in the morning under a light rain. He passed beneath the tall trees and the few people out on the streets waved as he continued on, Feynman padding happily at his side. The Sheriff's office was in the old RCMP detachment office on Main Street, surrounded by businesses and apartments. Even at this early hour it was open, and the cool light of electric lamps washed the sidewalk in front of the entrance.
Shakey pushed the door open, his arrival announced by the squeaking of hinges and the ding of a small bell hung from the door mechanism. Inside, a deputy sat at the desk, writing on a paper pad under the light of a small electric lamp. The desktop was filled with stacks of sheets of all sizes. There was no computer up front, not anymore, but there was a telephone. Phone systems didn't use much energy, so there were many households still using them. Getting a local phone exchange up and running had been one of the more demanding challenges the Council had faced once the Wall was up.
"Help you?" the deputy asked without looking up.
"Morning, Greg," Shakey said, "I'd like to see the Sheriff."
Deputy Greg Moreno looked up upon hearing his name. He smiled when he saw who it was.
"Hey, Shakey. Have a cup of coffee if you like." The deputy gestured at a service on a nearby table.
"Is it real coffee?" Shakey asked, eyeing the pot dubiously. It didn't smell like it.
"Not on my salary, it isn't," Moreno replied, picking up his phone. The deputy dialed and spoke to someone while Shakey poured a small portion of the brown liquid into a cup. He lifted it up and sniffed, then made a face.
"I think I'll pass," he said, putting the cup down on the table in distaste.
"Sheriff Reilly will be right out, Shakey," Moreno told him.
Only moments later a light came on in the hallway behind the deputy, and Sheriff Reilly walked out of the back.
"Shakey! Come on in. How are you?" He offered Shakey his hand, and the two shook.
"Good, Jim. Really good. Got something I want to tell you about."
The men walked down the hallway and through a larger open office area to the Sheriff's small office. Several desks in the open space were the domain of the deputies, and only one was here at the moment, a woman about thirty-five with long brown hair. Deputy McAunaul was a sometime customer of Shakey's. She was working on some paperwork and didn't look up when the two men walked through. Feynman sniffed at her in passing, and Shakey saw her hand drop very briefly to pet the dog's head.
"Have a seat," Reilly said as they entered the walled room, and sat in a comfortable armchair. Reilly's office was as familiar a sight to Shakey as his kitchen was a familiar place to the Sheriff. Next to him was a small table with a chess set on it, where the two men had spent many an hour. Shakey settled into the chair while Feynman sniffed at the chess set.
"Any progress?" Shakey asked.
Reilly didn't need to ask what he was referring to. "Some. Mannjinder is onto something, but it might not be related."
Feynman sniffed around the office, then settled herself at Shakey's feet. "Maybe I can help," Shakey said.
"What have you got?"
Shakey settled back again. After dropping off the guns he'd bought last night at his shop, he'd gone to see the forklift driver who had been laid off by Essential Supplies. When he mulled over what she'd told him last night Shakey had decided to tell the Sheriff in the morning.
"Jim, you know Helen Moore?"
"Can't say that I do," Reilly replied.
"She drove a forklift at the Essential Supplies warehouse up until a few days ago. She got laid off by Mr. Corrone."
Reilly's eyes narrowed. "Go on," he said.
"I went to see her last night, to see how she was doing. She told me that he got rid of her because she wouldn't take the night shift. One of the night shift workers was injured, and they needed a replacement for a few weeks. Helen has a young child and couldn't leave her alone at night."
"Okay," said the Sheriff, "I'm following so far."
"But," and here Shakey raised a finger, "there were two other people on day shift at ES who could drive forklifts, and were never asked to do the night shift."
"Personal vendetta?"
"Not that Helen was aware of. She worked hard, everyone on the crew liked her, even Mr. Corrone, she thought. But she told me something else. When he laid her off he smiled a little bit, she said. He tried to hide it, but she said it was on his face. She said she remembered because it never touched his eyes."
Reilly took a notepad and pen and jotted something down. He looked up at Shakey. "Got her address? I'd like to talk to her."
Shakey told him where Helen lived. The Sheriff sat back and thought for a minute.
"Did she tell you that no one else was asked?"
"Nope, that was Bob. I was at the warehouse yesterday buying some salvaged guns. I had to deal with Bob because Corrone was out all day. Good thing too."
"Why do you say that?" Reilly asked.
"Nothing, really. I just brought Feynman with me. Normally I don't take her inside the warehouse. She hates Corrone."
"Feynman?" Reilly looked over at the dog. "She loves everyone. Are yo
u sure?"
At the mention of her name the black dog got up and came to Reilly, hoping for a treat. She wagged her tail rapidly and sniffed at his hands, snorting when it was apparent there was no food.
"Is there anyone else she doesn't like?"
"Well," Shakey said, "she reacts like that to Doc McKinnon sometimes. Not all the time though. She likes him just fine whenever he comes by the shop for ammo."
"When else would she see the Doc?"
"At the hospital, I guess. I drop ammo there sometimes for the security and staff." Shakey thought for a moment, remembering. "Do you think it's because she's Z-trained?"
Feynman had been trained, along with every other able dog in the Safe Zone, to alert Shakey to the presence of the undead. She did this by growling and backing away from the zombies. It was called 'Z-training' by the instructors, and salvage teams would take trained dogs with them quite often. With their keen senses the dogs were excellent sentries.
"Might be. The Doc does autopsies on people who've turned and been put down. He probably gets the scent on him—"
Reilly suddenly stopped speaking and turned his vision inward, a look of intense concentration crossing his face. The Sheriff stood up abruptly and started to pull his gun belt on.
"Sorry, Shakey, but I need to go," the Sheriff said, sounding slightly distracted. "I have something to look into. Can you see yourself out?"
"Sure, Jim. Did it just occur to you that Corrone might have the same scent on him, and that's why Feynman hates him?"
Reilly chuckled. "That's some fine thinking from a stoned old hippie. You sure you weren't a cop once?"
Shakey smiled and stood up. "Nah," he said, "me, a jackbooted thug? My hair was too long."
Both men laughed. There was no venom in the words at all, just amusement.
"I really have to go," Reilly said, putting on his jacket and old RCMP hat. "Thanks Shakey, I mean it. This might really help."
"No worries," Shakey said, but Reilly was already gone.
INTERLUDE FOUR