by Mark Clodi
Several of the soldiers pressed forward to snap pictures of Dora and Paige, most did it covertly, but several asked for others to take their pictures with their phones. Dora acceded with ill grace until she learned that the last of the people on her bus had been offloaded and brought across the military zone to an impromptu medical station. All of the survivors had to pass a quick blood test, which was a piece of plastic with a needle in it, the device turned green if you were alive, and black if you were not. Dora passed the test that Strafer gave her and moved up towards the wall that separated Iowa's territory from that of the zombies. Before passing through the gates she ran into Becka, who was arguing with two soldiers.
Lieutenant Strafer was shadowing Dora by then, not leaving her side. "What is going on Becka?"
"I am not going in."
"What? Why not? We made it!"
She shook her head, "No, you go in. I am going to go back and you can't make me stay."
Dora looked at the lieutenant and raised one eyebrow, he answered by saying, "She hasn't passed into our territory yet, we won't force anyone in who doesn't want to go. But she'll have to be tested again if she comes back and once she is in…well citizens have to stay, for their own safety."
Stopping in her tracks Dora looked at him, "What? And you were going to let me walk in there without telling me?"
"We need you Dora." Strafer said, a pleading tone in his voice.
"Me? Why?"
"You are good news. You know how much bad news we have had recently? You're getting to us is the first good thing to happened in two months, it will raise morale, everything will be a little better. Your interview was the last one Ned did and was re-broadcast constantly in the days after Kansas fell. Everyone wondered about you, what happened. Everyone thought you were dead, but didn't want to admit it, now you're alive and we can use that. To make people happy."
Slowly Dora nodded, "I suppose I can see that. But I thought I could come back out here if I needed to. You see Johnnie; I have a little unfinished business to attend to. Now that I know better I will stay with Becka, walk her back partway, and try to figure out what the fuck she is doing."
"Please…" began Strafer, then he saw the look in Dora's eyes. "Third Platoon, we are going out with Dora to provide cover for her, form up around us now!" the men and women around them groaned, but did as they were told turning to march back towards the buses where other soldiers were offloading the luggage into Army trucks.
"What, you aren't keeping the buses?"
"It's a quarantine ma'am. We have to go through all of your stuff, remove bio contaminants, then clean the buses and put them back into service."
They approached Becka's motorcycle, still sitting next to the pickup trucks where she had parked it. Becka went to the pile of backpacks and poked around a little, then cried out with joy at discovery that her own pack was there. The young woman slung it across her back as she came over to Dora.
"Stupid, Becka, real stupid to go back out there." Dora said to the girl offering her hand. Becka took it and they shook, "Why?"
"Jake is out there."
"Are you in love or something?"
"It isn't like that. He made a promise to me."
"Yeah to all of us."
"Who's Jake?" asked Strafer.
"A super zombie, he helped get us here."
"One of them helped you?"
"Oh lighten up Johnnie! I did what I had to do, you would have done the same thing." turning back to Becka, Dora said, "So, Jake and you are going to…what?"
"Go get Father Cruz."
"Shit. You could have said something this morning; we would have swung by there and got him."
"We didn't think about it until after the bridge. No one did. Not even Mary."
"You know I wonder if the twins were keeping the zombies away from him or if it really was his faith?"
"It was his faith." Becka said firmly. "Look." she raised her arm to point at the blue Caliber sitting a quarter mile down the highway, "He knows I am coming."
"Well lets go, I got a few last questions for Jake too."
"Ma'am, we can't…we can't talk to the intelligent ones, it is a court marshaling offense, some people see it as traitorous."
Looking at the surrounding, almost hostile faces of the soldiers around them Dora sighed and said, "Thanks for the fucking heads up Johnnie. Remind me to warn you five minutes after you do something stupid too."
The man reddened, but said nothing.
"Fine you wait here. I'll be fine and I am not in the army and I sure as hell am not a traitor."
Becka pushed the motorcycle away from the squad, several of the soldiers started forward too, only to be yelled back into position by their lieutenant.
Up ahead of them they saw Jake step out of the beat up Caliber and go around to the passenger's door where he helped a battered looking Steve out.
Nodding Jake said, "Dora."
Dora marched up to Jake and punched him in the face, "You son of a bitch! I should kill you!" her eyes were watering, either from the pain of using her fist to break Jake's nose or from the anger and sadness that was flowing through her head, she couldn't tell.
"Now Darling, don't be that way!" said Jake stepping away in an attempt to avoid further blows, "Just let me explain."
"Explain? Explain what? You said it would be days at least or possibly never that you recovered without any food. Well I know what happened, we left you some food right there didn't we? I was so fucking stupid! But that doesn't mean you had to do it."
Steve had straightened and behind her she could hear clomping boots coming down the highway at a run. Turning she waved the soldiers back, but they just crouched into firing position and held their ground. Going back to Jake she stepped in front of him. He automatically pulled away, but she reached out and grabbed his wrists, "Don't you stupid son of a bitch, if I am between you and them they won't fire. Now tell me what happened or I will step out of the way."
"It was Willy's idea. He thought you would need me. He suspected there would be a lot of really stupid slow zombies for me to push out of the way when you got close. He was right, I couldn't get them all away from you, not with you so far away and the others calling them to cut you off, but I did my part of it and I did it well. Willy offered, I thought his offer made sense."
"Fuck." said Dora releasing him. Jake reached forward and patted her cheek affectionately.
"Yeah, he said he counted as ten pints too, so I will cross a few off of my list. I tried to barter him down to six as he was mostly bled out by then, but he insisted on ten."
Dora laughed, "That sounds like Willy."
He pushed Dora to arm's length and looked her in the eyes, "It was his dying wish Dora. I swear it."
Dora nodded and asked Steve, "So what's your story?"
Steve's face was a purple mash, one eye was swollen shut and he had a long cut down his left arm, which hung limply by his side. It looked like the bleeding had stopped and crusted over. He cleared his throat before talking, the bandage was missing. "Not much of a story. You left me there half dead to fight the other super zombie and then fight my way through the rest of the God damned mob on my own. Fortunately I was not too far from Jake and when he saw me he lent a hand. I saw him kill her."
"Kill….?"
"Mo. Squished her head apart with his bare hands and tossed the pieces to either side of the road."
Dora looked at Jake with disgust, "You touched my face with your hand? Eew!"
Jake laughed and looked at Becka. "You still coming with me?"
She nodded.
"Do you want to ride with me or on that death machine of yours?"
"Hey I've gotten better! Besides two vehicles might be handy."
"There are still three super zombies left over from the wonder twin's group. I trashed their car, but they got away, they might give us some problems."
Becka shrugged, "If not them, then someone else. Let's go before the soldiers creep all the way around us and try to
ambush you."
"Aw, concerned about me are you? Don't worry they are still too far away."
"It is not concern. I think I need you."
Jake smiled wryly, "The Goddamned story of my life. Everyone needs me, no one cares about me." Turning to get back into the car he called out, "Dora, if it's a boy, 'Jake' is a good, strong name don't you agree?"
Becka turned to give Dora an appraising look, to which the other woman nodded slightly, "I should have known."
Dora shrugged, "I won't make that mistake Jake. You never name your kids after living people you know, it messes things up for everyone."
"Sweetheart I've been dead for three months. Dora, Steve, take care of yourselves, I'll be seeing you." Jake started the car, then backed around and turned it back the way they had come, Becka followed slowly on her motorcycle. Dora watched until the smoke from the burning town closed over them.
Epilogue
Eighteen months later.
Dora sat at a heavy wooden desk, looking at a small laptop computer, she was different from the woman who had escaped from Kansas in the early days of the zombie war, there was a fresh scar which started under her chin and ran up the side of her face, under the new patch over her eye and up and over her forehead. The office she was in screamed Spartan efficiency, there were few papers on her desk and one wall was lined with weapons; a heavy rifle, three different shotguns, a hefty metal crowbar and several knives were hung there. More space was available for other weapons on the wall and outlines indicated where a couple of handguns belonged when she was not carrying them. One photo sat on her desk, facing her, it was of a toddler, he was wearing a purple one piece jumper and looked to be a little less than a year old.
Willy Jacob Sturges was doing well, despite infrequent visits from his mother. Dora had foisted her son out to Mary and Alex to take care of, when Peter was around he doted on the boy too. This Willy's eyes were neither hers nor Roger's, instead they were a pale blue color that Dora most often associated with the sky or shallow Caribbean ocean waters. Willy was super human fast too, far faster than any kids should be, it was an effect of her carrying him to term; some of her powers had passed on to her child. Giving birth to him had been difficult for Dora, there were doctors, including Mary, who were studying his development closely. Willy's birth had been a harrowing experience that both the mother and son had almost not survived. The problem was Dora healed faster than normal, her body sought to mend any damage it had been dealt and treated the natural damage of child birth as a hurt to be healed immediately. In the end a team of surgeons had performed an incredibly messy and fast Cesarean section to remove the little devil before both of them died. The pregnancy was not something Dora thought she would ever do again, although she was still theoretically capable of having another child.
As for Dora she had found a job that fit her well. The Iowan's were not yet stable; they were at war and had been every single day since Z-day. The government in charge had been gathering people like Dora, those who shown any enhancement from killing so many zombies, into a special task force. Dora, of course, had risen to the head of the new agency. She was perhaps not the most enhanced of all those under her, but she could get people to do what she, and the government, needed done. In particular, Dora was tasked with training the candidates to find and neutralize any super zombies that threatened the nation, which still called itself the United States of America. Flipping through the latest pair of recruits Dora sighed, it was the middle of May and she had not been outside much to enjoy the warm weather. The two recruits looked like they barely qualified for her lowest rung of training, these days she had to take what she could and their records seemed to indicate they could at least use their heads and think on their feet when they had to. She closed down the files and pressed an intercom button, saying "Paige?"
"Yes Dora?" came the immediate response.
"I am taking the afternoon off, set these latest two to begin training Monday, okay?"
"Good, give me five minutes and I'll come with you."
"Why, Paige I haven't had that good of an offer for two years now!" but Dora's voice lacked the enthusiasm it once had for such a double entendre.
"Ha-ha, you are so not funny anymore, what happened to your humor?"
"I grew up. Anyway have them here at seven on Monday morning, with enough stuff for a 'Tier One' course, okay?"
"Only minimal training? I thought they looked like they had potential for better…" said Paige. The agency had three tiers of training, simply known as tiers one, two and three. Ninety percent of all augmented humans fit inside of 'tier one', 'tier two' took ninety percent of what was left, leaving only one person in a hundred as a tier three.
"Lord, I need a break and you are an optimist. Fine if you think they are so good, we will run them through a tier two training, but you're my helper." Dora made it her personal responsibility to test anyone not lumped into tier one, which was very possibly the reason so many people were put into that first group.
"Like you're doing me a favor or something." Paige handled training for all the tier ones. "Look, I didn't say they were good enough for higher training, just that they had potential. I think they do. One is a cop, a detective, and what is another week of training? You need to recover from our last job anyway. Another week of kicking around here before we go out again will do us both good."
Dora thought about it a moment, another week to let her injuries heal would be a good idea, "Alright, you have convinced me. I'm too tired for this shit anymore. You got five minutes to make the calls then we are going out. Maybe I will get laid."
"You need to. I hear there is an Army unit in town on rotation, we can hit the bars and see what we come up with."
Dora sighed heavily, "I don't want this to turn into a working night out." The army units were where she and others in her department did most of their recruiting; they constantly scanned the units for those who might join them as special agents.
"Okay no working, just cruising. I'll be your wing woman."
"It's a date. Four minutes."
Dora powered down her computer and hoped the new trainees, Kaylee and Brian, were worth the extra training that she and Paige would be putting them through. They had better be, because their files stated that they been involved in that dust up down in Des Moines a few weeks ago and there were rumors that Jake had been involved. Dora felt a strong need to investigate anything involving Jake, but whether her sense of obligation was from hatred or friendship, she just wasn't sure.
— end~
FB2 document info
Document ID: a3531224-1680-49d9-af7f-ac366a4fb225
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 28.1.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.37, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software
Document authors :
alaskin
Document history:
1.0 — конвертация, форматирование — alaskin
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
scale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share