by SP Durnin
“Well, when you put it that way,” Willow admitted.
“We’ve been open about the fact this was just a rest stop for us ever since we arrived.” Cho massaged O’Connor’s temples and he groaned with pleasure. “We were always going to move on. Pecos is nice, but we’re all ready to see the ocean. Eat seafood. Not have to outfox enormous crowds of walking corpses while fleeing a wildfire. Those kinds of things.”
Willow’s disappointment was evident, prompting Ted to try another approach. “That’s a shame, you know. The staff at Gita’s have been talking about your performance non-stop, and people are dying for a repeat. I’ve seen a boatload of folks wearing those headbands like the one you had. And ‘kamikaze symbols’ are showing up on bathroom stalls, windows. This one genius even tried to paint one on the containers with one.”
“Really?” Kat perked up.
“Yup. I was gonna assign him a week of watch duty. But he promised to finish it, just as soon as we locate more red paint.”
Obviously excited, she stopped rubbing Jake’s brow. “I have my own logo. I’d like to see Rae beat that!”
“So you’ll think about staying?”
Kat looked down at Jake. “Nope. Sorry.”
Close grinned at the pair of council members. “Told you you’d be wasting your time.”
“I have to keep an eye on this one.” She ran one hand through O’Connor’s messy hair and he sighed. “He gets into way too much trouble without constant female supervision, and I’ve put a lot of work into keeping him alive. Even for a monster-slaying master-level ninja like me, it’s a full-time job.”
Ted and Willow departed shortly thereafter, stating the need to meet with Garth and co-ordinate efforts to extend the range of Pecos’ salvage teams, but Close remained for a moment. “They’re wishing you’d all stay on here. Those supply drops Norris set up are really making a difference, and the dead in the area have been drastically thinned out for the foreseeable future, so there’s talk on the council of building new sections to the north. There’s still a glut of containers sitting down by the airport to extend the walls. Szimanski found a lot more over in Midland before Hess showed up, too. There’s a number of industrial parks over there, and the airport, so we might be able to double the town’s size within a month or two.”
Jake sat up and took Kat’s hand. “We wish you luck sergeant major, but I made a promise when all this started. I promised to get my friends to the west. We’ve lost people…too many people, along the way to stop now. Pecos will get along just fine with you and your men watching over it. Besides, if we did stay, George would start running under-the-radar scavenging missions with your men for hard liquor and cigars. Then you’d want to court martial him. Or ask him to share. And neither option would end well for any of us.”
“Guess I need to have my mechanic get a Humvee ready for Norris then.” Close shot him a grin and moved towards the door. “Oh. Almost forgot. Garth said to tell you he found ‘that thing’ you were asking about. He’ll have some of his people take it to Allan’s workshop, and your friend can give it a once over, yes?”
“Sounds great, sergeant major. And thank you. For everything.”
“My pleasure. The two of you take care. And who knows? I might get over to the Safe Zone when we manage to get the barrier down around the airport. I’ll expect a seafood platter and a case of Coors Light if I show up.” Close gave a jaunty wave.
“Deal.” As the door clicked shut, Jake leaned his head on the back of the hospital couch. “Well, at least one person in this town understands the word ‘no.’”
Kat stroked the back of one hand against his neck. “Their very own ‘Team Lunatic’ is making tracks in the only totally zombie-proof battle-wagon around, taking their top mechanic, two high-ranking members of their salvage teams, and their IT expert. Can you blame them if they don’t want to throw a party over that?”
He grunted noncommittally and turned his head towards her hand. “I’m glad Gertrude is coming. I know she likes it here, but I wouldn’t feel right going on knowing we won’t be coming back someday.”
“You missed her, didn’t you?” Kat asked.
“Yeah. My mom and dad have been gone for a while, and I’m pretty sure my brother didn’t make it. Allan’s always been there too, usually saying something stupid and trying to get me to throw my aerodynamically challenged body out of a perfectly good airplane… George and Gertie and Al kind of filled that family void for me.” He pulled her onto his lap. “Until you came along, at least.”
“Flatterer.”
“I try.” His eyes dropped from her face to her neck. “How’s your wound?”
Kat smiled broadly. “Barker gave me some really, really great pain meds before Ted, and Willow, and Captain America got here, so there’s no pain at all.”
“You want to be careful about what you take from that guy,” Jake cautioned. “When we rescued him from that hospital back in Oklahoma, he was popping twenty milligram olanzapines like they were Tic-Tacs.”
Cho nodded so hard, he worried her head might come off. “I know what to look for when it comes to the ‘recreational use of prescription medications.’ I was a pharmacy tech in a previous life, remember? On a side note; I saw a hippopotamus wearing a rainbow wig and a yellow tutu dance by in the hall when Ted and Willow left. He didn’t say anything though. You know how hippos are.”
“Oh-kay.” Jake picked her up and carried her to the hospital bed. “I think someone needs to have a bit of a nap, before she starts singing ‘Rehab,’”
She sputtered. “Not likely! Couldn’t stand that one. And her hair really annoyed me. I mean, what was she thinking?”
“I couldn’t even begin to guess.”
He placed her on the mattress then turned to his own uncomfortable-looking bed, but Kat took his wrist in a come-along grip and pulled him down beside her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I was—”
“Uh-uh.” She pulled off the t-shirt Bee had loaned her and began working at O’Connor’s belt. “If we’re stuck here anyway, we need to make up for lost time. Lose the clothes, gaijin.”
Jake thought about that for half-a second. “Let me just lock the door…”
“Are you sure?” Rae’s mouth dropped open.
Norris had come to the med-center that morning for a quick check up, finally get her bloodwork done as the rest of their party had over the last few days, and to say goodbye to Barker.
Their odd physician had grown less and less scatter-brained over the past week, and—after thinking about it long and hard—had decided to remain in Pecos. The town was still quite short on medical personnel, and his Hippocratic Oath required him to lend his talents where they were most needed. He’d broken the news to Jake and his companions the previous evening (when they’d all celebrated their departure the following morning) at Señorita Gita’s, between the fifth and sixth rounds. One of the nurses from the med-center —a twenty-three-year-old, buxom specimen by the name of Amber Wilks—who dragged Barker onto the dance floor as Kat gave her Texas fan-club a farewell performance with Ted and Dead Sexy, may have had something to do with his decision.
Passing her the chart to have a look, the doctor removed his glasses. “Quite sure. While conditions here are by far the most ideal, you yourself know the process is pretty basic. Any first year nursing student can draw blood, let alone administer such a test.”
“Oh. Wow.” Rae scanned the chart. “How long?”
Barker sighed. “Less than a month I’d think. Other than that it’s hard to say.”
She closed the chart and chewed at her thumbnail. “Anyone else know about this?”
“Only you and I.” He looked offended. “What kind of doctor do you think I am?”
“One that spent a good amount of time barricaded in a hospital, surrounded by zombies, medicating himself with an inch of his sanity with anti-psychotics.” Rae drolled. “Spill it. Who else?”
The Pecos armored convoy
waited in the town’s bailey to see them off.
Allan finally handed the operations manual he’d come up with for his rolling buzz-saw over to one of Close’s mechanics, turning to various pages and pointing out things to watch out for while driving it. The soldier had been enraptured with the slim man’s machine ever since Al first brought it roaring from his workshop and, after he’d posed a dozen questions about the mobile meat-slicer’s power differential vs. blade RPM speed, Ryker felt he was leaving it in loving hands. As Al and Maggie boarded through the Screamin’ Mimi; the marine was actually walking around the modified road grater, running his hands along its surface like it was a modern art in a gallery somewhere.
Sampson, Gwen, and Mark Weaver chose to ride in Bus One, stating its thirty occupants needed professionals along, just in case any undead issues came up. Mooney ran Bus Two with the still-healing Ryan Szimanski and his girlfriend Kari, who’d taken to carrying one of Foster’s SPAZ riot-shotguns and a pair of machetes on her back. She’d been very upset when Ryan had nearly been killed by Elle and her RUST cohorts, and had no intentions of letting Szimanski go anywhere without adequate protection. Ever again.
Beatrix and Leo had already joined her uncle, Rae, and Gertrude in the drive unit of the Mimi, after saying goodbye to Garth and his new second in command Heather Vern Nielsen. The young brunette had been hand-picked by Ryan as his replacement on the salvage teams, and Garth had approved. He liked the way she kept pulling crazy farm-based weaponry out of her backpack. Now if he could only figure out how she did it.
Jake and Kat were talking with Ted and Willow as the last of Langley’s survivors, and the few Pecos residents, found places in the beds of two dump trucks Sergeant Major Close insisted on providing them. That nearly sent Secretary Nancy Wilson into conniptions, so he’d said that alone made it all worth it.
“We’ll be cutting through the Lincoln and Tonto National Forests. Secondary roads, small towns to scrounge, and—hopefully—very few zombies. That will allow us to pass between Flagstaff and Phoenix without getting too close. There are government forces based in Laughlin. We make it there, and we’re home free. George tells me there’s at least a trio of caches on our route, so we’ll stop at those to rest and resupply as well.” Jake and Ted watched as Kat hugged Willow goodbye a few steps away. “It will probably take us about a week, but Rae’s contact in the Safe Zone has been sending overflights of drones along our route, and she says it’s doable.”
“Hope you guys make it. You know the door’s always welcome down here, after everything you people have done for us.” Ted extended his hand.
“Thanks, Jackson.” O’Connor gave him a knowing grin. “How long do you think that fiction is going to hold up? There are such things as album covers, you know.”
The tall rocker threw his head back and laughed. “Nobody listens to vinyl anymore. And as long as I don’t start struttin’ around on stage in a loincloth, I figure I’m safe. That new president out west seems like a straight shooter, but who knows about his staff and the rest of the diplo-dunk bureaucrats who survived? I was pretty vocal about a few topics before the zombies came along, so I made some enemies. Most of them likely got chomped, but I’ll watch and see how everything plays out before I make any plans for a comeback tour.”
“Are you sure it’s okay? I’ll understand if you’d rather I didn’t.” Kat didn’t want end her hug with Willow. Doing so meant letting go of the last earthly piece of her bestest friend and roommate, and thinking about that made her chest hurt.
The redhead nodded, careful not to push her chin against Kat’s neck wound. “Absolutely. Sis would be thrilled if she were here, so don’t you feel weird about it for a moment. And don’t forget to message us! The last airdrop included a pair of satellite radio set-ups, and Close has already been in contact with his chain of command. You guys are going to be celebrities for a while after showing up in that pink monstrosity and bringing nearly a hundred survivors to safety to boot, so use that to your advantage!”
“Yep. You’re Laurel’s sister all right.” Kat gave her a final squeeze and the two of them broke apart. “Ted? Ask the band if they’d like to fly out and play a gig at the stadium in Oakland. I’ll work on making that happen when we get to San Francisco.”
“What?” Jake looked back and forth between them.
“Nothing you need to worry about, hero.” Cho slapped O’Connor on the butt and put her arms around his waist. “I’ll fill you in later.”
Ted threw her a thumbs-up and made his way back through the inner gate with Laurel’s twin. As that barrier shut and the outer one began to open, Kat and Jake hurried up the Mimi’s ramp hand-in-hand. He paused to cycle the clamshell door closed and, once it had sealed, followed her forward through the aft section, past where Gertie, Allan, Maggie, and Leo sat strapped into seats in the second one, and onto to the drive unit.
“About goddamn time!” George and his niece sat driver / navi-guesser respectively, and Rae was at her normal spot at the communications station where she was typing furiously away on the keyboard. “You two finally ready?”
Jake offered the last seat to Cho and but she waved for him to take it. As soon as his rear hit the padding, she moved into his lap, then turned sideways to throw her arms around his shoulders and her biker-booted feet over the seat’s right armrest.
I can not believe this is my life now. He thought. Killing ghouls, saving people, sleeping with a crazy, hot ninja who tells me I’m drool-worthy… I think I could get used to this.
“Ready when you are, chief.” Jake looked around at his friends and smiled. “Let’s go to Vegas.”
* * *
“Ho-lee sht! Would you look at that?”
The three companies of marines and assorted support platoons responsible for maintaining security on the Route 163 bridge knew their commander had been informed by higher-ups, that they would shortly be getting some living visitors. What those soldiers had not been told to expect, was exactly what kind of transports these living survivors would be arriving in.
Three heavily modified dump trucks and a pair of Mad Max-style tour buses were surprising enough, but that pink thing…?
Three-story, concrete bunkers had been added on either side of the four-lane road to provide reinforcement for the heavy steel gate the Screamin’ Mimi rolled through. She traversed the bridge’s length over the Colorado River, and came to a halt twenty yards from the barricade on the western side. The convoy following in her wake stopped a short distance back, allowing the huge vehicle’s C130-style hatch to open as the whine of her hydrogen drive cycled down in pitch, finally going silent. Those gathered behind the east defenses were rather glad the eight-foot blade that comprised the transport’s prow hadn’t been used against either of their barriers. Even if it didn’t destroy them utterly, the gates would’ve been seriously damaged, possibly allowing the random hordes of zombies which occasionally approached access to the Safe Zone.
The two buses were straight of an episode of the A-Team. Steel plating covered their sides and most of the front windows, leaving only narrow slits by which to drive, far too narrow for even the most determined ghoul to claw its way through. It appeared even their doors had been augmented, and both showed blood-based evidence of high speed contact with a some of the creatures.
The dump trucks were in the same goopy shape, but—being so tall and heavy anyway—only their cabs had been modified with grids of welded rebar over all of their windows. Their beds remained open at the top, and two of the three were towing small vehicle trailers.
One transported an armored military Humvee, and on the other?
A 1971 Barracuda hard-top.
In “Tuxedo Black.”
While the buses and trucks stayed sealed up tight, a small group of survivors exited the rear section of the big pink thing and began striding towards the barrier.
One was a rough-looking older man with grey hair, an M4 carbine, and a confident swagger.
Another was a well
-endowed, honey-blonde woman of perhaps thirty in a tight-fitting flight suit, who carried what appeared to be an XM-8 rifle that was equipped with an under-barrel grenade launcher.
Next came a pretty Asian woman with short blue hair. She wore a cut-off tank top that showed the thin lines of her stomach, some kind of forearm bracers, leather pants, and tough-soled biker boots. A Glock rode in the holster on her thigh, and a freaking sword ran the length of her spine.
Lastly came a tall, decidedly messy-haired man in a tactical vest, over a grubby punk rock t-shirt. khakis, combat boots, and a monstrously large automatic pistol on his right hip rounded out his “apocalyptic day-wear.” And the hook end of a large crowbar protruded over his right shoulder.
The quartet stopped beside the vehicle’s prow and stared at the gate, not projecting an air of hostility, but not showing the least bit of concern at being faced with over a hundred soldiers along the wall’s peak either. The older man took the cigar from between his teeth with thick fingers, blew an impressively large smoke ring, then mumbled something that earned him a glare from the blonde woman.
“I’m fairly certain the officer in charge here wouldn’t take being referred to as ‘The Booger-eater Running This Shindig.’ Do us all a favor: Try not to talk.”
While the barrier guards were a bit taken by surprise at that, a few of them couldn’t help but chuckle at the old man’s obviously military-grade comment. Seeing how their commander was once a drill sergeant on the magical and fun-filled getaway most referred to as “Parris Island,” he was sure to get along with this fellow like a house afire.
“I need to speak with the man in charge!”
This came from the younger fellow with the crowbar. Their commander—a crusty, old-school devil-dog if there ever was one—took up a megaphone and called back to him from upon the wall.