by Mark Clodi
"No, we are in it until you say 'stop', Max." said Bill. His face was downcast with a slight frown, "I just don't know when that will be. Maybe when Stewart dies? Or I do?"
"Maybe, but probably not. I think if I am the one to die that you should turn around and head home, unless someone else can figure out how to find the bad guy. All we have to do is get within a hundred yards of the bad guy and blow him up. We don't have to talk to him. I plan on getting close to wherever he is, dropping the backpack nearby, setting the timer and running like my ass is on fire and my testicles are catching."
"Nice speech, Max. I'll give you that." Stewart said, "But if you die, do you think we'd really be able to go back and face your kids? I mean, maybe Ruben and Javier could, but I've been with you since this started and Bill is your best friend, neither of us could live with ourselves if something like that happened. No offense old man."
"None taken. I would go back, someone has to tell them what happened."
"Okay, so we are going on. Let's load the fuck up and get out of here." Stewart walked through the open gate towards the cars, "Are we all fueled up? I hope so, because I want to make some miles today. If Aubrey keeps the roads cleared we could be down there tomorrow at this time and back to Iowa three days after that."
"That's a good goal." said Max, trailing behind her.
Ruben and Bill shared a long look and Bill shook his head, "Don't. Don't say anything. Lately every time you talk things get confused. I'm not sure what you gained, but I know it's messing with our heads and after talking to Max I know we aren't limited to physical improvements."
"I wouldn't try anything with you Bill. Things aren't going the way I like anymore."
"You and me both. You ready to spill the beans on what your zombie inherited power is?"
"Like I said, it didn't come with a manual. I'm still trying to figure it out." With that Ruben turned and started walking after the other two.
"You didn't come through the gate Ruben."
Ruben stiffened for a moment, and then kept walking.
"Have it your way, Ruben. But you should talk to one of us sometime." Bill said softly.
After traveling more than six hundred miles that day and through part of the night they stopped at a rest area around two in the morning. The latest signs they had passed indicated that they were twenty miles outside of Jacksonville. There were two things of interest that happened that day. First, they were down to two police cruisers. The one Stewart was driving started overheating after only three hundred miles. They had opted not to try and find a new vehicle, fueling up only two was far easier than siphoning gas for all three. They had picked up three gas cans, two and a half gallons plastic affairs which helped with siphoning fuel from the abandoned cars along the highway.
When they finally stopped to get some sleep they still had half a tank in each car and all three gas cans were full. Max had wanted to stop at the last abandoned car they had passed to get fuel out of it, but Bill insisted they wait until daylight. By then everyone was getting tired and tempers were short. As they pulled into the rest stop, the other thing of note happened. After Max and Stewart were sleeping with Ruben and Bill left on watch, Javier woke up.
Chapter 31 — Katie
' The bastard isn't coming home.' Katie thought. She was sitting in a sniper position in the master bedroom. She had set up the nest behind the curtains with her rifle pointed through a hole in the screen and propped up using the window sill for a base. It was almost sundown. The bedroom was a mess. She had pulled in enough furniture to build a nest around the window, a nest that included a firm brace for the rifle and a comfy position to support her while she waited. She had used a knife from the kitchen to cut a slash through the curtain and after getting her rifle set up she had gone outside to see how well her camouflage worked. Katie knew if the zombie used his special vision she was toast, she lacked the camo suit she had worn in Chicago. However, she was betting that the man was used to his house being empty and would not think to check it out before he came in.
'Besides, I've replaced one living body with another one. He should see what he expects, his maid.' Whether Beatriz was supposed to be in his bedroom or not was a different matter, but Katie felt pretty certain she was going to be okay. 'If he will come home!'
"What some company?" Randy asked from behind her.
"As long as you aren't going to lecture me."
"Me? Now why would I do that?"
"You tell me, Randy."
Randy smiled and shook his head, "Now if I tried to do that you would just tell me I was lecturing. Give me some ground to cover here without pissing you off."
Katie laughed and nodded, "Well, you got me there. What is on your mind?"
"How long are you planning on being here?"
"Until this bastard comes home, then I pop him and move on."
"Where to?"
"This is starting to sound like the third degree again."
Randy shook his head, "No. I am just curious, I seem to be stuck here with you and I have to wonder what is next."
"Why? You got plans or something I should take into consideration?"
Flushing, Randy said, "No, not really."
"You're me. You explained that before."
"Yeah, but I think I might have been wrong."
"What do you mean?" Katie asked.
"I think I might know things you don't. Like, remember when we were doing laundry, we ended up alone and decided to get a little hot and heavy on the washer?"
It was Katie's turn to blush, "How could I forget? It was…earthshattering."
"But what happened after?"
Katie shook her head, "We got our laundry and went our separate ways?"
"No. There was something else, do you remember?"
"No. Look it was a long time ago, I don't remember every trivial thing that happened eight months ago."
"So nothing else happened?" Katie shook her head. Randy continued, "See? This is what I am talking about. You don't remember the bottle of champagne? The cheese and crackers? I pulled them out of my rucksack and we had a little post-coitus picnic before we folded our laundry and then went our separate ways."
Katie wrinkled her brow before responding, "No…I, that's pretty cheesy," Randy frowned at the pun, "I would remember that…" It seemed hazy, on the edge of her memory, but she did recall something, "You…you didn't bring glasses, so we washed out the measuring cup from the laundry detergent bottle and poured the champagne in that!"
"So you do remember it?"
"I…I…fuck. No. I don't remember much, only the thing with the detergent cup. But I think you're right, I think it did happen. My head is all fucked up, it's like the memory is there, but I can't connect it to anything. It doesn't relate and makes no sense. You know what I mean?"
"I'm right there with you. We'll figure this out. Not now. There's a car coming."
Katie looked back down the barrel of her rifle and sighted it in on the approaching car; a black sports utility vehicle. The car looked spotless and freshly waxed. Something a doctor would drive. It pulled to a stop in the driveway and two men got out; one was wearing hospital scrubs that were immaculate, the other had on a business suit, black with a white shirt and dark blue tie. The man in the suit had a radio set extending from his ear.
"Get the one with the communications first, if you can." Randy advised.
"If I can? If I can? What the fuck Randy this is an easy shot, he's less than thirty yards away! Say hello to my little friend mister suit!" Katie pulled the trigger and the suited up man fell back against the truck clutching his head.
"You winged him! You know that won't keep him down! Get the other one so we can get out of here!" Randy whispered loudly.
"I hit him dead center that fucker is dead again, zombie or human!" except the man wasn't, he fell to the ground and rolled under the vehicle out of sight. The man in the scrubs stopped dead in the driveway; paralyzed, looking for where the bullet had come from. Katie
pulled the lever back and chambered another round.
The doctor went to the front of the vehicle and knelt down to look underneath it. Katie put a bullet through the back of his head, slamming his face into the bumper hard enough to set off the air bags.
"He's down, grab the shotgun and go finish the other one before he gets away." Randy said.
"You know, I used to have a partner who could help out with things like that. You ain't a whole helluva lot of good like this you know."
"I know." Randy said, his voice inflected with remorse.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it. I appreciate your advice."
"Just go get him so we can move on."
Katie was already moving into the hallway, she had picked up the shotgun and carried both firearms down to the front door, Randy trailed behind her. She leaned the rifle up against the wall next to the front door and burst outside at a jog, shotgun held at waist level. The zombie was now behind the back end of the vehicle and had a pistol in his hand pointed at the second story of the house, he shifted his aim slightly and popped off three bullets in quick succession.
Katie continued forward and fired a round from the shotgun shattering the side and rear windows of the SUV and tossing the zombie backward onto his back. The man's pistol went flying and skidded down the slight incline of the driveway to land in the gutter next to the street.
Katie ran up and fired again, striking the man just below the knee, which twisted his body sideways, leaving his lower leg bent at an unnatural angle. She stood over the suited man with her shotgun aimed at his head. He was on his stomach and used his arms to push himself up and roll onto his back.
"The ghost." He murmured.
"What's that?"
"You're the ghost Sentry was talking about. The one we can't see."
"I have no idea what you are saying. You're making noise, but not making sense." Katie said.
The zombie was in bad shape; the bullet that had hit him in the side of the head had deflected forward and taken out one of his eyes and most of his nose. When he spoke it was with a nasally, wet quality.
"He said there was something here. He thought it was one of his first children or maybe…"
"Maybe what?"
The zombie didn't reply, as Katie watched his face was pulling itself together, mending in front of her. He tried to maneuver so his leg was more correctly aligned, but Katie shook her head 'no' and kicked his limb to a ninety degree angle.
"No way mister, I don't need you fully healthy so you can jump me, so leave it!"
The zombie grimaced, "But it will heal that way, sideways and I'll have to have it broken again to set up right…"
"Trust me you aren't going to live long enough to worry about it." Katie raised the shotgun to her shoulder and aimed it at the suit on the ground.
"Wait!" the zombie's eye went opaque and his face started to glow softly in the dusky twilight.
Katie jumped back, startled by the apparition before her. "What the fuck!"
"This is interesting…" Randy said, walking forward.
The suit glanced around, as if seeing things for the first time, his eyes settled on Randy for a moment before shifting ever so slightly to Katie.
"Who are you?" The suits voice had changed, it was slightly higher pitched. Katie felt a pressure on her mind, as if something were trying to squeeze the information out of her head.
She backed up and shook her head, "No."
"Who are you? You will tell me who you are!" The pressure on Katie's head intensified.
"Kill him!" Randy screamed, grabbing at his own head with his hands.
The zombie's face turned to Randy, "Who are you!"
As the zombie's gaze left Katie, so did the pressure that was trying to break into her brain, seizing control she pulled the trigger of the shotgun, the shell caught the suit on the side of the suit's head.
"No!" he screamed, grabbing again at the side of his head, the glowing increased and Katie fired again before the zombie could regain its bearings. The second shot hit it square in the face, but didn't do nearly the damage that Katie felt a shotgun should do as such close range.
With the glow intensifying on the ground, the zombie's face started pulling together with startling speed, all the while the thing's shriek intensified, growing to the volume of a train whistle. Katie fired twice more in rapid succession before the firing pin came down on an empty chamber. The glowing had not stopped, but the screaming had. Katie quickly reloaded five shells into the gun and shot the thing in the head five more times, by the time she was finished what was left resembled a bowl full of ground meat that someone had mixed with short, black hair.
"Holy fuck. What was that?" Katie asked Randy, who was still standing beside her.
"He saw me."
"What?"
"How could he see me? I'm you, remember, not really me. That's what I've been assuming all this time. How could he see me Katie?"
Katie looked at her partner, "Well, maybe you aren't as dead as you thought?"
Chapter 32 — Ruben
"Where am I?" came the voice from the back seat, startling Ruben. He was in the driver's seat, trying not to doze off or let his mind wander, things happened when his mind wandered and it was a struggle to keep control. In the passenger seat beside him Stewart snorted softly in her sleep. The two cars were parked side by side in a rest area and Ruben was on watch in one car. Javier had been comatose in the backseat for the better part of eighteen hours.
"Javier? Kid? Are you awake?" Ruben asked softly, leaning forward and then half turning to look at the young man in the darkness. According to Ruben's watch it was two in the morning, though his watch was set according to a different time zone, so who knew what time it was here.
"Ruben? That you? What happened?" Javier's voice sounded different, like that of a kid, Ruben realized.
"You got into an accident; you were thrown through the windshield and ended up in the other guy's car. You don't remember?"
"I remember firing at some idiots in a crossover vehicle, then…" Javier paused, thinking, "Well not much after that; sounds mostly; breaking glass and stuff. Then darkness."
"Well, then you didn't miss much." Ruben said with relief. He had been worried about brain damage or other trauma. "How are you feeling?"
"Good. Better than good, really. I mean I feel really, really…hungry!" Javier said, "Man am I hungry!"
"We got our packs in the trunk."
"That you Javier?" asked Stewart groggily.
"Yeah."
"Welcome back to the land of the living, such as it is. You okay?"
"Yeah, fine. Just hungry." Javier said again.
"Cool. I'm going back to sleep."
"C'mon, let's get out and see what we can rustle up for you to eat." Ruben opened his door, which caused Stewart to grumble about the light, but she burrowed down into her fatigues and draped her arm over her face to block it out.
When Bill saw Javier and Ruben get out of their vehicle he opened his door and went to meet them, leaving Max asleep in the back seat. Javier repeated for the third time that he was fine and just hungry as Bill tossed the same questions at him as the others.
Javier tore into his pack and gabbed several of the plastic bagged military rations that had been sent with them. None of them thought they were too bad, not at first, but after a few days of the military food they had started grabbing whatever they could find locally to eat.
"I see why every pack comes with some sort of hot sauce." Javier said when he slowed down from eating his second meal, "It adds a little spice to them. I mean, I don't even like hot sauce." He said this as he dumped the small glass container of the red liquid into the open pouch in his other hand.
"Better than the crations we had in my day." Ruben said.
"I think it is 'cause they all taste the same. I mean you might call one 'Chicken with Noodles' and another 'Chili and Macaroni', but they don't taste all that different to me." Bill said.
Javier sho
ok his head and said between bites, "No way man, the breakfast one rocks!"
The other men nodded and Ruben said, "It always seems like one meal pack in any generation is better than the others and that everyone will trade anything to get it. I never would have thought packaged sausages and blueberry granola would be in such high demand. So, Javier, what happened?"
He shrugged, swallowed and said, "I don't remember much, I knew they were going to hit me, I remember that and being just…stuck to the truck. Like I couldn't move, I wanted to jump out before they hit and I froze up. I was so scared, then.." Javier waved his spoon around at the two police cars, "Waking up. What happened?"
Bill spoke to him about getting the police cruisers and their mad dash through several states over the course of the last sixteen hours, ending with them stopping at their current location.
"Is it safe?" Javier asked.
"Max hasn't seen anyone close to the main road. At least not really close. He says that there are a lot of dead people out on the edge of his mental zombie radar. He couldn't see any zombies when we stopped here, so we thought we could get a few hours of sleep. Me and Ruben drew short straws and get to watch first. Max and Stewart will take over in a couple hours and let us get a little sleep. How's your leg Javier?"
Javier looked down at his legs, "Which one? What was wrong with it?"
Ruben laughed, "Well I guess that answers that."
"Your leg was busted up ten ways from Sunday when you played 'stiff man' on us. I'm no doctor, but what I saw…well you shouldn't be able to walk on it now. Do you know what happened?"
"No." Javier shook his head and smiled in the moonlight, "I guess I got something too, huh? I was hoping for wolverine claws or maybe flying like superman, but healing up fast is sort of like wolverine isn't it?"
Ruben shook his head, he had a hard time keeping track of what the youth of today was talking about. Bill nodded and said, "I guess, bummer about having to zonk out like that though. I wonder what would happen if you got shot or worse, bit? Would you turn? Would you heal it up and be fine?"