by M. E. Betts
"Huh," he said. "Good find."
Daphne continued. "While we're at it, maybe we can use some other traps, too. I've got about four dozen wooden spikes in my backpack. We can use them to make some punji traps."
"How do we know we'll have time for all this?" Adrian asked.
Daphne smiled. "You don't know me very well. I can dig a dozen punji pits in about fifteen minutes." She paused. "I've hunted...a lot. And besides, even if they're not still in town, we can catch up with them, cut them off at some point down the road. I know those types, they'll most likely stick to the main highways. They know that's where they're more likely to find settlements...and that's where they can steal weapons, ammo, food, and females. It won't be hard to stay on their trail. At some point tonight, they'll stop to sleep, if they don't do it while they're in town. And that'll buy us time to set up."
"Just one thing," Adrian said. "How do we make sure they head for the traps without possibly getting shot in the process?"
Shari turned to Daphne. "We're both pretty good-looking chicks, aren't we?"
Daphne eyed her questioningly. "Yeah, why?"
"I think we can use that to our advantage...the two of us, at least." She turned to Adrian. "No offense, but you don't make a very pretty lady."
He rubbed his beard and smiled. "Is it the facial hair?"
Shari snorted. "I think they'd rather have their way with us than kill us...at least to start with. If we play our cards right, those sadists will never know what hit them."
Shari knelt on the platform at the top of the water tower, gazing through her sniper scope. Her finger was itching to squeeze the trigger, itching to send the sadist in her scope to hell. Time enough for that later, she thought. For now, it's best that they don't know the danger they're in. They were about a half-mile southeast of the Wal-Mart. Shari had, reluctantly, decided to climb the tower and make use of the vantage point it offered. She grew dizzy as she looked down toward the ground on her ascent up the ladder, and to make matters worse, the tower was situated at the top of a high ridge.
"You know, princess, if you used your binoculars, rather than your rifle scope, you wouldn't have to worry about the temptation to prematurely ejaculate lead," Kandi said, amused as she knelt beside Shari.
She stood and descended the ladder back down to the ground, where Daphne and Adrian were waiting. She gripped the rungs tightly, trying not to look down.
"Not scared of a little water tower, are we princess?" Kandi teased as she climbed casually down after Shari. Shari rolled her eyes, ignoring her.
"They're still in town," she informed Daphne and Adrian as she stepped back down onto solid ground. "Out in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart, throwing cocktails at zombies, watching them burn. Having a good ol' time. I only saw two of them out there, but it looks like a couple dozen ATVs parked out front."
"It's getting close to sundown," Adrian noted. "You think they'll be back on the road tonight?"
Daphne shrugged. "Probably not, but we should get going, either way. We've got pits to dig and traps to set."
Adrian pressed the butt of his palm into his forehead. "I wonder what's happening to my daughter right now."
Shari grabbed his shoulders, looking him in the eye. "It's best not to wonder. It won't help. Just focus on the plan, okay? That's the best way...the only way...for you to help her."
"You're right," he said, collecting himself. He got back on his motorcycle, and the three of them prepared to get back on the road.
"Don't worry, Adrian," Daphne said, looking over her shoulder as she turned the key in the ignition. "We'll make them pay."
Shari sat awake, keeping watch as Daphne and Adrian slept. She had switched with Daphne at around 3 a.m. Adrian had initiallly insisted that he would keep watch.
"That's my daughter," he had said through gritted teeth. "How do you expect me to sleep?"
"You need it," Shari had urged him. "You were already up all night last night, keeping watch back in your settlement. It might be easier for you to help your daughter if you're not delirious and exhausted from sleep deprivation." He had reluctantly conceded, but then had fallen fast asleep in less than two minutes.
It was a little after six as Shari sat on guard, and the sun was just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon. Shari and her two companions had set up camp just off the road the previous evening. The area around where they slept was rigged with Daphne's punji pits, which she had methodically set up during her shift while Shari and Adrian slept. Daphne, the shadow priestess, she thought. Is there anything she can't do in pitch blackness? Daphne had explained to Shari roughly where these traps were located, but Shari erred on the side of safety and didn't move from the spot where she sat keeping guard. They had also set up the spike nets to ensnare the wheels of the mens' ATVs. They had found two more squad cars not far from the watertower, and both cars had the nets in their trunks, giving them a total of three to lay down. They lay camoflauged on the densely overgrown ground beneath the canopy of black walnut and maple trees, spread across the clearing between the trees.
There had been no sign of the sadists yet. Daphne and Adrian had taken their time and gently idled their ATV and motorcycle down the road as they came within close proximity of the Wal-Mart, wanting to avoid the attention of the sadists. They were close enough to town to hear the mens' ATVs when they got back on the road. God knows those idiots'll make enough noise, Shari thought.
"Yes," Kandi agreed, "and what with all the whooping and revving and carrying on, they should be leading a whole cavalcade of undead, too."
"Maybe," Shari said aloud. She glanced self-consciously toward Daphne and Adrian, hoping that she didn't wake them by talking to herself. She lowered her voice and continued. "But we're almost a mile outside of town. The undead are going to make it here eventually, but if we're lucky the sadists will be dead by then and we'll be headed down the road already." She stood, sighing. "Well," she whispered, "I think I'd better wake those two up. The sky's bright enough, those guys might be heading out anytime now." She carefully navigated her way to the spot where Daphne and Adrian slept. The steadily increasing daylight allowed her to detect the yellow masses of fallen black walnut leaves heaped up in the death pits.
"Rise and shine, sleepyheads," she said, crouching toward Daphne and Adrian as they slept. "Assholes will be coming soon." Daphne sat up, immediately alert.
"Are they here?" she asked, her head snapping toward the road.
"No, I haven't heard anything yet," Shari replied.
Adrian sat up slowly. "I wish they'd hurry up so we could get this shit over with." He paused, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "I had a dream about Celia. I should've just gone in there last night, stormed the place or something. I shouldn't have slept while God knows what's happening to her."
"It never would have worked," Shari said, shaking her head. "There were a lot of undead in that parking lot. There's no way we could have contended with the zombies and the sadists at the same time. To be honest, I don't know how those idiots made it in there without getting killed, themselves."
Daphne snorted. "I'd be surprised if they all made it. When they show up, if we're lucky, they'll probably be short at least a few of their guys. That's how they function. They all consider each other to be expendable. They wouldn't hesitate to lose a few of their guys, especially if it gives them a chance to get away."
"Yeah, they'll throw one another under the bus for damn sure," Shari said, standing. "I'm gonna go pee before they show up."
"Don't step on the yellow leaves!" Daphne reminded her.
"Yeah, I know," Shari called back over her shoulder. She ducked down behind a huge, gnarled old oak about twenty feet away to relieve herself. She heard a faint rustling to her right. She looked over and saw an undead woman struggling to get to her feet. Her entire midsection was gone, torn away. Hard to stand with no abdominal muscles, Shari thought. She looked into the woman's ruined face, into her unseeing eyes. Looks like she's been lying ther
e pretty much since all this began.
"Yes," Kandi concurred. "She's obviously been left to the elements. After winter, when the spring thaw comes, she'll be a puddle, definitely."
Shari raised her bow, nocking an arrow. Then she'll be a puddle that's no longer animated, no longer trying in vain to walk and give birth, so to speak, to more undead. The arrow flew the twenty feet or so between Shari and the woman, lodging it in her temple. She walked over, jerking the arrow free from the woman's skull. I wonder who she was. I always wonder who they were.
"Don't bother," Kandi advised. "It's a fruitless endeavor. There are millions upon millions of them, if not billions, and there will be a lot more. Don't emotionally exhaust yourself by trying to think of them as people."
No, Shari thought. I know they're not people. But I don't want to forget that they were. She trudged back to camp, realizing she only saw Adrian. Adrian noticed her puzzlement and pointed upward.
"She's up there," he said. Shari looked up and saw Daphne in the upper boughs of a tall, rogue pine, peering through Shari's binoculars.
"I'm gonna take Eva down to the stream," she told Adrian. "She could use a drink. We might have to make a run for it after we finish with the sadists." She freed the horse from the tree she was hitched to and led her to the stream about twenty yards away, lighting up a smoke as she walked. She sat down on the low bank as Eva drank, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of post-apocalyptic nature. She was still adjusting to the intense quiet of a world that was nearly devoid of human activity and technology. There were still sounds, of course. The sounds of birds chirping, of the rushing stream, of the occasional coyote. But there were no human voices, no electrical hum, no airplanes and almost no traffic on the roads. It occurred to Shari that, in the four months or so that she had spent with Fauna, they hadn't once heard gunshots coming from somewhere other than their own property.
"It's weird," she whispered to Kandi, who sat beside her. "The stillness in the air...I still can't get over it. It almost hurts my ears. I guess the modern ear is too acclimated to sound waves carrying all types of extra bullshit. It's disorienting."
"Well, princess, I guess you'll just have to get used to it. That is, until those of you who are left manage to get things back to the way they were. All the ringing phones and traffic and unwanted music your hearts desire."
"I guess it's silly to miss it," Shari admitted. "But it's not the noise itself...it's just one more thing to remind me how terribly wrong everything is."
"Not everything, dear," Kandi said gently. "You're still here."
"I'm here...but why?"
"Maybe it's not up to you to understand why," Kandi said. "And who knows? Maybe there is no reason. Maybe you're just supposed to live, let your future unfold organically." She shrugged. "Take it to the end of the line, as it were. Maybe that's all that's expected of you."
"Maybe," Shari said, her eyes far away. "Kandi...can I ask you something?"
"Well, technically, I'm already in your head...."
"Why are you here?"
"We've been through this," Kandi said. "I'm a coping mechanism."
"I know, but...." She glanced back toward camp, toward Daphne and Adrian. "I guess what I'm asking is...does everyone have a coping mechanism like I do?"
"Well, I guess most people who've survived thus far would have one, of some sort or another. I would imagine it varies from person to person." She motioned to Daphne, high up in the pine tree. "But in her case, I doubt her mechanism is anything like yours. She's a simple woman. Her imaginary friend is the forest, that's all she needs. With her, what you see is what you get. I must say, I sort of like that about her. But you, princess...you're plum cake on a cornmeal bottom, I guess you could say."
Shari smirked. "So...are you the plum cake, or the cornmeal bottom?"
Kandi let out a high-pitched laugh. "Take it as you wish, dear."
Shari gazed absently toward the stream, her eyes unfocused, focusing instead on the memories of the last two days, and then the last several months. She turned to look at Kandi.
"I'd be dead if it weren't for you," she said.
"Well, princess...I guess the sentiment is mutual. We need one other, don't we?"
"Yeah. I guess we do." She smiled faintly. "For all the grief I give you, I have to admit, I--" She cut her sentence short when she heard the distant sound of motors revving. She saw Daphne descend from the top of the tree and head in her direction.
"It's almost time," Daphne said as she reached the stream, a depraved smile twisting the corners of her mouth. "Are you ready?"
Shari snickered. "Lately, I'd say I'm ready for anything, anytime," she said. "I mean, what else were we doing?" Adrian was headed their way, crossing the soggy terrain between the stream and camp.
"I guess it's almost go time?" he asked.
Daphne nodded. "They'll probably be here in a minute, maybe less."
"I guess we should all take our places," Shari said. "Everyone just remember what we went over last night. If we do this right, we'll get through this alive." Daphne and Adrian nodded, walking back toward camp. Daphne handed him the grenade launcher and a pack filled with grenades.
"I'm sure you'll have fun with this," she said.
"Can't say I'll feel bad watching them get blown to pieces," he said through gritted teeth.
He picked up the duffel bag, which was where most of the guns were stashed. Shari had Fauna's .357 revolver and Glock in her inner jacket pocket, and Daphne had her titanium knife and a handful of throwing sticks. Shari grabbed the backpack she had filled the previous evening with a few cheap knives, an axe, and a 9mm pistol.
He scaled the tree Daphne had been perched in earlier, blending in rather well in his dark camo jacket and pants. Shari and Daphne mounted Eva and started toward the road.
"You sure you can pull off the damsel-in-distress thing?" Shari asked as they rode along..
"For a worthy cause, I can," Daphne replied. "And protecting survivors from sadists is about as worthy as a cause can get, if you ask me."
"Agreed," Shari said. "But I'm the one with the acting experience, so you can let me do the talking, if you want."
"Acting experience?"
"Back in high school and college," Shari said. "They may not have been Oscar-worthy performances, but what have you got?"
Daphne smiled. "Other than a few faked orgasms, not much. I guess you win."
"Faked orgasms?" Shari giggled. "Honey, you're not doing yourself any favors with those."
"Haven't you ever wanted them to just wrap it up?" Daphne asked, smirking. "I was seeing this guy last year, and he always tried to juice at least a handful out of me. I mean, it was nice of him, but sometimes I had other stuff to do. There just aren't enough hours in the day, you know?"
Shari stared down the road, feeling a slight tinge of apprehension. The sadists were now within view. She counted eighteen. Down a few, she thought. I wonder if the fuckers can see us yet. She rode in the direction they were headed, hoping they would perceive her as naive and vulnerable. She could hear Daphne grinding her teeth as she sat behind her, arms around her waist.
"It's show time," Shari said. "Save the aggression for when the cat's out of the bag." She glanced back over her left shoulder. The first sadist in the pack was a thirty-something blonde who was missing his left eye. There was no eyepatch, just a jagged hole glaring bluntly at Shari, who was trying not to fixate on it. He grinned as he slowed his ATV, stopping about ten feet from Shari and Daphne. His grin revealed surprisingly straight, white teeth. Shari began speaking before the man had a chance to.
"Please, mister, we don't want any trouble. We're just trying to get back home." She saw the rest of the group pull up, stopping behind their leader, although she didn't see Adrian's daughter. Shit. That can't be good. "Our friends are there, and they're in trouble. The two of us were able to sneak away. We found some weapons in a house near here, and now we're trying to get back to help them." She had sat, contempla
ting what she should say, as she kept watch the previous night.
"What seems to be the trouble with your friends?" the one-eyed blonde with the flawless pearly-whites asked. Hook, line, and sinker...at least so far.
"Four guys came with guns, threatening to rape and kill us," Shari said, her voice cracking. She felt Daphne claw her right side, fighting to maintain her composure, and their ruse. "I don't know what's happened since we left. We have to get back there."
"You really think you two can help your friends?" he asked. "What kinda weapons did you come across, anyway?" He eyes the backpack slung over Shari's shoulder.
Shari feigned discomfort. "Just some knives, and some kind of gun," she said quietly, motioning toward the backpack.
"You know how to use a gun?" he asked, his tone patronizing.
She hesitated before she answered. "Not exactly, but...I've seen it done."
The blonde smiled even more widely than before. "Honey, I don't think you can save those people." His tone was that of an adult talking to a child. "You two are just gonna get yourselves hurt if you try and go in there, guns...gun...blazing. Tell you what...." He looked at his pack behind him, and they all stifled their grins in response. "Me and my buddies, we hate to see ladies like yourselves being terrorized like that." By someone other than yourselves, Shari thought. "There's eighteen of us, and you say there's only four of them. With those odds, they don't stand a chance." He smiled, his pale blue eye twinkling in the blazing morning sun. Kandi spoke up from her horse, on the opposite side of the blonde.
"It's a shame he's an evil prick," she said, looking him over. "I mean, other than the hideous hole in his head, he's pretty good-looking. Tsk, tsk." Shari tried hard not to look revolted by Kandi's attraction to the sadist.
She stuttered. "But we...I mean, I don't think...I...."
"Don't worry, we're not going to hurt you," he lied. "And besides, what have you got to lose? From what you said, the situation's already pretty bad. You lead us there, we'll take care of those guys for you." He locked gazes with Daphne. "Your friend here...she doesn't talk much, huh? She a mute, or something?" Shari felt Daphne's fingers again, digging into her obliques.