“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes,” she whispered fiercely. “Remember what I just said about trust? This is part of it. I am your wife, Xander, and I have a right to know what's going on, so start talking.”
I sighed. She was right. I didn't feel like reliving all of it again, but she had a right to know. I started at catching the Brat Packerz at the train yard, carefully leaving out the flirting, and moved to the Alphas capturing me, and ending up in Hellfire. Felicity didn't say anything as I spoke. She just nodded to let me know she was taking it all in. When I got to the part about Batista, I could see her hatred for him burning in her eyes.
“And that brings us up to now,” I finished. “I swear that's exactly how it all happened, and that’s everything I know.”
“That place they took you,” Felicity said, her eyes darting back and forth.
“Hellfire,” I reminded her.
“What was it?”
“I'm not sure,” I said, feeling uneasy. I had an idea of what kind of place it was, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. “It looked like it might have been a gambling house at one point.”
“Then why did they have young girls? And why was the woman running it called the Mistress?”
“I can't say, Felicity,” I covered quickly. “I was taken there against my will, remember?”
“Why would they take you to a house of ill repute?”
“Are you serious right now?” I couldn't believe she was mad at me for being taken someplace bound and gagged, after being beaten and electrocuted.
“There's no need to get angry,” she said. “I'm just trying to understand, that’s all.”
“Maybe because they're bikers? Who knows why they do anything?”
“What do you think is going to happen to that girl, Airi?”
“I don't know,” I said, shaking my head. “Nothing, I hope. She didn't help me, that's for sure.”
“How can she live like that?”
I didn't say anything. The truth was I felt guilty leaving her behind, but it's not like I had a choice. Things were out of my control. They'd been out of my control for a while by then.
“So that's when Sonya rescued you?”
“Yeah,” I breathed, glad to be moving on. “She said Unity Gang was already in the parking lot. If she hadn't come at the exact time she did, I'd be on my way to New Lompoc right now instead of shackled in this train.”
“Okay, I need to ask you something,” Felicity said, trembling. “I want you to be honest with me. I promise I won't be mad unless I find out you're lying.”
“Go ahead,” but I feared that I knew what she was going ask. “I have nothing to hide, Felicity. I promise. I haven't done anything wrong.”
She waited for me to finish, biting her lip again before asking.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did she come to rescue you? I mean, how did she know you were there in the first place?”
The sinking feeling returned to my stomach. It was the thing I'd been wondering ever since Batista brought it up. It didn't make sense, unless she was planning on selling me to the highest bidder herself. Was my heroine actually nothing more than a lying assassin who'd poached me for herself? And if that was the case, to whom did she plan on selling me when we got away? If it wasn't true, how had she known I was there and why had she helped me?
“I don't know,” I admitted.
“I mean,” Felicity said, talking over me, “why would she risk her life to help you escape if you didn't know her?”
Shock hit me in the face again, as I realized what Felicity was asking.
She thinks you had something going on with Sonya! All this talk about jealousy and now she's acting jealous for no reason. It wasn't a good idea to push her when she was spoiling for a fight. I'd have better luck beating a hornet’s nest with a stick and not getting stung.
“What are you saying?”
“Did you know her? You can tell me, Xander. I won't be mad. I promise. I just want to know the truth.”
That's another lie, I thought. If Sonya had been my secret friend and I confessed it, I was certain that Felicity would have ripped my head off, even if I'd been innocent of any crime. I was relieved that I was telling the truth, that I didn't know her, but I still felt nervous that she wouldn't believe me.
“I swear on my life, Felicity,” I protested. “I'd never even heard of her before she came through that door with the ax last night. Honest Injun.”
“It's pretty bizarre that she just showed up like that,” Felicity said.
“I agree, but you gotta believe me,” I argued.
“So what was she doing there? Did she follow them? I'm just trying to wrap my head around it, that's all.”
“Maybe,” I said, glad we were moving on to other possibilities for Sonya's sudden appearance. “Batista said she was a fugitive and an assassin. They knew each other for sure. He said he wouldn't let her get away again.”
“Maybe he's right,” Felicity suggested. “She could be a bounty hunter. If there is a price on your head in New Lompoc, there might be one in Ojai as well. We didn't exactly leave on the best of terms with Bryan Crowe.”
I thought back to the religious compound in Ojai, to the magician-turned-prophet who had several underage wives and who sacrificed troublesome devotees to pits of zombies in the name of his God. I had no doubt he would love to make a show of feeding me to those dirty, undead mouths, all while extolling the virtues of God's wrath and restoring once and for all his status as their infallible savior. What wouldn't he be willing to trade for a victory like that? Guns? Gas? Maybe even people? I'd never realized just how vulnerable I truly was on my own. The weight of it hit me hard, the seriousness of my situation sinking down to the bone and giving me a chill.
“She could have been scoping out the place when they brought you in, and decided to steal you for her own.”
“I don't know,” I shook my head. I couldn't believe it. She'd saved me from what was certain to be an ugly and cruel death. “She did save me from those animals. It's hard to believe she was just saving me so she could profit.”
“If you say so,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Maybe she had another reason for nearly getting killed charging into Hellfire to save you.”
That settles it. Felicity is definitely jealous of her! First, she's upset that she heard I was flirting with the Brat Packerz, and now over Sonya. I wanted to point out the hypocrisy of her telling me to get over my jealousy issues, then acting completely irrational about a chick I'd just met, but I thought better of it. This was a girl thing. I didn't always understand it when these moments happened, but I knew it was better not to mess with women when they got like this. Even when I was right I always ended up being wrong and paying a heavy price for it.
Then again, it's not like she violently assaulted Sonya the way you did Jamie, I thought, a guilty feeling twisting up in my tired guts. I was glad Felicity hadn't had a chance to try to fight Sonya. My wife was tough in her own way, but she didn't stand a chance against this trained killer. I thought about the two of them brawling and it stirred something in me again. Was I really happy to be getting this kind of attention? It was a side of me I wasn't used to seeing, and it scared me.
We rode in silence for a while and, without meaning to, I drifted off to sleep. I have a tendency to pass out after some pretty intense moments, so it wasn't all that surprising. It had been an insane night and I needed some time to process it all. What was I going to tell my brother, Moto, when I got back to the base? Would he listen to me, or would my explanations fall on deaf ears? I realized he might have to go hard on me because he's my brother and he wouldn’t want to show favoritism.
I woke to the sound of a high-pitched scream. Shaking my head as I regained myself, I realized it was the sound of metal train wheels locking on the rails as we skidded to a grinding halt.
“What's going on?”
“Shut up,” the guard said, now fully awake and hol
ding his gun. “Don't make another sound until I tell you.”
Cautiously he placed his ear to the door, listening for signs of a commotion outside. A few long seconds dragged by. Eventually he grew frustrated and threw the door open.
“We're under attack,” a voice screamed outside the train. I saw a slimy hand covered in sores and gray rotting skin grab the guard by the ankle and drag him out. He cried out and shot a few rounds off as he fell. Felicity cringed as the weapon discharged, peppering the ceiling of the boxcar with holes. I heard the guard’s inhuman wails as he was devoured by hungry, undead fiends.
“What are we going to do?” Felicity looked more panicked than I'd ever seen her. We were trapped with nowhere to turn. Maybe if we weren't chained up we might have stood a chance trying to fight our way out.
“I'm not sure there is much we can do,” I said. “We'll just have to ride out the fighting and hope the soldiers regain control quickly.”
Just when it seemed like things couldn't get any worse, an adult zombie with half his face hanging off in shreds poked his head into the door and wailed at us in raw hunger.
Chapter Ten
The foul monster snapped its drooling, blood-covered mouth at us. Its slimy fingers clawed at the straw covered boxcar floor, looking for any way of dragging itself up to feast on us. Under normal circumstances I might not have been worried about a single biter, but these were far from normal circumstances. First of all, I was still shackled like a prisoner. It was going to be impossible to defend us with no way of freely moving my arms or legs. Even if I did manage to take down the first one, I would most certainly draw more attention to us. It sure sounded like there were more of them out there, a lot more.
Please tell me that Alphas didn't orchestrate this with a small horde, I shouted inside my head.
Clearly there was a lot more going on than I could wrap my head around. Outside I heard yelling and bursts of gunfire as the soldiers fought.
“Don't just sit there,” Felicity yelled. The sound of the gunshots peppering the side of the car we were in had lit a fire underneath her. She paced back and forth in her chains like a caged animal.
That's not that far from the truth, I thought to myself.
The snarling zombie at the entrance to our boxcar began making grunting noises. I turned from Felicity's anxious expression to see the living corpse pulling himself up into the car with us. His fingers had found the raised edge of the floorboards and dug in, using his thin arms to pull his torso up across the floor with a sick, scraping sound. He was already up by the time I came across the car at him, using my shoulder to knock him back against the wall. The blow did little to slow him down. I felt his sharp teeth snap near my right ear as I pulled back, the stench of his cold, foul breath filling me with the urge to puke. I stumbled back to get another running start at him, but as I did I turned my head, hoping for a glimpse that might explain what was going on outside.
All around the outside of the train I saw what looked like cattle. The animals cried out, as waves of hungry dead former humans bit and tore at their living flesh. There were soldiers out there too, uselessly firing off weapons as they attempted to drive the mob back. It was like a slaughterhouse. There were biters as far as the eye could see in every direction.
The cows attracted the horde, I silently surmised. That's what probably blocked the tracks causing us to stop.
Then the worst thing possible happened. I'd been hobbling back, the shackles preventing me from taking big steps. The heel of my boot caught on something and with no warning, and no way of stopping myself, I fell backward, landing flat on my shoulders and knocking the wind clean out of me.
The zombie didn't hesitate. A gurgling cry came out of his mouth as he crouched forward, bringing his head down toward my face. I raised my shackled hands to attempt to ward him off as he came down on top of me, his open mouth now inches from mine.
I heard Felicity screaming uselessly behind me, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. It took all the effort I had to hold the monster off of me as he thrashed wildly above, his teeth opening and closing like a hungry predator moving in for the kill. Using all the strength I had left in my body, I managed to bring my knees up to my chest and place both feet against his hips. He'd been a big guy before turning and, even though he was rotting muscle, he still weighed a considerable amount over two hundred pounds. I rolled back slightly onto my shoulders and kicked as hard as I could with both feet, shoving him off of me in one clean move. The zombie landed back on his feet ready to strike again, maybe this time with better luck. I knew I only had a second to come up with a plan to save us both, but my mind was blank. I felt totally fried by all that had happened to me.
Think of something fast! I screamed at myself, but it was no use.
I was running out of options. A wave of animal fear and adrenaline crashed over me, and I screamed at the top of my lungs as I saw the monster lumbering forward to finish me off like yesterdays leftovers.
“Come on you bastard! Show me what you've got!”
A gunshot rang out to the left of me and just like that the undead monster stopped dead in his tracks. Black blood and greenish yellow zombie brains covered the wall of the boxcar. It took me a moment to realize what had just happened. I looked in confusion at the bullet hole punched between the monsters now lifeless eyes as a trickle of filthy muck drooled out of it. He fell over with a thud. It was hard to believe that moments ago a ferocious monster from my worst nightmare was about to kill and eat me, and was now nothing more than a crumpled heap of decaying flesh and bone.
“Everyone okay in here?” a voice asked.
I turned in shock to see a cowboy from straight out of the Old West poking his head into the boxcar. He was riding a golden horse with a frothy cream mane and still had his six-shooter in his hand. On the front of his leather jacket was a gold star that read US Marshal.
“Can you get us out of here?” Felicity was practically shouting.
“How many of you are there?”
“Two,” Felicity said.
“Three,” I corrected her, and she shot me a look that felt like daggers. “We've got one more in the car behind us.”
“She's already out of harm's way,” the cowboy informed me. “Hop on and I’ll ride you out of this disaster.”
“We can't,” I exclaimed, holding up the chains to show him our situation. “There's no way we can get our legs around a horse with these shackles on.”
The last thing either of us needed was to fall off a moving horse, chained and bound, into the middle of a zombie horde.
Might as well ask them if we can join their undead horde, I smirked.
“I’ve got an idea,” he quickly said. “Hold still.”
He aimed his pistol at the chain between my legs and I froze in place. I wished he'd given me an idea of what he was about to do, so I could argue against it, but it happened so fast I didn't have time to make a sound. The cowboy’s gun rang out three times as he shot at the chain connecting my ankle manacles. My legs began to tremble uncontrollably out of fear. I looked down to see the first shot had missed, but the second two had done the trick, blasting clean through the metal.
I raced back to Felicity, helping her hobble forward to the front of the boxcar.
“Spread your feet now, little lady,” the rugged cowboy instructed. Felicity did as she was told, leaning against me for support and turning her head away. The gun rang out once. He'd hit the mark on his first try.
“It worked,” Felicity squealed in excitement, looking from him to me in surprise.
“No time to waste,” the cowboy admonished us. “Get on up here and be extra careful.”
I helped Felicity up onto the back of the beautiful horse, and she quickly slid to the back of the beast, settling high up on the majestic creature’s rump. Raising my foot high like a karate kick I brought it carefully up and over the middle of the horse’s back. I was off balance and needed help getting fully settled on the massive anim
al. Felicity took one of my hands and the cowboy took the other, both of them pulling until I was seated squarely behind our rescuer.
I turned my head around to take in the chaos. We were in a small valley between two small peaks. It was like a killing field filled with zombies, cows, and soldiers.
“Hiyah!” The Marshal shouted, giving his horse a gentle nudge with his spurred boot heels. The broad palomino mare responded by lurching forward, whinnying as she trampled over a small knot of undead monsters reaching out for her. Felicity pulled her legs up until she was sitting dead center on the hindquarters, riding on her knees. I kicked wildly with my feet, moving my legs like I was peddling a bicycle with a huge seat. I felt my boots brush past arms and hands, and in one instance connect directly with the face of one of the falling zombies. The loose chains around my ankles spun wildly hitting zombies, and once, an actual soldier. I didn't have time to apologize. I was clinging on for dear life.
Please God don't let them drag me off this horse by these hanging chains, I silently pleaded.
Within moments we were free from the train and moving up the hillside at a rapid pace, the scrub brush beneath us blurring like an impressionistic landscape. The dark golden skin of the mare rippled as her strong muscles dug in and brought us to the top of a small peak. The Marshal turned her around to look back at where we'd come from once we were out of harms way. A desert gust wafted past us making the palominos creamy white mane flutter like a victory flag. It all happened so fast I almost couldn't believe it.
“Anyone bitten or shot?”
I patted my torso, then searched my legs for signs of even a scratch, but I was unscathed. It was a small miracle. Just moments before, I'd had a zombie's biting teeth mere inches from taking me over again to their team. I turned to Felicity who shook her head no as well.
“I'm clear,” she said.
“Dear Lord,” the Marshal replied, turning his attention back to the fighting. “Would you look at that?”
It was a sea of suffering beneath us, worse than any Hieronymus Bosch vision of hell. The desperate soldiers were losing badly, as gruesome zombies driven by hunger pinned them between the cattle and the train cars and tore at the breathing flesh with rotting teeth. There were less sounds of gunfire now, as the numbers of the living drastically dwindled.
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