by James, Jill
Once they were outside the flap and the girl’s cries died away, Billy Joe moved on. He strolled to the blonde. It wasn’t that she was ugly; she was just what his daddy would have said, ‘was rode hard and put away wet.’
“What is your name?”
“Teri.”
“Are you a virgin?”
“Yeah, like five or six years ago,” she said, and then spit in his face.
He backhanded her and smiled as she hit the ground. Nodding to a young man, he grabbed a handful of greasy hair and pulled her to her knees. One of his men came over and pulled her arms behind her back. Billy Joe held on to her hair and stretched her neck. A simple nod and the young man lifted his ax and brought it down on Teri’s neck. He jumped back as the blood spurted from her decapitation across the canvas floor.
He raised her head with his hand still wrapped in her hair. “This is the face of evil. Don’t forget it. Woman was made to be pure, wedded, or dead; there is no other state of her being. Her purity belongs to God until a husband claims her.”
Dropping the head like a piece of garbage he was done with, he moved to the last young woman. She stared straight ahead, her eyes glazed and shocked.
“What is your name?”
“Maya,” she stuttered out.
“Are you a virgin?”
She nodded her head.
He glanced at the body and head a few men were removing. “You see the penalty for lying, don’t you?”
Her head came up and she glanced in his eyes. “Yes, I’m a virgin,” she spoke up loud and clear.
He grabbed a handful of long, dark curls and pulled her to his side. He pushed on her until her knees hit the ground and he held her there at his feet.
“I’ve heard the word of God and he has told me that Maya is to be a bride of God, to be my bride. I am to mold her and make her into a shining example of what it is to be a wife and helpmate.”
His now-first wife, Roberta, came to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Go with God and may you find your wife submissive and pure.”
The congregation repeated the benediction. No one but Billy Joe felt Roberta’s nails digging into his shoulder, which was the only reason she still had a hand to be squeezing his shoulder with.
He smiled as the congregation congratulated him. There was more than one way to punish an unruly first wife. Like making her watch as he deflowered number two.
Chapter Four
Rule #2 Don’t baby the children; they have to grow up to be zombie-hunters, even if you don’t want them to be anything but children. That time is past.
RV Storage yard
Oakley, California
Michelle gripped her hands together and pressed her lips hard. She would not embarrass Dylan again by demanding the men not teach him to shoot and stab the skinbags. No, not the men. Teddy. The giant man was down on one knee behind the little boy, holding on to his thin arms as he fired a gun.
She jumped again as the gun fired and the sound carried from the practice field to where she stood atop the wall. The shooting range had never made her jump when she was the one doing the firing. But there seemed something wrong with teaching a six-year old to shoot for survival.
Her gaze had been so intent on the boy and the strong man at this back that she would have missed the stumbling zombie headed their way, tripping over the sun-baked dirt, if not for the gasp in her ear.
Her mouth moved but no words tumbled out. No scream of a warning. She stared in horror as Emily reached over her shoulder for the ever-present crossbow she no longer carried. Footsteps thundered down the boards of the scaffolding as Emily’s husband, Seth joined them. He pulled a gun out of the holster on his belt, his finger tightened on the trigger, and then nothing.
He couldn’t take the shot with Dylan and Teddy in the way, she could see that. Emily yelled down to the man, “Teddy, your two o’clock.” Her fingernails dug into her palms as the man’s head swiveled to spot the zomb’ just feet from his position. In a move that was almost too quick to follow, he grabbed Dylan to his chest and raised his foot to hit the undead in the stomach and pushed him away.
Before anyone could do anything else, Dylan raised the gun still in his hands and shot the skinbag in the head. The zomb’ dropped at their feet.
Her mouth dropped open as Dylan and Teddy high-fived each other with great big grins on their faces. Her hand itched to smack them both. Didn’t they get it? Zombies weren’t supposed to be able to get this close. The repel sound Jed Long ran twenty-four hours a day through the mounted speakers was supposed to keep them away—far away. God knows it was supposed to do something useful for all the aching teeth and headaches they had to put up with to endure the ultrasonic hum all the time.
Seth hugged Emily and gave her a quick kiss before he scrambled down the ladder and she assumed out the gate to check out the now dead skinbag with Teddy and Dylan. Her hands shook as she grabbed the binoculars from where they hung on her neck and pressed them to her eyes. Like looking through a rain-streaked window, her tears blurred her vision until she blinked a couple of times.
Emily was happy. She deserved to be happy. It just hurt so much to watch the casual way the married couples hugged and said good-bye, like the other was just going off to work. Just as she’d said good-bye to Mitch and he’d only come back as the undead. Nothing should be casual anymore. Nothing.
She turned slowly as she scanned the area and listened to Emily use the walkie-talkie to tell the other watchers to be on the lookout for skinbags slipping through the hum’s perimeter. A fire sent a small wisp of smoke into the air to the far south. A coyote slipped through the trees much nearer the compound, stalking a wild pig. Seth appeared, running to Teddy’s location and the coyote high-tailed it deeper into the trees until a high squeal revealed the winner of that contest. Nature was taking back the abandoned spaces. A bobcat had been spotted in a tree a couple of days ago.
To the southwest, the street ran in front of the RV yard. With most of the nearby trees removed and the houses burned to the ground, Michelle could see past the hum’s perimeter, marked with red spray paint on the asphalt. A group of zombs stood just beyond the line. One took a step over the line, and then turned, stumbling back into the group, knocking some of them to the ground.
She took the binoculars off and handed them to Emily, pointing in the direction she’d been looking.
“The hum line seems to be holding. So how did the thing down there get through?”
Her friend looked for a moment and nodded her head before handing the binoculars back. “You’re right. Nothing is coming closer.” She turned to look at her husband in the field. “I guess we’ll have to wait to find out. They don’t look like they are coming back anytime soon. Unless you want to go down there and hear whatever they are talking about?”
Michelle put the binoculars’ strap back over her neck and let them fall to her chest. “I think I should stay up here and keep watch, at least until Dylan gets back inside.”
Her friend’s arm came around her shoulder and pulled her in tight. The sigh Emily gave said it all, even if she didn’t say a word. She was hiding away, thinking she was safe and cozy in the compound. It was all just an illusion and someday she might be forced to make a choice. A shudder ran down her spine. She tried to hide from the thought in her mind that even then she might not be able to make the right choice.
***
“Mr. Teddy, can you take the gun, please.”
He took the gun and put it in the holster as little Dylan’s body convulsed and he leaned forward to throw up his breakfast. Tears streaked the small, pale face.
“I’m sorry. Now the others will think I’m a wimp.”
Taking a step backward from the stinky mess, Teddy reached for his handkerchief and gave it to the kid. He wanted to laugh at the sorry look on Dylan’s face but it would just upset him more.
He set the child down on his feet and squatted in front of him. “Even if the skinbags are dead now, they we
re once people. They were mommies and daddies and kids. We should always feel something when we have to kill them.”
Dylan’s dark eyes widened as he looked at him. “But you come back from zombie hunting all happy, like you had fun.”
Teddy put his hand on the little one’s shoulder. “Let me tell you a secret. At first I thought it was fun. Until I had to kill a lady who looked just like my momma, and then I threw up just like you just did. Then it wasn’t so much fun no more. But we have to do it. So I laugh and smile when I come home because I’m home. Another day of the zombie apocalypse and I’m safely home with my friends.”
“Can I tell the others you aren’t big and bad?”
He smiled and cupped Dylan’s face. “Let’s keep that just between us, okay?”
The little boy nodded as Ripley reached them.
“Mr. Seth. Mr. Seth. I killed my first zombie,” the boy piped up. He shot a quick glance to Teddy and his smile faded and a serious look fell on the kid. “I mean. I put down a skinbag because it has to be done. Just a job, you know.”
Seth matched the serious look on Dylan’s face as Teddy fought and lost to keep a smile off his face.
“Yes, a very important job. Nice to know you can protect the womenfolk and you’ll be able to be a zombie hunter when Teddy and I are too old to go out into the wild lands.”
He punched the man in the arm. “Speak for yourself. I got plenty of hunting years left in me.”
Seth winced from the punch and spoke up, changing the subject. “Did you check out our dead friend yet?”
He nodded toward Dylan. “Was dealing with some other stuff first. So let’s see how it got through the hum perimeter.”
“The hum perimeter?” Seth shook his head and laughed.
“That’s what Emily and Mrs. Greggs call it,” he replied as they walked to Dylan’s first kill.
He sniffed as they got closer. “It doesn’t smell so bad. He’s freshly turned. Where do you think he came from?”
Seth squatted to the side of the body. He started checking pockets and pulling the contents out and handing them to Dylan. “I know you first tried courting during the Disco era, but you could just call her Michelle,” Ripley directed to Teddy.
“She calls me Mr. Ridgewood. I’m just giving her the same respect,” he answered, taking the papers from the little boy.
Looking at the papers, and then at the dead zomb’, Teddy slapped his forehead. “He’s deaf. The notepad has I’m deaf on it and some other notes I’m thinking he used back and forth between someone else. His wallet has a card for The Deaf Learning Center in Oakley. The address is down Neroly Road. Must be nearby.”
“Shit,” Ripley cursed as he stood up. “We’ve passed it a dozen times when we’ve been out hunting. It’s in the church down on the corner. About a mile or so, south of here. We’ll have to check it out. There could be more of them in there.”
Teddy stared at the sky. “It isn’t even noon. We could get a group and take care of it right now.”
“I want to help,” Dylan chirped, grabbing Teddy’s hand and trying to pull him closer.
Ruffling the kid’s hair, he smiled down at him. “Maybe next time. This time I need you to watch over your mom and the other ladies.”
“Do I get a gun?”
“Not while you’re in the compound. But you can stand guard and practice with your bow, okay?”
“Cool,” Dylan said as he ran back to the RV yard ahead of the men.
“That little boy worships you, you know? The whole Rogue Vantage does.”
Teddy stared up to the two women standing on the wall. “Too bad they couldn’t share some of that with their mother.”
Seth returned the punch Teddy had given him earlier. “Keep working on that. Some walls are worth breaking down.”
Teddy barely felt the punch as he continued to stare. Yep, some walls were worth whatever it took to break them down to get to the treasure inside.
Chapter Five
In less than an hour, Teddy and Seth had rounded up the brother-sister team of Josh and Suz Logan. Paul Luther, the right-hand man for the commander of the compound, joined them as well. These days you never saw Josh or Suz without Paul. Teddy couldn’t quite figure out if Josh loved Paul too, or if the man couldn’t live without his sister, Suz.
It made for an interesting topic for banter around a campfire, their new replacement for the water-cooler at an office or the back fence in a neighborhood, but he didn’t mind the trio having his back. They were a lethal group to have for hunting skinbags. Working in unison without a word needing to be spoken, the three of them had been seen taking out twenty zombs in half as many minutes.
They’d arrived at the church to find the parking lot a zombie central of shambling undead tripping over each other. He couldn’t imagine how the one skinbag had found the compound because the rest of the deaf-school kids were just milling around in circles and running into walls until their group showed up. Then it was like someone set off a dinner bell.
The moans and the stench reached him at the same time. The group was riper than their friend back at the compound. Teddy pulled the bandana over his mouth and nose and leapt out of the bed of the pickup truck. Two of them were on him before the thud of his boots finished echoing over the blacktop.
He took care of one with his baseball bat and the other one tripped and fell at his feet. One stomp and he was truly dead as well as his friend. Scanning the parking lot, he grinned as the Logan siblings and Paul had a pile of zombs and Ripley was adding his few to the mound.
“That wasn’t even a workout,” he complained as he dragged his two to the gasoline-scented pyre being built in the center of the parking lot.
A moan sounded from the church building and he whipped his head around. “Some of the kids didn’t come out for recess.”
Teddy and Seth ran over to the door. A steady thump echoed from the other side. Ripley counted down and he ripped the door open. A zombified boy sat in a wheelchair, his struggling movements in the chair causing the footrests to hit the door.
Straps held the thing into the seat. Seth took one side and he took the other and they carried it to the now rapidly burning pile of the finally dead. Teddy tried to pry him out of the chair, but chomping jaws went for his face and fingers. In the end, they could only splash him with gas and let the flames catch hold.
Suz huffed out a noisy breath. “Men. Always have to make it so hard. You could have killed him first.”
He and Seth stared at each other, and then started busting out laughing. Once the laughter died down, Teddy caught his breath at the cry of a baby or small child from inside the building. He swallowed hard. Man, this job sucked.
They used rock, paper, scissors to see who would go in. Teddy and Paul lost. He handed his bat to the man and pulled the machete from his belt. Suz, Josh, and Seth split up to check out the perimeter of the building for any strays, although they hadn’t seen any on the way here.
He’d had some dicey times as a bodyguard, but hunting zombies was like constant ass-pucker time, as he’d called it back in the before zombie time. Must be what it was like to be a cop. Going into a dark building, not knowing what you would find, took balls. If they ever found a cop left, he’d be sure to thank them.
The light from the open door ended a few feet down the hall. Paul flicked on a flashlight and somehow that made it worse. Shadows lurked in the corners and beyond the flashlight’s reach. He used his ears instead to be on alert for moans, shuffling of feet, or other out-of-place sounds.
Besides the child’s wailing, the building was silent. Paul took the lead as they reached the main part of the church. A giant cross hung on a wall behind the altar. Teddy crossed himself without even thinking of it as they moved to the aisle. The pews sat empty except for dust bunnies blowing across the wood expanse. Stained-glass windows cast a rainbow of colors across the room.
He jumped as the cries echoed from a doorway on the other side.
Paul
swept a hand through his hair and whispered, “Shit. I hate this. This is not going to end well.”
He had to agree. If there had been anyone alive, they would have hushed the child by now. The odds that they would find a live, uninjured child were too small to contemplate. With a shaking hand, Teddy reached and opened the door. A small girl sat just beyond the doorway, tears streaking down her dusty-brown face. A tiny hand cradled her arm. An arm with a giant bite mark. Something had taken a bite down to the bone. Black lines ran from the wound, down her arm, and the flesh was turning a dusky gray. Her brown eyes were opaque with a milky film. Her huffing breath carried a rotted scent.
“Oh, baby girl,” he cried. “Come to Teddy. Let me look at that.”
He held out his arms and gathered her to his chest. “What’s your name?”
“Phoebe,” she managed to get out between hiccupping cries. “Where’s Michael? He went to get food. He promised he would be back.”
Michael had to be the fresh undead back at the camp. “I’m sure he’s around here somewhere,” he lied. “We’ll find him soon. He took in a large, shaky breath.
“Phoebe, I’m so sorry,” he gritted out as he grasped and twisted her delicate neck until it snapped.
Bile rose in his throat. Swallowing it down, he refused to further befoul the sanctity of the church he’d desecrated with his sin of murder. He gathered the small body and handed his machete to Paul. A quick glance around and a short listen proved the little one had been the only one left.
He made it to placing the body on the burning pile before he turned to the side and threw up everything in his stomach. Dry heaves left him still bent over when the others returned from scouting the area.
Pressing on his knees, he stood straight and walked across the blacktop away from the group. What he’d told Dylan this morning was true, anyone could lose it, but that didn’t mean he wanted to stay there and have Josh or Seth joke about it. He still felt too raw. Something was terribly wrong in a world where killing that little girl was the right thing to do. He would worry about going to Hell for his sins, but they were already there.