by Cedric Nye
The brunette who was first out of her cage cut in, “And then Mr. Banks, well, he just shot Mrs. Watson. Then those friends of his came in behind him. Then they took us all out of there and they loaded us on the bus. Mr. Banks drove us all the way here. That was two months ago. She hung her head sadly. “And I just know my family is all gone too. I don't even know what I’ll do.”
Jango’s face appeared etched in stone as the girl finished speaking. He was thinking about this militia the girls were talking about. He figured that sooner or later, somebody, or even several somebodies would show up here looking for Bernard.
“So what about this militia?” Jango asked. “What kind of militia are they? White Power? Fuck the government? Incest is best? Tell me what you all know.”
“Didn’t you see the basement here?” A blonde-haired girl asked him. “They have all kinds of crazy Nazi stuff down there. They have guns, knives, and all our clothes too.”
“Basement?” Jango asked. He had searched this house high and low, and not seen any sign of a basement. “Where is this basement?”
“It's real hard to see unless you know where it is, because it's behind the bookcase. I will show you,” said a very small girl.
He had to ask, “How old are you kids anyway?”
"Fifteen," said several of them in unison. They looked at each other and smiled.
Jango was glad to see them smile. It was a good sign. Children, even teenagers, had a natural resiliency to their minds and spirits. If that resiliency was tapped, and they were allowed to heal, the girls could go on to live decent lives.
Jango held out his hands, palms up, and made a “gimme” gesture. The two girls that held the knives looked sad, but handed the knives back to him. He cleaned them off on the ragged remnants of his camouflage shirt, folded the Spyderco and pocketed it, and then sheathed the spine cutter.
As Jango followed the girls back down the stairs, he asked, “So where'd he have these fights? You said he has some kind of cage or corral? Who all would fight in there besides the chubby chunk of fuck-meat back there?”
The muscular girl with purple hair answered, “Well, some of the guys from the militia would fight but not very much because they were afraid of being bitten. Mr. Banks made people fight at least two of them. He said that our tight… Our tight little… He said they would have to work if they wanted a piece of us.” The girl jutted her chin out, as if daring him to judge her. Jango didn’t show anything on his face, and she continued. “Mostly it was The Killer, I mean, the chubby guy back there. But they would also catch dogs and put them in with the zombies and you could hear those poor dogs screaming. And they also caught people that were still human, and they put them in there. If they won they could use us. Some of them did, but the ones who didn’t, well, Mr. Banks just killed them. They were all supposed to come here tonight, and The Killer was going to fight five zombies at once. After the fight, Mr. Banks was going to let all of the militia guys do whatever they wanted with us tonight because he said he needed to keep them in line. He told us that pussy keeps men in line.”
Without preamble or explanation, Jango started hurrying the girls out of the room. “Come on, come on, come on, let's go. We don’t want to get caught with our shit hanging out when those shit-bags come looking for their boss and his dead monkey.” Jango pointed at The Killer’s mangled corpse.
“Are you going to get us out of here?” Asked the small girl who had volunteered to show him to the basement. She had a terrified expression on her face, and Jango knew it was because she didn’t want him to leave without her and her friends. She didn’t want to be abandoned.
Even as they walked, all the girls’ faces turned toward Jango as they waited for an answer to the girl’s question. He kept walking for several paces before he answered. “No,” Jango replied. “You are going to help me kill every last one of those mother-fuckers. I can’t move all of you and still keep you safe. The world has never been kind to women or children, but now it is worse. I can’t take you with me, not on the Apocalypse Road. I’m running full-steam ahead, straight for the Reaper, and that road isn’t for you kids. So that means you are staying here, which also means that those shit-eating rapists need to get planted.”
A little more than two months ago, all of these teenage girls had been on top of the world. The worst issue they might have been facing was who they should go to prom with, if their hair looked okay, or how they might cover up a little pimple before they went to hang out at the movie theater. Now, they had been raped, victimized, caged, and had gone Lord of the Flies on a giant rapist. Now he was asking them to help him kill an entire armed militia group. Jango knew what he was asking wouldn’t be easy for the girls, but he also knew that it had to be done. He knew those men had to die, otherwise these girls, and anyone else who tried to live around there would never be safe. Jango's code would not allow him to desert someone in need; he refused to just walk by. He still had to provide for their safety. In Jango's mind, it wasn't even an option; it just was.
They reached the bookcase that the small girl had told Jango about. One of the girls pulled the spine on a purple book, the bookshelf clicked, and then swung silently outward. Behind it was a heavy, metal door, with a hefty bolt securing it. The girls all turned to look at him expectantly.
Jango looked confused for a split second, but then he remembered the remote device that had opened the front door. Jango quickly pulled it from his pocket, and pressed the gray button. There was an answering "thunk" and the sound of the bolt sliding back. Jango jerked the door open, and headed down the wide flight of well-lit stairs that was on the other side.
When Jango reached the bottom of the steps, he found himself in a huge chamber full of guns, paintings, jewelry, knives, swords, and a vast variety of other valuables.
“Get some clothes, and get dressed,” Jango barked at the blood-covered girls.
As the girls hustled to follow his instructions, Jango carefully looked over the available weapons. He immediately noticed a large crate that seemed to be entirely full of .22 caliber ammunition. He swiftly searched all of the available firearms for anything in .22 caliber.
After several minutes of methodical searching, Jango had managed to come up with ten Ruger 10-22 rifles. Each of the rifles had two clear plastic banana clips that had twenty rounds of ammunition already loaded into each clip. The two clips were taped together so that the ends of the clips that the rounds were fed out of faced away from each other.
Jango kept hunting, and found a small crate of double-barreled 12-gauge shotguns. Jango did not have to hunt around to find ammunition for the shotguns, because there was a shelf right near the crate that was loaded with all manner of 12-gauge ammunition. Jango swiftly and methodically cracked each double-barreled shotgun open, then loaded them each with double ought buckshot.
By the time Jango was done, he had twenty shotguns in all, with both barrels loaded. He also had ten rifles with forty rounds per rifle. Jango looked around to see how the girls were progressing. When he did, he saw that they had all gotten dressed in ill-fitting camouflage clothing. The girls all wore lace up boots, and had clipped knives to the black canvas belts that they were using to hold up their baggy pants.
When Jango had turned around to face the girls, they all straightened up, like soldiers would for an officer. He noted that the girls also appeared embarrassed. The girls were still used to the way things were, and he understood that their embarrassment stemmed from a fear that Jango would ridicule them for attempting to emulate him. The idea of ridiculing anyone who had decided to make a stand had never crossed Jango's mind. He felt nothing but respect for the warriors who now stood before him. Jango gave them each a nod of approval before hurrying them over to get their weapons.
“Do any of you have any firearms training?” Jango asked. He looked around to see if anyone had given him an affirmative. None of them had.
“Fuck it,” Jango said. “That training is overrated anyway. All you need to kno
w is that the bullets come out of here.” He pointed at the muzzle. “You pull on this.” He pointed at the trigger. “To make the bullets come out. Oh, and you never shoot your friends.” He finished with a smile of encouragement. He just figured on pointing the girls at the militia members, and letting them send a hail-storm of lead their way. Well, that was half of his plan.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” The small girl asked, interrupting Jango’s thoughts.
“I’m who?” He asked the girl, genuinely confused by her question.
“You’re the one that those men talked about. They heard stories on the radio about someone who’s called the Zombie Fighter.” She paused, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “The men and Mr. Banks said that the people who had seen the Zombie Fighter, seen what he did, well, they said that those people claimed that he was the Devil set loose on earth to do God’s work. They said that the Zombie Fighter would kill people just as fast as he killed zombies. They said that you can tell where the Zombie Fighter has been because where he walks, no evil is left behind and the ground is burned to glass. It’s you. I know it is, and we knew you would come to save us.”
Jango looked around him, stunned into silence by the girl’s speech. He was even more stunned to see that all of the girls nodded in agreement as the small girl finished speaking.
The muscular girl spoke into the silence, “Two months.” Her voice cracked with emotion as she spoke. “Two months of them doing whatever they wanted to us. At first, we all planned to kill ourselves. Sarah,” she pointed her chin at the small girl, “She found a little piece of broken glass when they took her out the first time. She hid it in her mouth, and we all decided to use it to slash our wrists.”
The other girls nodded almost in unison as the muscular girl spoke.
“We figured we would do it at night, and have all night to bleed out. We would just pass it through the bars, one by one, until we were all cut open and bleeding to death.” Emotion made the girl’s strong face tighten up, as if she was about to cry. She forced her emotions back, and continued. “The night we were going to do it, Melissa had been taken out.” She pointed to a tall, red haired girl. “Well, she came back, and as soon as the door was closed, she told us about a story she had heard on the short-wave radio that those a-holes always listen to. She told us about you. She told us the stories.” She hurriedly added, “Don’t you dare lie. Don’t you dare! We know it’s you. They said you were coming this way. The stories people told, they said that you were coming this way, and we just knew you would come. Those men were watching for you, and we knew you would come and kill them.” The strong girl gave way to her emotions, and cried unabashedly. Heart wrenching sobs heaved loose from her chest, bridged the gap between them, and slammed through the wall of Jango’s will.
He stepped close to the girl, and awkwardly put his arm around her shoulder. He patted her heavily muscled shoulder while repeating, “It’s better now, it’s better now,” over and over until her sobs diminished.
“Look, I sure as shit won’t just desert you girls, okay? You all are unbelievably strong and fucking-A awesome, but we don’t have time for a bunch of hugging and healing. We can either sit here talking about how we feel, or we can go shoot those twisted shit-biscuits into nasty, gross, piles of zombie-chow.” Jango paused for effect, and then asked, “So, who’s with me?”
The huge basement filled with a chorus of “Hell yeah!” and “Let’s do it!” Jango smiled, and gave the now smiling purple haired girl’s shoulder a squeeze before he moved back to the guns he had prepared for them.
Jango quickly made sure that each clip was secured, and then chambered a round before he handed the weapons over. Before he gave them their weapons, he told each girl, “This is the safety, don't take it off of safe until I tell you to, okay?”
The girls looked frightened. Jango could smell their fear in the air, and he was glad that they were afraid, because their fear would keep them sharp, and make them strong.
When Jango had handed out all ten of the rifles, he gave the remaining thirteen girls double-barreled shotguns, and several extra rounds to put in their pockets. He showed them where the safety was, just behind the dual triggers, and told them the same thing he had told the other girls. “Don't take it off safety until I tell you to, okay?”
Jango looked over his ragtag army of twenty-three frightened, blood spattered orphans, and he felt a great surge of pride to be going into battle with them. He looked around and made eye contact with each girl before finally saying, “Let's go kill these twisted mother-fuckers.”
As they walked back up the stairs, Jango asked several questions, “Where do these guys usually come from? Do they park here by the house? What goes on?”
The brave brunette, the one who had been the first to climb out of her cage, spoke up. “They come in on the back road and they park all around the Pit. I mean, you know, the corral where they have the fights.”
“Do they get out of their vehicles right away, or do they come up to the house?” Jango asked.
“Yeah,” the brave girl said. “They get out of their cars and then they just sit in the bleachers that are back there while they wait for Mr. Banks and The Killer.”
Jango nodded to himself as they crested the stairs, grinning, as he thought about how long the militia members would have to wait for Banks and The Killer to get there.
Jango led the girls to the front of the huge house, and up to the vault-like front door. A few of the girls kicked the unmoving body of Mr. Banks as they filed past it.
Jango sighed, “I never did find out if his fucking potion works or not, or what he was doing out in the woods with me when I was sick.”
The brunette girl spoke, “No, that stuff was just bull sh..I mean, poop. He tricked a lot of people into coming here by telling them that he had some herbal cure. He was going to bring you here so you could fight too. Or they might have just killed you and let you fight as a groaner.”
Jango shuddered at the thought of being a zombie. Everything the girl said made perfect sense, though, so he shrugged it off, and focused on the task at hand. He pressed the gray button on the remote device, and opened the heavy steel front door. After he and the girls filed out the door, he closed the door, and then locked it. He pocketed the remote, and headed around the back of the sprawling estate as his army of orphans followed on his heels like a bunch of heavily armed ducklings.
Chapter 5:
Taking it Back
Jango and the girls made their way across a broad expanse of grass under the darkening sky. They wended their way along a small footpath that led through the woods behind the main house. They emerged from the woods a few minutes later and a smaller, but still substantial house, came into view.
The brunette, who Jango had mentally dubbed “the brave one,” said, “There's the corral. See? It's right next to the garage. They keep all the zombies and the dogs in the garage.”
He looked around, took note of the dark, thick woods, and began to mentally finalize his plan for dealing with the militia members.
“So what time are these guys supposed to show up?” Jango asked.
“They usually show up right after dark,” said a little Asian girl who had stern eyes and a determined set to her jaw.
“Then we better hurry,” Jango said. “You said they show up along the driveway over here, right?”
“Yeah, that's where they come in,” said a little red haired girl. She was very petite, and had a black eye that had turned an ugly shade of yellowish-purple. “They come right up that road and then circle around the corral. They point their headlights kind of inward.”
Jango nodded to himself; that made perfect sense. That way the men could enjoy the action from a nice, comfortable vantage point. Just sit back on the bleachers and have a nice view of death without ever being in danger. “Fucking twists,” Jango thought.
“All right, listen up!” Jango said in a stern voice. “I want all of you girls in the woods to my rig
ht. I want you dead fucking quiet, and I want you out of sight. You will take cover behind trees, and make sure you aren’t in a position to shoot any of your friends. The men will be sitting with their backs to you, and when I give you the signal, you just cut loose on those dirty sons of bitches.”
“What's the signal supposed to be?” The question came from a girl who, up until now, hadn’t uttered a single word to Jango. She had blonde hair and she wore a worried expression.
“Don't worry,” Jango said with a smile. “You'll know my signal when you see it.”
Jango hustled the girls into the woods, and told them, “Go ahead and take your weapons off safe, but don’t mess around! Don’t you put your fingers on those triggers until it is go-time. You understand? Don’t touch those triggers until it is the killing hour. I don't need you killing your friends or messing up the plan. You need to know that if these guys get a chance, or get any kind of warning, they will kill us. You do understand that they will do worse to any of you that they take alive, right? I need you all on the same page with me.”
The girls’ ashen faces told Jango that his hard sell had gotten the message across to them, and that they would wait. All the girls nodded their heads vigorously in agreement and he led them into the woods, and showed them where he wanted them to hide. He positioned every girl behind trees to give them cover. He also made sure that they had a clear line of fire to the bleachers. They would be able to shoot the men in their backs from less than thirty feet away. The trees would give them protection in case any of the men were able to return fire.