by Gibb, Lew
“So how many are there?”
“What?”
“How many women?”
“Four.”
Jerry was already convinced Rachel was inside, but he needed to know what he was up against. It wouldn’t do her any good for him to get killed trying to rescue her because he went off half-cocked. He took several deep breaths and managed to calm himself down enough to come up with some better questions.
One of the women could be Rachel, but the guy wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, which explained why he was taking orders from someone like Zebulan Picke. Jerry decided to move on.
The sun was well over the eastern horizon by the time Jerry had all the information Stevie had to give. There was a canvas bag on the center seat with a bunch of zip ties inside, probably what they used to transport their captives. Jerry used two to secure Stevie’s hands to the steering wheel.
“Hey, man,” Stevie whined when Jerry jerked the tie tight. “That hurts.”
Jerry really wanted to shoot the guy for what he and the rest of Zebulan’s disciples were doing to their captives. While he was trying to work up the nerve, Mandy pushed her head forward with a stuffed rabbit hanging from her jaws.
For some reason, the thought of his dogs seeing him kill someone in cold blood felt wrong. “Thanks, Mandy.” Jerry patted her head and eased the toy free with his gun hand while glancing up at the building’s roofline. It was long past time for the other sentry to have returned. He ripped the toy in half, stuffed the rabbit’s slobbery head in Stevie’s mouth and secured it with Stevie’s own belt. He gave the bottom half back to Mandy. Stevie didn’t resist as Jerry dragged him over and zip-tied his legs to the door’s corner post so it looked like he was still kicking back, enjoying his guard duty.
“Just hang out here.” Jerry patted Stevie on the head and motioned for the dogs to come with him. They hopped over Stevie and waited by his side when they hit the pavement, looking at Jerry for their next instruction. “Hopefully, no zombies will come along.”
Stevie’s eyes went wide.
Jerry left him there and headed for the building’s front using parked trailers for cover. Anyone who participated in kidnapping and rape deserved what they got. If the guy was lucky, the zombies would kill him fast. He wanted to go in the front door so he would be as close to where they were holding Rachel and the others as he could get. He would have to cover a hundred feet of parking lot to the front door without any cover. There was nothing to do but make a run for it.
Jerry checked the roofline and didn’t see anyone waiting to shoot him, so he made his move.
Halfway across the lot, automatic rifle fire ripped the silence, and something pinged off the asphalt at his feet.
Jerry ducked and sped up. He snapped off a couple shots at where he thought he had seen muzzle flashes. He was pretty sure that was what they were. He wasn’t expecting to hit anything, just trying to keep the shooter’s head down long enough so he and the dogs, who were still right beside him, could reach the door.
Bullets sparked off the blacktop around him and zinged off into the distance. This time he was sure they were muzzle flashes, as the shooter looked like someone with a really big lighter.
He fired several more shots as he ran, and then they were at the door. He yanked it open, and they darted through just as the door disintegrated, spraying them with glass fragments. A warm trickle was already working its way down his chin as he crossed the empty vestibule.
A receptionist’s counter took up most of the back wall with the door leading to the office area to the left, just as Stevie said. He and the other “disciples of the benevolent redeemer”—as they called themselves at Zebulan’s insistence—slept in the offices because they were near the storeroom at the back, between the office area and the warehouse, where the captives were kept.
Jerry grabbed the knob, still moving fast. He twisted and shouldered it open in one movement. It flew open a foot then banged into something, and Jerry bounced backward a step.
Someone yelled, “Fuck!” and gunshots ripped through the room. A line of holes appeared in the wall beside the door.
Jerry knelt beside the door. He couldn’t just fire through it. He might hit Rachel.
He nudged the door open. No shots.
He darted through at an angle, keeping low and leading with his pistol. The earthy smell of poor hygiene and alcohol abuse assaulted his nose. A grungy, stringy-haired man who could have been Stevie’s homeless father was lying on his back in the hallway.
“Is that you, Stevie?” The sound of his voice was distant and muffled. Both hands covered his forehead, and blood dripped between his fingers. An assault rifle lay on the floor at his side.
Jerry bent and grabbed the gun before aiming it at the man.
“What the fuck, man?” the guy said without removing his bloody hands from his face. It wasn’t Zebulan. Bobby was on the roof, so this must have been Georgie.
“On your stomach Georgie, with your hands behind your head.”
Georgie’s hands drifted away from his face and he looked at Jerry with a hurt expression. “I think my nose might be broken.” Bullies always seemed to be the biggest whiners when they got the slightest injury.
Jerry poked him in the ribs with the rifle. “Move, Georgie.”
“My head’s bleeding.”
“Do it before I shoot you.” Jerry was closer than ever to taking his frustrations out on the slimy weasel. The thought of these guys touching his wife was making him hyperventilate.
Kodi growled, and the guy yelped flipped over like someone who’d been tased.
But Kodi’s growl wasn’t directed at the prone man. He and Mandy were staring through the door behind them—at the horde of zombies outside, running toward the building.
“Crap!” Jerry yelled and shouldered the door closed.
Both dogs went into a frenzy of barking as he thumbed the locking button, something that seemed completely inadequate but was the only thing between him and the horde.
Edging the enraged dogs out of the way, Jerry started for the back of the office.
A muffled crash of breaking glass made him jump. Then something slammed against the door. Then several more somethings.
He hoped the hollow steel door would hold long enough for him to find Rachel and get out.
Jerry sidestepped past Georgie. The prone man was sitting up and looking at the door, a look of terror on his face.
“Shit, man,” he yelled. “Don’t leave me here.”
“Where are the girls?” Jerry had already gotten the information from Stevie, but he wanted to make sure.
“Second door on the left.” Georgie’s whine sounded even more pitiful. “We weren’t going to hurt ’em. We were protecting ’em.”
Georgie’s fake remorse made Jerry’s vision blur with rage. He stepped forward and cracked the guy in the face with the rifle’s butt end. Georgie’s eyes went glassy and unfocused, and blood ran from the gash on his cheek. Jerry looked at him for a second before turning and moving up the hall.
“Don’t leave me, man.”
When Jerry looked back, Georgie was getting to his feet. Mandy got in his face and barked almost as viciously as she did at the zombies. Georgie jumped back and cowered in the corner against the front wall, eyes wide and hands up in front of his face.
“Don’t think she wants you along,” Jerry said, turning and moving down the hall.
A door on his right flew open.
Jerry aimed Georgie’s automatic at the opening as out stepped a naked Zebulan Picke. His forearm snaked around the throat of a naked blonde woman who wasn’t Rachel.
He sidestepped into the hallway, keeping the woman in front of him and pointing a pistol at Jerry. “How dare you enter my domain, blasphemer.”
The sound of Picke’s voice was still distant, like something Jerry knew was happening rather than something he actually heard.
“Hey, Zebulan.” Jerry held his hands out at his sides. “No ne
ed for hostility.” Jerry prided himself on his ability to de-escalate the situation with psychologically unstable patients. “I’m just here for my wife. Her name’s Rachel.”
“This is my domain!” Picke’s face was bright red with the strain of his scream. “All here are under my protection.” Jerry felt spittle hit him in the forehead.
“Fuck you, asshole!” the blonde yelled. She grabbed the cult leader’s gun hand and sunk her teeth into his forearm. The gun went off, and a hole appeared low on the wall beside Jerry.
Picke’s high-pitched wail reminded Jerry of the time his truck’s alternator went out. The blonde twisted the gun free and backed away—using a two-handed grip like she knew what she was doing—while Picke let loose a string of profanity.
Kodi launched himself at the cult leader.
Zebulan managed to hunch his shoulders and put his hands up just before Kodi crashed into him. The dog latched onto the same forearm the blonde had bitten. Dog and would-be cult leader bounced off the wall and collapsed in a pile with Kodi on top. Zebulan’s even higher-pitched scream drowned out the sound of the zombies pounding on the steel door as Picke twisted and kicked until Mandy darted in and clamped one of his calves in her jaws. The screams morphed into a strangled gurgle of agony when his lungs ran out of air.
“Mandy! Kodi! Off!” Jerry yelled, a little surprised when both dogs released. They had a habit of waiting for the second or third yell when they were into something really exciting.
Zebulan curled into a ball, crying and yelling, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
The woman stepped up and stomped his head with her bare foot. “Fuck! Your! Sorry!” she shouted, punctuating each of her words with another stomp. Then she switched to kicking his kidneys, still yelling with each blow. “You piece of shit!” Picke rolled onto his back to protect himself but provided another target for the enraged woman. The last kick landed between Picke’s legs, causing him to fold into a fetal ball. The woman stepped back, breathing hard, and put her hands on her knees. After a few heaving breaths, she looked at Jerry, who was still staring. “What? she screamed.”
“Nothing.” Jerry patted the air with his palm. “I was just going to ask if you’re okay.”
She stared at him and shook her head, then turned and entered the room she and Zebulan had been in. She reappeared with an armload of clothes and started to dress.
Jerry checked the knob on the door where Georgie had told him the women were being kept. It was locked.
Picke’s captive had pulled on a pair of pants. She stepped over to Picke and kicked him in the ribs. “Keys, asshole!” she yelled. Before he could move, she kicked him again. “Now!”
“Pants,” Zebulan croaked out without looking up.
The blonde snatched a pair of pants from the pile, jammed her hand in a pocket, and produced a ring of keys. She threw them at Picke’s head. “Which one?”
His hands shook as he fumbled for the right key. When he found it, he extended one arm above his head while he wrapped the other around his face and went back to the fetal position. “I’m sorry,” he said again, flinching when the blonde snatched the keys out of his hand.
She stepped past Jerry and rapped twice on the door with her fist. “It’s me,” she said, twisting the key. “You’re safe.”
Someone yelped and thanked God, then the door flew open and two naked women erupted from the room and wrapped their arms around the blonde. Neither of them was Rachel.
“Rachel?” Jerry yelled, bursting into the room. “Rachel?”
There was nothing but a bare twin mattress and a few blankets.
When Jerry came back out, the two women backed away and looked at him with suspicion.
“It’s okay,” the blonde said, bending to pick up the clothes. “I think he’s rescuing us.” She tossed the bundle at the women.
While they scrambled into their clothes, they kept up a running string of “thank you’s.” The dogs seemed to have a calming influence even though the pounding from the steel door hadn’t decreased. The women patted them and scratched their ears while they dressed.
“We need to get out of here,” Jerry said, looking at the door at the end of the hall. If Stevie had been telling the truth, it opened into the warehouse. Jerry was sick from not finding Rachel but happy she wasn’t being held naked in that room. He was tempted to kick the little weasel himself, but he figured it wasn’t his place. One of the women turned to the blonde and held her hand out for the gun.
The blonde passed it to her without a word.
Jerry held his breath as the woman walked over to Picke.
Zebulan pleaded, “Please, no. I won’t do it again.”
“You got that right,” she said, and shot him three times in the crotch.
A new round of screaming and pleading came from Zebulan, and the pounding on the front door increased.
The blonde took the gun back. “We don’t have time to do everything he deserves. Just leave him for the zombies, and let’s get out of here.” With that, she looked at Jerry with raised eyebrows.
“Fucking zombies are coming!” Georgie yelled as he sprinted down the hall, pushed past Jerry and sprinted for the end of the hall. When he crashed through the door, Jerry could see it did lead to the warehouse.
Jerry looked back at the front door. He could actually see it flex with each thud from the other side. The zombies seemed to be throwing their bodies against the door, apparently no longer satisfied with just pounding with their fists. Jerry wondered if they were learning about their world and adapting. The thought made his hands tingle and the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
“Come on!” he yelled, and he followed Georgie.
Chapter Seventy
“So, what’s the whole story with those tweakers?” Clay said.
The huge dump truck plowed through a pair of zombies who ran into the road in front of them. There was just a slight stutter as the bodies bounced off the big steel bumper, and a small bounce as one of them fell under the big tires. Clay jerked the wheel, and they rolled across a lawn and plowed through a wood fence like the one that had nearly disabled the Subaru. There were no problems with the windshield or the alignment, just some random splinters on the hood as they cruised through and then rolled across the greenbelt onto the bike path.
Rachel had been thinking about how Jerry and the dogs would react when she came home. It was still so early. The sky was still more gray than blue.
She turned from looking out the window and answered Clay’s question. “If they had waited and worked together, I would have been a goner. But the other one was still upstairs when the first one grabbed me. I stabbed him in the leg before the other one got there. He tackled me, and I dropped my knife, but I managed to stab him with a knife I had in my boot.”
“Seriously? In your boot? Who really does that?”
“Wish I could say I planned it. Mostly, I put it there because I had too many knives to keep on my belt. I honestly had no idea I would ever have to use it.”
“Don’t tell people that part. It’s bad for your mystique.” He winked. “So what happened with the guy you stabbed in the leg?”
“He sort of got the drop on me while I was fighting his buddy. I faked him out by throwing the boot knife at him.”
“No way.” Clay’s eyes were wide as he glanced at her and then back at the road. “You killed him?”
“I missed.” Clay’s face dropped. “He was so sure he had me.”
Clay looked like a kid waiting for his parents to say there really was a Santa Claus.
“I was kneeling on the chef’s knife. While he was busy showing me how stupid I was, I stabbed him.”
“Was it different killing non-zombies?”
“I guess not. I think having to be on guard against death twenty-four hours a day has made the part of my brain that questions the morality of killing take a back seat to survival.”
“Yeah. If you stop to think about whether what you’re doing is right,
the other guy kills you.”
Clay’s words made Rachel think about Jerry and worry that would happen to him. “I guess that’s it.” She couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about killing those guys. They would almost certainly have killed her if they’d gotten the chance. “What about you? Do you feel like that would be a problem for you?”
“I think if your actions are bad, then you deserve to be punished.”
“Unfortunately, we no longer have a justice system for that.”
“I wonder if we’ll do any better this time.”
“I wonder if anyone will live long enough.”
“Wow,” Clay sat up and rubbed his face. “This is getting a little deep. Why don’t we talk about something a little more fun, like what do you do when you’re not being a bad-ass?”
Rachel started to tell Clay about how much she liked walking with her two furballs when Clay hit the brakes.
She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt, so she was thrown forward and bounced off the dash. While crawling back onto the seat, she looked to see what had made him stop so fast.
“Holy shit!” she said.
Chapter Seventy-One
Jerry slammed the door to the warehouse’s office area and turned turned to find the three women and two dogs staring at him expectantly. Behind them, dim emergency floodlights, one at either end of a space the size of a football field, threw weak light toward the center, casting long shadows over the pallets of boxes and piles of canvas bags that waited to be loaded through overhead doors on either side, spaced so close together there was only a two-foot section of cinder block wall between each door and the ones beside it. A few were open, revealing the gaping mouths of empty semi-trailers waiting to be filled.
Movement at the end of the space caught Jerry’s eye and gunfire sounded somewhere to his left. A door slammed. Probably Georgie trying to get away and attracting every zombie in the area in the process.