“Natalie Sue?” Jessie asked.
“No, pendejo. Natalie Bonita Sanchez.” She said regally.
At an overgrown Amish farm he found an antique pedal powered sewing machine and dug a bag of impact cloth out of the trunk. It was good at stopping bullets but the undead teeth couldn’t tear through the fibers either. It took them nearly a week to make her a pair of pants and a loose-fitting jacket. She was still filling out, probably going to grow a little taller so they made them a size too big. They carefully cut the stitching out of some clothes that had the right fit, laid each piece out flat and used it as a pattern to cut the material. It was slow going, they went through a lot of razor blades and it had to be sewn very slowly or it would break the needle.
They tried a lot of different weapons for her hand-to-hand practice and in the end settled on trench knives like he preferred. They had three sides to fight with and were almost impossible to drop no matter how slick with gore they became. She didn’t have the strength to break skulls with her punches so they found a derelict auto repair shop and customized them for her. They added longer spikes on the knuckles and pommel that would penetrate any skull.
She was excited when he let it slip he was going after the Mona Lisa. She wouldn’t be when he got around to telling her he was going by himself. They were getting close to New York and she was skilled enough now that he wasn’t worried about leaving her alone for a few days, maybe a week. He needed to find a safe spot to stash her, he wasn’t about to take her in with him. He didn’t have much of a plan worked out but he thought he could find a sailboat to get to Manhattan. Taking his car was out of the question so he’d cut up through Pennsylvania and circled around above the city. They were on a twisty back road near the Hudson River, driving aimlessly but staying away from towns. They had plenty to eat in the car but letting her clear a house was good practice, he’d be leaving soon. He didn’t help or tell her what to do anymore, he watched and tried to find fault in what she did but lately he couldn’t.
At first, she had been frightened of the man with the scar who brooded moodily most of the time but she slowly came to realize he wasn’t going to hurt her and was kind in his own way. He didn’t yell at her when she made mistakes that could get her killed. He was patient but relentless. Even when they were supposed to be relaxing, when they had secured a house and were safe, he made her speed load magazines over and over or tear her guns down to clean them even though they were spotless. She had been afraid to ask him to stop to go to the bathroom in the beginning, he seemed so angry even when he said he wasn’t. He didn’t say much but that was okay, she liked to talk. She’d only had her father to talk to for over a year and he didn’t speak English very well so they spoke Arabic. After he’d gotten bitten, she had no one at all.
He had been a store keeper before the zombies came and when the chaos started, they fled to the mosque. He had watched it being fortified over the past few months and he knew they had huge supplies of food; he’d ordered hundreds of cases of canned juice at the insistence of the Imam. He hadn’t questioned the request that really hadn’t been a request, he had done his duty. He had wondered about the reinforced steel doors that had been added and knew from other shop keepers that some of the rooms were filled with storable foods. It was a crazy drive to get there on that first day. Her father swore and laid on the horn and drove on the sidewalk sometimes. Bloody people attacked the car but he kept weaving his way through town, falling back on skills he’d learned during his cab driving days when he’d first immigrated. They parked next to the fence and used the roof of the car to jump over then pounded on the new steel doors. They let them in and that’s when they learned the truth about what had been planned, what had happened. Like most of the others he was horrified but it was done and there was nothing that could change it.
The mosque was in Charleston and they had enough supplies for the forty families for two years. Their Imam hadn’t known what else was supposed to happen, he’d done as he was ordered. After he had quietly gathered everything, careful not to draw attention from the FBI who monitored such things, he was supposed to be given further instructions but none came.
The mosque fell within a week.
It was all brick and solidly constructed. There weren’t any windows on the ground floor but someone had opened an upstairs window to let in some fresh air. When the undead saw the woman, they piled against the fences until they fell over then headed towards the walls. They kept climbing over each other until the first one smashed through. It was chaos and slaughter and everyone fled for their lives. Panicked families unblocked the doors farthest from the breach and the road was clear, all the undead were packed at the back of the building, following the keens of hunger and the cries of pain. They had no plan, they only knew they had to get out of the building, away from the screams of terror as the undead rampaged through the halls. Someone said they needed to get to the river, they would be safe in the water. They ran in panic for the Ashley River only blocks away. There was no time to find a car, no time to hide. The shrieking undead heard their slapping feet on the pavement, chased them down, tore into them and feasted on fresh blood. They fell by the dozens and by the time they reached the river and dove in, only a quarter of their number were left alive. Natacha had been out front leading the run in a blind panic, her mind fixated on getting to the water. She didn’t slow, didn’t stop and didn’t know if her parents were among the survivors until she spotted them treading water and gasping for air.
They had drifted downriver until they dragged themselves ashore in the marshlands where there weren’t any of the undead. Many of them drowned, they couldn’t swim and there wasn’t anything in the water to keep them afloat. More died in the swampy marshes as they hid out over the next few weeks. When the undead didn’t shrivel up and die after a short time like the Imam said they would, when they still shuffled aimlessly through the streets after nearly a month, the men came up with a plan. They would sneak into the nearest houses and find the keys to cars. They would smash their way out of the city, go far out into the countryside and find a safe place. Winter was coming, they couldn’t stay hidden in the swampy marshes.
More died trying to get the cars and trucks they needed. More died trying to find a way out of the city. They had gotten separated from the small convoy when her father turned down a side street to avoid a horde running to cut them off. They never saw any of the others again.
Her mother had gotten bit the first day they found the ramshackle enclave a mile down a dirt road. There was only one of the undead still there, trapped in a room by a closed door, but that’s all it took. A moment of carelessness. Her father couldn’t bear to put her down and locked her in one of the trailers. In the spring when the birds came to plunder their garden, he made her their scarecrow.
Her father had learned to be careful and kept her protected. She was his shining jewel; his beloved daughter and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He wouldn’t let her leave their cluster of houses, wouldn’t let her go with him when he raided the farms and stores. They didn’t have a lot but they had enough and he had dreams of finding others who had escaped the cities in another few years.
“They are getting slower, rotting away on their feet.” He’d told her. “Perhaps before you are eighteen, before you are an old maid, we will leave this valley and find you a husband.”
But he made a mistake. He hadn’t been thorough when he slipped into a new house miles from theirs. When he opened the pantry his eyes only saw the great wealth of canned goods and his mind was on how he would be able to carry them all. The child leapt from the darkness and sank teeth into the hand holding the flashlight.
After he made it home, after she’d done as he wished and he joined her mother in the garden she had all but given up. She tended the plants as her parents snarled and lunged for her, she rationed the remaining canned goods and learned to live with the hunger. She’d went to the houses nearest hers first but there was nothing left to eat, he
r father had already cleaned them out. He’d told her the little town was dangerous, filled with the undead, hundreds of them. She thought she could sneak in to the grocery store. If she was quiet, they wouldn’t notice her.
She had been wrong.
“There!” she said and pointed at a driveway snaking off into the woods.
He slowed, turned in and cut the engine as soon as they saw the house around a bend. It was a huge, sprawling place typical of the area. It was out in the country but close enough to the city to commute and people with money had lived here. Windows down, they listened as he coasted to a stop.
“Show me what you’ve learned.” Jessie said then sat with his hands on the wheel and waited on her to take the lead.
This was her final test although she didn’t know it. He’d be leaving her soon and there was a chance he wouldn’t be coming back. That was always a possibility, even when you were just stepping behind a tree to relieve yourself. If she was ready, he could quit delaying and go. Mona Lisa’s smile was calling him.
Her eyes scanned for telltale signs of the undead, especially in the wood line where they could come out from anywhere. The yard was overgrown and she pointed out the large wooden playset that could be glimpsed in the back yard. He nodded. Good. She knew there might be children inside.
“Front door is intact, no windows broken and I can’t see any stains on them.” She said quietly.
The undead always left their greasy, decaying juices on any surface they touched until they rotted away enough to quit leaking. He watched her while pretending not to as she press checked her pistols, a pair of lady Smith and Wesson’s liberated from a gun shop in Maryland. They didn’t hold as many rounds as his Glocks but the frames were a better fit for her small hands. She felt for her backup blades, made sure they were in place and chambered a round in her M4. Jessie gave her an approving half smile. She had learned much the past few months. She checked the driveway behind them, made sure they hadn’t picked up any followers, but that was rare now. The ones wandering around outside were slow and shambling. He fell in behind as she circled the house and checked for any signs of danger. She was thorough and almost fearless. She might make a good retriever he mused.
The back door had been forced open and Jessie stopped her, nudged her to one side as he took up a position on the other.
“How old is the damage?” he asked under his breath. “Could there be someone waiting for us inside? Someone with a shotgun aimed at the door?”
Her eyes grew wide for a second before she checked the door jamb closely. The damage had been done a long time ago, the wood was already weathered and there weren’t any splinters on the porch.
“I think it’s safe.” She said and he concurred. It was hard to say how old the breach was but it wasn’t recent.
She kicked the door open, it bounced off its hinges and they both had guns up waiting for anything to come out of the gloom chasing the sound. When nothing did, she rapped on the jamb and called out.
“Anybody home?”
They listened.
Nothing. No keens. No flurry of movement coming for them. She cleared the house room by room like he’d shown her and they went to the kitchen to see what was going to be for lunch.
The cupboards were bare.
The house hadn’t been raided in a haphazard way, nothing was broken, cabinet doors weren’t left open, spilled bags weren’t littering the floor. The food was gone. All of it including the spices and bags of flour and cans of asparagus sprouts which no one ever took.
“What does this mean?” Jessie asked as she stood in the kitchen frowning at the empty pantry. Even the paper plates and garbage bags had been taken.
She thought for a moment before replying.
“Survivors.” She said. “A large group. Organized and methodical.”
“Where are they?”
“Close. Within a few miles.” She said after some consideration. “People on the move only take what they need, not everything but the kitchen sink.”
“Do they know we’re here?” Jessie asked and she thought a little longer before answering.
“Hard to say. Sound carries and your car is loud. This house was cleaned out months ago but they may still have patrols or teams out.”
“What should you do?” Jessie asked “Are they friendly or cannibals? Will they rape and kill us or invite us into their community.”
“I don’t know.” She said. “By myself, I would assume the worst. I would leave. With you I think I would try to find them, maybe spy on them to see if they are friendly.”
Jessie nodded. She was right and the old part of him that was supposed to be a Lakota ambassador nagged at him to establish contact but a bigger part of him didn’t care. If they were decent people they were probably doing fine on their own, they didn’t need his help. If they were a bunch of slavers or raiders, he didn’t feel like going to war again. He just wanted to be left alone.
“Let’s check some of the neighboring houses.” He said and had her put on the plate armor carrier. If she took a bullet, the impact cloth would stop it but the carrier would prevent the round from knocking the wind out of her, maybe breaking a rib. He knew living people could be way more dangerous than the zeds. He led her through the narrow strip of trees separating the properties and hurried between houses. After the fifth one, all of them with kitchens stripped bare, they started back to the Mercury.
“Company.” Jessie whispered and pulled her into a crouch when they were still two houses away. “Find some cover and stay in the woods. Be ready for anything but keep your finger off the trigger unless I pull my guns. If I do, start shooting.”
Okay she mouthed and licked her lips. She’d never shot at people before. These were the first they’d seen.
He slung his M4 over his back and rolled his fingers. He was much faster with the Glocks, he could shoot in two different directions at the same time.
39
Iona
There were three men and a woman, all with good clothes, armor and guns. No face paint. No finger bones for necklaces or filed down teeth. They weren’t tossing his car looking for things to steal which was a good thing. It was relatively clean and he didn’t want it splashed with blood and body parts if they tried to force the trunk. It was wired with C4. He didn’t try to sneak, he intentionally stepped on a branch so they would hear him coming and scanned the house and woods beyond the car for a sniper. They turned quickly but no one brought their guns up. They held them loosely. Professionally.
Jessie said nothing as he approached, waited for them to either greet or challenge him.
They watched him come, loose limbed and walking towards them like he didn’t have a care in the world. He wore gun blasted leathers with metal pauldrons and license plates riveted to the arms. They were stained dark in places from blood and gore. Some zombie, some human. His guns were slung low on his hips. Easy to reach and fast to pull. Like him, their eyes scanned the wood line. They knew there had been two people in the car, one of them probably a girl judging from the gear in the back seat.
Jessie stopped about twenty feet away, out of Natascha’s line of fire, and waited.
“Are you Jessie Meadows?” one of the men asked.
“Maybe.” Jessie said.
“It’s him.” The woman said and grinned. “I told you it was him. It’s the same car, the one Bastille used to talk about.”
“Hi.” She said and approached. “I’m Sergeant Wallace. We used to hear all kinds of stories but nobody has mentioned you lately. Some of us were afraid you’d been killed and they didn’t want to tell anyone.”
Jessie watched the others, watched their reactions, waited to see if she was a distraction while they went for their guns. They had grins on their faces, too. He didn’t sense a threat.
“I’ve been loafing.” He said and made a fist at her proffered hand. He didn’t shake anymore.
After a second’s confusion she bumped fists and the others introduced themselve
s. They all gave a rank with their name even though they weren’t wearing uniforms. She whistled and a young boy came up the driveway a few minutes later leading five horses. They had been on patrol, she explained. They’d heard the car coming from way off. There wasn’t anything to eat in any of the houses for miles around, they had taken it all back to their base.
Jessie motioned for Natalie to come out, that it was safe and she slipped out of the woods a few minutes later, her M4 at low ready. Wallace offered them lunch, they had rations to spare in the saddlebags.
“You’re up first, Rodriguez.” Wallace told one of the men.
“Aww, sarge. I was first last time.” He grumbled.
“And you’ll be first next time, too.” She said. “Unless you want KP again.”
He made a face but didn’t complain as he took off in a slow jog towards the road.
Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos Page 25