by Tristan Vick
Whatever the viral strain did to her, its fast-acting properties worked equally as fast in reverse on those not immune to the infection, like she was. By the looks of things, nearly everyone in the church had turned. They drank her blood and in just a matter of minutes they had turned into white-eyed, flesh-eating, monsters. Those who hadn’t drank yet rushed to grab weapons and defend themselves from their friends and loved ones.
Rachael tore the duct tape that dangled on her chin the rest of the way off and let out a ferocious scream that cut through the dull roar of pandemonium. Rachael’s lungs rattled with all the pent up rage which had manifested during her dehumanizing, violent treatment at the hands of religious fanatics. She screamed like a banshee, alerting the living and the dead that the Dark Angel had arrived.
Some had formed a prayer circle and dropped to their knees and were praying furiously to God to save them, but to no avail. The prayer circle’s prayers were suddenly silenced by a multitude of chomping teeth.
“That’s her,” a man cried out. “That’s the witch!”
“Kill her!” another voice shouted out over the screams.
One of Hank’s men, a small wiry guy with yellow spiky hair wearing a white and blue pin-striped collar shirt, with a turquoise necktie, ran up to her with a sawed-off shotgun. Bringing it to her chest, Rachael sensed her end was imminent when from nowhere Mrs. Mary Campbell leapt onto the young man like a jumping spider. They toppled over and Mrs. Campbell gnawed at his face and jugular, biting viciously. Her whitewashed eyes gave her a hideous look, but Rachael couldn’t help but think, the monster beneath the mask had finally come out to play.
A nearby man saw Mrs. Campbell’s feeding frenzy and freaked out. He threw down his gun and tried to escape out of one of the side exists. He even made it into the hall. His retreat was cut short, however. Rachael heard him scream out, “God have mercy!” just as blood splattered across the glass windows of the doors he had just exited.
Rachael turned to run but paused. Something caught her eye. The dagger they had used mercilessly on her lay abandoned on the floor nearby. Without a second’s hesitation, she bent down to pick it up but the moment she clasped it a hand from behind the podium shot out and grabbed her wrist.
Looking up she saw the fever struck face of Reverend Perry Campbell. His forehead glistened with wet residue from the sickness and he shook with cold sweats as beads of perspiration dripped down his forlorn face. Through chattering teeth he spoke, “What d-d-did y-you d-dd-do to us?”
Rachael tore her arm free of his clammy clutches and replied with an unsympathetic voice so cold it could have dripped icicles. “I didn’t do anything. This is all on you. You got your wish. Now you’ll live forever—as the King of the damned. Lord of the dead.”
“I d-didnnn’t want th-this. Puh-please s-save us!”
Rachael smiled a Mona Lisa smile, diminutive and sly, but it spoke volumes. “You already have a savior. Ask him for help.”
Campbell began crying tears. “He has forsaken us!”
Rachael’s smile grew big and bright, as if to say, good, you deserve it.
Jerking her arm free, Rachael stepped back, then taking a running start she kicked the reverend right in his face. He went down instantly. But Rachael didn’t hang around to savor her victory. Spinning around she lunged forward, leapt up, and brought the golden dagger straight down through the back of Mary Campbell’s skull, interrupting her feeding frenzy. Tearing the knife back out made a hollow noise which sounded like corn being shucked. Mrs. Campbell’s body tipped over and fell dead next to her deceased husband.
Rachael bent over and picked up the sawed off shotgun the young man was clutching in his dead hands and took it off him. She took his ammunition belt as well. Rachael then spied a .44 Magnum he had tucked into his belt buckle. With nothing but her skimpy dress, she looked around for something she could use to strap her weapons to her body. Luckily, Mary Campbell’s corpse has a lovely raspberry colored sash. Taking the flowery sash, Rachael wrapped it around her waist and tucked the knife in.
Holding up the .44 in one hand and the stub-nosed shotgun in the other, she cocked the shot gun single handed. Those gun training courses down at the range really helped. Being around criminals all of the time, her entire law firm was requested to learn gun safety. It was just something she felt was important to know. Just in case.
Just then the young man, whose face had been completely chewed off by Mary Campbell, reached out and grabbed Rachael’s leg. Without hesitating she put the barrel of the shotgun against his head and pulled the trigger. His head popped like a watermelon being hit by a sledgehammer and his body flew back and tumbled down the platform.
Rachael stepped down and started her perilous trek down the center aisle of the zombie infested chapel. A teenage zombie wearing a “God Saves!” t-shirt lunged at her. Rachael pulled the trigger of the shotgun.
BLAM!
Half of the girl’s face was instantly blown clean off and the half that remained was still smoking when her body hit the floor. Gray matter spackled with blood painted the floor where she fell. Rachael forged on. But before she could get to the doors she faced her worst obstacle yet.
“Hilda!” she gasped.
Directly in her path stood Mad Hilda. Hilda’s massive undead husk of a corpse lurched up the aisle. Her eyes were completely glazed over with the hazy white vacancy typical of the living dead. Red slime oozed out of the corner of her growling mouth. Mad Hilda was locked on like a homing missile. As she made her way toward Rachael, the hag’s chapped, purple lips peeled back to reveal blood soaked teeth. “Grrrah!”
Rachael raised the .44 Magnum and aimed it straight at the center of Mad Hilda’s chest.
BLAM! BLAM!
Mad Hilda staggered back, but then bared her teeth and growled even louder. She was tough, Rachael would give her that much. Just then Hilda started hacking, as if she had a hairball caught in her throat, and spat out a mucus infested blood clot the size of a mandarin orange. It plopped down on the floor by her pointy toed granny shoes with a wet sounding splat.
That was by far the grossest thing Rachael had seen since the infection had decimated the city. Mad Hilda’s head snapped up and she growled at Rachael again. By this time Rachael was fed up with Mad Hilda and her rude manners. Aiming the shotgun at Mad Hilda’s head, Rachael fired.
BOOM!
Mad Hilda plowed face first into the floor with a ground shaking thud. Poor Mad Hilda, she never even had a chance to get her waltz on.
Darting toward the door, and wielding her guns, Rachael fired off one round after another. Six bodies later, she made it to the chapel doors and slipped out. Once on the other side, she pushed up against the big twin doors, found a shattered wooden chair nearby, and wedged its broken leg through the handles of the doors. It wouldn’t hold them for very long, but it would buy her some time. Rachael turned and ran through the lobby toward the main entrance. Her bare feet left wet sets of red footprints behind her as she went.
23
Gunslinger
FOUR BLOCKS FROM THE AIR Force base the midnight blue pickup truck blew a tire and screeched to a halt. Barnes hopped out and grabbed the jack out of the back toolbox. Everyone waited patiently as he jacked up the truck and began to put on the spare.
“Come on man, I’m telling you, just jack another vehicle. There are tons of abandoned cars all around.” Ulysses folded his arms impatiently and tapped his foot.
“I’ve grown attached to this one,” Barnes said with a laugh. “Besides, the keys were already in it. Having the actual keys makes a big difference in… you know… getting it to work.”
“There’s just one problem with your line of reasoning,” Noble informed.
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” asked Barnes, pausing to look up at his pal.
“We’re sitting ducks out here in the middle of Zombiville. You might want to hurry it up.”
“I would, but somebody keeps yammering on and interrupting me.”
Motioning with his chin toward Noble, Zanato asked, “Why don’t you just have the big one hotwire a different car?”
“Say again?” Noble snapped. “Just because I’m black you think that my childhood afterschool hobby was a bit of grand theft auto? Listen up, you racist prick, the only grand theft auto I ever messed around with was on Barnes’ PS3.”
Zanato threw up his hands and said, “I give up.”
“Well can you hotwire a car or not?” Jennifer asked impatiently.
“No.” Noble said in disappointment. He folded his arms and huffed.
“You act all gangsta’ but you’re just a big ole teddy bear, aren’t you?” Jennifer punched Ulysses in the arm and smiled.
“A big sexy teddy bear,” grumbled Noble.
“Take it easy on the big guy,” Barnes chuckled as he unfastened the lug nuts with the tire iron. “It’s not the lack of street smarts that’s bothering him. It’s his lack of technical skills.”
“Hey, I got plenty of skills!” Noble thrust his hips and did a little erotic dance, mock humping the thin air. Jennifer liked it and laughed, like a true coquette, but Zanato merely rolled his eyes and looked annoyed as usual.
Barnes paused and looked up at Noble. “Your ability to please imaginary women aside, I think I recall something about a toaster burning down your first apartment.”
“That toaster was on the fritz for a month. That totally wasn’t my fault.”
“The electric can opener?”
“Three words: Made in China.”
“What about the electronic garage door?”
“Defective.”
“It ate your mountain bike for Pete’s sake!”
“I’m telling you man, they were all defective. Every single one of them contraptions.”
“Even the barbeque?”
Both men broke into laughter.
“What about the barbeque?” Zanato asked, regaining interest in the conversation.
Laughing as he spoke, Barnes relayed the story. “This genius over here thought that the burgers and franks would get done faster by squirting a little bit of lighter fluid on the coals. Of course the meat goes up in flames instantly, but the best part is, the flames leap across the grill and catch his uniform on fire.” Barnes wiped the tears from his eyes, and continued. “Mind you, we’re at the general’s fiftieth birthday party, so this spectacle is drawing a lot of unwanted attention.”
“Then what happened?” Jennifer asked with utmost interest.
“The flames were already crawling up his back. So like a circus clown, he decides it would be a novel idea to shove his flaming uniform into the barbeque and close the lid.”
Noble took over the story, adding, “That’s when the general sees the smoke shooting out of either end of the barbeque, and informs, ‘I think you may be over-cooking the frankfurters there, boys.’”
Noble wiped the tears of laughter from his face. “Of course, by this time everyone is looking over to see what the ruckus is about only to spot Ulysses’ jacket sleeve hanging out the other end of the barbeque.”
“They never let it down, did they?”
Barnes slapped his friend on the back. “Can you blame them?”
Rrroooar!
Everyone whipped around to see a massive mountain lion standing in the middle of the road, licking its chops, and eyeing them with a half-starved look.
“Holy shit! That’s a lion,” Zanato stated bluntly.
“Is it? Is it, really?” Noble asked sarcastically.
“But there aren’t any mountain lions this far east,” Jennifer informed.
“Maybe it escaped from the zoo,” Zanato said, taking a wild guess.
“Nobody make any sudden movements,” Barnes ordered as he slowly unsnapped his holster and slid out his Glock 17 nine-millimeter handgun. “Everybody, get behind me alongside the truck.” Barnes motioned for the others to fall in line behind him. They slowly inched over to the truck and crouched down. That’s when they heard the jingle jangle of metal spurs clanking down the road.
Craning their heads over the bed of the truck, they saw the cowboy step out into the street with the mountain lion. Jennifer couldn’t figure out which one seemed to be more surprised, the cowboy at running smack dab into a mountain lion, or the mountain lion, for running smack dab into a cowboy.
It looked as if the guy had stepped right out of a Western. He wore a long tan duster jacket, a cowboy hat, and snakeskin boots with star-spiked spurs.
“See, I told you there was a cowboy,” whispered Zanato.
“Shhh—!” Jennifer replied, holding her finger up to her lips.
The mountain lion yowled and then roared with the true ferocity of a mighty panther. The cowboy pushed his jacket back to reveal the Colt Single Action Army—otherwise known as “The Peacemaker”—sitting snugly in its holster at his hip. Sliding his right leg back and lowering his hip, the cowboy held his hand above the white ivory grip of the revolver and waited for the lion to make its move.
With an ear piercing growl the giant puma leapt into the air. In a split second the cowboy had the gun out and began palming the hammer. Shot after shot rang out in rapid concession. Whimpering, the mountain lion crashed down at the cowboy’s feet. Although it was down, it still breathed heavily and whined in pain. The gunslinger, whose eyes were blotted out by the dark shadow cast by the brim of his hat, put the barrel of his gun against the panther’s skull and pulled the trigger.
Jennifer screamed, not only because the loud concussive blast, but also because she didn’t like the idea of an innocent animal being put down like that.
Before anyone could speak out, a dozen zombies had appeared in the street. The cowboy opened the revolver’s chamber and dumped out the spent shells. Reloading it, he took out one bullet at a time from his ammunition belt and casually fed them into the spinning chamber of the revolver. With a whir, he spun the revolver’s chamber and flicked it shut. It locked into place with a metallic clack.
Barnes and Noble both pulled back the slides of their Glocks, and got themselves ready for close range combat. Not waiting for the Walkers to get too close, Barnes and Noble began taking out the monsters with carefully aimed head shots.
The cowboy finished loading and looked up from under the brim of his hat. Standing no more than two feet in front of him was a hungry looking dead-head. Its jaws opened revealing gooey strands of saliva. The cowboy raised the Peacemaker and fired it point blank in between the dead-head’s eyes. The back of its skull exploded and it toppled over. Spinning around the cowboy took out three other Walkers that were slowly creeping up behind him.
The noise of gunfire only seemed to attract more of the creatures, so Barnes whistled a high pitch hoot to get everyone’s attention. Once he had their eyes on him, he motioned for them to follow him. They ran across the street and ducked into an abandoned Starbucks. Once they were inside, Jennifer let down the blinds.
Zanato, still panting from the mad dash to get out of the street, asked, “Wait, where’s the cowboy?”
Peeking through the blinds, the group watched the cowboy throw off his duster jacket. Underneath were two P90 personal defense weapons strapped to his body. It was the gun that ate Uzis for breakfast.
“Badass,” Barnes said, peaking through the blinds.
Walkers closed in on all sides of the cowboy. With the P90s outstretched, he squeezed the triggers and let loose a chain of fire which could have sawed down a forest. After his clips ran dry, he stepped over the piles of bodies, went over and picked up his jacket, brushed it off and slipped it back on. With that the cowboy straightened his hat, then headed up the street and disappeared around the corner. The few remaining zombies with any animation left in them, drug their legless torsos up the street and crawled after him, but the cowboy was already long gone.
Noble turned and looked at everyone who watched in dumbfounded amazement. Stunned expressions were frozen onto all of their faces. Noble shook his head, blinked hard, and thum
bing over his shoulder, he asked, “Who is that guy?”
24
Devil’s Due
Rachael flew out of the doors of the church and into the dark of night when, all of a sudden, she heard the sound of a dozen guns cocking. Stopping dead in her tracks she looked up with wide eyes to see Hank and half a dozen of his men armed to the teeth and pointing every available weapon they had at her.
“Drop them weapons,” Hank ordered. “They don’t belong to you.”
Rachael did as she was told. Although she healed well enough, she suspected that she could still be killed. If she was put down like a zombie, a bullet to the head, she was pretty sure that would terminate her. With Hank riled up, she didn’t want to give him any such opportunity. “None of this had to happen, you know? If you had let me leave when I asked you—”
“You bleeding witch! Keep your lies to yourself.” Hank interrupted with a snarl. “You cursed us all to ruin!”
Rachael reprimanded him with a “Tsk, tsk!” and shot him a sharp glance. “Is that anyway to talk to your wife?”
The other men shot sideways glances at Hank and she could tell that having the truth revealed of what he really was lost him favor in the eyes of godly men. Hank quickly shifted the attention back onto her. “Don’t listen to this witch’s lies! She’s just trying to turn us against each other. If you let her catch your ear, she’ll deceive every last one of you like the fork tongued Devil himself. Do not forget, you are men of God!”
“Bravo,” Rachael said, clapping her hands in jest. “The Reverend douche-bag couldn’t have preached it better himself.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me about Reverend Campbell,” Hank said as sobs overtook him. “He was like a brother to me. He took me in and cared for me when nobody else would. I loved him! And you ruined everything he stood for. All the good he did.”