Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End

by Daniel Cotton

  “Sounds fair,” Brass accepts the terms. “We’ll enroll you in the next boot camp. You know, those men may have had the wrong intentions when they discovered you, but you certainly are a great find. Any other special abilities? Can you fly?”

  37

  “And you called my place a dump,” Lady Luck quips as they enter Rubicon. The town is being demolished by earthmovers. The rubble is being pushed and hauled to the center of town to create large, curving walls that just get taller the further they travel.

  “Home sweet home,” Brass responds as he guides past the rumbling machines and into a parking lot full of mobile homes. “You’ll get one of these for your very own. The electricity is up, we’re working on the plumbing yet.”

  “This is very impressive,” she tells him. The sight of all the happy survivors working together, doing their part, is enough to warm even her heart.

  Children swarm the Riv, cheering and waving. Brass has trouble exiting with all the smiling faces crowding his door. “Whoa! Whoa, guys! I just got home. We’ll play in a minute, promise. Abby, take the kids for some ice cream, I’ve got to show Double L something she’s gonna love.”

  The young apprentice takes on the task begrudgingly as Brass escorts Lady Luck into a supermarket. They head all the way through the store to the back, a storage area that takes the woman by surprise. Instead of the typical grocery wares there are racks of guns and people working silently at stations. It’s peaceful and quiet as the folks pull cranks and measure powder. All that can be heard is the gentle metallic clatter of shell casings as they are turned back into live ammunition.

  “If you are ever asked to take inventory, please use the ‘snowman 8’ rather than the quick scribbled ‘infinity 8’.” Brass instructs. “It is just more practical since the quick version can often be mistaken for a 4, 6, or 9.”

  He takes her through the dim armory and out through a door that blinds them with day light once opened.

  When she can see again, Lady Luck is greeted by the Rubicon motor pool. Military vehicles, tanks, and choppers are lined up with an array of civilian automobiles. “Home sweet home,” she whispers to herself.

  “This will be yours,” he tells her given her credentials, she revealed to him that she is adept at fixing machines.

  “All right,” Abby surprises Brass from behind. “I gave them ice cream. Can I take a crew back to the junk yard now?”

  “Jesus!” Brass catches his breath. “That was fast.”

  “Can I?”

  With a sigh, Brass returns his attention to Rubicon’s new motor head as she wanders down the rows of intimidating vehicles with wonder. She caresses the nose of a chopper, and then runs her fingers along the treads of a tank.

  “Hold up on that,” Brass tells his pupil. “Lady Luck has just been appointed to the position of head mechanic and pilot. We’ll need to send her through boot…”

  “I was there when this happened.”

  “So,” Brass pretends he hasn’t been interrupted. “She will need some armor. Get her fitted.”

  Though the woman in question is out of earshot, Abby is compelled to whisper. “Um, armor fittings are quite…invasive, Brass. Shouldn’t one of the women do it?”

  “Don’t be a child, we’re all adults here,” Brass tells him. “How hard can it be to ask a beautiful, voluptuous woman to remove all of her clothes so you can get up close and measure...Oh, I see the problem.”

  “I’m heading out,” Abby says departing to where a team is assembled for the return trip to the junkyard.

  “Be careful driving!” Brass calls to him when he reaches the halfway point. “You’re wearing new boots!”

  The team waiting for their leader snickers at that. “Dude?” the young man protests like a teenager.

  “I worry!” Brass responds unapologetically.

  The rumor has already spread about the new arrival. Word has it she is going to soldier-up and will be needing armor. Behind Brass is an assembly of men who wouldn’t mind being tasked with the duty of fitting her. Once Brass turns his eyes on them, they all pretend to be doing something.

  Lady Luck is returning to the small man, giving the fleet one last glance over her shoulder as if telling all the rides that she will be back later. She looks puzzled by the crowd that has gathered, but knows exactly what all the men have been looking at. Brass is blushing from embarrassment over the behavior of his people. The faces she hasn’t met yet are all now darting off one by one as if there is a very pressing matter elsewhere that requires their attention immediately.

  “Problem?” she asks.

  “Not at all,” Brass coughs. “This way please.”

  Brass brings Lady Luck into the armory once more. Some of the men that had conglomerated outside try to follow. Brass turns and gives them a look, shoves them back and closes the door. He tells all the people working on making bullets that he needs the room.

  He attempts to speak to the woman once they have the place to themselves, but can’t form the words. She raises an eyebrow at him after several attempts. He is finally able to tell her what he needs to. “If you will be going out into the thick of things,” he pauses for a few breaths. “You will need to go through our boot camp…”

  “I know.”

  “We don’t allow anyone to go out unless they go through boot.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “If you are going to go through boot camp you will need some armor...To make your armor I need to get some measurements. Would you rather one of our females do this?”

  “We’re already here,” she shrugs gracefully.

  “Okey dokey,” he accepts the situation and heads off to gather the items he needs to get started. “I think you’re going to like it here. Unlike the savages that captured you no one here is subjugated. I know I seem like a pretty big wheel in this cracker factory, but…” Brass has returned to Lady Luck with an armload of items to get started and realizes she has disrobed. “Wow.”

  The small man has bashfully turned away from her after just a glimpse of the endowments she had hidden beneath her clothes, though her tailoring of the form flattering garments had left little to the imagination. His face is flushing so hard it burns.

  Finding his bashful chivalry charming the woman laughs. “You’ll have a tough time taping me with your back turned.”

  He turns to her slowly, allowing himself time to adjust, by the time he is facing her once more he has taken on the air of a consummate professional. He begins making small talk while sifting through the items to determine the best place to start. “So, you were supposed to become the bride of one of those guys back there?”

  “Boys playing at being men,” she quips. “They were fighting over who got to have me. Some already had wives back at their headquarters they were willing to trade. I guess I should find it flattering. Actually, if not for that girl on their squad and their leader, the others would have taken me there on my kitchen floor.”

  The reminder that he was unable to help the girl in their ranks is still weighing on Brass’s mind. He pushes Rocky to the back of his thoughts and continues with the task at hand. Holding a tailor’s measuring tape he realizes he won’t be able to get Lady Luck’s bust from this angle with his short arms without his face getting buried in her breasts. “Perhaps I’ll have to get you from behind,” he says, suddenly wishing he hadn’t. His face blushes again even harder. “Or, if you hold this end, I can run around you…”

  “Or, I could just tell you my measurements,” she says coyly, casually leaning back on her hands as if lying on a beach.

  “Sure,” he says relieved and even more embarrassed, dropping the tape and grabbing a pen and paper. “If you want to do this the easy way.”

  “36-28-36,” she tells him with pride.

  “Impressive stats,” he says jotting the information. “I’m an eye man myself.”

  “All men say that,” she knowingly counters.

  “It’s true. A chick has to have at least one.�
��

  She laughs as she watches him fish through the pile for fatigues and boots for her.

  “We’ll have some chain maille made for you. The rings will be titanium which is as light as aluminum but stronger than steel. It will also be as cold as ice so feel free to wear a tee shirt underneath it or put it in the oven for a minute. After boot camp it will be optional if you want to wear it at all, but I recommend it. It depends on how close you plan to get to the dead,” he speaks to the beautiful naked woman casually now as he measures and records her leg and arm length, as easily as if she was wearing clothes. “Off topic: what do you think about Abby? Cute right?”

  “Sure,” she suspiciously agrees with a raised eyebrow. “A bit young for me. I prefer my men with a little more experience.”

  “You’re just seeing him as he is now, not what he will be. Right now he’s kinda like Luke Skywalker in episode four, all whiny and angsty. Soon, he’ll be a full-blown Jedi. You really don’t think he could handle you?” Brass asks.

  “Not many could even before all this,” she levels with the man and then appraises him up and down. “I bet you could handle a girl like me very well. Is there a Misses Brass?”

  “There is,” he says moving away from Lady Luck. “I am happily married with a lovely daughter.”

  “I can’t wait to meet them,” she says.

  “Dear girl, I hope you never do.”

  38

  South of Rubicon, the savages are just arriving home. They rode in silence, sulking for miles. Rocky heads straight to the room she shares with Killer B but stops in the hall when she hears Kenny call her name behind her.

  “Rocky, can I see you in my office?” he asks from the front desk of the hotel. He heads into the manager’s office before hearing her answer.

  She groans and can’t help thinking that this is just like being in school all over again, being sent to the principal’s office. It seems like every time she goes out with the group she winds up having to have a talk with Kenny. Rocky trudges to the door as if her feet weigh a hundred pounds each.

  “Have a seat,” he tells her from his desk. As usual he’s shuffling papers around as if he’s busy, having an actual office to lead from has gone to his head. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Rocky humors him, taking a chair across from him and waiting while he jots down a few things on a memo pad, then grabs a manila folder which he opens on his crossed legs. “First, let me start by telling you it’s a privilege to work with you. You never cease to amaze me.”

  Like a boss fresh from a management seminar he begins the meeting with a positive thing about her work.

  “I would like to applaud you on your actions back there at the junkyard, and again at the pudding house. Your co-workers were out of line, though I would have loved to have taken the pin-up girl as my queen, if she would have me, I cannot condone rape. It’s just bad business. So, kudos!

  “That being said, I don’t think you had to go as far as you did. You broke Blake’s nose, fractured Phil’s wrist,” he says peering into the file before him as if it holds the details. “There have been many complaints about you ever since you came on board. I recently went through the suggestion box, honestly most aren’t very constructive, but all of them are about you. A lot of the men think you should be demoted back to female status.

  “This is a phallocratic society, ruled by the dick. I bestowed upon you an honorary dick when we met because of how impressed I was with you. Now, you’re rubbing that dick in my face.”

  Dealing with Kenny is easy for Rocky, he never picks up on her sarcasm. “I know, I know,” she begins with a nod. “I have been given a lot of dick in my life, the one you gave me is the only one I cherish and will continue to cherish for years to come. I hold it close to my heart,” she points to her chest. “I think we can come to a compromise,” she says getting his full attention. He responds positively whenever she uses managerial lingo, or words from the inspirational posters that decorate the walls of his office as well as the break room. “I will dial back my aggression toward the team if they promise to keep their urges in check. I don’t think I’m out of line when I prevent one of them from raping a woman, or peeping at one of the single ladies in the shower, am I? Can’t we come to some sort of accord?”

  “You are not at all out of line,” he agrees with a wave of his hand that erases any wrong doing on her end. “I’ll have a talk with them.”

  She’s about to leave the office, yet again victoriously shifting the blame from herself, but before she can rise to her feet Kenny leans back with his hands behind his head. “We have another problem,” he says, freezing her in place. “The Rubies keep moving closer. We have the Army south of us somewhere, as if we didn’t have enough to worry about with the zombies... We may need a place to fall back to should we lose this sweet fort of ours. As we speak we are bolstering our defenses and keeping eyes looking in both directions should one of our neighbors decide to pull something. It’s like the Cold War all over again.”

  Rocky hasn’t budged, she remains frozen half off her chair, waiting to hear where he’s going with this.

  “I have a mission for you.”

  After hearing what Kenny has planned for her, Rocky is finally able to enter her room. She has been looking forward to some peace and quiet, time away from the boys, and of course a stiff drink. Her flask had run dry not long after her and the team arrived at the house in Rubicon territory, she feels the onset of sobriety creeping in and it feels awful.

  “Rocky!” Killer B says rushing to her friend before the door is shut.

  Without alcohol to dull her senses everything is painful, Killer B’s voice is an ear-shattering siren. “Shhh-shit!” she makes a gesture with her hand to indicate that her friend needs to turn down her volume.

  “I saw you guys pull up,” Killer B whispers. She follows Rocky around their room, right on her heels, desperate for some hopeful news. “What took you so long.”

  Rocky sheds her clothes as she makes her way to the bottles of booze on their shared dresser. With Killer B practically becoming her shadow she had to swing her elbows and nudge her friend away just to be able to move comfortably. Before answering the question she unscrews a tall square bottle of whisky and takes a long swig. “We ran into trouble. The Rubies chased us off.”

  “Oh,” Killer B is surprised by the answer, she had meant ‘why did it take so long to get to the room after arriving home’. She has heard only bad things about the people of Rubicon, that they are bullies and thugs. “How’d that go?”

  “Not as bad as I thought it would,” Rocky shrugs. She’s much more relaxed having had a few pulls off the bottle. She dumps herself onto their bed. Posing as a married couple Rocky claimed them a single to keep up appearances. “I actually met their leader.”

  “Brass?” Killer B’s eyes go wide with horror when she utters the name. The man is talked of as a merciless tyrant that rules his army with an iron fist. “Oh my god!”

  “He wasn’t that bad, shorter than I thought he’d be,” Rocky says with a chuckle. “I think the stories we’ve heard are greatly exaggerated, and completely fucking wrong.”

  “I don’t know, Deirdre says…”

  “That Stepford bitch?” Rocky nearly chokes on a sip from her bottle. “I told you not to talk to her! She loves this shit, serving her man, tending to chores. You’re gonna say the wrong thing to her one day and get us killed.”

  “Well, I have to talk to someone!” Killer B snaps back. “There’s only four of us, Michelle is literally bare foot and pregnant, and all Haley does is cry.”

  “We almost had some more Sister Wives for you to play with,” Rocky tells her.

  “I almost wish you did,” Killer B responds sadly. She wouldn’t want this life for anyone, but it is awful lonely and monotonous. All day long she tends to chores around the camp, feeling eyes upon her every step of the way, hearing whispers from the men that long for wives of their own.

  “The Rubies saved
them. They almost saved me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Brass. He offered to take me to Rubicon, said I didn’t have to come back to this shit.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “You, ya dumb cunt,” Rocky rudely explains. “Without me here, these good ole boys would have you fulla jizz in seconds. You’d be sooo full of jizz.”

  “Gross!” Rocky’s proclamation is disgusting, but true.

  “I’ve told you a billion times to try and look un-fuckable, and you can’t even do it,” Rocky nit-picks. “Even without make-up and in sweats, all these guys see is a cute, cozy screw.”

  “Are you done?” She’s heard the same tired complaints about her appearance so much she’s numb to them. The truth of their situation sets in and makes Killer B bitter, she is an anchor that keeps Rocky here. “Maybe you should have gone for it,” she says, not meaning for it to come out as snippy as it does.

  “Maybe I will next time the opportunity comes around!” Rocky bickers back. Then the room is silent, tempers flare between them.

  They wallow in the tension, wishing the other would make the first move to ease it, neither wishing to be the one. Killer B rises from the bed and walks over to the mirror on the dresser, not that she wants to see herself, just for something else to do besides stare at the floor and wait.

  In a surprising twist, Rocky breaks first. She holds her friend from behind in a tender hug. “I just worry about you, that’s all. The thought of these animals…” she can’t even finish the sentence without seething with anger and squeezing harder. This is a side of Rocky Killer B hardly ever sees. “I’m sorry.”

  “I try to look my worse for you,”

  “I know. I only say what I say for your own good. Take it as a compliment. What’s my theory?”

  “Do I have to?” Killer B asks with a groan of protest.