The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  But not in her. She wanted to introduce the kings to her own law. There was the man named Jamie, who liked to spend time with kids barely old enough to be in junior high, and high school girls weren’t so bad either. There was the man named Rogelio, who thought black chicks were right up his alley. There was the man named George, who had been the ringleader on the shore and showed off his junk. There was the woman whose name Micah didn’t know, but she rocked black dudes and Asian dudes, too. There was the man who looked at Micah and pantomimed stroking her breasts. There was the woman named Ruthie, who so sweetly lured Colin away. Listening to the whispers over her meal, Micah understood that some of these assholes had been brought here from a prison. Brought here and let loose, foxes among chickens, lions among lambs.

  They had all violated her law. It wasn’t a law that any reasonable adult had to be taught. Everyone learned it in kindergarten. Keep your hands to yourself!

  She was going to teach them the lesson that somehow passed them by long ago. No. It hadn’t passed them by. They had learned it yet chosen not to follow it. Laws had to be enforced, or else they meant nothing. They were just words without a point.

  She had a point.

  Honey, wait-

  When dawn broke, the ferals melted away into shadows and Micah slipped the switchblade into her pocket. It was almost time.

  Elania was afraid to get out of the tree. She looked down at the ground like it had fangs. If bodily urges hadn’t demanded attention, fear would keep her in the tree until she lost her mind. Elania didn’t see the kindness she had shown the man whose body was at the base of the tree. She just winced when Micah dragged it away. Then she came down reluctantly and whispered that she was even afraid to pull down her pants to pee.

  Micah stood guard while she did. Elania could feel the fear and Micah would feel the rage. Her face was still swollen from yesterday, but her eye was more open.

  If Austin and Corbin had been killed last night, Micah was going to spend the day searching this island to show kindness. She didn’t have to worry about the ferals biting her. What were they going to do? Give her Sombra C?

  “I don’t want to go back to that bridge,” Elania said when the bell rang.

  Soon the bridge would be safe. Micah might die doing it, although that didn’t seem possible. Her body wasn’t going to give in to death, no more than she was going to bow down before someone else’s sick law that her body didn’t belong to her in the off-chance she desired to spend the night not out in the open surrounded by crazed zombies who wanted to rip her up.

  Micah encouraged Elania to walk north. Food wasn’t optional. They’d find the boys and not set foot on that bridge until Elania was in the center of their group. Reassured a little, Elania came along.

  This was a clever choice for an illegal confinement point. Watchtowers had been erected at regular intervals so armed guards could monitor the fence. No one could climb over it without being seen; no one could climb under it or snip through it either. One could dig a tunnel from farther back on the hillside, but the river got in the way. The Shepherds had indeed been so very clever. Micah had no idea how to get out of this place, but she had other matters to attend to first.

  Honey, think-

  The kings controlled the lodge. That was where they had made a mistake. The most critical necessity for a human being was air. After that was water, and beneath that came food. Then shelter. If the bathrooms were functional in the lodge, water wasn’t their weak spot. Food only came from the bridge. If she controlled the bridge, she controlled the lodge.

  The second they had opened their fat, disgusting mouths on the shore, they forfeited their lives. She wasn’t going to wait to fight until they were dragging her into the bushes, or carrying her up the steps to the lodge. She wasn’t going to stand on that bridge waiting for her meals while eyes licked over her body.

  She wasn’t going to pray that nothing happened. If there was a divine power, it didn’t care what happened here. When someone truly cared, he or she reached out a helping hand. That person or being or whatever it was did not just sit back and watch sadly. One gave a starving person a meal. One didn’t give a mournful headshake about the dreadful hunger pains and say I feel ya. Now light some candles and sing a hymn about how great I am.

  The person who controlled food was divine.

  The boys caught up with them on the trail. Elania almost cried to see their dirty, tired faces and ran over to be kissed and hugged and to give them kisses and hugs. She clutched onto her stick and Corbin both when they continued to the North Bridge. Austin’s hand was biting Micah’s arm the way she needed when she was coming apart, yet she felt fine.

  She was going cold.

  “It really frightened me that you might not have stayed in the tree,” Austin said quietly. Under the quiet was the anger he had prepared in case he found only Elania. “You can’t do that here, roam around. You have to stay with us.”

  Micah wanted him to have a straight, identical twin brother. He could paddle her ass every night, lock her up tightly in his arms and make her obey. For a while. She gave Austin the stick to carry and bumped her head on his arm. It would never work. No guy would be happy that his girl got up in the middle of the night to check out what the world looked like in the dark. She needed absolute freedom, and even a good relationship came with bindings of the sweetest chains.

  People were crowded upon the bridge. Very few had been served so far, and they were on the strip of grass by the fence eating hurriedly. Scanning the bridge person by person, Micah located Rogelio at the back. His arm was around a Hispanic woman, and his eyes were crawling over Elania with even more hunger than yesterday. She was the appetizer to his meal. So that was where Micah would start.

  Honey, don’t-

  She smiled as the heckling began afresh from Rogelio and a man in the middle of the line. The blade was in her hand and covered by her long sleeve. Elania shrank behind Corbin as the piggish Rogelio in the bloody shirt said that he’d waited up all night for her. Juicy girl. Nothing like a big black bouncy ass. He was going to make it bounce so high today!

  The man higher up in line was talking about Micah. She would get to him.

  “Let’s wait and get some people between us,” Elania was whispering. Corbin agreed. Both of them accepted the fear. Accepted the limits. Micah pushed on to the bridge as Austin called for her to stop.

  Honey, stop-

  No.

  In her head, drums played. This was a ritual for human dominance. It wasn’t one they celebrated in her childhood coven. They sang to the skies, submitting themselves to the control of the weather, the tides of the seasons and time. They would cringe from a ritual walk of a bridge with blades in hand. Everyone was equal. Everyone came in perfect love and perfect trust. They didn’t want to celebrate violence, not even when it was performed for the good of all.

  As Elania was distracting Rogelio, the woman at his side saw her chance to get away. She edged up a few inches, trading in on another woman’s body to win back her own. Most people had their eyes trained to the glass at the end of the bridge, like that made them appear too busy to be targeted. Was Colin in the crowd? Micah didn’t see him.

  “Aw, come and stand next to me, little blackberry,” Rogelio was calling. Micah walked down the bridge in a trance. “I saved you a place. I want to be your friend. Pull down those pants and let me get a look at that big booty-”

  As the blade punched through his back, Micah covered his mouth with her hand and said, “Shh. Shhhhh.” His body shook at the impact. She drew him back to her, like a lover cradling him to sleep in the peacefulness of night. “Shhhhhh.”

  She had aimed for his kidney. Stab and twist to inflict more internal damage. Pressing her head to his, she whispered, “Shhhh,” and drew out the blade to stab him a second time. The woman looked back. Micah caught her gaze and shook her head reassuringly with a slight smile, hushing her along with the man. The woman wasn’t her target, and she saw this in Micah’
s eyes. Had the blade gone all the way through to his abdominal aorta? How long did it take someone to die? Micah was going to find out.

  He grunted against her fingers and tried to pull away. Yanking him down to the planks, she sank the blade into his neck. The man was suddenly still.

  “Oh my God,” Elania whispered. The three of them had come to the foot of the bridge and were watching Micah withdraw the blade.

  The woman looked down to the dead man bleeding there, her mouth working soundlessly. When Micah stood and commanded her to move, she moved.

  “Micah,” Austin whispered in horror.

  Now it was time for the man in the middle of the line to learn the last lesson of his life. Micah knocked aside the people who didn’t move to the railings fast enough. The drums were louder, drowning out everything save the steady beat of her pulse. Mouths were opening when she got to the man, silent screams pushing out from the strained cords of those throats, and he turned to bare his potbelly to her blade.

  He fell faster than Rogelio, squealing like a pig. The drums let that slip through. Tumbling onto his back and gripping at his ripped gut, she fell on top of him and stabbed at his throat. A hand pushed up to stop her, the blade slicing through the skin of his thumb and forefinger.

  Gunfire.

  This was godly work, the work that He or She was shirking to enjoy the spiral dances of twits like StarTruth, or the hymns and prayers of other religions. So Micah would do it. Someone had to, and she was the one with the blade.

  He was dead.

  She stood up to find fresh meat.

  “She’s killing people! She’s killing people!” a woman cried.

  Micah shoved her into the railing and screamed in her face, “I kill rapists!” People cringed away. Some were climbing over the railings and jumping down to the water to escape.

  “Show me the kings of this hill!” Micah demanded. A trembling finger rose to a man already pushing his way back to her from the front of the line. Barely a man, this was a high school boy her age and no taller than she was. He had a big build, outdoing her in muscle so she would have to outdo him in speed. Pushing people aside, she charged for him.

  “Micah, stop!” the others were screaming.

  Honey-

  The boy swung his fist and she dipped under it, launching herself forward and grazing him with the blade. Both knocked off-balance, they fell to their knees. A short, bare-chested man from the shore yesterday grabbed at her. Hands engulfed him, a frail young guy with a ghostly pallor throwing himself on the man’s back. The pale one had him in a bear hug, keeping him off Micah.

  Getting back to her feet, she and the high school boy collided together upon the planks. Blood was running down his arm. He shoved her hard into the railing, using his whole body and with a grin on his ugly face. A grin that said she should enjoy having him pressed to her. The railing broke and sent them both plummeting into the water.

  It should have been a tumble of air and noise and the shock of gravity pulling her down, disorienting her, but she saw it in split-second frames. Even as the water was drinking her in, she was sinking the blade into him.

  The knock of the shallow bottom pushed the air out of her lungs. His weight was upon her still. Kicking at the sand and rock, she wriggled out from beneath him and shoved herself upwards to the reddish light. Through the water came the vibration of gunshots. She gulped down air and was sprayed with droplets of blood. The guard had shot both the frail guy and the man he was fighting upon the bridge. Having fallen on the far side, Micah was out of his sight.

  She had thought the boy was dead. He was not. Knocked off her feet, she was shoved beneath the water. The knife fell from her fingers. He put his hands around her throat and choked her.

  Her move came as a reflex from those two years of martial arts training with its neutered throws and gentle falls. Jamming her thumb into his hand and forcing her fingers between his and her throat, she turned out his wrist. With her other hand, she pressed at it and threw him into the water. Then she drew in air and held down his head. Blood was gushing from his torso like smoke. When he flailed, she pinched his body between her knees, moving up to his armpits where he struggled to get hold of her. She pushed his face down into the bottom and braced until he stopped moving.

  Her blade. She sank into the water. The switchblade wasn’t far away. It wanted to be found.

  There were no more challengers among those still on the bridge. Incredibly, the Shepherd behind the glass had continued to dole out meals. People stood on the strip of grass with their TV dinners and water bottles clutched to their chests. They were looking at Micah in fear.

  Wading from the river, she climbed back onto the bridge. Droplets pattered onto the planks from her body. Those in line froze to see her. She held up the knife and shook her head to indicate that she had no interest in them. Over the other side of the railing, fresh bodies floated upon the surface of the water. The guard was staring out at something on the hill.

  “The bridge is mine,” Micah said. “Take your food and go. I only kill kings.”

  “You didn’t get all of them,” a girl whispered. It was one of Ruthie’s girls.

  “I’ve got the bridge,” Micah said. “They want food, they’ll meet me here. No one touches you on the bridge; no one talks filthy to you; no one takes away your food. You scream for me if someone does.”

  Honey, you just hit your sister! Honey, you’re driving too fast! Honey, you just killed three people!

  It had not been easy.

  It had not been hard.

  She would get some space to clear her head and work on getting out of here. She just had to fight for it first. The fools who called themselves kings of this shithole death camp would come to her now, and once they were gone, she took the lodge for her own. The woman who whisked away Colin, the blade was going to carve an R for rapist onto her forehead. She was just as bad as one, and at night Micah was going to lock her out of the lodge.

  “Good for you, getting those bastards,” whispered an old woman.

  The strongest set the laws. Standing sentinel as people pulled their meals from the bucket, she met Austin’s eyes levelly as he came up in line. She’d done what she had to do. Fresh blood was dripping from the stick she had given him to hold. A body was on the far side, one that she wasn’t responsible for. He took his food and climbed down from the bridge.

  Elania squeezed Micah’s arm before she dipped to the grass with her meal. Thank you for killing that awful man for me. It was in the quick squeeze, speaking volumes between them without a word. Corbin looked at Micah speechlessly as he pulled the bucket to their side.

  With difficulty, she dragged and dumped the bodies on the bridge into the water. The crash through the railing had left several sticks jutting up to nowhere. She pulled them out and wedged them under her arm. Then she got her own food. Giving it to Austin to hold, she passed out the sticks to the people still there and said, “Protect yourselves, for fuck’s sake.” Ruthie’s girl tugged at Micah’s sleeve for one.

  “He’s one of their friends,” a woman said about a man ambling down the steps to the bridge. Micah returned to her post. He cut past a woman wandering over the planks in semi-lurching steps.

  “Get back behind her,” Micah ordered.

  Everyone stared at Micah, to see how far she’d go to enforce her laws. To see if this had just been a one-off, and things would go back to the way they had been.

  A weasel of a fellow, the man said, “Blow me, bitch.”

  The switchblade snapped open, catching his eye as it descended below her sleeve. She would have her space to breathe, dammit. “I said, get back behind her.”

  Then Austin was there, the red point of his stick held out in warning. “Get back in line or you’re dead.”

  That took the man aback much more than Micah and her switchblade. “Okay! After you-uuuu-uuu,” he said in sarcasm to the lurching woman.

  “No,” Micah said. “Politely.”

  He wo
uldn’t be polite, but he was quiet and let his eyes do the talking. The woman got her meal and clumsily climbed down, where Elania took off the plastic wrapper for her and a man opened the bottle of water to help.

  This would be Micah, Corbin, Austin, and Elania in time, unable to do these things for themselves. The woman said thanks, but it drawled from her lips with drool. The bucket slammed as the man got his meal. Micah followed him off the bridge to the grass.

  The weasel shoveled food into his mouth, standing apart with a mean expression. Some of the people had stayed on the strip even though they were done. They were looking surreptitiously to Micah. Some power had shifted to her. She had done what they could not.

  I love that loose screw.

  “You’ll be sorry,” said the weasel, dumping his trash into the river. Micah changed her mind about the lodge. The man waded into the water and she gave pursuit at a steady, menacing pace. His fear was winning over his anger, evident from how his speed picked up. He staggered over a submerged body and she kicked him in the back onto the shore.

  The others were thrashing through the river to her, and the people from the grass were following. The man crawled onto the trail and she kicked him in the ass. He sprawled onto his face and she straddled his back. Taking a handful of his hair, she tilted his head to the sky and put the blade at his throat.

  “No, please! No, please!” he gasped.

  “You go back up those stairs, you disgusting pig,” Micah ordered. “Go back up to that lodge and tell any kings left standing to come down here and meet me. We’ll see just who fucking controls this place. Tell them I got a blade with their names on it. If they don’t come down here fast, I’m coming up there. They like to swing their dicks around? They aren’t going to have anything left to swing. Go.”

  Drawing away, she stabbed him in the back. He screamed to feel the tip of the blade sink in. It wasn’t deep enough to kill, at least not immediately. Pulling it out, Micah stood and shouted, “Get the fuck out of my face!”