“Because you find us beneath you?”
JB laughed. “Darlin’, beneath me is the best place for any woman to be. Not just that, but also because I’d not figured the apocalypse would be so thoroughly devastatin’.”
“Because it hasn’t been, you moron. The virus isn’t worldwide. It’s just here in the U.S.” Cassie spat. “But you wouldn’t know that, here in bum-fuck Egypt.”
JB shook his head. “There’s no possible way anyone could keep Americans inside our borders. We are Americans, not some piddly little powerless country. Your story is preposterous and pathetic, which is why men always have and always will be the dominant force of our species.”
“So what is it you want from us?” Burnett asked. “Just what is it you have in mind?”
“I thought I’d been very clear.”
“He wants fucking incubators,” Dallas growled, looking up at him from beneath angry brows. “Does that pretty much sum it up, Jethro?”
JB drew long and hard on his cigar. “We all have a responsibility to ensure the future of mankind. As women, you are our only hope. Like it or not, you gotta be the ones to carry mankind forward.”
“So you’re planning on what? Raping us? Pimping us out? How does your plan play out on a practical basis?”
JB nodded for the guards, who moved closer. “You’ll each have your own comfortable room in the area of the red wing we call the Dorms. When one of our more fit gentlemen has proven his worth and survivability, and has the proper means to do so, he gets to pay one of you a visit. There is no raping or forced sex, Miss Dallas. After five visits, you must decide which one you prefer to have as the father of your child.”
Dallas stared at him. “I don’t, I can’t, there are no words for how fucked up this is.” Dallas gauged the odds of getting out of this room alive. Her eyes swept the area looking for a way out. She calculated their odds of escaping from slim to none. All exits were guarded, and even if they did get out, where would they go?
“There are several other women here. Five are with child. We are all thrilled at the—”
“With child?” Roper said from her spot on the ground. “What century did you come from you fucking whack job.”
“Clint, take Missy Foul Mouth to her quarters. See to it she understands the consequences of not going along with the program.”
Dallas was on her feet in an instant. “Where are you taking her?”
JB cocked his head. “Now ain’t that interestin’? You gals pretty tight?”
“They’re sisters,” Burnett said. “Sisters who understand the importance of family.”
JB looked from Dallas to Roper and back again. “Two tall drinks of water. I can see the resemblance now that you mention it. Your sister is in good hands, Miss Dallas, as will all of you be. We take very good care of our women here. You’ll be well fed, given prenatal vitamins, have doctor’s checkups—”
“And be kept like a prized Hereford.” Dallas steeled herself when the guard named Clint pulled Roper to her feet and motioned for the two other men to help him.
“I know how it looks at first, Miss Dallas, but I’ve found when women have choices, they seldom make the right ones. We make it easy for you.”
“You make me sick.”
“Then luckily for you, I am not one of your mating options.” He nodded to the guards, who closed in.
“Touch me and only one of us will walk away,” Dallas said, throwing her shoulders back.
“Then move on out.”
Dallas turned to Cassie and Burnett. “Don’t be afraid. Everything is going to be fine. Be strong.”
Cassie’s eyes filled with tears. “Dallas, I’m, I’m—”
“Scared? I know, love, so am I. It’s going to be okay.”
“No. I’m a,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “a virgin.”
Dallas wrapped her arms around Cassie and hugged her. She whispered, “That makes two of us. I’ll do everything I can to get us out of here. I promise.” Dallas let Cassie go and watched as she and Burnett were lead away.
“Come on,” Sarge said, poking Dallas in the back. “Get a move on.”
Dallas planted her feet firmly apart. “I’m not finished.”
JB tilted his head at her. “Oh, but I am.”
“Not until you hear me out. I have a plane.” Dallas enunciated clearly.
He looked at her for a moment and then burst into laughter. “And I have the Taj Mahal. Take her to her room.”
Dallas didn’t move even when the rifle jabbed her in the ribs.“You heard him. Get going.”
“I’m not kidding. I really do. I can get it to you in—”
“Ma’am, unless you want a taste of the X25 your sister got, I’d move along, little doggie.” JB made shooing motions with his hands.
Dallas shoved the rifle away and started out the door. “In all this time, I thought there could be nothing worse than drooling, moaning flesh-eating zombies. I was wrong. Really, really wrong. You. You are the worst.”
****
Zoe
The familiar sound of shuffling feet woke Zoe. She hadn’t slept more than fifteen consecutive minutes all night. Every sound, every tumbleweed quietly skipping across the cracked and barren earth woke her up.
They were out there. En masse. Shuffling, dragging, moaning, and looking for food.
That could mean only one thing: There was a ZB in the vicinity.
Is whoever out there one of ours? Or someone else? Or are the zombies just passing through?
Zoe grabbed her crossbow. She moved to the front of the bus and removed the machete. Sliding the door open and stepping out of the bus, she paused to listen. When she didn’t hear anything, she moved with catlike precision to the hood of the bus and then to the top. Once on roof of the bus, the three quarters moon gave off enough light that Zoe was able to count thirty man eaters headed toward a small cluster of trees. Another group began the telltale moaning as they neared the trees.
Someone was there.
A ZB.
“Hello?” Zoe called out. “Who’s up there?”
“Eddie. It’s Eddie! From the bus. Over here.”
Zoe nodded. Eddie was an engineer in their group. “Do you have a weapon?” Zoe yelled.
“No. I dropped it climbing the tree. Help me, Zoe. Please.”
“Shh. Stay calm.” Zoe climbed off the bus and set her crossbow on the steps before pulling out her machete and heading for Eddie. Thirty zombies would be a lot by herself, especially in the middle of the night with no sleep and no food, but she had no choice. They would only keep coming if she didn’t thin the herd now.
Zoe killed the first five zombies with no problem. Since she was gay, the zombies paid Zoe no attention. She was a CGI. Eddie was not and he had violated one of Einstein’s basic survival rules—don’t climb anything you can’t get down from.
The zombies would have stood at the base of the tree forever, moaning and reaching for him, if Zoe hadn’t been around to kill them. They had no sense of time, no logical thought processes. They knew one thing: There was fresh flesh nearby that they needed to consume. Like the white blood cell seeks out unhealthy cells to devour, so too, did the undead gather together.
“Yeah! That’s it! Kill them sonsabitches.”
Zoe stopped after her eighth kill. “Eddie, while I appreciate the rooting section, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t draw more attention to us.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
Zoe’s arms began to feel like two lead pipes as she hacked and slashed the zombies. With ten more to go, she retreated to the bus and gulped down more water.
Eddie had been a last minute choice to come to California because of his mechanical skills, and the fact that nearly everyone at the prison couldn’t stand him because he was a stoner and had managed to carry with him several pounds of weed. Zoe appreciated the way Einstein had summed him up.
“Eddie just really likes Eddie.”
After Zoe finished her water,
she dispatched the rest of the zombies, with the last zombie falling to the heel of her boot. Eddie scrambled down the tree, no worse for wear.
“Where to?” he asked, anxiously looking around.
“Well, how about Manner Land?”
He tilted his head back and forth like a puppy unsure of what it’s looking at.
“How about a thank you?” Zoe walked to the back of the bus disgusted. “Asswipe.”
“Oh. Right. Thanks a lot.” Eddie followed her into the bus. “Are you sure it’s safe to be in here?”
“I’m not sure of anything. Jam something up against that door, will you?” Zoe’s eyelids felt as heavy as her arms.
Eddie looked around and found the locking mechanism for the door. “How messed up is it that those guys took the Fuchs?”
“Pretty messed up. Almost as messed up as taking our people with it.”
“Guess we need to find a way back to Angola.”
Zoe’s eyes opened, but she wasn’t sure he could see her glaring at him. “You can find a way. I’m going after Dallas and Roper.”
“Are you insane? Those hillbillies have probably dumped their bodies in the river or—”
“Shut up, Eddie. Just shut up.”
Eddie remained quiet for a moment, but then he whispered to her. “They’ll come back, you know. The hillbillies. When they see all those dead man eaters, they’ll start looking for us. We gotta be long gone before they do.”
Zoe opened one eye. “For the record, there is no us. I’m going to find Dallas. Head back to Angola, if that’s what you want, but I’m not leaving here without them.”
Eddie stayed quiet for a few minutes more before whispering, “Rumor has it you have a thing for her.”
“Fuck you, Eddie. Now shut up and get some sleep.”
When Eddie finally fell asleep, Zoe closed her eyes and tried to formulate her next move. So far, it was hillbillies one, Angolans zero. She was going to even the score.
****
The Dorm rooms were small, ten foot by ten foot cubicles along one side of the red warehouse. Dallas’s room had a full size bed with a white and blue comforter and the bed sat on a sapphire blue shag floor rug out of the seventies. A small mirror hung above a vanity that held a variety of beauty products that were what Dallas’s mother might have used. The room could have been any woman’s bedroom but for one exception—the leg irons chained to the bed.
“Put it on,” the man called Sarge said as he pushed her into the room.
“You’re going to chain us up like animals?”
“Just put it on.”
Sarge raised his taser as Dallas turned to him and said, “So we’re sexual prisoners here in Shangri La? Is that how this goes?”
“Not sexual, no. This is about saving mankind. Think of it as a public service.”
“I prefer to think of it as it is—public servants. Servants as in sex slaves.”
“Just put it on.”
Dallas sat on the bed and snapped the cuff around her leg. “I want to see my sister.”
“And I want my wife not to be a zombie. It’s not gonna happen. Get some rest. You’ll have a chance to bathe and get prettied up tomorrow.” He stopped and looked at her. “Well, as pretty as you can get.” With that, he closed and locked the door.
Dallas looked for any way to get the chain off the bed frame. The frame was sturdy and the leg iron was padlocked to it. She stared at the lock for several minutes trying to determine if there was any way to pick it. Then, she ran her hand through the rug to see if she could find any metal.
It was a bust.
“Shit.”
Dallas tried to keep her panic for Roper in check. Roper would go to her death rather than let herself be raped by a bunch of psycho survivalists.
To the death.
Dallas got back on her hands and knees and ran her hands through the rug, looking for anything…anything she might use to pick the lock. Desperation crept into her soul like a frigid wind.
Dallas didn’t find anything so she stood up and banged on the door. It swung open and revealed a man of around forty holding a taser casually in his right hand. “What.”
“You guys pilfer a police station, or what?” Dallas asked, her eyes settling on the taser.
“What do you want?”
“I need to see my sister. She’s likely to put up a fight if I don’t see her. I need to explain what’s happening. I can make this easier for her—for everyone if you let me talk to her. Please.”
He looked Dallas up and down, a grin on his face. “Somma them boys like a fighter,” he said. “Takes all kinds, ya know? You ain’t seeing her. Is that all?”
“Just so you know, Bubba, when I get free, and I will, I’m going to kill every one of you in here, and I’m saving you for last.” Dallas walked as far as the chain would let her. The guard stepped back, away from her. “Looks like your sister ain’t the only fighter. You give it your best shot, sweetheart.” With that, he blew her a kiss and closed the door.
Dallas fought the cold panic welling up inside her. She understood that this was a waiting game. She would have to bide her time until she could get free, or until the people on the bus came after them. Zoe and Hunter would put a rescue squad together. She was certain of that. All was not lost.
There was still hope.
Dallas prayed that Roper understood the importance of playing the game, of staying calm. Patience was not a virtue of Roper’s. It hadn’t been since they hooked up over a year ago, and Dallas didn’t expect her to start now. She wouldn’t play this game.
Dallas felt the first tears perch on her eyelashes as she sat down on the bed.
She knew better.
Roper would never give in.
****
Zoe
The pounding on the sides of the bus woke Zoe and Eddie up just as the dawn was beginning to break.
“Stay down,” she said and reached for her crossbow. Zoe realized they were surrounded by zombies, all clawing at the sides of the bus trying to get to Eddie. There were dozens of them.
Dozens.
“Shit,” she muttered, grabbing her gear. “They’re everywhere. We have to get out of here. Now. Before there are too many for me to take out.”
Eddie’s eyes were huge. “We? How? They’re everywhere. They’re all around us, and I can’t help.”
Zoe pointed at the small emergency hatch in the ceiling of the bus. “Up. It’s our only option.”
“Up? Then what? We’re fucked, man. Fucked.”
Zoe shrugged. “Get a grip, dude. We can’t stay in here. Come on.” Grabbing her stuff, She opened the hatch and pulled herself up and out.
Eddie had no upper body strength and getting him out of the bus proved to be a struggle. How he’d managed to live this long astounded her. He was so incredibly weak.
Once they were on the roof of the bus, she looked around. The bus was surrounded by undead in various stages of decomposition all clawing and banging on the side of the bus, their incessant moaning filling the air.
“Okay, Eddie, here’s the deal. Those assholes are gonna be back to finish the job. They know we’re out here, and they’re gonna try to kill anyone left alive. I don’t know why. Sport, maybe. Boredom? I don’t know. I don’t think it matters much right now. We have to get out of here.”
“How?”
“I’m gonna have to shoot as many as I can with my crossbow first. Then we’ll have to fight like hell out of here.”
Eddie nodded. “And then back to Angola.”
Zoe stared at him. “I told you, numbnuts. I’m going after Dallas.”
“That’s a suicide mission.”
Zoe double-checked the speed loader on the crossbow. She had it at max capacity: fifty. It originally only held twenty-four, but Hunter had made a bunch of speed loaders that held more.
“So is trying to make it back to Angola, but you do what you gotta do. These people are my family, and no one fucks with my family.”
&
nbsp; “Jesus, Zoe. For all you know, they could be eating a hot meal and sleeping in a warm bed.”
“Yeah, and I’m Helen Keller. I don’t know what you saw from your perch, but I saw a bunch of fuckwads kill the Chips for no damn good reason, so no, I seriously doubt they are eating a hot meal.”
“Whatever.” Eddie pointed at a couple of deserted cars on the side of the road. “I can get one of those cars working. That might help.”
Zoe chuckled. “Dude, those batteries are dead, dead, dead, like we will be. No, I’m moving ahead. End of convo.”
She shot the first zombie through the eye. One by one she felled the zombies with her bolts until all were dead.
“You collect the bolts. I have an idea.”
While Eddie pulled the bolts from the heads of the undead, Zoe opened the hood of the bus and surveyed the damage.“Please, please, please,” she murmured, as she checked the engine. It was shot to hell and back, but the battery was still intact. “Bingo!”
She and Eddie had the battery out in no time, but Eddie wasn’t happy that he had to carry it. It was slow going with him having to adjust to its weight.
“This is too damn heavy. I need to rest.”
“You carry that damn thing until we find a place to hide it. Then we find a halfway decent car and get her running.”
“We get a car, Zoe, I’ll get her running alright. Back to Angola.”
Zoe whirled around and had her machete to his neck in the flash of an eye. “Then you best start walking, Ed, ‘cause that battery is what’s gonna save us all. Us. All. Comprende?”
Eddie nodded, but she could tell by the look in his eyes that he had no intention of helping Dallas. As usual, Eddie was out for Eddie and to hell with everyone else.
“Get in my way and I’ll cut your fucking head off.”
“Hey, man, easy does it. It’s cool. It’s all good. You want to go after Dallas, then after Dallas we go.”
Zoe removed the machete from his neck and wished she had left him in that tree.
She had no idea just how poor a decision that had been.
Man Eaters (Book 3): Mob Rule Page 4