I was loving life.
Then, I saw a brief glimpse of a woman in a white dress. I hit the brakes immediately. I was still in front of my old friend’s house, but I saw her directly across the street. It looked like she jumped from the roof of one house onto the roof of the next house and then vanished down the back side of the roof.
I looked over at Merrick as if she could explain what I had just seen. Her tail began to wag excitedly. She was just happy to be in a car.
I briefly wondered if I still had some zombie toxins coursing through my veins. Neither healthy humans nor zombies could make a jump that far. It was easier to believe that I imagined it, but I knew deep down that I hadn’t.
Trouble was coming. Hell, trouble already paid me a visit. I was positive that it had something to do with that rooftop bounding freak.
“Why were you so positive?”
I guess it was because there’s only so much weird shit that you can chalk up to coincidence. Someone set a trap for us, and now I’m suddenly seeing a woman jumping superhuman distances on the rooftops of houses.
Nah, I had no idea what she was, but I knew she was up to no good. I just didn’t know what her game was.
I was about to find out.
I drove slowly enough to scan the rooftops as I hit Sunland Park Drive and drove towards Mesa. I didn’t see anything, but from somewhere up in the distance I heard the familiar sound of a zombie scream.
I wasn’t alarmed. It was too far away to be screaming because of me, and even if it was, I was in a Firebird Trans Am. It wasn’t as tough as my Jeep, but it was a hell of a lot faster. Regardless, I slowed my pace. I didn’t want to slam into a shambler and jack up my new ride. That sort of thing could end up ruining my fun and making me walk back after all.
The intersection of Mesa and Sunland was blocked by cars. There was no way to get through it. There were also a number of shamblers, but they were headed away from me and down the street.
Well, I was going to join them. There were a number of different side streets that would get me back to Mesa. As I was back tracking to one of those side streets, I heard the unmistakable sound of bumpers colliding and bending metal. Why I was hearing the sounds of a car crash minus the squealing brakes I had no idea, but I was hearing it rather clearly and I was also hearing more of the zombie screams.
I turned up a street called Thunderbird. It was the first street I came upon that would lead to Mesa Street. Imagine my surprise when I saw all the abandoned cars blocking my way. Some of those cars were rather smashed together. I kept thinking back to when we led the survivors out of El Paso. I remembered that those of us playing decoy had used Mesa, but I couldn’t remember a bunch of smooshed cars blocking the intersecting streets.
There were more shamblers here as well, but none of them had eyes for me. They were headed farther up Mesa towards the sounds of grinding metal and smashing vehicles. The sounds were too clear this time to make me question what was going on. Someone or something was blocking my access.
My thoughts drifted to the woman in the white dress; I couldn’t imagine why she would want to cut me off from Mesa. It just didn’t make any sense, but I knew the zombies weren’t doing it. I squealed the tires as I made a violent U turn and headed back the way I had come.
In behind a small shopping mall is an actual alleyway that led through the mall to a large parking lot that bordered Mesa. It’s tiny, and maybe not a lot of people use it, but I had used it many times when I was too impatient to wait for the lights at the intersections that were now blocked.
I drove through the opening in the chain link fence behind the shopping mall and made my way towards the alley as quietly as the rumbling car would allow me. When I reached the alley, I was pleased to see that it wasn’t blocked. After the alley was the fairly empty parking lot and not much else between me and Mesa. I was almost there.
I headed through it slowly and on the lookout for any danger. When the nose of my car began to inch its way free of the alley, I heard the screeching sound of tires on asphalt and the immediate response of a car alarm. All of this happened just before a small truck was shoved in front of the open end of the alley. The truck slammed into the curb and a light post right after it clipped the front of the Firebird. I wasn’t sure what was worse, the cosmetic damage on my new vehicle or the fact that someone was fucking with me.
I thought about how long this game of blocking my access to Mesa could go on. I quickly realized that it could continue until the cows came home or until it attracted so many zombies that passing Mesa would prove impossible, even if I did manage to get around the blockades. With great reluctance, I unbuckled Merrick and jumped out of the vehicle. I pulled my pistol out of its holster just in case I could get a shot off at my annoying stalker.
Merrick crawled under the truck while I climbed over the bed. Once on the other side, I scanned the area and found nothing to shoot at. The area was free and clear. Hell, there weren’t even any zombies around. They had all been led away farther down the road.
I was getting pissed.
Merrick and I bolted across the parking lot, reached Mesa Street and managed to find some cover behind a group of abandoned cars just as a hoard of shamblers flooded into the parking lot in search of prey.
I had the grim satisfaction of reaching my destination despite my adversary’s attempts to prevent me from doing so. Then, I thought about how far we’d have to hoof it, and I realized that my adversary didn’t care about me reaching Mesa; she just wanted me out of the car.
“How did you get to that conclusion?”
I just thought about the situation. The blockades were only going to stop my car. None of them were going to present much of a problem if I was on foot. Also, I was pretty far from where I had last left my team. There was a lot of walking distance and a serious amount of danger between where I currently was and where I was headed.
I was being hunted.
“You were being hunted?”
Yeah, and I’d be easier to follow on foot.
“And you thought it was the woman?”
I sure did. She was just too much of a coincidence to be ignored. Yet, I didn’t really care about that; I was more annoyed to be playing someone else’s game. I needed to turn things around and play my own game. I’ve always hated playing by other people’s rules. This was no exception.
My hunter wanted me on foot. I understood that well enough. She also probably wanted me out in the open so I’d be easier to pick off when the right moment came.
It was time to screw up her game.
Merrick and I bolted from cover to cover until we passed the burnt remains of Tito’s old apartment building. We went around the rubble and came once again to Thunderbird; this time on the opposite side of Mesa. It was the same side of the street Dudley and I took, back when we rescued Tito. Anyway, Merrick and I didn’t head toward the desert this time. Instead, we turned left on a street called Westwind.
“You were headed back to your friends?”
I was headed in that direction. My hunter was probably expecting it and I didn’t want to disappoint. My guess was that the attack would come when I reached the spot I left my team. I wasn’t positive of this, but I had spent an entire day pretty much out of commission and nothing tried to kill me so she had to be waiting for something. Also, there were no attacks while I was traveling. There were plenty of opportunities, but no attacks. Here I was, all alone and out in the open, and I was, as of yet, unmolested. She had to be waiting for something.
Another thing I should mention is that travelling this distance was really very time consuming. Merrick and I had to duck and hide constantly to avoid being detected. There were that many zombies wandering around. Mostly it was the lone shambler, but one scream and we’d be in some serious trouble. One time, we had to hide and wait in a darkened office building as a herd of hundreds made their way past us. That alone took the better part of an hour.
The second we hit Westwind we broke into a se
rious run. I felt eyes on me, and I didn’t like it a bit. I was positive I was being followed. I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything, but I knew it. I was being followed. I was being hunted and toyed with.
We ran for a pretty long time. I had to constantly remind myself that just because there was a new player in the game didn’t mean that the old players were any less dangerous. The zombies still needed a respectful amount of attention. I didn’t want another bite to deal with.
I made my move on a street called Tarascas. We broke right and hauled ass to the first two story house we found. Once there, I tried the front door, and, to my surprise, it was unlocked. Merrick gave a low growl as soon as we entered.
I pulled my pistol.
Clearing a house is never my idea of fun. I hate any kind of situation in which something can jump out at me from the dark. I think we even previously had some sort of conversation about this.
Anyway, I didn’t want something to jump out and bite me on the ass while my attention was elsewhere, so I went from room to room as rapidly as possible. There were three zombies in one of the downstairs bedrooms.
As soon as I got close to the bedroom door, the door flew open and all three of them rushed out at me. I backed up as rapidly as I could and tapped them in the head, one after the other.
The upstairs held the last of the homes inhabitants. It was a pretty nasty customer, let me tell you. It was an old fat man in a nightgown of some sorts. The rot was evident; it always is. I think I’ve gotten somewhat immune to how nasty these things look. So it wasn’t the rot in his face that grossed me out. It was the rot on his legs that did that. For whatever reason, this particular zombie had been spending his time in the half filled bathtub of the master bedroom. The skin on his legs was literally peeling off as he scrambled out of the tub and came at me. I shot him in the head immediately and then threw a blanket over his legs so I didn’t have to look at them anymore.
After that, we went out on the balcony. From the balcony, I climbed to the roof. Merrick wasn’t happy to be left behind, but I didn’t want to heave her heavy ass over my shoulder and make the climb. Once I was on the roof, I took cover behind a short wall that marked the boundary of the rooftop.
After that, I waited.
As time went by, I began to get a little nervous. Maybe my plan wasn’t going to work. Maybe I had already lost my opportunity. Clearing the damn house had taken around fifteen minutes according to the Luminox watch on my wrist. Fifteen minutes would have been more than enough time to have traveled through the area.
I saw movement.
I wasn’t exactly sure from where, but I saw movement on the rooftops. Yes, there it was again, a shaggy head peeking up over the rim of a building across Westwind, the lady in the white dress. Not that I was very surprised.
I couldn’t see her too well. It was dark, and she was pretty far away on the opposite side of Westwind. It looked as if she were sniffing the air.
Suddenly, she was bounding across the roof. She was moving way too fast to be human. It was pretty unbelievable watching her move, and that’s coming from a guy that kills zombies for a living.
When she reached the edge of the roof, she didn’t even slow down. She just vaulted through the air and came down upon another rooftop. From rooftop to rooftop she traveled with amazing speed, and then she came to a street called Cresta Bonita. If she turned left on that street, she would be headed in the direction of Oveja.
“Oveja is where you left the team, correct?”
Yeah, and I think it’s also where she wanted to have our little showdown, but I must have lost her somewhere along the way. She certainly looked like she was trying to make up for lost time.
She turned on Cresta Bonita.
I stood up from my hiding place so I could continue to track her. She was a few houses down the street when she suddenly came to a sliding halt. From there she froze. It looked like she might have been sniffing the air once again, but with all the distance between us, I couldn’t be sure.
She ran to the edge of the roof and jumped over to the next house. I believe she was sniffing the air once again. Then she went to each side of the house and peered down below. She punched a brick chimney in frustration and hit it so hard that brick pieces actually flew through the air.
She back tracked over and over again, at each new house sniffing the air and peering off each side of the house. Yes, as she got closer and closer, I was sure she was indeed sniffing the air.
It was almost dawn when she once again stood across from me on the other side of Westwind. I watched her look towards the sky and stomp her bare feet in frustration. She went to each side of the roof and did her sniffing test. She must have caught my scent because she stared down at my street for a long moment before she turned on her heels and began to walk away in the opposite direction. It looked like she didn’t want to continue the hunt during the daytime. I guess it was because I could spot her easier with the sun on my side.
Suddenly she stopped.
I knew she sensed me, but I didn’t know how; I had ducked back under the low wall the moment I saw her retracing her steps. Somehow, though she knew I was there. She knew I was watching her.
She slowly turned around and walked to the edge of the roof that faced my direction. I stood from my hiding place, and her eyes caught me immediately. I’m not exactly sure how I knew this, maybe it was the slight movement of her head in my direction, but we stood facing each other for the first time.
The moment was frozen. I had caught her by surprise and she didn’t know quite what to make of me. So, she decided to try and mock me. She gave me an over-exuberant and very theatrical bow. I repaid her idiotic gesture with a gesture of my own. I flipped her the bird.
“You gave her the finger?”
The middle one to be exact and it pissed her off. I could see that in the sudden movement of her shoulders. I could tell she wanted to charge me, but something stopped her. Instead, she looked beyond me to the mountains in the distance. The sky had begun to lighten there. She had lost her element of surprise.
Instead of rushing me, she gave a nonchalant wave of her hand to me and vanished down the far side of the roof.
Game on.
I was moving immediately. I had an idea, but I needed some stuff to pull it off and I had no idea how long it would take to find it. I gathered up Merrick and ran to the backyard of the neighboring house. Once inside, we gave it a rapid search, came up empty handed and moved to the next house.
All in all, I have to admit I was very disappointed. We searched through some twenty five homes before I found what I needed, but in the final place I looked, in the final house we searched, I found what I had been looking for.
A hunting rifle.
I needed a weapon that could take a long distance shot. I needed something with a scope in which to make the long distance shot. I just couldn’t believe it took all morning to find the damn thing. El Paso is a part of Texas and in Texas we love our freakin’ guns.
It was there waiting for me in the back of a closet. I recognized the hard plastic carrying case immediately. I was just hoping that when I opened it up it would be something I could use. I wasn’t disappointed at all. The case held a beautiful Remington 700. Next to the case, I even found a box of ammunition. I wasn’t sure whether the owner used this gun for hunting or sniping, but the .30-06 ammunition packed a hell of a punch.
The rifle also came with a large scope. It looked big enough to cover a pretty big distance, but the lack of a maker’s mark made me a little nervous. I needed to test fire the rifle. I needed to make sure that the scope was zeroed in and could cover the distance that was required.
“Have you ever done any long distance shooting?”
A little bit, but it didn’t really matter. As part of the whole ‘Guardian’ thing, I get these weird dreams at least once a week and in these weird ass dreams I learn how to use all sorts of different weapons. I don’t remember many technical terms, but I can s
ure make the guns go bang.
The only problem was that if I fired off this rifle it was going to make a really loud noise. A really loud noise was going to attract company. I certainly didn’t want any company. I already had to clear out a ton of them while I was searching all the homes.
I needed to get some distance from my current location. So, once again I went through all the homes looking for a working automobile. I was not in luck. Every time I found a car, I couldn’t find the keys. If I happened to find keys, I couldn’t find the car that they belonged to.
“Did you happen to run across any computers or laptops that you could use to make contact with your team?”
I did. I managed to sign onto the EPUA website. I left a message, but due to the sheer volume of people writing on that thing, I didn’t have a lot of hope in being rescued. To be honest, I don’t even remember asking for an extraction. I think I just announced that I was alive and well. The situation had become rather personal to me. I wasn’t about to turn tail and run until I got some payback.
It was mid-afternoon before I found some decent transportation. It was a pretty beat up dirt bike, but someone must have done some kind of maintenance on it because it started on the second kick.
I strapped the gun case over the rear fender, left Merrick in the back yard, and zipped up the street. The bike was a little too loud and certain to attract the wrong kind of attention. It was also rather smoky in the exhaust department. There was a slight chance I was wrong about it having had maintenance.
I put some distance between Merrick and myself just by driving around the different neighborhoods. When I felt I was far enough away that the shamblers wouldn’t eventually end up near the homes on Tarascas, I pulled over, grabbed the rifle, and entered the nearest house.
Inside the house, I grabbed a vase, a computer screen, and a large clock. I hefted these things in my arms and ran to the end of the road. I placed them strategically at different levels. The computer screen went in the middle of the road. The clock went on someone’s porch and the vase went on a nearby roof.
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