by Brown, TW
She eased it into the lock and turned. It was almost as if each section of the lock was its own little explosion of sound. At last the door was unlocked. Now, all that remained was for her to turn the knob and open it.
Like ripping off a bandage or piece of tape, she decided to just fling it open and be done. For just a moment she felt her heart soar. Geoff was standing at his window looking out at the dead city of London. He was fine!
And then he turned around.
“Oh, you poor baby,” Vix sighed.
Geoff’s eyes were filmed in white and shot with the black tracers. His skin was a mix of grey and green, and she could see an angry rip on his hand that had tendrils of black shooting up the arm and vanishing under the tattered sleeve of a filthy flannel pajama top.
Vix stepped into the entry hall and shut the door behind her. Geoff continued to stand there, simply staring with his dead eyes and cocking his head every so often as if he was trying to figure out who she was and if she posed a threat.
For the briefest of moments, Vix believed that perhaps something inside him remained and he would not attack. Then he opened his mouth and made a harsh mewling sound and started towards her. His arms came up and his hands opened and closed as he sought to grab her.
Pulling the machete free of its leather scabbard on her hip, Vix stepped forward as if to meet her dear friend. She threw open her arms as if to take him into a hug.
“I am so sorry you had to endure this alone, Geoff,” she managed around the lump in her throat.
With a single swing, she buried the blade in the crown of his head. Geoff—or the shell of him anyways—stopped and crumpled to the ground. Vix pulled her weapon free and then went to the bedroom. She opened the closet and found a blanket to cover his body with.
Sitting beside the shrouded figure, Vix spent the better part of ten minutes crying. Finally content that she had it out of her system (as much as it ever could be), she went to the antique desk that sat in one corner of the living room.
Opening the top drawer, Vix smiled. A ring of keys sat right in the tray in the front. She slipped them in her pocket and then went through a few drawers and cabinets. By the time she was finished, she had a small wheeled travel case full of a few handy items as well as a few luxuries.
Now it was time to go fetch Gemma.
***
Jody rubbed his full belly and sighed in contentment. Danny was sprawled on a large sofa and already snoring. Selina and Kat were both gathered around a roaring fire in the company of several other women with big smiles on every face. Selina would occasionally laugh out loud and then flash a series of signs to Kat who would smile big and shudder in silent laughter.
“You haven’t been having a good go of things for quite a while, have you?” George Rosamilia handed a steaming mug to Jody as he took a seat across from him.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Jody said as he let the unfamiliar fragrance of fresh brewed coffee fill his nostrils.
“You were part of that military outfit down around Bald Knob?” Although George phrased it as a question, Jody knew better.
“Yeah…well there is not likely much left of them…or the people of Bald Knob.” Jody related the events of the last days of the small town. He left out specifics when it came to Slider or the captain. There was no real reason to dredge up things like that as far as he was concerned.
“I guess a few of the folks bugged out early on,” George said after it was clear that Jody had said all he intended. “We took them in here.”
“So where is…here?” Jody asked after another sip of coffee.
“Cash, Arkansas…well…what is left of it at least.” George sat up and looked around the open room.
They were in a small school. Other than that, Jody hadn’t really seen or noticed much that indicated a town. And from what he had seen, there had been a nasty fire nearby that did some pretty extensive damage.
“Folks around here probably could have made it through the worst of it if the fertilizer factory hadn’t blown up,” George began. “In fact, we hadn’t seen any of them monsters that the news was showin’ for the first several weeks.
“Wait a minute,” Jody interrupted. “You aren’t from around here, but you keep saying things like ‘we’ and ‘us’ when you talk.”
George was quiet for a moment. If Jody didn’t know better, he would say that the guy was blushing. He had a strange look on his face, but with all that scar tissue, it was tough to read.
“I came out here to meet a girl,” George finally blurted. “We met online…one of those dating sites. I drove down from New Jersey about two weeks before all the madness started.”
Jody was quiet. In reality, he simply did not know what to say. It wasn’t that he thought it was a big deal…he was just not sure how to continue the conversation. Obviously George was more bothered by the revelation. When he resumed speaking, it was as if he suddenly felt the urge to explain himself. Since Jody was interested in obtaining information and George seemed in the mood to give it, Jody listened.
“I was in security at one of the big casinos before all this. And actually, before that, I was in the Marines. Unfortunately, I ruined my knee ten years in and had to leave. The security job was okay and the casino paid well.
“One night, on a whim, I bought a lottery ticket…and the damn thing hit. Nothing crazy, but still, I won sixteen million bucks. I opted for the lump sum and decided to take a six month leave-of-absence from the job. The first month was crazy. But believe it or not, I actually got bored.
“Just before I won, I had been dipping my toe in that online dating thing. That was how I met Brittany. She was really sweet and had no idea about my money situation. She taught third grade here in Cash. So, one day I asked her if she would like to meet, and I drove out.”
George picked up his own cup of coffee and took a long drink. His face clouded over and his hands clenched.
“The whole way here, every time I turn on the radio, I start hearing all those crazy reports. The thing is, I wasn’t really paying attention. I just kept hearing the word ‘illness’ being used and wrote it off to another SARS scare or some other equally overblown bit of crap that the news likes to make a big deal about.
“When I arrived in Cash, I was met with a roadblock. The people of the town had sealed themselves off. I was telling them who I was when I heard her voice. She was even prettier in person than she was on Skype,” George said with a sigh.
“Long story short, things were fine until the explosion. Two days later we saw the first of those things. It was like moths to a flame…best way I can think to describe it. And at first, they were all sorta heading for the fertilizer place. At least until they got their first glimpses of us.”
“So you fought them off, but took some casualties,” Jody finally decided to speak when it looked like George was having difficulty.
“Yeah, but by then all the television and radio was gone. We hadn’t gotten that part about the bite being a problem. It didn’t help that the first person who actually got bit was Mister Wing. He got a little sick, but other than that he was okay. Brittany didn’t fare as well.”
Jody had a feeling that he knew how the rest of the story played out. It also gave him an idea of how George’s face had been savaged. He decided that the man didn’t need to continue the story; he had heard enough.
“I am really sorry,” Jody said. “And I want to thank you for bringing me and my friends in. You have it nice here. I don’t think any of us has had a real good meal or night’s sleep in a while.”
“You sound like you aren’t staying.” George cast a look over his shoulder at Selina and Kat who still seemed to be having a great time with some of the women and children of Cash.
“Sort of got it in our minds to head north,” Jody replied. “We are hoping that the cold will freeze them and maybe we can settle down without the constant fear.”
“You seen any of them freeze?” George asked plainly. “I mea
n, I realize that we don’t see anything like up north when it comes to the weather, but we have had a few dustings of snow, and there was that freeze a few weeks back. Didn’t seem to so much as slow them down from we saw.”
Jody sat back and drank his coffee. To his credit, George didn’t say anything else. He sat back and sipped quietly, leaving Jody to his thoughts.
Jody’s attention kept turning to Selina and Kat. They both looked so happy. In fact, he couldn’t recall having seen Selina laugh so much in all the time he’d known her…even when Danny’s jokes were funny.
Maybe they could settle in here. He would have to consider it, but first…just a little nap. He was so tired. His eyes closed and the empty coffee cup tumbled to the floor.
***
Major Beers handed Suzi the knife.
“Well?” the major said with an amused tone. “You found her…so you get the honors.”
Suzi looked down at the woman sprawled at their feet. She had been the first deserter that Suzi had tracked down. The thing was, it really wasn’t all that hard. Snow made finding somebody relatively easy; especially if that person was just running like a fool with no plan or effort to conceal their trail like this woman.
“P-p-please,” the woman begged. “I only wanted to get away from Sonny Lipski.”
“Who?” The major placed a hand on Suzi’s arm, stopping her just before she cut the woman’s throat. She was going through her memory, but the name didn’t mean anything to her.
“Sonny Lipski…we were with the group that came in two days ago.”
The major was always on hand to greet any new arrivals to her camp. She made sure to give them the rundown and to make sure that they understood this was not a free ride. Every person here was expected to carry their weight when it came to the workload.
“And did you not hear my speech that you were allowed to come here of your free will, but once you joined…desertion would be dealt with harshly?”
“Yes,” the woman sobbed, “but there was nothing that I could do at the time…Sonny said that if I opened my mouth he would…” The woman’s voice turned to more sobs.
“Go fetch me this Sonny Lipski,” Major Beers said to Suzi.
The woman’s head popped up and a look of fear washed over her face. She began shaking her head, but her crying was such that neither Wanda nor Suzi could decipher her garbled attempt. Still, they got the general idea.
“Were there any other women in your group being held against their will?” Wanda asked after Suzi stepped out of the tent. The woman shook her head slowly.
“You don’t have to protect anybody,” the major said in as soothing of a voice as she could manage. To put it bluntly, the tender approach was never really her thing.
“Two others,” the woman whispered.
It took almost ten minutes, but finally, Major Beers had the information she wanted. She stepped to the entrance of her tent and summoned over a pair of soldiers who were busy constructing what would eventually become a water filtration and storage system.
When Suzi arrived, she had a man with her. The man was surprisingly non-descript. She had painted an image in her mind of what she expected Sonny Lipski to look like. He would be a big guy, probably with a bit of a gut on him. He would have a perpetual sneer on his face that would intensify when he spoke to women because, in his mind, they were second-class citizens.
What she got was a man of average height with hair so blonde that it almost looked white. He had a bulbous nose and if he ducked his head at all, what little chin he possessed would vanish. And as for his expression…it was more apprehensive than disdainful.
“You Sonny Lipski?” Major Beers tugged on her military ball cap with the embossed golden oak leaf insignia of her rank.
“Yes, ma’am,” the man answered. His voice had a thick drawl that reminded her of Foghorn Leghorn.
The major let the flap of her tent close behind her as she walked up to the man. She gave Suzi a curt nod. The sound of her steel baton connecting with the back of Sonny’s legs was quickly drowned out by his yelp of pain.
“You like to treat women like something you own?” Major Beers leaned in close and grabbed the man’s face in her gloved hand, squeezing his cheeks hard enough that she could feel the ridges of his teeth through the flesh. She glanced up at Suzi and nodded once more.
The tiny woman brought her arm back high. The baton flashed and came down with a bit of a whistle. This time she struck the man in the small of his back. There was an audible crack as at least one rib gave way.
“I’m a woman…why don’t you try that tactic with me?” Major Beers said with a leer. She glanced up at Suzi and nodded again.
After only three more strikes, the man was begging and crying. Wanda kicked his hands away and went to her tent. “When the other two arrive, make them stand out there for a few minutes to get a look at their friend. Then send one in.”
“Which one?” Suzi asked.
“Whichever one looks like he is closest to pissing himself.”
Letting the tent flap fall, Wanda gave the woman a brief smile. “You are free to go. If you choose to stay, then you will be expected to work. I think you heard the long version of that speech yesterday. And if Sonny or any other man gives you any trouble…come see me. However, if you stay…you will work and work hard. If you are not able to pull your weight, you will either work the brothel or be exiled. Do you have any questions?”
The woman shook her head vigorously.
“Then get out.”
Once she was gone, Major Beers took a seat behind her desk. She checked her gloves and placed her pistol in front of her. The fact that it only contained two rounds—one of which Major Beers had reserved in the event that she was about to die at the hands and mouths of the undead—was unimportant. One thing that she had learned in these first few months was the importance of appearance.
“Major,” a voice called from outside the tent.
“Enter.”
“We have a problem,” the soldier said as he stepped inside the tent and habitually removed his hat and came to attention, eyes staring at an imaginary spot a foot above the major’s head.
“At ease, Sergeant Barrie. What is the problem?”
“We have a large herd of walkers coming from the west.”
“So put the defenses on alert.”
“Major…it may not be that simple.” The soldier broke protocol and looked directly into Major Beers’ eyes. “Estimates have the numbers at over five hundred thousand.”
Major Beers felt a queasy feeling in her stomach. She glanced at the pistol that she had just placed on her desk. With a tired sigh, she holstered the weapon and rose to her feet. As she exited the tent, Suzi was arriving with the two men she’d been sent for.
Without breaking stride, Major Beers drew her weapon and shot the closer of the two men in the forehead. She’d be damned if she would give up her last bullet on a day like this.
8
Geek Reality
“Kevin!” a voice called. “This way…run!”
Grabbing Valarie’s hand firmly, Kevin pushed himself as hard as he could towards the automotive barrier. He risked a glance over his shoulder. There were at least fifty zombies within twenty yards of them. He had no idea how they’d gained so much ground, but as he tried to push himself the last bit to what looked like sanctuary, his legs simply refused to give him any more.
He could hardly walk another step. In fact, he began to wonder if he would make it or if he would die within an arm’s length of possible safety. Tears actually began to fill his eyes as the frustration over how his body was now starting to betray him just as it looked like he might finally be able to rest.
“Hit the ground!” a voice yelled.
Kevin continued on, ignoring the call. He could see a line of dark images just ahead, but what he could not see through those tears were the assorted bows and crossbows being brought up by a dozen soldiers. He feared that if he stopped moving, if
he threw himself to the ground, that he might lack the strength to get back up.
One of the dark figures broke away from the line and came bounding at Kevin and Valarie. Voices called out and shouted warnings, but the figure continued.
“You made it!” the shadowy form shouted.
Kevin knew the voice, but all of a sudden he was just so exhausted that he could not make any connections. Something was pulling at the tail of his coat. Turning, Kevin did not have to time to react. Valarie fell into him and sent them both tumbling to the ground.
The sounds of hissing and whistling registered in Kevin’s consciousness just before the world went black.
***
Kevin blinked and looked around. A jumble of memories swirled in his mind, but he could no more grasp any of them and make sense of one as he could a single mote of dust swirling in the air. Looking around, he saw that he was in what looked like an RV.
“Welcome back,” a sweet voice whispered in his ear.
Kevin turned to find Aleah looking down at him with a smile. His relief at seeing her lasted only as long as it took for him to see the hollow look of exhaustion in her eyes. Coupled with being bloodshot and dark smudges under each one that were so prominent that they could be mistaken for serious bruising.
“Where are we?” Kevin tried to sit up, but a woozy feeling came in a rush and threatened to turn to some rather intense vomiting if he did not lie back down.
“We found Willa’s group. We are just east of Newark in the weirdest fortification I think has ever been created.” Aleah grabbed a plastic cup and held it up to Kevin’s lips. “Here, drink this. It’s warm water. The doc was pretty concerned about if you would make it for a while. She says that she has never seen somebody with a core temperature as low as yours.”
“Valarie,” Kevin gasped after a sip of the lukewarm liquid.
“She is in another RV. They have her pretty heavily sedated.” Kevin was still struggling to get his brain back online, but he heard something in Aleah’s voice that caused a few warning bells to jingle.