Rage And Ruin: Zombie Fighter Jango #3 (Zombie Fighter Jango series)

by Cedric Nye

  As he walked the rest of the way to the freezer aisle, he began to breathe deeply and quickly to hyper oxygenate his blood in preparation for what he was about to do. When he had reached the section that had once been reserved for frozen pizzas, he took a deep breath, held it, and then opened the glass door of the freezer case.

  An almost palpable miasma of rot washed over him when he opened the door. He quickly slid some pizza boxes aside, and pulled a large plastic case from where it had been hidden behind the boxes. He closed the door, and all but ran back to where he had left the wagon.

  “I will never get used to that smell,” he gasped.

  The foul stench of decay clung to the plastic case, so he opened it and removed a similar, though slightly smaller, plastic case and then flung the reeking and now empty outer case back toward the freezer aisle from whence he had retrieved it.

  The smaller case was filled to capacity with eight semiautomatic 12 gauge shotguns, five hundred rounds of ammunition for the shotguns, one thousand rounds of 9 mm ammunition, and ten pounds of Jay Lane beef jerky. The shotguns had been made by Benelli, and were the M3 model. The M3 model allowed a shooter to choose between semi-automatic or pump action, and could be loaded with seven rounds. Jango had similar stashes all over the place for just such occasions as this.

  “If we're gonna have to protect this baby, then I guess we better be prepared,” he said with a smile as he laid the case across the end of the wagon.

  At that precise moment, the baby finished her bottle, burped, and then, with a small hiccup, she began to fuss. Even with his lack of experience in rearing children, he could tell that this was most likely a prelude to another one of her crying fits.

  “Don't cry, kid, please don't cry,” he pleaded with the baby. In response, the baby's face started to pull in and turn red.

  “Sing to it, Jango,” Alby said.

  “What?” He asked incredulously, “Sing to her?” He thought for a moment, and then began to sing, “Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light...”

  “Are you fucking kidding me, Jango?” Alby asked. She started gently rocking the car seat on the soft bed of blankets in the large wagon, and then she began to sing: “Hush little baby, don't say a word, mama's gonna buy you a Kevlar shirt, if that Kevlar shirt starts to fray, mama's gonna get you a zombie you can slay, if that zombie dies too quick, mama's gonna get you an Ironwood stick.”

  As Alby sang in her surprisingly beautiful and haunting voice, B appeared, and stood beside Jango and Diogenes. The three of them were gently swaying their heads in unison, and humming along with Alby's song. The music that resulted from the four distinctly different voices being forced through one set of vocal cords lent an eerie sense of melancholy to the children's song. The soft southern accent of Alby's clear voice rode the wave of sound that the other three produced. The sound of their humming combined to create a sound like waves crashing against rocks with the faint scream of a bandsaw slicing through steel, and the distant rumble of thunder beneath.

  Alby continued to sing, “And if that Ironwood stick won't do, mama's gonna get you a gun or two, and if those guns refuse to fire, we'll burn all the zombies on a big old pyre.”

  By the time the naked killer had sung the last verse, the baby was fast asleep.

  “Wow, Alby, you are amazing,” Jango exclaimed softly. “You really have a way with kids.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do,” she replied, with a sad look on her alabaster face, “but I know that you're right, and we could never do right by this baby.” With that sad pronouncement, Alby, and his other two alter egos disappeared from sight.

  For some reason, he felt a profound sense of loss at the sadness that he had seen on the face of the violent and capable killer with whom he shared a mind and body. When she and the other two had disappeared, he almost felt as though he could cry from the pain of loneliness. He had rarely ever felt alone before his alter egos had made themselves known. He had the companionship of his own mind, and such a fertile imagination that he could amuse and entertain himself in almost any circumstances. However, once those living fragments of his fractured mind had been made known to him, the world became a dark and lonely place in their absence.

  Suddenly feeling depressed, he curled up next to the wagon, and fell asleep.

  9

  When he awoke, the first thing that Jango did was check on the baby. He lit a battery-powered lantern, and saw in the light that the baby was wide awake, and seemingly calm. He pulled another baby bottle from the rack, took it out of the packaging, and filled it with a can of formula. He gave the bottle to the baby, and then sat down to an early breakfast of beef jerky and bottled water. When he had finished eating, he crumpled the now empty bag of Jay Lane's jerky, and sighed contentedly.

  “Well, kid, we have a big day ahead of us. I am going to take you to meet your new mommies.” He told the baby with a smile.

  With businesslike efficiency, he began to prepare for the trip. When Alby refused to come forward, he changed the baby's diaper without complaint.

  “Now look, kid,” he cautioned the baby, “you need to be as quiet as the grave if we're going to survive this trip. You dig?” He finished.

  The baby just stared at him over the top of her bottle with those green, green eyes, and remained silent.

  “All right, then,” he muttered as he began towing the large wagon back toward the auto care section, and the door that they had entered the day before. After he had disabled, and then reset his booby-trap on the featureless steel door, he turned to the baby and said, “Look, I know I said we weren't going to use this vehicle, but it is available, so we are going to use it. It would be stupid to waste time dragging you to one of my stash vehicles, so this is the deal. We are going to use this car, and you are not going to complain. Do you understand?”

  He took the baby's lack of response as an affirmative, and got her car seat settled and strapped in to the passenger side seat of the Toyota Four Runner. He slid the seat as far forward as it would go, effectively pinning the car seat between the dashboard and the seatback. Then, went around to the back of the vehicle, opened the hatch, and with a small grunt, lifted the heavily laden wagon into the rear cargo area. He then methodically loaded all eight of the Benelli shotguns to capacity, for a total of fifty-six rounds of double ought buckshot. He stacked the shotguns barrel-down on the passenger side floor board, with the butt stocks facing toward the driver seat.

  “Primed, and ready to go,” he said with a smile as he started up the vehicle and closed his door. “Next stop; Anthem, Arizona.”

  The drive to Anthem was swift and uneventful. He drove north on the southbound side of the I-17 because it was practically empty. The southbound lane was almost entirely clear of debris and broken down vehicles. When the Z-Virus had taken hold, it seemed that everyone had attempted to flee the city by heading north. No one in their right mind had gone south toward Phoenix.

  He drove at a steady forty miles an hour, as his eyes constantly roved across the terrain in search of anything out of place. The trip to Anthem took less than an hour, but was brought up short when he spied red graffiti on the green "Welcome to Anthem" sign.

  Slowing the vehicle to a crawl, Jango went into full red alert. He laid a semi-automatic shotgun on his lap, and looked over the entire area as the vehicle crawled closer to the graffiti-covered sign.

  When he was close enough to read the red lettering on the sign, he let out a sigh that seem sorrowful and melancholy. The message on the sign was simple, and it was addressed to him. It read: "J, we were overrun by Z's, headed to Phoenix to find you. Luv, V.”

  The red paint seemed weathered to his eye, which told him a tale more clearly than words. If the paint was weathered, then the message had been painted some time ago. That meant that he had missed Vanessa.

  Vanessa was the only person in the world who he cared about, and he had assumed that she would always be right there in Anthem. He had not noted the passage of time as he filled
his days with the hunt and slaughter of the living dead. Now, the woman who he called sister was in the wind, and for all he knew, she was dead.

  “Fuck,” he said out loud.

  As he gazed toward the town, he spotted several large packs of Jacks in the distance. That was all he needed to see. He made a U-turn, and headed back toward Phoenix.

  10

  He suddenly felt a sense of urgency, and it had to do with finding a home for the baby as soon as possible. The only other place that he could think of as a possible home for the baby was a settlement of people that had carved out a niche in the convention center in downtown Phoenix. He had only glimpsed them from afar, but they seemed well-organized and had given no hint of any proclivity toward rapine or murder. They would be better equipped to care for the baby than he would ever be.

  With Vanessa's disappearance, he felt the heat of his madness rising within him like a tidal wave of blood. He felt the thrumming of a burning heat that began at his core, and with every thump of his heart it spread to the rest of his body. He knew that he would not be able to maintain control of himself for very long, and that he must get the baby somewhere safe before he walked the road of rampage and revenge that Vanessa's assumed death would cause. Rage and ruin would be the toll that the world would pay for him not having Vanessa in his life anymore.

  “It takes a mother-fuckin' village,” he spoke in the bone chilling voice of Diogenes' personality. The grave deep rasp of his voice made the baby peer at him from around the edge of her seat.

  “Never mind, kid, I'll get you there,” he said in his own voice as he motored away from Anthem.

  When he had first noticed human activity around downtown Phoenix, he had taken the time to spy on the people so he could figure out if he needed to launch a guerrilla campaign against them. It had turned out that they were just regular people who had been at some kind of survivalists’ convention, and had managed to organize, and even rebuild. He knew that they had fortified the strongly built convention center near Washington Street and Central. The convention center, combined with Symphony Hall, encompassed more area than some towns. He had spotted elaborate rainwater collection systems, and even rooftop gardens while he spied on the large band of settlers. He convinced himself that they would be the best hope for the baby.

  He took the I-17south as far as Northern Avenue, and then went east to Central. As he turned south on central, he said to the baby, “Central is a really nice drive, you will like it.”

  Jango knew that Central was clear, and free of obstruction all the way to Washington Street, since he had used it many times in the past. As he drove, he felt amazement once again at the strength and tenacity of nature. The huge trees that graced the overgrown yards of the once proud mansions had survived despite the lack of their daily dose of city water. Once orderly hedgerows of bougainvillea now reached more than thirty feet into the air to unfurl their long streamer-like branches that dripped with Technicolor blossoms of red and orange. The branches of citrus trees hung heavy with orange and yellow fruit, and everywhere were birds.

  Before the Z-Virus had decimated humanity, Jango had rarely been able to appreciate any kind of beauty in the world. However, now that his fellow human beings had been driven almost to the brink of extinction, he found himself unable to ignore the beauty all around.

  He had just passed Roosevelt Street when the terrifying sound of a hunting-pack of Jacks rolled in through the windows of the vehicle. "Rheeeeee-aaaaaaaa-eeeeeeeeeee," sounded the marrow freezing screams of what he estimated to be hundreds of wailing zombies.

  “No, no, no,” he whispered as he felt his heart sink into the pit of his stomach. He didn't know how he would be able to fight, or even run when he had this tiny human being to care for. It was only a mile or so to the convention center, so Jango smashed the gas pedal to the floor, causing the SUV to surge forward and quickly gain speed.

  Suddenly, a large group of Jacks, thirty or more, poured out of the cross-street ahead of him, filling the street as they raced toward him. In his rearview mirror, he saw that an even larger group had flanked him, and that he was effectively surrounded.

  “I am so sorry, little one,” he said to the baby. His eyes began to fill with tears, and he said softly, “I am so sorry, Sonja.”

  11

  He knew that there was only one hope, and that was to break through the teeming mass of zombies ahead of them. He took the semiautomatic shotgun from his lap, and aimed it out of his window with his left hand, while he steered with his right hand. He fired the seven rounds of double ought buckshot where the ranks of the zombies were thinnest. The buckshot, aimed with deadly precision, slammed through the front rank of zombies like a whirlwind made of lead. The large pellets, aimed at their shoulders, decimated the leading creatures, and thinned the ranks even more just before the vehicle crashed into the spot that he had cleared.

  Even though the zombies’ ranks had been cleared somewhat, the impact was still jarring as the SUV slammed into the hard, dense bodies of the fast-moving zombies. The front bumper and the hood crumpled as the airbags deployed, and then the SUV was through the mass of zombies.

  The passenger side airbag had spent its energy to the sides since the strongly built car seat had been pinioned tightly against the dashboard. He could hear the baby screaming through the ringing in his ears as he spit blood from his mashed lips. The airbag on the driver’s side had slammed into his chest and face like a fist, but he could assess no debilitating damage from the impact.

  The SUV was another story, however, as steam started pouring out from under the hood and the engine began making a knocking, whining sound that boded ill for any mobility in the future. He put as much distance as he could between himself and the pursuing zombies until, with a coughing sputter, the engine died and the vehicle rolled to a stop.

  He wasted no time in undoing the straps that held the baby to her seat. He unslung his backpack, and opened the large duffel-style backpack.

  “I'm sorry about this, baby, but I can't carry you and fight, so you have to go in the pack.” Without another word, he put the baby in the pack, cushioned her with a blanket and then closed the pack and re-slung it on his back. He cinched the chest and waist straps tight to immobilize the pack, grabbed a Benelli shotgun in each hand and then began to run.

  While he did not want to lead the huge army of unearthly creatures directly to the convention center, he knew that he must get the baby to safety.

  He decided to try to lose the zombies in the maze of buildings and parking garages that made up downtown Phoenix. Instead of heading straight toward the convention center, he ran toward the hotel San Carlos and the Urban Research Laboratory where he had a cache of weapons and supplies. The research center also held one of the largest booby-traps he had ever created. If he could only reach the research laboratory, he and the baby would have a chance at survival.

  Since he knew from experience that he could out run even the fastest of the jacks on a straightaway for a while, he was not immediately worried about the growing horde of screaming zombies that pursued him and his precious cargo. He also knew that the screaming zombies would attract more zombies, and that he could find himself cut off from escape in the blink of an eye as more of the ravenous creatures descended upon the general area. He knew that haste and audacity would be the keys to his safe escape.

  He fell easily into a long, loping stride that was more reminiscent of a wolf than that of a human. The mile eating pace was one that he was capable of holding for quite some time without tiring. As he ran, he tried to formulate a plan that did not end in his death, or the death of the baby.

  12

  In one of his less sane moments, he had devised a plan for the baiting and destruction of a large number of zombies after watching the movie, “Jeremiah Johnson” on his tablet computer. He had especially liked the scene in the movie where the old mountain man had lured a grizzly bear into his cabin, and then dove out the back window, leaving Jeremiah to kill th
e bear. He had immediately seen the glorious possibilities of a slightly altered version of that movie scene.

  The first step in his plan had been to find a building which would suit his purposes. The Urban Research Laboratory had seemed perfect. Associated with Arizona State University, the research laboratory had a first floor that was entirely composed of enormous glass windows. The walls were heavy, strong, and made of brick and steel. Once he had located the building that he wished to use, the next step in his plan required that he appropriate one of the many abandoned fuel tanker trucks that were scattered all over the city. He needed to find a truck that was full, and it had to be full of diesel fuel.

  He had finally found a truck a short distance from the research laboratory. Once he had found the truck, and had determined that it was full of diesel fuel, he finalized his plan. Through the opening in the top of the truck, he added around fifteen hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to the fuel. He added the fertilizer one fifty-pound bag at a time, until the huge, shining tank was nearly full to the top. As he had added the fertilizer, he had noticed that the fuel slowly thickened, and that the smell of it had become more acrid and biting.

  When he had finished adding the fertilizer, he replaced the cover to the tank, climbed down, and then started the engine. Once he got it started, he put the gear shifter into reverse, let it roll backwards, hit the brakes, muscled it into first gear, rolled forward a few feet, and then hit the brakes again. He had repeated the maneuver several times in order to mix the two ingredients in the enormous fuel tank completely.

  Once the ingredients had been mixed, he had driven the truck back to the research laboratory. Because he did not know how to drive a big rig, he was forced to drive the entire way in first gear. He made it to the laboratory, however, and then spent the better part of an hour trying to back the tanker through one of the enormous plate-glass windows in the front of the building. It took him a while, but eventually he was able to line up the tanker and then back it through the plate-glass. He forced the huge fuel tanker deep into the heart of the first floor of the strongly-built building. Once there, he had disabled the truck by pulling all of the fuses, and by pulling random wires from under the hood. The final step in his booby-trap had been to figure out some way to detonate the volatile cargo that lay within the shining tank. His fix for that was simple: He had taken the receiver from an electric garage door opener, plugged it in to a power inverter that was hooked up to two 12 volt car batteries, and then placed the two wires that would have led to the electric motor on the garage door opener in the end of a homemade pipe bomb. The pipe bomb was made from one inch diameter steel pipe that had been threaded at each end, and then capped. He had drilled two holes in one end-cap for the wires, and attached the wires to a piece of steel wool on the inside of the cap. He then spent several minutes scraping magnesium into the steel wool from his ferro rod. Once that was done, he had filled the pipe with black powder that he had gotten from one of the many gun stores that had graced the Phoenix metropolitan area before the Z-Virus, and tightened the caps.