by M. Lorrox
“Whoop! Got a straggler. I’m leanin’ out.” She slinks the gun and her shoulders out through her window and takes aim. The truck is heading down the top of a hill, so she can’t get the cleanest view. She climbs further out and kneels one leg on the door to give her more height.
Roger checks his rearview mirror, but only briefly. With her sitting up on the window, he can hardly see her butt. He does take note of the leather straps of the hip-bag she’s wearing, though.
Sophia aims and takes the shot. -BANG!- Bull’s-eye, right through its eye. She slides back in the truck. “Got ’em. Jess, keep an eye out for me, will ya?”
“You got it.”
Roger points his finger in the air. “One more down, Joe.”
He nods.
Roger saw him nod, but was hoping for a stronger reaction. “Joe, you hear me?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“If I say something to you, you need to respond, verbally.”
“Okay, sorry. I will.”
“Good.” Roger looks into the mirror—into the backseat. “Sophia? I was wondering, where did you get that leather bag? I like it.”
She is reloading some rounds into the magazine of the .223. She pauses and rubs her hand across the bag. “An old tanner I knew in New Mexico…”
“I bet it cost a pretty penny; it looks like it’s really well made.”
Sophia clicks the magazine back into the gun, sets it down, and closes her eyes. “He was teaching me his craft. I actually made it, almost entirely, under his supervision.”
“Wow, it’s beautiful. He must have taught you well.”
“He was a good teacher…and a very generous man.”
“He’s not still out in New Mexico, is he?” Roger knows the story of the southwestern states. The outbreak spanned the Rockies, and zombies fear no desert, so it was only a matter of time if you were out there. The cities in New Mexico fell almost immediately with the initial outbreak, and the countryside quickly followed. Many people were able to escape, but only if they caught the news. A lot of folks, though, lived out there for the solitude. If they stuck around too long, the flood of the zombies from the cities either washed them out, or they got starved out.
Sophia swallows hard, holding in any growing softness or weakness in her voice. “No, he died; he was killed during the outbreak.”
Joe loses his place on the map. Jess leans back inside the truck.
Roger winces. “I’m sorry, Sophia.”
Jess is looking at her and can see that she’s trying to hold it all in. She rests her hand on her thigh.
Sophia smiles back at her. “He set me up on his horse so I could escape.”
Roger shakes his head. “What was his name?”
Sophia looks down at the bag and traces her finger along a seam in the leather—the leather that her hands cut and stitched and her old teacher’s hands stained and oiled. “His name was Lo.” She sniffs and forces a smile. “He was a great man.”
Roger nods. “He sounds like it… Well, alright everyone, back to your stations.” He looks over at Joe. “Check the route. When is the next turn?”
“I think it’s a right in about two miles. I’ll check to make sure.”
The truck is cruising down a country road, with almost three dozen zombies running behind them—clawing and biting at the air in the truck’s direction. A big pickup truck rounds a bend and comes driving down the road from the other direction, toward them.
Roger honks his horn and flashes his headlights. “Heads up everybody—oncoming traffic!” I bet they’re shitting their pants. If you’re smart, buddy, you’ll pull off the road, right now.
Jess pulls herself and the shotgun inside. Sophia continues to peer out the back window. The truck flashes its headlights back.
Roger sneers. What? Yes, I certainly see you.
The truck closes the distance another hundred yards, and then it pulls over onto the shoulder.
As Roger drives by, he sees a burly man with a beard giving him a thumbs-up. Get your head down, you big idiot.
Joe also notices the man. “Why isn’t he hiding? Shouldn’t he be hiding?”
Roger shrugs and starts honking his horn again. “Hopefully they just ignore him.”
Jess returns out the window to watch. Most of the zombies don’t even flinch as they pass the truck. Some glance over, but they stay with the horde following the Land Cruiser—except one. It breaks from the pack and approaches the driver’s window.
Jess yells over her shoulder down into the truck. “We lost one!”
Sophia is out her window in a second and taking aim. She sees the truck driver’s window start to roll down. What? No! Keep your windows up!
The man continues rolling down his window as the zombie approaches. Rays from the setting sun flash back toward Sophia, through her scope and into her eye. She squints and is able to see his hand holding a large, silver 1911 .45 pistol poking out. -Bang!-
The tail end of the hoard—a group of about six zombies—break off their pursuit and turn toward the noise.
Roger checks his mirror. The pickup is speeding off, and the group of zombies is trying to follow it, but they can’t keep up. That pack will likely stick together for a while and wander into some poor bastard’s backyard. “Damn it! What a dumbass. Joe, we need to loop back around. What’s the shortest way?”
Joe looks down to the map, gets excited, then looks back up. “We can make a big U-turn in the next field on the left and come at them from behind, or we could take the next few rights and stick to the roads.”
“Okay, everybody, stations! We’re going to turn around in that field up ahead.”
Jess and Sophia are out their windows and waiting. Joe notices something about the field as they get closer, and he looks straight at Roger. “Get the girls back inside.”
Roger hesitates for just a moment. “Girls! Inside, now!” He looks at Joe. “Explain.”
Joe pushes the map down into his lap and turns inward toward the truck. “Floor it. We can’t pull into the field. It hasn’t been farmed all season, so we’ll get stuck in the weeds. You’ll have to K turn and head back straight at the zombies.”
Roger considers this, then nods and steps on the gas. The truck pulls away from the zombies quickly. “Everybody hold on; I’m gonna do an e-brake one-eighty.”
At hearing that, Joe’s eyes grow so big they can’t get any wider and might even fall out of his skull. He starts to glow with excitement. Jess takes a deep breath and pulls her seat belt on. Sophia smiles and puts her left arm up, bracing against the back of Joe’s seat. She grabs the “oh shit” handle above the door with her other hand.
When Roger has a ten-second lead on the horde behind them, he lets off the gas to slow down, and then he starts the maneuver. He steers to the left and into the opposite lane. Then he jolts the lever of the e-brake up and steers to the right. The truck’s tires squeal against the pavement—the rear end fishtailing in the direction it was headed, while the front end turns back in the direction they came.
Joe can’t help but scream out in excitement, “Hooo-weee!”
Sophia and Jess are also smiling. Everyone in the truck lurches left, continuing their momentum as the truck turns to the right until the truck comes to a momentary pause. All the weight falls to the right, and the truck’s shocks bounce everyone while Roger releases the brake and then punches the gas. The zombies are in a tight group a couple of yards in front of them now, and he tries to drive around them instead of through them. He doesn’t have enough speed to mow them down, and besides, that’d be mean to his truck.
He steers around most, but clips a couple and sends them to the ground.
The moment he’s clear, Sophia leans out the window. “I’m on it!” She takes aim and fires like a machine.
-Bang, bang!-
She executes two of the fallen zombies in quick fashion. The third is back on its feet and running again, so she lets that one be—for now. Jess was leaning out of the t
ruck a split second after Sophia, and she looks down the barrel of her shotgun at the closest zombie; it’s only a yard or two behind them. “Damn, that’s a fast one.” -BOOM!- “Not anymore. Hehehe.”
A minute later, they’re approaching the zombies that got distracted by the man in the pickup. These zombies are spread across the road; three are on one side, and two are on the other. Roger checks his mirror; there’s not much space behind him and the main pack. He has to keep going. “Sophia!”
“What?”
“Make a hole for us!”
Sophia is leaning backward out the window. A hole for the truck? She turns her head and sees the zombies in front, then realizes what he means. “You got it!”
The Land Cruiser is closing in on the zombies fast. Roger steers toward the side with two zombies and starts driving along the shoulder. Sophia spins her body around in the window and is raising the rifle up when -BOOM!-
Thanks to Jess, the zombie in Roger’s path takes a shell to the upper chest. It flies backward a couple feet and lands on the ground on its back. Roger swerves to straddle the top of it as it starts to sit up.
-DOONGGG-
The truck only rattles a little inside the cab, but the skull hitting the front bumper did a number to the zombie. Out the back window, they can see the headless corpse being trampled over by the herd of zombies. The remaining of the distracted lot rejoin their original chase, and the truck keeps moving—in the wrong direction.
“Joe, route me back on track. And radio over and tell them we’ll be delayed.”
“Yes, sir!” He looks at the map to find a route.
Jess and Sophia glance at each other over the top of the truck. The sun sends some golden rays at their faces.
Sophia winks at Jess. “Nice shot!”
Jess smiles. “Thanks! I can’t believe we’re actually doing this!”
“Yeah, girl! We sure are!”
Joe smiles when he finds a good route. He points out the window. “Okay, take that left up there, then it’s about a mile before the next left.”
“Cool. Thanks, Joe. Go ahead and radio over. How late will we be?”
Joe figures it’ll take them an extra five minutes to get back on track, and they’re already a bit behind. “Ten minutes at most.”
Roger nods. “Tell them to delay the rendezvous ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Charlie and Sadie are enjoying some carrot-and-herb-flavored stabilized blood/juice product with grain alcohol. Minnie sips a cup of fresh blood with a tiny bit of seltzer mixed in to make it fancy. Rusty is curled up in Minnie’s lap, leaving Valentine on the floor between her feet. Minnie looks through the side of her sippy cup at the dark-maroon liquid inside. “Regular people don’t drink this juice? What if they did?”
Sadie scrunches up her face. “They’d think it tastes really bad, but that’s because they don’t need the medicine that’s in it.”
Minnie takes another small sip. “Hmm. I really like the taste.”
“All the people like us do.”
Minnie looks up at Charlie. “You like it, Daddy?”
He licks his lips. “I loooovvve it!”
Minnie looks at the juice again. “The medicine lets you go into the sun, but I can’t yet. When can I?”
Sadie sets her glass down and sighs. She can still remember how hard it was being a young vampire. At least we have electricity now. “If you keep taking your medicine and grow big and strong like Eddy, in a few years, you will be able to go out in it whenever you want.”
Minnie frowns. “That’s a long time.”
Charlie nods. “Trust me, it’ll come faster than you think.”
Minnie sits quietly, thinking. Charlie looks at Sadie and shrugs. Finally, Minnie scrunches her lip. “You told me I was special, and I thought being special was a good thing, but it doesn’t seem very good.”
Charlie bends down close to her. “There’s another little secret that is very, very special—a very good thing.”
“What is it?”
“Well, when you get cut, how long does it take to heal back up?”
“A couple minutes.”
“When you are older, a little cut will heal in seconds. But it takes other people a few days to heal fully. And other people get sick every once in a while. You’ll never get sick.”
“Never?”
“Never. And you’ll be able to do things that normal people can’t do, either, once you’re older.”
Minnie seems confused and looks at Sadie. “You always say I can do anything. Does that mean other people can’t?”
Sadie smiles. “Well, that’s a little different. But in any case, you will be able to do some things better than normal people. You’ll be able to run faster, and jump higher, and you’ll be stronger than any of them.”
Minnie is unimpressed. “But I don’t need to run faster.”
Charlie smiles. He remembers when they had this talk with Eddy. He thought being faster and stronger was the best thing ever. Minnie clearly isn’t as competitive. “It’s still a really good thing. You’ll see.”
Sadie sets her drink down. “Minnie, remember when we made June soup and brought it over for her?”
Minnie nods. “That was…in February. She was sad.”
“She wasn’t sad, dear; she was sick. As long as you keep taking your medicine, you’ll never get sick like that.”
Minnie takes a sip of her drink. “Okay, I will always take it, then.”
“Good.”
“But…it still doesn’t seem that we’re very special—not enough for people to be afraid of us.”
Charlie and Sadie look at each other, thinking the same thing. Is it time? Do they tell her that she’s a vampire and what that means? Do they tell her that the medicine she drinks is blood taken from a living animal? Do they tell her that as a vampire she won’t grow old and die like a normal person would? That if she’s lucky, she’ll lead a very long and isolated life?
They both shake their heads. Minnie is too smart. If they tell her those things, she’ll soon realize why the humans would fear her. Minnie would realize that she’s a predator, and that thought might be too much for the little girl. Right now, at least, it’s too much for her parents.
Charlie drapes an arm around her. “When you’re older—” and we tell you what you really are, “—some of those special abilities will show…like being able to run faster, and you’ll start to not be afraid of things like other people. It might be hard to understand now, but fear is a terrible thing, and you will discover that you can be much less afraid than everyone else.”
Minnie pets Rusty some more. He wags his tail and nuzzles her with his snout. “I don’t think I understand yet.”
Sadie moves over and slips her finger underneath some blond hair that had fallen across Minnie’s face. She sets it behind her daughter’s ear. “You will, dear. And now it really is bedtime. You go upstairs and brush your teeth, will you? I’ll come tuck you into bed in a few minutes.”
Rusty leaps off Minnie’s lap.
“Okay, Mommy.” She looks at Charlie. “Will you tuck me in with Mommy?”
He smiles wide. “Mommy and I are going to race to do it!”
“Yay!” She hops off the couch, grabs Valentine, and scurries upstairs.
Sadie scowls at Charlie. “It’s past her bedtime; we don’t need to get her excited and riled up.”
Charlie laughs. “True, sorry. I’m just happy. That went well.”
She leans over to him and falls on his chest. “Yes, it did. I hate sugar-coating things, but I know it needs to be this way, for her, at least for now… I love you, Carles.”
Charlie melts and puts his arm around her. “I love you, Sarra.”
Eddy returns to the truck after disposing of another zombie. “Tomo, you feeling any better?”
Tomas nods. He had puked out the door a few miles back, and Bill had given him a water bottle from the package in the back. He feels embarrassed that he threw u
p in front of everyone, even though nobody made fun of him or anything for it.
“Glad you’re feeling better. We’re going to need you in tip-top shape soon!”
Craig smiles over at Tomas. “Yeah, like now. Radio Team One; we’re coming up on the rendezvous.”
Tomas checks the map; they are coming up on it quickly. The two teams are to meet up on parallel roads that lead toward town. They’re not planning on stopping, but they want to time their approach. They’ll continue south on the roughly parallel routes through the outskirts of town—one on the east side and one on the west—until they are south of town. Then, they’ll meet up again, merge the two groups following them, and unleash hell on the horde in the form of hot-loaded centerfire rifle cartridges and shotgun shells.
Tomas picks up the walkie. “Team Two to Team One, we’re approaching rendezvous. Over.”
After a moment, the reply comes through.
“Team One here. Over.”
Tomas listens for more, but for a few seconds, there’s nothing.
Craig keeps his focus on the road. “Repeat it, Tomo.”
“We’re two miles from rendezvous. Over.”
“We’re still behind, maybe five miles away. Slow down. Over.”
Tomas looks at Craig. “Hear that?”
He nods.
“Copy that, Team One. Slowing down. Over.”
“See you soon. Over and out.”
Craig yells over his shoulder, “Hey Bill!”
“Wassup?”
“We gotta slow down, a lot. Get ready.”
“Hold on!” Bill slinks back into the truck and grabs a handful of shells. He slams some into the 12-gauge’s magazine tube, then shoves another handful of shells into his pocket. “Don’t slow down too much now.”
“I’ll put the hammer down if we need to.”
Eddy is outside the truck listening. When Bill climbs up, Eddy catches his eye. “I’ll cover this side if they get on us.”