The Black Rider

by J B Trepagnier

  “You could help go through the emails,” Leif said. “I’ve already copied them to my second computer. Ariel started at the beginning. You can start at the end, and you can meet in the middle. Since when do you want to look at emails instead of killing things?”

  “There are plenty of things to kill right now. There will be a lot more, and no one left to save if Doctor X found a way to infect everyone with immunity. The person I really want to kill right now is sitting in the Oval Office and finding little ways to ruin his day just puckers my butthole.”

  “Yeah, Asher’s reports are pretty satisfying,” Leif said.

  “Care to share?” I asked.

  “Remember that president that spent all day on Twitter? That’s Isaiah and his radio show. The Antichrist needs acolytes and followers to succeed. His angel superpower is charm. That’s how he got so many people do tap into their darkness and do awful things. Dice took away his radio show, and now he’s pissed. It’s like getting banned from Twitter if Twitter was still around. He’s pitching tantrums all over the White House trying to get someone to fix it, but any time they turn a radio on, they hear Dice and his music. Dice is treating the entire thing like an apocalypse podcast with a playlist. Your father is listening, not because he’s trying to find out what we are up to. He’s like some narcissist asshole reading all the bad press about him and getting mad about it.”

  That hit me right in the feels. The kind of feels you got when you were being a rotten bitch, and you knew it. I didn’t know Dice and Asher, but now I really wanted to meet them. While we were here doing our thing, they were pissing off my father and preparing for us to all eventually meet and kill him.

  “Let’s get to the lab then. And I want to hear all about my father’s tantrums.”

  Chapter 33

  A

  eron agreed to help, but he was having trouble sitting still. He kept tapping a pen on the table, and I was ready to shove it in his ear. I was pretty sure it was irritating Leif too because he took out a radio so we could listen to Dice’s show. Dice didn’t appear to be in a chatty mood at the moment, but he had excellent taste in music.

  Now that I wasn’t listening to that infernal tapping, I could focus on the emails, and Aeron could sit still better.

  “Listen to this,” Aeron said, nearly knocking over his tea. “I don’t think Doctor X finished what he was working on. He was still emailing your father when the place had been overrun with Rage Heads. He wanted Isaiah to send a rescue team to get him out and set him up in a safer lab. Your father replied he wasn’t sending anyone until Doctor X confirmed you were still alive and showed him some modicum of progress on his research since he had failed so far.”

  “Ha! Then I guess I don’t have to read any more of these gross emails.”

  “If he was trying to tweak Ariel’s blood so that the people with her blood type would lose their immunity, how are you going to make a vaccine for those who aren’t?” Aeron said.

  “Because I’m just that good.”

  “You sound like Aeron,” I said.

  “Everyone has a little Aeron in them,” Aeron said.

  I threw a tortilla chip at his face.

  “There is nothing little about you, Aeron.”

  “Did you want to meet little Aeron again, Speedy?”

  “I think you both need to shut up because if this protein is right, then I’ll have Ariel’s blood synthesized and can start distributing formulas to save the world.”

  Aeron and I just stopped and stared at Leif. He was hunched over a tube with a dropper in his hand. He was in his lab coat with those big fucking goggles on. He was so fucking adorable. I just wanted to eat him up. Right then, Dice played Imagine by John Lennon. How fucking appropriate.

  Leif dripped a few drops of liquid into the tube and gave it a gentle shake. I watched it turn blue, like Smurfette. Leif stoppered the tube and stood.

  “Let’s go see if I got it right. Let’s go kill a zombie.”

  “You will sacrifice one of your pets?” Aeron scoffed.

  “They are here for research.”

  “How do you plan on using that to kill Jose or Magda?”

  Leif got out a little spray bottle and dumped the contents of the tube in.

  “Dice and I talked about an aerosol delivery. I will spray Magda in the face with it and see what happens.”

  Aeron stood up and stretched.

  “The scientific process seems a lot like throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks.”

  “You’re both very right and very wrong. Right, this way.”

  We went back to Leif’s little zombie dungeon. Jose and Magda both started trying to kill us when they smelled us. They were violently slamming themselves against the wall and leaving bits of hair and flesh against the wall.

  “Get your stick, Aeron.”

  “Fuck, do you know how hard the whole zombie on a stick trick is? Ariel is here.”

  Leif waved three needles at us.

  “That’s why I brought vaccines. We don’t know what these things do to us, and I want Ariel to get the first vaccine.”

  “I want us all to get it,” I said.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what a Rage Head bite would do to any of us, but I don’t want to find out. Let me give everyone the vaccine.”

  I looked away as Leif went around poking everyone with needles. The vaccine made my entire arm feel super warm, but it wasn’t unbearable. Aeron was grumbling when he went to get his zombie stick. He refused to let Leif open the door until I left the room. I got tired of waiting, and there was a lot of cursing and crashing in there.

  “Are you okay in there? Do you need to walk it off?”

  “You can come in now, Ariel. You will want to see this,” Leif called.

  When I came in, Aeron had a snarling Magda on the end of his stick. She was pretty harmless with her jaw and arms missing, but I had to leave the room, anyway. Leif walked up and just squirted her in the face. Have you ever squirted a cat in the face with a water bottle? Have you ever noticed their reaction? A zombie is pretty much the same.

  This look of utter shock went across her rotting face before her eyes went from red to black. Her skin was turning black and drying out like a husk. When she collapsed on the floor, it was like some mummy display fell out of their case and crumbled on the floor.

  Aeron looked down at the black dust on his boots.

  “Ew. These are my best boots.”

  “At least we know it works now, even if it’s super gross,” I said.

  “Yes. This means we need to distribute the formula and get Dice here so we can figure out how to get the zombie killing serum to the masses, and he said he would teach Ariel to control her angel side,” Leif said.

  “You call Valentina and let her know the science stuff. I’ll contact Dice and tell him to suit up. I’ll also check in with Asher,” Aeron said.

  What kind of tantrum would my father throw when all his zombies started dropping dead?

  Chapter 34

  I

  knew we weren’t getting another street party, but fuck, I wanted to celebrate again. Things were finally falling into place. Leif’s conversation with Valentina was brief. She was on her way over here. Dice needed to put some things into place, and then he would pop over. We were seriously doing things. We were ending the apocalypse.

  Valentina came storming in shortly after the phone call. Leif showed her Magda and showed her the vaccine results against one of his blood samples. She was duly impressed.

  “Well, I’ll be fucked. You totally managed it. Where is the formula?”

  Leif handed her a flash drive.

  “I hope you have everything on here for mass production.”

  “We are pretty well stocked.”

  “Are you growing mistletoe as I asked?”

  Valentina rolled her eyes.

  “Yes. It takes up valuable space, and someone has punched more than one of my male scientists in the face for trying to kiss un
der it.”

  “Good, because you’ll need it for the vaccine and killing serum.”

  “I told the other labs to grow it too. They’ve bitched about how it takes up space for things we could grow to make remedies. You seriously found a way to end this with mistletoe?”

  “Yeah, I did. Make sure you follow the steps exactly, or it won’t work.”

  Valentina punched him in the arm.

  “What kind of scientist do you think I am? I’m getting back to the lab so we can start on this right away.”

  Almost as soon as she was out the door, there was a pop of light, and what had to be Dice appeared. Aeron had pale blond hair, but Dice’s hair was pure white and spiked up into a mohawk. He was wearing nothing but black leather trousers and rainbow suspenders. As Aeron and Leif said, he had a toothpick in his mouth.

  He walked straight up to me until our chests were practically pressed against each other. He smelled like leather and patchouli. He smelled fucking amazing.

  “Hey,” he said in a low sexy voice. He flipped his toothpick over just using his mouth. “I hear we are having an orgy.”

  I poked his chest with my fingers.

  “No orgies!”

  “Settle down, sweetie. I’m not the Harbinger who painted it. I hear you’ve got a problem with pyrotechnics. We can work on that while I work on my delivery device.”

  “What about your radio show?”

  “I’m an angel. I can do all three. I’ll serenade you to beautiful music while building my devices and teaching you about your angel side. And I’ll make it fun too,” Dice said, winking at me.

  I had a feeling I was in so much trouble when I came to the Horseman of War. And I was looking forward to every minute too.

  Did you love The Black Rider? Then you should read Monster Whisperer by JB Trepagnier!

  My clients at my vet clinic have always called me an animal whisperer. I've never questioned it. Until I started hearing monsters too.

  A man came in right at closing with a sick dog. The dog told me why he was sick and I was able to treat him. I had no idea his owner would kidnap me. I had no idea his owner had an entire dungeon of monsters he wanted me to treat. I've met a minotaur, a mysterious kraken, a phoenix, and this really massive spider.

  I can hear them too. If monsters are real and I can talk to them, then what am I?