by Amber Wyatt
Impulsively Hugh grabbed Hana and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you,” he said. “You saved my life back there. That truck would have ... I didn’t even see it coming until you shoved me out of the way.”
Hana gaped at him in shock. He flashed her a grin that made her heart thump a little harder, and walked back over to the rear of their truck to get something out. Hana felt the echo of his kiss burning on her cheek. She could still feel where his stubble had scratched her. That idiot didn’t shave. Who does he think he is, doing that? What right does he have to touch me? And in front of everyone! She noticed Gina watching her with a smile on her face, and felt her cheeks flush with heat.
“It’s not a big deal. Anyone else would have done the same thing.” She scowled at the petite singer. What’s she smiling about?
“I couldn’t have pushed him out of the way. You’re stronger than you look,” Gina replied. “Your boyfriend is a big guy.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Hana whispered back indignantly. Inadvertently her eyes were drawn to Hugh, lingering on his wide shoulders as he bent over and rummaged around in the back of the truck.
“You could do worse,” said Gina.
Hana did not reply but just pursed her lips and gave her an annoyed look. Then she held her rifle in one hand and used the other to smooth her hair back into place as she looked back over her shoulder at Hugh again.
Despite the cool temperature Gina could feel the sweat trickling down her back. Christ on a crutch. That was close. She thought about holstering her pistol, but then decided to keep it ready. Besides if her hands were empty, she was afraid they would start shaking and she wouldn’t be able to stop them. She looked at Hana, who was still staring at Hugh, and wondered if the Japanese woman was aware that she had now raised her hand up to touch the spot on her cheek where he had kissed her.
Gina grinned widely. Maybe Hana had not realized it yet, but Gina had certainly noticed that the other woman could not keep her eyes off her tall, handsome friend. Her smile twisted sourly. Gina herself had never been lucky in love. Well it’s still nice to see the fairy-tale working out for other people. Then she looked around at the others and her heart lurched, before sinking into her stomach. Gina’s smile slipped and fell, to be replaced by a sick expression as she saw Wilkins clutching at his bleeding arm.
“Oh no,” she breathed. Shit. Now what do we do? “Hana,” then again louder, to get the other woman’s attention, “Hana! Over here.” The taller woman looked up questioningly at Gina’s tone. But when she saw where the other woman was pointing her face immediately became grim.
Wilkins had finally untangled himself from the riot shield, and was standing there in a daze, holding his left forearm in a white-knuckled grip. Bright red blood seeped through his fingers. He was staring blankly at the gash in his arm, wondering if it was just the effect of the adrenalin, but it did not seem to hurt as much as he thought it would. Something tickled the edge of his peripheral vision and he looked up with a start, his attention drawn by the slowly rising gun barrels pointing towards him.
“It’s just a scratch. He didn’t bite me, it was just his nails.” Wilkins’s voice was tinged with fear. “You can’t catch anything from a scratch.” He looked around desperately at the circle of serious faces and the still hot gun muzzles pointing unwaveringly at his head. “I’m not turning into a zombie. Honest. I feel fine!”
The other truck with Behnke and Tristan pulled up behind them, the front of it spattered with blood, and the two men got out.
“What’s going on?” demanded Behnke, and then his face changed as he saw Wilkins holding his bleeding arm. “Oh my God, he’s infected. Shoot him.”
“Hey fuck off, you fat twat,” shouted Wilkins. “You nearly just killed all of us, leading those zombies back here. If anyone needs shooting it’s you!”
“Well if nobody else has got the balls to do it, I will,” Behnke declared. He pulled a huge pistol from his thigh holster, a customized Desert Eagle he had decided to call ‘The Piledriver’ and was surprised when both Hana and Gina stepped in front of him.
“You can’t just kill him,” Gina said, “we don’t even know if he’s infected.” Having said that thought, she was still angled sideways so that her pistol had not shifted from its steady aim at Wilkins. Hana likewise had her back mostly towards Behnke so that she could still aim her rifle at Wilkins’s head.
“Herr Behnke, if I may?” Thomas interjected from behind, seeing the blood suffusing his boss’s face. After many years of witnessing to Behnke’s tantrums he was well used to the warning signs that an explosion was imminent, and nothing failed to arouse his employer’s fury more than being talked back to; especially by a woman. “If you do kill Mr. Wilkins and he later turns out to have been not infected at all, you will have just murdered one of your own team members. On camera.” Thomas pointed around at the shoulder and helmet mounted cameras on Rob and Tristan. Behnke could also hear the whisper of tiny fans from Tristan’s two drones, which were also undoubtedly filming every single detail of this scene. As he saw Behnke’s breathing calm down, Thomas continued. “This will be extremely counter-productive to the objective of this documentary, which is to portray you as the hero.”
“Yes, yes.” Behnke took deep breaths and his face gradually returned back to its normal color. “Thank you, Thomas, you are quite correct.” He pointed at Wilkins. “But he still needs to be secured. For at least forty-eight hours, until we know he is not infected.”
“Actually, that is an excellent idea,” Hana said. “I agree.” Behnke grinned and was about to say something. Probably self-congratulatory, Hana thought, and she cut him off before he spoke. “However, I also agree with Mr. Wilkins. Driving straight off into the farm, guns blazing was not the plan! It was totally reckless and irresponsible! You attracted every zombie for five miles and then led them straight back to us. You damn near got us all killed!”
“Forget about the zombies,” Hugh added, “you nearly ran me over yourself, asshole.”
Behnke looked around at the angry faces of the others, including, to his surprise, that of his own bodyguard, Thomas, and wisely choked back his initial reaction, which was to bluster and argue his way out of it. His face screwed up as he struggled instead with the unfamiliar concept of apologizing. “I am sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“From now on we do things my way.” Hana looked around at all of them. “You have hired me because I am the zombie expert, so I suggest you listen. And by the way, this whole expedition is still going to be as dangerous as hell, but if you stick to what I say, at least some of us might make it. Charge in blindly again and we will all end up like these guys.” She waved at the scattered bodies around them. Despite the lack of clothing on many of them, enough accessories had survived the effects of time to show that they were all former zombie hunters themselves.
“I think we are pretty much in the clear,” Hugh said to Hana. “With all the noise we made just now, if there were any zombies around, they would have come by now.”
“I agree.” Hana looked at him, blushed and looked away. Pull yourself together, Hana. Stop acting like some giggling schoolgirl! She looked around at the others and pointed meaningfully at their weapons. “But I want everyone to stay armed and ready to shoot until we leave. There could still be zombies trapped in rooms or whatever, who just could not make it out to the carpark. Let’s head up to the farm. Stay alert.”
They drove the two trucks up to the front door of the farm, and then deployed out of the vehicles like soldiers on patrol. A few zombies crawled over the other corpses towards them, spines crippled either by Behnke’s earlier driving or shooting. Thomas quickly dispatched them with accurate shots to the head.
When they were sure that there was no further risk from any more zombies that might have been attracted by the noise, everyone finally relaxed a little. Behnke excitedly directed Rob to film him close up from multiple angles, stalking through the piles of zombie corpses. The rest of the group
went back to the trucks and started reloading their magazines with ammunition.
Hugh found himself standing next to Thomas at the back of his truck. He pulled the top off a huge carton of ammunition and took out a few boxes, handing them to the larger man.
“Why?” Hugh said softly, nodding towards Behnke. The bodyguard looked back at him quizzically.
“Why what?” Thomas asked, keeping his voice just as quiet. “Why do I work for such an unpleasant man? This is the question you are asking?”
“Yeah. You seem to be a decent, stand-up guy. He’s a total asshole. Whatever money he is paying you, it cannot be worth putting up with all his crap.”
Thomas was silent for a moment, as both men broke open the boxes of ammunition and started feeding the bullets one by one into the thirty round SCAR magazines.
“My father. I promised my father,” he sighed eventually. “Behnke’s father, Gregor, and mine were the closest of friends. Once Uncle Gregor even bailed my father’s business out of bankruptcy, and always refused to accept any repayment once they both became successful again. It was only years after he died that we found out he had taken out a loan on his own house to pay off my father’s debts. On his deathbed my father made me promise that I would always look out for little Philip, Gregor’s son. Of course, I agreed.”
“On his deathbed?” Hugh repeated.
“Yes, on his deathbed.”
“Shit,” Hugh shook his head. A dying father’s last request. That was not the kind of thing any man took lightly. “Well then there’s nothing else you can do.”
“Exactly.” Thomas held up a magazine to inspect that the rounds were seated correctly, put it down to one side and started to fill up another one. “As you say. Shit.”
Once they were all fully reloaded, the group split up. Behnke wanted to tactically clear the house with Tristan, with Rob filming them. Thomas went along with them to actually do the room clearances first, just in case there were any lurking zombies trapped behind closed doors. Wilkins, his wound bandaged and his hands now bound with plastic zip-ties, stayed in one of the trucks, and Hugh stayed behind to watch over both him and the vehicles in case any more zombies came out of the woods.
“I guess that just leaves the two of us,” Hana looked at Gina, meaningfully.
“Yeah, so,” Gina looked at the men. “Hana and I have some women’s business to take care of, so we would appreciate it if you could give us some privacy.” Let them make of that what they will, she thought. As expected, none of them even questioned her announcement. Women were always going off together to the ladies’ restroom, to deal with hormonal dramas, take group photos, gossip, touch up their makeup or even to actually use the toilets themselves. Hugh stepped forward with a questioning look on his face, obviously wondering if they needed him to come along for security, but Hana waved him back.
“Call me on the radio if you need help,” he said. “Or just start shooting. I’ll be there straight away.” She smiled back at him and nodded.
“On a safety issue,” Hana turned to Thomas, “when you are setting up your photo shoot, or whatever, inside the house, make sure that any shooting they do is either off towards the west,” she pointed towards the sun above the trees. “Or that it is angled high, so it will go over our heads. Those walls are thin and the rounds could go straight through and hit one of us here on the outside.”
“Of course,” Thomas nodded. “I will make sure of it.” With that settled, Behnke and Tristan started setting themselves up to tactically breach the front door while Rob got down on his knees to film them from the most dramatic angle.
The two women waited until they were being ignored, and then set off around the side of the house to the garden, both of them still holding their weapons at the ready. Hugh’s eyes followed them protectively, but as they disappeared around the corner, he settled back into watchful vigilance, covering the tree line towards the carpark.
“So, you’re a pretty good shot,” Gina said conversationally, trying to distract herself from what she was about to do. “Real hot shit with a gun.”
“Ha!” Hana barked out a self-deprecating laugh. “Didn’t you just see me miss all those shots? I had to wait until they were right on top of me.” She looked closer at Gina, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Actually, you really are an excellent shot. Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
“Pretty typical story,” Gina smiled. “Loser boyfriend tried to impress me by taking me to a shooting range and teaching me how to shoot. I loved it and turned out to be a much better shot than him. Long story short, my passion for shooting lasted. He didn’t.” The two women laughed easily together as they walked along, shoes gently crunching in the dirt.
“You don’t have any problem killing them, do you?” Gina swallowed. “I mean… I mean I just never shot anybody before today. I never saw a dead body before. Not in real life.” The sight of dozens of bloody corpses had come close to freaking her out. Only the real and imminent threat of danger to herself, and the totally surreal air to the whole scene, had stopped her from really taking a close look and losing control, back there in the car park.
“No, I don’t see them as people.” The taller woman looked at Gina kindly. “Most times I see them as targets. Or monsters trying to kill me. If I think at all about who they were, then all I think about is that I am doing them a favor. And I hope that someone would do the same for me, if I became a zombie.”
“I’ll do my best to try to look at it that way, then.” Gina glanced at her. “Still, you’re good at it.”
“Well, let me give you a tip about shooting zombies, something I learned,” Hana stopped and gently caught Gina’s arm, to let her know that she was telling her something important. “People like you and I, that just practice on a shooting range, find it much more difficult to hit moving targets. But with zombies that’s not a problem. They just charge straight at you, they don’t move left or right, or up or down, forcing you to adjust your aim. If you keep your nerve, the point of aim on their face stays exactly the same. It is just the same as aiming at a static target, but it gets bigger, as the zombie gets closer. That makes it easy. The hard part is suppressing your fear and taking a controlled shot.”
“Huh,” Gina puffed, raising her eyebrows and nodding thoughtfully. “You’re right I never thought about it like that. I guess you’re right.” Then she quirked an eyebrow at the taller woman. “Don’t worry about my ability to control fear. I’ve done a thousand concerts and I get terrified sick before every one. I am a master at clamping down on that shit and walking out to get the job done.”
“You?” Hana was amazed. “You, of all people? You still get stage fright?”
“Yup. It never gets easier.” Gina grimaced. “It’s pretty common for most singers actually. I feel that fear nearly the whole day before a performance, right up until I am out on the stage. When I hit that first perfect note, then I can relax. So yeah, when it comes to shooting, I guess or I hope I will be able to control any panic and do what I need to do.”
“Just like you did back there, in the carpark,” Hana pointed a thumb behind her.
“Yeah,” Gina reflected a second. “I guess that’s exactly what I did. And you’re right. If you can keep your nerve, those things really are easy to shoot when they’re up close. That’s a good tip. Thank you.”
The two women continued walking in companionable silence. Hana kept her weapon pointed to the side, scanning the other farm buildings, but occasionally looked over at Gina as they walked down the side of the main house. The two of them walked side by side, without saying anything, their shoes hardly making any noise in the dirt. The singer was already lost in her own thoughts, and Hana could see that as Gina looked around, every detail of the farm around them was filled with what must now be heart-breaking memories.
The young singer had already told Hana the story of how and why she had left Bella here, and how this place had been a haven for them both to share their secret life. Gina ha
d also told her why she needed to come back to this place, to seek the truth about what had really happened on that last day.
Learning about her daughter’s death had driven Gina understandably mad with grief for a few months. For the first few days she had locked herself in her bedroom in a black pit of depression, not eating and not even bothering to wash nor dress herself for nearly a week. To cover for the lack of professional activity and public appearances, her mother had put out a press release saying that the singer was in mourning for the victims of the combined tragedies of the Galleria Incident and the downing of Columbus 754.
Then she had emerged from her room, and although still not speaking to anyone apart from her mother, Gina had thrown herself into researching everything she could find out about the Lyssavirus.
At first, her mother was delighted that Gina seemed to have found a hobby that distracted her from her sadness. She was eating again, and going to the gym, building back up her fitness and strength. Gina even started singing and recording again, revitalizing her career and planning future tours. But then her mother felt the first icy slivers of fear as she realized the true depth of Gina’s preoccupation with the topic. It was not a healthy project to help her cope with her loss, instead it was a dark obsession which consumed her every free moment.
Then as more and more coverage of the Lyssavirus phenomenon dominated all the major news networks, one day Gina read an article that gripped her so tightly she almost forgot to breathe. The media had coined a lot of new terminology regarding the quarantine zone. There were ‘zone orphans’, those unfortunate out of towners caught in Fort Lauderdale when the quarantine was imposed. And there were their counterparts, the ‘Zone Displaced Persons’ or ‘ZDPs’, whom the general public referred to as ‘outies’, those Fort Lauderdale residents who had happened to be outside the zone when quarantine was imposed.