by Won, Mark
“Why are you wearing a red dress?” Mr. Hawk wanted to know. You’d think a man with a daughter would know the difference between a red cloak and a dress. I took another look at poor Janet and realized that with a father like Mr. Hawk she had probably never worn a dress, or even a skirt, in her entire life.
With a dramatic and practiced flourish I swept back my cloak to reveal all my friends. “It’s called a cloak and I like it for lots of good reasons. Firstly, it conceals all my weapons, which helps with surprise.” I let my cloak fall back into place. “Secondly, it’s nice and warm. Thirdly, I got it from a Renaissance fair. Fourthly, it’s red, which is great for hiding all the brain stains. Fifthly, how can you not know what a cloak is?”
He was again rendered speechless. I was coming to realize that speechlessness was a condition of his form of stupidity. It could have been worse, I suppose, but Mr. Hawk was starting to make Dr. Summer look like a genius.
Aria noticed a small cut on the palm of my left hand and asked me, “Is that a bite? Did you get bitten!?” She seemed pretty upset. I’ve been bitten lots of times and nobody had made a big deal of it before.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith immediately held their son closer to themselves. Kim and June each took a step back. A dark cloud passed over Mr. Hawk’s face and his daughter began to bring her pistol around to my direction. I couldn’t have that.
Out came Polly in one liquid motion, and the gun went clattering across the floor. I let her keep her hand by making sure to use the flat of the blade. Frankly, I was getting tired of all the blood stains. If this kind of thing kept up I’d need a new cloak soon (and those things are hard to come by).
“It’s just a scratch I got on a broken window,” I held up the injury in question. Mr. Hawk did not seemed mollified by my explanation. He took a threatening step forward. I placed the tip of Polly between his legs. When he jumped back I could see his boxers peeking through the cut I’d put in his crotch.
I told him, “Mr. Hawk, please don’t make me kill you. If I have to kill you then I’ll have to kill Janet, too. And I don’t want to do that. If I did want to do that then the both of you would already be laying on the floor, crawling around in your own spilled entrails.” A brief look of fear crossed his features and I could tell I was finally speaking his language.
I sheathed my girl and addressed Janet, “What were you going to do, shoot me? Think about it. Obviously you’ve been the victim of an inferior upbringing, but even you should realize that a gun shot would bring down the wrath of the horde upon yourself. If you want to survive then you’re going to have to start thinking into the future a little better.” It was like talking to children, and I was beginning to realize that maybe I’d been a little harsh in my earlier judgment of Bruce’s mental capacity. At least he’d been a doctor.
“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” she replied, “I just thought you might be infected.”
“And if I had been, then what? Don’t even try and tell me that your pops, here, never told you to never point a gun at anything you don’t want to put a hole in.”
I saw her walking back over to the firearm that I knocked out of her hand. “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked her. “You don’t get to have that gun you dizzy, dopey, ditz. Just let Mr. Smith hold on to it until you can convince me your not going to murder me as soon as I look away.”
Mr. Smith seemed happy enough with that idea, he was glad to comply. I got a distinct sense of satisfaction coming off of him. That led me to suspect that Mr. Hawk and his daughter had been ‘in charge’ just before I showed up. And by ‘in charge’ I mean they had the only gun and were bullying enough to imply (at least) its usage. Now I was seeing a new dynamic. A shift in alliances. It was subtle but Uncle had taught me well.
Mr. Smith turned to Avery, “The kid’s got a point about needing the trucks in order to escape.” Then he turned to Mr. Hawk, “Jim, why don’t you give the keys to Avery so we can all get out of here.”
Mr. Hawk did so with an ill concealed grace. I could tell this idea of leaving had been going on long before I showed up. Clearly Mr. Hawk’s plan had been to sit tight and wait, and now all that had changed. I’ve never claimed to be much of a prognosticator, but I was pretty sure Janet wasn’t going to get that gun back anytime soon, unless it was over Mr. Smith’s dead body. One look at her sullen expression and I could tell she was aware of that fact, and that the option was on the table.
Mrs. Smith bustled over to me and opened up her purse. She pulled out a small first aid kit, the kind you can get at a grocery store, and said, “Let me have a look at that cut, dear, you don’t want it to get infected.” What a sweety. I let her fuss over me for a while. I ended up with a nice cartoon bandage with a big bright kangaroo on it. Her son, Jeremy, came over to examine the procedure. In a comfortable and unaffected way, Isabella slid up and took his hand. It was kind of cute.
Isabella and Jeremy wanted to know if they could pet my dog. I told them he was perfectly safe. So for the next half hour Tracer was in doggie heaven with two little kids giving him all the attention he could suck up.
While I was making conversation with the two kids and Mrs. Smith, I overheard Kim interrupting Mr. Smith and Avery, “So, when are we getting out of here? I say right now. Let’s slip out the door by the dock, pile in, and leave.”
June spoke up, “Maybe one of us should take a peek first. If the building’s surrounded then we’d never make it.”
Kim replied, “Well, yeah, of course someone would have to scout it out first.”
I spoke up, “Yeah, I’ll go in a minute. First I want to see what we got here to take with us.”
June gave me an appraising stare, “You seem awfully confident.”
“Thank you,” I replied.
Speaking to Avery, Aria said, “The kid,” meaning me, “seems to have a lot of experience. Maybe we should ask him what things are like out there before we do anything.”
Avery agreed and began to ask a few basic questions. I told them everything I knew about the zombies and Haven and everything. By the time I was done Kim had a new idea.
He said, “Maybe if we can get the kid’s radio I can hook up a bigger antenna. Then we could call them and ask for a ride.”
Mr. Hawk thought that was a pretty good idea, especially coming from a ‘gook’. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but based on everyone’s expression I was pretty sure it was something bad.
Mr. Hawk told me, “Okay, kid, run off and get your bike. And try to be quick about it. I don’t think my back can handle one more night on this floor.”
Everyone was looking at me, so I said, “It took all I had to get here. I don’t mind taking a quick peek, but I’m not rushing out there again any time soon. Give it a day, then we’ll see. While we wait let’s get everything together that we want to take with us.”
The logic of my reasoning prevailed upon everyone, so we went through the market and piled together all of our remaining water and food. It was barely two days worth. I had to reconsider my idea of waiting a day. Once we got free of the town we would have to begin a serious effort to grab some grub.
I said, “I’ll take a quick peek out back and we’ll see if the coast is clear.”
Kim joined me, looking over his shoulder to make sure June noticed. “I’ll go with you,” he said.
Mr. Hawk just looked sour while Janet sneeringly commented, “Don’t let them see you or we’re all dead. This is a stupid idea.”
Kim and I made our way through the back room to the loading dock. A small delivery truck was covering the dock area, but there was enough room to see daylight coming through the crack between the truck and the wall. I listened at the seam but heard nothing.
Next to the pull down door for the dock there was a normal door with a sign on it. Something about how an alarm would sound if it were opened. Since the building obviously had no power I wasn’t too worried about that. I cracked open that door and took a look around.
Everything was a
bout as clear as I could have hoped for. I knew the zombies which had been following me by the thousand had to be lurking around somewhere, but I couldn’t see any trace of them. The truck looked fine just sitting there, but I had to wonder if it would start. You can’t just let a vehicle sit around like that and expect everything to still be good after a number of months. I noticed that something smelled bad but that was pretty much normal for a town full of perpetually rotting corpses.
Kim gave me a nudge from behind. He needed to get out so he could see for himself, otherwise how could he hope to impress June? There were some steps directly in front of the door so I took one tentative step down. Kim was directly on my heels when I heard something move above me.
I didn’t pause to think about it. I didn’t recriminate myself for leaving Tracer with the little kids, I didn’t even say a bad word. I just swept Polly from her sheath and did a backward and upwards thrust (the reverse ascending crane maneuver). The trouble was I was a little lower than I needed to be in order to really make that move work. I ended up slamming into Kim while trying to keep my balance.
A ghoul had been waiting up there for us, and we’d finally given it the opportunity it had been waiting for. If I’d been alone there would have been no problem, I’d have jumped down the steps and spun about, giving myself some space. As it was, I knew I had to do something or Kim was going to get bit. That’s why I tried such an inappropriate and clumsy attack, totally lacking in grace (Uncle would not have been pleased).
The ghoul struck Kim with both outstretched feet but caught my girl up in its guts. The force of its fall knocked us all down the steps, but with Polly sticking out of the ghoul and me holding on to Polly it couldn’t get a solid grasp of Kim.
The way we all were struggling to get to our feet brought a smile to my face. Anybody watching us would have thought that we were like that old fashioned comedy trio ‘The Three Stooges’. Finally, I was able to move around and draw Abby. By then the ghoul had managed to pull itself close enough to my hand to try and bite. While it was gnawing on Polly’s guard ring I clove its skull with my other girl, Abby.
From my new vantage point on the ground I could see under the truck, and there were a great bunch of feet shuffling around the corner of the market, bringing their owners with them. The whole situation was like some kind of super lame trap, especially the way they had even managed to hold off on moaning. Man, those zombies were smart. Maybe as smart as an animal, even.
I yelled out to Kim, “Get everyone ready to go! It’s now or never!” I wasn’t kidding either. If the zombies had positively identified our hiding spot than it wasn’t really a hiding spot anymore. Eventually an ogre would come along and knock a hole in the wall, or the regular zombies would just push in the glass doors. We had to move.
I decided to do my part by clearing the way to the truck’s driver’s seat. I already had Abby and Polly in hand so I let them choose the music (I always let them choose) and began my dance with the mob. The whole sweeping ballet only took half a minute and I was a mess again. There had only been about ten of them but their juices got all over the place, even in my hair. Then I noticed everyone was at the door, staring at me, and Mr. Smith pointing his brand new gun (courtesy of me) in my general direction. One glance and I could tell he wasn’t going to pull the trigger, though. It was one of those classic situations where someone is trying to get a clear shot at someone (or something) but he can’t because someone else keeps getting in the way.
I said, “Sorry, Mr. Smith. I didn’t mean to spoil your aim. Seriously, though, we’ve got to move. Get everybody in the back of the truck right now!” I could hear a dull moan start up from all around, and I just knew the army of the undead were on the march again. They had probably got all excited because of all the noise we’d been making. I yelled, “Shotgun!” and ran around to the passenger side of the truck.
All my new friends wasted about five seconds before kicking it into gear. During that time Tracer ran around to the door and I let him up on my lap. A few seconds later I heard stomping noises as everyone pilled in back. Then another bunch of zombies, larger than the first, came into sight from the other way. I was just about to get out and take care of it when Avery got in the driver’s seat with the keys. He needed no encouragement to put the hammer down, and we sped out over the access pavement and into the main parking lot.
All around us we could see a congregating horde of the Hell-bound looking to rip us to shreds. I began giving useful driving advice regarding direction, timing, and distance. I think I really helped, but we had to go away from where I’d parked my bike. There were way too many of them for us to try and plow through with such an ordinary sized truck, though we did run down a dozen or two individuals by the time we made our way free. Maybe if we’d been in an eighteen wheeler things would have been different.
As we led them out of town for a few miles, Avery asked, “Where did you learn to use swords like that? That was incredible!”
Uncle had made it very clear that he must never be implicated in my training if I ever got caught using what he’d taught me for any kind of questionable pursuit. But since Uncle had died just before the Change had happened, and the whole world was new now, anyway, I confessed, “Uncle taught me. He was the best!”
“Did he turn into a zombie, too?”
“No, he died before the Change. But he wouldn’t have turned into anything anyway. He wasn’t the sort.”
Avery asked, “What does that mean?”
“Some folks changed and some didn’t. Some will and some won’t. I don’t think he would have, not like my parents.”
Avery changed the subject, “Do you think the ‘zombies’ knew we were in the market all along and were just waiting for us to come out? Were they toying with us?”
I told him, “No way. If they knew they would have just bust in and killed you all. Christopherton has some really smart zombies, but that’s relative. The smart thing for them to have done would have been to smash every building flat, looking for people. That way they would have eventually found you guys while simultaneously eliminating anywhere new for you to hide. I’m sure they didn’t know any of us were in there. They don’t ‘know’ anything. Those particular zombies and ghouls just have slightly elevated hunting instincts.” I was pretty sure of that, anyway. Avery seemed to accept it.
I noticed that we still had the ghouls on our tail so I bade Avery pull over so that I could take care of them. He was reluctant.
What he said was, “Are you out of your mind! They’ll rip you apart! Those things can dodge bullets! I’ve seen it!” He was pretty excited.
I told him, “We have to kill them sooner or later, and now’s as good a time as any. We still have a little light left. I know we can leave them in our dust, but ghouls will do their best to keep looking for us, even after dark. With the zombies it’s a bit different. Those we can leave so far behind they may never catch up. Now pull over, already, I know what I’m doing.” It sounded arrogant, but hey, it was true.
He did as I asked, and I got out in a hurry. I had a little while to wait while the ghouls closed the distance. During that time Avery had the unenviable task of trying to explain to everyone in the back of the truck why we had stopped and what we were doing. Those people were rapidly becoming exasperating.
Once the ghouls came within twenty yards I let them have it. I still only had my liberated cop gun with its junky 9mm ammunition, but that was good enough. There were eleven of them to start with, and I really didn’t want to have to face them all in personal combat at the same time if I didn’t have to.
Since the Change happened, I’ve learned that a lot of people have trouble hitting moving ghouls in the head, even snipers. The trick is to aim for the spirit, not for the flesh, just like Uncle taught. That the spirit of a ghoul happens to live in its noggin is just a happy coincidence.
Anyhow, all that shooting really ate up my ammunition. Even at that range, I’m not saying I hit every time, more like
two head shots for every three bullets. Once it was over with, everyone was out of the truck and looking at me, with that weird look people get every now and again. So I asked them, “What? You thought I only used swords? You guys need to catch up to the sixteenth century.” Pretty funny, huh? Sometimes I crack myself up.
By the time most of my new friends were back in the truck the ogres had begun to make an appearance. For some reason they didn’t make such a tight group as the ghouls. Dumber maybe. Even though I could have taken them out with Polly and Abby I decided to save some time and used bullets instead. With only a couple days of food in the can there was no more time for any goofing around, so I just shot the ogres as they came, one shot per head, until I ran out of ammunition. There were only a couple left by that time, so cutting them down with the girls was no major hold up.
Of course, all the passengers had gotten out of the truck again to have another look at me working. Mr. Smith kept that gun of his pointed at the general combat, waiting for a moment to help which never came. Everybody watching me all the time was starting to make me feel self conscious. It was like they’d never seen anyone kill one of the Changed before (and I knew they had).
I got back up front and we moved on from there until we came to a pleasant looking motel off the side of the road. It looked like it would do nicely. It was located out in the country, but not so far that I might not be able to go back and get my bike. There were lots of farms around that looked like they had been planted and were waiting for harvest time. Plenty of woods for hunting and trapping. Perfect. I told Avery to stop and we all got out. I announced to everyone, “Welcome to you’re new temporary home!” No one cheered, but I didn’t let that dampen my mood.
I did a quick once over of the place, and cleared out four malingering zombies, no big deal. We had enough room for everybody. Actually, it was a real nice place. All the toilet tanks were full, and a couple rooms had a small kitchenette with a few pots and pans. I was looking forward to sleeping in a bed again.
