by Rich Baker
Eight
“How many people are there?”
Danielle sits across from Max Montero in an office in the administration building. She’s nervous, fidgeting with the cuticles on her nails. This guy is fucking intense, she thinks. I wish Jesse were here.
“I told you, there are nine of them for sure. Kyle, his son Ben, his girlfriend Toni – she was shot by DJ Nelson – Andy, Natalie, Marc Wallace, and the Sims family. Annie, Stephenie, and Robert, if he lived. DJ shot him up pretty good too. Then there are the new people. I don’t know them, but the guy was a dick. He’s the one who shot DJ. She just stared holes in me until they locked me in the window thingy.”
“And that’s when you escaped?”
“Yes, they hadn’t finished the tunnel to the house next door, but I found part of one of those orange Home Depot-style buckets, and I dug like a goddammed rabbit. I don’t know how far ahead of them I was, but it couldn’t have been much. The whole time I was running down that street I was waiting to catch a bullet in the back.”
Max leans back in his chair and squints as he looks at her. “What I don’t get is that you’re friends with these people, and you’re just giving them up like it’s nothing. How do I know you’re not sending me and my people into a trap?”
Danielle is getting tired of this inquisition. Max is nothing like his sister or Jesse.
“Look, it’s like this, okay? I was only friends with these people because they were friends with my ex, or they were dating the friends of my ex. He and I hooked up one night when I was a little too drunk. I was leaving for home at the end of the semester, so I wasn’t looking for anything long term, so I stuck with him even though I didn’t really like him that much. I mean, he was fun for a little while, but his antics got old. I never expected to be stuck with them at the end of the world, and I certainly never expected my ex to ditch me during Armageddon!”
“So, you want some payback,” Max says.
“No, I don’t give a shit. Jesse and Addie said that you guys would help me, especially if I helped you. So that’s what I’m doing. I don’t care what you do to them.”
“Man, you’re cold. Remind me never to cross you.”
“Whatever.”
“All right, so there’s nine of them for sure. Maybe two more. Any fighters?”
“Yeah, the Sims family. Annie, tall, skinny, wears glasses, brown hair. Robert, he’s the oldest, like my age maybe? Early, mid-twenties. He’ll be the one that’s been shot. And Stephenie,” Danielle says, spitting the girls name as much as saying it, “is the youngest. Blonde, huge tits, deaf, and really good with her rifle. And her vagina, apparently.”
Mani chuckles from the corner. Danielle glares at him, and he stops laughing and looks down at his shoes. Danielle continues.
“The Sims are the ones who shot up your friends. The others had nothing to do with that. Just in case that matters to you.”
“They took these Sims in, treated them better than you, basically cast you out, and you still defend them. See, that’s what puzzles me. If you care about them, why are you giving them up?”
“I told you, I don’t care. I’m just giving full disclosure so that you can make an informed decision.”
Max considers her for a minute, then starts enquiring down a different path.
“Tell me about their guns. You said that the blonde -”
“With the big tits,” Mani interjects.
“Pendejo!” Max admonishes him, then to Danielle he says “Sorry about that. My crew sometimes forgets they’re not fourteen years old anymore. Anyway, you said she’s good with her rifle. What kind of rifle?”
“Oh, shit, I have no idea. A big one.”
“Like this?” Mani asks, holding up his AK-47.
“Kinda, but not exactly. The clip wasn’t so curved.”
“Probably an AR15,” Max says. “Everyone has them these days.”
“That sounds right. All the Sims have them. Well, everyone else there has them now, too, thanks to Danny’s workshop.”
Max tilts his head slightly to the left. “I thought you said there were only nine of them. Who’s Danny?”
“Sorry,” Danielle says. “He owns the house we were in, but he’s not there. He’s got some Hobbit hole up in the mountains. He’s a gun guy, as in he makes them for people for his job. He has a whole workshop full of them.”
Both Mani and Max lean forward. “Tell me more about this workshop. Does he have other guns?”
“Oh, shit, yeah. He’s got all these smaller rifles; they take those tiny bullets? Anyway, they all have those too. And the shoulder thing folds up, and they have silencers on them. They’re pretty sweet, actually.”
“And what about ammunition?” Mani asks. “Does he have a lot of it?”
“Yes, that I do know. I heard Robert say there was enough .22 ammo to give half of the zeds in town a bullet.”
“He said .22? Specifically?” Max asks.
“Yes. What does that mean?”
“Those are the tiny bullets,” Mani says. “Did he ever mention .223 ammo? They’re the big ones, longer than the tiny ones, and fat at the bottom and then they get skinny on top.”
“Yeah, they have loads of those too. And there’s a machine that makes them. Robert said that you just have to load the stuff into it and turn it on. It does a jillion an hour.”
“That’s a lot,” Mani says, chuckling.
“I don’t remember what he said, okay?” Danielle says. “It was some-thousand per hour. I just remember thinking it sounded like a lot. It does like one per second or something ridiculous like that.”
“Did they have any other stuff in there? Explosives? Hand grenades? Anything like that?” Max asks.
“No, not that I know of. How would he get that kind of stuff? Isn’t that like, way illegal?”
“Yes, but these gun guys have their ways sometimes. You can get a license from the government,” Max says. “So, there are three fighters and six non-fighters?”
“Yeah. Well, they’ve all done some fighting and shooting zeds, all except Andy and Natalie. He flies their drone, and she does like, all the cooking and cleaning and domestic stuff. And Toni has just been healing from the gunshots.”
“They have a drone? What kind?”
“They call it a Parrot. It has four helicopter blades. It works with their iPad.”
“Interesting,” Max says. “So, they have power, too, then, to keep these things charged up.”
“Yeah, solar and some batteries to store it.”
“Okay. And what about these other two people you mentioned. The man who shot DJ Nelson and the woman who was with him. What about them?”
“I told you, I don’t know them. He was all Rambo though, swooping in, shooting DJ, being all bossy. He was a dick. But I don’t know if they’re still there or what their deal is.”
“Alright,” Max says, and turns to Mani. “We’ll have to assume eleven people, and it sounds like at least four with real skill.” He turns back to Danielle. “And that’s all the people you can think of. No one else, wounded, hiding, nobody, right?”
“Not unless you count Amanda, but she’s dead.”
Max sighs as he writes in his notebook.
“Who’s Amanda?” he asks.
“She’s the woman those guys, Lucky and Little Nicky, raped and left for dead.”
Max’s face changes. His eyes narrow and his voice takes on a cold edge.
“What did you say?”
Danielle unconsciously leans back. “What? What did I say?”
“That’s what I asked you. What. Did. You. Say.”
“Look, I can only tell you what she told us - what Amanda told us, I mean. She said that two guys named Lucky and Little Nicky attacked her and her family. They drugged them, raped her and one of her daughters and left them for dead in their attic with a bunch of zeds wandering around their house. When she woke up, her daughters had been bitten and turned, and her husband had to shoot them, but then he
got bit, too. She killed him after he turned, and then went wandering around the area naked, for some reason, and the Puckett’s took her in. That all happened right before I left them.
“Then when DJ and I came back, they were at her house burying her family, and I guess Lucky, and Little Nicky showed back up or followed them, or something. I don’t know exactly how they all ended up at the OK Corral at the same time. Anyway, they got into a gunfight. One of them, I think it was Lucky, from what I heard the others saying, killed Keith – my ex – and shot up Amanda. The other one, which would have been Little Nicky, was shot but got away. The names are all second hand. Amanda told the Puckett’s who they were while they were in her yard after the shootout. I heard them all talking about it while I was being held at gunpoint in the basement, so take this info with a grain of salt.”
Max leans closer, across the table. “Are you one hundred percent certain about what you’re telling me?”
“I’m one hundred percent certain I’m telling you what Amanda told me after they rescued her, and what I overheard after she was killed. I didn’t hear any of the conversation at Amanda’s house. I just saw the one that I think was Little Nicky get into a little white car and drive off after Amanda emptied her gun into the other guy’s face. That was just before DJ shot her like four times when he was trying to kill Robert Sims. Making her dead, as I said before.”
“Those mother fuckers!” Max exclaims. “Mani, finish up here!”
Mani’s eyes are wide in surprise as Max storms past him and leaves the room, running toward his house.
“What just happened?” Danielle asks.
“You probably got Nicky killed, that’s what happened,” Mani says. “Everywhere you go, things just go to shit, don’t they?”
“What did I do? I just told him what happened! You guys said you wanted the truth! And Nicky’s here?”
“Yeah, Jesse led an extraction team to go get him after he was shot up and called on the CB for help. If you knew Max, you would have left the rape stuff out. After his sister was raped, he has a pretty clear line about that kind of thing.”
Danielle looks at Mani like she’s heard a dog whistle. “Everyone should have a clear line about rape! What the fuck is wrong with you!?”
“Look, I don’t really care for Nicky, so if Max kills him, for me it means one more meal someone else gets, you know? But he has friends here. You need to be careful. You’ll be alright as long as people like Addie and Jesse with you. Piss them off, and you’ll be fair game.”
Mani gets up and walks to the door, looking outside, and waits for the fallout from Danielle’s revelation.
Danielle sinks into her chair. Her newfound paradise just started sounding a lot like a prison yard.
Nine
Kyle tells the rest of the group about their situation. Their faces all reflect the same thing. Defeat.
“What do we do now?” Andy asks.
“How do we know these Montero’s are even going to find us?” Natalie asks. “I mean, if we’re cut off from the world by all the rivers, are they cut off from us too? And it’s not like they know where we live. Can’t we just hole up here until the rain stops?”
“I think we have to assume that the Montero’s have that Little Nicky guy AND Danielle,” Annie says. “We have to operate under the assumption that they know everything about us.”
“I agree,” D-Day says. “We can’t afford to underestimate them.”
“So, I need to ask this question,” Robert says. “Carmen there told us about all the stuff you had gone through before you hooked up with us. But you’re saying ‘we’ and ‘us’ an awful lot. What’s in this for you?”
“Robert!” Annie exclaims.
“No, I’m serious. They don’t know us. They have nothing invested here. I’d like to know why they’re sticking their necks out for us.”
“If it makes you feel better, I was all for following the prime directive. Observe, let things play out, and only engage if there’s a direct threat to us. It was Carmen that insisted we intervene and help you. And she has her reasons for wanting to help, and where she goes, I go. Having said that, you’re good people, but you’re mostly sheep. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just a fact. You’ve got some rifle skills, but you’ve never been in combat. I’ll bet most of you have never been in a fight, never been punched in the face, kicked in the stomach, smacked over the head with a shovel. These Montero’s, I don’t know if I’d say they’re wolves, exactly, but they’re coyotes, at least. You guys need a sheepdog. I’d feel bad if we left you to be devoured. There aren’t enough people left to sacrifice the good ones.”
Ben laughs to himself. Kyle looks at him with disapproval.
“Something funny about that, son?”
“No, dad. I was just thinking, if Keith were here he’d make a wisecrack about that speech being straight out of Looney Tunes, the one with the coyote and sheepdog that clock in and fight, then clock out and they’re friends. He’d have had something inappropriate to say.”
Andy chuckles too. “Yeah. Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”
“He was so irritating at times, but I miss it now,” Natalie says. “You could always count on him to say something completely off-color to lighten the mood.”
“I really didn’t like him,” Robert says, “because I’m always suspicious of anyone who gets near my sister. But I never saw her light up like she did around him.” He looks over at Stephenie, who is on the verge of tears, and signs “I’m sorry, sis.”
Stephenie starts to cry, and she signs, but can’t speak through the tears. Annie translates for her.
“He looked at me, and there was a click. We just fit. He saw me as whole, not as less of a person because of my hearing. He gave his heart to me. And the Montero’s took him from me. From us.”
The room goes quiet except for Stephenie’s light sobs.
“This is where Keith would say something like ‘way to kill the mood, blondie,” Natalie says. Everyone laughs, even Robert.
Kyle looks around, a puzzled look growing on his face.
“Where’s Marc?” he asks.
They all look around, but no one knows where he went. Kyle checks the workshop, but he’s not there. They come to the same realization at the same time. DJ Nelson.
Kyle leads the way through the airlock to the tunnel, and into the neighbor’s basement. The table where DJ had lain is empty. They run up the stairs, and Kyle exits through the back door.
The gate is open, and there are several dead zombies that weren’t there before, still oozing black fluid from gunshot wounds. Kyle gets to the gate and sees Marc across the alley, with DJ on his knees in the mud of the vacant lot. Marc has a pistol in his hand.
“Marc!” Kyle calls out. The man doesn’t respond. Kyle takes several steps toward him before calling his name again. “Marc!”
DJ is barely keeping upright. His head hangs forward, a bloody string of saliva dangling from his mouth.
“He has to pay,” Marc says as Kyle approaches.
The rain continues to pour down, soaking all of them, but keeps the zombies occupied.
“He will, Marc. His time is short no matter what we do. Why don’t you come inside?”
“Why don’t you fuck yourself!” Marc exclaims. Kyle reels for a moment, unaccustomed to hearing Marc speak this way. “You still have your son! You still have a wife. I have nothing. NOTHING!”
He screams the last word, drawing the gaze of a few nearby zombies.
“Keep your voice down, Marc. You’re going to draw zeds over here.”
“I don’t care. Once I kill this piece of shit, they can just eat me and end it. I’m done.”
Marc presses the barrel of his pistol against the top of DJs head.
“Any last words, you bastard?”
DJ manages to lift his head. “Kill me,” he says. “It won’t bring your boy back, but my family will be looking for me. They’ll send you to see him.”
Marc grimaces, pr
essing the gun against DJs head hard enough to make him sit back on his heels, but he doesn’t pull the trigger.
“I can’t,” Marc says. “God help me, I can’t do it.”
Kyle reaches out and takes the gun from Marc, who releases it from his grip and lets his hand fall to his side. Kyle put a hand on Marc’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, man. You have enough weight on your shoulders right now. You don’t need this too.”
He raises the pistol, points it at DJ’s head, and pulls the trigger twice.
Ten
Max bursts through the front door of his house, taking large, angry strides toward the back bedroom. He throws the door open, knocking the man on the other side of the door off balance.
“What the fuck!” the man starts to protest, then he recognizes who it is in the doorway. “Oh, hey Max. Sorry, bro, I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m just visiting Little Nicky; I didn’t mean anything by that.”
Max doesn’t know his name, and he’s not interested in conversation, so he ignores him, turning his focus to Little Nicky.
“What did you do?” Max asks him.
Nicky is still groggy from the painkillers he’s been taking. “What did I do about what?” he asks.
“What did you do to the women in that house?”
The question finally registers with the wounded man, and the color drains from his face. “Max, it’s not like that. You don’t understand!”
“Make me understand. Tell me that you didn’t rape those women. Tell me they wanted it. Tell me you didn’t have to drug them to get them to go along with it! Tell me, Nick, because you’re on the wrong end of this story right now!”
“It was Lucky! He put the drugs in the coffee. He brought the thermos out every time we went on a run, thinking if someone got the jump on us, maybe it would give us an edge! When he poured it for them, I had no idea what was going to happen! I thought we were just going to rob them!”
Max cries out like he’s in pain.
“Oh, no, Nicky, it’s true? You did it? You really did it? No, man, please, no!”
