Kenny glanced around as if wondering who bought the fat man’s bullshit story. Then he laughed and said, “That little brat Jake tried to feed me that line to scare me off, too. Y’all want to guess what I fed him?”
Everyone cheered as Kenny rose and pulled a vial of the Juice from his jacket pocket.
The boys hoisted the fat man off the ground, his eyes growing half a foot each as he asked, “What is that?”
Kenny popped the tiny cork off the vial as the boys forced Rusty’s mouth open. “This is how you help the Pride of Life, Rusty Borman,” he said, then fed him the Juice.
Wild cheers pierced the orange sky as the fat man choked down and tried to barf up the Juice. The noise would undoubtedly draw in the dead, but they wouldn’t stand a chance against warriors like these. They were strong. They were righteous. They were proud.
Victory would soon be theirs.
PART THREE
Therefore thus sayeth the Lord God of hosts, “O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt.
“For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.”
Isaiah 10:24-25
CHAPTER 28
BREAK IT DOWN
Hashim’s arm grew tired from holding the lantern. The teens had enough light from the open back door to daisy-chain all the food out of the kitchen, but he had to make sure nothing surprised them from the dark hallway. He wanted to believe Didi and Isaac got all the Power zombies, but everyone was in too big a hurry to make a full sweep of the compound.
A creek from the hallway made him jump out of his skin. Everyone else froze. He drew down on the door and kept his pistol as steady as he could. “Who’s there?”
A voice like a cartoon alien responded. “I come in peace. Take me to your leader.”
Hashim huffed—laughed, really—and holstered his weapon.
Didi stepped into the doorway with a smile, her face hastily made up. “Oh, wait, that’s me.”
He allowed himself another little laugh. “I see you got your face back on.”
She shrugged, which made him notice the backpack she carried. “I creep people out enough. Besides, I had to stop by the room to grab my tech stuff. How’s the move going?”
“It’s going that way,” he said as he pointed out the back door, then made sure everyone gaping at Didi got back to work. “How’s Cody?”
Didi’s sweet face grew sullen. “Supposedly out of the woods, but I’m still worried.”
“Well, Jesus did say worrying never added to anyone’s—” He had to stop himself from rubbing salt on her wounds, so to speak. “Well, you know.”
“Quite well,” she replied with mild humor. “How come you stopped coming to Service?”
Not wanting to get into that now, Hashim shrugged it off. “Everyone else stopped. I didn’t want to waste your time.”
She smiled. “It doesn’t matter how many come with you; just that you come.”
He nodded but hoped she would forget before they reached their new home.
“Well, I’m going to finish my rounds and grab Cody. See you in the Promised Land.”
Hashim laughed as Didi waved to him and all the teens on her way out. He marveled at her spirit, amazed at how she could make peace with the Lord in death after everything that happened to her in life. He wondered—then hoped—if it would rub off on the others someday; maybe even him. If they survived the night.
*****
Rachelle scanned the pale yellow horizon. Nothing moved out there. She wanted to be encouraged. She also wanted so badly to sleep, but she had to keep watch. She shivered with the breeze, her feet cold and wet from sloshing around in the dark to empty her bunk. All her worldly possessions poked her hips from inside her pockets, jangling every time she moved. She worried all her bullets would spill out of her jacket at any second.
Regardless, she was ready to do her part for Didi and this camp. She was no different than the guys on the other rooftops; younger, sure, but better-trained and more focused. She almost wished Paula would get in her face about being too young for this stuff now. That stick didn’t understand what it meant to be a defender.
She spotted Didi and Isaac heading for the Clinic—most likely to get Cody—while everyone else converged on the Garage with all the stuff they were taking with them. She wanted to laugh at seeing Hashim and Blake herding her weakling peers and all the food they could carry, but that desire died while watching parents and guardians guide their clingy kids.
She thought of the last time she saw her own mother alive. On that cloudy and otherwise uneventful day, her mother wore her warmest shit-eating grin over her prettiest floral dress, bringing with her a guilt trip instead of the 3 Musketeers bar Rachelle had asked for. You need to find the path back to Jesus, her mom had said. A fourteen-year-old jerk-off with a cute smile chose that path for me, Mama, she had said. The exchange got worse from there.
“What were you thinking? You’re too young for boys, mija.”
“I’m not a child, Mama!”
“You’re not a grown-up, either. A grown-up would’ve listened when her mother told her to stay away from that boy. He was trouble. Now, look where you are.”
“You don’t have to rub it in.”
“I’ll do what I must to get through to you. You have to save yourself, mija.”
“Stop calling me that. I’m not your little girl anymore, especially not after that night.”
Her mother looked at her with such shock. “What are you saying?”
She took out the baby doll cameo she had stolen, keeping it out of sight from the guards. “I’m not your baby anymore, Mama; this is, and we’ll both be lucky if I don’t have one later this year. The last thing I want—aside from this lecture—is to have to share anything with that pendego.” She regretted what she said the moment she finished saying it. She did not want her mother to find out like that, but it happened. She now had to assert her new womanhood, because she was not going to be talked down to like a child ever again.
Her mother stared at her for the longest time in stunned silence. No, disappointment. Her mother left and never came back. She cried for days after that, wishing she had had the maturity to say she was sorry.
Rachelle pocketed her revolver and pulled her cameo from under her shirt. As she stared at her precious little trinket, she began to wonder why she even needed it anymore. Whoever she was, wherever she came from, that was all gone now. She had a new life and a new path to walk. She was a defender.
She made sure the coast was still clear and pulled out the Gerber multi-tool Cody gave her. She summoned the pliers and raised its tiny flat-head screwdriver from inside the handle, holding the pointed end over her cameo as she wondered how best to make the cherubic face reflect the changes in her life. Tears for those she killed? Fangs from those precious little lips like the badass she wanted to be?
Remembering the badass she really wanted to be like, she knew exactly what to do with her old keepsake.
*****
Paula felt like she was about to enter Area 51, and her headache from her earlier spill on the stairs didn’t help. When Bob threw open the secret garage door Clarissa had once mentioned, she stared in stunned silence along with everyone else.
In a similarly hollowed-out garage stood a huge Greyhound bus she couldn’t help but want to call a killing machine. Various sharp attachments gleamed from every surface of its flat black body, its windows all replaced by thick metal plates with long, horizontal peepholes. A huge machine gun protruded from a refitted back wall, and two slightly smaller guns stuck out of the two top emergency hatches. Metal plates had been welded over most of each wheel. Even the doorway was armored. Emblazoned in bright red behind the front door and driver window was the vessel’s name, one that historically promised deliverance from evil: Moses.
Lining the walls around the hulk
ing ark were racks of firearms—handguns, rifles, and boom-sticks galore—right up to the massive metal warehouse door.
“Where did you get all of this?” Sean asked.
“Didi and Cody happened to stop by a couple of armories,” Hashim replied.
Bob herded people toward the monstrous vessel. “We’ve packed the essentials to start again: weapons, ammo, medicine, seeds for farming. We only have so much room, so please don’t argue if we tell you to leave it behind.”
Paula pointed to the underneath bins. “What about those?”
The old Native shook his head. “We stuffed those with fuel tanks, spare parts, and tools.”
“Amazing,” Sean said.
“How could you keep all this from us?” Clarissa asked incredulously.
“We couldn’t risk anyone stealing it,” Hashim said.
“Can I sit there?” asked a brawny man with black hair Paula never remembered meeting as he pointed at the rear machine gun.
“Already spoken for, Oscar,” Bob replied. “Load up.”
Paula leaned on her husband as he stepped onto the bus, still sniffing blood under the cover of Clarissa’s handkerchief.
The inside of the bus amazed her as much as the outside. All the cushioned seats had been radically repositioned; a single row of chairs lined the center while the rest had their backs placed against the reinforced walls. An office chair on a welded metal plate sat under the big gun next to the lavatory. Two platforms with shelves on each side replaced two of the center-row seats under the emergency hatches. Foodstuffs, medical supplies, and ammunition filled half of the space in the overhead compartments, under which several weapons rested in welded makeshift holsters. Even the driver's seat enjoyed the protection of armored metal plates, as did two-thirds of the windshields. It was scary and impressive.
Craig pushed past her with two baby car seats and headed for the back. “Children in the center, everyone else along the sides. Don’t touch any of the weapons unless we tell you to.”
Bob pointed at the seats and the lavatory. “The outer seats are double-armored, which is good because those gun slits aren’t quite as small as they look from the outside. The bathroom works, too. Ben installed a flush system that might come in handy with pursuers.”
Paula cringed, but Sean chuckled. “We’d crap on them?”
Bob shrugged. “It’s not like we’re getting pulled over for littering. Grab a seat and strap in.”
Paula and Sean sat together in the middle of the bus.
“Those seats are taken,” Craig told Clarissa up front.
Clarissa glared at Craig and pointed behind the driver seat. “How about that one? I’d kind of like to see what’s coming for my daughter.”
Craig waved her on, and she strapped her baby’s car seat into the center row.
Gilda secured an IV bag to the overhead bin above one of those reserved spots.
Executive privilege, Paula thought, but her current predicament made her glad she had a place on this bus at all. She started to believe she—they all—had a chance.
*****
Isaac wasn't sure whether or not he was on a sinking ship—or why he wasn’t already jumping, but there he was helping a corpse lug Cody to the Garage.
Blake and his foster kid Dandy dragged that crazy little redhead into the Garage. She screamed and cussed the whole way.
“Why don’t you kill that skinny white bitch already?” he asked.
Didi looked him like he’d said something wrong. “Insurance. Why does skin color matter so much to you?”
Isaac scowled at the dead chick with the bad make-up job. “Oh, don’t act like it doesn’t matter to anyone else. Shit, look who’s coming at us now.”
“That kind of thinking will get us all killed,” Cody said with difficulty. “We don't have time for that shit, not when we’re … about to get mowed … by a bunch of psychos.” He took a few more breaths and pulled himself together. “We're all equally screwed if we don't work together.”
Isaac glanced at Didi. “That what you think, too?”
Didi shrugged. “Why should I care? Everybody tastes the same to me.”
Her equalizing reference didn’t sit too well with him, and he certainly didn’t like being taken to school by white people—living or dead. But, she had a point.
“I guess that means … living and dead are really the only two … races left,” Cody croaked, then laughed like he was wheezing.
“Where does that leave me?” Didi looked like she was offended, except for that little smile creeping up on her. “I think I’m offended.”
Isaac let himself laugh until Rachelle screamed her head off. “Rotters!”
CHAPTER 29
THE HORDE
When Didi reached the theater roof, she followed Rachelle’s eye line and saw another of her worst fears realized, even if not very clearly. She asked for her pupil’s binoculars and, through them, watched a massive horde of her so-called peers fill the streets in the east. She had no idea how anyone could drive them out in such organized force without being seen or eaten. Who did it was no mystery.
She pondered her options. She couldn’t just go out there and hack down that many. Blowing up each intersection would require more time than she had to install enough explosives. Half the camp was still filing into the Garage, and Cody waited with Isaac for a report.
She dialed her cell phone and clipped it to her belt. “Cody, we may have five minutes before the biggest horde of boneheads I have ever seen is right on top of us.”
“Can we delay them?” Cody asked.
“With what?”
While she waited for an answer, Rachelle looked at her like she wanted to be in on the conversation. Didi pushed the SPEAKER button on her cell phone.
“I’m coming up blank,” Cody slurred while huffing. “My head’s too fuzzy.”
“Can we hurry up so we can survive this shit already?” Isaac yelled.
Didi laughed. “Isaac, get him on the bus, then meet me and Rachelle in the Armory. Grab Craig, too.”
“What are we going to do?” Rachelle asked as Didi headed for the access panel.
Didi tossed open the panel and mounted the ladder. “Trust me. You’ll love it.”
*****
Strapping on his last leg holster, Isaac felt like Isaac Hayes in his late father’s favorite film, I'm Gonna Get Ya, Sucka! Despite how that Wayans’ Brothers character ended up, he still agreed with never having enough firepower. To avoid ending up like that guy, he checked the floor for loose bullets. He was surprised there weren’t any after the hasty way the camp moved the ammo boxes onto the bus.
He glanced over his half-armed yet doubly determined cohort with a hint of pride. “They won’t stand a chance against you.”
“Don't make fun,” Rachelle replied while slinging an M4 Carbine rifle around her back.
He ignored her retort, but he couldn’t ignore her having that rifle. “You know how to use that thing?”
“It can't be that hard. Take off the safety, aim for the head, and rotters go down.”
He scoffed and reach for her rifle. “Hold on, kid. Let me give you a few basics.”
She smacked his hand away. “You worry about yourself.”
Isaac almost slapped the sneer off her face, but Craig grabbed their arms like they were both kids. “Hey! Let’s focus, huh?”
Isaac and Rachelle stared each other down, then nodded. Craig walked away. Rachelle sneered at Isaac and followed Craig.
Nearby, strapped from shapely thighs to static brown eyes, Didi smirked at him.
“What?”
“I think she likes you,” the dead chick said.
Isaac rolled his eyes and followed the others.
*****
On the roof of his R.V., Kenny watched the first wave of his troops converge on the compound and claw at the walls. The next waves bunched up on the first and followed suit, absently competing for the right to tear into the juicy insiders. Many bypassed th
e initial pileup and grabbed walls down the street. Soon, the entire compound would be surrounded. He only wished they could climb.
Movement on the rooftops caught his attention, but whoever was up there stayed low. He squinted into his binoculars as a few small objects fell into the horde. A few seconds later, explosions ripped through his several troops and tossed others in different directions. Several writhed helplessly on the ground without enough limbs to push them forward. The rest got back up and continued going for the walls.
That woman visited a munitions bunker or two, he thought, then wondered how many explosives the Death Doll had left. The damage done to the theater walls made him optimistic.
He listened with the cell phone Pat acquired as the Death Doll told her people how well their attacks worked yet didn’t. Several of her followers similarly responded. She ordered them to, “Wait until the boneheads bunch up again, then drop the next payload.”
Another round of grenades blasted more of his troops, but their hungry buddies kept moving in. When gunshots snapped through the air, Kenny knew she exhausted her store of explosives. He had to give her tactics some credit, but their efforts were futile. The Pride of Life had rounded up the largest assembly of the dead anywhere and had them smothering the compound like rotten molasses.
He ordered Pat to head to the southwest corner of town. Cracks and potholes made the ride a little bumpy, but his lieutenant drove slowly enough. They had time.
Well, he thought they did, until he spotted a commercial bus emerging from a warehouse door on the west side of the compound. He smiled at their clever diversion. “Pat, we’ve got a bus to catch.”
The Death Doll Page 20
