Paul’s daughter left the building and kicked the wall as hard as she could. It started to tumble down. The sound would have been loud if there wasn’t so much other destruction happening around them. The building came down on the calm zombie. It crashed down in a single heap, with the zombie in the middle.
Paul’s daughter looked toward the area she needed to go. Now that she had dealt with this threat, she needed to go help her father. Before she did that though, she needed another weapon. She didn’t know how many of these calm zombies there were out there. She would need ever advantage she could get. She found a fairly pointed rock and wondered how well this would work.
A force pushed her from behind and into the ground. It was the same calm zombie from before. The moment she was on the ground it jumped on top of her. She went to smash the rock on the blue brain’s face, but the zombie just batted it aside and out of her hand. The zombie looked at her in an intense hunger for food. Saliva started to gather at the zombie’s mouth.
Paul’s daughter battered at the zombie, causing several scratches. The zombie grabbed her arms and held. She tried to kick the zombie, but the way her legs were pinned against the blue brain’s weight meant that she couldn’t move her legs much. She twisted her head back and forth. It was probably a futile effort, but everything within her told her to struggle and fight. The zombie opened its mouth wide and went in for the bite. It paused its mouth an inch way from the flesh. It then straighted back up and grabbed her hair. It dragged her calmly to a building and thew her in with ease.
She jumped for the entrance trying to dart out, but something was blocking the door. The zombie had barricaded the door shut with a board. Not understanding what was going on, she started pounding her fists on the door. She heard the zombie snorting and huffing outside. She guessed that this was the closest to a laugh that the zombie could make. The blue brain laughing at her made her angry and she beat her fists harder against the door.
“More noise, Alpha bait, more.” The zombie said snorting louder.
Paul’s daughter immediately stopped. She didn’t want to lure her dad here, if he was even still alive. Once the zombie didn’t hear any more noise from within the building, it left.
Paul’s daughter looked around the room, for a weapon of some sort. She knew that this thing might be back and she didn’t want to be defenseless. However, the building did not contain any knives or other weapons. There was no hidden room of explosives or other goodies. It was a store building that contained mostly useless items. She found a hammer and decided to try and use that against the calm zombie when it came back.
She heard noise outside shortly after finding the hammer. She tried her best to hide near the door. She would lower the hammer immediately as the zombie entered. Perhaps she could stun it enough to get a few more blows the head. If it was enough, perhaps she could even kill the thing. However, what first entered the room was not the zombie.
A loud crying woman was pushed roughly into the building. She cried and wailed loudly into the night. Paul’s daughter almost brought down the hammer on her head, but luckily stopped just in time. The door quickly closed behind her. The noise continued and Paul’s daughter did everything she could to console the woman. On the surface, it looked like she was doing a kind gesture. The truth was that she was trying to get the woman to shut up. She didn’t want her father coming to rescue them and find this odd zombie in waiting. She had nearly got the woman calm, when the door opened again. An angry man was yelling at the zombie pushing him in.
The man fell to the floor inside the building and quickly popped back up to face the zombie. The guy yelled and cursed at the zombie. The zombie casually bit his arm and then kicked him further into the building. It’s eyes met Paul’s daughter and the thing smiled. The zombie actually smiled. It closed the building’s entrance. The woman looked at the man in horror and the man at his bite mark. It was only a moment before the woman started yelling and backing away. The man started yelling at cursing at himself for being so stupid. Paul’s daughter looked back at the door. This was not some mindless killing machine she was up against. This thing could reason. It was a hunter. It was a destroyer. It was a plague.
‘What was that thing?’ Paul’s daughter thought as she ignored the occupants inside. They were too concerned with their own matters to pay attention to her. A chill ran up her spine like a spider crawling up her neck. Her flesh tingled with a dark threat of destruction. Whatever that thing was, it was a bigger threat than an infected dinosaur. After all, dinosaurs don’t laugh at killing little girls.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Small Victories
The building had begun to fill with people. Some were bit and turning, some were simply hysterical. She wasn’t sure the purpose behind keeping them alive for the moment. What would these zombies want with a pen full of humans? Perhaps they wanted to use them like livestock. That’s what one of the new captives kept going on about.
“Cattle. We are their cattle. They are going to grind us up and eat us like human burgers.” The man with long matted hair said to himself in the corner. He rocked slowly, trying to soothe himself. It was not working for him or the rest of the group. Everyone appeared irritated that he was speaking what was on their minds. A slow yellow puddle was forming beneath the man, but he didn’t appear to notice.
Every time the door opened, everyone scooted to the back. It was a natural response. Everyone assumed that the blue brains would come in looking for a snack. Most times, they threw in another captive.
This time, the calm zombie stood in the doorway, looking over the sobbing crowd. Everyone appeared interested in their feet or the wall. Paul’s daughter couldn’t blame them. No one wanted to be in this place. Worse than knowing you were going to die was not knowing why. Putting humans in a pen was abnormal zombie behavior.
As everyone looked away, Paul’s stood in the middle of the room, staring at the calm zombie in the doorway. She studied him as he looked at her. He finally walked casually in the room and pulled her out. Her grunts caused others to cringe in fear. The looked extra hard at their feet and the walls. Apparently the examination of these areas needed extra attention.
The calm zombie closed the door as he dragged her out. She saw that the zombie braced the door with a piece of wood. All the time it moved, it had one firm hand grasped to her. The zombie wasn’t alone. Near him a number of others eyed Paul’s daughter with hunger. To her it looked like she had walked into a lion’s den. Each one of these beings had an air of confident predator. The calm zombie continued dragging her away and into the forest. She continued to kick and tried to punch. The blue brain’s grasp was too much for her to break. The others followed nearby. She assumed that they simply wanted to devour her. She was unsure about the motives of these zombies, but she knew that they lived for killing and eating.
As they went through the woods slowly, she could feel large bruises forming on her legs. Every time they went near a downed tree or large rock, she had difficulty twisting her body around. Since she couldn’t avoid the obstacles all she could do was try to minimize the bruising. They continued forward until they were in the woods. She wasn’t sure what was special about this place in the woods. Still all of the zombies quickly spread out in a circle pattern. They slowly started to hide behind logs and stumps.
Once they were in a circle pattern and hiding from plain site, the calm zombie let go and began to speak. “Yell Alpha pup.” He commanded.
“Why should I? What do you want with me? Why are we here?” she asked in a rapid fire.
The primitive man looked down at Paul’s daughter. He pointed at her and said, “Bait”. She now understood the creatures full intention.. If she screamed her dad would come running in to save her. The zombies would then flood in towards them both.
She smiled. If they were still hunting her dad, then that meant that he was still alive. The smile confused the zombie and it drew out a knife. In a quick motion, it opened up a small gap on the gir
ls arm. It wasn’t anything near life threatening. Still it was enough to make Paul’s daughter gasp and hold her forearm. She yelped and the zombie began to smile.
The zombie tucked the knife back in its belt and looked around. It apparently thought wounding the girl would make her father appear faster. It didn’t understand things like reason or timing. All the these zombies were capable of was running down humans and eating them. At this pace the rest of the world would cease to exist.
Paul’s daughter reached for the knife. Perhaps if she was able to quick grab it without the creature knowing she might have a chance for escape. Not only did she miss, but she felt a solid blow hit her on the back of the head. The force was enough to push her to the ground.
Her instinct yelled at her to do two things; both contradicted each other. On one side, she thought she should just sit there and let this beast do whatever he needs to. On the other side, she didn’t care. She kept fighting him. She picked up a branch and hit the zombie as hard as possible on the side of the head. The creature barely even grunted as the stick broken in half.
As she continued fighting with the zombie, she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want her father falling for the trap. She would die with her mouth closed. The zombie continued to hit her and slice her, trying to wrench the sound from her throat. She slowly faded into unconsciousness. She saw the zombie turn to leave in frustration before she blacked out. In her death, as least she had this small victory.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Questions
The first set of experiments was complete. Instead of being an easy victory, they were a complete mushy pile of half successful ideas. However, within those piles of accelerated growth and combinations, were nuggets of interest. It wasn’t went thing went right that interested Hesh. It was when things went wrong for a reason that she didn’t anticipate. She continued working through the mess of wires and chemicals, when she heard someone breathing hard outside of the cave.
For awhile it was just a thought in the back of her mind. Something else that was less important than what she was focused on. Perhaps she could move forward and whatever that noise was outside would leave her alone. Something made a large squawking noise nearby and that drew her from her experiments. Had one of the creatures she was working on let that noise out? She began to check each one of the areas. When the noise came again, it was clear that the origin had not been a dinosaur bird.
“Anyone in here?!” came a rough voice, echoed throughout the cave.
Hesh suddenly, and for little reason, felt shy. Would they object to what she was doing here? Would they even truly understand? She worried that they would do everything in their power to end what she was working on. Worse, they would see some fatal flaw that she hadn’t and her time would be wasted. If that was the case though, perhaps it would be better if she knew sooner rather then later. She decided to call back and see what this new voice was all about.
“Yes” she replied softly. She realized that she needed to project her voice louder, so that the person could hear her. “Yes!”
“Is it safe in here? Blue brains won’t come in. Plus there is a weird smell here” the voice echoed around the words ‘weird smell here’ several times before finally fading away.
Hesh didn’t smell anything. Then again, perhaps her nose wasn’t the finely tuned instrument it had once been. Years of smelling foul dinosaur poop had robbed her nose of its sensitivity. Determined to figure out and confirm the stranger’s findings, she lifted her head and sniffed deeply. Now that she had a good whiff, she could see why the person had said the cave smelled back. Several large birds and chemicals would be enough to make many sensitive stomachs wretch.
“It smells because of the dinosaurs. They are harmless.” Hesh yelled back. She then looked at the rows or razor sharp teeth each dinosaur bird had. She looked at their long wingspan and muscles near the neck. ‘Harmless in a cave at least’ Hesh thought to herself.
She could hear several footsteps and then they stopped. She started to walk towards the sound when she heard the person’s voice again.
“Are any of them infected?” the person asked.
“Are any of the dinosaurs infected? Infected with what?” Hesh’s mind immediately went to bird flu and stomach parasites. Why would this person be concerned about a dinosaur having the flu?
“Back in town, there are infected dinosaurs. Infected with Janus’s kiss.” Said the distant shadow figure, stepping forward once again.
Hesh no longer needed to yell loudly to communicate. Now it was just a soft yell. “That’s impossible. I should know. I work with these animals all day, every day. It’s absolutely impossible for a dinosaur to get infected with Janus’s kiss.”
“What would you say if I told you that I’ve seen a zombie ride a dinosaur?” asked the shadow figure.
She could now see it was a man, but something was wrong about his arm.
“I would say that too is impossible. Zombies don’t think, they eat.” Hesh said.
“Well,” said the injured man, now coming into view, “the way I’ve been hunted here suggests otherwise.”
Hesh could see mud and tears on the man’s clothing. His arm appeared to be broken. His feet looked wrong and weird. It was as if he had only put on pieces of his shoes and then ran out in the forest. He stared at her taking in the sight.
“Tell me what you saw” Hesh requested.
“First you.” The man replied, then pointed at all the beakers and animals.
“I am a genetic engineer. I help build the dinosaurs that everyone uses to farm. I am looking to build a new prototype based upon these cave dwelling dinosaur birds.” She pointed at the creatures. “So far, I haven’t had much luck.”
“So why do the blue brains leave you alone up here?” he asked.
“You don’t get two questions and I get none. What’s your name?” Hesh asked.
“Sorry, the name’s Paul. I’d shake your hand but the arm is broken.” Paul smiled widely.
“Pale rider Paul? That’s you? Huh! I am Heshbon.” she asked.
“Nice to meet you. Now tell me what about this place scares the blue brains off.”
“I do, or did. Every time I caught a handful of zombies sneaking up on the area, I trained my birds to take care of them.”
Paul walked over and picked up a jar of caterpillars. “With these?”
“Yes,” said Hesh, “I suppose they now associate that smell with being destroyed by birds.”
“So you’re telling me that they are completely destroyed or just harmed a bit?” Paul asked.
“At first it was just enough to harm them a little. They kept getting closer and closer to my cave here.” Hesh signaled the area with her hands. “Then I decided to engineer something to help things continue to move forward.”
Hesh picked up one of the jars of caterpillars and showed it to Paul. “These are not regular caterpillars. They have a slightly addictive quality to them. Not enough to hurt the neurological pathways, mind you.”
Paul watched as all the birds eyed the jar with a primordial hunger. “Instead, this minor addiction gives them a strong preference. That preference is what drives them to pick through the zombies as much as they do.”
Hesh put the jar down and covered it. The dinosaur eyes remained fixed on the location of the jar. Paul noticed this and pointed, “Do they know what’s under there? That’s pretty smart for a dinosaur.”
“Yeah… that’s the part I really didn’t want to talk about.” Hesh said, grabbing her arm. “I am tired of creating mindless beasts to pull plows or stomp on blue brains. I decided to start working on something that had a more intelligence.”
“Why would you do that?” Paul asked, a little more forcefully.
“Because of what I dream that this dinosaur bird can do. Plus we lose so many dinosaurs to dumb things. What if these beasts could look out for themselves a bit more.” Hesh said, gaining speed on each point she made, “Fewer beasts lost means more time
building up things. Plus it is none of your business what science I practice here.”
Paul put his hands up in defeat. “If it keeps the zombies away, I am fine with it. The town’s been destroyed so I need a place to breath for a little bit.”
“What do you mean the town’s been destroyed?” Hesh asked.
Paul began to tell Hesh the entire story. From the first encounter with an infected dinosaur, to the waves flooding in, to his fight and flight from the town. After the story was complete, it took a lot of persuasion from Paul to keep Hesh there.
“If I could go out and inspect these infected dinosaurs I could…” Hesh started.
“You could die. This isn’t a lab. There are swarms of infected out there. If I can get a small one, and bring it back here, would that work for you?” Paul asked, pointing out the cave.
“Yes… but you are not in any shape to bring back any infected dinosaur.” Hesh rebuttal.
“I know, but I will be later. Let me heal up a bit, I’ll get you an infected dinosaur. In the meantime, I want to hunt around for nearby caves. My daughter was supposed to be in one of them.”
Janus (Zombies versus Dinosaurs Book 2) Page 11
