by Garth Ono
"It's a Land Rover Defender," Kate said. "It's very reliable."
She fought the urge to inform her that despite its battered appearance, the Defender was still worth as much as a small home in Tennyson. In fact, her parents urged her to sell it and invest in real estate. Not going to happen.
"Isn't that one of those English car companies?" Victoria asked. "You're really into that British crap, aren't you?"
Haley barked a laugh. "She's not nearly as obnoxious about it nowadays. Before she started Got Zombies? and started wearing company logo shirts, she wore Union Jacks on everything."
"Shut up," Kate said.
"Worse, when in England, she wore American flags on everything," Haley added. "She's an in-your-face girl on both sides of the Atlantic."
The other women laughed. Kate glowered at her sister. She caught a lot of heat for doing it while growing up. Mostly from her parents who wanted to know who she was rebelling against. Problem was Kate didn't know. She just liked doing it.
"Get stuffed," Kate muttered. "It's not that funny."
"The truth hurts," Haley said, and then poked her in the ribs. "But it made me love you more. You've always had spunk, and you never back down from a fight."
"I wish," Kate said. "I run more often than you think. I'm not proud."
"That has nothing to do with pride," Shea said. "That means you're smart enough to choose your fights."
"Aw, you guys are the dog's bollocks," Kate said.
"What did she just call us?" Victoria asked.
"I'm not sure," Haley said. She shrugged, "But I think that's a good thing in England."
They quickly armed themselves. Kate came ready for the forest. She wore camo pants and shirt, and armed up with her usual complement of weapons: Lupara, 9mm, long knife, and kukri machete. Earlier the other ladies cooed over her "fancy" machete. They all wanted one, too. She was surprised that they all carried cheap store-bought machetes. Before they left the apartment, each of them ordered one online.
The others were all wearing loose jeans, hunting boots, and long sleeve shirts of various colors. They didn't see a reason to wear camo. It was dark. There was no color, so why? Kate didn't have an answer for that, other than it seemed like a good idea to her.
Shea armed up with a Glock 31 in a shoulder holster, with a machete on her hip, and a double-barreled, sawed off shotgun on a long strap. She did have a very large Bowie Knife, too, to chop off heads she said.
Victoria also had a Glock 31, but holstered on her hip. Her machete hung off the other hip. Both an Uzi submachine gun and a sawed off pump-action 12-gauge hung from straps over her shoulders. She was the most heavily armed, and the one who scared Kate the most.
Haley carried the same Glock 31 as the others, so they could share ammo. A machete and Uzi finished out her complement of weapons. Kate thought she looked under-armed compared to the rest of them.
Kate led the way into the dark forest. They traveled in line, moving slowly and carefully. She kept a sharp eye out for undead sentries. As she spotted them, Kate pointed the perfectly still rotters out so the others would be extra careful. They passed three sentries before they were spotted.
"Bleeding wanker," Victoria snarled and attacked it.
That made Kate pause. That wasn't an American expression, but one Americans thought the British used. So it was a dig.
Despite the jab, Victoria moved with catlike grace as she rushed through the night forest. Kate watched in awe as the redhead closed with the zombie, kicked aside his hands, and then decapitated him. It took less than five seconds.
"She's good," Kate whispered to Haley.
"Victoria's the best."
Despite the speed and silence of the kill, it did stir up the other sentries. Kate heard them rushing through the woods toward them. So she took off running, heading for the sawmill. The other women spread out, moving just as quickly.
"There's a lot more of them than I expected," Kate cried.
"That's pretty typical," Shea said.
Two female rotters appeared out of the darkness before Kate. She juked to the left, and went right. Her machete took off a leg above the knee, before she turned and split the other zombie's head in two. She saw Haley decapitate another, and then Shea gutted yet another, before she took off running again.
"It's just over this hill!"
Kate topped the low hill and stopped. The sawmill looked pretty much as she remembered it. It sprawled along a big creek, probably just shy of being a river. It was deep enough to float logs. More zombies were coming at them from the mill, and she noticed a man in all black shouting orders.
"There he is!" Haley cried. "Kill the drac!"
Releasing the machete to hang by the lanyard around her wrist, Kate brought up her shotgun. Boom! Boom! Two zombies fell back down hill, while she broke it open, ejected the spent shells, and loaded two more.
Shea and Victoria started firing their shotguns, and Haley opened up with her Uzi. It sounded like a battleground. Kate took the machete up and charged down the hill. The vamp vanished inside the ruins. She growled, knowing it would be hard and dangerous to root him out.
Alternating between machete and shotgun, Kate rushed towards the last place Alexander was seen. Mostly she just wounded the rotters. Her primary concern was taking out the vamp. When he lost his head, then the zombies' effectiveness would diminish dramatically. They'd be easier to divide and conquer.
Shea reached the ruins first. She went in without hesitation, shotgun booming. A male cry of alarm echoed through the night forest. Kate smiled grimly, as she hacked the head off a teenage zombie. And then she pressed Lupara to the throat of pretty teen zombie in a bikini and blew away her throat and spinal column. Dropping Lupara to hang on its strap, she pulled her 9mm to pump five rounds into the faces of as many zombies.
"How many friggin rotters are there!" Kate screamed.
"Probably one too many," Haley growled. "There are always just one too many."
"Shit!" Shea screamed. A second later she came charging back out of the ruins. "He has reserve rotters!"
At least another ten zombies followed her out of the ruined sawmill. Instead of running back up the hill, the blonde cut left and circled back around to the mill. Most of the zombies continued up the hill. Haley, Victoria, and Kate charged down to meet them.
Kate kicked, punched, and swung her machete left and right, while ducking, juking, and doing all she could to ensure none of them got a firm hold on her. Arms and legs began to litter the ground. Some of the rotters came at them hoping on one leg, or crawling. They never stopped attacking until they were beheaded.
Seeing that Haley and Victoria had the upper hand, Kate broke free of the melee to go after Shea. The blonde head hunter was firing her pistol somewhere in the ruins. The zombie slayer wasn't sure if Shea ran out of shotgun shells are lost that weapon in the fight. She just knew her friend needed help.
Two rotters jumped in front of Kate as she approached. Even in the dim light of that cloudy night, the brunette could tell they were a pair of the most rotted zombies she'd encountered. Their stench preceded them. It was nauseating.
"You blokes definitely dug you're arses out of the grave," she gasped.
Kate was short of breath and had a stitch in her side. That didn't happen often. Then they split up to come at her from two sides. That seemed a little too cunning for the undead, which proved they were vamp minions.
She paused to pull her pistol and empty what remained in the magazine into one of their heads, before dropping the pistol and turning on the other with Lupara. Boom! in the face. Boom! in his chest. The face shot made a gooey ruin of his eyes, so she turned on the other.
"Stupid rotter," she growled, thrusting the machete deep into his belly, and then slashing down and to the right. His guts spilled out, and the stench was horrid. "Ack!"
He reached for her, even as his feet entangled in his bowels. The zombie fell to all fours. Kate stepped to his side, and brought the machete
down on his neck.
"There's another $50," she whispered. "Split four ways."
Haley and Victoria were up to the sawmill. Kate took off around the side, following Shea's path. The blonde head hunter was still firing her pistol, so the battle wasn't over. It sounded like Shea was in the main sawmill section, which was mostly burned to the ground, but sections remained standing. They weren't in very good shape. Mostly, Kate saw lots of spooky shapes sticking up here and there.
"Shea!" she cried. "Talk to me!"
"I got him cornered, but there are too many rotters guarding him," she responded.
Kate followed Shea's voice, and her now sporadic gunshots. Haley and Victoria joined her just before they found the blonde standing out in the open and shooting into a half-shell of a building. Alex was hiding in a room left untouched by the fire.
"Are you sure he's in there?" Kate asked. "Is Mongrel with him?"
"Where's he going to go? And I haven't seen Mongrel, or any other minions."
That was worrisome. Where was Mongrel? Kate prayed he wasn't leading more zombies against anyone in town. So she quickly texted the sheriff to be on the lookout for the minion and zombies.
"Where are all these rotters you whined so pathetically about?" Victoria asked.
"They went into the room with him, bitch."
Kate cocked her head, and her eyes locked with Haley's. Her confusion was mirrored in her sister's expression. Haley spoke first.
"Why would rotters hide? Bullets don't hurt them," she said.
Shea frowned. A light flickered to life within the room. The women could see it through the gaps in the lumber. It didn't take long before Kate recognized it.
"Fire."
"Why would they light the room on fire?" Victoria asked. "It won't hurt us."
"They're not in there anymore!" Kate cried as she turned to run around behind the building. "There's a way out on the other side!"
There was no one in sight when they reached the other side. By that time the dried wood was blazing merrily. Kate spotted a place low on the wall where it looked like they smashed through the rotted siding. She sighed gustily. A $15,000 bounty escaped.
"Well, that sucks rotten eggs," Shea said. "Sorry. My bad."
"Let's just gather up our heads," Kate said. "I'm exhausted."
They had a little more work than that. The slayers spent the next hour hunting down crippled zombies crawling around, chopping off heads, and bagging them. They left there with fifteen heads. Not a bad night's work, but they still felt like failures.
Chapter 13
"Just four girls did this?" Alex demanded.
Simon knelt before him, trembling like a leaf. Mercy, his wife, looked worried, too. Even though both were his minions now, they still shared a bond. His power over them superseded that emotional bond. If he ordered it, Mercy would kill him without hesitation.
"They are not normal women," Mongrel said. "They are slayers. Head hunters. This is their stock and trade."
That comment surprised the drac. Mongrel didn't like Simon, and had even forced him to watch as the bigger minion banged his wife and sisters-in-law. Yet, he was defending Simon's incompetence against the four slayers.
Alex sucked in a slow breath, rubbing his temples. It seemed that every time he had a setback, it was because of some zombie slayer. Specifically, the slayers in Tennyson. Mongrel's former partners were back to torment him again.
"We're going to deal with them, once and for all," Alex said. "If we were over in the Zombie Lands I'd kill them and make them my undead minions. Since that is not an option, I want them taken alive. I will turn them into my minions."
"If we can't capture them?" Mongrel asked.
"Kill them. Butcher them. Hang their body parts all around Tennyson to show the others what we do to troublemakers."
The big minion nodded and smiled. Alex sometimes wondered if he enjoyed killing as much as it appeared. The vampire didn't really enjoy killing people. He loved forcing his authority and absolute control over others.
Alex turned to Nicole, "What is the damage?"
The mayor glanced at her kneeling son-in-law, licked her lips, and then looked dead in Alex's eyes. She looked uncomfortable, worried for Simon, but answered truthfully. Nicole had no other choice.
"The fire spread and took out every remaining structure, so there isn't anywhere here that's covered for you during the day, master," she said. Another hesitation. "The zombie slayers took fifteen heads and crippled another five rotters. Most are missing hands or arms. One lost part of a leg. So, after the second batch of zombies we brought over, that leaves you with a grand total of fifty-five undead minions."
"Five of which are missing limbs," Mongrel added. "Sir, I suggest we set up an ambush to capture the head hunters."
"That would be my first choice," Alex said, letting his agitation peek through. "But how? Where? At least one of them is local, so knows the lay of the land."
"So do I, master," Simon said. He smiled cruelly. "In fact, I know the perfect place to ambush them. Give me twenty rotters, and I'll deliver four living slayers to feast upon."
Alex was tempted. Despite his previous fuckup, with almost thirty zombies, Simon sounded and looked confident. It was the first time the guy has acted confident. Of course, he might just be doing something desperate to save his life.
"Mongrel?" the drac asked.
The ex-biker shrugged. "Give me time, and I'll find a way to ambush and capture them, but if Simon already has a site and plan…"
That was about as high of an endorsement Mongrel would give. It wasn't much of an endorsement, either. Alex was the vampire. The master. It was his decision. Go with Simon who had an idea, or wait for a more competent Mongrel to find a way?
Alex shook his head woefully. It always came back to his undead life wasn't anything like the books, movies, and TV shows he loved. No luxury. No fine clothes and expensive cars. Not a bit of glamour. All he got out of being turned was just cold, wet, and dirty, while surrounded by incompetence.
Tennyson offered him the chance to be Master of the City. The absolute ruler. An undead king. All of the town's most beautiful women would flock to him, eager to give him their throats, their bodies. He just had to conquer it, and four women and the local cops stood in his way.
"They took my home. They burned it to the ground," Alex snarled, anger flaring. His eyes narrowed at Simon. "So I will take theirs. I will have my vengeance, and then I will have all of Tennyson."
The minions all nodded solemnly. Mongrel wasn't so solemn. He looked eager. Vicious. Alex wished he could be so big and scary. Then he noticed Simon had a cruel smile on his face.
"How sure are you that your ambush will succeed?"
"I swear on my life it will work."
"If you fail me again, I will kill you," Alex said. He looked at Mercy. "And I'll give your wife to Mongrel as his personal slave."
The latter threat worried the young minion the most. Simon and Mercy shared a distressed look. Mongrel grinned with wicked glee.
"I will not fail you again, master," Simon said.
"We cannot give him too many zombies," Mongrel said. "Not if you still want to take Tennyson tomorrow. In fact, I would suggest we wait a day or two, so you can Call more zombies. The bigger the horde, the easier the conquest."
"I will not wait that long," Alex said. "And you overestimate the peoples' willingness to fight zombies. Most are terrified of them, and will do anything to avoid them. The town will buckle and surrender quickly. Do you agree, Mayor Gilbert?"
"I will ensure it, master," Nicole said. "I will lead the town of Tennyson into your absolute power."
Alex felt all tingly at the prospect. Then his eyes fell upon one of the zombies to survive the slayer attack. His right arm was cut off above the elbow. So the drac turned back to Simon.
"First, though, the town's champions must be eliminated," Alex said. "I expect you to fulfill your promise and capture the slayer girls. I want them aliv
e. I'll celebrate my conquest of Tennyson by feasting on their blood. I'll force them to become my minions. My slaves."
Mongrel groaned at the prospect. Even Simon's eyes glazed over a second. Those bitches were the bane of all of their existence. It was time to eliminate the threat, and bring them within the fold.
"Give me twenty rotters and the slayers will be yours before the sun sets tomorrow."
Chapter 14
Kate's eyes popped open. Was someone in bed with her? Then she remembered Haley, and started to drift back to sleep.
"What time is it?" she said, eyes popping open. It wasn't dark anymore. She overslept. "Jesus, it's almost nine."
Technically, since she wasn't required to be at a job anywhere, she couldn't oversleep. But Mr. Rose usually came outside to begin his daily yard work around eight. And she had a truck full of dead heads. He would piss himself if he ever learned those zombie heads were brought onto his property. Kate wanted to get up early, and be out of there by 7:30 AM. She'd have breakfast at the diner, supporting her former employer, and wait for the sheriff to show up. Instead, she overslept.
"Did I forget to set the alarm?"
"Shut up," Haley said, and kicked her leg. "It's the middle of the night."
"No, it’s the middle of the morning," Kate said, rolling out of bed and heading for the bathroom. She'd showered before bed, so all she needed to do was braid her hair and hit the road. "I have to go turn in those heads for the bounty. You and the girls can stay here and sleep off, um, whatever it is you're sleeping off."
Averting her eyes, she tried not to look at the sleeper sofa. Still, she noticed both women were lying atop the covers, completely naked, with Shea's head on Victoria's chest.
I'll never be able to unsee that, she thought.
Kate didn't have any alcohol, so they weren't sleeping that off. As far as she knew they didn't take any drugs. So she didn't know why they were so sleepy. Hell, they'd even gotten to bed a lot earlier than Kate had thought possible. Maybe they needed more than six hours sleep?
In the bathroom, she quickly washed her face again. That helped to wake her up more than anything. By the time she'd relieved herself, and even had her hair braided, she heard the others moving around. She came out to find all three in their underwear and sifting through her fridge.
