Zombie Fighter Jango #2 Jango's Anthem

by Cedric Nye

  The opening was an eighteen inch square with a fan set in the center. Jango looked at Vanessa, who had finished getting dressed, and stood shaking in fear-filled silence.

  “Yeah, you’ll fit,” he said. A grim smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he spoke.

  “Please, Jango, please. What are you going to do to me?” Vanessa asked him in a hushed voice.

  “Save your ass,” he replied. “I’m going to save your ass.”

  He looked around the edge of the curtain that covered the window on the door, and spotted at least ten zombies that milled and sniffed around his car and the front door. He hurried back to Vanessa.

  Jango leaned in close and whispered his plan to Vanessa. “Those zombies out there, they aren’t really sure if there is anyone here or not, but more are going to show up, you can count on that. The moment we make any noise, and I mean any noise at all, those goobers are going to start screaming the zombie version of come and get it. We will be neck deep in zombies before you know it, so we have to work fast. You have to do exactly as I say, Vanessa, do you understand me?”

  She nodded vigorously, not trusting her voice. Her tongue had cleaved to the roof of her mouth, and her throat had gone dry from fear.

  When Jango saw that she was with him, he continued. “Do you see that skylight over the kitchen?” She looked at the ceiling, spotted the opening, and nodded.

  “I’m going to take the fan out of that opening, and put you up on the roof. You are going to lay as flat as a pancake up there. You are going to be as silent as the grave up there, and you are going to stay there until the coast is clear. Do you understand?” Jango asked.

  Vanessa’s brows knit together as she struggled to understand what he had just told her.

  He sensed her confusion and said, “I am going to bust out of that door, and lead those groaners away from here. When they are all gone, you will come down, get in the car, and go pick me up.”

  Realization dawned in Vanessa’s eyes as she realized the full extent of Jango’s plan. She shook her head violently and whispered, “No! No way, Jango! I’ve seen those things run, and you can’t outrun them! They will get you and eat you. Why don’t we just bust through, like you said, but then get in the car and go.”

  Jango smiled at her, secretly pleased that she actually seemed to care about him. He shook his head and said, “We can’t get that car unlocked and open before they make a meal out of us. I couldn’t even do it if I was alone. I’ve been in this position before, just never with another person to think about. I usually lead them away, and then double back to my car. This time, you will drive, and pick me up on the freeway. Just go back the same way we came in, and go south on the I-17. Put a couple of miles between you and New River, and then park off to the side. Make sure you shut the car off, and I will find you on the road.” Jango didn’t know if she would do as he said, or if she would ditch him. He did know that if she didn’t turn the car off when she parked, her brake lights would be a neon sign for any zombies or humans that lurked in the area.

  More thumps sounded, and Jango stood up. “Come on; let’s get this show on the road. If there are any zombies left after I leave, just use your best judgment on how to get out of here. There is a ladder at the back of this rig, and you can also get back down through the skylight. I am counting on you, Vanessa.”

  Vanessa’s knees felt like they were made of water, and her stomach felt like it had started to do somersaults. However, when Jango said that he was counting on her, she felt new strength flow into her mind and body. She stiffened her back, and nodded her head.

  “Okay, the moment I go to work on that fan, those goobers are going to raise a ruckus, so I will have to work fast. If you want to help, you can go and kick the wall on the side of the trailer that is opposite to the door. That might lead some of them away from the door and give me a better chance of making it.” Jango had climbed up on the kitchen counter, braced his feet, and gripped the mounted fan with both of his large hands. A smile split his scarred face as he said, “This should be interesting.”

  As soon as the words had left his mouth, his face contorted in a silent snarl, and he wrenched at the frame that held the fan in place.

  Vanessa ran over to the wall opposite the door as the zombies began to wail their terrible hunting song. She kicked at the wall furiously, and was rewarded for her efforts as the screams moved away from the door, and around to the other side of the trailer.

  Jango had already torn the fan from its mounting brackets, and had slammed his fist into the skylight. The Plexiglas cover flew off its hinges from the force of his blow, and spun away into the night.

  “Come on, come on!” Jango said urgently.

  Vanessa ran to the counter, and Jango grabbed her by her wrist, then heaved her up onto the counter as if she weighed nothing. He pulled the car keys from his pocket, stuffed them into her hand, and said, “Stay down, lay down, and be quiet, you will be alright up there.”

  Vanessa started to speak, to say thank you, but he had already grabbed her by her waist and pushed her out through the hole in the roof.

  She spun her body around, and looked through the hole just in time to see Jango as he grabbed his stick and shotgun. He turned back in her direction, and Vanessa swore that he had become a different person. The normally soft lines of his face had turned into hard lines and sharp angles. His eyes danced and burned with the feverish, eldritch light of genuine madness. He smiled then, a horrible grimacing smile that turned his face into a demon’s mask. She blinked her eyes in shock, and suddenly, he was gone.

  Jango paused at the door, and looked back at the hole in the ceiling. He saw Vanessa as she looked at him in concern, and he smiled to let her know everything would be okay. He took several deep breaths, and then slammed the door open. In a blur of motion, he had burst through the door, and immediately opened fire with his shotgun at the zombies closest to him.

  He fired all eight shots in no more than three seconds, and when the continuous roll of thunder was done, there were five unmoving zombies on the ground. Jango tossed the shotgun back into the trailer and ran for his life. He saw more than twenty zombies on the other side of the trailer, and they joined the ones who had already been by the door. Jango screamed wordlessly to get their full attention, and then he ran.

  His strong legs drove his feet hard against the ground, and he gained speed quickly. His arms pumped faster than the eye could follow, and his stick made a pale blur in the wan light of the moon as he ran.

  Jango gloried in his strength, and he whooped with joy as he ran. He had planned his run to lead the zombies away from the road, so that Vanessa would have a clear path out of town. His feet beat against the pavement like a drum-roll, and the zombies mindlessly followed where he led.

  After Jango had been gone for several minutes, Vanessa dared to look over the side of the trailer. She looked at the car, and then looked all around the area. She didn’t see a single zombie, but she heard their howls as they faded into the distance.

  She almost sobbed in relief, but instead, she steeled herself, and climbed down the ladder at the rear of the RV. Her hands shook as though they were palsied as she made her way slowly toward the car. When she reached the car, she quickly unlocked it, opened the door, and climbed in.

  Just as she was about to close the car door, she spotted Jango’s shotgun on the floor just inside the door of the trailer. She wanted to leave, but she knew that he liked the shotgun. She moaned in fear; the last thing she wanted was to climb back out of the car. However, she felt that if she left the shotgun behind, she would let Jango down.

  She climbed back out of the car, and raced over to grab the shotgun. Just as her hand touched the empty shotgun, a tuxedo-clad zombie came out of the large restroom of the trailer. Vanessa froze in place as fear turned her bowels to water and her veins to ice.

  The undead creature spotted her at the exact same time as had she spotted it. The monster opened its mouth to howl as it charged at he
r with incredible speed.

  Vanessa, without conscious thought, mimicked the movement she had seen Jango make with his stick. She brought the bulky shotgun up into a two handed grip, and lashed the heavy butt-stock forward in a clumsy stick punch.

  The velocity of her strike, the speed of the charging zombie, and the upward nature of her strike all combined into enough force to snap the zombie’s neck before the first sound of its hunting cry could escape its foul throat.

  Vanessa stared at the shotgun, and then stared at the zombie. Slowly, like the sun rising over a forest, a huge smile spread across her beautiful face.

  “What’s up now, goober?” she said as she started to laugh. Then her mouth slammed shut as she remembered that there might be more zombies about. Her smile disappeared in a flash. She raced back to the car, threw the shotgun on the passenger’s seat, and pulled her door shut. She locked the door, got the car started, and put it into gear.

  She drove slowly out of the fenced lot, turned right on the frontage road, and headed back the way that they had come.

  Vanessa had almost made it to the freeway before she remembered that she had forgotten her suitcase at the trailer. She moaned in despair as she thought about all of her belongings. She had her small emergency stash of hormones that she had refrained from taking just in case she got sick from missed doses. She thought about turning back so she could get her luggage. But then, she thought of Jango, all alone in the darkness as he led the ravening horde of creatures away so that she would be safe, and she suddenly realized that she would rather die than let him down.

  Since she had only known him for a little while, the realization surprised her. She found Jango to be confusing, amusing, and terrifying all at the same time, and she wondered why she felt such a fierce loyalty toward the obviously crazy man.

  She looked around at the dark and inhospitable desert as she turned onto the freeway, and wondered where he might be.

  At the exact moment that Vanessa had wondered where he might be, Jango had gotten himself hemmed in by a small pack of zombies.

  He had been running hard, and had drawn well ahead of his pursuers, when all of a sudden he had come to a dead end. The rock walls on the sides of the road had gotten gradually higher, and then the road simply ended at a natural stone wall. It looked as if a road crew had blasted the mountain to make a road, but then stopped before the job was done.

  When he had turned to go back the way he had come, he saw that six zombies blocked his way. They saw him at the same time, and with a keening wail, they charged.

  Jango felt his body swell with strength as the dog and the albino woman meshed seamlessly into the matrix of their fighting mind. He slid forward as if his feet didn’t even need to touch the ground. As he moved, it almost looked as if he had become a wisp of smoke as he glided like a ghost along the asphalt road.

  When he and the pack of zombies collided, Jango cut through their loose ranks like a sharp knife through gossamer. He had raised his stick up into his two-handed grip, and slammed it into the underside of the lead zombie’s chin. The zombie’s neck snapped like a rotten twig as foul ichor sprayed from its ruined mouth and covered Jango’s chest and neck in a layer of slime.

  Without slowing, Jango angled his stick to the left, and rammed the limp zombie into the nearest goober. Then, almost as if it were a sentient thing, his stick snapped back around in a movement that he called the “side spear.” The tip of his stick slammed into a zombie’s forehead, and it dropped like a stone.

  Coming back from the side spear, Jango snapped his stick out in two mongoose-fast stick punches, and then spun smoothly away from the three remaining zombies’ grasping hands as the two that he had struck fell to the ground.

  Jango moved like death made flesh as he danced and struck, and every time his stick lashed out whip-crack fast, another zombie fell, never to move again. He used his own martial movements; the stick punch, the crown, the side sweep, and the side spear. In less than ten seconds, he had dispatched all six of the zombies, and started to run back toward the freeway.

  Vanessa had driven exactly two miles from New River before she pulled off the road, parked, and shut the car off. She sat as silent and as still as a statue. She twisted her fingers together in worry, and waited. She had a feeling that Jango had been killed. No one could outrun those monsters! She sat, and fingered the knife that she had pulled from the belt of one of the would-be rapists so that she could slash at one who had been about to shoot Jango.

  The knife had a gentle curve to the blade, like something from 1001 Arabian Nights. She had liked the knife so much that she just couldn’t bear to get rid of it. There was a stamp on the blade that said “KB Bryon” with a stylized paw print around the “KB.” She didn’t know or care what it meant; she just liked the knife.

  As she sat in the deafening silence, she convinced herself that Jango had died. She started to get mad; first at him, and then at the zombies for taking the closest thing to a friend that she had.

  “Damned zombies, I hate all of you!” She muttered vehemently.

  Vanessa looked around at the road behind her, and hoped she would spot Jango; but all she saw was the dark emptiness of the desert. When she turned back to face the front of the car, she was greeted by a wildly smiling face.

  Vanessa screamed, and had started to turn the ignition until she saw that it was Jango.

  She opened her door, jumped out of the car, and embraced him. She started firing questions at him almost immediately. “How did you get away? Where the hell have you been? What’s that on your shirt? It smells like ass.”

  Jango just stood and weathered the storm of questions for a moment, and then stopped her by saying, “Shhh, what was that noise? Did you hear that?” He pretended to look around for danger.

  He chuckled to himself as Vanessa immediately stopped talking, and then clambered into the passenger seat. “If it works, use it!” he thought to himself. He climbed into the driver’s seat, and started to load his shotgun. “Go ahead and get some sleep, kid, tomorrow will be a long day. We’ll hit Anthem for your pills. That town is, well, was, full of the rich and shameless. I know they’ll have your pills there. Anthem has piles of pharmacies and medical centers. I need you sharp, though, so get some sleep.” He settled back in his seat, and listened to Vanessa’s breathing deepen as she drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 10:

  Jango’s Anthem

  Jango knew that Anthem wasn’t more than twenty minutes away, and he also knew that they had plenty of medical facilities there. He figured they would be able to find the hormones and androgen blockers that helped Vanessa to be who she really was. He didn't know why this little quest had become so important to him; he just knew that it had. He had decided to help her, and once Jango had decided on a course of action, the only way to stop him would be to kill him.

  He kept driving, and they soon came to the off ramp for Anthem, with its huge outlet malls and boutiques that had once catered to every level of the social strata. Jango knew for a certainty that the pills Vanessa needed could be found in Anthem.

  Jango's knowledge base was fairly specialized, and mostly pertained to all the different aspects of combat, but his mind was also home to thousands upon thousands of odd factoids. And what he knew about hormone replacement therapy and androgen blockers was that rich elderly women used the products liberally in a vain attempt to stave off the effects of old age. They hoped to cheat the reaper out of a few extra years. He also knew that you had to have a lot of money to live there, which meant that the pharmacies and doctor’s offices would have carried a surplus of the hormonal supplements that Vanessa needed.

  Jango slowed the car as he took the ramp that led to the town of Anthem. He drove slowly along the curving ramp, and then made a right-hand turn that would take him to the outlet malls that the place had been famous for. His eyes constantly roved as he searched the landscape for any signs of movement, or signs of ambush. He wasn't foolish enough to think that t
here would be no survivors in the town of Anthem, and he also knew that the odds were that any survivors would not be friendly to him or Vanessa.

  They motored along silently as Jango steered the car into the stadium-sized parking lot of the mall. He piloted the car all the way to the far north end of the Anthem Outlet Mall, and hung a left at the end of the mall. He drove off to the side of the lot where the car would be unnoticed among all the other cars that had been abandoned there when all hell broke loose, and the world went to the zombies. He parked the car, shut the vehicle off, and then removed the key from the ignition.

  After a moment, he turned to look at Vanessa and said, “Look, it can get ugly out there, okay? I need to know that you will do what I say, and if the shit goes down, I need to know that you will do it fast. I can't fight at one hundred percent if I have to worry about where you are and what you’re doing, okay?” Jango was deadly serious.

  “I promise, I promise I'll do whatever you say, okay? I mean, I don't know anything about any of this zombie stuff. I had to fight a lot when I was growing up because of who I am, but it was never anything like this. I promise I will do whatever you say.” Vanessa raised her right hand toward Jango, made her hand into a loose fist and extended her pinky finger.

  Jango felt the pain-beast begin to rampage against the bars of his will as Sonja's fate was made fresh in his tortured mind. His face tightened and drew back into a rictus as an involuntary snarl ripped from his throat. Then, with a massive effort of will, he beat back the monster that dwelled within him. He took long, calming breaths until his mind was once again his.

  Jango raised his scarred and knotted killer’s hand, and hooked his pinky finger into the slim, delicate pinky finger of Vanessa's hand. “Then that's a deal,” he rasped. His voice sounded like a combination of his normal voice, and a rockslide on a mountain slope in hell.