“Oh! Party girl” said the passenger with a smile. And the mother had had enough. She protested strongly but the girl had found a new confidence.
“I hold my own” she replied. And the mother slapped her daughter across the face. Tears immediately filled her eyes and the red mark across the girls face seemed to glow just as immediately. The she looked at the passenger.
“Ma’am, I think we have taken you far enough.”
The speed at which the passenger pulled the Sig P226 from behind her back shocked everyone in the car. Mother and daughter immediately moved backwards and the father shifted his bulking frame so far to his left that his head actually banged against the passenger window.
“No” she said calmly. “I think you have gone more than far enough.”
She turned her eyes to the driver and said “Take the shoulder and you will come to an exit in about three miles, you are going to take it. Understood?”
The man nodded quietly and listened to his wife’s weeping, turning his head slightly to check on her.
“She’s fine. A fat disgusting cunt like her would have had a heart attack if she wasn’t just looking for sympathy.” Then, after a second’s pause, she said “Drive!” The man obeyed.
The passenger reached into her pocket and took out a bag of small white pills. It was full almost to the point of overflowing and she passed it to the girl.
“Take a couple,” she said and smiled “there will be no more bullying for you.” The girl accepted and popped two of the oxytocin pills into her mouth.
“Thank you” she said with a slight smile. She was scared, that much was probably obvious she thought, but the woman seemed to be holding no threat towards her. She had only gotten aggressive when her mother had hit her.
“She’s very pretty” the passenger said to the mother, and then looked to the father. “She’s adopted right?” The mother and father nodded in unison.
“Did you know?” she asked the girl who nodded in response.
“That’s fine, so was I” she replied. “I had a good adoptive father. I only asked one thing of him and he provided it.” She said the later sentence more to herself than to the other car occupants. A series of cars sounding their horns sang out in protest as the Escalade made its way down the shoulder, but she acted oblivious. The girl was looking more relaxed and smiling softly as the drugs took effect. She was getting high, and the embarrassment of her mother’s slap seemed to drift away.
“You good there Kitten?” she asked, and the girl smiled and nodded.
“You know the soldiers; they used to slap me to get me to do what they wanted. I tried to be strong, but then they would beat me harder. They called me their Caste Kuja. They nailed my natural father to a bed frame and hung him from a window. They called it justice.”
She paused and stared deeply at the woman in the back seat. Her overweight frame shook as she sobbed and made a vain attempt to curb the tears.
“You know what it is like to see your father crucified just to force you into giving someone a blow job?” The woman shook her head and said nothing. How could she know thought the passenger. This woman just stuffed her face morning noon and night. Her greatest concern had been running out of Pepsi and Ben and Jerry’s up to this point in her life.
“Well it’s a bit like getting your face slapped in front of a stranger just to get you to be quiet and obedient.” The girl giggled at this statement a little and the passenger smiled at her.
“That’s what they wanted from me you see. They wanted a little obedient girl who would spread her legs and not look at them while they abused and used her. It all started with a slap on the face. Every fucking time” She punctuated each of the last three words with a pause between each. Each word was filled with hatred and spat with venomous inflection.
“So, now you need to tell me why and how you are different to them?”
“I am sorry,” blurted the obese mother but the passenger felt nothing but contempt. As the mother brought her hands to her face, the fat of her forearms seemed to meld with her hands in a complete absence of wrists. They shook as she sobbed. The hatred built inside the passenger, and it was a hatred that she welcomed. Hate, for her, was a distant friend that returned when it was needed and was always welcome.
“It’s funny but that phrase you just used was just what they would say before I killed their families in front of them. The worst thing was that those wankers always seemed to plead more before you killed them. They valued their pathetic lives more the lives of their own families.”
“Please” the father said from the passenger seat as he pulled off Interstate 71 onto Route 35. “Just let us out, I will let you take the car, just please don’t hurt her.”
“Oh shut up!” she spat at the driver. “I already know I am taking the truck. You’re offering what is already mine.” She turned away from him quickly and then thought for a moment, trying to remember the map as he had memorized it. Another of the valuable skills she had learned from her adoptive father.
“Take Old U.S. 35 East.” She said, and went back to looking at the girl. She hoped she would be asleep soon, and then she could do what was necessary. She knew she was going to enjoy this one, and the ones with a habit were easy to control. She also knew that she would have to kill her if she was a witness to what she needed to do to satisfy her anger. “Everyone be quiet until I say otherwise, CeeCee needs a nap.”
The girl was asleep before they reached the small town of Washington Court House, and she decided the town would be where she left the mother and father.
As they turned left off of Water Street and moved the short distance along West Court Street she pointed out the parking lot of the Strip Mall. The town seemed deserted, and she was surprised. The roads were busy on the interstates, and they had passed a few lines of traffic headed in the opposite direction, but this place seemed deserted. A few people seemed to be wandering around in front of the Little Caesars on the intersection were Hinde Street crossed their current road.
Her mind was suddenly cast back to her childhood. Empty towns and burned out buildings after entire populations had gone to camps. Men were starved to death and the women and children were simply used: or murdered. Evil dictated the actions of the genocide, which was ostensibly carried out in the name of religion or national identity. She knew why towns looked like this, and she wanted to be away from here, because this is what it was like when hell visited.
As they pulled into the parking lot in front of the AT&T store, she waved the gun at the doors.
“Out!” she said, with a tone of authority that came from someone used to being obeyed. The mother complained and breathed heavily as she struggled to step down. And the vehicle seemed to rise a little on the driver’s side. The mother usually laughed to herself as she thought that this was the Escalade’s sigh of relief now its burden had been lifted. But she was in no mood for laughter today.
The passenger slid herself across to the driver’s seat and there was a slight sound when her leather jacket rubbed against the leather of the seats. Turning off the ignition she looked at the pathetic couple as the husband made an attempt to place his stubby arms around his wife’s bulk. It was almost comical to her. Had it not been for the high pitched scream from across the street she would have laughed.
Looking into the mirror she saw that the few people, who had been standing around, were walking towards the Escalade. There was another scream from the right in the direction of a line of brownstone houses. And as she looked, more people were headed towards the vehicle. Now the couple standing next to the vehicle looked around at those approaching.
“Help us! She’s stealing our truck!” shouted the mother. And she waddled forward. The passenger smirked at the way the woman seemed to be trying to run but her obese body was little faster than a walk.
Both the father and the passenger noticed the abnormality in the people of Washington Court House. They were all covered in blood and filth. Their labored pace made
their walk seem as if every step was a massive undertaking. The lead walkers seemed to be moving faster in reaction to the fat woman’s pleading for help. But it was the husband who screamed loudest.
“Eloise! Get back here!” the husband yelled. But as she turned, one of the lead walkers reached her. The blood soaked creature grabbed onto the fat woman’s arm. She pulled away quickly as if suddenly aware of the less than human appearance of the townspeople.
The father moved his bulky frame towards his wife but, slowed by his obesity, he was still several paces from her when the second of the sub-human creatures bit into the flab of her right arm. A third was on her now. This creature had been a child of no more than six or seven but she had managed to scale the woman’s body. She tore a large fatty bite from the woman’s nape.
The father now ran back towards his truck, a sight which the passenger not only saw but also responded to quickly by pressing down the door locks.
She stared back at the recently evicted fat mother with a sense of fascination. Her screams were horrendous as the pain of being eaten alive tore at every exposed nerve. She attempted to waddle back towards the vehicle, but another of the creatures was biting into one of her calves. The weight slowed her for a second and despite the horror of the scene, the comedy of the way she fell forward was not lost on the passenger.
The Husband was banging on the window loudly and screaming for help, but the passenger simply mouthed shush and waved her hand up and down.
She never took her eyes from the now prone mother as she disappeared under a pile of blood and gristle soaked zombies. Her screams were drowned out by now by the man banging on the window, but he was screaming so much that she could not make out a word. She wound down the window slightly and looked at him with a sense of annoyance.
“What!” she snapped, as if someone had spoken to her during a picture show, and shook her head at him.
“Please let me in!” he screamed as she saw some creatures, some that were not already devouring his wife, draw closer.
“No!” she said, as if the mere suggestion was absurd. As if to accent the ridiculous notion, she slid the car into reverse and watched the man howl in pain as the front wheel bounced over his foot. She found the scream a little annoying and was happy when the window was finally fully closed.
“You fucking bitch!” he screamed at her with a look of pure hatred.
“Now, Now, Jefferson Johnson Wilson” she said in mock disapproval. “You watch you language in front of my dinner guests!” She laughed to herself as she witnessed the father’s look of hatred quickly being replaced with an expression of sheer panic as the first zombie reached him.
He almost seemed to be attempting to crawl onto the hood when the first bite tore into his face. The passenger was mesmerized by the way the man still seemed to be screaming. His eyes were in place, but his nose, lips and cheeks were replaced by a hole that allowed her to see is tongue trying to form words.
“Hew, Hickey!” she said with a laugh to herself, as she watched on with morbid fascination. The violence of the situation was beyond anything she had ever experienced and after almost thirty years of the worst violence imaginable, this was a rare treat for her.
Another bite tore out his throat and the windshield was covered with a jet of blood that showered from a torn artery. She also knew she had seen all she would see for now as he slid down the side of the car and out of sight. She heard the groaning and the sounds of teeth tearing into raw flesh, but it was time to leave.
She lifted her foot from the brake and pressed down on the gas a little and the car bounced as the undead flesh eating monsters that fascinated her so much were crushed under the weight of the vehicle.
Using the windshield cleaner to wipe away as much blood as she could she pulled back onto Court Street and headed west. She stole another look at the sleeping girl in the back of the truck and smiled. They were going to shine in this brave new world.
“Good kitten,” she said as the girl stirred slightly. “You slept through the whole thing eh!”
CDC Cap
The only question he had on his mind right now was “Where the fuck did the President want to speak to him?”
He had been to the White House before, though he had never before been asked for by name. CDC Cap had assisted countless times with the briefings that one of his superiors was offering the President. Most recently these briefings had been on the Zika concerns and the Ebola epidemic.
However, this would be his first time actually giving a briefing. He was of course prepared to give a briefing. But he was not prepared for the unannounced arrival of US Navy Seals who now came bursting into the building via the roof. Neither was he prepared for a ride directly from his office in a Black Hawk Helicopter. The SEAL Team did not utter many words to him. Just enough words in fact for a curt introduction and the conveyance of the President’s request to go with them.
What surprised CDC Cap more was that he had been requested to leave from his office by Helicopter? The White House was only a few blocks from his office on E Street. He could have walked across the National Mall and been there in ten minutes.
Once airborne, and flying North, he realized why the SEALs had been sent. The city looked much like it did any other day as they began to rise. A few hundred feet above the offices, he had a clear view of the Washington Monument and the landmarks of The Capitol dome to the East and Lincoln Memorial to the West. These were common sites for him and a part of his morning running ritual.
The Smithsonian’s buildings still shielded the National Mall for a moment but as the great lawns came into view, the usual sight of tourists and locals enjoying a warm morning were absent. In its place, a riot was in progress. Around the White House compound, DC police in riot gear stood just inside the fence and it appeared as if the entire Secret Service and hundreds of Military had also surrounded the building. Marine one was lifting into the air as they began to bank east.
“We aren’t going to the White House?” CDC Cap asked one of the SEALs who shook his head.
“Where are we going?” he yelled over the beating of the helicopter blades. The SEAL gave the same response, and the Black Hawk banked eastwards.
CDC Cap saw the same sights around the Capitol, the lawns between the Supreme Court Building and the east lawns of the Capitol where filled with police, Humvees and soldiers. Surrounding them was a mob of people two hundred people deep, pushing at the Capitol’s defenders.
Even over the sound of the rotors, the crack of small arms and fifty caliber M2 guns filled the air. The Crowd started to fall but seemed undeterred by the hail of bullets that tore into them. Sprays of red and pink mist filled the air like spray from a fountain or waterfall, and the people continued to advance.
CDC Cap could not hear the screams of the people below, over the helicopter din and the sharp snaps of the report of weapons fire, but his imagination filled in the blanks for him. He stared in disbelief as the lines of tracers zipped through the air. Machine guns mounted on Humvees belched out fire and swung across arcs of fire. Tracers from guns intersecting as the designated areas of fire intersected. Yet the people still seemed to be stalwart in their attempts to reach the defenders, and slowly the defensive lines began to move backwards to the Capitol.
The Blackhawk circled around the carnage once more and CDC Cap saw a group of soldiers turn and run towards the Hummers. The destination was the perimeter of the line that stretched out to the east from the north eastern corner of the capitol building. CDC Cap watched in horror as four of the officers disappeared under a wave of people charging towards the relentless gun fire.
There was another crack of fire from his right, and as he turned, he saw a Navy SEAL with his eyes scanning the crowd. He fired again and as if to watch the track of the bullet, CDC turned his head down at the rampaging crowd. So may were falling he had no way of gauging which were falling to the seal next to him. The hummers continued to retreat and CDC Cap still looked on in disbelief.
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br /> He wanted to scream questions at the SEALS, he wanted answers, but he had no words to say. He was overcome with a flood of emotions foreign to him. He looked to the only SEAL no longer firing, the same one he had questioned earlier and received a shake of the head once more. It was at that moment that he realized he was not alone in his disbelief of this situation.
He felt the helicopter turn once more and, as he watched the nation’s Capital disappear below him, he saw that traffic was stacking up along route 50. As 495 came into view he saw even more traffic. The cars were only fifty or sixty feet below them.
It was only about twenty minutes later when he saw another familiar dome below. A slight green hue on the dome’s roof was only slightly darker than that of the rest of the Majestic white stone building below. Sitting atop of columns, it was not too dissimilar to the Capitol Building in design, only much smaller.
The Blackhawk was only a few feet above the Main Chapel of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland. It was when the Blackhawk began its descend on the lush green rectangle and red oval running track of Ingram Field that CDC Cap realized that he had arrived at his destination.
As they touched the ground one of the Navy SEALs placed a vice like grip on his shoulder and guided him from the chopper.
“Doctor Elias Yew?” asked a Midshipman, who looked barely old enough to have gotten her driver’s license. She was wearing the blue and purple digital combat fatigues of the US navy and had CDC Cap not have been a graduate of Annapolis himself he would not have recognized her 5 Gold Horizontal bars as showing she was a Midshipman Captain, which she confirmed shortly afterwards.
“Midshipman Captain Rose Sir, she said, before adding, “The President is waiting for you.”
Dozer and Bob-cat
The girl lying in bed next to her was not her lover, she wasn’t even a friend. She had simply been on the side of the road holding a sign that said “Anywhere but here.” The sign had made her smile and she seemed like a pretty little thing that could pass the time on a long drive. Besides which, when she saw the young woman, she knew the dangers of hitchhiking, and did not want anything to happen that she may have been able to prevent. For no other reason than that, she had pulled her truck to a stop and held the door open for the young woman.
Zombie Outbreak Z1O5 (Book 2): Zed Dawn Page 9
