by Goforth, Jim
She paused for a long period of time, lapsing into a deep silence in which the girls on either side of her shifted with a measure of impatience, while Black just stared intently at her with those dark menacing eyes. Tempest and Blizzard stood by, quietly smoking their cigarettes, both as impassive as Black.
Over in the shadows, away from the truck, Miranda continued to cling to Mark, while Dax merely gazed with a mixture of amusement and interest at the dead bodies of Doug and Wayne.
“We’d just reached…the outskirts of that coastal town back there…” Heather continued, waving her hand back down the road.
“Noumena,” Tempest interjected helpfully.
“Yeah. There. We…we were on the way out of there…when…” she halted again, this time only temporarily, and then proceeded, this time, spilling the words out much quicker without breaking it up with choking sobs. “We’d almost made it away from there when we saw a hitchhiker, or somebody running along the side of the road. A girl, obviously looking for help. Julietta said we should stop and help her. Doug didn’t want to, but she was saying for us all to remember how horrible it was back in Armada, just driving right on through, leaving people behind we could have stopped and saved. She asked how we would feel being left to die so horribly, to turn into…one of those things. That’s if we didn’t get ripped to pieces. So Doug stopped and we waited for the girl to catch up, and then she got in the back. Doug was driving, I was in the front passenger seat, and the others were in the back. There wasn’t very much room back there, but…she managed to cram in anyway. She was pretty skinny anyway, so she didn’t take up much space, but still…”
At this point Miranda had finally disengaged from Mark’s arms, though she kept a hand tightly entwined in one of his as she trailed over with him, closer to the centre of the focus, where Heather relayed the tale.
“I was in the back,” Miranda said in a subdued tone of voice, hoarse from crying and probably a lot of screaming prior to the arrival of the Subversion truck. “I was near the window, Jul...”
Her voice cracked a little here, but she managed to steel her resolve and persisted with taking over the story from Heather. “Julietta…was in the middle, and Wayne was on the other side of her. The girl got in next to Wayne. She was so thankful we stopped, but she was in some distress, she was pretty scared. Other than that, she seemed fine. Just happy somebody actually stopped for her. Probably…probably didn’t even expect to see a car come through at this time, but I guess…this is a main road…or a highway…or whatever, so sooner or later someone would have.”
She and Heather exchanged glances, both of them studiously circumventing the grisly corpses of the two undead on the ground, and further, the other two down in the ditch.
“Julietta was being nice to her of course, saying it would be okay, things like that, comforting her, and though she didn’t actually say what she was doing out here or anything, why she was running, we figured she saw things happen in town or something…I don’t know…anyway, by the time I really looked at her and realised…that she was bitten, it was too late. She’d had a jacket on and had it pulled tight around her like she was cold, but when she was leaning forward to answer a question Doug was asking, it kinda fell open…and I saw she was bleeding, she had a bite chunk torn out of her stomach. And then…”
“Then?” Tempest prodded, jabbing his diminishing cigarette like a punctuation device.
“Then instead of answering the question she just launched right at Doug. Because there weren’t enough seat belts in the back, well…she wasn’t belted in. She just…oh my god…she just latched onto him, ripping into his arm and he lost control of the car, swerved and ended up in the ditch.”
Black continued to gaze evenly and impassively at her while Tempest played the inquisitor, the prompter.
“Then what?”
“I got the hell out of my seatbelt and out my door, screaming for Julietta to hurry up. Heather went out her door. But Julietta never came. Neither did Wayne. I guess…I guess the girl got them all or Doug turned into one of those awful things too and…they all got each other. We ran, we hid over there,” she gestured with a shaking hand over in the general direction of dark cluster of shadow far off in the field. “Eventually they all just sorta came out of the car and wandered off into the dark. We didn’t dare move, we were petrified and frozen and just trying not to move, not to breathe, not to do anything so they wouldn’t find us. And I don’t know how long we were there before…you came along.”
Black just continued to stare at the two survivors of this horrendous experience, seemingly with no words to add yet, while Tempest, done with his cigarette, strode a short distance to where the corpse of UndeadWayne lay and dropped the smoking butt right down into that busted aperture that was the body’s face, letting it sizzle out in the welter of blood and brain. Then he walked back and stood right in front of Heather, his eyes almost black coals in his hard face.
“So you didn’t get bitten at all?”
“No!” She shook her head vehemently, her blonde hair flying from side to side with the vigorous motion.
“Prove it,” Tempest said curtly. “Show us.”
“Show you…what?”
“Show us that you are free of bite-marks.”
Looking confused, Heather held out her bare arms, turning them over to show both sides. Though she had splatters and streaky marks of drying blood on her skin, there were no visible punctures, teeth marks or bruising.
“Everywhere,” Tempest said harshly. “Stand up straight.”
Heather had been leaning back on the body of the Truck. She hesitated for a brief second, then straightened, flicking her hair back to expose the sides of her neck, also free of bites. The women on either side of her said nothing, they remained impassive and still, and further away, Black and Blizzard did likewise. Dax continued to wear a strange expression that might have been the same amusement evident as he looked upon the corpses.
“You’ve got blood on your blouse, blood on your skirt,” Tempest pointed out. “That could be from any one of your companions who were attacked. Or it could be yours. We need to know it isn’t yours.”
“I told you…”
“Show us,” Tempest grated.
With quivering hands, Heather rolled the bottom of her blouse up, revealing her stomach beneath, the flat plane of it unmarred by any prominent bites. She stopped just under her breasts and Tempest gestured with the knife still in his hand for her to continue.
“What?” Heather looked shocked. “I’m not stripping!”
“This isn’t a damn peepshow, lady,” Tempest snarled. “Nobody is trying to catch you in your panties just for a couple of eyefuls, this is to ensure the safety of my travelling companions. If you don’t want to comply, you aren’t coming with us. Pure and simple.”
“I told you, I didn’t get bitten! At all! Don’t you believe that?”
“I believe what I can see. After all the shit that has happened so far, we’re taking no chances.”
With something that might have been a dismayed huff of disbelief, Heather unbuttoned her blouse completely and then shucked it right off, clutching it in her hands. She held it up in front of her chest for a fleeting second then anticipating Tempest’s curt response to that, dropped her hands to her sides.
In her black lacy bra only, the top half of her was speckled by a few spots of blood which soaked through the thin fabric of the blouse, but there were no bites on the bare upper slopes of her breasts and the intact cups of the undergarment appeared not to be disturbed in any way.
Tempest nodded briefly and revolved the blade of his knife in the air, indicating for her to turn around. Heather did so, lifting her waves of flaxen hair up above the level of her naked shoulders, displaying a back bare but for the black strap of her bra. It was similarly dotted with some blood speckles, but no bites.
“Top half is all clear,” Tempest said and Heather swivelled back around, eyes widening as she understood that the
examination was not yet complete.
“What?” She asked in horror. “Isn’t that proof enough?”
“Lady, I don’t think you get the gravity of the situation, or comprehend the fact that these motherfucking fleshcravers are not particular about where they bite you. They will bite, chew, eat and rip apart every single inch on a warm human body and they aren’t about to pass something up for the sake of good fucking manners, or respect that eating certain parts is an activity to be kept between consenting adults in a different context. These guys…” Tempest aimed the point of the blade towards Dax, then swung it to encompass Mark over by the Truck’s rear, and Seth off in the distance with Scarlett. “These guys had one of their friends get his fucking dick bitten right off, for fuck’s sake. These humanivores couldn’t care less about which part is which, meat is all meat to them, and let me assure you, some parts are going to be succulent delicacies to them.”
Face burning to an embarrassed and humiliated crimson, Heather trailed her hands down to the hem of her floral skirt, the various blossom prints of the item now enhanced by florets of blood. She stared pleadingly at Tempest for a long time, but his hard expression never faltered. Back behind him, Black and Blizzard wore similar expressions, clearly all on the same page as their Subversion brethren and their women companions were evidently of the same mindset too.
Slowly Heather lifted her skirt up, dragging it right up to the level of her waist and held it high, leaving her legs totally bared, her black panties exposed. She stared Tempest in the eye, trying to gauge his reaction, but the hard faced drummer remained imperceptible, all business as he looked up and down her bare legs, nothing else mirrored in his eyes.
He nodded again and repeated his revolving blade circle manoeuvre, gesturing for her to turn around and she hesitated only briefly before complying, keeping her skirt peeled up high above her waist. Facing the Truck, she displayed plenty of bare flesh considering the black panties were of a thong variety, leaving both pale globes of her buttocks extremely bare, a thin strip of material disappearing up between them. With all that skin exhibited it made it easy for Tempest and his two Subversion compatriots to see that she hadn’t been bitten anywhere along the back of her legs or her backside.
Belatedly, Dax started to move from his position, almost certainly attempting to catch a glimpse of Heather from the rear while she was in the vulnerable state, but before he could make his way across there, Tempest spoke with a short statement of clearance.
“You’re all good. No bites. You’re off the hook.”
Heather promptly dropped her skirt back down hurriedly and flattened it against her legs, brushing the fabric, face still burning, and lowered to the ground.
Without giving her another look, Tempest instead turned his attention over to where Miranda stood, transfixed with horror near Mark. She knew what was coming as soon as the dark menacing eyes of both Tempest and Black found their way to her.
She started shaking her head even before either one of the Subversion men even uttered a word.
“No, no, no!” She stated adamantly. “I didn’t get bitten. I was out the door before any of them could get to me, before they’d all even been turned into those things!”
“We’ve only got your say-so to substantiate that,” Tempest said curtly. “And I’m not about to just take that as gospel.”
Miranda gaped at him, eyes wide.
“I can assure you, it’s the case. I got out before any one of them touched me!”
“So you said,” Tempest answered. “But like I told little Miss over there, I believe only in what I can see. And what I can see is as much blood on your leathers there as I saw on your friend’s clothes. She turned out okay, but that doesn’t prove you’re in the clear.”
“No, she doesn’t have to do this,” Mark snarled resolutely, keeping a firm hand on Miranda. Unlike Heather, with her relatively easy to lift and drop blouse and skirt, Miranda was wearing black leather, both top and pants.
“Well here’s the thing,” Tempest said. “You and your girl can go and try your luck with that busted ass piece of junk tipped up in the ditch over there. All you have to do is get it started, get it back up out of that ditch, onto the road and then figure out where the hell you’re going to go from there. By yourselves. And if your lady has been bitten or scratched or somehow infected, then you can enjoy the indignity of being eaten to death or mutated into a fleshcraver yourself, just like your buddy Seth almost was.”
Had it been the slightly more pleasant and generally quieter Blizzard making the statement, or perhaps even the malevolent Black, either one of them might have displayed a little more tact and skirted around that blunt remark, but Tempest was not one to dance around anything confrontational in the slightest.
“Furthermore,” he continued. “Speaking of Seth, don’t you think you owe him a little something? Don’t you think he deserves some kind of assurance that he’s going to be as safe as possible after he almost got his face ripped off by his zombie girlfriend and then had to witness her―your best friend too, girl—get her fucking head lopped off? Because if you can’t prove you are A-Okay and totally bite free, then you sure as fuck are not getting in that Truck and you aren’t coming with us? Comprende?”
Miranda’s face twisted up into a tangle of emotions as the blunt words about Julietta’s demise lashed her.
“How come you didn’t make Dax and me do this shit back in Noumena? We could have been bitten just as easily out there on the beach,” Mark challenged, still certain Tempest had a perverse ulterior motive for making the women expose their bodies.
“Trust me, next time I will,” Tempest said. “Like I said, we’re not taking any more chances. Not after this. Not after Maddie. Not after what Seth has had to endure. No more chances. Maybe we were too lax there in not subjecting you to that, but the next time, if anything happens like this—and it will―rest assured, people won’t be given special dispensation, guys or girls, it makes no difference. Don’t be trying to make this any sort of sexual thing, it ain’t got fuck all to do with any of that. It’s about continued survival, for all of us.”
“Fine,” Miranda snapped and stepped away from Mark, yanking her blouse right up, then wriggled out of it,, pulling it over her head and away, her long brown hair trailing. She made a big deliberate show of running her hands over her body, exhibiting every inch, even cupping her breasts in a crimson red bra and jiggling them antagonistically at Tempest.
“Jesus,” Mark breathed in an angry mutter while Tempest looked on expressionless. Heather shifted uncomfortably in her position between the other women at the truck, but few others did much of anything, bar Dax, who watched the show with unmitigated interest.
The fact that Miranda was clad in black leather pants might have let her off the hook if she could have shown that the garment was unbroken, however this wasn’t the case. There were rips in them, perhaps attained while the two girls were scrambling through bushes and the field, then hiding in the dark from their marauding undead companions, but again, only Heather and Miranda could attest to the fact that’s how they happened. Tempest wanted the visual proof with his own eyes, or Miranda wasn’t going to be granted access to the truck and, therefore, safety in numbers with weapon bearing hunters.
“Pretty sure you can see she doesn’t have bites on her legs,” Mark directed at Tempest, a combination of desperation and fury in his voice.
“I can see tears in the leather. That’s what I see,” Tempest said brusquely. “And blood on them. Get it out of your head that I have any interest in your girl, bar the fact that I don’t want her turning into a motherfucking fleshcraver anymore than you or anyone else here does.”
Before Mark could interject again, Miranda abruptly unfastened her leather pants and thrust them down, pushing them over her hips, right down her thighs, and all the way to her ankles. As she’d done with the top half of her body, she intentionally displayed herself from every angle, flaunting her curves with exaggerated mo
tions.
She was wearing lacy red boy short panties matching her bra and they were virtually sheer, so it was plainly obvious she’d no bites adorning her skin. Even though the lingerie was red, any ragged teeth marks would have been obvious; the panties were not in any way ripped or torn.
Tempest’s revolutions with his knife blade to indicate for her to swivel around were not needed in this instance, having closely watched Heather’s uncomfortable examination, Miranda already knew the gist. Done cavorting and showing that her body was unmarked by any apparent teeth marks, bites or raw fingernail scratches, Miranda stared belligerently at Tempest, hands on her hips, her pants remaining around her ankles.
“Satisfied?” She scowled at him.
“Yeah. You’re all clear. Cover up.”
“No apology?”
“What for? You got an apology for Seth? You got a justified reason why you just bailed and hauled ass outta Noumena without so much as a goodbye, without waking them to tell them your plans? You going to say sorry that because of that his girl isn’t just a zombie, she’s a dead zombie with no head? That the kind of apology you mean? Let’s get one thing straight right here, right now. I don’t make apologies for anything I do. I’m not going to make any apologies in the future. Why would I apologise for ensuring everybody right here is clear to get in the Truck and move on?”
Yanking up her pants with fast furious motions, Miranda didn’t favour him with a response, knowing there would be no apology of any description coming. He didn’t consider he was in the wrong in the slightest and nothing she could say was about to make him think otherwise.
Seth may as well have been somewhere else for all the acknowledgement he made of anything at all going on around him. While all of this was unfolding and occurring, he felt as if he was outside his own body, watching the scene, a bystander seeing something he may not have even belonged to for all the comprehension he displayed. Blanketed in a world of numb, he may as well been watching a movie, or trapped in a dream.
