by Mark Clodi
Diane’s breathing became labored and she abruptly sat up, wheezing, “Amelia!” Diane cried out, “Amelia!”
“I am here Diane, I am here! You’re going to be alright.”
“Amelia, it hurts pretty bad. I want you to know it is not your fault. I should not have been throwing up, I knew what to expect when we broke in here and couldn’t keep from tossing my cookies, if I had been faster I could have got out of the way. It is not your fault, okay?”
“Shh Diane, don’t worry about it, just calm down, okay?”
Diane did calm down, she took a few deep breaths and looked up at the ceiling while trying to stay calm, the problem was she could not feel her hands and her arms were aching terribly. Unlike Amelia, Diane did have first aid training, from a course she had taken after her grandson fell while playing at her daughter’s house and broke his arm. Diane did not like the helpless feeling she had that day while waiting for the paramedics to arrive and had soon after enrolled in and completed both a first aid and a cpr course offered through the local Red Cross. She pulled her arms up in front of her face and said, “Amelia, shine a light on my hands, please.”
Amelia did so, Diane said, “Okay you have the bandages too tight they are cutting off circulation to my fingers and hands you have to loosen them a bit. Not that I am complaining, you stopped me from bleeding to death. Let see if we can’t get them a little looser and still control the bleeding.”
Amelia did as Diane said and eventually they found a compromise between suppressing the blood loss and allowing Diane’s hands circulation.
As they were adjusting the bandages, Diane heard the sobbing from the bathroom, “What is that Amelia?”
Amelia explained about the child-zombie in the bathroom. Diane was shocked, as if the thought of a zombie child had never crossed her mind. “Are you sure it is a zombie?” Amelia shook her head ‘no’ and said, “Uh-huh, I don’t know but I had to get you taken care of before I dealt with it. Her. Him. I dunno whatever it is.”
“Honey, you better deal with it now, because if it is a little kid you are going to feel really bad if you wait too long. Go to the door and try to find out, ask it questions and see what it says.”
Amelia moved over to the bathroom door and said, “Hey in there? You okay?”
The crying stopped and a small voice answered, “No. My arm hurts and I can’t hold anything with it. You hit me so hard!” The anguish in the voice was full of reproach and Amelia felt awful. “Why did you hit me?”
“Look I didn’t know, I thought you were a zombie, in fact”, and Amelia felt bad for saying so, “I still don’t know if you are a zombie or not. What were you doing in the hallway?”
The crying started again.
“Hello? What were you doing in the hallway?”
Through sobs, the voice answered, “I thought you were here to save me!”
‘Oh frick, no way to know unless the kid opens the damn door and even then how can I know for sure?’, she thought, then out loud she said, “Okay, you gotta come out here and let me look at your arm, my friend knows about these sorts of things, she can tell us if your arm is broken. Okay.”
“No. Go away.”
“Diane? Diane, the kid won’t come out. What do I do? It has the door locked from the inside.” Called out Amelia.
“I suppose candy wouldn’t work. Just keep trying, we have to go soon, at least to a different room and if the kid wants to come with us they need to come out. Now.” replied Diane
“Okay, okay.” back towards the door she said, “Look kid, I am sorry for hitting you but I didn’t know okay? We cannot stay in this room. Here, we cannot stay here, so unless you want to be alone again you are going to have to come out and let us look you over to make sure you are not one of them.”
Nothing. The door did not unlock, the sobbing continued quietly.
“Kid! C’mon sweetie, open the door and come out, we have to leave this room it is getting creepy. Which room were you in? The door must still be okay, if the zombies could not get in, lets move back to your room, okay? Kid?”
“That’s what the other zombie said too. I had to come out so we could ‘go’.” replied the voice. “Then they said, they would just keep me there, penned up like a meal for when they got hungry again.”
“Oh honey, I…I we got to get out of this room, do you have a light in there? Anything?”
“No. I don’t have a light.”
“Hey then why don’t you open the door enough so I can pass you a flashlight, okay?”
“You won’t hit me again?”
“No, I won’t. Here I will sit the light on the floor you can come out and get it and I will stay away from the door and everything.” Amelia turned one of her flashlights on and pointed it towards the wall, setting it down near the door. She then stepped back and waited. She saw a small head and eye peer out from underneath the door sideways.
“Move farther back.” Amelia moved until her butt was up against the far wall.
The head disappeared from the floor and the lock clicked open. The door slid open slowly and a hand reached out and took the flashlight, instead of closing the door eased open farther revealing a child in an overly large ‘Colorado Rockies’ t-shirt and gray shorts was revealed.
From the kid's hair cut and clothing Amelia thought it was a boy, probably. “What is your name?”
“Cory.” he said.
“Cory, I am Amelia. I am sorry for hitting you. It is just I was fighting the zombies and I thought you were one of them.” as Cory stood there listening Amelia could see him trying to stop from crying, silent tears were forming in his eyes and he shifted awkwardly with his left hand holding the flashlight, his right arm was mostly hidden by the over sized rockies shirt and was pointed straight down along his side.
“Cory, could you pull up your shirt sleeve and let me see your arm?” Cory did this and Amelia was saddened to see the result of her swing, his arm was bruised to the point of being black and the arm was swollen with broken skin at the impact point. “Oh God. I am so sorry baby, so sorry.”
With that Cory started to cry again and then flung himself forward into Amelia’s body. Amelia did not know how to respond and hated herself for it, she wanted to comfort the boy, at the same time she was waiting for his teeth to tear into her abdomen or worse into her breasts like the second zombie she had killed. Cory did not seem to feel her grow stiff beneath his one armed embrace and just held her until Amelia was sure he was not a zombie, then she patted his head and made soothing sounds trying to get him to quiet down. Eventually she brought him over to Diane, who said probably the arm was broken, but she did not know, still it would be best if they treated it as if it were broken for now, just to be safe. She had Amelia cut more off the sheet in a triangle shape and then talked her through making a pretty fair sling for Cory’s arm. Partway though the proceedings Amelia was able to throw blankets over the bodies on the bed and she also took a spare blanket from the closet and tossed it over the bodies near the door when she noticed Cory’s eyes being drawn to them like ants to a picnic sandwich.
Once everyone was bandaged and bound up Diane pronounced that she was ready to go and Amelia asked Cory if they could go back to his room, he said sure and after Amelia moved the bodies away from the door and checked the hallway, they proceeded down another dozen doors to Cory’s room. His door had not been forced in, though it was battered and there were two bodies outside of it.
Cory pointed to them and said, “They were fighting, then the smart one came along and bashed them, the other one followed the smart mom around and she said she could make it do what she wanted.”
There was no one in Cory’s room, Amelia checked all the closets and the bathroom after they shut and locked the outer door. She then moved the hotel’s table over in front of the door and put both the chairs in front of that as well. Diane lay down on the bed which was made and Cory sat cross legged on the other bed, obviously ‘his’ bed. Amelia noted he took his shoes, th
ose plastic kind that all kids loved during the summer, off before getting on the furniture, obviously a well behaved kid in ordinary circumstances.
Amelia opened the drapes to let in some light from the parking lot and slowly got Cory’s story out of him. He and his mom were there for a ‘Academy of the Brain’ event, where kids and their parents got together and formed teams to compete against each other in building robots, answering trivia questions and figuring out logic puzzles, he was ten and had just qualified this year, after hearing about it from his cousin the whole last year and about what a good time it was. Each team was modeled after those of a popular children’s book into separate houses and his was down by three points. Which Cory assured Amelia was nothing, they were practically in the lead as the next team out of seven was behind them by a whole eleven points. They were supposed to compete that day, but his mom told him there was some kind of emergency and they would not get to play again until later. Then the power went out and Cory’s mom went to find out what was going on. She never came back. After that someone started screaming down the hall and when Cory stuck his head out to see what was going on he saw the zombies doing bad things to people. He locked his door and hid in the closet, the beds had solid bases, otherwise he would have hid there, he confided.
Nothing happened for a long time, until eventually the banging started on his door, then there was a fight or something out in the hall and a woman told him it was okay and he could come out. He almost did, but when he pushed a chair over to the door to look out the peep hole he saw another lady all bloody next to the mom type who was asking him to come out. She was looking like right at him, almost like she could see him through the door, she tried to talk him out of the room when he heard a car in the parking lot, he went over to see and saw Amelia and Diane go into the lobby, before the woman banged on the door really hard with her hands, but the door did not give in. Then she told him it was just as well she would just save him for ‘later’ when she was hungry. Cory then hid in the closet again and when he heard the fight down the hall he opened the door to get help, when the zombies did not come out of the room he sneaked up really quietly to peek in side, where he got hit with the fire poker. Cory was from a small mountain town called ‘Eagle’ which Amelia recalled had gained some notoriety for a criminal case against a basketball star years before. He was very much alone in town and there was no question that he would be coming with them when they left.
“Cory do you have a radio?” Diane asked, breaking her silence after Amelia was done getting Cory’s story.
“No. Not really. I have an i-pod though, it has a radio.” he responded.
Diane sighed, as if knowing she got the right answer to the wrong question, “Hey buddy, would it be okay if Amelia tried to listen to your i-pod radio for a minute?”
“Sure.” Cory hopped off the bed and rummaged around in his suit case, half of which appeared to be full of toys, eventually he came up with the popular white music player, which he handed to Amelia, saying, “You turn it on here, and this, I think this is how you get to the radio, I never use it, so I don’t know.” As he spoke he pressed a series of buttons until Amelia, who had one earplug in could hear the static of the FM band.
“Thanks Cory, I got it from here.” Smiling, she thought of her i-pod which she had left sitting at home on her dresser. Kids.
Chapter 40
“Alright Fred, Bobby it is time to go find a DSD and Gameboy at the store, if you guys are ready.” said Jimbo.
“It is a ‘PSP’, not ‘DSD!’” cried Bobby, “I keep telling you!”
“Whatever, get your hiney moving out before I change your mind.” laughing Jimbo was amused that being a kid was the same whether you were a zombie kid or a living human, how would Bobby ‘grow up’? “C’mon Fred lets go, there is smoke over that way, that means activity and probably human activity, so we can eat along the way.”
The trio set off towards the smoke and soon enough they spotted a gang of zombies stopped in the front yard gnawing on a couple of bodies. Jimbo stopped when he saw them and hissed at Fred, “It is her Fred! It is Nancy and that gang of girls she has! Can you get her from here? And stop her? Like we practiced?”
Fred stopped, crouched down and concentrated on the group. “There is something Jim, something, but it is like she is strong or something, I feel she belongs to me, like a daughter or something, kind of like you only stronger, but man Jim she is strong. I..I think she notices me trying too.” Sure enough one of the women stood up and glanced in their direction. She stood up and it was like Jimbo could see the strings pulling the other girls up and into formation behind her. They all looked around warily and then Nancy started coming tentatively in their direction. Jimbo sent Bobby off to hide in some bushes to the side, thinking the boy was probably not strong enough to be of much use mentally or physically. Nancy looked huge, her size was the same, but it was like she was ready to burst out of her body. The girls behind her looked the same and Jimbo knew if it came to a fight that they were probably out matched. Mentally he felt Nancy’s icy grip straining at his mind, he resisted and he could hold her of, but just barely, the fight that took place in his head at that instant left him as tired as if he had been running all day long. Jimbo staggered to his knees as Nancy walked up to them.
“Jimbo, Jimbo, Jimbo, you dirty little fuck. After all I did for you? And this is how you repay me? By nurturing Fred back to health?” turning towards Fred she said, “Hello daddy! It is so bad to meet you at last! I was hoping you would be much less challenging. Oh I feel you, you dirty little slobberer! Get. Out. Of. My. Head!” Nancy then screamed as Jimbo yelled, “Yes Fred, get her Fred!”
While Nancy was fighting for her mind with Jimbo she had scant mental ability left to direct her girls to attack Fred, ‘Screw that fuck Jimbo, get this maniac off me!’ she screamed to the girls. The girls were not affected by Fred, as he was concentrating fully on Nancy and winning too, until the girls jumped him.
Jimbo leaped on one of the girl’s backs, bringing her to the pavement, but not taking her out of the fight completely, he assaulted another girl mentally, although he was technically her ‘sibling’, both of them having been created by Nancy, he employed the techniques he had originally used on Fred, getting his mind around and through the cracks of the girl’s mental armor in about half a minute. Her shields were surprisingly good, then again it was obvious she had been building herself up to repel Nancy. Jimbo stopped the girl, Julie in her tracks mentally, though the effort at slowing the girl, Trish, whom he was fighting and stopping Julie cold left Jimbo physically and mentally exhausted. Fred was having his own problems and in virtually the same boat as Jimbo, one opponent he had to hold off mentally, the other was getting ready to hack him apart physically. Jimbo wrapped his arms around Trish and held her down on the ground, pinning her. It was all he could do to keep both girls pinned and hope, beyond hope that Fred would win the battle.
As he lay there holding the girl down Jimbo contemplated bringing Bobby up behind Nancy, the problem was Bobby was weak, probably not strong enough to kill a zombie even if he had the jump on one and definitely not strong enough to take out a zombie as tough as Nancy, his use would be only as a distraction and he knew Fred had to have contemplated the same strategy and discarded it as well. Bobby remained hidden in the bushes, while Jimbo watched the melee and mental combat between Fred, Nancy and Veronica.
In the melee that followed Jimbo could barely follow what was happening. Veronica jumped Fred, but he sidestepped and ducked, throwing her off with apparent ease, only then a large rent appeared in his shirt, as if by magic and Jimbo realized Veronica had made the jump look easily blockable so she could slice Fred as she was ‘thrown off’, Fred staggered, prompting Veronica to roll towards him and swing the blade she had up towards his groin. Only Fred’s ploy was a feint too, instead of being down in easy slicing distance he lashed out with his foot kicking Veronica in her unprotected head, a blow that would probably have knocked a norma
l human back dazed or perhaps even unconscious.
Veronica rolled away and regained her feet, Fred did not follow up on his advantage and Jimbo could see/feel with his mind that Fred was still pressing his advantage on Nancy, trying to deliver a mental knock out punch so he could deal with her girls afterwards.
Jimbo realized this was a mistake, Nancy was pretty well cowed and Fred probably could have kept her incapacitated while he diverted some of his energy to defeating Veronica. Jimbo tried to compensate, but he was having trouble just keeping the two girls he had mentally pinned and physically he could see he was no match for Veronica. Soon enough Veronica was back on top of Fred, sliding to the side at the last minute while striking his leg with her hand, embedding the blade deep in Fred’s thigh. In exchange Fred bitch slapped her so hard that Veronica literally spun a half circle in the air before staggering away from Fred about ten feet. Fred stumbled, unable to follow up on his Herculean blow, this allowed Veronica the time to pull out another long kitchen type knife and run a half circle out around Fred, instead of striking at Fred Veronica feinted towards him and then did a flying leap at Jimbo! Jimbo tried to shift Trish in front of him but Trish moved at just the right time and Veronica ended up stabbing through Jimbo’s chest, through his shoulder blade and into the lawn beneath him!
Howling like a banshee Jimbo tried to keep his mental and physical grips on the girls, but he could not. Veronica joined the fight to free the girls from Jimbo’s mental hold, she must have sensed Fred was busy dealing with Nancy. This was a terrible risk for her to take, it left her wide open to Fred, however he was too busy trying to break Nancy to thrust in Veronica’s direction and as a result Jimbo was walled off from the girls. He knew he could regain control, he was more powerful than any of the three girls, in fact more powerful mentally than any two of them, maybe against all three with the tricks he know, however against all three it would take a little time. The girls, it seemed, were not going to give him even a little time. Leaving him pinned to the ground, watched over by Trish, Veronica and Julie leaped at Jimbo. Veronica pulled yet another kitchen knife from her clothing, whereas Julie just leaped at Fred. He almost ducked her, but in the end her hand latched on to his shoulder and spun him around, presenting his back as a perfect target for Veronica’s knife. She angled the sideways into the top of his spine, almost at the neck. With his spinal cord severed Fred toppled over and both girls jumped on top of his body and tore it apart.
