“Thanks.”
Hector ran upstairs, leaving a puzzled Susan behind with three loaded machine guns.
In the equipment room, Shane stood up, full of holes but composed.
“What a silly bird! She ruined my blouse, my brand new blazer and even messed up my hair!”
She walked to the desktop and monitor Hector was working on. She took a look around and saw some equipment destroyed.
“This is all coming out of his salary, if he ever works for me again.”
She sat down by the station, making faces of pain while extracting nine slugs from her body and head with forefinger and thumb.
Shane tried to get into the system. But she couldn’t because it was blocked by a password.
“What are you doing, my little ebony chap? What are you doing?”
Suddenly, she felt like she had lost a good portion of a sense, like an individual who goes partially blind, or deaf.
“What did you do? WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?”
At her private dressing room, Becky could no longer stand the horrible migraines splitting her skull in half. Her legs faltered and she was forced to get down on her knees, bending the upper body, hands strongly compressing her head.
“Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!” She considered that only a merciful dead could stop the pain, but her condition no longer allowed her to stand up.
Then, her eyes simply met the ceiling, staring at some emptiness.
“Oh my God, Frank!” She began to cry copiously.
ACT 31
“How are they?” Lily asked behind the wheel, speeding like crazy to the Industrial Zone.
“Some of them are stable, some are still unconscious.” Aaron answered.
“Are they going to make it?” Vince queried.
“We need to get them to a hospital.”
“That’s where we’re going.”
“It’s very tight in here.” Maria observed.
“We’ll get there. Then, I’ll come back for Hector. I promised him.”
“So, what’s the deal with this boomerang of yours?” Clark asked in the passenger’s seat. “It kills the dead, but only hurts the living. Is it trained or something?”
“It’s all about how you toss it.” Lily explained. “If it flies clockwise, the blades on the concave side slash everything in its path. But if the boomerang flies counterclockwise, only the side without the blades hits.”
“Man, I’m surprised it doesn’t come with a chip and a remote control,” Vince commented “like a boomerang-drone or something.”
“That was next on my father’s list.” Lily said. “Too bad he didn’t live enough to make it happen.”
“But tell me, what Hector was doing after all?” Maria queried.
“He shut down all interfaces he could locally in the main router.” Lily replied. “But there were many others he couldn’t touch from there.”
“But a little virus we created can do the trick.” Vince stepped in. “It’s not actually a virus; I’d rather call it medicine. But it takes some time to kick in.”
“But what’s the purpose of all this?” Aaron questioned.
“Cut all possible communication” Lily responded “and significantly decrease Shane’s influence, hopefully.”
“How?”
“As I figure, Shane is basically a mini broadcast station.” The Australian woman continued. “Her brain can transmit and receive information, not to mention control minds.”
“But her range is limited, right?” Clark said.
“Precisely” Lily answered. “She needs to use all those antennas spread around rooftops in town as repeaters.”
“And that big dish antenna at the TV Station is her link to such repeaters” Vince spoke “so her thoughts can be everywhere, in shops, offices, pubs and people homes, reading everybody’s minds and tapping into the will of those under her control.”
“And the idea is to shut down this entire network, so Shane will be reduced to her limited transmission range.” Lily concluded.
“But even if it works, she still can dominate your mind if you’re close enough, right?” Maria observed.
“Probably yes” Lily replied.
“And why are cell phones forbidden?” Aaron asked.
“Because they interfere too much with Shane’s broadcast capabilities” Lily answered “too many people yakking at the same time, congesting lines, increasing traffic, stealing network resources…”
“But she allows walkie-talkies.”
“She needs them to talk to her military forces, cops, secret police, etc.” Vince responded. “But radios don’t bother her cause she knows who have them, at least she did until now.”
Clark looked at Lily.
“And how do you know so much about networking and stuff?” He asked her. “I mean, I’m not surprised Hector and Vince got all this knowledge, it’s their business anyway. But what about you, how come you know it?”
“I watched a lot of movies.” Lily replied.
“Oh no, you love to hide under a veil of cynicism so you don’t have to talk about yourself, but I know you better than this.”
“Then, how do you figure I know all this stuff?”
“Your dad, it got to be him. My guess is he taught you not only his hobbies, but also his daytime work.”
“My guess is daddy always dreamt of me becoming, you know, a good wife and mother, in a lovely home paid by a steady job. He could never imagine I would end up on the road, driving the very contraption he put together, fighting zombies in a dying world.”
“Well, you can still have a family, kids, a lovely home… Only the steady job could be a problem these days.”
“Yes, but then I’d have to clean gutters, worry about bills, cable TV and neighbors, ask them to low the volume of their stereo and all. Nah, I’ll think about it later.”
At Downtown, Drake was thrown inside the Fleur du Soir restaurant like a sack of potatoes. The first thing he saw after standing up was Tess staring at him.
“Uh-oh, homophobic bee twelve o’clock…” Tess spoke.
“You!” Drake said.
“Oh yes, little me! I’m so glad you still remember me, oh this is flattering! I hope you also remember the way you treated me when they kicked me out of your dear Heavensville. That was pretty unpleasant, with your filthy mouth and all, you and your friends beating the hell out of me and laughing. I spent a whole month in a hospital bed.”
“L-look madam, I mean mister, I was just…”
“Oh, no apologies needed, honey.” Tess said waving arms and hands in an exaggerated manner. “I know you’re just a jerk. Everything’s forgiven and I’m so happy you made it.”
“Made it…?”
“To the party, silly! And you are the guest of honor!”
Drake looked at all sides. A big entourage of men dressed like Village People, except for the Indian war bonnet, stood all around, smiling directly at him.
“Oh no!” Drake mumbled and turned to the main glass entrance.
However, five muscular waiters were blocking the way, all grinning in anticipation.
“Don’t be shy, darling.” Tess spoke. “How do you know you don’t like it if you never tried it? Or did you?”
“No, NO! Stay away from me, I’m telling you!”
“Don’t worry, dear. We’ll be gentle.”
All men closed on Drake.
“Stay away from me! STAY AWAY FROM ME! Oh boy!”
ACT 32
Several residents left their homes and workplaces, partially crowding the main streets of Heavensville. Most of them rubbed their heads in confusion. Susan walked fast among them, going around those standing in the way.
She was lost in her thoughts when she noticed that everybody was gazing at a big screen hanging from a pole on Happy Trails Boulevard, one of the many in the city. All eyes were paralyzed in genuine horror. They had to be really focused not to notice a woman walking around with three machine guns.
Susan a
lso stopped to see what was going on in the latest TV news. And like everybody else, she also felt sick in her stomach, a dreadful fear possessed her spirit.
Her walk had turned into a run when she rushed into the glass office building. She couldn’t wait for the elevator and went upstairs in a mad dash toward the construction company floor.
She found Nick and Paul in the break room. No surprises there, but she froze by the doorway, not knowing what to expect from them. However, they seemed scared and perplexed. She considered that a very good sign.
“Sue!” Nick said. “Jesus, what happened to you? You look like hell!”
“What’s with the weapons?” Paul spoke.
“Are you alright?” She asked.
“I’m glad to see you!”
Both men came to her. Clumsy as she was for carrying three machine guns, she still managed to point one of the weapons at them. They stopped immediately.
“Christ, what are you doing, Sue?” Paul asked.
“Put that thing down!” Nick said.
“This is far enough. I asked you if you are alright!” Susan insisted.
“We are now.” Nick answered. “We got this real bad headache cracking our skulls…
“Like everybody else in town, it seemed.” Paul interrupted him.
“…but then everything cleared up totally out of the blue, and it was like we were out of some terrible nightmare.”
Susan lowered the gun and ran to hug her friends.
“Sorry about that.” She said. “I’m a little edgy. Have you seen the news on TV?”
“N-no” Paul stuttered. “What’s happening?”
“People are dying and things are going to get worse. You got to listen to me. I have to talk to you about Shane. We’ve been fed lies from the moment we set foot in that Cinemark. I need your help and I need to find Becky!”
“She’s right over there.”
Susan turned to the place he nodded at, and saw that in fact Becky was quietly sitting on a sofa, legs crossed with feet touching the worn-out quilt.
“Hold this.” Susan handed two of the machine guns to the men, one for Paul and the other for Nick. “And be careful, the trigger is sensitive.”
Susan walked to Becky. The girl stood up and hugged her friend crying.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Becky said.
“It’s okay.” Susan whispered. “It’s not your fault.”
“We know about Shane.” The young woman revealed. “I still had memories of everything when I snapped out of that wacky spell of hers.”
“How come we snapped out of it in the first place?” Nick queried.
“I’m not sure.” Susan answered. “Some people I associated with in the Industrial Zone must’ve done something to interrupt the flow of her energy, or whatever it is. But I don’t know how they did it.”
“Industrial Zone?” Nick frowned.
“This is one of the things I got to talk to you about.”
“Forget it!” Becky complained. “It’s Shane we have to worry about now. How we stop her from dominating us again?”
“That’s why I need your help.” Susan gave the third machine gun to Becky, who accepted it. “Do you think you can handle it?”
“I’ll do my best.” Becky promised. “It’s the least I can do after I killed Frank. Damn it, I was so busy being a piece of meat folks devoured with their eyes I couldn’t even see what was happening.”
“You didn’t kill Frank. It was Shane. You were under her control. There was nothing you could do to stop it.”
“F-Frank is dead?” Paul asked with shaking lips.
“Shane put a gun against his head and pulled the trigger.”
“My God!” Nick bent his body to cry.
Becky lowered her head and sighed.
“Whatever you want us to do, never mind how crazy it is, I’m in!” Paul announced raising the machine gun, eyes sinking in tears.”
“Same here!” Nick declared.
Susan turned to Becky and said:
“After all this time you’ve been working at the TV Station, you got to know the premises rather well, right?”
“Every bit of it” The girl replied. “Why?”
ACT 33
But reality in Downtown was far more terrorizing than what was shown on TV. Armed forces from Uptown fell upon the place like the army of apocalypse, shooting and leaving behind corpses whose blood painted the streets red, as an anchorman said.
Citizens sought protection as best as they could, while their houses and shops were either reduced to pieces by gun fire, or blown to shreds by RPG (rocket-propelled grenades). Desperate, panic-stricken women ran with children to the local orphanage, but even such institution was made a target.
The first line of defense when the deadly army started its destructive campaign was Lily’s truck. She barely had time to position the vehicle across the road to block the advance of the enemy. Nobody was expecting such sudden attack. Anyway, the truck did its job as much as it could.
Soldiers shot the vehicle with the thunderous firepower of M249 light machine guns. The hull was resisting the punishment, but it was beginning to crack. Lily and Clark clumsily returned fire with M16s, the only weapon they got. And they clearly didn’t know how to shoot.
With very anguished eyes, Colonel Talbot followed the entire action from an outdoors garage on the second story of a commercial building, a reasonably safe position. Shane came to him.
“You’re late.” He turned to her.
“I had some problems leaving the TV Station.”
“What the heck happened to you?”
“I was shot several times, but that doesn’t matter. How is it going?”
“What do you think? They are not a match for us, not in a million years.”
“They had it coming. Have you seen Lily?”
“She’s in the truck, together with her friend. And the vehicle is really complicating matters, but we can deal with it.”
“Just bomb it out of the way like anything else. As I said, there’s more than one way to kill a myth and this time I mean it literally. Lily is pretty good, but she’s not bulletproof.”
Realizing the action was taking too long, the soldiers themselves took the initiative to call the man with the RPG. He fired at the truck and the rocket directly hit the ground right below the vehicle, causing it to fly a few feet from the asphalt and roll down the street toward an abandoned liquor store, clearing the way for the armored cars of the attackers. Despite the truck overturned several times, it landed on its tires, but Clark and Lily was unconscious inside, bleeding like a waterfall.
“Nice shot.” Talbot praised after watching everything through the lenses of a binocular.
And the army of doom was free to ominously strike down upon the frightened city, leaving nothing but destruction in its path, like a hurricane.
A small militia of street fighters tried to make a stand with the few weapons and ammunition they had. Most of them had already been gunned down, including Raul, shot dead. Hector, Vince, Prashant and even Maria led a reduced squadron of courageous individuals who didn’t even know why they were being attacked. Aaron had to stay at the hospital, taking care of the hostages rescued from the hangar.
Former sergeant Harper and some volunteers, all with wife and kids, fought to hold the attackers back in another battle front.
But eventually, they all had to retreat to avoid getting massacred. Many lives had already been wasted.
Every resident who was crazy enough to hold a gun was shooting at the powerful enemy behind light poles and dumpsters; however, they looked more like criminals trying to resist a huge police raid in a godforsaken neighborhood. And they were also forced to seek shelter behind constructions, some of them died trying to get there.
Harper and his men managed to get into the hospital in one piece. Hector, Vincent and their group had to seek protection in a bar. None of them could reach Tess’ restaurant. But it would be pointless anyway. All
places in town were on the path of total obliteration.
“Hey Phil, how are you doing?” Vince asked him.
“Trying not to be shot to pieces, and you?”
“Where are Lily and Mate?” Hector asked.
“Their truck got hit by one of those missiles, or whatever that thing is.”
“And what happened?”
“I don’t know, man. After the hit, I just saw a big ball of fire, a crater on the road and the truck had disappeared. I think it was blown to pieces.”
“Ah, Jesus!”
“I don’t think Lily and Mate had time to jump out of it.” Vince took a deep breath. “They’re gone, bro.”
“This is the end of Apocalily.” Pedro said. “This is the end of us all.”
“Everything we did only brought us tragedy.” Prashant lamented. “We need to stop this madness before more people die and I lose the only eye I got left.”
“Alright” Hector said. “Somebody find me a piece of white cloth, it could be anything but your underpants.”
And, some minutes later…
“Hold your fire!” Colonel Talbot screamed.
“Hold your fire!”
“Hold your fire!” The message was passed along the troops.
The Sunshine Dame of Doom Page 22
