by catt dahman
“If you bring me the child, one silly child for your entire compound, all the people are safe, and your three friends will be returned, unharmed,” Lucas added.
“What if they refuse?” Matt was worried. They would never hand over a child to these crazies, so this was a ridiculous request that would never be honored, but he wanted to know what would happen.
“Then we do as I said. And your friends here, I have a plan for them, special like: If your God could stand to watch, then, surely you’ll appreciate the irony; we’ll crucify them and burn’ em.”
Matt felt sick.
Davis looked hard at Matt. “Hey, you bring me my men, too. I need John Ponce back in service here; Ponce can do wonders.”
Len cocked his head only a bit but then gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod to Matt. Kim raised an eyebrow. Both men hoped Matt understood.
They escorted all four from the room, cuffing the other three.
“You have until midnight,” Frank added.” Oh, here is the ex President of the US; you may recognize him.”
“I thought I knew him from somewhere,” Len said, not daring to glance at Nick. He had hoped this might be the edge they needed if Alan still cared about his brother.
The President nodded back at the men, and he gripped Nick’s arms to shove him along. “Whatever it takes,” he whispered quietly, giving Nick’s arm a squeeze. Len and Kim were also pushed along and put into a room.
Matt was taken all the way to the gate.
“Your guns, Sir,” a soldier said, handing him back his possessions. “You may take that vehicle: the Jeep Wrangler. We don’t need it; it will run just fine, full tank on her.”
“Okay.” Matt was trying to be creative with a plan to have an idea of what to do, but he was still in shock about what happened. They went into a situation, and it was nothing like they anticipated. He felt bad about being free when his friends were captives.
Roy, with his Hank Williams, Junior, glasses, watched as Matt got into the Jeep. “I knew Len and Kim way back when this started.”
“Yeh? Well, guess you picked the other side.”
“Guess I did. For what it’s worth; I hope things go the right way.”
“Yep, me, too. I’m hoping God sends down a bolt of lightning and fries everyone in your group,” Matt replied, sounding a lot like Len again.
Just before Matt closed the door, he heard Roy say something, and he thought he must have misunderstood because it sounded like Roy said, “Me, too, son. Me, too.”
4
Hopetown
Matt drove back, his nerves on edge, watching for spies and for people following him. With particular enjoyment, he ran over a crawling Z as its head crunched beneath the tires of the Jeep. Taking some side roads, he meandered in case he were being followed and then drove to where the rest of his friends waited for him. He had them bring the captives with them and said he wanted to tell the story once with everyone there to hear it.
He was still shaking.
It wasn’t easy to keep Johnny from trying to free the others, but she realized she would be captured as well. He told them that he saw the most diabolical men ever, and Johnny was shocked at the men who had gathered.
Once at the compound, the men were put into an isolation area right inside the gate, a place they could be guarded closely. None of them seemed overly concerned about their fate as John Ponce promised they would be treated fairly: not slaughtered nor tortured.
Beth stood with Julia and George, watching.
Once they were checked and came through, Beth hugged Juan. “I wish we had better news and that Len, Kim, and Nick had come back, too,” he told her.
“What’s happening?”
“Matt wanted to tell the story once, back here. We don’t know much except they are being kept and want some type of deal with us.”
“The Colonel did that?” she asked.
“Matt said the RA and those Nazis, Frank, Roy, Nick’s brother….”
“The President of the United States is with Nazi rebels? What?” Beth couldn’t imagine that. Nick felt as if he were going insane after he saw his brother with them.
“The one-eyed bastard kid, too.” Juan said. “It’s about all we know.”
As John Ponce walked to isolation, he saw Beth, paused behind the fence, and gave her a small wave. She stepped closer. She hated hybrids with a passion; she wished he weren’t one. “Hi, Ponce.”
“Hello, Beth. How are you?”
“Well. Considering.”
“I heard. It sounds as if she and the kid were crazy. Raw beef is fine for the cravings.”
“Well, contagious people, the same as a Z,” she said.
“Most were killed at camp. Frank and Lucas ordered it. For some reason, they didn’t know about the doctor or me. But then, I think some of them are hybrids, and they don’t care because it’s them.”
“Hey, don’t bite anyone here, ‘kay?” she almost smiled at him.
“You got it.”
She couldn’t explain to the rest or herself why, if she hated the hybrids so much, she didn’t hate quiet, kind John Ponce. He told her that the President was, indeed, on the other side and came in with the RA after they took him in. Ponce thought that he wasn’t so much with them, especially in mindset, but more afraid of them. Beth told him that sounded more plausible but that she still thought it was cowardly to go along and not fight back.
“Except that like the Colonel, we didn’t have much choice. They would have killed us all. We didn’t imagine their strength which was a mistake, and now they have control, simple as that,” Ponce said. “We found Pascal’s arsenal of abilities exceeded our guns. Without him, they are nothing.”
They all left isolation and trudged back to the meeting hall to listen to Matt. From the look on his face and since he wasn’t given to dramatics, the news wasn’t going to be good, they knew.
Very carefully, he related each thing that was said as best he could: in the same words, not leaving out a single detail. Several times people interrupted, not sure they understood. Matt sighed, “I know it seems insane, but that’s what they said.”
“So all of those people like me: half Mexican, they’d just execute me? Juan asked.
“And Kevin and me,” Alex added.
Julia nodded, “Me, too, and George for his age. The kids: blam, blam, blam. Why are they like that?”
“They’d be killin’ me, too,” Big Bill said, eyes hurting. “’Cause of my skin color? I wouldn’t do that to a person; that’s just mean as a snake.”
“Andie, Natalie, Teeg, Pak, Jet, Cory, Pedro, Rae, Thurman, Benny, well those at the very least. If they ran things here, they would get rid of all of the children and then anyone less than perfect to them,” Johnny counted off, “and we women would be breeders. Idiots.”
“We would have half of the people left at best; those would be people who work security and medical, too,” Julia said, “Pendejo.” The rest of what she said was passionately obscene and in Mexican, and said so quickly no one caught anything but a few stand out swear words.
“Wanting to kill me because I’m Goth? That’s crazy,” Jet said, feeling exasperated. “Why would anyone be so full of hate?”
“Because they are full. It isn’t that they really even think those things so much but that they have to have someone to hate, so they decide on anyone but themselves.”
“But we have ten years,” Matt explained the next part, after which Julia let loose a new stream of obscenities.
“So they are either coming now or in ten years to fight us? In ten years, we could be stronger, but so can they,” George said. “ I don’t like bowing down to their demands. They have no right to make demands.”
“You would have had to hear them. Lucas talks old timey and like a preacher sometimes, and Pope talks like, well, like he always did. It was like Len called it: a Star Wars-Luke-I-am-your-father bullshit, but it’s insane when you hear ‘em going at it, but Ponce says they came to them, usi
ng the President as if he were an invoice?”
“Envoy,” Julia helped.
“Okay. They made him act as if he were trying to settle everything and make things right, but it was fake. He didn’t want to be there with those nuts; he was scared.
Then, I guess no one will believe this, but Ponce says it’s true. They were in a standoff, and here came what they think were zombies, right? They were used to killing them, but the RA didn’t even flinch. Every thing was quiet. Those things were never quiet; they moaned and hissed, and they walked right past the RA, and the men stood there grinning like crazy,” Matt told them.
“Huh?”
“Ponce said only the President was scared and shaking. Those things were zombies; only, they were dead ones. I mean they were long-dead as in dead-shot- in-the-head-already-typed dead, and they were shambling but kind of dancing.”
“Dancing?” Beth asked.
“Ponce called it a kind of dance…like a puppet…silly dancing, and Pascal was there and giggling. If you had met the kid…I know we had nightmares about him before, but he was creepy-scary, worse than a clown, and he giggled more which made me piss my pants; then, he stopped, and zombies fell to the ground. He ‘puppeteered’ zombies, dead ones. That’s why they got in to do what they wanted. They scared the shit out of the people in Davis’s army.”
Matt finished the report, getting the last parts of all conversations especially correct, skipping only one part since he dreaded saying it.
George rubbed his eyes. He never envisioned these problems when zombies ruled the earth; why did insane men have to make things even worse? What made men so determined to sow evil thoughts and deeds? He knew everyone, like him, recalled the nightmares of Pascal that they suffered when all this began.
“I find what Colonel Davis said interesting; it sounds as if he didn’t have time for a lot of talk, and so what he did say has to be examined. Matt, when he said he wanted Ponce back ‘in service’ and that Ponce could ‘do wonders’, what did he mean really?” Beth asked.
“I think you’re thinking the same as I am: the word service and the word wonders stood out to me. I feel the Colonel was giving me a message.”
“He was telling us something,” George said.
“I agree, George,” Julia said.
“ Only one way to understand that message if he asked for Ponce specifically,” Juan said, horrified. “He expects us to hand Ponce back to let loose the infection there.”
“If you recall, that is what sent us into turmoil; we could have been infected and killed that night. One hybrid can cause a lot of infection very quickly,” Julia mused. “He must think that’s the only way to get the guys and themselves out of this mess.”
“I think we can vote, but the bottom line is that we send Ponce and the other three guys back since they may have a mission to do damage from within. We say ‘no’ that they can’t have Zane or our compound, and we prepare to fight,” George said. “I am not about to ask Ponce to do that; if we do, that’s makes us just as bad as they are. And face it, Davis doesn’t have good ideas when it comes to fighting the RA, or he wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“We’ll have a general meeting. If anyone wants to get out, he can go to a safe place, help those people, and not face this. The rest will fight. That means all of you, too.”
“I’d rather face them from here than run from zombies out there.”
“What about Len, Kim, and Nick?” Juan asked. “If we decide to fight, how do we get them back?”
“If we refuse to give Zane to them, I was told….” Matt faltered. Everyone waited, “they’ll be crucified.”
Beth clenched Julia’s hand tight.
“Unacceptable. We’re going to get them all out; we’re smarter than they are,” Julia said, rubbing Beth’s arm as she felt the tension coming off of her friend. Beth was past fury and just sat as if she were sad and defeated.
“I want everyone together.” George stood.
They called a full compound meeting.
“Why are the kids here? We said adults….”
“Uncle George, we have to learn how things are decided and the ways things are worked out; one day we will be leading,” Hannah told him. “It’s bad for us, but it’s our reality and our future. Please. It’s just the older kids, anyway.”
George looked to Beth and Mark.
“I hate it with a passion, but she’s right,” Beth said.
George conducted the meeting, explaining what they were told, amid cries that the group was insane and questions about what they would do. These people went through so much, and the infection inside the compound was horrid since they thought they were finally safe. This was almost too much to hear, that such people wanted a war.
“Bring ‘em on,” a man yelled, “we’ll fight them on our terms.”
“They aren’t getting the garden I worked my ass off for,” a woman said as people cheered her on.
“We can do this,” Julia said, “I know we can decide on a counter measure: some traps, we can win this with brains. I want everyone busy; we’ll put the children and anyone else who isn’t used to firing guns down stairs. But I still want everyone trained to fire a gun in case he needs to.”
“They will not want to mow the fence down; they will want it in tact in case the Zs come, so I think they’ll scale it. They will try to get into the tunnels to the basements. Pope will be drawing them a map, so we have to make sure we hold those,” Beth said.
“I can guarantee I can shoot from the windows of the main house before they get close enough to scale that fence,” Carl said. People cheered.
“We’ll hold the tunnels, the house, and the gate,” Julia said. “We can do that.”
“Julia?” Hannah interrupted.
“Yes, Hon?”
“Zane says he has a right to speak since they’re asking for him.”
Julia held her arms out to the boy. “Come here, Sweetie.” She wondered what the child might want to say.
Zane looked at Mark and Misty whom he had been living with since Maryanne was killed. They smiled, showing they believed in him.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he said in a soft voice. Everyone was still and quiet. “I think Pascal wants me to go away so he can be in charge. I think we both can be in the world…like….” He didn’t know how to explain but held his hand out flat and tilted it both ways.
“Balance? Yin and yang?” Beth offered.
“Balance. Yes. But he doesn’t think so, I guess. Those people killed my Mommy and Daddy. I got them back for it; I didn’t mean to, but I did. I think we both have to be here, not one without the other.”
“It was fine, Hon. You were upset and angry, and you did what you had to do to some very evil people,” Julia told him.
“I can’t use a gun, and I’m not very big, but I think…maybe…I think I can make those bad people go away.”
“Zane, there’s a bunch of them with big guns, and they are very bad; we can’t risk your being hurt.”
Zane laughed musically. “Maryanne always laughed when I did my tricks; she enjoyed them, but she always said never to show off. I don’t.”
“We know,” Beth said.
Zane shook his head. “You don’t.” With a frown and concentration on his little face, he reached up, sweat lining his forehead. Lights in the room went dim, making it seem as if the sun went behind a cloud; everyone looked around, spooked at the change. Tiny dots of light appeared about the room like fireflies, twinkling and dancing in the air. Zane was delighted, laughing and smiling, but everyone else was alarmed as the lights swept all around. Several ducked as the lights flew by their heads.
Julia ducked down, barely missed by the little spots, but as she turned, two swept right into her face, and she couldn’t move fast enough. “Oh, my God. Dios Madre.” She slumped into a chair. Her hands both up in wonder as she allowed the tiny white lights to dance about her fingers. Tears streamed down her face.
“Jules?” Beth wen
t to grab her friend, but Julia smiled, waving her back.
“Manny,” Maria called out. He died recently of an accident and was her beloved brother.
Jilly Montaine, daughter of legendary screen actress Cinder Montaine, went to her knees in happy tears. “Oh, Mama, you’re happy and beautiful.”
George sat down as well, his face full of wonder as he held a hand up to a dancing light. “Tink. You were such a hero. I know you did everything for love of Beth and all of us.”
“What in the hell?” Juan asked, reaching for Beth to hold her protectively. “Zane, are you doing something?”
Zane smiled. “Bye, Mommy.” And the lights faded.
“I felt as if my daughter were here,” a man called out, “I could feel her with us; she was peaceful.”
“I felt Tink.” George smiled, “he thought it was all worth his dying to save others.”
“I felt him, too, George,” Thurman said, and Benny echoed it.
“My mother,” “My husband,” “My family,” echoed from the room.
“My parents: they are at peace,” Julia said, her eyes full of shock. “Zane, how did you do that? That was you, wasn’t it?”
He shrugged. “They are at peace, and they will always be around, proud of us; you just can’t ever see them. I did it so you could see and believe.”
“Thank you. It is a gift, Zane,” Maria said. “That’s why the pendejo de meirda wants Zane so badly. He is the balance of what Pascal is.”
Juan still held Beth close. “What does this mean though? Zane, you proved you are valuable which we already knew; everyone adores you anyway, but what is it you want from this?”
“Aren’t you going to get Len, Kim, and Nick back? I want to help. I can cause a little mischief.” Zane grinned like a naughty child. “I don’t have enough energy or whatever it is to take out Pascal, but then he can’t beat me up either, see?”
“I bet you can cause mischief, Little Man.” Mark smiled, “he can fight fire with fire, so to speak.”
“Kids can help,” Hannah said proudly.
