Even under the circumstances I felt bad for her. Not enough to ever make me hesitate if I got a chance to kill her, though. I don’t know who I’d kill first, him or her. That would be a good problem to have.
Luckily, he left me alone. One guy, a human, came in one night thinking he was going to rape me, but I’d sharpened a bit of wood on the floor and jammed it in his eye then kicked him in the balls, again and again, while he screamed like a bitch. By the time they pulled him out, his balls were jelly. Santos threw him to the Zs and told the others that I was “his.” No fucking way, but I’d rather have a gay zombie psycho protector than be fair game for everyone.
I knew that Jack would prepare the Farm for an attack, but I was amazed at the number of zombies that Santos was accumulating here in Burlington. We had already killed thousands, but there were so many.
One thing he did was release the zombies from cars up and down the highway. There were thousands. We’d tried to end the car zombies, but there was never enough time.
Mariana seemed to recognize any special abilities immediately. She’d put her wolves in charge of about a dozen shamblers, and brains in charge of a dozen or so wolf packs. There were other levels as well. It was chaotic, but there was some structure to it. It seemed to work.
She ended up with a control group of about ten or twelve, all female, directly beneath her. They looked sort of like her, almost human. They never spoke. They would come to Mariana, usually in small groups but often all of them at once. They’d stand silently around her for a few minutes, then leave. After they left, Santos would appear, since he kept a close eye on Mariana. He’d been watching all along.
I began to think of them as the “Inner Core.” Mariana, Santos, and the lead group of females. I bet that Jack would come up with something like the “Cougar Club” instead. I miss him.
There was no way for me to count how many zombies there were, but it was thousands. Almost too many to shoot, I’d think. Whenever the “girls” left Mariana, the activity level would change immediately as they distributed her orders down the line.
As for the humans, Santos would send out packs of wolves to locate and surround groups of survivors. Most of them were well armed, many of them were total skanks, like the guys we’d tried to remove from the new gene pool. Mariana would send in a few waves of zombies, and they’d either wipe out the group or get them to surrender based on Santos’ promise of “mercy.” He’d then kill the very old and the very young. Anyone who was not healthy. Anyone who was not “normal,” whatever that meant to Santos. Take the men and stronger women between fifteen and sixty and make them soldiers. Take the rest and make them hostages or slaves. Control the soldiers with the threat of harm to the hostages. Prove the threat by harming many of them. Just like a fucking Nazi.
No way to tell how many, but he has one hell of a lot of humans under his control. Enough that he chooses a random hostage most days, usually one who stepped out of line, or got injured. Santos has his guys torture him or her in front of the combined group, and throws it to the zombies as a snack. Keeps the humans in line and the zombies on their toes.
These “humans” are like rats or pigs, not humans anymore. So glad to live another day that they’ll do anything. Like the Jews in the concentration camps who ended up helping the Nazis. I guess your entire value system shifts when survival is at stake. I know mine has.
I get to see it all, because Santos literally keeps me on a leash and with him most of the time. He does it to mess with Mike. I know that Mike has thought about killing me and Santos to put me out of my misery, but he won’t do it, I think, if there’s still hope. While we’re alive, there’s at least some. I hope Mike thinks so, too. I won’t give up.
We’re heading to the Farm. I hope you’re ready, Jack.
Chapter 9: Santos’ Army
Santos had gathered the remnants of over thirty bands of survivors and had hundreds, maybe a thousand or more, of human soldiers, including a bunch of ex-military, for the attack. The group was well armed, since Mariana’s second in command, Joumana, a tall slim zombie who could almost have passed for human, lived in a subbasement deep beneath the St. Alban’s armory. Santos and Mariana lived there too.
Mariana could keep wolves and brains and the other high level zombies from eating humans, but it was always a problem with the basic shamblers. So the humans were grouped with wolves and brains into assault groups. The shamblers herded by wolves. Ian and Mike as the lead snipers, roaming around and killing leaders.
Santos never slept, at least not for long. Shame swept over him each time he closed his eyes. Shame at raping Mariana. Shame at leaving her outside for the zombies. Shame at Mariana’s pregnancy. But mostly, shame that Jack somehow knew what Santos had done.
In the morning, Santos hoped to kill Jack and end his anguish.
Chapter 10: Mike’s Journal—The Battle of the Farm
During the battle, they kept me moving, shooting the defenders. I was on a direct radio link with Santos or even with him in person. He did lead from the front, I’ve got to give him that. Mom was usually right there with him. Any hesitation, any bad shooting on my part and he’d hurt her. I intentionally missed Uncle Jim with a shot and the bastard clipped off the tip of her left pinky. She screamed and passed out.
That gave me a minute to scope things out. Santos wasn’t watching me for a second, and Marvel and Brittany were trying to revive Mom, so I picked off five of his brains and two of his key humans. Right in the back of the head, seven for seven. Too much shooting for Santos to tell who was shooting whom. I was getting pretty good with that .338.
I could tell pretty soon that Dad’s forces would win. They had the high ground, one hell of a lot of weapons, and they were fighting for their freedom. But the battle was gruesome, and Santos sent everything he had. Our humans had good weapons, too, and Santos had the numbers. Wave after wave. No real subterfuge, either. Direct frontal attacks for the most part, as far as I could see.
Santos had some tricks up his sleeves. Ultra light planes. Boats. Heavy equipment. I shot as many of them down as I could, but I could tell they were doing serious damage. Maybe it wasn’t so clear that Dad would win.
My last memory of the battle was Santos holding a straight razor to my mom’s throat after I’d missed a shot at my Dad. This was way at the end. I knew he’d do it, she was already bleeding pretty good, so I had to take a kill shot at Cleve. I just added that to Santos’ tab. Didn’t even feel that bad about it. I even tried a kill shot at Dad. He moved, it was a miss, and Santos cut my mom, deep, as Marvel knocked me out.
Chapter 11: Jack’s Journey—The Toothache
I immediately got a good feel for Micah. He was an open book. Happy as my old black lab, Molly, to see another person, really. I missed that old mutt. Funny, that connection with your dog, who mostly values you for food and few pats on the head.
I realized how exhausted I was and yawned, popping my last handful of scrounged-up painkillers. Micah asked if I wanted to sleep. I threw caution to the wind and told him I’d love to. He brought me into the storeroom and showed me the basement where he lived.
It was a brilliant setup. The floor was wide pine, with gaps between each board. But there was a trap door set so well into the floor that you couldn’t tell where it was. Micah slipped a little rope between two boards, pulled it back a bit until the knot at the end caught, and pulled the floor open.
“You can’t see it when it’s closed. I can even have a light down there. I checked. One time, I left the door open upstairs and some a them walkers got in up there. They shuffled around for a bit but never found me. I ain’t been that scared since my daddy brought me to the movies and we saw that movie “Scream.” Those ladies sure were pretty, though!” This with a look of pensive reflection.
“Lead on, Micah. This looks good so far.”
“Another time, I heard some mean men upstairs. One of them was Sheriff Sam. He was looking for me. I heard him say “That idjit Micah is in here
somewhere. Let’s find him and he can be our butler!” The others laughed like that was real funny. But he didn’t sound funny.
“Jack, what’s a butler?”
Without waiting for an answer, Micah continued.
“Anyhow, I could count that there were four of them. Sheriff Sam, his brother Billy, another guy I didn’t know, and Black Jake, who was usually locked up at the police station. Billy was a deputy and always mean to me and saying stuff about Daddy. Jake was called Black Jake because he was black. He was always drunk ‘n stuff. ”
Micah gestured to a steep ladder, like a ship’s latter, and I started to go down it while Micah double checked the upstairs.
Micah continued. “Those men looked all over for me. They even tapped all over on the floor. They pushed over all the shelves. Made lots of noise. Ruin’t lots of good stuff. Said mean things about me and Daddy.”
He paused to come down the ladder and pulled the trap shut. It was pitch dark down there. You could actually feel the air compress when the trap shut. That door was so tight, no light got through from upstairs.
“What happened with those guys, Micah?”
“Well, they never really found my trap door, but I think they knew I was down here. They started talking about burning me out. They were sort of laughing and stuff, I think to scare me. I was real scared, so I ran out the back door and hid in the bushes across the street.”
“Black Jake and the rest came out of the store and Billy started to shake some gas onto the front steps. They really were going to burn me out!
“They were drinking booze like Daddy used to have and laughing and playing around. But it wasn’t funny. They was fixin’ to burn a store and a person.”
Micah lit a candle and I could see the confused and troubled look on his face. “Jack, why would they want to burn me?”
“I don’t know, Micah, but I’m sure glad they didn’t. What happened next?”
Micah got a sly look in his eyes. First time I’d seen it. “Well, they weren’t paying any attention, and a bunch of them walkers started sneaking up on them. These walkers was different, they was sneaky and quiet. I stayed quiet, too. “Not a peep” was what Daddy used to say, so I made not even a peep. After a bit, those four mean men were surrounded, and the walkers jumped on ‘em and ate ‘em. I stayed right there in the bushes, not a peep, for two nights and two days.”
“You know what happened, Jack? After the four guys were dead, the other walkers left. Sheriff Sam was all ripped up. One of his arms was off, and they tore off most of his face and his neck. But after awhile, one or two hours later, he started to move. I almost yelled, but I stayed quiet. Sheriff Sam sort of shuffles over to the guy I didn’t know, and starts to eat on him. The guy comes alive again, but he’s not mad at Sam or nothing, and the two of them move over and start to eat Billy. They ‘et up Billy so bad that he didn’t get up, ever, but after a bit Black Jake wakes up and the three just walk off, real slow.”
“I was real lucky, huh, Jack?”
“Yes, Micah, you were lucky but you handled it just right.”
This earned me a look of pure gratitude.
That was it for the night. Micah showed me a hammock where I could sleep. I looked into his big brown eyes for a moment, hoping to be able to into his soul. Could I trust him? How the fuck could I tell? A good liar could lie right to your face and get away with it. You can’t tell anything from looking at someone eyes, other than whether they have pinkeye, or a lazy eye, or a glass eye. So fuck it.
But I needed sleep so I hopped into the hammock and dropped right off. Aided by those very strong painkillers. My last thoughts were that I could—almost—not feel my tooth, that my rescue mission might end right here, that I wished for the old days. I wanted my Kate.
As I slept, memories of that single sighting of the sniper at the Battle of the Farm kept torturing. How could I know that was Mike? Why did I believe that Kate was alive? Was this just a fool’s errand?
Chapter 12: Mariana—The Inner Core
They were all around her. The Core. Surrounding her. All she wanted was to be with Santos. To raise their baby. Yes, the baby growing in her was forced on her, but she already love it more than anything else, except for Santos.
She hated the Inner Core, for their strength, for their beauty, for their connection to Santos. Only for him did she even deal with their corruption. The real leader was Joumana, Mariana intuited. She was taller, stronger. Beautiful. More powerful than Mariana. Mariana could tell that Joumana wanted to kill Santos, to be the ruler of all, to kill all living things. But Santos would not listen to her. He was interested only in Jack.
Mariana’s anger grew. No one but her could ever be with Santos. No one but Santos could ever be King. Except, maybe, their baby. The Heir.
Chapter 13: Kate’s Diary—Zombie Babies
After the battle, when we returned to the armory, they made me work in the most bizarre place I’d ever seen—a zombie nursery. There were a dozen or so zombie babies in there. The star tenant of the nursery was Joumana’s baby, but I could tell that all were waiting for something even bigger, stronger, more important.
What that could be, I could only imagine. Joumana’s baby was maybe two months old. It was easily the size of a six month old. It could communicate even with me, by speaking or even telepathically. I could sense a super intelligence, a questing, an active inquiry into good and evil. The infant questioned her mother, telepathically, and some of it made its way into my head.
They were making plans to kill Mariana and Santos, at the right time. I somehow sensed an innate goodness in the child but also a capacity for evil. I also sensed Joumana’s very active and intentional effort to wipe out the good and to train the kid in darkness. This infant was Joumana’s route to power.
I had two human guards--or helpers--in the nursery. Bonnie Brice was a short, squat lesbian who practically stalked me 24/7. I could not convince Bonnie that I was straight. Not the husband, not the kids, not even my detailed description of how her efforts to seduce me turned me off. She was lovesick, always brushing up against me, rubbing me, trying to get her fingers in my shirt or my pants.
I had had a few lesbian encounters during college with my track teammates and one of my roommates, but I never told Jack and was really never into it. It had been years since I’d been attracted to a woman, maybe the last was my dental hygienist before I had kids. But I knew how to play that game, and I used it to my advantage whenever I could. After a bit, lovesick Bonnie would do anything for me. The extra food and rest were more than a fair reward for a few kisses and gropes.
My other guard was Sadie Rodd, a cracker from South Carolina. Sadie was a tougher nut to crack. Unlike Bonnie, Sadie was not attracted to me. I think Sadie was a bit of a sadist, too, but not too bad to me yet. Sadie the Sadist and Bonnie the Dyke helping Kate the fake lesbian raise psycho zombie babies. What a crew.
Anyway, never put a bitter, hateful person with nothing to lose in charge of your zombie nursery. Because, on my second or third day, I try to burn the fucking place down.
I’d always noticed how the zombies burned well, so I thought it would be easy. I didn’t even really plan it. I simply “borrowed” Bonnie’s cigarettes and lighter, lit a few cigarettes, and tossed them into the zombie cribs. Got a good fire going, too. Zombies stink bad enough, but burning zombie babies are even worse. Most of them went right up.
This might be a good time to note that zombies are in no way human, and neither are their babies. Yes, there is some intelligence there, in some of them, but it is not human intelligence and it is focused purely and exclusively on killing humans. They have no redeeming qualities. Little ones will just become big ones, and spend their stinking “lives” trying to kill the few humans that survived the first round. So no, I did not feel bad burning helpless zombie babies. It was like burning a nest of snakes or rats to me.
But Joumana’s baby did not burn, in fact she developed the ability to crawl right out of there. And
, the sprinkler system somehow worked and sprayed the room down with chemicals that put out the fire. I guess low bid sometimes works okay. Anyway, I got about eight babies but the rest survived.
Joumana caught me trying to make it to the surface and beat me unconscious. Santos ended up “saving” me. I heard him lisping as I passed out--something about letting me survive until we get “Big Shot Jack.”
Chapter 14: Jack’s Journey—The Use It Up Shop
I woke up in Micah’s hidey hole with my tooth and my entire jaw aflame. I took a couple of painkillers and ton of antibiotics, but that thing had to come out. Soon. Micah’s empathy for my pain was evident. He was almost a bit weepy, trying to distract me with little stories, and food, which I could not eat. He also made some coffee, with sugar and some powdered creamer. It was amazing, and almost made me want to live. Even if half ran out of my swollen aching mouth. And the heat zapped that tooth like a motherfucker.
I decided that I could trust Micah. Or that I had to trust him. He was odd, but had survived. Not a warrior, but smart enough to stay quiet and hidden. He could have killed me during the night. Anyway, who wouldn’t trust Barney Fife? Also, if he really was a bicycle mechanic he was worth way more than his weight in gold in the brave new world.
I asked Micah if he’d like to travel with me. I told him my story, and what I was doing. Offered to send him back to the Farm, with a note, instead. When he found out that I was trying to find my wife and my son, he wept, and promised to help me. I told him he’d probably die, and his better bet was to head to the Farm, or even stay here. He stuck to his guns, and told me he’d stay with me no matter what.
Zombie Dawn II: A Zombie Apocalypse Sequel Page 3
