by JL Bryan
“My place?” the guard asked.
“Yeah. You're just the kind of guy I've been looking for.”
The guard glanced at Alexander, then back at Ashleigh. “Um, yeah. Okay?”
“Okay,” Ashleigh said. “Just let us make this quick drop-off, and I'll be ready for you. Get it hard for me, will you? I don't want to wait long. I'm going to give you a screwing like you've never had before.”
The guard gaped at her.
“Oh, you forgot to open the gate,” Ashleigh said.
“Sorry!” The guard blushed and reached inside his booth. The two heavy steel gates swung open.
“Thanks, honey,” Ashleigh said. “You won't change your mind about me coming home with you, right?”
“Oh, no,” he breathed. He was practically panting.
Alexander drove inside the gate, while the guard stared after them like a lonely puppy.
“You're such a charmer,” Alexander said.
“I didn't get any on you, did I?” Ashleigh asked.
“I think we're safe.”
“Pull around to that loading dock,” Ashleigh said. “That's going to be the closest exit, I think.”
Alexander parked, and they used the guard's ID to open the locked door by the loading dock.
The interior of the warehouse was all empty space and blank concrete, except for a rectangular metal structure at the center, which was about the size of an eighteen-wheeler truck.
“That must be it,” Alexander said.
They opened the door at one end of the structure. The interior was freezing cold, and pitch black until Ashleigh found the light switch.
Shelves lined both sides of the freezer, six high, all the way to the back. The shelves were full of large objects sealed in plastic.
Ashleigh unzipped the nearest one. It contained the corpse of a teenage girl with red hair and freckles, eaten up by disease before it was frozen.
“Hey there, Cassie!” Ashleigh chirped. “Want to come out and play one more time?”
“You know her?” Alexander asked.
“She was my best friend before Jenny killed her,” Ashleigh said. “But I know everybody here. This is my town.”
Alexander touched Cassie's body. Cassie let out a groan and slowly, stiffly rolled over to the edge of the shelf. She planted her feet on the floor and stood up, slouching heavily. Her green eyes were blank, her jaw slack, her hair falling off with pieces of her scalp. Ashleigh snapped her fingers in front of Cassie's face, but the dead girl didn't react.
“Come on, Cass-Cass,” Ashleigh said. “It's time Jenny Mittens got her payback.”
Alexander was unzipping the next body, and the next. Ashleigh helped. She found Cassie's boyfriend, Everett Lawson, the obese Coach Humbee, Mayor Winder, Dick Baker (“The Attorney/Realtor You Trust”), several ladies from the steering committee at Fallen Oak Baptists, assorted kids from the football team, and all the cheerleaders. Neesha, Ashleigh's other best friend, was barely recognizable with her collapsed face.
Ashleigh unzipped a body at the back and found herself looking at the leprous dead face of her mother. Then she unzipped her father's corpse, lying next to it. Jenny had infected the Goodlings pretty badly.
“You look like shit, Mom and Dad,” Ashleigh said. “Come on, get moving.”
“Your parents?” Alexander asked. “Want to leave them here?”
“Hell, no,” Ashleigh said. “I want Jenny to see what she's done to every one of these people. If she's all mopey about it like you say, this should be a nice and horrible way for her to die.”
“Your call.” Alexander shrugged. He grabbed one of Ashleigh's dead parents with each hand and pulled them off the shelf. They fell to the floor, then slowly stood, creaking with every move.
Ashleigh looked back over her shoulder and saw scores of people, her old neighbors and classmates, shuffling out the door of the freezer.
“Are they going to move any faster?” Ashleigh asked.
“I'm still fully charged with Jenny's energy,” Alexander said. “They can move fast, but they'll have to thaw first.”
“Oh, that's going to reek.” Ashleigh crinkled her nose.
They herded the zombies out to the loading dock. Alexander had the zombies empty the truck out, leaving a towering heap of frozen pork butts and sealed buckets of pulled pork and Brunswick stew on the dock. Then the zombies shuffled up the ramp into the box truck, lying down on top of each other, packing themselves in like sardines.
Alexander closed the rear door of the truck. The latch fell into place with a heavy thunk.
“I knew my investigation would pay off,” Ashleigh said. “I can't say I expected things to work out this way, though.”
“We'd better get going,” Alexander said. “Unless you really want to stay and hook up with that guard.”
“Ew,” Ashleigh said. “I told him I'd give him the screwing of his life. He's going to get it as soon as his boss finds out what happened.”
“I think he liked you,” Alexander said.
“Shut up!” Ashleigh's eyes flicked up and down Alexander's body. “Why would I do that? I have much better options available.”
“Who said I'm available?” Alexander asked.
“Who said I was talking about you?”
Alexander found himself reaching for her, intending to draw her close. He closed his fists and resisted the urge. “Let's just get in the truck.”
“Whatever you say, baby,” Ashleigh said.
Alexander climbed into the driver's seat. Ashleigh tuned the radio to a pop-country station.
“Jenny fucking Mittens,” Ashleigh said, her eyes gleaming. “I warned her not to fuck with me, didn't I?”
“I'm sure you did,” Alexander said. “It sounds like something you would say.”
They pulled away from the warehouse, with two hundred reanimated bodies in the back of the truck.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Jenny and Seth sat on the floor of a guest room in Seth's house, the room with the curtained bed made from an old wooden sailing ship. The windows were open and their screens removed, so the breeze from outside flapped the canvas bed curtains. If you wanted to drop something onto a horde of zombies lurching up the front walk, this was one of the best vantage points from which to do it.
Heather sat in a chair in the corner of the room, watching nervously as Seth poured gasoline through a funnel into a glass beer bottle. Then he sealed it with a small, lever-operated bottle capper. Both the bottles and caps had been purchased at a home-brewing hobby shop on their way out of Atlanta.
Jenny set a pair of long kitchen matches on either side of the bottle, then wrapped it with a strip of duct tape to hold the matches in place. She carefully set it down in a cardboard box with a dozen other completed bottles. They would stay here beside the window until they were lit and dropped out. Nobody wanted to move the whole box around at once, for fear something would break and leak fuel everywhere.
“Are sure you know what you're doing?” Heather asked.
“Yeah,” Seth said. “I read a whole website about Molotov cocktails.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” Heather said.
“Can you think of a faster way to cut down a horde of zombies?” Jenny asked.
“How do you know he's coming with a horde?” Heather asked. “Why doesn't he just bring a gun and shoot you?”
“That's not good enough, because Seth could heal us easily from gunshot wounds,” Jenny said. “Besides, he'll want to make a big, dramatic point. He won't just want us dead, he'll want us ripped to pieces.”
“Me, anyway,” Seth said. “He wants to keep you, Jenny.”
“We'll see what he wants,” Jenny said. “I'm assuming the worst.”
“Which would be worse?” Seth asked. “Dying, or going back with him?”
“What do you think?” Jenny scowled.
“Okay, I got you all set up.” Jenny's dad walked into the room, wearing a deep, worried frown. Jenny
didn't think she'd ever seen him so unhappy before.
Her dad held two remote controls from Radio Shack, which were meant to power little motorized race cars. He set them down on the dresser.
“There you go,” he said. “You got to mash both switches at once to make it go. So we don't have any accidents.”
“Thanks, Daddy.” Jenny stood up.
“Whew, you sure smell like gas,” he said. He glanced at the box full of bottles. “Y'all be careful. I don't like any of this.”
“We'll be fine,” Jenny said.
“I really think I ought to stick around, if this fella's coming for you,” her dad said. He looked at Seth and Heather. “Y'all don't have a lot of people.”
“The story will go smoother if you're not here,” Jenny said. “Just head over to June's place, in case they come searching for me at home.”
“You don't think they're coming tonight, do you?” he asked.
“It'll be within a few days, I bet. We're lucky we've had this much time.”
“I'm staying.” He folded his arms.
Jenny sighed. She closed her eyes and summoned up the pox from deep inside her, until face oozed with sores. She opened her eyes again, and spoke in the dark, ancient voice of her soul. “I am not simply your daughter. I have ruled kingdoms without number. I have slaughtered cities and armies. I have raised empires and destroyed them. I am the plague-bringer.”
Her dad gaped at her. So did Seth and Heather.
“You know what, Jenny?” her dad finally said, in a much quieter voice. “I think I'll just stay out of your way on this one.”
Jenny pulled in the pox until she looked like her normal self. “Thanks, Daddy.” She hugged him, but he seemed distant. She hated that she'd had to do that, but she needed him safe and far away. “Take care of Rocky, okay?”
“Yeah.” He nodded at Seth. “You two take care of each other.”
“We will, Mr. Morton,” Seth said.
Jenny's dad took a long, final look at her. “I hope to see you again, Jenny.”
“Me, too, Daddy.”
He hugged Jenny again, and this time it was genuine. Jenny felt like crying.
“Get over to June's,” Jenny said. “Be safe. I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, Jenny,” he said, and he looked a little choked up, too. Jenny wondered if she would ever be able to return home.
***
A little after midnight, Jenny sat behind the desk in Seth's dad's office. Seth's parents had stayed in Florida, again to keep the cover story simple. The less involved their parents were, the less Homeland Security would be able to wring out of them.
The flat-screen monitor showed the viewpoints of the cameras mounted at the two gates in the walls of Barrett House. Her father had welded the back gate shut, so Alexander would have to come in through the front. Seth had activated the full security system, including motion detectors. If anything came over the wall, the software would give an alert.
At the same time, they'd left the front gates unlocked, so that anyone could push them open. They wanted Alexander coming in through the front, where they'd made some preparations for taking down the zombies.
Jenny walked out of the office and just down the hall to the library. Seth and Heather were both sleeping on the old leather couches there, Heather with a pillow and blanket Seth had provided. It was their first chance to sleep since they'd picked up Heather the night before. Jenny felt tired, too. She hoped she had some extra time to rest before Alexander arrived, but she knew he was on his way. She could feel it.
She poured herself a glass of iced tea in the kitchen, then returned to the office to watch the monitor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Tommy watched Jenny's house from the woods. The girl was Ashleigh's obsession, and if Tommy kept an eye on her, he knew Ashleigh would arrive sooner or later. He was patient. He'd sat here all afternoon, through the sunset, and for a few hours since then.
Jenny's father had come and gone a few times, but there was no sign of Jenny. Her father had left for the last time in the early evening, taking the dog with him, and not returned. At this point, he was either having a late night at a redneck bar somewhere, or he was spending the night away.
He suspected Ashleigh might be here, soon—something had made her decide to cut him loose. Maybe she was just moving to Washington, to a nice silk-lined mistress nest provided by her pet congressman, but Tommy didn't think so. He and Ashleigh were connected, like two broken halves of the same twisted soul. He could sense something powerful stirring inside her, much bigger than just the predictable unfolding of her seduction of Representative Eddie Brazer.
Tommy began to feel antsy and restless, like the action was happening somewhere else and he was missing it.
Since it didn't look like anybody was coming back, Tommy made his way out of the woods to the rickety little house. The front door was locked, but Tommy knew how to pick cheap residential locks.
The house smelled like dog and the ghosts of old cigarettes. Tommy rummaged through the bills on the table, glanced in the fridge for anything interesting, cut himself a slice of some really good hoop cheese he found under a glass dome on a cutting board.
The old cassette-tape answering machine was almost as big as a shoebox—it took Tommy a moment to even figure out what the boxy device next to the telephone was. He pressed the PLAY button, but all the messages had been erased.
He'd been here twice before. The first time, he'd come in search of Ashleigh's killers, but he hadn't known about the Jenny pox and had come away sick and scarred. The second time, Ashleigh had sent him to fill Jenny's father's mind with fear until it popped, and to leave a note Ashleigh had made for Jenny.
On this visit, he was in no hurry. He walked through the dining room, looking at the clay pots and simple sculptures on the table. He glanced into the hall bathroom, and then he found Jenny's room.
Tommy sat on her bed, looking around at the old cabinet-style record player, the dresser with the fire scars at one end. He looked at himself in the mirror, and there he saw the photographs tacked on the wall alongside Jenny's bed.
He turned to look at them. They were pictures of the boyfriend, Seth, who Ashleigh also hated deeply. Of course, Tommy thought. Why would Jenny hang around this pathetic dump when she had a boyfriend with a mansion across town? Since nothing was happening here, Seth's place seemed like a good place to look. He was going to die of boredom and his growing anxiety if he had to sit around doing nothing the rest of the night.
Tommy returned outside and rolled his bike out of the woods. He cranked it up in Jenny's driveway, and then he pulled out onto the paved road.
***
The meat truck rattled and shook as it crawled along the dirt road, which was really just a pair of weedy, sandy ruts through endless acres of dense pine trees. It came to a stop at a fork in the road.
“I think this is it,” Alexander said.
“You thought that the last ten times,” Ashleigh said.
“I've only stopped twice.”
“Now it's three times.”
“Just give me a minute.” Alexander grabbed the flashlight and climbed out of the car.
“See if there's a bathroom,” Ashleigh called after him.
Alexander ignored her. He thought he could discern the faint traces of the overgrown trail here. Plenty had changed in the decades since he last lived in Fallen Oak, but he had once known every inch of the town and its countryside.
He bashed aside limbs with the flashlight, stomped down thick brambles with his shoes, slowly making his way deeper into the woods.
He was beginning to think he'd stopped at the wrong place yet again when his flashlight found the brick chimney jutting up among the brambles. It had sunk into the earth a few feet over the years, and it leaned far to one side, but it was still there, surrounded by rubble masked by thorns and weeds.
Alexander dashed back to the truck. He unlatched the rear door and pulled down the ramp
. Zombies marched out one after the other, carrying axes, shovels, and picks looted from a hardware store a few towns away. Alexander and Ashleigh had also gorged themselves on Waffle House food to stock up on calories. Ashleigh's purse was stuffed full of Power Bars in case they needed more.
Ashleigh leaned out the driver-side window. “Does this mean we're here?” she asked.
“We're here.”
The zombies hacked open the trail with their tools. They worked reasonably fast. After spending so much time feeding on Jenny's energy, Alexander was at the most powerful he'd ever been in this lifetime. The zombies themselves were finally defrosting. He'd kept the temperature in the rear of the truck around forty-five degrees, enough to loosen them up without bringing on rot.
Soon, a wide, clear path connected the dirt road to the rubble. Ashleigh jumped down from the truck to join him next to the old chimney.
“This place is a wreck,” Ashleigh said.
“We're just passing through,” Alexander said. “We're not renting a room.” He waved a hand, and the zombies attacked the rubble, slashing away thorns and weeds, shoveling bricks aside. Once, there had been a small cottage here, a good place to retreat for reading books and writing letters. It looked like it had been completely forgotten, which was fortunate for him.
After a few minutes of digging and scratching, a few of the zombies sank through the sandy earth and tumbled out of sight. Alexander approached the hole, which had once been hidden under the floor of the cottage. The zombies were piled on each other down on the dirt floor below, still making digging motions with their hands. Alexander had them stop and stand up. He pointed into the pit with his flashlight.
“Ladies first,” Alexander said.
Ashleigh looked into the rough dirt hole. “No, thanks. I'll wait.”
