She went out of the stadium and to the gate but, as she approached, she saw the many zombies on the other side. When they saw her, they came at her, hitting the fence and reaching out.
Bri saw so many silhouettes on the other side. There was no escape from the stadium. She knew even if she took an hour to circle the fences she’d be surrounded. Even if she saw a gap it was too dark to move. She could twist an ankle or a prone zombie could reach up and snag her leg. There was too much debris and trash she could trip over and get hurt.
Bri looked back up at the ramps and knew there was only one way to go: up. If she could find a safe spot to hide until daybreak, maybe she’d see an opening in the zombies.
Before Darlene found her again and tortured her for information about the baby.
The baby she’d lost.
I am fucked, Bri thought.
She went up the ramp, taking her time and watching for an attack. If anyone had heard the scraping of the metal shelving that had been pressed against the door, they were now waiting for Bri to approach or following behind.
There was nothing that could be done about it now. Bri needed to keep moving and deal with any outcome.
But she had no idea where to go and what to do.
Bri decided the room she’d been trapped in might be her best spot to wait out the night. She turned and took a few steps when she saw the three figures approaching.
She thought it was a group of the inhabitants of the stadium at first and she was spinning bullshit excuses in her head why she was sneaking around when she got a good look at the three.
The main one approaching was Darlene.
Darlene who was going to kill her. Bri had no doubt this wasn’t going to end well.
“Hello, Bri. It took you longer than I thought to get out of the room. Welcome to our little group,” Darlene said with a smile. “You remember Tosha from the diner? The day you stole my baby. This is Bernie. I don’t think you’ve offended her with your actions yet. I’ll deal with you kidnapping and more than likely losing my baby after we kill the zombie. Are you in or out?”
Tosha put her hand on her weapon but Bri knew Darlene wasn’t going to let her ruin the moment. Darlene would kill Bri when the time came.
“I’m in. Let’s go kill a fucking zombie,” Bri said.
Chapter Thirty-One
Darlene felt like she’d gotten the band back together, for better or for worse.
Bernie, Tosha and Bri were scared of her but they knew without Darlene they weren’t getting out of the stadium alive.
“What’s the plan?” Tosha asked. She was always so impatient.
Darlene stared at the pretty redhead. She was tough. She’d probably been pretty damn tough before all of this started. The zombie fallout had made her even harder. Definitely someone you wanted on your side in this upcoming fight.
Bernie? Darlene wasn’t so sure about. She still held on to her innocence. She wanted to believe this was all going to end soon and go back to normal. There was no such thing as normal. The woman could be handy and Darlene envied her for retaining a sense of her morals and her beliefs even with everything going on.
Bri was going to be dealt with at a later time. Darlene wouldn’t play nicely, either. She would rummage around in Bri’s head and pick out all of the information she needed to find her son. If the girl was left as a vegetable walking corpse, so be it. She owed the little bitch nothing. Only severe and traumatic pain before she was done.
Darlene started to concentrate on Bri’s thoughts. She wanted the information now. Why wait? There was nothing more important than finding her baby. Nothing.
Bri shrank back and so did the other two women.
Darlene stopped and closed her eyes. If she did this right here and right now, Eve would sense it and the plan would be ruined.
What plan?
Darlene’s eyes snapped open. She’d freaked them out but they looked too afraid to run away. Darlene had to admit she enjoyed the sense of fear and needed to explore it in the future. Could she harness the fear from people? Perhaps she’d need to try.
She could start with Bri as she tortured the thief.
“Seriously… we can’t just stand in this tunnel all night, unless that’s your brilliant plan,” Tosha said.
Darlene was about to answer angrily when she saw Tosha’s twin standing off to the side, observing.
“What do you want? Are you here to help us kill the Wicked Witch in the tower?” Darlene said to Mathyu.
“Who are you talking to? Holy shit.” Tosha stepped in between her twin and Darlene. “Don’t you dare fuck with my sister. Got it? She’s doing nothing but standing around. She follows me like a puppy dog. It’s our bond.”
Darlene was ignoring Tosha, looking past her.
“It is uncanny how you look alike but are your own person. Mannerisms are slightly off. You seem less rough around the edges than Tosha. As if you never really cared what people thought of you, while Tosha wanted to make sure everyone was paying attention to anything she did. You’re not worried about your looks as much as Tosha is, either. You’re fine in sweatpants and a t-shirt. She needs to have her makeup done and look hot no matter what’s going on,” Darlene said.
“Who are they talking about?” Bri asked.
“You can’t see her? I can see her,” Bernie said. “She’s the reason I’m standing with this crowd. She suckered me into entering the stadium to meet her charming sister.”
“She doesn’t want to be here,” Darlene said.
Tosha pulled her weapon and aimed it at Darlene.
“I swear if you mess with my sister I will end you, zombie bitch. I will shoot until I’m out of ammo and then I’ll reload and keep shooting until you’re dog food. Understand me? See if I’m bluffing,” Tosha said.
“Relax. I’m not going to do anything your sister doesn’t want me to do.” Darlene wasn’t lying but she could see the Mathyu didn’t want to linger any longer than she had to, trapped in this world and unable to fade away. She didn’t ask to be a ghost or to have to follow her sister around.
She wanted to meet her Maker.
Darlene smiled.
“What’s so damn funny now?” Tosha asked, still holding the gun aimed at Darlene’s head.
“There really is a God,” Darlene said.
“He’s not winning any awards in my book, then, by letting all of this happen and not doing anything about it,” Bri said.
Darlene shook her head. “You don’t get it. Who do you think created all of this? There’s a reason we’re still alive and… all of it. Just all of it.” She started to cry but it wasn’t anger or pain. It was joy. Darlene had touched into something no one could really know or understand just yet. She wondered if her precious baby would also someday figure it out as he grew to be a man.
Could he grow or would he stay an infant, trapped in a child’s body but his brain expanding with knowledge and unable to do anything about it? The thought made her sad.
Tosha lowered the gun and sighed.
“If I shoot you, can you even die at this point?” Tosha asked.
“I don’t really want to find out. We need to get our shit together and put a plan into motion,” Darlene said. She was getting distracted looking at the big picture again. She needed to focus on the little things. This is what The Lich Lord had begun to do: look for the answers for everything instead of the day to day questions you faced.
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Tosha said.
“We need to find out where Eve sleeps,” Bri said.
“She doesn’t sleep. She’s a zombie,” Bernie said.
“She’s beyond a zombie now, right? As they evolve, they become like vampires. Maybe some other monster even more fucked up. Whatever they are now they need to be put the fuck down for good,” Tosha said and smiled at Darlene. “Nothing personal.”
Darlene ignored the comment. She couldn’t really disagree with it. She was focused on Mathyu again.
“I
s there anything you want to tell your sister?” Darlene asked.
“No… yes,” Tosha said.
“I wasn’t actually talking to you. I was talking to Trista,” Darlene said.
“Who’s Trista?” Bernie asked.
“My twin sister. I call her Mathyu,” Tosha said. “She can talk? All this time? I mean… I ran into a couple of gifted kids once and the little girl claimed she talked to Mathyu. It pissed me off, you know? Why can’t I talk to my own sister? We should be sharing a bond or something. But she just stares at me like she’s doing now.” Tosha gave her sister the finger and grinned. “She was always such a bitch and I loved her dearly. I don’t want her to leave me. I like her being around. It annoys and keeps me going.”
Darlene put up a hand and Tosha stopped talking.
“Mathyu says she loves you,” Darlene said.
Tosha snorted. “Now I know you’re messing with me.”
“She loves you even though you look like a heifer in those pants and your makeup looks like a blind hooker did it for you,” Darlene said.
Tosha turned to her twin with a smile. “That’s my sister talking.”
Darlene put a hand on Tosha’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
“Don’t you want her to stop this lonely existence between worlds and let her move on to the next step?” Darlene asked. “While she says she loves watching you screw up and wander around aimlessly, she knows what’s waiting for her on the other side.”
“I don’t suppose she’ll tell me what we have to look forward to? I didn’t think so.” Tosha put her head down. “I love you, sis. I know you know it, too. We never said it enough unless we were busting each other’s balls. I guess life really is short. I wish we could’ve had more time arguing about which video game to play. I’ll see you on the other side so you’d better get better at World of Warcraft or I’ll wipe the floor with you as usual.”
Mathyu slowly faded and Tosha looked away.
A humming noise, like people murmuring, echoed in the hallway.
“Do you hear that?” Bri asked.
They’d all heard it.
Darlene was the first one to walk out of the tunnel a few feet and stare at the field, which was filling with survivors.
“We need to get closer and see what Eve is doing,” Darlene said.
“I guess we have a new plan,” Tosha said.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Eve kept telling Amber to stop crying but she wasn't going to anytime soon, and it was annoying.
She'd deal with the two cowardly men later. Make an example of them, even though she didn't know exactly why. It didn't matter. They hadn't been dismissed. Good enough.
"We're going to go and play with your new toys," Eve said to the crying child.
She searched through her own memories to touch base with human feelings again. Eve remembered the pain she'd felt when her own mother was so sick in the hospital right when the world had turned upside down. The fear her mother wouldn't make it. The anguish over losing a parent.
Eve felt nothing.
She knew she had at one point, back when she was a mere mortal and weak. Back when love and hate and happy and sad meant something, but no more. All she felt now was her own power and her own innermost feeling which couldn't be neatly labeled and put away on a shelf for later use. She supposed anger was a real feeling for her still, but dwelling on any of it wasn't going to help.
The Zombie Killer had just come through her, using a woman as her weapon, and Eve thought if she was labeling feelings a tinge of fear was appropriate.
Eve needed to put Amber away where she was safe and then rally her troops to protect her.
The Zombie Killer was still a mortal, right? Only a strong woman... with magical powers to control a person remotely...
Eve knew she was so much more, and her child as well. The pair could ruin everything.
"It's not fair. I'm supposed to be at the top of the food chain, not her," Eve said to Amber, who was still crying. She pulled harshly on the little girl's arm and led her into the stadium tunnel on the opposite side of the field from where the survivors lived.
Eve wanted to take out her anger on all of them. She needed to kill every last one and be done with it. Why was she saving them, anyway? It wasn't like she could feed off of them. They weren't doing anything but taking up her precious time. They fought and harmed one another despite the danger they were in. They stole the last crumb of food from their neighbor and schemed to usurp the stadium.
The humans were no longer worth the trouble.
Eve got to her front room, which had once been the visiting team's locker room area. It was spacious and where Amber would live from now on. She'd be groomed as Eve's human representative in case she had to go out into the world. As the child grew into a woman, maybe she'd be good enough to have a mate and have a child of her own, which would then take her place serving Eve.
"This room is where you're going to stay for awhile. Go in and relax and play with the toys and clothing. I'll get you more. I promise," Eve said.
Amber was trying to stop crying. Eve could see she was hyperventilating. The girl was so upset she'd pass out soon.
"Go get into bed. I'll read you a nice bedtime story in a bit," Eve lied. She wasn't going to play these silly games with the child. It didn't matter now. She needed to toughen up Amber so she'd be better prepared for the days ahead.
Eve scanned the stadium, searching for the nearest male not in the tunnels. She needed to get them focused before they got the bright idea to revolt.
Killing Amber's birth mother wasn't the best thing to do. Eve knew the men who'd witnessed it would assume she'd finally gone over the edge and killed the woman for no good reason.
Eve had a good reason, and she needed to explain it to the humans before they all died. It would be fun to see them squirm when they realized they were next.
One of the men who'd run away was nearby, foolishly hiding just down the hall in a private bathroom.
"Come to me. Now," Eve commanded.
She closed the door to the room and turned off the light as soon as Amber, still crying, crawled onto one of the trainer tables being used as her new bed.
"I'm scared," Amber said. "It's going to be too dark."
Eve smiled, standing in the doorway with the light from the other room spilling in.
"Oh, poor child. You fear the dark?" Eve asked.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Such a shame because your world is now total darkness until you toughen up and stop all of this crying. Shut up and go to sleep. Big day tomorrow," Eve said and slammed the door.
She went out into the hallway and the man ran to her, his body shaking as he stopped ten feet from her.
"I'm not going to bite you," Eve said. She tilted her head and smiled. "Hmm. Maybe later?"
The man couldn't take a joke and backpedaled on his heels.
"Take another step and I gut you and hang your bleeding corpse from a goalpost."
He wisely stopped moving but he was still shaking.
"I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you do that?" Eve asked.
The man nodded.
"I'll need everyone on the field in the next thirty minutes. I have something comforting I need to explain to everyone. Have them pack, too," Eve said.
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. You're an idiot. I'm going to have a chat with all of the survivors and then set them free, unless you want to live in a cramped tunnel for the rest of your horrible lives?"
He shook his head like the idiot he was and ran off. Eve was about to eviscerate him for not waiting to be dismissed but she had bigger problems now.
Eve paced in the hallway. She had many questions that needed to be answered but they could wait. What she really wanted to do was find out where her enemy was and destroy her before she could claim another body. Killing them one at a time wasn’t going to work for Eve. Too much effort when she could slay dozens at a time.
> If the Zombie Killer didn’t have a vessel to use maybe she’d have no choice but to come in her own body, and then Eve could permanently rid the world of the nuisance.
Eve scanned the stadium, picking up several people she didn’t recognize.
There’s no way she’s brought others like her, Eve thought. She scanned each person in turn. No, they were just humans. They’d entered the stadium and needed to be dealt with but they weren’t the priority.
Eve sent out a soothing message to the people she was connected to: the survivors she’d built up a connection with over the weeks and months.
They might hate and fear her but they also knew without Eve they’d be wandering this post apocalyptic world. Most would be dead by now.
She’d given them food and shelter. Safety from the hordes of zombies. Protection from those like Eve.
She’d given them life and she was going to take it away. Because she could.
Eve marched out with a smile on her face as the first of her sacrifices began dragging their bags and junk onto the field in preparation to leave this world.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mimzie had every worldly possession she owned in a ripped backpack over her shoulder. She had three pairs of almost new socks with a small knife wrapped inside of one. Her backpack never left her. She used it as a pillow when she went to sleep and she’d had to fight off other survivors who wanted to see what she had. Most of them had nothing, walking with the clothes on their back out onto the football field.
When word had come the zombie was letting them all go she’d smiled and took the photo of her husband out of her pocket, telling him silently her prayers might be answered.
Maybe now she could go and find him. She’d been searching when she was lured to the stadium by Eve with the lie Tom was inside and waiting to see her again.
She worried about her daughters. Her grandkids. Her friends. Everyone she’d ever known.
Mimzie moved with the rest of the group, breathing in the cool night air. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out of the tunnels. Eve would call on certain people for certain tasks but Mimzie hadn’t proven useful to the zombie. It was better than being used and thrown away, though. Too many people had gotten the call to serve Eve and never returned to the tunnels.
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