She nodded and he opened the throttle a bit. At the peak of the bridge, European Village loomed before them. Angel tapped Ike’s left shoulder and pointed ahead.
“I think I saw something up there, along the rail,” she said.
Before Ike could respond, he heard the distinct sound of a rifle shot and the window of a nearby mini-van exploded. He quickly positioned the bike behind the minivan and killed the engine. He practically lifted Angel off and placed her on the ground, with her back to the rear bumper, while simultaneously drawing his .45.
“Don’t move,” he said.
She nodded, vigorously.
Ike belly-crawled to the front of the mini-van and strained to see the shooter. Fifty yards ahead, on his left, he spotted a person sitting with their back against the jersey barrier. It appeared to be a woman. She held a machete to her chest and covered her right eye with her free hand. Ike could see her talking to somebody out of his sight. He scrambled to a burned out Toyota for a better look and saw her companion. A man, lying on the deck, next to a car—in his hands was a crossbow.
He made his way back to Angel.
“There’s two people up ahead on the bridge, but neither of them has a rifle and whoever shot at us did,” he said.
“What do we do?” she asked.
“Don’t know yet. I need to know where the shooter is.”
“…and why they’re shooting at us,” Angel finished.
“We’ll worry about that later,” Ike said.
Ike stood up enough to look through the windows of the mini-van. After several minutes, he sat down.
“The two people down there appear to be pinned down as well and, for all we know, they think we’re the ones doing the shooting.”
“So they might shoot at us?”
“I would,” Ike said.
Ike spotted the corpse of a zombie on the bridge a few feet away and devised a plan. He crawled to it and dragged it back to their position.
“What are you doing?” Angel asked.
“This dead-head is going to help me find the shooter,” he said.
He dragged the corpse to the front end of the van and wrestled it into a standing position, then waved one of its arms in the air. Immediately, a shot rang out and Ike saw the muzzle flash from the roof of the Village. The bullet struck the grill of the mini-van. Whoever held the rifle wasn’t a very good shot. He went back to Angel.
“Sniper on the roof of European Village,” he said.
“I thought you had a friend in there,” she asked.
“He’s supposed to be in there, but who knows what’s happened. Get ready to move fast,” he said. “I’ll have to leave Betty here.”
He took the smoke grenade from his pocket, pulled the pin and lobbed it to the left along the concrete barrier. Once there was a thick cover of smoke, he stood and fired two shots toward the roof, then grabbed Angel’s hand.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They scrambled, under cover of the smoke, toward the woman ahead.
Tiki
His goatee was long and straggly and the wind tunneling through the openings around European Village was playing havoc with it. His faded Chicago Cubs jersey had seen better days, but he didn't care at this moment. Mark Woods, affectionately known as Tiki to his friends, had bigger things to worry about.
There was the dull sound of another gunshot and he pointed, dramatically, in the air. "Yet another call to the zombies to feast on us."
"But what can we really do?" Bethany DeVore asked, sipping from a straw jammed into a bruised plastic fast food drink cup. "It's safe here."
Tiki shook his head and gently took the cup from Bethany, staring into her striking blue eyes. He lowered his voice so the others gathered around them in the center of European Village couldn't hear. "Have you been drinking?"
Bethany smiled, her face lighting up. "It's my birthday, silly. Of course, I'm drinking."
Tiki sniffed the straw. It was vodka. He had no idea where she'd come up with the alcohol, and right now it didn't matter. What he needed to do was convince her that his plan would work, and get her to talk to some of the other diehards who followed Ky without a thought. Bethany was the go-between. "Can you stop long enough so I can talk to the crowd?"
Bethany laughed and looked around. "Crowd? There are six of us. And I'm not even close to being drunk, honey." She grabbed the cup back and grinned. "I'll be good."
Tiki turned back to the other four members of the group, all sitting around the covered bandstand which, in happier times, would house free concerts, special events and book signings for local authors. Now, it was one of the few places not destroyed or filled with debris. Ky had decreed that no one could sleep under it or pitch a makeshift tent because there were too many people fighting over it.
Now they used it to hang out during the day when there weren't specific jobs to be done. Even with so many survivors, they were spread out across the grounds and in the apartments above.
Tiki turned to Ariane Vinci, a tall, pretty blonde with an arresting smile. She was the only member here paying attention to his exchange with Bethany, and she, clearly, looked amused. The other three sat on the steps of the bandstand and were talking softly among themselves: Carole Faletti, Sue Thompson and Doris Ryan were loyal to Ky but had inquired about the intelligence of leaving the Village before they ran out of supplies or were attacked.
"I think we need to get the general feel for the rest of the survivors. It is obvious Ky will never let us get to Saint Augustine, where I just know there is a better life for us."
"Then why not send a team to see? Why wouldn't he do that?" Bethany asked. "It's obvious we're running out of food and water. We haven't added any new stragglers in weeks, and Palm Coast itself is a burnt out mess. Pretty soon our scavenging teams will be going into Ormond Beach or close to Saint Augustine anyway."
"If there is a thriving city still alive - and I think there is - you don't think they've already cleaned out anything worth taking?" Tiki said, as he casually gathered everyone into a group and put on his positive face. "I say we do what needs to be done before it's too late. With those idiots shooting from the roof, the undead will be walking over the bridge within hours and surrounding us."
"Like when they shot at Azrael on the motorcycle, remember?" Carole asked.
Azrael was a nearly mystical figure from the surrounding area, who carried an arsenal of weapons as he rode through town, shooting and destroying zombies. Someone on watch had heard him coming over the bridge and decided to shoot at him. Azrael shot back and killed two men before driving away. Ky had been furious. Why provoke another human, who they might have been able to team with in the future?
Tiki smiled. "How many more times are we going to alienate the outside world and arrogantly think we're the last bastion of humanity?"
"Look what happened to Orlando," Bethany chimed in.
"Exactly. Orlando thought they had it all figured out, going about their business like nothing had changed. Let's hook up some generators and grow some crops and we're living large once again. And what happened?"
Ariane put her hands on her face. "We were overrun in the middle of the night. It was awful. Somehow they broke through three secure fences and swarmed us. There were thousands of them."
Tiki felt badly for bringing it up, noting the pain etched on her pretty face, but something dramatic and over the top was exactly what they needed to gain focus. "I'm sorry you have to relive the attacks, but I'm glad you found us here in the last few months. I'm glad all of us are alive." He pointed at Europa. "Despite what Ky and his obvious lackeys think is the best plan for dozens of people, I don't remember electing him my king."
"Aren't you being a bit dramatic there, bartender?" Bethany asked and smirked. "Ky was the only person to take charge when we were under attack. I came here to get drunk at Farley's, thinking the world was going to end. I seem to remember you working the bar at Europa that night. Were you some politician back in the day or som
ething?"
Tiki smiled. Wow, she is going to be tough to turn, he thought. I love a challenge, especially from a hot woman. "I've been a bartender my entire adult life. I've worked every watering hole in Palm Coast and Flagler Beach. I used to be something of a name around here when it came to a good bartender, and I knew everyone. I also dealt with dozens of different bar and restaurant owners, and diplomacy is my forte. I can also read people. I'm just wondering, at this point, if Ky has the best interests of everyone in mind, or just himself? Because, to me, the only way we survive is getting the hell out of European Village."
"I don't agree. We are safe here; we just need to find more supplies." Bethany shook her cup. "Out there, we are exposed and in constant danger. I've seen the mess and the destruction all around us. I'd rather be here, safe and sound, and sleeping in an actual bed upstairs, than sleeping in an alley and hoping a zombie isn't going to sneak up and rape me."
"I tend to agree with that sentiment," Ariane said simply. "I know what we have here. It might not be the best situation, but at least I know we are not going to get bitten in the next five minutes. I can live every five minutes for the rest of my life like that if I have to—whatever it takes to avoid that hell again."
Tiki knew he'd lost them and the look on the faces of the others showed him this meeting had been a dismal failure. "I'd hate to think, just north of us, a thriving city exists, one with actual electricity, good food and good leadership. I'd hate to think these are the last walls I will ever see." He paused dramatically and looked at the grass near the bandstand. "Will there be enough spots to bury our bodies here? Will anyone even be alive to do it?"
Brewski
As Brewski ran up the stairs, he heard another shot. Cursing to himself, he took the steps two and three at a time. He burst through the roof hatch, just as Jeff readied to fire again. He charged for the kneeling Jeff and plowed into him, shoulder first, as he fired another shot.
“What the fuck part of ‘no shooting’ did you not understand?” he asked, as he yanked the rifle from his hands.
Jeff raised his hands in a defensive posture and squeezed his eyes shut expecting Brewski to hit him.
“There’re more people out there, new ones. What if they’re getting ready to attack?”
“They’re not going to attack from the bridge, you idiot. Meanwhile, you’re wasting ammo and giving away your position. Tell me what you think you saw.”
“I saw a guy and a girl come onto the bridge, from the A1A side, on a motorcycle. I took a shot at them and almost got one of ‘em. Next thing I know the bridge is full of smoke, somebody shoots at me and then nothing.”
“I heard two shots,” Brewski said.
“They tricked me,” Jeff admitted. “They held up a dead body and I took a shot at it.”
“Brilliant, they wanted to see were you were and you might as well have stood up and waved a flag.”
Jeff looked away, not willing to debate the point. Once again, Brewski wished Ike was on scene.
“Get your ass downstairs, find out who your relief is and send them up,” Brewski ordered.
Jeff crawled to the hatch and disappeared. Brewski raised the scope of the rifle to his eye and scanned the bridge.
No movement other than the remnants of a smoke screen floating away on the wind.
Ike
Ike and Angel emerged from the smoke twenty feet from the woman. Ike spotted the man with the crossbow running west toward the toll booth. The woman was crouching and moving away from them. Ike saw the sniper kneeling on the roof; he had a perfect line on the woman. Knowing his .45 wouldn’t be accurate enough at this distance to take out the sniper, he let go of Angel’s hand.
“Get down and stay here,” he said.
He sprinted toward the woman. When he was five feet behind her, he dove and brought her down with a perfect open field tackle just as the shot was fired. When they landed, Ike rolled to his left, still holding her around the waist, and came to rest against the concrete parapet. They remained still, waiting for more gunfire; none came. Ike released his grip on the woman. She tried to scramble away, eyeing the baseball bat lying in the roadway. Ike grabbed her foot and pulled her back. She turned around quickly, pulling a machete from somewhere and brought it up.
Ike yanked her leg, pulling her close enough to grab her wrist with his free hand and wrestle the machete from her.
“Relax,” he said. “I’m not the enemy.”
She looked for her partner, who was kneeling behind the toll booth awaiting the outcome of the struggle.
Ike flipped the machete and offered it back to her, handle first.
“My name’s Ike. I’m not here to hurt you.”
She took the machete and looked at him sideways for several seconds.
“Darlene,” she finally said.
“Well, Darlene, my friend and I,” he nodded toward Angel who hadn’t moved a muscle, “are heading into European Village. What’s your plan?”
“Plan?” she said. “My plan is to stay alive. Whatever I have to do to make that happen is my plan.”
Ike nodded. “Good plan,” he said. “You’re welcome to come with us.”
“In there?” she said, as she rubbed an eye that was already aggravated. “In case you forgot, they’re shooting at us.”
“What happened to your eye?”
“Took some concrete chips when they shot at me and hit the jersey barrier.”
“Well, there’s a better chance of getting it taken care of in there than out here.”
She thought about it briefly and then nodded.
“You better tell your friend to get over here,” she said to Ike.
Ike turned to Angel and motioned with his hand for her to come to him and stay low. They waited for Angel. Once she arrived, they moved for the toll booth.
Brewski
Brewski lowered the rifle and shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked from one end of the concrete bridge to the other. The last of the smoke was gone and he saw no movement.
Jeff’s story stuck in his mind. An approaching motorcycle, a smoke screen, somebody taking a couple of shots at them from the bridge and then nothing—a signature Ike maneuver.
The only thing that didn’t fit was the girl, but then again, with Ike it made plenty of sense.
The hatch opened and Cesar Romero poked his head through. Brewski breathed a sigh of relief. Romero was not the type to get nervous and start shooting every time the wind blew.
He handed the rifle to Cesar and said, “It’s all yours, I’m going to the bridge, keep an eye out and don’t shoot me.”
“You’re going to the bridge?” Cesar asked in his New York Puerto Rican accent. “Are you crazy or something?”
“Just keep an eye on me,” Brewski said.
He climbed down the ladder and checked his Glock, as he trotted down the stairs.
Didi
Didi paced the compound smoking one of her last cigarettes and trying to figure out her next course of action. She ran a hand through hair that was losing its bottled blonde color more and more each day and drew the last available puff from her smoke. She stopped and pulled the crushed pack from the back pocket of jeans that used to be tight. Two left…after that she was going to have to kill somebody.
She lit one and resumed pacing.
Passing by the remains of Farley’s Irish Pub, she glanced at the balcony two stories above. Uncle Brian’s body lay against the wrought-iron rail waiting to be taken out for disposal. In the meantime, it only served as a reminder that, if she and Brewski hadn’t come to check on him, they wouldn’t be stuck in a glorified P.O.W. camp.
She continued around the compound, passing Europa and glancing at the commotion inside with little, if any, interest. She stopped and sat on the concrete bench in front of the bandstand. After a minute, she was annoyed by the guy with the funky beard and his yapping. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but no ex-hipster had anything to say that she would be interested in.
When her cigarette was gone, she stopped and ground it into the brick pavers and reached for the pack. She stared at the last cigarette between her and certain insanity. She glanced up as an attractive thin woman brushed past her and opened a door to one of the shops.
Once a high end hookah bar where connoisseurs of fine tobacco gathered to partake in a smoke, share a glass of brandy and lounge on fine leather furniture while jazz and blues played at a volume that didn’t prevent quiet, civilized conversation—The Humidor was now a thousand square feet of dust, peeling paint and near empty shelves. If not for Ky and his love of cigars, it would have fallen to looters long ago—that and the plywood covering the broken storefront window.
Didi looked at her last cigarette, then to the door of The Humidor and was struck with an inspiration. She returned the pack to her pocket and pushed through the door.
The girl was sitting in a worn and dusty leather chair, leafing through a torn magazine. In her hand was a long thin cigar. A beautiful stream of smoke floated from the head and seemed to move straight to Didi’s nose. She inhaled deeply, almost convinced the pungent smell would get her high.
“Oh, hey,” the girl said, much too pleasantly for Didi.
“’Sup,” Didi said, with no attempt to hide her lust for the cigar.
The girl smiled widely, only serving to heighten Didi’s anxiety.
“I’m just trying to relax and give my mind a break from what’s going on out there,” she said, sounding like a damn hippy.
“This your place?” Didi asked, indicating the rest of the store with her chin.
“I guess, technically, it’s mine. In the reality of things, it sort of belongs to all of us now though. Right?”
The girl stood and offered a hand to Didi. “I’m Sarah,” she said.
“Yeah, whatever,” Didi said. “I need some smokes.”
Dying Days Ultimate Box Set 1 Page 30
