by Mark Clodi
“Fuck, when it rains it pours.” The bus was passing through a slow moving horde of zombies. It had slowed to around ten miles an hour, not quite slow enough for the zombies to get on board, but nowhere near fast enough for Dora's tastes. She aimed at Tiller and fired as he came towards her. One of his hands fumbled at his belt for a pistol and when he pulled it out he fired at the people in the back of the bus, which caused a general panic among the passengers.
“Fucking bastard!” yelled Dora flinging her empty revolver at the man, he deflected it using his own pistol, but something from the impact must have broken part of his gun, when he turned to fire at the youngsters it exploded in his hands, sending a piece of metal spinning into his face.
Chris couldn't hold onto the girl any longer, she twisted around in his arms like a python, kicking with her little feet into the man's groin. When he saw her head bend down to bite his arm he released her and pushed her forward into the back of Jim's legs, causing both of them to go down in a heap.
Wrestling with Randall was a one sided affair, he had strength on his side, plus he was on top of her. One of the seat supports was digging into Paige's back; it felt like it was slowly impaling her. With a frantic twist and heave she managed to get the man shoved to one side of her, but she could not make use of the momentary edge she had created to do more than back up a few inches.
As Randall came at her again she raised her knee up and kept him from getting a full grip on her. When he went to bite her arm she saw it coming and tore away from him, then she delivered a blow to the center of his face with as much strength as she could put into such a short punch. He howled and lowered his teeth towards her thigh and the offending knee that was preventing him from getting close. Just as his teeth were about to close on her leg Paige pulled it back away from him. Dora's hand reached down and plucked the man away from her. She tossed him into the emergency door at the back of the bus. Randall hit it hard and the door popped open, giving the passengers a better view of the last zombie car coming up on them. The car was smoking horribly as the engine overheated and the anti-freeze from the shattered radiator burned off. One of Randall's hands caught the side of the doorway and he swung himself around the outside of the bus onto the bumper.
Dora offered Paige a hand and pulled the woman to her feet, at almost the same time Mo and Jim got themselves untangled and rose up to meet the humans. From where Dora and Paige were standing they could see the other zombie vehicle roar up to the back of the bus, then they watched as the blue Caliber Dora had left behind with Willy came up and nudged the back wheel, firing a shotgun into it as it did so. Dora was pretty sure she saw Jake driving the vehicle.
“Yes the cavalry has arrived!”
The distraction worked on Jim Tiller, but Mo was too young to understand the reference so when Dora attacked she only caught one of them off guard. In the front of the bus the volley of fire increased as the passengers continued to fire out at the slow zombies encroaching from the sides.
Paige saw Dora's intentions moments before the woman leaped and she saw Mo's as well, she knew the two were going to collide in mid-air in front of her and saw a dozen places they could end up on the ground at the back of the bus. She made her own move in that instance, diving for her shotgun, she saw the black lines of her hands intersecting the gun and knew she was going to reach it. Grabbing the gun and rolling over she aimed it at Tiller who was bending over to pick Dora off of Mo.
Randall used the distraction of the melee to climb back inside of the bus. Tiller put Dora into a head lock while Paige studied the lines. Randal scooped Mo up and put her on her feet, the girl shook him off angrily and brushed by him, leaving him open for a shot from Paige, she saw him ducking in a hundred versions of the future, but there were good shots she could take and her shell hit him in the upper right shoulder throwing him back, where he landed against the boy he had impaled earlier. A surprised look crossed his face as he saw the metal rod spring up through the middle of his chest, then his body started trembling as he lost control of his legs. Randall's body would not heal itself while he was still impaled and the angle of the metal rod made getting himself off of it nearly impossible.
Mo was around behind Tiller punching Dora in the head, Paige saw she could not do any lasting damage to the man, he was constantly moving Dora around as a body shield, then called out, “Drop it girl or I will snap her neck like a twig!”
Looking at the man intently Paige let a small smile creep to her face. Dora yelled, “Shoot the cocksucker! Shoot him! Quit hitting me you little bitch!'
Paige looked outside and saw the beat up caliber come up to the rear of the bus, the firing from the buses passengers slacked off as Jake mentally pushed the weaker zombies out of the caravan's way.
“What the fuck? Do you want her to die?”
“Kill her, you'd be doing me a favor.”
“What?”
“Yeah. She bet me she would live through this and I wouldn't. So if you snap her neck then that means, for once, Dora wasn't fucking right.”
Tiller's eyes widened as Paige's finger softly caressed the trigger. The man was fast and he brought Dora's body up in an arch, lifting the woman completely off the ground as he tried to block Paige's shot, but Paige wasn't shooting at him, when he lifted Dora to protect himself he exposed Mo almost completely and the shot took her dead center just below the neck, the girl was flung back into the corner on top of Chris, where she gurgled out a wet sounding, “Jim Tiller!”
Tiller dropped Dora to the ground where she landed on her hands and knees. Paige pulled the hunting knife out of her belt and waited for a brief second. Jim Tiller scooped Mo up and leaped for the back door. Paige tossed her knife, watching the black lines converge as Dora stood up then dove for Tiller. Screaming, “Oh no motherfucker! You aren't getting away!”
Meanwhile the knife moved through the air, it was travelling slowly towards the door, spinning lazily as it over took the diving woman. Dora's hand came up in an effort to grab Jim Tiller's ankle and met the handle of the knife. A look of comprehension dawned on Dora's face when her hand hit the knife, she snatched it out of the air and brought it down through Tiller's lower leg and into the floor below. His body from the waist up was hanging outside the bus's emergency exit, pinned by his leg to the bus. Tiller tried in vain to hold onto Mo as he fell, but the girl hit the pavement and was torn from his grasp. Mo came to a rest just in front of Jake's Caliber as he screeched to a halt. The bus was also slowing down and Jamie screamed that she didn’t know how to stop it right.
Paige took a bead on Randall and blew a bowl of spaghetti into the side of his head. She pulled three shells out of her pocket and reloaded her gun while still lying on the floor. Dora picked herself up off of the ground as the bus started to come to a stop, turning she said, “I need a gu...” Her sentence was cut off by the shotgun tossed to her by Paige.
“There are three shots, that’s all you’ll need.”
Dora nodded while Paige closed her eyes and tried to block all of the lines from her vision, the white lines were fading to be replaced by black ones as she did so. The future seemed to becoming more set, with fewer options, making it easier for Paige to see. The shotgun blasted once.
“Hold still you twitchy fucker.” Another blast rang out. “Goddamn it!” followed by a third, “Got the fucker Paige.”
Ahead the rattle of automatic weapons fire heralded the arrival of the National Guard Soldiers.
A quarter of a mile behind them the Caliber came to a stop just in front of the twitching zombie girl. Mo saw the booted feet step out of the car and approach her head, where they stopped. A tall man in bloodstained, torn clothing squatted down in front of her and said, “You must be Mo. Hello Mo. My name is Jake. I knew your sister.”
Chapter 45
The National Guard surrounded the buses, rifles pointed towards them while other troopers formed a perimeter facing the outside to fire at the smattering of zombies around them. The soldiers seemed ner
vous and close to firing on the living humans, one of their superiors stepped forward and yelled, “Come out of the first bus one at a time.”
His men and women troopers were quietly calling out to each other to be careful and stay alert. They had not found any living humans in the past month, almost all of the ones who showed up were super zombies trying to pass themselves off as humans so they could get into the land of the living. And super zombies died hard, if the buses were full of supers they could be in a lot of trouble.
It started at the rear bus, one of the men yelled for their commander, who yelled for the lieutenant, who told everyone to stop what they were doing to stay absolutely still as he jogged back to the third bus. Dora stood a few feet outside of the emergency rear exit of the bus, behind her Paige was resting against the bumper, gingerly touching a small bloody stain on the back of her shirt. The body of a man with several shotgun wounds was crumpled on the ground, he had a hunting knife sticking out of his lower leg.
The lieutenant stopped in his tracks when he saw the women.
“What the fuck is wrong with you people? We have a bunch of kids who have been shot in there and you are standing around with your thumbs up your asses.”
“Excuse me ma’am.” said the lieutenant, “I am Lieutenant Strafer. John Strafer.” he said holding out his hand.
Dora looked at it, then at Paige and said, “What the fuck?” she took his hand for a brief shake and asked, “What the hell is going on?”
“You've reached the newly formed first company of the third battalion of the first division of the mid-western army. We are the third platoon and I am in charge of it.”
“So? Can we come in or not? 'Cause if we can't I am going to be mighty pissed off.”
“You can come in. You of all people...” he glanced at Paige, “You two of all people are very welcome, if you are not contaminated.”
“Do I look contaminated to you? Cut me, I bleed, if you want to check. What is going on Johnnie?” The men behind the lieutenant smiled, trying not to laugh.
The lieutenant said, “Excuse me ma'am, but your name is Dora, right?”
“Yeah. But I don’t have any monkey’s named Boots or friends named Diego. All I’ve got is a Paige.” said Dora pointing at the young woman leaning against the bus.
“No, ma'am, but you’re ‘the’ Dora?” Strafer asked, “out of Kansas City? Your husband is Roger?”
“Oh fuck, I might have known! Did that bastard start some rumor about me? Let me guess, 'shoot to kill'?”
“No, it’s from the video. From what Ned filmed, about two months ago? You remember that?”
“I am dirty, sore and tired, not suffering from Alzheimers. Of course I remember Ned! What ever happened to that son of a bitch?”
“He died.”
“Oh.”
“We thought you did too. No one could find you when the horde came in on highway seventy. We just assumed you and everyone with you were lost.”
“Well, we weren't. Can my kids be unloaded now? While we are sitting here jawing they are laying there dying.”
“Right away ma'am! Medics! We have wounded!”
Several of the soldiers pressed forward to snap pictures of Dora and Paige, most did it covertly, but several asked for others to take their pictures with their phones. Dora acceded with ill grace until she learned that the last of the people on her bus had been offloaded and brought across the military zone to an impromptu medical station. All of the survivors had to pass a quick blood test, which was a piece of plastic with a needle in it, the device turned green if you were alive, and black if you were not. Dora passed the test that Strafer gave her and moved up towards the wall that separated Iowa's territory from that of the zombies. Before passing through the gates she ran into Becka, who was arguing with two soldiers.
Lieutenant Strafer was shadowing Dora by then, not leaving her side. “What is going on Becka?”
“I am not going in.”
“What? Why not? We made it!”
She shook her head, “No, you go in. I am going to go back and you can't make me stay.”
Dora looked at the lieutenant and raised one eyebrow, he answered by saying, “She hasn't passed into our territory yet, we won't force anyone in who doesn't want to go. But she’ll have to be tested again if she comes back and once she is in...well citizens have to stay, for their own safety.”
Stopping in her tracks Dora looked at him, “What? And you were going to let me walk in there without telling me?”
“We need you Dora.” Strafer said, a pleading tone in his voice.
“Me? Why?”
“You are good news. You know how much bad news we have had recently? You’re getting to us is the first good thing to happened in two months, it will raise morale, everything will be a little better. Your interview was the last one Ned did and was re-broadcast constantly in the days after Kansas fell. Everyone wondered about you, what happened. Everyone thought you were dead, but didn't want to admit it, now you’re alive and we can use that. To make people happy.”
Slowly Dora nodded, “I suppose I can see that. But I thought I could come back out here if I needed to. You see Johnnie; I have a little unfinished business to attend to. Now that I know better I will stay with Becka, walk her back partway, and try to figure out what the fuck she is doing.”
“Please...” began Strafer, then he saw the look in Dora's eyes. “Third Platoon, we are going out with Dora to provide cover for her, form up around us now!” the men and women around them groaned, but did as they were told turning to march back towards the buses where other soldiers were offloading the luggage into Army trucks.
“What, you aren't keeping the buses?”
“It’s a quarantine ma'am. We have to go through all of your stuff, remove bio contaminants, then clean the buses and put them back into service.”
They approached Becka's motorcycle, still sitting next to the pickup trucks where she had parked it. Becka went to the pile of backpacks and poked around a little, then cried out with joy at discovery that her own pack was there. The young woman slung it across her back as she came over to Dora.
“Stupid, Becka, real stupid to go back out there.” Dora said to the girl offering her hand. Becka took it and they shook, “Why?”
“Jake is out there.”
“Are you in love or something?”
“It isn't like that. He made a promise to me.”
“Yeah to all of us.”
“Who’s Jake?” asked Strafer.
“A super zombie, he helped get us here.”
“One of them helped you?”
“Oh lighten up Johnnie! I did what I had to do, you would have done the same thing.” turning back to Becka, Dora said, “So, Jake and you are going to...what?”
“Go get Father Cruz.”
“Shit. You could have said something this morning; we would have swung by there and got him.”
“We didn't think about it until after the bridge. No one did. Not even Mary.”
“You know I wonder if the twins were keeping the zombies away from him or if it really was his faith?”
“It was his faith.” Becka said firmly. “Look.” she raised her arm to point at the blue Caliber sitting a quarter mile down the highway, “He knows I am coming.”
“Well lets go, I got a few last questions for Jake too.”
“Ma'am, we can't...we can't talk to the intelligent ones, it is a court marshaling offense, some people see it as traitorous.”
Looking at the surrounding, almost hostile faces of the soldiers around them Dora sighed and said, “Thanks for the fucking heads up Johnnie. Remind me to warn you five minutes after you do something stupid too.”
The man reddened, but said nothing.
“Fine you wait here. I’ll be fine and I am not in the army and I sure as hell am not a traitor.”
Becka pushed the motorcycle away from the squad, several of the soldiers started forward too, only to be yelled back into position by
their lieutenant.
Up ahead of them they saw Jake step out of the beat up Caliber and go around to the passenger's door where he helped a battered looking Steve out.
Nodding Jake said, “Dora.”
Dora marched up to Jake and punched him in the face, “You son of a bitch! I should kill you!” her eyes were watering, either from the pain of using her fist to break Jake's nose or from the anger and sadness that was flowing through her head, she couldn't tell.
“Now Darling, don't be that way!” said Jake stepping away in an attempt to avoid further blows, “Just let me explain.”
“Explain? Explain what? You said it would be days at least or possibly never that you recovered without any food. Well I know what happened, we left you some food right there didn't we? I was so fucking stupid! But that doesn't mean you had to do it.”
Steve had straightened and behind her she could hear clomping boots coming down the highway at a run. Turning she waved the soldiers back, but they just crouched into firing position and held their ground. Going back to Jake she stepped in front of him. He automatically pulled away, but she reached out and grabbed his wrists, “Don't you stupid son of a bitch, if I am between you and them they won't fire. Now tell me what happened or I will step out of the way.”
“It was Willy's idea. He thought you would need me. He suspected there would be a lot of really stupid slow zombies for me to push out of the way when you got close. He was right, I couldn't get them all away from you, not with you so far away and the others calling them to cut you off, but I did my part of it and I did it well. Willy offered, I thought his offer made sense.”
“Fuck.” said Dora releasing him. Jake reached forward and patted her cheek affectionately.
“Yeah, he said he counted as ten pints too, so I will cross a few off of my list. I tried to barter him down to six as he was mostly bled out by then, but he insisted on ten.”
Dora laughed, “That sounds like Willy.”
