by JJ Zep
Pearl was sobbing in her arms and Ruby shushed her. She felt like crying herself, out of rage, out of frustration. They’d been so close, so close. Now the precious chance was gone. Who knew how long before another opportunity presented itself? If there ever was another. Cain would likely tighten security, put her in shackles. He might even take Pearl away from her.
She didn’t blame Pearl. Going back for the doll had made no difference at all. Cain had been waiting for them, probably from the moment that his goons had radioed to tell him that Ruby was loose. Now here he came, striding across the ground in his ten-gallon hat and hundred-watt smile. The sight of him stirred up a rage in Ruby, a black, murderous fog deeper than any she’d felt in a long while.
“Some show tonight, huh?” Cain said as he approached. He reached out a hand to stroke Pearl’s hair. Ruby turned the child away from him.
“Aw, now don’t be like that. After all, you’d never even have made the acquaintance of precious little Pearl if it weren’t for your Uncle Cyrus making the introductions.”
Ruby said nothing. Cain held her with his gaze, his trademark grin morphing into a look of concern. “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby,” he said. “What are we going to do with you?”
“You could just let us go,” Ruby said. “That way I won’t have to kill you and your men.”
Cain looked incredulously to the heavily armed men surrounding him, looked towards those guarding the staircase, those standing beside the holding pen. He brushed his hand across the six-shooter that was holstered on his belt. “Always did appreciate a woman with a sense of humor,” he grinned.
“Figures,” Ruby said.
The smile disappeared from Cain’s face. “You messed up, Ruby. I told you not to try to get away from me but you did anyway. By rights I ought to execute you right here in the dirt, you and the brat. And if it wasn’t for the fact that people pay good money to watch you killing Z’s, I’d be inclined to do just that, right here, right now.”
He glared at Ruby, and she held his glare, refusing to be intimidated. It was he who flinched first. Then the smile was back.
“Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to treat this whole thing as a big ol’ misunderstanding. Hell, for all I know, you and Pearl weren’t trying to escape at all. Maybe y’all were just taking the air. No offence in that.”
“No,” Ruby said. “We were trying to escape. And we’ll try again, soon as we’re given the chance.”
Cain giggled, looked left and right to his men who joined in with sycophantic laughter, all except the Chief who remained stone-faced.
“Figured you’d take that stance,” Cain said. “Which is why I decided to give y’all a little demonstration, a little taste of what the future holds for those who refuse to abide by my few simple rules.”
He snapped his fingers in the direction of the staircase. Vanessa was being dragged forward.
“Get your hands off me you son of a bitch!”
“Now little Miss Vanessa Prudhoe here is a prime example of the type of personage I’m alluding to. Pulled her out of a whorehouse in Minneapolis where she was turning tricks a dollar a ride, got her cleaned up, gave her a job in my organization. How does she repay me? By going right back to using the same shit that got her in trouble in the first place.”
“I’m sorry, Cyrus,” Vanessa wailed. “It won’t happen again.”
Cain ignored her. “Not only that, but she sends one of her junkie friends to babysit your little girl, thereby endangering her life and almost facilitating your escape.”
“It won’t happen again,” Vanessa howled.
“Let’s walk and talk,” Cain said. He turned in the direction of the Z pen. Ruby felt a rifle barrel nudge her ribs and followed.
“You want to know why I’m so good at what I do, Ruby?” Cain said over his shoulder. “It’s because I have an natural instinct for balancing the punishment reward equation. You can take Pablo’s gold or you can take his bullets. You know who said that?”
Ruby didn’t answer.
“It was Pablo Escobar. Here’s the Cyrus Cain version. Either you toe my line or I feed you to the fucking Z’s.”
He turned to the men holding Vanessa.
“Throw her in the corral,” he said.
thirty one
The gate to the pen stood ajar. Ruby could see the semitrailers beyond, arranged in a U-shape, one to either side of the central corral, one parked at back, against the outfield wall. The trailers were split off into small cages that accommodated ten Z’s each, known colloquially as a pod. Astride each semi stood a moveable run, constructed from angle iron and rebar. When the wranglers wanted to release one of the pods, they simply pulled the run into position, then flipped a switch that opened the cage door remotely. The Z’s then moved along the run into the corral, also constructed from scrap iron. From there the wranglers could hustle them out into the arena. It was a crude but effective system.
“Please Cyrus please, Jesus Christ no, don’t do this, don’t do this!”
Vanessa was being dragged towards the corral. Ruby looked past her to the crude circular structure and saw that it was filled beyond capacity, the zombies crushed up against the cage, their faces contorted as the steel bars bit into their dead skin. Some lay on the ground, trampled into the mud by their comrades. Arms and clawed hands reached through every gap in the fence, expressionless faces leered out. The smell, even at a distance, was horrendous.
“Cyrus,” Vanessa wailed. “Pleeaassse! I’m begging you!”
Cain ignored her cries. “Shall we?” he said and stepped into the enclosure. Ruby felt the business end of a M-16 in her ribs and followed. A prickle of excitement stirred in her. If she could get close enough to the Z’s, then maybe, just maybe, there was a way out of this. She held Pearl tighter. “Remember how I told you earlier to keep your eyes shut, kiddo? Well, now would be a good time.” Pearl made a whimpering sound. Ruby stroked the child’s hair.
“Please Cyrus! Please! I’ll do anything! Anything!”
“Shut that bitch up,” Cain instructed. He turned to one of his wranglers. “What’s the hold up?”
The wrangler looked down at the device he held in his hand, an ungainly apparatus that resembled a primitive game controller. He seemed confused.
“Am I talking to myself? Hello! What’s the goddamn hold up?”
“It’s the corral, Mr. Cain. It’s too full. I flip this switch and those Z’s are going to come surging out.”
Cain glared at the man. “You’re the head wrangler, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“So you’d be the person responsible for forcing so many into a cage that ain’t designed to hold such numbers?”
“It’s the ones that escaped, Mr. Cain. We had to hole them up somewhere. We ain’t had time yet to stow them back in their cages.”
“Do I look like a man who concerns himself with the finer points of zombie wrangling? Just fix it.”
Ruby focused her attention on the corral and tried to hone in on the Z frequency. Nothing. She probed again, trying to keep her expression neutral so as not to attract the attention of Cain’s men. Still nothing. She realized now what was wrong. The Z’s in the corral weren’t transmitting, something that often happened when there were Quicks in the vicinity.
“Ruby!”
Ruby turned towards the sound of the whisper. Vanessa knelt in the dirt, one of Cain’s goons with a rifle barrel pressed to the back of her skull. Vanessa’s usually immaculate makeup was smudged, her eyes blackened by tears, her hair a mess, her face a mask of desperation. “Speak to him Ruby,” she mouthed. “He’ll listen to you.”
Tears spilled over and ran down Vanessa’s face. Ruby felt sorry for the woman. She and Vanessa hadn’t always seen eye to eye, but Vanessa didn’t deserved to go like this. Nobody did. Even so, she knew it was pointless talking to Cain. He was more likely to listen to a plea from one of the Z’s than from her.
A picture flickered suddenly to life in Ruby’s min
d, an image of Vanessa as a child not much older than Pearl. She was cowering in the dark beside her bed, her mouth working silently in prayer. Then a door was thrown open and the silhouette of a man filled the frame. The juvenile Vanessa whimpered. Ruby could sense her fear. It sent a shudder of anger through her body.
In the next moment, the picture morphed into something else, a young woman running screaming through a maze of alleyways, zombies shuttling behind. Then it changed again to show a horde of Z’s staggering across a field in the moonlight, towards a distant homestead. Ruby didn’t even realize she was inside the Z stream until the images of turmoil and destruction began gathering pace, flipping through her mind like a slideshow on hyper drive, becoming the concentrated flow of energy that she’d experienced before. She transmitted to it.
Rise.
thirty two
Cain was standing just feet from the corral, still arguing with his wrangler, when the first length of rebar sprung loose with a metallic twang. “What the hell?” he said looking left and right and glaring at his men. “Who welded these joints? I want a name. That sum bitch is Z shit, you hear me! Z shit!”
Twang!
Another bar detached itself as the Z’s pressed up against the structure, now another, this one whipping around, narrowly missing the head wrangler, smacking into Cain’s shin with a sound like kindling being splintered.
Cain instantly doubled over, both hands flying to the shard of bone that had just ripped through his jeans. His damaged leg buckled under him and he collapsed to the ground, a wordless, agonized scream escaping his throat.
“Aaarrrggh jeessuscrrrist huurrts!”
“Twang! Twang!”
Two more bars stripped away from the cage, like segments from an orange. The first of the zombies were forcing their way through the gaps in the fence. Now a burst of gunfire rattled across the enclosure, across the ranks of Z’s. Ruby dropped to the ground, using her body to shield Pearl. She saw the head wrangler take a headshot and go down, losing his grip on the remote as he did. The men kept firing, decimating the zombies in the corral.
To her left Cain was screaming, to her right, Vanessa provided a counterpoint in falsetto. The guns beat out a deadly tattoo, keeping time.
Ruby scanned along the ground looking for a way out, one that wouldn’t draw gunfire from Cain’s men. It was then that she spotted the remote controller lying in the dirt.
“Hold on, sugar,” she whispered to Pearl. “I’m getting us out of here.” She pushed up onto her knees, then into a crouch and into a stumbling run clutching Pearl to her.
Cain was by now dragging himself across the ground trying to escape the pen. He spotted Ruby coming and shouted a warning to his men. “Shoot her! You idiots! Shoot her!”
Belatedly, he seemed to realize that he was armed and made a play for his six-shooter, getting the gun free of its holster just as Ruby swooped and picked up the remote. Cain raised the pistol, a grim look of determination in his eyes. She swung her boot, delivering a kick that crushed his fingers against the trigger guard and sent the weapon spiraling through the air.
Cain let out a roar that was part rage, part pain. He snaked out his undamaged hand and snagged Ruby’s ankle. She was falling, twisting to protect Pearl from the impact, pressing buttons on the remote even as she fell, each push responding with a dull click. In the next moment gravity slammed her into the ground with enough force to drive the breath from her. The remote was wrenched from her grip.
“Fucking bitch! I’ll kill you!”
Ruby tried to rise but she felt as helpless as a bug pinned to a board. She sucked in air, filling her lungs to get her muscles working. Cain was pulling himself across the ground to where his six-shooter lay. Behind him, the door to every cage stood open, the Z’s oozing into the enclosure like filthy effluent. A Quick launched itself from atop one of the cabs and took one of Cain’s men in the chest. Another came scurrying out from under a trailer, chomping into the thigh of one of the shooters before he put it down.
“Run!” somebody screamed as the creatures lurched forward.
Ruby pulled herself into a sitting position and tottered to her feet. The Z’s swarmed around her and she deflected them away, towards where Cain was still dragging himself through the dirt, still uttering threats he was never going to make good on. He stretched and placed a hand on the gun just as a trio of zombies found him.
One of the Z’s got a hold on Cain’s damaged leg and twisted, flipping him onto his back. Cain let out a screech that sounded like it came from the most tormented soul in hell.
“Comeonyoumotherfuckers!”
The six-shooter bucked in his hand then spoke again, driving the zombie back. Another soon took its place as Cain’s gun fell silent. Then his cries were also stifled and the only sound was the wet snuffling of the Z’s feeding.
Ruby backed away, turned and made her way left, circling the corral, a few straggler Z’s stumbling past her as though she wasn’t there. She was barely able to believe that they were free, that Cain was gone, that both she and Pearl had somehow come through this unscathed.
The outfield wall loomed up ahead and Ruby quickened her pace. Almost there. A shadow loomed across her path. Ruby looked up into the dispassionate face of the Chief.
thirty three
There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Ruby was exhausted, Pearl as heavy as an anchor in her arms. She couldn’t put the child down to reach for her sword. Pearl might be snatched away by a zombie while Ruby was engaged in combat with the Chief. Besides, she’d seen him in action. He was deceptively quick for his size and more powerful than any opponent she’d ever faced. On her best day she might take him. Right now, she had no chance. There was only one thing for it.
“Stand aside, Chief,” she said, hoping that her voice carried the requisite authority. The Chief remained unmoved, black eyes watching her with reptilian indifference, muscles rippling under his thin t-shirt.
“I said stand aside, goddamn it!”
He remained as immobile as a granite cliff. Ruby tried another tack.
“Listen Chief,” she said. “I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for this little girl here. Pearl never did anything to put herself in this situation. That was Cain’s doing, Cyrus Cain and his greed for money and power. But Cain is gone now. Dead. You don’t answer to him anymore. You can decide for yourself. You can do the right thing.”
If the Chief heard, if he understood, he gave no indication that he was about to comply.
“Ruby, can I open my eyes now?” Pearl whispered, speaking into Ruby’s shoulder. This time Ruby did see a reaction from the Chief. He shifted his gaze from Ruby to Pearl.
“Sure you can, sugar,” Ruby said.
“Can you put me down?”
Ruby gently lowered the little girl to the ground. She reached out to Pearl but Pearl turned away from her, turned towards the Chief, held out a hand to him. Amazingly, he took it, bending over to bury her tiny hand in his massive fist. Pearl beckoned him closer, summoning him with a crooked finger. The Chief dropped into a squat so that his face was level with hers. Then Pearl cupped her hand over his ear and spent the next two minutes whispering while the Chief listened stern-faced.
Eventually he straightened up, looked down at Ruby and nodded. He ruffled Pearl’s blond hair and uttered the only two words Ruby ever heard him speak. “Like gold,” he said and then strode past Ruby and Pearl, out of the pen and into the night.
Later, when they were on the road to Carson City, Ruby asked Pearl what she had said to the Chief.
“I told him that he was like Jon Standing Bear in the Superman comic, she said. “John Standing Bear used to be a bad man but then Superman gave him a special necklace and he changed his name to Saganowahna and started helping people out. He also cut his hair into a Mohawk and moved to Wisconsin.”
“Who? Superman?”
“No, Saganowahna, silly.”
thirty four
“Order!” Mayor George Sutherland
blustered. “Order please!” Six hundred people were crammed into the City Hall and things were getting feisty. Chris looked across from his seat beside the podium and saw a few heated arguments going on, a couple of scuffles.
“Order!” Sutherland demanded banging his gavel into the dais. This time the message got through. Slowly, people sat back down in their seats. The Hall fell silent by degrees.
“Thank you,” Sutherland said, when the crowd eventually settled down. “And I’ll ask you all to behave in a civilized manner henceforth. We’re not a bunch of biker rabble, folks.”
“Get on with it, Sutherland!” someone heckled.
Sutherland scanned an accusing eye over the audience, then tugged at his collar and cleared his throat. “Yes, well…I was just getting to that,” he said. “I’m going to call Mr. Chris Collins to the podium to say a few words, perhaps suggest a way forward.”
Chris got slowly to his feet. He strode to the front of the stage, ignoring Sutherland’s suggestion that he speak from the podium. He disliked public speaking at the best of times. He looked out on the sea of worried faces, many of whom he recognized. His family had been one of the first to settle in Big Bear Lake. Since then the population had swelled to about one thousand adults and children, about one fifth the city’s pre-event population.
“Most of you know me, so I won’t bother with introductions,” Chris started. “I won’t claim any authority either, since I’m not a public official. I speak here purely at the invitation of Mayor Sutherland in order to fill you folks in on what we know about the situation. After that it will be up to you to decide the best course of action for you and your families.”
He looked to the left of the hall, three rows back to ,where Kelly sat with Samantha, Ferret and Skye, Hooley and Joe behind them. Kelly gave him a reassuring nod.
“Now, you all heard what my son, Charlie, and Corporal Reed had to say.” He waved a hand in the direction of where Charlie and Wackjob sat on the stage. “You’ve heard about the Z’s that overran El Centro and attacked Pendleton. You know they might be headed this way.”
