by SD Tanner
Very good, he thought, that might work and at the very least, it won’t fail and it will divide the remaining human population. What was it the Greeks used to say? Oh yes, divide and conquer. He regarded Gray disdainfully. He knew Gray was treating him like a fool and for that, he would usually kill, but he needed a new plan and delaying Gray’s death didn’t cost him anything. Still, he thought, I need a plan within a plan. While the bogus POTUS gathers the survivors in refugee camps, he should destroy the imp and the dogs, but unfortunately the dogs were smart, armed and angry. At one level, he admired their willingness to kill, but it was annoying when they directed it at him. I need a better trap, he thought and humming to himself, he decided his last trap was fine, but it wasn’t a big enough trap and a bigger mouse needs a bigger trap.
Now feeling happier, he smiled at Gray and said, ‘I’ll set you up as the POTUS. You and your underlings should leave the city and organize the refugee camps. I’ll make sure the hunters don’t attack you or the camps, but you need to get the people into the camps.’
Gray continued to puff on his cigar and said, ‘When most of the people are in refugee camps, we can agree on next steps.’
The next step is to kill you, he thought, but resisting the urge to giggle, he said, ‘Of course.’
CHAPTER FIVE: In death there are do-overs (Woman)
The mannequin was dressed in tight black trousers and wearing a soft, loose white shirt, posed with one arm down and the other bent at the elbow as if holding a cocktail. Someone or something had knocked the wig off the dolls head and although the mannequin was immaculately dressed, it was bald. The woman stood looking at the mannequin then copying the pose, she tilted her head to the side and smiled. Walking in through the broken window, past the mannequin and onto the huge open plan floor of the department store, the woman paused. Although it was pitch black, she could see the store as if it were brightly lit and she thought, I know this place and I like it here.
Behind one counter was a mirror and the woman peered at her reflection. Walking to the counter, she found a pair of scissors and undoing her braided hair, shook her head so her long blonde hair fell down past her shoulders. While looking in the mirror, she grabbed handfuls of her hair and hacked it off until it was level with her chin. Now short, her hair bounced higher and she shook her head, watching her shaggy hair fly. The effect pleased her and she smiled at her reflection and thought, that’s better.
Feeling excited, she whirled around and saw metal stairs. She vaguely recalled they moved, but couldn’t remember why she thought that. Running nimbly up the stairs she and found rack upon rack of clothes. Delighted, she ran between the racks pulling out items, admiring them and throwing them aside when she found another item that pleased her. Clothes maketh the woman, she thought and then wondered what that meant.
Selecting a pair of thick, fitted black leggings, she pulled them on under her now dirty, baggy blue gown. Pulling the gown over her head, she threw it aside and topless, she continued to peruse the racks and shelves, selecting and abandoning items. Finally she found a structured, stretchy black top and tugging it over her head, she stepped back to admire her reflection in a nearby mirror. Frowning, she thought, something is missing.
She continued to walk around the store until she saw row upon row of shoes and she smiled. She was drawn to a pair of blue and white tennis shoes, but as she picked up a pair, she hesitated. Ahead of her were a line of boots and smiling she thought, I like those.
Now her ensemble was complete, she gathered up more of the same clothes she was wearing and walked down the metal stairs. On the way out of the store, she grabbed a leather backpack, several pairs of heavy black sunglasses and after fussing at the shelves, she selected a bottle of perfume. Outside, as if waiting patiently for her, were three hunters. The woman and her hunter pack left the mall and in the pitch black of the night, jogged swiftly out of the car park and onto the road.
She liked the night. At night, the world came to life. She could hear the insects calling to one another while animals shuffled and snuffled near her. She and her hunter pack ran through the streets, she could hear humans hiding deep inside buildings, and her mind was aware of their fear. Humans didn’t interest her. To her, humans were another animal shuffling in the night and she’d no reason to disturb them.
She and the pack ran until another building caught her interest. It had things she wanted and she strode past the hunters within and walked deep inside the large store. On a shelf she found machetes and she picked one up, testing its weight in her hand. Smiling she thought, I want this. She continued to walk through the store and found more items that interested her. Food, water, towels, soap and shampoo. She knew she needed these things and what to do with them.
By dawn, she was sitting by the side of the road, drinking, eating and studying her newly acquired machete. For some reason she liked how it felt in her hand. The sun broke over the horizon, and she put on a pair of black sunglasses, covering her blue on blue eyes. In her mind she heard a voice and thought, this is new. Who is speaking to me? Where are they?
Man speaks: Hello?
Woman speaks: Who are you?
Man speaks: I am the person you need to seek. It is important that we speak.
Woman speaks: So speak.
Man speaks: No, we need to speak in person.
Woman speaks: Why?
Man speaks: I have seen the future and it is bleak. You and I need to meet and speak.
Woman speaks: I fail to see the difference it would make, but I have nowhere to be so I drift with fate.
Man speaks: I will meet you at your home. Go there now so we can speak alone.
Woman speaks: Home? I do not know where that is.
Man speaks: Let your instincts guide you there and I will see you soon have no fear.
Woman speaks: Why should I do as you ask?
Man speaks: Because you have no other path.
Woman speaks: That is true. It is a mission then. I will see you later and you better be friend.
She stood and looked left, then right and turning west, she followed the road and jogged for hours, never tiring and not breaking her steady pace. Eventually she heard the sound of a vehicle behind her and as it drew alongside, she stopped.
A woman leaned out of the window and called, ‘Hey! Are you okay?’
She looked at the woman and said, ‘Yes.’
The woman was wearing ACUs and she said, ‘It’s not safe for a woman out here alone.’
Looking into the truck behind the darkened windows, she saw there were two men sitting in the back.
The woman in the ACUs said, ‘My name’s Max. The guys behind me are Benny and Duncan. Do you need somewhere to stay?’
‘No,’ she replied.
One of the men lowered the passenger side window and said, ‘I’m Benny. Do you need a ride somewhere?’
She didn’t where she was going, but assumed she would know when she got there. Having jogged for hours, she thought it might be nice to rest and said, ‘Yes.’
Climbing into the front passenger seat of the truck, she settled back into the comfortable seat.
Max resumed driving and asked, ‘So, where are you headed?’
‘Home,’ she replied.
‘Where’s home?’ Max asked.
‘I do not know,’ she answered.
Sounding confused, Benny asked, ‘Then how will you know when you’re home?’
She didn’t wonder about that and said blandly, ‘I will know.’
Glancing at her briefly, Max asked, ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘What’s your name?’ Benny asked.
She didn’t know. What do I need a name for, she wondered? Deciding it wasn’t relevant, she replied, ‘I do not have one.’
‘You mean you don’t remember it,’ Max said matter-of-factly.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I do not need one.’
Benny laughed and asked, ‘So, what
should we call you?’
Without turning to look at either of them, she replied, ‘I do not care.’
Growing bored with talking to the humans, she looked out the passenger side window and watched the dark areas by the road where hunters were hiding. Leaving the humans at Atlanta, she continued to travel home. She learned, when humans saw her on the road, they would always stop. Some were kind, others were not, but none was ever a problem. Whenever the humans were hostile, her hunter packs would step out of the darkness and make short work of her enemies. Along the way, she stopped to resupply, slept comfortably in the many abandoned houses and washed in rivers and lakes. While she walked or hitched rides with humans, she learned although the land was still fertile and brimming with life, the hunters were killers. The humans that once dominated the land, were now living in small bands trying to survive the purge of their kind, but she was not human and nor was she a hunter.
Her mind contained fragments of images, feelings and thoughts she didn’t understand. Stars scattered across the sky of her mind and she learned each star was another of her kind. If she touched a star with her mind, their minds would meet and then they could speak. She spoke more with the one who wanted to meet and he was anxious to see her. There were other stars in her mind that were dark and dim, but she didn’t touch those stars. They were faded and grey and she wanted them to go away. In her mind, less stars glowed bright and none glowed golden like the one who wanted to meet her.
After many days travelling, she saw a sign. She couldn’t read the words and she didn’t know why, but she recognized the pattern. Boldly printed on the sign was, “Red River County” and she smiled and thought contentedly, I am home.
CHAPTER SIX: Embracin’ the weird (Gears)
‘We already had fifteen thousand people, and we’ve got fifty to a hundred people continuing to arrive every day,’ Kat said. ‘With the people from the flotilla, we’ve almost doubled our numbers and we have over 25,000 people now.’
Kat was the administrator taking care of all of the survivors at the bases and she was already struggling to manage the sites. He thought she looked tired and sympathizing with her, he said, ‘I know, Kat. We’re already outta capacity.’
Pax, TL, Captain Ted, Nelson, Benny, Max, Kat, Philip, Axel and Lydia were seated in the meeting room at the Marine supply base. As the mission leader, it was his job to run their mission briefings. Although Nelson was right and he needed to get on with life, he lacked conviction for the mission, and without conviction, he lacked energy. What really energized him was killing the super hunters and hunters and if he had to sit through yet another meeting about administration problems, he thought he just might get up and leave and never come back.
Sighing, he said, ‘We gotta lot we need to do. I get we need capacity, but I ain’t suspendin’ our plans to sort out the super hunters and hunters again.’
‘We can’t fight on two fronts at once, Gears,’ Nelson said reasonably.
He knew Nelson had a point, but he was all done with being reasonable. It wasn’t getting him anywhere and he asked, ‘Why the hell not, Nelson? The longer we delay fightin’ the real problem, the less people we got left to fight the problem with.’
‘That’s not true, Gears,’ TL objected. ‘We just got an influx of ten thousand people from Europe. It means we’re not confined to the resources we have on our own continent.’
‘No, no, no,’ he said adamantly. ‘I’m not in the mood to be reasonable. We been doing the reasonable thing all along and it ain’t winnin’ us any wars.’
Captain Ted laughed and said, ‘You rained hell down on that Ranch. Literally scorched the earth and you call that reasonable?’
He was referring to the fight they had with Ruler and over fifty thousand hunters under the control of super hunters. They brought 350 combat shooters, plus three helicopters loaded with Hellfires and HYDRA rockets and assault vehicles and HUMVEEs. To rescue Ip, they burned the place to the ground and she killed Ruler in the fight.
‘Yeah we did,’ Pax said with a happy grin. ‘And it worked.’
‘Exactly!’ He exclaimed. ‘We did the unreasonable thing and we walked away with the prize.’
Pax chuckled and said, ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy, eh, Gears!’
Frowning, Nelson said, ‘We lost twenty-three combat shooters in that engagement.’
Looking grim, he replied bluntly, ‘I know that and I’m not discountin’ their sacrifice, but the reasoned step by step approach ain’t cuttin’ it. We gotta get smarter and we gotta get more aggressive.’
‘How the hell are we gonna get fuckin’ smarter?’ Captain Ted asked dubiously.
Looking pointedly at Captain Ted, Pax said dryly, ‘You might never get smarter.’
Ignoring Pax, he said, ‘We’re livin’ in a weird world now. We got hunters. We got super hunters. We got some freak who calls himself Ruler. We got telepaths. We got people who can kill hunters jus’ by touchin’ ‘em. And we gotta CDC that knows how to create more people who can do that.’
Shaking his head, Captain Ted said, ‘I thought we killed Ruler.’
‘Nah. That asshole is comin’ back,’ Pax declared confidently.
Sounding confused, Philip asked, ‘You killed a guy and he’s coming back?’
He shrugged and said, ‘Err yeah, we got a whole demon thing going.’
Snorting rudely, Axel said, ‘What? You got a demon problem ‘ave ya? Are you havin’ a laugh?’
Giving Axel a dour look, he replied, ‘I would, but it ain’t that funny. There’s a theory that the super hunters don’t die. That they hang around after they’re dead and probably come back again. Same thing with Ruler. There’s somethin’ weird about him. If we go with the weird, then he’s probably back already.’
Axel turned to Philip and said, ‘I bloody told ya that comin’ stateside was stupid. They’re out to fuckin’ lunch.’
Philip took a sip of his coffee and said conversationally, ‘My granny’s house was haunted by the ghost of a little Victorian girl.’
Shuddering, Pax said, ‘Ooh, little girl ghosts are real creepy.’
Laughing, Captain Ted asked, ‘How the fuck would you know that, Pax? How many little girl ghosts have you met?’
‘No, he’s right,’ Benny said loudly. ‘I’ve seen it in movies. The only thing worse than a little girl ghost is a possessed doll.’
Banging the table, he said loudly, ‘Shut the hell up and stay on point!’
Grumbling, Pax said, ‘We are on point, Gears. Ya raised the whole demon thing. That’s always gonna lead to little girl ghosts.’
‘Shaddup Pax,’ he said rudely. ‘There ain’t no little girl ghosts or possessed dolls, but there are super hunters and some asshole called Ruler who’s probably back already. We got no ability to fight demons that can resurrect themselves. I’m pretty damned sure when the Pentagon planned and designed military capabilities they didn’t factor in the undead.’
‘Actually they did,’ Benny replied matter-of-factly.
Rolling his eyes and sighing, he said firmly, ‘No they didn’t, Benny. The Departments Counter-Zombie Dominance Plan CONOP 8888 was only a training exercise.’
Sounding interested, Nelson asked, ‘They had a plan? Did you ever read it?’
Glaring at Nelson, he replied bluntly, ‘No, I goddamn didn’t. Wouldna helped anyway. It didn’t account for demons with telepathy.’
Nodding wisely, Pax remarked, ‘Wrong assumptions always lead to the wrong plan.’
‘Exactly,’ he said agreeing with Pax. ‘We need a plan that deals with the weird. We gotta fight weird with weird.’
Shrugging, Captain Ted declared, ‘We’re good to go then. We’re already weird.’
He snorted and replied, ‘Ya ‘fuckin’ crazy, Ted, but that don’t make ya weird. For weird we need Lydia.’
Lydia looked at him balefully and said, ‘I was really hoping you would leave me out of this.’
‘No can do, Lydia,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re Queen
of the weird. We need ya to step up infectin’ more volunteers. We need to build ourselves an army of the weird to fight our weird enemies.’
Looking horrified, Nelson said bluntly, ‘That is a terrible plan. The results of the designer virus are unpredictable. You have no idea what you’ll be creating.’
‘Bullshit, Nelson!’ He replied, equally as bluntly. ‘I know exactly what I’ll be creatin’. It’ll be an army of people like Ip.’
Pax snorted and said, ‘Ya can’t jus’ make yerself a new Ip, Gears. That’s jus’ wrong.’
Giving Pax a dirty look, Lydia said, ‘Maybe they’ll have Ip’s ability to kill hunters, but assuming they survive the virus, they can also develop some odd attributes. Look at what happened to Mackenzie.’
At the mention of Mackenzie’s name, he felt his gut contract and he said intently, ‘I know what happened to Mackenzie and I know what he did, but there were successful results as well. Don’t use emotive shit on me, Lydia. Jus’ ‘cos I look stupid, don’t mean I am.’ Giving Pax a filthy look, he added, ‘And shaddup, Pax. You’re a goddamn idiot.’
He knew Lydia wasn’t a fan of infecting people with the designer virus and neither was he, but the situation was getting desperate and he said, ‘I get the designer virus has unpredictable results, but we ain’t gonna win this war with conventional weapons alone. As hard as it is to believe, there jus’ ain’t enough guns and ammo in this country to do that. The reason we got as far and as fast as we have is ‘cos we had Ip’s ability to kill the hunters. Now we got more people, we need more supplies, more weapons and more secure sites. If we don’t create more hunter killers like Ip, we can’t take care of what we got much less take on more.’
Looking dismayed, Lydia said, ‘But, Gears, you’re talking about putting people at risk by infecting them with the designer virus.’
He shook his head and said bluntly, ‘No, Lydia, I’m talkin’ about lettin’ people make their own choices about what they want to contribute to the mission. Becomin’ one of the weird is now a real option and frankly, we need people to step up. Fact is we got ten thousand people from Europe and we need to put ‘em somewhere. They can’t keep livin’ in tents on the bases. We got more people from the mainland makin’ their way to our bases daily and we need a bigger island. We got armies of hunters on the mainland and we need to be able to kill ‘em effectively and right now we ain’t got enough heavy weapons to kill ‘em all.’
