Zombie Fallout 19, page 21
“Fuck if I know.” That was as honest an answer as I could give.
“Talbot, I feel like you’re the patron saint of dipshits.”
“I’m not even going to argue with you about that. We’ll be back in three hours.” Funny thing was, I had told the truth, although we would be less one person when we did.
10
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 7
Can’t imagine how I looked to an outsider, dressed in an array of clothes that clearly marked me as not gay. (I mean because of how little fashion sense I displayed. Is it still stereotyping if it’s technically a compliment? If so, relax, it’s a joke.) I had on my utility belt and spare mags, plus my rifle. Comms would have been nice. Tommy plopped a wide-brimmed hat atop my head that kept the relentless sun off my face. The unfortunate part was the bright green color.
“Fuck, has no one ever heard of earth tones in this part of the world?” I asked. I would have liked to have started at a trot, but the heat was so oppressive as to make that a bad idea. We’d brought more water than would be needed for a twenty-mile forced march in more temperate climes, and still, I was concerned it wasn’t enough. The water we drank never seemed to make it to our stomachs, but rather immediately leaked through our pores. I had no clue how we were going to stay hydrated when the transfer rate of water in, to water out, seemed to be one part to two parts. As if it were somehow planned, the first half of our journey, while we were under the watchful gaze of our squad, went by flawlessly. It was only after we’d taken a left, and the store was no longer in sight, that we got a hint that things were about to head south and not the good south like Florida in the winter. Although, all things considered, I didn’t like Florida any time of the year.
“Anyone else see that?” I asked. I’d caught movement out of the corner of my eye, but by the time I was able to swing my head around and look directly at whatever I’d thought I’d seen, it was gone. Tommy and Stenzel both shook their heads, only Lydia agreed, although her explanation of it being a bogeyman was not comforting, as I suspected it was correct. We were coming up on the place of the phantom, the only place it could have disappeared into without truly dematerializing was Effi’s Bakery. The windows were boarded up, but the door was propped open with a chunk of two by four. I decided not to investigate. We all make mistakes as we walk this earth, some of us make more than others.
We weren’t twenty feet past when we heard the tinkle of a welcome bell. In this case, it was more like a good riddance dinging. Behind us, three female zombies stared back at us. I had a feeling the largest of the trio was Effi; her sturdy frame led me to believe she’d double sampled each of her carb-loaded goodies before placing them on her shelves. Lord knows I would have been four hundred plus pounds if I ever owned and operated that type of business. Three zombies, that wasn’t bad. They were close, but not approaching. I was left wondering if we should even shoot. Shouldn’t have even been a debate. Like I’ve said before, zombies are like cockroaches, if you see one that means a hundred are hiding, although unfortunately these giant cockroaches didn’t stay hidden for long.
I’m human. Umm, well, of human origin, and I have human flaws, bunches of them. Even a wart or two. (Not really, though I did have a scare in my early twenties, not going into it, suffice it to say it was her fault.) Flaws, right, stick to the flaws. It was as zombies began to pour out of business doorways that I wanted to yell over to Stenzel if she was happy now, seemed like a shitty thing to do while we were running for our lives; even flawed me was able to realize that.
Tommy had scooped up Lydia, making me the slowest runner, a.k.a. the sacrificial food stock. We were moving with a quickness, the zombies had yet to begin pursuit. As awesome as that sounds, it only meant un-awesome things. (Don’t have access to a thesaurus, I’ll add in an antonym later.)
“Why aren’t they chasing us?” Stenzel had slowed and was walking just as I caught up. I wanted to make it look like I was covering our six, but my hobbled limp told a different story.
“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.” Tommy was a few feet ahead of us.
“You know what I mean,” she told him without taking her eyes off of the burgeoning hoard crowding the street. There were at least a hundred of them.
“I figure they’re trying to panic run us into a trap—or there’s something worse up ahead.” That was my conclusion. I didn’t figure we had a, get out of a zombie’s mouth free, card. We were out of the small business district and were now amid squat, single-family homes. Not the best place to hole up, should the need arise, but it beat being in the middle of the street, if push came to bite.
It was Lydia’s scream that tore our gazes away from the zombies and toward where she was pointing. Standing on the roof of a home some five houses down the roadway was an ufiti.
“Come on!” I beseeched whatever god deigned to listen. “This is absolute horseshit.”
“That still doesn’t answer the question of why the zombies aren’t coming,” Tommy said. “Top told us the apes are on the zombies’ menu.”
A tall zombie moved to the front of the pack. Nubian Queen would be an accurate description. Well over six feet tall and as dark as a moonless midnight, she wore a wrap of white and was crowned with a golden headdress. This had to be adornment done after becoming a zombie; her outfit was pristine.
“They have queens now?” I asked.
“Come,” the queen somehow hissed loud enough that we were able to hear it.
“Pretty sure it’s illegal to not follow a royal decree, but me and my associates are going to have to pass,” I told her.
She halved the distance to us, alone. When some tried to join her, she gave them a short look that pushed them back into the mix. The zombie held her hands out by her hips, palms facing us. I expected her to toss her head back and let the sun cascade over the entirety of her. If not for the fact that she was a zombie, she may have cut the most impressive figure of any human being I had ever seen in my life. Modeling execs would have beat each other senseless in an attempt to get her to represent their particular brand.
“Come, now.” I think she wanted to phrase it as a question, but either zombies weren’t good at that type of thing, or English was her second language. Or as a Queen, she was expected to be obeyed and didn’t need to ask for my compliance.
I felt compelled to do it, and I took a step forward.
“Captain?” Stenzel asked. “Do you want me to shoot her?”
“No.”
If she did that, whatever invisible barrier was keeping the zombies at bay would be broken and we’d be in the middle of it, whatever it was.
“Mind control?” Tommy asked me.
“Why not?” I asked. “If she had the power to make me go, I would think she would have the power to make me believe it was of my own volition.”
“That’s true,” he replied. “Still going?”
I let my feet do the talking. I got as close to the Queen as I dared, and that also didn’t make me look like a kid looking up to an adult. She had close to a half a foot of height on me. I vaguely wondered if perhaps she was some Egyptian Pharoah resurrected. I mean why the fuck not, at this point?
The queen was even more impressive up close. Generally, zombies’ eyes, when not missing altogether, tend toward rheumy looking, hers were bright, black, and intelligence burned behind them.
“I’m here.” I debated giving a curtsy, then figured that might be considered over the top.
She gave me a dismissive glance, as if I weren’t worthy of her attention. Which was strange, because I usually looked longingly at cows... I bet you can figure out where I was going with that. After the sizing up she pointed to the distant roof, where the ape watched intently.
“What,” she asked. She might be as smart as a whip, but the use of words seemed foreign to her, like she’d evolved past that method of communication and was only dumbing it down because of her present company. I figured I was very close to the truth of it with that realization.
“Near as I can tell it’s called a ufiti, an ape-like creature of legend.” I didn’t feel the need to explain that, much like her, it was another fascinatingly destructive creature that man had decided was a good idea to create.
“Kill.”
I got the sense she was commanding me to do her bidding.
“Sorry?”
“Allies…for a time.”
What in the absolute fuck was what I was thinking. I wasn’t even sure how to respond. She wanted us to kill the mutant ape, thereby securing a temporary peace between us. That seemed odd, and totally uncharacteristic of them. Though, I had once struck a deal with a zombie previously, even if I did renege on it to a point, minor technicality.
“Why don’t you kill it?” I asked, entirely unsure as to the reason I was spiting myself.
“Kill it.” She pointed, didn’t look like I was going to get any clarification on that front.
“How many?”
She didn’t say or do anything, and I got the feeling she didn’t know what I was referring to. Could have been the number of ufiti, the number of zombies, people, or even the number of bags of dope an inmate could fit in his man-purse.
“How many its?” I asked.
Instead of splaying out all of the fingers, sans the thumb on her hand, she unfurled and curled her pointer finger four times. There were some basic common-sense things she didn’t grasp, but what the hell did that really mean? I remember that, before our downfall, most of the general population lacked any true grasp of the subtleties of common sense. Like, what say we put the explosive stick down before lighting it? Or how about we don’t plug seventeen cords into one outlet? Or, hey Madge, how about not stopping in the middle of the shopping aisle sideways, thus blocking it off for the rest of us!
The zombie hissed, looking past my shoulder. “Sorry,” Tommy intoned, she didn’t like that he was approaching.
“What does she want?” Stenzel asked. The zombie queen’s eyes narrowed when she looked at my sergeant. Hungrily? Greedily? Suspiciously? No clue. Her facial cues were just different enough as to make it much more difficult, or impossible, to pick up on. Not that I ever had a great grasp of what women were thinking anyway, but this was another added degree of difficulty.
“She wants us to kill four ufitis,” I said over my shoulder, not confident enough to turn completely away; you can’t give a predator that type of opportunity.
“Why don’t they do it?” Stenzel asked, much as I had.
“Well, I guess because they’re having trouble with the logistics, otherwise I don’t think we’d be having this civil conversation.”
“Don’t like it,” she said.
“Pretty sure she can hear you.” I wanted Stenzel to not explore that avenue, considering I was the one face to face with the intimidating leader.
“If we were to kill the ufitis, what guarantee do we have of this peace, and how long would it last?” Tommy asked.
“Word.” She touched her chest. How valuable was a zombie’s word? Was it as good as a proper Englishman’s? Or maybe as weak as a convict’s looking for a way to get his sentence reduced, type of voucher?
“For how long…is your word good for?” I asked, seemed a valid question. If it was only until the job was done, the benefit wasn’t enough of an enticement.
“Sight.” She closed her eyes and placed her hands over them.
Couple of ways to interpret this; maybe interpret is wrong but clearly a loophole could be worked in, and she’d just showed how. Maybe she was being forthright and saying that we were safe until we were out of sight, which meant nothing. Out of her sight, or out of her tribe’s? Or maybe she would just do this same maneuver in reverse when we came back around, and then we were once again mortal enemies. Way too much room for play. I wanted a stated timeframe, and I tried to get one out of her, but it seemed that the concept of time passage was beyond her means to understand. Plus, odds were we’d be out of sight while we dealt with the apes, which circled back around to us killing one enemy only to be immediately confronted with another. We had ammo, but not enough to fight on two fronts.
“There’s another ufiti,” Tommy said.
I again did not turn around to look. Maybe the queen wouldn’t come at me, but some of her followers looked eager to get on with the potential feast. I was struggling to make sense of this. There were more than enough of them to deal with the apes. Not that I was advocating this, but they could have chased us down, had a meal, and then dealt with the ufiti. But the apes could climb like monkeys, they were extremely strong, smart, and would be difficult to catch. That could explain some of it. Could be—no pun intended, or, okay, maybe some of the pun—the apes were performing guerilla warfare on the zombies. Picking them off with little fear of retribution. Then another, bigger, explanation struck me: food. The ufitis were honing in on the dwindling supply of it. Competition for resources was always a sticking point for a species, all species.
“What if I don’t agree to this alliance?” I asked, the response was immediate. Without her saying a word the entire horde took a few steps forward and looked on the verge of charging. Maybe Stenzel, Tommy, and Lydia could get away, but as for me, I was snared, and the fact I’d thrown the net over my damn self pissed me off to no end. “I, uh, didn’t say I wasn’t, I was just asking what if I didn’t.”
“Answering,” she said. A person choking on marbles would have had an easier time uttering that word. I don’t know what weird shit went on inside a zombie, but it sounded like they were evolving to the point that they no longer needed vocal cords. Nothing says scary like zombies that can communicate telepathically. We already knew that fun tidbit, but it’s always great to get a reminder from time to time.
“I’m going to agree with her. Anyone have a problem with that?” I asked.
“Might be for the best,” Tommy said.
“I agree,” Stenzel added.
“Me too,” came from Lydia.
“Deal,” I told her, nearly sticking my hand out. I ran it back across my hair, the cool way. I decided I did not want to touch her.
“Deal,” she echoed.
I backed away, again not daring to show her my back, not that close anyway. I turned when I was almost abreast of the others.
“What’s to stop us from not honoring this agreement?” Stenzel asked. I don’t know if a faster broken promise had happened since the nonaggression pact between Germany and the Soviets right before WWII. Well, that’s not fair; it did last for a while, but both parties had entered into the agreement with the full intention of beating the shit out of the other asap. I suppose the same could be said here, I didn’t know what Queenie was thinking. It sure would make our lives a lot easier, though, if we both stuck to it. There was no question we were going to have to deal with the ufiti either way, it would be nice to take one enemy off the board.
“Stenzel, without looking back at our ape friends, how long would it take you to swing around, acquire a target, and drill one in the forehead with a bullet?”
She thought about it. “In the forehead, maybe two seconds...center mass, a second? Less.”
Tommy let out a low whistle, I was thinking it. In a second, I doubt my eyes would have caught up to my turning head, much less differentiate a target then shoot it. My guess would be in that time frame I’d put one in my boot, missing all my toes because I wouldn’t even be able to hit them that quickly.
“Take one out, both if possible,” I told her.
She took a breath, shrugged her shoulders, closed her eyes, and rolled her neck. When her eyes opened she spun with a quickness that I had a hard time tracking. The bullet was already on the way by the time I was able to look up and over. The ufiti she’d hit right above the left breast looked more shocked than I did. The second bullet was never fired, the other ape had somehow sensed it; it had begun moving when she had and was below the roofline before she could kill it.
“Holy fuck,” I said as the shot one looked down, tried to raise a hand to the hole, then keeled over backward and presumably to the ground on the other side.
Stenzel, for her part, appeared as if she’d hit a paper target from ten feet away with a sniper’s rifle. Meaning she was non-plussed about the whole thing, like any other outcome was unimaginable. When she left the unit, there wasn’t any way I was going to be able to replace her; she was a generational talent.
I gave a thumbs up to the queen, in response she turned back to her subjects, and they melted into the buildings they’d come from.
“That’s a little ungrateful on your part!” I called out.
“Mr. T, I don’t think goading the zombies is a good idea,” Tommy said.
“One down, three to go. Do you think they’re running or regrouping?” I asked.
Surprisingly, it was Lydia who answered. “Depends on how hungry they are.”
“You’re too young to be a realist,” I told her.
“Will they even know if we get the other three? We could just check out Lydia’s home and go around this place,” Tommy offered.
“If we can kill the apes, I say we do it. We already let the menace out into the world, if we can clean some of that up I’m all for it. But first yeah, I think we should check on her home.” I gently rubbed the top of her head. She seemed grateful for the promise of going home, maybe not the head rub. Although, on second thought, dealing with a kid that had just had her hopes and dreams crushed was going to be brutal while we hunted the apes. She didn’t seem like a crier, but there’d be no way she wouldn’t be sniffling up a storm.
We followed her directions, warily watching the rooftops for any sign of the ufiti. She paused, looking up at the street sign she signified was the road she lived down. I understood the hesitation; right now in her head was the possibility that part of the world she loved dearly was still alive and well, even if, half a click away, might be the awful truth. Sometimes it’s better not knowing, and this instance might be the perfect example. She marshaled her internal strength and walked forward. That first step was a bit jerky, but after that, she moved with more fluidity before breaking out into a run. The homes we passed on either side were nice two-story dwellings that signified the owners had their feet firmly planted in the upper middle classes, but they also had something else in common: all of them looked abandoned, neglected, and ransacked. Lydia’s eyes never strayed from her target.
“Talbot, I feel like you’re the patron saint of dipshits.”
“I’m not even going to argue with you about that. We’ll be back in three hours.” Funny thing was, I had told the truth, although we would be less one person when we did.
10
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 7
Can’t imagine how I looked to an outsider, dressed in an array of clothes that clearly marked me as not gay. (I mean because of how little fashion sense I displayed. Is it still stereotyping if it’s technically a compliment? If so, relax, it’s a joke.) I had on my utility belt and spare mags, plus my rifle. Comms would have been nice. Tommy plopped a wide-brimmed hat atop my head that kept the relentless sun off my face. The unfortunate part was the bright green color.
“Fuck, has no one ever heard of earth tones in this part of the world?” I asked. I would have liked to have started at a trot, but the heat was so oppressive as to make that a bad idea. We’d brought more water than would be needed for a twenty-mile forced march in more temperate climes, and still, I was concerned it wasn’t enough. The water we drank never seemed to make it to our stomachs, but rather immediately leaked through our pores. I had no clue how we were going to stay hydrated when the transfer rate of water in, to water out, seemed to be one part to two parts. As if it were somehow planned, the first half of our journey, while we were under the watchful gaze of our squad, went by flawlessly. It was only after we’d taken a left, and the store was no longer in sight, that we got a hint that things were about to head south and not the good south like Florida in the winter. Although, all things considered, I didn’t like Florida any time of the year.
“Anyone else see that?” I asked. I’d caught movement out of the corner of my eye, but by the time I was able to swing my head around and look directly at whatever I’d thought I’d seen, it was gone. Tommy and Stenzel both shook their heads, only Lydia agreed, although her explanation of it being a bogeyman was not comforting, as I suspected it was correct. We were coming up on the place of the phantom, the only place it could have disappeared into without truly dematerializing was Effi’s Bakery. The windows were boarded up, but the door was propped open with a chunk of two by four. I decided not to investigate. We all make mistakes as we walk this earth, some of us make more than others.
We weren’t twenty feet past when we heard the tinkle of a welcome bell. In this case, it was more like a good riddance dinging. Behind us, three female zombies stared back at us. I had a feeling the largest of the trio was Effi; her sturdy frame led me to believe she’d double sampled each of her carb-loaded goodies before placing them on her shelves. Lord knows I would have been four hundred plus pounds if I ever owned and operated that type of business. Three zombies, that wasn’t bad. They were close, but not approaching. I was left wondering if we should even shoot. Shouldn’t have even been a debate. Like I’ve said before, zombies are like cockroaches, if you see one that means a hundred are hiding, although unfortunately these giant cockroaches didn’t stay hidden for long.
I’m human. Umm, well, of human origin, and I have human flaws, bunches of them. Even a wart or two. (Not really, though I did have a scare in my early twenties, not going into it, suffice it to say it was her fault.) Flaws, right, stick to the flaws. It was as zombies began to pour out of business doorways that I wanted to yell over to Stenzel if she was happy now, seemed like a shitty thing to do while we were running for our lives; even flawed me was able to realize that.
Tommy had scooped up Lydia, making me the slowest runner, a.k.a. the sacrificial food stock. We were moving with a quickness, the zombies had yet to begin pursuit. As awesome as that sounds, it only meant un-awesome things. (Don’t have access to a thesaurus, I’ll add in an antonym later.)
“Why aren’t they chasing us?” Stenzel had slowed and was walking just as I caught up. I wanted to make it look like I was covering our six, but my hobbled limp told a different story.
“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.” Tommy was a few feet ahead of us.
“You know what I mean,” she told him without taking her eyes off of the burgeoning hoard crowding the street. There were at least a hundred of them.
“I figure they’re trying to panic run us into a trap—or there’s something worse up ahead.” That was my conclusion. I didn’t figure we had a, get out of a zombie’s mouth free, card. We were out of the small business district and were now amid squat, single-family homes. Not the best place to hole up, should the need arise, but it beat being in the middle of the street, if push came to bite.
It was Lydia’s scream that tore our gazes away from the zombies and toward where she was pointing. Standing on the roof of a home some five houses down the roadway was an ufiti.
“Come on!” I beseeched whatever god deigned to listen. “This is absolute horseshit.”
“That still doesn’t answer the question of why the zombies aren’t coming,” Tommy said. “Top told us the apes are on the zombies’ menu.”
A tall zombie moved to the front of the pack. Nubian Queen would be an accurate description. Well over six feet tall and as dark as a moonless midnight, she wore a wrap of white and was crowned with a golden headdress. This had to be adornment done after becoming a zombie; her outfit was pristine.
“They have queens now?” I asked.
“Come,” the queen somehow hissed loud enough that we were able to hear it.
“Pretty sure it’s illegal to not follow a royal decree, but me and my associates are going to have to pass,” I told her.
She halved the distance to us, alone. When some tried to join her, she gave them a short look that pushed them back into the mix. The zombie held her hands out by her hips, palms facing us. I expected her to toss her head back and let the sun cascade over the entirety of her. If not for the fact that she was a zombie, she may have cut the most impressive figure of any human being I had ever seen in my life. Modeling execs would have beat each other senseless in an attempt to get her to represent their particular brand.
“Come, now.” I think she wanted to phrase it as a question, but either zombies weren’t good at that type of thing, or English was her second language. Or as a Queen, she was expected to be obeyed and didn’t need to ask for my compliance.
I felt compelled to do it, and I took a step forward.
“Captain?” Stenzel asked. “Do you want me to shoot her?”
“No.”
If she did that, whatever invisible barrier was keeping the zombies at bay would be broken and we’d be in the middle of it, whatever it was.
“Mind control?” Tommy asked me.
“Why not?” I asked. “If she had the power to make me go, I would think she would have the power to make me believe it was of my own volition.”
“That’s true,” he replied. “Still going?”
I let my feet do the talking. I got as close to the Queen as I dared, and that also didn’t make me look like a kid looking up to an adult. She had close to a half a foot of height on me. I vaguely wondered if perhaps she was some Egyptian Pharoah resurrected. I mean why the fuck not, at this point?
The queen was even more impressive up close. Generally, zombies’ eyes, when not missing altogether, tend toward rheumy looking, hers were bright, black, and intelligence burned behind them.
“I’m here.” I debated giving a curtsy, then figured that might be considered over the top.
She gave me a dismissive glance, as if I weren’t worthy of her attention. Which was strange, because I usually looked longingly at cows... I bet you can figure out where I was going with that. After the sizing up she pointed to the distant roof, where the ape watched intently.
“What,” she asked. She might be as smart as a whip, but the use of words seemed foreign to her, like she’d evolved past that method of communication and was only dumbing it down because of her present company. I figured I was very close to the truth of it with that realization.
“Near as I can tell it’s called a ufiti, an ape-like creature of legend.” I didn’t feel the need to explain that, much like her, it was another fascinatingly destructive creature that man had decided was a good idea to create.
“Kill.”
I got the sense she was commanding me to do her bidding.
“Sorry?”
“Allies…for a time.”
What in the absolute fuck was what I was thinking. I wasn’t even sure how to respond. She wanted us to kill the mutant ape, thereby securing a temporary peace between us. That seemed odd, and totally uncharacteristic of them. Though, I had once struck a deal with a zombie previously, even if I did renege on it to a point, minor technicality.
“Why don’t you kill it?” I asked, entirely unsure as to the reason I was spiting myself.
“Kill it.” She pointed, didn’t look like I was going to get any clarification on that front.
“How many?”
She didn’t say or do anything, and I got the feeling she didn’t know what I was referring to. Could have been the number of ufiti, the number of zombies, people, or even the number of bags of dope an inmate could fit in his man-purse.
“How many its?” I asked.
Instead of splaying out all of the fingers, sans the thumb on her hand, she unfurled and curled her pointer finger four times. There were some basic common-sense things she didn’t grasp, but what the hell did that really mean? I remember that, before our downfall, most of the general population lacked any true grasp of the subtleties of common sense. Like, what say we put the explosive stick down before lighting it? Or how about we don’t plug seventeen cords into one outlet? Or, hey Madge, how about not stopping in the middle of the shopping aisle sideways, thus blocking it off for the rest of us!
The zombie hissed, looking past my shoulder. “Sorry,” Tommy intoned, she didn’t like that he was approaching.
“What does she want?” Stenzel asked. The zombie queen’s eyes narrowed when she looked at my sergeant. Hungrily? Greedily? Suspiciously? No clue. Her facial cues were just different enough as to make it much more difficult, or impossible, to pick up on. Not that I ever had a great grasp of what women were thinking anyway, but this was another added degree of difficulty.
“She wants us to kill four ufitis,” I said over my shoulder, not confident enough to turn completely away; you can’t give a predator that type of opportunity.
“Why don’t they do it?” Stenzel asked, much as I had.
“Well, I guess because they’re having trouble with the logistics, otherwise I don’t think we’d be having this civil conversation.”
“Don’t like it,” she said.
“Pretty sure she can hear you.” I wanted Stenzel to not explore that avenue, considering I was the one face to face with the intimidating leader.
“If we were to kill the ufitis, what guarantee do we have of this peace, and how long would it last?” Tommy asked.
“Word.” She touched her chest. How valuable was a zombie’s word? Was it as good as a proper Englishman’s? Or maybe as weak as a convict’s looking for a way to get his sentence reduced, type of voucher?
“For how long…is your word good for?” I asked, seemed a valid question. If it was only until the job was done, the benefit wasn’t enough of an enticement.
“Sight.” She closed her eyes and placed her hands over them.
Couple of ways to interpret this; maybe interpret is wrong but clearly a loophole could be worked in, and she’d just showed how. Maybe she was being forthright and saying that we were safe until we were out of sight, which meant nothing. Out of her sight, or out of her tribe’s? Or maybe she would just do this same maneuver in reverse when we came back around, and then we were once again mortal enemies. Way too much room for play. I wanted a stated timeframe, and I tried to get one out of her, but it seemed that the concept of time passage was beyond her means to understand. Plus, odds were we’d be out of sight while we dealt with the apes, which circled back around to us killing one enemy only to be immediately confronted with another. We had ammo, but not enough to fight on two fronts.
“There’s another ufiti,” Tommy said.
I again did not turn around to look. Maybe the queen wouldn’t come at me, but some of her followers looked eager to get on with the potential feast. I was struggling to make sense of this. There were more than enough of them to deal with the apes. Not that I was advocating this, but they could have chased us down, had a meal, and then dealt with the ufiti. But the apes could climb like monkeys, they were extremely strong, smart, and would be difficult to catch. That could explain some of it. Could be—no pun intended, or, okay, maybe some of the pun—the apes were performing guerilla warfare on the zombies. Picking them off with little fear of retribution. Then another, bigger, explanation struck me: food. The ufitis were honing in on the dwindling supply of it. Competition for resources was always a sticking point for a species, all species.
“What if I don’t agree to this alliance?” I asked, the response was immediate. Without her saying a word the entire horde took a few steps forward and looked on the verge of charging. Maybe Stenzel, Tommy, and Lydia could get away, but as for me, I was snared, and the fact I’d thrown the net over my damn self pissed me off to no end. “I, uh, didn’t say I wasn’t, I was just asking what if I didn’t.”
“Answering,” she said. A person choking on marbles would have had an easier time uttering that word. I don’t know what weird shit went on inside a zombie, but it sounded like they were evolving to the point that they no longer needed vocal cords. Nothing says scary like zombies that can communicate telepathically. We already knew that fun tidbit, but it’s always great to get a reminder from time to time.
“I’m going to agree with her. Anyone have a problem with that?” I asked.
“Might be for the best,” Tommy said.
“I agree,” Stenzel added.
“Me too,” came from Lydia.
“Deal,” I told her, nearly sticking my hand out. I ran it back across my hair, the cool way. I decided I did not want to touch her.
“Deal,” she echoed.
I backed away, again not daring to show her my back, not that close anyway. I turned when I was almost abreast of the others.
“What’s to stop us from not honoring this agreement?” Stenzel asked. I don’t know if a faster broken promise had happened since the nonaggression pact between Germany and the Soviets right before WWII. Well, that’s not fair; it did last for a while, but both parties had entered into the agreement with the full intention of beating the shit out of the other asap. I suppose the same could be said here, I didn’t know what Queenie was thinking. It sure would make our lives a lot easier, though, if we both stuck to it. There was no question we were going to have to deal with the ufiti either way, it would be nice to take one enemy off the board.
“Stenzel, without looking back at our ape friends, how long would it take you to swing around, acquire a target, and drill one in the forehead with a bullet?”
She thought about it. “In the forehead, maybe two seconds...center mass, a second? Less.”
Tommy let out a low whistle, I was thinking it. In a second, I doubt my eyes would have caught up to my turning head, much less differentiate a target then shoot it. My guess would be in that time frame I’d put one in my boot, missing all my toes because I wouldn’t even be able to hit them that quickly.
“Take one out, both if possible,” I told her.
She took a breath, shrugged her shoulders, closed her eyes, and rolled her neck. When her eyes opened she spun with a quickness that I had a hard time tracking. The bullet was already on the way by the time I was able to look up and over. The ufiti she’d hit right above the left breast looked more shocked than I did. The second bullet was never fired, the other ape had somehow sensed it; it had begun moving when she had and was below the roofline before she could kill it.
“Holy fuck,” I said as the shot one looked down, tried to raise a hand to the hole, then keeled over backward and presumably to the ground on the other side.
Stenzel, for her part, appeared as if she’d hit a paper target from ten feet away with a sniper’s rifle. Meaning she was non-plussed about the whole thing, like any other outcome was unimaginable. When she left the unit, there wasn’t any way I was going to be able to replace her; she was a generational talent.
I gave a thumbs up to the queen, in response she turned back to her subjects, and they melted into the buildings they’d come from.
“That’s a little ungrateful on your part!” I called out.
“Mr. T, I don’t think goading the zombies is a good idea,” Tommy said.
“One down, three to go. Do you think they’re running or regrouping?” I asked.
Surprisingly, it was Lydia who answered. “Depends on how hungry they are.”
“You’re too young to be a realist,” I told her.
“Will they even know if we get the other three? We could just check out Lydia’s home and go around this place,” Tommy offered.
“If we can kill the apes, I say we do it. We already let the menace out into the world, if we can clean some of that up I’m all for it. But first yeah, I think we should check on her home.” I gently rubbed the top of her head. She seemed grateful for the promise of going home, maybe not the head rub. Although, on second thought, dealing with a kid that had just had her hopes and dreams crushed was going to be brutal while we hunted the apes. She didn’t seem like a crier, but there’d be no way she wouldn’t be sniffling up a storm.
We followed her directions, warily watching the rooftops for any sign of the ufiti. She paused, looking up at the street sign she signified was the road she lived down. I understood the hesitation; right now in her head was the possibility that part of the world she loved dearly was still alive and well, even if, half a click away, might be the awful truth. Sometimes it’s better not knowing, and this instance might be the perfect example. She marshaled her internal strength and walked forward. That first step was a bit jerky, but after that, she moved with more fluidity before breaking out into a run. The homes we passed on either side were nice two-story dwellings that signified the owners had their feet firmly planted in the upper middle classes, but they also had something else in common: all of them looked abandoned, neglected, and ransacked. Lydia’s eyes never strayed from her target.
