Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine (15 page)

“Ok, then,” Scooter leaned forward and
stood on his tippy toes, speaking quietly up to the larger man so no one else
would hear. “What if we told you the world is coming to an end
today
and
we’re going to need all of this and more to survive?”

“I’d probably say you’re a
nutcase.”

“It’s all true,” Scooter crossed
his heart. “We have to go downtown and fight through a pack of zombies to help
a friend, but after that we have a place to go and if you let us use your
vehicle, we’ll let you come with us.”

“I’m not a big fan of sports,
either, but I’d hardly call those people zombies,” the big man muttered.

“I love sports. I’m saying people
have been turned into zombies and are killing other people.”

The man stepped back. He wanted
nothing more to do with these two wackos…but he sure did want their money. With
a deep breath, he once again sized them up. They looked so normal, but this was
without doubt the most ridiculous conversation he’d ever had…but that
straight-forward look of doom these kids were sending his way caused a cold
shudder to skitter up and down his spine doing a special kind of clog-dance.
These two were either totally serious or bat-shit crazy, or maybe both…but
crazy people didn’t have no-limit Platinum cards, did they?

“Name’s Niall Quinn,” he held out a
giant, callused palm that Calvin took and shook enthusiastically. “I think
you’re both either crazy or having fun with us, but as long as you’re paying,
I’ll go along. I prefer to be called Niall, but everyone calls me Quinn. I
don’t know why.”

“Nice to meet you, Quinn.” Calvin
said.

The big man sighed.

“Since you’re buying me out, I have
nothing else to do today. I’ll take you where you wanna go. I’m kind of curious
to see how this ends.”
And at least I can be there to end it if you’re gonna
try to hurt innocent people
, he added silently.

“Sweet. I’m Calvin Hobbes—”

“—Scooter.” Athena interrupted.
“His name is Scooter.”

Now it was Calvin’s turn to sigh in
practiced resignation.

“And this is my girlfriend, Athena.
Rosenthal,” he glared at her. “Unfortunately she doesn’t have a nickname I can
say in public.”

“You might want you arm yourself,
too,” Athena cautioned the armor smith, nodding at a long-handled mace with
spikes leaning on the man’s anvil.

“Ah, yes. That’s Gwendaline.
William made her for me a few years back,” he nodded across the way at the
other smith. “Traded a set of armor for the pair of these,” he pulled out
another from the other side of the anvil, where it had been within his
immediate grasp the entire time. Each weapon had about a three foot handle and
the heads were slightly larger than a softball. She didn’t think she’d even be
able to lift one of them, but he turned and picked one up with relish and swung
it around a few times as if it were made of aluminum. “And her mate here is Gwenivere.
Marcus!” he shouted.

A stocky young lad of about fifteen
with dark black hair, pale skin and a slight acne outbreak scampered over from
a nearby stall where he’d clearly been flirting with a buxom red-haired wench
nearly twice his age.

“What’s up, Mr. Quinn?”

“Help us load everything into the ambulance.
William’s weapons as well.”’

“Which ones?” the kid asked,
perplexed.

“All of them.”

“What? We done for this year?”

“These nice people are buying it
all.”

“They work for a movie studio or
something?”

“No. Apparently the world is coming
to an end,” Quinn explained matter-of-factly, with a blank stare befitting the
situation.

The lad just laughed. “Right, well,
mom always said there’d be days like that.”

Athena leaned over and whispered to
Scooter. “Shouldn’t we tell everyone?”

Somehow the sharp-eared Quinn
overheard her. “You’re welcome to try,” he whispered. Then added, “But I don’t
think very many people will believe you. I don’t believe you and I’ve been
preparing for something like this for decades.”

“Well, just so you know,” Scooter
warned. “If what my friend says is true, you’re going to be driving us right
into the heart of Armageddon, instead of away and to safety.”

“You seem fairly calm for someone
whose friend is in mortal peril.”

“They’re protected in a veritable fortress
for now. He told us to load up with whatever weapons we could find first.
Seemed to think that was very important. And they have guns already, stole them
from the police station—“

“—great. That sounds promising.”

“Right, so I’m thinking he feels he
doesn’t have enough. If we get down there and find what he says is waiting…
is
waiting, then we won’t regret this side-trip at all.”

“Well, I guess there won’t be any
doubt after we get there, will there? One way or another?”

The couple shook their heads in
response.

“C’mon, you kids should help load
this on the wagon so we can get to your friend faster,” the big man pointed
them to a large flatbed Marcus pulled over from behind the shop and started
piling armor upon the thick wooden planks.

“We need to get our protection on
first,” Scooter held the man off with a gesture.

“Fair enough. More than enough work
to go around. In fact, now that I think about it. You’re the customer, so you
really don’t
have
to help any at all.”

“Whatever makes it go faster,”
Athena said, sliding the blue-tinged armor over her head.

Marcus gaped in adolescent wonder
as she nearly gave him a full view of what the bodice Calvin had bought her was
designed to properly display as the metal chain slid down her chest, pulling
the dress down slightly as it went. But Calvin stepped in between to block his
vision with a wicked grin and continued adjusting his own chain mail jacket.

“Marcus!” Quinn shouted. “Get to
it, boy.” Blushing furiously, the lad grabbed a heavy stack and went to work
loading the gear.

“Ooh, this is light,” Athena cooed.

“It’s one of the strongest metals I’ve
ever seen,” the Armorer commented. “Bought it on a precious metals site from
some private Greek-sounding company here in town. It’s nearly impossible to
roll and cut. Had to heat it for three days and—”

“—right, I get it,” she waved a
dismissive hand. “It’s very hard to work with and that’s why it costs so much.
Yada, yada, yada. You’ve already made the sale, Master Armorer. You don’t have
to feed us the lines anymore,” she gave him an evil grin and he laughed, a
great friendly bellow that came from deep inside his large belly under two
layers of armor.

“It’s not a line, miss. It’s true.
I want you to feel confident that it will protect you from any kind of physical
attack. It should protect you from Zombies unless their blood gets in your
mouth. Can’t do much about that.”

“Right, I guess we’ve seen the same
movies. So if this thing is real, we’ll need some kind of masks,” Athena noted
casually, brows scrunched in thought. “Can you make anything that will offer that
kind of protection?”

“I can’t think of anything,” the
big man shook his head. “No, you’ve already bought these helmets. They should
work for the most part. But you might want to look into a plastic protective
face shield. You need some kind of clear protection for the eyes, and you still
have to be able to breathe.”

“Right. Festus should have a bunch of
face shields at his shop,” Scooter cut in. “If not, he’s got the 3-D printers.
Maybe we can design something.”

“Festus?” the giant armorer asked.

“A friend. His name is Hephaestus.
He’s kind of a wizard of building things, mostly with metal, like yourself.”

“That’s very fitting,” the man
commented.

“What do you mean?” Scooter asked,
cocking an eye up at the larger man, who stopped putting armor on the wagon
long enough to squint at Scooter and train a questioning glance on Athena.

“Public education,” Athena
apologized for her boyfriend.

“Hey, I went to college,” he
argued.

“It’s kind of funny he’d be married
to a goddess and not know one of his friends is a god,” Quinn countered, as he
continued loading the flatbed.

“Hey! First, we’re not married.
Second, I know she’s a goddess. No one has to tell me that. Third, what does
that have to do with Hephaestus?”

“Hephaestus, Greek god of smiths
and craftsmen and a bunch of other things.”

“Okay…” Calvin hinted for more.

“And Athena is the Goddess of
wisdom.”

“Right. Of course she is. She’s the
wisest person I’ve ever met…other than myself, of course,” he breathed on his
fingernails and buffed them on his chest.

“No, Athena is actually the name of
a Greek goddess, the goddess of wisdom, law and justice, courage, mathematics,
civilization, war strategy and several other things.”

“Oh…I…knew Athena was on
Battlestar
Galactica
. I didn’t know she was a goddess too. I guess I was only up on
the Roman gods. I think it would take ten or twelve gods and goddesses to cover
all of that in the Roman pantheon. But lucky me, I’ve got it all in one woman,”
he schmoozed and leaned over to kiss his honey before she pulled the helmet
over her head.

“You can probably wait on the
helmet, sweetie,” he suggested.

“Until when, right before we need
them?”

“Yes.”

“And when will that be?”

“Good point.”

“I want to get used to wearing it,
anyway.”

“Another good point.”

“See,” he turned back to the
Armorer and pointed to Athena.

“Yes, she
is
wise,” the big
red-head nodded and rolled his eyes at Athena behind Calvin’s back as he slung
another stack of leather and chain armor onto the wagon. “Though now I’m wondering
what she’s doing with
you
.”

Athena laughed a light trill. Calvin
harrumphed, slammed the helm down on his head, fastened the clamps and pulled
up the visor, mostly ignoring Quinn’s remark. Turning his head left and right
to test the fit—it felt perfect. The design of the helmet fit flawlessly with
the placement of the clamps, allowing both sections to give a little for better
lateral and vertical movement. Satisfied, he reached out and grabbed an armload
of armor to take over to the cart. Instead he nearly broke his back as the
stack contained far more than he could carry. Pulling his arms from the pile
and hoping no one saw, he readjusted, taking fewer, lighter-looking items. Another
giggle indicated Athena had seen the whole thing, but as with the big
blacksmith’s joke, he simply moved on.

William the Blacksmith joined them halfway
through the loading after receiving the OK on the twenty-thousand-plus bill,
bringing a pile of his best weapons and the paperwork.

“Here are your receipts, your
majesty,” William hesitantly handed her the papers. “I did take twenty percent
off for the bulk purchase,” he winked. “I didn’t even know it was possible to
charge that much on a credit card.”

“That’s nothing,” Scooter waved a
dismissive hand at the muscular blonde Smith. “Once a friend’s car broke down
in East St Louis and we were stuck on the side of the road. Couldn’t get a tow
truck to come and help us. Athena joked that it might be easier to call a car
dealership and buy a new car with her credit card and have it delivered.”

The big men laughed.

“Yeah, we laughed too. It stopped
being funny when the dealership guys showed up a half hour later with the
paperwork and keys and towed my friend’s car back to Kansas City for free,” he
shrugged.

Marcus, Quinn and William each
stopped to reassess the lady before them and nod in appreciation.

“Yeah, I know,” Scooter nodded
sagely. “You all wish you were me now. Just remember, you’re not.”

“Just as well; don’t think I could
handle the height adjustment,” the crimson-topped armorer joked.

Athena laughed while Calvin feigned
hurt.

The loading continued. The
Armorer’s shop was mostly empty. They left the young apprentice to grab the
remaining pieces and load them up while the rest of the group teamed up to
empty the weapon shop, which was larger and held many more items.

“Here are your axes, Mr. Hobbes,”
the Smith laid out his weapons and the leather back-pack-sheath combo he’d made
for them.

Calvin had gone full-geek when
ordering the weapons several weeks before. Two of the axes were smaller, much
like Gimli’s pair from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, only with two-foot hafts
welded to an eight inch half-moon blade, balanced for throwing. Both axes had
outside pouches on the wide backpack, reinforced sheaths designed so that he
could reach them with a quick grab over each shoulder. Each axe was affixed
with a heavy-duty nylon band he could quickly slide over his wrist. He held one
up to the smith with a question in his eyes.

William shrugged.

“I like the nylon better than leather
for this. Leather soaks up moisture and gets slippery. It also cuts the wrists,
wears out faster and stinks like ass after it soaks up too much sweat. These
nylon straps are softer, even more pliable and water-resistant.

“I guess sometimes innovation gets
it right over tradition,” Scooter noted sagely.

“Occasionally,” the blonde man
nodded.

The larger axe, called a Labrys,
had a two-and-a-half foot handle that met a double-headed axe head fully as
wide as his upper torso. When he slammed it into the pack the handle stuck up
straight over his head several inches. The great blades rested within the pack
in hardened-leather-bound, titanium reinforced sheaths.

“We worked with a skilled
Leatherworker to get this done,” William explained.

“It looks awesome,” Calvin replied
happily. “All I asked for and more.”

There was still room for food, a
water bladder, first-aid kit and some other items. The three artisans had also
included padded sheaths for six throwing knives that could rest just behind his
shoulder blades. Noticing Calvin fingering the sheaths, the big smith produced
a purple velvet rolled pack half the length of his forearm and unwound the golden
drawstring. It reminded Calvin of a Crown Royal pouch. Untying the string, he
opened the package, which unrolled like a scroll. Six immaculately designed
silvery throwing dart-knives sparkled bluish in the morning sunshine, golden
runes and lines running from point to butt. Calvin nodded in appreciation.