Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine (47 page)

“Athena, can you handle the
quarantine?” he asked.

“I can do it,” she promised.

“Ok…we’ve got this…Go.” he said
simply between increasingly ragged breaths.

Athena turned and dashed to the
Wagon, sliding into her seat. “Mr. McClintock, go close the back door!” Calvin
added. He didn’t want the man doing something stupid in his obviously depressed
state.

“Tripper, did you put it in the
Paddy Wagon?”

“It’s there.”

“I got it,” Athena said, holding up
another wicket, dual, automatic crossbow identical to the one Lucy brandished, pulling
the tensioner back smoothly with an unnecessary grunt. Taking a deep breath,
she turned her seat around and pointed the crossbow into the cage, dark eyes
narrowing underneath her open visor.

“What are you doing?” the man asked
nervously, holding the woman close.

“Watching to see if any of you were
infected,” she explained without emotion.

“And if we are, what then?”

Athena’s sharp eyes stared the man
down. He gulped and held tighter to the woman, ducking down behind her back,
but not quite far enough for her to not still have a clear shot of his right
eye. The kids crouched tighter together opposite the two adults. Athena took
this as some kind of sign and held her aim on the man.

“You can’t do this,” the man yelled
angrily. “You can’t just make these decisions. No one gets to decide who lives
and who dies without a trial and court.”

“You’re wrong,” Athena said coldly
back. “Things are different now. It’s not my decision. If you’re infected,
you’re already dead.

“He got bit,” the little girl said,
pointing to the man. “I saw it. It’s on his leg.”

“You little bitch!” the man yelled,
but made no move, choosing instead to keep his inadequate cover.

“That’s not a nice word,” the girl
stuck out her tongue.

A fevered glint in his eyes said he
wanted to hurt the little girl, but a quick glance at Athena told him there was
little doubt the woman with the big crossbow would shoot him in the head if he
did.

“We won’t do it until you change,”
Athena promised. “You shouldn’t feel a thing. But we can’t let you harm anyone
else, either. So please let the woman move to the other side of the cage.”

“No!” the woman screamed. “It’s
just a little bite. He’ll be ok,” she pleaded.

But it was already too late. Athena
watched with morbid curiosity as the color drained from his face and the skin
slowly receded. His face now ashen, eyes and mouth eerily drawing back into his
skull and slowly, oh-so-slowly the eyes milked over and lost all focus, like
Calvin and the boys when they had smoked too much weed. The woman’s neck sat
mere inches from his bared teeth. Slowly the milky eyes dropped down to the
meal before him. It emitted a low, throaty growl and spread its jaws just as
the girlfriend’s eyes widened in horrified understanding. Even as the ex-man’s
dead arms tightened around her chest and pulled her soft white neck up to its
waiting jaws, a jet-black, foot-long, three-quarter inch bolt penetrated its
right eye socket and pinned its rotting cranium into the side of the truck, its
one ‘good’ eye now staring blankly into the beyond where it should have been
looking the minute it ‘died’.

The woman screamed, kicked and
wriggled her way out of her dead lover’s embrace and fell over to the other
side of the cage to lay sobbing by the children. “Thank you,” she managed to
breathe between hacking sobs of slowly relenting horror.

“Sure, now get back to the other
side with your boyfriend and away from the kids until I know you’re clear,”
Athena pointed her to the other side with a wave of the crossbow, flipping it
so the other side of the over-under crossbow was ready to fire.

“My name is Athena,” she introduced
herself and turned on the cage intercom so her friends could hear the conversation.

“Megan.” The woman replied in a
shaky voice.

“I’m Alexandria, and this is my
little brother The Worm,” the little girl said.

“What’s his name?” Athena asked.

“I said his name is The Worm,” she
answered snottily.

“It is not! It is not!” the boy
shouted. “It’s Warner. Warner! I’m not a worm!”

The girl giggled and hid her mouth
behind her tiny palm. She seemed about nine years old with blue eyes and bright
sandy hair. The lad bore little resemblance, with straight jet black hair and black
eyes. Both gazed up at her with absolute trust. She was afraid to ask the
question she had to ask next, but she had already had to do a lot of things
this week she didn’t want to do.

“Let’s get out of here,” Calvin’s
voice came over her earpiece, interrupting her. “The parents are in the
Hedgehog.”

The Paddy Wagon shook with the
weight of Sarah jumping behind the wheel and the powerful, muffled engine
grumbled to life and jerked into gear.

“We’re out of here,” Tripper
called.

As both vehicles turned for home,
Athena began to question the children. “Where are your parents?”

“They went down to see the parade,”
the girl explained.

“Why didn’t you go?” Athena asked.

“We were both sick so they wouldn’t
let us.”

“Oh, the Hc70 flu?” Athena asked.

The girl nodded.

“And they left you home alone?”

Alexandria shook her head.

“They left us with
Julia
,”
the girl spat in disgust.

“Is that your babysitter?”

The girl nodded. “We hate her.
She’s always bringing her boyfriends over and making us stay upstairs or go to
bed early when I want to watch TV.”

“So what happened?”

“Julia went to the door to get the
pizza and then she came back and tried to eat the Worm, so we ran. I don’t know
why she wanted to eat him, she had her own pizza.”

“Are you ok? Did you or your
brother get bit?”

“No,” the girl answered. “She was
pretty stupid even before she died. So I made her trip over the TV table thing
and we ran. I texted mommy and daddy and they said to go to Megan’s house even
though she’s always mean to me and smells like cats.”

“Hey!” Megan cried in outrage.

“I do smell the cats, now that you
mention it,” Athena said with raised eyebrows.

“I…have a few cats,” the woman
admitted, self-consciously brushing cat hair from her green sweater and wiping
a hand through her long strawberry blonde hair.

“What happened then?”

“Her boyfriend showed up and said
we have to stay inside and keep the doors locked and we were stuck in there
with her nine cats and no TV or radio or toys.

“Or food!” The Worm shouted. “I’m
starving.”

“Hey! I have lots of food you
little…fibber. You ate six meals a day!”

“It all tasted like cat food you
crazy cat lady!” Alex shouted.

“I—but—what did I ever do to you,
Alex?”

“I saw you kiss daddy!” Alexandria spat heatedly.

“What? Ew, gross. NO! No, sweetie,
it wasn’t like that.”

“I saw you!”

“It was on the cheek.”

“A kiss on the cheek means I love
you.”

“Sweetie. Your daddy and I work
together. He is one of my bosses and he got to tell me that I got a promotion.
Your mom and I are best friends and she was watching out the window the whole
time.”

Alexandria glared at her suspiciously,
but eventually realized this explanation made perfect sense and jumped into
Megan’s arms crying. “I’m sorry, Megan.”

“It’s ok, sweetie. It’s ok.”

“But mommy and daddy never came,”
she finally got to the underlying issue. “And I know that isn’t good.”

“What do you mean, Alex?” Athena
guessed the girl already had her nickname.

“I mean
they
probably got
them; they’re one of
them
and now we’ll never see them again,” she cried
into Megan’s bosom.

“So do you think your parents are
like all of the others?” Athena asked.

“I don’t know. Do you mean the dead
or dead again?” she asked sadly. “But yes.”

“You said dead, so you understand
what’s happened?”

“When Julia was off kissing her
boyfriends in Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom I would sneak into the downstairs TV
room and watch the horror movies on Friday nights. I don’t get scared like the
Worm and my friends do. I know what zombie walkers are.”

“See? Zombies,” Tripper’s bold
voice came out of the speakers in the back of the ambulance. “Even a seven year
old knows they’re zombies.”

“I’m
nine
,” Alex insisted.

“I still say we call them Infected
to the authorities and such,” Athena argued.

“They’re zombies. A kiss is a kiss,
a rose is a rose, a Raiders fan is always an asshole, and a zombie is a
zombie.”

“All Raiders fans aren’t always assholes,”
Athena pointed out.

“Granted. Glad we’re agreed on all of
the other statements, though..”

“Wait, what?”

“I said four things and you only
protested the one. You must be ok with the rest.”

“You’re a jackass.”

“C’mon, how could I pass up a
chance to insult the Raiders?” he asked innocently. “And their fans…and for
that matter the Donkeys they rode in on. But that doesn’t change the fact that
we’re facing
Zombies
, and therefore the
Dead
, and not just some
innocent-sounding
Infected
People
,” he added throwing a finger-quote
in her direction even though she had no chance at seeing it.

“Even with it staring them in the
face,” she retorted calmly, “we’ll sound more believable saying it the way
they’re used to thinking. And it could give us a step up on any government
officials if we sound knowledgeable on the subject. A virus creates infected
victims. There is no such thing as a zombie. That is what most people will tell
you. If we’re the ones still calling them Infected when they are finally
believing in zombies, we’ll look like the smarter ones.”

“Whatever,” Tripper said sarcastically;
once again he put on hold again the argument they’d all been having since early
that first day.

“We may never get to deal with any
government types anyway,” Athena mused.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…it’s never-ending, isn’t
it? We’ve been running back and forth for days and when we finally get everyone
together we still won’t get to leave.”

“We’re leaving, babe,” Calvin
assured her.

“I know we’re leaving
town
,
but we can’t leave the Quarantine Zone.”

“We’ll stay at my uncle’s castle
and wait for it all to blow over,” he promised.

“You think that’s enough?” she
asked.

“We did the most important thing we
could do already,” he pointed out. “We kept that doctor safe so he can get that
sample out for testing. The rest is just surviving until they find a vaccine
for us.”

“At least your uncle has a lot of
DVDs to choose from,” she admitted with a nod.

“The Paddy Wagon is acting up,”
Sarah reported when the vehicle began to surge and hesitate.

“Ok, let’s go to Hef’s first,”
Calvin suggested. “We can just turn on the Paseo. It’s actually closer from
here.”

Athena’s black eyes narrowed and
then went cold as they focused on the three survivors, now locked within the cage.
The kids and Megan seemed to be free of cuts and bites, but Calvin had set the
quarantine parameters for a reason. None of them had turned grey or tried to
eat the others, and she certainly hoped it stayed that way. She hadn’t wanted
to shoot the man, but it would break her heart to kill either of the children…especially
now that she knew their names. The woman was another issue. She was obviously
stupid, sitting in the arms of a man she knew was about to change. It wouldn’t
be so bad shooting her if it was something she had to do. She watched the woman
closely for any signs of change. Underneath the sweat and grime of three days
avoiding zombies Megan was a very pretty red-head with dazzling blue eyes,
exactly the kind Calvin would love. She was tall, about five-nine, and seemed
very pristine, almost princess-like—but naturally, not like she was trying.
Athena found herself actually feeling jealous for a minute and her finger
subconsciously tightened on the trigger, but she quickly shook her head to clear
it.

What the hell am I thinking?
Keeping
one eye on the road, when they were two blocks from the river she finally felt
comfortable enough to lower the crossbow. Unfortunately, as she allowed her
attention to wander away from the cage she noticed Brick watching her from
across the vehicle, sheathing her in a slimy leer of barely controlled lust.

I forgot all about you.

A faint stream of illumination from
a tiny LED inset into the headliner lit only his forehead, cheeks and a bare-toothed
grin. Though steeped in shadow, she knew his fevered, deep blue eyes focused
only on her. Sitting in the jump seat recess, blocked from those in the cage by
a solid plate in the shark’s cage, he rubbed his swollen crotch. She mimicked
retching and refocused the aim of her crossbow at his chest. His breath
released in more excited gasps, though, so she lowered the aim to a more
sensitive area, but immediately lifted it again as this once again doubled his
arousal. He seemed content to just rub himself, but she left the safety off,
just in case.

“We’re losing power,” Sarah
informed them all loudly.

“Shit.” Trip muttered.

Shit,
Athena echoed Trip inwardly.

“Here. Turn here,” Calvin pointed.

“You sure?” Felicia asked.

“It’s ok. This is actually the entrance
to the back alley of The Dungeon.” He called on the radio for Hef to let them
in.

“Let me check the surveillance,
Quinn, please go to the door controls,” Hef replied. After an extended pause,
his excited voice jumped back onto the com system. “Calvin, do not leave your
vehicles! There are dead all over the front and the sides of my building. They
are coming your way. I do not know how this happened. Everything was clear the
last time I checked.”

“They’re inside!” Quinn suddenly shouted.
“They’re inside your little garage! Twenty of them, oof, nineteen! Ok, I got
the door shut again. It was open, though. Watch your back, Hephaestus!”

The two vehicles had just reached
the back side of the building and the Paddy Wagon had come to a hard stop.
Calvin motioned to Felicia to back up next to them.

“Parents, out!” he shouted. “Climb
into the Paddy Wagon there and sit in back.”

“Stay here, Athena. Keep them
safe,” Calvin ordered.

She nodded, knowing that he
couldn’t see her and also that it wasn’t as if they had many choices under the
circumstances.

“The engine is dead. Sorry Quinn,” Sarah
reported in a bleak voice.

 “We’ll worry about that later,”
the big man replied with a great sigh from somewhere inside the massive
structure.

Then Hephaestus called out, “Get everyone
on the roof of your vehicle—,”

“—Gah! My baby—” they heard Quinn
gasp at the thought of that many people on his roof.

“—and we will pull you up.”

“We’re coming to the garage,”
Calvin informed whoever was listening. “Just open it up, let us in and close it
behind us. We’ll have to clean them out from the inside before we take the
civilians in there.”

“What the…someone left this side
door wide open,” Quinn muttered.

Brick seemed to have recovered
himself some now that they weren’t surrounded by walking corpses and he stuck
the big claymore into its sheath so it stuck out diagonally over one shoulder
as he, Sarah and Athena all climbed out of the ambulance and helped the three scared
victims onto the roof first, followed by the parents.

“Fittest people stand closer to the
edges,” Athena ordered. “The others get on the building side, leaning against
it so you don’t fall off. Dad, you get over there,” she reached up and gently
pushed her father to the building side of the Wagon roof.

“What, now I’m fat?” he joked.

Without enough room to stand safely
Athena, Sarah and Brick had to stand on the hood to be the first wall of
defense in case the zombies rounded the corner. It wasn’t likely as Calvin and
the others had all been screaming and honking all the way down the long alley.
Brick positioned himself at the front, but they were uncertain now which Brick
would be standing there when the trouble actually started. Athena picked a spot
away from the building on the outside of the hood. She held her panabas at the
ready, the crossbow slung over her shoulder, but also at the ready. She didn’t
like the bow. It was light, but too bulky for her taste. It was amazing in her
mind that the petite Lucy had become so proficient with the unwieldy weapon in
such a short time.

When the turrets finished the
half-dozen dead that had been lumbering down the alley toward the convoy, the
Hedgehog rolled down the alley in the distance and disappeared around the
corner, careening out of sight

“There!” Calvin shouted, pointing perhaps
thirty feet away to the side street they’d come down what seemed like a hundred
times already without seeing a single zombie. But this time there were at least
two-dozen Lurkers loping through the alleyway just off the garage.

“What’s that music?” Boomer asked.

“What music?” Calvin asked,
propping his little window open.

“I hear it too,” Joel affirmed.
“Sounds like
Stairway
to
Heaven
.”

Boomer and Joel were in the turrets
so they could hear outside sounds better than the others. It took another few
seconds before those inside caught the distinctive sounds of perhaps the
greatest rock and roll song of all time.

“There,” Tripper pointed. “It’s a
clock radio playing
Stairway
.”

Tripper and Calvin shared a look. “That
mother fucker.” Calvin spat, turning off his mic first. “That’s it.”

Trip also turned off his mic. “You
gonna do it, Cal?”

Calvin looked hard at his oldest
friend and nodded coldly. “It’s that time, Trip.” As he said the words, Calvin
felt an icy hand grip his nut-sack and throw both balls up into his heart and
then hit them with his scrotum when they bounced back like one did with that
toy found in souvenir shops across the world, the one with the paddle and
rubber ball stapled to it by a rubber band.

“Let me know when. We’ll do it
together.”

“No. I’ll do it.”

“You’ll need a witness…and maybe
help in case he kicks your ass.”

“Thanks a lot, bro.”

“I’m just sayin…”