Floyd & Mikki (Book 2): Zombie Slayers (Dawn of the Living) (18 page)

Mikki couldn’t stop looking at the ring on her finger as Floyd drove down the road. She had her glove off and just stared at it. She examined it from every angle, watching the way the morning sun reflected off the silver. Exploring all the dark blue veins in the light blue stones. It was just a stupid cheap ring from an abandoned souvenir shop, but it was the most beautiful ring she had ever seen. It was also the only jewelry she had ever had that didn’t come out of a Cracker Jack box. She hoped it wouldn’t turn her finger green.

Aw, hell! Even if it did, she would never take it off. She’d just have a green finger. So what? If she ever had any doubts about Floyd—and she had plenty in the beginning—they were gone now. Completely, utterly and totally gone. With that one little gesture, all her fears, worries and concerns had evaporated like a short summer rain in the desert.

Suddenly, the whole world seemed right. Everything seemed OK. Against all odds, even in the middle of creeper hell on earth, with every card in the deck stacked against her, she had found someone to love her. Someone she loved more deeply than life itself. Someone who made her feel life was worth living—even this shitty hell of a life.

And it was official! She was engaged! Of course, the chance of that ever turning into a real marriage with a home and babies and a dog or a cat seemed pretty remote, but she didn’t care. Floyd was her man. And, as strange as this sounded inside Mikki’s head, she was
his
. She
belonged
to him! The Manhater Woman was actually happy, proud, and even thrilled to belong to her man, because she knew he was a man worth belonging to. Floyd was a man who would always be there for her, as long as he was alive. And Mikki was determined to make sure he stayed alive. No matter what.

They drove on for more than a week, occasionally stopping by little towns along the way on their trip to nowhere. They were together and they were alive. Nothing else mattered. Even when they found a safe place to stay, there was no sex, because Mikki was taking no chances on getting pregnant during this part of her cycle. That nearly drove her crazy because it only made her want Floyd more.

He noticed she had been quieter than usual. At one point, he asked her if something was wrong. She only looked at him with a strange smile. A strange, new, and wonderful smile. It was a smile full of…serenity…security…hope. It was like someone had flipped a switch inside of Mikki that put everything into focus for her. Floyd had once said, “What’s the good of not dyin’ if you never live?” She understood that now.

She did have a reason to live, and Floyd was that reason. The dancing-on-a-happy-moonbeam glow was about to come to an abrupt end, however, as harsh reality slammed them both upside the head with a 2 by 4.

“Uh oh!” came Floyd’s voice in her helmet.

“Uh oh” was never something she wanted to hear. “Uh oh” never meant something great was about to happen. It always meant something bad, so she wasn’t terribly surprised when Floyd abruptly braked to a stop in the middle of the road. Off in the distance, they could see a dust cloud of some sort. They each opened the metal hatches above where they sat and stood up, using their helmet vision to zoom in on the action ahead.

An odd assortment of motorcycles, pickup trucks and other vehicles was under attack. There was some sort of makeshift military encampment nearby, just outside a fairly decent sized town. The motorcycles and pickup trucks were riding around in circles, stirring up the dust and trying to protect a large tanker truck. The defenders were putting up a pretty good fight with whatever assortment of small arms they had, but it was clear they were no match for the onslaught of Super Zs in battle armor.

“Holy shit!” Mikki exclaimed. “Just when we thought we’d seen the last o’ them Super Creepers. What do we do now?”

“Looks like we’re the cavalry,” he answered.

“Wait a minute, Floyd. Are you sure? The last time we tried helpin’ people they shit all over us.”

“Yeah, I know. But we can’t just stand here and watch people get killed. And if they all turn brain-eater, then that just makes more of them for us to have to kill. Besides, we ain’t been bowling in a while.”

“And I ain’t used my new 50-cal, yet neither.”

“Floyd and Mikki to the rescue?” Floyd asked.

“Floyd and Mikki to the rescue!” Mikki agreed.

Floyd dropped down into the cockpit and Mikki flipped the track on the 1960’s Oldies CD to
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
by The Rolling Stones. As the Doom Buggy lurched forward, she manned the machine gun, shouting
Yeehaw
all the way.

Even the Super Z battle armor couldn’t stand up to the 50-cal for very long. If the bullets didn’t actually pierce the armor at first, it blew the Supers off their feet. If Mikki could sustain a burst long enough, she could rip a whole through the armor—and the creepers. She let out a torrent of copper-jacketed death as Floyd hit the accelerator.

They ripped through the line of Super Zs closest to the tanker before the undead soldiers recognized the new threat. Floyd bowled through the crowd, his new plow working perfectly, as Mikki kept her fire focused on the surrounding crowd. She made sure to avoid hitting any of the humans or their vehicles. Neither the humans nor the zombies knew what to make of the Floyd-and-Mikkimobile that showed up out of nowhere, but the humans were certainly grateful for the help.

“Make another pass!” Mikki shouted into her mic.

“Roger that.”

He spun around and headed back. This time, Mikki locked down the 50-cal and started throwing grenades where they would do the most good. The Super Creepers recognized the threat and jumped away, but usually not in time to prevent the shrapnel from at least disabling them.

Having attracted the attention of the Super Zs, Floyd drove away from the pack, hoping to draw them away from the humans. The plan worked, and Mikki unleashed the 50-cal again, mowing or slowing down the line of Supers that followed them. Floyd kept a pace just slow enough to keep them coming, but fast enough to keep from getting overrun.

“Turning back around,” Floyd announced.

“Got it!”

Mikki dropped back inside and pulled the iron hatch over her as Floyd bowled straight through the crowd, severing limbs and splitting bodies as he went. He aimed straight for as many as he could get. Several managed to jump onto the Doom Buggy as it went past, but Mikki fired Bonnie through the various holes and slots in the armor wherever possible to dislodge them. The vehicle bounced and swerved as it ran over bodies and plowed a path of mayhem. Mikki might hate boats, but for some reason, she never got car sick.

As they emerged from the carnage, Mikki threw open the hatch again and spun the 50-cal around. Again, she dropped anything within range. Even though the Super Zs were amazing jumpers, they couldn’t jump faster than the bullets.

“Out of ammo!” Mikki called to Floyd.

She flipped open the ammo box on the roof to switch the belt, but before she could fire, a Super Creeper flew over the side of the Doom Buggy and took her off the vehicle. Bonnie and her other major firearms were still in her part of the cab. It wasn’t until he heard Mikki cursing in his helmet speaker that he realized what had happened.

“Goddammit, Floyd! Where the hell are ya goin’?”

Looking in one of the rear view mirrors, he saw her pulling her katana, obscured by a cloud of dust.

“Aw, shit!” he griped, spinning the vehicle around.

A small group of Super Zs was closing in on Mikki. Floyd popped the pins on a couple of grenades and tossed them out the window. Since the Supers were focused on Mikki, they didn’t notice either one of the grenades, enabling him to take out about eight of them. Mikki would have been proud.

She was holding her own with Mr. Grabby Hands, who had knocked her to the ground. Either these Super Creepers weren’t nearly as bad as she had remembered, or all of Floyd’s training was really paying off. They didn’t seem to move as fast and their actions were getting more predictable. She was able to dodge every blow and follow up with a few good flying kicks of her own.

Katana in hand, Ginsu Mikki first sliced off a hand that came flying at her. Then she relieved the creeper of its other arm. When it tried an enraged flying kick, it lost a foot, and as it stumbled to the ground, it lost its head. Mikki made a mental note to get the helmet later. This would be a good opportunity to stock up.

Suddenly, she found herself surrounded by three of the creeper’s buddies. She froze and watched them carefully, waiting for any sign of movement, her katana raised in front of her. They didn’t seem to recognize the katana, and they didn’t attack. Then she remembered the IFF in the helmets. She lowered the katana, stood up straight and started walking away slowly.

Sure enough, they followed right alongside of her, just like old drinkin’ buddies. She walked a little slower and let them get ahead of her. Then she sliced off their heads from behind, 1, 2, 3! Yep! Definitely a good opportunity to stock up on helmets.

But not right away. There were still plenty more to go, and Floyd was on his way. He skidded to a halt next to her.

“Typical man! Always late to the party!”

“Well, I’m here now. Hop in!”

“I got a better idea. I’m hoppin’ on. Take me to the back of the line and I’ll jump off. These things’ll think I’m all friendly if I ain’t in this buggy.”

“Ah! Gotcha!”

Floyd plowed through the middle of the crowd, flattening or slicing as many of the Super Zs as he could. When he made it to the back of the group, Mikki jumped off. Floyd killed the engine and jumped out himself, letting the buggy roll to a stop a hundred feet or so away. All the Supers followed it and moved on right past them.

Mikki held up her sword and simply said, “Can opener time.”

Soon, the remaining Super Zs had surrounded the Doom Buggy and were womping on it any way they could. A few of them shattered their limbs attacking it. Meanwhile, Floyd and Mikki set about removing creeper heads from their bodies, one by one, with the swords.

The undead soldiers realized something was wrong, but the helmets didn’t pick up the swords as a threat. Whoever had programmed the helmets hadn’t anticipated running into Samurai warriors. If they had held knives or machetes, the helmets would have identified them as weapons, but not the Japanese blades. Add to that the fact that the helmets Floyd and Mikki were wearing were registering them as friends, and the Supers literally never knew what hit them.

Within five minutes, every undead body around the Doom Buggy was twitching headless in the dirt. Floyd and Mikki jumped back in the buggy and drove off to meet the people they had just rescued, praying they were nothing like the folks they had recently left at Emerald Valley Campground.

An unusual assortment of vehicles surrounded the tanker truck as the Doom Buggy drove up. Floyd stopped about 20 feet in front and waited a minute. No one made any threatening moves. Everyone just stood and stared, waiting for the two to emerge. Half of them looked scared to death. Then one little girl recognized the logo and yelled out, “Hey! It’s Floyd and Mikki!”

Oh no, not again!
Mikki thought to herself. But this time was distinctly different. The crowd exchanged glances and mumbled a bit to each other, waiting anxiously to see if the little girl was right. A great cheer went up when the two Zombie Hunters finally exited the buggy and took off their helmets.

“Hey, it
is
Floyd and Mikki! I know them! Hey!” It was the little pudgy guy from Lake Havasu, Raul. “Remember me?”

Floyd shook his hand as Mikki affirmed, “Of course we remember you! But what are you doin’ all the way out here? I thought you wasn’t gonna leave?”

“Well, it’s like you said, Miss Mikki…I’m the guy with the gun! Carlos and I got tired of the way they were treating us, so we grabbed the guns and left. Then we find these nice people and we join them. Hey, guys! This is Floyd and Mikki! Just like I told you!”

“Pleased to meet ya,” said a man with a deep bass voice. He had an air of confidence about him, bordering on arrogance, but not quite. He gripped Floyd’s hand firmly and stared him right in the eye. Floyd could tell at first glance that this guy had ice water in his veins. This was not a man to screw with, but whether he was on the side of the angels or a son of the devil remained to be seen.

“We’re the Freedom Riders,” he continued. “Heard all about you two on the CB radio. Then we ran into Raul and Carlos out on I-40 and they told us they met you. Never thought we’d actually meet in person. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You two seem to get around. I’m Jack Brady.”

Floyd and Mikki noticed all the vehicles had a logo of their own: a large motorcycle tire with wings on both sides. Several of the vehicles flew American flags, and a couple of the motorcycle riders had Stars ‘n Stripes bandanas on their heads or around their necks.

“I like the logo,” Mikki said.

“Thanks,” said Jack, with a bit of a smile. “You inspired it. Heard about your F+M symbol and decided we needed one of our own. I saw it on your dune buggy there, but we didn’t know if it was really you or some copycat.”

“Hey, Floyd,” a woman called out. “If you want, you can ride on the back of my bike any day!”

The woman took off her motorcycle helmet and dismounted from her bike. The cycle was a gorgeous custom chopper with shining chrome, bright sparkly pink paint, and blood red accents.

The woman herself was no less stunning. Tall for an Asian. At about 5’7” she was shorter than Floyd but taller than Mikki—but just as well-endowed in the chest area. She had long, straight black hair and a tight, trim body. She wore a white men’s T-shirt (very apparently with no bra), tan shorts and brown leather knee-high boots. Every inch of her exposed yellow skin was smooth and flawless.

She was stunningly gorgeous. Mikki hated her at first sight.

“Mya, get back on yer bike!” a man ordered. He was a bit older and a bit heavier that Floyd, and he clearly had some sort of relationship with the Asian vixen. He rode a large black Harley Davidson and was one of the ones sporting a flag bandana. “Don’t mind her none! She’s a handful!”

“Don’t you know it!” Mya agreed. “That’s Crazy Joe. He thinks he owns me.” Then, looking straight into Floyd’s eyes, she added, in a softer, more sultry voice, “But the offer still stands.” She turned and sashayed back to her bike, her butt swaying from side to side in a hypnotic motion.

Mikki, however, was not hypnotized. She was not amused. She hated the woman even more. To her relief, however, Floyd barely even looked at Mya. His eyes were on Mikki. After a moment, he just shrugged.

“Well, we are Floyd and Mikki, alright,” he admitted. “Good to see you again, Raul. So what happened here, Jack?”

Just then a siren went off and an ambulance drove up. A real ambulance, complete with flashing lights. Jack waved at the driver to join the group. He threw the emergency vehicle into park and jumped down as another man got out of the back.

“We made the mistake of trying to get fresh medical supplies from a hospital in the town there. Didn’t think anything of the military camp outside. We seen a lot of those. Always empty. Ran into a crowd of zombies too big to handle, so we retreated, but then we caught the attention of those guys in armor. Never seen anything like them. We thought they were military at first, come to help us out with the zombies, but they attacked us, instead.

“We ran for our lives and jumped on our bikes, but the tanker split an axle. Couldn’t leave without that. It carries enough gasoline to keep all of us moving. And the driver’s a good buddy of mine. I sent the ambulance away while the rest of us defended the tanker, but we lost three good men. No doubt we all woulda been lost if you hadn’t showed up. It was amazing to see you two in action. Looks like all the stories were true. Who were those guys, anyway?”

“Super Creepers,” Mikki answered.

Jack looked at her puzzled.

“Zombies,” Floyd explained further, “in some kinda special forces armor.”

“We never saw any zombies move like that before!” Jack asserted.

“Yeah, we call ‘em Super Zombies. Or Super Zs. Mikki calls ‘em Super Creepers, too. Long story, but they’re zombies, just a helluva lot stronger and smarter than your normal brain-eater. And much better armored.”

“You know zombies don’t really eat brains,” said the little girl with a smile. She came out from inside one of the pickup trucks and ran right up to Floyd and Mikki. She was only about eight years old and incredibly cute, even if she was covered in grime, with matted blonde hair and a snaggletooth. Mikki’s heart went out to her immediately.

The young girl noticed Mikki looking at her and with a huge smile, said, “You’re my hero!”

Taken aback, Mikki asked, “Your hero?”

“Yeah! I know all about you! I know all the stories! I even know the song!”

“The song?”

“Yeah! The Floyd and Mikki song!”

The girl started singing to the tune of Yankee Doodle.

Floyd and Mikki came to town, with their guns a blazin’.

Killing zombies left and right, it really was amazin’!

Floyd and Mikki keep it up!

Come and save our city!

There are zombies all around,

It really isn’t pretty!

Came a zombie grizzly bear. It was really scary.

Floyd and Mikki blew it up, and everyone was merry.

Floyd and Mikki keep it up!

Floyd and Mikki save us!

Help us in our time of need

And we will sing your praises!

Everyone applauded except Floyd and Mikki, who didn’t quite know how to react. They were both a little embarrassed. Eventually, Floyd said, “That was real nice.”

Mikki agreed. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“I’m Becky!” the girl introduced herself, her smile a mile wide and her eyes even wider. “When I grow up, I wanna be just like you!”

“Oh, no you don’t, believe me.”

“No, I do, I really do!”

“Why would you want to be like me?

“You’re so brave! You’re never afraid of anything!”

“I got no time for fear,” Mikki bragged, staring straight at Mya, who stopped ogling Floyd just long enough to return Mikki’s glare, momentarily.

“This here’s Doc Goldman,” Jack said, referring to the man who had emerged from the back of the ambulance. “He’s a real doctor. Damn lucky to have him. Doc, this here is
the
Floyd and Mikki.”

“Really? Well, very pleased to meet both of you. Jack, any wounded?”

The doctor had on an old polo shirt and faded blue slacks. A little portly, with his pants held up over his belly with a black leather belt, he had thinning white hair and a kindly face with gold-tone, wire-framed glasses.

“No, but we lost three. They’re beyond your help, doc.”

“Dammit! Who’d we lose?”

“Russell, James, and Truman.”

Neither Floyd nor Mikki could tell if those were first or last names, but the Doc clearly recognized them, as a sad look came over his face.

“Dammit! Good men! Every last one of them. At least none of them had any family. Everyone else OK?”

“Yeah. And no bites to worry about. This last batch of zombies didn’t seem to be interested in biting. Only killing.”

“Zombies? I’ve never seen a zombie move like that! I thought they were some rogue military unit. Or a road gang.”

“No. According to Floyd and Mikki here, they were some kind of Super Zombies. They’ve run into them before.”

“Oh great! What are we in for next? When will this damn nightmare ever end?”

“Jack says you was lookin’ for medicine in the hospital,” Mikki interjected.

“Yes. A terrible mistake, as it turned out. We have some medical supplies, but they’re running low. Would have been good to resupply, but not at such a cost.”

“Yeah,” Mikki agreed. “We learned that the hard way too. Hospitals ain’t worth it. Better to look for drugs in an old pharmacy.”

“Can I take a look at the axle?” Floyd asked.

Jack answered, “Sure! Take a look while we bury our dead. Would have been a lot more graves to dig if you hadn’t come along. Thanks again, both of you. You saved our lives!”