Zombie Bitches From Hell (19 page)

To diffuse the guards’ suspicions, Tim makes
a big show of staring at the pile of weapons. “We’ll get them back,
right?” he asks one of the guards.

They just chuckle, while Molly stares at her
feet a little guiltily.

The air inside the inner sanctum is electric
and intense; Tim eyes me cautiously as we both try to look aloof
and unalarmed, not so easy to do when you’re unarmed, surrounded by
strangers and your fucking balloon is stuck on the roof.

The three men inside are clean and well-fed,
unlike most of the office drones we’ve seen so far and, for that
matter, Molly. They’re far from heavy, but they look fleshy and
alive, unlike the rest of us walking skeletons who’ve been
subsisting on starvation rations for at least the last few months.
Each has a shiny new sidearm around his ample waist, each eyes us
with suspicion bordering on distrust.

Molly clears her throat and says to the blond
man in the middle, “Ed, these two just landed on the roof; in a
balloon!”

Ed, a jowly type in rolled up work sleeves
and a straining belt, grunts.

“Interesting,” he says without regarding the
men on either side of him, who glower at us a little less strongly
with the news that we’ve brought a potential ticket out of their
sanctuary. “Where do you two hail from?”

Tim starts to open his mouth and I cut him
off quickly; the less these guys know, the better. “Here and
there,” I say cryptically.

Next to me, Tim hazards a smile, then quickly
buries it in his face.

Ed’s not so forgiving. “I asked you a
question,” he barks.

“I gave you an answer,” I say.

Ed nods, fleshy face beet red, and slides the
pistol from its holster.

Tim flinches, but stands tall, hands still on
his hips, close enough to his belt buckle knife to use it if need
be, but not obvious enough about the subtle movement to rouse the
suspicion of the three men at the table.

“Let me tell you how it works,” Ed explains,
placing the gun on the table in front of him. “This isn’t a
democracy. I’m in charge; Bill here is my second in command, and
Frank is my other second in command. You know how we got into this
room?”

I’m figuring it’s a rhetorical question, but
Ed is one of those self-important guys who actually expects an
answer.

Tim is only too happy to oblige: “While
everyone else was sleeping?”

Ed’s face glows another wave of crimson as
his two lackeys slide their pistols on the table as well.

Molly unsuccessfully tries to hide a
snort.

“We got here,” Ed glowers, “because we’re the
fittest of the fit. That floor out beyond this door? It’s full of
office drones with soft hands who haven’t left this floor since the
latest invasion six weeks ago. We’re the ones who barricaded the
door, who sealed off the elevator and who made it so those
weaklings could survive.”

As if to make up for the involuntary laugh at
Tim’s joke, Molly rushes in to add, “Ed alone has nearly a dozen
zombie kills under his belt.”

Tim and I give each other a weary look.

“Wow,” Tim says, inching forward as the three
men look at their guns. “Twelve zombies? Well, nearly twelve
zombies? That’s impressive. But I killed that many just trying to
get to my dinner last night, and my partner killed that many just
trying to eat his breakfast. So forgive us if we’re not signing up
to be a part of your little tribe here.”

Ed’s face is too red to blush any longer. He
merely asks, “So if you don’t want to join us, what are you doing
here?”
“Our ride is almost out of gas and we’re tangled in a cell tower,”
I interject. “Just a twist of fate, no pun intended. It’s that
simple. We broke in, Molly here caught us, and she brought us
straight to you. All we ask is a good night’s sleep and a point in
the right direction to the nearest fuel supply. Some help with the
tangle. After that, we’ll be out of your way and you’ll be free to
rule over your little office fiefdom without any further
threat.”

At the mention of “fuel,” the three men share
knowing glances. I ignore them and focus on Molly instead, who
looks away as quickly as our eyes make contact.

Tim gives me an arched eyebrow and says, “So,
fellas, where is it?”
“Where’s what?” asks Ed, muffling a smile.

I shake my head and take another step
forward.

One of Ed’s minions – Bill or Frank, they
look a lot alike – reaches for his gun. Without blinking, I slide
the recently-oiled blade from its buckle on Tim’s waist and jam it
into the soft web of flesh between the man’s thumb and
forefinger.

He howls obscenities before yanking his hand
away, leaving a few drops of blood. By the time the three men look
up again Tim has grabbed all of their pistols and is holding two
while I hold the third.

“Now, gentleman,” I say. “You were going to
tell us about that fuel source?”

I pick up the scotch, take a sip, which is
warm on the back of my throat. The pistol is solid in my formerly
empty holster. Tim puffs his new cigar eagerly while Molly offers
us a tin of dried sardines and two packages of stale crackers, what
amounts to a post-outbreak feast in this day and age.

The men eye our meal eagerly but, old hands
at sharing, Tim and I make quick work of divvying it up and
devouring it before there’s so much as a drop of oil for them to
consider. I want to eat it all but a little sharing might make the
negotiations go smoother.

“The propane is in a storage tank
downstairs,” Ed is saying, still eyeing his gun almost as greedily
as the empty sardine tin. As humbled as he is, Ed manages to give
his henchman a knowing smile. “Of course, so is the toughest, most
violent, most virulent horde of female zombies you’ve ever
witnessed. And before you say you killed fifteen of them before
breakfast this morning, let me assure you, this horde is
smart.”

I roll my eyes but Tim leans in and asks,
“What makes you say that?”
I know what he’s thinking. While the bitches have certainly evolved
they have grown in wisdom, leadership and violence.

I’d been hoping the office building was free
of bitches. Now, to hear they’re actually inside the building gives
the mission a less than encouraging feel.

I look at Tim and his glowering eyes tell me
he’s feeling the same way.

“What’s so fierce about this particular group
of bitches?” he asks.

Ed looks at him as if he’s been waiting to
tell this story all night.

“Let me tell you about our neighbors,” he
begins, but only gets that far.

“What, there are other survivors in this
building?”

Ed waves a hand away, a big hand, soft and
blustery like the rest of him.

I look to Molly in the awkward silence that
follows. She confesses, “A group of cops found us not long after
the outbreak. Their precinct had been run over, communication had
been cut off, they figured Wall Street was still safe; they figured
wrong. By the time they saw us, the horde had them cornered.”

Her story, while finished, seems abbreviated.
I push away my scotch and ask, “Cornered… where… exactly?”

Ed sits forward in his seat as she says, “Two
floors below us.”

Tim shakes his head. “You’re kidding me.
There’s a unit of cops, two floors below? So, why aren’t we talking
to them? They can escort us to the fuel and, with enough of it, we
can get out of here.”

Molly shakes her head and starts to speak but
Ed cuts her off with a bark. “We barricaded ourselves off from them
when the horde caught up to them.”

Tim opens his mouth to argue, but I nudge his
foot. He quiets himself as I watch Molly biting her lip and eyeing
her fingernails, already bitten to the nub.

I stand abruptly, Tim quickly following
suit.

“Thanks for the grub, gentleman, but we’ve
had a long day and it looks like we won’t be getting fuel anytime
soon.”

The admission brings a smile to Ed’s face.
Instead of standing, he leans back in his chair. I smile and say,
“Now, if Molly will be kind enough to show us to our quarters,
we’ll spend the night thinking of a Plan B.”

Ed looks to his two partners before saying,
“Good luck with that, Kent. We’ll give you to the end of the week,
and then I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to leave. Our resources
are limited, obviously, and since we didn’t invite you here, well…
I’m sure you understand.”

I smile and hold up his gun. “We’ll give
these back then,” I grunt, sliding out between the two bodyguards
without a backward glance.

I look for our weapons on the table outside
but they’re long gone.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

Tim cocks one eyebrow but makes no comment as
Molly leads us slowly from the well-lit boardroom.

The rest of the floor is sunk in quiet
darkness, the odd solar lantern lighting this random grouping of
pale-faced office dwellers. We wind up in a corner cubicle,
stripped bare but spacious, quiet and away from the rest of the
group, who apparently prefer to keep their distance. The best part
is it’s facing the boardroom, so we can see while Ed and company
plot against us.

There is a desk chair nearby and as Tim and I
unroll our sleeping mats and settle in, Molly takes it with pinched
lips and crossed legs.

“Tell us about the cops, Molly,” I say
quietly, reaching into my stained backpack for a little
incentive.

“What about them?” she hedges, looking away,
as if to see if anyone else is listening.

“Why aren’t they up here, with you?” I ask,
hands finding a dented metal tin full of little glass vials.

She avoids my eyes and says, “Like Ed said,
guys, the horde caught up with them.”

“You need to tell us about those cops,” I
say.

She sighs, uncrosses her legs, crosses them
again and says, “Well, knowing you guys you were bound to find out
anyway… listen, here’s the deal. Most of the folks up here are
brokers, or brokers’ assistants, or secretaries, or secretaries’
assistants. That means zero survival experience, period. When the
last outbreak happened, everyone freaked. Most folks went home, but
everyone up here stayed converting their money to gold and
silver.”

“Seriously?” Tim almost chuckles.

Molly gives a rare, wry smile. “Believe it or
not, it seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, before the
power went out and all the currency converters froze – forever. By
that time the rest of the building, hell, the rest of Wall Street,
was empty. We all went downstairs and were heading home when we saw
the horde approaching.

“There were still a few security guards in
the lobby at the time; they locked the doors, but not for long.
Before the horde broke in, we raided the building’s cafeteria for
every possible food item we could carry; carted it all up here in
big laundry baskets from the dry cleaners on the third floor.
Anyway, once the horde broke in, we were trapped…”

I say, “Molly, I asked about the cops.”

“The cops showed up just before the horde
did. They tried to gain access through the lower floor, but by then
we’d disabled the elevator and barricaded ourselves in up
here.”

“Why?” Tim asks.

“No, they weren’t bad… yet. They just, well,
by then Ed and the boys were running things and Ed made a pretty
convincing argument that letting twenty-five more people onto the
floor to share our food was a really bad idea.”

“Let me get this straight?” I ask, struggling
to keep the contempt out of my voice. “You barricaded twenty-five
human beings out because you didn’t want to go hungry?”

She merely nods, clutching the tin of
worthless perfume samples as if they’re protein bars.

“But they’re cops, Molly, with guns and ammo
and radios and training. They could have been powerful allies.”

“Like I said, Kent,” she says, “it seemed
like a good idea at the time.”

I give Tim a hard look; he gives one
back.

Then we give one to Molly; she caves.

“Okay, okay, so it was a dick move, I get it
now. What can I say?”

“You can say ‘I’m sorry’,” Tim grins.

“To who?”

“To the cops,” I say. “When you meet them
later tonight…”

***

The makeshift weapons shed is in the
employee break room. Naturally, it’s guarded by two security
guards; the same two security guards who’d frisked us
not-so-thoroughly before entering Ed’s inner sanctum.

Most of the solar lanterns have been turned
off for the night, and as we creep around a corner re-conning the
guards, I ask Molly, “What’s their story?”

“They were two of the security guards we
rescued from the downstairs lobby,” she whispers, her husky voice
giving me shivers in the dark.

Tim says, “Oh, so you’ll
save two rent-a-cops, but not twenty-five
real
cops!”

“Well, we kind of needed their help hauling
the food upstairs.”

I shake my head and inch toward the first
guard, my hands up, my face yawning as I explain, “Can you gents
point me to the nearest restroom?”

The minute the first one points with his
index finger, I slide a zip-tie from my cargo pants lining and yank
it down to his wrist, spinning him around before sliding his other
wrist through and sealing it tight.

By the time I’ve bound and gagged one guard,
Tim has done the same with the second. Molly kneels between the
fallen guards, rifling through their pockets and apologizing until
she finds the keychain to the break room.

Inside are four vending machines, long-since
emptied and replaced with an assortment of stun guns, pistols,
mace, pocket knives, blackjacks and, more recently, the weapons
taken off of Tim and I after our search. It’s a sparse weaponry,
but impressive for a bunch of fat cat brokers.

“Where’d these come from?” I ask gladly
sliding my rifle back across my back and refilling my own personal
armory.