Zombie Fallout 9 (27 page)

“I said meat has no opinion. That means no voice. Nod meat, nod your acknowledgement.”

The woman nearly imperceptibly moved.

“I don't know what that means. Nod more.”

The woman screamed out as she bobbed her head. Payne kept her arm steadfast and the ear in a tight grip.

“I will tear your fucking head off if you don't answer me properly.”

Her shrieks pierced the veil of the early morning as her movements ripped her ear completely off. Payne threw it by her feet. “Good.”

Sophia hovered around the woman for hours, constantly drinking of the blood that fell from the jagged opening, until finally she could take no more and ripped through her neck. Sophia held her firmly in her grasp as the woman's legs danced about wildly. Fear had caused her eyes to open wide; blood loss and shock made them close slowly. When Sophia was done, she let go. The woman fell to the ground considerably lighter than she'd been only a few moments before. Two children wailed for their mother before the lone remaining woman gathered them up.

Three children had died by the time they'd gotten to the New Hampshire border, two by natural causes as exhaustion and exposure took their toll. The third the vampires had shared, drinking hungrily in front of the other remaining ones. The lone woman had sobbed.

Sophia looked up. “It will be over soon,” she said in a sing-song voice almost tenderly. “I will save you for last, though, so you can watch each of the young die first.” The woman sobbed harder, clutching one of the younger children tight to her breast.

“You're worse than an animal!” she shrieked.

Sophia laughed. “You are food. What do you know?”

“Animals don't torment their food!”

“Well, what fun is that?” Sophia asked.

“What you do not know, human, and what Sophia may only know on a subconscious level, is that fear produces subtle changes within your physiology which make you taste even better. Why would we not want to eat the finest?” Payne scratched a long nail down the side of the woman's face. “That is why we are saving you for last. You will have seen so much that the fear will have worked itself deep into your marrow. We are aging you like a fine wine, and when the time is right, we will drink deeply.”

“I'll kill myself first!”

“No, you won't.” Payne smiled. “The boy you hold before you reeks of your scent. He is your offspring, and you will do all in your power to protect him. It will be for nothing, of course, but that will not prevent you from trying.” Payne plunged back down into the rapidly cooling body of the twelve-year-old they'd been feasting on.

Sophia tossed the husk into the woods like it was a used up juice box before they resumed their walk. By the time they'd reached the Maine border, they were down to five children and the woman.

“Something is coming.” Charity had turned first.

They turned to the approaching sound. A large motor coach began to shimmer into sight a few miles in the distance and then took on more substance as it moved closer.

“A lunchbox!” Sophia clapped her hands and twirled twice.

P
at Everfree had been touring
the highways and byways ever since his wife of forty years had died of pancreatic cancer. He'd been in a sparsely populated town in Kansas when the zombie outbreak had started. For two months, he had stayed in the trailer park until he'd awoken to realize he was the only one still there.

“You're seventy-three, Pat, you can't live forever,” he'd said to himself in the small bathroom mirror. He and his wife, Patricia, (they were known as the Pats) had talked about touring the United States for more than half their marriage. Work, kids, more work, and then grandkids had kept them fairly rooted to their hometown in Kansas. It was three years to the day that his wife had come home from the doctor and told her husband that they should buy that Coachmen motor home they'd been looking at for the past six months. He knew without her saying another word she was dying. They signed the papers the next day. Patricia's first and only ride in the behemoth was to the hospital as she began to cough up blood. Pat had begged to call an ambulance. Patricia had told him she wanted at least one go-around in their dream. How could he deny her that?

It took him another week before he built up enough courage to leave the campground. He had a difficult time reconciling the world he was seeing now with the world he'd known his entire life. The dead littered the streets. Buildings were reduced to ashes. Society had crumbled as had his desire to live. That all changed the day he saw her by the side of the road. She had on a yellow dress and scant else. Her feet were bare and bloody; her face was bruised and battered. She did not look over to him when he approached. Tears flowed down her face and fell to the roadway in front of her.

“Honey, are you all right?” Pat had asked, looking down at her from his window. She didn't stir. “Would you like a ride?” Without looking at him or saying a word, she stood and came around to the passenger door. Pat hit a release button, and it swung open. She climbed in past the passenger seat into one of the beds in back and was fast asleep before he got the door shut.

When she awoke later that night, Pat had told her how to work the shower. He apologized that all he had for clothes was his wife's, and though she was a beautiful woman, his wife was slightly curvier than her. He'd smiled at that last. For the first couple of days, Pat tried to get her to talk, or at the very least, to tell him her name. When he realized that was not in the cards, he'd stopped trying.

She'd completely exhausted Pat's water tanks before removing herself from the shower. She'd dressed in Patricia's faded blue jeans, which were eight sizes too large, and a sweater that she could have swam in. She'd sat in the passenger seat, rolled down her window, and threw the dress out on to the roadway.

“If you want to sit up here, you need to put on your seatbelt.”

She did so without hesitation. Every so often, she would look over in Pat's direction. If he turned to look at her, she would immediately stare straight ahead.

“You look about eighteen. I have a couple of grandkids, boys though, that are your age. I don't exactly know where though. I always thought it was foolish when my oldest son, Reggie, talked about survival prepping, and then they went and blew their entire savings on a bomb shelter. I was so angry at him, sacrificing their future like that. Who knew? When he tried to show me where it was, I told him I wanted nothing to do with his foolishness. Who's the fool now?”

For a week, they'd fallen into a routine. He'd drive most of the morning, staying away from major cities. For lunch, she would make them macaroni and cheese, apparently her favorite. Pat didn't have the heart to tell her he couldn't stand it. He'd only bought it because it was Patricia's favorite. Then, when she was done cleaning up, she would sit next to him while he drove. The difference this day happened right before he was about to pull over for the night.

“I'm glad you're a fool,” she said. It had taken him a moment to put that into context.

“Me too, honey. Me too.” He'd smiled.

“My name is Tiffany.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Tiffany.” Pat smiled, extending his hand; she hugged him instead. “Patricia would have loved you: the granddaughter we never had.”

Pat had the uncanny ability to avoid trouble, and they'd stayed mostly unscathed right up until the Maine border. Tiffany had soon after learned that mac and cheese was not on Pat's preferred list of edibles and moved to his much more eating-friendly beef stew. She was preparing it when she felt the large vehicle slow down. She went up to the front to see why. A couple of hundred yards away was a small group of children and four women. The woman by the children looked scared. She was dirty and had dried blood over most of her while the other women looked like they were out for a nice stroll.

“Something's wrong here, Pappy.” Tiffany had started to call him what she'd called her own grandfather years ago before he'd died in a construction accident.

“They need help, like you did, is all.”

“They need help.” Tiffany was pointing to the woman and children. “Those others do not.”

“Nonsense, they're just women.”

“Lizzie Borden was a woman.”

“Good point. There is something strange going on here.” Pat put the RV in reverse. He looked at the small backup screen and kept going until he could no longer see the strangers.

“What are you doing?”

“You need to get out.”

“What?”

“You're right, something is wrong up there, and I would not feel right if something were to happen to you.”

“Let's just leave.”

“I need to see if I can help them. What if I had not helped you?”

“It's me and you Pappy, please don't make me get out.”

“It's just for a few minutes. I'll go up there and see what I can do, and then I'll come right back here for you.”

Tears began to form in her eyes. “We should go back to your house in Kansas. Maybe your son left a message; you said so yourself. We could go find them, and you could be with your kids.”

“I'm with one of my kids now,” he said affectionately.

“Please, Pappy. There's something wrong with those women. I can feel it; just looking at them makes my stomach hurt.”

“Probably just that last batch of stew you made. I think it was expired.” He tried to make light of the situation, but it wasn't working. Tiffany was trembling and tears were falling.

She started heading for the door.

“Grab the rifle and some food and water first.”

She turned. “You don't think you're coming back either, do you?”

“Nonsense, it just might take longer than expected, and I don't want you out here without protection. And I know teenagers; they eat and drink constantly.”

“I'm barely a teenager anymore.”

“Nineteen is still not twenty.”

She kissed him tenderly on the cheek before departing with the bolt-action .308, forty rounds, a canteen of water, and two MRE packets. She got to the side of the road and ran as quickly as she could so that she could watch.

Pat closed the door and reluctantly pressed on the gas. He could not remember being overly altruistic in the past, and he was still fumbling around with these new feelings as he once again approached the original point he had been before backing up. As he rolled closer, the small pit of unease that Tiffany had put into him had flowered and began to bloom into a full-fledged bout of apprehension and nervousness. Two of the women on his right watched his approach with a mild look of curiosity. One looked genuinely pleased. On the left, there was a slender woman holding an even smaller child. She looked beaten and defeated until something flickered across her face. Hope, maybe?

Pat could not fathom what was happening here. For the fifth time, he looked down to his lap and the .357 Magnum revolver he'd placed there. When he looked back up, he saw the woman with the child running toward him. None of the other women made a move to stop her. She was screaming though, he could not make out her words over the loud drone of the diesel engine and his own failing hearing. When his wife died, he'd not seen the reason to go through with the hearing aid appointment he'd scheduled. Without her to talk to, there was hardly anyone he wanted to hear. Selfish … he knew it then, and he knew it now. Her death had killed something inside of him as well, at least until Tiffany had reawakened it. How he wished she were here now. Tiffany or Patricia, both, either.

“Help me; help us!”

“Well, that was as clear as day.” Pat said.

Pat pulled up alongside the woman.

“They're…” She had to pause to catch her breath. “…insane! They're killing everyone!”

“Them?” He was about to point far up the road to where
they
had been not a moment before. His heart jumped in his chest. The trio was not more than ten feet from the front of his RV, motionless except for a small breeze that was making their garb stir. None seemed to be out of breath from exertion.