Jango's Anthem: Zombie Fighter Jango #2 (8 page)

He started when he felt her small hand on his large, scarred hand. He looked down in disbelief, and then looked up at her face and saw that she had tears in her eyes.

“You really are a knight in shining armor, aren’t you, Jango?” She said softly. “I used to dream about someone coming to save me when my daddy used to….” She stopped in mid-sentence as her voice broke.

After she cleared her throat, Vanessa said, “I just want you to know, Jango, that you can do no wrong in my eyes, and I will never, ever, ever fuck you over.”

The look in her eyes convinced him of the truth, and he nodded his head in grim acceptance of the steel she had put into her words.

Jango started to feel uncomfortable, so he stood up and said, “I’ll bet you can get that bath now.”

Vanessa smiled and said jokingly, “I just wish we had some nice food to top off this evening of unexpected luxury!” She stood up, took her bundle of clothing and assorted bath items into the bathroom, and slid the door shut.

Jango waited until he heard the sound of water coming from the bathroom. When he did, he picked up his shotgun and went back out to his car.

He grabbed his backpack, and some canned vegetables from the trunk of the car. He listened intently to the desert for a few moments before he went back inside the RV.

While Vanessa luxuriated in her bath, Jango prepared a simple meal. He had rooted around in the kitchen cupboards and drawers until he had
found a large stockpot, and a can opener. He ran some water into the pot, lit the propane stove, and set his water to boil.

He added beef jerky to the water, and then added the
canned vegetables to the mix. He seasoned it with some iodized salt, onion powder, and some black pepper, then he lowered the heat and let the food simmer.

In only a few moments,
the heavenly smell of the simmering stew had filled the trailer. Jango heard Vanessa say, “What is that smell? My stomach is practically climbing out of my mouth to get to whatever that is!”

He
laughed as he listened to her splash out of the tub in a hurry. She was dressed and out of the bathroom in less than a minute. 

Vanessa had dressed in red and yellow striped pajamas that reminded
him of how The Killer had looked when the girls had finished exercising their demons on the big man’s flesh. The red blood and the yellow color of his fat showing through in the long cuts popped into Jango’s head. He laughed at the memory.

“What’s so funny?” Vanessa asked him as she headed straight toward the simmering pot of beef stew.

“Nothing, kid, don’t worry about it. It’s just that you reminded me of someone that I knew.” Jango started to laugh again, but quickly stifled it with a fake cough.

“What was she like?” Vanessa asked.

“What was who like?” Jango responded.

“The girl that I reminded you of, silly
; what was she like?” she retorted. 

Then Jango did laugh
. His laugh was the long and rolling laugh of a lunatic, and it sounded like it came from the depths of an insane asylum.

Vanessa’s eyes went wet with fear as the hard tones of Jango’s madness struck the chords of fear within her heart. She wondered if he was really any better than the men he had saved her
from. She wanted to believe in him, but his laughter raised a primal and atavistic fear from the depths of her hindbrain, and she felt as though her bladder would burst and her bowels would let go if the sound went on much longer.

Vanessa saw Jango’s nostrils widen as he stopped laughing and sniffed at the air. He turned to look at her, and she shrank back from the fires that
pin wheeled through his eyes.

“Whoa, whoa, Vanessa,”
he said. “You don’t have to be scared of me, kid. Us against them, remember?”

“You just looked scary, Jango, like you had hell’s own fires burning in your eyes. I almost peed in my pants when you looked at me like
that,” Vanessa said.

“Fair enough,”
said Jango reasonably, “But in the future, no matter what I look like, I won’t hurt you. Well, unless you tried to hurt me first. At that point, bad shit is bound to happen.”

Vanessa let out a long breath
. Then, without missing a beat, she said, “Well, are we going to eat that delicious smelling food, or are we just going to sit here and fade away to nothing from sheer hunger?”

Jango laughed and grabbed some bowls from the cupboard. He dished liberal portions into each bowl, and then he and Vanessa sat at the table and fell on their meals like starved animals.

They refilled their bowls, and continued eating until all of the stew was gone. When they finished, they both sat back and groaned in contentment.

“Oh, man!” Jango exclaimed.

“What is it?” Vanessa asked him.

“Shit, I am really slipping lately, kid. I forgot to clean the car off after I
got done with some work in Prescott. All the dried blood, and that other gunk smeared across my ride is liable to bring the goobers down on us. I’ll be right back,” Jango said as he rose from the kitchen table.

Jango grabbed the large pot he had cooked their meal in, and rinsed it out in the sink. He then filled it all the way to the top, and looked under the sink to see if he could find some kind of cleaning product. He
was rewarded with a large bottle of blue dish detergent. He squirted a liberal amount into the pot, and then went over to the table to retrieve his stick. He looked at his shotgun, and then looked at Vanessa for a moment before he turned and went back to the kitchen.

Jango held his stick in his right hand, and carried the pot with his left arm cradled around it. He went to the door of the trailer, tucked the stick through his belt, and peeked out through the window that was set into the door. He
didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so he decided to get going.

Before he opened the door, though, a thought occurred to
him, and he quickly turned off all the lights. “I’m sorry about this, Vanessa, but I have to be careful. I’ve been slipping a lot lately, and I don’t want to make a fatal mistake, you know?”

Vanessa nodded, and watched as Jango opened the door, and slipped out into the night.

He looked around for several minutes, standing as still as a stone, letting his senses expand and become one with the desert night. When he felt sure that there were no threats in the area, Jango gave the car a cursory cleaning which consisted of dumping the pot of soapy water along the length of his car. He then swiped the water and blood off of the car with his hand. He used his hand like a squeegee and when he had finished, the car looked remarkably clean. He had been covering his tracks for two months, and he had gotten fast at doing what he needed to do to survive.

Jango looked around again, and then went back inside the trailer. He entered quickly, and at an angle. When he saw that Vanessa
hadn’t moved, and hadn’t picked up the shotgun, he relaxed, closed the door, and turned the lights back on.

“I guess it’s my turn in the spa, eh?” Jango said with a smile. He was happy that Vanessa
hadn’t tried anything, and he started to trust her a little bit.

Jango rooted through his backpack for clean socks and underwear. He took
the clean undergarments and his stick with him into the bathroom, and closed the door.

Once he was in the restroom, Jango quickly stripped off his boots and clothing, and turned on the water. He pulled the little plunger that made the water come out of the
showerhead, and climbed into the large tub.

Jango showered quickly, and
was done in just a few minutes. He had never been able to relax in a shower. Every time he went to take a shower, he would start to imagine that he heard noises coming from the other side of the door. Sometimes, he would even shut the water off so he could listen for noises from the other room. His imagination would be filled with Norman Bates, alien abductors, zombies, and home invaders until he had finished with his bathing. 

When
he came out of the bathroom, he saw that Vanessa had fallen fast asleep on one side of the king-sized bed. She lay on her side, and she had fallen asleep with one of the large pillows clutched tightly to her chest. Jango pulled the blanket loose from the other side of the bed, and tenderly covered her sleeping form.

He
retrieved his shotgun, made sure that the front door was latched, and then turned the lights off. He made his way to the kitchen, and turned on the small light that was set into the ventilation hood over the stove. He didn’t want Vanessa to wake up scared, and in the dark.

With the stick and his shotgun on his lap, Jango settled into a plush chair, and fell asleep
almost instantly.

Wild visions haunted Jango’s slumbering mind. His body twitched as images flashed through his dreamscape. He saw moving images of his blood as it rushed through his veins in perfect synchronization with the thunderous beat of his heart.

Jango saw himself cloaked in shadows as he dealt death with his stick. He saw himself battered, torn, and dying as the world spun out of control. His heartbeat started to grow louder, and louder, thumping and booming until….

He awoke
to soft thumping noises. He was drenched in sweat, and he clutched his stick in a white-knuckled grip. He heard moans outside the trailer, and Jango’s heart dropped into his stomach.

He heard and felt the thumps of what he knew to be zombies as they moved around outside the trailer. Jango went to the front of the trailer, covered Vanessa’s mouth with his hand, and woke her with a shake.

Vanessa woke up with a muffled scream, and started swinging her fists at Jango. He batted her hands aside, and whispered, “Cut that out, we have a bad situation, and we need to get this shit sorted out.” He squeezed her face for emphasis, and then let her go.

“Be quiet,”
he cautioned her. “We have a goober problem, so just be quiet.” Jango’s mind was working at a rate of speed that few minds would have been capable of. He sorted through all the available information as he sought a way out of their predicament.

His first thought was
to simply abandon Vanessa. He had spent the last two months hunting zombies, and he knew he could outrun them. He could lead them on a merry chase, and then double back to get his car.

Jango
immediately discarded the idea of abandoning Vanessa, but he kept one part of the plan. His eyes had been ceaselessly searching the inside of the trailer, and he had spotted the large vent in the ceiling of the RV. The vent had a skylight that looked like it opened outward.

The opening was an eighteen inch square with a fan set in the center. Jango looked at Vanessa, who had finished getting dressed, and stood shaking in fear-filled silence.

“Yeah, you’ll fit,” he said. A grim smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he spoke.

“Please, Jango, please. What are you going to do to me?” Vanessa asked him in a hushed voice.

“Save your ass,” he replied. “I’m going to save your ass.” 

He looked around the edge of the curtain that covered the window on the door, and
spotted at least ten zombies that milled and sniffed around his car and the front door. He hurried back to Vanessa.

Jango leaned in close and whispered his plan to Vanessa. “Those zombies ou
t there, they aren’t really sure if there is anyone here or not, but more are going to show up, you can count on that. The moment we make any noise, and I mean any noise at all, those goobers are going to start screaming the zombie version of come and get it. We will be neck deep in zombies before you know it, so we have to work fast. You have to do exactly as I say, Vanessa, do you understand me?”

She nodded vigorously, not trusting her voice. Her tongue had cleaved to the roof of her mouth, and her throat had gone dry from fear.

When Jango saw that she was with him, he continued. “Do you see that skylight over the kitchen?” She looked at the ceiling, spotted the opening, and nodded.

“I
’m going to take the fan out of that opening, and put you up on the roof. You are going to lay as flat as a pancake up there. You are going to be as silent as the grave up there, and you are going to stay there until the coast is clear. Do you understand?” Jango asked.

Vanessa’s brows knit together as she struggled to understand what
he had just told her.

He
sensed her confusion and said, “I am going to bust out of that door, and lead those groaners away from here. When they are all gone, you will come down, get in the car, and go pick me up.”

Realization dawned in Vanessa’s eyes as she realized the full extent of Jango’s plan. She shook her head violently and whispered, “No!
No way, Jango! I’ve seen those things run, and you can’t outrun them! They will get you and eat you. Why don’t we just bust through, like you said, but then get in the car and go.”

Jango smiled at her, secretly pleased that she actually seemed to care about him. He shook his head and said, “We can’t get that car unlocked and open before they make a meal out of us. I
couldn’t even do it if I was alone. I’ve been in this position before, just never with another person to think about. I usually lead them away, and then double back to my car. This time, you will drive, and pick me up on the freeway. Just go back the same way we came in, and go south on the I-17. Put a couple of miles between you and New River, and then park off to the side. Make sure you shut the car off, and I will find you on the road.” Jango didn’t know if she would do as he said, or if she would ditch him. He did know that if she didn’t turn the car off when she parked, her brake lights would be a neon sign for any zombies or humans that lurked in the area.