Machines of the Dead 3 (10 page)

Chapter 20

The raggedy-clothed woman who had fled from her brethren changed her mind and made her way back to the house. She did not do this to rejoin her people, for they would surely kill her. She returned to see how they would fare against the enemy.

Sneaking up to the tree line that ran along the backyard, she found a thick, bushy pine tree and climbed it to the top. There she waited and watched as her people entered the house only to be slaughtered and carted off like garbage.

She had made the right decision not to stay with them.

What was her next move?
she wondered.

With the enemy so powerful, she should leave. Should find food and a place to hole up in for a while. But something inside her told her to stay. A voice she was familiar with, the same voice that had previously told her to leave her people. Maybe it was curiosity or hope. She wasn’t sure which. But then the enemy exited the house and departed the scene on their machines. Only the elderly man remained. He was old. Weak. She could see it in the way he walked. He would be no match for her.

She remained in the tree as the old man went back to his house. She would wait to see if the others returned, salivating at the chance of having a full meal to herself.

The next day, with hunger warming her gut, she climbed down from the pine convinced that the enemy was gone for good. She studied the house, noticing that all but two windows on the second floor had been covered, making it impossible to see inside. She wondered why all the windows hadn’t been fortified, guessing that the two on the second floor were left open so the man could defend the house from there.

Observing the broken windows for a time, she saw no sign of the old man.

Ready to approach the house, she paused as the back door opened. The old man came forth, holding a weapon in his hands. It was a . . . She could not recall the name of the weapon. It was on the tip of her tongue like so many times before, as if from a dream or distant memory that eventually found its way to her. This had happened numerous times since she had been reborn. Despite the name of the weapon eluding her, she knew it could kill her. It made the weak and feeble old man much more formidable. Evened the odds. Once she killed him, she would take it for herself. Of course, she had no idea how such a thing worked, but she would figure it out.

The man made his way to the chest where the meat was kept. She could attack him now, but to do so could prove her death. The snow was loud when stepped on, crunchy. He would hear her approach from afar. She’d never reach him in time, not without getting severely hurt or killed. She would have to wait.

Gun
. It was a gun, the word suddenly coming to her.
A shot-gun
.

The man took meat from the chest and returned to the house.

Upon his closing the door, she left the tree line and made her way to the back door. There, she stood. Listening, observing and waiting were important. Keys to survival. She had learned these things while most of her people had not. It was why she was still alive.

Having heard nothing, she tried the doorknob.

It turned.

Soon, she would have that meal she so desired.

***

Henry watched the door open. The woman with the raggedy clothes and perfect skin stood just outside the doorway. Her eyes widened as they fell to the shotgun pointing at her.

She hissed.

Henry pulled the weapon’s trigger. The gun fired and the intruder’s head blew apart, leaving a pulpy stump that spewed blood. The headless corpse fell back into the snow.

Henry let out a breath. “Didn’t think I saw you hiding in the trees, did you?” He shook his head. “I may be old, honey, but I ain’t no pussy and can protect myself just fine.”

Epilogue

Jack, Sara and Zaun remained at Stewart Air Force Base where they took up jobs and joined the military. Jack became a guard on the wall that surrounded the base. Zaun and Sara joined the cooking staff, both loving to cook. 

Along with Jack’s, Maria’s and Zaun’s knowledge, the three explaining everything they had gone through, the powers that be gained valuable knowledge in the battle against the undead. The undead that were deemed the ‘old’ undead were shot on sight. The ‘new’ undead were the ones that had healed and appeared human. It turned out that was indeed the case. The bots continued to mutate. They were healing the newer undead. Turning them into vacant-minded people, their brains wiped like reformatted hard drives. Made anew.

Many of the new undead, now living people with bots in their system, were rounded up and hit with EMPs. A mass amount of education and reintroduction to society was going to have to take place. Cities were cleared of the old undead and made to house the new humans. 

A small number of the undead-turned-living hadn’t taken to becoming blank, docile beings that were open to society and its teachings. They became like wild animals, something off in their brains. A bad chemical imbalance. They became humanity’s newest and biggest threat. There was nothing that could be done for them and they were shot on sight. Those that fled to the forests and mountains joined into groups and formed communities that were hunted and destroyed. It was impossible to eradicate them all. The Wild Ones, as they came known to be, were society’s newest foes.

Jack didn’t know what the future held. The planet and its human population would never be the same again. Maybe this time they could become better. Learn from the past. Whatever happened, he wasn’t going to worry about it. He had his sister and best friend and planned on visiting Maria and her daughter very soon.

The End

Read on for a free sample of Bleeding Kansas: A Zombie Novel

1

This is it, the day we’ve been looking forward to for so long, and it’s not starting well. Claire wakes up feverish and phlegmy, too sick to drive me to the airport. There’s not much to say but sorry, hope you feel better, before she crawls back into bed.

The next thing I know I’m loading my luggage into the trunk of the cab because it turns out the cab driver should have called in sick himself. “Hey, sorry, man, you know how it goes!” he says. “Ya don’t work, ya don’t get paid!”

“Tell me about it,” I say, settling into my seat.

“Airport, huh?” The cabbie sneezes wetly, brings his hand up after the fact. “Where ya headed?”

“Kansas City.”

“Kansas City! Kansas City, here I—!” God help me, he’s trying to sing that old song but a burst of coughing cuts him short. I pull a handkerchief from my pocket and cover my nose and mouth.

He composes himself, sniffs loudly. “So what’s out there?”

“Job interview.”

“Yeah? All the way out there? I hope they’re paying for it!”

“Oh yeah.”

“Must be nice! Wish I could get a gig like that!”

“Me, too.”

“Ha! I hear ya! So whatcha been doin’ all this time?”

“Unemployed.”

“Oh. Nowhere?”

I have to wait for him to finish his latest coughing fit before I can answer. “Pretty much.”

“You don’t seem all that enthusiastic about this.”

“Lot on my mind.”

“Oh.” A short, barking cough, followed by a long, gurgling wheeze. “Yeah. It’s tough out there.”

“Yeah.”

“So how long you been outta work?”

“Long enough.”

“Me, I got to work, know what I’m sayin’? I’d go crazy stayin’ at—!” The driver explodes into another round of coughing, his body bucking and convulsing behind the wheel. It’s all he can do to keep his eyes open to see the road.

After a terrifying stretch of seconds in which I wonder if he’s going to run the red light we screech to a halt, the taxi’s rear swerving with the force— “Here, you want a piece of none-of-your business to chew on?” I say. “If I don’t make this flight my house goes into foreclosure and my family is homeless as of next month! If you can’t make it to the airport, I need someone who can!”

“Whoa, man, it’s okay, it’s okay! I got this!”

“Can you do it without interrogating me like some nosy old biddy? Can you keep quiet?”

“Hey, I’m just making conversation!”

“Just get me to the airport! I’m running late as it is!”

“Jeez, mister, I said okay!”

The light changes and we roll. I take some satisfaction that the cabbie is keeping quiet, which in turn has eased his coughing. Still, I keep the handkerchief pressed to my face until he pulls up to the white zone at the airport. He pops the trunk and I step out into the blessedly germ-free air to grab my luggage.

I include a tip for the driver with my fare. I can’t have any bad vibes tainting my luck, not today. “We good?” I ask the driver.

“Look, good luck,” he says. “I know you must be nervous.”

“Yeah. Try and get well. Don’t kill yourself out there.”

“I hear ya, brother! Take care.”

I’d like to think that’s the end of my exposure to whatever’s going around. Inside the terminal, though, I’m running a gauntlet of sneezing, coughing people all the way to the fat lady at the ticket counter. She got a red Hitler mustache of raw skin under her nose from wiping at it with her third wad of tissue.

For God’s sake, I can’t afford to get sick, not for the best chance for gainful employment I’ve had in years! It’s probably a matter of time, though. Turning away from the counter every other person I see is suffering from some degree of the “Mayday Malaise.”

That’s how the logo reads behind cable news queen Stefani Dunham on TVs all over the airport. “Now this is a different kind of cold bug,” she says. “Aside from the fact that one out of three people come down with it, you can actually sort of function through it! Of course, some are saying it’s because Americans with jobs are afraid to miss work for any reason, given the economic situation.” Our head cheerleader-cum-broadcast journalist makes a face to let us know what she thinks of some people.

“Whatever the case, doctors say it’s an aerosol virus, which means it’s all up in your air!” The shot cuts to a gray-haired eminence mumbling authoritatively in a plush office. Back to Stefani: “And we’re not immune here!” She coughs theatrically into a handkerchief. “All this and a runny nose! A big shout-out to my make-up people here in the News Center for keeping me presentable! Hey, we carry on, what can you do?”

With my luck, that’s the strain I won’t be getting. Claire struggled to make it to the bathroom. The cabbie I rode in with was barely functional.

I call my contact in Kansas City. “Mr. Grace!” says Giselle. “Aren’t you still in Colorado Springs? You’re at the airport, right?”

“Yeah, I’m right here at the gate. I just wanted to make sure the interview was still on.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“That cold that’s going around. Everybody’s sick!”

Giselle laughs. “Oh, that! We’ve had a few people call in, but that’s not enough to stop us. You’re not sick, are you?”

“Oh, no, no! I’m fine! I was…concerned.”

“Well, give me a call when you make it to KC.”

“Will do. Thanks, Giselle.”

“Don’t get sick!”

Right. If my wife didn’t give it to me, if the cab driver didn’t give it to me, if the lady at the counter didn’t give it to me, if half the people at the airport didn’t give it to me—now I’m ducking into a narrow aluminum tube, settling in to breathe recycled air people have been coughing and sneezing into since last week.

We’re getting fresh germs all the time, too. Barely half the seats on the plane are filled but half of those people are sick. The flight attendants sit at their seats along the fore and aft bulkheads and scowl at us over their surgical masks.

If I can stay well for 24 more hours. Twenty-four hours. Lord, that’s all I ask.

It’s a mercifully short flight. Eventually, I find myself in another TB ward of an airport, squinting through clouds of aerosolized phlegm to get to my luggage. I call Giselle. “Welcome to KC!” she says. “You know how to find us, right?” she says.

“Oh yeah. See you soon!”

At the rental car kiosk I check my pockets for the directions I’d printed from the Internet. “Uh, hey,” I ask the guy behind the counter. “Can I get some directions printed up here? I left mine at home.”

“What do you need those for?”

“To find my way to my job interview.”

He’s looking at me vaguely horrified, like I just pissed myself.

“Your vehicle has GPS.”

“Oh.”

“Man, really?”

Walking out to my vehicle, I have to work the keychain remote several times just to be sure this magnificent black luxury SUV is really mine. The new car smell is intoxicating. Nothing is slammed; the rear hatch closes with the touch of a button. I walk around to climb into the cab. Can’t slam this door, either. It’s like burping a Tupperware lid.

I turn the key and the air conditioning blows on full. The radio plays symphonic music in full-immersive surround sound and none of this seems a strain on anything. I turn down the music and give myself a minute to familiarize myself with the GPS. Not that I need a whole minute. It works on voice command.

The traffic is light on the way into downtown, allowing me the luxury of taking in some of the sights of the city as I drive. I park in the visitors’ area of the adjacent garage and take the elevator to my floor. The doors open to a wide, sumptuous lobby. I’ve never met Giselle but I know her on sight: a meticulously groomed young beauty working the Hot Librarian look in her horn-rimmed glasses and a navy blue power suit worth two or more of my mortgage payments.

She blesses me with a cinematically white, straight-toothed smile: “Thank God, something’s going right today!”

“That’s what I’m here for,” I say, smiling.

“First, I need to apologize. I thought Rob was going to be here today, but—guess what!”

“Not a clue.”

“In the four hours since we spoke this morning we’ve had people going home right and left. Rob sometimes doesn’t get here until ten so I imagined he’d at least be here to welcome you to the city. He ended up calling in.”

“Given how I left my wife this morning, I can tell you, if you’re sick, you’re really sick. And I know what I saw in both airports on my way here.”

“Yes, sir, and I do apologize! I honestly didn’t see this coming! We’ve got so many people here working through their sniffles just fine. Anyway, it seems there may be some…consequence to this.”

“Yes?”

“Assuming Rob’s among the group of the Really Sick we’ll have to postpone the interview.”

“How long are you willing to put me up here?”

“How long are you willing to stay?”

“I came to talk to Rob. If it’s not too much of a problem, I’ll wait.”

“Even with your wife sick back home?”

“My teenage children can take care of her.”

Giselle puts an envelope on the counter. “There’s a voucher in there for a really good steakhouse in the Power and Light District. Should be enough in there for breakfast and lunch tomorrow at any number of places close to your hotel. Call me in the morning before checkout. Either I’ll have another envelope or a plane ticket.”

“It’s a date,” I say, slipping the envelope into my inside jacket pocket.

“I hope you don’t mind eating out so much!”

“Not at all. Thanks, Giselle.”

“Okay. We’ll talk to you tomorrow, then.”

“You bet.” I turn and walk out of the lobby. I manage to make it inside the blessedly empty elevator car before letting out a sigh of relief to blow the doors in.