Man Eaters (13 page)

“I thought zombies were attracted to noise,” Dallas said.

Einstein tilted his head at her. “Dallas, zombies aren’t real, so any preconceived notions you may have about them…well…is just pure conjecture.”

“But so far, you—”

He shook his head. “That’s just it. I’m guessing. We don’t really know jack about what those things are, but clearly, the sound of the Hummer doesn’t phase them. I’m thinking they are drawn by something other than sight or smell or sound. They seem to be reacting to something other than whatever their dead senses perceive.”

“If you say taste, I am going to puke,” Cue said from the back.

Einstein shook his head once more. “No, not that, either, but there’s something that drives them to us. I just don’t know what that is yet.” He stopped and pointed to garage. “Oh, over there.”

Dallas followed his finger point and looked at a sign that read Uncle Billie’s Garage and 24 Hour Tow.

The garage sat at the end of a tiny main street that had recently updated its façade to look more like Spanish Adobe. It was cute in its light orange paint and festive flags, but it, too, had been overrun.

“Everyone stay locked and loaded. We don’t want any unwanted surprises to catch us off guard.”

Fifteen minutes later, they’d broken into a car garage and secured the Hummer, checked out the area, and made sure there was no way in but plenty of ways out.

“So we’re staying here until...?”

“Until it’s time to meet up with our people. Until then, we all need to take a break. I’ll take the first watch. You two grab a bite to eat and save your energy.” Grabbing the rifle, Dallas slung it over her shoulder and climbed a nearby ladder. She pulled herself up through the open beams to perch in front of the windows that sat twenty feet above the floor of the two-bay garage. One of the bays had a red Camaro in it, while the other housed the Hummer. Both doors slid up, so they could get out from either side. Then there was the office door, and windows above gave them more security than any house would. There were also plenty of tools that would make fine weapons.

They would be fine here, temporarily.

Temporarily.

Seemed everything was temporary these days. Was that what Einstein meant about bonding with Roper? About two hours into her watch, Dallas thought she heard a car. No...two cars, at least.

Einstein heard it, too, and was on his feet in two seconds, his rifle by his side.

“Someone’s coming,” he whispered.

By the light of a nearly full moon, Dallas saw a Ford Mustang kicking up dust as it barreled down the road toward the main street, a black Hummer on its tail.

“What do you see?”

She told him.

“We gonna help?”

Dallas watched as the Mustang careened around the corner, fish-tailing this way and that. “They’ll kill them if we don’t.”

Cue stood next to Einstein. “I can help. I know how to shoot.” He held his hand out as if she should just give him a weapon.

Dallas shook her head. “I’m sure you do, but I’m not comfortable giving you one right now.”

Cue held up his cue stick. “No worries. I’ve got this.”

Dallas looked down at Einstein. “Do you know where that grenade is?”

He pulled it out of his bag. “Right here. What do you want me to do with it?”

Dallas climbed down and took it from him. “Cue. You open the garage door. Einstein, you cover me. Shoot anything that moves. I’ll see if I can take out the Hummer with the grenade. On my go.”

They waited.

“Go!”

When the garage door opened, Dallas held the grenade in her left hand and watched as the Mustang took to the air a few feet before landing, skidding sideways, and smashing into a utility pole. The black Hummer was airborne for a split second, then landed before coming to a halt directly in front of the Mustang, engine revving like some wild beast.

Chucking the grenade, she watched as it bounced once before stopping near the right front tire of the Hummer.

When both doors of the Hummer opened, one booted leg hit the ground next to the grenade.

That was the last movement the owner of the leg would ever make. When the grenade blew up, it lifted the Hummer into the air, shattered the windshield, blew off one door, and threw pieces of Hummer debris all over the road. There was a horrific sound of metal grinding metal as the Hummer was slammed back into the ground. For a long, protracted moment no one moved.

“Think they’re dead?” Einstein asked.

“Oh, they’re dead all right. It’s the living we need to worry about.” Cue took his pool stick and made his way to the Mustang just as half a dozen man eaters came out of nowhere and converged on the Hummer.

Dallas swung her rifle to cover Cue, who was helping a young man and woman from the car.

“I’ll go help,” Einstein offered, running out to help Cue get the woman into the garage. Dallas picked off a couple more man eaters before backing into the garage, where she quickly closed the bay door.

The younger man was probably in his early twenties and sported a Justin Bieber haircut that swooshed to the side. He was tall and lanky, with hands too large for his slight frame and eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. The slight odor of alcohol wafted from him when he spoke.

“You guys sure saved our bacon.”

“What were you doing out there?” Dallas asked, handing the young woman a bottle of water.

“Those things are eating through whole neighborhoods. Them soldiers told us to stay in our houses and the next thing you know, you’re one a them.” His chest was heaving and his hand shook as he took the water. “We were just trying to get out.” His eyes suddenly saw the Hummer. “What...how the hell did you get that?”

“Long story.” Dallas knelt next to the woman, wishing Butcher was there. Suddenly, she felt very vulnerable that she and Einstein were outnumbered. She needed to rethink her firefighter’s mentality. “I’m Dallas. That’s Cue and Einstein.”

She nodded and smiled, a small gash on her forearm bled slightly. “Coco. He’s Tate. Thank you.”

Dallas gently turned Coco’s head to look at a second cut on her forehead. “I think I have just the thing.” Rifling through the tools, Dallas found some super glue and glued the cut together. “Tate, come and hold this closed, but be careful not to get any on your fingers.” Dallas motioned for Tate to tend to his friend.

“You’re going to be okay.”

Coco laid her hand on her belly. “The baby.”

Dallas, Einstein, and Cue all whipped around. “You’re pregnant?”

Coco and Tate both nodded.

“Okay. Okay. One of our group is a doctor. We don’t need to assume the worst. Einstein, will you lay a blanket on that couch in the break room? Coco, you can lay down here for a bit. Keep your feet up.”

“Can I go with her?” Tate asked.

“Yes, of course.”

When Tate took Coco’s arm and helped her to the break room, Einstein grabbed his rifle and climbed up to the perch vacated by Dallas, who followed him up there.

“Something on your mind?” she asked him.

Einstein looked out the window at the flaming Hummer and seven or eight man eaters moaning around it. “Moving more than the four of us is going to be really hard. If we keep getting larger, we’re more at risk.”

Dallas looked down and saw Cue asleep in a chair. She could only see Coco’s feet on the couch in the lounge. “I’ve had the same thoughts, but what are you really worried about?”

He turned to Dallas, his eyes somehow wizened overnight. “Dying? Dragging a pregnant woman across the mountains to the desert? Sleeping with one eye open to make sure some guy with a pool stick doesn’t beat us up so he can get the Hummer? Pick one. Any one.” Einstein turned back to the flaming Hummer. “We can’t keep collecting people, Dallas,” he said softly. “It’s dangerous.”

Dallas stared out at the man eaters gnawing on the bones of the dead soldiers. “I know, and I’m working on that, kid, I really am. But at the end of the day, I’m still a firefighter, Einstein. I don’t know how to turn my back on people who need help.”

“I’m just saying: It’s dangerous. And hard. We had enough food to stretch a week. Now, with three new people, that’s cut in half.” He shrugged. “As food and fresh water becomes scarce, the larger we are, the more difficult it’s going to be.”

“We’ll manage.” Dallas stared out at the man eaters, feeling the weight of his words and knowing how right he was.

They sat in silence for a few minutes just watching the man eaters picking the charred bones clean when Dallas said softly, “Know what I never understood? How come they eat?”

Einstein looked over. “What?”

“The man eaters. Why do they eat? And why don’t they eat each other?”

Einstein thought for a moment. “There’s a thought that it’s a parasitic way to spread the virus, but I really don’t know. I mean, up until now, it was just a dumb Hollywood thing, right? Unreal. Impossible.”

“Did you ever watch The Jetsons?”

“The what?”

Dallas chuckled. “Not important. Anyway, there was this cartoon my dad used to love watching called The Jetsons. They had a robot maid, a microwave, big screen television, and so many other futuristic toys that, at that time, were nothing but fantasy. Now, most of the cool stuff they had has come true.”

“Your point being this is no different?”

“Well, it appears someone was watching those films enough to make a real virus, right? Someone thought that eating Americans was preferable to bombing us or attacking us in conventional warfare, right?”

There was a long, pregnant pause before he replied. “I think we have to face some facts here. It doesn’t really matter who created the virus. What matters is where our government goes from here. The military is clearly losing this battle. If the military can’t stop them—and it’s pretty obvious they can’t—then they’ll have to nuke the hell out of all major infected cities and then work their way outward. Pockets of resistance will crop up all over the place. This hasn’t even begun to get worse, Dallas.”

Dallas pondered this a moment. “So you think they’ll have to start bombing the cities as opposed to what they are doing now by trying to cut off the food supply?”

“Right. They tried a conservative approach. Now, they have to go for broke, or we’re screwed. As for not eating each other—it’s not a hunger like we get. It’s something different. I don’t know what, but whatever it is, it drives them. It fuels them.”

“Just so you know, I heard you about our growing numbers. I get that. By now, we’re talking about at least a million infected, probably more.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, something to think about.”

They stared out the window until the man eaters dispersed.

“The others should be coming any time now.”

Dallas checked her watch.

“You know, you gotta get her to give up those horses. It’s too slow.”

“I’ve thought about that, but I seriously doubt Roper would be willing to do that just yet.”

Einstein sighed and shook his head. “It’s a new world, Dallas. Not a brave one, to be sure, but a new one. I’ll go round everyone up. We need gas soon and that station across the street from the freeway might have a generator.”

Dallas messed up his hair. “And that, my friend, is why keeping the horses is a smart idea.”

“It was smart when there were four of us.” Climbing off the beam, Einstein gathered the others as Dallas continued to stare out onto a world as foreign to her as the surface of Mars.

When she climbed back down, she said, “Einstein, I need you riding shotgun. The rest of you can get into the back of the Hummer once we’re free of the garage.” Dallas looked through the windshield and nodded to Einstein, who pulled open the garage door.

Three feet away stood two man eaters. Both lunged at Einstein before he could get his rifle up. Tate and Coca ran screaming to the back of the garage.

“Shit!” Einstein cried, as one eater grabbed his shirt. “No!”

Before Dallas could get to her rifle, Cue-Ball stepped up and shoved his pool stick through the first zombie’s eye. Pulling it free, he whirled around and crushed the skull of the second one with the handle.

“Get in, get in!” Dallas yelled.

Everyone dove into the Hummer, and Dallas peeled out, running over one zombie’s head before straightening the steering wheel and laying heavy on the gas.

“Jeez, that was close,” Einstein said, laying his hand on his heaving chest. “They came outta nowhere.”

Dallas looked in the rearview mirror and saw over two-dozen more stumbling after them. “Let’s just grab some fuel, meet up with the others and put some distance between us and them.”

“Who we meeting?” Tate asked.

“Friends. One is the doctor, and she can probably help Coco out a little.”

“Good. All the stress isn’t good for the baby.”

When they reached the gas station, Cue and Einstein located a generator and Dallas was able to fill up the Hummer and even top off the gas can attached to the tailgate.

“That can was jerry-rigged up there,” Einstein said, handing it to her. “So be careful putting it back. Cue and Coco are gonna see if there’s anything useful in the mini mart. I’ll stand guard.”

Dallas nodded as she finished pumping the gas. “Hey. That was too close back there.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got to be more careful. You should have had that rifle up and ready to shoot.”

“I know.”

“We’d be lost without you, Einstein.”

He grinned slightly. “I know.”

That was when they heard it: A vehicle was bearing down on them quickly and when a blue Lexus whipped into the station, four men all jumped out so quickly, Einstein had no time to react. In an instant, one of the men snatched the rifle from him before grabbing him around the neck in a chokehold.

Dallas froze, her hand still on the nozzle.

“Well, lookie here. Somebody fought back and got themselves a Humvee.”

Carefully placing the nozzle back on the pump, Dallas couldn’t risk slinging her rifle off her back. If she was very careful, they might not know she was packing. It was the only advantage she had at the moment.

The third man pushed Cue out of the office, holding a sidearm between Cue’s shoulders, while a fourth stood silently by. He was huge. The muscle.