Surge (110 page)

“Here, you’re going to catch your death, before we even make it upstairs,” I say.

The jacket is huge on her, so it drapes off of her shoulders, and reaches to her knees. Olivia looks down at her attire, and her face burns before she pulls my coat around her firmly, and tucks her face into the collar. I reach inside and tip her chin up to look at me.

“Don’t you dare be ashamed, make him pay for it.” Olivia squares her shoulders, well as square as she can make them with a thirty pound jacket hanging from her small frame, slides the jacket from her shoulders and passes it back to me.

“I’ll get clothes later,” she tells me. I nod, and Olivia walks over to one of the corpses on the floor. She kicks his body to flip him, before reaching down on the belt loop of his fatigues and unhooking a knife holster. She straps that to her thigh, before walking over to the other body and fishing into the raider’s breast pocket. Her hand comes out with a single bullet that I would know from anywhere.

“Where’s your gun?” I ask.

“I broke it on some fucker’s nose,” Olivia says with a shrug. “Oh well, it’ll work just as well from this one.”

She holds up a handgun that she stole off the dead raider. I hear a click indicating that she hit the clip release, before she pops the bullet into the magazine. Reloading the clip, Olivia checks the safety and clears the chamber. Once it’s restored to rights, she steals the gun’s holster from the raider with the bashed skull, and slides it on her shoulder.

“Alright, I’m ready,” she announces as she stands.

“Machie?” Patsy asks.

“Machie’s in a safe place,” Olivia answers. “I’ll get her back later.”

“Good, I like the old broad,” he replies.

“Hey, she may be long in the tooth, but she’s served me well,” Olivia defends. “You remember that next time she saves your life.” She moves toward the door, and I start to hear rattling. My eyes snap to the door, expecting to find a raider coming, only to see a chain trailing behind Olivia from her dog collar. I go to ask her why she hasn’t removed it, since they can usually slide right off, but then I see the lock holding it together on the side of her neck. Well, that sucks. Hopefully we have a bolt cutter back at the compound.

“Yeah, yeah,” Patsy says as he waves her off. “Now, shut up, before you get us all killed.”

“Why bother?” Olivia asks. “I already killed these assholes.” She points at three corpses on the floor; one has a steak knife in his chest, another the back of a hammer imbedded in his forehead, and the last one has a fork sticking out of his eye.

“Nice arsenal,” I say.

“Yeah, I had to work with what I had on hand,” she says with a shrug. “Since everyone was a little preoccupied fawning over Cole, I managed to grab a few things along the way. The hammer was on the shelf.” Olivia points at the shelving unit as we pass. “And the cutlery is self-explainable. I wish I had more of my cocktail mix, it would have been so much easier and a lot faster that way.”

“So, it was you outside?” Patsy asks and she nods. “Remind me to never eat anything you make.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I warn. “She’s an excellent cook.” Patsy raises an eyebrow at me. “She is.”

“Then what was that shit she served upstairs?” Patsy inquires.

“That, dearest Patsy, was the shit that they deserved,” Olivia answers. “I even spit in Mariella’s food, and added a mashed up cockroach to the other bitch’s soup. The poor rat didn’t deserve that.”

“Mariella,” I repeat. “Are the other ones up there too?” Olivia pauses in her quick movement down the hall, to look at me.

“Amanda is,” she says. “But Carly I already took care of, Felicia was killed during the raid at the condo, and Heather was eaten by wheezers a couple of months ago.”

“Felicia was at the condo?” Olivia nods.

“Yeah, I said that I was going to sleep in the hallway, but really I was checking faces,” she replies. “Carly, after some resistance to questioning, told me about Heather’s unfortunate demise.”

“How sad,” I say. “Poor Kelly suffered the same fate.”

“Oh darn it,” she says with a snap. “I was hoping she and I could become friends.”

“Oh well, maybe next time,” Patsy says. “Now, can you tell me why we’re heading in the opposite direction of the stairs?”

“We need something before we go up there,” Olivia answers as she continues down the hall. She takes a flashlight from Patsy, before she opens a door at the end of the hall. “There you are I knew I’d find you.”

<<~~~<~~~
~~~>~~~>

Patsy and I follow her into the room, and turn to the right, to see Olivia approaching someone huddled down on the floor in the corner. When the person turns to face her, I see blood dripping from her teeth, as she drops the rat she was chewing on.

Victoria, or should I say Wheezer Victoria; growls at us and tries lunging forward, but is stopped by the chain that’s wrapped around her neck. Olivia ignores that, as she walks past Victoria and grabs down a pole that was hanging on the wall. I flash my light in her direction so that I can see the new version of Red. Her red hair is patchy, and her pale skin is filthy, but unmarked with the exceptions of a bite on her forearm and neck.

I’m guessing that Olivia’s tape job protected her from having the wheezers feast on her, but at least it affected the bitch. I guess that it could be said that this is a worse punishment than death, because I know that the viral course isn’t pleasant from witnessing it a few times with the bad strays I brought home. And of course witnessing Marissa and Chelsea lose the battle over control of their bodies. The news said that it attacks the brain first, so the people have no recall of their former selves, and merely function enough to use instincts, such as eat and sleep. Eating being the higher priority; as can be seen when Victoria abandons her meal of rat for larger prey, such as Olivia, since she’s closest.

“Now, if you can behave, we’re going for a walk,” Olivia says as she steps toward Victoria while holding out the pole. “Do you think that you could handle that?” Victoria swipes at her in response, making Olivia tsk. “Uh-uh, we’ll save that for Greg the Gooser.”

“Wait a goddamn second,” Patsy demands. “You want to bring that thing upstairs with us?”

“Yeah,” Olivia replies as she shrugs her shoulders. “What better to use as a shield?”

“Where’s mine?” Patsy asks with a pout.

“Sorry, Patty, only got one of these,” Olivia says and holds up the pole, which I now see is the same one an animal control officer would use to control an aggressive dog.

“Ah shucks,” Patsy says as he snaps his fingers. “Always wanted myself an exotic pet, and now I’ve missed my chance.”

“Next time,” she promises. “Now, I have to wrangle me a feral ape.” Olivia sticks the pole out and hooks the noose around Victoria’s neck. Victoria scratches at it for a few seconds, before returning her attention to trying to take a bite out of her wielder.

“You sure that’s safe?” I ask uneasily.

“It’s fine, Mouth,” Olivia says. I stare at her to see if she’s just saying it to shut me up, since last I knew, she didn’t care much for life. She meets my gaze, before reiterating. “I said I wanted to try, Jared, I won’t do anything stupid.” With the double reassurance, the reminder of her wish to try, and the use of my name; I feel confident that she knows what she’s doing, and doesn’t have a death wish.

“Alright, wrangle yourself an ape, and let’s do this thing,” I say. Olivia nods as she pulls the noose tight on Victoria’s neck. She gives it a tug to make sure it’s snug, before she walks over to the wall and grabs a set of keys off of the hook.

“Catch,” she says as she tosses the keys in my direction. I snatch them up and look at her. “I’ll keep her over here, but I need you to go in the corner. On the same lock as her chain, there’s another set of keys, so unhook her from the pipe and grab them.”

“What’re the keys for?” Patsy asks. Olivia points at her own neck, and that’s all I need to know.

“Alright, tell me when,” I tell her. Olivia pulls Victoria closer to her, so that the chain is at its limit.

“Now,” she orders.

I don’t waste any time, not because I’m afraid that Olivia can’t handle Red, but because I want to get that dog collar off of her as soon as possible so that we can go upstairs and kill the bastard running this freak show. I skid to a stop in the corner, and leaf through the keys. Since the hole to the lock is small, I cut the choices in half and try one of the six on the ring of keys. No go on the first one, same for the second and third. Four and five are no different, and that leaves number six. I flip the ring around and try to fit it in the lock, sighing with relief when it glides in and twists easily.

“Got it,” I say as I stand with the new set of keys. Vicky’s stringy hair snaps in my direction, before she starts crawling her way toward me.

“I don’t think so, bitch,” Olivia says as she drags her back. “He dumped your skank ass, take the hint already.”

“Hey,” I deny. “I was never with that.” I point at the beast salivating with hunger.

“Were too,” she counters. “I even heard it with my own ears.” Oh my god, kill me now. Ignoring the blush, that I’m hoping the darkness conceals, I reply.

“That was desperation. I was celibate for over a year, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I would have started humping inanimate furniture.”

“Ah, come on, Ollie, give a guy a break,” Patsy says. “A year? That’s like forever to a dude.”

“Whatever, he was still with that,” Olivia jerks her chin at Red, before shivering.

“I wasn’t
with her
with her,” I counter. “She was just there, and I’ve never even been in a relationship before.”

“Then what do you want with Ollie,” Patsy demands with a warning glare thrown at me.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” I say. “But I want it all with her, or as much as she’s willing to give.” Olivia gives me a shy smile; it shows that she’s willing to give us a shot, even if she’s not entirely convinced that it’ll work. Her uncertainty is fine; I’ll prove it to her and make it work.

“Ollie, it looks like you’re gonna pop this guy’s relationship cherry, so go easy on him,” Patsy says.

“I’m a newb myself,” she says with a shrug. “Travie was my one and only boyfriend, so, maybe we could learn together?”

“She just said newb,” Patsy says as he grins at Olivia. “I freaking love this girl.”

“Love ya too, Patsy,” Olivia replies. “Now, come hold this bitch, she weighs a ton.”

Patsy moves behind Olivia and takes hold of the handle to the catch pole, before she slips under his arm and walks over to me. She holds her hand out for the keys, but I ignore it and tilt her chin back gently to do it myself. I flash my light at her neck so that I can see what I’m looking at, and grip the padlock. It’s the same simple design as the one that was containing Victoria, but I have to fish through several keys on the ring before I can find the right one. Once it’s unlocked, I chuck the hunk of metal on the floor and slide the chain from her neck. There are red spots marring the already scarred flesh, which serves as a reminder that we still have the prick responsible to deal with upstairs.

“What’s the plan?” I ask as I ghost my fingers over the chafed skin.

“As of right now,” Olivia says. “I’m winging it. I had the poisoning plan down before you guys showed up, but then I lost my temper; so I was just kind of going with the flow.”

“So, you kicking ass upstairs wasn’t part of your plan?” I ask.

“Nope,” she replies with a shrug. “What can I say? I have a low tolerance level.”

“No blaming you, the douchebag deserved it.”

“Yeah, but I almost got myself locked up,” Olivia counters. “And if they succeeded...” She trails off, and I see her eyes glaze over a bit, so I take hold of her hand, and lace my fingers with hers.

“They didn’t,” I whisper. “You fought back, and we were here to support you, regardless.” Olivia nods.

“You’re right, but I need to work on that, because you guys might not be there next time I screw up.” I cup her cheek.

“Everyone screws up sometimes, we’re only human. We just have to brush ourselves off and try again.”

“This is all very touching, but do you think that we can move this along?” Patsy asks. “The beast is getting a little restless, and I don’t feel like being lunch to a ginger.”

“You do realize that you’re a ginger, right?” Olivia asks. Patsy puts an offended hand on his chest.

“How dare you?” Patsy inquires. “I’m not a damn ginger, I have
auburn
hair.”

“Still a shade of red, copper crotch,” she replies.

“It’s almost brown, Esmeralda,” he counters.

“I’m not a damn gypsy, you ginja ninja,” she retorts.

“No, but you are French, you hairy monkey,” he says.

“Oh, hell no,” Olivia says as she steps toward him, even when he’s holding Vicky. “You did not just call me hairy, you jolly ginger giant.” I gently clasp my fingers around her elbow.

“You can kick his freckled ass later,” I say. “Right now, let’s get upstairs and end this shit.” Olivia points two fingers at her eyes, and then at Patsy.

“This ain’t over,” she warns.