Bowie V. Ibarra (14 page)

“Yeah. Legal, lawful money. Not this legal tender crap!”

“Hey, as long as I get my Coke from the machine,” said Petra, “Those federal reserve notes are fine by me!”

“But you’re only strengthening the shackles of debt slavery by using it,” said Red.

“What the hell are-”

Misty interrupted, “Red, you never answered my question. Why would they want to kill us if they’re using us as slaves?”

“Don’t know. Maybe they underestimated the strength of this plague. I mean, the government created AIDS in the seventies and unleashed it in the eighties to try to wipe us out. And what’s funny, too, is that Africa hadn’t been hit by the plague, but they sure as hell are infected with AIDS.”

“That’s not funny, Red.”

“Well, not funny, but weird in a sad way.”

“Maybe less equals easier control,” George volunteered.

“Conspiracies aside,” Petra interjected, “I can tell you that the military was developing a kind of wound healing technology for soldiers on the battlefield.”

“Sounds kooky to me,” said Red.

“Shut up,” said Petra. “Listen, they came up with a kind of serum that could heal the wounded. From what I heard, it was doing too good a job. It was even healing the dead to the point of reanimation.”

Everyone looked at Petra.

“How do you know this?” asked George.

“When I was in the Army, they stuck me in a lab. I was a college grad in Biology. After basic training, they sent me there.”

“Well, those things aren’t healing at all,” said George. “Something is reanimating them.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the oblongata, the R-Complex,” said Red. “The chemical, whatever it is, reactivates that part of the brain after death. It’s the part that controls motor functions. Maybe this chemical is reviving the oblongata and reanimating the dead?”

“There were some projects I caught wind of that were trying just that,” said Petra. “But I never heard anymore about it after I left in ‘93.”

“Well,” said Misty, “Whoever did whatever, they really fucked the world now.” She turned away in frustration and gazed out the window. Buildings were burning and there were bloody bodies everywhere.

- A future in shambles.

“We should have nuked those rag heads when we had the chance,” said Petra.

“You don’t even know it was them. Most of the militant Arab leaders were CIA operatives. They put-”

“All right, enough of this stupid conspiracy nonsense,” Petra interrupted. “Why can’t we just chill for a bit and just give thanks for being alive and having a shot?”

Everyone went silent for a moment. George looked at Misty, who had begun to weep. He leaned over and held her. Steven continued to sit. Silent. Stoic. Petra munched at a chocolate bar. Red began to take notes. George couldn’t figure out why.

“How much further to the base?” asked George.

“About another ten minutes,” replied Abe, skillfully maneuvering through the streets of San Antonio, around wrecked cars, and over dead bodies.

“Where’s the base?” asked George.

“Downtown. The Mercado.”

The vehicle entered the base in a garage at the Mercado built in a similar fashion as the security gates of the FEMA camps.

“We stole their idea,” Abe explained when George mentioned the similarity. “The real bitch was building it.”

The walls were made of large pallets, hastily constructed, yet sturdy. On the front was a chain-linked single-hinged gate. All were crudely wrapped with barbed wire. They had built the security device in the garage, then cleared the area and pushed the gate out the garage door. They secured it to the outer wall with large bolts drilled into the stone wall.

The entrance had two doors. To first one led into a containment area. Like last time, once the front gate was shut, any zombies that got in the containment area were eliminated. Once eliminated and the containment area secured, the second, garage-style door opened.

Probably the craziest part was that the front gate had to be opened and closed manually. George and Misty watched the process from the window. Four men in what seemed to be riot gear and dog training jackets went and opened the gate for them, pulling the chain linked gate inward inside the containment area, letting the vehicle in. Their gear was stained with blood. Five zombies entered with the vehicle. Three snipers positioned above the garage were picking off the zombie intruders. Two of the men were fighting off the creatures, pushing them away from them to give the snipers a clear shot. The ones shot in the head by the snipers were dragged into the containment area as the vehicle cleared the first gate. The four men quickly began to close the gate. One man was attacked by one of the creatures that had made it in. He struggled with it as the other three men pushed against the monsters on the outside, the snipers helping them by providing headshots. The creature fighting the one man was biting into his leather-clad arm. Using the creature’s own body weight and the firm grip on the leather against it, the man dragged the creature to the ground as the gate was closed, locked, and secured. Four creatures were clawing at the humvee. The man who had dragged the zombie to the ground started stomping on its head until it cracked. He continued to stomp as the other four creatures along the side of the humvee were shot by the snipers. The head of one of the creatures blew open right in front of George and Misty. Misty screamed and put her face in George’s chest.

The gate security men then went around the containment area with a pistol and shot the creatures once more in the head for good measure. After another quick check of the containment area, one of the gate security team raised his Kevlar mask and shouted to the men at the top of the fence, “All clear!”

The garage door opened. The vehicle drove in, followed by the security team, who were dragging the bodies of the dead into the facility. Once in and the gate closed, they would carry the carcasses to the roof, where they would toss them over the side and back to the outside to rot in the warm sunlight.

The humvee parked near several other vehicles, two cars (an Eclipse and a Tempo) and three trucks (two Dodge Rams and a Chevy F-150). There was also an Austin Police paddy wagon.

Everyone exited the Humvee.

“Man, what a ride,” said George. “Thank you, Abe.”

“No problem,” he said, tossing George the keys.

“…So that’s what’s really going on at the Yale Skull and Bones society,” Red concluded as he removed his gear.

“You’re full of shit, Red,” said Petra.

“Anyone need a hand?” asked Alex.

“Maybe a handshake,” replied George, showing a smile. They shook hands.

“If ya’ll need anything, you come talk to me or Red, all right? We can get you what you need.”

“Thanks Alex,” said George.

“And if you ever want to talk about what’s really going on in the world, that’s us, too!”

George chuckled, “You got it, man.”

Abe walked up to George as the others made their way into the main building. “You need to come meet our leader. He’s a great guy.”

“Lead the way,” said George. He took Misty by the hand and followed the others into the main building.

The garage itself used to have windows, but they were now secured with boards. There looked to be several sleeping spaces in the room as well. Mexican-style blankets were in several areas on the hard concrete floor.

As they entered the main area, they walked into a plaza-type area with no roof. Old style Mexican music could be heard in the background. The light of the sky warmed their bodies as they walked across this secured mini-plaza in the direction of an old restaurant. In the distance, the moans of the dead could be heard. Several people were sitting in the area, armed with guns and drinking beer. The Mexican music became a little louder as they opened the door to the restaurant.

“Mi Destino,” said Misty, reading the name of the restaurant from a sign over the door. “What’s that mean, George?”

George paused a moment, then replied, “My Destiny.”

The group went their separate ways as Abe led George and Misty to the back of the restaurant, around several corners. Windows leading to the outside were boarded up. No lights were on inside the building, but just enough light penetrated the window barriers. The creatures cast slow moving shadows on the interior.

Abe, George, and Misty then approached two men sitting at a table in front of a door. Two handguns sat on the table in front of them as they smoked what smelled like weed.

“Do you smell that?” whispered Misty.

“I think it’s kill,” replied George. He had learned that euphemism for pot from -of all places -school. One day a student, (who George knew was a drug dealer,) came into his junior high class halfway through a semester. Moments after the student had entered the room for the first time, another student, the troublemaker of the class, jumped up and yelled, “Man, I smell ‘kill’!” Many of the students started laughing. George told the student to sit down as the drug dealer hurriedly dashed to the door. George missed him. He would have stopped him, but he was behind the overhead projector and far away from the door, trying to complete a lesson. And he was trying to get the rowdy student and the class back together again. As George finally got to the door, the student had returned, claiming he had needed to go to the restroom. George knew it was bullshit. Anyway, it was still a lesson learned, and nobody tried to bring drugs to George’s classroom again now that they knew the teacher was pro-active.

“Wait here,” Abe instructed as he walked to the two pot-smoking sentries.

“What’s going on?” asked Misty.

“Don’t know,” George told her.

The men looked at George and Misty. One had a very strange nose that seemed to have been broken severely at one time. He was wearing a gray athletic shirt and pants. He wore worn-in black military-style ultralites. The other man also seemed to have something severely wrong with his nose. His face was peppered with scars. George thought he might have had a bad case of acne. He was wearing what seemed to be a blue New York City fire department shirt and blue jeans with worn black shoes.

Abe waved for them to come forward. They approached the table.

As the two came closer, the man with the messed-up nose stared at George and asked, “Have we met before?”

George thought for a moment, then said, “Don’t think so, man.”

Before George could introduce himself, Abe said, “He’s over here.” The man with the scar face opened the door and let them pass through.

It was a back office area, dark and smoky. An old calendar and several nude centerfolds decorated the brown wall. A clipboard with an old schedule on it was hanging on a nail. Two folding chairs were set up against the wall.

To the right of George and Abe was a desk, and the lamp sitting there was the only thing illuminating the room. A desktop calculator, (the kind that printed out from a roll of paper,) was on the right side of the desk. Papers littered the tabletop. Two bottles of gin stood near the papers. A trashcan was full and nearly overflowing on the floor to the right.

Behind the desk sat a man who was taking a long gulp of whiskey. Several old cigarettes sat extinguished in an ashtray to his right, beside the calculator.

“Good sir,” Abe began. “We have added some new members to our little community.”

“Have we?” said the man as he turned in his swivel chair. He was wearing a gray sports coat with a black shirt underneath, blue jeans, and black shoes.

He had an eye patch over his right eye.

He stood up and extended his hand to George.

“Welcome,” he said. “My name is Alphonso.”

“NICE TO MEET you, sir,” said George, extending his hand. “My name’s George. This is my friend Misty.”

Alphonso looked at Misty. He suavely commented, “Such a charming woman in such a horrible place. You must be tired, dear.”

Misty moved toward George and gripped his arm. It was obvious that the man was creeping her out. “We’re both tired,” she said. “A little thirsty, too.”

Alphonso politely called to one of the men outside, “Richardson, would you bring our guests here some bottled water?”

“You got it, boss,” was the reply.

“We have plenty to eat, as this place was a restaurant just over a week ago. Before everything happened.”

“Yeah. It used to be a great place,” replied George. “I ate here all the time on the way to and from San Uvalde. How appropriate, huh?”

“You must be on your way there, correct?” guessed Alphonso. “Where did you drive in from? Dallas?”

“Austin, actually,” said George.

Alphonso raised an eyebrow. “Ah, yes, the music capital of the world. I’ve spent some time in Austin. Owned a few clubs up there.”

“That’s cool,” said George. “I always wanted to have my own place.”

Richardson walked in the door. He was the one with the horrendous scars and messed-up nose. He handed some water to both of them. It was blessedly cold.

“Right out of the refrigerator, my friends,” said Alphonso.

“Oh, it tastes so good,” said Misty, taking a large gulp from the bottle and smacking her lips.

“Where are my manners? You two must want to freshen up. Abe, show them to the showers and give them the room in the marketplace for the evening.”

“Oh, the room, sir? Very cool.” Abe looked at George and Misty, and said, “Didn’t I tell you this guy was great?”

“Before you go, I must share some simple rules of our little community,” said Alphonso, fixing a gin drink. “One, kill all zombies. If they penetrate the area, we must kill them and re-secure the area. Two, kill all law enforcement officials.” Alphonso opened a small ice chest hiding in the shadows near his desk and put ice in the drink. “Our group was formed in different areas of town. Both times we were flushed out by military personnel. Though there has not been an attack in several days, we are still wary. If you see any, kill them with extreme prejudice.” Alphonso took a sip from his drink, rolling his tongue to catch all the flavor, then continued, “Third, kill anyone who comes close to our area. You have been allowed in as you helped transport one of our scouting teams.” He placed his drink on the desk, meticulously situating it in the center of a coaster. “The final rule is to kill anyone within this base who becomes infected. This is very important.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “Have I made the rules clear?”