Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine (18 page)

“It’s not like they were armed
opponents. They’re dead,” Calvin shook off the praise.

“It was still badass,” Joel agreed
with his friend, sliding down from the truck.

“Hey, look!” Athena nearly shouted.
“It’s Sarah!” All eyes of the group followed her pointing arm up the street to
see Sarah on a small balcony above a rear access door waving both arms trying
to get their attention. When they finally acknowledged her, she held up a
yellow walkie-talkie. “Oh!” Athena exclaimed, pulling out the one Calvin had
given her. “Sorry, we turned them off so the sounds wouldn’t attract any of
these…”

“Zombies,” Sarah’s tinny voice
blurted from the radio.

“…things.” Athena chose to call
them for now. “But Scooter finished them off. And guess who we found?”

“Joel and Spencer, I know. I saw
them drive through that group and back into the corner. We gave them a
distraction around front to take the bigger group away, but they’re coming back
down Cherry now. They’ll be coming around the corner in a few minutes. Some
faster movers in that group.”

“What should we do?” Athena asked.

“Does that truck have a back door?”
Sarah asked.

“Yes.”

“And is it armored? Trip thinks
it’s armored.”

“It is.”

“OK. Trip said he thinks it will
line up just right with the front doors. You can back up to the entryway, lock
your doors, and come right in through the back of your truck. That way it might
still be there when we need to leave.”

Calvin showed Gus, Joel and their new
friends to the back door of the Humvee and started to hop in the front next to
Athena, but his phone rang.

“Wow. Four bars. I was beginning to
think the government had shut off the cell towers or something. It’s Boomer,”
he said, walking to the back of the vehicle and looking around for more
zombies. While he took the call, Athena explained to Quinn where to go and
Calvin checked the surrounding streets.

“We’re gonna need to go get Boomer
and Brick, they’re at the Liberty Memorial,” Calvin announced as he slid into
the cab of the Humvee.

They were around the corner and
backing up only a few minutes later. The design of the ambulance matched
perfectly to the building. Quinn backed up to the columns of the entryway,
unfortunately snapping off the pair of iron torch sconces in the process, but
with those gone, the truck fit almost perfectly over the small walls that had
held the sconces. The entire back outer-frame pressed flush against the columns.
The heavy iron gate swung inward and the gang leaped out, armed and ready to
defend themselves. After a quick perimeter check, however, they quickly realized
no zombies would be able to enter. Only a few inches of space remained
underneath the truck between the heavy-duty frame and the steps. Perhaps three
inches of air could pass between the columns and the wall on either side of the
vehicle; not enough for the dead to pass through. It would be a thin zombie, indeed,
that could reach them.

“Welcome to the Fortress!” Tripper
announced with a broad grin and a sweeping gesture. “Here are some towels, get
cleaned up and meet me upstairs for treats!”

“It is expanding chaos out there
right now,” Calvin said from his perch on the rail, looking down the street
from the patio just above the ambulance, the stench of death and smoke finally
beginning to fade.

Sarah had shown the doctor to a
private office where he could make his calls and he had been there most of the
time, only coming out briefly to meet the newcomers. The others gathered around
the vending machines just inside the double glass doors of the second-level patio
terrace, which they had braced open with a few dozen reams of paper. Trip
borrowed one of Scooter’s axes to ‘pay’ for the snacks they were all now
enjoying.

“We need to get as many friends and
family here or someplace safer as quickly as possible before this thing really
gets out of control,” Calvin said, then paused to lick some filling out of an
oatmeal cream pie.

“So you think what is going out
there now can be considered some strange form of control?” Sarah asked acidly.

“Good point. I mean before the
government decides to do something stupid like firebomb the city…or something.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll stay here as long as we can,
collecting anyone we can.”

“I think it’ll take about a week to
get everyone together in one place so we can clear out,” Tripper mentioned
hesitantly.

“I certainly hope not.”

“Well that’s how long Hef says
it’ll take to finish his plans.”

“We’ve got Quinn’s ambulance. We
can get about fifteen people in there.”

“Not really,” the big smith argued.
“We’ll have to store stuff in there too.”

“What if the government does decide
to firebomb us?” Trip asked.

“Then we’ll need to make a run for
it.” Calvin replied with blunt honesty.

“We’ll need more vehicles if we’re
going to take a big group out of here,” Quinn informed them in his gruff,
no-nonsense manner. “We’ll need to put extra fuel and supplies in the
ambulance. What plans?” he asked as an afterthought

“Our friend Hephaestus says he’s
working on a vehicle that can take several dozen of us out of here at once, but
it won’t be ready for a week or two,” Tripper explained. “And it’s never been tested
before.”
Might as well let them know what they’re getting into first
.

“Do you think I’d be able to help
him speed up the process a might?” Quinn asked, before gulping down a huge
glass of water, spilling half of it in his crimson beard and letting it drip
freely down his light blue chain mail and leather cuirass.

“He did say he’ll need a few people
who know their way around tools, but I think he means more modern tools.”

“I’m also a Millwright,” the big
smith said proudly.

Everyone stared blankly.

“I’m a carpenter of steel. I can do
anything with steel you can do with wood,” he held up his huge callused hand.
“No play on the unintentional euphemisms, please. I’ve heard them all.”

Trip and Scooter shared a
disappointed grimace and the girls laughed.

“I can use most modern tools,” the hearty
Armorer added. ”Again, leave off.”

“I think he’d be as pleased as you
can get to have you join him, Quinn. But we’re sure gonna miss you out there on
the streets.”

“You’ve got guns now,” the big man
explained. “You’ll do alright.”

“I don’t know if we should use the
guns much,” Joel cautioned. “What if they’re attracted by sound? They seemed to
turn at the squealing of your tires.”

“Right now there are so many of
them out there that I don’t think it matters,” Sarah interrupted and the big
man nodded his agreement.

“Well, we do have a few thousand
rounds each,” Tripper added. “So it’s not like we’re going to run out fast.”

“You’d be surprised how fast
ammunition goes,” Sarah cautioned him, being the resident machine-gun nut. “But
maybe we can cover those in the front from a distance with the guns, but only
use them when absolutely necessary.”

“I don’t like guns,” Gus said.

“Me neither,” Joel agreed. “Either?
Is it either or neither?”

“It’s neither do I,” Sarah
clarified. “And, I love guns.”

“I’m not very fond of guns,
either,” the girl sitting in the corner with dyed red hair added meekly,
holding up her hand. “…if you’re taking a vote, I mean.”

“And on that note…or vote,” Tripper
jumped up and pointed at the two new girls sitting beside Gus and Joel. “What
the hell are Joanna Scagliotti and Felicia Sackoff, two of the coolest women in
Sci-fi, doing with you two geeks?” he pointed between Gus and Joel and the two
nearly-famous women who had remained silent until now.

“I mean, Geek and Chic don’t
usually mix, do they?” he added as an afterthought.

“What about you and Scooter and
your girlfriends?” Sarah asked. “They’re two incredibly hot babes and they’re
hanging out with two of the biggest geeks I’ve met.”

Water and tea sprayed the table as Tripper
and Calvin spluttered and coughed in indignation.

“Hey,” the girl with several hair
colors put her hands on her hips and looked back at the others angrily. “JoJo
and I
are
geeks. And we’ve been looking for a couple of perfect geek
boyfriends for a long time. We finished filming a short here, and it coincided
with Kansas City ComicCon.”

“That was two weeks ago,
Felicia…um, Ms. Sackoff,” Scooter pointed out quietly.

“Felicia is fine. Or Fe, or FeFe,
or Sack, or Sackoff, but not Suckoff or any version of that or I’ll kick your
ass.”

“And you can call me Jo, Joanne,
Joanna, or JoJo,” the other girl added enthusiastically.

“How about Scaggs?” Gus asked.

“Seriously Dude?” Joanne turned to
Gus and shot him a withering glance. “I give you four nicknames and you can’t
pick one?”

“I’ve always wanted to meet you so
I can call you that.”

“You know the g is silent, right?”

“Well, yeah, I know. But if you’re
just looking at the name as it’s written, you’d think it’s Scaggs…and…I
mean…it’s supposed to be kind of a play on how everyone always gets the
pronunciation wrong…”

“Oh, I get you. Embrace the horror.
Ok, I kinda like Scaggs, cutie. You can call me that if you want to.”

She reached over and gave him a
quick peck on the cheek, but then neither could think of anything else to say
and they sat fidgeting uncomfortably. Trip’s eyes doubled back into his skull
and he looked between Sarah and Scooter for some sign that he was hallucinating,
but they simply returned non-committal shrugs. No help there. While everyone
tried to overcome this new awkwardness, Scooter took a minute to introduce them.
Hands were shaken all around until he repeated the original question.

“So, you still didn’t answer the
question,” he said to the crimson-haired actress hanging from Gus’ arm.

“What question was that?” Scaggs
asked.

“If the Con was done weeks ago, why
are the two of you still here? Not that you have to answer us or anything. This
is America and you’re two rich, hot actresses who can go wherever they want.
We’re just curious what would have made you want to hang around here. KC isn’t
exactly a hotspot on the maps of the rich and famous.”

“Are you kidding?” Scaggs replied.
“First and foremost,” she pointed at herself. “Not rich. Not by a long shot.”

“And neither am I,” Felicia
interjected, showing her shoes, an old pair of faded brown sandals clearly
having seen better days…a very long time ago.

But,” Scaggs continued. “To answer
your question, this was the biggest parade in the history of the fracking world
and all we had to do is pay rent for another two weeks to see it? Shoosh yeah.
I wanted to be in it, but we couldn’t find anyone who needed small-time, out of
work sci-fi actresses. The parade was awesome, B T Dubs, until those
brain-suckers had to go and ruin it for everyone. You Kansas Citites…Citese?
Citiers? Citians. That’s the one. You Kansas Citians know how to party up in
here, on both sides of your border. No fights, no attitudes, just Barbeque and
beer and everyone was sooo nice…I mean, until the shooting started…and the
eating of people. That part sucked balls.”

“Oh, don’t worry, there are usually
fights, but for this party everyone was just too happy, I guess,” Tripper
explained.

“Well, everyone we met was great.”

“And how’d you end up with Gus and
Joel?” Scooter asked.

“They’re our heroes!” she
exclaimed.

“Our saviors,” Felicia agreed.

 “Oh. Ooh. And our new boyfriends!”
Scaggs added with delight. When Gus stared dumfounded back at her, she responded
firmly, “Yup, believe it, sweetie.”

Felicia nodded to Joel as well and grabbed
one of his hands in one of her own.

“Sure,” Gus murmured, agreeing for
once with Tripper. “It’s the end of the world. Why not?” he lay back against
the wall, bending slightly from yet another bizarre breeze the universe had
blown his way this day.

“How?” Trip cried in disbelief,
hands gripping the sides of his head to keep his brains in place as his skull
split, his senses reeling from this latest mind-boggling assault.

“It was out there,” Scaggs pointed
outside. “On the streets of the parade. Suddenly we were surrounded by these
moaning things with wide-open eyes and bared teeth that were people and stripping
flesh from their bones. We didn’t realize what was happening until they were
all around us. We ran forever, and finally hid in a doorway. But they followed
us. There we were, kicking and swinging nothing but our purses, about to be
eaten, when these two gods jumped from the canopy above the entryway swinging
those stop signs. And low and behold, it was our future boyfriends—”.

“—that’s what we were already
calling them,” Felicia interjected.

“Yeah. They were like knights out
of a renaissance novel…I mean…they were…” she looked at Calvin and the others
who were decked out in full armor with ancient weapons. “They seemed like
knights until the three of you showed up actually
wearing
armor and
wielding…actual renaissance weapons like…like actual knights—but hey!
They
were our knights first!” she hugged Gus tightly with one arm and looked up at
the only slightly taller man with adoring eyes. “And
my
guy here didn’t
need armor.”

“Whoa! But we’re not stupid!” Joel
added quickly. “If you’ve got an extra set of medium mail, hellz yeah I’ll take
one.” Felicia laughed and clutched him with both arms. But Scooter, Trip and
Sarah exchanged surprised glances when he automatically leaned down and planted
a kiss on her cheek and hugged her back.

It wasn’t that either man was
smelly or socially unacceptable that made this surprising. Both stood around
5’9’ and about 155lbs. Neither was ugly, but the term good-looking could also
not be attributed to either man. But they had always been absolutely inept
around women, unable to formulate coherent sentences in most circumstances.
Both Sarah and Athena had tried to set the pair up with their friends and all
couplings had ended in disaster after only one date. Yet these women were
hanging from them as if they were a pair of oil barons or rock stars.

“Um…ok,” Scooter responded
eventually.

“We ran to their truck,” Scaggs
continued her story, “and then headed this way when Gussy said you guys might
be around here. He said you would probably come here if you were still alive,
but even if you didn’t, he said we might be able to climb up to the balcony. We
didn’t make it that far.”

“Almost,” Sarah clicked and held
her fingers out an inch apart in the nationally accepted ‘that much’ sign.

“Why didn’t you just drive out of
downtown?” Scooter asked.

“Are you kidding? There were masses
of those things in every direction. I thought we’d hide until things calmed
down a bit,” Joel explained.

“And then we ran into that group,
literally, and got trapped,” Scaggs finished

But Tripper had had enough.

“That’s not…no, I mean how did you
get
here
. How in the nine proverbial rings of hell are you sitting there
holding hands and kissy-facing with those two? I mean, you’re safe now, so you
don’t have to cling to them like they fought a bar full of bikers off of you.
You’re famous actresses and they’re nobodies.”

“Geeze, Joel,” Felicia muttered. “You
said these guys were your friends.”

“Hey, now,” Trip held up both
hands. “
We
love
these guys. We’ve been friends almost
since we were born, but no one outside our group has ever
understood
them enough to accept them. Hell, it took Sarah five years to get comfortable
around them.”

“One year,” she corrected with a
scowl for Trip. “And that’s because they rarely spoke to me, instead whispering
and giggling behind my back. Once they got used to having me around and started
actually saying what was on their minds, I thought they were lovely. I call
them friends because they are. They’re definitely weird, but I’ve come to like
weird over the years. You kind of have to with this group.”

She turned to the two actresses and
pointed to each one with split fingers. “But you two just met them. You don’t
know that. So what gives?”

“It’s not like we lost our minds
because of the attacks or something,” Scaggs explained. “This is for real. We
are kind of perfect for each other. We weren’t just staying for the parade.
We’ve actually been trying to find them. We met them at the Con. Spent most of
a day with them and had a lot of fun. But then they just left at the end so we
thought they must already have girlfriends or something.”

“Grrrggle,” Trip choked back a
comment, only holding back because of Sarah’s warning hand on his arm.

“But the next day we found out from
someone else at the Con that they were single and decided to try and find them.
We kept in touch with that guy. Rolly, I think.”