Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine (58 page)

Her pleading eyes targeted Tripper
and she almost stopped, but this was the right time. If not now, then there
would never be a time. Athena nodded for her to continue.

“That’s not true. Or…it’s not
everything,” she took a big shaking breath. “Three months ago he raped me.” It
came out in a rush. She couldn’t believe she’d finally said it. The past three
months had been indescribable. Fear. Shame. Guilt. So many other emotions and
feelings she wasn’t prepared to deal with.

“It’s worse than anyone knows!” she
cried. “We were watching that movie you made us all promise to watch,” she
accused Tripper. “For Tripper’s Midnight Movie Club Review Night. Whatever the
movie was that week.
Killer
of
the
Dying
Death
or something stupid like that.  He drugged me and…did everything…bad things.
Not normal things. He tied me up and marked me with a tattoo, but I hid it with
makeup and had it removed before you could see it, Trip.” Her knees nearly
doubled-back on themselves, but she fought, and remained standing.

“How?” Trip whispered, tears
streaming from his high cheeks like water spilling over a dam.

“I’m so sorry,” she cried. “We’ve
all hung out so many times. I’ve hung out with him before. You know that. He
never even made a pass at me. I thought because I was your girlfriend, he knew
I was off-limits, like with Hephaestus. I didn’t drink alcohol or smoke
anything, and I’d taken a nap before I got there, but I still fell asleep half
way through the movie. One minute I was wide awake, the next…I woke up the next
day naked on the couch next to him trying to…to get started in on me again with
my wrists tied together. I started hitting and kicking and cussing him out and
he just laughed,” she broke off for a few seconds to catch her breath and
stifle a few stubbornly controlled sobs.

The tears rolled freely and she
stared at anything but Trip—the piles of steaming pasta scattered about the
tables before the group, the exotic murals painted on the wall behind them, her
plain white tennis shoes with fresh spots of spilled tomato sauce.

“He told me how much I had wanted
it the night before, that I was begging him for it all night. When I denied
that, he said it was ‘his word against mine’ and that he had witnesses hearing
me ask him to go to his place—which I did because we were going to watch the
movie and you know my blue-ray is broken. He…he took pictures and…and maybe
even video. He said he was going to send copies to everyone if I told. To my
parents, he would send a movie of that to my parents, to…to everyone…I couldn’t
say anything. What could I do?”

“He…he tried to get me to sleep
with him again about a month ago. But I said I was going to tell you, Tripper,
so you’d know and we could make a decision together. He didn’t like that. He
got really angry. He said he’d kill us all. He was crazy,” she explained in a
rush. “And I didn’t have any proof…” she trailed off, her pretty green eyes
pleading.

“I know it sounds crazy, but until
what happened to Athena I didn’t have anyone who would even believe me.”

“We would have believed you,” Calvin
said earnestly, indicating Athena and Trip with a gesture. Both of the others nodded
agreement.

“Lola would have,” Lucy gently
added. She lowered her head and said no more.

“I didn’t know that. And you guys don’t
either. You only know because he’s not here now to tell his side. And I have
Athena as proof now. He was a very persuasive person, in case you can’t
remember.”

“But that’s just it, why rape you?”
 Joel said, scratching his head in thought. “He was good looking enough to
convince most women with his looks and charm alone. It doesn’t make any sense.
I’m not accusing you of anything; I just don’t understand it. I mean, I’ve seen
him take down some of the best with a smile.”

“He didn’t even try,” she sobbed.
“He just drugged me and took me. I didn’t have any choice, Tripper. I’m so
sorry,” she put her face into her hands in shame and let the tears flow. Tripper
rushed over and picked her up in his arms and she cried for several emotional minutes
before regaining some self-control and continuing.

“And when he said he’d done it
before, to all of your girlfriends…you didn’t see his eyes. I believed
everything he was saying. And then he said specifically what he would do to
me…in intricate detail—he was in pre-med for a while, you guys, and I don’t
like the things he learned about anatomy.”

“He said some of that to me, too,”
Athena spat in disgust

“I was truly afraid,” Sarah
continued. “I mean, how many women has he done those things to? And what
things? He looks so normal, and he’s so well-known. I mean, who was going to
believe he would have done that? These past three months I have been living a
lie. I was trying to act like everything was ok. Because I so wanted them to be
ok. But he was getting more persistent. I thought something was going to…until
this virus happened. Since then I’ve been watching him, waiting for something.
I didn’t know what it was, but I was getting excited. I had several chances to confront
him, but couldn’t work up the nerve. And then when Athena and I were alone on
the roof, I knew what I had been waiting for. It was my idea to kick the winch
from the roof. He raped me and I wanted to kill him. Because I knew Athena was
next.” Sarah pulled back from Trip and looked up into his pained pale eyes.

“I never said anything because I—I
knew you’d never look at me the same, Trip. Because I like the way you look at
me,” she whimpered. “And more than anything in this world, I can’t stand the thought
of you not…I really need you to
want
to keep looking at me…but that
son-of-a-bitch was not going to do the same thing that he did to me to…to Athena…or
to anyone else ever again.”

She paused again and looked around
at the others. “I was never really ashamed of being raped, because I knew that
wasn’t my fault and that he was an evil bastard. But now I’m ashamed of killing
him. That’s not fair, is it? Does that seem right to you?”

“I think it’s natural,” Athena
answered. “I hope it’s natural. Because I regret it, too, and I’m mad about
that. He was a pig. No, that’s too kind. He was evil and he needed to die and
we couldn’t have him running around out there where there aren’t any rules.
There’s no telling what he might have become.”

“It’s still murder,” Sarah nearly
whispered and buried her head in Tripper’s chest.

“We’re under Quarantine, Sarah, I
think the rules are on hold for a while,” Calvin assured her. Several of the
others nodded agreement and Calvin sighed, “I was getting ready to do it if you
didn’t,” he finally admitted. “He was a danger to us all.”

“I think I was going to kill him
before
all of this,” Sarah admitted.

“So that’s why you were doing so
much target shooting before things went to shit?” Trip asked.

“Yes.” She answered stiffly, with a
sniffle.

“I thought it was because you were
mad at
me
about something.”

“Not at you. Never at you. At him.
Disgusted with myself for letting him do that to me, even though I knew it
wasn’t my fault. Outraged that I was being a victim rather than fighting back.
I guess I was training for what I thought I had to do, or might have to do
eventually. I didn’t do the right thing, and by not doing so, I let a dangerous
person stay out on the streets. I always thought I was a better person.”

“Hey, none of us thought he was
capable of something like that.”

“I mean the next day. I thought I
was the kind of woman who would go straight to the police and tell them what
was done and put the bad guy away. Instead…I kept silent. I couldn’t risk my
family and friends knowing I had done those things, even though it wasn’t my
choice, and I wasn’t even awake, or at least not aware. I couldn’t have them
see that. Because, what would they think? Would anyone even believe me? I mean,
he was Brick Jacobs. He was almost famous. I was alone with him while you were
out of town. You know how that looks to anyone outside our group? And you? I
couldn’t let him send that stuff to you. And I couldn’t have you going to jail
for killing him or hating me because of it. I can’t lose you, Tripper. I love
you.”

“I love you, too, Babydoll. And I
ain’t going anywhere. We do need to talk about it, though,” he added. “You
can’t keep something like that locked up from the people you love and if we
don’t deal with it, there’ll be resentment from you and suspicion from me, or
something worse and…and I don’t want that. Communication is the key. You have
to tell people and if they don’t care or try to help, they don’t need to be in
your life. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. We’ll get through this together.”

The couple simply stared at each
other for what seemed like at least two centuries to those watching.

“So my vents are safe?” Hephaestus eventually
broke the awkwardness by stomping towards the stairs with the vent he’d pulled
from the street earlier now resting solidly on his shoulder. “It is ok if I wish
to go up there and replace this? I do not have to worry about my ass ending up
in the alley on my back looking up at you two?” he asked Athena with a grin.

Nobody laughed.

“What? Too soon?” with a hearty
bellow he ran up the stairs, the two-hundred pound vent bobbing on his shoulder
as lightly as a if it weighed only a hundred.

The group sat around talking,
smoking and snacking throughout the night. They talked about life. They talked
about love and friendship. They discussed the future and the past and movies
and friendship and their plans for surviving the apocalypse. No one wanted the
night to end, each wanting to show their full support for Athena and Sarah. Slowly,
one-by-one fatigue took them all and they wandered off to their rooms for
sleep. No one mentioned Brick’s name again for some time. He was forgotten, a
bad memory that had faded slowly away with the influx of new, better memories,
like the zombie Armageddon.

Hephaestus and Quinn wandered into
the gaming room late the next morning and the eager look on their faces forced
Calvin to pause the co-op game for a moment.

“It is done, Calvin. It is time to
go,” Hef stated firmly. Both men simply turned and walked out.

A cheer broke out amongst the
collected friends and after some excited hugging and kissing, they rushed out
of the room to prepare. It was time to go, time to escape their dying city.

“I’ll call the others and tell them
to get ready,” Tripper called out, already halfway across the massive chamber
heading to the workshop, pulling his chainmail over a brown t-shirt.

Between the parents and the
military, the Fortress was packed and cleaned spotless by the time Calvin and
the others arrived to escort them to the Dungeon. Megan was still withdrawn, but
at least she was responding to outside stimulation again. Her eyes would now
focus on a person when they spoke to her and she would eat when they set a
plate of food before her. Other than that, she would sit quietly in a corner
until someone made her move. At one point Alex and the Worm even tried to
entice her into playing some of the games Tripper and Athena had taken the
Tesla to bring back, but after losing her boyfriend and slipping into this
poorly made horror movie, she had checked out of reality. Bringing her back
would take time and patience.

Mr. McClintock was better, but
still not quite ready. He would answer questions when asked, but would volunteer
nothing. He was frequently found staring at the pictures pulled from the boxes
he had brought along. Whenever someone needed a hand, however, he would be the
first to volunteer, his beautiful ivory teeth bared in a fake smile that was
always betrayed by the loneliness lurking behind his haunted, forlorn eyes. He
was sad and slowly adjusting, only truly smiling when the two children were
around causing trouble. Naturally, the other parents had tried to get Ed, Megan
and the children into the same room as much as possible. The children were
quite bright and quickly realized they were being used to help the other two
and were more than excited to finally be doing something constructive for the
people keeping them alive and fed.

Alexandria was still hopeful that
her parents would be found, but she had decided, for now, to pretend that she
was a lost princess on a quest through the mountains of India to find her lost family, who had gone down in a plane crash. The vehicles were their
elephant transports and everyone else was there to protect them from the local
tribes, who were uprising to protest the recent Toucan feather tax.

“What, the zombie Armageddon wasn’t
good enough for you?” Tripper asked her on the way out to the Paddy Wagon.

She looked at him as if he were
stupid. “Zombies aren’t real,” she stated snobbishly. “My Mommy and Daddy
always told me that.”

Tripper didn’t want to state the many
obvious facts in that statement to the little girl, since it didn’t seem to be
that obvious to her and also it would be quite cruel. He decided instead to go
with Calvin’s favorite tactic, reason.

“Why India and why Elephants?” he
asked.

“Because tigers are too small to
carry us all, duh,” she said as if he had become somehow stupider since his
last question.

“Why not Hippos?”

“Hippos are the most dangerous
creatures on the planet, dummy. They kill more people than lions do.”

“I did not know you knew that,”
Tripper admitted.

“Even my little brother knows that,
and he’s just a worm. I don’t think you really knew. I’m not so sure you’re
very smart, Tripper. That’s why you’re just an elephant wrangler.”

“You know what,” he spat haughtily,
forgetting reason. “Calvin is an idiot. I don’t think I’m going to talk to you
anymore.”

“Good,” she spat back. “I’m above
you anyway. Go feed the elephants, peasant!”

“As you wish, Your Highness,”
Tripper mumbled and stomped back inside to grab another box of supplies.

“Having trouble with the princess?”
Sarah asked.

“Sorry, can’t talk now. I have to
feed the elephants,” he replied dryly. “I’m apparently the Elephant wrangler in
these parts.”

“Hey, lighten up. She just lost her
parents,” Sarah explained.

“I get that,” Tripper said. “I’m
treating her like I would if she hadn’t. She likes it.”

“Oh,” Sarah conceded as she heard
Alex calling for the Elephant Wrangler to come and help her onto her mount.

“Fine, good luck with that.” Sarah
shrugged a surrender.

Mo came out wearing some of the
clothing they had picked up on shopping day with some silvery-blue chain mail
over it. She wasn’t happy about the colors, the material, the designs, or the
fit of…well of anything. She
had
found a makeup kit in the supply boxes
and after several hour-long showers had rebuilt herself to near-super-model
status. Boomer was following her around trying to make conversation with
several very heavy boxes stacked on his arms, making his already large biceps
bulge unnaturally. But she was pretending not to notice. Boomer, however, had
spent an entire year in theater courses and knew how to draw an audience. She
laughed a lady-like tinkle when he ‘tripped’ and sent both boxes tumbling over
one of the desks in the lobby as he rolled over the same desk and landed on his
feet, scooping up the boxes and acting as if nothing had happened. Nothing
spilled out because both boxes were well taped, and now he knew that she was, indeed,
paying attention. The lovely dealership manager shook her head and sashayed
down the steps and through the waiting doorway out into the street.

“You’re going to put your armor
back on before you go out there, right?” Calvin asked him.

“Uh, yeah. Of course, Cal. I was just…”

“I know what you were just.”

“Hey, nothing is gonna come. We got
the streets covered three different ways.”

“Pride goeth before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

“Who said that?”

“I did.”

“I mean before you.”

“God.”

“What?”

“It’s from the bibles.”

“Bibles?”

“Hebrew and King James. The latter
was born out of the former.”

“Right. I know that…what does it
mean?”

“Pride comes before the fall.”

“What?”

“It means put your damn armor back
on.”

Boomer sighed in resignation,
placed the boxes on the desk and ran back inside to get his mail shirt.

Outside, the parents piled into the
back of the Paddy Wagon arguing about who had won the last round of Rummy and
drank the last bottle of ’38 something or other. Where they had picked up the
rare wines, no one ever found out, but no one could recall having noticed the
Blue SUV that was parked in the back lot, either. Calvin made a mental note to
ask Batmouche about it later, but never did. The friends escorted the civilians
and supplies over without mishap. When that was done, they came back for the
soldiers and to close up the Fortress. Everyone took a moment to say their fond
farewell to the place that had protected them for the harshest week of their
lives, each wondering if they would ever see it again, or their fine city. But
it was time to go. The super vehicle wasn’t going to wait on anyone. It would, actually,
but no one wished to make it wait. In fact, no one wanted to stay one minute
longer than they absolutely had to.

Sometime around noon, they were all finally gathered together in the Dungeon and the rest of the supplies were stacked
outside the huge mural door, ready to be loaded. The vehicles had all been
moved to the far side of the massive garage, off of the turntable section and
Hef had moved each person into the exact spot from where he wanted them to view
the vehicle for the first time

Gimp Bait and GI Jane stood at the
back, each in thick, shiny, black leather armor and each highly impressed by
their surroundings.

“This is a house?” ‘Gimp Bait’
asked incredulously.

“It’s the small one, Gimp…er, Baldwin” Tripper lied for effect.

“
Tripper
.” Hef chastised
him. “This is not true, Private. It
is
one of my homes, but it is more
accurate to call this my workshop or factory. My other homes are in other
states and countries. One
is
larger, but this is where I spend most of
my time.

“No,
that
is not true,” Trip
argued. “Your big mansion is seventy-five thousand square feet. That’s pretty
damn big for a real house.”

“This place is nearly two-hundred
thousand square feet, Tripper Grissom. And the house you are thinking of is my
little villa in Italy.”

Gimp bait whistled, highly impressed.
The sergeant simply shook his head at the extravagances of the rich. The
Captain seemed to be a mask of emotionless apathy. G.I. Jane was already
bedding the man in her mind.

“Ooh, I’m so excited,” Felicia
danced on her toes.

“
You’re
excited? I’ve been
whining about this since the first time we came here,” Scaggs muttered dryly.

“I bet it’s going to be the vehicle
from Damnation Alley,” Tripper guessed. “What do you think?”

“Hef doesn’t like to do anything
that’s been done before,” Calvin pointed out. “You know that, Trip.”

“Bet it’s two busses joined
together into one massive vehicle,” Joel suggested.

“It’s got to be some kind of boat,”
said Lucy. “Any perfect escape vehicle has to float or it isn’t perfect.”

Tripper snorted. “We’re in the
Middle of the country. We’re landlocked.”

“We don’t know what it was
originally designed for. And we don’t know how far we’ll eventually have to
go,” she shot back. “What if the whole country gets Infected? You wanna just hang
around along the coast because we can’t go into the ocean?”

“It’s not a boat, Lucy,” Tripper
insisted.

“Screw you, Tripper. You don’t know
what it is.”

“I know it’s not a boat.”

“I know what it is,” Scaggs
interrupted them.

“Not again!” Tripper threw up his
arms in disgust.

“Sorry. I’ll write it on a piece of
paper and you can hold it and see if I’m right,” she grinned, handing him the
piece of paper onto which she had already written her guess.

“I saw tread pieces. It’s a giant
tank,” Gus stated firmly.

“Of course it’s a tank,” Athena grunted.
“It has to be able to withstand attack so it will be armored and that would
pretty much make it a tank. But what
kind
of tank?”

Flash!

Boom!

A bright light flashed. Thunder
shook the chamber, sending hearts into throats and weakening already too weak
bladders in several of the parents. The lights flickered and blanked out. The
mural of Olympus glowed in the dark, but now something moved within the scene as
well. The group oohed and aahed for the ceiling as well, finally viewing the
galaxy lights performing the function they were designed to perform. The
ceiling resembled a Hubble Extreme Deep Space Field Image of the stars,
nebulae, planets and galaxies, each celestial phenomenon sparkled and shone,
but did not spin or move about.

Athena whispered to Calvin, “It’s
all controlled by a computer. I ordered the programs and supplies. When the
lights went out, the big door rolled away and a screen rolled down while a projector
turned on and lit up Mt. Olympus on the mural, also changing the formatting of
the LED lighting in the ceiling. There’s also an actual Hubble Deep Field
snapshot overlaying the ceiling above to increase the cosmic feel.”

He nodded and grimaced.  “Thanks
for ruining the mystery,” he chided her, hugging her waist with one arm while
drinking a glass of tea with his free hand. The small glass contained regular black
tea they had found in the cupboard, but Athena had added several healing herbs,
honey and something that smelled of citrus. Whatever the blend, whenever he
inhaled the steam a peaceful calm spread over his entire body, and it wasn’t
just El Supremo blotting out his senses because he hadn’t smoked since the
night before. His senses
were
dulled, however, by the Hydro-somethings
he’d taken earlier to dull the incessant ache in his chest. The mind-altering
effects of the strong painkillers made it impossible to resist being intrigued by
Hef’s theatrics.

As the lights lowered, the
flash-boom repeated and in the ensuing artificial midnight, the waiting group recognized the flash as a lightning bolt that originated from the spear held by
Zeus and spider-webbed out into the universe above. The mighty grey-bearded
Zeus turned his grey-maned head and shining silver eyes blinked, seeming to
come alive. He flexed and turned his heavily muscled body and raised the spear
above his head, pointing it at the mountainside. With a mighty shout of something
the others assumed was Greek, mighty Zeus fired a lightning bolt into the small
door in the mural. Another crack of bone-jarring thunder rattled their bones. A
musical work of art that was surely born in the mind of John Williams himself boomed
through some massive speakers hidden within the confines of the warehouse-like
garage, blasting their senses from every angle. The light within the mountain
was extinguished and the other gods and goddesses were surrounded with a
silvery light and began moving about, before one by one flying off into the
universe.

With the next thunderbolt, the
mountainside shattered into cosmic dust and the entire mural disintegrated as a
large vehicle thundered through the mountain, charging into the chamber with
its massive engines rumbling in a very distinctive manner, six triple-air-horns
drowning out the thunder.

The ceiling lights came up as the massive
engine pulling four cars rolled past them slowly to the furthest point on the turntable.
It had been driving very slowly so the flooring ahead could pull back,
revealing the track. The video overlay and flickering lighting had combined to
make it appear to burst into the room at full speed. Several of the people
standing nearby had jumped out of the way and only now returned to goggle at
the strange vehicle. Hef hit a button to turn off the horns, and the music shut
off at the same time, leaving only the sound of twin 1,500 hp diesel engines
rumbling and echoing from floor to ceiling and back again.