The Sunshine Dame of Doom (17 page)

“An upheaval took place down at the power plant!” Mister Hedgiest informed by the big window, with urgency in his voice.

“Yes, I read the papers.” Shane replied. “It was more like an attempt to escape actually.”

“Whatever, I just hope you realize the unprecedented component of this incident. We’re having trouble keeping the population calm. Rumors are already flying all over town and people are worried.”

“I’m aware of that.” Shane yawned.

“I hope you’re still calm when this whole thing blows up in our faces!”

“I can deal with the situation, Robert. I’ve been through worse. I just don’t think panicking and hyperventilating will help matters. You suits love to freak out every time there’s a problem.”

He turned to face her “I’m happy you’re so confident. Because I think your measures are a total disgrace!”

“I’ll get everything back to normal in no time, but only if you don’t interfere. Just go back to your platform, deliver your little speeches and pretend you lead something.”

“You won’t talk to me like this!”

Shane turned and faced him as well. Her eyes caused him to retreat.

“Don’t forget who actually calls the shots around here.” She said.

“Don’t forget who made you.”

A couple of guys in uniforms knocked the already open door and entered the room.

“Don’t worry, Robert.” Shane spoke smoothly. “It’s a setback. I’ll deal with it properly, as long as you and your bureaucrats stay the hell out of my way.”

She turned her back on him and walked to the men, completely ignoring the minister’s furious look.

“Colonel Hartford and Major Talbot reporting, ma’am” One of them said.

“I love how you boys brag about complimentary ranks.” Shane spoke. “Now, I believe you have a report to deliver, colonel.”

“Yes ma’am. The insurrection in the power plant is fully contained.”

“Really? Can I have some figures?”

“Um… s-sure” He stuttered. “Thirty-five workers broke out of the monitoring sector, but we took care of them.”

“Would you kindly tell me how? And please, stop waiting for me to ask you questions before telling me everything.”

“Yes ma’am.” He mumbled. “Thirty-five tried to leave the premises, twenty were killed, but… fourteen escaped.”

“What about our casualties?”

“We lost twenty-seven soldiers in the explosion.”

“Oh yes, the same explosion that blew our dear weapons room to smithereens, is that right?” She asked.

“Y-yes, but we took care of it.”

“And I suppose I should sleep better because of that. A group of disorganized machine operators puts together an escape plan and nearly succeeds. Fourteen of them in fact escape and our arsenal is destroyed. I hardly call this
contained
. Do you, colonel?”

Hartford hesitated. “No ma’am.”

“We had a similar incident before, but we controlled it so easily.” Shane continued. “What happened this time?”

“They had help from the inside.”

“Not exactly a surprise, considering nobody in there is allowed to go outside. Can you please elaborate?”

“Two senior workers helped the rebels from two different sectors. But we took care of them as well.”

“You seem to take care of a lot of things, except for what really matters, perhaps.”

Hartford swallowed hard. Talbot remained mute.

“You said twenty were killed, fourteen ran away.” She continued. “If my math is not failing me, this results thirty-four.”

“Oh yes, I almost forgot! We captured one.”

“Can you make it with an
I.D.
?”

“It’s that freckled guy who came with Apocalily.”

“Excellent, finally something good came out of all this, not thanks to you, of course. And I assume you know what to do.”

“Yes ma’am, p
rocedure 39
is being applied as we speak. Further punitive actions are also in place to provide the population with the customary example. Everything is under control.”

“Nice” Shane sighed. “And I apologize if I was a little rough on you, colonel.”

“No problem, ma’am, we’re all under great stress, I totally understand.”

“Thank you.”

Then, Shane looked him right in the eyes. He was forced to return the look. A couple of seconds later, Hartford fell on the floor, his body twisting in a strange manner.

“Robert, call a doctor!” She ordered.

“Me?”

“Yes you. And quick, this man is having a stroke!”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I caused it.”

Very reluctantly, the minister grabbed the phone.

Shane stood face to face with Talbot. He froze in cold sweat.

“So…” She said. “It seems our beloved Hartford will have to be discharged for medical reasons. But don’t worry. I have this feeling only his brain is permanently damaged.”

Talbot glanced at his former superior officer.

“And I believe congratulations are in order!” Shane continued. “You’ve just been promoted to colonel and you’re the new squad leader. I trust you’ll put an end to this whole mess and recapture the fourteen escapees. Then, you’ll help me making an example out of them.”

“Sure ma’am.”

“Dismissed.”

Colonel Talbot turned around in a labored military fashion and walked out the door.

“The doctors are on the way.” Mister Hedgiest informed.

Shane approached him.

“See that man over there?” She nodded at Hartford drooling on the Persian rug.

“Yes.”

“Don’t forget we all can have strokes, especially at your age. Now, if you excuse me, I have a dinner to attend to, one that involves three lovely children and hopefully an Australian zombie.”

Shane opened a half smile, turned her back on him and gone she was.

After making sure she had left the building, the minister grabbed the phone again.

“Hello… Yes, good morning Harland, this is Robert Hedgiest. I’m doing fine, thanks, and you? Glad to know it. Listen, I need the codes for Termination Factor. Oh no, not immediately, but I’m afraid we are indeed in a Delta Status.” After a brief pause “Yes, by all means, I have the authorization numbers right here, let me check…”

At the local school, six parents were nervously waiting for the principal in her office. Two fathers walked back and forth while one mother poured coffee from a pot into a paper cup.

The remaining father and the other two mothers were sitting down, trying to entertain themselves with magazines. But they only showed Shane and Becky, much more of the first and less of the latter.

They all knew each other, even had a little chat when they arrived, to cope with the waiting, but gave up at a certain point, choosing to silently worry in the privacy of their thoughts.

Why had the principal asked them to come to the school at those strange hours, and only that specific group? Was it some kind of extraordinary and private
PTA
meeting?”           

Missus Hildenbrandt came into the room with a very dismal face, looking way older than she really was. All eyes turned to her.

“Good day to you all.” She said. “Sorry to keep you waiting, thank you very much for coming on such short notice. I apologize for that too, I surely appreciate your efforts. As you can imagine, a matter of the utmost urgency has arisen.”

“What’s wrong?” One mother asked.

“I’ll go straight to the point. I’m afraid something very bad happened and your children are involved.”

Once again, the pale and freckled body of Mate Clarkson was violently pushed to a wall.

“Alright, rusty boy, time for a little walk in the park.” Sheriff McBeattie said. “Load him up, boys!”

Two deputies dragged him to a police car and put him in the trunk.

“What are you going to do?” Mate asked in panic.

“You’ll see.” The sheriff replied and slammed the boot lid shut.

He drove about half a mile beyond the city gates before bringing the vehicle to a halt. McBeattie drew his gun from the holster, popped the trunk open and pulled the tennis player out. He slammed the lid shut again and hit the young man twice with the handle of his pistol, making him tumble on the barren terrain, still conscious though.

“Here’s the deal, friend.” The sheriff said. “You broke the law and now you must pay your debts with society.”

He kicked Clark’s stomach with his huge right boot and continued:

“And in order to do so, there’s nothing better than some good, healthy and outdoors community service.” He cleared his throat. “Some walking corpses will come to you and reduce you to pieces. You’ll be wide awake to enjoy it all, part of your sentence, you know. In ten minutes I’ll come back here to pick up your pieces and spread them around the Industrious Zone, to show folks there what happens to criminals around here. Well, court is adjourned.”

McBeattie holstered his gun, jumped to the police car, honked twice and sped away.

“Come back, don’t do this, please! COME BACK!” Mate Clarkson screamed and cried, but there was no one else to hear him other than zombies.

And they came fast, lots of them, snarling, growling, a huge circle of dead people surrounded the poor man. And this time, who was there to save him?

Creatures in all degrees of putrefaction had their filthy hands all over Clark. Exposed muscles and flesh mixed in a pool of reanimated dead organs, mouths and teeth about to tear his entire body apart.

The young man could already visualize his guts all over the place, with him still alive to feel the pain. Mate thought of his family, daddy, mommy and baby sister “Sorry I couldn’t reach you!” He sobbed.

Clark still had a few seconds to get a glimpse of his horrible death, but what he saw was something else entirely. A boomerang cut the air, together with several heads, causing a lot of creatures to collapse on the ground around him harmless and defeated.

And the device flew round and round, destroying beasts as it went, until finally landing on a fingerless glove, wrapping up an Australian hand.

“You seem to have a knack for this sort of thing.” Lily said in a mild laughter.

By using her two little knives, she opened way through the zombies to reach her friend.

“LILY!!!” He screamed with eyes flooding in tears.

“Good guess, partner!”

She was a brunette, short, skinny girl, but to him she looked more like Beyoncé, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Lawrence, all rolled into one, that moment.

“Sorry I’m late.” Lily said, stretching a hand to help Clark standing up. “I had some trouble escaping captivity, a kind of peculiar one I might add.”

However, a lot more dead people kept on coming, slow but steady.

The Australian woman reached into her sheath, took the hockey stick and began to assemble it. The creatures were closing on them fast.

“Why you always wait till the last possible second to mount your hockey stick?” Mate asked her.

“It’s an exercise of concentration.” She answered.

“Yeah, we also need this in tennis.”

And that was all she wrote. When the stick was ready, there was no much the poor, defenseless zombies could do. Clark snatched the two small knives from Lily’s belt and did some killing on his own.

“Are you sure about that?” She asked.

“Yes! I’m tired of being your comic relief.”

“Alright, let’s give them hell!”

“Um, by the way, we’d better do it in less than ten minutes. The stupid sheriff who brought me here will be back soon.”

“Okay, let’s wrap this up in nine minutes, what do you say?”

Eight minutes and forty-seven seconds later, McBeattie drove to the same spot he dropped Clark.

“Very well, pretty boy, time to pick up the garbage!” He said while leaving the car. “I want to see some guts, literally speaking, hahahahaha!”

But the only guts he found belonged to zombies. And none of them looked like Mate, not even remotely.

“
Whaaa
?!” The sheriff opened his jaw in a dumb face.

And before he could even consider thinking of the possibility to react somehow, Lily was already compressing the blades of her boomerang against his neck. He immediately raised hands right to the air.

“Clark, get his gun and point at him.”

“With pleasure” The tennis player did as told.

McBeattie’s eyes goggled and his lips twisted in weep mode.

“I usually don’t kill non-zombies,” Lily said “unless they make me. And you don’t strike me as someone willing to die for Shane. Well, are you?”

“Shane?” Clark whispered.

The sheriff was too petrified in fear to speak. He wanted to shake his head to say
no
, but if he did, his throat would be cut by the blades.

“You’re a little too quiet, aren’t you?” The Australian woman spoke. “Just blink once for
yes
and twice for
no
.”

He blinked twice to answer her previous question.

“I didn’t think so.” She said. “Then, you’re not coerced to do what you do?”

McBeattie blinked twice again.

“So, being a neo-nazi fuck is your calling.” Clark observed.

“It’s not that, alright?” The sheriff finally spoke. “I have a family, okay? I have to think of them! It’s hell out here! But in there, we got security, privilege, a chance to be how we used to!”

“And in return, you only have to torture and kill once in awhile, right?” Clark said.

“It’s not my fault, okay?” The sheriff started to sob. “Shane is not one to be messed with.”

“How Shane controls minds?” Lily asked.

Now, Clark definitely frowned at her.

“I’ll tell you later, lad.” She turned to him.

“Okay.”

Then, she faced McBeattie again to wait for an answer.

“It’s a rhyme.” The sheriff mumbled.

“A rhyme?”

“Yes, I don’t remember the exact words. It’s like a poem or something. She says it to a person and the bastard obeys her all along.”

“Some kind of hypnotism, perhaps” Clark divagated.

“Could be” Lily agreed.

“That’s how things work over there.” McBeattie continued. “If you behave, she takes you in and treats you right. If you don’t, she says the rhymes and you follow her every command.”

“So, you got all the breaks without having to lift a finger of your hand.” Mate said.

The cop didn’t answer.

“In other words, you go there and become a politician.” Lily concluded.

“And whoever’s not good enough to live in paradise is sent to your Auschwitz-like power plant!”

It was Lily’s turn to frown at him.

“I’ll tell you later, lass.” Clark spoke.

“Okay.”

Problem was, while they talked, more walking corpses approached. Never mind how many of them were killed, replacements always came. Lucky they announced their presence with a lot of growls.

“Um, Lily, we might have to go now.” The tennis player pointed out. “Our hungry friends will be joining us soon.”

“No worries, we just throw this guy here to them. While they’re busy feasting on him, we just waltz to the car and get out of here.”

“Please, please, don’t do this, please!” The sheriff burst into tears.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I said when you did the same to me.” Clark reminded him. “You didn’t seem to care.”

“I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry!” McBeattie wept. “It’s not my fault… not my fault… Please, don’t kill me! I got wife and kids!”

“Yes. And such a lousy role model you are!” Lily grunted.

They pushed the sheriff to the police vehicle and forced him on the driver’s seat. Living dead were slowly surrounding the car.

“Where are we going, Lily?” Clark asked.

“To the town hospital” She replied. “We have to rescue that woman we rescued from the zombies. I got a feeling she’s not being treated properly in there.”

“Got it.”

She turned to McBeattie and said:

“You’ll take us there smoothly and anonymously. If you even wink funny, I’ll either slit your throat and feed you to the zombies, or just feed you to the zombies.” She grabbed the walkie-talkie from his belt.

“Okay!” The sheriff said, wiping tears off with his hands.

“Now drive.”

“But those rotting things are blocking the way!”

“Then run over them.” Lily suggested. “Don’t worry; they’re not going to sue you.”