THEM (Season 1): Episode 4 (9 page)

“That’s cool and all, boss, but what’re you going to do when that thing turns on you?”

I looked him dead in the eye and replied without missing a beat. “I’m going to put it down.”

Bobby merely nodded again, falling in behind me as I stopped to get my gear before we headed back toward the pawn shop where Gabby and Pancho awaited our return. Despite the revelations of the past few moments, only one thing was for certain, and that was the fact that I was tired of reacting instead of being the person pushing everyone else’s buttons. It was time to take some action and force our enemies into doing what we wanted for once. I began formulating the rough outlines of a plan as we jogged the now empty parking lots and streets, back to our makeshift safe house.

We were just a few hundred yards away from the pawn shop when we noticed the ruckus. I heard crashes, Gabby cussing in a way I’d never heard previously, lots of moaning, and gunshots coming from that direction. I took off at a sprint and Bobby soon passed me up. He had a good 25-yard lead on me by the time we turned the corner into the pawn shop parking lot.

What we saw when we got there almost made me chuckle, and I would have, if the situation hadn’t been so serious. There were decapitated and dismembered deaders everywhere, and Gabby was finishing one off with her kukri right as we strode up. She sidestepped and took a swing and a head went flying. She then kicked the twitching corpse away and whipped the kukri down and to the side to fling off the excess gore.

Bobby spoke up before I did. “Holy crap, Gabs! What they hell happened here? It looks like a Romero flick exploded all over the pawn shop parking lot!”

She smirked and looked embarrassed for a second, then blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and put on a tough expression. “Took you guys long enough—figured I’d have to take care of things myself.” I could detect a slight quaver in her voice that told me she was putting on a good show for us, but she was rattled for sure. She stooped down and wiped the blade of her kukri on the shirt tail of a headless corpse, and I noticed her hands shaking slightly.

I knelt down in front of her and put a hand on her shoulder. “What happened, Gabby?”

She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of one sleeve. “Well, about ten minutes after you guys left that
pendejo
kept whining about how he needed to pee. So, I unlocked the chain and collar you’d made for him, and started to escort him to the head.” Bobby snickered at that, and I hushed him with a hidden gesture of my hand.

I could hear him mumbling behind me. “Well, it just sounded funny is all.” I gave him a harsh look over my shoulder. He raised his hands in a conciliatory manner. “Okay, okay, not the time for humor. I get it.”

Gabby continued. “So, as soon as I start walking him down the hall, he donkey kicks me and takes off for the back door. I fall ass over teakettle in a heap, then roll up to my feet and take off after him.”  Bobby snickered again and then stifled it. Gabby paused and stuck her tongue out at him.  “Then that
cabrón
hits the back door and flings it wide open, and hauls ass off into the night. But before I even get to the door, deaders start pouring into the place from out back.”

I furrowed my brow at that. “Just from the back entrance? They weren’t trying to get in any other way?”

She shook her head. “Nope. It was like they were expecting Pancho to make a run for it, like it was planned or something. Once they started pouring in the back, I tipped over some shelves to trip them up and made a—whaddyacallit? A tactical retreat—yeah, that’s it—to the front door.”

I nodded. “Smart girl. Then what happened?”

“Well, they came around front from the outside. I could see them shuffling around through the windows, and I had about half a dozen at least coming at me from the back room. So, I busted the front door open and started cutting them down as they approached, just like you taught me. I kept ’em stacked up two or three in a row so they couldn’t come at me all at once, and just lopped off limbs and heads and kept moving. Donkey took a few out inside the shop by kicking and trampling them all to hell, and pretty soon it was all clean up. That’s about when you guys arrived.”

“What about the gunshots?” I was curious as to whether or not it was her who had fired the gun.

She shook her head. “Wasn’t me. I know better than to start shooting at deaders in the middle of the night. When those shots rang out I was busy cutting down one of those tough ones, and then I heard a gun go off and felt a bullet whiz past my head. I finished with the Z I was messing with and turned around to see a deader with a bullet hole clean between the eyes on the ground not ten feet behind me. Must’ve been sneaking up on me; I guess somebody decided to be nice for a change and give a stranger a hand.”

I squeezed her wrist and smiled. “You did good, Gabby, real good. Now show me that deader, the one that got shot.”

She stood up and walked about 20 yards, then pointed at a corpse that was sprawled at an awkward angle. I examined it and found a bullet had creased it right behind the ear. Another had entered the forehead between the eyes and blown out the back of the deader’s skull. I could only guess, but from the angles I’d have to say the shooter was on the roof of the gun range next door. This meant that someone was keeping an eye on us—or more specifically, on Gabby.

I gestured for them both to stay where they were. “Give me a sec. I want to check something out.” I trotted over to the gun range and climbed onto a car that sat adjacent to the building. The building itself was an empty shell, as such businesses were the first to be ransacked when the famine riots started. I doubted there was even a spent shell inside.

I vaulted onto the roof and searched around, finding evidence that someone had used it as an observation perch. I also found an empty 7.62 shell casing, still slightly warm. But whoever had been up there was long gone.

I hopped back down and jogged over to Gabby and Bobby, noting the increasing sounds of low moans in the distance as I strode up to them. “Alright, this safe house is burned for sure. Let’s gather up our gear and post watch on top of those storage buildings a block over. Then, once it gets light we’ll take off after Pancho. I have a sneaking suspicion that this was a planned attack to bust him loose, and that he’s headed to tell the ’thropes what we’re up to.”

Bobby raised a hand. “There’s just one problem with all that, Scratch. Zombies don’t work in packs.”

I chewed my lip and nodded. “I once thought that way too, but I’ve seen evidence over the last few weeks that says they still have some form of lower reasoning. I’ve also seen them react to Donnie on more than one occasion, almost as if they were following his commands.”

Gabby chimed in. “You mean that creepy thing you say keeps following you around?”

I nodded. “Yep. And if he can control these things, it makes me wonder if there are others out there who can do the same.”

Bobby looked unconvinced. “Okay, let’s just say that’s true. Then the Z’s are working with the ’thropes?”

I shrugged. “Or whatever has the power to control them. One thing’s for certain though; until Pancho actually makes it to the ’thropes, they aren’t going to know what we’re up to. So, first priority is chasing him down, and then it’s going to be tearing those ’thropes a new one and getting the settlers out safe. But for now, let’s just get some rest until first light.”

We gathered our gear and stowed it up on the roof of the storage facility, tucking Donkey safely inside the building. I had Bobby take first watch. My mind was reeling with the implications of the night’s events, but just one thing was on my mind, and that was getting Kara back and keeping her safe. If what Donnie said was true, she’d be a target for the ’thropes and that vamp until I took them out of the picture for good.

With single-minded devotion to the task at hand, I pulled out the maps Donnie had given me and began studying them in earnest under the pale moonlight. Far in the distance, a wolf howled, slamming home my suspicions that we were in a race against time. In defiance, I whispered out a warning to the night.

“I’m your Huckleberry. And I’m still coming for you.”

This concludes Season 1…

This concludes THEM Season 1…

Continue the story with Scratch, Gabby,
The Doc, and Bobby in Season 2!

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M.D. Massey has been a soldier, an emergency room technician, a fitness trainer, a truck driver, a martial arts instructor, a cook, a consultant, a web designer, and a security professional. He also spent six weeks in law school before deciding that, if he was going to lie for a living, he’d do it honestly as a fiction writer. M.D. lives in Austin, Texas with his family and a huge American Bulldog who keeps him company while he writes the sort of books he likes to read.

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