Zombie Fallout 5: Alive in a Dead World (20 page)

Mrs. Deneaux grabbed it before he could. She
started looking through the scope for any signs that the vamp was
dead. “I don’t see anything. How far away was she?” she asked.

Paul started counting off trucks. “Nine or
ten back,” he said proudly.

“That’s about a three-hundred-yard shot,”
Brian said, finally able to move without the threat of falling.

“Did you compensate for bullet drop?” Mrs.
Deneaux asked, moving the scope further out to look for Eliza.

“Bullet what?” Paul asked. His previous high
beginning to sink.

“At that distance, the bullet could drop
about ten inches roughly,” Brian said.

“If you were aiming for her skull, that could
still have done her some damage. Might have hit her in the
chest.”

Paul’s head sank.” I was aiming for her
chest, figured I had a better chance of hitting that.”

“Gut shot the bitch,” Mrs. Deneaux laughed.
“Bet that hurt.”

Brian thought her laugh sounded very much
like what drowning babies crying would. “We should really get out
of here now, I can’t imagine that anything good can happen from
pissing Eliza off.”

***

Eliza had been so intent on finding out why
her zombies had turned and what she needed to do to rein them back
in, she had not been anticipating an outside threat.

“This is Talbot’s doing! I can smell the
stench of him all over this!” Eliza spat.

“I think it would be best if we left him his
small corner of the world, Eliza,” Tomas said, smiling as he walked
with his sister.

“You did this!” she said vehemently, spinning
on her heel to confront him. “Without your help, that animal,
Durgan, would have killed him and we could be out exploring vast
new ways to torment the world. I will not be bested by a mere
man.”

“He is no longer merely a man, sister,” Tomas
added.

“No, thanks to you.”

Tomas shrugged at the jibe. “He has struck
you hard, Eliza. Most of your humans are either dead or have fled.
I beg you one last time, leave him be.”

“Never!” she screamed as she stepped out from
behind a truck and smack dab in front of a speeding bullet. Her mid
section punched in from the projectile as her upper torso bent
over. Tomas grabbed her before she could fall and pulled her back
behind cover.

“It is not a fatal blow,” Tomas said,
inspecting the wound.

The zombies around the siblings did not
advance, but they had stopped what they were doing and were now
watching them intently.

Eliza sat in her brother’s arms for a while
longer. The searing pain was something she had not experienced
since her human youth when a gang of Huns had trapped her in an old
barn and beat and used her for three days before they tired of her.
For the first time in half a millennia, Eliza doubted her
intentions. “Why won’t he die, Tomas?” Eliza begged.

“It is for something you have forgotten
about, Eliza: family, he fights for the lives of his family. He
knows no stronger bond.”

“Then that is the bond we must break,” Eliza
said as she stood up. The bullet had worked its way out of her skin
and the wound was nearly healed.

“Did you hear nothing I said?” Tomas fairly
cried.

“I heard everything you said. If we kill
Talbot’s family, he will follow closely behind.”

“Not until he exacts his fair measure of
revenge. He will not strike out if we do not corner him.”

“Maybe that would have been the truth at one
time, brother. No, we must strike while he is at his weakest, while
he still has family to use as leverage and while he is still
learning the powers that you bestowed upon him. You sealed his fate
when you bit him.”

There was nothing he could do to sway her
from this course, and when the final showdown did come, whose side
would he fall on? He still hadn’t made up his mind.

The cries of her humans had nearly died out.
A few trucks could be heard pulling away and zombies were spread
out everywhere, hunting for food, including the ones that had
stopped for a moment, checking out Eliza, to see if she would be
coming on the menu.

“We should leave here, Eliza, in case he has
any other surprises in store for us.”

Eliza made sure this time to keep under cover
and concealment behind the remaining trucks as she herded her
zombies back in. And on that highway was where she would leave
them, two thousand zombies, through the coming winters and summers.
Those zombies would sway forever, as leaves fell, as rain poured,
as sun soaked them, tied to Eliza’s last order to stand still.

“You’re just going to leave them here?”
Eliza’s first-in-command asked, as he swung the command truck
around.

“I fear that a couple of the zombies looked
at her with a less than flattering stare,” Tomas told the man.

The man wouldn’t miss them. It was tough to
feel sorry for the creatures that tore his wife apart in front of
his very eyes as she fell from the ladder they were climbing to get
up their apartment’s fire escape. He had thought about just letting
go and joining her, but he wasn’t brave enough for that. Not brave
enough to die and not brave enough to live. Eliza had come across
him a week later, still huddled in the far corner of his apartment,
covered in his own filth, too scared to even cross his own living
room to get some water.

She had promised him a chance to strike back
at those responsible for his wife’s death. Dean had never been a
God-fearing man, but he knew the devil when he came across it, and
the only thing missing on Eliza were the horns. It wasn’t that he
believed her words, it was what he knew she would do to him if he
didn’t join her. A coward is led. He felt this was his punishment
for not dying with his wife. He had seen and done more acts of
brutality, cruelty and evil in the last six months than any person
should ever be exposed to, and all in the name of Eliza. He knew
his wife was looking down on him, frowning, and that he would never
see her again. There was no place in heaven for the likes of him,
not anymore. Maybe at one time, he had the whole meek thing going
for him, now he was certain he was damned. If he had not thought
that, he would have killed himself months ago, but he was afraid of
meeting whatever it was that had spawned Eliza. So, afraid of this
eventual meeting, he had begged first Eliza and then Tomas to bite
him. Eliza had laughed cruelly at him when his request came.

“You would give up your soul so willingly?”
she asked, flashing her lengthened canines.

“More than anything, mistress,” he had
groveled before her.

“You disgust me,” Eliza told him. “The only
way I would bite your pathetic neck would be to drain you dry. To
watch you shrivel like an exposed worm in the mid-July sun.”

“Please mistress! Have I not served you
well?”

“Do not think I am fooled; you serve for
preservation, not loyalty.”

Dean withdrew; was he that easy to read?

“I can see by your reaction that I know your
heart,” she said. “Do you not wish to once again see this wife you
were wailing about when I found you?”

Dean sniffed, wiping his nose clean, nodding
his head vigorously.

“But you know now that there is no place for
you in your God’s heaven, don’t you?”

Dean nodded again.

“You think I’m cruel?” Eliza said through
thin lips. “How about your master that banishes his children from
his garden because they merely thirsted for knowledge! Or floods an
entire world because of acts from a few that he finds depraved. Or
allows the undead to walk among his creations, devouring them
because they went too far with the knowledge they had obtained?
That sounds cruel to me!” she yelled. “How about letting a man’s
wife be allowed into his heaven, but deny the husband entry!” she
said as she picked Dean up by a finger placed under his jaw.

The pain was excruciating as his entire
body’s weight was suspended by his jaw. Eliza’s finger had broken
through skin and was threatening to come up underneath his tongue.
He yearned for death at that moment, to be free from the pain she
was inflicting on him. He cared not what happened to his eternal
soul as she paraded him around like that for a few moments more.
When she finally pulled her finger away, he crashed to the ground,
staying there many moments longer, until Eliza beckoned him like
nothing had happened at all.

“How far, mistress?” Dean asked as he drove
away from the scene of carnage.

“Until I snap your neck or tell you to stop,”
Eliza said, staring straight through the windshield.

And from the mood she was in, Dean fully
expected the neck snapping to be the outcome.

***

Paul, Brian and Mrs. Deneaux worked
themselves off the bridge long before Eliza had made her departure
and were making as good a progress as they could. Brian was slowed
considerably by his injury, but it wasn’t like Mrs. Deneaux was
blazing any trails.

“Get in the woods,” Paul urged, “I hear
someone coming.”

“Is it Mike?” Brian asked, hoping that was
the case.

“Possible,” Paul stated as he ushered the
small group along. “But there were also a bunch of people running
for their lives from that raid.”

Mrs. Deneaux had just entered into the
underbrush as three heavily armed men rounded a corner on the road
up ahead. One of the men was holding his side like he had the
mother of all stitches from running.

“Hold up,” one of the men said. “I thought I
saw something.” He was pointing to where Paul and the others were
now hiding.

All three had assault rifles.
This will be
a small scuffle
, Paul thought as he tried to get his rifle
ready with as minimal movement as possible.

“Whassa matter, Vinnie?” one man asked the
cohort who was holding his side.

“I cut myself getting down off the truck,”
Vinnie said.

The man who asked the question brought his
rifle up to Vinnie’s head. “Lemme see the cut, Vin,” he asked.

“Come on, Lenny. I cut myself. Get that gun
outta my face!” Vinnie yelled.

“What are you two hollering about?” the
leader said, turning to face the other two men.

“Vinnie says he’s cut,” Lenny said.

The leader turned his gun on Vinnie. “You
know the deal, Vinnie. Let’s see it.”

“It barely got me,” Vinnie cried, “it’s more
like a nip.”

Vinnie collapsed to the ground as Lenny shot
him through the back of the head.

The leader butt-stroked Lenny. “You fucking
mook! You got blood and brains all over me!” he yelled at Lenny’s
prone body.

Lenny’s face was swelling rapidly; broken
blood vessels began to turn purple and blue. Lenny turned his gun
on the leader. “You ever do that shit again, Sam, I’ll blow your
fucking head off.”

“I hope you give me more warning than you did
Vinnie,” Sam laughed as he reached a hand down to help Lenny
up.

“I was really hoping they were going to shoot
each other,” Brian whispered to Paul. Paul nodded in agreement.

“If nothing else, it looks like they forgot
about us,” Paul answered.

Sam bent down and picked up the gun Vinnie
would no longer be using. They walked past the hidden trio, more
interested in what potentially lay behind, than to the sides.

“They’re heading towards our truck,” Brian
said.

“Should I shoot them?” Mrs. Deneaux
asked.

“No,” Brian said, “you won’t be fast enough
with that bolt action and I can’t even hold my rifle.” He left
unsaid Paul’s marksmanship skills or lack thereof.

“We’re screwed if they take our truck,” Paul
said.

“Yeah, we’re also screwed if they shoot us,”
Brian said.

“Maybe Mike is already back at the truck,”
Paul said hopefully.

Brian was in the midst of standing when Mrs.
Deneaux’s claw-like hand gripped his bad shoulder. He nearly
swooned from the pain. But it had the desired effect as he fell
hard to the ground. Brian was about to let loose a litany of choice
swear words as a small tribe of seven speeders ran by.

“Fucking Grand Central Station,” Paul cursed,
making sure the zombies were well past.

They could all hear the roar of an engine
start up ahead.

“Well that settles that,” Brian said. “We
need to get another ride.”

“This is all jacked now!” Paul said with some
alarm. He was beginning to break down, Brian had seen it numerous
times in combat. Some people just don’t deal well with accumulating
stress.

“I sure could use a cigarette,” Mrs. Deneaux
said.

“How is Mike going to find us?” Paul asked,
his voice rising over the sound of the oncoming truck.

Shots began to ring out, a large thud was
immediately followed by the screeching of tires and the sound of a
large heavy object hitting an immoveable tree.

“Should we check on it?” Paul looked to
Brian.

“Busted truck, seven zombies, two armed
hostiles, don’t see the up side, Paul.”

“We can’t stay here,” Mrs. Deneaux said
wisely. “That noise is going to bring more of one or the other or
both. And as much as I enjoy both of your company, while we lay
here in the grass, I would rather be sitting in a car with a warm
cigarette in my hand.”

“I can’t believe they just took our ride,”
Paul said angrily.

“I bet that’s not the worst thing they’ve
done today,” Brian said, getting up gingerly, his shoulder aching.
He could feel a flush coming on his cheeks and knew that he was
going to need antibiotics soon to fight off any infection the
bullet may have allowed to enter in to his body. The closest bottle
was in the truck that now sounded like Sarajevo, and not the good
Olympics one, but rather the war torn one of a few years later. He
thought to possibly wait for the outcome of the battle and then
finish off the survivors, no matter of what variety and grab what
he needed. But more speeders ran by as the three refugees melted
deeper in to the woods.