Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men (9 page)

“Put the gun down,” the older man said. “You just look silly holding it like that.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll still blow your head off.”

“Sure you will.”

Pouchon stepped towards me.

I didn’t know what to do.

I felt the jolt of the cattle prod on my ass.

Cadance laughed as I stumbled forward.

Pouchon took the shotgun out of my hands as he steadied me. “Sorry, Amanda. You’re in over your head.”

“Ya think?”

He smiled. “I still like you.”

“Put them in the stall with the others,” the older man said.

Pouchon looked surprised. “All three of them?”

“Deaf
and
ugly... wow.”

Pouchon opened the nearest padlocked stall, where I could see Julia and Sayra sitting in the straw. He nodded to me.

“Does he know you eat people?” I asked as I stepped into the stall.

“I’m an open book,” Pouchon said.

I sat down beside Sayra.

She was looking at me. And so was Julia.

“Are you alright, Amanda?” she asked. Her speech was halting and a little slurred, but I had not trouble understanding.

I leaned in and wrapped my arm around her. “Oh, Sayra... I’m so glad you guys are okay.”

“Now you girls get in the stall,” Pouchon said, grabbing onto Cadance’s elbow with one hand. He yanked the yellow cattle prod out of her hands with the other.

“This is a joke,” Cadance said. “Dad... what is going on?”

“Don’t call me that,” the older man said. “You know I don’t like it when you call me that.”

“Then fuck you, Fallon,” Tiara said.

I almost thanked her for not saying “feck”.

“Please get in,” Pouchon said. “Don’t make me bite off another ear.”

The two Allen girls stepped into the stall.

Pouchon closed and locked the gate.

“Now go get a shovel,” Fallon said.

Pouchon started walking towards the tack room.

I stood up and walked over to the locked gate. “How can you do this to your own daughters?” I asked.

“Step-daughters,” Fallon replied. “There’s no blood here. Just two whiny anchors around my neck that I’ll be shaking off momentarily.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “So what about the rest of us? Have you given any thought to letting us go?”

He laughed. “I see why Pouchon keeps talking about you, Amanda, why he almost fucked up the entire plan just because he thinks you’re cute.”

“I was thinking on my feet,” Pouchon called out from down the aisle. “Maybe if you’d been around to help, Captain Alibi.”

“Zombie or no zombie, you were supposed to kill her with the others.”

“Haven’t you noticed? None of these girls are zombies anymore. I’m guessing someone forgot to give them their shots.”

“I missed a couple days,” Cadance said. “It happens.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen anymore,” Fallon said. “I’m so glad you won’t have another chance to fuck things up.”

“This isn’t fair,” Cadance said.

“I think it is,” Fallon said.

Pouchon walked back down the aisle carrying two shovels.

“Yeah, sure,” Fallon said. “Like I’m going to be shovelling.”

“It’ll take twice as long if it’s just me,” Pouchon said. “That safe is under six feet of clay.”

“Good point, man. We’ve got half a dozen
macoutes
locked in their cells doing nothing. Let’s go grab them.”

“Let’s hope Cadance has been giving them their shots,” Fallon said.

“I remembered them,” Cadance said. “I wish I hadn’t.”

“We’ll be back, girls. You’ve probably got an hour or two before it happens. You should play charades or something.”

The two men walked out of the stable, closing the door behind them.

I heard Fallon curse. The stable door opened up again.

“Where the hell are the trucks?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Tiara said.

“Both trucks are missing. Trailers, too. What the hell did you girls do?”

“I don’t know what happened. They were here this afternoon...”

“Goddamn Kat...” he said as he slammed the door shut.

“I think we’re screwed,” Cadance said. “Even if the drugs have worn off on those guys...”

“Of course they’re wearing off,” I said. “That’s how Arty came to, isn’t it?”

“Yeah... so what do we do?”

She was looking right at me. They all were.

“I don’t have any ideas,” I said.

“I don’t understand,” Tiara said. “Why is our stepfather chumming around with the asshole who bit my fecking ear off?”

“And killed Rarity,” Cadance said.

“God...”

“Are they really going to kill us?” sayra asked.

“Probably,” I said.

“If we’re lucky he might ship us to the barracks instead,” Tiara said. “Maybe we can convince my father to let us live.”

“Your stepfather,” I said. “What are the barracks?”

“It’s where we keep the real zombies,” Cadance said. “The guys we have here are step one in the process.”

“Step one?”

“Three months of observation,” Tiara said. “To see if the treatment is working... to check if they’re suggestible enough. Then they’re sent to Kathleen at the barracks... for training.”

“Training for what? Mucking stalls? Making teddy bears?”

“There are no counterfeit teddy bears, you idiot,” Cadance said. “And you girls are supposed to be in charge of mucking stalls after this batch.”

“Then what’s the training for?”

“She’s building an army.”

“An army? What for?”

Cadance rolled her eyes. “What do you think she’d use an army of zombies for?”

“Beating back crowds on Black Friday?”

“To take over the government.
Gawd
.”

“But some of them escaped,” Tiara said. “Things have gotten right pear-shaped of late.”

“Escaped?”

“Yeah... two of them, hiding out somewhere in the woods.”

“So even if we get out of here, there’s a chance we’ll get attacked out there?”

“I would have expected them to hear us when we were out on the road,” Tiara said.

I sat down in the straw, leaning my head against the wall. “Fuck... me...” I said. I didn’t know how anything could work out. Everything felt completely hopeless, but I was too tired to cry.

And then I was asleep.

Sayra woke me up, shaking my shoulders.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Sayra said. “Something horrible. There were gunshots and screaming.”

“So we’re locked in a horse stall waiting to die and things may have just gotten worse?”

The stable door opened.

“Get out,” Fallon said. He was frantically flapping his arms at us.

“No way,” Tiara said. “We’re not doing anything you tell us to do.”

“Then sit here and get eaten. The
macoutes
are attacking.”

“The escaped zombies?” I asked.

“All of the zombies,” Fallon said. “A goddamn army of them.”

“So that includes the escaped zombies?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“How did they get here?” Tiara asked.

“Well, they brought back my horse trailers,” Fallon said. “Thanks for that. Pouchon’s trying to block the front door, but they’ll get through sooner or later.” He pounded his hand against the metal gate. “Shannard planned the whole thing.”

“She probably did,” I said. “One big dress rehearsal. But don’t worry... her body’s stuffed in Gary’s trunk.”

“Why would Gary kill her and stuff her in his trunk?”

“Gary may or may not be dead in the woods.”

“She’s not dead,” Pouchon said. “She’s not so easy to kill.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Tiara said. “Remember? Zombies?”

“We can just hide in the stall,” I said. “I’ll bet they won’t even find us.”

“Those
macoutes
can hear your goddamn heart beating. They’ll find us. If they have to pry these metal bars apart they’ll get in here.”

“So what exactly is your plan?”

“You girls will block them at the door. Hell, there’s a chance some of you might even get out of here.”

“That’s stupid,” I said. “There must be another way out. How do you get the horses out of here? They can’t fit through the front door.”

“I’m not an idiot. But I’m not leaving until I can get into that safe.”

“And how’s that going? Get any help with that?”

“Almost had my skull bashed in, actually.” He grabbed Cadance by the shoulders and pushed her against the wall. “Thanks for that.”

“I was hoping they’d kill you,” Cadance said.

“Someone else might,” Fallon said. “But I’m sure you’ll get yours first.” He threw her down into the straw. “And we’re out of shells thanks to you. Pouchon had to kill three of them by hand.”

“Poor guy,” I said.

“You girls need to get over to the front door.”

“Why should we listen to you?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t we just bash your skull in like you seem to be asking for, and head out the back?”

“Because Kathleen Shannard’s men will hunt you down and kill you.”

“They’ll kill you, too.”

“That’s why I need to get into that safe.”

“The guns,” Tiara said. “That’s what he needs from it.”

“There are guns in that safe?” I asked.

Tiara nodded.

“Then I guess we’d better get digging.”

We took turns, two girls digging, one girl resting, and two girls holding Fallon down in the dirt.

Pouchon had made a start before, but it was almost ten minutes before we struck the top of the safe.

We heard gunshots.

“I thought Pouchon was out of ammo,” I said.

“Do zombies shoot guns?” Sayra asked as she continued to dig.

“These ones can,” Tiara said, her knee still embedded into her stepfather’s shoulder blade.

“You people are seriously the biggest dumbasses on earth,” I said. “Let’s drug people up and turn them into zombies. Then we’ll give them guns and see what happens.”

“Most of them probably have machetes,” Fallon said. “In Haiti they gave machetes to the
Marinette macoutes
, since zombies have terrible aim. It’s much easier for them to just start swinging.”

“We should see if we can pull the safe up,” Julia said.

“You should be put on that, Amanda,” Cadance said. “You’re about the same size as a draft horse.”

Sayra and I started working to pry the safe up out of the ground, while Julia stood by to try and help lift it once it was high enough.

“Let me help,” Fallon said.

Tiara looked over to me.

I nodded.

She climbed off of her stepfather.

He reached down into the hole. “We bolted on a couple handles,” he said. “We’re not idiots.”

“Zombies with guns,” I said. “You’re an idiot.”

We pulled out the safe.

“What’s the combination?” I asked.

“I’ll just do it,” Fallon said. He started spinning the lock.

I held a shovel up over my head.

“What?” he said, looking up at me.

“I’m going to bash your head in if you try anything.”

“Makes sense.”

He finished spinning and pulled open the safe.

Inside were two black duffel bags, and on top of each bag was a handgun and a box of bullets.

“Do any of you little girls even know how to shoot a gun?” Fallon asked.

“It can’t be that different from using a cattle prod,” Cadance said. She reached in and pulled out a handgun.

I grabbed it out of her hands. “You’re not getting a gun,” I said.

“You think I’m going to waste bullets on your meaty ass?”

“I can shoot,” Julia said.

I handed her the handgun and kept the other for myself.

Julia ejected the magazine from her gun. “They’re not loaded,” she said. She reached in and grabbed a box bullets. “We’ll need as many of these as we can carry.” She started loading the bullets into the magazine, one at a time. She saw me staring at her and smiled. “My sister likes guns. A lot.”

I loaded my handguns the same way, with Julia checking things over before I popped the magazine back in.

“Are you really going to shoot them?” Sayra asked. “They didn’t ask to be zombies.”

“They’ll kill us if they can,” I said.

We put the boxes of bullets in the duffel bags, on top of what were wrapped stacks of hundred dollar bills; I would’ve expected more twenties.