“What are you immunes doing here? How did you find our secret entrance?”
There was a moan and then something unintelligible. That earned a second kick.
“You don’t expect me to believe you just accidentally strolled up to our secret entrance, do you? I want to know who is giving you guys your information. If you talk now, I promise you won’t be tortured. We will negotiate with whoever is leading your little army against us and arrange your release.”
There was another bit of mumbling and the like that echoed off the walls and was absolutely impossible for Catie to decipher from this distance. However, she now had the information that she needed.
She pulled back before standing and then returned to the group. “There are five of them. They are on their feet and our people are on the ground.” As if to punctuate that statement, a low wail was heard from around the corner. “I want one alive. To make this easy, there is a woman. She is about six feet tall so you can’t miss her. She is wearing a lot of gear, so you might have to do a bit of a dog pile-on-the-rabbit with her. I want her. Kill the rest.”
Catie turned her back on the group and just hoped they would follow. By the time she reached that corner, she could feel them moving up behind her. So far, so good.
She held her right hand out to the side so it could be seen in the little bit of light. Opening her hand, she curled first her thumb and then each finger in a countdown. As soon as she was making a fist, Catie charged around the corner.
She almost stumbled when a roar came from the men and women following her into battle. The five individuals who had abducted their people all turned, their faces showing obvious surprise. Catie reach the first man who had a large mallet in his hand that looked like it had seen a lot of use over the years. He never had a chance to raise it as she brought her own blade up and slashed the man across his exposed and bare throat. The man was on his knees clutching at his neck as she passed; technically he was not yet dead, but she had no doubt he would be in just a moment, so she did not spare him another thought.
Catie did not really trust her inexperienced crew to take down the woman that she had chosen as the primary target. That meant that she would have to try and do that herself. Normally, that would not pose a problem and she would move in with all the confidence in the world. The baby’s series of untimely kicks caused her to actually falter as doubt crept in at the worst possible time.
She felt something grab her by the shoulder and she was instantly frozen with fear. She had been careless and the man she had slashed and then dismissed as soon-to-be-dead had obviously been hurt much less than she had assumed. She knew that she would turn just in time to see that mallet come down and crush her skull.
Instead, she saw Braden’s figure whip past her. Her eyes registered the fact that the man she’d attacked was indeed on the ground, his glassy eyes absorbing more of the light than they reflected. She now followed Braden with her gaze as he launched at the woman who was easily six feet tall and looked like an Amazonian wet dream. Her clothing was molded to her skin and showed way too much curviness. Catie instantly hated the woman and was certain that she probably dressed that way on purpose and knew damn well that she turned heads.
Braden zigged suddenly and almost ran perpendicular to the ground for a second or two as he shot up the curved wall of the tubed-shape tunnel that was this passage. The woman had no time to react and caught his fist right in the center of her face with an audible crack that Catie could almost feel.
The woman staggered back as her companions were being chopped down around her. She barely noticed and amazingly shook off what had been a very solid punch to the face. She pounced on Braden who had skidded to a stop and was shaking his hand in obvious pain. Catie was not sure who the blow had hurt worse.
In a flash, the tall woman had a blade in her hand. She lashed out at Braden who moved just enough to avoid most of the attack, but the blade still skidded up the metal bracers he wore on his forearms. Realizing that he still had a fight on his hands and that his opponent was not feeling any of the constraints of trying to take him alive, he danced back. His hands fumbled for the pistol-sized mini-crossbow that he kept on one hip and he brought it up, firing a shot at the woman’s above average center mass. It plinked off harmlessly, striking the studded leather corset that she had on under her animal skin cape.
Catie saw that the rest of the woman’s team were already down. She really wanted to take this woman alive, but not at the expense of one of her own.
“Hey! She-bitch!” Catie blurted, channeling a line from one of Kevin’s movies. “Come get some.”
The big woman froze and Braden did likewise, both obviously caught off-guard by the sudden outburst. Braden took a few steps back and seemed to be trying to determine which way would be the best to attack his opponent. Catie motioned for him to stand down.
“Are you seriously quoting Bruce Campbell?” the woman finally snorted.
“Seemed appropriate after you took that punch,” Catie took a step closer.
“It wasn’t that hard of a punch,” the woman scoffed. “He let his feet leave the ground too soon so there wasn’t really anything behind it.”
“Sure sounded like it hurt.” Catie took another step closer. She was now about ten feet from the woman.
“Yeah, well I’ve taken worse from bigger.” The woman shot a derisive look over towards Braden. “I fought in the Octagon for three years and have yet to meet somebody who could take me out with a one-hitter-quitter.”
“Seriously?” Catie gushed and then quickly recomposed herself.
“Look, I hate to say it considering my obvious disadvantage, but we ain’t here to make friends.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Catie said as she closed the rest of the distance between her and this other woman. “I think you know who we are…for the most part. I mean, we haven’t been formally introduced. So, let me start. My name is Catie Dreon. Obviously I am one of the people who display immunity to the zombie thing…infection…virus…whatever.”
Catie signaled for her people to back off a little. Everybody had converged on the pair who now stood facing each other. She could only speak for herself, but it was making Catie feel a bit claustrophobic in this giant tube despite the fact that the diameter was easily over ten feet.
“My name is Jessie Springfield,” the woman finally said. Folks call me Jess…mostly.”
“Okay, now that that is out of the way.” Catie looked up at the woman and could see the years of battle on her face. “I am pretty sure you don’t honestly want to die. And, believe it or not, I don’t want to kill you.”
“Not without a little torture first,” the woman quipped.
“You know, I have no idea what the hell was going on around these parts before I arrived, but I am so not like that. Believe it or not, I just want to live in peace. I am trying to make peace.”
“That is not at all what it looked like over at Montague Village,” Jess said flatly.
“We tried. They were the ones who executed every immune in their community as an answer to my request that we come to a sensible understanding.”
“And you are saying that you don’t want to fight us, that you want a treaty or some such nonsense?”
“That’s correct.”
“So you send a bunch of zombies at our walls?”
“Look, we can go around in circles about the methods and tactics of war all day. I am here to tell you that I just want to live in peace.”
“I will make you a deal,” the woman said calmly.
“You aren’t really in a position to make deals, but let’s hear it.”
“You pull back your zombies and then you personally come meet with our leaders.”
Instantly a series of protests rose from Catie’s people.
***
“This is stupid,” Braden whispered in Catie’s ear.
“”No talking!” the man with the massive two-handed sword poking up over his left shoulder barked.
Catie did her best to survey everything without trying to make it seem obvious that she was doing so. They had followed the tunnel for several minutes until they emerged from the sewers into a massive gated community. She had to admit, these people had chosen a pretty high end neighborhood to set themselves up in and create their home base.
What she guessed to have once been a park was now a series of greenhouses. She also saw an array of solar panels. She saw no signs of electric light, but that could simply be because it was not considered vital.
They were marched past another open area that had chickens, cows, and goats. Catie thought it strange that almost nobody looked in their direction as they were escorted down the open street.
When Catie had agreed to come along, Jess had made an allowance for her to bring one person with her. She chose Braden and told the rest to hold their position back at the manhole cover where they had entered. She made a point to emphasize that they were to wait until sunset the following day. If she and Braden were not back at that time, then it was fair to assume they had been killed.
“Send everything at their walls. Burn the place to the ground,” Catie told Mario.
“Okay, you have made your point, let’s go,” Jess had said with almost no sign of emotion.
When they had emerged inside the walls of the community, Jess had been greeted by a heavily armed group of men and women. They had come up in a dead end alley. Catie was fairly impressed. She noticed a huge gate at the end of the alley as well as a sentry tower to the left and right. If anybody did manage to find this supposedly secret entrance and follow it to this point, they would emerge in an open area with no sort of cover. Also, that gate at the end of the alley was heavy duty. It would take considerable effort and resources to break it down.
There had been a bit of an uproar when they first emerged, but Jess had shoved back one of the men who tried to rush forward with his weapon drawn. She had motioned the men and women to the far end of the alley, leaving Braden and Catie alone. Of course there wasn’t much they could do and absolutely no place they could go given the circumstances. When Jess returned, there were still a lot of scowls, but all weapons had been put away.
That was another thing that Catie noticed about these people. They were all well-armed with gear that would make King Arthur’s knights jealous. They all had leather armor that was inlaid with metal stud. Some of the men had gigantic swords strapped to their backs; others had what appeared to be well-crafted swords hanging from their hips.
Eventually, they arrived at a large building. If Catie had to guess, she figured that it had probably been some sort of community center. There was a reception area as soon as you entered. On the wall was a fairly detailed map that had to be the community. It showed the walls and had symbols in various places possibly indicating watch towers. She would love to get a closer look, but they were whisked past the large desk in the lobby area and escorted to a long hallway.
“In here,” Jess said, opening a door to a cavernous room.
Catie peeked inside. There was a Plexiglas skylight that allowed enough light in the room to be able to see. The parquet floor was dull and the finish had long since been rubbed away, but she recognized it for what it had once been: a racquetball court.
“Are we being detained?” Catie asked, pausing at the entrance. Braden had gone in first at her urging, but she was not in a hurry to be locked up.
“You are being kept here for now until you can be brought to the president and the head of our armed response team,” Jess replied.
“Fine, but just remember…the clock is ticking.” Catie knew that Mario would do what she had told him to do if they did not return. If this woman thought her order had been a bluff, she and the rest of these people would find out the hard way that Catie did not bluff.
The door shut and Catie gave the room a closer look. She didn’t see anything that led her to believe that they were being listened in on or spied on. There was a single window in the door, but she did not see anybody when she peeked back out into the hall. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see the multitude of scuffs on the walls and even the ceiling where rubber racquetballs had left their mark.
“This is stupid,” Braden repeated his mantra.
“I know, and it may be a mistake, but if we can just talk to these people—” Catie started.
“They don’t want to talk to us!” Braden interrupted. “They sent our messenger’s head back in a fucking box.”
“Hey!” Catie snapped. “Language!” She pointed to her belly.
Braden opened his mouth and then shut it with an audible click. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
The two sat down in opposite corners from each other and remained quiet. Catie took the time to shut her eyes. She drifted off to sleep wondering why they had not even bothered to take her weapons. Either they were very confident or very stupid. She had learned not to try and decide which one might be the case.
***
“Catie!” Braden’s voice broke through her dreams and yanked her away from Kevin’s arms. When she opened her eyes and fixed him with her glare, he actually backed up a few steps.
“If you would come with us, please,” a tall man wearing a Viking helmet with an enormous axe strapped to his back beckoned.