After a few minutes, the dead dropping down the hole slowed to a trickle. The moon was up and bright. Cooper slowly crept off the ladder and clicked his gun a few times in order to drop a few stragglers. He helped Dale along until they were both safe on the side of the hole.
“You saved my ass again.” Dale was having trouble making any progress at moving forward, even with help.
Cooper ignored the comment but sat next to him and was quiet for a minute.
“I killed two men just now. I felt like crying for a while, but…I don’t know. I think I’m OK with it. At least for now.” He turned to face Dale. “Have you ever killed someone?”
That was a question people asked soldiers and cops all the time, and it pissed them off. Of course, if someone had just taken a life and was asking that question to get help dealing with it, that was a totally different story.
“Two. Line-of-duty shootings. Completely justified but still, something I had to deal with. You know, when a cop shoots someone in the line of duty they’re required to get counseling, and I can tell you it helps. It helps because you’re dealing with it in your own way. It’s not good to hold it in.” Then he added, “It’s OK to cry about it. I did many times. It doesn’t make you less of a man, it makes you more of a human.”
“How should I feel about it?”
“There is no right way. I mean, if you either enjoyed it or let it destroy you that’s not right. Everyone feels and deals differently. Maybe it’ll never bother you. Maybe you’ll be so sure that you did what you had to do that you’ll never have a problem.”
“I hope. I know if I hadn’t killed them they would have killed you, then me, then everyone in that garage.” Cooper looked at his feet as he sat. “Well, I feel OK about it now. I hope it stays that way.” He stood to try to help Dale walk, when he heard footsteps in the dark.
It was Ana and a group of people. She let out a little squeal as she ran to Cooper. Everyone shushed her at once, which ironically made more noise than she had. She threw her arms around Cooper and hugged him. Cooper hugged her back. It felt great to hold her again.
“I take it you know each other,” Dale said with a smile. “Or do all women act this way when they lay eyes on you?”
Ron came up, still looking around warily after the squeal. “Let’s get everyone inside and settled. We can make introductions later.” He grabbed Dale’s arm and helped him stand. Cooper took the other side and they walked to the structure.
Ana helped by standing on Cooper’s other side with her arm around him. “Are you hurt?”
Dale chuckled to himself. He was smiling despite the pain.
How cute are teenagers and their crushes? I guess the old guy with the tourniquet and the blood running down his leg just doesn’t warrant the attention the cute boy does.
They all piled on the elevator and ascended into sanctuary, as Ron was calling it. The name didn’t seem to be catching on. They drove up to the top floor while Donna and Ana raced to the top.
With supplies from the ambulance, they cleaned wounds and patched things up the best they could. Dale was OK. He should have had a few stiches, but butterfly bandages had to suffice. Sal was a different story. He still had bullet fragments in him and they had to come out. Among the supplies in the ambulance was a small supply of morphine. Sal needed most of it. He was comfortable for the short term, but he needed real medical attention very soon.
It was a somber night at the garage, but there was still much to be grateful for. The group talked, ate, and relaxed. Later Jeff arrived, and introductions were made.
“I have a feeling you had something to do with the swarm of dead that arrived,” Ron said.
“Remember when Bill attracted every corpse within ten miles?” Jeff said between mouthfuls of Doritos.
“That’s right, you drew them all away.” Ron looked at Cooper and Dale but pointed at Jeff. “I’ve got to tell you some incredible stories about Jeff.” He told them all about the shower, how Jeff had taken the ramps down, and how he got the van out of the hole. Jeff wandered away halfway through, bored and wanting to tinker at his tables.
Briefly, Ron was happy. There was much to be grateful for, but the problems they had to deal with were always on his mind. He rubbed the rope burns and bruises on his neck and wondered if there were more bikers out there in the dark, and if so, how many? He was mulling over their options when Donna came and plopped on his lap.
“Hey, hero,” she whispered in his ear. “Maybe it’s the wine speaking, but I want to marry you.”
“I’m not sure we’re safe here.” Ron looked her in the eye and whispered, “I don’t know if there are still bikers out there.”
“Way to ruin the mood.” She smiled. Then seriously, “What should we do?”
Cooper, sitting close to Ron with Ana on his lap, piped up. “I saw at least two get away. They walked toward the runways.”
“I counted four bodies out there.” Ron closed his eyes and laid his head back. “Originally there were only three bikers.”
Dale reclined on a sofa, his leg on a box to elevate it, listening to the conversation. He reacted to the last comment.
“Originally? What do you mean?”
“Me and Sal ran into three of those bikers. We had a run-in with them and got away.” Ron looked down, thinking he was finished, not realizing that everyone could tell there was more to the story and was waiting for him to speak. He was brooding over his reluctance to share, but after how Mary had opened up to the group he felt guilty not doing the same. This was his family now.
Donna put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s OK, tell them.”
Ron looked up, startled everyone was looking at him, and realized this was the time and place to come clean.
“They tried to kill me, and Sal saved me.” He looked back down. The group was just starting to murmur, but he cut them off.
“There’s more. It’s hard for me to admit. I’m afraid this is all my fault.” Emotion choked his words. “I sabotaged their bikes to get away.”
Comments of reassurance started to fly. He cut them off again.
“No, I could have made it so we got away clean, maybe the bikers would be pissed off, but I…I did a number on their bikes.”
Donna’s eyes went wide. “Ron, what did you do?”
Ron explained what had happened. It was difficult. He felt like he’d made a foolish decision that had endangered the group and gotten Sal shot.
“Holy shit!” Everyone jumped. It was Jeff, who’d wandered back over to the group. “Oh my God!” He was laughing loudly. His outbursts were always startling because he was usually so quiet, or gone altogether. He broke the somber mood of the group. Everyone started laughing.
“That was classic!” Jeff was wiping tears from his eyes with his sleeves. He was holding a weird set of tweezers and a circuit board.
“And you made fun of me for risking my life for Doritos. I will never let you forget this!”
Ron was laughing and it felt great. Everyone chuckled.
“OK, guys.” Dale had been laughing hard too, but piped up. He knew the seriousness of the situation better than anyone. “Ron wins the award for most entertaining way to become number one on a psychopath’s dance card, but we have to make a decision and act very soon.”
“I saw at least seven.” Jeff was back to serious and quiet. “There are four bodies down there right now, so maybe three running loose.”
“We all need to get out of here now.” Cooper stood, moving Ana off his lap. “We can find a place to lay low nearby and watch from a distance to see if they return.”
“We didn’t have a lot of time for introductions, but I was an undercover cop before all this began.” A positive murmur floated around the group as Dale spoke. “I worked undercover with an outlaw gang in Nevada. These guys are going to return very soon, kill the men, and take the women as sex slaves.”
That was enough to galvanize everyone to action. Ron’s first thought was,
How are we going to move Sal?
But it turned out not to be as hard as expected. They drove him to the elevator and put him in the ambulance. Then they all drove over to the office park, less than a mile away, and Jeff let them into a building. Now someone needed to move the ambulance, and then they would talk about the bikers.
§
Banjo and Jack stood halfway across the parking lot in the dark. The moon was bright and they could see well. They watched as an ambulance pulled away from the garage. They walked back to the truck.
“Looks like they’re bugging out,” Jack said as he got behind the wheel.
“I still owe someone a lynching.” Banjo was looking out at the dark. He wasn’t feeling good about the fate of his brothers. He was wondering who all the people at the garage were.
“I’d be inclined to just move on, but that spook trashed our bikes.” He hung his head out the truck window as they made their way slowly across the lot. They were going to follow the ambulance, no question. The real question Banjo had was,
Do we search the garage first?
Suddenly he came upon a body, then another, and more still. These were the zombies killed in the fight, but then he came across two bodies side-by-side with evidence of leather vests and heavy boots. They got out of the truck with a small light and examined them. It was Muscle and Acid. Jack knelt and looked them over.
“Shit, look at this. The dead didn’t get them.” He pointed to a small round hole in the back of one skull. There was an identical hole in the other.
“The zombies ate ’em, but they didn’t kill them.” He and Banjo stood together, and Jack looked him in the eye. “Some asshole executed my brothers.”
“My brothers too,” Banjo added. “This is beyond trashing some bikes. I will not rest until their deaths are avenged.”
They walked over and found Jeeter and Fats. Jeeter’s body was torn to pieces and scattered. Fats was still in one piece. Banjo walked over to his corpse and stood over it.
“Look at this. Fats was so fat the zombies couldn’t finish him.” He chuckled. “Good old Fats.” There was no evidence of foul play on these two, but they didn’t rule it out.
There was no sign of Weed. They assumed the worse, but Banjo offered up, “Maybe he floated away and we’ll find him when he comes back down to earth.”
Jack didn’t laugh. Banjo quickly added, “No offense, man. It’s just the way we would’ve handled this.”
“No, no, it’s all good. Funny too. I was just lost in thought. You know, Weed was old. I mean, he could take care of himself, but he was old and his brain was getting a little fried. If we can’t find his body, I ain’t comfortable leaving. It says to me he may be around hiding or trying to make his way back to the Costco. I have to keep looking, for a while at least.”
“Sure.” Banjo shook his head. “Sure, but we can’t let the coon get away either.”
“True. Why don’t you follow them and come back here when you find them. Or not. I need to look for Weed. I was his prospect. He’s the reason I got patched in.” He started walking off.
“Cool.” Banjo got in the truck and took off toward the last place he’d seen the ambulance. He had to drive around a bit, but finally he saw it. The damn thing crossed over the street he was on. He sped up to catch it. He tailed it for over a mile before it turned off into a lot and parked. He watched the driver door open, and someone got out. He couldn’t tell who, but it didn’t matter. He was going to fuck up anybody he met tonight.
Banjo got out of the truck, grabbed Old Crow, and followed the figure at a distance. Old Crow practically hummed in his hands. It seemed to vibrate with anticipation. Crow, Banjo discovered, liked cracking living skulls more than dead. He couldn’t wait to introduce old Mr. Crow to a brillo head.
But wait, sorry Crow, we have to noose this one. It’s the right thing to do. I promise, we see any other jigaboos you will get first crack at them—pun intended.
§
Sal couldn’t speak he was so drugged up, but at least he wasn’t in pain. He couldn’t walk either, and it took everyone to get him into the office.
Quickly, they emptied every useful item from the ambulance. They needed to get it away from their hiding place as fast as possible. There was a good chance the bikers had seen it, and it was too unique a vehicle to leave anywhere near where they were staying. They had a quick debate about who should move it, and Cooper and Jeff insisted they be the ones. As they were leaving, Dale stopped them.
“Hey, you guys should have this.” he held his gun out to them. Jeff took it, as Cooper already had two guns.
Cooper also had Tug’s pistol in his fanny pack. He’d almost forgotten about it. He stuck it in the fanny pack and wore it behind him like he’d done with his pistols before he made the tethers. He gave it to Dale, who looked at it, took it apart, and made sure it was functioning properly and had the right ammo in it.
“Wish I could clean it, but it should be OK. It’s got the right ammo in it, which is good. It’s common for idiots to load the wrong ammo. They end up blowing their hand off.”
Jeff and Cooper took off in the vehicle. They drove slowly, as all the lights had been blacked out and visibility was tough in the area. There were large trees lining the streets that blocked the faint moonlight. They chatted about various things and found they had very little in common as far as background and upbringing.
“I think we’re being followed.” Jeff was in the passenger seat and helping navigate.
Cooper looked in the rearview mirror. He started to speed up. “What? What should I do?”
“Slow down, don’t let them know they’ve been seen yet. I can’t make it out in the dark, but there is a vehicle back there.”
“So I can’t try and lose them?”
“Come on, we’re two smart guys. We can do better than that.” Jeff smiled.
“OK, we don’t know who it is. Could be another survivor or the bikers, so I say we find out who it is first.” Cooper kept the vehicle at a steady speed.
“Yes,” Jeff said, deep in thought. Both guys kept their eyes on the vehicle behind them while keeping a watch ahead as well.
“It took the last two turns same as we did,” Cooper reported, even though he knew Jeff already knew. He was just too nervous and had to talk.