Generation Dead Book 2: What You Fear (9 page)

I got over it quickly enough.  The girl got to her feet and spat at the two of us, much to Jake’s amusement.

“Fucking heroes, huh?  You’re wasting your time.  You’re all going to die.  This is just the beginning.  You can’t stop us all.” Her words contrasted sharply with her elegant features.  She had high cheekbones, which framed a pert nose, ending with a full-lipped mouth that I could see men fighting over.  Julia caught me looking and gave me a stare that promised uncomfortable silence in her vicinity very soon.

Jake was staring, too, although I had a feeling he was wondering if the one he shot had been a girl, too.  I gave him a chance to find out.

“Why don’t you go check the other one for syringes or whatever it was they were using to infect people last night.  Be careful,” I said.

“Got it.”  Jake jumped in the truck and sped off, doubtless wanting to get to the body before someone else did, and started the whole outbreak again.

Julia smirked at the woman’s predictions, but then she turned serious.  “Take your vest off.  My blade is still contaminated from finishing off the zombies you made. Don’t make me scratch you.”

That earned Julia a sneer, although I noticed the woman kept her eye on the spear as she worked to get her vest off.  Once it was removed, she casually flipped it to Julia.  That move was a diversion as she jumped forward, striking out with her foot and landing a blow on Julia’s hip, knocking her back and causing her to lose her grip on her spear.

I whipped up my gun. “Hey! You looking to get killed?”

The prisoner laughed as Julia sprang to her feet. “Who might get hurt, pretty little bitch?” The woman taunted.  “Too bad your boyfriend has a gun or I’d teach you what it means to get hurt, right before I kill you.”  Her beautiful features were turning very ugly as she said this.

Inwardly, I groaned.  I knew Julia enough that she was not about to let this challenge pass, even though it was the smarter thing to do.  Julia brushed the grass from her rear and pulled out her gun and knife.  She held them out to me while never taking her eyes off her adversary.

“This may be a bad idea
,” I whispered, taking the weapons.

Through gritted teeth Julia hissed. “She deserves worse.”

“That’s my point,” I said. “Don’t kill her.  We need what she knows.” I backed away, keeping my gun pointed in the general direction of the woman in black, but away from Julia.

Our prisoner shook her pretty, evil head. “Think I’m a fool like you, stupid girl?  Big boy shoots me if I win or run.  No deal, although the chance to tear your pretty little face to shreds is
so
tempting.”  She crossed her arms and smiled, striking a taunting pose. 

Chapter 19

Julia didn’t say a word; she just walked up to the other woman and slammed a fist into her face.  The prisoner’s head snapped back and she fell backwards to the sidewalk.  She lay there for a moment while blood streamed out of her nose.  If she had been expecting Julia to bluster or talk, she found out the hard way.

Julia stepped back
and shook her hand a little, waiting for the other woman to regain her feet.  The white-haired girl scrambled to her feet, blood streaming from her nose.  The blood had gone down the sides of her face, giving her the appearance of a deranged clown as she bared her teeth.

“I’ll kill you for that, bitch.”  She spat blood and raised her hands, shifting forward to the attack.  Her stance was classic sparring, pretty effective against untrained foes.

Julia threw a look at me. “Stay out of this one, Aaron,” she said as she shook her hands and looked over her opponent.

I looked again at the other woman.  She was resting lightly on her feet, with her hands slightly away from her sides.  She had a sneering smile on her face, but that was the only part that was smiling.  Her eyes were cold and emotionless, and I knew she would kill without hesitation.  I knew also that despite Julia’s admonitions to the contrary, I would step in if I had to.

“Make it quick,” I said.  I wanted this over with, but I also knew I couldn’t stop Julia.  At least, not without some serious conversations later.

“
I
will make it quick, big boy. Better say…”  The woman never finished what it was I was supposed to say.  Julia had leapt forward, ducked, and lashed out with her own booted foot, which slammed into the other woman’s upper chest.  It was a classic move used against zombies, since it knocked the dangerous ends away from you, and not into you like a kick to the stomach will.  Aunt Janna perfected that one, much to Uncle Duncan’s delight.

The blonde in black actually left the ground and flew backwards a bit, and landed heavily on her back.  She lay there for a second, and then rose unsteadily to her feet.  Her face was twisted in pain, and she looked at Julia with a mixture of hate and perhaps fear. 
Hatred won the coin toss and she charged forward, punching in a straight line to Julia’s face.

I winced a
little, as I knew what was going to happen next.  I don’t know who trained Blackie here, but I knew who trained Julia.  Charlie James was a hard teacher, but Julia had been an apt pupil.

Blackie’s punch missed as Julia shifted to the side.  Julia’s right hand sunk into the other woman’s gut, and as she bent over, Julia’s left slammed into her enemy’s kidney, straightening her out again.  This freed Julia’s right to head north in an uppercut which cracked on Blackie’s chin.  That punch staggered her, giving Julia room to use a devastating punch her father had taught her.  It connected right behind the other woman’s ear, right where the neck and jaw connected.  Done right, it stuns and hurts like hell.

Julia did it right, and Blackie crumpled to the ground.  Julia bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, letting her excess energy bleed off.  After a few seconds, Julia rolled the woman over onto her stomach, and secured her hands behind her back.  That done, the woman was pulled to her feet.

At that moment, Jake chose to return with the truck.  He hopped out and scowled when he saw our fugitive was female and bloody.

“Damn, another one,” he said. “What happened to this one?”

“Uncle Charlie’s neck punch
,” I said.

“Ouch.  That explains it.  Other one is dead, by the way.  No syringes.”

“All right.  One last sweep and we’ll get her to the capital,” I said, relieving Julia of her prisoner.  I walked her over to the truck and literally threw her into the back, stirring up a great deal of un-ladylike cursing.

“I’ll ride in back
,” Jake said.” Maybe I can get some answers.”  He settled himself on a wheel bump and pulled his knife.

“All right
,” I said as I closed the gate.  “But be careful. Last time, you killed the prisoner, remember?”

“What? Oh, right.  St. Charles.  I remember.  Okay, I’ll be careful
,” Jake said, smiling evilly at a prisoner who looked back at him with big eyes.

I got into the truck cab with Julia, who immediately leaned in for a kiss. I obliged, naturally, and gave her a patronizing pat on the head.

“Nicely done,” I said.

Julia grinned and squeezed my arm.  “She wasn’t even trained slightly well.  Who teaches these kids these days?”

I laughed, but it got me thinking.  Who did train her, and why was she so willing to kill innocents?  I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like the answer, and since she was one of a pair, I wondered how many more were out there.

Great.  This mess just became more complicated.

Chapter 20

Thankfully, the trip to the capital was boring, and Jake managed not to kill our prisoner. I took longer than I would have hoped for, but there wasn’t any direct route we could take that would have made it any quicker.  Clearing the secondary roads hadn’t been a priority for the capital, leaving it to the communities to do as they pleased.

Julia and I didn’t speak much on the
way; each of us was lost in our own thoughts.  I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I kept returning to my father, and where he might be if he was still alive.  I wanted to believe I would know it if he had died, but it had been so long I wasn’t sure any more.  It would be nice to get some word one way or the other.

In the back of the
truck, I could see Jake talking to the prisoner, and it seemed like she was talking back.  That is, she was answering his questions and not being a smart ass. It wouldn’t have done her any good to try to rattle Jake.  He spent so much time rattling other people he was fairly immune to it himself.

The day had turned out to be fairly bright, although it was getting colder.  In a few
months, it would be relatively safe to go through the city and whack a few zombies if you were so inclined.  Winter was when a lot of families brought their kids to the city to see real live zombies without a great deal of danger.  It was a little crazy, to be sure, but the kids needed to know what danger was out there and to be able to recognize it if there was an outbreak near where they lived.  I didn’t know if there was still mandatory zombie combat training in school at the capital and other communities, but it would be a shame if there weren’t.  Ignorance invites oblivion, as Uncle Tommy used to say.

We crossed the bridge to the capital, and I remembered from my father’s journal what had happened here.  I shook my head at how close the original crew had come to losing the final fight against the uprising of zombie children.  Jake, Julia, and
I had come close to becoming part of them, and we would have if it hadn’t been for my Uncle Mike.

“Copper for your thoughts
,” Julia said, looking over at me.

“Just trying to work through a few memories, that’s all
,” I said, smiling back.

“Thinking about your dad?”

“Yeah, among other things.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but I don’t think I convinced her.

Julia put her hand on my arm.  “I miss my dad, too.  I keep expecting him to suddenly appear out of the woods, tomahawks in hand, looking as dangerous as ever.”

I laughed.  “Not quite the image I have of
my
father, but that fits yours pretty well.”

Julia laughed too, a beautiful sound in the truck cab.  She turned her blue eyes on me and said seriously, “They’ll come back, Aaron.  When we need them the most, they’ll be here.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked, not sure I believed it myself.

“It’s what they do, Aaron. It’s what they do.”

Chapter 21

I considered that as we entered the capital.  If our current situation wasn’t needful enough, I hated to think how much worse things could get.  We had a fringe group looking to restart the zombie apocalypse, a group of kidnappers that seemed to be shadows and smoke, and outbreaks happening all over the place and no pattern or end in sight.  All we needed now was another uprising of zombie kids and we’d be three exits past Royally Screwed.

I pulled the truck into the narrow streets of the capital and made my way up the small hill towards the president’s house.  I felt a little weird just handing Blackie over to the authorities, but that feeling was stomped when I thought about all of the people she had infected, and all of the kids whose parents would never be coming back.

Parking the truck, I threw a wave to the President’s bodyguard as I got out and received a nod in reply.  Jake got out of the back and lowered the gate, and without so much as a
‘Scuze me.’, he dragged the woman out of the truck and dumped her on the ground.  Grabbing her by the collar of her shirt, he pulled her to her feet, pushing her forward towards the fence gate.  I hadn’t seen Jake this upset in a while, and so I was very curious as to the extent of his conversation with Blackie in the back of the truck.

President Jackson, alerted to our presence by his guard, walked out on the porch just in time to see Jake dump the woman to the ground.  I could see he was not happy with the way a prisoner was being treated, especially a woman, but he was reserving judgment by remaining quiet for the moment.

Jake walked the woman into the yard then stopped, forcing Blackie to look up at the president.

“What have you here, Jake?  Why is she your prisoner?” President Jackson’s voice was very precise, to the point, and slightly irritated.

“To be fair, she’s your prisoner now,” Jake said. “This is one of a pair of individuals who was causing the outbreak in Freeport.  Her accomplice, another woman, died there.  We found this.” Jake held up a vial of dark fluid.  “I’ll give you three guesses as to what it is, but the first two don’t count.” Jake gave Blackie another shove, and she stumbled forward to fall at the steps of the porch.

President Jackson turned and spoke to his guard, who in turn spoke into a small radio.  In five seconds, four heavily armed men
raced around the house.  They positioned themselves round the woman, but I noticed they kept at least two of them between the prisoner and the president.  They moved very well, and seemed to be capably trained.  I wouldn’t look forward to a fight with any of them.

President Jackson spoke quietly, but his voice carried across the yard with ease. “Young lady, you are in a lot of trouble. For your recent
activities, you could be executed immediately, and I doubt anyone here would mourn your passing.  But I would see a cessation of these outbreaks, and you are going to give us as much information as you have.  You will decide how that interrogation will go, but I caution you against any bravado.  It will not serve you in any way.”