CHAPTER SEVEN

All three of the strangers were silent for a long moment, before one finally stepped forward and looked Liza right in the eye. He had a curly mop of hair and the look of a young man who took to chain-smoking cigarettes as any solution to his problems. But he wore a ghost of a smile as he stuck out a hand towards Liza, showing his gratitude for her and Jay saving him and his comrades. After a couple of more hesitant seconds, his two companions moved forward as well and offered their hands to shake to their two rescuers.

"Sorry about that," the curly-haired guy said, seeming a little embarassed that they'd had to be rescued from seven zombies. "We were going to get some food, and . . . It was an ambush . . . We barely escaped enough to run but they were right behind us, and we had limited ammo and . . . We thought we were screwed until you guys showed up. My name is Daniel."

Jay locked eyes with one of the other two strangers, a young brunette woman who was wearing a dress covered in blood, oddly enough. "My name is Arielle. Nice to meet you. The pleasure is all yours, blah blah blah . . . " She took out a cigarette and lit it up and the corners of Jay's mouth twitched in a smile.

The third stranger hesitated, then leaned close to the Daniel guy and spoke into his ear in a low voice. Daniel blinked, momentarily surprised by whatever the man told him, and then gazed at Jay with grim eyes. Jay hoped the man wasn't going to try to kill him, because if he did, his handsome face would never be handsome again. Jay would make sure of that. He didn't like the way the guy looked at Liza, anyways. The third stranger gave an awkward smile, as if he was forcing himself to be nice and calm, and finally introduced himself simply as 'Phil'.

As Jay and Liza smiled and were about to introduce themselves as well, Jay could feel the eyes of all three of the newcomers burning holes in him. It was as if . . . No, they couldn't know about the bounty on Jay's head, could they? It wouldn't have reached this far out here, the news of the bounty. He had slept with the daughter of the leader of the Detroit city-state and the man hadn't taken too kindly to that. The Rider had killed eight men and had recieved a gunshot wound to his leg when he had had to escape from the city. The Detroit leader had placed a bounty of seven assault rifles and two hundred mags of ammunition on Jay's head to bring him back . . . dead or alive. He could feel his heart pounding as he stared straight into Daniel's searching gaze.

"Jay . . . " Daniel said, pretending to be thinking. "That name doesn't sound familiar. Could you be known by another name, like the Rider or something like that? Phil here says he recognizes you from the Detroit outpost. Said you kind of fit the description of the Rider..."

Jay's lips parted in a snarl which he managed to turn into a friendly smile. "Hell no . . . That Rider guy sure is scary though . . . Nah, I'm just Jay, and this is my . . . " He sent a sideways loving smile towards Liza. "This is my wife Eliza, or Liza as she likes to be called . . . "

Liza raised an eyebrow at the 'wife' thing, but just smiled back and Jay glanced away guiltily. She snorted a mirthless laugh and looked directly into Daniel's eyes. "What do you think you'd do if he was the Rider anyway? The Rider is fast and deadly with a pistol and . . . " She smiled at Jay again. "Sexy as hell. Or so I've heard." Then she aimed her pistol right at Daniel's gut. "So, what'd you do if he was the Rider?"

Daniel went pale as milk, eyes flicking back and forth between Liza and Jay nervously. He almost reached for his pistol, but he knew Liza would and could kill him. His courage was fading away fast. He thought fast. "Uh, we survivors gotta stick together, right?" He stared at Liza pleadingly. "What does it matter if he looks like the Rider? He probably ain't him, right? Right? Let's all just be friends. Us survivors gotta stick together, right?"

Liza smiled sweetly, keeping the pistol aimed at Daniel's gut as Jay raised the shotgun and covered Arielle and Phil, making sure they didn't make any dumb decisions. "I totally agree," Liza said menacingly.

--

The Pastor grinned innocently, placing his hands behind his hand and going to his knees in the dusty street in front of the barricades protecting the small fortified town, one of the few towns that still had organized government and an organized militia these days. The Pastor was chuckling grimly even as the half dozen militiamen approached him, aiming pistols and shotguns and rifles cautiously. They were obviously scared of him, and they had reason to be. He looked like a dangerous man . . . And he was one, especially to this town full of sinners.

"Take the big handgun out of your holster, and lay it CAREFULLY on the ground and kick it away," the lead militiaman shouted sternly, planning on taking no bullshit from this dangerous-looking outsider. "Let's go, move it! Move it, scum, move it!"

The Pastor looked over at him and grinned predatorily and saw recognition flash in the militia leader's eyes for a brief second. The man knew who he was. But it was too late. The Pastor drew the Desert Eagle and cocked and fired the large-caliber weapon. He just let the lead fly. The militia leader grunted as he was shot in the side and hip and he was blown backwards by the massive impact. The next man lifted his rifle to his shoulder but was shot through the head before he could even comprehend that it was necessary to pull the trigger. A bullet knocked up dust a foot from the Pastor's knee and he saw that the remaining four militiamen had their weapons up and were opening fire, and they meant business.

The Pastor got to his feet and advanced with ruthless military precision and fired three times, rejoicing at the looks of fear on the faces of the soldiers as the fingers of hell closed around them. Two soldiers were knocked backwards, rolling and tumbling head over heels. The last two were determined to stand their ground because they recognized who he was now. The Pastor aimed the Desert Eagle lazily at one soldier and shot him three times, and the last man dropped his own pistol and turned to run, heroism fading away quickly. The Pastor took careful aim and pulled the trigger but sighed in annoyance as he realized he had ran out of bullets. He stopped to reload but never took his eyes off the man trying frantically to scramble back over the barricades behind which forty other militiamen were waiting to try and halt the Pastor's rampage. He finally managed to climb atop the sun-baked rubble and mounds of broken bricks that comprised one of the barricades and stood there to catch his breath, about to leap down behind the barricade, to safety . . . He thought he had gotten away. He turned to send a last taunting glance at the Pastor and his gun, and saw the big man aiming right at his chest with that gun and he went pale.

The Pastor fired a single shot, grinned, and then headed onward. He had to finish this town full of sinners. It was a hard job, but he loved it. He had forty more militiamen sinners to kill and then there were the women sinners and the baby sinners and . . . So much work to be done, so little bullets.

--

Only minutes ago, the survivors had been on the brink of a shootout over money or the equivalent of money in this post-apocalyptic land, and now they were on a fragile truce, traveling up the road through Dappington bent low and silent as they could possibly be. None of them had any desire to have any further encounters with the zombies if they could help it and, since the sun was going down and night was setting in, it was even more dangerous. Zombies loved the night . . . While human confidence seemed to disappear in the darkness, the undead seemed to flourish.

They ran crouching down another street and turned down an alley past a bar where some young men and women might have been partying hard if this was a normal weekend night, and then they turned out of the alley onto yet another street, and finally reached their destination, the place that Daniel had told them he and his own comrades were staying.

Jay stopped them outside the big, imposing apartment building and stared at Daniel very suspiciously. "How much farther?" he growled. His gunshot wounds were still bothering him quite a lot, and he was in no mood to be BSed.

Daniel sighed and then turned and pointed at a third-floor window. "We have to get up there through some stairs in the building. The first and second floors are still mildly infested with walkers, but it shouldn't be a problem. The third, fourth and fifth floors are all clear."

Jay shrugged. Arielle grinned widely, Liza just nodded, and Phil grimaced. They crept through the empty parking lot, and stared in through the broken windows and permanently open doorway at the lobby and watched the zombies staggering around inside. Maybe half a dozen or more of them and those were only the ones they could see. There might be more in the darkness. They ducked back for a second and all took deep breaths, and then went inside, guns up and ready.