Ch 9

Zartan exited the shadows, never failing to startle some of the group waiting for his return. "It wasn't zombies!"

"What d'you mean, Zartan?" Ripper asked.

"Just what I said."

"We should still check it out," Bumblebee said. "Why would you be that interested in a colony overrun by zombies? To bury the dead?"

Miko offered a humorless laugh. "Any dead will have walked away on its own long before now, but zombies don't need the supplies that have been stockpiled there. Food, ammo… pillows. That's all stuff needed by the living. Where is it located, Zartan?"

"Not far. One block down, then another two to the left."

"Let's—" Miko started.

"Let's get going," Bumblebee said at the same time.

The Dreadnok convoy and it's Autobot escort continued carefully, and with relative quiet down the streets.

They came to a wooden gate that had been erected across the road. Although it swung free, it was still in pristine condition. There was no sign that the colony had been overrun by zombies; the end the citizens of the small city colony had been expecting.

Miko put her helmet back on, and stepped out of the Thunder Machine to look around. It seemed surprisingly peaceful, the sort of peace one expected at the center of a tornado. "Everyone look around. Find me some survivors and supplies, people."

"Uh… Miko…" Bumblebee tried to say.

"Metal Wrecker," Zartan got her attention, "look at the poles"

"This is not right," Strong Arm said.

"No, it isn't," Bumblebee agreed, but he had seen similar during the Second Great War. Strong Arm and Sideswipe were so naive and innocent about the ways of war and terror.

"Oh," Miko said.

The tops of the poles that were scattered across the colony were at eye level to the bots. Bumblebee uprooted the nearest pole, and snapped the top off, setting it gingerly down on the ground. Three naked humans had been impaled on it, left to die with a telephone pole sticking through their midsections.

"The warehouses have been cleaned out of all supplies," Buzzer said as he rejoined the others in the center of the camp. He blanched when he saw the growing number of impaled people the Autobots were respectfully laying in the center of the road.

"Ditto for the people," Heart Wrencher said.

"How many people were here?" Sideswipe asked. "We can count the bodies here to see if any got away or were captured."

"It's only the males," Bumblebee said.

"What?" Miko asked.

"On the poles. It's only males. Children, and adults of all ages, but only the males."

"Who could have done this? Do we have a new player in the area?" Miko asked.

"No, instead, I think it is a very old player who has decided to show his hand." Drift pointed up to the side of a sky scraper that made up one of the walls of the former survivor colony. "I was unaware that HE was on the Alchemor."

Carved into the side of the skyscraper was a variation of the Decepticon symbol. While the Autobot Wreckers symbol incorporated a hammer, and the Autobot Elite Guard incorporated wings, this Decepticon symbol added lines that reminded the humans of a neck.

"Who is 'HE'?"

"A tyrant from the first Great War: Straxus."