CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jay broke the kiss reluctantly after a long, sensual moment and gazed around sternly at the battered group of survivors that he had somehow managed to gain informal leadership of. "Let's get out of here, dammit. This place stinks like somebody just shot a bunch of bandits." He grinned mirthlessly.

The others nodded in agreement and they filed outside, limping and hobbling like old people from the wounds and beatings they had all gathered over the past few days and hours. Jay's entire body ached and he felt like if he layed down, he would never wake up. The adrenaline was the only thing that kept him running, actually. They had to find a place to hole up for the night and reorganize before they tried to take on the next group of survivors/bandits at the supermarket. They were all aching and they felt like they could barely walk another step, let alone run another inch, but they started running anyway, down the street and away from the supermarket. They ran right around the corner and came to a dead stop as they saw the bullet-riddled and shattered glass front doors of the Dappington Police Department.

Jay considered gravely for a few seconds, and then he nodded and limped on towards the shattered doors, and his group followed. Jay entered first, since he had the only weapon (the pistol he had taken) and aimed around cautiously as the others came in after him. They were all so ragged and filthy that even honest, good-hearted survivors would have shot them on sight and mistaken them for zombies. So they were taking no chances.

A few bodies were lying crumpled in the lobby of the station, with bullet holes in their heads, obviously 'deanimated' zombies, as Jay liked to call them. It looked like there had been a mass undead assault on the station, and judging by the lack of live cops (meaning none) Jay felt that it was a safe assumption that the cops had either lost the battle or had fled. Then he remembered the scene at the barricades on the outskirts of town weeks ago and his stomach churned sickeningly. The cops were definitely all dead . . . But maybe the armory was still full . . . Before he could think more about the armory, Arielle sighed loudly and sat on the check-in counter of the station, looking dead tired and traumatized.

"I've got to take a break," she panted.

"Would you hurry?" Daniel asked impatiently, in a tired, annoyed voice. He was tired, too. He didn't seem to care about what Arielle had gone through. "We can't afford to wait two more days for you to sit on the counter there. We've gotta get a move on. Those bandits aren't going to just go away, darling."

"Fuck you," Arielle snarled.

"Fuck ME?" Daniel asked incredulously, then snorted in tired amusement. "Fuck YOU, you sick dyke."

Jay wasn't paying attention to the silly argument; he was crouching on the blood-stained floor and listening carefully with his ear against a door that apparently led further into the station. He turned to the others. "Shut the fuck up, you imbeciles. Let me listen in peace for a moment." Everyone quieted down, and Jay listened for a moment longer and then turned to the others again. "It's just an educated guess, but I'd say we've got a few rogue survivors right behind this door. They were whispering to themselves. They apparently know that we're in the lobby, because of the bickering between you two." He cast an annoyed glance at Arielle and Daniel, who looked away, ashamed. "These rogue survivors were whispering about what they were going to do. They sounded like kids, almost." Jay smiled and gripped their only weapon -- the pistol -- tightly. "If they come through that door shooting, it's on like Donkey Kong, I can promise you guys that."

--

The Pastor dismounted off of his horse and knelt on the ground, quietly studying something on the ground while his apprentice sat on her own horse nearby.

"Where are we?" she asked, clearly anxious to keep going.

The Pastor turned away from the marks on the ground and looked at her, and arched an eyebrow. "The two sinners we're tracking passed through here almost two weeks ago." He smiled heartlessly. "They apparently didn't think anyone was tracking them, because they made no attempt to cover their tracks -- little would it help them, because I am quite good at tracking . . . but still, no attempt at all . . . Their arrogance will cost them dearly . . . " He looked very pleased with himself as he got back on the horse. "You know this area, woman. Where is the nearest town?"

His apprentice pointed. "Thirty-five miles south."

The Pastor nodded decisively and kicked his horse into a gallop as he pulled a Marlboro Red from his pocket and lit up carefully. "Then we're wasting time sitting here chatting, my girl."

--

Rolfe was a non-believer, but the teenager still hoped whatever divine being was up there liked him, because he and his former classmate, a girl named Dora, were about to bang open a door and rush out and fight some survivors in the lobby of the police station. They thought these survivors were bandits, and they knew they could take on bandits with the two shotguns they had. Little did they know, these particular survivors weren't bandits, had only good intentions at heart, and only had a pistol. But also, little did they know, these survivors were deadlier than all the bandits put together.

Something made Rolfe reconsider right before his dumb eighteen-year-old ego could force him to kick open the door and rush into a firefight he couldn't win. He took a deep breath and then yelled to the survivors on the other side of the door. "We've got nine men with assault rifles back here. I'm not making this up or bluffing. It's true. So . . . you just . . . you just better back off and go away. This is our place, and we'll fight and die for it if we have to! Go away! Just leave!"

He had just finished his little shouted speech when the door banged open and he found a lean, blond-haired young man barely older than himself, with eyes like cold chips of blue ice, staring at him over the barrel of a pistol which was aimed at Rolfe's right eye. Rolfe swallowed hard and dropped the shotgun. Dora wordlessly did the same and they both put their hands up.

"Kids these days," Jay tssked. "A liar is a terrible thing, my boy."

"Go to hell." Dora spat at Jay's feet. "Fucking bandit scum."

Jay grinned, his bloody lip standing out like a sore thumb. "You see, me and my friends are pretty banged up right now and . . . " His grin suddenly turned into a snarl and he began yelling and waving the pistol threateningly as he did so. "WE NEED THIS FUCKING PLACE. SO STOP FUCKIN' AROUND!" Dora and Rolfe cringed. Breathing deeply, Jay managed another grin. "Now, for the last time, are you gonna cooperate or do I have to actually shoot one of you?" The two survivors nodded slowly to show they were going to comply, and Jay's grin widened. "Alright, alright. Daniel, get their shotties."

Daniel came forward and grabbed up the pair of dropped shotguns and relieved the two prisoners of their shotgun shells, of course, and then he blinked and thought of something, turning to Jay, who was still aiming the pistol at the prisoners. "Um, O Fearless Leader?" he asked sarcastically. "If the armory is 'presumably' full, then why are these two dumbshits only using scatterguns?"

Rolfe lied. "Armory's empty. Looters must have raided it." In reality, he had hidden the former contents of the armory, and he wouldn't tell a soul until he had to.

Jay sighed angrily. "That's just fucking great. What the fuck are we gonna do now? Go fight the entire supermarket full of bandits with a pistol and two shotguns? We are fucked."

Liza came up beside him and gave him a peck on the cheek, not even noticing Arielle's traumatized but jealous look she cast at her. "You'll think of something, baby. You always do. In the meantime . . . " She glanced at Rolfe and Dora curiously. "Let's go upstairs to a safer room, and hear these guys' story, shall we?"

Rolfe was a little uncertain when he started his story, but he got more comfortable as he continued through it. They were all sitting up in one of the upstairs former interrogation rooms. Jay was quietly smoking and staring out the window and the others -- Arielle, Daniel, Liza and Dora -- were hungrily chowing down on some of the supplies that Rolfe and Dora had managed to gather up in their months of staying at the station.

The story went like this, anyways. Rolfe had committed an unprovoked attack upon a younger, smaller freshman outside of the high school on the day of the outbreak, right after school. After he had beaten the kid senseless, he had tried running away but the cops were already there and he had been brought in for assault and the injured kid had been airlifted to a hospital. Dora had also been brought in as an accomplice because she had also kicked the victim in the side of the head as he lay already bleeding and begging from Rolfe's assault. They had only been in their separate interrogation rooms waiting for their parents for half an hour before cops starting running around and panicking and yelling about how there was a large group of rioters approaching the station.

A lot of cops, including the ones that had been guarding Rolfe and Dora in their separate rooms, ran outside to confront the looters. Rolfe, his hands still cuffed behind his back, had watched it through a window. He had been just as surprised as anybody when gunshots began banging out and bodies starting falling. He expected the rioters to turn and run, but they just kept coming. He heard a lot of screaming, and saw a cop go down, tripping over a dead body, and one of the rioters took multiple shots to the chest but then still kenlt and started to bite him while he was down. The most horrific thing the teen saw though, was his father. Amongst the rioters. Chewing on a severed arm like it was barbecue chicken.

The cops took a step back, took another, and then retreated completely into the police station, and the 'battle' continued in there. A sweaty, grime-covered officer had freed Rolfe and Dora of their cuffs and had told them to hide. He had freed the other convicts, who simply had escaped out the back door, including one tall man who had been holding a Bible and . . .

At this point in the story, Jay stopped Rolfe, his eyes gleaming in intense interest. "Wait, a tall man holding a Bible, you said?"

Rolfe blinked with confusion before nodding. "Yeah, he was kind of creepy . . . "

Jay shrugged. "What was he in for?"

"Stealing a pack of Marlboro Reds from the local gas station."

Jay began laughing hard, hysterically. He had been expecting something more major. The Pastor was coming back to his hometown. And he was most certainly going to head for the station. There was always sinners at the police station, of course.