The Road to Hell…. Part I
The last man was dragged down from behind. Bullets struck inches behind Sarah's feet as she dragged Ana away from the carnage. She could barely remember his name, Cha-something, as a heavy woman set her canines onto the meat of his thigh and ripped. The scream ripped at her ears but she kept running. His death might just give them enough time to get away.
"Sarah." They were the first words Ana had said in an hour. The blond nurse suddenly got her feet back underneath her and pointed at something in the distance. "Sarah, go there."
"Where?" The sunlight was almost blinding in its intensity. They'd broken through the trees a few feet back and were running across a clearing. Even though the open space would be a zombie magnet it also meant that they could see what was coming. Early fall had sapped any flowers from the field, but the long grass was only knee-high from frequent grazing. Ana became more insistent and pulled at Sarah's arm.
The two women stumbled slightly and as Sarah's head came back up she saw a man catch sight of them from across the field. He came after them with the lurching movement of a long dead zombie, soon he would be reduced to shuffling, but for now, it was still fast enough to make them frightened. He was also directly in the path that Ana wanted to take.
"No. No." Sarah backpedaled. "We've got to get out of here." But the reality was terrifying. They'd been abandoned. No weapons. No help. No real chance to survive. Sarah should have known that Rhodes would make his move with Cahill and Jayne gone. She should have predicted his change in disposition – but she was a scientist, not a strategist and now she was paying the price for that.
"No," Ana straightened suddenly as she regained control of her emotions. "There." She pointed with one slender hand and finally Sarah followed the gaze to its logical conclusion.
Another man now stood visible in the clearing.
Logan waved at them, a funny little motion with no urgency in it. He was still wearing the blood soaked apron but had a fairly clean lab coat underneath. With his glasses perched high on his scalp, he looked like an owl, blinking half blind through the daylight in search of them.
"Oh, there you are." He said to them. "Well, I'm really quite busy, so if you ladies would hurry up."
The dead man in the field halted and looked between the choice of meat; one older man with the stringy meat of years and years - or the two women; one fresher than the other, but still good eating. He continued after the women, blocking their approach to Logan.
"I don't have all day." Logan reminded them.
"We don't have any ammo." Sarah snapped at him. Her pistol was still on her thigh, she'd been smart enough to take it outside, but not smart enough to bring more than a magazine with her.
"We can outrun him." Ana told her.
"For heavens sake." Logan reached under his apron and brought out a wireless bone saw. He moved surprisingly fast and set the tip of the spinning blade against the zombie's head. The zombie was just starting to turn on the new, closer prey, when it suffered from a toxic aeration to the brain stem. It only took a second for the body to realize that and topple to the ground crushing grass underneath it.
"Logan?" Sarah was still in shock. "Where did you come from?"
The doctor was already headed back towards his point of origin. He waved noncommittally at Sarah, the bone saw flashing gore as he did it. "Emergency exit."
Ana stopped and laughed. And then, Sarah laughed with her. The two women beset by hilarity in the midst of it all. "Of course there's an emergency exit."
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The rum was clear which pissed him off. Silver rum tasted like watered down piss or hydrogen peroxide with less of a bite. As usual, Rhodes wasn't drinking what he wanted. Despite locking McDermott in the brig, the bastard of a radio man had still refused to give up the location of his stash. At less than a week sober, Rhodes figured it was just a matter of time before the lush got the DTs and gave up the liquor's location.
Until then he was stuck swilling the clear shit.
It never occurred to him that drinking had ended up him up where he was. Pissed off, pissed off, and well, Rhodes was never a very imaginative fellow.
Three quarters of his men wanted to leave Area 13 and head back to the surface. They wanted to caravan out with the pretty girls and find an island somewhere to lay out and ignore the world at large. The other quarter wanted to stay with immediate access to the female survivors who were currently locked up with the rest. Both involved the transport of large numbers unwilling females, something that didn't appeal to Rhodes despite his other faults. He was of the firm mind that women were more trouble than they were worth. Especially since those women had been exposed to the corrupting influence of Jayne, Sarah and Ana.
Who were all supposed to be dead.
The thought didn't make him as happy as he wanted it to.
Ana owed him a man. Sarah had challenged his authority. And Jayne had been the worst of the three because she'd never gone against him. Always the loyal Marine except for that one time. Yet, with every action she'd made him and his men look bad to the survivors who should have been kissing his boots.
It was a good thing Jayne was dead – or would be soon.
Because Rhodes didn't want to admit that he didn't like the position he was in.
He drank heavily again and realized that he was alone in the cafeteria. At some point recently, there had been other men in there with him. To his drunken consternation, he couldn't remember whether he'd given them an order, or whether anybody was listening to his orders anymore. At the very least it meant that no one was on patrol or paying any attention to the world above them.
But hell, the world above them was dead so it didn't really matter.
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Riley met her just outside the motel. Like many of the others, he had the freshly washed look that only came from a shower. His eyes crinkled slightly at sight of her, most people couldn't hide their winces as they saw that she looked just as bad clean as she had dirty. Bruises had the nasty habit of not washing off.
"Sgt." He greeted her and she frowned back at him.
"There's no army anymore. Jayne works fine."
"You've heard Kaufman's answer." It wasn't quite a question but Riley wasn't stupid enough to think that secrets stayed secret in his crew. He'd told Charlie and figured that Charlie would pass it on to the young woman that flustered him, it was the kind of thing that happened.
"He'll trade you weapons for entry."
"I heard."
But Riley couldn't tell whether Jayne liked that answer or not. "How many men will we really be facing?" Riley gestured for her to follow him to a map. Her handwriting marked the hidden location of Area 13 along with the eight different exits that Jayne knew about. One of the useful things that McDermott had discovered while he'd sat and waited for radio contact. Obviously there hadn't been time to get people to the exits, but Jayne was certain that they'd be a way in. Rhodes' men weren't smart enough to look for them or to be prepared when they came storming through.
Cholo and Blades approached slowly, talking among themselves until they reached the table. The two men had nothing in common except black hair and their height, but Jayne saw other similarities that disturbed her. They both carried themselves with the same kind of cockiness that had gotten other men killed. Yet, they had been her strongest supporters when she'd made her foolish claim to go back and take weapons from Rhodes. She had no strength or weapons to back it up. Just the knowledge of where to go and the certainty that these people needed the guns she had access to.
"At least forty." Jayne ignored the low whistle. "Army soldiers from the rank of private to staff sergeant and one captain. Operationally they're a joke. Most of them are drunk. If they haven't started summary executions – there are still three Army pilots, and eight Marines in the brig. At least half of the survivors who are imprisoned have fought the zombies successfully, especially those from the res. They were solo for a lot longer than I thought possible. If we can arm them, we outnumber Rhodes, and have better men to boot."
"You got a lot of answers, lady. But what happens when the shit hits the fan? Where will you be?"
Jayne faced down Cholo angrily. "You mean, what's in this for me?"
"Yeah."
She got as close to his face as she could get and stared at him with steel in her eyes. "I owe him."
"Chink-chink." Blades chortled. "Listen to the girl's balls clink together."
"You don't think I've got what it takes?" She didn't look away from Cholo. She was really fucking tired of being challenged. Sometimes you paid your dues and people understood and accepted it, sometimes they just found other challenges. "Give me your gun."
"Fuck you." Cholo snapped back. "Usted es una bruja de mierda loca."
Jayne spun and stalked past all three men. She caught Charlie just as he was turning to face her, a stunned look on his face as she repeated her demand. But to the three men's dismay, Charlie handed over his pistol. With that she continued past the perimeter they'd set up and back towards the little town.
"Where the hell is she going?" Blades asked, as though the others might know something he didn't.
Charlie answered the question for them as he caught up to them. "She's going to the only place that has zombies left. Back to the jail."
"Why is she going there, Charlie?" Riley asked the question as though it were perfectly normal so Charlie answered him the same way.
"Because otherwise she might shoot somebody here."
Cholo was the first to laugh, but Blades caught on quickly. The two men roared while Riley decided that he was getting perturbed by the sudden change of events. The figure in the distance was covering ground faster than they'd expected and when the four men realized that Jayne was serious, really serious, they all started running to catch up.
