Life # 90: That time Harry and Tom faced a zombie apocalypse.
Naval Medical Centre Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, 2014
Harry woke up in a Marines military hospital in North Carolina, missing a spleen, a uterus and two lower legs, but having gained 90 lifetimes worth of memories without even meeting her soulmate.
"Sergeant Broussard," Lieutenant General Jacobs said as he stood solemnly beside Harry's bed, hands clasped behind his back, shoulders ramrod straight. "I have received nothing but reports of your excellence and unparalleled bravery in the field as you saved Captain Williams' life. I want you to know I am recommending you for a medal of honour."
"Thank you, Sir," Harry managed to say before promptly passing out again. The next time she awoke, ten hours later, she asked after her partner.
"What happened to Vinnie?" Harry looked at Major Crenshaw, who was briefing her on the happenings of the past two weeks, ever since Harry got shot up saving her Captain's life in Afghanistan.
Major Crenshaw pursed his lips for a moment. "I'm sorry to tell you your partner didn't make it, but he died shielding your body from even more direct hits."
Harry nodded, eyes welling up. "Yeah, that was something he'd do. Loyal to a fault."
"And brave," Major Crenshaw added with a warm smile. "Just like his handler."
After Major Crenshaw left, leaving a huge pile of paperwork for Harry to go through, Harry shed a few tears for her feisty Malinois Vinnie, a k9 Marine trained to find roadside I.E.D.s, to protect the troops patrolling Afghanistan, and Harry's best friend for the years she operated as a k9 handler in the Marines, working her way up to the rank of Staff Sergeant. Their last mission, accompanying Captain Williams and his team as he tried to instruct the newly appointed local police officers, had ended in an ambush. Shots were fired from both sides, with Captain Williams pinned down and the two Marines with him killed almost instantly.
And Harry was a Gryffindor through and through, even when she didn't remember it yet, and she figured between the two of them, Captain Williams, a decent and honest guy with a wife and three kids, had more reasons to go home than she did, since she had no immediate family left, nor a spouse or kids waiting for her.
So Harry, with brave Vinnie in tow, made a move, saving the good Captain and getting mowed down in a spray of bullets from all directions in the process. She'd felt her lower legs give out, the bones shattering and the flesh tearing, but she'd passed out moments later so the pain had been minimal.
But that was then and this was now, and Harry sat up in her hospital bed and sipped a glass of orange juice as she took stock of her life thus far. Born Jasmine Broussard in New Orleans, to an African American mother and a creole father, who'd been unhappily married for about half a minute before divorcing because her useless father liked beating on her mother and she was having none of that, after which her father took off to parts unknown and leaving her mom to work two and a half jobs to raise her child by herself. And because none of her minimum wage jobs offered healthcare, when her mom got a nasty cut on her leg during her waitressing job from an irate customer throwing a glass at her, she didn't go to the emergency room for stitches, but dressed the wound herself at home, which resulted in a nasty infection that turned septic, killing her mother within hours.
And six-year-old Harry moved in with her maternal grandparents, loving, hard-working people who did their best raising her. Harry's grandfather, a kind man full of wisdom beyond his age, and a bus driver for the city, died ten years later from a sudden heart attack, with Harry's grandmother following him a year later from complications of diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Seventeen-year-old Harry ended up living on her Aunt Jackie's couch. Aunt Jackie was a single mother working three jobs while raising her four kids after her husband developed a drug addiction from prescription opioids and ended up in and out of prison and AA programs. Harry was just happy to have a roof over her head while she finished high school.
But there was no money for college, and Harry's grades weren't anything to write home about the last few years, what with all the stress of losing her grandparents the way she did, so scholarships were out of the question as well. But Harry's grandfather had served in the Marines and had always told Harry stories about his time there that were mostly positive, and Harry figured joining the Marines was an excellent way to earn money now, save some of that, and afterwards go to college and get a degree while Uncle Sam footed the bill.
And Harry had loved the Marines. She enjoyed the discipline and the camaraderie and was good at the work required, and while there were assholes who tried to spoil her experience, Harry had grown up in some pretty rough neighbourhoods in New Orleans. She wasn't easily intimidated by any asshole trying to put her down. So when her active duty enlistment ended, Harry decided to stay and basically go pro by reenlisting as active duty. It wasn't as if she had anything or anyone waiting for her in the civilian world, and she honestly didn't even know what she wanted to study should she decide to go to college after all.
Nah, the Marine corps was her home now, and Harry got accepted as a new k9 handler, which was her dream job. She got paired with Vinnie, a strong-willed young Belgian shepherd who inexplicably decided Harry was his favourite person in the whole world and worked amazingly well for her, and that partnership lasted for two years before it all went to hell.
And now Harry had lost her job and her legs.
Well, fuck.
On the other hand, she did regain her memories, so she knew she'd be all right. She had a hundred ideas already for the rest of her life, starting with finding Tom as soon as possible. But of course, that's not how it worked. Harry discreetly tried all the types of magic she knew, hoping something worked and might aid her in her search for her soulmate, but none of the types of magic she tried actually did anything, which meant this was what Harry and Tom referred to as a 'dead world', a place without any magic at all.
So Harry simply had to be patient and let Tom find her the natural way, which might be many years yet.
Ugh. Harry hated getting her memories back before she met up with Tom. On the other hand, having her memories would make her life easier going forward, so Harry focused on that, trying to stay positive, even when she suffered from a mild depression.
She worked her ass off during physical therapy, learning how to first get around in a wheel chair and later how to walk with prosthetics. Harry had lost limbs before, but never both legs right below the knees simultaneously, and it took some getting used to.
At the same time, Harry faced the bureaucratic hell that was the VA, the US Department of Veterans Affairs. She was too young and had served too few years to qualify for any retirement pay, but she did have a right to Disability Compensation, but actually getting any of it was easier said than done. Thankfully, even before getting her memories back, Harry had been pretty smart with her money, so she had more than enough in her savings account to hire an attorney specializing in helping veterans getting what they were owed by the government. That man was worth his weight in gold when he got Harry the highest percentage of Disability Compensation, with Special Monthly Compensation added to that since she'd lost two limbs and her reproductive organs, and he got her all of that within a year, which was lightning fast by VA standards.
All in all, Harry ended up receiving over $6500 tax-free every month, retroactively and for the rest of her life.
Nice. It had only cost her two legs and a chance to ever have kids of her own, but still, very nice. And a huge relief that now Harry didn't have to worry about money and could focus on her physical and mental recovery.
Yeah, Harry had PTSD.
Joy.
PTSD was like an old friend that you rather not reconnected with, but who showed up at your doorstep uninvited every few lives anyway. It had nothing to do with their souls, but with the kind of lives they sometimes led. Traumatic experiences made an impact on your brain, resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder, plain and simple, no matter how tough you thought you were.
And while it sucked having it, Harry was familiar with it, so with the help of some therapy and some meds, she was able to keep it under control, for the most part.
Harry decided that since she didn't have to worry about money for a good, long while and thus didn't have to run out and find employment, she could do whatever she liked.
And one thing both Harry and Tom loved about living in the good old USA was the ability to full-time RV. Travelling across the country while living full-time in a recreational vehicle was all kinds of awesome, and Harry and Tom had done it a number of times before. Sometimes as a younger couple with kids, working on the road to earn a living, and sometimes once they were retired and they decided to spend the final years of their life enjoying the natural beauty of the USA.
So when Harry was physically and mentally as healed as she was going to get anytime soon, and Uncle Sam had provided her with two new, titanium legs, she sold or donated almost all her possessions that she couldn't take with her and went looking for a home on wheels.
Thanks to the retroactive pay, plus her own savings account, Harry could easily afford a gently used C-class RV. She had considered buying a van and building the interior herself, but she decided against it in the end. Having a full bathroom in a van was pretty much impossible due to the small size, and Harry wanted a decent toilet and shower that she could easily use without her prosthetics.
Harry also bought a small, beat-up Jeep to tow behind the RV, so she could set up camp in a RV park or on BLM land, public land owned by the government where you were allowed to camp, and use the Jeep to get around without having to constantly haul the whole RV around when wanting to do some sightseeing or get a few groceries.
Right after Harry bought her RV and was ready to head onto the open road, she got a phone call from a fellow Marine k9 handler, whose dog had been involved in an I.E.D. explosion and had partially lost his vision and hearing and could therefore no longer work as a Marine K9 and needed to be retired. The Marine, named John Millstone, wasn't in a position to adopt him, but had heard of Harry and hoped she would take him.
Vader, as was the dogs name, was a littermate and thus full brother of Vinnie, the dog Harry had lost in Afghanistan.
Harry didn't have to think about that for more than a second, and a week later she picked Vader up from the Marine base. The poor dog was missing an ear and had scars across one side of his face but otherwise was in good health. Vader was a little confused at first about what was going on and about living in an RV, but Harry took him on plenty of long walks and gave him lots of treats and pets and endless games of fetch the tennis ball, and before long Vader happily decided Harry was his new boss and that was that.
Since Vader was a very well trained dog who was used to working day in and day out, Harry decided to turn him into her service dog. Vader could easily help her with any mobility issues, not to mention with her PTSD. Harry trained him to stand at her back in stores and to find exits in case she got a flashback or panic attack, and Vader bonded with her readily and to such an extent Harry could also easily teach him to keep an eye on her anxiety levels through her breathing and overall scent and thus alerting her before she descended into a full blown anxiety attack.
And, just for fun, she regularly let Vader search her RV inside and out for I.E.D.s, even if he never found any.
All in all, Vader got a new job that suited him and his own disabilities and Harry got to have a new best friend and a helpful service dog that accompanied her everywhere she went.
Harry travelled through the south while heading west. She craved the open skies and the natural beauty of places like Wyoming and Utah, of Arizona and New Mexico. Not to mention, she craved the many kinds of BBQ she encountered on the road. Just for fun she started an Instagram account to document and rate all the ribs and brisket and smoked sausages she ate, with mouth-watering pictures. On the way west she also passed through her hometown of New Orleans and spent some weeks there visiting family since she had a couple of aunts and uncles and a bunch of cousins that still lived there, and who all insisted she stop by.
Of course, once she was sitting on her Aunt Jackie's couch after having enjoyed a dinner of her amazing gumbo, surrounded by her extended family, she realized it had all been a set-up when the President called and told her that she had decided to award Harry the Medal of Honour. Her family cheered so hard, jumping and dancing around the room that Harry had trouble even understanding the President, but the message was clear.
Get your ass to Washington D.C., and bring the family, because you are getting a shiny medal, which comes with an additional $1000 tax-free each month for the rest of your life.
And so Harry and family got on an airplane, got to meet the first female President of the USA (a democrat Harry had voted for, so that was extra nice) and Harry became the first female combatant to receive the Medal of Honour. Not the first female, though. Harry was sure to give credit where credit was due during her acceptance speech, mentioning Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War surgeon who received it many years before Harry.
And after that Harry got to talk to a few reporters for major newspapers about her experiences, and even appear on a late night talk show or two, Vader by her side, to tell both their stories, since the American public loved their veterans, especially those that got shiny medals through acts of courage and bravery. Harry took it all in stride, since this was her second time receiving a Medal of Honour, so she knew what to expect.
She was still genuinely honoured, though, and very regretful Tom couldn't be there to share in the celebrations.
To keep her mind occupied and to help with her PTSD, Harry took to writing fiction even while she was still in the hospital, as she had done in many, many lives before. Some lives she simply typed out earlier novels from previous lives and published them online on places like Amazon to earn a living quickly. But this life she wasn't in urgent need of more money and so she took the time to develop a whole new story, one about a Marine squad comprised of werewolves and other shifters, plus a witch, who travelled the world fighting any number of supernatural threats. Harry wrote it as a series, and published the first two novels on Amazon, where it got a nice bit of traction right from the start, earning her a few hundred dollars extra every month in sales.
Harry got a retirement account going and every month like clockwork made generous payments into it, knowing from much experience that having a little nest egg for their golden years would make life that much easier. Especially since the USA wasn't known for their generous social policies, nor their affordable healthcare.
Now, since Harry had been so busy over the past one-and-a-half years, with her recovery and getting her life back in order, all the while trying not to expire from missing her soulmate too much, she hadn't been paying too much attention to the news. Yes, she'd heard the reports about the Cambodian Virus, which any number of conspiracy theorists named the China Virus, since they claimed it came from there and the Chinese government had spent months covering their own outbreaks up. It seemed to be a virus related to rabies, so while it caused quite severe symptoms and even death, it wasn't very infectious and required transmission through bodily fluids.
Simply living through a pandemic didn't alarm Harry as much as it might have once upon a time. She'd lived through so many pandemics already during so many lives. Everything from relatively harmless pandemics caused by a novel corona virus or a mild new flu strain all the way to the Spanish flu that killed more people than the first world war, and the bubonic plague in medieval Europe that killed half the people around them, including eventually Harry and Tom themselves. Not a good way to go, Harry did not recommend the Black Death whatsoever.
So just the fact that there was apparently a new pandemic happening didn't alarm Harry. She kept her distance from others anyway, thanks to her PTSD, and spent most of her time camping on remote BLM land, avoiding big cities and their bustling crowds and loud noises. So she hadn't kept up with the news as she perhaps should have, since it appeared the pandemic was not a whole lot more serious than a simple corona virus.
That fact smacked Harry right in the face while she drove into a nice boondocking spot on some BLM land in southern Utah. There was already another RV there while Harry parked her rig on a sheltered site near some rocky drop-offs, which offered a fantastic view of the brown cliffs and valleys and the mountains in the distance.
"Hi!" the lady from the fifth-wheel RV next to her called out the moment Harry stepped out of her rig to level it, Vader following closely behind.
"Good afternoon," Harry called back.
"I'm Annette. My husband Ted is sleeping, he's feeling a bit under the weather." Annette seemed a little wary of Vader, who in turn seemed wary of Annette and her rig.
Curious. Vader was usually a pretty social dog. Not the type to demand affection from every stranger he met, but nice enough to accept every new person he met as long as Harry told him it was fine.
"I'm Jasmine, and this is my service dog Vader," Harry called back with a little wave. "I gotta set up my rig, but maybe we can have a chat later?" Harry knew from experience that RVers tended to be a social bunch, always ready for a talk, to socialize and exchange experiences. Those that didn't like interacting with others simply stayed to themselves, often selecting locations even more remote than where they were at that time. Harry generally didn't mind meeting new people, especially because on the road you oftentimes had to depend on other travellers if you ran into any kind of trouble, so being sociable was a must to get by as a full-time RVer, especially a solo one travelling alone.
"Sure, you do that." Annette walked up to her rig, pausing at the door. "I made some cinnamon buns from scratch this morning. Stop by later for some coffee and you'll be in for a real treat."
"Thanks, I'll be sure to do that, right after dinner." With another wave from Harry, Annette disappeared inside her fifth wheel, and Harry went about setting up her own camp. She debated unhooking her Jeep, but decided against it since there might be some storms moving into that area later, and Harry wanted to be able to get the hell out of dodge in case of potential flash floods. The area was prone to them. So she simply levelled her rig, turned on the propane to cook some dinner and checked the water level, which was almost complete full, while her black and grey tanks were empty. Her solar panels on the roof were charging her batteries, and on the way there she'd stocked up on groceries and other essentials, so she was good to boondock for up to two weeks without having to return to civilization. That meant lots of time to hike with Vader and to finish her third novel of her werewolf Marines book series.
The prosthetics Harry used really were state of the art and allowed her to do pretty much anything someone with legs could do, including running and hiking. And Harry made sure to do both regularly, for both her and Vader's well-being, and because it led them to some amazing places. Harry's personal Instagram account was mostly pictures of Vader posing in front of mountains and rivers and meadows and oceans, all places they encountered during their many hikes and runs.
Vader sat with his back to Harry, who was unrolling her awning and setting up her camping chair and table so she could dine outside later in the mild April weather. A low growl rose from Vader's chest as he stared intently at the neighbouring rig some thirty yards away.
"What is it, buddy?" Harry asked, taking in Vader's stiff body and raised hackles. She trusted her dog's opinion on any situation blindly, and Vader did not like their new neighbours one bit, though Harry had no clue why as Annette had seemed like your run of the mill middle-aged RV wife travelling with her husband, perhaps enjoying an early retirement.
An ear-piercing scream erupted from the fifth-wheel, followed by loud crashing and banging noises.
"What the fuck?" Harry reached inside the opened storage compartment from which she'd just pulled her table and chair, and yanked out the metal baseball bat she kept there for security purposes. She had lots of different kinds of weapons stuffed all over her rig, because she was a woman travelling alone, big ass Malinois at her side or not. Some were obvious weapons, like the baseball bat or the handful of knives she had, and others were not so obvious, like the knitting needles she kept on hand. Harry loved knitting, found it very therapeutic and a fun way to spend some time, but most importantly, metal knitting needles made for awesome weapons.
Back when they were slayers, Harry had once killed an eight foot Prezal demon by driving her knitting needles through its eyes into its brain. It had ruined her knitting, a fluffy scarf she was knitting Tom for Christmas, but it had been an awesome kill. And ever since then Harry made it a point to keep metal knitting needles on hand, especially in situation where she couldn't possess genuine weapons for whatever reason. No one ever suspected someone with a few balls of yarn and a collection of knitting needles might be lethal with the things.
Harry patted her jeans pocket, making sure the stiletto she always kept there was still in place and then she hurried towards the fifth wheel, from which more screams sounded, followed by more crashing until it finally became quiet, aside from some tearing noises.
Trying the doorhandle and finding it unlocked, Harry yanked the door open and stared, frozen in place, unsure what she was seeing. For a moment, Harry was certain she was having an episode brought on by her PTSD and she wasn't sure if what she was seeing was real or not.
A man, obviously dead judging by his grey, bloodless complexion and milky eyes, leaning over a whimpering and bleeding Annette, tearing bits of flesh from her stomach and eating them, chewing methodically.
Harry knew she couldn't always trust her own brain thanks to her mental illnesses, but she also knew she could trust her dog with her life and behind her Vader was freaking the fuck out, barking and growling in ways Harry had never heard him do before, not even that time a grizzly bear came sniffing around their rig while they were camping in Yellowstone National Park. And that was all the confirmation Harry needed that what she was seeing was real and she needed to act now.
Raising the baseball bat as if she was about to swing for a homerun, Harry hopped inside the RV and hit the guy against the side of his head as hard as she could. His skull seemed softer than it should be for some reason and cracked open like a walnut. The guy tipped over to the side, strips of bloody meat dangling from his mouth, whole face smeared with blood, and he stopped moving.
"Annette, what happened?" Harry quickly took in the scene, Annette's injuries, the amount of blood on the floor, and realized that any help that could get to their remote location would come too late to save Annette's life.
"Ted," Annette all but breathed, eyes glassy as she stared straight up. Harry wasn't sure if she even knew Harry was there. "Got sick after bite…homeless man…Walmart."
Yeah, Harry wasn't fucking stupid and she'd seen more than enough horror movies to know what she was dealing with, however unlikely that might seem.
Fucking zombies.
Ugh.
Harry hated zombies of any kind, period. Fucking things.
Annette gurgled and breathed her last and Harry waited patiently to see what would happen next.
And yep, within ten minutes, Annette, who'd been very dead just seconds before, started moving again, white, milky eyes fixed intently on Harry. Enough of that shit. Harry raised her bat again and hit Annette in the head until her skull split open and she stopped moving again.
And then Harry was at a loss of what to do.
Call the police?
The second that thought entered her mind, Harry looked down at her own arms as she lowered the bloody bat and once again noticed the colour of her own skin. She was black this life. Well, technically she was the offspring of a black woman and a creole father, who was mostly white with a little bit of everything mixed in, so Harry qualified as mixed-race, but to the po-po, she was definitely black.
And there she was, a violent, mentally disturbed black woman who just beat two white people 'to death' with a baseball bat, because that is how the police would see it, no matter they had been actual fucking zombies, but somehow Harry doubted anyone on the police force or at the DA's office was going to believe her anytime soon, medal of honour be damned.
Yeah, time to get the fuck out of there.
There were lives Harry was happy to play the good Samaritan and help the authorities and all that shit, but it wasn't while she was black in the USA, thank you very much. That was how you got shot and killed by the police. And Harry refused to die before meeting Tom, even though she'd already technically died when she got her memories back, but she had no idea what would happen if she died for real before meeting Tom and giving him his memories back and Harry wasn't about to find out.
Harry didn't touch anything, just closed the door and wiped the sleeve of her hoodie over the handle a few times to get rid of fingerprints because she had been a cop herself enough times to know you had to get rid of those or they'd get you.
Thankfully, Harry didn't have any immediate neighbours other than the late Ted and Annette, and she doubted anyone else had seen or heard anything. The camping sites were too far apart for that, tucked away in rocky nooks and crannies only accessible by winding, dusty roads. Moving like the po-po were going to arrive to arrest her any second, Harry put her campsite away in record time. Table and chair were shoved back into the storage compartment, the awning was retracted, as were the levelling jacks. Harry did a quick walkaround her rig to see if she'd forgotten anything before hopping inside and closing and locking her door. She grabbed a couple of granola bars, an apple, a can of diet cola and a bottle of water and placed those in a convenient basket she kept on the dashboard. And after a quick pee break Harry sat down behind the wheel and took off in a hurry.
She drove for a few hours to the nearest mid-sized town, munching on her snacks so she wouldn't pass out from hunger. She passed a gas station and filled up her RV tank, even though it was more than half-full, and she also topped off the Jeep, because fucking zombies, man. And then she found the nearest Walmart and parked her rig on their parking lot under one of the streetlights. Walmart generally allowed RVers to spend the night on their parking lots, except in very busy, touristy areas. Thankfully, southern Utah wasn't that big of a tourist hotspot that time of year, so Harry knew she'd be all right there overnight.
She grabbed her phone and keys, put Vader's harness and leash on him and then let him do his business in some bushes on the edge of the parking lot, carefully monitoring his behaviour to see if perhaps more zombies were nearby. Vader had obviously reacted to Ted's infection, even from a distance, so from then on Harry would be keeping an extra careful eye on her dog's reactions to his environment.
After Vader was done they headed into Walmart, where Harry got a cart because she had some serious shopping to do, because fucking zombies, man.
First two hunting rifles. Not the most ideal weapon to fight zombies up close, but perfect to take them out from a distance and Harry was an excellent shot, having honed her skills over many lifetimes. Next was a shotgun, and plenty of ammo for all three weapons. Walmart didn't sell any handguns, but they did have ammo for them so Harry stocked up on that as well, and tomorrow she'd find a gun store and buy some smaller guns. Up until that time Harry hadn't bothered with owning a handgun because she travelled across state lines all the times and even had plans to head into Canada that upcoming summer and doing so with firearms was a pain in the behind, and Harry was just as capable of keeping herself safe with a few knives and some knitting needles so she didn't really need any guns. Until now, because fucking zombies, man.
Next were non-perishable foods. Bags of brown rice and pinto beans and pasta, together with cans of veggies and pasta sauce and spam. Harry also stocked up on water filters great and small, so she could refill her RV water tank from a fucking puddle on the road if she had to and still be able to drink the water.
Lastly, a few large bags of dogfood for Vader and then Harry felt a little calmer at last. She paid for everything with her debit card, since she wasn't hurting for money at all and a large purchase like that wasn't a problem.
She tucked everything away in her RV, having to cram a few things in the wardrobe and using the shower stall to temporarily store the dogfood, but it worked. Then she loaded the guns and placed them around the rig strategically. And then, after making sure all doors and windows were closed and locked, Harry changed into her pyjamas, took off her prosthetics and crawled into bed, phone on the charger so she could mooch of Walmart's free WIFI as long as she needed to find out what the fuck was going on.
It had to be that Cambodian Virus thing that was going around but how the fuck did no one notice it was turning people into fucking zombies?
Turns out, people did notice, but what Harry suspected was an intentional campaign of misinformation played those people off as conspiracy theorists, general wack jobs, crazy crackheads and con artists. And it wasn't just in the USA. Harry searched news sites big and small across the world and noticed a definite pattern of denying the fact that the Cambodian Virus caused the dead to rise and eat the living.
Any pictures and video clips were called fake and before long disappeared from whatever site they were posted on. And in numerous countries, including the USA, those who announced the truth loudest and got the most traction with the public suddenly found themselves arrested on drugs charges, or worse, became the victims of a sudden case of 'suicide' or they simply disappeared without a trace altogether.
Someone was desperate to keep the truth from getting out, and Harry was pretty sure she knew who was behind it. Harry and Tom had lived so many lives that they'd learned the truth about what made the world go round eventually.
The truth was: money.
Not very revolutionary, Harry knew, but it was money and those who had the most of it who literally ran the entire world. Harry wasn't talking about some movie star or singer with a few million in the bank or someone who'd invested in a few rental properties and made a very comfortable living that way.
No, Harry was talking about the elite. The less than one percent. The majority stock holders and the CEOs of multinationals and those that came from old money, inherited over many generations.
They were the people in charge of the world. They were the ones who owned the politicians on all sides, who were little more than puppets to give the masses the idea they had a say in what laws were made and how the country was run. In truth, it was the elite who arranged for all of that. They used hot topics like abortion and religion and climate change to rile up the people on all sides and get them to vote for whatever puppet they wanted to be in charge, but in truth they cared nothing about those causes.
They only cared about money and how they could keep making more of it over the minimum wage workers' broken backs.
How did Harry know this? Simple. She and Tom had been part of the ruling elite in a few lives. They knew first-hand how the world really worked.
But what would happen to the ruling elite if it got out there was a zombie pandemic on the horizon? That there was a genuine apocalypse looming? Simple. Wall street would crash, the economy would tank and the elite would lose some of their money and influence.
So instead of using their money and power to nip the zombie apocalypse in the butt, they'd rather set up the whole of humanity to die out of sheer misinformation and ignorance than to see themselves lose some of their ill-gotten fortunes.
Harry glanced at the clock. It was almost 3 AM, but Harry was unable to sleep now that she understood what was happening and how little she could do about that. A single person was no match to go up against the ruling elite and their global PR machines. Using her arms, Harry hopped to the side of her bed and put her prosthetics on again and then pulled on a long coat that covered most of her pyjamas. Vader seemed happy enough to go for another walk, and Harry headed back into Walmart and bought a video camera and a GoPro, and various clamps and harnesses so she could mount it on her body.
From now on, Harry would be filming the zombies she encountered. She wasn't yet sure if she wanted to go full blown rebel set to expose the truth to the world, but she liked having that option down the road. Because what was happening just didn't sit well with Harry.
Zombies were not that difficult to kill. A reasonably healthy six-year-old with a shovel and good aim could probably manage it. But left unchecked, zombies multiplied like crazy, infecting anyone they killed to become another zombie. Exponential growth was a thing that applied to the zombie apocalypse as well.
But because of all the deliberate misinformation and downright lies, the average person wasn't prepared to deal with zombies, no matter one or two zombies were easy enough to deal with if one knew how. No, the average person would react like Ted and Annette, mistaking a fucking zombie for a homeless person or a tripped out drug addict, getting bit and just staying in bed a few days hoping the infection would clear up on its own before dying, turning into a flesh-eating monster and killing and eating your own spouse.
That is how a zombie apocalypse started. Because average, everyday people were deliberately kept ignorant.
Well, Harry had been around for a whole lot of lives already and wasn't so easily hoodwinked. At the very least she would make sure she and Vader survived long enough to find Tom and then they'd see what they would do. After all, once reunited, Harry and Tom could always decide to end this life and move onto the next, though Harry wouldn't do that as long as Vader was still alive. She wasn't about to abandon her best buddy like that. But after he was gone they could easily move on and leave the zombies behind.
Harry got back into bed and turned off the lights, trying to get some sleep. Tomorrow she'd hit up a few more places to get some essential things and then come up with a plan on how to convince people she was speaking the truth when the very powerful elite would do everything in their power to convince the public she was full of shit.
Gasping, Harry sat up and switched the light back on.
She knew how to do it! She knew how to get around the global PR machine with its misinformation and accusations!
Grinning like a fool, Harry dropped back against her mattress, rubbing a startled Vader lying beside her over his head and back.
What was she this time around? A fucking writer.
All she had to do was get people to read about zombies. The whole point was, it didn't have to be real, what she wrote. If she could get people to read a fictional account of a zombie apocalypse, she could prepare them for the real thing that was happening under their noses, all the while skirting around the elite's propaganda machine desperate to bury the truth.
Harry wasn't going to tell anyone the truth, after all. She was merely going to write and sell fiction.
Turning the lights back off because she really needed to sleep, Harry considered the best zombie story she'd ever read in any life.
Easy. That was World War Z by Max Brooks. Hands down a masterpiece of fiction, based on real historical events from throughout humanity's existence, translated to fit a scenario featuring zombies.
Harry grabbed her phone and quickly checked that title and name. Just as she suspected. Neither the book nor the author existed in that world.
So, with a silent apology to Max Brooks, the next day Harry started writing World War Z as her own creation. She knew the book by heart pretty much, since it was one of her all-time favourites throughout many worlds, and whatever she couldn't remember she could make up on her own. She was a genuine writer, after all. She also decided to write down Max Brooks' other zombie book, the Zombie Survival Guide. And while she was writing those books, Harry thought that Max Brooks would probably be genuinely happy to know his works were being used to help people survive an actual zombie apocalypse somewhere in the multiverse.
In between writing, Harry hit up a gun store and after endless paperwork was able to take possession of a couple of Glocks. She also hit up a hardware store and bought four machetes, two sledgehammers and an axe. All of these were real, robust tools made to be used time and again. They made for the best kind of weapons to smack flesh-eating monsters in the head with.
Because guns were all well and good, but guns didn't kill zombies.
Bullets killed zombies.
And you needed to keep bullets in stock for your gun to be effective, and once shit hit the fan (and shit would hit the fan eventually), bullets would be the first thing to go out of stock, probably.
For that reason Harry also bought both a crossbow and a hand bow and plenty of arrows for both. She was proficient enough with both and could use them for killing zombies and for hunting game, and the arrows could be reused while bullets were gone once you fired them. She also invested in a couple of fishing poles with various kinds of artificial bait, and a small fishing net you could cast from the shore, so she could fish for food should the stores close down.
After two weeks of hunkering down in an RV park and writing around the clock, Harry had finished World War Z and sent it off to a freelance editor while she finished up the Zombie Survival Guide, which took another two weeks. She created simple, matching book covers and started promoting both books on social media. She created accounts for the books on all sorts of platforms, she filmed herself reading a few chapters of each book to put up as videos on a YouTube channel and the books' Facebook page, and once the editor was done, she sent off free copies to every book review blogger and vlogger she could find right after she published both books on any online platform that would have them, keeping the price low.
This wasn't about earning money. This was about getting as many people as she could to read both books so they would be prepared, all while keeping up the appearance she was just a writer selling her latest fictional novels.
And you could be sure Harry used the fact that she was a Staff Sergeant in the Marine Corps and a recipient of the Medal of Honour to its fullest extent while promoting the books. She was way too old for false modesty when she could use her very limited amount of fame to help save people's lives without anyone even realizing it.
All her efforts over the next few weeks were paying off and both books sold well enough to rise in the ranks and from there on the algorithms got hold of it and recommended it to more and more people. To help matters along Harry hosted an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit, which was quite fun to do and very popular, and she bought some targeted ads on platforms like Facebook and Goodreads. She also created countless memes about her books that she posted on Tumblr, some of which went viral.
Harry posted a Q&A she shot by herself in her RV on the YouTube channel in which she talked at length about the scenarios in World War Z, using some of the answers she remembered hearing Max Brooks give while he talked about his books.
And then a few podcasts specializing in various topics, from the military to horror fanatics, wanted to talk to her about her new books and Harry agreed to all of them and spent hours yapping away about her experiences as a Marine and how best to prepare yourself for a zombie apocalypse.
Over the next month, both books sold many, many copies, even hitting the coveted number 1 spot of bestselling eBooks on the Amazon Kindle and the Apple store.
And all the while no one could call Harry a conspiracy theorist or an alarmist, because, after all, it was just fiction. It wasn't real. Look at the other books by the same author. Werewolf Marines. Fiction, all of it. So while the ruling elite continued their global PR campaign of ignorance and misinformation by calling anyone claiming zombies to be real a crackpot, Harry educated the public about zombies by insisting they were entirely fictional and to please read her fictional books about fictional zombies and how to survive them for real.
The only thing missing from this delicious victory was, of course, Tom. Harry was extraordinarily proud she'd come up with this plan all by herself. No matter how much Tom enjoyed pointing out Harry was a Gryffindor through and through (and he wasn't wrong about that, not really), Harry knew she could also pass for a very respectable Slytherin if she put some effort into it.
Case in point, her World War Z masterplan that was going off without a hitch.
Harry kept an eye on various conspiracy sites and was pleased to see people who claimed zombies were real, that they'd seen them, even personally destroyed them, were now recommending her books to anyone who would listen, and discussing the things recommended in her books at length. That led to Harry starting a Discord server for her books, so people had a place to talk and argue about completely fictional zombies as much as they wanted. It became quite popular quite quickly.
The thing was, save for Ted and Annette, Harry had yet to see another zombie and during some moments she started doubting her own brain again, if what she'd seen had been real at all.
Then Harry headed into Flagstaff, Arizona, to stock up on everything before heading off into the Coconino National Forest to boondock for a while. Harry's brain had made it clear it needed some peace and quiet after all the excitement of launching the zombie books and promoting the heck out of them.
Outside another Walmart (because apparently they were magnets for not only society's most trashy and colourful personalities, but also the walking dead), Harry came across three zombies attacking an older woman in her seat behind the wheel of her car through the opened car door, a younger man in the passenger seat desperately kicking against the zombies to get them off. Harry pulled her Glock from its holster on her lower back and rushed towards the car, aiming her gun at the nearest zombie's head and pulling the trigger.
Zombie number 1 went down without a hitch. Vader, who'd been barking furiously, obediently fell quiet and stayed behind her when she told him to shush and watch her back, and Harry took aim at zombie number 2 and dispatched it just as efficiently.
But zombie number 3 had all but crawled into the car, over the lifeless woman with a gaping wound in her throat and was making for the young man, grabbing hold of one of his legs before the man could kick the zombie again.
Harry leaned forward to look inside the vehicle and to take aim, and she met the man's brown eyes. A familiar shiver ran through Harry, while the man's eyes widened in shock.
Tom!
The zombie inside the car bit down on Tom's leg.
Harry froze, gun sitting uselessly in her hand, as the next few seconds seemed to last a few hours.
Tom got bitten by a zombie just as she'd found him. Tom was going to become a zombie and Harry would have to put him down like a rabid dog.
"For fuck's sake, Harry," Tom yelled, without any hint of fear or pain, jerking his leg away from the zombie as much as he could. "Snap out of it and shoot the fucking thing!"
What even? Harry, mostly on autopilot, raised her gun, took aim and pulled the trigger, hitting the zombie right in the top of his head and dispatching him instantly.
"Tom," Harry breathed, slowly stepping closer to car. "Tom, you got bit."
Tom grinned at her while pushing the motionless zombie away from himself, and then he rapped his knuckles against his calf. It sounded like metal. "Nah, it bit my prosthetic, courtesy of Uncle Sam."
And Harry cackled and briefly bent over while she descended into hysterical laughter. "Just the one?"
"Yeah, I lost a leg in Afghanistan. Roadside I.E.D. Are you making fun of my disability?" Tom asked, though he sounded more amused than anything else.
"Nope." Harry grabbed hold of her jeans and raised the legs just high enough to show off her own titanium. "It's just that I win, cause I got two."
Tom snorted. "Fuck's sake. It's not a competition."
"It is now," Harry insisted with a wide grin, but before Tom could reply, the dead woman in the driver's seat moaned, opening milky eyes. Harry quickly raised her Glock and shot the woman between the eyes.
"That's my mom," Tom said, face paling as he stared at the now really dead woman.
"Sorry," Harry mumbled, unsure what else to say.
A siren wailed behind them, quickly followed by, "Drop the gun! Step away from the vehicle with your hands in the air!"
For fuck's sake. Harry raised one hand in the air and carefully lowered her Glock to the asphalt with the other one. "Don't mention the zombies!" Harry whispered urgently to Tom while she straightened up, keeping both arms up in the air.
"Don't mention the zombies?" Tom repeated in utter confusion. "What is this? Fawlty Towers?"
"My name is Staff Sergeant Jasmine Broussard from the United States Marine Corps," Harry called out while slowly walking backwards towards the cops behind her. "This is my service dog, Vader. I'm licensed to carry my gun. I came across three violent crackheads assaulting this family and I defended them."
"It's true," Tom called, slowly getting out of the car, keeping his hands visible as well because he wasn't stupid. "She saved my life."
"Are you that Marine that got the medal of honour?" the cop behind her asked.
"The very same," Harry said, glancing over her shoulder. Vader stood at her back, looking intently at the police officer but keeping his cool.
"Yeah, I saw you on Conan last year. I'm going to have to take you in for questioning. I won't cuff you if you cooperate," the cop said, lowering his weapon. It probably helped that the cop was black, too, thank fuck. Especially since Harry had her long, curly hair braided into four thick cornrows. On white people, those things were called Dutch braids, but if you were black, they were cornrows and to white people apparently signalled you were a violent gangbanger or some such nonsense. Harry liked them because they were a protective style that kept her hair out of her face whenever she boondocked and spent lots of time hiking, but she was well aware that small things like that could have a huge impact on how other, mostly white, people perceived you.
"I'll cooperate," Harry said, because there was little else she could do.
What followed was one free trip to the police station and a few hours of endless questions and statements and lots of waiting around. Since Harry was never placed under arrest, she didn't bother contacting a lawyer. She was careful to always refer to the assailants as violent crackheads and never, ever even insinuate they were zombies. And Tom, who rode in the same police car as her to the station to give his statement, followed her lead without question, having quickly realized Harry knew something about the situation he didn't.
Eventually the Chief of the Flagstaff Police department, a man of Hispanic descent, entered the interview room Harry was being kept in.
The police chief took a few minutes to observe Harry and Vader, who lay quietly at Harry's feet. "Here's what I don't get," the chief finally said. "You shot the violent crackheads to protect the Ruiz family. Then why put a bullet in Mrs Ruiz as well?"
Harry swallowed and stared the police chief right in the eyes. "They were contagious violent crackheads, Sir."
A knowing smile came over the chief's face and he nodded. "Yeah, we've been seeing a few of those around here lately. This crack epidemic might get out of hand sooner or later."
Harry nodded solemnly. "Have your officers practice headshots. That takes care of crackheads just fine."
"Good advice. You're free to go, Sergeant Broussard." The police chief turned around but stopped in the doorway to look at her over his shoulder. "Semper Fi."
Harry grinned in return. It was always nice to meet a fellow Marine. "Thank you, Sir. Semper Fi."
Tom was waiting for her in the entrance hall of the station. "I'm Raphael Ruiz," he said, holding out a hand which Harry shook.
"Jasmine Broussard." Harry followed Tom out of the station, while Tom fiddled with his phone to order them an Uber to take them back to the Walmart from whence they came. Tom was just over 6 feet tall, with a slightly muscular built, but not too much, with short black hair and brown eyes, and with quite handsome features. He was probably in his mid-twenties, like Harry was.
As they stood at the curb waiting for their ride, Tom turned towards Harry with an expression that could only be described as extremely fucking smug. "Did I mention that I'm a Corporal in the United States Navy Seals?"
Harry whipped her head around, staring up at Tom with blazing eyes. "You are not a Navy Seal! You're a big fat liar."
Tom's grin was so wide it had to hurt him. "Well, darling, it's all right that you're only a marine. We can't all be SEALs, after all."
"You fucking fucktard," Harry growled. "I ain't got no penis this time and you know the SEALs don't take women, the fucking old-fashioned bastards." Harry's cheeks were burning.
The reason for Harry's rather emotional reaction was life # 44, in which Harry had been a Lakota Sioux who'd worked his butt off to become a Navy SEAL. After all, hell week was named that for a reason. And boy had Harry been proud of that fact, so much so that after he'd gotten blown up in Afghanistan and ended up in the Navy hospital where he met Tom and got his memories back, Harry had spent the rest of their life teasing Tom, a 'mere' Marine, that he didn't have what it took to be a SEAL.
And now their roles were reversed and a fuming Harry knew she was in for a lifetime of teasing. Dammit. Why didn't the SEALs take women already, bunch of backwater, brainless pigs that they were.
Tom stood basking in his unexpected glory, looking more satisfied than Harry had seen him in a very long time. "Don't go blaming your non-existent penis, darling. The SEALs simply aren't for everyone."
"I hate you so much right now," Harry muttered just as their Uber pulled up. The driver eyed Vader a little worriedly, but Harry kept Vader on the floorboard and made sure to offer the guy a good tip once he dropped them off by Harry's RV.
"You're full-timing?" Tom asked, eyes lighting up, clearly happy about this fact.
Harry unlocked the RV door and waved Tom inside. "Yeah, I got some very nice Disability Compensation, and I've started writing on the side."
"I'm still duking it out with the VA," Tom sighed, voice full of frustration familiar to anyone who'd ever dealt with the VA.
"You should hire my attorney. He got me set up within the year." Harry sat down at the dinette after grabbing cans of soda for them both from the fridge.
Tom sat down opposite her. "I will." Opening his can, Tom took a quick sip and then smiled at Harry. "I saw you on Colbert last year. Another shiny medal. Congrats."
"Hey, even if I can't remember it, I'm still a Gryffindor." Harry took a few big gulps from her own can, thirsty as she was after hours of giving statements. "I got my memories back when I got shot, woke up in the hospital as Harry."
"My mother," Tom's voice cracked for a moment and he cleared his throat once, twice. "My mother was my last immediate family. My father passed away in an industrial accident when I was just a kid, and my older brother joined the army and got blown up in Iraq."
"I'm sorry for your loss, babe," Harry said sincerely.
"Thanks. But what I'm saying is, I'll happily join you on the road." Tom gave Harry an intent look. "After you tell me what the deal is with the violent crackhead not-zombies."
"Oh," Harry said with a cackle. "You are going to love this."
And after Harry had told Tom in detail about her discoveries of the ruling elite and their global PR campaign of disinformation, and Harry's fictional answer to that, Tom cracked up and laughed for a full minute.
"I don't say this often, darling," Tom finally said, still chuckling. "But you are a genius."
Harry beamed at him, chest warm and cheeks glowing. "Thanks, babe. I'm so glad I can finally share my devious plan with someone."
"And what a devious plan it is." Tom held up his can in a toast as he gave Harry an undeniably fond look. "Plagiarism and all."
"Hey, I dedicated the books to 'my friend Max who gave me the inspiration for these stories'," Harry quickly said. There would always be a part of her that felt uncomfortable with claiming someone else's story as her own, but needs must and all that. "Anyway, I'm starving and I saw a pizza place on the other side of the parking lot."
Tom wrinkled his nose. "That pizza is –"
"Oh, fuck off," Harry said with feeling, not in the mood for Tom's usual food snobbery because she was getting seriously hangry. "I'm a black woman who's just spent a whole fucking day at the police station hoping with all her might she wouldn't be charged with first degree murder and have to spend the night as well, so the least you can do is let me have some fucking American pizza because I am about to keel over from starvation."
Tom blinked at her, looking for a moment as if he wasn't sure if he should get angry in return or not, because Tom took his pizza seriously, hungry Harry or not, but then he nodded his surrender and slowly got up. "Fine. Let's go have something that definitely isn't pizza."
"Wow, how kind of you. Thank you," Harry said with an enormous eyeroll and then stuck her tongue out at Tom before grabbing her phone and stepping out of the RV.
Just to needle Tom a bit more, Harry ordered a Hawaiian BBQ pizza with pineapple and enjoyed the heck out of Tom's disapproving expression. Tom ordered a simple pizza with pepperoni, mozzarella, olives, onions and mushrooms, but no matter how much he insisted it wasn't pizza, he still ate most of it. With leftovers enough for next day lunch, they returned to Harry's RV, where Tom barely let Harry tuck the pizza in the fridge before grabbing her wrist and pulling her closer.
"I'm going to kiss you now," Tom said, eyes hooded as he looked from Harry's eyes to her lips and back. "And then I'm going to fuck you."
"In a Walmart parking lot? And they say romance is dead," Harry replied with a terribly amused grin.
"This is America, baby," Tom whispered against her lips. "And there's nothing more American than a Walmart parking lot." And then they were kissing, hands resting against shoulders and the side of their heads. It was always strange yet exciting to kiss for the first time in new bodies. On the one hand, it was new and slightly strange and took some getting used to again, but on the other hand it was unmistakably Tom she was kissing and that was comfortable and thrilling and filled with endless amounts of love.
Harry pulled back once she felt Tom harden in his jeans, pressed against her stomach. "Let's keep this between just us, babe." With a wink, Harry hurried around the RV, closing all the little curtains and blinds while Tom locked the door and toed off his shoes.
The bed in the back corner was small but a standard feature for the kind of RV she had, and Harry knew they'd make it work since they'd travelled in a number of different RVs together many times before.
Then they started peeling off each other's clothes and Harry didn't feel at all self-conscious about her prosthetics or her stumps. Not just because Tom had one of those as well. Even if Tom would have had two intact legs, Harry wouldn't have worried. They'd had so many different bodies over their lives by that point that she knew Tom would accept her no matter what she looked like. Tall or short, thin or fat, bearded or balding, white skin or brown, with plain features or ones that might get you a modelling job. It didn't matter to them in the end.
So missing legs? Not a problem, not for either of them. Their bodies were just that…bodies, that inevitably changed over the years as they aged, and were replaced with brand new ones every time they were reborn.
"Nice," Harry said once she saw Tom's prosthetic. Tom's leg was missing from above the knee and Harry ran a few fingers down the metal knee joint. "Is it easy to use?"
"Took some getting used to, but now it feels completely normal," Tom said as he pressed kisses down Harry's throat and onto her shoulder. "Do you have condoms? Because I don't have any on me."
"No need," Harry said with a little sigh and gestured towards the scars running across her belly. "Lost my uterus, so no babies, and I got tested since I last got laid, which was years ago, so I'm clean."
"I'm sorry." Tom pressed a warm hand against Harry's belly. "But given the circumstances, with a zombie apocalypse looming on the horizon, it might be for the best."
"Yeah," Harry agreed quietly. She enjoyed having children, generally, but she wouldn't choose to have them in their current situation. And at that point they'd had kids together so many times already that skipping one or two lives didn't hurt them in any significant ways.
Tom used his mouth and fingers to get her ready and to learn her new body, and he had her coming in no time. While Harry rode out the warm waves of pleasure, Tom lined up his cock and pushed inside her, prolonging Harry's orgasm with his first few thrusts.
"Missed you," Harry moaned in his ear, one arm wrapped around his shoulders as she met the sharp stabs of his hips with her own. "Love you."
"Love you too, darling," Tom said before releasing a deep groan.
Harry loved the feeling of Tom's cock slamming deep inside of her. There was something so delicious and right about having a part of Tom's body sliding so thoroughly inside her own. It was a physical representation of their souls, perhaps, how they were connected on levels they could barely understand.
Tom reached between them with one hand and rubbed his fingers across Harry's clit in time with this thrusts and before long Harry was coming again with a cry she muffled against Tom's shoulder. Tom followed her over the edge only moments later, face buried in her neck.
Later, as they lay cuddling while their bodies were spent, Harry said, "You know, isn't it weird that we're always in professions that match?"
"Hm?" Tom turned his face to look at her, one eyebrow curved in a silent question.
"I mean, we're both military this life, like we were back in number 44 as well. It can't be random. If everything was really random, I'd be in the USA military and you'd be a construction worker in Malaysia or something. You know what I mean?"
"Yes, whatever lives we're given to live do always seem engineered to assure we meet sooner rather than later," Tom said quietly.
"Exactly. So who's pulling the strings?"
"No clue." Tom nuzzled Harry's cheek. "And a zombie apocalypse isn't the ideal life to try to find out."
"Yeah, you're right." Harry sighed, her hand finding Tom's and her fingers hooking around a few of his. "It's gonna get a lot worse before it's getting better, this apocalypse."
"It's only just started," Tom agreed. "I have to arrange my mother's funeral, sell the house, but then we can leave here."
"Just travel around, spread the fictional word about the upcoming apocalypse and kill any zombies we encounter," Harry suggested, turning her face towards Tom's, so she could kiss the tip of his nose. "It is a unique opportunity, though, isn't it? Living through a real zombie apocalypse."
Tom remained in quiet thought for a moment before nodding once. "It is something we haven't done before, that's for sure."
"Yep, at least this life isn't boring." Harry closed her eyes and listened to Tom's breathing until she fell asleep. Tomorrow was another day, and now that Tom was by her side, Harry looked forward to kicking lots of zombie ass for a long time to come.