Setting Things Right, Part 8: Shotgunner's end - escape from the beach - a good samaritan - the fortress (432 hits)
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Submitted by X54 (View user info) at 2008-11-11 22:43:21 EST
Part 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/118878 I meet Colonel Barnes - a standoff - their mission and mine
...Part 5: http://www.ubersite.com/m/119378 a bit about me - the colonel's strategy - our next big contract - the refinery
Part 6: http://www.ubersite.com/m/119483 assigned - confrontation with a guard - the motor pool - Watson - a two day pass - requisitioning a motorcycle
Part 7: http://www.ubersite.com/m/119597 Sergeant Pierce - Hoffman - the Kawi - the beach - a bird! - an angry crowd
Part 8:
Just as I grasped the Glock in my field jacket pocket, Shotgun Man suddenly looked up from the girl and trained his weapon on me. The beam from the light mounted under its barrel lit up my chest. I'd shot enough people with my own scattergun to know exactly what I was in for if he fired. From the looks of the girl's head, he was using double ought buck or something close to it.
"I had to do it," he said. "Can't you see that? You were crazy to touch that bird. This is all your fault!"
The crowd returned in greater strength, hanging back a good distance in the dark, forming a wide half circle against the water. Where they could, they stood atop the little boats that littered the beach, shining their flashlights on us. It was like being on stage, the star of some popular avant-garde performance. The breaking waves took on an applause-like quality. I half wanted to turn and bow like a matador acknowledging my fans just prior to the climax of a bullfight. But that would have been presumptuous.
I hadn't given a second thought to handling the bird. But I couldn't tell Shotgun Man I was immune, not after Grumpy's warning about not telling anyone I was a survivor. Shotgun Man would have deduced that right away, even in his distraught condition.
I said, "It's her own fault. She should have stayed put. You warned her. I'm a witness to that. It's not like you're a psycho or anything, are you?"
He shifted the gun and illuminated Crawling Girl and the widening stain in the sand around her head. She reminded me of all the Jack-O-Lanterns I vandalized as a kid. My hand tightened around the Glock and my arm tensed in preparation to draw. But just then a woman distracted me from behind. She staggered in the soft sand, huffing and puffing. "Wait," she gasped. "Both of you. Just wait!"
"Stay away from him." Shotgun Man redirected his weapon back at me, the blinding light in my eyes. "He's contaminated."
She brushed past me and continued straight for him. "Stop," he shouted. "Don't come any closer."
She halted at the midpoint between us, beside Crawling Girl and the decapitated seagull, squinted into the shotgun's beam and extended her arms on either side, palms out like a referee.
I crouched and drew my pistol. Using the woman for cover, I leaned slightly for a clear line of sight around her ass and fired twice. The first shot hit Shotgun Man in the chest. The second, by sheer luck (due to the blinding light) hit him in the forehead. He dropped his weapon and crumpled to his knees. The crowd gasped and drew back a little. Again came the heady sensation of performing on stage. The woman, to her credit, snatched the shotgun and turned it on him. In time to his rapid breathing, blood sprayed out the hole in his chest.
I moved up alongside her. The man looked as though he was trying to say something, gurgling through the blood bubbling from his mouth. He'd lost his glasses and his eyes were covered with the blood pumping from the hole in his forehead. He appeared to be having a convulsion, or trying to stand up or something, jerking and shuddering on his knees, teetering first to one side, then the other. The woman screamed. His breathing intensified to frantic panting, his sucking chest wound noisily dousing the sand in front of him. I was about to issue his coup de grace when, to my delight, he threw his head back and began to choke, a terrible rattling sound from his gaping mouth.
Though I knew it was exactly the wrong reaction under the circumstances, I couldn't help laughing. Absorbed as I was in the man's climactic performance, I didn't notice the woman turn on me. Her frightened gasp gave her away. Had she not been armed, I might have taken a moment to revel in her expression of horror and disgust. But as it was, I snatched the shotgun from her before she had a chance to point it my direction. Shotgun Man finally fell back with a wet thud. The roar of the waves and the crowd drowned out his wheezing bullet hole.
I was about to shove the shotgun muzzle into that poor woman's belly to see how much more terror I could wring from her twisted face before doing her in. But the scream of approaching sirens stayed my eager hand. To my surprise, her expression changed, as if she suddenly recognized me. She was young and pretty and she looked up at me with concern in her eyes, as if I was the one in dire straights and not her. "Come with me if you want to live," she said.
What kind of thing is that for a person just one trigger pull away from oblivion to say? The gall of it piqued my curiosity.
"Come on," she said, ignoring the shotgun and pulling my jacket. "You don't want to mess with the security around here."
"My bike."
"Your bike already belongs to them. Do you want to be killed, as well?"
I considered this for a second until I realized it was rhetorical. A wave of flashing lights, wailing sirens and screeching tires flooded the parking lot where I'd left the Kawi and my gear. My euphoria fading like a man's libido after orgasm, I followed her north along the beach. The crowd parted for us like the sea for Moses and I graciously nodded my acknowledgment from behind the shotgun.
I switched off the light. We made a hard right and went between some houses. She led me first this way, then that in a zigzag pattern through one dark neighborhood after another. At last we came to a two story motel on some old main drag, a well lighted beacon of happiness in the night. A high chain link fence topped with razor wire surrounded the place. Solar panels took up half the parking lot. An armed guard stood behind the gate.
"Davey," said the woman. "It's me. Let us in, quick."
The lock clicked and a motor whirred and the gate rolled open. We slipped inside and it reversed direction. "If Security comes, don't tell them anything," she said.
"Yes Ma'am," said the guard. He had an AR or an M16 on his shoulder and he reached for it when he saw the shotgun. I aimed right at him and clicked on the light. It's surprising how effective that is in those situations.
The woman pulled me away. "Will you stop it? Come on." I lowered the shotgun and followed. "Not one word to Security, David," she called over her shoulder. "And don't let them in!"
At the front desk sat a young lady who looked as though she might have been the woman's sister, with a pretty face and long brown hair. She looked up from a little dog or puppy sitting on her lap as we hurried across the lobby. The dog took advantage of the distraction to make a break for it, but she snagged it in mid-air. Glancing back as we entered the "employees only" area, I caught a glimpse of her dangling the yelping pup at arm's length by one hind leg as the door closed behind me.
We turned into one of several suites located behind the lobby. The woman guided me into the kitchen and stood me on the linoleum floor, took the shotgun, jacked the slide back and laid the gun on the counter. The ejected round smacked the floor and skittered under the refrigerator. She removed her jacket, flung it on the floor by my feet. "Take off your clothes."
I stared unbelieving. She opened a cabinet above the range and placed a chair to reach the second shelf. My eyes searched for a weapon, but all she grabbed was a box of plastic trash bags. She pulled one out and tossed it my way. "Put your clothes in that. I'll put them in the incinerator. Then take a shower. But don't use all our water while you're at it."
"What if I don't want to burn my clothes?" I said.
"You have to. I just put my life on the line for you back there and now you'd better do this for me."
"What happens after that?"
"We'll get you some more clothes." She paused. "I know what you are. I know you don't have to worry about getting sick. But the rest of us do."
"What do you think I am?"
She lifted her chin. "You're a zombie."
At one time, we survivors were unfortunate victims, consigned by fate to the gruesome task of quarantine duty, hardly better off than the countless victims we spent our days burning. But as things got worse they lost control of us. Word spread of the things we did. There are a few key similarities, but "zombie" isn't a completely accurate description of us. At least not in the old school Romero sense. But that's what we came to be called. It dehumanized us. Leveled the playing field, you might say.
"What makes you think that?"
"You are, aren't you. You killed that poor bird and you weren't afraid of getting sick when everyone else was. You shot that man down in cold blood and then you..."
"I don't think that bird was really sick."
"You don't get to make that call."
"Couldn't you just wash them with bleach or something?"
She rolled her eyes. "All right. Just put them in the bag."
I emptied my pockets and put the contents, including my pistol, on the counter by the shotgun. "Suppose I was. I'm not saying I am. But just suppose I was. Why would you 'put your life on the line' for me?"
"Because that's the kind of person I am. I go out of my way to help people. I know, you can't understand that."
"Oh, I understand completely." I shrugged off the field jacket and shirt, then sat on the floor to remove my boots and socks. "You think you're an authority on survivors."
"Survivor." She stared at me. "That's what she calls herself, too."
My head snapped up. "Who?"
"Never mind. Hurry up."
I'd met only a few female survivors. They could control their urges better than men and more easily blend in with everyone else. Most fled as soon as they recovered and guarded their secret like post-pandemic witches.
I stood up and dropped trou and nakedly stuffed everything into a trash bag.
She looked me over with a trace of a smile. "What's your name, anyway?"
My balls tightening, I said, "Swanson."
"Is that your first name or your last, Swanson?"
"It's the only name I go by." It didn't even occur to me to ask hers.
User Reviews
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2008-11-13 16:04:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Biteme (user info) at 2008-11-12 08:14:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
wah wah wah below.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-11-12 08:13:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Banjo (user info) at 2008-11-12 06:06:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Are you going to get these all made up nice with illustrations? So I can have them in one easy to read pdf or something. Would be cool, speak to Hurty, he draws nice pics.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-11-12 05:48:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2008-11-12 05:35:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Still reading, still enjoying. Keep em coming.
Nice twist making survivors "zombies" - love it!
Submitted by Desz (user info) at 2008-11-12 01:24:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
reading and enjoying them all 1 by 1