Stella the Zombie Killer

Stella the Zombie Killer Part 14

'I can't leave Tash!' Vine shouted to Stella as she ran for the garage office.

'You go to your people, I go to mine,' she shouted over her shoulder.

'But what if there are too many?'

'I'll take care of it. We have a plan for this sort of thing. Go!'

Deads had cascaded around the tanker that blocked the road and they had filled the street outside of the garage. Vine hadn't been so close to so many since the early days after the crash when solar power had been hard to come by. He glanced once more at Stella and made up his mind; he would clear a space for her and then get to Tash as quickly as he could.

Stella burst into the office, throwing a glance over her shoulder at Vine as he weighed into the deads, his massive weapon swinging and clubbing the deads back. She knew that he wouldn't wait for but she was grateful for the valuable minutes he was buying her.

The office was sparse, the plain dark wood desk empty. Looted, Stella presumed, although what could be taken she had no idea. The calendar was open at August 2020, exactly three years ago. Its owner had circled the 20th. A birthday? An anniversary? Something too important to forget. 'Dates don't matter anymore,' she said out loud. Then she shrugged. 'Except Christmas.'

She quickly searched the room for a thumper-type device. It sat on the floor behind the desk, not in plain sight but certainly not hidden. It was larger than the thumpers she and Hook used and looked to be solar charged. She briefly considered taking it for Gregor to study but rejected the idea; it would be too risky to try to carry it through a horde.

The sound of a launching jet pack told her that Vine had gone. She glanced through the office window and saw that the deads had been forced back to the tanker truck. 'Thanks, metal man,' she said, and turned to kick the thumper. It smashed easily but she stamped on it some more, grinding the parts beneath her heel to ensure that the signal was killed.

If Hook and Gregor were keeping watch on the street then they would be awaiting her return. That way the emergency re-entry plan, or the ERP as Hook called it, would swing into action. Stella tried to imagine Hook swinging into anything. She couldn't but she could certainly imagine him battering into things and that would be just as good.

Adrenaline coursed through her body, working its magic. She liked to think of it as magic rather than bio-mechanically enhanced adrenal glands; the latter sounding so clinical. And of course, no one knew the long term effects of such enhancement. She was about as long term as it got and she still felt fine, better than fine, magical. Magic was easier to deal with than biology.

She leapt over the desk and was already sprinting at full speed before she reached the rows of cars. Her tanto blade didn't slow her at all and she silently cursed herself for going out so often unarmed.

She was only a three-minute run from Vic's but she had no idea how long the thumper had been transmitting; there could be hundreds of deads there by now and she would have no way of getting back inside. The plan only worked if they could communicate and for that she needed the thumper tracker. She could see it now on the desk in the concourse. 'I'll think of something,' she said to herself.

***

Jared let the water fall over him, smoothing it through his hair, down his body, around every part of him, feeling the grime beneath his fingers as it was rinsed away. He looked down at his feet; his toes splashed in the brown water like potatoes poking from muddy earth. His beard was as much of a tangle as his hair and he could smell the water as it gushed through it. It didn't smell nice.