Misery County

Chapter 12 - Part 5

"Come get me, you fucking assho-" she began to yell, but she was cut off by a series of clanking sounds from behind her.

Shooting her head back around and toward the setting sun, she saw a silhouette of a man with a very long-barreled pistol standing just outside of the restaurant's doorless front entrance and taking shots at the corpses by the gap in the fence. They fell one by one as if they were machines that had been shut down.

"What the fuck you standing there for?" the gunman called out. "Come on, let's blow this joint."

Cassie knew that voice. "Eric?"

"Who were you expecting? Michael Dukakis?"

"I have no fucking clue who that is, but I'm glad that it's you and not him," she said as she ran up to meet him. "Nice gun, by the way."

"Thanks. I've been looking for a chance to break in my new suppressor, and what better opportunity than in a crowd of noise-sensitive zombies? Come on, get on through," he said as he held the stretched part of the fence up.

"Wait, Eric, there's a necromancer in there. I think he's controlling them," she said as she crawled through the gap.

"Skinny, nerdy-looking guy? He's dead." Eric crawled through behind Cassie.

"What, really? How did you kill him?"

"I shot him."

"Just like that?"

"Well, I guess he was just an ordinary human, so yeah. Hold on. I gotta do something." Eric grabbed a spool of wire that he must have left by the gap in the fence on his way in. Unwinding it, he tied up the opening.

"Smart. Now they can't get out."

"Truthfully, I wasn't sure they'd be able to anyway. They don't look particularly acrobatic. But, you know, why risk it?"

"True enough," Cassie said as they both began walking back to their cars. "How the hell'd you get here so fast anyway?"

"I got your voicemail."

"Which one?"

"All of them, but the last one caught my attention the most. I got in my car as soon as I heard it. Well, I tried to phone you first, but I think you didn't have any signal."

"Flat battery, actually. I really should get a car charger."

Eric glanced sideways at her. "You did read the part of the notes where I wrote not to go to the Charles Creek fairground under any circumstances, right?"

"Yeah, but I was –"

"Don't wanna hear it," Eric said curtly.

Cassie bit her lip. "I'm sorry I ruined your date again."

Eric didn't answer immediately. He took a deep breath first, then said, "Don't worry about it. It was getting a bit dull anyway."

"Oh?" Cassie hated to admit it to herself, but she was pleased to hear it.

"Yeah, I mean, it's a beautiful day today, but Nevena didn't want to go anywhere. 'Shall we grab something to eat?' I'd say, and she'd say, 'The fridge is full right here, stud.'"

Cassie laughed at Eric's Nirvana voice.

"'Do you want to go for a walk around town?' I'd say, and she'd just say, 'I'm comfortable right here, stuuuud.'" Now Eric was beginning to laugh at his own impersonation as well.

"Eric, all that said, don't you think that she might –"

"Oh my fucking Christ, Cassie, if you dare utter the V-word, I'm going to pick you up and toss you back over that fence to keep the zombies company."

"Speaking of the zombies..." Cassie thought it best to change the topic. "...shouldn't we, you know, do something about them?"

"Like?"

"Like kill them. Uh, again, I guess."

Eric scrunched his face up in thought.

"We could take pot shots at them from outside, couldn't we? Have you got enough ammo?" Cassie offered.

"I got a ton of silver bullets, but those li'l critters are pretty damn expensive to be used on zombies."

"I had that same thought earlier!"

"What, when you were trapped in the fairground?"

"Well, yeah."

"You were trapped in the middle of a horde of zombies, and your first thought was that wasting silver bullets would cost you money? Do you have, like, no survival instinct at all?"

"It obviously sounds bad when you say it like that."

Eric raised an incredulous eyebrow at her.

"Say, I couldn't help but noticing the zombies not making any effort to go after you while you were in there. What's that all about?" Cassie said.

"Don't know. Maybe they need to be given a target by the necromancer. Maybe that's why there have been no zombie attacks or zombie sightings in the county so far."

"I guess that makes sense. So what are we gonna do about them?"

"There's no one around to let them out or control them, and no one comes 'round these parts, so I say we leave them there and possibly swing back to clean them up after we've dealt with more pressing matters."

"And have some cheaper ammo," Cassie finished his thought.

"That's my girl."