She’s dead.
“I don’t remember her,” Junko says. “What was her name?”
“Wendy,” says Mr. T. “I’m surprised she lasted as long as she did. Back at the hotel, she was a sorry sight.”
When Wendy awoke back at the hotel, she was so frightened she couldn’t speak to anybody. Perhaps she could have joined somebody’s team if she had spoken up, but she couldn’t get the words out. When she saw Oro escaping out of the side door, she followed after him, but he wouldn’t let her follow for very long. She was on her own.
The weapon they had given her wasn’t exactly a weapon. It was a lawn gnome. She assumed it had to have been a mistake, then she assumed it had to have been a cruel joke. She wondered what she was supposed to do with it. Smash zombies over the head with it? Poke them with the pointy red gnome hat? The weapon assigned to each contestant was supposed to match that person’s fighting capabilities. She didn’t understand how they could think she would be capable of fighting off hordes of zombies with a ceramic gnome.
“I don’t need a weapon to fight them,” she said to herself. “My greatest weapon is my faith in Jesus.”
Religion was rare on the island of Neo New York, especially in Copper. But Wendy was a devoted Christian. Her mother and her mother’s mother were all dedicated to the faith. They had passed down their only remaining copy of the bible to her. It was a book that guided her through her life.
“You have to go to school,” her mother told her. “I don’t care what those bullies did to you.”
Young Wendy looked up at her mother. Her eye swollen and black. An agonizing pain in her privates.
“But they’ll hurt me again…” Wendy cried.
Her mother handed her the precious family bible.
“Have faith in Jesus,” she said. “He will protect you from the heathens.”
“But he didn’t protect me yesterday…”
“That’s because you didn’t have strong enough faith!”
Wendy looked down at her scabby knuckles.
“Okay?” her mother said.
“Okay,” Wendy said.
Wendy’s school wasn’t really a school. There were only five students who were taught by a lady from the back of the porch outside of her shack. Three of the students were her children. She taught the other two students for a small monthly fee from their mothers.
Unfortunately, the school wasn’t on the best side of town. Wendy was often attacked on her way to and from school, by teenaged gang members or angry old men, who wanted inside of her. She could have tried to sneak through the back streets to get away from them, but her mother told her all she needed was faith and nothing could harm her. But every time, no matter how much she believed Jesus would deliver her from harm, she was raped by different attackers. Sometimes she was even assaulted more than once in a day. When she would arrive home, her mother would have no pity for her.
“It’s because you lack faith,” her mother would say, and if Wendy ever argued back she would be beaten.
She grew up and got a job in a soup kitchen, but her problem never changed. She was still attacked on the street. Her frail body and cowering posture made her a perfect victim. Predators seemed to be drawn to her. Every day, she believed with all her heart that Jesus would protect her. Some days she would get away with no harm done to her, other days she would come home with a ripped dress and a black eye. The last man who attacked her had a white suit and a white goatee. The next day, she awoke as a contestant on
In the zombie wasteland, Wendy knew that she had to believe in Jesus more than she ever had in the past. She had to have faith so no harm would come to her.
As she walked down the street in the Red Zone, she moved with confident strides. She did not take a safe route, because she believed that would show a lack of faith. She went straight toward the goal. With all her heart, she believed Jesus would save her. With all her heart, she knew no zombie would lay a hand on her body.
Wendy didn’t have her bible on her, nor her crucifix. This worried her at first because her mother had always told her that carrying a holy symbol or being in the presence of the bible would increase her faith. These things would give her power, but she had none. This worried her greatly.
When she encountered the first zombie, her faith was put to the test. A zombie was standing in her way, growling, calling out for her brains. She paused for a moment. Without a holy symbol, she wasn’t sure if her faith would be strong enough. So she closed her eyes and put all of her soul into her faith. She visualized the beautiful magnificence of Jesus. She let him into her heart, filled herself with his love, and knew that he would let no harm come to her. She kept on her path, marching directly toward the living corpse.
Then something miraculous happened. As she approached the corpse, the creature got out of her way. It cowered before her, trembling at the might of the holy spirit filling her soul. She smiled as she moved on. For once in her life, her faith was strong enough to protect her. When she looked down at the lawn gnome, she discovered she did have a holy symbol in her possession. A blob of brown paint in the gnome’s coat looked exactly like a crucifix. She hugged the gnome close to her body. She knew that Jesus had come to her in the form of a lawn gnome.
Then she came across a large mob of zombies. They barreled through the street toward her. As she arrived to them, they moved aside, opening a path for her to go through.
“You were right, mother,” Wendy said to the heavens. “All I needed was faith.”
She walked all day with no incident. She didn’t run into any other contestant. Every zombie cowered before her faith. She knew she would be the winner of the contest, because she had Jesus on her side. At night, she bunked down in a hotel room, without even locking the door. She held her gnome tightly to her heart.
“You’ll save me, Jesus. I know you will.”
“Wait here,” says Mr. T. “The T-2000 will be right back.”
The others stay back as Mr. T goes down toward the zombie mob. A camera ball floats after him. He punches his way through the crowd until he enters the open circle. The zombies don’t follow him within. Junko, Scavy, and Rainbow come in for a closer look. Mr. T examines the girl’s body, digging through her pack. He tosses the pack aside and takes a lawn gnome lying by the girl’s side. He lifts it up, inspecting each side of it. When he moves it toward the zombies, they back away. He moves away from the dead girl, back toward the others. As he moves, the open circle moves with him.
“What is it?” Rainbow asks.
Junko squints her eyes. “I don’t know, but whatever it is the zombies won’t go near it.”
As Mr. T moves far enough away from Wendy’s body that the invisible perimeter no longer protects her, the zombie horde pounce on top of her. They screech with excitement, rolling over one another, as they tear apart her flesh to get to her brain.
When Mr. T arrives to them, they all stand within the protective barrier. Zombies quickly surround them. Scavy, Junko, and Rainbow Cat stand back-to-back, aiming their weapons at the shambling corpses. But the zombies keep their distance, they do not attack.
Mr. T holds up the lawn gnome.
“They did it…” he says.
“What?” Junko asks, looking back and forth between the gnome and the undead.
Mr. T explains, “The doctor who built the T-2000, he developed a technology that could keep zombies at bay. Mr. T guesses those scientists in Neo New York got it up and running.”
Junko takes the gnome from him. A camera ball overhead zooms in on it.
Mr. T continues, “Inside this little guy, there’s a device that emits a sonic wave that the zombies just can’t stand.” Mr. T takes back the device and bounces it in his metal hand. “This one’s emitting a pretty low frequency, so it only holds them back a dozen feet or so. But with a more powerful emission this thing could hold back at least a square mile, or even protect an entire city.”
“This technology could save the world,” Junko says.
“If those suckas bothered to use it,” he says. “Mr. T don’t think those fat cats in Platinum care about saving
