Jimbo was feeling much, much stronger. ‘It is in the blood.’, he thought, ‘Whatever makes us come back is in the blood, it gives us life now.’ He made sure the mother was eaten, and damaged enough to not revive, same with the older kid. Then he turned towards the bed. The girl had to be younger, six, maybe seven. Not too strong, probably less upkeep, but hey, Jimbo could not make everyone into zombies.
Once the mother was finished, Jimbo grabbed the boy, who was still half wild and together they flipped the bed over and grabbed his paralyzed sister. Fred tried to butt in on this treat, but Jimbo backhanded him. Then Fred concentrated and Jimbo could feel the ‘pull’ urging him to get the fuck out of Fred’s way. Jimbo squared his shoulders and spoke to Fred, “Not. Yet. We will get you up and running, but give this one to the kid and I so I can get stronger, like you mister ‘kid and half a mom eater’, and so the kid can at least get as strong as you are. As a team we are better off having the same amount of power than having one super strong member. I won’t be a Nancy on you and won’t have you pulling that shit on me either. I rescued you man, so back off this time.”
With apparent reluctance Jimbo felt the pressure compelling him diminish and he turned for his half of the little girl, the boy had drained most of her blood from her throat and Jimbo ended up sitting down to a larger meal than he had anticipated, eating quite a few of the girls internal organs, he had not wanted to really, just felt doing so would give him the most ‘bang’ for his eating experience. By the time he was through the boy was sobbing. ‘Fuck’, thought Jimbo, ‘Now I gotta counsel the little brat through this shit?’
“Hey, cut it out.” Jimbo concentrated and tried to get the kid to stop crying mentally, it worked. The boy's mind was almost like a path inside of his head and if Jimbo concentrated he could see where the rows of faint light went, which must be the kid's thoughts, and slowly he could divert them. He was lost in thought over this and become so involved with the process of sorting through the kid’s mind that he lost track of time. By the time he came back to reality he had made the kid forget that his first victims were his former family members, and set it up so that when they left the house, he would think they had eaten the creepy neighbor man and his bully son that the boy had feared for years instead. The boy was almost happy by the time Jimbo left his mind. Fred watched everything from the edge of the room while he gnawed on one of the mother’s legs. He looked much better and Jimbo focused his attention on Fred’s mind briefly. There was resistance there, but he could get through enough to see that Fred was doing some serious thinking about trying to control Jimbo or trying to work with him. Jimbo tried to subtly nudge Fred into the ‘work with Jimbo’ and ‘Jimbo is my savior’ mode of thinking. He thought he was successful but it was so much harder than he imagined it would be.
As a brief afterthought he tried to turn his minds eye inward to examine his own brain. There it was, exposed for the world to see. ‘Fuck’, he thought, ‘what to do about this? I can’t be running around all open to everyone.’ He thought about it for a minute then came up with an analogy, clear cloudless day was what he was seeing in his own head, what he needed was a cloudy downpour or better a heavy fog, so others could not see his thoughts at all. Going with the weather theme he concentrated and slowly saw his mind fog up until he was looking at a storm cloud, with internal eye instead of a clear sunny day. The cloud surrounded his head, obscuring all his ‘running lights’ from view. Better still he was pretty sure if anyone tried to play 'Moses' and part the water vapor protecting his mind, he would know about it. Would it hold against Nancy? He did not know, he suspected it would hold against Fred though. One thing for certain his manipulations had left him hungry again, unusually so, he wanted more food.
“Well Fred, what have you decided? Are we a team or are you going to try and be my master? We are once removed, one of the zombies you created, a real bitch by the name of Nancy, wanted you dead, I saved you and brought you up to strength. You can probably figure out why, I didn’t like following Nancy’s orders. I am pretty sure she can find us if she concentrates hard enough and I would like to have you there to protect me from her when she shows up, waddya say?”
Jimbo knew his manipulations had worked before Fred even answered, almost without thinking he could see how Fred was thinking. He had done it.
“I think I would rather work with you than have to watch my back all the time. Besides I remember Nancy, she was a fake bitch in real life, a hollow core, a true salesma-woman. I never liked her, but she did her job. What did you do to your head and the boy’s and to me?” asked Fred.
“Well, Bobby, he was getting all sobbed up about eating his mom and all, I can’t stand whiny crybabies, so I have fixed him to think this ain’t his mom, right Bobby?”
“What?” came Bobby’s reply, “This is Mr Thompson’s house. His kid had an xbox three sixty and they would never let us play it. Thompson was mean, he yelled at me and I am glad he is dead.” Bobby’s eyes were glazed and unfocused.
“See?” asked Jimbo.
“And me?”
“Well you were trying to make a decision and snapping to judgments, I just, kinda told you to weigh your options. Nothing else. I honestly can’t do anything to you, that took all my efforts and left me starving, I think it is because you are like, my creator’s creator or something.” replied Jimbo.
“Ah. I see. What about you. One minute I though I could almost see or hear your thoughts now I can’t see anything. How did you do that?” asked Fred.
“Well, er, I kinda thought, you know, if maybe Nancy showed up, I would try and make it harder for her to get inside my head. I think I can teach you how to do it too.” In his mind Jimbo was thinking furiously, then a thought came to him. Backdoors. Like in all those computer hacker movies, maybe he could set up a backdoor in Fred’s defenses to give him a chance if Fred and his relationship went south.
“Right now though, I am hungry. What I did takes a lot of energy, and I will teach you how as soon as we get more meat, you guys game?”
“Yes, I could use it, I think Bobby is okay.” Fred drawled.
“I ain’t hungry no more. But I will stay with you, okay?” said Bobby
“Bobby my boy I would not have it any other way.” As the three left the house Jimbo was thinking of rainbows.
Chapter 32
Standing in the kitchen staring at her hand Nancy and Veronica were interrupted by Trish and Julie coming down the stairs together. The girls stopped, realizing that something major had happened, then Julie ventured, “What is with the smoke and smell?”
“Well Julie, I am so glad you asked” replied Nancy, “I was curious to see just how well we could mend and ran a little test with the oven. This.” She held up her hand, “is my hand, five minutes ago my smallest finger was a blackened, blistered claw, now, it is fully functional, without even scar tissue to impede it's movement. What do you think of that?”
“Um, it is good, right. Good?”
“Yeah Julie it is good. I feel immortal, I think with enough humans in me, us, we will be immortal. Are you girls hungry? I could use a bite, but would rather wait for a few hours if you can handle it.” Somehow Nancy knew they were mostly full and would not resent waiting either. This was something she needed to sit down and explore with them too. How secure was her hold over them and how, exactly did it work? Time would tell, right now they needed to get through the next few days, find a few more people to eat, maybe make a couple more girls to go along with them. Replace Jimbo? Hm worth thinking about he did have more mass and muscle then the rest of them. Oh and track down that lucky fucker Fred too. She would find him, it was inevitable.
Chapter 33
Max thought 'Hey this ain't too bad.' for a gut shot man walking down the stairs of the apartment building he was doing okay. Then came the shooting, a bullet winged off the metal support pole near Max’s head and sent him
