enemies and gain power. For what? I don’t know, but it is better than running into the Dave’s of the world and getting fucked over when they are more powerful than we are. I want you to think longer term than that. I will be a commander of your, our, military forces I will hold considerable power to balance you. We need Jimbo, he is not optional. But do we need you?”
“Fuck you drive a hard bargain, you love this don’t you, having me over a barrel? You would not be talking to me like this if I hadn’t wasted all my efforts protecting you from Fred and Jimbo. No! Don’t even start it, I know you need me to change and if we can work together I will. You get your Jimbo.” She spat in his direction. “But I get to lead us and until someone comes up with another plan we still follow my lead.”
“Fine” said Veronica, “I can live with that, Jimbo teaches me first, then Trish, then Julie, you last, I don’t want you backing out after you get your strength back.”
Nancy looked at her with disgust, then chuckled, “Yeah, yeah, okay. You got me covered don’t you? You do know I always intended you to be my right hand woman don’t you? And I meant what I said, they would have been my generals anyway, I suppose this is worth the price of not having to wait until the next time one of you pull a ‘Jimbo’ on me.”
Veronica turned back to Jimbo, “You can get up now, you good with this? No one killing you again, you teaching us and leading up our spy services? You will have to keep us fed by finding humans, keep us safe by making sure we don’t fight other zombie gangs too strong for us to take on and pretty much do everything else we ask. Otherwise just say the word and walk away now. If we see you again we will kill you, like anyone else who is not with us.”
“Uh, when you put it that way, it seems less appealing. I think it could work Veronica and if you can keep Nancy working with me instead of bossing me around you can count me in.” He turned to look at Nancy, “You are a grade ‘A’ bitch, but I could work on your side.”
“Thanks Jimbo.” Nancy said sarcastically, “I love you too.”
“I think the first order of business, for our security, is to find who started this mess. I mean Fred didn’t, and I kind of doubt the guy who bit Fred started it either. Who is the head guy or gal? And where are they, we need information and I am going to make tracking that person down my all time second priority after doing the other things you mentioned: Food, teaching, short term security, intelligence work.” said Jimbo. “We need to figure out a growth strategy too, how many, how soon, do we accept volunteers or must everyone we take on be our ‘children’? We need to do this pronto, before we are overwhelmed by the humans striking back or some other gang wiping us out. I saw what happened when you girls ate Fred, you gained something, like eating a normal human only more so, that means our smartest and most developed will be targets for other smart zombies. We need a base of operations too, where do we make our hideout or fortress of solitude?”
“Good questions Jimbo and a good start. Nancy?” said Veronica.
Grudgingly Nancy replied, “Yeah, okay things I had not considered, but the situation is rapidly changing. Look around here, have the suburbs been good? Sure they have, but half or more of the houses are abandoned right now, no one there to eat. I think we need to move to a different suburb at the very least, if not to another city altogether, does anyone know if the Springs has been infected? No? Yeah I have to admit I have not been watching FOX News much lately either. Instinctively I would say move to Aurora or out east into the sprawl, but that might not be a good move. Everyone will think the same way, north east is pretty much a huge population center too, so the same rule applies, so I have another idea.” When no one asked or replied to her Nancy continued, “Lets go look up Max, Arvada is a smaller suburb, maybe there will not be so many people there and even if Max did not survive, well he had a wife and kids, so we could get a couple recruits out of the deal, assuming she was smart enough to lay low. If Arvada was picked clean we head further west into Golden or up the interstate seventy corridor, eating our way west, or maybe we head to a ski town, smaller population but big enough for our shorter term needs and how many zombies will think the same way? Hopefully fewer than head south or north along the front range. Any comments?”
Jimbo raised his hands, “Just one, it sounds good — better than my thought of ‘hunting for our maker’ anyway, but how do we find Max’s house?”
Smiling Nancy pulled out a pad of paper and waved it in front of Jimbo’s face, “See? They left it when they fled MAC Co., it has their addresses on it, Max’s is the last one. If they are lucky they will survive to walk into an ambush, if we can get there first.”
Chapter 41
Max woke early in the morning to noise from the front of the clinic. He hurt all along his stomach, a burning itch he could not scratch, the noise persisted and he swung himself off the examine table and padded out the door in his boxers, grabbing a bat that had been left thoughtfully by the door.
As he reached he main doors of the clinic he saw one of the younger men in armor finishing off a zombie with his ax, a big hulking ugly ax. The young man saw Max and whistled out to an unseen companion, a woman Max did not know, they both said to Max at the same time, “Are you okay? Should you be up?” The stereo effect was humorous and they both blushed and looked at each other before letting out short, nervous laughs.
“Yeah, yeah I am fine, how are things out here?”
The man answered, “Good, they rush at us once in awhile, but they are pretty easy to fight off, none of the smart ones come close now, since we shot a couple of them.” Max noticed the large revolver he had found was in the kid’s waistband. “Our biggest concern is that the smarter ones will find guns, if they do that we could all be screwed, which is why we try and stay in the foyer here, just in case.”
“Where are Stewart and Steve at?”
The man gestured into the clinic, “First door on the left, past the reception area.”
“Thanks.” Max turned and walked past the reception area and knocked on the first door to the left. A moan came from the room and Max quickly let himself in, he barged in on Steve and Tom half waking up from their spots on the floor and Stewart, laying on the exam table fumbling for her gun, then stopping when she saw Max.
“Good morning Max. Are you supposed to be up?” said Stewart with a yawn in her voice.
“Well they took out my I.V. and no one told me to stay in bed, I heard some fighting and went out to see what was up. Who are the kids in the armor, the one with the ax?”
“Oh those guys, good kids, good men and women and kids I mean, they have a couple younger ones with bows and bats too, little sister. The guy with the ax is probably Michael, I gave him your revolver to keep watch with, I think Whitney is on with him right now, we served our ‘watch’ last night around eight to midnight. They all helped us get into the clinic, saved our asses if you want to know the truth, they got one guy, Jacob, in real bad shape, they got his legs, the zombies, bit him all up. They needed to get into the clinic too, real bad, when we made our run they watched to see what would happened, and helped out when they could. With arrows Max, you know how hard it is to hit anyone in the head with a fucking arrow? Anyway Michael says they practiced for years in competition with this role playing society or something, the rest of them had the armor and weapons from their parents’ involvement and I know Michael made the ax he is using, a ‘real’ weapon he calls it, though it is damn ugly if you ask me. Still it is pretty tough, it hasn’t broken and it goes through skulls better than a bat. Look at me, babbling. How are you feeling?”
“Good, I suppose, my gut aches though, really bad. I have to be careful not to twist around much or the nurse told me the stitches will bust and they gave me anti-biotics to keep from getting infected. Where is the doc and nurse Beth?”
“Dunno, sleeping if they are smart. Is it about five? Yeah enough sleep in this new age of undead walking the earth.”
“So what is the plan now? Hit Steve’s and then your place before heading to my house?”
Stewart raised her eyebrows, Steve was back laying down, sleeping and Tom was looking like he was ready to bed down again too. Stewart gestured for Max to step back outside the office and they moved into the reception area to talk.
“You were out for awhile, Steve shot out the tire on the squad car, we replaced it with a tire off one of the
