“Well V, lets go see this attic and decide what to do.”
The four of them headed up the stairs and Jimbo showed them the broken rope and pointed out the attack opening to them in the twilight of the pre-dawn morning.
“Get em out, I say.” said Trish, “Just like we agreed.”
“Yep, it is chomping time, it is high time for the executive and judicial branches to get some support, and you too Jimbo, if there are three.” said Nancy.
“I want to wait.” said Veronica, “They are not going anywhere and if Max gets here and is stronger than we think, well, they might prove to be a good bargaining chip to get our shit out of the fire. Plus we don’t really need any food just yet. So I say we save them until we need them. If Max does not show in a day or so we go in after them, no sense in letting the meat spoil, right?” said Veronica.
Nancy replied, “Not how we agreed to do things V. Not at all what I was thinking. Jimbo?”
Jimbo seemed to think it over for a bit as the three women looked at him, “You know I was kinda looking forward to a new recruit or two myself, but Veronica seems to make sense, what is another day or two, we can scrounge for other refugees in the neighborhood if we get hungry….”
“Dammit, I want a little old fashioned revenge on Max? What about that? Lets pull em down and dispense a little justice!”
“We don't need em Nancy! Justice can be served later, why rush things?”
Nancy seemed to think this over for moment, then looked up at the ceiling. The changes that had happened to her had sharpened her vision to the point where she could see the glowing pattern of a living person even through thin walls. Up above her she noticed the flowing lines of a living being just to one side of the attic access. “Well so we don't open up the door then?”
Jimbo and Veronica nodded, Trish just scowled. Nancy sighed, nodded her head and leaped upwards driving her hand through the ceiling drywall to grasp what she thought was the leg of someone she presumed to be Max's wife. A bit of chaos ensued as Jimbo grabbed Nancy's leg and tried to pull her down from the ceiling. Sarah started screaming as her leg was pulled through the ceiling, which woke the kids up. They immediately stumbled over the ceiling rafters to pull ineffectively at their mom's arms as she tried to lever herself up out of the hole that was forming in the weakened drywall between two of the rafters. Underneath Trish punched Jimbo, dazing him, yet he held onto Nancy, Veronica hesitated for an instant before coming to Jimbo's aid by tackling Trish, the two of them tumbled down the nearby stairs at the same time that Jimbo took another blow to the face from one of Nancy's kicks. The blow was hard enough to dislodge his grasp from her other leg and left him sprawled with his head and shoulders through the bottom part of the bathroom door. Cursing he struggled to get free of the hollow core door and stop Nancy, he was too late and he could only watch as Nancy, hands wrapped around a woman's leg bent her head over and took a meaty bite just above the knee.
The woman screamed as Jimbo jumped up, Nancy let go of the leg, which disappeared quickly into the ceiling with a shower of insulation and broken drywall. Nancy, of course, landed on her feet, then looked at Jimbo and laughed, saying, “See? I didn't open the door.”
Infuriated Jimbo just looked at her, “You selfish…..” He turned away to compose himself and then received a mental message from Bobby, “A woman and a boy just pulled up and got out of their car, they are heading up to the house now.”
“What? What Jimbo? Nothing to say?” taunted Nancy. Then she heard the front storm door creaking open and a woman’s voice call out, “Hold up Cory, you don’t know what is in there, wait for me.”
Chapter 46
Cory reached the door first and had it half opened when Amelia warned him to wait for her. He paused at the door and was looking back at her when the zombie woman appeared behind him, behind her another woman appeared
“Cory run!” she screamed at him as she stepped up with her trusty fire poker. Cory, however did not run, he ducked and side stepped off of Max’s porch, the zombie grabbing for him missed and screamed at him. Amelia’s rush put her into swinging range and her first blow caught the zombie above the eyes, almost dead on with the front of her half turned forehead. The poker smashed in easily and the zombie collapsed.
“Oh God! I hope that wasn’t Max’s wife!” she yelled to Cory who was getting back to his feet while Amelia backed away from the front door. Glancing at the boy she saw that he was fine and then shifted her eyes again to the front door, she did a double take and stammered, “How? What…how. How did you get here?” at the figure who had appeared on the other side of Max’s storm door.
Nancy smiled at her and said, “Well, well look what the cat drug back to us! So you and Max hooked up huh?” Calling over her shoulder she said to an unseen person, “V, it is Amelia from work! Yeah again! Tell Julie to move the troops around, looks like Amelia took one of your recruits down too.” Then back to Amelia, she said, ”You know when you got away I really did not think you would make it far. Where is Max?”
“Max?” Amelia stammered, her spirits sinking, “He is not here? Cory get in the car, quick!”
A zombie raced out from the far side of the house, not at Amelia or Cory, but to put himself between them and the car. Cory took a few steps towards the car, then another zombie appeared on his side of the house, “Amelia! There are more of them!” Cory backed away from the zombie, unfortunately he was also backing away from Amelia, which left her effectively surrounded by them with Cory outside the circle.
“Give it up deary, I think we have you surrounded, tell the boy to stop and we will make it easy for you. Jimbo, I took the last one, you can have this one, she's even pretty, you'll like her.” said Nancy, as she stepped through the door outside.
“Never! Run Cory!” Amelia stepped up and swung at Nancy with all her might. Nancy raised her arm and tried to catch the fire poker, however Amelia had learned to expect such defensive reactions in the last few days of fighting and at the last minute she lowered the poker to hit Nancy in the lower leg, with a sickening crack Nancy went down. Nancy screamed and grabbed her leg with both hands as another zombie Amelia recognized stepped over her, ‘V’, Nancy had called her. “C’mon V, that is your name right? Just let us get out of here. Please.” Amelia begged.
“Fucking crucify her ‘V’, no getting away for her, I want her dead! That bitch broke my fucking leg!” frothy spittle sprayed out of Nancy mouth as she screamed.
Veronica never took her eyes off Amelia, “If things were different maybe I could do that, things have changed, we need food now. Well now that Nancy is wounded and needs to heal up. Sorry, it is nothing personal. I won’t let them eat the boy though, when we catch him. And we will.”
Amelia looked around and sure enough Cory had bolted like she said, the zombie on that side of the house was returning, getting back into position as if he had tried to chase the boy down and then given up.
“Then there is nothing I can do.” Amelia heard herself say, after that she let out a cry of rage and swung at Veronica, deliberately pulling her blow back and then edging forward, which caused Veronica’s blocking arm to miss. The blow took Veronica in the middle of her chest and ripped into her white blouse, though her blouse and skin, lodging as near as Amelia could tell in her right breast. Veronica gasped, tried to grab the fire poker and swung her right hand at Amelia ineffectively before stumbling to her knees. Amelia didn't stop, she edged past Veronica and jumped over Nancy's legs as she leaped into the house, barreling into Jimbo, Jimbo wrapped his arms around Amelia, trying to get a good hold on her. “Stop fighting, I'm gonna let you go, get up into the attic if you can.” the wriggling human woman, didn't stop fighting and Jimbo let her go, she did, however, run up the stairs when he released her, dropping the fire poker onto the floor.
“You fucking let her go Jimbo!” screamed Nancy from on the front porch.
“Yeah, I did.” said Jimbo, not bothering to add the 'fuck you' to his reply. “Where is she gonna go Nancy? She's stuck just like poor Max's wife and we can take them anytime we need to.”
Chapter 47
