hardly a thought Dora pulled the trigger. She expected an immediate forceful blast, but what actually happened was like watching a movie on half speed, the gun seemed to want to fire, but it took a moment for the shot to sound out, then Dora watched as Tim's head virtually exploded, behind him onto the boards of the great hall. As quickly as it began everything stopped. Dora found herself standing by Mary shotgun in hand, looking at the ruins of Tim's head.
Paige, still reaching for one of the pistols in the grass, turned her head sideways to stare at Dora, 'What the fuck Dora! How did you…?'
Willy just beamed, but turned and walked his cold little body back into Dora's house, brushing past the men who were filing out of her back door.
Mary didn't seem to realize anything was wrong, she just got up and started to thank Dora hysterically. Nina, however had a good view of everything that had happened, she made the sign of the cross before her and stopped when she was close enough to comfort Mary. Mary turned into Nina's arms readily enough, freeing Dora to think about what had just happened. Dora cast a sidelong look towards where Willy had disappeared. This brought Steve, Alex and a couple of the other men into sharp focus. Alex rushed forward to gather up a still crying Mary and Steve looked at Dora and asked, 'What happened?'
'Willy shot Tim, killed him, Tim came back. He must have been infected somehow, I just shot him again.'
'Oh.'
Dora laughed, still a little shaken by what had happened, ''Oh'? That's all you have to say?'
'Well,' Steve began carefully, 'It is good you didn't kill him, that would've been bad, why did Willy shoot him?'
'We had just finished a little discussion where Tim explained how he sold us out to the super zombies, told them everything he knew. He tried to spin it to us that he withheld critical information. Even Willy didn't buy that.'
'Wait.' Steve said, then approached Tim's corpse. He unzipped the sleeping bags and revealed the rather pale thin body inside. Tim was nude from the waist down and his sleeping bags were soiled. He also sported a small bite on his upper left thigh. It would not have killed him right away, probably not for several days, but it was enough to infect him and make him return.
'He was bitten, it's fresh too. Tell me what he told you.' Steve said. Dora filled him in while Alex brought Mary into the house to get cleaned up. When Dora finished Steve nodded and said, 'So she scares the piss out of him last night, makes the deal and seals it with a bite, promising him, what? To make him a super when he came back? I bet you were part of the deal too, maybe he would get to munch on you. I wouldn't put it past him anyway. Then he cleans up as well as he can and goes back to sleep. Of course what the hell else could he do?'
'He could've kept his cake hole shut and died like a good soldier.'
'Would you?'
Dora saluted Steve with a mocking gesture of her hand and said, 'Yes sir! For God and my country I will make the ultimate sacrifice!'
'So what do we do about Willy?' everyone knew Steve was talking about what to do about the boy if they made it to some sort of safety, would they turn him in or pretend he had not shot a living man in cold blood.
Dora looked only at Steve and said, 'Let's wait a couple days and decide. A lot can happen in a week.'
'Fair enough.' Steve looked up at the men and Nina, who were still standing around listening, 'Alright we know what happened now, go fill everyone in while you work. Give them the short version, Tim is dead, he turned into a zombie, no need to elaborate. Keep working to get us the hell out of here this morning. I will be out there in a few minutes.' The men dispersed, Nina stayed until they were gone, prompting Tim to ask, 'Yes Nina?'
'Dora…she didn't tell you everything, not all of it.'
'I told the important parts.' Dora said.
'What did she miss? I thought you were inside getting ready to go? I didn't think you saw anything.'
'I didn't see Willy kill Tim. I saw Dora kill Tim when he came back. She saved Mary's life.'
'Not to put too fine of a point on it, but this isn't anything unusual for Dora. Hell if we had medals I would pin a few on her myself, she has saved many of us over the last month.'
Nina shook her head, 'No, that's not what I am talking about.' she looked at Dora intently, 'What happened? I saw it, don't say you didn't do something.'
'What?' Steve asked with some confusion, looking from one woman to the other.
'She moved too fast Steve. She moved like one of them. Dora has to be a super zombie, nothing moves that fast.'
'What?' Steve took a step back from both of the women. 'What's she talking about Dora?'
'Everything got slow, it was like the world was moving in slow motion and I was the only one moving at normal speed, only I wasn't the only one. Tim was going to bite Mary, I just had to move fast to get to her, to save her and I did. I don't know how.'
'That….is strange. Are you sure it wasn't adrenaline?'
Nina shook her head violently, 'No Steve. Remember how that super vaulted over the fence three weeks ago, took John Williams by the throat and almost took his head off?' Steve nodded, remembering the incident, 'Remember how he was kind of fuzzy around the edges? He moved so fast we could hardly even see him?'
'Yeah, as I recall it was Dora who shot him in the head to finish him.'
Dora nodded, barely remembering the incident, which was just one among hundreds that had played out in the six weeks since 'zombie day'.
'Well Dora moved like that, real fast.' Nina shrugged, 'Maybe faster.'
'But Dora is human, the whole council had to test a few days ago, to prove we were all human, I looked at her blood myself, it was living blood.'
'I am not afraid of her, whatever she is, she's on our side, but I know what I saw. I can keep my mouth shut…for now. We have more important things going on.'
'Fair enough, we'll look into this more once we all get to where we are going, okay? You have my promise on that Nina.' Steve put out his hand and Nina shook it before she turned and went back into her house, leaving the two of them alone with Tim's body. Dora leaned over and pulled the sleeping bag back over the corpse, hiding it from view.
'Dora, you said you weren't the only one. I didn't forget that. I don't remember if Nina caught it or not. Who else was moving so fast?'
Dora looked up at Steve, a small smile came to her lips, 'Willy. Of course it was Willy. How else could he survive out there on his own. It makes me wonder how many of our children are afflicted with this? It makes me wonder for the future and what our babies will be like.' She patted her belly without thinking about it. Steve looked at the gesture she was making and Dora awkwardly patted her thigh before raising her hand to her brush the hair back from her face.
'Thank God we don't have to worry about that yet! I don't know what I would do if any of the women came down with a nine month parasite right now. As much as everyone seems to be fucking anything that moves it is a wonder we don't have a maternity ward set up yet.'
Softy Dora agreed, 'Yeah thank God for that, Steve.'
'What?' Steve looked at her closely and asked, 'What?' again. Slowly he seemed to realized what he had said, 'Oh my fucking God! You're pregnant! It all makes sense now, you throwing up all the time, being extra bitchy and tired! Why didn't you tell anyone?'
'Fuck. Keep your voice down! I don't want anyone to know, okay? We got bigger things to worry about and this is one of them that can wait until we get to Iowa, or po-dunk-ville or where ever the hell Jake is leading us.'
'Jake…you should never have come with us to get the buses. Never; it was too much of a risk, there are not a whole fucking lot of people left Dora and we have to protect anyone who is going to expand the human race.'
'See? This is why I didn't tell anyone. I don't need special treatment and I need to do my job, you can't handle me with kid gloves on account of my condition.'
'Why the fuck not? Forget what I said, I am thrilled that you are knocked up, I love it the idea that you will be having a baby it is an incredible boost to my morale and everyone else will love the idea too. I wish all the
