'See?' Dora said to the people in the back seat, 'I told you I had a plan?' To Willy she said, 'Good job Willy, you did good. You are fucking lucky you didn't fly out the window when we went through that.'
Cliff pulled his shotgun up and asked, 'What now?'
'Now,' said Dora turning the suburban, 'we catch up and get rid of those other vehicles between us and the buses. Then we kill any zombies left on the back of the bus. Then we get to Iowa and take a long vacation.'
Willy cheered and pounded on the roof of the car as Dora started to accelerate back towards the buses once again.
Chapter 40
Becka had a problem, the motorcycle was leaking fuel. Apparently when the arrow had deflected off of the gas tank it had torn a gash in the heavy plastic and it was from this slit that the fuel was leaking.
'You got any duct tape?' asked Jake, as Becka examined the hole, she shook her head. Jake reached up to where the wiring harness was inside the bike's frame and gently tugged it. The wiring harness controlled all of the electronics on the motorcycle. This bike did not have a lot of options that required electricity, just the front light, tail light and turn indicators, which had been broken off when Becka put the bike down on the bridge. Following the harness to the front of the bike Jake found the start of the tape and began unwinding it, until he had about a foot of the black sticky tape in his hand, he tore it off and said, 'Okay tip the bike over so the gas doesn't come out of the side anymore.'
Becka tilted the motorcycle over until it was almost on the ground again on the side opposite from the gash in the tank. Jake pulled a battered handkerchief from one of his pockets and wiped the outside of the gas tank thoroughly, then he got close and laboriously sucked air into his lungs and blew on the tank, causing the rest of the liquid to evaporate quickly. Finally he divided the tape into three pieces and stuck them over the hole. 'That should do it. Pull it up and let's see, huh?'
Becka struggled to lift the motorcycle upright and Jake gave her some help to pull it up the rest of the way. 'See? Good as new? Take this.' he said handing her the handkerchief.
'What? Why?'
'Clean up your pants, the gas smell hides the blood smell a little, then take out that piece of paper and stuff the rag in the hole instead. You're some kind of fool, you know?'
Becka nodded, doing as Jake instructed.
'You could have been safe with the others, instead you are here with me right now, no humans in sight anyway.'
'You're one of the good guys.'
Jake laughed, 'How little you know girl! I didn't come back with my morals, I only rediscovered them after killing a few people on my own. More than a few people.'
The girl shook her head, 'You couldn't help that. You did the best you could and you repented.' A thought seemed to cross her mind, 'We forgot about father Cruz.' she brought her hand to her mouth, covering it.
'Who is he?'
'A priest, he is in the church, the zombies won't go there. But he doesn't have much food or fuel or anything. He is in Saint Assissi's Church.'
Jake looked up at the mob of shambling zombies that was on the road way, his will was holding them there, 'He didn't want to come?'
'I think, they forgot about him.'
'Shit.'
'Why?' she asked him.
''Cause you got this look in your eye, like you want to be a hero.'
'Don't you?' Becka asked innocently.
Jake started laughing, 'Why I suppose I do! I bet your other friends could use more of a hand right now, maybe we should handle one thing at a time?'
'Okay I think we can do that, get them to safety, then come back for the priest?'
Jake stuck out his hand, 'Deal.'
Becka eyed his hand warily, 'No blood promise? You'll do this for free?'
'We all wanna be heroes. Besides I am thinking of another angle to get what I need, one that would make everyone happy.'
Becka's eyes widened, 'You….you never planned to collect from us?'
Jake shook his head, 'A contract like that? I might get some pints out of it, but I doubt I would get them all, except maybe one at a time from Dora.'
'So why did you make the deal?'
'You think they would have taken my help without a deal? Just on my word? Darling, I'm not human anymore, they wouldn't have trusted me further than they could see me. Greed, well everyone understands that.'
'You would have given us the buses?'
'I did give you the buses. C'mon we gotta get going, not stand here jawing all day.'
'I needed a rest.'
'You got any food? You better have a bite of it if you do.'
'Sure,' said Becka, reaching for her backpack, it wasn't there, she had moved it into Dora's suburban. 'Uh, fuck.' she cursed weakly.
'No food, huh? We'll make a quick trip by a gas station and grab some energy bars and a drink. Amazing how five minutes of heavy fighting makes you need energy and something to drink.'
'It's not just that, all my ammunition is in it too.'
'Did it fall off when you were playing Evel Knievel up there on the road?' seeing that Becka didn't know who he was talking about he added, 'When you jumped over the railing?'
'No, I tossed it into Dora's car. I'm lucky I grabbed my shotgun when I jumped back out for the bike. I only have five shots for it. I'm screwed.'
Jake stepped around to her and hugged her by the shoulders, his hug was a little stiff and very short, 'Darling you don't need a gun, you have me. What's your name anyway?'
Dora hit the gas the suburban responded sluggishly, somewhere along the way all of the windows on the driver's side had been broken out, probably when she side swiped the Caliber. They came up to and passed the wreckage of the Probe and Toyota, both looked like they had rolled over and over again in the median. The zombies looked up briefly as she roared passed them, Dora took one hand off of the steering wheel to flip them the bird as she passed, screaming out 'Losers!'
A couple responded with inaccurate rifle fire which made Dora laugh. She had no trouble catching up to the other vehicles, they were heading straight back towards her, with the Caliber in the lead, gaining speed as they came. An old Ford Ranger with an extended cab was on the other side of the Caliber and inside Dora finally saw one of the twins she had been keeping an eye out for. She barely had time to notice the girl in the oncoming car, 'Hey do you think they are actually going to ram us?'
'Yeah, take the exit!' screamed Willy, firing at the vehicles while leaning out of the open passenger window. Through some sort of miracle the front window was still mostly intact and blocking the worst of the wind, the worst that had happened was that the antenna had been torn off of the hood. Dora cut right and zoomed down the exit at forty miles an hour, which turned out to be a problem as there was a solid line of abandoned vehicles in front of her and a variety of shamblers among them.
'Oh fuck me!' She screamed as she forced the suburban up onto the raised curb and through a chain link fence, the street in front of the cars was clear and after crashing through an electric box of some sort Dora bounced out onto it and across the intersection to the awaiting on ramp. There was a wreck there as well, but the
