“O’Donnell is a pencil pushing prick. Let’s see if anything’s on TV. I have a sneaking suspicion we’re out of work. At least I’m not going back,” Xander said as he picked up the remote and turned the TV on. He turned the volume down and clicked around. Some of the stations were nothing but snow and then he found the news station and flung the remote to the bed. The news anchor was talking and he read the banner across the bottom and saw that an attack had been perpetrated worldwide but there was little amplifying information. Ethan pulled a chair next to Xander and sat down. He reached over and dug a sandwich out of the bag. Both men looked to the bathroom door when they heard Zahara humming happily. Xander snorted and shook his head.
“At least someone is happy about this freaking mess,” Ethan said.
“Well, she’s had a stay of execution. Thanks for not blowing her head off,” Xander said, taking a bite of his sandwich.
“Could I have even killed her?” Ethan asked, a dark eyebrow raised.
“Maybe, but if you’d missed the headshot, you’d have pissed her off really good,” Xander said, his mouth full and he spit out crumbs as he talked. He took one of the small bottles and opened it and drank down the vodka in two gulps and shivered. He belched out and took another bite of his sandwich.
“You think maybe the agency knew about her, you know, being a wolf?” Ethan asked.
“Doubt it, unless they caught her on camera while she was changing. Zahara might seem like a flake, but that’s just for show. She’s a serious stone-cold killer and a professional, though this apocalypse is bringing out her animal.”
“I’m still trying to wrap my mind around all of this. Someone has weaponized this virus thing. It must have been an airborne virus or something. It spread too quickly,” Ethan said reaching for the remote. He changed channels but the same news was on the other channels.
“I’ve been off grid for over a month and when Zahara came to see me a week ago, she’d not seen any of this. So, this has all happened in the last week or week and a half. At the most, ten days.”
“I lost contact with Washington earlier today, but I’d not tried to contact them over the last couple of days. So, I don’t know. There may have been several launching platforms in different countries which would explain why this virus is so widespread.” Shrugging, Ethan got up and went to the window and pulled the curtain and looked out.
“So, while you’re a werewolf, do you think like you or are you more animal?”
“Not right now. I’m too tired to go into werewolf 101. Just know that there are werewolves in all walks of life. Most stay hidden for obvious reasons. And like most people, you have your good werewolves and your bad ones.” He took a drink and turned; from the bathroom they could hear Zahara singing.
“My balls are big and hairy; they swing from side to side. When I jump up and down, they slap upon my thighhhssss,” she belted out. She sighed happily, she had dodged a bullet, literally. She liked Ethan okay, he was a little anal retentive, but a good agent for all that. Other than today and the zombies, plane crash and near transformation, she thought he handled himself fairly well. She stretched her foot to the hot water knob and turned it on with her toes.
She didn’t know why she’d exposed herself today. She’d never done it before and she thought about the last words her mother spoke to her. She turned her head toward the toilet, but Zahara didn’t see that, instead, she saw the severed head of a werewolf lying beside her dying mother. She’d been five years old and her mother’s warm breath was panting, weakening, as she laid in her own blood.
“Never show…never show t…them who and w-what you are.” Blood bubbled from her mother’s lips with each word uttered. Zahara’s head and body had been on the floor, laying in the large puddle of her parents’ blood as she watched the lights go out of her mother’s eyes. She didn’t know how her parents had been killed since her mother had shoved her into a closet. She’d heard the screams outside and she’d wet herself as she cowered down in the back of the dark closet. When it was quiet, she’d crawled out and had found her parents. She had laid on the floor to look into her mother’s eyes. Her hand had reached out to hold the claws of her father’s massive paw. Zahara shook her head and dispelled the images of her murdered parents. It was funny because she didn’t remember a lot of her life before their deaths, but their bodies were etched clearly in her mind and all that had happened after.
She turned off the water and closed her eyes. She was officially retired and now in the middle of a zombie invasion. It didn’t bother her however, that wiener, O’Donnell and his ilk; she hoped they were dead and perhaps she’d pay them a visit in the future. Order her execution? No, she’d not let that one pass, and a savage grin spread across her features. The hit was ordered on U.S. soil, so it was off the books. It shouldn’t have been ordered. But for the fact her target was a werewolf, she’d have shot him and never thought another thing about it. For now, they’d have to figure out what to do in the immediate future. She already knew what she wanted to do, she wanted to go back to Xander’s cabin in
