Ascension

From where Red was in the kitchen he could see a large tank by the side of the barn, it was positioned so it couldn't be seen easily from the road in front of the house.

'I'm glad he likes the dog; I think she misses her owners.'

'Kids and dogs go together like stink and shit. And smell about like that after a hard day of playing too. But that is the natural way of things.' Jimbo moved and sat down at the table again, after a moment Red joined him.

'Why'd the owners let you have their dog?' asked Jimbo.

'They didn't, the dog kinda adopted me when the owners were put on a bus heading east. The adults there didn't have room or want her I guess, if the story I heard was right. Anyway when I was heading back to my friends, the dog started following.'

'So you didn't kill them?'

'No, I haven't killed one of the living on purpose in a few weeks.'

'On purpose?'

'It's complicated. I hit one guy too hard, broke his neck.'

'Oh.'

'I just meant to knock him out. He was holding this woman hostage and we needed her.'

'You and your friends?' Jimbo asked.

Red shook his head, 'These were different friends. Not my zombie friends.'

'You had human friends?'

'Have. I hope. I sent them into Iowa to tell the soldiers what was coming.'

'Really?' Red felt Jimbo pressing him mentally.

'Really.' he answered trying not to resent the other man's intrusion.

'Sorry.'

'No you're not.' said Veronica before Red could, she turned towards him, 'It will go faster if we believe you. He can tell if you lie, which makes things easier.'

The three of them sat and stood in the kitchen for a moment of awkward silence, broken only by the sound of an ancient cuckoo clock ticking from where it was hanging on the wall.

Finally, Red broke the silence, 'So, about this power of yours….?'

'Yeah, it's good isn't it? Not sure how I lucked into it. I think everyone gets something, not all zombies are the same. 'V' over there is fast, she is strong and fast, Bobby can jump like a grasshopper, me, I got some fancy mind stuff. Probably from all the 'Star Wars' movies I watched as a kid.'

'We all watched those movies.' Veronica said. 'You're going to do it, aren't you?'

'We're a team V, if you say 'no', I'll accept it. But I am leaning towards it, yeah.'

'We listen to him first, then we decide, we don't need someone like Nancy with these powers running around.'

'Yeah, but if we teach him, we might want to go after this guy ourselves, to help the living out. It might be the right thing to do.'

Veronica snorted, 'If you say so. I know you Jimbo. You've already made up your mind.'

'No, I will listen to Red and see what he has to say before I make up my mind.'

'Whatever. You good old boy rednecks are all the same.'

'Hey now we don't know he's a redneck.'

'Really…'Red'? That's his fucking name, 'Jimbo'! If that doesn't scream NASCAR and tractor pulls I don't know what does.'

'Sorry to interrupt, but I didn't care much for NASCAR. I might have a southern accent and I might not be the fullest can in the six pack, but watching cars drive around in circles doesn't strike me as a good way to spend a Sunday.'

Jimbo looked crestfallen at this statement, but Veronica smiled, 'Well then, maybe Jimbo is right, we should teach you.'

'I didn't know about his feelings on NASCAR. Now I am having second thoughts.'

'Sure you are, you play a good game. You still want to show him.' Veronica said.

'So you can teach others how to do it, how to prevent other zombies from messing in their heads?' Red asked, a little too eagerly.

'Yes, but I can do other things in your head too, better than anyone I've run into yet.'

'Okay, so what do we do?'

'First, tell us everything…and Red, don't lie or leave anything out.' Jimbo said seriously.

So Red told them.

Chapter 2 — Whatever happened in Nebraska?

The story telling lasted most of the night, it was extended after Jimbo and Veronica found out that the man named Max that Red was talking about was also the one they had ambushed in his home in Denver. After that that bit of knowledge came out both Veronica and Jimbo seemed to thaw noticeably towards Red.

'I never liked what we were doing to Max. I hated Nancy when she bit his wife. That was the very moment I decided to kill her.' Jimbo said.

'I'm glad you did it, I don't think I could have and she needed to die. She killed me. She killed you.' Veronica added.

'She sounds like a woman who had it coming, but couldn't you just vote to go somewhere else?' Red had heard Nancy's ideas on how the structure of her group was to work.

Jimbo shook his head, 'No the others were still hers, she had some pull with them, mentally I mean. I think she was stacking the vote to do what she wanted.'

'So she was betraying you even as she made it sound like a partnership. That's a bad basis for cooperation.'

'So Max was okay when you last saw him?' asked Jimbo.

'Yeah, he wanted to go after his kids, but I sent him straight east with the cop.'

'She didn't last long in the fight, didn't you take her out Veronica?' asked Jimbo.

Veronica nodded, 'But you got the prize, Nancy.'

'Easy to defeat someone when they don't know you're not on the same side. Last I saw Max he was pointing a gun at my head. For some reason he let me go.' Jimbo paused for a minute and looked at the other two, 'I just had a crazy thought.'

'What?' asked Veronica.

'Well, remember that guy in Fort Collins, V?'

'Oh, the one with the six shooters? You'll love this, Red, he was decked out like a cowboy, had two revolvers, the boots and a hat too. Plus a western shirt with creases so straight you could cut yourself on them.'

'Yeah, the man was decked out like a good movie, but one thing he wasn't faking was how fast he was. We were avoiding people by this time, so when we heard the shooting we just came up on him real slow, to see what was going on. This was before most of the zombies moved east. The guy was mowing them down, every shot was a head shot; he never missed. And we got to see what happened when he ran out of bullets.'

'That's the best part! We only had a shot gun at that point.' Veronica said.

'Anyway the cowboy was facing off against a mob of about thirty zombies and two times six is only twelve, which left a lot left over by the time he emptied his guns. Still the zombies were slow and he was fast. He hadn't counted on the zombies firing back though, a couple of low level supers, like us, came out into the street when 'cowboy' ran his guns out. And they didn't come out to do the classic 'showdown at noon' kind of thing either; they came out guns a blazing.'

'Automatics! One of the bullets hit the wall six inches from my head, I swear to God it did!' said Veronica,