Ascension

him difficult.

'This is messed up. It is like he has rigor mortis or something.' Max muttered after they finally got Javier in the seat diagonally.

'But he is doing okay, as far as you can tell?' Stewart asked.

'Yeah, I guess. I can see his colors pretty well and….and Aubrey was right, I should have been trying to use this power I have, test it and strengthen it. I can't see his bones, not directly, but when I look close I can see where his body is flowing around his bones, which leaves some hollow spaces. It's weird, but I swear I can see that his leg is almost whole again, no blood flowing around the damaged hollow space. When I look at both legs they look almost symmetrical.'

'Portal x-ray machine. I'll add that to your list of talents.' Stewart clapped Max on the back and walked him over to 'his' cruiser. 'You shouldn't have any problems with this baby. It's automatic, but has paddle shifting, you know what that is?'

'No.'

'Think of it like an override for the automatic transmission, you can force the car into a lower or higher gear if you need to accelerate faster, I doubt you'll use it to shift up much.'

Max examined the steering wheel controls and nodded, 'Okay, I can't see how that is useful, but I guess I get it. I'll mess with it when we get on the road. The zombies are closer. We better get that fuel and get out of here.'

Ruben had the trunk to their car open and let out a long whistle. He held the bomb in one hand as if he were intending to put it into the trunk.

'What?'

'A box of crap.' Ruben replied.

'Good crap or bad crap?' asked Max.

'That's another thing I like about you, Max. You have different categories of 'crap'.' Stewart said walking around to the back of the car. She took one look and said, 'Mixed crap, we got nuggets of gold here, but other bits are only corn.' She reached into a large cardboard box and brought out a short, heavy, machete. The blade was sharp and ugly looking. Someone had ground it down into a sharper point, leaving the blade about eighteen inches long.

'Why would the police need that?' asked Bill, walking over to them.

The box contained all sorts of crude clubs, knives, swords, chains and other makeshift style weapons. Among the 'bad crap' were a few reasonable pieces of equipment, like the machete Stewart had. Max brought out a bowie style knife and pulled it out of its leather sheath.

He tested the blade with his finger tips and pulled it away quickly from his hand, a small drop of blood appeared on his ring finger.

'Ouch! Fucking-a! That's sharp!'

Stewart laughed, 'This is probably confiscated stuff, things they took off people they were arresting or found when they searched their cars.'

'Wouldn't it go into an evidence locker?' Max asked.

'Oh, Max! You don't know the half of how law enforcement works, do you? If we busted people for every little thing they did wrong we'd need three times as many jails. No, these, I can guarantee, were just taken off of the criminally stupid who hadn't done anything wrong. Think of it as a safety precaution. No sane person is going to come crawling back to the officer who took their bowie knife and ask for it back. In return the weapon is out of the hands of someone who probably didn't need it.'

'But that's…stealing!'

'Right. So you'd rather serve a few months in jail for carrying a concealed weapon than give up your, what? Hundred dollar knife? Most people figure out that not spending time in jail and money on lawyers is a better deal. Plus this stuff isn't in evidence, so it would likely just disappear if anyone complained anyway.'

'So why did they keep it?' Max asked.

'I dunno. I knew guys back in Denver who did this too, as long as it wasn't a gun. They showed each other what they found on the guys and laughed about it. Kind of a macho thing. But kind of not, any one of the guys this stuff came off of, could have turned it on the officer or someone else. Maybe they used it as a way of keeping score. You want to know the real shit of it? I mean if these weapons had been put into the evidence locker?'

'What?'

'They probably would have been sold at auction to make more money for law enforcement. We destroyed guns in Denver and I don't recall selling junk like this at auction, but I know other places did. Kind of a repeating cycle, huh? We confiscate, it gets sold to help buy us a new radar gun and then we might end up confiscating it again.' Stewart looked the machete over and experimentally tucked it into the back of her belt. 'Does it make my ass look fat?'

Max stared at the woman's posterior, not knowing how to answer. Combat fatigues made everyone's ass look fat, in Max's opinion. Finally he said, 'It makes you look like a central American revolutionary. Real Che Guevara.'

Stewart tilted her head sideways and looked over her shoulder at him, 'Max, you say the nicest things sometimes!'

'You won't be able to sit in the car with it like that.' Max pointed out.

'Oh, I'll just let it ride up a little and tuck it back down when I get out.'

'I hate to interrupt your bonding, but where are the zombies at, Max?' Bill asked.

'Close. We're probably going to have to clear them. I think some supers are coming up from further out.'

'Well, let's get the cars pulled around and see about filling them.'

Bill's vehicle, by chance was the first to the garage area, the yard was surrounded by a chain link fence that was locked with a chain and padlock. He got out of his car and looked the gate over as the first zombie stumbled out of the brush twenty yards away. Stewart, who was in the last car in line, got out of her vehicle, she was holding the machete in one hand and approached the zombie head on.

Max stepped out of his car and steadied his rifle on the top of the vehicle. The zombie stumbled towards Stewart and she swiped it in the side of the head, slicing off the top third and sending the bloody-black hairy bit flying away into the grass. Oddly it resembled a mole hill.

The zombie toppled and Stewart cleaned off her machete on the man's overalls.

'Disgusting. How's that gate coming Bill?' Max asked.

'I've got it open. Let's move on in.'

Ducking his head into the car Max said, 'Ruben, would you drive? I'll stay here and shoot zombies as they show up.'

'Sure. I can drive.' Ruben said sliding over to the wheel.

Max took up a position at the gate and waved the old man and Stewart through. She paused and her passenger window, next to Max, rolled down.

'Where ya headed good looking?' she asked with a grin.

'Very funny. There are a few more coming, I'll stay here and make sure they don't get in. You just fill up and get back here.'

Stewart looked at Max and then at the pump, which was about forty feet away. Bill and Ruben were already stopped close to it. Finally she nodded, 'Jeez, we just lost you, don't go vanishing again on us.'

'There's no fog. I'll stay in sight at all times. Go on.'

Stewart drove off and left Max staring into the woods. Some of the zombies approaching were moving faster than the others. He turned his gaze away from where they were coming from and towards the slower ones, keeping his mind's eye open at all times. He didn't know what he was looking for, he was going by instinct, knowing something was going to happen. Max reverted to using his normal vision and checked out the gate, the chain was still hanging loosely wrapped through the chain links. One end was weighed down with a broken padlock; Bill hadn't used a tool to break it, not that Max had seen.

'So you're still strong, I see.' Max muttered quietly about Bill. Checking on the approaching zombies he noticed the ones that had been approaching quickly had slowed down to a more cautious pace. Concentrating Max tried to get into their heads, to see what they were thinking. Despite his efforts he got nothing. Well almost