“Yes, there on the shoulder, he is already infected, you killing him won't change that.”
“Slow or fast?”
Harry waved indifferently, “Just get it over with we have things to discuss.”
Ella moved in a blur that impressed Aubrey, a knife fairly winked into existence and sank into the soldier's back above his heart. The woman brought the blade up and licked the bright red blood off of it before looking around for something to finish cleaning the blade on.
“Don't move Ella.” said Harry, then to Aubrey, “Do you see it?”
What he was talking about was the swirling patterns of the life force within the fallen soldier, it was ebbing out of the man. Any mortally wounded person bled out their life force when they were killed, Harry called it a soul, but Ella was not ready to commit to that level of spirituality yet. This life force took anywhere from seconds to half a day to leave the body. If there was a zombie nearby it could trap this essence by consuming the flesh of the dead, some could be harvested by merely drinking their blood as well, without killing the human. As Aubrey and Harry watched they saw minute swirls of the colorful life energy being absorbed by Ella's body.
Ella crouched transfixed by what was happening, slowly a smile came on her face, her nipples hardened, her body became aroused and alert. She placed a hand on the corpse and both zombies watched the flow of energy increase at the point of contact.
“What happens if she consumes it?” asked Aubrey. Ella did not appear to hear her question.
“I don't know. She is squeamish on that point, I think licking the blood was just a show for you. Ella seems to be growing jealous of you.” he said softly so that his paramour could not hear him.
Aubrey shrugged, “How much longer?”
“A while yet. Lets go to my private quarters.” the two zombies let themselves out of the main throne room and into what had been a conference room in the museum.
“Will she remember us being gone?”
“Yes, she probably knows were are not there now, but she likes the feeling too much.”
“She does seem excited by it.” Aubrey admitted.
Harry waved the comment off, “Let's get to it, what does Ramey say?”
“He has handled the problems out west, he had contact with the last of the trouble makers today around noon and the zombie took off.”
“Was it one of Neil's guys?” Harry asked.
“Yeah, Ramey was not sure if he could have taken it out, the guy was powerful, but he wasn't there when Ramey got to the horde, the two zombies left to mind the herd weren't that tough for him to defeat.”
“Did Ramey get any information before he killed them?”
Aubrey shook her head and said, “He has only killed the girl, she died fighting him to the end. The other one was easier to dominate, but his mind is elusive, he is not one of your children. Ramey can give it orders to a point, but not dominate it so much that he can get it to tell him what it knows.” Zombies from different bloodlines could not control other zombies nearly so well as they could control their own children and descendants. This was something Aubrey and Harry had already spoken about at length, the both feared a world where the zombie lines would war with each other after the living had been destroyed. This would be especially true if their own maker, scientist Thomas Sentry were ever killed. He had the ultimate power right now, after all, every zombie owed its existence to him.
“He didn't get anything?” asked Harry disappointed.
“Just a few things, he thinks the guy interfering with our plans was Neil's second in command. And he confirmed that Neil was dead for good.”
“Well that is something. That leaves everything between Las Vegas and Chicago open to us. Now that we have grounded the helicopters and other aircraft we should be able to do what we spoke about.” Harry had resurrected many military men and manned the air defenses around Chicago. He waited until he had soldiers scattered about the city then gave the word for them to shoot down all the helicopters and jets in the area. Only two of the dozen military aircraft had gotten away and no more teams had been inserted in the two days since. The missile and artillery attacks had been rendered much less effective without forward observers in the city to give out coordinates to the remaining military. There were still a few teams of observers in the city, but Harry was rooting them out one at a time.
“It isn't anything west of here that I am worried about.” said Aubrey.
“I know, it is the east that concerns me too. I think we can mop up the Iowans in a week or two and then decide what to do. What do you think?”
At this moment Ella stumbled into the room, her face was flushed and eyes gazed without focus looking around the room until they locked onto Harry. She had pulled her blouse open and her shirt hung loosely exposing her bare breasts as she moved towards the zombie leader, the lust in her eyes leaving nothing to the imagination.
“I will let you take care of this. We'll talk later.” said Aubrey with a small smile on her face.
Ella grabbed Harry and started kissing his neck and ear while running her hands though his hair. “It is the price of serving the people I am afraid. This is the most extreme I have seen her. Each time it gets worse when it is one of the living.”
Ella rubbed her crotch up against Harry's leg and brought one hand down to pull her pants down, revealing a shockingly white posterior.
“Jeezus, like an animal.”
“Be careful, she won't forget anything, she is perfectly aware of her situation!” warned Harry.
“I am not too worried. Have fun. And Harry?”
“Yes?” asked the man being smothered with kisses.
“We better not make any more humans like her.”
He nodded as Ella aggressively kissed the man and shoved him towards the meeting room table.
Chapter 28
Paddling a canoe was serious work, for the first time in a week Max felt his skin pull tightly around his wound where the bullet had grazed him. The effort was nerve wracking as well, it seemed that every thirty seconds the side of the riverbank they were heading towards lit up briefly with the tell tale sparks of gunfire. Nothing came their way and they allowed themselves to drift down river a ways, there was supposed to be a boat ramp on the other side, just past the airport. Max couldn't see the airport or a boat ramp, in fact he couldn't see shit, it was overcast and dark.
“Stewart, do you see anything?”
“The back of your head.” She paused and then said, “No, I don't see shit. I don't think we've come far enough yet.”
“I don't want to miss it.”
“Like I do? I will steer us closer to shore.” Stewart was in the back, she had some experience canoeing so Max was just paddling labor on this trip.
“Okay.” Max answered picking up his paddle and quietly starting to move the canoe across the river.
The river bend slowly straightened out and they saw a break in the trees, there was a parking area with lights over the empty lot. Looking closer Max saw the lot was not quite empty. “Look! Your car!”
“I see it, I see it! Keep your voice down!”
There was a lone, dim light over the boat launch ramp and the two paddled the aluminum canoe up onto the concrete with aloud scraping sound. Max lifted his leg over the side and stepped out of the canoe, then lifted the front of it and pulled it up further onto land so Stewart could get out.
“Where is Bill?” asked Stewart.
“Dunno, let's go check the car.” The two of them cautiously climbed up away from the river until the car came into sight, it was not parked near any of the utility lights, but was not so far away that it couldn't be seen
