What Zombies Fear (Book 2): The Maxists (24 page)

The man I assumed was Dan went running around the corner, two 9mm handguns in his hands. He ran and fired and I heard John’s H&K fire in return. In a surprising turn of events, I heard the 9mm’s fire another round.

John saw Dan come running out of the wooden walled fortress. He watched Dan draw a pair of guns from a chest rig as he ran. Something about the way he ran seemed different to John. Different enough to give him some pause. When he fired his guns, John knew immediately what it was. Dan was a shooter. John watched the guns. Even from this distance of well over a hundred yards John could tell exactly when Dan was going to fire. He raised his H&K and fired off a burst, six shots to intercept the bullet’s coming his way and a seventh to hit Dan’s forehead.

Dan fired another burst from his guns and reloaded them. He was closing the distance and John’s reaction time was now smaller. He fired the last of his H&K rounds and dropped the rifle. John stood and started running towards his opponent, drawing a pair of Glocks from his own vest. Both men fired at the same time. From their perspective the bullets were moving at a snail’s pace. John watched his bullet’s impact every one of Dan’s. They shattered in mid air causing a shower of bullet fragments to scatter into the tall grass. Before the fragments landed, both men had emptied two more magazines each. Like some kind of ballistic red-rover game, both men shot each other’s bullets out of the air again and another cloud of bullet fragments hit the ground.

John had one more set of magazines for his Glocks and loaded them into his guns faster than Dan could. Reload speed combined with the two men running towards each other closing distance quickly, allowed one of John’s bullets to get through. Dan caught that stray bullet with the barrel of his gun. The impact rendered the gun useless, but saved his life. He tossed the decimated weapon and fired until he was dry with his off-hand. They were now less than ten feet apart. John threw one of his empty pistols at Dan, hitting him squarely in the nose.

Dan smashed into John, punching him in the gut. Both men began to circle each other in the long grass.

“
Ya got no bloody idea what ya getting into here mate, you’re fucking with the wrong skip.” said John “I ain’t some soft cocked yank number cruncher; I’m a god damned fucking miner from Oz!”

John crouched low spinning in a circle with one leg out, sweeping Dan’s feet out from under him. Dan jumped up and lunged at John who sidestepped and brought both fists down on the back of Dan’s head. Dan tucked and rolled back to a standing position and charged once more, throwing a wild uppercut punch towards John’s jaw. That punch connected knocking John’s head back. He spit some blood and kicked Dan in the thigh at the same time he landed a straight jab to Dan’s jaw. Dan dropped to one knee. John grabbed his hair and pulled the larger man’s face into his rising knee. Dan flew backwards landing on his back and seeing stars. He took advantage of his position. He used the time to pull a small derringer from his boot.

Back inside the wall I was locked in my deadly battle. I heard one more shot fired. John stood over Dan’s corpse holding his pearl handled .45 caliber revolver. A trail of smoke wafted up from the barrel. “Ya brought a cap gun? You brought a fucking cap gun to take me on!” John kicked Dan’s lifeless corpse “Fucking Drongo!” He spat as he ran towards the yard where we were all fighting.

My opponent and I fought the most deliberate fight in the history of hand to hand combat. We moved only when an advantage was to be had. She maneuvered me into a corner and my best option was to take a solid kick to the forearm which rendered my left hand numb. I got the jump on her and landed a blow to her head. We would circle and feint, dodge and weave, neither of us launching an attack until we came up with something so cunning or so stupid the other had no counter for it.

“
What’s your name?” I asked.

“
None of your fucking business,” she replied.

“
All of this is senseless. Let me have my boy and we can all be friends. We have resources to share; we have equipment and fuel and our two groups would be a hell of a team.”

“
The only team we’re on is Max’s. You are the devil trying to take our savior from us before he has a chance to grow up.” She replied, fire in her eyes.

Just then I heard Leo let out a yell and saw a man go flying backwards off the top of the guard tower. He flew the forty feet to the ground only to disappear in a cloud of black smoke just before he landed. Leo appeared on the ground, grinned at me and yelled “Finally! They have someone who can fight!” Then she disappeared again and I lost sight of her.

My opponent glanced upward, tipping me off that there was someone on the wall behind me. I turned my head slightly and saw shadows landing on either side of me. The one directly behind me solidified and I took a large step backward and started the hardest front-kick I could muster. The man from the wall landed directly in front of me and my foot connected with his groin with all the power I had, launching him back forward into my counterpart.

I stepped back towards my opponent. The man was unconscious on top of her, passed out from the extraordinary pain. I kicked her in the skull. My steel toed boot connected with her temple rendering her unconscious.

I heard a huge grunt from Marshall and a fading yell from his blonde oversized opponent, but was distracted when Leo and her opponent reappeared in the middle of the yard. His face was bloody and one eye was swollen shut. She appeared a split second before him and was already mostly through her punch when he appeared directly in front of her fist. She connected with his other eye, sending him sprawling to the dirt. Before he landed Leo appeared behind him and kicked her foot, sending him flying the other way. Once again she reappeared in front of him, now on the other side, and caught him with an uppercut. The blows rendered him completely senseless. He collapsed in a heap.

John caught up to me just in time to see Leo finishing her counterpart. She limped over towards us just as Marshall stepped in line with us. The four of us had taken half a dozen steps towards the house where we assumed Max was when the gigantic blonde man landed directly in front of us.

John said, “Fuck, Marshall. How high did you throw him?”

“
I dunno,” Marshall replied. “High enough, I suppose.”

When we mounted the porch, an older black woman stepped out holding a little boy.

“
Daddy!” Max shouted. ”I knew that was you!”

I stepped up to take him from her when she spoke for the first time. “I'm inside his mind. One wrong move from you and I’ll wipe out any memory he has of you and replace them with memories of me. Now that I know what you look like, they’ll be easy enough to find.”

I read her aura and didn’t see the slightest hint of a lie in her statement. I was considering her options, when her aura blinked out. All of our auras blinked out. Once again I could no longer see people’s decisions or intentions. Once again I was powerless.

“
Mrs. Goddell, You will put my son down and let him go, this instant,” said a disembodied female voice. All of the strength drained out of my legs and I hit the floor, hearing Candi’s voice for the first time in months.

“
I won’t. Max is the savior of our race. I must keep him safe,” replied Goddell.

“
You are right; he is the savior of our race. But you are not his protector. Victor is. Release Max, or I will destroy you,” said Candi.

“
Candi! Where are you?” I asked.

“
Not now Victor, I’m a little busy.
” She replied directly to me.

Goddell turned to run inside the house but she fell halfway through her turn. She laid there on the porch. Her eyes were wide open, and she was breathing. A foamy drop of spittle ran down her cheek.

Max hit the floor and ran the four steps towards me. I picked him up, wrapped him in my arms and gave him the biggest hug I could muster. “I love you buddy. I will always come for you.

“
I know you will Daddy. Mommy won’t let you fail.”

As Max spoke, I was once again aware of his aura and could see people all around me making mundane decisions. No one in the camp was making any moves towards us as we walked out, the four of us and Max. I was holding Leo’s hand on one side, Max’s on the other. Max was holding John’s hand and Marshall strode beside all of us.

As we were climbing into the Jeep, Max spoke for the first time since the porch of the house. ”Hey, Uncle John! I talked to Sean last night. He says to tell you ‘I’m gonna deck ya when I see ya next, dickhead.’ What’s deck ya mean?”

“
You talked to Sean?” asked John.

“
It was almost a week ago John.” I said, filled with worry at how John would take the news that his family was surviving in Australia.

Chapter 22
Homecoming

“
Are you fricken kidding me Tookes? I have dedicated my life to protecting and working with you all because you are like family and… And you don’t tell me my family is alive and you knew!? It’s time you opened your eyes to just ‘us’ mate. You need to see it as a whole. If Max can talk to Sean it means Sean is one of us, which means there are more of us fighting this battle. Do you think we can fight all of the fucking zombies by ourselves and win? I know your not going to put Max in the frontline and we are all still working out our skills as it is. I know the risks and I thought I knew the odds. I now found our fucking odds can be improved by having my family with me!”

John reached into my pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lit it up, I never knew he smoked. After a long deep inhalation he looked me in the eye while I was trying to find the words to explain, he relaxed “Mate, I understand how much you love Max, but you’re not the only father in our circle. I watch every day over my adopted family whom I do love. Yes even you, Marshall. But every day I see you and Max together I die thinking about my three kids. I miss the touch of my wife’s embrace, I miss my kids nagging the shit out of me and I miss the sounds of their laughter and the sight of their smiles.”

John knelt down to Max’s eye level “Hey Bucko, sorry about that. Do you know how you felt when you were away from your dad? That’s how I feel every day. Can I talk to my brother please?”

“
My bugs are very sick, that’s why I couldn’t even talk to Daddy. But they’ll be better soon and you can talk to Sean. I like him, he’s nice. He talks funny, like you.”

We drove home in relative silence. I felt horrible about not telling John. John was the best friend I’d ever had and I was too self-absorbed to consider that he might not still do what was necessary. I’d been so afraid he’d leave to try and find his family and I needed him there. I didn’t even consider that he felt like this was home now and would want to bring them here. It was horribly selfish and I felt about one inch tall.

When we got home, it was about an hour until daylight. “Max, are you sleepy still buddy? Or do you want to stay up?”

“
I want to see Gramma, I missed her. And I’m hungry. The bugs say we need to sleep though.”

Inside the kitchen we found my mother cooking away, as she seemed to always be doing. We walked in looking beat up, except the little boy who was bright eyed and cheerful. Max ran to her and jumped into her arms and said “Gramma!”. She immediately burst into tears.

“
Gramma, I’m hungry. Can I have a cheese sandwich?”

“
Sure!” She said between sobs, trying not to look like she was crying. She went to the refrigerator and opened it quickly. She removed two quart sized tubs before closing the door tightly. On the long stainless steel metro shelves were loaves of bread.

“
Mom, where did you get cheese?”

“
I made it last week. It could use some more age, it’s not as good as it will be, but it’s pretty good. Ron brought me some goat’s milk and I knew we’d never drink all the milk. It seemed terrible to let it go to waste, so I made a batch of goat’s milk mozzarella. It was pretty easy to do. The worst part was gathering the rennet. It’s the enzyme that makes cheese, primarily found in the stomach of baby mammals. I had to have Ron butcher one of the baby goats, but now I have enough rennet to make cheese for a year and I thought we’d all enjoy the roasted goat. There’s mint chutney to go with it.”

“
Mrs. Tookes, you’re amazing,” said Leo.

“
Aw, it’s nothing honey. Just something I read in a cookbook a few years ago.”

She sliced the baseball sized mozzarella balls into round slices and we all ate a little of the cheese. She took the two best, the middle slices, added a little salt and put them on a plate. Next she sliced the bread. She’d made it in a sandwich loaf pan. She deftly cut it into slices that looked exactly like store bought bread. She dipped the knife into the second tub and spread mayonnaise on the two pieces of bread.