“You’re going to the fort?” It was the gorgeous woman who spoke. Rune felt a little flutter in his belly as he looked toward her. Her pale skin was splattered with blood, the ax in her hand still dripping. “Yeah.”
“Can I ride along?”
“Sure.” The woman slid the ax into the sheath on her back and slung herself onto the bike behind him. Her fingers gripped his leather jacket and she sat in silence. In his mirrors, he could see she was still staring at the little girl.
“See you at the fort,” Dale said, clapping him on the shoulder and winking before walking toward the anxiously waiting people from the fort.
“Hold on,” Rune said to the woman, glancing at her over his shoulder. She didn’t answer as she kept staring at the tiny form. The young man who had yelled at Rune earlier grabbed the kid by her ankle and dragged her off the road. Finally, the woman looked away.
Rune gunned the engine and the Harley continued toward the fort. He was strangely entranced by the silent creature behind him. She was beautiful, but grim. Her eyes were large and haunted, but the set of her jaw and lips told him she was a fighter. He wanted to say something to her, but he knew that it would be empty words. She was in her own head, dealing with her own shit.
As they rode, the woman let down her long hair with one hand and closed her eyes as the wind streamed through it. The tension around her jaw alleviated a bit and Rune tried hard not to keep glancing at his mirrors to look at her. He could feel her slowly relaxing and was pretty sure the ride was doing her some good. He found riding to be spiritual and wasn’t surprised to see she did too.
The trip to Ashley Oaks was uneventful and free of anymore of the shambling dead. He was impressed by the high walls surrounding the old hotel, newspaper building and city hall. He was even more impressed with the gated entry. As he passed through the two different gates, he looked up to see sentries on the walls watching with interest.
Behind him, the pretty creature smeared in blood was silent, but slightly smiling. He could almost believe she was a ghost, but he had seen enough of those to know she was flesh and blood. It was tough being a medium when the world was full of the dead, but he was slowly getting used to it.
The final gate opened and the bike roared into a busy paddock. The woman pointed, and he directed the rumbling bike over to the empty spot. She slid off the bike and patted his shoulder lightly.
“Thanks, dude. I needed that.”
“No prob. Name’s Rune,” he said, extending his hand to her.
“Jenni,” she answered, shaking it briefly. With her dark hair shifting around her and her face splattered in blood, she looked fierce. “Also known as La Loca.” “Loca is good,” Rune decided, giving her a rakish grin.
“Sometimes,” she answered, winking and walking off.
He watched as she headed over to where people were cleaning off spears, machetes, hatchets and other weapons. A small building had steam rising out of it, and Rune guessed that was where they were cleaning off the zombie gore. Halfway there, Jenni leaped onto the back of a tall, lean Hispanic cowboy. With a grin, the cowboy carried her over to the rest of the returning team.
Rune sighed. Of course a fine woman like that was taken. “Okay. Who the hell are you? And what’s in the bag?” It was the old codger with the grizzled face.
“Rune.” He opened the bag to show the old guy the grenades. “And a whole lot of hurt.” The man chuckled. “Name’s Ed. Welcome to the fort.”
“Just staying until the storm blows over. Then I gotta move on.” Rune shifted the bag.
“You sure?”
“Gotta keep moving,” Rune answered. He could see the ghosts around him, faint shimmering things. “Gotta keep moving ahead of the dead.”
Ed looked at him strangely. “There ain’t no rest for the wicked, man,” Rune joked. Or mediums, he thought. Ghosts were everywhere, just like zombies.
“You can’t escape the dead in this world,” Ed finally said. “You’re welcome to stay if you like.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll think about it.” Rune shifted his bag of grenades. “Like I said, we’ll see how it goes.” The man who could see the dead looked around, studying the fort, seeing the flickering of spirits all around him. “We’ll see how it goes.”
3. Promises and Shadows
Juan grimaced at the stink coming off the woman he loved. She was hanging on his back, covered in drying blood and gore and reeked of death. She seemed immune to it, having been out in the deadlands all afternoon, but he had been in the nice and tidy dead-free zone of the fort. It amazed him that he had been used to the stench of the dead when they had been under siege in the first days. It was strange how humans acclimated to things like that. But once the dead throngs were cleared out and clean fresh breezes filled the fort, the smell of the dead was again sharp and repellent.
“You ruined my jacket, Loca,” he grumbled, trudging toward the clean up area.
“It’s ugly anyway,” she assured him. “Besides, I’m tired. Spoil me.”
“As if I have a choice,” Juan drawled, grinning and grimacing at the same time. “What did you do this time to get so messy?” “Up close and personal decapitations of the zombie kind. I went whacky-whacky with my trusty ax.”
“You’re supposed to shoot them before they get too close.” He felt his stomach coil up at the thought of her fighting with the ravenous dead.
“Yeah, well, sometimes runners see it a different way.” “Shit! Running zombies?”
“Fresh and fast. I think another van of survivors ended up a buffet.” Jenni sighed, laying her head against his shoulder.
He tried hard not to be angry with her. Sometimes it was damn hard. She had a tendency to act first, think later. Her rabid hatred of the undead often spurred her to insane acts of heroics.
“I just wish you didn’t take so many chances,” he said at last.
“Well, zombies need to be killed or they munch on us.” Her voice was soft, almost petulant. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
“You mean a loca going loca,” Juan corrected. “It works, doesn’t it? Zombies die. I come home to you.”
“I just worry.”
“I’m not going to die without a fight,” Jenni assured him.
“I don’t want you to die.” “I’m not gonna!”
“Says the loca.”