Part Two

Frank parked the car and looked back through the rear window at the barn the vans had pulled into. He glanced at Robin, blinking when he saw that she was already getting out of the car. Getting out quickly, he still had to jog to catch up with her. “Hey, slow down. We don’t know how many zombies are in the barn or the house beside it.”

“It doesn’t matter how many there are. I’m going in there to get my brother back, and I don’t care if my mom freaks out over us being missing when she gets home. She can find us after we’ve made it to my grandpa’s house in Las Vegas.”

“Where is your mom?” Frank asked, his eyes flicking to the barn as they stepped through the front gate and onto the dirt road the vans had had pulled onto.

“Boston. She’s got these work seminars every few months. She has to go train a whole bunch of people on how to use new software packages. If she isn’t gone teaching a seminar, she’s away at another seminar to learn something new.” Robin shook her head at Frank. “Please don’t ask about my dad.”

“Okay.” Frank coughed lightly and glanced toward the dark farmhouse. “So you never did explain where you learned how to fight.”

“My dad ran a dojo. He’s been training me since I was four.”

“He must have been very proud of you.”

“I don’t want to talk about him, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” Frank tried to slow down as they got closer to the barn, but Robin still maintained the same quick and silent pace.

She was almost at the door when a loud engine rumbled to life inside the barn. Frank leaned out to grab Robins’ arm, holding her in place. He peered inside the barn and quickly lost count of the zombies inside. The vans had seemingly been running collections all through the evening, and each zombie held a captive. Some were elderly, but most were children.

Robin pointed out a cat in one zombie’s arms, and thereafter, he began to notice that some of the zombies were carrying pets. The service vans blocked their view of the machine, and even looking up, all Frank could see was a long yellow pipe which connected to a flat canvas hose.

He let go of Robin’s arm, feeling only slight relief when she didn’t try to storm in to look for her brother. Frank crept around to the side of the barn, finding a window too high on the wall to be of use. Walking around to the back of the barn, he found a smaller covered port for two tractors. The roof of the port lined up with a window at the back of the barn.

From inside the barn, an old woman screamed. The scream stopped, and the pitch of the machine changed, sounding almost strained. A loud cacophony of groans rose in the air as a mass panic began inside the barn.

Frank went to the supporting beam of the covered port and climbed to the roof. Rolling over the side, he got up and started for the window before he thought of Robin. He turned to see her already behind him, and he was about to say something when another terrified scream broke through the chorus of frightened voices.

The window’s view was also blocked by a stack of hay bales. Robin glared at Frank before she put her elbow through a pane of glass. Frank flinched, but he realized the sounds of the machinery and the people screaming easily covered the glass shards hitting the floor.

Unlocking and opening the window, Robin crawled in and moved around the bales. Frank set a foot down on the floor Before he saw her face fill with horror. Stepping closer to peer around the bales, his heart sank into his stomach at the sight of the wood chipper. The black hose led to a large plastic tank with spigot nozzles near the bottom, and a team of zombies was draining a thick violet liquid from the taps into clear twenty ounce plastic bottles.

An old woman was dragged toward the machine and thrown in head first, her frightened shriek cut short just before chunked flesh and liquefied viscera drained from the hose into the tank. A zombie climbed a ladder to lean over the neck of the bottle and pour in a clear liquid from a large glass vial. The bottom of the tank swirled, and the chucky red liquid darkened to a deep violet color. The chunks of flesh and bone dissolved until everything inside was mixed into a consistent paste. The swirling stopped, and the zombies manning the spigots began to fill bottles again.

Frank took a step back and grabbed Robin’s arm. “Come on.”

Robin shook her head. “We have to do something.”

“Please, tell me what and I’ll do it. No matter how good we are, we can’t take all of them. Robin, please, just-”

“Oh God,” Robin moaned before she started shaking her head. “No… please, God, no.”

Frank leaned out to see the boy who was being carried to the chipper next, and  he guessed Jody was around three. Robin started to shake her head faster. The zombie threw her brother into the chipper, and she opened her mouth, drawing in a breath to scream. Frank clamped his hand over her mouth and nose while he pulled her back behind the bales of hay.

He hissed at her to calm down, but she still fought with him to free her arms. Driving an elbow into his ribs, Robin got onto her knees before Frank recovered and closed his arms around her waist. Pulling her back, he rolled her to one side and laid over her to keep her pinned down. He held her wrists above her head with one hand and clamped the other over her mouth. Though he didn’t want to hurt her, she was still fighting with him while tears stream out of her wide, panic filled green eyes.

“Please, calm down. If they catch us, you’re going in the chipper too. I’ll be headed off to be converted into a zombie.” A little boy began pleading for his life before his sobbing cries were also cut off. Frank’s vision blurred, and he shook his head. “Please, we can’t stay here.”

He was nearly blinded by tears, but he saw her nod and stood up, wiping his eyes before he helped Robin through the window. She needed help over the side of the roof, and her steps were no longer so sure or light. Frank had hold her up to keep her from staggering while they snuck away from the barn. He glanced back every time a victim screamed, knowing that for the time being, he still needed to keep control of himself.

But once he had settled Robin into her seat, she began sobbing, and he couldn’t keep the ache in his chest from overwhelming him long enough to move all the way around the car. He sat down on the hood and hunched over as his shoulders began to shake.

Minutes passed before he could get himself under control, but Robin still had not quieted. Frank got into the car and started the engine, turning the car around and driving a quarter of a mile before he flicked on the headlights.

Rolling down his window, Frank leaned over the dashboard to grab his pack of cigarettes. The sound of him pushing the lighter caused Robin to look over at him, but she quickly looked away toward the window again.

She sniffled, turning to watch Frank light the cigarette. “You know those can kill you.”

Frank nodded. “Please, spare me the slogans. It’s been a rough-” Robin snatched the cigarette from his hand and puffed it. “Hey, you shouldn’t…”

Robin stared at him and waited. “Yes, go on.”

“Look, you’re um…”

“Fifteen.”

“Okay, you’re fifteen, and your should wait until… no… I don’t suppose you’ll accept ‘because I’m a grown up’ as a reason.”

Robin shook her head. “Nope.”

Frank sighed and tossed the pack out of the window, turning to watch Robin flick the cigarette away. “Better?”

Robin stared at him before shaking her head again. “No.”

***

President  Crane glanced at his security advisor, who watched him with an anxious look. “Something wrong, Jake?”

“Yes sir. I think captain Turner and detective Reed will probably head straight to Houston now,” Jake Milton said.

“They certainly will,” president Crane agreed. “ That’s why they have tracking equipment in their clothing. Eventually, we can put a team on them once we’ve confirmed their arrival. For now, see if you can get me a report on Frank Kemp’s whereabouts. Then pass an order to captain Murphy’s team to make another attempt at collecting a live… or… well, tell them to retrieve a moving zombie.”

“Yes sir.”

President Crane yawned and shook his head to ward off a sudden feeling of fatigue. “Hey, one of you guys take a nap for me.”

An aide ran into his office, waving a set of stacked papers as if they were on fire. “Sir, you might want to see this!”

The president glanced down at the black and white photo of a handsome man with dark skin and a wide flaring nose that seemed to compliment his toothy grin. “This is the leader?”

“He may be, yes.”

“What do you mean he may?”

“We’ve been running the images of the leader through a computer to try and remove some of the scars from his face and scalp. We wanted to see what he looked like without them, and he’s a close match for this man, Jamal Barnett. He’s been on missing persons files since disappearing from his position with Peridyne. They’re a bio medical research-”

“I know who they are. Half of their contracts are matters of national interest.”

“Jamal wasn’t working on one of those kinds of projects, sir. His project to create improved artificial limb interfaces wasn’t even groundbreaking. Eighteen months ago, he didn’t report to work, and while it was presumed that he’d been kidnapped, there were never any ransom demands made.” The aide turned back the first page to show the president the photo of the leader, and then flipped back another page to show the retouched version of the photo. “We were able to get the best possible shot from the tapes detective Reed retrieved from the investigative unit’s video surveillance equipment in Dallas. If you look at the smile and the nose, you can still see the resemblance through the scars. If it isn’t Jamal, they look very similar.”

The president lifted the photos and shifted them to the bottom of the stack to read Jamal’s report. “Go back and get a complete background on him.” He passed the stack of papers to Jake. “Get that sent out to the covert teams tonight, and ready another pair of teams to for a trip out tomorrow. If the leader sticks to his pattern, the real assault is coming tomorrow night.”

The advisor grimaced. “Hopefully, someone will be able to locate him tonight.”

***

Gordon sipped a cup of coffee and looked out of the window at the dark landscape below him. The flight had been blissfully steady, giving him four hours of sleep before the flight attendant woke him to explain that they would be landing in Houston in an hour.

Beside him, Janice watched the LCD display on the back of the seat as it gave the plane’s ETA, speed, and altitude. Neither one of them had talked much during the flight, and part of it had to do with their uncertainty about what it was they hoped to accomplish. They had no luggage to collect, nor did they have any weapons. Aside from their own meager personal reserves of cash, they had no way to do anything.

They’d both said as much in the airport, but while they agreed nothing could be done, they both still booked flights to Houston anyway. The plane landed, and they passed through the terminal gates before Gordon pointed up at a car rental sign. “We can rent a car on my bank card, but where do we go first?”

“We’ll have to head to a motel for the night, and I’ll cover that and the gas. We’re both beat, and we need to rest before we try to come up with a plan.”

“Okay, but how are we going to get to sleep?”

“I can’t speak for you, but I think fatigue will pull me under for a few more hours.” Janice started walking again. “Tomorrow we can… you know, this just isn’t going to work. All I’m coming up with right now is that we can drive downtown and wait for the shit to hit the fan.”

Gordon yawned. “Yep, that sounds about the same as my plan. So maybe a nap might not be such a bad idea.”

“I wonder if Frank knows he has armed guards watching him yet?”

“Who knows? Maybe people are following us too. We did get away pretty easily.”

“No, we didn’t get away. I’m not sure what’s going on, but we probably are being followed.”

“Ladies and gentleman, if I may have your attention, please,” a man’s voice announced over the PA speakers. “The TSA apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause, but all flights for the remainder of the day have been canceled.”

Janice sighed and started walking faster. “It looks like they’re about to start the quarantine. That might make for some stiff competition for a car rental.”

***

President Crane looked up from a report on his desk, nodding to Jake Milton as he strode across the room. “Sir, captain Patterson’s team has sent in a report. Frank Kemp has made contact with a local girl, but the team doesn’t know her identity yet. They were trailing a pair of vans which the team observed abducting children, the elderly, and house pets.”

“For what purpose?”

“Frank and the girl followed the vans in his car. They tracked the vans to a farm six miles south of Houston, and the vans parked inside the barn. Frank and the girl both seemed rather distraught by something they saw after entering the barn though a back window, and they left quickly, doubling back the way they came from.

“The team made the decision to let them go and instead investigate what was happening in the barn. They found the zombies were killing everyone using a wood chipper, and the remains were somehow liquefied using a chemical poured over each body after it had been eviscerated. The team followed the zombies, who took the shipment to a warehouse. They… the zombies are sustaining themselves using the other victims as a protein shake.”

“Was the leader observed at the warehouse or the barn?”

“No, and so far, there’s been no sighting of him by the local police or the FBI.”

“If he’s sticking to a pattern, he won’t make his first appearance until tonight. He’s had a head start this time with the horde that escaped from Dallas, but he’s sticking to the same schedule in every other way.” President Crane dropped his head into his hands to rub his forehead. “Has the other team been able to capture a zombie yet?”

“No sir. Every attempt they’ve made to isolate one has resulted in a horde amassing. The team feels that the zombies’ neural connections to the leader also allows them to summon help from other zombies.”

“All right, order the men to return to tracking the zombies’ patterns to search for the leader.” The president stood up and started gathering papers on his desk. “Get the national guard ready to quarantine the city, and have the army prepare to make a sweep after the perimeter is secure. Tonight when the leader declares war, we’re going to answer him properly.”

***

Frank parked his car in front of Robin’s house. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to stay here?”

“We can for tonight, at least. The zombies have already taken just about everyone else already.” Robin got out of the car and shuffled across the street.

Frank followed quietly behind her with his head down. He was lost in dark thoughts, and he almost bumped into her when she stopped in the middle her front yard and started looking around. “Where are the bodies?”

“The zombies probably came to retrieve them. Do you still want to go inside?”

Robin didn’t answer him before she turned around and walked into the house. She shut the door behind him and walked through the living room to a hallway on the left. Robin shut the bedroom door, and he was surprised to see her move four slide locks into place. She moved to the dresser and picked up a heavy brass pipe with a T shape. Leaning over in front of the door, she dropped the brass pipe into a metal cup set in the floor.

“That seems a bit overkill for a wooden door.”

“It isn’t a wooden door. It’s aluminum with a reinforced steel frame.” Robin knocked on the door, which produced a soft metallic clang.

“Did you set all of this up yesterday?”

Robin shook her head, looking down as she walked to her bed. “No, those are to keep my dad out, if he ever escapes from the asylum again.”

“A- again?”

Robin nodded and sat down, drawing her knees up against her chest. “I don’t want to talk about it, so please don’t ask. I just want to sleep.”

“I can understand.”

“Do you? Did you ever lose someone you loved when you were my age?”

“Yeah, both my mom and my dad.”

Robin looked away from him. “How did it happen?”

Frank moved to the bed to site down. “My mom was killed in a bank robbery attempt, and my dad killed himself over her death.” He leaned over to pat her hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask you what happened. I can already guess.”

“How?”

Frank turned to watch her bitter expression, choosing his words carefully. “Over the last six years, I’ve made a career out of hunting criminals. I’ve seen a lot of bad things in that time.”

“As bad as what we saw tonight?”

“No, and nothing I saw in Dallas quite compares either. I remember thinking I should have seen a stray animal somewhere, but I had no clue what had happened to them.” His voice faltered to a whisper, and he looked down at his hands. “We should get some sleep. If you’ll lend me a pillow, I’ll-”

“Actually, I think I’d prefer if you stayed with me on the bed, please.”

Frank stared at her with an uneasy expression, but he nodded his head and sat back to take off his harness. Setting it down beside the bed, he crawled onto the mattress and laid on his side. Robin buried her face against his chest, and it wasn’t long before she started to cry again.

Long after she grew still and drifted into sleep, Frank stayed awake while guilt nagged at him. If he’d somehow cut the vans off, perhaps… but then it would be an unfair fight in the zombies’ favor, and he knew the real worry which was eating away at him.

He’d had the chance to kill the leader, and he’d blown it. He began second guessing himself, thinking maybe if he’d only waited a second longer, he would have been able to put the bullet through the leader’s heart instead of his shoulder. If he’d killed the leader in Dallas when he had the chance, Robin’s brother never would have been in danger.

Robin whimpered, drawing him from his thoughts to look down at her troubled frown. He moved his hand to stroke the back of her frazzled long auburn hair. Her expression relaxed and Frank closed his eyes, letting fatigue pull him down into sleep.