“I don’t; I don’t know where they are,” Michael stammered. “Come on. I’m rich. I can give you anything. Do you know what Avalon is? I can get you in,” he began to plead.
Pausing, his captor looked over at the girl in the pool, shook his head, and then pulled down on the sheers. A streak of blood spattered across the wooden deck. Michael let out a howl that I’ll never forget. He twisted maniacally under the cops’ weight as the bastard cut again to sever the finger completely.
In that instant, Kyle pulled me up, and we charged them from behind. Completely distracted by Michael’s screams, they never saw us coming. Kyle swung his metal weapon at the first cop, then the second. They were out in an instant.
I tackled the zombie chopper, driving him away from Michael. I could see his finger fall from the sheers as we both hit the deck. The guy had fifty pounds on me or better, and he easily threw me off to the side. Luckily, I kept my wits and cracked the hammer against his knee as he took his first step toward me.
I could still hear Michael screaming in the background as Kyle stood over us with a pistol aimed directly at the face of the man.
“Move and you’re dead,” Kyle snarled in a dangerously low voice. “I’ll put one in your chest so you come back as one of those fucking zombie things. Then I’ll put one in your head so I can kill you twice.”
The guy rocked back and forth, holding his knee but made no other move.
I scrambled to one of the unconscious cops, and pulled the keys to the cuffs from his belt. Unlocking Michael, I then heaved him onto his wobbly legs.
Holding his grossly amputated finger, Michael staggered to his tormentor and drove his foot into his face. The guy dropped unconscious to the wooden planks, blood draining from his now broken nose.
Kyle pulled the two holsters from the cops’ belts, and tossed one to me. Strapping the holster around my waist, I felt like a badass. I had shot a gun before, but only at a target range. Playing army as a kid didn’t really prepare me for this.
Kyle looked over at Michael, “You going to make it? You okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. Some dick-face just cut my finger off.” He kicked the guy on the porch again, bringing his foot down hard on his chest.
“What was that shit about choices? I have a choice for you. Don’t cut my fucking finger off. How about that for fucking choices?”
I looked between the two of them, then up at the sky.
“We need to get out of here. I have no clue where to head.”
“Any place is better than here,” Kyle replied.
“Yeah,” Michael said. “Maybe we could go someplace where they don’t cut your fingers off.”
In that instant, just beyond where Michael was standing, I saw the guy on the porch reach his right arm around to his back. I could see the small handgun emerge.
“Michael, look o-!” I heard a gunshot, but Michael didn’t fall.
The guy on the deck fell backwards, blood staining the wooden planks, mixing with the blood from Michael’s finger.
I looked wildly at Kyle. A handgun didn’t do that. He was staring behind me. I whirled around, my voice catching in my throat. The woman from the pool was standing by the door with a shotgun in hand. She looked up and met my eyes.
“I want to go to Avalon.”
Chapter 14
There is a point in time where one hopes that what is happening will just stop, before another killing occurs.
Her name was Sophia. Aside from killing her husband, who was almost twice her age, she was actually very accommodating.
Leaving his bloody remains dripping all over the porch, she invited us inside the house. Knowing that it was too dark to venture from the relatively secure area, we cautiously decided to take her up on the offer.
After cuffing the two unconscious cops to the wrought iron table, making them look like they were sodomizing each other, courtesy of Kyle, we stepped through the rear door.
The house was enormous, and clearly the biggest that I’d ever been in. The back door led directly into a great room with a fireplace so large that I could literally walk into it. Kyle shot me a look as if to say, “This place creeps me out.” I just nodded in agreement, as we followed Sophia through the house.
“Won’t the gunshot alert your neighbors?” Kyle asked.
She looked back at him, smiled, and with a cool tone said, “Gunshots are a part of life now. You’ll hear them all night long. People stopped running toward them days ago.”
As we entered the kitchen, she offered us any food that we could find in the fridge, and then laid the shotgun against a nearby chair as she lit up a cigarette. Using a cup to flick ashes into, she told us that Richard, her husband, would never let her smoke in the house. She was eerily calm, almost monotone with her statement.
Warming up to Michael immediately, she gestured with a smile, and went into full nurse mode as he sat down. She opened a number of doors before she found an emergency kit that contained gauze and tape, with which she began bandaging him up.
Neither Kyle nor I turned down the offer of food, digging around in the fully stocked fridge.
“What is this place?” Kyle asked around a mouthful of deli meat.
Sophia slowed her bandaging and thought carefully.
“It’s our home,” she said.
“Yeah, I’ve got that, lady. How come this town has power when no place else does?”
She went on to explain that the neighborhood was one of the newest in “green” efficiency. It had become popular to be green in her social circles, and the town ran on a combination of hydroelectric and wind turbines on the other side of the hill. Each house also boasted a series of solar panels sitting atop their roofs.
“What about the sirens?” I asked.
“Richard was hell bent on staying here. He devised the system, and persuaded those who stayed here to help him with the cleanup. He even offered vacant homes in the neighborhood to people passing by, promising them shelter in exchange for their help with protection. That is, until the houses were full. Then he started turning people away. When they wouldn’t turn away… well, he applied more forceful methods.”
“Yeah, we saw the more forceful methods down at the siren,” Kyle said.
“I didn’t say he was a good man,” Sophia countered.
“He was a fucking dick!” Michael blurted while looking down at his bandaged hand.
Sophia ran her hand through his silver hair, comforting him with an arm around his waist. Kyle looked at me, shaking his head slowly as he scowled.
“I’m not so sure about this siren stuff. You remember how the zombies followed us for miles to the gas station. Who’s to say that the neighborhood watch didn’t just kill the closest creatures… that there are not hundreds more on the way?”
We all looked at each other in alarm, agreeing that we’d better get the hell out of there at daybreak.
Looking Michael in the eyes, Sophia asked, “So will you take me? Will you take me to Avalon with you?” Michael paused, and looked at us.
“We have another seat in the car,” he said quietly.
Kyle and I stepped to the side and mulled it over for a moment. Neither of us trusted her for shit. It was obvious that she had suckered up to Michael from the second we got into the place. However, she did save him out on the deck; even if it was her husband she killed. For a good reason, but still…
“I’ll tell you what, we’ll let you come if you let me use your phone,” I said to her.
“It’s over there.” She smiled and pointed back towards the great room.
I nodded, and took a deep breath as I walked toward the fireplace and spied the phone sitting on a nearby end table.