Randall Craw didn't hesitate, when he saw his mistress go down he leaped in front of her and tackled Paige back onto the floor. The front of the bus started thumping, a steady thump, thump, thump that went on and on as it plowed ahead. Dora saw Paige wrestling with Randall while Chris held Mo tightly. Her decision on who to go after was taken away from her as Jim Tiller vaulted off of his slow moving car into the back of the bus to confront her.
"Fuck, when it rains it pours." The bus was passing through a slow moving horde of zombies. It had slowed to around ten miles an hour, not quite slow enough for the zombies to get on board, but nowhere near fast enough for Dora's tastes. She aimed at Tiller and fired as he came towards her. One of his hands fumbled at his belt for a pistol and when he pulled it out he fired at the people in the back of the bus, which caused a general panic among the passengers.
"Fucking bastard!" yelled Dora flinging her empty revolver at the man, he deflected it using his own pistol, but something from the impact must have broken part of his gun, when he turned to fire at the youngsters it exploded in his hands, sending a piece of metal spinning into his face.
Chris couldn't hold onto the girl any longer, she twisted around in his arms like a python, kicking with her little feet into the man's groin. When he saw her head bend down to bite his arm he released her and pushed her forward into the back of Jim's legs, causing both of them to go down in a heap.
Wrestling with Randall was a one sided affair, he had strength on his side, plus he was on top of her. One of the seat supports was digging into Paige's back; it felt like it was slowly impaling her. With a frantic twist and heave she managed to get the man shoved to one side of her, but she could not make use of the momentary edge she had created to do more than back up a few inches.
As Randall came at her again she raised her knee up and kept him from getting a full grip on her. When he went to bite her arm she saw it coming and tore away from him, then she delivered a blow to the center of his face with as much strength as she could put into such a short punch. He howled and lowered his teeth towards her thigh and the offending knee that was preventing him from getting close. Just as his teeth were about to close on her leg Paige pulled it back away from him. Dora's hand reached down and plucked the man away from her. She tossed him into the emergency door at the back of the bus. Randall hit it hard and the door popped open, giving the passengers a better view of the last zombie car coming up on them. The car was smoking horribly as the engine overheated and the anti-freeze from the shattered radiator burned off. One of Randall's hands caught the side of the doorway and he swung himself around the outside of the bus onto the bumper.
Dora offered Paige a hand and pulled the woman to her feet, at almost the same time Mo and Jim got themselves untangled and rose up to meet the humans. From where Dora and Paige were standing they could see the other zombie vehicle roar up to the back of the bus, then they watched as the blue Caliber Dora had left behind with Willy came up and nudged the back wheel, firing a shotgun into it as it did so. Dora was pretty sure she saw Jake driving the vehicle.
"Yes the cavalry has arrived!"
The distraction worked on Jim Tiller, but Mo was too young to understand the reference so when Dora attacked she only caught one of them off guard. In the front of the bus the volley of fire increased as the passengers continued to fire out at the slow zombies encroaching from the sides.
Paige saw Dora's intentions moments before the woman leaped and she saw Mo's as well, she knew the two were going to collide in mid-air in front of her and saw a dozen places they could end up on the ground at the back of the bus. She made her own move in that instance, diving for her shotgun, she saw the black lines of her hands intersecting the gun and knew she was going to reach it. Grabbing the gun and rolling over she aimed it at Tiller who was bending over to pick Dora off of Mo.
Randall used the distraction of the melee to climb back inside of the bus. Tiller put Dora into a head lock while Paige studied the lines. Randal scooped Mo up and put her on her feet, the girl shook him off angrily and brushed by him, leaving him open for a shot from Paige, she saw him ducking in a hundred versions of the future, but there were good shots she could take and her shell hit him in the upper right shoulder throwing him back, where he landed against the boy he had impaled earlier. A surprised look crossed his face as he saw the metal rod spring up through the middle of his chest, then his body started trembling as he lost control of his legs. Randall's body would not heal itself while he was still impaled and the angle of the metal rod made getting himself off of it nearly impossible.
Mo was around behind Tiller punching Dora in the head, Paige saw she could not do any lasting damage to the man, he was constantly moving Dora around as a body shield, then called out, "Drop it girl or I will snap her neck like a twig!"
Looking at the man intently Paige let a small smile creep to her face. Dora yelled, "Shoot the cocksucker! Shoot him! Quit hitting me you little bitch!'
Paige looked outside and saw the beat up caliber come up to the rear of the bus, the firing from the buses passengers slacked off as Jake mentally pushed the weaker zombies out of the caravan's way.
"What the fuck? Do you want her to die?"
"Kill her, you'd be doing me a favor."
"What?"
"Yeah. She bet me she would live through this and I wouldn't. So if you snap her neck then that means, for once, Dora wasn't fucking right."
Tiller's eyes widened as Paige's finger softly caressed the trigger. The man was fast and he brought Dora's body up in an arch, lifting the woman completely off the ground as he tried to block Paige's shot, but Paige wasn't shooting at him, when he lifted Dora to protect himself he exposed Mo almost completely and the shot took her dead center just below the neck, the girl was flung back into the corner on top of Chris, where she gurgled out a wet sounding, "Jim Tiller!"
Tiller dropped Dora to the ground where she landed on her hands and knees. Paige pulled the hunting knife out of her belt and waited for a brief second. Jim Tiller scooped Mo up and leaped for the back door. Paige tossed her knife, watching the black lines converge as Dora stood up then dove for Tiller. Screaming, "Oh no motherfucker! You aren't getting away!"
Meanwhile the knife moved through the air, it was travelling slowly towards the door, spinning lazily as it over took the diving woman. Dora's hand came up in an effort to grab Jim Tiller's ankle and met the handle of the knife. A look of comprehension dawned on Dora's face when her hand hit the knife, she snatched it out of the air and brought it down through Tiller's lower leg and into the floor below. His body from the waist up was hanging outside the bus's emergency exit, pinned by his leg to the bus. Tiller tried in vain to hold onto Mo as he fell, but the girl hit the pavement and was torn from his grasp. Mo came to a rest just in front of Jake's Caliber as he screeched to a halt. The bus was also slowing down and Jamie screamed that she didn't know how to stop it right.
Paige took a bead on Randall and blew a bowl of spaghetti into the side of his head. She pulled three shells out of her pocket and reloaded her gun while still lying on the floor. Dora picked herself up off of the ground as the bus started to come to a stop, turning she said, "I need a gu…" Her sentence was cut off by the shotgun tossed to her by Paige.
"There are three shots, that's all you'll need."
Dora nodded while Paige closed her eyes and tried to block all of the lines from her vision, the white lines were fading to be replaced by black ones as she did so. The future seemed to becoming more set, with fewer options, making it easier for Paige to see. The shotgun blasted once.