"It ain't her." whispered Hank at Kevin, "Kevin, listen to me, it is not her! You said that woman on seventy had blue eyes, this woman's eyes were green, this is not her!"
"What? Are you sure? I didn't get a clear shot of her face, maybe you were wrong? Are you sure Hank?"
"Yeah I am sure Kevin. You know Juan, she is already dead, she got bit, I saw it, you saw it. No reason to stop here and try and save her is there?"
"No Hank."
Juan shifted the car into neutral and put on the parking brake. Hank and Juan got out of the car at the same time. Looking around Juan grabbed up a tire iron off the highway from among the debris and they started creeping towards the car where they had last seen the woman.
"Kevin stay in the car and cover us, okay?" called Hank over his shoulder.
Hank heard the car door shut behind him, glancing back he saw Kevin was already out of the car bracing his rifle, covering the area where they had heard the voice come from.
"Or shit, you can do it your way." Hank said under his breath.
The voice called out again, "You don't want to do this. I can smell your blood, you don't know what it means to me."
"Just let her go and we will go, find someone else and let her go!" Hank replied.
They heard a whimper from in front of them and they approached the car from two different sides, Juan going around back, Hank passing the front bumper. The zombie was feeding on the woman, he was laying on top of her, as if raping her and Hank stood for second watching as the thing's groin moved up and down in awkward thrusts, all the while his mouth worked at her bloody shoulder and part of her neck. One of its hands was covering her mouth, the other was holding her good arm down tight against the ground. Then the tire iron came down on the back of the things head with a resounding thunk. And the zombie was just another body. Looking closer Hank was not so sure that the goddamn thing had not been raping her. What the hell was going on? Juan seeing the same thing hit the body several more times, then bent over to continue to strike it, which allowed Hank to see one of the fast zombies running up behind him. When he pointed the shotgun at Juan, Juan saw him and immediately went prone. Hank's shot rang out and the other zombie staggered under the blow. In the back of his mind Hank heard Kevin firing as well, he lined up another shot, which hit the zombie square in the face, just about decapitating it, it might still be alive, but Hank thought it would be down for awhile. Turning he saw the other zombie was laying on the ground about 2 feet behind him, trying to move, but twitching uncontrollably. Hank stepped up and put a shell through its head at an angle. "That all of them!?" Hank yelled to Kevin.
"I dunno, did you save the woman?", he yelled back.
"I dunno, Juan?"
Juan was on the ground next to the woman's head she was talking to him very softly as he held his brown hands over the wounds on her neck, trying to keep her from bleeding to death. It was a lost cause, Hank could see that. However he bent down and pulled the corpse off of her and kicked it aside. Looking up he shook his head from side to side at Kevin. Hank saw the woman's face more clearly it was wounded and blood splattered, but not the woman Kevin had described from his earlier encounter, her eyes were most definitely green.
"Did you save the woman?" Kevin yelled loudly.
"Shit Kevin she is not the woman you saw, this ain't her!" Hank called back.
"How do you know? I am the only one who saw the other woman?"
"Kevin, you said your blond had blue eyes, this one has green eyes, this isn't her!"
Kevin gulped and then nodded at Hank, turning his attention back to scanning the area and silently fuming.
With a final gurgled the woman stopped breathing, Juan looked up and said, "Hank, she said her kids were still in her car, the black SUV, over there." Juan pointed at an overturned car, "She said to rescue her babies. Hank….she was bit." Standing up and backing off, he looked at Hank expectantly.
Hank stepped up and shot the woman without ceremony in the head, then walked over to the SUV. There was a man laying in front of the SUV, in a large pool of blood, his pants, a pair of clean blue jeans, were torn open, the belt loops all broken. 'Now I know where the belt on blondie's arm came from', thought Hank. The man's head had been smashed in, his chest had been punctured several times, it looked as if by fingers to Hank, and his entrails were pulled out and spread in a wide circle around his body.
Juan came around to one side of Hank, took the shot gun from him and reloaded it using the shells he had, then handed the gun back. Looking at the overturned SUV Hank commented, "Yeah sorry partner but I ain't up for much crawling around right now."
"Si." replied Juan, who got down on his hands and knees and peered into the car. It had been loaded with gear, suitcases, a cooler, bags of food, all of which was now lying on the ceiling. The back seat was empty, with seat belts hanging down. Maybe the woman had it wrong? Juan walked around the wreck peering in the windows, near the back he saw two kids hiding behind all the junk. The windows were not broken out, just cracked into a million pieces and held in place, just like safety glass is supposed to be. Juan came back around to the slightly swaying Hank and got down on his hands and knees and called into the car.
"Come here, it is alright, are you hurt? Are you hurt ninos?"
The sound of crying grew reached Hank's ears, but the kids did not appear. He started in after them pulling the luggage and food out of the way until he had the kids pressed up against the back window of the vehicle. "We are not gonna hurt you, okay? Okay? Come on we gotta get out of here. Your mom sent us to get you." The children were reluctant and it took several more minutes of coaxing to convince them to come out and go with this stranger. The younger of the two kids was a boy, he was maybe five or six, the girl was older, maybe eight. Both were bloodied and bruised, but did not look seriously hurt. They had light brown, sandy blond hair, he had green eyes like his mother, hers were blue, though pale, not dark. They were dressed in loose clothing, shorts and t-shirts, both had on tennis shoes and white socks. When the boy got to his feet outside of the car he spotted his father and started screaming. He then started to try and get around Juan to his dad, the girl just stood stock still in shock, not moving other than to put her hand up to her mouth, a second later she was leaning over and vomiting all over the road by the side of the SUV. When she lifted her head she saw caught sight of her mother's legs and started crying harder. Hank put his hand on the girl's shoulder and pulled her face away from the dead, she automatically reached around and hugged him tightly sending a stab of pain through Hank's back, he didn't let go.
"You got him Juan?"
Juan looked like he was losing control of the boy, who had somehow slipped around him and was on his hands and knees crawling towards his father's body. Juan was able to keep a grip on the boy's shorts and haul him in, though doing so just about pulled the little guy's pants off. This did give the boy pause for a moment and he stopped struggling long enough to try and pull up his pants, which is when Juan nabbed him by hugging his arms around the kid to keep him from getting away, "Si."
"Okay lets get the hell out of here!"
They moved back to the fiesta, where Kevin was now pointing the rifle back the way they had come, "He showed up, veered off to the right, behind all the cars, I'm not sure if he is gonna come over the top of them or is just messing with me."
Juan tried to put the boy in the car, but the kid would absolutely not stay in. Once he was put in the back seat on one side he slid over to the broken window on the other where he pulled himself out and was trying to run back to his parents before Hank quite realized what was happening. Juan yelled and intercepted him before he made it past the front of the car, picking him up and hurling him with some force upon the hood. "Stop it! Stop it nino! Now!"