Joseph Talluto - America the Dead

Milovich dismissed him as irrelevant and turned his attention on the other prisoners. They were two women, one blonde and the other brunette. The blonde was an attractive, buxom young woman of about thirty and the brunette was a leaner specimen, with a hard look about her. Both were bound as well, which seemed to be a good thing, since both were literally festooned with edged weapons. The blonde had a number of what appeared to be scissors attached to a wide belt which wrapped around her waist.

Milovich nodded approval and was about to order the two to be given to the men when an idea formed in his head. He let it marinate a while then smiled at the blonde, who looked back in such defiance that the sergeant nearly put a hand on his gun.

Milovich nodded to his corporal. “Good work,” he said to Kazinski. “Take the man out to the edge of the town and get rid of him.” The man’s eyes turned wide and he opened his mouth to protest, but Kazinski’s fist slammed into his head first, stunning him and bringing him to his knees. Two other soldiers grabbed him by the arms and dragged him away.

Milovich noted that neither of the two women even flinched at the violence. Excellent. He turned to the blonde and tried unsuccessfully from looking too obviously at her chest.

“As you can see, I’m in charge. Whether you live or die depends on how cooperative you both are willing to be. I need you two to be part of an operation that should be taking place in the next few days. Swear to cooperate and I can guarantee that you will leave here unmolested,” the sergeant said.

“And if we don’t?” the blonde spoke before her friend, nearly spitting the words at him.

“Then you will be given to the men to enjoy until they tire of you, which might mean several days, depending on your stamina,” Milovich said, noting the flashes of hatred both women gave him. “What will it be?” he asked.

The two women exchanged glances and covert nods. It was obvious they figured to cooperate in order to avoid being raped to death, but they didn’t know that Milovich had never kept his word in his life.

The blonde spoke. “We’ll do what you want, just don’t hurt us.” She tried to sound defeated, but the sergeant didn’t believe her for a minute. He figured she would stab him as soon as she could find the opportunity.

Sergeant Milovich smiled. This was icing on a cake that already was tasting sweet. Talon was as good as dead.

Joseph Talluto

America the Dead

“Question for you.”

“What?” I asked, without trying to fully wake from my rest.

“How come the young Z’s are so damn fast?”

I opened my eyes and stared at the underside of the kitchen table. I had taken to napping on the bench as opposed to climbing up into the secondary sleeping area. I could sleep nearly anywhere, a throwback to my college days when I did pretty much sleep anywhere.

“Dunno,” I replied. I slid my feet to the floor, slowly pushing myself up to a sitting position. “Maybe it has something to do with the different body chemistry,” I said, scratching my head. My hair was starting to get a little shaggy without Sarah around to trim it up. I blinked and looked at Duncan, who was standing by the table.

“What do you mean?” Duncan asked, leaning back on the sink.

I looked at him closely for a second, wondering if he was serious. I glanced around and saw Tommy driving, so I knew he hadn’t sent Duncan on any joke missions. Zeus the cat was up in a storage bin, his pale yellow eyes looked at me as if to say, You’ll probably regret this.

I shrugged. “Keep in mind this is just speculation, but kids have different body chemistries than we do. Youngsters bounce back more quickly from serious illnesses than we could ever hope to. Some say that their immune systems are hyped up because they need the protection to get to adulthood, which results in different wiring. But I couldn’t say for sure, because it makes no real sense. The older kids, teenagers and such, they aren’t much faster than the really old ones. The brain dies and that’s it. That’s what the virus has to work with, just rudimentary responses to stimuli.”

Duncan looked down. “What about what we saw at that apartment?”

“The doorknob turning?”

“Yeah, that.”

I leaned back. “Been giving that some thought. If the zombies are actually starting to learn, then we’ve got to jump start our timetable and get moving to the final phase.”

“That bad?” Duncan looked somewhat concerned.

“If the Z’s are able to problem solve, then all our defenses won’t matter for crap, because the Z’s have nothing but time on their side. There is one thing I haven’t seen yet, but I get the feeling it’s just a matter of time.” I took a swig from my water bottle.

“What’s that?”

“Zombies taking shelter during the winter, or finding hidey holes to wait out the cold.”

Duncan, a veteran of nearly every zombie fight I could think of, actually shuddered. “Good God,” he said, as the implications hit him. “We’d have to hunt them out of every sewer, attic, basement and drainage area. And when we found them, they’d be still active.

I shook my head. “Nothing about this whole mess makes me believe in a benevolent god anymore. Want to hear the worst of it?”

“Not really.”

“When was the last time you saw a lone zombie?”

Duncan thought a minute. “It’s been a while, but the last one was in the parking lot back home. The one you killed. Why?”

“They are learning on more ways than one. They are laying ambushes, like we saw recently and they are attacking in groups. They seem to have learned the strength of numbers and how vulnerable they are attacking one on one.”

Duncan’s eyes got wide and I just nodded. “We need new tactics,” he said.

I smiled and eased my way up to the front of the vehicle. Tommy was driving and he looked up as I sat down next to him.

“What’s the plan, boss?” he said soberly. I figured he had heard the conversation between Duncan and myself.

“We need to stop a bit, I want to go and stretch my legs,” I said, picking up a map. The road we were on was empty and there were large swaths of land on either side. Here and there were farms and barns, but I didn’t feel the need to stop and see if anyone was alive. Eventually we would have to, but not on this trip.

“Where are we?” I asked. I knew we were swinging south to avoid Columbus, but as to our current location, I had not a clue.

Tommy pointed to a sign as we lumbered past. “Township Highway 160, whatever the hell that means, since a minute ago it was Carson Road and ten minutes earlier it was Township Highway 160.” As we discovered, it was a running joke to try and figure out who named the stupid roads in Ohio. Currently, if the road was running East-West, it was named one thing. If running either Northwest-Southeast or Northeast-Southwest, then it was named something else. The general consensus was to just keep moving east. We wanted to eventually hit Route 50, since that would take us to the heart of DC.

“Right.” Looking at the map, I indicated a stopping point. “When we get to the interstate, let’s stop for a bit and have a look around.”

“You got it.” Tommy was another old campaigner and would be able to get us out of any trouble we happened to come across. “Hey, John?”

“Yeah?” I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.

“What if the zombies aren’t really dead?” Tommy asked seriously.

“Explain.” I hadn’t travelled this course of thought before.

“What if they caught the virus and instead of truly dying, went into a deep coma, where the virus took over the brain functions. Technically, they become brain damaged due to lack of oxygen to the brain, but they are still alive, with the body responding to the virus’ impulses to survive,” Tommy said.