Mark Clodi - About a Woman, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

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.

"Hold still you twitchy fucker." Another blast rang out. "Goddamn it!" followed by a third, "Got the fucker Paige."

Ahead the rattle of automatic weapons fire heralded the arrival of the National Guard Soldiers.

A quarter of a mile behind them the Caliber came to a stop just in front of the twitching zombie girl. Mo saw the booted feet step out of the car and approach her head, where they stopped. A tall man in bloodstained, torn clothing squatted down in front of her and said, "You must be Mo. Hello Mo. My name is Jake. I knew your sister."

The National Guard surrounded the buses, rifles pointed towards them while other troopers formed a perimeter facing the outside to fire at the smattering of zombies around them. The soldiers seemed nervous and close to firing on the living humans, one of their superiors stepped forward and yelled, "Come out of the first bus one at a time."

His men and women troopers were quietly calling out to each other to be careful and stay alert. They had not found any living humans in the past month, almost all of the ones who showed up were super zombies trying to pass themselves off as humans so they could get into the land of the living. And super zombies died hard, if the buses were full of supers they could be in a lot of trouble.

It started at the rear bus, one of the men yelled for their commander, who yelled for the lieutenant, who told everyone to stop what they were doing to stay absolutely still as he jogged back to the third bus. Dora stood a few feet outside of the emergency rear exit of the bus, behind her Paige was resting against the bumper, gingerly touching a small bloody stain on the back of her shirt. The body of a man with several shotgun wounds was crumpled on the ground, he had a hunting knife sticking out of his lower leg.

The lieutenant stopped in his tracks when he saw the women.

"What the fuck is wrong with you people? We have a bunch of kids who have been shot in there and you are standing around with your thumbs up your asses."

"Excuse me ma'am." said the lieutenant, "I am Lieutenant Strafer. John Strafer." he said holding out his hand.

Dora looked at it, then at Paige and said, "What the fuck?" she took his hand for a brief shake and asked, "What the hell is going on?"

"You've reached the newly formed first company of the third battalion of the first division of the mid-western army. We are the third platoon and I am in charge of it."

"So? Can we come in or not? 'Cause if we can't I am going to be mighty pissed off."

"You can come in. You of all people…" he glanced at Paige, "You two of all people are very welcome, if you are not contaminated."