The Sunshine Dame of Doom (12 page)

However, a group of cars resembling limousines was blocking the road on the unofficial border to the fancy town. Men in suits were leaning against them, looking very confident.

Joe had to bring the car to a harsh halt, burning some rubber on the way. “What the f…”

He and his partner got out of the car, steeping heavy on the floor, their faces fuming in anger. Susan just watched, handcuffed in the backseat.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Joe asked angrily to one of the men in suit, who by the way didn’t seem to care. “We’re taking a prisoner here!”

“And I thought it was protocol to check with me first.” Shane said, as if coming from nowhere.

Joe’s attitude changed from lion to kitty in a matter of seconds, same as Tony, his partner.

“Take this woman out of the car and uncuff her, gently please.”

“But…”

“Now!”

Joe obeyed her with his head low.

“This woman happens to be my friend!” Shane revealed outraged.

Susan couldn’t help looking at the cops with a mild smirk.

“W-we didn’t know that, ma’am.” Joe stammered. “But she was caught in the forbidden zone!”

“Because of your incompetence, yes” Shane retorted. “Now, stop wasting my time, do something right for a change and check if the perimeter is secured now!”

“Yes ma’am.”

And, like two school boys lectured by the teacher, they got into the car and drove away.

Shane strode to Susan.

“Are you alright, my dear?” She asked.

“Yes.” Susan replied. “Listen, Shane, we need to talk. It’s very urgent.”

“I couldn’t agree more! Notty, notty, Sue. You should’ve known better than venturing into those woods. It’s still a hot zone in there.”

“Look, I’m really sorry for what I did, but this is one of the things I have to talk to you about.”   

“Sure. Did you eat? Did you sleep? Can you work today?

“Of course!”

“Then I walk you to school. You tell me everything on the way.”

And, as they went, Susan told Shane all about her last night adventures, not skipping any sordid detail.

When they arrived at the school, Susan considered Shane’s reaction a very promising one.

“I’m shocked.” She said. “It’s not possible that so many things are happening without my knowledge.” Shane took a deep breath. “I guess I’m not exactly the brightest cook in the jar, am I?”

“Don’t worry, Shane.” Sue comforted her. “The important thing is you have all the facts now.”

“Only knowing facts won’t fix anything! Alright, you go ahead and give your classes while I take all this to Mister Hedgiest. He got a lot of explaining to do. We meet back here by the end of the working day.”

Before Susan could respond, Shane was gone. The place was already packed with children and the bells rang, announcing the beginning of classes.

And the hours went by without further excitement. When the bells rang again, bringing the school day to an end, all children left in their usual, strange orderly manner.

“Time to call in a day!” The principal talked cheerfully in the lobby. “Are you coming, Sue? Maybe we can take a coffee or a tea at
Mary Jane’s
.”

“Sorry, I can’t today. I agreed to meet with Shane after classes.”

“Oh! We’re getting important, aren’t we?”

“Nah” Susan said flushing.

“See you tomorrow then.”

“See you.”

Susan was all alone in the school entrance, nobody to talk to except for her mind, plagued by concerns. A chill crept through her skin. Nevertheless, Shane didn’t take long to show up.

“Let’s talk inside.” She said.

Susan hesitated before asking the capital question, she very much feared the answer.

“Did you get something, I mean, with the minister?” She finally built her nerves.

“Even better!” was Shane’s surprising answer.

Susan frowned, but the other quickly took her to one of the classrooms.

Frank was waiting in there, sitting on a student desk.

“Susan!” He screamed again, only this time relieved and not anguished.

“F-Frank! Jesus!” She couldn’t believe her eyes. “Come here you!”

Not surprisingly, they hugged again, both breathless and gasping in relief. With a new wave of energy powering up her soul, Susan spoke firmly: 

“Now, Becky is next on my list. Don’t worry Frank, she and I will have a serious talk.”

“I’ll do that.” Shane said. “It seems I’m not that inefficient after all.”

Feeling they had forsaken their so diligent savior, Frank and Susan immediately turned to their host.

“I don’t know how to thank you enough, Shane!” Susan said.

“Right on sister!” Frank spoke as well “And to think that I doubted you.”

“Don’t worry, folks. It’s always a pleasure to be of assistance.”

Then, Shane drew a gun from her back pocket, pointed it at Frank’s head and pulled the trigger.

A deafening sound roared through the empty corridors, while blood spilled on Susan’s face. The already dead young man crashed against the cold floor.

“AHHHH!!!” Susan screamed in despair and confusion, a rainfall of tears flooding her eyes.

But Shane was not in the mood for scenes. She dropped the gun on a table and with a powerful grip seized Susan by her hair and throat, forcing the desperate woman to face her.

“Didn’t I give you everything you could possibly want?” Shane asked her with a voice deeper than usual. “What was missing, huh? What was missing? And you simply sneak into the impure zone! Oh, you disappointed me, Sue.”

With unbelievable strength, Shane pushed Susan’s body down to bring her eyes very close to Frank’s destroyed head. But Susan could not stand the horrible sight and closed her tearful eyes. 

“See what you did?” Shane spoke. “This is on you, sweetie! Your smugness killed your friend!”

She pulled Susan up again, still holding her hair and neck.

“Amidst all hell outside, I took you and your stupid friends in.” Shane continued, her voice slowly coming back to her usual tone. “I gave you things you couldn’t possibly imagine, not even in your wildest dreams. And that’s how you repay me?” She took a deep breath. “You’re such a hypocrite. Lecture your friends again about spitting on the plate from which you ate.”

She forced Susan to look her in the eyes and she paralyzed. Tears were still running down her face, but Susan was too defeated and nullified to utter anything else other than weep.

“Do you know how easily I can control your archaic weak mind, like I did to Paul, Nick and Becky?” Shane asked the rhetorical question. “I could make you bark and roll over, but I got other plans for you, a chance to redeem yourself. I’m giving you a very special mission, one I’m sure you’ll accomplish. For the moment, just sleep.”

Susan’s eyelids fell upon her eyes like shutters hitting a window in a hurricane. And she went into deep sleep.

She was able to wake up, but barely, still feeling drowsy. Her head was spinning. The fact it was completely dark in the place she was didn’t help her senses to regain balance. Susan was felling terribly sick. She bent her body to throw up. That was when she realized her arms and legs were tied up to the chair she was sitting on by very thick straps, strangling her wrists and ankles.

“H-h-help…” She tried to mumble.

Suddenly, bright lights came to life, almost blinding her eyes, which got used to darkness. While she struggled to adapt to clarity, two men entered the room with syringes.

“Disgusting!” One of them said after seeing the pool of vomit on the floor.

“Let’s get this over with.” The other said “Time for a refill, honey.”

“No, no, please! Don’t do this, please!” Susan begged with the last drops of her strength, but in vain.

They stuck needles in unhealed holes already existing on both her arms, suggesting those were not the first injections she had been given in a very short period. And the entire content of the syringes was poured right into her system.

Susan convulsed on the chair as if having a seizure, drooling all over her shirt, while the two men simply left the room, killing the lights on the way out.

She was barely conscious when they tossed her into a reclusion cell. Her body twitched and shook a lot.

“So, we give her full package?” The grey-haired man wearing green apron asked Shane beside him.

“You may go easy on the drugs, but cut solid food this time.” She answered. “Give her only water. She’s already skinny, but we can always improve her figure.”

“Better give her some protein complements and caffeine too. We don’t want her to lose consciousness in the first three days, right?”

“Nice thinking, doc.”

“And how long are we keeping her that way?”

“Till I say so.”

And they left, closing and locking the heavy door, not that such measure was necessary. Susan tried to stand up at times, but her legs faltered and she was down on her knees again.

She lay down on her back, sharing space with rats and some insects, while looking at the small window with bars in the ceiling.

“Frank…!” She sometimes whispered. “It’s all my fault…”

Every time she heard steps, she tried to scream, but nothing came out. She was very weak. Susan could only bring herself to drink the little water they gave her.

Shane stopped by her cell every now and then to check on her general state and make sure her prisoner was only getting worse.

After days in reclusion, taking shots twice a day and deprived of solid food, Susan was visited by Shane again, but this time she came accompanied by Sheriff McBeattie.

Susan was nothing more than skin and bones, her state of mind an enigma. If she could talk, she would probably ask them to kill her. Susan had been reduced to a zombie, only not technically.

“Is she ready?” McBeattie asked.

“Pretty much, I’d say.”

“To the hot zone with her?”

“Yes. Take her to the latest coordinates of the truck, according to the satellite feed.”

“You got it.”

Susan was loaded into a van like a piece of meat. The sheriff drove the vehicle out of the walls, into the unprotected zone.

After reaching the due satellite coordinates, McBeattie stopped the van, got out, opened the side door, lifted Susan on his shoulder and dropped her on the sandy terrain. He came back inside and honked twice to attract zombies.

When he saw a reasonable number of them coming, he closed the door, started the engine and sped away back to the city gates.   

Dead rotting humans approached Susan almost in circles, like vultures.

Lily turned the wheel harshly and the vehicle veered off abruptly. For a brief moment, two tires abandoned the floor.

“Stay here.” She spoke.

“But…”

Lily stepped out of the car and finished the beasts. She carried the human being in deplorable state to the truck.

“Are you sure she’s not one of them?” Clark asked. “Just take a look at her.”

“She mumbled some words, or tried too. Besides, for some inexplicable reason, zombies don’t eat each other.

“Can you blame them?”

“Anyway, she’s devastated but not a corpse… yet.”

“What the heck happened to her?”

“This is for a doctor to say. We need to take her to a hospital.”