Zombie Fighter Jango #1 The Road to Hell Is Paved With Zombies (9 page)

Chapter
14:

Getting Ready to
Go

When they finally woke up, Jango and Sonja didn’t feel any awkwardness with each other or their situation. Quite the contrary, they both felt relaxed and comfortable together.

“Hey you
,” Sonja purred sleepily at Jango.

“Mmmmmm,” Jango replied, smiling as he turned his head to kiss
her cheek. He put his hand on her bare thigh as he felt her lips respond to his kiss. He felt his penis begin to stir, but he quelled his feelings of passion quickly. He knew that they had to get out of there, and fast.

Jango disentangled his limbs from Sonja’s, stood up, and stretched like a big cat. With his arms over his head,
he stretched his torso until the ribs and muscles stood out like a bunch of fists pressing against the inside of his skin.

He
jumped as he felt her hand grip his flaccid penis. “No, no, no, no, no!” He said as he felt himself respond to her touch. “We still have to get out of here. I’m surprised no one has stormed this place yet, but we can’t push our luck, Sonja.”

She
let go of his penis, and sighed. “Fine, can I at least wash up? That is, if the water is still on. I can grab some clean clothes off the racks and be as fresh as a daisy in no time.”

“Yeah,
yeah, of course,” Jango replied. “I will get the rest of what we need, and then we will bail.” He was profoundly relieved that she was still on board with his plan to leave the relative comfort of the gun store for the unknown dangers outside the walls.

He
hurriedly checked the store for the few items he desired. He found the emergency and survival gear easily enough, and grabbed a ferro-rod for starting fires, a compass, and several emergency sheets made out of Mylar that came folded up in little 3 inch squares. The folded sheets of Mylar weren’t much thicker than a matchbook.

Jango packed the goods into his backpack, and
went back the way he had come.

On his way to the back,
he grabbed eight boxes of 9mm cartridges, some cargo pants, socks, and a long sleeve shirt. The clothes were a camouflage pattern, which he disliked, but Jango really didn’t care; he just wanted some fresh clothes. As an afterthought, he grabbed an extra package of socks for Sonja.

Weaving
his way through the dimly lit back area of the store, his eyes roved, checking every box and every cage for medical gear. His eyes lit up when he spotted a small, but well-appointed medical supply cabinet that had a locking hasp on the door. The door was hanging open, and he could see pill bottles, gauze, and every other kind of first-aid equipment that he could want.

Jango quickly filled a shoulder bag with the items he wanted
: pre-threaded sutures, a bottle of erythromycin, and some morphine tablets. “Just in case,” he said to himself. He then repacked his backpack with the extra ammunition in the bottom, making sure his spare magazines were in the outside pockets of the pack.

He
looked over some of the other pill bottles, and noticed several little three-packs of medication. On closer examination, he saw that they were labeled as “PEP (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis),” and had the names of three medications on the containers. “Interferon, AZT, and Ribavirin?”

Then Jango remembered what the medications were
used for. They were used for people who had been exposed, or believed they had been exposed to HIV or Hepatitis. The medication would be taken for a couple of weeks, and it was supposed to keep people from contracting the viruses.

“I wonder if this shit would work if I get bit or something
? That Z-Virus can’t be that much worse than HIV, right?” Jango had a long-standing habit of talking to himself. He even answered his own questions sometimes.

“Whatcha doing?” Sonja asked suddenly.

He spun around, his face frozen in a rictus, eyes closed to slits, teeth gritted and bared, with his stick raised to strike. He saw it was Sonja, and as suddenly as he had turned, his face softened, and he smiled at her.

Sonja was getting use to Jango, and she realized that it might be wise to announce herself rather than sneaking up on him like she had.

“I found some killer first-aid gear, and these.” He excitedly showed her the PEP packs and explained their use to her.

“Maybe they will work, maybe not
,” Sonja said noncommittally. She was silent for several moments, and then she said, “Promise me, if I get bit, or whatever. I mean, if I even look like I might turn into one of those fucking freaks, you have to PROMISE me that you will kill me!” She had a stubborn look on her face, a grim and determined look and Jango couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Promise me, or I will stay right here,”
she warned him. “I won’t leave with you at all.”

He
looked up at her and said, “I promise, but that isn’t going to happen, so you don’t even need to think about it. Look, we are going to get out of here, and go somewhere safe, like to Montana or something.”

Sonja smiled at him and said, “Just don’t let me be
come one of those… goobers.” Then she asked him, “Why do you call them goobers anyway?”

He
shook his head and grinned, “I call them that because they freak me out. They’re always running around like a bunch of cannibalistic mental patients, making those messed up “Rheeeee” sounds. They just act like a bunch of amped up goobers, drooling all over themselves with their frigging tongues wagging around like impaled worms.” He shuddered. Then he suddenly looked up and said, “You have to promise me the same thing. You have to gack my ass if I get to looking like I might goob’ out, okay?”

Sonja chuckled, and held out her pinkie, slightly crooked. Jango hooked his pinkie with hers and she said, “That’s a promise for BOTH of us.
Now let’s get the hell out of here!”

Chapter
15:

Things Go Sideways

As she and Jango finished packing her socks, and some
extra first-aid gear into her pack, Sonja suddenly asked him, “Why aren’t we taking more guns?” She had been thinking about it a lot, and she just couldn’t understand why he hadn’t loaded up with more guns.

He
looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, “Remember when I was talking about shootouts, and all those bullets flying around?” He continued, not waiting for an answer, “Well, having a lot of guns can make a person get confident. It can make a person get confident in a stupid way, and make them take risks. Plus, you have to carry those guns, and you have to care for those guns. I don’t know if we will be able to drive where we are going, or if we will have to walk, and I just want us to live.”

Jango continued talking,
“Say we get a good ride, a tough truck or something, well
,
we
will need fuel for it. Then, take into account that if we use a vehicle, we’ll be highly visible, and we’ll become targets for any bad guys out there who are still human.”

He
finished up, “A shotgun would be awesome if we had a safe place to live, then I would want ALL of these guns. But a shotgun isn’t better than a pistol in this kind of situation. If the goobers are far away, we’ll run and hide, and if they’re close, we’ll fight. Pistols, then sticks. For now, I don’t want to be seen or heard. I just want to creep through and live to tell about it.”

Everything
he had said made sense, so she went back to finishing her packing and Jango went to get cleaned up.

When
he came back, dressed in his camouflage clothes, Sonja smiled at him and said, “Look, we’re already dressing alike!”

Jango groaned, but he
smiled. He hugged Sonja, and kissed her on her soft, red lips.

When he
had finished kissing her, he looked at her and said, “Shall we?”

Once they had decided it was time to go
, they moved quickly. Jango led her to the back door where he looked through the peephole again. The fenced lot was still as empty and bereft of movement as it had been the last time he had checked.

“It looks good,” Jango said, his voice dropping to a whisper as he slowly slid back the massive bolt that held the door closed.

He slowly opened the steel door and peeked out. There was no movement of any kind, so he opened the door all the way, climbed down the four steps that led down from the door to the lot, and stepped out into the early morning air.

Jango thought it had been morning
time when he had first arrived at G&J Gun House, so he had been there for almost a whole day!

He
immediately noticed a small, boxy, motorhome to his left. It looked like some kind of a custom model to him, but he couldn’t be sure. He could see that it looked well maintained, and that it sort of resembled an armored car.

Jango’s eyes swept the area again,
as he looked for any holes in the heavy-duty chain link fence, and searched for any signs of movement; there were none of either.

“Sonja,”
he called softly, “I think it’s safe.”

Sonja climbed down the steps slowly,
and her eyes immediately focused on the motorhome. She thought to herself, “It would be pretty cool if we could just travel in something like that, instead of walking!” The whole idea of walking all the way to Montana didn’t appeal to her at all, but she trusted Jango’s judgment. She didn’t know
why
she trusted his judgment, but she did. So she kept her mouth shut, even though she continued to admire the rugged looking camper.

Behind the motorhome stood a large tank that was marked with a sign that
said, “Gasoline Only.” The tank had a long hose protruding from the bottom that looked similar to the hoses at a gas station. Jango looked more closely, and sure enough, there was a nozzle at the end of the hose.

As he circled the vehicle,
he noticed that the back of the rig had a little flat bed attachment that rode level with the bottom of the vehicle’s frame. There were eight red five-gallon cans on the back. When he unscrewed the cap on one of them, the heavy, acrid fumes of gasoline greeted his nostrils.

“It looks like someone was ready to get out of town,” Jango said
to himself as he screwed the cap back on the can.

Sonja looked at the medium sized motor home with longing
. She wanted to be safe, sure, but couldn’t they be safe AND be comfortable? She didn’t want to have to trek around in the woods on foot while zombies and bandits roamed all over the place!

While Sonja daydreamed,
Jango peeked in the driver’s side window where he saw two comfortable looking captain’s chairs and a door that led into the back of the camper.

Jango
started to think about just saying, “Fuck it.” He and Sonja could just take the vehicle and travel in comfort and style.

He
heard Sonja say, “Hey, the side door is open a little bit.”

“Sonja, no, no, don’t open it,”
he said as he started to run around to the side of the vehicle.

Jango came around the motor home just in time to hear Sonja scream; a high, piercing note that tore at
his soul. He saw her as she fell backward, driven to the ground by the weight of a tall, skinny zombie.

He
moved as fast as a striking snake, and brought his stick down on the zombie’s head just as Sonja started firing her pistol into the body of the creature.

Jango picked the
zombie up as if it weighed nothing, and flung it to the side. His soul felt as though it were being ripped in two when he saw that a chunk of meat was missing from Sonja’s shoulder.

She
was still pulling the trigger on her pistol, even though it was empty and the slide had locked back in the open position. Jango swiftly took off his backpack, and pulled out the PEP packs, his water bottle, the erythromycin antibiotics, and the morphine. He quickly washed out her wound with the water, and opened the bottle of antibiotic pills. He stuffed several of the pills into his mouth, and quickly chewed the bitter pills into a thick paste, which he then smeared into her wound.

Sonja was starting to come out of her state of shock, and
had begun to panic. “Shit, Jango, shit, he fuckin’ bit me, I can’t believe he fuckin’ bit me!” She started sobbing.

Jango told her, “Shhh, shh, here, just take these pills,
everything will be okay.” Then he handed her a double-dose of the PEP. She managed to choke down the large handful of pills.

Sonja started crying,
then; deep, wracking sobs that sounded like they came from the depths of her soul. “I don’t want to die, Jango. I don’t want to die, Jango,” she repeated several times, like a mantra or a prayer. “I don’t want to be one of those things. You promised, you promised, you have to kill me right now.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Jango said to her, knowing it was a lie as he saw the legions of undead that
had started to pour around the sides of the building.

When Jango had made his break for the front door of G&
J, he had roused the zombies, and their hunger. Their hunting cries, those screeching wails, had drawn every zombie for miles around. Their numbers had continued to grow the entire time Jango had been inside. Sonja’s screams and the sound of gunshots had drawn them, and now there was no way out.

He
looked down at Sonja’s face as he realized that there was no way out, and that they would die here.

He suddenly
noticed movement in his peripheral vision, and he instantly rose to his feet, ready to fight as he faced the spot where the movement had been. He froze when he saw what it was.

The movement he had seen was the giant dog, and the albino woman who had assaulted him so badly outside his hotel.
They were flickering in and out of existence. Jango shook his head side to side, trying to clear his head. He knew that he had missed some vital clue, and that he should know why they were there.

Then he had it. “You aren’t real
,” he said to the woman and the dog.

“You’re half right,
Jango,” the dog said in that deep, gravelly voice that sounded like it came from the bottom of a grave. “We are as real as you, because we ARE you.”

The truth slammed into Jango like a fist. He, the damaged, beaten
, abused little boy, had been broken into pieces by the trauma of his childhood, and now he was seeing parts of himself he hadn’t known existed.

In one of the
state homes he had been in as a child, Jango had been given a battery of tests, one of which was an I.Q. test. He had scored high on every section because he was highly intelligent. And right at that moment, every part of his powerful mind was working as he tried to fit together the puzzle of his damaged psyche.

Jango remembered the movie,
Sybil,
which made him ask, “What are your jobs? What do you represent, or whatever?”

He
had forgotten about Sonja. She lay shaking as she watched him carry on a conversation with himself. He would speak in a regular voice, his own voice, and then answer in a frightening voice that sounded like rocks being crushed. She tried to sit up, but her body was weak and shaking, so she lay back down, and closed her eyes.

The dog
answered Jango first, “I am the strength in our arms and the steel in our hands. When someone tries to hurt us, I fill our muscles with righteous fury.”

Then t
he albino woman spoke in a voice like arsenic and honey that had been laced with rough sex, “I’m the poison in our fangs, baby boy. I know all the tricks, all the weapons, and how to hurt people soooooo good. When we need to fight, I am the reason we don’t have to think about it.” The albino woman sucked on her forefinger and pinched one of her pale nipples as she gave Jango an exaggerated wink.

Jango asked them, “
What about me? What is my part? What do I even do for us?”

The dog and the albino woman looked at each other, and then looked at
him sadly, and the dog replied, “You take all of our pain. You are the spine. You are the blood soaked rag that holds closed the wounds in our soul.”

He
saw the truth in all that they said, and he could see why they had been caged deep in the recesses of his mind. They were dangerous, rabid, and as much as Jango hated it; he loved them both.

“Why are you out here now?”
He asked them.

“We want to come home,” they said in unison. “We miss you, and we want to be a family again.”

Their figures seemed to morph and shift, as if seen underwater, and Jango shook his head again, as he tried to clear out the foggy feeling that had crept in around the edges of his mind.

“You felt us break loose, Jango,”
the dog said in a gentle voice. “When you were in that parking lot, with all those zombies coming at you, you felt us break out. Didn’t you?”

Jango remembered he
had
felt it; it had been like a dam breaking in his mind. It made a weird kind of sense. He had been sick with the Z-Virus when these two parts of his mind had broken free of their chains. His mind had just made up a story to introduce these two parts of himself.

The dog and the woman were flickering
, faster and faster, like the picture on an old reel-to-reel film. As he watched, the two melded into one image. Jango looked at the ravening legions of zombies that pressed against the fence all around him, and he made his decision.

He
opened his arms wide, as if to embrace the strange constructs his damaged mind had produced in childhood. He opened his arms to the only friends he had ever had. “Come on, then,” he whispered. “Come home.”