“Usually the best plan. Too many people end up dead because they think they’re king of the zombie hunters. And lots of them die because they’re so busy focusing on the ones in front of them they don’t spot the one coming up behind them.”
A tap on his shoulder on the opposite side from where she was standing made him jump. But it was just her. She’d reached across his back. Cal shuddered at the thought of being ambushed that way by a zombie.
“People forget they aren’t fighting other humans,” Tanya went on. “Humans might be scared to sneak up behind a guy with a gun. Zombies don’t give a shit. They don’t run away when you shoot the zombie next to them. The bastards just keep coming.” Her pretty face had flushed, and there was fury in her eyes. After a second it cleared, though, and she laughed and pulled a band from her pocket to tie her hair back. “Sorry. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you all that. You’ve been on your own for a long time, Bren said.”
“Yeah. Sometimes I tagged up with other groups for a while. Mostly I stayed on my own, though.”
“Self-reliant.”
“That’s my middle name.”
“Come on, let’s see how you do with your handgun.”
They retrieved his Browning, and she examined it with interest, trying it herself, pointing it at the targets.
“You’ve never seen one?” Cal asked. “I thought you must be the gun expert around here.”
“Nope. Never touched one before this all started. I’ve mostly seen the ones we use here. Bren and Mitch taught me about guns in general, and then we got our Rugers from a military base. That’s when I learned to shoot. Okay, you’re up. Just let me change the targets while you load.”
She hung up fresh paper targets and moved them closer. The kind of distance where you’d go
Shit
and grab for your handgun.
“Never use the rifle at this distance,” she said, coming back to stand at his side. “I’ve seen a high-velocity rifle bullet go right through a zombie’s head and not do enough damage to stop it.”
“Really? That’s alarming.”
“The doc thinks they only use a small part of the brain, and if you miss that, the zombie can carry on. Ever hear of people surviving getting shot in the head? Same kind of thing. And ever seen a bullet ricochet off a skull? Happens if you hit the right spot. Never used to show you that on TV, did they?”
“Maybe we should have .357 Magnums,” Cal suggested, not entirely joking. “Those punks won’t feel lucky then.”
She grinned. “We’ve got a couple, but they’re slow to reload. Make a nice mess, though. Maybe I’ll let you play with one later. Okay, let’s see what you’ve got, cowboy. Don’t wait for orders this time. Just shoot each of the targets as fast as you can, in whatever order takes your fancy.”
He wasn’t so good with the pistol. He hadn’t used his very often, and it showed. He took out the six targets one after another, but his accuracy rate was low. It would be even lower if they were real zombies coming at him.
“Told you I prefer to run away,” he said sheepishly as she made a note of his results.
“No, you did fine. We’ll soon bring your rating up. And if you’re a good boy and work hard, you’ll get to play with some of the really fun things. Like the crossbow.”
“Crossbow? I like that. Silent.”
“Exactly. Fire it from cover and they have no clue where to turn. And if you’re a
really
good boy, then in about six months, Bren might let you have a go with one of the rocket launchers. Now that’s fun. Okay, come and have a go with our weapons.”
She handed him a rifle, shorter than his, with a folding stock. “It’s light,” he said, hefting it. “Much lighter than my Winchester.”
“Ruger Mini-14 semiautomatic carbine. Bren thought the lighter the better for us weak and feeble gals to carry.”
There was nothing weak and feeble about this girl. He was going to learn a lot from her. Maybe running away was the best option a lot of the time, but sometimes he had to stand and fight. Maybe if he’d reacted faster with his gun, he wouldn’t have been bitten at all. Learning from Tanya, then later going ashore and seeing just how a trained group of fighters dealt with zombies had to be valuable knowledge to take away with him.
“You’re a long way from your salon here,” Cal said as Tanya demonstrated how to break down the gun.
“Everyone gets to become someone new here. Contribute something more meaningful, I guess you’d say.”
Could he do that? Tanya’s old work had been merely trivial. Part of the froth on the top of civilization, but harmless. It hurt nobody. Cal’s former “work” was definitely not harmless. All about taking, never giving anything real back to anyone. Tainting what he did give with the bitterness of betrayal and humiliation.
“Cal? You paying attention? You’d better be, because I’m going to show you how to clear a jam. You really need to know this.”
He smiled apologetically. “Sorry. Go ahead.”
* * * *
The next morning he had his first explosives training session with Bren. Mitch had been mysteriously absent from their shared room the night before, only returning as Cal left for breakfast, saying he’d been on the night watch.
What the hell he’d been watching for, Cal couldn’t imagine. This was the safest place he’d been for almost two years. Maybe they had another prisoner stashed away. Or maybe he was avoiding Cal.
Cal made a trip to the infirmary—the doctor wanted to check him over every other day—then headed to one of the metal rooms deep in the superstructure of the rig, where he found Bren waiting for him.
“Recruit Richardson reporting for blowing-shit-up duty,” he said.
“Hah, you blow anything up today, I’ll kick your ass,” she said. “The first thing you learn about explosives is safety procedures. That is, how not to blow your personal shit up. Sit down.”
It was more like a class after that. All theory about explosives, different types, how they were used, how to detonate them. Cal resisted the urge to drift off. This could be useful to him. He’d often wondered about setting up trip-wire systems to protect him while he slept. Might get a good night’s sleep for a change. Though he’d slept like a baby for the last two nights. Once he lost the fear he was going to die and turn, and once he knew his hosts weren’t going to kill him, he’d finally been able to truly rest on this haven of safety.
After a couple of hours they stopped for coffee and sat among the cases of dynamite and plastic explosive, making small talk.
Small talk with big talk behind it.
“You and Mitch managing to share the room okay?” she asked. “No fighting?”
“Not so far,” Cal said. “Early days.”
“I guess it’s tough on both of you, used to being alone.”
“It’s the most sensible arrangement. I can hardly ask for my own room. And it does have an en suite.”
She chuckled. “Luxury!”
“Now we just have to install the hot tub, and we’re sorted.”
“Don’t even talk about that. You can’t imagine how much I miss that.”
They both sighed and sat in silence for a while, Cal guessing she was doing the same as him and mourning the world of hot tubs, saunas, and spas. A five-minute warm, but not hot, shower wasn’t the same.
“So, are you doing to teach me how to make a bomb?” he asked.
“Patience, my budding bomber. Explosives are not to be messed with lightly. You must first learn to respect them and their power.”
“And then you must learn how to stick a detonator in them and blow shit up.”
“There’s that too, certainly.”
“What do you do with them anyway?” Cal had been wondering this. Tossing grenades at zombies, he could see that.
“Loads of uses. If we’re ashore and have to camp for a night, we create a minefield round the camp. Trip-wire-based usually. And then there’s getting into places.”
“What, bank vaults?” He grinned.
“Not much point to that. Paper money is only good for wiping your ass with now, and you can’t eat gold.”
“I’ve seen broken-into banks all over the place, though,” Cal said. “I guess some people take a while to grasp reality.”
“Yeah,” she said. “The ones who won’t accept it’s really happening and are still waiting for someone to come rescue them.”
“I think you’ve done some rescuing, though, you and Mitch?”
She nodded. “Yeah. We didn’t really start out intending to do that. But it just sort of escalated.”
Cal sipped his coffee, not looking at her, trying to sound casual. Like he wasn’t that bothered. “How’d you meet him?”
“It was a month after everything collapsed. No more government, no more army. I knew my folks and brothers were gone.” Her face showed pain briefly, quickly covered. “I was holed up in a supply store in a small deserted town, trying to figure out what the hell to do next. One day this guy gets out of a car and comes into the store, goes straight for the ammo section. Most of the time when someone came in, I lay low. But something about Mitch. He looked like a guy who could handle himself, you know. So I went and introduced myself.”
She was smirking as she said it. Cal bit. “When you say ‘introduced’…”
“Well, obviously the first thing I did was point a gun at his head.”
Cal laughed. He could just imagine it. He poured himself more coffee.
“Anyway,” she went on. “We talked, ate, and then teamed up. I already had an idea about getting to somewhere like a ship or an island or…” She waved a hand. “An oil rig. I knew I couldn’t stay where I was forever, but it was too dangerous to travel alone. Gotta be able to sleep sometimes. I don’t know how you traveled around by yourself with nobody to watch your back.”
“Just used to it, I guess. Only person I trusted to take care of me was me.”
“Maybe it’s me being army, then. I was always used to having buddies to watch my back. So we headed for the coast, me and Mitch, but along the way we started to run into other people, and some joined us. And Mitch especially, being a cop, couldn’t keep from interfering if we ran into someone in a bad situation. Which was mostly women being held prisoner by men. He insisted we had to help them.”
She claimed it was Mitch, but the fierce look in her eyes suggested she was no more inclined to leave people in danger than he was.
“Was it only women who joined you?” Cal asked.
“No. There were guys too. They’re…not here anymore.”
“Yeah, Mitch told me you threw out the ones who didn’t leave or get killed fighting zombies. They were
that
much trouble?”
“I guess. I mean, I could handle it personally, and the girls I was training up to fight, they could too. But most of them didn’t bother us—they bothered the ones who couldn’t see them off as easily.” She shrugged. “Mitch thought it was best. I guess he knows what he’s doing.”
“Most of them?” Implied there were some who still had the stupidity to mess with Bren or her soldiers.
“Yeah. Most.” Nothing more forthcoming. She drank the last dregs of her coffee. “And they’d fight each other, of course, over the women. Dumbasses.” She grinned at Cal. “At least you and Mitch won’t do that.”
“Is that why you let me stay?” he asked.
“It was a factor,” she said.
“What else was?”
“The doctor needs to follow up on her vaccine with you. You’re part of her research now. If that vaccine works, it will change everything. Also, you look like you’ll make a good soldier, when we get you in shape.”
“Hey!”
“And gotta admit, having an ass that fine around the place makes a nice change.”
Chapter Seven
Mitch came into the gym to find Cal chatting to a couple of the girls on the exercise bikes. He’d better only be chatting and not flirting.
“Come on through here,” he ordered Cal and marched to the large open space they used for PT when it was too cold or raining heavily outside on deck.
“Good afternoon, Cal,” Cal said, imitating Mitch’s accent. “I hope you enjoyed your lunch, Cal. Why yes, I did, thank you, Mitch, and thank you for asking.”
“You done?” Mitch pulled the hooded top he wore off over his head, leaving on the thin T-shirt he wore under it. “We’re not here for a social visit. Drop and give me twenty.”
Cal stared. “You actually said that? I can’t believe you said that.”
“Make it twenty-five.” Mitch didn’t wait for him to obey. He kicked off his shoes, dropped himself, and started doing push-ups. After a second Cal was beside him, doing the same. He was in excellent shape, but he’d been inactive and sick, so he started to struggle as he hit twenty.
“You need to get your name on the schedule for the exercise bikes,” Mitch said. “You get thirty minutes a day. Don’t miss your slot.”
“Okay.” Cal sounded short of breath. “Twenty-two.”
“And you’ll start attending Bren’s daily PT sessions. She will really whip your ass into shape.”
“Bren happens to think my ass is in fine shape already. Twenty-four.”
“Twenty-three.” He wouldn’t distract Mitch by trying to make him jealous.
“Fuck you.”
“Not now. We have work to do.” Aw, hell, like that wasn’t blatant flirting? He’d kept away from Cal as much as possible, and now as soon as he couldn’t avoid him he was flirting.
“Later, then.” Cal grinned as sweat broke out on his face. He made the last two push-ups, then flopped on the mat. “Shit, I am usually in way better shape.”
“You will be again soon. Get up. Stretches.”
He led Cal through a stretching routine, unable to avoid looking at him, having to make sure he had the right form. Cal grunted as he stretched muscles that had stiffened from inactivity. It was an animal sort of sound. Too close to something else.
Ignore it. We’re not here to fuck. We’re here to fight.
“You feel okay?” Mitch asked. “Loosened up?”
“If I got any looser, parts would fall off me.” Cal bit his lip after he said it and shook his head. “Shit.”
Not the best way to put it when he could have ended up a walking corpse with parts indeed falling off him. Maybe the words reminded him of his mortality. Mitch would give him a few more reminders in a moment.
“Do you know any martial arts at all?” Mitch asked as they moved to the center of the room, onto the big square of mats.