“Why are you half naked?” Jim grabbed a mechanic’s shirt off a workbench and tossed it to me.
I grabbed it in midair, showing incredible dexterity and awareness.
Nami rolled her eyes at my little show. “He likes to pretend he’s ripped.”
“There’s no pretending here, Short Round.” I unfurled the shirt, saw the name Frank on the tag over the breast. “Unfortunately, Jimbo, I’m always woefully unprepared when the shit hits the fan. It’s kind of my thing.”
“Woefully?” Nami asked. “That’s a big word for a moron.”
“Do you guys always act like children?” Jim asked.
I nodded. “Yup.”
“Great.” He started toward the back of the garage. “And don’t call me Jimbo.”
The shirt smelled of grease and sweat. I pulled it on and buttoned most of the front closed. Between my B.O., the grease, and the smelly shirt, I figured that I must have had a nice potpourri of funk.
Nami followed Jim. “What’s the plan?”
“The barbershop is two blocks down and three buildings over. If we can get across the parking lot and the street behind the garage, we can stick to alleys and maybe cut through a lawn or two. Shouldn’t be too hard once we get past this first part.” Jim paused at a door in the back wall with a glowing Exit sign over it.
I caught up to them a moment later. “You sure you want to come with us? It’s going to be a lot safer for you to stay here.”
“If you’re really with the government, then I’m staying glued to your side. When they come for you, they’re taking me with them.” Jim cracked the door open and peered outside. “Looks clear.”
“Famous last words.” I moved beside him and put my hand against the door. “You should let me go first. I’m good at catching bullets with my body.”
Jim glowered at me. “Another joke. Another unfunny joke.”
“He’s not joking,” Nami said. “He gets shot, stabbed, and beaten down all the time. Basically, he’s a human punching bag.”
I eased the door open further and poked my head out.
People shouted from somewhere behind the building.
A woman let loose a bloodcurdling, agonized shriek that made me want to tuck my tail between my legs and go back to the office.
Two gunshots cracked from the hills surrounding the town.
A dog barked incessantly off to our right. It had the shrill, ear-piercing quality of a little ankle biter.
Behind the garage, a parking lot filled with cars stretched for a good fifty yards. Some of the vehicles had papers sitting on the dash, thick, black letters designating what I assumed to be a work order.
I paused there, scanning the area for movement of any kind.
Didn’t see any.
“Stay low and move fast. If you see someone, tap on my back. Don’t make any sound.” I looked back at them. “Got it?”
“Got it.” Nami adjusted the straps of her pack. “I’m so retiring after this shit.”
Jim nodded, set his jaw. “Ready.”
Slipping outside, I hunched over at the waist, knees bent, and scurried to the front of the first car. I knelt down there and waited for Nami to catch up. She didn’t have to bend over because of her height, but she still struggled to match my pace.
We slid from vehicle to vehicle, stopping occasionally to look around and listen for the pattering of feet or the firing of an engine.
When we were halfway across the lot, the baying dog yipped twice and then fell silent.
“Aww.” Nami looked over the hood of a car in the direction of the dog. “Poor little guy.”
I hunkered down and glared at her. Whispered, “People are being slaughtered by dozens, maybe the hundreds, and you’re worried about a dog?”
“I’m an animal lover. Shut up.”
“Jesus. I’ve never understood—”
The whoop of a siren cut me off.
I rose up a few inches and peered through the windows of a rusted-out Mercury Sable. A groan caught in my throat when I spotted an ambulance slowly rolling down the street at the end of the parking lot.
The emergency lights flashed.
A man stood on the roof of it, wearing only boxer shorts. He held a machete in one hand, the severed head of a woman in the other. He gripped it by the hair, letting it sway around his knees as the ambulance rocked over the uneven road.
The dead lady’s mouth hung open in a silent scream.
Swirls of red covered the man’s chest, face, and arms in a kind of war paint styling.
He was surfing on the top of the ambulance like Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. The man leaned back and howled at the sky.
The sight forever ruined that movie for me.
Nami flinched beside me. “Do I even want to ask?”
“No.” I watched the ambulance slowly drift down the road.
The driver also had streaks of blood covering his face, conjoining at the tip of his nose. They moved at little more than a quick jog, both of them looking around for what I assumed to be more victims.
I inched up higher to get a full view of the ambulance and grimaced when I saw the grill.
A headless, female body was chained to the grill. The clothing had been stripped away, genitalia exposed.
Illegible words had been carved into the breasts and stomach.
“God help us,” I whispered. “This is madness.”
Nami and Jim turned around and looked over the hood of the Sable at the ambulance.
“Holy shit.” Nami blinked twice, as if she thought she’d seen a mirage and that it would disappear when she looked away.
Jim said nothing.
The man atop the ambulance roared and then punted the severed head like a football. It arced through the air before plunging into the leafy branches of a tree and disappearing.
Nami ducked back down, wide-eyed and panicking. “We have to go back in the garage.”
The man howled again, animalistic and savage.
“Back to the garage,” Nami repeated. She turned and headed back the way we’d come. “Fuck this.”
I grabbed her arm and pulled her behind the car again. “We have to keep moving.”
“That dude just kicked a head like he was trying to score a goal. There is no chance in hell that I’m going out there. I like my head just where it is, thank you very much.”
“If we don’t get some help on the way, that’s exactly how we’re going to end up. You think we can hide in there forever?”
“Forever? No. Until help comes? Yes.” She tried to yank her arm free of my grip, but I wasn’t letting go. “Let go of me, Ogre.”
“No.” I grabbed her other arm with my free hand and turned her around so we were face to face. “There’s no telling how many unaffected people are still hiding in their houses, hoping that someone will come help them. We have to do everything we can.”
Nami shook her head so hard that her hair whiplashed in her face. “You promised me no hero bullshit.”
“That was before I saw this.”
Jim slid down the front fender of the Sable and dropped to his ass. He had a dazed, confused look in his eyes. “That was Kim. They cut off Kim’s head.”
“You knew her?” I asked, and then immediately regretted it. Of course he knew her. He wouldn’t look as if he’d been sucker punched if he didn’t.
“We’d been dating off and on for years.” Jim stared at the parking lot, his gaze unfocused and distant. “People kept telling me that I should have proposed to her. Made an honest woman out of her. But I’m already too old for that kind of—”
Jim let the rest of the thought go unsaid. He just sat there, lost and bewildered.
Nami struggled in my grip again. “We have to get back inside.”
As if on cue, the man atop the ambulance jumped from the roof and did a decent job of tucking and rolling in the lawn of a cottage-style home. He hopped to his feet and jogged across the grass. The ambulance kept rolling by, finally disappearing on the other side of a fenced yard.
The sirens whooped one last time.
The insane man hopped up three stairs to the porch of the house and stopped in front of the door.
Rang the doorbell.
Hooted something unintelligible, then opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him.
A woman screeched from inside the house a moment later.
I released Nami and she fell back against the car, her head swiveling toward the house.
She let out a string of curses that would have made the Devil himself blush.
Jim started to shake.
My troops, as ragtag as they may have been, were losing their nerve. The longer we sat still, watching as a multitude of disturbing events unfolded around us, the more likely they were to freeze.
I scooted in front of Jim. “We have to get Short Round to the barbershop.”
Jim kept staring down, not acknowledging that I’d even said anything.
I snapped my fingers in front of his face, and he flinched. “Listen up, Jimbo. You have to help me get Nami to an internet connection. Nothing else matters.”
His eyes locked onto mine, and then he gave me a small nod.
“But first I have to help that woman in the house.” I stood and looked around, making sure no one was around. “I’ll go inside, you two meet around the back. It should only take me a minute or so to beat this guy’s ass.”
Nami gaped at me. “You’re going to leave us alone outside?”
The woman screamed again. The man laughed.
“I’ll be fifteen feet away. Just wait for me in the backyard and stay hidden until I come out.”
Then I ran across the parking lot, heading for the house.