Day 334 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 3.4 - (1,534 words)

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UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb
Chapter 3.4

Margaret was straining in the passenger seat to see what was happening ahead of them, unsure if it were a good or bad thing. The gunfire had caught her attention when her son had started shooting in earnest but after her previous interference had caused the big reaction that it did, it was more prudent to stay back.

She had never seen her son kill anyone, she had been out on a few ‘missions’ before but this had been the first really long one into uncharted territory and she was thinking that it may have been better to stay at home. Being a mother was never ending in her mind, despite the obvious evidence that her son could take care of himself more than adequately.

Now they were driving at full speed towards the very place where Ben had been shooting. She knew from his demeanor that he had killed someone, maybe more than one. There was a look and a feel to it that she knew, something that she knew intimately.

“Are you sure that this is a good idea …Ben?” She hesitated before saying his name, to allow the inference that she was willingly deciding to not call him ‘son’.

“There’s only so much I can do from that far away and the boys have it under control.” Ben was distant as he spoke, the image’s in his head were still of red mists and implosions.

“Good, good.” She nodded though he was not looking her way.

The car pulled up a few meters away from where the men were standing, and Ben could see that the situation had changed. One of the would be captors was holding a gun in surrender and the other one he had seen still standing was nowhere to be seen. There was obvious tension in the group, in the air between them all and it was on the edge of being bloody.

“Stay here.” He said in a flat, hard tone and Margaret shrunk in the passenger seat a little, just enough to see over the dashboard as her son walked calmly, purposefully towards the group, a hand gun in his right hand held loosely but ready at his side.

Ben approached the group with the same guarded expression he had been wearing since the first bullet had hit the now zombified leader of the highwaymen in the chest. He made eye contact with Reid and got no response, which meant that things were unsettled and could go either way. Zane and Will were looking confused and tense, their guns pointed at the newcomers, whom he recognized as James and Derek and there was also the remaining man of the gang.

The missing members location was made clear as soon as he got out of the car, he could see the body lying in the space between the men, the corpse was lying in a tangent pointing away from the feet of the man who held his arms up in the air now in surrender.

Ben gave him the once over first; and did not know exactly what he saw. He was confident in his assumption that this man, whoever he was had taken out the remaining man in the little group of stick up men, but why was a mystery. James and Derek did not look connected to the men, and he would have been surprised if they were. Their arrival had to be a coincidence, the assessment he had made of them the day before did not make them colluding in murder and theft a likely outcome.

Though I have been wrong before, Ben thought and resisted the urge to turn and look back at the car.

“What kind of man shoots one of his own?” Ben asked in a strong voice, the words making the situation even tenser.

Rusty tightened the grip on the handgun, which had been loose in his fingers; it was now curling into the harder and more useful grip where it could be deployed.  He looked at Ben and in the same amount of time it took to secure the gun he let it go and it fell to the ground, his hands rising in the air.

“There was only one of my ‘own’ in this group and you put him out of his misery first.”  One of his raised hands was angling its fingers towards the pack and singling out the former leader. “That was my brother, which is both sad and true. These … dickheads? They were his people, I was his family.”

“You expect us to believe you are not like them? Is that it?” Reid cut in quickly and angrily, he was still emotionally charged from his being held at knifepoint. “I didn’t see you acting any different until the tide changed and now all of a sudden you are … what? Not like them? I don’t buy it.” 

“Fair enough.” Rusty kept his hands up and shrugged. “You don’t have to buy it and I aint going to apologize for who I am. I went along with it, because he’s family. I didn’t like it but sure, yeah I did nothing to stop it either.” Rusty lowered his hands and sat back on his haunches his head in his hands.

“Reid?” Ben didn’t look at him; he just floated the name in the air as a question.

“I don’t know. Could go either way.”

Ben looked to the other two and raised an eyebrow. “Zane?”

“I missed all of this, but he was the least engaged of those we saw. This one was the squirrelly one.” He toed the body on the ground and shrugged.

“That bitch was straight out crazy eyes.” Said William, no one actually called him Billy, Reid was messing about with James, letting nothing get through and refusing to lighten the mood, keep them off balance.

“Yeah.” Sighed Ben and unbidden the sight of the bullet he shot, caving in her skull and her limp rag doll body flailing about in a disconnected shock came to his mind. He closed his eyes and tried to rub the pain away.

“Look, I’m not asking to join your gang or anything. I just want to go my own way. My brother’s dead and this gang is just in the dirt as they should be. I just want to go.”

“That’s all? You’re just going to go? We JUST let you walk away, after you tried ti kill us?” William was a little put out at allowing that based on his indignant words, Reid still looked ambivalent to the suggestion.

“Well, enough people have died today and you’ll have to leave all your weapons, you’ll also have to wait until we have dismantled all this … this stuff.” Ben waved at the wall of wood and cars that made up the barricade, the wooden gates slung between a stack of cars and a bus. “In fact you can help us with that.”

“Once the weapons are done.” Derek stuck his hand up to speak, but was speaking anyway.

“Well, yes you two can wait until WE have taken care of those I think.” Added Reid and waited until Ben nodded before taking the other two men to search for weapons and confiscate the mini gun.

“Excuse me? Ben, is it?” Rusty raised his hand like Derek had but had the courtesy to wait for permission to speak.

“Yes, sorry what’s your name?”

“Rusty.”

“You’re not a redhead.” Ben stated the name implying the hair colour.

“No, when I was a boy I cut myself on a broken old cars, one of those rusted wrecks on the farm and got these.” He lifted his sleeve to show a very old but very long scar with stitches running on the top edge of his forearm. It was his nickname for me, it kind of stuck.” He was pointing at his brother, and as he finished he kept his arm straight out and pointing there still.

“Right. What do you want? Rusty?”

“Can you please do the honors? And then just let me bury him? I don’t care much for the other two, they can rot in the road for all I care. A cautionary tale for weary travellers if you like, but my folks, god rest their souls, they raised us to look out for each other when we can and come back for each other when we can’t. Just let me put him to rest, you don’t have to give me a gun and I sure as hell don’t want to pull the trigger anyway, but a grave? A good Christian grave for the God that our mother at least, feared?”

There was sincerity in his voice, a tinge of pain and regret along with an underlying atheistic worldview tainted by his need to look out for his family.

“I’ll help you dig, I’ll help you put it right.” James volunteered and got a thankful nod from Rusty.

“Touching.” Said Derek sarcastically and laughed.

“Brothers? Can’t kill them yourself, but they’re still dicks right?” James said to Rusty but there was little in the way of agreement, the wound still fresh and his brother too much of a dick to forgive so quickly.