“Look at the direction that bullet was heading,” Paul said as he got some bandages and tape.
Brian looked down to his left, past the busted collarbone, at the scrape that went to the right of his left nipple to where the bullet entered into his stomach and came out right below the navel. “Oh shit! That was close,” Brian said, placing his right hand on his still present male equipment.
“I’d take a scar on my mid section any day of the week,” Paul commented, doing his best to place a field dressing on the wound so they could get out of there.
Mrs. Deneaux was still rhythmically shooting, but their location was under heavy fire. Mrs. Deneaux’s lawn chair had already suffered two grievous wounds. The only thing saving her life was how thin she was.
“Well, that helps,” she said as she lifted her head from the scope.
The shooting had stopped on both sides, but the screaming intensified from the highway below.
“What’s going on?” Brian asked.
“I think Mr. Talbot has held up his end of the agreement,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she gleefully clapped her hands.
Paul got into a crouch to look over the guardrail.
“Oh, I think you could do the Samba and no one would take any notice of you,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she stood to get a better vantage point of the slaughter down below.
Paul was perfectly happy with his vantage point. “The zombies are attacking Eliza’s people,” Paul said, pumping his fist.
“I think now would be a good time to get gone,” Brian said, pulling his water bottle over.
“Let me get a sling on your arm first,” Mrs. Deneaux said, placing her rifle down and accessing Brian for the first time.
Brian was none too pleased with her scrutinous eye. He could tell she was sizing up his mobility, and if he were left wanting, she would not have any problem leaving him behind. She’s a dangerous one, he thought. But he said nothing as she did a reasonably good facsimile of a sling with an old t-shirt.
“Not bad,” Brian said as he stood up slowly. Blood rushed out of his head, sending him into a brief, but intense bout of vertigo.
“You alright?” Mrs. Deneaux asked and it almost sounded like she cared.
“Fine,” Brian answered as he steadied himself on the back of her lawn chair. He prayed that its compromised integrity would sustain his weight for just a little while longer. If he plunged to the ground now and passed out, he was certain he’d find himself alone on the bridge when he awoke. Blood slowly pushed its way back up and into his head, and the dizziness passed.
If Mrs. Deneaux hadn’t been so busy assessing Brian, she might not have missed a chance to end the entire conflict. Paul decided to seize the day as he grabbed Mrs. Deneaux’s rifle. He stood completely upright. A slight breeze was blowing left to right as he placed the crosshairs of the Winchester 30-30 on Eliza’s breast.
Brian and Mrs. Deneaux turned as Paul fired.
“I hit her!” Paul screamed.
“Who?” Brian asked, swallowing down some bile that had swirled up from his gut.
“Eliza! I hit Eliza!” Paul shouted, almost dropping the rifle off the railing.
Mrs. Deneaux grabbed it before he could. She started looking through the scope for any signs that the vamp was dead. “I don’t see anything. How far away was she?” she asked.
Paul started counting off trucks. “Nine or ten back,” he said proudly.
“That’s about a three-hundred-yard shot,” Brian said, finally able to move without the threat of falling.
“Did you compensate for bullet drop?” Mrs. Deneaux asked, moving the scope further out to look for Eliza.
“Bullet what?” Paul asked. His previous high beginning to sink.
“At that distance, the bullet could drop about ten inches roughly,” Brian said.
“If you were aiming for her skull, that could still have done her some damage. Might have hit her in the chest.”
Paul’s head sank.” I was aiming for her chest, figured I had a better chance of hitting that.”
“Gut shot the bitch,” Mrs. Deneaux laughed. “Bet that hurt.”
Brian thought her laugh sounded very much like what drowning babies crying would. “We should really get out of here now, I can’t imagine that anything good can happen from pissing Eliza off.”
***
Eliza had been so intent on finding out why her zombies had turned and what she needed to do to rein them back in, she had not been anticipating an outside threat.
“This is Talbot’s doing! I can smell the stench of him all over this!” Eliza spat.
“I think it would be best if we left him his small corner of the world, Eliza,” Tomas said, smiling as he walked with his sister.
“You did this!” she said vehemently, spinning on her heel to confront him. “Without your help, that animal, Durgan, would have killed him and we could be out exploring vast new ways to torment the world. I will not be bested by a mere man.”
“He is no longer merely a man, sister,” Tomas added.
“No, thanks to you.”
Tomas shrugged at the jibe. “He has struck you hard, Eliza. Most of your humans are either dead or have fled. I beg you one last time, leave him be.”
“Never!” she screamed as she stepped out from behind a truck and smack dab in front of a speeding bullet. Her mid section punched in from the projectile as her upper torso bent over. Tomas grabbed her before she could fall and pulled her back behind cover.
“It is not a fatal blow,” Tomas said, inspecting the wound.
The zombies around the siblings did not advance, but they had stopped what they were doing and were now watching them intently.
Eliza sat in her brother’s arms for a while longer. The searing pain was something she had not experienced since her human youth when a gang of Huns had trapped her in an old barn and beat and used her for three days before they tired of her. For the first time in half a millennia, Eliza doubted her intentions. “Why won’t he die, Tomas?” Eliza begged.
“It is for something you have forgotten about, Eliza: family, he fights for the lives of his family. He knows no stronger bond.”
“Then that is the bond we must break,” Eliza said as she stood up. The bullet had worked its way out of her skin and the wound was nearly healed.
“Did you hear nothing I said?” Tomas fairly cried.
“I heard everything you said. If we kill Talbot’s family, he will follow closely behind.”
“Not until he exacts his fair measure of revenge. He will not strike out if we do not corner him.”
“Maybe that would have been the truth at one time, brother. No, we must strike while he is at his weakest, while he still has family to use as leverage and while he is still learning the powers that you bestowed upon him. You sealed his fate when you bit him.”
There was nothing he could do to sway her from this course, and when the final showdown did come, whose side would he fall on? He still hadn’t made up his mind.
The cries of her humans had nearly died out. A few trucks could be heard pulling away and zombies were spread out everywhere, hunting for food, including the ones that had stopped for a moment, checking out Eliza, to see if she would be coming on the menu.
“We should leave here, Eliza, in case he has any other surprises in store for us.”
Eliza made sure this time to keep under cover and concealment behind the remaining trucks as she herded her zombies back in. And on that highway was where she would leave them, two thousand zombies, through the coming winters and summers. Those zombies would sway forever, as leaves fell, as rain poured, as sun soaked them, tied to Eliza’s last order to stand still.
“You’re just going to leave them here?” Eliza’s first-in-command asked, as he swung the command truck around.