Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [44]
That made it more fun when she kicked their asses.
Now, though, it hardly mattered. Nobody cared what she looked like, least of all her. The zombies weren’t likely to be impressed by her exposed legs, except as something they might want to munch on. So she kept covered up.
The sound of creaking wood interrupted her self examination. She looked out the Prius window to see someone sticking his head out the row-house door across the street from where she’d parked the Prius.
“You just shoot those zees, lady?”
She aimed her nine-mill across the cracked pavement. “Shoot you, too, if you give me reason.”
He came all the way out, hands raised. “Nah, s’a’ight. I’m cool. Don’t be shootin’, lady, s’a’ight.”
Like the guards, this African American man was shabbily dressed. However, he most assuredly wasn’t well fed. What she could see of his arms were thin as rails, and his face was sunken and sallow.
“Listen, lady, don’t be shootin’, but—well, you best be gettin’ somewhere that ain’t here, a’ight? Them boys, they be takin’ fuck-all, an’ then you ain’t got shit, a’ight?”
Assuming that “them boys” were the fellows she’d just shot, she said, “You mean those assholes at the convention center?”
The man nodded. “You wanna keep that car an’ that gun an’ fuck-all else you got, you best be leavin’, a’ight?”
Jill finally lowered her weapon. “My name’s Jill.”
“Andre. Pleased t’be meetin’ you, an’ all that shit.”
“You alone, Andre?”
Shaking his head, Andre said, “Nah, I gots me some peoples here. Them boys don’t be lettin’ us in, so we be hidin’ here. Survivin’, you know, and hidin’ from the zees. Thought those zees’d be doin’ us in, but you went and shot ’em. Pretty neighborly, y’ask me, so, y’know, thanks an’ shit.” Andre still had his hands up, even though Jill was no longer actively threatening him.
“How many of you are there?”
“Five. Plus me, so, y’know, six an’ shit.”
Jill opened the door to the Prius and got out. Andre still stood on the three-step stoop, hands raised.
“Tell you what, Andre. I got some food in the trunk. I’ll share it with you and your five friends, on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You tell me everything about those guys at the convention center.”
Interstate 80 hadn’t really gotten any better for Alice after Salt Lake City.
The city itself had been stripped down. Every gas station in town was dry as a bone—or, at least, the ones she could get to were. Plenty were overrun with so many undead that even Alice didn’t think she could get through them.
Leaving aside any other considerations, she didn’t have that much ammo. She wasn’t sure there was that much ammo left in the world.
So she continued westward on 80 toward Nevada. After a time, just before she reached the border, she caught site of an Enco gas station on one of the nearby local roads.
Just as she was getting onto the off-ramp that would lead to the road in question, her watch beeped.
59…58…57…
She had modulated the Timex’s beep to be on a high enough frequency that even if she couldn’t hear it over the engine of the BMW, she could still feel the vibration of the beeping in her skull.
Another legacy of Dr. Isaacs and his experiments on her.
She was really looking forward to the day when she could repay him for that.
Not to mention Angie. 44…43…42…
Pulling onto a ridge overlooking the Enco station, she took out the camouflage tarp and put it over herself and the bike, just as she had at the Salt Lake TV station, this time with almost thirty seconds to spare.
Then she waited.
Eventually, the watch beeped again, and she clambered out from under the tarp.
After stowing the tarp, she removed her binoculars and peered through them at the Enco station.
She saw an undead shuffling back and forth between the gas pumps and a rusty old Chevy pickup truck. His face had long since decayed past recognizability, but he wore a gray jumpsuit with the word STEVIE emblazoned on the breast.
There was no other sign of life. Or unlife.
Replacing the binoculars, she opened another of her many “saddlebags