The National Guard surrounded the buses, rifles pointed towards them while other troopers formed a perimeter facing the outside to fire at the smattering of zombies around them. The soldiers seemed nervous and close to firing on the living humans, one of their superiors stepped forward and yelled, "Come out of the first bus one at a time."
His men and women troopers were quietly calling out to each other to be careful and stay alert. They had not found any living humans in the past month, almost all of the ones who showed up were super zombies trying to pass themselves off as humans so they could get into the land of the living. And super zombies died hard, if the buses were full of supers they could be in a lot of trouble.
It started at the rear bus, one of the men yelled for their commander, who yelled for the lieutenant, who told everyone to stop what they were doing to stay absolutely still as he jogged back to the third bus. Dora stood a few feet outside of the emergency rear exit of the bus, behind her Paige was resting against the bumper, gingerly touching a small bloody stain on the back of her shirt. The body of a man with several shotgun wounds was crumpled on the ground, he had a hunting knife sticking out of his lower leg.
The lieutenant stopped in his tracks when he saw the women.
"What the fuck is wrong with you people? We have a bunch of kids who have been shot in there and you are standing around with your thumbs up your asses."
"Excuse me ma'am." said the lieutenant, "I am Lieutenant Strafer. John Strafer." he said holding out his hand.
Dora looked at it, then at Paige and said, "What the fuck?" she took his hand for a brief shake and asked, "What the hell is going on?"
"You've reached the newly formed first company of the third battalion of the first division of the mid-western army. We are the third platoon and I am in charge of it."
"So? Can we come in or not? 'Cause if we can't I am going to be mighty pissed off."
"You can come in. You of all people…" he glanced at Paige, "You two of all people are very welcome, if you are not contaminated."
"Do I look contaminated to you? Cut me, I bleed, if you want to check. What is going on Johnnie?" The men behind the lieutenant smiled, trying not to laugh.
The lieutenant said, "Excuse me ma'am, but your name is Dora, right?"
"Yeah. But I don't have any monkey's named Boots or friends named Diego. All I've got is a Paige." said Dora pointing at the young woman leaning against the bus.
"No, ma'am, but you're 'the' Dora?" Strafer asked, "out of Kansas City? Your husband is Roger?"
"Oh fuck, I might have known! Did that bastard start some rumor about me? Let me guess, 'shoot to kill'?"
"No, it's from the video. From what Ned filmed, about two months ago? You remember that?"
"I am dirty, sore and tired, not suffering from Alzheimers. Of course I remember Ned! What ever happened to that son of a bitch?"
"He died."
"Oh."
"We thought you did too. No one could find you when the horde came in on highway seventy. We just assumed you and everyone with you were lost."
"Well, we weren't. Can my kids be unloaded now? While we are sitting here jawing they are laying there dying."
"Right away ma'am! Medics! We have wounded!"
Several of the soldiers pressed forward to snap pictures of Dora and Paige, most did it covertly, but several asked for others to take their pictures with their phones. Dora acceded with ill grace until she learned that the last of the people on her bus had been offloaded and brought across the military zone to an impromptu medical station. All of the survivors had to pass a quick blood test, which was a piece of plastic with a needle in it, the device turned green if you were alive, and black if you were not. Dora passed the test that Strafer gave her and moved up towards the wall that separated Iowa's territory from that of the zombies. Before passing through the gates she ran into Becka, who was arguing with two soldiers.
Lieutenant Strafer was shadowing Dora by then, not leaving her side. "What is going on Becka?"
"I am not going in."
"What? Why not? We made it!"
She shook her head, "No, you go in. I am going to go back and you can't make me stay."
Dora looked at the lieutenant and raised one eyebrow, he answered by saying, "She hasn't passed into our territory yet, we won't force anyone in who doesn't want to go. But she'll have to be tested again if she comes back and once she is in…well citizens have to stay, for their own safety."
Stopping in her tracks Dora looked at him, "What? And you were going to let me walk in there without telling me?"
"We need you Dora." Strafer said, a pleading tone in his voice.
"Me? Why?"
"You are good news. You know how much bad news we have had recently? You're getting to us is the first good thing to happened in two months, it will raise morale, everything will be a little better. Your interview was the last one Ned did and was re-broadcast constantly in the days after Kansas fell. Everyone wondered about you, what happened. Everyone thought you were dead, but didn't want to admit it, now you're alive and we can use that. To make people happy."
Slowly Dora nodded, "I suppose I can see that. But I thought I could come back out here if I needed to. You see Johnnie; I have a little unfinished business to attend to. Now that I know better I will stay with Becka, walk her back partway, and try to figure out what the fuck she is doing."
"Please…" began Strafer, then he saw the look in Dora's eyes. "Third Platoon, we are going out with Dora to provide cover for her, form up around us now!" the men and women around them groaned, but did as they were told turning to march back towards the buses where other soldiers were offloading the luggage into Army trucks.
"What, you aren't keeping the buses?"
"It's a quarantine ma'am. We have to go through all of your stuff, remove bio contaminants, then clean the buses and put them back into service."
They approached Becka's motorcycle, still sitting next to the pickup trucks where she had parked it. Becka went to the pile of backpacks and poked around a little, then cried out with joy at discovery that her own pack was there. The young woman slung it across her back as she came over to Dora.
"Stupid, Becka, real stupid to go back out there." Dora said to the girl offering her hand. Becka took it and they shook, "Why?"
"Jake is out there."
"Are you in love or something?"
"It isn't like that. He made a promise to me."
"Yeah to all of us."
"Who's Jake?" asked Strafer.
"A super zombie, he helped get us here."
"One of them helped you?"
"Oh lighten up Johnnie! I did what I had to do, you would have done the same thing." turning back to Becka, Dora said, "So, Jake and you are going to…what?"
"Go get Father Cruz."
"Shit. You could have said something this morning; we would have swung by there and got him."
"We didn't think about it until after the bridge. No one did. Not even Mary."
"You know I wonder if the twins were keeping the zombies away from him or if it really was his faith?"
"It was his faith." Becka said firmly. "Look." she raised her arm to point at the blue Caliber sitting a quarter mile down the highway, "He knows I am coming."
"Well lets go, I got a few last questions for Jake too."
"Ma'am, we can't…we can't talk to the intelligent ones, it is a court marshaling offense, some people see it as traitorous."
Looking at the surrounding, almost hostile faces of the soldiers around them Dora sighed and said, "Thanks for the fucking heads up Johnnie. Remind me to warn you five minutes after you do something stupid too."
The man reddened, but said nothing.
"Fine you wait here. I'll be fine and I am not in the army and I sure as hell am not a traitor."
Becka pushed the motorcycle away from the squad, several of the soldiers started forward too, only to be yelled back into position by their lieutenant.
Up ahead of them they saw Jake step out of the beat up Caliber and go around to the passenger's door where he helped a battered looking Steve out.
Nodding Jake said, "Dora."
Dora marched up to Jake and punched him in the face, "You son of a bitch! I should kill you!" her eyes were watering, either from the pain of using her fist to break Jake's nose or from the anger and sadness that was flowing through her head, she couldn't tell.
"Now Darling, don't be that way!" said Jake stepping away in an attempt to avoid further blows, "Just let me explain."
"Explain? Explain what? You said it would be days at least or possibly never that you recovered without any food. Well I know what happened, we left you some food right there didn't we? I was so fucking stupid! But that doesn't mean you had to do it."
Steve had straightened and behind her she could hear clomping boots coming down the highway at a run. Turning she waved the soldiers back, but they just crouched into firing position and held their ground. Going back to Jake she stepped in front of him. He automatically pulled away, but she reached out and grabbed his wrists, "Don't you stupid son of a bitch, if I am between you and them they won't fire. Now tell me what happened or I will step out of the way."
"It was Willy's idea. He thought you would need me. He suspected there would be a lot of really stupid slow zombies for me to push out of the way when you got close. He was right, I couldn't get them all away from you, not with you so far away and the others calling them to cut you off, but I did my part of it and I did it well. Willy offered, I thought his offer made sense."
"Fuck." said Dora releasing him. Jake reached forward and patted her cheek affectionately.
"Yeah, he said he counted as ten pints too, so I will cross a few off of my list. I tried to barter him down to six as he was mostly bled out by then, but he insisted on ten."
Dora laughed, "That sounds like Willy."
He pushed Dora to arm's length and looked her in the eyes, "It was his dying wish Dora. I swear it."
Dora nodded and asked Steve, "So what's your story?"
Steve's face was a purple mash, one eye was swollen shut and he had a long cut down his left arm, which hung limply by his side. It looked like the bleeding had stopped and crusted over. He cleared his throat before talking, the bandage was missing. "Not much of a story. You left me there half dead to fight the other super zombie and then fight my way through the rest of the God damned mob on my own. Fortunately I was not too far from Jake and when he saw me he lent a hand. I saw him kill her."
"Kill….?"
"Mo. Squished her head apart with his bare hands and tossed the pieces to either side of the road."
Dora looked at Jake with disgust, "You touched my face with your hand? Eew!"
Jake laughed and looked at Becka. "You still coming with me?"
She nodded.
"Do you want to ride with me or on that death machine of yours?"
"Hey I've gotten better! Besides two vehicles might be handy."
"There are still three super zombies left over from the wonder twin's group. I trashed their car, but they got away, they might give us some problems."
Becka shrugged, "If not them, then someone else. Let's go before the soldiers creep all the way around us and try to ambush you."
"Aw, concerned about me are you? Don't worry they are still too far away."
"It is not concern. I think I need you."
Jake smiled wryly, "The Goddamned story of my life. Everyone needs me, no one cares about me." Turning to get back into the car he called out, "Dora, if it's a boy, 'Jake' is a good, strong name don't you agree?"
Becka turned to give Dora an appraising look, to which the other woman nodded slightly, "I should have known."
Dora shrugged, "I won't make that mistake Jake. You never name your kids after living people you know, it messes things up for everyone."
"Sweetheart I've been dead for three months. Dora, Steve, take care of yourselves, I'll be seeing you." Jake started the car, then backed around and turned it back the way they had come, Becka followed slowly on her motorcycle. Dora watched until the smoke from the burning town closed over them.