My head still itches. I'm still hungry. Still tied to the chair – and now the knot is twice as tight, so it hurts my wrists. Levon's by my side, not looking good either.
On the floor, Bearded Man is cutting his friend's pants with a pair of surgical scissors.
"What about the boss?" he asks.
"She said she'll –"
The man with the wounded arm shuts up. A figure projects its shadow against the floor on the entrance, far away. In fast steps, it comes forward.
"What's this about a pet zombie and a fat idiot?" the woman's got short hair uneven like cut with a hunting knife, arms like an Amazon warrior and the eyes of someone who's killed more people than she's kissed.
I can see why these guys call her 'The Boss', not the other way around.
"We got those two off the highway," Bearded Man tells the woman. "Boy doesn't wanna tell us where he's from, or why he's keeping the zombie."
"We think it's an old girlfriend."
The woman crouches, examining me eye to eye. Her breath smells of cigarettes.
"She's too cute for him," she says, turning to Levon. "You don't look like the kind who dates much, do you, boy?"
Levon swallows. "We're just passing by. I told your friends I'm not with any colony, we just –"
"Speak when spoken too," Bearded Man grunts.
"She just spoke to me."
Bearded Man frowns, then looks down. "I guess that's true."
The woman's lips curl in a yellow-stained smile. "You're pretty smart, aren't you, boy?"
"Not really," I grunt.
"She's not bad," Levon says. "She's not my girlfriend, I met her after she turned. But she can think, and she can talk. Really, just give her a pen!"
"I know they think and talk," the woman says, turning her eyes back at me. "My husband talked. All the time. Had a little pad he kept with him wherever we went. Until he tried to eat me."
She turns back to Levon. "You can't trust zombies, darling."
"She's different!" Levon argues. "She doesn't eat people, she –"
The woman raises her hand. "Enough about the zombie girl." She towers over Levon. "To the more pressing manner of you. Where's your colony?"
"I told them, I'm going to New York. I'm not with anyone, I –"
"Everyone's with someone. No one made it this far alone. And you're definitely not the lone ranger kind. My guess is you'd be ripped to pieces in the first week without any help."
"I agree! I have no idea how I made it this far, but I'm really alo --"
The woman produces a knife from her pockets. "I'm not a big fan of fancy torture methods. Waterboarding, electrical shocks, loud music in a room with no light... these guys like it." She waves her head to Bearded Man and his buddies. "But I'll tell you, whenever they call me to deal with some lost colony dweller like you... I get much better results with this."
She crouches, placing the tip of the knife on Levon's knee. Smiles.
Levon presses his eyes closed. "I am not lying. I'm really alone."
I cringe as I see the blood stain expanding from the tip of the knife in Levon's jeans.
"Do you know what will happen if I keep putting pressure?" she asks. "Do you know what happens to a person's central nervous system when their meniscal cartilage is pierced by a sharp knife?"
Levon's breath is a staccato of short blows, like a woman giving birth. He keeps quiet.
The woman chuckles. "I don't know, either. But I bet it hurts."
"I'm telling the truth! I don't – AAH!"
The knife plunges a little deeper, and the blood stain grows.
Shit, Levon, shit. Do something!
How the hell do you get out of being tortured when you're telling the truth?
"You're really willing to lose a leg over your friends? Are you sure –"
Oh.
"Hey! Hey! Grrr! Grrr!"
The woman turns my way. I shake and thrash on the chair, grunting like crazy.
"What's it doing?"
Levon frowns at my tantrum. "I think she's trying to say something."
"Yes, I'm trying to say something!" I grunt. "I'm trying to lie!"
The woman pockets the knife and gets up. She heads my way. "Are you willing to talk, zombie-girl?"
I nod as emphatically as I can.
"Tank, untie her."
Bearded Man gets up. He reaches behind my back and I feel the knot loosening around my wrists.
"Point a gun to her face."
He goes around me and does so.
The woman turns around and, not a word, leaves the warehouse.
We wait in silence. The man with the bloody arm, the man on the floor with the bloody leg, Levon, myself and the man with the gun to my face.
Levon risks a glance my way. "What are you doing, Eve?"
"Shut up."
Boss woman returns, a magic marker and a piece of paper in her hands. "Write down the address for the colony. Nice and easy, now," she says, as I grab the marker and the paper.
I write down my old address, from before the outbreak.
No, I don't know why. I don't know what I'm doing, did you not get that, already? Trying to keep Levon and me from being slowly stabbed to death here. I'll work it out as I go, thank you very much.
The woman smiles, grabbing the paper. She turns to Levon. "See? Can't trust the brain-eaters, I told you."
"Hey, boss," wounded-leg man calls, from the floor.
"Simpson, go tell the others to grab the guns and pack. We've got a colony to raid."
"Boss..."
I hear noises. Grunts. But I can't see anything with boss-woman standing in front of me.
"Boss..."
"And Tank..." She looks at Bearded Man. Then at me. "Kill the zombie."
"HEY, KATE!"
"What!?"
"LOOK AT THE FUCKING ENTRANCE!"
Bearded Man, Amazon Woman, Wounded-Leg, Wounded-Arm, Levon and I all turn our eyes at the front opening leading outside.
Staring at us from the large entrance, a fucktillion zombies stand still side by side in endless rows expanding outside far as the eye can see like a Taylor Swift concert.
One zombie takes a step forward into the warehouse. Somewhere in Algeria, a neutrino sneezes, and we hear it perfectly.
Boss woman looks back at her friends, her eyes wide.
"Herd. RUN!"
YOU ARE READING
Eve
Teenage Fiktion-Featured Story -Wattys 2016 Winner Eve's a vegan zombie, and she really doesn't care what you think of it, so shush it. All she wants is to get by and find some pigeons or a fat rat - anything without a name she can eat before she starves to death...
