“Have sex?”
“Definitely not. ”
“Lesbian, huh?”
Nerit smirked and walked away.
“Damn Amazons. ”
***
Jenni hit the ground running. Already the humidity was filling her lungs, making her feel slow and sluggish. Behind her the bus was idling, waiting. Beyond the bus, about half a mile away, a large crowd of zombies was coming.
The high school was very small, very modern, and locked up tight as a drum. There had been no response when they had tried to contact the school by the CB. But they had seen someone alive standing on the roof watching their approach. Jenni was taking a chance it was their people. It was a small comfort that Bill, Ed and the others were covering her.
Running up the steep slope to the back of the school, she headed for a set of double doors. Reaching them, she banged hard on the doors.
“Open up! It's the rescue team from the fort!”
She kicked and pounded on the door relentlessly.
A woman's voice said from the other side, “We're not opening up unless we know you're not with the assholes from earlier. ”
“Look. I'm from the gawddamn fort and there is a crowd of your very dead townspeople on its way so get the fuck out of there or we are leaving you!”
The door opened slightly, a thick chain still keeping it partially locked. A large woman with mousy brown hair looked at her for a long second.
“There were these guys-”
“No freaking time. We're gonna leave now,” Jenni said firmly.
“…and said they were going to rape us. ”
“Bye. ”
Jenni turned and ran down the hill, her lungs burning, her eyes on the swiftly-approaching undead. To her relief, she heard the door open behind her and footsteps.
“But we need to get our-” someone started to protest.
“No time!” Jenni waved at the zombies.
There were no more protests.
She clambered onto the bus. The nurse, her kids, and the surviving students and teachers climbed on as well. They were amazingly clean and looked well fed. For a moment, they stared in shock at the two scraggly, skinny survivors the team had rescued from the tree.
“Sit down,” Jenni ordered.
They obeyed.
Ed shifted gears. The bus lurched forward.
“Where were you?” Jenni asked, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation.
“Oh, yeah, so on the third day, the lady walks by the parrot in the doorway to the pet shop and it says again, ‘Hey Lady!’ And she says, ‘What?’ all angry, because she knows what is coming. ” Ed drove swiftly down the drive as the zombies rounded the corner behind them.
“And the bird says, ‘You're damn ugly. ’ And the woman marches into the shop and says to the owner, ‘I'm going to kill your bird and sue your pants off. Your parrot tells me that I'm damn ugly every day. ’
And the owner says, ‘Lady, I'll take care of the parrot. You don't have to do anything crazy. ’ So she leaves and the bird just laughs. ” Ed swung the bus around the front of the building and creamed a zombie loitering in the road. “Fourth day comes along. The lady passes the parrot and it says, ‘Hey, Lady!’ And she is righteously pissed off and says, ‘What?’ And it says. , ‘You know. ’” Ed grinned at Jenni.