“I got one of your boys from a patrol right here! He's a pretty thing, don't you think?” Martin grinned and patted Shane's cheek.
“What did they do to him? What the fuck? That ain't right!”
Curtis was horrified.
“They're beasts. They don't need a reason to do what they are doing,” Nerit answered. “Katarina,” she said into her headpiece.
“Take care of it. ”
Shane was struggling, reaching toward the fort with bloodied hands, screaming behind his gag. The big guy cuffed him hard and Shane staggered. He fell to his knees and his head snapped back as Katarina put him down.
Travis was surprised that he felt remorse. No one deserved what Shane had endured.
The monitors showed that the leader was startled and a bit confused by this turn of events.
“This is what you need to say now,” Nerit said to Juan. “Tell him that we have much more to lose than he does, that we have no problem fighting to the death. We have fought zombies and we can fight them.
Tell him that we will sacrifice our own to protect the fort. Tell him that we have no problem with killing him or his people. Tell him that we are relentless and cannot be intimidated. Tell him that we have contingencies on contingencies. Tell him that right now, my sniper can blow his fucking head off without blinking, that she just did it to two innocent people and that right now she's not aiming at his head, but his dick. ”
Juan laughed. “I'm gonna love saying that. ” And he did…with his own flair, but almost verbatim to what Nerit had said.
On the tiny black and white monitors, they watched the leader take a step back, his bravado completely faded away. Beneath all the grime, the arrogance, and the wild eyes, was a man strung out on drugs and booze and living at the edge of the abyss. For once, he was not in control and he shifted uneasily on his feet.
“Now, let's put cherry on top,” Nerit said. “Signal Jason. ”
On top of city hall, a camouflage's sheet was thrown off. The teenagers and Roger quickly unfurled the long slingshot and loaded it up with a nice homemade Molotov cocktail. The kids had been practicing for weeks, so when their first shot hit the last bandit truck and sent it bursting into flames, no one was really surprised. Cheers erupted all over the fort.
Below, the bandits panicked. Through the smoke, they could be seen scrambling to get back into their trucks.
It was then that the mini-bus flew down Main Street, zombies flowing behind it. Ed was leading the zombie horde like a pied piper for the undead. Through the smoke, the bandits did not see the minivan or the zombies, until the mini-bus turned into the quickly opening gate.
The zombies, finding fresh bodies, were immediately on the bandit trucks. They ripped at Shane's body, the guy Katarina had shot in the knee, and the body of the dead girl. They lay siege to the trucks, beating on them, desperate to feast on those within.
Meanwhile, the gates closed quietly behind the mini-bus, not one zombie slipping in with it. They were too intent on the bandits.
The bandit trucks slammed into each other as they tried to escape, then finally the remaining trucks roared off, the fresher, stronger zombies running along behind them.
In the street was the burning truck, a few straggling zombies, and the dead.
***
Silence filled the eagle's nest. They knew they had won. They felt it and it was glorious. But they had gone to a place that was not quite pleasant. No one could seem to make themselves look at Nerit.
Finally, she stood, and shouldered her sniper rifle.
“That'll teach them to mess with the Amazons,” Calhoun decided.
“They're afraid now,” Nerit said. She looked at Katie and Travis, then at Juan and Curtis. They were all quiet and overwhelmed. Only Calhoun was grinning and dancing a weird jig.
Katie finally looked up. “We did the right thing. ”
Nerit shrugged slightly, then said, “I need a smoke. ” and walked away. She could hear the cheers of the people in the fort as she made her way to a quiet corner. Calhoun jigged away to the music in his head as Curtis sit in sad silence, his hands over his face, weeping.
Katie rested her hand on Travis’ shoulder and he kissed her forehead soothingly.
The cigarette was lit and dangling from her fingers when Katarina sat down across from her a few minutes later. In silence, Nerit offered her a cigarette. The younger woman took it. Katarina lit up and slowly exhaled.
They looked at each other and said absolutely nothing, but they exchanged something powerful in their gaze. They would always be the ones to do what was right and hard.