Chapter 15: Like the Application of Extreme Violence NOT Solving a Problem

"How long?" I asked before opening my eyes.

"Three days," Mr. Valence replied.

"Too long!" I sat up and looked at him.

"You've only got a tiny scar left. Doctor Larson's new favorite word is impossible," he told me. "I'm guessing the scar won't be around for much longer so it's sort of a complete victory for you."

"Not yet," I replied. "They're still alive, right?"

"The woman was dead when we got to her. You didn't look like you needed us to bug you, so John-John decided the guys were enough." He smiled at me. "And the bitch, Catwal!"

"It was her people?"

He nodded.

"Let's not call her a bitch. Ashley is rather fond of the word, and I like how she uses it."

"I bet!" he said with a snort.

"So how about we find different word?"

"The cunt Catwal?"

"Hag," I sighed. "Just call her a hag."

"You can't be alone anymore, Boss." He made it sound like an order.

Boss?

I guess that expecting any less was ludicrous after they witnessed me survive a damn good assassination attempt.

"I know what you're doing to the ladies, changing them and stuff, but they don't have the experience protecting people in your situation."

"And you do?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I went out with John-John to find some fellas I knew; they can do the job. They'll go through doors first and make people want to stay at a distance, if you know what I mean."

"How did you know they were alive?"

"I didn't," he replied. "They're twin brothers. If one made it, the other one should have according to the Professor. They're good with pipes! If they were alive, I figured they'd want to join up with the strongest crew in town."

"We're the strongest crew?"

"I'm not going to give anybody else odds on surviving a stabbing like you did unless you're standing next to them and they're a part of your crew," he replied.

"So I have a couple of bodyguards," I said with a shake of my head.

"More than two," he said carefully. "I did this kind of thing before Zombie-Day. The Boss always needs someone he can send out to do things. I'll stick around you from now on. The sword girl..."

"Let me guess--Kellie decided I'm too trusting to be left alone," I said.

"Pretty much! You really like hot chicks with swords that much? I thought you hated her."

"She was the hottest cheerleader in school," I told him.

"I thought that Tara girl was the Queen Bee or something."

"Bullshit!" I replied. "Tara had bigger tits and a porn ass, but Kellie is the whole package."

"Hate don't stand a chance against a hard dick," he said with a smirk.

"There is that fucking sword too!"

He leaned forward at the bitterness in my voice. "You sure you don't need more sleep, Boss?"

"I'm fine," I said. "I thought the girls would be here."

"The attack made some people brave and loud. We've had to keep the peace; it's mostly the women carrying the weight. With you down, Bianca couldn't take a night off and let me knock the louder heads together to shut them up. I can't blame her either! I would have done more than knock! But now that you're up, the lady is probably going to 'need' her head readjusted like last time. I'll take care of business while you keep her busy."

"I doubt knocking heads will be necessary. I'll be taking care of it," I said. "Readjusting Bianca is still a go. This shit left me drained pretty badly."

"The healing?"

"Yeah! If they'd been smarter, I'd be dead."

"You're taking it pretty calmly," he said. "You can't take it too calmly, Boss. Some people are talking and they need to be shut the fuck up!"

"The sergeant?"

"He isn't talking loudly like the others, but someone like him knows how to do it right."

"It works for me," I told him.

"That shit never works for somebody in your position, Boss!"

Ashley walked into the room. She stood at the foot of the bed staring at me. "I'm sorry I didn't do what you wanted right away, Miguel. I didn't know you could take it and live."

"Yeah!" I said. "Seems a lot of us aren't paying attention."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I survived a zombie bite."

Her brow furrowed. "You told us at your place."

"No," I replied. "I told everybody after we had sex the first time. The Catwal hag started screaming I should be kicked out of the group."

I laughed before continuing. "I thought the women talked about me incessantly."

"It didn't start until later," she replied.

I smelled my armpits.

"We been giving you sponge baths," Ashley told me.

I looked down at my crotch. The thought of the sponges made me hard.

"You know, Mr. Valence," I said. "I hope your bodyguards and you..."

"I heard it's a good show." He made himself more comfortable in the chair.

"Get out!" Ashley said without looking at him.

I watched him leave before turning to Ashley. "I think that's the first time I've ever heard him laugh."

The sergeant was smiling smugly.

"Now you understand," he said to me.

I wished he had waited until after I finished my lunch. Lorena went for simple so as not to test my stomach, but she made a grilled chicken salad taste way better than it should! Picking up a slice of bread, I took a bite.

"You have to let us be a part of the planning," he told me. Smugly! "They're going to get desperate and try again."

I looked at the brothers Mr. Valence 'hired' as my bodyguards. They stood at either end of my table. Behind me, Kellie's breathing changed at the implied threat in the sergeant's words.

"They'll get you," he said. "It wasn't even a good try and they nearly killed you."

"You think you've won something?" I asked him.

"You're not the lord of everything," he replied. "You've got special powers, but it doesn't make a difference. We have rights! You can't run roughshod over us!"

Mr. Valence entered the common room. He sat down at the table and nodded at me. "Everybody's heading outside, Boss. John-John and the girls in white are taking your attackers downstairs."

"You can't be thinking..." the sergeant said. "That's insanity! You'll scare these people into action."

"The re-action of leaving?" I asked him. "Will I scare them into leaving?"

He snarled. I turned my head. Kellie was coming off her position against the window. She froze when I looked at her.

"I'd like to finish my lunch," I told the sergeant. "You should go downstairs."

I made them wait a couple of hours. I hadn't eaten solid food in days; it felt good to let some of the nutrients digest before I got on to business. Mr. Valence handed me the bucket when I waved at him. I forced myself to puke whatever remained in my stomach. Kellie gave me a bottled water to wash my mouth out with.

"Let's go," I told them.

The brothers led the way.

"I thought the mob didn't like black guys," I said to Mr. Valence.

"You said the hate crap is over," he replied. "I worked with them on a couple of independent contracts. I trust them!"

The brothers were nicknamed the Towers, because of their height and width: six foot two and muscles with muscles. I could see what Mr. Valence meant by the two of them making people keep their distance.

Everyone except the children was at the back of the building. The building had a large playground and a river pier. The playground area was raised so the zombies didn't have a view in as long as we kept the two entrance stairways blocked off.

They'd put the guy who stabbed me on his knees in the middle of the area. The two men who'd held my arms were a few feet back from him. Joey was holding Catwal near one of the stairways.

"Whatever you're thinking, it's the wrong thing to do," the sergeant said putting his hands up.

The Towers got between us.

"You have to be kidding me," the sergeant exclaimed. "We have laws!"

"Really?" I asked him. "I'll tell you what--why don't we clear the entrance stairways and see what the zombies think about your laws."

"This is insane!" he yelled at me.

"Lower you voice," Kellie ordered. Her sword was half drawn.

"Leonard!" His sister grabbed his arm. "Enough! You can't stop it."

"Leonard?" I asked her.

"Leonard Stern," she replied. "I'm Susan Stern."

"You didn't take your husband's name? Feminism?"

"I took my name back when he asked for a divorce," she told me.

"Don't worry, Leonard," I said to the sergeant. "You'll have your say soon."

Kellie followed me to the guy on his knees. The Towers stayed in position between the sergeant and me. Mr. Valence walked over to John-John who stood behind the other two guys that attacked me.

There was no point in extending the moment, not for the crowd anyway. I held out my hand and Pushed. My attacker's chest blew open, ribs flaying out to the side. Blood, skin, and bone bits showered me! His heart jumped from his body to my hand. Grabbing his chin, I Healed. I held his heart in front of his eyes. My Power kept him alive for five minutes, fully aware each second that he was already dead. He didn't have the air to scream, but everyone watching knew that the man's soul was crying out for its God.

I took a step away from him. Kellie's sword took the man's head off. It rolled away from the body. Ashley kicked it back towards me.

The two other men pissed and shit themselves. I had a plan so there was no reason to do anything to them. Catwal deserved a little more attention! The old woman screamed when I turned towards her. Joey had to lift her off the ground to keep the woman in place.

"Help me!" Catwal yelled to the sergeant. "He's going to kill me!"

I must have been a terrifying sight; a blood covered ghoul come to claim her life.

"Don't kill me! Please don't kill me!" She begged me. "I didn't have anything to do with it! I swear!"

I smiled and turned to look at the two other attackers.

"She planned it!" They screamed. "She made us do it ... we didn't want to!"

"LIARS!" Catwal yelled.

I Pushed Catwal's jaw shut. Her tongue got caught between her teeth. Holding the heart in front of her eyes, I stared at the old woman.

"I'm not going to kill you," I told her. "Death is easy. Quick too, at least when I'm not holding you in this world."

Using the heart, I brushed a hair out of her face. She tried to scream but I Pushed her jaw shut again.

"You're going to live," I said. "You're going to run! Far, far away because I'm going to be on the move and if I catch up to you ... I killed him with one power, but I'm going to kill you with the other. Healing lends to a VERY slow death. You'll scream for every second of a hundred fucking years!"

She fainted.

Mr. Valence and Bianca were standing over the dead body.

"Finally, a Boss with fucking balls!" Mr. Valence said loudly.

Bianca was the scarier of the pair. She looked from the body to the crowd. Her face said it all--however protective she might feel towards these people, there was a hard limit! Unlike the sergeant, she didn't see anything wrong with my idea of justice.

Walking back to the body, I tossed the heart into the chest cavity. Nobody had left, but quite a few people were standing near puddles of puke. I made eye contact with every person.

"I am not your Savior!" I used a Push to project my words to all of them. "I am not climbing up on a cross for you motherfuckers to nail me to it! I am not a comic book hero either. I do not believe in that self-sacrifice shit!"

I looked at the sergeant but spoke loud enough for everyone to know I was talking to them. "You want to leave, then leave! You want to stay, then accept that God shit the bed and he's not apologizing."

My eyes circled the crowd. "The good news is that I only have two commandments. Do not fuck with me or mine! Do what you're told by me or mine!"

I Pushed, sending the body, bits of body, and blood into the river.

"Okay, I'm impressed," the Professor said. The looks everyone gave him would have been comical if I hadn't ripped someone's heart out.

"Not the cardiac surgery," the Professor told me. "You have to admit that was a little overdramatic."

I gave him the same raised eyebrow the women loved giving me.

"Granted," he said walking to where the guy died. "SOME people need these kind of explanations for a lesson to get through their thick skulls."

Kneeling down, he touched the ground. "I'm actually impressed by how clean you got the area. And yourself! There's not a drop of blood here or on you that I can see! You'd have to know..."

His teeth clicked shut as he looked up at me. He sighed and shook his head. "I'd like to change that from impressed to scared."

"Bianca, these two gentlemen and Catwal are leaving," I said. "I'm going to the roof with Ashley. I'll radio down what I want done with them."

She nodded at Elizabeth and Joey.

"Kellie, help them out," I instructed the blonde.

"There's more?" the sergeant said with disgust as I walked by him. I stopped and turned on him. His sister stood by him. She looked scared but not at what I had done.

"What you told me upstairs, it was colored by your problem." I told him.

"I don't have a problem," he replied. "And even this won't stop someone from taking a shot."

"You think you know me."

His eyes narrowed.

"You don't," I said. "You can't."

Pointing to where my attacker had knelt, I whispered, "My mother made me practice that shit when I was four years old. I still feel bad for the mice! Tell me, Leonard, how much could you possibly know about me if you didn't know that? You should consider how many other things she ... taught me."

I smiled.

"What you think, Leonard ... all those things you think you know, Leonard ... they're leading you down a bad path," I said. "You assume I cannot learn. You would be wrong!"

I gave his uniform a once-over. "Unlike some people I can name, Leonard, I've been adapting since I saw that my foster brother needed to floss daddy's dick out of his teeth."

"You assume I'm going to let you assholes get off another shot, Leonard." I looked at the Towers, Mr. Valence, and Kellie. "You better pray they take care of it, because if I get a twinge of danger from something like the smug look on your face this morning, hearts are going to jump out of chests for a mile around you."

I glanced at his sister and back at the sergeant. "If you or anybody else makes it a choice between me and everyone else in the group or on the planet, I'm going to be the motherfucker still standing when it's over!"

Stepping closer to him, I put my lips close to his ear so only he'd hear my voice. "You see, Sergeant Leonard Stern, your biggest problem is that you think you know what's going on out there!"

"They're waiting," Ashley told me.

I'd been watching the zombies. They were still moving randomly.

"Did you bring your rifle?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Set up over there." I pointed to the front right corner of the building.

Mr. Valence was relaying my words to Bianca's group in the lobby.

"Give the men loaded six-shooters; no extra bullets. They are to run that way." I pointed to road running parallel to the river on our right. "If they go any other way, Ashley will shoot them. They have ten seconds to get past the crosswalk or Ashley will shoot them. Once they've gone past the crosswalk if they come back, Ashley will shoot them. Should they make a problem downstairs, Kellie can cut off a limb of her choice and Joey is to toss them out the doors."

I smiled.

"Two minutes after they go out, send Catwal that way." I nodded down the street in front of the build. "Same rules, except she has ninety seconds to get to the T-intersection. She also doesn't get a gun! If any of you ever see her again, I want her taken alive."

"Why don't you just kill them?" the sergeant asked. "It's what you want to do."

The sergeant and his sister grabbed their chest as I applied a small amount of pressure to their hearts with a Push. They were kneeling when I released my hold on them.

"Anybody that wants to leave," I told John-John and Mr. Valence. "Give them food and weapons, but they don't get to come back. If they're between something I want and me, they should stand clear of falling buildings. From now on, it's with us or..."

I shook my head angrily.

Considering what I ordered, I didn't think it a good idea to have Sophie wrap her lips around by dick while I sat around waiting for it to end. I mean it was always a good idea, just not appropriate!

Ten minutes later, Ashley shot twice.

"They were coming back," Ashley said as she took the chair.

"I saw it," Brian told me. "They were definitely turning around."

"Yeah, they were doing good but a pack of zombies came out of the park," Ashley said.

"No!" Brian said to her. "A lie is simple! Don't add details unless they ask."

"Oh! I thought you were practicing the lying thing for yourself. I'm fucking him, dude!" she told Brian. She shrugged and looked at me. "Darling, I got bored so I shot them."

"Did Catwal make it?" I asked them.

John-John nodded; the look he gave me was a question.

"Good," I said.

"Boss, you know letting a woman like that walk around free is never a good idea," Mr. Valence said. Bianca nodded--the girls had come upstairs to watch the action. Most of the people in the group were on the roof.

I looked out at the town before replying, "Someday, I'll have to sleep at night. No matter what I have to do, I need to know I gave you a chance."

Shaking my head, I dismissed any more questions from them. "Are we ready to move to the Terminal?"

Nobody met my eyes.

"I told you we were leaving, didn't I? You had three days!"

The Professor and Brian sat on either side of me.

"See, Miguel, the language of our ... tribe isn't fully established." The Professor's tone of voice was the essence of reasonable.

"The language is English," I told him. "And I said, in English, 'We are leaving. Get ready!'"

"It wasn't going to happen," Brian said. "Not after you got stabbed."

"Why not?"

"Because you wanted to leave immediately and that's no longer possible," he replied.

"Why not?"

"You've been down for three days. It's going to take at least two days for everything to get back to normal," he told me. "So there's no reason to do anything, especially after you scared the shit out of everybody and then invited them to leave."