Jango's Anthem: Zombie Fighter Jango #2 (4 page)

Jango pulled his pistol out of the man's ear, and backed up a couple of steps. When the man looked
his way, he nodded to the man, and then turned away from their emotional embrace.

The rest of the girls stood
and looked around silently, unsure of what they should do next. Jango solved that puzzle for them. “All right everybody, listen up. All our shooting was probably like a fucking dinner bell to all the goobers within a few miles of here. All those goobers will start their god-awful wailing, which will bring even more zombies down on us, so we need to hustle bustle and get our shit wired tight before they get here.”

Suddenly, Jango had a thought. He stepped
smoothly to his left, and then slid forward. In doing so, he had placed the brave girl’s grandpa between himself and the woods. He stepped closer to the man that the girl had called Grandpa Don.

“
How exactly did you come to be here right now?” Jango asked him. “Where did you come from, and how did you manage to be here at the exact time we were shooting these mother-fuckers into pieces?”

“
And more importantly”, he whispered into the man’s ear, “Who’s with you, and where are they now?” As he spoke, his eyes searched the darkness of the woods for any signs of movement. Jango, who had seen the unnatural speed of the zombies too many times to count, knew that time was of the essence, and that he needed to resolve the issue of Grandpa Don’s cohorts quickly.

“You’ve got like
two seconds or so to get your friends out here where I can see them. If they aren’t out here by then, I am going to blow your gonads up your ass-hole, and then take pictures of it.” Jango had spoken loudly so that he would be heard by anyone who might be in the woods.

“Okay, okay, you nasty
, foul-mouthed little shit,” said a woman’s voice from within the darkness of the woods. “I’m coming out, for Christ’s-sake. Just don’t shoot him in the nuts.” A matronly looking woman in her mid-fifties stepped out of the woods slowly. She was about the same age as the man and was dressed in similar clothing. She held a pump shotgun at her side, finger on the trigger, with the barrel pointed toward Jango.

Jango jammed his pistol into the man’s groin, and said, “Don’t get cute, old woman, or I
’ll add both of your asses to the goober roll-call.”

The woman slowly lowered the barrel of the shotgun, and took her finger off the trigger.
“Okay, okay, just stay calm,” she said in a soothing voice.

“
Fuck calm, lady. While we stand here dicking around, there's probably a load of goobers on the way here right now. Now tell me exactly what's going on, and do it fast.”

While Jango
had been dealing with the old man and the old woman, he hadn’t paid attention to what the girls had been doing. He noticed movement slightly behind him and to his right. When he turned to see what it was, he saw that the young brunette girl had a rifle pointed directly at him.

“
Don't hurt my grandpa and grandma. They won't do anything to hurt you. They are just here to get me,” the girl said with a determined look on her young face.

Jango,
unused to expressions of love and loyalty, had to give himself a moment to process the new information. He knew the rifle was unloaded, since he could see that the clear plastic clip was empty, and that the slide was locked open. Therefore, he wasn’t worried about the girl shooting him. He looked at the determination writ hard and true on the faces of the two grandparents and the girl, and then the truth was apparent to him. He released his grip on the man's shoulder, pulled his pistol away from the man's groin, and holstered his gun. With a grim nod at the man, woman, and their granddaughter, he said, “We need to get our asses in gear and figure this out.”

Ever since
he had fired his first shot at the men, Jango had heard the wailing yells of the undead coming from the large garage. Below the soul searing screeches of the living dead, he heard the frightened cries, yelps, and barks of what sounded like dogs. He snatched a rifle from one of the young girls, removed the empty clip, reversed it and inserted the fully loaded clip into the rifle. He pulled the slide back to chamber a round as he turned toward the uninviting structure.

Jango
quickly headed toward the garage. When he got to the steel-banded door, he realized that it was locked. For some reason, the locked door made the beast shake its chains and strain against its cage. Jango felt a horrible strength begin to flow through his frame. He looked at the heavy door. His lips drew back in a silent snarl as he spun his hips counter-clockwise, and unleashed a side-kick at the door. The door stood no chance against the lunatic strength of Jango's rage-charged leg. The door creased up the middle, and the doorjamb disintegrated beneath the strength of his kick.

When
he entered the garage, he saw that it was actually more of a barn, and that there were cages on each side of the enclosed space. On one side, the cages were filled with what looked like twenty or so zombies, and on the other side were ten starved looking dogs. Immediately, he rushed over and began opening the cages of the dogs. Jango was many things, debatably insane, ultraviolent, and as paranoid as a meth head that had been up for a week straight. But he was also a compulsive supporter of the underdogs of the world, and he would gladly give his life to save just one. Seeing any innocent creature caged or abused brought out the very best in him, and awoke the very worst in him at the same time.

As
he let the dogs out of the cages, he waved his hands at the girls, the man, and the woman to get out of the way. He quickly led the dogs out of the garage. With the bone-deep survival instinct, which most carnivores possessed, the dogs followed him. He swiftly led the dogs to the dead bodies that lay strewn across the bleachers. Drawing the LMK from its sheath, he began cutting the clothes off some of the men. After swiftly cutting the clothing off five or six of the men, he made sure to slice open their flesh a little bit so the dogs would be able to eat more quickly. When he was done preparing their meal, he waved the dogs in, inviting them to fill their stomachs.

Tentative at first, the dogs approached the
bodies of the men who had caged, tortured, and starved them. It seemed as though they would not have the courage to feed. Then one large, gray beast that looked like he was the offspring of an Irish Wolfhound, a Great Dane, and a bulldozer finally stepped forward and drove his strong, sharp, teeth into the flesh of one of the men’s stomachs. The huge dog savaged the body. He lifted the dead man up and violently whipped his massive head back and forth.As if that action was a sign, or a cue, the other nine dogs pressed forward and began to feast ravenously on the meat of their former persecutors.

Jango nodded happily at what he considered
to be the very definition of justice. “We might not have law and order, but we can still have justice,” he said to himself as he watched the dogs tear large pieces of flesh loose, and then swallow the chunks down whole. After watching the feast for a moment, he turned and hurried back to the garage.

As Jango near
ed the garage, he noticed that the group of girls and the two grandparents had nauseated looks on their faces. “Don't look at it if that shit bothers you. Jesus, what's wrong with you people?” He said as he pushed through the queasy looking crowd.

Jango looked at the zombies in their cages
for a short moment, then calmly and methodically walked down the row of cages and shot each of the creatures in the head. When he finished with his grisly task, he turned to look at the group of people. His code demanded that he continue to protect these strangers, just as it had forced him to walk the Apocalypse Road when Sonja had died.

“
All right, people, we have to move right now. That big house up front, that damn thing is built like a fortress, and I think that might be the best place for you to ride out the storm.”

“What storm?
What are you going to do?” Grandpa Don asked Jango. “Because I can help you with whatever you need to do.”

Jango felt respect for the man, but
he preferred to kill zombies on his own. He also knew that he was never coming back here, and that the man needed to stay to protect the children.

“No disrespect, no offense, but I'll do this myself. I'm just glad you two showed up, because I didn't know how I was going to find someone to take care of these girls. Now I've got you two to watch over them, and believe me, that is plenty.”

“
You’re the zombie fighter, aren't you?” Grandpa Don suddenly asked.

Jango just looked at the man
and wondered how so many people had heard about his work as he headed south on Highway 89.

“
Yeah,” the old woman said. “We heard about you as soon as we hit the 89 going south. There are some people trying to rebuild in Ash Fork, and they said the only reason that they could do anything was because a crazy man had come through and blown up most of the town, and took out all the zombies. They hadn’t been able to go outside their homes for days, and they said it was just a matter of time before the zombies got them.”

“
What's your name?” Grandpa Don asked softly. “I just want to know the name of the man who saved our…our Melanie. I have to know.”

Jango looked at the girl, and thought that Melanie was a name that suited her
well. He looked at all the faces that were turned toward him and said, “My name is Jango, and it's very nice to meet you all.”

He
felt genuinely touched by the reverence with which the older man had asked his name, and Jango felt compelled to ask the man's name as well. “And what's your name, sir?” Jango asked him.

My name is Don
Terwilliger, and this is my wife Deanne.” Then he hurriedly added, “But she likes to be called Dee.”

“I am r
eally glad to meet you all, but I need for you to be in the big house right now.” Jango said as he remembered that there was bound to be a horde of living dead on its way there. “I have work to do, and I can’t be wasting my time standing around shooting the breeze like we’re living in Mayberry or something.”

Without another word,
he led the way back along the winding footpath to the huge fortress like house at the front of the sprawling property. He still held the Ruger 10-22 rifle. He carried it in his left hand with the barrel pointed behind him, and the butt stock pointed forward. He swiftly led his group of refugees around the large home to the vault like entrance that was the front door.

When they reached the front door
, Jango pulled the remote device from his pocket, and quickly explained how the two buttons worked to Don. Don nodded his understanding, so Jango hit the gray button, and then handed the remote device to the older man.

Jango pushed the front door open and immediately fel
t his hackles rise. He slammed the front door inward and snapped the rifle up into a two-handed grip at chin level, just as he would've held his Ironwood stick.

His
hyper vigilant senses served him well as the large bowling ball of a man known as The Killer, his clothing and flesh hanging in tatters from the violent catharsis the girls had taken from his body, charged him with an earsplitting howl. “RheeeeeAAAAAA-eeeeeeeeeeeee!”

When Jango brought the rifle
up, the butt stock faced to his right, and the barrel was to his left. He held the rifle by the fore stock in his left hand, while his right hand gripped the rifle just behind the trigger. He swiftly snapped out a stick punch with his right hand as the enormous, tattered zombie bore down upon him and his charges. The barrel struck the monster’s temple unerringly, and Jango immediately followed the strike with a left-handed stick punch that sent the heavy wooden butt stock blurring forward to connect with the wailing creatures left temple. The butt stock hit with a loud, wet "crack" and The Killer died for the second time that night.

The creature dropped as if it had been pole-axed, and
then collapsed into a limp unmoving pile. Jango slammed the butt stock against the unmoving creature's skull one more time for good measure, and then handed the rifle to Don. He quickly dragged the enormous body out the front door and onto the paved driveway. Hustling back through the front door, he grabbed the body of the dead Mr. Banks. He dragged him one-handed out the door, and tossed him beside the fleshy body of the now dead again rapist.

Once
he was done, he rushed inside, closed the door behind him, and told Don to lock it. When he heard that the lock had engaged, he ushered Don ahead of him to the bookcase that led to the basement of the home. Jango pulled on the same purple book that the girl had, and told Don, “Here, click that gray button. It unlocks this door too.”

When the lock
had disengaged, Jango dragged the door open and raced down the stairs. Once he reached the basement, he went straight to the shelving that was loaded with 12-gauge ammunition. He swiftly grabbed an entire case of double ought buckshot, and then looked around to see if he could find any 9mm ammunition.

It only took
him a few moments to find the 9mm ammunition, and he grabbed an entire case of it. “Don, I need you to grab me eight of those double-barreled shotguns and bring them out to my car, rikki-tik.” Without waiting to see if Don would follow his orders, he rushed back up the stairs with the two cases of ammunition.