Chapter 9
Zombies!
When the four Storms that were scouting routes to the San Joaquin portion of the Central Valley made their way to the Sequoia National Park entrance it was decided to wake Mary and leave the Park immediately instead of waiting until morning. It was sad to so soon leave the beautiful Park and the dedicated Crew that maintained it. But Ed and Mary were happy to have met such environmentally dedicated people, and glad to have helped revive their Stone-Coats.
The travelers were doubly sad to leave Sam behind. Doll had very much enjoyed being with her brother, and Snake had clearly already developed a strong bond with the young man. It was decided that to throw off Scar's pursuit Sam would wait for three days before he and M-8 would haul another juvenile Stone-Coat to Molly. The rest of the travelers would avoid Molly's store when they left the area, as by now it was doubtlessly being closely watched by Scar followers.
The over-all aim of the group was to travel north-west and it had to be assumed that Scar knew that, so to begin with they traveled south-west, diverting around Visalia and other towns as they worked their way across the breadth of the San Joaquin Valley. It was a dull, dusty, depressing trip. They encountered mostly deserted farms and towns; this seemingly endless parched flat country was more desolate than anyplace the Rumsfelds had ever been. Functioning farms were nearly non-existent and usually consisted of a few dilapidated greenhouses.
They encountered few other people; all were civilians using old dilapidated cycles to haul supplies using side-cars or small towed trailers. Horse carts were also used. Though for the first hour they were within Scar's territory, no one they encountered wore Scar patches or appeared to be armed, and they all saluted and yielded passage when they realized that they were sharing the road with Storms.
The only 'enemies' encountered were the hot sun, boredom, and miles of poor roads. Every few miles the travelers were slowed due to sections of the road that were washed out by flash-floods or disrupted by aquifer subsidence. Though the Crew had to wrestle their bikes through these occasional bad stretches in ninety degree heat, these challenges became almost welcome diversions to the long monotonous stretches of dusty roadway that they endured.
It was a dirty, grueling trip for the other bikers but Ed and Mary rode in comfort. Throughout the trip Mack skillfully avoided most jostling, deadened most sound, and provided a clean comfortable cockpit environment for his human passengers. Mary for the most part dozed or used her earbuds to listen to Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Ed also found himself frequently dozing-off, though he was supposed to be all the time using his telepathy to help detect jants or possible Scar Crew ambushes.
They drove right past the very few functioning gasoline stations that they encountered without stopping. Instead they kept one of Mack's storage bins supplied with dry brush found along the roads. The small quantity of fuel that Mack produced was just enough to get them to their destination shortly before sunset: a Stormtrooper outpost near the town of Kettleman City, strategically located along Interstate 5 and the California Aqueduct, which ran roughly parallel to each other for most of the way between Stockton and Los Angeles. Most of the town was obviously disserted; largely because both the interstate and the aqueduct were no longer functioning as originally intended.
The Storm outpost consisted of a large dilapidated tavern with a dozen dilapidated bikes parked outside of it. The travelers parked their seven much fitter looking cycles next to the others.
To one side of the tavern a surprisingly large graveyard marked with hundreds of small stone gravestones covered several acres of bare dry Valley. "Casualties of the early Water Wars," explained Snake, as Ed and Doll helped move Mary from Mack to Wheels. "It took five years for Storms to crush the rebellions and put a stop to most of the fighting. There are dozens of graveyards like this one along the Aqueduct." He nodded towards the other side of the tavern, where an enormous elongated concrete structure stretched further than the eye could see from north to south. It looked like a concrete road with high concrete walls along each side of it. Nearby the road they had been following west dodged the remains of a bridge and intersected the unusual road-like structure through a gap where the concrete walls had apparently been deliberately blasted away. It took a few moments more for Ed to realize that he was staring at what remained of the famous California Aqueduct that once provided much of the water for Los Angeles.
Outside the tavern there was nobody in sight. "It's too damn quiet here; I don't like it," said Snake. "Be on alert. Something ain't right." While Ed and Mary headed for an obvious outhouse structure nearby, Snake and the Crew headed for the tavern with weapons drawn.
Ed was comfortably relieving himself in an outhouse cubicle when he realized one thing that was definitely wrong. "THERE IS A JANT COLONY IN THAT TAVERN," he told Mary and the Stone-Coats, "AND THEY ARE COMMUNICATING WITH ONE OR MORE MED-TICKS." He tried to reach Snake and Doll but all Crew Storms had already removed their radio equipped helmets.
He escorted Mary back into Mack for her safety and entered the tavern himself, where much shouting could be heard. In front of a long wooden bar Snake and his Storms faced a slightly greater number of bikers wearing Scar patches. The two groups had guns drawn and pointed at each other, but all eyes were on Snake and the man he faced with his big hunting knife. The huge man must have outweighed Scar by at least thirty pounds, all of it muscle. The patches on his vest identified him to be a Scar Crew lieutenant: likely the commander of this post.
"What's the matter with you?" Snake shouted. "Afraid to defend the honor of your cowardly leader, Tog?" Tog was a head taller than Snake and looked to be twenty years younger, but refused to draw out the big hunting knife housed conspicuously on his belt. Several of his own men looked at him in puzzlement, absolutely astonished that he was not accepting Snake's challenge.
"The jant colony in this building is telling him not to fight you through his med-tick," said Ed.
"Med-tick?" asked Doll. "Tog is hosting a med-tick?"
"Impossible!" said one of the Scar men. "He can't be a zombie! We check each other every day."
"Three Scar men have med-ticks," said Ed. "Him, him, and him," he pointed at the leader and the men to each side of him.
"I bet that these three check each other for med-ticks!" said Doll. "That's how they get away with it! All three of them are jant zombies!"
"How the hell would this geeky looking little twerp know they have med-ticks?" asked a Scar man as he pointed at Ed.
"He can hear them talk with jants," said Snake. "If he says they have them then they have them. Check them out for yourselves!"
The three accused made a sudden break towards the exit, but were quickly grabbed and held fast by the others, including the five remaining Scar men. Apparently being a zombie was more serious an accusation than whatever they had been previously arguing about. The shirts and vests of the three accused men were quickly ripped off, exposing three-inch long ticks with their heads buried deep into the backs of each of the men. All the remaining bikers were very upset, especially the Scar men. "Let's rip the damn things off of them," said one of them.
"No, that could be dangerous," said Ed.
"That's right," said Doll. "People have been paralyzed or soon died of infection when head-parts of med-ticks break off inside a puppet's spine. I'll get alcohol from the bar; that will stun them."
"We ain't damn puppets," protested Tog. "We're patriots! The Brothers are losers! The jants will help us control all of California soon and we'll all live like kings!"
"Really?" said Snake. "Are you saying that Scar is a jant zombie?"
Fear suddenly came to the man's eyes and though he opened his mouth to again speak he could only moan in pain!
"I think Tog has already told us too much," said Snake. "The jants won't let them say more!"
"Let me try to get the jants to have the ticks withdraw," said Ed.
"WHY SHOULD WE?" said a reverberating voice of hundreds of thousands of telepathical
ly joined jants in Ed's head. The jant colony under the tavern was making itself known.
"BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO," said Ed. "DO YOU NOT KNOW OF THE TREATY BETWEEN JANTS AND HUMANS? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"
"YOUR FAR AWAY MOHAWK JANT CLAN MEANS NOTHING TO US, CHIEF ED," said the jants. "THE TREATY AS WE INTERPRET IT SUPPORTS OUR ACTIONS." Then they started to scream: a million tiny minds strong.
To Ed it felt like he had received a hammer blow to his forehead, but it was a blow that didn't stop. Pounding pain continued, driving out most thought. He fell to his knees in agony, as the three jant-controlled Scar men also convulsed and moaned. Doll was soon kneeling over Ed, worry showing in her face. She had no telepathic capability or med-tick making her vulnerable to the jants, but neither could she help Ed.
"REGAIN CONTROL," said a voice in his head. "LISTEN TO THE MUSIC."
Dimly through the pain he heard it; it was a Brahms symphony. The voice was Mack's, speaking to him from outside. Mack must have sensed the attack through his implant. Ed focused on the music and the pain abated slightly, enough for him to focus on addressing the jants. "STOP, YOU BREAK THE TREATY!" he told them.
In response they screamed even louder in his head, but Ed was now in control of his telepathic reception, not them. He turned down the volume of their nameless scream, rejecting that message. The three human puppets that lay beside him however, continued to writhe in pain as the others held them down as best they could. Ed tried to block the thoughts being aimed at them through the ticks, but couldn't; the jant hive mind was too strong. "YOU CAN'T OPPOSE US, WE ARE STRONGER THAN YOU!" they taunted. "WE WILL CONTROL YOU AS WE CONTROL THEM!" Indeed the hive sent wave after wave of pain into the three jant-controlled Scar Crew members, causing them to scream and spasm helplessly.
Ed could feel the jant thoughts vying against his will relentlessly. Their collective will and power of thought was much stronger than his: that was soon clear. He was still holding them off, but for how long? When they bit him years earlier he had had become vulnerable to them. The horrifying thought that he might also become a jant zombie/puppet almost caused him to lose concentration again, but then it caused him to fight even harder.
"NO DAMN WAY!" he shouted at them mentally as he rallied. There were hundreds of thousands of jants, each ten-percent brain matter joined together telepathically to act as one. Together they were stronger than him, but his human mind was much stronger than that of each individual jant. He followed their screams back to them, sought out an individual in the hive and struck out at it, recreating for them the message of pain they were bombarding him with but focusing it on a single tiny jant mind. That tiny mind went blank. Ed couldn't tell if he had killed it or simply stunned it. He moved on to another, and then another. Ten, twenty, fifty and more individual jants were silenced.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO US?" the hive demanded to know.
"DEFENDING MYSELF FROM YOUR ATTACK ON ME," Ed responded as strongly as he could. Ed went on attacking them, becoming ever stronger as they steadily became weaker. "STOP YOUR ATTACK!" he told them. "WITHDRAW THE TICKS AND STOP YOUR ATTACK OR I WILL DESTROY ALL OF YOU!"
The struggle of wills continued, but Ed now had the upper hand. Then he heard human shouts and foot-falls. He sat up and looked around to see what was happening. A boiling swarm of ants had erupted from the nearby bar and was advancing on the humans more quickly than seemed possible given their tiny legs. Their inch-long brown bodies, big mandibles and oversized head segments made them easily recognizable as jants. Snake was attempting to kill them with his boot-clad feet but here were too many of them and they started climbing up his boots. There were enough of them to overcome even the tough Confederacy leader. Ed attempted to refocus his thoughts on the particular individuals attacking Snake, but it wasn't easy to isolate them from the writhing hordes of other jants that were pouring out of the bar.
Doll rushed to Snake's side holding open bottles of liquor in each hand which she splashed on Snake's boots and the attacking jants. Burned by the alcohol, hundreds of jants were soon writhing spasmodically on the floor. Ed felt their cries of pain. The other bikers followed suit, and soon thousands of booze-soaked jants were dying or at least stunned and incapacitated.
Ed was horrified. For forty years he had protected jants and they had protected him, Mary, and the Tribe. From their thoughts of pain Ed located the specific attacking jants and shouted at them telepathically to flee, and amazingly enough that's exactly what they did. They were following his orders! Their mind-numbing telepathic attack also stopped.
"YOU ARE CONTROLLING SOME OF US!" the jant colony said in astonishment. "YOU KNOW OUR SECRET LANGUAGE!"
"ENOUGH OF IT," said Ed. "I HAVE BEEN HEARING IT FOR FORTY YEARS. WITHDRAW NOW AND PROMISE NOT TO ATTACK OR CONTROL US AGAIN AND I WILL SPARE YOUR COLONY. OTHERWISE I WILL BE FORCED TO KILL YOU ALL."
Ed didn't wait for a reply. He focused on the med-ticks and commanded them to withdraw from their human hosts. Soon the three huge ticks were crawling away from their Scar Crew puppets.
"YOU CAN COMMAND TICKS!" the astonished jant colony said.
"YOU PRESUMED TO COMMAND PEOPLE," said Ed. "DECIDE NOW IF YOU REALLY WANT TO FIGHT ME AND START A WAR WITH HUMANS, OR IF YOU AGREE TO A TRUCE HERE AT THIS PLACE."
There was a pause. Ed could overhear a cascade of jant thoughts being exchanged between the local colony and more distant colonies. A few of their exchanged thoughts he understood, but most were too convoluted and rapid for him to recognize.
"A TRUCE IS AGREED TO BY THE UNITED JANT COLONIES," the jants concluded. "WE WILL STOP ATTACKING AND CONTROLLING IN THIS PLACE AND WE WITHDRAW. OUR PROBLEM WITH HUMANS HERE WILL AWAIT FUTURE RESOLUTION."
"Don't kill them!" he told Snake, when the Brother advanced towards the retreating ticks and jants with his big deadly boots. "The ticks will soon starve anyway without human blood. I have established a truce with their jant masters."
The jants were visibly in full retreat. Live jants gathered up their dead and carried them away towards the hive for consumption by hive survivors. They would probably also eat the med-ticks, Ed suspected. Jants let nothing go to waste.
"Truce hell," said Snake, before taking a big swig of whisky from the half empty bottle he held. "I say we gas the bastards! I won't waste any more good booze on them, but we have enough insecticide in our bike saddle-bags to wipe out all bugs at this outpost!"
"That sort of thing might have started the trouble to begin with," said Ed. "Let me talk with them some more. I really don't yet understand what's happening here."
"The only good jant is a dead jant," said Snake, "but we'll hold off gassing them for now and let you talk with them first. We have some human to human talking to do now anyway." He turned his gaze to the three now tick-less Scar Crewmen. Two were sitting up and looking about fearfully, but one lay very still. Too still.
"He's dead!" said Doll. "He was a true zombie! Without the tick he was done-for!"
"They controlled a dead human body?" said Ed.
"Well dah!" said Doll. "That's sort of why we call them zombies."
One of the five non-zombie Scar Crew members checked the body for a pulse but found none. Without the jant controlled tick to animate his heart life as a zombie was no longer possible. "Poor Pete!" he lamented. "Thought he was acting too quiet since he survived that skirmish in LA three months ago! We brought him back here near dead and we were surprised that he pulled through. I guess he didn't survive after all but instead he died and got zombied! Three months! The sneaky bastard was dead all that time and we didn't even know it!"
Ed couldn't imagine the jant thought and control required to keep a human body going 24-7 for three months! It had to mean hundreds of thousands of jants dedicated to this one man 24-7.
Tog was one of the two ex-med-tick survivors. Snake pulled him to his feet and pushed him to a nearby bar table, and sat him down roughly in a chair. The Scar Crew did the same with the other med-tick survivor. Each of them was give
n a pint-bottle of brandy that they drank from gratefully.
"How long were you under jant control?" Snake demanded to know.
The big man shook his head and tried to gather his thoughts. "Since Spring, I suppose. Six months maybe. I was at the Fresno Scar Crew compound and woke up one morning hearing voices in my head. They didn't control me at first, but they kept telling me that the Brothers were jant killers and had to be replaced by Scar. At first I didn't pay much attention. I was never into politics and had always sworn to uphold the Storm Constitution under the Brothers. But then once in a while I would say and do things that I knew I wasn't doing myself. And overthrowing the Brothers started to seem like the right thing to do."
"They were gradually learning how to control you completely, Tog," said Snake.
"I about went crazy when I discovered the tick on my back, but some of Scar's Crew already seemed to know about it and calmed me down. Plus the voices in my head were telling me it was a good thing; that I was one of the lucky few chosen ones."
"It's got to take a hell of a lot of tiny jant brains to control each human," said Ed, "especially a brain-dead human. They could only possibly control a selected few; especially in a region where jants are relatively scarce. Did you bring the jant colony with you to this tavern?"
"Yes," said the big Scar Crew Leader. "There were some that Pete brought from LA but we brought most from Fresno four months ago when we took charge of this post, along with plenty of grain to feed them. They like grain and water but will eat almost anything, including animals alive or dead. Keep them happy and they make you feel real good. I can't exactly describe it but it's almost like sex without sex while being doped up enough not to have a care in the world."
"And Scar is one of several that is controlled by ticks and jants?" asked Snake.
"Scar, yes," Tog said, between swigs of brandy. "Him and that crazy-ass Rippa woman of his! We called that bitch the Wicked Witch of the North. Damn this brandy is good! The damn jants didn't want me to drink alcohol. I've been in control of a tavern for four months and those mean buggers kept me from drinking alcohol except for a beer once in a great while!"
"Why wouldn't you fight me?" asked Scar. "You're big and tough; you might have killed me."
"They want you all uninjured and to go to the North," said Tog. "They didn't say why."
"But then the jants went and attacked us!" said Doll.
"They wanted to bite you to get to your thoughts," said the other surviving ex-zombie. "They would have done it tonight while you slept but you went and rushed things. They'll get their way though. They're smarter than us. They just ain't in no big hurry. Jants is patient."
"Swell," said Ed.
"What are we going to do with Tog and his Crew?" Doll asked Snake. "Technically they have all conspired with jants against the Confederacy. That is punishable by death!"
"Hey, we didn't know it was jants pulling the strings," protested one of the Scar Crew. "We was told that the Brothers are traitors!" said another. "We was tricked!"
"And what do you think now?" asked Doll.
"Scar's the damn traitor," said one of the Scar Crew, to grunts and murmurs of agreement. "It was him and the jants all along. We didn't know that! We're all loyal to the Confederacy."
"Me included," said Tog. "I don't even pay attention to politics, except to be loyal to the Confederacy. My Mom and Pops would disown me if they found out what I done. But I thought I was saving the Confederacy by following Scar."
"All of you must denounce Scar," demanded Snake.
One by one all men of the Scar Crew including Tog raised their right hands and denounced Scar. Then they tore the Scar patches from their vests.
"Together make the Storm Pledge," said Snake.
Everyone in the room except Ed raised their right hand and pledged allegiance to the Confederacy.
"I hold you all blameless." said Snake. "Bury your friend Pete so deep that the jants won't even find him and strengthen themselves on his remains, and guard this outpost as loyal Storms. And today drink as much booze as you want on my credits."
There were shouts of approval as liquor bottles were handed out and Doll handed Storm patches to Snake for him to pass out to all the new Storms. He smiled and shook each of their hands as he did so.
"That's good leadership," Ed remarked to Snake. "When their use is plausible, carrots work better than sticks."
"Psych 101," said Snake. "Skinner's intermittent positive reinforcement. Plus it's better to be a joiner than a divider, and to make people believe that they belong. For leadership always remember your basic psychology, Ed; that's the way these things work."
Once again Ed was impressed by his former pupil.
"One more piece of business!" Snake shouted to quiet everyone. "We can't have a Storm outpost that's infested with jants. They'd get at us overnight for sure." He turned his gaze on Ed. "Well, Jant Clan Leader, what should we do about your damn jants?"
"They refuse to talk with me further," said Ed, "except to say that they're leaving this tavern and won't come back." He could sense that they had already completely removed themselves from the tavern and via underground escape tunnels, carrying queens, eggs and food with them. They were moving in the general direction of the old aqueduct. There they could hitch rides with unknowing passing humans and go almost anywhere in the Confederacy and beyond. "They are already completely gone from this tavern and probably won't return!"
There were joyful shouts from the crews.
Snake slapped Ed on the back in friendly Storm-crew fashion and grinned. "Good work, Jant Clan Leader! Later after I get some more rot-gut in me you can maybe explain what the hell just happened between us and those bug buddies of yours!"
"Sure," agreed Ed, though he was himself was more than a bit confused about what was happening with the jants. "That will be swell."
Ed brought Mary inside for lunch. For the first time in days the meal didn't include acorn mush or fly chili, but there were yummy chicken eggs and greens. Ed then put Mary down for her nap in one of the lodge rooms before rejoining the crew at the bar. Snake, Doll, and Tog were discussing various routes north. They also decided that the Rumsfelds and their now drunken Storm Crew friends would stay the night at the tavern and leave early the next morning.
That suited Ed just fine, as the earlier disturbing altercation with the jants still troubled him considerably and he always felt better about disturbing situations after a good-night's sleep. He had seen for himself that the jants were indeed controlling humans via med-ticks; even dead humans! But the usually rational jants had also claimed to be following the Treaty! Could they be right? His tired alcohol sloshed brain couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"CAN YOU STONE-COATS HELP ME KEEP WATCH FOR JANTS TONIGHT?" Ed asked Wheels and Max, after he took care of a much relieved Mary and finally was snug in bed next to her and ready to sleep.
"I SUGGEST THAT WE MONITOR YOUR DREAMS, AS THOSE ARE INTERFERED WITH BY NEARBY JANT ACTIVITY," said Wheels. "OUR OWN ABILITY TO DIRECTLY DETECT JANT PRESENCE IS MUCH LESS SENSITIVE."
"YOU CAN DO THAT?" asked Ed. "I THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD ONLY DETECT OUR CONSCIOUSLY DIRECTED THOUGHTS!"
"THOSE ARE TYPICALLY MORE COGENT AND MEANINGFUL," said Wheels. "BUT OUR IMPLANTS CAN DETECT OTHER LAYERS OF THOUGHT AS WELL. IT IS GIVING US FASCINATING NEW INSIGHTS INTO HOW THE HUMAN MIND FUNCTIONS."
"SWELL," said Ed. His nightmarish dream of being a lab-rat was at last being realized. Frank Gray Wolf would be jealous.