knowing if he should continue.
“Well what?”
“Well, she is just a kid, and she has a pretty good gash on her head from that propeller, not to mention what she had gone through to get here.”
“Yes, so what are you trying to say?”
“Can you trust her information?” Skit asked, not knowing how Lisa would react to it.
“That’s kind of the deal with witnesses and information in general, Skit. You can never take any of it at one hundred percent. Five witnesses at a crime scene can describe a car or a person in five different ways because each person looks at things differently, but this is different.”
“How so?”
“Well, she knew the man. He was her doctor and had been her doctor for years before today. She was seeing him on a routine low stress visit when it all went down, so I think there is a lot of credibility behind her words,” Lisa said as they started to climb the ladder at one of the exit points to the compound.
“Okay, so you find him and arrest him; then what? I mean, there aren’t many judges left and jail isn’t an option.”
His statement caused Lisa to smile in a way that sent shivers up his spine.
“There is a new type of justice in the world, Skit. I might not be a judge, but in today’s new world, I can certainly be the executioner.”
Skit nodded his head; he knew she would feel that way, but he was surprised at how candid she was about it.
“So, why aren’t we taking the Chrysler or your truck?”
“In the future we will, but right now, we have to get a feel for the land. A lot has to happen for us to take back the city, Skit. And I need to know how it feels.”
“The city. You mean the entire city, like free of zombies and shit?”
“Yep. The whole city reclaimed; that is the goal, and we don’t have much time to do it. They are thinking that a couple of hundred people will trickle in over the next couple of weeks. My gut tells me it will be a lot more than that … much, much more.”
Lisa watched the two men lower the ladder into cleared streets. She secured her gear and made sure that an acquired machete and her baton were accessible. Gunfire this close to the encampment exit would not be good, because of noise and the potential to shoot someone still living. She checked out Skit’s gear—Colleen’s .45 that Lisa acquired and the #8 rebar that he had hit her over the head with—and shrugged at the sparsity of it. He had enough to watch her back, but only barely just enough.
It was the scream of a runner that greeted her first steps on the outside, and she spun with her baton instantly in hand. The runner was around a corner in battle with a skid loader that was making quick work of it. She flinched as she saw the rolling mass of bloody flesh and bone being pushed into a pile by a large front-end loader, and she wondered what kind of world they were going to live in. Was everyone going to become so desensitized that we would no longer be truly human? How important was it to go after one killer when there were so many slaughters happening right in front of her? She wished that she had the answers, but the truth was she didn’t and she didn’t know if she ever would.
“Before we deal with him, we’re going to do a little recon of the city and see what kinds of resources are still available,” Lisa whispered to Skit once they had tucked in behind some houses. “We also have to get to the radio station and do another broadcast. Rumor has it that some National Guard troops have set up there, as well as at the armory by the court house, so consider those our safe zones. Keep your revolver in your holster with the safety off and don’t use it until I say so. I have the suppressor on my M4, so I’ll do the shooting until you’re needed, all right? Just use that rebar and keep your eyes open.”
“I feel like someone’s watching us already. You don’t think that the Skinner was on to you, do you?” Skit said nervously as he scanned the area. “I