“That,” Cedric said, risking the wrath of his master, “is a fuckload of zombies.”
His dislike of his former captain’s potty mouth notwithstanding, The Baron was forced to agree. The row of ragged tents stretching from one end of the horizon to the other daunted the eye, decorating the gentle curves of the fields and hills like a diseased, withering banner. Worse yet, the zombies had decided to settle in the exact direction Doc and his band were trying to travel, as though they’d known they would have unannounced company and wanted to set out a few thousand dinner plates.
Luck isn’t with me, The Baron thought, though he was grinning beneath his cloak anyway. Eaten by a penguin or eaten by a limitless mob of the undead. Now I’m not sure which fate is worse. Maybe I should have stayed in my cell all those months ago…
Forcing Titan Blue into a crouch… and, eventually, onto her back, as he thought she was still too tall to hide… Doc heaved hissing epithets at the sky. Every swear word The Baron had ever heard, and a few he was certain Doc invented on the spot, flew from the tiny Non’s angry jaws. He swore viciously for ten minutes, countering any attempts to calm his rage with a fresh round of swear words. Eventually Titan Blue gave up trying to talk to the gibbering cyst on her torso, the blonde man settled down to pick at the grass, and Freak quietly talked amongst itself. Even Eve seemed to get bored, and she wandered a short distance away to stare at the zombies from a different angle.
Once Doc calmed himself - and ‘calm’ was still a sketchy description of his state of mind at best - he ordered Freak to bring The Baron over for a chat.
“We need to get past them,” Doc said, bluntly. “I want ideas.”
The Baron shrugged, waggling his useless fingers at Doc despite the pain.
“Don’t give me that,” Doc hissed. His head twisted 180 degrees to leer at The Baron upside-down. “This is as much your problem as it is ours, cur. We, ah, we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t, hadn’t, ah, hadn’t run the fuck away.”
When The Baron refused to say anything, the black strands of connective tissue binding Doc to Titan Blue began to glow a fierce purple. A similar glow stood out around Freak’s three necks, and, no doubt ordered, it smacked The Baron in the back of the head. His vision faltered as his glasses flew from his face, and he collapsed to his knees with a pained grunt. His fingers useless, The Baron struggled to put his glasses back on as his stomach roiled in a combination of anger and general discomfort.
“Order her to attack them,” Doc commanded. “Her. Tell her to kill them.”
“They’re… they’re already dead… I think…” The Baron choked out a laugh. Freak kicked him in the side, and his laugh turned into a harsh cough as he rolled onto his back.
“Tell her,” Doc insisted again. “You may not be able to force her, but you’re the one she’s, ah, most likely to heed, yes? Yes? Tell her.”
Not wishing to press his luck, The Baron slowly rose onto his elbows. He looked around at the assembled party, though it took his hazy eyes a few moments to locate his long-time travelling mate. The green glow of Eve’s eyes let The Baron know that she was watching him very closely indeed, though she hadn’t moved to help him.
“Eve,” The Baron rasped, feeling dizzy and weak. He realized he hadn’t eaten anything in over a week, a long time for even a Non. “Could you… maybe… do… something… about them…?”
Eve’s head swivelled towards the tents, then back to The Baron. “I can purge their kind from existence.”
Doc squealed, but The Baron wasn’t convinced. “Will you?”
Eve took longer to answer this time. Even without his glasses The Baron could tell that her wide eyes were moving from one person to another, lingering longest on the blonde man. The Baron wondered if they might have some sort of connection, wondered, perhaps, if the man’s resemblance to Dragomir was not so coincidental after all, but he didn’t get much further than that thought before Eve cut in.
“I would rather rape your brains with a pike, old man.” She turned back to the tents.
The blonde man cackled, throwing tufts of grass into the air. All three of Freak’s heads let out chortles of varying laughter, though they all quieted when Doc expressed his fierce irritation with a flash of purple. The Baron couldn’t help but smile a little, despite his agony. The mental picture of her suggestion was… vivid, to say the least, and almost comedic. Morbid as hell, but comedic.
“It’ll take a good day to get past ‘em without raisin’ a stink,” the blonde man estimated. “Maybe two if you wanna be really careful. ’n that’s only if they decide not t’move in the meantime. Might be you’ll have to sit here ’til they decide to disperse. Wouldn’t that be right fun, eh?”
Doc flew into another tantrum, this more violent than the last. He invented more curses, these cruder and less clever than before. The tantrum was shorter, however, because one third of Freak noticed something that they’d all missed - and he had the poor sense to say something about it.
“Hey,” Bernard said, stretching a clawed hand to point towards the tents. “What’s that big balloon thing?”
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