Chapter 26: Cue and the Tiger in the Toy Store pt 2

The beast was crazed; each rib showed how it suffered from starvation. But no matter how malnourished the creature was, it did not lack strength and speed.

Cue Burst out of the store and ran for the tank. Trigger was there in the manhole, and she ducked out of the way, but there just wasn't enough time to climb. Cue swung past the tank and grabbed a stop sign, swinging herself up onto a bus stop terminal before leaping off of that and onto the building itself. The whole time, Rat was clinging to her clothes and digging his claws into her skin as he crawled up her shoulder, squeaking in panic.

She scrambled over fraying awnings, clawing desperately at windows while the tiger stalked below and jumped after her. It landed on the awning, and it tore, but the monster held itself up on the framing.

“Gunner, kill it!” Trigger screamed.

Gunner crawled out of the tank and aimed with his lasers, his mouth set in a grim line, but the red beams could not kill the tiger without risking hitting Cue.

“Fuck!” Trigger cried, aiming her gun and seeing the same problem. “Fucking climb, baby! Get farther away so we can kill it!”

“I’m trying!” Cue sobbed. To have lived through countless attacks from zombies and the worst of humankind to die by the offspring of a zoo animal!

She climbed up on a ledge in the wall and flattened herself against a window that somehow still stood strong and unbroken. For the first time, she got a good look at the tiger.

It was deformed, its head split in two with two farish mouths snapping at her under four mutated eyes, two of them vertical instead of horizontal. It had six legs, two of them hanging limply and uselessly off its ribcage.

“It’s a mutant!” Cue screamed, new terror running through her. Rumor was that a bite from a mutie would make the victim also begin to mutate.

The monster climbed after her, but was able to get its back paws up.

Rat clung to her shoulders and clothes for dear life, trying not to fall off. Cue knew he’d be an easy kill, and that terrified her. He was one of the only good things in her life before she met Trigger and Gunner.

Finally, with enough distance between them, Trigger crawled out of the tank and aimed her rifle. She focused, taking a deep breath and holding it, her green eyes severe on the monster about to kill her friend.

“Brace yourself!” She screamed to Cue and put her finger on the trigger, but before she could fire, a burst of automatic gunfire hit the tiger and splattered blood like an explosion.

Cue screamed, almost losing her balance, as she was covered in the gore from the creature's brutal death.

“I didn’t know that was an automatic!” Cue shouted, holding her chest and trying to calm down as the tiger’s body fell and slumped into a pile on the concrete and grass below.

“It’s not,” Trigger said grimly, her eyes focused around the corner of a building several yards away.

Cue heard the sound of marching footsteps before she saw them, a group of twenty to thirty men coming around the corner with their weapons aimed.

Gunner ducked back into the tank immediately to disguise himself, knowing he would be dead if they found out what he is. He puts on dark sunglasses and a helmet, wrapping his neck in a shemagh and putting on a large poncho that covers all his electronic bits.

“Stop right there!” Trigger roared, shooting a bullet at the ground in front of them.

The leader held up his hands and stopped, looking from Cue and the tiger to Trigger. He was a tall and thin man, his blonde hair and scruffy beard as dirty as his tattered clothes.

“We mean no harm!” he shouted, signaling the men that look so similar to him to lower their weapons. “My family and I heard the screaming and came to help! Are you all alright?”

He froze as Gunner climbed out of the tank and also aimed a rifle at them, and they could see his gears working as the man assessed the situation again.

“We mean no harm,” he said again, this time to Gunner. “It’s been a long time since we heard a woman’s voice; we knew we had to do something!”

“No women where you come from?” Trigger snarls.

Cue started to climb down, and one of the new men moved to help her. Trigger kept her gun trained on him while Gunner held the others pinned under his own weapon’s sights.

Cue allowed the man to help her down and carry her over the viscera of the tiger, but as soon as they were clear, she struggled to get loose from hands that held her a bit too tightly.

“Where did you come from? You’re too big a group for me not to have found!” Cue said accusingly.

“You’re a scavenger? Me too,” the man who helped her said. “Names Pete.”

“Call me Cue,” she said, shrugging his attention off and backing towards the tank and relative safety.

“We have a compound about four hours' walk from here, give or take.” The leader says. “I’m Daniel, and Pete is my son. These are my brothers and uncles.”

“And where's your women?” Trigger demanded again, cocking her rifle and glaring menacingly at the men.

“Dead,” he said bluntly. “A long time ago now. The last was Pete’s mom.”

Cue narrowed her eyes at them and then climbed the tank, standing behind Gunner and Trigger.

“Does the big man not talk?” Daniel asked, pointing at him.

“No, you talk to me!” Trigger snarled.

“Alright, alright, ma’am,” he said gently, lowering his arms. “I see you're pregnant,” he nodded to her stomach. “You’re welcome to come back to our compound if it’s shelter you're seeking. We have a doctor—”

“A doctor! Trigger, we should go!” Cue insisted, coming up to her and placing a hand on her rifle. “They have what we’re looking for.”

“And we are just what they are looking for,” Trigger responded in a harsh whisper, but she let her weapon lower. She exchanged a look with Gunner, her lips pursed with worry.

The men eyed the women, yes, but they were salivating over the tank and the trailer of supplies. “We can make a trade,” Daniel said, and Trigger and Gunner raised their weapons again. “Wait, wait, be calm! I just mean some supplies!”

“We will not offer you our bodies!” Trigger snarled, humping off the tank and approaching them. Cue and Gunner at either side of her. “But we have a surplus of supplies, and I do need a doctor…”

They stopped in front of the group, and Daniel held his hand out to shake.

Gunner slapped his hand away from Trigger with the muzzle of his rifle and growled low in his throat.

“Shh, baby, it’s alright,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder. “We belong to Gunner, both of us,” she tells Daniel. “Im Trigger, and this is Cue. We will come with you to your compound, but one wrong move and your son will be an orphan, understand?”

“Two women for one man in the apocalypse. I’ve seen it all,” one of the men behind Daniel grunted.

Pete curled his lip at the man and punched him square in the face before giving Cue a shy smile. “You’ll be safe,” he promised.

“We understand!” Daniel said, his voice a warning for the other men behind him, should they decide to make another snide comment and get themselves killed. “We will lead the way, you can watch us from behind. Is that alright with you?”

“Yes,” Trigger said, using her rifle to signal them to walk on.