Chapter 50 Gunner and the Horde pt 2

Chapter 50 Gunner and the Horde pt 2
Gunner scrubbed his hands in his hair, fingers catching at the plates of metal around his neck. He didn’t know what was best. Trigger told him to wait, but if they were bringing that Cretin inside, it wouldn’t be good.

What if it escaped and finally caught Cue?

Gunner began to scale down the building, deciding it was better to be closer. Something wasn't right here; he just couldn’t put his finger on it. As usual, the zombies ignore him. Since he’s not technically alive, they have no drive for him. If he didn’t attack, they wouldn’t get crazed.

He shouldered through hundreds of them as they fought over scraps of human flesh. Gunner kept his eyes straight ahead, not looking at any of them. If he looked at the woman, he would see Trigger’s face. 

Staying in the shadows, Gunner scales the building across from the hospital. He held Rat safe in his arms, his presence enough to protect him and hide his scent. He never expected to befriend a rat, but here he was stroking his well-groomed fur.

He wondered what possessed Cue to have found and tamed a rat; it was a question he’d have to ask when they came back to him. Because they would come back to him. He watched the building until the gears moving his eyes began to grind and squeak. He’s going to have to oil himself soon, or his every step would alert any enemy that he was coming.

He remembered those sounds, the grinding of gears and joints going stiff with rust. He remembered the water, the deep water. He remembered drowning and then realizing he didn’t need to breathe to survive. What he remembered most was when they threw him in the water with an anchor and when Burns rescued him. 

Burns told him that he was one of the few who still held their minds intact, that he had been watching him, and how he paced the length of his chain over and over. He’s been watching for a long time before he even got the idea to reprogram him. 

Burns hauled him up from the water with a wench he figured out how to use and picked the lock on his shackles.  For months, burns tinkered with him, without ever oiling him so he couldn’t move or fight back, just in case. 

The whole time he worked, he talked about Trigger. About how she gave him his nickname after he was badly burned in a zombie fight by a flamethrower a friend was wielding. She held his hand and laughed, saying his new nickname was Burns. They had been arguing for months about a nickname because Brad just wasn’t good enough.

Burns talked about Trigger like she hung the moon and stars for him, and through him, Gunner began to fall in love. Gunner knew about the way the sunlight hit her red hair more than he knew how to fight anymore. Burns' love for her burned so brightly that it felt as if their souls merged and they became one man.

Maybe that was part of the programming; maybe Burns had found a way to copy the essence of him and embed that information within Gunner’s hardwiring. By the time Burns felt safe enough to give Gunner back mobility, it was as if they were twins.

He programmed Gunner to protect Trigger and give her anything she wished for. He was programmed to meet her every need. He knew that Burns never meant for them to be intimate; he didn’t think, but the order allowed even that to happen.

He remembered the first time he saw Trigger, although she didn't see him. She was smiling brilliantly at Burns, with her arms around his neck. Her green eyes sparkled as she looked at him. Her belly was just starting to show then, and Burns cupped the small bump with his hands.

He was broken out of his reverie by the sound of an explosion.

His attention jerked to the hospital where smoke started pouring out of the basement and the lowest floor. Almost at the same time, the zombies below snapped to attention and started running towards the burning hospital. Not because the noise attracted them, no, because they suddenly had someone controlling them again.

Gunner jumped out of the building and landed in an explosion of dust that made the plants around him billow in the breeze. He was running for the hospital when he saw a hatch door open and the Cretin escape. The Cretin had Cue in his arms, and behind him, a blaze of red gave chase. 

Gunner changed directions, lasers igniting, but when he looked at Trigger, she was waving him off. Confused, he powered down and met the two of them running out of the fence. In one swift move, he picked Trigger up and cradled her in his arms.

“What is happening?” he asked.

“We were escaping, and I stabbed Cue! Oh, Gunner, what if I killed her?” She pressed herself closer to him, clinging to him.

“No!” he roared, fear in the drawn-out syllable. “Why does the Cretin have her?”

“He said she would live if we went with him?”

“And you believed him?” Gunner growled, his lasers heating even though he could never shoot him. He could hit Cue.

“I didn’t have a choice!” Trigger sobbed, her body shaking with every sob.

“He better not be lying,” he pulled Trigger closer and kissed her on the top of the head. He didn’t lie to her or try to make her feel better with platitudes. That would be useless. He didn’t know if everything would be okay or if Cue would live, so he wouldn’t promise that.

They followed the Cretin to a sewer entrance that was blown up, a ramp leading down. They ran through the sewers for miles, the Cretin never slowing down, his zombie horde behind them, leaving no escape. They followed him through another hole in the wall and into the subway.

Gunner stopped in his tracks and stared.

The Cretin had left them in a community. All along the roof of the subway were buildings built against the walls. Each section had a rope ladder leading down, and the tracks were their one and only road. It was lit by troughs of fire against the walls, fire that illuminated the eyes of hundreds of people.

They stared at them in eerie silence but parted like the Red Sea when the Cretin came running towards them. Gunner followed carefully, eyes on each and every one of these people.

For they were not people at all, but a community of cretins.

Trigger pointed out that after they left the beginning of the village, a different man approached the zombies and controlled them, making them turn around and go back the way they came.

They had entered a village of Cretins, a village that was thriving and doing well and not infested with the dead. A village of people. People, just like any other, living and surviving the apocalypse.

“Is this real?” Trigger asked as they followed the Cretin with Cue through the crowd. 

“Help me!” he said to a man nearby, and the man climbed a rope ladder and held his hands out. Without a word, the Cretin handed Cue up to him and then followed right behind him.

There was a sign on the bottom of the segment of the building. It read, hospital.