Apocalypse Fighter

Chapter 57: What Bodies?

Anthony and Jimmy froze in their tracks. They knew that Janet was right, and their response shamed them.

“I have to find the killer,” Janet continued. “What they did was inhuman. It can’t go unpunished!”

Jimmy nodded and said, “You’re right. All scums should be killed!”

“Come on,” Anthony muttered. “Guys? We cannot forget our mission. We should go to the pharmacy…” Suddenly, he saw someone approaching them and he said, “Hey, look, someone is coming.”

Janet looked up and caught sight of a group of people approaching. There were about twenty or thirty of them, and the leader was a ferocious, hard-faced man with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. His men were wearing black uniforms and they had badges with the word “VILLA” on them. “Are they the security guards here?” she wondered.  

Anthony and Jimmy looked at each other with surprise in their eyes. The community had been overrun by mutant creatures, so they had not expected to see patrols of security guards. “I wonder if this has something to do with the old couple,” Jimmy muttered.

Anthony: “Or maybe they are here about the food from the convenience store…”

“I don’t like the look of them,” Janet added.

The leader lifted his hand. “You three!” he shouted. “Stop right there!

 Who are you? And what are you doing in the convenience store?” As the distance between the two sides closed, the man in the glasses took up an aggressive posture and his men followed his example.  

“It’s none of your business!” Anthony replied. “Get away!” For some reason, this intrusion reminded him of his dead wife and son. The last time he had seen them, she had been cradling the kid with arms so powerful that he hadn't been able to break them. “Damn it!” he shouted. “Are you even aware of the situation ? The animals have gone crazy!”

“We are aware of the situation!” the man yelled back. “And without our protection, you will all die!”

Jimmy frowned, stepped forward, and said,  “Since you are the security guards of the community, you should know about the bodies in the convenience store, and what happened…”

The man scowled and said, “What bodies? In the convenience store, you say?”

Without waiting to be told what to do, several security guards rushed into the convenience store. A minute passed and then someone shouted, “Damn it! Captain Lewis, all of the food is gone! Nothing is left! Don’t let them go.”

Captain Todd Lewis approached them, and once they were within speaking distance, he pointed to Anthony’s bag and said, “Just hand over the food. I know you stole it. If you surrender it to me, we can pretend like this never happened. What do you say? Fair’s fair.”

“Fair’s fair,” Anthony replied. He smiled as he dropped the bag on the ground.  

There was a police pistol in the bag, and although there were not many bullets, there were more than enough to kill these security guards. He didn’t open the bag right away, though. In the past, while he was in the army, he would vent his anger with his fists – and he was angry now. Killing these guards with a gun might have been efficient, but he would not have gotten any satisfaction. He smirked as he lifted his fists. “But I’m not giving anything up without a fight.

Todd laughed when he saw Anthony’s fists come up. “Well,” he said. “If it’s a fight that you want, then it’s a fight that I’ll give you.” He nodded to one of his guards, who stepped in.

“I’m ready when you are,” the guard said. He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when Anthony struck him in the stomach. Then man cried out in pain. He felt like he had been struck by a rhinoceros. He had been thrown two meters, and when he landed, he could barely breathe. He groaned as he got to his feet. “Nice one,” he muttered. “Come again!”

Anthony shook his fists. He had enjoyed the feeling of his fist colliding with the other man’s flesh. He had used only used thirty percent of his strength, and he was not worried about the outcome of the match.

The guard staggered forward like a broken boxer, and Anthony’s next punch put him out of commission. He fell to the ground, and nobody was surprised to see that he had lost consciousness – maybe for good. After a minute, his body began to convulse, and he started to foam at the mouth.

Anthony chuckled and said, “Well, that’s on less invitation to the ball you’ll have to worry about…”

Janey pointed and laughed. “Look everybody,” she said. “It’s a human vegetable!”  

Nobody from the VILLA’s side was laughing, and Todd looked particularly perturbed, but none of Richard’s men cared.

Despite what had happened, Todd did not fear Anthony. He had more men, and he had his loaded police issue pistol at his waist.  He thought about the face of the beautiful woman that he’d rescued from a mutant dog. She had said that she was a member of the imperial government, and that there would be many police officers coming to rescue her in a few days. He smiled and thought – As long as I can protect her well, I will be rewarded by the government.

It was the woman that had given him the police issue pistol. Her name was Vera Albert Thompson. She was a beautiful woman, with big hips, a thin waist, and a peachy face - just like a super star.

Todd thought that too many unbelievable things had happened over the past few days, and each one of them was beyond his ability to understand. Three days ago, he had been patrolling the community with security guards when he had received a call from a resident of the community asking for help. The man had said that his pet hamster bit through its cage and ran away.

“I’m on my way,” he’d promised.