Hissers II: Death March by Ryan C. Thomas Page A

”
    “It’s Carol,” she said.
    “No it ain’t. Ain’t no young thing like you named Carol. This ain’t 1966. What’re you like a Kaitlyn or a Brittany or something? You got that young cheerleader look going on. C’mon, we told you we ain’t gonna hurt you. Fact you’ll probably be happy we saved your cute little ass. Now what’s your name?”
    Amanita hesitated. She could see in his eyes he wouldn’t believe anything but the truth or something close to it. He squeezed her arm so hard her mouth came open in agony. “Amanita! It’s Amanita.”
    “That sounds fake, too” said Spider Neck.
    Teardrop let go of her arm. “Yeah, but sounds too fake to be really fake. What’re you, like half African or something. They all got them dumb names like Labamba and Tequila and stuff.”
    “My parent s were kind of hippies. Okay?”
    “Yeah. Okay. I can see that, C’mon, keep moving. This way.”
    They wandered farther into the woods, ducking branches and passing through dark shadows. Gnats and other bugs tried to fly up her nose so she kept her head down. Which was a lucky thing because now she could see the small orange dots spray painted at the bases of the trees, many of them almost covered by moss and leaves. They were some kind of markings meant to be hidden unless you knew what you were looking for. A trail, she realized. This was how they knew where they were going. This knowledge gave her hope. If she could slip away from them somehow, she could run back following the orange dots and hope to find the road.
    Teardrop shoved her forward some more, making her turn at points and forcing her to do a few half circles around large boulders. Always there was an orange dot somewhere nearby.
    After what seemed like a good ten minute walk, they emerged into a grassy clearing. Sitting in the middle of it was an archaic log cabin. On its right side she could see a woman hanging up clothes on a line. She wore a long blue dress and had long flowing blonde hair. As they approached, the woman turned, saw Amanita and her captors, and smiled. Then she went to the back door of the cabin, opened it, and yelled inside. “Harold! They’re back.”
    “Wait here,” Teardrop said, forcing her to stand still. Spider Neck stepped up behind her to ensure she couldn’t run away.
    As Teardrop approached the back door, a man stepped out. He was wearing khaki pants, a blue button down shirt with a black sweater vest, and loafers. His hair was neatly trimmed and his face was cleanly shaven.
    “Jimmy,” he said, addressing Teardrop by his real name. “You’re back.”
    “We are at that, Harold. We couldn’t find you that thing you wanted. But we found you this.” He pointed at Amanita.
    “ What the…? My God the poor girl looks terrified. What did you do to her?”
    “Nothing. We saved her, in fact. But she’s been fixing to run away this whole time and I told her we can’t be alerting them zombies out there to where you are. That was your orders, remember? I figured you could take her in, give her some food and shelter. She was just running down the street being chased when we found her. Had a whole lot of them things right on her heels.”
    “ I saved her,” Spider Neck said triumphantly, holding up her backpack.
    “Thank you, Chester,” Harold said. He approached Amanita and smiled with teeth too white to be real. “Hi, I’ m Harold. This is my home. As you can see, these two goons work for me and I apologize for the way they’ve treated you. They can be rough and abrasive, but they are hard workers. This here is my wife, Michelle.”
    “Hello,” Michelle said, back to hanging up fresh laundry on the line.
    “What’s your name?” Harold asked.
    “Her name’s Armadillo or something,” Spider Neck/Chester said.
    “It’s not Armadillo, you retard,” Amanita said. “It’s Amanita. My parents were hippies . So what?”
    Harold rubbed his chin. “Ah yes, Amanita. Beautiful red mushrooms, I