The Hellraiser moved forward, its massive catipiler treads crushing the raod as Raven sat back in her chair with her arms folded across her chest. On the central monitor of the tank, a CCTV feed showed the image of a police cruiser up ahead, beneath a broken lamp post . Inside, a zombie in a blue police uniform snarled and clawed weakly at his windshield, trying to reach the Hellraiser.
Raven tapped the screen to freeze the image. "What should you do when you see a zombie cop, Alara?"
Alara took a sip from her wine glass, glancing at the monitor, and then back at the road responding. "Proactive DUI avoidance."
The Hellraiser shifted slightly in its lane. As its metal catipiler treads began to roll over the police cruiser, as the tanks weight pulverized the vehicle. The zombie's final cry was cut short, leaving behind only a mangled mess of blue cloth and guts.
"That's my girl," Raven said, watching out the windshield in approval. "Now you're learning how we deal with zombie cops in New York."
Alara arched an eyebrow in question. "Raven you make it sound like there's more to zombie cops than just the uniforms and decay."
Raven leaned forward slightly, resting one elbow on her armrest. "Oh, there is. Wait until they evolve Alara. We call them Coppers. Those vengeful little bastards. Once they become smart, they don't just patrol their territory. They pick a target, usually someone who breaks some imaginary post-apocalyptic law, and then they hunt them."
Alara kept her eyes on the road, but the corner of her mouth lifted slightly. "Hunting them like, 'bringing someone to justice' or..."
"Like nightmarish bounty hunters that never sleep and never stop hunting you." Raven said. "You either kill them or let them eat you. That's it. Once you're marked, there's no hiding from them. Then there are the merchant zombies who will trade with you for supplies."
The Hellraiser finished crushing the police cruiser, the wreckage disappeared in the rear camera feed. Alara exhaled slowly and reached to refill her wine glass.
"Okay," Alara said. "That's horrifying. But you're telling me some zombies trade? Like, civilized bartering?"
Raven nodded. "Yeah. Merchant zombies. There are not many of them, but once zombie evolutions start hitting Phase One, a few zombies will stop trying to eat humans and start scavenging instead. They go to the worst places, radiation pits, flooded cities, Spitter nests, and grab whatever's useful, and then wander ruins looking for humans to trade with."
Alara gave Raven a questioning look. "And people will just... just go along with that?"
"It's safer than robbing them," Raven said. "If you try to screw with a merchant zombie, a zombie horde will come for you. It does not matter where you are, or what walls you're hiding behind, or how far you think you've run. They find you. I don't know how. No one does the hoard never rests in its vengeance for the zombie merchant."
Alara shook her head. "So what do they want in trade for scavanged supplies? Weapons? Food? Gasoline?"
"Nuts and bolts," Raven said.
"You're joking."
"Dead serious. They love shiny junk. Sometimes screws or metal washers. They hoard them like treasure. I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago."
Alara laughed and said. "Raven you mean I can buy supplies off a zombie for a handful of screws?"
"Assuming it's one of the friendly ones? Yes. It's more profitable than killing them half the time. And again, no one wants to get chased by a pissed-off zombie horde because they didn't want to part with some rusty bolts."
The Hellraiser swerved slightly to avoid an overturned city bus, then returned to the road. The streets were narrowing now, the buildings around them beginning to show signs of coastal erosion and salt water decay.
Raven leaned forward as she said. "Zombies are getting close to their phase one evolution, Alara. Zombie Evolution. It's starts subtlety at first. They begin to move with more coordination. A zombie pack will begin to eat each other. Then suddenly, they branch out into different evolutionary paths.
Alara took another sip of her red wine. "Branch out how?"
"Like trees," Raven said. "Brute Zombies, for example. Think of them as slow-moving tanks. Not much brain activity, but they can take an absurd amount of damage. Bullets barely phase them. The only thing that works on them is overwhelming force or high level explosives."
Alara said in response. "So, they become big dumb zombies?"
"Exactly. Then you have trackers like the Coppers. They are nasty because they remember you. They fixate on one target. They will spend days just following the scent of someone they've marked in order to eat them."
"There's many more kinds of zombies," Raven said. "We'll talk more about them later. Once we reach the beach."
Alara nodded her head in understanding and then asked Raven. "Do you think we will get shark zombies?"
"If we do," Raven replied, "you get to eat their cores as we tame a few for the shark torture chamber inside Sanctuary. I might put lasers on their heads as well."
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