Mark Clodi (16 page)

Max reached forward and swung the shotgun barrel at his head, “I told you not to fucking mo-“ BOOM, the sound of the shotgun going off was louder in this room than it had seemed moments before in the other bedroom. The bald man, pants half on fell over backwards clutching the side of his head and bleeding profusely. Max’s face registered surprise and instinctively he reach forward to help the man up, catching himself only when he realized what he was doing. 'Oh fuck!' he thought, 'I just shot a man!'

“Okay, o-fucking-kay! Goddamn it, don’t shoot me again! Shit! Shit! Shit on your Jewish-fag asses!” He still struggled with one hand to pull up his pants while clutching the side of his head with the other. Max pointed the gun at him and said, in a shaky voice, “I said: Don’t MOVE, you goddamn stupid fuck!” The bald man stopped moving, an awkward silence then ensued the man continued to bleed and Max could hear the dripping of his blood onto a magazine of some sort that was on Tom’s floor. “Tom, get your stuff. Now Tom.”

Tom scrambled to move to his closet, opening it he pulled out a backpack and started tossing clothing onto his bed, lastly he threw on a sleeping bag. Finally when the pile was finished he lifted up the foot of the bed and fumbled around underneath it until he came up with a black backpack, with a small metal plate that had the word ‘Port’ written on it. The smaller backpack had a durable looking rubber grip on the top and Tom set this pack by his legs as he stuffed the larger pack with his clothing. To Max he said, “Make him tell us what happened or kill him. I gotta get some stuff outta the bathroom.” Tom walked out leaving both doors open while he rummaged around in the bathroom.

Max looked at the bald man and said, “Talk. Now.”

The bald man began, “Nothing much happened, I came up here looking for a place to stay, there are zombies running all over everywhere and this place looked safe enough, I bedded down he-“

Tom came back in with contact lens solution, glasses cases, a tooth brush and other personal items which he put into a pouch on the side of his pack. “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. No way you woulda stayed here with a zombie in the next room and a body outside in the living room. My roommate’s body you asswipe.”

The guy started again, “Fags. I knew it! You're god-damned fags. Just like Billy Jo and his butt-buddy there. You want the real truth queer? We busted in here to protect this place, this whole place and your butt-buddy friends told us to go to hell. See what happens when you don’t want our protection? This”, he waved his hands around, “happens. Dumbshits.”

Tom leaned over his bed one more time, fumbling for something alongside it and came up with an aluminum baseball bat, he stood up and leaned over the bald man, saying between clenched teeth, “You did this. The zombies did not do it you lying fuck.” He pulled the bat back and Max yelled, “Tom!” at the same time that gunfire erupted outside.

Chapter 27

Jimbo guided Fred towards suburbia; a car sped by as they had left the parking lot, a few minutes and a block later another car sped by in the pre-dawn light. Jimbo thought a minute, he was not really that good at thinking just yet, it took effort and usually required that he stop moving. After figuring out that two cars went by, well maybe if that bitch Nancy and the gang were not dead, and he could feel it in his bones that she was not, they might, just might come looking for him. After all they only went back to the building for Fred in the first place. Jimbo pushed Fred faster along the sidewalk, following it as it became a bike path. He peeked out the other side and spotted where the path diverged into two directions, one path led towards more office buildings and stores, the other looked to run between two houses into a residential area, about a quarter mile away. Jimbo shrugged his cold shoulders and said, “I’m a little stiff this morning.” Laughing a dry, husky laugh he grabbed Fred by the hand and pulled him towards the houses as fast as he would go.

Surprisingly no four wheel drive suburban jumped onto the bike path to run them down, the most excitement they had was when they flushed a rabbit out of the bushes. Once they were in among the houses Jimbo stopped to evaluate the situation. The first couple of houses had broken windows, even a corpse in the back yard. No good. He needed something still locked up. 'Kind of like a Twinkie.', he thought, 'If you can see the cream filling it probably means someone else has already bitten into it.' So he had to find the Twinkies that were still all yellow. He scanned the houses from the back, looking, looking, yes; there were several options, almost a six pack of them in visible range. That one, the one with all the kid toys scattered all over the yard. That meant mom and dad had a kid, more than one to look at the place. Jimbo felt a momentary twinge of guilt, then it passed, after all a man’s gotta eat. Anyway a mom, a dad and two kids? Maybe three? Maybe they were Mormons or Catholics, four kids? Oh yes the day could hardly get better than that, he led Fred up to the gate surrounding the house and pushed on it, it was locked. He could not get it open, 'Stupid, fucking gate!' he thought as he moved Fred next to the fence. He pushed Fred onto the ground, where he immediately started to get up again, but Jimbo was faster he hopped onto the other zombie's back and tilted himself over the fence. Then he turned and opened the gate and grabbed Fred who had gotten to his feet again.

Pulling the gate shut he latched it, no need to make it easier for anyone else after all. He led Fred up to the back patio door and tried to open it. It was locked. This delighted him. Locked doors met someone had locked them. He looked around and saw a flat cinder style block under the water faucet near the house. Fred was wandering the back yard and Jimbo reflected that it was good that he had latched the gate after all. He reached the faucet and pulled up the stone, then brought it back to the patio door where he threw the rock through the window. Then he reached through the glass to unlock the door. In he went, the glass crutching under his reliable old work boots. He heard movement upstairs and smiled, the Twinkie had not been bitten into by anyone else…

Chapter 28

Nancy and the girls circled the business park in the van several times and found no sign of Fred or Jimbo. Nancy was becoming increasingly irritated at their lack of results and was not paying attention when they turned a corner a little too sharply and hit the corner of a purple-ish Hyundai which seemed to be parked in the middle of the street. The Van lurched sideways and over the rear bumper of the smaller car before righting itself and barreling into another car near the median of the road. Nancy took a hard punch to the chest as she slammed into the steering wheel, the other girls were pulled forward into their seat belts before the van stopped completely.

“Fuck. Yeah, fuck. Well it was not that much faster anyway, all these dumb fucking cars everywhere. I mean did all the zombies decide, ‘Hey lets go grab the people in cars’? Dummies. Out girls I need protein now and V is still looking famished, lets head for the houses over there and see what we can find.”

The gang stumbled out of the van and into the suburban neighborhood where Nancy was happy to see the power was still on. As they stood at the end of a driveway the garage door started opening, not one to waste an opportunity, Nancy motioned to Trish and Julie to get into the garage while she and V moved sideways off the driveway. The opening door was stopped as Trish scampered under the door and broke the connection between the electric eyes designed to prevent the door from squishing small children, pets and do it yourself garage door hangers.

“Oh good God Trish, that was a brilliant move!” she whispered, “C’mon V, we gotta get in there and help if we need to.”

They moved up, following Julie under the door, which was stopped about two feet off the ground. Trish had a passenger side door open and was pulling a screaming woman out of the car by her hair, a man in the car had a handgun and as they watched he pulled the trigger several times, hitting the woman and Trish, nothing fatal for Trish and Nancy hoped the same could be said for the woman. Two kids, in car seats strapped in the back were screaming, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommeeeeeeiiiiiiii!” Nancy approached the driver’s side door and wretched it open, surprisingly it was not locked. She lurched in and grabbed the man’s arm just below the elbow, then brought it forward into the steering wheel hard enough to shatter his wrist. The man punched her in the face, hard. Nancy staggered back, but, as always V had her back and stepped in and clocked the man with a punch of her own, sending his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Nancy got up and told Trish, “Finish that bitch Trish, all the way, no keepsies, share her with Julie.” Turning to Veronica, she said, “Well V, it is your lucky day, I get him, you get the kids, okay dear?” Grunting with effort she pulled the man out of the Subaru and lowered him onto the ground, where to start?

She started on one arm, the non-broken one, the man regained enough consciousness to start to struggle again, and when he eyes took in the scene of his garage he almost got away. However when the first of his children stopped screaming “Mommy!” the fight went right out of him and Nancy was able to enjoy her meal more. She made sure to tell V not to make any zombie babies either, before she drank in the last essence of the man she had. She gorged herself on him and the other were done long before she was, she stood up and looked at her posse, once again all restored to almost full health and beauty marred only by their distended bellies. Veronica looked sullen and pouty.

“What? Out with it V.”

“That was fucked up, eating kids, I mean I am a fucking monster!”

“You didn’t have to eat them, you could have gone without, your choice. Don’t get all moral on me now missy. In for a penny, in for a pound.”

“Stop that, stop it. These could have been OUR kids! You have kids? I don’t. Julie? Trish? None of us?” Veronica let out a sharp, ironic laugh, “What a bunch we make, designed to give life only to be the ones who end it even for the smallest child.”

The three other women did not share Veronica’s view point, that much was obvious from the way they were looking at her. Veronica could see any more comments would be more nails in her coffin and said bitterly, “Alright, I can see I am not going to win anything with any of you. I give in, but I don’t want to eat any more kids or babies.” Turning towards Nancy, “Is that okay with you?”

Nancy weighed the options a bit, she knew she could still reasonably force Veronica to do whatever she wanted, but she would rather have her as a willing partner than an unwilling one, so she said, “V, you are right. I am sorry and I won’t force you to do that again. I won’t force you to eat anyone you don’t want to eat. You know we can’t let them go though, right? I mean if we come across more families and the choice is to kill them or leave the kids alive, we will kill them all, right?”

Veronica nodded sadly, “Yeah I know, I know. I get it: us or them. What will we do when the food runs out Nancy?”

Nancy, looked sagely around at her group, “Well I don’t know. I don’t really feel all that hungry right now, I think I could control myself if we found another human around here somewhere, we could control them and pen them in for later consumption maybe, raise them for food? I have not thought that far ahead, but Veronica you are going to force me to think further than our next meal aren’t you? I tell you what, lets hole up here and see how long it takes us to get hungry again then decide what to do. Trish, Julie as junior members of the posse you guys have to clean up, roll the remains into the driveway and close the garage door, that way any other smart zombies will know this house was already taken. The dumb ones we can handle ourselves.”

The girls did as Nancy said while Veronica turned off the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition. Nancy went into the house and wandered around a bit, then noticed she was dripping blood everywhere and headed back to the kitchen, where she washed off as best she could. She held up each girl as they came into the house and made them strip off their soiled clothing and clean up a little before making more of a mess in the house. She then told them to get their things into the wash, take showers and get cleaned up. While they were exploring the upstairs and getting in line for showers Nancy started a load of wash on Cold, using the fine array of stain removers to work on the stains. Probably they could make due with the clothing the woman had left them, or one of her neighbors could provide a suitable garment, but just in case she ran the load anyway. As Veronica had said, what would they do with the food ran out? And that went for clothing too, what would they do when all the clothing they could find was blood stained? Go nude? While a good distraction, clothing provided some protection and in point of fact some warmth, Nancy was cold, always cold now. It was a strange feeling, almost more than human really, starting the stove she rubbed against the electric burner until it became too hot for her to touch it. After the burner heated to a glowing cherry red she forced herself to touch it with her left pinkie finger. It burned. It burned and hurt, but she forced herself to continue holding her hand against the burner. The smell of sizzling meat filled the air.

Veronica, coming downstairs in a white fluffy towel, called out, “Hmm, that almost smells good! What are you doing? Seeing if we can eat old style food?” She stopped as she observed Nancy holding her finger against the burner. “What..”

Nancy gestured with her right hand sharply, cutting her off. Both women watched as Nancy’s finger blistered and blackened over the heat of the burner, with more burn appearing on other parts of Nancy’s hands. Sweat was running out of the pours in Nancy’s face, dripping onto the stove in wet, slightly pink drops. Finally Nancy pulled her hand back and held it up between her and Veronica. As they watched the flesh on her finger grew pink and the splits in the skin sealed over. A blackened fragment of charred flesh fell to the floor and as the smoke alarm started to go off they continued to watch Nancy’s hand repair itself. In three minutes you would not have known anything had happened, except for the smoke in the air and the blacked bit of skin that had fallen off as Nancy’s wounds had healed. Both women stared past Nancy’s hand at each other, their eyes locking. Finally Nancy dropped it, the smoke alarm stopped chirping and she said, “I had to know Veronica, I had to know. My scars are gone, from my appendicitis when I was sixteen. I had that scar all my life. And it disappeared sometime since I became” she waved her hand up and down along her body, “this. What are we now?”