Authors: Richard Johnson
Indeed it
was. Inside the dining room was the dead man in question, propped up at the
table and wearing a homemade Christmas sweater. Of course, Smokey’s amateur
sleuthing skills kicked into high gear as he weighed the situation. “This place
is giving me the creeps now. Homeboy has been dead for years.”
“I’ll bite,”
Charlie said. “How would you know?”
“Basic
forensics. This is more of a mummy than a corpse. The body doesn’t smell too
awful and the skin is drawn back.” Smokey pointed to the eyes. “And those have
been sewn shut like you might see on an old shrunken head. It makes my skin
crawl just thinking about it.”
“So they just
kept a dead body in the house like it’s no big deal?” Sam said. “I’m freaked
out too. Can we go?”
Left-Nut
began to chuckle, though the sentiment behind it was obviously fake. “Bravo,
Charlie. You’ve led us into the Manson family’s summer home. We’ve got a
suicide Granny, King Tut over here, zombies on the porch, and Fatty McFatfuck
upstairs screaming like a god-damned porn star.”
The pitiful
wails picked up again, even louder this time. Then they stopped mid-scream.
Charlie looked around the room and noticed somebody was missing.
“Where’s
Vlad?”
Nobody
answered.
A creaking
noise revealed the answer as the Bulgarian came down the cluttered stairs with
a blank look on his face. “Is done,” he said matter-of-factly and wiped his
blade on a dirty towel hanging from the banister.
“What is
done?” Charlie asked pointedly.
“Severed
artery and big boy bled out in seconds. Not painful.”
Charlie blinked
rapidly. “Damn, Vlad, that’s just not right. We could have done something
else.”
“Right,
wrong? It no matter, is done. Besides, you want rescue pregnant girlfriend or
waste time babysitting Porky Pig?”
Left-Nut
nodded in agreement. “He has you there, Chuck.”
Furious,
Charlie measured his words carefully as Rob stood by his side, itching for a
violent reckoning. “Regardless, you just joined our crew and you’re already—”
“No, you
joined Vlad’s crew,” the fighter said with hard eyes and a cold demeanor.
Charlie stared right back and it appeared a bloodletting was imminent.
Then Vlad
winked. “Just kidding. Come on, we kill guys on porch and get moving. Lots of
ground to cover.”
The tension
in the room dropped, but Charlie was left wondering about the newest member of
their group. Was Vlad testing him? Was he a calculating manipulator, a madman,
or just an idiot? The Bulgarian grinned as he opened the door to eviscerate the
zombies outside and it became quite clear. He was all of the above. And he was
a big fucking problem.
Xavier
dragged Mary in circles through the forest for several hours and ended up
somewhat close to where they had started, next to the highway of smashed up
zombies. He had correctly guessed that his victims would flee the area, and he
now wanted to find a vehicle to do the same.
He’d also
used the last of his ammo on some random cannibals and now held his captive
through the threat of violence alone. With mild-mannered Mary, it was more than
enough to keep her in check.
Unfortunately
for Xavier none of the cars were usable, so he had to figure out what to do
next. The last of the Gutter Punks decided to rest for a bit while pondering
the situation. Free time for a sadist is always dangerous to those under their
control, and Mary would find this out in short order.
Xavier used a
cracked shard of windshield glass to cut out a seatbelt, which he used to
fashion hand restraints and a blindfold for his captive.
“Don’t worry
about me running away,” Mary said, speaking the first words to him since the
whole fiasco started. “I have nowhere to go since you took me away from my
friends. I wouldn’t last five minutes out there.”
Xavier
chuckled in an unseemly manner. “If they were your friends they wouldn’t have
left you. Anyways, those aren’t supposed to keep you from running away. I have
something… different in mind.”
Before she
had time to realize what that may be, the cretin lurched forward and shoved his
tongue forcefully down Mary’s throat. She froze up, earning a swat to the ear.
“What are you doing?” she asked and pulled her head back.
Again, the
chuckling. “This is called foreplay. Do you know what that is?”
“Not really.”
Xavier
sighed. “You’re taking all the fun out of this.” He scanned the road around
them for any dangers and turned back. “All right, you’re gonna dance for me.
And make it sexy. I don’t have all day.”
“But—”
“Just fucking
do it!”
Mary swayed
around in a shambling manner, looking more confused and disoriented than anything
else. She thought about shaking the blindfold loose and making a break
for the woods, but with her hands tied it would be near impossible to escape.
She realized this was how Jen must have felt and then began to sob, thinking
about the death of her friend.
“I said
sexy
,
bitch. Did you fall off the turnip truck or something?” Xavier set down his
empty pistol, adjusted the ratty bowler hat he’d taken from a corpse, and
clenched his fists. The woman was merely slowing him down and she wouldn’t be
around for much longer because of it. But she could still serve his nefarious
purposes in one way or another.
He opened the
back door to a broken down SUV and shoved Mary inside headfirst, causing her to
crash into the door on the opposite side.
“I’ve been around
a lot of women in my day. Sluts, crack heads, soccer moms looking for a quick
fix before driving back to the suburbs. You don’t fit any of those groups at
all. If I had to guess, I’d say you’re a virgin. That true?” Mary didn’t
answer, and Xavier kept right on talking. “They say your first time is the one
that you always remember. They say it should be special. But I gotta be honest,
it’s not gonna be.”
The chuckling
ended as he approached the open door with a stern face. “My first time was with
my third grade teacher, Mr. Murphy. Kind of hard to forget that, though I
tried.”
Mary grasped
for straws. “I’m sorry, but hurting me won’t—”
“Shut it.
This is gonna happen, so you’d better just accept it. And you’ll want to stay
quiet, because if any of these creatures comes around you’re my escape plan.
Capiche?”
Mary had no
clue what “capiche” meant, but she understood the rest of his rant quite well.
So she closed her eyes and hoped against hope that there was someone nearby
with a noble heart and a heroic streak. Some kind person that could end the
madness.
Of course,
there wasn’t. But Xavier gagged and then slumped over dead all the same. The
glass shard he had used to threaten Mary now protruded from the man’s throat
and blood spurted into the car, quickly pooling on the floor amongst a pile of
spilled french fries and a half-eaten pouch of Big League Chew.
Marquell
Washington shoved the body aside and pulled Mary out by her feet. Then he
retrieved the pouch of gum and put the rest in his mouth. Happily, it was grape
– his favorite flavor.
Like Xavier,
Marquell had made some assumptions, and had been proven correct. Primarily he
had guessed that Xavier would return to the area and would let his guard down
in favor of more immediate urges. It was elementary for Marquell in some
regards. After all, the gang virtuoso had used his Doctorate-level
comprehension of the criminal mind to rule the streets, and ultimately the very
prison he had ended up in.
Marquell
untied Mary and then took Xavier’s hat, placing it upon his own mound of matted
dreadlocks in a symbolic act of victory. Years earlier, Marquell had
successfully sued the Illinois Department of Corrections for the right to keep
those very locks under a religious exemption to the department’s grooming regulations.
It had been a test case for Marquell and a chance to get his toes wet in the
world of lawfare.
He had
several more pending cases, but they’d been interrupted by the zombie outbreak.
Not that it mattered. Marquell had found his freedom regardless of legal
status. But it was that freedom which now smacked him square in the face as he
and Mary stared at each other in the darkness, crickets chirping loudly and
mosquitoes buzzing around them. Marquell had never left Chicago, much less
ventured to the countryside, and he was totally out of his element. It didn’t
help that
The Blair Witch Project
kept popping up in his mind.
The two
quietly walked along the road for a few minutes before Mary mustered the
courage to speak. “Not that I’m complaining, but why did you come for me?”
“Russ said
I’d be harder to see in the dark. I guess the moron was right for once,”
Marquell said with his infectious grin. The truth of the matter was he had no
idea why he volunteered to rescue her, just that he hadn’t hesitated. Maybe he
wanted to wear a white hat for once. Or possibly, like Trent, he was searching
for some piece of atonement for his past misdeeds. There were plenty of them to
choose from.
“You didn’t
say why, though.”
“Don’t know,”
Marquell answered honestly.
She accepted
the answer and moved on. “What about the other women?”
“They went to
find help for the guy that got shot. Trent, my… associate.” Marquell dared not
call him a friend, although he had grown to respect him in some measure over
the past few days. “The brunette girl didn’t make it. Sorry.”
“Yeah, I saw.
She was a great friend.” Mary changed the subject to avoid breaking down. “Are
they coming back to get us?”
Marquell
stopped walking. “I’m not sure. They said they would.” The doubt in Marquell’s
answer was obvious. He had no real expectation the others would come for them
as promised, and he was seriously questioning the decision that put him in the
current predicament.
It was his
turn to change the subject. “My name’s Marquell, by the way.” The hardened
criminal was trying his best to talk in a manner he pictured as “civilized,”
but it came off more like he was nervous. And with the unfamiliar noises of the
nearby forest calling out, he was.
“Mary.”
“That was my
Mom’s name.” Marquell stopped walking.
“Oh, that’s—”
“I killed
her.”
Mary
apprehensively sucked air in through her teeth. “Umm, okay.” She always had a
knack for creating awkward conversations, but this one took the cake. Why two
men in a row had decided to tell her their childhood secrets was also a
mystery.
“I killed
her,” Marquell repeated, much quieter this time. Then he collapsed in a heap,
sobbing uncontrollably like he never had before. So many emotions, so much
baggage, with only one direction for it all to come out. He couldn’t stop, and
Mary, never one for profound conversations, was thrown for a loop. So she did
what came naturally, and got down in the dirt with her new friend, holding the
sobbing man close.
Comforted by
the gesture, Marquell launched into a laundry list of horrible details from his
life. There were the people he killed, the people he tortured, the ones whose
lives he had ruined both before and after the apocalypse, and those he had just
plain shit on. Drug dealers, foster families, social workers, and random
strangers had all felt his wrath in one form or another. Tale after gruesome
tale drove this point home in explicit detail.
Mary soaked
it all in while trying to formulate a response. It took her a while, but that
was okay, because Marquell had plenty to tell.
“Maybe you
had no choice? I mean, would you have done any of that stuff if you grew up in
Naperville with a mom named Tiffany and a dad that worked at the power plant?”
Marquell
shrugged. “I don’t know, but I doubt it. You’re talking the motherfuckin’
classical nature versus nurture argument? I have pondered that shit before.
Believe me.”
“I have no
clue what that means, but I doubt it too,” Mary said. “There’s a nice person
inside you, or else you wouldn’t have come to save me. That took guts, and
heart. You risked your life for a nobody.”
“No, you’re a
somebody.” Marquell wiped the last tear from his eye and stood up. “You’ve made
it a lot farther than millions of other people in our situation. Soldiers,
politicians, scientists… they’re all dead, but you made it.”
“So have
you.”
Marquell
nodded and sniffled one final time. He no longer questioned his decision.
“Let’s go. Maybe they’ll pick us up. If not, we’ll find someplace safe for when
the sun comes up. Can’t risk being tired and out in the open.” He helped her up
and then turned to walk off. “And don’t tell anyone about my little breakdown
here or I’ll have to kill you.”
He was
joking. Sort of. But after hearing some of the things Marquell was capable of,
Mary had already decided to stay firmly on his tiny good side. She wasn’t so
dumb after all.
He swatted at
a mosquito. “Motherfuckin’ bugs. I mean, damned bugs. Trent was right, I need
to stop saying that so much. My vocabulary, my demeanor, I think a lot of it’s
just been a costume of sorts to survive. To play the part, you look the part.
Can’t be soft behind bars, you know? But I’ve been wearing it so long I don’t
know where the costume ends and the real me begins. I’m almost scared to find
out.”
Marquell’s
continuing insights were deep and travelled far above Mary’s head for the most
part. But she smiled and nodded in agreement just the same. She was beginning
to like him very much, warts and all.
Maybe it was
a rebirth of sorts, or the stress of his screwed-up life in general, or the
fact that he had finally made himself vulnerable for once, but something
downright electric was jolting through Marquell’s body. And it was glorious. He
breathed in the country air, truly taking it in for once, and exhaled. The
tight muscles in his powerful shoulders relaxed slightly as the weight of
several lifetimes blew away in the night air.
Headlights
appeared in the distance, and the two ducked behind the nearest car as a
precaution. A semi approached at high speed, and its unique paint job was hard
not to recognize. So Marquell and Mary stepped into the road while the truck
came to a loud stop, its driver having applied the Jake brake with abandon.
The doors
swung open and Russ hopped out casually while the women ran to their friend.
“Nice hat, you big pimp,” he said with a wink. “Don’t look so surprised, bro. I
said we’d come back for you.”
Jackie and
Padma showered Mary with hugs and then Jackie hustled her into the cab before
any more unexpected problems could arise.
Marquell
adjusted his new cap. “Not my typical style, but it’s pretty dope. And the
previous owner won’t be needing it anymore.” He looked at Padma. “Did you find
what you were looking for?”
She nodded.
“It was amazing. Russ just walked in and got the stuff. The cannibals ignored
him completely. Even better, I had Trent stabilized a few hours later.”
“I told you,
I’m like a zombie Chuck Norris,” Russ said with a grin that made him look
somewhat insane. “Or a redneck samurai. Yeah, I like that better.”
“You mean
dead-neck,” Padma said, barely containing a smile. She was actually enjoying
her verbal sparring with Russ on a limited scale, but unfortunately her
opportunity to do so was decidedly unlimited.
Russ tilted
his head at the attractive doctor. “She wants the D. I know it.”
“Is Trent
gonna make it, then?” Marquell asked, unable to hide the fact that he was
starting to care. Why? He hadn’t figured that out yet. The cop had been a pain
in his ass the past few days, was obviously a racist, and had very few
redeeming qualities. Then again, Marquell wasn’t much of a peach either.
“It’s touch
and go,” Padma said. “He has a chance since I stopped the bleeding and removed
both bullets. But if an infection sets in…”
Drawn
by Russ’s gratuitously loud braking, zombies began wandering in from every surrounding
area, and it became necessary to head out in a hurry. Marquell climbed inside
the crowded semi as Russ pulled away, leaving the trail of ravenous monsters in
his wake.
The hillbilly
cracked open a freshly looted but rather expired beer and tossed one to his new
partner in crime. “Trent’s in the back resting, so we’re gonna have to decide
where to go without him. We have about sixty miles of fuel, give or take.”
“Will it be
enough to reach that airport I told you about?” Marquell asked and took a drink.
The beer was skunky and warm as piss, but after the past few days it was much
appreciated.