Rednecks Who Shoot Zombies on the Next Geraldo (2 page)

 
The injured man’s stomach was a tangled gray heap of looped intestines. His breaths rasped bubbly red; his legs convulsed weakly. Suddenly, he coughed up a gleaming red clump of phlegm and blood, then went rigid and was still.

“What happened here, Doc?” Muss asked annoyed. Tom followed Muss’s gaze into the corner and saw the body of Negro boy lying crumpled against the wall, the head a shattered melon of debris and bone.

Doc glared at Muss. “Tell Piper—” -
caaa
- “to lay off the weed and keep—” -
caaa
- “his pea brain on his work.” He indicated the boy in the corner. “That kid wasn’t pithed properly.”
Caaa
.

“You just cost us plenty, fuckface. And don’t think you won’t pay for it,” Muss hissed.

Doc ignored him. He pulled a small caliber handgun from a pocket under the smock. He checked to make sure the gun was loaded. “Piper has to make sure each corpse’s spinal cord—” -
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- “is completely severed before sending it over here. No—” -
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- “motor capabilities. I told Travis to check the kid, see if it was safe...” Doc’s voice trailed off as he looked down at the table. Tom noticed that Travis’ legs were twitching slightly.

Muss regarded Travis casually. “Hey Doc, tell our new recruit here how much you love your job.”

Doc turned to Tom and sighed. He picked up an inventory form smeared with browning fingerprints and began to read: “Negro male—” -
caaa
- “approximately nine years old, amputation upper extremities. Asian female, approximately twelve years old, extraction—” -
caaa
- “kidneys, lungs, liver, heart. Asian male, approximately seventeen years old—” -
caaa
- “extraction spleen, pancreas, small intestine...”

Young organs fetch the highest price,” Muss explained. Then Muss told Doc: “Be in Times Square by six. We’re goin’ to the slaughterhouse.”

Doc let slip a tiny laugh, then said, “I used to save lives.”

***

They made a full circle back to Muss’s office. Muss walked toward the door and said, “We’re leavin’ for the slaughterhouse in an hour. Someone’ll come get you geared up.”
 

“So...you’re just gonna leave me here?”

“Where ya gonna go?” Muss smiled, then disappeared down the hall.

Tom didn’t wait for someone to show up. When he was sure Muss was gone, he got up and walked outside. It was good to be able to walk ten feet without bumping into a cell wall. He saw a small steepled ruin at the far end of the compound, some place Muss hadn’t taken him on the tour. Curious, Tom headed over.

This whole place looked like something in a war zone and this building was no different. Tom pulled open the rotted oak double-doors and stepped inside. It was dark and Tom stayed put until his eyes adjusted to the gloom.

Black and crimson velvet curtains covered the walls, spilling in wrinkled pools onto the cracked floor. Offertory candles had burned into white, tumorous lumps. A black bra and panties had been spray-painted on a statue of the Virgin Mary that stood in an alcove to his right. The Virgin’s hands were outstretched in a gesture that was meant to be maternal, healing—now it looked like it was offering a sleazy come-on.

Tom stepped over to the altar. The bottom half of a wooden cross jutted up from the floor, splinters exposed where it had been snapped in two. The tabernacle was home to a nest of cockroaches.

Suddenly, Tom heard the sound of rasping coming from behind the pulpit. He took a step forward.

A man dressed in a frayed black cassock with the collar missing huddled inside the hollow interior of the pulpit. Tom assumed he was a priest.
 

The priest was mumbling some sort of verse, when he stopped suddenly and looked up. When he saw Tom he stuck his fingers down his throat and regurgitated a thick paste of snot and holy wafers. The priest dipped to his knees, ropy strands of saliva dangling from his lips. He scooped up a dollop of paste with his fingers and said:

I thank thee Lord

For these strong hands, this flock of sheep

But most of all

I thank thee Lord for unchaste nuns

Whose meat I eat

 
The priest tittered, then smeared the paste onto his tongue.

“Pathetic,” Tom hissed. He strode the length of the middle aisle and rammed through the double doors, his exit marked by a hollow, resounding boom.

***

Approximately fifty militia members were gathered in Times Square, the central yard common to each wing of the prison. The convoy consisted of several jeeps and heavy trucks, four armored cars and a monstrous garbage truck that used, Tom was told, to transport any deadheads encountered on the way. A chain-link fence capped the loader, and the rear door had been removed and replaced with steel bars.

Tom spotted Diane, dressed to kill—literally—as was her partner Blaine, the guy with the HOLOCAUST T-shirt. Doc had traded in his gown and mask for fatigues, his portable oxygen tank tethered securely to his ammo belt by a dog chain. He settled into one of the jeeps and picked unfailingly at a swollen purple canker sore on his lip. Tom was outfitted in stylish green fatigues and clashing orange safety vest. This lavish ensemble was topped off with a brown hunter’s cap, the crown of which depicted ducks on a pond.

“Oh, you’re stylin’,” Diane snickered as she approached. She nudged Blaine who gave Tom a quick once over and shook his head.
 

Tom didn’t answer and moved off to one of the trucks to wait for Muss.

The vehicles were idling and ready to move when Muss arrived a few minutes later, the crazy priest close on his heels. The priest was blessing each vehicle they walked past, accompanying each sign of the cross by muttering, “Fuck it...Fuck it...”

Muss indicated to Tom the jeep they’d be riding in—an antiquated wreck with a M-60 mounted in the back. As Tom got in, Muss yanked the orange vest off his shoulders. “You glow, you blow. Day-glo is like red to a bull for the deadheads. Who gave you that?”

Tom said he didn’t see him here.

“Fine. Bigelow, man the Pig,” Muss snapped, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Bigelow, reed-thin, doe-eyed and wearing a earphones, obediently hopped behind the 60. Tom regarded Bigelow over his shoulder. Bigelow stared back at him. “Sometimes, I walk as fire,” he said simply, tears welling up in his eyes.

Tom frowned and faced forward. Muss smiled and gave out the “move out” signal. Muss made the jeep peel out, and led the convoy west out of the compound.

***

Nearly five hours later the vehicles were still lumbering down a paved but bumpy highway, their destination a scant one hundred miles forward, or approximately five hours by convoy, barring any unforeseen stops. Thick trees lined the right side of the road; to the left, open fields, which stretched on for a mile or so, all the way to the train tracks, which were not visible in the darkness.

“—we load the deadheads we round up at the prison onto the trains and send ‘em
 
up to where we’re headin’—the slaughterhouse,” Muss said, continuing. “That’s where we process ‘em into hash.”
           

“People actually eat zombies?”

Muss nodded. “We sell it to Third World countries. It’s the only way the Stronghold can make any money. Tastes like chicken, I hear.”

Tom didn’t say anything.

“This bit about the trains not showin’ up, though, that ain’t good...”

“Seeing how you treat people here, maybe they just all quit,” Tom said.

Muss ignored him. “I ain’t been able to reach’m on the radio in two days.” He nodded at the militia force following them. “I figure it’s better safe than sorry. Shit could really hit the fan over there.”

The jeep jostled them like they were riding in a roller coaster. Tom swallowed around a dry knot in his throat. He felt nauseous, but he wasn’t sure why. There was something black and malevolent at work here, something Tom was only beginning to understand, something that went even beyond the obvious depravity. His father must have felt it too—it was probably the reason that he tried to get away when he got the chance.
       

Tom thought back to his feelings of dread when he first saw the Stronghold from the prison bus. He’d felt them again when he saw the zombies in the cells. And he felt them now for a third time—and they seemed to grow as the convoy traveled closer to the slaughterhouse. He suspected that it wasn’t the zombies themselves that made him feel this way. It was more than that; it went...deeper.

Just then, the armored truck on point began to slow, breaks squealing like feedback. Almost immediately, the garbage truck gunned its way out of the rear and pulled directly alongside the lead car in the opposite lane in the road.

Muss barely stopped the jeep before jumping out. Tom leaned forward—none too anxious to learn what was going on—but he couldn’t see past the trucks.

Bigelow slapped a quick drumbeat on the 60. “Lock and load!” he yelled at Tom, banging his head to the music in his ears. “I wanna rock n’ roll all night—and party every day—I!”

Tom hopped out of the jeep and angled his way between the two big trucks to where Muss and Diane were standing. Muss was peering through night-vision binoculars at something up ahead.

“Somebody in a Volkswagen,” Muss said, handing the binoculars to Tom. “Off the road about a mile yonder.”

Tom saw a trashed VW Bug convertible heading toward them from across the field; two people inside from what he could see. The Bug sputtered smoke fatally and wasn’t moving very quickly. A small pack of zombies was trailing close behind.

Muss snatched the binoculars off Tom’s face. “I’m pretty sure that’s Billy Ray drivin’. From the slaughterhouse.” Muss called back to the driver of the garbage truck.
 
“Follow us down.”
 

Bigelow was still drumming a beat when they returned. Muss pushed Bigelow out from behind the 60, and told Tom to drive.

Tom pulled out, maneuvering down the small incline into the field. Diane’s jeep was already ahead of them. They headed straight for the VW. Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw the garbage truck move off the road after them. The truck’s high beams were suddenly activated, along with a rack of four-by headlights. The field between the truck and hill the jeeps sat atop was instantly flooded with light, an infield at a night game.

The Bug stalled when Diane’s jeep was about fifty yards away. Muss immediately started firing into the zombies illuminated by her headlights. Three or four zombies at the end of the short trail of light scattered when they sensed the bullets, but most of the ammo went wide, cutting into the Bug. Muss stopped firing. “Fuck!”

Tom was literally standing on the accelerator. They buzzed past the Bug, past the kid standing outside yelling for them to stop. A thick mass of zombies crested the small rise just ahead, their white faces gleaming eerily in their headlights.
 

Tom noticed a familiar look in the eyes of these ghouls—a look he recognized from the zombies at the Stronghold. It was as if they realized the foolhardiness of their assault and were resigning themselves to whatever violence the militia would wreak upon them; it was the look of the truly damned.

Muss laid on the 60 again. Tom slammed on the brakes—must’ve been fifty or more coming right at them—and the jeep barreled into two zombies Tom hadn’t seen a second before. They got sucked under the jeep, sucked under the rear axle and run over by the tires. “What the hell are you doin’, Junior? Go! Go!” Muss screamed. Tom’s ears were ringing so loudly he had hadn’t even realized when Muss stopped firing. There were zombies all around them—in the headlights, on the darkness, on the hill.

Diane’s jeep sped by. Blaine manned their gun, firing for his life. Tom gunned the accelerator and followed. The jeeps hit the crest, nearly went airborne over the rise. They made quick U-ies on the descend trip, then headed back up the way they’d come. Diane’s jeep stopped at the top of the hill; Tom braked next to her.

The zombies were below them now. The garbage truck was a quarter of a mile ahead, horn blasting, turning the zombies in confusion.
 

Muss cranked on the 60. So did Blaine. Diane bounded out of her seat, unsheathed a shotgun from over her back, and charged down the hill, shooting and screaming something Tom couldn’t make out. She charged into the light like an insane soul confronting the glow of Afterlife.

Bullets hit the zombies and their decayed flesh and exploded like rigged charges. Most fell; only a few managed to stand and take the impact. Tom ducked out of the jeep finally, not quite sure of what he could do to help, but then Muss and Blaine finally stopped shooting. He heard a few more shotgun blasts, then that was silent, too. The night air was hot with smoke.

Tom started coughing. The sulfur burned his throat; the ringing in his ears was deafening.

Blaine climbed around his gun and into the front seat. He drove off slowly down the hill.

“Junior!” Muss yelled, already in the passenger seat. “I said, let’s go get Bobby Ray.”

Tom climbed in, put the jeep in gear and cruised past the fallen zombies. A few of them were still; a few more lay twitching in the grass, trying to move their ruined bodies in retreat. Diane, Blaine and the men from the garbage truck were hefting them one by one into the front loader.

A kid with long hair and a leather cowboy hat sat leaning against the bumper of the Bug. He cradled another kid with long hair in his lap whose mouth and chin were all frothy with blood and spit. The two zombies Tom had run over lay inanimate in the grass next to them. One zombie’s head had been squashed into a red smear of tire tracks.

“Bobby Ray?” Muss called, hopping out of the jeep. Muss bent to one knee to examine the kid in Bobby Ray’s lap. Most of his nose and right cheek had been gobbled off. A big chunk of teeth and the gum were missing. The kid was trying to smile.

Bobby Ray was crying. Tom noticed he was much younger than he’d first appeared. Fourteen, maybe. “Why’d you shoot at us?” he asked Muss.