The man smirks, then says. “Take it easy on the sauce, Boss lady.”
Queen says. “This world has been fucked, and we’re just left with the money shot.”
The man says. “It’s not your fault, he died, we still have our doctor, thanks to this boy wonder.” He moves the carafe aside and slides her the Chateau Margaux.
Queen says. “What are you doing here, make yourself busy. Get.”
The man says. “I’m passionate about not being passionate. I’m lazy, but that doesn’t make me a bad guy, if anything it makes me a better person because I don’t have the energy to think up evil shit to do.”
“Chicken shit, you should be out there,” both laugh looking at the doorway.
David walks in the room about to talk, but Queen hollers at him. “What brings you through these parts? Sit, take a load off.”
David says. “Good old fashion revenge, nothing complicated.”
Queen leans her head into her folded arms across the table. “I hear that, a simple goal is nice, but I also hear a man on the road of revenge must dig two graves, one for his enemy and one for himself.”
David pulls up a chair and sits at the wooden squared table littered with names engraved in it. “Only if the man is weak.”
The man points his thumb at David in a sideways jerking motion. “The hubris of this guy.”
Queen bangs the bottle a few times then says to her friend with her arms opened in David’s direction. “No, I like this kid, he’s an optimist, you don’t see one of those everyday. Sugar coating reality only postpones despair. He’s an oddity, like one of those horses with a big, long …”
Man says. “Dick.”
Queen says. “A unicorn.”
David says. “I’ve never been called a big dick unicorn.”
Queen sits up, rubs her eyes, she says to the man. “Bring us some coffee.”
When he leaves, David says. “Thanks.”
Queen says. “Don’t thank me, it tastes like shit, but what are we going to do, right?”
David says. “Have my friends showed up yet?”
The man says by the door. “I hope your Indian pals bring us some peyote.”
David says. “Are they here?”
Queen says. “Hell if I knew, I’m not going out there, those things are starting to fill the streets like cockroaches, like they own the joint, fucking interlopers.”
David says. “How many people stay here?”
“A few hundred, no one has died here since I got here and suggested a few ideas. Well, if you don’t count today.”
“Like what ideas?”
“You’ll see.” She looks at David. “People respect skills and have a what have you done for me lately mindset. That’s how I became the leader of this Concrete Colony of survivors.”
“So, what, that makes you the Queen ant.”
“Nah, I just like that music group…so how do you lead your group?”
David nods and she says. “Don’t be modest kid, you’ll be a leader one day if you’re not already one. It takes balls and skills to travel across this once great nation, and didn’t you say you have more people coming to join us, that’s another skill, getting others to do what you want, even if they know it’s a bad idea.”
David says. “I just want some people back, not a full time job of responsibility. I don’t think I could ever be a constant slave to everyone’s needs.”
Queen says. “I hear that, it gets lonely at the top, all alone with that burden, the cost of power. Everyone has their idea of leadership, but most can only lead from the sidelines in theory like a Monday morning Quarterback. I tried to quit this job multiple times. And for starters, I didn’t even know I was the new chick-in-charge until I realized everyone was always waiting for me to speak my ideas first and then people would agree or disagree with certain aspects of my thoughts. People here even had the nerve to get angry if my ideas weren’t that great. I would look at these people and think, I’m just thinking aloud, all of us are equal, so relax people for God’s sake. They forced an obligation on me and hold me to high standards, so they don’t have to do the same for themselves. Today’s leadership starts off as followers using leaders then leaders using followers, a twisted symbiotic relationship, but it can turn into something much more with effort from both sides of the roles. I’ll let you know when I’ve perfected my role, but don’t hold your breath, kid.”
David says. “Just leave if you’re unhappy. I was planning on leaving my group because of shitty leadership and followers like you’re talking about.”
Queen refills her sliver cup, talking into the stream. “Perfection is an imaginary concept like infinity, but that doesn’t mean giving up is a better solution…But you didn’t leave, did you? Why not?”
“Someone was preventing me.”
Queen says. “Now you’re on some sort of revenge vacation from your group, but will you go back to this person who was preventing you?”
David smiles, holding the bottle’s neck. “Actually, I’m risking my life to rescue his life.”
Queen says. “Wow, you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you? How about this, I’ll retire and you take over for me and be King David after your vacation.”
“Maybe in another life.”
Queen smiles towards the door. “Where the fuck is that nasty coffee?”
20
Following the explosion in Crater City, Ava runs through a dilapidated store after hitting a dead-end, she huddles through a convenience store window in the rear. She lingers when she gets to the other side and squats to one knee, fires her rifle until empty into the pack of human hounds running amok towards her through the store, her bullets go through limbs and chests, and she manages to kill two, leaving one charred flesh hound.
The enthusiastic crawler zombie gallops on all fours and rolls over like a Doberman after it sharply turns at the bend. Ava runs, makes a beeline for a looky-loo zombie interested in her goods and when she gets face-to-face with it, she slams his face to bits into the brick wall. It looks like paintball graffiti attempting to draw a circle.
Ava with a throbbing side finds herself on a block plagued with craters of diverse depths and she tries to run in a straight line, but has to hop and teeter around the shallow craters with a human hound barking at her heels. Hairs stand up on her neck at the sound of the zombie’s uproarious screeches. A leg slips in a crater and she crawls on all fours until she regains her proper footing.
In the distance, she can see a huge crater and begins to run faster, putting distance between the hissy-fit zombie and herself. At the edge of the huge crater filled with shit, she leaps over it with her handgun in hand. When she gets to the other side of the six feet width crater, she comes crashing down on her knee, ripping her jeans. She quickly rolls to her back, lifts up her head, and repeatedly shoots between her planted feet at the human hound as it flies over the crater, bullets go through its mouth and it lands in the crater of shit, it floats for a second at the top then submerges. A bandit down the block in front of her clamors in pain as she kills his pet. Ava stands up, ejects her gun magazine, checking the bullets, and then takes off running as the bandit chases her while blowing into a handmade duck whistle. The bandit has staples leading away from the corners of his mouth, a bandito mustache, and two overlapping belts of bullets. His head is scalped in a few places.
Ava freezes, when she sees a human hound zombie on the second floor of a building without a roof, or a wall that would have shielded her from the monster. She stands still for a minute, hoping it will move on like a tiger who prefers to attack from the rear, she closes her eyes and moves only her head painstakingly slow towards the zombie. She opens her eyes. “Fuck.” It has a blood mustache and murky eyes.
The zombie is mimicking her; she runs down the street, the zombie runs parallel to her on the second floor, flinging trash into the street. Ava runs and slides when she has to. The zombie leaps for her face from the second floor. She grabs the detached stop
-sign and rotates her body so hard she falls back. The stop-sign slices the zombie down the gut like a medical incision, its intestines plump over Ava’s thighs as she scoots on her ass backwards. Its not moving, still she uses the stop-sign like a guillotine, it works like a charm, but it’s so fucking heavy, she regrets having to abandon her newfound weapon.
Half a block from her dirt bike, Ava stops and hones in on a human hound catching up to her, so she plants her feet, dead-aiming the handgun as it runs up. The inimical monster gallops closer with its pendulous head, it screams and Ava does the same as she squeezes the trigger continually. Mists of blood sprays out the back of its head, it dies the true death midair and slews into Ava pushing her through the glass door behind her. The creaking of the glass reverberates down the sidewalk. Ava slowly slides over the glass, gets up, and tracks out the backdoor. I hope the Chief and Lou haven’t left my ass.
Under the shade of the awning, a bandit kneels down by the dead human hound in the glass door fragments and he places his hands over the zombie’s glistening eyes, closing them. Ava comes from behind him, grabs his hair, pulling his head up as she lacerates his throat, blood exits with the force of a fire hydrant. The bandito topples over and bleeds out on top of his pet. Now they can be together forever.
21
Queen’s escorting David down a fully lit hallway. He’s eating from a jar of peanut butter, he stops and spies into a room that resembles a spin class at the YMCA, in sound and look. Parallel rows of people on apparatuses, sitting in a reclined position and pedaling a silver metallic wheel to their right. Human hamsters. Queen brushes her hair with her hand. “One hour on those bike contraptions equals twenty-four hours of electricity…I’m working on restoring running water everywhere.” She crosses her fingers. “A brewery next, God willing.”
“Queen’s Ale.” David points at a man by a barrel and a ladle to his lips. “What’s that?”
“A water purifier, but I still prefer the spirits.”
Queen twirls her forefinger to a man on a coffee break. “Circle the wagons.” She leads David to a room with nobody, but a few tall stool chairs around a circular table and a door leading to the roof.
At one of the windows, Queen interlocks her fingers behind her back like a General and looks down. “I always wanted a city apartment, now I own a city, it’s not the same when there’s no one left to give a fuck.”
David hears a few engines revving up like it’s NASCAR time and goes to the window.
Queen says. “From school bells, fire alarms, telephones, crying babies, et cetera, humans have always had an affinity to obeying sound, it’s something primal within each of us and apparently it carries over into death, those monsters crave sound as much they love taking bites out of people’s asses.” David doesn’t want to leave this place, his respect for her keeps growing.
Queen takes her time, milking it like a tour guide. “Just like Vegas where the house always wins, these monster people will be the winners until all of them are dead. You can’t guilt them into behaving or pray them into nonexistence. These monsters are a mirror, revealing our true-selves when everything that can go wrong, does. It’s an extreme case of Murphy’s Law. When things are good, people can hide themselves behind distractions. Now you have to deal with these human monsters and yourself every fucking minute of every fucking day. They say prisoners go insane after a month in solitary confinement, that’s bullshit to the tenth degree.” She knuckles the glass window. “Live one day in my fucking life. I don’t have the luxury to become insane like pussies; who were brave enough to rape and kill, but can’t handle their guilt and four walls.”
She looks at David. “I have to protect others, people I like and everyone else. If you worked as hard as me, you could be fucking president.”
David crosses his arms and smiles leaning the back of his head against the glass, looking her in the eyes. “Quit bitching and worry about yourself. Stress kills, haven’t you heard.”
Queen says. “I speak bitching fluently. Life is too short and I don’t won’t to spend my last days sad and alone. Everyone is sad, but we don’t have to be alone. We’re not victims we’re survivors, there’s a difference. If you don’t know, you’ll never know.”
Delilah walks in. “How did you get here?”
Queen fogs up the glass. “Bandits. If they catch you, you’re freed to go if you can get through one man. By winning and killing him you can join them or walk away with no hard feelings. But this only happens only if you’re lucky and if they’re bored. Because when they caught my group, they separated us into two smaller groups, one to entertain, and the other to entertain with no remorse.”
Queen takes a shot of something and continues. “They untied a man and told him, he could leave, but the man just stood there in the middle of their circle-jerk, which was dozens of full blooded assholes. The man wanted to see what was coming and didn’t want to play their sadistic games. So the bandits obliged him and released four dog-like human creatures that ripped that man’s limbs clean off his body within minutes, but before they could finish killing him, the bandits used a duck-call to get the creatures to stop and come back to them. And the man just laid there, bleeding out, trying to pray to himself. Looking at me like I knew how to give him the Last Rites. It made me feel like the last kid to get pick for sports with a gun to my back.” She draws a human stick-figure on all fours on the glass.
Delilah says. “Wait. These people have human pets, bullshit, how’s that?”
Queen says. “Ask them before they kill you, little lady.”
David says. “Then what happened?”
Queen says. “After I shit my pants, the bandits walked over to my group and released my friend, named the Beast, a nickname from his NFL linebacker days. A soft-spoken Samoan fella.” She raises her hand over her head. “Yea high. Seven feet.”
Queen takes a seat. “Then a bandit with a severed ear necklace told him. ‘Don’t worry, we’re not going to make you fight our bodyguards like the last guy. You will fight a new recruit that wants our gift of immortality. If you win you can join our group and one day be like us with your own protection creature or humbly walk your happy ass anywhere you like.’ It sounded like bullshit if I ever heard it.”
Queen crosses her feet over the edge of the table. “My friend stood up and dwarfed the bandit talking to him, and then he was led to the center of the camp. Pretty gothic shit, that place, bodies on stakes, Vlad the Impaler style…The recruit that fought my friend was almost as big as my buddy, almost. When the fight started, the Beast grabbed the bandit by the throat with both hands and slid him to the back of a truck, then bang the man’s head into the corner above the truck’s taillights. The Beast was my group’s champion and now he was showing them he was the better man and that they made a huge mistake. The human dogs were becoming feisty and needed restraining at the sight of blood. After my friend crushed in the man’s face, he finally let the man fall to the ground and to his back. That bloody bandit lying on the dirt with all his strength brought up both of his arms to signal, ‘I’ve had enough.’ My friend looked over at their leader, a handsome cowboy type with a gun like that one.”
Queen looks down at David’s silver revolver, and then continues. “Then my friend stomped down on the bandit’s stomach. I was so close I heard ribs crack; blood spurted out of his mouth. The other bandits loved it with their hooting and hollering as if they were at a strip-joint. Thinking back on it now, my friend might have loved it too or was simply playing to the crowd. Then their leader with his long strides came over to the Beast and shook his bloody hand and said. ‘Stay or go, live or die.’ A bandit shouted from the crowd, ‘Help us fight these things, we kill these things by the hundreds.’”
“My friend paused, took in a breath, and said. ‘I want to stay and live.’ I closed my eyes in dismay at the sound of this. The next day it was my turn to fight and there were no cheers for me. Shocker. They let me fight someone in my weight class and as you can see I’m
no small woman, but I’m also no helpless woman either. They didn’t know that. Not a lot of splitting-the-atom types there, if you know what I mean. When my fight started, I thought I would let this big man swing at me and tire himself out, Ali style, and for a few minutes it worked until my luck eventually ran out. He landed some blows to my face and body; he managed to knock out some of my back teeth, which stunned me. I have never been hit by a man and I’m too old to make it habit. I fell down to my hands and knees and started to breathe hectically, and then I suddenly heard someone shout, ‘take this.’ I looked up at my opponent from the ground to see the bandit catch a whip in the air and unraveled it with a crack in front of me. At that sound, I sprung up and ran towards him and as he brought his arm up to strike.”
The chair falls back as she stands and reenacts the scene as if she studied at Juilliard. “I grabbed his arm in motion with both of mine and immediately head-butted him multiple times breaking both of our noses.” David notices the her bridge is off center.
“When I felt his body loosen up, I took his whip with its blade tip and tightly wrapped it around his throat a few times.” She’s standing, has one foot up on the table, crossing her arms and arching back, intensity in her eyes like it was yesterday.” Delilah takes a step back as if she’s next in line.
“Then with these two hands pulling up on the whip tied around his neck I arched my back to finish him. His arms did what every dying man’s arms do, clawing upward, and then nothing, so I let him kiss the dirt. I walked away the second after his death, no one stopped me or said anything to me as I left that camp.”
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