With a shove, Tony goes over the steps and into the aisle where I’m standing, about a foot or so from my feet. Like me, his hands are cuffed behind him so he can’t brace the fall with anything but his face and I can’t catch him.
The zombies’s growls pick up. They are like hungry dogs locked in a kennel. The noise is enough to make you want to dig your eardrums out with a blade. I bend down to Tony, my knees popping with the motion, my ribs shrieking in agonizing pain. “Come on,” I say. He barely moves, but he does move. So he’s not dead, that’s a good sign.
A hand grasps him around his ankle, the fingernails caked with old blood and dirt. I move fast, faster than my wounds should let me, and I kick the hand at the wrist. It snaps against the bar with a sickening crack. Think dry wood breaking over someone’s knee. That kind of crack. But the zombie knows no pain. It knows nothing besides food and making horrible, terrifying guttural sounds. It continues to wiggle its broken arm out at Tony. The others are not as close, and this one can’t really do much with a dangling wrist.
“Admirable,” Butch says. “But we got a long ride ahead of us. I’d save that energy for when it really matters, friend.” He smiles.
This exchange — but most likely the sound of the breaking bones — snaps Tony out of his fugue state. He scrambles up, eyes the zombies all around him, then looks at me. His expression is one of gratitude and I nod in return.
“Put the two bitches in the other trailer,” Butch says.
“Watch your fucking mouth!” I yell at him.
Butch ignores the remark. “Put Herb in with me,” he continues. “He’s gonna get a long talking to. Maybe Spike will put him in the pits after I’m done with him.”
Some of the soldiers laugh as if they’re all in on some joke. Then one of them says, “Yes, sir!,” and grabs the handle of the door and begins to pull it down. In the distance, a shot goes off. Just one burst. I see the lightning bolt of gunfire and the exploding head of a zombie that has strayed too far from the fire.
“Wait!” I yell, my voice raspy and grating. The shout causes a spike in my blood pressure, which sets the wounds all over my body ablaze. “Don’t split us up, please.” I’m reduced to this, to begging.
Butch still wears the same smile. “Just following orders, Jack. Before you know it, we’ll all be eating dinner together in Eden. Like a fucking fairy tale.”
Darlene looks at me. There is no worry on her face, only determination. And the door closes.
Thirty-One
There is no light inside of the trailer. No airflow, either, besides the little bit of hot wind that slips through the cracks of the metal — and it is not much. I stand sideways in the aisle, Tony next to me, matching my same position. Each bump we go over sends us to the bars, where the faintly glowing eyes of the zombies wait for us.
So far, we are okay.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Tony.
I feel like this is my fault, I feel like if I would’ve stayed the course, none of this would’ve happened.
“Don’t be,” he says. “Brian was my boy, but he’s gone now. Nothing I can do. I am old enough to have loved and lost before. It hurts, yes. Life goes on.”
We have to talk loud over the rumble of the engine, the constant jangling of the bars, and the moans of the zombies.
“Besides, It’s not your fault. Ain’t no one’s fault. I loved my son, don’t get me wrong.” He sniffles. I can’t tell if he’s crying and I’m glad for that. If I saw the tough, old Tony Richards cry, this crazy-looking man who keeps corpses in his basement and who can shoot an ant’s balls off from five-hundred yards away, I’d start crying myself. And Johnny Deadslayer would never cry, so neither does Jack Jupiter by default.
“If we would’ve never came to the farmhouse — ” I begin to say.
“But you did. That’s the way things happened. That’s the way life is. We can’t change it. We have no control. Butch Hazard is a sick son of a bitch and he will get his, that I’m sure, Jack. Whether it’s by me or you or these damn monsters or a freak lightning bolt, he’ll get it. I take comfort in knowing that.”
Me, too. Tony is right. Butch is going to get his, I’ll make sure of it.
The truck lurches, and we are launched to the left. I don’t resist, I go with the motion, kicking my leg out and finding purchase against one of the metal bars. Tony does the same. A little less gracefully, but I don’t hear any chomps or screams, so he’s all right.
“Eden ain’t what it used to be, Jack. I told you that once before.”
“I know, if I would’ve listened and gone somewhere else — ”
“You’d never be in this mess,” Tony says. “Brian would still be alive, yada yada yada. That’s bullshit. Butch and his gang would’ve found you or you would’ve found Herb and they would’ve found you then. It was meant to be this way because it happened this way.”
“I — ” Another bump, this one sends the floor out from beneath me. I land with a jerk and stumble to the left. A zombie is there to greet me, smashing its face against the bars. This one is a girl with hair the color of old bones. I only know this because, like moonlight, it seems to glow in the darkness. I am quick to back away and regain my footing.
“You okay, Tony?” I ask.
“Just peachy,” he answers. “Well, I’d had enough standing for the day. Frankly, I don’t feel very energetic. I’m getting up there in age. Before you know it, Jack, it’s just gone. You lose it. So I’m gonna sit down, put my back up against the door…” I hear his bones cracking, somehow louder than the constant drone of the truck’s engine, as he sits, “And maybe take a nap.” A zombie screeches. “Aw, shut the hell up, you devil!” The zombie does, in fact, they all do. It’s eerie.
Goosebumps prickle up my skin, but I can’t complain. The momentary quiet is nice, but with it comes the worry and fear. Darlene is essentially by herself. Abby is beaten and broken, of no help to my fiancé. Herb is in the cabin, riding first class with Butch Hazard. I have no idea where my brother is, and I am suffering from multiple injuries, trapped in a trailer with about a hundred creatures that crave human flesh and guts.
Things are not looking good.
Like a kid during a long car ride, I say, “Tony, are we there yet?”
“We got a ways, cowboy. Rest up while you can and make sure you bring your six-shooter.”
“What?” I ask, but he never answers me. I chalk it up to trauma. When people go through messed up times, they don’t stay right in the head. Understandable. But the calmness in his voice scares me, too. He speaks like a man who has never suffered at all in his life. I know that’s not true. Tony Richards has suffered. He is suffering now.
Hell, in this dead, piece of shit world, we all suffer.
Thirty-Two
I have just garnered up the courage to sit down on the other side of the trailer, my back against the side closest to the front of the semi. Tony snores opposite of me, and the zombies make no noise. How any of this is possible is beyond me. But I’ll take it.
I start to drift off moments later. This is probably not the smartest thing I have ever done, but my body is in command now. Bye, bye, brain.
The last image I see in my head before the blackness takes over is of Darlene. She is dressed in a white gown. I am not a man who appreciates the girly things in life — fashion, wedding dresses, make up, and so on — but this dress is beautiful. It is made for Darlene. She smiles the slightest bit beneath a veil. Her eyes glow bright in the dim light surrounding us. I am moving closer. My hands go out in front of me. I realize I’m wearing long-sleeves. I look down, see my reflection in the polished, dark shoes on my feet. I am wearing a tuxedo. Candles dance lazily behind Darlene. I am not walking as much as I am floating. I smell flowers and people, the scents of many of them crowded into a room — perfume, mint chewing gum, coffee-breath. I look to my left and see we are in a church with a high-vaulted ceiling. All the pews are full. People wear their Sunday’s finest, packed shoulder to shoulder
. People I don’t recognize at first, but when I squint my eyes and scan the front row, I see my mother. She is how I remember her, not how I last saw her. My brother is there, too, as his eighteen-year-old self. Abby, Kevin, James, Sheriff Doaks behind him.
“Good job, little brother,” Norm says to me, and he smiles.
I lean closer, feeling my eyes getting wider, but not seeing clearly. From Norm’s mouth spills a wave of black sludge. I scream. No sound comes out. I want to move, but I am nailed to the floor.
This is when the lights go out and my heart drops to my knees. I smell smoke, but something else overpowers it. The smell of rotting corpses.
The lights kick back on. Everyone in the crowd is different. Their Sunday finest has changed into their burial clothes, and they’ve been buried a long time. Dirt cascades off their shoulders in thin clouds as they stand up. Worms wiggle from their eye sockets. Some of them have no lips, their faces smiling forever.
My mother is opened in the middle. She has not rotted yet. Her organs hang out of her like candy in a half-busted piñata. A chunk of her nose is gone, in the flesh is little teethmarks — I can’t tell if they are from a human or from some animal like the sheriff has told me (When?) (How?) (Help).
I try to scream again. Nothing.
Rustling of papers behind me. I turn to look. It is the same priest who spoke when I buried Mother. He is flipping through his Bible. It is moldy and dank. Like him. Maggots squirm in his dirty eyebrows. He smells like rotten milk and sweetness. I want to throw up.
“Ah, yes, here we are,” he says, and he smiles. The folds of his flesh crinkle with the sound of wrapping paper. One eye rolls back in his head. “Do you, Jack Jupiter, promise to take Darlene Christie as your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold until someone bashes out your brains, for worse or for worser, in sickness and in squelch, to love and to cherish, from this day forward until life do you part?”
I don’t answer. I am screaming in my head, screaming until I feel nauseous. Suddenly, I feel everyone’s eyes on me. I look down at my feet, see a rotten toe sticking out from a hole in the leather. Worms wiggle from it. Maggots shift beneath my loose toenails.
I look to Darlene.
“I do,” I say, if only to stop this madness.
“You may now kiss the bride,” the priest says.
My hands begin to work on their own. They reach out grab the veil, and lift.
Now, the screams escape my lungs. Darlene’s face is gone. What remains is a shiny, pulpy, bloody mess. Her skeleton shows through. Her teeth are mostly gone. Those that remain are broken and cracked.
Darlene Darlene Darl —
“Darlene!” My scream wakes me up. The inside of the trailer is hot and I am soaked through with sweat, but somehow I am shaking, chilled to the bone.
My vision is blurry, still coming out of the sleep. I don’t know how long I slept for, but I know I never want to sleep again.
The zombies rustle and groan around me. They are no longer quiet as they were before, but they are also not as loud. In fact, it is not very loud at all inside of the trailer. I realize we have stopped moving. The idling sound of the running engine is off. I hear footsteps, boots thudding concrete, outside of the thin metal walls.
Then I hear Tony’s voice as he yelps and the door rattles on its hinges. “Watch it, asshole,” he says.
My vision has cleared enough for me to see him almost tumbling into an abyss of great, white light. Then I am blinded.
It is not Butch Hazard who comes into focus. It is just one of Butch’s soldiers. He is a middle-aged man who wears spatters of blood on his face like it’s a new fashion.
“Both of them?” he asks someone I can’t see.
“Yep,” a gruff voice answers back. “Spike’s orders. Get the young one, I’ll take this old fart to him.”
The soldier seems to quiver at Spike’s name, then he says, “All right,” and makes his way into the trailer.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
The soldier digs something out of his waistband. It resembles a gun, but I know it’s not. It’s too technological looking for that. As he gets closer, I see the syringe on the end. That’s when I start bucking and kicking out to him. But I am no match with my hands cuffed behind my back and with the zombies all around us, who’ve now started to match my intensity with their shrieks and groans.
The syringe plunges into my neck. My head cricks and I feel a great burst of coldness dancing through my entire body. He moves out of my way. I see Tony doing much the same thing as I am.
He screams, “Don’t let them stick you, Jack! Don’t let — ”
But it is too late.
The brightness doesn’t fade as much as it cuts out. And I am back in slumberland, but this time I don’t dream of a zombie wedding.
Thirty-Three
The cell I wake up in is about six feet by six feet. There’s straw coming out of the mattress, which is an inch thick set on a concrete slab that takes up most of the right side of the room. There are bars in front of me, like a robot’s smile, too close to even attempt to squeeze out of. I hear nothing and almost see nothing.
It is early morning, I think, judging by the sun’s faint rays streaming in through a small window at the top of the back wall. I am dazed, hungover, in pain…you name it, and if it’s bad, then I probably feel like that.
There is no sign of my group. I start shaking. God, where are they? How many prison blocks would a place like Eden have? I think of shouting out for Darlene, but decide it’s not the best thing.
I smell shit and blood and sickness.
In the corner of the cell on the left side is a bucket overflowing with mucky brown water. My own private bathroom — just what I’ve always wanted.
I stand up on shaky legs, climb up to the bed, and look out the window.
What I see takes my breath away.
Mainly because it is not what I have expected.
A rusty roller coaster sticks up high into the sky, a cart on the track stuck at the top of the hill. There’s a larger structure beyond, written down it reads, TOWER OF POWER. I see a circular stadium, rolling mounds of dirt inside of it. I see a Ferris wheel, the green and red paint splotchy and peeling. I am on the fourth or fifth floor of some building, looking out onto an abandoned theme park. There are walls constructed around the edge of land, made of wood and metal, patched and unprofessional, but some of these walls almost reach the midpoint of the Ferris wheel’s height. I wonder if they are really there to keep the zombies out and not to keep the people in. Near the back of the fence are houses, the type of houses the government would construct in a low-income area. I’ve seen many of them in Chicago. They were once nice here, but now they are falling apart. Shattered windows. Shutters hanging crooked. Doors covered by plywood.
Sad.
Closer, I see shuttered buildings with signs like: GAMES, FOOD, & FUN! ENJOY AN ICE-COLD COCA-COLA! I see some people milling about. They don’t look like your typical amusement park goers. There are no smiling faces. Everyone walks like the weight of the world is on their shoulders.
It might of once been a place of fun, but now it is a place of oppression.
“Welcome to Hell’s theme park,” a voice says, I faintly recognize.
“Tony?” I say. “Tony, is that you?”
“Yours truly,” Tony answers. “Heard you shuffling around like a drunk in the dark.”
He must be in the cell next to me. I don’t see him, but I hear him loud and clear.
“Where is the rest of the group?”
Tony makes a nasally noise like he’s weighing the question. “Could be they’re dead.”
No. No, they’re not. Somehow, I know they’re not. I’m shaking me head as Tony starts talking again.
“But I doubt it,” he continues. “Spike is like a big, dumb cat. He’ll play with his food before he eats it. Like Tom and Jerry, remember that cartoon, Jack?”
“I do,” I say, trying to ignore how crazy Ton
y sounds.
There’s a moment of silence, heavy silence, the kind that feels like it’s suffocating you.
I break it with another question. “Who is Spike, Tony, really?”
Tony chuckles. “Best I don’t say here. He’s always listening.” He pauses, the silence deafening. “Eh, fuck it. Spike is a petulant asshole. Rumor has it that he worked here before this shit went down.”
I picture a large, muscular man working security or helping build roller coasters.
“Worked in the Old West part of the park as a Black Hat impersonator, you know, the bank robber, the merciless killer.”
That image in my head shatters.
“Funny, isn’t it? I heard he got so tired of losing in the staged gunfights, he threw a tantrum and shot his cap gun off at the good cowboy, then turned on the crowd and shot the caps off at the families watching. A couple kids burst out in tears and suffice to say, some mommies and daddies weren’t very happy ‘bout that. He gets the pink slip and it’s bye, bye, bad guy.”
“So how’d he take over if he’s just a punk playing dress up?” I ask. I am leaning up against the wall, a little too close to the slop bucket.
“Because he’s crazy and when someone is crazier than a world where the dead are walking around, that person always wins…but I’ve said enough, I think. You’ll meet him soon — ”
A door opens at the end of the long, dark corridor. My heart hammers in my chest. Am I going to meet him now? I hate myself for not being ready, for being caught off guard. I will fight if I have to, fight until I am reunited with Darlene and my group.
It is not Spike, but Butch Hazard carrying an AR15 instead. He’s smiling, thin skin stretched over his skull, making him look like Death.
He opens the door. Metal grinds as the gears click open
I stand my ground. No longer cuffed. I can fight back.
He raises his rifle. I don’t even get to speak before the butt of the gun cracks me against the side of the head. I hit the floor hard, loose straw sticking to my face.
The Dead Collection Box Set #1: Jack Zombie Books 1-4 Page 32