The darkness comes again.
Thirty-Four
I regain consciousness an eternity later. Dim lights come on with a dull click that echoes in whatever room I’m in. It echoes harder in my head. With this sound, my eyes open. My head is swimming. I feel both tired and rested. Mostly I feel hungover.
It doesn’t take long for my eyes to adjust because of what I see in front of me.
It is Darlene and I am relieved she is not a zombie. I lunge forward. “Darlene!” I shout, trying to jump the table and hug and kiss her. No luck. Metal bites into my wrists. I’m handcuffed to the chair, not going anywhere. Go figure.
Darlene doesn’t wear a wedding dress and a veil like in my nightmare, but a tank top, the kind with spaghetti-string straps. It is normally a light blue, but has been blackened by blood and sweat and dirt. She is asleep and she always looks even more angelic when she’s sleeping.
Between us is a long table made of shiny metal. There are scratches on the surface from what looks like forks and knives. Or maybe this was actually a chopping block.
The fear starts creeping back into my brain, drowning out the relief of seeing Darlene. I try to shake it away but can’t.
The door opens, letting in a flood of more light. I catch glimpses of the walls — brick, stained with red, cracked and falling apart.
A shadowy figure is in the doorway. It is either a very large person or two people.
When the figures cross through I see that it is two people. One of Butch’s soldiers and Abby. She is awake, stumbling and groggy-looking, but awake. Blood has since dried on her upper lip and from the corners of her mouth.
“Abby,” I say. Now the fear goes, replaced by fury. I grip the arms of the chair hard.
She looks at me with a blackened and swollen eye and manages a smile. The soldier guides her into the seat next to Darlene. He pulls the chair out for her and it makes a terrible screeching noise that is enough to rouse Darlene out of her daze.
Darlene takes in a deep breath and her eyes flutter. “Jack?” she says. “Jack, where are we?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. I feel like I might cry. There’s a cloud of happiness swelling inside of me, but inside that cloud, there are streaks of black fear and sadness, threatening to burst.
“My head hurts,” she says. “Did we drink another box of wine? I thought we were gonna quit doing that.”
I laugh, the sound bursting from my lips. It hurts. Darlene and I used to go to Walmart and buy a couple boxes of Franzia, then at home, we’d put on a B-movie horror flick, get drunk off our asses, laugh at the terrible acting, and fall asleep in each other’s arms. Of course…we’d wake up with terrible hangovers and even worse breath, but hey, those nights were fun.
“No, honey,” I say.
Darlene’s muscles twitch as she tries to bring her hand up to rub her head. She is stopped short by the cuffs.
The soldier offers us a lopsided grin, as if to say, “Ha-ha, you ain’t going nowhere.”
We’ll see about that.
More people shuffle in through the open door where the blinding, outside light has dulled to something resembling normalcy. It is Tony being pushed by another of Butch’s soldiers. He is thrown into the chair next to me. The cuffs click a million times before the soldier stops pressing down on them. Fresh blood spills from his nose. Through all of this, Tony doesn’t show that he is in pain or that he is even out of control. I can’t help but admire the man and feel bad for him at the same time.
“Stop, you’re hurting him,” Abby croaks. Her head lolls back and forth. The soldier pays no notice to her pleads.
“What’s going on, Jack?” Darlene asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, in a whisper. I truly don’t and it makes me feel like I’m walking a tightrope between the tops of two skyscrapers, no harness.
“Someone please tell us what’s going on!” Darlene squeals.
No answer.
The soldiers make for the door. It starts to shut behind them, the little bit of daylight getting slimmer and slimmer.
We are left without an answer. All four of us are handcuffed to our chairs. There are no windows, only brick walls stained with what I imagine to be blood. And our one escape is closing slowly.
Just as I am thinking this, the door swings open.
Hope swells in my chest, but it’s quickly dashed when I see who strolls in through the door. All barrel-chested, standing too straight. Butch Hazard.
“Welcome to Eden,” he says. “Bring in the other one.”
One of the soldiers appears in the doorway.
I try to jump from my chair, but I’m not going anywhere. Instead, the cuffs cut into my wrists, making a rippling burst of pain shoot up my arms all the way to where the bullet graze wound pulses.
“Norm!” I shout.
It’s like he doesn’t even hear me. His chin touches his chest, head moving back and forth like a bobblehead. Butch grabs a handful of his hair and pulls him up so he is facing me. What I see almost burns me from the inside out. Norm looks nothing like he did when I last saw him. His face is a pulverized piece of meat. A chunk of his bottom lip is missing. His cheeks are swollen, eyes puffy. He looks like a man with a bee allergy who’s fallen in a human-sized nest and has been stung over and over again. I can’t help but think this is my fault. Somehow, someway. My fault. I want to scream. I want to cry. And I can’t do either of these things. I have to remain composed. Calm. Collected.
“Norm,” I say.
“My God,” Darlene says. “You’re a monster.”
Butch chuckles. “No, sweetie. The monsters are outside of these walls. Look on the bright side. If you can stomach a couple punches to the face,” he lifts up Norm’s hand, which is wrapped with a grimy and blood-soaked bandage, “and a few missing fingers, then you’ll be safe from the real monsters.”
This is when I realize Norm is missing the index finger on his right hand — his trigger finger. It is cut off to the middle knuckle, causing it to be even shorter than his pinky. The graffiti I saw in Sharon flashes inside my mind: HIDE YOUR FINGERS. I feel like vomiting.
He unhooks cuffs from the back of his pants, and puts them on Norm in the chair next to Abby.
“Hang tight, guys,” he says, “Won’t be long. Spike likes to make these grand entrances sometimes.” He rolls his eyes and shrugs. “What can I do about it? He’s the boss. I just follow orders.”
With that, he leaves.
“Norm,” I say. “Norm!” There’s a happiness in my voice even I can hear despite our current circumstances. He is not dead. He is fucked up, beaten and broken, but he is not dead. And if he is going to die, then at least we can die together.
When the door shuts — and it actually shuts this time — Darlene breaks out in a loud sob.
“Don’t cry,” I say. “It’s all gonna be okay.” But I’m lying. I’ve done more lying to her in the past six months than I have in the prior five years before that. It’s something I have to do. I have to give her hope even when all hope is dead.
She looks up at me, then turns her head to Abby and Norm. “Look at them. It’s already not okay. I thought I could handle this. I thought I could be tough and take whatever they threw at me, but can’t, Jack. I’m not like you.”
I want nothing more than to get out of this chair and hold her.
“Darlene,” I say, trying to muster up a smile. It’s not easy. There is no light at the end of the tunnel here. I know that now. I know we will probably die in the very place we were dying to get to.
There is a long, drawn out moment of quiet where all we can hear is Norm’s raspy breathing, and the muffled sounds of wheels going over gravel.
“I don’t get it,” I say. All the beaten faces and hurt eyes turn to me. “Spike got what he want. He got Herb. Why does he want us?”
Tony chortles. “It was never really about Herb. Don’t get me wrong, the kid is special, but so is a hundred other Edenites. It’s about control. Spike and Butch c
rave it, so when a citizen goes missing, they find them.”
This causes Norm to stir, his eyes fluttering. The left one holds open, though it is almost swollen shut.
“Spike is not a man who forgives and forgets,” Tony continues, glancing at my older brother. Then his voice drops into a clichéd southern drawl. “He’s the rootinest, tootinest, yee-haw, honky-tonk this side of the Mississippi!”
Abby sits up a bit straighter.
Darlene shakes her head. “He’s gone crazy. Look at him.”
“No,” I say, “he started to say the same stuff back in the trailer.”
“Yeah, he was already slipping,” Darlene says.
“You’ll see,” Tony says.
“Uhhhh,” Norm says. “Little brother.” He tries to smile, his bloody lips peeling back to show red teeth. Some of them are missing.
It hurts me, too, but I smile back at him. “Good to see you again, Norm.”
“Listen to Tony. H-He knows what he’s t-talking about,” Norm says. He smiles again before he closes his eyes and continues his raspy breathing. It’s terrible to look at him like this. My brother who has helped protect us for the last six months reduced to a shell of himself.
“Damn right I do,” Tony says. “I was here after Spike took over. Norm has seen it single-handedly.” Tony laughs. “You’ll see. Think Butch Hazard is bad, wait to you get a load of this psycho son of a bitch.”
Wait until that psycho son of a bitch gets a load of me.
I look to Darlene. Her teeth are chattering. Seeing this douses my anger. Now, I just feel bad for her, for my brother, for all of us.
Abby shakes her head back and forth. “Well, it was nice knowing you guys,” she says. “I’m gonna try to die on my own before some psychopath can murder me. So excuse me.” She leans her head back as if she’s going to sleep.
I got to find a way out of here. I can’t let my family die. Not even Tony or Herb.
The door opens and a figure stands beneath the frame, backlit by the daylight. Somehow, he seems to darken this light. This figure wears a cowboy hat.
His voice is an almost perfect echo of Tony’s southern imitation. “Welcome, guys and gals, to Eden’s first ever reverse dinner party!”
Then he is gone, yelling, “Yee-haw!” as he pushes in a party of zombies.
Thirty-Five
I count five of them. They are not the normal type of zombies you see strolling around abandoned streets and sidewalks. These are creatures that have almost been domesticated. They wear clothes that are unmarked, unsoiled, and clean. Pristine white jumpsuits. There is little black ink leaking from the corners of their mouths. I notice, in the glare of the light overhead, one zombie woman seems to have a black smear on her chin, as if someone was close enough to wipe the mess away. Their eyes blaze with dark gold, eyes of zombies well-fed. Dare I say, happy zombies?
I jerk in my chair, the chain rattling. This is mostly a reaction than an attempt to escape. I know I am not strong enough to break these chains, but the fear and adrenaline coursing through my veins tells me I am.
Darlene’s fear and adrenaline must be telling her the same thing because she’s about to pop her arms out of her socket to break free.
The zombies inch closer.
Even Tony feels the heat of death licking against his skin. He squirms and shimmies, trying not to get his face anywhere near the approaching dead.
All the while, some man laughs like a cartoonish villain in the background.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Think of the Wicked Witch of the West on acid except replace the high, shrill laughs with deep, gruff laughs instead. And except flying monkeys we got some lab experiment gone wrong.
I’d take flying monkeys over these bastards any day.
The lead zombie puts his arms out — the Frankenstein position — and heads for Norm. He is almost too gone to notice, but not gone enough to die without pain. I hold my breath as this unfolds in front of my eyes. I wait for the rip of flesh, the scream, the sound of blood raining down on the concrete floor, the death gurgling, and the munching. As I wait, I turn my head away and look at Darlene.
She has since given up her mad struggle to break free of the chains.
I say, with my lips quivering, “Close your eyes, Darlene. Picture our life back in Chicago. The pancakes in the morning, the boxes of wine and bad movies. Picture all of the good times.” I have to stifle a sob. “It will all be over soon.”
She nods, a fresh tear spilling down her face, clearing a small pathway through the dirt caked on her cheeks.
I close my eyes, too, waiting for this all to be over.
Thirty-Six
Once the laughing from near the door stops, I hear nothing besides the sounds of our own labored and frightened breathing.
This is when I open my eyes.
I see Darlene in front of me, her eyes still closed, Abby and Norm next to her, their eyes open as much as their swollen faces will allow but not seeing anything. Behind them, the zombies hover. They look across the table, the one behind Darlene — a middle-aged man with a heavy beer gut now full of dead organs — looks at me, while the zombies behind Norm and Abby look at Tony and the empty seat next to them.
What the hell is going on?
These ravenous beasts have fresh meat right in front of them, yet we aren’t getting torn apart yet. What gives?
Then a voice drifts through the air. That southern drawl. “Now, y’all wanna watch this. This here is a B-yoot.” There’s a silence again, but the rattles in the back of the zombies’s throats begins to rev up. “Now, Butch!” Spike shouts.
A cold hand touches my neck about the same time the other cold hands touch the rest of my group. I see a flash of light beneath the collar of the middle-aged zombie behind Darlene. It blinks once then twice with the movement. Then it begins to bend over her, its mouth hung open, rotten teeth and thin lips bared.
Truly, I am at a loss for words. Hell, I can’t even scream.
But Darlene does when those grayish fingers close around her throat.
“Stop it!” I shout.
Useless words.
This is something Spike and Butch Hazard want to hear. They want me to beg and plead for my life. I thought I was better than that. But when you see the love of your life about to be devoured by a zombie, when everyone you care about are in the clutches of a madman, then you don’t know what real fear is. Only then would you understand my desperation, my will to survive.
Here comes the laughter again. Ha-ha-ha-ha! I think to myself that is the last thing I am going to hear besides the sounds of my own vital organs being torn out.
Instead, I hear an explosion, not the type of action movie explosions the American culture was so familiar with before all this shit went down.
No, it’s a wet explosion.
The sounds of ripe watermelons thrown off a ten story building, splattering below.
We are drenched in blood.
Thirty-Seven
My ears ring as if a shotgun went off just inches away from my head. Something stings my eyes. There is a dull, meaty taste on my lips. I cannot bring my hands up to wipe away whatever is dripping down the side of my face. My head is swimming, rocking back and forth on the edge of insanity.
I think I know what happened, but I don’t want to admit to myself that it has happened. Part of me thinks dying would’ve been better than going through this.
“Yuck!” Abby says.
“Jack. Oh, my God! Jack…eeeeeeep!” Darlene yells.
I open my eyes.
I am both happy and thoroughly disgusted to know that my initial thoughts of what happened were right.
The first things I notice, besides the brains and bits of skull fragments stuck to the steel table like stepped-in gum, are the headless zombies standing behind Norm, Abby, and Darlene. Red rivers drip down the fronts of their formerly pristine white jumpsuits. The zombie behind Abby still has part of its spine sticking straight up in the air from the me
at-stump where its head was.
Tony gives a great shake beside me, like a dog whose just come inside from a great rainstorm. Bits of blood spray me in a fine mist, rotten flesh slaps the floor.
Darlene is pretty much doused in red. All that is untouched is the hollow part of her eye sockets and the dimples on each side of her quivering mouth.
I am breathing hard and fast, though for how long, I don’t know.
But we are alive — I am alive.
“I love you, Darlene,” I say.
She opens her mouth to speak, but the sound of the door stops her.
My eyes drift over there as a figure dressed in a black overcoat and a black cowboy hat walk in, spurs jangling on the heels of his cowboy boots. He has a smile on his face, and a mouthful of rotten teeth, toothpick hanging from the corner of his mouth. “What an entrance!” he says.
“Here he is. The rootinest, tootinest — ” Tony begins.
A blur of steel flashes from this man’s hands. My heart stops as I focus in on the steel. It is an old school six shooter, something a cowboy would’ve worn on each hip almost two hundred years ago.
“Shut up, Richards. I don’t want to have to do ya like Butch did your boy.”
Tony shuts up.
“Now,” the cowboy smiles, “let me introduce myself.” He stands at the head the table, flicks a way something off of the edge that might be a piece of a forehead or and mutilated eyeball, I’m not sure. “I’m Spike, y’all probably heard about me. I run this here place, been running it for…hmm,” he brings the barrel of the gun up to his hairline and scratches. “awhile, I guess. People like to call it Eden. I just call it home.”
Others would call it Hell, I think.
He finally holsters the weapon. I mean, after all, we’re about as dangerous as kittens right now with our hands cuffed and our faces plastered in zombie goo.
“And y’all disrespected my home,” he says.
The Dead Collection Box Set #1: Jack Zombie Books 1-4 Page 33