Salvation lies within the heart.
Darlene screams.
“Jack, no!” Norm says, his voice muffled and pained.
Abby is sobbing.
The crowd is revving up again. “We want blood! We want blood! Kill him! Kill him!”
“Guess we won’t get to that shoot-off after all,” Spike says.
I smile, tasting my own blood on my teeth. “That’s where you’re wrong,” I say. And my cramped hand inside of Salvador’s chest wraps around the warm gun, plastic baggie and all.
I slide my middle finger on the trigger and lift up with all my might. A momentary look of confusion passes Spike’s features, then like the quick-draw cowboy he is, he finally notices what I’m doing.
The smile vanishes.
I pull the trigger with my middle finger — a final fuck you to this psychotic bastard. And as the gun claps and my eyes blink with the sound, I see Tony and Brian Richards, I see Herb, and Darlene and Norm and Abby, their pained faces in my mind all easing.
A hole the size of a plate rips through Salvador’s back in a spray of black blood and white shards of spinal cord. I feel the thunder shake my body, hear the sound of the crack reverberating through the quiet of the stunned crowd.
The bullet hits Spike like a bolt of lighting.
But it’s not a clean hit, at least that’s not what it looks like at first. A chunk of his face is missing. From the ear to the lower left of his jaw is practically blown out. He now looks more like a zombie, no longer the rootinest, tootinest cowboy this side of the Mississippi. His left eye hangs from its socket. His hair singes, maybe even it’s on fire. And the thing I like the most — yeah, this is good — is that his stupid cowboy hat is gone, blown off somewhere behind him.
Spike stands there stunned, rocking on his heels. This goes on for a long moment. His hand comes up to his face, his free hand. Most of his fingers disappear into the hole. When he pulls them out, they are slick and dripping with scarlet blood.
He screams.
It is the scream of a man who is covered in flames, of one who is dying.
The crowd no longer chants. They are as quiet, as stunned as Spike, as me, Darlene, Norm, Abby… as everyone.
With his right hand, Spike brings up the gun. It is shaking and it looks as if he can barely hold its weight, let alone pull the trigger.
“Think that’s funny?” he says, the words coming out slurred and painful. His tongue moves like the surface of a pond catching a light breeze. “Think you can shoot me? Me!”
The one good eye has gone into red alert mode. No longer does that eye say murder. It’s somehow moved past that point to darker intentions if that's even possible.
I try to squirm my way out from under the lifeless Salvador, but I’m having no such luck.
“Think it’s funny? I’ll…I’ll show you what’s funny, you no-good, dirty-rotten, pig — ” Spike is cut off. But he is not cut off by another shot or zombie attack.
No. None of that.
Spike is cut off by death.
He falls down to the dirt in a growing pool of his own blood. Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
And I fall with him, my head thudding against the dirt hard enough to send a field of black stars across my vision. The gun skitters away to my right.
I might be half-dead with a leaking zombie on top of me, but I’ve never felt so good in my life.
Forty-Seven
The crowd is stirring now, realizing their great — and late — leader is dead. They start to move. Where they are going, I have no idea.
“He’s dead! He’s dead!” someone in the stands shouts. I can’t tell if it’s joy, surprise, triumph, or even shock, but right at this moment, I don’t care. They don’t have guns. They aren’t zombies. I am alive and Spike isn’t.
“Jack!” Darlene says.
She runs over to me — well, more like limps. Her face is wet and shiny, I reckon it’s sweat and tears. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sweaty, too. Florida is hot as hell as it is, and even hotter with a dead guy laying on top of you. I might be crying, too. I won’t lie. Seeing Darlene, seeing her in one piece, still alive, with a faint smile on her face just makes me sob. So yeah, I’ll admit it.
Darlene says, “Oh, Jack, oh, my God!” She kneels down in the dirt and blood, then as our eyes lock together like two lovers who’ve not seen each other in years, she says, “That was fucking awesome!”
The crowd seems to be growing restless, buzzing back and forth, trying to find a way out like birds trapped in a one-window room. Or, like chickens with their heads cut off. They are lost without their leader.
I look back to Darlene and smile. “Can’t take credit for it. All of that goes to Herb, that son of a gun — ”
“Jack! Watch out!” Abby shouts.
Darlene snaps her head toward her, and as she does, I see Butch Hazard, aiming his Desert Eagle at Darlene and I. Some of the crowd behind, those not worried about getting out of this crumbling safe haven, stop and start to point. A few cheer. A few jeer.
The faint chant of, “More blood! We want more blood!” comes from the stands.
Butch has Norm in a headlock. He is squeezing so tight, Norm’s eyes bulge out and his face is a beat red which is shocking compared to the ashy gray hue his skin had taken on as of late. But the worst thing is Norm isn’t fighting back or even struggling. I’d never thought I’d see the day where my hard-ass, big brother stops fighting.
It’s fitting that the day I see it is the day I die.
Darlene is slowly shifting herself closer to me. I can see how rigid she is out of the corner of my eyes. There is one soldier still standing. He is the fatter one. His face is bloody and he looks like a man who’s frayed rope of sanity has snapped, too. He holds his weapon on Abby and watches us from the corner of his eyes.
“Impressive,” Butch says. Two streams of blood run down from his nostrils. When he talks, red mist sprays the air. “I’m glad you did it. Someone had to do it.” He shivers. “Wouldn’t be right if it was me.”
“When did you ever care about what’s right or wrong?” I ask.
Butch smiles. “Good point.”
The chrome of the Desert Eagle does not sparkle anymore. Its shine is muted by dirt and blood.
“I hate to have to thank you this way, Jack Jupiter, but I’d never feel safe knowing you are out there somewhere, looking for a place to call home. A place like this.”
“I wouldn’t stay here if you paid me,” I say.
Butch shrugs, but I almost can’t tell since he is so tense.
I’m trying to form my plan, my last stand. I’ve not come this far to lose anyone else, to die at the hands of a grunt after I’ve slain the Black Hat.
I want nothing more right now than to at least be able to stand and shield Darlene, to protect her.
“You won’t have to,” Butch says. “You won’t have to stay anywhere.”
My eyes scan the situation. There’s the emptying bleachers and the few stragglers who have not yet had their appetite for death and destruction satisfied. There’s the soldier with the AR15 trained on Abby. The dead Spike. Salvador on the bottom half of me, pinning me to the dirt with his cold blood spilling out. Me, half-propped up and in pain. The beaten female soldier. What’s left of the zombies Spike shot.
Butch grins, and lets go of Norm, who drops to all fours in a heap. He kicks Norm in the ass, sending him sprawling out in the blood-muddy dirt. “Line up, all of y — ”
I shove with all my might at the zombie on top of me, my eyes bulging worse than Norm’s were. The pain in my body is unreal, but it’s nothing as bad as getting shot. I manage to lift Salvador off of my legs enough to wiggle out from beneath him. The slick blood and guts also helps. I try to ignore that, though.
Butch shoots two times with the Desert Eagle. Two earth-shattering cracks. I am hit with a spray of rotten meat.
I think I’ve been shot.
Darlene is screaming.
It’s all a blur.
My left hand closes around the pistol I used to shoot Spike with it. It’s still warm and shiny with Salvador’s innards, but I get a good enough grip on it to point, aim, and fire once.
The thunderclap from the muzzle is deafening.
The first slug takes Butch in the middle of the chest.
He hardly seems to notice. But his knees give out on him and the Desert Eagle in his hand falls to the dirt.
A blossoming red rose shows through Butch’s dirty shirt. He looks down, his hand coming up to touch the blood, then he looks up at me. He does not look like he is in pain. He is smiling, perhaps relieved.
“Nice shot,” he says, tottering then falling face-first into the dirt.
“Thanks,” I say, “but I was aiming for your head.”
He doesn’t answer.
He is dead.
The soldier with his gun trained on Abby moves the aim toward me, but I’m faster and he knows this.
I don’t pull the trigger, though. I’m shaking. My blood pumping with adrenaline, my brain craving the kill, wanting to feel the power that comes from the gun just one more time.
I refrain.
“Don’t be stupid, man. Drop your gun and get the hell out of here. Don’t die for these bastards. Don’t die for this piece of shit place,” I say instead of killing him.
His face goes pale, his eyes go wide, and he drops the AR15, turns tail, and runs — well, actually waddles.
I push myself up from the dirt. There are no more jeers or cheers from the crowd. They look at me the same way they’d look at a sleeping lion trapped in a zoo exhibit — with fear, awe, wonder.
I look back, and they start to disperse. Some even make like the last fat soldier and bolt.
When they’re all gone or no longer looking at me, I let the menacing act drop and almost fall over. I can’t help it. Darlene is on me faster than I was on the gun, steadying me, whispering into my ear, “Jack, I love you I love you oh my god I love you. Jack, are you okay? Jack? Jack…”
I’m so beat and tired and scared, I almost can’t say it back.
But I do.
“I love you, too.” And then I collapse.
Forty-Eight
We are like The Breakfast Club: An army jock, a pretty girl, a basket case, and a nerd. Except, imagine the Breakfast Club covered in dirt and zombie guts, sporting bruises like they’re this summer’s latest fashion trend.
It takes me a minute to come to, but now I’m standing straight up, mostly on my own. Darlene’s arms are still around me.
Outside the arena, the citizens are going crazy. I look up and see black, greasy smoke drifting in the air. Not so far away, I hear a car horn blaring.
“We gotta get out of here,” I say.
Abby looks at me and nods. It looks painful for her to do it.
I turn to Darlene. Her face is dotted with blood, blood that I don’t think belongs to her, and she’s still the most beautiful girl in the world. I kiss her.
“C’mon,” I say, heading over to Norm. He’s almost out cold, but he’s alive. Thank God.
“Norm,” I say. He slowly turns his head up to me. His eyes are bloodshot, his neck is purple and growing blacker. To put it as simply as possible, he looks like shit. Still, my older brother, a man who I hated for leaving me to rot in a dead town almost fifteen years ago, manages to smile at me.
And I smile back, extending my hand. He takes it and all three of us — Abby, Darlene, and I — help him up.
We limp out of the arena, the sounds of chaos all around us, a little beaten, a little broken, but otherwise whole. I don’t give Spike or Butch Hazard a last look over my shoulder. They don’t deserve that.
Let them rot. Let them all rot.
Forty-Nine
Seeing the streets buzz with people almost gives me a heart attack. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen streets this full. I wish it were under better circumstances, though. People have taken to busting out windows, flipping carts full of stale bread and rotten fruit, and lighting various buildings on fire. I’m reminded of Woodhaven. That is the tightrope Eden is balancing on.
What’s even odder is that all of these people who are ruining this place have smiles on their faces, like they’re glad to be free from the metal walls holding them in. I almost grab at a man who’s running around with his shirt off screaming, “FREEDOM! FREEDOM!” and tell him that sometimes freedom isn’t all that nice, especially when you don’t know when your next meal will come, but I don’t. I barely have the energy. Besides, let them find out on their own.
I’m done with Eden.
We’re all done with Eden. There are bigger things on the horizon. Surviving. Thriving. Maybe even a cure.
“Herb,” I say to Darlene. “We gotta get Herb.”
She looks at me crooked, people streaming all around us, screaming, shouting, jumping for joy. “I don’t know — ”
“We have to. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead…we all would.” My voice is harsh, but it gets my point across. I don’t think they understand so I pull the cure card. “He knows about a cure. He knows a way to beat this thing. Him and the Doctor — ”
“Oh, Doctor Klein? He was such a nice man,” Darlene says.
“Yeah,” I say. “He knows about something in D.C.”
They eye me like I’m going crazy. I have to rally the troops.
“Don’t you want the world to go back to the way it was? Don’t you want to have to quit worrying about zombies and demented cowboys and crazy army people? I sure as fuck do. C’mon, we’ve survived this long, we can help Herb and the Doctor.”
Norm nods. He looks proud, proud to call me his younger brother. “I’m in,” he says. “I’m sick of aimlessly wandering. I want to do some good.”
“Yeah,” Abby says. “He’s right.”
“Darlene?” I ask, looking at her, trying not to notice the chaos slowly budding beyond her.
“I can’t say no,” she says. “You know I always want to help, but Jack we are barely alive ourselves.”
“I’m always alive as long as I’m with you,” I say.
She breaks into a smile.
“Oh, barf,” Norm says, chuckling.
Darlene rolls her eyes. “Fine, Jack…as if I could really say no to you.”
I turn to my brother who has been here the longest and ask, “Norm, you know where the dungeon is?”
He looks up at me a little less dazed, his soldier instincts kicking in. “Yeah,” he says. “I know where it is. Follow me.” Somehow, he hobbles faster, and we follow. Rescue Operation: Herb Walker is a go, then it’s on to Rescue Operation: Planet Earth.
The dungeon isn’t as much of a dungeon as it is a space-themed restaurant that never was. I can tell, even with the signs on the outside of the brick facade ripped off, leaving a dark ghost of the words that were once hanging there. Space something. What really gives it away is the domed roof. I’m instantly reminded of being a seventh-grader again and going on a class field trip to Cleveland and seeing the Great Lakes Science Center’s planetarium.
“There it is,” Norm says. He is hunched over, out of breath despite the walk being about two minutes from the Arena. It’s a hot night, and the flames have been spreading. It’s almost impossible not to feel the heat.
A burst of gunfire erupts into the air not far from where we are standing. I clench up and put my body in front of Darlene. She squeezes me.
“I’m okay,” she says. “I’m tougher now. You’ve taught me well, Jack Jupiter.”
I smile. As much as I want to believe it, I can’t. Deep down, when someone has a gun pointed in your face or a knife at your neck, no one is tough.
We hear more gunfire and see the afterimage of the bursts in the night air. I see a man in Butch Hazard’s soldier’s camouflaged outfit. Three regular people are on him. I can tell they're regular people by the way their clothes hang off of their wiry and emaciated bodies. You’d think this soldier could take th
em, AR15 and all, but he doesn’t. The Edenites are on him like zombies on us, except they don’t eat him. Instead, they just stomp him, grab his rifle, club him with it over and over again. I don’t see the blood flying, but I swear I hear it pattering the concrete, even from all the way back here.
It’s gruesome. Demented. I’d almost prefer to watch a horde of zombies on him instead. At least the zombies don’t know right from wrong.
Almost.
The urge to get out of here intensifies.
Abby opens the door to the dungeon, snapping us all out of this trance we must’ve been in. The door squeaks its rusty hinges, and next thing I know we are plunging into total darkness, me in the lead. As I walk, I keep thinking to myself this is where Spike did his fucked up experiments on zombies. There’s probably an entire horde down here.
There’s an iron door a little ways down a corridor. The window is blacked out with electrical tape. NO ENTRY is scrawled on the metal with red paint. I put my hand up to the rest of the group trailing behind me. “I’ll check it out,” I whisper.
I go down the hall and grab the handle. For what seems like the millionth time in my life, I am met with a gun to my face.
Except it’s exactly the gun I’m looking for.
“Jacky!” Herb says. He lowers the pistol, and grabs me, squeezing me with all his strength — which is a lot, trust me. “Jacky! It worked! It worked! I heard them saying the mean old Mr. Spike was dead, but I didn’t believe it.”
My words are choked out of me. “Herb, p-p-please let me go.”
His eyes go wide. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just so excited to see you, Jacky!”
I rub at my ribs. “Norm, Darlene, and Abby are outside,” I say, pointing to the door.
“They are?” He smiles like a kid on Christmas morning. “Tell them to come in! Guys come in!” His voice is loud.
The door cracks. It’s Darlene. She is radiant in the dim light, smiling. “Herb,” she says. “I’m so glad to see you!”
The Dead Collection Box Set #1: Jack Zombie Books 1-4 Page 38