by Bible, Jake
“There,” Falsey whispered as he pointed through the bushes. To my surprise, we were close to a rural highway and I could see the backs of six or seven people as they crouched in a ditch by the road. “Poachers.”
“Good job, bro,” Barfly said.
The hand let go of my mouth and I tried to ignore the level of dirt encrusted on it as it was removed from my view. I turned my attention to the road and tried to remember how far we had walked and in what direction. If I could get my bearing, maybe I could figure out exactly where we were. Figuring that out would put us, as in the Stanfords, one step closer to a plan to get free.
Because that was all I could think about.
Fuck getting power or plumbin’ up and going for Barfly. Fuck dealing with poachers. Fuck not making fun of Falsey. All I gave a shit about was getting my family the hell away from Cannibal Road.
“Here they come,” Griddles whispered and pointed at the road.
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about at first, but then I heard the hushed voices as a small group of four people came into view. They were bloody, burned, and looked like they had maybe a mile left in them before they all fell over dead. The poachers in front of us tensed visibly and I could see they were about to go on the attack.
“Teach ‘em, Fasley,” Barfly grinned.
Falsey, who as I said earlier, was a big guy, stood up and it was then I realized just how big. He was easily six and a half feet tall, with wide shoulders and thick, thick arms. He was so top heavy that I thought he’d fall over at any second, but instead, he moved with a quickness and grace that you rarely saw with men that big.
While he had a certain sure footedness, he didn’t exactly have subtlety. He crashed through the bushes and descended on the poachers just as they stood up to attack the travelers on the road.
“Come on, Long Pork,” Barfly said. “Falsey has the poachers under control. We get to take down the prey.”
“We what?” I squawked. “I don’t want to take down anyone!”
“Tough shit, bro,” Barfly said. “You’re with us now, so you’re gonna take some survies down. Put yer all into it, Long Pork bro, or I chop off one of your little girl bro’s hands when we get back. Ya understand where I’m comin’ from, bro?”
“Yeah, I understand.”
Fuck.
I barely had time to glance at the poachers as Falsey tore them apart, limb from limb. Their screams were like ground glass in my ears, but it was the shocked and terrified faces on the survivors that really got to me.
Especially since, I knew them.
“Jace?” Scoot Fitzpatrick asked. Yeah, I knew him pretty fucking well. “Jace, what are...”
He never got a chance to finish his sentence as Barfly crushed his jaw with his steel rod. The three others, people I knew from the group of laborers that came down with the fake POTUS Mondello, all screamed as Scott’s jaw hung from his face by only a couple of tendons. They never got the chance to scream again.
“Oh, fuck!” I yelled as I jumped back from several geysers of arterial spray. “Oh, shit! Oh, fuck!”
The cannies went to fucking town on them. They didn’t let up until the last body had stopped twitching.
“Why’d you kill them?” I shouted at Barfly. “I thought you kept them alive in those pens!”
“Pens is all full, bro,” Barfly said as he wiped the blood from his rod. “Didn’t you notice that?”
“Well, yeah, I noticed!” I yelled. “But you have two barns! Isn’t there room in the other barn?”
“Nope,” Barfly replied. “All full up, bro.”
“Fuck...”
“Chop ‘em and pack ‘em,” Barfly said. “I’m gonna have a sit down with Long Pork and gets a few things straight.”
He pulled me by my arm over to the far side of the road and pointed for me to sit on the twisted and rusted guardrail. I didn’t argue, but I didn’t exactly do it with a smile on my face.
“They knew you,” Barfly stated. “How many more out there know you?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “There could be a few or there could be none. We got separated from our group a few days ago. I don’t know who lived and who died after we split up.”
“Maybe a dozen more?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Two dozen?”
“I don’t know! You won’t tell me how many you already have in pens! How the fuck am I supposed to know how many are left wandering around?”
“Keep yer voice down, Long Pork bro,” Barfly said. “May be more poachers out there. I don’t want them comin’ this way.”
“You’re worried about my voice?” I laughed. “After my friends screamed and pleaded for their lives? If there are poachers around, I am sure they ran their asses off to get away from you crazy fucks!”
Steel rod to head and down I went.
“Fucking asshole!”
Steel rod to leg and screamed I did.
“Stop that!”
“Shut up, bro,” Barfly warned. “Stop yellin’ and I stop hittin’.”
“Stop hitting and I’ll stop yelling!”
Smack.
“Fucker!”
Smack.
“Okay! Okay! I’ll shut up! Fucking A, dude.”
“Bro, bro, bro,” Barfly said as he shook his head, honestly looking like he’d been pained more than me. “I’m givin’ ya a gift. I’m givin’ ya a choice. That’s more than I give other survies. Why ya gotta fight me, bro? Why ya gotta be so thick headed?”
He gave me a slight whack to my head when he said, “Thick headed.” You know, for emphasis. Ah, the simple poetry of the apocalypse.
“Let me tell you what I need from ya, bro,” barfly continued. “I need ya to help get the power on so I can listen to some sweet tunes while I fuck my lady bros. I need to be able to have cameras and video monitors and Wi-Fi so I can keep track of the other bros in camp, bro. I need to be sure no one is comin’ for me, bro. Hard to sleep when you think every bro and lady bro is comin’ for ya, am I right?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “That would be hard.”
“Damn right it’s hard,” Barfly nodded. “Damn right. Hard as shit, bro. Makes me jumpy and edgy. I don’t like bein’ jumpy and edgy. I like to hang loose and let life be, bro. I like to chill and eat me some tasty people meat. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a bro like me needin’ to relax, is there bro?”
He sighed and rubbed at his face with the hand not holding that mother fucking steel rod.
“Peeps be forgettin’ that I’m a bro too. Peeps be forgettin’ that leadin’ the Crossville Cookers ain’t a vacation, bro. I gots to be thinkin’, thinkin’, thinkin’ all the damn time, bro.”
The steel rod barely tapped me on the temple. Yes, I did flinch, but Barfly ignored it.
“I need you to do some of the thinkin’ for me, bro. If that brain in there is what I been told, you can do all the thinkin’ for me so all I have to do is pick a thought choice and then chill with my lady bros.”
“So, I’d be your consigliore?” I asked. “Your advisor? I thought you wanted power and plumbing.”
“That’ll be the start,” Barfly said. “A good start, bro, but I have to think beyond that. I have to think like a leader and using you for just the power and the plumbin’ would be a waste, bro. You got plenty of thinks up in that noggin for other stuffs. As long as you can help me with the other stuffs then you and your family bros will live. Stop helpin’ and I make you into a meal.”
He held out his hand and I stared at it.
“What?” I asked.
“We shake, bro,” he replied. “Simple deal: you help, you live. You stop helpin’, you get ate. Shake.”
“Not much of a choice there,” I said as I shook his hand. “So where do we start?”
“We go back to camp and you turn on the lights,” Barfly stated.
“You know I’m not an electrical engineer, right?”
“Not my problem,” Barfly shrugged and
the rod poked me in the chest. “That’s your problem, bro. Figure it out.”
I gave him a thumbs up and then looked at the cannies as they hacked up people I had considered friends, neighbors, and fellow survivors. The body parts were quickly packed into bags and strapped to backs. Blood dripped from the corners of the bags and I watched it with stunned numbness as we began the long hike back to camp.
“OH, THANK GOD,” STELLA said as she ran to me across the camp and nearly bowled me over with a fierce hug. “I honestly didn’t think you’d make it.”
“Where are the kids?” I asked.
“Digging,” she replied. “Some asshole came and dragged them off for work detail.”
“What about Charlie? How’s his head? He took a hard whack.”
“He was woozy when he left, but he knew what was going on and what his name is, so hopefully the concussion isn’t too bad.”
“One can only hope,” I said then looked about the camp.
People hurried this way and that. They carried this, carried that, and generally all tried to look busy. I noted the various vehicles around the camp and made sure to memorize their position in case I saw a chance to get the fuck out.
The camp was an old farm and I could see power lines strung up here and there, so I knew there had to be some type of electrical infrastructure still in play. There was a cluster of lines on a tall pole by a small shack off to the side. They wound down the pole and then disappeared into a plastic conduit bolted to the shack.
“I think I can get us out of here,” I said. “But it isn’t going to be easy.”
“You can? How?” Stella asked.
“I think there’s a generator in that shack. If I can get it to...”
“Bro!” Barfly said as he slapped me on the shoulder. “I see ya eyein’ the power shed! Good, bro, good. You get your ass over there and make things happen while I walk your lady bro around. Gonna show her the camp so she feels at home. If you Stanfords are gonna live here, Mrs. Stanford bro needs to know where she fits in, right? Everybody gotta fit in, bro. Everybody.”
Stella’s eyes went wide, but she sucked it up and forced a smile on her face.
“What’s in there?” Stella asked as she pointed at the second barn.
“More pens, but they’re off limits,” Barfly said. “We are flush with livestock. You wanna see how we feed ‘em? I can show ya in your barn. Gotta be feedin’ time by now, Mrs. Stanford bro.”
“Sure,” Stella nodded. “Knowing how to take care of the livestock would be good. I helped out a lot on the Fitzpatrick farm.”
“You’re a farmin’ girl?” Barfly asked. “Good to know, lady bro! Good to know!”
“Well, no, I wouldn’t exactly say that...”
“Yep, she’s a farmin’ girl,” I interrupted. “But she doesn’t know much about the canny life, so maybe you can fill her in while I go check out the, uh, power shed.”
“Bro, that’s what I was about to do,” Barfly frowned. “Listen tight, bro. Listen tight or I give ya a whack to make ya listen.”
“Gotcha,” I said. “Listen or get a whack. I’m all done with the whacks, so be assured you’ll get plenty of listening from me.”
“Good, bro,” Barfly said then whistled. A stump of a guy ran up to us, his face beet red and sweating. “Bish Bash, this is Long Pork.”
“It’s Jace, actually,” I said then saw the look in Barfly’s eyes and knew I was about to get a whack. “But I totally dig being called Long Pork.”
“Bish Bash is gonna watch ya while ya work, bro,” Barfly stated. “If ya need somethin’ then ya tell Bish Bash. He’ll get it for ya.”
“What if we don’t have it?” Bish Bash asked, his voice a thin, reedy squeak.
“We gots it all,” Barfly snarled.
Bish Bash nodded then looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Go,” he said. “Get.”
“Right,” I smiled as I turned and walked towards the power shed.
I went a few yards and glanced over my shoulder, but Barfly was already leading Stella to the second barn. She didn’t look back at me and I could see she was busy asking Barfly questions. I hoped her years as a teacher pre-Z would give her the patience to deal with Barfly appropriately. I could take a shit ton of whacks from that rod, but if he touched Stella with it, I would lose my shit and probably get us all killed.
“Watch where yer going,” Bish Bash said as he shoved me in the small of the back and caused me to ram my hip into the bumper of an old, open top Ford Bronco. There was no backseat in the Bronco, as it had been ripped out to transport cargo. How did I know it was to transport cargo? The stains in the back kinda made it obvious. Pretty sure, that wasn’t red paint.
“Nice Bronco,” I sad as I rubbed my hip. “Don’t see the old ones around much anymore.”
“Yeah, yeah, Barfly loves this ride,” Bish Bash said. “He made the engine all vroom-vroom and the muffler goes ROAR. Pretty cool.”
I was about to turn away from the Bronco, since I had much more important things to think about, but something caught my eye. Hanging on the ignition was a bright pink bracelet. I knew that bracelet.
“Get to moving, Long Pork,” Bish Bash said. “You cain’t have the Bronco, so no need staring at it.”
“Bummer, I said. “Such a sweet ride.”
“Keep dreaming, Long Pork,” Bish Bash laughed. “You ain’t never getting in that ride. What you’ll be getting in is this shed.”
He pushed me into the door of the power shed and I had to bite my tongue to keep from mouthing off. Okay, I’ll admit the real reason I bit my tongue was because my jaw slammed into the closed shed door.
I stepped back and pulled the door open, then tried to not weep right there in front of Bish Bash.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked as I looked in at the mess that covered the shed floor. A mess that should have been a generator, but was instead just a pile of parts and a metal shell. “Who did this?”
“Tweaks,” Bish Bash said. “Last year. Got us bunch of tweaks that come through and said they could fix stuff if we let them live. All they did was tear things apart, and then take off in the middle of the night. Don’t know how they got out of the barns, but they did. Barfly was pissed.”
“Yeah, I bet he was,” I said. “Did you ever catch them?”
“Sure thing,” Bish Bash smiled. He lifted the right leg of his dirty jeans and pointed at the boot he revealed. “Got part of one of them right here.”
To say I was proud of myself for not puking on that human skin boot would be an understatement.
“Nice stitching,” I replied and turned back to the mechanical chaos that was the power shed. “I may be here a while.”
“Take your time,” Bish Bash said as he sat down against the wall and closed his eyes. “This is a way better gig than mucking out the pens, so take your time.”
“I don’t think Barfly is giving me much time,” I said.
“That’s your problem,” Bish Bash shrugged.
Yeah. That’s what everyone kept telling me.
COATED IN GREASE AND frustrated beyond words, I stepped from the power shed into the evening light and took a deep breath.
“All done?” Bish Bash asked as he yawned and stretched.
“Not quite,” I replied. “Have a nice nap?”
“Kinda,” Bish Bash said as he stood up and cracked his back. “I was having the crazy dreams. There was this woman and she had these...”
“RUNNER!”
“Oh, shit,” Bish Bash said. “That ain’t good.”
“What’s a runner?” I asked.
“Someone escaped,” Bish Bash said as he pulled a long knife from a sheath strapped to his belt. “You stay here.”
“Not a problem,” I said as I looked over my shoulder and back into the shit storm of parts I couldn’t make heads or tails of. “I have plenty to keep me occupied.”
Bish Bash took off running as cannies started shouting cont
radictory orders at each other. Weapons were grabbed and there was a considerable amount of shouting, which increased in volume and idiocy as soon as Barfly showed up.
“What the shit, peeps?” Barfly yelled. “Can’t a bro get a little nap without you peeps goin’ all crazy?”
He spied me standing there alone, and then saw Bish Bash. Out came the steel rod as he stomped over to the short man. Then out came Bish Bash’s brains as Barfly went to town on the guy’s skull with that wonderful hunk of steel.
Most of the cannies stopped in their tracks as they watched Barfly turn Bish Bash’s head into a dirty puddle of blood and brains.
“Now,” Barfly said as soon as he was done with Bish Bash. “One of you peeps needs to tell me what’s happenin’.”
“That crazy chick is gone,” a man said then took a couple steps back, obviously afraid he’d get brained next for bearing the bad news.
“Gone?” Barfly asked. “How? She was shackled like Frankenstein.”
I so wanted to tell him that Frankenstein’s monster was the one that had been shackled, not Frankenstein. People always mix that up and it’s sort of a pet peeve of mine that no matter where you go someone will always-.
“Dad!” Charlie called as he and Greta ran up to me. “There you are!”
“Where’s your mother?” I asked as I hugged my kids. “And what are you doing here?”
“Everyone took off when the yelling started,” Greta said. “The guards watching us just ran away. Fucking weird.”
“Apparently a runner is a bad thing,” I said. “Bad enough that everyone panics.”
We watched the chaos build as Barfly began to storm through the cannies, his steel rod taking down people indiscriminately.
“But where is your mother?” I asked again.
“Shit,” Charlie said. “There.”
A man and woman had Stella by the arms and dragged her from around a building. She was screaming at them to let her go, but they ignored her every word even as she tried to kick and bite them.