Z-Burbia Box Set | Books 1-3 [The Asheville Trilogy]

by Bible, Jake

  Elsbeth’s job is to take the small amount of liquid fuel we can scavenge from the houses (gasoline, kerosene, fucking citronella lamp oil, etc) and pour lines going from the front doors of each house to a central spot at the end of my cul de sac. We’re breathing heavy by the time we meet back at my house.

  “Yours too then?” Stuart asks.

  “No,” I shake my head, “it’ll cut off our escape route.”

  “Lucky you,” Stuart replies.

  “Hey,” I snap, “you think this place will last long when everything else goes up? Do you? You’re a fucking idiot if you do!”

  “Don’t fight,” Elsbeth says quietly.

  “I get ya,” Stuart says. “I do. No problem. You’re right. It’ll catch as soon as Tran’s house goes up anyway.”

  “Right,” I say, “Tran.”

  Stuart looks at me, his brow furrowed. “Tran didn’t make it then?”

  I shake my head, realizing he doesn’t really know anything. He’s been dealing with Vance this whole time, in his own hell.

  “He killed himself,” I say. “He couldn’t take it.”

  “Couldn’t take it?” Stuart asks. “Oh...was it his wife? Or the kids?”

  “All of them,” I say. “We got swarmed.”

  “Shit,” Stuart says, shaking his head. “Poor guy.”

  “Listen,” Elsbeth says. “I hear people? Do you hear people?”

  We go silent and then can hear it.

  “Jason Stanford!” Vance shouts. “I know you’re here somewhere! Come on out, Jason!”

  “Why the fuck would I do that?” I say. “He’s an idiot.”

  “Time to get back to work,” Stuart says. He looks at Elsbeth. “You know what to do then?”

  “Kill,” she says, “and don’t stop killing. Then run.”

  “Save yourself,” Stuart says. “Find the others if you can. Warn them.”

  “You will come too?” Elsbeth asks, looking from me to Stuart. “You will run with me? After the killing, right? Save yourselves too?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “You bet,” Stuart nods.

  We are such liars.

  “JASON! PLEASE!” a woman screams.

  “That’s not Vance,” I say and crawl to the front window for a look. “Holy shit...”

  Stuart looks past me to the street. “Doesn’t change anything,” he says, “we’re all fucked anyway, Jace. Stick with the plan. This ends tonight. Hear me?”

  “But look, man,” I say. “Look at them all.”

  Standing down the street is Vance and his people. Many have Zs on catch poles, while others have our neighbors tied to lengths of rope, their hands behind their backs, their feet only loose enough so they can walk. Bikers are riding every which way, swirling in and out of the groups, kicking out and laughing at the neighbors, staying well clear of the Zs.

  “Do I have to explain what happens if you don’t come out, Jason?” Vance shouts. “Was what happened to your friend not preview enough?”

  He nods to one of the men with Zs and the guy walks it over to the first person in line: Edna Strom, the Head of Z Cleanup. She and her team handle all the bodies of Zs that get caught in the razor wire and fencing. The irony is not lost on me.

  Without hesitation, the man sics the Z on her and the thing takes a huge chunk out of her shoulder before it is yanked back. Edna falls to the road, screaming and screaming, unable to grab at the wound as her instincts want her to. Another man walks over and kicks her in the gut, doubling her over. As she bends, he brings a bat down against her skull. The crack echoes everywhere and she is still, a pool of blood filling the cracks in the pavement.

  I look over my shoulder, but Stuart is gone. So is Elsbeth. They’ve stuck to the plan so I guess I have to also.

  “Jason!” Vance yells. “You see how this is going to go, don’t you? Maybe not exactly like that. Some I’ll keep alive until they turn. Maybe the children? Nothing makes me laugh like watching a bunch of kiddie Zs scampering about.”

  He chuckles to himself.

  “I came across a whole playground of them in West Asheville after Z-Day. They couldn’t get out of the chain link fence that surrounded the playground. I just sat there and watched them for hours. I’d go back every once in a while when I was bored. Even thought of bringing my own kids down to play. Like a dog park for Zs! A Z park!” He turns to one of his men. “Write that down. That’s happening.”

  He sighs and looks around.

  “Fine. I’m done waiting.”

  He studies the line of prisoners then starts to point at them. I can hear him singing “Eeenie-Meenie-Miny-Mo” before his finger lands on a victim. I don’t know the guy well, Herbert or Gordon or Stan or something, but that doesn’t matter. Vance’ll get to the ones I do know well soon enough.

  “Hey!” I yell as I go to my front door and peek out. “No shootsies, okay?”

  “You have my word,” Vance smiles. “I’d have killed you by now if I wanted to. I just want to have a conversation.”

  “About what?” I ask as I walk out into the street, a good thirty yards away, facing him. “What the fuck could we possibly have to talk about?”

  “Your friend, Jon, the one your fearless leader, Brenda Kelly, let die? He had a lot of nice things to say about you.”

  I look about. Brenda isn’t one of the prisoners. Vance catches this.

  “Oh, I have plans for her too,” Vance says. “She plays along and she’ll live to a ripe old age. You too, Jason.”

  “And what am I playing along to?” I ask. “You already started Eenie-Meenie-Miny-Mo without me. That’s my favorite. Maybe some hopscotch? Kickball? Jacks? What’s you poison, Eddie?”

  “Mr. Vance,” Vance says. “That’s how you’ll address me. No one calls me Eddie.” His voice catches a little. “Not anymore.”

  “Is that so?” I ask, watching him closely. I’m counting in my head at the same time, which is as hard as it sounds. I have to skip some numbers and it’s more an approximation of counting, but I’m pretty sure I’m sticking to the timing of the plan. “Who used to call you Eddie? Your wife? What’s she call you now? From what I’ve heard, it probably sounds something like ‘gggguuuuuhhhhhh blubblubblub’. That about right?”

  Even in the dark of night, I can see his face turn red with anger. He grabs one of my neighbors and shoves her at the Zs. Two of them lunge and her arms are flayed open. The handlers yank the Zs back and Vance kicks the woman to the ground. Then he keeps kicking her. And kicking her. Then stomping on her. On her head. Over and over and over and over. His eyes watch me the entire time. He doesn’t even so much as glance down at what he’s done.

  I start shaking, trying to keep it together. I can hear Stuart in my head telling me the same thing. “Keep it together.” My hands tremble and I push the pickaxe against my leg, desperate to stop. I shove hard against my wound, hoping the burst of pain will clear my mind, chase the fear away. It doesn’t; it just hurts really bad.

  “Look at you!” Vance laughs. “Jesus, man, you are a mess. How long did you think you’d actually live in this world? Did you think Whispering Pines was untouchable and you’d grow old with your wife and kids? Maybe have some grandchildren to play with?”

  “Yeah,” I say, being honest with him and myself. “For a second there, I actually did. Then you came along and shit all over it.”

  “I shit all over it? I did?” Vance looks at me, his head cocked. “Denial much, Jason? How did you think I learned of this place? A human interest piece in the newspaper? No, sir. I learned from some of the survivors. Those that didn’t get blown away at your gate. I did not intend to work my way this far north to the river. I was concentrating on downtown and south. But hearing the stories of men and women and even children that were shot without mercy just for looking for some security, some safe place to call home, well, Jason, that had to be investigated.”

  He raises his arms and spins around. “And look what I found! Paradise? A new utopia? A true
democracy? Hardly. I found a corrupt bitch lording over a bunch of scared and frightened neighbors. It wasn’t exactly hard to figure Brenda Kelly out. Well, that’s not true, exactly. I thought I had her figured out, we did have a deal and plan in place, but she sent you and your friend Jon to spy on me. That wasn’t part of the deal, so I had to up my timeframe a little. Go off book and improvise.”

  Pacing back and forth, his eyes never leaving mine, he continues, “Didn’t work out as well as I would have liked. I had hopes for this place. Oh, well, this part is still good, right? We’ll rebuild Phase One at some point. Might be easier just to start with one section anyway.”

  “Might be,” I say, my stomach in knots. My internal clock tells me I have seconds. Just seconds. “Might not.”

  Vance eyes me then looks about. “You had another friend with you when you went a spying, didn’t you? James Stuart? Ex-marine? Where is he now, Jason? I thought he was still laid up in your pitiful excuse for a hospital, but my men say he was missing when they checked. Left a couple corpses behind.”

  “He could be anywhere,” I shrug, “fuck if I know.”

  I’m usually so good at timing. What’s taking so long?

  “Fuck if you know?” Vance muses. “Oh, I think you know a lot. That’s what I was able to get out of Jon. The man was strong, but not a professional. He only could take so much pain before he started talking. How much pain can you handle, Jason? It’ll be easier for both of us if we don’t have to find out.” He sighs big and shakes his hands, flexing his fingers. “Oh, to fuck with this. Just somebody go grab him, will you? I’m tired of this shit.”

  With bikers speeding everywhere around me, I have nowhere to run, even if I wanted to, as half a dozen men walk towards me.

  KRACKBOOM!

  That’s the sound that envelopes us all as the first house goes up. It’s quickly followed by a second and a third and a fourth. One after the other, the cookie cutter houses in Phase Two explode. I hit the ground as shards of vinyl siding and brick fill the air. Several bikers go down hard from the concussive force of the explosions. The prisoners, my fellow neighbors, all start screaming and duck down, unable to cover their heads because their hands are tied behind them.

  Then she comes. Like a vision from a spaghetti western, blades held out from her sides, the glow of Phase One behind her. If she’d had a long duster on, she’d be Clint Eastwood in drag. But she isn’t, she’s just Elsbeth. And that’s quite enough, thank you.

  Two bikers go down as they whiz by her, their heads tumbling in the air like stray dodge balls. One of the bikes rams into two men coming at her, they crumple under it, arms and legs flailing about. Elsbeth rolls and comes up, impaling one of the men, eviscerating the other with a swipe. The impaled man’s eyes go wide as she brings the blade up through his torso and out his shoulder, splitting him in half, his blood spraying like a geyser.

  It is complete chaos as Elsbeth gets up and leaps at two men and two women that are charging her. She hits the first man feet first and he goes down like he’s a sheet on a clothesline, just folding around her legs. His back hits the asphalt and the sound of each and every one of his ribs cracking can actually be heard over the continuing explosions. She digs her heels in before she tucks her shoulder and rolls forward off him, both blades swiping at the women before her. Their legs separate from their bodies and they fall, their screams added to the chorus.

  The last man looks at her and runs. Smart guy.

  The pavement next to her is pocked with gunfire and she rolls backwards over and over until she’s able to leap to her feet and sprint towards the next group of Vance’s people. They fire well before she gets to them, but their aim is hindered by the absolute fear their faces show. They’ve watched what she can do.

  Elsbeth ducks and dodges, bouncing from foot to foot, never leaving a still target to get a bead on. By the time she reaches them, half have given up, their empty rifles just hanging from their hands. She slices, she dices, and she turns them into chopped shit. The last man, wild with terror, his finger clicking uselessly over and over on the trigger of his empty AK-47, just screams at her and then spits.

  Elsbeth stands there for a brief moment; the rare time of stillness, she shows all night. Then she jams her hand into his mouth, yanks out his tongue, and lops it off. The man grabs at his bleeding mouth and runs screaming, as she bounces the tongue in her hand once, twice, then pops it into her mouth. She chews and chews, then her eye catches mine and she stops. She spits the tongue out apologetically and continues her slaughter.

  Biker after biker, gunman and gunwoman after gunman and gunwoman, fall under her blades. She shows no mercy, no remorse, and no signs of stopping. From one to the next she rips them apart, sending steaming piles of guts to the ground, more heads rolling, limbs flying. She even does some spin move where she leaves a man intact until piece after piece slowly slides from him, leaving a pile of bloody parts.

  All the while Vance is screaming at everyone, shouting for his people to, “FIGHT HER! YOU COWARDS! KILL THE CUNT!”

  Then he sees me, still hunched over in the middle of the street and he stalks forward, his eyes filled with rage and madness. I assume it’s madness; it could be something he ate earlier. No, no, it’s madness.

  I get to my feet, my body protesting every movement. I still have the pickaxe in my hand, but it is so heavy, like an anchor connected to my arm. I’d just drop it if I could, but I don’t think my hand will comply.

  “Jason,” Vance hisses, “we could have done great things. Your abilities to work through problems married to my vision of the future? Great things, Jason. Great things.”

  I can see what’s in his hand, but my mind just isn’t tracking.

  “Why’d you have to spoil it? Everyone has spoken so highly of you. Brenda especially. I will say, in her defense, that she warned me you could be headstrong and a bit difficult at times. But I’m used to personalities like that.”

  He’s closer now, his hand rising, the gleam of metal rising with it.

  “You get used to stubborn people when you work in finance. No one wants to be wrong, everyone wants the credit. But you work through that. Don’t get me started on the criminal element! Hoo boy! They can be like little children.”

  It’s in my face now, the hole so black, so dark, right at eye level. It’s like looking into a bottomless pit, but sideways. And a little smaller than a pit. A bottomless hole? Fissure? Puncture?

  “Hello! Jason! I’m talking to you!” Vance shouts. “Jesus, man, I’m holding a fucking Desert Eagle to your eyeball and you space out? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Chicken shit,” I say. Not sure why. Didn’t mean to. Oh, wait, yeah, I know why. “You think you have what it takes to rule in this world? You think your years as a big banker and then crime boss make you destined to lord over us all? You’re nothing but a chicken shit.”

  His face loses some of the confidence; the bottomless hole/fissure/puncture dips a fraction of an inch.

  “You think because you were a rich fucking bully you can just take over?” I lean in, pressing my eye right against the barrel of the gun. “Bullshit. Pig shit. Chicken shit. You. Are. Chicken. Shit. Want to know why?” He doesn’t answer, but then he doesn’t shoot either, so I keep talking. “Because a real man would have put his family down, not keep them locked in a basement like animals. A real man would have done the right thing, the hard thing, the only thing. But not you. You’re nothing but a chicken shit.”

  He takes a step back, his hand now shaking worse than mine. He lowers the giant pistol then raises it again. Lowers then raises. Over and over.

  “Oh, fuck you,” I say as I bring the end of the pickaxe up into the soft flesh under his chin. “Chicken shit.”

  His eyes glaze over and he drops to his knees. The Desert Eagle falls from his grasp and the inexplicable happens: it goes off. He slumps to his side, his body still and I look down as a searing pain explodes in my left side. Bright red blood spreads across
my shirt just under my ribs. I wonder what organs are right there. Probably ones I need.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I say as I fall to my knees, my palms pressed to the wound. “A fucking misfire? The bastard drops the fucking gun and THEN it goes off? Fuck me.”

  I slump to my side, my soon to be dead eyes staring right into Vance’s already dead eyes. This is not the last image I want in my head.

  “Long Pork? Long Pork! Jace! JASON!” Elsbeth screams as she slides to me. Her hands pat my body and I scream.

  “Stop that,” I say. “Jesus...”

  “We have to get you up,” Elsbeth says. “It’s not safe. Can you walk?”

  “Can I live, is the question,” I say, feeling the warmth leaking from my side.

  Elsbeth rips my shirt away and looks at the wound. She nods. “I’ll be right back.”

  “What? Don’t leave me, god dammit! Elsbeth!”

  What the fuck? She’ll be right back? Where the fuck did she need to go? I’m fucking dying here!

  “Hold still,” she says, suddenly right at my side again. Did I pass out a little? Probably.

  “Hold still?” I ask. “What the fuck f- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”

  I had a vasectomy a few years after Greta was born. Stella and I had decided that we were good with only two kids; a replacement for each of us, is how we saw it. Why am I saying this? Because when the doctor tried to inject the anesthetic, he slipped and ended up piercing the other side of my scrotum. That was the worst pain I had ever felt. Ever.

  Until Elsbeth shoves two hunks of red hot metal against the front and back of my side, cauterizing the gunshot wound. That one wins. Not even a contest there. I’ll take a hundred more needles to the scrote before I’ll go through the old cauterize the wound trick. I mean, she doesn’t even offer me anything to fucking bite down on. What the fuck? In all the westerns I’ve watched, you always offer the wounded guy something to bite down on. A piece of wood, a leather belt, a bullet. Does she? Noooooooo, she does not.