Mort: Deluxe Illustrated Edition (The Fearlanders)

by Joseph Duncan

  But that didn’t mean, he knew, that it couldn’t see him.

  He waited for something to come flying out of the dark at him, hungry and howling for his brains, but he was not accosted. After a while he continued on.

  The worst moment came when he got to his apartment and tried to let himself into the foyer. He dug in his pockets for his keys but couldn’t find them. Thinking they must have fallen from his pants at some point—or that he might have left them on the checkout counter of his shop—he almost surrendered to despair.

  But then he found them, twisted up in his right hip pocket, and he pulled them out with a relief so great his knees threatened to buckle.

  He sorted through them—their chatter like crashing cymbals in the unearthly silence—then unlocked the door and slipped into his apartment building.

  Climbing the stairs, creeping down the hallways, he heard his neighbors behind the closed doors of their apartments. Someone in 2B was sobbing monotonously. Fingernails scraped against the door of 3A, accompanied by a guttural moaning that made his heart race. He gave 3A a wide berth. The old woman in the apartment next to his—Ms. Finnegan, the cat lady—was praying in a rapt voice.

  “Oh God in heaven I beg your forgiveness Please God don’t leave me here to suffer through the Tribulation Lord Jesus don’t forsake me haven’t I been a good Christian woman Oh Lord God please forgive me—“

  She sounded like she was about one hosanna from sacrificing a kitten.

  Mort let himself into his apartment and locked the door. He put his back against it and slid to the floor with relief. His breath came out in a gust, and he sat there shuddering for several minutes.

  I made it, he thought. Holy shit, I did!

  After he collected himself, Mort rose and tiptoed into the kitchen. He’d had nothing to eat or drink since morning. After chugging a couple Cokes, he ravaged the leftovers in the fridge. Two pieces of cold fried chicken from KFC and a wedge of Pizza Hut pizza vanished down his gullet almost instantly. Baked beans and a couple ears of corn-on-the-cob followed shortly after. Feeling better, he limped to the living room and turned on the television. He kept the volume low. He didn’t want to attract any attention. He even pulled the shades and closed the curtains.

  He expected the news channels to be rife with breathless tales of zombie horror but there was not so much as a whisper of the horrors he had just endured. He flicked through the channels in disbelief. He checked MSNBC, FOX, CNN, the local stations. The anchors reported on the economy, the Middle East, even a couple human interest pieces like it was just a regular day. None of them uttered a peep about the zombie plague that was ravaging his hometown, brain-eating or otherwise. Feeling like he had stumbled into some mad alternate universe, Mort turned off the television and sat in his silent, dark apartment.

  If the authorities were keeping this under wraps, he reasoned, then it must be bad.

  Really bad.

  Feeling more frightened than ever, Mort crept from room to room, closing shades, filling basins with fresh drinking water, trying to put together an emergency kit in case he needed to flee. He owned no weapons, but he did have knives in the kitchen. A couple were pretty big.

  He thought to call his relatives and warn them, see if they were safe, ask if they’d heard anything about the pandemonium in DuChamp. He started patting pockets, but he’d left his cell phone back at the shop. He didn’t have a land line either.

  Cursing, Mort sat in the floor by the window, holding the big butcher knife in his hands. He watched the street below for hours, peeking through a gap in the blinds. Every now and then, a zombie would drift by on the street, moving with eerie slowness through the glow of the street lamps.

  About three am, a red compact car pulled up in front of his apartment building. His neighbors, the Halls, clambered out, smiling and chatting with one another as they unloaded their luggage. They’d been on vacation. Gone to Maine to enjoy autumn’s changing colors. They had no idea anything was the matter!

  Mort started to raise his window and yell a warning to them, but it was too late.

  A trio of zombies darted out of the dark and tackled them. Jack and Kathy’s screams drew even more deadheads to the scene. After a while, there were more than two dozen zombies massed around the returning vacationers. The creatures ate noisily, bickering over the tastiest scraps. Mort turned from the shade, letting it fall closed, and sat in the darkness.

  It was his first dead day.

  6

  Asian Women Can Drive

  Lavender’s zombie hoes went crazy when they heard the machine guns, the tatatat and echoing fart of gunpowder and hot lead. They shrieked and twisted against their bindings with renewed furor as Lavender’s armed guards fired their Uzis out in front of the recreation center. Loud as they were, the cries of the sex slave zombies were lost beneath the din of shrieks and snarls coming from the front of the building. It sounded like an army of the undead had descended on the community center, a great swarm of angry diseased wasps, buzzing with hunger and mindless rage.

  Mort and Cactus Pete stood paralyzed by horror as the sounds of combat grew louder and more frenzied out front.

  Then: the cough and tinkle of breaking glass, the squeal of nails torn from wood, a splintering crash. The machine guns fell silent. First one, then the second. One of Lavender’s bodyguards yelled in despair. The yell started out low-pitched, but wound its way quickly to a soprano scream. Was it the big one named Landslide? Or the even bigger one named T-Rex? Mort couldn’t tell who it was, only that the poor guy sounded like he was being pulled apart.

  The answer came a moment later. It was Landslide. T-Rex stumbled through the lobby door and threw his back against it, sweat gleaming on his jowly brown face. His eyes were so wide they looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets and go rolling across the floor.

  “How bad is it, dawg?” Lavender demanded, platform shoes clomping across the floor. “How many’s out there?”

  T-Rex ogled his boss. In his terror, he had temporarily forgotten how to speak. His mammoth man-tits flopped up and down beneath his burgundy track suit as his chins quivered. Finally, thick lips trembling, he managed to gasp: “They’s about a million o’ dem zombies out there! They got Landslide! They-- they pulled him in half like a fuckin’ wishbone!”

  “Land’s sakes--!” Lavender drawled.

  There was a violent thump behind T-Rex. His great body shook with the impact. Savage faces squeezed up to the wire-reinforced window in the door. Jagged teeth with bits of flesh stuck between them gnashed at the glass, leaving bloody smears. Moldy finger scrambled for purchase. T-Rex turned and threw the lock, and not a moment too soon. The door bulged as the combined weight of the zombies pressed against it.

  “Where’s your chopper?” Lavender asked.

  T-Rex looked in his fat palms like his machine gun had just magically disappeared. He gawped at his boss, then cursed. “Fuck! I think I dropped it.”

  “Da-yamn!” Lavender swore. He stalked off toward the Coke machines. In his venomously bright, lime green leisure suit, he looked like some kind of bizarre, man-sized praying mantis. The gangly man should have looked comical with his braided pigtails, Kufi skullcap and retro apparel, but Mort wasn’t laughing. His entire life had become one long marathon of craziness, and one skinny lunatic in bell-bottoms and high heel shoes could not make this new dreamlike existence any more ridiculous.

  Mort watched Lavender retrieve a Mac-10 submachine gun from atop a rolling metal cart. Lavender checked the clip. Grinning over his shoulder at Mort and Pete, the world’s last living pimp said, “If you boys are packing, you best lock an’ load! That door ain’t gonna hold for long!”

  Mort glanced at Pete.

  Pete looked back at him.

  Pete didn’t move, didn’t say a word. He was waiting for Mort to come up with a plan. Stay and fight? Make a run for it? He wasn’t indecisive often. He was a shoot first and ask questions later kind of guy, but when he was at a loss, h
e looked like a child with stage fright on the premier of the grade school Christmas play.

  “Forget that loon. Let’s get out of here,” Mort said. “Come on! This way!” He started toward the dark hallway that led to the mens locker room. Pete fell into step behind him, rooting in his backpack for his gun.

  “Where you crackers goin’?” Lavender demanded.

  Mort didn’t reply. He wondered if Lavender would open fire on them. He thought the lunatic might do just that. The “last living pimp” was not a rational person. Mort didn’t think he ever had been. Mort had sensed it the moment they met. It was the way his eyes rolled. The way he grinned. Even his smell. Call it Eau de Batshit Crazy. Available at all fine retailers.

  “Ya’ll are chickenshits!” Lavender shouted after them. “Da-yamn!”

  But Lavender didn’t shoot them. He watched Mort and Pete vanish into the hallway, scowling, then turned his attention to the howling masses at the lobby door.

  “They getting ready to bust through!” T-Rex exclaimed, pressing his back against the door.

  The metal door was bulging, warping beneath the weight of all those seething bodies. A bolt from one of the hinges snapped and went flying through the air like a cork out of a champagne bottle.

  “Step out of the way, T,” Lavender said with a calm smile. His right eye veered off to the side, then returned front and center.

  T-Rex nodded. He circled around behind his boss.

  Another bolt snapped with a sound like a pistol shot.

  Spreading his legs and taking aim at the door, the Last Living Pimp snarled, “All right, you undead muthafuckas! Come and get some!”

  *****

  “There has to be a back door here somewhere. It’s in the fire code for all public buildings,” Mort said desperately as he and Pete scurried through the dark. “Maybe we can sneak out of here, give those deadheads the slip. The zombies sound like they’re concentrated out front. Maybe we’ll get lucky”

  “You’re the genius, big guy. Get us out of here,” Pete said, deferring to Mort for the time being.

  Behind them came the snap and boom of the lobby door slamming into the floor. The crazed creatures had managed to batter their way through the steel barrier. The howls of the zombies increased in volume as they poured inside. If hell had a glee club, Mort thought, that’s what they would sound like.

  “Shit! They got in!” Pete hissed.

  “I know. Stay quiet. Lavender and his bodyguard will keep them occupied for a little while.”

  The ground beneath Mort’s feet thrummed as the zombies swarmed into the gymnasium. T-Rex screamed. A second later, Lavender began to spray the advancing horde with 9 mm bullets.

  “Shit!” Pete swore. “Shit-shit-shit! Our gooses are fuckin’ cooked, Mort!”

  “Just stay calm,” Mort hissed.

  They zigged through the locker room, zagged down another, shorter hallway.

  “Well, it was nice hanging with you, bro. I’ve had a real swell time--”

  “There’s the emergency exit! Let’s see if the coast is clear!”

  The handles of the double doors were chained together, but Mort had not forgotten his crowbar. He slid it from his backpack and hooked it in the clasp of the lock. Thank goodness the chains were pulled tight, or he wouldn’t have been able to apply much force to the lock. The two men puffed and yanked together. Finally, faces red, they managed to snap the lock. Mort plucked the broken clasp from the links and the chain slithered to the floor.

  Lavender had stopped shooting. Mort couldn’t tell whether the zombies had gotten him and T-Rex or not, but the deadheads were still howling and—judging by the cacophony of destruction coming from the main recreation area—the angry dead were keeping themselves occupied tearing the place apart.

  “You got your gun?” Mort asked.

  “Yep,” Pete answered.

  The hallway was dark but for the seam of light glowing between the double doors. Mort could see only the outline of Pete’s body as his partner crouched behind him. Steeling himself for battle, Mort tightened his grip on the crowbar, his palms slick with sweat.

  Flip a coin, he thought. Heads we live, tails we die.

  He nudged the fire exit open. Outside, rainy gray light and wet sidewalk. A waft of misty air.

  Almost instantly, a female zombie lunged in at Mort.

  Pete stepped forward, shoving his gun in the creature’s mouth. “Eat this!” he snarled, pulling the trigger.

  The gun did not fire.

  Mort had dived away from the zombie’s pinwheeling claws. He rolled onto his back and looked up at Pete and the deadhead.

  “No way,” he said.

  He cocked his head, trying to figure out if what he was seeing was real or not.

  The female zombie stumbled back, trying to dislodge the object Pete had shoved down her throat. It was the big brown dildo Pete had taken from the apartment. In the dark hallway, and in his nervousness, Pete had pulled the dildo from his backpack instead of his weapon.

  It turned out to be a stroke of good luck. The giant dildo gagged the female zombie’s howls, which might have attracted the attention of the horde in front of the building. The afro-headed zombie whipped her upper torso back and forth, her bare titties swinging, as she gnawed on the rubber shaft and tugged at the replica cock and balls.

  Mort didn’t wait for her to bite through the dildo or pull it from her gullet, and Pete was going to be useless. He was just standing there, staring at the zombie with an amazed grin. Mort clambered to his feet and stepped toward her, raising the crowbar over his head. With a grunt, he leveraged his impressive mass behind the descending blow.

  The bar of iron came down on top of her skull so hard she bit the dong in half. The crowbar put a sizable dent in her head, too, driving her to her knees.

  Gritting his teeth, Mort kicked her over and stabbed the crowbar into her right eye, skewering her brain.

  The zombie flopped and pissed and then fell still.

  Mort looked grimly over his shoulder at Pete.

  “I told you it might come in handy,” Pete said with a grin.

  There were no other zombies visible on this side of the housing project. Lady Luck must have the hots for one of us, Mort thought. Mort and Pete took off running, trying to stay low. They dashed around one last monolithic structure and set off across the street.

  Magnolia Village receded behind them. They scurried down the sidewalk, dreadfully exposed. They ran past a pawn shop and a liquor store, an ethnic grocer and a place that offered payday loans. They tried the doors of several businesses, but found them all locked and securely barred. It wasn’t too long before they heard the howl of a nearby zombie, who had spotted them while shuffling around an empty lot, gnawing on a dead cat.

  “Dang!” Mort cursed under his breath.

  “This way! Hurry!” Pete urged him, taking off in a sprint.

  When they first met, Mort had struggled to keep up with Pete, but weeks of exertion had begun to hone his body into a more efficient machine. Mort was surprised to find he was only falling a little behind his much slimmer partner today. He was still gasping and wheezing after only a block or two, but at least Pete didn’t have to stop and wait for him to catch up, as he’d had to do earlier.

  They rounded a corner, pursued by the howling zombie, who was still holding the dead cat by its tail.

  “Damn!” Pete cried, skidding to a halt.

  The street ahead of them was occupied by more of the undead.

  Three zombies were limping around in the drizzle, two large males and one slim girl-child in a ragged going-to-church dress. Their wet hair clung to their scalps in dark tendrils. Their clothes were ragged and colorless, as was their flesh. Their heads jerked around at the cries of the pursuing zombie, then they joined the chase, pelting toward Mort and Pete, adding their snarls to the lethal choir.

  Pete turned on his heel and took off at a perpendicular angle.

  Mort followed.

  The t
wo men veered across an empty lot, weaving around piles of lumber and building supplies, then leaping over the remnants of a brick wall. Well, Pete leapt. Mort flipped over it on his belly like a fat guy at boot camp and went sprawling in the mud.

  The four zombies—joined now by two more of the running dead—were in hot pursuit, screaming their heads off.

  Pete dropped his duffel bag and started rooting through it in the rain. He found his gun and stood up, firing a couple shots at the deadheads.

  They were wild shots—wild enough to make Mort throw his arms in front of his face-- but one lucky round found its target. It struck the little girl in the going-to-church dress right in the middle of her forehead. She flew out of her patent leather shoes as her head exploded between her pigtails like a jar of strawberry jam.

  “Fuck you, bitch!” Pete crowed.

  Mort ran past his buddy, sliding a little in the muck. Pete fired off a couple more shots, then scooped up his duffel bag and put the pedal to the metal. He caught up to Mort in about three strides.

  They sprinted across the empty lot and turned onto another street. It was beginning to rain more earnestly now and Mort slipped on the wet pavement and went down on his ass. A block away, a car bore down on them at high speed.

  Both men saw it simultaneously. They realized—also simultaneously-- that they were right in its path, and that it was too close and moving at much too high a speed to avoid running them down.

  Pete threw up his hands and waved frantically.

  The car accelerated at first—the driver obviously mistaking them for zombies, intent on running them down—but as Mort tried to scramble to his feet, and Pete gave off waving his arms to hook his hands under Mort’s armpits to lift him, the driver realized they were real live people and tromped on the brakes.

  The oncoming vehicle-- some kind of black sports car-- slewed sideways, wheels squealing on the wet blacktop. The driver steered into the slide expertly, regained traction, and then executed an impossible-looking reverse drift, curving the trajectory of the vehicle just enough to clear the two men. If the streets were not so slick, the car would have plowed right over them. As it was, it came to a stop a couple feet away.