Black Leather Required

by David J. Schow

  The young man completes his ritual and shoulders his jacket. There is still enough time for him to catch a cab to the airport, or to his hotel for a bout of dreamless sleep.

  Once the young man is gone, Mister Mort decides to discover things, and his granite feet embed deep prints in Valley View's rich soil.

  It is nice to be off the pedestal for a change.

  Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy

  Eating 'em was more fun than blowing their gnarly green heads off. But why dicker when you could do both?

  The fresher ones were blue. That was important if you wanted to avoid cramps, salmonella. Eat a green one and you'd be yodeling down the big porcelain megaphone in no time.

  Wormboy used wire cutters to snip the nose off the last bullet in the foam block. He snugged the truncated cartridge into the cylinder of his short-barrel .44. When fired, the flattened slugs pancaked on impact and would disintegrate any geek's head into hash. The green guys weren't really "zombies," because no voodoo had played a part. They were all geeks, all slow as syrup and stupid as hell and Wormboy loved it that way. It meant he would not starve in this cowardly new world. He was eating; millions weren't.

  Wormboy's burden was great.

  It hung from his Butthole Surfers T-shirt. He had scavenged dozens of such shirts from a burned-out rockshop, all Extra Extra Large, all screaming about bands he had never heard of–Day-Glo Abortions, Rudimentary Penii, Shower of Smegma, Fat & Fucked Up. Wormboy's big personal in-joke was one that championed a long-gone album titled GIVING HEAD TO THE LIVING DEAD.

  The gravid flab of his teats distorted the logo, and his surplus flesh quivered and swam, shoving around his clothing as though some subcutaneous revolution was aboil. Pasty and pocked, his belly depended earthward, a vast sandbag held at bay by a wide weightlifter's belt, notched low. The faintest motion caused his hectares of skin to bobble like mercury.

  Wormboy was more than fat. He was a crowd of fat people. A single mirror was insufficient to the task of containing his image.

  The explosion buzzed the floor beneath his high-tops. Vibrations slithered from one thick stratum of dermis to the next, bringing him the news.

  The sound of a Bouncing Betty's boom-boom always worked like a Pavlovian dinner gong. It could smear a smile across his jowls and start his tummy to percolating. He snatched up binoculars and stampeded out into the graveyard.

  Valley View Memorial Park was a classic cemetery, of a venerable lineage far preceding the ordinances that required flat monument stones to note the dearly departed. The granite and marble jutting from its acreage was the most ostentatious and artfully hewn this side of a Universal Studios monster movie boneyard. Stone cold angels reached toward heaven. Stilted verse, deathlessly chiseled, eulogized the departees–vanity plates in a suburbia for the lifeless. It cloyed.

  Most of the graves were unoccupied. They had prevailed without the fertilization of human decay and were now choked with loam and healthy green grass. Most of the tenants had clawed out and waltzed off several seasons back.

  A modest road formed a spiral ascent path up the hill and terminated in a cul-de-sac fronting Wormboy's current living quarters. Midway up it was interrupted by a trench ten feet across. Wormboy had excavated this "moat" using the cemetery's scoop-loader, and seeded it with lengths of two-inch pipe sawn at angles to form funnel-knife style pungi sticks. Tripwires knotted gate struts to tombstones to booby traps, and three hundred antipersonnel mines lived in the earth. Every longitude and latitude of Valley View had been lovingly nurtured into a Gordian Knot of kill power which Wormboy had christened his "spider-web."

  The Bouncing Bettys had been a godsend. Anything that wandered in unbidden would get its legs blown off or become immovably gaffed in the moat.

  Not long after the geeks woke up, shucked dirt, and ambled off with their yaps drooping open, Wormboy had claimed Valley View for his very own. He knew the dead tended to "home" toward places that had been important to them back when they weren't green. Ergo, never would they come trotting home to a graveyard.

  Wormboy's previous hideout had been a National Guard armory. Too much traffic in walking dead weekend warriors, there. Blowing them into un-walking lasagna cost too much time and powder. After seven Land Rover-loads of military rock and roll, Wormy's redecoration of Valley View was complete. The graveyard was one big mechanized ambush. The reception building and nondenominational chapel were ideally suited to his needs . . .and breadth. Outfitting the prep room was more stainless steel than a French kitchen in Beverly Hills; where stiffs were once dressed for interment, Wormboy now dressed them out for din-din. There was even a refrigerated morgue locker. Independent generators chugged out wattage. His only real lament was that there never seemed to be enough videotapes to keep him jolly. On the nonfiction front he favored Julia Child.

  The binocs were overpriced army jobs with an illuminated reticule. Wormboy thumbed up his bottle-bottom fisheye specs, focused and swept the base of the hill. Smoke was still rising from the breach point. Fewer geeks blundered in these days, but now and again he could still snag one.

  That was peculiar. As far as Wormboy could reckon, geeks functioned on the level of pure motor response with a single directive seek food–and legs that made their appetites mobile. Past Year One the locals began to shun Valley View altogether, almost as though the geek grapevine had warned them the place was poison. Could be that Valley View's primo kill rate had made it the crucible of the first bona fide zombie superstition.

  God only knew what they were munching in the cities by now. As the legions of ambulatory expirees had swelled, their preferred food–live citizens–had gone underground. Survivors of what Wormboy called Zombie Apocalypse had gotten canny or gotten eaten. Geek society itself was like a gator pit; he'd seen them get pissed off and chomp hunks out of one another. Though their irradiated brains kept their limbs supple and greased with oxygenated blood, they were still dead. . .and dead people still rotted. Their structural integrity (not to mention their freshness) was less than a sure bet past the second or third Halloween. Most geeks Wormy spotted nowadays were minus a major limb. They digested, but did not seem to eliminate. Sometimes the older ones simply exploded. They clogged up with gas and decaying food until they hit critical mass, then kerblooey–steaming gobbets of brown crap all over the perimeter. It was enough to put you off your dinner.

  Life was so weird. Wormboy felt like the only normal person left.

  This movable feast, this walking smorgasbord, could last another year or two at max, and Wormboy knew it. His fortifications insured that he would be ready for whatever followed, when the world changed again. For now, it was a matchless chow-down, and grand sport.

  The ATV groaned and squeaked its usual protests when he settled into its saddle. A rack welded to the chassis secured geek tools–pinch bar, fire axe, scattergun sheaths and a Louisville Slugger with a lot of chips, nicks, and dried blood. The all-terrain bike's balloon tires did not burst. Wormboy kick-started and puttered down to meet his catch of the day.

  Geeks could sniff human meat from a fair distance. Some had actually gotten around to elementary tool use. But their maze sense was zero-zero. They always tried to proceed in straight lines. Even for a non-geek it took a load of deductive logic just to pick a path toward Valley View's chapel without getting divorced from your vitals, and much more time than generally elapsed between Wormboy's feedings. Up on this hilltop, his security was assured.

  He piloted the ATV down his special escape path, twisting and turning, pausing at several junctures to gingerly reconnect tripwires behind him. He dropped his folding metal Army fording bridge over the moat and tootled across.

  Some of the meat hung up in the heat flash of the explosion was still sizzling on the ground in charred clumps. Dragging itself doggedly up the slope was half a geek, still aimed at the chapel and the repast that was Wormboy. Everything from its navel down had been blown off.

  Wormboy un-racked the pinch bar. One end had been modi
fied to take a ten-pound harpoon head of machined steel. A swath of newly-muddied earth quickly became a trail of strewn organs resembling smashed fruit. The geek's brand new prone carriage had permitted it to evade some of the Bouncing Betty trips. Wormboy frowned. His announcement was pointed–and piqued–enough to arrest the geek's uphill crawl.

  "Welcome to Hell, dork breath."

  It humped around on its palms with all the grace of a beached haddock. Broken rib struts punched through at jigsaw angles and mangled innards swung from the mostly-empty chest cavity like pendent jewels. One ear had been sheared off; the side of its head was caked in thick blood, dirt and pulverized tissue that reminded Wormboy of a scoop of dog food. It sought Wormboy with bleary drunkard's eyes, virulently jaundiced and discharging gluey fluid like those of a sick animal.

  It was wearing a besmirched Red Cross armband.

  A long, grey-green rope of intestine had paid out behind the geek. It gawped with dull hunger, then did an absurd little push-up in order to bite it. Teeth crunched through geek-gut and gelid black paste evacuated with a blatting fart noise. Sploot!

  Disinclined toward autocannibalism, it tacked again on Wormboy. A kidney peeled loose from a last shred of muscle and rolled out to burst apart in the weeds. The stench was unique.

  Impatient, Wormy shook his head. Stupid geeks. "C'mon, fuckface, come and get it." He waggled his mighty belly, then held out the rib roast of his forearm. "You want Cheez-Whiz on it or what? C'mon. Chow time."

  It seemed to catch the drift. Mouth chomping and slavering, eyes straying off in two directions, it resumed its quest, leaving hanks and clots of itself behind all the way down.

  It was too goddamned slow. . .and wasting too many choice bits.

  Hefting the pinch bar, Wormboy hustled up the slope. He slammed one of his size thirteens thunderously down within biting range and let the geek fantasize for an instant about what a crawful of Wormboy Platter would taste like. Greedy. Then he threw all his magnificent tonnage behind a downward thrust, spiking his prey between the shoulder blades and staking it to the ground with a moist crunch.

  It thrashed and chewed air. Wormy waved bye-bye in its face. "Don't go 'way, now." He let the geek watch him pick his way back down to the ATV. He wanted it to see him returning with the axe. Sweat had broken freely; the exertion already had Wormboy huffing and aromatic, but he loved this part almost as much as swallowing that old time home cookin'.

  The axe hissed down overhand. A bilious rainbow of decomposing crap hocked from the neck stump while the blue head pin-balled from one tombstone to the next. It thonked to rest against the left rear wheel of the ATV Wormboy lent the half-torso a disappointed inspection. Pickings were lean; this geek had been on the hoof too long. Burger night again.

  He looked behind him and sure enough, the lone head was fighting like hell to redirect itself. Hair hung in its eyes, the face was caved in around the flattened nose, the whole of it now oozing and studded with cockleburrs . . .but by God it tipped over, embedded broken teeth into packed dirt, and tried to pull itself toward Wormy. It was that hungry.

  Wormboy went down to meet it, humming. He secured the axe in its metal clip and drew the ball bat.

  Busting a coconut was tougher. The geek's eyes stayed open. They never flinched when you hit them. On the second bash, curds of blood-dappled brain jumped out to meet the air.

  It ceased moving then, except to crackle and collapse. The cheesy brain-stuff was the color of fish bellies. Wormboy pulled free a mucilaginous fistful and brandished it before the open, unseeing eyes. He squeezed hard. Glistening spirals unfurled between his fingers with a greasy macaroni noise.

  "I win again."

  He licked the gelid residue off his trigger finger and smacked his lips. By the time he got back to the torso with a garbage bag, the Red Cross armband was smoldering. He batted it away. It caught in midair and flared, newborn fire gobbling up the swatch of cloth and the symbol emblazoned thereon, leaving Wormboy alone to scratch his head about what it might have meant.

  Little Luke shot twin streamers of turbid venom into the urine specimen cup like a good Christian, providing. He did not mind being milked (not that he'd been asked); it was a necessary preamble to the ritual. He played his part and was provided for–a sterling exemplar of God's big blueprint. His needle fangs were translucent and fragile looking. Cloudy venom pooled in the cup.

  Maintaining his grip just behind Little Luke's jaws, the Right Reverend Jerry thanked the Lord for this bounty, that the faithful might take communion and know His peace. He kissed Little Luke on the head and dropped all four feet of him back into the pet caddy. Little Luke's Love Gift had been generous today. Perhaps even serpents knew charity.

  Jerry pondered charity, and so charitably ignored the fact that his eldest Deacon was leaking. Deacon Moe stood in the vestibule, his pants soaked and dripping, weaving back and forth. He was not breathing, and his eyes saw only the specimen cup. The odor that had accompanied him into the tiny room was that of maggoty sausage. He was a creature of wretchedness, without a doubt. . .but was also proof to the Right Reverend Jerry that the myth had delivered at last, and skeptics be damned.

  The dead had risen from their graves to be judged. If that was not a miraculous proof, what was? The regular viewers of Jerry's tri-county video ministry had been long satisfied by more pallid miracles–eased sprains, restored control of the lower tract, that kind of thing. Since this ukase had flown down from Heaven, it would be foolish to shun its opportunities.

  Jerry savored the moment the dead ones had walked. It had vindicated his lagging faith, dispelling in an instant the doubts that had haunted his soul for a lifetime. There was a One True God, and there was a Judgment Day, and there was an Armageddon, and there was bound to be a Second Coming, and as long as the correct events came to pass, who cared if their order had been juggled a bit? The Lord had been known to work in mysterious ways before.

  Once his suit had been blazing white, and pure. With faith, it would shine spotlessly again. Right now he did not mind the skunky miasma exuding from the pits of what had once been a $1500 jacket. It helped blanket the riper and more provocative stench of Deacon Moe's presence. The congregation was on the move and there was little time for dapper grooming in mid-hegira.

  Jerry beckoned Deacon Moe forward to receive communion. From the way poor Moe shambled, this might be his last chance to drink of the Blood . . . since none of the faithful had meshed teeth lately on the Body, or any facsimile thereof.

  He had visited an abandoned library, and books had told him what rattlesnake venom could do.

  In human beings, it acts as a neurotoxin and nerve impulse blocker, jamming the signals of the brain by preventing acetylcholine from jumping across nerve endings. The brain's instructions are never delivered. First comes facial paralysis, then loss of motor control. Heart and lungs shut down and the victim drowns in his own backed-up fluids. Hemolytic, or blood-destroying, factors cause intense local pain. Jerry had tasted the venom he routinely fed his quartet of Deacons. Nothing to worry about, as long as your stomach lining had no tiny holes in it. The bright yellow liquid was odorless, with a taste at first astringent, then sweetish. It numbed the lips. There was so much books could not know.

  In walking dead human beings, Jerry discovered that the venom, administered orally, easily penetrated the cheese-cloth of their internal pipework and headed straight for the motor centers of the brain, Unblocking them, allowing Jerry to reach inside with light hypnosis to tinker. He could program his Deacons not to eat him. More importantly, this imperative could then be passed among the faithful in the unspoken and mystical way that seemed reserved to only these special citizens of God.

  A talent for mesmerization came effortlessly to a man who had devoted years to charming the camera's unblinking and all-seeing eye. Jerry preferred to consider his ability innate, a divine, God-granted sanction approved for the use he made of it. Don't eat the Reverend.

  Deacon Moe's coated to
ngue moistened cracked and greenish lips, not in anticipation, but as a wholly preconditioned response. The demarcations of the urine specimen cup showed a level two ounces. Little Luke could be fully milked slightly more often than once per month, if Jerry's touch was gentle and coaxing. The cup was tilted to Deacon Moe's lips and the poison was glugged down in nomine Patris, et Filii . . .

  "And God waved His hand," Jerry belted out.

  "And when God did wave His hand, He cleansed the hearts of the wicked of evil. He scoured out the souls of the wolves, and set His born-agains to the task of reclaiming the earth in His name. The Scriptures were right all along–the meek inherited. Now the world grows green and fecund again. Now the faithful must seek strength from their most holy Maker. The damned Sodom and Gomorrah of New York and Los Angeles have fallen to ruin, their false temples pulled down to form the dust that makes the clay from which God molds the God-fearing Christian. Our God is a loving God, yet a wrathful God, and so he struck down those beyond redemption. He closed the book on secular humanism. His mighty Heel stamped out radical feminism. His good right Fist meted out rough justice to the homosexuals; his good left Fist likewise silenced the pagans of devilspawn rock and roll. And He did spread His arms wide to gather up the sins of this evil world, from sexual perversion to drug addiction to Satan worship. And you might say a memo came down from the desk of the Lord, and major infidel butt got kicked doubleplusgood!"

  Now he was cranking, impassioned, his pate agleam with righteous perspiration. His hands clasped Deacon Moe's shoulders. His breath misted the zombie's dead-ahead eyes. His conviction was utter. Moe salivated.

  "And now the faithful walk the land, brother, as a mighty army. God's legions grow by the day, by the hour, the minute, as we stand here and reaffirm our faith in His name. We are all children of God, and God is a loving Father who provides for his children, yes. Yes, we must make sacrifices. But though our bellies be empty today, our hearts are full up with God's goodness!" His voice was cracking now; it was always good to make it appear as though some passion was venting accidentally. "From that goodness you and I must draw the strength to persevere until tomorrow, when the Millennium shall come and no child of the Lord shall want. Peace is coming! Food is coming! Go forth unto the congregation, Deacon Moe, and spread this good news! Amen! Amen! Amen!"