Reeferpunk Shorts

by David Mark Brown

  “Got it.” I drag my legs across the handcart platform and yank the heavy bar from its moorings. The Jeffery appears to pick up steam. I look behind us and see why. Twitchers are swarming, maybe fifty of them. Even if we hit the switch we’ll be dead. “Keep going.”

  “What—“

  “Just do it, Dammit!” I light the last two bottles and chuck them in rapid succession, both of them barbecuing twitchers so close I don’t need to aim. Without a second to spare I grasp the smash bar and lunge toward the switch. It connects solidly, sending electric vibrations through my arms and neck, and lifting me from the cart’s platform.

  “Papa!”

  “I love you!” I speak the words as my shoulder collides with a railroad tie, my limp legs folding over the top of me. With a grunt I right myself and grip the 12-gauge in both hands. A click followed by a roar, and the air bursts into crimson. I pull the second trigger, cutting two twitchers in half. Another lunges head first forcing me to drop the shotgun and roll to my left. The animal cracks his skull on the base of the rail behind me and falls limp while another bulls me over.

  I tug a knife from my bandolier and plunge it into his heart. Before we can stop rolling my legs snag something solid. Heaving the dead twitcher off my chest I find two more, faces buried into my calves, snapping bones with their teeth. I spin the .44-40, still strapped to my shoulder, until it’s barrel first and scatter their brains amidst the gravel.

  I roar into the oncoming ocean of rotten twitcher fllat twitchesh and spit burning hot lead as fast as I can roll the lever, parting the onslaught like a lighthouse in a storm. Every devil I drop is one less to haunt my children, one less to threaten my beloved sons.

  Until I roll the lever and hear nothing but an empty click. Slow motion overtakes me. In a moment of crystal clarity I see all my strengths and faults meld together into the broken body of a dying, forty-year-old man. A man blessed to mend his worst mistakes before his death.

  Falling to my back, I feel the ground shake beneath me. And then thunder and lightning crack open the sky above me as the .50 caliber cycles through its belt of bullets. I feel the concussion of each shell igniting, powder expanding the air around it, buffeting my brain, propelling lead into spoiled bodies, poisoned gradually by a toxin born by man and belched into the soil intentionally. Ridiculous, all of it.

  For a split second I swear I see blue, before my view is eclipsed by the flying silhouette of my second son, Pyotr, swinging his ax as if to split the earth.

  ~~~

  The metal on metal squeal of the Jeffery’s breaks snaps me from my trance. My sons. All I can think of are my sons.

  I shake the dead twitchers from my mangled legs and drag my body back toward the discarded shotgun, popping two more shells from my bandolier on the way. I hear Bertha swearing underneath the continual torrent of .50 caliber shells reigning down from her perch on the Jeffery.

  No sooner than I shove the bullets in the chambers and slap the shotgun shut, I turn to witness a twitcher’s head explode a few feet away.

  “Papa!” I hear Mykola chamber another shell and just as quickly spend it. Leonid scoops me over his shoulders, this time like a sack of feed. From my perch I finally witness the carnage in its entirety. We had become the main attraction, twitchers streaming toward us by the hundred.

  Mykola covers our retreat to the Jeffery, firing his 12-gauge faster than I could focus on the spent shells ejecting from the chamber. Writhing limbs surround us on three sides. Finally I spot Pyotr, a whirlwind standing in the tracks at the head of the Jeffery, amidst a stack of dead twitchers three feet high.

  “I’m out!” Mykola backs against the armored car scrambling to reload.

  “Pete, time to go!” Leonid strains at the hand holds on the Jeffery’s side. “Hold on, Papa. This is going to hurt.” He lunges up the side in two quick motions and hurls us both onto the top. I flop off his shoulders like a dead fish and roll down into the passenger compartment. All I can see now is Bertha straddling the .50 caliber M2 against a red and violet sky.

  Pyotr flies over the edge of the Jeffery followed closely by Mykola and the sound of scratching nails on armor plating. Dizzily, I realize we’re already in motion.

  “Papa!” Pyotr scrambles down to my side while Mykola leans over the edge to dispatch the freeloaders.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.” I prop my head up with Pyotr’s help.

  “You look like govno.” He smiles.

  “Well, I’ll fit right in.” I grip him by both shoulders and smile back. “You’re crazy, my son.” I pull him toward me. “Thank you.”

  “Your legs.” Mykola joins us.

  “They mean nothing. We’ll cut them off when we get home.” I embrace my youngest as well. “For now let’s stop the bleeding.” I look them both in the eyes. “We’re not home yet.”

  By the time I tie off both legs and we reset the M2 so I can operate it, the helium plant looms on our left and the hunt ring just ahead on our right.

  “Papa, the gunfire is coming from the refugees, not the plant.” Leonid is right. Other than the blinding flood lights around the perimeter, the plant is asleep.

  “Tose ain’t refugees. Dem’s da U.S. army.” Bertha points at the side of a wagon emblazoned with a white star and containing two back-to-back Browning M2s struggling to hold back the breaker of twitchers. A straggling of men rally to the protective bubble the guns temporarily create.

  “You mean we risked our lives for a friggin’ war?”

  “Pyotr. Whoever they are they don’t deserve to feed the twitchers. The plan hasn’t changed. We’re getting them out.”

  “Hold on! Track’s coming to an end.” Leonid yells from the driver’s seat as he engages the Jeffery’s tires. The rubber squeals against the rails until we burst through the deadman and onto a dirt road.

  “Alright. Bertha, take the wheel. You’re gonna’ be my legs.”

  “Just so you know, I ain’t got my license renewed in seven years.”

  “Just get us to those machine guns.” She cackles as she leaps toward the front to relieve Leonid.

  Seconds later my eldest joins the rest of us. “What’s the plan, Papa?

  I look them in the eyes and grin. “The Founder men are gonna’ tear hell a new corn shoot.”

  ~~~

  With a string of twitchers still following in our wake, I put Pyotr on the back, giving him firm orders to stay onboard until we stop. Leonid rides on the right, Mykola on the left while I mow a path with the .50 cal.

  The darkening sky smells of sulfur and cooked flesh. The only sounds in the air are those of death and a lust for it. My body screams with pain, my legs oozing blood. Yet, sweeping filth from the dust zone from the back of the Jeffery while fighting side by side with my sons, fills me with an emotion I can only describe as peace.

  As the sun begins to set we hit the outer ring of the hunt, a writhing wall of twitchers frenzied beyond normal, and continually fortified by newcomers. The rising cacophony of their ungodly shrieks combines with the numbing thunder of the machine gun to arrest my senses and nearly freeze time. The air fills with flying fragments of poisoned bodies once human, and the road beneath us is paved with bones.

  With a sharp jerk of the wheel and skidding tires, we lurch to a stop beside the military wagon, forming a t se forminriangle of Browning M2 machine guns. Mykola and Pyotr instantly join the defense of the haggard survivors while I cover them from atop the Jeffery. Leonid’s job is to find the leader of the shrinking band and explain our next steps, quickly.

  Even with the third machine gun, we’ll run out of ammunition before twitchers. And to get away clean we need to punch a bigger hole than the Jeffery can make.

  Leonid grips my shoulder from behind and yells into my ear. “You’re in charge.”

  “That was fast!”

  “They’re almost out of ammo. Now or never. They’ve got a dozen grenades left.”

  “Perfect.” I swing the M2 to cover Mykola while he reloads
. “Have ‘em stack all the explosives in the wagon and clear out. Keep one grenade for yourself and join Bertha. We do it now.” The hunt ring slowly closes on us as my belt of ammo shortens. I spin the gun to a temporary stop in order to be heard, “Time to go! Load up! Bertha, get ready to push!”

  Pyotr and Mykola grab handholds as Bertha slams the Jeffery into reverse and pops the clutch. I straighten the last few feet of ammunition and pulse the M2 back to life, but the twitchers’ ring has pushed so close that I’m nearly aiming straight down. The Jeffery jolts as we bump the wagon, pushing it in front of us.

  The remaining survivors clamor around the armored car for hand holds. Those with ammunition left join Mykola in keeping the seething ocean of twitchers at bay. Empty clicks replace the jarring pulse of the .50 caliber as the last of the ammunition runs through its chamber. “Bertha, we gotta’ go!” She guns the engine until we’re bouncing at nearly 30mph. I lean over the drivers seat and yell, “do it! Do it!”

  Leonid chucks the grenade into the middle of the munitions pile on the wagon and Bertha slams on the breaks, sending the wagon careening into the ring of twitchers by itself. I roar above the fray, “wait until you see the blue flame and make for the opening!” But things are quickly getting ugly.

  Screams crowd me on my perch as I realize we’re completely overtaken. Men are fighting back twitchers with rifle butts and bloodied knuckles. But in a barroom brawl the average twitcher is three times stronger than a uninfected man. Pyotr tucks Mykola in behind him and creates a flashing wall of death, the setting sun glinting off his spinning ax.

  Twitchers encase the Jeffery on three sides, and still nothing happens—no fire-storm-causing explosion. Leonid recognizes the problem first, “Dud! It’s not gonna’ blow.”

  ~~~

  Before I can respond Bertha hits the gas, spitting gravel as we close the gap. The wagon itself swarms now with twitchers.

  “Bertha, what are you—“

  “Shut up, Georgy! You talk too much.” Bertha leans toward Leonid and yells something in his ear, handing him the wheel before he can object. In a flash she launches herself from the cabin and leaps with amazing agility. Clearing the ten foot gap from the front of the Jeffery to the wagon, she crumples and rolls into a mass of twitchers on top the pile of munitions. A split second later we collide with the wagon knocking everyone from theirighe from feet.

  “Leo! Reverse, now!” With a few .44-40 rounds remaining, I shoulder my mare’s leg in a desperate attempt to cover her. I splinter the skulls of the first two twitchers to stand, but the jarring retreat of the Jeffery on top a pavement of crushed twitchers, forces me to hold fire. For a few sickening seconds I watch the old woman. Her hair ripped from her scalp by a twitcher, she manages to duck and shake him off. During a final scramble, she raises her hands over her head in victory before being completely subsumed.

  In a frightening burst, a light rips through the swarming clump of rotten flesh on top the wagon and flowers into an explosion of shattered bone and splintered wood. Even as we continue to rumble backwards at full throttle, the shockwave quickly overcomes us. The crackle’s so thick I can barely breath. “Leo!” But the pedal is already to the metal.

  A surreal popping dances in the air all around us. Twitchers begin to bark frantically as the warning spreads through the ring. They crumple away from the Jeffery, pushing and shoving to retreat. The fire storm is going to be bigger than we had hoped. The wind switches direction, suddenly blowing outward rather than drawing in. We aren’t going to make it. “Everyone hit the ground! Faces in the dirt! Face down, now! Go!”

  I see Mykola and Pyotr obeying immediately, the other men following suit. With the twitchers still retreating, the area surrounding the Jeffery is abandoned. I drag myself out from behind the M2, lurch and then roll roughly down the side, colliding with the ground as the air liquifies. A searing heat embraces me.

  Several seconds pass, but all I can think of is coughing. It feels like a burning lizard has crawled down my throat and begun to chew my gut. Face in the dirt, I swallow a mouthful and gasp. I’m alive.

  My next thoughts are for my sons. I prop myself up to scan the surroundings. Leonid is crawling to my left, his skin a bright red, but alive. “Mykola, Pyotr.” I croak their names, my voice reduced to the rasp of sandpaper on wood.

  “Papa.” I turn to see Mykola bracing Pyotr, both of them standing and alive. “It’s time to go home.” I reach out and my youngest pulls me up. The firestorm radius spread thirty yards past our position, cooking twitchers as it went. But they’ll be back. Mykola boosts me onto the Jeffery.

  “Everyone on board.” I growl the command as loudly as I can. I nod to Mykola after he sets Pyotr down beside me. “Help the rest, quickly.” Leonid gingerly crawls up the heated metal of the armored car and nods as he gets behind the wheel. I wrap my arm around my middle child and pull him close. He breaths deep and lays his head on my shoulder.

  We wait another twenty, maybe thirty seconds until everyone still moving is helped onboard, less than two dozen of us. Just before we start rolling I notice Frank is one of them. The twitchers regather around the rim of the fire storm and cross over after us, but by the time we clear the far side of the burn they turn back to clean the bones of the dead. Frank works his way over to me, his face as bright pink as everyone else's. He grips my shoulder. “The old hag went out the way she wanted, in a blaze of glory.”

  I nod. “The same way she lived.”

  Frank continues, “I owe you and your boys my life.”

  < />

  Mykola climbs over to join us, and I give his arm a squeeze.

  “Oh, they’re not my boys anymore.” I grin, the most whole I’ve ever felt. “These are the Founder men.”

  Mykola smiles. “Happy birthday, Papa.”

  Greetings from Author David Mark Brown

  I hope you’ve enjoyed these first four Reeferpunk Shorts, ‘cause there’ll be plenty more from where those came from. I’m loving writing them and am particularly fond of the characters you will get to know and love over the next decade's worth of Reeferpunk.

  I know the first book, Fistful of Reefer is cataclysmically good. The next three will somehow be even better. I'll grow fat on my wealth of penny rolls (I like my money in shiny form) leading to a blase fifth book, then rebound for the sixth, seventh and eighth. The ninth will be a terrible attempt to take the characters into space on a diesel-powered locomotive (only read it if intoxicated). And blah, blah, blah. So I hope you stay tuned!

  I’m pretty stoked about my upcoming plague novel, Twitch and Die! (hopefully out by Christmas). Having just finished Paraplegic Zombie Slayer, you’ll soon get the chance to go back in time and find out about the birth and initial outbreak of the horrible plague. Enjoy the show!

  Bio

  I wrote my first award-winning story in 4th Grade, titled "The human bean." It wasn't a play on words. My profound piece about the human condition blundered into a mutant story about a human/legume crossbreed. (Curse you, phonics! But hello, commercial fiction!)

  My first book, Tainted Love: God, Sex and Relationships for the Not-so-pure-at-heart (inspired by my soiled experiences) was published in 2002 by InterVarsity Press. After several years of retooling myself as a novelist (by drinking more and making less money), I reemerged in 2009 with the idea for Reeferpunk.

  Raised on a Texas cattle ranch and schooled at the U of Montana (Berkeley of the Rockies), I am the world's most self-proclaimed redneck granola. When not spinning genius into the aethernet I obsess over home wine making, earthen construction, social justice, ultimate Frisbee and industrial hemp.

  My lovely wife and I adopted our first child from Vietnam before producing a second through more traditional means. The four of us live happily in Nampa, Idaho.

  Connect with me online:

  Twitter: RedneckGranola

  Facebook: RedneckGranola

  Smashwords: DavidMarkBrown

  Website: The Green Porch ; Reeferpunk />
  Also available: Fistful of Reefer

  Fistful of Reefer is a dieselpunk, weird Western pulp featuring goats, guns and the camaraderie of outcasts. Set along the Texas border during the waining years of the Mexican revolution, Fistful focuses on a group of unlikely heros and their unlikely foe as they stumble upon the fringes of a cabal bent on world domination. Fistful lives between No country for Old Men and The Three Amigos.

  Coming in January 2012: Twitch and Die! A Western plague novel.

  End

  Table of Contents

  Title/Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Reefer Ranger

  Fourth Horseman

  Del Rio Con Amor

  Paraplegic Zombie Slayer

  bio