by Bowie Ibarra
“That was crazy,” Knight said.
“Bad ass,” Parcells added.
“It’s kind of touching,” Sgt. Arnold said, waxing poetic. “It’s nice to know you can still get a break in this fucked-up world.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
3:45 PM
Rooftop of the H.E.B. across the highway
from South Point Apartments
“The military’s there, ‘mano. They turned it into a prison.”
The banditos were extremely surprised to find the apartment complex, their destination, fortified and looking every bit like a concentration camp. Two cholos were looking at it from the roof of the H.E.B. they had turned around to when they saw the apartment complex was in a much different condition than it should have been. They parked next to a ladder that led to the top of the building, and the entire expedition was now up on the roof. The zombies below were having a difficult time negotiating the jacked-up vehicles. The few that made it to one of the beds shambled about or fell back off trying to reach for the ladder.
“You think we should go in there?” Mousetrap asked.
“Shit, I ain’t going in there,” said his friend, Ducky.
“What are we going to tell Sleepy?”
“I don’t know. You’re going to fuckin’ tell him.”
“I ain’t tellin’ him shit.”
“Don’t be a pussy, Mousetrap.”
“You—”
“Asshole,” Ducky grumbled.
“Well, one of you had better do something!” Nick Lopez interjected. “My wife and daughter are in there!”
“Relax, ‘mano,” Ducky said. “I’m on top of it.”
He flipped open his cell phone and dialed Sleepy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
3:45 PM
Lopez Auto Repair and Custom Cars
Spc. Leo Garrison screamed in bloody terror. Sleepy had removed the tape in a clear effort to hear these cries of murderous anguish.
“Quit crying, you little bitch,” Sleepy muttered, slapping him across the face. “You’ve already lost the other two anyway.”
Tiny and Sleepy laughed at the two tortured souls. The cosmic payback against the soldiers was in full swing, and the two thugs were reveling in their nefarious high. Wicked had found wicked, and the tables were now turned.
Sgt. Nickson had already zoned himself out, praying for that one shred of hope that he would make it out alive. Duct-taped, bound, and helpless, he could only stare at the floor, knowing his number would be up, but all the same praying for that one chance of escape despite the clearly hopeless situation.
Right now all Sgt. Nickson could do was concentrate on something else. A distant beach. A phantom smile. A dot on the floor. A dot that became increasingly bigger in dark red splotches from the ripped, cut, chopped, and torn body of Spc. Garrison.
Garrison could not help but feel like this was some kind of divine retribution, a spiritual connection of punishment and atonement for his sins. Everything this man was doing was unnecessary. It was absolute torture—perhaps beyond torture if there was such a thing. It was torture for torture’s sake and torment for torment’s sake. It served no other purpose than to maim and humiliate because one man could. But what made him the saddest was that his leader, Sgt. Nickson—the one person he thought was his friend—was making no effort to stop the carnage.
Rule change.
And that one man, the thug who not one day before was sitting in jail, would not face any retribution. Ever.
Sleepy slapped Garrison again. “Shut the fuck up, you little bitch.” Then slapped him again. And again. And then again. Each time, the slap gained velocity. Strength. Each one was leveling Garrison to the brink of submission. This was the ultimate form of masochism. It was the adult version of catching a fly and tearing off its wings one by one, or burning ants with a magnifying glass, or stomping bugs. The feeling of power, of anger unleashed, was thrilling. Garrison was drowning in guilt, feeling as if he deserved every tortuous element of punishment.
“I got something that will shut you the fuck up,” Sleepy said. He moved to the chain release that sent the hanging Garrison to the floor.
Sensing an opportunity for escape, Garrison began to flail and squirm in a futile attempt. Tiny jumped on Garrison’s legs and Sleepy mounted his bound prey, punching and elbowing Garrison in the face. Lacerations formed on his cheeks, chin, and forehead. He quickly stopped squirming, but Sleepy continued to beat him until the strikes to the face and the pavement popping the back of his head knocked him unconscious.
Sleepy grabbed some duct tape and tore off a long piece. He placed the fingers he had just cut from Garrison’s hands on the tape. He then punched Garrison in the mouth again, for fun. His two front teeth came loose. Blood dripped from their former home, dripping down his throat. Sleepy then stuffed the fingers into Garrison’s mouth and taped it shut, wrapping the tape around his head several times until only his eyes and nose showed through.
The men laughed with intense joy.
Then Tiny had an idea to wake him up again.
“Hey, watch this shit,” Tiny said. He took a length of duct tape and placed it across Garrison’s eyes. He slapped the tape against his forehead, making sure the tape was on good and tight. Then, with a quick flick of the wrist, he tore the tape off.
Garrison awoke, stunned. The strong smell of the tape glue and blood drifted into his nose. He began to gag on the bloody fingers in his mouth, swallowing his own blood and shooting it back out of his nose. Red streaks laced the tape like rain streaking down a window.
On the tape were Garrison’s eyebrows.
Sleepy and Tiny laughed so hard they fell to the floor and rolled around. They looked at the tape again and laughed in masochistic glee. They then looked at Garrison. He had no eyebrows. They pointed and laughed again.
Then, still laughing, Sleepy pulled out a knife and grabbed Garrison’s goatee. With all the grace of a serial killer, he cut at the skin just below the duct tape and began to pull. Garrison screamed in muffled misery, muffled by his own fingers, blood, and the gray and unforgiving bond.
Sleepy sliced just a bit more before yanking away the goatee and a large segment of skin. He held it up and he and Tiny laughed as blood poured from Garrison’s chin.
Tiny took it one step further. Taking a length of duct tape, he taped the hairy mound to Garrison’s crotch, giving the illusion of femininity.
The laughter was not stopping in the least.
Sgt. Nickson finally stood up on his bound feet. He yelled, “Stop!”
“Oh, Mr. Big Shit,” Sleepy said, turning around at the still-dangling soldier. “What are you going to do, huh?” His hand slowly creeped toward a nearby can of gasoline. “Huh? What are you going to do, Mr. Big Dick?!” He picked up the can and removed the cap. “You think you can make the rules here?! Hanging from the ceiling, you think you can make the rules?! Huh?! Shit, you think your rules apply out there anymore?!” He shook the can in open intimidation. Splashes of gas spilled on the floor. “You can forget it, ese.” He splashed Nickson with gas. “No rules, bro. That’s how I like it.” He splashed him two more times. “You think you’re big shit with your guns? Bombing countries and fucking over their people?” More splashing, casually. “Wake up, ese. You’re a thug like me. You take your orders and you do what you’re told to do. You treat those people like your bitches. I saw the pictures. I see what you do. And that’s just what they showed us. Now how’s it feel?”
Sleepy lit a lighter. Nickson barely flinched. Unlike Garrison, he was ready to pay. He scowled at Sleepy with contempt.
“You scared?” Sleepy teased.
“Fuck you,” Nickson said.
Sleepy’s cell phone rang.
“These flames won’t be shit compared to the place you and I are going,” Sleepy said. “You can take it up with me when I get there.”
Both men stared at each other with glares that would melt ice.
Finally Sleepy answered
his ringing phone and raised it to his ear.
As he casually strolled away, he tossed the entire lighter at Nickson, setting him ablaze.
“Bueno,” Sleepy said into the phone.
Behind him, Nickson was squirming, but refused to cry out in fear and pain as flames danced across his uniform.
“Sleepy, it’s me. Ducky.”
“Do you have my friend’s wife and daughter yet?”
“No, Sleepy. The apartments. It’s a fuckin’ compound. Military all over the fuckin’ place. We can’t get in there alone. We need help.”
“Military?” Sleepy asked.
“Yeah. It’s secured good. Towers with guns and shit.”
Nickson’s clothes were not flame retardant, but the fire did not catch as anticipated. And though the temporary blaze burned blisters on his hands and face, the fire burned itself out. Charred hair sent its aroma around the room.
“I can help you,” Nickson said, taking a chance he understood what the conversation was about.
“Wait, Ducky,” Sleepy said, turning to Nickson again, partially amazed that the flames were not rising across his body anymore. “What did you say?”
“I can help you. If it’s the military, I can help you.”
Sleepy thought for a moment. Tiny shrugged, still holding the duct tape and eyebrows.
“Okay,” Sleepy said. “You can help me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
4:00 PM
South Point Apartments
“What’s going on?” Keri asked, stepping onto the balcony.
“They’re fighting,” Mike said, looking down onto the parking lot from the third floor of the apartment building.
They both looked over to see a large group of soldiers loading into a big personnel carrier. A scuffle had broken out among a few of the soldiers as the vehicles fired up their engines. Another growled to life, taking its first chug of diesel, as another group loaded up. Mike estimated that the vehicles were filled with more than half of the camp’s military force. A small group of soldiers pummeled one of their own down to the ground until he was not moving. They then dashed to one of the vehicles.
Mike and Keri continued to watch as the vehicles shifted gears and proceeded to the gate entrance. The gate slid open, exposing the interior to the dead at the gate that the transports conveniently crushed under their massive wheels. Soldiers who remained within the camp opened fire on the invading zombies as the gate closed.
The threat was neutralized, but the facility had lost a large portion of its defenders.
“This is bad news,” Mike said. “Bad news.”
He felt Keri snuggle close and wrap both of her arms around him. He closed his eyes and savored it, despite the way her arms were trembling.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
5:47 PM
In the precinct of the H.E.B.
and South Point Apartments
“The Humvee’s real close, ya’ll,” Spc. Parcells said, reading the screen of the GPS. The device revealed with precision the names of streets all around them, even marking edifices. He adjusted the view to see just how close they were. The dot representing the squad was only two city blocks away from the red blip of their target. The crimson dot pulsed like a heartbeat, a beating beacon of doom they desperately needed to recover for the sake of the survivors of Austin.
“How close?” Sgt. Arnold asked as they skillfully negotiated the zombie mob that was spread out in the shopping center parking lot.
“Two blocks.”
Sgt. Arnold gave a command. “Listen up, people. No more shooting. Hand to hand. Silent weapons only. We don’t want to reveal our positions more than we might have already.”
“Fantastic,” Noble said, shouldering her weapon and pulling out her knife. Knight also removed his knife from its leather sheath, along with Arnold. Parcells armed himself with a flick stick.
“Let’s get to the roof of that video store, ladies, and figure out if we can get a better view of things,” Arnold said.
With swift military efficiency, the team slashed, bashed, stabbed, and front-kicked their way to the building. No exterior ladder to the roof was evident, and since the store had already been ransacked, the large glass windows in front were broken. They entered through them and advanced to the back of the store.
A rack of candy had a lone box of Sour Patch Kids sitting next to a box of Twizzlers. Parcells snatched them both, and tossed the Twizzlers to Knight.
“I don’t like Twizzlers,” Knight complained.
“I’ll take them,” Noble said. “They make mouths happy.”
Knight tossed it to her.
“I want some of those sours, Parcells,” Arnold said, front-kicking a zombie that had stepped forward to welcome them to the video palace. The creature went flying into a rack of videos, knocking them over as well as each subsequent rack behind it. By the time they all fell like a stack of dominoes, nine racks had fallen, swallowing three zombies under untold video rental bargains and used DVDs for purchase.
“Yeah, let’s be real quiet,” Noble giggled.
Knight noticed one zombie totally oblivious to the wreckage of Sgt. Arnold, standing in front of the new release rack. It was female with short blonde hair, wearing red shorts, a black shirt, striped white socks, and red Chuck Taylor’s.
“Hey, don’t rent it,” he said. “That movie sucks.”
The creature just stood there, staring at the title Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Its back remained turned to the squad.
Sgt. Arnold found a locked door marked ‘Employees Only’ and kicked it open, shredding the door at the lock. It swung open to reveal a hallway. At the end of the hallway was a ladder bolted to the wall.
“Stairway to heaven, ladies,” the sergeant said.
“Ladder,” Noble corrected.
It did not take long for the team to scale the ladder and reach the roof. The tar and pebble-laced surface still simmered with heat in the early evening sun. Noble’s porcelain skin, especially under her eyes, had already begun turning rosy from so much exposure throughout the day.
Sgt. Arnold positioned himself near the edge of the roof and removed his binoculars as the rest of the team eased themselves down on the hot tar and jagged pebbles. He handed the binoculars to Parcells, who began to scan the area for the Hummer.
After a moment he said, “There it is.” He pointed to the H.E.B. parking lot.
Sgt. Arnold took the binoculars and looked in the direction Parcells pointed to, catching just what he indicated. Scanning the area, something else caught the sergeant’s eye. “And there are the drivers,” he stated, pointing to the roof of the H.E.B.
Everyone peered over the edge of the roof to get a good view.
A fire was lit under the ass of Spc. Noble. “It’s clear no one’s by or in the Hummer right now. Sergeant, I want to go for it. Let me go get it.”
Proud and surprised at the same time at Noble’s audacious plan, Arnold gave her the go-ahead. “It’s all yours, Noble. What do you want us to do?”
“Don’t expose yourself. If I get caught by one of those guys, or worse, just don’t expose yourself. I can do this.”
“Good luck, soldier,” the sergeant said.
Noble gave a thumbs-up sign to her battle-buddies. “I’ll be back before you know it,” she said before hustling back down the ladder.
Down in the store again, Noble passed the zombie deciding what movie to rent. She looked at her and shrugged. She moved out the front door and into the slow and shambling zombie mob.
The soldiers on the roof watched anxiously as Noble prowled to the Hummer. She was attracting minimal attention from the zombie mob, and any ghouls that happened to see her were neutralized with a knife attack through the eye. She had to keep moving and hiding to avoid getting
swarmed.
She moved to the street adjacent to the H.E.B., and though she was just out of view of the people on the H.E.B. roof, she was about to be totally exposed to the Viral mob for a long
stretch of land. The next move had to take her straight to the Humvee.
Noble waited in a substandard hiding place between a trash can and a bus stop bench. She looked for an opening and found one.
But she hesitated. She suddenly felt so exposed. Vulnerable. Frightened and over her head.
I can’t do this! What the hell was I thinking?!
An anxiety attack overtook her body. She froze, as if in a bad dream, the fear of being eaten alive rattling her psyche. Noble was now stuck to the pavement in utter fear and despair.
It took a groan from a nearby zombie to snap her back into reality. And though the path to the Hummer was not half as clear to her as it had been just before she had the episode, she made a break for it, slashing, kicking, and shoving her way to the Humvee.
“Go, Noble, go,” Sgt. Arnold said under his breath. “You can do it, girl.”
The squad pumped their fists as she arrived at the Hummer.
Noble opened the driver’s side door and entered.
But the celebration was quickly brought to a close as a large contingent of cars turned onto the nearby street before pulling up to the parking lot. The surprise convoy was now effectively boxing Noble in. She had just punched the button to start the vehicle, but had to immediately turn it off as the other vehicles filed in. Before she was totally cut off from escape, she jumped out of the vehicle, completely exposed once again to the zombies and the convoy.
“Ay, check it out,” said one of the thugs driving one of the encroaching vehicles. “Someone was trying to jack the Hummer.”
“Gringita, too,” said the passenger.
They both had a moment in which they considered chasing after her, but quickly made the right choice. “Let’s just do what Sleepy says, ‘k?”
Near the rear of the convoy came a most unusual hunting truck. Bolted to the bed of the jacked-up Ford were two metal seats for hunters, extending several feet over the cab. Tied to the seats were two very familiar people to Sgt. Arnold, who continued to watch the whole event through his binoculars. The hunting vehicle set up among the others.