Officer Barcomb vs. The Undead

by Darren Barcomb

  Munday lowered the knife and looked at Haws.

  “You heard her,” she said. “Left.”

  Haws started up the engine and felt safe enough to turn the headlamps back on now that they were about to move. He rolled the truck forward.

  Haws took the right turn.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Munday shouted and punched him in the back of the head.

  Haws shoved her back and she landed on her ass on the bunk.

  “She fuckin’ said left, you dumb asshole!” Munday said.

  Ash frowned, unsure, and looked at Haws as he sped down the right turn between the trees that were low enough to scrape the roof of the truck.

  “Where the fuck are you taking us?!” Munday shouted.

  He’s gonna fuckin’ die, Munday thought. , and it’s all my fault. I fuckin’ killed him and this son of a bitch is making damn sure he dies. What the fuck!

  Haws was furious, staring straight ahead, clenching his jaw and gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.

  Munday pulled a gun on Haws. “Stop the fuckin’ truck,” she said. “Right now, you motherfucker!”

  “Calm the fuck down!” Ash shouted.

  Munday swung the gun to aim at Ash.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Munday shouted.

  The gun was away from Haws just long enough for him to assess the situation in the rear view mirror. He swung a well-placed elbow back as firmly as he could and Munday’s nose snapped on impact. She dropped the gun and fell backwards, joining Barcomb on the bunk and in unconsciousness.

  *

  The truck was stopped when Munday came back around and everyone was stood outside, even Barcomb. She was alone on the bunk.

  “Great,” Haws said, popping his head in. “She woke up.”

  Ash rolled her eyes.

  Munday looked around, dazed. She felt for her gun and the knife first. They weren’t there, so she felt her nose. She winced in pain. Her hand was covered in blood.

  “Let’s get our fuckin’ game faces on,” Barcomb said. “Stop all this fuckin’ around, right now.” He leaned on the side of the truck and pointed up the hill to a house at the top. “That’s the place. It’s gotta be.”

  Pocahontas was cowering near the wheels, on her knees and shivering all over with wide eyes.

  “How did you know Pocahontas was lying?” Ash asked.

  Haws looked at Pocahontas and she shrank down and covered her head. “I've seen a lot of shit in my time,” he said. “I took a stint in the army and saw time in Afghanistan. One of the things I saw a lot of - it got a little press later on, but the shit was everywhere - was torture. Early on, every motherfucker was at it. The only problem was - which was something they figured out pretty quick - was that when you beat someone long enough, when you threaten their family or fuckin’ drown them all night, those motherfuckers would say anything to make it stop. This girl here, looking at what they done to her, that’s the last fuckin’ place she’d ever want to go. Some bitch puts a knife to her throat and asks for an answer, she’s gonna tell her the other fuckin’ way.”

  Munday climbed down out of the truck’s cab, nursing her broken nose.

  “You got an answer, but that don’t necessarily mean you got the answer you wanted,” Haws said. “She told you the way she wanted to go.”

  Munday scowled at Pocahontas. She heard a click next to her head. It was Barcomb’s gun.

  “You pull any shit like that while I’m awake,” Barcomb said, “and you can kiss your ass goodbye. You’re lucky we don’t march you off into the fuckin’ woods right now.”

  “I was trying to help,” Munday said.

  “Well,” Barcomb replied, “don’t.”

  “So, there it is,” Ash said, looking up at the house.

  Pocahontas crawled behind Haws’s legs. He looked down at her. She had tears in her eyes. “Must be,” he said.

  “It looks like it’ll take some work to get inside this place,” Barcomb said, still half-dazed with blood loss, slurring his speech and just about standing with the help of the truck.

  The sun was rising behind them and the light shone on the ground wet with last night’s rain. It glistened on the wet walls surrounding the house. When Barcomb saw the heads on top of the wall, he knew exactly what kind of place this was and what they’d have to do to get inside. Twelve-foot concrete walls surrounded the house, turning it into more like a compound, and the top of the wall was lined with barbed wire and periodic spikes protruding upwards. On these spikes were the heads of men and women. They were in varying stages of decomposition – some were nearly skulls – but they were all still moving. Their mouths moved in slow motion and their mournful eyes scoured their surroundings. They almost looked like they were trying to speak. Barcomb squinted to see. He watched the face of a young woman and tried to see why her mouth was moving. It seemed to be saying something. Barcomb wasn’t a lip reader, but, to him, it looked like the woman’s undead severed head was saying something; it was saying “Go back.” It sent a chill down his spine, an icy spider that crawled up his back, cutting through the agony he was in to tell him something was very wrong with this house.

  “Jesus,” Barcomb said. “Dutroux made Torrento sound like the devil himself. Doesn’t look like he was far from the truth. Who is this fuckin’ guy?”

  “How the fuck are we gonna get past this security?” Haws said. He looked at Barcomb, who he was supporting on one shoulder, and he was very pale and drifting in and out of consciousness. “How are we gonna get in?”

  “We’re just gonna walk up to the front gate and ask,” Barcomb said. “We can’t fight our way in. We have to be smart.”

  “Maybe it’s not so bad,” Ash said. “Maybe they’re OK. Maybe this is just to scare people away.” Ash didn’t look like she believed it. Pocahontas stood on all fours beside her and trembled and wet herself.

  *

  The truck rolled to a stop outside the gates and the engine roared one last time before settling into a constant, low rumble. The horn sounded three times. Above the sliding wrought iron gate was a small watchtower with a shelter at the top. A long-haired, bearded man in shorts and t-shirt appeared holding an assault rifle. He looked as if he’d just stopped by to guard the house on his way back from the beach.

  “Open the gate!” the watchtower guard shouted down to the man below.

  The gate slid open and the truck crept slowly inside. When it stopped, the watchtower guard climbed down, smiling.

  “Fuck’s sake, Chuck,” the guard said. “You been gone for fuckin’ ever. You better have brought back some cigarettes.”

  The truck door opened and out stepped Eddie “The Sledgehammer” Haws. The guard stopped smiling and raised his assault rifle.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the guard demanded.

  Haws raised his hands. “I ain’t here for a fight.”

  “You picked the wrong fuckin’ house, cocksucker,” the guard screamed.

  Haws moved fast. He pushed the rifle aside with his left hand, grabbed the guard around the back of the head with his right, and thrust a knee at full speed up into the guard’s nose, shattering it and knocking him out cold. Haws put his hands back up in the air as other guards ran over.

  “Settle down, fellas,” Haws said. “Like I said, I ain’t here for a fight.”

  “What the fuck was that then?” another guard asked.

  “That wasn’t a fight,” Haws said. “There’s two people in a fight. And, besides, he was being an asshole. I just came to talk. Who owns this place?”

  An older man walked up to Haws. He was holding a shotgun. He was black and muscular with dreadlocks, dressed in torn jeans and a dirty vest. He spoke in a thick Jamaican accent. “Nah, man,” he said, shaking his head and frowning. “You don’t wanna be meeting the man who owns this place. Trust.”

  “Maybe I can deal with you,” Haws said. “Eddie Haws.”

  “Winston,” came the reply. “What you wanting here, Eddie? Y
ou look like a dangerous man, but this is a very dangerous place. The boss man finds out what you done, you might already be in more trouble than you can walk away from.”

  “Well, let me fill you in on everything I’ve done, yeah?” Haws said. “Then we can see how much trouble I’m in.”

  Winston lowered his gun and listened.

  “Let’s start with how I just knocked out one of your guys even though he had a gun on me,” Haws said. “How much trouble am I in for that? Let’s talk about the truck, while we’re at it. I took this truck from another one of your guys. How much trouble am I in for that? You could go talk to the guy – real sharp looking’ guy in a suit – but I cut his fuckin’ head off with an axe.”

  Three other armed men had gathered around the truck at this point. The youngest of them drew his pistol on Haws and took two steps towards him. He moved to pistol-whip Haws, but Haws dropped a shoulder, dodging it, and in half a second had snapped the kid’s forearm. He fell to the ground and dropped his gun, screaming in agony.

  “Oh, fuck,” Haws laughed, holding up his hands again. “I am in so much trouble here, aren’t I? What a fuckin’ pickle.”

  Winston started to grin. “Man, you’re fuckin’ crazy,” he said.

  “Or,” Haws said, “Maybe I’m not the one in trouble. Maybe you all are the motherfuckers in trouble. What sort of Mickey Mouse bullshit are you running here? You got the living fucking dead running around the hillside and you got these fuckin’ clowns working for you? I even tamed your fuckin’ dog and brought it back for you, whatever the fuck that’s about.”

  Pocahontas was cowering in the driver’s foot well. Winston saw her and frowned.

  “You got some fucked up shit going on up here, but ain’t none of it as fucked up as how you got a bunch of fuckin’ pussies guarding it. So, I’m gonna do you a favor,” Haws said with a smile. “I’m gonna help you out.”

  “You’re gonna help us out?” Winston said.

  “You’re getting it.” Haws pointed to the truck and said, “I got me a brother in there who’s hurt bad. He needs help or he’s not long for this world. He’s a good dude. He’s a cop. He’s a fuckin’ professional. And you are in serious need of some professional fuckin’ help. You fix him up, me and him, we’ll stick around, see if we can’t get this place ship shape. Shit, you can even have your truck back.”

  “And if we don’t?” Winston said, raising his rifle.

  “We leave,” Haws said. “My buddy dies. I come back here in the middle of the night and cut your throat. Or you can kill me right here and these fuckin’ schoolboys you got running around get you killed in a month or two. Times are hard, so you need some hard motherfuckers on your team. You fix my buddy up, you got two of the toughest bastards you’re ever likely to meet.”

  “And what about the girl?” Winston said.

  “What girl?” Haws said.

  Munday and Ash listened closely. They were huddled in the darkness in the truck’s storage compartment.

  “The dog,” Winston said.

  “Keep her,” Haws said. “I don’t give a fuck.

  Whatever floats your fuckin’ boat, man.”

  Winston nodded. He gesture to two of the guards and they went into the truck. They pulled Pocahontas out by her legs as she tried for dear life to hold onto a seat. She screamed and screamed until one of them pistol-whipped her into unconsciousness. Haws tried to hide his contempt. Winston looked at him and Haws grinned.

  “Women,” Haws said, laughing.

  “Get his friend,” Winston said to the other men. “And take this truck out back.”

  He put his hand on Haws’s shoulder.

  “Let’s introduce you to the boss man,” Winston said.

  The truck started up and began to move. Munday and Ash prayed they wouldn’t be found. Munday held her mouth. She was sweating heavily. She was trying her best not to cough.

  She was coming down with some kind of illness.

  The scratch on her cheek, from the zombie’s tooth, felt like it was on fire.

  *

  Barcomb opened his eyes and saw only shapes. The shapes moved around him, towering over him and talking to one another. He could feel their hands on him, patching him up.

  “He’s completely out of it,” a woman said.

  It was a familiar haze. He’d been shot once before. It seemed like a lifetime ago now, in a different world. There was a big push against the drug cartels operating in the city of Elizabeth. While the politicians smiled for the cameras and told stories about how great this war on drugs was, Barcomb and his crew were front and center, right in the firing line. They lost seventeen cops that year. Barcomb could’ve been eighteen, but the bullet missed his heart by a hair’s breadth. A few inches over and he’d be paralyzed for life. Barcomb knew he got lucky. A lot of other guys weren’t so lucky. As the shapes and the sounds drifted in and out of a colorful haze, Barcomb expected to wake up as before, with the guys from the force gathered around his bed cracking jokes and opening beers.

  Instead, there were two women.

  “He looks like a cop,” one voice said. “I think he’s got a badge on him. Look.”

  “That’s the last thing Torrento wants around here,” the other said.

  “Maybe he can help us.”

  “Not all cops are good guys, Gina.”

  “We need all the help we can get, right? What if he is a good guy? We could get out of here.”

  “Have you looked outside the walls recently? This is the safest gig in town.”

  “I can’t have them touch me again.”

  “Look. We do what we have to.”

  Barcomb looked up. They weren’t looking at him. They hadn’t seen him wake up yet.

  “All we have to do is stab that fucker in the head one day. He won’t see it coming.”

  “His men would tear us apart.”

  Barcomb glanced around the dingy room, a basement set up like a medical clinic with very little real equipment. Scalpels were kept in empty milk bottles full of sterilizing agent. The bed was a fold-out camp bed placed on top of some crates. Even the partition, which wasn’t drawn anyway, was a shower curtain. Barcomb saw the door and he saw that this place wasn’t guarded. He didn’t know if he had the strength to get up and get out of the room by himself.

  “You think this guy’s gonna be any help? He’s half-dead. Look at him.”

  Barcomb shut his eyes. He pretended to sleep.

  “Torrento doesn’t like new people,” someone said. “They’ll be dead and buried soon enough. Best not to get our hopes up.”

  He thought maybe it was best to…

  Barcomb slipped quickly back into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 7: The Cost of Business

  Torrento’s house was a low-slung, three-story, modern building with flat roofs and ceiling-to-floor windows which looked out across the burning countryside, destroyed highways and desolate towns towards the dark skyline of New Jersey and New York City beyond. Inside was tastefully decorated with art and furniture from all over the world, most from Asia and the Middle East. Almost every painting or sculpture was a depiction of something violent, either a battle or a murder. The walls were primarily white and various swords were attached to them on racks dotted around the corridors. Haws could make out faint pink stains in the white, places where the blood wouldn’t quite wash out. He was led through, past an indoor swimming pool, to a large dining area where Torrento was eating a large plate of roast lamb shoulder with vegetables. In the top of the lamb, the chef had stuck a little paper flag of Iraq. Torrento paid it no notice. The man leading Haws through spoke with a European accent - maybe French, Haws thought, or somewhere around there - and had a bushy ginger beard and a shaved head. Haws wasn’t impressed by the guy.

  “Take a seat,” the Frenchman said.

  “I’ll stand,” Haws replied.

  The Frenchman tried to stare Haws down. Haws scowled.

  “I’ve taken out half the fuckin’ workforce of
this house this morning already,” Haws said. “If you want to get on that list, you go ahead and keep on looking at me like that.”

  The Frenchman looked away and tried to make a show of being proud and not caring. Haws didn’t buy it. The guy is a fuckin’ pussy, he thought. The Frenchman walked off. Haws watched him leave. Then he sat down.

  Haws turned back to look at Torrento. Torrento was already looking at him. He’d been watching. He wiped his mouth on a napkin and stood.

  “I wanted to sit down,” Haws said.

  “Your name,” Torrento said. “What is it?”