Moriah

by Monchinski, Tony

  “Do you think she can talk?” asked Kevin.

  “Let’s take a look.” Bruce gripped her jaw in his hand and tried to pry her mouth open with his index finger. She snapped at him, nearly biting him.

  “Get off me!”

  “She can talk.” Bruce eyed the girl with impatience.

  “She can talk,” Kevin agreed.

  “You know,” Bruce told the girl, “you’d be a lot scarier if you weren’t dressed up like a fox.”

  “She’s not going to tell you a thing,” the other hostage said defiantly.

  “So you going to talk then?”

  “I’ll tell you you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, man. Do you know who you’re fucking with?”

  “No. Why don’t you tell us who we’re fucking with.”

  “You’re fucking with Burning Man Tribe.”

  “Whoa, Kev. You hear that? Burning Man Tribe.” Bruce did not sound impressed. “And you don’t know who we are, do you?”

  The man dressed like a woman didn’t take the bait.

  “We’re Bear’s Army.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Guys, look at this.”

  Bruce and Kevin joined Riley on the balcony. Below, the brigands had secured a zombie to a ladder, its arms bound at its sides, its legs together. A dozen costumed and painted men and women danced around the thing, dousing it with fluid.

  “We know you’re in there!” Speakers mounted in the trucks and on the flat bed came to life. A paunchy little man stood with a microphone. “Come out now—” He wore a white powdered wig, gold-tasseled epaulettes on a purple smoking jacket, and a pistol in a chest holster “—or you’ll wish you did.” The PA system howled with feedback.

  They lifted the ladder and secured it in place. The zombie looked down on them, not comprehending. The fat man with the leather vest came forward with a torch and tossed it on the ladder. With a whoosh, the zombie went up in flame. Men and women began dancing around the pyre, frolicking to the undead’s distressed wails.

  “Black Rock retards.” Bruce sighted through the scope affixed to his M-40. The rifle cracked and the cries from the fire ceased.

  “Now you done it, man,” said the guy dressed in former Japanese alternative fashion.

  “Yeah, looks like I done it.”

  The short man looked up towards them before saying something to a man in a camisole and codpiece with a leather studded choker.

  “I always wondered what happened to Alice Cooper.” Bruce worked the bolt on the M40, chambering a fresh round.

  “Tris would have loved these guys.” Kevin took the other side of the balcony, readying his rifle. The people besieging them made no move to storm the apartment building. A volley of shotgun fire dropped half a dozen zombies.

  “No, she wouldn’t. These fucks are fucking with me on the wrong day. I feel like shit.”

  Kevin crouched back down in front of the two prisoners. Riley stood behind him. “Are you Kitty?” she asked the fox girl.

  “I’m Kitty.” It was the man who answered.

  “You’re Kitty…” Kevin looked to the girl, who was visibly frightened. “Look, your sense of fashion and company aside, you’re not a dumb girl. You can’t be to be alive out here. You can see we’re outnumbered. But you can also tell we’ve got better guns than your side. And your guys can’t seem to get their act together. You know it’s true, right? Sure you do.”

  “Don’t listen to him, ‘chelle. They’re not Bear’s Army.”

  “Who are you?” Riley glared at the man. “Her father?”

  “‘chelle?’” Kevin kept his focus on the girl. “Your name is Michelle? Is that it? Well, what if we walk you downstairs, Michelle, let you go? You go back and tell your people out there, they let us leave, we’ll go. They pull back, we walk away. It’s as simple as that. Otherwise this is not going to go well for your side.”

  “It’s as simple as that,” Bruce watched the men and women on the ground.

  “You’ll do no such thing, ‘chelle!”

  “Shut up!” Riley yelled at the man.

  Someone was screaming down below.

  “What happened, Bruce?” Kevin asked, unruffled.

  “One of them got bit.”

  Kitty was eyeing the door to the apartment.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Riley warned him.

  “Come on, Michelle,” Kevin said to the girl, “let’s go on down there, you tell them what we said. We’ll even let Kitty go once we’re clear.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “What do you think,” Riley asked Kitty, “we want to keep you?”

  Before the girl could make a decision and answer, music blared up to them.

  “What are they doing now?” Kevin and Riley stood with Bruce on the balcony.

  “They think they’re softening us up,” Bruce smirked. “Psychological warfare.”

  “They’re going to make us listen to this for how many hours?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What is this crap anyway?”

  “I think its Richard Prior.”

  “No,” Riley corrected him. “Eddie Murphy.” She knew the song from the 80s-themed parties popular in New Harmony.

  My girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time.

  “Look down there,” Bruce pointed. “Another one of them got bit.”

  “Is Dee all right?” asked Riley.

  “Dee’s fine,” Kevin reassured her. “Anyone who tries to come in through that lobby isn’t.”

  “We can’t stay here all day.” Bruce selected targets through the scope. When the shooting started, he’d decided, the Napoleon-guy or whatever he was died first.

  “Why not?” Riley thought maybe that was what they should do. “Let them deal with things.”

  Dozens of zombies were milling around about the raiders below as more staggered in from the road.

  “Bruce is right. When those things are done dealing with them, we have to deal with those things.”

  Riley looked at the mobile artillery piece mounted on the flat bed. She imagined a weapon like that could blow holes like Swiss cheese in this building. The Howitzer’s barrel remained pointing back up the road. “They’re not too bright, are they?”

  The giant with the oversized hammer was braining zombies, screeching at a near falsetto as he did so.

  “No,” Kevin agreed. “They’re not.”

  The music suddenly cut off.

  “Get ready.” Bruce crouched down, lining up his shot.

  “What should I do?” Riley looked for direction.

  “They go to move that cannon, waste them.”

  The short, wigged man barked into his microphone. “Burning Man, hear me!” The men and women that comprised Burning Man Tribe let out a cheer. “Burning man charge!” They broke off from the zombies they fought, running towards the apartment building. “Burning Man onward!” The giant was in the forefront of the rush, screeching his own shrill battle cry.

  “Okay,” Bruce centered his crosshairs on the leader’s epaulettes. “Here we go.” His first shot knocked the wig off the man’s head in an explosion of red. Bruce worked the bolt on the rifle and chambered a fresh round. He looked through his scope. “Next.”

  * * *

  Dee sat in the dark, looking down into the lobby below. There was enough ambient light from outdoors that he could see down into there better than anyone there was going to be able to see up to where he was. He would have rather been waiting with Riley, but he knew she was safe upstairs with Kevin and Bruce.

  Muffled shotgun blasts reached his ears. He chalked those up to the people outside tangling with Zed. If something was going on upstairs he needed to know about, someone would come down and tell him. With his limited mobility and the FN FAL .63, he thought his current position the best place for him. Anybody who wanted to get up inside the building had to come by him. The other entrances were blocked with rubble. He could imagine that this was not the first
time the perch he manned had served a purpose similar to his own.

  When the music started, Dee figured they were getting really stupid outside. If they’d played it smart they would have circled the tower, kept quiet, and waited them out. They’d have still had to deal with the zombies coming in off the road, the ones drawn by wounds like his own. But now they were out there blasting some bullshit tunes that could probably be heard for a mile around. And before that they’d been making a racket, attracting who knew how many scads of the undead.

  Dee sat where he was, his legs out in front of him, the barrel of the FN covering the hole. He was used to waiting. Waiting didn’t bother him. Soon enough the music stopped and the real shooting started.

  He listened to the gunfire, imagining Bruce selecting a target, firing, racking the bolt, choosing his neck target, firing. Kevin fired short, controlled bursts from his AK-47. Riley’s AR chimed in less frequently. She’d be keeping an eye on their captives. He knew he wouldn’t hear the cannon fire as long as Kevin and Bruce were alive on the balcony. If he heard the cannon fire they’d all be in some real trouble and there wasn’t much he could do about it here.

  They weren’t trying to be quiet when they came through the lobby. It sounded like Kevin was on a full auto tear and then there were voices beneath, excited and scared, jostling into the lobby. He looked down his barrel and waited until they showed themselves, their footwear scraping across the floor. They came into view bunched up like he’d hoped they’d be, like they shouldn’t have been, completely unaware of his presence. He mowed them down, the Belgian rifle booming in the hallway, echoing through the lobby. One or two managed to look up and the last thing they saw were muzzle flashes licking down from the dark.

  They were lying there, unmoving, when Dee heard a quad start up and race out of the lobby. Dummy was trying to take their ride. Bruce’s rifle cracked and the sound of the quad died.

  Frantic screaming and yelling drifted in from outside now. Kevin and Bruce were putting out a lot of lead. Sounded like they had things under control. Men and women were dying out there. Dee knew it wasn’t all because of his friends, either. Zed would be having a field day. The spaces between the cracks from Bruce’s rifle lengthened. Dee chalked that up to a dwindling supply of live targets.

  He sat where he was, awaiting anyone who rushed the lobby. No more did.

  * * *

  “Dee, let’s go.”

  “Help me up, Riley.”

  She half-lifted, half-supported him as he pulled himself to a standing position, using her as leverage. Bruce and Kevin were waiting downstairs with the fox girl at the door that led out into the lobby.

  “Only the one?” inquired Dee.

  “Gwen Stefani’s backup singer ran.” Kevin grinned at Bruce’s wisecrack because he was the sole person among them who got it.

  “She didn’t run my way.”

  “No. He ran down to the fifth floor.” It was the way Riley said it, like the fifth floor should mean something to Dee.

  “The fifth floor?”

  “The baby,” Riley reminded him.

  “Right.” Dee remembered. “He?”

  “We’ll tell you about it later,” promised Kevin.

  “Take me with you,” their hostage pled.

  Bruce told her to be quiet.

  They fanned out through the lobby, past the crumpled, pulverized forms Dee had shot down. They looked out the doors and took in a landscape marred by death and devastation. A pile of bodies were strewn almost at the doors where Kevin had strafed them, zombies sitting and kneeling, gorging themselves on the wounded.

  A couple of pick-up trucks—all that were left—were disappearing down the road, a few survivors cringing in the beds. A wave of zombies followed the departing vehicles. Between the apartment building and the road the landscape was littered with the injured and the dead, vehicles with their tires shot out, others with steam rising from perforated engine blocks. The Howitzer still aimed at the road, the wheels of its flatbed sunk, the interior of the cab splashed red.

  At first glance it was impossible to tell which among the unmoving were zombies and which were recently living. Of the ambulatory, the zombies were easy to distinguish, assailing the aggrieved marauders. At some point in the fracas, Bruce had adjusted his aim, shooting to wound and not to kill.

  Riley spotted the big man with the rubber bands in his beard. He was bleeding from numerous bites but still swinging his hammer, keeping a circle of ghouls at bay.

  Shotgun fire boomed rare and sporadic, the marauders hopelessly outnumbered and routed. Enough of a commotion existed to provide cover for their escape.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Kevin suggested. “Bruce, you ride with me.” The third quad was overturned beyond the beer truck and did not warrant the risk of retrieving.

  “Take me with you—please!”

  “Get out of here,” Bruce told Michelle.

  “Please!”

  “Get out of here!” Bruce booted the girl out the door into the open. She looked back at Riley before bolting. Several of the zombies feasting on the nearest of the fallen rose and followed after her.

  Bruce and Dee stood guarding either side of the door while Riley and Kevin rolled the remaining quads to the front of the lobby.

  “You want to drive?” Riley asked Dee.

  “No, you better.”

  Kevin and Bruce were the first out of the building. The roar of their quad drew the attention of the living and the dead alike. Only one of the former came forward to challenge them, the camisole clad companion to the leader of the Burning Man Tribe. He ran towards them, firing the pistol he had taken from his dead commander. Kevin put him down with a savage burst from his AK, the flesh of the man’s upper thighs exploding.

  Riley accelerated after them, Dee holding on to her. None of the few shots being fired were intended for anyone on the four wheelers. They bounced over a fresh body and swerved around the corroded chassis of a Ford Mustang, relic of a bygone era. Kevin and Bruce made the trees first, lifting off the ground and sailing through the air before plunging into the woods.

  Riley circled the quad once at the forest, sparing a last look at the slaughter. A zombie staggered away from its pack, clutching a blood-stained camisole. The giant was down, screeching in that strange high-pitched timbre. The fox girl had pulled herself up on top of the beer truck, a crowd of undead circling it.

  “Drive,” Dee suggested, and she did.

  The Forgotten Man

  Though the bullet he had taken to the back of his skull years before had rendered his eyes useless for sight, his other senses remained sharp. The wrinkled man heard their approach from his cave, what he perceived as a tremble upon the ground, the vibrations of motors. Mechanical buzzes filled the air as they neared. He roused himself and took up his habiliments before their arrival, placing himself at the entrance to his cave, a wizened, unseeing watchman.

  When the quad she rode on halted, Riley swung her leg around and dismounted it, stepping to firm ground. The figure that awaited them was a strange site to behold. Short and thin, he wore a welding helmet that encased his entire head in black and silver. His face was hidden behind the tinted glass of the window. In one hand, the man gripped a Caduceus staff, two serpents entwined, surmounted by wings. The staff was taller than the man himself. His other hand was wrapped around a handgun. He stood before an aphotic maw that let onto the earth, as though guarding untold subterranean treasures. The man’s appearance coupled with that morning’s run-in with the Burning Man Tribe left Riley momentarily nonplussed.

  The engine of Kevin and Bruce’s quad cut off. Riley noticed how Dee left the big FN scabbarded on their own four-wheeler.

  “Fuck those other guys.” Bruce’s delivered his verdict. “He’s scary looking.”

  “Is he supposed to scare us?” Kevin asked.

  “Who has come to this place?” The man called to their group, his voice high and raspy.

  “It’s me, Moriarity. Dee.
You remember me? I come by here every year. I brought some friends with me.”

  “I’ve many memories in this old head. You call me Moriarity, you must have known me as I once was.”

  “What name do you go by now?” Dee glanced from Riley to Bruce and Kevin. Humor the guy, his seemed to say.

  “I was Moriarity. Now I’m Mallory.”

  “Come on, man. I know you can’t see me, but don’t act like you don’t know me. I come by this way every year, eat with you, sleep here.”

  “What is it you seek?”

  “A place to spend the night, Moriarity. Nothing else.”

  “I told you, my name is Mallory.”

  “Come on, Moriarity, I’m not just going to start calling you Mallory. We been through this crap last year and I told you then Moriarity was it from now on.”

  “I warn you…” He raised the caduceus towards them. “I wield terrible magic.”

  The men and the woman looked at one another. Dee shrugged.

  “We’ve got coffee,” offered Kevin.

  “Coffee.” Moriarity popped the window on his welding helmet and squinted at the visitors. “You don’t say.” They were indistinguishable to him, blurred shapes against the light of day.

  “He’s pretty out there,” Riley remarked to Bruce. Hearing her, Dee muttered, “Just a little bit.”

  “Coffee.” Moriarity lifted the welding helmet free of his head, grinning as he did so, his cheeks stubbled white. “Come on over, friends, and let’s partake in some libation and something of a more solid nature. Let me check my traps.”

  “We already checked them for you.” Bruce held a dead rabbit up in each hand.

  * * *

  The old man who was known as Moriarity but wished to be called Mallory was very pleased with the food they brought him, both gathered from his traps and what they bore. They cooked fresh game over a fire under the crisp autumn sky, the hermit’s cave like a mouth in the earth behind them.

  They ate and Moriarity bore a look somewhat akin to euphoria as the sugar from a tin of mixed fruit they’d imparted to him hit his system. He used his fingers to spoon it into his mouth until he grew impatient with this method and upended the tin, guzzling its contents, its syrupy juices dribbling down his chin. Kevin looked from the old man licking the syrup from his fingers to Dee and blew out his breath, like You brought us here? To this?