Undead Fleshcrave: The Zombie Trigger

by Goforth, Jim

  “Ah man, this isn’t gonna be good,” Dax murmured, and in that moment Mark spied hints of the old Dax lurking under the surface, making him more firmly of the belief that his friend hadn’t flipped his wig completely and was putting on much of his act to appear tough to the Subversionites. Slaughtering zombies and freakish entities that were no longer human was an entirely different proposition to being faced with figures of authority who may or may not be under direct orders to shoot and kill any such persons they found to be suspicious or in some way affiliated with the undead plague. Which, judging from the various news reports and media theories they’d all heard at least once, meant virtually anybody who looked remotely like they belonged to the heavy metal community.

  All of them right here, with the exception of Heather, most certainly fit squarely in that category. The fact that Heather was in the company of such obvious metalheads wasn’t about to set her apart from suspicion, regardless how she was dressed.

  “What do we do?” Heather shot a desperate glance at Black, as one of the patrol cars pulled in right behind the parked Tundra and the other peeled out from its formation behind its partner and drove right through the lane on the other side of the pumps closest to the front of the service station, where it then parked directly across the front of the exit lane. Effectively boxing the Tundra and all those who would be travelling in it into the expanse of space adjacent to the pumps.

  “Just play it cool,” Black advised. “Nobody needs to say anything, just leave it with me.”

  Mark felt his heart rate increase immeasurably, thundering like a herd of wild horses in his chest as the doors to the car parked behind them came out, expelling a police officer from either side. The driver was a bulky man, running to fat, his face hosting a large bushy black moustache and a dark expression. His partner was taller, leaner, with no excess fat on him, hat perched atop a sharp visage and piercing blue eyes.

  Both of them strode with purpose towards the entourage of black metallers, though ambled was probably more appropriate for the way the beefy cop moved.

  Mark wished he wasn’t one of those nearest to the police vehicle, standing around the back of the Tundra like he was, with only Roxana reasonably nearby. He sure didn’t fail to see that both of the policemen were armed, police issue firearms on their belts, batons in residence as well.

  The car that pulled over the lane to block any exit from the Truck didn’t disgorge its occupants, though it was evident that two uniforms were in it as well, a driver and a passenger, both remaining in their seats.

  Mark didn’t know what to make of that; whether it indicated a good thing or otherwise. The whole intentional boxing in manoeuvre suggested the quartet of officers were already moving with suspicions, planning to treat the gathering of people on these unattended service station grounds as possibly dangerous and hostile.

  Whatever the case, Mark didn’t like this. At all. He knew he wasn’t the only one.

  “Well, well,” said beefy moustache. “What do we have here?”

  Nobody answered, each of the group possibly gauging how long they had to contemplate any sort of move which would swing things in their favour if this shit right here went pear-shaped.

  “I said, what do we have here? What are you lot up to out here?”

  “On the way to a concert,” Black replied shortly, his words clipped.

  “Concert, hey?” The speaker for the bunch rolled a cigar in his hand, an item Mark hadn’t noticed before. He’d been too busy counting police, looking with alarm at guns, wondering how the fuck they were getting out of this. “That be one of those damn heavy metal concerts, right? You lot a bunch of heavy metallers?”

  Mark would have thought that much was obvious and he guessed the rest thought likewise, but if the guy was presenting a genuine question and not trying to bait them with smartass ripostes, maybe it would be a better idea to say they weren’t.

  “They’re fucking metalheads, alright,” His muscled partner spoke up, disdain evident in his voice, and Mark realised the pair were toying with them. “Look at this bunch.”

  “Where you headed for this alleged concert?” Moustache prodded. He was looking at Mark and the intensity of his stare was frightening and unnerving. “Boy, I’m looking at you, I’m asking you a question. Cat got your tongue?”

  “Blackwater Park,” Black spoke up from behind Mark and he realised the Subversion kingpin had moved up alongside him. Gratefully, he shrank back, taking a step or two away, putting the slightest amount of distance between him and the affronting police men. “We’re going to Blackwater Park.”

  “Blackwater Park hey?” The moustachioed speaker sounded like a parrot, inanely repeating everything uttered, but there wasn’t much laughable about the situation, menace lurked palpably in his tone. “What’s in Blackwater Park for you heavy heads?”

  “Metalheads,” His partner corrected.

  “What-the-fuck-ever. Blackwater Park. Some big band show shit going on there, is it?”

  “Something like that,” Black said.

  “Where are you punks coming from then? On this road trip all the way to Blackwater Park?”

  “Zonaria,” Black responded without a moment’s pause. “Just down the road.”

  “Is that so? Zonaria, hey?” Moustache tipped up an eyebrow, the bushy body of hair looking like a caterpillar arcing its back over the deep set of his eye. “Really? Considering we just came from Zonaria ourselves, you sure you don’t want to change that answer? You sure you didn’t actually come from further afield?”

  “Like where?” Dax challenged. Despite the directive from Black that he would handle the responsibilities of doing the talking, as usual, Dax couldn’t see his way clear to keeping his mouth shut. “Why would we say we came from anywhere else when we live in Zonaria? How the hell would that make any sense at all to you?”

  Muscles separated from his partner and was edging out and around, coming to the second petrol pump, back behind where Blizzard pulled the Tundra in to get access to the first one in line. He gazed with much interest at the parked vehicle and, even from here, Mark knew he was looking at the amount of the seats available inside, sizing the truck up.

  “Fucking wiseguy, huh?” He aimed at Dax. “Well, riddle me this, Mister Wiseguy. The whole lot of you, all travelling in this one ve-hicle right here? Those two cabs there, they fit the bunch of you all in there?”

  To that, Dax said nothing. Neither did any of the others. The hum of tension in the air was even thicker now; Mark felt it and he knew the rest of them did too. Here it came. There were far too many people present for them all to fit comfortably-and legally-inside the Tundra. They knew that. The cops knew that.

  “Looks like you punks have been rolling around with a shitload of people in the back of that truck right there. Unrestrained. No belts. Pretty sure I don’t have to spell that shit out to you lot of metalfaces…”

  “Metalheads,” Muscles corrected Moustache once more, his eyes roving around the group, but this time the guy didn’t bite.

  Instead he took another step closer, the capacious bulge of his gut straining his uniform to the point where Mark expected to see a couple of buttons pop off and fly across the concrete.

  “You know what?” Moustache said. “I’m going to have to ask you all to get out of the vehicle and step away from it.”

  Though there were actually only two of their party still inside the vehicle, or what could be considered inside it―Lizette in the tray, and Scarlett in the front passenger seat—the command was for them all to move away from the Tundra.

  Shit, Mark felt a cold fist of fear grip him and squeeze. This was not good, these cops weren’t about to run simple licence and registration checks, and Mark already knew from the pointed question about their whereabouts prior to here that the main spokesperson for the quartet was angling to hear Black or Dax admit they came from the hotbeds of undead activity.

  His hopes that this wasn’t about to turn into a colossal fuck up,
or some extremely bad outcome, plummeted like a sinking stone.

  Muscles stepped in closer to the Tundra, standing between the two petrol pumps.

  “Out of the vehicle, Miss,” he said firmly to Scarlett, a hard edge to his voice.

  “That means you too, lady,” Moustache said to Lizette. “Get your ass out of the back of the truck.”

  “What the fuck for?” Dax railed, flinging his hands wide in an expression of query. “What…”

  “Pipe down, man!” Mark hissed desperately, seeing the likelihood of this situation not becoming far worse than it needed to be, starting to slip away, with Dax deciding to antagonise.

  They were already in shit for the unrestrained folk travelling in the back, anything else the cops could pin on them at this stage would be added bonuses for their reports.

  Only, Mark knew that unbelted passengers and smartmouthing off to authority figures wasn’t the main agenda of these officers right here. Not at all.

  “Okay, you fucking metalhairs,” Moustache said, and his voice hummed with barely held back aggression and antagonism. “You been listening to the radio at all? On your way from Zonaria to your Blackwater Park concert?”

  “Why would we do that?” Dax asked, and again, though Black’s order was for all to remain quiet, he didn’t step in to pull Dax up. It was beyond that point; it didn’t really matter who did the talking. These guys were exactly the type of police they’d all been hoping to avoid. No chance of that happening.

  “Why would you do that indeed?” Moustache mused. “Too busy filling your mindless heads up with that headbashing zombie shit music.”

  “Headbanging,” Muscles pointed out helpfully again, to which Moustache paid no mind, his eyes fixed on Black and Dax, somehow managing to encompass them all.

  “Which brings me to another point. How soon are you pack of degenerate fucks likely to turn into goddamn flesh-eating freaks, roaming around my goddamn neighbourhoods? Bringing your shit from wherever the fuck it is you’ve really come from to fuck up my towns? ‘Cause you metalbrains sure as shit aren’t from this neck of the woods, bet your ass you aren’t.”

  Oh fuck, Mark told himself. He saw Moustache’s hand twitching over the butt of his firearm. The guy looked like there was nothing better he’d like to do than draw that piece and start snapping shots off before any of this bailed up crew did morph into flesh-eating freaks with a hankering for pork.

  Dax turned an incredulous gaze towards Muscles, then jerked a thumb at Moustache.

  “Your partner playing with a full deck of cards?” He wanted to know. “What the hell kinda shit is he babbling about? Been inhaling too many of them powdered doughnuts again?”

  All of a sudden both of the police officers at the rear and side of the Tundra had their hands full of pistol, Moustache aiming at Black, Muscles covering Dax. Muscles gestured with his free hand towards the other patrol car and it released its occupants as well, both officers also stepping out with drawn weapons.

  “Everyone, move your asses. Over to the other side of the pumps! Now!” Moustache ordered in a strident bellow, his voice snapping like a whip. “Now, pronto. All of you, move your fucking asses. Quicksmart. Think I won’t hesitate to shoot you zombie metal fucks right in the skulls, then you test me and you’ll find out.”

  Reluctantly, but surely, the entire congregation of them complied with the shouted bidding, any move misconstrued as noncompliance would be sufficient for the cops to open fire, and the whole lot of them knew that.

  These gun-toting uniforms were the first of the lynch mob witch-hunting mentality, ready to bring pitchforks to the party on any metalheads wandering into their spheres of existence, bringing the alleged apocalypse they knew was unfolding in other towns and cities to their locales.

  Two men on either side, each pointing guns. The foursome of police were outnumbered by their metalhead quarry, trapped in the middle, but the presence of four loaded guns was a massive equalizer to say the least.

  “On the fucking ground! Right now, you long-haired zombie motherfuckers, all of you! Down on the ground. Lay face down on the concrete. Do it, or you’ll be eating concrete!”

  “You’ll be eating lead, is what you’ll be eating,” Muscles said, earning a glower from his partner, not pleased to be shown up once again.

  The other two said nothing, but both advanced, guns aimed out in steady two handed grips.

  Again, a failure to conform looked like an unwise decision for future survival, not with these high-strung blue clad whackjobs, certain they were in the presence of an undead army waiting to happen. Moustache certainly didn’t need much of an excuse to start unloading his sidearm into these perceived monsters and his muscular buddy probably wasn’t far off following the lead if that eventuated. The other pair seemed like subordinates to Moustache and Muscles so it was a fair bet they would immediately be ready to take their cues from the others.

  The fear gripping Mark now was almost overwhelming, squeezing his heart and constricting his bowels to a paralysing level. This squadron of authority figures were so dead certain they had a pack of zombies in the making right here, they were about to start backslapping each other, high fiving and congratulating one another on thwarting the apocalypse in their provinces, at least prolonging it for a while. But first, they had to eliminate that threat and Mark knew how they planned to do that.

  This couldn’t be how it ended. Gunned down, or rather, shot unceremoniously in the back of the head while they all lay helpless and useless, face down on the concrete of an unattended service station. Mistakenly believed to be part of the undead epidemic, zombies waiting to be birthed merely by way of being part of the heavy metal community.

  All of them were forced to lie in a line, heads towards the front doors of the service station, arms above their heads with hands clearly visible so the gunmen could witness that none of them possessed lethal weapons.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE-POLICE PERVERSION AND A SHOTGUN FACELIFT

  With his cheek pressed to concrete that felt cold against his skin, despite the fact that it was a sunny day, Mark stared blankly at the person in repose next to him, Heather on the side he was facing with Dax on the other side of him. He knew Miranda was sprawled on the other side, beside her another of the girls, and then the rest spreading further up to where the two lesser cops stood, stiff-legged with tight grasps on their weapons.

  “Motherfuckers,” the strident boom of Moustache rang out. “Look at this, these sons-of-bitches are armed with knives.”

  Mark guessed the police were moving among them, patting them down, frisking them, and disarming those with their weapons on them. Soon enough, he was proven correct in that assumption when rough hands were on him, frisking him none too gently, prodding, poking, and ultimately locating his knife. He felt the comfort of the weapon vanish, ripped away with a satisfied grunt.

  “Well, what the tarnation have we got here, boys? Fucking knives upon knives with these metalface fucks. Brenner, Haines, Harris, any of you boys know anything about fucking zombies?”

  A chorus of varying responses carried back from the addressed officers, most in the negative.

  “Nope. Me neither. But as far as I know, those living dead bastards don’t usually need to be carrying around knives. I guess these sons-of-whores and goth bitches are planning ahead, maybe going to carve up some of their meat before they mutate into their true forms.”

  “Boss, I may not know that much shit about zombies,” this was the voice of Muscles, the guy referred to as Brenner. “But I’m pretty sure you’re getting a bit mixed up with werewolves and vampires there. Once they turn, they don’t turn back. That’s zombies, I mean. Those fuckers are dead. Or, that should be undead.”

  “You saying if we shoot these unholy fucks right here they’re going to come back to life?” Moustache/Boss grunted.

  “Not if we shoot ‘em in the head. You gotta kill them by shooting them in the brain. Kill the brain, kill the zombie. That much I do know,” Brenner s
aid with confidence. “Or before they turn zombie. Like now. My vote is to shoot them all now. Before they turn.”

  “Now, hold on just a minute there, Brenner. I’m cooking up some brainwaves here.” Boss said, a malicious note of glee slithering into his voice. “Don’t go jumping the gun about plugging ‘em all right now. At least not with bullets. If you catch my drift.”

  “Go on,” Brenner suddenly sounded interested. “I am catching your drift.”

  Although the stern directive was issued for all of those face-down on the concrete to keep their traps shut and speak when spoken to if asked, Dax just couldn’t see fit to adhere to those orders.

  “How are we any concern to your town if we’ve already come through it?” Dax interjected from his awkward floor-hugging position. “We aren’t likely to create any sort of these fantastic zombie troubles you’re referring to in your town, so how the hell do we even pose a threat?”

  A rush of sound followed by a solid brutal thump and a grunt of pain indicated to Mark that one of the foursome, probably Boss himself since he was nearest, just kicked Dax hard in the ribs.

  “What is hard to understand about keeping your mouth closed unless you are asked to speak, you filthy zombie fuck? Now you telling me you aren’t from Zonaria, you lying piece of shit? Here I am thinking of prolonging that bullet in the brain you’re on a collision course with and you start dribbling shit?” Boss grated. “Next one of you zombie scum says a word…one single fucking word…and you best believe your brains are getting scrambled.”

  Mark stared at Heather next to him, her face aiming back at him. This was nothing like the enforced exhibition of skin back outside Noumena, this was some serious shit right here and her face reflected that, eyes wide with terror, lips quivering.

  Mark wished he knew how to console and comfort her, and Miranda too, but he’d no idea how, and lifting his head even a fraction, just to be able to see how Miranda was faring would likely earn him his own boot to the ribs, or worse.