Fred shouts. “My brothers and sisters!” He raises his arms against the rain.
The group stops singing. Stops talking. Stops moving.
They turn. A hundred eyes pour over us. They ain’t infected, but they don’t seem very human, either.
I look at the cross-bearers.
They’re bleeding heavily.
Three men split the crowd. Each has a serious handgun strapped to his leg and a bandolier across his chest. A gun-slinging Trinity: Pistol-packing preacher, rancorous rabbi and incensed imam.
A preacher, rabbi, and imam walk into an armory...
Fred once asked me if I’d feel better or worse walking down a street at night and seeing a group of men emerge from a prayer meeting. He was trying to make a point about comfort levels in neighborhoods we don’t know and the supposed calm or ease of seeing men with religious devotion walking together.
Religious folks gotta be the moral ones, right?
Gotta be the good guys.
I said that a nightmare scenario for me, as someone who actually pays attention to the reasons assholes act like assholes, would be a group of six Catholics marching toward me in Belfast. Or six Jewish settlers marching toward me in the West Bank. Or six Muslims marching toward me in Tehran.
To quote Steven Weinberg: “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.”
He wasn’t bullshitting.
This is a nightmare cubed.
I slap my forehead. “Son of a dick.”
The Christian in the lead is the goddamn Reverend William fuckin Stout. The Midwestern-born Connecticut resident, and media lunatic who we already know doesn’t like me very much.
These ain’t New Yorkers.
These are angry, organized tourists with a fanatic streak a mile wide.
The imam says, “Are you believers?”
Stout smiles.
Fred puts his hand over his heart. “I’m Catholic. Baptized. Confirmed. I know the Good Word. My friends and I want to help. We’re survivors. Like you.”
I know Fred’s trying to help.
Desperately trying, like me.
Desperate.
The Trinity shares a weird moment between themselves.
Media messiah Stout clears his throat, “Child, there aren’t any survivors like us. We do the holy work. We are cleaning the streets. No sinner or heretic will stand.”
Then the Rabbi: “These abominations that have overrun our city must be destroyed. And they will be destroyed. These streets will be purged.”
The congregation throws their arms up and cheers. “The purge!”
Fuckin tourists.
There’s a sharp crack from somewhere in the group. A gunshot. I can’t see what’s happening. Can’t see who or what got killed. The Trinity doesn’t move. They have the utmost faith in their followers’ aim.
Behind the leaders, crosses waver.
One of the men with shotguns yanks something. A chain.
Fred walks forward.
The Trinity hold their hands up.
Stout shouts, “Stop.”
A chain. The shotgun men are all tugging on chains. I didn’t seen em before. They’re too low to the ground. Hidden by slush.
Fred says, “Hey, guys. We aren’t infected. We’ve been fighting the infected.”
The Trinity raises their guns.
Fred pleads. “Please...”
The Trinity cocks the hammers on their pistols.
I trace the path of the chains. From the hands of the shotgun men, they go up, tight, to collars around the cross-bearers. The eyes of the pre-crucified are glazed over. All white. Dead. In the silence of the moment, a low moan escapes one of the cross-bearers. It’s almost impossible to hear through the duct tape over their mouths.
They’re infected. They slump against the weight of the wood that’s tied to their shoulders with barbed wire.
The Trinity keeps their guns trained on Fred.
I say, “Why are you herding infected around?” I step up to draw attention to myself. Away from Fred. I point to Stout. “And where’s your idiot son?”
Stout bares his teeth. He tilts his head to the cross-bearers. “Those three serve as examples for our followers.” He motions toward the congregation. “And for others.” He stares at Helene. “They carry the guilt of this city on their shoulders.” He grins. “Joshua!”
One of the shotgunners wraps his chain around his hand. He drags the infected and its cross forward. Another shotgunner clips the barbed wire at the undead’s shoulder. The first gunner catches the cross as it starts to fall.
The infected lunges for the man with the wire cutters. An ultimately useless gesture. The parasite person can’t open its mouth. The dude with the wire cutters punches the infected in the head anyway. Sends it reeling.
I squint at the undead as it stumbles.
It looks a shitload like Stout’s son.
Stout locks eyes with me. He keeps smiling. All those pearly whites. “For he so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.” Menace fills his features.
The shotgunner who caught the cross lays it down slowly. Gently.
The wire cutter grabs Stout’s kid and holds him against the cross. He positions the parasite person with speed.
The imam says, “We are cleaning this place. Purging it of sin and sinner. Disinfecting.”
Several members of the congregation come forward. They’ve got hammers and nails ready. They spread the former human out against the cross. Keep their feet on his joints. Prevent any movement.
Stout’s undead son does not cry when the congregation drives steel spikes through his wrists and ankles. His bones and flesh. The flock toils. They murmur prayers and cover their mouths to block the gouts of blood spurting from veins and arteries under pressure. Dark fluid mixes with the black rain and melts more snow.
Stout scowls. “I know you. And I know you are not believers.”
My hand hovers over the massive six-shooter on my thigh.
Fred takes a step backward.
He turns to me. A look of apology on his face.
The flock heaves and groans. They lift the cross. A giddy young girl runs forward. She rips the duct tape from the mouth of the reverend‘s son.
Howls fill our ears. Cannibal Stout Jr. screams at the congregation and the food that’s so close but just out of reach. He struggles against the nails in his limbs. Bones crack. Flesh tears. The Keef gnashes his teeth in the air. Liquid dribbles from his mouth and splashes through the snow on the ground.
Don’t eat the red snow.
The tape-ripping child laughs. A dainty hand over her mouth.
A congregation member pats her young back and tousles her hair with pride.
Fred’s forehead bursts.
He falls to his knees awkwardly. Body half twisted. Hot blood steams in the cold air.
The rabbi lowers his pistol.
I stand stunned and stupid and unmoving.
Fred.
Sean’s shotgun roars.
Ben’s Glock furthers the argument.
The rabbi drops. I don’t know whose bullet took him out.
Helene yells. Pushes me. I’m still standing like a dumb animal when she whips me around and kicks me hard down the street.
I fumble for my Colt.
Some gunslinger.
I fire off two shots that hit nothing.
Helene charges by me. She zig-zags to avoid the believers’ bullets. I wanna think that our video game deathmatches taught her that move—bunny hopping from side to side.
Slush around me erupts in sprays as bullets pepper it.
Ben and Sean take cover behind a
car. They fire into the flock.
I crouch with em. Shoot through anger and watery eyes. The Colt doesn’t have any answers, but it stops the prayers of several congregation members. Its heavy barrel sings. I watch the slugs tear holes in the people who murdered Fred with a sense of satisfaction.
One of my .45 rounds takes the top of Stout’s head off.
It gives me a motherfuckin murderboner.
Shotguns at my side preach.
More followers fall.
Sean and Ben tap me then run.
We duck. Crawl. Follow Helene’s fleeing form.
I see her at the subway platform. As a veteran straphanger, she swiftly swipes herself past the turnstile. Power’s on here. Sean and Ben hurry down the steps. Both eager to be someplace where bullets ain’t flying at their faces.
I hit the first step. My back explodes in pain. A molten lead fist punches me from behind.
Ben catches me.
Sean returns fire with his shotgun.
Blood pools around my feet. My vision shakes. Vibrates. Someone’s talking to me, but I don’t know who. I blink. My eyesight fails. Sudden blood loss coupled with decades of a pack—and too-much-whiskey a day.
My body’s annoyed and angry.
I can’t feel anything.
My synapses overload.
“Come on man, move.”
Still no idea who’s talking. Probably Sean.
Nah, no. That’s probably Ben.
I blink again and see Sean scramble into the attendant’s office on the platform.
Good boy, get a medical kit.
I’m plopped onto the concrete. I see Ben’s pistol above me. He fires up, toward the coming congregation. Then it gets quiet. I let my eyelids fall shut little longer this time.
So tired.
I just wanna to sleep.
Oh, Fred.
Metal clangs.
I’m hoisted up. I watch a ceiling-high turnstile spin with stoner fascination.
Then I’m on the ground again.
More shots.
Fred. Come back.
Neurons start to fire.
Pain fills me. I shriek at nothing.
There’s a pill in my mouth. Then water.
Don’t give me a stimulant. Don’t give me a stim. I wanna sleep. Let me go.
I feel someone dig into my back, below the shoulder blade.
A male voice says, “I can’t find the goddamn bullet.”
A female voice says, “I will fuckin kill you if you don’t fix him. Do you hear me? I will fuckin kill you.”
Fred, you stupid asshole.
A male voice: “We got bugs.”
Gunshots.
Chapter 15:
In the Mouth Of Madness
I loved nightmares when I was younger.
Each one was a horror flick behind my eyes.
And horror flicks are a reflection of our utterly fucked society. Those little films are a mirror held up to us. Everything that’s rotten trapped on celluloid. The shit we don’t want to acknowledge.
Where am I?
Where were you going with that?
Forget it.
Everything hurts and I can’t keep track.
I land with a wet thud.
It ain’t a falling dream.
I’ve already fallen.
A throbbing flesh cavern surrounds me. Veins pump. Muscles contract. Sticky blood covers my hands. The muck keeps me glued down. I fight with the ichor. It’s tough like taffy. Tendrils wrap themselves around me. Then break away. My hands are freed.
Freed inside the pulsating mess of a living thing.
The walls of the chamber I’m in move rhythmically. A heartbeat. They drip.
My ears pick up a low, bassy thrum. Enormous lungs inflating and deflating slowly.
I try to wipe my hands on me clothes. They get stuck. I twist and turn. Chunks of sticky red tissue cling to me.
I’m being digested.
Green liquid floods the area. I burn.
My skin fights to grow back. Wraps around me in pastry flaps.
The scene snaps.
Meat walls press into my face. My eyes jump with every thunderous heartbeat. As the muscle moves, it presses me harder. I can’t breathe. I’m being crushed by the mass of blood and gore.
Another snap.
I’m on top of the Empire State Building. I look out over Midtown. The sky’s dark. But the city’s bright. I can see congestion on the streets below. Hear the honking of car horns. There’s a traffic jam near the Lincoln Tunnel.
Everybody’s pissed.
The George Washington Bridge stands in the distance in the ebb of the Hudson River. Freighters illuminate the water’s glassy surface with their lights. Air sirens shriek into the night.
Snap.
Something explodes out of the water under the bridge. It’s forty feet tall in the night sky. The search lights of the freighters play over it. This pulsing malignancy.
A tentacle. An insane, enormous tentacle.
It ain’t quite green and it ain’t quite black. It ain’t quite any color. It’s kinda all colors. It throbs with hues of blue and red and it shudders with life.
It screams. A voice under the Hudson. Whatever the tentacle’s attached to howls. Shakes the entirety of New York City with anger.
The limb lashes out. It destroys everything.
The very tip of the tentacle brushes up against the northern face of the George Washington Bridge. Shreds it.
I hear the damned thing again. The monstrosity under the bridge.
The howl of absolute hatred.
What the fuck is that tentacle attached to?
I feel like I know.
Chapter 16:
Movement from Discord
Snap.
Ice forms and shatters and reforms in my head. Cold blue. It builds up in layers and then cracks.
In the darkness behind my eyes, points of light collect. They swirl. Go supernova. Big Bang in my brain. The ice doesn’t melt. It crashes down in shards through my veins. Frozen shrapnel flows through me.
I cough. Try to move.
“—new kind of ampakine. Like Dexedrine’s badass younger brother—”
I blink. Wince. The darkness pulls back.
“—and an atropine derivative—”
I touch my cock. Make sure it’s still there. And the Colt. Still there.
“—MediFoam squished into that bullet hole. Should keep him sealed.”
“Wake the hell up, Poppa Bear.”
I can’t feel Helene’s hands, but I know she’s touching me.
I can make out the silhouettes of Ben and Sean over the edge of the platform. Both are bathed in the contradicting blue of emergency track lighting and red from flares set among the trash and debris of the subway station. Near my feet is the upturned and leaky husk of a monster cockroach. More roach remains litter the immediate area. Along with spent shell casings.
Helene says, “Need your bullets, Poppa Bear. Get up.”
Okay, okay. Working on it.
I lock hands with Helene. She gets me steady.
My chest is tight. It’s hard to breathe. There’s thick bandaging wrapped around me.
There’s blood on the ground. And cottony feathers of discarded gauze.
Another burst of ice hits me and pushes through my insides.
I remember crosses. Guns. Masochistic infected met by a sadomasochistic congregation. Crucifixion. Fred shot dead.
It plays back in my head a thousand times in three seconds. More fluid and filth fills the brain screen. It doesn’t fade. Mental static reaches a high-pitched crescendo in my ears.
Then it all shuts off.
A mutant bug scurries up the dirty
concrete platform. Its marbled black legs work furiously. Ebony mandibles click and clack.
Helene draws her pistol.
But I’m faster.
Much faster.
I pull. Shoot without thinking. Just react. My hand’s a tool of anger. My heavy .45 slug punches through the roach’s thorax and spatters the floor with green gore. The critter twitches and kicks and dies.
I’ve never even dreamed of my hands moving that fast. Not with that kind of accuracy. It’s gotta be the drugs.
Oh, you know better than that, don’t you?
Ben glances at me from the tracks. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty.” He tosses a flare into the darkness. “Welcome to the party.” Light flashes from the muzzle of his Glock.
I kiss Helene. She caresses my face. I wanna fuck her immediately. The uppers are playing hell with my sex drive. I shake my head. I need a cigarette. I need to kill something.
Sean says, “Can you walk?”
I say, “I can run a goddamn marathon. I feel awesome.”
Sean feeds shells into his shotgun. “We should get going. The bugs are thinning out, but that’s only because we’ve been here for a while putting holes in them while you were passed out.”
“Any infected?”
“Ah...well.” Sean moves his eyes to Helene.
She fidgets at my side.
Sean says, “That’s been sort of interesting.”
The scientist moves to his right a little. Brings a fresh flare into existence.
I toss my pack over my undamaged right shoulder. Jump onto the tracks.
Sean points at the lumpy dead lunacy near his feet. “That’s an infected. A new one.”
New indeed.
The thing’s a horrific upheaval of anatomy. A weird amalgamation of muscle and bone and flesh and scrap metal that’s been cobbled together from the surrounding area. It seems without definite shape but has an ovoid abdomen made from mismatched body parts and skin turned inside out. I see a railroad spike implanted at the end of an appendage where a hand should be. Barbed wire ties bones together in a spear fashion. Extra implements. More metal.
Ben says, “Took us a while to stop it.” He loads a fresh mag. “Not cuz it was tough or fast—it lumbered around like a drunk spider, all uncoordinated and shit—we just couldn’t find the fuckin head.”
Live, From the End of the World Page 16