Zombie Bitches From Hell

by Campbell, Zoot

  “Uncle Kent? It’s me, Hadley,” the shadow says.

  I find my voice. “Hadley, baby, how’d you get in? Are you OK? I really missed you”

  “I know, I know,” she says softly. “I missed you, too. Can I stay with you? I’m so cold.”

  “Sure. Come under the covers,” I say, lifting the tarp and raincoat. She crouches down and curls up next to me, colder than an icicle. “You’ll warm up in a minute,” I reassure her, putting my arm around her.

  “I missed you, too,” she repeats, shivering. “It’s a long way from there to here. I’m so glad I found you. I couldn’t bring MG, though. I’m sorry. I lost him in the fog.”

  “That’s OK. He’s a good dog. He can fend for himself. When I get out of here, I’ll find him. Maybe you can help. Would you help me find him?”

  “Sure I will,” she says. “I gotta sleep now.”

  “Yeah, get some sleep, sweetie. We got a ton of food. I’ll make you breakfast in the morning. OK?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “That would be great. I’m so hungry, Uncle Kent. So hungry and so tired.”

  My grandmother always made me say my prayers at bedtime. “Now I lay me down to sleep….” Didn’t like it then. Like it even less now.

  ***

  I feel like I’m in a blast furnace when I wake up. The sun is hitting the reflector on the light housing and it’s focused on me like ten million watts of tanning bed. I put my hand up to shield my face. “Fuck!” I say to the world.

  “Top o’ the mornin’ to you, too, Cap’n,” sings Tim.

  “How about you go fu….”

  “Now Cap’n, is that anyway to talk to the galley slave what just made you some fresh canned peaches and cornflakes over easy with a fresh pot of instant coffee and home fries from real potatoes and thinly sliced canned ham?”

  The smell of cooking had risen up that stairwell like it was a chimney. It did smell good. It was then I notice Hadley is gone.

  “Where’s Hadley?” I ask Tim. He looks at me and doesn’t answer. Shakes his head annoyed. He always thought she was bad luck or something. That poor kid. Didn’t stand a chance and when she got shot…. That’s right, I think. She was shot. What am I thinking?

  I look at the place in my makeshift bed where she was supposed to be sleeping. There’s a small c-shaped indent in the water tarp. Or is it my imagination?

  Tim is looking at me sideways as he pretends to look out at the risen sun. Gulls are circling the lighthouse and dropping clams on the rocks, diving to pick up the sweet innards.

  “I’ll be right down. Sorry I overslept. It wasn’t a good night,” I say.

  “Any night we live till the morning is a good one, Mon Capitan,” he responds. He heads down the stairs whistling some stupid ’60s song. I’m hoping it’s not “Up, Up and Away in my beautiful balloon.”

  I’m pulling up my pants when I see a red dot in the distance. There’s something coming up the road from the direction of P-Town.

  “Tim,” I yell down. “There’s someone coming our way.” I rub my eyes to make sure it’s not a trick of the light or a floater in my vitreous humor. Go look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about. It could happen to you.

  Tim comes running up the stairs like a gazelle.

  “Where? Who? What?”

  “Look there,” I say pointing. It’s clearly a red car of some sort. It’s moving fast and birds that were sitting on the road are scattering out of the way and shredded bits of paper and leaves are flying up behind it.

  “Get down,” I say. We both crouch just peeking a bit over the edge. “They must have been by here or the place would have been emptied out, right?”

  Not right. It’s a red Jeep, one of those Wranglers with a black ragtop. There are three, no four, bitches in the fucking thing and they go racing by us and I’m thinking, holy shitstains, they’ve remembered how to drive! Tim says, “That was a close one,” but the brakes get slammed on and the backup lights brighten and the fucking thing backs up to the driveway of our lighthouse. It stops and I can see the bitches looking at us like we’re hanging out on the roof.

  “Fuck. Get the rifle,” I tell Tim. He rushes down the stairwell and I hear him running back up, all out of breath and wheezing like he smoked eight packs a day all his life.

  “Sorry, chief,” he says. “It was the cooking. There’s a small smokestack over the stove and I guess the smoke attracted the bitches.”

  He guessed right. He cocks the rifle and sits next to me. “Let them come for us. We can pick them off in the stairwell.”

  “Right,” he says. “Maybe it would be better to pick them off from here. I got a clear line of fire.”

  “Wrongo,” I say. “If they don’t all get killed, they can race back to wherever they came from and bring a horde with them.” I’m imagining us getting eaten in a lighthouse in Cape Cod. If somebody told me this shit on graduation day in high school I woulda said…. Fuck, what does it matter what I would’ve said? I was a bigger dumbass then than I am now, damn it all to hell.

  Tim slides open one of the vent windows and pokes the muzzle out, takes a second, and fires at the driver of the Jeep. The window shatters and the bitch behind the wheel collapses, blood splattered everywhere. The doors open up and three bitches tumble out.

  “Hey, you dumb motherfuckers, what are doin?” says one of them sounding very much a baritone. I peek out and see her legs belong to a running back. A blonde with shoulders bigger than a door, shakes her fist. “I’m going to beat the livin’ crap outta you!”

  Tim wisely fires another shot into the dirt and some pebbles and dust fly up. He turns to me and says, “Thems ain’t zombies, Captain, thems is drag queens.”.”

  “Listen, girls,” I yell. “I’m sorry, but we thought you were women or, more accurately, zombies. You were very convincing. I’m sorry for your friend there but we didn’t want to end up on a bitch-from-hell menu. I hope you understand.”

  “Understand? You shot Helen right through his head! I’ll admit the make-up was good and he just waxed his beard, poor dear. But did you have to kill him?”

  “Well, I guess you know what’s been happening around the world. Can you blame us?” I say. “I mean, you’re dressed like women. Think about it. Not like we feel good about it now.”

  They whisper to each other.

  The brunette shouts, “Okay, dammit. It’s a truce. Accidents happen and we can’t blame you guys. Well, we could blame you. You shot a hole in her fucking head. But I might’ve done the same thing if I was in your shoes. Come on down.”

  Tim says to me, “What do you think?”

  “I think we’ve got no options; no real options anyway. Let’s go.”

  We pick up our stuff and fill our backpacks with food. I open the door and Ryan, as I learned his name to be is standing there. He says, “Don’t need supplies. We’re chock full for now but if it suits you to bring your own, be my guest.”

  Standing next to him is Greg, a tall lanky dude in a tight dress and yellow heels the size of banana boats. He puts out his hand all limp-wristed and says, “Pleased to meetcha.”

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” says Tim getting into the routine. “I’m Tim. This is Kent.”

  “Hi guys,” says Greg. “I’m Greg; this is Ryan. That’s Darlene over there,” pointing out the beefy brunette. “I mean AJ. But he prefers Darlene. You can call me whatever makes you happy.” He winks.

  Ryan, sounding suddenly masculine and in charge, says, “All right, girls. Let’s get back to camp. Darlene, you stay here. I’ll send Edna for you with a pick-up. We might as well get the stuff that’s stored here now before it falls into the wrong hands. Be a dear and help clean up this mess that Annie Oakley just made in our limo.”

  Darlene says nothing in reply but shuffles over to the lighthouse in his chiffon gown and engineer boots. I know he’s going to eat my breakfast.

  “Guess he’s gonna eat your chow, dearie,” says Ryan as if reading my mind. “Your fire was a
little smoky. And a lot careless. There are still undead whores running around. Not many, but a few. We go scouting every now and again just to see if maybe the military is back in control or something good is in the news department. We’re pretty isolated out there in P-Town. Don’t want to miss anything.”

  “We get it,” says Tim.

  “No, Miss Thing, I don’t think you do. That cooking fire of yours could have brought all hell down on you. If you do that careless kind of shit at our camp, I’ll shoot you myself.”

  Before we all get in the Jeep, Ryan announces he has to “take a leak.” He pulls up his dress and unrolls his dick. It looks a foot long.

  “Now you know why she’s in charge,” says Greg.

  ***

  After Darlene and Tim clean the remains of Helen out of the car; they drag his body off behind one of the dunes. Everyone says a word or two and a silent prayer and we all pile into the Jeep. Death has become just a way of life now. Everyone moves on pretty quickly, though it doesn’t make me feel better about accidentally shooting someone. Greg drives and makes a quick U-turn and we are on our way to P-Town. I certainly am not going to bring up Jen and I look at Tim sitting next to me in the back and he knows, as usual, what I am thinking.

  “So where are you two from and what the hell are you doin’ here?” asks Ryan.

  “We’re from Denver. Worked at a radio station. We figured the Cape was safe because it was isolated. Knew the plague was only hitting females and knew also that P-Town was more than likely to be safe,” I responded.

  “I don’t believe that story really,” says Ryan. “But whatever suits you. We’re pretty harmless, all-in-all. But how did you get here from there?”

  “In a balloon,” I say quickly. Doesn’t make a difference anymore. “It’s buried back at the lighthouse. Won’t do anybody any good anymore.”

  “Now that is a story,” says Ryan. “Maybe I’m believing the whole thing. Like Dorothy and the Wizard. You’re right about P-Town. It’s all gay now for sure. We had our problems with a bunch of local dykes and some turista broads. A lot of bloodletting, if the truth be known. But about twenty seminary students from Boston showed up one day in a motor boat; they had just made it out of Bean Town before it was overrun by the horde and they arrived in the nick of time to save our ungodly asses.”

  “You mean a bunch of Catholic priests made it in a boat?” Tim asks.

  “Not priests exactly. But on their way to being priests. Seminary of St. Jude. Nice bunch of guys. And don’t start in about child molesting and all that shit. We’re what’s left in this part of the globe and, like it or not, we’re the survivors. The only hope of mankind,” says Ryan.

  “God works in mysterious ways, my friends,” says Tim. “Greg, what’s your story?”

  I look out the window of the Jeep at the dunes and saw grass, the shifting sands that have covered most of the road since there is no longer a highway department to clean up after Mother Nature’s mischief. There are gray-shingled cottages with sand piled up against their sides as if trying to hide from the weather and the world. Abandoned cars, toppled lawn furniture, a deserted produce stand, tattered remnants of American and nautical flags on weathered flagpoles, the halyards clanking in the wind. Greg’s voice breaks the reverie:

  “I was a school teacher at P-Town Elementary. I’ll never forget it, Mary, never, if I live to be a hundred—not that I would want to unless they can do something about wrinkles and age spots—no, honey, not me. Anyway, I’m teaching the little cuties about squares and circles and triangles and I’ve got their full attention, which is not easy, I might add. And I hear a shout from outside in the hallway. Help, Help! Someone is yelling and then screams. Well, I am thinking this is Columbine but for tots. And, no, it couldn’t be; that was in Colorado which is full of bigot rednecks with pick-up trucks and gun racks. No this is P-Town the land of the free and the home of the homo. I don’t even think the police have guns. Anyway, I look out in the hall in a very cautious fashion and, sure enough, Miss Watling, the assistant principal who is at least 350 pounds on a dry day, is purple and gushier than usual and she has Mr. Boyle on his back on the floor eating his—well, his private parts--and two male teachers, Mr. Conroy, the cutest math teacher you ever saw and Mr. DaBrama, a hunky Italian from Boston are pulling on her fat shoulders and shouting for someone to call 911 and then some new teacher named Mrs. Haversham looking like it was Halloween in May comes running down the hall with a man’s arm in her mouth, jacket sleeve and all, and I nearly passed out and kept thinking of my old fucked up Christian grandma telling me about the end of days and the Crapture and all that Jesus-with-his-terrible-swift-sword bullshit and I say to myself, ‘Honey, that old dried-up bitch was right! It is the end of the world and where am I going to be sentenced to?’ Why just two nights before, I had a dildo up my ass the size of a Louisville slugger and Jimmy—he’s my hunka-hunka burnin’ love dish of the week—

  jerking off by my side. I’m hoping that Saint Agnes or the Holy Moly Mother of God or St. Peter, Paul and Almond Joy were not watching me in the privacy of my own home. After all, even queers have some constitutional rights, right? And I start praying out loud, ‘Dear Jesus, I never sucked a dick or had one in my ass and I’ll never do it again! I promise on the grave of my old fucking whore Bible thumpin’ grandma, may she rot, I mean live, in heaven with you and those eye candy angels. Anyway, I slam the door shut and lock it and I turn to see all the little girls have collapsed on the floor and the little boys are standing there, some crying, some just dumbfounded and then, of course, there is fat little Jerry Koonders laughing and pointing at Emily Boyd’s little panties full of scorch marks and I yell, ‘All right, boys, back up to the black board. Give them some air,’ but the little rascals all come running over to me because, of course, they are scared out of their little wits. And then the little girls get up and I figure that it must have been mass hysteria and I can hear police sirens outside and I am glad for the first time in my life that the cops are on the way and it’s not to arrest me for public drunkenness which only happened once when I was in New York City at a club called Furnace and I did more ecstasy than was prudent, if you get my meaning, and the next thing I know this fat guy named Jeffrey is breathing on me while I’m passed out and saying, ‘She’s not dead, I think. Let her sit here for a while. She’ll come to. I hope.’ Well, I did but the place got raided and I got taken to a hospital and I would bet a thousand dollars that the ambulance guy had taken my shoes off and was smelling my feet and whacking off, but I couldn’t swear to it because, well I was e’d out of my mind and I wouldn’t have minded anyway; I love a man in a uniform. I was put in a room with this drag queen who was so ugly she reminded me of my dear old grandma who was dead and rotting in her grave. Well, back to the school, the tyke bitches get up and they do not look healthy and happy like little American girls should look, all sugar and spice and everything tuna. No, my friends, they are tottering tots from the land of the undead, oozing black shit from their mouths and like little monster wind-up American Girl dolls, they start attacking the little boys en masse and biting and tearing and it’s not even lunch period yet, the little bitches. One of them goes for my balls, but I punch her on the top of her head and collapse her skull in because I’m scared outta my panties. I remember seeing those pigtails with the pink ribbons go straight up in the air covered in her brain matter. She collapses and I smashed her face in with my Prada boots which were never the same since, damn her. I know I’m not going to run into the hall, so I go to the window and try to lift some of the boys through. I get three or four out and tell them to run wee, wee, wee all the way home but I don’t get a good feeling about that especially when that dyke gym teacher comes staggering out of the gymnasium and grabs one of them and tears his arms off and eats him, jeans and Ed Hardy t-shirt included. Just his little high tops were left. I climb out and the bitch starts chasing me, but I make it to the bike rack and jump on one of the bikes and pedal my ass off, tears in my
eyes and racing through that parking lot like Glinda the Good Witch of the South going to save Dorothy but, fuck her, I got to save myself. It wasn’t long before I found this bunch of queens hiding out in Pete’s Peter, the gay bar that used to be a jail, and we are all safe. I think someday I’ll write my life story. But I don’t think there are many publishers left. Do you?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I answer. I’m out of breath just listening to this queen. But I can sense the terrified desperation behind the glib humor and the thick make-up. In not too long a time we make it to a barricade across the road. There are cars, buses, garbage dumpsters and miscellaneous vehicular detritus not only blocking the roadway but extending to and over the dunes in both directions from sea to shining sea. The blockade seals off the small tip of the Cape at its narrowest point. There are makeshift guard towers every fifty feet but they appear unoccupied. There are, however, four guys in military fatigues with Uzis. We’re stopped at the entrance and two muzzles are pointed at us.

  “It’s us,” says Ryan. “We lost one and found two.”

  “Get out of the car, all of you,” barks one of the guards.

  Greg says, “That’s what used to be a seminarian. What a bitch. It’s protocol. Don’t worry, guys, it’s okay.”

  The last time I heard that, it was most definitely not okay. We all get out. The car is looked over and under.

  “Welcome back, Ryan. What happened to the other two you left with?” asks a guard.

  “Helen had an accident. She’s dead. Darlene is back at the Nauset Light collecting provisions. Send Anthony and Chuck out with a van. She’s waiting.”

  “Sure,” he responds. He raises his arm and gestures and a school bus that is part of the barricade backs out of the way and the road ahead is clear, a small street that leads to a cluster of perfect New England Victorian houses and cottages in various shades of white, yellow, gray, sea green and pink.