Legends II

by Ian Whates

  Simmons slapped Dap on the shoulder as he stomped through, leading Dharma and Red Wolf.

  “Great herd, Dap. At this rate, we’ll have the state cleared out in... shit... maybe two hundred years,” Simmons yelled behind his visor. “Go get a drink. You earned it.” He turned to refasten the gate.

  Red Wolf descended from Dharma slowly, stiffly. A young boy dashed forward and took the reins of the horse and Dap tousled his hair. “Make sure she gets some of the oats and a good brush down, Cory. That girl’s done a day’s work.”

  The boy grinned and led her away, through the second set of gates ringing the zombie races.

  Behind him, the moaning increased. They turned to watch the slaughter.

  Once the herd crowded the race gate, arms outstretched, clawing, moans and garbled sounds coming from undead throats, the lever-man opened the pneumatic gate. It lopped off a few arms as it retracted. The zombies surged forward. The spear men brought up their tools and began mechanically smashing skulls. Hook-men ducked and snagged zombies, grabbing rib-cages and drawing the bodies out from under the pen, toward the wagons. For a while, just the sound of moaning and the thunks of the spears and axes filled the air. The linemen began grunting in time with their swings. A few curses filled the air.

  “We got a bloater!”

  Dap winced as a ruptured body cavity bleated a liquid fart of putrid gas. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and covered his nose and mouth.

  “We used to let folks watch. But they’d always get real upset if they spied a loved one, a daughter, a wife in the herd. Usually try and rescue them, or bribe the linemen to let them go. They’d rather know that their sister’s lurching around, hungry for the living, than dead. Messed up world.”

  “Love doesn’t end at death, Dap.”

  “Yeah? Well, neither does stupidity, I guess. They’d throw themselves at the bars and usually be reunited with their family. Maybe not like they’d expected, though.”

  He hocked up a bloody piece of phlegm, spat it into the races, then painfully withdrew his pouch of Red-Man and packed his cheek full.

  “I gotta go talk to the council about my horse and get our money. Goddamn, I’m not looking forward to explaining this to the resource committee. I’ll meetcha at the saloon, okay? You figured out where you’re gonna bunk down yet?”

  “They assigned me a tent in Lot 10, near the water tower. Not too far from the river.”

  “Huh. Screw that. I got a bunk in a trailer near the stables. You can settle down there, if you want.”

  Red Wolf nodded, took off his hat and rubbed his bald head. He stretched, raising his arms skyward then leaned forward, doubled over, arms hanging, and gripped his calves. He stayed like that for a long time.

  “What in the wide world of sports are you doing?”

  “Stretching. Dharma’s pleasant companionship but I’m not used to the long hours.”

  “Shit, son. Don’t do that in public. Christ. You’re gonna embarrass me.”

  Red Wolf sat at a small wooden table near the front of the saloon. Two men played guitar on stools, by the bar. A passable imitation of Lynyrd Skynyrd filled the room. Men – rough men in motorcycle boots, dungarees, and work shirts – waved mimeographed rations at the young waitresses working the tables. A few women, older and scantily dressed, moved through the bar traffic, laughing and winking. A bartender poured whiskey and served warm beer to the men.

  Dap pushed his way through the crowd to the table, palmed a waitress’ rear as she passed and winked at her scowl. He flopped into the wooden chair and tossed a handful of rations at Red Wolf.

  “Damn, that’s like going to the principal’s office.”

  “What?”

  “The council. They reamed me good for losing a horse. Kept talking about field expansion and livestock conservation.” He winked at Red Wolf. “I didn’t say nothing about your aim. Or lack of it.”

  “I feel bad about it. But maybe it’s my karma.” He cocked his head. “Or yours.”

  Dap motioned to the waitress.

  “What’re you drinking?”

  “Tea.”

  Dap looked at the bald man sitting next to him. He squinted his eyes.

  “Listen, I know you’re batshit and all, but you got to be kidding me. We’ve been out for near thirty-six hours, outriding God knows how far, and brought back that herd of revs. All you’re drinking is tea?”

  Red Wolf nodded, a small smile playing at his lips.

  Dap shoved away from the table and stood. He went to the bar. The other man remained seated, watching the rough trade around him, and sipped his tea. Dap returned holding two beers in one fist and a bottle in the other. A pint of Jack Daniels.

  “You said we’re smoke and fire and water and all that other shit. Well, have a drink. Be pure and calm and... whatever else you need to be... but have a drink with me.”

  “I am drinking with you.” He took a sip of his tea.

  “No. A drink.”

  His voice soft in the clatter of the saloon, Red Wolf said “I don’t need it, Dap. I’m content to have some tea and sit here with you. I’ve eaten dinner, now I’m watching all these good people enjoy themselves and I am content. What more is there?”

  “A shitload. Drinking. Fucking. Fighting. Killing the revs. Riding.”

  “Ah.” Red Wolf held up his hand and waved to the waitress. She pushed through the crowd.

  “What’dya mean, ‘ah’?”

  “Getcha something, honey?”

  “A bit more hot water, if you’d be so kind.”

  She giggled, a strange sound coming from her lined face.

  “Sure thing, honey.” She looked at Dap, frowning. “You want something?”

  “Yeah,” he grinned, “A coupla shotglasses and a whole lotta you.”

  She walked away, tray held high.

  “What’dya mean, ‘ah’?” He unscrewed the cap on the pint and took a sip, hissed, swallowed, then shook his head. He held his hand up to his jaw, stuck a large unwashed finger into his mouth and probed at his missing teeth. He winced. “I really miss ice.”

  “I meant ‘ah,’ riding.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I asked what more is there. You said riding. I said ‘ah’.”

  “Oh.” He felt around his jaw, testing the limits of the damage.

  “Exactly.”

  Dap stayed silent. He sipped at the beer until the waitress passed by again, plopping two shot-glasses unceremoniously on the table. One tipped over and spun around. He righted it and filled it with whiskey.

  “So, what about fucking? That’s bout as pure as it gets.”

  “Yes. Sometimes I want to have sex. But my wife is dead.”

  Dap looked at the waitresses. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes. One spilled down his cheek before he could wipe it away.

  “Yeah.” He sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “But she wouldn’t mind. I mean, we’re still here, ain’t we? It’s such a goddamned monster of a world. Would she deny you comfort when you can find it?”

  “Is it comfort? Or is it forgetfulness? I don’t want to forget her, and I don’t want to replace her. And are we talking about your wife, or mine?” He drained the contents of his mug. “I do like the tea. And riding Dharma, as well.”

  Dap stared down into his shotglass for a bit, then held it over the beer and dropped it in. The warm beer frothed. He picked up the glass and downed the drink in one long pull from the mug.

  “Ah.”

  “Ah.”

  “We’ve been offered another job. New horse for me, new guns. Motorcycle armour for both of us. A sweet job. Riding escort for a scavenging operation. We gotta find more chain-link for the fields. Gonna push all the way into West Little Rock if we can, hitting hardware, liquor and gunstores. While we’re gone, they’re gonna double the size of the races and be waiting for us to bring back the biggest herd of revs yet. Two horses to a man, no stopping.”

  He poured another shotglass full and
dropped it into Red Wolf’s beer. He pushed the mug toward his companion.

  Red Wolf pushed it back.

  “I’m willing. When do we leave?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  Red Wolf nodded, once. Dap lifted the mug to his lips, tilted his head, and drank.

  “Done,” he said, slamming the mug back on the table.

  4

  Dap moaned. From horseback, he waved his hand at Red Wolf riding near him. The other man handed him the clear, two-litre soda bottle tied with twine.

  Raising the bottle to his lips, he took a swig of the liquid, swished it around, then spat it out.

  “Damn, Red, that’s some nasty stuff.”

  “Doc said you need to wash your mouth with saline solution.”

  “It hurts.”

  “All pain is temporary.”

  Dap lifted the bottle and repeated the process again.

  “So’s all pleasure. My whole damned head feels like it’s gonna explode.”

  “It’s the infection. Or the hangover.”

  “If it exploded, it might make me feel better.”

  The wagon trundled behind them on silent rubber wheels, heavy with stale tobacco, pickles and cheap scotch whiskey. A five hundred pound bail of cattle fencing was the best they could find. They’d siphoned almost three hundred gallons of gasoline from a station near Perryville.

  The horses drawing the wagon frothed at the mouth. They’d discovered a motorcycle shop after much effort, only to find it devoid of any riding gear save one Kevlar riding jacket, a pair of boots and a few helmets. An Indian souvenir shop provided thirty pounds of cured leather for clothing and further armouring, plus a large haul of still good pemmican.

  Miller, Sunseri and Ransom rode bait while Dap and Red Wolf led the procession. Simmons sat high in a bucket seat, perched atop the plywood wagon, a shotgun across his knees.

  Man-sized saplings and Johnson grass veined the highway. Cottonwoods and birch ran up against the road which resembled little more than a game-trail through the countryside.

  “All stop!” Simmons called from his perch. “Herd’s breaking up. It’s just too big to stay together in these woods!” He spat over the rim of the wagon. “Dap, take Silent back there and help with the bait. I’ll keep watch on our frontside.”

  “We can’t stay sitting here too long. Hear that?”

  The sound of the herd was a dull roar.

  “We’re drawing ‘em in from all over! We got over three hundred now.”

  “The council didn’t put you in charge of this foray. They put me. I’m not gonna place any man nor horse at risk, okay?”

  Dap yanked on reins, pulling his mount’s head toward the wagon, where Simmons sat staring at him. “I know the council wants us to do our best to clear out the state of what revs we can. But we can’t stop now. Maybe nearer the Ponderosa we can rest again.”

  “It ain’t resting Dap. At this point, the herd’s hit the point of no return. We gotta bring ‘em in. If we don’t bring them into the races, they might just wander around in a cluster and hit one of the fenced-in fields. Those chain-link fences’ll keep out the onesies or twosies, but they’ll fold with a herd like this battering.”

  Dap rested his hand on his pistol-grip and kicked out his hip, thinking.

  “Damnation. I hate to admit it, but you’re probably right.”

  Simmons smiled. “Hell has frozen over.”

  “Why’d we name it after Bonanza?” Red Wolf cocked his head curiously.

  Miller, who had moved up near the conversing men, snickered at the name.

  Dap glared at the man. “Everybody thought it was funny. I loved that show. There’s worse ways of naming a town.”

  Simmons adjusted his shotgun in his lap. “How’d you even see it? It was off the air when you were born in... What? ‘75? ‘80?”

  “‘71.” He laughed, making a short barking sound. “I guess I’m just well preserved.”

  “Pickled is more like it.”

  “My dad had it on Betamax. Remember those? Shit, I wanted to be Hoss so bad.”

  “Yeah. I remember Betamax. They lost the format war with VHS.”

  The men fell silent, thinking.

  Dap said, “I’m gonna dig up a DVD player or something and make ‘em start having movie night back at town.” He rubbed his jawline. “We need something. Something to remind us of...the good times. Of being normal.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Simmons said, looking off into the brush. “Except it might remind folks how far we’ve fallen. And finding gas for the gennies ain’t as easy as it used to be. Despite this nice haul. Probably be a bonus waiting for us.” He nodded at the men’s smiles. “Heads up.”

  A pair of zombies crackled through the brush in front of them, pushing long grass and branches aside.

  Miller withdrew a billy-club from his belt and Dap reached over and grabbed a baseball bat from the wagon bed.

  “Back to business, gents.”

  Red Wolf and Dap rode bait. The stench from hundreds of walking dead behind them filled the air, even though they rode into the wind.

  “God, this is a miserable damned detail,” Dap said.

  His companion nodded, rubbing Dharma’s neck. The highway rose from the country surrounding it, giving the two a clear view of the area. The sun had begun to slide down the western vault of sky.

  “You’re taking this little jaunt calmly, Red. You hoarding Xanax?”

  “No. Thinking.”

  “What gives?” He reined in, looking back over his horse’s rump at the oncoming herd. The three hundred zombies had grown to four, easily. Their lowing swelled their ranks, drawing others from the surrounding countryside. The men were a hundred yards away. The mob of undead moved like some enormous, grey-green amoeba, sloughing off bits of itself and drawing them back in. The herd was sixty yards deep and spilled over the side of the highway, into the brush. They could hear the crack and snap of branches as the off-road revenants made their way toward them.

  Dap turned to look at the wagon cresting the rise. Miller and Sunseri sat watching. Miller gave a little girl wave, high and mincing, made absurd by his heavy gloves.

  “In the Smithsonian, there’s a room they keep the bones of every tribe of Indian. They keep it perfectly cool, and dry, and the bones...they’ve analysed, weighed, and measured them. They’ve catalogued and cross-referenced them.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  Red Wolf was quiet for a long while.

  Finally, he said, “So. What were they looking for?”

  Dap took a swig from the two litre bottle of saline, grimaced, swished the liquid in his mouth, and spat.

  “No clue, Red. There’s probably revs gnawing on them bones now, if they got stuck down there.” His horse nickered, rearing its head. The herd approached. Dap inspected his rifle and nodded for Red Wolf to check the load on his pistol.

  “So what happened, huh? For you to be so looney-tunes? They get... they get your family?”

  Red Wolf said, “She went to the grocery and took the kids. Amy. Gretch.”

  “Oh. Shit.”

  “But they came back home, after.” He looked away, shook his head.

  “It’s a goddamned monster of a world.”

  “It’s humanity. But, in death, we remove our masks. Show our animal natures.”

  Dap spat again.

  “That’s horseshit. Your nature is your nature. Some folks are shitheads. Some are sweethearts. All this philosophizing ain’t good for you.”

  They fell silent and watched as the herd drew closer, lowing heavily. Red Wolf tied a bandanna across his mouth and nose to keep the stench out. The herd had grown so large after swinging through west Little Rock that it was hard to see the rear of the mass from their vantage. A sea of reanimated dead, shambling forward.

  “You see that, Red?”

  He shook his head. Dap pointed.

  “There. Near the front.”

  “No.”

  �
��The blond. Semi-fresh. Got a tennis ball stuck in her mouth with duct tape.”

  “Hm. That’s strange.”

  “You said it, Tonto.” He turned to scan the hills around them.

  It sounded like a firecracker, whistling through the air. Dap felt a puff of wind across his cheek. Then the report of a rifle cracked from across the valley.

  “What was that?”

  “Shit, Red. Someone’s shooting at us.”

  The sound came again, a whistle as the bullet sped through the air. Then, crack… A rifle’s report.

  Red Wolf’s horse screamed and crashed to the ground.

  “Get down!” Dap called to the men on the rise.

  A horse from the wagon fell, and they heard another crack - the bullet from the unknown shooter travelled faster than the sound - drawing the other horse, locked in its traces, down with it, screaming. From the corner of his eye, Dap saw a puff of white in the trees, on the skirt of a large hill.

  Another crack. No one fell.

  “Over there!” he yelled, pointing to the stand of trees where he’d seen the smoke. “Ransom! Sunseri! Get over there! Get him.”

  The herd’s lowing grew louder. Ransom wheeled his horse and rode hard for the woods. Sunseri split off to the side, intending to flank. But then his horse pitched over, rump flying high, and he flew through the air and hit the ground, headfirst.

  Crack.

  “He’s shooting horses!” Dap’s voice pitched upward.

  Another whistle and report. Miller had dismounted and pulled his horse behind the wagon.

  Simmons keeled over, landing with a thump, near a wagon wheel.

  Crack.

  Miller ran to where Simmons had fallen, going to his knees.

  “Shit! He’s wiping us out!”

  Dap dropped from his horse and went over to where Red Wolf lay.

  “You okay, Red?”

  Red Wolf shook his head. “Got me through the leg when he shot Dharma. I think my foot’s crushed, too. I can’t get out.”

  Dap cursed, looked to check how far away the herd was, and shoved at Dharma’s back.

  “Damn. We gotta get you out of there quick. I can’t budge her.”He glanced around. “Wait a sec.” He grabbed his rifle, shoved the barrel as far underneath the horse as he could, grabbed the stock and lifted, veins popping in his arms.