The rescued child, a skinny black kid around six years old, chugged down a cup of rainwater and then promptly fell asleep on a folding chair.
“Now what are you gonna do with it?” Trent said.
Charlie ignored the disdain in his friend’s voice. “We’ll take care of him, of course.”
“First thing we need to do is get him a fresh set of clothes since these are covered in piss,” Mike said. “We’ll give him a bath and chow when he wakes up.”
“So you wet-nurses are setting up a gay-care center? You know, this is the type of crap we should have talked about,” Trent said.
“You think we should have left him there?” Charlie said.
“Why not? That’s exactly what we did until you got a wild hair up your ass.” Trent wasn’t winning anyone over. “I’m just saying, we need a kid like a fish needs a bicycle. And he’s a nigglet to boot.”
“That’s enough of that,” Charlie said.
“Hey, Russ, do you know why black guys cry during sex?” Trent asked, picking up steam.
“No.” Jerky hung from Russ’s mouth like a clown cigar.
“Because of the mace.” Trent was so busy laughing that he didn’t see the punch coming that totally annihilated him. Rob stood sheepishly over the cop’s prone body. Like Charlie, he’d heard enough.
Russ lifted Trent’s limp hand in the air then dropped it to the ground. “Dude, I think you killed him.” Trent wasn’t dead, but he never would remember what happened.
“I’d say he had that coming for, oh, twenty years, give or take and—” Charlie stopped midsentence as a bright light shone into his eyes, and it felt briefly as if God were putting a spotlight on his good deeds. Only it wasn’t God.
“Somebody’s flashing a mirror at us,” Blake said and adjusted the binoculars. He cracked a smile. “This is an interesting development. It’s some hot chicks on a roof two blocks down. They’re writing on a dry erase board.”
Left-Nut perked up as if he’d struck gold. “Spit it out already, what does it say?”
Blake lowered the binoculars. “Starving, need food.”
Chapter 27
All Rockets, No Sockets
“I call dibs on the blonde with the monster jugs,” Left-Nut said without hesitation.
“Fine by me, I got the redhead.” Russ rubbed dirty hands through his greasy mullet. “My third wife was a fire-crotch.”
Blake turned to his uncle. “You can’t call dibs on what might be the last two women on earth. Besides, didn’t your third wife stab you?”
“Oh yeah,” he said while giving Left-Nut a high five as if it were a good thing. “Twice. Stitched myself up.”
Mike took the binoculars to see what the fuss was about. “They’re hot, I’ll give you that.”
“I knew you weren’t all rockets, no sockets,” Russ said and patted him on the back.
“I still appreciate the female form from time to time.”
Bruce piled on. “Mike is such a breeder. You know he wants to take those girls to pound-town.” Sure, it was idiotic to act like Mike was secretly straight, but it passed the time, and that was something they had plenty of.
The fantasies and grab-assery went on for hours since they finally had reason to celebrate. After all, they’d scored a fresh supply of booze and gained the somewhat distant, yet entirely possible, prospect of getting laid. Not to mention Trent was still unconscious, and that in itself was a cause for revelry. They set him in a chair a la Weekend at Bernie’s and went about their business around him.
But some of the talk turned downright sadistic, even for this group, causing Charlie and Mike to retreat to the kitchen for further discussion. “I know everyone wants to head over and visit the girls, but let’s face it, that’s setting up for disaster,” Mike said quietly, not wanting to wake the sleeping child in the living room.
Charlie nodded. “These guys are walking hard-ons and Trent’s becoming more of a lunatic every day, so yeah, we should keep our distance.”
“Speaking of Trent, you know he’s gonna shoot Rob when he wakes up.”
“Not without his bullets,” Charlie replied and placed them on the table one after another.
Mike smiled broadly. “Nice move, Chuck. But back to the girls and their food situation. We have to figure out something soon.”
“Way ahead of you. I still have a water-balloon launcher we used on spring break to shoot beers from the balcony to the beach. I bet we can toss cans that far no problem. Now aiming it…”
“But do you really think they’ll eat cat food?” Mike said. “These girls look pretty high maintenance.”
“Sure, it has the consistency of a soggy turd and the refined taste of a boiled nut-sack, but they’ll make the same choice we did.”
“You’re really on top of your game today. I’m impressed.”
Charlie smiled with atypical pride. “I know, it’s like a fog’s been lifted or something. I feel great, well, other than my back.”
“Sobering up?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Keep it that way. We need you like this.” Mike pointed to the living room. “Especially the kid.”
Left-Nut and the others strolled in. “Interrupting your circle-jerk?”
“Need something?” Charlie replied as he hid the ammo.
“Can we look at the little rascal?” Russ said, slurring his speech. The cheap whiskey had done its job and he was feeling no pain.
Mike rose from the table and took on a fatherly tone. “Yes, but don’t wake him up.”
“Has he said anything yet?” Bruce asked.
Mike shook his head. “I think he might be a mute. Plus he’s underweight and dehydrated. But with some t-l-c he should be fine. I think.”
They surrounded the child as his chest peacefully rose and fell to the rhythm of life. For a brief moment, each man forgot his own grief, weakness and failure. Lying before them was a symbol of what had disappeared and a vision of what might be again.
Rob gently patted the kid’s head and started to bawl, his big body shuddering uncontrollably. Once the floodgates opened up, the others quickly joined in, each crying for a different reason.
Except for Matt “Left-Nut” Tucker, who was always one to ruin a moment. He opened his mouth in a sneer, only to hold his venom tongue and walk out the door. The image of Rob’s fist smashing Trent into a bloody pulp had been a powerful one.
Charlie spoke to his sobbing friends. “We did something here, and I’m proud of everyone. Mike’s gonna get the little guy cleaned up, and we’ve got another mission to do.”
They dried their eyes and reassembled on the roof while Charlie retrieved the slingshot from under a mountain of junk in his closet. Smokey used his cocaine mirror to signal the girls while the others tried to gauge the distance and the direction of the wind. “I don’t think this’ll work,” Bruce said after realizing how far away their target was.
“Never underestimate these guys when they put their minds to something,” Blake said. “Especially if there is vagina involved.”
Rob held the two-man launcher steady while Smokey stretched the rubber cables taut at a full thirty feet. Any further and they risked snapping the device and taking someone’s eye out. Charlie placed a can of Ocean Delight into the holder and backed up. “Fire away,” he said.
Smokey released his grip and the lines snapped forward, smacking Rob in the gut at ninety miles an hour while the can whizzed past his face just as fast. It crashed into the next building over and exploded into a frothy mist of gelled meat by-product.
Charlie grimaced. “Sorry. Angle it up more,” he added while reloading. They fired again and sent the projectile far enough but missing wide right.
The girls jumped and waved encouragement from afar, obviously desperate at this point. Realizing this, Left-Nut could not help himself. “Show us your tits!” They didn’t.
Four shots later, a can lazily arced over their target and the blonde held it up triumphantly. Having
the distance and angle down, they made five of the next eight attempts. Uncle Russ dished out a celebratory round of shots and high-fives.
Charlie abstained and chose that time to broach the root-canal of a subject they’d been avoiding. “Guys, we need to do something about Jim’s body. I’d like to bury him somehow. And Cindy, what’s left of her, too.” The bloated rats of the city had descended on the corpses in the street, skeletonizing them with gruesome efficiency.
“We could drop down into the alley and pull up some bricks. Bury ‘em there,” Blake said. “Of course we’ll have to keep Cliff busy, but that’s no big deal.”
The idea was a good one and they agreed to carry it out soon. Settling the matter, the gang had an impromptu wake by passing a bottle and recalling their favorite Jim stories, as boring as they were. When it came time for Charlie to speak, he brought up Jim’s spicier tale of betrayal, and things quickly got weird. Nobody would look him in the eye, and Left-Nut mumbled something under his breath. Charlie got a familiar sinking feeling. “What’s the deal? Did you guys know about this?” He could tell by their shady expressions what the answer was.
Blake gritted his teeth. “Dude, we really hoped you wouldn’t find out. But now that you know part of the story you might as well get the unvarnished truth. Everyone nailed your girl Carrie. They didn’t call her First Bank because she had a lot of money. That broad took more deposits than Bernie Madoff.”
Smokey nodded. “Yeah, she blew Vidu of all people. He was helping her study for a finance exam and the next thing he knew… wham, balls deep!”
Left-Nut clucked his tongue in disdain and swooped in for the kill. “It’s pretty sorry when your dream girl banged most of your friends and half the baseball team. And you call me pitiful?”
Charlie’s head spun and he tilted forward as his mouth watered. He felt like he’d just discovered he was adopted and Santa Claus was fake all at once. What was worse, the sucker punch came right as he’d regained his confidence. He pitched forward and projectile vomited while his friends lost it.
The howling laughter caused Trent to jump right out of his lawn chair, wild-eyed and dazed. “What the hell just happened?”
Chapter 28
Iron Man
The change in Trent’s behavior over the past week had been stunning. Gone were the racist jokes, mean-spirited pranks and random acts of violence. He even stopped pestering Zombie Cliff for the most part. The dirty cop now spent his time scrubbing the apartment and telling stories to the child that he’d named Brandon.
Not everyone believed in the miraculous transformation. “Trent’s acting like Martha Stewart, what gives?” Blake said and bit his lip while Mike jabbed him with a shot of insulin. “It’s odd.”
“Unless you buy into Fred Flintstone lifestyle-changing head injuries, I’d say he’s bullshitting us.” Mike pulled out the syringe and applied a Band-Aid.
Charlie agreed. “Trusting Trent’s like putting your cock in a shark’s mouth and expecting a blowjob, you won’t be happy with the results. And I find it peculiar that he had exactly eight bullets left.”
“One for each of us,” Mike said ominously, then changed his tone. “Are you over the Carrie Evans thing? I know that must have been pretty shocking to hear.”
“I think all the puking was withdrawal symptoms, but I was upset,” Charlie said and chuckled self-consciously. “Still, it wasn’t a total surprise.”
“Why’s that?” Blake asked as he rubbed his arm.
“I showed up at her dorm during finals one night and she was acting weird, like she couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I always wondered if someone was hiding in the closet, R. Kelly style.”
Now it was Mike’s turn to look uncomfortable. “Yeah, about that… sorry.”
Charlie’s jaw dropped. “Oh come on! I got snaked by a gay guy? You gotta be—”
A loud scuffle in the living room interrupted their chat as Bruce angrily confronted Left-Nut. “Answer me this, why do you smell like cherries? If you’re hiding food, I’ll—”
“Ginger, you’re not gonna do shit,” Left-Nut replied calmly. “But if you must know, it’s cherry-flavored sex lube. I snagged it downstairs, so when we meet the ladies my breath’s gonna be fruity fresh and my dong’s gonna—”
Bruce scoffed. “You got the fruity part right.”
“Have you smelled your breath lately? I’ll start calling you Butter-loaf ‘cause your teeth are so yellow they could butter a whole loaf of bread.”
Russ chuckled and Bruce turned on him in an instant. “You don’t have any room to talk with your summer teeth. Some are there, some aren’t.” The reality was that everyone’s hygiene had disappeared since Charlie’s travel size toothpaste ran dry, and gingivitis was the least of their problems. A steady diet of cat food and alcohol had led to the early stages of scurvy, and without vitamin C, they’d all be losing teeth. And that wasn’t to mention the stench.
Now it was Russ’s turn to fire back. “Boy, you got a gator mouth and a gerbil ass.” He raised his fists in a challenge.
Bruce stood his ground. “Fuck off, hill-jack.”
“Listen up, brother—”
“No, you listen up. Talking like an idiot and having that ridiculous hair doesn’t make you Hulk Hogan.”
At that moment, Trent entered the fray, carrying the mute child on his back while making airplane noises. He stopped to dish out disdainful looks and words of wisdom. “You’re all setting a bad example for Brandon.” They rolled their eyes at the man running for step-dad of the year, previously known for shaking down the homeless for coke money. “It’s time to grow up and stop bickering. WWJD?”
Russ laughed. “Says the jerk who threatened to rip my mustache off and wipe his ass with it.”
“This is too much. Trent used to sneak into everyone’s rooms at the frat house and take a needle to their condoms,” Blake added.
Trent set the child down gently on the couch. “True, I have behaved poorly in the past, but can’t a man change?” Their resounding answer was no.
The circular firing squad kept going until Mike stepped in. “Since we’re all here and in such a great mood, we should talk about our next steps.”
Now Left-Nut threw his hands up. “Let’s hear it, Rambo. Or should I say, Rainbow?”
Mike ignored the white-haired loudmouth as he always did. “This junk we’re eating is killing us, and we’re about out of it anyways. Not to mention the girls need more food. There’s no other option — we have to venture out.”
“And I’ve only got one more day of shots,” Blake added. “After that I’m pretty much boned.”
Charlie stood up. “I figure we can kill three birds with one stone by going across the street. We’ll hit the animal clinic for the drugs, the Halloween store for clothes, and the quick-e mart on the corner for food. The problem’s actually doing it.”
Trent un-holstered his firearm. “Sounds good, but you’ll need a sheriff to lead this posse. Who’s got my bullets?” Nobody volunteered, and a dejected Trent sat down amidst the awkward silence.
“We can’t go off half-cocked like we did before or we’ll get killed,” Bruce said. “We need a strategy.”
It was at this time that Smokey stood up, rubbing his hands together like a Bond villain. “Luckily for you boners, I’ve been dreaming about this type of scenario for decades.”
“You and every other nerd in America,” Left-Nut said with a huff. “But look outside and you’ll see some of your fellow zombie fan-boys covered in shit with half of their fucking faces ripped off.”
Smokey was unperturbed. “Why do you think I made this doom-stead? I was prepared for bird flu, martial law, economic collapse, alien invasion, you name it.”
“Okay, Nostradamus, why didn’t you stockpile more food?” Bruce queried loudly.
“I did, but you know I get the munchies a lot.” He was unchallenged on that point. “I’m gonna need Big Rob’s assistance upstairs for a bit, so the rest of you hang ten.”
An hour later, with “Iron Man” on the stereo, Rob came in wearing an ill-fitting snowsuit covered head to toe in duct tape. A Chicago Bears helmet and a rather large sword rounded out the ensemble. His hair flowed out the back and added to the archaic look.
“If it isn’t Dildo Baggins,” Left-Nut announced wryly.
“He might look idiotic, but someone should try biting him,” Smokey said. Left-Nut didn’t hesitate to latch on to Rob’s forearm like a suckling pig.
“Ow, that hurts, you little buttnugget,” Rob said and knocked the jerk down with a cuff to the ear.
Smokey raised Rob’s arm for inspection. Sure enough, the tape was slobbery, but intact. “These zombies aren’t shit if you take away the element of surprise,” Smokey formulated. “Give Rob room to work and he’ll plow through ‘em like Mike would a bunch of sailors on shore leave.”
Charlie started a slow clap. “I gotta ask though, where in the hell did you get a sword?”
“Same place I get all my junk. QVC.”
Chapter 29
Elvis Has Left the Building
Big Rob stepped into the corpse-littered street gripping the sword so tightly his knuckles turned white. He’d never even held a sword, much less used one in mortal combat, and his confidence in the plan was shaky at best. Smokey had lost a lot of brain cells over the years after all.
But the worrying ended as soon as the first creature staggered towards him. Oddly enough, it was the freak show Santa from the bike parade, now missing a foot and the lower half of his costume. Rob clumsily thrust the sword at the zombie’s jolly mid-section and buried it to the hilt. Santa hit the ground while Rob pulled the bloody blade out, impressed with himself.
“Bad Santa,” Russ said from his observation post on the roof, drunkenly chuckling at his own pun.
Rob didn’t have time to celebrate as a short McDonald’s worker rushed towards him. More confident, he swung for the fences and the single mom’s head tumbled into the gutter. It was a rough ending for a woman that worked sixty-hour weeks to put her kids through private school, but this was no fairy tale.
Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time Page 14