“They’re repulsive,” Big Boss agreed, “and yet they may hold the key to something mankind has yearned for since we evolved to self-awareness.”
“And what is that?” Alexis said, peering at the zombie over Big Boss’s shoulder. Her eyes flicked down and then up. The monster was repulsive, but impressively hung.
“Immortality,” Big Boss said. “Of a sort.”
He then shared with her much of the thinking he had done on the subject over the past few months. Alexis listened without interruption, her gaze shifting from the man in front of her to the monster directly behind him. Her expression shifted too -- from curiosity to surprise and then to incredulity. Her features finally settled on thoughtfulness, and she watched the monster jerk against its chains. It lunged and snarled, trying to get at them, rip them to pieces.
Big Boss told her everything… everything but the cancer.
“You’d do that?” she asked. “Let that thing, or another one of those monsters, bite you?”
“I might, if I thought I’d come back as a talker, with my mind intact,” Big Boss said. “It’s a kind of immortality, don’t you see? These things don’t die, not unless you blow out their brains. I still have the hand of that talker we caught in June. The one she chewed off to escape. It’s in the top drawer of my desk. Been there for months. Every now and then, it gives out a little jerk, like it’s still alive. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”
“Immortality,” Alexis said. She whispered it greedily, eyes narrowing.
They heard a cry from above then, where Chigger was standing guard. The boy’s voice echoed down the stairwell and through the open door. It sounded a little like “help”.
Big Boss turned to look up the stairwell, the beam of the flashlight following his gaze. Alexis turned to look as well.
“Now what’s wrong?” Big Boss sighed.
They couldn’t hear anything over the ruckus the zombie was making. The thing that had once been Ronald Duck -- youngest son of Eugene and Nedra Duck of Hardpan, Kentucky -- was going wild, snarling and lunging against its chains in a sudden fury. Infectious spittle flew from its champing jaws. Its impressive tool flopped between its straining thighs. In the confines of the bomb shelter, the deadhead’s high-pitched yowling made their ears throb painfully.
Big Boss stepped around Alexis and headed up the stairs. Alexis pressed against his back, casting a fearful glance at the frenzied zombie as they withdrew.
It was full dark now. Big Boss pushed open the door and stepped outside. Snow blew through the beam of the flashlight in white streaks. It was falling more thickly now, hurried earthward by a gusting wind.
“What’s the matter, Chigger?” Big Boss called as he exited the shed. He swung the flashlight around, looking for the boy.
Then he saw the blood.
Chigger was lying on his side, blood splattered around his skull like a king-size Rorschach blot. His unruly blond hair was soaked in the glittering red stuff. There was a quarter-sized hole in his forehead and a grapefruit sized hole in the back of his skull. He was quite dead, eyes staring fixedly at the slush in front of his nose.
Alexis screamed.
Big Boss swung the flashlight up, thinking the boy had been gunned down by a rival gang, that they were under attack again. It was foolish of him to do so. He was only making a better target of himself, but he was in shock. His body had not caught up with his brain yet.
The beam of the flashlight angled up and out and lit the edge of the woods that bordered the farm on the south side of the property.
There, advancing slowly from the cover of the forest, was the biggest herd of deadheads he had ever seen.
They were pale, hunched and uncharacteristically silent. There were hundreds of them, male and female, young and old. Somehow, they had made it through the booby traps and alarms the Highwaymen had strung throughout the forest.
Had Chigger seen this mob and killed himself out of panic?
Alexis was still screaming. Her mouth was about a foot away from his left ear and her shrill cry drilled right into his brain. He was tempted to turn around and clout her one, just to shut her up.
A shot rang out.
Alexis stopped screaming.
An instant later, her lanky body hit the dirt with a wet thud, bony legs sprawled wide open, displaying the curly copse he’d been trying to plant his hardwood in the past couple months. Not a dude then, he noted. There had been rumors circulating that she might be a he, but it was just talk.
Her big blond beehive had come unraveled. Something moist and gray leaked from the hole in the top of her skull.
Big Boss returned his attention to the vast ring of zombies slowly advancing on his position. The flashlight’s beam swooped from the zombies to Alexis, then back to the zombies again. He could not quite wrap his brain around this unforeseen development. Zombies were attacking, yet Chigger and Alexis had been killed by gunfire. Zombies didn’t use guns unless—
Of course!
Grinning, Big Boss threw down his weapon and flashlight and raised his hands in surrender.
Talkers! They were under attack by goddamn talkers! A whole slew of them.
“I surrender!” he yelled, walking toward the revenants. “Don’t shoot! I surrender!”
A tall, slim zombie with tattoos all over his body broke away from the line and advanced on him.
“I surrender,” Big Boss said. There were screams from the farmhouse, faint with distance, but he ignored them. They weren’t important. Only one thing mattered now. “Look, I want to join you,” Big Boss stammered. “Can you make me one of you?”
The tall zombie had horns, he saw with a jolt of surprise. Well, not exactly horns, but horn-like knobs on his skull. He’d seen a guy like that at a freak show once. The artist had had metal hoops in his back and hung himself from chains during the performance. Might even be the same guy. It was a small world. Not that it mattered. There were probably a million zombies out there with weird tattoos and body piercings, prosthetic limbs and birth defects. He’d personally seen three midget zombies over the years, and had once gotten gummed by an elderly zombie who had apparently lost his dentures at some point during his wanderings. Lucky thing, that. He had pushed the gummer off, then blew out the old coot’s brains with a Colt semi-automatic.
The horned zombie stopped about ten feet away and regarded him with gray glinting eyes. There was not just intelligence in those eyes but a powerful personality that intimidated him immediately. He felt naked in that gaze, all his sins exposed.
“You want to join us?” it asked. It didn’t seem to believe what it was hearing.
Big Boss nodded. “I’m dying,” he said. “I have cancer. I want to be bitten so I can come back like you. I… I don’t want to die like that.”
The horned zombie glanced over its shoulder. Big Boss followed its gaze and saw a small, dark-headed zombie standing amongst the others. It was her! The female zombie they’d captured earlier that summer. The one named Soma.
She stared back at him with cold hatred, the gusting wind lifting her dark hair in wavering tendrils.
With a sinking sensation in his belly, Big Boss suddenly found himself wishing he’d let her family live.
The female zombie looked at the horned one and shook her head.
The tall zombie turned back to Big Boss. “The Lord has weighed your heart and found it wanting,” it said with a smile. It bowed and began to walk backwards, spreading its arms out to its sides. “Know ye that the wages of sin is death, but for you, that death shall be everlasting.”
Big Boss did not hear the gunshot that blew out his brains.
About the Author
Joseph lives in Metropolis, Illinois with his wife, his kids and all the voices in his head. Soma is his thirteenth novel. If you would like to contact Mr. Duncan, you may do so at [email protected]. You can also friend him on Facebook, or visit his blog Red Ramblings at http://authorjosephduncan.blogspot.com. If you enjoyed this novel, be sure t
o leave a positive review. Good reviews help sell the books, which allows the author to write more stories for you!
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