"Who's your new friend, Peter?" asked Evelyn with a beautiful smile as she crouched down to meet the boy at eye level.
The kid stood half behind me and buried the hidden half of his face in my back. I would have hid, too, if this was my first meeting with such a pretty girl.
"He hasn't told me his name. I don't think he can talk. By the looks of things, I'd say a traumatic event would be the root cause but I'm no psychologist, believe it or not. Can we keep him, guys?” I asked. “I think I'm going to call him Jake!"
I looked back at ‘Jake,’ who now had a small grin on his face. "Come on out and say hi to everyone, bud. They're not gonna bi- . . . Uh . . . They're all cool. Those two guys and I used to serve in the Marines together, so we'll keep you real safe. And that pretty lady over there is Evelyn. She's my girlfriend, so that cute kid act ain't gonna work on her, sorry. And this is her mom, Carolina. She . . . makes really good pie." I shuttered at the thought of pie.
Jake looked from person to person and tossed another handful of candy into his mouth. I could hear the crunch as he worked his jaws around the sugar.
"I think he's out here all alone, guys. And we can't just leave him here by himself. I know it's probably not exactly safe in the woods either, but he's got a better chance out there with us than he does just sitting here all by himself. You all know what we just left behind back there. I think we really should be on our way to get out of here as quick as possible. I'm still hopeful that we can catch up to these fuc- uh, this research team today. Are we all on the same page, here?" I asked.
"Man, I just want to get home. This quest blows."
"Shut up Kyle, at least you still got a home to go back to," Mac shot back.
"Hey guys, this is really not the time for anyone to start their own little pity party,” I broke in. “We've come this far already and we're bound to be nearly finished with this idiotic task. And Mac, I told you there's a place for you, bro. It's a slightly longer walk to get there, but there are some pretty good people up there. You'll like it. Now, let's get the hell out of here before Hurricane Zombie comes over and rains down a world of shit down on us. Sorry kid. I've got a bad mouth. I'll try to say earmuffs or something next time."
He shoveled the last of the Skittles into his open mouth and our party of six "livers" continued on our journey. After four more blocks of much appreciated silence, we entered the woods.
Chapter Sixteen
As we entered the woods, I was met with a good feeling. Out here, there were no buildings from which a zombie could shatter through a window and attack one of us without warning. This was a place no longer meant for man, it was nature in its purest form. In my experiences, the zombies typically remained in places familiar to their former life as a human—places with buildings and roads—certainly not out here. Outside of towns, I'd typically run into very few zombies, but that's when I remembered that we’d been told that this place was chosen specifically because the area was known to have a high population of the undead. This thought made my good feeling fade somewhat. But maybe they’d all gone? I didn’t see any signs of them.
"So, how far do you think we'll have to go before we run into these . . . yahoos?" I asked.
"Yahoos? What the hell is that?" Kyle asked in a mocking voice.
"I don't know, dude. I'm just trying to not curse in front of Jake."
"Why? He doesn't talk. How do we even know he can hear us?"
Jake reached over and punched Kyle right in the dick. I erupted in laughter but quickly tried to contain myself for fear of attracting the dead.
"I'm pretty sure he can hear us, man. But, if you'd like, we can ask him again?" I said through my laughter.
"No, bitch. This kid's a little bully," Kyle gasped while grabbing his junk and doubled over in pain. His face was the perfect image of misery.
"That was good, kid. In fact, I think I'm gonna call you Little Bully from now on. Does that sound good to you?" I asked him.
The kid nodded with a grin on his face again. The ladies shook their head from behind Little Bully with expressions of disapproval covering their faces.
"That’s good, because it was getting kind of weird calling you a random name. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Nice hit, by the way. It's good to see that you can handle yourself. I've never tried it, but I wonder if a nut shot would work on one of them. If I get a chance at one, I'll let you know, alright?"
Bully nodded again. I liked this kid.
"And, just so you know, I don't think Kyle is going to let you off quite so easily should you decide to punch him in his . . . privates again, so I recommend a different tactic for next time, a’ight?"
Little Bully let out a small puff of a laugh and rolled his eyes slightly.
"You alright, Kyle?" I asked.
"Oh, sure. I’m just dandy, bro, but I ain't watchin' my mouth around a fucking dick puncher. If he can do that to someone, then his innocence is gone already."
I looked down at the kid and he just shrugged. Covered in blood, high on sugar, and a dick puncher . . . Kyle was probably right about his innocence. "Fuck it, he's one of us," I proclaimed.
"Not quite what I meant, homie," said Kyle.
"Knock it off, Kyle. You just jealous you aren't the only one getting’ attention from Pete."
"The fuck you talkin' about, Mac? I'm upset because his fist is the perfect size to precisely hit both of my nuts at the same exact time. I feel like I'm gonna puke and shit my pants with every miserable step. This trip is such bullshit, man."
"Really? This coming from Mr. 'I wish this could suck more?' Where's your fighting spirit, man? Just have fun with it," suggested Mac.
"I'd like to take a moment to point out that that's much easier to say when your own testicles aren't lodged in your throat. Sorry for bitchin', I think I'm just home sick," Kyle replied.
"It's all good, man. At least it's only been a few da-"
Mac was cut off in the middle of his sentence by a crackle off in the distance. We all stopped and stood still. I gave a hand signal to tell everyone to be quiet as I stepped off toward the sound as stealthily as I could manage. I had my rifle ready to fire the very second I saw any sort of threat. I moved closer and closer to the sound, walking on my toes to minimize any potential crunching of leaves or sticks.
I looked back to make sure that everyone was still alright. That's when I saw the men in black closing in on the group. Before I could get a single word of warning out to my friends, something hard leapt out from behind a nearby tree and found its way to the magical reset button on the back of my skull. I dropped like a bag of bricks.
Chapter Seventeen
"Fuuuuuuck, my head. What happened?" I moaned, stirring from my daze.
I reached up to grab my injured head, but soon realized I was duct tapped to a chair with my hands behind my back. "Where the hell am I? And where are my friends? Hello?! Is anyone out there?! Someone needs to goddamn answer me!" My words hit the cinder block walls and echoed back to me.
I struggled around in the chair in an attempt to free myself from my duct tape prison. Surely I'm stronger than some stupid tape, I thought as I flexed my muscles and tried to break through the thin strands of material that separated me from my freedom.
Not even close. I felt woozy after the failed attempt. The back of my head was itchy from the blood that had dried and stuck to it.
"I swear to God, if all of you died and left me stuck to this fucking chair to be the last man on Earth, I'm going to be so pissed off." I said these words quietly to myself, as no one else was around and the previous echo had given me a headache.
I rolled my head back in an attempt to scratch it. I felt
the dried blood off and could hear the larger flakes falling upon the concrete floor.
I've got to think of something. I need to get a feel of where I am. It's a small room. It's cold in here. The walls look like they’re made of concrete. A bomb shelter?
It had been so long since I’d seen
one working that it took me a few moments to notice that there was a working light overhead. There was the dull hum of a fluorescent bulb that seemed to fill the room.
Electricity? How was that possible? I hadn’t heard a generator nearby.
Electricity notwithstanding, this was someplace where I didn’t want to be for long. It was probably underground, as it was much colder than it should have been. It seemed to me that places underground usually had one big common flaw—not nearly enough exits. That fact meant that if there was one zombie, or burglar, or bear, or whatever the fuck it might be, the entire place would be screwed if the exit was blocked. This was not a comforting thought.
"Hey! Let me out of here! And just where in the hell is all of my shit?!" If only I still had my knife on my belt I might be able to escape.
New thought: if there was a zombie in here should I really be making so much noise? I decided that I would be found eventually with either bad news, or . . . well, probably other bad news . . .
I think I'll just sit here and catch up on some much needed rest. Maybe that would help out with this headache. No reason to not make the best out of such a total shit situation such as this.
I shut my eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
Wet.
Drowning.
I opened my eyes. Someone had just tossed a bucket of water in my face.
"Oh, you fucking dick! What the hell is going on?" I demanded, sputtering, as I was ripped away from my lovely nap.
The man in the black uniform gazed at me in silence as he set his bucket down on the floor. I saw that he was clearly some breed of giant, and I decided to change up my tactic just a little bit in an attempt to keep myself alive.
"Sorry about calling you a dick. We should start over, don’t ya think? Can we maybe try being friends? My name is Pete. What's yours?"
Nothing. This dude was a rock.
"Where am I, dude? Where are my friends? Where's all my cool shit? I love my cool shit," I tried pleading with the mountain of a man.
Not even a blink.
"What, are you some kind of robot? Don't speak English? Où sont mes amis? Dónde estoy? Wo ist meine Scheiße?"
Nothing.
"Okay, I guess I’ll just have to go back to name calling then. You know . . . you're kind of a dick."
The man walked over and smashed my face with his enormous fist which felt more like a small SUV. I spit out some fresh blood onto the concrete the floor. I bit my fucking tongue when my jaw was smashed.
"Good. Then English it is. Lucky for me, because I just exhausted all of my foreign language skills. So, what brings you into my office today? I hope it's not about a raise. You know company funds are extremely limited as of late."
"It's time," his gravel voice boomed. At least he was able to speak. Things could certainly be worse.
"It’s time for what? I'd check my watch, but my hands are kind of behind my back at the moment and my watch died a few months ago. Oh, is it lunch time?" I asked, mocking him.
"It's time to see the boss," he answered, unmoved by my charming nature.
"You mean to tell me that you're not the one in charge here? Nice try, Hulk, but I ain't buying it. Why did you bring me here, Sasquatch? Please don’t tell me it’s for breeding purposes!"
He tried his best to put his car-sized fist through my skull again. That one really hurt. I tried to shake out the dizzies.
"Let me guess, you want me to follow you? Is that it?"
I planted my feet firmly on the ground beneath me and gave my best attempt at standing up. "Sorry, I think the gravity in this place is fucked up or something. I can't seem to make it to my feet."
He raised his rifle and brought the butt of it down firmly into my gut, knocking the wind out of me. If there had been anything in my stomach, it would have burst from my mouth like Old Faithful after that impact.
It took me a little while to recover from that one. "Can we get some sort of dialogue going? This feels like a rather one sided conversation," I groaned.
Bigfoot pulled out a knife that would have been a sword in my hands. He walked around behind me and sliced the duct tape restraining me. It still took quite a bit of energy on my part before I could struggle around enough to fully free the chair from the duct tape and finally stand up. This must have been the strongest tape in the history of mankind.
I began tearing the tape off of myself. I felt as though they may have gone a little bit overboard with it. They had pretty much made an entire uniform for me out of the tape and the chair.
"Why so much tape, Jumbo?" I asked.
"Caution. With the amount of blood on your arm we thought you could have been infected by one of them. Your friends insisted that you were fine, but we had to come to that conclusion on our own. We can now be certain that you are no threat to us or your friends."
"My friends are here. Are they okay?" I asked, trying not to sound worried.
"They're fine. They're being taken care of."
"What exactly do you mean when you say 'taken care of'? I swear, if anyone hurts them I'm coming for you first, Goliath!"
He turned and walked away. I cautiously followed him, half doubled over and cradling my sore stomach. I really wished I had my gun and my big bag of tricks back with me.
Outside of my holding room was a large, empty hallway.
"Do y'all have like a fire drill policy here? There doesn't look to be many exits in this place." I really hated the thought of being underground.
"Concrete does not burn so easily," he informed me.
"Still, I'm sure the fire marshall would have a shit fit if he saw this place."
This dude was not going to be an easy egg to make smile. He continued down the hallway. It did make me feel a little bit better knowing the hallway had working lights. This was something I had not been used to since the power shut off way back when the shit got real bad.
"So, you can't tell me where we are, I assume?"
"You're not too far from where we found you. No more questions."
The big man turned and led us out of the hallway and we were now standing in an office. It was a nice office. It had a coat rack, some filing cabinets, a nice big oak desk, a great big American flag on one wall, and the California flag on another wall. Behind the desk sat a man whom I assumed would be very important in this place.
"Good morning, sir," I said as I stood before his desk.
"It's five o'clock in the evening. Relax, son. Would you care for a drink?" he asked as he poured some brown liquid into two glasses.
"Well, if you wanted me dead I doubt you would've dragged my sorry ass down here to personally poison me, so drink I shall. Thank you."
The man passed me the glass, and I shot the liquid straight down my throat. In this day and age, any liquor is good liquor, but this was some top-shelf shit.
"Oh, man. That's some good stuff," I said with a nod, and sat the glass back on the desk.
"I assume that by now you've been able to deduce who I am," mystery man stated flatly.
"You really think so? You know, I'd really like to be able to surprise you right now, but you've given me far too much credit for some reason. I've got no idea who you are or why you had King Kong try to turn my head into jelly for his toast."
"Vincent did this to you?" He looked over at the behemoth now know as Vincent.
The gorilla-man shrugged with a big smile.
"I am sorry about that, however, I am glad to see that you seem to be taking it rather well. I bet you could use another drink after a beating like that. Am I wrong?"
"You are very right, sir, only make it a double this round. And pour one for my pal Vincent over there, too. We've set aside our differences; I think we'll make good friends. And I'm glad I know his name now. I felt like if I picked one more stupid name out for him he probably would have eaten me," I laughed.
I looked up at the lumbering beast who was now chuckling slightly. For some reason, I was thrown off to see such white teeth
making up his smile. I imagined he was probably a fun dude in a different life. He took the glass from the strange man before me and shot it back. The glass looked like a thimble in his giant paw.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Chad Korpiklaani, as is plainly stated on the nameplate just outside the doorway."
I sat back in my chair, disappointed in myself. How did I miss the damn nameplate outside? Oh yeah, brain trauma. That must be the answer. "Aw, c’mon, guy! You've given me so many reasons to like you and then you lay this on me? You're good, you know that? You're real good."
"Good at what? Why would you not like me?"
"Where are my friends?"
"There is nothing for you to worry about, I assure you," said my girlfriend’s father.
"Have you talked to them? If so, then I think you know damn well why I wouldn't like you right now. You've been an outstanding host, despite me and Gigantor getting off on the wrong foot. But you have unleashed some new kind of hell on this Earth, Doc. These things are getting smarter. You've got to know that. Is there any way you can stop whatever it is that you're doing before it’s too late and they’ve found a way to take over?" I tried reasoning with him.
The good doctor looked at me with a hint of curiosity.
"Yes, I have heard of your run-in with these ghouls. But fear not as these beasts were just a rare—how should I put this?—side effect of a much more important goal. And it sounds to me like you have already done away with most of them. Did you manage to get rid of the female as well?"
"There's a female one of them? That's fucked up, dude. You got any kids in the mix, too? Maybe some dogs? Or does your conscience happen to draw a line somewhere?"
"I'm afraid I don't like your tone, Peter."
"I'm not saying you have to like my tone, but I don't like much of anything you've done in recent history, Chad."
"Is that a fact? Have you any clue as to the work that I have been doing here?"
POW! (Book 1): The Zombie Days Page 13