by H. L. Murphy
“You know I used to read a lot of zombie fiction before all this, and the writers really delved into their sick imaginations to produce nightmare visions of life after the outbreak, but somehow actually having a crazy man set up gladiatorial games in downtown West Palm is…unsettling to say the least,” I considered. Bad Eddie, the Master of Ceremonies of the Circus Minimus, and his number one executioner, Milo Fitzpatrick the Surgeon, would have been difficult enough to deal with, but now they had a fortress and an army. “Now let me guess, our guest told you Carroll is inside with the crazies.”
“Yeah,” James drew out the single syllable word. “It gets worse.”
“Fucking of course it gets worse. It's practically written in the stars that any situation involving any of the three of us will end up far worse than even the worst case scenario devised by the fucking Pentagon to prepare our national defenses against invasion from outer space by hideous aliens who have us ridiculously, stupidly overmatched in the area of technology and willingness to commit genocide,” I ranted, giving voice to my frustrations. “God forbid it should be as simple for us as driving down, knocking on the door, asking for the fat bastard back, and riding off into the goddamn sunset. Oh, no, we get to run some kind of paramilitary insertion, face an army of tire armor wearing looney tunes carrying makeshift bladed weapons, endure the unendurable, I’ll get shot again, and while you and the airship Hindenburg fuck off back here I'm sure some fate too terrible for words will befall me. Terrible, but not so terrible as to end my life permanently, because apparently Fate really enjoys watching me get fucked!”
My tirade complete James mimicked playing a slow, sad violin with his thumb and middle finger. Ah, yes, the world's smallest violin, playing just for me. Our private message that one or the other of us was crying like three-year-old not getting his way. I know, I know. Drama queen much? In my defense, I'd been having some decidedly strange, not to mention painful, days since escaping ground zero. Still, James was right. Time to stop being such a CBMFer, reach down deep for my own person spirit guide, John fucking Wayne, and face the pestilent abominations populating the space between me and the corpulent mass of disappointing blubber called Carroll Rivers.
“All done?” James inquired.
“Yeah.”
“Mind if I continue?”
“Go ahead,” I nodded with a flourish of my hand.
“I can wait if you have something else to say,” James smiled.
“Don't be a nipple dicked asshole, spill it,” I snarled. He snorted at the latest obscene creation to slip past my mental filter, but managed not to giggle.
“Alrighty then,” James clapped his hands together loudly, then rubbed them together vigorously. “Let's get to it. The really bad news. The really, really bad news.”
“Fuck you and your build up,” I spat.
“Have you never even heard of building dramatic tension?” James demanded in his best hurt thespian voice.
“I’m all tensioned out so why don't we get right to it?”
“The undead have been seen operating in coordinated attacks in the city,” James delivered.
“Please define ‘coordinated’,” I sighed. My shoulders slumped as ten thousand pounds dropped onto me, and I couldn’t help but fall back against the closest steel crate. I may have heard something within the crate shift, but it could just as easily have been my hopes and dreams of an easy run crashing and burning after taking a surface-to-air missile, half a million rounds of flak, and, finally, having an enemy patrol urinate on the still smoldering ashes.
“Bait and switch, flank attacks, that kind of thing,” he answered. I waited for him to continue, expounding on the undead’s new found ability to carry and use weapons, firearms at the forefront, but James clapped his mouth shut.
“Well,” I breathed slowly, “I suppose it could have been a lot worse. Not that it really matters. I watched their behavior change with each successive change in leadership, so it was to be expected things would only get worse with Zombie Green at the head of the pack. You know, I can't shake the feeling that whatever the hell happened to Zombie Green wasn't supposed to. Like, that million-to-one long shot statisticians always talk about when going over the odds of some species ending event happening. The absolute worst case scenario where anything and everything that could go wrong does, and the impossible explodes in their faces.”
“Aren't you one giant ray of sunshine today?” James asked, sarcasm oozing from each syllable. “Here, suck on this.”
“Excuse me?” I coughed cigar smoke, and pushed off the crate and away from James.
“Coffee, and don't flatter yourself,” James held out a thick porcelain mug filled with the blessed beverage of deities and saints. “Even in the middle of the apocalypse I could do a lot better than you.”
The grin splitting my face spoke volumes and James rushed to amend his statement.
“If I was gay, asshole,” he rushed out. “If. I said if.”
“Here we are in the cargo hold of a stolen freighter, under siege from our own naval forces, surrounded by the unbelievable, and we're still making jokes about being meat gazing creampuffs,” I laughed tiredly. “Peter puffer. Pole smoker. Sausage swallower.”
“Hey, I'm not the one sucking on a long brown phallic symbol and loving every second of it,” James pointed out with clinical accuracy. An easy silence fell over us as our laughter died down. Both of us considering the insurmountable task of retrieving our brother from Bad Eddie and his merry band of killers while evading the roving bands of undead commando cannibals.
“You know, we could always find another fat bastard to kick around,” I suggested after a long moments contemplation. No matter how I worked the problem in my head it always came out the same, me being repeatedly impaled for the viewing pleasure of the Circus Minimus. Yes, I was being callous, but mostly because I was afraid. James would only die once, but I would get the opportunity to revisit the experience over and over again and from my experience thus far death loses none of its awe and majesty and boxer soiling terror. In this case, familiarity does not breed contempt.
“Naw, too much time invested in Carroll. Don't really have the patience to break in a new best friend at this point,” James countered. “Besides, he probably knows where the supplies are.”
“Not to mention the engine parts,” I added. “Goddamn it.”
“You're going after him?” James asked.
“Don't you mean we?” I returned.
“You have a tank hidden somewhere I don't know about?”
“Oh, wouldn't that be nice?” I took a moment to daydream. In my minds eye I saw myself rolling over wave after wave of undead, tucked safely within the armored hide of an M-46 Patton. Occasionally firing a high explosive shell into the midst of a particularly nasty bunch of zombies, or even ramming a shell down Zombie Green’s putrid throat. The hypothetical detonation put a smile on my face, and a bit of tent in my pants.
I wonder, am I sharing too many of my thoughts? I'm fairly certain nobody needed to know that particular piece of information. How about we just pretend I didn’t mention it?
“Alas, I have no armored vehicles of any description at my disposal,” I emerged from my reverie disappointed, and with slightly tighter pants. “The National Guard, however, probably have quite a few. If we were to ask really, especially nice, do you think they'll let us borrow, say, an M-113 APC long enough to rescue a colossal mound of jiggling protoplasm which just so happened to coalesce into human form?”
“I think they will shoot us both on sight before you finish saying hello,” James answered as honestly as possible. “Then scalp us and add our hair to those scalps previously collected.”
“You're a cheerful bastard,” I snarled. “Bet you get asked to parties all the time.”
“Fuck off.”
“So, to cover all our bases, we have no tanks, no APCs, no armored vehicles of any kind, the National Guard will likely perforate us with bullets and desecrate our bodies
in some insanely twisted mockery of a native war trophy in order to prove their bad assitude to one another so you would rather…what?”
“I'd rather not get perforated and scalped,” James asserted. “Still, it may be possible to collect what we need from another source.”
“Another source? Did you secretly make friends with a serious collector of militaria that believed bayonets and uniforms were for total pussies? That real men carried tanks to stave off a potential mugger or rapist?” I prodded.
“Not exactly,” James hedged. “See, Martin County Sheriff's Department benefited from the federal anti-terrorist programs to the tune of two surplus MRAPs painted up in sheriff's colors.”
“The fuck does Martin County need a fucking MRAP for?” I burst out. “Lot of IEDs in Martin County? Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, it isn’t as though Stuart is a hot bed of Islamic extremism.”
“Press release said it had to do with serving drug warrants,” James recited the article from memory while I stood stultified. If you don't know what MRAP stands for it's mine resistant ambush protected, and it's a slightly more mobile version of the venerable APCs of yesteryear. Way more military badass equipment than should be needed in Martin county. For fuck’s sake, it's Martin fucking county, not Miami-Dade in the heyday of the cocaine trade. Once again a prime example of the over militarization of the civilian law enforcement agencies. In case it's somehow skipped your notice I have some highly unresolved issues with authority, and those who are placed in positions of authority above us mere plebeians.
Of course, that self same militarization may just provide me and mine a means to rescue our corpulent lost lamb. Maybe lamb is wishful thinking. Thunderingly obese hippopotamus springs forward as well as lumbering slabs of cellulite held together by the will to grow even more enormous while covered in the pelt of a Buffalo.
“I don't suppose you know where the armored symbols of American military might are located?”
“Sure do,” James’ smile was like unto a recently satisfied great white shark. “Stuart. Outside the county jail.”
“Oh, that's just beautiful,” I rolled my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Pulsating waves of pain informed me of the impending doozy of a head ache. Back to the festering cesspool of undead, KnightStar mercs, and crazy scumbag activity. Joy, oh joy. At least this time I would have the lovely option of body armor. Perhaps this time I could skip the multiple perforations, and just suffer through severe bruising instead. Of course, I might be suffering severe bruising in any event since I needed to broach the subject with Lizzy. As the previous foray onto terra firma hadn't gone so well, Lizzy would require some serious convincing before my beloved wife would hand me a hall pass. Couldn't really blame her. Even before the zombie outbreak, Lizzy worried no end over my safety. I briefly wondered whether there might be some odd or end I could offer in barter, but dropped that line of thought almost as quickly. My ass was still sporting teeth marks from saving Angie, my wife’s best friend, while making a supply run. The best friend, aside from me, my wife ever had, and she bitched me up one side of the S.S. Churchill and down the other for unnecessarily risking my own precious skin.
“Not nearly as awesome as watching you break this to Lizzy,” James smirked. “I have twenty in the ship pool that she breaks two bones at the very least. Buffalo has fifty says she kicks your ass into next week. The action is back and forth whether or not you survive because we figure Lizzy will dismember you with a chainsaw.”
“Wow, you're a prolapsed anus of the first order,” I stared down my best friend in the world. Dollar signs lit up James’ eyes like Christmas lights as he counted his potential earnings. Not that money meant anything anymore, James just wanted to dump a little mud in my face. The old game of oneupmanship resurfacing in the oddest way possible. “I'd say something horrible and forbidding, but you'd just ignore it so I'll say that I hope you get a bladder infection and piss napalm for a month.”
Laughter poured forth in uncontrollable fits as I stepped away from the newly sealed crates, a creeping, squirming sensation riding up my spine. It wasn't that my stomach turned over, I knew exactly what that felt like, but the slick, oily awareness slid across my central nervous system. From the instant I came into this world to that precise moment I had never experienced any such feeling. It was unique, and in my life unique experiences were something to be avoided at all costs because they never led anywhere positive. I tried, oh, Christ, I tried not to look back at the crates, but my baby blues tracked to the shit green steel crate I'd been leaning against. The knowledge of what lay within at the forefront of my already troubled mind, cognitive dissonance trebling the agony of my throbbing temples.
Everything in my awareness slid away, except the shit green Soviet made steel crate and its skull fucking contents. Oxygen slid in and out of my lungs, the memory of what I saw filling my vision. All I could see was the glass cylinder capped at either end by shimmering metal unlike anything I'd ever seen, the bright lights flickering, and the form within the cylinder. The impossible form within an impossible capsule, surrounded by impossible technology. It is ever so possible I stopped breathing, stopped moving, and stopped thinking for longer than should have been possible as I fought against the inevitable intellectual logic train crashing through my brain.
“Angus J. Finnegan,” Lizzy screamed in my ear, shaking me from my stupor. “What the fuck are you doing? Breathe you rat bastard!”
About that time it became painfully clear my lungs were ready to collapse on themselves for want of oxygen. Deep inhalations returned feeling and warmth to my extremities, that and vigorous motions by my fireball of a wife.
“I have to save Carroll,” I stuttered. “I'm sorry, babe.”
Interlude Two
A butt mud inducing horror staggered towards Dane and Gaunt, hands curled into claws and jaws gnashing. An explosive roar struck the two men as a physical blow, staggering both back several steps. The abomination of corrupted flesh, bone and sinew scooped up a decayed husk of a body and hurled it towards Kincaid. Lit cigarette clenched in his teeth, Dane leapt to the side. Not quickly enough, it turned out, to completely avoid being struck by putrid legs. Puss, liquified human meat, and a shower of carrion eating insects showered over Dane’s back while he struggled to free his IWI Jericho pistol.
Eardrum splitting explosions sounded as Gaunt snap fired three fifty caliber rounds from the enormous revolver. Each S&W five hundred round punched straight through the mutated mass of zombie without hindrance, but caused no serious harm either. In a now well practiced motion, Gaunt flipped open the weapons cylinder and dropped the spent casings as he walked back from the creature. Calmly, impossibly so given how scared he was, Gaunt carefully slid one fresh cartridge after another into his weapon, then deliberately snapped the cylinder closed. The first thunderous report covered the trio of nine millimeter shots Dane fired and netted Gaunt one explosively deformed zombie head. An all together too massive forearm swept up to protect the amalgam’s remaining head as the creature ducked behind a panel truck.
“No fucking way did that thing just do that,” Gaunt stated, his head shaking a decided denial though his eyes stayed on the truck. In his experience, the undead didn't give a damn about guns, cover, or getting shot so long as they managed to sink their cracked, stained teeth into warm flesh and hot blood.
“This one is different,” Dane shouted, struggling from beneath the rotting projectile, his pistol trained on the aforementioned truck. “Buttermilk Jones said they were changing, remember?”
“Really? You're using Buttermilk Jones as a reference? Really?” Gaunt scoffed. The voice of Buttermilk Jones had filled the shortwave radio frequencies with all manner of advice, observations, and complete bullshit almost since the beginning of the Outbreak. Yeah, they both kept an ear out for Jones’ transmissions, but for Gaunt it centered entirely on hearing the voice of someone other than Kincaid. Best friend or not, sometimes it helped to know there was someone out there other than
Dane Kincaid.
“He said they were changing,” Dane insisted, “and look what we found. If that thing doesn't qualify as change, what does?”
“Not having you gloat would be a nice change,” Gaunt responded, motioning his friend to move into a flanking position. Slowly, Gaunt circled the other direction. One or the other of them would flank the creature and hopefully drive it into the others line of fire.
“How am I gloating? I merely pointed out Buttermilk Jones was right, and he was,” Dane returned before rushing forward to snap off a double tap at the creature. Unfortunately, the amalgam chose that moment to rip through the old panel truck’s cargo area. Shards of polymer stock flew in every direction as the envied SCAR 17 ruptured into component atoms by the impact of amalgam into, and through, plywood reinforced aluminum walls. Abrupt, and very personal, obscenities followed the creature as Dane ran after it. From his vantage point Gaunt spied the creatures progress and leveled his hand canon. As the tortured wood and metal shell gave way before the bestial creature Gaunt fired three quick shots. Blackened brain matter rained down on Dane as he fired several rounds into what remained of the creatures multiple heads, just in case.
With the danger past, Dane launched several spiteful kicks into the deformed side of the amalgam. This counted as the fourth time a vastly superior rifle had been within his grasp, only to be obliterated through circumstance.
“Hey, is that a grenade?” Gaunt asked as Dane ran forward to deliver a particularly nasty kick to where he figured the thing’s groin would have been. The big man came to an abrupt, stuttering halt at the revelation. Manually shifting gears from beating a corpse to scavenging from the dead, Dane swarmed over the monstrosity seeking the prized explosive device. In his many years in military service he had never carried much more than a wrench or screwdriver, but had once been given a crash course in grenade use when it appeared the militant forces of some warlord or other in a sand blasted shit hole would be turning up on the airbase to express their personal discontent with the US military. It had been the one and only time Dane had thrown a live grenade and the experience had made an impression. Enough so he willingly searched through the disgusting remains of the amalgam just on the chance he might locate a grenade.