by H. L. Murphy
Jesus fuck.
Chapter Ten
Wretched Expectations
The West Palm Beach Convention Center had been designed in the day when everybody and their mothers had been obsessed by the hemispherical style of architecture, which meant it stood at odds with the surrounding buildings. Given the setting, the Convention Center was, and always had been, something of an eyesore. However it's form tickled the fancy of sufficient members of a long past city council enough to have the project green lit. Fast forward forever and a day to find James Fox and I quietly, unbelievingly, staring at the domed edifice from the relative safety of the roof of the nearby mall. Binoculars helped, but even without them it was all too obvious the Circus Minimus’ excesses had garnered the unwavering attention of the local assembly of undead cannibals.
Ten thousand zombies swarmed over the structure, banged at the doors, and howled for hot blood and living flesh.
“Fuck it, I'll buy you a new best friend,” I said it before I even knew I was speaking. “This time we can pick one with a little more common sense where women are concerned.”
James snorted, punched me in the shoulder, hard, and went back to staring at the impossible scene before us. Climbing up here had been my idea, an attempt to gather some intelligence on the crazies set up. Kind of wish I hadn't said anything. At least then I could have maintained the belief this rescue was doable. Watching the swaying, pulsing movement of the horde below it was born in upon me how utterly useless any rescue attempt would be. It wasn't simply a matter of numbers, but of intent. Most of the undead we had encountered had been directionless without a Class One around to issue orders. They just sort of hung out until dinner came calling, but watching the horde before me I understood how very different the case was now. Somewhere, down there, Zombie Green was driving the horde, pushing them to crack the impenetrable shell protecting the tasty bits within. As my skull wasn't splitting from a directed psychic attack, I could only conclude the undead bastard didn't know I was here.
Still, I heard something in the back of my mind. Quiet at first, but building in volume if not in pressure. A handful of voices mumbling incoherently, a jumble of sound and emotion, rising in volume as more voices joined the tumult. My eyes slid over to James, a question on my lips, but let it die there as he showed no signs of hearing it. It was truly in my mind, and not another waking nightmare for all to share, to suffer, and to take solace from that shared suffering.
Inhaling and exhaling deeply, I mustered my mental defenses, such as they were, and prepared to force the noise from my thoughts, but stumbled as the sound continued. What I thought was an attack wasn't. I knelt down, resting my knees on what should have been blazing hot rolls of roofing tar, and struggling to separate a single voice from the cacophony. Beside me, James voiced a concern, complaint, or just an expression of disgust, I didn't know or care. All my energy was focused on a single voice crying out in the dark of my mind. A figure, a construct of imagination, came into being in the corners of my consciousness, all else fell away. The figure wailed and cried, flailing its arms back and forth to emphasize its pleas. Ignoring the tone of desperation, I tried to bring both figure and the words being screamed into greater clarity. Light fell upon the figure, illuminating a gray skinned man whose formerly brown eyes were now blood red, his clothes were dirty, stained with the blood and viscera of countless victims and whatever tribulations the man endured before turning. Though worn and discolored it was clear the man had been sporting an expensive suit so I named the creature Banker Bob.
And what Banker Bob was squealing about made me wish I'd minded my own business.
“Eat you, skin you, bleed you, lick the juice from your eyes, Master has given you to us, pull you apart, give me your flesh, I AM HUNGRY,” it shrieked. Mentally shrieked, clearly, because it's ravaged vocal chords couldn't have formed anything more than the general moaning the lot of them were doing. Even so, that thing shouldn't have been able to think any of those ideas, let alone formed them into any kind of understandable mental representation of speech.
To add nightmare fuel to the bonfire of sphincter clenching terror flowing through my veins, there were ten thousand psychic voices broadcasting hate, fury, and a bottomless hunger into the ether.
I suppose if I hadn't been so disturbed by what was happening in front of my very eyes, I might have reflected on the necessary changes to the organism responsible for creating the undead. It might have occurred to me much sooner how much of this was the result of rampant mutation of the original organism. After all, according to my understanding Pee Wee had been the original host for the Class One genetic markers which had been passed to Madalina Hurgoi who later became a skanky piece of finger food for Zombie Green, who seemed to be sporting some major differences from the word go. It was fair to say Pee Wee had been hit with an experimental serum as well, not that it saved him, but perhaps the serum was still present. Perhaps the dose Pee Wee received bonded to the organism and is having a radical effect on each successive host.
Impressive reasoning, huh? Too bad it didn't fucking occur to me until much, much later.
You see, at that particular moment I was taken up with calculating exactly how fucked I would be if I tried to save my idiot friend. Even from our position I could see the undead surrounded the building, and presumably every entrance or exit. A quick check showed I was about nine thousand eight hundred rounds shy of being able to shoot them all, not to mention completely up the proverbial creek if Zombie Green popped his undead head up.
Setting fire to the mall held a certain appeal, not least because night was fast approaching, but I wasn't sure if these zombies would care. They seemed fairly task oriented, far more so than many former coworkers. How sad is that? Really speaks to the decline of the American work ethic. The undead are more concerned about completing their task than the living have been in some time. I wonder, after a few years of outstanding success will the Class One being outsource his needs to another country. I mean, if he can get an overseas zombie to destroy a city for, say, an arm and a spleen instead of the American zombie rate of a kidney, two lungs, a liver, and some decent leg meat, doesn't that make better zombie business sense? Less for the ground pounding zombie, and more for the Class One. Would there be zombie protesters? A zombie strike line? Would the zombies unionize? Collective undead bargaining to ensure American zombies come before foreign scabs. Since zombies can't talk, how would one call for his zombie steward?
Jesus fuck. I can't believe that thought ran through my brain.
“So…” James drug out the monosyllabic word, investing it with an entire galaxy of meaning. A lot to ask of an exhalation of carbon dioxide over twin folds of mucous membranes which produces a sound assigned meaning by brutish savages barely more cognoscente than the rock they used to kill one another with. Yet, his meaning came through loud and clear. Honestly, that may have had more to do with non-verbal communication than anything else.
“Yeah,” I didn't quite match James in the time it took me to say the word, but my meaning was just as complex. I conveyed fear, understanding, resolve, and an intense desire not to die in soiled underwear. What can I say? I have my limits and soiled underwear on a grown ass man is where I draw the line.
Yup, I was mentally digressing again.
“Hey,” an idea burst into being, and the light of clarity spread throughout the darkened corners of my thick Irish skull.
“Fuck,” James covered his face and moaned the single word as though he were a penitent sinner begging forgiveness in the eyes of a cruel and wrathful deity. Moreover, a sinner who fully expects to cross a field of shattered glass and poisonous thorns before falling to his knees to receive judgement. In its way, the whinging underlying the obscenity pleased me.
“Hey, trust me,” my smile spread from ear to ear, and felt far more predatory than pleasant. “I have a plan.”
“Can I just shoot myself now?” James asked before raising the binoculars back to his face.
“Party favors?” James asked, suddenly alight with eagerness to join me in what would likely amount to a suicide pact.
“Oh, yeah,” I moved back to the roof access ladder and made my way to our truck. “Explosives, poison gas, and shrapnel, oh, my.”
It took some time, and neither of us were exactly experts in the manufacture of make shift explosives so maybe it took a lot longer than it should have. Since neither of us unexpectedly atomized during the process I'm going to state with reasonable authority, we did the job correctly. In the end, we assembled a dozen improvised grenades covered in ten penny nails, two satchel style charges, which scared the shit out of both us to even be near, and about a quart of chloroform. The chloroform went into two glass jars, one for me and one for James. I somehow doubted the efficacy of chloroform, or any other anesthetic, on the undead, but better to have it than not.
“You sure about this?” James asked as soon as I finished explaining my plan.
“Hell no,” I answered, nervously checking and rechecking my equipment. “Under no fucking circumstances whatsoever could anyone, anywhere ever be ready to face down ten thousand fucking zombies.”
“Stop exaggerating. There can't possibly be more than seven thousand,” James tried to reassure me. Or kick start a massive heartache, I'm not really sure.
“Dick,” I mumbled. “Did you check your radio for fresh batteries?”
“Radio? I'm supposed to have a radio?” James feigned surprise, looking this way and that in search of his hypothetical radio. The radio which currently sat snugged away in his vest.
“Seriously, dude?” I demanded, feeling my testicles climb up into my chest. “This isn't the time.”
“Sure it is,” James reassured me. “It's always a good time to fuck with your head. Especially when you get all wound up and jumpy.”
“If I shoot you, you will stay dead,” I deadpanned. “I can get over it, but you will decay and start to smell really terrible in really short order.”
“Well, look who lost their sense of humor,” James said, cranking the MRAP to life. I gave him the finger and climbed down out of the truck.
“Luck,” I said and took off running. I needed time to circle the besieging horde of undead before James began his attack run. Even after carefully padding the improvised grenades every bouncing step was an exercise in stark terror. I hoped and prayed the mix of chemicals would remain stable long enough for me to use rather than chemically run wild and detonate. On my back.
One of the many bonus materials included when the Martin County sheriff’s department acquired their lovely MRAP was an equally lovely angled dozed blade to ensure crowd compliance and obstacle clearance. Sometimes both at the same time.
Martin County Sheriff’s department didn't fuck around.
I mention it because the moment the first undead fuck stick was thrown into the air following contact with the MRAP, I began to close on the convention center. As I had hoped, and James had feared, the sudden arrival of the armored vehicle centered the attention of the writhing mass of flesh squarely on the rolling hell machine. Dozens of zombies caught air as the MRAP plowed full speed through the thickest concentration. Crushed, broken, disemboweled undead began to melt and ooze towards one another, the amalgamation process noticeably taking longer to return the fallen to action. When the initial amalgam beast reached critical mass and took form, I stumbled against a pale blue eco friendly vagina-mobile and tried not to vomit in pure terror.
Where the previous psyche breaking monsters had merely been enormous, as well as enormously strong, this butt mud inducing vision of inglorious death was no more than ten feet tall, but its four heads were largely encased in recombined, repurposed bone several inches thick. More, the knuckles of its six hands were covered in spikes of bone, each of its six elbows likewise sported boney protrusions. As well as a massive crest of calcified armor over its chest.
The latest Class One incarnation had just up armored it's amalgam zombies, likely in response to our fielding the MRAP. I just watched the latest evolution of the undead arms race and definitely gave the edge to the undead. There was no way the creature could catch the MRAP, not with James hauling ass away. I, however, was a different story. That gigantic mother fucker could waltz over to me and split me like a wishbone.
I hate the zombie apocalypse. I mean I fucking hate it. Nothing ever goes the way I need it to when I need it to without having to be killed by some asshole or other. Not that I dared let the undead take a swing at me, and I shouldn’t have to explain that to anyone.
Cowering behind the least practical car ever built by anyone, ever, it occurred to me, not for the first time, the personal cost involved with having deeply psychological flawed friends was too damn high. Friends like that run off with sociopathic cunts, not to mention all your supplies, and wind up being captured by psychopathic history buffs intent on spending their last days on this earth in an orgy of sex, violence, and every controlled substance known to man. And who has to go save his emotionally stunted ass? Why, I have to go save his gargantuan ass from being sacrificed on their altar to bad decisions and worse self control.
I snuck a look around the pussy mobile, wait, no, that makes it sound like that overgrown roller skate might actually attract willing sexual partners. How about I call it the Gender Fluid Receptacle? Yeah, that way it sounds like the piss can it was. Okay, I glanced around the Gender Fluid Receptacle to see the horde taking a pronounced interest in James. Far more so than the silent monolith of a convention center. Chief among the most ardent followers of the Church of MRAP was the new amalgam who dropped into the vehicles wake and ran after it with obvious intent. Slowly, like molasses fresh from the fridge slowly, the horde began to shift from seeking entrance into the building and focused more on seeking entrance to the rolling tuna can making a second run through the crowd. A second, and third amalgam rose from the fallout of James’ repeat performance, each creature a rough carbon copy of the first. Details such as number of heads and limbs varied, but the main features remained. Armored heads and extremely reinforced striking surfaces.
I'm not a trained soldier, but I can recognize a prime opportunity when it presents itself, and this was the moment to advance. The undead were focused on James and therefore too busy to spot a nervous wreck of a would be rescuer. I moved from car to car, doorway to doorway, cringing at the slap of my boots on pavement and the jostling of the explosives on my back. With every yard of distance covered I expected to be attacked by cold, rotting hands or to feel broken teeth clamp down on my not so tender flesh. Yes, fear ran alongside me the whole way from cover to the actual edifice itself, and the frigid bitch didn't once offer me a kiss or a reach around as she tried to dry fuck me. That's right, I'd like to file a complaint about a primal emotion attempting to sexually assault me. Maybe St. Pete can process it for me, you know, if he's not too busy laying five yards on whether or not I'll live through this. While you're at it, Pete, put me down for a couple hundred to make it through without loss of life or limb.
Fate, Lady Luck, or maybe that Galilean Twat was looking out for my sorry ass because as I sprinted the distance to the closest door, which I was certain I would have to blow to itty bitty pieces of razor sharp shrapnel, the steel security door swung open to present a living, breathing post apocalyptic fuck stain in steel belted radial armor. He had just enough time to be unpleasantly surprised before I ran into him at full speed, my knife leading the way into his gut.
Together we crashed back into the hallway whence this reject came. The deceleration which followed our impact with the concrete wall behind said moron, was swift and jarring. Razor edged high carbon steel slid into his belly, parting muscle fibers, and violating the abdominal wall. The blade bit deep into his intestines, eliciting a terrible scream of agony. Behind me the door closed with a strangely audible click, and I
drove my forearm against the man’s throat. I used this movement for leverage to withdraw my blade. Only to drive it back into the man’s belly. Over and over, faster and faster I thrust my karambit into organs which were never meant to be touched, let alone stabbed repeatedly. Eventually his screams and pleading died away to a whispered whimper of terror and inarticulate begging. Don't believe the movies. In Hollywood some asshole with perfectly coiffed hair runs a ten inch combat blade into bad guy X’s gut and the greasy bastard falls down dead as a door nail. Bullshit. The pair of you poor fuckers will thrash and flail and beg and at least one of you is going to piss yourself, and if you are so very fortunate as to be the surviving party there will come to roost in your nightmares an infinite number of psyche fucking revisions of your unfortunate encounter. While I may dislike knife fights because nobody ever walks away unharmed, not even the winner, I hate them because you are completely invested in the ending of another living being. With a firearm, you can shoot assholes from a safe distance and maintain a certain level of detachment, but you are right there inside the other man’s personal space, looking into his eyes as the life drains away. You see their pain, their fear, and you will always remember the tone of their voice as they beg you not to kill them.
Killing this man tore at my soul. He hadn't acted against me or threatened my family. This poor fucker had the incredibly bad luck to be between me and entry into the Circus Minimus. If I survived long enough to see the inside of a liquor store, I was going to imbibe more than a little liquid therapy.