by H. L. Murphy
Yeah, that kind of slap.
The effects were startling and immediate.
“Stop it,” Milo squeaked from behind building tears. He was both furious and transported some place that brutalized his studied self image. He was the goddamn Surgeon after all, and the goddamn Surgeon didn't cry, didn't whinge like a scared child, and he goddamn sure didn't whimper like a girl.
I pulled the scalpel free, then gave Milo the back of my hand. Fast and relatively light. From his reaction you'd have thought I'd shoved my karambit up his urethra. I gave him enough room to coax his face up, then lunged in so I could catch him across the face with my open palm. The sound was fulfilling in its brutality, and even more so in that Milo broke and fled.
My hands found my rifle of their own accord, bringing my Kalashnikov to my shoulder. I think I could have perforated the little freak if it hadn't been for the damned scalpel Milo hurled at me. It wasn't so much the pain from being impaled by another goddamn scalpel as much as it was the location.
Surgical steel protruded from my right eye as I fought not to scream my lungs out.
Instead, I carefully placed fingers on either side of my eye and gently pulled the blade free. I did yell then, but less along the lines of dying scream queen and more in the pissed off predator fashion. There are no words sufficient to describe that kind of pain. I stumbled further into the darkness, clutching one hand to my face. Whatever else I did or did not do in this life, I was going to find and kill Milo Fitzroy in the most definitive fashion imaginable.
Since I was uncomfortable with the idea of wandering about with a critically injured eye exposed to whatever the fuck might be floating about the atmosphere, I had, against my preference, pulled the goddamn Glock from my vest. My off hand felt strange wrapped around the ballistic bane of my existence, but the seventeen rounds in the magazine might compensate for my reduced accuracy. The age old excuse employed by Glock aficionados.
Christ on fire, my eye fucking hurt. Fucking Milo fucking Fitzroy. Cut his fucking stomach open so I shove this fucking Glock inside him and dump the fucking magazine. Up ahead, movement. Jesus, every fucking step sent waves of white hot pain into my brain via my ruined eye. One of the torch bearing village people, one who ran when the monster decided he wasn’t afraid of fire, was stumbling through the dark, seeking an escape from judgement. No sanctuary here, fuckwit. I fired three shots, missed with two, and only managed to slop a single round into a kidney. My target convulsed in paroxysms of equal bits terror and pain. Closer, I managed to put a round through a shaved scalp.
Below, I heard the living facing the undead, and this time I didn't think the living were on the victorious side. In short order the convention center would be overrun within and without by the undead. Maybe then the ten thousand undead assholes swarming the place would lose interest and fuck off.
Pushing off the wall, I half stumbled, half ran back the way I'd come. A mental image of the scissor lift filling my brain. The lift was the answer, it had to be, to how the Circus Minimus shitbags heaved the planetary mass known as Carroll Rivers into the rafters. Too bad Butch didn't shoot the sister slamming hillbilly operating the thing sooner. The operating platform sat five feet above my head, which meant I was going climbing. Blood loss not withstanding, I was still waiting on my hand to completely heal. Of course, the ravening horde spreading out from the fight cage like quicksilver argued against sitting on my ass.
“Suck it up and get it done,” I mumbled, and reached for the scissor lift. One glance down showed me I was running out of time. The undead were already pawing at the base of the lift. Up, up, and over the top I went. On the list of things I didn’t need to view, ever, was the nearly headless corpse sprawled across the operating platform. A twelve gauge slug could do the most amazingly terrible things to flesh and bone. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, but I managed to heave the Headless Horseman up and over the railing. Two hundred pounds of headless shit dropped onto the gathered undead. Bones snapped, filling the air with the less than delicate sounds of branches breaking. Depending on just how incapacitated the undead were would clarify how little time I had left. The controls, thankfully, were simple enough I didn’t need a masters degree in electrical engineering to operate it.
The undead moaned and groaned their disapproval of my rolling away as I maneuvered the lift under the quivering blob of coalesced cellulite molecules scientists named Carrollis Riversus. Undead hands slapped against the steel base of the lift as I went from horizontal to vertical. I hadn't noticed when I located him, but Carroll seemed to have been beaten from head to toe, and yes his boots were missing, with a rubber hose, or a fucking sledgehammer. Fuck. If I had to carry his fat ass out of here, we were both going to be eaten alive.
Twisted, deformed toes descended past my face as I finally reached Carroll. Up close he looked about ten times worse than hammered dog shit. Yeah, I was going to have to fireman carry his rotundity through the growing mass of undead assholes. Jesus fuck, these shitheads zip tied him to the cross members. I could have used my karambit to cut the ties, but the chances of cutting Carroll were too high so I took the time to find and deploy a leather man tool.
“Think..you c-c-could…make this…anymore p-p-painful?” Carroll mumbled. I jumped as blood dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. “It’s…okay. I k-k-know you’re…hourly.”
“Typical,” I said. “Go out of my goddamn way to do something nice, and all you can do is bitch, moan, and complain.”
Snip, snip, snip, and down came Carroll Rivers in an enormous heap of blood, cellulite, and ragged shreds of clothing. Christ, he'd seen better days. Groans issued from between cracked lips. Listening closely, I made out a few words.
“Can’t…feel my…arms…”
“No fucking shit, asshole,” I said. Getting his fat ass propped up against the railing, I ran a hand over his shoulders to check for dislocations. Yup, left shoulder was popped out of place. Probably hurt like a son of a bitch, though not as much as it would going back in. “Sorry about this, Great Jabba.”
He turned to face me, but saw nothing but the sole of my boot as I planted it against his neck.
“Wait, what?”
Pop.
Sharp intake of air.
Ultra high pitched shriek of agony.
“Count yourself lucky,” I smiled, dropped his arm back into his lap. “I think James would have fed you to the zombies.”
That’s about the time I expected Carroll to stop screaming and make a half assed attempt to smack talk me. Instead, he continued to shriek almost inaudibly as he stared at something out of my line of sight. My eyes drifted over to focus on the decomposing face of a zombie, clamped onto Carroll’s right hand.
Chapter Fourteen
Well, that could have gone better
Five minutes.
Bite to transformation.
Five little minutes.
It isn't that great a span of time for most. Yet, for some, it’s all they will ever have. Jagged teeth tearing through numb flesh meant five minutes was the rest of Carroll’s life. Then his unlife would begin, ended shortly thereafter by yours truly. Unless…
I swooped down, snatched up a machete, and, thankfully, sliced clean through Carroll’s right wrist. The zombie fell back, gnawing at the still warm flesh, and fell to the floor. Only to be replaced by another undead cannibal, which I shot between its blood red eyes. Next to me, my friend clutched at his bleeding stump and assaulted my sexuality, parentage, and basic intelligence. It wasn't the most generous reaction to shock, but I launched a back fist into Carroll’s jaw. Stunned from both actions, Carroll stared at me blankly as I dug into my vest for a tourniquet. A snarling face popped over the diamond plate operating floor, and I paused long enough to punch the undead douche bag square in the face then tied off Carroll’s stump.
“James,” I yelled into the handheld radio. “Prepare for evac.”
“The fuck you think you are?” Carroll giggled weakly. “Tactical Timmie
?”
“Evac? The fuck you think you are?” James replied. “Tactical Timmie?”
“Fuck both of you,” I said. Maybe, just maybe, I kicked Carroll in the ass. Don't judge me. That asshole skipped out with all our shit and busted up an entire engine. Besides, I only kicked him the once. Hard. “I have Tons of Love ready for transport.”
“Incoming in five,” James said. Behind his voice I could hear the ululation of thousands of zombies, and a whole fuck ton of gunfire. “Be ready to move, we have company.”
“Sweet fucking Mary, not the goddamn chopper again?” I asked. My mind running over the infinite number of ways a Cobra gunship could vaporize an MRAP.
“Not yet,” James yelled. “Hummers with light machine guns, black BDUs, keep shooting at me.”
“Shoot back, and be ready to get us,” I answered. The mass of undead swarming the base of the scissor lift had grown and I could only think that meant the other living beings, I won’t grace them with the term ‘human’, were past tense. Working the controls I started moving the lift back towards the second level, but quickly ran into problems. The number of bodies in our path was too great for the flagging electrical motor. Whenever this lift had last been charged must have been forever and a fucking day ago, because I could hear the slow, dying whine of the electrical motor as power dried up and disappeared into the ether. “Get up, you fat bastard.”
I pulled Carroll up off his ass, shoved him forward with me, and then pull him back. In this fashion I rocked the scissor lift back and forth until I felt the lift begin to tip, in the wrong direction, and silently begged the Galilean Twat for a favor. It balanced, on the edge of a razor, for an eternity before heading back the other way. It's stupid, childish, bug nuts crazy, but I laughed like a madman as the lift fell.
The lift crashed into the folding seats with a thunderclap and hurled Carroll and I into the goddamn bleachers. Freshly healed ribs gave way and reminded me how very much they disliked my taking their structural tolerances for granted. I rolled to my feet coughing blood and scrambling for my friend. If I was in a bad way, he must be well and truly fucked. Yup, he was unconscious. Goddamn it.
Want to know how tight you are with someone? It's simple. Here's the test of friendship, surround yourself with the ravening undead with a two hundred seventy pound unconscious pal and add in a few snapped ribs and you choice is carry your buddies fat ass out of the building while the undead are chasing you and likely die, or leave the fat prick and probably escape while the undead gnash on his bleeding flesh.
Can you guess what I did?
Yup, I hauled his enormity up off the ground into a fireman’s carry and felt two ribs give.
“Jesus fuck,” I gasped as my knees tried to give out. If I had the fucking time to spare, I would have waited until my ribs healed, but the undead were swarming up the fallen lift. Left arm wrapped around Carroll’s legs, my right hand clenched my pistol. Step by agonizing step I trudged through the seating until I hit the stairs where I genuinely thought about tossing my buddy down the steps. Better that than trying to negotiate his bulbous ass down those steps with two broken ribs.
I half stumbled, half ran down the first set of stairs directly into an unyielding wall. And yes, that was every bit as painful as it sounds, mostly especially when combined with the fact my nose lead the way. Directly into Brokenville. A broken nose is a special kind of pain I hadn’t experienced until now.
The second set of stairs was a lot simpler.
I ran blindly down the stairs with almost a third of a ton of asshole on my shoulders and directly into the tile floor, where my nose reminded me how skin, flesh, and broken cartilage cannot overcome tile set over concrete.
Jesus. Fuck. That. Hurt.
With blood running down my face I struggled to my feet and fought to focus watering eyes on the fat bastard I came to save. Carroll lay slumped against a wall, moaning and bleeding. Pushing and pulling Carroll I moved his corpulent near dead body into position. Heaving him back onto my shoulders I swear I felt my spine compress. Providing we survived this stupidity, and I didn’t kill him for falling a fucking sociopath, his fat ass was going on a goddamn diet. We’d made a start to slimming him down the minute I chopped off his hand.
Compressed spine or not, I started not quite running, but certainly more than walking, my way towards a security door. No idea whether it was the door I came in through or not, but we couldn't stay in here any longer. The undead were loose, agitated, and hauling their rotting carcasses after the two of us with a will.
“Coming out,” I screamed into the radio right before I plowed into a steel security door.
“Wait, where are you?” James demanded. The gunfire in the background had ratcheted up. I didn't have time to explain the situation, so I merely rushed through the open doorway, almost tripping over the corpses piled up outside. So glad we didn't go down again. I don't think I could have hauled the both of us even halfway up. Hey, you try hauling two hundred seventy pounds of asshole around on your back after sustaining life threatening injuries. Thinking about it, I suppose some of you actually have done just that. Military veterans with epic adamantium balls who have pretty much set the standard for selfless heroism.
Past several extremely dead zombies stood a man mountain in black BDUs, complete with the helmet and shield emblem of KnightStar Solutions, calmly dispatching the undead with well aimed head shots from an MP-5 submachine gun. The racket of my entrance onto this stage drew both his attention and his submachine gun towards me. Hesitation hasn't really been a failing of mine in moments of crisis, which is a nice way of saying I shot the cocksucker in the face with my forty-five. As he fell down, I scooped my hand through the MP-5s sling. It took some doing, but I holstered my pistol, without dropping it, the submachine gun, or the fat bastard whose sole goal in life seemed to be to accumulate enough density to establish his own gravity well. A brief display of dexterity and now I had a submachine gun in hand.
“I'm outside, I just shot some asshole, and I'd really like to get the fuck into the bullet proof truck,” I barked into the radio. Behind me I could make out Carroll mumbling.
“Me too, can't be any worse than bouncing around on your shoulders.”
“You wanna fucking walk home?” I yelled. The roar of the MRAPs engineer me filled the air and I knew salvation was at hand. Sure enough, the mammoth vehicle burst out from the far side of the parking lot. And so did a pair of Hummers, light machine guns spitting seven point six two death at my ride. Why? No idea. The rounds weren't doing shit to the armor plating and barely scratching the new ballistic glass. Still, when James finally got to us, the gunners would have two totally unarmored targets to vent their frustrations on. Shouldering the MP-5, I triggered off a three round burst at the turret gunner of the lead vehicle.
Missed. Fuck.
Rinse and repeat.
Missed. Fuck a duck.
Rinse and repeat.
Ah, got the little prick.
Both Hummers broke off pursuit, braking to a shuddering halt a hundred yards from my test from god and me. Both of us completely out in the open. Sitting ducks. Fuck me.
Say what you will about the moral quality of KnightStar’s mercenaries, they certainly moved with tactical proficiency. In the blink of an eye, seven men the size and disposition of raging bulls dismounted the Hummers and leveled rifles at us. I wanted to tell Carroll I was sorry I couldn't get him home, but I knew he wouldn't be able to hear me over the roar of gunfire.
“Drop the weapon,” one man shouted as all took aim.
“Lose the weapon.”
“Drop the fat bastard, and put your hands on your head,” this seemed particularly unkind. I mean, I knew Carroll, and had for two decades, so I was entitled to smack talk His Corpulence no end, but these pricks were total strangers. They had no business running their damn mouths. I opened my mouth to protest, and one of the approaching sacks of used douche fluid shot me in the leg. I suppose that's their version of a warning s
hot.
“FUCKING FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKS!”
What I lacked in creativity I made up for in enthusiasm.
I also hosed the group with my submachine gun. Or tried to. Half a dozen rounds went down range before the weapon went dry, and the MRAP slid to a shuddering, awesome stop between the mercenaries and me. Give the mercs their due, they opened fire immediately. They couldn't hit shit, but their reflexes were on target. Mine, not so much. I was having an issue moving past the fresh bullet wound.
“Suck it up, pansy,” Carroll muttered, weakly waving his bloody stump. Furious, I hobbled forward until I could open an armored door. Maneuvering a third of a ton of almost dead asshole into a truck cabin several feet above the ground proved…difficult. Under the roar of assault rifles I could just make out the moans of the undead closing in on our position.
“Move, you gargantuan tub of lard,” I grunted, getting my shoulder under his mass as I heaved him into the cabin. Free of my burden at last my back, my ribs, and, especially, my leg expressed their gratitude, mostly by delivering fresh reports of excruciating agony.
Clamping down on my pain I mounted the steps of the MRAP, turning as I felt eyes glaring at me with a hatred so intense as to be a living thing. Bad Eddie and Milo Fitzroy stood atop the domed roof of the center, willing me to explode into a billion pieces. Psychotic little pieces of pig excrement slipped by the undead within and weren't terribly concerned by the undead without. Cradling a sledge hammer, Bad Eddie pointed at me, then drew a crooked finger across his hairy throat. Oh, yeah, he meant to be a serious problem to me and mine in the future. Which is why I hunched over my MP-5, dropping the sights onto that crazy fucker, when a goddamn KnightStar mercy surged around the rear of the MRAP and shot me. Just shot me. No warnings, no option to surrender. Just nine millimeter rounds in my side until I couldn't feel anything but the goddamn rounds slamming into my flesh. I felt my hands go loose, my arms instantly weighed one hundred times their normal weight, and my breath caught in my throat. My knees started to give out, and I tipped forward. Hands caught me, drug me back from free fall, and with my ebbing strength I squeezed the trigger of my weapon. Nothing. Forgot I burned through the magazine trying to kill mercs. Damn.