by H. L. Murphy
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Which means either he's lying, and I don't think so, or Farrah secreted the parts on her way out.”
“Is there any reason why we don't use her for chum?” James asked, turning right onto I-95.
“Because I like sharks and don't feel feeding them chopped up Skankasaurus would be what one might call a humane act,” I said, trying very hard to find a position to sit in that didn't cause my ribs to grind together.
“Could put her inside the Russian crate and toss both over the side,” James suggested.
“Please don't remind me about the crate,” I said, closing my eyes against the rising stress. With all that took place over the day, I had forgotten about the damned crate. “I still haven't decided what to do with the goddamned crate.”
“Well, given the contents,” James continued, “I think more than just your usual unilateral decision making paradigm should be involved.”
“Unilateral?” I interrupted. “You can’t even spell unilateral, so don’t hand me that collective consensus bullshit. You want the snowflakes making decisions? Or maybe you'd like to poll the gargantuan tub of lard and piss poor thought processes trying to bleed to death in the back of the goddamn truck?”
“As opposed to following around the guy constantly getting shot, stabbed, set on fire, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,” James waved a hand in a rolling motion.
“Yes, because while I may get perforated in innumerable fashion I don’t get anyone else we give a shit about killed. Oh, and I don’t make off with our goddamn supplies after sabotaging one of the two antique engines keeping our home from running aground and overrun by limitless hordes of the ravenous undead,” my voice rose in volume as I warmed up to my subject. “More than that, I didn’t fall stupidly in lust with a refugee sociopath intent on skull fucking everybody we love and or tolerate with an eighteen-inch spiked strap on.”
“No, you just brought her on board,” James interjected.
“Uh, no. I just saved her fucking life,” I countered. “You brought her on board. I was busy being chased all over Stuart by asshole mercenaries who shot me to fucking death.”
“Oh, yeah,” James laughed, shook his head, and guided the MRAP past a five car pile up. My breath came hard and fast while I stared death at the back of my best friends head. Stress, terror, and a burning need to protect the people I loved was taking its toll on me. The odds were overwhelmingly against us and looked to remain that way.
Basically forever.
Odds which only got worse every time I stopped watching the people around me. Think I don’t know exactly how that sounds? Guess again. I am very well aware of how paranoid I am, but since today started with James and I being attacked by a Cobra gunship, I'm not a delusional paranoid. How many more times was this going to happen? Not the gunship action, which I never wanted to endure ever again, but someone close to me making the worst possible decision under the worst possible conditions. Jesus, how do you save people from being people? This is how megalomaniacal dictators start out, isn't it?
Part Three
It only gets worse from here
Interlude Five
Dane Kincaid stared at the apparition calling itself Buttermilk Jones, unable to process what the hell he was looking at. Buttermilk looked like a not particularly well preserved cadaver, except for the labored breathing. Each inhalation sounded as though air were being sucked into a ragged bellows filled with rotting bladders, in turn filled with dried insect husks and crackling leaves. Exhalations were worse, far worse since each exhale was accompanied by the stench of decomposition and long term sickness. The aroma wafted across the intervening space, against the prevailing air flow, to slap Dane and Gaunt in the olfactory senses, hard. Like sledgehammer to the face hard.
“Oh dear god,” Dane wheezed, trying desperately not to breathe at all. Seconds passed before his body made it abundantly clear he would breathe in a fresh supply of oxygen or pass out, in which case his lungs would automatically draw a breath plus in the unlikely event Dane woke up again he would have a massive bruise and a screaming headache. Survival won out, and the fetid stench tasted exactly how Dane feared it would. Imagine, if you can, a garbage truck that makes its rounds in a quasi-rural area wherein road kill is an everyday fact of life, but is mostly ignored by the officials until the putrefaction process reaches the explosive phase. The garbage truck, however, merely plows ahead, uncaring of the damage its tires inflict upon the corpses of raccoons, possums, and whatever unidentifiable lump of gray fur unerringly appears on the side of every road in the world. Muscle, internal organs, and swathes of fat covered skin and fur accumulate beneath our conveyer of unwanted refuse, wherein the decaying process continues occasionally refreshed by water or some confluence of liquids of uncertain origin.
Have that picture firmly in your mind?
Yes?
Good.
Now run an imaginary tongue the entire length of the underside of the garbage truck, and you will know exactly how Dane and Gaunt felt in that moment. If you happen to vomit along the way to this epiphany, don’t feel too badly about it. Dane and Gaunt tossed their cookies halfway to Stuart.
“Was that really necessary?” Buttermilk asked in his sing song way of speaking. Wiping his mouth, Dane considered the thing before him. This creatures speech patterns had nothing to do with the man they had both known as Robert Jones. “You really have no idea how difficult it is to get janitorial services down here since my staff attempted to eat one or two of them. A little nibble here and there and suddenly they're screaming for a shop steward, as though that would save them. Once you've been given the kiss, that’s all she wrote. In no time at all you have joined the ranks of the people’s revolution and are an ardent member of the party ever after.”
Buttermilk Jones turned away from the pair to encompass the now visible shambling undead. Unlike the wretched walking corpses Dane and Gaunt had encountered previously, the shackled undead approaching seemed docile, lackluster. Even after the blood red orbs which passed for eyes locked onto the newcomers, it were as is the undead simply couldn’t be bothered to care. The shackles appeared to be lengths of chain which ran from the zombies wrists, with a space between hands of about a foot and a half between wrists, to a makeshift collar around their necks. Some of the approaching mass seemed to be chained together, with a length of chain running from the rear of the collar to the rear of another zombies collar. Why these particular undead were bound together wasn't readily apparent, and neither Dane nor Gaunt wished to uncover that mystery.
“This way, if you please,” Buttermilk Jones motioned the pair forward. “We have much to see and so very little time to see it in.”
“What do you mean?” Gaunt asked from behind his hand cannon. He wasn't comfortable with the increasing number of undead filing onto the manufacturing floor.
“This is my Body Shop,” Buttermilk gestured all around him in a dismissive fashion.
“I think we’d like to know what that means,” Dane cut in before Gaunt could level the big Smith and Wesson.
“Oh, I understand. It's a matter of definitions, so very much like the rest of life,” Jones mumbled. “This is my Body Shop, wherein I conduct the symphony of fuel and spark and compression and torque. All that I ever gleaned from so many wasted days in this corporate slave pen I have now put into practical use. I have crafted the finest in post civilization transportation. For the right price, all your apocalyptic woes can be put to rest.”
Interested, both men followed cautiously as the albino strode away in a swaying, lop sided gate.
“Uh, dude,” Gaunt began, but held off as Dane quickly raised a hand to silence him. Dane pointed at the closest zombie, which appeared to have had an eye removed and replaced by a camera complete with sound pick up. It seemed there was more to Buttermilk’s set up than met the eye. Moving right up to Dane’s ear, totally violating his friends personal space, and whispered. “What the fuck?”
Dane just shook his head
gently and shrugged his panting friend off his shoulder. Creeped out already by the radically altered Jones, Gaunt practically crawling into his lap had Dane’s stress level turned up to ten…thousand. He shook his head and motioned Gaunt to follow along.
The two men caught up to Buttermilk as he rounded a corner and led them directly into the face of a metallic behemoth unlike anything either had ever seen. Beneath the armor plating and random bits of whatever Buttermilk felt like welding on, Dane could just make out the shape of the medium lift troop transport helicopter the three had, once upon a time, built together.
“Is that a fucking Blackhawk?” Gaunt demanded, seeing the silhouette beneath the add on pieces.
“Yes, it is. One makes do with what one has,” Buttermilk smiled. “With all the upgrades and modifications I designed, I still wanted to stay true to the classic lines of the helicopter. Come, my friends, allow me to walk you through this models features. I believe you will find them most useful in a post apocalyptic setting.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Gaunt spoke, waving his free hand back and forth. “Before we get into any sales pitch you've worked up, I want to know who the fuck you are, and how you managed to survive the end of the goddamn world.”
“Personal history? No, credentials? Yes, that’s what he wants, isn't it?” Jones spoke to himself as though he were two separate individuals. “He wished to know how we survived when no one else did. Fair enough. We are asking them to trust us, aren't we? Very well, we will tell them.”
Both living men exchanged a look, each understanding without having to voice their concerns that their host was well past insane.
“When the walkers began their march with destiny I was here,” Buttermilk began. “I discovered the remains of a man, carrying equipment I was not familiar with. Even so it didn’t take me long to work out the purpose of his gear. The hypodermic pistol he carried was obviously meant to inject test subjects with various solutions. Solutions which, according to his notebook, were variations on a single formula. This information came to me after the fact of course, but it was easily inferable. And as I was constantly being chased by the Children of the Revolution, there was little time to waste in perusing the scribblings of a complete stranger. Instead, I cut through the test and evaluation phase and injected myself with everything.”
“Uh, everything?” Both men said at once, each calculating the potentialities for utter disaster connected with randomly injecting oneself with unknown substances.
“Yes, my friends, I’m afraid I partook of every ampule the blood stain in the parts crib possessed. Though there were some unfortunately side effects, I found myself in possession of fantastic abilities. I can see through the eyes of the Children, feel what they feel, and can even whisper my will in their minds. It comes in handy from time to time when I need fresh materials. As the song goes, the sticky, licky sweets I crave.”
“I'm sorry, what?” Dane broke in, the sudden change in conversational direction launching red flags. Maybe his hand strayed toward his Jericho, maybe Dane was just shifting his weight.
“Oh, nothing,” Buttermilk Jones dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand and turned away mumbling. “My dietary restrictions are nobodies concern but my own. It's not as though I act as a plague on the human race. What little I take serves to refresh and empower my ailing flesh and blood.”
Dane and Gaunt followed Buttermilk around another corner.
Both men stumbled to a stop, gazing upon a spider’s web of steel, aluminum, and, was that really, yes it was duct tape. Worse by far than the accumulated detritus, was the blood drenched, weeping, babbling, still living quasi dismembered figure of a man.
“Help me,” the struggling form of Will Swan shrieked.
“Fuck.”
Chapter Sixteen
So how long do I have to wait before this asshole gives up?
Rolling along I-95, just south of Stuart, I was relaxing in the back of the MRAP, more or less keeping an eye on Carroll. I hadn't been able to score any serious painkillers, but what I did have kept my friend from yowling in agony. Whimpering and general moaning leaked out of him as the MRAP rolled over a few bumps although to be honest the suspension in the seventeen thousand pound truck wasn't geared for comfort. The whole truck was designed to survive and roll through the most inhospitable terrain on the face of the earth.
I laid back, sucking down a bottle of water when I glanced out the spider webbed rear window. It was there, hanging low on the horizon. If I hadn’t undergone radical changes after Outbreak Day I wouldn’t have seen it, but my eyes sighted in on the military drone following us. I know drones were all the thing with our armed forces in the old world, but I couldn’t really tell one from another. The wingspan was broad and the fuselage was narrow. Thankfully, I didn’t see any weapons mounted to the wings, so bonus for us. With this thing following us it was a hop, skip, and a logical jump to believe my nemesis, Jesus fuck I just said the goddamn word, made it out of the building fire. It wasn't bad enough for Zombie Green to be wandering the Quarantine Zone with a horde all his own and a serious hard on for my head on a pike, now I had a semi governmental agency chasing me.
Crap on toast.
So the goddamn drone jockey’s were fronting for El Rapo and KnightStar. Well, why not? The direct approach hadn't been working out too great. Perhaps someone with far more subtlety in their soul was calling the shots in the hunt for yours truly. Despite his love of literature, El Rapo lacked subtlety in any and all measurable quantities. The miserable one eyed bastard was a sledgehammer where clearly a scalpel was called for.
I turned my gaze to the back of James’ head, then to the slightly shivering form of Carroll Rivers. Technically, I completed my stated mission. I rescued the couch behemoth, and now I knew where the parts were supposed to be, although Farrah Fuckwit wouldn't reveal the location of the stolen supplies until I delivered His Corpulence into her custody. I almost said care, but how much can a sociopath really care about anything? If I strapped his ass into the drivers seat, James and I might be able to evade the watchful eye of the overhead drone. My conscience might not let me sleep for a few nights, but at least I'd be awake with my family at our unidentified location. If that damned drone tracked us all the way back to the Churchill, five will get you ten million the ship would be crawling with paramilitary assholes by morning. Not to mention my buddy, El Rapo, would likely be leading the team. Under no circumstances could I allow his not so tender mercies to be visited upon the people I loved.
A flash of lightning, a crash of thunder, and a ray of hope shown through the pitch black of night. The weather gods had just smiled on me. That goddamn drone couldn't risk taking a lightning strike, I hoped. If the storm continued to develop along the nasty lines it was laying out, lightning strikes combined with gale force winds might be enough to knock it out of the air. The operator would be having this same conversation with his command, arguing for asset protection. All we needed to do was kill time until the storm dropped on us like an anvil, then head for the Churchill.
I spoke into my radio.
“James, change of plans,” I said, checking Carroll’s vitals again. “We're swinging by the home of the most heavily armed man I've ever known.”
“Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of more ordinance, but why the flaming fuck should we dick around with this right now?” James demanded.
“Well, Carroll is stable for the moment and is no longer apt to die on us because the wind changed direction,” I explained, trying to remain calm and collected. “And because we can't go back to the boat until we've done something about the drone following us.”
The radio clicked several times as James tried and failed to process and respond to the latest change in our situation.
“How am I still friends with you?” James asked finally. “Every goddamn time I turn around you find a new way to make life more difficult.”
“Hey, if you can't keep up, that's not my fault,” I answered. “Besides, w
eren't you the one complaining about being bored with your life before Outbreak Day?”
“What? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Guess what? Not bored anymore, are you?” I yelled, not bothering with the radio. “You're fucking welcome.”
“When I said that I was considering a change in vocation,” he shouted back, “not constantly volunteer for road trips through an undead apocalyptic war zone.”
“What war zone? Outside of a few stragglers and a couple shots being fired this afternoon this has been the most boring day of my life,” I may have down played the danger a tiny bit.
“I don't think I can agree with that statement,” Carroll tried to contribute.
“Shut it, Stumpenstein’s Monster,” I said. “You lost the right to an opinion.”
“Leave the gimp alone and tell me how you know there's a drone following us,” James demanded over the radio.
“Because I can see the blasted thing following us,” I answered. A quick glance out the back window showed me the slim silhouette right where I'd left it, more or less.
“So how does a weapon run help us?”
“The weather is headed south in a big way,” I explained. “Chances are the operators won't risk the drone in a major thunderstorm.”
“So we burn through time until the drone pisses off?”
“Yes, not to mention ammunition gains,” I continued.
“Not the worst idea you've had,” James nodded his head in agreement with I have no idea what. It was more than possible my friend had developed a few personality quirks along our rocky road to legendary status. Hell, I had more than a few ticks acquired on the long road to safety.
“Thanks,” I said. “Pull off at Stuart and take State Road Seventy-Six until it intersects with Indian, turn right, and follow Indian until it crosses southeast St. Lucie boulevard. Turn left onto St. Lucie boulevard until we hit the beach.”