Vengeance in the Badlands

by Brian J. Jarrett

  Chapter Four

  Johnny made his way between the meat slicers; his hands held up in front of him and an angry look on his face. Someone had gotten the jump on him, and that took some real doing.

  It took even more doing to keep him down, though.

  Dave raised the rifle, pointing it at the unidentified assailant.

  “Put it down,” the gunman said. But Dave quickly noticed this wasn’t a gunman.

  This was a gunwoman.

  “Better do what she says,” Johnny quipped. “Otherwise she might nag us to death.”

  Dave sighed. Johnny’s smart-ass mouth was bound to get him killed one day. It was the downside of partnering with a man who’d lost the ability to fear anything anymore.

  The woman frowned. “Laugh it up, fuckface and I’ll empty your head of its brains.”

  Johnny kept his mouth shut…for the time being.

  The woman marched Johnny just past one of the silent meat slicers before ordering him to stop. Johnny’s confiscated rifle lay slung over the woman’s shoulder as she slid in behind the slicer, using the bulky metal machine as cover. She pointed her pistol at Johnny’s head for insurance.

  “Put your gun down,” the woman said.

  Dave kept the rifle raised. “We don’t have any squabble with you. We’re looking for someone else.”

  “Put the gun down,” the woman repeated.

  Dave shook his head. “I’m not doing that.”

  “Then I kill him.”

  Dave observed her, sizing her up. She wasn’t with Calvin. He couldn’t know this for sure, but his gut told him she was just another survivor making her way through the bloated corpse-land previously known as the United States of America.

  Dave continued. “We don’t want anything you have. We don’t want to hurt you. We’re looking for a man named Calvin Summerville.”

  The woman placed the barrel of the pistol directly against Johnny’s temple. “I’ll blow his brains out. I’m not afraid to pull the trigger.”

  Johnny glanced at the woman, grinning slightly. “You do what you want, Dave. If she was gonna shoot me, she would have already pulled the trigger.”

  “Are you so sure of that, asshole?”

  Johnny shrugged. “I’m willing to take my chances.” He took a step toward Dave, leaving the woman behind.

  “Hey!” she yelled. “I’ll shoot!”

  “Do it then,” Johnny said.

  Dave held his breath as he watched Johnny make his way across the cutting room and toward the front counter.

  The balls on that fucking guy.

  Johnny made it to the counter where he stopped and nodded at Dave. “Let’s get going. Calvin’s not here—”

  The sound of a shotgun shell racking into the chamber echoed through the room.

  “Audrey might not shoot you,” a voice said from behind them, “but I sure as hell will.”

  Chapter Five

  “Jesus Christ on a stick,” Johnny said, shaking his head. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

  Dave turned toward the sound of the second voice; the rifle raised and ready. He saw another female, this one maybe sixteen, with a twelve-gauge shotgun clutched in her small hands. She had a hard look on her face, a face that had seen a lot of shit in a short amount of time. If anybody might pull the trigger between the two women, Dave figured, it would be this one.

  “You’ll want to listen to Gia,” Audrey said from behind the counter. She stepped out from behind the meat slicer and aimed the pistol at Dave and Johnny. “You’re surrounded, and you’re outgunned.”

  “Just shoot the pip-squeak,” Johnny said.

  Gia glared at Johnny over the shotgun’s barrel. “He pulls that trigger and Audrey will kill you both.”

  “Doubtful,” Johnny said.

  “You kill me out of cold blood, and she’ll pull that trigger for sure. She’s all about justice. The two of you won’t make it out of here alive.”

  Dave shot the young girl a cold look. “You assume that we care.”

  Gia watched Dave through pensive eyebrows.

  “Just do it already,” Johnny said. “Or don’t. Stop wasting our time.”

  The girls glanced at each other, but neither pulled the trigger.

  Dave saw the doubt on their faces, and that was enough for him. They weren’t cold-blooded killers. He launched into another attempt at diplomacy. “The man we’re looking for is out there now, killing more people as we speak. The longer we sit here bickering with you, the further away he and his men get. Those deaths are on your hands.”

  “We’ll shoot you both,” Audrey said, but the conviction had drained from her voice.

  Johnny chuckled. “Promises, promises.”

  Dave looked Gia in the eye before turning to face Audrey. He lowered the rifle and slung it over his shoulder. “Do what you have to do,” he said as he took a step toward the door. He was leaving, with or without a bullet in him for his trouble.

  He made it two steps when he heard growling coming from the back of the butcher shop.

  He knew that sound.

  They all did.

  Before he could react, movement flashed from behind Audrey as she stood with the pistol still leveled on Johnny and Dave.

  “Behind you!” Dave yelled.

  Audrey turned, but she seemed to be moving in slow motion as the filthy carrier emerged from behind the tiled wall at the back of the cutting room floor. It shrieked as it ran on blackened feet tipped with jagged, claw-like toenails. Dead leaves and dirt from years of neglect clumped and twisted its long hair into horrifying dreadlocks. A tattered sweater partially covered its upper body; below that it wore only soiled underpants.

  Dave raised his rifle, quickly sighting it in before pulling the trigger twice. The first slug caught the approaching deadhead in the chest, the second ripped through its throat, tearing out a massive chunk of flesh and quieting its wild screams. Infected blood gushed from the cavernous wound as the carrier fell to the floor, blood pooling around its head. It opened and closed its mouth, creating gurgled choking sounds as it struggled to breathe.

  Another shrill cry erupted, this one from the street running outside the front of the building. Like a call-and-response exercise, another shriek echoed from the back of the room.

  “Apex carriers,” Dave said to Johnny.

  Johnny nodded. “The dirty bastards flanked us.” He turned toward Audrey. “Give me my rifle.”

  She hesitated, the suspicious look still on her face.

  “Now!” Johnny yelled.

  Another carrier leaped into the building through the gaping mouth of the glassless front picture window. It opened its mouth wide, baring blackened teeth. Dark bloodstains from its previous kills covered its gaunt cheeks like war paint.

  Gia turned, leveled the shotgun, and pulled the trigger. Flames licked from the barrel of the twelve-gauge, the recoil knocking the young girl back on her heels. But she held tight to the barrel, racking another shell into the chamber as the carrier she’d shot lay bleeding on the floor amidst the dried leaves, trash, and animal droppings.

  Johnny skirted the counter and sprinted toward Audrey, hand outreached and grasping. He tore his rifle from her shoulder. He shot her a stern look. “Make yourself useful, or get the fuck out of the way.”

  That seemed to snap her out of her paralysis. Another flash of movement appeared behind Johnny and Audrey as a deadwalker slipped around the back wall and darted into the room, careening toward them, hands outstretched, and blood-stained mouth open wide. The deadhead looked as if he might have been a high-school science teacher or maybe an accountant in the old world.

  Now, he was a wild animal.

  Audrey leveled the pistol and sent two rounds into the deadwalker’s face. The slugs exploded from the back of its head, producing a slurry of blood and brains and bits of skull. The walker went down hard, slamming its balding head off the floor before going limp in a puddle of blood.

  “Get to the
Jeep!” Johnny yelled.

  “We’re coming too!” Audrey said.

  The last thing Dave wanted was a couple of tagalongs getting in the way. He and Johnny had a job to do, a mission to complete. These two would be extra weight. They would be liabilities.

  “You two are on your own,” Dave said.

  “You said you were looking for a man named Calvin,” Audrey said. “I know that name.”

  Dave paused.

  “A man named Calvin came through here a while back,” Audrey continued. “He killed everyone in our camp.”

  “Where did he go?” Dave asked.

  “Take us with you, and I’ll tell you,” Audrey said.

  Dave hesitated.

  As if to underscore the necessity of action, another shrill cry echoed through the streets of the ghost town.

  “Fine,” Dave said. “You can come. For now.”

  Audrey nodded as she slipped around the counter and headed toward the front door. Gia had already made her way outside. Dave followed, with Johnny on his heels.

  Out on the street, Audrey stopped and pointed. “There’s another one.”

  Dave watched as a carrier still dressed in a red Adidas jumpsuit sprinted toward them. It growled as it ran, its black eyes sharp and focused on its prey. It dodged a rusting mailbox as it stepped off the curb and into the street. It slipped out of sight behind a pileup of three disintegrating cars.

  “I got it,” Audrey said. She raised the pistol and waited.

  The jump-suited carrier stepped onto the back bumper of one of the cars, emerging a moment later. Audrey tensed as she sighted down the barrel of the handgun, her finger resting lightly on the trigger.

  The carrier hopped over the car’s hood and back onto the street, its blackened feet beating the cracked pavement like a war drum.

  Dave glanced at Johnny. Johnny held up a finger, telling Dave to wait. He wanted to see how this played out. They both observed Audrey as she waited for her shot.

  The carrier sprinted faster now, teeth bared as it neared its prey.

  Audrey pulled the trigger. The report boomed like a cannon in the empty streets, echoing off the faces of the crumbling, burned-out buildings. The approaching carrier’s head snapped violently backward as it tumbled to the hard ground. It rolled a few times before coming to a stop, one arm lying across its chest and the other splayed out above its head. It lay there looking blankly at the sky like a child’s toy tossed carelessly onto the bedroom floor.

  “Good shot,” Johnny said. “Now get your asses moving.”

  The quartet hopped into the Jeep, Johnny in the driver’s seat and Audrey and Gia in the back. Dave rode shotgun. Johnny jammed the key in the ignition and twisted. The engine turned over like an obedient dog. He shoved the transmission into gear and put the pedal to the floor as six more carriers trailed behind them. The Jeep’s tires kicked up a hazy cloud of dusty debris in its wake. The engine hummed as Johnny ran through the gears, the acrid smell of exhaust and burnt oil abundant in the warm air.

  Dave shot a quick look at the two women in the back seat. They eyed him with steely determination, still clutching their weapons. He turned his back to them and faced forward, watching along the road for more deadheads. He supposed he should have confiscated their weapons, but his gut told him they wouldn’t shoot him.

  And if they did?

  Well, it really didn’t matter in the end.

  Chapter Six

  They put five miles between themselves and the infested town before Johnny decided to stop. A small frame house presented itself as an opportunity for some cover, so they scanned the interior and perimeter before setting up inside. They parked the Jeep around back; out of sight from the road and still visible from the back bedroom. The Jeep was their life raft; keeping an eye on it meant the difference between life and death.

  The girls helped carry the things they needed for the night. They didn’t complain, and they didn’t challenge. Dave and Johnny searched the house and found a few cans of corn and green beans, along with some packets of Lipton chicken noodle soup. A few cans of fruit had ruptured and rotted inside the pantry, leaving a blackened and desiccated mess behind. As a rule, Dave had learned to avoid canned fruits anyway, as they tended to go bad more quickly than other foods.

  After locking up the doors and battening down for the night, they opened the dusty canned foods and rehydrated the soup with some of the water they carried. The four of them sat around the oval kitchen table as they ate.

  “These days it’s best to get off the road before nightfall,” Johnny said between bites of corn. “Weird shit’s coming out in the dark these days.”

  “We’ve seen it,” Audrey said, sipping lukewarm soup. “We don’t exactly know what they are.”

  Gia nodded in return. “We can hear them out there, though. The sounds they make are just awful.”

  “The world has gone to shit,” Dave said. “Seems only fitting that it just keeps getting worse.”

  No one argued against that.

  The sound of spoons tapping against cans and clanging against bowls suddenly became deafening in the quiet room. Minutes passed slowly as the four of them ate in silence.

  Dave finished first. He wiped his mouth with one of the paper napkins they’d discovered in the pantry before pushing the bowl away. He leaned forward, hands on the table and fingers interlaced.

  “Calvin,” he said, locking eyes with Audrey. “You saw him?”

  Gia paused, mid-chew, her eyes on Audrey as the pair silently communicated with each other.

  Johnny continued to demolish his canned corn as if he were the only person in the room.

  “We did,” Audrey replied. She paused, gathering her thoughts. “There used to be a group of us living back in the town where you found us. Twelve of us in all. We took care of each other. We never bothered anybody. All we wanted to do was survive.”

  Another pause. Audrey absent-mindedly stirred her soup, watching the noodles swim in the bowl. “We had some kids there. Young things. Orphans.”

  Dave nodded. He decided not to mention the dead child he and Johnny had seen on the way into town.

  Audrey quickly wiped an errant tear away before looking up at Dave. Her eyes, wet and clear, bored a hole in him. “They killed most of the men in our camp. Pretty much anybody who challenged them. They kidnapped the women and the children and loaded them onto an army truck.”

  “How do you know all of this?” Dave asked.

  “Hatch. He was a family friend. My dad died during the outbreak, but Hatch took care of me.” She paused again, taking a deep breath before continuing. “They broke both of his ankles and chained him to the wall. They were kind enough to leave him plenty of water so that he could live long enough to starve to death.”

  Dave shook his head. Calvin had outdone himself this time.

  “Hatch was alive when Gia and I got back. He told us what happened; every horrible thing he saw those men do. He tried to stop them, but he was old, and there were just too many of them.” Audrey’s eyes hardened as she peered into Dave’s soul. “He tried to do the right thing and look what he got for it. So yeah, you’re right. The world has gone to shit. It’s gone right down the fucking toilet, and now we’re all just living in the goddamn sewer.”

  Dave glanced over at Johnny who had now stopped eating. He watched Audrey carefully as she told her story.

  “Hatch said Calvin and his men were headed south to a town called Neosho. Some sort of camp or settlement there that they figured they could take pretty easily.”

  “Calvin and his new world order,” Dave said.

  “He’s a real piece of work,” Johnny added.

  “What do you mean?” Audrey asked.

  “Calvin is a megalomaniac,” Dave said. “He’s obsessed with building his brand of post-virus society where he gets to be king.”

  “Hatch was like a father to me,” Audrey said. “He saved my life. He was a good man. And the poor kids. Who knows what those mons
ters have done to them?”

  Dave wondered why Calvin had decided to murder the child he’d used as a morbid signpost for Dave to find. Had she given him some attitude? Or maybe fought back? Or did he kill her because it was more dramatic?

  Either way, Calvin couldn’t die soon enough for Dave’s liking.

  “What happened to him?” Dave asked. “Hatch?”

  “He killed himself,” Audrey replied.

  Dave nodded.

  “I want in,” Audrey said. “Whatever you guys are planning, I want to be a part of it.”

  “Me too,” Gia said. “Calvin needs to pay for what he did.”

  Dave shook his head. “No way. Thanks for the information, but Johnny and I aren’t taking on any more liabilities.”

  “We’re not liabilities,” Audrey said.

  “What happened back at the butcher shop?” Dave asked. “You froze.”

  Audrey’s lips formed a thin line. “I didn’t freeze.”

  “That’s not the way I saw it.”

  “She did take out that runner outside as we were leaving,” Johnny added.

  “You’re not helping.”

  Johnny shrugged. “Just saying, man.”

  “That was different,” Audrey said. “I thought you two were with Calvin…that he’d come back to finish the job. And then the carriers showed up and things got complicated.”

  “And something like that is bound to happen again,” Dave said. “Finding Calvin won’t be easy. Killing him will be even harder. It’s going to take everything we have to pull it off, and I can’t be responsible for protecting the two of you.”

  “You don’t need to protect me,” Gia said. “I can take care of my damn self.”

  Johnny chuckled, as a grin spread across his face.

  Gia’s eyes narrowed. “What’s so funny, asshole?”

  “I like her,” Johnny said, turning to Dave. “I say bring ‘em along. Why not?”

  “We don’t have the resources for them to tag along, even if we wanted them to,” Dave said. “Which we don’t.”

  “They’d have to pull their own weight, of course,” Johnny said. He turned to the girls. “You got any supplies back there in that town of yours? Food, water, matches, ammo…shit like that? Anything you can bring to the table to make your case?”