Death and Biker Gangs (Grave New World)

by S. P. Blackmore

You never forget your first sucker-punch.

  I forced my eyes open. Everything blurred together, but several figures hovered around me, and I heard the faint barking of the dog.

  “Just breathe through it,” Tony called to me. “Don’t pass out.”

  “Dude, you are not helping,” Dax said. They sounded like they were in the same general vicinity, though I couldn’t see them yet.

  “Sorry about that,” the first voice said. Boots passed in front of me. “Hamstring gets a little excited at times, doesn’t he?”

  “F…fu…” Damn, I couldn’t even curse at him. Hamstring? What the fuck kind of name is Hamstring? I shut my eyes again. My hearing was steadily improving, and something kept scraping along the deck outside. The dog alternately snarled and whimpered from not too far away. Maybe she was stuck in a corner somewhere?

  Thump. Thump. A steady, rapid pounding issued from the front of the house, as though a tree was banging against the door…or dozens of reanimated bodies had realized that yes, there really were people in here, and boy, did we sound tasty.

  I opened my eyes.

  A tall, thin man smiled down at me. His pale gray hair stuck up in thick spikes, and a narrow black goatee adorned a pointy chin. He didn’t look like much of a biker, if he was one; so far the whole biker crowd was turning out to be most disappointing.

  “Blair was adamant there was a woman. I’m glad he wasn’t just hallucinating.” He lifted a chunk of my hair away from my face, his brow furrowing. “You don’t look like you have syphilis, though.”

  I guessed that meant my hives were almost gone.

  “Vibeke, meet Arthur,” Tony said. “He’s a bit peeved at us. Apparently Blair was a good friend of his.”

  “Oops,” I muttered. Arthur, didn’t Gloria warn me about Arthur? This week kept getting worse.

  Arthur tugged sharply on my hair, and I squeaked in spite of myself. “You really should just hack this off. What if a dead man grabs it?”

  The endtimes can take my clear skin, but they’ll never take my hair. I still couldn’t work up the lung power to verbally abuse him the way I wanted, so I settled for a grunt.

  Arthur released me and strolled in the other direction.

  Gloria Fey’s waiting outside. Vijay is clearing out the revenants there, and he’s going to come looking…isn’t he?

  I ran a brief damage check. I could wiggle my fingers and toes, and I could probably roll over with some effort. I slowly edged my fingers along the dusty floor, feeling around for my gun.

  Something thumped around on the back porch.

  I knew that shuffle—the slow, steady scraping, the uncertain tottering. There was a revenant out there, and I’d left the door wide open. Get up, Vibeke, get up.

  Tony and Dax were tied up a few feet away from me, just outside the den. You okay? Dax mouthed at me.

  I couldn’t exactly shrug in my position, so I tried to smile. I probably looked like I was about to puke.

  Dax’s hands moved slightly within his bonds, but he pointedly was not looking down. Instead, he and Tony stared at something behind me.

  The back porch squeaked as something moved across it slowly. I guess it’s too much to hope that it’s Vijay…

  Evie barked and howled from behind a closed door near the guys.

  Hamstring stood off to the right as Arthur paced back and forth. I didn’t see any other guards, but with Tony half-crippled, maybe they didn’t need the help.

  How the hell am I supposed to get out of this one? I turned my head just enough to see the dead man hovering in doorway, looking over all of us.

  The ghoul shuffled around, its shoes rasping against the dried wood. It seemed more interested in Arthur than me—after all, I was lying there like a dead fish—but if it tripped over me, I’d be upgraded to the main course.

  I pulled my legs up closer to my torso, pushing the gun out from underneath me.

  Tony cleared his throat. “There’s a zombie on the back porch.”

  Arthur pivoted and looked out the door. “Oh, that’s just Raul. Christine is out there with him somewhere.”

  Tony nodded, then took a deep breath.

  Before I could even lift my head, he got his knees under him and hurled himself at Arthur.

  I don’t know how he managed to move that fast with the bad leg, but he did strike Arthur square in the chest.

  Fuck it, why not? I kicked my right leg out, catching Hamstring behind the knee. My arms jerked out seemingly of their own accord, pushing me up off the floor and scooping up the rifle. Hamstring started turning around, his head slowly leading his shoulder. On my right, Raul decided all this commotion was worth investigating and stepped over the threshold.

  No time to think. No time to breathe. What do you do when you’re in between the two evils? Shoot the faster one.

  I rocked back on my heels, then threw myself at Hamstring. He reached for me, but I ducked under his hands and rammed the rifle’s barrel into his kidney area.

  He sagged sideways, giving me time to whirl around and unload on Raul. The shot skipped off the ghoul’s face, tearing through the left side of his jaw. His mouth fell open, dangling by a few shreds of tendon and skin.

  Well, he probably wouldn’t be biting down on me anytime soon. I shoved him back out onto the porch and slammed the door.

  A huge, meaty fist flew toward my face. I saw it coming and snapped my head aside, skittering a foot or so to the left to avoid the punch entirely.

  It only took a bunch of direct hits to teach me to dodge. Nice. I lifted my gun and slammed the stock into Hamstring’s head.

  The gun against his skull sounded like a coconut slamming into a countertop. The big biker dropped to his knees.

  I didn’t have the heart to shoot him. Not yet. I left him on the floor and turned to the boys, intending to save them in a similarly glorious fashion.

  Arthur had Tony pinned down, a pistol pressed against his chin. “One wrong move and his brains go poof,” he said. “You folks don’t think things through, do you?”

  “I’m spontaneous,” Tony said.

  I looked between the two of them, trying to decide if I could plug Arthur without nailing Tony in the process. At the rate I was going, probably not.

  Dax kept fiddling with his bonds, but no one else seemed to notice. Hurry up, Boy Scout.

  Glass broke in the front room, followed by the sound of splintering wood. I jerked the gun to the side. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Oh, more of Arthur’s pets are on the front porch.” I couldn’t tell if Tony was giving the stinkeye to Arthur or me. “I forgot to tell you.”

  I must have done a decent job on his leg if he was still up to acting like a douchebag.

  “We appear to be at an impasse,” Arthur said.

  Hamstring’s hand closed around my knee. I thunked the stock against his knuckles, then slammed it into his face again. “Stay down or I’ll knock your damned teeth out,” I growled.

  “Why not just shoot him?” Arthur smiled icily, twisting the muzzle against Tony’s chin. “That’s not a bad rifle you’ve got there. Too heavy by half, but plenty of stopping power. You’re so very brave with it when you face the undead, but can you point it at a living man and pull the trigger?”

  The proper response would have been to let the gun do the talking and pop the asshole in the face, but I wasn’t all that sure I could hit him and not Tony. “I already have,” I said. Those poor saps back in Astra would attest to that. Their deaths seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Tony let out an exasperated-sounding sigh. “I am damn tired of having guns pointed at me all the time. If you’re gonna pop me, then fucking do it so I can reanimate and eat your ass.”

  “Oh, my boy, you’re in no place to be making demands.” Arthur hunched over him, seemingly oblivious to the crashing sounds from the front of the house. “You killed my pets, you killed my friend…hell, you fed Blair’s cousins to ferals. That’s downright indecent.”

  “Be
cause sending us a human head is the height of civilized society?”

  The front door splintered and partially caved in, and a sea of undead arms reached through the gaps. I whirled around just in time to see the hinges give way.

  The door came crashing down into the front foyer, bringing at least six revenants with it. I leaped to the kitchen doorway, gun at the ready. Man, there was going to be hell to pay once my adrenaline crashed.

  The first ghoul to get up had been a paramedic. Her uniform hung in rags from her frame, and flaps of skin had come loose from her hands, revealing rotten muscles and patches of bone underneath. I’m sorry, lady, I thought at her, squeezing the trigger.

  “Vibby, behind—”

  They kept coming. “Arthur!” I called. “How about we continue this conversation elsewhere?”

  I sensed someone behind me and started to turn, but Hamstring’s giant arms wrapped around me, pinning the gun down against my torso. “How about you just shut up?” he asked, lifting me off the ground.

  Holy shit, this was one strong dude. My ribs creaked, pressing down on my lungs and driving out any oxygen I’d managed to recoup.

  Son of a bitch, I should have shot you. I kicked frantically, but only struck at air.

  “Let her go, you sick fuck!” Tony barked. I heard a thunk, as if Arthur had smacked him with the gun. Damn, we were all getting pistol-whipped these days.

  Hamstring carted me into the front room, and the reek of decaying flesh and filthy clothing almost made my eyes water. “How about I feed her to them, boss?”

  “Let her go!” Tony called.

  The ghouls lumbered closer. Breathing in only made Hamstring clench me tighter. Stars swam in front of my eyes.

  My tentmate, Augusta, had been an ardent student of self-defense before the endtimes came. Go limp when someone grabs you, she told me once. Odds are they’ll loosen up.

  I let the rifle slip until it dangled by its strap.

  Arthur said something about needing women, but I couldn’t make out his exact words. A dull roar had built up in my ears, almost like the crashing of the ocean. I wonder if the ocean is still there…

  I stopped struggling, letting my body sag.

  Hamstring’s grip on me loosened immediately, and I was able to take a tiny, tiny gasp of air. Then another.

  My head cleared slightly. Hell, I was half his size; he probably figured I was done fighting. Underestimate me, you piece of shit? My left hand grazed my pistol, but I kept my body lax, letting him carry me toward the zombies.

  How the hell am I supposed to get out of this one?

  “Dude, we can make a deal,” Dax said. “Don’t let him do it.”

  Hamstring let me slide down a little bit more, probably getting ready to swing me back and toss me to the horde. The pistol was suddenly right there by my palm. The gun had been briefly submerged, but maybe I’d get lucky.

  “Hamstring,” Arthur called again. “Get back here!”

  Hamstring stopped moving. “Come get it, deadies!”

  Ah, hell, here goes nothing. I yanked the pistol out of its holster, jammed it back into his gut as far as I could, and pulled the trigger.

  The gun bucked right out of my hand. Blood sprayed out across the floor, and Hamstring heaved, abruptly releasing me. I landed hard on my knees, sucking in as much air as I could. I snatched up the pistol and took a shot at the nearest zombie, but the bullet glanced off the doorway instead of its head. I scrambled backward on the floor, dragging the rifle by its shoulder strap.

  Hamstring’s voice curdled into a scream when the revenants fell upon him. I got to my feet and wavered for a few seconds, struggling to pull in air, to calm my pounding heart, to push aside the screams of the man being eaten alive on the floor. It was him or me. Him or me.

  Everything hurt. Ibuprofen wasn’t going to solve this for me.

  Neither would standing around.

  I stuffed the pistol into its holster and picked up the rifle, trying to tune out the sound of chewing and the wet tearing noises that now filled the main room.

  I staggered back into the kitchen, probably looking a lot like a ghoul myself.

  The three living men gaped at me. “You just don’t stay down, do you?” Arthur asked.

  I think I saw genuine pride in Tony’s eyes as I pointed the gun at Arthur’s head. “What do you want, you fucker?” I demanded, too angry to feel any fear anymore.

  “Atta girl,” Tony said.

  Aside from some surprise that I was still mobile, Arthur seemed largely unmoved by my badassery. “What do I want? I want justice. You three came to my city, unloaded your damned guns into my men, and killed my friend.” He smiled at me, prodding Tony’s chin with his pistol. “I want good old-fashioned vengeance. Just like Spartacus.”

  Hamstring shrieked. Holy fuck, how long did it take for two dozen zombies to kill someone?

  I tried to hold the gun steady, but the seed of doubt rooted itself in my brain, feeding off the questions I’d been dodging right along. Tony killed all those men to get to me, didn’t he?

  Tony must have seen the look on my face. “Vibby, I swear to God, now is not the time to grapple with moral issues.”

  No. No, it wasn’t. They had come after us. We hadn’t been looking for trouble. No. No way. That was an accident…it was all an accident…

  Arthur yanked on Tony’s hair, grinning at me from over his shoulder. “Think you’re going to shoot me? What if you hit him, instead?”

  Tony made a vague effort to pull away. “I’m surprisingly all right with that.”

  Hamstring let out a surprisingly powerful-sounding bellow. “Fucking help me!”

  I didn’t look over my shoulder. If I looked back now, I’d probably try to help the fucker.

  Arthur fixed his stare on me. “Oh, stop looking so tortured, woman. You think you’re any better than me? What did you do to Hamstring?” He straightened up and looked behind me, though I didn’t think he could see the unfolding carnage in the main room. His lips pursed in distaste. “You really do have a thing for ferals, don’t you?”

  Hamstring’s screams terminated in a wet-sounding rip as something finally tore out his throat. I kicked the kitchen door shut, though I knew damn well the flimsy material wouldn’t hold them off for long.

  I am not dying like this. I am not dying like this after this piece of shit day. “What is it you want, you sick fuck?”

  At least my voice didn’t shake.

  “He doesn’t really want anything,” Dax said, his bound hands springing apart. He reached underneath his bulky jacket and came up with a pistol. “He’s just a goddamn dick.”

  Arthur began turning his way.

  Dax’s finger switched off the safety. Then he lifted the pistol and shot Arthur in the head.

  Arthur had time to look startled before the bullet sped through his skull, making his head snap to the side. He weaved back and forth for a moment, then toppled gracelessly to the side.

  I would have dropped my rifle if I hadn’t heard the zombies singing in the foyer. Hey, look, something finally went right for us!

  Tony lifted his restrained hands and swiped the crimson gore that had abruptly landed on his face. He finally gave up, staring up at Dax with something very close to astonishment. “Um. Thanks?”

  I hadn’t realized Dax had it in him, either. “Yeah, what he said.”

  Dax sniffed. “He had it coming.”

  Tony held out his hands. “Maybe you could…y’know…”

  “Here.” Dax pulled something sharp-looking out of his sleeve and went to work on Tony’s bindings. “Told you I had marketable skills.”

  “You’re supposed to tell us these things before shit hits the fan.”

  “Well, if you’d wait twenty seconds before picking a fight…”

  Several revenants began hurling themselves against the kitchen door, no doubt attracted by the shooting. I turned around to face the door, my hands tightening around my rifle. “Guys? We should get out of
here.”

  “Kids, I think we’re going to have to sell the house.” Tony staggered to his feet and flung open the door to the den. Evie burst out, alternating between whimpers and pleading howls. I reached down to pet her, but she twisted away, rushing back and forth between the three of us. Tony patted her head, then pushed her gently aside when she began licking the blood away from his hands. “How many of his buddies are out there?” he asked

  “No one living, but there’s a few deadies on the prowl,” Vijay said from the back porch. He pushed the door open all the way, then stepped back when Evie rushed up to him, her tail wagging fast enough to knock over chairs. “Hi, puppy! Whoa, whose blood is that?”

  I pointed at Arthur. “No one friendly.”

  Vijay nodded, then reached over to rub a relatively blood-free spot on Evie’s neck. “I didn’t know you had a dog! By the way, did you guys know there’s a zombie in a ballgown in your backyard?”

  Some morbid part of me really enjoyed post-apocalyptic discussion.

  “That must be Christine,” Dax said. “Jackass liked musicals.”

  I’m sure we all would have had a good chuckle at that, but the ghouls kept hammering at the door. I couldn’t decide whether I ought to hug Vijay or punch him. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “Clearing out the mess on the street. Gloria managed to draw a lot of them off to another street, but they’ll start converging again soon.” He glanced at Arthur’s body in the middle of the room and apparently decided to broach the uncomfortable conversation. “So. Who’s that and what’d he do to you?”

  “That was apparently Arthur,” I said.

  Vijay’s face split into an incredulous smile. “For real?”

  Tony hobbled up to me, leaned heavily against my shoulder, and cleared his throat. “Who’s your new pal, and why does he know Arthur?”

  Oops. I was being rude. “This is Vijay. He gave me a hand when I was, uh, up a tree.”

  It got quiet, aside from the crashing and wailing in the foyer.

  “Up a tree?” Tony finally asked.

  “Long story,” Vijay said. “Nice to meet you guys. What happened to your leg?”

  “Long story.” Dax joined us, pulling the dog’s leash out from under his jacket. What else did he have stuffed under there? “We gotta get out of here. Evie, sit.”