by Jake Bible
“Charlie,” she gasped. “Check on Charlie.”
“The boy bro is all good,” Barfly said as he came over and stood over us. “He’s breathin’.”
“Mom! Dad!” Greta shouted as she was let go and ran to us.
Barfly crouched down next to me and grinned. It was not a good grin.
“Now, Long Pork bro,” he said. “You and your family bros are going to come back to camp with me and my peeps. Then we’ll have a little sit down and pow-wow about how you can get us the power and the plumbin’.”
“The what?” I asked. “Power and plumbing?”
“Yep, yep, yep,” Barfly nodded. “The crazy chick bro told me all about that brain and how it can get the power back on and make the plumbin’ work so we ain’t walkin’ in shit up to our ankles, bro. No one likes walkin’ in shit up to their ankles. Right, bro?”
I didn’t know if he was asking “right” about the shit and ankles or “right” about me getting the power and plumbing working, so I just said, “Yeah. Right, bro.”
“Good,” Barfly said and slapped me on the shoulder. “Now get your ass up, Long Pork bro. We got a hike ahead of us, bro.”
“What about Charlie?” I asked, pointing at my still unconscious son.
“We got him, bro,” Barfly said as he snapped his fingers and the Weird Sisters that had held Greta went over and picked up Charlie like he was made of nothing. “All good, bro?”
“Far from it,” I said. “But you’re in charge, so it will do.”
“That’s right, bro,” Barfly nodded, his grin turning into something way worse. “I’m in charge. Never forget that, bro, unless you want your girl bros to be the next lunch. Cool, bro?”
“Cool,” I said. “Lead the way.”
“Hey! I found it!” Mr. Flips suddenly announced as the first bars of Sweet Caroline started to play. “A little walking music for you folks! Good luck, Stanfords!”
Yeah...good luck.
Chapter Eight
The trek to the Crossville Cookers’ camp was a bit of a blur, not just because I was exhausted and terrified, as were Stella and Greta, or because Charlie had still not regained consciousness. No, it was a blur because my scalp just would not stop bleeding and blood was constantly streaming into my eyes.
So, literally a blur.
“Can I have a towel or something?” I asked. “I really need to stop the bleeding.”
“A towel?” Barfly laughed. “We don’t waste towels on blood, bro. Rub some dirt on it.”
“Ha, ha,” I replied. “Good one.”
“What, bro?” Barfly asked. He stopped and the whole party stopped. “What’s a good one?”
“To rub some dirt on it,” I said. “Uh...I thought you were making a joke.”
“No joke, bro,” Barfly responded as he reached down, grabbed a handful of dirt, and rubbed it all over my head. “See? Dirt, bro. Won’t bleed no more.”
I wanted to wipe the dirt from my scalp, but I could see that Barfly was pretty damned proud of himself for that move, so I left it alone, which drove me nearly insane. I had freakin’ bloody mud on my head!
But I decided to choose a different battle.
“Any reason we have to walk? Don’t you have vehicles?” I asked.
“We got ‘em, bro,” Barfly replied, “but ain’t no need to waste the fuel, bro.”
“Seems like we’ve been hiking a while, though, and what with…”
“We keep hikin’, bro,” Barfly snapped. “We keep hikin’ and hikin’ until we get home. That’s how it works, bros. That’s how it works.”
Barfly yawned then gave me a quick smile.
“We’ll get you and your family bros all set up in camp,” he said. “You sleep, and then tomorrow you start work.”
“Yeah, I’m still not sure what I’m working on,” I said.
“Bringin’ the civilized world back to us Cookers, bro,” Barfly said. “Duh, bro. Duh.”
“Right. Duh. My bad, bro,” I replied.
“There ya go, bro,” Barfly nodded.
There I went...
It was about thirty minutes of steady hiking through tall pines and cedars before we got to the Cookers’ camp. The place was an old farm with two large barns in fairly good shape, surrounded by a shitload of mobile homes and RVs. The group we hiked there with split up and instantly went to their respective domiciles while Barfly led us over to one of the barns.
“You’ll sleep in here,” Barfly said as he opened one of the double doors. “I’ll take you to yer stall, bros.”
He stopped just inside the barn and lit a match before putting it to a lantern. The light was warm and soothing, but the scene we stepped into was far from that. Animal pens lined the barn on both sides and instead of pigs, cows, and horses there were people.
Lots of people.
Their eyes followed Barfly, or more precisely, they followed the steel rod he kept gripped in his hand. No one said a word; no one begged to be let go or cried out for mercy. They simply watched us walk past until we were at the very back of the barn and looking into a corner stall filled with hay and rough looking horse blankets.
The two Weird Sisters (still calling them that) set Charlie down on some of the hay, nodded to Barfly and hurried from the barn. For one brief second, I thought I could jump Barfly and take him out. He must have had the same thought, because in the next second, I found myself down on the ground, clutching my left thigh.
“What the fuck, dude?” I shouted.
“You were thinkin’ of takin’ me on, bro,” Barfly said. “Don’t lie about it. I know when a bro is coming for me, bro. I killed a lot of peeps in my time as Barfly. I seen the look a hundred times, bro. Peeps be makin’ moves on Barfly all the time, bro.”
“But I didn’t make a single move!” I yelled as the pain built in my leg. Fuck, steel rods hurt like a bitch! “You can’t smack a guy for thinking!”
Smack.
“FUCK!” I yelled as my left shoulder went numb from another shot.
“Stop it!” Stella cried.
“No, lady bro,” Barfly said. “You stop it.”
“Stop what?” Stella asked, her nerves frayed beyond breaking. “I haven’t done anything!”
“You bros are funny,” Barfly said. Then he smacked me again in the shoulder. “Get some sleep now, Long Pork bro. Tomorrow is a big day for that big brain.”
“Yeah...big day,” I gasped through the pain.
“And don’t be talkin’ to the meats, bro,” Barfly said. “Ain’t none of yer friends in here. That’s why I put ya in this stall. Can’t have ya plottin’ against me and my peeps.”
He turned and looked at the rows of pens.
“And they ain’t gonna talk to ya no how anyways,” he said. “Bros know that if they talk, they gets hurt bad, bro.Bad.”
There were a couple of whimpers and Barfly frowned. He moved forward as if he was going to hunt out the noisy culprits, but he stopped himself and focused back on us.
“Good night, bros,” he smiled. “Sleep tight.”
We stared at him and he stared back. There was quite a bit of staring until I realized what he was waiting for.
“Oh, right,” I smiled or tried to. “Good night, Barfly.”
“There ya go, bro,” Barfly said as he walked away, the steel rod swinging in one hand and the lantern in the other. “See ya in the mornin’, bros!”
“Good night, Barfly,” everyone in the pens said.
“Oh, Jesus…” Stella shivered as she huddled close to me.
Greta got in on the huddle and we all scooted close to Charlie. I hurt like a motherfuck, and Stella and Greta gripping me tight didn’t help, but I was glad my family was still alive and together, so I counted our ordeal in Cannibal Road as a win.
And there was Neil at the end, so that helped. If I see Flips again, I’ll thank him for that. Can’t let the gift of Neil go unnoticed.
***
“Time to get up, Long Pork bro,” Barfly said as he
jabbed me in the temple with his rod. His steel rod. I want that to be clear. He jabbed me with his steel rod.
“We gonna have a chat while we go look for some poachers,” Barfly said. “Come on, bro. Time be wastin’.”
“Gah,” was how I replied as I struggled to open my eyes. My head hurt so bad that even the sliver of lantern light that got between my lids was like a knife to the brain. “We what? Poachers?”
“Poachers, bro,” Barfly said then spit by his feet. “Fuckin’ poachers, bro.”
“Yes, I heard the word poachers,” I said as I rolled away from Stella and Greta who had both woken up and were staring at Barfly with a mix of horror and caution, two good things to mix in the apocalypse. “But why do you need me to go after poachers?”
“I don’t need you, bro,” he replied, stabbing me again with the rod. “I want to talk with you while we go find the poachers. Maximize my time, bro. I can’t be gang leader if I don’t maximize my time. Gotta have a schedule, bro. That’s just good business.”
“Yeah, of course it is,” I said as I struggled to stand. Several pairs of hands grabbed me and hauled me to my feet. That’s when I noticed we had company. I had been so focused on Barfly, and his steel rod, that I hadn’t noticed the cannies standing by us. “Thanks.”
“Aint’ no thing but a human wing,” a man said. Half his face was melted, as if someone had shoved him against a griddle or something.
“What happened?” I asked. I immediately regretted the question. Normally, I would never have asked that, but it was early and my brain was foggy as shit.
“Someone pushed my face against a hot griddle,” the man replied. “It hurt.”
Nailed it!
“I bet,” was how I replied. “Sorry.”
The man shrugged.
“You two bros done?” Barfly asked.
“Uh, yeah, sorry, Barfly,” the man responded.
“You better be, Griddles,” Barfly said.
“Griddles?” Again with the mouth opening unintentionally.
“That’s his name, bro,” Barfly said as he pointed towards the barn doors. “Duh, bro.”
“Duh, bro,” Griddles said as he shoved past me.
“My bad,” I said as hands pushed me forward. “Bros.”
I tried to glance back at Stella and Greta, but I got a smack upside the head for my troubles, so I just looked forward and went with the canny flow.
***
We were about forty minutes into our poacher catching expedition when Barfly finally spoke.
“We’re circling them, bro,” he said. “That’s why it’s takin’ so long.”
It was at that point, especially since my brain had had forty minutes to get clear, that I realized Barfly was a very perceptive man. He may have been crazy as shit, but he wasn’t stupid crazy. Every time I caught the man looking at me, I could have sworn he was reading my mind.
“Tell me about what you can do to get the power back on, Long Pork bro,” Barfly said.
“How do you know that’s my nickname?” I asked. “Tell me that first.”
“You don’t tell Barfly what to do!” a big guy named Falsey said. “Barfly tells you to tell him what to do!”
“I think you have that wrong,” I said.
My left arm went numb from a whack by Barfly’s steel rod.
“Leave Falsey alone, bro,” Barfly said. “His Mama rolled over on him when he was little and nappin’ in bed. Mucked up his brain. We don’t make fun of Falsey, got it bro?”
“Yeah, totally got it,” I said. “Wait...then you knew him before Z-Day.”
“Bad logic, bro,” Barfly said. “Someone told me that story.”
“Oh,” I nodded, not wanting to know more because-.
“His mama told me just before I gutted her and chopped her up,” Barfly said. “Falsey was one of my first peeps. He helped me butcher her up right.”
“The trick is to make an X,” Falsey said as he stopped and spread his legs and arms. “It stretches the meat and lets the blood drain faster and better.”
“You butchered your own mom?” I asked, almost stumbling over a tree root. “Seriously?”
“We was hungry,” Falsey said as he pointed at Barfly and smiled.
“We was hungry, bro,” Barfly agreed. “And she was fat.”
“Really fat,” Falsey said.
“She ate all the food and was gonna let us starve,” Barfly sighed. “Had to be done, bro. Had to be done.”
“Had to be done, bro,” everyone said. “Had to be done.”
“Right,” I said. “Shit has to be done sometimes.”
“Tell me about the power, bro,” Barfly ordered.
“Would you mind telling me who told you to call me Long Pork?” I asked, holding up my arm between Falsey and me. “And don’t hit me again! I’m just curious!”
“Crazy chick bro said so,” Barfly said. “Crazy chick bro also says you know all kinds of stuff and you built a whole neighborhood in Asheville. I wished I could see that. Lights and stereo and stuff.”
“You guys have lights and stereo and stuff on Cannibal Road,” I said. “How do you make that work?”
“That’s Mr. Flips,” Barfly replied. “He got it all worked out with lots of batteries from all the cars and these solar thingies. It works for the road, but that won’t work for the Cookers’ camp, bro. We need real power to draw on. Mr. Flips can turn on the lights and play some tunes, but it ain’t real power. I want you to get us real power, bro.”
“As opposed to imaginary power?” I said. Whack. “Ow!”
“You’re a right stupid smart ass, Long Pork bro,” Barfly said, the affability gone from his face. “Stop it, bro, or I stop caring about power and crack yer skull open so I can eat out yer brains.”
“With honey,” Griddles said.
“Yeah, with honey,” Barfly nodded. “The best way to eat raw brains. We gots some seriously good honey around here, bro.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t an electrical engineer. Whoever this “crazy chick bro” was, she was talking about me, was making shit up. And that made up shit was going to get me killed.
So it was time for the Jace Stanford brand of uber bullshit.
“What infrastructure do you already have in place?” I asked.
“Infrastructure?” Barfly asked. “What do you mean, bro?”
“I mean, how are things set up in your camp? It looks like an old farm, so there must be electrical wiring already in place. I’m sure there was power on that farm before Z-Day. Is there a backup generator somewhere, maybe? Or a windmill? Have you checked any of the wiring to make sure nothing is loose? What’s the status?”
Barfly laughed and the rest of the cannies joined in.
“What?” I asked. “What’s so funny?”
“I thought she was jokin’ about you, bro,” Barfly said as he got his chuckles under control. “All the things she said, I figured she was just sayin’ those things so she could get ya here and all. But, with the way ya talk, bro, I think she was on to somethin’.”
“Down,” Falsey whispered and everyone hit the ground.
I was a little slow and got yanked down to the ground hard for my tardiness. Since the person doing the yanking had hold of my one arm, I didn’t have anything to put out to stop my fall. My face hit dirt and I cried out then nearly suffocated when a hand was jammed around my mouth and nose. I had to pray that the hand’s owner would realize I would run out of air in a few seconds.
“There,” Falsey whispered as he pointed through the bushes. To my surprise, we were close to a rural highway and I could see the backs of six or seven people as they crouched in a ditch by the road. “Poachers.”
“Good job, bro,” Barfly said.
The hand let go of my mouth and I tried to ignore the level of dirt encrusted on it as it was removed from my view. I turned my attention to the road and tried to remember how far we had walked and in what direction. If I could get my bearing, maybe I could figure
out exactly where we were. Figuring that out would put us, as in the Stanfords, one step closer to a plan to get free.
Because that was all I could think about.
Fuck getting power or plumbin’ up and going for Barfly. Fuck dealing with poachers. Fuck not making fun of Falsey. All I gave a shit about was getting my family the hell away from Cannibal Road.
“Here they come,” Griddles whispered and pointed at the road.
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about at first, but then I heard the hushed voices as a small group of four people came into view. They were bloody, burned, and looked like they had maybe a mile left in them before they all fell over dead. The poachers in front of us tensed visibly and I could see they were about to go on the attack.
“Teach ‘em, Fasley,” Barfly grinned.
Falsey, who as I said earlier, was a big guy, stood up and it was then I realized just how big. He was easily six and a half feet tall, with wide shoulders and thick, thick arms. He was so top heavy that I thought he’d fall over at any second, but instead, he moved with a quickness and grace that you rarely saw with men that big.
While he had a certain sure footedness, he didn’t exactly have subtlety. He crashed through the bushes and descended on the poachers just as they stood up to attack the travelers on the road.
“Come on, Long Pork,” Barfly said. “Falsey has the poachers under control. We get to take down the prey.”
“We what?” I squawked. “I don’t want to take down anyone!”
“Tough shit, bro,” Barfly said. “You’re with us now, so you’re gonna take some survies down. Put yer all into it, Long Pork bro, or I chop off one of your little girl bro’s hands when we get back. Ya understand where I’m comin’ from, bro?”
“Yeah, I understand.”
Fuck.
I barely had time to glance at the poachers as Falsey tore them apart, limb from limb. Their screams were like ground glass in my ears, but it was the shocked and terrified faces on the survivors that really got to me.
Especially since, I knew them.
“Jace?” Scoot Fitzpatrick asked. Yeah, I knew him pretty fucking well. “Jace, what are…”
He never got a chance to finish his sentence as Barfly crushed his jaw with his steel rod. The three others, people I knew from the group of laborers that came down with the fake POTUS Mondello, all screamed as Scott’s jaw hung from his face by only a couple of tendons. They never got the chance to scream again.