by Javan Bonds
His jaw dropped. She smiled to answer his unspoken question. “And yes, I can read your mind.” The captain paused and pointed a finger at him. “Stop thinking that!”
The mayor interrupted the banter between the captain and his son. “That’s good to know …” He caught himself. “I mean, I’m glad we found out who he is before we dispose of the body. I called you down here to ask you about that.”
“What happened to him?” Hammer wondered out loud.
Mo teased. “Aww, are you sad you lost your boyfriend?”
She was about to retort when Randy answered her. “He’s the bastard that killed Georgia.”
This statement was met with the captain’s gasp and Mo’s derisive slur against the deceased. Mayor Collins continued solemnly, “I had to blow his head off. Earl had to die.”
The Expert looked again at the body and frowned. She knew Earl was not a very good person but had no idea he was capable of murder. The captain smiled stubbornly. “Goodbye Earl.”
4
It Gets The Hose Again
ROBERT COE CLIMBED down from his perch in the passenger seat of the massive Nissan Titan. The gray truck was mountainous compared to the much smaller pickup he had acquired for his own use until yesterday. It disappeared around the same time as his first housemate and only other survivor from his original group which started in Gadsden. Mortimer Lester. The truck was completely meaningless to him. It could be replaced, while the grandfatherly man could not. He was really worried about Mortimer. What if the old man had fallen and needed some help? AH, Mortimer wouldn’t ask for help even if he needed it.
Crystal certainly wasn’t worried about the geriatric. Robert’s island wife didn’t care for the creepy old guy and was happy to be free of him. However, he could see some good in it also. At least the two of them had the house to themselves.
They had certainly been taking advantage of that luxury. At every opportunity. There was no way Crystal was not carrying his child by now and they would know for sure someday soon. They were not the only ones who were fucking like rabbits on the island. Crystal was going to be a mother in the coming baby boom.
The island was supposed to receive electricity by the end of the day. Everything was working out great, even considering the zombie apocalypse. Most of the world had died in the past month, but Robert was having a pretty good life. He just missed the only survivor from his original group. Mortimer had put Delilah Weed down after she was bitten. The old man was Robert’s only connection to life before the island. That life may have been consumed with barely surviving, but it was life.
He was shaken from his reverie as Dane Shirley came around the front of the truck. He gestured with his rifle and pointed at the house in front of them. “Dude! Come on, let’s move.”
Dane, a former football star, was a swarthy skinny guy with close-cropped, curly black hair. A knee injury ruined any future career in football, so he had taken a job at the local brake manufacturing plant. Robert considered them fast friends, but he held a natural contempt for the younger man, even though he thought the guy was okay. He could tell that Dane was the kind of guy that got laid more through one year of high school than Robert had in his entire life. As straight as Robert was, he could see Dane was the type of guy any female would find completely irresistible and he was unconsciously envious.
Robert shook his head before moving up to the porch with Dane. This would be a typical raid on another dwelling, like the dozens of other houses Robert had searched through recently. They weren’t burglars. Though it was saddening to realize that just over one month ago they would have been put in jail for what they were doing. Now they saw themselves as scavengers taking the relics of the old world to provide for those in need today. Sure, they had run across a few peevies through their salvaging trips, but there had been no huge infestations up to this point. Robert was not expecting anything spectacular as they looked in through the front windows.
Robert stood centered to the front door and thought about what he should do. Kick? Body slam? Shoot the lock? He made the decision to bash the butt of his rifle into and around the knob. After a few damaging slams to the knob, the door popped open. This was much quieter than sending a rifle round through the locking mechanism.
“Holy fuck!” As soon as the door opened, Robert almost fell over backwards. Dane was even gagging, nowhere in the direct line with the door.
Doubled over and gasping in front of the window, Dane hollered, “That’s fucking terrible! Is the house full of dead peevies? I don’t even wanna go in. Let’s just set the damn place on fire and leave.”
Robert shook his head. That smell could only mean one thing. There were undead here. If they were here, there must be something that interested them at this residence. If they were interested, the grounds had to be investigated. Maybe they would discover something important. “This is our mission. We can’t just leave it unfinished.” He spoke to boost his new friend’s morale.
Robert had experienced all types of indescribably horrible aromas since he had been scavenging, but this certainly took the cake. It wasn’t simply pounds upon pounds of the oozing bowel butter that the reanimates constantly excreted from their rectums. He had taken in the gut-wrenching stench of those that had decided to take the easy way out when the outbreak was sweeping through. As disgusting as the smell was, it was worse than that of a rotting body baking in an enclosed room for over a month. He had found one body that had been infested with maggots. The tiny white grubs were eating their way through the guts of a corpse with a 357-sized hole in its head and a stink that made one’s hair curl. It had taken the first place prize for the worst thing he had ever smelled. That is, until he opened this door.
Because of the smells, he had devised a solution. He started carrying a container of Vicks VapoRub in his pocket. He hurriedly rubbed a fingerful under his nose and offered it to Dane. The other man was grateful and coated his upper lip.
The two of them entered the average-sized, brick house. There was no denying the former owner was a hoarder. The shelves and tables in the first room, the living room, were covered in all types of knickknacks and worthless trinkets. Judging by the insane amount of pictures on every wall and nearly every surface, this had to be the former home of an old person. Small children roughhousing, playing sports, swimming, visiting the zoo and every other possible activity in which they could be involved were featured in the uncountable pictures. Someone loved their grandchildren. At least, before human flesh rose to the top of the menu. Then, they probably loved them in an entirely different way.
It was amazing the photos had remained pristine. Somehow they and everything else were not plastered with a thick coating of the black tar that was peevie poop. The room opened up to the dining room/kitchen to the right. All the cabinets would obviously need to be searched, but the rest of the house needed to be investigated first. The source of that smell had to be discovered. The entire room was not almost ankle-deep with the vomit-inducing filth as Robert had expected. This looked like the house of any elderly person before the zombie apocalypse. Side-by-side, they moved through the untarnished room to the door straight in front of them.
They each leaned against a jam, looking down either end of the hallway which this door led to. There was what looked to be a bedroom at one end with two other rooms on either side of that end of the hallway. The hallway ended on the opposite side and directly to the right from where they stood. It opened to a large, naturally lit room surprisingly not full of garbage. The fact nothing in the room was topped with a dose of what looked like melted Oreos sprinkles only added to the peculiarity.
The two survivors nodded at each other to indicate they both heard what sounded like shuffling and bare feet smacking against a perfectly clean, hardwood floor. Of course the sound wasn’t coming from the room bathed in sunlight. It had to be coming from the darkened, cavernous rooms on the opposite end of the hallway. The Screenwriter never seemed to ease up. It wasn’t unheard of, but certa
inly unusual to come across a revenant alert and active during daylight hours. There had to be a reason for the activity. Robert would’ve wiped his nose to regain his sense of smell, but he knew that even if he did he wouldn’t be able to smell anything other than what had to be metric tons of manure.
Robert was about to step into the hall and make his way down the short corridor. But before he could take a step, he heard a man’s voice growing in intensity from one of the rooms before him. The voice was mumbling some old Eighties song, doing a bad job of carrying a tune: “Oh no sir, I must say you’re wrong. I must disagree. Oh no sir, I must say you’re wrong. Won’t you listen to me?” Robert had the strangest feeling he had heard that song in some old movie.
He crouched and motioned for Dane to step back. A completely naked blond man with a fluffy, yellow boa around his neck came out of the door to Robert’s left and walked directly into the room at the end of the hall. Though he only briefly saw the man’s profile, he could see that the man was sexually aroused. His brow furrowed, trying to make sense of what he’d just seen. Should I say something to this guy? He may need help! Robert thought about it for the briefest of seconds before gesturing to Dane to go hide behind the recliner on the opposite side of the room.
☠☠☠
The confused pair waited for what seemed an eternity, then peeked over the back of the cushioned chair. Finally, the same nude man, minus the boa, passed the doorway. “Goodbye horses. I’m flying over you. Goodbye horses. I’m flying over you …” The man continued to mumble the creepy song. He walked straight past, into the naturally lit room. Dane looked at his friend as if to ask, “Why the fuck is that dude naked?”
Robert could only shrug.
☠☠☠
After several minutes of nothing but silence, the scavengers moved from behind their cover and crouched at the door. Both took the same side of the door and peered down both ends of the hall. Nothing. Dane whispered a command and they cautiously moved to follow the naked man. The room to their immediate right was completely empty. Other than a desk cluttered with pictures of children, and a daybed nearly flush with the window, the room was empty. The target of their search had walked through this room and into the next. The door was standing open.
Peering through the doorway, they could see another door to their immediate right leading to the dining room. Straight in front of the opening was a short set of carpeted stairs leading down to a large room leading to another open door. This couldn’t be a basement. What the hell is this? Robert thought.
The room was as clean as the rest of the house, and they crept past a small laundry room to their left and on to the next door. Over this threshold was an even larger sunroom, lined on three walls with windows. Sunlight washed the entire room and no sound came from within. This was beyond weird. Did the naked man leave the house?
They made their way around a short bar and turned left. The exit to the building was straight ahead but there was a closed door ahead and to their left. Robert would have bet money their objective went through that entry way.
Robert cracked the door open to see stairs that led down even further. This was obviously the basement. The stairwell was dark and the Vicks must have been wearing off. This was definitely the source of the horrid stench. Animal shrieks and frightened barks could be heard coming from below. Robert’s immediate instinct was to charge down to defend the helpless, naked man. After a moment of thought, he realized that maybe it wasn’t the man that needed help.
The duo looked around the left corner at the bottom of the stairs to see the man leaning over, talking to someone or something. There were several battery-powered floodlights around the point of interest. He was definitely looking down some type of deep cavern, possibly a well.
“It’s okay, precious. Shush.” The man put his finger to his lips and tried to quiet what sounded like a screaming blunatic down below. “Here, this will help!” He lowered a bucket on a rope. The bucket contained something that was drawing flies.
The man turned and stood, facing Robert’s direction. He gripped his erect penis and slowly stroked it. Robert had had enough. He stood and stepped out into the open. “What the fuck are you doing, man?”
The man was startled and rapidly lost his boner. “Nothing! None of your business. I’m just helping a friend of mine. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“We were scavenging. We didn’t expect to find anyone. Why the hell are you living here? Don’t you know there are zombies?”
The man interrupted him, spitting with rage. “Don’t call them that! They’re nothing to be afraid of. They’re my friends.”
Robert cocked an eyebrow, confused. “‘Friends?’ Like all the pictures of the kids?” Robert was alarmed by this freak.
The man shot back, “Those are my nieces and nephews! This is my mother’s house, you bastard.” He looked down into the hole, getting aroused again. He quickly turned back to Robert. “You’re not welcome! Get out now.”
Robert surely wanted to get out as soon as possible, but first he had to ask the question on both the interlopers’ minds. “Why? What’s in there?” He gestured his rifle to the well and started inching forward.
The man spread his arms in front of the hole as if to keep Robert back. “Nothing! I told you I’m helping a friend.”
Trying not to think about it, Robert shoved the nude individual out of the way to see for himself. He had seen people do strange things, but this was the sickest and most twisted fetish possible. He was stunned into brief silence.
A peevie stood at the bottom of a deep, stonewalled well. Black feces were pooled up to its ankles. It was clear that this monster had not had much to eat. This guy was starving it! What the hell for? A rhyming phrase about lotion kept running across his mind.
“What the fuck is this? You sick mother–”
The deflating man began pushing him backwards to the stairs. “Leave! You’re not supposed to be here. Just let us go about our business.”
Robert backpedaled over countless reeking splashes of feces. The disgusting pervert must have been using the same food bucket he lowered to the peevie to drain the level of manure rising in the well. He didn’t want his little friend to drown on shit. Why was he keeping a phage carrier prisoner?
In the instant Robert was being pushed back, Dane sprang forward to intervene. “Back the fuck off, creep!” He reached to push the nude pervert back. The guy grabbed Dane’s web gear and slung his arm behind him. Dane tripped on the uneven floor as he tried to stop himself from toppling into the well. He screamed as he fell, bashing his face and every other part of his body against the rough walls. Blood and teeth were sent flying as he continually banged all around the well. He finally grew silent before hitting the bottom. Robert knew his friend was dead as the blue scourge took a bite of the collapsed body and continued to rip flesh from bone. The only solace that could be taken was that Dane did not have to endure lying in a puddle of diarrhea until he turned.
Robert narrowed his eyes at the man. “Why the fuck did you do that? You just killed him!”
“It would never happen if you had just left!”
The deranged psycho lunged for Robert’s pistol. Thankfully, Robert already had his rifle in hand. He shot the man once in the chest, causing him to start toppling back. Three more in the torso, and one in the crotch and each leg. Robert continued squeezing the trigger until he clicked empty. The man lost his footing and fell backwards into the well. He never crashed against the walls, but when his limp corpse bloofed against the substance at the bottom, the revenant moved from Dane to a fresh drop. Gnashing teeth tore skin and bloody muscle as the zombie ate to its blackened heart’s content.
“I just killed a man,” Robert stated, clearly in shock. He had been deer hunting before the zombie apocalypse and had recently killed his share of peevies. But this was the first human he’d ever put down. He hoped it was what the guy deserved for what he had done to Dane.
He walked to the edge of the deep
hole and looked down at the animal. It was going to town on the buffet, digging into the ruined bodies, mixing the warm blood with cold shit. He aimed his rifle at the head of the former human. “You can be at peace now, too.” He pulled the trigger when the thing briefly looked up to see what was making the noise. The bullet struck directly in the nose, folding in the face as it drove through sinuses and sank into the brain. The animal collapsed, making only a final sputtering from its rectum.
Robert stood and turned to go upstairs. The kitchen is probably worth checking out. Maybe I’ll find something Mortimer would like.
As he exited the basement, he tried to put his mind somewhere else. To think of anything other than what had just happened. He walked up the carpeted steps and made a split-second decision to pass the dining room door and head to the hallway he’d originally came through. He walked directly to the end of the hall and turned to his left, entering the room he had seen the naked psycho exit when he first set eyes on him. What the hell was this creep doing in here?
Robert walked a little slower when he saw dozens of pairs of women’s high-heeled shoes aligned against the wall. Next in the line of strangeness was a full-length mirror with kisses of lipstick on the glass. This was followed by a rack draped in several colorful boas, scarves, bonnets, and coats. The bathroom back and to his left was loaded with all types of makeup and feminine hygiene products. Of course, the closet was crammed with all kinds of miniskirts, hilariously extravagant blouses, and numerous fur coats. What. The. Fuck?
If the guy was gay, it wasn’t Robert’s concern. He always thought of himself as a “live and let live” kind of guy. Cross-dresser? A little weird. He was glad not to find hard-core gay pornography plastered on the walls. He was thinking the guy was just a tad freaky until he stepped in front of the full-length mirror.
Jesus! Why would anyone … That guy deserved to die. The mirror reflected what lay behind a room divider which had blocked his view when he entered the room. There was a rack of blue, leather bodysuits. He instantly realized that wasn’t cowhide but another type of animal skin.