by Ed Kurtz
“I think so,” Irma replied, and she made her way to the bottom rung. She was shaky and weak, but she made it to the surface. Arkansas reached down to help haul her out. Irma rested on her hands and knees for a moment before the totality of the hell surrounding her sunk in.
The massive walls surrounding the yard were topped with shredded clothes and shredded people, remnants caught in the razor wire. Nonetheless, dozens of people continued to crawl through and over the barrier, seemingly oblivious to the injury done to them as they dropped down to the yard below in twos and threes. Irma looked around the periphery, saw someone hanging from the wire by an arm tangled up in the razors. All around her, inmates fled in terror from the advancing hordes of…what?
The figure hanging from the wire kicked its legs and thrashed its head around wildly. Arkansas hooked her hands under Irma’s armpits and hefted her up to her feet.
“I know you’re freaked,” she said severely. “I’m freaked, too. But we got to get you into some clothes and get as far away from here as possible.”
“You mean break out?”
“We can walk out,” Arkansas said as she yanked Irma’s arm and dragged her toward the east side of the yard. “Look.”
The normally locked and heavily guarded triple gates that led to the front parking lot stood open. Women in olive uniforms sprinted through, even though a quarter of them were taken down by the same screeching, moaning people who came over the walls.
Irma let herself be dragged along until Arkansas came to an abrupt halt in front of the still form of an inmate on the grass. Arkansas knelt down and turned the woman over—half her face was gone, leaving exposed bone framed by a jagged, oozing red ring of skin. Irma gasped but Arkansas got to work undressing the corpse. She got the uniform off in no time and tossed it to Irma. Irma got dressed as Arkansas held one dock shoe in her hand and looked for the other.
Irma’s heart punched the inside of her chest and she looked around fearfully at the people running, shambling, falling, being attacked, getting savagely murdered.
“No time!” she shouted the moment she caught sight of three hunched silhouettes making their way toward them. She seized a fistful of Arkansas’s uniform and pulled her up. Without another word between them, the two women ran for the open gates, leaping over the ruined bodies that blocked their path like hurdles and never daring to slow their pace until the smoke and the lights and the nightmare chorus of a hundred shrieks of the women who didn’t make it were far behind them.
PART TWO
THE DEADBREAKERS
—One—
The Cycle Savages
By their second full day on the run, neither of them felt like escapees anymore. They felt like survivalists.
The siege on Northfork Women’s Pen was only a taste of what the outside had to offer Irma and Arkansas. The stumbling attackers were sparse on the prison grounds compared to what they found closer to town. The further they went, the less they were able to avoid the things, leaving them little choice but to fight. At length, Arkansas armed herself with a thick tree branch while Irma found a muffler in a drainage ditch. With these they barely escaped a horde of twenty or more screaming creatures that might have once been people. They sure as shit weren’t people anymore.
Deeming the roads unsafe, the women cut into the woods and headed southwest. They took turns sleeping, never for more than an hour and a half at a time. Irma’s feet were sliced to ribbons on the brambles and nettles and Arkansas begged her to take her shoes. Irma adamantly refused. As luck would have it, they came upon the remains of a stocky man in an orange hunting vest, his torso opened up like a medicine chest and cleaned out of all its contents. The dead man’s shoes were big on Irma, but she took them all the same. They also took the hunter’s Remington rifle, complete with scope.
They walked and walked, and during this time Arkansas told Irma everything that had happened while she was in the hole. Irma listened attentively, her face grave and sad. When Arkansas finished, Irma hauled a long breath into her lungs and said, “So this is it, huh? This is the end of the world.”
“Looks like it.”
A small sob rocked Irma’s otherwise rocky composure, but she pushed it back down and pressed on. After a while of nothing but the crunching forest detritus beneath their feet and the birdsong in the treetops, Irma said, “So what do you reckon they are? Demons?”
“Nah,” Arkansas disagreed. “Just people. People who don’t know they’re dead, so they’re still walking around.”
“And killing other people.”
“Yeah, there’s that.”
“And chewing them up, too.”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck me,” Irma said.
Deep into the woods—deep enough that neither woman knew which direction they were going anymore—Arkansas paused beside a gnarled oak and held up a hand. Irma stopped too, and waited.
“Smell that?” Arkansas whispered. “Smoke.”
Irma sniffed the air. She did indeed smell what seemed to be woodsmoke.
“Forest fire?”
“Maybe. Let’s go.”
They stalked as quietly as they could, ducking behind trees for cover, and the smoke grew thicker until they could see it drifting through the branches. Soon they came close to a clearing, and in the center of the clearing was a small log cabin. The red brick chimney belched gray smoke. Arkansas signaled for Irma to follow her. They moved in a file, crouched low. Irma touched the rifle’s trigger with her forefinger.
The cabin looked old and moldy, its outer walls covered in damp green moss and the ground surrounding it carpeted in pine needles. The door was cracked open. Irma surveyed the area and saw no one. They went a few yards closer, where they first saw the rusty old International parked on the cabin’s other side. It was jacked up, its back left tire missing. The two women relaxed a bit, straightened up and looked at one another. Irma lowered the rifle. That was when they heard the ratcheting click behind them.
“Don’t fuckin’ move,” a man’s voice commanded.
They didn’t. The man walked a steady half-circle around them to reveal himself. He was short and skinny, his beady ice-blue eyes narrowed to slits. There was a red and black plaid hunting cap perched on his white-blonde head and a .45 caliber hand cannon gripped between his small, paper white hands. The man looked each woman up and down in turn and grinned, displaying a mouthful of tobacco-stained teeth.
“Them dresses look like jailhouse outfits to me,” he said.
“They are,” Arkansas grunted.
“Reckon there’s a bounty on you gals?”
Irma scoffed. “Are you kidding?”
Ignoring her, the man focused in on the rifle in her hands.
“Nice rifle,” he said, the grin melting away. “I oughta know, on account of it’s mine.”
“We found it a ways back,” Irma said.
“You stoled it from my brother,” the man countered, raising the .45.
“Your brother’s dead,” Arkansas cut in.
He swung the gun around and jabbed it at Arkansas’s face.
“You killed him, then!”
“Hey, no!” Irma shouted. “We found him, too—all torn up, bad like. It was them! The dead did it. The dead, man!”
“Dead?” the man drawled, sneering. “What in the name of Orval Faubus are you dim-witted dummies—”
The man was cut short by a low, plaintive moan emanating from the woods behind the women. He fell silent and, his mouth hanging open, peered into the trees. Dead leaves rustled and the man’s small blue eyes widened. Irma and Arkansas exchanged glances before turning to look themselves.
From a stand of narrow gray trunks emerged the ruined, dripping corpse of the hunter in the orange vest, the brother of the little man with the .45. The corpse’s eyes were closed and its head slung low, but it staggered forward one awkward step at a time. Just as it was when the women encountered it before, the dead man’s torso was a scooped-out horror, a hollow trunk devo
id of all the organs it needed in life, but which death seemed not to require.
“Muh-muh-Mike?” the little man stammered, his hands trembling and eyes shiny with tears.
Mike said, “Guhhhh.”
“That ain’t Mike no more, man,” Arkansas warned, stepping away from the little man and edging back toward the cabin. Irma followed her lead.
“Aw, shit, Mike,” the man said, gaping at the dark cavity that once been his brother’s torso. “What’d they do? What’d they do to ya, Mike?”
Mike lifted his head and canted it to the side. Slowly he opened his right eye, displaying the milky, unseeing eyeball underneath. Mike’s brother whimpered. Mike hunched his shoulders and screamed.
“Here we go,” Arkansas gasped and grabbed Irma by the arm to drag her into the cabin. Once inside Irma slammed the door shut and both of them ran to the window. They were just in time to watch Mike launch himself upon his brother, all jerking limbs and snapping mouth. The brother cried out for help but it was much too late. The dead man was already tearing his brother’s eyes out with his fingers and chewing them to paste with relish.
Irma stared, frozen at the dirty glass. Arkansas yanked the rifle from her hands, gave it a once-over, and then threw the bolt before smashing the barrel through one of the panes.
Irma managed to get out, “What are you—?” before Arkansas, peering one-eyed through the scope, squeezed the trigger. The top of the dead man’s head came apart in a dark mist, leaving loose flaps of scalp hanging down in front of what remained of his face.
Mike slumped, let out a dull roar, and toppled over beside his brother. After that the women watched the bodies closely for several minutes. Neither of them moved again.
“I don’t know about you, sister,” Irma jeered, “but I’m having the time of my fucking life.”
“C’mon,” Arkansas said gruffly as she shoved the rifle back at her. “Let’s find some chow.”
* * * * *
The cabin was crude at best, and though Arkansas guessed aloud it had to be just for hunting trips, all evidence was to the contrary. The place was lived in, though unequipped with conveniences ranging from a kitchen—they found the fire pit beside the International— to a bathroom—a leaning shack twenty-five yards further back appeared to be the late brothers’ shithouse. As for chow, the women had to cope with the long, reddish-brown strips of mystery meat hanging to dry by the brick fireplace. Irma inquired whether it might be deer meat, and Arkansas told her not to ask.
Neither of them were particularly comfortable with the idea of crawling into the dead men’s sleeping bags, but it was a warm night so they took turns sleeping on some blankets on the floor. Irma dozed off first, this time staying that way for the better part of three hours. When she awoke, she found Arkansas standing sentry at the window, rifle in hand like a seasoned veteran.
“Anything out there?” Irma asked, knuckling the sleep out of her eyes.
“No.”
“You ready to swap?”
Arkansas turned from the window and yawned. “Yeah.”
She handed the rifle over to Irma and crawled down to the blankets. Something crinkled in her pocket as she rolled over onto her hip.
“Oh, right—Irma, I got something for you.”
The envelope was even worse for wear now than when it first came into her possession, but Arkansas did her best to flatten it out before giving it to Irma.
“Probably a day late and a dollar short, whatever it is,” she said. “With your luck, it’ll be a goddamn pardon from the governor.”
Irma smiled softly and said, “Thanks.”
“Keep one eye on them woods when you read that, though.”
“I will.”
Arkansas nodded and rolled over, closed her eyes. In just over a minute she was snoring lightly.
Irma leaned against the window frame and looked at the crumpled envelope. It had her name and the prison’s mailing address, and in the top left corner another address she did not recognize. No name. She tore it open with her thumb and withdrew two leaves of notepad paper with frayed edges on top. And by the faint light of the moon, she read.
Dear Irma
You dont no me but i know youre man Zeke.
Zeke was my man for a wile but now im nocked up and he run offed.
Point is Zeke aint ded like you thot. Zekes alive and meener then ever and last thing he said to me was he gone to the black sun.
I dont no whats the black sun but thats what he said.
If they ever let you owt of jale i hope you kill that son of a bitch.
The letters were large, the handwriting shaky and unsure. There was no signature. The return address was somewhere in Jacksonville.
Irma let go of the letter and envelope, let the papers flutter to the floor. Her mind reeled and her heart thumped madly and brutally in her breast.
Alive…
In a living hell filled with the walking dead, the one person on Earth she counted on being in the ground was still alive. The person she went to prison for murdering.
Good ole Zeke.
Irma’s man.
The muscles in her cheeks twitched and her face flushed hot. Her heart beat faster still. She squeezed the butt of the rifle until her fingers hurt.
A fury built inside of Irma, a fury that was spinning into a wail—but someone in the woods beat her to it. Irma’s shoulders jumped and she shrank away from the window. The keening yowl was hollow and distant. It echoed sorrowfully through the trees, and was soon joined by other equally dejected shrieks and squalls.
They were coming.
Irma threw the rifle’s bolt and hissed, “Arkansas! Wake up—they’re here!”
Arkansas sat up instantly, blinking fresh sleep out of her eyes. The mad howling in the woods grew louder, closer, more insane.
Arkansas said, “Fuck.”
“Look for another gun,” Irma suggested. Arkansas scrambled to her feet and set to searching the cabin, but she came up empty.
“That midget out there’s still got his,” she offered lamely.
“Good for him,” Irma groaned.
Holding fast to the rifle she peered out into the dark woods just as the first of the screaming dead emerged into the pale moonlight. She saw three of them: sallow-skinned and jerking wildly as though in the throes of epilepsy. The one in front, a woman, was naked to the waist and missing her left breast, which appeared to have been torn off her chest. Her head was tossed back and her mouth wide open, moaning horribly at the sky. Close behind her two more sauntered and twitched, both men and both bathed in blood from head to toe. Their gore-soaked bodies gleamed where the shafts of moonlight hit them.
Irma poked the rifle barrel through the broken pane and bore down on the foremost of the trio, the mangled woman. She squeezed off a shot that cracked like thunder; a fine red mist exploded out of the woman thing’s cheek and she collapsed into a heap. Her companions did not appear to notice or care. They kept on, crying louder than ever.
“Christ,” Arkansas gasped. “Why do they scream like that?”
With another clack of the bolt Irma drew a bead on the first of the two men and took him out, the bullet entering the bridge of his nose. She rapidly ejected the cartridge and jammed in the next. Arkansas gaped, impressed with Irma’s marksmanship.
Irma peered through the scope at the bouncing head of the remaining figure, whose neck seemed broken judging by the way his skull rolled helplessly on his shoulders. The man was missing most of his teeth and his mouth oozed brackish goop. She squeezed the trigger and the report shook her senses as the dead man dropped from her view to reveal the emerging crowd behind him.
With a small yelp she lowered the hunting rifle and watched as a dozen or more shambling corpses in various states of mutilation appeared from the pitch, bumping against one another awkwardly as they moved ever forward. Every one of them screamed and convulsed, a maddening din that almost drowned out the growling engines coming in from the other side of the cabi
n.
“The hell is that?” Arkansas yelled.
Irma knitted her brow. “Sounds like…motorcycles.”
The words were barely out of her mouth before the grumbling roar intensified tenfold, punctuated by a chorus of whoops and rough laughter. The noise enveloped the cabin as blinding yellow-white light flooded the window on the backside. Arkansas turned apprehensively toward the onslaught of blaring headlamps; Irma kept her gaze on the advancing dead horde.
“Arkansas…”
“Yeah, I know.”
Voices co-mingled with the rumbling bikes and the groaning corpses, and the lights backlit shuffling shadows as the motorcycles’ riders swung off their rides and encircled the cabin. A voice deeper and more gravelly than any either woman had ever heard bellowed, “Smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em, boys!”
His command was met by a raucous din of cheers and cat-calls.
Irma said, “We are so fucked right now.”
—Two—
Angels Unchained
The back door cracked out of the jam in splinters and a hulking shadow filled the space it had occupied. Both women gaped. Irma dropped the rifle into a shooting position and snarled, “Hold it right there, Jack.”
The broad figure stepped forward and the low lantern light inside the cabin caught his grizzled face. He was at least six and a half feet tall, as broad as a Volkswagen, and his salt and pepper beard was twisted into a long braid that dangled down to his sternum. Decked out in blue jeans and black leather chaps with a vest to match, he wore heavy leather boots with gleaming steel tips. There was a tattoo of a nude woman getting fucked from behind by the devil somewhere beneath his thick mat of springy gray chest hair. The hair on his head was receding and pulled back into a tight ponytail.
The enormous man smiled genially and said, “Jack? Lady, my name’s Bigfoot.”