by Tim Curran
He threw it open and an immense woman was waiting for him.
She was flabby and quite naked, her face huge like an ashen moon, eyes sunken into pockets of flab and fungus. Her breasts were lolling sacks of flour, the nipples like corded hazelnuts leaking gray milk. Black autopsy stitching ran from her crotch to her throat and it was feathered with a blue-green mold.
There was no time for anything but shock.
Slaughter hesitated with the empty .357 in his hand for just one second and she came at him. Before he could ward it off, one gas-plump hand stiff-armed him in the chest and knocked him flat. Not just flat, but sliding him across the floor.
Definitely no time for reloading.
She stood in the doorway, filling it, blocking out the sunlight behind her. She gnashed yellowed teeth together, gagged out a dust of dead flies, and licked her lips with a tongue like a fat black leech. It left a trail of slime on her puckered mouth.
It was then, as his hand gripped the Kukri, that he noticed she carried something in one of her arms. What he had taken to be another meaty roll of flab was a child…a little wormkid infant with a face like a caul, its body a rolling, distended mass like a prenatal sack full of sloshing embryonic juice.
The woman took two lumbering steps into the room as the dead pounded on the door in the corridor, wanting in, wanting not just to feed, Slaughter thought, but to view the festivities.
The woman cocked her head to the side as he stood.
Was this defiance? She just wasn’t sure.
The baby in her arms made a gurgling sound like its mouth was full of gruel. It dug spiny fingers into its mother’s bulk, something like a face moving behind the caul, grinning, chewing, feeding on itself.
Slaughter was beginning to think he might be able to get a speedloader in, but when he reached for the gun, the woman shivered and clots of black wormy earth dropped from the mossy purple-black crevice between her legs which were stout marble pillars.
“Glhhhh,” she said as if trying to form word. “Glhhhh?”
A question. One without an answer.
Her hair was a dull, weed-dry gold that must have been beautiful and luxurious at one time. Now it was patchy, crawling with insects. Coffin beetles, mottled black-and-red like bloodstones, were chewing at her scalp, pushing themselves under the skin.
Slaughter held the Kukri in one blood-spattered, white-knuckled fist.
The woman stepped forward.
Lips peeled open, yellow teeth were unsheathed.
She reached for him and he slashed out with the Gurkha knife and cleaved one of her breasts open. It split like a casket pillow, scattering filth and drainage and she roared, maybe not so much out of pain but out of damage.
She reached her free arm out at him, scabrous black nails coming within inches of his face and then he jumped back. The zombies were still beating at the other door and he knew it wouldn’t hold. His choice was to go through them or go through this woman.
There was no choice.
He’d have to hack straight through her.
One of her eyes pushed out of its seam of fat and winked open, a glossy ova serrated by red veins. She puckered her lips like she wanted to kiss him, expectorated in her throat, and spat a globby/stringy ball of bile at him. He ducked and it splattered against the wall.
She made a chortling sound as if amused.
She dug her fingers between her legs, tearing out a slimy blob of something that dripped a thin watery red sap.
And threw it.
He ducked away from that one, too, and she chortled again. And, worse, her child made a moist giggling noise that sounded like somebody vomiting.
She took two steps forward and Slaughter took two backward.
She was grinning.
He was shaking.
She made a retching sound and gagged up a ball of mucus and slime and spit it at him. As quickly as he ducked it, another came and then another and then another, spattering against the walls like red, juicing inkblots. She repeated the process two, then three times, wiping maggots from her lips and then tossed her child at him.
Slaughter stepped aside and it hit the floor with rubbery, slick sound like a water balloon. It rolled towards him, mewling. He gave it a kick and it squealed, its hide ruptured and black juice spilling out.
The woman cried out and launched herself forward.
Slaughter came at her, meeting her, bringing the Kukri down with full force and slicing her bulbous head open lengthwise. She let out a scream that was almost too human and sank to her knees, pudgy pulp fingers exploring her cleaved-open head. Brains ran down what remained of her face in a gray, inching slop like something yanked from a corpse with a funerary hook by an Egyptian embalmer. Blood and pus and clotty drainage poured out, then nests of roaches and pockets of silverfish.
She pitched over, trembling.
The wormkid oozed over the floor and Slaughter gave it a kick that caved in its caul and it slithered about like a rent jellyfish.
He hopped over it and out into the day.
There were more out there and he saw them. He shook the shells from the Combat Mag and inserted his last speedloader with a twist of the drum knob.
Six more rounds.
That’s all you got. You better make it count.
By the time he got to his feet and made ready for the killing there were dozens and dozens of them. Like worms sliding free of carrion, they came out of houses and stores, sheds and garages, attics and crawlspaces and weedy drainage ditches. There was a solid mob of them that encircled him now and he knew there was no way, just no way, he could fight through them.
He looked around as they tightened their noose.
Nowhere but up.
If he could shimmy up a raingutter, somehow get up above them onto the roofs, he might stand a chance.
God, the entire rotting population of the town was out there now and then…they parted. They made way for another that stepped into view. A wormgirl. But a special one and even he could see that. She wore a hooded poncho of human skin and a corpse mask which had been stripped from some old hag and carved to look almost totemic.
Slaughter just stared as a voice in his head said, remember this one. She’s important. She’s different than the others. She’s like a death-goddess to them and you can see the authority she commands.
Which was something that was very obvious when two wormkids stepped in front of her, offering themselves to her and she took her expiation, her burnt offerings, her sacrifice of flesh without hesitation. White fingers with black, hooked talons in place of nails lashed out and slit the offerings at her feet. They stood still, embracing the ritual. She yanked out their entrails and looped them around her throat in pink scarves. She lifted her mask precious inches to reveal a face that was fissured like pine bark, a drab yellow-white, a hollow skullish cavern where her nose had been. Lips opened and red scarab beetles ran from her mouth. Her teeth were impossibly lustrous black fangs. She stuffed entrails into her mouth and chewed on them.
Then she pointed a clawed finger right at Slaughter.
There was no mistaking it.
And as she did so, he felt a distant rumbling in the back of his skull as if she were not walking meat like the others but something of a higher, spiritually defiled office and wanted him to know this. Her thoughts speared into his own and made him quiver as what she sent out to him nested happily in the dark nether regions of his brain.
Does thee fare well, biker boy?
It was the voice of Black Hat and Slaughter knew it instinctively. There could be no other voice like that…dry and scraping, like a skeleton key scratched over a rusting iron tomb door. It was him. The death-goddess was part of him, they were joined together in something. And that was obvious when she lifted the veil that covered her pubis and belly. Her bone-white legs were stained with something like dark menstrual blood or afterbirth and across her gleaming white autopsy-stitched belly something was burned black into the flesh:
; That word, that symbol, whatever in the Christ it was. It was everywhere and it was the core of this thing. If he could translate it and know what it meant it would reveal many things. But there was no time to contemplate it because the zombies were massing. They would tear him to bits.
Then the cavalry rolled in.
Once again, the Red Hand arrived.
They came in armored vehicles with shock troops pressing in behind. Light machine guns opened up, cutting down the dead and shooting gouts of fire at them from mounted flame throwers. Then the troops moved in and cut the others down. Slaughter hit the ground and knew there was no escape.
They had him, if that’s what they wanted.
But one thing they didn’t get was the death-goddess for she was nowhere to be seen.
Once the zombies were nothing but blackened, smoldering refuse in the streets, the troops moved in on Slaughter. He still had the Kukri and Combat Mag in his hands.
“The wise thing to do,” one of them said with a submachine gun pointed at him, “would be to drop that hardware.”
So Slaughter did just that.
And they charged in at him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When he came to the next morning, he was hanging from a crude framework by his wrists. The Ratbags had taken him from Exodus and none too gently. They gave him a quick beating to take the fight out of him and after what he’d been through, there wasn’t much fight left. They roped him, gagged him, and threw him in the back of a truck. Whether it was the beating or the rest of it, he couldn’t say, but he went out cold and woke up like this. He was still dressed, still wearing his colors, and still sprayed down with gore from the zombies.
Every fucking day, he thought as he peered around the Red Hand encampment, things just get worse. You get farther away from your brother Disciples and farther away from that compound and the bio there. And farther away from Red Eye.
Now what?
What in the hell did these assholes want with him?
About an hour after he came out of it, the guy who’d taken him prisoner, the dude with the submachine gun, came over with five men trailing behind him. He was dressed in dirty camo fatigues like the others. He was white-haired, craggy-faced, and seemed to have some sort of bearing that the others lacked.
“You’re awake, eh?”
“Sure.”
“Suppose you want to be set free?”
“I was thinking that.”
The old guy nodded. “I’m Valdez,” he said. “I’m in command here. You’re my prisoner.”
“Okay. What do you want with me?”
Valdez just stood there, staring at him. “You’re Slaughter?”
“Yeah. I been called that.”
“You’re the one that mixed it up with some of us in Wisconsin. Killed a few of us.”
“So now you’ve got me.”
“Now I’ve got you.” He whispered something to one of the other men. “Question is: what do we do with you?”
“What use am I to you?”
“None that I can see. Of course, we could use a guy like you. You could join up with us.”
“The Hand? No, I’m already patched-in with a different club. I don’t flip patches for no one.”
“I suppose I could kill you.”
“Figured you’d get to that.”
“Uh-huh.” Valdez stroked his chin. “We could torture you…but why expend the energy on a booger-eater like you? You’re strong. You’d make a good slave. A good camp boy to do all the shit nobody else likes. But then we’d have to feed you. And, sooner or later, a guy like you would start killing us to get free.”
It was quite a quandary, all right. Slaughter was amazed at how quickly the Red Hand grapevine worked. They must have been watching for him. Now they had him. Valdez was playing games. Slaughter had killed some Ratbags, they wanted payback. They were going to punish him and he knew it, but Valdez was playing his mindgames, acting like he didn’t know what he was going to do when he’d probably made up his mind long ago.
“See, Slaughter, the thing is that I’ve been pretty much ordered to execute you. That comes from higher up, as a favor to other Red Hand units that you put the hurt on. It’s a brotherhood thing…and you understand brotherhood, do you not?”
Slaughter said nothing. He didn’t even bother smiling at the absurdity of such a thing. Brotherhood? Brotherhood? What did a weasel like this squeeze of shit know about brotherhood? What could he possibly know about standing with your brothers shoulder to shoulder and fighting and killing, taking lives and giving them, being splashed with blood and going down only to rise again by the hands of your brothers? This guy didn’t know shit. A fucking marionette. A clown.
Valdez was going on about how tough it was to be in his position. Like anyone else, he claimed, he had orders to follow from higher up. But then, on the other hand, he had to interpret those orders and make them work in a practical fashion. So, yes, he was told to punch Slaughter’s ticket as a favor to his brothers of the Red Hand (Slaughter tried not to laugh at that), but if he did that he had to do it in such a way that he would not be wasting manpower and resources and his little community would actually get some benefit from it.
“So you see my problem, do you not?”
“It’s tough being on the top.”
Valdez ignored the sarcasm. “What to do, what to do?”
“Just put a fucking bullet in my head and be done with it,” Slaughter suggested. “How much manpower does that take?”
Valdez smiled. He was beginning to like this biker. As opposed to so many of his own men, this guy was absolutely fearless. “Well, that’s a point well taken, my friend. But honestly…that’s so simple and cold-blooded it nearly offends me.”
Slaughter just hung there, his arms numb from the wrists to the shoulder. All he wanted at that moment was to be cut free. If that meant he got a bullet, then so be it. He was starting to think this entire ride was a big zero. Nothing but trouble.
“Wait…I think I have a solution,” Valdez said. He motioned to a couple of his bully boys and they came over, flashing knives. They sliced Slaughter’s bonds and he fell to the ground. It took him a good five minutes to get the feeling back in his arms. But Valdez was a patient man. He had nothing but time. Now that Slaughter was free, the other Ratbags had their weapons on him. They didn’t trust him and Slaughter had to respect that. Because he had been beginning to think how easy it would have been to take a knife from one of these stooges. Just a few seconds would be all he would need. Grab the nearest one, stomp his kneecap and smash his Adam’s apple, take his knife and put it against Valdez’s throat. By the time the other limp dicks got their weapons up, he’d already have their boss hostage.
But they weren’t that dumb.
Once he got his blood going again, Valdez dropped him a canteen and he drank down the whole thing. Better. It swept that fuzzy disorientation out of his skull.
“Better?” Valdez asked.
“Sure.”
“Anything else?”
“I could handle a steak.”
“So could I, my friend. Here. We found these on you. Enjoy.” He tossed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter into the dirt. Slaughter shrugged, picked them up and had a few easy drags. “Okay,” he said. “So what do you got in mind?”
“I’ve come up with perfect solution to our problem. One that will take care of my dilemma, entertain my men, and allow you the dignity of dying like a man.”
One of his bully boys chuckled.
Slaughter waited for it while he finished his smoke. All this high drama for nothing. Valdez had it all planned from the moment they strung him up. Why all the theatrics? Just get to it already.
“You see,” Valdez said, “we are a free-ranging group. Our job is to collect up anything and anyone we can find. Food, medicine, weapons, supplies of any sort. But it’s hard work. The farther east we range the more dangerous it is. The Army has a kill-on-sight order as far as we’re concerned. We’ve
had some nasty engagements. My men grow tired. Bored. Restless. They need entertainment.”
“And I’m it?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Slaughter turned his back on them and had a good long piss. After that, he felt pretty human again save for the stink of zombie gore spattered all over him. But he supposed a shower was out of the question.
“Now that you’re freshened up,” Valdez said, “you’ll take a walk with these gentlemen.”
“Where to?”
Valdez ignored him. “Put him in the cage,” he said. “And tell Benny to bring up Maggot.”
* * *
They led Slaughter through the compound at gunpoint. It was a large, sprawling place that looked like part of an old Army base. As it stood, from what he could see of it, it looked pretty indefensible. There were several small encampments enclosed by sandbags and spooled barbwire, but there were great openings in the ramparts that you could have driven a tank through. The wire was old and rusting, the sandbags leaking. A good force could have overrun the entire thing in minutes. He saw scrub forest beyond the perimeter in one direction and fields of high yellow grasses in the other. Perfect cover to mount an attack. As they led him on, he saw that the ground was pitted with bomb craters.
They’re putting you in the cage…what do you think of that?
But he didn’t think much at all about it.
He let himself go cool and easy as he always did before a good action or gang fight. It was the only way to do it. Breathe slowly, rest your muscles, stretch your joints. Don’t tense up until you have to. Conserve energy.
The troubling thing, he figured, was that the farther they led him through the compound the more riders they picked up. People began to follow them, not just soldiers but women, too, until there was a crowd of at least thirty people with more pressing in all the time. They led him to a “cage” that was about thirty square feet enclosed by walls of high chainlink fence. It looked like it might have been a dog pen at one time.