by Wayne Mee
The three of them walked over to the processing plant. Josh called Princess and the large hound came running. They were half way across the street when the door to the office opened and a man dressed in bib overalls stepped out. He had a beer in one hand and a revolver in the other. By the look of him he was three sheets to the wind and working hard on the fourth. Squinting into the sun, he raised the hand with the beer to shade his eyes. If he’d have raised the other hand he would have been a dead man. As it was, what he saw was enough to make him drop the beer.
“Who ta hell ‘re you?”
“Neighbors come calling,”, Josh replied casually, keeping his eye on the revolver. Both hammers of the Coach Gun were already cocked.
“Neighbors?”, Bibs replied, looking more confused than ever. “Neighbors from where?”
Josh kept his tone light. “From down the coast a bit. We came to see Chisolm. He around?”
Bibs seemed to take some time to process this complicated question. At last he shook his head. “He aint here.” He took an unsteady step forward, peering at Gus. “Say, aint you that old fart from ov’r Seal Cove way?”
“That’s right, Sony. N’ I’ve come to have a word with Chisolm. Now, go fetch him out here.”
Bibs leaned on the railing for support. The revolver in his hand all but forgotten. “I already done told ya. He aint here. Now bugger off!”
Flame moved forward, swaying her hips and smiling. “How about asking a girl in for a drink, handsome?”
Bibs didn’t take nearly as long to process this bit of data. A crooked smile gleamed through a week old beard. “Shore thang, Missy. Come on in. Those others ‘ll have ta wait here. Mister Chisolm don’t want no strangers inside.”
“No problem,” she purred. “They don’t mind waiting.” She moved up to Bibs and gently stoked his stubbled chin, then kneed him hard in the groin. Bibs’ eyes crossed and he sank to his knees. The butt of Flame’s Riot gun slammed into the back of his neck. Casually she kicked the revolver into the sand.
“Shee-yit!”, Gus whispered.
Josh was already moving forward, Princess at his heels. He stepped over
the unconscious form, checked quickly for a pulse, then signaled for Brad to come. Eddy stayed back with the boys while Billy moved the tow-truck up. Flame and Princess were already inside.
“Damn her!”, Josh hissed. “She takes too many chances!”
Brad grinned. “She likes it that way.”
Josh grunted and followed her into the building.
Terry Hobbs was even more drunk than Bibs had been. He had a vague notion that something was going on outside, but if the truth be known, he really didn’t give a fuck. Sitting in his underwear in the middle of the processing plant, he was working his way through a bottle of vodka and a tattered Playboy magazine. The issue was several years old, but Terry
wasn’t too interested in the articles. The way Terry looked at it, boobs were boobs.
Chained to the rows of filleting tables were seven people; three men and four women. Though alive, they seemed lifeless, like muppets patiently waiting for the return of Jim Henson’s ghost. Two lay on the filthy tables, the others were sprawled on the cluttered floor. To the right of Terry’s chair was a mattress. Sitting on it was a girl wearing the remains of a torn dress. A chain went from her ankle to the leg of a big desk. Sipping from another bottle of Russia’s finest, she seemed nearly as drunk as Terry. On the other side of the plant was a glassed in office. Inside a young woman paced nervously back and forth while an older man seemed to be trying to calm her down.
Terry himself was taking a little break. This wasn’t the toughest job he’d ever had, but it had its down side just the same. Sitting here all day watching a bunch of zombies was a major downer. So was the fact that he couldn’t get it up. That was where the Playboy came in. The skag on the bed was sure as hell no centerfold. No way Ho-Say! Not like the fresh meat pacing back and forth in the office. But Mr. Chisolm had made that little fact perrr-fectly clear.‘Leave Bridger’s daughter alone!’, he’d said. Terry considered himself a real righteous dude, able to stand his own with the toughest of them. But he hadn’t the slightest desire to go up against Old Man Chisolm. That old bastard had been a real hard-ass before even the Change. Now that his sons had gone the way of 99% of everyone else in this fucked-up world, J.W. Chisolm had taken a major walk on the wild side. Even now he was out with that big black looking for fresh meat. Terry wasn’t even too sure what the hell the old man planned to do with these all people he had chained up, but Terry knew what he’d like to do to that rich-bitch in the office! Yes in-deedy!
He took another slug of Vodka, fumbled out the centerfold and concentrated on getting ol’ Peter Pecker to salute. The blonde with the staple in her belly looked nothing like the skag on the bed, but hey, like his daddy used to say, ‘all cats are grey in the dark’.
Terrible Terry had worked himself up enough to shuffle over to the mattress when Flame and Princess made their entrance. Kneeling over the skinny zombie on the make-shift bed, Terry looked around at the sound of growling. What he saw suddenly made Peter Pecker dive for his foxhole. There, framed in the doorway, was a large woman and a very large dog. The woman held a mother of a shotgun and the dog bared a set of fangs that made Terry’s spit turn dry.
Panic flowed through him. Scrambling off the mattress, he reached for the rifle leaning against the desk. Flame, seeing a blast from her shotgun would probably kill the girl as well, cast it aside and pulled out her Smith & Wesson. At the same time she told Princess to “Sick man!” She had no idea if this would work, but the big dog was a fast learner. At the least it would give her time to get the .357 out.
Princess was off in a flash. Claws clacking on the factory floor, she made for Terry like an arrow shot from a bow. Indeed, her canine brain was already deeply imprinted with the ways of the hunt. Hadn’t her ancestors millennium ago perfected the art of sudden attack? The throat or the groin the primary targets. Much to Terrible Terry’s chagrin, Princess chose the latter.
Teeth, that until recently had chomped nothing more demanding than Alpo, now clamped down on Terry’s crotch. The scream that came from that righteous dude was enough to get a rise out of each and every poor soul chained to the cutting tables. The girl on the bed went white and curled up into a ball. Even the Bridger Family paused in their respective pacing and contemplation to peer out at the spectacle unfolding down below them.
Flame hauled back on the dog’s collar and spoke her name. The hound backed away, still ready to spring forward at the slightest provocation. The man, however, gave her none. Rolling around on the floor, both hands covering his bloody groin, Terrible Terry screamed like a baby.
“Shut the fuck up!”, Flame ordered, giving him a tap alongside the head with her .357. In his rush to obey Terry bit his lip.
“Better,”, Flame said. The blue-black barrel was now pressed against Terry’s forehead. “But what the hell,” she said, taking in the room and its inhabitants. “Go on and yell. It’ll give me a reason to blow your fucking brains out!”
Terry bit down again, this time tasting blood.
“Flame? You all right in there?” Josh’s voice echoed through the silent building.
“Ya, I’m fine. Got a dog-lover in here who wants to say hi.”
Josh and Brad came in, followed by Gus. The old man took one look around and began swearing a blue streak.
“I told you, man, I don’t fucking know! He said he’d be back yesterday! What am I, a fucking mindreader?!”
Josh looked over at Princess. The dog stiffened, the hackles on her neck rising. That was enough for Terry.
“Shit, man, I’m bein’ square with you! I don’t fucking know! He goes off with the black guy, Kaream. Stays away two, maybe three days at a time. Comes back here, dumps off some poor smuck and heads back out. He’s fucking crazy, man!”
Terry was sitting on the ground with his back to a telephone pole. Bibs was on the other side. Both were
tied to the pole by a rope going around their necks. Bibs was still out like a light. A towel was stuffed down Terry’s boxer shorts. The heart pattern had all run together, giving the casual passer by the impression that Righteous Terry had eaten one hell of a lot of beets, then pissed himself.
Og sniffed Terry’s bare feet, wined, then went off to find Jessie. Princess stood staring at Terry’s crotch.
“I think he’s telling the truth, Josh,” Brad said. “Even if he isn’t, we’ve got to get these people out of here.”
Josh looked at the group of half-starved people sitting on the picnic tables at a Clam Bar down the road. From here they looked the survivors of a shipwreck. Gus and the others had taken them there and were feeding them. Eddy, with a walky-talky, was farther down the road at the intersection. Josh could see the flash from the scope on his rifle.
Josh suddenly bent down close to Terry. “Two of them? You’re sure?” Josh’s ‘teacher’s voice’ was in high gear.
“Ya! Old man Chisolm n’ Kaream! That’s all, I swear!”
“You’re lying.” Josh stood and walked away. Brad followed. Princess didn’t.
“Hey! Don’t leave this fucking animal here!”
Josh continued to walk away.
“Alright! Alright, for Christ sake! He’s got two more with him! A man and a woman! Four in all!”
Josh stopped, but didn’t look back. Brad glanced from his cousin to Terry and back again. The stern voice spoke again. “When is Chisolm due back?”
Terry’s eyes went to Princess. The bid dog was closer now and growling. “This afternoon! Sometime before dark! Now, get this bitch off me!”
Josh snapped his fingers. “Here Prin!”
Princess bounded over, leaving Terry to sob quietly against the pole.
Brad looked at his cousin. “How did you know he was lying?”
Josh shrugged. “I didn’t.”
Just then a tall man in his middle 50’s came towards them from the Clam Bar. He was wearing white pants and an expensive sweater, both smudged and dirty from his ordeal inside the fish factory. He was also carrying the rifle Terry had been reaching for when Princess introduced herself. “I just wanted to thank you, all of you, for what you did. Heather and I will never forget it.”
“Neither will they,”, Josh said, nodding to the other survivors still back at the picnic tables.
“No, I guess they won’t,” Matthew Bridger said. “Any sign of Chisolm?”
“Not yet,” Brad answered. “But his man there says he should be back this afternoon.”
Bridger’s eyes narrowed. “Good. I’ve a little score to settle with him before I weigh anchor.”
Josh steered them over to his camper. Taking three cans of beer out of the small propane fridge, he handed one to Brad, then Bridger. The three men popped the tops and drank in silence.
“Gus says you sailed off down south, Mr. Bridger. What brought you back here?”
“Bloody savages, that’s what! We stopped at Portland. I have... had family there. Not any more.”
“You didn’t see anyone at all?”
Bridger shrugged. “We saw a few crazies, and heard a number more. One old woman was standing in the park screaming about the end of the world. I got Heather out of there fast. We headed south to Boston, thinking that a huge city like that must have some kind of order. Maybe even the power back on.
“And?” Brad’s voice was high and hopeful.
Bridger shook his head. “Worse that Portland. Oh, things looked quiet, until we left the ship. Then we saw the madness. Must have been a hundred people all watching as they hung some guy up on a lamp post. I left Heather in an empty store and went and asked what he’d done. The man I asked laughed and said he’d broken the law. When I asked him what law, the fool just laughed and said he’d refused to share his woman.” Bridger drained his
beer. “I collected Heather and got the hell out of there! By the time we got back to our boat it was dark. Looking over the city, we saw that a large part of it was on fire!”
Brad sighed. “So much for the big cities. I wonder what New York is like.”
“Probably a madhouse!” Bridger said, shaking his head. “I’m going to head south to the Caribbean, find some small island and sit there for a year or so. Maybe by then law and order will have returned.”
“Don’t count on it,” Josh said, “Not a long as there are men like Chisolm still around.”
Bridger patted the rifle cradled in his arm. “If I get him in my sights, he won’t be around for long!”
Just then Eddy’s voice came over the walky-talky. “Josh, Brad, pick up!”
Brad leaned in and grabbed the receiver. They could just see Eddy standing beside his van a quarter mile down the road. “What is it, Eddy?”
“Company’s coming. A big green four by four. A red truck behind it. Both coming fast!”
Brad looked at Josh, who was already reaching for the Coach Gun on the back seat. “Tell him to stay out of sight till they go past, then move in behind. And tell him to watch his ass!”
“Eddy, you get that?”
“Got it. No problem.”
Josh was already half way to the Clam Bar.
Brad and Bridger ran after him.
Chapter 23: ‘NECESSARY FORCE’
Bar Harbour
Maine July 22
John Chisolm was in a foul mood. That in itself was nothing new; since The Change he was rarely in anything else. But this time it went beyond just being pissed off and bordered on rage. Sitting in the front of the new Ford four by four, he gazed out in a red mental haze as the empty town of Bar Harbor flowed by. He’d lived here all of his fifty-seven years, as had his father before him and his father before him. The processing plant had been run by his family for damn near a century! The name Chisolm was known up and down the coast of Maine. The name meant something! Stood for something, by God!
Yet those bastards back in Camden had turned on him! Him! John Winston Chisolm! He struck the dash of the Ford Explorer. Pain shot up his hand, washing away the rage that had all but engulfed him, leaving in its red wake a newer, sweeter thought. He’d make them pay! Christ, yes! He’d make those arrogant bastards pay and pay dearly! They’d bleed fucking tears of sorrow before he was through! He would collect Roland and that smart mouth Terry and he’d go back there and burn their bloody town to the ground! Camden! What was it anyway but a place where the rich and pampered gathered to play in the summer! Big, fancy houses with tennis courts and private docks for their pretty little boats! He’d soon teach the snot-nosed little ass-wipes to fear the name John Chisolm!
Kaream, whose real name was Ugean Gimps, a fact that Ugean wanted desperately to keep as dead as his bible thumpin’ mamma, looked over at the Old Man. For a honky, Chisolm he wasn’t half bad. Crazy as hell, but smart. Kaream liked that, the smart part, mainly because he knew he himself wasn’t. He was strong, always had been, but his strength was from the neck down. Together they made a good pair. And the Old Man didn’t seem to mind that Kaream was black. Most folks did, but not the Old Man. He treated everyone exactly the same --- like shit.
When IT happened, Kaream had been working at the Plant, forking tuna onto the conveyer belt. There must have been a dozen people around him. Suddenly they were all gasping and choking and falling down. Sam Gruber slumped over onto the belt. By the time he was dumped into the bin, there was nothing left of him but a sack of old clothes. Looking around, he saw more of the same. Everyone had just kind of dried up and melted. Kaream-Ugean had almost shit his pants, while his long-dead momma’s voice had started hollerin’ in his head about ‘Judgment Day n’ His Divine Wrath’ n’ a whole sack o’ shit that made his head ache.
Then he’d looked up and saw the Old Man standing there. Time itself had seemed to have gotten stuck on something, like in a fucked-up coke-dream. Then he’d noticed that the Old Man’s face was in shadow. Looking around he saw the day had somehow slipped away. When he turned back, the Old Man was lookin
g right at him; looking at him the way he figured God Himself would when He was real pissed off. Kaream-Ugean felt that stare go through him like a kick in the nuts. Then the Old Man had crooked his finger and Kaream had shuffled on over. Standing there with the dead all around him, Kaream was reminded of a picture his Momma had kept over the bed. Moses on the Mount. Moses had looked real pissed off too.
“They’ll pay!”, the Old Man had hissed. “They killed my boys and by God they’ll pay! You and I will see to it!”
Kaream no idea who was going to do the paying, but that didn’t bother him none. No sir! He followed him into the plant and had been following him ever since. It bothered him a little that the Old Man was so hard on the ones they found, but then, he was the brains and Kaream was only the muscle. Together they made a good pair.
“What’s this shit?”, Chisolm growled.
Kaream snapped back into reality, or at least, what passed for reality in this fucked-up world. They’d almost reached the plant. At first he wondered what the Old Man was on about. Nothing looked different. Roland’s new pick-up was parked outside in its usual place. Nobody was in the street.
Then he saw the white van. There was another one parked just beyond it. He was almost certain they weren’t there when they left three days ago.
“Stop here!”
Kaream slammed on the brakes. The cattle truck behind almost rammed into them. Old Man Chisolm drew the automatic his father had brought back from his tour of duty in Viet Nam and got out.
“Bring the shotgun.”
Kaream grabbed the Riot gun he’d taken from a Maine Trooper’s smashed car. The Trooper hadn’t seemed to mind at the time. He’d taken the man’s .38 as well. Benny and Lynn had got most of their guns the same way. All four of them were now out in the street.