by Cedric Nye
After he had finished his butcher's work, he wiped his knife clean, closed and pocketed it, and then hefted the corpse onto the dining room table. He took off his back pack and opened up a small side pocket, from which he removed a tight, fist sized coil of cord. The cord was made of Kevlar, and was stronger than steel. Using the cord, he lashed the truncated body to the table with its head hanging over the end closest to the huddled group who were crouched, zip tied and moaning, in the corner.
“Now, I just know that you want me to tell you what I'm doing, but I don't want to spoil the surprise,” he said to the group.
His face had lost all expression, and had become bleak and desolate. The harsh, jutting angles of his face combined with his lack of affect to give his visage an almost demonic quality. The veins stood out on his neck, hands, and arms from the internal pressure of a heart and mind fueled by rage, fear, and revenge.
He walked into the kitchen and rooted around until he found a package of plastic garbage bags. Taking a bag from the package, he turned back to the people in the corner and said, “Time for a tithe.”
He walked to the group and leaned over the man. He reached down and almost tenderly took the man's hand in his own hand. Then, with a vicious, twisting motion, he broke the man's wrist. He kicked the man on his back, and placed his foot against his shoulder. His violent actions had thrown the entire group around like chaff in the wind, and their moans turned to screams as Jango pulled his pocket knife, opened it with a flick of his thumb, and slashed most of the way through the man’s wrist, and then ripped his hand loose and tossed it into the garbage bag.
Whistling the tune to "Wayward Son" by Kansas, he tied the garbage bag around the corpse's head, and then sat down to wait.
While he waited, Jango wandered deep inside the twisted labyrinth of his psyche. He felt the individual personalities of the other three inhabitants swirling around, as they rode the lightning that flashed between the neurons in his brain.
He had promised Diogenes and Alby, the names that he had given to the giant dog and the albino woman, that he would not undertake any suicide mission or other task that had a high likelihood of their death. They had exacted the promise from him shortly after their blood-soaked adventures in Anthem, almost a year ago. He knew that they were concerned about his present state of mind, so he revealed his plan to them. Upon the revelation, his mind and his ears were filled with the death knell laugh of Diogenes, and the purring, throaty chuckle of Alby. He also heard the beast chime in with the innocent and gleeful laugh of a child. He felt himself smile against his will.
5
A soft rustling noise from the garbage bag drew his attention away from within, and he focused on the corpse lashed to the kitchen table. He noted peripherally the looks of horror and shock on the faces of the two women in the corner, but disregarded the information. His lightning fast mind had seen the pattern of the relationship between the two men and the two women almost immediately upon learning that they had sold the woman and her child. The two seemingly friendly couples were a kind of modified honey trap who lured in unsuspecting people and turned a profit by selling them into slavery, and death. He had never been able to abide those who preyed on the innocent, weak, and helpless denizens of the world. He had simplified his personal system of moral calculation to include two classifications of humanity. One group was made up of all those people, those unsung heroes, who walked through life attempting to do the best that they could. They did not prey on their fellow man, and they attempted to do right as much as possible. The other class of humans consisted of what he had termed “twists”. They were the predators and abusers of the world, those who profited from pain and death. They used human blood to lubricate their way through the world, and they were his lifelong enemy. There were many different subcategories within each of the classes, and he only trusted himself to judge who fit into which category.
The two women had been part of the crew responsible for the sale of at least one woman into sexual servitude, and one baby sold into a cannibal’s pantry. That firmly cemented their place into the latter category of twists.
Once a person had been categorized as a twist in his mind, he was capable of committing horrifically atrocious acts upon their person without qualm or compunction. He was able to rationalize almost any act where it pertained to his sworn enemies.
The soft rustling noise suddenly increased in intensity, as the dismembered corpse came back to unnatural life under the influence of the Z-Virus. The keening wail of a jack on the hunt came through the bag with a muted, distant quality that helped to dull the sound and the effect that it had on Jango. The thing thrashed and moaned as it sought to sink its teeth into the hand that was inside the bag around its head. The hand, though, hanging low in the bag, stayed just out of its reach, which helped to effect what he had hoped for.
Whenever a zombie, whether it was a goober or a jack, scented a human, they would begin to salivate copiously. That fact had clued Jango in to what seemed like the most likely method of the faster acting Z-Virus infection that came with a zombie bite. It appeared that every person on earth was already infected by the Z-Virus to some extent. Every person who died would be reanimated within about forty-five minutes of their death. However, when someone was bitten by a zombie, the change usually happened much more swiftly. He believed that the infection happened more swiftly from a bite because the host’s circulatory system was still in operation, which helped to spread the infection to every part of their body much more swiftly.
What he had hoped for by bagging the zombie’s head was exactly what he had gotten; copious amounts of zombie saliva. He let the zombie salivate for a few moments longer, and then broke its neck with a quick twist of his spade-shaped hands.
After carefully removing the garbage bag from the now dead again zombie's head, he tied the bag closed. He had ended up with what looked like more than a quart of highly contagious saliva, with the hand floating around in the juice.
He retrieved the Kevlar cord that had lashed the corpse to the table, and then directed his attention back to the three survivors. “Well, it's time for you all to say good night. I've come up with a good way for you three to do penance for your wrongdoings.” As he walked toward them, he continued speaking, “Now, I could torture you pieces of garbage and kill you by inches, but we really don't have that kind of time, do we?”
“No, no, we don't have any time to spare,” he finished softly.
When he finished speaking, he pulled his pocket knife out, opened it, and then sliced the people's throats. Before they had even finished bleeding out, he had used his knife to remove the portion of their tracheas that housed their vocal cords.
“We can't have y’all spoiling the surprise ahead of time, now can we?” he purred in the poison-sweet voice of Alby, as he flung the last piece of excised windpipe to the side.
After cleaning and pocketing his knife, he reached down and one by one broke the heavy-duty zip ties that bound the corpses to each other with his bare hand. He checked his watch, and then searched the pockets of the dead bodies until he found what he was looking for; the keys to the SUV parked out in front of the house. He had noticed it on his way in, and had noticed how clean it was compared to most vehicles these days. His assumption that it belonged to the people in the house was proven to be true when he pressed the unlock button on the attached key fob, and was rewarded by a muted honk from the front driveway. He stooped and grabbed the man's body by the waistband of his pants in one hand, and picked up his garbage bag in his other hand, and headed toward the front door with his grisly load. When he reached the door, one stomping kick with his right foot tore the entire door, frame and all, from the house. Walking around to the back of the Toyota SUV, he dropped the man unceremoniously on the ground and then opened the rear hatch of the silver vehicle. He gently placed the bag in the back cargo area, picked the man up, and flung him into the vehicle with jarring force. He made one more trip into the house to grab the two wo
men, who were flung into the rear of the vehicle beside the man.
He closed the rear hatch, opened the driver's side door, climbed in the vehicle, and then started the engine.
The SUV roared to life instantly, and then settled into a purring rumble. He adjusted his seat until he was comfortable, checked his mirrors, and then checked to see how much fuel he had in the tank. The tank was almost full.
“How lovely,” he muttered to himself.
He sat slumped in front of the steering wheel for a long moment, as if all animation had fled his body. He shook himself, put the vehicle in reverse, and then drove out on a circuitous route that would take him to the park where the woman and baby were being kept.
He drove north on 19th Ave. at a moderate pace, and his eyes continuously roved across the post-apocalyptic terrain. With the practiced eye of a hunter and a killer, his piercing gaze searched every nook and cranny of the burned-out ruins of places that once offered to unlock cell phones, help people stop smoking by using hypnosis, and $70 massages with happy endings. The destruction, rather than the buildings, would be the truth of mankind's legacy, and Jango was happy that the bulk of humanity had died.
When he reached Bell Road, he turned west, and drove until he reached the access road for I-17. He motored down the access road for one mile, and then turned east on Union Hills Drive. About a half of a mile later, he turned left on 23rd Ave., right on Wescott, and then a slow and quiet left onto 20th Ave.
He knew from experience that there were buildings, and the enclosure for what used to be a public pool that would block anyone from seeing him where he had parked. He checked his watch, and then did an almost comical double take when he realized that almost thirty minutes had passed since he had killed the three people who now occupied the cargo area of the SUV.
He put the vehicle in park, shut it off, and pocketed the keys. After opening the hatchback, he dragged the man's body to the edge and hoisted him up on one shoulder. He then grabbed each of the women by the waistband of their pants, and started jogging toward the end of the small neighborhood street. When he got to the end of the street, he placed all three bodies in the covered entryway of a stuccoed house that had all the windows busted out. He looked around, alert for any movement or signs of surveillance, and then moved at a full run back to the SUV.
He gingerly removed the bag full of zombie saliva from the rear of the vehicle and closed the hatch. He placed it on the passenger seat and climbed back into the driver's seat, started the car, and U-turned back the way he had come.
He zigzagged left and right through a cookie-cutter neighborhood full of houses that even the zombie apocalypse could not make unique. After about ten minutes of driving, he had made his way through the neighborhood, and found a street that was north and west of the community center at the northwest end of the park. He grabbed his grisly package and climbed out of the vehicle.
He made his way through the yard, and then the side gate of a home that had brick walls surrounding the entire backyard. He moved like the ghost of a ghost.
His feet were clad in homemade leather moccasins that were lined with layer after layer of Kevlar. The soles of his moccasins were made from tire tread. All of Jango's clothing had been made by his own hand, and all of his clothing was made of layer upon layer of the finest Kevlar available. He had encased the Kevlar in nylon and then heavy canvas, so his clothing was bulky, but the bulkiness of his garb did not bother him, or slow him down in any way.
When he reached the brick wall at the rear of the empty house, he set down his bag and chinned himself up the wall until he could see over it. As he had suspected, the bandit cannibals had occupied the sturdily built community center. The grin that spread across Jango's face could have caused the stoutest heart to quail. He lowered himself back to the ground, and then with the patience of death, he waited.
While he waited, he drew his shotgun from its scabbard on his back. He removed his backpack, and opened one of the pockets. He slowly and smoothly worked the action on the shotgun to eject the eight rounds of double ought buckshot that he kept it loaded with. He put the ejected rounds into hand-sewn loops on one of the shoulder straps of his backpack. He then reloaded the shotgun. The first round that he loaded was number four birdshot, and then he loaded seven rounds of number four buckshot. After making sure the shotgun was on safety, he replaced it in its scabbard, put his backpack back on, and went back to waiting.
6
Less than ten minutes after he put his backpack back on, the sounds that he had been waiting for drifted over the top of the brick wall and brushed across his ears. He heard shouts, and then gunshots.
Moving quickly, he gently placed the sloshing bag atop the seven foot high brick wall, and then jumped up beside it. He had made the jump without using his hands, and just managed to get his feet to the top of the wall. He smiled proudly, and started to look around for someone to share the moment with before he remembered that he was all alone. His smile dimmed a little, but remained nonetheless.
He hopped down from the top of the wall, and then reached up and grabbed the bag. He had chosen the spot where he jumped over because of a large pine tree that grew on the street beside the wall. Hidden behind the tree he was invisible to the people that now rushed to and fro around the community center, as they battled the three fast-moving and silent zombies.
Jango had done his work well, and the men who occupied the community center had had no warning when the three zombies without vocal cords had followed the strong scent of the large group of people, and come upon them all but unawares. The zombies had already been among them before the men even had a chance to start fighting. In the madness and confusion, they started firing their weapons, and many of their own numbers had been hit by friendly fire.
He added to their confusion by firing the seven rounds of number four buckshot in a wide swath which, at the range of one hundred and fifty feet, went through the large group of men like a whirlwind made of razor blades. At that range, the pellets did not kill anyone, but the pellets damaged, cut, gouged, and ravaged the men's flesh with superficial wounds.
He had fired the seven rounds so quickly that the explosions had sounded like one long, continuous roll of thunder. When he had fired all seven of the buckshot rounds, he took the shotgun in his left hand, picked up the bag in his right hand, and then spun the bag in a wide circle. When the bag had finished half of a revolution, he surged forward, and with a fluid, counterclockwise movement of his body and arm, he whipped the bag forward and up in a high, arcing throw.
When the bag had reached the parabola of its arc, it was almost directly over top of the battling group of men and zombies. Jango sighted down the barrel of his shotgun just ahead of the bag, and then fired.
The birdshot hit the bag and burst it asunder. The bag virtually exploded under the impact of the swarm of pellets, and showered the group of men with its terrible payload.
One of the unique qualities of being infected by a zombie bite was the paralysis that followed within a few minutes of being bitten. It was that quality that he sought to utilize against the superior firepower and numbers of the cannibals. He silently hoped that it would work.
He reloaded his shotgun with the double ought rounds, replaced the shotgun in its scabbard, and then vaulted back over the brick wall. He knew that things would happen quickly now, and that it was almost impossible to judge exactly how long it would take for someone to turn after they had been infected by a zombie bite. In this case, instead of zombie bites, it was shotgun pellets instead of teeth that had introduced the infectious saliva into the men’s bloodstreams.
Jango raced back to the SUV, started the engine, and then burned rubber in a smoking U-turn as he raced toward the community center. When he exited the neighborhood street and came in full view of the center, he saw that things were happening quickly. All of the men were on the ground, and were already beginning to turn a sickly gray color.
All three of the zombies had been kille
d, so he did not have to worry about them. He drove the SUV right up to the large glass entryway of the community center before he jerked the wheel to the left and hit the brakes so that the tail of the vehicle swung around, and the nose was facing the street. He shut off the ignition and climbed out of the vehicle.
Behind the glass, he saw three women who wore the broken, shattered look that people only wear when they have survived that which should not be survived. One of the women was the woman who he had come to save. He felt the great weight of his failure settle in the middle of his chest, and he almost screamed aloud at the agony of that weight. He stepped forward and tested the door, and found that it was unlocked. He opened the door and stepped inside.
“I'm here to save you and your baby,” Jango lamely said to the woman.
Her only response was the vacant look of someone who sought refuge from trauma in the blankness of catatonia. He knew then that he truly was too late, and that to take her out of there would only extend her suffering.