by JJ Zep
“Senor Morales, you have one of my men in there and I’m going to need you to hand him over to me. I don’t want any trouble but if I have to use force I will.”
This time Charlie did hear something. Was that music? He cocked his ear and listened. Definitely music, Mexican guitar and trumpet, hands clapping, now cheering.
The doors to one of the barn-like buildings flew open and expelled a tide of people, men in black suits, women and children in bright costumes. Leading them out was a mariachi quartet, in their midst Jespersen dressed in a tuxedo, white shirt and string tie, his unruly hair plastered down for once. On Jespersen’s arm was a pretty young woman in a bridal gown.
fifty one
“You could have just told me,” Charlie said, “and saved us both a whole lot of trouble.”
“Ah, but I did,” Morales replied, puffing on his cigar. “I told you that my daughter’s honor must be restored.” He leaned back in his chair, directed a smoke ring towards the ceiling.
Charlie picked at the contents of the fine china plate that sat on Morales’ desk. After gorging himself on tortillas, taquitos, chalupas and Tres Leche Cake for dessert, he was stuffed. He took a gulp of Chivas Regal from the crystal tumbler sitting beside the plate.
“I thought – ”
“What?” Morales interrupted, “That I was going to kill the man? If I had done that I would have lost my daughter forever, senor. For some reason she loves this thatch-headed, tapeworm of a gringo. What is a father to do?”
“You could have just told me.”
“I believe I did.”
Charlie took another slug of whiskey.
“And Mexicali?”
“Played out a long time ago, I’m afraid. These days we have to venture further afield for supplies.”
“So you knowingly sent me to Mexicali, knowing that it was a fool’s errand. I lost a man down there, a good man.” He felt suddenly flushed, whether from the whiskey or a rush of anger.
“I regret your loss, but I did warn you about the Z’s, about the Quicks too. In all honesty, I did not believe you would go. I had hoped your desperate situation would have led you to reason. You are a brave man, Lieutenant, brave but foolish. Stubborn too.”
Since Charlie couldn’t disagree with that assessment, he said nothing. He had to leave anyway, get back to the school and prepare to evacuate the men to Pendleton. Harrow wasn’t going to be happy, but even he must see that there was no way they could hold out without supplies and ammunition.
Morales directed another smoke ring towards the ceiling and studied its gentle ascent. “Of course,” he said. “Now that Jespersen is my son-in-law, I feel honor bound to share my bounty with you. You may send a vehicle in the morning.”
Charlie wasn’t quite sure if he’d heard correctly. Had Morales just agreed to give them some of his supplies?
Morales chuckled. “Your expression, senor, is that of a prize winning bonito I once caught off Ensenada. I will supply you from my store, but next time we go on a run we share the burden of men fifty-fifty. You agree?”
“Of course,” Charlie said, his head still spinning with this sudden good fortune. “Of course. I don’t know how to thank you, senor.”
Morales dismissed his thanks with a grunt and a wave. “Just keep my son-in-law alive or my daughter will have your balls.” He stubbed out his cigar, got slowly to his feet.
“And now, I must rejoin the festivities. You will stay a while?”
Charlie stood up from his chair. “Thank you but no. I need to return to my men.”
Morales nodded and gave another of his trademark grunts. “You are a good leader, Lieutenant Collins. I sense this.”
He headed across the office, stopped in the doorway, appeared to be contemplating. “Before you go, there is something I wish you to see. Follow me, please.”
Morales waddled down the corridor and Charlie followed. He heard the faint strains of music, clapping and laughter, sounds that seemed foreign in these times. He suddenly felt guilty about being here, his belly full of food, while his men waited back at the base, hungry, Galvin injured and probably in pain.
Eventually, Morales stopped at a closed door. He placed his hand on the handle and raised a finger to his lips. Then he swung the door inward and stepped through and Charlie followed.
The room was cool and dimly lit, but Charlie could see immediately that it had been set up as an infirmary. Three cots sat side by side but only the middle one was occupied. In it, a petite woman with short cut blond hair lay sleeping. Her face was sunburned, bruised and scratched. Her arms, above the blanket, were heavily bandaged. Charlie noticed that she had three small but distinctive moles on her left cheek. Despite her injuries he thought that she was quite possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“Who is she?” he whispered to Morales.
Morales leaned closer, spoke in his ear. “She arrived here yesterday. We found her in the street out front clutching a dead baby. We do not know her name or where she came from.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“I hope so, senor.”
“Me too,” Charlie said, and in his heart of hearts, he did.
fifty two
A baby-faced moon casts its benevolent yellow glow upon a stretch of four-lane highway that dissects the desert plain like a serpent. A scattering of abandoned buildings stand sentinel along the highway, gradually thickening up as the road passes from rural to suburban climes. The night is alive with sounds, with insects chittering, the flutter of nocturnal avian wings, the distant howl of a coyote, the rustle of a faint breeze through the scrub grass. There are other sounds too, and smells. From somewhere distant comes a muffled buzzing, growing louder as though a swarm of angry wasps is approaching out of the east. And when the wind suddenly changes direction and blows westerly, the pleasant baked earth smell of the desert is supplanted by the less palatable odor of carrion and congealed blood.
Perhaps it is this that wakes him, for he wakes hungry. At first he is confused, as though waking from sleep in a strange place. Then other instincts, more primal callings, intervene and he is suddenly ravenous. Sampling the air, he scents carrion close at hand. He staggers to his feet and lopes across the blacktop towards it, slightly stooped. He falls to his knees beside the child’s corpse and sniffs vigorously. He finds he is salivating.
Ripping away the child’s clothing, he thrusts his hand into a chest wound that is already boiling with maggots. He closes his fist on a lump of organ meat, rips it free and bolts it down, maggots and all. It is ambrosia.
He continues feeding, sating himself until his stomach distends. Yet unsatisfied, he begins to feed on the corpse of the woman.
A shard of light suddenly appears, one that the arm he throws up to his eyes does nothing to deflect. Now the light splits apart and a fast-motion picture reel plays out in his mind. In it he sees a farmhouse, a family at its meal, a man stabbed to death, another shot and set alight, a woman clubbed into nothingness, a Madonna with baby. He sees a stretch of road, a vehicle careening into another, a man and woman pulverized. Now the film runs backward and focuses again on the Madonna and baby, now only on the Madonna. She is strapped to a bed, naked.
Whore!
The word forms in his mind in blazing neon, ten feet high. Whore! Slut! Harlot! Betrayer! This woman, this whore, has betrayed him in some way. He tries to give form to this betrayal and returns nothing but rage and the cold, dark thirst for revenge.
He throws back his head to hurl his anger at the heavens and finds that the sound that escapes him is not the roar he intends but a rather curious click, the sound made by tapping the tip of one’s tongue against the roof of one’s mouth.
Now that sound is returned to him out of the darkness and he notices hulking figures looming, surrounding him. Some part of him expects to be afraid, but instead he feels kinship. These are his brethren.
He clicks his tongue again and it is returned, along with an apian buzzing that eman
ates not from individuals but from the collective. Carried on that sound are memories and dreams, fragments of lives cut short, cries of anguish, frustration and despair.
Messenger absorbs them all and his anger builds. A tempest rages in his head, threatening to tear him apart and the world with it. Eventually, his rage finds a focus, the Madonna whore whose name he knows now is Skye.
He raises his head again and samples the air as though he might sniff her out. He can’t, of course, but he finds something else, a trio of stars in the western sky that sparks a memory. The whore carries just such a mark on her cheek.
This then is the path that he must follow.
He clicks his tongue and begins to walk west. His brethren follow.
Dead And Dangerous
(Book Eighteen of the Zombie D.O.A. Series)
J.J. Zep
PUBLISHED BY:
JJ Zep
Copyright © 2014
www.jjzep.com
one
Ruby Collins stood at the window of her room on the 7th floor of the Gulf Coast Hotel and looked out on the becalmed waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It was late evening, the sky turning a deepening blue, the sun’s last rays reflected as spun gold off the smattering of cloud cover and as molten lava off the water. To a soul less troubled, the vista might have been beautiful, breathtaking even. To Ruby it was sea and sky, no more engaging than the tub of rusty water she’d just bathed in.
She’d been in Galveston for nearly two months, drifting here from Plano. Before that she’d been in Nevada, Colorado, Utah, one filthy, ramshackle town after the next, none of them discernable from the other.
This place was different in only one respect. There were no barriers here, no razor wire, no lookout posts. Galveston didn’t need them. The island had only one access road, secure that road and you could keep the Z’s out without too much trouble. The human scum got in though. In Galveston, they outnumbered decent folk ten to one.
Ruby turned from the window back to the room, a faded replica of what had once been a luxury suite. She crossed to the bed, picked up her Katana and carried it to the bathroom. There she removed some loose tiles and slid the sword into the space she’d carved out of the rotting brickwork. She couldn’t take the Katana with her to work. She wasn’t about to leave it lying around for some junkie to steal and then hock for a five-dollar twist of PCP.
The sword hidden, she walked to the door, opened it and stepped out into the shadowy expanse of corridor. Reaching into the pocket of her jeans she removed a small square of card and slotted it between door and jamb as she pulled the door shut. Then she padded across the threadbare carpet, stepping lightly, making hardly a sound. The hall smelled mildewed and stale and Ruby’s sensitive nose picked up other scents – unwashed bodies, human waste, the eye-watering stench of spicy cooking. This place was a long way off from its heyday as Galveston’s premier hotel. Still it was better than the fleshpots of the Strand or the listing cruise ships docked at Pelican Island. At least this place was quiet. Well, mostly quiet. Ruby could hear a dog barking, a baby wailing and a couple involved in the heated exchange as she walked to the end of the hall.
She let herself onto the fire escape via the emergency exit beside the long- dead elevators. Three minutes later she was crossing the jungle that had once been the hotel’s leisure area. Now the lawns were overgrown with weeds that ran to shoulder height and the palms had been reduced to matchwood by the last hurricane. The swimming pool had been turned into a swamp, complete with a particularly mean-tempered alligator. Ruby veered away from the pool, picked up one of the crisscrossing paths and worked her way to the low wall separating the hotel from Seawall Avenue.
It was nearly full dark by the time she stepped onto the tarmac.
The night creatures were already out. Garishly dressed hookers jostled for position at the corner of 19th and Seawall. Pushers competed with them and with each other for the clientele drifting past in dilapidated golf carts, the main mode of transport in these parts.
Ruby turned north on 19th. The expanse of road cut through a valley of decrepit buildings. The sidewalk was dotted with fires, either contained within 50-gallon drums or built directly onto the cracked and blackened paving. Bowed figures huddled around those fires, pitiful, misshapen creatures, more closely resembling Z’s than humans. They followed Ruby with their eyes but they knew not to mess with her. A few of them had learned that the hard way.
Ruby continued north. From an alleyway came the acrid ammonia reek of a crystal meth lab. The drug was cheap and ubiquitous in Galveston.
There was a commotion in the road ahead, a couple of black and white Galveston PD golf carts had pulled up to the curb and the officers were laying into vagrants and addicts with their telescoping ASP batons. Ruby crossed to the opposite side then cut across Avenue N to join up with 20th. That would take her directly to the Opera House where she worked.
It was going to be busy tonight. Saturday nights were always busy. And they always meant trouble.
two
“You’re late.”
Ruby knew that she wasn’t late, but she didn’t argue. Duquette was head of security at the Bucket of Blood, the massive club, cum casino, cum whorehouse where Ruby worked security. The job wasn’t exactly her idea of fun, but it beat ten kinds of crap out of her other choices. Cage fighting paid better, but she’d long ago grown tired of killing Z’s for sport. Besides, it only took one or two fights before none of the bookies would offer odds against her. When that happened she was out of a gig.
Her other options were assassin, drug runner or comfort girl. She’d had plenty of offers in each of those professions. She was never going to accept any of them.
She crossed to her locker, flipped open the steel door and removed her black Teflon vest. The word ‘SECURITY’ was stenciled across the back in large yellow letters. She shrugged into the vest, clipped the press-studs together, fixed the Velcro strip across them. Around her, the other members of the security team – Brando, Flax, Cochrane and some new guys – were doing likewise, talking among themselves, wisecracking. Ruby knew few of them by name and preferred it that way.
“Hey Ruby,” a soft voice said. Ruby looked around the door of her locker and faced one of the few bouncers she did know. Alex was a six-foot-eight man mountain of pudgy flesh, a moon-face that rested on a set of broad shoulders sans neck. He was sweet. Unlike the rest of the crew he wasn’t the touchy feely type. He hadn’t tried it on with Ruby and so she hadn’t needed to kick his ass.
Ruby flashed him a smile.
“Listen up!”
Duquette’s intervention mercifully relieved Ruby of the need to make small talk.
“Listen up, people!” Duquette repeated, as the hubbub of voices died down. He waited a while longer after they fell silent, more to show who was boss than for any other reason, Ruby thought.
“We’ve got us a full house out there tonight,” Duquette said, delivering his usual speech. He was as big as the rest of the men. His voice though, was a breaking adolescent squeal, courtesy of some Saturday night surgery to his vocal chords back in the days when he’d still been working the floor.
“I don’t have to tell y’all that it’s Saturday night,” Duquette continued. “I don’t need to tell y’all that most of them punters are going to be drunk and spoiling for a fight within the next couple of hours.
“Zero tolerance on shit tonight, gentlemen. Anyone touches the girls, anyone gets tetchy at the craps tables, anyone so much as spills his drink on Mr. Pipe’s fine carpet and he’s out of here with a fractured skull. Y’all got that?”
“Yes boss!”
“And y’all carry your ASP’s tonight. No exceptions. That means you, Ruby.”
A deep-throated chuckle ran through the ranks. Ruby said nothing, placed her hand on the baton clipped to her belt. In the five weeks she’d been employed at the Bucket, she’d never had cause to use it. Still, if that was what the boss wanted.
three
; Montague Pipe owned every crack house, whorehouse and gin joint in the Strand. His pride and joy, though, was the Bucket of Blood, situated in Galveston’s once impressive, Romanesque Revival Opera House. The former theater occupied three levels. In the main auditorium, Pipe had ripped out all of the seats, leveled the floor and put in craps tables, card tables, roulette wheels and banks of one-armed bandits. Along the east and west walls, he’d installed a couple of long bars which he’d liberated from a cruise ship. The rear of the auditorium was portioned off into a series of cubicles where punters could enjoy peepshows and whatever add-ons they were prepared to pay for. On the stage Pipe ran a continuous roster of burlesque and risqué entertainments. The act performing now was a chorus line of high-kicking can-can dancers.
Ruby stood with her back to the dancers, watching the punters streaming in through the double doors at the opposite end of the room. They were a mixed crowd, ruffians from the shipyards, street thugs, bikers, mercenaries, professional gamblers, roughnecks and slavers from out of town, the odd local tradesman or merchant slumming it for the night. It was a recipe for trouble that seldom failed to deliver.
She angled her head towards the empty upper levels of the auditorium. The action there happened behind the scenes, where Pipe entertained local politicians and other worthies in his private suites. Ruby had never been asked to work that beat. Neither did she want to. From what she’d heard it involved babysitting a bunch of rich reprobates. She preferred it down here in the pit.
The blare of brass instruments from the orchestra pit was getting on her nerves. She decided to do a circuit of the room.
Pushing away from the wall, she cut left, through the thickening crowd. There was some sort of commotion going on in the foyer. Ruby stood on tiptoes to peer through the milling throng and saw Brando and Flax, plus a couple of other guards hustling a bunch of VIPs through the crowd. She could make out the diminutive bird-like figure of Montague Pipe beside a tall, gaunt man, stoop shouldered and sour-faced, with steel gray hair, slicked and parted in the middle. The man was dressed in a black suit, white shirt and string tie. He was vaguely familiar. Pipe’s toadying demeanor told her that he must be someone important. There was another man with the group, as tall as Alex, with bulging forearms that strained at every fiber of his white t-shirt. His thick black hair was raked back from his forehead and drawn into a ponytail. This man was sharp featured, with a complexion that suggested Native American somewhere in his heritage.