by Bryan Smith
The dead woman was on the ground, but she was already trying to get up again. Kyle wasted no time. He pounced on her immediately and raised the fire extinguisher high above his head, bringing it down again as hard as he could, his teeth bared and the muscles in his neck standing out in stark relief as he smashed it against her head again and again. At first she continued to struggle and claw at him, but in a few more moments her arms flopped to the ground and she ceased moving. Kyle nonetheless continued to drive the blunt bottom end of the extinguisher into what remained of her head, doing it numerous more times until he finally stopped.
Oscar was sitting up again by then. He thought he was going to be sick when he saw the pulpy mess the extinguisher had made of the woman’s head. She’d been so pretty before this sickness gripped her, but the lovely face he remembered from those scant few minutes before her flesh began to darken and bloat essentially no longer existed. She was just a smear of red on the ground, her head reduced to lumpy bits of brains, tissue and collapsed bone fragments. Kyle remained atop her another couple moments, sweating and panting with his stringy hair hanging in his face as he worked to catch his breath.
Then he got to his feet and glanced at Oscar. “Shit. That was intense. You want to get out of here?”
Oscar stood up and nodded. “Yeah. But how?”
He could hear more of those agonized screams now. Many more. He heard crashes and other loud noises. People were running around in a blind panic to get away from the reanimated dead things. He looked past Kyle and saw one of the creatures tackle a woman from behind and drive her to the ground. In another moment, the creature had torn out her throat and was devouring her flesh. And all the dead things were moving so goddamn fast. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could hope to avoid them for long.
Escape seemed hopeless and all but certain.
But for some reason Kyle was smiling. “I’ve got a satellite phone in my trailer. Don’t know if it’ll get through whatever’s blocking the cell phones, but it might. It’s our only real shot.”
Still clutching the blood-smeared fire extinguisher, he walked out into the chaos and Oscar followed.
What other choice did he have?
SEVEN
TRAVIS DRIFTED IN AND OUT of consciousness as the rednecks took him deeper into the woods. The big guy in the overalls had hold of one of his ankles and was dragging him along like a bag of trash. He felt twigs and undergrowth scratch against his flesh and open numerous cuts that leaked blood onto the ground. The back of his head bounced off more than a few rocks of various sizes, causing him to cry out in pain multiple times and, during his more lucid moments, beg for mercy. His pleas only made them laugh.
Just as the journey through the woods seemed as if it would go on forever, they arrived at a clearing larger than the one where they’d set up their trap. By then Travis was close to fully awake. He was able to lift his head enough to glimpse a ramshackle cabin. The cabin had a long porch with rickety-looking wooden rails and some rocking chairs arranged at either end. Off to a side of the cabin was a large old shed that looked on the verge of falling over. The door to the shed was standing open. As they moved closer to the cabin, Travis glimpsed something through the opening that ignited a sick sense of despair. The nude body of another young man was hanging upside down from a rafter. He’d been gutted just recently, judging from the pile of guts and organs on the shed’s earthen floor. His blood-matted hair was so long it nearly reached the ground. A multi-colored peace symbol was tattooed on one of the dead man’s limp arms.
When they arrived at the porch, the guy in the overalls let go of his ankle and gave him a kick. “On your feet, boy.”
Travis hurt too much to make an immediate attempt to get up. He moaned and looked up at them through eyes brimming with fresh tears. “Please . . .”
A corner of the big man’s mouth twitched. “I said, get on your got-damn feet!” He gave Travis a much harder second kick in the side, one delivered with enough force to make him scream and twist in agony. Then the twin barrels of the big man’s shotgun were in his face, the big open ends maybe an inch away from grazing the tip of his nose. “You got five damn seconds to do as you’re told ’fore I blow your brains out all over the ground.”
The one called Darlene moved into his field of vision, smirking as she peered down at him and said, “Reckon you might ought do as the man says. Jasper don’t make no false promises. One of his favorite things in the whole wide world is watching some poor motherfucker’s head blow open like a melon when he unloads both them barrels. You really want that to happen to you?”
Travis whimpered and said, “N-n-noooo . . .”
The toothpick wedged into a corner of her mouth moved around some as she chuckled. She took it out and held it pinched between her thumb and forefinger as she said, “Didn’t think so. Most folks prefer to keep their thinkin’ goo inside their noggins. You look kind of out of it. Maybe this’ll wake your sorry ass up.”
She inserted the toothpick inside one of his nostrils and gave it a hard upward shove, making him screech in pain. That got them all to laughing again as she wiggled the end of the toothpick around some, making him cry out again as well as do some more begging. She removed the toothpick from his nostril and licked the little bead of blood off the end before again wedging it into that same corner of her mouth.
Her grin faded and her tone hardened as she said, “Get off your ass right now, boy. Else I’ll start sticking things in your dickhole instead of up your nose.”
She slapped him hard across the face and got to her feet.
The double barrels of the shotgun kissed his forehead as the one called Jasper started counting. “Five, four, three—”
Travis held a shaky hand up in a gesture of acquiescence. “I’m getting up.”
He groaned through gritted teeth as he heaved himself into a sitting position, an effort that required nearly every remaining bit of his depleted strength. He felt lightheaded and ached to flop back to the ground, but the shotgun still hovering inches from his face was all the motivation he needed to not let that happen. His head wobbled around some as his vision blurred, but he gave it a hard shake to regain focus. The rednecks were yelling at him again. Their threats included more references to “thinkin’ goo” ejection and various ways they might abuse all of his orifices. They told him if he wasn’t on his feet in another five seconds they’d tear his pecker off and feed it to their coonhound. The sadistic hillbillies had a particular fixation on five-second countdowns, it seemed. Maybe they couldn’t count any higher than that. Travis didn’t see a dog around, but he had to assume this wasn’t an idle threat. The beast was probably out roaming around in the woods somewhere. Almost as if one cue, he heard a faint sound of canine yowling from somewhere off in the distance.
Jasper had nearly reached the end of another countdown when Travis finally managed to propel himself to his feet. He felt lightheaded and ready to fall over again, but in another instant he realized no one had a hand on him. His best chance at getting out of this might be to make a run for it and hope to get back into the woods before they could gun him down. Knowing the lightheadedness would almost certainly cause him to tumble to the ground after just a few steps was the only thing that kept him from trying it.
One of the flannel shirt guys seized him by an arm, got him turned around, and pushed him toward the cabin’s porch. Someone else gave him a kick in the ass, making them all laugh again. Only the flannel shirt guy’s iron grip on his arm prevented him from pitching forward and bouncing the tip of his chin off the edge of the porch’s bottom step. In another couple seconds, he was up on the porch, wobbling unsteadily in place. The other flannel shirt guy got the door open and went on into the cabin. Travis and the man holding onto him followed him inside. Darlene and Jasper came in after them and shut the door.
The rundown old cabin had a wide-open main room with a recessed little kitchen nook in one of the back corners. Travis saw a couple of cots with rumpled bedding an
d some sleeping bags on the floor. A boxy old TV with rabbit-ear antennas sat atop a produce crate that was pushed up against one of the walls. Another corner of the room was hidden by some wicker fold-out panels, the kind he’d sometimes seen in old movies. He supposed these were in place in the event any of his redneck captors ever felt in need of a moment of privacy. The surface of a decrepit-looking wooden table in the center of the room was littered with bottles and empty cans of Milwaukee’s Best. Also on the table was a large, old-style boombox. It looked like the bigger older cousin of the one they’d left behind in the woods. Darlene pulled a chair away from the table and the flannel shirt guy promptly dumped Travis into it.
Jasper put the shotgun right up against his face again. “Don’t you move, boy. I mean it. You so much as twitch, I’ll make a mess outta that purty face.”
Travis frowned.
Purty face?
Those words did not bode well on any level whatsoever.
He heaved a sigh and slumped down in the chair, feeling the physical strain of his desperate flight from the festival grounds in every bone in his body. “You don’t have to keep threatening me. I doubt I could get to the door without fainting dead away anyway.”
Darlene was pacing about the cabin in a way that conveyed a high level of pent-up aggression. She paused to grab a meth pipe from the table’s crowded surface while her male friends opened a cooler and plucked out dripping-wet cans of beer. After holding the flame from a cheap plastic lighter to the bowl for the requisite amount of time, she put the end of the pipe between her lips and inhaled deeply. The men cracked open their beers while Darlene pressed a button on the boombox and began to dance wildly around the room to “Purple Haze”. One of the flannel shirt guys began to play air guitar with his rifle, while the other flannel shirt guy dropped his rifle on one of the cots. The second one then unbuckled his belt, lowered his pants, and began to flick at his clit as he sat on the edge of the cot and stared intensely at Darlene.
Travis did a cartoon-like doubletake.
Now hold on just a goddamn minute! What the hell is happening here!?
Then it came to him. Flannel shirt guy number two was actually a flannel shirt gal. Never in a million years would he have guessed. Now his gaze flicked over to the one playing air guitar. He squinted at him, trying hard to discern subtle indications of a hidden femininity, but he then realized how pointless that was. The two weren’t twins. They looked nothing alike. He’d only grouped them together in his mind because of their similar attire. His gaze went again to the one with the vagina. She smirked and licked her lips when she saw him looking at her, causing him to quickly look away.
God help me, what have I gotten myself into?
The strangest part of this overall deeply strange situation was how little he feared the zombie threat now. Barring any unlikely and miraculous developments, the massive horde of undead had not neutralized. They were still out there and some of them—perhaps quite a few of them—would eventually stray into this part of the woods, but it no longer mattered because he knew there was no chance he was getting out of this cabin alive. These sadistic backwoods weirdos were going to have their fun with him and then they’d kill him. He’d end up strung-up in the shed with that other unfortunate bastard. Tears started spilling down his face again as “Purple Haze” gave way to a Die Antwoord track. Despite his terror, Travis almost laughed. For a bunch of crazy hillbillies, these people sure had some eclectic taste in music.
Jasper had been watching Travis this whole time, keeping the shotgun trained on him while occasionally chugging from his beer. When the can was empty, he crushed it and tossed it on the table, making Travis flinch. He then yelled at Darlene loud enough to be heard over the music. She kept on dancing and he raised his voice even higher, almost to eardrum-shattering levels.
She came to an abrupt stop and glared at him. Her face was red and dripping sweat. “What, motherfucker?”
He shoved the shotgun into her hands. “Keep an eye on the new meat. I need a minute to get ready.”
She rolled her eyes, cradling the shotgun in her arms while she also fiddled with the meth pipe and her lighter. “Whatever, ho-beast. Make it quick, though.”
He sneered and adjusted the Miller High Life hat atop his head. “You ain’t the boss of me, you skinny bitch, so shut yer piehole.”
Before she could retort, Jasper retreated to the corner of the room hidden by the wicker panels, disappearing behind them seconds later.
Darlene managed the impressive juggling act of holding on to the shotgun while also getting the meth pipe lit again. After another deep inhalation, she surprised Travis by offering him the pipe. “Want a hit?”
Travis actually gave it a moment’s consideration. Meth wasn’t his thing. He liked weed and mellow good times, not chemically-induced mental derangement. The prospect of one day winding up on one of those “faces of meth” posters also wasn’t exactly an enticing one, at least not under normal circumstances. There wasn’t a damn thing normal about the circumstances facing him today, though. Maybe a bit of mental derangement was exactly what he needed to face the torturous remaining moments of his life.
Just as he was about to accept the offer, she laughed and snatched the pipe away. “What a fuckin’ dumb piece of shit you are,” she said, shaking her head. “You think I’m actually gonna waste good meth on a worthless fuckin’ hippie?”
Travis sniffled. “Please . . .”
She put the pipe and lighter away and raised the shotgun as she moved closer. “Open your mouth wide as you can.”
What she had in mind was immediately obvious. Travis was sniffling and trembling almost uncontrollably by now. “P-p-p-please . . .”
She poked at his mouth with the barrels of the shotgun. “No! No you don’t, bitch! No begging allowed. Just do as you’re fuckin’ told. Open that goddamn mouth right now. If you don’t, I’ll shoot your dick off. How’s that sound?”
Tears streamed nonstop down Travis’s face. He blubbered unintelligibly for a few moments, completely unable to form coherent words or sentences.
Darlene poked his mouth with the shotgun again. “Aw, hell, it’s five-second countdown time again. Five, four, three, two—”
Travis opened his mouth, straining his jaw muscles to accommodate both barrels of the shotgun as she slid them in.
She smiled. “That’s real good, hippie. Just in time, too. Now make like you’re sucking a metal dick.”
It wasn’t an easy thing to do with that much steel in his mouth, but Travis did his best to mimic the act of fellatio.
Darlene laughed. “Yeah, that’s hot, ooh baby.” She laughed again. “But you can still do better. Let me hear you sound like you’re having a real good time.”
His tears fell on the shotgun’s barrels as Travis did his best to fake a moan of sexual ecstasy. In the next instant, his simulated sound of arousal was echoed by the real thing. His eyes flicked over to flannel shirt gal, who was masturbating frantically on the edge of the cot and still staring at Darlene with that disconcerting level of intensity. Her flannel shirt-clad male counterpart dropped to his knees in front of her and tried to go down on her, but she shoved him away. On the boombox, a second Die Antwoord track gave way to “The Time Warp” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack.
Travis glanced at the boombox while still feigning sounds of ecstasy.
What the actual fuck is the deal with these people?
Over in the hidden corner of the room, a big hand appeared at the top of one of the wicker panels and turned it aside. Travis eyed the open space between the wall and the folded-back panel with mounting anxiety, not having a clue what level of madness to expect next but fearing it anyway.
Then Jasper stepped through that space and back into the main room.
Travis sighed around the barrels of the shotgun.
Of fucking course.
Atop Jasper’s head was an ill-fitting platinum blonde wig, the tresses of which reached his hairy and almo
st impossibly broad shoulders. His face was garishly painted with badly-applied mascara, eyeshadow, and lipstick. He was wearing an obscenely small blue dress with spaghetti straps, the hem of which was not nearly low enough to hide his semi-erect penis. He made eye contact with Travis, smiled, and started moving in his direction.
Travis looked at Darlene and tried to say something around the barrels.
She took the shotgun out of his mouth and giggled. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. What did you say?”
Travis cleared his throat and tried to speak loudly enough to be heard over the music. “Please shoot me now. I mean it. I’m ready.”
Darlene cackled and shook her head. “No fuckin’ way, hippie. We’re just starting to have our fun with you. This is gonna go on all fuckin’ day.”
They were all crowding around him now. All of them eyeing him with almost identical hungry looks on their faces. Flannel shirt girl was now devoid of flannel, as well as all other garments. She glanced back and forth from him and Darlene as she bit her bottom lip and squeezed one of her tiny breasts. Flannel shirt guy, now the one and only, began to unzip his pants. Jasper was grinding his sizeable hips like a stripper. His cock was fully erect now. Even Darlene was getting in on the act, beginning to undo the buttons of her mechanic’s shirt with one hand while holding the shotgun with the other.
She laughed and said, “What we’re about to do now, hippie, is have ourselves a good old-fashioned gang rape. Then, just as soon as we’ve all gotten off good and proper, we’re gonna start in with the torture. I’m talkin’ nails and hammers, pliers, and knives. I’m talkin’ amputations and smashed-in bones. At some point we’ll break out the acetylene torch.”