The Drumhead

by Richard Correll

  “We have to go now, Goddamnitt!” She had blurted out hours earlier.

  “No,” His answer was firm with an almost lipless smile. Alice categorized the expression as vainglorious. “Everyone else goes. Then, we go.”

  “Why?” Alice finally found the nerve to reach out and turn him toward her for an answer.

  “Because, I’m thinking ahead.” Alice swore the pupils in his eyes were the color of a black widow spider. “I’m a leader, remember?”

  “You’re trying to look like a goddamn hero.” Annie could only manage a whisper in reply now that the spider eyes were on her.

  “It’s going to look amazing come election time.” The web was spun, the plan was in place.

  “I shall return?”

  “Exactly.” The smile was reptilian. “It worked for Macarthur.”

  “Macarthur got fired.” She reminded him.

  “Eventually,” his reply was a cool snarl, he added: “By a lesser man.”

  “How do we get out of here?” She tried again.

  “I called our ride.” His tone was suddenly condescending. The eyes seemed weary, edging up to eventual anger. “The limousine will be here in about an hour.”

  “Limousine?”

  “One of dad’s bullet proof jobs at City Hall,” his tone patronized her with his power and influence. “I can leave it this late because I have a ride. A bulletproof motherfuckin’ ride.”

  “You leaving in a limo?” Annie took a sarcastic stab at him. “How is that going look at election time?”

  “Don’t make me get sick of you, bitch.” Black coal fire raged in his eyes. “You won’t like the way things end.”

  She froze for a second and stopped breathing. How many times has this played out? His eyes seemed full of fury and cold to the world. Alice looked deeply into the perfect blackness of his eyes. He had a necromancer’s soul. The right move here and there made people play things. Once he was bored with them they were broken or discarded. Alice avoided his glance by looking out of the second floor window façade of the UIC pavilion. They were everywhere now. The pristine streets were littered with human refuse. The precarious hold that they had on this part of Chicago had ended in blood rain carnage. The dead collected around still warm bodies in steps that were like a contortion that was new to them.

  Alice suddenly saw the dead in a new light in the slowly rising sun. Maybe they know something we don’t. There is only so long we can run. There are only so many places we can hide. There is only so many days before we collapse and give way to them, letting them dismember and tear into the sinews of our flesh. It was impossible to stand against them forever. They know that. No rush, all in good time.

  So, a shiver in her spine asked. Who’s going to kill you? Them or him?

  *

  Brett carefully worked his way down Halstead and its red brick blockhouses of fashionable apartments, wrought iron gates and cars parked neatly to the side. The classic old lamp posts that were designed to increase property value were in stark contrast to the tattered bodies strewn about. The placing of each red, spreading pool of skin was so random that the eye almost tried to perceive a hidden pattern. The dead had no such plans. Where they had dragged them down was where they feasted. A few of the bodies had revived in the new circle of creation. A few squirmed along the asphalt like snails, leaving a path of wet entrails behind. Brett watched one try and rear up and crawl on broken arms and legs eaten clean through like a drunken daddy long legs. He stayed close to the buildings and out of sight. Cold shock still made him feel slow, vulnerable.

  As he passed a window at the side of one of the look-a-like apartments the milk white shades suddenly stirred like a flock of startled birds. A crevice appeared between the shades and produced half a face lost in shadow and two, intense puss like eyes. Brett froze for a second before breathing again as he slowly moved on. In afterthought, he was not sure the thing on the other side of the thick glass was a young child or old woman. Did it really matter?

  At 19th and Halstead a sign advertising condominiums proclaimed: THE FINAL PHASE.

  “That might just be true.” He whispered and the thought struck him as sardonically amusing. A grim smile cut across his face that was more like an open wound than a facial expression. A few feet away, a discarded bicycle seemed to laugh along as its wheel slowly turned. Clicka-clicka-clicka……….

  *

  “Right on time,” The smile was wider. When he turned to Alice she recoiled. The eyes were devoid of emotion. Like when the spider was talking to the fly? “Get ready.” His voice allowed no room for argument.

  The jet black Limousine even looked heavy as it lumbered into position at the corner of Harrison and Racine. It was the full deal, Right down to the tinted windows that protected the passengers from the glare of the less fortunate. It was just 25 yards away, to Alice’s eyes it looked like a mile.

  “How are we going to get out there?” She stared out the window of the front door to avoid his glare.

  “We’ll be inside before they know we’re here.” The black widow eyes waited for her to turn her head and make contact. She saw how triumphantly he watched her look away in subjugation. It was a dance she was so used to by now. She followed him. Her prize, her possession and her claim to a higher rung on the ladder.

  “Let’s go.” He pushed on the metal bar and a scraping noise accompanied the opening door, betraying them to the shadows of humanity in the sunlight. It was strange how the heads turned quickly at first. But, the bodies turned at a more controlled and animal rhythm pace. Halfway to the limousine and they had yet to take a step. It occurred to Alice that Aaron might be right. They had this.

  Murphy wasn’t done yet. He paused and stared down a figure 40 feet away as he stood by the rear door of sanctuary. A man in a custodian’s overalls with drooping eyes returned the look. He had an old, thin face with long grey hair. He hissed at Murphy through patchwork teeth.

  Aaron’s smile slithered across his face as he took careful aim and fired twice. The second shot creased the old man’s left eyebrow and exited in a black cloud at the crown of the back of his head. The body dropped to the pavement without a second motion.

  “Stay dead, motherfucker!” He exalted at the feeling of power that flowed through him. Having proven his mastery over this domain, Aaron turned his head slightly and slipped his fingers into the rear car door handle. It replied with a curt, almost leather-like click.

  Locked.

  “Hey!” Alice blurted out on the other side of the metal black beast.

  “Is this a fucking joke?” Murphy bellowed. He bent over to pound his fist once on the driver side window and peered through the smoky glass. “Do you know who I am?” Murphy challenged the slight figure inside. The driver turned slowly to face him. Murphy’s eyes froze and went wide

  Maggie………

  Springs shot a question mark look in Aaron’s direction and watched him freeze. Her curiosity made her peer in inside with her left hand pressed against the dark glass. The driver turned to face her.

  “Hello, bitch,” Maggie whispered as the blood drained from Alice’s face.

  Hunter gunned the V8 4.6 liter engine. It responded with a lion like roar. It was like ringing a dinner bell as heads swiveled together and rested on the forms outside the safety of the limousine. The morning air was remarkably clean for Chicago. The forms nearby did not notice. They were concentrating on more pressing matters, the scent was confirmed. The figures were naked in the sunlight, exposed prey in the new jungle.

  “Hunter, open the fucking door now!” Aaron tapped his pistol on the glass and pointed it at Maggie. The driver window and Maggie’s expression as she turned back toward him said it all. Bullet proof glass.

  Murphy felt the world change speed for a slow motion memory. He remembered being on top of Maggie, staring into her horrified and drugged eyes. He was running his hands all over her, loving the power and control. Her eyes were a bright emerald green then.

 
Now, they were black as coal, dark as revenge.

  Alice was suddenly on the move, stirred by self preservation. She fired twice with shaking fingers at things that seemed to get alarmingly close in such a short period of time. Her eyes lingered uncontrollably on a child in a light blue jumper stained with red. Her cheeks had been eaten away, exposing a perfect ivory row of baby teeth. One of her bullets struck a black man in a business suit in the hand. One second he was clawing at the air, approaching. The palm disappeared in an explosive mist while the fingers tumbled away in several directions. He paused for a second as instinct righted his senses. His shoulders hunched like a wolf and he doubled his pace toward her.

  Find somewhere to run. Find somewhere to hide. Alice made it back to the pavilion doors and tried them. Locked. They always do that when they close. She screamed in frustration and headed toward the corner of the building at Racine. Alice heard them a hyper second before rounding the corner. The closest one was twenty feet away. His skin was tight to his skull as if all the moisture had been exhumed from his body. He had short, flat blonde hair that clung to his skull as if it had been molded there. They had already had the scent in their system. At visual contact they howled in rage and extended their hands forward. Their eyes went wide at the anticipation of being so close. Suddenly, she could smell them.

  “Oh god,” Alice felt vomit in her throat as she turned back to the limousine and Aaron’s tirade.

  “Hunter, we can make a deal……” A pause for thought. He had talked his way out of so much. Now seemed no different. “I’m a powerful man…..”

  A loud thump and Alice was on the hood of the car. A brief, elevated few seconds of safety. She pounded the glass and started screaming words that ran together like a river

  “MaggieMaggiepleasegodletusinMaggie!”

  Maggie’s heart felt frozen in animation. No feeling. No presence. A trickle of pity, like water from an icicle touched her soul. Then, there was Alice. Her eyes were in exultation, Teeth flashing in fierce domination as she drove the cigarette into Maggie’s skin. She heard the scream and knew it was her own.

  Gunshots. Murphy emptied his clip into hands and bodies that crowded so close together they seemed to merge into a single nightmare. A woman in front of Murphy with blond hair and an open wound where her esophagus should have been took a bullet a few inches above her left breast. Her thin form shrugged off the impact. She glanced at the wound for a second and turned toward Murphy with a jubilant roar of flourishing teeth and hellfire eyes. The muscles in her throat expanded and contracted as Maggie watched in fascination inside her fortress of icy shock.

  GODDAMNITMAGGIEMAGGIEMAGGIE!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Alice pounded the windshield with both fists “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” It was an order/plea/question/demand at high volume. A sixteen year old girl with olive skin whose Hijab was in bloody tatters had crawled on to the front of the hood behind her. Maggie took a slow, preparatory breath and could almost taste the dead animal skin that was everywhere in the limousine’s interior. A ball of ice had replaced her stomach. Maggie stared at Alice and their eyes met.

  “You killed me.” Maggie did not recognize her own voice. “It’s’ my turn now.”

  A pause. Alice’s eyes were just starting to widen when the young girl stood up and pounced on her back. Like any hungry animal she found Alice’s neck and bit down hard and found the external jugular. It was like a red water balloon suddenly exploding on the windshield. There was no scream, just a blanket of oozing red obscuring Maggie’s vision.

  BAM! BAM!

  Two palms pushed against the upper part of the windshield and slowly slid down the glass with all fingers extended. It was an almost artistic statement. An unconscious act from a soul no longer in control. Then, an eruption from the jugular acted like another layer of paint applied by an artist who would burn in hell. Through patterns of clarity Maggie watched the convulsing body being pulled off the hood of the vehicle. The teenage girl slipped in the river of crimson and rolled off the limousine. When she stood back up she was a mask of ruby red and puss colored eyes in ecstasy. There was no final cry pain from Alice as multiple hands pulled her into blackness. Her skin had gone an extra shade of pale as her eyes remained wide open.

  No one’s gonna believe you, bitch. The mouth that had uttered those words with twisted cynicism was now working slowly, opening and closing in the same rhythm that blood was pumping from her body. Alice’s hands traced lines of red on the jet black car body as she disappeared into a maw of multiple hands and teeth.

  “Get your fucking hands off of me!” Murphy’s voice had never been more authoritative. “Do you hear me?”

  Maggie could feel the ice of shock growing inside her. It was like a balloon that slipped through the pores of her skin and made the world less touchable and real. Maybe you’re not alone, her insides whispered. Look at him.

  Look at him…..

  “I said get your fuckin’ hands off of me!” He bellowed again and swatted a pair of spindly arms away that tried to drape themselves around his shoulders. The circle was closing now. In Maggie’s ice fortress of detachment, her feelings were from another world. She watched him tirade, threaten and even negotiate with her while long seconds ticked down to the end of his life. This is the first time you can’t talk your way out of it, isn’t it?

  “Get out of my fuckin’ way!” He tried to elbow past an elderly woman with spectacles, a grey bun of hair and a gaping wound on her bare shoulder. She staggered backwards into a wall of hands and bodies that caught her. The next time she reached out he was half way behind her. The woman wore a brown suit that looked camouflaged with spurts of clotted blood all over the fabric. The hands seemed so sinuous and alien as they reached up and gripped his collar. The woman’s eyes grew electric at the closeness of her prey.

  “Hey!” Aaron screamed as Maggie listened to his indignation. You have your state of shock. He has his. The elderly woman opened her mouth and extended her teeth. She seemed to pause, Lingering for a delicious moment of triumph before plunging her teeth into Murphy’s exposed neck. “What the fuck!??” Aaron’s verbal response was instant. You really have no idea………

  A short, squat man with a black t-shirt and jean shorts wrapped two arms around Aaron’s middle and bit into his back. A college aged woman in an argyle skirt wrapped her arms around his legs and tried to find something to bury her teeth into. Her eyes were wide with excitement and anticipation. Hands and arms encircled, gripped and began tearing away the thick cloth of his uniform. Maggie watched Aaron’s eyes with an almost scientific curiosity. He looked bewildered, offended and confused. He was used to a wave of a hand, a slap on the wrist or sullen retreat from his victims and enemies. He tumbled over the college girl as they both fell to the pavement in a chaotic ensemble of arms and legs. The hands were everywhere on him now. Scratching, probing and tearing. Aaron’s eyes had not lost a single iota of indignation.

  “Hey! Hey!.......Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

  Maggie tried to find order in the chaos. Was there any strategy to these things? She watched the squat man in the T-shirt burrow into Murphy’s back and rip out a huge chunk of flesh. The squat man began chewing on his bloody reward with a rapture that made his eyes disappear into his upper eyelids. The massive wound was suddenly attacked and explored by other greedy fingers. They prodded it open further while the weight of the bodies held Murphy on his stomach against the pitiless cement.

  “Yooooooooo can’t do this!!!!!!”

  The skin had shredded open like wrapping paper on a present. First one pair and then a second burrowed into the red, meaty sustenance. Maggie felt herself start to shiver. Are you cold, sweetheart? She thought she heard her mother say.

  “No, I don’t feel anything.” She whispered back.

  The probing, pasty hands burrowed up to the wrist and then the muscles on their arms tensed and pulled. Aaron’s body was off the pavement for a second and then landed back on the cold surface. Aaron’s legs convul
sed like a fish out of water.. He can feel what’s happening to him. Maggie’s thought was just a whisper in her ear as she watched. More faces appeared out of the solid forest of limbs to tear in to his skin. The look on their faces was hypnotic, delirious at taking down their prey. Is this what wolves are like? The hands on the back were pulling….

  And pulling ……..

  And pulling……..

  Murphy’s voice was a random collection of verbs and syllables that never approached meaning. Maggie watched bloodied skin start to peel back and split in several places at once. It was like the fractures of an ice shelf before it gave way. The tears appeared near other wounds on his skin and began to snake together before the whiteness of his back disappeared in a bath of blood. More hands plunged into the crimson, murky fluid and something of substance appeared to rear itself. As they pulled it away, the ribcage started to bend and snap in spots. Maggie’s mouth slowly parted as a snake like object appeared.