Bridgett stared at him. “How do you know that?”
Victor smiled in his sad way, only the right side of his mouth rising. Pulling back his left sleeve he showed her the teeth marks. “Early on one of them got close enough to take a taste. He spit out what he’d taken, but it takes me a long while to heal.”
“Do you know what happens to one of us when we get bitten?”
“You die. Horribly and slowly, always aware each time you fall asleep that perhaps the next time you wake, it will be as an empty vessel, filled with nothing but endless hunger. I’ve seen it many times.”
Bridgett crossed her arms. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It is,” he replied. “Mankind is facing its greatest challenge. The dead are prevailing. Whoever survives to conquer them will make the race stronger, if anyone survives.”
“So,” Bridgett asked, her voice strained. “Why do you rescue us?”
Victor drew in a deep breath. “I do it so I can get supplies, a safe place to rest for a while. Because I would not want to see the light of humanity fade from the world.”
“Do you sleep?”
Victor wondered if she would ever stop asking questions. But at least the ones she asked weren’t the foolish ones people had asked in the past. Things like, do your scars hurt? How does it feel to be made of dead flesh? In truth, Victor considered himself a miracle of science. The Baron had, working with the primitive tools of his time, reconstructed a being, reattached limbs, organs, miles of veins and arteries, then given that creation life. If only the Baron could have seen beyond the act of creation, to assume responsibility for his creation. What would the Baron have thought of the ghouls? Could he have figured out why the dead had risen? He was a genius far in advance of his years.
“I rarely sleep. I have vitality beyond normal human beings.”
Bridgett glanced at him. “Do you consider yourself human?”
Victor felt a slow pulse of anger grow inside him. This was one of the more foolish questions she had asked. “I was created from human beings, so I am human. Perhaps more than human since I am superior in strength and endurance.”
“Do you think that if you died, you’d come back as one of them?”
That was something Victor had not considered. “I don’t know if I can die. I’ve been frozen and returned to life. I have suffered injuries that would kill someone like you instantly. If I were to die and come back, I think I would be very dangerous as a zombie.”
This caused Bridgett to fall silent.
* * *
“Slow down,” commanded Victor, who had not spoken for miles.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s something in the road ahead.”
Bridgett stared ahead. She could see only the gloom of oncoming twilight, but she slowed down. As they moved closer to whatever Victor saw, he let out an explosive breath: “Looters.”
“Looters?” She had heard rumors of them. Gangs of roving humans, living off the land, they killed anyone who was in their way. Dead or living, all were their enemies. Some governors had authorized their militias to shoot looters on sight, even though some occasionally joined outposts and were productive.
“Don’t stop,” Victor said. “But keep an eye out.”
Ahead of them, a small motor home lay on its side, spirals of smoke rising slowly from it. A few ghouls were hovering around it, some holding bones that glistened with bits of meat. A body, mutilated beyond recognition, had been hung from a telephone pole. It had been crucified and skinned. The muscles reflected the dull light of twilight as the sightless head moved back and forth. Hanging just out of reach of the ghouls, a large spike had been driven through the body’s chest. It was impossible to tell the corpse’s sex. Beneath it, several ghouls were struggling with parts of its skin in a bizarre tug of war. Bridgett felt her throat constrict as she realized that the body had revived. It would now hang there until it rotted enough to fall off.
Victor ignored the corpse, having seen hundreds of thousands of them in his long life. “They were probably trying to reach Saint Louis. The crucified one either tried to fight, or was a looter with a conscience. The dead must have arrived later since the looters had time to do that.”
“Can we go?” Bridgett was barely keeping herself from throwing up. In a world where horrors were commonplace, the skinned corpse was almost too horrible for her to bear.
“Yes, but drive carefully and keep a good lookout. The looters may still be about.”
Bridgett stepped on the accelerator, glad to be leaving this horrible sight behind her. “With all the things going on, we can still find the time to kill one another! Maybe we don’t deserve to survive!”
Victor, hands curled around his auto-shotgun, shook his head. “I gave up being amazed or dismayed at humanity’s capacity for violence long ago.”
Bridgett felt embarrassed at the way this being, this creation of one her kind, simply dismissed the violent acts he’d seen. Had he become jaded in his long life, attuned to the horror of the world? She’d seen many people die, mostly at the hands of the ghouls, but she hoped she would never get used to it.
“You will,” Victor said, as if he were reading her mind. “If you don’t get used to the sights around you, you’ll go mad.”
* * *
They drove until Bridgett nodded off in the driver’s seat. When the car suddenly swerved, Victor steadied the wheel. “Pull off the road. I’m going to refill the tank. Lock the door. If anything happens to me, drive away quickly.”
As soon as the vehicle slowed to a stop, Victor was out of the car, his weapon ready. Bridgett locked the door and sat there, shivering even in the warmth of a summer evening. She jumped a bit as an image went across her eyes. Screaming she tugged at her pistol when the window next to her shattered. She heard someone screaming, then there was a sharp pain in her head and she heard nothing else.
* * *
Bridgett awoke to angry voices.
“I don’t know what the fuck it was! Benny jumped the big bastard and got his fucking arms pulled from their sockets.”
Bridgett lay still. She was in some kind of house or shack, the rough floorboards uncomfortable. She could taste blood in her mouth, a gift from whoever had knocked her unconscious. She tried to move, but a rope bound her. Lying still, she listened to her captors.
“So where is this big guy? This tough guy?”
“We left him for the ghouls, man. He didn’t only whack Benny, he wasted Julio too. Hit the fucker so hard in the face that his brains came out his ears.”
“You are so full of shit.” The sound of a slap followed, and the scrabble of feet. “If you weren’t my asshole of a brother, I’d stake you out for the ghouls like that camper geek.”
Bridgett felt her blood run cold. These were the looters. How did they find us? They had to have been hiding or following. Bastards.
“Wake up!” A hand grabbed her by the hair and rolled her over. In a fit of anger, the looter tore off her blouse, leaving her topless.
Bridgett opened her eyes. Three men loomed over her, all nasty looking and worse smelling. They hadn’t shaved or bathed in months, it seemed. One of them had his hand on his groin. “She’s a fine looking frail, Flea. You did good this time.” The speaker leaned close to her. “Your boyfriend’s dead, sweetheart. You got two choices: make us happy and we’ll take you along, make us unhappy and we’ll do what we want and leave you for the ghouls.”
The other one, hand still on his groin, smiled nastily. “Yeah sweetheart, what’s it gonna be? Take some advice, listen to Dirk.”
Bridgett smiled sweetly, then brought her foot up into Flea’s testicles. Flea’s face went white as, with barely a whimper, he slumped to the ground.
Dirk grabbed Bridgett by the hair. “Bad decision there, frail. He’s an idiot, but he’s my brother.”
Bridgett barely saw the fist coming. It smashed into her nose, knocking her unconscious again.
* * *
; Victor woke to the early morning sun in his eyes. It had been years since he’d been knocked unconscious. That had happened in a landslide in the Rocky Mountains. Rising to his feet, he stopped and looked around. The dead had arrived. One of the two men he’d killed was back, armless and no threat. His head was buried in the innards of the man whose face Victor had crushed. Victor listened carefully. A shrill scream was cutting the air, a woman’s scream.
Bridgett.
Looking around, Victor saw his shotgun, trampled into the mud. He grabbed the weapon and pulled his bag out of the backseat of the now wrecked car. Victor didn’t know why the looters had wrecked the vehicle, nor did he care.
Victor studied the ground around the Hummer. Decades spent in the near primeval forests of Europe had taught him tracking skills that were unparalleled in this day and age. Moving off, he followed the sounds of torment.
* * *
Bridgett lay on the floor, a puddle of blood spreading out from the various wounds the looters had inflicted on her. Her nose was broken, blood flowing from it, making it hard to breathe. One eye was swollen shut, and they’d made several shallow slices on her. It had all started with Flea’s attempt to rape her. Dirk had egged him on, daring him to do it. Bridgett had laughed when he’d dropped his pants, and the three of them had beaten her. Now she wished she would die; it would be a release. Did the dead have any memory from before when they came back? She hoped so. Because if she did die, she could come back and wreak vengeance on these fuckers.
A fourth looter came in through the front door, his place as watchman taken by Flea, who’d spent his anger and his lust. Bridgett could feel it drying on her abused stomach.
“We’ve got deaders coming, Dirk. We should finish up and move on.”
Dirk, who’d done things to Bridgett she’d never thought possible, smiled. “I think one more time, then I’m gonna scalp her fine red hair, keep it as a souvenir.”
Bridgett thought she’d spent all her tears, but now they flowed quick and warm. She hoped he’d at least kill her before doing such a thing, but she knew he wouldn’t.
Dirk was beginning to kneel between her legs when the door came crashing in. Flea fell backwards, bleeding from a dozen wounds. Behind him came the filth encrusted, rotting, hungry dead.
* * *
Victor crashed through the woods, unheeding of the scratches that branches left on him, ignoring the occasional sounds of the dead. He may have killed several; he may have killed none. His mind was set on rescuing Bridgett.
As Victor entered the clearing near a small house, he could hear the sounds of gunfire. A group of the undead crowded the doorway, trying to claw past each other. Victor raised the auto-shotgun. Fire erupted from the bore of the weapon, the heavy slugs smashing into the ghouls. They were a small group, not more than thirty. Victor advanced as he fired, blowing the ghouls away from the door. Heads exploded in fountains of curdled brains. Others were broken in half, a threat to no one. From inside came the sounds of fire and corpses falling. Victor’s gun ran dry. Angry beyond thought, he let it fall, the sling holding it as he advanced.
A few ghouls turned to snarl at him. He snarled back, large fists coming up. One ghoul, a hideously injured male, slumped to the ground, head beaten off its shoulders. Victor kicked it aside like chaff. He grabbed another, a female this time, her tattered bikini bottom still hanging on though she had no weight left on her hips. Victor broke her back over his knee and tossed her away.
What Victor saw when he entered the small house was horror. Flea had been devoured, leaving only his head, reanimated, eyes blinking. Leek had been dismembered, and his head was missing. Twelve ghouls, all shot through their heads or decapitated by bullets, lay about the room.
Then Victor saw Bridgett. She lay in the middle of the room, her stomach torn open, one of her eyes gone. Bites to her arms, legs and neck were bleeding, showing she was still alive. Victor came near, unsure of what to say or do. That she was still alive amazed him, proved how strong her spirit was. For only the second time in his long, long life, he shed bitter tears.
Dirk rose from behind the barricade of bookshelves he’d thrown down. Before he could move, Victor reached out and grabbed him by the neck. Dirk struggled for a moment then tried to bring out his gun.
That was a mistake.
Victor brought up one great fist and slammed it into the looter’s head. He went limp instantly. Victor dropped him and turned to Bridgett.
“Knew you’d come.” She hissed it, her throat damaged from the ghoul’s attack.
Victor covered her ravaged lower half with a small throw rug. “Don’t speak. I’ll take you out of here.”
“No.” She shook her head feebly. “I’m dead. Please …” Her voice faded; her eye rolled back as the last of her breath escaped. Victor wiped away the tears and rose to his feet. Pulling Dirk out of his barricade, he took the man’s pistol and placed it against Bridgett’s forehead. “I pray the creator has taken you to a better place.” The gun roared. Victor turned on Dirk, who was moaning slightly.
* * *
Dirk awoke to pain and heat. He was outside. Turning his head, he could see that the house was in flames, a thick spiral of dark smoke rising into the afternoon sky. A shadow fell across his vision. It was the huge guy who’d knocked him out. He held something in each hand. Dirk stared a moment, then felt himself go cold.
In Victor’s right hand were Dirk’s hands. In his left, Dirk’s feet.
“You won’t die,” Victor rumbled. “Not for a while. I cauterized the wounds. Soon the dead will come. Then you’ll die.”
Victor turned and ambled off. Behind him, Dirk started to laugh as the first of the dead began to come out of the woods. “You’ll die too, man. No one can survive on their own! No one!”
Victor wasn’t listening. He had a long journey back to the outpost. As he walked the long miles, he wondered if humanity would survive the plague of the dead.
And he wondered if he really cared anymore.
Hell and Back
Vince Churchill
Richard glanced through the sheer curtain at the neighboring homes. Uninterested in their manicured lawns and expensive cars, his attention skipped to and from each front door. He shook his head, jaw clenching. Nearly all the homes had some sort of red rag or blood-colored garment marking their entrances. The super flu bug had spread faster and was hitting harder than anyone could have predicted, overwhelming the city’s emergency services. Ambulances and fire trucks now simply patrolled, administering assistance the best they could to red-flagged homes. Richard pulled the curtain closed and stepped away from the window, not sure if he was more upset about the number of red markers or the fact there had been no response to them. So much for being a taxpayer on the Westside.
Seemingly everyone had the flu. During his last few healthy days, he’d driven into work only to put in a couple of useless hours in a nearly deserted office. The companies he did business with were equally stricken. The healthy and the sick alike had been urged to stay indoors in an attempt to slow the contagion. Los Angeles traffic was at an all-time low, God finally answering his prayers for a solution to all the freeway congestion. Of course, he never realized just how many people would have to fall ill or die in order for it to happen.
Be careful what you wish for.
Richard wiped at the bead of sweat nearing the corner of his eye. While his other symptoms were hardly a bother, his fever continued its slow climb, causing a numbing headache and bone deep chills. He glanced back at his sleeping wife. She was curled up under the covers, the heat of her own high fever plastering her hair against her pale skin. Over-the-counter medicines only seemed to delay the bug, but slowly, surely, he and Claire were succumbing to the virus. Miraculously neither of the kids had gotten as much as a sniffle. Thank goodness for small blessings.
He wished he could do more to ensure their safety. Sheer luck would only carry them so far.
Getting the kids to their grandparents was imposs
ible. With martial law on the verge of being declared, travel was extremely limited and neither he nor his wife was in any shape to venture out. Even under normal circumstances, the kids were just a bit too young to travel a great distance alone. Hopefully they could beat the odds and not get sick, and continue to take care of themselves until either he or Claire got back on their feet. The best they could do at the moment was continue to keep the kids isolated in their room and only let them pop out to scamper to the bathroom or to fix peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and microwave pizza. Even in their room they wore their small paper medical masks. Taking all precautions the last couple of days as his wife’s condition worsened, Richard spoke to them only through their closed door. Their giggling response to his bad knock-knock jokes made him feel better than any of the medicine he’d taken.
Sitting in their family room, the light from the television danced across the walls like the flickering reflection of a campfire. Richard stared at the screen. His bloodshot eyes strained in the evening darkness, the throbbing pulse in his head and lack of sleep undermining his ability to focus. His head felt like a cement block hanging from a thread, and several times his chin bobbed to his chest before jerking back up. Soon, just keeping his eyes open was a challenge. He struggled to pay attention to a nationally broadcast program regarding the flu virus and some type of mutated strain. . . .
The Undead: Zombie Anthology Page 15
