Henry, who was in his den in the back of the house, heard her perfectly. He didn’t get up from his chair to answer her. He was busy watching last night’s taped episode of The Dead of Night with Necro-Phil. The film viewing was for his church group; they were trying to decide whether or not television’s top-rated television show was worth boycotting.
Necro-Phil, the host, was a green, bug-eyed zombie puppet with a slick Elvis-pompadour and a voluptuous human female co-host in a skull-print micro-bikini, which seemed to be her only function on the show. Necro-Phil was offensive in just about every conceivable way. He was abusive, not only towards his guests, but his audience; he made tasteless jokes about sex and death—mostly sex—and the worst of these offenses, Henry was writing down, to show the group. Henry, for one, was shocked, had been for twenty or twenty-five episodes, and he, for one, would vote for the boycott. At his wife’s third bellow, however, he paused the tape.
“Yes, dear?”
“Henry,” she cried, quite anxiously. “There are zombies in the basement!”
“Yes, dear?” Henry replied, with a different inflection relaying concern.
“Henry,” she said, adopting an explanatory tone, “There are zombies in the basement on my day to host the women’s auxiliary luncheon.”
“Yes, dear,” he said, to convey his understanding of the urgency.
“Henry,” Bernice began, taking a stand against the injustices of the world. “There are zombies in our basement, and I have made a soufflé. With all their banging around down there, groaning, doing God knows what to the new paint, they are going to make my soufflé fall. I do not want my soufflé to fall, and I do not want there to be zombies in our basement when the women’s auxiliary arrives.”
Henry stopped the tape. “Well,” he said, thinking a moment. “We’d best call NOE.”
Henry hung up the phone and looked at his wife, who was wringing her hands alternately in the direction of the kitchen, then the basement door, then back at her husband. “NOE can’t be here until five o’clock this evening,” he told her, his voice tinged with regret.
She looked at him, her eyes turned icy. “Henry,” she began, patience dripping from her words. “Blanche MacGillicutty is coming. Blanche MacGillicutty. This is the first time she’s been out since she got her new hip!”
“I don’t think that would be as impressive to them as it is to me, dear. Five o’clock seemed pretty firm on their end.”
Bernice’s patience finally broke, and she shoved her husband aside as she lunged for the phone book. “Oh, get out of my way, Henry. Go back to your television. Honestly, if I want anything done around here, I have do it myself. I guess I’ll just have to call a private exterminator.” Her fingers were walking with what could be considered a violent step through the hapless Yellow Pages.
“Liable to be expensive,” Henry said. That got him the look again.
“Henry,” Bernice said. “It’s Blanche MacGillicutty.”
With a final whip of a page, her eyes fell upon an ad in the upper right hand corner of the page:
“Sr. Mary Bliss. From the Order of Our Lady of Perpetual Motion. Spiritual Enlightenment. Marriage Counseling. Extermination by Appointment. Reasonable Rates.”
“There,” Bernice said, triumphantly stabbing out the number. “I’m sure a religious woman can have this place cleaned out in no time.”
The order of Our Lady of Perpetual Motion was formed towards the end of the period when Women’s Liberation was considered a cute notion, and on the cusp of the period when it became dangerous to consider liberation anything less than a deadly serious right that must be supported. The founder, Sr. Barbara Loudin, was not a nun, but was religious in many ways, mostly about her own independence and her upwardly mobile attitude. She would conquer the man’s world of business if she had to kill every man to do it. And since many men in the world have a deep-seated, inexplicable and inherent fear of nuns anyway, she decided to use that to her advantage.
Since its foundation so many years ago, the Order has provided countless young women with the strength and support necessary to take advantage of all that the business world had to offer. They encountered little resistance from the male dominated society. Or, at least, no man would dare give them any lip while they were actually in the room. Every self-appointed sister carried a mean-looking ruler in those days, mostly for show, but it did a world of good.
Over the years, the Order has grown, with branches in virtually every major city in the country. And it was a local chapter founded by a local celebrity that Bernice Dobbs called that day. The phone rang and was answered by Sr. Agnes, junior sister and shareholder.
“Our Lady of Perpetual Motion, Sr. Agnes speaking. How may I direct your call?”
“Yes, hello,” Bernice said, a little taken aback by the beatific voice on the other end of the line. “I need an exterminator right away.”
“I’m sorry, but Sr. Mary is in a counseling session at the moment. If you will give me your name and number, I’m sure she can get back to you later today.”
“Isn’t there someone else there who can do the job?” Bernice pled. “It really is important to get this done as soon as possible.”
There was a pause on the line as Sr. Agnes considered the request. “If you will hold for just a moment, I’ll see when Sr. Bliss will be available.” And with that, Sr. Agnes touched a delicate finger to the “Hold” button and then turned to the intercom.
Sr. Mary Bliss wasn’t the average member of the Order, if there was such a thing. Among the many impressive articles on her resume, she was a political activist, who fought against NOE at its inception, putting pressure on the government to privatize extermination. Though that was an important achievement, she was better known as a published author and celebrated marriage counselor. Her book was the basis of her controversial counseling methods and was aptly titled You Should Always Hurt the One You Love. Sr. Bliss was an advocate of monogamy, but held very deeply that discipline was an essential ingredient to the bondage of marriage. And she often taught these services to young couples who had trouble in their union. Her fees were modest and her sessions were quite popular, though the cost was the least of the incentives.
At the very moment Bernice was calling, Sr. Bliss was in the middle of one such session. A newly-married couple in their mid-twenties were shackled to the wall in her private chambers. She was just about to instruct the wife in the importance of good house-keeping with a riding crop (before lecturing the husband in the area of tender affection with horse-hair flail), when the intercom above her desk buzzed urgently.
Sr. Bliss paused mid-swing. “Excuse me for one moment,” she said, and turned from the breathless wife, who was now reconsidering her previously narrow view of counseling. Sr. Bliss touched a button on the intercom. “Yes?”
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt you, Sister Mary,” said Sr. Agnes. “But there is a woman calling who is requesting an extermination.”
Sr. Bliss tapped her palm with the doubled end of the riding crop, weighing her options. “Did she say if it was an emergency?”
“Yes, Sister, she did.”
“Hmm.” And there was a pause as Sr. Bliss thought further. Extermination was very seldom a matter of life and limb, but it was higher profile, better for business, and was more apt to bring in repeat business, as well as references. Married couples who visit her for sessions, more often than not, treat it like a jealous, joyous secret, and rarely recommend her to friends, no matter how many times they come back themselves (often resorting to invented marital stress, just to have something to talk about; good therapy can be addictive). Finally, she made her decision. “Get her address, and tell her I’ll be there within the hour.”
“Yes, Sister.”
Turning back to her clients, Sr. Bliss continued tapping her palm with the crop. The couple stared at her over their outstretched shoulders, eyes wide with anticipation. She smiled. “I’ve decided to give you some time to yourselves,
for silent contemplation on the joys of marriage itself. For no charge, of course,” she added. “But I’ll return soon, and we will resume the session where we left off. Any questions?”
As they were gagged, there were none.
* * *
Simon MacForman had issues.
With women mostly. But also with NOE. And then there were his issues with people in general, but that was only because he was naturally anti-social.
Women bothered him because they mystified him. They did weird things he didn’t understand. Like have careers. Why couldn’t they just be happy serving their husbands? Making them food and ironing and all that natural women stuff? And why did they get so angry when he asked questions like that?
His problems with NOE ran deeper, and he’d expounded on his hatred of the group during his many guest spots on The Dead of Night with Necro-Phil. MacForman had been a member of NOE—one of the charter members, the first to join up when the organization was formed—and he had been speedily rising through the ranks of the special paramilitary unit. Unlike most government organizations, when first founded, NOE was considered a godsend, its officers superheroes. The popular recruitment commercial featured Nation Commander Jackie Sawyer swinging in through a plate glass window and stomping zombie butt left and right with a mixture of kung fu and heavy artillery, rescuing the helpless, grateful teenage girl and her puppy from the hordes of vicious undead. If that didn’t sum up America, MacForman didn’t know what did.
So in the beginning, NOE officers were treated like celebrities. MacForman was treated no differently, beloved in his hometown where he was once considered a violently dangerous hooligan. And when STUDZTM Magazine singled him out to be their centerfold and Man of the Year, he was flattered, though by no means surprised; he accepted without hesitation. The photo spread was very tasteful, he thought. His spiked g-string covered his essentials (though he considered his hanging the NOE badge where he had a stroke of artistic genius), and there were only two beautiful naked girls at his feet, nothing he considered offensive.
NOE thought otherwise.
His dismissal from the force was a media event. There was outrage on both sides, the viewpoints equally and strongly drawn. There were his detractors on one side, demanding that he be dragged behind a patrol car through all the neighborhoods that he’d shamed with his vulgar heathen pictorial, and on the other side were those MacForman deemed the “healthy thinkers,” who felt that he should be vilified, that NOE should not only apologize on national television, but that MacForman should replace that über-bitch Jackie Sawyer as National Captain.
Unfortunately, there weren’t as many “healthy thinkers” in the world, and amidst a week of headlines, Simon MacForman was summarily discharged from the National Organization of Exterminators, the Living Strike Force.
It was a conspiracy, of course, as MacForman would explain to anyone who would listen, usually on the Necro-Phil show. He’d seen things at NOE. Things he couldn’t explain. Things that hadn’t made sense in the beginning. Such as their penchant for cleaning out a particular house, to which they would get called back a week later to clean out family members who had recently turned into zombies. Most people dismissed his speculations as paranoid, and MacForman was perfectly willing to give them that, but it still made him wonder if NOE was keeping themselves in business by seeding neighborhoods with zombies, or in some way creating them.
After a while, his novelty wore off, but not his crusade. He was determined to ruin NOE by jumping their claims. He had a scanner in his car—“car” in the loosest sense of the word: a roundish purple Geo dubbed “the Grape of Wrath”—and whenever a call came over the NOE band, he’d race to the sight, clean it out and leave just before the strike force arrived, which wasn’t difficult, as NOE gave clients a waiting period whether they were busy or not, the lazy bastards.
This particular day was a slow one, so he was biding his time tapping Sr. Bliss’ phone. She was a favorite target of his, mainly because she got the best calls, those from the wealthier clients who needed discreet exterminations and who would pay handsomely for the caution. There was very little money in jumping NOE’s claims, as they were a public service provided by tax dollars. Jumping Sr. Bliss’ calls paid the bills.
Jotting down the Dobbs’ address, he hit the ignition, the Geo roared to life, and he sped towards the ritzy part of town.
MacForman and Sr. Bliss arrived at the same time. The front wheel of her Honda Nighthawk stopped within inches of the front bumper of the Grape of Wrath. A growl escaped her throat as she tore off her helmet and went right for him. She had her crossbow up and ready just as he drew his .45. They were at a standstill, but she didn’t care.
“This was my call, MacForman!” He’d done this to her before. Too many times to count. The heathen was a thorn in her side.
The ex-official exterminator glowered down at her; the chains on his jacket jingled lightly as he twitched. “No it’s not! I tapped it fair and square!”
She glared at him, then lowered her weapon and pointed behind him. “Look out! NOE!”
MacForman spun around, pistol ready. “Where?”
But Sr. Bliss was up the steps and ringing the bell before MacForman had time to react. Holstering as he ran, he almost killed himself twice, arriving at the door just as it opened.
Bernice looked out at the odd pair on her porch. Ordinarily, if such an unsightly duo had appeared at her door, her first instinct would be to call the cops. Then boil some oil. She was hard-pressed to decide which of the two disturbed her more: the small woman dressed in a black leather jumpsuit, or the monster beside her with the leather jacket and mohawk. The pair smiled at her.
“Exterminator,” they sang in unison.
“Oh, dear,” Bernice said, reconsidering the boiling oil. “I wasn’t expecting two of you.”
Sr. Bliss shot MacForman a withering glance. “Neither was I.” She completely failed to prevent MacForman from stepping forward.
“Simon MacForman, ma’am. At your service. Now that I’m here, you can kiss those zombies goodbye . . . well, not literally, that’d be gross.”
As it was, Bernice was a hair away from a nervous breakdown. She was certain her soufflé had already fallen, and only God knew how many zombies were down there. With all the racket, it sounded like a marching band falling down a flight of steps. Her nerves were completely frazzled, and now this. “I’m sorry, I called a Sr. Mary—?”
Sr. Bliss stepped forward, taking her cue, elbowing MacForman back. “That would be me. Sr. Mary Bliss. The Order of Our Lady of Perpetual Motion.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she leaned in close to the old woman. “Don’t let him in, ma’am. He was kicked off NOE for posing for pornographic pictures.”
“Hey!” Simon was still very proud of those pictures. “My moral standing has nothing to do with my awe-inspiring ability to kill zombies!”
Sr. Bliss was undeterred. “Ma’am, I must warn you that this man is a thief and a fornicator and will only serve to bleed you dry.”
“Oh, yeah. Don’t listen to her! You know she . . . she showers in the nude! The nude!”
There was a dreadful crash from the basement, and suddenly Bernice didn’t care who came, as long as they got those horrible, smelly things out of her basement. “Come in, come in. I don’t care how much it costs, I need those things disposed of. I’m having very important company over soon. Can you both be fast and discreet?”
Sr. Bliss took Bernice’s hand. “You have my word, ma’am. And God’s.” She stepped inside.
Simon followed. “Mine, too,” he said.
Bernice closed the door.
As soon as the unkempt exterminators were inside, Bernice led them to the basement. They stepped through, and she closed the door quickly behind them. No telling what might happen, she thought, one of those things loose in the house. Although at that point, she was unclear as to whether things referred to the zombies or the exterminators.
On the landing, th
e pair peered into the dim basement, searching for their prey. They didn’t have to search long. The basement was filled to capacity with the undead. They were shoulder to rotting shoulder, bumping together and moaning like an early-morning commuter crowd on a narrow subway platform. At the sound of the closing door, the teeming corpses turned their heads to stare up at the pair on the stairs.
MacForman drew his .45; Bliss removed a twin pair of sai from her belt. “Here’s where I start earning your paycheck,” Simon said. “Aim for the brain!” He leapt off the stairs and into the rotting mass beneath.
Oozing, rotting flesh and brackish blood began to fly as he opened fire. Sr. Bliss calmly descended the stairs and began her own method of extermination.
“This is the third time you’ve done this to me!” she said, driving the point of her sai through a zombie’s forehead. It made a neat crunch as it exited through the back of the skull.
“What?” MacForman demanded, bringing a wicked dagger down through the top of a rotting head.
“Tapping my phone! Jumping my calls! Next thing I know, you’ll be doing marriage counseling out of your car.”
“Look, I leave all the kinky stuff to you, don’t I? Why begrudge me the exterminations?”
“Because they’re my calls!”
“Well, you get all the best ones. People think you’re all holy and shit. That religion thing’s quite a racket, you know that, Mary?”
“That’s Sister Bliss to you, you heathen!” She whirled around, and in one impressive motion, side-kicked a zombie into two others, taking them down. She took her time, punching through the skulls with her sai, destroying their brains. Like her other occupations, Sr. Bliss practiced extermination with finesse.
Across the room, as he hacked and slashed and ripped, McForman slid around in piles of innards and pools of blood, like a new-born calf trying to gain its footing for the first time. No style, Sr. Bliss decided, and not for the first time.
The Undead: Zombie Anthology Page 17
