Weirdbook 32

by Douglas Draa

  Amen approached the figure and whispered into its ear. Instantly the eyes of the figure opened widely. The eyes may have been open but there did not appear to be a spark of awareness behind them or anywhere on the face. “Behold!” shouted Amen. “I give you the Tulsa Doom!” He whispered in the ear again.

  The large body began to move, stiffly at first. It began to flex atrophied muscles. But the fighter made no sound.

  Behind Bob, Dave punched his shoulders. “He may be big, but the bigger they are…eh, Bob?” Bob eyed the figure, seeing the heavily muscled arms and chest.

  The fighter remained mute, not that anyone could hear over the din of excited voices increasing by the second. The fighter moved slowly into the light.

  He was built solidly. When he turned to face Bob, the writer could see the catgut stitching his lips together. One word flashed into his mind—Zombie!

  Bob had thought them to be figures of imagination. Boogies to frighten children and week minded individuals. But here was the proof before him.

  Still, Bob was not that worried. Well, not much. He was young, strong, and possessed of a powerful mind. Zombies were, by nature, rather slow moving and without conscious thought or free will. Bob looked at the boxcar entrance. The deputy stood there, pistol drawn, blocking the way.

  Amen finished whispering in the creature’s ear. It approached the center of the boxcar. Spectators backed away, hugging the sides, never taking their eyes off of this amazing being.

  Amen looked at Bob. “Well, Mr. Howard, let’s see your stuff. Thompson!” The sharp sound of a bell echoed from the walls. The creature advanced slowly, raising hands the size of two pound flour bags, but nowhere nearly as soft. Bob drove a powerful right jab into the solar plexus. The creature did not try to block it. It did not flinch. Bob’s left fist hit the ribcage. A rib cracked loudly.

  The zombie moved forward swinging at and hitting Bob’s head. The blow should have shattered granite. Bob found himself staggering back as the zombie advanced forward.

  Another flurry of punches resulted in more broken ribs for the zombie. They knocked the being back a few feet. Bob stared at his opponent. The creature was not breathing hard. It may not have been breathing at all. It was like punching a brick wall.

  Bob backed away, trying to assess his situation. The creature was strong, impervious to pain, and closing on him. A big black left arm came crashing toward him but Bob avoided it, backing away to a chorus of “Boo’s!” from the bloodthirsty crowd.

  “Pure brawn will not win this match,” thought Bob. Clearly he had been tricked into fighting an opponent who would be very, very tough to beat.

  The zombie punched his face again, bringing Bob to the floor of the boxcar. Bob wiped dirt, sweat and blood off. Sweat kept pouring into his eyes, the salt stinging and blurring his vision.

  Somewhere he heard the distant sound of a sharp bell toll and Clyde and Dave were at his side lifting him off the floor while Amen pushed the zombie back into a corner. “Jesus, Bob, how do you beat a thing like that? Is it even alive?”

  Bob shook his head hoping to clear his thoughts. That was a mistake. His vision was already blurry and his head felt like an anvil blown skyward on a Fourth of July celebration. But this was no celebration.

  “Hell, no, Dave! This thing aint alive. That’s a zombie, you moron! The living walking dead! Big and powerful, but slow. I’ve got to figure out how to beat it. But I can’t beat it with my fists. Damn thing doesn’t feel pain. I’ve got to beat it with my brains, what few I have left.”

  Somewhere that damned bell tolled again and Bob found himself doing a boxcar two-step with a monster. “Zombie! Zombie! Zombie!” he screamed mentally. “What do I know about Zombies? I know I’ve read stories about them. How do I go about beating one? Thing doesn’t feel pain or weariness or compassion.”

  A punch aimed at his head missed but the shoulder it clipped hurt like the devil. “Bob and weave! Bob and weave! Keep moving. To stand still is to get punched into next Wednesday.”

  Bob saw the gnomish promoter cackling in the corner, moving his fingers in a weird rhythmic pattern. Was he controlling the zombie’s movements? Bob did not know but he had a way of finding out. Bob and weave! Bob and weave! He moved around the boxcar letting the monster follow him.

  Soon he was directly in front of Amen. The little man kept his fingers twitching. Bob slowed and dropped his guard. The zombie aimed a punch at the knockout button at the end of Bob’s chin. At the last second, Bob lunged to the right and the punch caught the unwary promoter full in the face. He dropped like a stunned ox. The zombie stopped for a moment. Bob struck hard at the chest of the beast but with little effect.

  The stunned promoter regained his wits faster than Bob would have liked and began moving his arms and hands in a number of arcane motions. The zombie rushed at Bob with the subtlety of a freight train. Blow by blow landed, and if the earlier punches had been hard, these were devastating. Blood poured freely from multiple cuts and gouges. Somewhere a bell rang again. Two rounds down but Bob knew he would not survive another one. Amen was pissed and was going to have his surrogate take it out on Bob.

  In the far corner, Bob huddled with his friends. He had trouble standing and fell down to his knees. His bloody hands hit a small piece of salt, a remnant of the old occupants of this refrigerator car.

  The salt stung his hands worse than the cuts of his face. Bob drew his hands back and then stopped. “Sure,” he thought, “that’s the trick! Zombies don’t know they’re dead. When they taste salt, they realize their status and they die. All I have to do is make him taste the salt!”

  “Boys, put as much salt as you can find on my knuckles, right now. Do it fast before the bell rings and we lose the chance. Pile it on!” Clyde and Dave did what he asked; never questioning the request, fearing that if they didn’t, Bob would die here. Bob winced as they did it; his hands were burning weapons of death.

  “Got you now, you bastard!” The bell rang.

  Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis would have fled at the sight of the madman with salted bleeding fists who attacked the monster. Blow after blow went at the zombie’s catgut sealed mouth. He had to get that mouth open.

  And the zombie did not just let Bob attack him. Amen’s fingers were twitching furiously. This was the money round. For each blow that Bob landed, the zombie returned one to Bob’s ribs or shoulder or back or arms. Bob’s hands were on fire.

  The zombie seemed unphased by the pummeling. It just kept coming and hitting and being hit. Bob caught a hard left to the jaw, something he had been desperately avoiding, and went down to his knees. As he tried to rise, he saw a small stone, with a sharp edge.

  His salt encrusted fist grabbed the stone. He held it between two fingers where, hopefully, Amen would not see it. The sharp end just barely protruded. He slashed at the zombie’s face and a small gash appeared on the cheek. Another slash. A larger gash. Teeth inside the zombie’s mouth became visible.

  More blows landed on Bob. He ignored them. Adrenaline was pumping into his blood as fast as it could go. Another quick jab and there was a visible gap. With all his might, he pushed a salted fist into the wound. It didn’t go far in but it must have been enough.

  The zombie’s eyes seemed to register something—fear, hatred, knowledge of his doom. He tried to bite Bob but his mouth was still sewn up. Salt mixed with Bob’s blood and sweat went into the zombie’s maw. The monster made a horrifying noise, stiffened and fell prone to the floor. The glorious bell rang and echoed throughout the stunned boxcar.

  The Tulsa Doom was lying there, fully dead. The promoter had collapsed onto the floor also and was unconscious. Drunken men milled around the boxcar, not quite sure what had happened. The deputy and the money seemed to have disappeared.

  Friendly hands lifted Bob from the floor and got him into the open air. Clyde and Dave tried to collect on their bets, but the unruly
and surly crowd made that seem not worth the trouble.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” someone suggested and they all agreed that it might be a good idea.

  Within minutes Bob was laughing and roaring in the car. “I damned sure as Hell beat that demon but no one will ever believe me. I beat the hell out of a zombie. Even old Grandpa Theobold won’t believe this one.”

  “Hell, Bob,” said Clyde, “it sounds like one of your Weird Tales stories, except there aint no nekkid women in it. How’s Brundage going to do a cover that will sell more copies if you don’t have a helpless woman?” Dave laughed along with Clyde. “C’mon, Bob! You got to do this.”

  Bob thought for a minute. “Might be a way to make a story out of this and get some of the money back, though. Maybe I’ll change Dave into a woman for it. Pay him back for this beating.” He winked at the man and feigned a kiss. “Margaret will do you right. Make you look better than you ever did or ever will.” They all laughed the whole way back home.

  ▲

  JOROGUMO, by Kelda Crich

  The windscreen wipers ticked like metronomes, pushing the snow to the edges of the windscreen to melt in crystalline deliquescence. Skerritt edged the truck through another switchback. He’d been driving for eighteen hours, without a break. His hand reached for the bottle of pine-resin spirit. He took a swallow. He laughed as he threw the empty bottle out of the Jeep window. The snow outside was like his mind: cold and clean and blank.

  Swirling snow, feather flakes of cold spun-silk falling on the pristine quiet ice, covering the hard rock. The Goddess Mountains the locals called them. They were a people with a lot of gods and goddesses. That would change.

  Skerritt had no destination in mind. All he knew was that he needed to be away from the city below; away from Vinnie and Karram, the last two members of his squad; away from his swarming brothers-in-arms, the men of the Weatherman’s army, drunk on victory, euphoric after half a decade of war.

  * * * *

  Soliders camped in a conquered land, waiting for the sergeant to issue leave, watching their comrades returning in the cold dawn from a night in the foreign city. Except that it wasn’t foreign anymore. It was the Weatherman’s city since the surrender.

  “When’s it going to be our turn?” asked Karram. He was young, impatient.

  Vinnie looked up from cleaning his lucky knife. “Better be soon, or the city might run out of beer or women.”

  “It’s not right,” said Karram. “We should be next. What do you think, Skerritt?”

  Skerritt shrugged. War had curbed his impatience. He was used to the endless days of waiting. He looked at the white mountains in the distance. Snow in August? He shook his head, slowly. “It’ll be our turn soon enough.”

  * * * *

  The sergeant issued them their pay and their leave, a week later. “Don’t spend it all at once, lads,” He said with a wink, handing over an envelope of Weatherman notes.

  “About time,” said Karram.

  “What was that?” The sergeant was a man with a changeable temper.

  “Ack,” said Vinnie. “He didn’t mean anything. Just impatient. You know what the young ones are like.”

  “Virgin, is he?” said the sergeant, grinning.

  “I’m no virgin,” said Karram, angrily.

  “Oh, no, Sergeant. He’s had more women than any man I’ve ever met— if his stories are to be believed,” said Vinnie with a wink at the sergeant. “Have you got any advice for us? You been out there?”

  The sergeant nodded. “They’re friendly enough in the tenderloin district. There’s been some fighting in the temple district, depends what you’re looking for.”

  “Thanks,” said Vinnie.

  * * * *

  They set off for the tenderloin district. They knew well enough where to find it, that information had passed from man to man, wildfire through the camp.

  * * * *

  Skerritt took a long swallow from his drink. The local spirit was a fierce alcohol distilled from the pinewood resin. He drank methodically, longing for summer tasting beer, ripe with sun. He watched the women dancing to the foreign music. It was too soon for the musicians to have learnt decent tunes. The musicians plucked out their peculiar melodies on funny shaped guitars, grinning encouragingly. The madam stood by the cash register, trying to maintain her composure, but revealing her nervousness in a compulsive twitch jumping at the corner of her mouth. From time to time a woman would take a soldier into a back room, leading him through a doorway lined with heavy red silks.

  Vinnie returned from the back rooms. He took a seat on a black lacquered chair next to Skerritt and he stretched out of his arms. “Well?” he said.

  “Well what?”

  “Aren’t you going to try the locals?”

  “I am,” said Karram. He stared at the dancing women. His face was an agony of indecision. “I just can’t choose.”

  “Doesn’t take much choosing. They’re all much of a muchness,” said Vinnie.

  Skerritt refilled his glass from the bottle of pungent spirit.

  “And you, Skerritt? Aren’t you going to take a woman? It’s been a while hasn’t it? Last time I recall was when that group of camp followers found us on the plains.” Vinnie sighed. “Been a long time.”

  “Maybe later.” Skerritt took a long drink. He glanced at his reflection in the table’s black glass. That had been a good time. That had been before. Truth was, he was scared: scared that a woman, even a whore, would look on him with revulsion. How could she not, when he could barely manage to look at his own face.

  “Aye. They’re not much cop here,” said Vinnie. “Drink up, lads.”

  “But I haven’t…” said Karram.

  Vinnie laughed. “Don’t worry, son. You’ll get yours.” He stood, and made his way over to the stage. “But these women are no good.” His voice carried over the sounds of the music.

  The madam took a couple of nervous steps forward, gesturing to a couple of local men, sitting at a table in the shadows.

  Skerritt said, “You’re right, Vinnie. You’ve always had a good eye for the women.” That was true enough. Vinnie took full use of the Weatherman’s indulgences. He had three wives waiting for him at home.

  “Let’s find some real woman,” said Karram.

  The madam nodded to Skerritt as he passed. Grateful that he had averted trouble. Skerritt scowled at her. He hadn’t done it for her sake, he’d done it for Vinnie.

  They left the bar. They made their way into the moon-glazed night, heavy with the promise of more snow. They wandered through the small and twisting streets, until they found the temple.

  * * * *

  Through the windscreen, beyond the haze of snow, Skerritt saw a dark slender shape ahead. He slowed the Jeep to a crawl alongside. It was a woman, her head was veiled, but he caught the glimpse of her pale face. She carried a bundle in her arms. She would freeze to death out here unless he stopped. He pulled up a few yards ahead, but left the engine ticking over. It would be a devil of thing to try to get it restarted with the snow coming down.

  Skerritt opened the passenger door as she approached. “Hey. Where are you going?”

  When she looked at him, Skerritt looked away, not because she was beautiful, (as beautiful as the woman they’d found in the temple) but because she looked at him directly, and, though he was watching for it, he didn’t see her flinch.

  “Get in you’ll freeze out here,” said Skerritt, recovering his composure.

  She hesitated for a moment, still staring into his face with her ice-blue eyes. Skerritt liked that; it was unusual; most of the locals had brown eyes.

  “Come in I say. Get in,” said Skerritt, wondering if he was being foolish. Perhaps a woman wouldn’t take a lift from the soldier. She glanced at the bundle in her arms, and touched it tenderly. Why would she bring a child
into this freezing weather?

  When she climbed into the Jeep, she bought the cold with her.

  Skerritt grunted. He felt conscious of the stink of alcohol in the Jeep. The woman sat quietly with her head bowed. The women here, well, they weren’t like the women at home. They were amenable…pliable. And this woman was so lovely. Maybe…maybe if she was as amenable as she looked, he could take her to the camp. Maybe even take her back home when the time came. It happened all the time Weatherman soldiers bringing back exotic wives. Then everyone would know that he wasn’t someone who had to be pitied.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  She said nothing. That pleased him; she was modest. But from time to time she would glance at him with her elusive blue, multifaceted eyes—and that pleased him, too.

  * * * *

  At first, the streets were full of soldiers laughing shouting, smashing things. Some had found women. Skerritt heard their sounds down the dark corridors.

  “It’s not like home, is it?” said Karram, staring at the sloping bamboo roofs, the sway of coloured paper lanterns.

  “That’s right, son,” said Vinnie. “It’s something out of the ordinary, all right. Something to tell the girls back home. Take a good look, because all this will all change in the next few years, now that it’s part of the Weatherman’s empire. A pity, somehow.”

  “I don’t think we’re heading in the right direction,” complained Karram. “I don’t think that we’re going to find any women down here.”

  It was true that there were less lights, and they hadn’t seen another soul for the last half hour.

  “You’ll get yours, don’t you worry, son,” said Vinnie. To the younger boys of the squad, Vinnie had been something of a father figure. He looked out for them, on the battle field and off it. To Skerritt, who was closer to Vinnie’s age, he was a brother. Closer than a brother. It’d been Vinnie who’d dragged him Skerritt off the battlefield, carrying him, dragging him, with the right side of his face sliced off. And in the medic tent, when he’d begged for Vinnie for a clean cut, to end it. Vinnie had looked at him with so much contempt that he’d been ashamed. “You’ll live,” he’d hissed. “By the Weatherman you’ll live. You’ll not be like my brother. You will live. Or it’s all been for nothing.”