Red Runs the River

by Tony Urban

  Chapter Seventeen

  Wim led the way as they entered what had once been something of a town square in the Ark. Only now all the buildings were either burned entirely to the ground or charred, black husks that stood out in stark contrast to the overgrown, green grass that had sprouted up everywhere.

  They'd seen a few dozen more zombies on the way in. All were missing their bottom jaw, and most had been on the receiving end of what Wim assumed to be Doc's insane experiments. A great many of the creatures were also minus large chunks of their bodies.

  They couldn't make sense of that when they passed them, but the puzzle came together when they found a fire pit with the remains of a leg strung across it like it had been roasted on a spit. The meaty parts of the thigh and calf were gone, but the foot remained intact. The toes were charred and looked a little like burned marshmallows, except for the toenails.

  "It just keeps getting fucking weirder," Mead said from the sidelines. When they realized the zombies were harmless, he'd taken his helmet off and his stringy hair was plastered to his skull from the sweat. He pushed a few strands out of his eyes as he looked from the campfire to Wim. "You think this was your guy?"

  "I was never much one for wagers, but I'd say that's as close to a sure bet as you can get."

  "He's like that Nazi guy. Mangler or something."

  "Mengele," Aben said. "Josef Mengele."

  Mead nodded. "Yeah, him. This is all kinds of fucked up, man."

  Wim wouldn't have used those exact words, but he agreed.

  As the men searched what remained of the encampment, Wim headed toward the clinic underneath which Doc's laboratory had once lied. The building itself had been spared from the worst of the fire. Even the door remained, and Wim remembered with a pang of guilt Emory's plan to sneak inside and find out what Doc had been up to. The plan which led to his death. Or the first one, anyway. Wim had taken care of the second.

  The door was unlocked and hung partially ajar. Wim pushed it open with his foot and saw the clinic had been gutted with only a few cots remaining behind. Past them was the doorway which led to Doc's lab. That was wide-open and the dark cavern behind it practically called to Wim, even though he all too well remembered the evils at its end.

  He was half-way down the tunnel when he heard Aben call out. "Wim."

  Wim paused a moment, staring into the abyss ahead. He wondered if anything was still down there. If any of those mutations - like the baby - were still alive. And he wondered what else the madman that had once been Douglas Younkin had conjured up.

  "Wim. I think we found him."

  That broke his trance and he turned back.

  Wim found the others near the burned-out building that had been the meeting hall. It seemed every place here held a bad memory. This one was being sentenced to the box, of having everyone turn on him.

  Now it was only a shell, and a few yards beyond it Aben, Mead, and Pablo stood with their weapons in hand facing Wim's direction. Before them, the half-naked form of a man was turned away from him. When he got closer, he could see the man wore nothing but a pair of tattered briefs which were a mustard-y shade of yellow-brown. His flesh was tanned almost mahogany in color and his hair hung past his shoulders, pulled back in a sloppy ponytail.

  "Is this him?" Mead asked.

  "I'm not sure."

  Wim still couldn't see the man's face and circled around to get a frontal view, but before he could, the man spoke.

  "My dear, William. Is that you? Come all this way to see an old friend?"

  Doc turned to face him. He was grayer and fatter than before. His purple, boot-shaped birthmark was almost black from sun exposure. But if Wim had any doubts, they were erased when he saw the man's maniacal, cold eyes. They glinted in the sunlight as he smiled.

  "I must say, William, I'm flattered. Welcome back to the Ark."

  Chapter Eighteen

  They'd led Doc back to the fire pit, which upon closer inspection Wim realized could double for an altar. They tied his ankles together and bound his hands behind his back. In his dirty underwear, the man looked like an oversized toddler, but Wim knew better then to underestimate him.

  He'd told them he was the last person alive on the island. That most died in the days after the attack and that he'd killed the few who survived. He rambled and ranted and raved and Wim wished they'd have thought to gag him.

  "The zombies aren't bad at all now," Doc said. "A little like house cats really. Always finding their way into places they shouldn't be and partaking in various shenanigans. It's amusing to watch, I must say." He grinned, watching one of the creatures try to climb over a fallen tree branch only to tumble face first into the ground. "However, in the early weeks, before I'd been able to capture and 'de-jaw' them, for lack of a better term..." He shook his head. "It was harrowing, to say the least. They're so hungry. Perfect eating machines really. A little like sharks in that respect."

  "Shut up, already," Mead said and rocked his spear back in forth in a vaguely threatening manner.

  "Apologies, gentlemen. You see, I've been alone for quite a while and it's a refreshing change to have someone to converse with. Well, someone who can answer, I should say. The zombies, they're good listeners, but it ends there.

  "Speaking of eating, I'm being an inconsiderate host. You've all traveled so far and must have worked up an appetite. You're more than welcome to help yourself to the leg of man." He nodded toward the cooked, severed leg.

  "You eat them?" Aben asked.

  "I have to get protein somewhere. And a man can only eat so many beans. The meat's rather tasty. I can see why they enjoy it so much. A tad gamey, like venison crossed with free range chicken. An exciting, new experience for the palate, I must say."

  Mead wrinkled his nose. "You're a sick motherfucker."

  "I understand the social stigma, but I think we can move beyond that now. After all, they eat us. How's the saying go, 'Turnabout's fair play?' or maybe 'What's good for the goose is good for the gander' is more apropos?"

  The sound of his voice, the cheerful exuberance, was making Wim's head throb. He wanted this man dead, but first he needed answers. "Why are you alive even? Did you end up making a booster for the vaccine after all?"

  Doc looked to the other men. "Booster. Vaccine. Listen to him tossing around medical jargon like he isn't nothing but a pig farmer from Pennsylvania. Oh, my daughter certainly did marry down."

  Wim's hand fell to his pistol and he had to fight the urge to draw it. As if sensing the rising tension, Aben stepped between them.

  "How about you try answering the man's question? It's a simple enough one."

  "Well, it was a multi-part question. 'Why am I alive?' Did you know there were one hundred and eighteen zombies here at one time? One hundred and eighteen versus one. I'd say most would have thought I didn't have the proverbial snowball's chance in hell. I'm alive because I'm resourceful."

  "I don't care about that. I want to know--"

  "Yes, yes, the booster. To answer that second part of your inquiry, no, I never created one."

  "I thought you said it would wear off in a few years."

  "Oh, it does. And it will. But science is imperfect in those regards. What might be effective for three years in one person could last ten in another. It's one of those fun, little mysteries, not that I ever took you as having a healthy interest in science or immunology, Wim. I didn’t think your interests extended far beyond pig manure."

  Doc cocked his head as if realizing something. "You're here because of Ramey, aren't you? Come to steal away the booster shot and play the hero yet again. Sorry to disappoint."

  Wim looked away from the man. Between the headache, his building anger, and the grief that welled up at the mention of her name, he couldn't stand to look at him.

  "Oh, William," Doc said and even without seeing him, Wim could hear the smile in his voice. "I’ve committed a faux pas haven’t I? It's too late for you to be a hero because she's already dead.”

 
; Wim forced himself to look at the man he’d travelled here to kill.

  Doc's eyes blazed with mad excitement. "She turned. And you had to kill her. Just like you killed your friend, the old negro, after I turned him. What was his name? Erving?"

  "Emory."

  "Ah, yes, Emory. That was quite the sad little plan you two cooked up. He so expected you to come to his rescue. To save him. Right up until I infected him, he believed in you. What a fool."

  Doc locked eyes with him, crazy, hungry eyes. "But enough about him. Tell me about Ramey. How did she die? Spare me no details. I want to hear all about it."

  Wim couldn't take it anymore. He knew he had to do this. For the billions who had died because of the virus Doc created. For Emory. For Ramey. And maybe most of all, for himself.

  He drew his revolver, but before he could aim it, the right side of Doc's face imploded in a spray of blood and bone. His eye socket caved in while his eyeball popped out and dangled loosely at the end of the tendon, sagging down like a deflated balloon at the end of its string. His mouth opened, and his breath hitched. His lips moved as if trying to speak but all that came out was a muffled "Uh... uh... uh..."

  It went down so fast, so violently, that Wim didn't even know what happened. It was like a bomb had gone off in the man's face.

  "That's a man who didn't know when to stop flappin' his lips," Aben said.

  Wim followed the sound of the voice and saw Aben holding his war club, the end of which dripped blood.

  I should have been the one to do that, Wim thought. He was mine to kill.

  But, when he looked at Doc who still sat mostly upright, although tilting slightly to the side like a poorly planted scarecrow, half his face dripping sinew and gore, he was relieved Aben had stepped in.

  Only, Doc wasn't dead yet.

  "Uh... uh..."

  Wim saw dark wetness spread across his underwear as Doc pissed himself. He kept slipping further sideways, but in slow barely discernible movements. And he kept on with the "Uh... Uh..."

  Pablo stepped between Wim and Doc and Wim saw he was holding his pistol.

  "This is for my family. And if God curses me for murdering you, then I will see you in hell and there I will do even worse."

  Pablo raised his gun and pressed the barrel against Doc's forehead. He squeezed the trigger and Doc's head snapped backward in a motion so violent Wim could hear his neck break. Doc's slow-motion tumble sideways turned into a hard and fast lunge backward and he hit the ground with a thud.

  Pablo returned his gun to its holster and turned to Wim. "I am sorry. Wim."

  "What for?"

  "For not giving you your chance at vengeance."

  Wim looked at the dead man. Half his face was gone. Blood gushed from the bullet wound in his forehead and brains leaked out the gaping wound in the back. His body was twisted on the ground and Wim could smell shit and piss seeping from his groin.

  "That's all right. I got what I needed. And he got what he deserved."

  And it was done.

  Chapter Nineteen

  No matter where she went in the big house, Mina couldn't escape the smell of puke. Even leaning out the window, trying to find fresh air, she still smelled it. When dealing with her daddy and his myriad if health issues, it was the smell of shit that haunted her day in and day out and she thought nothing could be worse than that odor. She was wrong.

  A light, dusty breeze kicked up and she thought that should give her a break from the odor, but it didn't. The sickening sweet smell of vomit clung to her like dime store perfume.

  She realized the smell might have permeated her clothes, maybe even the pores in her skin. She stripped off her blouse, not caring that she was naked underneath. It wasn't like she had anything of note to see and besides, there was no one around to see her body anyway.

  She balled up the shirt and tossed it onto a pile of garbage on the bathroom floor. The house was more of a hovel and there was a time in her life when living in such filth would have made her ashamed, but Mina had spent her whole life cleaning up other people's messes and she'd reached the point where she no longer gave a shit about dirt or garbage or even the bugs that now shared their quarters and outnumbered them a few thousand to two.

  "Gettin lazy, Birdie," her father's voice said. "That's what happens when you ain't got a man keeping you in line."

  She tried to block him out.

  Saw had been vomiting every few hours for going on four days now. She wondered what his body kept finding to eject because she refused to feed him, but that hadn't stopped it. And, almost like clockwork, a pained retching noise echoed off the walls a few rooms over.

  How can he be so damn loud, she wondered? Everything about the man was over the top and offensive, even his puking.

  "Mina!" His voice boomed. "This goddamn bucket's full!"

  She stared out the window, onto the bland, beige world and wondered if she'd die if she jumped out. It was only two stories, so she doubted it. She'd probably only break her legs or maybe she'd cripple herself. As if life wasn't awful enough already.

  Despite that, she turned away from the open window, afraid the darker part of her mind would win out and force her to take a swan dive even though she knew it wasn't really a way out. There was no way out. Not for her. If Mina's life was a road sign, it would be "No Exit."

  "Are you fingering yourself in there or what?"

  She threw a glance down the hallway. She wished she'd have gone outside. Gone to town even. Then he could empty his own barf bucket. But she knew that he knew she was home and if she ignored him much longer, she'd have more to worry about than spilling Saw's puke onto her shoes.

  "I'm coming!"

  She stomped out of the bathroom, toward the sound of his voice.

  "Haven't heard that in ages." He cackled. "Good on you, love."

  How could that bastard be laughing? She wanted him to be miserable, to suffer. But he was laughing like a schoolboy who just heard an exceptionally dirty joke.

  It had been Mina who introduced Saw to opioids. First was Oxy which she assured him would stop the headaches that had plagued him since being shot in the head years earlier. The truth of it was that Mina didn't give a single shit about Saw's pain. His head could have rotted off and she'd have been happy as a jaybird.

  But when the headaches came, Saw grew even meaner than usual. And even on a good day, Solomon Baldwin was a fair share to the right of a junkyard dog. Anything worse bordered on sadistic and some of the things she saw him do when he was in pain haunted her to this day.

  The Oxy mellowed him. He was still a son of a bitch, but he was a slow-witted, less creative son of a bitch. The reaction to the drugs was so pleasant that Mina had asked Boyd to bring her heroin. The man protested at first. He knew the rules. But she assured him it was for Saw, that it was what Saw wanted. And if anything here was above the rules, it was Saw.

  Saw wouldn't shoot up, said that was junkie bullshit, but smoking it was just as good. When he took that first hit, Mina watched his pupils expand and thought she could practically see the cruelty pour out of him as the drugs took effect. She knew she was onto something.

  It was all going so well until that little prick Mitch had to get involved. She never liked the boy, with his ratty, scarred face. While Saw held the title of the meanest man she'd ever met, easily toppling her father from that gold medal podium spot he'd held so long, there was something about Mitch that was worse. She'd never been able to pinpoint exactly what it was she found so offensive, but she tried to keep her distance.

  Her grand plan was that Saw would get so hooked on the heroin that he'd overdose. And if that didn't work she'd ask Boyd for some Fentanyl and she'd mix up her own toxic concoction. A high her husband would never forget. But that all came crashing down about the time Boyd was having his face eaten off by zombies.

  "Poor, stupid, Birdie. Can't even kill a druggie. Never could do nothing right."

  She gritted her teeth and pushed away her daddy's voi
ce, moving toward her and Saw's bedroom. The door was two thirds closed and Mina didn't knock before opening it. She regretted that decision.

  Saw sat on the bed with his finger two knuckles deep into the hole in his forehead. She watched his wrist twist and turn as he dug at the wound. At his brain. She didn't realize it, but she must have gasped because Saw snapped her way.

  "Fookin thing won't stop itching." He pulled his finger free and she thought she heard a pop. Blood coated his finger and he stuck it in his mouth and sucked on it like it was strawberry jam.

  The sight made her feel like puking but that was the last thing this house needed more of. Beside the bed a plastic pail filled with Saw's chunky, milk-colored vomit was on the verge of overflowing. What a horror show her life had become. Every time she thought it couldn't get much worse, it did.

  "You've got to stop that. You'll get an infection. And I'm pretty sure all the antibiotics are a long time expired."

  Saw stared at her and it took Mina a moment to realize he was looking at her chest. That's when she remembered she was still naked from the waist up. Her hands instinctively went to her mosquito bite breasts.

  "Don't get modest for me, love. I was enjoying the show, unexpected though it was."

  "I spilled some..." She couldn't conjure up a lie quick enough.

  Saw didn't seem to care. He pointed to the puke pail. "Can you empty that for me? I'd do it me self but--" He held up his hands which shook like he had Parkinson’s.

  Mina wondered how long it would take for him to detox. So far, the bad part of him, the cruel part, hadn't returned, but she knew it was a monster lurking somewhere deeper inside him, biding its time before clawing itself free.

  She reached for the bucket and realized some vomit had dribbled down the side and clung to the handle. She felt her stomach do a summersault and closed her eyes as she reached for it. Her fingers squished through the puke, which was thick and still warm.

  Oatmeal, she told herself. It's only oatmeal. Don't think anything else.