Mort: Deluxe Illustrated Edition (The Fearlanders)
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Mort
Deluxe Illustrated
Edition by
Joseph Duncan &
Mike Dubisch
Mort is copyright 2010 by Joseph Duncan
Deluxe Illustrated Edition
Revised text copyright 2012 by Joseph Duncan
Artwork copyright 2012 by Mike Dubisch
and Joseph Duncan
Originally published under the pen name Rod Redux
This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to
Persons living, dead or undead are
Entirely coincidental.
Published by Cobra E-books
Metropolis, IL
Deluxe Illustrated Edition
Version 2.0
Expanded and Revised
ISBN-13: 978-1481271363
ISBN-10: 1481271369
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
1. DEADHEADS
2. THE MERRY SHANTY
3. CHOCOLATE AND DILDOS
4. THE LAST LIVING PIMP
5. DEAD DAYS
6. ASIAN WOMEN CAN DRIVE
7. DA VINCI
8. SHINING PATH AND WINTER PLUM
9. THE LAST LIVING PIMP GETS SAVED
10. GOODBYE, DUCHAMP
11. WHEN MORTON MET PETER
12. DA VINCI GETS OFF
13. THE INFIRMARY
14. SCOUT CREW UNIT TWO
15. DORM LIFE
16. ROMANCING THE APOCALYPSE
17. REUNION
18. ORIENTATION
19. INTERVIEW WITH THE ARCHON
20. THE DEATH OF MORTON LESSER
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE ARTIST
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Also by Joseph Duncan
The Oldest Living Vampire Tells All
The Oldest Living Vampire on the Prowl
The Oldest Living Vampire In Love
The Oldest Living Vampire Betrayed
Apollonius
Menace of Club Mephistopheles
Mort
Hole: A Ghost Story
Indian Summer
House of Dead Trees
Frankenstonia
For Aaron
Prologue
Esther tried very hard to keep the screams bottled inside as the zombies groaned and scraped their fingers across the windows of the van. Her grandson lay in her lap, sleeping, God knows how, his little hands clamped over his ears. He was a pale, beautiful boy with long dark eyelashes. His father—who had paid for their escape with his life—had always bemoaned his son’s fragility, but Esther didn’t care that Drew was small and gentle and sensitive. Drew was her only grandchild, and she loved him with the fierceness only a grandmother can muster. If that meant she had to bite back her terror and remain quiet so he could steal a few moments of rest, then that is what she would do.
What I wouldn’t give for a tall glass of sweet iced tea right now! Esther thought, trying to summon some spit into her mouth.
It was so hot!
Esther and her grandson had been trapped inside a van about thirty-six hours now. It was her son-in-law’s 2003 Dodge Caravan. Drew’s father had tried to lead the zombies away after those horrible things got inside the house. Only problem was: in their mad scramble to escape the horde of monsters that had battered through their defenses, Jake Werlitz had forgotten that the keys to the van were still in his hip pocket. Esther and Drew had circled around the back yard, climbed inside the van—slamming the doors shut just in the nick of time!—only for Esther to realize she had no way to start the engine. They were trapped! And her son-in-law’s final agonized screams had drawn even more zombies to the area.
Esther stroked her grandson’s fine hair, pushing it back from his brow. Her knuckled old woman’s fingers trembled. The sight of his parched lips, cracked and peeling, filled her with fresh panic every time she looked at him.
We can’t stay here much longer, she thought. We’re dying of dehydration!
If only she could roll the windows down a little. It had been unseasonably warm all month, with temperatures hovering in the high eighties, low nineties all week. That global warming everybody kept talking about, she supposed. It was tolerable cool when they had run from the house to get away from the zombies, but when daylight came, their place of refuge had quickly turned into an oven, and the heat had tormented them all day. Relentless. Oppressive. Wringing every ounce of sweat out of them.
It still lingered, that heat, even though the sun had gone down hours ago. It was like being wrapped head-to-toe in a hot wet towel. If she could roll the window down, the cool night air might refresh them a little, but Esther was afraid those horrible creatures would shove their fingers through the gap and yank the glass right out of the door.
And if they did that...
Perhaps it would be better if her grandson passed away in his sleep. Wouldn’t it be a mercy if little Drew simply didn’t wake up? Didn’t have to look at those horrors scratching at the windows ever again? Didn’t have to spend another day sitting in the van, roasting ever so slowly, tormented by thirst and the maddening howls of those tireless dead things.
No! No-no-no! Esther thought. You mustn’t give up! Never!
Esther did the only thing she could do. She prayed. She prayed to God. She prayed to Jesus and the Virgin Mary. She prayed to any supernatural being who might be listening. She didn’t care who it was-- Allah, Buddha or Holy Ronald McDonald in Cheeseburger Heaven—so long as Somebody heard her.
Please, save us! Oh God in Heaven hallowed be Thy name…
She was not a religious woman. Technically a Lutheran, Esther hadn’t set foot in church for years. She’d become too disenchanted with organized religion. Disgusted by the cliquishness, the gossip and drama of her local church, and the scandals and greed of the larger Christian organizations with their fast-talking televangelists and their constant pleas for donations. It was spiritual blackmail, that’s what it was. Gimme fifty million dollars or God is gonna take me home. Jesus will heal your arthritis if you buy this prayer pillow. She’d gotten so tired of seeing the same three people walk the aisle every Sunday to be saved. Goodness! How many times did a person have to get saved? Didn’t it take last week?
She wished now she’d been a better Christian. Just like the Bible said about the End Times, the dead had arisen. Funny thing though, the Bible never mentioned the resurrected killing and eating everybody! Maybe if she’d been a better Christian, she would have been taken up before the Tribulation and all this nasty brain-eating commenced.
Too late now, she told herself. You thought you were too smart for religion. You thought you could slide by on good deeds and now look where you are! Stuck in a van, surrounded by dead people who want to eat you, just like they ate poor Sissy and Drew’s daddy Jake, and you’ve dragged your grandbaby along for the ride! Oh, you stupid old bitch!
She wished she’d gone to church more often. She wished she’d believed better, harder, for her whole family’s sake. If she had been more devout, and insisted her loved ones march the straight and narrow right along at her side, they might not be dead right now, and she might not be trapped in a van with her grandson in her arms and about three dozen zombies outside, groaning and drooling for their brains.
Drew stirred, whimpering a little in his sleep.
She stroked his hair.
“Hush now, baby. Everything’s fine,” she rasped.
The zombies crowded all around the windows, ogling in at her with their soulless, cataract eyes. They were moaning, pawing at the glass. They left smears and streaks of greasy-looking slime on the windows. Snot and viscous yellow foam dangle
d from their chins. Every now and then, one would strike the glass harder, and Esther’s whole body stiffened, waiting for the glass to break.
It was nearly impossible for her to bite back her cries. She wanted to scream her fool head off every time one of those monsters lunged at the windows. It was like being stuck on the world’s biggest, scariest funhouse ride, and she wanted off. She wanted to surrender to the horror and hysterics squeezing her heart, give up, bring all of it to an end. If she had been alone, she probably would have thrown open the door and let them have their way with her-- as horrible, as painful as that would be. She knew what they would do to her. She had watched them pull her daughter apart with their bare hands, biting into her flesh, eating her, and Sissy still alive and screaming. They were like wolves. Crazed, starved wolves. But Esther was not alone. She had Drew. And so long as she had Drew, she would persevere.
Please, Lord, send me an angel! Esther prayed.
The dead one she was most worried about had circled around to the passenger side. Esther had been watching him closely. He didn’t seem as dull-minded as the others. There was a glimmer of cleverness in his milky eyes. He’d actually tried the door handle on her side of the van when they first jumped in. She’d locked the doors, of course—just to be safe. And thank God she had, because he’d shuffled up to it and gave it a few clumsy yanks, grinning through the glass at her with his filthy, rotting teeth.
Those teeth--! she thought with a shudder.
Bits of raw meat stuck in between them, and his lips: black, oozing, ragged and infected. He had leered through the window at her, eyes twinkling beneath devilish eyebrows.
There was intelligence there. She could see it. A terrible cunning. He wasn’t just looking at something his diseased mind compelled him to pursue; he was looking at her personally. Her. Esther Rosenbaum.
And he wanted to kill her.
Kill her and make it hurt.
His name was Richard. She knew this because it was embroidered on the breast of his shirt. He was dressed in a stained gray mechanic’s uniform, the logo for Sal’s Quik Change & Lube emblazoned across the back. He had a long bristly beard, pumpkin orange and caked with a brown crust of dried blood, and there were teardrops tattooed to his right cheek.
Esther watched him closely, her litany of prayers trailing off in her head. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. He just stood there staring at her while all the other zombies shuffled mindlessly around. He was too sly. The other zombies were slow, but he was slow in a different kind of way. A sneaky kind of way. He kept slipping out of sight. He kept circling the van.
“Mammy, I’m firsty,” Drew croaked in her lap, stirring a little.
“Shhh, baby. Go back to sleep. We’ll get you something to drink in the morning, okay?” Esther whispered. She patted his hair, peeking at the rear view mirror to see if Richard the Zombie was behind the van. He’d given her the slip again when little Drew woke up.
“But ‘m firsty now,” Drew said in a terribly soft, weak voice.
It broke Esther’s heart to hear him so. Her poor baby! He sounded so distant and faint. His life, she knew, was playing out into a very thin and very fragile gossamer thread. One that could snap at any moment-- just like that! The image of it was so vivid in her mind, she could actually see it: that single, shining filament.
They must find some way to escape—or be rescued soon—or they would both die. A person could only go a couple days without something to drink, she knew. Their spirits would simply dry up and blow away like little piles of dust if they were not released from this horrible prison soon.
“Can I have a soda pop in the morning, Mammy?” Drew murmured. “With ice cubes and a bendy straw?”
“Of course, baby,” Esther said. “And I’ll have a nice glass of iced tea. But we have to wait until morning.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “Good.”
Despite her dehydration, Esther had apparently retained enough bodily fluids to squirt out a couple tears. Cursing her wastefulness, she wiped her cheeks. She was looking at that moisture on her fingertips, thinking about putting her fingers in her mouth and sucking them, not that it would do her any good, when she noticed something sneaking toward her out of the corner of her eye.
She turned to look.
Richard the Zombie was back, grinning moonily through the driver’s side window.
Go away! she thought. Shoo! I’m tired of looking at your ugly mug tonight!
There was something in his hand.
At first she thought it was a stick. He was holding a stick in his hand like he wanted to play fetch. It reminded her of an old dog she used to have. A golden retriever named Skipper. That was the fetchingest dog she’d ever seen. Lordy! He was always trotting up with a stick or a toy or a shoe in his mouth, wagging his tail in excitement, wanting to play Go-get-it! Her husband Burt, God rest his soul, had loved that dog so much.
CRACK!
Esther jerked back, squawking in surprise, as a white starburst suddenly appeared in the glass next to her cheek.
Richard the Zombie chortled, looking like he wanted to fuck her instead of kill her and eat her.
That was no stick in his slimy gray hand.
It was a tire iron!
Richard raised the iron over his head and brought it down gracelessly.
CRACK!
The webbing of fissures in the driver’s side glass grew just a little bit broader.
“Mammy? What’s that? What’s happening?” Drew asked shrilly, struggling to sit up.
Esther scooped him against her generous bosom and began to sob, surrendering finally to despair.
Crack! Chunk! Crackle!
With each spiritless strike of the tire iron, the passenger window gave. It began to flex inwards. Any moment now, Esther expected to feel a shower of glass, and then cold, greedy fingers digging into her skin. Those terrible creatures were going to drag them from the van and eat them alive!
God, let it be quick! She thought.
She cried out as something heavy crashed onto the roof of the Dodge. Whatever it was, the impact rocked the van on its shocks. Buckled the roof in a little. There was a punching sound. The squeal of tearing metal.
She saw something drop to the hood of the van a second after. Something black and sinuous. She couldn’t make out what it was in the night, despite the fact that the moon was nearly full and her eyes were adjusted to the darkness. But it was fast, a blur of motion.
She felt cool air swirl across her head and the back of her neck and looked upwards.
What she saw did not make sense to her.
Half the roof of the van had been peeled neatly back, like the top of a can of Spam. She could see the silver gibbous moon and ribbons of thin clouds, their edges gleaming. Stars, too. The faint band of the Milky Way. The Little Dipper.
A shadowy thing dropped into the van, landing in a crouch on the passenger seat.
“What is it, Mammy?” Drew piped, turning his face from side to side, trying to see what was going on beyond her censoring breast.
The shadowy thing on the passenger seat cocked its head at her, birdlike, then smiled. Esther recoiled from that smile instinctively, for the thing she saw was not human. It had large round black eyes and white skin and teeth like the teeth of a shark. White picket fence teeth. Rows of them, encircled by bright scarlet lips.
Then her thoughts swam and she put her hand to her brow, blinking dizzily.
No, not human… but beautiful.
An angel!
“Don’t be afraid, Esther Rosenbaum,” the thing—the angel—said to her. His voice was smooth and honey sweet. His eyes were blue like the sky on a fine summer afternoon, the kind of day you’d sit out on the porch swing and watch the traffic roll by, the smell of mown grass on the breeze and a glass of iced tea sweating in one hand.
His skin was alabaster white and flawless. So white and pure it seemed to glow with its own inner light. And he had wings. Beautiful, shining black wings, each f
eather gleaming like oil, not a pinion out of place.
“You… you came,” Esther stammered. Her lips were slack with wonder. Her eyes shone with awe and gratitude.
“Of course we came,” the angel said. “We heard your prayers and came as fast as we could.”
Esther rubbed her eyes. She could almost see the angel’s halo, a faint gold nimbus about his head. So wondrous!
He held his hands out to her. His fingers, she noted, were long and thin and white.
“Give me the child,” he said.
She looked at the angel, suddenly hesitant. Though she did not know why, she was reluctant to pass her grandson to the wondrous being. He smiled at her, patient and understanding. His face was so beautiful, long and thin and pale, with high cheekbones and a narrow aristocratic nose. His hair was long and black and straight. It sloped down from his widow’s peak, gleaming and clean, all the way to the middle of his chest. He was dressed in armor and flowing red robes.
“It’s okay. I understand,” he said. His teeth seemed very white and broad when he smiled at her, but… but… now why couldn’t she think straight all of a sudden?
Esther looked past the windshield and saw something dark and strangely serpentine twisting and whipping within a ring of howling zombies. A quicksilver gleam sketched abstract patterns around the whirling black dervish. There were moist, meaty sounds coming from the dancing form. Thwack! Chunk! Shwip!
Something thunked onto the hood of the van, coming to rest in the well of the wiper blades.
It was the head of Richard the Zombie. It had been sliced neatly off its neck.
As Esther gawped at it, Richard the Zombie’s evil little eyes rolled toward her and narrowed to slits. His lips split into a cruel grin. It almost looked like he was laughing at her!
The spinning dervish came to a sudden stop, and Esther realized it was another angel. It stood crouched on the pavement, one arm extended behind its back, a sword in its grip dripping dark syrupy zombie blood. The angel—a “her”, Esther saw, not an “it”—had made quick work of the zombies surrounding the van. They were lying in chunks of varying sizes around the angel’s black knee-high boots.