Mort: Deluxe Illustrated Edition (The Fearlanders)

by Joseph Duncan

  “I’m so sorry, Mort,” she cried. “Please, please, forgive me! If I knew this was going to happen anyway, I would have spent all the time I could with you. We could have been together!”

  “It’s okay,” he consoled her, cradling the back of her head in his good hand. He even laughed a little, surprised by her outpouring of grief. “I understand. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now and that’s all that counts.”

  They’d only slept together once. Mort didn’t know if that qualified as the love of his life, but it was going to have to do. Holding her in his good arm, he thought of that one sweet night they’d spent together, and he decided it didn’t matter if it was one night or a million. It was more than some people got.

  And Pete… Pete was beside himself. He was mad, he was sad, and he didn’t really have the mental equipment to deal with it all. Pete blamed himself for Mort getting bit, and nothing Mort said to him could convince him otherwise.

  None of it even seemed real. Everything had happened so quickly. Maybe it was a cliché, but he felt like this was all just a dream, one that he would wake up from any moment now. Or maybe his life had been a dream, and here now, at the end of it, he was finally getting ready to wake up.

  After Mort’s interview with the Archon Yaldabaoth, Pete had escorted Mort from the administration building.

  “You want to go back to the infirmary?” Pete had asked.

  “Are you kidding? No way!” Mort exclaimed. “I’m so sick of that place it’s not even funny. Let’s just head back to the dorm and go to bed. I’m wore out, and I need to think.” He was still shaking from his confrontation with the leader of the Archons. Yaldabaoth had given him twenty-four hours to settle his affairs.

  There was a misty ring around the moon. Mort couldn’t remember what it was called when there was a ring around the moon. Was it lover’s moon or liar’s moon? When he was a kid, his mother had always commented on it when they were out at night and saw one, but that was a long time ago, and his memory was dodgy now, thanks to Da Vinci.

  Pete had swerved Mort back and forth on the icy sidewalks, almost spilling him a couple times, and even slipped and fell once himself. Pete was giddy with relief. He’d expected the worst when the leader of the Archons had asked to speak to Mort. He might not be the sharpest needle in the sewing box, but he was smart enough to know that “the worst” dogged Mort’s footsteps like a smitten stalker.

  “Stop, Pete! Stop! You’re making me dizzy!” Mort cried as Pete zoomed back and forth on the icy sidewalk. Despite his jangled nerves, Mort laughed.

  Pete quit making race car noises. “All right. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

  As they drew near the dorm, Pete asked in a more serious tone what the Archon had wanted to talk to Mort about.

  Mort was quiet a moment, thinking, then lied, “He just wanted to apologize for frying my brain with his psychobolts at orientation. Their telepathy kind of fritzed out my nuerons.”

  Pete had laughed. “Is that all?”

  “Yep.”

  “Poor old brain-damaged Mort.”

  “Yeah. Poor old brain-damaged Mort. But look on the bright sight. We’re on an equal playing field now, mentally speaking.”

  “I think that was an insult.”

  “It was.”

  “Jackass!”

  Laughing together, they’d pushed through the front door. The dorm was silent as a crypt. It was late. Everyone was asleep.

  “Here’s your cane, buddy,” Pete stage-whispered, retrieving the walking stick from the pouch on the back of the wheelchair. Mort grunted upright and Pete folded the chair and pushed it next to the wall by the door.

  “Thanks.” The bandage across his broken nose made it sound like “thangst”.

  “No problem.”

  Pete headed toward the galley as Mort limped toward his room, leaning heavily on the cane. The cold had really done a number on his bad leg. His nose and cheeks were throbbing, too. Lortab, here I come, Mort thought.

  “You want something to drink?” Pete called over his shoulder.

  Mort’s mouth was dry. His interview with the Archon had been nerve-wracking, and the deal he had made with the creature called Yaldabaoth brought to mind a certain jaded scholar by the name of Johann Faust. Rather than continue to his room, he turned and followed Pete.

  “Yeah. See if there’s some pop left in the cooler,” Mort called.

  And maybe something sweet, he thought. He didn’t have to worry about getting fat again anymore. After tonight, the simple comfort of a sugary treat would be a foreign thing to him, as alien as he would be to the people he now called friends. Tonight he was going to pig out. He deserved it. He’d just made a deal with the devil.

  There was a clatter and a cry from Bob and Tina’s quarters. The couple shared a room beside the kitchen. It was originally a guardroom, but Bob and Tina had converted it into a small apartment.

  “You want red or purple?” Pete asked, sauntering from the galley with his hands full. He hadn’t heard the noises, or wasn’t concerned about them, but Mort had heard, and it had gotten his wind up. Not that it mattered in the grand scheme of things. His life was over. It had been the moment the Archons found out he could see them as they truly were.

  He started across the commons toward Pete, brow furrowed. From Bob and Tina’s apartment: a cry, and then a female screech of rage.

  Mort opened his mouth to shout a warning to Pete. At the same moment, the door of Bob and Tina’s apartment slammed open. Even before the echoes of the slamming door had died away, Bob stumbled out, cradling a baby in his arms. The homely man was covered in blood. His face, his hands, his shirt and pants glittered, like someone had dashed him with a five gallon bucket. His eyes were wide, his neck a ragged mess. He opened his mouth to speak but could only make a choked gargling noise.

  Pete dropped the soft drinks. They hit the floor and one of the plastic bottles began to spin in frothy circles.

  “What the hell--?” Pete gawped.

  Bob tottered toward Pete, put the baby in his arms, then collapsed to his knees.

  Pete looked down at the wet, squirming baby, then blinked at Mort in shock. He was literally too stunned to move. His brain had vapor locked.

  Bob sat back, his shoulders rising and falling. Mort limped forward to help him as Pete just stood there staring. Blood coursed from the man’s ripped throat. His froggy eyes rolled toward Mort, and a strange expression passed across his face. It was a look of satisfaction and contrition, and Mort knew instantly what had transpired in their room that night, what he and Tina had done, and why.

  Bob Hawthorne raised his right arm, pointing at the child, then toppled onto his side.

  Pete’s jaw worked. Finally, he managed to stammer, “Muh-Mort?”

  Mort heard a phlegmatic growl. A moment later, Tina eased through the doorway, glazed eyes glaring from sunken sockets, hair in bloody tangles. She was naked but for a terrycloth robe, her belly hanging open, coils of guts dangling like wet laundry from the dripping cavity.

  Mort’s mind, damaged as it was, kicked into high gear. Only an instant passed from the moment he saw her to the moment she launched herself at Pete and the baby, but he already knew he was going to have to do something to fend off the child’s transformed mother. Pete would not be able to defend himself with a baby in his arms. No one could save the two but him.

  “Hey! Over here!” Mort yelled at the creature, hoping to draw her attention from Pete and the newborn in his arms, but the child picked that exact moment to start crying. Tina’s eyes snapped toward the child and she lunged at Peter Bolin, fingers hooked into claws, lips peeled back from bloody teeth.

  With a great shout, Mort leapt between them and swung his cane at her head. It swished through the air and caught her in the jaw and she went down on one knee.

  “Get the baby out of here!” Mort yelled.

  Tina shook her head, then rose clumsily to her feet, more of her guts tumbling from the ragged maw of t
he crudely performed Caesarian. She glared at Mort with those awful cataract eyes and spat like a cat, pestilent foam spraying from her lips.

  Her snarls were rousing the dormitory. Lights came on in several of the rooms. Someone flipped on the big overheads and the commons brightened with a series of metallic popping sounds. Mort heard some of the other dormers cry out in horror and dismay, but he knew there was no time for any of them to intercede. Tina’s glistening body was already coiling to attack. Mort raised his cane above his head.

  She jumped forward, howling, and he brought the cane down in the middle of her skull. He used both hands, but he no longer had the weight he used to have to put behind the blow. His attack barely slowed her.

  She bowled into him, advancing faster than he could retreat. Her nails slashed at his eyes as he fell beneath her. He tried to grab her flailing wrists. He caught ahold of one, wrestled with her a moment, and then she twisted in his grasp. Her head tucked down, fast as a striking snake, and she sank her teeth into his hand. His cane dropped from his spasming fingers, clattered on the floor. Mort yelled and Tina wrenched her head back, tearing out a plug of his flesh. She chewed the meat with relish, once, twice, then swallowed and went back for more.

  Mort kicked her, sending her sprawling across the floor, but he had lashed out with his good leg and his bad leg buckled under him. She scrambled after him, crab-like, snarling and snapping her teeth, but Pete stepped in before she could get to him. He kicked her in the head with the sharp toe of his cowboy boot, still holding the squalling newborn. Tina slumped onto her side, stunned. Before she could recover, one of the other residents jumped in and kicked her.

  A crowd quickly gathered around the bloody scene. Someone scooped Mort’s cane from the floor and began to pummel the zombie with it. Tina made wheezing sounds as the throng of sleepy, frightened men-- most of them still in their skivvies-- rained down blow after blow.

  Mort slid away from the violent mob on his butt, cradling his bleeding hand. A few feet away, Tina Laramie writhed as the crowd continued to pummel her. She was completely covered in blood, looked like a newborn herself. She howled in frustrated rage. Bare breasts flopping, she swiped at their ankles with her nails. Finally, someone stomped on her head, and her skull caved in and she went still. The frightened men, adrenaline pumping, continued to batter her, but she did not move, other than twitching from the impacts of the blows.

  “Mort! You okay?” Pete asked, holding the squalling baby. He saw Mort’s wound then and moaned, “Awww, fuck!”

  Mort had looked up at his friend, holding his injured hand to his breast. “I guess this is it for me,” he said with a queasy smile.

  And it was. After Pete raced him to the infirmary, the hospital staff had pumped Mort full of antivirals and antibiotics, but the bacteriophage had already entered his bloodstream. Dr. Whalen even tried an experimental treatment, transfusing blood from immune donors into Mort’s body in the hopes that it would halt the spread of the infection.

  It didn’t even slow it down.

  The mutant bacteriophage replicated quickly, subverting his cells, turning him into one big virus production machine. Mort was surprised how hard everyone worked to save him, but he knew it was all in vain. He was doomed. Had been from the moment he went to meet the Archon Yaldabaoth.

  Finally, he told them, “No more. It’s time to let me go.”

  And now that time had come. Doctor Whalen would be returning soon.

  Mort waved Pete closer. Pete grabbed his friend’s good hand. “Listen, you stupid redneck,” Mort said. “I want you to get this through your thick skull: none of this is your fault. There’s nothing you could have done to save me. It’s just my bad luck. When your number comes up, your number comes up, and that’s all there is to it.”

  Pete’s lower lip quivered. His bloodshot eyes probed Mort’s, which were beginning to sink into his skull. Soon they would glaze over, become those horrible gray orbs, soulless and insatiable. “But I—“

  “Stop being such a crybaby,” Mort interrupted. His breathing was growing labored. He sucked in a breath, hissed, “We all die, buddy. It’s inevitable.”

  Pete laughed and sobbed at the same time. “That’s four syllables! You know the rule.”

  “Actually, it’s five syllables, you illiterate hillbilly.”

  “I don’t even know what ‘inevitable’ means.”

  “I know. It’s okay.”

  The door whisked open. Doctor Whalen and good ol’ Nurse Ratchet walked in.

  “No! Please!” Pete pleaded. “Just a few more minutes!”

  The doctor looked at Mort and Mort nodded. Mort kissed Dao-ming’s silky hair, then pushed her into Pete’s arms. She collapsed, sobbing, but Pete grabbed ahold of her. Pete held her on her feet as Mort said goodbye, then the doctor and nurse wheeled him from the room.

  He watched the fluorescent lights scroll past.

  “How are you feeling?” Nurse Ratchet asked.

  “Like shit,” Mort answered. “One of my eyes isn’t working anymore.” He felt her hand, warm and soft as talcum powder, settle on his forearm.

  They rolled down the hallway, turned a corner, rolled down another hallway.

  “Will it hurt much?” Mort asked.

  “You won’t feel a thing,” Dr. Whalen answered, his voice tight with emotion. “It will be like falling asleep.”

  “Good. I’m glad. I’m pretty scared.”

  They bumped through the doors into the surgical room. There were several more hospital employees waiting. They all wore matching scrubs. Gloves and goggles too. They gathered around the hospital bed. Someone dabbed his forehead with a cool cloth. Someone else strapped restraints around his good wrist and both ankles-- in case he fought them, he supposed.

  “It’ll all be over in a moment,” Dr. Whalen said gently. Mort saw the man’s eyes narrow, and then the doctor touched his temple.

  Mort felt a familiar prickling sensation in his brain, right in the center of his forehead. He turned his head and looked toward the entrance of the surgical room. He still had one good eye, but everything was getting dark.

  Yaldabaoth, accompanied by two other Archons, glided silently into the room.

  “We’ll take it from here, Dr. Whalen,” the creature said.

  Epilogue

  Pete Gets Saved

  He’d never noticed how pretty her eyes were, like antique copper with little flecks of gold in them. Pete smiled at Vicki. “Looks like we’ve bought the farm, babe,” he said.

  Just inches to his left, about four dozen deadheads were beating on the cooler doors, slobbering and howling. The glass was already cracking. The dumb creepazoids didn’t have the sense to grab the handles and pull the cooler doors open, but then, they didn’t really need to, did they? Any second now, those glass doors were going to give up the ghost with a great crash and tinkle, and Pete and Vicki were going to be zombie chow. Human filet mignon. Extra rare.

  Hope I give ‘em diarrhea, Pete thought.

  After Mort died and they cremated his body, Pete had returned to Scout Crew Unit Two.

  He had harbored a lot of anger after his buddy Mort went to the great comic book shop in the sky. It felt like a tumor inside him, growing bigger and more virulent with each passing day. He knew he had to get it out of him, slice it open and let all the nasty stuff drain out, and the only thing he could think of that would do that was killing zombies. Lots of them!

  Fortunately, there was still plenty of them left shambling around the villages surrounding New Jerusalem. You could think of it as putting them out of their misery if you wanted to be all noble and shit, but really Pete just wanted to get that hurt and anger out of him. It was like he was infected with the Phage. It was eating him from the inside out.

  It was actually kind of pathetic. The whole world died and it hadn’t really bothered him that much, but Mort buys the farm and it’s like a trapdoor dropped open beneath his heart.

  Fucking Mort!

  How’s th
at for laughs, kiddies and titties? Ol‘ Chunky-Butt was the one that finally got to him!

  Mort was just a big fat nerd, the kind of guy Pete would have tormented ruthlessly in high school, but Pete had cried his eyes out when they rolled his buddy off to be euthanized, and then he’d stomped out of the clinic and gotten three sheets to the wind. Next thing he knew, he’s out on patrol again, aerating as many deadheads as he could. He couldn’t reload his gun fast enough. Call it aggressive therapy.

  Unfortunately, his team had stumbled across a hornet’s nest of zombies.

  It was just a shitty little town sitting in the middle of nowhere-- Freewill, Tennessee, population 1,203-- but it was right smack dab in the middle of a massive zombie outbreak. The town was pretty isolated. That’s why it had gotten infected so much later than the surrounding region, Pete supposed—and now they were trapped, he and Vicki. They were cut off from their unit, hunkered down in the soda pop cooler of some stupid convenience store, and about three seconds away from being dragged out and eaten alive.

  They’d gotten used to the burned out ones they’d been smoking the past week or two-- him, Vicki... hell, all the Screw You’s. That was what happened. They weren’t being careful like they should have been and rolled right into a nest of them. Now they were trapped. They were cut off, and it was their own damn fault.

  Vicki had called frantically for backup after they found some cover, but the whole town was crawling with the undead, and their squad leader told them they had to hold out a little bit longer. The Calvary was coming, but it was going to have to shoot its way through hundreds of infected townsfolk to extract them.