Don't Be Dead- Heartache After The Outbreak

by Paul Wilcock

  “Welcome to paradise sir, in here all of your dreams can come true!” His left arm flops around my shoulders like a large slippery fish and I instinctively shrink away but can’t escape his masses of flesh as he shakes my hand with his right. As we walk through the foyer a scantily clad woman unclips my tool belt, removing my weapons, and takes them away to a back room. When I turn my head back from watching her ass I see one of the attractions caged in the centre of the foyer. I recognise her as the main singer from an upcoming girl band before the outbreak, the blonde one; their pop video plays in an endless loop behind her, now she’s dressed in dirty lingerie, one arm reaching through the bars of her cage at us, the other arm is missing, a messy scarred stub protruding from her shoulder, badly stitched up. Her face contorts and bites but her teeth have been removed, her skin a pale bluish green. Unattractive in so many ways. My host misinterprets my stare, talks low into my ear, his fetid breath makes me turn away and my cheek is showered with his spittle.

  “You like her? You remember her singing, you fantasise about fucking her, now you can! Don’t decide yet though we have many more for you to choose from, look here look here!” His fat arm lifts a curtain and I see inside one of the many annexes lining the sides of the room, I recognise the layout of the room, it’s been set up to look like the bar from the soap opera that Rachel used to watch, I don’t recognise the woman that is bent over the bar being fucked by a well-dressed man in his fifties but I’m told that he’s dressed as the landlord of the pub and the woman once played the part of the cheeky barmaid, Tiffany. As sick and bizarre as all of this is I can’t help but be impressed by the effort my host has put into this venture, I was expecting dirty cubicles with bodies chained to the floor while men just came in and fucked them, not authentic settings and costumes, it’s as though he sees it as a legitimate business. The curtain is dropped and we move on to another curtain which is also raised and now I’m looking at breakfast TV, the female host is being fucked on the sofa by a man dressed as the male host while waxworks of famous movie stars look on, manning the fake TV cameras and microphones.

  He doesn’t say anything while he shows me this scene, lets it sell itself, the short few seconds that I glimpse before the curtain is dropped and the dim lighting hides the decayed nature of the women on offer. At the end of the corridor he opens a door and gestures for me to sit down.

  “So now that you’ve seen a glimpse into what we have to offer, tell me what you’re looking for, what’s your fantasy, we can cater to any taste.” I can tell by the look on his face that he’s telling the truth, his “whores” won’t complain, don’t need to rest or heal or do anything other than keep looking vaguely like the actresses and singers they once were.

  “There’s an actress called Sarah Harrison, she was in ‘Danger From Dinosaurs’ a couple of years ago, she was shooting a new movie around here when the infection broke out, ‘Don’t Be Dead’, do you have her?”

  He looks at me suspiciously, like he suspects that I’m here to rescue her rather than fuck her infected semi-corpse, which of course I am so I try not to look too nervous.

  “Why her? We have the biggest stars here, why the interest in a relatively unknown actress when you could be fucking on the deck of the Titanic or in the Death Star’s interrogation rooms, is there something you’re not telling me?” His hand disappears under the table, he’s either reaching for a gun or a button that calls the goons in from the door. I sell my story by sprinkling some truth into it, I saw that in a movie once, I can’t remember which one, but I remember that it worked in the movie so it’s worth a try.

  “I used to date her, she dumped me, it’s part revenge sex, part fantasy fuck.” He stares at me for a few seconds but accepts my answer as plausible and pulls out a ring binder full of laminated A4 sheets.

  “You know the casting guy from ‘Don’t Be Dead’ is working here with me now, he’s one of my best talent scouts so there’s a good chance we have her.” I can see long lists of names running down each page but Sarah isn’t in there.

  “Don’t worry, sometimes we’re not sure of names when we get new stars but recognise them from being in certain films or TV shows.” He pulls out a different binder, this one has long lists of movie titles running down the pages, and he flicks through them, Danger From Dinosaurs isn’t in his books either but I’m not surprised by that. Don’t Be Dead is though, probably helped by the fact that it was shooting down the road and the casting agent is now one of the pimps here. The entry for Don’t Be Dead references another binder which is duly opened on the desk and we can see photos torn from magazines or sketches of their face and details for each person associated with that movie, it’s all very well organised and professional and I actually start to relax and forget for a moment that I’m in a very surreal, sick and dangerous whorehouse. Sarah’s face isn’t in the book but they do have her co-star David Towers who, according to his details in the binder, isn’t infected.

  I’m not sure they’d believe that I was suddenly willing to take a man instead of my ex-girlfriend, not because I’m obviously too manly and hetero but it just seemed like a bit of a leap from the story I’d told; what I need is free reign to walk around here on my own so I can find David and see if he knows what happened to Sarah.

  “I’m disappointed, I thought you could make any fantasy a reality.” I start to get up as though I’m ready to leave.

  “Please sir, Please sir, I know you are disappointed but we have many other fine fantasies for you to choose from, please take a look through our books, I can offer you a discount on the price.”

  I actually have no idea what the prices are in this place, it hasn’t been mentioned yet by anybody, the strategy seems to be get the customers to a point where they need to buy and then hit them with the no doubt steep price. Money became worthless not long after the infection, it was still used for a while, people naturally assumed things would return to normal soon enough but once the banks were all shut down and communities were forced to become smaller and more contained it became apparent that money was best used for getting fires started and trading became the way to get the things you needed which meant trying to need things as little as possible. In my current position I have very little to actually offer in trade which I was hoping would not become an issue here.

  I sit back down, continue with my charade “Well, I did like the sound of the Death Star interrogation room, you have Princess Leia here?”

  The apologetic look stays on his face “Not exactly, but we do have the princess from the later sequels, very similar look but much younger and sexier yes? She’s in excellent condition.”

  I don’t want to get into an argument about that character not being a princess, the sequels actually being prequels and her not ever actually being interrogated on the Death Star so I just agree, this is, after all, just a ruse to give me the chance to look around for David Towers.

  “Very good, you won’t be disappointed, and now the small matter of the price, will you be offering a trade or services of some kind?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer for trade, what kind of services do you accept?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear the answer but had to ask.

  “Well, there’s sex of course, you can work off the debt in our small sex booths but as you’re not famous yourself the charges for a session with you are smaller and it may take you a while to make payment, not being infected may work in your favour however and get you more customers.”

  “Not an option, what else?”

  “We have a regular here that used to be an actor, he traded us his actress wife to use as we please and he now has unlimited access to our other wares for as long as she stays in service, do you have any famous people that you could add to our books?”

  “No, I’m afraid not, any other options?”

  He produces yet another large binder “We do have debtors that require reminders of their obligations to us, and people that require more extreme measures, to serve as a
warning to other people not to make the same mistakes. Let’s see, for the Princess fantasy we would require four debtors to be dealt with or two warnings to be given.”

  Dealing with two people sounded easier than dealing with four, but it did mean killing people that weren’t infected, but I had been doing that quite a lot recently anyway and the people I had to kill would most likely be the kinds of people that would try to rob or kill me later on if I bumped into them on a quiet street so it was self-defence really; I can live with self-defence, mercy kills and accidental deaths, they are an unfortunate part of life in these post outbreak times. I think I was convinced, killing two people actually seemed kinder than dragging four people back here to pay off their debts by being sex slaves or trading in their family members anyway.

  “Do I get to choose who I deal with?” I ask and he slides the binder across the desk, spinning it to face me.

  “Sure, go ahead, you can choose anyone from the yellow section for debtors or anyone from the red section for warnings.”

  Curiosity made me look through the yellow section anyway, a sketch of each person, where they live, a rating for items they could provide to clear their debt or length of service remaining. In the back was a list of items that people could trade, each with a number of stars after, their relative worth, famous family members topped the list.

  I go to the red section, the profiles are basically the same as the yellow section, no mention of what they have done to deserve their fate, no way of gauging who is most worthy of death or who I’m most likely to be able to actually kill. I’m surprised that these people stay in the area, they must have been given the same payment options that I was when they came here, why not offer to take care of someone else from the binder rather than just not paying, why not leave and disappear in another settlement somewhere, I ask the questions out loud.

  “Because they are usually too weak to be able to bring in another debtor or send a warning, London has been free of infected for quite some time now, it’s a relatively safe place to live, people have started their lives again here, got new families, new homes, they don’t want to leave that and risk the bandits and infected that roam the areas outside of the city. The longer they stay here the less prepared for an attack they become and they get weaker and weaker. Pathetic really. We do get the occasional runner but before you get any ideas yourself, remember that we have many, many people watching you and willing to chase you down, we run this city.”

  I don’t know who he was referring to with the “we” but it made me nervous, I didn’t know who or how many people were involved in this operation so I was going to have to be careful in my search for Sarah. Maybe the “we” didn’t exist and it was just this fat greasy man that ran things but I couldn’t afford to risk trying anything without knowing for sure so I pick two people from the red section in the book. The pages are removed from the binder so that I have the sketches for comparison. He rises from his chair leaving a dark patch of greasy sweat on the black leather and leads me into another room where I’m told to sit in a chair facing a mirror. He tells me that I’m being sketched by an unseen person on the other side of the mirror and starts noting my details; name, age, he takes my finger prints and asks where I’m currently living, which is nowhere at the moment. I spent my first night here in an alley, this makes me a high risk client he explains but doesn’t elaborate on that. Apparently the way this works, is that I deal with one of the people I’ve selected, bring their finger in as proof, then I can take part in my fantasy scenario, once done I have a limited amount of time in which to deal with my second selected person and bring in their dismembered finger. Failure to bring in the first finger means I don’t get to fuck the Princess, failure to bring in the second finger means I’m added to the yellow section of the binder and available for the long line of other punters to choose from as part of their payment. It seems straight forward enough.

  There’s a tap on the mirror and I’m taken by the shoulder and led into a further small room.

  “Now, as I mentioned, you are a high risk client, meaning you have no ties to the city and can handle yourself against bandits and infected alike so if you chose to, and please don’t take this personally, we are making no assumptions based on our meeting today but if you chose to you could easily take advantage of our hospitality and leave town without making full payment. This does mean that we need a way to make you visible to our various employees in the city so that you are unable to slip away quite so easily.”

  With that I’m placed into a swivel chair and tipped backwards, my head touches the cold porcelain of a sink behind the chair and cold water gushes out of a hose over my head, I try to jerk away from the shock but I’m held in place. When the chair is finally upright again I can see that there’s a large goon now standing in the room with us. A deterrent against trying to stop whatever is happening to me now. I calm myself by thinking that they obviously don’t want to kill or injure me at this point so there’s no need to fear, just accept it, the sooner I can bring in my first finger the sooner I can talk to David.

  My hair is subsequently bleached and then dyed a bright, shocking pink, and I have to admit that it does shock me when I look in the mirror.

  “We’ve found this to be a very effective way of keeping track of people as they move around the streets of our city, you really do stand out from the crowd. Just a friendly warning, if you make any attempt to cover your head while working for us you will be dealt with immediately and ruthlessly, remember we have eyes all over the city.”

  The door goon leads me back along the corridors to the exit, there are no sneaky peeks behind curtains this time, I get the impression that if I take too long to leave I’ll be persuaded in some painful way that it’s in my best interest to depart and fetch my first finger of payment as soon as possible. I’m handed my tool belt as the dimly lit corridor gives way to bright sunlight and I walk back out onto the street and get my bearings. My eyes glance at windows in the surrounding buildings and alleyways that line the street, try to catch a glimpse of one of the spies that is supposedly watching me, it could easily be another bluff but again there wasn’t much point in me risking it so I retrace my path back to the labyrinthine warren of shacks and shelters that hide my quarry.

  As I draw near to the centre of the population I start to get the attention of the people in the street; it’s attention that I don’t want. They mutter as I go past, “Pink” is the only word I can make out though, some people whisper and point, children snake away with secrets in their ears and I wonder who they are going to pass their news on to. I’m struck in the back by a rock but when I turn around everybody is stood staring, not threatening, just casual, I can’t work out who threw it, I don’t want to take on the whole town anyway so I turn back around and quicken my pace. According to my fact sheets, one of my targets frequents the pub I was in earlier, where I heard about Madame Tussauds, it’s the reason I picked him, I knew where to look, the face didn’t look familiar though so I don’t think he was there when I was.

  I keep wanting to cover my head to avoid the attention of the street dwellers, I become very aware of a crowd gathering behind me, following at a distance, occasionally throwing things, still hearing the mutterings “Pink! Pink!” I was going to have to do this fast and then run for my life back towards Madame Tussauds, at least the streets were quieter over there. On entering the pub every head turns to look at me, it’s like an old cowboy movie, it’d be funny if I didn’t feel like I was about to be lynched. I have no choice but to continue with my task, the alternative, covering my head and blending back into the crowds held as much danger from the enforcers as the baying crowd do now. The faces turned towards me means I can easily scan them to find my target however so at least that’s something in my favour. Even better, he’s here, I make eye contact and I see the realisation cross his face like a storm cloud as he guesses that I’m here for him. I wonder how many pink haired strangers have come into this bar before, hunting the vario
us residents of the city; this may not have been a good idea after all, I should have gone to the filming location I found on the flyer first, she isn’t even at Madame Tussauds, all they have is her co-star and he may not know anything.

  I launch myself across the room, stepping up onto a chair, then a table and then I’m soaring through the air and knocking my target backwards out of his chair. I straddle his chest and rain blows down onto his face until the crowd pulls me up and away from him and the pub suddenly has a lot more people in it and they all hate me and I’m held while my target gets up and approaches me. He spits in my face, I feel it running down my cheek and when I open my eyes I’m just in time to see his fist rapidly approaching my head. The blow hits my jaw and knocks me sideways but still the crowd holds me. Another couple of blows, to the stomach and then another to my face, I twist and bite at his hand as it glances across my face and manage to catch hold of his little finger, clamp down hard, he tries to pull away but it just causes him more damage as my teeth go through his flesh. I lift both feet and push hard against his chest, sending him one way and the crowd behind me stumbling backwards, his finger detaches from his hand and as I land on my back on top of my captors it falls into my throat and is swallowed and then half choked back up but swallowed again and my teeth feel loose and one of them might even have fallen out but there’s a moment of confusion and the hands around me have loosened their hold as people try to scramble out of the pile and get back to their feet. If I’m going to escape it has to be now but before I can get halfway to the door I’m grabbed again and a chant starts up and grows louder and louder as more and more voices join in the cry “Sink the Pink! Sink the Pink! Sink the Pink!” I’m held aloft and thrown up and down as I’m carried out into the street all the while the crowd keeps chanting and I’m lashed to a ramshackle mill wheel that slowly turns in the nearby river and as it turns I’m momentarily plunged under water and choking and drowning but then I’m out again and making another circle around. As I blink the stinging water from my eyes I can see people lining up on the opposite bank, taking hold of axes, one is thrown and is thankfully well wide, it bounces off the wheel and falls into the river; a waste of a weapon but nobody seems to care, another is thrown, this one hits closer and sticks into the wood nearby. The chants of “Sink the Pink!” are momentarily stopped for an “Ooohh!” at the near miss. I’m not sure if the aim is to cut my bonds and make me fall into the river, hence sinking the pink, or if they just want to kill me. They’d probably be happy either way. I see my target step up with an axe, his hand wrapped in a blood soaked rag, he launches the axe and hits, the majority of the blade embeds in the wood but it’s close enough to cut into my leg and it rubs and saws into me as my weight is shifted around by the constant spinning of the wheel. More axes are thrown, luckily for me most people are terrible shots but then my “prey” is back at the front of the queue, I try to protest, shout out “He’s already had a go! That’s cheating!” but the crowd just laughs and again he scores a hit, this time on my arm but as it cuts into me it also cuts the rope holding my arm in place and after a few more cycles around I manage to rub the rope against the exposed edge of the axe blade enough times to sever it completely and I have an arm free.