by Won, Mark
While ducking, I grabbed up a scalpel from the floor and charged the Burt zombie. Which, judging by its strength, was apparently an ogre like the other lab technician. Most people consider charging an ogre a short trip to the grave, but with the devil behind me I was desperate to reach the deep blue sea, or at least Green Bay. I knew that getting out of there alive wasn’t going to be a piece of cake walk. Also, it seemed my hemorrhaging head wound was forcing me to confuse my metaphors, which was never a good sign.
Burt ogre spread his arms wide to bring me in for a great big bear hug of doom. I had the blunt end of the scalpel against the center of my palm and was holding the haft between my middle and ring fingers. I jumped in close, and while its arms reached around me, I stabbed the full length of the scalpel through its eye. It fell instantly, though I couldn’t say whether it had been the eye wound or the getting stabbed all the way through the brain that had got the job done.
The frankenzombie wasn’t out of the fight, by any means. As I heard it screaming behind me, crying out for my death, I bolted through the same door that the good Doctor Shelly and his intrepid fellow researcher, Joe, had so recently used as an escape route. As neither of those worthy researchers had bothered to close the door behind them, I had a straight route out onto the frozen surface of Venture Island.
Once outside, in the forested landscape, I was hardly safe. The multi-limbed monstrosity came clamoring and clambering after me, seemingly enraged beyond all measure. So forceful was its advance that it smashed its head on the lintel, while trying to get outside. Again, I was surprised to see it stunned. ‘Normal’ Changed never seem to react to that sort of thing. It was always go, go, go until somebody put a bullet in its head.
“Look out, you’ve only got the one noggin left!” Then I ran for the docks. My one thought, at that time, was that I had to get off the island. No strategy involved, really. Just ‘run for your life’. Fight or flight with an emphasis on the ‘flight’ option. I was completely unarmed, my most recent weapon left in the optical orbit of an opprobrious ogre. And my head was still bleeding.
The frankenzombie came crashing behind me, still shouting its mantra of death. Apparently, I’d shot the head with most of the words because the frankenzombie was still stuck on its monosyllabic declaration of intent.
I could hear it gaining on me and knew that I’d never make it to the bay before it caught up to me and ripped my limbs off. That put my thinking straight. What with all the blood I was leaking I couldn’t possible expect to hide from it. I was leaving a trail in the snow which even I could have followed.
Of course I thought of climbing a tree. The trouble with that idea was that the frankenzombie might be able to climb. It had a lot of limbs and didn’t seem excessively clumsy, even with a hole in its favorite head. Plus, if I climbed a tree, I might end up treed. Since the frankenzombie was already dead, and I knew that ordinary cold wouldn’t stop it, I was willing to bet that it could out-wait me.
Out of breath, I managed to make it to another of the island’s buildings. Inside there were surely more horrors in various states of amputated array. In fact, I thought I heard the ‘die, die, die’ chant coming from inside. How those severed heads could raise such a ruckus without lungs was beyond me. I didn’t want to take a chance of them ratting me out if I stepped inside, so I started shimmying up a drain spout. Not a recommended practice for an overweight politician with a head wound but it seemed the safest course of action at the time.
Once on the roof I glanced back and saw that the shouting frankenzombie had broken through the trees and was trying to climb up after me. My heart skipped a beat when it managed to climb a couple feet off the ground, but then the spout broke and it went crashing back to the earth.
“Ha, not so great being a giant, ugly, monstrous, ugly, repulsive, ugly, frankenzombie, now, is it? Just because you got as many limbs as a spider doesn’t mean you’re able to climb walls!”
I wasn’t sure if my taunts were getting through but I knew that I couldn’t wait on the roof for too long. The exercise had warmed me up but as soon as my body calmed down I’d start to freeze to death. All I had was my jacket, my coat remained inside the main building where I’d dropped it, probably next to my pistol. Looking at it from that point of view my solution became obvious.
“Hey, stupid, I’ll just wait here then. Unlike you, I’ve got friends. When they show up I’m sure one of them will figure out how to remove you’re remaining head. Maybe I’ll have it mounted on a post in the garden. See if it works as a scare crow. Or maybe I’ll just put a bullet in it.”
It was late evening and the temperature had really dropped in the last few minutes. In spite of my claims, I was pretty sure that I would freeze to death long before any friends showed up. That’s assuming Dr. Shelly could be bothered to send help. Trying to manage a cover up would be foolish of him, but then again he was the idiotic, imbecilic, moronic, dunderhead who thought it was a great idea to whip up a frankenzombie in the first place. So nothing called ‘stupid’ was really off the table.
That left saving my life up to me. I checked the disposition of my antagonist. It still seemed focused on trying to climb, still shouting the same command over and over. Frankly, it seemed either stupid or so full of hate that it couldn’t think straight. At a guess, I thought maybe that’s what happens to a two-headed frankenzombie when it gets one of its brains shot out. Perfect.
I backed up the side of the roof, away from the edge, and went over to the other side of the building. Time to try a test. While it was still shouting from the other side, I slid down another downspout as quickly as possible, relying on its own noisy efforts to cover the sounds of my escape. Then I began quietly making my way back to the main building.
Before I’d gotten back I noticed a change. The sound of its voice had stopped. I thought that either meant that the monster had finally gotten some sense back, and was pursuing me more wisely, or maybe it had just up and died from some kind of apoplectic shock. I picked up my pace.
Back at the main building I heard something moving behind me. Without hesitation, I ran through the door, turned, and slammed it. The last thing that I saw before the door closed was, of all the crazy things, a lab worker running across the clearing in front of the main doors, directly toward me. He appeared fully human.
Naturally, I reopened the door, grabbed him by his shirt, and hauled him inside. After bolting the door I began searching for my fallen firearm. The handgun. I knew it had to be laying around somewhere. I had just dropped it a minute ago.
“What the hell is that thing?!” So, the lab tech had seen it then.
“So, you’ve seen it then?” I was just making small talk. I had to figure that he’d seen it based on the clever nature of his question. Interesting that he hadn’t already known about it, though.
The lab tech continued, “It broke in and killed everybody! What are we going to do?!” I had to sigh.
“I see you’ve got a gun there. Help me find mine. I’ve dropped it somewhere around here. Ah, there it is.” The silly thing had been hiding under Burt’s corpse. I saw Burt’s old pistol in the corner, but it was out of ammunition.
“Where did it come from?!” For a scientist type that guy didn’t seem any to quick on the uptake.
“Where do you think, Poindexter? Your idiot boss has been busy uncovering secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know! The dipshit.” I really shouldn’t have been taking out my frustrations on the help, but that guy needed to get his act together if he wanted to live out the day. People can be such morons.
Suddenly, the door was slammed into from the other side. I saw the frame start to give and Poindexter gave out a womanish scream. The man didn’t move or anything, he just screamed, leaving his gun in its holster. I didn’t think he’d make it. Then again, things didn’t look to good for me either.
The frame cracked with the next blow. I raised my pistol and took careful aim just below the lintel. The remains of the door were broken and thrust
aside by the raging hulk. I opened fire. My aim was as true as I wished my heart was. The only problem was that the frankenzombie had picked up a helmet somewhere, probably the cranial testing laboratory. My bullet gouged a huge hole in the protective gear and probably would have stopped a human. As it was, the frankenzombie was merely staggered.
At least it was staggered. It seemed that with greater intelligence came greater susceptibility to injury. I grabbed Poindexter by the hand and led him through the doorway into the receiving room. We must have looked like a cute couple because the frankenzombie had started laughing again. At least someone was enjoying himself. Itself. Whatever.
Once in Receiving, I found the source of all the frankenzombie’s limb donors. It looked like the work had been accomplished fairly recently. That was good. It implied that maybe we only had the one to deal with, that there wasn’t another frankenzombie lurking around in a cell somewhere. I turned toward the door and took aim again but the horror ducked back out the doorway.
For some reason the monster wasn’t following. In fact, it was fleeing. I had to wonder why. Why would a large antagonist, clearly physically superior, run away from someone? I had the answer in my hand. The gun. The frankenzombie didn’t want to get shot again. It was afraid.
My opponents learning curve was really starting to scare me. Sure, it was running away just then, but how long before it advanced from putting on a helmet to picking up a gun and shooting back? I was not thrilled about the idea of rushing out there after it, either.
Thinking of that, I noticed that the corpse of a technician lying on the floor still had a gun holstered. A nice big one. I picked it up and turned to my new friend.
“So what’s your other name, Poindexter?”
“Steve Erickson.”
“Well, Poindexter, here’s the drill. We’re going upstairs. Try and find something we can light this building on fire with, okay?” I had a new plan, one involving using arson as a cry for help and a distraction at the same time.
Steve proved an invaluable asset just then. We went directly to the gasoline storage area and were good to go. That stuff would clog up a fuel line in record time but still proved useful as an accelerant, which was my sole intent for it.
While Steve and I were getting everything ready I noticed that all the zombies around us had calmed down some and were back to their ordinary uncommunicative selves.
Once upstairs, Steve and I doused the floor and got ready to lower ourselves out a window opposing the main entrance. Then I threw the match and we skedaddled. Once on the ground we made for the cover of the trees. There were several zombies behind us, all in various states of dismemberment. I had to guess that the frankenzombie had gone and retrieved them while we were busy setting the blaze. If the enemy were beginning to think then I didn’t want to risk trying for the docks again. Surely, the frankenzombie would be waiting.
On the whole, considering our situation, things were looking up. I had a couple of guns, a nice warm fire and a minion that I could feed to the monster while I escaped. Someone from the main island should see the smoke and come to investigate soon. Given the nature of the island’s new purpose, I had to think anyone coming to help would assume the worst and come appropriately armed.
That’s when we broke upon a couple of ogres coming from the opposite direction. They were being driven by the frankenzombie. Both were dressed like lab technicians. I had to guess that the frankenzombie had gone to the northern house for the express purpose of gaining its new recruits. It looked like he was trying to herd them back toward the main building using a large broken branch as some kind of perverted shepherd’s crook. As soon as they saw us they began loping in our direction without the need of supervision.
Steve and I both had our pistols out and began blazing away. Steve couldn’t hit the ground with his hat but I managed to take them both out before they closed. Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyhow, we stopped them both at point blank range, one fatal head wound in each.
Steve kept firing at the frankenzombie until his gun ran dry. Then he shouted “I’m out of ammunition!” With that he ran off into the woods. The frankenzombie retained its sole focus on me.
The stitched abomination had managed to take some cover behind a tree. I placed one careful shot into its torso before backing away. My intention was to keep it scared and get some distance before making a run for the docks, after all. The thought occurred that if I’d just tried to make it to a boat in the first place, instead of being clever, I’d have been halfway home by then. That’s the trouble with being smarter than ones enemies. Sometimes one outsmarts oneself.
As I backed away, I tried starting up a conversation with it just to help me keep tabs on its location. It wasn’t interested. It was deadly serious all of a sudden. No more laughing around, no more promises of freedom, no more offers of apotheosis. When I reached the main building, burning merrily away, I looked about. The sun was setting, and by the light of the burning building I saw what seemed like every horror held on Venture Island crawling, hopping, and dragging itself along, directly toward me. Most were severely amputated and it was a wonder how they were getting along at all. There was also a non-dismembered zombie and an ogre in the mix, both in lab coats. I figured that just about accounted for everybody except Steve, Joe, Dr. Shelly and myself.
The frankenzombie had apparently been even more busy than I’d thought, while I’d been preparing my little fire. With all the zombies mucking about, Steve and I had been lucky to escape the burning building in the first place. If the frankenzombie had thought to place any of his troops around back we would have surely been caught while lowering ourselves from the second floor.
With the ogre charging I took aim and fired a single shot right into its left eye. I’d been aiming for right between the eyes, but I’d take any win at that point. Either my aim was improving, or I was getting better at keeping my calm and waiting for the monsters to get close enough for me to see the whites of their eyes (so to speak).
The frankenzombie took that opportunity to charge, but when it saw the ogre fall it suddenly changed course and bolted back into the trees. The other zombies kept up their sluggish pace, trying to close with me.
I began jogging again. All it took was a simple circuit around the main building and I was finally on my way to the little bay the boathouse was built on. I was finally about to get off that rock.
You can imagine my disappointment when I reached the bay, only to find it beginning to freeze over. All three of the boats looked to be firmly locked in the ice. Then I heard the laughter.
“Now you die. All that do not bring food will be food.” More hellish laughter. It was carrying a couple of its more ambulatory cousins and set them on the ground to ‘chase’ me. Meanwhile, the rest of its little horde were coming up behind it. Waiting would not help my situation.
I backed out onto the frozen plain. The boats were held tight but it was still some seriously thin ice. Way to thin for skating. My enemies slowly pursued. With the ice cracking broadly, it didn’t take long for me to run out of room to retreat.
I should have listened when Floyd told me to put this whole trip off till late spring. But noooooo, ‘I need to see how things are going one last time’, ‘but what if the doctor has had a breakthrough’, ‘who knows what discoveries might be waiting for us’. Well, shit, I guess I hit the jackpot.
When the zombie got close I walked up to it and shot it in the head. When his no armed buddy got too close I gave it the same treatment. Keeping the Shiva wannabe in my sights I went over to the nearest boat and grabbed a life preserver. Putting it over my head and around one shoulder I went back out a ways, until I could see the ice begin to crack again. I was no longer worried about the cold. Even if my plan worked I was about to die of hypothermia.
My idea was that once it closed we’d both fall through the ice, and then I’d shoot it in the head with that extra gun I’d picked up in Receiving. Not my best plan but I was running on empty.<
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“You’ll never take me alive, copper!” I fired off the remaining three rounds at my nemesis, missing wildly. I hadn’t been trying to miss, mind you, but it was maintaining a safe distance for itself. I’d known my odds of hitting were laughable so I forgave it when it laughed at my desperate, futile attempts.
As soon as it saw me throw the pistol away it charged. I waited for it to close then lost my nerve and juked to the side. I had just come up with a better plan. One that didn’t involve me probably dying. I made sure to run parallel to the shore, trying to guess where the ice was just thick enough to support me.
Two-Face had come straight at me at first, but when he had to alter course to follow he lost his footing and slid on by. Right out onto the thinner ice. There was a sort of majestic grace in how it regained its feet just in time for the ice to cave in beneath it. Not much of a splash, rather like the lake just sort of sucked the monster in.
The frankenzombie managed to keep itself from sinking completely by using all six arms to grab ahold of the ice around it. Then it put its feet up and tried pushing off against some of the ice. It wasn’t exactly swimming but it wasn’t exactly sinking, either. And the rest of those other damn dead things weren’t getting any farther away.
All at once, it just gave up and sank. Weird. Suspicious. Weirdly suspicious. I slowly backed toward shore and the mangled dead waiting for me there. Without Two-Face around they didn’t seem to want to brave the ice. Maybe they saw what had happened to their boss. No, they weren’t that smart. Why would he just give up and sink beneath the surface, anyway?
Suddenly realization dawned and I made a dash for the nearby boat. No sooner had I reached it than the frankenzombie burst up from under the ice, in the shallows, just about where I’d been standing. He turned about until he saw me and began running toward me, crashing through the ice, sending shards of it flying in all directions.
