This Rotten World | Book 1 | This Rotten World

by Morris, Jacy

  Mort looked at the whiskey. It seemed like a fine thing to find, but he slammed the drawer shut as another round from Blake's rifle echoed through the pawn shop. In the confines of the back room, the noise was so loud that Mort imagined that his ears might actually be bleeding from the trauma. With hope in his heart, he pulled open the final drawer, the bottom drawer, and there they were, faded boxes of ammunition, the cardboard aged with time.

  Blake looked over and tossed him a bag. "Fill it up!" he yelled before taking sight and blasting another tone out of Mort's aural repertoire. Mort spread the green canvas bag wide open, and scooped the boxes out of the drawer and into the bag as quick as he could. There were six of them, and then a little something extra. Mort held the metallic-green egg shape up to his eyes. He had never seen a grenade before in real life, let alone held one in his hand.

  "Whatcha got there? Some firecrackers? Woo!" Blake smiled over at Mort as he racked another round into the chamber of his rifle. Mort found another grenade in the drawer and tossed them into the bag. "What kind of ammo do we have in there?" Blake asked.

  "We got some nine millimeter, some 12-gauge buckshot, and some .300 Winchester Magnum rounds. Any of that mean anything to you?"

  Blake didn't immediately answer. Instead he put his eye to the sight of his rifle and pulled the trigger. Mort was able to get his hands over his ears in time, though by now he fully expected that he had suffered permanent hearing damage. "It means it's Christmas, man."

  Mort walked over to the crate full of guns, and Blake began pointing out which ones they wanted. In the end, they had two rifles apiece slung over their shoulders, and a couple of handguns stuffed into their pants. "Let's get the hell out of here, get somewhere where we can take a breath, and load up."

  As Mort headed to the back door of the store, he looked out into the thrift shop's main floor. The dead were funneling through the one broken window, stepping awkwardly over the now-still corpses that Blake had created. There were ten or so bodies, yet still more came. Clearly, they were not put off by seeing their brethren rotting on the floor, nor were they interested in eating the meat of the dead. Mort shivered. They only want the living.

  Mort headed to the back door, and tested it. He pushed it open only to find that it was blocked by something. He pushed harder and heard something tumble over. He stepped into the alleyway to find that it was filled with the dead. Blake bumped into his back as Mort attempted to head back inside.

  "What are you doing, man?" Blake said as they momentarily struggled to go in opposite directions.

  "There's dead out there."

  "There's dead in here, too. At least out there, we have a chance of getting away." Blake pushed Mort aside and stepped into the alleyway to see for himself. He brought the rifle up to his eye. Mort looked back into the store. As Blake began firing, the first of the dead rounded the corner, bumping its shoulder against the corner of the wall and knocking it off-balance for a moment.

  "Alright, let's go," Mort said, knowing that death was creeping through the pawn shop. Mort stepped out into the alley with Blake, and closed the door behind him. Both sides of the alleyway were filling with the dead, and he could see more entering to the east and the west. Blake fired his rifle, but it was a losing battle. Without a chance to reload they would be overrun. Mort pressed his back against the door to the alleyway to keep the dead inside trapped. He tried to think, his revolver in his hand, three bullets labeled for the dead.

  Then he saw it. The beautiful part of his mind, the escape artist that resided in him, spotted the dumpster down the alleyway. The perfect height. It would do just fine.

  "Clear me a way to that dumpster," Mort yelled, running with the bag full of ammunition slung over his shoulder. Blake did his job, and the heads of the dead exploded, as Blake and Mort moved down the alleyway to the dumpster. Mort pulled his revolver and placed it under the chin of one of the dead that Blake had missed. He pulled the trigger and blood and bone shot into the air. It was as if for a brief moment he was standing next to a demented whale that shot gore out of its blowhole instead of water. The brown dumpster was large, and the dead pressed around them. Mort threw the black plastic lid into the air and climbed into the dumpster among bags that were relatively sealed and the smell of decaying food matter.

  Blake piled in after him, but Mort hardly noticed, as he was too busy feeling around in the bag for the hand grenades. "Get that lid closed," Mort commanded. Blake did as he was told, and in the darkness Mort felt his hand close around one of the metal eggs. He handed it to Blake, and then he searched for the second one.

  "What the hell do you want me to do with this?"

  Mort's laugh echoed in the dumpster, and the first of the zombies tried to lift the heavy plastic lid up to no avail. Instead the arms snaked into the dumpster underneath the lid, clawing and trying to grab anything they could find. Mort shivered at the cold touch of their fingers, and then he put his own fingers around something even colder. He pulled the grenade out, triumph in his throat.

  "We're going to blow our own asses sky high?" Blake said.

  "It beats getting eaten."

  "You're a wild man, Mort." Blake smiled. "Alright, these things are old, so as soon as you pull the pin, you toss that Easter egg right out as far as you can. You got that?"

  "I got it."

  "Alright, on three, pull the pin, and drop it outside. You got that? On three." Blake's voice had a feverish quality. It was if he was high. Was it fear or excitement? Mort had no idea, perhaps it was a mixture of both. Blake counted to three and then yanked on the metal pin. Mort did the same and they tossed the grenades outside the thick metal dumpster, praying that the grenades wouldn't destroy them.

  The ensuing blast left them senseless in the dumpster. The force of it rocked the dumpster into the air and onto its side; its black plastic lid fell open, where it rested on the ground. When Mort finally opened his eyes, he did so with a human head inches from his face, trying to bite him. Mort counted it a stroke of luck that the head wasn't attached to a human body.

  Mort shook off the stars swimming in his eyes, regretting the movement as soon as he did it. He turned around to see Blake lying unconscious, his cowboy hat smashed on the side and blood dripping from his head. Mort attempted to stand. He staggered around and then fell square on his butt, throwing himself in the opposite direction of the head that was lying on the ground. He stood once more and looked around him. The grenades had left a large spray of gore around the alley. Torsos, limbs, and heads were scattered all around, some of them crawling their way towards him, others appropriately dead.

  Mort bent down and gently tapped Blake on the side of the face. It took a while for him to come around, and when he did, his eyes had trouble focusing. Mort helped him to his feet, scrounged their belongings out of the dumpster, and together they staggered out of the alleyway, a stream of the dead following them close behind.

  They weren't moving fast, but they were moving fast enough to catch up to the two injured men. Even with his brains scrambled, Mort could see that. Mort spotted another dumpster in the alley that ran behind the shops. He left Blake standing up against the wall while he dragged it to the appropriate position. Mort threw their bags onto the roof and then climbed on top of the dumpster. He dragged Blake up on top of it, and then boosted him up onto the roof.

  Then came the hard part. Lifting weights wasn't a typical part of a homeless man's daily regimen. Mort got a handhold on the roof, but couldn't manage to pull himself up. His legs flailed in the air, as the dead began to moan underneath him, their arms reaching to the sky as if in supplication.

  "Blake!" There was no answer.

  He felt the first hand on his boot, and doubled his efforts, but it was no use. "Blake!"

  A hand wrapped around his ankle, squeezing it. Mort screamed in pain. "Blake!"

  His fingers started to slip, and he felt another hand grasping at his ankles. Then Blake was there, blood leaking out of his ears, and his eyes glaz
ed over. His rough hand grabbed Mort by the wrists, and with all of the energy that he had left, he pulled Mort onto the rooftop.

  They lay there in the sun, gasping and hurting all over. Blake sat on his tail, his hands pressed to his ears, and his eyes squeezed shut. Mort sat up, pulled the guns and ammunition out, and through trial and error, he managed to get them fully loaded. Below them he could hear the moans of the dead.

  In the distance, he saw a helicopter fluttering through the air. Mort stood up, and waved his arms. The pilot flying the helicopter either didn't notice or didn't care. Either way, Mort sat back down, and waited for Blake to regain some semblance of his former self. Mort looked back in the direction of the pawn shop. Smoke was rising where they had come from. The grenades might have done more damage than he thought.

  Mort pulled a mangled but functional cigarette from his pocket and lit it up, adding his own smoke to the air. It was his last one.

  Chapter 14: A New Band

  Beelzebub's had been easy enough to find. They actually could have walked there, but riding in the jeep was a nice change of pace, and it kept bullets in their guns and the hands of the dead off their skin. They pulled to a squealing stop in front of the brick structure, its long floor-to-ceiling windows were tinted so that they couldn't see inside. There were no signs of life in the street. There was movement, but not from anything that was living.

  They hopped out of the jeep, resisting the urge to fire their weapons at the dead. They had seen how quickly the dead had circled in on the wounded soldier. Even now, their presence was drawing attention. Ace walked to the front of the building and stopped in front of a door set into red brick walls; the propane torches flanking the door no longer guttered flame as they did the night before.

  He placed his hand on the black, iron handle of the door and yanked. To his surprise, it swung open with ease. The inside of the building was black, the only sound the buzzing of flies. Ace reached into his pocket and pulled out his trusty lighter. It was a brass Zippo, purchased on one of his previous tours through the United States. Before they had fled the jail, they had claimed their personal effects using a key covered in blood. He was glad he had stopped to liberate it, though the light it cast in the club was minimal. He stepped inside, and pulled his gun free, enjoying the reassuring weight of it in his hand.

  The floor of the club was littered with broken glass, puddles of beer, and the occasional pile of blood. No one had bothered to clean up after the concert the night before. That was good. That meant his gear was still here. He felt the men behind him pressing him forward.

  "Look for a light," he told the red-bearded man. Without speaking, the man did as he was told, holding his own lighter in the air, dragging its light along with him. Ace felt like an archeologist, discovering the remains of an ancient civilization. "Like motherfucking Indiana Jones," he said under his breath.

  Ace stood in the middle of the club, his lighter held above his head, remembering the chaos of the previous night. It seemed like a lifetime ago, him standing on stage with his friends, playing guitar, belting out lyrics, and scanning the crowd for appropriate backstage material. That life was over.

  The lights came on suddenly, and Ace blinked his eyes as they adjusted. He snapped his lighter closed. In the bright lights, the club seemed small. On the stage, their instruments still sat, never to be played again. The man with the teardrop tattoo moved behind the counter and began pulling out beers and placing them on the counter. The other men gathered around, thirst on their lips.

  Ace had no interest in drinking with them. His mind reeled and roiled with emotions, emotions he wasn't capable of dealing with. Hey Fever's drum set sat silent in the background, the words "Electric Fever" scrawled across the bass drum in angular, yellow script. He walked to the stage and looked at the candy-red bass lying on the scuffed wood of the dance floor. Jungle Fever's blood was still smeared on the frets, the neck of the bass lying several feet from the body. Of all the things Ace had seen over the previous 24 hours, seeing the bass lying broken on the ground was by far the worst.

  He leaned against the stage and closed his eyes. He saw the entire night in his head, the entire horrible ordeal. When he opened his eyes, the world was still there, and he rolled onto the stage. He got to his feet, and walked past Hey Fever's drum set, tapping lightly on the floor tom. Hey Fever's half-empty beer still sat on one of the Marshall stacks. He moved to the back of the stage, pushing the ancient, stained, red curtains aside.

  He walked down a narrow back corridor to the band room. The cinderblock walls were glazed in red paint buried undernesth thousands of examples of poor graffiti drawn in sharpie. He put his hand to the wooden door of the back room and shoved it open. It slid silently on well-oiled hinges, and he saw inside. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that everything was just as they had left it, messy and ready to use.

  A baggie filled with white powder sat half open on top of his suitcase, a battered suitcase that his mother had given him. His clothes were bundled underneath, and empty bottle of beer littered the tables and couches. The room was stuffy and hot, the smell of stale alcohol permeating the air. Ace grabbed the baggie out of the suitcase and left the room, abandoning his only possessions, his only reminders of the world that he had left behind some 4,000 miles away. It would be good to forget that world.

  Ace returned to the bar and found his guys sitting there drinking themselves silly. He plopped the baggie down on the counter, and the red-bearded man said, "Fuck yeah."

  The red-bearded man pulled a credit card from his wallet. Then he used his large, meaty hands to pull the bag open, and with the plastic square, he lifted some of the powder out of the bag and dumped it on the bar's counter. He began chopping at it and forming it into lines. When he was done, he looked around and found a translucent green straw. He was about to snort it, when the red-bearded man looked at Ace and offered him the straw. It was an honorable thing to do; it was the right thing to do. Ace took the proffered straw, bent over the counter, plugged his free nostril, and snorted the powder up his nose.

  The chemical concoction numbed his nasal passage immediately, and he felt the familiar rush. He dabbed at his nose, knocking free any loose granules, and leaned back as his heart began to beat faster. He watched as the others lined up, except for the chubby man with the goatee.

  "What's wrong? You too good to party?" Ace asked

  The pudgy man looked at him and said, "I've never snorted coke before."

  Ace smiled at the man. "There's a first time for everything."

  "Go on, man. It ain't gonna kill you," the red-bearded man said.

  The pudgy man looked at him, uncertainty in his eyes. "You sure?"

  "What's your name?" Ace asked him.

  "Earl," he said.

  "Earl? That name is no good. I'm going to call you Pudge. New world, new names."

  Pudge looked at him, clearly uncomfortable with all of the attention. "Now, Pudge, this is a new world. No one is going to come in here and arrest you. All the cops are dead. You saw that." Ace tapped on Pudge's chest, his skinny finger bouncing off of the worried man's breastbone. "How's your heart?"

  "Fine as far as I know," Pudge said.

  "Then cocaine is fine as far as you know. Do one line. See if you like it. If you don't," Ace spread his hands wide as if to say, "I tried my best."

  The red-bearded man handed Pudge the straw, and he bent over the counter, hesitant as if someone was going to tell him he was doing it wrong. He snorted in, his eyes squeezed shut, and he leaned back, coughing a little bit. Ace slapped him on the back, laughing. "See? Not so bad, is it?"

  "Yeah," Pudge said his pupils growing wider with every second. "Yeah, that wasn't bad at all."

  The red-bearded man snatched the straw from Pudge, and leaned over the counter, snorting his own line without a pause. He passed the straw to the man with the shaved head, who shook his head "no."

  "Are you afraid too, Slick?" Ace said.

  The man with
the shaved head looked at him, and said, "My name's not Slick, and I don't like cocaine."

  Ace stood up from his chair, the cocaine rushing through his body, his mind focused and euphoric at the same time. "Your name is Slick."

  The man with the shaved head stood up off his stool, took a drink from his beer, and placed it on the counter. "No one tells me what my name is. My name is Marshall, not Slick, not Buddy, not Champ. It's Marshall." Marshall placed his hand on Ace's chest, his own nose inches from Ace's nose. "Don't fuckin' forget it."

  Ace laughed. In his head, he saw a world of possibilities. This was the first challenge to his power. This moment was important. This was the moment that Ace had waited for, the moment where he would bind the others to himself for the rest of their pitiful lives. He looked the man in his steel-gray, emotionless eyes. Murderer's eyes, he thought.

  He half-smiled at the man and said, "You don't have to do the cocaine... Slick."

  At the mention of his new name, the man with the shaved head swung his fist at Ace, a powerful punch with all of his weight behind it. Ace ducked under it with ease, and brought his knee into the groin of the man. He crumpled to the side, and Ace grabbed the baggie of cocaine and pulled out a handful. Then he squatted on the prone man and shoved the powder in the face of the man, blinding him. "What's your name?"

  The man with the shaved head wriggled on the ground, his eyes stinging as he tried to breathe. Ace maintained a position on top of the man's chest, but still the man didn't answer. "What's your name?" Ace asked again.