Derby City Dead

by D A Madigan

  Now there was no hesitation. "Go to your left. You can get around the shrubs over there. Lower yourself down onto the car roof closest to the wall, then go to the back doors over here. I"ll see if I can get someone to let you in."

  It wasn't as easy as the dude made it out to be, but Derrick followed instructions. He had to jump down first and then have Bennie lower nana down as far as he could, but he got her down without her breakin' anything and then Bennie jumped down. They managed to do all that without having all their torches go out, which was good. Then, walkin' around to the back of the building, Derrick nearly shit his pants when the back door of a van popped open and some crazy man stuck some kind of hose in his face and blew cold air on him!

  "Man, what the fuck?" Derrick squawked. He could barely see the guy, sittin' in the van like he was.

  "Guess you're not a zombie," the guy... some crazy white fuck, no doubt... said. He shone a flashlight on them, then got out of the van and actually tipped his hat to Derrick's nana. "Ma'am. Awright, let's see if we can get Vivian to let us in." He had a crowbar, he started beatin' on the metal loading dock doors with it, making a helluva racket.

  Derrick didn't need to be told; he faced away from the building and started waving his flaming broom around to keep any zombies that might be watchin' from comin' any closer. Noise like that would normally draw the fuckers like --

  -- hold the motherfucking phone. Derrick wheeled back around so fast he nearly put his torch out. "Did you say Vivian?"

  He wasn't surprised to hear nana saying exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.

  The white guy stopped hammering with his crow bar for a second, and just looked at the two of them.

  "Oh, hey," he said, after a second. "Y'all aren't... Derrick and nana, are you?"

  PART THREE

  THE BLOW OFF

  "Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no Undertaker, brotha."

  - HULK HOGAN

  i.

  The General was not a morning person and had never had the gift of instantly snapping awake, fully conscious, ready to blaze away. No sir, he was the kinda fella who needed a more civilized interval between the blessings of slumber and full consciousness. In fact, he generally preferred a big breakfast with several cups of strong black coffee to kick start his day, which was why gettin' the gennies up and runnin' so someone could plug in a percolator was always a first priority for the Ad Hoc Christian End Times Survival Battalion when they settled into a new home base for a spell. A grumpy General, they had all learned, led to random demotions, pistol whippings, and sometimes even unscheduled geek-feedings. Nobody wanted any of that, no sirree Bob.

  But even gulping at the cup of coffee that Captain Jorgenson was waving under his nose while shaking his shoulder, it still took him a good minute or so to get his head straight.

  Which was why it took him nearly another full minute after getting half a cup of coffee down him in one long chug, to realize the other side of the big double sleeping bag was empty.

  "Where's Little Dot?" the General bellowed, staring around like a pop eyed rooster, blood rushing to his face. He loved his daughter like a mouse loved cheese but by God if that little slut was sneakin' out at night to see someone else, the General would horsewhip the bastard and -- !

  "SIR we do not know SIR," Captain Jorgenson said, coming to attention with a snap. Captain Jorgenson had been a sergeant in the local National Guard; he and three other troopers had been trapped in a Humvee by a raging zombie mob when the General had come upon 'em with his two snowplow convoy. They'd been the first to join up with his original group of three -- him, Dot, and Lucas, the General's one time assistant in the Parks Department who'd been drivin' the other snowplow back then. Poor Lucas, got his face tore right off by a lurkin' hellspawn in that first Kroger's they went to. The General still missed him, that boy could whip up a top shelf cup o' coffee.

  Captain Jorgenson, who was currently terrified (and fighting not to cackle hysterically at the General calling his slattern of a daughter "Little Dot"; Jorgenson had been quite a fan of Harvey Comics in early childhood, and the juxtaposition of the real girl with the sweet, perky fictional character was so alarming as to be amusing), went on, "Sir we have reports from enlisted watch standers as to the sound of shots being fired and the sight of a party bearing torches moving away from the store across the parking lot. Upon receiving these reports I immediately came here to apprise you of this situation SIR. I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of your daughter SIR."

  Although Don Jorgenson was very aware that that loudmouthed dyke Captain Cass did not seem to be anywhere in the immediate vicinity, and that was a strange thing indeed. Given the whispers that every officer except, apparently, the General, had heard over the past few weeks, it would not have surprised Jorgenson to find out that Cass and Dorothy had been part of whatever torchbearing group might have been sighted. But it was absolutely not Jorgenson's job to pass on scurrilous rumors to the General as regards his 14 year old daughter's actual sexual preferences.

  "Wa'aaaaall by Sonny Jesus you don't know a goddam fucking THING then, do you, LIEUTENANT Jorgenson?" the General howled, getting to his feet, spittle spraying everywhere. He grabbed his camouflage fatigue pants -- a uniform the man had absolutely no right to wear, but Jorgenson made damn sure that particular thought never showed on his face -- and pulled them on, then started searching for socks and shoes.

  There was a sound of running feet in the hallway outside the former conference room that the General had taken as his personal quarters, and Sergeant Duschenes burst into the room. "SIR," Duschenes bellowed, his face nearly as red as the General's beneath an alarming shock of wiry dark blonde hair, "no one has tampered with the snow plows or the armory including the flame throwers SIR!" Duschenes, who had been a private first class trapped in that same Humvee on that long ago day with then Sergeant Jorgenson, snapped a crisp salute to a point somewhere between Jorgenson and the General.

  "W'aallll, that's some good news any-hoo," the General allowed, having pulled his combat boots on and finished lacing them up. He got to his feet, a balding, wiry little bow-legged, broad-shouldered banty rooster of a fella. Before the Rapture he'd been carrying around a few excess pounds but since then, Praise Gawd, he had slimmed down and trimmed up, by the Jesus. (It would never have occurred to the General that nobody still alive after Zombie Day was carrying around excess poundage; not even he got enough to eat to maintain a pot belly.) "That's right good thinkin' there, LIEUTENANT Duschenes, ascertaining that information."

  Duschenes looked panicked; should he mention to the General that he had been ordered to check the plows and flamethrowers by Captain Jorgenson? Jorgenson caught the look and shook his head, minutely, just a millimeter to the left, then to the right. Ranks in the Ad Hoc Christian Decency Incest Brigade, or whatever the hell it was the General called them, tended to be very fluid... officers' fortunes rose and fell with the General's whim, and if the General's whim didn't hand you a grisly death, you figured you were still ahead of the game and kept quiet about it. There was little point in offering the General any information he did not wish to hear... not if you wanted to keep your skin on your back and your guts inside your body, anyway.

  Sometimes Jorgenson thought that it might be a very good idea to cut the General's throat in his sleep. It wouldn't be hard; despite the man's bluster, he had the fighting acumen of one of those fucking yappy dogs from a Taco Bell commercial.

  Yet even if Jorgenson had gotten a majority of the armed officers to go in on it with him, the very real fact was, none of them had known jack shit about maintaining those snow plows when this all started. Plus, the flamethrowers mounted on each plow and on the two Humvees the group maintained had been tinkered up by the General too, from high end vacuum cleaners they'd found in an appliances store down near that first Kroger's. Like the plows themselves, the flamethrowers were finicky beasts requiring constant fussing. Without the General, the plows an
d flamethrowers most likely would not stay in working order for very long, and without the plows and flamethrowers, they had no real advantages over the hordes of undead constantly surrounding them.

  Jorgenson knew he wasn't the only armed officer who had meandered down this particular reasoning path. The fact that he had not heard any real rumors of rebellion among any other officers indicated to him that they'd all reached the same conclusion as him -- like it or not, they needed the General.

  But Jorgenson, at least, tried to pay very close attention whenever the General was tinkering with either a plow or a flamethrower. Because the time was coming when the General would just have to go. The man was straight up crazy as a shit house rat.

  Plus, Jorgenson himself had had two daughters. He had no idea what had become of them... but the General's openly incestuous relationship with Dorothy... well, let's just say it put Jorgenson in mind of a slogan on a gag t-shirt his daughter Julie had given him once: "STRESS is what happens when you are forced to override the perfectly natural and reasonable urge to CHOKE THE LIVING SHIT out of some ASSHOLE". Except in this case, the need to override that compulsion was especially stressful, because the asshole in question was a child molesting pervert of a father fucking his own kid.

  The General had finished dressing and was striding for the door. "W'aaaaall, come along, Lieutenants. Ah guess Ah'll have ta haul all our chestnuts outta the fahr... AGAIN."

  As they all went down the stairs to the first floor, Jorgenson's palm itched for the butt of his pistol. One shot to the back of the head and they were all free of this murderous blowhard...

  He restrained himself. He overrode the urge. But it was hard.

  ii.

  Derrick had been swarmed with relatives he'd thought for weeks were dead, and had frankly been too stunned to say or think anything for the first few minutes after the back doors had opened.

  Vivian had run right by him to nana, of course. But his niece and nephew had hit him simultaneously, one to each leg, and started climbing him like a tree, shrieking "Unca Derrick Unca Derrick Unca Derrick!" the whole time. Which was kinda nice, actually.

  They'd been in the back room. That white man, whatever his name was, had gotten them all inside and locked the doors behind them, and then the love fest had begun.

  Derrick had one kid in each arm when Vivian grabbed him from behind. "You saved Nana you saved Nana oh Derrick little brotha oh you the best," she was half crying on his neck.

  "Hey, goddam, Vivvie, don...." Derrick stopped. Something in the phrase 'you saved Nana' had reminded him of the crazy man no more than two hundred feet up the street. Because he hadn't saved her, or anyone else, if they didn't get beyond the General's reach pretty fuckin' quick.

  "Okay," he said, putting his niece and nephew down on the floor. "I don't know what all you got goin' on here, Viv, but we gots to GTFO, and we gots to GTFO quick." Even as he said it, Derrick felt doubtful. Nana couldn't go much further any time soon, and the two little kids... "Y'all got any kind of vehicle?"

  The white guy, whatever his name was, said "Ma'am, we got a few chairs right in here. You look like you need a rest." He took Nana's arm, and escorted her out of the storage room in the back, through a Walgreen's that looked like people had been livin' in it for weeks (Derrick had gotten very accustomed to the particular appearance of a retail outlet that humans had converted into a habitat), over to an open area near the drug counter that had chairs and tables and a little flat screen TV set up in it.

  "Man, we CAN'T stay," Derrick insisted, turning to Vivian. "Seriously, Viv, there's a crazy white man with a whole bunch of honkeys with guns nearly as crazy as him right up the street at the Kroger's, and as soon as he finds out me and nana are gone, he's gonna come after us like..."

  "Nana needs to rest," Vivian said. "And the vehicle we came in been sittin' out back for a month. Ah'm gonna guess its battery flat an' maybe some of its tires. We cain't do nothin' 'bout that until daylight. What makes you think this crazy man gonna come after you anyway? You steal somethin' from that man, Derrick?"

  Derrick shook his head. He'd saved nana, but still, his big sister was just gonna assume he stole some shit. Well, fuck it. "Not 'zackly. But he crazy, Viv. He gimme this rifle but no bullets for it just cuz he like havin' a house nigger around with no bullets. He fuckin' his own daughter -- she's like 14 years old! -- and she a total ho. She come on to me to shoot her daddy for her, and then..." Derrick took a deep breath. "Anyway. I had to knock that bitch out to get nana out of the store. He gonna find her and she gonna put it on me when he wakes her skank ass up. And then he gonna rev up them plows and come straight for us."

  "How will he know where to go?" the white dude asked. He'd helped nana to a chair and then come back to talk to the two of them. The young kids had all gone over and were sitting with nana. "Does he know we're down here?"

  Derrick grudgingly admired the questions the white dude had asked. Not 'why did you knock the bitch out' or 'how sure are you he's screwing his daughter' or even any 'how can you be sure' of any crazy bullshit. Just straight up to the point. "No, man," Derrick answered, "I didn't know y'all was down here, we just got to the Kroger's today, we ain't scouted down the road yet. But to get here we had to carry torches to keep the deadheads off our asses. And he got enlisted -- which in that group means 'slaves' -- standing watch all 'round that Kroger's. Somebody will'a seen us and they gonna report to him on it. Plus Dorothy might'a woke up by now and she gonna go straight to her daddy. Plus that crazy bitch Cass shot Rich Bitch an' then nana shot her, and we had to burn them when they got back up inna minute, so..."

  "Nana SHOT someone?" Vivian said. "God DAMN."

  "Don't blaspheme, Vivian," the old lady's shrill voice came to them, from thirty feet away.

  "Ah'm sorry, nana," Vivian said, over her shoulder.

  The white dude was rubbing his chin. "All right. I guess there's a chance he might not know anything until morning, and might not know which way to go... we can't know anything, really. But there's also a chance they'll be here in five minutes." He nodded, twice. "All right. You said 'plows'. He's using snow plows?"

  "Two of 'em," Derrick affirmed. "They the fuckin' bomb. Knock stalled cars an' shit right outta the way, an' deadheads can't climb up 'em easy. He made some flamethrowers outta vacuum cleaners and they the motherfuckin' shit, too."

  "DERRICK," nana called. "I can HEAR you, and so can the Lord Jesus."

  Derrick flushed. "Sorry, nana."

  "So," the white dude said. "If someone were to take out the plows... would he still come down here in force?"

  Derrick stopped, startled at the thought. "I... how you gonna....?"

  "We have a helicopter," the white dude said. "Not much fuel left in it, but I can..."

  "Skip," Vivian said, in that 'what the fuck you think you trying to pull' tone Derrick knew so well, "what you up to now?"

  Skip -- the white dude's name was Skip? Who had a name like that anymore, what the fuck was this, LEAVE IT TO motherfucking BEAVER? -- said "Vivian, without more insulin I'm on my last legs here, and without me the chopper is useless. . But I can take it up and crash it on those plows, and if I get this General, chances are his whole group will lose interest in us."

  "Sheeeee-" Derrick started to say, and then, realizing nana was probably listening like a fuckin' owl or something, changed it at the last second to: "--ooot. You need insulin, I saw like six bottles of the.... stuff... at the drug counter when I was checkin' it out for the General today. He always has me check out the drugs cuz he figures a street nigger got to know about that sh... stuff."

  "An' I suppose he's wrong about you," Vivian said, her voice rather sharp.

  "Vivi, I sold like three times in my life when I got a good deal on weed," Derrick said. "I ain't no dope dealer... aw, whatever. I'm just sayin', they got a lot of insulin."

  "You see?" Vivian looked at the white dude -- Skip -- and it suddenly occurred to Derrick what was goin' on here. This white man Skip was fuc
kin' his older sister. Goddam. "They've got six bottles of insulin up there, Skip! All we need to do is..."

  "They might as well be on the fuckin' moon, Vivian!" Skip said back to her. "Look, this is our best --"

  Derrick (who had noted that nana wasn't yelling at the white dude for swearing) said "Hold on a sec, both of you. Skip here is right about one thing... you take out the General, they ain't gonna bother us. In fact, they might even, I dunno, trade with us, or somethin', if we got anything good down here. You got any canned hams? Cuz the Krogers didn't have any and a couple o' the officers really cravin' some ham. But anyway, they probably ain't gonna be lookin' for trouble. They got a whole store full of canned food to eat they way through right now. Take out the General and we got plenty of time to move someplace else."

  Skip was shaking his head. "We've got one gun, Derrick. It's a pistol with maybe four bullets left in it..."

  At that point, Bennie, who had been standing in the back room pretty much entirely ignored by everyone, said "Ah... senor." Skip looked over in that direction, a little startled; he'd forgotten Benny was there, too.

  Benny was showing the two pistols they'd taken off Cass. "We are havink these two, I am theenkink, Senor. And mucho bullets."

  "Yeah, that's right, Bennie got Cass' guns, too," Derrick said. "And that crazy bitch carried a lot of lead on her, fo' damn sho'."

  Skip shook his head. "Pistols won't do it, not if they're coming in snow plows and they've got rifles, not to mention flamethrowers. Now, if you had some bullets that would fit that AR-15 you're carrying... I can use a weapon like that. I might be able to potshot this General from the roof. But not with a pistol. Not before he gets close."

  Derrick reached into his pocket and took out the baggie that Dorothy had given him. It contained 12 bullets that obviously would not fit the AR-15 he had on his shoulder. "Crazy cunt Dorothy gimme these," he said. "She stole 'em off Cass... but even I can see they pistol rounds, no good for this rifle."