B-Movie Attack

by Alan Spencer

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Billy said. “I have a few questions to ask Stan first.”

  Stan jumped at his name. The body could put up a strong front, but not the eyes, Billy thought. The man was terrified, beyond sleep and downtrodden to the point of giving up.

  Billy kissed Jessica before she was taken away. “I’ll be right there, honey. This is important.”

  She understood and turned to follow the orderlies. They offered her a wheelchair, but she declined. Billy watched her until she vanished behind the blockades.

  Stan smoked a thick cigar. “Billy, I’m just a cop. This takeover is beyond my qualifications. This is the goddamn apocalypse. I don't know what you want from me.”

  “Hey, I’m a meter-man, for fuck’s sake. Whatever’s out there, we’re on our own. Terrorists or real-life monsters, setting this base up isn’t going to stop them. Have any of them come here yet and attacked?”

  “No.” Stan flicked an ash and sneered. “We can’t beat them, whoever they are. I'm just being honest. Think about it. They're monsters. Goons. Camel jockeys—whatever, we’re headed straight for the grave at the rate we're going.”

  This wasn’t the pep talk he’d anticipated, but Billy understood the man’s resignation. He kept his head low, unsure of what else to say, when Stan said, “I told you about my wife, but I didn't tell you my daughter was also killed. No, not killed. Destroyed. A fist punched through our apartment building, and a giant hand—I shit you not—grabbed her and just squeezed the life out of the poor girl. I was lucky to escape the building in time before the entire place collapsed. Ninth Street, hell, the whole Corporate District is just about smashed.” The words came out deadly serious. “And it was a giant who did it. A giant woman.”

  “I’ve seen her,” Billy said. “This is real, Stan, not terrorists. That would be too easy an explanation. Shoot them dead and wash your hands of them. But it's not happening this time. These are, well, supernatural.”

  “What are you saying? Do you really believe in monsters?”

  “I believe in the dead speaking to me.” He had to tell Stan. He was the closest to someone he could trust. “Dead bodies talked to me. They said this is ghosts at work.”

  It finally struck Billy, and he grabbed Stan by the coat and demanded, “You have to take me to those medical tents. I must see the dead bodies. Anyone dead, I have to see them.”

  Stan’s expression went from confused to offended. “Billy, it’s been a long night for the both of us, but if you’re saying—”

  Billy skipped the arguing. He charged through the lines, shuffling between car bumpers, police officers rigidly standing in place, and shuffled down a flight of concrete steps onto the pier. Stan was shouting after him. Billy opened the first tent he came upon. Cots and stretchers held victims under blankets, many attached to I.V.s. Everyone inside was alive.

  An orderly eyed him angrily. “Sir, if you’re looking for a loved one, you’re going to have to wait. This is an emergency situation, and I can only do so much at a given time…"”

  Billy moved on to another tent, but before he could poke his head inside, Stan restrained him and shook him angrily. Billy’s ribs flared up, and he grunted at the surge of pain.

  “Billy, you’re a good kid, but you’re talking about crazier things than what’s happening out there. Talking to the dead, Billy, I…I don’t know what to say.”

  Billy understood. “You think this is crazy, but it’s not.”

  He wasn’t sure what else to say. They stood in silence for a moment. Billy eyed the dark waters of Lake Michigan just beyond them. He didn't have a plan or the answers, but he had hope again when he caught sight of the tent four down and three over from them. He noticed two EMTs wheel in a body bag through the flaps.

  A force inside Billy propelled him to the tent. He wormed out of Stan’s hold. Stan shouted after him, “I’m shoving your ass in jail. You're making me do it, Billy!”

  “Maybe I’ll be safer in prison than this excuse of a base!”

  Billy shot through the open flaps, shoving aside the EMTs who were halfway through advising him to stay out. This tent was larger than the others. He stamped through puddles of blood. The stench of the freshly dead, the way grocery store beef smelled after removing the cellophane packaging, struck him. The body bags were stacked like cordwood. Rows fifty long and six high filled the tent. His eyes kept scanning the room, unable to take it all in at once.

  I have to do this.

  Either I’m crazy, or I’m right.

  Damn it, I saw what I saw.

  Andy Ryerson talked to me.

  “Andy, where the fuck are you?” Billy shouted at the bodies. “Talk to me. Shout, say something—HELP ME OUT! I FORGOT THE DAMN ADDRESS YOU GAVE ME!”

  He spun around and around in search of a talking body. Any second now, Stan would burst through the front flaps, cart him out of the tent and lock him up. Jessica would be alone without him. Andy Ryerson shared something with him that could potentially save the city, and he fucked it up.

  You have to keep trying.

  Billy knelt. His knees absorbed the blood through his jeans. He unzipped the nearest body bag. A young woman, maybe sixteen or seventeen, stared back at him. Her eyes were open wide in death, her chalky white face untouched. It was her midsection that was damaged. From the sternum down to the navel, a slit gleamed with what he thought to be internal organs, but it was actually apple filling.

  He pressed his shirt up to his nose. The ripe scent of the corpse and tart apples repulsed him. Stan seized him from behind and drove him into the floor. “My patience is worn thin! I’m sorry, Billy, but I’m detaining you. We’ve set up a temporary jail in the Abercrombie and Fitch store.”

  How appropriate.

  The argument refused to die in Billy. He fought off Stan's hold. He shouted at the body bags, “Talk to me, please. Andy—any ghosts, you have to help us! We don’t stand a chance against the monsters without you!”

  Three other officers entered after hearing the commotion. “What the hell is this pervert trying to do in here?”

  They aimed their service revolvers at him.

  “Put your guns down,” Stan insisted. “He’s stressed. Out of his head, but harmless.”

  Billy ignored them. “We’re going to die without your help. I can’t let everybody die because I forgot a fucking address!”

  The clink of cuffs. Billy couldn’t avoid Stan any longer. He was lifted back up to his feet. His front was wet with blood. Billy met the scowling eyes of the cops. He was a criminal in their eyes. A drooling mad fool.

  “My father was slaughtered by those things out there,” Billy pleaded to Stan. “I’m not out of my head. I’m trying to help whoever’s left alive to survive. This is more important than you could ever know!”

  Stan didn't think so. “Well, this isn’t the way to go about it.”

  “No shit,” another cop muttered. “You’re desecrating the dead.”

  “The dead are trying to save us. You and your police squad haven’t been able to stop them, and that's not your fault. But do you think the monsters will just give up and go away if we stay here long enough?”

  “We’ll fight them with whatever we got,” Stan insisted. “Now that we’ve made so many attempts to recover survivors, it’s time we talked about our plans to fight back.”

  After a cough and belch of fluids, a death-stricken voice said, “Your plan isn’t worth shit.”

  The four cops, including Stan, turned to the female corpse that talked. She worked out of the body bag. Apple filling spilled out of her midsection and to her feet. “Billy’s right. There isn’t much time. The monsters have cleared out the city. They wanted you in one spot. This is their climax to the evening. Once the last person alive in this city ceases to breathe, the bone dome over the city will lift and land over another city, and repeat the massacre.”

  Billy could’ve picked everybody’s jaws up from the ground, their shock was so apparent.
/>   Stan cocked his head. “W-who are you?”

  “Call me Andy,” the woman creaked, black blood spilling from her lips. “Midnight tonight, every creature will fall in on your base. That gives you barely an hour to form a defense. Collect all the weapons you’ve got…”

  The woman’s corpse dissolved, every particle of flesh and bone melting into a black-green pile of sizzling fluid. Another corpse shifted in a nearby body bag. Billy was the one to free the body, this one a legless man who didn’t bother to work his way from the bag. “…form a chain of those willing to fight these bastards off. Their attack will free up the streets. My plan to save your asses involves Billy. You must protect him at all costs. He’s one of the last remaining hopes for the city. One hour you've got to rally your troops, Stan. These monsters are real, and they will kill you.”

  The glazed, off-yellow eyes pierced into Billy next. “Be ready for a trip back into the city when they arrive, Billy…”

  The corpse stopped talking before it could melt. Everyone stared at the body, astonished. Nobody moved or breathed. Billy was forced to break the silence. “I told you the dead were talking to me. You should listen to what I say. Stan, let’s do what Andy says. Gather everybody. The monsters are on their way. It’ll be hell on the streets soon.”

  Stan blinked and returned to the moment. “Y-yeah. I understand.” He uncuffed Billy and patted his shoulder. “I’m so sorry about all of that. I hope you understand why I didn't believe you.”

  “No harm done.” Billy smiled at him. “Let’s protect the survivors. Everybody who can fight, let’s get them armed and ready to take on whatever's on the way.”

  “Go get your ribs taped up real quick,” Stan insisted. “Then join us. I’m assuming you’re ready to fight too. Your dad would be proud of you. You managed to piss me off and make me agree with you all within ten minutes. Pretty impressive, boy. Keep it up.”

  Billy said, “Then let’s get to it.”

  He left the tent and scavenged for the medical unit. Jessica was sitting on a cot alone, the abrasions on her arms taped up. She was spaced out until he sat down next to her. “What happened, where did you go? I heard a big commotion. Is everyone okay?”

  Billy explained what had happened, and the battle they were about to prepare for.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ted searched the aisles of Piggly Wiggly for raw meat. He cut through the canned goods section, the baked goods wall, and caught sight of the glass display case of various meats. He shoved the push-cart into the employee's only side of the department. Ted piled beef, filet mignon, T-bone steaks, porterhouse steaks—and any meat that contained blood into his cart.

  Now you’re thinking.

  Play by their rules.

  It occurred to him that the movies were alive, so why couldn’t they be stopped the way they had been in the movies as well? The climax of Morgue Vampire Tramps Find Temptation at the Funeral Home involved the caretaker of the cemetery, a Mr. Ruden Duvenick, filling a truck full of bloody meat mixed with weed killer to poison the vamps. The vampires were so attracted to the blood they didn’t pay attention to the chemical additives. Then they melted into ruby red puddles and soaked back into the earth where they belonged. The sequel, if Dennis Brauman hadn’t shut his movie company down financially, would’ve involved their blood seeping through the cemetery earth and covering a new set of nubile corpses and turning them into morgue vampire tramps.

  It would’ve been a film worthy of Paul Naschy.

  He scooted fast to the lawn and home care section and added six cases of liquid weed killer to the cart, the kind where the bottle attached to the end of a garden hose. Ted was near the back exit to load his truck when a titter froze him in his tracks.

  “You’ve had your fingers in a lot of dirty pies, haven’t you, Mr. Fuller? Pies you had no business sticking your fingers in, you nasty man.”

  Ted peered over the chip aisle and caught two tufts of singed hair bob from a blackened scalp. The smell of cooked flesh permeated thick as did the sickly sweet aroma of freshly baked pies. Smoke continued to issue from Mr. Baker’s body. He didn’t know how to respond, so Ted kept quiet.

  “Where do you think you’re going, huh, Mr. Fuller? Count it on your fingers, my friend. How many women had you cheated on before your wife left you?”

  How does he know about that?

  “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The ragged and mean voice shot back, “Yes you do! You were quite the handsome movie director in your day. You filmed me, Mr. Fuller, and you fornicated with many of my victims on the set. Nina Hayworth. Rebecca Kelly. Jenny Kurtis. Oh, and Shannon Klenklen. She was quite the hot tomato. They were all in my pies. Yet somehow you felt so sorry for yourself when Katie divorced you. You stank of disgusting, dirty pie. Katie could smell it too. The rotten pie tells all!”

  “Would you quit saying that?” Ted was growing guilty and scared of where the conversation might veer to next. “What do you know about me? You’re from a movie.”

  “I’m as much a ghost hidden beneath this shell as I am a movie character.” He played his free hand down his charred face, the other hand hidden behind a rack of corn chips. “The dead know everything about everybody, including you, Mr. Fuller. The ghosts of the dead wish nothing but harm to the living. The dead know magic, and they’ve possessed many of your films to bring terror to the ones we despise.”

  “Then what the hell do you want from me?”

  Mr. Baker stepped into complete visibility. He clutched a long-bladed steak knife, at least seven inches in length and two in width. “I want the dirtiest piece of meat from your body for my pie. It’s a delicacy—your tender meat. The juiciest meat, Mr. Fuller. May I ask you to unbutton your trousers? One cut, and I’ll be done. You’ll never hear from me again…unless it can grow back!”

  Ted was backpedaling. He knocked over a display of 2-liter soda bottles. He turned and bolted when Mr. Baker bounded for him.

  “MY PIE MUST BE COMPLETED! If you keep running, I won’t let you sample it when it’s finished.”

  Ted’s shoulder blade was sliced by a knife. He yipped in agony and landed on his back, the pain blinding him for two seconds. Then the reality was upon him. Mr. Baker crouched above him. He was working the button of his pants. “Come on out from in there!”

  Ted pushed off from the floor, crawled backward and gained a four foot separation from Mr. Baker. He scrambled and searched for a way out. Blood trailed down his shoulder, warm and quickly turning cold. The charred baker came at him again. “You’re playing hard to get, Mr. Fuller? I thought people loved pie.”

  He struggled to return to his feet, using the shelf behind him for support. He touched a row of store-baked bread wrapped in cellophane. Cookies in plastic containers came next. And then his life-saving weapon: baked pie. Ted held up the cherry pie, the surface speckled in sugar crystals.

  “What is that?” Mr. Baker said, backing away. The pie was to the baker what a crucifix would be to a vampire. He shielded his body from the pie. “Inferior goods! Keep them away from me! Don’t touch it. Drop it, Mr. Fuller. That pie’s an abomination. It’s no good for anybody. I consider it poison—POISON!”

  Ted tore the top of the box and poked his finger into the cherry filling. He ate a quarter of a piece. “It’s so good. You shouldn’t knock it before you try it.”

  “I’m not eating that trash, and I’m not cooking you with that shit in you!” Mr. Baker pointed the knife at him. “I’ll come back for you, Mr. Fuller, when you’ve had a chance to excrete that awful dessert from your body.”

  Mr. Baker rushed from the grocery store, fear and disappointment playing on his face. Ted released a sigh of relief. He dropped the pie and licked his lips. “Thanks for saving my life, pie.”

  Mr. Baker feared other baked goods and their subpar quality. He considered store-bought pies the ultimate sin. Any dessert without human flesh, or organs, or blood was toxic.

  I should’ve
thrown it at him. Why didn’t I think of that? He could be dead instead of still out there.

  He remembered the end of his film. A group of local bakers banded together to murder the villain, but in their shop, one uses a shotgun, and Mr. Baker lands on a shelf of cooling pies. The pies sizzle and burn his skin. The man’s outer exterior is destroyed and his true self is revealed; the baker is a zombie who exists on human flesh. He was cursed by another baker upon his death for running many of the mom and pop bakeries out of business when he stole their recipes and opened a mainstream bakery in the community. A gypsy reversed the curse and allowed Mr. Baker to finally die from the shotgun wound he received. Ted admitted the plot was ridiculous, but that was the genre and what put cars in the drive-in.

  He said he was as much a ghost as he was a character from my movie. Why would ghosts want to be characters from B-horror movies?

  The answer was in the devastation around him. They couldn’t reap so much terror and destruction by becoming Abbott and Costello or Groucho Marx.

  Ted returned to his shopping cart. He wheeled it back outside to the Ford truck. Outside, he expected the relief of fresh air, but it was warmer now. Ten degrees warmer, he thought, and it would only get worse. The oxygen was depleting by the minute.

  He began tearing through the cellophane wrapping and hurling wads of raw meat into the cab. Fat grains of greasy meat wet his hands. “I need more than this. This isn't enough.”

  Barely half the cab was filled.

  Vampires like blood.

  He checked his watch. It was eleven-twenty.

  It was time to visit the local blood bank.

  The Chicago Blood and Tissue Donation Center was sandwiched between the all-night Five And Dime Laundry—empty now—and The Salvation Army. The city was deathly quiet. He hadn’t encountered another person in blocks, including corpses. He saw what looked to be a body dragged somewhere, the streaks of blood ending in Otto’s Garage. Mr. Baker was hard at work on his next batch of pies, he assumed.

  Ted entered the waiting room of the blood bank. A receptionist sat in a chair, her body limp, her head dangling backward, her neck chewed in one big bite. He carefully walked into the back hall. The donation rooms. The storage rooms were in the back. A padlock had been broken.