by Goforth, Jim
Seth was loathe to switch on the light, but he could barely see much except indistinct shapes of furniture, so he flicked it on for a cursory glance to ensure the illumination that spilled in the wedge of space created by him opening the door wasn’t misleading. In doing that, he’d found the beds were indeed vacant, though clearly had been in use some time earlier.
He quickly went right through the entire room, checking each portion, the miniscule kitchenette area and the small bathroom, revealing nothing of the girls’ whereabouts in either place.
In the bathroom he did switch on the light and a sudden harsh glow of radiance filled the room, amplifying the shortcomings of the room in the bright artificial glow. The tiles of the floor were cracked extensively, stained even here, chipped and missing sections. The showerhead dripped sporadic drips of water into a claw footed bathtub that was probably a nice porcelain white in its original days, but was now a ghastly cream bred with grey shade, also with chips out of it and assorted other markings which may well have been scorch marks.
Seth stared into the mirror, another less than flawless example in the room. It looked like some cheap slab stuck up on a chipboard backing, cracks in its top right hand corner, grey substance streaking it along with a thin veneer of dust as if it hadn’t been cleaned for quite some time. He wondered why neither of the girls bothered to wipe that dust coat away, considering both of them were fond of remaining clean and hygienic, and were in the habit of keeping their own homes spotless.
He guessed if they’d showered at all, they’d have merely done that before hitting the hay, not too concerned with making the ratty roach hovel too much like home. After all, clearly they weren’t intending any long stay here, were they? Or had the complete slumminess of the lodgings chosen by Black and his cronies engendered such disgust in Miranda and Julietta that they’d waited until everyone was ensconced in their own rooms before electing to go find somewhere more fitting for them?
He switched on a tap, guessing which was which, considering both indicators were missing, and it creaked disagreeably and then reluctantly spat out a splash of water before settling into a stunted running motion. His reflection in the mirror was a frightful one, the countenance staring back at him through a shroud of dust and other unidentified stains was spotted with blood, the dark hair framing it hanging in dishevelled locks, down, knotted, and also matted with blood.
Cupping his hands underneath the flow of the water he splashed himself liberally, dousing his face thoroughly, scrubbing away at the blood marks and other filth on his skin. He even lowered his head right over the sink, hanging the worst parts of his hair right into it to be drenched by the water.
There may have been some pretty questionable marks in the grimy cracked sink itself and the scum mark around the plughole was a huge thing that looked akin to the rings of Saturn, but it had to be better than being saturated in zombie blood.
Even as he was doing this he acknowledged that normally, upon discovering Julietta and Miranda were absent, he probably would have immediately dashed back outside, in a panic, wondering where the hell they’d gone, but the overwhelming desire to be rid of the blood coating him temporarily defeated that. He realised he was still in a fugue of sorts, shocked by the assault of Madeleine in undead incarnation, shocked by how he’d had to brutally eliminate her. His arms and legs were still shaky, even though he’d sat outside on the ground, staring with blank eyes for a while before he’d been able to pull it together enough to carry on his mission to check on the women.
The towels hanging on hooks and railings in the bathroom were as equally suspicious of being due for cleaning as everything else within the entire room was, but he noticed they were both slightly damp. That suggested to him they’d been in use, the women had showered before bed.
He didn’t see any clothing lying around, either in the bathroom or back in the main room, and of course, he admitted, he wouldn’t have. The whole lot of them only came with what they were wearing, what they each had in their individual pockets. Leaving anything behind wasn’t really an option since they all had scant materials to leave behind, and anything in the way of clothes would have been obvious, not something immediately forgettable.
Finally, conceding he couldn’t get much cleaner than he was without physically showering himself, Seth left the bathroom. He didn’t want to waste any time by stopping and stripping off completely, having a shower when it seemed inevitable that he was only going to get encrusted with filth again. He hoped not, but it appeared unavoidable. Besides, the urgency to discover where the two absent women were was back, throbbing insistently and kicking worried panic into him.
He hoped the thought that Neptune Towers was just too below their standards for them to consider spending one night, or even a few hours sweating in those flea-bitten, threadbare sheets on top of mattresses which could be playing host to all manner of unseen vermin, was the most probable outcome.
Anything else didn’t really bear thinking about. At least there was no visible blood in here anywhere. Just whatever marks he’d left streaking the off coloured sink.
No bodies. Certainly no apparently dead bodies that lunged back up their feet, growling, vacant-eyed, hungry meatseeking undead bodies.
There was no point hanging around this room any longer than he already had. He hastened back outside. Only then did he recall that the variety of knives he and the guys selected for Julietta and Miranda were still back in the other room.
He didn’t have time to run over and let himself back in to get them.
The big black bulk of the Subversion Truck screamed into the Neptune Towers parking lot, screeching to a sudden halt. From the tray vaulted a host of figures, some of the women, Tempest and Blizzard among them. They were all wielding an assortment of bloodied weapons, gore splattering their outfits and faces. Behind the wheel sat Black himself, equally streaked with a sanguinary mess, his eyes piercing and as malevolent as ever.
“Jump in the back,” Black commanded curtly, his voice hard and clipped. “Where are your buddies?”
“They…went down there,” Seth gestured with a vague wave of his hand, indicating the general direction of the beach.
“Whatever the fuck for?”
“Dax took it upon himself to see if he could stop Undead Fleshcrave. He assumed you were still asleep.”
“Well, he didn’t succeed. And if he’s gone down there, he’s as good as dead. We were far from asleep, but we didn’t succeed either. Those fuckers are on the move again. Get in!”
“Wait, where are Julietta and Miranda?”
“They’re gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“They’ve flown the coop. Left. Departed. Get the gist?”
“How? What the fuck do you mean?”
“I mean they left with those other three halfwits in the girl’s car. Grand plans to head back to Armada.” Black said bluntly.
“What?” Seth felt like he’d been smacked up alongside the head with a piece of two by four.
“That’s where they are. En route to Undead Ground Zero. And before you start jumping up and down, rest assured anyone who was aware of this audacious and thoroughly stupid notion tried unsuccessfully to talk them out of it.”
“They won’t get back into Armada!” Seth exclaimed, a hollow feeling starting to make his stomach feel as if he’d had a hole blown through it. “They’ll be turned away!”
“I know that. You know that. Every fucking person right here knows that. Your two foolish buds down on Bloodbath Beach know that. You think your obstinate girlfriend would listen to any sense or reason?”
“She’s not…” Seth started, but he knew he was kidding himself there. Julietta was obstinate, stubborn to the point of being totally pigheaded. She was already pissed at Seth for having such a hand in deciding they should all be here in the company of Black and his dubious companions, it wouldn’t have taken too much to convince her to make tracks back to Armada. But what about all the lin
es she’d spun to Black in the Truck on the journey here? All that rubbish about not agreeing with what he and his associates were planning on doing, their methods or anything of the sort, but the simple fact that somebody had to put a stop to the contagion spread by the Zombie Trigger before it was endemic?
As for Miranda, she wasn’t holding any grievances against Mark, she wasn’t quite as angry at him as Julietta was with Seth, why would she just up and leave him here? Julietta could definitely be persuasive, Seth had plenty of firsthand experience with those matters, but enough to split Miranda and Mark up entirely, leaving him here in the company of what were essentially strangers? Dangerous, violent strangers with dangerous violent blueprints for the immediate future?
“Fuck, how long ago did they leave?” He balled up his fists into helpless knots, the knife he’d finished off Madeleine with returned to its sheath inside his jacket.
“Long enough,” Tempest spoke brusquely. He stood outside the tray with Scarlett and Lizette, all of them looking as if they’d waded through waist deep rivers of blood, slashing and slicing through a frenzied battle. “Long enough to be long gone.”
“We’ve got to go after them!” Seth howled in frustration, his panic thumping into overdrive now.
“No, we don’t,” Tempest said. “They made their choice. We’re all out of time to sit and fuck around. They’re gone. We have to get going too. Not the same way they went though.”
“I’m going after them!” Seth was unmoveable on the subject, head swimming with disbelief that Julietta would willingly take off with the three strangers without so much as a word to him about it, no matter how pissed with him she was. “I have to.”
“Good luck with that,” Tempest replied and strode back around the front of the Truck, clambering into the front seat next to Black. “You want to walk all the way back to Armada, then I can only wish you the best of luck. This fucking town right here is just about to become a zombie blasted undead pockmark on the face of the earth. And you want to walk amongst that…well, okay then.”
“These motherfuckers are cunning,” Black said. “I’m talking about Undead Fleshcrave. They caught us napping here, they pulled a swift one and we should have seen that coming, and now we’ve got to wear this fuck-up here. Noumena is lost, or it’s sure as fuck going to be, it doesn’t have anything in place to cope with this and those fuckers knew that. On top of that we lost Madeleine too, this town has been a monumental fuck-up for us and we aren’t going to let that happen again.”
Seth realised with him standing in the way, the occupants of the vehicle and those standing outside it probably couldn’t see the mangled corpse on the pavers a distance behind him. He stepped sombrely to the side and gesticulated towards the body of ZombieMaddie.
“Is that…?” Lizette queried. “Madeleine?”
“I had to,” Seth said resolutely, almost defensively, as if expecting an immediate backlash. “She…was one of them.”
“Nice work.” Black said. “Well done. That’s the way to do things. If somebody turns, they’re gone. Kill them before they kill you, or worse.”
Lizette looked sorrowful, a mix of expressions dancing on her face while the bloodied, but beautiful countenance of Scarlett just looked furious. Seth wasn’t totally sure if she was angry at him or angry at the whole situation. He hoped it was the latter. Like he’d said, like Black reiterated, it was a case of him or ZombieMaddie and he’d opted for him.
“There’s going to be a fuckload more of them,” Tempest said. “You might have been lucky with one of ‘em, Seth. How are you going to fare with a pack of them coming at you? Not just the shamblers, but the crafty fuckers? The fast bastards? The ones with some semblance of thought patterns still up there in those rotting skulls? Think you’ll be able to manage? Long way to Armada.”
“Seth, we’re going. Undead Fleshcrave have slipped the noose again and they’re off to perpetuate this cycle. What happened here tonight, and in Armada cannot happen again,” Black said solemnly. “We’re not going to let it and we aren’t wasting any more time here. So if you have it in your head that you’re going after people who knew precisely what they were doing despite everyone’s best efforts to talk them out of it, don’t expect me to stand in your way. You can keep the knife though, consider it a present. You’re sure as fuck going to need it.”
That said, he called out to the threesome of Scarlett, Lizette, and Blizzard still outside the Truck.
“Load up, let’s move out.”
“Hold on a sec,” Scarlett suddenly spoke up. She stepped forward and then covered the distance between the Truck and where Seth stood defiantly in a brief matter of seconds, the heels of her black boots clicking on the pavers. She stopped directly in front of him, and though gazing at her was somewhat disconcerting and unnerving with the blood streaking her face and tangling her midnight locks, the visage beneath that gore and the stare from dark eyes that pierced his was captivating, almost to the point where he felt mesmerised.
“Seth,” she said, and her voice was soft and surprisingly gentle. “If your friends and the others are intending to head back to Armada, they are going to be a whole lot safer. If Armada is really in lockdown and people are being turned away, chances are the place is contained to an extent. If they have it under control, maybe anyone going back there will be allowed in or maybe they will be taken somewhere safe. But you, on the other hand, walking by yourself, you’re a sitting duck. It’s only a matter of time before you get caught out, only worse than we’ve all been caught out here tonight. For some reason or another, there are undead out there who still seem to possess remnants of thought and abilities to be a little more cognitive than the mindless ones. These zombies have the ability to orchestrate attacks, to coordinate what the others can’t. If you come up against them on your own, your chances of survival are literally zero. We don’t want to lose anybody else and we don’t want to let you wander off on your own like you’re planning to do when we know exactly what is going to happen to you. Come with us and you’ve got a fighting chance.”
“Come on, Scarlett!” Tempest called in an abrasive, impatient voice, while Black held up a hand for temporary silence.
Seth stared deep into her eyes, myriad thoughts pushing each other out of the way to hold poll position inside his mind.
If Julietta really took off just like that with Miranda, Heather, Wayne, and Doug, without giving Seth a second thought, without even contemplating advising him of her plans, would she really be pleased about him trying to follow her? Would she really care at all about him striking off on his own on a mammoth trek by foot from one zombie ridden realm to another, armed with only a knife? Like Tempest made abundantly clear, Julietta had made her choice and it was a definite decision which did not involve Seth whatsoever.
He tried to tell himself it was because of the number of seats inside Heather’s vehicle. Only five of them could go, and the five spots were all occupied with Miranda and Julietta being included. That ruled out Seth, Mark, and Dax, the guys who’d thrown in their lot with the dangerous lunatic fringe of Subversion guys and gals.
He knew that wasn’t the reason. He knew Julietta could be vengeful and vindictive on top of her stubborn streak and now it appeared she was going to drag this animosity towards him for agreeing to come along with Black’s cohorts until the end of time.
Was it really worth him dying to find her if the end result would mean he’d completely wasted his time to do so?
With a long, shaky exhalation of breath, he finally nodded once, a tiny jerk of his head that was barely visible.
“That’s the spirit!” Scarlett nodded and clapped him on the shoulder with her hand that wasn’t full of bloody blade. It was a friendly, companionable gesture and nothing more, but suddenly having her touch him at all made his decision a little easier to deal with.
Though Black’s face remained inscrutable as he revved the engine, his eyes perpetually dark and unreadable, Seth was sure he’d seen something resem
bling a faint grin tug at the Subversion king’s lips.
He piled into the tray of the truck where Blizzard, Lizette, and Roxana were waiting, taking it a bit too exuberantly and almost landing on his face on the unforgiving plane of the Tundra’s back. Steady hands from Blizzard righted him, hauling him up alongside the instrument cases Seth knew contained Mother North, the Blizzard Beast, and the Moon cymbal-weapons.
Strangely, he felt an odd sense of disenchantment and disappointment when he noticed that Scarlett wasn’t also getting into the tray of the truck as well, but instead was electing to enter the vacant seats in the back, behind Black and Tempest.
He’d wondered why those seats were devoid of presence, with everybody apparently piled into the back, but he guessed with the amount of blood splashed over all and sundry that they’d been engaged in a ferocious battle with undead death heads created by the covert concert pitched in the dead of night. Consequently, all of them bar Black, the driver, ended up in the tray as the Truck raced back up to Neptune Towers to round up those left behind.
Of which there was apparently only Seth remaining. He sat back against the side of the Tundra’s tray, his knees up, boots flat on the bottom.
The vehicle was on the move before Scarlett even had her door shut, taking off without warning, flinging Seth around more than he would have liked, a belated warning from Blizzard to hang on arriving a fraction late.
Seth didn’t know just how the hell he was supposed to be feeling. He guessed the full weight of whatever it was would descend later, in a crushing blow with a force that would knock him off his feet totally, kick the guts out of him, and drive him insane, but now he just felt empty and hollow. Betrayed somehow. Shell-shocked. Stunned
Julietta and Miranda were gone, intentionally making their departure without making him and Mark aware of their plans, skulking away as soon as they thought the others were otherwise indisposed.
Now Mark and Dax were gone. Down to Bloodbath Beach. If Black was right, they were as good as dead. Foolishly wandering into the scene of the same terrible affliction they’d witnessed in Armada, knowing full well what to expect. Probably ragged sections of flesh now, scattered over the sands, if they weren’t insatiable flesh-seeking fiends with sallow faces and gaping maws.
