by Goforth, Jim
As the Tundra headed purposefully out of the Neptune Towers car park, Seth thought fleetingly of the knives left behind in the room he’d shared for such a brief period of time with the other guys. Wouldn’t be needing them now, would he? Thinking of it now, he wished he’d had some foresight to go ahead and wake the girls up, or knock on their room door before he’d gone to bed himself, given them the knives. That way he would know they had something to try and defend themselves with. Instead…
Running over it all was akin to bashing his head against a brick wall; it hurt and it achieved zero, except headaches.
“Slide the Blizzard Beast over this way, Seth,” Blizzard spoke up, and Seth was yanked out of his ruminations.
The instrument cases were sharing the bed of the tray with them, the one Blizzard requested propped up behind where Seth was currently sitting. He had to do a little readjustment on his position to get it out from behind him, but eventually he did so, sliding it across to where Blizzard sat on the other side, with Roxana up against the rear window opposite Lizette on Seth’s side.
Soon enough, Seth saw why the bass guitar case was requested by the towering blonde bassist.
As the Tundra left cockroach motel, Neptune Towers, behind and angled down towards the main road of Noumena, a route which would take them directly past the beach-
Bloodbath Beach
Seth could see people all across the road, along the edges of the beach on either side of the fence bordering it from the street. No, they weren’t people, despite the fact many were clad in black heavy metal T-shirts and jeans, black leathers, skirts and denim jackets, other outfits one might wear to a concert, even one sprung upon them in the dead of night, or one they’d been expecting at such an irregular time, they were undead people. The latest to have their brain functions and, essentially, their lives switched off by the Zombie Trigger.
There weren’t swarms of them in a seething mass of horror like there was in Armada, it was more a case of small pockets of them, even singles and doubles dotted across the landscape, but they were there and Seth knew they came from the beach.
As Blizzard unclipped the latches on his case and opened it up, bringing out that implement he called the Blizzard Beast, Seth stared in awe at the fearsome item. No spots or speckles of blood appeared to adorn the sheath covering that deadly blade Seth knew existed on the Beast, so evidently the Subversion crew hadn’t yet brought these weapon-guitars into play yet.
Though Blizzard was obviously making plans to now.
Dragging his eyes away from the captivating vision that the unorthodox weapon, Seth gazed instead at the erratic clusters and single forms of the infected milling around the beach and aiming for the town centre, clearly in search of food somewhere more populated.
“Should…we be killing these ones?” He wondered.
“Ideally, we would,” Roxana spoke up from her position, seated up near the back of the Tundra’s cab in her black leather and braids. “Unfortunately we’re a little pressed for time here. The most imperative thing is eliminating the spread of the Zombie Trigger from town to town before we can think about containing and clearing the towns they’ve already cursed. As much as I don’t like to say it, Armada and Noumena are going to be overrun by the time we get around to acting on them. That’s just the way it is, unfortunately. And maybe some smaller towns…no, make that, certainly…some smaller towns between and on the fringes of them are also going to be lost, but if Undead Fleshcrave are not obliterated from existence, the entire country is headed for apocalypse. That is just a fact.”
Opposite her, Lizette just looked morose and sullen, withdrawn and taciturn, saying nothing. Seth knew the death of Madeleine was affecting her adversely; again, he fervently hoped that wouldn’t explode from her in some manner that revolved around to encompass him and result in something bad for him.
He guess he understood Roxana’s logic, having to make some sacrifices on the way to prevent a much larger scale disaster and if they didn’t cut off the head of the monster they couldn’t ever kill it, but the whole notion of leaving the undead carriers behind, still able to spread their vile contagion, take out whole towns and render them residences for the meatseekers just left him cold.
He hoped to hell Roxana was dead wrong about Armada being lost, though the hideous scenes of sheer hell unfolding on the streets as he and his companions departed the city didn’t fill him with grand optimism.
He hoped the news reports were some indication the situation was contained and perhaps military presence or something substantial of that nature was on hand to quell the impending disaster.
He looked away, out towards the beach, noticing with horror that multiple bodies were strewn along the roadside, some partially in the street, others sprawled on the strip alongside the fence.
He couldn’t quite tell whether they were undead or human victims, but nor did he really want to be close enough to make the distinction.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN-MEATSEEKER MELEE
As Seth watched, he spotted two figures side by side, trailing along the strip of rubble strewn ground near the edge of the road just off the grass before it hit the fence, both of them as splattered with blood and filth as any of the other shapes and humanivores loitering and moving through the area.
They could have just been another two of the Noumena death metal fans cursed by the insidious scourge of Undead Fleshcrave’s abhorrent composition if Seth didn’t know better.
Even from behind, he knew that the solidly built individual with long brown hair was clad in a Dissection shirt, he knew the slogan on the back ‘Anti-cosmic Metal of Death’ off by heart, and the tall blonde figure in all black leathers, complete with spiked armbands covered with rusty streaks of blood, he knew that as well.
“Hey!” He called suddenly, trying to stumble up in the back of the Truck with designs on making his way down to thump on the roof of the car, or do something to gain the attention of the occupants. “Hey, stop!”
“Jesus, sit down, fool!” Blizzard directed at him, while Lizette lanced him with a dark stare. Only Roxana caught his drift as the Tundra peeled past the stumbling duo and though she had something of a resigned look in her eyes, suggesting to Seth she thought the pair were already goners, she banged her fist on the roof of the Truck.
“What’s up?” Scarlett called back out her window.
“Stop the Truck!”
“Black,” Scarlett relayed to the driver. “Roxy wants you to pull over!”
“Whatever the fuck for?” Black’s voice floated back.
“No idea. Just do it.”
“Christ. This place will be crawling with Fleshcravers a few moments after we do that!” Black returned, but he hauled the Tundra over to the side of the road near to the beach anyway. “You lot better be armed up back there.”
Heart thumping like a triphammer gone insane, Seth clapped his hand to his belt, where he had the Becker in its holster, turning his attention to the pair of figures moving down the road. They were a long way back, but as the Truck screeched to a halt, kicking up plumes of sandy dust from the big rear tyres, the twosome abruptly broke into a run.
Beside Seth, Blizzard hauled his lanky form up, hefting the lethal Blizzard Beast in both hands.
“You better draw that steel, boy,” He advised Seth. “Shit could get real ugly if these motherfuckers start descending. And they will.”
“What gives?” Black asked again, though gazing in his side mirror he could see the fast approaching duo thundering up the beachside edge of the road. “I’ll be damned…”
As the figures neared, Seth’s heart galloped faster, his hands sweating as he drew out his Becker, his blood seeming to pound so loud in his veins and echo in his ears that he was sure it must be audible to all those around him.
Then he could see both the faces of Dax and Mark clearly, and relief exploded inside him so tumultuously he thought he was about to have a heart attack. Neither of them were cursed with hideous greying visages, or
terrible eyes, hungry mouths gaping with teeth desperate to rip skin and gnash raw flesh.
They were both drenched in blood, but they weren’t infected.
Both of them called out as they got closer, but the sounds of their voices, combined with the running engine of the stationary Tundra was acting as an attractant to others who were infected.
“You fuckers been bitten?” Blizzard asked in a commanding voice, laden with unspoken threat, the Beast in his hands ready to cleave heads.
“No!” Mark shouted back, hysteria creeping in the tone. “No! But we’re about to be!”
“I can see that,” Blizzard commented offhandedly, and Seth too saw undead freaks giving chase to the duo, coming up from the beach, trailing down the other side of the road. “Hurry your asses up, you’re bringing unwanted guests along with you.”
“Look lively, Seth,” Roxana instructed from behind him and as Mark and Dax pounded up to the Tundra, both she and Blizzard dropped out of the tray, boots thudding to the ground.
Seth followed suit, the panicked thumping starting up in his chest again as around seven or eight humanivores converged on the Truck from all sides.
Blizzard went right, in towards the street where a three strong posse loomed, two of them big burly brutes in what Seth supposed were comprehensively patched denim jackets, and a corpulent creature that may have been a woman at some stage in its human existence.
With a deadly swing that mirrored his test display of the Blizzard Beast back in the motel room, only this time with lethal purpose and clinical precision, the bassist whipped the keen blade and bulk of the weapons head around like a rapid moving lethal pendulum.
Both the fat bitch and the closest of the denim-clad chunks were decapitated in one blow, sending twin jets of blood into the air and dropping two fleshy corpses on the road in spasming knots of limbs. Maintaining that pendulum, Blizzard caught the other member of the overweight trio on the backswing, his Beast blade severing grey flesh, separating spinal column from cranium.
He completed his violent acts by bringing the Beast down in a flurry of blows that obliterated all three of the severed undead heads, showering skull shards and sloppy brain mush.
Mark barrelled straight into the back of the Tundra, throwing himself into a plunging dive the moment he was near enough to the vehicle. Dax, on the other hand, remained standing outside and as a cluster of grunting, groaning undead freaks came up from the beach side of the Truck he brought his bloodied Jungle Primitive up in a steady grip, prepared to put it to further use.
Seth saw Roxana was going that side too, where the approaching knot of zombies numbered five or six, all of them in death metal outfits of shirts, jeans or jackets, one a tall, thin character wearing knee length black shorts.
Not long ago they’d all been enthusiastic extreme metal fans, excited about this late night beach concert featuring a most anticipated band, now they were mindless supernatural beings hungry for flesh and succulent brain matter, swarming on the living.
Fear choked Seth, clamped an uncompromising hand around his heart. He tried to comprehend just how he would have fared if he’d persisted on his stubborn trek by foot all the way back to Armada, feeling this horrible apprehension swell up inside him when he was surrounded by armed militant folk who were far more adept than him at removing heads from bodies, inflicting maximum damage on these unnatural foes.
Then the sextet of meatseekers were upon them and he didn’t have any more time to contemplate the what-if scenarios, he had to act.
Roxana stabbed one right in the forehead, a woman in a long-sleeved Obituary top with grasping claws for hands and a mouth already leaking blood streams.
Beside her, Dax flung himself into the fray as well, seizing the tall gangly zombie and running it into one of the others in a collision that had them both facing away. He powered the blade of the Jungle Primitive into the back of the second undead skull, this one a chrome dome, and like the others the cranial bone possessed no resistance. Clearly the rot or the decay was an instantaneous one, or some such bizarre weakening of skull composition. Perhaps the extinct brain started instantly liquefying or degenerating from the point the zombification process was kick-started; Seth had no clue.
Whatever the case, it was evident that the way to eliminate the fiends quickest was with a direct head blow which nullified the brain, ideally with a sharp object or preferably, a bullet. Since none of them were currently in possession of firearms, the many blades they were toting would have to do the trick.
Fighting down fears both irrational and more logical, Seth took his Becker into battle as well, aiming for another of the diminishing posse of meatseekers.
Vaulting over the side of the Tundra’s back, Lizette finally came to aid in the short and violently bloody despatch and as Blizzard too joined, done with clearing his side, they laid the whole half dozen undead death heads down for good in an array of chopped off heads and bashed in skulls.
“Cleaned house?” Black called back to them from where he and Tempest remained in the front cab, keeping watchful eyes on any of the wandering humanivores who may have elected to approach from the front of the still vehicle. “Good. Back in, pronto. Let’s keep rolling.”
Scarlett resumed her position in the back passenger seats and Seth didn’t miss how quickly Dax slipped up there as well, ensuring he too was able to occupy one of the spare seats. He wouldn’t have missed the fact that the other two girls and Blizzard, along with Seth, were in the tray, and those three immediately returned to their positions.
Sprawled out in the tray, Mark hauled himself upright now, to a seated position. He cast querying eyes at Seth as the bloodied man clambered in last, his hands tacky and wet with red gore, slipping a little on his ascent.
Again, Black had the Tundra rolling before everyone was rightly seated, merely waiting for them to get themselves in, not overly fussed about them getting comfortable. Seth was lucky not to tumble out backwards and end up among a pile of undead bodies, bathed in splattered blood and strewn brain matter.
“Where’s the girls, Seth?” Came the question Seth knew was inevitably coming.
Righting himself in the back of the truck, Seth flopped heavily down to an awkward seated position, roughly where he was before, albeit a little closer to the edge. He clung to the side with his bloodslick fingers, fearing he was due to take a graceless flop out the back and swan dive into the asphalt of the road.
“Gone,” he said simply. “They hauled ass back for Armada with Heather and those two guys from the bar just as soon as they saw the opportunity.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Wish I wasn’t,” Seth lamented.
“But…what the hell? We have to go after them!”
“Do you see any way of us doing that? I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy walking my ass all the way from here to there with hell breaking loose from every corner. These guys aren’t going to take us, the mission is going ahead and nothing we can do or say is about to put the brakes on it. These…zombies are popping up like weeds and us trying to get all the way back on foot…” Seth shuddered inwardly, failing to mention the fact that he’d been talked out of attempting a suicide journey after the long departed women himself. “No chance.”
“Come on, we can borrow a car, steal a car, something! We can get there one way or another. They’re going to get turned away from the damn place, then they’ve got nowhere to go!” Mark shouted.
“Mark, they left.” Seth replied solemnly. “They went of their own volition. They waited until they saw the right opportunity and then they just left. They didn’t bother coming to tell us or anything, they ignored everything these guys said to try and stop them, talk them out of it. They just up and left. Without us. Without even thinking about telling us shit.”
“Christ! They’re our girls! We can’t just let them go off…fuck!”
“Look, Scarlett said they’re probably better off anyway. At least if there are authorities contro
lling shit in Armada, they can tell them things have gone pear-shaped here too, they can probably get some sort of protection happening.”
“What the fuck does Scarlett know?” Mark ranted. “This is such bullshit! Do you think Julietta talked them all into it? Or maybe those two fucking guys and that chick?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t even want to think about it. We can’t do anything about it since we were intentionally left in the dark until it was too late. Mark, they didn’t want us to know.”
“Didn’t want us to know? Or didn’t want us to worry? Because let me tell you, Seth, I’m pretty fucking worried! Dax has gone insane, it’s like he wants to be part of this, he’s loving this! We got ambushed by a pack of these corpse motherfuckers down by the beach and he was just killing them like he was playing a nice hand of cards with them, and fucking smiling about it! He thinks he’s one of these fucking…” Mark tossed a hasty glance at Blizzard, who sat quietly, back in standard silent taciturn Blizzard mode, watching him. “Well, he’s gone fucking nuts. This is fun to him now. Killing that bum in the alley has screwed his head up.”
“You say insane, I say survival mode,” Blizzard interjected. “You might like to think he’s lost the plot, I disagree. I think for the situation we’re all in now, your buddy now has the plot. At very least, the sort of plot that is going to keep him alive.”
“Are you saying I can’t handle myself?” Mark challenged. “You insinuating I don’t have the capability to keep myself alive? Let me tell you, I’ve already killed the shit out of one of these things, two of them in fact. I’m still here telling the tale.”
“Well, well,” Blizzard mused as he nonchalantly cleaned the blood off the blades of the Blizzard Beast with a section of rag garnered from elsewhere in the back of the Tundra. “They say you always remember your first undead kill. You remember yours, do you?”
