But as I move on to the last man standing, my gun clicks.
Empty.
He grins a devilish sort of grin and aims his gun at me. “Good nigh — ” he begins, but is cut off by Abby’s voice.
“And sleep tight,” she says. Her assault rifle barks. The guy never even knew what hit him. He takes a barrage of shots, body convulsing, face twisting into a deathly grimace, and he falls on to the ballerina. Dead.
Norm, Abby, and Tim rush up to the fountain. Norm shoots the dead guy one more time, causing us all to jump. “And don’t let the bed bugs bite,” he says and then cackles like a mad man.
“Seriously?” Abby asks, head cocked. “You couldn’t just leave it?”
Norm shrugs. “It’s OCD…or whatever.” He looks up at me as I climb down from the fountain, careful not to slip on the tide of blood that has enveloped the white flooring. “I thought you were toast, little bro.”
I shake my head. “You know I wouldn’t go without a fight,” I say, poking him in the chest. “I learned that from you.”
Norm grins. We hug each other roughly. It’s quick and to the point, the only way brothers can hug. “Proud of you,” he says.
“Hate to break up the love fest,” Abby says, “but we better get going.”
“I agree with the lady,” Tim says. He swipes his hair back. Somehow, it lays down smoothly. He hardly looks as if he’s just survived World War III. Aside from the singed clothing and soot on his face, you would think he’s just out for a midnight stroll.
“Let’s go save them, Jack,” Norm says clapping me on the back with his four-fingered right hand. “And make that masked bastard pay for the people he killed.”
“Man, never thought I’d agree with you twice in one night,” Abby says, grinning.
“First time for everything. Let’s go,” Norm says.
Just as we move toward the food court, a chorus of singing voices rises from deep in the shadows. I freeze, look around at my partners. Abby’s eyes are squinted.
“Here we go,” Tim says. “This is where it starts to get weird.”
Wasn’t it weird enough to begin with?
81
To answer the question, yeah, I guess it can get a lot more weird.
The food court, with its legions of tables and chairs, some down, some stacked on the tables’ surfaces, are pushed to the edge, creating a sort of semicircle in the middle of the rotunda. Skylights offer us a muted moon view, painting the whole scene in some dreamlike detail. The robed clergymen have their backs to us, and they’re on their knees, bowing continuously at the foot of a low platform. My eyes start from these robed figures, who hum in deep voices, my heart beating wildly, hands shaking, thinking Oh God, Darlene, I’ve been here before and it never ends well. But then my eyes jump from the floor to the platform where the same man who I’d come face to face with outside of Haven’s blown gate stands over all of them. He has a knife in his hand.
Here we go again here it is ladies and gentlemen the big sacrifice the lamb the end —
Carmen is chained to a gray pillar, a gag in her mouth. Her red hair stands out in frizzy tufts, her face is sweaty and pale, tears and makeup running from the corners of her eyes.
“Carmen, my God, Carm,” Tim says under his breath.
Yes, Carmen, but where’s Darlene? Where the fuck is Darlene?
The man who was once Walter runs his hand down the blade, closes his eyes, and lets his worshippers’ voices wash over them.
“I’m glad you made it,” he says. “I really am.” His voice is quiet, calm, and muffled behind the oxygen mask, but somehow it carries over the choir. “We’ve been expecting you, Jack Jupiter.”
There’s still near three-hundred feet between us, but I hear him as if he’s standing right next to me and talking into my ear.
“You bastard,” Tim says. “You bastard!” He takes off running. Norm makes a grab at him, but he’s not fast enough.
“No! Tim!” Norm shouts and runs after him.
Abby and I are helpless to watch. I aim my rifle at the bowed men and women, who are now looking toward the thundering footsteps coming upon them, about to pull the trigger.
But Tim breaks through the semicircle of chairs as Walter stands as calm and haggard as ever with a slightly unnerving smile on his face, and Tim is swallowed up by the sea of red.
Abby twitches next to me. I see her holding herself back.
Surprisingly, Tim gets right up to the platform. None of the clergymen do a damn thing. Their chanting and undulating continues.
“Hello, Tim,” Walter says. “It’s been awhile.”
“You son of a bitch, you let her go!” Tim says. “I’ll kill you!” Tim shouts.
Walter grins through the foggy plastic of the oxygen mask.
The chorus of voices grows louder. I think they’re saying something now. “Kill him…kill him…KILL HIM!”
I have to put an end to this whether I have a clear shot or not.
“Now,” I say to Abby. She doesn’t show any inclination that she’s heard me, she just brings her pistol up and closes one eye to aim.
“Drop them,” a voice says from behind me, then that all too familiar feeling of a muzzle in the back of my head. “Drop them and walk forward if you ever want to see your loved ones again.”
“Fuck you,” I say, my mouth tasting bitter. I should’ve known. I really should’ve. But this time, I’m not going to bend to the man’s whim.
No, I’m going to fight.
82
I’ve been here before. How many times have I had a gun pressed into my back? Too many times to count, I’ll admit, but at least I’ve survived every last one of those experiences. And I plan to survive this one.
“Nice and slow,” the voice says again. I barely hear him over the voices.
In the crowd of clergymen: “Tim!” Norm shouts, his cries drowned out by the increasing chants.
“KILL HIM…KILL HIM…KILL HIM!”
And back on the outskirts of the gathering: “I said, nice and slow, buddy. You don’t want to miss the show, do you?” the clergyman says from behind me. “You, too, bitch.”
Abby looks at me from the corner of her eyes. I nod slightly.
“All right,” I say. “Nice and slow, here I go.” I bend down at the knees, guiding the assault rifle to the floor.
“Not as stupid as you look,” the man says from behind me. Again, I can barely hear him.
My hands tremble slightly. They make the metal clank against the floor. If I’m going to do this, I have to be fast. As I’m coming back up, I no longer feel the gun pressed on me. That’s good. That’s what I need. It hovers now, still dangerously close, but not in the way of what I’m about to do.
“KILL HIM! KILL HIM!” the voices continue.
I strike — full force, head flying back to meet the man’s face. I feel a crunch as I connect with his nose. Instantly, blood gushes out and he screams. The gun shoots, and the whoosh of the bullet goes right by my arm — almost directly to the spot where I was grazed before — but it doesn’t hit me. It whines and burrows into the floor.
Abby has done the same thing. And the man who she’s hit collapses. I see him crumble into a heap of folded red robes as if her hit was hard enough to kill him. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky.
I turn around to see the man who was behind me holding his face with one hand, blood spraying out from between his fingers. In his other hand, he still holds the gun.
I’m not proud of what I do next because I’ve been there before. I know the pain and anguish that comes with a kick to the balls. But in order to survive, I have to do it.
I kick in square in the groin. Hard. I don’t want to admit to myself that I feel something pop against my shinbone…but I do.
Yuck.
Poor bastard.
He topples over like a rotted tree in a tornado. I pick up the gun, not even thinking twice as I put a slug in him. Dead.
I’m a monster, I know. I’m o
ver it. Time to save the fucking day.
83
“Tim, no…NO!” Norm yells. He breaks the barrier of tables and chairs.
“KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIMKILLHIMKILLHIM” the voices chant. I swear to God I’m in a horror movie. The way their voices blend together and make this mega-demon voice does nothing but make me want to cower away to the shadows. But I can’t.
Carmen’s up there, and now Tim is, too. Norm is driving straight into the trap. Because that’s what it is. It takes an outsider’s perspective, but I see it — in fact, I think always knew it, actually. This is a trap and Carmen’s the bait. But where the hell is Darlene?
Maybe she found Cupcake and Cupcake somehow communicated to her that I’m saving the day and it’s better if they wait outside, he’ll see you in a minute, Darlene, honey-pie, just stay here with me and scratch me right there behind the ears, please. Yeah, that’s it.
No. That’s wishful thinking.
I move fast, chasing after my older brother, feeling the dread in the pit of my stomach like a form of cancer, and fearing the worst.
Tim stands in front of Walter — this slouched, half-dead, oxygen mask-wearing shell of a man with chaos in his eyes — and says, “Enough, Walter! Enough!”
Walter flashes the blade. “It’ll never be enough. Not for what Eve took from me, for what she did to me.”
I reach the tables. The clergymen all start to rise, their chanting voices now whispers as if they won’t hear the drama unfolding on the stage like a playhouse’s theater. Norm is momentarily lost in the sea of red robes.
“Go right, I’ll go left,” I say to Abby. She does, and I do.
As I’m shoving past these gaunt-faced men and women with their pale, ashy skin and their claw-like hands, I think to myself I’d almost rather deal with the zombies.
Norm screams. “Back off!” A gun blasts. That dread in my stomach erupts. I feel like I’m about to start vomiting up worry and bad thoughts. Norm’s been shot, I know he has. Damn it, and it’s my fault. I lost Herb and Darlene, and now I’m going to lose my older brother. Then he shouts again. “Tim! Tim!”
Not shot. Good. Don’t freak out, Jack. You still got time. I make my way into the crowd, and just as I shove past the first row of clergymen (I wish I had enough ammo to kill them all, but I have to save my bullets for Walter — you know, cut off the head of the snake and all that), they turn to face me. It’s eery, almost in-sync. Their eyes are haunted. The women have hardly any lips, just thin white lines, their cheeks are doughy, hanging off their skulls like melted candle wax. I freeze up. Of all the times to not freeze up, this would be near the top of the list, and what do you know? Jack Jupiter fucking does.
They move with the slow and heavy grace of a horde of zombies, but they’re eyes don’t glow. They’re scarier, somehow. I find myself still frozen. They’re scarier because they’re conscious; they’re not some undead nightmares whose only instinct is to kill and eat the flesh of others. With the zombies, it’s not their faults — I hate them, don’t get me wrong — but with these freaks, they’re acting on their own accord.
I try to bring the rifle up. Can’t. It weighs a thousand pounds.
They’re growing closer and closer. Squeezing out my space, making it hard to breathe, making it hard to think.
They have knives. All of them have knives, these glistening stainless steel blades you’d see advertised on a late-night informercial — The Samurai Steak Knife can EVEN cut through metal! For the low, low price of $19.95 you, TOO, can own —
The lead man, this haggard senior citizen whose nose is about as thin as the tip of his weapon, reaches out for me. I move on instinct. He strikes fast, faster than his age shows.
“It’s never enough, Timothy! NEVER ENOUGH!” Walter shouts. “Blood for blood. Eve took mine so I will take her daughter’s! Blood for blood! BLOOD FOR BLOOD, BLOOD FOR BL —
The men and women begin to chant in front of me, their voices oddly calm, expectantly chilling. “BLOOD FOR BLOOD. BLOOD FOR BLOOD.”
The man coming for me does, too. A slight smile on his face, a crazed look in his eyes, whispering, “Blood for blood, blood for blood, blood — ”
Norm crawls out of the sea of robes, he scrabbles up unto the far end of the platform. He’s weaponless. Where it has gone, I don’t know.
The old man tries to stab me again. This time, I’m not fast enough. I barely get out of the way. The blade cuts a smooth red arc across my ribs. I cry out in anguish, feeling the cold burning that comes with a cut this deep.
I’m trying to watch my older brother and trying not to get stabbed at the same time. It’s a lot harder than you’d think.
The clergymen surround me. I somehow find myself in a circle of red, contracting, contracting. Their blades are held high.
A woman shrieks from behind. I turn around just in time, block her blow with the tiger-striped assault rifle. A spark shines in the filtered moonlight. Another female, this one no older than her teens, makes a move. Again, I hate what I have to do and it makes me feel like an even bigger monster, but I do it. I swing the rifle like a baseball bat and knock her flat on her ass. A gap opens up in the tight circle. I see my way to the stage. It’s a straight shot; if I’m fast, I can make it.
I also see Norm now fist-fighting with the robed men who’ve climbed the stage after him.
Screams. Blows landing.
My eyes go wide as he loses his footing and falls on his face. Walter doesn’t seem to take any notice, he’s staring at Tim with those dead eyes. Norm rolls over and kicks a man in the face. The man flies off of the platform, arms pinwheeling. He lands with a crack I’m able to hear over the chanting voices — Blood for blood, blood for blood.
Another knife comes at me, gleaming in the darkness. I scream as it nicks my shoulder, drawing a fresh rivulet of warm blood down my flesh. I swing the rifle again, knocking the teeth out of the old man’s whose blade it belonged to, but I lose the rifle in the process. Third time’s the charm, right?
I instantly reach for the Magnum on my hip and find it’s gone. Someone must’ve ripped it clean in the chaos.
The bashed man crumbles to the floor and I use him as a starting block. His bones grind beneath the soles of my boots. No weapons or common sense, but Jack Jupiter is off, going for the gold!
84
I see Tim rush Walter. Walter is quick, very quick for a dead man. He slices the blade through the air. I can hear the wind.
Tim is not so quick. He catches the sharp edge of the blade across his stomach, up his neck, and finally, under his chin.
“No!” I shout.
Tim screams. A spray of blood splashes onto the platform, staining the dirty gray a deep red. Tim’s shirt is open. His skin hangs in flaps. The blow was deep, but I don’t think it’s fatal.
Tim doesn’t move, though, so I could be wrong. God, I hope I’m not wrong.
Now Norm gets his footing. His face is crimson with rage and hate and malice. It’s almost frightening to look at this man; he’s not my older brother…he’s something monstrous. I’ve seen Norm mad before — I don’t know how many times I pissed him off back when we were younger and how many times he stalked me around the neighborhood like he was a lion and I was a wounded gazelle, but this is so much worse.
His one true love, his best friend, has been wounded, and Norm means to rip the head off of the man who did it to him — even if Norm is the wounded gazelle in this instance. And he is. His face is a mask of blood; it runs down his brow and into his eyes. He almost looks like a zombie.
I can help. I can help while Walter is distracted.
So I make a move. The first thing I do is grab Tim and pull him to the other side of the platform.
Abby starts to lay into the crowd of robed men, her gun rata-tat-tat-ting. Bodies fall, but they still come for her; they still move with a zombie-like gait, the type of walking that tells you they will stop at nothing.
Abby shoots until she can’t shoot anymore. From ac
ross the food court, her back against the Dairy Queen’s counter, she shouts, “Save them, Jack! Save them!”
I’m torn.
Meanwhile, the fighting to my right continues between Walter and Norm. Blows are exchanged. Walter laughs. The knife slices through the air. I can’t watch. I can’t let myself watch. I have to free Carmen. She can help me get Tim out of here, and then I can help Norm defeat this ugly, masked bastard once and for all.
As hard as it is, I cross the platform. Movement outside. Through the sand bag covered doors, I see the slow, lumbering shadows of the dead. They’ve breached the fence. They’ve come for us. All of a sudden, I find it difficult to breathe. The clock is ticking ever-faster, and here’s me, a man who no longer believes in time. Jesus Christ, what do I do?
Save the fucking day, Jack!
Yes.
Now that Tim is in the clear (for the time being) and, trying not to look at my older brother, who now screams in pain and fury (Dear God, did he get stabbed?), I reach Carmen. She’s mumbling through the gag, her forehead wrinkled, eyes bulging.
I pull the gag free — it’s slimy with spit, red with blood.
“Watch out!” she yells.
Now it’s my turn for my eyes to bulge. I spin around.
A robed man yells through gritted teeth; he brings the blade down in a wide arc. I don’t have much time to think, but I have to. God, I wish Darlene was here — she does the thinking for me. I need her now more than ever. If I move out of the way, Carmen is going to get her head cleaved open; if I don’t move, I’m going to end up getting my face chopped off.
A blink of an eye. That’s all I have.
I don’t move. I stand my ground and put my hands up. My fingers clamp around the base of the blade, which is a few inches short of machete-length. That otherworldly force must be smiling on me now.
Jack Zombie (Book 5): Dead End Page 19
