Luckily, unlike my first kill with the weapon, the axe didn’t get stuck. I rolled the guy backward onto the ground, in a supine position, so I could more easily put down the woman. Raising the axe above my head, I realized I had yet to kill a female zombie. But hey, there’s a first time for everything. Before I could unleash my swing, though, I heard a creaking sound in front of me, barely discernible through the pulsating music.
Looking up, I noticed one of the red doors of the party house was wide open. The gown-wearing girl who’d wanted to see Azazel up close and personal stood in the doorway, a stoned yet horrified expression on her pretty face. Clearly, she had no intention of watching me chop the woman’s skull to smithereens, so before she could change her mind about inviting me inside, I lowered the axe, tightened my grip on Azazel’s carrier, and bolted toward the open doorway. Not so gently, I pushed the girl backward into the foyer, slammed the door with a resounding thud, and threw the deadbolt.
Then, I closed my eyes and remembered to breathe again.
Chapter 15
“Meatʼs meat, and a manʼs gotta eat.”
– Vincent Smith, Motel Hell (1980)
Once my breathing had steadied, I peeked through the blinds covering the nearest window in the shadowy foyer. The female half of the undead T-1000 was still lying on the pavement, repeatedly trying to tug herself upward, but apparently encountering too much resistance from the dead weight beside her. With her limited zombie brain, she just couldn’t figure out why she was unable to detach herself and rise to her feet.
The scene might’ve been comical if not for the fact that the six zombies following me down Ursulines had finally entered the intersection and were now headed for the red double doors like missiles in search of a bull’s-eye.
I’d almost forgotten the stoned redhead behind me when she finally found her voice.
“You were about to hit that woman with an axe,” she said, her tone incredulous.
I turned to face her. “Um, yeah, she’s a zombie. If you don’t put ‘em down, they’ll rip you apart or turn you into one of them. A mindless cannibal.”
She shook her head slowly, disapproval in her eyes. “You’re not supposed to ever hit a woman.”
Was the girl simply stoned out of her gourd? Or would she have labeled me a misogynist or a domestic abuser even if she’d been stone-cold sober?
“I’m an equal-opportunity zombie killer.” I smirked. “Or just think of me as a feminist. If it’s good enough for a male zombie, it’s good enough for a female.”
She cocked her head and stared at me for several seconds before finally nodding. “Cool… well, welcome to our party.” She squinted at me. “So, what are you supposed to be? A zombie?”
I glanced down at my blood-splattered clothes and the equally gory axe. “Uh, yeah, right. This is just a costume.”
“Cool.” Grinning, she turned away from me and wandered into the living room, where several costumed people were milling about, lounging on sofas, or getting high.
Peering through the blinds again, I saw the zombie hordes had converged. Seven zombies had now become hundreds, maybe even thousands. And all of them seemed to want an invitation to the party.
Even with the amplified music reverberating throughout the house, the thuds and grunts loudened against the front doors, and I wondered how long the solid wooden barrier would hold. My only consolation: I hadn’t lured the zombies to the drunken smorgasbord. The blues had done the job for me.
After a moment, during which I weighed and tossed aside my limited options, I turned to find the redhead waiting for me at the bottom of the nearest staircase. Glancing through the slits of the carrier, I could see Azazel’s green eyes fixed on my face, as if willing me to make a decision. So, with a shrug, I followed the girl upstairs.
I doubted anyone there would be useful in a zombie fight — or sober enough to survive one — but I certainly couldn’t leave the way I’d come. And maybe I’d locate a back exit before the ravenous zombies managed to beat down the front doors.
As expected, the interior was stunning, with high ceilings, ornate chandeliers, antique furniture, and everything else you’d expect from an expensive, traditionally decorated home in the French Quarter. Even the fake cobwebs, furry spiders, and other Halloween paraphernalia hanging everywhere didn’t detract from the architectural splendor of the place.
Battery-operated lanterns and natural lighting through the window blinds provided the only illumination, and the air downstairs felt stagnant thanks to all the body heat and the lack of air-conditioning. It made me wonder how the homeowners — or squatters — had managed to blast the music throughout the house. Would they seriously be stupid enough to waste a generator like that?
One look at the folks downstairs, who were either drinking, smoking, sleeping, or fooling around, and I had my answer.
We passed a couple making out on the stairs, and the redhead snickered but kept going. When we reached the second story, my giggling guide came to a brief halt and gazed around the stifling sitting room before proceeding through the crowd. Maybe she was seeking someone in particular. Or maybe she simply forgot where she was headed. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d even forgotten I was behind her.
Reluctantly, I followed her across the spacious area, which was presently packed with even more costumed partygoers than I’d seen downstairs. All in their twenties and thirties. Empty beer and liquor bottles, various pills and powders, and partially nibbled munchies lay on nearly every table, and I counted at least a half-dozen bongs being passed from person to person.
Even me — the oldest dude there — was fair game, as I discovered when a scruffy-looking guy in — you guessed it — a fucking pirate outfit offered me a hit. I looked longingly at the bong, but ultimately passed.
Throughout my life, I had smoked a bit of pot here and there: in college, while hanging out with Clare’s old university buddies in Los Angeles, and during a visit to some conservative hippie friends on South Padre Island. I’d always found it a pleasant way to relax, but a few years earlier, I’d sadly discovered my middle-aged system couldn’t handle the new marijuana strains.
At one of our movie nights in the courtyard, I’d taken a couple hits from a neighbor’s joint, and my heart rate immediately spiked. In fact, my pulse raced faster than it ever had before. No matter what I did, I couldn’t calm down, my breathing grew labored, and I thought I was going to die.
It had also freaked Clare out. Not the pot — which she, at eight years younger, was still able to smoke with no complications — but my racing heart. Even slightly stoned herself, she’d followed me inside our apartment and watched me with the patience and determination of a mother hawk.
Eventually, while lying across our bed, I’d felt my heart rate and respiration normalize, and thirty minutes after taking the troublesome marijuana hits, I was fine. Just to ensure that particular strain hadn’t been the problem, I tried smoking on another occasion. Got the same results.
So, my pot-smoking days were over. Besides, as much as I longed to relax with a bit of “chronic” — or, hell, an Abita beer — I needed to keep my wits, energy, and focus intact.
After declining the offer, I continued trailing the redhead across the second floor until she abruptly stopped and turned to face me. She stared at me for a moment, her eyes glassy, her brow furrowed, then walked forward again.
Yep, this chick is definitely out of it. Still, she seemed to be in far better condition than most of her fellow revelers. Beyond the booze and pot, people embraced an assortment of other drugs. Snorting cocaine. Popping pills like candy. Even tripping on the floor, empty syringes beside them. Excellent activities during a zombie apocalypse: they wouldn’t ensure survival, but at least the partyers would feel less worry and pain while being eaten.
Frankly, I couldn’t believe so many idiots had endured the night. I could only guess they’d been attending a massive Halloween party there when the mayhem had begun. Whether they’d taken
the danger seriously, it was difficult to say, but perhaps they’d merely turned the disaster into an opportunity to keep partying. Seriously, the place and the people looked like they’d already endured a weeklong party.
It wouldn’t have been the first time that had happened, of course. Over the years, many New Orleanians and other residents of the Gulf Coast had ignored dire hurricane warnings and, instead of evacuating with their families, stayed behind to host weeklong hurricane parties, riding out the storms in style. Some figured they’d go out with a bang, while others claimed living in the present would somehow avert disaster.
Predictably, some people had perished that way, especially in historic storms like Camille and Katrina. But, as with most preventable disasters involving stupid people, such horror stories hadn’t kept some locals — particularly the young ones — from stubbornly holding on to tradition.
So, their Halloween celebration had simply morphed into a zombie hurricane party, and if the morons managed to triumph, who was I to say they were wrong?
In a large bedroom, with French doors that opened onto the crowded gallery and a king-sized bed currently occupied by several entangled couples, the redhead paused again.
“Oh, yeah, I remember what I was gonna say.” She stared at me for a few seconds, as if still struggling to recall her thought. Then, a wide grin lit up her face. “Can I see your cat?”
Hell, no! I had no intention of opening Azazel’s carrier in that place. Fuck, somebody here’ll probably try to smoke her.
The girl looked so eager, though, I couldn’t refuse her completely. So, following a brief warning about Azazel’s unpredictable temperament, I permitted the girl to slip her hand beneath the lid atop the carrier and stroke the cat’s soft fur. Usually, if a stranger invaded Azazel’s space, said stranger would soon have puncture wounds on her hand, but that time, my ferocious tiger actually allowed the redhead to scratch her ears. Maybe she sensed the girl only posed a threat to herself.
“Her name’s Azazel,” I told the young woman.
“Wow,” she said, “my name’s Ariel.” She leaned closer to the opening and gazed into Azazel’s eyes. “Maybe we’re related,” she continued… to the cat.
“Yeah, maybe,” I replied hesitantly. “Listen, I need to find a way out of this place.”
“Really? But you just got here,” she said as she stepped outside.
Reluctantly, I followed her onto the seriously overburdened gallery. More than a hundred people seemed to be dancing and jostling on the creaking floorboards, and as sturdy as it had always appeared from the street, the gallery now felt like a shifting boat deck.
For all I knew, it had suffered massive termite damage over the years and could no longer bear such weight and movement. Even in pristine condition, it probably wasn’t rated to withstand all of that pressure, and I could easily see it collapsing under the bulk of the raging party. Whatever the case, I didn’t intend to stay long.
“Hey, man,” a handsome, dark-haired dude dressed as a court jester said. “Welcome to my crib.”
“This is your parents’ house,” Ariel reminded him. “Not yours.”
“Well, they’re probably dead now,” he lamented. “So I guess that makes it mine.”
Sadly, he had a point.
The music, emanating from built-in speakers throughout the house, shifted to Dr. John’s “Indian Red” — one of my favorite songs. If New Orleanians, even the young ones, had anything in common, it was their appreciation for great music. An appreciation Clare and I definitely shared.
Just as I found myself reflecting on all the wonderful local musicians and bands we’d listened to over the years, I heard a shout from the far end of the packed gallery. Apparently, one of the clueless partygoers had tumbled over the iron railing.
“Oh, fuck, man,” the dark-haired jester said, pushing his way toward the railing and gazing down into the street. “Hey, Dramond! You okay, man?”
Out of morbid curiosity, I pushed forward, too, and peered over the grillwork. Good news: Dramond had fallen onto a cushion of sorts, namely the countless zombies currently crowding the building. Bad news: the poor guy had become witness to a feeding frenzy in which he was the main course. The creatures surrounding him ripped his body apart so quickly, he barely had time to scream before he died.
Only a few minutes after he fell, two zombies started fighting over his head. One had jammed its hand up his neck, while the other had stuck its fingers in Dramond’s eye sockets, gripping his bloody skull like a bowling ball. This zombie nightmare keeps getting better and better. Just when I thought I’d seen the sickest shit imaginable… bam, two zombies began playing tug-a-war with a dude’s head.
As stoned and drunk as the kids appeared to be, several of those who’d witnessed the carnage abruptly puked onto the heads of the zombies below, which only further incited the moaning creatures and made them even more eager to reach the end-of-the-world partyers. Worse, as soon as some of the guys and girls started crying, more people from inside ventured out to look down on the street. I could see the zombies pushing against the support poles below and hear the floorboards groaning loudly.
The far end of the gallery drooped, and I decided I’d stayed long enough. Quickly, I tucked my axe behind my belt, linked my right arm through those of the dark-haired boy and the redheaded girl, and yanked them back into the bedroom just as the rest of the gallery facing Royal Street collapsed, sending everyone else tumbling into the zombie-filled street below.
Chapter 16
“I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you on the ass!”
– Hooper, Jaws (1975)
The combined momentum of my two new friends caused all three of us to tumble forward onto the hardwood floor of the bedroom, knocking over a few other freaked-out partygoers in the process. Unfortunately, the inadvertent fall made me loosen my grip on the cat carrier, which rolled a couple feet away, only to be kicked back toward me by a panicked girl dressed as a sexy imp. For the third time that morning, poor Azazel ended up upside-down, and from the hissing she unleashed toward me, I knew she was pissed beyond belief.
“Sorry, girl,” I grumbled as I wriggled from beneath the two stoners and reclaimed the carrier.
Although the axe tucked behind my belt had shifted in the pileup, I’d once again escaped an irreversible injury to my genitals. For that, if nothing else, I was grateful.
Rising to my feet, I surveyed the commotion. People were bolting like headless chickens in every direction, including the naked couples who’d just been having sex on the bed, and the ensuing cacophony of blues music, terrified shrieks, and hysterical crying almost overwhelmed my already compromised eardrums (thanks to a long-ago ear infection).
Carefully, I edged toward a window beside the open French doors and glanced downward onto Royal. The scene was as nightmarish as I’d expected, rife with flailing limbs, splattering brains, and blood-curdling screams. Perhaps worse, the floorboards were still hanging from the side of the house, and the poles had crumpled in such a way the nightmare was far from over.
“Fuck,” I shouted, “we have to get outta here!”
“No, man,” the dark-haired jester said, shaking his head vehemently. “We gotta help my buds.”
“They’re all dead,” I said, looking from him to the redhead, whose tear-stained cheeks underscored her frozen stare of terror and confusion.
“Jesus, man, this is bullshit,” the jester whined. “Now, I do hope my parents are dead, cuz if they aren’t, they’re gonna fucking kill me.”
“Somehow, I think they’d care less about the damage… and more about the fact that you’re about to die!” Clutching Azazel’s carrier with one hand, I tugged Ariel from the room. “Seriously, we have to get outta here.”
Numbly, the jester followed us through the madhouse until I reached a rear hallway.
Then, I turned to both of them and said, “Listen, that galler
y is now a ramp.”
They merely stared at me, their foreheads crinkled, their eyes squinting in confusion.
“Christ, guys, it’s a fucking ramp. From the street to this floor,” I explained, beyond exasperated and confident I was about three seconds from leaving the two dumbasses in the hallway. “Soon as those goddamn zombies are done eating your friends, they’re gonna climb up here and start attacking the rest of us.”
Comprehension finally seemed to dawn on the jester. When, a moment later, I heard the front doors splinter and crash into the first-level foyer, followed by a new wave of terrified screams, Ariel seemed to catch my meaning, too. The zombies were now in the house, and they’d soon be upstairs as well.
“I know a way out,” the jester said as he moved toward the staircase in the spacious sitting room.
“We can’t go down there,” I yelled, following him to the top of the stairs. “They’re already in the building.”
At that moment, another long-haired dumbass took the opportunity to kneel beside me and blow pot smoke into Azazel’s cage.
“Heh, heh,” he chuckled. “Kitty gonna be stoned.”
How the hell had the idiot missed the mayhem around him? Maybe ignorance really was bliss.
“That is so not cool,” Ariel scolded him. “You don’t even know if he lets his cat smoke.”
Likely meaning to push him away from Azazel’s carrier, she inadvertently shoved him so hard he tumbled backward down the stairs — just as one of the invading zombies reached the lowest step. With our mouths hanging open in disbelief, the jester and I glanced at each other and then back down the stairs, where the zombie and five of his mates were devouring the screaming stoner who’d taken the fall.
Zombie Chaos Book 1: Bloodbath in the Big Easy Page 8
