An Axe to Grind

by Hope Sullivan McMickle

  John stood stunned. He felt Andy’s hand close weakly around his ankle but ignored him, instead surveying the carnage throughout the bar. It was a scene from a Romero movie, he thought. The cowboy had cornered the hotties, who were screaming and successfully keeping him at bay with a couple of barstools. He growled and swung his arms wildly at them as they screamed back in terror. The older woman had begun inching sideways toward the jukebox, jabbing her chair at the cowboy when she was grabbed and thrown to the floor by John’s drummer. His Iron Maiden t-shirt was covered in blood, and his eyes were yellow and dilated to the point that the pupils were empty, massive orbs. He ripped her long bleached blonde hair out by the bloody handful as she lay screaming and struggling.

  The bartender was still polishing mugs, oblivious, his nose now bleeding profusely. He looked up with momentary recognition when John shouted “Ty,” but returned dully to his work. Panicked, John turned toward the back exit next to the stage. His bass player, Leon, lay near the door with his knees drawn up, cradling his stomach with both hands as he bled out from a series of bites that had virtually disemboweled him. His hair was plastered to his face, wet with sweat, blood, and tears. “Help me,” he whispered, but John shook his head and looked away. He could see Andy convulsing on the floor. A second later Leon was swarmed by the two bikers, his arms and legs wrenched in their sockets as he was tugged between the two men who were devouring all visible flesh. Leon’s screams filled his head and made it difficult to think; Andy was again tugging at his leg. When he felt Andy’s teeth clamp down on his boot, John screamed himself and stepped away. There was blood everywhere and it was difficult to keep his footing. As Leon stood and lurched toward him, John grabbed a microphone stand off the stage and swung it in wild arcs, the centrifugal force of the heavy base nearly throwing him off balance. The circular base connected suddenly with the side of Leon’s head and caved in his skull. For a moment, John could see blood and grey flecks of brain matter silhouetted in the stage lights. Leon went down and didn’t get back up. John’s cell phone had started vibrating again but he made no effort to reach for it. He could hear the sound of sirens outside, and that’s when the power went out and left him in nearly complete darkness.

  The Black Sabbath CD had ended. John had nearly finished the girl’s clean up. He’d washed out the debris and cut the tangles from her hair, and dug out the spots on her back where he’d found maggots in a couple of raw wounds. The embalming process had been completed with no difficulties. It would stave off further decay and reduce the stench - she already smelled immeasurably better; her internal organs had been removed and were piled wetly beside her on the table. Her chest cavity had been filled with polystyrene foam, trimmed to fit. She gazed at the organs beside her but John figured their significance didn’t really register for her. He’d stitched her chest cavity back together with a tidy line of little black sutures. Another recently acquired skill. The sutures wouldn’t look too bad once he’d gotten her dressed again. He’d also taken his standard precautions, cutting her fingernails down well past the quick - it didn’t hurt her and it ensured that she couldn’t him - although the first time he’d done it he’d cringed. It was still better than ripping them out with a pair of pliers. He also felt much better about his new approach to dental work. With the first few, he’d simply pulled their teeth out with a pair of vise grips. That had seemed barbaric even though he understood that they would eat him sashimi-style at the first opportunity if he did not. It wasn’t until he was using a small Dremmel power tool to remove the head of an errant screw that the solution became clear. The Dremmel was now fitted with a grindstone attachment which made quick work of grinding down their teeth to smooth, harmless nubs. It even sounded a little like a dentist’s drill. Pain-free dentistry, thought John, who laughed out loud. “Well babe,” he said, “I guess we finally got universal health care. How’s that working for you?” he asked, doing his best Dr. Phil impression. The girl didn’t respond, but John had not expected one.

  The dead girl’s clothes were still in good condition, so John redressed her in them. Plus, it was a sweet little outfit, a fine look, showcasing a tight ass and long legs. Some of the others had worn their clothes to tatters and he had to provide them with new ones. Since most of the ones he’d brought in were women, he’d chanced a trip out to the Fashion Bug at the little mall on Industrial Avenue and picked up several cartons of clothes in a variety of sizes, but not plus sizes. He just put a bullet in the heads of plus-size walkers. They were too heavy and hurt his back.

  With the majority of his work finished, John put a new CD in the stereo. Rust Never Sleeps. The dead didn’t sleep, either. John could hear some faint hissing and moaning outside the storm shutters. Something had riled them up and attracted them to the building. Figuring he’d better check it out, John left the girl secured to the table and trotted down the hall to check the monitors. Sure enough, he could see at least eight of them circling outside the west side of the building. All adults, no animals at least. Though they were dead, and as a result slow, dull-witted, and uncoordinated like their human counterparts, animals were far more difficult to deal with. Sharper teeth, better balance, a lower center of gravity, and much faster. So far, John had encountered more than three dozen dogs, the wolf in the liquor store, and six or seven coyotes. At least no mice, they seemed to be immune, along with cats and birds. Thank god no birds. Outside the building, the monitors revealed four of the walkers milling about in front of the heavy metal doors to the fire station. Another walker had picked up the metal lid to a trash container somewhere and was banging it against the side of the building. Although the behavior looked far more random than volitional, John was concerned. So far they had not demonstrated the ability to use objects in even the most rudimentary way, but he knew better than to underestimate them. He’d need to go out there and torch some zombie ass. To the south, he could see storm clouds gathering in the distance.

  The Kansas wind whipped into him and nearly bowled him over as he stepped out onto the small loading dock behind the auditorium. Despite the earlier summer heat, the wind had a chill to it and John shivered. He was still wearing the same t-shirt he’d sweated through earlier, although he’d put his Kevlar vest, leather gloves, and riot helmet back on as an added precaution. The sun was obscured by thunderheads that had accumulated in the south, and occasionally cold spatters of rain foretold an impending downpour. Still technically tornado season, John worried about severe weather. There was no longer any such thing as Doppler radar. He was not so much worried about riding out a twister, because his building was built like a fortress and had a basement designed as a civil defense fallout shelter, but he did harbor major concerns about what he’d do if a tornado blew some fucking zombies in to join him.

  John adjusted the straps of the fuel canister to the modified driptorch he carried and settled the device more firmly on his shoulders. Flamethrowers and napalm were the stuff of movies, but in the Flint Hills, controlled burns were common practice among ranchers and he’d had no difficulty finding several driptorches in a machine shed on the outskirts of town. He’d spent enough time working on motorcycles to have some mechanical proficiency, and it had required only minor alterations to the driptorch to enable it to spew flaming diesel in a fifteen foot radius. Although the driptorch could work with gasoline he’d found that diesel was far more effective because it was heavier and more viscous, and adhered better to the walkers. Flaming zombies posed a special challenge; since fire didn’t immediately destroy or incapacitate them, they had a tendency to continue shambling around like torches until the flames superheated the cerebral spinal fluid in their brain cavities and their skulls exploded. His AR 15 was a far more useful tool for ensuring that they didn’t get close enough to matter. In addition to the rifle, he also carried a .38 revolver appropriated from the Gun Den, loaded with hollow point Fatboy cartridges designed to fragment and expand on impact. Perfect for head shots.

  An armless corpse with gleaming, expos
ed ribs lurched around the corner of the building. It tripped over the rotting remains of a young man in a postal uniform that John had put down a week ago and hadn’t gotten around to hauling off to the burn pit he’d created at the city landfill. Somehow the thing remained upright, and it continued in his direction until John blasted the top off its skull off with the .38, casually returning the gun to its shoulder holster. At least four more of the walkers had made their way around the building, attracted to the sound of the shot and John’s scent. Two more of the dead things had emerged from the dark underpass below the train tracks where the Burlington Northern Santa Fe had made its daily run. John clicked off the safety on the rifle, took a deep breath, and peered into the telescopic sight. He found the closest moving figure, a shambling, decaying shape that was once a middle-aged woman, centered the crosshairs on her forehead, and squeezed the trigger. The rifle slammed back into his shoulder and he grinned wolfishly as she collapsed first to her knees, and then forward onto the pavement with most of her head missing. One shot, one kill. The corpses continued toward him, rotted flesh and rotted clothes fluttering in the wind. John shifted his aim, focused on another figure, and squeezed the trigger. He aimed and fired twice more. He put a single bullet through the left eye socket of a teenage boy in a faded black Slipknot hoodie. The back of the boy’s head exploded outward like gruesome confetti, streamers of gore in a macabre tickertape parade. His second shot obliterated the skull of an elderly man in coveralls and a red flannel shirt. Both corpses stayed down, brain matter leaking unceremoniously onto the pavement of Mechanic Street. Rain had started to fall lightly but steadily. It beaded up on the shatterproof mask on his helmet, and his vision was obscured further by condensation building up on the inside. He removed the helmet and let the rain soak his hair and run down his flushed cheeks as he watched the two remaining corpses approaching the intersection about fifty yards from his vantage point. At first he thought their height differential would be a problem; one of the walkers had been a little girl, her pink skirt floating above knees skinned to the glistening bone, the right side of her face missing, the left side sadly perfect. The other walker appeared to be a twenty-something Hispanic male with no apparent wounds other than a butcher knife embedded between his shoulder blades. They approached, jaws snapping, fingers clenching and grasping, stumbling his way like drunken marionettes. John watched with satisfaction as the older one tripped over the wire he had strung at ankle height between the light poles on either side of the street. A second later, the child-thing tripped as well, and both corpses landed across the coils of razor wire John had strategically placed across the road. Hung up in the razor wire, the walkers dangled and thrashed. John approached the wire barrier in several long strides and after assuring himself that they wouldn’t be able to tear themselves free, dispassionately set them aflame with the driptorch. The corpses were dry, and they flared up so quickly that they singed John’s eyebrows. He stepped back and watched them burn, and after several moments, watched their charred corpses stop thrashing.

  Having cleared the south end of the building, John turned his attention to the west. He could hear rattling and scraping against the fire bay doors where several walkers were tearing at the building. Ineffectual as their efforts might be, they had to be stopped. Despite the lack of cognition, agitation seemed to spread through the dead like wildfire. A handful of agitated zombies would draw three times their number within five minutes, and then he would have a bonafide mess on his hands.

  John risked a quick look around the corner of the building to get a sense of how many more walkers he’d have to deal with before calling it a day. A balding man in bloodied hospital scrubs leaned against the fire station door, hissing and running his hands over the smooth metal as if waxing a car. Two other walkers accompanied him. All stood with their backs to John, which was good. It provided him with an element of surprise. One of the walkers wore jeans and a black t-shirt, with a slight build and shaggy hair. John decided to save him for last; the others were bigger by at least a foot and most likely stronger and faster. He aimed his rifle from 25 yards away and put a round through the base of the skull of a tall, skinny main dressed in a three-piece charcoal business suit. The bullet must have entered his neck rather than his cerebellum, because instead of dropping like a sack of shit, the corpse swung around and growled, staring at John with yellow, vacant eyes. His shot must have done some damage because as the thing began to approach, its neck flopped loosely and was canted at an unnatural angle. Disgusted with himself for sloppiness, John peevishly shot out its kneecaps and watched it drop. It began crawling toward him as the other two turned and stared at him. John sucked in a deep breath, shocked. He never expected to see anyone he knew, they were all nothing more than mindless and insatiable bags of flesh that had stopped being human years ago.

  “Hey Andy, what’s happenin’?” he asked the smaller man. “Been playing much lately?”

  John shook his head in amazement, smiled, raised the butt of the rifle, and pulverized the skull of the dead man crawling toward him. He appraised his old guitar player, who was lunging forward on awkward, unsteady legs. The man in scrubs had advanced and was reaching for him when John inverted his grip on the rifle, and brandishing the barrel like a five-iron, swung it in a smooth arc and teed off on the man’s head. His neck snapped back with a stomach-churning pop and most of his face caved in like a soft melon. Andy paused and glanced down before continuing toward John. The man in scrubs didn’t move.

  “C’mon buddy, no hard feelings, right?” John backed up several paces, not taking his eyes off Andy, and weighed his options. He could either put his guitar player out of his misery with a single, clean headshot, or he could bring him in. Problem was, the capture pole was inside. John risked a quick look over his shoulder and scanned the intersection for walkers. Nothing but stillness at the moment. The rain had increased in its intensity and Andy’s shirt clung to him like a wetsuit. John didn’t look any better, his wet tie-dyed t-shirt was draped across his beer belly and hung from him like a sodden circus tent. He only had a moment to decide. He didn’t want to chance going back inside for the capture equipment and return to find 10 or 20 more of the things milling around. He also didn’t want to lure Andy inside unsecured. John had never been quick on his feet and had no desire to be in close quarters in a dimly lit hallway with a ravenous corpse, guitar player or not.

  A sudden clap of thunder jarred him into action. John placed the rifle on the ground and, grasping his riot helmet in both hands, stepped forward and savagely jammed it down backwards on Andy’s head, obscuring his vision and trapping his gnashing teeth inside a cocoon of shatterproof plastic. The lack of sight did nothing to deter him; Andy grasped for John, who deftly grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and roughly yanked it over his head, trapping his arms and pulling him forward and over at the waist. The neck of the t-shirt was too small to slip off over his head with the riot helmet on, and allowed John to drag him forward into the auditorium. Andy flailed and growled like a recalcitrant dog on a harness. As they entered the building through the loading dock the rain came in a torrential downpour.

  John shoved Andy into the fire station ahead of him, forcing him down the ramp. He glanced at the now silent monitors, which showed no further activity outside the building. He found an additional set of handcuffs and foot shackles, and in three quick motions secured Andy to the front end of the police car. The front bumper was designed for impact and would be able to withstand any indignities acted upon it. Andy would be unable to get free or do any major damage. John left the riot helmet jammed over Andy’s head; it wasn’t like he would suffocate. Andy was still tugging and fighting his restraints when John left the room and returned to the city water department, which was now for all practical purposes a mortuary.

  The girl was right where he’d left her, strapped to the table and gazing at the ceiling. She perked up as he entered the room; the chains on her ankles clanked against the steel table. John was glad he�
�d kept her. She was attractive, for a corpse, and he’d seen a lot of corpses. He’d put her in the front row for sure. Working quickly, he slipped a thick black leather collar he’d specially designed around her neck and buckled it tight. The collar was attached to a seven foot metal chain that trailed down to the floor. Considerably more harmless without her teeth and nails, John unstrapped her feet from the table but did leave her ankle shackles on - a measure that constricted her mobility - just in case. He next unfastened the straps securing her waist, shoulders, and arms to the table and grabbed a shorter, telescoping capture pole. As she sat up on the table and turned to face him, John slipped the noose over her head and set the brake. He tugged her off the table and keeping her in the lead, guided her out of the clean up room and into the hallway toward the auditorium. She tried to turn around but he kept a steady pressure on the pole, forcing her forward. The girl fell to her knees when her feet became tangled in the ankle shackles. The second time she fell, the skin on her right kneecap split open, revealing an expanse of raw dark maroon inside gray-blue flesh, but the injury did not bleed so much as ooze. John figured he’d stitch it back up once he’d gotten her seated and properly situated with the others.