An Axe to Grind

by Hope Sullivan McMickle

  A pair of heavy wooden doors were at the end of the hallway. An iron bar was shoved through the door handles as an added precaution. Before removing it, John glanced up at the video monitor mounted above the doorway. The occupants were restless, tugging against their chains and collars. Charlie Simmons, the one walker he knew by name, a heavyset man with thinning hair who had once been city manager, had somehow gotten his suitcoat wedged between the old wooden seats and now crouched awkwardly in front of his seat, unable to change position. The Twins, two young women with nearly identical long blonde hairstyles, anorexic figures, and tank tops emblazoned with Greek letters for some now utterly irrelevant sorority, had become tangled up in each other’s chains and now lay squirming and struggling against each other in an aisle close to the stage. John wasn’t sure if he would untangle them immediately or wait a while. Even though they were corpses, it was still kind of hot. He’d actually played a gig in this town once before in late 1998, back when Wranglers had been a strip club. Kickstart had been the opening act for a troupe of hot oil wrestlers. The tips had been particularly poor that night, John remembered. The cowboys were saving their small bills for the girls. He knew that the night would be pretty much a loss when they played Sweet Home Alabama and nobody got up to dance. He hated that fuckin’ song anyway. He was certain he would hear it in Hell.

  With only the emergency lighting illuminating the doors and exit rows, it was dim in the auditorium. John hit the switches for the floods and waited for them to increase to full strength. The girl struggled at the end of the capture pole, and John gave it a quick, absent-minded jerk, as if bringing a dog to heel. Once the view on the monitors was full of bright light, he removed the bar securing the doors and led the girl inside.

  Some of the corpses were sitting in their seats. Others stood and strained at their chains, their mouths opened in rictus grins, emitting a cacophony of growls and groans that filled the auditorium. His first priority was getting the girl seated. He escorted her down the center aisle to the front row of seats.

  “You’d have to blow a frat boy to get concert tickets better than this, princess,” John said, surveying the room as they made their way forward. Hands grasped for them, but John had distributed the audience well, seating them such that it would be impossible to reach him given the length of the lead chains which were padlocked to the heavy iron bases of the folding theatre-style seats. He could walk down pre-determined aisles comfortably out of arm’s reach, and in all instances had a route which would enable him to access the walkers individually if needed. Even without teeth and fingernails, John was loathe to the idea of one of them being able to grab him, though he doubted that they could inflict much damage.

  Over time, he’d built up quite a following. Given his seating arrangement, the auditorium was filled to half capacity. Dull eyes and blank faces followed his every move as he forced the girl into her seat, using the catch pole to keep her head and upper torso back as he knelt and secured her lead chain to the base of the chair. Rising and stepping back quickly he surveyed his work; satisfied that she was secure, he released the brake on the catch pole and removed it from her head. She rushed forward as far as her lead chain allowed, growled deep in her throat, and grasped for him. That was fine, John thought. He liked his front row feisty.

  Leaving her to her new surroundings, John walked past the Twins on his way out of the auditorium and decided to let them keep wrestling. He was in a hurry anyway. He needed to get Andy cleaned up and prepped for the evening, and it was already very late in the afternoon. He couldn’t see out the shuttered windows but could hear the steady patter of rain and imagined that it had already darkened outside.

  Andy was somehow under the police car when John entered the room, pushing the handtruck he’d retrieved from the clean up area. He had to shove him out into the opening with a long-handled push broom. His snarls were muffled and he looked ridiculous in the riot helmet that was still on backwards. John gave the helmet a kick.

  “Hey buddy, you ready to party?” he asked. “We’ve got plenty of booze and plenty of boobs. They’re more your type than mine now, I guess.”

  “Let’s get you cleaned up, man. You’re a fuckin’ mess.” John grabbed Andy’s leg irons while he squirmed on the floor, and rolled him onto the handtruck as Andy slammed his head repeatedly against the concrete floor. In just a few moments, Andy was secured to the dolly and after a grunt, a curse, and a twinge in his back, John was wheeling him Hannibal Lecter-style up the ramp for his appointment in the clean up room.

  The first thing he noticed was a sharp stench in the air; he’d forgotten to dispose of the girl’s internal organs in the covered plastic Hazmat barrel, and they stank of rot. Grimacing, John brought the handtruck to an abrupt stop and left it standing in the middle of the room to clean up the mess before he started on Andy. Nasty stuff, thought John. He’d cleaned out some walkers and bugs had crawled out of their chest cavities. Needing either some levity or distraction, he walked over to his workbench and studied the CD collection he’d alphabetically arranged on shelves along the top. Everything from ABBA to ZZ Top, and he’d listened to all of it till he was pretty much sick. Hell, he played nearly all of it till he was pretty much sick. After a long moment he settled on Stevie Ray Vaughn, who could be out walking with the rest of the corpses for all he knew. John started work on Andy as the sounds of Texas Flood filled the room.

  A set of thin, sharp shears made quick work of Andy’s ratty old t-shirt. His jeans had to go, too, although there was nothing more difficult than dressing a cannibalistic corpse in restraints. John idly wondered what had caused Andy to turn that night at Wranglers. His body revealed numerous deep gashes and scratches from his previous two years of - well, hard living so to speak - but no major trauma or mortal injuries were visible. He’d clearly been sick and fading fast onstage. John had long suspected that whatever the cause, it had initially been airborne, although his own immunity was something of a puzzle. His own health was a mess, and his girlfriend had constantly been on his ass to lose weight and drink less. He wondered what happened to her, but didn’t miss her bitching.

  Andy’s thick brown hair was a tangled mess. Not wanting to waste time on it, John took his electric clippers to it and shaved it down to short buzz cut. It made Andy look meaner somehow. John then washed Andy down with a mixture of disinfectant and germicidal solution. He began thrashing when John inserted the IV tubing and started the centrifugal pump to begin forcing embalming solution into his carotid artery. As John massaged Andy’s arms and legs to break up clots and encourage the flow of blood out and the proper distribution of embalming chemicals, thick brackish blood flowed from Andy’s jugular and into the disposal tank at the foot of the examining table.

  That step complete, John proceeded with the evisceration. He jammed a heavy black rubber body block under Andy’s back, forcing his chest upward, and with a decisive movement, made a quick incision from his sternum to his pubic bone. John cut deep, dragging the scalpel through Andy’s gray flesh to reveal his rib cage. Hands wet with gore and stinking of latex from surgical gloves and the pungent aroma of formaldehyde, John grabbed the Stryker saw and rapidly cut through the rib cage and spread it open with a set of retractors. After that, he made quick work of suctioning out the internal fluids and removing Andy’s major organs. It was gruesome work. The CD had ended some time ago, and John randomly chose another one, slamming it into the CD player and leaving a bloody handprint on the clear plastic jewel box. It was Lynyrd Skynyrd.

  With practiced ease, John trimmed and fitted polystyrene foam that he’d acquired at the taxidermist’s shop on the far south side of town - disturbingly near the zoo - and after fitting it into Andy’s chest, closed the incision. He removed the IV and wiped Andy down a final time with disinfectant before leaving him to see what options he had in the walk-in closet he’d constructed in the corner of the room. At first glance, it looked like a costume room for a high school musical, filled with shirts, shoes, and p
ants with a flair toward biker fashion; black leather vests and jackets, Harley Davidson t-shirts, sequined tank tops and mini-skirts, and numerous pairs of blue jeans heaped on the floor. He’d raided the Victoria’s Secret in the mall, and although the guys all ended up in cheap Walmart boxers, he’d brought back nothing but the best for his girls. He selected a faded pair of blue jeans and an Abate t-shirt for Andy. Come to think of it, even though he’d gigged with the guy 4-5 days a week for nearly two years, he hadn’t talked to Andy enough or paid attention enough to know if he had a bike. He still didn’t particularly care.

  Returning to the table, John removed the body block and dressed Andy. Even though they were worn and filthy, he gave him back his shoes. He’d never seen him wear anything other than Chuck Taylors and had no idea where he’d find a replacement pair. He’d never seen any at Brown’s Shoes just down the street, and the Jock’s Nitch at the mall pretty much had nothing but high-end basketball shoes and cleats. Andy’s feet were in bad shape, he noticed. The great toe on his left foot had turned black and looked as if it would fall off. John’s own feet were also in poor shape; managing his diabetes had become a daily challenge and although he maintained a refrigerated stockpile of insulin he’d obtained from the four pharmacies in town, the circulation in his feet and lower legs had become increasingly poor. John decided against removing Andy’s toe, because he would need it later for balance, and his coordination was already bad enough. He loosened the grimy laces and jammed the Chuck Taylors back on Andy’s feet before returning him to his secure position on the dolly for a trip to the auditorium.

  Flint Hills Music had the best selection of guitars and amps in a 90 mile radius, which had worked out well for John. He’d found the store while reconnoitering Commercial Street during one of the early days, looking for food and bottled water. He’d only glanced through the large plate glass window before hurrying on. He hadn’t forgotten about the music store, though, and returned two months later after constructing a crude but functional barricade and shelter on the second floor of White Auditorium. As the second floor was only accessible by a narrow, enclosed stairwell on the north end of the building and a nonfunctioning maintenance elevator at the opposite end, it was an ideal structure for maximum space and relative security. John had gone back out to gather supplies, intending only a quick trip to Reeble’s Grocery, and passed the dark music store. He’d never returned to Wrangler’s after deserting Kickstart - what had become his band of walking dead - and regretted losing his guitar and boutique amp. It had never been worth the risk of returning to the far west side of town, although he supposed he could have. It hadn’t required much to convince himself that he needed a guitar. He’d been bored out of his ever-loving mind, anyway. Instead of continuing to the grocery store and filling his duffle bag with canned goods and pre-packaged meals that hadn’t yet been ravaged by vermin (the rats and mice had gotten bad quick), he continued on down the block and then backtracked down an alley until he found a nondescript metal door with peeling letters spelling Flint Hills Music. The door was locked, of course. He didn’t think it was possible to shoot out the lock on doors like in the movies, especially metal ones, and so returned to the sidewalk in front of the store and considered his options. John Warren, as a general rule, wouldn’t piss on most people to put them out if they were on fire, but he maintained a certain respect and appreciation for guitars. They had clean lines, perfect balance, were reliable and consistent, and didn’t bitch at him about how he spent his money or where he spent the night. It was a whole hell of a lot easier to find a good guitar than it was a good woman, and the store was full of good guitars. After another moment of consideration, John kicked in the bottom half of the plate glass door, knocking out the shards with the thick sole of his steel-toed workboot, and ventured inside.

  It appeared that the store had been locked up tight when all the shit had gone down. Nothing moved in the shadows, and John had a clear line of sight to the back of the store. Satisfied that it was empty, he decided to keep it that way. Making certain that no walkers were outside, he rapidly stacked several heavy cardboard cartons in front of the door. He’d discovered that if there was no sound or other reason to attract them, the walkers generally did not attempt to enter buildings unless they happened into them randomly. He hoped his barrier would hold, because he had no desire to have to clean the building out later, flushing zombies out in the darkened confines of the building. He’d hurried down Commercial to Sixth Avenue where he’d left his Astrovan in the middle of the intersection. He drove it to the music store, where he loaded it with a Fender Hotrod Deville amplifier - with two 12” speakers and 60 scorching tube-driven watts, it had all the power he could have ever wanted or needed in the myriad clubs and biker bars he’d played in over the years. It took him longer to select a guitar, and he finally settled on a Gibson Les Paul reissue and an acoustic Martin six-string. Until he figured out how to get the power back on, he’d need an acoustic.

  That had been twenty-one months ago. Since that time John had made many trips back to Flint Hills Music. He’d also found some exceptionally high-quality music gear in the private residences he’d searched for food. The equipment now stood mute onstage in White Auditorium, presiding over an audience of corpses. John had added an Ampeg bass cabinet and amplifier, which provided him with eight 10” speakers, 450 watts, and thick low end. Next to the bass rig a DW drumset was set up on a small drum riser John had constructed. It’s black sparkle finish gleamed, and the Zildjian Custom A cymbals gleamed. They had never been struck, never been marred. John didn’t play the drums and had no desire to. His Fender Deville was set up on an amp stand next to a bulky Crate amplifier atop a stack of four 10” speaker cabinets. He’d never been a fan of Crate products, but it was as close to a Marshall stack as the music store had to offer. A single microphone stand was located at the front of the stage, flanked by two vocal monitors. The PA mains were stacked on top of large subwoofer cabinets on the left and right sides of the stage. A mess of cables snaked back to a large mixer and lighting board located to the left of John’s amp. He hated having to run his own lights and sound. Guitar stands lined the sides of the stage; he’d retrieved all the good guitars from the music store and left behind only the Epiphone knock-offs and some other cheap guitars. He’d even brought over the remaining decent amps and backlined them.

  Instead of bringing Andy into the main auditorium, he wheeled him backstage. He left him there while he stepped onstage and powered up the lighting board. It had taken him a week and a half and an immense amount of patience to rig the stage lights. Some lights had already been in place, but were inadequate for a real rock show. He’d supplemented the eight par-64 cans on the lighting truss with a spotlight and two monster strobes, and added another eight LED cans which threw a rich wash of color onto the stage. On the lighting trusses to the left and right of the stage, he’d rigged four powerful blacklights and two additional effect lights, which faced the audience. He’d even installed two fog machines in the floor of the stage, connected with XLR cables so they could be remotely triggered with a footswitch.

  John surveyed the area of stage directly in front of the Crate amplifier. He’d need to shift things a bit. His amp was set up between the Crate and the drumset; that wouldn’t do. He dragged the Crate amplifier as far to the left as he could and placed another four feet between it and his own amp. He then went backstage to the small storage room that had been home to the prop construction materials. He grabbed the toolbox he’d left there and returned to the stage. It was only then that he noticed the low hum of moaning and rattling of chains from the audience. The stage lights created a significant glare that was difficult to see past, but John had a pretty good idea of what he’d see. The audience was restless. He decided that a little music might help, and powered on the PA system. He’d left a CD in the last time he’d played; it was Styx. He hit the play button and the song Too Much Time On My Hands blasted out of the sound system. The cosmos was not without
a wicked sense of humor, John thought. He used a stud finder to locate a sturdy crossbeam beneath the stage floor, and installed a heavy eyebolt in front of the Crate amplifier - now Andy’s amplifier. He attached a seven foot length of chain to the eyebolt, and gave it several quick, sharp jerks to make sure it was secure. It jarred his arm up to the shoulder, and satisfied that the eyebolt wouldn’t work loose, went back to retrieve his guitar player.

  The Mexican Strat caught the stage lights and flashed in the darkened auditorium. Andy held it awkwardly and the strap was tangled on his shoulder, but John had been shocked to watch Andy grasp it correctly, and even more surprised that he hadn’t dropped or smashed it. He’d left the strings on, an oversight that would have to be corrected. It was inevitable that dead fingers would become entwined in the light gauge strings and snap them off, or vice versa. Andy held the guitar against his body, left hand on the neck, right hand dangling down below the pickguard. Although he’d made no effort to form a chord shape or even strum the strings, he’d still exceeded John’s expectations. Standing tethered in front of his amp, grasping the guitar in his black t-shirt and jeans, he was reminiscent of the guitar player he’d been. John had even screwed the whammy bar in for him. Andy’s role had now shifted, and even though John didn’t expect him to play and hadn’t bothered to connect the guitar to the amp, he did expect Andy to look the part.