by H. L. Murphy
I pulled into the station slowly, scanning for a single living soul. When I spotted the trail of blood that led into the store proper my foot found the brake pedal. I should have jumped on the accelerator, and not stopped until I got home. That was the smart play.
“There are three cars sitting at the pumps,” I told Madalina. My head was screaming, and my eyes felt like sand had been rubbed in them for the past hour. I turned to face her,”You should take one, and go home or wherever the fuck you want to go. Go on.”
Madalina glanced over to the vehicles, all three in decent condition, and turned back to me. Something about the way she was eyeballing me didn't make me happy. I couldn't let it go, the bitch had tried her damnedest to kill me. If that seems a little petty to you, well fuck you. I still hadn't worked out how the hell I managed to live through the fall and impalement. For that matter, how the hell had I survived being machine gunned?
“I want to stay with you, for now,” Madalina answered. There was definitely something wrong with her. At least I was the one with the guns. I parked the truck before the store, my thoughts were if Madalina ran off in the truck I could steal a car. Rifle at the ready, I walked up to the brightly lit doorway looking for the missing drivers, and the attendant that should have been at the register on the phone reporting me to the police. Blood led into the back of the store. Cold, hard fear settled in my stomach. Facing flesh eaters in the open was one thing, the same went for those G.I. Joe wannabes, but it was a lot harder to march into the unknown. Son of a bitch bastard, I yanked open the door and pushed in quickly. My rifle tracked down each aisle as I nearly ran to the rear of the store, only to discover the trail of blood led into the walk in cooler.
“Jesus fuck,” I snarled quietly. Step by step, I forced myself to move to the cooler door. The overwhelming stench of blood made me queasy, fear of what I might find ratcheted up my adrenaline level. I wasn't shaking, but I knew it wouldn't be long. My fingers barely managed to hold the door handle as I pulled the cooler open. Behind me I could hear as the Gypsy fumbled for something, she made entirely too much noise for my taste as she did so. My teeth gritted, I walked fully into the cooler and spun to my right to see seven bodies stacked neatly in the far corner. Each person had been shot several times before being deposited in cold storage. Ugh, that was just terrible.
More than certain the dead would stay dead. I boldly stepped out of the cooler and straight into a knife wielding Madalina.
Goddamn it.
Somewhere along the line I had stopped thinking of her as a potential threat, and reclassified her as a pathetic, broken thing along for the ride. The six inch butcher’s knife she had acquired from the sandwich shop demonstrated in no uncertain terms the exact number of ways I was mistaken.
Can I share something with you? Well, since I'm the one telling this story it doesn't matter what you want. The thing is I hate knife fights. Fucking hate them. No good has ever come from a knife fight. No matter how good you are at defending yourself, you will end up getting cut. Cut, and cut badly. I'm talking severed tendons, nerve damage, disemboweled, etc., etc., etc. Give me a gun fight any day
My views on edged weapons didn't seem to be shared by the Gypsy as she swung that blade with wicked abandon. Flashing steel bit my arms a half dozen times as I back pedaled. That fucking blade kept swinging. Very slowly I was coming to the realization Madalina was going to kill me if I didn't start defending myself. A small voice, oddly similar to my little sister, offered me sage counsel.
‘Hey stupid, you're holding a rifle. You might consider shooting the bitch.”
Ah, my baby sister. The picture of genteel manners and forbearance.
Still, she had a point. Unfortunately, the Gypsy was too close for me to bring my rifle up. Instead I kicked out as hard as I could in such tight confines. The blow glanced off her hip, but still carried enough force to spin the bitch away. I followed up by butt stroking, get your minds out of the gutter, Madalina in the face. Harsh? Maybe, but I was bleeding like a stuck pig and this was the second time in one night the woman had tried to kill me. So, harsh or not, I felt justified in throwing her a little pain.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I demanded, my rifle tracked the furious Gypsy. She breathed rapidly like she had run the ten miles from the cabin. If I had been expecting an explanation, I only received screamed obscenities in what I could only guess was Romanian before the crazed woman threw herself at me. I can't really explain why I didn't just shoot her, but I didn't. Maybe I actually felt sorry for her for what she had faced in that cabin, and before. Maybe I just found it unacceptable to visit death upon those weaker than myself. Whatever, I didn't shoot the Gypsy, I side stepped her attack and watched as Madalina crashed through the glass cooler door. Shattered glass lay everywhere within the cooler, and upon Madalina herself. Safety glass? Wasn't really. Instead of a dozen large, jagged pieces of razor sharp glass, you had ten thousand small pieces of razor sharp glass.
Little cries, born of the rising knowledge of the extent of her injuries, slipped from Madalina. I thought about checking to make sure she hadn't been mortally wounded, but finally listened to my common sense. One attempt to kill me was a gimme, two, however, was intent and fuck that noise. I decided to leave the Gypsy exactly where she was, especially as my stomach was struck with excruciatingly painful cramps. I glanced down and realized that whatever was causing these spontaneous regenerations was still in effect, and still required replacement proteins. It felt as though I hadn't eaten in days, I stumbled over to the hot dog broiler. Gas station hot dogs were universally recognized as a half step up from road kill but as I tore into the cut rate sausages I swore prime rib never tasted better. Three jalapeño and cheese sausages later and the cramping in my stomach eased up, so I ate two more just in case.
The Gypsy psycho still lay among the shattered glass, moaning and groaning softly, which gave me a moment to observe the cuts on my arms as they healed. Watching your own flesh knit itself back together is by far the most unnerving thing you can see, not involving zombies. Muscle fibers came alive, stretching impossibly to seek their severed half only to melt into one another to become whole once more. My skin sealed over the recently healed muscle, only the faintest hint of a scar left behind.
Why in the name of God was I regenerating? This wasn't just some kind of accelerated healing. I was actually regenerating. The rounds I caught in the Jeep should have pulped my internal organs, but everything seemed to be in working order.
“What the hell am I?” I asked my reflection. The tinkle of thousand of shards of glass alerted me to Madalina’s return from La-La Land to the here and now. Mumbled words came to me through the curtain of her hair.
“Fucking…asshole…cocksucker.”
There may have been more, but ten years in aviation had impacted my hearing for the worse. Whatever she said, it was clear Madalina wasn't done playing Norman Bates. For a second, just a second, I considered introducing her blade to her intestines and leaving Madalina to sort out out how long until perforated guts ended her permanently. I will readily admit to having taken a step in Madalina’s direction before the squealing of tires rounding a corner caught my attention. Curiosity aroused, I ran to the door in time to see a late model sedan lose control, come off the asphalt, flip twice, and come to rest upon the embankment that led up to the gas station.
“Well, that ain't good,” I mumbled. As I watched the still smoking wheels spun down, and two men in goddamn matching black fatigues crawled out of the wreck. The younger of the two men made it out of the car first, but instead of running he turned back to help the gray haired man. I kicked the glass door open to riddle Grandpa and Junior with thirty caliber steel jacketed rounds when the ground began to vibrate. I tried, Jesus fuck I tried, not to look away from the gunmen, but whatever was shaking the ground sent tingles down my spine, in a very bad way.
Trees hid the majority of the long road, so when it came out from cover I just stood there, gaping. It stood nearly
thirty feet tall with a dozen arms and legs, inhuman, starving cries issued out of seven independently shrieking heads. It shouldn't have been possible for anything like that thing to have existed in this world. I wanted to say something, anything, that would have shattered this nightmarish hallucination, but while my jaw opened and closed no sound came out.
I turned to call to Madalina, I wanted someone else to see this. Fortune must have tipped the game in my favor because I turned just in time to see the big knife as it came down at me. My hand shot out, lightning fast, to catch the wrist attached to the hand grasping the butcher’s blade. Screaming obscenities at me, Madalina threw her other hand into the effort to impale me. Crazy as she may have been, pissed as she may have been, Madalina Hurgoi tipped the scales no greater than one hundred fifteen pounds. I held both of her hands in place a long moment, I wanted to give her a moment to understand I wasn't going to allow her to shiv me. Our eyes locked onto one another, my deep blues filled with God only knew what and her insanity filled brown peepers.
And that was that. I understood. It had all been too much for the Gypsy. The zombies, Cooms’ murder, the attempted rape, and me not being dead when she thought I ought to be. She had slipped the tenuous bonds of sanity, and gone skipping into Crazyland.
“Sorry kid,” I said kindly, then slugged Madalina in the gut hard enough to lift her off the ground. She dropped to the floor, vomiting.
“Open the door,” a deep voice yelled to me. I kicked the knife away from Madalina and spun about to face the men outside, my rifle snapped up fast.
“Get fucked,” I answered as loudly as possible. Beyond the running men the Thing closed. The closer it came, the more disgusting it became. The skin it retained seemed to have developed a rampant fungal infection, and the exposed, mutated bundles of muscle wept that black viscous…pus? Seriously, I had to fight not to soil my shorts every time I focused in on the heads of the Thing. “Fuck off down the road, and take that thing with you.”
“It's too late for that,” Junior shouted, slowing his advance in the face of my Kalashnikov. He wanted to level his M4 at me, that was easy to see, but he forced his hand to stay by his side. “You need us, if you want to survive that thing.”
“How about I let that thing eat you two fucking animals,” I suggested. “Then just wait till the fucking thing wanders off?”
“It won't matter,” Junior countered. “There are hundreds coming up the road behind that thing.”
The zombies from the facility.
Zombie Pee Wee must have led them this way.
Son of an undead bitch.
“Fuck,” I shouted and stepped back into the shop. Junior and Grandpa stumbled into the store, both men were careful not to give me an excuse to unload on them. Junior seemed to look in every direction at once, his glance rested on Madalina before moving on. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Not really germane to our current situation, is it?” Grandpa breathed. I hated when people dropped that lame evasion into a conversation.
“Names,” I said coldly, calmly. “Or I shoot you both, chuck your bodies out for the Thing, and take my chances.”
Junior really wanted to take his chances against me, fucking terrifying confidence, but Grandpa seemed to exercise more restraint.
“I am Commander Uhlanis,” the older man announced with some pride, as if I should have known who the fuck he was. I honestly hadn't expected to find the leader of Team Rapey, and had nothing cutting to respond with. “This is Apache.”
“Apache?” I asked.
“Yes,” Apache confirmed, his head shot up proudly.
“Your name is Apache?” I repeated. My face broadcast my lack of belief.
“Not my real name,” Apache admitted.
“So, it's a code name?” I asked as I fought the rising corners of my mouth.
“Yes, he has a code name,” Uhlanis snapped harshly. “Can we move on?”
“Just a second, Grandpa,” I patronized. “Who the fuck do you work for?”
“Private military,” Uhlanis said harshly. Every word that dropped from his mouth was dripping with acid, geez what did I have to do to get a kind word?
“Code names? Private military? Matching uniforms? I've got it! You are,” I dropped my voice into my very best 80s cartoon announcer voice,”a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.”
Uhlanis just stared at me as if he had caught me picking someone else's nose and eating the resultant discoveries. Too much? Could be, but that was how the fucker was eyeballing me. I swore I could hear the thought, “we were better off outside with the Thing”.
The dark skinned man, Apache, laughed suddenly. He barked out several deep, shuddering guffaws before he met my eyes. “That's pretty good, except I don't like snakes.”
“We need to focus on bringing down that Thing out there before its compatriots arrive,” Uhlanis interrupted. His free hand pointed out to the monstrosity as it climbed up the embankment.
“Well, I'm all out of grenades,” I joked lightly.
“No grenades,” both men shouted vehemently.
“Fuck..you,” Madalina coughed the words out, drawing the contractors attention. Her ragged breathing added a creepy undertone to the entire conversation.
“What the?” Apache asked. His eyes took in the figure before him and catalogued her injuries.
“Oh, that's the Gypsy,” I introduced Madalina with a flourish,”and she keeps trying to kill me.”
“Why does she try and kill you?” Apache asked.
“Probably has something to do with PTSD,” I said calmly. “What with your boys massacring our coworkers, and, oh yeah, trying to gang rape her I think her higher cognitive functions may have thrown a rod. Plus the shops out of cherry Slush.”
“Yeah,” Apache drug the single syllable out, and glanced at his superior.
“Not now,” Uhlanis said to Apache. “Whatever they did, or did not do, you took revenge and terminated them.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I did,” I said. “Want to settle up now?”
“No,” Uhlanis admitted, he held an arm close to his body, as though in great pain. The thought pleased me no end. ‘You only did what I would have, if I had caught them.”
“Fine. How do we escape that Thing.”
“Need to shoot the damned thing in the head,” Uhlanis gasped out.”
“It has like seven heads,” I countered.
“Then we’ll need to shoot each one square in the head before it can tear us to pieces,” Uhlanis returned. His tone said he wasn't interested in excuses, only in seeing how fast everyone could get the job done. Holy shit, was that what it was like to work with me? Damn, I was an asshole.
“You keep saying we, but you don't look up to shooting a Daisy Red Rider,”” I said evenly. Apache sat his superior against the cash register counter, and shouldered his M4.
“I will shoot for him,” Apache proclaimed. Yeah, this couldn't possibly go wrong.
“Don't let that Gypsy bitch stab me in the back,” I told Uhlanis.
“Can you shoot what you aim at?” Apache asked seriously. In answer, I dropped my sights on one of the heads of the Thing. The bullet punched through the forehead of one of the Thing’s heads, a roar above and beyond anything I'd heard previously exploded forth from the remaining heads. The sound rattled the windows, several bottles shook from the shelves. Beer bottles crashed and the stench of warm beer filled the air. The M4 fired again and again as the Thing flailed back and forth, it's impossibly huge legs propelled it closer. My rifle tracked from side to side I tried to draw a bead on one of the heads. I fired several rounds where I thought the head should have been, but the rounds just slammed into freakishly thick shoulder muscles.
Arms, far more than natural, wrapped around a pitifully small “eco friendly” car the size of a golf cart, and hefted it into the air before its heads.
“No fucking way,” I screamed as the truth of what I was seeing drove home. The Thing was usi
ng the car as a shield against the gunfire. I was ready to cut and run until the bottom of the car came to be pointed at me. A nearly Einsteinian moment of genius lit up my shocked brain. I dumped an entire magazine into the gas tank, not trying to blow it up. That was just Hollywood bullshit. No, I was trying to soak the Thing with gasoline. There was a chance, minuscule or not, that I might have been able to spark a fire off the concrete. Not entirely sure how, but I was determined to try. The contractor, Apache, said something as I fired a couple rounds at the ground surrounding the Thing’s feet.
“What?” I asked.
“I said, what are you doing?”
“Flash fried zombie,” I answered.
“That is not…” Apache began, but stopped as the Thing hurled the car at the store front.
Chapter Nine
I can honestly say that having watched an amalgamation of zombies as it picked up a car, a pitiful little hippie car but a car, and have said car hurled at you will very quickly deflate ones ego and cause one to reevaluate your life path. More fucking safety glass showered over everyone, Apache and I ducked away from the shrapnel as it assaulted forward.
“Fucking really?” I shouted to no one. In a flash I was on my feet and dashed down an aisle to the convenient single packs of toilet paper. Three bundles of toilet paper went into the crook of my arm, then I made for the small office surrounded by bullet proof glass. The door into the office, though, was just a regular door, so I drove my steel toed boot into the door where it met the frame. The door popped open, swung against the wall to shatter. Behind the fucking bullet protection lay dozens of cigarette lighters. A handful went into my pocket, and I stopped long enough to collect an en tubo cigar. I tore the wrapping halfway from the first roll of toilet paper before I set it on fire. Flames slowly engulfed the tissue until more than a third of it burned brightly. The goddamn Thing was reaching into the storefront, bloodied, cracked fingers clutched for Madalina. I could have waited for the Thing to have dealt with my would be murderess, but I didn't. Life may have been simpler for me if I had let her die, but I would always have remembered that I, not the Thing, had killed her.
