Creeping back to his hideout in the depression, Corey once again settled down to wait and watch.
2
Bibi Reno was leaned back in her chair with eyes half-shut, savoring the sounds of Johnny Cash coming through the tinny speaker when the little round bell tied on a string above the door jangled its merry interruption.
Booted feet clomping to the floor, she sat up and forward with a scowl creasing the corners of her mouth. The girls knew better than to barge in when she was listening to her music unless it was an emergency, so it had to be a customer. She only hoped it wasn’t that nasty little asshole that had brought her the CD.
Though Filler siphoned a bit of her business, nearly everyone in Junction and those passing through, came to see her girls. She knew every face that came through more than once, and the man stepping through her door was a new one, and rather ugly at that.
Stopping the music and slipping her player and speaker beneath the counter, Bibi nodded at the newcomer, taking notice of the scarring beneath his milky-colored left eye. “Afternoon, welcome to Planet Janet, best place to find an out-of-this-world lay.” She smiled at her delivery of the line she gave each new customer.
“You Janet?” The man growled the question at her.
Nodding, she said, “That I am. What’re ya lookin’ for today, fella?”
Lanky hair hanging in greasy strands over his face, the man flicked his eyes around the lobby of the dingy motel before answering. “Lookin’ for a girl. Big guy over there,” he said, indicating across the highway with his thumb, “said you have girls.”
“Girls I have, fella. I’m assuming you’re looking for a specific type, since Filler has a few girls himself.”
“Black hair, thin, big tits, little scar on her right shoulder. Used to go by the name of Lindy.”
Bibi watched the man’s eyes as he spoke, the darkness in them a stark warning. This man was dangerous.
“Sorry mister, but I’m afraid I don’t have any girls fitting that description.” Bibi ‘Janet’ Reno dropped a hand under the counter, resting it lightly on the stock of a sawed-off shotgun. She only had a few shells for it but was certain she could remove his head from his shoulders with just one at this distance, if need be.
“I wanna see ‘em, all of ‘em. Bring ‘em out here.” A glint in the dark pits of his deep brown eyes told Bibi that trouble had darkened her doorstep this day.
“Afraid that’s not gonna happen, fella. There’s nothing here for you, so I suggest moving on.” The hand resting on the shotgun now gripped it tightly, keeping it below the counter.
“I think you’re lying, whore.” He spoke slowly, his voice deepening with an unspoken threat. “Women don’t lie to me, ever.”
Just as Bibi was about to open her mouth with a sharp retort about being a Madame, not a whore the door behind her opened.
“Hey, Janet, Bella wants you. She says she thinks she’s…” Cassie looked up at the man standing there and took a step back, startled by his fearsome visage.
The door opened to a small room that Janet allowed the women to congregate in when not on duty or over at Trina’s. The man flicked a glance at the three women in the room behind Cassie and his eyes widened. “Lindy,” he growled, taking a step toward them.
Bibi’s skin crawled at the sound of Marian saying “Oh, God… Mitchell!” The terror in her voice was a thing with teeth.
Looking to Bibi, Mitchell said, “She belongs to me. Get her out here, now.”
“I don’t think so, fella. That girl works for me, but she doesn’t “belong” to anybody, least of all a shitbag like yerself.”
Mitchell took another step forward, bringing him within an arm’s reach, at least in reach of his long arms, of the counter and Bibi.
The sawed-off popped up from underneath the counter, pointing directly at Mitchell’s chest. “Back your ass up, mister, right-the-fuck-now! You can walk out or get your shitty carcass carried out to the pit.”
Pointing to his whitened eye, he said, “Little bitch did this, she’s gotta pay for it. Besides, her ass is mine. Paid good for her, she comes with me.” His voice grew heavier, darker with each word.
“Don’t give a shit, fella. Get out now before…”
The shotgun was suddenly ripped from her hands. Marian had come up behind her and snatched the gun, lunging forward, the weapon extended in front of her. “I’ll never go anywhere with you, you sick bastard!”
Just as the terrified girl pulled the trigger, Mitchell stepped to the side, bringing up a hand as if to ward off the coming blast.
His hand disintegrated to the wrist, becoming a red splotch on the wall several feet away.
The man bellowed his pain and rage, filling the lobby with the roar of a wounded beast. He glanced at the stump of his arm spraying blood, the wonder and mystery of a disappearing hand lost to him amid shock and rage.
The other girls dropped to the floor, cowering as Marian pumped the shotgun, chambering another shell. She wasn’t fast enough to end Mitchell before the spouting stump slammed into her face, a ragged tip of bone gouging a line along her cheekbone.
Bibi was reaching down her shirt into impressive cleavage as Marian was rocked sideways, the shotgun clattering to the floor. The noise the woman’s head made when it struck the side of counter went unheard, as everyone’s ears still rang from the shotgun blast.
Pulling a tiny silver two-barrel derringer from the depths of her brassiere, Bibi took one step, meeting the man as he stooped to grab another of the girls lying on the floor. She placed the gun against Mitchell’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
The small caliber round made a noise like a loud clap and Mitchell’s head rocked back. The heavy body crumpled slowly to the floor, wrist still draining blood, spattering over several of the girls.
Bibi watched life bleed from the man’s clear eye. Hands shaking from adrenaline, she put out a hand to Bella. “You needed something, baby?” she asked, attempting to bring a sense of normalcy back to the situation.
Marian ‘Lindy’, stirred, moaning Mitchell’s name. Her face was slack, eyes dazed.
“He’s dead, Janet killed him, Marian. It’s ok now.”
Marian’s glassy eyes focused on Cassie. “Dead?” Pushing herself up to a seated position with her back against the counter, she looked at Bibi. “You killed him?”
“Sure did, baby. Now let’s get you over to Doc’s and have a look at your head and that scratch.”
Marian reached up, wiping blood from her cheek where Mitchell had struck her with his bleeding stump. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
Several of the girls looked up at the sound of running feet. Seconds later several people burst in through the door, weapons in hand.
“You have nothin’ to be sorry about, baby. He was a bastard, came here hunting you and he got all he deserved.” Bibi stroked her cheek, looking into the girls eyes.
Fear, bright and hot, burned in those eyes. “No, you don’t understand. His men, they’ll come looking for him.”
3
Bill Robb crawled through the shattered window of a single-story house and scanned the room. The living room he found himself in was coated in years of dust. Much of the furniture sat undisturbed, slowly rotting away, except for an old recliner lying tilted on its side. A dark, long-dried blood stain spread away from the chair; he saw no body.
Reaching back through the window, Bill retrieved his pack and sat it just inside, in case a rapid exit became necessary.
Taking his time, knife in hand, he made his way through the abandoned home, searching every room. Taking out a well used flashlight, he probed into the depths of the basement, tapping on the top step and waiting for several minutes. When there was no response to his noise-making he went down the steps, flashlight jabbed out ahead, its dim beam cutting into the murky blackness.
The air was heavy with the smell of age and dust and mildew. Thankfully, he detected no odor of rotting human or zombie flesh.
After
checking that the few narrow windows to the basement were still intact, he brought his pack down, secured the door behind him, and lit a candle.
He would rest here for the night, in relative safety. Using some of the roll of duct tape he carried to hold them in place he used several pieces of clothing he found in the two bedrooms upstairs to black out the windows.
With the windows darkened, and the candle stub burning brightly, Bill settled in for a long night of half-sleep.
The undead things that now walked the earth did not fear the daylight. Even though they could be found at any time, roaming the land, hungry, always hungry, they seemed to prefer the night. Pack numbers would increase in size, or they would roam faster and far more freely than during daylight hours.
In his fitful dozing, Bill could hear them passing the house, following their senseless brains toward unseen food.
The night was uneventful, and rest had finally come.
Waking early, Bill listened closely to the world past the windows while eating a breakfast of hard-tack soaked in bitter chicory coffee, and few pieces of jerky. He would have liked to eat until he actually felt stuffed, but that was a long-ago thing that people rarely felt anymore.
Bill cracked the door to the first floor after listening for several minutes, hoping nothing had decided to move in while he had slept in the basement. Relieved that the house was still vacant except for his presence, he stood at the front window for a time, plotting his route into the city proper, which he hoped to make by mid-day.
Finding shelter in the city, where he was certain crumbling tenements and shattered store-fronts housed hordes of the living dead, would be a chore unto itself.
The rusty grating the deadbolt made as Bill turned the lock on the front door set his teeth on edge. Stepping out onto the porch, eyes gazing out over the dry lawns, Bill was hit from the side with enough force to knock him to the floor.
The zombie landed on top of him, teeth clacking together as they snapped at his face. What he first thought was a huge lopsided grin was the drooping flesh of a lone funker. Why it was on the porch, Bill had no idea, his only concern was the snapping teeth, and the loose skin and muscle that now hung down toward his open mouth.
Bill’s gorge rose with the oppressive stench pushing its way into his mouth and nose. He realized that if he had waited just another moment before stepping through the door he would have smelled the damned thing.
Despite the rotting nature of this mutation, it was strong, its hunger driving it on. Lying on his side, pressing up with his unguarded hand Bill slammed the gauntlet on his left wrist into the reeking zombie’s skull. Rot splattered, the skull cracked, and the smell grew more intense as brain tissue began to well up through the hole.
Bill gagged, the taste of the chicory burning in his throat as it came back up. Spitting it out, into the open mouth of the biting dead he swung his arm again, a solid hit, the crack as bone gave way to iron and leather loud in the stillness of the early day.
The zombie began to slump over, titling face-first toward Bill Robb’s wide eyes. “Oh hell no,” he muttered, turning so that the limp body fell to the side and off the porch instead of into his face.
“Well shit. If this is how my day is gonna start maybe I should go back to sleep.” Groaning, Bill rolled over and into a pushup, before finally righting himself enough to get his feet underneath him. “I need to take some shit out of this pack,” he grumbled.
He looked over the edge of the porch just to make sure the thing was dead; the rest of his breakfast came up in a rush.
“What a fuckin’ waste.” Bill rinsed his mouth with a swig from his canteen and walked down the steps to the grit littered walk leading to the street.
Having spent so much time alone traveling the wild dead lands of America, he had gotten into the habit of talking to himself or thinking out loud. Silence, he knew first hand, was the aide of insanity.
“Well, time to move.” He figured two or three miles to get through the suburban area, though if he had any luck at all he hoped to find what he was looking for long before reaching the heart of the city.
He made good time, easing through streets, cutting across yards, occasionally dropping behind a fence or ducking around a corner to avoid roaming gangs of zombies. “Who said the suburbs suck?” he asked the air. Pushing through a gate, he came into a yard he was certain had been immaculately kept when its owners still lived.
Rose bushes bloomed in wild profusion, having grown up the six-foot high trellis, and spread out into the yard itself, although they were beginning to wilt on their barbed stems. The grass, browning from the lack of rain, crackled under his boots as he walked to a tall tree surrounded by several stone benches.
Reaching up, Bill could just touch the lowest limb of the tree. He didn’t care what kind it was, just as long as he could climb it. Setting his pack on one of the benches, he opened it, rifled through its contents and pulled out a small spotting scope, once favored by hunters and shooting enthusiasts.
Tucking the scope inside his shirt, he began climbing the tree, feeling his age in his joints as he pulled himself higher. Sitting down and sliding along a thick upper limb, he was able to reach the high roof of the front porch.
Once on the roof, Bill walked carefully to the peak of the two-story house. Standing with his feet on either side of the peak, he took the scope from his shirt and surveyed the neighborhood.
It would be another mile or so before he cleared the confusion of houses and street, but he could see businesses in the distance. Resale or “antique” shops selling junk labeled as Americana for outrageous prices seemed to sit in every other storefront. Clothing boutiques, hair and nail salons, shoe stores and coffee shops, he even saw a store advertising the largest tabletop gaming selection in the state.
Through it all, the zombies. Many of the stores had busted windows, or broken open doors, and the dead of many stinking varieties roamed in, out and around them.
Bringing the scope back toward the coffee shop, Bill could feel himself start to salivate. One of the windows was shattered, wide open to the elements, but he knew that real coffee beans alone, if they were still good, would make him a king nearly anywhere he went.
This is why he wanted to come to the city. Though the initial outbreak years ago came as sporadic infections, then several years of collapsing society following the full-blown infection spreading nationwide, cities often fell quickly, with outlying areas lasting far longer.
“Too damn many people living in one place.” He had lived that rat’s maze of city life for many years, believing himself to a part of it, involved in the bustling world around him.
It wasn’t until the city fell to the dead that he realized, without his stardom, he was no one, just another peon. The city cared nothing for him, nor did its people, other than to laugh for a few minutes while he cavorted on the screen and stage, helping them to ignore that same realization.
“Yeah, well, it’s all gone, and fuck it anyway.”
Further along he could see more shops and stores lining the streets, catering to nearly every vice. Tobacco, alcohol, there were three different “vapor” shops within as many blocks.
“Silly-ass hipster bullshit,” he said, chuckling quietly.
Glassing the area, he passed over many businesses, until he snapped the scope back, heart beginning to thump. He could just make out the sign for a sporting goods store.
“Oh, now that’s cake!” he exclaimed softly. The phrase came from one of his mid-career films; it was the line most people asked him to repeat when meeting him on the street. He spent several more minutes scouting the area through the spotting scope, taking mental note of the thickest locations of zombies.
Back on the ground, donning is pack, Bill moved toward the gate he came through. The heaviest concentration of zombies was in the opposite direction. No area was completely clear, a few always seemed to be wandering somewhere near where he wanted to go.
Going slowly, watching w
here he placed his feet, avoiding debris that had gone unchecked for ages, he made his way to the next house and the next.
“Couple more blocks,” he whispered.
The siding on the next house had peeled away, hanging out, forcing Bill away from the wall. Coming around the corner he nearly walked into a zombie. Without hesitation he stepped up, blade in hand, and buried the knife in the dead thing’s temple. It never knew he was there.
Bill used the buried knife to guide the body as it fell, quietly settling it to the ground. He yanked the knife free and had to choke back a cough as a puff of dust burst up from the dry wound.
“What the hell?”
Glancing at his knife, he saw a faint smear of damp goo on the blade, other than that, everything else was dry, bone dry, like the husk of a withered plant.
Kneeling down beside it, casting an eye over his surroundings to be sure he was still unseen, Bill examined the body. Gray and dull, the skin crackled at the touch of his knife like a handful of dry leaves. Large patches flaked away, only to break apart like aged newspaper. The distinct smell of dry-rot filled his senses. Beneath the flaky skin, the desiccated muscle tissue had a hazy sheen.
Bill spat, the dead-dust like ash on his tongue.
“Well, that’s a new one on me,” he said.
Passing the house, leaning against the wall of the next one, Bill watched out over the wide street leading to the businesses. Dead walked the streets, unaware of his presence. He hoped to keep it that way but knew that with the large lawns and wide streets it would be difficult to move undetected.
In the driveway next to the house a Prius sat on rusted rims, the tires having rotted off long ago. In the back window he saw a sticker, wrinkled and warped, still clinging tenaciously to the glass. In a stylized horror script, it read ZombieCast-Official Radio Show of… the rest was obscured by a gray-brown crust of brain-matter that splattered half of the back window.
Tales of Junction Page 10
