Brand New Cherry Flavor

by Todd Grimson

  A dim, lugubrious, bluish silver light, sometimes an afterblink of pink. Ariel Mendoza sat on a plain wooden chair, facing them, a shotgun open across his knees. Tavinho pointed the .38 at him, but Ariel merely shook his head with a little smile and dumped the red shells out of the shotgun’s barrel onto the floor.

  “I won’t do it,” he said. “You don’t need to shoot me, Lisa. I knew you’d come.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked, unsure.

  He stood up and stretched out his arms, yawned. “I’m leaving. I’m going back to Brazil. My visa’s expired,” he said, and smiled again. “Why?” Lisa asked, frowning at him.

  “It’s over. I can’t do it anymore. He could make me pull both triggers on you and your boyfriend, and what would I be after that? I was just waiting to see if you’d really come. I can’t help you—I wish I could.”

  He went out the door. They turned their attention to the pond, in which floated, once more, the pale, unconscious Christine. The skylight was open to the crescent moon. When Lisa reached into the milk—it had a plant smell, like some sort of sap—the coils of the serpent stirred, splashing, frightening her … Tavinho came over, through the ivy; together they reached and pulled Christine by the arms, she was floating, oh fuck she was attached, there was a glistening tentacle or cable stuck in one shoulder blade, like a deep-sea diver’s oxygen line, another up between her thighs, into her vagina. Christine’s eyes fluttered and she groaned.

  “We’ve got to cut her free,” Tavinho said, and Lisa agreed. She shuddered. Tavinho had a smaller knife, one with a jagged blade. He went after the one on her back as Lisa, getting wet, held Christine halfway out of the pond. He sawed at the sucker as it bled and quivered … the blood might have been Christine’s.

  “Look!” Tavinho said as the bleeding tentacle suddenly let go, leaving a raw wound on Christine’s back, which slowly began to fill with blood. “It doesn’t like to be hurt,” he said. “Take the machete.”

  The water was moving, but there were targets. Lisa struck hard at a coil and the large knife stuck in the firm flesh, the machete was almost wrenched out of her hands, the water roiling and turning pink—she whacked at the tentacle between Christine’s legs, and it abandoned the sex organ, making a squishy noise, as Tavinho pulled Christine’s mostly limp body all the way out of the pond. Christine’s eyes opened, and she screamed.

  “Christine,” Lisa said, as they tried to steady the moaning erstwhile moon goddess on her bare feet.

  “I’ve been dreaming the most incredible dreams,” Christine said, looking at Lisa in full intelligence for a moment, licking her lips, looking at Tavinho in curiosity, damp blond hair stuck to her skull, clad in a soaked white goddess-type gown, now stained with blood at the crotch.

  “How do you feel?” Lisa asked Christine.

  “I don’t know. Weird.” She stumbled, swooning a bit, but then seemed to regain herself as they reached the door; it didn’t seem like she knew what had been happening to her.

  In the hall they didn’t see anyone, Tavinho had the gun ready, but in the dim red light there was no one.

  “Come on,” Lisa said to Christine as the latter suddenly fell to her knees, weeping helplessly, shaking her head, inconsolable.

  At the first turn, Christine again making progress (the notion was to get her out, lock her in the car, then come back to do business with Boro), they found that they were cut off. Tavinho was afraid, Lisa saw, but he adjusted: Four zombies, maybe more beyond that, were coming slowly, up from the only way known that led outside.

  “Let me try something,” Lisa said, and skipped forward, holding the machete—she tried the phrase or word Ariel had used to call Jonathan off her that time. “Omo-poke-eye-cha! Omo-poke-eye-cha!”

  It seemed to get their attention. But then, from the other direction, Wanda called out, with malice, “Get them! Eat! Kill!” Her near-violet hair sticking up like a frozen flame, wearing only a little red tutu, a red leather choker around her neck, all her tattoos, Wanda made beckoning motions with her fingers in the midst of more zombies from that end, and as soon as Christine turned and saw Wanda, she whimpered and broke away—Tavinho wasn’t actually touching her, he was preoccupied with the gun, watching Lisa and the advancing zombies—and Christine ran back up the gleaming crimson hall, disappearing. Maybe she would continue past that awful room, up toward other doors. Right now that looked like the only reasonable way to head.

  Suddenly a zombie had Lisa from behind—she’d turned her back to them to watch Christine run. Lisa cried out and tried to hit it with the machete—its teeth scraped the back of her neck just as, really deafeningly, Tavinho blew away half its brain. He carefully shot another one who had hold of Lisa’s leg, clawlike fingers ripping the material of her tights … finally she extricated herself, and they started up the red hall, just dodging the converging zombies from Wanda’s side.

  “You’re dead meat, Lisa,” Wanda called. “The room’s already rented. You want it, so why don’t you relax? Tomorrowland,” she jeered.

  “Fuck you,” Lisa replied, turning back, feeling ineffectual for the moment. They went around the corner, checked Christine’s room, but she wasn’t there, unless she was hiding or submerged in the pond. Tavinho and Lisa went up the hall, turning another corner … there were Polaroids of Lisa taped to the walls, hundreds of them, many from the setup in the hotel-room set. Except worse. Like Lisa had really been murdered.

  Lisa hesitated, slowing Tavinho as they neared the open door to what she remembered as Boro’s room. They heard a scream up around the last bend, past Boro’s room. It was Christine. Boro came out then, with Jonathan, blocking them.

  Jonathan moved more quickly than the other zombies—he had hold of Tavinho’s wrist before the Brazilian could shoot him. They grappled. The gun went off into the zombie’s body without effect. Jonathan threw Tavinho against the wall, and Boro moved out with a carved sacrificial knife, looking for his chance, saying to Lisa, “I never wanted to hurt you. You let me down.”

  Taking the initiative, overcoming a terrible inertia that felt like a spell, Lisa slashed Boro’s left arm with the machete, surprising him— he bled some clear fluid, like tears.

  Christine came back around the corner, the zombie maidens coming after her, she was bleeding, stumbling … Boro moved over there and, for Lisa’s benefit, drove the dagger in between Christine’s breasts, twisting it, digging it in as if to—right there, as she fell— extract her heart.

  Blood all over … Lisa cut Boro as hard as she could, cutting off some upraised fingers; he turned and looked into the round mirror of one of the earrings, it was perfect, she caught him forcefully, a little under the chin, nearly severing his head.

  Jonathan knocked her over, clawing at her neck, the machete came up into his groin, but it didn’t seem to help, the zombie maidens were close now … Tavinho finally recovered enough, crawling, to pick up the gun and put more bullets in, he missed twice before getting Jonathan in the back of the head. He got to his feet… Jonathan, half the top of his head gone, was still trying to get at Lisa—there were zombies coming from both directions, there was no place to go. Tavinho took out two or three more of them. He and Lisa ducked into Boro’s room, and before closing the door Lisa flicked her fingernails and set all the photos on fire. As soon as they had locked the door zombies began trying to break it down.

  “I’m almost out of bullets,” Tavinho said, reloading for the last time. A zombie fist broke through the wood of the door, letting in the ruby red light from the hall.

  Lisa spun herself around like a top, three times, and a door opened, a door you could never have seen. She didn’t know what she could do until she did it. They went into this next room. If they went out from here into the hall, they should be behind most of the zombies who had come up.

  Where was Wanda, though? Opening the door a thin, thin crack, she saw Wanda right there. Lisa looked at Tavinho, asking him, mutely, if he was ready to make a run. He smiled gamely.
/>
  It turned into a melee at once. Lisa slashed at Wanda’s face with the machete, awkwardly, in a hurry, but it caught and pulled the whole lower half of the face off, leaving the hideous red upper jaw, the rest of it must have been some kind of a mask, flesh grown on … Lisa involuntarily shrieked at the sight.

  Tavinho shot Wanda in the cheek, making a mess, and two more zombies in the head. They got past them, and then the dark bird man came around the corner and stabbed Tavinho in the abdomen; Lisa went for him with the machete, and he seemed to dissolve into feathers, floating all around. Wanda was on her knees, tearing away the rest of the mask, the hair and flesh around the eyes, all in one piece. Tavinho, collecting himself, appalled at the transformation, aimed carefully and shot Wanda once more through the head. In the forehead. That seemed to be enough.

  They went downward in the red-lit halls. Tavinho finished off one more zombie that surprised them. Tavinho was hurt but he could walk, it was painful, he shook his head and said, “That was the last bullet. That’s it.”

  An Aztec warrior stood with a machine gun; they could not go past him. He was seemingly one of the wooden figures she’d seen before, though now come to life, heavily muscled, like a weight lifter. He gestured with the weapon, and Lisa dropped the useless machete. There was a door to the left. She opened it. This was what the warrior wanted. Lisa and Tavinho went in.

  It was the hotel-room set, with yellow marigold blossoms scattered over everything. The black zombie with the pearl necklace stood by the table, turning to look impassively at them as they came in.

  Lisa lay dead … her mostly naked corpse lay on the bed, decapitated, annihilated in other ways.

  “It’s wax,” Lisa said. “He’s done something like this before.” She was horrified, but she was trying to be brave for Tavinho. Impulsively she twisted off her Aztec ring and surreptitiously tossed it at the big mirror. There was no clink.

  “I’m not that bad,” Tavinho said, knowing she was wondering. “It’s a deep laceration, nothing more.”

  ”Stay here, then,” Lisa said as Boro came in through the door. His neck hardly seemed scratched; she had thought she’d nearly cut off his head. She smiled at him, sort of a come-hither look, and he was intoxicated or mad enough to approach her as she backed up to the big mirror.

  “You’re very weary,” Boro said. “The room is rented, we need to wash you, prepare you … the numbers come together tomorrow night.”

  “How much will it hurt?”

  “I tell you this: You won’t want it to end. You’ll be immortal, I promise you.”

  “Calm me, then, touch me. The last time you touched me, I was calm.”

  He neared her. She was acting, using a seductive tone of voice that also registered all that she’d been through. It was not unnatural. It sounded like she had given up, like she wanted peace and rest. Tavinho was leaning against the dresser, wounded. Boro looked at him, then back at Lisa, smiling, and she reached out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him as hard as she could. He fought like a maniac, realizing what she wanted to do.

  “Help me, push him!” and Tavinho did it, Lisa pulled Boro with her, they fell together right through the mirror into the clearing. The mother jaguar leaped on Boro at once, she tore him apart, this time it was the end. She batted around the severed head a little, and Lisa kicked it back to her in play. No eyes, no tongue. Lisa used a small sharpened obsidian blade. Castrated him, cut out his heart. The mother jaguar ate the heart with pleasure, her tail whipping back and forth. Lisa raised her arms, and birds descended to pick the flesh from the skull. Wild dogs ate the penis and the meat from the rest of the bones; the white jaguar let them be. Lisa lay down next to the great cat, nuzzling her, as she continued to chew and tear.

  Hours later, Lisa reluctantly dove into the pool of clear water, tumbling out dry from the mirror. On this side no more than two or three minutes had passed. The wax images burst into flames. The tall black zombie did not move, so they ignored him, more or less.

  She embraced Tavinho. He said he was OK. He was in awe of her a bit—she kissed him and said, “Oh, Tavinho. Can we get out?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s see if that Aztec is still there. If I had one more bullet, I’d put him down.”

  The Aztec warrior had taken off. Several zombies were in the vicinity, however. Lisa tried “Omo-poke-eye-cha” again, and this time it worked, it kept them back.

  They didn’t know what else to do, so, dangerously, Lisa and Tavinho walked in amongst the zombies, through them, through the maidens, brushing against them on the way out. Lisa suspected that Tavinho was hurt worse than he’d said. Machismo. She loved him. They made it out the door and into the night air. He was having a little trouble now. She got the car door open, and he made it onto the seat.

  “Tavinho, hang on,” she said, and then there came several loud pops; one of them shattered the right side of the windshield, Tavinho’s head jerked and in the dark she saw blood flowing down from high above his ear. At the same time she felt a deep, nasty sting at the top of her shoulder, and one hand was horribly numb. She started crying but had to function, to hurry, she lifted Tavinho’s leg into the car and closed the door on him. It was the fucking bird man, no, the Aztec, she could see them together moving down through the bushes, down the hillside, in the company of the black dog. There was nothing she could do. She got behind the wheel and started the car.

  The gate was wide open, the Jaguar sedan stopped there … it looked like Ariel Mendoza hadn’t made it off the grounds. Injured or dead behind the wheel.

  “You’ll be OK, Tavinho, don’t worry, we’ll be at the hospital any minute, they’ve got good doctors here, they won’t let you die.” She was crying so much it was hard to keep the car on the road, she was driving as fast as she knew how, faster, barely making some of these curves, tires squealing, all the lights and other cars and black night and sky blended together into a death trip that went on forever and wouldn’t end just because she pulled up at the ambulance entrance and the medical personnel took Tavinho away to watch him die.

  Lisa had cried herself out. She grew cold, numb, removed, as complications began to ensue. No bullets had struck her, only glass, but they needed to put some stitches in her left hand. She had a number of other long scratches and bruises; she welcomed the aching pain. She would also welcome anesthesia. The police were coming, she knew. She would send them to the house. Let them find whatever they would find.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  After quite a bit of inconclusive questioning, which Lisa had the feeling was being videotaped, the detectives she was dealing with decided to take her back to the scene of the crime. Lisa had gotten her black leather jacket out of the backseat of her car before the police had arrived at the hospital, and now this looked like a wise decision, as it had turned oddly cold and was actually drizzling, brownish silvery slate gray, ugly rain, dirty, it was somewhere near 8:30 A.M.

  They pulled in past the yellow police ribbon, and right away she was asked to identify the body behind the wheel of the Jaguar. Lisa gasped, bringing her bandaged left hand up to her mouth. She hadn’t realized earlier, in the dark—gasoline had been poured on Ariel’s body and it was partially burned, along with most of the front seat … he looked horrible. One unburned hand dangled out the open window, new rain beading on the skin.

  She explained that he was a private investigator from Brazil. The female police detective, Gomez, frowned for about the three thousandth time, making notes as the other member of the team, wised-up clever jock Detective Lancaster, coughed and again seemed to pay no attention at all. There were a lot of ordinary uniformed policemen around, as well as a horde of various techs, police photographers and the like.

  Detective Bluestone greeted her as they came into Boro’s house.

  “Well, it finally hit the fan. What a surprise. You made it, though, didn’t you? Just about everyone else here seems a little the worse for wear.”

  Lisa had been extremely vague about what had h
appened, just variations on “Somebody started shooting, and I was trying to get out.” She hadn’t wanted to start talking about zombies or anything else too weird. She had, however, said that she and Tavinho had come to rescue her friend Christine. These people were gangsters, and they had Christine on drugs. Lisa had mentioned Mannix, and Detectives Gomez and Lancaster had become extremely interested. They recognized the name.

  “What kind of drugs?”

  “I don’t know. New ones. Joy Division, I think.”

  Now as they walked through the house in daylight, windows open, she saw many fewer bodies than she’d expected to see. All of the zombies—those that had fallen with bullets in their heads, those that had been left standing—seemed to be gone.

  Except for Jonathan. She identified him as the son of Lou Greenwood, Lou Adolph, Lou Burke. And then Wanda, her head completely blown off now, the shotgun lying there self-evidently … Christine, her chest gaping open, a disturbing little half smile on her face, like it hadn’t hurt. Lisa hadn’t thought about her much, absorbed in the loss of Tavinho, but now tears rolled down her cheeks.

  In the room where the Tomorrowland set was, where she’d burned the lumps of wax, the black man still stood there, pearl necklace around his neck, pink lipstick, rouge, wearing a respectable suit. Was he a zombie or merely catatonic? A uniformed policeman studied him, hand on the butt of his gun.

  “Do you know this guy?” Bluestone asked.

  She shook her head. What was wrong with him? Was he alive?

  With the eraser end of a pencil, Lancaster pushed the play button on the little tape recorder. Nothing. Lisa was relieved. She decided she could mention Boro—there’d be no trace of him, and others (Mannix, for instance) knew his name. He could be another suspect.

  She saw herself in the mirror and stared. Her clothes were more extravagantly torn than she’d known. Where had the zombies gone? She felt like her mind was blown, her emotions burned away to shiny, ugly black tar.