“I’m…. I’m…” He struggled, trying to come up with something. He thought back to his heroes when he was young. Baby Face Nelson. Pretty Boy Floyd. Machine Gun Kelly. Billy the Kid. They all had memorable names, and everyone feared them back in their day. He looked down at the rotting, stinking, dead thing at his feet. People feared them because they would eat you. They would rip the flesh from your bones with their bare teeth. Sink their dirty fingernails into your skin. They were cannibals. People were afraid of them because they would tear your face off and eat it. Casey smiled.
Casey the Cannibal.
That would strike fear into people. Better than Casey the Coward like they’d called him in the pen. He wasn’t no coward, and he’d just proved it. He’d just taken on one of the undead bastards and blew its brains out. Face to face. He wasn’t scared. He was a rampaging badass. He was the toughest sumbitch ever. Hadn’t he killed a whole bar full of those goody-two-shoes bastards from Lakota? Damn straight, he had. He’d whip these prison pussies into shape real fast. They would do what he demanded, or they might wind up on the menu.
Yeah.
That would do it. It didn’t matter that he really didn’t eat people, he’d make them think that he did. Smoke and mirrors, just like some of the cons he’d pulled on old people. Smoke and mirrors. Maybe he’d make them eat human flesh as a rite of passage or something.
Yeah.
“I’m Casey the Cannibal,” he told the mangled corpse in his best hard-edged gangster voice. “And if you piss me off, I’ll eat your fucking face.”
He kicked her again, breaking ribs, and laughed at the sound of cracking bones. He continued cursing and kicking the body until he was tired. He delighted at the sound of her knees snapping when he stomped on them. He giggled when he ground his heel on her hands, hearing the dozen little crunches. He tore open her blouse and her withered breasts fell out. He grabbed her skirt and ripped it off.
“You dirty bitch,” he said a little huskily, eyeing her broken, naked body, the gray flesh tinged with dark veins visible through the skin. The tightness in his jeans was firm and hard.
“I should teach you a lesson,” he said, gripping himself. “Dirty whores like you need to be taught a lesson.”
He was starting to breathe fast, but something slithered out from between her legs. Corpse worms. It killed his mood. He stopped and buckled his pants back up.
The dirty slut had ruined his fun. He kicked her in the groin as hard as he could, sending the body tumbling on the asphalt.
“You’re a filthy whore, same as all the rest of them. Same as my mother,” he said, his anger growing. He kicked her again and again, black blood covering his boots and splattering his clothes. He kicked her head so hard the eyes popped out. That would show her not to mess with him. That would teach her. And he’d do the same thing to anybody in the prison, if they gave him any trouble. He was Casey the Cannibal, the most ruthless sumbitchin’ hell bastard killer ever to walk on the face of the earth.
Casey stomped back to the car, leaving bloody footprints with every step. He revved the engine, popped the clutch and left smoking streaks of rubber on the asphalt as the car kicked sideways on the squalling tires. He straightened it out and grabbed second, aiming straight for an orange-clad prisoner running toward him, gibbering and screeching for his flesh. Its head bounced off the push bar and sent brains and brackish blood splattering the already gore painted car. The gates were ajar, wide enough to drive through. Whoever was the last man out when everything went mad, hadn’t bothered to lock up.
Casey was pumped now. He could do this. He was just as good as those jerks in Lakota. Hell, he was better than them. He’d fought against them and won, hadn’t he?
That’s right.
He had.
Casey the Cannibal had kicked all their asses.
His adrenaline was flowing as he brought the car to a screeching halt, revving the motor and listening to the dual exhaust cackle. He jumped out, grabbing the full-auto AK-47 he’d stolen from the gun shop in McAlester, and blasted away at the five or six zombies still inside the gates. He emptied the magazine and loaded another before the last one fell, with huge holes riddling their bodies. He had blown great chunks of meat, bone, and blood for yards out of the back of them, the heavy bullets tearing right through the decaying skin. He was breathing hard, but it felt good. Bad Casey was out and rampaging, killing anything that dared get in his way. Stomping any bitches that tried him. He took another long pull from the whiskey flask and put it in his pocket. He’d reward the first man who decided to join his gang. Maybe. If there were any still alive. The only way they could have survived this long was if they were in general population, not locked inside the cells. The first doors he came to opened easily enough with the handles from the outside and he took care to block them open. He didn’t want to get locked inside, that just wouldn’t do.
The prison was old, probably built in the thirties, and the walls were thick stone, solid and impenetrable. The light grew dimmer the deeper he went, but there was still plenty enough to see when he came to the first of the locked steel doors. Sitting on the guard’s desk was a ring of keys and a note. It was handwritten and there was a half-dozen names signed at the bottom. He picked it up, angled it for the best light and started reading.
We, the undersigned night shift correctional officers, have unanimously voted to abandon our posts on this third day of global unrest. We have not been relieved of duty by anyone and most of our numbers have already left for home. We are not sure what is happening, or if we will return. The prisoner’s cells have been unlocked and they have full run of the prison once you pass the second security door. If they ration the food and water, there should be enough for a few months. If you have come to restore order, be very careful. Once you get past the second security doors, they have free reign. If you have come to free them, we urge you to reconsider. These are the worst criminal offenders in Oklahoma. Most are murderers. We chose to open their cells so if order is restored in a few weeks, the starvation of nearly 500 men would not be on our consciences. These are hardened criminals and gang violence has likely claimed many of them without COs to maintain order. If you are reading this, that means we were unable to return and order has not been restored in the world.
Below this, there were the signatures of the guards that had remained at their posts for days during the uncertainty of that first week.
Casey grabbed the keys off the desk before he lost his nerve, he fumbled through them, trying to find the one labeled A-2 to unlock the first of the doors. He swung it open and made his way toward the other door at the far end of a hallway that stretched on until the light was nearly lost. Riot security. Long, straight passages where any mass prison break could be dealt with by men with guns at the other end of the corridor. Guess the Muslims didn’t bother giving prisons any of that free food, he thought. No need.
The door ahead of him was a barred cell door and he could see a group of men standing around it with makeshift tools in their hands. They were trying to break through the massive stone walls with utensils from the kitchens. This was a maximum-security prison, there were no real tools available. No heavy objects to use as hammers to kill one another. No free weights that could be used as a bludgeon. Nothing that would bend the steel of the bars. They were backlit by the skylights set thirty feet up in the roof, and Casey knew he was cloaked in darkness. They heard him coming and he concentrated on making his footsteps loud, steady, and clear, the heavy work boots ringing on the stone. He saw them watching, peering into the shadows, trying to see if he was friend or foe. He needed another drink, but wouldn’t let himself. Didn’t want to appear weak. Wanted to make a strong first impression. He decided to act like that asshole Gunny had the first day they met. Stay cool. Act hard. Say his piece and kill the first person that gave him any shit.
He could do this.
He had the only gun.
He could do this.
No fear.
He walked on, his boots clicking, the whiskey in his system keeping his hands steady. He licked his lips, then caught himself and stopped. He had this. He curled his lips in anger. Good. That was better. He needed to stay pissed. Needed the rage to keep his voice from quivering in fear. He forced himself to stop hyperventilating as he approached them. He was cool. He was frosty. He had this.
“You got the keys? You come to get us out?” a big black man gripping the bars asked, when Casey stopped.
Casey looked them over. A mix of blacks, whites, and Latinos all working together to break through the wall. It hadn’t started out like that, he could see. Many of them still had the tell-tale signs of an all-out brawl. Swollen noses, ugly blue and yellow bruises fading from black, stab wounds crudely bandaged. There had been a war with fists and shanks. He wondered how many had died in the power struggle that always goes on between the races inside the prisons. Quite a few, from the looks of it, if this was all that was left. There were less than a hundred, and it appeared to be about even numbers of each clique. Casey wished he had a cigarette. That would be cool, to pull one out and light it up before he spoke, but he didn’t, so he just looked at them. He couldn’t think of anything to say.
Ice cold, he told himself. Be ice cold. Don’t show any fear.
“Hey muthafucka, I axed you a question,” the man said and shook the bars.
“Who’s in charge of you shitheads?” Casey heard himself say, his voice hard and cold.
The black man glowered at him as a big, bearded white guy and a wiry Hispanic man stepped forward.
“We are, Ese,” the Latino with all the MS 13 gang tats on his face said contemptuously, “we’ve got a democracy going. Who wants to know?”
Casey brought the AK up and held the trigger down, emptying the magazine into the three men while everyone else dove for cover. Thirty rounds peppered their bodies as they danced and flew backward, spraying blood and tissue in gouts. They were dead before they hit the floor in a boneless splash. The heavy sound of the full auto was deafening in the confined space, and Casey couldn’t even hear the screams of pain and fright from the inmates that had been hit when the rounds punched right through the unfortunate three. He pulled out the keys and opened the gate, pushed it aside and drew his big Ka-Bar before any of them could get to their feet and decide to do something. He drove it into the first dead man he came to, the little Hispanic guy, and sliced open his chest. He plunged his hand into the warm cavity and found the heart, still weakly pumping, and tugged on it. He had to jerk it back and forth with all his strength until it finally tore loose with a ripping sound and long arteries still attached. He stood quickly and faced the men who were slowly getting to their feet, looking at him like he was crazy. He held the grisly, tentacled muscle in his hand and braced himself. He had to do this. No fear, he chanted in his head. No fear. No fear. No fear.
As they watched, eyes wide in shock at this psychopath, he bit into the warm heart and ripped a chunk out of it with his bare teeth. Blood squirted and dribbled down his billy-goat beard.
He chewed methodically and swallowed as he stared at them. He willed himself not to grimace and retch. Willed himself to become who he was pretending to be. He swung the AK over his shoulder and let it dangle on the sling behind him, leaving easy access to his holstered pistols. He’d forgotten to reload it anyway, so it was useless. He watched them, just like Gunny would, he told himself, looking for someone to make a move. Someone to challenge him.
He pulled the flask from his pocket and took a long drink, the burning whiskey washing away the coppery taste of blood, then tossed the half-eaten heart back to its owner.
“They call me Casey the Cannibal,” he said. “Now I’ll ask again, who’s in charge here.”
“I guess that would probably be you, now,” someone said after a long pause.
“You guess?” Casey asked with menace in his voice, his hand hovering over his pistol. He turned to face the white guy covered in prison ink. “It’s probably me?”
“No, no, man,” he quickly amended. “I meant it IS you. You’re the Chief, man. You’re the MFIC. That’s what I meant to say.”
Casey nodded and tried to look at each one of them, tried to catch their eyes. They were all nodding in agreement. These were hard men, but they were still shocked at the brutality they’d just seen. The cold-blooded casualness of it. He’d just killed a man and then munched on his heart while it was still beating. If he wanted to be in charge, then he could. He had the guns and the keys.
Time to offer the carrot now, Casey thought. He’d already beat them with the stick. His psychiatrist always said he’d get more flies with honey than with vinegar. Now he needed to give them a reason to follow him. He needed to let them know of this new world, and the good life they would have if they stuck with him. He laid it on thick. The horrors of the undead, the Muslims planning on killing everyone left, the bastards over in Lakota who were going to come here to exterminate them before they could break out. He told how he had stopped them, killing a bunch of them in the process during a wild shootout, because his dear old dad was here. He thought that last bit up as he was speaking, a little stroke of genius, just a little icing on the cake so none of them would try to run off and join up with those pansies behind the wall.
In the end, he left the prison with 120 hardened men, all of them thinking he was a fearless killer who had saved them from the Lakota do-gooders, and would lead them to a life of easy luxury with all the booze, drugs and women they wanted. A perfect outlaw life, in a land where there was no more law and Casey made the rules. His dad wasn’t among them, the old man had been killed in the gang war and Casey was glad. His father would have seen right through him.
8
Gunny
It was taking longer to get from point A to point B than Gunny would have hoped for. They had to slow to a crawl at every interchange to make sure the tracks were going in the right direction. If they weren’t, they’d back up, deploy guards, and force them over to where they needed to be. They only encountered a few crossings with cars on them and the loco bounced them out of the way, the crew barely feeling the impact. They slowed for every bridge, especially ones that crossed a river big enough to have shipping freight on it. There was no telling if a barge of coal or fuel oil had broken loose and floated downstream until it plowed into the supports.
Griz was quick to claim the kitchen area and kicked everybody out. He liked to eat, and being single his whole life, he knew his way around the galley. Stabby wanted to drive the train, so he took over as engineer and that left Lars, Gunny, and the rest of the crew without a whole lot to do. They started practicing with Bridget, running through different jamming and clearing procedures, room clearing, and anything else they could come up with. They practiced engaging moving targets from the windows and took her up top to familiarize her with the tripod-mounted M-60s. She quickly learned how to lead fast-running zombies, and was walking the tracers into them without a lot of wasted lead.
Every so often, they would put the train in reverse for a few miles and eliminate thousands of the followers with blunt force from two hundred tons of diesel locomotive, or with one-ounce bits of steel-jacketed lead, moving at twenty-seven hundred feet per second coming out of the barrels of the M-60s. They didn’t have to get headshots to stop them. The force of the bullets tearing through them and ripping away huge chunks of muscle and bone slowed them down quite a bit.
They were making their way toward the bridge in Vicksburg, the only rail crossing over the Mississippi for a hundred miles in either direction of the city. To the north were the rail bridges in Memphis, and the nearest one south was Baton Rouge. Gunny hadn’t thought much about it, but Carl said there were only about thirty rail bridges across the mighty Missizip, not like the car bridges, there were more than a hundred of those.
The first day faded into the second, with everyone taking catnaps or potshots at zombies during the long hours between rail switches. They were only averaging abo
ut ten or fifteen miles an hour after all the stops and reversals, taking out the undead. The rail-beds became a killing field, thousands of broken and smashed corpses strewn for miles every time they made a reversal.
Gunny sat at one of the tables, slowly going through the dial on the portable shortwave and AM radio, trying to pick up a signal. There was a magnetic loop antenna mounted on the roof, and by using the train itself as a ground, they should pick up just about anyone broadcasting.
If anyone was.
He knew the frequency the Lakota station was going to be on, but was going through the other bands on the off chance someone else had one up and running. He picked up something faint near the upper end of the AM dial but it was weak and faded fast. Definitely something, though. He finally gave up, set the dial to 550, kicked his feet up on the seat, and rolled himself a smoke as he watched the kids.
Lars and Bridget were practicing gun katas, a lot of frivolous nonsense Griz had stated, but it was mesmerizing to see. Gunny figured any exercise where your weapon was out of your direct control and you had to reestablish it, wasn’t a waste of time. You never knew when you might drop your gun, or have to grab one laying on the ground while at a full sprint. The other stuff was mostly eye candy, but it was some advanced weapons handling drills, that was for sure.
Lars was good, he had the hand-eye coordination and lightning fast reflexes it took to play with guns like he did. He’d watched movies like Romeo + Juliet and Equilibrium and John Wick dozens of times, and had mastered the gun-fu tricks in them. He could flip them around, spin them like a gunslinger, juggle all four from holster to holster, and change magazines one-handed. He moved like fast-flowing water, sometimes too quick for the eye to follow, as he taught Bridget to roll and come up shooting, fire behind her back, or engage multiple targets with both guns at opposite sides of the room. He had started off by showing her the easiest of tricks, things like the Border Roll that John Wesley Hardin had used on Wild Bill Hickock.
Zombie Road III: Rage on the Rails Page 5
