“See, you are a human being after all,” Charlie said.
A solitary tear ran down the jerk’s face. “I loved that dog. We got him from a puppy mill so he was about half-retarded, but he was a good shit. Little guy followed me around everywhere like I was a rock star.”
Rob walked over to a trembling Left-Nut as if he were about to give him a hug. Then he slapped him multiple times. “Pussy!”
“What the hell?”
“You don’t get to have feelings after all the shit you’ve pulled. Nope.” It was an odd move for Rob, but there was a bit of justice in it.
“Thank you for sharing,” Katya said.
But rather than graciously accept the kind words, Left-Nut returned to true form. “Okay, I’ll ask about the five-hundred-pound gorilla in the room that nobody else has the balls to bring up. What happened to your face?”
Katya self-consciously touched her scar before taking a deep breath. “Okay. If you must know, I came to the States from Ukraine after answering an advertisement for students. I thought I would be a nanny, but the men responsible for transit had other ideas.”
“I bet they did,” Left-Nut said.
“It was a prostitution ring, but one of the gang leaders found out I was a virgin and said he wanted me for himself. He was nicer than the others and told me all I had to do was pay off my tickets and then he would take me away. I would be his girlfriend.”
The room was deadly quiet as everyone followed the nun’s every word. Except for the zombies banging on the door. They just kept right on hammering away.
“First he had me fill shopping carts with food and then get in line in front of single men. When I couldn’t pay, I would cry, and the men would pay for everything. He made me do this all across the city.”
“Not a bad scam,” Left-Nut said.
Katya nodded. “That was somewhat harmless, but what came next was not. You have seen women begging by subways, holding sleeping children?”
“All the time,” Charlie said. “Tossed them a few quarters myself, just to be nice.”
“The women are there for many hours, and their babies are always sleeping. How many babies can sleep all day and never cry?”
“I guess I never thought about that. Were they dolls or something?” Charlie asked.
Katya shook her head. “They drugged the children. And people walk right on by, often giving money out of the belief they are helping the children, but only making it worse. Sometimes a woman would overdose her baby and she would have to hold a dead child for hours until another would be brought by as a replacement, like light bulb.”
“Jesus,” Smokey said. “Sorry. Did that happen to you?”
“Thankfully not on my shift. But after I toiled for six months to repay my debt, the man I trusted brought me to a fancy hotel. I found out he had merely wanted to sell me to the highest bidder. When another man came to claim his prize, I scratched at his face and was beaten in return. They dumped me in an alleyway and splashed Drano on my face.”
Charlie thought back to the fateful night of the bachelor party and the Eastern European hooker he’d spent it with. Could she have been in a similar situation, forced into such a life by the very same men? It was a horrible thought, and one he quickly pushed to the back of his mind.
“I promised God that if he saved my life, I would serve him without question,” Katya continued, “He did, and here we are.”
There was an awkward silence for a while as the heavy story settled in. Then Vlad set the empty bottle down and cleared his throat to change the subject. “Story time over. Now we rest. In morning, we fight.”
“You think we can actually make our way out?” Smokey asked.
“Of course not,” Vlad answered with a crooked-toothed smile. “But what a glorious death it will be.”
Chapter 21: Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Russ returned with two gas cans full of diesel fuel after having been gone for a whole day. This was how long it took him to partially sober up and then find his way home from a nearby town after getting extremely ripped off a bottle of Everclear. “Partially” was the key word and it was obvious he was in good spirits. “Did somebody order a taxidermist, because I’m ready to stuff some pus—”
“If anyone needs a taxidermist it’s your Betelgeuse-looking ass,” Jackie said without even cracking a smile. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Just TCB, baby. Taking care of business.”
Padma, however, couldn’t contain her grin. “Russ, you are retar-dead. That’s all I have to say.” For whatever strange reason, the guy was growing on her. He was an idiot for sure, but he had this strange sort of cagey intelligence that she had never seen before. Unlike the professional class Padma had been surrounded with her entire life, Russ was a real man. One that farted and swore, smoked cigarettes and probably cheated in friendly poker games. But they were all alive because of him, and that meant plenty right there.
Russ grinned right back and his greenish tinted eyes, like all the infected had, sparkled with mischief. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you missed me.”
“But you do know better,” Padma countered.
A very different-looking Marquell walked around the corner of the truck and interrupted the banter.
“Carlton Banks,” Russ said with a snicker.
“Ain’t nobody talkin’ to your creepy ass,” Marquell said, though there was none of the bitterness the statement might have had days earlier.
“Actually, I like the new hairdo,” Russ added.
“Mary did a good job cutting it,” Marquell said and ran his fingers through his freshly shorn locks. “But if you must…” To everyone’s surprise, he did a spot-on impression of the Carlton Dance from “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” complete with a goofy smile. Everyone laughed, and it was clear that Marquell could still be charming on demand.
“Why’d you cut it, though?” Russ asked.
“The dreads were just something I wore for a lawsuit, and also to look hard. And I’m done with that mess.”
“How about you put the gas in the truck so we can get going?” Jackie said, cutting the homecoming short. “Hanging out on the highway here isn’t exactly inconspicuous, and we’ve had our fair share of excitement while you were gone.” She pointed to a pile of zombie bodies in a nearby ditch.
Russ checked on a sleeping Trent in the back and then did as directed. Soon the semi was travelling down the highway once again, and the airport was just a short ride away. The strange thing was, Russ always drove perfectly fine no matter his B.A.C., and the trip was over in no time.
They pulled up to the abandoned municipal airport and breathed a sigh of relief. It appeared empty, at least superficially, and there were plenty of small planes on the runways. Both major details had been in question before arrival. Now they simply had to find the keys that Marquell promised would be there. And gas up a plane. And actually fly the thing. And land it.
“Morphine’s a hell of a drug,” Trent said as Padma and Jackie helped him sit down at a red picnic table. The cop was lucid, but moving slow.
“It sure is,” Padma said and scratched Elvis tenderly behind her ear. “But you should move as little as possible to avoid breaking your stitches. You aren’t out of the woods yet just because it doesn’t hurt as much. After all, you only got shot yesterday.”
Trent nodded. “Let’s not worry about me. Russ and Marquell, get this show on the road. Or in the air, I should say.”
The odd couple left the others behind and crept into the main terminal which was little more than a warehouse, and sought out the women’s restroom. Marquell walked into the middle stall and stood on the toilet before shoving a ceiling tile up and over. Then he reached inside and felt what he was looking for. Airplane keys. But there were surprises as well. One kilo of shrink-wrapped high-grade Columbian cocaine and a fully loaded 9mm Glock pistol. Only these extra items weren’t surprises for Marquell. He grabbed the weapon and clicked the safety off.
>
Russ was his usual chatty self. “No offense, but—”
Marquell turned and faced Russ, keeping his hand hidden in the ceiling. “Whenever someone says ‘no offense,’ I know for damn sure what’s coming next is gonna piss me right off. So choose your next words carefully.”
“I was gonna say, I kinda thought Trent was dumb for saving you at first. But I’m sure glad he did. That’s all.”
The former gang leader stared ahead, lost temporarily in an inner struggle. He had planned from the beginning to kill Russ and Trent at exactly this juncture, and after the arrival of the women had come up with even worse scenarios.
“You okay bro?”
Marquell nodded his head. “Y’all were dumb for picking up a cold-blooded killer – in reality, a demon.” There was a long pause in the conversation as he took the pistol from hiding. “Something with no conscience or soul. Yeah, it was very dumb.”
“Now wait just a minute there. You can’t—”
“But I guess you got lucky. Because that demon, he’s gone.” Marquell brought his other hand down and tossed the package of coke to Russ. “Merry fucking Christmas.”
“Hot damn, is this what I think it is?”
“Yep.” Marquell grabbed the keys and the two rejoined the others at the meeting spot. He placed the pistol on the table as a gesture of goodwill and Russ did likewise with the cocaine.
Trent’s eyes grew as big as silver dollars and his nose began to twitch at the sight. “Look who brought the snow to the party.”
His trauma doctor noticed the reaction. “Easy there, Steven Tyler,” Padma said. “Taking cocaine while on morphine would kill you.”
“But oh, what a way to go,” Trent said. The cop had been having his own existential crisis after having escaped death a second time – though he was badly wounded – in just the past few days. With nothing but time on his hands he’d been thinking a lot about what drove him to take a bullet for Jackie, a woman he hadn’t even known. He kept telling himself it was all about trying to get laid, as lame as that sounded. However, the reality was much different. Like Marquell, he was evolving, in a way. Whether the transformation continued remained to be seen. If his past was any indication, the road to redemption would be quite bumpy indeed.
“Now we have to find a green plane with gold wings,” Marquell said. “It’s pretty pimp if I do say so myself.”
Trent scoffed. “Real subtle for a drug-runner.”
Just then, a loud noise startled the group and they looked around in confusion before seeing a large plane coming in for a landing several runways over. Sort of. The landing gear failed to deploy correctly and the plane skidded off the runway and barreled into one of the hangers at high speeds.
A member of the political class, Jackie immediately recognized the white Boeing VC-25 with a distinctive blue stripe running down the middle. It was Air Force One. And it was on fire.
* * *
After a moment of shock, everyone except for Trent (who was told to stay at the table) grabbed their improvised weapons and ran towards the wreckage. They were prepared to do something, but they weren’t sure what that something was yet.
An evacuation slide inflated and deployed as thick black smoke swirled around the plane while the powerful smell of jet fuel permeated the air. Jackie took the lead. “We’ll wait a couple minutes for survivors, but then we better get some distance because this thing could go up. And be ready for zombies to either zip down that slide or come out of nowhere. That wasn’t exactly quiet.”
A person finally emerged in the doorway and stumbled onto the slide, screaming all the way down before coming to a bloody rest on top of a satchel handcuffed to his wrist. The injured person was followed by a second man that came down shortly after, holding his hands up in surrender.
The first man had a wild fanatical look in his eyes as he stared right through them, speaking like a sidewalk preacher. “The book of Revelations has come true. Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”
Jackie knew who it was right away, having attended several fundraisers with the injured man. “That’s Senator Sanders. My father golfed with him a lot.”
The second man, Secretary of State Sam Childers, corrected her. “You mean President Sanders.”
It was at that point that Russ pounced on the injured man and tore off a huge mouthful of the president’s neck, causing blood to shoot outwards like a burst water balloon. Russ’s eyes rolled back in his head as he chewed happily on the most powerful man in the world. In response, the president shuddered and involuntarily convulsed in a sickening display.
Everyone else screamed in shock, except for the third man coming down the safety chute. That man promptly shot Russ point blank in the forehead.
Right or wrong, Marquell retaliated and shot the man dead with a blast from his own pistol. In an instant, Stromm Aikens’ storied career was ended by the furious pull of a trigger. Marquell fired one more shot into the Secretary of Defense’s body before administering the coup de grace on the president.
The whole sequence happened in about thirty seconds, but had changed the trajectory for the course of human history. And to think that Marquell had just devoted his life to doing good deeds.
Padma’s lip quivered as she looked at Russ, lying peacefully on the ground, almost appearing alive. “Namaste.” She kissed the clean side of his face and said goodbye in her native tongue.
Russ sat up. “What happened?” The bullet was stuck to his forehead and sizzling away like a sausage in a skillet.
“Now that was some Tango and Cash shit,” Marquell said, not believing his own eyes. “You really do have a hard head.”
Russ tapped his bloody noggin and pried the bullet off before tossing it in the grass. “I had a steel plate implanted after a dirt bike accident. Wasn’t riding it, the bike just wasn’t anchored to the wall right in my garage and it fell on me. They said it would have killed a normal man…”
“Tell stories later, this thing could blow at any second,” Jackie said and ushered everyone, including the Secretary of State, to a safe distance. The plane became completely enveloped in flames but never actually exploded.
Trent was not happy when the situation was explained to him. “I turn my back for one minute and you eat the fucking president? I swear you’re crazier than Gary Busey’s girlfriend.”
“It’s not as bad as it seems,” the silver-tongued newcomer said.
“And who in Jupiter’s balls are you?” Trent asked.
“Sam Childers.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“You never saw me on CNN? I was kind of a big deal. You know, Secretary of State?”
“CNN’s for pussies,” Trent said matter-of-factly. “But what are you talking about?”
The man exhaled deeply. “They were horrible men. Totally out of control, and they caused irreparable damage to the world.”
“He tasted like mothballs and Viagra,” Russ said and spit. “Now Trent’s partner, she was delicious. Marquell, your friend wasn’t bad, but I’m not into dark meat. Never was.”
“Watch yourself,” Marquell said with a hard look on his face. “I’m trying to turn over a new leaf here, but I ain’t no bitch. Ace was my boy.”
“You were just along for the ride?” Padma asked, bringing the subject back to more pressing matters. “You speak of these men like you were an outside observer.”
“Actually, yes. They held me captive since the outbreak happened. I was with them, but I wasn’t with them, if you catch my drift.”
“So what were they keeping you around for?” Padma pressed.
“I was smarter than they were and kept them alive. Until we met you…” Mr. Childers said while casting an apprehensive glance in Russ’s direction. “And I can pilot a plane. That wasn’t me crashing the plane there, by the way.”
“No shit? You can fly?” Trent said
, turning to Marquell. “That’s good news. We were all a little worried about you flying us.”
“Me too,” Marquell said. “That was my plan’s one downfall.”
“A pretty big one at that,” Jackie added. “Okay, Mr. Secretary. Are you going to fly us out of here then? There’s a base in western Illinois we’re trying to reach. They have some friends there, and we have a little something else going on too.”
“That’s Mr. President now,” Childers said, noting that he was indeed up in the line of succession. “So it looks like we finally have our first gay president. Not duly elected, mind you, but we’ll take what we can get.” He looked to Russ. “Do you have a problem with that, Jethro?”
“Course not. One of my best friends was a hom— I mean, gay guy.”
The newly minted president was not amused. “And yes, I have thousands of hours under my belt in small aircraft. But you’re going to tell me what’s going on with this… gentleman, before I agree to help you,” he added.
Jackie nodded. “Definitely. I’ll fill you in on what’s going on and the others can find our plane and see about getting it gassed up.”
Her plan was straightforward, but its execution was not. The fuel pump turned up empty, as did their plane, and so they had to siphon fuel from several other planes located all around the airport. By the time this was accomplished the sun had set, and the president convinced them to wait for daylight to begin the next leg of their journey.
The ragtag band huddled together near the truck and asked the man question after question, eager to find out exactly what had happened. For his part, President Childers was happy to oblige, and relished the chance to set the record straight. He told them of the initial outbreak, the nuclear exchange, and the abandonment of their men overseas.
“And the Chinese troops?” Trent asked. “How did they get here?”
“The initial wave caught us unaware because they were pre-positioned in Canada – and even more outrageous, some of our own cities. Chinese Special Forces and saboteurs had very specific orders, and during the chaos of the infection, carried them out to a T.”
Dead Drunk II: Dawn of the Deadbeats (Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time Book 2) Page 17
