Jack Zombie (Book 3): Dead Nation

by Flint Maxwell

  It’s not.

  He doesn’t pull back. His arm comes down with as much force as a man chopping wood. It punctures my thigh, ripping through my pants and flesh and muscle with ease. Remember that thing I said about not screaming? Yeah, that didn’t last. I’m howling bloody murder. Warmness trickles down my leg, I don’t know whether I pissed myself or I’m just bleeding that much.

  “Needles barely moving,” Danny says. He laughs and flicks the dial a couple times, sending jolts of pain all over my body. “Guess will have to try the other leg.”

  Now everyone is laughing. Buddy holds his heavy gut, chortling deep bursts of laughter. Froggy is even tittering and I thought after the shit that went down on I-95 the bastard would never laugh again.

  Danny rips the thermometer out of my thigh and somehow the pain is even worse. Dark blood drips off the point. My blood. I shudder, trying to muster up the image of Darlene again. Her on the beach. Her smiling. Her laughing while I hold her from behind and kiss her on the cheek.

  Nothing.

  Nothing comes.

  I’m dying.

  Steph takes the thermometer. “No need, Dan,” she says. “He’s suffered enough.” She sticks the point into her mouth. Slowly. Sensually. She licks it before wrapping her lips around it. Froggy is grinning and groping himself below the belt, absentmindedly…I think. Bud looks on, gazing at her almost like a zombie — dead eyes, entranced. Dan couldn’t give two shits. I assure you, it’s not even remotely sexy. If anything, it’s downright disgusting. “Mmm,” she says through her tightened lips.

  “Okay,” Danny says, rolling his eyes, “that’s enough.”

  I grit my teeth. The pain is coming in waves. Not gentle waves, either, nothing like the ones I imagine in my beach wedding fantasy. No, these waves of pain are tsunami waves, the type with enough force to wipe a city off the face of the earth. I don’t know how I’ve not passed out, actually. But I do know if I pass out, I won’t wake up, or I’ll wake up without a leg or an arm, hell, maybe even my face.

  “Frogman,” Danny says, holding the steak knife and grill fork out. “You’re up. Hope you brought the barbecue sauce.”

  A chuckle from Bud.

  Froggy moves across the greenhouse without a limp. All of his pain must be forgotten. He takes the knife, looks at me, and says, “I’m going to really enjoy this.”

  “Abby was right,” I say. There’s a fire burning in my head. Seeing this freak about to do me in just pisses me off. “I should’ve put a bullet in your brain when I had the chance. But I didn’t. You know why?”

  “We don’t care,” Bud says. “Get on with it, Frogman! You’ve been waiting for this moment for days. It’s not often food falls into your lap like this. Preem-o food.” He smiles, giving the ‘OK’ symbol with his fingers.

  But this isn’t a coincidence. Froggy knew where we were going, knew I was after Doctor Klein. I really should’ve killed him. I just thought he’d never have the balls to face me again.

  Boy, was I wrong and now it’s going to cost me my…balls.

  Froggy looks like he wants to know why I gave him a chance. How do I know this? Well, he’s not carving a meaty piece off of my thigh.

  “Do you want to know?” I repeat.

  Steph watches me, the thermometer still in her mouth like a lollipop.

  “It don’t matter,” Froggy says. “I’m gonna kill ya and eat ya anyway. I’m gonna get you back for what you did to my family and friends, for what you did to Frog Mom. I was gonna give her my babies and we was gonna repopulate the world and you killed her.”

  I can’t recall if I actually pulled the trigger on her. It might’ve been Abby. I guess that’s a bad thing that I can’t remember anymore. But…kill or be killed. And babies?

  “I didn’t kill you because I’m not a monster. You understand that, right?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer, but he lowers the knife.

  “Aw, c’mon, Frog Man,” Danny says. “He’s trying to get in your head.”

  No. I’m trying to buy more time. For what? I don’t know. When faced with death, I think we try to hold on to life as long as possible. It’s human. These people aren’t human. I have to distinguish myself from them somehow.

  “Keep going,” Froggy says, his jaw flexing, eyes piercing black.

  “I killed your family because they were trying to kill mine. Put yourself in my shoes, what would you have done? I’m sure your choice of eating human flesh is your brain telling you you need to survive. It may be weird, a little abnormal, but it’s basic human instinct…for you guys, I guess. That’s all I was doing back on the highway. I was trying to survive. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t.”

  “I survived,” Froggy says.

  “Because I let you.”

  Steph removes the thermometer from her mouth. There is deep, red blood on the pale flesh of the hand she holds it in. “Get on with it, Froggy, or I will,” she says.

  Her voice startles him. I see him jump slightly, and he raises the knife again.

  “Wait!” I say. My life force feels like it’s draining from the hole in my leg. I’m starting to get lightheaded again. “I killed them because I’m trying to save the world. Don’t you understand? Don’t you all understand?” I say. I’m really grasping at straws now. And from the corner of my eye, I see blood pooling and falling off the table. The steady drip-drip like rainwater against a windowpane. I seem to have their attention. “The zombies,” I say, “I’m here, in D.C. because I’m trying to help get rid of them.”

  Danny never struck me as a person of low intelligence, a man of sick habits such as eating human flesh, but never a man who was stupid. He eyes me with interest. “There’s too many. No way you can get rid of all of them.”

  “There’s a man I was following,” I say.

  “Bullshit. You came with the Wranglers,” Froggy says. “You came with them and you only came for supplies.”

  “They came for supplies. I promised to help,” I say, “if they promised to help me find the doctor.”

  “Doctor?” Danny says, furrowing his brow. “Steph, you don’t think?”

  She’s grinning now. Outside of the glass building, the sun is on its way down. It’ll be dark in less than two hours, I reckon. Either that, or it’s going to storm. And I don’t know which one is worse.

  “You saw him?” I ask.

  Oh God please don’t be in their stomachs please don’t be eaten Doc

  “I think so,” Danny says. “But he’s no doctor I’ve ever seen.”

  “He outran us,” Steph says. “We almost had him, though.”

  “Outsmarted us,” Danny says. He digs into his back pocket and pulls out an ID badge and shows it to me. The laminated badge says EDEN AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL in big, bold letters. Below it is a photograph of a mousy-looking man with a thick, graying handlebar mustache. His face is ruddy. Skin hangs below his chin. He is wearing a lab coat and smiling uneasily. I reckon everyone smiled uneasily in Eden, but this does not look like a man who could outsmart or outrun anyone. It definitely doesn’t look like a man who could survive in a wasteland such as the eastern coast of the United States. “Yeah,” Danny says, “he probably didn’t get far. I’d bet my life that his bones are scattered across Pennsylvania Avenue unless the rain already washed them down the gutter.”

  “Suffice to say,” Bud says, “this world ain’t gonna be saved anytime soon. Might as well embrace it, right, Frog Man?”

  Froggy nods fast. “I win,” he whispers.

  No, never, I think. Never.

  Steph titters, the thermometer back in her mouth. She looks like the type of woman who always has to have something in her mouth.

  Froggy bends over me. With his left hand, he lifts up my shirt. He runs the knife down my rib cage, which is now protruding from my flesh more prominently than it was before the world ended. It makes a sound like fingers brushing wooden blinds, slightly xylophonic. The blade is freezing cold, but I feel sweat running down the sides of
my face. I try not to whimper. I don’t want to seem weak, but this fucking sucks. Plain and simple.

  “You shoulda kilt me,” Froggy says. “But I ain’t gonna make that same mistake. I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna enjoy every inch of you, Jack Jupiter. I’m gonna make a necklace out of your bones. Then, I’m gonna gather up my new friends and we’re gonna go invade the village you went off to. And we’re gonna string up that stupid, old nigger woman who shits out of her mouth with all that religious crap. I’m gonna find that pretty blonde bitch with the nice tits and pass her around and gut her when I’m all done. The other nigger — the big, dumb one — we’ll just shoot in the face because I don’t like dark meat. Never have. Never will.”

  The others are looking at him with uneasy smiles.

  I’m flexing every last muscle in my body, trying to get out of these straps, knowing it’s pointless and I’m not going anywhere. I should’ve killed him a long time ago. This is what I get for being the ‘good guy’ and letting him walk. The son of a bitch. The first chance I get, I’m ripping out this bastard’s throat, throwing him to the zombies and laughing as they rip him open. I’m —

  The blade pokes my flesh. I’m gritting my teeth so hard they are just few more pounds of pressure away from turning to bone dust. The others crowd around me, their eyes big and wide, craving the sight of more blood. Drifting in through the cracks in the greenhouse’s windows is the scent of rotten air and the low groans of zombies ambling about, looking for their next meal, clueless that a buffet is awaiting them on top of a building right next door. I feel the warm liquid drip down the sides of my stomach. I groan, seconds away from passing out.

  “Start with the balls, Frog Man!” Steph says. She puts the thermometer back in her mouth. I’m dimly aware that the temperature gauge has moved a whole lot since the stake was inside of my leg. My blood’s been cold a long time.

  “All right, all right,” Froggy says. “Hold his leg down.”

  Bud comes around the table while Froggy unstraps my leg. My balls have crawled up inside of my stomach. If they rip open my pants, they’re going to see a whole lot of nothing. Bud grabs my leg, right where the bloody hole is in my upper thigh. I scream out as white-hot pain blurs my vision. There goes all chances of fighting back. I feel paralyzed, unable to move or kick my way free.

  Froggy fumbles at my fly like a drunk, the blade all too close to my manhood. But I won’t beg him to stop, I’ll look him straight in the eyes as he cuts me up and eats me. They’ll not get the satisfaction.

  I hear my zipper going down, feel rough, cold hands pressing up against my skin. Laughter. Pain in my leg. Bright eyes staring at me in anticipation.

  Now, I’m basically naked and my balls haven’t gone into hiding like they were supposed to. Steph chuckles again, looking at me with an amused expression on her face. She takes the meat thermometer, and for a split second, my mind explodes with phantom pain because I think she’s going to shish kebab my junk. Instead, she just holds the thermometer up next to my downstairs area and laughs. “Not bad,” she says. “A bigger meal than I expected.”

  “Shut up,” Danny says. “It’s not whore-time, it’s dinnertime.”

  The blade presses up against my testicles. I’m shaking now, trying to collapse inwardly on myself, trying to save everything down there.

  Please, anywhere besides that, I almost say, but bite my tongue.

  The world is going gray. Outside of the windows are purple thunderheads masked by overcast. It’s going to rain. I’m going to die.

  No.

  At the first poke, the first burning sensation of pain, I kick my leg. Froggy jumps back with the motion and as he does I feel fire. He wasn’t careful. Not that I think he wanted to be or anything and the blade slices the inside of my thigh. Blood trickles from the wound, burning.

  Bud is a big man, but he’s no match for the, now half-hearted, kick. When one’s balls are literally on the line, one can muster up a lot of strength.

  “Hold him! Hold him!” Froggy shouts. He bares his teeth. I see a drop of blood on the edge of the steak knife.

  Danny is laughing. “This your first feast?” he asks. “Jesus!”

  Froggy doesn’t answer. He looks pissed. As soon as he gets close enough, I kick out again, missing his chin by centimeters. He doesn’t flinch. Bud tries to get ahold of me. Things aren’t going well for him. He ends up pressing his big gut on my leg, to quell my kicks.

  “He’s got a lot of fight,” Steph says. “I like that.” She puts the thermometer back in her mouth.

  “Fuck you,” I say.

  She titters. “You wish.”

  “Got him?” Froggy asks Bud.

  Bud nods.

  The blade snakes its way back below the belt. It’s not touching me, but my flesh is crawling, trying to run straight off the bone and get as far away from the sharp point as possible. I stop fighting. Not because I’m giving up but because I’m tired and Bud weighs close to three-hundred pounds. I’m content with passing out, now. Maybe then there won’t be any pain. I close my eyes, feeling a tear squeezing out between my lids then running down my face.

  They’re laughing and taking their time. Demented foreplay.

  And someone whistles. Loud. The blade’s coldness leaves my skin.

  “What was that?” Danny asks.

  I open my eyes.

  43

  All of their heads turn toward the direction of the sound, my eyes with them. Through the murky glass, I see a figure on the building opposite. It’s higher and next to it is the building Billy was pushed from. So, I’m automatically filled with a sense of dread.

  “Who’s that?” Danny says. He turns to Bud. “I told you to have them guard the lobby, not the building.”

  Bud cocks his head. “I told them to stay put. Let me go check.” He gets off my leg and just when I’m about to kick, he sticks a finger on the bloody hole in my thigh. I howl in pain. My body feels like it’s shutting down, overheating, overdrive, blown engine. My vision blacks out momentarily. He removes his sausage finger and my vision comes back. I try to move my leg much to the wound’s protest but can’t. Great. I’m strapped in again. Buckle up, keep your hands and feet inside the cart at all times, and most of all, enjoy Hell’s rollercoaster!

  The whistle sounds once more. It’s high, shrill, almost shrieking. But I’m not imagining it.

  Steph puts the thermometer back in her mouth, sucks on it nervously. She was definitely a smoker, I guarantee it.

  “Are they — are they waving?” Danny asks.

  “Yeah, they are,” Froggy answers.

  Bud crosses the room toward the door and opens it.

  I turn my eyes toward the silhouetted shadow. Yes, the person is waving. It just keeps getting weirder and —

  “Gun!” Danny shouts. “Get down!” He drops to the floor, sending up crinkled, dead leaves. Froggy drops, too. I hear the the blade clatter off the table and land in dusty soil.

  The thunderheads burst, except they don’t. The flash of lightning comes from the muzzle. I don’t even have time to close my eyes. The murky glass shatters. The sound is head-splitting. Steph jerks back. The damn thermometer is still in her mouth. Her hands shoot to her midsection. A spray of red goes out of her back, misting my bare feet in warmth. Now, I’m squirming again, trying to get free.

  Gunshots. That was a gunshot and I’m a sitting duck, probably trapped in the middle of a war. I’m a casualty about to be crushed under the debris of a bombed building. The other guys don’t care about us civilians. They only care about winning.

  Steph turns toward me. The front of her torso is drenched in blood. Both hands clamp the smoking bullet hole, white-knuckled. It’s as if she could squeeze the wound shut and it’ll go away. Her lips are puckered and between them is the thermometer. Eyes wide, bloodshot. She falls forward, dead or pretty damn close to it.

  Timber!

  Her head hits the edge of the table, half a foot away from my own face. When she hits, her
neck snaps backward. I’m reminded of the Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots I had many years ago, or even Pez Dispensers. There’s a sickening rip, like the tearing of wet fabric as she hits. Another spray of blood. A peak of white bone on the bridge of her nose. The thermometer has gone through the roof of her mouth and out of her face, right between the eyes. She is frozen there on the edge of the table, the gray point sticking out like a blemish, red blood rivulets running from beneath her eyes like tears. Danny is screaming.

  “Steph! Steph!”

  Another whistle, then carried on the wind — deep, rumbling laughs. I look back toward the silhouette. I can see him now without the glass. It’s Jacob. Holy shit, it’s Jacob. He survived.

  He throws me a salute, and takes aim with his rifle again, squinting one eye and crouching.

  Danny crawls up from his prone position and takes Steph’s head in his hands. He shudders, but he doesn’t sob.

  Another shot sounds. A crack of thunder. Danny convulses as the bullet takes him in the midsection. He drops from the table, still holding his sister. I hear a rattle from his throat, see a spurt of red from his mouth. He’s dead.

  Thank God I’m being saved, but I’m still strapped to the table, still a sitting duck, and Jacob isn’t going to do much for me if the dead start flooding in.

  “Stop!” Froggy shouts.

  Fuck.

  I feel his presence. He is below me, but his hand is above my middle and in it, is the big steak knife. “Put your weapon down, pal! Or I’m gonna pop Jack Jupiter like a fuckin balloon!”

  I look toward Jacob. He pulls his head away from the scope, then starts to lower his weapon. “Okay!” he shouts back.

  No, not okay. Jacob, what are you doing?

  “Guess you’re not worth it, Jupiter,” Froggy whispers to me.

  A muffled popping from below us creeps under the door. It sounds like muted fireworks and screaming. But these aren’t screams of joy. No, these are screams of pain and agony. Froggy’s head turns toward the sound. So do my eyes.

  “No! No!” someone screams. I think it’s Bud, but I can’t tell for sure.