Rico stepped over slowly, his eyes squinting as he studied Benny’s head. He reached out tentatively. “Holy shit, Benny. You have a bullet stuck in your forehead. It’s like…sticking out a little.”
“It fucking hurts,” Benny said, fingering the protruding bullet. “Is it bleeding?”
“No. It’s just sticking there like it’s stuck in your skull bone or something. You got a metal plate there?”
“No.”
“Then you got one hard head, man. A fucking bulletproof head.” Rico grinned. “Do you have any idea how valuable that is in our line of work?”
“I’ll have to worry about getting this out later,” Benny said, looking back at the frozen doubles. “We better get out of here. If you weren’t with me, I’d think I was going insane.”
Rico was running his hand over the hard surface of his twin’s face. “Holy shit. It gives me a headache just to look at this. What the hell is going on? We got a guy in the trunk that’s perfectly alive despite the fact that he’s been shot in the head and drowned. We got Timmy and Francis fighting zombies.” He looked over at the cop still floating above the pavement, his eyes wide with the pain and the shock of the bullet tearing through his throat. “We got that poor bastard there.”
“And we got these…these…things,” Benny said, eyeing the doubles with revulsion.
Grundy began beating his head against the inside of the trunk.
“Do you think that this is us from the future?” Benny asked.
“Huh?”
“Well, they were stopped by a cop. They got a Grundy in the trunk. It seems like it’s us five minutes into the future.”
Rico’s face turned white. “Stop talking like that, Benny. You’re freaking me out. It’s like them old Twilight Zone shows. Besides, you don’t know that they got a Grundy in the trunk.”
“Want to check?”
“Fuck that. One Grundy is enough. Lets get the hell out of here before another car comes along and sees some of this weird shit.”
“Have you noticed we haven’t seen any other cars? Its like we been dropped into another dimension or some shit like that.”
“I told you to stop talking like that. You’re giving me the chills here. Let’s just get up there to Lime’s place, help Timmy out, and hope this shit goes back to normal by sunrise.”
Chapter 9: More Plentiful Than The Cute Little Bunnies
The last words Tim-Two ever spoke were: “The hell with that bloody organ music in the basement. Let’s go check on that crazy bitch upstairs.”
Then a dagger sprouted from the center of his throat, a stream of blood squirting into the air. He fell backwards, landing heavily, blood pouring from the wound.
Francis fell to one knee and began firing both his pistols at the madwoman at the top of the stairs, his crooked teeth clamped together like a vise. Tim-One dropped to the floor and also opened fire, his screaming nearly drowned out by his barking pistols.
Lime’s mistress danced to the spastic boogie beat of bullets tearing through her body as Tim and Francis emptied their pistols furiously.
As the last sounds of the gunfire echoed through the house, she stood still for a second, staring at them with dumb shock, blood spitting from her body as if she were a human fountain. In her hand dangled another throwing knife. As it slipped from her hand, she opened her bloody mouth and tried to utter a stifled cry before falling forward and pitching down the stairs.
“We better go down in the basement, Timmy,” Francis said, expertly reloading his guns before Lime’s mistress even reached the foot of the stairs. “It’s more easily defended, and we can check out that organ music.”
Tim stood dazed. The right side of his face was splashed with the blood of his double. “How the hell do you just get right down to business? Your partner is lying there dead and the world is falling apart around your fucking ears. How can you stay so calm? I actually cried when you died, you bastard.”Francis smiled eerily, his crooked teeth gleaming in the light. “You’re my partner, Timmy. And you forget, I’ve been here awhile. This shit ain’t new to me. And I didn’t even cry when my dear mum died.”
“Are you going to act like that if I get shot?”
“I will if you have a replacement about, my friend. Hell, I already saw at least eight of you get killed. You’re more plentiful than the cute little bunnies hoppin’ about a pretty meadow, you understand?”
The two just looked at each other a moment, the organ music playing beneath their feet. Tim shook his head as Francis continued to smile. Then they both burst into laughter.
“We’re going insane, Francis,” Tim said, staring down into the dead eyes of his own double. “I bet this shit isn’t so funny to the normal man.”
Francis snickered. “Well, there’s probably an earlier version of yourself runnin’ about, Timmy. Probably shit scared and crying in some corner. He probably don’t think this stuff is so funny.”
Tim sighed. “More like my future self. Lets go check out who the hell is playing that bloody organ. Benny will be here in about thirty minutes. He probably isn’t going to make it through those zombies outside, though.”
Chapter 10: The Army Of The Undead
Screaming dementedly, Benny jammed his foot down on the accelerator in defiance of the woman’s corpse that had plastered itself on the car’s windshield. Rico had dived into the backseat where he now crouched, gun drawn—a shrill shriek of lunatic fear firing from his mouth like an out of control rocket.
A nest of beetles fell from the corpse’s left eye and onto the cracked windshield. Tufts of blonde hair jutted from its skull like oily, dirty ropes. Its right eye bulged grotesquely, as if some large insect was pushing it from behind. The corpse gnashed furiously as it smashed itself against the glass, smearing it with dirt and reddish brown slime. Spiderwebs of cracked glass snaked across the windshield as it threatened to cave in.
From the backseat, Rico began firing at the corpse on the windshield, further weakening the glass. The windshield caved in and the corpse threatened to crawl in after it, but a sudden bump dislodged it and it fell off the hood and was run over by the back wheels.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” Rico howled from the backseat.
“We gotta help Timmy and Francis, you cowardly fuck!” Benny yelled, using his gun to clear away some broken glass that obscured his vision.
The Lime residence could be seen glowing off in the distance like a fairy tale monster, its windows basked in bright gold. The full moon shone down on the hundreds of corpses as they circled around the house, dotting the rolling hill on the horizon. Everywhere they looked, they could see a running or walking zombie.
“Shit!” Benny screamed, spittle flying from his lips. The glass from the windshield had sliced his face in a couple of spots and lines of blood fell down his face like tears. The bullet embedded halfway in his skull stuck out like a bizarre button. Grundy started howling madly from the trunk, again seeming to sense the army of the undead. “They are fucking everywhere!”
“Call Timmy,” Rico said from the backseat.
“What? And don’t think I appreciate you deserting me to the backseat like that either, you cowardly bitch.”
“The cellular phone, dumbfuck. Call Tim. Tell him we’re out here.”
Benny picked up the cellular and hit redial, stopping the car momentarily. He heard Tim pick it up on the third ring. In the background was strange organ music.
“Tim here.”
“We’re outside, Timmy,” Benny said. “These corpses are everywhere. What should we do?”
“You can see the house from where you are?”
“I just said that, Timmy. You going to try and get to us, or what? We can try and cover you, or maybe we can distract them.”
Tim giggled insanely. “Cover us? Benny, there must be hundreds of those things out there. You aren’t going to be able to cover shit.”
“What the hell is going on, Timmy?”
“Well, from what we c
an make out, my friend, the total and utter fucking breakdown of any semblance of reality. Time lines have snapped off. We got doubles running around here like they are flying off some kind of factory line. Hoofed bastards stirring things up. The Scary Bitch, Willis Mayhue—things are pretty strange. Reality has gone nuclear.”
“Doubles?”
“Alternate versions of ourselves,” Tim explained in a serenely lunatic calm voice. “They are everywhere. I don’t even know what version of myself I am anymore.”
Benny thought he heard Francis in the background say the word ‘six.’ “Oh them,” he answered. “We saw some of them, too. They killed a cop.”
“Benny, I suggest you turn around and get the hell out of here. It doesn’t seem like there is anything you can do for us.”
“Timmy, you know I can’t do that,” Benny said. “You saved my brother’s life. I told you I was in your debt.”
Tim groaned into his ear. “Benny, you are just going to get yourself killed. Not that it matters anymore, I suppose. You probably have a double floating around here someplace, anyway.” There was a long pause. “Yes, I was right. It seems your double is here now.”
In the background Benny heard someone talking, but he wasn’t sure if it was his own voice. It was at that moment that his mind, like the delicate bones of a baby bird, snapped. “Timmy, did you say my double is there?”
“Yes, Benny, I did. Hold on, he wants to talk to you.”
“Turn around!” A voice shouted at Benny. “ For the love of fucking God turn the hell around and go back! It wasn’t worth it, believe me!” The voice sounded funny, but Benny recognized it as his own.
“Eat shit,” Benny said back to his twin. He tossed the cell phone out the window and hit the gas. “I’m coming in. You best fasten your seatbelt, Rico.”
The Mercedes hurtled forward as the army of the undead turned to face them, the grass shooting out from the back of the tires as they ran off the road. Grundy continued to beat his head inside the trunk of the car as they gained speed, his howling cries filling the air like a twisted movie soundtrack.
Rico was sobbing as they drew nearer to the wall of zombies. The windows of the Lime residence beckoned to them like a safe port in a raging sea of undead.
Benny plowed into the wall of milling undead in a wet collision of bones, severed limbs, and spraying blood. He cackled madly, howling like a football fan.
The car came to a jarring halt.
Rico had never left the backseat, nor had he put on a seatbelt. As a result, he went flying through the broken windshield with an empty scream, his body landing heavily in the arms of the ravenous zombies.
Grundy’s corpse escaped from the popped trunk and scrambled towards Rico, throwing himself upon him, his teeth chewing into Rico’s flesh with the ferocity of a shark.
Benny used the momentary distraction to get the hell out, leaving the car and running for the front porch. A zombie rushed him and he nearly lost his balance as he emptied his gun into its face. The zombie fell backwards and lay still, its mouth opening and closing rapidly. Benny rushed toward the front door, shrieking when he found it locked.
The last thing Benny saw as he jumped through a window and into the Lime residence was his former partner being pulled apart like a butchered animal carcass.
Chapter 11: The Dancing Francis
“My theory is that God himself has rolled some sort of LSD-laced joint and is sitting up there laughing his ass off,” Tim said, sitting in a pew of the underground church, watching one of his own doubles playing a wicked version of Proud Mary on the organ.
“Well, you figure if anyone can roll a masterpiece of a doobie—it’s God himself,” Francis said, nodding somberly. “That’s the kind of doobie that would have one singing ‘All You Need is Love’ in that cartoon Yellow Submarine.”
“I was scared fucking witless of the Blue Meanie when I was kid. I remember looking at him and wanting to weep.”
“Yep and that thing with a big long vacuum for a nose—sucking up reality.”
“And that whole Eleanor Rigby part. Scary.”
“Very.”
They watched a Francis-double dancing on top of the organ, kicking and shuffling its way through an ungraceful jig. Every chorus the Francis-double would shout “Rolling!” in its deep baritone voice. Every once in awhile, he would cross his hands over his chest and do a dance that to Tim’s enjoyment, looked Russian.
It was a small church with six rows of pews and a very low ceiling. Candlelight flickered against the windowless walls eerily. There were no statues or crosses, just a pulpit, a piano and rows of candles. A neon pentagram was painted into the floor, a remnant of Lime’s dabbling with demonic realities.
“Even scarier is that I’m starting to enjoy it too,” Francis said, watching his portly double dance with amusement.
“That double is going to get skinny from all that dancing. He’s going to make you jealous.”
“Piss off, Timmy.”
Two coffins rested near the pulpit, the bodies of Tim and Francis lying within. Every once in awhile, Francis’ double would leap down from the organ and run around the coffin repeatedly shouting “Rollin’!” usually during the “These wheels keep on turnin’’’ part.
Nearby, Benny was sprawled on his back on a pew, staring at the ceiling overhead. “Who the fuck keeps a church in a basement?”
“Apparently Lime,” Tim answered. “We’ve even ventured a theory, Francis and I, that Lime is the one responsible for this little breakdown in reality. He let The Bastard into our puny universe.”
“Yes,” Francis chimed in. “Praying to evil gods, and whatnot. Who knows what the hell The Bastard has unleashed on us.”
“Right,” Tim said, smiling deliriously. “And in the middle of all this, is us, gloriously not giving a damn anymore.”
Benny frowned and sat up. “What brought you to this glorious conclusion?”
Tim snickered. “It is only when one becomes insane that genius creeps into the mind. This is our theory. We made it the hell up, of course, but it seems to make sense.”
Benny looked over at the doubles. “And what’s the deal with the dancing Francis over there?”
“Well, apparently, that’s us in like a month from what I gather,” Tim said. “They’ve lost their minds. They’re throwing a funeral for their own doubles.”
“Our own doubles,” Francis corrected. “And we’ve lost our minds as well. We can’t forget that, Timmy.”
“Looks more like a party,” Benny commented.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Tim said, grinning stupidly. “I guess after your twentieth or so funeral, that’s what you do.” He stared at the bullet protruding from Benny’s head. “I didn’t want to tell you this before because things were mad enough.” He paused dramatically, choosing his words carefully. “Benny, you have a monkey’s penis sticking out of your forehead.”
Francis looked at Benny’s bullet, seeming to notice it for the first time. He smirked, looked back at his dancing double, and began to clap his hands joyously.
“What?” Benny asked, following Tim’s eyes and then touching the metal. “I got shot by a cop. It’s a bullet. Fucking thing is stuck there. Can’t get it out.”
Tim studied it with the precision of a man hardened by his reality turning into a bad acid trip. “Hell, Benny, don’t you realize why its stuck there? Its time froze. If I were you, I’d be one nervous bloke.”
“Time froze?” Benny asked, his face growing whiter by the moment, his eyes looking up comically as if he could see his own forehead. “Do you mean this thing can suddenly go the fuck off?”
“Unfortunately yes, that’s what I mean,” Tim said, eyeing the bullet nervously. “That thing is like a ticking bomb. I definitely don’t want to be standing directly behind you when it lets fly.”
“You’re kidding,” Benny said, his voice nearing a whisper. “Don’t be telling me that. That’s crazy—”
Benny’s head suddenl
y exploded as the bullet unfroze and blasted into his forehead with the sound of a hammer striking a watermelon. Francis was splattered by some brain matter and blood, but just sighed a little and went back to watching his own double jump around.
“Told you,” Tim said, his eyes dancing with madness. He shook his head and began to bob his head up and down to the organ beat.
* * *
Later that night, Tim and Francis stood facing the front door, guns in each hand—wide tooth-revealing smiles plastered on their faces. The moaning voices of the undead could be heard through the windows like the buzzing of locusts.
Tim looked over at his long time partner. “Francis, we’ve known each other since we were lads. I love you, my friend.”
Francis smiled wickedly. “Don’t be getting all gushy on me now, Timmy. Besides, we’re only doubles.”
Tim thought about it for a second before breaking out into laughter.
“Why do we find bad shit funny, Timmy?” Francis asked. “Why do we laugh at the worst that life has to give us? We laugh when we really should cry.”
“Because, Francis,” Tim said calmly, speaking with the tone of a man who has philosophized his place in the cosmos. “It is our only way to get back at God and the universe when terrible things happen. It’s our way of showing that no matter what a higher power does to us, no matter how much shite it sends our way—we laugh in the bloody face of death and destruction. We laugh in the face of it to keep us sane. It is a fuck you blast of laughter to a universe that just won’t flinch. A way of showing our strength.”
“That’s pretty profound, Timmy. Especially for one with such a limited capacity for abstract thought as yourself.”
Tim grinned. “Piss off, Francis.”
Francis just nodded, his own smile sad and nostalgic.
“We ready?” Tim asked, inhaling deeply, his eyes sparkling with lunatic glee.
“Yep,” Francis said.
Tim kicked at the front door, breaking it open with one hit. The door flew against the wall of the porch with a resounding bang, startling the undead that stood in the darkness.
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