Nights of the Living Dead

by Jonathan Maberry

  None did, apparently. The snickering stopped.

  Garrett lowered his rifle. His gaze shifted to Pam’s trailer. Giving us ghouls a wide berth, he approached it, climbed the cinder block steps, and looked inside. He remained there for a moment, muttering something under his breath I couldn’t make out. As he turned and came back down the steps his grin returned.

  “Shitass sure wouldn’t have wanted the bitch now,” he said with a shrug.

  The bastard. For him it wasn’t even about having Pam anymore. It was just about making sure I couldn’t have her either.

  He looked my way again. Lord knows how, but I kept my cool, staring into space, drooling. The other ghouls who were still upright were getting restless and beginning to close in around the deputies.

  One of them said to Garrett, “The paddy wagon’s already full, boss. It won’t hold all these here.”

  “Finish ’em off,” Garrett ordered.

  When I heard the click of cocking triggers all around, my gut clenched. But before anyone fired, Garrett pointed me out.

  “All except for him. We’re taking him along with us.”

  “Why bother?” asked the deputy.

  Beneath his hat brim, Garrett’s smirk stretched into a wide smile. “’Cause I want my trophy.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t an actual paddy wagon, only an old Chevy flatbed with a high steel railing. There were already a good thirty ghouls squirming around in there when two of the deputies grabbed me by the seat of my Levis and tossed me onto the pile.

  The ghouls stunk something fierce. Most were pretty docile, but a few—Mayor Felder and Reverend Pruitt in particular—were downright ornery, snapping their jaws at anything that moved. Hunger pangs, I figured.

  Blaring out of the truck’s radio was a recorded message running on a loop, ordering anyone seeking refuge to report to the Slocum spread. We were headed west on Route 6, so I figured that’s where Garrett and his cronies were taking us.

  Garrett was riding shotgun in the truck’s cab along with three deputies. Three more sat on the roof, rifles across their laps, spittin’ into their dip cups, keeping an eye on us ghouls.

  About all I could do was stare blankly into space and work at holding down Tidwell Sweeny’s spleen. One of the ghouls had discarded a severed foot, which I claimed, occasionally gnawing on the pinky toe to look busy.

  I guess I should fill you in on what happened last night and how I came to be in this fix.

  I was only a few hours back on U.S. soil. The sun was just going down as I sped across the county line, heading for Pam’s place, a bottle of Boone’s Farm and a bunch of flowers in the passenger seat. I couldn’t get to her fast enough.

  But about a mile shy of the trailer park, a squad car roared up behind me, lights flashing.

  It was Garrett. Like he’d been on the lookout for me. Probably paid the guy at the garage where I’d stored my Ford dually to notify him as soon I got back in town, ’cause he knew that as soon as I’d reunited with Pam, I’d be coming for his ass.

  This deal with me and Pam and Garrett started back in high school. Bottom line, Pam chose me over him, and Garrett never got over it.

  After graduation, I got drafted; Garrett, rather conveniently, got a 4F deferment.

  Fallen arches, my ass.

  Anyway, no sooner had I gone to war, Garrett moved in on Pam. Or tried to. She fought off his advances. Then when he started knocking her around, she fought for real. She’d always been a fighter; it was one of the reasons I loved her.

  But sometimes, he got in a good pop. She mailed me pictures of bruises and black eyes. Made my blood boil, but being stuck in Nam there was nothing I could do.

  Let’s just say it was a long-ass tour of duty for me, and that’s before you factor in little details like killing the enemy and surviving.

  So, last night at dusk, Garrett’s stopped me for speeding, which I wasn’t. Then he pulls a half dozen unpaid parking tickets out of his ass, all of them trumped up. A quick swing of his billy club into my rear taillight, and boom, he’s got me for driving an unsafe vehicle.

  Looking back, I reckon I was already on my way to jail by this point … even before I told him to go fuck himself.

  When we got to the sheriff’s office, he didn’t even allow me my one phone call, which would have been to Pam to tell her to hold off putting the corn bread in.

  Turned out I never actually made it to a jail cell. Garrett was still writing me up and I was still cussing him from the chair beside his desk when all of a sudden Tina Gladwell’s Dodge Dart came crashing through the south wall of the building, plowing through cubicles in an explosion of shattered wood and glass.

  That alone was enough to shift attention away from the future I had planned for Garrett’s manhood, but when Tina’s pigtailed four-year-old daughter Milly came tumbling out of the broken windshield gnawing hungrily at her mother’s severed arm, well, all hell broke loose inside the station house.

  In the confusion, I managed to escape, but then spent the next twenty-four hours dodging ghouls, fires, car wrecks, panicked citizens, and police roadblocks, still with only one thing on my mind: getting to Pam.

  But, thanks to Garrett, I’d got there too late. I couldn’t save Pam, but I sure as hell was gonna avenge her. As that makeshift paddy wagon was steered off pavement and onto dirt, I made a vow to see him dead. He needed killin’ and needed it bad.

  The Slocum property was a scene of total chaos. Emergency vehicles, triage tents, frantic citizens searching for loved ones, public officials with bullhorns, shouting for calm and control when … Who the fuck were they kiddin’?

  But, nearer to where they stopped the paddy wagon, it was practically a carnival.

  Failed cattlemen and failed pool hustlers, Lenny and Delroy Slocum were half brothers (same mama) who now ran a deer lease and taxidermy outfit on the family’s four hundred acres of cracked dirt and scrub brush. To my knowledge no one had ever actually killed a deer on the lease—or seen one for that matter—but from what I eventually gathered, it was open season on the lease and business was booming … because tonight it wasn’t deer in crosshairs; it was ghouls.

  Leave it to the sorry Slocum brothers to turn a profit out of an apocalypse.

  Floodlights run by coughing portable generators shone down on a dump truck that was tipping some fifty flesh eaters into a corral where twice again that many were shuffling around.

  One of them was Flint Hatfield, a tight-fisted loan officer at the First National who always wore a silk hanky in the pocket of his sport coat, which now had a blood-drenched clavicle poking out of it. ’Bout the time I recognized him, a shot rang out and his bald head split open like an overripe pumpkin.

  Rousing applause rose from the crowd that surrounded the corral—your basic bikers, truckers, and burnouts, standing three-deep against the split rail, drinking beer and placing bets.

  From the deer blind above the corral came the amplified voice of Delroy Slocum. “Hell of a shot, there, Bobby Ray, hell of a shot. Would’ve liked to plug ole Flint Hatfield myself,” he added. “After all, the limp-dick did work in foreclosures!”

  Laughter all around.

  “We appreciate yer bidness, Bobby Ray,” added Lenny Slocum, taking the bullhorn from his brother. “And remember, that single-shot kill wins you ten percent off the optional taxidermy package.”

  Delroy reclaimed the bullhorn. “All right, who’s next? Step right up! Three shots, fifty dollars! Bag the ghoul of your choice, then have it stuffed to put in your den.”

  Above the whoops and hollers, I heard Garrett say to his deputies, “Corral’s too crowded. We’ll dump this last bunch here soon as the herd’s been thinned out some.”

  The deputies nodded and lit smokes. One of them asked, “Them Slocums are gonna give us our cut, right?”

  “Bet your ass they’re gonna.” Garrett smiled. “And I’m gonna get that discount on my trophy.”

  As he turned my way, I went back to gnawi
ng on the foot, hoping my eyes still looked vacant and empty, and weren’t revealing my disbelief.

  Suddenly my ears caught the thump of running footfalls approaching the truck. And then a voice that nearly jolted me clean outta my Tony Lamas.

  “Where is Marvin?”

  Pam! My Pam! Alive!

  “I know you’ve seen him, Garrett. Where is he?”

  Crying. Desperate. Panicked, even. But it was definitely Pam, and she was very much alive.

  Both my heartbeat and my breathing went into overdrive. I risked blowing my cover to cut my eyes as far to the left as they would go. There she was, intact, standing face-to-face with Garrett.

  She wore tight frayed jeans, sneakers, and an old flannel button-down, untucked. Her long brown hair was pulled up off her neck with a clip. She looked frantic and scared and beautiful.

  Garrett was as shocked to see her as I was. “Wha—what the hell are—”

  Pam cut off his stammering. “Answer my question, damn you. Where is Marvin?”

  He blinked a few times. “I went to your house. You were … dead.”

  Pam just looked at him, shaking her head, confused. Then, in realization, she covered her face with her hands. When her head came back up, tears were streaming.

  “Oh, Becky Lynn…” she said.

  Suddenly it made sense. Becky Lynn did manicures with Pam over at the CUTEicle. They’re best friends. They’re also the same age and shape, both brunettes. Chew off three limbs and the face of one, and it’d be pretty easy to mistake her for the other. And they’ve always shared clothes, which explained the Skynyrd T-shirt.

  It seemed that Garrett was still trying to sort it all out when Pam wiped her tears with the back of her hand, and pulled herself together. “Somebody said you hauled Marvin off to jail. Where is he, Garrett? What’d you do to him?”

  Garrett finally snapped to. “Nothing he didn’t have comin’.”

  “What’d you do, you bastard?” She started beating on his barrel chest with her small fists.

  I could have married her right there.

  Her name-calling—not to mention the drubbing—pissed Garrett off. He roughly took hold of her wrists.

  I became a coil, prepared to spring.

  Garrett sneered. “Your boyfriend’s dead.”

  “You’re a liar!”

  “Am not!”

  “Liar!”

  “I’m not lying, you crazy bitch, the worthless fucker’s dead!”

  I’d have jumped him right there had Pam not beat me to the punch. Literally. Her left hook landed square on Garrett’s jaw. I’m sure Garrett would have hit her back if by now the commotion hadn’t drawn a crowd.

  He looked around at all those gawkers. The sumbitch was gutless enough to beat up a woman, but not fool enough to do it in public. He turned back to Pam.

  “All right, you don’t believe me?” The crowd gasped as he whipped out his Glock. He marched around to the flatbed’s tailgate and swung it open. Five or six ghouls separated me from him. He fired a bullet through each of their skulls, one right after the other. Then he climbed onto the flatbed and stepped over the fallen bodies to get to me.

  Yanking me up by the hair, he spun me around so Pam could have a good look at my undead self.

  “No!” she screamed. “Oh, god, please no!”

  I don’t know how I managed to stay limp and not reveal the pain I felt over causing her such anguish.

  But Garrett was so lathered, if he’d known I was alive, he’d have killed me instantly. By playing dead, at least I had a slim chance of living. Or so I hoped.

  He chucked me off the flatbed. I hit the dirt like a rag doll. I got to my feet on my own, but made a slow show of it, keeping my movements labored and uncoordinated. Ghoul-like.

  Pam was sobbing and reaching out for me. It took a couple of bull-necked deputies to hold her back.

  The crowd had grown but become quieter. Even the Slocum brothers had stopped their hawking and made their way over.

  Head cocked sideways, one arm dropped, and the other bent awkwardly across my stomach, I pretended to be unaware of all these goings-on. Truth was, I never let Pam out of my sight.

  Garrett jumped off the flatbed and bore down on her. “Look at your precious Marvin now. You wanna snuggle up with that?”

  Through all this, I’d managed to keep a grip on the severed foot. For effect, I now brought it to my mouth and bit a good chunk out of the arch.

  When I did that I noticed a sudden change in Pam, as though a switch had flipped. It was like she had suddenly accepted what she didn’t want to believe.

  In a voice filled with more resolve than sadness, she said to Garrett, “He was ten times the man you’ll ever be.”

  With that, she pulled the pistol from the nearest deputy’s holster and cocked it.

  Holy shit, she’s gonna kill the sumbitch! I thought.

  Till she pointed the goddamn bore straight at my face.

  This deal was about to get mortal.

  Pam can shoot good. Real good. I oughta know; I taught her how. Once saw her shoot a thimble off a fence post from four hundred yards in a high wind. That’s how good she is. So I doubted she’d miss me from twelve feet, give or take.

  Things happened quick then. The bystanders panicked and scattered out of her line of fire. Garrett leaned over Pam and growled, “Go ahead … finish him.”

  Her intention was clear: the mercy kill. The same thing I’d wanted for the ghoul I’d mistaken for her back in the trailer house.

  But at the moment, it wasn’t mercy I was needin’.

  Desperate, I opened my mouth to holler out, but before I could even make a sound, Pam shot me in the head.

  * * *

  I have no recollection of blacking out, but I reckon it’s just as well I did, because when I woke up, I was at the bottom of a pile of mostly headless torsos and severed appendages, all dripping red and reeking to high heaven. I must’ve been assumed dead and lumped in with the rest.

  I had a mouthful of jellified blood. My face hurt like holy hell. A tentative probe of my tongue revealed that Pam’s shot had passed straight through my left cheek without killing me or even nicking a single tooth. A goddamn miracle if ever there was one.

  It was dark beneath that mass of gore, but there was just enough hazy moonlight coming through the window for me to make out all the glassy eyes looking down on me—the lifeless gazes of stuffed bucks, birds, badgers, and bass. The poor suckers were mounted on every inch of wall space.

  I was inside the Slocums’ taxidermy shack. Before I had time to chew over what that might mean to my immediate future, the door creaked open.

  “Marvin?”

  It was Pam’s voice, whispering my name.

  “Marvin? Where’re you at?”

  I tried to speak, but all that came out were gurgly sounds.

  “Oh, baby!” Pam rushed to the heap of decaying flesh pinning me down and furiously began tossing aside the spare parts.

  When I was free and she managed to pull me upright, I took her in my arms and squeezed her tight. For a few sweet moments all I could do was hold her face between my hands and look at her to insure that she was real … that we were together at last and still alive.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Got here as quick as I could. Had to wait till things quieted down, you know.”

  I swallowed some of that congealed crud in my mouth. “How … how long was I out? What time is it?”

  “A little after midnight.”

  I smiled as best I could with a hole in one cheek. “I’m just glad your shot was off, honey.”

  “Off, hell! I had plenty of time to aim ’cause you took so damn long to open your mouth. Thought you never would.”

  Smart girl. She’d waited for me to try and call out before she fired, creating a clear target into my gaping mouth. To the witnesses, it had looked like a prize-worthy kill shot. For me, it had meant deliverance.

  Of course, it was much later that I pieced al
l this together. At that moment, my mind was still in a swirling fog.

  “But how did you know I was still … me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Because, sweetie, you bite into a human foot the same girlie way you eat corn on the cob … pinkies raised.”

  She’d been ribbing me about that for years. Never imagined that one day it would be the giveaway that saved my life.

  “We have to go.” She pushed me toward the door. “My car’s outside, gassed up, with the engine running.”

  We slipped out and headed toward the rear of the shack. The floodlights had been turned off, so we had darkness on our side.

  But it didn’t matter anyhow, ’cause the ranch was deserted now. Those seeking safety from the ghouls had retreated to the tent city that had sprung up on the other side of the main road.

  We were only steps away from Pam’s idling Corvair when headlight beams drew my attention. Another paddy wagon was pulling onto the Slocums’ place, crammed axle-to-axle with a fresh crop of flesh eaters. Even from that distance, I could hear their hungry growling.

  Pam must’ve heard ’em, too. She tugged me toward that gassed-up Corvair. “Come on, darlin’, we gotta go while we got the chance.”

  She was right. ’Course she was. We needed to get gone. But damn my hide if I didn’t stop short.

  “Hold up, baby. I got an idea.”

  * * *

  It was close to 2:00 a.m. when I busted down the door of Garrett’s one-room shithole just east of the lake, catching him reclined in his La-Z-Boy, where he’d passed out drunk, still in uniform, a twelve-gauge across his lap, a Penthouse splayed over his chest.

  Once his eyes focused on me, I said, “Time for you to die.”

  He fumbled for the shotgun, but I drove the toe of my boot up hard under his chin. He was still spitting out teeth as I cuffed his wrists behind the recliner with his own handcuffs.

  When I came around to face him, he looked equal parts shocked, scared, and pissed.

  “Whatha hell’s zis?” he mumbled through bloody gums. “You were dead, sure’s shit!”

  “No, Garrett, I’m not dead. Not undead, neither. I’m alive and well.” I brought myself eye level and smiled wide enough to stretch the bullet hole in my cheek. “But you’re fucked.”