by Mark Tufo
Attached to the floor with five large chains was a naked female zombie. There was one chain on each wrist, one around its neck and one each wrapped around its knees. These were then bolted to the floor with large screws. It was chained in the classic doggy position, but the situation was about to get stranger. On the opposite side of the room a man came out of a bathroom fully dressed in a form-fitting cat costume, face make-up and all. He had yet to notice me, so intent was he on his impending conquest. He walked around the zombie alternating between stroking her and slapping her. She moved her head as best she could to get at him but he had placed the chains with strategic precision. I didn’t think this was the first time he’d used this set-up. After his third or fourth time around he stopped behind her. I didn’t need to be the Amazing Kreskin to figure out what was going to happen next.
I fired a round into the ceiling. That got his attention. He spun around almost as fast as the animal he was portraying. He was preparing to pounce on his intruder but the cold black muzzle of a 9-millimeter made him reconsider. He walked over to his stereo system and lowered it somewhat. I tracked him all the way expecting a ruse.
He turned to face me, nervously licking his lips. I wouldn’t have thought it strange if he began to lick the backs of his hands next, this was one twisted person.
“Want some?” he said invitingly, pointing to the zombie.
At first I was too astounded to even consider his request. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What? I’m just having a little fun. I’m not breaking any laws,” he smiled.
“How about rape, false imprisonment, assault, fucken necrophilia.” I’m sure there were half a dozen others but I made my point.
“She’s a fucken zombie, shithead!” he yelled.
“There’s that too. You have to immediately let someone know when a zombie gets in. What if she had bit you?”
“Not a problem.” His grin widened as he went back over to the zombie. He grabbed her head and bent it further back than seemed naturally possible. Her mouth was snapping, trying to get a hold of one or any of his fingers that were cradling her head. She had no teeth. They weren’t just broken out with the butt of a gun or a hammer, they were gone.
“How?” I mouthed. I was feeling sicker by the second.
“I knocked her out,” he said proudly. He saw my incredulous look. “Yeah, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it either. I tried ether first, that almost ended badly for me. Then I just whacked the hell out of the back of her head with a crowbar.”
I wanted to ask why he had ether, but I already knew the answer.
“As soon as I got my little pretty all chained up I took out all her teeth with a pair of pliers.” The sick shit was smiling, realizing the effect this was having on me. “It’s a good thing I got them all out too. There’s been a couple of times when we’ve really been going at it that I kind of lose control, and she’ll get a hold of a forearm or something. She tries like hell to break the surface, she’s a wild one alright,” he said as he affectionately stroked her hair. All the while she kept trying to bite that hand. “So we come back to the original question, want some?”
I was revolted. My mouth hung open and I had let my gun hand fall to my side. Cat man, Fritzy, sick fuck, saw his opening. He sprang like a coiled snake. He was fast, almost unnaturally so, but he had to cover ten feet. All I had to do was raise my hand. I fired two rounds into his stomach just as his hands brushed up against mine. That contact repulsed me. I shuddered from the feel as his hands slid away from mine. The bullets had punched through, gut shot. I should have felt sorry for him. There was no more painful way to die. The zombie started pulling frenetically against her restraints. The smell of his spilling innards was driving her crazy.
“Your suffering is over,” I said as I walked up to her and placed the muzzle of the barrel directly on her forehead. Her head snapped back as I delivered a round deep into her gray matter.
Fritzy was laughing, it was a blood filled sound but it was a laugh nonetheless. “Oh you liked her huh?” he said laughing. “She was so good.” He was fighting through the pain, trying to hold his insides in place. “Umm, that cold pussy. She was so special. The others always lost the will to live after a little while but she was already dead.” He laughed again, and blood spilled from his mouth.
I had to get out of here. My head was starting to spin from the smell of the zombie, the discharges, and the insanity issuing forward from Fritzy. The music, the lights, it was all too much. Vertigo was making my head swim. I fought to find a wall to lean against. My breath was coming out in raggedy gasps and still he laughed. I had my head and shoulder leaning against the wall as I pushed to the stairs and potential freedom from this ‘house of horrors.’
Panic began to well up in Fritzy as he realized I was heading out. “You’re going to get help right?” he pleaded. “You can’t leave me like this,” he cried. Now the idiot was seeing the light. I don’t know if he was repenting or fearful his secret would be exposed. “Fuck you!” he shouted, spittle and blood flying forward. “Talbot!” he yelled. I stopped halfway on the landing, thankful that I had got this far. “Yeah I know who you are, the mighty Talbot. I’m only sad I never got a chance to get a hold of your lovely wife or maybe your dau...”
I shot him in the head. Gouts of bile dispensed forth from my overworked stomach, so much for not leaving any DNA evidence. I staggered up and out of the house. The sun still shone brightly, the weather still felt cold, but I felt so different. This was another stain on my soul. I hope they have some version of soul Tide when you die. I walked through the gate and out onto the back alleyway, my thoughts running rampant. I was trying in vain to steer them anywhere but back to that denizen of death. But like trying not to think of a pink elephant, you get the point. I’m not exactly sure when Bear fell in next to me, probably the moment I left the small carport at the back of Fritzy’s house. All I knew was that my hand on his back was the most comforting feeling I had felt in a longtime. After the nightmare we’d both been through I think we were going to be co-dependent on each other for a while.
CHAPTER 23
Journal Entry - 20
Tracy didn’t say a word when I walked in, my face sheet white, my Glock still out and my hand shaking. But she about had a coronary when my new friend padded in behind me.
Tommy came running from the couch. “BEAR!” he yelled happily as he threw his arms around the dog. I don’t know if he knew the dog, yelled out what he thought it was or was expecting it ala Ryan Seacrest. When the dog started licking Tommy’s face, Tracy visibly relaxed.
I walked upstairs, put my gun away, burned my hands clean under scalding water and laid down on my bed, boots and all. The knock on the door came a lot sooner than I had expected. I got up from the bed and stood at the top of the stairs as Tracy answered the door.
“Hi Jed, want some coffee?” I heard her ask.
“Is Mike here, Tracy?” Jed asked.
“Jed, what’s going on? You look upset… and why are these two guards with you?”
“I told them it wasn’t necessary but they insisted,” Jed answered.
“Who insisted? What’s going on, Jed?” Tracy’s pitch began to elevate.
I walked down the stairs. “Jed,” I said as I nodded. He nodded in reply. “He had it coming.”
“Maybe so, Mike, but that wasn’t your call.”
“Who had what coming? Mike, what is this all about?” Tracy was nervous, the situation was becoming volatile.
“Mike, can you step outside?” Jed asked. I had never seen him so downtrodden. The guards tensed for action. Bear had padded up beside me and was bristling. A low menacing growl issued from him. One of the guards began to move his hands towards his sidearm; he was nervous. Couldn’t say I blamed him.
I laid my hand on Bear’s neck, “It’s all right, boy.” The growling stopped, but the menacing posture didn’t. I brushed by Tracy, giving her arm a small squeeze. “I’ll be back,” I said
to her.
I opened the door, and was facing my small escort party. “Turn around, please,” one of the guards demanded. I was going to protest. I have a thing about authority but Tracy was rattled enough, I didn’t figure she needed to see me get beat down too.
I felt the cold steel of the handcuffs close around my wrists, not for the first time, but it was the worst time.
“Where are you taking him, Jed?” Tracy nearly sobbed.
“The holding cell down at the clubhouse.” From his demeanor, Jed must have witnessed firsthand the scene at Fritz’ house. I could tell he fundamentally agreed with my handling of the situation, but laws were laws.
The walk to the clubhouse was silent. I waited until I was in my ‘cell’ and the guards had gone before I talked with Jed.
“He was a piece of shit, Jed!”
“I know Talbot, I went over there. But you killed him, you broke into his house and killed the man.”
“But he had kidnapped and was raping…” I stopped. What did it matter what he was doing to a zombie? If it had been a human girl I would be paraded around as a hero. “How bad is it Jed?”
Jed’s head bowed, “A council was being set up to deal with Durgan and now they’ll be hearing your case too. Talbot, they’re talking about Capital Punishment.”
My head snapped up. I wanted to scream to the heavens. “Oh that’s fair, my life for that piece of shit. I saw his set-up, this wasn’t the first time.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Jed solemnly answered. “We checked out the whole basement. He had a ‘trophy room’ full of pictures and other things,” Jed shuddered, “of all his other victims.”
“They weren’t all zombies, right?” I grasped.
“Not by a long shot.” Jed looked a little green around the gills.
“But that’s not going to help me?” I asked downcast. Jed just shook his head.
“I’ll be back in a little bit with some food.”
“Don’t sweat it, it’ll be a long time before I’m ready to eat again.”
“Me too,” Jed said as he retreated out of the holding area.
“Welcome to Shangri-La,” Durgan said, as he sat up on his makeshift bed, then stood up with the assistance of a crutch.
“Oh this day just keeps getting better and better,” I answered sarcastically. When I turned around I was face to belly button with one of the biggest men I had ever seen in my life. Even with only one leg he outweighed me by a hundred pounds, easily.
“It looks like I’m going to make good on that promise I made,” his voice boomed from above.
“What’s that? Not wearing white after Labor Day?”
“No, you little fuck, killing you!”
Did he think it was necessary to clarify himself? I saw no choice. My Marine Corps training clicked on. I pivoted sideways and struck out with my right foot as hard as was humanly possible and was rewarded with the audible pop of Durgan’s only knee being crushed backward. He fell in a heap. The only thing worse than Fritz’ thumping techno music were the shrieking wails of Durgan in blind blistering pain.
The expletives he issued forth, while colorful, are too long and complicated for this narrative. Suffice it to say he left nothing to the imagination. He even had the audacity to include my grandmother in some of the more long-winded diatribes. If Durgan was going to kill me now, he was going to have to start at my ankles. I hopped up onto the now empty bunk and watched detachedly as a medical team came in and took him away. I rolled over and immediately went to sleep. It had been a long day and I was bushed.
Who ordered the Molotov cocktails, nobody knows. This is a small fact that will be forever lost in the annals of human history, should there be any humans to bear witness. Was it the result of some bored guards or the initiative of a defense tribunal? It doesn’t matter, the result would have been the same no matter who pulled the trigger. It was common knowledge the brain of the infected had to be destroyed in order to stop the zombie, what was not known was what effect fire would have. Could a zombie be cooked to the point where they would be inoperative? Somebody decided to find out. The result was disastrous.
The first cocktail was served three hours after I was incarcerated. The guard had the presence of mind to realize that a bottle lofted into the air would have great difficulty finding open ground upon which to shatter and spread its fuel. At one time in his life, the guard had been a pitcher and a Triple A prospect for a minor league team. A drinking problem had nipped any chances of a pro career in the bud. He called upon all his skills to deliver an old Budweiser bottle at ninety-three miles per hour into the unsuspecting skull of a zombie. Ironically, had it been measured it would have been discovered the zombie was sixty feet six inches away. The zombie fell hard, its skull crushed beyond repair, but it had held together long enough to shatter the bottle and let the accelerant spread to seven or eight of his best zombie friends. The effect was immediate. The zombies burned quietly, the crackling of skin and hair reminiscent of a cold winter night and reading a good book curled up on the couch by the roaring hearth. Because of the crowded conditions, the fire rapidly spread among the besiegers, but the desired outcome of disbursement was not what happened. Again, maybe history would have the luxury of discerning the truth, but the immediate was not concerned with the future. Instead of tucking tail and running away, the milling zombies coalesced and began pushing, pushing into the barrier that kept them away from their desired prize. The guards could only watch on with increasing alarm as the first couple of rows of zombies were quite literally pressed into nonexistence from the pressures being exerted on them. Zombies were erupting like eggs left too long in a microwave. Sheets of viscous bodily fluids flew high in the air. Nearby personnel were covered in the gore; more than one lost their respective lunches.
Between the crushing force of the zombies and the retaining wall, something had to give. Reinforcement two by fours creaked and groaned under the added pressure, and cracks began to manifest near knotholes. Boards began to pop with the sound as loud as rifle shots, first one and then a cacophony of explosions. Guns fired wildly trying to stem the tide of the onslaught, but like trying to bale water out of a sinking ship with a thimble, it was too late. Many realizing the end was near took off for their homes. Some stood in shock watching as hairline fissures began to form in the seemingly indestructible wall before them. Some of the residents rallied together, the air trembled with the cumulative shots being fired. The effect was like one continuous clap of thunder.
CHAPTER 24
Journal Entry - 21
I had been dreaming a particularly vivid dream before I was so rudely interrupted. The sound of booming thunder had cut through all semblances of sleep. I had no sooner come to full consciousness when the klaxon of alarm erupted. All hell was breaking loose, although at the time I had no idea how close to reality I was. I was trying my best to look out the window and find the source of the clamor, but the angle wasn’t right. Unless the problem was in the pool I wasn’t going to find out much information this way.
“Talbot, get your ass over here!” Jed was yelling from the locked door, fumbling frantically with the keys trying to find the right one.
Flashbacks of every horror movie I had ever seen ran through my mind. You know the part where the person that is about to die fumbles with his or her keys, giving the monster in the flick the needed time to catch up with and dispatch the lowest paid actor in the movie. As I neared the door I could see the tremors in Jed’s hands, and this wasn’t the advancing age palsy either; this was the full-blown San Andreas type.
“Jed, take a deep breath, breathe for a sec,” I said to him, trying to instill a calm in him that I wasn’t even feeling, and I wasn’t even sure what was going on. Jed looked up at me, and my heart sank. His face couldn’t even be considered ashen, transparent was a better descriptive, I could see every blue vein perfectly etched in his features.
“Jed, what’s going on?” I asked in alarm.
“The end Talbot, the
end,” he answered sadly.
I had never seen him so resigned. I wasn’t so sure now that I wanted him to open that door, maybe I could just ride it out right here. That was an option I didn’t have the luxury of exploring. The lock rattled open, and Jed jerked the door open.
“Get home Talbot,” Jed said without much inflection. Jed might not be a zombie, but he was dying inside.
“What about the trial?” I had to ask. I didn’t want attempted escape added to my offenses.
“I don’t think there’ll be enough people left in a couple of hours to worry about that,” Jed said, his shoulders slumping even further.
“Oh shit, Jed, it’s that bad?” I asked as I felt my heart drop.
“The wall has been breached in at least a dozen places. If you don’t get out of here and home now you’ll spend your last time on earth with him,” Jed said as he pointed to the far corner of the rec room slash converted cell where a drugged Durgan was recovering from the ad hoc surgery done on his shattered knee.
