The Jack Zombie Collection: Volume 1, page 35
Something wet falls from above me, causing me to stop mid-thought.
Thud. Thud.
Whatever hit me is warm and is dripping down my face. I raise my hand and swipe at it. I look at my fingers. Whatever it is is sticky and red. My heart skips a beat for a moment as I think to myself that it’s blood.
But it can’t be blood.
Thud. Thud.
A fainter thud.
The sunlight drifts in and out of the small cell that has been my home for too long.
Thud.
I turn my head to look at the window.
Now my heartbeat has stopped because what I see on the outside, dangling by a frayed rope, is enough to ice me over completely.
It is Tony.
His face is frozen in a snarl. The only smile I see on him comes across his neck, and it’s a deep smile, a red smile. A slit throat.
Thud-thud-thud.
Blood sprays with each hit.
I am standing on the bed now, and my knees go weak, threatening to give out and have me tumble all the way to the piss-soaked, hard floor.
There is also a bullet hole in Tony’s head. It is dark and almost perfectly circular. Part of my mind tells me the hole is still smoking as if he has just been executed, but I know that is only my brain playing tricks on me. A thin stream of blood runs from this hole, zigging and zagging down the bridge of his nose then his mouth then finally falling off of his chin in thick, red drops.
“Tony,” I say in a whisper.
Around his neck is a sign which looks to be written in his own blood. I TELL LIES AND NOW I’M DEAD.
This is my fault. I never should’ve opened my mouth about Spike’s past. Oh, God. It hurts. A choked sob escapes my throat. If he would do that to Tony, what would he do to my Darlene or my brother or Abby?
I shake my head. No, I can’t think like that. I have to be strong. I have to be Johnny Deadslayer.
Rest in Peace, Tony.
The gates rattle down the corridor. A line of light shoots down the hallway as hinges creak. Boots thud against the concrete, keys jingle, and I almost mistake them for Spike’s spurs, but I know better than that. He wouldn’t subject himself to the cells.
Sunlight catches Butch’s face. “Up, Jupiter,” he says.
In one hand he has a nightstick, and in the other he has his Desert Eagle.
“Where’s Darlene?” I say.
“Don’t worry about her, she’s safe.”
I stand up, knowing the drill. If I even breathe wrong, I’m taking a nightstick into the gut or the butt of the Eagle to the temple.
“I see you got the present Spike left you,” Butch says. “It was messy, let me tell you.” He leans forward, brings the hand with his gun in it up and whispers, “I told you he was crazy.”
“When’s my shootout?” I ask. “When do I get to put a bullet in his head?”
Butch stares at me, incredulous. Then he speaks the way a man speaks to a cute puppy, that soothing, comforting tone. “Oh, Jack, you can’t be serious. Did you really think he was going to give you an honest chance to kill him?”
“Y-Yeah,” I say.
Butch smiles, lifts his eyebrows up. Sweat drops from his buzzed hair and falls down the sides of his face. “Nope, buddy. Sorry,” he says and chuckles, his face going serious. “Now turn around. And if you mess up one time, Jupiter, just one little display of funny business then I’m breaking both of your arms. If you want to have any chance of surviving in the Arena, you don’t want your arms broken.”
There is a time and place for rebellion, and this is not it.
What the hell is the Arena? I almost ask, but don’t.
He cuffs me and he’s not fragile at all.
Then, he throws a burlap sack over my head that smells like rotten potatoes, and leads me out of the cell, like a pig to the slaughterhouse.
39
We ride on a horse and buggy, the steady clop-clop of the hooves and the creaking of the wooden carriage confirm that for me.
I hear whispers.
“Is that him?”
“The Zombie Killer?”
“The Carnivore?
“He will put an end to that psycho Spike.”
“He’s come to free us.”
“I think he deserves whatever Spike gives him!”
“Be quiet, you old kook!”
It’s the whisper of a thousand people, all combined into one.
“ATTENTION CITIZENS OF EDEN, WE WILL BE GATHERING AT THE ARENA IN ONE HOUR. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY. ANYONE CAUGHT OUT IN THE STREETS WILL BE SWIFTLY DEALT WITH.”
It’s the loudspeaker, but not Butch’s voice behind it. Someone else’s. Someone much more robotic.
“ATTENTION CITIZENS…” it continues.
We go on, the hooves clopping and the wheels creaking. We stop ten minutes later. There are no more whispers.
Someone grabs me hard by the arm, making the bullet graze bark out in pain. A hand rips the burlap sack off my face.
I am in a room that might’ve once been a locker room. There’s rows of lockers, most of them are empty and open, but the smell of sweaty socks and gym equipment is full. Butch stands in front of a dusty chalkboard, a soldier on each side of him holding their AR15s.
“All right, Jupiter, this is how it’s gonna be,” Butch says.
Another soldier is behind me. He sticks a key into the cuffs. I hear a click and all the pressure around my wrists is gone.
Butch reaches in his waistband, brings out an old Western revolver, the kind I’d call a Colt Peacemaker but would probably be totally wrong because all I have to go on is my wealth of old Western movies I’d watched as a kid. Butch spins it on his finger. He throws it at me, the gun twirling in the air, catching gleams of overhead light.
I reach out and grab it, cooly, calmly. Like I’ve been doing this for years.
Butch and the soldiers take to laughing.
Just for the hell of it, I point the weapon at Butch.
Butch freezes up, the soldiers’s laughter stopping as abruptly as it started. I cock the hammer and pull the trigger.
Nothing.
A dull click.
I’m smart enough to know he wouldn’t give me a loaded gun, but I pop the cylinder out anyway. There are six bullets inside. I aim the pistol again, and pull the trigger.
Nothing.
More laughter.
“It’s a dummy,” Butch says. “Just like you.” He belts out another great burst, and the soldiers follow suit. “When the time is right,” he says, wiping the tears from his eyes, “we’ll get you hooked up with sound effects and smoke, so you don’t die looking like a complete pussy.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask.
“It’s all a set up,” Butch says, “I told you that. Spike may be unstable, but he ain’t playing with fire.”
My grip on the gun gets tighter. I feel the metal biting into my skin, drowning out the pains on my right arm. “I’m not surprised. Where’s Darlene? Where’s my brother and Abby and Herb?”
“Don’t worry about them. You’ll see them soon enough. Well…maybe not Herb. Spike sent him to the dungeon.”
“The dungeon?” My stomach roils. What kind of sick…never mind. I know who I’m dealing with now.
One of the soldiers snickers.
“It’s where we round up the stray zombies. We set a trap about a quarter mile from the gates. They pool up, it’s real — ah, never mind, Jupiter. Makes no difference to you. You’re gonna be dead. But don’t worry, you’ll see your friends soon enough.”
“I want to see them now,” I demand.
Butch grins. “In Eden, you get no say. It’s another country — hell, another world — far as you’re concerned.”
The hopelessness turns to sadness. I think of Darlene, how we are still not married. My brother with his own missing appendage, and Abby a girl who never got to live a normal adult life. It’s all sad. Too sad..
“In all seriousness, Jupiter, it’s out of my hands. I don’t like you, I don’t like your cunt-bag brother or the feisty bitches you associate yourself with, but I respect you and I respect them. Too often in these wastelands, people just bow down to the guys with big guns and numbers. You, Jack Jupiter, you gave us a little fight, you made it interesting. We still win in the end, but man, I doubt I’ll find any other assholes like you.”
I don’t say anything. In fact, I’m not exactly sure what to say. Thank you for respecting me but still ending my life, maybe? No, I just nod and look down at the prop gun in my hand.
“Then let us go,” I say. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”
“I can’t,” Butch says.
“Why not?”
“In about thirty minutes, you’ll see,” he says, that familiar smile on his face. “Until then, I say clear your head. When I was carving up towel-heads in Baghdad, my C.O. would have our platoon meditate. Now that was the most pussy shit I’d ever heard at the time, but you know not to backtalk your Commanding Officer if you want your tour to go peachy, so we all did it, and boy, let me tell you it is one of the greatest things a soldier can do. You don’t hear the explosions or the cries of pain, you don’t think about your wife and kid back home, missing you. None of that bullshit. You don’t think about anything at all. And when you come to, you’re only focused on the task at hand. In my case that was blowing out the brains of a few sand niggers, but it doesn’t matter if you’re doing that or if you’re killing zombies, or just trying to survive. Trust me, Jupiter.”
The soldiers on his sides have gone stone-faced. No doubt, Butch makes them do the same bullshit. Meditate…get real. Maybe back in the real world but not now.
“We’ll let you be,” Butch says, he opens the only closed locker on the top row. In it is a complete cowboy get-up, a few shades too dark to be Woody from Toy Story. Fucking great, really. “Put this outfit on, clear your head, but any funny shit, and my men standing guard will do worse than knock your lights out?”
He leaves, and when the door closes, I immediately start looking for an escape.
No luck.
I sit down on the floor, my head throbbing, my heart hurting, and I picture Darlene. It’s my own form of meditation. She is the only thing that calms me these days.
And I wait.
40
I sit there for what feels like fifteen minutes. There is one window in this room, and it is a lot like the window in the cell I have spent God knows how many nights in — a small sliver with bars on it.
I am trying to fit into this smelly, way too-starched, plaid shirt as something taps on the glass. My stomach clenches with the memory of Tony swinging by a rope, a bullet in his head, blood leaking down his face. I can’t look because I know it will be Darlene or Abby or Norm. I don’t know where I’m at. I could be on the basement level and Darlene could still be swinging lifeless with a noose around her neck. That’s just the way this world works now. Screw the basic laws of physics. Screw logic. Those things go out the window when people catch a killer virus, die, and come back craving brains and human flesh.
But the tapping grows more persistent.
It’s not the meaty thud of a body hitting the outside wall. No, this is the tapping of a finger, someone trying to get my attention.
I go against my stomach’s wishes and I look up to the small window. There, beyond the small pane of glass, I see Herb’s big, smiling face. My own face breaks into a smile. It’s great to see someone familiar…someone that’s alive.
“Jack! Jack!” he shouts, his voice much too loud. He is laying in the dirt and grass, I see the blades tickling his face. He is covered in blood and muck.
“Shh!” I say, my finger up to my lips. That smile disappears. Now’s not the time for fairy tale reunions.
“Jack! I came back. I told ya I would! I got out of that stupid, smelly dungeon and into the lab! Doc Klein told me to run as far away as I could, but I came to help you, Jacky! Help you!”
“Herb, you have to be quiet they’ll hear you.”
“But you won’t hear me through the glass.”
“I do, Herb, I hear you.”
“You do?” he says, cocking his head. “That’s great! Really! Remember when we met, it was a Thursday — ”
“Yes, I remember, Herb, but listen, we don’t have much time. I need you to help get me out of here.”
Herb’s eyes drift from the window to the grass. He starts plucking the blades and chewing on his bottom lip.
“Herb?” I repeat.
“I can’t, Jack. I want to, but I can’t. I may not be the smartest fella, but Butch is a mean old man and he’s guarding the door to the Arena with the whole army and if I get caught then Spike will know and he’ll cut my finger off. Oh, God! I don’t want my fingers cut off, Jack! How will I be able to play the guitar like my mammy taught me?” His face screws up, his head starts shaking with dry sobs. “Then I have to help Doc Klein escape. He says he’s been listenin on the radio and there’s a man out there who knows the cure to the z-zombie germ and his talents are wasted here in this crazy theme park. He wants to help the world, Jacky! And I want to help you! I just want to help you!”
A cure? Yeah, right, that’ll be the day.
I look him dead in the eyes and say, “Herb! Get ahold of yourself! What is going on? Where are they taking me?”
He looks up at me, a gleam in his eyes. “I-I don’t know what to call it. It’s…it’s like a show.”
“Good, Herb. Good. Keep going. Where’s Darlene and Abby and Norm?”
He smiles. “They are fine, Jacky. I just got back from seeing them. The doc is looking them over and then they’ll be at the show, too.”
“He didn’t hurt them anymore?” My eyes begin to water. It’s almost too good to be true. “Herb, please tell me that’s the truth.”
Herb nods his head excessively, if he does it any harder, I swear his eyes are apt to fling from their sockets. “No. No more. Spike said he doesn’t care about them. He only cares about you. Doc Klein talked about it in the lunch room while I was working on the bodies. I heard him, I did! He says you royally p-i-s-s-e-d him off. Made him look stupid in front of Butch and the soldiers. Said they don’t respect him no more and he feels like their respect is winning — no — waning already. Then he told the people that live here that you were one of those mean, old, nasty Carnivores. But I said, ’No, he ain’t!’ then I heard him talkin ‘bout the cure in Washington D.C!”
A smile creeps across my face, and somehow even that small gesture hurts me. I’m just hurting all over the place. “Thank you, Herb. That is really good to hear about my friends,” I say. “Now tell me what I’m getting into and how the H-E-double hockey sticks I can’t get out of it.”
“You’re welcome, Jacky,” he says with a big grin on his face. “Okay, they make all the citizens sit in the big place with the dirt floor, you know, where the dirt bikes go vroom vroom and there’s hills and old stands that used to sell hot dogs but don’t sell nothing no more.” He frowns at that.
I know exactly what he is talking about with Eden being an abandoned amusement park and all. I remember those days at a local fair or carnival where I’d be walking with Norm and the sound of the dirt bikes ripped through the air and the smell of diesel and exhaust almost choked me. I loved it. They came from the track where all the rednecks would gather around in their Confederate flag shirts, Budweisers in hand. I never got to experience it. Norm wouldn’t allow me — or rather he was too busy hanging with his friends and chasing the girls, which is odd to think about now knowing he’s gay. I guess it was all for show. Plus, I saw the arena from my cell window. That’s good.
“They did it with Alex and Tom. It was bloody, Jack, so bloody I had to cover my eyes like my auntie would make me do at them scary shows when the monster killed the good guys. Spike’s the monster, Jacky. He is. Lawd, he is.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll be okay.”
But my voice is breaking up. I can’t lie to myself. I can lie to everyone else. Not me.
“I know you will, Jack, I just know it!” Herb shakes his head and puts his hands together as if he is about to pray. I’m expecting him to start giving me a spiel about the Lord up in the Kingdom of Heaven, how with God all things are possible, but he doesn’t. “I know you’ll be because I made sure of it, Jack. I did!”
“Herb, not so loud — ”
He snaps his head to the left.
Somewhere deep in the maze of hallways, I hear the clank and rattle of a door opening and closing.
“Oh no oh no oh no,” Herb says. He starts to get up. I can’t see much, but I catch a glimpse of boots quickly coming into focus. They are brown boots and they are dotted with drops of blood. Herb starts screaming out, “No, I’m sorry I’m sorry — ” while he tries to scramble up, but that boot strikes him in the ribs. He is a big guy, but he retreats into the fetal position like a man being attacked by a bear.
“Sneaking out, are we?” It’s Butch. “Tsk, tsk, Herbert. Spike will not be pleased. He might even have to take one of your fingers, maybe a toe.”
“No! Not my toesies! Please!”
“Herb!” I shout. “What was it? What did you do?”
He looks at me as the boot strikes him again, causing his face to bunch up in pain. I think I hear a crack of steel-toe against bone, maybe even breaking it.
“Stop it, you bastard!” I shout.
Butch starts laughing that laugh that I’ve grown to hate more than any zombie. He kicks him again and again. But Herb looks up, tears flooding his eyes, blood trickling down his mouth, and he says, “Salvation comes from the heart.” And as he is ripped up from the grass, he taps his chest on the left side.
Great, nothing like some religious babble before I die. Salvation comes from the heart, what the hell does that even mean?
“Remember Sal, Jacky! Remember Sal — ” Then he is screaming again, crying out for his auntie and his mammy, saying, “Please don’t take my toesies. Please! Please!” his voice fading.
Then it’s Butch, “All right, Jack, time’s up. No more of your bullshit.”
