Author: Jason Beech; John Bruni; James Newman
Date: 2014-12-03 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction & Fantasy; Fantasy; Anthologies; Science Fiction; Post-Apocalyptic; Two Hours or More (65-100 Pages); Literature & Fiction; Anthologies & Short Stories
Description: THREE HITS OF ZOMBIE PULP FROM SPP The first in a series of PULP COLLECTIONS. This triple ZOMBIE offering is a dish not to be missed. First up: 1 THE BLOODY PATH TO NEW MEXICO by JASON BEECH Lizzy and Frank are seemingly the only two people left in the world after a zombie apocalypse. Lizzy has visions of being the world's new Eve. The only problem is Frank being its new Adam. He's big, dumb, doesn't look after his teeth, and his bloodshot left eye makes her suspect he's heading for life as one of the undead. She wants to get away from New Jersey to the less populated New Mexico, but Frank has
Publisher: Spanking Pulp Press

TRIPLE ZOMBIE

JASON BEECH

THE BLOODY PATH TO NEW MEXICO

JOHN BRUNNI

CAPTAIN METH-MOUTH ON THE HIGH SEAS OF CHICAGO

JAMES A. NEWMAN

UNDEAD CARGO

JASON BEECH lives with his wife and daughter in New Jersey. As a kid he once stole a mushroom from a corner shop. The owner’s dog followed him all the way home, making him walk about a mile’s diversion from where he lived to shake the damn thing off. Otherwise, he’s a law-abiding citizen who loves crime fiction. His work can be found at SHOTGUN HONEY and THE FLASH FICTION OFFENSIVE. He structurally edited Monica Kaushik’s Maya & the Butterfly, and her soon-published WARRIORS OF DARKNES.

THE BLOODY PATH TO NEW MEXICO

LIZZY CURSED at Frank, muttering “idiot” for bringing them to the attention of the undead just so he could sport with them.

Get off his shot. Get his man.

He’d wasted enough ammo on other grunting undead, them trying to rip their flesh, pull out their intestines. He’d grown up playing football, thinking his physical agility and bone-crunching body checks and tackles made him the man to get them in and out of this. She thought all that high school sport had mushed his brain and no amount of logic or science classes would ever have helped. But he’s the only man she had, and the only one she was likely to get in this infested world they lived in. She had to do what his teachers or parents could never do: change him. For the sake of the spawn they needed to reproduce. For the sake of mankind.

A legless zombie dug its nails into the tarmac the best it could to pull itself towards her. She watched it all the way to her feet, almost unable to keep her eyes off it even as she battered its leggy compadres’ heads. When it finally got close enough to reach for her ankle, she caved its cranium with her sister’s little baseball bat.

They edged away from this group of the risen dead before that larger collection coming round the corner of Target saw them.

***

FRANK’S GRIP on his rifle tightened as he crouched. He had to squint to cut through the smoke from the upturned Audi, but he had caught the sunken eyes of his former friend. Danny knelt over a carcass, looking as dumb now as ever, his muffin belly a result of what he always did best: eat. Frank didn't think Danny had the appetite for donuts like he once had. All that sugar gave him any number of cavities, and gums which puffed and bled.

From this distance, looking through the gap between the Shoprite truck and its crumpled trailer, Frank couldn't tell if the blood smudged across Danny's gums, teeth, face, front of his shirt, and even his hair, belonged to him or not.

“We should go, before they see us,” Lizzy said.

“And you need to grow some balls,” he growled, unable to take his eyes off Danny.

“Excuse me,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Wisps of red cloud clawed the deepening blue sky as if one of Danny’s tribe had scraped it a wound.

“If we don’t go, we turn into them.” She pulled at his right arm. It barely gave, her fingers unable to gain purchase on his tight bicep. She let her hand dangle, fingers twitching.

“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

“What?” She gave him a sharp little punch, pulling away immediately on impact.

He turned his eyes on her, frightening her more than Danny and his munching by the Audi.

“I’m tired,” he snapped. “I’m sick of looking over my shoulder all the time. Maybe it’s a good thing to join them. It’ll let me switch off.”

She wrapped a skinny arm around his waist and pulled. Her willpower, rather than strength, pulled him further away from the carnage. Danny stood among a crowd of his ilk, and Frank could sense a battle of wills about to take place, like lions he’d seen in documentaries that fought for rank.

“Do they look switched off to you?” She swept an arm across the scene. The lowering sun cast shadows from each, maybe twenty, of them, elongating the fear that already quivered their frames. “They don’t rest. They’re on the lookout for fresh meat all the time. They go crazy if they don’t find it. That’s not resting.” She blew her fringe out of her vision. “We just need to bide our time.”

A little spot at the back of his mind, a place he hardly used because it took such effort, calculated her reason and agreed with it. But the rest of his brain could never fall in line. Ego took hold and pushed that geeky part back into place, cowering in a corner.

“You know what he did, right?”

He knew she didn’t like to comb her hair with dirty-nailed fingers. She told him they needed to keep certain standards; otherwise they should give up right away. She didn’t comb her rich auburn hair now, more raked it, hard, like her head had become overrun by vermin. It had started to smell that way. At first she had risked the confined spaces of a pharmacy to get her hands on shampoo and body wash, but one close escape too many had stayed her attempts. Her hair sounded like straw being pulled apart. It played on his strings, forcing a shiver he tried hard to contain.

“I know what he did,” she eventually breathed. “And it really doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Bullshit.”

“Keep your voice down, for crying out loud.”

***

HE’S SUCH an idiot, she thought. They could have been on their way west to New Mexico by now. She walked through plumes of dust kicked up by Frank in lieu of a tin can, in the fields at the edge of town. Corn had once grown here, but seeds had last been planted five years ago, just before all this happened. Now the fields gave themselves back to nature. Weeds and grass grabbed their ankles as if infected by what had taken everybody they knew. Their mothers, fathers… Lizzy’s five year old sister. She kicked the memory away.

Sentiment caused danger.

She watched Frank’s back, examining how his hips swayed with each step, a John Wayne for the end times, and wondered if she would ever lay with him. He had tried a few times before, but she had rejected every attempt. She feared he would push it to the extreme and rape her. She smiled at the fact he never had. He had that going for him, at least. She didn’t fancy him. Yet. She tried. Lizzy had used her fingers many times, attempting to fantasize a sexual relationship with this man, but she could never reach any satisfaction. Her mind wandered to George Clooney every time, then she’d feel guilty and force Frank’s head back on George’s shoulders. But that thick skull never fit right. The image looked like a kid had mutilated two dolls and fixed different body parts together.

***

SHE MET him two years ago. She’d sneaked by a ruck of the undead, feeding on an old woman who had barely enough meat to feed a hamster, never mind half a dozen braindead men – was there any other kind? - to get into a Target store. She needed batteries for the battery pack which juiced her battered laptop, and a dozen or so matchbooks. Internet servers had survived this apocalypse, even if hardly any websites had. Wikipedia survived, like a cockroach. She took that back, it linked her to sanity. Despite its flaws, she needed to keep her brain working, and learning about world history kept her mind from melting.

At the far end of the toy aisle, where the GI Joes flirted with Barbies who would never survive any of this – she knew some real-life ones who hadn’t - a man stood staring at a crate of Lego. Lizzie slid her laptop bag to the floor, careful its rough worn fabric didn’t make a single scratching noise on the hard floor. She tip-toed past the smiling Barbies, all of them waving a right hand, a “buy me” beckoning she had resisted even as a kid. A lack of proper company made her paranoid. She felt like the plastic bimbettes mocked her, like their fleshy counterparts did at school. The GI Joes seemed to scowl at them, saying, “Barbie, this ain’t no time for frippery. There’s killin’ to be done.”

She shook her head clear. She had started making up a lot of stories recently, trying to create sense in the new world. She raised her little sister’s small metal baseball bat behind her right shoulder, judging the angle to swipe. The man-thing’s sweat stabbed her nostrils, screwing her face tight. Still, she could bear it more than the reek of death that normally hung around them.

“You’ll need more than a baseball bat to get out of here, pumpkin.”

Lizzy stumbled back, her left arm reaching out for balance. Instead, she leaned back into the flimsy pile of packaging containing the Barbies, and fell to the floor, blinking away the stack of smiles which tumbled over her.

“Don’t eat me,” she said.

“I’m not one of them.” He turned and flashed a yellow smile.

Her heart beat faster now than when she thought him a zombie.

“Don’t rape me.”

“I’m not that kind of man, pumpkin. Anything else?”

“Don’t call me pumpkin.”

“Okay, sweetheart.”

She allowed him her hand and he pulled her up from the trashed Barbie boxes. She planted her feet, sudying him framed by the shelves of GI Joes, eyeing every red line criss-crossing his left pupil.

She shifted her gaze to his yellow teeth. “Toothpaste is in aisle seven,” she said.

***

HE BLASTED them out of that confined space, attracting even more of the undead. Thankfully, he had a shoulder bag full of ammo, keen to use it.

Two years of companionship had not dulled the occasional sharp feeling that she would prefer solitude. She slapped out-of-date sunscreen across her face to protect against the beating sun, watching a couple of hawks circle some prey. She thought a body might lie out there in the fields. The thought made her rub the sunscreen harder to calm her shivers. She relaxed, thinking hawks only preyed on live animals. Like us, she thought.

She gave Frank’s ankle a soft flick with her bare toe. She aired her feet from the stinking sneakers she barely took off for fear of needing to run at any moment. He ignored her, instead viewing the town below the hill through the telescope attached to his rifle, making the occasional shot. She hated the way he allowed himself a double-edged smile, half of it for the head he’d just splattered like a watermelon across a sidewalk, half because it defied her disapproval.

“They’re looking for us. Always looking.”

“I’m glad they’re dead,” she said. “You just don’t need to enjoy it so much. I know some of those people.”

“What’s a man supposed to do for entertainment? Darn socks?”

She kneeled behind his stretched body and applied sunscreen to his exposed calves.

“That tickles,” he protested, looking back at her.

“There are no doctors anymore. If you get cancer …”

“On my calves?”

“Skin cancer, my boy.”

“I have my cure right here.” He patted the rifle resting on its attached tripod.

His eyes pinched. He must have seen my skin blotch, or something, she thought. Yes, she’d miss him. The longing for isolation was always a momentary blip. She could only enjoy these pregnant belly hills with another. Nothing had much pleasure solo, unless it ended with the arrival of company.

“We should be on our way to New Mexico.”

“I have no business in New Mexico.”

“We agreed.”

She stuck her thumbs deep into his tight calves, making him sit and spin, a tickled laugh bursting from him. He grabbed her hands to avoid her further penetrating his flesh. That could have been a moment, she thought. His left eye prevented experimentation with his zipper. Its red deepened each day.

She sensed his awareness, and then his disappointment. He turned back to his gun, popped off another shot. One less set of teeth to sink into their flesh. She had to admire his restraint. She remembered a little harmless flirting at high school had led some boys to accuse her of being a cock-tease, as if the occasional sauciness entitled them to rights over her body.

“What good is an agreement without witnesses?” he said.

Another dead man walking lost his head. She guessed it was a man, she never saw him shoot a woman. But then, she hadn’t looked for a long time.

She wiped the remaining stickiness on her arm, looking for a stream which the recent rain must have bolstered, somewhere. Her head itched. She’d started to feel bumps on her scalp from constant touching. If she had to go this long without washing it, it might be better to shave it off. She saw the flaw in that idea right now, noting the sun bounce off Frank’s shaved head like a beacon shouting “dinner’s ready.”

“Put your cap on.”

He huffed, knowing she was right, probably annoyed she’d suggested it before he realized the wisdom himself. He reached over to his bag where he kept ammo clips. He had filled the bag with them only a week ago. She saw it half-empty now as he reached in deep to pull the green-camouflaged Wal-Mart cap and place it on his head, pulling the peak down to keep her out of his tunnel-vision.

“Why you want to go to New Mexico anyway?”

“I’ve told you, it’s less densely populated than most states, and a hell of a lot less than here on the east coast.”

“Most?”

“And warmer.”

“What would I do for fun if there’s none of these bastards about?”

She let a smile slip, shivering a little at the danger. “You can rebuild civilization. Be a king.”

He looked over his shoulder, gave her breasts the quickest glance, and returned to his telescope. He shuffled. She knew he was rearranging his penis’ position. Take care, she thought, I shouldn’t promise him anything.

“I saw Breaking Bad. I never saw anybody without a coat.”

She breathed deep, let it out slow.

“I’m not going anywhere until I get my money back,” he continued.

She picked up her sister’s baseball bat and slammed it back to the ground, feeling her fingers rise and fall across every little bump on her scalp.

“Why? What’s this obsession?” she asked.

He kept his eyes on the town they both had grown up in. It seemed to float on the shimmering heat at the edge of a tall grass sea. “It’s not obsession. It’s about what’s right.”

“Nothing is right. Accept it. The world is dead. Money has no meaning.”

He jumped to his feet and faced her as she stood to back off, making her shrink for half a moment, before she squared her shoulders to him.

“It’s the principle. That matters. Without it, we’re fucking dead, just like them. And you don’t want that, do you?”

She touched his arm. That’s all it took for him to lose that vicious edge. A female touch which brought his momma back. She always looked at his lips in these moments, looking for a tremble. She knew it laid dormant, waiting to erupt one day.

“Frank,” she whispered. “He’s dead. You can’t have your revenge. He won’t know about it. And he might just finish you off.”

“I’m not using a baseball bat.” He lifted the rifle with his heel, let it rest again. “I just need to sight him once more. I should have shot him last night.”

“Let it be.”

He shrugged her hand from his upper arm. “I lost guys in that robbery. I got skimmed by a cop’s bullet. We worked hard to get out of that shit, hid for an age, and then had him rob me and the others of our share. I want that money, whether I can use it or not. And I want him dead.”

She stepped back. “Wow. You’re an idiot. He’s already dead.”

“He walks.”

“I’m guessing the president does too, but he’s probably eaten his wife and kids by now. And doesn’t know a thing about it.”

“Let me find him, then we go to New Mexico.”

“There are better reasons to go now.” She turned her head, unable to stand looking at his yellow teeth and cracked eye.

He put his hand on her arm now. The scar from his index finger knuckle rose above his skin, an Appalachian trail to his wrist. So many scars.

“I know you have unfinished business here, too. Your sister.”

She slapped him hard, saw his steel jaw wobble, felt her fingers sting with afterburn.

“My sister’s dead.”

“I know.” He rubbed his jaw, giving her some satisfaction. “But, walking around, like she undoubtedly is, like them. You don’t want that. How old is she … was she … when she died?”

Her lips mouthed Jessica’s age. She felt her frame shake against Frank’s hand, remembering her little beauty thrashing in the night as the agony she’d already seen in her parents gripped her. She’d already seen people she knew rip others she also knew apart. She had locked her sibling in her room, killed her parents with the baseball bat her sister played T-ball with, and then let the consequences shake her body almost senseless as she took refuge in a lone log cabin in the Pine Barrens. The cabin’s walls and the trunks of endless trees closed in and squeezed her back out into the towns, looking for a little human warmth. She found Frank.

The sound of waving grass lost its breeze-driven rhythm, its white-noise turning to a scraping assault on their ears. Lizzy stretched her neck to see round Frank’s broad shoulders. He turned to follow her gaze. A man, alone, headed for them, dragging a half-useless right leg behind. His right foot had collected enough grass to reach his knee. Frank put a protective arm across her as he bent for his rifle.

Too late. She jogged to the thing, bat in hand, and swung upwards, diagonal, connecting just below its ear. Its neck cracked as its head snapped to her left, milky eyes almost popping from their sockets. She had got used to the sound of blood gurgling up windpipes and splashing to the ground. She planted a foot to its shoulder as it dropped to its knees, and pushed it backwards, wanting to make sure of its death.

“Sorry, Steven,” she said, looking at his employee name badge. He’d never ask anybody if they wanted fries with something ever again.

***

IT WAS like playing hop-scotch trying to avoid dry blood patches scattering the sidewalk in town. They stomped past the pump where she used to fill her first car, and the cinema Kal took her on a first date – Gravity if she remembered right. Kal had puppy dog eyes which lit sharp and pulled her in. The first boy she’d ever allowed to touch her boobs. She sighed. Even he took that for a signal to go all the way. Why did every fumble have to turn into a downstairs rumble with each man she ever dated? Her mom always encouraged resistance. “Take your time,” she always said.

They couldn’t avoid stepping on broken glass as they made their way across the main street. Molly Brannigan’s bakery stood empty, red stains on trays once full of cupcakes and pumpkin bread. A dead dog lay in the doorway of Ed Mason’s hardware store, its ribs exposed, no longer caging internal organs.

“They’re slowing down,” she said.

“They’re probably out of meat.”

A mess of the undead stood outside the employment agency, looking at their own shoes, at each other’s shoes, like the homeless hanging out on pitiless Wall Street. Frank swung the rifle off his shoulder, ready.

“Why don’t they eat each other?” Lizzy asked.

Necks turned to observe their movement.

“Not fresh enough, maybe. They used to be so fast. Gave me a heart attack every time …”

“Now they just …”

“Slouch. They’re dying.”

An unconditioned smile pulled her face upward for the first time in ages. They had time on their side.

“How long do you think they’ve got?” he asked.

She put her arm through his rifle-free arm for a moment, then let go.

“What’s that for?”

“It’s for …” she breathed. “It’s for the future.”

Frank showed enough restraint to keep his rifle pointed at the floor. They both made regular glances over their shoulders to make sure the zombies following them still had the pace of a ninety year old asthmatic, keeping their own pace swift and aggressive. They couldn’t ensure their thrusting body-language had psychological impact on the brain-dead, but they thought it worth a try.

They slowed only when they reached the cul-de-sac at the town’s edge. Frank planted his feet, impassive, his hands wrapped around the rifle across his shoulders like a cross. She put him to the back of her mind as her hands swept across garden fences, each touch powering up a memory so strong she had to stop every so often to catch breath.

What she had kept in her peripheral vision she now looked at straight. The gate lay broken on the tall-grass lawn. It would have shamed her father. The front door handle bent to the right, and dark marks streaked the bay window to her left. Otherwise, it looked pretty much as it did when she left it, with even the picture of the Cheshire Cat her girl had drawn still facing out from the glass panel window by the front door.

“Give me a whistle when you need anything,” Frank called.

The punctured silence made her jump, shooting unkind mutterings through her teeth. The door didn’t budge on her push. She pushed harder, but it stood like a grave stone, warning outsiders to respect what lied inside. She pulled the baseball bat from the deep side-pocket of the laptop bag and smashed the window panel below the Cheshire Cat. She reached inside and twisted the lock, hoping nothing would take a chunk from her hand.

The door swung open without a sound. Her father always kept everything in order, except time for her. That was fine, he made it up with the second one. She enjoyed that, happy he’d learned his lessons. She took his care for her sister as acknowledgement that he had made mistakes. He couldn’t express it with words, but mom made up for it. Her best friend.

Lizzy let the bat dangle by her side, swaying like when she played as a kid. She never hit anywhere near as many balls as she’d hit heads. She fancied she could hit a pitch out of the ballpark if she tried now.

She padded through the kitchen, keeping her tears dammed as she passed her dad’s coffee mug and the Tom Clancy book her mom never got to finish. She couldn’t resist checking: page 180 of Dead or Alive. Lizzy preferred James Ellroy. Hardboiled and unnerving. She couldn’t read him now.

Too dark.

She kept her eyes to the wall at the top of the stairs as she climbed. To look down might mean she would lose her nerve to look back up. Her old bloody hand-print remained on her parents’ door like it wanted to push it open again to force her to see what she’d done all those years ago. She shifted to her sister’s door, turned the handle and pushed. She remembered locking it. She brushed her fingers along the ridge above the door, finding the key. She shook her head at even thinking to put it back up there in those circumstances. She rubbed the dust from her fingertips and inserted it, turning slowly. She edged the door open, entering with tiny steps. The room opened up to her left. Dulled pink and blue paint decorated her walls.

Lizzy backed against the wall as much as it would let her, trying to catch her gasp with an open palm. Her sister’s thin skin held on, wrapped to her bones like cling-film. Her knees stood prominent from the rest of her legs, her arms skinnier than the legs on the bed her body leaned against.

Her little beauty blurred through the tears filling her eyes. Weeping caused her vision to streak, to make everything move. The curtains seemed to wave, the light of the little Monster High lamp on the chest of drawers shimmered. Even her sister’s chest shifted up and down.

“Tilly,” she sobbed, taking a knee, trying to squeeze her eyes dry with thumb and index finger.

She wiped her face with a shirt sleeve, muttering that she shouldn’t have come home.

“I didn’t need to see this. I didn’t need to see this. All these years easing my last image of you wasted. How do I erase this?”

She looked up from the hardwood floor, following the Persian Rug’s Monster High design to her sister’s foot. It twitched. Every horror movie she’d ever watched told her to run from the house. Now. Tilly’s chest moved up and down and Lizzy could clearly hear her breath rasping, liquid in her lungs. Lizzy stood, creeped closer, her heels barely touching the floor. Tilly’s cloudy irises, barely distinct from the sclera, stared up at her.

Lizzy stumbled back, fell on her backside, pushed back up again, stumbled into the wall. Tilly remained still, apart from the consistent rise and fall of her chest. She didn’t seem to have noticed her elder sister or the noise of her nails digging into the wall for some grip on reality.

A gunshot snatched Lizzy’s attention.

“Frank?” she called.

Another gunshot. The afterburn smell had her reaching for the door handle. She pulled, raising the baseball bat for readiness. Frank turned the rifle to her, finger trigger-ready. She crouched low, hiding her face with her left forearm as if that would stop a bullet.

“Lizzy,” he breathed.

“Why did you bring me here?” she scowled.

He ignored the comment, closing her parents’ door before she could see what he’d done. He brushed past her. Lizzy still crouched, pulling her hair. Trying to pull this reality out.

She watched from the corner of her eye as Frank stood above Tilly. So vulnerable, so lost, and still breathing. How? Five years locked in this room, as far as she could tell. She’d had no food, human or not, and yet life had clung to her skinny frame.

Lizzy flinched when Frank turned, not liking the set jaw, or the eyes which told her to firm herself for what must now take place.

“No,” she said. She shook her head, realization breaking with sweat across her body, every goosebump popping and propelling her to stand, feet apart. She thrust forward, smashing into his hard gut, pulling back the bat. She raised her left hand when he held her bat-hand tight, nails ready to scratch out his eyes. The swing caught him above his right eyebrow, drawing blood, making him drop the rifle. The last-second pull of his neck avoided ruining his already bloodshot eyes into a pulpy mess. She shifted around him as the bat dropped to the floor, looking for a weak spot that might down him, away from her Tilly.

Her arms dropped, exhausted, unable to continue the fight. Her shoulders hunched, dragged down by heavy limbs, her neck unable to keep her head lifted. Her eyes had to roll up to look at him. Their maneuvering had him standing above Tilly again, one heavy-footed step from crushing the girl. Her chest heaved like Lizzy’s.

“Leave the room,” he said.

Emotion suppressed her “no” to a lip movement. She shook her head, breathed through her mouth, let the tears drip. What did showing such raw emotion matter compared to leaving her girl like this, alone, trapped in this room, for five years.

Frank stared at Lizzy, not moving, not even to wipe the blood starting to trail down through his eyebrow, gathering in its follicles, pushing through to form a bell on his upper eyelid. Ready for a cliff-dive. She had to admit, despite her fury, that he had controlled himself. He could have snapped her with a well-aimed flick of a wrist. His body remained alert even as his expression softened.

“You can’t leave her like this,” he said.

She thought his voice croaked a little, a little rasp at the end of “this” bringing her back to reality. She heard her breathing heave louder, when her system ought to verge on recovery.

“Tilly,” she gasped, looking down, realizing the sound’s source.

Tilly’s irises had sharpened, colored. They saw. They anticipated. Lizzy lifted her look back to Frank, feeling energy rush back to every muscle. The blood she’d scratched from his brow elongated, ready to snap and fall. To a mouth waiting for sustenance.

“Frank, wipe your head.”

His forehead creased, surprised. His eyes crossed for a moment as he noticed the blood gathering as if for the first time. It was enough to disturb the blood’s balance. It fell from its precipice. Lizzy followed its fall, pulling away from them both in anticipation at the nuclear explosion.

“Get away from her. Now.” She gestured a hand towards Tilly, imploring him to join her at the far end of the room.

The drop had already hit Tilly’s upper lip. Enough had gathered for it to start rolling again on its new surface. It found the cracks in lips which had not felt liquid for years, filling a split which curved inside her mouth. There it gathered again, ready for its final fall, flat onto her tongue.

Lizzy pulled at his arm. “We should never have come.”

Frank relented to her urgency, walking backwards to keep his eye on the little girl. Lizzy winced at Frank’s grasp on her forearm, his squeeze reminding her that he had fear too, despite all his bravado. He had reason. Tilly’s sunken eyes followed their every move. Her palms turned from facing the ceiling to suckering the floor in preparation to push from her sitting position. Her right foot shuddered, like cable being pulled from set concrete, brushing against the rifle Lizzy and Frank now wanted back.

“She’s not your sister anymore,” Frank implored.

Lizzy bit her lower lip, squeezed her eyes, hardly able to breathe anymore as Frank backed into her against the wall. She remembered her last Christmas with the family, Tilly squealing at the Monster High toys, rug, lampshade and dolls house she had bought her. The years between them didn’t divide any feeling. She loved that girl from the moment she was born, and Tilly doted on her. Said she was her hero.

The sob engulfing her twisted Frank’s neck back to her. “Leave the room, I’ll sort it out.”

Whatever biological freakery had done this to Tilly had not strengthened her bones. As she attempted to push herself from the floor, something snapped. It looked like her upper arms had collapsed from their joints with the shoulders. Her arms looked like hockey sticks in a silk sack. She couldn’t maneuver. She just sat there, breathing heavy for more of Frank’s blood, a dry gag bouncing off the walls.

“You leave the room.”

“What?” Frank said.

“Go,” she urged. “Let me deal with this.”

His knotted brows told her he feared her as much as the little girl.

“She’s your sister,” he hissed.

“Not anymore.”

She watched him leave, before edging towards the gun. Tilly - this thing - might have sat impotent, but caution had to prevail. The world needed repopulating. She was its Eve. She trembled that Frank was surely its Adam.

“Tilly,” she said. “If you’re still in there, even just a teensy little bit, I…” She swallowed down a gathering choke, held it there, digested it, and fingertipped the rifle into a full grip. “I want you to remember that Christmas. I want you to concentrate hard. Make it your last memory, not this.”

She raised the muzzle real slow, looking along it into Tilly’s deep-set eyes, trying hard not to get dragged into them for a hug goodbye.

“I want you to remember us putting the lights up, you stroking my cheek, ha… consoling me for that crushed Christmas ball I made in kindergarten.” Lizzy wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “Stupid, right?”

Tilly’s frame shook. Maybe her little beauty was trying to get out. Maybe she was in agony. Needed this to end. Right now.

***

FRANK SHOT off the wall he’d leaned against after the rifle fire reverberated across the street. The world settled into a silence. Even the bushes rustled by a breeze moments before fell still. The sky’s blue deepened as the sun started to say goodbye to the day. A chill warned of fall and nights again spent in enclosed spaces or outside beside a beacon fire to keep warm.

A scrape across tarmac snapped his attention away from Lizzy’s home. Between the brick ranch and the colonial with the upstairs shutter just hanging against gravity, came one… two… three…

“Lizzy,” he called over his shoulder.

Seven… eight…

“Lizzy,” he called again, afraid to take his eyes off them in case they crept real close real quick if he stopped looking.

Fifteen… sixteen…

“Lizzy.”

He didn’t like how his voice raised an octave. It lacked authority. Lizzy needed it. She was younger than him. He had taken it real slow until now. He couldn’t afford to do anything to scare her away… the last woman on Earth and all that. But once she relented, she was his. Her happiness would increase tenfold.

He could see blood-drenched shirts, t-shirts, a dress, a woman whose lower jaw-bone jutted from a hole ripped from her flesh. Made his trigger-finger itchy. Made him want Lizzy to get out here with his rifle. Now.

“We can leave out the back,” he heard Lizzy say.

“Right,” he said. He came out of the staring stupor that threatened to make him dinner for these things. He backed through the gate, up the garden path, unable to stop watching them filing through the gate and tumbling over the fence. They saw nothing but the meat on his bones. The lack of an option to negotiate forced his pace to pick up, and he almost stumbled through the bush separating the house’s land from its neighbor.

When he finally turned to see where Lizzy had gone, he could only fumble with his hands, nervous at her stance on a hillock, staring at the sun stretching out on the horizon, his rifle casually resting on her right shoulder. Looking like she meant to conquer the world.

The only thought he could express, his brain scrambling for something, was “fuck.” He trudged forward, took the gun from her, and abused himself for failing to get as few words as the zombies could manage from his mouth.

***

LIZZY FOUGHT against dwelling on what had just happened to her Tilly. She tried to focus on those good times and not spend a single tear about what could have been. She had to harness her little beauty for the future, for that’s where salvation laid. So this new morning she pored over Wikipedia, checking out New Mexico, seeing which cities to avoid, which might have a little culture to feed her mind. Talking to Frank might just sway her from life. He had nothing to add but his physical presence, like turning the TV on in the background for company on a lonesome night.

She had pored over the webpage many times over the years, memorizing most of it. She’d like to explore the Carlsbad Caverns, climb the Bandelier National Monument, soak in the Blue Hole, and ponder civilization’s rise and fall at the Aztec Ruins National Monument. She’d like to talk about it all as she saw them, but she knew she’d end up internalizing her thoughts. What if their children grew up like Frank? The thought shortened her breath.

She couldn’t remember this part: “Rio Grande Gorge Bridge is nice to walk across when there’s nobody here. Not that it was always crammed with vehicles, but when you see it empty like this you can almost feel the natural world creep back into your veins.”

What a weird conversational piece of description, she thought. Why have I never noticed that? Like it had only recently been added…

She sprung to her feet at the unmistakable groan of the undead. She couldn’t see it below the lip of the hill, but it clanged metal with every step. Fine, she figured, the cow bell keeps me informed of your whereabouts.

She saw the thing’s plastered hair wave a little stiffer than the gentle bending of the tall grass it rose above, slowly revealing the tortured face on the head it sat upon.

“What the …?”

Emerging ahead of the beast, which must have stood at least six and a half feet tall, Frank yanked the chain he led it by. Its shirt must have been white once, and that flapping, half-ripped collar probably secured a tie for some dumb office job. A fresh stain fronted its shirt, blood glistening in the low morning sun.

“Frank… no.”

“I’m alright,” he grinned, yanking the chain again.

The beast grunted as its head jerked forward, eyeing Lizzy for its stomach. Frank wrapped the chain around the lone maple tree overlooking the town, securing it with a last pull, one foot pressed flat against its bark. He wiped his hands on his shorts and t-shirt, grinning at Lizzy as he headed back towards her.

“What happened?” She clocked the flecks of red spattering Frank’s shirt, his increasingly blood-shot left eye, and the blood drying on the thing’s mouth.

“Ah,” he sat on the grass they had flattened over many nights on this hill. “I’m just having some fun.”

Lizzy tried to express her wonder, but all she could manage was a mouth-flap.

“You look like a drowning fish,” he said, observing her from the corner of his eyes, keeping his body facing the thing chained to the tree.

The thing lurched forward, each time checked by its restraint tightening, making its head snap back. It kept trying, relentless, even as it weakened, never taking its red and cloudy eyes from them.

Lizzy paced, her arms wrapped round her body despite the eighty-odd degree weather. Her skin itched, especially round her neck.

“What do you mean you were having fun?” she asked. Each jerk of the chain made her shiver. She pushed Tilly’s entrapment out of her thoughts, and asked again, “What do you mean?”

He sighed as he stood, shaking his head.

“You have blood on your shirt, your shorts…”

He gave her a “follow me for a closer look” nod and stepped carelessly towards the thing. She didn’t budge for at least half-a-minute, then shuffled closer. It felt strange to have something look at her the way she once looked at a steak.

“What am I looking at?”

Frank switched his look constantly between her and the zombie, his eyes smirking. He put his fingertips close to the thing’s mouth, making it snap at them. He kept them out of range, just.

“Frank… please, what is this.”

“Don’t look at me,” he waved his hand. “Look at this clown.”

He pushed a finger into its cheek and pulled away again as it opened its mouth wide to snap. What? What did the thing have for her to look at? Frank extended his index finger, keeping it enough out of reach for the thing to now keep its mouth open like a trap, waiting for a prize to fall between its jaws.

“It has no teeth,” she said. “How did it bite? All that blood…”

He laughed at her, pulled the rifle from his shoulder and used the muzzle to lift its upper lip. “It never bit me. I knocked every tooth out.”

Her eyes narrowed, like she would at spiteful Johnny, the five-year old kid she used to babysit, who liked to pinch his one year old sister. His upper lip always squeezed up towards his nose as he did it. The little shit. “I’m just having some fun,” Johnny had said.

“He attacked you?”

“No, it was just lolling around like it probably did when it had a job. And don’t call it a he.”

“Wow,” she said. “You just hit it for the sake of it?”

“Don’t get all moral on me; the thing is nothing more than a punch bag now.”

He shook his head, the patronizing bastard. Something weird had happened to him since they had gone to her old home. Had one of those things bitten him? He’d had that red eye since they’d met. This behavior… she couldn’t make it out.

She placed her hands on his rifle. He flinched like a redneck whose manhood-size she questioned - in a bar, in front of his buddies.

“If we have any kind of future, Frank, let me have the gun.”

Maybe her calm tone got to him. More likely the vague promise of sex she always implied. If she’d raised her voice just an octave, she knew he would have pulled away from her and told her to go to hell. She stepped back a good ten yards, nestled the rifle’s butt into her shoulder, and looked down the barrel to the spot where its eyebrows met. Even zombies have rights, she thought, as she pulled the trigger.

***

HE DIDN’T speak to her for the rest of the day, spending his time looking through his stupid sniper scope, or whatever the hell he called it, looking for the man who betrayed him. Lizzy spent time looking at Wikipedia’s New Mexico page, feeling her chest get heavier with phlegm at the delay getting there. A couple of times she thought she heard the word “bitch” muttered. She wasn’t sure. She let it slide, but times like this made her go all British, calling him a “wanker’ under her breath.

The nightly pitter-patter of animals, happily free from the disaster hitting humanity with a sledgehammer, made her eyelids meet in a gradually longer embrace. Had her re-reading the same sentence without absorption. “Sure,” she responded to the paragraph as her eyes drooped, another sentence she’d never noticed, “wouldn’t I love to have somebody share my life, too.”

***

HEAVY FEET and a snort woke her beneath a moon-torched sky. She sat up, rubbing gunk from her eyelids. The picture book stars had a horn-shaped cut. Her eyes adjusted, her heart leapt. The devil stood before her, its horns towering above, like they accused her of survival. She scurried back, ignoring sharp stones puncturing little holes into her palms. She grunted a laugh. She needed it. She let a louder one escape, enjoying its luxury. She pushed herself up and approached this Lucifer. The elk stood its ground, maybe enjoying its lack of fear from humans. She worried about it being infected, but it looked healthy, so she edged closer, keeping her face pointing down in submission to its majesty, watching it from the corner of her eyes.

Lizzy must have worn the elk’s interest in her. It gave her a haughty snort and pounded away across the silvery hill to the woods bearding its chin. She wiped her cheek to remove its damp. The damp stilled her. Her tears had brimmed, but not spilled. Dew would make more than her cheek wet. Her other remained dry. She smelled the wet on her fingers. She smelled Frank’s yellow breath.

She fought and defeated a retch, holding it in her stomach for now. Her hands patted and searched. Her top had remained down when she woke up. Her black pants remained buttoned and seemingly untampered. Had sleep knocked her out so completely that he could have had his way without her knowing? Her fingers shook as she moved them inside her pants.

She pulled out, threw herself to the hardening ground, and dry-vomited.

“I am a bitch,” she said.

She squeezed her eyes to find him, but his patch only showed the press his body made. He had gone for a night walk, no doubt looking for Danny and cussing her out for not letting him pop hard metal through the zombie’s eye-socket.

“I’m such a bitch.”

Frank must have kissed her in the night, just a sloppy peck on her cheek. She knew, despite his hard man exterior, that he craved a little human warmth. And all she gave him were vague little hints about a possible roll in long grass. That thought made Lizzy wrap her arms around her body. She wanted that human contact too. She wanted a man allover her, to make her head fizz and pop reality’s fuse if just for an hour or so. Like Connor had all that time ago. But Frank? Those teeth, that eye, that personality.

“You bitch,” she called out. “What a fucking bitch. Frank’s right.”

He was all she had. She was all he had. No matter what their personal flaws, they were the only two bodies left in the world that could repopulate it. And, man, had he been patient. Treated her space with the utmost respect.

“Let me just do this. He can have me right now.”

***

LIZZY STARED ahead as if looking elsewhere would make her see that cracked left eye of his as an infection. What if he had STDs popping out of his crotch? Now she had decided to let him have his way, it all crystallized. She didn’t know anything about medicine. No doctors survived, unless they had all scurried to a bunker deep within the earth along with a government she knew nothing about. If this man had anything, then…

“I’m a bitch,” she spat. “Just do it.”

Coming out of the long grass on to the town’s tarmac felt like she had stepped from the sea on to a rabid island. The streets had corners, nooks, places of concealment for flesh-hungry former class-mates and other people she had once known as animal-only eaters. She walked past a thing, one arm wrapped around a fire hydrant, that wore a purple hand-knitted cardigan remarkably similar to one Mrs Schultz wore, the receptionist at the community bank. A bullet hole had punctured her skull. Deep sockets, once windows to a soul, looked up at the dawn. Whatever spirit was up there had abandoned down here, leaving her alone with…

“Stop it,” she said. She undid another button. He could have a nickel-drop cleavage to look at when he saw her. She’d enjoy his face, enjoy his eyes explore her body, enjoy the light clicking on when he realized what she offered.

If she could find him.

She instead found Danny, slumped against the red-streaked wall of the pharmacy, his shattered front teeth showing where the bullet had taken him out. She poked him with her bat, just to make sure. She stepped back and looked above the pharmacy, noting the apartment. Maybe Frank had found Danny’s place. Good, she sighed, maybe we can now head west.

“Frank?” she called.

Movement caught her attention in the pharmacy window. A reflection. She looked behind, heart pumping zombie milkshake round her system. Distorted faces pressed against grilled windows in the red-brick fire station opposite. At least ten of them did their undead dance at the sight of Lizzy, maybe communicating to each other in their grunty language about who would eat which part of her. So this is how he spends time away from me, she thought. He’s rounding them up. Maybe he plans to cremate them all at once. Like he planned to clear the place so he could lay roots in this town.

“Frank?” she shouted, more agitated at that thought than the scraping feet across the road. He had to have found his money by now.

Lizzy explored the back, a parking lot free from cars. A rusty stairway led up to the apartment. What if he had taken one chance too many and he awaited her with snapping teeth? She lifted the bat head-height. At the top she rested a shoulder against the flaky green door. Controlled her breathing. Negotiated it down with positive thoughts. He had to live; they had a family to start.

She turned the handle and pulled. Thankful it opened squeak-free, she stepped in, leaving a hand on the inside handle. She narrowed her eyes for something to keep the door open, to let a little light in and allow her to find her way back if an emergency had her running for the open. She found a shoe, a moccasin which the apocalypse had not rendered any more desirable. She wedged it between the wall and door, and crept forwards deeper into the apartment.

Red finger marks streaked along the wall. The color’s vibrancy had faded with age. The hallway carpet’s edges gathered against the skirting board, but it felt dry. She heard a grunt coming from the far room. She prayed to a God she had long given up on that it was Frank. Another grunt, each one increasingly drowned by the thumping in her ears. Broken plates and mugs, upturned chairs, and a flatscreen TV littered the floor across the living room and kitchen, breaking her attention away from the goal as she stepped into relatively soundless floorspace.

Another grunt almost made her scramble, but she grabbed the bedroom’s doorframe with her left hand to steady herself. She pulled enough bravery from her depths. Felt like her stomach folded in on itself, curling up her food pipe. She’d avoided enclosed spaces for much of the last five years. I ought to sit outside, waiting for him to exit, she thought. She couldn’t now, she feared him dead, or turned. Something in this room was enjoying a feast. She could hear a slurp.

She mouthed an “Oh my God,” repeated it half-a-dozen times, let it fill her saliva, then swallowed it down into her gut. What God? If he existed, he gave her no hand. He had left her alone. Killed her parents. Killed her little beauty.

She maneuvered herself off the doorframe, used her left hand to push the door slowly. Morning light and a torch lying on the bed torch, lying on the bed spotlighted Frank. For some reason he stood naked, examining his middle finger, before reaching over the bed and sticking it … in a woman’s mouth. A woman… a…

Jealousy spiked Lizzy’s frame, making her heart judder. Where’d she hidden all this time? Had she just arrived from elsewhere, unable to stand the loneliness of hills, maybe needing the company of mankind’s constructions? She looked down, seeing a dozen broken teeth lying on the floor, but not registering any of them. She peeked again, watched him thrust his pelvis into her a few times. Gritted her teeth thinking she was Frank’s ex-girlfriend, Clarissa. The woman he had pined for a few times. She left them to it.

Late season humidity formed sweat beads on her forehead. Maybe anger caused each pop and roll. She sat at the bottom of the rusting steps, self-consciously running fingers through her matted hair. She’d never smoked, but she could have done with a cigarette now. Something to occupy her hands. Something to stop her touching her face, her scalp, making those sores bigger with each stroke.

“You ass, Frank,” she spat. “I offered you the chance to remake the world. Fine, do it with that whore.”

Lizzy thought about staying there until he came out, just to show her moral superiority. Ten minutes later and he remained inside. He must have had practice. He certainly lasted. Or maybe he, they, indulged in a bit of post-coital pillow-talk. A little intimacy. That drove her to stomp the streets, instinct making her avoid narrow side-streets.

She checked the old rusting truck in the gas station, making sure nothing lurked in its back seats. The keys had never been moved from the ignition. She looked through the smashed driver’s window. Empty of danger - the driver probably dragged to dinner, or turned. She put a foot on the vehicle’s body to help force the door wide, then pulled herself into the driver’s seat. She turned the key. Not even a splutter. She jumped out, grabbed an empty gas can, opened it, took the pump, fitted the nozzle into the can’s opening, and pressed the trigger. It filled half the can.

“Damn it.” She wiped a tear and angrily shook it from her finger. “There have to be survivors in New Mexico. Have to be.” She thought about the added lines in Wikipedia.

She capped the can and headed back down the street, wondering what she’d say to him when he finally emerged. What she’d say to that woman. She checked out each car littering the road, trying to guess which would have the best fuel efficiency. She halted at the fire station, looked through the barred windows at the undead watching her. They stood still except for one - a teenager chomping his teeth for her flesh. He banged his head red against the bar, reaching a hand through the broken glass, each attempted grab lacerating his arm.

Lizzy let a bitter smile rise. Maybe she should spoil Frank’s fun. She played with the can’s cap.

***

FRANK SAT at the edge of the bed, pulling his socks on, cussing Lizzy until all the emphasis on the letter F made his lower lip tired of battering against his teeth. He moved on to calling her a bitch for reducing him to this.

“Yeah, we can start a fucking family… when, bitch?”

He pressed his finger with his other hand’s digits, stood, and pulled the chain keeping the undead woman tied to the bed tighter. He’d wrapped the chain round the bed’s frame and mattress a few times, keeping her in place while he did so by handcuffing a leg and an arm to a couple of bedposts diagonal from the other. She gnashed her toothless gums at him, not looking quite as attractive now he’d gone limp. Her blonde hair, such a sexual beacon to him in his need, now looked like straw. She stunk like meat left in a dumpster for a week. She looked nothing like Clarissa now he could think with the head lying on top of his shoulders. His shoulders hunched thinking about his ex, wondering… No… she was dead, or undead, like everybody else.

He cringed. “What was I thinking?”

I have Lizzy, he thought. A little patience and I’ll be fine.

He had to get back to her. “She’s probably awake, hopefully wondering where I am.” He hoped she asked once he got back. He looked forward to seeing her copper hair, on fire when the sun hit each strand.

He slipped on his boots, gave himself the once-over in the closet’s floor-to-ceiling mirror, grabbed the rifle, and placed the bag over his shoulder. He’d never found the money, and he probably never would. Killing Danny had felt good for seconds. The splash of blood from the exit wound at the back of his head gave him the thrill which had waned with all those other zombie head shots. The revenge had a sweet tang for mere moments, turning bitter quickly at the realization he had wasted time, had risked Lizzy’s embitterment. He yearned for warm flesh, suddenly fearing a lack of company on possible lonely nights ahead.

As he edged the door open, he heard breathing, ascending to a groan, coming not from behind – not from the thing he’d just boned - but from the living area. He slammed the door. Too late. It hit an arm shooting through the gap. It grabbed his shirt and pulled.

“Shit,” he cried, leaning back while still pushing the door toward the frame.

The thing on the bed started shaking, rattling the chains, squirming to escape, grunting for fresh flesh. He pulled away from the grip. The hand kept a cloth-sized patch of his shirt tight in its fingers. It shouldered the door open, swaying for a second, but excited it had no barrier between him and meat.

Frank stood, getting his breath back, wondering how the damn thing had escaped from the fire station. He heard more shuffling. A second zombie’s momentum pushed the first into the room. Another followed, and another. All of them? They’d escaped. How? The rifle slid from his shoulder, but fell to the floor from his shaking hands. He knelt to pick it up, brought it to his shoulder, and aimed. He felt like he was at the Alamo, but hoped for a better outcome.

He fired. The first one’s neck snapped as the bullet punched its forehead. How many had he rounded up? Twenty? Thirty? Did he have enough bullets to finish them off before he had to reload? That time might give them a chance to finish him off.

He popped the second one’s eye. It fell on top of the first, its goo forming sludge in the cream carpet. Three came in together. A bite of blood would make them faster. But then he would change into one of them anyway. He worried about his finger. Had he left any remnants of her teeth intact? He’d definitely felt a nip.

He gasped and scurried back into the wall, turning to shoot at the three zombies coming in from his left. Fuck, waste of a bullet, he thought after the closet’s mirrored-door finished falling to the floor. He wasted the three, heard more coming, smelled burning. Burning. What could have started burning? How could these brainless goons have started a fire?

He stood, but four of them blocked the doorway, including a brunette woman. He shook the thought away. Had to stop thinking that way. One down, two, three … out of bullets. On his knees again, his fingers worked the new, less torn, ammo bag he’d found. Unzipped. He fumbled for another round. He fitted it, looked up…

***

LIZZY HAD controlled her shaking with thoughts of long summer days, dates which had gone wrong, others which had zinged. Connor.

She thought about the day they brought Tilly home. She’d looked so small in that cap the hospital fitted on her head.

She waited a couple of minutes after Frank fired his first shot, listening for the last zombie to shuffle past the little closet at the apartment’s opening she had hidden in. Once she thought none remained, she pushed the door open and splashed gasoline in a line along the carpet in the hall and up the front door, making sure it dripped at the bottom. She tip-toed outside and closed the door, leaning back as if something on the other side might snatch it open again. She let go once satisfied, and carefully spilled a little more.

More thuds from his rifle. He might just finish them all off. A little shimmer of guilt made her stand still before the door, but his betrayal pushed it back down to the pit in which it belonged. The world only had room for one Eve. Clarissa had to die. So did Frank. She pulled the matchbook she had readied in her back pocket, tore off a match, struck it, and eyed the flame for a moment. She stepped back and flicked the match at the liquid. The result shined in her eyes, matching the feeling in her belly.

She turned and ran down, missing the odd step, smashing the head of the one zombie which had lost its way from the pack and now continually walked into the wall. It crumpled into a fetus position. A few shakes and it fell still.

She stepped backwards to view the scene. The flame had spread. She could see it redecorating the kitchen and dining room areas. It punched through the dining room window, allowing a few licks to reach the roof. She could hear groans getting louder as fire seared flesh, or bullets crunched bones. The bullets stopped eventually, replaced by the sound of a rifle butt against what she guessed were skulls and jaws. Frank’s cusses gave way to grunts at the effort he expended to stay alive, to keep from becoming one of them. The only thing surprising Lizzy was the lack of screaming from the woman. Maybe she accepted her fate. Maybe she welcomed it. Like Lizzy welcomed this new freedom. Frank couldn’t have been her Adam. He had hardly evolved. She wanted smart children. This new world would need them. She would head to New Mexico to find a proper Adam. These new passages in Wikipedia had sparked urgency. Somebody out there awaited her. He, and she hoped it was a he, would father the new world.

A scream and smash snapped her back to the present. Frank had left the building. Through the upper bedroom window. His arms flailed, his legs kicked for purchase on something solid. He landed hard on the concrete, belly first, his forehead smacking into the surface. The nose crack brought a hand to her heart, but she let it drop as she took her first step towards him. He still gripped his favorite toy, the damn rifle. His other hand held tight to another bag she’d never seen. Maybe Danny’s. Frank had got his money after all. His torso moved up and down. Life remained in him.

She sucked her teeth, then let air whistle through them. She pulled the gun from his hand and let the muzzle rest on the back of his head. Since the world had pulped its humanity she had hardly used a gun on any of the beasts. Her bat did everything. She felt her way was much fairer than Frank’s method. After all, zombies didn’t have the capacity to fire a gun. But Frank had hunted their food with this. She might need it.

“Bye, Frank,” she whispered. She shouldered the rifle, turned, smiled at the cloud which cooled her from the sun, and took her first steps to New Mexico.

END

JOHN BRUNI is the author of the crime novel, STRIP, and a collection of short stories called TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE. His work has appeared in many publications, most notably in VILE THINGS from Comet Press, A HACKED-UP HOLIDAY MASSACRE from Pill Hill and ZOMBIE! ZOMBIE! BRAIN BANG! from Strange House Books. He lives in Elmhurst, IL

CAPTAIN METH-MOUTH ON THE HIGH SEAS OF CHICAGO

ONE

HOW HAD a simple summer job turned into a way of life?  Captain Dwight Fitzgerald looked at himself in the cracked mirror in his quarters and looked over his pirate outfit, now more rags than costume since he’d worn it every day from the time when the zombies killed civilization. The buttons on his coat, once shiny, now gave off a dull gleam through the tarnished, filmed-over spots, and what once was rich red material had thinned so much he could see his undershirt beneath. He’d long ago stopped wearing the fake beard, since he now had a real one, although he couldn’t grow much on his upper lip. Even the tri-corner hat he wore seemed ready to fall apart, and the skull-and-crossbones insignia had faded so much it was only a pale shadow at his brow.

The only part of his accoutrements that remained fresh was the sword he kept strapped to his waist. It wasn’t the phony one his boss had given him for the show. No, this came from his private collection, and he kept good care of it every night, no matter what. He rarely used it, since he did his best to not let zombies get that close to him. He much preferred the .45 he’d found in Miami, and the assault rifle he’d picked up in Atlanta didn’t hurt, either.

He tried to remember being a college student, but he couldn’t conjure the memories. It seemed so long ago, like he’d been a different person back then. He’d only meant to be a pirate on the Treasure Island Adventure Show for a summer before going back to class. How had he come to this? He’d been so mild-mannered before, and now he helmed a boat full of survivors, and he’d had to kill a lot of people to keep his shipmates alive. How many? He couldn’t even remember.

How messed up was that?

Boots clomped down the wooden steps. Dwight turned and saw Lt. West, a muscle-bound man dressed completely in black, arms bulging under his tight shirt. A skull cap stretched over his bald head, and a light layer of thick whiskers kept his cheeks warm.

“Land ho, Cap.  Looks like we’re here.”

Dwight stared at West, the only real warrior on this ship. West had been a Navy SEAL before the zombies. The crew had found him in New York on a suicide run, cornered by a herd of the undead. With a bit of luck and hard work, they’d saved him, and when he joined the ranks, Dwight made him first mate. Since then, West’s expertise managed to not only keep them alive, but also kept them on track, even through the wilds of Canada.  Even through the Niagara Falls nightmare. And as for Detroit?

Dwight didn’t want to think about it.

He nodded.  “I’ll be right up.  Thanks.”

As West made his way back up to the deck, Dwight took one last look at himself and straightened his sword. After all they’d been through, this was it.

They’d first heard the rumor from Benny, a teen they’d picked up in Miami. At the time, they’d set anchor on the coast of the city, safe from the zombie horde. Whenever they ran out of supplies, they’d sneak to shore and forage what they could. Sometimes they rescued survivors, and sometimes, they lost companions. They found Benny in a dumpster behind a McDonald’s with two zombies trying to get to him. Later, on the ship, he said he’d heard that the government had a base in Chicago, that they’d restored a semblance of order there.

Supplies were running low, and each search party came back with less and less. Soon, Miami would be stripped bare, and then what?

Dwight brought his advisors together. He could never get used to the pomposity of having advisors—-they were just Julio, who used to sell him weed; Jocko, who played the first mate on the Treasure Island Adventure Show; and Tori, who worked at the concession stand—-but being the captain, he was stuck with the idea. Everyone had agreed: they needed to get to Chicago. None of them favored going over land, though. The ship had offered them safety, and they didn’t want to give that up.

Over the course of the month they’d floated near Miami, they’d collected an entire treasure chest of batteries, just in case. They kept them in Ziploc bags to keep them dry, as they did with a GPS device Julio had scavenged from a grocery store. If they conserved enough energy by only turning it on once a day, they figured they could go up the coast to the St. Lawrence and take that through the maze of lakes and rivers to Lake Michigan and to Chicago. The only issue would be the cold, so they waited another month before setting sail.

Dwight smiled, thinking about old friends. Benny died in a freak accident in Atlanta. Tori bought it at Niagara. Julio and Jocko were gunned down in the Detroit massacre.

And only a half a year ago, they’d all just been normal people eking out their mundane existences.

Sometimes, Dwight lost faith in Benny’s talk of rumors, but every once in a while, they came upon a traveler or sailor who had heard the same thing. It wasn’t always the government who saved the day, but every story agreed that Chicago was a safe zone, and that kept everyone going.

Dwight took the stairs two at a time, feeling the rough and splintered hand rail scratch at his palms, and as he emerged onto the deck, he saw West had gathered the troops. All of them lined up, as if waiting for a speech.

He looked at their expectant faces and realized only one of them had been with him from the start: Hector St. Martin. They’d gone to school together but never really talked to each other, not even when they both got summer jobs on the Treasure Island Adventure Show. In fact, Hector had played the first mate of the invading pirates back then. Together with Julio, Jocko, Tori, and a few others, they’d gotten the idea to hide out from the zombies on the ship they’d worked on, the S.S. Stevenson. They’d even decided together to start rescuing people, since they’d had plenty of room onboard.

Every single person who stared at Dwight now had been saved by him and his friends. His crew. Sure, it ran contrary to the pirates they pretended to be, but just because the rules of society had been canceled didn’t mean everyone could act like a pack of uncivilized assholes.

Dwight cleared his throat. “It looks like we’re finally at our destination. We’ve all been through a lot, and for all we know, the rumors we heard are just that. We must maintain hope that order has been restored to the City of Chicago, but I want us to be prepared for the worst.”

He turned to West. “How long do we have?”

The lieutenant cast his eyes up to the mast, where Dandy Jim kept watch with his telescope extended.  “Probably a day. No more.”

Dwight nodded and addressed the rest: “This is a cause for celebration, but by the time we have Chicago in our sights, I want us to be armed and ready, just in case—

“Ship ahoy!”

Dwight glanced up and saw Dandy Jim pointing to the west, toward the city.  Sure enough, another ship rode the waves. It looked like a fishing boat, and it was headed toward them.

It could be good news or bad. They’d come upon many ships in their journey. Most wanted to barter, but occasionally, there were folks who wanted more. Folks who took their roles as pirates more seriously. Nobody onboard the S.S. Stevenson needed to be told to grab their weapons and ready themselves for battle. They scrambled about in a frenzy, but none of them panicked. They’d been through too much to panic.

Dwight stepped up to the helm and felt West’s presence at his back. He knew the former SEAL held his M16 but did not point it anywhere, his finger resting on the trigger guard. None of Dwight’s people aimed at anything yet.  They didn’t want to seem threatening, but they didn’t want to look weak, either.

As the boat drew closer, he could see their people doing the same. Their stony faces reflected the grim world they lived in, and the rags they wore indicated their squalor.

One man stood out from the rest, and as the ships started to line up parallel to one another, he said to Dwight, “I take it you’re the captain?”

“Dwight Fitzgerald. What gave it away?”

The guy looked puzzled for a moment, and then his face cracked in a smile. “Sorry. We saw the pirate ship and your clothes, and it got us kind of jumpy.”

“Relax. We won’t try to kill you if you won’t try to kill us.  Deal?”

This time, the guy laughed. “I’m Nate Gables, and this is my crew. We’re getting the hell out of Chicago, and when we saw you, we thought you were, you know. Him.”

Dwight exchanged a glance with West, but the lieutenant didn’t acknowledge him; he was too busy looking hard at Gables.

Dwight turned his attention back to the other captain.  “Uh . . . first of all, him who? And second of all, why leave Chicago? We heard it was a safe zone.”

“You heard wrong. I take it you’re not from around here?”

Dwight gave him the super-abridged version of their story and why they were headed for Chicago. When he was done, Gables nodded. “Well, you heard right about the zombies. There are none in the city.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is, the guy who cleared them out is a lunatic. Some kind of street thug with delusions of grandeur. He’s who we thought you were.”

This confused Dwight, since in all his time at sea, theirs was the only pirate ship he’d seen. “Why?”

“He’s got some kind of pirate fetish. Watched Pirates of the Caribbean one too many times, if you ask me. He has a boat just like yours, and he has an outfit like the one you’re wearing, except yours looks store-bought. He had his tailored. I guess he’d have to, seeing as how big he is.”

“Holy Christ,” Dwight said. “Sounds off his rocker.”

“I wish I could just dismiss him as crazy. He’s a tough bastard, and he runs Chicago like a police state. It’s a pretty violent place. He does the pirate thing for real, and he leads all the raids personally. His orders are shoot to kill, and any survivors… well, if they’re men, he kills them.  With his own hands. If they’re women…”

“I get the picture.”

Hector approached and whispered, “We’re running low on food.”

Dwight said to Gables, “Are you willing to barter? We don’t have much food, but we have a lot of ammo. Some batteries.”

Gables shook his head. “We’re low on everything.  Sorry.  But I hope you change your mind about Chicago. You seem like a nice guy, and Captain Meth-Mouth will probably tear you limb from limb.”

Captain Meth-Mouth? Dwight fought to keep from laughing. How could anyone take someone like that seriously?

Instead of showing off his incredulity, he said, “I appreciate the advice. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” Gables said. “Anywhere but here.”

“Stay away from Detroit. We barely got out of there alive.”

Gables laughed. “That would’ve been good advice even before the zombies.”

They wished each other well, and as Gables and his crew sailed away, Dwight turned to face his people. They’d gathered around him, waiting to hear what he had to say.

“You heard them,” he said. “What do you all think?”

“This is bad,” West said. “He must have an army, if he’s able to keep the dead out of his entire city. We’ve got a ton of ammo, but we don’t have enough soldiers. I say we cut our losses.”

“We need to get supplies,” Hector said. “We can’t turn back. We need to stock up in the next day or so, or we’ll be eating our own boots before long.”

Ellis, a shaggy-headed, constantly grinning man stepped up. “Dude, he calls himself Captain Meth-Mouth. One, what kind of clown does that?  And two, if he’s a meth-head, we can take him. No sweat.”

West regarded him with disgust, but he didn’t say a word.

Dwight cleared his throat. “How about a compromise?  We don’t have to fight this Captain Meth-Mouth.  We could always barter. Or maybe we can even join him. It sounds like Chicago is safe, just so long as you don’t cross him.”

“People like Captain Meth-Mouth don’t barter,” West said. “They take. And I don’t live with any scumbags. I don’t imagine anyone else here would, either.”

“Good point. Do you think we could maybe sneak into the city and get some supplies?  And then make off for our next destination?”

West grimaced, rubbing his stubbly chin. “It’d be tricky, but possible. It depends on how disciplined his men are.”

“And they’re probably street thugs, just like him.  Right?”

“Maybe.” West didn’t sound convinced.

“Say we do that,” a voice from the crowd said. “Say we succeed. Where would we go next?”

Dwight turned to see Kelly had joined the conversation. She’d been with him since the later Miami days. He and Jocko had saved her from a drug dealer who had kept her in his whorehouse, selling her for food and alcohol. The bastard kept four women as slaves. One had died in the confrontation, and the other two, twin sisters, decided to try their luck on their own. Only Kelly joined the crew of the S.S. Stevenson, and since then, she’d been Jocko’s girlfriend.

When Jocko died, Kelly withdrew from everyone else.  She still did her tasks, but she didn’t interact much with the others. This was the first time she’d said anything in months.

“We can’t go back.” This from Jo, a waitress they’d picked up in Norfolk. “We’d never survive Detroit again.”

West nodded. “We’re trapped in Lake Michigan.”

Dwight tugged on his beard for a moment, rubbing at the rough strands of kinky hair. “What if we did here in Chicago what we did in Miami? Just sort of float out here and raid the city every once in a while?”

“No way,” Hector said. “We didn’t have Captain Meth-Mouth to deal with in Miami.”

“He’s right,” West said. “In Miami, all you had to deal with were zombies and the occasional scumbag. It’s too dangerous here. We might get away with it once, but I wouldn’t dare try it more than that.”

Dwight cursed and forced himself to stop playing with his beard. “I’m open to suggestions. Anyone?”

“Raid Chicago once,” West said. “I’ll take a team of three. We’ll sneak in, forage what we can, and get out. When we get back, set sail north for Milwaukee, check things out there.”

“I actually heard Green Bay isn’t too bad.” From Jo again. Everyone sensed the blind hope in her voice, but no one tried to dispel it.

“Green Bay, then,” West said.

Dwight nodded. “That sounds doable. Everyone else agree?”

A few yeahs and grunts of assent from those around him. None of them sounded very eager. He didn’t blame them. They’d all hung their hopes on the stories of Chicago being true. Now things were starting to revert back to the early days of the zombie apocalypse, when everyone prepared themselves for the inevitable end of civilization and their own lives.

“That’s it, then,” he said. “Lieutenant, pick your team and prepare to embark on your mission. Ellis, ready the lifeboat for launch. Grafton, set anchor.”

Everyone went their separate ways, and Dwight stepped up to the fore of the boat. Just beyond the head of the wood-carved naked lady at the bow, he could see the city of Chicago on the horizon. Gray and dirty, it looked like a layer of scum floating on the lake. He thought about what he’d hoped to find here, and he thought about what Gables had said. He prayed to any god who might be listening that this didn’t turn into another Detroit.

TWO

CAPTAIN METH-MOUTH slit the woman’s throat and backed away so he could admire her flailing body and the spraying blood and the way her friends all stared aghast at him. Yes, moments like this made his dick hard, and he instantly regretted not sentencing her to the brothel instead. Still, this bitch and her companions thought they could overthrow him as the King of Chicago.

Dumb. Real dumb.

Her man roared and tried to break free of the guards grasping his arms and shoulders. “You bastard! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Captain Meth-Mouth nodded to Claudio, who then stabbed a fist into the prisoner’s guts. The guy doubled over, gagging. A string of bile swung from his lower lip like a pendulum.

Captain Meth-Mouth grabbed the prisoner’s chin and jerked up his face so they could see eye to eye. “You’re him?  The Turk?”

The Turk spat in Captain Meth-Mouth’s face. A fat, bubbled glob struck his cheek and oozed down to his jaw line.

The captain moved like a mongoose. His bunched up fingers snaked around the Turk’s nose and squeezed, forcing a choked groan from him. Then, Captain Meth-Mouth twisted his wrist so hard he felt the Turk’s nose creak like a rusty hinge. He held it on the very brink of breaking.

The Turk screamed and strained against the guards to no avail.

“Is it true you killed Murdock with your bare hands?” the captain asked. “Jerked his head back so far his neck broke, and his spine stuck out his throat?”

The Turk made a muffled sound, maybe a curse. Blood dripped from his pinched nostrils and colored the tip of his chin.

“I heard you call me Captain Faggot. Is that true?”

This time, all the Turk could do was groan.

“A real tough guy,” Captain Meth-Mouth said. “Let’s find out how tough. One hour. In the arena. You win, you and your friends live. You lose, your friends get butchered. It’s been a while since I skinned a man alive.” He turned to one of the other prisoners—-this one had to be Quaid, since the others were women—-and made a kissy face at him.

Quaid couldn’t meet his gaze. Pale, he looked at the ground.

Captain Meth-Mouth released the Turk’s nose and made a dismissive gesture. The guards took the prisoners away, leaving the captain alone in his throne room. He regarded the kingly seat, an ancient Egyptian masterpiece he’d taken from the Field Museum. He didn’t know which pharaoh had sat in it all those centuries ago, but whoever it had been, he’d been pimp as all hell. The only thing it had needed were skulls on the arm rests, which Captain Meth-Mouth had added near the beginning of his reign as King of Chicago. One belonged to a former friend who had boned his favorite girl, and the other was a rival drug dealer who’d had the same idea to rule the city.

Whoops.

Behind Captain Meth-Mouth, someone entered and started cleaning up the Turk’s woman. He slipped into his chambers to prepare himself for the coming battle.

He sloughed off his royal robes and shucked out of his boxers, and standing naked in front of the mirror, he flexed, smiling at the way his muscles bulged and danced under a thin layer of skin. Not bad for a former junkie. He could have been an MMA fighter, maybe even a Hollywood star. He wished he could grow out his hair and look even scarier, but he’d gone bald at an early age, before he’d even dropped out of high school. Not that it mattered; he shaved his head everyday, and he still looked pretty scary.

The only thing that bothered him was his smile. Meth had done a number on him, reducing the remaining teeth in his mouth to blackened, monstrous fangs. Every time he saw them, he wanted to have them pulled and maybe replaced with silver piranha teeth, but there were no dentists around these days. Even though it hurt, he could still chew, and he wanted to continue doing so for as long as he could.

He stepped into his workout pants and did a few stretches to make sure he had full mobility. Then, he donned a wife-beater and slipped his feet into heavy duty boots. How often had he cleaned blood and bone off of them? He couldn’t remember, but these boots had taken more lives than his sword.

He belted his rapier to his waist and gave the blade a quick examination. It looked kind of silly in his giant, scarred hands, but he knew how to use it and use it well.

Only one thing remained now. He went to his stash and pulled out a fifth of Myer’s Rum. Not his favorite brand—-rum was hard to come by these days, unlike corn whiskey—-but it would do. He belted down three swallows and felt his gums burn and tingle.

More than ready, he made his way to the arena. He had another throne here, but it wasn’t as majestic as the other.  This one had been taken from an SUV and had been overhauled to his liking. It was made of velvet and bone with a cup holder made from the skeletal hand of an enemy. Above the headrest was a skull, mounted in such a fashion that it seemed like a crown when he sat in the throne, which he did now.

Below, in the arena, jesters pretended to do battle in kind of a pre-game to the main event. Already a crowd had gathered and was laughing at the antics in the pit. Even Captain Meth-Mouth cracked a smile at the jangle-headed fools.

Soon, the hour drew to a close, and the jesters finished their show. Captain Meth-Mouth abandoned his throne and descended to the arena, ready to meet his rival.

Shortly, the Turk made his appearance, struggling against the guards who practically dragged him to the pit.  He’d been stripped to his waist and cleaned up a bit, but he certainly didn’t look ready for this.

Captain Meth-Mouth removed his sword and handed it off to one of his gofers. “Rules are simple. You die, or I die. You ready?”

The Turk tried to harden his face, but his eyes betrayed his fear. Too bad. Captain Meth-Mouth had been looking forward to a challenge, and he’d heard the Turk was a bad ass. He’d killed the Turk’s girl, for Christ’s sake!  Didn’t the anger overcome the fear?

“I’ll give you the first shot,” Captain Meth-Mouth said.  Maybe that would make this more exciting.  Probably not, though.

The Turk uttered a prayer in his own language, and it seemed to bolster his rage a bit. The fear left his eyes, and Captain Meth-Mouth felt hopeful for a moment.

The Turk bared his teeth and roared, rushing the captain with fists at the ready.

Not smart.

Captain Meth-Mouth sidestepped with ease, and he hooked an arm under the Turk’s shoulder, flipping him like a burger into the chain-link fence that protected the audience from the violence. The Turk got up right away, and when he tried his next attack, he dropped his shoulder before trying to deliver the blow.

Pathetic.

Captain Meth-Mouth hammered on him for a while, just to wake him up a bit, and he backed away to see what his opponent would do next. The Turk, blood running freely from his nose and the sockets in his gums where teeth used to be, took his stance, like maybe he’d watched too many kung-fu movies when he was a kid.

Captain Meth-Mouth couldn’t help but laugh. He played with his quarry for a while, trying to make things interesting for the audience, but after a few broken bones and a lot more blood, things got too slow.

The crowd was bored. They’d seen all of this before, so the captain got the Turk on the ground and straddled his torso. He leaned an arm on the Turk’s throat and placed his reeking maw over an eye. Sucking with all his nicotine-addled lungs’ ability, he felt the eye protrude from its socket as the Turk screamed. He screamed harder when Captain Meth-Mouth fit his charnel teeth around the orb and bit it from his head.

The Turk rolled on the ground, bleating out his pain with both hands clamped to his face. Captain Meth-Mouth turned to the crowd and held the eyeball in his teeth, proudly displaying it to his cheering fans.

Then, he saw Claudio by the fence. His second-in-command wore a grim expression on his face, so he clearly had bad news. Bad news took precedence over everything else, so Captain Meth-Mouth spat out the eyeball and chopped the edge of his hand down onto the Turk’s throat as hard as he could. He felt his enemy’s windpipe collapse like a drinking straw, and he walked to Claudio to find out what was wrong.

“Ship’s been sited on the lake,” Claudio said.

“So? Find someone to fuck their shit up and salvage what they can.”

Claudio watched the Turk trying to breathe against all odds. He even went as far as trying to reach down his own throat, but he had no chance.

“What’s up with you?” Captain Meth-Mouth asked.

Claudio turned back to his boss. “Sorry. This ship is different.”

“Different? How?”

“It’s a pirate ship, sir.”

Captain Meth-Mouth froze, trying to process this piece of information. Finally, he said, “Don’t you bullshit me. If you’re lying, I’ll fuck your ass ‘til your momma feels it.”

Claudio didn’t pause. “It’s real, all right. It should be here within the day.”

Captain Meth-Mouth motioned, and his gofer brought the sword. Distantly, the captain strapped it to his waist.

Could it be? For as long as he’d been alive, he’d wanted to be a pirate. Now, he had a rival? This opportunity could not go to waste.

“Prepare my ship. We leave within the hour.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.”

Captain Meth-Mouth strode off, eager for this new adventure. He was so distracted by this new development that he didn’t bother to watch the Turk finally roll over and die. He didn’t even wait to see his men tear the Turk’s companions to pieces in an orgy of rape and blood.

All he could think of was a battle on the high seas of Chicago.

THREE

DWIGHT AND West discussed some last minute items while the men prepared the lifeboat to be launched on this desperate mission. They didn’t get far into it. From the corner of his eye, Dwight saw Dandy Jim scuttling down the mast. He hit the deck running and rushed over to Dwight.

“You’re not going to believe this, Cap.”

Dwight recoiled at Dandy Jim’s breath. He’d been homeless in Atlanta, and even though they had a supply of toothbrushes, he never used one. His missing lower teeth stood testament to the fact that he’d never been much for oral hygiene. The crew had voted him for look-out duty not because of his eyesight—-which was exceptional—-but because of his wretched halitosis.

“What’s up?” West asked.

“I saw a pirate ship. It’s coming right at us.”

Dwight supposed a part of him had thought Gables’s story of Captain Meth-Mouth had been bullshit, or at least blown out of proportion. Now, he felt his stomach ice over a bit. He extended his telescope—-another prop from the Treasure Island Adventure Show—-and peered out toward the city. He braced himself against the rail and cast the telescope back and forth until he saw it.

And the cannons on the side.

The S.S. Stevenson had cannons, too, but they were merely decorative.

“Lt. West, your salvage mission has been scrapped. Get all hands to the armory and have them battle ready ASAP.”

“Aye-aye, Cap.”

As West moved to follow orders, Dwight took another look at the approaching vessel. This time, he could see people, and one of them wore a tri-corner captain’s hat, much like his own. This man towered above everyone else, and his outfit strained against bulging muscles. The savage look on his craggy face really put him over, though; he was pirate-mean, no doubt. Blackbeard had nothing up on this guy.

In that moment, Dwight felt the urge to retreat. Just run away. There was no way in hell they’d be able to take this guy. But no, Captain Meth-Mouth would probably chase them down. This would end in bloodshed one way or the other. Might as well make these bastards work for their victory and maybe even take a few of them down to boot.

Someone gently touched his shoulder, and it startled him enough to jerk away from the railing.  Heart pounding, he turned to see Kelly standing at his side, holding a cloth-wrapped bundle. She handed it to him, and just by the weight alone, he knew what it was.

“You might need it,” she said.

“I hope not.”

“Just in case. I’ve lost too many of my loved ones. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

Before he could respond, she rushed swiftly away. He watched her go, puzzled. Did she sense the same doom he had? Hell, they all had to. One look at Captain Meth-Mouth was enough to turn his guts to worms.

West approached, holding out a rifle to Dwight, butt out.  Dwight shook his head and patted his holster. “I’d rather have this one. I was never any good with the big guns, anyway.”

“Suit yourself.” West passed it on to Sully, a guitarist from Boston. His instrument had been destroyed in Detroit, blown to pieces by a shotgun, and a lot of his soul had gone with it.  He took the rifle, but he did not seem to care much about it.

“Besides,” Dwight added, “I hope I can talk our way out of this.”

West cocked an eyebrow, testing the waters for Dwight’s sense of humor. Finding nothing, he said, “That’s crazy.”

“It’s worth trying. These guys can probably kick our asses. Let’s try to avoid that, if we can. Hey Hector!”

Hector emerged from below deck, holding an assault rifle. “What’s up, Cap?”

“Look at our stock.  See what we can barter. I’ll bet this guy has a taste for rum, so bring up a bottle. The good stuff.”

Hector stared at him for a moment, his mouth twitching.  Finally, he said, “What?!”

West shook his head. “Guys like him don’t barter. They take. This is a bad idea.”

“Maybe he won’t,” Dwight said. “If not, we go out in a blaze of glory. But maybe he will, in which case we set sail for Green Bay with our lives.”

“You can’t be serious!” Hector practically stuttered, he was so incredulous.

“We have to try,” Dwight said. “Follow orders, all right?”

Hector looked to the lieutenant like a convict begging for a last minute reprieve.

West shrugged. “It could happen.” Then, he held up his own assault rifle and nodded toward it.

Hector understood. He opened his mouth as if to try one final time, but he knew it would be futile. He went back below.

Dwight and West stood at the bow of the ship, watching Captain Meth-Mouth’s approach. The lieutenant said, “You’re crazy, but I’ll back you, even though we’re probably going to die in a few minutes.”

“Jesus, man.  Try not to get my hopes up.”

West cracked a smile, but his eyes remained flat and calm. “Might as well make ‘em work for it.”

Dwight remembered thinking that very thing not too long ago, but coming from West, it meant more.  From Dwight, it felt like false bravado, but West meant it.  Dwight shivered. It was always cooler by the lake, right?

“I don’t know if his cannons really work,” West said, “but he doesn’t know that ours are just for show. It’s worthy of a bluff, if you really intend to talk this guy down.  Regardless, don’t take chances. Don’t let him turn his side to us. He doesn’t have artillery at the bow or aft, so let’s keep on those sides, just in case.”

Dwight could now hear the devilish war cries of Captain Meth-Mouth’s crew, and he suddenly wished he was back in Miami, smoking a bowl with Julio and watching some stupid movie on late night TV. The chill clawed at his bones again, and he pocketed Kelly’s bundle, hoping he’d never have to use it.

FOUR

CAPTAIN METH-MOUTH saw the pirate ship about a mile out from the city, and when he did, he felt his heart flutter for the first time since he’d named himself King of Chicago.  He hadn’t believed Claudio at first, but now that he saw it—-a ragged Jolly Roger flapping against the wind at the top of the mast—-he knew he was about to fulfill a childhood fantasy.

When he was five and staying with his grandma because his mom was too much of a junkie whore to take care of him, he’d seen a movie called CAPTAIN BLOOD on the broken down black and white Zenith the old lady kept in the basement, where felonious eyes would have to work really hard to notice it. The slow parts of the film didn’t appeal to him, but the action scenes? He’d gotten his first hard-on that day while watching the swashbuckling adventure. He longed to be in sword fights, knife in his teeth, swinging from boat to boat amid gunpowder flashes and flying cannon balls.

He peered through his binoculars and saw his adversary had cannons on each side of his ship. While Captain Meth-Mouth had many cannons, all taken from historical markers from around the city, only one worked:  the one he’d taken from thefield Museum. It was still enough to have a cannon battle, though. He shivered with anticipation.

A skinny fellow perched on the mast, and he shouted down to the others. People scrambled to and fro on the deck, probably getting ready for Captain Meth-Mouth’s imminent arrival. He saw one guy—-a giant who could have been a WWE wrestler—-and hoped that he was the captain.

Then he saw the guy dressed in historical captain’s clothes, just like himself. Captain Meth-Mouth had mixed feelings about this one. While he liked the style and recognized a kindred spirit, he knew he would have no trouble kicking his ass.  The captain looked wiry, so there might be hidden toughness—-and maybe he was even a sudden bastard—-but Captain Meth-Mouth knew how a one-on-one fight would end.

“Sir.”

Captain Meth-Mouth turned and saw Claudio standing by, armed with a shotgun. “What’s up?”

“Should we shoot first and ask questions later?”

If anyone else had said this, Captain Meth-Mouth would have slapped the teeth from his mouth. His first mate, on the other hand, was too valuable. Tough in a fight. Merciless after.

“There’s no fun in that,” Captain Meth-Mouth said.  “First, we parlay. Then, we kill them.”

Claudio shrugged. “Sure thing, boss.”

“Tell Markus to pull up beside them on the starboard side. We’ll talk for a bit, and when I get bored, I’ll fire the cannon at them. Make sure it’s loaded.”

“Aye, aye.”

Claudio retreated, and Captain Meth-Mouth felt his heart flutter again. On the other ship, he saw they were pretty well armed. Assault rifles, shotguns, pistols. The guy on the mast had a sniper rifle, but he didn’t look like he knew how to use it. It seemed like he scoped down on Captain Meth-Mouth, and it took him a while to find his mark through the eye piece.

Captain Meth-Mouth smiled and waved at him, knowing that he had better weapons and well-trained men. This wouldn’t be like an old pirate battle, but it would be close enough. He thought their ship would look nice in his dock, so he promised himself not to hurt their vessel too much.

The people? They were fucked. He’d keep the women for his harem, and everyone else would either be put to the sword or thrown into the zombie gladiator pit he kept at Soldier Field.

The captain, though? He’d keep that guy alive. It had been a while since he made someone walk the plank over the shark tank at the Shedd Aquarium. It only seemed fitting that he’d do that to a real pirate captain.

Dwight stood at the bow—-West at his right hand and Hector at his left—-as he watched the other ship come closer.  It tried to turn its side to the S.S. Stevenson several times, but Dwight had made it clear to Ellis, who had the wheel, to keep them face to face. Every time Captain Meth-Mouth tried to move to the side, Ellis countered perfectly.

The other boat finally gave up this maneuver, and the two ships floated bow to bow. Everyone remained silent until Captain Meth-Mouth made his way to the front and said, “Ahoy, cap’n!”

Dwight couldn’t believe the size of this guy. He could probably fit two of West in there and still have room left for scrawny Dandy Jim. Even worse was the mouthful of jagged, blackened teeth.  If he bit anyone, the victim would probably need a tetanus shot. As it was, he could smell the captain’s rancid breath over the ten yards of lake between them.

“Hey,” Dwight said. “How’s it going?”

Captain Meth-Mouth thought even less of his opponent now that he could see him up close. He was just a wispy kid, the kind Captain Meth-Mouth used to mug for lunch money back in junior high. He also didn’t approve of the cavalier way this guy conducted himself.

Fuck it. The shark tank, for sure.

“What’s up, friend?”

Dwight cleared his throat. This Captain Meth-Mouth didn’t sound too bad. He seemed laid back, in fact, not like the crazed warrior he’d been expecting.  Still, he looked too dangerous to be trusted. “Wanna’ trade?”

Captain Meth-Mouth touched his chin in the universal let’s-see-here gesture. It struck Dwight as a pose, but he didn’t want to jump at shadows yet. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt?

“We have some good shit,” Dwight continued. “Are you in need of anything?”

“What have you got?”

It felt like a natural question, but the tone threw Dwight off. Captain Meth-Mouth had to be bullshitting him, but he wanted to pretend that it had been genuine curiosity. The alternative was too scary to consider.

“We have a lot of batteries,” Dwight said. “More than we could use for quite some time.”

“Cool. What else?”

“Well.” He scratched his head. Then, he remembered what he’d sent Hector to get. “You strike me as a rum guy.  Do you like Captain Morgan’s Special Reserve?”

He elbowed Hector gently, and his friend held up the bottle.

Captain Meth-Mouth’s tongue felt saturated with saliva, and he had to swallow repeatedly to stop himself from drooling.  The Reserve was his favorite, and he’d run out of it a long time ago. He never thought he’d see another bottle in his life.

Dwight saw the look on his adversary’s face and smiled.  “Tell you what. This bottle’s free. As a gesture of good faith.”

Captain Meth-Mouth ran the back of his hand across his lips and then wiped it on his shirt. “Toss it here.”

Hector glanced at Dwight, eyebrows raised. Dwight nodded. “Go ahead.”

“What if I miss?” Hector asked.

“Don’t you worry,” Captain Meth-Mouth said. “I’ll catch it.”

Hector stepped back and slowly underhanded the bottle. It sailed across to the other vessel, where Captain Meth-Mouth caught it one-handed. He admired the bottle for a while, running his thumb across the label. “Got more of these?”

“Hector?” Dwight asked.

“A few,” Hector said. “We also have some Sailor Jerry.  Some Bacardi, if you’re desperate. We have more whiskey, though.”

“I’ll take the lot,” Captain Meth-Mouth said.

“That’s great!” Dwight said. “Listen, I was hoping we could trade the booze for some food. We’re running low on ...” He trailed off when he saw Captain Meth-Mouth shaking his head.

“Come on,” Dwight continued. “You’re on land. You’ve got to have food to trade. We’re so desperate we’ll take Ramen, if you’ve got it.”

“I’m not in the barter business,” Captain Meth-Mouth said. “In case you can’t tell, I’m in the taking business.”

Dwight felt that familiar fear creep back into his belly. West tensed next to him, his finger slipping inside the trigger guard of his assault rifle. Hector shrank back, trying to hide behind his captain.

“I take it, then, that there’s no peaceful way out of this?” Dwight asked.

Captain Meth-Mouth stepped up to the very brink of the bow. “Son, I’ve waited my whole life to get in a pirate battle at sea. There’s no way out for you at all.”

West whipped up his gun and took aim at Captain Meth-Mouth, ready to send a short burst through his torso. Claudio expected this and fired his shotgun at the lieutenant. West saw the shotgun barrel turn toward him just in time and ducked down, dragging Dwight with him.  Buckshot turned the helm into a cheese grater. West caught a light peppering high on his shoulder, and two bits had furrowed into his jaw and neck. Nothing serious, but it burned fiercely. He gritted his teeth against the pain, neglecting himself to make sure that Dwight was fine.

The captain hadn’t even been winged. Hector, on the other hand, hadn’t been so lucky. He stood in silent shock, his blackened face more bone than skin, his windpipe and upper ribs open for the world to see. One eye stared out in horror while the other slipped down into his sinuses in a yellowish, viscous form.

“Cap!  You okay?”

Dwight barely heard West’s question. All of his attention fixated on Hector’s body as it folded in on itself and slumped onto the deck. The death-blind eye met Dwight’s gaze, and he couldn’t look away. Firearms exploded all around him, bullets strafing the world, and he didn’t even flinch.

“Dammit, Cap!  Don’t do this to me!” West jerked his hand up and down in front of Dwight’s face. Dwight turned and watched as Ellis crouched behind the wheel, trying to keep the boats head to head and still not get shot. Kelly used the mast as cover while she took pot shots with her pistol. Grafton ducked down behind the edge of the rail, and he fired his shotgun without looking.

West briskly slapped Dwight’s cheek, and the captain blinked, coming back to himself. The gunfire and screams suddenly seemed louder.

“We need you, Cap. You ready to kick some ass?”

Dumbly, Dwight nodded. He glanced down at Hector—-his oldest friend on the ship—-and realized he didn’t even have time to mourn. He remembered pretending to do battle with Hector every day in Miami for the amusement of hundreds of kids. The script dictated that Hector die each and every time. Now, he was dead for real.

Suddenly, he hated Captain Meth-Mouth, and anger boiled in his guts, simmering in his head. Why had he refused the assault rifle earlier? He wanted to murder every single one of his enemies.

Something on his face must have changed, because West smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good to have you back.”

“How fucked are we?” Dwight asked.

A chunk of the bow splintered away and flew by West’s face. He jerked his head back and tried to hunch lower.  “We have a chance.”

“But not much of one, right?”

West shrugged. “We need better cover. I’m going to pop up and strafe as many of those bastards as I can. When I do, take Grafton and make for the anchor crank. If you get there, give me some cover fire so I can get behind the life boat. Got it?”

Dwight nodded, even though he didn’t like the sound of “if.” Still, he motioned to Grafton, who seemed to understand the pantomimed plan. Then, West stood, blasting away at full auto. Dwight saw from the corner of his eye as men on Captain Meth-Mouth’s ship dropped dead in their boots.

Dwight pushed Grafton down behind the thick, metal crank and started firing back the way they’d come. West retreated from the bow, shuffling back and to the side, keeping his eye on his adversaries.

He almost made it. About a yard away from the life boat, he roared, dropping to his knees. Blood sprouted from his calf and pooled quickly on the deck. Growling like a beast, he muscled his way to cover, but when he did, his foot flopped back and forth like a dying fish.

Grafton cursed and held up his empty shotgun. “I’m out, Cap.”

Someone from above screamed, and Dwight looked up just in time to see Dandy Jim, riddled with bullets, flailing as he fell to the deck, his thin body snapping like popped bubble wrap.

Bullets pinged and whizzed off the crank, but Dwight barely noticed.  All he could see were his shipmates—-his friends—-crying and yelling, sending as many bullets as they could into Captain Meth-Mouth’s ship and men. A surprising amount of Captain Meth-Mouth’s pirates poured their hot blood onto the deck, but he still had so many more standing and pouring hot lead into the S.S. Stevenson.

Captain Meth-Mouth saw something different. He saw scared people, and some of them were even women, as they tried to pitifully strike back against certain death. So much for the epic pirate battle he’d hoped for. These wannabes were ready for the end. Time to oblige them.

He ordered his men to break out their grappling hooks.

Dwight saw Dandy Jim’s sniper rifle nearby. He tried to kick out and snag the strap, but it was just out of reach.  He had plenty of ammo for himself, but he needed Grafton to be armed with something. Dwight tried with his foot again, but this time a bullet nearly found him. Instead, it tinged against the scope, obliterating it.

Well. Grafton didn’t need the scope. He needed a loaded gun. Dwight took a deep breath and charged out from behind cover, gun at the ready, reaching for the sniper rifle.

Captain Meth-Mouth and a half-dozen of his men swung across the gap and thumped down on the deck of the S.S. Stevenson. Two of them shot down Gillian and Riggs right away. Both of them, lovers Dwight had found in Atlantic City, the former a school teacher and the latter a cab driver, jerked and heaved and died before they even hit the boards.

Dwight felt his balls shrivel as he saw the pirates split up. Two of them tried to get to Kelly behind the mast. Two of them went for Ellis. Just as Dwight scooped up the rifle, Captain Meth-Mouth found him and smiled.

An assault rifle chattered, and Dwight saw muzzle fire from behind the life boat. Two of Captain Meth-Mouth’s men went down, but he just looked annoyed.

“Corner that weasel!” he yelled. “Smoke ‘im out!”

Dwight scurried back as all of Captain Meth-Mouth’s men focused on the life boat. Grafton grabbed the sniper rifle and moved to jack a round into the chamber.

Captain Meth-Mouth drew down on him and fired, blasting Grafton’s brains out the back of his head just as casually as if he’d used a remote control to change the channel.

“You son of a bitch,” Dwight said.

“Fuck ‘im.  He wasn’t invited to this little dance. Now, I see you got yourself a sword, too. That real, or is it as phony as the rest of this outfit?”

Dwight saw in his mind—-just as clearly as he’d just seen some of his closest friends die—-a vision of Captain Meth-Mouth cutting him to pieces with his rapier. Again, his belly chilled, and he felt worms crawling beneath the skin at the back of his neck.

But then, he remembered the look on Hector’s face. The scream Dandy Jim had made. Even West’s pained grimace as he struggled for cover.

Dwight would be damned if he was going to let this motherfucker win so easily. He drew his sword and held it out, ready to meet his maker standing up.

Captain Meth-Mouth whistled. “You got some steel there, son.” And then he unsheathed his own sword, aiming the point at the spot between Dwight’s eyes.

Ohshitohshitohshit! Over and over, the thought raced through Dwight’s mind. He felt something moving in his guts, and his legs quavered, a cold tickling sensation at the backs of his knees. He looked at Captain Meth-Mouth’s dancing gray eyes, then down to his grin. His teeth could have been broken shards of a black vase.

Dwight saw himself running. He wanted to do this so badly. But he knew the instant he turned to flee, Captain Meth-Mouth would lop his head off.

No. If he had to die, he wouldn’t go out like a bitch.  Time to be the pirate he’d always pretended to be.

He sneered. “You gonna’ fight?  Or are you gonna’ twiddle your sword around all day?”

Captain Meth-Mouth’s smile vanished. “It’s on now, boy.”

His sword flashed, and Dwight put his own up. The blades clashed with a spark, and Dwight felt the force of it go up his arm, kind of like hitting a line drive in baseball.  He almost felt pushed back, but his strength managed to hold Captain Meth-Mouth at bay.

“Is that the best you—-“

Captain Meth-Mouth roared and turned into a dervish of slashes and thrusts. Before Dwight could think about it, his training took over. What he couldn’t dodge, he parried, and he did so with the élan of an acrobat. All of those years spent fighting in the Treasure Island Adventure Show came back at once, and he felt like a true swashbuckler again.  He could almost hear the crowd’s applause.

Captain Meth-Mouth stopped. “Damn, boy. You’re living up to expectations. Too bad I’m going to kill you.”

Dwight didn’t want his opponent to see he was almost out of breath, so he slashed at Captain Meth-Mouth, catching him on the side of the head. If Captain Meth-Mouth hadn’t recoiled, he would have had his eyes cut from his face. Blood slipped down from a gash showing more than just a little bone.

Captain Meth-Mouth didn’t hesitate with banter. He came at Dwight in a fury, and when their swords crossed down to the hilt, he kicked, nailing Dwight in the chest.  The air was crushed from his lungs, and he fell back.  Luckily, he remembered to tuck and roll, pistoning his legs out at the right moment so he’d come back up on his feet in a flash.  Gasping for air, he tensed up, ready for the next salvo of blows.

They came hard, but Dwight managed to weather them.  In a distant part of his mind, he couldn’t believe this was happening. As Captain Meth-Mouth and he beat their blades together, gunfire and screams filled the air around them. Dwight barely noticed it when a bullet blew back his hair a little. Captain Meth-Mouth didn’t flinch when the cannon went off, taking out the mast of the S.S. Stevenson, showering him with wooden shrapnel. Blood and metallic flashes filled their world, and Dwight felt separated from it all. He didn’t even feel like he was in charge of his own body as instinct and training gave back everything Captain Meth-Mouth could throw at him.

But as his muscles flared up, and it became harder for him to lift his arms, he knew he couldn’t win. Captain Meth-Mouth was stronger, and he had more stamina. No amount of training would keep Dwight alive for much longer.

Captain Meth-Mouth couldn’t believe his luck. As blood roared through his body, driving him harder and harder against Dwight, he knew this was the battle he’d always wanted. This guy didn’t look like much, especially considering how he’d started this while wearing a hopelessly scared face, but Captain Meth-Mouth would put him up against any of the scum he’d killed in the pit. The pain just above his ear proved that. The threat of danger filled him with a rush of adrenaline, even though he knew he’d win this eventually.

Dwight’s arm couldn’t get up in time, and one of Captain Meth-Mouth’s slashes finally got through, opening Dwight’s face up from temple to chin. His flesh hung in a flap, and Captain Meth-Mouth could see Dwight’s teeth through the laceration.

The searing pain brought Dwight back to himself as he touched his cheek.  Thick blood filled his palm, and when he touched the wound, pain flared up, blinding him for a moment.

A moment was all it took.

Captain Meth-Mouth used the flat side of his sword to hit the hilt of Dwight’s. It sailed from his hand, and Captain Meth-Mouth jammed his palm against Dwight’s throat, driving him back against the wheelhouse. Captain Meth-Mouth heaved and lifted Dwight up by the neck, pointing his sword against Dwight’s belly.

Panic flooded his brain, and he lashed and flailed against Captain Meth-Mouth’s grip, trying to breathe. He felt the sword cut through his tunic and sink ever so slightly into his skin.

“It’s been fun, chuckles,” Captain Meth-Mouth said.  “You’ve enhanced my life. Just so you know.”

Kelly’s surprise. Dwight felt it heavy in his pocket. If ever there was a time for it, it was now. His right hand, feeble from loss of oxygen, managed to get into his pocket and pull out the pineapple grenade they’d found in Atlanta among the possessions of a drug dealer who fancied himself to be Scarface. No one knew if the thing still worked. He hoped it would as he somehow found the strength to pull the pin and lift it up.

Captain Meth-Mouth felt pressure at his neck and laughed, surprised at this kid’s tenacity. Even though he knew he was doomed, the kid still fought with everything he had left. But then, Dwight’s hand went higher and pressed against Captain Meth-Mouth’s chin. Only then did he see the object Dwight held.

Grinning, Dwight pushed the grenade against his enemy’s mouth, and just as Captain Meth-Mouth tried to pull back, an explosion rocked the decks of the S.S. Stevenson. Dwight felt a surge of pain, followed by a bright flash, and then darkness.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Kelly.  She sat by his side, reading a book. He couldn’t focus on the title, but he didn’t think he’d seen it on the ship before. He tried to sit up.

“Oh! You’re awake!” Kelly gently touched his chest.  “Don’t. Just stay down. Do you remember..?”

Yes. He held up his right arm, not very surprised to see that it ended in a bandage. No hand. Part of him wanted to freak out, but he just couldn’t muster the energy.

“How am I still alive?”

“Your hand absorbed most of the explosion.” Lt. West.  He stood on crutches at the foot of the bed, grinning at his captain. “You have no idea how lucky you are. That was the ballsiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Dwight tried to look at the rest of himself. “How bad is the damage?”

“You got off light,” West said. “Aside from the hand, that is. You got a nasty cut on your cheek, but you’ll probably wind up with a kick-ass scar. There are some burns on your face. You caught some shrapnel in your belly. But all things considered, you should be dead.”

“Then . . . we won?”

“Kind of,” Kelly said.

“We agreed to disagree,” West said.  “As soon as you blew Captain Meth-Mouth’s head off, his men lost the will to fight. His first mate Claudio almost seemed relieved. I think he’s wanted the top spot for a while but was too scared to go for it. Anyway, he’s in charge now. He let us set anchor up north—-safely away from him—-so we could repair the ship. We bartered for some supplies. We even got a doctor for you.”

“How about you?” Dwight asked. “I saw your foot was pretty bad.”

West glanced down at his plaster-encased foot.  “Separated at the bone. The doc fixed me up, though. I’ll probably have a limp, and I’ll be able to predict rainstorms, but I’ll still have my foot.”

“Where are we now?”

“Claudio wanted us gone, so we’re headed for Green Bay, like we talked about before.”

“Good.” Dwight eased himself up, ignoring Kelly’s look of disapproval. He staggered over to his mirror and looked upon his ruined face. He’d been moderately attractive before, but now he looked tough and raw. He reached up to touch the puckered stitches on his face, forgetting that he no longer had a right hand. How the hell was he going to survive the zombie apocalypse minus one hand? He’d always favored that one.

Why couldn’t it have been his left?

“By the way, I have a present for you, Cap.” West approached, holding up a hook with a long leather rig attached to it. “It’s something Ellis has been working on.”

“For what?” Dwight asked.

“For your hand. Ellis says a pirate with only one hand should have a hook for his stump.”

Dwight nodded, but he couldn’t find the words to tell West that he didn’t want to be a pirate anymore. It had been fun in Miami, and even when he’d been fighting zombies, it was still kind of fun. But then he started fighting the living. His friends started dying.

And now, this.

Still, he took the offered gift and cupped it to his stump, strapping it up to his elbow and shoulder.

It looked cool, real cool, and he had chosen this path, after all.

END

JAMES A. NEWMAN has sold Pulp Fiction stories and novels to publications all over the proverbial shop, most recently FREEDOM FICTION and BIG PULP. The co-founder of Spanking Pulp Press he is most well-known for his Joe Dylan detective series the latest of which caused a stir in the crime Noir charts and has attracted the attention of many of his peers. The film option for the third in the series THE WHITE FLAMINGO was sold in 2014 and Newman is currently writing the screenplay along with the fifth Dylan book. Newman’s work mixes the bizarre world of Interzone with the gritty realism of Charles Bukowski’s LA and the gritty street observations of the early pulp detective writers. Newman also writes science fiction from which he claims to gather all his material from vivid nightmares. He is known to on occasion mash up writing principles and ignore rules of conventional story-telling mumbling something about “art” much to the dismay of his editors.

UNDEAD CARGO

ONE

JOHNNY CLOSED his netbook shut.

Back in the days when he pretended to go to college he worked the night shift at the Riverhead morgue. It was there where he first struck gold.

Zombie gold.

Get so close to the dead they start to take on a life of their own. He and his buddies would take the stiffs out of the caskets and set them up around a large oak table. The stiffs were dressed in their best suits and ties and the women in their favourite summer dresses. Real classy, you understand.

His best buddy a nervous dork named Sheepdog had an idea and a handy-cam. The idea was to make a short ten minute movie down in the morgue. Well, it was the natural thing to do.

Johnny had heard somewhere that taking photographs of the dead was a popular Victorian gentleman’s hobby. It was his duty to bring this tradition up to date and into the twenty-first century.

They shot the ten minute masterpiece of funeral parlour noir and called it.

THE ZOMBIE DINNER PARTY.

It went viral on youtube and made a splash in cult underground necromantic circles. Forums sprang up, global cyber clubs drummed on their keyboards speculating to the clips authenticity. The world was obsessed with the Dinner Party. Poor imitations of the short movie sprang up. Some kids in Iowa were arrested for grave robbing. The tomb raider’s lawyer pointed the finger at Johnny and the Dinner Party, claiming the act of graveyard vandalism was the result of a copycat ritual brought about by the success of The Dinner Party. The wheels of fame and fortune kept spinning. There was even talk of a slot at Sundance after Johnny had written the script for a whole feature of the Dinner Party that a pot-head film-maker had bought while tripping on sacred mushrooms in Arkansas. One scene really rocked the boat. A male stiffs hits rigor mortis, you get the picture, just at the critical moment. Springs up from the table…. Wham! And here’s the clincher, it actually speaks, or at least appears to speak. Johnny later came to understand that corpses after a few days release gasses that come out like whispers and groans and this one time the stiff sprang up and said to the stiff opposite “wannafuck?”

They caught it on video camera.

Sure.

Real art.

The money shot, if you will.

Well, that stiff would have been a star if stiffs could be stars.

And dead stars need not paying.

The Dinner Party wound up in court, dismissed on a technicality.

How do you slander the unknown dead?

From there it was downhill for Johnny and the Dinner Party. Having been shunned by the undertaking world and having overstayed his welcome on the underground film circuit he decided to hit the road. He flew to India, worked in Bollywood as a film extra for several months before jetting East to Thailand, Burma, Laos and now...

Port Klang, Malaysia.

Since leaving LA, and the Dinner Party, Johnny Coca-Cola had written short stories but they had no guts, no real direction. He was washed out. A has been. The bar in the Malaysian port town meant nothing to him other than a place to get away from the place he wanted to get away from. Traveling from somewhere to somewhere else was like juggling air. Some said the joy was in the traveling and not the destination. Well, the destination would suit Johnny fine as long as it were a small dark hotel room looking over a busy street, desk by the window and an approaching deadline. Europe? Hamburg? The novel was a joke. He couldn’t write one. Why did he try? For five years he had been trying and he had come up with squat. Nothing, zero.

Zip.

What was he doing here? Six tables, a fridge that rumbled in the corner. A dog with three legs and none of them good legs. Its belly worn away with canine dermatitis.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

Why wouldn’t the world just leave him alone? Why wouldn’t hands leave him alone? Everyone wanted a piece of him.

Hands.

“‘What do you want?” Johnny said before turning around. Didn’t these people have any sense of jurisdiction? Everyone wanted something, and what they wanted often conflicted with what they actually needed. Yeah, Johnny read the Dharma, ate organic toast.

A voice.

“I’m just a wanting to know when the next boat leaves this forsaken town.”

Scottish, the hand was Scottish, female.

Not to be messed with.

“Sit down,” Johnny said to her. She sat down. She was young with an athletic build. Her hair was long and dark and dreadlocked and her eyes were surprisingly blue and playful. Fingernails painted blue to match, nice touch. He spoke: “I’m shifting out on a cargo vessel bound for Hamburg. Strangers make me nervous. Sit. Before I know if you can embark on this vessel I need to drink some of the filthy rum they have in this town, and my brokerage fee for your passage is for you to buy me one of these darn bottles. The ones that taste like the urine of a thousand drunken plague-ridden black rats. That’s all. That is all I ask of you for breaking my concentration.”

“Sure,” she sat down. “What is it youse do? And why are you speaking like a pirate?”

“I’m a writer. I write stories. I sell the stories to the highest bidder. How about you, sweetheart? I’m just killing myself wanting to know.”

“You’ll not be wanting to know that in any hurry. Trust me. How did you get intae it? Writing the books?”

Johnny lit a cigarette sucked at it real hard and breathed out a cloud of purple smoke across the table. He took it out of his mouth and looked at it. “My English teacher was a middle-aged lesbian alcoholic intellectual who lived with a woman who she called sister in a house called Crow Farm. Sister my left kidney, the wench was Liz to the bone. Her names were many but the one she called herself was Mrs Proudfoot. Proud. Foot. Never skipped a beat. She hated me as I didn’t stand for the same ideals as Charlotte Brown (pigtails, violin lessons), who sat near the front of class and had a cross-stich to die for… I tried my hardest to piss her off, Proudfoot that was… It was an easy thing to do. I succeeded when I sold my first story, still at high-school. Something to be, proud of, eh?”

“But the dyke thought different.” She smiled. “What was the story about?”

“Something about a kid who sleeps with his mom and then shoots his student guidance counsellor with a flare gun. It was kinda edgy. She read the story and died right there in the teacher’s room. Glass of port half full and a player’s cigarette smouldering in the ashtray. Heart attack they said, and I’d like to agree.”

The Scottish woman got up and spoke to a girl behind the counter. She returned with a half bottle of rum and two dirty glasses. “What did you do after that?”

“I made a low budget ten minute movie that went viral. We called it The Zombie Dinner Party.”

“That was youse?”

“You saw it?”

“Everybody saw it. I mean, it was awesome.”

“Thanks.”

“My name is Beth.”

“Perfect. I’m Johnny. I was hoping they called you Sue.”

“That’s my sister’s name.”

“Of course it is.”

“Tell me did you really shoot that zombie movie?”

TWO

Port Colombo

Sri Lanka

THE LAB had been closed in preparation for the transit. The corpses were decomposing to different degrees of monkey mush having travelled by truck overland from Kandy to the port capital city. There were several gibbons, chimpanzees, one gorilla and two human subjects, one female and one male. The skin had a greenish tint to it and the bodies were beginning to smell like an open meat market in the tropics; the smell of death.

The lady scientist walked along the slabs pointing at this one and then the next with the remote coolness of a meat trader. She spoke in a voice alarmingly loud for a woman of her petite size.

“Given the right conditions it is possible, ya? But we have failed. Under funding and lack of faith and a life’s work down ze crapper, is it not? The regeneration of genetic matter was my dream, all of our dreams. With the right funding it can be done. We ‘ave failed. Right now we must be moving ze samples. I don’t want a trace of evidence ever leading to our, ah facility. You are understanding, no?” The scientist, Sri Lankan in origin, dark skinned, well-shaped. Conner had been given some of her background. Educated in Hamburg, she still held contacts with the research community in Europe. She was the reluctant owner of a nervous tick that was cute, in a neurotic, nerdy kind of way. She lived by herself in a house with grounds surrounding it and a guard at the gate. The threat of Tamil Tigers etched in her mind.

If she was a reluctant beauty then Conner was the wanton beast. He had a scar on his left cheek from a knife fight in Calcutta. His greasy grey hair fell over a pair of Irish blue eyes. He splashed into the American pool three generations back. Approached by the CIA for the ease with which he tended to fit into any place or scene like a piece of furniture, or a drunk Irishman in a bar. There was a Conner in every town in every country propping up bars from Cairo to Kandy to Kathmandu. He was slim and agile with a liking of women, bad boys, booze and violence. Conner had spent the best part of the afternoon propped up against a harbour bar in his off-white safari suit smoking cigars and drinking like a sailor waiting for a ship that would never arrive. Alcohol did something to his mind, hormones raced, blind and restless.

He looked at the scientist, his mind removing the white lab-coat revealing only a pair of dark blue stockings and suspenders, crutch-less, no bra…Fine film of hair on the nipples… Shaven rose… Maybe a tattoo? Something vaguely spiritual perhaps, a symbol, just above the naval… She’d probably come on all coy at first and then break out into those spasms of uncontrolled abandon common to those in the medical profession… Bucking, swaying, gripping onto that fragile thread that separates the living from the dead. These slips of the imagination were coming on more often. Perhaps, Conner thought for a panic-ridded second he had some god awful tropical disease like Beriberi. He snapped back into the room, the lab, the job. Conner knew how she operated. How the lab was fronted by a fake non-government organization supposedly researching a preventative remedy for malaria. Maybe he had malaria? Conner had known an agent in Cambodia who didn’t eat for two weeks and disappeared with a fever into the bush. They found him several days later in the jungle conversing with a carnivorous pitcher plant and muttering something about demons and familiars… His temperature rose from boiling to freezing, died before they found the nearest hospital.

One had to take care in the bush.

Doctor Frankenstein was a dangerous piece of work, make no mistake. And she probably wore granny panties to conceal a nationally protected forest, a delicate eco-system, crumbling upon a rambler’s touch.

Conner gave it to her: “This is how it works, lady. I have rented a cargo container flying a South Korean flag. We go to the docks, early tomorrow morning and we load the container. Nobody sees and nobody checks. Piece of cake, Honey.”

She looked at him as if discovering a new virus under a microscope: “Don’t call me, Honey. What about the port authority? Say they decide to do a routine check and they are discovering, my, my, specimens?” The scientist waved a hand across the room. “If they find this? I am finished!”

Conner smiled. “I have the fix in, lady. Don’t you worry ‘bout it for a single second. I have it all under control. Tell me lady, how did you make these things alive again?”

“Nice try. Our operation here is strictly confidential. Your orders are simple. You will pick up the cargo tonight.”

“Yes, Mam,” Conner looked around the laboratory, noticed a heavy file on a table. The scientist glanced at a specimen. He picked up the file and slipped it into his messenger bag.

“Say, what do you do for fun in this town doctor?”

“Fun?”

“Yeah, that thing you do when you not playing with dead monkeys and reading up on bio-genetics.”

She looked at him directly. “I am not a tour guide, Mr. Conner. This is a serious matter. I suggest you have an early night and get some sleep. It smells like you have already discovered the city’s bars. We need you alert.”

“Okay, I get it already. I pick up the cargo at 3am.”

“Good. Now I have to be attending to work.”

THREE

ON THE bridge the captain looked the pair of them over. The captain was a tall German. A wisp of grey hair, a long nose, and lines across his face like the battered mariner’s maps studied before the advent of GPS. A tall man with spiky hair, late twenties and a woman, dreadlocked hair, pale skin, wearing a green tank top, leggings and Doctor Martins boots.

Punks.

“Have you, the pair of you, ever been at sea before?”

“Yes,” they both lied simultaneously.

Beth added. “I used to sail on the lochs back in the highlands.”

“Well, fresh water sailing is a different kettle of fish than hauling cargo freight across the world.”

“Aye, captain,” Johnny grinned.

“Are you married?”

“No,” said Beth. “It’s not like that.”

Captain made a crude circle with the thumb and fore finger of his left hand. With the right he put his index finger through it in a stabbing motion, in, out, in, out… and then shook his head and raised an eyebrow. “Well then, I’ll put you in separate cabins. We have one other passenger. Mr Conner is an import and export broker who will be staying in the Purser’s cabin. You can eat three times with the officers in the mess. The crew are mostly Philippine. There is a salt water swimming pool. You can join us here on the bridge at any time. Three weeks, across the Cape of Good Hope. Watch out for Conner,” he said looking at Beth and then at Johnny. “And if she can’t, you should.”

“Is there anything we should be aware of?” Beth asked trying to change the subject. “Besides the passengers?”

“Well, men at sea get lonely. And then there’s the other concern. We will run through the safety procedures during the voyage. Pirates are of course a concern along the Malacca straits. There will be posts on the doors of your cabins each day, pirate activity, things like this…”

Beth giggled.

“I’m not talking about black-beard and the Jolly Roger. Modern day pirates. Machine guns and speedboats. The vessel has a manual shutdown facility. When under attack all officer’s cabins are sealed shut. These modern day pirates usually steal equipment such as life rafts or anything they can be getting their filthy little hands on.”

“Are we safe?” she asked.

“Depends what you mean by safe, ya?” The Captain said with a ghost of a smile.

FOUR

EVENING.

Indian Ocean.

Sat in the Officer's lounge.

Johnny had acquired two bottles of rum from the slop chest below. He drank from the neck of the bottle and leaned back on the sofa. Outside a heavy storm rocked the vessel, rain hammered against the port holes and the hull of the cargo ship. Johnny wrote on a hardback notepad.

“Does a writer never stop?” Beth asked.

“Some do when they die. What is it you do again?”

“I’d rather not talk about it, if it’s all the same.” Beth looked directly at the door as it swung open.

Johnny looked at the figure. Greased back hair and a cream coloured safari suit and furtive eyes that zeroed in on the bottle. “Any of that in there for me, Sailor?”

Johnny nodded towards a row of glasses that stood on a wall-side cabinet. “Sure, get yourself a glass, two more glasses, and we can celebrate.”

“Yeah, what you celebrating?” the stranger asked.

“Europe.”

“You ever been?”

“Yes,” answered Beth. “Where I was born.”

“Well, well, well. Tell me stranger,” Conner shot a glance at Johnny. “You corn-dogging this young filly?”

“We’re friends,” Beth answered.

“I see. Like that, is it? What’s the matter there boy? She not playing ball with you all? You think she needs a little loosening up?”

The bottle came down on the table, broke in half, Johnny brought up the broken jagged edge up to Conner’s throat. “Now listen to me Boy, let’s not be getting off on the wrong foot now, that won’t be doing neither of us any favours,” Johnny said mimicking, Conner’s southern accent.

Conner smiled slowly like a shark in shallow reefs. “You’re good boy, real good.” His gaze turned to Beth. “I guess it must be love.” He said mockingly, his eyes darted back at Johnny. “True romance?” He spoke his words slow and carefully like he was pulling each vowel from an old chest in a dusty attic. “Let me ask you one question and one question only.”

“Shoot.”

“First you put down the bottle.”

Johnny put down the broken bottle onto the table. The wave of fear had passed and in its place was a warm energy, almost like friendship.

“Why you be wasting good rum on some piece of tartan pelt, Sailor? No wait, let me answer that one for you. She’s a better looking piece of tail than the cabin boy’s dragging around portside and the cook is keeping all the meat and vegetables for himself?”

Johnny eyes panned from Conner to Beth.

Beth stood and slapped a hand across the agent’s face. A look of surprise danced across Conner’s face replaced swiftly by that smile. “Thanks. I was just testing a theory. They say the women from the highlands have spirit. You have.”

“There’ll be plenty more where that came from,” Beth said sitting back down, “just keep talking.”

Conner held his palms towards her. “I apologize,” he said.

“There’s another bottle in the cabinet,” Johnny said. “Are you with the crew?”

“Me?” Conner smiled. “Monkeys will fly outta my ass before I become a seaman. I am here on business. Let’s leave it there and drink this bottle,” he said putting it on the table. “Do you want to hear a ghost story?” he said.

“What?”

“A story about a ghost?” Conner said.

“Do we have a choice?” Beth asked.

“Everyone has a choice. Do you want to hear it or not?”

“Spill,” said Johnny.

“Well,” Conner took a bite on the rum. “There was a passenger. A female passenger on this very vessel a few years back. The story goes that she travelled on a fake passport to avoid the persecution in her country. She was part of a tribe in Burma who had lost their homeland due to border changes. One of these nomad tribes, you understand. Well, she met an American who took a liking to her and pulled a few strings. He was attached to the embassy, if you know what I mean. He got her an American passport and promised to meet him back in New York three weeks later.”

“Were they lovers?” Beth asked.

“Well, in a platonic sense, you see they hadn’t actually…”

“She was a virgin?”

“So the story goes. She was waiting for the American. They were to be married in New York. But something happened on board. She was alone and the crew…”

“Oh my God,” Beth said.

“Well, it was too much for her, she drowned herself in the ship’s swimming pool. She still walks the cabins…”

“Ah bullshit. Let’s drink,” said Johnny.

They drank until they weren’t sure if the ship was swaying or if there was a ghost among them.

Johnny returned to his cabin to write. “Writers…” Conner scowled. “No freckin backbone.”

He sighed and decided that, with the booze, and the ghost story, the time was right to lay out the bait.

FIVE

“LET ME at least take a look, at one of them,” Beth looked into his drunken eyes. Conner felt something stir in his linen slacks. He had always wanted to make it with one of those eco-warrior types. She aroused him. Once he had got that tank top off the breasts would be firm, rounded, perhaps with nipple piercings. Her legs weren’t the longest yet shapely and she probably was into some kinky stuff, daddy issues and a back tattoo. The kind of girl who watched porn, he considered, and not just the soft stuff. She wanted to see dead monkeys, well what else did she want to see and were not the cards now in his favour? Both had their own cabins, long time at sea. The alcohol was doing its trick summoning up all kinds of possibilities. The fact that she was on the ship interested him. And, he guessed she was equally as interested in him. She found him brave, unpredictable, cute, funny, the perfect travelling companion. Unless, and it was a big unless. Unless, she was one of these eco-pirates, out to save the world. No, she wasn’t like that. Things were looking up. He let the thought dance in his mind for a while but it didn’t seem to wash. Her partner didn’t seem the type to give a rat’s ass about shark fins or harpooned whales. Maybe she was just one of these new age cyber-kids looking for new experiences. Well, he could give her a new experience alright, yes, Conner could show her a completely new world.

“It’s a very delicate operation, sweet pea. I could lose my career. I said too much already. Comprende?”

“I’ll make it worth your while,” she put a hand on his thigh, squeezed it.

“How much will you make it worth?”

“All the way,” she said.

Conner studied her face… Even the tiny imitation diamond nose stud seemed to add to rather than subtract from her beauty. He would show her one of the subjects, why the hell not? Tomorrow she would be his. He could move her into his cabin and they could explore each other for the rest of the voyage. Three weeks wrapped around each other like rattlesnakes, he could tutor her in the art of love-making. By the time they arrived in Hamburg he would be sick of her and her of him but she would be a woman with the skills to snare any man. They would go their separate ways both the richer for it. But the project was secret, he could lose his job.

He would find another.

He fished out a ring of keys from his pocket. Stood and picked up a flashlight from a cabinet. “My instructions are to drop the cargo somewhere in the Indian Ocean. I have the instructions somewhere…. I have not been permitted to inspect the cargo.”

“It will be a long lonely voyage with nobody to hold at night,” Beth said seemingly to herself.

Up on deck a storm was percolating. Then the clouds broke open and the rain hammered down on the deck like an angry promise. The ship swayed with the tides and both had to hold on to the railings else they would have fallen onto the deck. The moon was full and bright above. They edged along to the cargo hold and reached container number 23A. Conner took the keys from a chain and worked the lock. It sprang open. The smell hit them like a physical assault. What was that smell? It reminded Beth of the time she had gone for a two week break in Corfu and turned off the electricity. She’d opened the refrigerator on her return home to discover that she’d left a joint of ham in there. That was the smell – rotten meat.

“Who cut the cheese?” Conner said.

“Sweet mother of God,” she said, flashing the light into the container. The apes were hanging upside down with their bestial faces bearing awful sharp dead teeth. She panned along unable to identify all of the species, some she knew were gibbons with their long arms reaching down towards the floor of the container. Others appeared to be baboons. There were smaller specimens with large eyes, the Slow Loris, perhaps. In the corner she saw what looked like a human figure, in the sitting position, knees brought up to the chest, head sunk down. She shuddered. “Is that what I think it is?”

“The experiments were to reanimate primates. A human is, after all, a primate. I guess they considered the experiment incomplete without all subjects tested.”

“I’ve seen enough of this.” Beth turned, dropping the flashlight. It rolled under a pig-tailed marque.

“I’ve got it,” Conner crouched.

Thunder cracked, twice, above them.

And then it happened.

A lightning bolt stuck the container.

The charge threw them both clear from the open hatch. Landing on the deck, they slid on the slippery surface. The vessel swayed. The container shook as a flash of color lit it. Inside the scraping sound of bare skin on metal. A gibbon’s paw twitched. Arm stretched, scratched its head. Stood erect, eyes dead, teeth bared. Then leapt up and hung from a rail and called out with three shrill wild whoops. The other apes began to stir out of the container. Feet, wet, slipping, back to the cabin

***

Several hundred miles away on dry shore a scientist awoke suddenly. Waves of anxiety propelled her to the bathroom. She leaned over the toilet bowl and vomited. The Project flashed in front of her eyes.

***

The second mate sat at the wheel in front of the controls at the bridge. He looked out to the vast Indian Ocean ahead of him. Two hours left of his shift he felt his mind wandering to the city of Hamburg and the streets in the Reeperbahn district. He could almost taste the good German beer and the cool fall air on his skin. He would take in a show and after a night on the town collapse at the Sailors Inn. He brushed a hand through his balding scalp and massaged his temples with his thumb and forefingers in an attempt to keep himself alert.

The sound of the gibbons call was like a tango between dance and laughter. It began as a sad song before reaching a heightened pitch of frenzied passion. At first he considered the song an audio hallucination before curiosity spun him around to examine the source. There were four of them perched on the equipment shelves. He rubbed his eyes and stood. Their fur was a mottled brown and their eyes wide. Saliva dripped from their teeth. He took a few steps forward reasoning that live cargo had escaped. This wasn’t in the manual but common sense dictated they must be either contained or thrown overboard – This was a health and safety risk if ever there was one.

“Here, here,” he cooed. “Let’s get you guys back inside.”

The gibbons responded by leaping in an arc of browns and greys that landed on the second mate’s chest spilling him onto his back. His arms reached out, his hands held one of the animals from biting distance, its longs arms and fingers trying to find purchase. The others moved in fast, leathery fingers gouging out his eyes, optic fibres spilling on the floor. His screams lost in the gibbon’s blood-curdling song. Decapitating the second mate, an alpha gibbon gripped the head, spinal column attached and leaped up onto the control panels where it feasted.

SIX

IT WASN’T some kind of taekwondo move that brought Conner down to his knees. It was an upper cut. Johnny struck Conner as he reached for his glass of vodka. “I want to know what is going on in this love boat and I want to know now.”

“I was given a job. The job was simple. To lose the cargo once we reached point 0.5 in the Indian Ocean. A job I haven’t executed due to you fucking fuck-wits.”

“Steady with the language. Just what are we dealing with here? I want to be sure, because when I go for a leak on a cargo ship I don’t expect to see a monkey staring at me from the other side of the port hole. Does that appear somewhat strange to you? A monkey’s face staring at me from the other side of the glass wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“Subjects, ahem, projects. Experiments. Some fucking crackpot reanimation project,” Conner flinched.

Johnny lurched toward the bottle of Jack Daniels. Opened it. He poured himself a glass. No ice. No slice. No mixer. He drank it. “What are you telling me?”

“A few monkeys, primates, that’s it.”

“They are dead?”

“They were.”

“So what you saying. We got undead cargo?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Christ.”

“The ship’s on lock down. We are safe in the cabin.”

“The crew?”

“They were taken.”

“Taken?”

“Yes. At least some of them.”

“So who’s steering this love boat?”

“Right now?”

“No. Next Thursday. Of course I mean right now!”

“No one.”

“We’re adrift?”

“Shit creak without a paddle.”

“Jesus.”

“He won’t help you.”

“Don’t you think I know that, god dam it; it’s a figure of speech.”

Beth spoke. “So the course of action is simple. We have to take the kitchen and the medical room.”

“Yes, the lady is right,” said Conner.

“How do we do it?”

“Quickly and half drunk,” Johnny said taking a large drink from the bottle. “Softly, softly, catch a monkey doesn’t sound like the way forward.”

The calls of the dead gibbons echoed around the ship. The songs rose and fell, the devils music, ballads from the dead.

Whhooop whoop, whoop, whoop!

“What do we know about the gibbons?” Johnny asked.

“They are arboreal,” Beth answered.

“What?”

“They don’t touch the ground. Well not unless they have to. I guess they are on top deck. We don’t need to worry about the gibbons. At least not yet.”

“And the others?”

“The marques are pack animals. Happy on the ground. They have sharp teeth, unafraid, comfortable around humans,” Conner lit a cigarette.

“Shit.”

“These are the most likely to be the ones knocking at the door.”

Johnny walked over to the wardrobe. Took out the clothes rail and smashed it against the mirror. Shards of glass fell to the floor. He picked up a diamond shaped shard. Opened his rucksack, took out a hunting knife. Tore off a length of curtain and tied the shard of glass to the end of the rail. “This may work...”

Conner surveyed the room. A tall floor lamp. “Does anyone know anything about electricity?”

“A Level Physics,” Beth replied. “Unscrew the bulb. Attach a live wire and we have a cattle prod. Short range. I suggest one of us stays here and uses it to secure the cabin.”

All eyes fell on Conner. “Okay. The moment you leave I’m resealing the door. You knock five times and I let you back in. If I don’t hear anything in an hour?”

“Then pray.”

“To who?”

Johnny lashed the spear tight as he let the question dance. Beth checked the live wire on the floor lamp and handed it to Conner who had also found an axe in the wardrobe. Beth chose the hunting knife.

“The count of three, us two make it to the medic room. Once in, seal the door. We take whatever looks like it could kill or save somebody’s life...”

“What else do we take?”

“Bandages, alcohol, uppers, downers. I know my way around a pharmacy. We take the strongest most kick ass drugs known to man. We need a bag. We have to stash this shit.” Johnny emptied his rucksack. “We fill it up with supplies and then we return to the cabin. In the morning we take the kitchen.”

“We are hungry now.”

“There will be emergency food supplies in the medic room. If not then we take drugs to suppress the hunger?”

“What kind of drugs?”

“SSRI’s Ritalin, whatever we find,” Johnny smiled. “Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

They unlatched the cabin door and swung it open. A lone tree squirrel stood upright.

“Conner, is this part of the experiment?”

Conner walked over to the squirrel and brought his boot down on the animal. It crunched underneath his sole. “It was.”

“I hope they’re all as easy as this,” Beth said as she advanced.

“You’re on your own now. I’ll wait for an hour.” Conner smiled.

At the end of the corridor and took a left.

They heard it before they saw it.

A strange gurgling sound twisted into yelps of primate laughter. Johnny felt the hairs on his arm twitch. His hand gripped on the spear.

Twisted the door open.

Johnny took a swipe at the first, a chimpanzee, its mouth open, horrible yellow teeth. Saliva drooled from its black gums. Eyes dead, closed, walking forwards like a drunkard stumbling around after hours. It moved towards them with baby steps. Johnny advanced with the spear and caught it on the left cheek. Blood dripped down to its mouth. The creature’s eyes widened as the blood tricked down to its mouth. It charged Johnny knocking him to the ground. It came at him, lips drawn back. Johnny went for the eyes, pressing his fore-fingers into the sockets. The creature wrestled free, enraged. Johnny saw the flash of silver color as Beth took the creature with the hunting knife from behind, slicing at its jugular, the blood splatted the corridor covering Johnny’s face. He rolled over and picking up the spear drove it through the beast’s chest puncturing the heart.

“The medic room, get inside.”

They worked quickly without wasted movements. Johnny pointed towards boxes as they stuffed the contents into the rucksack. Johnny picked up a box full of disposable syringes.

Unlocking the door and heading right to the end of the corridor Johnny sealed the left entrance and Beth sealed the other right. This gave them the three cabins and the medic room plus the corridor. Beth shuddered at the sound of crying apes and the beating of fists on the walls outside.

“The walls and doors are the strength of a tank. We are safe here until we decide to make a break for the life rafts.”

They walked into the lounge where Conner was nursing a glass of whiskey.

“Here.” Johnny duped the drugs and vitamins on the table. “We have secured the floor. I suggest we sleep and take the bridge tomorrow at dawn. Johnny checked his watch, adjusting a dial. His mind thinking as a film director’s thought. Each scene had to be carefully planned.

SEVEN

CONNER AWOKE to the vision of a woman standing at the foot of his bed. She was naked with reptilian green skin, long legs and breasts pronounced and firm. Hair long hung in curls. She walked towards the bed and he pulled back the sheets for her to enter. Her body was cold to the touch. Perhaps he did have malaria. Perhaps the whole monkey project was a hallucination. Perhaps he had never been born. He put an arm around the creature and let it nuzzle at his neck as he widened her legs and entered her. She felt cold inside as he worked away and when he awoke she was gone and he was shivering in the lonely cabin. Conner walked to the bathroom and examined his neck. Too tiny puncture marks. He ran the shower and stepped under the stream of hot water in an effort to wash away the dream.

EIGHT

EXT. CARGO VESSEL. DAWN.

INT: [BACK IN the cabin Beth twisted the door to lock it. Outside the yelps and screams of undead monkeys.]

Conner: The file. I forgot about the file. Maybe there’s a clue in the file. I picked it up at the scientist’s lab.

Beth: Well, open it. Open it, let’s see what’s in the file.”

Johnny: Wouldn’t hurt to take a look.

[Conner opens the file. They began to read.]

1st page.

CONFIDENTIAL

2nd page.

DEAD MONKEY SUCK GOOD. SUCK GOOD DEAD MONKEY. MONKEY DEAD SUCK GOOD. GOOD MONKEY DEAD GOOD. MONKEY GOOD DEAD NO. DEAD GOOD MONKEY SUCK. DEAD MONKEY GOOD SUCK. DEAD GOOD MONKEY SUCK. SUCK GOOD DEAD MONKEY. SUCK DEAD MONKEY GOOD. SUCK SUCK MONKEY. MONKEY SUCK GOOD. DEAD NO GOOD DEAD MONKEY. MONKEY SUCK MONKEY.  ………………---------------------------------------------

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WITH MY BRAIN?

BRAIN WHAT

HAVE THEY DONE

WITH

IT

WITHDRAW THE CASE

ALL SUBJECTS

DESTROY

ALL SUBJECTS

DESTROY

ALL SUBJECTS

[CAMERA PANS ACROSS CABIN. CONNER STUBS OUT A CIGAR IN A MOTHER OF PEARL ASHTRAY.]

Conner: The scientist must have lost her mind.

Johnny: You think so?

Conner: This is impossible.

Johnny: It doesn’t matter. [Johnny flicks through the file.] The most useful thing we can do with this file is wipe our assholes with it. The captain is down and the monkeys have taken over the ship. Who needs to go?

Beth: That’s if we find anything to eat.

Johnny: There’s time, we have enough water and booze to see us through to the life rafts. On the rafts we have supplies. Rations. We have to get to that raft.

Conner: We just need a way to get past those things.

Beth: I never did tell you what I did, why I was in Malaysia.

Johnny: Does it matter now?

Beth: Very likely. I transport things, across border, I started with a small job here and there, and well it is the most easy way… Customs office at the docks is a drunk man in a shed. They just stamp your passport and up you climb. The other side is just as easy…

Conner: What? What are you saying? You’re a narcotics smuggler?

Beth: Well…

Conner: This is beautiful. I’m going down with all hands, a junked up eco-warrior bitch, a comic book writer and a dozen zombie monkeys. All we need now is a troop of clowns and a fireworks show. Who’s got the Valium, Xanax, benzodiazepines of any freakin description?

Johnny: [hand taps the table] But wait, what are you carrying, Beth? Smack?

Beth: China White.

Johnny: You can get to it?

Beth: Right over there in my suitcase. The syringes are on the table.

Johnny: Then we have a chance. You know how to cook?

Beth: Sure as shit. I was on that shite for ten years.

Johnny: So here’s the plan. We load up the syringes and cook up enough hits to knock out a Harlem hooker’s convention and take the raft.

NINE

THE GIBBON’S arms wind-mills as it shrills out a blood-curdling scream. Every white hair stood up on end as its long limbed body swings from the rope. Throws its body at Conner and sinks its teeth into his arm.

Conner swings his body in an attempt to release the animal’s grip. It holds tight with its teeth and gripped the agent’s arm. It climbs up to his head and gorges his eyes out with its fingers. He falls to the floor.

Johnny advances and plunges the syringe into the animal. It falls to the ground and draws its putrid final breath. Another gibbon leaps onto Conner and feeds on his nose, tearing a lump from his cheek. Grips the dead man’s head in its hand and smashes the head against the deck as if opening a coconut. The animal screams as the skull breaks and brains spill out purple matter onto the decking.

Undead monkeys lap up the pink, purple brain matter and freeze for a second. A larger animal approaches. A Silverback gorilla sensing a free meal charges at the smaller apes and grips Conner’s body, holds him aloft and then brings his body down onto the deck with a tremendous crash. The silverback tears the head from his neck and sucks away at his remaining juice, before abandoning the agent and moving toward Beth.

She advanced the creature with a loaded syringe in each hand and ran before springing up in the air and landing with the spikes aimed at the gorilla’s neck she pushed the plungers down and rolled to the left in the creature. It looked at her and then at the two syringes protruding from both sides of its neck, and pulled at them with its large hands. The creature stumbled forward and onto the hunting knife which found the rib cage cavity. Beth twisted and withdrew the blade.

&&&&

Inside the container a banging sound followed by an inhuman wailing sound.

“The fuck?” Johnny muttered.

“I was afraid this might happened?”

Johnny spun around. Conner’s dismembered head was speaking to him. A gibbon had crawled inside his body cavity and tore its way through Conner’s decapitated torso nourishing itself with squeals of delight before its head emerged through Conner’s rectum and leaped up onto the cargo hold.

Monkeys will fly out of my ass before I become a seaman.

“But how?”

Conner’s decapitated mouth spoke: “It wasn’t in the original plan, Johnny. They weren’t supposed to do it. How were we to know that they would do what was never supposed to be done? It wasn’t in the report. They said they would stick to animals. What have they done to my body, Johnny? What have done to me?”

The eyes were gouged out, ears torn from his face, the skin from his cheeks flapping in the wind, yet somehow Conner, transitional, had the ability of speech.

Johnny brought his boot down on the mouth, making a squishing sound as he twisted the heel. Brain particles splattered the deck like a Jackson Pollock. “Never did like ya.”

Johnny could hear that there were more. The first appeared from inside the container. It was once a young man of Southern India or Sri Lankan descent, dark-skinned.The creature sniffed the air and took in the carnage on deck. Conner’s destroyed remains twitched in the morning sun. A pack of marques advanced. Gibbons swung from the containers.

Johnny and Beth had a syringe each

“I’m going to sedate this one. You release the life raft behind us. There is a release cord, pull it. Don’t wait for me.” Johnny ran at the zombie, side-stepping as the creature lunged towards him, he ducked and attacked from the rear pushing the needle into his neck and pressing down the plunger. The creature’s jaw slackened emitting green bile that dripped from its blackened incisors and down onto his chest. The eyeballs rolled back as the smack coursed through the undead body, the shoulders dropped and the legs slackened. It fell to the floor like a sack of shit. Johnny checked his watch before he noticed what was left of the crew advancing. The Captain wobbled towards them. Johnny knew that he would have to take him as a matter of principle. The Captain must go down with the ship.

Beth leaped onto the life raft and threw him a flare before she pulled the release cord. The raft crashed into the ocean. Johnny looked at the captain, now within a few paces. Johnny aimed the flare as best he could and fired.

The captain took the flare in the face lighting up his face like a roman candle. Face aflame the Captain advanced at Johnny, arms swinging a hammer by his side. Within striking distance the hammer swung and Johnny ducked. He heard Beth scream below. He hadn’t ducked low enough. His hand brushed his head as he rose and he felt a piece of scalp loose. It was wet to the touch. He lifted up his foot and kicked at the captain who fell back onto a row of undead marques. The creatures screamed as the flames engulfed them. Johnny checked his watch and stood watching as the flames lapped at the creatures, their primitive screams coursing through the morning as the fire tore the skin from their bodies.

He looked down to a drop of fifty feet where Beth drifted in the lifeboat. He would have to dive.

The fire spread as Johnny dove from the ship and into the ocean. He swam to the raft and climbed aboard. As they drifted away from the vessel they watched the ship ablaze and then keel over before it sunk to the depths of the Indian Ocean. In its place a vast open ocean. Johnny wondered if there were a way to remember the exact location where the vessel had submerged but all around was only the blues and turquoise of ocean and sky. Perhaps it was best like that.

&&&

In and out of sleep Johnny thought the sliver of land was an illusion. As the raft drifted closer he realized that it was an island somewhere in the pacific. No man-made structures just mountains, palm trees and the movement of what appeared to be giant creatures, perhaps centipedes, their oily exoskeletons shimmering below the tropical sunlight. His mind was feverish and his stomach hungry. They both checked themselves for bite marks under the dawn sun before collapsing into a fitful slumber. Johnny awoke first and checked his watch. Beth was laid with her arms and legs spread out making small contented sighs as the raft bobbed atop the ocean. Gulls swopped down collecting small silver fish in their bills. It was quiet, although the sounds of the undead cargo still echoed in their minds. Before long they were both wrapped up in each other riding the waves as the island approached. It was a natural act, a celebration of being alive, having brushed with the dead, and the undead.

After they had finished, Johnny, took off his watch and examined it. He shook it. Beth looked at him quizzically.

“4G waterproof spy camera. It’s also a watch,” he said. “When we hit dry land we have a new blockbuster on our hands. The Zombie Dinner Party was just a practice run, baby.”

Beth smiled. They did it again.

THE END

BONUS MATERIAL

THE AUTHORS MEET ON A DESERT ISLAND….

The writes meet in a rude construction nailed together from palm timber and corrugated iron. They are on a tropical island somewhere in the pulp pacific. A well-stocked bar and a floor covered with cushions, ashtrays, and old pulp dime store titles piled, Ace double backs, Amazing Stories, Weird Tales. A three-legged beach dog with terminal dermatitis sits beneath a hammock where JOHN BRUNI rests. JAMES NEWMAN fusses behind the bar while JASON BEECH flicks through the aforementioned pulp titles. Jim's business partner JOHN DAYSH is out by the bay gathering crabs.

NEWMAN: First question, straight of the bat, is what can we get you from the bar? And what record should we put on? We have this old gramophone that still plays like the day it was born and the bar is comprehensive.

BRUNI: I think this calls for a double Wild Turkey 101 neat and some Tom Waits. Maybe HEART ATTACK AND VINE

NEWMAN: Got it. Mine will be the Singapore Slag, a cocktail I invented myself. Kicks like a mule.

BEECH I’ll have a River Horse Milk Stout. It's filling, so I can drink all day without wasting time with food. We should do the Nutty Dance to Madness' Bed and Breakfast Man before the alcohol makes us look silly

NEWMAN: I'm on it, Madness and Wild Turkey, often mentioned in the same sentence. I’ll slip on Waits first while the booze takes her time to take effect. Now let's cut to the chase and talk about reanimated flesh... My story in the Zombie Triple Spanking is about undead monkeys who escape and run wild on a cargo ship….We all know that the zombie stories go back to Voodoo and I’ve managed to dig up various stories about people going into drug like trances following spells and intoxication…This shit is interesting….[Newman downs his Singapore Slag and begins to prepare another.] Can you guys sum up your contributions in a sentence or two? And why, why, did we decide on zombies? Is there a revival? A resurrection or something blowin’ in the breeze?

BEECH: While Frank is blowing zombie heads to pulp, Lizzie's view that she is now the world's mother is ballooning. She doesn't much like Frank, but she'll trigger bloody mayhem when she realizes there's a rival Eve out there. Zelmer Pulp's C'mon do the Apocalypse gave me the itch to write a zombie story. Try not to run when you see me scratch. Ryan Sayles' contribution blew me away. Then there's Shaun of the Dead, a film I've seen about twenty times. There's some gut-punching terror mingling with the comedy. Could you shoot your mum? Even if she did want to eat your brains? I need another stout to ponder that terror. I'm not sure it's a zombie revival. Zombies have seemed a permanent fixture ever since the Romero remakes. Tom Waits' voice would make great zombie ambiance.

BRUNI: I agree with Jason. There is no zombie revival. The undead shamblers have been with us for a while, and they're here to stay. That said, there are very few zombies in my story, despite the fact that it happens during the zombie apocalypse. I always try to do something different with a trope, and I hope I've succeeded here. My story is really about a slacker who used to work as a pirate captain on the Treasure Island Adventure Show in Florida. Except now he's a real pirate, and he's saved a lot of lives on his quest for a zombie-free zone. Rumor has come down to him that Chicago is just such a place, but he doesn't know why until it is too late. You see, a former junkie/drug dealer, Captain Meth-Mouth, fancies himself a pirate. He has made Chicago safe, but only from zombies. He is a ruthless, vicious leader, and his one true dream is to battle another pirate at sea. He is about to have this dream fulfilled in Captain Meth-Mouth on the High Seas of Chicago.

NEWMAN: Hear what you saying, and must say that Romero was a big influence on me as a nine-year-old… The Dawn of the Dead -shopping mall - "When there's no place left in hell the dead will walk the Earth" made a huge impact on my pre-pubescent years. I want to thank you guys because I probably wouldn't have written a zombie story without reading your stuff first. Before we kill this bottle of Wild Turkey, tell what other coals you have in the fire? John - you and I are doing something similar. I've been working on a book called Rich Fuckers for a while and you have something called Poor Bastards and Rich Fucks.

BRUNI: POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS is a tale about class warfare in the future. A bunch of rich fucks kidnap some poor bastards that society won't miss--prostitutes, the homeless, people like that--and pit them against each other in a battle to the  death with a prize of $1 billion to the winner. The rich fucks have been doing this for many years, but this time around, there are a few complications. Two of the poor bastards are actually the children of some of the rich fucks, and there is also a ringer. In addition, one of the rich fucks likes to hunt down the contestants himself, just for the thrill of the hunt. And then there is the journalist and his rebellious friend who are out to expose the whole thing to the world. It's a tale of violence, betrayal, corruption and the desire to do good in a fucked up world (and what that will get you in the long run). Like with Captain Meth-Mouth, this one has a very memorable villain in the form of Richard Coppergate, who graces the cover of the book in all his decrepit glory. I'm curious, though. What is Rich Fuckers about?

NEWMAN: Fantastic synopsis. I can't wait to read that book. Rich Fuckers is about an international Swingers club. A secret club who meet once a year tropical locations and swing, they hire a local prostitute to add some spice to the event. Problem is things get out of hand and the hooker dies in the swimming pool. Like Bryan Jones, she was a good swimmer so questions are asked. Fingers are pointed. It’s a novel about greed and the lack of respect for the poor by these rich fuckers who grow up thinking they are better than anyone who doesn't evade tax. Jason, do you have a new project to share?

BEECH: Those projects sound nuts. I'm working on Moorlands, a novel about a former council estate kid, Larry, on his uppers as an adult. The novel starts with him breaking into his old house for an old ring he stole from a neighbor years before, after finding out its value. He can't find it under the well-fingered floorboard where he hid it as a boy. His step-dad, Bill, an ex-cop, bangs on his door the next day, rolling the jewelry between his index and thumb. Larry's eyes show the fire revealing his cool reaction as bullshit. He can have it - if he looks for his estranged sister, who's gone missing. The search will make Larry confront his past, question the incident in the woods where he left her alone with friends all those years ago, and ask whether he really wants to find her. It will have action, murder, and desperation. I'm half way through the bugger.

NEWMAN: Sounds good, man. We should talk about influences here. I recently did a podcast thing where I talked about reading as much as you can before and during the fiction writing thing. It occurred to me that a writer is influenced by all kinds of shit. What are your influences? - mine are as follows: William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Jack Daniels, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Grey Goose Vodka, Hugh Gallagher, LM cigarettes, Kevin Cummings, Dashiell Hammett, John Daysh, Patrick Hamilton, Florida lemon juice, Coke a Cola, Edward Bunker, James Hadley Chase, Honduran cigars, Lou Reed, real ale, Luke Haines, Patty Smith, great hornbills, treefrogs, rare predatory moths and Bangkok City.

BRUNI: Wow, I have so many influences; it would take forever to talk about them. Obviously, I wouldn't be here without Stephen King. To a certain degree, I wouldn't be here without Joe R. Lansdale or Richard Laymon, either. Richard Matheson had a pretty strong hand in my make-up. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be doing any of this without Franklin W. Dixon, the conglomeration of authors who wrote the Hardy Boys books. These books were the ones that made me want to write when I was a little kid, THE HAUNTED FORT in particular. Also, Nick Cave helped a great deal with his book, AND THE ASS SAW THE ANGEL, which is my favorite novel of all time. If you haven't read it, you should give it a shot.

NEWMAN: Nick Cave? My friend and fellow author/publisher Tom Vater met him and had dinner with Cave in Indonesia at a festival a while back. He is also been shortlisted for the movie soundtracks of the best book movie adaptation of all time (that has yet to be made). Cave's book, I read, enjoyed, but felt that I would have gotten more from it if I had read the Bible in more detail than I have. Looking forward to the new Cave biopic. So time to switch the jukebox. Red Right Hand, gets my vote and my coin so that's it slotted.... Murder Ballads. Great record - like Miss Marple on crystal meth. Jason, what writers or film-makers float your boat?

BEECH: I've always wanted to write, but I didn't know how far a writer could go until I read James Ellroy's American Tabloid and Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory. They're completely different, but they both sparked my engine. I'm loving Niccolo Ammaniti's books. His As God Commands and I'll Steal You Away are as wild as they come.  I've never read a Stephen King book. I feel I should walk on glass and lash my back with a broken stick for saying so. Recommend something and I'll get on it. I'd like to say I drink hard liquor reading all that, but it's usually the black stuff. Either a stout, or a cracking cup of tea. I'll drink those watching Shane Meadows movies, such as Dead Man's Shoes. Christopher Nolan is always great, and when the Coen Brothers make something like Miller's Crossing, I'm there.

And with those wise words the three authors proceeded to drink the hut dry while swapping unspeakable tales of the undead.

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Table of Contents

- THE BLOODY PATH TO NEW MEXICO

- CAPTAIN METH-MOUTH ON THE HIGH SEAS OF CHICAGO

- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- UNDEAD CARGO
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE