Dead Horizon (6 page)

He began typing. When he finished, he turned and said, “Do you have your W-2 forms with you?”

“Yes, sir,” Benny said, sliding a folder across the desk.

Peter opened the folder and studied its contents, making little noises with his tongue against his teeth. “You made a grand total of fifteen thousand dollars last year, huh?” He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Must be terribly tough to survive on such a pittance,” he said.

Benny’s face flushed. “We manage,” he said softly. “I mean, there’s the food stamps when we need them, and sometimes I get a little extra work on the side, you know, doing engine repairs and such.”

“You won’t be needing to claim any of that,” Peter said. “I hardly think it will be worth the government’s time, don’t you agree?”

“You’re the expert,” Benny replied, not sure how to take the comment.

“Yes, I am at that,” Peter replied, more to himself than to the couple.

“Do you think we’ll make out all right?” Lisa asked tentatively.

Peter smiled. “My business is tax returns, young lady. By the time I finish with you, you’ll be doing better than you can possibly imagine.”

Benny relaxed then. Those were exactly the words he wanted to hear. Forget about the man’s smug demeanor. If he could get them a return, he could have any kind of attitude he wanted.

Peter went back to work at the computer, typing information from the W-2 form. When he finished, he asked the couple some questions, typed a little more, then said, “Your return will be filed first thing in the morning.”

“We appreciate that,” Benny said.

“Now, if you’ll wait a moment, I’ll bring you copies of everything.”

Peter left the room. Benny and Lisa began to talk in a whisper, excited at the prospect of getting a little money back on their tax return. They were so engaged in their conversation they didn’t see Peter return with an axe.

He gripped it in two hands and raised it. The couple looked up at him then, but it was too late. The gleaming blade sliced through Benny’s neck first, then while Lisa was busy screaming, it took her head off.

A messy business, to be sure, but Peter felt it was his duty to rid the world of those who contributed nothing to the well-being of the nation. People like Benny and Lisa Higgins were nothing to the economy. They cost this Great Nation a fortune in welfare. These people went through life taking what they could and offering nothing in return. Maybe the Government felt it had to support them, but Peter Wilkes didn’t believe in charity. He believed in ridding the nation of excess garbage, and in the process, he lined his pockets with extra cash.

All those tiny tax returns added up when he put them together, and he had a nice little scam worked out that allowed him to collect the returns without implicating himself. He’d have homeless bums cash the checks with a fake ID, then he’d dispose of the bums and collect the money. It was what was meant by the phrase killing two birds with one stone.

Peter set about cleaning his office. This was the part he hated most about his mission. He’d hire someone to do the job, but it would be difficult to explain all the blood and body parts. He could hear his conversation with a prospective employee; Your duties will include wiping up the bloody messes I leave behind when I sever the heads of my clients. The pay isn’t all that good, but oh, the benefits.

There were three more appointments the following night. One of them was a waitress living on a salary of around ten thousand dollars a year, including her meager tips. She seemed such a sweet thing, all bubbly and talkative. Peter didn’t understand it. Her life was in the toilet. How could she smile like she did? She should have been miserable.

He left her sitting and smoked a cigarette before he returned with the axe. He almost regretted having to do away with her, as trusting as she was, but business was business. One fell swoop and her head rolled across the floor, bounced against the wall, and changed course. Peter watched until it came to a stop beside the water cooler. The eyes were still open, and Peter swore she still had that stupid grin on her face.

He disposed of her body, along with the day’s other victims, and called it a night. On the way home, he stopped off at his favorite pub. He drank two whiskey sours, smoked a couple of cigarettes (he swore he was giving the damn things up one of these days), and passed out a few business cards to what he felt were likely candidates for his special tax cuts.

It was the end of February. He didn’t need to drum up business, since this was the time when poor people were starting to clamor to get their returns in. They couldn’t wait to take back what little they’d contributed. They couldn’t wait to file those returns and get those checks back in their hot little hands so they could blow the money on some frivolous nonsense.

The Nation would be greater without them. They were leeches, sucking the blood from the country. These people simply had to be eradicated.

The government needed a few tax cuts of its own, and until they stopped pandering to the bugs of society, they would never have them. Not without the help of Peter, who considered himself an expert exterminator.

He finished his last drink and left the pub.

* * *

Peter was at the office early the next morning. He had a full day ahead of him. He made coffee, sharpened his axe, and unlocked the front door in time to greet his first appointment, a refrigerator of a guy named Ed.

“Hey, there, Mister Wilkes,” Ed said, sticking out his beefy hand.

Peter shook his hand.

“Coffee?” Peter asked.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Ed said.

Of course he didn’t. Like the others, Ed would take anything free.

Peter poured two cups of coffee and seated Ed at the desk. He sipped his own coffee as he turned on the computer. While he waited for it to boot up, he made friendly small talk.

“You have a family, Ed?”

“Sure do. Five kids, a wife. . . .”

“What do you do for a living, Ed?”

“Work construction. Been doing it all my life.”

“Make good money, do you?”

“Not too bad,” Ed said. “Work my ass off for it, though, and it takes every dime I got to take care of the family, if you know what I mean.”

Peter nodded.

“I look forward to that refund every year,” Ed said. “Like to put it toward a little vacation for me and the family. ’Bout the only way I can afford it, be honest with ya.”

Peter punched a couple of keys on the keyboard, then reached for the folder Ed had brought with him. He thumbed through some papers. “I see you have several deductions,” he said.

“As many as I could get,” Ed said with pride. “I love those deductions.”

“I’m sure you do,” Peter said dryly.

He prepared Ed’s tax return, making polite conversation, and when he finished, he slid the papers across the desk for Ed to sign.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

He returned with his axe. Ed was hunched over the table, looking at something on Peter’s desk. He turned just as Peter brought the axe down in a sweeping arc. The blade stopped just short of making the trip through Ed’s thick neck. Peter cursed and jerked it back. It made a wet sucking noise as it came away, leaving Ed’s head drooping to one side, still hanging on by bloody strings of muscle.

Peter swung again, this time lopping the head completely off. He set the axe aside and lit a cigarette, running his bloody fingers through his hair. Ed’s head lay on the floor at his feet, staring up at him, the eyes open in a state of permanent confusion.

Peter finished his cigarette, then set about cleaning up the gore. When he finished, he took a shower and dressed for his next appointment. He was nearly ready when he heard glass breaking in the front office.

“Who’s there?” he called.

He expected no answer. It was unlikely an intruder would be so kind as to supply an introduction.

Peter’s eyes fell on his axe, which leaned against the wall while awaiting its next bit of business. He shot a glance toward the door leading to the front office, where he could now hear shuffling, indicating there was indeed someone out there after all.

He took hold of the axe and moved toward the front office. There were more sounds coming from the other side of the door separating him from the main office—things being bumped into, papers being rifled. He turned the knob slowly, so as not to attract attention, and pushed the door open. Someone moved past his field of vision right outside the door. Probably a goddamn juvenile delinquent hoping to find extra cash lying around.

Peter pushed into the outer office, hoping to surprise his visitors. He brought his axe back, freezing in mid-swing, his mouth agape as he stared at a woman whose flesh glistened red where her head used to be.

Something moved to his left. He turned sharply, in time to see Ed ambling toward him, carrying his head under one arm. Behind Ed, the dumb couple, Benny and his wife, what was her name?

There was another sound behind him—the waitress with the stupid grin that was no longer there was bumping into the water cooler. She was holding her head in one hand, fingers tangled in the bloody blonde hair.

More came through the front door. He recognized some, but mostly they were victims he’d not thought of since disposing of them. They were the poor, the homeless, the down and out, the dregs of society. They began to close in on him.

Peter hoped he was dreaming. He’d fallen asleep, that’s all. This wasn’t
Night of the Living Dead,
and besides, zombies didn’t live with their heads off. Wasn’t that the way it worked? He wasn’t a big movie buff, but he knew that much. Anybody with half a brain knew that much.

He swung the axe anyway, even if he was dreaming. The blade buried in an arm here, a leg there—he even lopped off one of the waitress’ breasts, but she kept coming. They all kept coming. They circled him until he could no longer swing his axe. Finally, they converged on him completely, groping, tearing at his clothes and then his flesh. They held their decapitated heads to him and the heads began to feast on what the dead things dragged from Peter’s writhing body.

He had one last thought before he died. It was a ridiculous thought, but true nonetheless—these worthless creatures wanted their refund checks.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Jonesville was a quiet little town with a population of five hundred, not counting the dead that started climbing out of the lake one rainy night in May of 2005. Like most small-town folk, the people of Jonesville were used to their own way of living. They clung to it adamantly, even when the walking dead began to ruin the tranquil rural landscape with their rotting presence.

Truth be told, those that came out of the lake had more right to be there than any of the current residents of Jonesville, but nobody wanted to talk about that. Some things were better left unsaid, you see, and the people of Jonesville knew which things fit neatly into that category.

Most Jonesville residents eventually got used to the dead being around. Some simply tolerated the rotting corpses, so long as said rotting corpses stayed the hell out of the way and remembered their place.

Alan Bainbridge was one of those residents who tolerated the walking dead. He did so only because he wasn’t about to let them ruin the good life he’d found in Jonesville.

Alan had purchased a home here for his family, a wife and son. The house sat on the outskirts of town, right near the big lake, and he’d be damned if he was going to let a few rotting corpses force him to leave it all behind. He’d swung a good deal on the house and property—a once-in-a-lifetime deal. He would not give it up for a few dead neighbors. Dead wasn’t any worse than some of the weirdo fucks he’d been accustomed to living around back when he’d had his family in a low-income trailer park.

Oh sure, it was strange at first, going down to Main Street for groceries and seeing old lady Jenkinson limping back and forth in front of the post office, or pulling into Fred’s Garage and seeing Fred himself standing at one of the pumps with a greasy rag and overalls, holding a gas nozzle in one decayed hand while he chewed some imaginary tobacco with gums that were black and slimy with rot.

Strange, sure, but Alan got used to those things pretty quick. His wife Cora thought it would be best if they packed up and left, but Alan wouldn’t hear of it. He’d bought his new house for less than half the market value, and the land it sat on had come free with the package. A man wasn’t ever going to find a deal like that again, so the stinking corpses could hang out all they wanted, so long as they stayed off his property.

But Cora never shut up. She complained all the time, day in and day out. Her apprehension weighed on Alan’s nerves as the days drifted past. In fact, she got to be a real pain in the ass when it came right down to it, always bitching about this or that, never happy that she was finally in her own home, away from the trailer park trash neighbors she used to hate so much.

It made a guy feel unappreciated, but nonetheless, Alan went about his daily routine. He figured she’d eventually come around. One day she’d see how he worked his ass off every day just to make her life as good and comfortable as he could possibly make it. One day she’d appreciate his efforts, by God, because it was a wife’s duty to appreciate the efforts of a good man.

And Alan
did
work hard. He was an office man—a nine to fiver—and he got up every morning with a cup of coffee and his briefcase. He went to the office and put his time in pushing papers and making deals, and he came home at night to relax in his new home and all its implied success. A man doesn’t give up something like that without putting up a fight.

Morning by morning, though, Alan saw the neighborhood beginning to deteriorate at a dramatic pace. What was once a beautiful community built around a large, clear lake was becoming a haven for misfits. Cora’s nagging intensified, and the worst part of it was, Alan found it harder to counter her complaints with anything positive.

Jonesville was definitely getting worse. Alan started seeing his neighbor, John Miller, who lived half a mile down the road, dragging his trash can to the curb every morning for a trash truck that didn’t run any more. John never wore anything but his briefs, which were now colored with piss and shit stains. A couple of times Alan had even seen John’s pasty dick sticking out through the open fly in front of his briefs.