Zombie Bitches From Hell (22 page)

“Mayday, Mayday.”

“Mayday. Respond.” A voice leaped from the
speaker, full of static and so loud we all jumped.

“Mayday, respond,” it repeated. “This is
Berkshire Halo. Can you read me?”

“Fuck yes, we can read you. Berkshire Halo,
what’s your 1020?”

“We’re at Crater Forge, fifty miles due west
of Boston. In the Berkshire Armory. Where are you at?”

“Just crossing the New York-Massachusetts
border.”

“You’re crazy. That area is loaded with those
things. They’re controlling every road and pass. Now where the fuck
are you?”

“Seriously, that’s where we are. We’re in a
hot air balloon out of Denver.”

The radio went silent.

“Hello? Hello? Mayday?” said Tim holding the
mic to his mouth like he was kissing it.

“Shit, man, we thought that was a wacky
rumor.”

“What was?”

“That some dudes in a balloon were crossing
from Denver. Had reports on and off about sightings but thought it
was a gaff.”

“Gaff?”

“Yeah, bullshit. But I guess not. You’re the
real thing. Can you target us on a GPS?”

“Give me your address.”

He did. I logged it into the GPS and found
that we were about 75 miles due west of the Armory, whatever that
was.

“We’re about three hours away from you. Any
landing spots?”

“There’s a helicopter pad in an open field
just north of the Armory. Can’t miss it. How many are traveling
with you?”

Tim looked at me, curious about the question.
Granny used to say, “Be careful what you wish for, you might get
it.” It just dawned on Tim that we were letting a bunch of dudes
know where we were, who we were and that we were just two
jerk-offs, a dog and a fucking kid in one of the most valuable
things left on planet Earth.

“Respond please. How many are with you?”

Tim turned the radio off.

The moon was hidden that night and a crummy,
drizzle fell. I could make out lightning behind us but it was so
far away that the sound of thunder never made it to us; that
one-one thousand, two-one thousand horse crap wasn’t necessary.
Glad of it, too. I didn’t know how the balloon would take to
lightning or it to the balloon and we had made it too far for me to
not care.

“Uncle Kent?” asked Hadley. “I’m getting
wet.”

“Curl up over there. I’ll cover you,” I said.
This uncle thing was giving me a peculiar slant on things. Tim just
ignores it.

“Think we’ll make it to the Cape by morning?”
I asked Tim.

“No reason not to. A light tail wind and
cover of darkness. Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said as the greenish
light from the GPS lit up his face like a Halloween prank.

I cover Hadley up and say “Good night, sleep
tight.” I’m thinking how crazy this is but I could not leave her
behind. No way.

We’re sailing at a thousand feet or so. I can
see the outlines of the Berkshire mountains like black clouds
beneath us, thick forests covering the ground in every direction. I
get lost in a daydream about
The Last of the Mohicans
—never
read the book, but remember the movie real well—especially, I’m
thinking about the part where Daniel Day whoever says to his little
colonial hottie, “Stay alive. I will find you. No matter what.” Or
some such BS as that. But, you know, it’s the way I feel about Jen.
“Stay alive,” I want to tell her. “No matter what. I will…”

The balloon lights up like midday. I think
lightning has hit the goddamned thing. I’m blinded because the
glare hits me full in the face. I jump back just as Tim says, “What
the fuck?”

It’s a search light. A voice blurts out of a
bullhorn, “Land, good buddy, or I’ll blast you out of the sky.”
It’s the same voice that was on the radio. Tim reaches for the burn
and sets it full blast. As he does this, a shot like a cannon
explosion echoes through the hills. It could wake the dead, if they
weren’t already all up and at it.

“Do that again, boy, and the next shot will
be right through you. Now land!”

Tim fires down and the balloon begins its
slow descent. Hadley is up and clinging to me.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her, but I mean we need
to worry. Big time.

As we drop out of the sky like a half-shot
pheasant, we pass over a large compound lit up like a small town.
It has a wire fence perimeter with watch towers like a POW camp.
There’s a large cleared area in the middle surrounded with tents
and sheds. I can see maybe fifty or sixty guys scurrying about
heading in the same direction as us. A Hummer in bright yellow
cranks up and aims its roof lights at us as it follows our path
downward to a clearing just past the camp to the east.

Tim does a great job bringing the balloon in
and in a few seconds we’re surrounded by a large group of guys that
look paramilitary—cammy pants, t-shirts, shaved heads and guns, all
of them shouting some shit, one of them waving a tattered American
flag on a pole.

“Stay out of sight, Hadley,” I warn her, as
if she hasn’t figured out the routine by now. She crouches at my
feet with MG in her arms. The Hummer pulls up and a big dude gets
out, one of those asshole professional wrestler types, big as an
outhouse and looking like he’s got the stink to match. He’s the
jerk-off with the bullhorn.

“Step out of the vehicle with your hands up,”
he says like this is a rerun of
Cops
.

“Sir,” says Tim. “I can’t put my hands up and
climb out of this gondola at the same time.”

A shot rings out whizzing past Tim’s ear.
“Give it a try,” the bullhorn bleats. Tim and I do.

“Welcome to Camp Fuck You,” he shouts. A
sheep flock of laughter rises from the crowd around us and drifts
off into the woods.

With their guns aimed at us, we get frisked.
Nothing, of course. Not even our balls.

“Welcome, men. This is one of the last
holdouts of the white race in the great US of A. We are all one
hunert percent American born and raised and don’t countenance no
Jews, niggers, nor your yellow people and especially no wetbacks.
If they are out there, let the crazy bitches have at ’em. In here,
we abide by the Golden Rule: I am the ruler!”

The crowd cheers this ignoramus.

“Now, y’all got that straight? You’re good
and white, I think. And I ain’t seein’ no Jew beaks. You ain’t
heebs, are ya’?”

“What’s a heeb, your honor?” asks Tim.

“Why it’s a goaddamned heathern Jew!”

“Well, then no your honor, we’re Christians.
And it’s heathen, not heathern.”

“You’re lookin’ like you might be a A-rab.
You ain’t no monkey-dicked-fuckin’ A-rab, is you?”

“Your honor, my name is Tim Riley. This is
Kent Zimmer. Do they sound like A-rab names? Meaning no disrespect,
of course.”

“Zimmer? That a Jew name?”

“My father’s ancestors are German, sir,” I
reply. “Check this out.” I whip out my dick which is as uncut as a
newly purchased Halloween pumpkin. “Do you think either a Jew or a
Muslim would have a pecker that looks like this?”

“No, I guess not. You’re not queer, are
ya’?

“I’d tell you to ask my wife, but I killed
her when she ate my son. Is that sufficient, you dumb
motherfucker?” Tim says. I put my dick away—the first time I needed
it in months for anything other than pissing.

“I like your style boys,” he replies. “But
let’s not get carried away. I’m Rex. This is my band of merry men
and we’re…”

“Hey, Rex, check this shit out,” one of his
henchman yells from the direction of the balloon. He’s lifting
Hadley out by the back of her jeans. She’s kicking and screaming.
MG is nowhere to be found. Damn dog probably jumped out and ran
after a squirrel.

Rex walks over to the guy holding Hadley.

“Hey, you boys travel dangerously. This
little cunt is murder on the hoof. Who is she?”

“She’s my niece,” I reply. “I’ve sworn an
oath to protect her. She’s clean. Look at her eyes.”

Rex looks Hadley up and down.

“Put me down, you sonafabitch!” yells Hadley.
“Put me down!”

“Hey, let her go. She’s just a kid,” I
say.

“She’s just a kid? Yeah, like a rag-head
airline pilot is just a poor boy tryin’ to make a livin’,” says
Rex.

The guy holding her let’s her go. She hits
the ground running toward me. A shot rings out and blows Hadley’s
chest out from the back. Her eyes catch a look at mine for a
millisecond.

“No! Fuck no!” I shout as I run to her
crumpled-up body. “She was just a kid, just a kid.” For the first
time since all this has started I break down and cry my eyes
out.

“Too young for fun, boys, and too old not to
be dangerous. She was gonna turn soon enough and she’d be eatin’
your balls like Double Bubble bubble gum. That’s what you needed?
You two shits. I just did her and you both a favor.”

I look up and he knows I’m going to rush him,
rip his eyes out and drive my shoe so far up his ass my foot will
come out his mouth, so he points his gun right at me. “I wouldn’t.
Not less you meanin’ to disrespect my hospitality. This here is the
way the world works now, boy.”

Maybe he was right, I’m thinking. Nothing I
can do now. I let her down, but what was the future? I go numb and
put it behind me. Don’t know what else to do.

“You’ll thank me for this, boys,” Rex says.
“Jimbo, Arnie. Get these guys to the med tent. And bury that
stinkin’ kid.”

***

“It’s fresh,” the man known only as “Rex”
grunts. “No worries.”

His voice is firm and tense, deep and
guttural as if he’s speaking to zombies, not survivors. Although,
from the looks of his seedy, humorless crew, he might as well be
most of the time.
With glistening fingers the hulking figure bathed in firelight
tears a juicy leg from one of the fresh chickens spread out on the
table before us and shoves the fat end into his mouth, sucking at
the tip greedily before yanking the bone, flesh-free, from his
gaping maw; rotted but gargantuan teeth smile back, the wide gaps
stuffed with flesh.

I look hesitantly toward Tim, licking his
blistered lips next to me and already reaching for a wing. I don’t
want to partake of anything these jackoffs have provided, but I’m
hungry and join him. The taste of hot, sizzling, juicy flesh
assaults my taste buds, providing an almost painful sensation as my
confused stomach threatens to send back the first fresh food it’s
tasted in, what… six weeks?

“Sure beats canned beans,” Tim announces to
the table full of healthy-looking men, all featuring shaved heads
and distrustful glances and headstone-sized teeth identical to
Rex’s.

They grunt appreciatively, watching us
carefully as their large-knuckled fingers caress the butts of the
shotguns propped casually on each knee.

Has it only been half-an-hour since we
stumbled on their camp from the road, the smell of a roaring fire
and the klieg lights surrounding the walled encampment beckoning us
like moths to the flame?

A guard had frisked us, finding only two
moldy backpacks full of stale candy bars and the last of our canned
food, the remainder of a vending machine raid back a ways.

We were immediately strip-searched and
deloused in a military style tent, shoved into sweatpants and
flannel shirts and our old boots, and suddenly here we are: in
Rex’s private tent feasting on roasted chickens and grilled
corn.

Southern fried rock wafts in from outside as
a tent flap opens and a leggy young blond dressed in a cheerleading
outfit stumbles inside. The men at Rex’s table gawk appreciatively
at her long, slender legs, slender waist and generous breasts,
barely concealed beneath the top half of her too-small costume. Her
mouth is tied with a gag and duct-taped for good measure.

Her hair is greasy and long, but her unkempt
mane only adds to her evocative allure. Her eyes look haunted but
focused, grimly set on completing her task, that being setting
another tray of cheap canned beer on top of the wooden picnic table
next to the open bag of potato chips.

Rex grabs her wrist but the cheerleader
barely flinches; only regards him with cold, dead eyes. Her skin
has a grayish tinge and a marble texture, but even from across the
room I can see the life in her eyes and the grim set of her
jaw.

“Say hello to our new friends, Buffy,” Rex
says while licking his lips. He regards us with empty, dark eyes
and says, “Buffy’s one of our prized possessions, fellas. Prime,
grade-A tail from the local women’s college about two clicks
yonder. We ran across ’em on a hunting party a few months back,
chowing down on their dean, the dumb motherfucker; twenty-eight
sorority girls just itching for a little male companionship, right,
Buffy?”
The cheerleader regards Tim and me with contempt, but remains
motionless, even as Rex crudely yanks up her blue and yellow skirt
to reveal a daring pink thong beneath. It looks crooked and
ill-fitting as if, like the rest of her costume, it was chosen for
her rather than by her; as if she’d been dressed by another rather
than allowed to dress herself.

I watch as Rex eyes her warily, a small
silver taser near his hand on the roughhewn picnic table in the
camp leader’s expansive tent. Rex strikes me as a man afraid of
nothing, not even a camp full of wiry, neo-Nazi thugs, but
something in this woman’s eyes has his fingers chained close to a
few thousand volts of electricity.

She turns to leave. Rex lets his guard down
and, immediately, the cheerleader turns and with a gnarled hand
slices at his cheek with razor sharp nails.

Blood from a thin gash across his jaw line
glistens in the firelight as he stands, stun gun at hand and shoves
it deep into the wanton woman’s neck; the sizzle of human flesh
burning singes the air as she bucks with the current of electricity
jarring her body.

When at last she is stunned and helpless he
tosses the taser casually onto the table and with a dirty fist
punches her once, twice, three times on the side of the head; along
the way something cracks, but the woman shows no pain, only a dazed
kind of patience as two of Rex’s thuggish minions drag her, kicking
and screaming, from the tent.