APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (20 page)

Four days of being stuck with
Victoria was wearing on him quickly. He peeked out the peephole of his front door and saw his next door neighbor, Jack Hamilton, dressed only in his underwear, lumbering across the parking lot. Dried blood covered his torso and Hito noticed that the man’s feet were almost black. He supposed it was because all the blood had pooled down there after the circulatory system had stopped pumping. The walking dead man also seemed to have a heavy load of poop in his drawers, which sagged and left brown steaks down the backs of his thighs. Jack didn’t appear to be embarrassed at that little mishap, though.  It seemed that the dead had even less pride than he did himself. He shoved a chair under the doorknob, careful not to make too much noise, and turned around.

             
Victoria stood glaring behind him. “Are you going to go out and get us some food today or just stay in here and hide again?” she whispered fiercely.

             
He sighed. “I am not going out there, Vic. I just saw Jack staggering through the parking lot and it’s hard to tell how many more of them are out there.”

             
She snorted in disgust.  “God, you are pathetic. I know! Why don’t you let
me
go out there and get
your
food?  I seem to be the only one that has any balls in this house.”

             
“Vic, c’mon,” he said, reaching out to touch her. She jerked her shoulder back from him with an expression of revulsion.

             
“You know, I should have married Eddie. He was a lazy piece of shit, but at least he was a man.”

             
Hito felt a flood of rage as months of pent up anger seized him. All the stress, all the disappointment, all the suppressed emotions pulsated in his head.  No one knew how hard it had been to keep these feelings inside and still try to do his best every day in a desperate and vain attempt to make his wife happy by sacrificing himself, and for what?

             
Nothing
. That was what. And that was what replaced the sudden rage.
Nothing.
He felt something inside him snap, then nothing. He felt nothing when he watched his fist shoot out and punch his wife in the face, sending her front teeth flying from her mouth. He felt nothing as she sprawled backwards and crashed into the torch lamp behind her, knocking it to the floor with a crash. He felt nothing as she lay motionless on the beige carpet bleeding from her busted lip and gums. He felt nothing when he saw the dried carcasses of dead bugs in her hair from where they had collected in the bottom of the lamp’s globe and spilled upon her when it broke. He felt no more disgust at her phony religion or their sham of a marriage. He felt nothing as he dragged her to the front door and moved the chair out of the way, clicked open the dead bolt and swung the front door open. He felt nothing as he pulled her unconscious body by the wrist onto the concrete slab they had called a front porch.

             
“Hey! Jack! You hungry, boy?” he shouted, as if he was calling for his old faithful dog. Jack turned; a yellow discharge of infection ran thickly from his eyes and nostrils and covered his lower face and the front of his filthy man boobs, as he moaned his affirmation. Hito heard more groans coming from the parking lot and felt for the keys in his pocket. The corpses lurched toward the unconscious woman, bleeding on the stoop.

He glanced down at her with a blank expression
and then sprinted to where his Ford Ranger was parked. He started the engine and fired up the heater. Hito almost didn’t hear Victoria screaming his name as she was engulfed by a swarm of hungry corpses. He put the truck in gear and pulled out of the lot and turned left toward destiny.

                                                 
Chapter 18 - The Queen City King

Two weeks after infection

Cincinnati
, Ohio 

              Ahmed bin Muhammad didn’t know what his new moniker meant; he only knew that it sounded a lot more gangster than John Jay Walker and the nickname ‘Good times’ that he hated so much before the pandemic had engulfed the earth.

             
He and a group of survivors had holed up in the King’s Heights manor and had immediately dubbed themselves, ‘The Black Confederacy’. As irony would have it, the ever growing hordes of undead had become a more perfect Union and the south Queen city would not rise again.

             
Now, mere days since he had formed the Confederacy, it consisted of only himself,  his sister, Wanda and one scrawny white girl with stringy, dirty blonde hair named Beth.

             
Corporal Shere Howard of the 2
nd
Marine Expeditionary Force had her M4 leveled at center mass and took a quick inventory of Muhammad’s pathetic group.  Her make shift squad had been ordered to fan out to cover more ground. This was an order that she followed with silent dread and anger. Her C.O., Lt. Forbes, was a full time uniformed cop from Columbus, Ohio and a part time soldier in the Ohio National Guard. Forbes was basically an accountant or some other type of office pogue.  The term metro-sexual would have used his photo as a prime example. Pompous and full of himself, he was assuredly going to cause the death of many of his troops.

The civilians were all armed, but only the unlucky or stupid weren’t these days. Only the man stood with his sidearm extended toward her.  She really wasn’t that worried though, he held it on its side like all the thugs in the movies did and would probably end up spraining his wrist if he fired it that way. He stood, making a large target while Shere crouched on one knee, her 5.56 carbine was a lot more accurate than his .22 revolver, with her training and his lack of discipline; there really was no reason to prove herself here. Her job was to round up civilians from the
King Heights block and have them transported to a secured detention center before another transfer to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton for processing. Still, there was always danger involved; whether it was by the Black Confederacy, various other gang remnants or by the hordes of dead bodies that would like nothing better than to initiate her into their own faction.

             
“Whatchoo think you gonna do, bitch?” Ahmed yelled from where he stood, it was a distance of about twenty yards.

             
“You are to drop your firearms and come with me!” said Shere routinely, but nervously. She felt too exposed out in the open courtyard. There were just too many angles she couldn’t see and from those angles she was aware that the dead could easily come pouring out and surround her.  She had been rounding up refugees for the last two days and most had surrendered with the promise of food, water and some hope of a future.

             
“Fush you!” screamed Beth, letting loose a barrage of spittle from between her mangled and decayed teeth as she un-holstered her own revolver. Shere could see the tell-tale sores on her face and the horrible dental hygiene of a meth addict.

Shere heard Ahmed laugh and
mimic the white girl “Yeah,
fush
you…
you
drop
your
firearms and you can be my number two bitch!”

             
Shere sighed. “Do as you’re told and I can help you,” she reasoned. Her duty dictated that she protect the citizens of this country no matter how pathetic they were.

             
Ahmed laughed again, “Yeah I’m gonna put yo fine ass in my stables, fo’ sho’.”

             
This was where the job got difficult. Killing zombies was pretty clear cut, you just shoot them in the brain pan – case closed. Dealing with the living always posed a more difficult problem. It didn’t matter what color they were, how old or what gender, they never wanted to give up their property. You always had to convince them that it was for the best. She could understand these people not wanting to give up their possessions, to a point, but when you are facing the distinct probability that you will be forced to cannibalize those closest to you just to stay alive then she believed it was a good time to go to where the food was.

             
“You will be given food, water, shelter and medical treatment,” she reassured, trying hard to sell it, even though she was relatively sure that these three amigos and their contributions to society wouldn’t be missed all that much if she cut them down where they stood.

             
“I got yo food right here, bitch!” screamed Ahmed. He grabbed his crotch with his free hand that was covered in gold rings which Corporal Howard was reasonably sure hadn’t been there last week. Ahmed added “It’s a Manwich…’cuz it’s bigger than a sandwich!” and howled with laughter.

             
“Damn right, baby, it's fushin' huge” verified Beth.

             
Shere took a deep breath. It was men like this that had given her race a bad name. There were plenty of good black men that were smart and successful, but their numbers were far eclipsed by these ass clowns. She took another deep breath to clear the reoccurring thought of shooting him. “I’ll try one more time,” she told herself in a hushed voice and then said in a louder voice, “Your government is trying to protect you.”

             
Ahmed laughed long and hard. “And some skinny little black bitch like you is gonna protec’ me?”

             
“This is your last chance. Throw the firearms on the
damn
ground!” Shere had been patient, but her pride was strong and she did not like being laughed at by this sewer rat that had probably been leeching off the system his entire life. She had given up two years of her life to serve this country and to ensure this idiot’s freedoms and now he was disrespecting those sacrifices. The muscles in her jaws clenched in anger.

             
“Why don’t you put
me
on the ground, bitch,” yelled Ahmed, as he looked over at the women with an exaggerated expression of bravado filling his face.

             
Shere lowered the barrel of the M4 and shot Robert E. Lee in the kneecap. “Done,” she whispered triumphantly, “Ladies?” she asked, raising her voice over the din of Ahmed screaming obscenities at her as he writhed on the ground.

Shere watched in amazement as Wanda dropped down beside the defacto leader of his tiny, ridiculous gang, consoling him. What was
wrong with some women? It seemed like the worse they were treated the more loyal they were to those that mistreated them. Beth, whose bright scabs stood out in stark contrast to her milk white skin and who was obviously drugged out of her skinny white mind charged toward the Marine. Shere waited until the meth whore was close enough then raised the butt of her carbine in front of her at shoulder level and smacked her sharply across the bridge of her nose, breaking it instantly, while also sending two rotted, black teeth flying from her open mouth. Beth fell to the pavement, out cold; Shere secured her wrists behind her back with a thick zip tie then walked over to the other two.

             
“You black bitch,” hissed Ahmed, as he looked up at her from where he lay.

             
She again considered doing this country a favor by putting two in his face, but duty won out over desire like it always did with Corporal Howard. “Put pressure on that wound,” she said to Wanda.

             
Wanda looked up at Shere, “They have food?” 

Shere nodded.

The Marine spoke into her headset. “Hotel Six to Air Cav. Grid three, sector five, I have three survivors, two needing medical attention, uninfected. Popping smoke now,” said the Corporal as she grabbed a canister grenade from her deuce gear and pulled the pin. She tossed the canister to the open court of the King and a thick cloud of green smoke drifted in the breeze.

She heard a man’s voice in her earpiece respond. “Copy that Hotel Six, ETA three minutes.”

              Shere looked at Wanda. “Why didn’t you come to the Evac station the first night instead of hooking up with these clowns?” She didn’t think that Wanda was like the other two; she just seemed like a normal scared woman.

             
“He’s my little brother. He’s not a bad boy, he just went a little crazy when all them dead people ate his little girl,” answered Wanda. Upon hearing this Ahmed, or ‘Good Times’, started crying. Shere’s expression softened. She slung the rifle over her shoulder and after she dragged the unconscious body of Beth to the others. She crouched down beside the man and dressed his wound. “The chopper is en route, hang in there, you’ll be fine,” she said, as she pulled her canteen from its pouch and lifted his head to drink. After he choked down some water he looked up at the Marine.

             
“I’m sorry about the shit I was sayin’, it was stupid,” he fumbled.

             
Shere nodded her head, “It’s alright…just relax,” said the Marine.

             
“They call me Good Times.”