Apocalypticon (28 page)

“Look, if she starts acting up, we’ll put her down with the machete.”

“You can’t kill a buffalo with a machete.”

“Are you nuts? The Indians killed them with pointy rocks. I think they can be put down with a machete.”

“No, I know they
can
be killed with a machete. I just don’t think
you
could do it with a machete.”

“Because of my attachment to her?” Patrick asked, rubbing Ponch’s nose affectionately.

“Because of your general physical ineptitude.”

“
Pbbbbbft!
” Patrick said, shooting streams of spit from his lips. “I’ve seen
Apocalypse Now
, Ben. I think I know how to kill a giant mammal with a machete. Then we’ll have meat and fancy new buffalo coats, and we’ll eat the heart and gain the strength and wisdom of the bison.”

“Ten of your worthless American dollars says she eats you first.”

“You’re on.”

They plodded along, the three of them, moving in a generally southeastern direction. Ponch slowed their pace a bit, stopping here and there to munch on grass or low brush, but, as Patrick pointed out, they were in no real hurry. Disney World would be just as wrecked in a month as it would be tomorrow.

Complain as he might, Ben eventually conceded to a better mood. The fog was thin, the sun was particularly bright, the day was unusually warm, and the northwestern Mississippi woods had given way to mostly open fields. For the first time in a long time, they could see for over a mile in each direction. Which made it especially surprising when they finally realized they were practically surrounded by runners.

There were four of them, three moving up swiftly from the south, one jogging toward them from the northeast. Ben was the first to notice them on the peripheral. He raised a panicked alarm and drew the wrench from his pocket.

“Oooooooh, this is not good,” Patrick said.

“They’re moving more slowly than the other ones,” Ben noted. They were quick, but none of them were sprinting like the first runners they’d encountered. Maybe it was the sight of the buffalo that made them approach more slowly, maybe it was the clash of two mini tribes, but for whatever reason, they looked almost cautious. “Maybe they’re a different breed.”

“Right. Maybe they
don’t
try to eat shoe leather and human flesh. You go say hi and see if it’s true.” Patrick drew the machete. It felt clumsy in his left hand. Ponch pawed at the ground with her great hooves, as if she sensed trouble brewing. “Maybe Ponch will save us,” Patrick said, his voice quivering with the fear he tried to shove back down into his stomach.

“Sure. Maybe she’s one of those military tactical buffaloes. I’m sure she’ll come through.”

They didn’t have to wait long to learn how Ponch handled herself in a fight. The runners, tired of circling the prey, finally made a collective mad dash for the trio. They acted at the same time, all four of them, like an organized flock, despite their apparent partisanship. Ben let loose a gasp of fright and gripped the wrench in both hands. Patrick raised the machete. The madmen flew into a furious attack. And Ponch snapped into action.

She reared back on her hind legs and crushed the first runner in the face with a massive, cloven hoof. The force of the kick nearly exploded the runner’s head, spraying yellow blood and gore into the air in a fine mist. Ponch stamped forward and shouldered through the next two runners, knocking them to the ground, then turned and charged at the fourth, coming in from the north. The runner screamed in anger and leapt at the buffalo. Ponch jerked her head and thrust a long, curved horn straight through the runner’s right eye. It lodged in the subhuman creature’s brain, killing it instantly. The runner hung limp from the horn as Ponch turned to the other two runners, who were just clambering to their feet. She charged and trampled them underfoot, the gouged runner flying from her horn like a windsock. Ponch crushed right through one runner’s leg bones and stamped on the other’s skull, flattening it in an explosion of yellow goo. The one with the broken leg hissed in fury and clawed his way toward the buffalo. Ponch shook her head, dislodging the hanging runner, and pawed at the ground. She trotted over to the remaining runner, which was now a crawler, and plopped its entire body weight on the thing’s head with a sickening
crunch
.

The entire fight was over in 17 seconds. Ben and Patrick stood speechless for at least three times as long.

“Okay,” Ben finally said. “We can keep her.”

10.

Leanne stuck the knife into the deer’s carcass just under the tail and sawed up through its pale belly to the chin. She yanked back the skin and held the flaps open against the ribcage with a pair of stones. She grabbed the hatchet and straddled the prostrate animal. With one quick, strong swing, she cracked through the breastbone. She flung the hatchet into the ground, grabbed the deer’s front legs, one in each hand, and pulled them apart, separating the halved plate and opening the chest cavity. Using her knees to hold the cavity open, she picked up the knife and severed the windpipe just below the jaw. She tossed it and the torn gullet into the open chest cavity and moved on to the ribcage. She pried it up and slipped the knife through the abdomen muscles quickly and delicately, exposing the stomach and intestines, taking care not to nick them. She cut down to the pelvic bone, then switched out the knife for the hatchet once again and cracked right through it. She nearly sliced into the urinary tract and cursed herself for being careless. For the next ten minutes, she sawed at the deer’s diaphragm, changing position every so often to push different wet, sticky organs out of the way of the knife. 

She was about to cut the intestine free from the pelvic area when a twig snapped somewhere in the woods. She froze immediately, squatting perfectly still over the mutilated carcass. Her eyes darted quickly and efficiently through the tree line with the skill of a practiced hunter. When she was finally satisfied there was no movement in the brush, she turned back to the deer and sawed at the large intestine.

When she was done dressing the deer, she trimmed the edible meat from the muscle and bone and dropped it into a nylon sack. She tied it off with baling twine and dropped the little sack into a larger nylon bag and tied it off, too, leaving the twine long. She hefted the bag over to the creek, tied the excess length of twine to a tree root curling out from the bank, and dropped the whole package into the cold, yellow water. The surface disturbance caused ripples of fine yellow Monkey dust to pile up on each other, creating a thick, wet crust that eddied and swirled down the rapids. She clenched her jaw and watched the crust slip away with hollow eyes. Once it flowed out of sight, she plunged her hands into the water and washed them clean of the blood and gristle.

Back inside the house, everything was quiet. She pricked up her ears suspiciously. Not a sound. The pantry door was padlocked securely, the tripwire at the base of the front door was undisturbed. Nothing was amiss.

She returned to the backyard and dumped a load of firewood into the pit. In a matter of minutes, she had flames flaring up through the kindling and licking at the heavy logs. She tossed the deer’s stomach and intestines onto the fire and backed away from the stench. When they’d burned down to cinder flakes, she threw in the other organs. She watched with a wicked grin as the blood still inside the heart started to sizzle and boil. It came spurting out the valves in hot, steaming jets, spraying the ground around the pit crimson.

She stalked over to the back door and grabbed the stewpot. She dunked it into the river, upstream of the deer meat, just in case. She lifted it out, full of gray-green water, and hauled it back over to the fire. Once she’d kicked the logs flat with her heavy combat boots, she set the stewpot down in the center of the fire. By the time the water started to boil, it was raining. The storm came on quickly, and soon it was falling in sheets. Leanne spat curses at the sky as she grabbed the tarpaulins and erected two makeshift tents, one over the fire, the other over the wood stack. She was just tying off the second tarp when she heard another loud
crack
from the woods. It rang clearly in the air, even through the gentle roar of the rain. She flicked her head around like an owl. Between the rain and the fog, visibility was low, extremely low, but another
crack
shot through the mist, and then another, and she knew for certain something was out there. She hurried with the tarp, latched it into place, took three long strides to the house’s rear overhang, and grabbed the shotgun leaning against the wall. The rustling from the woods grew louder and closer. She raised the gun to her shoulder just as two men broke through the fog twenty yards to the west. Two men and...sweet Martha’s tits, was that a
buffalo
?

“Y’all hold it right there,” she called out, leveling the gun at the one with a head the size of a pumpkin. The two figures stopped immediately. “Recite the Pledge of Allegiance.” The two figures turned to each other. One of them shrugged. They turned back toward her and, in unbalanced unison, began the pledge.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the U—“

Leanne lowered the gun. “That’s enough. Y’all kin come in, get yerselves out of the rain.” She turned back toward the house, then stopped. “The buffalo stays outside.”

Patrick prodded Ben forward toward the house. “You go first.”

Ben shook his head. “You’re taller. I can use you as a shield. You go.” He practically had to shout to be heard over the rain.

Patrick frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe we should stay with Ponch.”

“And drown? Good plan.”

“Fine. We’ll go together.” Patrick patted Ponch on the nose and whispered some heartfelt words of parting.

“It’s harder for her to shoot us if we’re zig-zagging. We should zig-zag.” Patrick conceded that this was a fine idea, so the two of them plunged through the woods, running and hopping at jerky, awkward angles, colliding with each other and with trees as they went. It seemed to work; they made it all the way to the fire without getting shot. “What the hell’re you creeps doin’?” the girl demanded from the patio. “Getcher asses in or keep yer asses out.” They hustled onto the patio, and she shooed them inside.

Ben grimaced as he inspected the house. “I think I’ll go back out and drown,” he muttered. The whole house was dark, with no candles lighting the space despite the growing dark of the storm outside. It was a small structure, just a handful of rickety rooms making up a building not much larger than a doublewide trailer. They stood in what Patrick assumed was the living room, mostly through process of elimination. It definitely wasn’t a kitchen, and he was almost positive it wasn’t a bathroom. Warped wooden boards underfoot slanted down toward the center of the house. An oily bath towel provided the only comfortable space in the room, if the word “comfortable” could be defined so loosely. The room opened up to the kitchen, which was little more than a dry sink, an oven topped with a stove, a rickety pre-fab shelving unit, and a small, circular picnic table covered with a stained, formerly white bed sheet. The oven door was open, and through the gloom they could see an outline of logs. Next to the shelving unit was a padlocked door, presumably a pantry. A hallway led off the living room in the other direction, where there couldn’t be more than two more rooms. The whole house smelled like wood smoke and urine. But the house itself wasn’t what prompted Ben’s concern. No, the catalyst for that was the copious number of sharp metal objects that hung from the ceiling like hog legs in a butcher shop. Suspended from little hooks above them hung a few machetes, two hatchets, a full-size axe, a pitchfork, an entire arsenal of hunting knives, spades, shovels, trowels, and a wide, hard metal garden rake. A scythe was mounted to the far wall. A chainsaw lay in the corner. The kitchen was relatively clear; it supported only a set of butcher knives and a pair of hedge clippers. A rifle lay across the table. Another axe lay buried in a short stack of wood near the kitchen window.

The glass door slid shut behind them with a
choonk
.

“Who are you?” the girl demanded. Patrick whirled to find her standing with her feet set and a hunting knife splotched with red stains clutched tightly by her side.

“Nobody. Really. Um. I’m Patrick. This is Ben.”

Ben gave a weak little wave. “We’re going to Disney World,” he said helpfully.

The girl squinted at them, sizing them up. Then she noticed Patrick’s bandaged hand. Her grip on the knife seemed to tighten. “Name’s Leanne. What happened to yer hand? You bit?”

“Yeah, by a railroad spike,” Patrick said, rubbing his injured hand gently. It only hurt now when he was conscious of the wound, which was basically all the time. “We had a run-in with a crucifixion-happy preacher a few days ago. I think it’s getting better though, it--“

“What about you?” she asked Ben, cutting Patrick off completely. “You bit?”

Ben tilted his head. “No. Why? By what?”

“By a duster,” she said irritably, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Patrick and Ben looked on blankly.

“Like...a crop duster? Or...?” Patrick asked.

“A dust freak!” the girl snapped. “Skinny ass hungry little fuckers? Dusters? Jesus, ain’t you two dumber ‘n a bucket fulla shit.”

Patrick brightened with enlightenment. “Oh, you mean the politicians!”

“I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout no grass-snakin’ politicians. I’m talkin’ ‘bout rabid goddamn dust freaks.”

“Runners. Yeah, no, we came across some, but we weren’t bitten,” Ben said.

She stuck the knife into a leather sheath at her belt, apparently satisfied. “Come on, y’all might as well make yerselves helpful while yer here. Why don’t you light a fire in the oven? Logs is there, I’ll git some kindling.” She opened the door and disappeared out into the storm.

Patrick ran his fingers through his increasingly wild hair. His hand bumped against a trowel blade. “Is everyone besides us a complete psychopath?” he mumbled. He made his way to the kitchen, ducking the sharp, swaying metal above, and began to load up the oven. Ben lingered in the living room, testing the various implements for sharpness.

“Damn, son, she’s not screwing around,” he said, drawing his thumb across a shovel blade. “This shit is
lethal
.”

The girl reappeared with an armful of kindling, her wild brown hair tangled in a wet rat’s nest on her head. She had ruddy cheeks flanking a face full of sharp features. Her jeans and olive green army coat were baggy and bloodstained. She must have caught Ben staring at the red splotches as she pushed past him. “Deer blood,” she muttered. “Y’all’re safe enough, long as ya mind yerselves.”

In another minute, there was a fire crackling in the modified oven. The kitchen brightened into a warm, orange glow that threw long, swaying shadow daggers against the far living room wall. The girl hopped up on the table and pulled her feet up, Indian-style. She picked up the rifle and set it across her lap. “Why don’t y’all tell me how you ended up in these woods,” she said. “’Specially un-bit and all.”

Patrick relayed the story of their trip, hitting the highlights in a quick summary, with Ben offering color commentary along the way. She listened without much expression, though her eyebrows crept up a notch when he got to the bit about Ponch’s massacre. The parts about the preacher and poor, insane Mr. Tinder didn’t seem to faze her. She even seemed to take a bit of delight in the specifics about how Patrick had gotten the hole in his hand.

“Y’all been lucky with them dusters,” she said when he’d finished. “Real lucky.”

“You have a lot of experience with them?” Ben asked. The girl nodded. “Are they made of metal? We broke a bat over one of ‘em, and he hardly flinched.”

“’Course he didn’t,” she said with a snort. “I swear to hell, you yankees is so fuckin’ stupid.”

“You yankees
are
so fuckin’ stupid,” Ben corrected her. Patrick elbowed him hard.

“What are they?” Patrick asked. “We have a bet going. Ben thinks they’re zombies, but I say they’re just incredibly ambitious politicians.”

“Zombies is about right,” she shrugged. “Else they’re near enough as makes no difference.”

“I knew it!” Ben said in triumph. “When hell is full, the dead will rise!”

“I didn’t say they
was
zombies, I said they’s
about
zombies,” she said sharply. “Come see for yerself, if ya want.” She hopped off the table and walked out the patio door.

“See for ourselves?” Patrick asked uncertainly.

“Don’t go out there,” Ben hissed, grabbing Patrick’s arm. “Let’s just run away instead.”

Patrick shrugged out of Ben’s grasp and headed after the girl. “You’re like a broken record, you know that? Run away, run away! We’d have no fun at all on this trip if you had your way. Besides, whatever she’s got out there can’t be
nearly
as dangerous as leaving us alone in a room full of slicey things.” He ducked through the living room and out the door, dodging the cutlery above. Ben cursed under his breath. Hell, Patrick was right. If he so much as sneezed in here, he’d cut his own head off. He hurried out after them.

The girl hustled across the yard to the shed on the edge of the little river. She fished a key from inside her army coat and unlocked the padlock on the door. There were no windows in the shed, and inside was complete darkness. She disappeared into the inky black. Ben and Patrick looked at each other doubtfully. “I’m not going in there,” Ben said. “No way.”

“I’m sure it’s safe,” Patrick lied. “All the shed weapons are in the living room.”

“You go on, then. Let me know how it feels to die.” But just then a match flared in the darkness, and the girl lit a kerosene lantern hanging on the wall near the door. She made a circuit of the shed and lit six lamps in all, one on each wall and two on the makeshift table in the center of the space, a huge piece of plywood supported by three sawhorses. A lantern sat on each end, and lying long ways in the center was a human body, on its back, the skin of its chest and arms flayed and held open with small rocks. Patrick put a hand to his mouth. Ben ran out to vomit in the rain.

“Don’t cry for him none,” the girl said, blowing out her last match and nodding to the dead man on the table. “He weren’t human no more when he ripped my sister ‘part with his own teeth, leastways not human enough to cry for.”