Read Crusade (Eden Book 2) Online
Authors: Tony Monchinski
Crusade (Eden Book 2) (18 page)
“Did you say
Eden
?” John asked.
“Yeah, Eden. We called it Eden.”
“Well, why’d you call it Eden?”
“Eden? I don’t know, it—”
“When we got there,” Julie said. “They were calling it Eden. The people who were already there—”
“Pretty lady, pretty lady.” John clicked his tongue in his mouth several times. “If I correct L.A. Munroe for interrupting my conversation with you and the other pretty lady there, but I
don’t
correct you when you interrupt my conversation with this man, well, that might be seen by some as unfair. Couldn’t it, Mister Marcus?”
“Sure could.”
“So…ain’t she a pretty one though, Mister Marcus?”
“Sure is.” The other man drank from the bottle.
“Pass that bottle back this way, Mister Marcus. Now, L.A., tight ain’t right. Share our bounty with these strangers.”
When L.A. hesitated Mister Marcus reached over Mickey and grabbed two of the tupperwares. He dropped one in Mickey’s lap and opened the other, scooping up some meat in his dirty fingers and shoving it in his mouth.
Mickey pried the lid from his container and stared at the meat. Roast beef, hamburger, London Broil, pot roast, prime rib, flank steak…it had been so long since…
“Mickey.” If he heard Gwen he ignored her as he mimicked Mister Marcus and followed suit, shoving a glob of meat into his mouth.
“L.A.?” there was a question on John’s face.
L.A. stood and walked around the woman named Emma or Emily and presented another Tupperware container to the man named John. Then he returned to his seat.
Julie watched John open his container and start to eat. She noticed how neither John nor Mister Marcus, or Mickey for that matter, offered herself or Gwen or the other woman any meat. John drank from the bottle as he ate.
“Your friend there looks like he’s in a bad way,” Mister Marcus said between mouthfuls, indicating Buddy.
“Yeah, he’s been better,” Mickey said. “What did you say this was again?”
“Zebra,” Mister Marcus said and he and John immediately started laughing.
This John guy reminded Mickey of someone, someone famous, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Zebra, huh? Tastes like chicken.”
This caused John and Mister Marcus to laugh even harder. When they had finally stopped laughing John asked Mickey, “You guys keep it up, put me in a good mood, I might grace you with a song tonight.”
The woman named Emma or Emily or whatever clapped several times then went still once more.
John looked at Julie in a conspiratorial manner and winked at her. “Emma here likes it when I sing. So, you pilgrims used to live in a place called Eden, eh?”
“Sure did.” Ravenous, he continued to stuff his face.
“And you chose to leave? Or were you thrown out?”
“It’s complicated.”
“So you were thrown out.”
“No. That’s not what happened,” He noticed neither Gwen nor Julie were eating. “Hey, you guys want some?”
“Yeah.” John turned his attention to Julie and Gwen. “You ladies want some zebra-meat?”
Mister Marcus laughed.
Someone from the movies
, thought Mickey, that’s who this John reminded him of. Maybe the old man from
Phantasm
? Nah…
“No, no thank you,” Gwen said. “What about her?” She meant the woman who travelled with the strangers.
“She’ll eat later,” Mister Marcus said.
Lance
Henrikson
, thought Mickey. That’s it. And this whole scene, like something out of a movie with Henrickson…
Aliens
? No.
Pumpkinhead
? No…
“What about you?” Mister Marcus asked Julie. “Ain’t you hungry?”
“No, I already ate.”
“You know, pretty lady,” John said. “In some circles it’d be considered downright rude to refuse to break bread with a man.”
“Look, I’m not trying to be rude. It’s just that, I mean, you guys didn’t even cook that meat. I don’t know how long it’s been in that cooler or when…”
Mickey thought one of Henrikson’s finest roles, aside from his work on
Millenium
, was as Jesse, patriarch of the peripatetic vampire clan in
Near Dark
. Jesse, screaming out the window of the Hide-A-Way hotel in his tinted goggles as he unloaded on the law with a big automatic. Jesse, who, when asked how old he was, replied,
Let’s put it this way. I fought for the South. We lost
.
Near Dark
, starring another of Mickey’s favorites, Bill Paxton, long before that man was chasing tornadoes or battling aliens. A cocksure six-gun totin’ spur-wearin’…
“It’s not tartar,” John said. “You can trust me on that.”
“It’s just, I have to be real careful, what with the baby and—”
The woman who had not spoken looked up at her.
“The baby?” John stopped eating and Julie immediately regretted saying it. “Are you with child, pretty lady?”
Gwen forced herself to move away from Julie and towards her M16A4.
“May I?”
Julie wanted to scream no at him, to tell him to keep his dirty hands the hell away from her, but she was petrified and sat as still as she could will herself as John leaned over and unzipped her jacket. He pulled the flap of her coat back, revealing her belly. John whistled and sat back.
“The woman
is
with child. Cause for celebration. Mister Marcus, where’s that hooch?”
Mister Marcus passed the bottle back to John and the tall man drank deeply. “That’ll do the trick.
“None for you, pretty lady,” he said to Julie. “What with the baby and all. Drink Emily.”
The woman sipped from the bottle.
Deadman
, thought Mickey,
that’s
what this whole scene reminded him of. Jim Jarmusch’s western. The critics had been unfair. The movie had rocked! Johnny Depp, Robert Mitchum’s last big role, Neil Young soundtrack. Gary Farmer as the fat Indian—
Stupid fucking white man
—and Lance Henrickson as Cole Wilson, who, after emptying his revolver in fellow bounty hunter Conway Twill dumps the cylinder and tosses the empties at Twill, growling at him,
Here, eat ‘em
. But that scene didn’t make the final cut, thought Mickey, you had to have the extras on the DVD for that.
“Course,” John was saying, “there are those who would question the wisdom of bringing a vulnerable child into this zombie-ridden world of ours.”
And then it hit him, the familiarity of their situation and Jarmusch’s film. Henrickson’s Wilson character was a legendary bounty hunter who had fucked
and
eaten his own parents.
Eaten
. After Cole Wilson killed Conway Twill he cooked him up and
ate
him, even with that perpetual toothache that—
“
Uhhhhhh
!” He tossed the Tupperware away, rolled over on his side and stuck two fingers down his throat. Mister Marcus and John started laughing demonically and Gwen moved a few inches closer to her M16.
“No,” John said. He stopped laughing and moved his furs aside to reveal the handle of a pistol holstered snug against his stomach. It was a Desert Eagle .357. “Don’t go and ruin our evening, okay?”
Gwen froze where she was.
“Ahhh, you sons of bitches—motherfuckers.” Mickey gagged.
“Looks like the devil got up into him.” Mister Marcus said.
“Looks like.”
“You bastards.” Spit dripped from Mickey’s mouth. “What the hell did you feed me?”
Mister Marcus smiled. “Zebra meat, wasn’t it?”
“The man said it himself.” John didn’t take his eyes off Gwen. “Tastes like chicken.”
“Motherfuckers, bastards.” Mickey dry heaved. “Was that—was that human flesh?”
“Human flesh?” John looked amused. “What do you have to say to that, Mister Marcus?”
“Well.” Mister Marcus picked a piece of meat out of the space where a tooth had been. He stared at it. “I guess it was human, once.” He popped the meat back in his mouth.
“
Zombie
,” Mickey said. “You’re
eating
zombie?”
“You’re eating it too,” Mister Marcus said with a straight face but John laughed hard, holding one side of his torso.
Mickey vomited in the snow.
“Now come on, son. Mister Marcus here is just messin’ with you. Do you really think you can eat dead human flesh?”
Mickey squinted from the tears his purge had brought out and stared down at the chunks of meat in his vomit.
“Why don’t—why don’t you tell me?”
John Book drank from the bottle and sighed. “Come to think of it, lot of things one can do that people never considered.”
“Speak, John,” Mister Marcus said.
“You all ever heard of a penile bisection? When a man cuts his willy in two, make it look like—aw, forget it.
“Take L.A. there. Ya’ll have noticed by now, no doubt, that L.A. is missing him a large part of his left hand, yes? Show ‘em L.A.”
“Come on, John,” the man mumbled impotently.
“I said
show ‘em
, L.A.. Show ‘em, son.”
He held his bandaged hand up for all to see but continued to look at the ground.
“Now, any guesses how L.A. lost that there hand of his? None. Try this on for size. Zombie nibbled the tips of L.A.’s fingers off. A death sentence, right?
Wrong
.”
“What do you mean?” Gwen asked, thinking if she could keep this man talking… Where was Bear? She looked over at Buddy. There would be no help from him.
“As soon as L.A. got bit, I got me my saw, and like Abraham draped his son Isaac over that rock, I lay L.A. down—”
“I held him,” Mister Marcus said.
“—with Mister Marcus’s assistance, and I removed the offensive members, like that.” John moved his hand back and forth in a sawing motion. “Boy been alright ever since, ain’t you L.A.?”
“Never better.” L.A. didn’t sound convincing.
“See, we arrested the spread of that zombie’s poison in this boy’s system. And like I was sayin’, there’s things known, and there’s things unknown.”
“Speak, John.”
“And there’s secrets a man,” John looked at Julie, “and a woman,” he addressed the group again, “keep close to their hearts.” John looked directly at Mickey. “You got you a secret, don’t you son?”
“Huh? What? What do you—”
“Don’t equivocate with me, son. I am John Book—”
“
Amen
!” Mister Marcus shouted.
“…And I am the Lord!”
“
Halleluiah
!”
“And I have seen deep into the hearts and souls of man and I have seen all that was and all that will be—and,
dammit
, I feel good. I feel good enough…good enough for a song!”
“
Glory come
!”
John Book stood up and started to sway to a tune only he heard. The woman clapped sporadically and had a gleeful, crazed look on her face, though she continued to stare at Julie. Mister Marcus watched Gwen and Julie and Mickey and said, “You are in for an extra special treat now.”
“
I knew a girl named Nikki
,” John sang, his voice gravelly. “
I guess you could say she was
—no, no, no.” He slugged a mouthful from the bottle. “That song don’t suit the mood. How ‘bout a song, for your women?” John looked at Mickey. “I mean, I can tell they ain’t
your
women, but, well, just sit there and if you want to, why don’t you join Emily, and clap your spank hand?” The woman hadn’t ceased clapping, “Without further ado…