Zombie D.O.A. (26 page)

Babs was tall and gaunt with gra
ying hair and a roadmap of laugh lines across his ebony features. I figured him to be late fifties, early sixties at least but he moved with the languid ease of a much younger man and I was sure he could hustle when the need arose.

“You got any chow?” Babs asked.

I gave him one of the military ration packs and he tucked in with relish. “I been eating this shit all my life, it tastes a lot better after you’ve learned the jerk off technique.”

“The what?”

“The jerk off technique. You know, your imagination. You imagine this beef teriyaki here is the finest steak or you ever ate, same as when you…”

“I think I get the picture.”

“It works I tell you,” he said, scraping the last remnants from the bottom of the sachet.

“You said you were in the area. What, you live around here?”

“Me?” he said, “Hell no, Phoenix, Arizona born and bred. No, I’m on the job. Well, doing a favor for a friend, a lady friend, truth be told.”

Babs lit up a smoke and stared out towards the river. For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to say any more, but then he said, “World’s gone crazy, ain’t it, Chris? And yet folks still have the capacity to surprise you.”

He didn’t elaborate but sat in silence, finishing his smoke. After a while he asked, “You see the light show last night?”

“Yeah, what the hell was that about?”

“That my friend was Stanley Tucci, you know like the actor, only not him of course. Stan Tucci, a.k.a. Stan Ritz,” Babs said, then when I didn’t say anything, he added, “on account of he’s totally crackers.”

“But I still don’t understand…”

“…about the fireworks?” Babs finished for me. “You ever heard of the Resurrection Men?”

“Heard of them, yeah, I just didn’t figure they were for real.”

“Oh they’re real alright, crazy son’s of bitches.”

“So what’s the deal, I heard all kinds of weird stuff?”

“What have you heard?”

“Well, I’m kind of embarrassed to say. Heard they’re bounty hunters for zombies, try to capture them alive, I heard they do experiments and stuff, I heard some of them even get off raping zombie women.”

Babs laughe
d then and I could feel myself b
lush, “Can’t say I’ve heard that last one myself, not that I’d put it past the crazy mothers. Everything else is pretty much spot on.”

“But why?”

“Sa
me reason everyone does anything. Kicks or money.”

“Money? What’s that worth these days?”

“Not what its worth, what it will be worth in the future.”

“Hell, who’s even thinking of the future?”

“Oh, some are,” Babs said. “Some are thinking long and hard about it. There are new forces at work, Chris. New alliances being formed, new territories being carved out.”

“Okay, so if money is the object, why not just dynamite every bank from here to California? You’d be rich enough to buy your own country.”

“Because the good old greenback ain’t what it used to be. Pretty much useless now, you might as well
rob
a truck load of writing paper from a Staples store.”

“So who
do
the
se Resurrection men work for
?”

“Man, you folks out east sure are living in an information vacuum. Look Chris, I’d love to shoot the shit with you but I’ve got a prior engagement. I see Joe, I’ll give him your best.”

“One last thing…”

Babs looked back in my direction and a look of annoyance flashed momentarily across his face. “Shoot,” he said.

“You know anything about a bunch of guys, go around dressed like the Blues Brothers?”

“You seen them?”

“Had a bit of a run in with them back in Kentucky.”

“Those are Corporation men. You stay clear of them if you can. Well clear.”

In the distance I heard the familiar sound of motorcycles and Babs said, “That’s my cue.” He walked back in the direction of the road, stooping once to pick something up, before disappearing into the trees.

I stood there
,
watching the gap where Babs had disappeared for at least a minute, and then I picked up the AK and followed him.

About fifty yards down the track, I found him learning against a tree. “Figured you’d come,” he said and then set off at a brisk, ground-eating walk.

As I caught up he said, “I been tracking these fellers for a
week
now. They come by this way every
couple
days to make a collection from
Tucci
. There’s usually between two and five of them, on motorcycles.

“What I need you to do is stand in the middle of the road and
,
when you see them coming
,
put your hand up like a cop. Can you do that?”

“Sure.”

“Now, I’m going to be in the crow’s nest and I’m going to put them down. All but one, you understand?”

“Yeah, all but one.”

“The one I wing, I need you to cover
him
with that handgun of yours, till I get there. No more no less. He moves you put a bullet in his kneecap, but I need him alive, so whatever you do…”

“Got it.”

We’d reached the overpass and Babs instructed me to lay the AK on the ground. He unslung his own rifle, a R-5 with a scope
,
and then scampered up the embankment under the bridge and took cover to the side of one of the concrete supports, seeming to blend into the background.

I stood in the middle of route 421 feeling very vulnerable, and hoping Babs was as good a shot as his friend Joe Thursday. After a while I heard the sound of motorcycles approaching.

“You see them yet,” Babs called from above. “How many?”

The bikers were just coming into view now. “Three,” I said.

“Good. Y
ou be cool,” Babs said.

The bikers were a few hundred yards away when they noticed me. I saw them slow down, and two of them came together and shouted something to each other, but they kept rolling.

As they reached the overpass, the lead biker stopped and let the back wheel slide, so that he was side on to me. The other two continued past, and I heard them come to a halt, heard the low grumbling of the Harley engines. Belatedly, I raised my hand in a cop stop signal.

M
agnified by the concrete walls of the overpass
,
the motorcycles rumbling behind me sounded like
caged and angry beasts.
I wondered if Babs had factored in the possibility of
the bikers splitting up and
suddenly
realized that
he
had a virtually impossible task, trying to take all three. 

Even given the element of surprise, if he took out the leader, then at least one of the other two would be racing down the highway before he had a chance to finish them.  If he took out the other two first
,
the leader could swing the rifle I knew he had slung over his back and open up on me.

I did some guess work and figured Babs would go for the two behind first, and leave me to deal with the guy in front of
me. It made perfect sense
, but then I had absolutely zero experience of springing an ambush, so I knew I could be totally wrong. And if I was, I was very likely to take a bullet.

The guy in front of me had long blond hair, partially covered with a red bandana. He wore a pair of aviator’s goggles and a leather jacket with a filthy denim cut-off, covered in patches.

“Mister, you some kind of retard?” he said, “Standing in the middle of the fucking road like that. Who the fuck you think you are, Eric Estrada?”

Behind me one of the other bikers laughed and revved his Harley. “I say we skin him, Pete. Barbeque his ass.”

“I’m talking to you, hoss,” Pete said, “What you doin’ on our…”

I heard the R-5 bark twice and reached for the .38 stuck into the back of my waistband. I felt it snag, heard the lead biker say, “What the fuck,” and saw him start to swing his rifle around.

Then I heard the R-5 speak again, and the biker was thrown from his Harley.

Almost immediately, he started screaming, “Oh Christ, oh God, oh fuck, I been hit. Oh fuck that hurts, oh Jessssuuss, that hurts!”

I heard Babs scrambling down the embankment. He walked over to where the biker lay, and knocked him cold with the butt of the rifle.

We hid the motorcycles in some brush and dragged the dead bikers from the road and covered them with branches. Then Babs tied the third biker’s hands and we half-dragged, half carried him back to where I’d camped the previous evening.

We’d almost reached the campsite when the biker regained consciousness and started squealing like a kid with a skinned knee. Babs whispered something in his ear and he shut up right away.

Babs sat the biker down with his back resting against a tree. Then he lit up a smoke, took a deep drag and said, ”Your name’s, Pete, right!”

“Fuck you,” Pete spat. “You’re a dead man, mister.”

“Fair enough” Babs said. “But I made peace with my maker. And right now, I figure I got a few years on you.”

“Do you know who you’re fucking with?” Pete said.

“Pete, I think you said, didn’t catch the last name.”

“I’m not talking ‘bout me, nigger. I’m talking ‘bout Virgil Pratt.”

“Ah man,” Babs said with a mock pained expression on his face, “Why’d you
have to go and use the ‘N’ word?
“ He placed the heel of his shoe on Pete’s wound and pushed down.

“Ahhhgggrr Jeeesssuss!” Pete screamed.

“Hurts like a son of a bitch don’t it?”

“Ahhhh, you fuccckker,” Pete shouted. He took in and let out rapid breaths between clenched teeth, and I was sure he was going to throw up, pass out, or both.

Babs waited for Pete to settle, then said.
“Looks like we got off
on the wrong foot.
Let’s try again.” He offered his pack of Marlboros to Pete. “Smoke?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Pete said. Babs lit up the cigarette
and
held it for Pete to take a drag.

“Now that we’re on more civil terms, I have a few questions for you.”