Book of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology (45 page)

“We gonna shoot or talk?”

“You know, boy, under different circumstances, I could have liked you. We might have been friends.”

“Not likely.”

Calhoun started counting, and they started stepping. When he got to ten, they turned.

Calhoun’s pistol barked first, and Wayne felt the bul et punch him low in the right side of his chest, spinning him slightly. He lifted his revolver and took his time and shot just as Calhoun fired again.

Calhoun’s second bul et whizzed by Wayne’s head. Wayne’s shot hit Calhoun in the stomach.

Calhoun went to his knees and had trouble drawing a breath. He tried to lift his revolver but couldn’t; it was as if it had turned into an anvil.

Wayne shot him again. Hitting him in the middle of the chest this time and knocking him back so that his legs were curled beneath him.

Wayne walked over to Calhoun, dropped to one knee and took the revolver from him.

“Shit,” Calhoun said. “I wouldn’t have thought that for nothing. You hit?”

“Scratched.”

“Shit.”

Wayne put the revolver to Calhoun’s forehead and Calhoun closed his eyes and Wayne pul ed the trigger.

The wound wasn’t a scratch. Wayne knew he should leave Sister Worth where she was and load Calhoun on the bus and haul him in for bounty. But he didn’t care about the bounty anymore.

He used the ragged piece of bumper to dig them a shal ow side-by-side grave. When he finished, he stuck the fender fragment up between them and used the sight of one of the revolvers to scratch into it: HERE LIES SISTER WORTH AND CALHOUN WHO KEPT HIS WORD.

You couldn’t real y read it good and he knew the first real wind would keel it over, but it made him feel better about something, even if he couldn’t put his finger on it.

His wound had opened up and the sun was very hot now, and since he had lost his hat he could feel his brain cooking in his skul like meat boiling in a pot.

He got on the bus, started it and drove through the day and the night and it was near morning when he came to the Cadil acs and turned down between them and drove until he came to the

’57.

When he stopped and tried to get off the bus, he found he could hardly move. The revolvers in his belt were stuck to his shirt and stomach because of the blood from his wound.

He pul ed himself up with the steering wheel, got one of the shotguns and used it for a crutch.

He got the food and water and went out to inspect the ’57.

It was for shit. It had not only lost its windshield, the front end was mashed way back and one of the big sand tires was twisted at such an angle he knew the axle was shot.

He leaned against the Chevy and tried to think. The bus was okay and there was stil some gas in it, and he could get the hose out of the trunk of the ’57 and siphon gas out of its tanks and put it in the bus. That would give him a few miles.

Miles.

He didn’t feel as if he could walk twenty feet, let alone concentrate on driving.

He let go of the shotgun, the food and water. He scooted onto the hood of the Chevy and managed himself to the roof. He lay there on his back and looked at the sky.

It was a clear night and the stars were sharp with no fuzz around them. He felt cold. In a couple of hours the stars would fade and the sun would come up and the cool would give way to heat.

He turned his head and looked at one of the Cadil acs and a skeleton face pressed to its windshield, forever looking down at the sand.

That was no way to end, looking down.

He crossed his legs and stretched out his arms and studied the sky. It didn’t feel so cold now, and the pain had almost stopped. He was more numb than anything else.

He pul ed one of the revolvers and cocked it and put it to his temple and continued to look at the stars. Then he closed his eyes and found that he could stil see them. He was once again hanging in the void between the stars wearing only his hat and cowboy boots, and floating about him were the junk cars and the ’57, undamaged.

The cars were moving toward him this time, not away. The ’57 was in the lead, and as it grew closer he saw Pop behind the wheel and beside him was a Mexican puta, and in the back, two more. They were al smiling and Pop honked the horn and waved.

The ’57 came alongside him and the back door opened. Sitting between the whores was Sister Worth. She had not been there a moment ago, but now she was. And he had never noticed how big the backseat of the ’57 was.

Sister Worth smiled at him and the bird on her cheek lifted higher. Her hair was combed out long and straight and she looked pink-skinned and happy. On the floorboard at her feet was a chest of iced beer. Lone Star, by God.

Pop was leaning over the front seat, holding out his hand, and Sister Worth and the whores were beckoning him inside.

Wayne worked his hands and feet, found this time that he could move. He swam through the open door, touched Pop’s hand, and Pop said, “It’s good to see you, son,” and at the moment Wayne pul ed the trigger, Pop pul ed him inside.

1. Dead Giveaway BY BRIAN HODGE

Every night, without fail, it began like this:

MUSIC: opening of Gustav Hoist’s “Mars, Bringer of War”

…A dark and brooding piece of music if ever there was one. Next came the announcer, cheerful, bouncy as a beachbal . Monty didn’t know where they’d found the guy, but he was the best Don Pardo soundalike he’d ever heard.

ANNCR, VO:

Drop what you’re doing… it’l stil be there! Come on! Join us now for the most unpredictable hour on television…
Deaaaad Giveawaaaaay
!

Every night, without fail. Seven nights a week, live on the air, and no reruns.

When Monty first checked his watch, it was a half hour to show time. He slumped a little deeper into the chair in his dressing room. Time on his hands. Time to kil . Would that lead to blood on his hands?

Too late, Monty! It’s already there!

So he reached out onto the counter before him and plucked his bottle of Chivas Regal from the carpet of dust beneath it. And drank until it burned. Penance. A little later he was comfortably numb. And could live with himself again.

Time was that Monty Olson lived with just about everybody. In spirit, if not body. He traveled the airwaves, waltzing into bright, sunlit living rooms and bedrooms, borne on the wings of daytime TV. Always a guest, never an intruder, forever welcome. Shows such as
Deal of the
Century
and
Bet You a Mil ion
had made him a star. And was he loved? Oh was he ever… because he was the man with the cash, the man with the prizes, the man with the motherlode.

The man with the mil ion-dol ar smile.

It was a little tougher to conjure up that smile these days, the big one that wrapped the corners of his mouth almost back to his wisdom teeth. But he managed. Once a pro, always a pro.

Who would have ever guessed it?
he wondered for maybe the bil ionth time since waking up to find that he and everyone else unfamiliar with the rigors of rigor mortis were in a declining minority.
Who’d’ve guessed that they’d stil want to be entertained?

Monty fortified himself with another character-building gulp of scotch and reached for his makeup case. He did his own makeup these days, wondering why he bothered. His face was a little flabbier, a little looser, with a few more broken veins mapping his nose. But he was stil a regular Clark Gable by comparison with the rest of the folks on the show. Monty peered at the lines webbing from the corners of his eyes and mouth and did his best to erase them with a little pancake makeup.

They stil want to be entertained
.

It wasn’t
that
crazy a notion, not when you gave it time to sink into your already shel -shocked head. Because back in the days when the dead suddenly weren’t obliged to stay in their holes and their morgue drawers anymore, Monty had found himself wandering the streets. He didn’t want much, only to avoid becoming lunch for some newly awakened cadaver, and maybe to link up with someone else whose blood stil ran warm. And he’d seen the zombies in their homes.

There they were—by themselves, in pairs, as entire families—parked in front of their televisions just as before, as if nothing whatsoever had changed. Even when al the networks and independent stations had dropped from the airwaves like fruit from a dying tree, they watched the blank screens anyway. Mesmerized by the static.

The watching dead, waiting to be entertained.

Most of the zombies weren’t that bright. Most of them weren’t much more than two-legged dinosaurs in search of the nearest tar pit to blunder into. But some of them—perhaps those who’d been the sharpest and shrewdest to begin with—had managed to retain enough intel igence that it was downright scary in itself. You looked into those glassy eyes and found that they weren’t quite as dul as you’d thought. Or hoped. Yep, the lights were stil on and somebody was stil at home up there… only now the resident’s priorities had been turned on their heads.

Such a creature was Brad Bernerd. Here in New York, he’d been a fast-track network executive with a string of hit shows as long as your arm. Some people, before the demise of what Monty was beginning to regard nostalgical y as The Old World, had said that Brad Bernerd was going to launch his own network.

It came about a lot differently than expected, but he got his chance after al .

Monty had wandered up to the studio soundstage of
Deal of the Century
one day, a huge and silenced amphitheater where even the echoes of past applause had died. He stood at center stage, where he’d spent nearly half of his forty-three years, feeling the glorious pressure of the lights burning through him… and he was ready to blow his brains out and die where he’d lived his finest hours.

Except that Brad Bernerd had picked that moment to make an entrance.

He didn’t look much different than Monty remembered, except for a fist-sized dent in the right side of his head. He moved more slowly, more deliberately, but he stil managed to carry himself with a little pride. A little arrogance, even after death.

Monty just about piddled his pants like a three-year-old when he looked into those unblinking eyes and saw that they recognized him.

They stared forever.

“I have a job for you,” Bernerd said at last. The voice held little of its old animated enthusiasm…

but that didn’t mean it had lost its power to persuade.

Hey guy, no reason to cash in your chips now, was what it boiled down to. Not when the show must go on. Not when I can put you back on the air. Not when you can reclaim your place in the limelight.

And thus was born the first television program conceived entirely for zombies. I want my ZTV.

Monty checked his watch one last time, found that the zero hour had just about drawn nigh once again. He suckled a final pul from the Chivas and left it behind when the knock came at the door, right on schedule.

“Time for the show,” said Brad Bernerd when Monty opened the door. “It’s show time, my man.”

Yeah, like I real y need a reminder NIGHT AFTER NIGHT!

Monty wound his way backstage among the skeleton crew that kept the cameras rol ing and the lights burning. The boys in the band who kept the show on the road. They needed to do something about the ventilation, but Monty had gotten used to the week-old roadkil smel months ago. Once a pro, always a pro.

How do you do it?
they used to ask him, the admirers, the hangers-on.
How do you manage to
seem so on top of the world every single show?

No sweat
, he’d tel them. It was simply a matter of knowing the right buttons and what to do with them. Turn on the adrenaline. Turn on the smile. The charm. The juice. But just as important, turn off the mind. And the conscience. After al , how long can you live with yourself if you acknowledge that your mission in life is encouraging people to debase themselves for cash?

The switches were just about al in the proper on/off positions by the time he strol ed over to stage left, behind the three huge doors. The crew was putting the final touches on the displays.

Now and again, a foreman would have to restrain an overzealous stagehand from helping himself to one of the prizes.

“I rec… recog… hey I know you.” A weak voice from the cage behind Door Number Three. The lights were dimming, and it was tough to tel who the voice belonged to. Stil warm and breathing, of course, if she was in the cage. Monty was the only live one that walked
these
hal owed hal s.

“I
know
you.” The voice was thick, but clear.

He was drawn to her voice as a moth to the flame, briefly wondering why she was able to speak coherently. Everyone else in the cage had surrendered to the doses of Thorazine administered earlier. Good old Thorazine. It made the live ones so much more docile. Kept them from agitating the audience.
And
the master of ceremonies.

“Please let me out… please…?” She knelt on the cage floor, her face framed by long dark hair.

She wore a red-and-white skirt and a dirty white V-neck sweater with a large red M on the front.

Her hands clutched the bars so tightly they looked albino. “Please?”

Al switches in place, al systems go.

“Can’t do that, babe,” he said, and just to charm the fear out of her, he gave her a great big Monty Olson smile. A fine one it was, too, one to rival any from The Old World. When you got it, flaunt it.

“How can you… sel us out like this? You’re stil one of us.” She gestured toward the identical y dressed girls sharing the cage with her. “You’re not one of
them
.” She was beginning to cry, her eyes glassy but not blank, as she fought an uphil battle against the Thorazine. “How can you sel us out?”

“They’l get you one way or another, and they’re the ones cal ing the shots these days. They’re the ones signing my paycheck, as it were. They let me live.” Monty knelt down close to her, his voice almost fatherly. “Remember Andy Warhol? Hmmm? A long time ago he said that everyone was going to be famous for fifteen minutes. Remember that? Wel , this is your night, babe.