Holiday of the Dead (28 page)

‘Believe we’re passing the Glaipon tomb,’ mumbled Willie. ‘That’s the one where the voodoo queen is supposed to be buried.’

Michael squinted at the vault on his left, broken open like the others. It was hard to make anything out in the darkness, but he could sense nothing in the inky-black void.

‘Louviere tomb is round this corner,’ mumbled Willie. ‘I can feel it, as well. In my bones.’ He laughed morbidly.

And there it stood, at the end of the dead-end labyrinth, stained stucco mostly fallen away from the structure like scabrous skin peeling from a corpse.

Michael inched forward, shining the light on his mobile phone around the inside of the broken tomb. The blue-white glare picked out scuttling spiders and ancient cobwebs, broken stones and stones jutting through the floodwater like teeth. But there was no whip.

‘Do I need to go in and look?’ Michael was shaking with fear, close to tears. ‘Do I have to? I will if I need to, but I’m fucking terrified!’

Michael swung his leg around, swishing the water into waves, avoiding the stones which stuck out of the water, and leaning back as far as possible.

Michael kept to the shadows, which was most of the side-streets, other than the light cast by flames and distant searchlights. Willie stumbled after him, tired by the effort of carefully placing his feet in the floodwater, and soaked to the bone.

‘Think it’s next one on the right,’ said Willie. ‘Difficult to tell, though, shufflin’ along like this. She always said it was a light pink colour.’

‘Is she really the Voodoo Queen?’

‘I don’t know, and nobody does, other than her. She was born and grew up like anyone else. I knew her as a babe in arms. But she had power, even then, or so they said. A soul doesn’t need to die when the body does, if you know the rituals.’

They passed an intersection and Michael glanced down to fire-lit Bourbon Street. A shape crouched over something, tearing and gnawing. Michael looked away just as he realised what it was, bile flooding his gullet. He bent double, retching into the flooded street.

A hand clasped his shoulder. ‘I can hear it,’ said Willie. ‘We gotta be strong.’

Ahead, on the corner to the right, was a pink-stuccoed mansion, white pillars and facings. Michael stopped. ‘Is it a big place, on the corner?’

The wooden floorboards were strewn with broken and shattered furniture. Ahead, at the top of a grand staircase, was what looked like a barricade assembled from tables and chairs.

Michael crept towards the staircase. He wished he had a weapon of some kind, but knew they would be useless. Ahead, at the top of the stairs, loomed a shadowed bulk, stepping carefully through the obstacles.

‘It’s her!’ Willie grinned in relief.

The shape stumbled and fell, crashing down the steps onto the two men, crushing them with its bulk.

Michael caught a glimpse of burning red eyes in the bloated face, contorted into a hate-consumed mask. He writhed frantically to escape, slithering under the blood-soaked folds of flesh.

Willie moaned weakly for a few seconds, until the teeth found his throat.

Michael wriggled free just as hot fluid splashed his skin from a spurting artery. He stumbled away, glancing back at the hulking shape which tore and gnawed at the dying man on the ground.

At the Superdome, all hell had broken loose. The evacuation plan had been thrown into chaos. Hordes of decaying and more recent corpses were throwing themselves against the fortress-like structure. The National Guard had flown in sharpshooters and machine-gunners, who were setting up on the roof and upper levels. The bullets thudded into the dead, and they fell in great numbers, but still they came on. Even worse, they were at the rear of the living survivors who were struggling to get into the shelter of the Superdome under helicopter floodlights. They tore into the living even as bullets tore into them and, when they fell, fresh corpses clawed themselves upright to take their places.

A sniper team on the roof covered the northeast, along the axis of the expressway. The spotter saw movement through his binoculars, a kilometre distant.

The rifle cracked, the massive bolt sliding backwards, catching open on an empty chamber. The distant figure crumpled as the gunshot’s echo faded.

‘Reckon we’ll be out of here in a few hours. This place won’t last long. There’s too many of the motherfuckers, and they just won’t stay dead.’

The command centre was half empty. Only those with ‘need to know’ clearance were allowed to join the President of the United States as he viewed the real-time video footage.

‘Heck of a mess, isn’t it Brownie?’

‘Yes Sir. Maybe a hundred thousand were holed up in the city, twenty thousand of them in the Superdome. They’re all walking corpses now.’

The President turned to his Secretary of Defence. ‘What can we do, Donny?’

‘Nuke ’em?’ The bespectacled man laughed. ‘Only joking. We’ve got thermobaric bombs; that’s the best bet. Vaporise those sons of bitches in the streets, and burn anything that’s left.’

‘It needs to be kept top secret with a cordon around the place and the media kept at bay, at all costs.’ The President rubbed his chin. ‘We can blame it on Al Qaeda. Or maybe not, gas explosions might be better.’

‘We need to get one or two of those waking dead creatures alive though.’ The President smiled. ‘Oh dear, or whatever they are, alive or dead. Dead or alive, even.’ He laughed.

A uniformed man spoke up. ‘Mister President, we’ve sent out recon patrols. They’re still out there, searching block by block for any artefacts or isolated corpses. The creatures are throwing themselves at the Superdome for the time being. We’ve got another twelve hours or so before they overwhelm the place and we have to burn it.’

‘Keep ‘em at it. There must be something causing this.’ The President munched on a pretzel. ‘Whatever it is we could really use those in the War on Terror, in Afghanistan, in Iraq.’

He looked at the chaos on the screens, arms thrust in his suit jacket pockets. ‘Just think what they could do …’

THE END

ROCKETS’ RED GLARE

By

Bowie V Ibarra

Calavera City, Texas

Reloj Co.

“Little faggots popping fireworks for the Fourth of July tonight?”

Trevor and Todd’s sole purpose was to drink beer and make people feel miserable at Calavera City Community College. The five people they rolled up on were some of their favourite targets, both in and out of school.

“Don’t you guys have a douchebag meeting tonight or something?”

Geoff was always the first to respond of the five friends. He gave a high-five to his two buddies, Bruce and Lawrence, who were standing next to him when he uttered the response. They immediately began laughing. The laughter was just another way to get under Trevor and Todd’s skin.

“You’re just jealous because we can afford them, asshole,” said Belinda, joining the boys with a barb of her own. Heather, who was standing by Belinda, laughed along with the boys. She knuckle-bumped Belinda.

“You’re the only girl I know, Belinda,” said Todd, “that would settle for a little queer boyfriend like Bruce who doesn’t even have a car.”

Two 5-tonne Army trucks pulled up behind Trevor’s Mustang GT. The bright lights of the first vehicle cut through the early evening. The driver honked.

With the arrogance of a true jerk, Trevor took a long and defiant swig of beer, before saying, “When you girls want to hang out with some real men, call us.” He revved the engine before peeling out in front of the group of friends. The white smoke of burnt rubber filled the air as the car shrieked like a Detroit-born banshee then sped away. With a grumbling clamour, the trucks drove on.

“I should’ve tossed a bottle-rocket in their car,” said Bruce.

“That would’ve been hilarious,” said Heather.

“Speaking of,” said Lawrence, “let’s send another salvo.” He handed four bottle-rockets to his friends and they immediately placed them in their bottles on the sidewalk.

They each waited for the person beside them to light their fuse before they lit theirs. As the last of the five friends lit theirs, the first rocket went off. Then the second, third, fourth, and finally the fifth rocket took flight. Like Belinda had planned, they whistled into the sky in a crude, yet coordinated, salvo. They burst in the sky in intervals, and the friends cheered.

“Respect the soldiers,” a voice behind them said. The friends turned around. They knew who it was. It was Mr. Fuentes, who had rolled up on his bike. Or, as students at Calavera City Community College knew him, he was Pete the Nutty Professor. “Respect the soldiers on the Fourth of July. They are with God now. They died so you could live here in freedom.”

“Guy’s nuttier than squirrel turds,” whispered Bruce.

“Leave him alone,” said Heather. “He’s just old.”

“And annoying,” said Geoff, lighting a small string of Black Cat fireworks. As the fuse lit, Geoff yelled out, “Hey, Nutty Professor, here’s to the soldiers!”

Before his friends could stop him, Geoff tossed the firecrackers at the old man. The old man gasped as the fireworks crackled on the ground around him. Cringing, he got back on his bike and rode away.

“Respect the soldiers, you little bastards. Respect the soldiers,” he said as he disappeared down the road.

It wasn’t quite like watching a guy in an old western dance around the ground as a villain was shooting at his feet, but it was still pretty funny.

“I forgive you,” said Belinda, walking up to her man. Her hands held in a pantomime of religious fervour, she added, “I forgive you.”

The five laughed again and dug out more fireworks to set off.