ZOMBIE'S DOOM? "Chronicles of Jack Doom" (12 page)

They had a movie theater that played everything from porno flicks to kiddy films (the kiddy films weren't much of a draw, most of the younger children on the planet were dead).

In addition, two live freak shows were available for your perusal.

There they had some captive freaks and geeks that were attending to and a couple of wayward zombies. Which for a small extra fee you could beat to death with your choice of weapons, or with only your fists, if that was your type of entertainment (the zombies that is, freaks and geeks are too hard to come by these days, just to kill for sport).

You could do any one or all of these things, or much more if you wished, that is if you felt that the outside world wasn't supplying you with enough carnal violence to suit your needs, and you had an ample amount of
stuff
to barter with.

Even though I had come to thrive in this type of environment, I wasn't looking to kill anyone unnecessarily, or as they told me outside,
without do cause
, at least not at the moment anyway.

Not even the temptation of beating a zombie to death with my bare fists could sway me from my self-imposed mission (the truth is, I was pressed for time or I would have succumbed to that temptation).

However, I wasn't about to let some overly aggressive dick-head wolf on me for their personal sadistic pleasure. So as I ambled through the festive sanctuary searching for
my
prey, I kept my pistol hidden but at the ready to do my bidding at a moment's notice, ready to stitch up
Chinese gangland style
if necessary, anyone that needed a strict lesson in apocalyptic life that might feel froggy and decide to jump..

My guess was that I wasn't the only one in the joint that was ready, willing, and able to ignore the no killing without do cause rule, and cack someone for giving them the toad eye. The biting heads (snappers) on the fence outside would probably attest to that; that is if they could talk.

You could buy most anything at the Way Station, anything from sex to weapons were available to anyone, if you had the right currency to close the deal.

People that thought that gold and silver were a good insurance plan in case of a societal collapse, had a rude awakening when the real world dropped the hammer down on them.

Gold coins and silver bars were now melted down for their metallic weight and made into bullets, then sold or traded the same as the lead projectiles.

Paper money was good for starting fires, lighting cigars, and wiping your ass, and that's about all.

The real currency that had value was whatever you had that someone else wanted, and was willing to bargain for, or kill you to get.

After a day and a half of staying out of trouble (and not killing anyone), and several propositions for sex, and several more offers to trade Jacob's Sub-2000 that I had strapped on my back, my inquiries into the whereabouts of the Sarge were reaping little bounty.

Then totally by accident during one of the sanctioned beat downs on the second level, I overheard a man mention that the fights that the Caucasian put on were much bloodier and far more violent.

"Excuse me sir, but did I hear you mention the Caucasian?" I asked nicely.

"Yeah, what about it? You got a problem with what I talk about?" the man answered back, not so nicely.

The man was in his early thirties and bigger than I was, and looked as if he had been eating fairly well throughout the apocalyptic food shortage.

He also, along with his large friend who sat beside him, acted as if they were both used to getting their way, one way, or another.

Looking for information and not a fight, I kept my mild outward demeanor as I ramped up my inner combat mindset, and said to him.

"No, not at all, talk about anything that you'd like, I just heard you mention the Caucasian and I think a friend of mine is on his way to join up with him, and I thought you might have seen my friend."

"I don't give a fuck about your dumbass friend, and I don't give a fuck about your dumb ass. So shut the fuck up, and get the fuck out of my way, you're making me miss the fucking fight," he said loudly, as he stood up and leaned toward me, encroaching into my personal space while doing his best to lay his version of the toad eye on me.

Sensing that this man had some information about the Sarge and Beth, and that he was the alpha male I had mentioned earlier that was willing to
wolf
on me for his own personal pleasure, I felt that it was my duty to myself to beat the information out of him.

Figuring that this behemoth of a man was dead set on teaching me a lesson for interrupting his sporting diversion (the sanctioned fight) with a sporting diversion of his own, by beating me half to death in front of the already gathered, lathered, and cheering audience.

Without hesitation, I twisted myself sideway into the larger of the two men, and employed a small-circle Jujitsu technique that flung him to the floor in a blink of an eye. Before his friend could react, I kicked
him
in the teeth with the heel of my boot and knocked him backwards off his seat.

The crowd cheered as the sanctioned fight halted and they began to watch the fight between myself, and my two larger opponents.

With three of the formally seated man's teeth lying on the floor in a pool of blood beside the aggressive Neanderthal, I could see the rage in his eyes as he struggled to stand. Seizing the opportunity to take a cheap shot at this
want-to-be
alpha male, I plonked my foot down hard on the big man's mouth while he was still down (did I mention that I cheat real good), tearing his bottom lip down passed his chin. Then I retracted my foot and forcefully reapplied it to his face one more time, planting the steel toe of my boot deep into the mouth of the oversized goober I had first dropped to the floor.

His boot muffled screech sent the applauding onlookers into somewhat of a feeding frenzy, as several of them blindsided their fellow sports fans with sucker punches.

A full-on melee ensued as I continued to stomp in the faces of the two men that I considered to have started the un-sanctioned physical altercation in the first place.

After my boot heel had broken a few of the men's teeth and tenderized their faces, I bent down over my bloodied foe and asked him one more time.

"Now that you've had your fun, I'm going to ask you again. Have you seen my friend? He is loud, has red hair, and is traveling with a good-looking blonde girl with big tits. Have you seen either one of them?"

The man spit a mixture of blood, saliva, and his two front teeth onto the floor, then while holding his bottom lip in place and dropping one more loose tooth out of his mouth, he replied.

"Yes, I saw both of them, maybe a month ago, and my friend over there," he slobbered, pointing to the other man on the floor with missing teeth. "We saw them arriving at the Caucasian's camp the day we left there. The girl looked kind of beat up and sad, but the red haired man was laughing and carrying on as if he had just returned home from a long trip."

"Where exactly is the Caucasian's camp?" I asked the now profusely bleeding man.

"Indiana!" he replied.

"Where in Indiana, you fuck?" I asked, gritting my teeth.

"In the Indiana Badlands," he answered, spitting out more blood.

"Okay, I see you want to do things the hard way," I said, as I slapped down on his right eyeball with the palm of my hand, causing the back of his head to bounce off the mental container's floor, helping to jar his memory and convince him to cooperate a little more.

"A little town in the heart of the Indiana Badlands, I don't know what it used to be called before the outbreak; now the Caucasian's followers call it
Hell
. He named it himself just after he set up camp inside the gym of an old high school at the eastern edge of the town," the pounded bully finally confessed. "But you don't want to go there, the Caucasian eats people like you for breakfast."

Shut up! If I want yours or your girlfriend there's opinion," I told him, pointing to his still unconscious friend. "I'll beat it out of the both of you."

Then the reality of the situation struck me.

"Never mind!" I told him with a smug chuckle. "I already did!"

As the violent clash of fisticuffs continued between the patrons, I thought that it might be a good time for me to bid my fond farewells to the bully's and to the Way Station, and continue on my journey.

So as the I stood up over the cowed bully that had thought that he would use me as his personal punching bag, I set the sole of my boot at the corner of his left eye socket and pushed down hard, scrapping a large chunk of skin down the side of his face, peeling it away and exposing the man's cheek bone.

His loud girlish scream, served to not only cause a break in the action of the ongoing brawl as participants stopped momentarily to see what had caused the feminine shriek. But also awakened the man's partner from the kick induced slumber I had produced just seconds after flinging the larger man to the floor.

Being a fair and just man, I thought it only right to allow the man to share some of the fun his friend was hoping to have at my expense.

But before I kicked the man in the mouth again, knocking out four of his molars and causing him to bite off a small section of the tip of his tongue on my way out the door.

I leaned down once more and whispered in the ear of the man that proclaimed he didn't give a fuck, and reminded him of one of life's truths.

"Remember asshole! It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog!"

Toting my possessions back to my truck, and trying not to look like I was in a hurry to leave, upon arrival, I found my vehicle in the same condition that I had left it.

"You've got a real nice place here, sorry I have to leave now, but I've got places to go and people to see," I told the parking lot guard as I jumped into my truck and started the engine.

The man opened the gate and waved me through, not bothering to say anything as I drove by him and the body-less snappers wobbling on the fence posts on both sides of the gate.

Even though the gatekeeper had told me that I could fight all I wanted too, shooing some of the unwanted hitchhiking flies out to the cab of my truck, I had to wonder if there would be any kind of an alarm sounded to stop my departure.

After all, I had beaten the living shit out of two of the Way Station's pilgrims.

However, as I drove down the road away from that apocalyptic refuge, leaving all of the shopkeepers, whores, fighters, trouble makers, freaks, geeks, and whatever else, to their own mechanisms, no alarm was sounded that day, and maybe any day (unless you killed someone without do cause, whatever that was).

For fighting and brawling, stealing and whoring, and just plain beating the fucking hell out of somebody was a way of life in that small oasis in the middle of zombie world, and I was just another passerby in a long line of people looking for whatever it was that we were all looking for in the world of the living dead.

Back to Contents

INDIANA WANTS ME

Beware of the
Indiana Badlands
were the words that kept popping up all along the trail to my destination.

First from Jason, then from the boisterous bully at the Way Station that had begged me for, and promptly received, the excellent thwacking that he so richly deserved.

And indeed, that's what the three hillbilly men in Arkansas told me just before they tried to take me prisoner and I was force to separate the top of their skulls from the rest of their bodies (well two of them anyway).

They weren't the easiest kills that I had under my belt, but they weren't the hardest either.

After the sun went down on the day we met, we were all sitting around the campfire that the three of them had blazing inside an old rickety barn.

We were celebrating not getting ourselves killed by a medium sized horde (ten to twenty of the undead grisly cannibals) that happened to stagger onto the freeway close to their camp that afternoon.

Okay, to make a long story even longer.

You see, I had just come out of Oklahoma, still driving along interstate 40, and minding my own business I might add.

I was cutting through their lovely scenic state on my way northeast to rendezvous with that Caucasian crowd I had heard so much about. You know, the group that the Sarge and Beth might be in cahoots with.

I rounded a curve in the road and found myself face to face with that medium sized horde I previously mentioned.

The members of that horde were not only blocking my way, but also had three strangers surrounded and backed up against a wrecked truck that had been hauling cases of soda and water before the end of the world scenario put an abrupt halt to normal interstate commerce, and pretty much everything else that was normal as well.

Ordinarily I would have just driven around the whole bunch of them and let the three men fight it out on their own, for I had pressing business to attend to in Indiana. However, the water truck had stopped in the middle of the road because of a fiery crash of two semi-tractor trailer rigs sometime in the distant past, and had been abandoned there.

Most likely, the undead uprising over a year ago had caused the crash, but whatever the reason for the burnt and mangled wreckage, the fact was that it, along with the water truck and the horde of pagan flesh eaters, had the road blocked, at least for the moment. And the steep inclines on both sides of the road prevented me from driving around the blockage on the soft shoulders.

I could have waited out the deadly melee, and if the living citizens won the fight, they would probably be pissed that I just sat there and watched what could have been in their minds, their unnecessary ultimate demise take place (provided that all three of them lived), nonetheless, however many of them survived, they would most likely be pissed at me.

On the other hand, if the ravenous horde of the dead won the battle, the three men that had lost the fight would not provide enough meat on their proverbial table to feed the mass of undead former humanity, and they would no doubt come after me to complement their four-course meal.

So, I figured that one way or another I was going to have to fight someone, or something no matter what, so I might as well side with the living and spend my bullets on the dead.

Besides, I was running low on water and could use a couple of cases of the precious liquid to get me through to Indiana.

The crowd of fuming zombie beasts that were attacking the three men by the water truck was sporting as many maggots, as they were hovering flies that they paraded around themselves, which only added to the unsavory and ghastly chore of dispatching them.

And while we're considering the revolting chore of zombie dispatching, I might as well share with you an unscientific observance that I had made over the past several months of tramping through the zombie apocalypse.

It just might answer a question that had plagued (no pun intended) many before, during, and maybe even after the zombie upheaval, that is,
if there is an after
.

As many watched movies and TV shows, bought and rented DVDs, read books and comic books about zombie invasions taking over the planet (before they actually did take over the planet), and as some were even participating in zombie runs, one question about the walking undead was never actually answered, and not even really addressed, not to my knowledge anyway.

The question was either never brought up at all, or skirted around and left to the audience to contemplate without any real facts or clues to guide them.

Well, with the endless meandering around the zombie infested countryside that has led me to this place and time. I can assure you that I do have the answer to the allusive question, although maybe not completely conclusive on the subject, and probably not the answer that you would like to hear. Nevertheless, the answer is the reality that we have to live with.

What is the question, you ask?

Do zombies defecate? That is the question.

Do the undead discharge feces from their body on a regular basis?

Do these insane rotting cannibals have a bowel movement at any time in their miserable existence?

The answer is... unfortunately, a resounding yes.

Yes, they shit their pants at certain intervals. These intervals seem to be about once every three months.

They rot slower than normal dead things rot.

Apparently the virus, or whatever causes them to reanimate and walk the earth craving the bodies of the living, and the dead if no living entity is available for consumption, slows their metabolism down to the point that they only need to discharge their waste products at a rate about 100 times slower than the living do, even though they tend to want to eat about 100 time more.

I say unfortunately, because (as you may have already guessed) with the overwhelming stench of their rotting carcass's, along with the smell and sight of hundreds, if not thousands of maggots dripping off them, not to mention the flies that are constantly taking off and landing on them and their putrid discharges, things can get really ripe smelling in a big hurry.

Now you throw in several pounds of fecal material (shit), some of which has been dried for weeks or months, and some that they might have just loaded into their underwear recently (depending on the date of their zombiefication and last unholy meal), being hauled around all over hell's creation in the seat of their pants.

What you end up with then, is a bunch of undead cannibalistic savages that are not only looking to eat you alive, but also have the capability to stink up the place to the point that your eyes water so much that it's hard to see the bastards to kill them.

This of course is a double-edged sword; you have to deal with their combination of fecal fetor, and rotting reek when you get close enough to them to hack them to pieces with an edged weapon of your choice, like a tomahawk or machete.

However, on the flip side of the coin, much of the time you can smell their approach and avoid them altogether, thus sparing yourself the possibility of being killed and eaten, and then later toted around in the seat of their pant stinking up the joint. Or joining their ranks and marching around the heartland of America, killing and eating the living, and embarrassingly shitting your own pants at the same time.

Granted, there are many of the undead maniacs galumphing around the countryside that are so horrifying that they might, and probably without a doubt have, made some of the living humans survivors shit their own pants on the spot.

However, for the most part, we among the living aren't prone to running around with a lump of half-processed smelly shit in our britches.

So let's look on the bright side of the matter.

These continually starving morons running around the country soiling themselves at every opportunity, is just one more good reason to put an end to their miserable existence as soon as humanly possible, before they stink up the whole planet with their poor hygienic practices. Not to mention, humanely relieving them from what has to be a monumental case diaper rash.

Now back to the rescue attempt.

Not wanting to damage my truck in a full head-on assault of the horde of ravenous monsters that were blocking my way into Indiana, I stopped my truck and gave the overwhelmed rednecks a helping hand.

Only one of the men had a weapon of any consequence.

He was wielding a four-pronged pitchfork against the crowd, and I noticed that all three of the men had pistols strapped on, but their sidearms were all holstered.

This along with several dropped zombies on the perimeter of the skirmish told me that they were not only out of ammo, but were all smart enough to re-holster their weapons for use at a later time (after they had found more ammo).

They were smart enough, or experienced enough, not to throw the empty pistols at their enemy in a panic during a futile endeavor to stave off the aggressors, as so many people in the movies had done.

Stopping my vehicle and pulling out my suppressed M-4 rifle that had already killed dozens of the dead and at least one of the living, and with my best sarcastic voice I yelled to the men as I configured the weapon for battle by flipping the thumb safety onto semi-auto.

"Have you girls seen any eaters around here?"

Releasing the bolt and letting it fly forward thereby inserting a round into the rifle's chamber was not necessary.

Because, I always traveled with a bullet in the tube of all of my firearms, in case of just such an emergency, as did everyone that wanted to stay alive.

When zombies attack, and a fraction of a second can mean the difference between living to fight another day, or being chewed up and
shit
out; I usually opt to fight another day. But hey, that's just the way I am.

I chose the suppressed gun because of the open area and the probability that the sound of my 9mm Sub-2000 would only serve to draw more of the undead that were within earshot into the fight.

The sharp crack of the silenced M-4's supersonic bullets traveling at somewhere around twice the speed of sound, could only be heard for about seventy yards in every direction as they broke the sound barrier.

Whereas the loud unencumbered muzzle blast of the Sub-2000 as it spits out its subsonic projectiles could be heard for more than a mile in all directions.

So my choice was simple.

In a zombie apocalypse, silence is golden, so always choose the quieter weapon if possible when dealing either with the living or with the dead.

Two of the men thought that my sense of humor and timing was impeccable and smiled as I approached, probably out of relief that someone had come to help them.

However, the third one, who I would later find out his name was Eric, looked a little pissed as he gouged out the eyes of a tall female zombie in a tattered wedding dress with his pitchfork.

As the prongs of the primitive farm implement penetrated the zombie bride's brain, her mouth was so close to his face that he could smell the monster's fetid breath as it growled, snapped, and puked up a few choice maggots onto his shirt before dropping onto the road and quickly dying at his feet.

As the horde slowly advanced on the three men, I decided that it would be prudent to begin shooting the zombies closest to the hillbillies first, and work my way to the rear of the crowd, just as I would if they were attacking me.

Although shooting the zombies that were within arm's reach of the men increased the chances of me hitting one of the hillbillies by accident, it was a risk that "
I"
was willing to take.