Black Treacle Magazine (March/April 2013, Issue 2) (4 page)

“Hey,” Leblanc
protested. “I did exactly what you wanted, Marion.”

Eyes still on
me, Rotundo said, “That doesn’t mean I like you. And call me Ms.
Rotundo. Tell you what, Bucky. I’ll give you the same deal I gave
your colleague.”

My nerve
endings still ached from the hotshot’s electrical current. “He’s no
colleague of mine. If I get out of this, you’re a dead man,
Leblanc.”

“Screw you,
fucky-Bucky. You’d have done the same.”

Maybe Leblanc
wasn’t too far off the mark, but that didn’t give the prick the
right to shock me. I swore revenge, but first I’d have to play
Rotundo’s game. “What deal?”

“Freedom.”
Rotundo reached into another suit pocket and pulled out what looked
like a thin chrome-plated wrench. “Recognize this?”

I nodded,
unable to believe the treasures Rotundo possessed. She held an EMA
key to unlock my anklet. “So, I give Johanson your message and you
let me go?”

“Not exactly.
Come back with my first payment, then I let you go.” Rotundo’s eyes
became hard garnets. “And just so Johanson understands how serious
I am, here’s something to take with you. Carmine, if you will.”

Carmine, who
had moved behind Leblanc, allowed a long silver blade to slip from
the sleeve of his coat. With a grace unexpected from someone so
huge, he swung the short sword in a powerful arc.

Leblanc’s
severed head plunked to the floor. The rest of him crumpled like a
rag doll, blood spurting from the stump of his neck.

Rotundo waited
till the bleeding slowed to a trickle, then bent down, and slipped
a cellphone from Leblanc’s pant pocket and handed the device to me.
“Let Johanson know you’re on your way back. We don’t want him
calling the PO, right?” Without breaking her smile, she grasped
Tommy Leblanc’s head by its oily hair and tossed it into my lap.
“And don’t forget this.”

I found my
voice and screamed like a child.

* * *

Fifteen
minutes later, I was in the delivery van heading back to the Tim
Hornets. Still hoarse and shaky, I needed time to think and chose
the more circuitous route along the LZ.

Johanson was
too tough and too cheap to give in to Marion Rotundo’s demands.
He’d probably been skimming for years and must have stashed away
quite the fortune. All he needed to do was tie up some loose ends
then disappear to some zombie-free tropical island.

With Leblanc
dead, I was the only loose end needed tying up.

Christ, I was
in deep shit and thanks to the EMA around my ankle I couldn’t even
run.

I was a dead
man--a dead man driving.

Abandoned
buildings passed by like rows of rotting teeth. A pharmacy with
shattered windows, a boarded-up army surplus store, a gutted flower
shop, the entire inner city had become one enormous concrete
zombie.

Throat aching,
I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel. “God, get me out
of this and I promise I’ll go straight. Hacking just isn’t worth
all this. Nothing is.”

I looked up in
time to see two zombies standing in the middle of the street,
caught in the headlights like frightened deer. Instinct took over
from common sense. Instead of running them down with the van’s
crash bar, I reefed on the wheel and headed directly for a derelict
bus. “Oh, shit!” I jerked the wheel the other way, the van listing
as tires left the ground. Panicked, I adjusted my steering and the
frame shuddered when rubber again touched pavement.

Leblanc’s head
bounced like a medicine ball around the floorboards by the
passenger’s seat and unwound from its blood-soaked rags.

I pulled my
gaze from the sight and jumped on the brakes with both feet,
holding tight to the wheel as the van fishtailed to a stop.

Harmless
halogen beams speared the zombies who closed upon the van with the
tenacity and speed of rabid turtles.

“So much for
praying.” I eased off the brake and steered away from the dynamic
duo of death.

Under control
again, I reached over to secure Leblanc’s head and spotted the
yellow handle of a hotshot poking from underneath the seat. I
fantasized zapping Johanson and Rotundo with the cattle prod. The
image made me smile then laugh hard and loud until my sides hurt
and tears filled my eyes.

“I’m going to
die.” I wiped my eyes dry. What was I going to do, fight Johanson,
Rotundo, and zombies? No one could do all that alone.

I looked at
the hotshot. Did it still have a full charge? Rotundo had my
bandoleer and without it I’d only have the one battery.

It would have
to be enough.

Slowing the
van, I made a quick U-turn back the way I’d come.

* * *

“Back
already?” Carmine’s voice crackled over the static of the morgue’s
call button.

“Johanson says
he accepts your deal,” I shouted into the speaker. “He says it’s
better than going out of business. Open up. The Chief says he needs
those brains.”

The metal
garage door clanked open and I backed into the morgue’s loading
bay, a low concrete dock for unloading stretchers from ambulances
and hearses. The garage door rumbled shut before I turned off the
motor.

Barely
breathing, I stepped from the van and headed toward the dock. I
left the hotshot on the passenger seat. Marion Rotundo would just
take it away then have Carmine behead me in punishment.

Rotundo waited
with Carmine by the van’s rear door. Both casually sipped coffee
from Tim Hornet’s cups. “It’s good to see you again, Bucky,” she
said and made a point of pressing the button on the EMA jammer
before shoving the device into her pocket.

Clumsy from
fear, I clambered onto the dock. The band around my ankle felt like
a thousand pound weight.

“What’s that?”
Carmine nodded at the van’s door. Water seeped from the bottom and
dripped to the loading bay floor. “Gas leak or somethin’?”

My heart froze
and I struggled for calm. “Ah, Johanson made me load some ice to
keep the brains fresh. Must be melting is all. Now, you’re going to
let me go, right, just like you did for Leblanc?”

“Of course.”
Rotundo’s smile was like nitrogen. “The same deal, exactly.”

My skin
prickled as though kissed by arctic winds. I imagined Carmine slide
out his blade, felt the gleaming steel hiss through the air, heard
the sound of metal slicing through the tendons of my neck. I
shuddered with awareness. Rotundo never meant to let me live, but
something deep inside me had wished for some honor among
thieves.

The truck bed
tilted to the right.

“Did you see
that?” Carmine reached inside his coat with his free hand.

Acting
quickly, I stooped down and unlatched the crescent-shaped lock for
the roll-up door.

“What’s wrong,
Carmine?” Rotundo turned to me, concern invading her implacable
stoic manner. “What are you up to, my friend?”

“I’m not your
friend, Marion.” I heaved on the long dirty canvas strap tied to
the door’s handle. “But I got some new ones for you to meet.” The
door arched smoothly along well-greased rollers.

“Fucking
Christ!” Carmine had his gun out and fired madly into the rear of
the van. Like a blessing, the gunshots deafened me to the unearthly
moans of my new-found friends. The first zombie fell, but others
reached out, grasping and clawing like at the gangster’s clothing
like Velcro.

Flame belched
from Carmine’s gun again and again, but most of his bullets
ricocheted off vintage WWII helmets strapped to zombie heads, or
embedded within flack-jackets protecting rotting chests. When he
emptied his clip, he exchanged gun for sword, swatting at
decomposed necks as yellow broken teeth champed at his exposed
flesh.

All too
little, too late.

Fear can make
a guy do crazy things. Fear of death can make a coward into a hero.
I’d run on nothing but terror and adrenaline when I crashed the van
through the front window of the abandoned army surplus store. Once
inside, I’d covered the van’s storage area with a tarpaulin,
filling my makeshift pool with cases of bottled water liberated
from a nearby vending machine. Using Leblanc’s head as bait, I’d
herded a dozen zombies to the store then tossed the head into the
back of the van. The zombies followed the scent of fresh brain like
lemmings. Once all were inside, I’d pressed the hotshot into the
pool of water, stunning them en masse.

It had taken
nearly an hour of repeated stuns, and my leather gauntlets saved me
more than once, but I managed to strap on their body armour.

Then I’d taken
my army back to the morgue.

Crouching low
to avoid Carmine’s wild shooting, I leaped off the dock and
scurried to the passenger door. I reached for the hotshot when the
window exploded into a thousand tiny granules.

“You little
fucker!” Rotundo stood on the dock, pointing a nickel-plated
pistol. “I’ll kill you myself.”

I launched
into the van just as bullet hits peppered the door. Whining softly,
I crawled to the driver’s side. From the side view mirror I saw the
way was clear and eased out the door with my hotshot in hand.
Slowly, I headed back for the dock.

A choking
scream echoed through the garage and I peered around the side of
the van, my eyes stinging from sweat. Four zombies lay on the
ground, their helmets punctured with small black holes. The rest
feasted upon the gory mass of flesh and guts that had been Carmine.
Near the feeding frenzy, a Tim Hornet’s coffee cup lay in a pool of
sticky blood.

Rotundo was
nowhere to be seen and my first thought was that she’d escaped. The
press of a gun barrel against my skull told me I was wrong.

“Fucker.”
Rotundo was surprisingly strong and easily spun me around to face
her. The gun barrel seemed as big as a cannon. “You’re zombie
food.”

I looked
passed the gun at the dishevelled suit, the grime-smeared face, the
pure panic in her eyes. She looked just like me and the thought
helped take the fear of dying away.

“What’s the
matter, Marion, nothing to smile about?” I squeezed my eyes shut
and waited for the bullet.

Click.

Nothing.

Marion’s gun
was empty.

Like awakening
from a nightmare, I remembered I still held the hotshot. Jabbing
the electrodes into her stomach, I pulled the cattle prod’s
trigger.

Rotundo
collapsed into a fetal position.

Not wasting
time to savor my victory, I rifled through her pockets until I
found the EMA key. Prize in hand, I headed for the driver’s door
when a hand gripped my ankle. I looked down at Rotundo, her face a
mad grin of smeared lipstick and insanity. In her other hand was a
switch blade.

Before she
could stick me, I swung the hotshot like a golf club, driving the
handle into her face. She released me and howled with pain. Blood
spurted from her mouth and she spat out a broken tooth.

From the dock,
half-decomposed noses pointed in our direction like hunting dogs
from Hell.

Understanding
the inevitable, I jumped back into the van, jammed the lever into
DRIVE, and crashed through the closed loading bay door.

* * *

“Where the
fuck are you?” Chief Johanson’s voice blasted through the
cellphone’s earpiece.

“Me and
Leblanc are going to take some time off,” I said.
“Permanently.”

“Really? You
disappoint me, Bucky. I thought you were smarter.” To his credit,
Johanson actually sounded genuine. “See you in hell,
peckerhead.”

I
disconnected. I’d used the EMA key to unlock my anklet and slipped
the explosive ring around the gate to the Live Zone. For a moment I
wondered if Johanson would make the call to the PO. A few seconds
there came an ear-numbing bang and the gate swung open.

After wiring
it shut the best I could, I made an anonymous call, reporting the
breach. It was the honest thing to do. I’d made a promise to go
straight and meant to keep it.

Smiling, I
tossed the phone away and headed for civilization wondering what
country life was like.

END

Originally from Kitchener,
Mike
Rimar
now lives in Whitby, Ontario with
his two daughters.

Despite its
contrary spelling, Mike pronounces his last name as rhymer. Beyond
that he is a man of mystery, even to himself. That he writes at all
is most baffling. Only an average student, he can barely spell,
grammar makes his head hurt, and science is far from his best
subject. He is a taco puzzle wrapped in a tortilla shell
enigma.

He does like a good cooking show and has been observed staring at
non-stick frying pans far too long to be healthy.

You can find his work in
Orson Scott Cards
InterGalactic Medicine Show
,
Tesseracts 15
,
Writers of the Future XXI
, and more recently in
Masked
Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories
, and
When the Hero Comes Home 2
e-version. His website is
http://www.mikerimar.com
.

Bruce
Memblatt

He was never
an emotional man. Even as a child when his brother Billy teased him
something awful Taylor never showed his cards, but what happened to
him, what he brought on, changed everything.

“Even the air
stank of death,” Taylor whispered running his fingers across the
bars. The metal was always cold. Everything was always cold down to
the coffee. Day three hundred on death row was going to be just as
dark as day one.

Down the
corridor Taylor could hear the sound of keys jangling-- always the
sound of keys jangling, locks turning, but never the sound of
anyone leaving.