Dead Horizon (2 page)

“This is the life,” Billy Ray said, feeling around his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes. “We got it made when you get right down to it.”

“Yeah, we got it made,” Wyatt said.

Billy Ray lit his cigarette. “Benefits are good, and where else can you go around killin’ without gettin’ your ass in trouble?”

Wyatt took a swig of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That’s true enough,” he said. “I just wish somebody’d show a little appreciation is all.”

“Fuck ’em,” Billy Ray said. “I don’t do it for appreciation. I get off on this shit. Those dead fuckers need to be wasted, and I’m just the guy to do it. All those dumb asses cowering in their houses, hoping the goddamn death plague goes away. Not me. Fuck no. I make the shit go away.”

“Bingo, bro,” Wyatt said, holding his glass up for a toast.

He downed his beer and jumped behind the bar for a bottle of whiskey. He took a long pull and winced.

“We’re a couple of heroes is what we are,” Billy Ray said.

Wyatt helped himself to a cigarette from Billy Ray’s pack and stuck it in his mouth. He had the lighter halfway to the cigarette when he heard a noise that sounded like feet shuffling over broken glass. It might have come from the storage room.

“Can’t even get a goddamn break,” Wyatt said, shaking his head.

He headed for the back room with whiskey bottle in hand. A dead black man was lumbering around in the storage area. Half his face was missing. The exposed cheekbone glistened red. His right eye hung down where his cheek used to be.

“I hate when somebody does a half ass job,” Wyatt said.

“You need help in there?” Billy Ray called from the front of the bar.

“I got this one,” Wyatt answered.

He broke the whiskey bottle over the zombie and lit it with his lighter. “Burn, baby, burn,” he said, then he lit his cigarette off the zombie’s flaming arm.

“I smell somethin’,” Billy Ray said when Wyatt returned.

“Yeah, roasted zombie,” Wyatt said, laughing at his own joke.

“You lit the fucker on fire?” Billy Ray asked.

“Yep.”

“In the goddamn storeroom?”

“Yep.”

They looked at each other a moment, then realization dawned on them. “Shit,” they said simultaneously.

They headed for the exit. Wyatt turned back to grab a new bottle of whiskey. He barely made it out by the time a series of small explosions rocked the bar and the building was engulfed in flames.

“That was dumb,” Billy Ray said, scratching the side of his head as he watched the bar burn.

“Yeah, that was dumb,” Wyatt agreed.

They watched the bar a minute longer, then Wyatt said, “Well, whatta we do now?”

“I’m kinda hungry,” Billy Ray said.

“There’s a place down the street that serves the best goddamned cheeseburger around. Owner still comes in and does business.”

“Sounds good to me,” Billy Ray said.

The diner was two blocks down, on the corner of Fifth and Mill. Billy Ray and Wyatt walked down the center of the street like they owned it. The likelihood of a vehicle coming by was almost nil.

“After dinner, what say we head over to the nasty side of town,” Billy Ray suggested.

“I guess we could do that, seein’ as how we’ve worked pretty hard today. A man’s gotta relax, right?”

“Right. A man’s gotta relax.”

The diner was open, but there weren’t more than half a dozen people in the place. Billy Ray and Wyatt took a seat at the counter. A slim blonde with tits too large for her small frame took their order. A tall, bald Mr. Clean-looking guy in the back did the cooking.

Food was served inside of fifteen minutes. Billy Ray made a few obscene comments to the waitress, and when she showed no interest in him, he devoted his time to his cheeseburger and fries.

After a leisurely dinner, Billy Ray and Wyatt rode two miles to the nasty side of town in Wyatt’s Ford pick-up.

“Christ, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Wyatt said, slowing to take a look at all the lumbering dead things. “It’s gonna be dark soon, and you know what a bitch it is to deal with these things in the dark.”

“We’re already here,” Billy Ray said. He held up his gun and smiled a big smile. “Besides, we know how to handle these fucks.”

Wyatt parked the truck and leaned over to grab a box of ammo from the glove box. “You got all you need?” he said.

“I’m loaded for bear,” Billy Ray said.

“Lock my goddamn truck,” Wyatt said. He opened his door and climbed out shooting. Billy Ray followed suit, pegging two dead whores less than ten feet from where he stood.

The creatures were slow and clumsy, but they were thicker than bees to honey on the nasty side of town. Wyatt wondered if maybe the sexual urge didn’t hang around even after you died and came back.

“Would you look at that?” Billy Ray exclaimed, jabbing his gun in the direction of a strip club down the block. A dead blonde in a G-string was ambling out of the club, perfect except for the bloody hole ripped through the right side of her neck.

“I seen her dance when she was alive,” Billy Ray said. “She did some unreal shit with a cucumber.”

“That a fact?” Wyatt said.

“More than a foot of it. I shit you not.”

“Looks like you’re gonna have to put her down,” Wyatt said.

She was coming toward them now, looking a little too hungry.

“You ever wonder what it’d be like to fuck one?” Billy Ray asked in earnest.

“Not particularly, but I’m guessin’ it’s been on your mind.”

“A little bit,” Billy Ray said. “Take her, for instance.” He jerked his head at the stripper. “Chick like that wouldn’t fuck me if she was alive, unless, of course, I gave her a week’s pay, but dead, hell, how much complain’ can she do?”

The dead stripper was closing in.

“Shoot her,” Wyatt said, his voice taking on a bit of an edge.

“I wanna fuck her,” Billy Ray replied.

“You’re a sick fuck,” Wyatt said, raising his .45 to shoot the dead stripper.

“Don’t,” Billy Ray insisted.

The stripper was only a few yards away.

“You can’t be serious,” Wyatt said.

“Just keep her occupied for me,” Billy Ray replied.

Wyatt sighted again, almost squeezed the trigger, then lowered his weapon and said, “Aw, shit. Get it over with.”

He made a move left, drawing the stripper’s attention from Billy Ray.

“Lead her across the street, over to that parkin’ lot,” Billy Ray said.

Wyatt tossed a quick look over his shoulder, then turned back to the dead bitch. She seemed to be moving faster for some reason. There wasn’t much daylight left. He knew this shit was going to get dangerous.

“I’m shootin’ her if this gets outta hand,” he promised Billy Ray.

“It’ll be okay,” Billy Ray assured him.

Billy Ray got behind the stripper, trying to get his dick out with one hand and holding his pistol in the other.

Wyatt backed toward the parking lot, coaxing the stripper to follow him. When he reached the parking lot, he said, “What the fuck do I do now?”

“Let me take over,” Billy Ray said.

He rushed the dead girl from behind, taking her down to the concrete. Her head bounced off the ground and smacked Billy Ray in the mouth. Billy Ray’s lip started bleeding. He cursed under his breath, laid his gun aside, then tore off the stripper’s G-string.

He had to struggle a bit, but he managed to get his cock inside her. It was a little like fucking sandpaper at first, but he kept at her, spitting on his hand now and then to help ease the way. The stripper twisted, turned, and snapped at him. He got one arm around her neck to limit her movement.

“Damn, this bitch is tough,” he grunted.

“You’re fuckin’ bent,” Wyatt said.

He began to case the area. His nerves were starting to frazzle. It was dark now—too dark to see anything. Darker shadows shifted within shadows. Some of those shadows were drifting closer.

“Shit, Billy Ray, they’re coming,” Wyatt said.

“Gimme a minute and I will too,” Billy Ray said, chuckling at his quick wit.

The shadows began to take form as they closed in—lumbering creatures, quite a few of them nude, missing limbs, dead things with bullet holes and knife wounds, a woman wearing a strap-on dildo who was missing a tit, a cop with his insides rolling out, plopping on the ground with each step he took—too many dead things to count.

“Billy Ray, you get your dick outta that bitch or I’m shootin’ you in the head and leavin’ you here,” Wyatt said.

He snatched Billy Ray’s gun off the ground.

“Almost there,” Billy Ray said, grunting with the effort. “The bitch is startin’ to loosen up.”

Wyatt pointed his .45 at the zombies and aimed Billy Ray’s .357 at the back of Billy Ray’s head. He looked from Billy Ray to the approaching zombies and back again. “Don’t make me shoot you, Billy Ray, but if I have to, I will. I ain’t stayin’, and I ain’t leavin’ you here to become one of them.”

Billy Ray kept humping while the stripper made awful mewling noises. Wyatt couldn’t stand the sound. He couldn’t take the stress. The zombies were closing in and he had to do something, so he squeezed off a round from the .357 that tore into the back of Billy Ray’s head.

The zombies converged then, piling on top of Wyatt. He fired the guns until they were empty, then he kicked and punched. His fists went through dead flesh and lodged into sticky viscera. Dead hands groped him, tore at his clothes, and dug at his flesh.

They were all over Billy Ray too, ripping at his clothes, chewing his flesh—the girl with the strap-on dildo was fucking him in the ass. There had to be something ironic about that.

There were too many for Wyatt to fight. He fell to the ground. A maggot-infested pussy, all greenish-gray with little bugs scampering in and out of the ragged, rotting folds, descended on him.

Wyatt gave up then. His jeans were ripped down, and something cold and clammy settled over his dick. A pair of dead lips. A sharp pain tore through him and he knew for sure his dick was dinner.

The dead were coming.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em was all Wyatt could think, and he began to devour the rotten pussy as the corpses devoured him.

Dead and Living in Whitechapel

Cecil Whitley justified the murders several ways. First, he did all of his work in the East End of London, a section of town dilapidated and fraught with poverty and disease. Second, he only took the lives of women who had nothing to look forward to but social ostracism anyway, and thus, he was actually doing them a service. Third, and most important, Cecil killed so that his brother Edward could continue to live.

Edward Whitley, in contrast to the desperate prostitutes whose pitiful lives Cecil took, was a once-respected surgeon who’d made it his life’s work to eradicate disease and decay in the human body and to one day do away with death altogether. Edward had traveled to many parts of the world in search of what he fondly referred to as “the big cure.” He’d left no stone unturned in his quest for everlasting life, and when all medical and scientific avenues had been exhausted, Edward sought answers in the remote jungles of Africa.

There he learned the secrets of dark magic.

Edward had often talked to Cecil for hours at a time about the dark magic of a lost African civilization inhabiting a part of the continent known as the Land of the Forever Living. It had taken Edward a year to find this lost civilization, after which he’d spent two years learning the secrets of eternal life.

Edward’s failing health began within a year of his arrival back to London. He grew paler as the days passed. Eventually, he died in his sleep.

Cecil, who had always held his older brother in high esteem, barely coped with the loss. When he stumbled upon a sample of the elixir Edward had brought back from Africa, Cecil administered it to Edward, believing all Edward had told him about the power of the elixir to be true.

Later that night Edward walked again.

* * *

By late August of 1888 Edward was quite unmanageable. He wandered around in circles in his room, occasionally throwing himself against the walls. Some of the skin on his face and hands had begun to slough away, and one eye drooped from its socket, held in place by a gummy strand of optic nerve. His color was no good either, even for a reanimated corpse.

Cecil knew the problem. The ritual responsible for Edward’s rebirth called for a specific sort of flesh—human flesh— and there was just one way Cecil knew to come into possession of such a thing.

He did not fancy the thought, but he loved his brother, who had once done so much for others, and in the end he decided to do what was best for Edward. It would be easy enough.

He donned a black overcoat and slipped a dagger into an inside pocket, then he found the black bag once used by Edward in his medical duties.

A cold, light rain had fallen intermittently throughout the evening, and now a thick fog draped the glistening black cobblestone streets.

Cecil knew these streets well. The money his family had once had was no longer available. Now Cecil and Edward lived in the squalor of the East End. Cecil knew every nook and cranny, every shortcut, and when the constables made their rounds, slipping through the shadows undetected would not be a problem.

Cecil encountered a couple strolling arm in arm in Buck’s Row. He lowered his head as he passed them by, glancing over his shoulder when the couple was behind him, watching as they disappeared around the corner at the end of the street. He didn’t see the woman who stepped into his path until it was too late, and they collided.

“Look where you’re goin,’” she said sharply, and then her tone lightened considerably. “Fancy a little company, do ya?”

“I do, indeed,” he answered, giving her a most charming smile.

“Three pence and I’ll show you a time of it,” she said.

Cecil agreed, paid the woman up front, then led her through the nearby gateway of a stable yard. He walked slightly ahead of her. She hesitated a little ways into the dark yard.

“This should do it,” she said.

“I believe you’re right,” he agreed, turning to face her.