Life Among The Dead (Book 2): A Castle Made of Sand (22 page)

Using a stream of seltzer from the bar’s
multi-beverage dispenser hose, he frantically tries to douse the
flames. He succeeds in diluting the fuel, but has caused a rippling
current that spreads the fire outward to the walls of the room.
Soon the couches and curtains are on fire and the carbonated
extinguisher cannot reach them. Dustin yanks on the line for more
extension, but it won’t budge.

His glorious rockstar palace is burning
around him, and the incessant alarms are telling him it is time to
go. In typical rockstar fashion, he had it all and lived it up, and
now he has lost everything. Dustin just walks out the front door to
his Camaro, which still holds all of his supplies--from his guns to
his MREs, his MP3 players to all the explosives in his trunk.
Vowing to actually go by the dash mounted compass this time, he
strikes north to Fallen.

Fallen is a small town populated by
sporadically placed mobile homes. The main street that features
dive bars and liquor stores is deserted.
Even
the
dead
don’t
want
to
be
here
. Dustin imagines the place was depressing even before
the zombies appeared. A dying community that owed what traffic it
received to alcoholism and, of course, the notorious strip club he
was once slated to play at.

The Flag Pole once drew crowds on a nightly
basis. Folks, men folk that is, came from miles away to watch the
talent on stage. Dustin had heard that many of the dancers would
get extra friendly for the right price. Though not all the ladies
were for sale, most were.

The man who owned the place, Beau, also owned
the adjacent motel and diner. He was a big fish in an extremely
small pond.

Dustin stands outside that property now,
which is surrounded by a tight ring of cars. It makes him wonder if
the man that had hired his band might still be in business.

The windows of the diner and the first floor
of the motel are boarded over. The entrance to the club is
protected by a crudely fabricated plywood barrier, and the sheets
of particle board create a foyer. Red spray paint boasts:
Girls
!
Girls
!
Girls
!

That’s
a
good
sign
. Dustin slings his Les Paul and
pockets
several of his MP3 players. Taking an assault rifle and his
revolver, he hops over the wall of cars, leaving his own parked
outside the perimeter. At the entrance, he can’t find a way in. A
wood barrier has been nailed to the posts of the awning that should
lead into the Flag Pole.

Pistol at the ready, he starts to travel
counterclockwise around the parking lot that encompasses the
businesses. He hopes to find a way in around the back of the
establishments, but hope fails when he sees just how exclusive the
place has become.

The smell of decay greets him behind the
place. The back section appears to have once been used for
deliveries and trash disposal. The later seems to remain true
still, as evident by the bodies strewn indiscriminately on the
asphalt, left to bake in the sun. Twenty or more by his horrified
count, like neglected action figures.

“Holy shit,” he says impulsively,
disregarding the need to be quiet. The bodies however do not
disregard him. Heads begin to loll and necks crane to find the
source of the cursing. Sunken, eager eyes lock onto the trespasser.
These dead haven’t eaten in a long time, and the insatiable hunger
makes them far spryer than those he has encountered before.

The zombies get to their feet as fast as
decomposition and injuries will allow. No infirmity will keep them
from the morsel that recoils at the sight of them. Those that can’t
walk crawl after him with vigor.

The shock wears thin quickly and Dustin
turns, heading away in the direction he had come. The dead are on
his heels, moaning differently than the city dwellers so long ago,
sounding more pitiful. These corpses seem to beg him to stop. They
plead with him for a bite in their dead language.

He has no intentions of satisfying their
hunger. He sprints across the front lot, and his rifle and
instrument batter his back with every panicked stride. Dustin takes
the next corner wide, not wanting to race into the waiting arms of
whatever may be coming from the other direction. There are no dead
to be concerned with ahead of him, until he returns to where the
race began. The crawlers have only made it to the corner just past
the dumpsters.

Dustin dashes to the receptacles before the
creeping corpses can turn, and those closing in behind him can
catch up. He leaps up to grab the top of the wall, hauling himself
on top of the Flag Pole.
The
only
way
in
or
out
of
the
establishment
has
to
be
up
here
, he contends, since there are no evident entry points
on the ground floor.

He has made it to the roof before the
deceptively quick dead reach the back, and he lies on the gravel
surface as they continue to circle the connected buildings, chasing
the food that is no longer on the menu. The crawlers foolishly join
the pursuit though they have seen him climb out of reach. Obviously
they see their peers running and figure there must be more meat
available, remaining a lap behind their faster counterparts.

Dustin creeps over the thinning layer of
small stones, where patches of tar paper peek from under the
crunching gravel. At the awning, he sees a hole cut into the
overhang. His way in, and a ladder allows him entry to his
goal.

Dustin knocks on the glass door within the
wooden booth. Beyond the locked portal, he hears movement and sees
a figure approach through the tinted window. But no amount of
squinting will answer the question that burns in his mind.
Is
he
dead
?

The dark figure takes its time reaching the
door, and Dustin holds his breath in anticipation. He tries to hear
the person closing in on him over the beseeching moans of the dead.
Below the wailing, he detects the most wonderful sound, music.

“What do you want?” a male voice asks from
within the club, through a crack he makes at the door.

“I wanna rock.”

##

Dustin is instructed to keep his hands in the
open, where the rotund man who has answered the door can see them.
He complies, while the balding gentleman keeps a bead on him with a
sawed off shotgun. Then Dustin is ushered down a dark hall. Here,
the walls that flank him are decorated with framed posters of
strippers. Under each peeler, engraved on brass plates, are their
names. One of the stills outshines all the rest, so much that
Dustin must do a double take. He stops in his tracks to admire the
goddess.

“Is she here?”

“Carla?” the man asks. “No. Probably dead.
Damned shame.”

A nudge from the stout weapon prods Dustin
deeper into the dim den that stinks of stale cigarettes mixed with
fresher smoke. A man behind the bar sets his roughly stubbled face
into a wide grin. “Sweet Jesus! We’ve got a customer. Lita! Vita!
Wake up!”

The man slaps the dark wood of the counter to
arouse two blonde ladies slumbering at one of the round tables.
They wear next to nothing, and the first to her feet is clearly
getting too old for the job. There are more lines on her face than
a cocaine addict’s mirror. And if the occupation has weight
standards, Dustin can assume she is well out of them. The other one
is pretty enough for her profession, however her weight class leans
in the other direction. This younger girl is an emaciated stick,
not much thicker than the pole she now grabs a hold of on
stage.

The music changes for the show, from Ozzy
Osbourne’s shrill yet beautiful vocals to classic Poison. Dustin
never could comprehend why 80s hair bands and stripping went so
perfectly together. He forgoes the lackluster show to talk to the
man at the bar. Beau, if he isn’t mistaken.

“We ain’t had no new blood in here for quite
some time.” The man sets his meaty forearm on the counter.
“Where’re you from?”

“Waterloo,” Dustin tells the man, whose
scraggly grey hair is pulled back in a ponytail. The greeter
lingers within arm’s reach of him.

“He says he ‘wants to rock,’” the man behind
Dustin explains.

“Cletus, put that thing away!” Beau waves off
the need for the weapon.

“But, he’s packing!” Cletus protests.

“I can see that, you asshole. Git back to
your post! He ain’t here fer trouble.”

“My name is Dustin,” he nervously spits out.
“I’m with the Dogs of War.”

“What’s that? Some sorta biker gang?” The man
draws a beer from one of the taps. A tall, grimy mug is set down on
a coaster for Dustin and slid across the greasy surface. The man
smiles with only half the teeth nature intended for him. “Frankly,
you don’t look the type.”

“We’re a band… well… were a band. I’m the
last one. We were supposed to play here a few months ago.”

The man laughs deeply at that. When he has
the breath to speak, he says, “Better late than never, I guess.
Now, you are one dedicated rocker!”

“Yeah…” Dustin isn’t sure if it’s the
situation that’s the joke, or he himself. “It’s my dream. I at
least wanted to see the place…”

“Here it is!” The man raises his arms to
display the majesty of his kingdom, in all its dinginess. “How
about room and board to play a few sets a night, and become one of
my foot soldiers?”

“Foot soldier?”

“You know, defend the homestead, go on supply
runs, shit like that.”

“Sounds good.” He nods, because making a
living by playing music is all he has ever wanted.

“If you cross me, I’ll feed you to my mosh
pit out there,” the boss warns. “Now, for your work I’ll give you a
room, food, and a few beers a day. If you choose to sample the
other amenities, you best have cash money.”

Cash
? Dustin didn’t think that the
concept of commerce still held value. “What amenities?”

“Drugs and pussy,” the man says plainly as he
wipes the filthy bar with a dirty rag. “The finest things life has
to offer.”

Dustin never acquired a taste for drugs, but
since being able to relax for months at Fort Eagle Rock his
hormones have stabilized into the normal, hyperactive, range of a
nineteen-year-old. His amorous feelings went unattended on post,
and now even the substandard ladies on stage make his trousers feel
more constricting. Looking at the uninspired striptease being
performed by the drowsy, dead-eyed girls, despite their clumsy
attempts at being provocative, he must ask a question, “How
much?”

“That’s my wife and daughter,” Beau says
sternly. “You can’t afford them.”

Dustin has no idea how Beau knows that he
hasn’t any money. He now can’t take his eyes from the younger of
the ungainly dancers, his eagerness making her nonexistent curves
more voluptuous with each passing second.

“I do take trades,” the man adds. “You’ll
just have to lower your standards.”

How
the
fuck
is
that
possible
? What issues from his mouth is a
different inquiry, “What kind of trade?”

“Anything of value in exchange for seven
minutes in Heaven.” The man hitches his thumb to a handwritten sign
over his shoulder that extols the going rate for such a privilege
to be five hundred dollars.

Dustin lays one of his MP3 players upon the
bar. He hates to lose the portable library that contains so many of
his favorite songs, but he hates the anxious urge building within
him, the urge that has to be released.

“That ain’t much,” the guy remarks. “But that
axe and the pod will earn you a lifetime pass to my VIP room.”

“If I give you my guitar, how will I
play?”

“I’ll let you borrow it come show time.”

Dustin unslings the coveted instrument. He
hasn’t so much as fingered the frets let alone played it since
liberating it from the store. He has longed to own it since first
he laid eyes upon it.
It’s
not
like
I
won’t
get
to
play
her
.
“Deal!”

The man takes the axe gingerly. “I know it
must be hard to part with such a fine thing as this. I’ll let you
bust a few nuts before I put you to work.”

The instrument is leaned behind the bar for
safe keeping. The man walks out from behind the counter. “Dustin,
is it? Let me take you to Heaven.”

The boy zealously walks with Beau, whose arm
drapes over his shoulder. Even the sharp odor from the man’s body
isn’t enough to wipe the happy smile from his face. The pair head
towards the back of the bar, to the VIP room. The scruffy man talks
while escorting his new employee. “I need a bunch of shit from
town. Ingredients for making brain candy.”

Dustin wonders if he means meth. Such a
cheaply manufactured drug would be his biggest seller, if the users
can make it through the mosh pit.

The men come to a halt by the back door.
Through the peep hole the boss can see his ward has riled up the
moat of corpses that still chase their tails.

Kegs of beer and crates of spirits crowd the
hall, instead of being behind the door labeled:
Barrel
Storage
. Dustin also notices that he is surrounded by brooms
and mops, yet there is an adjacent door designated for cleaning
supplies.

“I knocked the wall down between these two
rooms for optimal space,” Beau explains.

One of the two doors that lead to Heaven is
opened. Dustin expected perfume or the scent of flowers, but what
he receives is the stench of death. The room’s name is a misnomer,
for he is entering Hell. In lieu of ‘baby making music’ he hears
flies buzzing, urgent moans, and the rattle of chains. Dead ladies
are thrashing against their bondage upon seeing the boy and their
pimp.