Living Dead at Zigfreidt & Roy (4 page)

“Lloyd! Got a
problem out here. This fella wants to see you!”

Now, you're
gonna get it, Mister California biker. One long nail caught in the
hairspray-lacquered web of her hair and Tammy yelped as she yanked
her hand free, the nail a sure goner. She smiled a wide, toothy
grin as Lloyd grumbled and groped his way out of the back, huffing
and puffing as he hefted his weight around the tight corners and
squeezed through the swinging door.

“Hellzapoppin', Tammy! Hell's goin' on out here?”

She just
pointed, using her mouth to chew and pop her stale pink gum.

“You got some
kinda problem there, man?”

Lloyd fairly
waddled to the booth and plunked down, one wide ass-cheek taking up
what space he could fall into.

“This is
bullshit, man. Are you people out of your fucking minds?”

“I don't get
ya, pal.” Lloyd mumbled, reaching out to snake a fry, flipping it
back into his mouth like he was a trained seal.

“This burger.
This cockamamie retardation of Diner cuisine. What in the sweet
bloody fuck is this supposed to be?”

“That there is
the pride of Arkadelphia. What the heckfire's your problem,
fella?”

Mister
California biker held his hands out in front of him, knifing the
air as he talked.

“What's my
problem? Seriously? Are you that stupid? Look at this thing.”

He batted the
top bun away from the mess of lettuce, bacon, tomato...

“Is this a
stick of butter? This is, like, literally, just a stick of fucking
butter with garnish.”

“And bacon.
That's the best part, the bacon.”

“It's
raw!”

“Stove's
broke.”

“The stove is
broken? How are you open? This is ridiculous, and a health code
violation, I'm sure. Are you people special or something? Am I on
camera? Is Ashton Fucking Kutcher going to jump out from behind
that chair?”

“Who?”

Lloyd threw a
confused glance towards Tammy, still parked at the counter trying
to reattach her disfigured nail.

“That new boy
on Two and a Half Men. The new Charlie Sheen fella.”

“Is he comin'
to town?”

Mister
California biker stood up, muscles knotted and tight, shoulders
bulging through his tight black t-shirt and upended the table.

“YOU PEOPLE
ARE FUCKING CRAZY!”

He kicked a
black booted foot into the door as the remains of his Better Butter
Bacon Burger slid slowly down the incline of the formica tabletop,
leaving a greasy smear behind. The door swung wide, smashing into
the outside wall before rattling back against the jam. Lloyd
reached down with a wheeze and righted the table, licking the
butter from his fingers before standing up with a creak and a moan.
He waddled back to where Tammy sat like some truck stop Buddha,
meditating on the bubble gum hue of her pudgy fingertips. They
watched as the man stomped back and forth in the parking lot,
throwing his hands to the sky and hollering obscenities to the
heavens.

“Strange
fella.” Tammy offered.

“Yep.”

“Didn't like
the butter burger.”

“Yep.”

“I think he
was from California.”

“Asshole.”

Zeke had seen
all manner of nature’s savagery during a lifetime on the trails –
Death and dismemberment, cannibalism, all manner of killing – this
was different. These were no bloody wolves, no mountain lions, no
coyotes eating their own dead, no giant Tenochtitlan eagles
sweeping down on the cool night breeze to carry off a tup or two.
These were goddamn monsters from hell.

Q was twisted
up, long legs stretching out with his boot heels in the dust, body
low to the ground and his shoulder up against the edge of the trunk
that was shielding them. Q had grown up hunting cougars in West
Texas. He knew how to creep out, get a clear shot at a rabid heap
of teeth and claws. Rosie called Q Ol’ Dog and Zeke was the Young
Pup. The Ol’ Dog had hunted damn near everything that could be
killed with a knife or a gun, but he didn’t look like a hunter now.
Zeke could feel Q next to him, trembling like an autumn leaf, the
oaty smell of fresh piss wafting up to mingle with the stench of
slaughter.

He ain’t never
shot no Chupacabra. Zeke thought to himself. He remembered Rosie
saying it, crossing herself over those big, sweet caramel teats and
mumbling in her queer backwoods Spanish. Chupacabra. Goat-suckers.
Demon Dogs.

The things had
fallen on them quicker than anything Zeke had ever seen. They came
dive-bombing out of the black night like eagles, but bigger. Black
and huge and hungry. Goddamn panthers with wings. They came with an
unearthly banshee howl and the sound of thunder behind them,
picking animals from the ground with hooked talons and muscular
arms, dropping them from high, the sheep wailing through the
darkness as they plummeted back down to the rocky earth to burst
like sloppy meat piñatas. Zeke had dropped to his knees, hands over
his ears as livestock exploded around them like mortar shells. Q
was half deaf already and still ducked his head, his face twisted
up with the agony of the shrill blast of noise. The things had
already picked off a half-dozen animals before either of the men
had time to open their mouths in surprise. Zeke had screamed, and
felt a rush of warmth down the front of his legs, when Ol’ Dogs
hand hooked in the back of his collar and yanked Young Pup from the
dust, scrambling for cover behind the rotting hulk of a fallen
tree. Now Zeke was clear-headed and Q was the one cowering in the
dust.

Zeke pulled
himself up and steeled his resolve to look out on what had turned a
hard old cowboy like Q into a scared child. He thought better of
it, remembering Rosie’s stories of the dreaded goat-suckers.
Twisted alien monsters that would just as soon gut a man as blink
an evil, night-red eye. Creatures of the pit she’d called them.

Zeke looked at
Q – body still as stone, hard and unforgiving – but his lips
twitching like a hell-bitten dog. There was no reason left in the
Ol’ Dogs pale blue eyes, just panic.

Ought to leave
him here Zeke thought. I ain’t dying here. I can take care of
Rosie. Rosie and her big warm tits, and those thick ruby lips. I
can’t carry the old bastard outta here, can I? Won’t be my damn
fault he lost his nerve. He’s old and weak and…goddammit...

Zeke clambered
to his knees, demons be damned, and grabbed Q rough by the
shoulders and cocked his arm back to lay a slap across the old
man’s face.

“Fucksakes
Quentin! Snap out of it!”

Zeke’s hand
flew out in a wide arc, but found nothing but air and he tumbled
forward, face down in the dirt. Zeke reached out to the darkness.
There were no screams from Q. There were just his eyes, wide and
white and mad with fear, fading into the black night on the rhythm
of beating wings, leaving Zeke alone and trembling under the blood
red moon.

Zeke felt his
legs moving under him before his brain registered the thought to
run. The muscles were knotted hard as his legs pumped and his
vision shook, barreling out of the clearing towards the cover of
the clutch of pines standing on the east side of the clearing. The
confused screaming of the sheep and the high-pitched wail of the
demon-beasts was a furious wind blowing at his back, but all Zeke
could hear was his own heart pounding in his ears and the rush of
air in and out of his throbbing chest. So close. So very close.
Zeke reached out to grab the thick green salvation of the branches,
and felt the world spin as his foot caught on a stump and he flew
forward, crashing to the rough ground a bare couple of feet from
safety.

Zeke sat up
and froze, realizing how deadly silent the night had become. Hot,
moist breath, reeking of blood and rot, played against the skin of
his cheek. The corner of his eye registered a shape, dark and
thick, and as he turned, the terrible pieces of his ill-digested
glances came together like a horrifying puzzle. It had a long, grey
face. Skin stretched tight over hard bones, thick brow shrouding
glassy eyes of hellfire red. It had a flat snout, like a bat, and a
mouth full of serrated teeth, jagged and horrible, yet dwarfed by
the two long dog-teeth that curved inwards of the gaping maw of the
thing. Zeke felt another one moving in on his left. It nuzzled its
snout into his neck, sniffing, and Zeke jerked away, causing the
monsters to jump back, snapping in panic. There were three of them,
half the height of a grown man, but twice as broad, and more
heavily muscled than any ranch-hand Zeke had ever known. Zeke
pulled himself into a crouch and began backing away from them,
edging slowly toward the brush. It was a few short feet to the
trees. The creature on the right jumped at him first, head shooting
forward, long arms waving through the air, fleshy cape pulled flat
against it, lunging with one sharp talon, flailing at Zeke’s face.
Zeke ducked and lashed out a boot that caught the thing full in the
side of the head, knocking it back in the dirt with a squeal. It
was only stunned for a second before jumping into the air with a
whip-crack of its wings to disappear into the shadows. The other
two advanced, creeping forward with their awkward waddle, arms
dragging behind them. Both bared their fangs and screeched, their
voices combining to create a single ear-splitting sound that bore
through Zeke’s head and blinded his every sense. He rolled,
desperately trying to crawl free of the clearing and bury himself
in the thick wall of trees. Two feet. Just two feet. Zeke forced
his hands away from his ears and reached out for the trees, shaky
legs moving an inch at a time beneath him. The wail of the beasts
was replaced by a high-pitched whine inside Zeke’s ears and he put
a hand to the side of his head, fingers coming away sticky and
hot.

He didn’t hear
the thud as Ol’ Dogs body exploded in front of him like an
overstuffed garbage bag, blood and meat and god knows what else,
spattering up into his face. There was no head and, perhaps worse
yet, the torso was wide open and empty, like a gutted turkey in a
torn denim shirt. Zeke could see the inside of the rib cage, little
notches and chunks missing from the short ribs, where one of the
damned things had taken a bite. Zeke felt his gorge rise up in his
throat and a tight lump form in his chest. The meat-husk was
wearing Ol' Dogs boots, the tooled leather ones, with the big
letter ‘Q’ just above the ankles, the boots Rosie gave him for
their anniversary last fall, just before she started taking Young
Pup to her bed instead of the Ol’ Dog.

The thought of
Rosie brought Zeke to his senses. He stood and dove past the
carcass of his oldest friend, rolled over his shoulder and took to
his feet, tumbling into the hard scrabble of the underbrush,
branches tearing at his shirt and his skin, and he’d never been so
happy.

Safe. Zeke
thought. Need a goddamn coffee. Whiskey. Some of Rosie’s good
chicken and biscuits.

The last
thought lodged in his throat, with the sound of pine trunks
cracking and a pressure at the base of his spine as one hooked
talon sliced through his backbone and his face hit the dirt with no
feeling.

Rosie? Rosie.
No! I made it to the trees! Rosie?

He only felt
the blood rush to his head as he was pulled up into the treetops,
and he felt nothing more than wind in his eyes as the the ocean of
green and the hard ground below rushed back towards his face.

I’m comin’
Rosie. I made it to the...

From the desk
of:

Janine Mothma,
HR Sector 12, Block 46 Rebel Alliance SWU.

Re: Applicant
Interview – Position RSS Level 3, Waste Management – HQ Arbra
Base

Applicant:
Genevus Fervo Ozzel

Work
Experience: 10 years with Light-Snake Droid Drainage Services,
Coruscant
5 years independent contractor, Imperial Navy – Death Star I
3 years independent contractor, Imperial Navy – SSD ‘Executor’

Transcript of
personal interview follows:

JM - “Good
morning Mr… Ozzel? I’m Janine Mothma”

GO - “Call me
Gene.”

JM - “Gene. So
why do you want to defect to the Alliance, Gene?”

GO - “Well,
it’s not really defecting, is it? I mean, I’m just a
contractor…”

JM - “A
contractor for the Galactic Empire.”

GO -
“Everybody makes mistakes, right?”

(Nervous
laughter)

JM - “What was
your capacity on the Super Star Destroyer ‘Executor’?”

GO -
“Capacity? I’m in waste management. My capacity was cleaning up
after about seventeen hundred stormtroopers and Galactic Empire
enlisted. Not to mention that prick Vader and his ‘guests’.”

JM - “Excuse
me?”

GO - “Sorry. I
get a little riled up about that guy.”

JM – “I meant
about the ‘guests’, Mr. Ozzel.”

GO – “Gene.
Yeah, Vader’s always bringing up dignitaries and big-shots. He
likes to show off and brag about his private destroyer. Acts like
it’s a yacht or something. Big parties with real scumbags. Last
week he had some ugly space-slug of a Hutt up there. Some
mucky-muck from Tatooine. Showed up with this big entourage of
bounty hunters and call-girls. Had a whole pile of Gamorreans with
them too. Have you ever seen what a Gamorrean can do to standard
space plumbing?”

JM – “I’m sure
it’s very unpleasant. How is it that you are aware of these
‘guests’ of Lord Vader’s?”

GO – “Seems
like a big place, but even a Super Star Destroyer is a pretty small
world. Everybody talks about everything. Gossip is probably the
third most popular pastime. And most of the guys I know, grew up
with, they’re all officers now. Me, I got screwed over. My uncle
Kendal…”