Undead Fleshcrave: The Zombie Trigger (18 page)

Mark took a deep, desperate breath, hoping this wasn’t how Mark Frost was destined to go out, chomped to bloody ribbons by a pair of fat ass death metal zombie slobs and ran head on to meet them.          

He tried to emulate Dax’s vicious flourish and stab for the brain, hoping all these undead entities were cursed with the same soft skull affliction, or that the onset of zombification immediately rendered them as such, but he didn’t find out straight away. He missed his target with his first wild thrust and instead, sheared off Possessed’s left ear, taking a few hanks of long, greasy, bloodied hair with it.          

Losing an ear didn’t impact on the corpulent ghouls impetus whatsoever, he kept coming and got hands on Mark’s jacket.          

Mark tried again with his rubber handled Aura, twisting it inwards with the point of the blade aimed at the earless patch of gore on the side of Possessed’s chunky head. He thumped the blade in, ramming it into the gaping aperture left behind by the unplanned ear removal.          

There was more success to be had with that manoeuvre, and he repeated the blow, trying to ram the nauseous feeling down in his stomach as blood and unidentified goop sloshed out over his hand simultaneous with him ramming the knife into Possessed’s ear canal.          

The clawing hands spasmed on his jacket, almost bearing him down to the street as Possessed took a slow graceless tumble, but Mark was able to stay afloat, maintaining his footing.          

The demise of his zombie bud didn’t deter Mortician; his sallow, sunken-eyed face resplendent with muck and blood, with strings of flesh trailing from between lips that looked like wriggling earthworms, loomed in towards Mark.          

Fighting the urge not to violently expel the roiling contents of his stomach in the hideous face, Mark thudded his knife into it, right into the big shelf of forehead. He expected the blade of the Aura to buckle, to snap or to slice some layers of rotting skin and then skitter off the bone, but it ploughed right in, just like Dax with the sexless grey fiend.          

Mortician fell too, but the swinging chain on his belt got entangled in Mark’s open jacket, hauling him down as well, landing atop the hideous mass, his knife slipping from his grasp.          

Choking and gagging, he yanked the knife out with a horrible sucking sound and flopped off the corpse, splaying next to it.          

Over by the fence, he witnessed Dax bashing the head of the final undead in the five piece welcoming party against the fence, until it mushed and literally exploded like a watermelon plugged with a shotgun.          

Hoisting himself up onto his hands and knees, Mark bent his head and puked his guts up on the strip of ground between the fence and the street.             

Only now could he manage to get his hands down to his jacket and try to wrench the zipper away from the dragging chain of Mortician, his eyes tearing, his throat burning with a horrible acidic taste.             

Fleetingly, he contemplated how beneficial it would be to have one or two of those chains on the outfits of the death head zombies in hand to use as weaponry, but vetoed the suggestion merely because it meant more time near them, indeed, touching them, having to place hands on their foul bloodied clothing to obtain those items and that was just about the last thing Mark wanted to do right now. Instead, he made do with extricating himself from the one formerly swinging on Mortician’s belt, now coiled on the ground between them, like some hideous metal cord that kept them connected.             

Then Dax was there, beside him, urging him to hurry up.             

“Come on, that ain’t going to be the end of it, there’s going to be more. A fuckload more. Looks like I was wrong about the Corpsepaint Cavalry, they are coming after all. A little late, but hey, at least they haven’t gone all zombie-ass on us.”             

Mark found his feet. Dax stood there with knife in hand, an insane gleam in his eye and something of a crooked grin on his face, as if he was relishing the desperate stakes, the savage violence he’d meted out.

Weak from his exertions, first despatching Mortician and Possessed, then from his gut draining hurling efforts, Mark tried to make sense of why Dax would be looking so fervently pleased, so perversely overjoyed by the horrendous situation they were in. He had little doubt now that something had gone a fraction haywire inside Dax’s head, probably, as he’d thought, kicked off by that hobo-slaying accident, then blossomed to a kind of full-blown zombie killing obsession.             

Even with the welcome news that Black and the Subversion crew weren’t lost to the hordes of undead teeming on the bloodied sands of the beach, Dax hadn’t reverted back to good old wisecracking smartass Dax; he hadn’t switched out of this new gung-ho mercenary attitude clearly adopted from Black’s cohorts and the power of having a lethal weapon gripped in his mitts. He looked like there was nothing better he would like to do than join the trio of black metal zombie-maker killers and hopefully get his sanguinary hands on some of the impressive weaponry they toted in the form of musical instruments.             

Down on the beach the mayhem persisted.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN-SEPARATED

The room was empty. Where he’d expected to at least find two women, either slumbering in the pair of beds occupying the space or up and about, agitated and distressed by the terrible noise emanating from outside, Seth found nothing.             

In the back of his mind, alarm bells started clanging from the moment he discovered the door to Julietta and Miranda’s motel room was not locked, but still in a mist of shock from the necessary slaying of Madeleine outside he just went ahead and entered.             

Unlike many of the hotels and places of lodging in Armada, and possibly the more upmarket areas of Noumena, the flea-bitten Neptune Towers had no such thing as plastic sensor triggered swipe cards for guests to gain access to their rooms, they were still on an old fashioned physical key system, meaning responsibility for ensuring their rooms were locked belonged to the various visitants. It was easy enough for somebody too fatigued or distracted by certain events to become forgetful and not actually confirm their room doors were locked, so, in this case, an unlocked door wouldn’t essentially indicate that the room residents were not inside.             

However, when Seth entered the room that should have housed Julietta and Miranda, he found it did not.             

All he came across was a room literally identical to the one he’d been sharing with Mark and Dax, the same configuration of beds, the same Spartan spread of furniture, similar ratty curtains, mottled, stained carpets and discoloured wallpaper.             

The only thing suggesting the two women were actually present in the room at one stage was the fact that both beds were disturbed, bed sheets and blankets flung back, rumpled on the one covering the mattress. Other than that, the motel room was deserted.             

Seth was loathe to switch on the light, but he could barely see much except indistinct shapes of furniture, so he flicked it on for a cursory glance to ensure the illumination that spilled in the wedge of space created by him opening the door wasn’t misleading. In doing that, he’d found the beds were indeed vacant, though clearly had been in use some time earlier.             

He quickly went right through the entire room, checking each portion, the miniscule kitchenette area and the small bathroom, revealing nothing of the girls’ whereabouts in either place.             

In the bathroom he did switch on the light and a sudden harsh glow of radiance filled the room, amplifying the shortcomings of the room in the bright artificial glow. The tiles of the floor were cracked extensively, stained even here, chipped and missing sections. The showerhead dripped sporadic drips of water into a claw footed bathtub that was probably a nice porcelain white in its original days, but was now a ghastly cream bred with grey shade, also with chips out of it and assorted other markings which may well have been scorch marks.             

Seth stared into the mirror, another less than flawless example in the room. It looked like some cheap slab stuck up on a chipboard backing, cracks in its top right hand corner, grey substance streaking it along with a thin veneer of dust as if it hadn’t been cleaned for quite some time. He wondered why neither of the girls bothered to wipe that dust coat away, considering both of them were fond of remaining clean and hygienic, and were in the habit of keeping their own homes spotless.             

He guessed if they’d showered at all, they’d have merely done that before hitting the hay, not too concerned with making the ratty roach hovel too much like home. After all, clearly they weren’t intending any long stay here, were they? Or had the complete slumminess of the lodgings chosen by Black and his cronies engendered such disgust in Miranda and Julietta that they’d waited until everyone was ensconced in their own rooms before electing to go find somewhere more fitting for them?             

He switched on a tap, guessing which was which, considering both indicators were missing, and it creaked disagreeably and then reluctantly spat out a splash of water before settling into a stunted running motion. His reflection in the mirror was a frightful one, the countenance staring back at him through a shroud of dust and other unidentified stains was spotted with blood, the dark hair framing it hanging in dishevelled locks, down, knotted, and also matted with blood.             

Cupping his hands underneath the flow of the water he splashed himself liberally, dousing his face thoroughly, scrubbing away at the blood marks and other filth on his skin. He even lowered his head right over the sink, hanging the worst parts of his hair right into it to be drenched by the water.             

There may have been some pretty questionable marks in the grimy cracked sink itself and the scum mark around the plughole was a huge thing that looked akin to the rings of Saturn, but it had to be better than being saturated in zombie blood.             

Even as he was doing this he acknowledged that normally, upon discovering Julietta and Miranda were absent, he probably would have immediately dashed back outside, in a panic, wondering where the hell they’d gone, but the overwhelming desire to be rid of the blood coating him temporarily defeated that. He realised he was still in a fugue of sorts, shocked by the assault of Madeleine in undead incarnation, shocked by how he’d had to brutally eliminate her. His arms and legs were still shaky, even though he’d sat outside on the ground, staring with blank eyes for a while before he’d been able to pull it together enough to carry on his mission to check on the women.             

The towels hanging on hooks and railings in the bathroom were as equally suspicious of being due for cleaning as everything else within the entire room was, but he noticed they were both slightly damp. That suggested to him they’d been in use, the women had showered before bed.             

He didn’t see any clothing lying around, either in the bathroom or back in the main room, and of course, he admitted, he wouldn’t have. The whole lot of them only came with what they were wearing, what they each had in their individual pockets. Leaving anything behind wasn’t really an option since they all had scant materials to leave behind, and anything in the way of clothes would have been obvious, not something immediately forgettable.             

Finally, conceding he couldn’t get much cleaner than he was without physically showering himself, Seth left the bathroom. He didn’t want to waste any time by stopping and stripping off completely, having a shower when it seemed inevitable that he was only going to get encrusted with filth again. He hoped not, but it appeared unavoidable. Besides, the urgency to discover where the two absent women were was back, throbbing insistently and kicking worried panic into him.             

He hoped the thought that Neptune Towers was just too below their standards for them to consider spending one night, or even a few hours sweating in those flea-bitten, threadbare sheets on top of mattresses which could be playing host to all manner of unseen vermin, was the most probable outcome.             

Anything else didn’t really bear thinking about. At least there was no visible blood in here anywhere. Just whatever marks he’d left streaking the off coloured sink.             

No bodies. Certainly no apparently dead bodies that lunged back up their feet, growling, vacant-eyed, hungry meatseeking undead bodies.

There was no point hanging around this room any longer than he already had. He hastened back outside. Only then did he recall that the variety of knives he and the guys selected for Julietta and Miranda were still back in the other room.

He didn’t have time to run over and let himself back in to get them.

The big black bulk of the Subversion Truck screamed into the Neptune Towers parking lot, screeching to a sudden halt. From the tray vaulted a host of figures, some of the women, Tempest and Blizzard among them.  They were all wielding an assortment of bloodied weapons, gore splattering their outfits and faces. Behind the wheel sat Black himself, equally streaked with a sanguinary mess, his eyes piercing and as malevolent as ever.

“Jump in the back,” Black commanded curtly, his voice hard and clipped. “Where are your buddies?”

“They…went down there,” Seth gestured with a vague wave of his hand, indicating the general direction of the beach.

“Whatever the fuck for?”

“Dax took it upon himself to see if he could stop Undead Fleshcrave. He assumed you were still asleep.”

“Well, he didn’t succeed. And if he’s gone down there, he’s as good as dead. We were far from asleep, but we didn’t succeed either. Those fuckers are on the move again. Get in!”

“Wait, where are Julietta and Miranda?”

“They’re gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean gone?”

“They’ve flown the coop. Left. Departed. Get the gist?”

“How? What the fuck do you mean?”

“I mean they left with those other three halfwits in the girl’s car. Grand plans to head back to Armada.” Black said bluntly.

“What?” Seth felt like he’d been smacked up alongside the head with a piece of two by four.

“That’s where they are. En route to Undead Ground Zero. And before you start jumping up and down, rest assured anyone who was aware of this audacious and thoroughly stupid notion tried unsuccessfully to talk them out of it.”

“They won’t get back into Armada!” Seth exclaimed, a hollow feeling starting to make his stomach feel as if he’d had a hole blown through it. “They’ll be turned away!”

“I know that. You know that. Every fucking person right here knows that. Your two foolish buds down on Bloodbath Beach know that. You think your obstinate girlfriend would listen to any sense or reason?”

“She’s not…” Seth started, but he knew he was kidding himself there. Julietta
was
obstinate, stubborn to the point of being totally pigheaded. She was already pissed at Seth for having such a hand in deciding they should all be here in the company of Black and his dubious companions, it wouldn’t have taken too much to convince her to make tracks back to Armada. But what about all the lines she’d spun to Black in the Truck on the journey here? All that rubbish about not agreeing with what he and his associates were planning on doing, their methods or anything of the sort, but the simple fact that somebody had to put a stop to the contagion spread by the Zombie Trigger before it was endemic?

As for Miranda, she wasn’t holding any grievances against Mark, she wasn’t quite as angry at him as Julietta was with Seth, why would she just up and leave him here? Julietta could definitely be persuasive, Seth had plenty of firsthand experience with those matters, but enough to split Miranda and Mark up entirely, leaving him here in the company of what were essentially strangers? Dangerous, violent strangers with dangerous violent blueprints for the immediate future?

“Fuck, how long ago did they leave?” He balled up his fists into helpless knots, the knife he’d finished off Madeleine with returned to its sheath inside his jacket.

“Long enough,” Tempest spoke brusquely. He stood outside the tray with Scarlett and Lizette, all of them looking as if they’d waded through waist deep rivers of blood, slashing and slicing through a frenzied battle. “Long enough to be long gone.”

“We’ve got to go after them!” Seth howled in frustration, his panic thumping into overdrive now.

“No, we don’t,” Tempest said. “They made their choice. We’re all out of time to sit and fuck around. They’re gone. We have to get going too. Not the same way they went though.”

“I’m going after them!” Seth was unmoveable on the subject, head swimming with disbelief that Julietta would willingly take off with the three strangers without so much as a word to him about it, no matter how pissed with him she was. “I have to.”

“Good luck with that,” Tempest replied and strode back around the front of the Truck, clambering into the front seat next to Black. “You want to walk all the way back to Armada, then I can only wish you the best of luck. This fucking town right here is just about to become a zombie blasted undead pockmark on the face of the earth. And you want to walk amongst that…well, okay then.”

“These motherfuckers are cunning,” Black said. “I’m talking about Undead Fleshcrave. They caught us napping here, they pulled a swift one and we should have seen that coming, and now we’ve got to wear this fuck-up here. Noumena is lost, or it’s sure as fuck going to be, it doesn’t have anything in place to cope with this and those fuckers knew that. On top of that we lost Madeleine too, this town has been a monumental fuck-up for us and we aren’t going to let that happen again.”

Seth realised with him standing in the way, the occupants of the vehicle and those standing outside it probably couldn’t see the mangled corpse on the pavers a distance behind him. He stepped sombrely to the side and gesticulated towards the body of ZombieMaddie.

“Is that…?” Lizette queried. “Madeleine?”

“I had to,” Seth said resolutely, almost defensively, as if expecting an immediate backlash. “She…was one of them.”

“Nice work.” Black said. “Well done. That’s the way to do things. If somebody turns, they’re gone. Kill them before they kill you, or worse.”

Lizette looked sorrowful, a mix of expressions dancing on her face while the bloodied, but beautiful countenance of Scarlett just looked furious. Seth wasn’t totally sure if she was angry at him or angry at the whole situation. He hoped it was the latter. Like he’d said, like Black reiterated, it was a case of him or ZombieMaddie and he’d opted for him.