Undead Fleshcrave: The Zombie Trigger (9 page)

"Okay, so Lizette and Madeleine are with those three, that leaves ten of us to fit in the truck," Tempest said slowly, calculating in his head and seeing they were still well out on seat numbers.          

"Five inside, maybe six at a squeeze," Black said. "Four in the second cab. The other four in the tray."          

"Works for me." Blizzard was unfazed. "We'll take the tray. Tempest, me, Roxana and Scarlett. You can take these others in the cabs."          

"I'll ride in the tray," Dax volunteered, shades of the old daring Dax starting to seep through again, pushing out from under the veneer of shock that his accidental killing of the hobo in the alley had cloaked him in.          

"Nope," Black said bluntly. "All of you need to be
inside
the vehicle. I suspect you've got some questions and I need to bring you up to speed quick smart."          

He then called out to Lizette, who, along with Madeleine, was already on the move to follow the trio of bar escapees to the dirty white sedan.          

"Lizette! You do the same with those folk," he told her. "I don't expect them to believe any of it, or be able to digest the truth of the matter, but let them know what we're dealing with anyhow. Seth, the rest of you guys...you've seen firsthand what happens so this story should at least be one you can try to wrap your heads around. Now, in the car."          

Cheated of an opportunity to ride in the back-in the company of two fine female figures, Dax claimed shotgun.          

"Sure, be my guest.” Black nodded, then aimed his central locking key control at the Tundra, popping up all door locks with a click and a flash of lights.          

"Hey," The woman with braids and black fingerless gloves spoke up—Seth assumed she was either Roxana or Scarlett, and the beauty who'd waited with Black in the alley was the other, since the two departing girls had already been identified―and caught Black's attention.  "What are the chances of catching the band still in the bar?"          

"Virtually impossible I'd say, Roxie," Black said. "Place is literally drowning in zombie flesh, they’ll be swarming all over the joint and you can bet the Fleshcrave haven't been lax in getting their shit out of there."          

"Won't they get attacked and eaten as well?" Mark posted a valid point, halting before launching into the second cab of the truck behind Miranda.          

"No," Black replied, but didn’t elaborate.          

"Why not?"          

"They're impervious. There's nothing about them to attract zombies," Black responded tersely. "They'll pass through the slaughter and the crowds like wraiths and then they'll be in their vehicles and on the road before they're even missed. Which is why time’s-a-wasting."          

"Security?"          

"They're part of this. Hurry it up, haul ass into the truck. The longer you fuck around, the less chance you have of seeing anything you hold dear ever again."          

That sounded ominous, but sitting inside the second cab of the Tundra, Seth could believe it. At the beginning of the evening there was zero chance he’d have bought a line of this from anyone foretelling what was about to eventuate, now he was about ready to believe anything was possible.          

Uncharacteristically, Julietta was the first to climb into the vehicle, despite any misgivings she had. That placed her in the window seat and Miranda was the next one in. Mark followed her in, leaving Seth with a tiny cramped sliver of seat against the other window.          

He couldn't have been farther away from Julietta in the limited space without being resigned to riding in the tray. At this point in time he almost wished he was back there in the tray; the atmosphere was glacial, at least that which was cast off by Julietta. He knew without a doubt that his name was inscribed indelibly in her bad books and she was intentionally sitting far from him to make a point.          

Dax trailed up alongside and slammed the door helpfully behind Seth, glancing in through the window, attempting to peer inside.          

These rear windows were pretty darkly tinted in some kind of five percent window film so Dax wouldn't have been able to catch much more than indistinct shapes of his friends, but looking out through the tint, Seth could see him fine. He looked like he had been dancing like an insane loon in a crimson downpour of blood, his hair matted in spots and the gory substance drying in places on his skin.          

Acute recollections of panicked Dax hammering a hapless human into pulp slithered unpleasantly into the back of Seth's mind.          

Of all the horrible things that had already occurred over such a short duration of time, that one was the most disturbing and it was going to be hard to shake. Unfortunately, Seth also had a very strong suspicion that the visions of ugliness, violent scenes of brutality and bloodiness were only going to intensify from this point on.
Soon enough he would probably have an entire highlight reel of nightmares to run through his head and keep him interred in sleepless nights. Then Black was getting in as well, slipping behind the wheel, and doors slammed.          

Squashed in his scant seat space with a door pressed against one side and Mark pressed against the other, Seth afforded himself a quick glance out the back window to see the other four in the back.          

Both the women sat up near the window, one on each side, while Blizzard and Tempest were located down near the tail end. The bags and cases which Seth presumed contained the band’s instruments were between the two sets of people. Seth had no real idea why the Subversion guys required their instruments to be in the back of the truck when they’d allegedly just been turning up to attend a gig; maybe they always had them. It didn't look like everything, that's for certain, maybe a guitar or two―he could spot at least one guitar carry case―but certainly no drum kit or accessories in evidence.           

While Seth stared out the back window, his mind preoccupied wondering why the three mysterious black metal men would roll around with some of their gear in their vehicle if they had no intention of playing it, his attention was side-tracked again.         

The only girl who hadn't been addressed by name as yet, but whose name he knew by powers of deduction had to be Scarlett, was sitting with her knees up, and as she was the only one of the four who was wearing a skirt he had a good view of her long shapely legs. For a second his gaze was captivated and then he wrenched his eyes away, a hot flash of guilt stabbing him.           

Maybe there was another underlying motive for Julietta to be mad at him besides his decision to bring them all along with these three ridiculously proficient zombie-killing 'musicians' with dubious qualities and motives.           

Maybe
that
was the real reason. The other women around. Strikingly attractive women, all four of them.          

Electing to stick with Black because he’d a bevy of beauties in his congregation hadn't been any part of Seth's consideration when he made the snap decision, and as a general rule Julietta was not of a jealous nature.          

He didn't think that played any part of it; he hoped not in any case.          

Ahead, Lizette already had the sedan's engine running, and looking back towards the front, Seth saw its taillights like a set of gleaming red eyes peering through the dusk. Then the vehicle took off.          

Black gave all the occupants of the interior of the Tundra a cursory look.          

"Ready?" He asked simply, then, before any of them had the time to respond, he was switching on the ignition and the Truck was rumbling into life.          

Black followed the glowing red tail lights of Heather's sedan through the car park where multitudes of stationary vehicles sat in rows. Where they would continue to sit in rows, abandoned and unclaimed because the vast majority of their owners were Quo Vadis bar patrons, either in the lower levels or up at the death metal concert.         

Now those very owners were either marauding flesh-craving zombie freaks, or they were flesh for those freaks.

CHAPTER EIGHT-PEACEVILLE STREET PLOUGH DOWN

Out on busy Peaceville Street, crowded with Friday night foot traffic, pedestrians, partygoers, barcrawlers, people of the night, and evening workers, it was sheer bedlam. The maniac humanivores teemed from the front entrance of the venue like a locust plague and launched upon the plethora of humanity all over the sidewalks, crossing the street, even jumping those in vehicles, and zombies who didn't manage to indulge in this feast of flesh were beginning to look further afield, moving up and down the street seeking more prey.          

Black pulled the Tundra over to the kerb behind the now stationary sedan ahead of them, a long way from the front of the bar and the ongoing pandemonium, but still with a decent view of the venue’s entrance/exit.          

"Jesus fucking hell." Dax, with a better view of the chaos in the front passenger seat, could see everything in sanguinary technicolour. "Do you think it's really a good idea to park here? I mean, they're going to start coming down here soon, fuck, they're everywhere!"          

Cramped in his corner spot next to Mark, Seth’s visibility was limited, especially since Mark was now leaning forward between the two front seats to stare with shocked eyes at the unfolding carnage. He wasn't even sure he wanted to see any more anyway.          

"Fuck, why are we just sitting here anyway?"         

"Waiting." Black said curtly, letting the engine idle.          

"What the hell for? To become zombie chum?"          

"Undead Fleshcrave."          

"Shit, what if they've already left? We just sitting here half the night until the zombies get us, or the cops, or...something? Damn, where
are
the cops anyway?"          

"They'll come," Black said simply. "And the band haven't gone anywhere yet. See those two black vans right out the front? That's their road crew, all the gear goes in there. They themselves travel on a tour bus. It will turn up and they'll all take off together in a convoy."          

"You sure? What if the bus has already gone? And we're just sitting here with our thumbs in our asses waiting to die and wasting time?"          

"They'll leave together," Black said with a note of finality in his voice, suggesting Dax should put a stop to the questions.          

Abruptly, police sirens were filling the air with their frantic arrival, screeching up from the far end of the street, and immediately Dax, Mark, Miranda, Julietta and, to a lesser extent, Seth, courtesy of his limited visibility, were looking to see where the police were coming from, how many cruisers were dispatched to the scene, and how they were intending to deal with this calamity.          

Where Seth did look instead was through the back window, where the others in the tray should be. For one brief moment of panic he saw nothing of any of them and then a glimmer of movement betrayed their presence. He realised the sudden scream of police sirens through the night, slicing through the soundtrack of shrieks and terrified noise, had them all promptly lying down in the tray, below the level of the sides. He guessed that a bunch of unrestrained passengers in the back of a vehicle was probably the least of the police concerns; they would have their work well and truly cut out trying to best contain this unbelievable scenario, but all the same, none of those in the back were taking any chances in keeping attention from being drawn to themselves.          

"They're going to need the National Guard, the army, something more than this," Dax murmured, his fingers tapping a panicked rhythm on the dashboard. "Come on, man, we've got to get the hell out of here. Not only is this place overrun with those....mutated fucks...but it's going to be in lockdown soon, it'll be a warzone."          

Murmurs of discomfort and panic were starting to filter to Seth from Julietta and Miranda too, over on the far side, and he suspected Julietta might have been regretting her choice to get into the car first, putting her in the seat closest to the street. One would have thought the sidewalk seats where Seth and Dax were might have been the most vulnerable, but they were both situated on the side of the street opposite the bar and consequently furthest away from the main hub of heinous activity.          

"Come on,
come on
…" The words of Dax were starting to take on an urgent mantra quality, and not merely because more of the undead were beginning to stray away from their packs, but also owing to his fear that the police would force people to evacuate or merely just start blasting at anything in a metal T-shirt.          

That was an uncomfortable thought, and it had just occurred to Seth too. If they left the vehicle and a riot squad was suddenly deployed to combat the swarming fiends then perhaps innocent survivors like he and his friends would be caught in the crossfire. He suspected in trying to eradicate the problem or nullify it, there would be some pretty heavy duty tactics employed.
          

Shoot anyone-anything-in a heavy metal T-shirt. They all appear to be flesh-eating freaks. Kill them all before they kill us.
          

"Fuck, I'm getting the hell out of here if you don't start moving this truck, man, we're sitting ducks," Dax surmised.          

Seth promptly stopped him with the terrible thought that had just occurred to him.          

"Dax, what if they open fire on anything in a metal shirt or looking anything remotely like a metal fan? Up there, all they are going to see is zombies in death metal gear and shit like that; if they get a riot squad here to just mow them down, I can't see them discriminating. There's going to be collateral damage and people like us out on the street are going to end up eating bullets too.
We'll
be the collateral damage. It's black and white for them, I can see that shit happening."          

Dax hesitated, faltering, craning his neck to look around at Seth.          

Black, with his elbow reclining on the sill of his open window, glanced in the rear-view, raising one dark eyebrow and nodding ever so slightly.          

"You've got a smart bud there," he said to Dax. "That's how I see it too. Step out there and you're liable to get rounded up like the rest, just like you're one of them."         

"Oh shit," Dax moaned and took his hand off the door handle, staring in his passenger window as if he expected some undead threat to be coming up beside the vehicle.          

"That sounds plain stupid, Seth." Miranda rounded on him, her eyes blazing from the other side of Mark. "There aren't even enough police out there yet for that to happen, they wouldn't just start randomly firing shots at anybody looking like a metal head."          

"On the contrary," Black interjected, his menacing obsidian eyes boring into Miranda in the rear-view mirror. "I see it exactly the way Seth put it. For the greater 'good' of everybody they won't discriminate. If...or rather
when
, it comes down to needing a riot squad to eliminate this threat before it escalates they will do exactly what Seth said, and why wouldn't they? Why would they take the chance of not taking out everybody they might assume is 'infected' as it were?"          

"But, the police won't do that. Since when were they all about just needlessly shooting everybody they perceive to be a threat?"          

"Such blind faith you have in authority." Black almost slipped a mocking chuckle into his voice. "Listen, this is just the very beginning of what is going to be an extremely bad time for this town, and possibly a whole lot more than this town. If this doesn't get nipped in the bud, then you may as well just kiss the life you know right now goodbye. It's gone. I suspect you may as well go and do that now. This isn't going to be something where the letter of the law can be followed, toss that fucking book right out the window. If you think that isn't going to dawn on the men in blue and every other figure of authority, the government, whoever the fuck gets embroiled in this, hopefully sooner rather than later, you're a deluded young lady."          

"There's the bus!" Julietta suddenly exclaimed, breaking up the tension, and she was right. A huge plain black bus with dark curtains obscuring each of its side windows drifted in almost ghostly fashion up past the Tundra, then the sedan, and continued towards the bar.          

***

"So, what's your plan?" Dax challenged Black. "You jumping out and taking your fancy Japanese sword and beheading the Fleshcravers as they come out to board the bus? Right in the dead centre of all that mayhem?"          

Black hitched up his eyebrow in typical fashion, hooking a corner of his mouth up in a sneer of disbelief at the same time.          

"Logic isn't really your strong point is it, bud? Did what your friend Seth just said blow right in one ear and right out the other?"          

"What do you mean?"          

"Those cops out there are going to be shitting themselves with panic; they don't have a clue what they are dealing with yet and when they cotton on to the fact that they can't apprehend and arrest the humanivores as normal criminals, seeing them tearing people to bits with teeth and hands, they are going to get trigger happy as fuck. Then they're going to need a whole lot more backup than they've brought thus far. So no, I'm not about to throw myself or any of my people out in that very probable firing line."          

"So what the hell is the plan then?"          

"Just sit tight. And keep the questioning to a minimum of zero."          

Dax turned to stare at his friends in the back, his face a Halloween mask of dried blood, and spoke to them.          

"This is fucked, guys, this is not good being here. Seth, I reckon we could have made a good run for it ourselves back there in the car park, now we're stuck here and we're going to get nailed one way or another, mark my words."          

"You sure, Dax? I'm willing to bet we’re safer in here than out there, and I'm sure you don't want to run into any cops either."          

With Mark still leaning forward and Miranda doing likewise alongside him, Seth could see Julietta a little clearer out of the corner of his eye and he noticed her visibly stiffen as he made his riposte to Dax. He wasn't entirely sure if that was because of his proclamation that they were safer with Black and company or the reference to the death of the vagrant. Either way, he wasn't out of the bad books by a long shot.          

She was paying the majority of her attention to what she could see of the tour bus out in front of the bar, which wasn't a great deal. The bulk of the vehicle blocked a lot of visibility and it was a fair bet the band members were probably quickly loading in the side nearest to the sidewalk.          

"How is it that the zombies aren't attacking the band or the security or all that? They can just move in and out of everything without worrying about getting bitten? Chewed up?" It was quite obvious that Dax was literally unable to maintain the quota of questions at zero, and Seth was fairly certain Black already answered this particular question when it was earlier posed by Mark.          

"Pretty sure I fielded that one before.” Black put words to Seth's thoughts. "They're impervious. The zombies don't-or won't-even notice them."          

"The police might," Mark murmured.          

"Bet they're banking on the cops having bigger fish to fry," Seth said, mentally kicking himself repeatedly for even deciding to come out to see Undead Fleshcrave tonight.          

"Fuck!" Dax suddenly burst out and Seth could see why.          

Some of the undead freaks had travelled far afield and were moving down the street, nearing the sedan in front of them. Abruptly, the one closest to the street, a hulking monstrosity in what looked to have been a Death T-shirt, with lank matted blonde hair now dark and crusted with blood, and an obscene visage with a gaping maw, lurched for the sedan.          

The passenger door flew open and bashed into the reaching fiend, and the girl with the ponytail, Madeleine, came out in a flash and thrust with a long sharp-bladed implement, skewering the Death zombie in the skull. It went down in a tangle of limbs and she placed a foot on its chest and yanked her weapon back out.           The despatching of its partner failed to dissuade the second zombie; it too came at Madeleine with designs on snaring a flesh feast. With her newly regained weapon streaming zombie blood, she accounted for that one too; Seth, with his window rolled down and head out to watch, against his desire to really see much more, saw her drive the blade into the yawn of a mouth the creature possessed and blood fountained.          

"Fuck," Dax repeated, but this time it wasn't a panicked yell, it was a quiet reverent murmur.          

An urgent shout came from inside the white sedan, most likely the car's driver, Lizette, and instantly Madeleine launched herself back into the interior of the vehicle and it peeled away from the kerb out into the street.          

"Time to roll," Black announced and followed suit, while Seth craned his neck to see why. He assumed the transports of the Undead Fleshcrave band and crew were now on the move, and his heart lurched a little with alarm and fearful palpitations as he realised what that meant. And it was his decision that put him and his friends right in the middle of it all.