Well Fed - 05 (9 page)

At the abrupt space of silence, neither Gus nor Talbert had the capacity to say a word.

“The
dead
, you see,” Mortimer purred. “For is not the enemy of my enemy my friend? Dealing with the dead was far more preferable and, dare I say, palatable to denying the living. The remnants of the Digby populace only had to be persuaded to relocate to the estate, an undertaking my employees took upon themselves.”

Employees?
Gus mouthed to Talbert, who made an incredulous face and shrugged.

“Trusted men and women with years of service,” Mortimer continued. “Of course, I allowed their families to exist underneath my roof. But these raiding, unaccepting, ill-tempered…
fuckers
waged war on my people. Just couldn’t take no for an answer. In the absence of a cohesive body of law and order, they reverted to their base urges. Cursed us, cursed
me
when they forced me to dire measures, whereupon I summoned a festering and famished flood of undead to cleanse my property of the hateful living. And that was only the first year. A
year
, you must understand. To witness firsthand how quickly civil order dissolved was more horrifying than anything you might have witnessed or experienced in your years out there, among the unliving. In time, after modifications to the house had been completed, I permitted my defenders entry inside my walls, provided them with shelter under my roof. It’s been an admirable, dare I say, mutually beneficial relationship, you see. They protect us, and we provide them with… sustenance.”

On that cue, a pitiful scream drifted from deep within the haunted corridors.

“Over the years, fewer people came here,” the voice continued, “but their proclivity for violence increased. Monstrous battles were fought inside these walls as it became apparent the best solution to dealing with any scavenger coveting the property was simply to… open the front door. Allow them to waltz inside and be dealt with in a manner you’ve already experienced firsthand.”

“Just let us go,” Gus pleaded. “We won’t come back.”

Talbert’s back noticeably stiffened at the words.

The voice cut in. “Heard that one before. You must realize, I’ve heard
every
promise there is, when in truth, the only one ever kept has been my own. I was never this coldhearted, please understand. In the beginning, some parties left the grounds, but they returned almost always in force, sometimes under different leadership, seeking to enter these premises with deadly force. How often must I grant leniency until I recognize the futility? Before I’m perceived as a gullible fool? The answer? Not often at all. Human nature isn’t that unpredictable under duress. No. I am what I am because those who’ve come before you
made
me this way.”

The gnashing of teeth around that word was unmistakable.

“What about Donald then?”

“What about him?”

“What’s up with the hunting gear?”

“Ahhh.” A smile accompanied the sound. “After the harvests and during the winters, the creature comforts here that we so fervently protect are all that we have, you see. Boredom
will
find you, eventually, and sink its dreary fangs deep into your throat. What my boys do to amuse themselves is entirely up to them. One paints, well enough to bamboozle our captive guests, much to our mutual amusement. Otherwise, I have no influence on their impulses, as they have none upon mine. Donald ascertained, rather correctly I might add, that stragglers such as yourselves could survive quite a while upon the first floor, even dangerously exhausting our supply of corpses. Thus, he took it upon himself to root out any of the more stubborn guests. In time, how he did this duty evolved, as you’ve already seen, to a more…
sporting
event. Simply put, the boy’s just having
fun
.”

“That’s fucked up,” Gus whispered.

“My sentiments exactly,” Mortimer agreed eagerly. “But I must insist, my staff and I are
not
the villains in this story. We never were. We are the
defenders
of our castle, whereas you and the ilk before you are the invaders. Usually, our uninvited guests perish upon the hunting grounds of the first floor. Can you imagine my dismay at discovering rats had managed to climb into the
belfry
? I applaud you both on your resourcefulness. Those before you succumbed to fear, weakness, madness, or all three in the end. I can guarantee measures will be taken to ensure no one will find refuge upon the second floor ever again. In one way, I must thank you for revealing the flaws in our designs. You’ve forced us to consider recourses we’ve never needed to consider in the past.”

“Well, fuck me,” Gus muttered.

“Oh, he’s a winner, all right,” Talbert said.

“No, I mean…” Gus stared him in the eye. “I mean I understand
exactly
where the old bastard’s coming from.”

Talbert appeared shocked as if slapped. His face darkened. “You fuckin’
agree
with this piece of shit?”

“Not agreeing—just understanding, is all.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Course there’s a difference, y’goddamn moron.”

Talbert cautioned Gus with an unfriendly look.

Then the unmistakable buzz of a chainsaw cut in.

That vicious whine rendered both men speechless. A second later, the angry drone spiked in pitch as the chainsaw’s teeth met resistance.

“Sweet fucking monkey balls,” Talbert swore.

Gus agreed.

“We’ll kill anyone you send up here, man,” Talbert shouted over the chainsaw’s fury.

But Mortimer was gone. Or at least no longer responding.

“What’s he cutting?” Gus asked Talbert.

“Something nearby, by the sounds of it.”

“Where’s the stairs?”

“The closest?”

“Yeah, the closest.”

“All right.”

Pushing past Gus, Talbert threw the bedroom door open and walked out into the white-carpeted hall, the barest light frosting the fabric like a polar bear’s scruff. Ornate tables displayed vases of black woods and small wooden chests. Alabaster nymphs spilling milk from buckets occupied shallow niches. Grand paintings of sweeping landscapes lined the walls between. All were intact, untouched.

The chainsaw paused, the echo lingering through the house.

Then it bit again.

They speed-walked down the corridor before turning left, passing doorways, glimpsing sensuous, bare-timber-beam bedrooms. The sound of the chainsaw grew. Talbert stopped at the head of a wide staircase descending to the first floor. A solid-looking wall of heavy planks barricaded the stairs halfway down, measured and boarded up to near perfection, keeping the undead at bay.

Gus knew he’d seen this before but from the other side.

The chainsaw’s head cut through that wall separating the first and second floors in a projectile spray of wood chips. The chainsaw pushed inward, working with sawdust fury, before being pulled out of sight, and Gus realized light was tracing around a huge door-sized cut in the barricade.

A heavy boot dislodged the lower part of the cut slab with a loud
whump
, tilting it inward. Work-gloved fingers clasped the upper end and pulled it down with a squeal. More sawdust billowed. The section came free in a clatter.

A large man, bare chested and heavily muscled, stepped into the opening, wearing a skirt of leather that might have been a butcher’s apron, a chainsaw held at his waist. Empty bandoliers crisscrossed his chest while shoulder pads of spikes covered his shoulders. Sweat shone upon his muscular frame, glazed with dust, but the thing that disturbed both Gus and Talbert the most wasn’t the outfit. It was the shining Japanese Noh mask hiding his face.

One subtle alteration marred the mask. Battlements of crooked teeth filled its open mouth, the corners hinting at an evil smile. Half-moon eyes, wide and brimming with perverse blackness, stared unblinking at the two men.

Then, at some unheard cue, the imposing figure stepped out of sight.

“Holy
shit
,” Talbert whispered, already backing away.

Gus held on a little longer until he saw the dead shuffling into view. First, it was a single set of feet, then lower legs, then a viscous, tidal seepage of bodies, some hunkered over, some tall, and none of them crawling. The sound of all those feet, dragging across a fortune of marble seconds ahead of the gut-turning stink of flesh soon to follow, rode the air currents like a colorless, debilitating membrane. The mass converged on the hole in the wall, and the sight of them made Gus back up two steps, wishing he was back on the farm, smelling brewing tea instead, underneath a night sky all aglitter.

“Let’s boot,” Talbert yelled, slapping his companion’s back.

“We could fight here,” Gus said, pointing to the hole. “That’s a bottleneck.”

“Too wide, bro.”

“Where’d that––”

“I’m going!” Talbert shouted and jogged away. Gus divided his attention between the breech in the wall below and Talbert’s fleeing back. The gimps ascended the stairs, worming through the hole three abreast as if under pressure. One stumbled, and three followed in a domino effect. The dead behind the fallen struggled over them.

Gus hefted his bat, struck the pose, hesitated, and then rushed after Talbert.

He chased the man down another wide corridor, rounded a grand archway of fitted stone, and saw Talbert standing at a rail, gazing out over an open space. Sofa chairs lay arranged around a fine-looking glass table while towering potted greenery, which had to be imitation, adorned the whole area, creating the illusion of a piece of captured jungle.

Talbert regarded Gus and pointed with his machete.

Checking on their pursuers, Gus stopped beside his only companion and balked at what lay below.

An underground cavern draped in earth tones stretched out before them, an enormous indoor grotto dominated by an Olympic-sized swimming pool in its center. Moody shores of fabricated sands ringed the entire scene, with cone-shaped stalagmites rising around it and stalactites hanging from above, a few of which even connected, creating emaciated pillars. Drooping greenery filled the corners, bestowing unnecessary shade upon daybeds, single chairs, and boat-drink, patio-size tables.

That was all peripheral.

What lay
inside
that fabricated vision shocked the two men into near paralysis.

Zombies.

Zombies choked the pool’s depths, like an ill-kept flower bed of rotten animation. The undead swayed against each other like undersea flora caught in deep-sea tides, wailing, mesmerized by the fact they couldn’t escape the pool’s depths. One end, the shallow part near Gus and Talbert, had a wooden barrier that clashed with the cavern’s ambience but effectively kept the zombies trapped there. Only the heads and hands were visible. The pool sloped into a deep end, and the height of the dead slanted with it to a point where the black and gray-headed figures near the bottom couldn’t reach the sandy edges.

But that was only half the horror.

Suspended by a system of ropes and metal poles, just beyond the edge of a diving board, hung Benny by his hands. They had stripped him of all clothing, and his bare white ass faced the two men. His bare feet dangled not six feet above the deep end, where a ghastly array of pasty white arms, bare hands, and fingers weakly clawed for his out-of-reach toes like a ravenous carpet.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Gus whispered, stunned by the scene. He’d thought he’d seen all manner of zombie collections over the years, but perhaps he’d simply told himself that to prepare himself for the sights yet undiscovered. Whoever had captured Benny had strung him up like a prisoner about to be made to talk, but instead of sharks, a more sinister fate awaited.

Something mechanical crackled to life, and Benny was lowered toward the pool, much to the delight of the trapped zombies. The pool became a nest of clutching and upturned faces. Benny’s descent was torturously slow, long enough for him to awaken and whine in mindless terror, a sound a trapped animal might make.

Both Gus and Talbert recognized Benny’s petrified vocals. Gus cursed his leaving the farm, thinking he should never have given in to Adam and Maggie. It was far better to live being perceived as an ungrateful prick than to witness Benny’s execution.

“Those fucking sonsabitches,” Talbert swore, practically vibrating with his inability to save his friend. “What can we do?”

That flummoxed Gus. What could they do? He studied the sandy poolside below, where the ropes and winch were moored.

“I want you to see this,” Mortimer’s voice spoke around them, the eagerness in his voice unmistakable. “You
need
to see this.”

“You shit-lubed sonofabitch,” Talbert swore, looking toward the ceiling. “You realize what you’re doing?”

“Of
course
I do.” Mortimer chuckled. “We’ve conducted this exact execution at least a dozen times before. I must confess it is true what they say, you never quite forget your first time. Now, while there is a sublime stirring of excitement, I do find myself becoming rather… detached from the spectacle. Like a person who’s seen the ending to the same movie repeatedly. I’ve become desensitized to the pleadings, the… the feedings. The horror has been reduced to, say, the equivalent of a child tearing the legs off a grasshopper.”

“Talbert!” Benny screeched, twisting, peeking over his shoulder. “
Talbert!
Oh Christ, man,
do
something!”

“He
is
doing something,” Mortimer pointed out, sounding puzzled with the man’s request. “He’s watching. Watching what the Hollywood establishment might label ‘torture porn,’ I believe.”

“I’ll fuckin’ torture porn your ass,” Talbert swore. “I’ll pile-drive a red-hot poker up your shit chute. And when your ring hole’s fuckin’ fused around that piece of iron, I’ll yank it out and do it again.”

Mortimer’s growing laughter boomed across the cavern’s pool, a phlegmy rattle that agitated the zombies even more.

Then, at the distant end of the grotto, a familiar figure appeared with bow in hand. The Korean Mask stared up at the human onlookers.

“Ah, Donald’s arrived,” Mortimer choked out, attempting to control his laughter. “Just to ensure nothing happens on your end.”