ZOMBIE'S DOOM? "Chronicles of Jack Doom" (17 page)

******

Several weeks later...

"And after I stuck my knife through Dick's head, I had no choice but to sit in that warehouse and try not to pay attention to the three dead bodies that were squirming around on the floor.

So I waited in that god forsaken warehouse and stayed quiet until I stopped hearing the resurrected ones... damn it, I did it again, I mean the eaters. Anyway, I waited for what seemed like a lifetime for them to stop moaning and groaning, scratching on the side of the building, and milling around outside, when they finally did leave, that's when I left the warehouse and made my way to my other sister's house," Cassandra described, wiping her tears on her sleeve. "I guess they lost interest after awhile."

While listening to Cassandra's story, I was reminded of a theory of mine relating to the emergence of the almost instantaneous body movements of anyone or part of anyone that has been killed.

In the beginning, only the severed heads of the dead were still active after their owner's demise. As long as they hadn't received enough trauma to destroy the brain inside.

However, as time passed (well over a year now), the bodies of the twitchers, or the severed body parts thereof, began moving almost immediately after the brain had been killed or the head had been separated from the body.

My theory on this subject goes something like this.

The virus, which is apparently lying dormant in everyone, ferments for an unknown period of time, which seems to be getting much shorter, then at some point in the fermentation process it begins producing positive charged ions, which titillate the nerve endings and makes the muscles in the body (or body parts) involuntarily flex. The result of this process is the bizarre phenomenon of twitchers.

"Well Dick sounds like a fitting name for the asshole," I claimed. "I mean considering everything that you've told me."

Cassandra nodded in agreement as she pointed to a white house with a big yard that sat on a corner lot.

"That's my sister's house right over there."

I pulled my truck over the curb and into the yard and drove it close to the front door of the building like I always do, parking it close just in case a timely exit is called for.

After hearing the story of how Cassandra's sister Pam had met her maker, and how the boyfriend Dick had tweaked the kid for lathering up the zombies that had them surrounded, I thought.

"
I
probably would do the same thing if the need for such activity ever arose. Only I'd do it without all of the bitching and moaning that Dick did.
"

"Would you like to come in for a while, you can if you want too, maybe have a drink or two, and who knows, maybe I'll take you up on your offer to ride along with you," Cassandra invited with a smile. "There's really not much left for me around here anymore and I really would like the company, my sister Carla isn't much of a conversationalist."

"Sure!" I responded cheerfully to the gracious invitation. "It's been a long time since I had a drink with a pretty girl."

Needless to say, I kept my thoughts about Dick's behavior to myself as I prepared to meet Cassandra's other sister Carla.

Thinking that I probably wouldn't be very long inside her sister's house. One drink was going to be my limit, because I wasn't about to get slobbery drunk in a strange house that I hadn't secured for myself, pretty girl or not.

So I stuffed my Glock 19, and tomahawk under the seat, and crammed my Sub-2000 along with my M-4 and tactical vest into the small space behind the seat where I had stored the tainted bottle of whiskey, and took only my machete and suppressed Beretta with me.

As we bailed out of the truck and jogged the three yards or so onto Carla's porch, I asked.

"Are you sure your sister won't mind you bringing a strange man into her house with you?"

"Oh she won't mind at all, she's been dead for quite some time now," Cassandra answered, showing no emotion.

I found it odd that Cassandra hadn't mention to me earlier that her sister was dead. Even when I had asked her back at the river if her sister would mind her bringing a stranger home with her, she made no mention of the death of her sister Carla. All she said was that her sister doesn't say much since the other sister had died.

With all of the killing and dying that she relayed to me in her tale of the little baby Kyle and her sister Pam's ultimate demise, it seemed to me to be a rather easy segue to transition to.

On top of that, she had been blubbering like a schoolgirl all the way from the river as she told me how she managed to escape the zombie entrapment at the warehouse.

All at the expense of three other people, one of which she cacked herself because she felt that he needed to be cacked, I might add. Now she didn't even blink an eye at the mention of this other sister being dead.

Maybe she was immune to all the killing and death this world had to offer, I know I was getting to that point myself. And all the sniveling in the truck was just a relapse into previous emotions.

Or, maybe she hated her sister Carla's guts, and never really gave a shit about that particular sibling.

Of course, the reason for her uncaring attitude might have been because she has so many brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, cousins, dogs and cats, not to mention gold fish, that she feels that she can spare a few from time to time if the occasion calls for it.

A little sarcasm to lighten the mood, it's one of my best distinguishing characteristics you know
.

Whatever the reason for Cassandra's emotional perspective, something didn't seem right to me, so I decided to maintain my usually combat ready situational awareness until I was completely sure that Cassandra posed no danger to me.

Cassandra led the way, unlocking the door with the house key that I had found during my search of her personal assets.

We entered the house, which looked a lot bigger on the outside than it did on the inside.

"Make yourself comfortable and I'll get those drinks I mention," Cassandra said, as she disappeared into the kitchen. "Sit on the couch, it's way more comfortable than the chair is."

I took her advice and planted my slightly sunburned butt in the middle of the couch that she had recommended, placing both my pistol and my machete on the couch cushion at my right side. That way if Cassandra chose to sit beside me, she would be free to sit on my left side, leaving my right hand available to do any pleasurable work that might become necessary. Such as another impromptu weapons search.

I mean if the evening went in that direction.

After all, she had already seen me naked as a Jay Bird, and who knows, maybe she liked what she'd seen.

And besides, a cavity search of the woman would go a long way in convicting me that she was harmless.

It wasn't long before Cassandra returned to the living room with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"Sorry I don't have any wine glasses, I hope you don't mind," she said, with a somewhat artificial smile on her face.

I had seen the fake smile that Cassandra had plastered on her puss (puss fits better than mug, or face, in this particular narrative). It was the same fake smile that strippers used to get guys to pony up bigger tips at the titty bars where they danced, in every city in the world, before the end days that is (see what I mean about puss).

Cassandra stood in front of me pouring equal amounts of wine into the generic glasses sitting on a coffee table that separated the two of us.

"Before we get started partaking in this complementary libation that you've so generously offered, I have a question about the warehouse and the starving baby," I said, canting my head to the left.

"Sure, go ahead and ask," she said, as she finished pouring our drinks. "I've got nothing to hide."

I really wished that she hadn't made that comment, because everybody knows that people that find it necessary to announce that they don't have anything to hide, usually have a hell of a lot to hide.

With my senses now heightened to possible danger, I proceeded to ask my question.

"Well as you, and your sister which had recently had a baby, were trapped in that warehouse, surrounded by ravenous eaters, with said baby starving and crying for food, did it ever occur to anyone that one of the two of you girls might want to flop out a tit and feed the kid? Or at the least, cram one of your natural pacifiers into his mouth?"

A confused look swept over Cassandra's face, momentarily wiping away her smile.

Then as fast as her smile had disappeared, it was back, and the look in her eyes was like someone had illuminated a light bulb over her head.

"Speaking of breast feeding, that reminds me, I need to change my shirt," she replied, as she lifted the bottom of her bloodstained shirt and pulled it inside out over her head.

Now as the shirtless woman with what I guessed to be a choice set of 38 D's, wagged her impressive pair of juicy exposed breasts at me from across the room as she began a slow and methodical dance.

Now you might think that I would sit back, drink my glass of warm wine, and enjoy the show. After all, I had placed my paraphernalia on the couch in a place that would free me up in hopes of just this type of event.

However, I still had this nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right.

So with a smile on my face, I took what was to be the last sip of my wine as I nonchalantly reached for the handle of my machete.

I picked up the bush-trimming tool (under the circumstances, no pun intended) and began to tap the flat side of the blade on the couch in time with a chorus of imaginary music that Cassandra was dancing to.

As the blade bounced higher with each strike on the foam rubber cushion, the dull reflection on the blood stained steel blade reflected an image that was moving behind the couch, which confirmed the ominous feeling that had been pestering me by revealing the danger that was lurking there.

Seeing the startled look on my face that I was unable to contain, even though I had been leery of my new
would-be
girlfriend from the moment we walked through the front door, Cassandra screamed out.

"Now Carla, now!" as she quickly slipped her stained t-shirt back over her head and pulled it down, once more hiding her exposed tits from view.

Sensing that there was no time to try to contort my neck to the right and tweak my body in the direction of the ominous reflection to get a better look at the perceived threat. I instead, leaned forward on the couch and twisted my body the opposite way to try to create some distance between myself, and the person I now knew to be Cassandra's
not
so dead sister Carla.

Now in full twisting mode I dropped the generic glass of wine and stood up. The momentum of my adrenaline powered pirouette spun me around to the left so quickly and so forcefully that if I hadn't have grabbed the double barreled shotgun that Carla was brandishing in my direction with my left hand, I would have completed a full 360° rotation and ended up with my back to the maniacal sister and her 12 gauge riot gun again.

With my hand midway down the barrel of the gun, I pulled the muzzle passed the left side of my body and cradled the shotgun under my left arm.

Carla's index finger (trigger finger) had been gently caressing the forward edge of the gun's trigger until I yanked the firearm to me. Her finger placement on the weapon's trigger in conjunction with my violent tug caused enough pressure to be applied to the firing mechanism to produce a discharge of the firearm.

The noise of the shotgun's blast not only signaled that the double barrel weapon had now spent half of its ammunition, but together with a shrill scream that came from behind me, helped announce that two fingers on Cassandra's right hand were now missing in action.

I tugged further on the barrel of the gun, dragging Carla halfway over the back of the couch where she had been hiding.

As she squirmed helplessly, bent at the waist over the couch, and struggling to retrieve the gun from me, she tilted her head up to see her sister sitting against the living room wall clutching her bleeding three-fingered hand.

Carla was much huskier that Cassandra, taller and built like a professional football player. She had the same garden tool haircut, and it was apparent that she was no stranger to a fork entering and exiting her mouth.

I didn't know if they were really sisters or not, and at the time I didn't care, nor was I in any mood to ask.

With Carla's head two feet from my crotch, I heaved up one more time on the barrel of the gun under my left arm, raising her head as I did so, and with one smooth and coordinated motion, I parted the chubby girl's oily hair three inches into her brain with a swift downward stroke of my machete.

Then I quickly turned around to face Cassandra (if that was her real name) anticipating her attacking me too, only to find her still huddled against the wall squeezing her wounded hand and sobbing.

I unloaded the shotgun, stuck the single remaining un-spent shell into my pocket, and tossed the gun onto the couch beside Carl's dead body as I shared my thoughts with Cassandra.