Piercing the Darkness: A Charity Horror Anthology for the Children's Literacy Initiative Page 28

  Chino shook his head. “Why bother. Ain’t nobody in charge anymore. Why don’t they just bail?”

  King peeked again. The zombies still kept their distance from the man with the guns, but more were coming; dead humans, dogs, cats, squirrels. The Viking calmly reloaded, still mumbling under his breath.

  “Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man…”

  “What’s he doing?” Chino whispered.

  “Playing patty cake.”

  Chino grunted. “Whole world’s gone crazy.”

  “There’re still people in charge. You know Tito and his crew?”

  “The ones holed up inside the public works building?”

  King nodded. “I was talking to him three days ago. Went out there and traded six cases of beer for some gasoline. They got a ham radio.”

  “How they working it? Power been out for a week.”

  “Generator,” King said. “They heard some military general got parts of California under control. And there’s a National Guard unit in Pennsylvania that’s taken back Gettysburg. Could happen here, too.”

  Chino frowned. “That would suck. I like the way things is. Do what we want, when we want. We got the guns.”

  “Not as many as that guy.” King nodded at the Viking.

  Both men peeked out of the bushes again. The zombies inched closer, circling the park bench. Some now carried rifles as well. The Viking put down the Garand, and picked up a grenade. His eyes were steel.

  “Open fire,” one of the zombies commanded. “He is just one human.”

  With one fluid movement, the Viking pulled the pin and tossed the grenade toward the undead. There was a deafening explosion. Dirt and body parts splattered onto the grass. The Viking threw a second grenade, but one of the creatures snatched it up and flung it back. The explosive soared towards the bushes—the bushes concealing Chino and King.

  “Shit…” King shoved Chino forward. “Move your ass!”

  The grenade failed to detonate, but neither man noticed. They were too busy dashing from the shrubbery--and directly, they realized too late, into the firefight. The M-1 Garand roared, and the zombies returned fire.

  “Motherfucker,” Chino shouted. “We done it now!”

  Bullets plowed through the dirt at their feet and whizzed by their heads. Chino and King opened fire, helping the Viking mow down the remaining zombies. Within seconds, all of the dead were dead again.

  The Viking turned his weapon on the men.

  “Whoa!’ King held up his hands. “We’re alive, yo. Don’t shoot!”

  The Viking didn’t respond.

  “Chino,” King whispered. “Put your gun down.”

  “Fuck that.” Chino spat in the grass. “Tell that puta to put his down first.”

  King smiled at the Viking. “We don’t mean no harm. Hell, we just helped you.”

  “Why?”

  King blinked. “Because you were in trouble, man. Why you sitting out here in the open like that, Mister…?”

  “Beauchamp.” The Viking’s shoulders sagged, and he put the rifle down. “Mark Beauchamp.”

  Chino lowered his weapon, wondering what King was up to.

  “Why you out here on this bench, Mr. Beauchamp?” King’s eyes flicked over the stranger’s arsenal. He licked his lips. “Wouldn’t it be safer trying to find some shelter? Come wit’ us, we can hide you.”

  “No.” The Viking shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m waiting.”

  “Waiting? For what?”

  The Viking’s eyes turned glassy, and King realized the man was fighting back tears.

  “I had a job at the Ford stamping plant, just south of the city. Wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life, but it was okay. Fed my family. Had a wife, Paula, and four kids. My son’s twenty-one. My daughters are fifteen, fourteen, and five months.”

  The Viking paused, and despite the tears welling up in his eyes, he smiled.

  “I think raising my boy was easier than the girls.”

  King nodded.

  Chino shifted from foot to foot, his finger flexing around the trigger. Was King just going to talk the guy to death?

  “I was at work when it happened. I heard it all started in Escanaba, but it spread to Detroit fast. By the time I got home, Paula and the kids were gone. No note. Nothing. The evacuation order didn’t go out until a day later, so I don’t know what happened.”

  His face darkened, and then he continued.

  “There was blood in our kitchen—a lot of blood. I don’t know whose it was. And one of the windows was broken. But that’s all.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” King said.

  “I spent the first twelve days looking for them. But then I got an idea. We used to come here. I’d sit on this bench with my daughter, Erin, and we’d play patty cake. So I’m waiting, see? They’ll come back. Paula wouldn’t just leave like that. She knows how worried I’d be. I’m waiting for my family. I miss my kids.”

  “And just shooting zombies?”

  “Yeah. I’ve become a pretty good shot. Used to have a kick-ass pellet gun.”

  “What about the birds, man? How you gonna shoot them?”

  “Haven’t bothered me yet. And my family will be here before the birds show up. You’ll see.”

  King glanced at Chino, then back at the Viking. He tried swallowing the lump in his throat.

  “Sure you won’t come with us?”

  The Viking shook his head.

  King slowly approached the bench. Chino tensed. Here it came. King had the guy off guard. Now he’d pop him, they’d grab the shit, and get the hell gone before more zombies came back. But King didn’t waste the guy. Instead, he shook his hand.

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  King turned back to Chino. “Come on. Let the man wait in peace.”

  Chino’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Say what?”

  “You heard me,” King growled. “Let him be.”

  King trudged across the grass, and Chino ran to catch up with him. He grabbed King’s arm and spun him around.

  “The fuck was that all about? We could have smoked him.”

  “No,” King said, his voice thick with emotion. “We ain’t touching him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” King sighed, “I miss my kids, too.”

  An artillery shell whistled over the city. The explosion rumbled through the streets.

  Beneath it all, they heard the Viking playing patty cake.

  — | — | —

  SHADOW CHASER

  SIMON WOOD

  I spotted the ramshackle farmhouse from the dirt road. The directions were vague and the house wasn’t marked, but I knew I had the right place. It was the kind of place I would have chosen.

  Turning into the long driveway, I noticed three tall figures shoulder-to-shoulder on the porch. That I wasn’t expecting. The meeting was meant to be a one-on-one affair with no spectators. Alarm bells rang in my head, but there was no way I could turn tail and run for the hills. I had to see things through, no matter how bad they got—especially after the phone call.

  “Cam, you have to meet me,” he’d said. “You have to help me stop you. If you don’t, people will die.”

  I’d recognized the voice immediately and knew I had no choice. There’d been too much killing over the years and if I could prevent any further bloodshed, then I would do my best. It was the least I could do, considering the amount of blood on my hands.

  Pulling up in front of the farmhouse, I recognized my welcome party on the porch: Klein, my lawyer; Westerman, my doctor; and Trant, my professor. Except these men weren’t waiting. They were hanging from the porch rafters, strung up with clothesline, their hands tied behind them. From their contorted and discolored features it was obvious their necks hadn’t broken. They’d died from strangulation, a sign of a bad hangman, but I knew the hangman well and he was anything but incompetent. He’d wanted their deaths to be long and agonizing. The corpses s
wayed, slapping together like a human wind chime producing an off-key melody.

  I slipped from my car and went up to the trinity to pay my respects. They were the ones who’d saved me from a guaranteed death sentence and gotten me my subsequent release from the state hospital. We’d corresponded for a year or so after the treatment had ended, but our lives had moved on and we’d lost touch. But I could always find out what was happening with Trant. His name and face were featured regularly in the headlines over the years, thanks to the famous “Trant method.” I lingered in front of Professor Trant, my savior. Good old Trant. He’d convinced the world he had the answer to society’s nightmares. He really believed he could save the human race from itself. Poor bastard—look where that thinking had gotten him.

  “Like Icarus, did you dare to fly too high?” I asked the professor as I patted his leg.

  I tried my best to ignore the stench. All three men had messed themselves, and an untidy cocktail of feces and urine pooled at their feet. It was impossible to tell if fear or death had been the cause. At one time, the repugnant scene wouldn’t have disturbed me. I suppose it just goes to show what a good job Trant did with me.

  I climbed the four steps to the porch and called out through the open doorway. “I’m here, just as you requested.” I glanced back at the hanged men and my voice lost its power, trailing off to a whisper. “I thought you said we could prevent death.” I wasn’t sure whether I said these words or just thought them.

  No one replied.

  I took another step and stood at the threshold to the farmhouse. The early evening light illuminated little beyond the welcome mat. A tightening in my stomach prevented me from venturing inside. I’d used abandoned places like this to inflict pain and death. I rubbed my fingers together, feeling the blood that had once slid between them. Images of what I’d done engulfed me and I had to take a step back lest they wash me away. I leaned against the window ledge to steady myself.

  “Show yourself, Mac,” I demanded.

  This time I received an answer.

  “I’m glad you came,” a voice said from the darkness within the house.

  Although I’d heard his voice on the phone, it was nothing compared to hearing it from just feet away. It was too much, and my resolve to confront him melted. I didn’t want this anymore. It would have been so easy to run, but how does anyone outrun his shadow?

  He came to the front door, and for the first time since Trant’s separation tank, I saw my other self. The sep-tank was like a deprivation chamber, except it wasn’t filled with water, but with an energy field. For days without rest, Trant had ruthlessly psychoanalyzed me in the sep-tank, forcing me to confront the killer inside. In my delirium he had appeared not as a delusion or an apparition but as a physical being. The tank’s construction was able to support and solidify my mental projection and I came face-to-face with my other self—the tumor that had been eating me alive. As soon as I was free of Mac, Trant had me dragged out of the tank a cured and sane man. He’d entombed Mac for further research.

  “Cam, it’s been a long time,” he said. “Too long.”

  He stopped inches from my face and examined me. He’d come from me and we should have been identical twins. We shared the same height and build, even the same thinning hairline. What we didn’t share was his leer, which failed to hide its contempt for the world and everyone who inhabited it. Deep lines that mimicked the curve of his smile seemed to have been carved onto his face with a box cutter. His hungry hands flexed continuously, as if ready to ensnare his next prey. The eyes were the biggest difference between us—his were hollow, absent of soul. To stare into them meant staring into a bottomless pit.

  “How have you been, brother?” he asked.

  Brother. That word raked broken glass down my spine. He wasn’t my mother’s child. If anyone had breathed life into him, it was me. I was father to this monster. Of course, Dr. Westerman would have disagreed. In his opinion, Mac wasn’t in fact born but was a product of my environment. I preferred Klein’s courtroom analogy. It’s the one that made the most sense to me. He described my other personality as my shadow—someone that was me and at the same time not me. The concept helped me sleep easy at nights. But standing here, in front of Mac, I knew I would never sleep easy again.

  Mac took a step back from me and nodded to himself, acknowledging an unasked question. It was difficult to read him, but I could hazard a guess as to what he was thinking. Just as I could see the cruelty manifested on his body, he could see the meekness and empathy that had become part of me. Although polar opposites, I was sure we could agree on one thing. We had nothing but contempt for one other.

  “I didn’t think you could survive outside the sep-tank,” I said.

  Mac smirked. “What can I tell you? Trant’s technology had a little side effect. The longer I stayed, the more real I became.”

  “Did Trant know?”

  “Let’s just say it was a little something he didn’t want the press to find out about. It wouldn’t have been good for his image.”

  Trant, what a fool you were, I thought. He’d played with fire and had gotten burned.

  “Did you have to kill them?” I asked. I wanted to sound harsh, but lament filled my words. Pathetic, really. I should have been stronger than this, but strength was a trait that belonged to my shadow. Anger and conviction had become impotent emotions since the separation.

  “Of course I did.” Mac wandered over to his handiwork. He brushed a lazy hand across the back of the dead men’s legs, causing the human wind chime to sing its dull song again. He leaned against the porch railing. “What did they ever do for me?”

  “Were they meant to do anything for you?”

  Mac stiffened, a flush of anger consuming his features. “Yes, they were. They owed me. They gave you liberty and freedom, while they gave me institutional purgatory. What kind of deal was that?”

  “You got what you deserved.”

  “Bullshit. My hand was your hand when we took a life. I didn’t do it by myself. You were there every step of the way. We should have been locked up together or not at all.”

  “So what will square it for you? Killing me too?”

  And how I wished he would kill me. Freedom had worn me out. In the eyes of the law I was innocent, but that didn’t stop the guilt. Mac was right. My hand had been his hand when we killed, and removing him like a strip of tape from the mouth of one of our victims didn’t change a thing. I was still a killer—just a remorseful one. If my shadow wanted to string me up with Trant and the others, that was cool with me. I welcomed death and all the oblivion it offered.

  Mac took three swift strides so that he was directly in my face. “No, killing you isn’t the answer—rejoining is.”

  My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t want any part of his insanity. I thrust him away with my hands, but achieved only partial success. My hands sank into his shadow flesh, absorbing him and dissolving into him at the same time. There was no pain, but the sensation scared me. Through our contact, I saw into my shadow self. I had total access to his mind. Within a handful of rabbit-fast heartbeats, I witnessed the killing of Trant, Westerman, and Klein—and so much more. I experienced his rage, absence of conscience and murderous desires, all burning white hot inside him. His emotions were contagious. What he wanted crept into me, igniting a starved part of my psyche. Like exercising muscles atrophied from years of neglect, I flexed thoughts that I believed were long since amputated. Regardless of how much those desires warmed me, I didn’t want any part of them and I yanked myself away from Mac.

  My hands came away easily, more easily than I’d expected. My momentum carried me backward and I bounced off the porch railing and down the steps. I jarred my spine and cracked my head on the ground before landing on my back. I scrabbled away, preparing to defend myself against an attack, but it wasn’t necessary. In spite of my vulnerability, my shadow was frozen in a moment of rapture.

  “My God, did you feel that?” Mac clutched his
chest where my hands had passed through him. His eyes blazed. “That was one hell of a mental hand job. I haven’t felt that good since we were one.” He took a step down the stairs toward me.

  “Stay the hell away from me.” Still reeling from my fall, I scooted away from him using my hands and legs like a crab.

  Mac halted his descent. “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that.”

  “Christ, no.”

  Mac relaxed. He lounged against the stair rail. A smug smile crept across his lips.

  “I read you,” he said. “I saw your life, if you want to call it that. Pitiful really. It hasn’t been much fun since they turned you loose—that tedious little job cleaning streets for the county, the pokey condo and sad nights alone watching TV while you eat those plastic-flavored TV dinners.”

  I jumped to my feet. “Fuck off.”

  My shadow raised his hands in mock surrender and grinned. “Temper, temper,” he cooed. “Trant wouldn’t like that.”

  Schoolyard tactics, but they were working. I kept my silence, not wanting to be drawn in to Mac’s childish games.

  “You’ve fallen a long way,” he said. “You used to be magnificent—and you can be again. Just take my hand.”

  “No.”

  Mac retracted his offer, letting his arm fall to his side. “Then I’ll have to take what I need.”

  “Take me? What for? You don’t need me. You did well enough killing them.” I pointed at Klein, Westerman, and Trant, their bodies now still.

  “It’s not the same.”

  Mac spoke with sincerity. Whether it was intentional or not, he’d shown me a chink in his armor. He was reaching out for help for the first time in his existence. He wasn’t the all-powerful killer I believed he was. He was fallible, and it was clear we’d both lost something when they had separated us. I don’t know what you’d call it—spirit, soul, or what—but we lacked it and we hungered for that void to be filled. Unfortunately, sating that hunger came at too high a price for me.

  “And rejoining would change that?” I suggested.

  “Of course. Isn’t that obvious?”