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| Destruction à Go-Go by Charlie Loudowl (Issue 10) |
1. of postmarks and possibility
“Couple weeks more 'round here, and I'll likely be ready to take off.” This sentence, an admission of sorts, straight from the dry, cracked lips of a stranger sitting beside Clive at the bar.
All Gus's fault, thought Clive. He'd up and left a half hour ago, and his spot was filled by this – what was he? – this vagrant. No, more a vagabond than a vagrant, Clive supposed. Clive's eyes slipped from the dirty Panama hat atop the stranger's head, to the scruff of his leathery face, and on down to his rumpled linen shirt, open too far, letting loose too much wiry chest hair.
Then, to the silvery pistol grip Remington shotgun strapped to his back.
Vagabond? No. Though Clive loved the word, this man was more than a simple vagabond. He took in the shabby khakis, the worn military-issue boots. The way this whole damaged package came together kind of just made sense, leading Clive to believe that this man was the real deal. A traveller, of sorts, with a purpose.
He once received a package that had undergone a two week journey from Hong Kong to Mason City. It arrived dirty and crushed, covered in stamps and postmarks, repeatedly opened and resealed by customs – it was fairly easy for Clive to view the man sitting beside him as the living embodiment of that package. This man was more an explorer than a traveller. Yes, an explorer – that's the label he was looking for.
“What do you drink?” Clive asked the stranger, while summoning the bartender with a twenty.
He turned to Clive, grinning, full of perfect white teeth. “Just 'bout anything,” he replied.
“Two vodka tonics,” Clive told the bartender. “Twist?” he asked the man.
“You askin' me to dance?”
Clive found himself blushing. “N-no,” he stammered. “Twist of lime, I meant. Would you like a twist of lime?”
“I know what you meant,” the stranger chuckled, a parched, rasping laugh, “and it doesn't matter none to me.”
Clive turned back to the bartender who was all too amused by the exchange. “No twist,” he barked.
“Your call,” the bartender said, setting up two short glasses. Then he added, “Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool.”
“Pardon me?”
“The album,” the bartender said. “Rather than the Twist, I'd probably suggest the Charleston or perhaps even the Lindy Hop if you two were feeling particularly energetic.”
The stranger fell into laughter, slapping the bar, alternating between a hacking cough and grating cackle.
“Very funny,” Clive snapped. “Just slide those drinks over this way.”
“Too easy, Clive” the bartender winked, shaking his head, placing the drinks before them. “You're just too easy.”
Situations like this called for a quick change of subject, so Clive asked the obvious. “Where are you coming from?”
“Paris,” the man answered, composing himself a little, “France.” He retrieved a half-smoked cheroot from the breast pocket of his linen shirt, and lighted it with a puff of smoke. “Had a little work there.”
“Oh? And what brings you around here?”
The stranger, chewing on his cheroot, looked at Clive a moment before replying: “Havin' myself a little look around.”
Taking a sip of his drink, he leant in close – so close Clive could smell the burnt tobacco from his lungs, the vodka on his breath. “I'm sure you noticed the gun on my back.”
“I – I did, in fact,” Clive said. “Looks like a Remington, what, 870?”
The stranger leant in even closer – so close, Clive swore he caught the scent of cloves from his shirt, campfire from his hair. “GUDC agent,” the stranger murmured, flashing a silver badge. His voice was slinking, skulking. “Was practically living in the sewers beneath the streets of Paris - rootin' out the undead.”
Clive blanched. “I – I—” He didn't know what to say. “Zombies!” Clive yelped, before catching himself and lowering his voice. “French sewer zombies? Now I think I've heard just about everything.”
Gulping back the rest of his vodka tonic, the man placed the glass roughly on the bar top before stubbing out the cheroot. “All kinds of them all over the world,” he growled. Picking up his battered Panama hat from the bar, the stranger fussed with the brim a little before tossing it back down.
The bartender, who'd been listening in with trained ears, nodded over in their direction. “Don't think you'll be finding much around these parts,” he interjected. “Been pretty quiet here since the last pandemic. They had one team out here last year to take care of the few we did have, and a sanitising team came in and cleaned up after that.”
“I hear the virus is significantly weakening, anyway,” Clive shrugged. “What with new vaccines every year, and all these public awareness campaigns, they says it's pretty well gone the way of polio.”
“That may be true,” the stranger said, “but the media don't tell you the whole story anymore. See they learnt their lesson during the first wave when they up and got the whole world in a god damned frenzy. Had people boarding up their windows for Christ's sake, expecting things to be like in the movies, with hoards of corpses shambling around on the streets eating brains – and it's not always like that.”
Clive raised his eyebrows. “Well, you can't blame people for panicking. The dead were coming back to life! Grandma would die, and suddenly turn up staggering around the nursing home all purple and bloated. That's the kind of thing that gets people a little upset.”
“Fact is,” the stranger said, “it wasn't happening to everyone, and it's happening even less frequently now.” He took a pull from a new vodka tonic, and withdrew a fresh cheroot from his shirt pocket. Lighting up, he sneaked a look at a large battered pocket watch, adding, “But it's still happening, or I wouldn't be sitting beside you right now.”
2. critical stratagems
“You can call me Harlan,” the man grunted, extending a great, rough hand to both Clive and the bartender.
“Pleasure meeting you, Harlan,” the bartender smiled. “Have to thank you for your service. It's quite the job you've got there. You folks really put a lot on the line to keep the rest of us safe.”
Harlan returned the smile. “Ah hell, it's a little safer for me than some of the others,” he said, modestly waving off the praise. “I'm fortunate enough to have been born immune. Apparently, someone in my family history must have had some contact with the fiends, and passed this blessing on down to me.”
“So you can never be turned?” Clive asked.
“Never, no how. I've been bitten, scratched, sliced with filthy blades and my heart's still beating.” Harlan lifted up his dirty linen shirt to reveal a large section of depressed scar tissue covering the left side of his ribcage. “Was knocked out last year, and woke up to find one of the filthy bastards munching on me right here. Couple of seconds more, and I'm sure he woulda broke through the ribcage and gone for my organs.” He let his shirt fall back into place, and took a puff from his cheroot. “But, I'm fine. A few days in hospital, some skin grafts, IV antibiotics, a tetanus shot, and I was back at work. No biggie.”
There was a bit of silence while Clive and the bartender processed what they were just told. Just as Clive was about to respond, they were interrupted by Janine, one of the waitresses, walking in the door.
“Long hair tonight, hey?” the bartender pointed out, as Janine ducked behind the bar to sort out her float.
“Yeh,” she said, looking up at him with a mischievous smirk. “Find the weekend tips are a little better with the wig.”
“Worth a shot,” the bartender shrugged. “Anything for an edge. You're on tables twelve through nineteen. Pretty dead in here tonight, though. Sorry.”
“Is that new?” Janine deadpanned.
3. the art of inveiglement
Janine was once told that if she ever got to the point of thinking she was better than her job, then she had reached that critical point where she needed to move on. Her father's words. Well, she knew now that she was better than her job. She was better than this cage, and she was better than the beasts which resided within. But, she found herself trapped by circumstance. Circumstance, and a steady flow of tips from the idiotic masses. See, it's the money which had her donning the fake hair and fake smile night after night. The fake, revealing clothes, the fake perfume. It wasn't her. None of it was. It was survival.
A waitress hears things. A lot of weird things. Oftentimes, outright bizarre things. Sometimes, upsetting things. Cryptic remarks from that strange, strange man down at the end of the bar. The one in the dirty wide-brimmed hat. That shirt opened a little too far; chest, a little too hairy for her tastes. And that gun. Janine shuddered.
“So, I'm barrelling down this ravine in the backseat of a taxicab in Bujumbura – or what they call a taxicab in those parts, anyway, the car being over fifty years old and driven by a man who could only have been its original owner – and we've got at least three cop cars behind us.
“I'm yelling at the driver, 'Speed up! Speed up!' But of course he doesn't understand a word of English, so he begins to slow down. Just as he slows to the point where I think I could survive a jump from the moving vehicle, I pop open the door and suddenly I'm tumbling out into the night, through the brush, and into the tree line, still clutching to my chest my shotgun and passport—”
Suddenly, Harlan turned to look at Janine, having noticed that she'd sidled up alongside him with her empty tray in hand.
“Well, hello there, sweetheart,” he grinned with those perfect white teeth. “Another round for me and my friend, here?”
Sweetheart. Yes, please. Those eyes. Sweetheart – a girl could get used to that. Janine guessed it must all be in the delivery. “I, uh, yeah, I – I'll bring them right 'round,” she stammered. She was just about to spin on her heel, face ablush, when she was caught off guard once more.
“Say, when you're not so busy, you should hang around here a little more,” Harlan smiled.
“OK,” she chirped, barely audible.
4. two metamorphoses
“Yeah, I remember my first solo assignment. I was sent out to the middle of nowhere, one of those real backwards type of places out east. I was supposed to track down this one beast which had apparently survived long enough to actually grow in power. Mutation, they call call it.
“In the early afternoon, I parted ways with my guide near the entrance to the old quarter after repeatedly assuring him of my safety, and coercing him and his giant burlap sack of coffee beans into a taxi back to the hotel.
“'I'll be fine,' I promised. 'Trust me, I've dealt with worse than common thieves and murderers.'
“My guide peered at me warily. 'Well, I do not want to have to go and identify you at the morgue – or what is left of you. Trust me; these people would not stop at seizing your possessions. They would take your body parts, as well.'
“I laughed, finding humour in his habitual worry, but caught a hint of anxiety in my reflection as he rolled up the taxi's window.
“This assignment was different. I was alone.
“Of course I would be OK. I was always OK. I had to be. And nothing strengthens a man's resolve like dropping a few hours in a seedy tavern, so I ducked into a grimy tent in Old Klestehl's south side and sat down at the flimsy plywood bar.
“Part way through my fourth helping of vulgar booze, my head already light with the ingestion of that rotten beverage and a lack of food, my attention was drawn to the materialisation of a slight man beside me, nimbly handling a deck of worn cards.
“'You're really good with those,' I mumbled, nodding toward his hand.
“The man, his dark eyes gazing at me from beneath a dirty, broad turban, dexterously fanned the deck a final time, and the cards disappeared from sight.
“'You are that foreigner I have heard about,' he hissed in heavily accented English.
“'Sure,' I said, brave despite a knot tightening in my stomach, 'how'd you guess?'
“The man sneered. 'They are always so courageous,' he growled. 'So daring until the absolute worst happens.'
“'Oh? And just what is the worst?' I asked, scornfully. 'Because I'd really like to know. The concierge at our hotel left me with the same warning. Worse than murder, worse than rape, he said.'
“The man just raised an eyebrow and gulped back a good portion of his pale beer.
“'Torture?' I pressed. 'Because that's hardly original. Worse than torture, perhaps? To what end?'
“'The torture of a man's body is nothing compared to what some of these animals are capable of,' the man said, drumming his fingers on the bar top.
“I was about to offer up a retort, but the man, staring me right in the eye, drummed his fingers again, slower this time, and as he did I felt a sudden concentrated wrenching in my guts with each individual strike of a fingertip.
“The tap of his little finger was a punch to my solar plexus hard enough to knock the wind out of me, leaving me gasping for breath with panic setting in.
“The tap of his ring finger was a blow to my abdomen so hard that I very nearly burst inside, vomit rising in my throat, testicles suddenly crawling up inside my body.
“The tap of his middle finger ignited a fire inside me so fierce I felt as though an instant inferno was raging through my entire body, swiftly burning me up from the inside out.
“At the last moment, right before his index finger fell to the bar, the man stopped.
“'Have you had enough?'
“My reply came in the form of a shotgun blast originating from beneath my loose tunic. The slug hit its mark, obliterating the beast's head, and sending bits of brain, bone, and shredded, bloody turban peppering the roof of the tent.
“That was my first solo assignment,” Harlan said to his enraptured audience of two.
Clive and the bartender glanced at each other, before Clive turned back to Harlan.
“It seems like they can be so much like us. How do you just turn off your humanity in those moments?”
“It isn't always easy. More than once, I found myself in a tiny room, dark even during the day, with little more than a bed, and a balcony on which to ponder my existence. Our existence.
“This one time, I had a monstrous view of the great square below, only separated from me by a flimsy wrought iron railing. I could've killed myself then. Leapt from that balcony, plummeting, dashing my skull to pieces on the ground below.
“But I know the human body is tougher than that.
“I simply would have hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, whole, but bleeding internally, maybe a little out of the nose, ears, and eyes. The locals would have gathered 'round to gawk at the silly, dead foreigner in his ridiculous adventurer's outfit. A laughing child would have snatched up my Panama hat placing it absurdly atop his tiny head. One of the men would have taken my shotgun, and another would have made off with my wallet and passport. Then, bored, they'd all have yawned and gone off to drink strong coffee out of tiny cups at miniature tables set on cobblestone streets.
“That is the way with us humans.”
5. the loneliest lands
“The worst, my very worst case ever was an entire family that had turned one another in a bombed out apartment building in some desert city.
“Death and obliteration in small towns all across these desert countries. Wastelands, all of them. Stone and mortar husks of abandoned buildings skulked roadside as our trucks rumble by. Eyes jerked with each visual searching for IEDs. A chunk of falling debris, an emaciated scavenging bird, a piece of blowing garbage; they all become our enemy.
“You all right, there, Clive?”
“Yeah, just thinking is all. I served in Desert Storm way back when. These descriptions hit a little close to home.”
“Thank you for your service, Clive. I can stop if you need me to.”
“Thank you, but it's all right. I'll be all right. Go on.”
“Bodies lied, clustered in the ditches every few miles with devilish grins on their rotting faces. Brilliant white teeth framed by the blackest of lips. They grinned, but there was nothing funny about any of this. Stripped of possessions by looters. Charred limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Hands and feet devoured by ravenous dogs. No, there was nothing funny about any of this, but those corpses grinned all the same. Laughing at us, no doubt.
“These weren't the undead, but the truly dead. Some in our team would get a little teary at the sight of a mother holding a child, shot up and incinerated.”
“Ready for another one, Clive?” the bartender asked.
“Yeah, I suppose so – should keep 'em coming, I figure.”
“Our minds would twitch to the liars and perverts, the cheaters and thieves, who gave the orders to kill. Those collections of old grey-haired men and women cloistered away in their chambers like relics in a museum. Protected by bullet-proof glass, guarded by groups of younger armed men and women hiding behind mirrored shades. Liars and perverts in training. Apprentice cheaters and thieves.
“Eyes drifted heavenward to yet another orange sky, the result of more bombing. Mere smoke and dust, a filthy sky brought the illusion of beauty. Just sunlight shining through particles floating on air. Oil wells aflame. Trees burning. Whole districts on fire. Smoke from timber mingled with smoke from flesh. Buildings and residents, together forever.
“It wasn't funny, none of it was, but I found myself standing in the back of a muddy truck, rumbling down a dusty road in some desert country with a big satisfied grin on my face. I laughed. If only to stem the tears. I laughed. If only to hear something other than silence. I laughed. If only to accompany those poor dead bastards lying roadside. We laughed, together, they and I. We all laughed, not because any of this was funny. We laughed because we knew there was nothing we could do about any of it.
“I was happy for them because they were truly dead, and had not been turned.
“When we reached our mark, the truck roaring up to the bombed out shell of a building, we wasted no time in jumping out, positioning ourselves, and storming the complex.
“We found the animals in a basement suite right where we were told they'd be. Five of them in total: father, mother, and three girls. They were turned, all right. At least a year previous by the looks of things. Little more than animated skeletons by the time we found them, with skin stretched taut over bones, lower jaws completely missing.
“They were huddled together when we first barged in, but made to come at us in a split second.
“We mowed them down without a second thought. We had to.”
6. the man from manzanillo
“You make it sound like you've never been scared,” Clive said, “and that you guys always get your man – so to speak.”
Harlan chuckled. “Naw,” he rasped. “We tend to think only of the wins. I'll tell about the other side of this job. There was this one time down in Mexico with an old man and a donkey. He was leading me to a nest, he said. He had seen it with his own eyes.
“A slow, creaking stutter; this is how I would describe the aged pair's gait. The man from Manzanillo walked beside his decrepit companion donkey, his arm draped round the creature's bowed neck, his fingers stroking just behind its ragged ear as though the two were the best of friends. One's step matched the other, their legs kicking up dust from the dirty trail, and it was hard to tell who was holding who up. The donkey sniffed and snorted, while the man did the same. Both couldn't have been more savage.
“Even before they reached me, their scent... wait, did I say scent? What I meant, of course, was stench. Even before they reached me, their stench warned of our impending meeting. He was one of them, I could already tell. This was suddenly starting to look a lot like a setup.
“Out there, in the desert – yes, in the middle of nowhere, the very epicentre of nothingness – the stink from these two was unmistakable. Noxious breath, unwashed flesh, and rotting meat – sadly, I was downwind, and the sole recipient of this olfactory assault.
“His eyes were deaf and mute. Normally, when meeting a man for the first time, one can read the soul through the eyes, receiving an impression of the type of man who stands before him. Additionally, one can normally use this first meeting of the eyes to convey whichever unspoken messages he wishes with a single glance. Issuing a warning with a fleeting look or allaying suspicions with a flash of the pupils. Well, the man from Manzanillo would have none of this. His eyes were as good as dead, and they could neither speak nor hear.
“'You have made it,' he said.
“'I did, I have,' I replied, almost questioningly.
“'It is just there, beyond that dune.'
“I nodded.
“'Did you bring what I asked?'
“'I did,' I said, retrieving a large bottle of rubbing alcohol from the folds of my cloak and holding it up high. 'Got it right here.'
“'Good,' said the old man. 'You would do well to set it on the ground right there in that spot. Then you would do even better to turn around and walk the other way.'
“I did as I was told, setting the package down at my feet, but stupidly pausing before following through with the second part of my instructions. I peered though the sun, trying in vain to meet the old man's eyes, and said, 'But I have one question.'
“'Why did you bring me way out here?' I asked this, though I already knew the answer.
The man from Manzanillo smiled a cold, dead smile. 'Why not?'
“'There has to be a reason,' I said, pulling my Panama hat down lower to shield my eyes from the huge, orange sun.
“'Of course,' said the old man. 'Everything has a reason.' He took a step closer, the donkey sneered, and I swear I could feel the ground tremble beneath my feet. 'We have a tree near my home – the Manchineel tree, Hippomane mancinella – which is very poisonous. The lethal fruit hanging from its poisonous limbs, the sap, the bark, the leaves – all fatally toxic.'
“The old man's dry lips curled into a mocking sneer, mirroring the donkey's, and both shuffled forward once more until I could feel the weight of their stink against my skin.
“'This tree,' continued the old man, 'is so very poisonous, that when it is aflame, even the smoke billowing from its burning branches is enough to blind.'
“Another step closer from the pair caused me to take an alarmed step back, stumbling, only saving myself from a fall through dumb luck.
“'Even standing beneath this tree during a rainstorm is unsafe,' the old man said, 'as the water running through the malignant leaves is enough to cause painful burns and blisters on one's skin.'
“My eyes flashed to the old man's thick, black, pointed fingernails, and though I was already well aware of my immunity, I couldn't stand the thought of even one rake from those disgusting talons.
“I panicked, then, and staggered further back and away, breathing hard, clutching at the collar of my shirt, fanning the lapels of my cloak. 'So?' I asked, mopping at my forehead with a sleeve. 'What has all this got to do with anything?'
“'Sometimes,' said the man from Manzanillo, 'there is not a reason for evil. Sometimes, one does not need to eat the fruit or chew the leaves. Sometimes, one does not need to brush the rough bark with his skin. Sometimes, one only needs to stand near the tree.'
“The ground went to swell, and the distant horizon broke into a steam while I thought I saw the pair go to take another step toward me. In the distance beyond, through that poisonous haze, I saw a long line of the hideous creatures break over the horizon. What was supposed to be a small nest had turned out to be a large hive.
“It was then that I bolted. My legs ran, and I followed. Across the sand. Away from there. Them.
“I arrived at my jeep just as the first of the lot reached me, threw it into gear, and must have run down a good half dozen while I made my escape.”
7. open hostilities
“I have to admit,” Harlan said, “these are some of my more exciting stories. Oftentimes, it's little more then the extermination of a simple pest. Like the killing of a rat, or the poisoning of a wasp's nest. More often than not, the beast is hiding right in plain sight.
“Right, sweetheart?”
Janine had gone up to the bar, and was busy filling her drink orders, arranging the full glasses and bottles neatly on her tray. “Huh?” she asked, despite successfully eavesdropping on most of the conversation.
“The trickiest ones are the recently turned,” Harlan said, exhaling a large cloud of thick white smoke. “Can just go about their lives for a time. Up to a year or so with good maintenance; perhaps longer. Antiseptic washes. Bleach baths. Some of them will try just about anything to maintain their looks.”
Harlan snickered.
“But, it's all for nothing,” he continued. “The disgusting creatures are outed eventually. They can't hide their natures forever.”
Something in Janine snapped. Instinct took over.
There was a crash as her tray of drinks hit the floor, and she was on Harlan in a flash, shrieking, clawing at his neck with unnatural strength, savagely biting into the flesh of his meaty shoulder. Tearing, bloodying, his rumpled linen shirt.
Faster still was Harlan's reaction as he loosed the Remington 870 MCS from its back holster, and wedged the gun up underneath Janine's bloody chin.
A shot rang out, drenching Clive, the bartender, and everything else within a ten-foot diameter in black blood, bone fragments, and brain matter.
Janine's headless corpse fell to the floor with a thud, while Harlan replaced the still-smoking shotgun in its holster.
He gave the corpse a little kick and shrugged.
“Trick is to root 'em out. Make 'em come to you if you can.”
Clive sat, mouth agape, in shock, while the bartender had braced himself, shaking, speechless, against the back wall with its collection of blood-soaked bottles.
“There'll be a team by shortly to clean up,” Harlan said, placing his Panama hat back atop his head. “And don't worry – we'll bill you. Pay at your leisure. I know times are tough.”
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