“Let’s go,” Slaughter told him.
Even with their boots on they were quiet as they moved through the barroom, stepping quietly on the plank floors. Inside, it was a mess…wreckage and trash scattered everywhere. And bones. They were strewn about, heaped in the corners. Human bones that were gnawed and scraped, smashed and broken open for their marrow. The stink of death was strong, but it didn’t come from the remains. Instead, it emanated from the forms lying about like it was siesta time: six dead ones sprawled on the bar top, on the floor, under tables.
And as Slaughter looked at them—faces like seamed leather masks missing eyes and noses, lips shriveled back to reveal jutting teeth—he had to wonder, and not for the first time, if they went dormant like this because
“Shiteaters, alright,” Jumbo said.
“Do ‘em,” Slaughter said.
Under Moondog’s direction it was carried out calmly, efficiently, and slowly. They each chose a wormboy and put the barrels of their shotguns to the heads of the zombies. It was unbelievably simple and that’s why Slaughter knew it was going to go to shit, and right about the time the Disciples pulled their respective triggers and sent the deadheads back to hell, it hit the fan.
The door behind the bar flew open and at least ten wormboys came charging out. And what a sight they were. Their faces were raging liquiform epidemics of leprous rot…mucid, dripping, fluids oozing from ulcerous sores. Eyes like rotten eggs spilling tears of slime, mouths filled with undulant worm follicles. They came shambling and stumbling, creeping forth to engulf the intruders.
Slaughter was expecting it.
When they came out, he brought up his 12-gauge pump and took out the first Cannibal Corpse with close- range scattershot that blew the zombie’s head apart into a kaleidoscopic eruption of pink, red, black, and gray ribbons that splashed against the others and sprayed the walls in a dripping meat Rorschach blot.
The other Cannibals went right over the top of the flopping husk and Slaughter didn’t have to tell his boys to wade in.
Moondog reacted first.
As one of the wormboys reached for him, he smashed the barrel of his shotgun into its head and kicked it swiftly in the sternum, knocking it aside and giving him the time to blow the face off another pitted skull and get a glancing shot into the advancing horde before three of them crested over him like a rogue wave and he went down fighting with them.
Slaughter ran at them firing and working the pump on his gun.
Apache Dan and Shanks both got off a couple rounds but a really big Cannibal—a real wagonload of crawling carrion—got hold of Irish and lifted him up like he was stuffed with pillow down and threw him at the wall ten feet away. And maybe
Jumbo, who was about the size of an Abrams tank, grabbed a downed and quite overanxious Cannibal Corpse with a face like a ball of suet by the ankles and proceeded to use him as a bat, swinging him from side to side and sweeping wormboys out of his path so he could get to Irish before the zombies could. When he cleared the way, he swung around again and again like a man throwing a discus and let fly his wormboy right through the window, taking out the neon Leinenkugel’s sign in the process.
Not wanting to fire buckshot with the Disciples so close at hand, Slaughter used the pistol grip of his weapon like a club, battering it into the face of a Cannibal until he went down, then ducking just in time as another deadhead swung a femur at his head. Slaughter moved in and hammered the zombie in the ribs with his left fist until he felt something give in there. Then he darted back, pulled the
By then Moondog was on his feet and he and another Cannibal Corpse were facing each other, both sprayed with gore and decay, swinging, hitting and getting hit, and it was an old-style bare-fisted punch-up as they kept hammering each other. After they both took six or seven good shots each, Moondog jumped up and brought the cleats of his boot down on the wormboy’s knee and there was a wet snap clear as a pistol shot. The wormboy screamed out in rage and Moondog took him by his greasy hair and slid the blade of his black anodized K-Bar fighting knife under his ear and into his brainpan. The wormboy went over dead as a stump. It was an old Marine Raider quick-kill technique from World War II and it still did the job just fine.
While Moondog was so engaged and Jumbo fought viciously to keep the zombies from lunching on the downed Irish, and Shanks tangled with a pair of Cannibals, both Slaughter and Apache grabbed up shotguns from the floor and walked around, dropping the dead men until their guns were empty.
Then there was silence.
The air was thick with burnt cordite, gunsmoke, and the mist of rot that rose from the dead at the feet of the Disciples.
Irish rose up from behind the bar like a ghost, shards of glass falling from him. He had a bottle of Jack Daniels Old No. 7 by the neck. Eyes rolling, face gashed and bleeding, he said, “Rock and roll, my brothers.” And promptly went down again.
Jumbo scooped him up and Moondog led them out into the fresh air.
Slaughter and Apache Dan remained behind, stepping around over a carpet of tissue, blood, maggots, and seeking worms.
“That was the shit,” Slaughter said.
“We’re lucky we pulled that one off,” Apache Dan said, squeezing blood from his long black ponytail. “Had to be twenty of those muthas, John. We better not go diving into a scene like that again or we’re going to come up short.”
“You’re right,” Slaughter told him, “and I knew it going in there. So did Moondog. But these boys needed some seasoning and there’s only one way to get that, brother.”
“I’m just advising caution. This shit is for keeps.”
Slaughter clapped him on the shoulder and led him outside where Shanks had just taken the head off the Cannibal Corpse that Jumbo threw out the window. He tossed the head into the gravel lot where it rolled. “Sheeeeeeit,” he said.
The others were smoking and laughing, enjoying the buzz of the after-action, with the exception of Moondog, who was off securing the perimeter as he always did. They were bloody and dirty, cut and bruised. And as far as Slaughter was concerned, they were ready now.
Fish was telling a story, and as usual it involved sex.
“…so we’re drinking at this bar up north in the boonies, checking out this three-day festival in Eerie, Penn. All the old bands are up there—Molly Hatchet, Foghat, even Mountain.” Fish went on, “Must’ve been…what? Fifteen years ago. Yeah, at least. So I’m up there with Charley Sweet and Creep—God rest their souls, man—and we’re at this bar getting pissed, just juiced and sloppy, right? Creep…oh, old Creep…never had any respect for his dick. He got his eye on this Indian bitch hanging around the bar. Don’t look like much to me—real dark, long hair, kinda chunky. Doesn’t do shit for me, that one.
“But Creep? Hell, he’s in love. You remember Creep, motherfucker always had an eye for the ladies. If they had a hole at the bottom, they were his type. So pretty soon him and this squaw are hitting it off. Charlie and me just shrug, right? Whatever gives him wood, that’s his business. Maybe an hour before last call, Creep and his Squaw, both pissed to the gills, disappear. Next day—it’s not even noon—Creep’s at the bar throwing back hooks of Wild Turkey, just staring off into space. He keeps shivering all the time, you know, like something’s crawling on his skin. ‘You nail that stuff?’ Charlie asks him. Creep just nods. ‘Any good?’ Charlie asks. Creep, he turns to us…and that look on his face! Shit! Like maybe he’d just eaten a turd sandwich. That bad. ‘Yeah,’ Creep says, ‘we were all over each other last night. Did it in the dark. Fucked like hogs, we did. I wake up this morning next to her and that’s when I realize this pig ain’t even an Indian.’ Charlie looks at me. We both look at Creep. ‘Not an Indian? She was dark like one,’ I say. ‘Sure she was,’ Creep says. ‘Except I wake up this morning and I see her in the light. I mean, I
