Zombies & Other Unpleasant Things

  When the short bus roared past the restaurant, the boy read the words aloud that had been spray painted along its side and wished he could somehow catch a ride aboard, “Twisto the Clown's Care-A-Van of Fun.”

  Luckily, for him, the boy's wish was not granted.

  Inside the colorfully spray painted, short, mostly yellow, school bus it was very crowded. It was crammed full of escaping convicts, as well as mentally deranged men wearing bright blue jumpsuits with talcum powder and blood painted smiles. It swerved erratically across several lanes of traffic and laughter drifted out through the open windows.

  Spazzo was 'driving' and still uncertain where they were heading. When he asked Twisto after they appropriated the bus from an elementary school that was burning, he only said, “Go north,” before going to the rear of the vehicle where a naked woman was tied up and awaiting him.

  Spazzo steered the bus toward a very pregnant looking woman that was being chased by a group of undead down the center of the road. The odd yet undeniable fact that people were somehow turning into undead ghouls actually made the driver smile and chuckle as he pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. With everyone outside the prison running and driving around trying to avoid the ghouls, he was sure no one would be looking for Twisto or anyone else aboard the bus.

  A few times he'd seen cops as they headed north, but they were either driving fast and uninterested in the bus or wandering around in the road; lifeless yet still energetic and apparently hungry for flesh.

  The front of the bus slammed into the crying pregnant woman, even as she was frantically waving her arms up in the air trying to flag down the bus. Her eyes shot open wide a moment before her body exploded like a large blood filled water balloon.

  Spazzo flipped on the windshield wipers as a cheer went up from those aboard who saw what had happened.

  The road had hundreds of people, both deadish and alive, wandering around in a maze of wrecked and abandoned vehicles. Buildings were burning and gunshots could be heard occasionally but Spazzo's smile never wavered.

  The riders were singing and having a great time, as well, until Twisto sauntered down the center of the bus wearing his disturbing smile and nothing else. They hushed a bit as he sat down naked in the seat just behind Spazzo and waved for the others to shut up.

  “Hang a left in about a mile.”

  Spazzo grunted quizzically in response but nodded.

  “We're heading to a place I visited a few times, long ago. You'll like it. I made many special friends there... before,” Twisto then stopped speaking and appeared lost deep in thought before continuing. “It was before I took my little vacation to Bayonne.

  The town is called Charenton. You'll love it. I used to work at the county fairgrounds there. It's great. They've got all kinds of carnival rides and I buried quite a few children behind the roller coaster. Some of them were even dead when I did it.” Twisto giggled and licked his lips before adding, “If no one's found them maybe we could dig them up and play some games.”

  Spazzo steered the bus toward a big mob of undead that was chasing an old man pedaling a bicycle as fast as he could. The oldster's clothes were torn and covered with patches of blood. He appeared exhausted and his pursuers were quickly closing the distance.

  “No, Spazzo, stay clear of them. We don't want to wreck the bus before we get to our new home. Besides, I think it's funnier if they catch him. Trust me, pal, I know humor.” Twisto patted his shoulder before adding, “Nice job running over the fat pregnant bitch earlier though. Now, that was funny.”

  Spazzo reluctantly steered away from the old man and his pursuers toward the more open and relatively clear parts of the road. He glanced back at Twisto, hooting and grunting in his own peculiar tongue less language for a few moments.

  “Oh yes, she's very nice. A veritable treasure of pleasure, you might say. If you still had your tongue, that is. She seems very tough and strong willed. We'll fix that though. You'll never guess what she was doing at Bayonne.” He giggled before continuing. “She was a reporter sent to cover last night's execution.

  Her tits are amazing too; nice, perky, full, and natural. They're very bouncy and fun to nibble on, by the way. I think that I have an idea for her new name. How does Titso sound?”

  Spazzo appeared to be considering it for a few seconds before nodding and smiling.

  “She'll need tenderizing and some training, but I know you and my friends will happily help with that,” Twisto said and looked wistfully off to the side of the road at some undead children making a snack of a fat woman's intestines. He realized it was likely she had been their mother. It made him sad, in a deeply twisted way.

  Perfectly good adorable children should be loved, roughly and often, he thought and smiled while licking his bloody lips.

  When the bus turned left at an intersection few aboard even glanced at the sign beside the road that indicated the town of Bixby was only fifteen miles away had they turned to the right. Janice Carson's shocked, terrified, and tear soaked face peered out through one of the rear partially steamed up windows at the road leading to the town she called home.

  Her recollection of the brutal terrifying rapes she'd suffered through at the prison's athletics field was fractured and more of a blur than a coherent memory. The only thing she clearly remembered was that a pack of undead prisoners arrived and began attacking the rapists.

  While most of the prison complex was well lit, the fields were more like a shadowy region and even once the undead attacked she hadn't understood what was going on. The angry yells and sounds of animals growling seemed to go on for a long time before eventually causing the man that had been ravaging her body to pull out and run away.

  Janice had been so tired and sore she didn't even care that there were undead tearing, biting, and killing the pack of monstrous rapists that had been ravaging her. The will to fight and struggle to live had been taken from her. She was ready for death and didn't see any reason to defend against it any longer.

  At least that's how she felt until the last man who'd been raping her called out as he stood up. “Hey cunt, you suck! I've fucked a ton of trannies in here that were tighter, cuter, and better than you!” He finished his opinion by spitting on her, before turning and wandering quickly away.

  The man's words and mocking painful laughter as he left combined with the clammy feeling hand grabbing one of her legs in the darkness to allow her to tap into a furious energy she hadn't known existed within her. She kicked out at the shadowy figure holding one of her ankles and felt his face crumble as her foot forcefully collided with his face. The crackling of breaking bones in his nose seemed to feed her fury and increase her need for vengeance.

  It was painful to stand, but she worked through the hurt and seemed to somehow channel and combine it with her fury. Janice could only limp slowly for several seconds, but then she caught a glimpse of the man who's spoken a minute earlier. Her limp became less pronounced as her heart began pounding harder. She heard her father's voice and remembered something he told her after she'd earned a black belt in Karate as a teenager.

  “I love you, baby doll. I won't always be there to protect you, but if a man ever hurts you I swear one thing to you; No matter what you do to him, I will always love you. It's a hard world out there, and sometimes true justice is something that only you can deliver.”

  Her breathing increased with each step taken. The smoky air filled her lungs like a bellows feeding a red hot furnace. The last thing she remembered clearly was running after the man who'd raped and spit on her. She yelled just before leaping on him, “Hey, Mosquito Dick, get back here!”

  At that moment everything became a blur of jabs, kicks, punches, and eventually pitiful begging coming from the rapist that went on until she choked him to death. Then, while sitting on the curb, she started to calm down until the dead rapist began to move once more.

  Fear was no longer an issue.

  She grabbed his head and smashed it against the concret
e curb until it burst open like a large rotten cantaloupe.

  The next clear memory she had was of an odd looking man dressed like a clown coming out of the smoke. He was followed by a sizable group of others. He bowed and said, “Hello, my name is Twisto. Don't worry. We'll take care of you.”

  She remembered several men picking her up and carrying her before she lost consciousness.

  When she awoke it was aboard the school bus. Her hands were tied securely to the metal frame of the seat in front of her. She awoke to Twisto in the midst of raping her.

  When she screamed for help, the others on the bus laughed and repeated her yell for help, and roared more laughter. After Twisto finished and wandered toward the front of the fast moving wildly swerving vehicle, the other men closed in on her for their turns.

  It all seemed like the most monstrous nightmare ever and she prayed to soon awaken as the short yellow bus continued on.

  Her prayers may have been heard, but the nightmare had only begun.

  Time passed, just as it usually does.

  The cafeteria and adjoining kitchens and pantry burned to the ground after an explosion occurred a week following Bayonne's overthrow. Rumor had it the most powerful Hispanic gang had been attempting to produce Meth Amphetamine in the kitchen with medicine and other supplies they'd looted from nearby towns. Apparently it didn't work out as they'd hoped; most died and dozens more were hideously burned and soon died thereafter. When they reanimated they were quickly disposed of.

  An uneasy 'truce' existed between the remaining prisoners who chose to stay at Bayonne. The skin heads had all left after burning D Cell Block. No one missed them.

  The only gang that regularly violated the truce with impunity was The Sabres. Not only did they possess the most guns, without exception every one of them were considered the most violent and ruthless residents of Bayonne.

  It only took two months after the fall of Bayonne for their leader to decide that there were greener pastures and choicer apples to pick. Nearly a thousand murderous Sabres descended on the town of Bixby and very quickly became the rulers of what remained of the terrified population.

  The steadily shrinking number of residents who called Bayonne home was just glad The Sabres were tormenting someone else. When other people left no one seemed to know or care where they'd go, as long as they didn't return.

  Of course, returning was actually in the hands of the gatekeeper; Charles N. Reilley or as he was more commonly known, Crazy Carl.

  If he chose not to remotely open the main gate there was nothing the people outside could do about it, except perhaps get eaten by the growing numbers of undead that milled about beyond the walls. More of them came over the weeks and a growing number of prisoners decided to leave Bayonne. Most left by way of the gate, others who couldn't stand the undead reality shambling beyond the walls, chose to leave via suicide.

  In his cell, George stared at the portrait he'd been painting for weeks. The girl in the painting was someone very special he'd known. In point of fact, she was the reason he'd been sentenced to Bayonne. He picked up a brush and started to dip it in the paint, but then sighed and set it down again.

  There was a clicking sound growing outside his cell. He looked over and saw one of his favorite guard dogs. “Hiya. How are you doing, Lucy?”

  The big German Shepherd came inside and nosed around the wrappers and cans strewn on the floor.

  George shook his head as he got up from his bunk. “Sorry, Lucy, there's not much to eat in here. I'm still drinking those diet shakes. Those things are nasty tasting, but they seem to work.”

  He cinched up his baggy pants and wondered if he might be able to find a smaller size. If the looting runs into town weren't always for food and other important stuff, he'd like to find a pants store sometime and get some jeans that fit better. But he didn't want to make old Joe mad by suggesting it.

  The cell block wasn't deserted, but slowly fewer people remained as time went by.

  If the old man left someday and never returned it would be fine by George. If any food was missing or unaccounted for Joe always suspected him first.

  A pornographic movie was playing on one of the stolen big screen televisions, but George had no desire to join in what was going on in the corner of the commons room he thought of as the sex pit. Instead, he went down the hallway and saw Jasper reading a comic book. The big man was sitting on a large empty cable spool beside the big door leading outside. He only grunted and nodded as George went out, followed closely by Lucy.

  Old Joe didn't like the dogs being allowed inside the cell block, but some of the other guys let them in anyway. George yawned and did some stretches before jogging slowly toward the closed front gate.

  Lucy followed.

  That was one of the best things about Lucy. A lot of the remaining residents of Bayonne didn't like the dogs and actually still feared them. George would save up some of his share of the meat from his meals and fed them to Lucy and a handful of other dogs that hadn't been killed or escaped during Bayonne's downfall.

  As he jogged along the narrow concrete catwalks located atop the prison's walls, a couple of other dogs joined in. Lucy wasn't really the dog's name. George had no way of knowing if the dogs even had names, so he named them.

  When he reached the farthest point of the rear wall he slowed and stopped beside a guard post. The dogs growled at the undead guard behind the shatterproof glass window, but George ignored him as he caught his breath.

  He pulled a water bottle out of his pocket and dropped down to sit on the catwalk. His legs dangled forty feet above the overgrown athletics fields as he took a sip.

  Near the execution building there were some medium sized marijuana plants being tended to by some of the other residents.

  George grinned as he imagined what they were saying. “Yep, bumper crop this year. If the weather holds until harvest time, that is. Yep, yep, yep.”

  His smiled faded when he spotted some of toughest remaining guys in Bayonne, now that the Sabres had left, heading toward the plants. The gardeners had apparently spotted them too and hurried away before they got there and picked off the best buds.

  “Its crap like them that sometimes makes me want to leave, and not like Vito did either,” George said and leaned his forehead against one of the cool metal railings.

  Lucy whined softly and sat down beside the young man.

  George ran his hand through the dog's fur as his eyes felt moist and his chest hurt. He stared across the collection of buildings at Cell Block A. It was a long way off, but he thought he could see the bars of Vito's cell. He sniffled and wiped at his eyes before taking another sip of water, thinking, Vito, you dumb shit. If you'd only waited another week, The Sabres would have been gone and you'd still be alive; A pain in the butt to be sure, but alive.

  He wasn't sure how many people were still inside Bayonne, but George guessed it was well under a hundred by now. There was a meeting coming up later that night in the cell block and rumor had it that Joe was going to be leaving and taking those guys that he thought could be the most helpful.

  George held no illusions that he would be on the old man's list of candidates.

  I'm a painter. I'm always afraid when we go out on supply runs. I like to think that if I had a place to go to I'd do it... but is that true? I don't know. Maybe I should have gone with Jose after Vito killed himself. But, who knows, maybe he's dead too or worse.

  Lucy watched as George stood up and ignored the undead guard continuing to scratch at the glass. The guard had locked himself in the small security shack and tried to blow his brains out with his sidearm once Bayonne fell to the prisoners.

  The bullet's trajectory was less than ideal. It ended up blasting up through the soft palate of his mouth and obliterated his nose plus a good portion of his face. He did die, but then stood up and found himself undead and trapped inside the locked guard shack.

  George waved at him briefly before jogging toward the setting sun.

&n
bsp; The dog followed.

  The monotonous squeaking of his hammock and gentle rolling of the sailboat bobbing on the waves was the first thing Lazarde was aware of upon waking. He climbed out of the hammock and went to the boat's small bathroom. The long dirty beard and mustache he sported could no longer be seen in the mirror mounted over the sink. He'd smashed it weeks earlier and never suffered a moment of regret.

  After doing his business in the bathroom, Lazarde went to the pantry and kicked aside the collection of empty liquor bottles lying on the floor. He pulled out cartons of canned meat, vegetables, and fruit, but only to peer behind them. It seemed impossible that he could have gone through three cases of whiskey and several bottles of wine over the last few months. He kicked the cases and swore when one of his toes broke and made a faint cracking sound.

  Leaning against the small kitchen's counter, Lazarde stood on his uninjured foot and looked through the cabinets until he found a bottle of cherry flavored cough syrup. After struggling with the child proof cap for almost a minute he managed to get it open and chugged down the red foul tasting contents. The middle aged man held the bottle upside down to catch every remaining drop in his mouth. When no more dribbled out, he tossed to plastic bottle into the pile of canned food and limped toward the hatch leading topside.

  It hurt him to look at the dusty toys lying scattered around the tiny living room. He kept his red rimmed eyes focused on the hatch and the dark blue skies beyond. There was a rifle, a semi automatic machine gun, and a pistol hanging from pegs near the hatch. Beneath them were several boxes of ammunition he'd never bothered to open.