THE HOST FROM THE SOUTH
Ike and Dave’s Infinite Playlist of Music to be Murdered By (Part 3)
by J. Ian Manczur
(Part 2)Now…
“Ike! Ike! It jammed.” Dave stood pulling on his trigger in hysteria, forgetting every lesson Ike had taught him. He had fired two rounds: one missed, the other simply grazed the zombie. Then, the gun jammed and both it, and Dave, were useless.
Ike tore off his headphones. The zombie slowly rose to face them and Ike braced for the inevitable drench of blood to come from his friend Dave. The zombie didn’t budge an inch. Ike’s move.
Ike shoved Dave out of the way and put himself in the way of the beast, woman. The girl. Blonde. Young. Pretty. Wore the tattered remains of a summer dress. Carved up breast dangled from one of the tears. Intestines swaying out of her eviscerated stomach. Why didn’t she go for the kill? It’s..her eyes. The poor girl had torn out her own eyes while being eaten.
Ike aimed. She howled as loudly as she could. Ike flinched. She charged. Ike fired upon her second step. Headshot. She collapsed. Ike took charge, “We need to move, now!”
Crashes from the outside. She had signaled her brethren. She had sacrificed herself for her fellow zombies. Stairwell. Good, a chokepoint. No, she hadn’t. Bad thoughts. They aren’t that smart. Upstairs clear.
“Dave, Jack, stairwell. Two man hustle, be right back.” Ike ran off.
Jack watched Ike turn into the nearest room and then directed a question at Dave, “Two man hustle?”
Dave took position at the top of the stairs, peering down it with his shotgun. “Yea, I fire, you don’t. I’ll raise my hand like this, I need to reload, you take over. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Ike ran to the nearest bedroom. Armoire? Too heavy. Closet doors. Easy. He heard the first shotgun blast. Door off the slide. He hurried with it to the defensive point and hefted it down the stairs. Perfect landing. Took three off their feet. Settled flat on the stairs. More difficult to climb. Time.
He ran back in the room for the other closet door. Hefted it off the slide. Shotgun blasts turned to handgun blasts. He moved into the hallway. Slid door sideways across entrance to the upstairs. Fit snuggly in between the banisters. Perfect blockade. More time. “We good?”
Dave thumbed up and returned to firing.
With time bought, Ike unzipped his gun bag and started taking out parts. Jack turned his attention to Ike, “What are you building?”
“It’s a prototype carbine manufactured in Germany. The US military is looking to fade out the M4..look, we survive this I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Whew, you carry that thing in your duffle bag?”
“How else would I carry it?”
Jack peered into the bag. “How do you fit so many guns into one bag?”
“Jack, this isn‘t the most appropriate time for banter.”
Dave quipped, “To quote Venture Brothers: It‘s his magic murder bag.”
“Ladies, I appreciate a good gossip as much as the next gal, but we’re on the losing end of this shit stick. Dave, eye on the game, I‘m going to need you as my secondary. Jack, find us an exit.”
Jack hurried and Ike proceeded to unload in controlled bursts on the man in pajamas, the elderly fellow whose glasses still clung to his face, the mother and child he saw earlier, and plenty of others that were once human. Empty. Dave hurried to his place.
Ike reached into his cargo pants and pulled out an extra clip. Dave raced forward and held back the horde while Ike deftly ejected the old clip and reloaded. Just as he heard Dave yell “Out,” Ike was back on the offensive. “Dave, where are we on an exit?”
A few seconds passed. “Jack’s found an attic, or maybe a roof storage.. thing. I don’t know. What do you call it when they have pull down stairs?”
“I think it’s still an attic.”
“Well, Jack is heading up now, I’m following and when I reach the top, I’ll cover you.”
The zombies seemed to be lessening, which promised at least one smooth adventure. Then came the yelling, the tumbling, the shot gun blast, and the ever familiar spray of warmth that could be nothing but blood. “Kid. Kid! What the fuck just happened!”
“I shot him!”
“Who?”
“Jack.”
“Why the fuck did you shoot Jack?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“No fucking shit.”
“He fell.”
“Is he still alive?”
Dave didn’t have any time to answer. A zombie hopped the barricade in Ike’s distraction. He turned just in time to fire. The zombie’s body flew in multiple directions. Two more had already crossed. They had lost this battle.
“Dave, shotgun, load.” He opened fire, praying they had time. “Dave?”
“Two more.”
Ike unloaded the rest of his bullets. “Toss.” He dropped the gun with a solemn promise to come back for her. Midair, he grabbed the shotgun and let loose on the first zombie. “Grab Jack!”
“Halfway there!”
Six shots left. Five. Four.
“Almost.”
Three. Two.
“There!” Ike turned to the stairs. He tossed the shotgun up before him and dashed up. He felt a hand grab his foot. Pressure on his leg. The zombie tried to bite him. His leather boots stopped the puncture. Ike flailed his leg back, making contact. He hurried up the stairs and dove to the ground. Two were following, but Dave’s shotgun blast sent them down. They pulled up the stairs and were safe for the moment.
Jack laid in a bloody heap on the ground. Ike turned to Dave in fury, “What did he do? Fall onto your gun?”
“No.. actually, yes, that’s a pretty good way to describe it.”
Jack shouted from his collapsed state, “HE FUCKING SHOT ME!”
“That’s been established, Jack. Let’s move on.”
“FUCK YOU TOO, IKE!”
Ike turned to Dave to look for some explanation, when he remembered that he had left his gun bag with the zombies. A realization he quickly shared with Dave accompanied by a string of expletives.
Dave chuckled at Ike‘s outburst. “Don’t worry about it. Brought it up with Jack.”
Ike sighed in relief and followed with earnest praise. After he settled down, Ike produced his smokes, and lit a Jackal up. Dave didn’t bother arguing.
Their attention turned back to Jack, who was quietly slumped in the corner. Ike assumed he was dead, but went to check anyway. Uneven, hoarse breathing indicated that he was still alive. Ike sat down next to him. “Man cannot be killed. Never seen anything like it.”
“He isn’t resilient. He’s a fucking liability.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You said it yourself: Jack is unlucky and will get us killed.”
“I did say that.”
Jack cautiously drew his gun and took aim at Dave while the two were busy talking. His first shot missed, sending Ike and Dave into a bewildered panic. Jack shuffled on the ground trying to keep aligned with Dave, all the while delivering a labored promise of murdering him. Ike found his senses and wrestled the gun away. Exhaustion finally caught up with Jack, knocking him out.
Dave grabbed Ike by the shoulder. “Now he’s trying to murder us.”
“You. He’s trying to murder you. After all, you did shoot him.”
“HE FELL ON MY GUN!”
“Quiet, you’ll wake him.”
Dave led Ike into the other corner of the attic and dropped to a whisper. “Don‘t defend him. He’s a selfish prick.”
“Elaborate.”
“Imagine you were in Jack’s shoes.”
“Ok.”
“Now what would you do?”
“Probably take a lot of morphine.”
“No! You wouldn’t try to blame your problems on others. You wouldn’t try to wrongfully kill the men who tried to save you. You would do the heroic thing and sacrifice your life to save ours.”
“You’re right, I would do something that noble.”
“I would, too. So, why hasn’t he?”
“That is a very good question. What a selfish prick.”
“I know.”
“I for one, vote that Jack do the heroic thing and sacrifice his life to save ours.”
“I agree, but..”
“There’s always a but with you!”
“Ssshh! One, how do we convince him to do the heroic thing and sacrifice his life for ours? Two, how will him sacrificing himself help us?”
“This was your idea, haven’t you thought it out?”
“Well, it was more the beginnings of an idea. I was hoping you would flesh it out.”
“Ok, then, One, we will sacrifice his life for him. It would be what he would do for us if he were we and we were him.”
“How?”
“By pushing him down the stairs, but to some good tunes; we aren’t monsters, after all.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Two…I really don’t know how pushing him down the stairs will help us, I mean we will still be stuck in this attic and that’s not going to solve our zombie problem.
“True..”
“But it sure sounds like a swell idea.”
“He was always kind of a douche.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Well, sir, after you.”
“I insist, my dear friend, after you.” They turned to Jack, but Ike grabbed Dave’s shoulder, “Re-huddle.”
“What’s up?”
“I thought you wanted to save Jack. You were all about how he was such a swell gent?”
“That was before he fell on my gun.”
“Alright, let’s do it.”
They once again turned towards Jack, but this time Dave instantiated the re-huddle. “Wait, what did you mean by playing him music?”
“We’re going to send him off with some groovy tunes, I’m thinking Supertramp.”
“Good music to die to, but I’m not giving up my Ipod.”
“You’re a true humanitarian, kid. After you shot him and all.”
“He fell on my gun.”
“Regardless, no one’s going to have to give up anything.” Ike pulled an Ipod adorned with a gold bow on it from his back pocket.
“You got him an Ipod?”
“Yea, a sort of welcome to the group present. They are a dime a dozen amongst the ruins of our civilization.”
“I thought you hated Jack.”
“Meh, mostly bluster. Guy was starting to warm on me.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Hey, I didn’t shoot him.”
“Neither did I.”
“Yeah, yeah. He shot himself. Well, after you.”
“No, I insist, after you.”
Ike and Dave moved over to Jack’s body and leaned him up against the wall. Jack awoke and began to protest, but all he could hear was a muffled yelp where his voice should have been. Ike clasped his hands over Jack’s head and Jack felt something enter his ears. Ike moved out of Jack’s vision to fiddle with something at his side. Dave was left standing there, eyeing Jack warily. Jack tried to scowl at him, but couldn’t tell if his face contorted the right way. Dave smiled and punched Jack’s shoulder in a sign of friendship. It hurt like a bitch.
A synthesizer blared loudly, but only in his left ear. He could feel some sort of vibration in his right, but it didn’t have any meaning.
It was early morning yesterday, I was up before the dawn.
Ike moved back into Jack’s view and whispered something to Dave.
And I really have enjoyed my stay, but I must be moving on.
They were speaking to him, but he couldn’t hear their words over the insistent music.
Like a king without a castle, like a queen without a throne,
He tried tearing off the headphones, but his right arm was in unbearable pain.
I’m an early morning lover and I must be moving on.
He tried telling them he couldn’t understand. All that came forth was red and yellow.
Now I believe in what you say is the undisputed truth,
Jack tasted blood and bile.
But I have to have things my own way to keep me in my youth.
Ike and Dave had finished talking and moved to his side.
Like a ship without an anchor, like a slave without a chain,
Jack felt himself being lifted up, with disregard for either his comfort and pain.
Just the thought of those sweet ladies, sends a shiver through my veins,
What the fuck were they doing? What the fuck was he listening to?
And I will go on shining, shining like brand new.
Jack felt himself placed down again, but he could not establish his bearings.
I’ll never look behind me, my troubles will be few.
Up again, this time followed by a plunge downwards.
Goodbye stranger, it’s been nice,
Jack crashed face first. The carpet did little to cushion the landing.
Hope you find your paradise.
He rolled on his back and tried looking around, but his neck refused to budge.
Tried to see your point of view,
He was forced to look upwards at the ceiling, at the already closed stairs.
Hope your dreams will all come true.
Jack reached for his gun. It was missing.
Goodbye Mary, goodbye Jane,
It didn’t matter, they were already upon him.
Will we ever meet again?
He tried one last attempt at survival in the form of an impotent slap.
Feel no sorrow, feel no shame,
His last sight was a slowly swinging drawstring.
Come tomorrow, feel no pain.
Jack died.
Sweet devotion, it’s not for me.
Just give me motion and set me free,
And land and the ocean, far away,
The life I’ve chosen, every day.
So goodbye, Mary, goodbye Jane.
Will We ever meet again?
No comments:
Post a Comment