Z-Burbia 4: Cannibal Road (3 page)

“No need for name calling, bro,” I say as the rod keeps on stabbing, stabbing, stabbing right into my sternum. “I haven’t done a thing to warrant that.”

“You did so,” Barfly states.

“How can I get you to believe me, Barfly?” I ask. “What evidence do you need to see that we didn’t kill anyone? We got away fair and square.”

“Fair and square,” a few of the cannies say and Barfly whirls on them, his steel rod snapping through the open space between him and the front of the gang.

“Ain’t no fair and square!” Barfly shouts. “They stole my ride, peeps! Took it without permission! No fair and square for stealers!”

“No fair and square for stealers!” the gang yells in unison.

“And I applaud your sense of right and wrong as well as your established code of conduct,” I say. “It’s not easy keeping order post-Z. You have to have rules. I get that. And I’m sorry for breaking them when we stole your ride, Barfly. I’ll make that up to you, if you let me.”

“Make it up?” Barfly asks. “How you gonna do that, Long Pork bro? You’ll be too busy diggin’!”

The gang starts back up with the pantomimes and I just sigh. It’s like dealing with fucked up, full grown toddlers. How these people lost their minds so fast after Z-Day, I don’t know. Sure, we had our share of cannies in Asheville, but not whacked out gangs like this. It’s like they have created their own society and language in just a few years.

I weep for the youth of today.

Oh, and speaking of, I’m pretty sure the Crossville Cookers are all under thirty years old, easy. I haven’t seen a single one that I would say is even close to thirty. Some may look like they are fifty because of their lack of proper nutrition and all, not to mention some of their less than healthy extracurricular habits, but I would swear on the lives of my family that the gang before me is made up of late teens and early twenties psychos.

Except for maybe Barfly. I can’t get a read on that guy’s age. He could be twenties, he could be thirties, or he could be in his forties like me. He has this ageless quality that adds to the creep factor by a billion. Kinda like he gets strength from eating his foes’ hearts or something. Shit, maybe he does; weirder shit has happened over the years.

“We didn’t hurt your ride,” I say to Barfly, trying to get the discussion back on track. “Can’t be mad about that.”

The hopping and faux digging is making me nervous. Well, more nervous than I already am. Okay, maybe nervous isn’t the right word. How about they are annoying the living shit out of me? Yeah, that’s way more accurate.

“No, no, you didn’t hurt my ride,” Barfly agrees. “I checked. Just no go juice in it no more.”

Greta snorts behind me and I wince.

“You think of a funny, little girl bro?” Barfly asks as he looks past me to my daughter. “What your funny, little girl bro?”

“Don’t answer,” Stella whispers.

“Go juice,” Greta says. “That cracks me up.”

My daughter has unfortunately inherited my inability to shut the fuck up. It was endearing pre-Z, but has lost some of its appeal since the dead started to walk the Earth and try to eat us all.

And, as if on cue…

Several long moans get everyone’s attention and the gang turns around to see quite a few shadows come shambling out of the woods and into the meadow.

“Dammit, Long Pork bro!” Barfly snaps, forgetting that Greta said anything. “You brought the fatties after us.”

“That is the stupidest name ever,” Greta says.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Greta!” Stella snaps. “Shut the hell up!”

“You don’t like the name fatties?” Barfly asks as he focuses his attention back on us. “Why not? We call ‘em fatties because they never stop eatin’!”

A few members of the gang laugh, but most just watch the Zs come towards us. Hands grip weapons tighter and I can smell the adrenaline start to pump.

“But Zs don’t get fat,” Greta says. “Just because they don’t ever stop eating doesn’t mean they are fat. It’s a dumb name.”

“Like Zs is better, little girl bro?” Barfly asks. “That’s one letter! Z!”

“It’s short for zombie,” Greta snaps.

“If you do not stop talking now then I will shut you up myself,” Stella says as she grabs Greta’s arm.

“No, no, lady bro, it’s all good,” Barfly says. “Little girl bro is just havin’ a debate. Better than some of these poop stains. They just want to hunt and fight and sniff fumes.”

“And fuck!” someone yells.

“And fuck,” Barfly nods. “Lots of fuckin’ ‘round here, but no babies. I know what makes babies and all the fuckin’ don’t make none. Ain’t that weird?”

That line of thought shuts Greta up. Apparently, one way to make a teenage girl be quiet is to talk about cannies having sex. It’s like talking about parents having sex. Ewwwww!

“Maybe there’s some pollutant in the water,” I suggest. “I bet a factory or some waste treatment dump broke down and all the industrial waste got into the ground water. Could have made all of you sterile.”

“Which ones?” Barfly asks. “The guy bros or the lady bros?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” I shrug. “I was just making a suggestion, bro.”

“Does that mean I’m sterile now?” Charlie asks. “That would suck.”

“Yeah, bro! It sucks! I want to see some little Barflies runnin’ about, but none of the lady bros be poppin’ ‘em out! What the fuck, bro?”

The Zs get closer and the gang starts to move forward. I don’t have to say a word to my family to tell them what I’m thinking. I also don’t have to say a word to Barfly, either.

“Don’t be thinkin’ of runnin’, bro,” Barfly says as his rod catches me in the ribs. I still don’t go down. “My peeps can kill some fatties right fast, no problemo. Right, bros? You peeps be killin’ some fatties right fast?”

“Fuckin’ A yeah!”

“I kill all the fatties!”

“Fatties fall down and they don’t get up!”

“We kill the shit out of those fuckin’ fatties!”

“Shit killin’ fatties! Yo we do, yo bros! Shit the kill fuck outta them! Bros kill shit fuck fatties, bros!”

Barfly turns to the gang and starts laughing. “That bro been sniffin’ too many fumes! Shit the kill fuck outta them? That’s messed up, bro.”

Shit the kill fuck outta them? Huh… I’m pretty sure I know that syntax, as well as that voice.

“Jace…,” Stella whispers barely loud enough for me to hear.

I don’t look back at her, but just nod my head.

“Shit the kill fuck,” Barfly snickers. “Who said that? Which one of you peeps is heeelarious? Shit the kill fuck is heeelarious!”

I can see a few heads turn in the gang as they look for the source of Barfly’s amusement, but no one speaks up. What happens next is pretty predictable.

“I asked a question, bros!” Barfly snaps. “Who said that? I like it and want to know who said it! Some heeelarious mother fucker better step out and show their mother fuckin’ self right fast!”

Still no one admits to the words.

I can see Barfly’s body start to shake with rage. The man likes to be answered when he asks a question.

He turns on me and starts with the steel rod stabbing into my chest again.

“Did you see, Long Pork bro? You see who said those words?”

“I didn’t, Barfly,” I reply quickly. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, you sorry, bro,” Barfly sneers. “A sorry piece of shit.”

He lifts the rod above my head and starts to bring it down fast. I duck my head, and close my eyes, ready for the killing blow he’s been promising since we were first captured, but it doesn’t come.

I open my eyes to see a hand gripping Barfly’s arm, keeping the rod from cracking my skull open.

“What the fuck, bro?” Barfly shouts as he jerks his arm free and whirls on the offender. “You tryin’ to save these peeps or somethin’?”

“Or somethin’,” the voice I know replies. “Hey, bro.”

“Oh...it’s you,” Barfly snorts, his body tense and ready for the fight. He looks at the young woman that stands in front of him. Even though I’m at his back, I know he’s studying her like the predator he is.

What the stupid fuck doesn’t know is that he’s already been studied thoroughly or the young woman wouldn’t be standing there.

“Ready to die, crazy chick bro?” Barfly laughs.

“I ain’t crazy.”

“If you ain’t crazy then what are you?” Barfly snarls.

“I’m family,” Elsbeth grins.

True dat, bros.

Chapter Two

I think I’ll take this opportunity to fill in some details on how we found ourselves the unwilling guests of Barfly and his peeps.

Yes, I know leaving the story on a cliffhanger is not exactly polite, but fuck all y’all. This is my story.

How about we go back to that night that Dr. Stanley Martin Kramer walked into Critter’s Holler and proceeded to stir up so much shit that I never thought we’d wade out of it?

Good a place as any for the beginning of a story.

Kramer is a weird freak of a man, but when I first met the guy, he reminded me of an old chemistry teacher I had back in high school. If it wasn’t for the fact that Elsbeth really wanted to rip his throat out with her teeth, I probably would have believed all the bullshit that came dripping out of his mouth like shit-flavored honey.

To recap: We were having a meeting in Critter’s saloon to discuss our evacuation of the Asheville area when Gunga brought Kramer in. The guy immediately derailed our plans of heading to Kansas City, which was called The Combine after Z-Day, and told us it had been wiped off the map. Scorched and burned. Nothing but a smoking crater.

That was upsetting enough, but then he started to hum that old nursery song, Wheels On The Bus, and Elsbeth lost her shit. She told us he was the Devil, but as soon as he started to hum, she turned into a fucking she-devil herself, pulled her blades, and went for the guy. It took every single able-bodied man in that saloon to keep her pinned to the ground so she didn’t eviscerate the kindly looking geezer.

“What is your problem, man?” I said as I got up in his face.

Having only one arm and still recovering from a broken and infected collarbone incident, I wasn’t any help with the Elsbeth subduing, so I took it upon myself to find out what this dude wanted and why the hell he snuck into Critter’s Holler to find us.

Kramer smiled up at me and brushed at the wisps of grey hair that covered his almost bald scalp. He stopped humming and just smiled. That was creepy enough, but what really got my hackles up was that, when he stopped humming, Elsbeth calmed down a lot. She was still bucking mad and no one was ready to let her go, but she lost a lot of the fight she’d had just a second before.

“I actually have no problems, Mr. Stanford,” Kramer replied. “I’m as free as the wind and just as ephemeral. It is your band of merry survivors that have the problem. And it is a rather big one, I must say.”

“Then say it, asshole,” I snapped as I pointed back at the Elsbeth dog pile. “Because you seem to have upset someone I care deeply for and that doesn’t exactly put you in a good position around here.”

“Why is that, Mr. Stanford?” Kramer grinned. “Because you are in charge?”

“Well, no,” I replied. “I’m not in charge. People just listen to me, is all.”

“Oh, that’s all?” Kramer said, his grin widening. “They listen to you? And what do you have to say that is so important, Mr. Stanford? Or is it Jace? Would you prefer I call you Jace? Perhaps Long Pork?”

“You don’t call him that!” Elsbeth shouted. “I call him that! You don’t call him nothing!”

“She’s very protective of you, isn’t she?” Kramer asked. “I believe that young woman would die for you, if she had to. At one time in her life, she would have died for me. She would have also killed for me, but that Foster woman went and messed that all up. Such a pity that I never was able to complete the program I was hired to do. The girls weren’t ready when I was forced to escape Foster’s attack. That woman was lucky she gained some control over those girls or they would have ripped her and her men apart.”

That was a lot of information that I didn’t know about. Not that I trusted what he said, but there was a ring of truth to it. Especially the “hired to do” part.

“Who hired you? And for what?” I asked.

“Oh, that is such a long story,” Kramer responded as he looked about Critter’s saloon.

It was a fairly large room and could hold fifty or more people if needed, but at that moment, it was only myself, Stella, Elsbeth, Critter, Melissa, Buzz and Gunga Fitzpatrick, Stuart, John, and Reaper. I think Reaper was there. Was he? Shit, I can’t remember.

“May I have a drink?” Kramer asked as his eyes turned towards the bar. “Water is fine, but if you have something more...substantial then that would be delightful.”

Critter pulled himself away from the Elsbeth containment corps and rushed up to Kramer. I don’t think the doctor was expecting the treatment he received from the old highwayman that grabbed him by his shirt and tossed him halfway across the room. Well, maybe not halfway, since Critter is getting on in years and doesn’t have the strength his mountain sized nephews do, but he did throw the guy pretty far.

“You ain’t drinkin’ a goddamned drop of nothin’ until you tell us everythin’ you know!” Critter shouted as he grabbed a collapsible baton from one of the tables and snapped it open. It was sharpened at the end in order to pierce Z skulls, but Kramer instantly realized it would pierce his skull just as easily.

“Now, hold on Mr. Fitzpatrick,” Kramer said as he held up his hands. “There is no need for your more violent side to show itself.”

“My name is Critter,” Critter snapped. “Mr. Fitzpatrick was my father and that man had a violent side that would make you shit your pants. You keep callin’ me Mr. Fitzpatrick and I’ll show you what a violent side really is. Now get your ass up and sit in that chair there! You spill what you know or I feed ya to the Zs!”

Kramer nodded and made a show of struggling to get up and into the chair, Critter pointed to with the baton. He sat down and looked about the saloon once more as he swallowed hard.

“At the risk of being impaled upon your weapon,” Kramer said, “I could use a glass of water if I am to dive into what will be a long and complicated tale.”