Hunting Season (5 page)

A look of confusion nests on the taller guy's face.  He looks at the shorter guy but the shorter guy only shrugs.

After a few moments, the shorter guy says, "Yo, I know what we do.  We find a bum and make him kick this joka's ass and sell to them
Bum Duels
dudes."

"
Bum Duels
?" the taller guy says.

"They'd buy Scared Shitless Guy losing to a bum in a heartbeat."

"Yeah."  The taller guy looks at me.  "You gonna be a
Bum Duels
star."

*  *  *  *  *

My reflection in the mirror looks like pounded prime rib.  Both my eyes are swollen and purple.  Crusted blood rims my nostrils.  Blood streams run down my cheeks and chin from my nose and lips.

The fucking bum beat the shit out of me.

I didn't get to fight back, of course.  The two assholes held me at gunpoint and told me not to fight or they'd shoot me.  So, I got my ass kicked by a drunk who smelled like rotten cheese.

In a few weeks, hell, probably in a few days, my face will be seen on the latest
Bum Duels
release.  I can already see the tagline:  SCARED SHITLESS GUY GETS SHIT KICKED OUT OF HIM BY BUM!

Fuck, I think.  My career is an abortion and my life is damn near worthless except to those who want to torment me for money.

I probably should call the cops but already hear them laughing at me once they find out who I am.  Not to mention the fact admitting I let a bum beat me senseless makes me want to kill myself.

It won't end, I know.  I want to find the tall guy and the short guy and murder them.  But what good would it do?  As soon as my guest spot on
Bum Duels
releases, more wise asses will come along looking to get famous off my misery.  Or they'll just show up to scare me and laugh at my reaction.  And each time, the method of instilling fear will grow more and more exotic.  Tonight was a gun.  In a week, it'll be a transvestite beating me with a two foot dildo.

No, I need to end this.  I could leave town but the internet is everywhere.  I'm not a Hollywood star.  I'm international.  An image of me being forced to play Russian roulette where one Vietnamese guy slaps me while another controls a live webcast flashes through my mind.

No.  I have to end it.  Running away isn't an option.  I could kill myself but where's the satisfaction in that?

How do I end it?  How do I make something popular and funny unfunny?

*  *  *  *  *

"I've figured it out," I say.  "I know how to kill the popularity of the YouTube video."

I pause to take a sip of whiskey and look down at my audience.  The doctor on the left, the other doctor, and the hot receptionist.  I've tied them up and gagged them and sat them next to each other on my couch.  Their eyes are wide and desperate.  Their fingers fidget, trying to undue the knots.

"You have to go back to the beginning, to the origin of the joke.  You have to come full circle."

I smirk and look back at the camera.  I am the actor, writer, and director of this tragic third act.  I only headlined the first two but now I've taken creative control.

Finding them wasn't difficult.  I knocked out their limo driver at their new show's launch party.  When they jumped in the back, drunk off their asses, they became my property.  I just waved the gun to keep them in check and drove home.  Once here I made the receptionist tie and gag her partners before I secured her.

"Now whose scared shitless?" I say to the camera and motion my head toward the three.  "This doesn't end with me laughing, though."

Standing over the doctor on the left, I level a .357 at his head.

"To make something funny and popular unpopular you have to make it unfunny.  You may be thinking, 'Sure but how do you make it unfunny?'  Simple.  You make it tragic."

I don't hesitate and fire a round in his face.  The roar from the barrel echoes off the drywall as blood and meat spray everybody.

The other doctor and the receptionist scream around their rags and try to run away from the twitching body they're tied to.  Neither moves more than a few inches, the rope holding them fixed in place, unable to escape their fate.

Wipe blood off my eyes and level the .357 and fire the next round into the other doctor's face.  Then I complete the trilogy, finishing off the receptionist in the same fashion.

I step back and take in my work.  Three twitching corpses lined-up neatly on my couch.  Blood and bone and tissue everywhere.  Their faces look like the smooth flesh mounds they wore the day of the practical joke, only turned inside out.

Neither happiness nor repulsion fills me.  Just indifference.  Probably the easiest thing I've ever done.

I nod, a job well done but not yet complete.

You're nothing without a decent set of headshots, I think and chuckle.

Kneeling in front of the camera and looking into the lens, I push the hot stainless steel barrel into my mouth.

Thinking about headshots, I squeeze the trig-

A SLICE OF HEAVEN ON THE EDGE OF HELL

Martin leaned on the railing of South Tower and scanned the Tijuana Estuary with a pair of high power binoculars.  Tall grass swayed in a cool sea breeze.  A few rabbits ran through the brush.  A heron stood in the marsh, one leg bent and lifted out of the water.

Peaceful.  Quiet.

Munchers never approached from the Estuary.  Didn't like the water.  Martin laughed every time he thought about it.  The dead had somehow retained the ability to sprint after prey but couldn't swim to save their dead lives.

Martin had seen hundreds run out into the middle of the Estuary, sink to their waist and then flail about for hours.  Too bad they couldn't drown, being undead and all.  Instead, the fire teams had to slog out into the marsh and burn them in the water.  Not easy and pretty time consuming.  Thankfully the Munchers had quit trying the southern approach.  Which also proved they could adapt.  Learn.  Zombie + Learning = Scary.  Martin hadn't seen one enter the Estuary in a year.  But he always checked, hoping he'd see one or two, hoping the bastards weren't learning.  Because if they were, were canoes not far behind?

East was another story.  Martin shifted from the southwest and scanned the eastern border.  He remembered when the Wall had once been Interstate 5.  He'd driven it every day when he worked for the Border Patrol.  Now, it was the Wall.  The thing keeping the undead horde at bay.  All the underpasses had been filled in with vehicles.  Forty-foot fences topped with razor wire ran down both sides of the highway.  More vehicles, industrial equipment, even wrecked aircraft, had been placed in the commuter lanes to act as obstacles.  Where the Munchers had given up (for now) on the Estuary, they attacked the Wall with what seemed like renewed vigor every day.

But today, nothing out of the usual.  Martin kept scanning, humming a classic Rolling Stones tune as he did-

There.  Movement.  A breach in the outer fence and three Munchers sprinting toward the inner fence, curving and weaving around the obstacles.

Martin picked up his radio.  "South Fire, South Tower."

"Go ahead, South Tower."

"I've got three Munchers in No Man's Land heading for the inner fence near the old Coronado off-ramp."

"Got it.  Going to hit them on the fence?"

"Yeah.  Will try to drop them close."

"Thanks."

Martin lowered the radio and tucked his .50 caliber sniper rifle into his shoulder.  He steadied on the mount and peered through the scope, lining up the first Muncher.  No point in trying to hit them while they were running.  He'd wait until they made the inner fence.

It took five more seconds before the first one reached the fence.  Martin squeezed the trigger almost reflexively.  He'd quit caring or counting kills long ago.  He'd quit question the sanity of it all.

The Muncher's head exploded in a cloud of dust.  It didn't kill them.  Nothing except fire did that.  But head shots pretty much made them harmless bags of flopping bones.  The high caliber round took out the eyes and nose and teeth.  So, nothing to see you with or smell you with or eat you with, my dear.

The second and third Munchers hit the fence at the same time.  Martin dropped the second and shifted to the third.  The last one, what once had been a young girl, was a quarter of the way up when Martin took her head off.

"South Fire, South Tower.  Munchers down."

"Thanks.  Will roast the fuckers here in a second.  Do me a favor and pass the word to the Maintainers about that breach?"

"Will do."  Martin lowered the radio and picked his binoculars back up and started scanning again.  He still had four more hours of watch.

*  *  *  *  *

?

The sun was on its way down when Martin got home.  Bonita stood in the kitchen, her black hair pulled back in a pony tail.  He watched her for a few moments as she flipped fish fillets in the skillet.  Then she looked up and saw him in the doorway watching her and smiled.

"How long have you been standing there?" she said.

"Just a few seconds."

Martin set his Glock on the table and walked into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her.  Bonita returned the embrace, kissing him first on the neck and then on the lips.

"How was work?"

Martin shrugged.  "Same old, same old.  What's for dinner?"

"Same old, same old."

They both chuckled.

"Did you mow the yard?" Martin said.

"No, I got Tommy to do it.  He was already mowing his."

Martin had been meaning to mow for the last week but work kept interrupting.  He was glad Tommy had taken care of it.  The teenager from next door was good for helping out like that.

"Hey, want to go watch the sunset real quick?" Bonita said.

"What about the food?"

"It's done.  It needs to cool anyway."

"Sure, let's go."

The walk to the beach was short.  They lived in a cottage a block away.  Already a good-sized crowd stood on the Pier, watching the sun go down over the Pacific.  Martin led Bonita past it and onto the beach.  They sat, curling their feet through the sand.  On the water, small fishing boats bobbed on gentle waves.  Near the horizon, a merchant vessel sailed north.  Probably to the Port of Los Angeles.

"Even after everything we've been through, it's still hard to believe life is normal here," Bonita said, her arm wrapped around his, her chin on his shoulder.

She was right.  They had managed to carve out a life with thousands of other survivors in the small town of Imperial Beach and north on the Coronado Peninsula.  Both were easy to defend.  They had access to food (Thank you, Mr. Pacific).  Life was good, considering.  They'd even established trade with other communities of survivors up and down the coast.

"It's a slice of heaven onthe edge of hell," Martin said.

Bonita slapped his shoulder gently and giggled.  "Way to ruin a mood."

"Sorry."  Martin hugged her tight.  "It's a slice of heaven.  How's that?"

"Better."

As the sun touched the horizon, Bonita said, "Do you think we'll ever have kids?"

Martin frowned and kept his eyes on the ocean.  They'd been trying for so long now with no luck.  But what could he say?  No?  And kill that little bit of hope she had?

"One day, honey.  One day."

The sun disappeared on the other side of the world and the sky flashed green.

"Did you see it?" Bonita said.

"Yeah, I saw it."

*  *  *  *  *

Martin kissed Bonita hard and pushed deep into her.  She rocked her hips up to meet his thrust, in perfect rhythm with him.  His lips moved to her cheek and then her neck and to her ear where he nibbled on the lobe.  She moaned and dug her nails into his back.

"Now?" he said.

"Not yet," she said.  "Just a little longer."

Over the town loudspeaker, a hallow voice rang out.  "All snipers to their towers.  All snipers to their towers."

Martin froze and grunted.  "Shit."

"Don't go."

"I have to."

He pushed off her, sliding out unceremoniously, and started pulling clothes on.

Bonita sat up and pulled the sheet over her waist.  "You could have finished.  You were almost there."

"Don't start.  They wouldn't call all of us in unless there were a horde of Munchers on the Wall.  I got to go."

"Screw the Wall.  I want my husband for one uninterrupted night."

It's the wine talking, Martin thought.  They had polished off two bottles since coming back from the beach.  Let it go.

"The Wall protects us and I protect the Wall.  Remember the slice of heaven we both love?  Thank the Wall."

"No point in having a slice of heaven if you won't give me a baby."

Martin stared at her a long moment; at her gentle eyes which had suddenly grown cold, at pursed lips which had only minutes before been kissing his own.  It always came back to a baby.

In vino veritas, he thought.

"I'm sorry I haven't given you a baby."  Martin slid his Glock in its holster.  "It's not like I haven't tried.  Maybe we need to face the fact we aren't meant to have one."

"Maybe you can't make one."

It's the wine, he thought, gritting his teeth.  No truth.  Just wine.  Let it go.

"I've got to go."  Martin stood in the doorway to the bedroom and looked back at her.  "I love you."

"Yeah."

Martin clenched his fists but let it go.  He'd deal with it later.  Right now, he had to get to work.

*  *  *  *  *

Two hours later, Martin walked back up to the front door.  The outer fence had been breached again and this time forty Munchers had swarmed through.  Three made it through the inner fence before the snipers took them and the rest down.  Something was going to have to be done if they were going to keep attacking in numbers like that.  Someone had suggested making landmines to put in No Man's Land.  Good idea.  Now they just needed the material.

Martin rubbed his face, tired.  His eyes stung and his neck ached.  He was ready for some sleep.