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The Adventures of Max
Blood: Zombie Hunter
The
following is an excerpt from The Chronicles of Max Blood - Zombie
Hunter which should be available later this year from Dark Moon.
This is the first chapter of the book and is only a rough draft, so
please be lenient in your criticism here. We are only including it
here because we have had several requests to do so. Enjoy!
Chapter One
Max knelt down
behind the stone fence leading into the cemetery.
The sun had long
since made its departure from the horizon and the ghostly silver image
of the moon faded in and out through the mist.
“Why the fuck
are graveyards always foggy?” Paco Jones asked.
“Just to scare
the piss out of you,” Ray Martinez said with a grin.
“First, of all I
ain’t scared,” Paco retorted. “And second of all, that was a
rhetorical question?”
“What kind of
question?” Skeeter Glick asked.
“Rhetorical,”
Paco replied. “Shit. And here I thought I went to a bad high school.
Where’d you go? Mongo High?”
“Never heard of
it,” Skeeter replied.
“You gotta be
shittin’ me,” Paco declared and then he quoted from the movie. “Candy
gram for Mongo? Silver balloons?”
“What the fuck
are you talking about?” Skeeter asked.
“Never mind,”
Paco muttered. “Shit. You’re almost as dumb as Frank Drebin.”
“Frank who?”
Ray laughed
softly.
“Would you guys
shut the fuck up!” Max snapped. “My pants are getting wet from
kneeling here in the mud and my head hurts from listening to a bad
Abbott and Costello routine. And don’t ask me who they are, Skeeter.”
“I know who Jim
Abbott is,” Skeeter replied. “He played for the Yankees. Threw a
no-hitter against Cleveland in 1993. I think Costello was on that same
team.”
Max and Paco
just looked at each other and shook their heads. Ray clapped Skeeter
on the back and reached in his pocket for a cigarette.
Max grabbed his
arm and shook his head.
“Those things
are gonna kill you, Billy Ray. Besides, somebody might see it.”
He actually
meant ‘something’, but he left it unsaid. They all knew what he meant.
Billy Ray put a
the cancer stick between his lips, but didn’t light it.
The snap of a
branch quickly returned their attention to the graveyard.
Max put a finger
over his mouth and pointed off to his left.
Through the mist
staggered a figure.
“It’s either a
zombie or the minister’s drunk again,” Billy Ray whispered.
Max smiled.
He pulled his
arm out of the sling of the crossbow and a bolt from the ‘ammo’ belt
at his side.
They had learned
over the past few weeks to kill as silently as possible. Especially in
areas that were more likely to be areas of infestation. Graveyards
seemed to be one of those areas. Shopping malls and subways were also
high on the list. Ridership on the New York subway system had dropped
dramatically over the past few months.
Just yesterday
there had been a story on the news about an old geezer who had died
of a heart attack near the Castle Hill stop in the Bronx. That wasn’t
the tragic part. He had re-animated a few minutes later and killed
three more passengers until a little old lady had driven the tip of
her umbrella through the top of his skull.
Max loved his
crossbow. Of course, he also carried a British Fairbairn-Sykes combat
knife in his belt and a Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol in a holster
on his left hip.
Paco preferred
his Mossberg 500 12 Gauge sawed-off shotgun. Luckily for him, Federal
regulations on such things had been eased since the outbreak. Of
course, he probably would have been carrying it anyway. It had been
one of his favorites even while he had been running with the
9th Street
Coyotes. His close in fighting weapon of choice was a KM 2000 combat
knife.
Billy Ray was
the wild man of the bunch and that was saying something. All he
carried was an old German Luger that his father had brought home after
World War II. Other than that, he loved snapping a zombie’s neck.
Max had told him
more than once that he was gonna get himself killed that way someday.
Billy Ray had
just laughed.
Skeeter usually
just grabbed whatever was lying around.
Today he wore a
Browning 9 mm in a holster on his right hip and a shiny machete he’d
ordered from some catalog.
Yep, they might
quite a crew.
But they had
been highly effective since starting their business.
At last count
they had 223 zombie kills to their credit.
Although it
hadn’t been planned that way, the business was now very profitable.
There were lots
of people out there who either didn’t have the heart to dispatch a
family member themselves or who had lost track of a zombie member and
wanted them ‘helped’. Actually, they didn’t want them to wonder home
sometime in the middle of the night for a light snack of brains.
Zombies didn’t have much in the mental processing department, but they
somehow remembered familiar places.
And that’s what
brought them here.
Mrs. Emily
Proctor had hired them to find and ‘dispose’ of her husband. He had
died after cutting off his hand in their basement while sawing wood to
make his wife a new cabinet. He had bleed to death before being able
to call 911. He had already re-animated by the time his wife had
returned home from the store. She had barely escaped out the back door
with her life. She had left the door open and he walked out and
disappeared into the woods behind their house.
Max looked at
the picture in his hand.
Nice looking
fellow, he thought. Wonder what he looks like now?
He didn’t know
if the picture would do much good. Mr. Proctor had already been on the
loose for over a week. Decomposition took place slower than normal in
the undead, but it still occurred.
“I’m going
around to the right,” Max told his crew.
And it was his
crew.
He kept waiting
for Paco to challenge his authority, but so far there’d been no
trouble. He liked Paco and he was one hell of a fighter, but they were
from different sides of the track. While Max had been practicing with
his band (Bloodhounds and Bodies) in the garage, Paco had been dealing
drugs in Harlem.
“Paco,” he said.
“Keep the Mossberg handy. Skeeter and Billy Ray, hang loose. I’m going
to try to do this quiet in case Mr. Proctor has friends hanging
around.”
“How do you know
it’s Mr. Proctor?” Skeeter asked.
“This is where
he buried his mother just last month. I hope it’s him anyway. His wife
wants proof of the ‘disposal’ before she pays us. He’s wearing a gold
watch with an inscription bearing their anniversary date.”
“Why do I have
to stay here?” Billy Ray whined.
“Because that
stupid Luger of yours jams every other time you use it,” Paco
retorted. “Last time out you almost got us killed.”
“Ya, but I
snapped that mutha’s neck like a pretzel, didn’t I? Sweet!”
“You’re sick,
Billy Ray,” Paco told him.
“Maybe so, but
your sister really, really liked me last night.”
“I ain’t got no
sister, bro,” Paco informed him as they watched the shadowy figure
stumble around in the moonlight. “You must have been with my grandma.”
Max silenced
them again.
“Here I go,” he
whispered.
“Can I videotape
it?” Skeeter asked.
Max frowned.
Skeeter had
quite the collection of DVDs recording their exploits. He claimed he
was going to edit them some day and make a movie.
“Whatever turns
your crank,” Max replied.
Max skirted
along the edge of the stone wall and the only sound he made was the
squishing of his Nikes in the wet grass and dirt. He kept a firm grip
on the crossbow. The bolt was already locked into firing position.
Glancing back, he could barely make out his team through the fog which
was becoming more dense as the evening deepened.
He entered
through a stone archway and stepped off the graveled walk when the
crunch of his feet startled him. Hopefully their prey hadn’t heard. He
squinted his eyes and could make out the silhouette of the zombie
fifty odd yards to the right.
The quite undead
Mr. Proctor, formerly an accountant by trade, was bumping into a
rather large headstone and had not yet figured out how to maneuver
around it.
“And now he
can’t even add one and one,” Max whispered to the grave next to him.
Crouching low,
he darted quietly to the cover of a huge old oak tree.
“Close enough,”
he whispered.
“Probably,” a
voice in the dark answered.
Max felt his
heart lose a beat.
He turned,
finger tightening on the trigger mechanism.
“Hey, dude!”
Billy Ray grumbled. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing!”
Max almost
couldn’t stop his finger from reacting.
“Shit, Billy
Ray! You nearly had a crossbow bolt sticking out of your chest!”
“C'est la vie,”
his compatriot remarked with a shrug.
“Do you even
know what that means?” Max asked.
“It’s a Shania
Twain song,” Billy Ray replied. “You know. Somebody stop me -- I need
another coffee -- Like a hole in my head.”
“I don’t know,”
Max replied. “I don’t follow country.”
“Oh, that’s
right. You had a grunge band or something.”
“Grunge is
dead,” Max informed him. “We were just sort of indie garage.”
“Whatever,”
Billy Ray declared. “If it don’t have a banjo or a fiddle, it ain’t
music.”
“Glad to see
you’re so broad minded.”
“That’s just the
way I roll, dawg,” Billy Ray quipped.
Max glanced out
into the evening again. His zombie accountant was still trying to find
a way around the tombstone in his path.
“I thought I
told you to hang back?”
“That’s like
trying to tell a rooster to stay out of the hen house, cuzin,” Billy
Ray said.
Max shook his
head.
“Just be quiet.
I think I can hit him from here.”
He put the
crossbow back against his shoulder and lined up Mr. Proctor’s head in
the weapon’s sights. He squeezed slowly until he felt the sudden
release of the bolt.
The bolt zipped
through the distance in a split second.
The zombie
staggered for a moment and then toppled over the top of the headstone,
the bolt stuck dead center in the middle of his forehead.
“Frack that
shit, dude!” Billy Ray exclaimed. “Max 1, zombie 0.”
“Quiet! Our
zombie might have friends in the area.”
“Well, bring ‘em
on, dawg. You shouldn’t be the only one having fun tonight!”
“Shut the fuck
up, Billy Ray!”
Billy Ray
crossed his arms and began pouting.
That was fine
with Max as long as he was quiet.
Billy Ray pulled
his lighter from his pocket and lit the cigarette that had been
dangling from his lips.
“Let’s go get
the watch,” Max said as he slung the crossbow over his shoulder. “And
my bolt. Those things aren’t cheap.”
What happened
next took place so fast that Max could not clearly recall although
Paco and Skeeter swear it all happened in slow motion.
A second zombie
seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Before Max could
respond, the undead thing had grabbed Billy Ray by the arm.
It had been dead
(or rather undead) for quite some time. Flesh hung off its face in
huge patches until parts of its skull gleamed through the moonlight.
The bones of his hands were poking through the decaying flesh of his
hands as the creature tugged at Billy Ray’s arm.
Max pulled his
combat knife from his belt, but his buddy gestured for him to stay
back.
“No worries,
bro!” Billy Ray bellowed. “I got this fuckin’ shit head.”
Billy Ray
grabbed the Luger from his belt, took steady aim and pulled the
trigger.
Click!
“Shit,” he said.
Max stepped
forward, but Billy Ray motioned him back again.
“This ain’t no
time to play around, Billy Ray!”
“I told you I
got this. Jeez, I hope Skeeter is still shooting. This is gonna be
some sweet footage!”
He spun around
until he was behind the zombie and reached around to grab his chin.
One simple twist
is all it would take.
But it didn’t
work out that way.
His arm wrapped
around the zombie’s neck, but not before the undead creature bit
savagely into Billy Ray’s forearm. Unfortunately, Billy Ray had left
his leather jacket in the truck. Didn’t want to get it dirty, was what
he had said.
The shirt he was
wearing was much too thin and the zombie’s yellowed, broken teeth tore
through it and into Billy Ray’s flesh quite easily.
Billy Ray
screamed and pushed himself away from his decomposing foe.
“Goddammit!” Max
roared. Goddammit it all to hell, Billy Ray!”
He pulled the
Walther P99 from his holster and put three slugs into the back of the
zombie’s head. The shots echoed through the graveyard and a flock of
birds (or maybe bats?) took flight from the old oak tree. At this
point Max really didn’t care about the noise.
The creature
stood there for a moment tottering back and forth. Max put two more
bullets into his skull which was already half blown away. It flopped
to the ground like the sack of shit it was and lay still.
Max kicked it
savagely two or three times out of frustration and then finally turned
to his comrade who knelt on the ground holding his bleeding arm.
“I... I fucked
up good,” Billy Ray whispered in a ghostly voice. “You kept tellin’ me
cigarettes were gonna kill me, Max. Guess they did in a way.”
Max could hear
Paco and Skeeter running up the gravel path.
They were
speechless as they gathered around.
Max sat down
beside his buddy ignoring the cold, wet grass underneath him.
“It’s okay.
Don’t worry about it.”
Billy Ray was
sobbing.
It was
terrifying to see the change in his personality.
“Max?” Billy Ray
said in a soft voice as he tried to pull himself together.
“What is it,
Billy Ray?”
“I’m sorry...”
“No worries,
buddy.”
Billy Ray
coughed.
“Skeeter?”
Skeeter looked
lost. The two had known each other since high school. Billy Ray had
even caught the winning touchdown pass from Skeeter in the State
Championship game.
“Hey, Billy Ray,
how’s it hanging...”
“Low and to the
right, dude,” Billy Ray replied after another fit of coughing.
Skeeter? Will you... you know... do the honors... when I...”
Skeeter licked
his lips and glanced at Max.
Max nodded.
“Sure...”
Skeeter said softly.
“With the Luger?
It’s kinda special, you know...”
“As long as it
don’t misfire,” Skeeter said with a half laugh.
Billy Ray tried
to laugh, but it turned into a series of long, deep coughs.
“Jeez, I’m
scared, Skeeter.”
Skeeter actually
reached out and took his hand. It was so un-skeeterlike that Max had
to wipe away a quick tear.
“Hey, Paco?”
Billy Ray whispered.
“I’m here,
brother,” Paco said. “Whatcha need?”
“My porn
collection is all yours, buddy.”
Paco chuckled.
“My name ain’t
Buddy...”
A few minutes
later he was gone.
And then they
just had to wait.
Max and Paco
left Skeeter with his friend and began a patrol of the cemetery to
make sure there weren’t any more undead lurking in the area. Max sat
with the his friend’s Lugar in his hand with Billy Ray propped up
against one of the headstones.
Watching...
Watching...
Nearly an hour
later, Max and Paco wandered back to their van.
“I need a beer,”
Paco said as he leaned up against the front fender.
“You always need
a beer,” Max replied.
“Ya, but tonight
I really, really need a beer.”
Max nodded.
A few minutes
later a single gunshot rang out from the cemetery.
Paco and Max
both jumped.
“Guess the Lugar
didn’t jam,” Max said as he kicked at the dirt.
A few minutes
later Skeeter walked out of the graveyard.
His slid the
Lugar into his belt as he opened the door of the van.
“Fuckin’
zombies,” he muttered. “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge...”
Copyright 2009 by Stan Swanson |
