Zombie Bitches From Hell (7 page)

“It’s corn, man, more corn than I think I
could ever see. Fucking look at it,” says Tim.

I am speechless. What’s to say? It’s an ocean
of corn spreading to the horizon. We’re down to about a hundred
feet.

“Why so low?” I ask. “Is it safe?”

“Safe? Fuck no, it’s not safe but we need to
scout out some grub.”

“You’re not thinking corn on the cob for the
next twenty meals are you?” I ask.

“No. But look yonder,” he says, pointing
eastward into the rising sun. The clouds have all run away, like
thieves in the night.

A half mile directly in front of us is the
white steeple of a church, the sun catching the glint off of its
honest to God bell, not one of those megaphone pre-recorded jobbers
like you see nowadays. It’s a real bell in a real steeple.
Something out of Norman Rockwell. And don’t ask me who that is. All
I know, he paints cheese-ball paintings of happy people doing happy
American shit like from the thirties and forties. You know, happy
shit like eating dinner and talking at a town meeting and praying
at a church that looks just like the one we’re homing in on.

“Fuck, Tim. We’re going to clear it,
right?

“Yepper, Cap’n. Hard to up,” he says as he
fires the burner with a loud blast and sends us up another hundred
feet. “I think we need to land near here. See that outbuilding near
the church. It’s the parson’s house or some such thing. Might be
good people holed up there. Look around. There’s nothing for
miles.”

He’s right. There is not a town anywhere as
far as I can see and this flat field must go a good fifty miles in
any direction. Could be the town is in a river valley and the low
sun and waving corn is playing tricks with our eyes. The GPS says
that Iowa state road 142 runs north and south about a mile ahead.
So there is some civilization somewhere.

“Let’s bring her down a few hundred yards
past the church,” I say, noticing at the same time that there is a
full plank fence all the way around, making the church the center
of a compound. I can make out what looks like a well house and, as
the sun is no longer in our eyes, the skeleton frame of a windmill,
spinning slowly in the morning breeze, the same breeze following
us.

Tim steers the balloon like he’s at the state
fair, swinging wide around the steeple and dropping low, a sort of
swoop that he has a way of doing that brings the gondola up and
over and then down in a sort of hover outside the church, away from
the yard where some asshole can’t easily jump in it. Just before we
land we see a sign, ST. TERESA OF ALBICORN CONVENT with a pretty
gold cross surrounded by a halo or some might say a wreath of corn
still in the husk.

“Tim,” I whisper. “This is a goddamned
convent…a nunnery, dude. Bitches and nothing but.”

“Now what?” he asks.

“How the fuck do I know. Maybe they’re gone.
Maybe they’re holed up. Get the guns and don’t fire till you see
the pink of their nipples,” I say, more a fool today than I was
yesterday, less a fool than I’ll be tomorrow. Tim jumps over the
side of the gondola and does the tether thing, dimming the flame to
an idle.

“I hope they have some butter and salt and a
goddamned popper, because I’m not leaving until the show is over,”
he says as he starts walking toward the convent. “Forgive me
Father, because I might have to sin. But I sure hope not.”

I hate to do it, but I tie MG loosely to the
inside of the balloon. It’s hard enough for him to jump in and out
and right now I don’t want to have to carry him.

We approach cautiously and notice that the
fancy wrought-iron gate in the middle of a ten foot high brick wall
is not locked. I’m thinking this is like one of those lobster traps
like where you put a piece of lobster food in the back of a cage
and leave the door open. The stupid lobster thinks someone forgot
his lunch and the next thing he knows he’s bright red, covered with
butter and deader than Abe Lincoln.

“I don’t think this is safe,” I say to
Rick.

“Sure, boss, but what are we going to do
about supplies? I think that MacDonalds is only serving breakfast
and I’m hankering for some chicken Maccrappits.”

“Well, let’s be careful.”

“Sounds like a plan, chief,” says Tim.
“Careful is one of my middle names. The other is ‘Stupid.’”

The big oak door of the convent is locked
tight and looks like it’s been that way for a few centuries. A sign
near the door says, DELIVERIES IN REAR. I wait for some inane
comment from Tim, but he’s looking more serious now.

We circle the building, crouching every time
we go by a window. Around the back is an orchard and apples and are
all over the place, stinking like mad and covered with a bazillion
yellow jackets. The last window is slightly open and I hear a moan
from inside.

“Tim…
shhhhh
,” I whisper. “Someone’s
inside.”

Tim circles a huge rose bush and gets low to
the sill and peeks over. I do the same. The room is dark except for
some shafts of light streaming through a stained glass window about
ten feet up. There are wooden chairs in neat rows and a crucifix
against the wall. We watch for a while and see or hear nothing.
Then, another groan.

I shade my eyes with my hand and scan the
room. Nothing. Then I see the crucifix move and figure it’s a trick
of the light. We circle the building carefully crouching beneath
each window. There is no one there, but there is a crucifix in
every room. We circle again and still the same. There is moaning
from one of the rooms. We look inside carefully and now realize
that the crucifix has a live dude on it. It’s just too dark and
shadowy to see exactly what is going on.

“Let’s go in,” says Tim.

“What for?”

“He’s alive.”

“He’s two minutes from death and even if he
farts a prayer up to Heaven and manages to live we can’t carry
around a burden like that.”

“Then let’s get some supplies. And maybe
there are other guys in here.”

“What are you going to do with guys?”

“Save ’em. Just because the bitches are
animals doesn’t make us animals. Right?”

I just look at him and think that maybe the
sun has baked his brain. I follow him to the back door and sneak in
behind him as it creaks open. Flies are buzzing and it smells like
garbage that hasn’t been taken out in six weeks.

The kitchen is huge but nothing is used. It’s
as if everybody up and left in a hurry. There’s a little cross over
the door leading to the rest of the convent and a stitched sampler
with the Lord’s Prayer done in real neat threads and pictures of
little girls and boys kneeling in prayer while an angel hovers over
their heads.

We walk under the small cross into the dining
hall. It’s huge with a table that could seat maybe twenty people.
It’s neat and tidy with a pewter bowl at each seat; no knives or
forks. On the wall between the windows so that the glare from
outside blurs our vision is a life-sized cross. There is a statue
of Jesus lying on the floor next to it.

“Guess he thought it would be better to leave
and didn’t quite make it to his chariot,” says Tim.

“But who the fuck is on the cross?” I
ask.

“Help meeeee,” a voice says. “For the love of
God, help me.” There is the man, naked, nailed to the cross in the
place of the fake Jesus.

“Jesus,” I say more like a dumbass than
usual.

Tim heads over. “You okay?”

“Fuck no, man, do I look okay? The bitches
have crucified me. Get me down before they come back. Please!”

“Before who comes back?” I ask.

“The nuns.”

“Nuns?” I say.

“Yeah, they’re zombies, man. Get me
down.”

“How?” asks Tim.

“There’s tools in the drawer over there. In
that chest of drawers. Get something to pull the nails out.” Tim
goes over and opens the draw pulling out a claw hammer. I stand
next to the guy and see that he has ropes tied around both
legs.

“Hurry. Please!” he says.

Tim pulls a chair over and stands on it and
starts working the nail that’s through the guy’s wrists. Then I see
that his feet are gone. And most of the flesh on his calves.

“Man, what did they do?” I ask.

“They cut my fucking feet off. To eat them.
Drink the blood. Stop me from bleeding to death by tying
tourniquets around the legs. There’s more of us in here. Every
room.”

I can see he’s delirious, going in and out of
consciousness.

“Bless you my sons. This day you will be in
heaven with me,” he says.

“That would be nice,” Tim answers.

We bring him to a sofa and lie him down. He’s
bleeding and all his wounds are festering with puss and maggots.
Flies buzz around us.

“How did he survive?” asks Tim.

“By the will of the almighty, my sons,” he
says.

“Can you tell us anything?”

“Help the others. I’ll be OK.”

“But are the bitches coming back?” I ask.

“Yesssssss. They will be here soon and you
will become one with us and the Lord,” he says.

“I don’t think so, buddy. Can you tell us
what’s going on here?” asks Tim.

“They use our blood and flesh as part of
a….”

We hear the metal gate outside grinding open
and the sounds of gravel crunching on the driveway. Tim runs over
to the window.

“You ain’t gonna believe this. Them nuns are
driving. Did you know they could do that?”

“Shit no. How is that even possible?”

“Now what?”

“Put him in front of the cross like he fell
off. Let’s hide upstairs.”

“Yes,” he says. “Upstairs. They don’t go
upstairs. Never. But first do me a favor.”

“Sure. What?”

“Kill me.”

“What?”

“Please kill me. I can’t go through this
anymore.”

“But….”

Tim takes the claw hammer and smashes the
guy’s skull in with a solid thwack that spatters brain and blood
all over. The family-friendly cameraman I once knew no longer
resides in Tim’s bones. The man has changed, but I am not
complaining. Drastic times and all that.

“Come on. Drag him over here,” he says. We
drop him at the foot of the cross, toppled like he struggled, fell
and crushed his own head.

“Let’s get upstairs,” I say.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” says Tim as he runs for
the stairway. “I hope that poor fucker was right.”

CHAPTER 10

The second floor was a catacomb of small
bedrooms. Really they were just cubicles with small cots with straw
mattresses and a tiny bedside table with a lamp. The beds had not
been slept in nor were they made. In the main corridor was a large
grate in the floor which gave a view of the main living area below.
I had seen this sort of thing in older houses where the heater was
in the cellar and would generate heat in the upper stories simply
by its rising through strategically placed vents in the floor.
There were no blowers or any type of electrical assistance
whatsoever; just convection.

Tim went into one of the cells and looked out
a small window. He signaled to me to come over. In the courtyard
below were a large van and a station wagon. The wagon had about six
or eight nuns in it, all of whom stood by while two nuns unloaded
the van. In the van were four guys in prison uniforms. It was
obvious what had happened. The nuns were probably regular visitors
at the state penitentiary to bring food and religious guidance to
the bunch of miscreants within. When the GaGa hit, the bitches,
formerly ladies of the cloth, took to using the prison as a stock
yard, some part of their brain still latched onto their old daily
routine. Those criminal fuckers could not get out and the nuns knew
how to get in.

Here’s what scared me the most. Those nuns
were organized. Dead, yes, but somehow communicating and thinking.
My only guess was either the virus had evolved in them, beyond
something we’d ever seen before, or all of their prayers over the
years had given them some kind of divine power.

The guys were in shackles and tied to each
other chain gang style. One of the nuns had a gray outfit on, the
others were in typical black and white. She was obviously the
Mother Superior or whatever she was called because she was giving
silent orders to the others who said nothing but simply prodded the
guys into the convent with pitch forks which they had gathered from
where they had been left along the side of the building facing the
orchard. I had seen them on our reconnoiter but hadn’t thought
twice about it. I mean, nuns make their own shit and grow their own
food and such. I guess they still do but it ain’t corn, nor wheat,
nor roses, my friends; it’s fucking creeps from the local
pokie.

The guys’ mouths were taped shut, but they
were screaming anyway. Several of them had bloodied arms and legs
and unless my imagination had got the better of me, there were
tears in the clothing like they had been bitten by dogs. But I’m
sure it was the bitches putting the fear of God in these bastards
the best way they knew how: tooth and nail.

We watched with wide eyes and I kept thinking
they were going to see our balloon like a giant, swollen testicle
in a field of pubic corn husks, or hear MG’s whimpering, but they
were too damned focused on their catch.

The next moments are still vivid.

Tim and I tiptoe over to the heat vent and
watch the action. The door is kicked wide open and we can first
hear the men screaming through their muffled mouths. The bitches
are chittering with their teeth like squirrels that haven’t eaten
in a year. There are six guys and they are all herded into the room
right below us. One of them tries to kick out at a nun and she goes
for the offending leg, biting through the tough striped fabric and
tearing away at the flesh of his shin. He howls and is then smashed
in the face with a right hook from Mother Superior. He is knocked
out colder than a wedge.