REPOING THE DEAD

PART TWO

For a second he didn’t realize what had happened. Did the undead giant stab him? He blinked wondering why he was on the ground. It was only after Danny lost feeling in his right arm and then the wet bloody warmth coated the shoulder of his exterminator jumpsuit that he realized he was shot.

“Ah,” he moaned trying to sit up, but the giant was rolling over then and climbing on top of Danny. “Ah…”

The corpse was fast, faster than any other walker that Danny had put down before. The strength in the things arms and chest was like a grizzly bear. The exterminator was being crushed as the things arms wrapped around him. Danny rabbit punched the undead guys kidneys. It had no effect. The head bunt came next followed by a blast of pain and white light as his own mind strove to stay conscious. Blood and snot greased his face. His nose was busted. Danny blinked to stay conscious.

When he saw a muddy boot clobber the corpse across the head Danny looked up to see Mel standing there holding his bloody shoulder. He never thought he would be so happy to see a repo man.

“Thanks,” Danny said lifting his hand to snag Mel’s.

When another shot rang out and Mel’s head exploded all over Danny’s face, the exterminator screamed. Blood and gore rained down over him as Mel stood with a hole where his nose and mouth used to be. He took two steps forward and fell onto Danny. Mel was dead. 

“Mel?” It was Spencer the young white fella that partnered with the older baseball cap wearing dude. Spencer was on his feet staring down at his dead partner, ex-partner.

Danny pushed off the dead repo man and looked at the younger guy.

“Get down kid. There’s a sniper out there,” Danny said.

Spencer just stood his ground dazed and confused. His mouth was bleeding like mad. His face had started to swell up from Dave’s striking him with the shotgun. Spencer’s gums and chin were bloody too.

“Dave?”

Danny looked to his brother who seemed to also be coming around. The electrodes from Mel’s Taser were no longer embedded in Dave’s hide.

“Kid,” Danny said and then launched himself at Spencer. They dropped to the ground as another bullet winged past them burying itself into the fake brick façade of the Woodlawn Motel. “Stay down someone’s shooting at us.”

He heard Eddie Miles scream somewhere inside the office.

“Mel?”

“Mel’s dead, we’re not. Stay down.”

Danny looked over at his brother. Dave was still out of it but he rolled on his side. Danny knew that if Dave stood up they would be cleaning up another corpse. Keeping low Danny moved as quick as he could to his brother. Not having heard another shot and knowing that each shot that the sniper made had hit a target, or would have if he hadn’t taken Spencer down, meant that this shooter was good. It also meant that if he heard another blast he would be dead.

As Danny reached Dave he saw the herd coming their way. They were about ten yards down the street heading in their direction. They must have been alerted by the gunshots. Asshole sniper. Just then the undead giant to his left lifted off the ground shrieking in the night sky. The horror in the things vocal cords made Danny cringe back. He had never heard a walker screech like that before. The rain had drenched everything and everyone making it more difficult to see than ever. Blood mingled with rain water and brain tissue from Mel’s noggin that was still splattered on the front of Danny’s shirt. Dave was blinking. Danny was next to him on the ground slapping his brother’s face trying to rouse him awake before the undead serial killer, or the sniper, finished them off.

Gains found the carving knife and picked it up. He spied Spencer kneeling next to Mel’s body and started walking toward the young guy.

“s**t,” Danny said.

He raised his Glock and shot the big dude in the shoulder, the neck, and grazed the guys temple when the giant turned on him. They exchanged a knowing glance. Danny saw intelligence in those eyes. This froze the exterminator for a second. Where the hell did this walker come from anyway? Danny saw the devious intelligence in the corpse’s grin. He lifted the Glock again but the big bastard was running then heading back into the darkness outside of the parking lot lights. The herd was coming in almost on cue. How convenient, Danny thought as he saw the undead blocking the big walker.

There exterminator van wasn’t far away. He needed to get Dave and that Spencer kid inside the van before the herd or the sniper offed them.  

“Spencer come on we gotta hit it now,” he yelled to the young guy who was still kneeling in front of his dead partner. “Spencer? Spencer!”

The kid looked over at him. Those eyes were as bleak as anything Danny had ever seen in his time.

“Spencer the herds coming. Let’s go.”

Danny had Dave on his feet and they were racing back toward their van. Danny’s shoulder wound was pumping blood bad now. The herd had closed the gap, fast. He opened the side door rolling it back on its track and pushed Dave inside. That done, Danny slammed the rolling door and turned back to Spencer who was almost within snagging reach of the herd.

“Kid! Let’s go. Move it!”

Spencer looked once more down at Mel and then turned to follow Danny when another gunshot rang out. Thank God for the walkers. The undead closest to Spencer took the first bullet in the skull, shattering it all over the young repo man. Spencer didn’t hesitate though he grabbed the undead dude and pulled his dragging corpse with him until he was behind the van. As he reached out to open the passenger door another shot rang out cutting through the dead meat of the walker and hitting Spencer in the side. He tasted blood, dropped the corpse, and slid inside the van. Danny followed suit and floored it. 

Chapter Three

The next thing I remember is pain. Excruciating pain like I had never felt before. My side ached like a fucker. I wished I could say it was numb but it wasn’t. It burned like a god damned blow torch. I tongued my bloody gums. Two of my teeth were missing. I winced from the pain shooting from the empty tooth sockets down to the nerve endings. It was that asshole exterminator. He knocked out my teeth with the butt of his shotgun. But then, what? The rest of the night was a blur. I hadn’t opened my eyes yet. They were crusted shut with, what?

“Oh s**t,” I heard the strangeness in the tone of my voice. I was missing teeth. I fought by the pain then.

The tears burned openly in my eyes.

Lifting my right hand I winced again at the pain in my side. The straining muscles hurt like hell. I rubbed whatever was gluing my eyes shut and then blinked feeling how heavy my eyelids were. Was I drugged? I couldn’t tell.

“Ah,” I moaned again trying to sit up.

“Take it easy kid,” a voice said from my left.

My head swiveled so quick I felt an overpowering sense of nausea. I had been on my share of drunken hangovers but this was the worst.

“s**t,” I said when I noticed the Roach Brothers, exterminators at large. That was their handle, whatever. “Where am I? Where’s Mel?”

I started sitting up when Danny, the older brother, placed his large hand on my shoulder. His own shoulder was wrapped in a bloody bandage. He winced as he looked at me.

“Where’s Mel?”

“Dead,” Dave said.

I saw Danny grimace at his younger brother’s asshole tact.

“Dude,” Danny said.

Dave just shrugged and lifted a pair of binoculars to his shitty eyes. I looked around then.

“Where am I? What happened?”

“You’re in our RV.”

“Home sweet home,” Dave said.

“You’re okay. The bullet that hit you went straight through. No major arteries.”

“No major...bullet? What?”

Danny looked in my eyes and must have seen something he expected.

“Relax Spencer. You’ve been shot...”

“Shot! Shot by who? Where’s Mel?”

I started to get up again but Danny slammed me down hard and I cried out in pain. Dave adjusted himself on a swivel chair looking back with only mild interest.

“You were shot by some psycho back at The Woodlawn Motel. We both were.”

He motioned to his own shoulder wound.

“We’re not sure who it was or what game they’re playing,” Danny said.

“Game? Motherfucking, game? Are you serious! Where’s my partner?”

“He’s dead and if Danny hadn’t dragged your stupid ass into the van you’d be fitted for a toe tag same as him. Now shut the f**k up and sit down,” Dave said.

I looked from Roach one to Roach two and almost growled I was so pissed off. Mel was dead? How could Mel be dead? He was just criticizing me for puking outside of the Malibu. Making jokes about the street vendor taco wagon shits I had. This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening, not really.

When I tried to move again I felt another sharp pain race along my side and I winced looking down at a bloody white bandage wrapped around my midsection.

“The bullet went inside there,” Danny pointed at the front of my shirt. “Exited out the back. You were lucky. If you’d had any major organs hit you’d be dead now. I wasn’t so lucky.” He motioned to his shoulder.

“Or undead and then I’d have the pleasure of shooting your dumb ass,” Dave said.

“Dave shut the f**k up,” Danny said turning back to me for a minute. “I’m sorry about Mel. I actually kinda liked him.”

“Bullshit. You exterminators don’t like no one but your own filthy rodent kind. Mel was a repo man and lived by the code...”

“Which got him killed,” Dave said.

Danny gave Dave another harsh look. Dave just shrugged as if to say, am I wrong.

“No motherfucker. The code keeps you honest, safe and...”

“Look f**k-o your butt buddy is pushing up daisy’s so you can shove your code straight up your ass because Danny and me ain’t listening,” Dave said.

“Wow you’re a real piece of shit.”

I couldn’t believe the heartless balls on this exterminator asshole.

“Calm the f**k down both of you. Listen kid, Mel is dead, shot by some psycho sniper. Probably ex-military. We didn’t so much as see him. If we didn’t get out of there when we did we all would be pushing up daisies. Mel’s dead and our mutual target the undead dude the feds contracted us to eliminate is out there doing who knows what to some innocent suburbanites. We bandaged your wounds. You got two choices. Come with us and help collar this bitch...”

“Danny what the f**k bro. This is our deal,” Dave said.

Danny turned on his brother and I thought for just a second that he was going punch him across the ugly mug.

“Two, you get the f**k out and good luck at not getting your stupid head blown off. The undead roaming the night are bad enough but with a psycho sniper to boot, Spencer you’ll be dead by dawn.”

That wasn’t much of a choice. I’d been working this repo gig when the Snyder Brothers were still filled with grease monkey’s repoing unpaid cars. I was twenty-eight then, still in my prime, but I wasn’t stupid. If I was still a rebellious eighteen year old I would have flipped them the bird and gone solo, but Danny Roach was correct. With Mel dead if I left the Roach’s I was sure to be dead before the sun came up. 

Licking my busted teeth and swollen gums made me want to launch myself at that asshole Dave and beat his ugly ass into a pulp. Still, these guys were probably the best allies I had at the time since the Snyder Brothers repoing the dead company consisted of ten cars. Of which car ten, Mel and my car, was actually one of three still on the roads. That meant that the other repo employees who weren’t drunk were probably off shift or out boning some street-walkers. This was why Frank was always such a hard ass on Mel and me, because even though we came to work drunk and f****d around, we always got the job done. Franks other drivers weren’t worth a s**t.

“Where the hell are we?” My way of saying okay I’m in.

I sat back tasting the rough edges of my broken teeth. Was that a smile on Danny Roach’s scruffy face? Had I resigned my fate to becoming one of the lawless exterminators of the walking dead, or was this just a desperate act of a messed up individual with a heightened sense of self-preservation? I figured a little bit of both.

“We traded in the van for the RV. Home, you might call it,” Danny stood up splaying his arms out wide like Vanna White. That’s when I noticed for the first t5ime since I opened my eyes that I was seated inside an crabby ancient looking RV circa 1980. The browns, organs, and greens were tacky as hell. Danny was still talking. “I bunk out back. Dave usually takes the top bunk here and the table you’re sitting at pulls out and that booth turns into a bed. You got family to call?”

I shook my head.

“Mel was the closest thing I had to family. I’m on my own.”

It was a lie, but who cared what they thought. There was a moments pause and Danny checked his watch.

“Well it’ll be light in a couple of hours. Better get some rest. Dave’ll take first watch. You need help with this?”

Danny motioned to the small chipped Formica table. I just shook my head.

“Okay, well. Night all.”

Danny exited into the back of the RV closing the accordion style curtain. I watched him go and looked over the interior of the vehicle.

“What a dump. Home away from home,” I whispered disgruntled.

“Don’t get too cozy cuz. Once we bag and tag this crazy serial walker your ass is out,” Dave said lowering his binoculars.

“Serial walker? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dave looked over at me for a minute. I guess he was deciding whether or not I was conning him. He seemed to think I wasn’t because he walked over to a cabinet and removed an official looking file and dropped it on the Formica table. There was a federal stamp and a serial number stenciled across it. This was legit, which is more than I could say for my boss Frank.

“Read,” he said and then walked back to the window and glanced out. “f*****g repo men.”

I wanted to drive my fist into that ugly bastards crooked yellow teeth but I was beat. Reading some file wasn’t my idea of a good time, not then, but like a good boy I opened it and started to read.

“Could I get some coffee?”

“f**k you,” Dave grumbled.

#

“Yes sir. We have a GPS on Gains now. I tagged him myself and the stooges in the RV are under twenty-four seven surveillance. We have it covered, sir. Yes sir…I’ll check back at 09:00. Yes sir. Thank you sir.”

Agent Karris killed the line.

Fricking politicians. Agent Karris hated dealing with them especially the higher ups. The top of the food chain was usually occupied by the dumbest of the dumb. He didn’t even like to think about the i***t in the White House. It wasn’t that Karris was disloyal, quite the opposite. He had trekked through the sun scorched deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq in his military time  because he loved America but now working among the shadows back at home he felt that the ground unit leaders should have carte blanche over their operations. Dealing with the undead was unpredictable. Most politicians had never left their posh homes in their respective states. Some hadn’t even left the US borders. They talked from lofty ivory towers never knowing the true brutality of what men like Karris had to do to keep those towers erect.

Even after the dead started to rise the politicians sat in their offices arguing over undead rights.  Undead rights, really? Of course most politicians and their families lived in fortresses now some ten years after the outbreak. They were safe from the roaming herds.

After the first wave of thousands who died from being bitten by their returning relatives the United Nations realized that each country’s military was not fully prepared for the undead onslaught. That’s when they took on freelance contractors like these bozos in the RV. More reason for the ground commanders to have full control of their troops. These freelancers were amateurs. A license to repo the dead wasn’t the kind of proper training that Karris’s USTF had. 

“Contractors hell,” Karris murmured as he watched the RV with the Roach Brother’s.

The three guys inside, two ex-exterminators, and one repo man. Pathetic, Karris just shook his head. These clowns were almost as dangerous as the walking dead. Both sets of fools would go down with a bullet to the head though, and Karris was sure that if the opportunity arose he would be the triggerman.

For now he was ordered to sit on these three idiots and report back to the politician in her ivory tower. He glanced down at the case that held his sniper rifle as a rap came on the back doors of the van.

“Hey Jack, what are we watching tonight?”

It was Agent Martin Dobbs his sometime partner on these stakeouts.  Dobbs slid in the back door of the unmarked surveillance van. Karris dropped his sniper rifle to the floor of the van and faced Dobbs.      

“Three freelancers.”

“Freelancers? Why we watching them? They don’t mean shit.”

“Orders from the ivory tower,” Karris said. Dobbs noticed the snide tone.

“Watch that s**t Jack. Senator Matheson says jump, we jump.”

“Always the boyscout.”

“Eagle Scout actually,” Dobbs said grinning.

Karris looked his fellow agent up and down and just smiled. The guy’s skin was so black that he blended into the darkness of the van. Just his eyes and teeth glowed white hot.

“Didn’t no they let your kind in the scouts.”

“Why because I’m black, or because I’m gay?”

“Both.”

They laughed at that. Dobbs removed a pack of Marlboros and lit one offering the pack to Karris who refused. He had never picked up the habit.

“Any herds tonight?”

“Not in this sector. There was something on the line about a herd down at Ralph’s, attacked a group of repossessers. The Repo Reapers. Talk about red, white, and blue,” Karris said jokingly.

They both knew about the various freelance contractors that worked this city. The Repo Reapers were the most annoying. The owner, Donald Trump Barns was a pathological narcissist with homicidal tendencies. Rich idiots like Barns were the worst. They felt like their money entitled them to being good at what they did, when in fact they endangered real professionals. Agents Karris and Dobbs had encountered them more and more over the years. The Repo Reapers had the money to expand throughout the city. Even the prez didn’t have enough pull to shut them down. Their track record for nabbing and reburying the dead was severely padded. But like all good shlock news stories - image was king, and Repo Reapers had the money to buy a killer patriotic image. America loved them. They had even booked one of the WWE championship wrestlers to spout off some generic garbage about the American way in a cheapo local commercial.

“Those guys oughta be jailed for the stuff they do,” Dobbs said.

The scowling expression on the black agents face made Karris laugh.

“Glad you’re here Dobbs.”

“Hey, just doing God’s work.”

When the first hit on the side of the van rocked them Dobbs took his position at the rear of the vehicle.

“It’s a herd,” Karris said looking at a couple of video monitors with cameras attached to the outside of the van. “They’re not supposed to be in this sector.”

This wasn’t unusual. It happened at least once a night when they were working surveillance. A herd spotted several block away would wander off in areas of the city that were considered off limits. Normally the feds had Intel about the roaming herds of undead, which sectors they were spotted in. Karris felt cut off tonight for some reason. This business with Edward Gains had disturbed him. He felt like something unusual was happening, something out of the norm, and he disliked it. Besides the senator’s obsession with the serial killer Gains the city herds seemed to be getting larger.

“Damn they’re getting rough,” Dobbs said bracing himself against the manic shaking.

Karris looked out through the monitors again and then blinked.

“What the hell? It’s Gains. How did he follow us here?”

He pulled his sniper rifle and headed for the back door. Dobbs grabbed his arm.

“Where you going? You know protocol? When herds come knocking we either sit tight until they leave, or call for back up depending…”

“I know but…”

“But nothing. Sit tight. We don’t break protocol.”

Dobbs wasn’t actually Karris’s superior but he was a decade older and even though Karris hated politicians he loved his brother in arms. So he sat back down and watched the giant undead walker with the long carving knife as it approached the freelancer’s RV. Gains was hunting tonight. This was the senator golden boy, but why? She wanted to keep tabs on him. The agents were not sure why, but then again they were on a need to know bases, and apparently they didn’t need to know. Karris had read the serial killers file. He turned to Dobbs.

“You read the file on Gains?”

#

I couldn’t believe  the feds file on Edward Gains.

I mean having worked the undead repoing circuit for the better part of six years now I understood what the scientists and specialists said about the returned. They made it clear that most retain some memory of their former lives. Many even retained some minor  traits. The big undead dude that we were looking for on 220 Elm at the Woodlawn Motel had been a serial killer in his former life. He had been executed by lethal injection. Now he was back and unlike most walkers he was out for more than just brains.

The photographs in the file were mugshots covering a decade in the killers life. His name had been Edward Gains. He was six foot seven, and used to weigh three hundred and fifty-six pounds while he was alive. Who knew what his stats were now that he was part of the undead?

Looking at the last picture dated just a month before his execution he looked horrible then, like if released he’d devour the world. There was such a stark horrific evil in his sunken brown eyes that I wanted to forget that this dude ever existed, let alone that Mel and me…shit, (I kept forgetting that Mel was dead), were hired to rebury him. Damn it Mel, why’d you have to go and get shot? Mel had been my best bud. Since signing on with the Snyder Brothers Repoing Service my life had been consumed by work, and Mel was my partner in those endless hours. We’d sit up late drinking ‘til dawn. He’d smoke his Pall Malls cigarettes and I’d drink my beers. Those had been good times. I wiped at the hot tears that burned my eyes.   

That’s when I looked up and saw Dave Roach watching me. He had placed the binoculars down on the small kitchen counter and was sipping off a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Skunk beer if there ever was. Suited these Roach boys though. I licked my busted teeth knowing that this asshole was the guy who did it.

“Scared now?” Dave asked.

I dropped the file on the chipped Formica table top.

“s**t no. A dead head is a dead head as far as I’m concerned. Doesn’t mean s**t to me what he did in his past life.”

I tried desperately to keep my voice steady but I was chilled to the bone. An undead serial killer on the loose, holy s**t! The game had changed. The broken teeth didn’t help me sound any braver neither did the tears burning my eyes.

“See, I knew you repo f***s were idiots.”

“The f**k you mean?”

Dave just grinned under his thick mustache and sipped off his beer.

“See kid, me and Danny, we’re professionals. We study our targets, understand what they do, or did before their resurrection. It helps to track them and end them,” Dave said running one gloved finger across his scruffy throat for emphasis.

He walked over and lifted the Edward Gains file.

“This guy was f*****g evil with a capitol E. Killed women like they were going out of style. Preferred them as his victims to men, or kids. He usually let the men go after turning them into Eunuchs. I can only imagine what he’s like now that he’s undead.”

Dave licked a thin layer of froth off his mustache and grinned.

“Why are you such an asshole?”

“Because I get off on it,” Dave said grinning.

“Okay Chet.”

Dave laughed.

“You watch that movie too?”

“Of course John Hughes…”

But my voice died once the lights went out. 

“Danny! We got action,” Dave said calling back to his brother at the other end of the RV.