B-Movie War Read online

  She didn’t have much longer to think.

  The credits rolled for Chainsaw Ballerinas.

  A nurse from the corner used a dolly to roll out a familiar person who was tied up with rope around his midsection. Next to him was an ugly man in a cheap suit who held a microphone.

  The person on the dolly was Uncle Jules.

  The man in the ugly suit was Mr. Ratchet. The man who greeted her earlier this afternoon. The promoter for The Final Flesh.

  Penny managed to see through the corners of her eyes how everyone in their seats were living corpses. Many had seen violence to their bodies, though they were somehow collectively excited as the man of the evening, Mr. Ratchet, introduced The Final Flesh. The ushers and nurses standing in the aisles focused their complete attention on the MC.

  “As those of us who’ve been dead for days, for years, for centuries, or for just minutes, we’ve waited for this moment, and it’s finally here. Though we’ve failed the last two times we tried to conquer the living, we are now stronger, we are more organized, and we have the means and the opportunity. The living shall join the dead. Everyone shall die. And what a show it shall be!”

  The dead cheered in their seats.

  The ushers and nurses raised their weapons in the air.

  “Theatres across the globe are presenting The Final Flesh, so roll the film. The end of humanity is near. The war begins now.”

  Uncle Jules couldn’t speak through the duct tape across his mouth, but his bulging, crying eyes said everything. Whatever her uncle had done, the man was horrified by the end result. He stared at Penny. There was nothing but sorrow and apology in his expression.

  If she could free one arm, Penny might be able to undo the tape on her other arm.

  There wasn’t enough time.

  The lights went dark.

  The screen lit up, though there was no image. Breaking the chair’s armrest, Penny managed to slip a hand free . After that, she started to peel and rip at the tape on the other arm. Once her hands were free, she ripped the tape at her eyes. After the effort of escape, Penny’s arms bleeding, many of her fingernails broken and sticky with gummy adhesive, she struggled to decide her next move.

  The Final Flesh was rolling.

  The speakers blasted human torment and torture. Pain derived from evil acts of debauchery blared louder and louder. The corpse audience relished it, cheering and begging for more. The noises matched what played on the screen. Spliced together scenes, clips of hundreds and hundreds of films of kill scenes from horror movies. People hacked up. Beasts, mad serial killers and monsters wreaking havoc on humanity frame by insane frame.

  It made sense to her. The reels dipped in blood and drying out. Scenes were cut up, strung together and put together on a single reel. Whatever the monsters did to the reels, they were coming alive. They used her uncle and this theatre to make it happen, but why did Jules help them?

  No time to think.

  The ground rumbled like there was an incoming earthquake. Hissing creaking pipe sound effects mingled with gusts of piercing winds. More blood curdling screams and sound effects of knives, axes and weapons swooshing through the air. Dust rained from the ceiling. Long cracks formed up and down the walls. The building was coming undone. From the floor dead, decayed hands reached up to be free of their graves. Between the aisles, streams of blood flowed, the current fast enough that half the theatre was filling up with pools of crimson. The pressure of the current punched through the walls. Out from the projection booth, the light cast onto the screen turned into real monsters, real creatures, real movie villains projecting to life and running out of the theatre and charging out into the city. Charging out everywhere. Explosions, screams and sounds of riots resounded in the far distance. Everyone was being attacked. Uncle Jules was missing. He had been washed up in the bloody tide.

  Penny stood in horror. Corpses who used to be theatre goers rose from their seats with a struggling gait. They were coming after her. The ushers and nurses closed in on Penny as the blood level rose in the theatre. There was nowhere to run.

  She prayed death came quickly.

  Part Three

  Chapter Ten

  The Afternoon Before The Showing of The Final Flesh

  Victor “Vic” Greaves was a walking eyesore. People said Vic had the face only a mother could love. He owned a football player’s body and a basketball player’s height. From a stranger’s standpoint, he looked like a mean ex-con. That much was true. Vic served two years for aggravated assault. Vic treated his temper like it was a condition he was helpless to change. He was in and out of juvenile hall so many times for fighting, he didn’t graduate high school. Put that against his natural hot-headedness, and his job opportunities were limited. He currently worked as a guard outside a cheap strip club called “Bazooka’s” Friday and Saturday nights, out on the edge of town, and was a security guard outside a retail warehouse four nights a week. He worked road construction whenever the work was available. Anything to pay his bills and child support.

  He wasn’t all temper. His two girls were the true joy of his life. Those two little girls being the light against the dark. It was about as poetic as Vic could put it. Today, he was picking up the girls because it was his weekend to enjoy them. He brought them presents. Most of them were things they needed disguised as gifts. Clothes. School supplies. Bows and hair clips. Girlie stuff. Things their mother, Debra, and her piece-of-shit, live-in boyfriend wouldn’t buy them.

  Thinking about Sam Unger, his ex-wife’s current boyfriend, the unemployed alcoholic who used Vic’s child support checks for beer support, his temper wanted to boil over into rage. Sam Unger could polish off a case of cheap beer a day, easy. Maybe throw in a pint of something on top of that too. That was the thing, Vic thought. Why did women dig these kinds of guys? Vic wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t Sam Unger. Why did Debra put up with the louse? Divorce me, Vic thought, but at least upgrade to a better man. The mooch alcoholics like Sam Unger did nothing more than treat women like dirt. Maybe that’s where Vic went wrong in his marriage. He didn’t treat Debra like shit.

  Vic focused on the important stuff. This weekend. Sarah and Fiona. Sarah was ten. Fiona twelve. They were growing up fast. Vic would do anything for them.

  Damn his temper.

  It was his fault his marriage failed, no matter what kind of a person Debra had turned into over the years. It’s why he ended up spending two years in prison.

  Damn his temper.

  Vic nearly dislocated the bastard’s jaw. Frank Wilshire’s face was a bloody rag from the beating Vic had given him. Vic had caught the bastard in bed with Debra. Dick going in and out of her. The sound of it drove him to such anger and disgust. Vic thought she was being raped. How mistaken he was. Debra was cheating on him with their kids within earshot in the other room. Vic’s head was a boiling furnace. He started punching the walls, smashing fixtures and screaming obscenities. The cops sirens drew nearer, and before he knew it, he was shoved into the police car foaming curses and covered in Frank’s blood. The last thing he saw was Sarah and Fiona at the front steps of the house beside Debra, with terror on their faces.

  Two years in prison later, and another year visiting a parole office and taking anger management classes, Debra allowed Vic partial custody. This was partly because he made the child support payments on time, and more accurately, Debra said she would allow it if Vic paid an extra two hundred bucks a month in secret. Something just between them. Call it extortion. Vic didn’t care. He wanted the best part of his life back. His children. Any price she named, he would comply. If Debra ever needed any money, no question, he paid up. The court systems wouldn’t help him, so Vic made the best of the situation. One day the girls would be eighteen, and his business with his wife would be concluded. Until that day…

  Vic approached the house in the West Virginian suburb called Humbly. He parked in front of
his wife’s house. The one-story property had plastic covering one window where the glass was missing. How many months had that damn window been like that? Why couldn’t Sam have it replaced? He was the one who smashed it, according to Debra, though how it became broken was a story yet to be told. Despite the window not being fixed, as if they didn’t have the money, the two of them owned a huge Plasma screen television and a top-of-the-line computer. How did that make sense when Vic’s children were wearing thrift store quality clothing?

  His anger was at a low boil. Vic couldn’t help it imagining the many things wrong with the situation. Nothing he could do.

  Breathe. You’re not here to change your ex-wife. You’re here to make your kids’ lives better. You’re doing that, so just breathe.

  Vic parked his truck. As he walked toward the house, he asked himself why the door was wide open. Where was Debra? He imagined Sam was probably on the couch with a beer nestled on top of his belly. Was it barely noon? For a man like Sam, half-past every hour was beer-thirty.

  “Debra, it’s Vic.” He rang the doorbell. “Anybody home? Hello?”

  Okay. Both cars are in the driveway. I know they’re here. Sarah and Fiona would’ve tackled me by now. Maybe they’re out back.

  Vic loved the sound of their high-pitched screaming as the girls charged at him for a hug. He knew they loved him just by that sound.

  So where were his girls?

  He heard the strange sound of clicking shutters. Like a camera taking a picture over and over again at a really fast shutter speed. And was that the sound of running water?

  Vic called out to both Debra and Sam. Still no answer, so Vic followed the sound of running water. He tracked it to the hallway bathroom. One look inside was enough to throw him back into the living room. Coughing against his disgust, tears in his eyes, he struggled not to lose his gorge. Had he really seen what he’d just seen? It wasn’t real. This wasn’t something that happened to people. Maybe in a terrible movie, but not in real life.

  Debra was on all fours, her face rested against the toilet seat lid. The crown of her skull was bashed open. Her brains had slopped into the toilet. Blood spatters on the shower curtains. The toilet wouldn’t stop flushing, causing pink water, gray matter and so much blood to flood everywhere. The carpet was sodden in nasty. And the look on Debra’s ghost white face. Who had done this to her?

  What exactly had been done to her?

  The sounds of clicking shutters, Vic followed that noise to the garage. He didn’t think about his safety. If Debra was dead, what did that mean for his kids?

  They had to be in the house.

  Please let them be okay.

  Please God.

  Vic threw open the garage door to discover the room’s lights off. A lone reel projector cast an image against the wall. He couldn’t see the image very well because it was up against a shelf of storage items. He heard the audio and dialogue from a movie.

  Why is somebody playing a movie in my garage?

  A door closed. It was the door leading into the basement. Vic grabbed a flashlight and ran down the short set of stairs in pursuit. Pissed, scared, ready to go off on somebody if he didn’t find out where his kids were, Vic yanked open the basement door ready to fight.

  Then he wasn’t ready to fight.

  Vic wanted to run as far the hell away from here as possible. The basement was darkly lit. He notice Sam’s neck was clutched in a big burly man’s hands. The stranger wore a set of blue overalls, flannel shirt and the utility belt of a plumber. Vic gasped at the huge wrench on his belt covered in blood and broken bits of skull.

  That’s how Debra was killed, Vic realized.

  Sam, shouting with a mouth full of blood, “Run, Vic! Get out of here! This son-of-a-bitch killed them all!”

  Vic was grateful the room was mostly in the dark. He caught the large puddles of blood, and the outline of Sarah and Fiona’s dead bodies.

  Noooooooooo!

  The plumber, the man who was bigger than Vic by at least a hundred pounds of pure muscle, switched out his wrench for a rubber toilet plunger. The giant spiked Sam onto the floor, and before Sam could react, before Vic could make a move, the plumber jammed the plunger head over Sam’s face. Working it like one would a stopped up toilet, the plumber reared back the tool. Sam’s head caved in, blood spewing down his front. Sam was already dead before he hit the floor. Vic ran up the stairs, through the garage and out of the house in seconds.

  Vic kept picturing the impossible way Sam was murdered. The man’s face was a red blank. Half-his head sucked into the plunger.

  Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck?

  A police car was waiting outside the house with its lights flashing. The man wore a solid black uniform with the shiniest star badge. He was chubby faced and had a pot belly. Judging by his eyes and face, the cop was determined to do his job with the calculation of a person groomed for military service.

  “Calm down, you’re going to be okay. I know what’s going on in there, and I’m here to help you. I’ve got back up on the way, but for your safety, I need to take you down to the station. I don’t want you to see more than you have to, sir. A neighbor called. They know what happened to your family. I’m so sorry.”

  “But he’s in there,” Vic shouted. “He’ll come out and hurt others. He’s, he’s dressed like a plumber. The guy’s a psycho. My girls…my girls are dead!”

  Vic broke down into sobs. He couldn’t do anything but cry. The officer already had him in the backseat before he even realized he had left the front yard.

  Hurled from one emotional extreme to the next, Vic noticed what sat in the seat beside him once the door was closed and the cop started driving.

  A body bag. The body bag was propped in a sitting position. The bag was occupied.

  Vic’s voice sounded pinched, “What’s this doing here?”

  The cop laughed. “Oh, yeah. That. Damn budget cuts. It affects everyone in the city. You notice more potholes in the roads lately? How about the traffic light malfunctions? They let go of half the city workers just to save money. It’s the same with the police department. I’m now a courier of dead bodies. Next, I’ll be a mortician. You see, I go from crime scene to crime scene, driving bodies like a chauffeur for stiffs in-between writing tickets and answering dispatch calls. The things I could tell you, Mr. Greaves, about budget cuts.”

  Vic noticed something odd in the passenger seat. Electric shock paddles were strewn on the passenger side. “And what’s up with those?”

  The cop sounded flustered. “God, I know. It’s so ridiculous. I’m also certified to be an EMT. This ride functions as an ambulance too. Budget cuts, man. They’ll lay you off if you can’t become a jack of all trades. I’ll be putting out fires soon enough. You just wait. That’s if they don’t shit-can me first. I was a born a cop. It’s in my blood. They’ve let go of a lot of damn good cops, and you see what happens? People are getting killed left and right today. The city isn’t learning their lesson. So the cops got to watch their own backs instead of everybody else’s.” Every facial muscle went flat. The cop looked as cold and calculating as that plumber. “We need to create our own job security. It’s the only way the city will learn.”

  Vic noticed the collection of wallets on the floor. He checked his own pocket. It was empty. Vic’s wallet was at the top of the heap. The money was taken out.

  The cop just robbed me!

  Vic was about to raise hell when the body bag twitched.

  The cop was on a new tangent so intense he was pouring sweat. Vic didn’t hear the man. He kept listening to the body bag. It didn’t shift for another minute. Then it crinkled again. There was a subtle, “Unnnnn,” coming from within. Like pain.

  The cop’s face was burning red with rage. He was gnashing teeth and flicking spit. His eyes were bulbous as he described details of his co-workers being let go due to v
arious budget cuts. “…I guess an honest hard-working man like myself has to create his own job security these days!”

  Vic ducked in time. Through the wire barrier between the front and back seat, the cop stuck the muzzle of the Magnum at Vic and opened fire. A war cannon erupted. The shot blasted out the back window, shattering the glass. The sounds of whooshing air and the bark of more bullets came next. Ba-Bam! Ba-Bam! Ba-Bam! The shots went wild. The cop kept driving faster with every new shot, and his lust for killing Vic increased with every upward tick of the odometer.

  Vic tried the doors. Locked. He could try kicking out the window, but he had to stay hunched low or else get his head blown off. His ears sounded like they were full of buzzing locusts. He could barely hear himself talk as he begged the cop to stop pulling the trigger.

  During the fight, the body bag kept shifting. The zipper undid itself, slow at first, but faster once the person got their momentum. Inside, a male officer had been shot up throughout his midsection. He was older and very pale from the loss of blood. The cop eyed Vic for a moment, and then he extended his hand and dropped his service revolver into Vic’s hand. The cop mouthed, “Save yourself.”

  Vic caught the pistol with nervous hands. The second the gun dropped, the helpful officer’s face was blown into pink mist.

  “JE-SUS!” Vic shrieked and opened fire through the driver’s seat. Five rounds later, the cushion’s fluff floated up in the air like thrown goose feathers. Next, the car’s tires were squealing, the vehicle fish-tailing The car struck the concrete median and came to an abrupt stop.

  Vic stayed low. Waited. Listened. He avoided looking at the dead cop in the seat next to him and peered up at the driver. The officer was slumped over the wheel. He had taken several hits throughout his midsection.