For A Few Corpses More - Pt. 9

              Nyx came and sat back next to Bronson after helping Alex find a place to sit in the oddly shaped circle. Pierce and Dine were sitting next to each other a few people away. They were comfortable enough being in eye contact of each other. Pierce had actually been discussing with Max about dealing with the rise in harmful UV rays and whether or not they had suffered any losses from it. Max and a few of the others were darker skinned from long exposure but he had explained how they had been doing most of their work during the night hours and staying indoors at pique harmful times ever since they had figured out what was going on. It was casual felt relaxing.

Nyx and Pierce had settled in, they were more comfortable around these people now. Dine and Bronson however were counting the minutes until the end of the meal and they could get back on their way.

               The food was being passed around. There weren’t plates as much as pieces of metal from an old chair, tine from a roof, or wood from a broken bench that had been washed down. These objects were handed out as the tables and then pieces of thin cloth or stitched together leaves on some, others were bare. There was no silverware or napkins. Peas first then the other vegetables were passed around and finally the cooked meat. There wasn’t much of the meat, just enough for each of the almost over thirty people to have about four or five bites worth. The members of the camp looked at it hungrily as it was passed along, some of them looked as if they hadn’t eaten for some time by their facial expressions but no one there was too skinny or looked underfed.

               The meat was passed around. When it reached Bronson he seemed to eye it for a moment before looking up and seeing most of the others dig into it with their fingers, meat first was the choice for all of them. The sounds of teeth ripping into the meat and grinding, the smacking of full mouths across from them, it brought everything together for Bronson. Nyx reached down and picked up the small bit of meat between her thumb and first finger, mouth open ready to taste real meat for the first time in a very long while. Bronson’s hand reached out and covered hers though.

               She looked at him questioningly. Her mouth opened to ask why he had done that but the look on his face was serious.

               “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t eat it…”

               Bronson left Nyx’ gaze with that confused look on her face and looked to Dine and Pierce. Pierce’s mouth was already full meat, a bulge in his cheek as he wiped his lips off on his forearm. Dine was less ravenous and just now bringing it up to his lips. Bronson was about to say something when he saw Griffin looking at him. He didn’t speak. Captain Dine took a bite from the meat and was chewing it slowly, he seemed to like it.

               “Hey Bronson,” Griffin yelled from across the circle. “You don’t like my food?” He laughed. “They got better shit down there in Nevada, coyote maybe?”

               Bronson forced a smile that didn’t work. “We’re vegetarians, Nyx and I.”

               Several of the people stopped eating and looked at them. Griffin paused in the conversation to take a bite out of his own chunk of meat in front of him. “That so,” he asked chewing.

               “Yeah, it’s easy when meat’s so scarce.”

               Several of the people around him laughed. Bronson wasn’t thrilled that he realized what was so funny. He picked up some of the peas and shoved them into his mouth. The man sitting next to him reached over in an attempt to take the meat from Bronson’s plate.

               “Hey, what gives? You aren’t going to eat it.”

               “Brian,” Griffin called out. “Don’t be stingy, split it with a couple of the others.”

               Brian took the meat from Bronson’s plate. He was practically licking his lips now. He split it with two other men near him as others looked on enviously. Nyx stood and offered hers to the four women to share. Alex, Laura, the young one who she thought was named Cindy and the older lady looked very appreciative and divided it up quickly.

               Dine had caught on to what Bronson had done.

               “Not going to finish that,” Pierce asked him.

               “Knock yourself out.” Dine handed Pierce the last bit of food on his plate and watched him wolf it down, shaking his head. Dine munched on the celery, eyeing Bronson. The look they shared confirmed that it was time to leave. Nyx and Bronson munched on their oats and apple slices for a few minutes after that. Bronson placed his plate down and excused himself walking by Griffin.

               “Gonna use your latrine.”

               Griffin nodded to him and kept eating. He was watching Nyx who had walked over and joined her remaining two comrades. She bent down and took a knee just behind them, when she got close to Dine’s ear she voiced her concern.

               “Are we going to be able to walk out of here without any trouble?”

               He looked down at her question, “not sure.” He stood and brushed off his pants. “Thanks for your hospitality,” he said to Griffin as he approached the man who was still finishing his meal. “We’re really grateful, but we should be going soon.”

               “Not going to give your food time to digest? Rest a while, might not find a place as inviting and friendly as this on the rest of your journey.”

               Griffin smiled at his points. Dine wasn’t sure what to say, he was used to being direct and to the point.

               “If we did that everywhere we might never make it back.” Bronson’s words broke the brief silence as he came back from around the corner, adjusting his sleeves.

               Griff sighed, “I can take a hint.” He stood. “Everyone say goodbye to Bronson and his friends. They’ve got a long trip ahead of them and want to get going.”

               Griffin rounded up his three pals from this morning. They were his hunting party. While many of the members of the camp that came up to say goodbye to them Griffin and his group went retrieved their weapons from earlier. Dine and Pierce spoke to Max and his friends, they shared a brief farewell and smile. Nyx spoke to the other women.

               “Take care of that baby, Alex.”

               “I will,” she said. “Laura will be here and so will the others.”

               Alex winced slightly. Nyx frowned and Laura was ushering her to sit down. The young girl, Cindy, stepped up.

               “You’re very pretty,” she said to Nyx, who smiled in return.

               “Thank you.”

               “I’m sorry you have to go.”

               “Me too,” Nyx said sincerely, “maybe we’ll come back.”

               “Okay,” Cindy said with a smile. “Bring me something.”

               Nyx laughed, “alright then.”

               Bronson had said his goodbyes to the few people that had approached him. He placed a hand on Nyx’ shoulder to let her know it was time to go. The two went to join Griffin’s group. Pierce and Dine followed close behind them. The four gathered and Nyx gave one last wave goodbye.

               With Griffin and his men in the lead the group did not head out the same way they had come in. They scaled the ramps back up to the outer ring and across the top towards the locked chain-link fence. Bronson hated when he was right.

               “Take you guys out through this way, it’ll be closer.” Griff said with that million dollar bearded smile. He pulled the small key ring from his pocket once again, the smaller key this time helping to remove the padlock on the chained fence. The two walls of metal were unlocked and moved to let the group in and then closed back behind them. The two groups walked with Bronson and Dine in the lead, Griffin’s men coming in behind them.

               Bronson wasn’t surprised when Griffin’s men spread out around them. The gated in path soon expanded into a large circular area. To the right of them set a black SUV with faded paint and a random white panel from another car on the back driver’s side door. The windshield had a small crack in the top right but other than that the vehicle looked to be in the best shape anyone had seen for a long while. There were two containers of gas sitting next to the back left wheel. This confirmed Bronson’s suspicion that it ran, and the third key Griffin had would start it.

               To the left of them were something box-shaped covered in tarps. To the front was another exit from the quarry, a gate that was blocked by several large old crates off gathered supplies and tables that were covered in blood, a butcher’s cleaver sticking up out of the table next to a severed head of a ghoul. By the tables were three large wooden pikes sticking out of the ground, like the ones they had found back in the building where they camped for the night. Either way, this was obviously not the way out. Even Pierce was up to speed on who was holding all of the weapons.

               “What’s going on here, Griff?”

               Bronson went to answer Dine’s question but a muffled groan broke the air. The group looked to see that the pained sound came from underneath the tarps.

               “They’re Zhegans.”

               Griffin laughed, “Well since we’re playing show and tell, you fucks aren’t from Nevada. Your guns are too polished and new and little missy doesn’t have a speck of dirt under her nails or matted in her hair.”

               “Zhegans,” Nyx and Dine asked the question in unison. Not seeming surprised that their ruse had failed.

               “Yeah, they don’t believe in eating animals or anything that was alive or some shit, but Zombies, they were dead before hand, so they don’t count. I’m guessing that’s what you served us down there. That’s where the head Pierce came from, another place where they were hacking up the bodies and using the pikes to drain the blood, leaving the head on one to maybe ward off others or something.”

               “You want a cookie,” Griffin smiled and feigned a slow clap against his shotgun. “We were living pretty high on the hog here, just us, a fortifiable camp and a good stock of walkers to farm and turn into dinner. Little odd at first, it’s not like cannibalism. It’s just like eating a cow.”

               “It’s affecting your people,” Bronson warned. “You’re probably too gone yourself to see how ravenous you’re becoming.”

               “I don’t think so,” He raised the shotgun up to his shoulder and pointed it at Bronson. “It’s kept my family alive down here, no one has had to go hungry or kill one of their loved ones for their supplies or to eat them like those cannibals over there on the East coast.” He took a step forward, his free hand adjusting the strap of Bronson’s rifle that was hanging off of his right shoulder. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to lay your judgment down on my family and friends, since I’m guessing you came from the colonies.”

               Dine’s expression became harder and stern.

               “My name is Captain Price Dine of the Elysium City military. We haven’t done anything to you and would appreciate being allowed to carry on our way.”

               “You entitled space fucks,” Griffin spat. “You really piss me off. First you run off and abandon the planet, leave people down here because you’re on a schedule, and then you want to come back?” His expression did look genuinely shocked and appalled. “You still siphon materials from the Earth and suck at her tit like an ungrateful child, fine. But you come back?”

               The two groups stood in a moment of silence, facing off. Griffin’s face was a bit red now, he was really angry.             

               “No sir. That just pisses me off. I don’t know if you’re scouts, or what your doing here, I don’t care.”

               “As I said,” Dine countered, “we’ll be on our way if you’ll let us. There doesn’t have to be any trouble.”

               Griffin laughed and his three cronies followed in suit. Griffin had the shotgun pointed at them and the other three had the guns they had taken off of the group.

               Bronson shook his head.

               “Why all of this then? If you knew we were lying why didn’t you just kill us back where you found us asleep?”

               “I had to be sure, just in case. I won’t feel bad about killing some colony rats though.” He spat on the ground. “And in all fairness, I’m not going to kill you.”

Griffin reached over and pulled the tarp from off of two cages, each with an individual crouched on all fours inside, ghouls. The ravenous undead were now bucking and clawing at the openings of their cages now that they could see and better smell the people in front of them. The two corpses were both female, one middle-aged and suffering from a rotting face and an older woman with salt and pepper color hair whose left eye was hanging out slightly and a right arm that looked mangled and gnawed on.

“This here is Sam and Gracie, couple of old friends-“

“That you just couldn’t bear to make dinner,” Dine interrupted.

Griffin snorted. “Guess you’re right smartass, thanks for volunteering to go first.” He nodded to one of his men who to proceed.

The obedient soldier steadied his old tattered baseball cap and rolled up his sleeves. He picked up an old dog catchers hook, a long pole with an adjustable collar strap at the end.

“So wait,” Nyx interrupted. “They bite us, we die and become like them, and then you can use us as a food source?”

“Look at the little lady catch up,” Griff snickered.

“That’s some real screwed up logic you’ve got there, just in case you were wondering.”

“Yeah,” Pierce chimed in. “You sure we can’t work something out? There are four of us, you can’t need that much food, and Bronson and I are corpse hunters, we can-“

“Shut up Pierce,” Dine ordered with a sharp tone.

The leather strap was lowered into the cage by Griff’s henchman and was strapped around Sam’s neck. Griffin liked to feed them in rotation to keep it fair, even if they were dead. Once the strap was in place through the slit in the cage the man worked the bar through so he could open the door without having to ever let go of the pole.

“So, you probably aren’t going to tell the others that dinner for the next few weeks will be their former guests?” Bronson inquired. “I’m guessing not, since you made such an elaborate show to get us out here and to look like a good host.”

“It’s my job to protect them,” Griff answered.

“Yeah, and that means lying to them. I get that part.” Bronson folded his hands in front of him. “What about someone like Alex though, what’s eating all of this infected flesh doing to her unborn child? Or did you even stop to think about that, Griffin?”

Nyx almost visibly winced as that thought crashed into her. She felt bad for Alex. There was a part of her truly hated Griffin now. Griffin, whose face was growing furious, didn’t respond to Bronson’s comment. Instead, the butt of the shotgun that Griff had been holding came towards the bridge of Bronson’s nose. Had he not moved with the hit his nose would have broke.

               Bronson fell to one knee.

               “Get up,” Griffin ordered. “I’ve changed my mind, you can go first; and since you’re so worried about the people I’m protecting, die knowing you’re feeding them.”

No one saw what he had slipped from his sleeve. The item he had retrieved from one of the shredded metal walls surrounding the quarry was easy enough to remove, the trick was sharpening quietly.

               Griff grabbed Nyx’ arm and pulled her back away from the others.

               “Don’t you worry, everyone really liked you, asked if we could keep you around.”

               Nyx came across Griff’s face with her free elbow but the shot didn’t allow her to get free as she thought it would. She struggled for a moment before she found the barrel of Griffin’s shotgun shoved firmly up against her stomach, the threat of a long painful death.

               The other two men pulled Dine and Pierce back away from Bronson with the man holding the walker at the end of the pole bringing her closer.

               “Feeding time Sam,” the man said as he positioned himself behind her and pushed the once-beautiful snarling female towards Bronson. Sam’s jaw was stretched open and the skin at the corners of her mouth was tearing. Her eyes were glossed over and white with brown and green spots growing around them. Sam’s clawed the air with her yellow-brown fingers when she got closer to Bronson; hungry for his flesh.

               Pierce’s eyes were darting around, looking for a form of escape. He wasn’t sure if he could make it over the fence before he got shot. He knew he had to get out of there though. Looking over at Dine, Pierce noticed the captain was sweating profusely. Even for the heat that day, he thought it was odd. Dine’s fists were shaking and his shoulder rolled to test the henchman’s grip on him. His breathing was becoming faster. Pierce wondered if he was about to have a heart attack.

               Looking up from his kneeled position, Bronson took time to aim, knowing that he would need to be precise. He was focusing on Sam’s neck, knowing it’d be hard to behead her with what he had stolen. The next swipe of her hand came close to his long hair.

               “He’s not even moving,” one of Griffin’s men hollered.

               Bronson did move. When he did, it was quick and a single fluid motion. The upward strike from his kneeling position brought the sharpened piece of metal in a fierce arch that cut up across the undead Samantha’s neck. A slender stream of ripped skin and dried blood shot into the air like a dying rainbow.

               Griffin laughed and tightened his grip his arm had around Nyx’ neck now. His hand still held her wrist, ready to twist and snap it if she moved too much. The barrel of the shotgun came from her stomach and pointed at Bronson’s leg, they could remove the slug from his knee when they cut the meat.

               It wasn’t until that moment though that everyone there other than Bronson realized what had just happened. Sam knew. A hand instinctively grabbed at the wound on her neck which caused the leather strap there that had held her in place to fall fully, leaving a very concerned henchman holding a pole with a surprised look. He fumbled, trying to reach the weapon that had previously belonged to Pierce, he was too slow though.

               Bronson’s boot rose and struck Sam’s chest with authority. She spun and the fumbling henchman saw a blur of her ripped purple blouse and cut neck as she fell into him, both falling to the dirt.

               Griffin was pulling the trigger, ready to take Bronson’s legs out from under him. He would have done it too had the back of Nyx’ head not cracked into his mouth, pushing out one of his front teeth. Had he not been such a tall man she could have connected with his nose like she wanted. She tried to grab the shotgun but the butt of it found her stomach.

               Pierce didn’t need to be told twice. His foot came up behind him between the legs of the man that had been holding him in place. There was a shrill wince from behind him. Jonah grabbed the gun from the henchman and shoved it into the gut of the already hunched over man. Now, all Pierce had to do was find a way out, to save himself.

               Sam, the corpse on top of the man who had been holding her with the pole, had reassessed her position. Her rotting teeth dug into the neck of the man who had tried to feed her Bronson. A scream came from underneath the ghoul, soon muffled by the gurgling blood. Bronson came around, half using the two bodies as cover for Griffin and half trying to get the gun from the soon to be walker’s shoulder.

               Dine had been sweating, his eyes were bloodshot and his fists were trembling. When Bronson made his move the only thing he could think was, “finally”. He felt the metal of the gun barrel press hard against the back of his head.

               “Don’t move,” his captor shouted, looking over Dine’s shoulder trying to understand what had just happened and what he needed to do.

               Dine’s hands moved quickly. The hired hand had gotten too close and it was easy enough to sidestep and push his barrel out of the way. The captain’s hands were shaking with aggression, sweat poured and his heart was pumping in double-time. Dine’s fist flew and connected with the man’s face, pushing it back against the metal wall with an extreme amount of force. There was a crack of bone. The thudding sound against the metal was followed up by a squishy retort as Dine’s fist broke through the man’s face and caved it in against his skull. Blood escaped in a series of splashes from whatever exits it could find. The red liquid covered Dine’s arm now as the new nearly-beheaded corpse fell to the ground. He held onto Nyx’ MP5 that the man had taken and turned to the others.

               There was a moment of pause, except for Sam’s dinner. Pierce had been getting ready to try and jump the wall but there he stood watching the aftermath of Dine’s rage. Bronson backed off with Pierce’s freed weapon in his hand, an expression of surprise across his face. Even Griffin, who was still holding on to Nyx, took pause. They all looked at Dine’s handy work. He turned, shaking the bits of blood and bone from his fist, stretching the fingers out, satisfied. He couldn’t help but notice they were all staring at him uncomfortably.

               “What?”