With a lustful leer, Sweet Pussy reached for the girl’s breasts, which were covered with burst veins. The girl looked at him with dead eyes and, before he could react, sank her teeth into his neck.
The Aryan let out a surprised shout and shoved the girl away. With the butt of his rifle, he struck her face and shattered her front teeth. Grapes stared in amazement. Instead of collapsing, the girl threw herself on Sweet Pussy again, as if nothing had happened.
Things got crazy fast. Sweet Pussy tried to hit the girl again, but her bite had severed his carotid. He didn’t know it, but his brain was already dying. He swung wide, but couldn’t stop the girl from pouncing on him. They rolled on the ground as a mountain of dishes crashed around them. With a shove, he was able to back up a few feet and fire his M16 at the girl.
The hollow-point bullets opened a huge hole in the girl’s abdomen and sent her flying backward. Her body slid slowly down the wall as her guts spilled out.
“Grapes…” Sweet Pussy stuttered, lying on the floor, as he put his hand on his neck. “Grapes… help… me.”
Grapes knew the guy was done for. Blood streamed out of his neck as his heart kept pumping, trying to feed his dying brain. The light went out in Sweet Pussy’s eyes, but Grapes wasn’t paying any attention to that. The naked girl had risen again.
With an unintelligible moan, she stumbled toward him, stepping on broken dishes, her feet tangled up in the intestines spilling out of her abdomen.
Grapes raised his rifle and blew the top of the girl’s head off. Her forehead split open like a rotten orange, splattering blood and bone graffiti on the wall behind her. Only then did the girl fall to the ground, dead as a doornail.
“Let’s see you get up now, bitch.” Grapes kicked the girl’s buttocks. Then he heard a noise behind him.
Sweet Pussy was struggling to his feet, skidding and flailing around like a drunk. Grapes turned and almost fell backward at the sight. The guy’s neck was torn and his prison jumpsuit was drenched with his blood. The worst part was that Sweet Pussy’s skin was covered with thousands of small veins.
“Hey, Sweet Pussy,” Grapes said, with a strange tremor in his voice. “You look really bad, buddy. Someone should take a look at that wound…”
Sweet Pussy didn’t answer. He raised his head and looked at Grapes with the same lifeless expression as the girl. With a low growl, he lunged at Grapes but stumbled on the girl’s leg and fell to the ground, smashing the rest of the dishes.
He’s like her. Vampires or something. Grapes’s mind was racing as he raised his rifle. Three feet away, he couldn’t miss. He fired three shots into Sweet Pussy’s heart and chest. What was left of the Aryan got up, as if Grapes had blown him kisses.
“You gotta be dead!” Malachi yelled, terrified for the first time since he was sixteen and in reform school. With the bitter taste of panic in his mouth, he held the barrel eight inches from Sweet Pussy’s face and opened fire. Sweet Pussy’s face disappeared in a mass of red jelly. He collapsed onto the girl’s body and finally stopped moving.
The room smelled of blood and gunpowder. Grapes leaned against the china cabinet, shaking. That’s not possible; it’s just not possible, he thought over and over. Then he heard gunshots coming from the top floor and an explosion a few blocks away. It dawned on him that kicking these things’ asses would be a lot harder than he’d thought.
Six hours later, thirty-three exhausted Aryans, trembling and covered in blood, regrouped at the south entrance to the bridge. They’d cleaned out Bluefont, but it had taken a terrifying toll. Reverend Greene was waiting for them with a radiant smile. The neighbors gazed at them with reverence. Those fellas had saved Bluefont. Greene’s boys had saved Gulfport. The reverend must truly be blessed by God.
Grapes walked up to the reverend, asking himself, Is this really the right place for him and his men? It must be even worse outside of that town. Then Greene gave him that look. Grapes gasped as the black force hit him, and he struggled to catch his breath.
Malachi Grapes realized he’d found his place in the world. A fucking great place.
16
“Sir, they’re here.” Susan Compton, the reverend’s private secretary, waddled around on her short legs. She was in her late fifties, heavyset, myopic, and uglier than sin, but she was extremely efficient and ran the mayor’s office with an iron fist.
“Show them in, Susan.” Reverend Greene walked behind his desk and sat down in the big chair that had belonged to Stan Morgan (God rest his soul, amen, hallelujah). The mayor of Gulfport had conveniently died of a heart attack the week after he appointed Greene his chief advisor, handing the city to the reverend on a silver platter.
Reverend Greene’s knee had been throbbing off and on all day, but just then the pain went up a notch.
Five people followed Mrs. Compton through the door. Malachi Grapes led the way, followed by Officer Strangärd. Greene was more interested in the three people behind him.
First came a tall, thin man around thirty, with tangled black hair and a wary look on his face. Close behind him strode a blond guy with strange blue eyes and a bushy mustache. The third member of the group was a tall, very pretty young girl, with a huge orange cat asleep in her arms. Most importantly, all three were white.
“Welcome to New Jerusalem, my children! Welcome to Gulfport, the Lord’s fortress, home of the Righteous and the Second Coming of Christ!” The reverend walked over and laid hands on each of them.
“It was a long trip here,” replied the tall guy, confused by the reverend’s gesture.
“I’m anxious to hear the story from your own lips, but first I would like Officer Strangärd to tell me how God put you on the path to salvation.” The reverend waved Grapes out of the room, thinking, Let not your right hand know what your left is doing, saith the Lord.
The officer related how the trio had sent up flares and described their rescue in the middle of the storm. Strangärd narrated the story in a methodical, professional way. When he’d finished, he relaxed slightly and waited patiently for the reverend to ask questions.
Reverend Greene nodded. He was sure Captain Birley’s report would corroborate the first mate’s version. Have eyes and ears everywhere, he thought. That wasn’t from the Bible. His father said that—one of the few things he’d learned from the crazy drunk.
“That will be all, Strangärd.” Greene ushered him to the door. “I don’t want to take up your valuable time. I’m sure Captain Birley needs your help unloading the Ithaca.”
The Swede started to protest, but Greene stood firm. Once they were alone in the office, he invited the three shipwrecked people to take a seat.
“Alright, now. Please begin,” he said and leaned back in his chair.
Their spokesman was the tall man, who he said he’d been a lawyer before the Apocalypse. Occasionally the blond guy added something. The girl just nodded, stroking the cat absentmindedly.
“… when we reached Tenerife,” the lawyer said, “we were surprised to discover that the island was full of refugees from all over Europe.”
“Full of refugees?” Greene sprang out of his chair. “Weren’t there any Undead?”
“No, the island was safe, like Gulfport, but living conditions were harder. All those people consumed huge amounts of resources. Life was hard, but people had dignity.”
“And there were no Hitler-style racial-purity laws,” the girl grumbled, scowling.
The lawyer shot the girl a warning look, but Greene wasn’t listening. His mind was racing. An island full of refugees! Someplace besides Gulfport where people had survived the Apocalypse! Cold sweat ran down his back. Did that mean that Gulfport wasn’t the New Jerusalem, that they weren’t the only lambs saved by the Lord? If they weren’t the only ones… No, that was impossible.