Victor Gischler: Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

This time Mortimer did vomit. He rolled his face toward the floor and heaved once, twice. The third time brought up bile.

“Tell me where you got this stuff,” the Beast said.

“I…I found it.”

“You found it, huh?”

The Beast stomped the heel of his boot into Mortimer’s forehead. Mortimer grunted.

“I know you fucking found it, cocksucker. Now tell me where.”

Mortimer shook his head. “A long way from here. I’ve been gathering it up, saving it.”

“Bullshit.” The Beast lifted him a foot off the floor by a fistful of hair. “Nobody carries that much food and booze and doesn’t eat and drink it. What? You just like lugging it around?” He brought his other fist down hard, knocked Mortimer’s head around.

Mortimer blinked, colored lights dancing in front of his eyes and a hot buzz in his ears. He tried to curl into a ball, but the Beast still held him fast.

“Where’d you get it? Someplace close, right?”

Mortimer shook his head.

The Beast punched again, and Mortimer felt his lips flatten against his teeth, skin ripping. He spit blood, coughed.

“Shit.” The Beast let go, and Mortimer’s head knocked against the floor. The Beast left the room again.

Mortimer lay on the cold floor, reeking of piss, face throbbing. This had been a mistake, coming down the mountain, trying to reconnect with whatever remained below. He’d been safe, comfortable. There had been no need to leave his sanctuary, only the imagined necessity of human companionship, only the vain notion that he must know what had become of the world.

The world had broken, and there was nothing left of humanity but the dregs, dumb sons of bitches in bear skin.

Mortimer opened a swollen eye, saw the girl standing over him, her face expressionless.

“Help me,” Mortimer pleaded.

She stood frozen.

“Untie me,” he croaked. “I’ll go away. I won’t do anything, I promise. I’ll just go.”

She didn’t say a word, didn’t blink. A few moments later she started at the Beast’s return and slunk away.

The Beast knelt next to Mortimer, held up a gleaming bowie knife. “Like it? It ain’t quite as sharp as I’d like, so the cut won’t be clean. I’ll have to saw a bit.” He grabbed Mortimer’s bound hands, pulled them close to his thick body.

Mortimer gasped, tried to jerk away.

The Beast shifted, pinned Mortimer’s wrists under his arm. Mortimer tried to squirm away. The Beast selected the pinkie finger on Mortimer’s left hand, stretched it out. Mortimer tried to make a fist and pull away, but the Beast was too strong.

“P-please.” Saliva flew from Mortimer’s lips. He shook so badly he couldn’t talk.

“I think we’re gonna have a more productive conversation after this.” The Beast put the blade against the finger. Mortimer renewed his struggles, but the Beast held him.

“Here we go.” The blade bit deep, dark blood flowing over the metal.

Mortimer howled, kicked, screamed. The Beast sawed the blade back and forth. So much blood. Within ten seconds he was down to bone. The Beast leaned his weight into it, sawed bone. The finger came off, blood squirting over both of them.

Mortimer lay covered in sweat, limp in the Beast’s lap, like a spent lover deep in swoon. The Beast splashed water on Mortimer’s face, shook him until he woke.

“Okay,” the Beast said. “Let’s take it from the top.”

The Beast led Mortimer onan eight-foot length of thin rope back down the road toward the entrance of the pocket wilderness. The girl walked silently behind them like the dead, wagless tail of an old dog.

Mortimer had lain on the office floor of the dilapidated firehouse and told the Beast all, his secret cabin and the cavern and his storehouse of old-world commodities. The Beast demanded to be taken there. Mortimer had agreed, lying there bleeding and weak.

But now, treading the frozen road, Mortimer burned with hate and humiliation and plotted the Beast’s demise. The wind tore at his eyes, face and ankles. A six-foot length of hickory lay across his neck, his wrists tied to the wood in crucifixion fashion. He wore his boots and his pants and shirt. The Beast had taken his parka and socks, marched in front of him holding the rope in one hand, the police special in the other.

The Beast wore his bear skin over the parka, and walking along the road, Mortimer on the leash, they looked the grotesque reverse of some old-west traveling carnival act, the dancing bear leading his trainer. Mortimer desperately looked for his opening but did not expect one. He’d have to make some kind of move before they reached the cavern. The Beast would not want to keep and feed Mortimer after he’d been led to the stash.

Even in the worst throes of torture, Mortimer had kept his weapons stash a secret. Somehow he’d make a break for it or maybe fake needing to take a shit. If Mortimer could just get his hands on the Uzi, he’d chop the Beast in half with a spray of nine millimeter.

They had taken Mortimer’s medical kit too, the iodine and hydrogen peroxide and bandages. They’d used none of it to bind Mortimer’s mangled hand. The girl had splashed the wound with dirty water, wrapped the finger stump in a tattered pink rag. His hand throbbed but bothered him less than the biting cold. He staggered and shook and lurched forward at the Beast’s insistent yank on the rope.

Mortimer took another fifty steps, shivered and collapsed.

“Get up.” The Beast yanked the leash.

Mortimer shook his head, panted. He didn’t have the energy to form words.

The Beast took two quick steps toward Mortimer, then kicked hard, caught Mortimer in the ribs. Mortimer wheezed and heaved dry.

“I said get up.” The Beast drew his leg back for another kick.

“Stop.”

The Beast froze, looked for the source of the new voice, which had echoed along the mountain road. Mortimer looked up too. What now?

“Show yourself!” the Beast yelled.

Forty yards up the road, a man stepped out of the bushes, planted himself in the center of the road, legs apart. Mortimer blinked, not sure if he was seeing right. The newcomer wore a black cowboy hat, long leather coat swept back to reveal a pair of pistols hanging on his hips. A blue bandana pulled loose around his neck. A forked beard yellow as the sun, long hair the same color, hands hovering dangerously over the pistols.

The Beast squinted. “What the fuck are you?”

“Cut that man loose,” ordered the cowboy.

“Kiss my ass.” But the Beast’s eyes flicked to the man’s twin six-shooters.

“Mister, I’m gonna tell you just one more time.” He eased forward as he spoke, one deliberate step at a time. “Let that man go and piss off. That’s your only chance to live.”

The Beast dropped to the ground, rolled, came up behind Mortimer in a kneeling position. He grabbed Mortimer’s face and pulled him close until the two were cheek to cheek. He pulled the police special, put it against Mortimer’s head. “I don’t know what your interest is in this guy, but I’ll splatter his brains all over the mountain if you don’t stop right there.” With his arms spread along the length of hickory, Mortimer provided good cover. Only half the Beast’s face and a bit of shoulder showed.

The cowboy froze. He squeezed his fists so tight, Mortimer heard the knuckles crack. They all waited for something to happen.

A split second later it did.

The cowboy dropped into a kneeling position, one six-shooter flashing from its holster. His arm shot out straight, and he sighted along the barrel, one eye mashed closed, biting his lip in concentration. It all happened in a heartbeat.

Bang.

The Beast screamed, a high-pitched mix of surprise and pain. He stood, staggered, blood trailing from his shoulder. He swung the police special to return fire.